I! 
 
 OF 
 
 ETTINAvo 
 
 TIEN
 
 By BETTINA VON HUTTEN 
 
 The Bag of Saffron 
 Mag Pye Bird's Fountain 
 Maria Sharrow 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, NEW YORK
 
 or CAIJF. TJBIMBY. 1.0*
 
 "Take them," she said, "take them, the horrible, dread- 
 ful things." [P AGE 445 ]
 
 The 
 
 BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 BY 
 
 BETTINA VON HUTTEN 
 
 AUTHOR o "MAO PTE," "BIBD'S FOUSTAIM," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BT 
 
 STOCKTON MULFORD 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 1918
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Take them," she said, "take them, the horrible, 
 
 dreadful things" Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 "He was too handsome to be anything but bad," she 
 
 declared 10 
 
 He dropped his portmanteau and held her close 
 
 against his well-worn old coat 156 
 
 "You must come," he said, "my little Nicoleta" . 326 
 
 2130427
 
 PART I
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE little old house, which, although it was some 
 six hundred feet above sea-level, yet lay in a 
 hollow, was, seen eye to eye, just one of hundreds 
 of old Yorkshire moorland houses. 
 
 Like them it was square-built and low; like theirs, its 
 windows were too small to satisfy people of our day ; but 
 one has an odd feeling that to such houses people of our 
 day matter as little as people of yesterday now lying in 
 the churchyard. 
 
 These rough-built old dwellings have an air of staid 
 durability, of disregarding the flight of time, which so 
 nearly leaves them untouched in their great solidity. 
 They are a part of the soil out of which they are dug. 
 
 Thus Roseroofs, seen from the level, was an unimpos- 
 ing, commonplace, old building likeable only for the sake 
 of the wide-spread, lavish garden in which it stood; its 
 triumph came when the observer looked down at it. 
 
 The winding road, after a long, lazy, coiling progress 
 through the dale, was met at the third of the Warcop 
 bridges by a tributary which, in its turn, climbed the hill 
 towards the edge in great bold laps that passed the 
 house. And from any point of the road above the house, 
 the glory and beauty of the old place revealed itself, its 
 roofs. 
 
 Ample, generous roofs they were, the great middle one 
 surrounded by the smaller ones of the stable and out- 
 houses ; and the deep rose-color that must have been too 
 brilliant when they and George II were newly on their 
 thrones, had been chastened by time into a lovely dim- 
 
 3
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ness which was further beautified by a mosaic of lichens, 
 mosses, and burly bunches of tough stonecrop, thus seem- 
 ing to claim kinship with the neighboring moors, rather 
 than with the uneven, cream-washed walls they topped. 
 
 Miss Flora and Miss Effie Plues were very proud of 
 their roofs, which had been brought up by carrier from 
 the south to embellish the dour-looking dwelling for their 
 grandfather's bride, an Essex maid ; and high up amongst 
 the heather, close against the sky, they had had built, 
 many years before, a stout stone bench from which their 
 rare visitors might have a good view of the object of their 
 innocent vain-glory. Owing to the effects of weather on 
 its rough surface, the bench had long since been painted 
 a vivid green and the Green Bench was known as a land- 
 mark by everybody for miles around. 
 
 The view from it was very beautiful. Two fair, flowing 
 dales lay below and where they joined, sloping together 
 from their secret heights in a pleasant way as of two 
 people smiling as they meet, three old bridges spanned a 
 rushing stream which, just below the last one, plunged 
 noisily and foamingly over a high jut of rock and then 
 settled for a little into an almost circular pool of vivid 
 green, quiet water where rushes grew ; and pleasant green 
 meadows of all shapes and sizes, inexorably and inhos- 
 pitably divided by high walls of heather-colored stone, 
 stretched away up on all sides to the brown and purple 
 moors to whose ultimate edges the sky seemed to come 
 very near. 
 
 Westward up Wiskedale beyond the beck that met the 
 river at High Warcop bridge, half stretched a desultory 
 way up the slope towards the largest of the deserted lead- 
 mines on Ay cliff e Head, lay the village of Widdybank, a 
 square church tower rising from the dark mass of the 
 trees that grew in a double row outside the churchyard 
 wall.
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 The Widdybank church tower and the bright white 
 splash that was Thornby Lodge, halfway up Cotherside, 
 beyond Warcop, were the two chief points of departure 
 for the investigating eye. 
 
 "Ye see yon white house ; that's Judge Capel's shooting 
 lodge. Well, off to t' left" or : "Halfway up Laverock, 
 in a direct line with t' old church tower" thus was the 
 stranger taught the topography of the place. There 
 were naturally other points by which one's eyes found 
 their way; there was Aycliffe Head, a hill whose crest, 
 made uneven on the south side by a heavy fall of rocks 
 some time in Queen Anne's day, stood out sharply against 
 the west in a kind of grotesque profile ; there was Watlass 
 Mill, a large, orange-colored building in Cotherdale, where 
 the road to Middleton turned sharply to the left and was 
 for a while lost to view ; there was Widdybank Bottom, a 
 small wood in Wiskedale on the near side of the river, 
 just opposite the village church. 
 
 A fine and noble view, to bring content to the eyes and 
 the restfulness of all spacious and beautiful places to the 
 heart. 
 
 One June evening, not many years ago, the two Misses 
 Flues had climbed the steep path from their house to the 
 Green Bench and were sitting in that place of pilgrimage 
 discussing a domestic event whose importance had cer- 
 tainly never been overtopped in their simple lives. 
 
 The Bench stood about ten feet back from the edge of 
 the little niche in the moor which the sisters, after weeks of 
 heart-searching discussion, had selected for its site, and 
 the years that had passed since its completion had suf- 
 ficed to make of the man-hollowed half-circle behind it a 
 thing of beauty. 
 
 Tufted, irregularly-placed clumps of grass covered the 
 greater part of its earthen nakedness. A flat-leafed 
 creeper had festooned its upper edge, and in the deeper 
 
 5
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 recesses of the little excavation flowers grew in all the 
 seasons with singular abundance. Just now purple-red 
 cranesbill, and a thick-growing yellow flower of glossy 
 leaf caught the red glow of the westering sun and shone 
 bravely back at it as it slid down the sky towards Aycliffe 
 Head. 
 
 Above the hollow stretched the open moor, at that 
 moment glowing with the rich color that it reveals only 
 at evening, and full of half-unfurled fern painting it with 
 a clear green that at that hour almost melted to gold. 
 Below the Green Bench the winding path by which the 
 two ladies had reached their eyrie seemed to leap down- 
 wards like a small, pebbly torrent; indeed, but for the 
 lack of water, its stony way was precisely like that of a 
 tiny hillside beck, and further down, below the beloved rose- 
 colored roofs now, in the beautifying sunset light, in their 
 second most splendid hour of the twenty-four their most 
 splendid hour was that of sunrise lay spread both dales. 
 
 Off to the left, a window in Thornby Lodge blazed away 
 as if on fire and the dim, gray-brown roofs of Warcop 
 huddled together in an early darkness unknown to the 
 heights. 
 
 For some time Miss Flora and Miss Effie sat silent, 
 gazing with eyes that saw little of the familiar beauties of 
 their home place. Miss Flora, sitting down, with her 
 pink-flowered muslin gown gracefully settled round her, 
 a mushroom-shaped, rose-decked hat tilted over her 
 nose Miss Flora hated sunburn was, though not 
 young, a pretty woman; pretty in a way that to a sym- 
 pathetic observer was not without pathos. There was 
 pathos in her very name, for in her youth it must have 
 suited her deliciously; in her day she must have been a 
 most flower-like maiden, and now in her middle-age she 
 was still like a flower, but like one that has been pressed 
 in a book.
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She was thin almost to invisibility, but the pathos lay 
 somehow in her sweet, faded, rather high-nosed little 
 face. Her eyes were of a velvety dark blue and one saw 
 clearly, by the close clinging to them of her delicately 
 wrinkled lids, that the globes of her eyes were unusually 
 large and set a little loosely in her head. The youth 
 had so irrevocably departed from her skin that the child- 
 like, unfaded blue of the irises, and the skimmed-milk color 
 of her eyeballs, gave a pang to some sympathetic people. 
 In mercy to the sensitive beholder these things should 
 have grown old with the rest of her, and this they had not 
 done. 
 
 Her delicate chin had lost its unwavering line, but 
 there was no ugly sagging to lament, and her slightly 
 sunken, coral-pink mouth revealed little square teeth that 
 still flashed when she laughed. 
 
 Mr. Burns, the chemist at Middleton, alone could have 
 told what an expenditure of money and care this flash 
 cost its owner, but then Mr. Burns his mother was a 
 Watlass never mentioned Miss Flora's hesitating, shy, 
 bold visits to his shop in the Market Place, nor her short- 
 sighted, nervous, excited investigation of the low glass 
 case at the left of the door, where he kept all his tooth- 
 powders, washes and pastes. 
 
 And as the tall, thin lady left the shop, springing along 
 over the cobble-stones in her odd, bounding way the 
 way in which the goddess Flora might have half-skipped 
 over the grass in her flower-strewing moments she al- 
 ways took with her in her green-lined rush basket at least 
 one of the latest products of the teeth-beautifying in- 
 dustry. 
 
 Miss Effie was very different. She was two years 
 younger than her sister but looked to careless eyes five 
 years older; a short, pony-built woman, with oily black 
 hair that clung close to her head, a weather-beaten, dark 
 
 7
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 skin and teeth that were her own only by right of purchase 
 and long possession. 
 
 Miss Effie, that June evening, wore a short gray skirt 
 of some unpropitious woollen material and a stiffly 
 starched blouse made very like a man's shirt. Its high 
 collar held up her little, brown chin in a way that Iqpked 
 extremely uncomfortable, and its austerities were made 
 more conspicuous by a scarlet tie that was drawn very 
 tight at its base and hung down on her hard-looking 
 breast. Someone once said, in describing and differen- 
 tiating the two sisters, that their natures were explained 
 to the discerning eye by the fact that, whereas Miss Effie 
 in profile showed the average feminine curve from chin to 
 waist and Miss Flora was if anything a little concave, yet 
 Miss Flora's poor breast in some indescribable way looked 
 the more feminine, the better adapted to pillow a sorrow- 
 ful head. However that may be and no matter how they 
 differed in character, the two ladies, though they possessed 
 not only the reserve and silence of most people who, with- 
 out children's faces about them, dwell in high places and 
 alone, but also the almost tangible Yorkshire shyness, were 
 devoted sisters. 
 
 But although they loved each other, and had spent by 
 far the greater part of their lives under the same roof, 
 neither of them, when unhappy, ever confided in the other. 
 They were very Northern in their little austerities. Miss 
 Effie was unsmiling and as monosyllabic as possible with 
 strangers, and Miss Flora's little, soft giggle and gentle, 
 fluttering ways covered a reserve as iron as her sister's ; 
 and now in this, their hour of extreme perplexity, when 
 they had come to the Green Bench for the purpose of 
 discussing their problem, they sat side by side for almost 
 half an hour in complete silence. 
 
 The letter had arrived only two hours before; it had 
 been brought up from Warcop by Esther Oughtenshaw, 
 
 8
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 their old servant her mother was a Watlass who had 
 chanced, through a sudden need for a new frying-pan, to 
 go down after lunch on Monday of all days. Miss Effie 
 had read the letter and handed it to Miss Flora in silence, 
 after which each lady went to her own room and stayed 
 there for some time behind a closed door. At tea they 
 said nothing about the news, but at last Miss Flora, set- 
 ting down her untouched cup, asked tentatively : 
 
 "Don't you think we might walk up to the Green 
 Bench, Effie ?" And in unbroken silence they had climbed 
 the steep path and sat down. 
 
 Finally someone walking along the Edge a hundred feet 
 above them broke the silence that both felt almost as if 
 it were a tangible thing, by startling a peewit who 
 flew down the hillside uttering its wearying, raucous 
 cry. 
 
 "That will be Thomas John Skelton driving his cows 
 home to Flaye. It must be six, Flora." 
 
 Miss Effie's voice was a little harsh and had a queer 
 break in it ; it was a voice that seemed to suit her plain, 
 dark face with its nearly meeting eyebrows and its faded, 
 raspberry-colored lips. 
 
 Miss Flora raised her gloved hands and dropped them 
 limply on her lap. After a minute she exclaimed, "Effie, 
 what are we going to do?" 
 
 "There is nothing to do now ; we cannot turn him away 
 from the door, can we ? I have told Esther to get a room 
 ready." 
 
 "Perhaps," Miss Flora said after a pause, her troubled 
 voice sounding, with its queer little tinkle, almost like a 
 child's, "he won't die after all. He may get better in 
 this air." 
 
 Miss Effie laughed unmusically. "Yes, that would be 
 just like him." 
 
 "Oh, Effie, even Robert could not help dying !" 
 
 9
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I mean," Miss Effie returned, in a weighty and relent- 
 less voice, "that it would be just like him to live." 
 
 Miss Flora did not answer but her dim little face 
 changed almost imperceptibly. "You never liked him, 
 Effie ; you were never quite fair, I think " 
 
 Miss Effie frowned. "No," she said, "I did not like 
 him, but that has nothing to do with this. Besides, he 
 did not care whether I liked him or not, for there were 
 others who did." 
 
 To Miss Flora's face came something very transitory, 
 almost unnoticeable, something between a wince and a 
 smile, but she was silent and Miss Effie went on: 
 
 "He sa} r s that he is dying and that he is coming to us. 
 That implies, if I know Robert Blundell at all, that he is 
 coming to give us the pleasure of his dying in, and being 
 buried from, our house. That is bad, but, as I have sug- 
 gested, he might do worse." 
 
 "Oh, Effie!" 
 
 Miss Effie looked gloomily at her sister, her opaque 
 eyes curiously empty of light. 
 
 "I am sorry, Flora; I didn't mean to hurt you; of 
 course you never saw through him, you never see through 
 anyone, and naturally you do not see through him. And 
 I did!" 
 
 Again the strange, half-flinching quiver touched Miss 
 Flora's lips, but instead of speaking she rose and with 
 her peculiar skimming step walked away and stood at the 
 edge of the slope. 
 
 "I may not have seen through him as you say, I am 
 not observant," she said after a moment's silence. "Poor 
 Bob!" 
 
 Miss Effie coughed. "He was too handsome to be any- 
 thing but bad," she declared, obviously ending the dis- 
 cussion so far as she was concerned. 
 
 Suddenly Miss Flora turned and, clasping her hands, 
 
 10
 
 fcuo 
 
 C
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 held them up before her and began to speak in her high- 
 est pitched voice. 
 
 "Augustus Csesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philippe le Bel of 
 France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of 
 Athens, or was it Aristides? no, he was the just one 
 were all great and good men, and yet the most beautiful 
 men of their time." 
 
 Her excited triumph attracted the attention of Miss 
 Effie, who, used to her sister's ways, had relapsed into a 
 somber contemplation of the dale. 
 
 "How on earth," Miss Effie asked, "do you know about 
 those men, Flora Plues?" 
 
 "Bacon, Lord Bacon, Verulam, he said it. I read it the 
 other day at the Vicarage." 
 
 Far away up the dale to the left, a small black speck 
 now broke the monotony of the dusty road; a carriage 
 of some kind. Before Miss Effie had time to answer Miss 
 Flora had seen this speck, and Lord Bacon vanished from 
 her mind. 
 
 "Effie, it is the fly look, just there this side of the 
 Mill. It will be them !" 
 
 Miss Effie rose. "Nonsense, he has no money to waste 
 on flies, and the carrier's cart is comfortable enough for 
 anyone. The train is not due till sitf-forty-five any- 
 way." 
 
 "Effie, I feel it is him !" 
 
 "You feel it is he if you feel anything," Miss Effie 
 returned grimly, "which you don't. However, he they 
 will be here by eight, so we had better go down. After 
 all, there is no good discussing it, we can't refuse to take 
 them in. Come!" 
 
 At the edge of the path they both stood still, looking 
 at each other, in each face an expectant look. 
 
 "Effie " 
 
 "Flora " 
 
 11
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Flora gave a little skip, "No, we must be kind 
 to him for poor May's sake, and perhaps he has im- 
 proved." 
 
 Miss Effie drew her brows closely together and pro- 
 truded her discolored lower lip. "Such men," she de- 
 clared, "never improve. However, as you say, for poor 
 May's sake and then" she broke off, her dark face 
 melting in an extraordinary way, her voice gentling al- 
 most to a whisper, "there is the baby." 
 
 They made their way down the footpath, the stones 
 rolling from under their feet and clattering against each 
 other, Miss Flora's face saddened by a little smile that 
 meant nothing, Miss Effie's settled into its usual aspect 
 of grimness. 
 
 "I hope," Miss Flora broke out suddenly as they crossed 
 the road, "that it will be fair, like poor May " 
 
 They opened the little wicket gate, after crossing a 
 hundred yards of common land that lay between it and 
 the road, and went up the garden path to the house. 
 At the door under the rose-covered porch, stood Esther 
 Oughtenshaw, their old servant, waiting for them. 
 
 "I was just cooming oop to t' Green Bench to seek 
 you, Miss Effie," she said, holding out a telegram. 
 "Mary Christie's girl brought un oop " 
 
 Miss Effie took the telegram and opened it, although 
 it was addressed to Miss Plues and she was two years 
 younger than her sister, and as she read the message, Miss 
 Flora tiptoed delicately away and stooped over a tree of 
 yellow roses, inhaling their scent with tactful ostenta- 
 tion. 
 
 "Flora!" 
 
 "Yes, Effie?" 
 
 The two women stood looking at each other, Esther 
 Oughtenshaw, her apron rolled up over her arms, plainly 
 waiting for the news. 
 
 12
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "You are right, Flora, they are coming in the Red 
 Dragon fly. It was they you saw." 
 
 "Oh, but I was only guessing, Effie; I could not pos- 
 sibly know, could I? It was only my luck to be right!" 
 Miss Flora constantly referred to her luck though no 
 one could have said of what it consisted. 
 
 To this small apology Miss Effie vouchsafed no 
 acknowledgment. She turned to Esther, whose red, old 
 face was alight with an interest she naturally shared 
 with her two mistresses, and gave some hasty orders. 
 A moment later she turned to her sister and asked her 
 not snappishly, not sourly, but with a curious lack of 
 tenderness, why she was cutting roses from Father's 
 rose-tree. 
 
 Miss Flora, who had taken off her hood, and whose 
 bright, brindled hair was shining like silver in the sun, 
 tripped to the far side of the rose bush and bent over it, 
 thus not looking at Miss Effie. 
 
 "I think I remember he used to like Father's roses," 
 she murmured. 
 
 Miss Effie gave a slight grunt and went indoors. 
 
 A few minutes later the ladies, issuing from their rooms, 
 both of which lay at the front of the house, met in the 
 broad corridor; Miss Flora was all in white; Miss Effie 
 had smoothed her hair and washed her face and hands, 
 but she still wore the gray skirt and the hard, unbecom- 
 ing shirt with the cut-throat collar. 
 
 "Your new gown, Flora!" 
 
 Poor Miss Flora blushed and twiddled her dry old 
 fingers, on which, in a very mild way, sparkled several 
 old-fashioned rings. "I thought it would look more hos- 
 pitable," she protested. 
 
 "It does, oh, it undoubtedly does that!" returned the 
 other as they went down the shining shallow stairs, past 
 the plaster bust of Lord Byron on the window-seat, "and 
 
 13
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 what is more, he would be flattered, oh, aye, flattered that 
 you would wish to look your best for him. He will also 
 see," she added, a note of venom in her voice, "that I 
 didn't." 
 
 "I don't think," Miss Flora answered gently, "that he 
 ever thought you wanted to look your best for him, 
 Effie." 
 
 "I am sure he never did hark!" she broke off in a 
 different voice, "do you hear it that will be they!" 
 
 At that moment Esther Oughtenshaw came out of her 
 kitchen, clattering over the stone floor of the hall. 
 
 "Miss Effie, Miss Flora, it's cooming! It's just at t' 
 old may-tree! I can see from the kitchen window " 
 
 "Please return to the kitchen, Esther," Miss Effie an- 
 swered, every inch the mistress. "When I need you I 
 will ring." 
 
 A few moments later the old-fashioned fly crept up past 
 the kitchen-garden and round to the edge of the green. 
 
 "Shall you go to the gate, Effie?" Miss Flora asked, 
 fluttered and nervous, but Miss Effie had gone upstairs, 
 muttering something about her handkerchief. 
 
 Thus it came about that it was Miss Flora and not 
 Miss Effie who plucked Cuckoo Blundell out of the great 
 thicket of nettles into which, on being lifted from the 
 fly by the driver, she tumbled. When the child, scream- 
 ing and kicking, and using language it was just as well 
 Miss Flora could not understand, was safely withdrawn 
 from the perfidious greenery and lay sobbing in her arms, 
 Miss Flora turned to the fly. 
 
 "Oh, Robert," she began, shouting in a high key over 
 the black head of the outraged child "I am so sorry," 
 and she broke off, for the skeleton-like man who, wrap- 
 ped in furs, still sat in the fly, was lying back helpless with 
 laughter. 
 
 "Cuckoo, Cuckoo!" he called out in French, between 
 
 14
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 two fits of apparently uncontrollable mirth. "You must 
 not swear, or your auntie won't love you." 
 
 Miss Flora never forgot that moment; the heaving, 
 sobbing little body in her arms, the wet face against 
 her own freshly-powdered neck, the grinning flyman 
 Matthew Christie's son from Stebley Old Hall, she saw it 
 was and, framed in the fly window, full in the merciless 
 western light, the dreadful, cadaverous face of Robert 
 Blundell. 
 
 His once beautiful nose had dwindled to a waxen, hook- 
 like thing; his eyes, crinkled with laughter, lay in deep 
 hollows that looked black. Between his pale, flat lips she 
 could see his yellow teeth with gaps towards the back, 
 and his tongue, pointed and dark-looking, lifted like a 
 snake's head, rigid with the paroxysm of laughter.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 POOR Miss Flora stole away out of the house after 
 supper and crept down the hillside to the river, 
 where she sat under a may-tree and gave herself 
 up to thought. Supper had been dreadful, although Rob- 
 ert Blundell had appeared in no way oppressed by the 
 situation he was a south-country man, and as such, of 
 course, lighter in spirit and mind than if he had had the 
 good fortune to belong to Yorkshire and his talk flowed 
 along in a steady, shallow stream just as it had done in the 
 old days. Conversationally, he had jumped from Paris 
 to St. Petersburg, thence to Hyeres, and on to Spain, 
 and then, to settle for a while, to Avignon where the child 
 had been born. 
 
 "We had a wee cottage down by the river," he ex- 
 plained gaily, "with little canal-like threads of water all 
 round. It reminded us of Holland and of Venice, and me 
 of Japan rather like living in a paddy-field, it was." 
 
 Miss Flora, her head on one side, tried to look as if 
 she knew all about the paddy plant as she mentally called 
 it, but a blunt question from Miss Effie elicited the in- 
 formation that no such plant existed. 
 
 "It's rice, you know," Blundell explained, "grows in 
 swamps ; half -naked natives with hats like big mushrooms 
 wading about in it. Oh, not in Avignon," he added, an 
 amused grin scoring his skull-like face with deep lines; 
 "in Japan, that is." 
 
 "I should have thought that such excessive damp must 
 have been bad for your illness," commented Miss Effie 
 dryly. 
 
 16
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Through the open windows the last of the summer 
 daylight fell full on the man's face, so tragic in its emacia- 
 tion, so much more tragic in its expression of hopefulness 
 and sociability. Poor Miss Flora could not eat. Her 
 thin throat, embellished in honor of the guest with a 
 string of facetted, purple rock crystals, worked nerv- 
 ously; something was preventing her from swallow- 
 ing. 
 
 Miss EfBe ate as usual though better than usual, for 
 Esther Oughtenshaw had made a little feast to celebrate 
 the arrival of Poor Miss May's Husband, and besides the 
 eternal cold mutton that in the south would have been 
 called lamb, new potatoes and salad, she had managed to 
 "borrow" a few trout from Mrs. William Christie who 
 had been an Oughtenshaw and the little beauties, boiled 
 and with butter sauce, were greatly enjoyed by the in- 
 valid. The gooseberry-fool caused a moment of emotion, 
 for it was served in the little handleless blue-and-white 
 cups that Blundell remembered as having been favorites 
 of his wife in her maiden days. 
 
 "Ah," he cried as he saw them, "poor May's Chinese 
 cups ; how she loved them !" 
 
 His feverish, bright eyes closed for a moment; he 
 flourished at them with an extremely fine cambric hand- 
 kerchief and went on talking about something else. But 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora could not take the reference 
 so lightly. Their eyes were dry but their lips stiffened 
 for a moment and Miss Flora's throat made a violent 
 movement ; neither of the ladies spoke for several seconds. 
 They rarely referred to their dead sister and when they 
 did, it was in a certain way, in certain voices, almost in 
 a certain language; Robert's emotionality offended them 
 nearly as much as did the quickness of his recovery ; they 
 disliked his wiping his eyes. 
 
 Miss Flora was still under the influence of this episode 
 
 17
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 when she stole away in the lucent evening and went down 
 to the river. 
 
 Even here the view was noble; an ample spread of 
 broad-looking, uncrowded moors rose on all sides, and to 
 her left lay the village, Warcop, with its three old bridges 
 and its broad, irregular green, some three miles from 
 where she sat under the may-tree. 
 
 The sounds reaching her were the lowing of cows as 
 they marched steadily back to their pasture-lands 
 after milking, and the voices of sheep farther away, the 
 small cries of the lambs sounding in the distance almost 
 like the tinkle of little bells. Opposite her, far up, two 
 cows, a white one and a brown one, stood against the sky- 
 line. She knew whose they were and her vaguely-drifting 
 thoughts turned for a minute to Joss Skelton's over the 
 Ridge ; she wondered how poor Lizzie Skelton was, and if 
 the poor little baby that had come too soon would live or 
 die. Then her mind flew back to the queer, dark child 
 now asleep in the blue room at Roseroofs. 
 
 The child knew, to the surprise of the sisters, but little 
 English, and Miss Flora's French was fragmentary and 
 apt to retreat in confusion at the approach of what she 
 innocently considered a French accent, so she had been 
 able to make but little headway with her small niece. 
 Luckily, Miss Effie had once lived for three years at An- 
 gouleme, so she could, at least, make herself under- 
 stood. 
 
 Blundell seemed to be amused with the difficulty of 
 communication between his sisters-in-law and his very 
 diminutive daughter. "It is a good thing you cannot 
 understand her," he remarked casually, as the little crea- 
 ture stamped and vociferously refused her food, "she is 
 swearing like a pirate, you know " 
 
 Then it appeared that the child was demanding cheese 
 for her supper. 
 
 18
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "It certainly is cheese," Miss Effie declared, in a puz- 
 zled voice. "Fromage isn't it, Bob?" 
 
 It was the first time either of the sisters had made use 
 of the old nickname, but Miss Flora at least did not 
 notice it, and Blundell himself did not appear to. 
 
 "Yes, it is cheese," he returned; "she has been for 
 nearly a year on a farm near Orange, with her foster 
 mother you know, while I was in Switzerland at that 
 damned place in the snow I beg your pardon," he added 
 in a purely perfunctory way, "she is used to cheese." 
 
 And cheese she obtained by the time-tested plan of 
 roaring till she got it. 
 
 Miss Flora made sure that cheese must prove fatal to 
 a child of four and Esther Oughtenshaw tried to side- 
 track Miss Cuckoo's attentions to the joys of bread and 
 jam, but all in vain. 
 
 "Give her a slab of cheese," the insouciant parent sug- 
 gested, as he stood, his hands in his trousers-pockets, in 
 a pose both the sisters vividly remembered, looking on as 
 all his life he had seemed to look on at everything, "no 
 bread, just a lump of cheese, they eat it like that in 
 France;" and the pacified though tear-mottled Cuckoo 
 had proved the truth of his words by eating as much 
 cheese as the two sisters, with the usual aids of bread 
 and water, could have consumed at two meals. 
 
 Under her may-tree, a pink one in all the fragrant 
 glory of its first flowering, Miss Flora thought despair- 
 ingly of the cheese, and sighed. 
 
 Meantime, in the long, low, faded drawing-room which, 
 shabby and worn as it was, seemed to have absorbed some 
 of the sun that had faded it, so mellow-looking was it, sat 
 Miss Effie and Robert Blundell, facing the western sky 
 that even now at nine o'clock was glowing as if with the 
 memory of its just departed beauty. 
 
 19
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Effie sat in her own chair, a so-called easy chair, 
 covered with yellow-and-white chintz of a recent pur- 
 chase, which seemed in its flashing coloring to cause the 
 old curtains, chairs and sofas, to pale with shame at their 
 own shabbiness. 
 
 Blundell sat opposite his hostess in an old, low, long- 
 seated basket-chair, which he had not forgotten, in the 
 seven years of his absence, as the most comfortable one 
 in the house. His very long legs stretched out across the 
 floor were painful to see in their horrible thinness; the 
 knees stood out like cobble-stones under the thin blue 
 serge of his trousers, and the way the cloth fell in above as 
 well as below the knees made his fleshlessness cruelly ap- 
 parent. He lay back at full length, his hands clasped 
 behind his dark head and his bright, hollow eyes nearly 
 closed. He was very carefully studying Miss Effie's face, 
 a fact unobserved by her as she gazed fixedly out of the 
 window to where the purple shadows creeping up Aycliffe 
 Head announced that night had come, despite the glories 
 of the sky. 
 
 "How old are you, Effie?" 
 
 The words seemed to his hearer to ring out like a pistol- 
 shot. Miss Effie turned and looked at him. 
 
 "What do you say, Robert?" she asked icily. 
 
 A graceless grin flashed over the man's face but his 
 apology was prompt and adroit. "I beg your pardon, 
 my dear," he said, "I was thinking aloud. I was only 
 thinking that you seem not a day older than you did at 
 the wedding." 
 
 "Do I not? Yet it is seven years." 
 
 "It is, and so far as I am concerned, except for my 
 memories of you it might be seventy. Poor Flora has 
 aged, you know," he added dreamily, but with a wary 
 gleam in his eyes. 
 
 Miss Effie made a little movement and frowned; he 
 
 20
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 knew that she was ashamed of the pang of gratification 
 his words gave her. 
 
 "You are good, as always, to take us in," he went on, 
 using his opportunity in the half innocent, half reprehen- 
 sible way he had used his opportunity all his life. "I was 
 half afraid you might refuse." 
 
 Then Miss Effie, to punish herself for her base feeling 
 of a moment before, spoke out and hurt herself. "You 
 gave me no chance to refuse, even if I had wanted to, 
 Robert," she returned. 
 
 Blundell burst out laughing and his laughter, though 
 his speaking voice was husky and weak, had kept some- 
 thing of its old ringing quality. 
 
 "So I didn't ! Ah, Effie, you have indeed not changed !" 
 
 Drawing his chair closer to hers, he sat up and 
 joining his long, thin hands looked at her across 
 them. 
 
 "Effie," he began very seriously, "I am remarkably 
 well for me to-night, but it is quite on the cards that 
 I may be too ill to speak to-morrow. Let us have a little 
 talk this evening, just you and me." 
 
 "Very well, Robert." 
 
 "You were all of you very good to me, in the old days, 
 even Marcia, but I think you know that you were always 
 my favorite after May." 
 
 "After May," she repeated quietly. "Was I? Well?" 
 
 "So when that medico in Switzerland told me to come 
 home and make my soul, and I had to arrange Cuckoo's 
 life for her, poor little thing, as best I could, I thought 
 of you." 
 
 She did not speak for a moment, and then she said : 
 
 "Why not of Flora? it was always Flora who was 
 your friend, who took your part against Marcia, and 
 sometimes against me." 
 
 "I know, I know, but I want you to love and care for 
 
 21
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 my poor little thing; I want you to teach her, Effie, as 
 you used to teach the Bingham girls. Will you?" 
 
 Her face softened and he watched her as he went on. 
 "I saw Viola Bingham two or three years ago in Seville 
 Lady Didcot she is now and I thought then how beau- 
 tifully she had been educated ; she talked to me about you, 
 and said she wished she could find a Miss Flues for her 
 own girls " 
 
 As he paused, he could hear Esther Oughtenshaw sing- 
 ing a Wesleyan hymn in the kitchen and listened 
 for a moment, for the old woman's voice was still 
 beautiful. 
 
 Presently he heard Miss Effie speak. 
 
 "Lord and Lady Gifford say that Flora was a wonder- 
 ful governess." At something in her voice he looked up 
 at her. 
 
 "Flora was always on your side," she went on, "it was 
 always she who was your friend, Robert, not I." 
 
 "Dear Effie, how appallingly honest you are; need you 
 so insist on never having liked me? It seems hard when I 
 always so greatly liked you " 
 
 But his blandishing voice had no effect on her ; her face 
 looked as hard as one of the gray stones that edged the 
 garden paths. 
 
 "I thought it right to remind you, Robert. I feel 
 Flora would do her very best for Cuckoo. Is that her 
 real name, Robert?" 
 
 In the growing dusk he leaned still further forward in 
 his chair, and his ravaged face filled with dark hollows and 
 lines was almost terrifying to her. . 
 
 "No, she was christened Nicoleta, for my grandmother 
 who, you may remember, was an Italian and who brought 
 me up. It was poor May who called her Cuckoo." 
 
 After a moment he took her bony hand in his own, the 
 quality of whose bonincss was so different from that of 
 
 22
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 hers, and his voice fell to a depth at which for a moment it 
 nearly lost its huskiness. 
 
 "Effie," he pleaded, "you won't refuse to take care of 
 Cuckoo? Remember she is not only mine; she is half 
 May's." 
 
 "I know, Robert." 
 
 "And on the other hand," he went on urgently, "just 
 because she is mine, she will need the wisest care." After 
 a pause he added, "What was it you called me that time ?" 
 
 Whatever her words had been, she would not let him 
 repeat them. 
 
 "Don't, Bob," she cried, "don't talk about things that 
 are dead and gone years ago ! Tell me what you want me 
 to do, what you want me to do now, and I'll try to do it 
 for May's sake." 
 
 He raised her hand to his lips, and at their hard and 
 dry touch she shivered; it was like the touch of a dead 
 leaf. 
 
 "I want you," he said, after a moment, lying back 
 again in his chair and speaking very gravely, "to try to 
 counteract the Me in her; to harden and toughen her 
 fiber if you can ; to make her like yourself." 
 
 Miss Effie nodded slowly. She said: "I quite under- 
 stand. Poor May was not very strong, either, and 
 
 I will try. But Robert," she added a moment later, 
 in a softer tone, "Flora must not know of this talk. She 
 was always your friend, you know, and she will want a 
 share in bringing up the little Nicoleta. Do you see 
 what I mean?" 
 
 Of course he saw. Robert Blundell had always seen 
 at once what people meant, and with all his faults he had, 
 to do him justice, often seen the nobility of things he had 
 never even attempted to emulate. He was not being 
 single-hearted, even now at the end of his life, but he 
 meant what he said. 
 
 23
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "You mean that dear Flora must not know that I 
 want my child to have your strength and your resolu- 
 tion rather than her her sweet ways? Of course she 
 must not. And I give you my word," he added, rising, 
 "that I will never mention this talk to her. Hush, here 
 she comes." 
 
 Half an hour later, when the moon had risen and Miss 
 Effie had been called to the kitchen to see Joss Skelton, 
 who had come over the hill and up to Roseroofs for some 
 advice about his sick wife, Blundell drew Miss Flora into 
 the garden. 
 
 "I want to smell the sweet stocks," he said, plucking 
 at her sleeve in the boyish way she remembered. 
 
 "But you will catch cold," she protested, as she lit 
 the candles on the mantelpiece, "sit down, and I will get 
 you a beaten-up egg." 
 
 "If you knew how my soul sickens at the mere sound 
 of the words 'beaten-up egg' you would not say that 
 come along into the garden, there's a dear Flora." 
 
 Miss Flora left off swaying from her heels to her toes 
 and back: "Will you put on a hat?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 They went out through the window and walked down 
 to the front of the house on the dew-wet, mossy, flagged 
 path. The night-scented stocks grew in a clump by the 
 wall and there the two stood, looking up the dale to the 
 left. Suddenly Blundell said, "Flora, I want you to do 
 me a favor." 
 
 She looked at him, her sweet eyes bright in her faded 
 face. "I will if I can, Robert." 
 
 "Say Bob." 
 
 "Bob, then; what is it?" 
 
 "Well, it is about my poor little mouse, Cuckoo. I 
 want you to take care of her and teach her." 
 
 Miss Flora fluttered her head. "But I have not taught 
 
 24
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a child for nearly thirty years, and I fear I was never Very 
 good at instruction. Besides, I have forgotten how." 
 
 "Nonsense." 
 
 "But I have. No, no, Effie is the clever one, Robert 
 Bob. She will do it; she is strong and wise, whereas 
 I," she made a sweet little gesture, and her eyes filled with 
 tears, "I was never clever, you know, and now I am old 
 as well." 
 
 Blundell was touched. "You are a sweet, good, gentle 
 woman," he said, with conviction, "and I love your ways. 
 Have it as you like, my dear. Let Effie teach her to be 
 strong as you say, but you know that after poor May, 
 you were always my favorite, Flora. Teach her to be 
 sweet and gentle like you." 
 
 Miss Flora blushed vividly. "Oh, Bob, do you really 
 think that?" 
 
 "I know it, and I want my poor little Cuckoo to be 
 like you. Effie is firm, and strong, and good, but I want 
 Cuckoo to learn to sit and sew, to embroider and I 
 want her to be gentle and and sweet, Flora." 
 
 In this he was perfectly sincere, just as he had been 
 sincere with Miss Effie. He had always had this odd, 
 valueless gift of temporary sincerity. 
 
 "Try to make her gentle, will you, Flora?" he went 
 on, "she is a hard little nut" and Miss Flora promised. 
 
 Then she added, "I think poor Effie might be hurt 
 if she knew how you felt, Bob; she is so good and fine 
 under her slight how shall I say? roughness " 
 
 Blundell took her delicate hand and laying it on his 
 arm led her back to the window, through which a yellow 
 light now poured. 
 
 "I give you my word of honor, Flora," he said se- 
 riously, "that I will never tell Effie a word of our talk. 
 I must go to bed now, I am more tired than you can 
 know." 
 
 25
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Raising her two hands in his, he bowed his dark head 
 over them in the graceful way that had so struck her 
 when he had come to Roseroofs seven years before as 
 poor May's promised husband, and kissed them. 
 
 "Good-night," he said, "and God bless you."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 BLUNDELL grew better in the clear upland air, and 
 for some time it looked as if his were to be one 
 of the marvellous cures the proud memory of 
 which is cherished by the natives of every particularly 
 healthful place. 
 
 Old Mrs. Bridlegoose of Brown End her mother was 
 a Skelton recalled for Esther Oughtenshaw's benefit the 
 story of Sam Christie's Gentleman, who forty years be- 
 fore came to the dale in a dying condition and lived to 
 return every year for just twenty- two years, when he 
 was killed in a carriage-accident. 
 
 "His loongs were a'most goan, t'London Doctor said, 
 but old Dr. Dawes set him oop fold doctor an* t'dale 
 air." 
 
 This beautiful and cheering tale Esther Oughtenshaw 
 brought to Blundell, under whose spell she was quite 
 helpless, and though he laughed at it and assured her 
 that he personally had not enough lung left to make a 
 pen-wiper, yet he had liked it. 
 
 The sisters took great care of their self-invited guest. 
 The big basket-chair filled with cushions whose green 
 and mauve canvas covers had been embroidered by their 
 mother in her young days, was carried every morning 
 into the garden and in it Robert Blundell practically 
 lived. He and it followed the progress of the sun, moving 
 with the shade from one to another of the trees ; and Es- 
 ther Oughtenshaw had added to her manifold duties the 
 new one of watching the sun, to which end her pleasant 
 old face might have been seen every half-hour or so peer- 
 
 27
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ing out of one window or another, inspecting what she 
 plainly considered the newly-adopted vagaries of a hith- 
 erto sober luminary. 
 
 "Surely, 'tisn't more than ten minutes," she would mut- 
 ter as she sallied forth, drying her hands on her blue- 
 and-white apron, "since I shifted him, and there sits the 
 poor gentleman in a champion blaze." And when Esther 
 had conveyed the chair and the pillows from the dwind- 
 ling shade of his last shelter to a new and more full- 
 bodied oasis, one or the other of the sisters would settle 
 the invalid in his chair and coax the old pillows into a 
 nest of comfort over which he never ceased to exclaim. 
 Not once did he forget to thank Esther Oughtenshaw 
 for moving what he always called, although it was of 
 basket-work, "that heavy chair" ; and Esther, though she 
 could have given no reason for it, liked to hear him call 
 the chair heavy. Poor Blundell, in spite of his mani- 
 fold sins and wickednesses, had always been a popular 
 man and the reason was probably that he was what the 
 Wiskedale people call, with no reference whatever to 
 money, generous. 
 
 He had always asked and assumed much, but his thanks 
 were sincere and warm ; he was a man of ample 
 gratitudes. 
 
 The garden of Roseroofs was a little unkempt, for old 
 Benjie Brigworthy, the gardener, was a communal 
 possession and "did" for Dr. Loxley, the Vicar of Widdy- 
 bank ; for Mr. Briggs, the Lord of the Manor's agent : for 
 old Miss Dawes, the Doctor's sister; and came to Rose- 
 roofs only twice a week; but Miss Flora and Miss Effie 
 were both fond of flowers and worked in the garden them- 
 selves, so that it was always, except in the very depth of 
 winter, full of flowers of some kind. Moreover, Miss 
 Effie and Miss Flora had each a special garden, the plots 
 they had been given and taught to cultivate as children, 
 
 28
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and these plots were the objects of their specialized at- 
 tention and skill. 
 
 It had better be explained that Roseroofs did not look 
 out at the dale view with its front windows, but with those 
 at the back, from the dining-room windows and the end 
 drawing-room window; the two other drawing-room win- 
 dows faced directly to the west. To the left of the gar- 
 den gate stood a small copper beech, and beyond, after 
 crossing a little grass plot to the left, one came to the 
 kitchen garden, which was overlooked by the kitchen and 
 scullery windows; and just to the right of the gate, on 
 entering, was Miss Effie's garden. Here grew the sweet 
 stocks and, in the spring, tulips. Amongst Miss Effie's 
 treasures, as the seasons advanced, were red roses, holly- 
 hocks, sunflowers and chrysanthemums. 
 
 By a tacit understanding, dating from the days when 
 Miss Effie's hair was cropped and pushed off her bony 
 brow by a round comb and Miss Flora's hung to the waist 
 in two attenuated pigtails, Miss Flora had in her garden 
 no tulips, and no red roses, and no chrysanthemums. In 
 return for this abstention Miss Effie eschewed wild hya- 
 cinths, daffodils, pink roses and the double white violets 
 that in the Spring were Miss Flora's special joy. 
 
 Sometimes, with a certain air, not perhaps of solem- 
 nity, but of a high holiday, Miss Flora presented Miss 
 Effie with a nosegay of The Violets, or of the pink roses 
 that grew so lavishly on her two old trees. More rarely 
 Miss Effie without a word would put at Miss Flora's 
 place at breakfast a few tulips standing stiffly in a favor- 
 ite old glass vase of their mother's, or, later in the year, 
 a tuft of chrysanthemums. To the two ladies their gar- 
 den was a place of real beauty and romance. 
 
 Sheltered as it was from the east and north winds, roses 
 of various sorts flourished exceedingly, the great tree of 
 yellow roses known as Father's rose-tree being one of the 
 
 29
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 finest in the country-side, and on the front wall of the 
 house where the study windows directly faced the gate, 
 there stood a row of old moss-roses that bloomed through- 
 out the summer and then continued their career, embalmed 
 by Miss Flora in salt and spices in old Chinese jars with 
 gilded and perforated tops, in the drawing-room. 
 
 Poor Blundell loved flowers he had always been a 
 man of pleasant tastes and that last summer he enjoyed 
 them to his heart's full content. On the little mahogany 
 sewing-table that followed him about from shady place 
 to shady pl^ce there always stood beside his books, his 
 newspapers, his cigarette and match-boxes and his bottle 
 of medicine, either a vase or a bowl of flowers. 
 
 Miss Flora, when it was her turn to beautify the table, 
 usually chose a bowl; she loved best what she called bowl 
 flowers. Violets are bowl flowers, and pansies; so are 
 the delicate wild hyacinths called blue-bells to the de- 
 spair, one is told, of Scottish folk ; and marsh marigolds, 
 and moon daisies. Miss Effie's own garden, of course, 
 Miss Flora never touched, but there were pansies in both, 
 as well as roses and many other flowers, and Miss Effie, 
 whose affections were fixed on a tall old vase of beautiful 
 Irish glass, would fill it with geraniums and stocks or lilac 
 or delphiniums, and then with her solid, springless gait, 
 she would carry her offering to wherever Blundell might 
 be installed and set it down on the table with a little bang. 
 
 "There," she would say, "these are not very fine ones, 
 but they are the best we have got," which was thoroughly 
 insincere, for Miss Effie was convinced that the Rose- 
 roofs flowers could not be beaten anywhere. 
 
 So the warm, still days passed by, and the fine air and 
 the vital palpitant silences of the moorland did indeed rest 
 and heal the invalid's nerves, although his lungs were too 
 far gone to be helped. It pleased him to watch the details 
 of the simple lives around him ; he learned how interested 
 
 30
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 one could be in the weather in places where the weather 
 is so important; no one ever came to the house, man or 
 woman, without a few words on the all-engrossing sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "Marning, sir, a bit windy, but a champion marning," 
 or, "It's a soony day will be doing you good, sir," or, 
 "Ah, didn't mooch like the sunset last night, sir, a bit 
 too cloudy in t' west, but mebbe it'll fine up later," and 
 Blundell found himself enjoying these little talks and 
 looking out for them. He had, moreover, seen too much 
 of the world not to value the independence, of the dales- 
 men, and he liked the burr in their mournful, musical 
 voices. Benjie Brigworthy, a cross-grained, pugnacious, 
 tough old man of seventy, was his special joy, and Benjie 
 soon got used to what he called poor Miss May's hus- 
 band's foony wa-ays and the two often had long talks 
 together. 
 
 Mr. Brigworthy was a Tory of very decided views; 
 Robert Blundell had no political convictions but his lines 
 had generally fallen in liberal places; and he found him- 
 self, to his own delight, becoming very angry with the 
 old gardener's antediluvian viewpoints. The old fellow 
 was pig-headed and advanced but little on his grand- 
 father's beliefs, but he was a regular reader of a Tory 
 paper, and some of his language, when goaded by the un- 
 principled Blundell, was in its unbridled wrath a source 
 of exquisite delight to the latter, who, to lead him on, 
 shamelessly professed principles that would have appeared 
 liberal even to Marat in his heyday. But in spite of these 
 diversions, Blundell was a good deal alone, rather to his 
 own surprise, for he fully realized himself to be the pleas- 
 ant fellow he was, and knew that against his peculiar 
 charm even extreme old age was no safeguard to women. 
 
 This charm of his, a thing not wholly reprehensible and 
 possessed of certain delightfully innocent qualities as 
 
 31
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 well as of others, had been compared by somebody years 
 ago for Robert Blundell was over forty to a bird that 
 he kept in a cage and gave wing to at will. If he wished 
 to be liked and he had almost always wished to be liked 
 by almost everybody he had only to open the door of 
 the cage and the bird would fly out to whistle and beguile 
 away prejudices and disapprovals, and to inculcate in 
 their stead likings of various kinds and degrees, of some 
 of which their object only too soon wearied. And now, in 
 his solitude, he opened his cage and let forth his bird, but 
 its lure failed with Miss Effie and Miss Flora. Kind they 
 were to him, considerate, the best of hostesses; but day 
 after day Miss Flora passed him, light-footed, with her 
 absurd air of antique youth, telling him that she was go- 
 ing for a walk, and he would not see her for hours, when 
 she would come bounding across the green to the gate 
 without the least sign of fatigue. 
 
 While her sister was away, Miss EfBe usually brought 
 her sewing Miss Effie sewed for the poor, in the relent- 
 less ways of other days, utilitarian garments that Robert 
 would shudder at and for a short half-hour would sit 
 by him, bolt upright in a wooden-seated chair. And as 
 she sewed, her needle being, he was sure, much noisier than 
 other needles, she would discuss with him her plans for 
 the education of the child. 
 
 Cuckoo, with her dark, forbidding aspect, would be 
 either playing at some solitary little game in the sunniest 
 spot she could find, or in the kitchen with Esther Oughten- 
 shaw, whose society she, without shame, preferred to that 
 of her aunts. 
 
 Neither Miss Effie, nor Miss Flora, nor Blundell him- 
 self, had ever referred to the subject of their two conver- 
 sations on the evening of his arrival. His mind was quiet 
 on the subject; he knew the two women and trusted them 
 as they deserved, and they trusted him as he would not 
 
 32
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 have deserved but for the fact that in this particular 
 case it was to his own interest to keep silent. 
 
 Cuckoo was to begin reading as soon as she had learned 
 English. Miss Flora was to teach her writing, because 
 Miss Effie had a great admiration for her sister's delicate, 
 slanting, so-called Italian hand. The use of the globes 
 and history were also to lie in Miss Effie's province. Miss 
 Flora would teach her to play the piano. 
 
 Blundell's gravity was a thing to be admired when Miss 
 Flora's musical accomplishments were under discussion. 
 He had heard Miss Flora play. 
 
 Embroidery the child was to learn by her father's spe- 
 cial request. 
 
 "I'd like her to do flowers as Flora does," he said once, 
 "not those dreadful scratchy things you make, Effie." 
 And Miss Effie agreed, but further than such skirtings of 
 the subject, they never approached to their pact and 
 Blundell knew that the matter was settled once and for 
 all. 
 
 His talks with Miss Flora were of the same kind, and 
 it had come naturally to pass that Miss Flora should 
 have more to do with the young Nicoleta than her sister, 
 for the young Nicoleta, nearly as grim and silent as her 
 aunt Effie, in a miniature way, had taken a violent dislike 
 to that lady and showed what was to Miss Flora an al- 
 most sinfully gratifying preference for la jolie tante. 
 They never dared ask what the child privately called Miss 
 Effie and for the most part she referred to her as 
 "she" "elle," as she said in her strange, deep, husky 
 voice. 
 
 One afternoon both sisters, a very unusual thing, were 
 sitting under the great ash that stood in the southeast 
 corner of the garden, in coming to which from the gate 
 one passed Miss Flora's garden. 
 
 The winter had been a severe one, and the spring cor- 
 
 33
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 respondingly slow in coming, so that even yet the may- 
 tree by the wall was in full flower. From the Green Bench, 
 Miss Flora had just told Blundell, it looked like an im- 
 mense snowball. 
 
 Blundell lay stretched out in his chair, a long figure 
 in a suit secretly considered by both sisters to be not 
 quite the thing of shantung silk, and on two of the 
 purgatorial old wheel-backed chairs from the dining-room, 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora sat sewing. Near them stood 
 a fourth chair, a Chippendale with a cushion in it, from 
 that deserted haunt, the study. 
 
 Both ladies showed in their apparel signs of an im- 
 pending guest, for Miss Flora, whose mauve-and-white- 
 flowered frock was obviously just from the tub and the 
 iron, had on all her rings, and Miss Effie wore what Blun- 
 dell, in his sympathetic reprobate bones, felt, though he 
 had never seen it before, to be her Best. It was a gray 
 poplin painfully ill-adapted to Miss Effie's sallow and 
 weather-burned skin. Moreover, Blundell's skilled eyes 
 told him that the cut of the thing was of all cuts the most 
 unpropitious to Miss Effie's square and heavily-built body. 
 There was no drapery to hide the angles, nothing to soften 
 the flatness of the hips or the prominence of the shoulder- 
 blades. A fichu would do it, Blundell thought pityingly, 
 some nice, soft stuff over the shoulders, and crossed in 
 front nevertheless, Miss Effie was en grande tenue, for 
 her little flat collar, so useless as an aid to beauty, was 
 of valuable old lace and it was fastened by a brooch, a 
 large and beautiful topaz set in chased gold. 
 
 "Effie," Miss Flora said suddenly, looking up from the 
 great strip of delicate lawn on which she was embroider- 
 ing fuchsias in their natural colors, "you really will have 
 to speak to her, she is singing again " 
 
 Round the corner of the kitchen came Esther Oughten- 
 shaw's voice raised in praise of her Maker. 
 
 34
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Why stop her, Flora?" Blundell asked lazily; "it is 
 really beautiful " 
 
 "Flora knows that, Robert we know about Esther's 
 voice. She sings in the choir at Warcop and everyone 
 admires it. It is Marcia she is thinking of." 
 
 Miss Effie finished the hideous little garment she was 
 working on and, taking off her thimble, folded her work. 
 "Flora is afraid of shocking Marcia with our country 
 ways," she said. 
 
 Miss Flora looked up hastily, her eyes flashing. 
 Blundell saw that for some reason Miss Effie's remark 
 had hurt her, but she said nothing and a few moments later 
 she rose, folded her really beautiful embroidery, and lay- 
 ing it in the deep-green baize drawer of the sewing-table, 
 went into the house. 
 
 "Tell Esther to be careful with the tea-cakes," Miss 
 Effie called after her. 
 
 "It strikes me you are afraid of the tea-cakes shocking 
 Marcia," the invalid said idly, watching her with half- 
 closed eyes. 
 
 "Marcia is very particular and she has every right to 
 be; she is used to the best of everything, living in Lon- 
 don," returned Miss Effie grimly. 
 
 "I know she is, but what a bad argument ! To my mind 
 it is people who have had the worst of everything who 
 have the right to be particular " 
 
 Miss Effie did not answer, and this, her unconscious 
 North-country way of meeting an incontrovertible or 
 even a merely troublesome argument, made him ill at ease. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he called out to end the situation, "Cuckoo, 
 where are you?" 
 
 But it was Esther Oughtenshaw who, her head thrust 
 out of the dining-room window, gave Blundell the infor- 
 mation that the child had been digging in the kitchen- 
 garden and that Miss Flora was at that moment en- 
 
 35
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 gaged in removing from her the signs of her labors. Miss 
 Effie rose. 
 
 "I must go and watch for the carriage from the blue- 
 room window," she said. "I can see it when it gets to the 
 turning by the big may-tree and that is just time to mash 
 the tea " 
 
 Left alone, Blundell whistled softly to himself; the 
 prospect of Lady Fabricius' visit annoyed and bored 
 him, for he knew that it meant the end of his lazy and 
 happy time. She could not force him to walk, or even 
 to sit upright, for that would be practically murdering 
 him, but he would have to speak loud, instead of mur- 
 muring as he liked to do for she was a little deaf and 
 no one was allowed to know it and she would expect 
 him to be grateful to her for coming all this way to see 
 him. 
 
 He was not uncommon in feeling gratitude an impos- 
 sible achievement when it was demanded of him, fsnd in 
 ordinary circumstances he would have run away at the 
 first news of her impending visit, but he was dying, and 
 he must put his house in order so far as he could and 
 Lady Fabricius would help him. At this point in his very 
 unusual meditations, he smiled and corrected the phrase. 
 
 "No, it is putting the poor Flora's and the poor Effie's 
 house in order! It is they who will have all the trouble. 
 The two hundred pounds a year won't hurt old Marcia 
 she will never miss it and they, Heaven help 'em, will 
 have Cuckoo." For a moment he reflected on this point, 
 half sorry, half amused, and then, still smiling, and very 
 slowly, he rose. 
 
 Lady Fabricius' reception was as majestic as his own 
 progress as, leaning on her maid's arm, she came across 
 the little common to the gate. 
 
 At the gate stood Miss Effie and Miss Flora and Blun- 
 , dell, whose irrepressible theater-sense had induced him to 
 
 36
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 make an effort. Indeed, he was amply rewarded for his 
 pains, for not only did he, with his incorrigible inward eye, 
 clearly see the impression his gaunt and moribund person 
 must make, side by side with the gracile Miss Flora and 
 the grim and solid Miss Effie, but Lady Fabricius at once 
 expressed her satisfaction with his tribute to the effect 
 of her arrival, by telling him that she was delighted to see 
 him looking so well ! 
 
 This remark was so characteristic of the speaker that 
 he had the unusual joy of catching a hasty, shame-faced 
 glance between Miss Effie and Miss Flora, a glance whose 
 grandmother, so to speak, he remembered on the 
 occasion of his marriage festivities, seven years 
 before. 
 
 "I brought Charlotte, you see," Lady Fabricius ex- 
 plained, a trifle unnecessarily, as she was at that moment 
 being supported to the little colony of chairs under the 
 ash-tree by Charlotte herself, "I thought my French wo- 
 man might frighten Esther." 
 
 "Nothing would frighten Esther," Blundell heard him- 
 self saying; "not even the Almighty." 
 
 "Robert!" 
 
 It was Marcia who protested, though he knew with in- 
 stant regret that his profanity must have hurt Miss Effie 
 and Miss Flora, whereas Lady Fabricius' exclamation 
 was a ready-made one and meant nothing. Esther, when 
 she brought tea the next moment, appeared to verify his 
 unfortunately-expressed belief, for setting down the tray 
 she turned to Lady Fabricius, and shaking hands with 
 her, said unabashed and heartily: "Aye, a'm glad to see 
 yer, Miss Marcia my lady and yer looking fine for yer 
 yeers, and fa,t an' all " 
 
 Her ladyship, who was indeed very fat with the kind 
 of fat which seems to engulf the personality, had turned 
 her back on the old servant who was yet younger than 
 
 37
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 she. References to her bulk were as unwelcome to her as 
 they are to most people. 
 
 This was an exquisite moment for Blundell, and put 
 out of his mind for a while the worrying thought of 
 Cuckoo. Cuckoo, he knew, was a dreadful child, and 
 he realized how much more dreadful her dreadfulness 
 would appear to Lady Fabricius than it did to her sisters. 
 Flora's odd, old youthfulness would, he was sure, event- 
 ually arrive at winning the child's admiration, for Cuckoo 
 admired or disliked, as yet; she had not begun to show a 
 disposition to love. Although the dark imp obviously 
 did not admire her Aunt Effie, she had already manifested 
 certain minute signs of a wholesome awe of that lady, as 
 well as of a slight softening of demeanor towards Miss 
 Flora, la jolie tante. 
 
 About Lady Fabricius, who in a way was the most 
 important of the three, Blundell had grave fears. Many 
 years ago, before he had met her, Marcia Plues had been 
 a beauty, but now her young and middle-aged beauties 
 had gone for ever; gone to be replaced by that ugliest 
 and most pitiful of travesties, a travesty of the beauty 
 of youth. 
 
 Cuckoo was only four, yet her father felt, as he lay 
 back in his chair watching Lady Fabricius satisfying her 
 hunger and thirst with a voracity that was rather un- 
 pleasant, that those sloe-black eyes of his daughter's 
 could detect as quickly as his own had detected them, the 
 meretricious attempts at red-brown hair, the patina of 
 white and pink that vainly tried to hide the sagging and 
 the wrinkles of her eldest aunt's sixty-year-old skin. "You 
 cannot put new wine into old bottles," he mused, hiding 
 his unmanageable mouth with one hand, "neither can you 
 put old faces into new skins." But he could hold his 
 tongue and Cuckoo very probably could not, or would 
 not. Luckily she knew very little English. 
 
 38
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 While the maiden sisters were asking, with the politest 
 hunger for detail, about Sir Adolph Fabricius, Blundell 
 slowly rose, and as slowly went into the house by the 
 drawing-room window. He found Cuckoo sitting in the 
 middle of the kitchen table on a small three-legged stool. 
 
 "What are you doing, Cuckoo?" he asked in French. 
 
 "I am going to see my beautiful auntie," she returned 
 slowly, but with a marked distinctness. 
 
 Blundell was puzzled and sat down, wondering what 
 he had better do. He had seen very little of his daughter, 
 for during the first year of her life she had been kept 
 away from his wife, who was dying. He had adored his 
 wife in his unsatisfactory way, and had hardly left her 
 from the beginning of her illness, near the bridge where, 
 according to the old song, "On danse, on danse." 
 
 The day after the funeral he and Anne Rose Ponchaus, 
 the child's nounou and subsequent bonne, had started on 
 an endless series of little journeys, from town to town, 
 from the sea to the mountains, vainly seeking that health 
 which he was destined never to find. 
 
 The child, a delicate, querulous little thing, far from 
 being a comfort to him, had been in his nerve-racked con- 
 dition a perfect nuisance, and Anne Rose, realizing this, 
 had kept her out of her father's sight as much as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Twice during their travels, Blundell had broken down 
 and been ill for months, during which time he rarely 
 so much as set eyes on Cuckoo ; and when, finally, a nice 
 old doctor, met in a train, told him that his only chance 
 was to live for a year in Switzerland, high up among the 
 snows, Anne Rose Ponchaux had taken the eighteen- 
 months-old baby to her father's farm near Orange, whence 
 she had come two years ago, when she had done that most 
 unusual thing among French peasants, married a for- 
 eigner, i.e., a man from another part of France. Thus 
 
 39
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Blundell had seen very little of his motherless child, and 
 until two or three weeks before their arrival at Roseroofs, 
 he had not seen her at all since the day he went to Switzer- 
 land. 
 
 So there in the shady old kitchen, with its stone floor 
 covered with black and red rugs made with short ends of 
 cloth; its long stove with its polished steel and brass; 
 its fine old oak table; its wheel-backed chairs and its 
 slippery black sofa, sat that afternoon Robert Blundell 
 and his practically unknown daughter, studying each oth- 
 er's faces with a gravity that, but for the man's obviously 
 desperate ill-health, would have been ludicrous. 
 
 In her stiffly-starched white frock a frock made in 
 far-off Orange in clumsy imitation of the Sunday frocks 
 of the children of the local bourgeoisie the child sat on 
 her stool, her brown hands, thin and flexile like a monkey's, 
 folded on her knees. She wore scarlet morocco strap-over 
 shoes, the gift of her father, and a string of coral beads 
 hung round her dark neck. Her thick black hair had 
 been crudely cropped by Anne Rose, and hung in an un- 
 even line across her brow, on which showed a fine, 
 murderous frown, fit for a Borgia. Her eyes really were 
 like sloes, for in their unfathomable darkness was a bluish 
 shade; they were not large eyes, and their lashes were 
 short, and straight, and thick. Her nose was no particu- 
 lar shape and her mouth was drawn into a thin, cramped 
 line. It struck her father for the first time that she was 
 like her Aunt Effie. 
 
 "What are you doing?" he asked her at length. She 
 looked down, and he could see her eyeballs quiver under 
 their thick, dusky lids. 
 
 "I am waiting," she said, after a pause, in a deep, 
 growling voice, "to see my beautiful Ant." (Esther 
 Oughtenshaw, he knew, said "Ant.") 
 
 "I see." They regarded each other steadily for a 
 
 40
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 moment and he felt at a loss with her, just as he would 
 have felt with some grown person. He must provide 
 against her offending her aunt, but how should he do it? 
 He rose and went into the scullery, shutting the door be- 
 hind him. 
 
 "Esther," he said, "you have been telling her tales 
 about her Aunt Marcia!" 
 
 Esther regarded him squarely as she went on with her 
 work of polishing forks with a yellow powder and a tooth- 
 brush. 
 
 "Ah hov not," she said. 
 
 "But somebody must have told her that her Aunt 
 Marcia is beautiful." 
 
 "And so she was, sir, in her young days ; well I remem- 
 ber " 
 
 "Yes, I know all that, but ' he struggled with a 
 
 laugh and then gave way to it. "Yes, that may all be, 
 but her ladyship is not beautiful now, and Cuckoo will 
 know it." Whimsically he wriggled his black eyebrows 
 at the old servant, who looked at him with unbroken grav- 
 ity. 
 
 "Aye, she will, the little bairn. She's sharp 
 enough " 
 
 "You see," he went on, "that what I am afraid of is 
 she is only just four and if she sees that this beautiful 
 aunt is not beautiful well, she might say so. Her lady- 
 ship wouldn't like that !" 
 
 "No-o her ladyship would not, Mr. Bloondell." 
 
 Having finished the dry-scouring of her forks and 
 spoons, Esther Oughtenshaw took a deep pan and filled 
 it with hot water from the brass tap in the stove. Cuckoo 
 was still sitting on the table, staring before her in her 
 odd immobility. 
 
 "Are you a good girl?" Esther asked, as she passed on 
 her way back to the scullery, and Blundell was amused 
 
 41
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to catch the impeccable Yorkshire in which the tiny crea- 
 ture answered. 
 
 "Aye, Esther Oughtenshaw a'm a good girl, an' all." 
 
 Blundell lifted her down and took her on his lap by the. 
 window which, in spite of the warmth of the afternoon, 
 was tightly closed. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he said in French, "I am going to take you 
 to see your new aunt ; she is very kind and is going to be 
 very good to you." 
 
 The child interrupted him. "What is she going to give 
 me?" she asked. 
 
 The solemn eagerness of her small face was very funny, 
 but even the irrepressible Blundell did not quite laugh. 
 
 "You must not think," he informed her, with ridicu- 
 lously keen appreciation of the similarity of his own view- 
 point and his daughter's, "you must not think that she is 
 going to give you something. Poor Auntie, she has no 
 little girl, you must be kind and good to her." His voice 
 faltered as he hid his face in her soft hair, which felt 
 like the fur of some small animal and smelt of rosemary. 
 "She is a dear old lady, you know" ("How furious she 
 would be!" he broke off to himself) "and you must not 
 say anything about her hair or or anything. It is rude 
 to speak of people's looks, you know." 
 
 "I know, Father." 
 
 He sighed with relief. "Of course you do, such a big 
 girl as you. I want to be proud of my little girl," he went 
 on, envisaging himself, in all his pathos, as the Wifeless 
 Man with His Child. 
 
 After a moment he added, "You are the only little girl 
 I have, you know," and the young Cuckoo Blundell, after 
 licking a button of her father's coat, looked up into his 
 face and returned with unblemished gravity: 
 
 "And you are the only father I have."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CONTRARY to his apprehensions, Blundell had the 
 satisfaction of beholding his babe play into his 
 hands regarding her latest aunt, in a way that 
 would have done her credit, or discredit, years later on 
 in her career. Silent as her almost Englishless condition 
 forced her to be except with Esther, with whom she chat- 
 tered by the hour, the Yorko-Frankish dialogue appar- 
 ently giving both of them satisfaction Cuckoo's habit 
 of planting herself in front of Lady Fabricius and gazing 
 at her in ardent contemplation, was, tactfully interpreted 
 by her father, a custom endearing rather than otherwise 
 to her august relation. 
 
 Lady Fabricius never told, and Cuckoo could not tell 
 to anyone but her father, of an awful event that took place 
 one morning at an hour when every one of the house- 
 hold was supposed to be safely out of the way, and the old 
 lady, in a loose dressing-gown, was rolling comfortably 
 towards the bath-room. Most of her hair was on her 
 dressing-table, and her face, as the French so expressively 
 put it, was not yet "made." 
 
 Just as she reached the bathroom-door, Cuckoo ap- 
 peared from downstairs, and Aunt Marcia, who had the 
 previous evening been put into an excellent state of mind 
 about the child by her fascinated gaze, now stooped to 
 conquer. 
 
 "Good morning, my love," she said graciously, adding 
 in the French, when all is said and done, of most old 
 English ladies, "Bong jour" then, "Venney ici, give me 
 
 43
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a kiss," and leaning down, she bent her large, flaccid, 
 and alas! early-morning face towards the little maid in 
 the blue overall. 
 
 "Donney-mwaw wn bay say," she added graciously. 
 
 Disaster followed. Cuckoo's odd, quick black eyes gazed 
 at her for one moment distended as if they were about 
 to crack, and then, with a really horrid shriek, the child 
 fled down the kitchen stairs as if the "dowl" were after 
 her. She was so terrified, poor little thing, that she did 
 something almost unknown in their short mutual career; 
 she fled to her father for comfort. In broken, baby French 
 she sobbed that a dreadful old man upstairs had wanted 
 to kiss her, and she knew it was le Pere Ga?'ou a local 
 bugbear dear to Anne Rose Ponchaux le Pere Garou, 
 who bit the fingers of bad children and sucked their blood 
 till they died. 
 
 "But you were not bad," her embarrassed parent told 
 her, afraid, in view of future revelations on her part, to 
 avow the truth. The child shook her head. 
 
 "Oh, voui," she declared in her peasant French, "elle 
 en est une elle est sale dosse, sale dosse," and she was 
 inconsolable until Esther Oughtenshaw came to the 
 rescue and carried her off to feed the chickens in the pad- 
 dock behind the kitchen garden. The fact that his child 
 had been called a "sale gosse" did not at all afflict Mr. 
 Blundell. Anne Rose, though rough, had been an excellent 
 nurse and a clean, decent body, and what she had called 
 his child was only what she would have called her own 
 if it had lived ; but it would be dreadful if Lady Fabricius 
 ever found out the interpretation put by the child she 
 was meant to befriend, on her unadorned matutinal ap- 
 pearance. However, the old lady never referred to the 
 matter again, and when, at lunch-time, she appeared with 
 a slight touch of brown in her make-up (a delicate tribute 
 to the strength of the Wiskedale sun), Cuckoo kissed 
 
 44
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her obediently, without recognizing in her aunt the hor- 
 rible vieillard whom she had met outside the bathroom- 
 door. 
 
 Lady Fabricius had come, she invariably expressed it, 
 all that way on purpose to see Robert Blundell, and after 
 about a week's rest which, to the invalid's huge joy, she 
 declared ought to work wonders for her complexion, she 
 announced at last that a family council must be held re- 
 garding the matter about which her advice had been 
 asked. 
 
 The council was held that afternoon under the elm- 
 tree, for the wind had changed and the west side of the 
 garden was too warm. 
 
 Lady Fabricius, with a demeanor that betrayed her 
 being thoroughly used to serving on committees, installed 
 herself with her back to the trunk of the tree, a table in 
 front of her. She had also seen to it that the chairs of the 
 others faced her across the table. Miss Effie and Miss 
 Flora had been sewing, but their sister bade them lay 
 aside their work to enable them to give their whole mind 
 to the matter in hand. They obeyed her in silence, and 
 then, when their hands were quietly folded in their laps, 
 and Blundell, whose cough was very troublesome that 
 day, had swallowed some soothing draught, Lady 
 Fabricius began. 
 
 "I was very sorry to hear three weeks ago that your 
 health was in such an unsatisfactory state, Robert. You 
 doubtless exaggerate the gravity of your condition 
 but " 
 
 "Perhaps," he interrupted, quietly looking towards the 
 west where, under a heavy, hot, blue sky, Laverock lay 
 spread out as if basking in the heat, "but it is a nuisance 
 having a bit of your lung gone so that your heart is un- 
 covered " 
 
 "Robert I" It was Miss Flora who uttered the soft 
 
 45
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ejaculation of horror; Miss Effie continued to stare at 
 her brown, bony hands. 
 
 "Sorry, Flora, but it is true. I am, in fact, rather 
 vain of being able to go on living with practically no lung 
 left at all. However, Marcia may be right, and it may 
 not matter. Go on, Marcia." 
 
 Lady Fabricius, her oily black eyebrows drawn down 
 over her eyes in displeasure at the interruption, went on. 
 
 Blundell, as he watched her, knew that he would not 
 forget the picture that she made. From where he sat, 
 propped by his pillows, but still very low, his eldest sister- 
 in-law quite hid the trunk of the fine old elm under which 
 they sat, with the result that it seemed to spring from her 
 broad, gray silk shoulders. 
 
 " And I am sure Sir Adolph would agree with me," 
 the old lady was saying as he arrived at this point in his 
 reflections. He nodded. "I am sure he would," he re- 
 turned in a voice of noble and disinterested conviction, 
 "go on." 
 
 In his own mind, "Poor old devil, he simply has to 
 and if the tree grows out of her shoulders, its roots must 
 be oh, damn it I must stop or I shall laugh!" and 
 he turned his eyes to the sky, of which it struck him there 
 was unusually much in Wiskedale. 
 
 " My son Bertie, of course, is our heir. If my poor 
 daughter Vera had lived, she was to have had five thou- 
 sand a year for life, but then" the speaker, whose voice 
 had sunk to a level of melancholy in spite of the noble 
 sum mentioned, assumed a livelier air, as of a brave soul 
 overcoming her grief to do justice to minor matters, 
 "she did not; therefore Bertie, at our deaths, will have 
 it all, except," she added impressively, regarding her sis- 
 ters, "one or two small very small legacies that / shall 
 make. Sir Adolph will make no legacies. Sir Adolph 
 has no relatives." 
 
 46
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Blundell, bored nearly to tears, fixed his eyes on a 
 narrow ribbon of road up Laverock. Once he had walked 
 there, yes, by Jove ! and he had kissed a pretty girl at a 
 farm half-way up ! A wave of self-pity nearly submerged 
 him for a moment. 
 
 " And as Sir Adolph said to me, there is no reason 
 why he should provide for your child, Robert." 
 
 "Don't bother about my half of her," Robert said, 
 sitting up with a jerk, and breaking into a fit of coughing, 
 "let my half starve so long as you save May's 
 half." 
 
 Lady Fabricius regarded him with disfavor. "That," 
 she said shortly, "is a remark I consider in very bad taste, 
 Robert. I have come all this way to settle things with 
 you, and I expect to be treated with respect." 
 
 Miss Flora rose, and pouring out a glass of water, gave 
 it to her brother-in-law, who was now fighting for his 
 breath. 
 
 "Robert didn't mean any disrespect, dear Marcia, did 
 you, Bob?" 
 
 "No, no," he gasped, "of course no?. It is only ah 
 well, go on, Marcia." 
 
 Miss Erne regarded him stonily while Miss Flora shook 
 up his pillows, laid him back on them, and put some 
 lavender-water on his handkerchief; and such was the 
 nature of the poor wretch that it even then hurt his vanity 
 to feel that Effie liked him no better than she had done 
 years ago, when she had so bitterly resented his marrying 
 her youngest sister. 
 
 "I will go on," Lady Fabricius continued, "if you will 
 allow me to do so. I was saying that I am willing to help 
 poor May's daughter poor May." 
 
 Her abominable old mask of a face quivered for a 
 moment and her eyes, once large and bright, now so lustre- 
 less and fat-embedded, gleamed with the scant tears of 
 
 47
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 old age. "She did not marry you with her eyes shut, 
 but nevertheless I always pitied her." 
 
 He bowed. 
 
 "You never were a good man, Robert." He gave a 
 little peculiar laugh, his pointed shoulders hunched for- 
 ward in an attempt at a shrug, and she continued "I 
 never saw how " 
 
 "Oh, I remember your cleverness in finding out all my 
 sins and telling them to May. I doubt your wisdom 
 in doing so no doubt you meant well and you never 
 reflected that I might not have been altogether to 
 blame." 
 
 The old lady looked at him doubtfully. "Why were 
 you not to blame?" 
 
 A glimmer of amusement came to his eyes. 
 
 "Of course we are discussing one particular fault of 
 mine? Well, you remember what Shakespeare said about 
 men like me? I forget the exact text, but it was some- 
 thing about 'his multitudinous heart incarnadine'," 
 
 Miss Effie shook her head. "You are wrong, Robert; 
 that is what he said about the sea." 
 
 "What," Miss Flora asked gently, "has Shakespeare, 
 great though he was, to do with Cuckoo?" 
 
 They got on better after that, and with much almost 
 unbearable assumption of generosity on Lady Fabricius' 
 part and a certain amount of only half-concealed anger 
 on Blundell's, matters were settled and the council came 
 to an end. 
 
 The two Misses Plues were to bring up and educate the 
 young Cuckoo Blundell in consideration of a hundred 
 pounds a year paid to them by Lady Fabricius. Further- 
 more, when the child was eighteen or nineteen she was, 
 if she proved satisfactory, to be brought out in London 
 society by Lady Fabricius, with a view to finding a 
 husband, and when she was twenty-one the sum of two 
 
 48
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 hundred pounds a year was to be settled on her for life, 
 irrespective of her marrying or not marrying. One of 
 the father's stipulations was an odd one. Barring condi- 
 tions of health which might make such a step imperative, 
 Cuckoo was not to leave the dale; she was to be brought 
 up entirely at Roseroofs. 
 
 "I want to wear out if I if you can," he declared, 
 "the roving drop which is in her blood. It has been the 
 ruin of me, and I fear she will have it. Restlessness, not 
 money, is the root of all evil." 
 
 Lady Fabricius agreed with the sentiment and said so. 
 
 "You are wiser than I thought, Robert," she returned. 
 "You were a bad husband, but if you were spared, you 
 might perhaps, after all, be a good father." 
 
 He laughed as he rose. "I am tired and will go and 
 lie down if you will excuse me. I am very grateful to 
 you, Marcia. I am very grateful to you all," he added 
 impressively. "As to my badness as a husband, perhaps 
 if you had seen my wife at the end of her life she would 
 have disagreed with you on that point more than you 
 now think possible." 
 
 He stood on the edge of the pool of shade in which 
 the three women sat, and in the bright sunshine his skull- 
 like face looked, with its black hollows and lines, like a 
 fire-gutted house. There was a short pause, during which 
 each of the sisters silently told herself that he was dying. 
 
 Lady Fabricius went home a few days later, leaving 
 little hope that she would come again before seven more 
 years passed. The journey to London had few horrors 
 for her, but the coming all the way to Wiskedale would, 
 she indicated, hardly bear contemplation. Out of the 
 confused chatter that composed what she believed to be 
 her really delightful conversation, had shone one glimmer 
 of reason. "The child," she said, as she made her adieux 
 
 49
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to the child's father, expressing the hope that, in spite of 
 his exaggerated despondency, he soon might be better, 
 "the child had better be told nothing about the money 
 or that she is ever to come to London. It might unsettle 
 her." 
 
 And after her departure-, the two ladies and Blundell 
 decided to accept this pearl of prudence at its real value, 
 disregarding, as Blundell for his part minutely expressed 
 it, its preposterous source. Cuckoo should not be told. 
 
 Having done his best for his poor little daughter in 
 thus securing her a home and a fixed competence, Blun- 
 dell's strange, shifting mind was at rest. That may have 
 been one reason why he seemed to grow better as July 
 drew on. 
 
 The days were quiet days, full of sunshine. Blundell 
 amused himself by reading, by his periodical battles with 
 old Brigworthy, and his unfeigned interest in the country- 
 side news. His memory for names was very remarkable, 
 and as the bits of gossip and items of interest he 
 stowed away in his brain were never forgotten, he often 
 surprised the sisters by the really intimate knowledge 
 he showed of the history of the neighbouring villages and 
 farmers. "He didn't marry a Brigworthy," he would 
 say, "he married a Christie; the other sister married a 
 Cavage from Bellanside," or, "Watlass' girl from the mill 
 is going to marry young Skelton, I tell you ; old Skelton's 
 boy whose mother was a Raw," and he was always right. 
 Much of this lore he gathered from Benjie, who was an 
 incorrigible gossip of the worst male type, and a real dyed- 
 in-the-wool male gossip is, as most intelligent people know, 
 far more virulent a specimen than any mere female. 
 
 He liked Benjie Brigworthy, who looked older than 
 anyone nowadays could possibly be, and who, though he 
 could make himself perfectly clear if he chose, spoke on 
 
 50
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 occasion what was Choctaw to Blundell; and presently 
 it transpired that the old rascal was sedulously imparting 
 some of his most incomprehensible words to Cuckoo. The 
 child for some reason or other was enraptured with the 
 bandy-legged, cross-grained old fellow, whose long work- 
 ing in the earth seemed in a way to have caused the earth 
 to take him to herself before his time. He looked, in his 
 ancient brown clothes and his always muddy, leathern 
 gaiters, as if he lived, like potatoes, under the ground, 
 though unlike potatoes, he spent most of his time on the 
 surface. 
 
 There was a legend that once, when Benjie was a young 
 thing of forty, the doctor, rash and ill-advised, had, in 
 some minor illness, ordered him a bath. At Benjie's 
 protest the doctor, young and full of the foolishness that 
 comes out of cities, insisted, whereupon Benjie, bowing 
 to the inevitable, took the bath in his kitchen, by the 
 fire, in a wash-tub and proved the doctor's folly and his 
 own wisdom by nearly dying of "pewmonia." Three 
 nights did the wretched doctor sit by him and had Benjie 
 died he must have left the dale, but in Benjie's feverish 
 eyes the doctor always declared he read triumph and 
 pleasure, even in the midst of undoubtedly great suffer- 
 ing; he finally made up his mind to relent and live, and 
 the young man from Leeds, now old Dr. Dawes, was 
 nearly as thoroughly associated with the dale as Benjie 
 himself. 
 
 Mondays and Fridays were Benjie's days at Rose- 
 roofs, and these days Miss Blundell set aside for complete 
 devotion to the object of her admiration. It was never 
 noticeable to her father that Benjie showed any par- 
 tiality to the child; the boot was entirely on the other 
 leg, and Cuckoo showered favors on the old man. She 
 gave him gooseberry turnovers to which she had herself 
 no legal right; she gave him a long piece of blue satin 
 
 51
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ribbon. With fervor she would kiss his earthy hands, 
 and she would sit literally for hours at a time on an 
 upturned flower-pot, watching him as he dawdled about 
 at his work. 
 
 "It is a pity, Robert," Miss Effie said once, "that 
 Cuckoo insists on being so much with Benjie Brigworthy. 
 He is an up-dale man and his language is quite un- 
 English." 
 
 "She seems to like it." 
 
 "That makes it worse." Miss Effie's mouth set tightly, 
 as she spread a tea-cake. "She is beginning to pretend 
 to have forgotten French. She called the ivy on the wall 
 'hvvan,' this morning, and when I told her 'ivy' or 'lierre,' 
 which is the French, she flatly refused to use either 
 word." 
 
 Blundell laughed. "She will stop when she has had 
 enough," he said. "Why she likes Benjie, the Lord only 
 knows. I don't like having him come 'twixt the wind and 
 my nobility, but apparently she enjoys his savor. She's 
 an odd imp." 
 
 There was a pause, during which Benjie was heard 
 to make a long and quite incomprehensible remark, to 
 which the child replied, obviously understanding it all, 
 with a singsong "Aye, Benjie." 
 
 Blundell burst out laughing at Miss Effie's frown of 
 disgust, but later, when he was alone with Miss Flora, 
 he reverted to the subject. 
 
 "I say, Flora," he began as she threaded her needle 
 with silk and took up her work. 
 
 "Yes, Bob." 
 
 "Do you mind Cuckoo's talking like old Ben?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed I do. It is a very ugly dialect, anii 
 not at all fitted for a little lady-girl." 
 
 "I see. Well, look here, if you really care about it 
 and want her to stop, you must bribe her. I dare not 
 
 52
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 tell Effie, but that is the truth; if you want her to stop, 
 you must bribe her." 
 
 Miss Flora's horror-filled eyes half amused, half 
 touched him. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, say you will give her something if she 
 will learn proper English." 
 
 "But that is a very bad precedent to establish, 
 Robert," spoke the ex-governess in Miss Flora. 
 
 "I know, but you will find it is the only way. It 
 always was she is not an ordinary child, Flora, and not 
 an easy one to manage." 
 
 "Then so much more must we strive," 
 
 "Strive as much as you like, but when she has set 
 her mind on anything as it is set on speaking like Benjie, 
 you will find the only way to detach her is to give her 
 something she likes even more than the thing itself." 
 
 "It's dreadful, Robert." 
 
 "Possibly, but it is true. Shall we prove it?" Miss 
 Flora gazed at him in visible distress, but said nothing. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he called in French, "come here a minute." 
 Then he added, "Have you that smelling thing, that 
 carbolic ball in the tartan box with you?" 
 
 Miss Flora produced the little oblong box in shining 
 Stuart plaid. It opened by a spring, and a little sponge, 
 dark with age and strongly impregnated with carbolic, 
 bobbed out at the end of a short cord. When Cuckoo 
 appeared, dragging a spade over the flagstones with a 
 hard, grating noise, her eyes at once fell on it and glowed 
 with the lust of possession. 
 
 "Donne" she said, holding out an earthy paw. 
 
 "Non, non," her father intervened, continuing in 
 French. 
 
 Miss Flora could not follow what he said, but at the 
 end of it, the child turned on her and demanded fiercely 
 in Benjie's best accent, "Is yon a lee?" 
 
 53
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Your papa does not tell lies," poor Miss Flora ex- 
 claimed, blushing afterwards at the "lee" she herself 
 had told, "of course it is true. What was it, Robert?" 
 
 He laughed. "Poor Flora! I told her that if she 
 would learn to speak English nicely and not use old Ben- 
 jie's language she did not even know it was supposed 
 to be English you would give her the carbolic ball." 
 
 "C*est v'aiy c'est v'ai, ma tante?" the child urged, her 
 eyes glued to the box. 
 
 Miss Flora nodded solemnly. 
 
 Cuckoo took the little box, pressed the spring, and 
 watched the bounce of the ball with a look of concentra- 
 tion unusual in one so young. Then, her eyes fixed on 
 Miss Flora, she raised the sponge to her nose and sniffed 
 it with ecstasy. 
 
 "Oo-ah!" she cried, crumpling her face and expelling 
 her breath in an audible sigh of rapture, "c'est bon." 
 
 The promise was then extracted from her to avoid 
 Benjie for a few days and try to learn proper English 
 from her aunts, to the end that she might come into pos- 
 session of the supreme treasure, as soon as it was seen 
 that she was really learning. 
 
 Miss Flora, the child's hand in hers, explained the 
 situation to the gardener, who spat on his palms, thereby 
 producing small bogs in them, and listened grimly. 
 
 "You know, Benjie," Miss Flora wound up, "you can 
 speak very nicely." His old face did not change; flat- 
 tery was without effect on Benjie Brigworthy and he 
 happened for no specific reason to dislike Miss Flora, 
 whom, one is regretful to state, he privately called what 
 is equivalent to an "old fool." "She is very little as 
 you know, Benjie," pursued Miss Flora, "and she must 
 learn English and I am sure you will help her by speaking 
 good English with her." 
 
 "Aw will not," the old man very unexpectedly re- 
 
 54
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 turned. "If she cooms, aw'll soon scare her away, making 
 faces at her," and by way of proving the possibility of 
 frightening the renegade in whose coat, so to speak, he 
 had not failed to see the metaphorical ribbon, he made 
 such a hideous grimace that Cuckoo gave a wild yell 
 and fled like a flash into the house. 
 
 Miss Flora stood indignant, too nonplussed to say more 
 to the villain of the piece, and went back to her chair, 
 where she found Blundell convulsed with laughter. 
 
 "I never knew him," she declared, "to do such a thing 
 before. And in my presence!" she exclaimed. 
 
 Meantime Cuckoo, in the kitchen, was partaking of an 
 illicit and solitary meal of stewed gooseberries, bread 
 and butter, and cream, the carbolic ball on the table 
 beside her. This heavy bribe was removed from her 
 by her Aunt Flora a little later and put on the mantel- 
 piece in the drawing-room, where it could be seen but 
 not reached by its admirer; and from that hour Cuckoo 
 Blundell began to learn English. 
 
 It was the old vicar, Dr. Loxley, who subsequently 
 discovered the source of the child's love for the old gar- 
 dener's dialect. 
 
 "I understand," the old gentleman said, as they all 
 sat at tea the day after his return from one of his book- 
 hunting expeditions to Edinburgh, "that the nurse who 
 took care of her was a peasant." 
 
 "Yes, she came from Vaubin, near Orange ; an excellent 
 woman." 
 
 "I see. Then, my idear Mr. Blundell, it is clear that 
 the child has in her intercourse with Benjie Brigworthy 
 the equivalent of the nurse's language to which she was 
 accustomed in France." 
 
 "But surely, dear Dr. Loxley," Miss Flora put in flut- 
 teringly, "Benjie does not speak in the least like a French 
 woman." 
 
 55
 
 THE BAG OP SAFFRON 
 
 "No, Flora, no; oh, no, no! No, not at all; but the 
 French woman spoke a homely dialect that no doubt 
 smacked of the earth, and you cannot deny that Benjie's 
 jargon also smacks of the earth," 
 
 "Benjie smacks of several things besides the earth," put 
 in Blundell lazily. 
 
 The vicar laughed. "Quite so, and even that might 
 be a comfort to a homesick child used to living among 
 peasants. It seems to me quite clear that the very rough- 
 ness and simplicity of Benjie's ugly dialect has been more 
 homelike to the little girl than, let us say, Miss Effie's 
 scholarly French." 
 
 Miss Erne's dark face took on an uncomfortable brick- 
 red as she bent over her knitting at this allusion to her 
 linguistic gift. Her belief in her French was one of the 
 dearest possessions of the lonely, oldening woman; an 
 illusion of her lost youth. She had been told in the old 
 days by the Binghams that her then newly-achieved 
 French was excellent as indeed it was compared with that 
 of the Binghams and she had believed it then and she 
 believed it still. 
 
 It gratified her to have this accomplishment praised 
 by Dr. Loxley, and as the talk went on, Miss Effie's mind 
 went back as it often did to the three years she had spent 
 in Angouleme, where she was La Meess to the children 
 of a rich wine merchant. How polite they had all been! 
 Adele, the little Blaise, with his soft cropped hair 
 like a mole's, and Anastasie, only three years old when La 
 Meess arrived. How kind they had all been to her, with 
 their supreme offering of carefully-boiled tea, and their 
 unsuccessfully-veiled relief at the smallness and unob- 
 trusiveness of her teeth ! 
 
 That rainy afternoon while the Vicar held forth, his 
 tea-cup pushed back so as to make more room on the 
 table for his fat, dimpled, white hands, Miss Effie was 
 
 56
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 back in Angouleme. How well she remembered it all! 
 How clearly she could see the streets, how distinctly she 
 could hear the voices of the children who were now mid- 
 dle-aged men and women ! She recalled one day that, as 
 less acute memories dimmed with time as dims an old 
 mirror, had for some reason, though not itself an impor- 
 tant day, kept all the keen edges of its first impression. 
 
 It had been a hot, drowsy August day and the streets 
 of the little city were as deserted, as somnolent, as only 
 the streets of southern cities can be. In the Rue St. 
 Gerome Miss Effie, then a quickly moving Miss Effie with 
 a voluminous green-and-white frock and a soup-plate hat, 
 apparently glued to her head so miraculous was its angle, 
 sat in the cool courtyard of her wine merchant's house, 
 talking to the concierge, Mere Michel her to whom 
 Blaise and Anastasie to the Meess's bewilderment invari- 
 ably referred as having lost her cat. Mere Michel with 
 her dark, wrinkled face and her thready old throat was, 
 had La Meess but known it, a kind of awful foreshadow- 
 ing of what she herself, then so self-confident in the 
 strength of her twenties, was one (lay to become. As 
 Mere Michel was that day in the sixties, to-day at the 
 end of the eighties was La Meess. But La Meess had 
 not known as she sat in the shade, while Mere Michel in 
 her rush-bottomed chair knitted in the flashing, clicking 
 way of French women. She whose day was just begin- 
 ning looked pityingly at her whose day was done. 
 
 "II est ires beau," La Meess declared, pressing her 
 engraved gold bracelet over the scalloped edge of one 
 of her short, green gloves, a Parisian gift from Madam 
 Duroy, "je vais prendre une promenade" 
 
 Mere Michel regarded her for a moment and then 
 dropped her bead-like old eyes on her knitting. 
 
 "Meess fait du progres" she declared, untruthfully 
 but with benevolent intention. So la Meess, very pleased, 
 
 57
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 went to "prendre her promenade." How hot it was! 
 The heat was indeed a delicately visible thing, hovering 
 in filmy mists over the baking cobble-stones; all the win- 
 dows were closed and striped awnings were lowered over 
 the shop fronts. Miss Effie loved the great heat, although 
 M. Duroy himself had condescended to warn her that it 
 was an act of the foolish folly to venture out in the 
 middle of the day. The ladies of France, he assured her, 
 in answer to her funny little Anglo-Frank protest, 
 allowed themeselves at that time two hours' retirement 
 en deshabille. 
 
 "C'est I'heure croquer les bonbons" the good man 
 added. 
 
 La Meess failed to see why the middle hours of the day 
 should be wholly dedicated to bonbons, but she said, as 
 in those days she always did say in return for remarks 
 she did not quite understand, "Out, oui, je vois" and went 
 away. 
 
 On that particular day, a day that out of so many for- 
 gotten ones had remained in her memory, so clear, so 
 unblurred, she had gone to the PlUce to change her book 
 at the Library and rested a few minutes in the warm old 
 shop that smelt of books and cheese, for the reason that 
 its neighbor on one side was a cheesemonger's. Then she 
 went to the Horloger's for Madam Duroy's watch, which 
 had undergone a minor operation there, and after post- 
 ing her home letter La Meess stopped at Chaquard's, and 
 sitting at a little marble table under the striped awning, 
 partook of a pineapple-ice. This was her passion, pine- 
 apple-ices served as only Chaquard served them, in little 
 colored glass cups. 
 
 Miss Effie was the only customer at that unusual time 
 of day and sat very stiff, very shy in the wilderness of 
 little green iron chairs and marble-topped tables, wishing 
 the two sleepy-looking waiters would not stare so. 
 
 58
 
 Poor Antoine, poor Hegesippe ! Of course they stared, 
 drowsy and warm as they were, at the singular Miss who 
 partook of ices at such an unheard-of hour. 
 
 That was in Miss EffiVs first summer at Angouleme. 
 She stayed on for three years and she learned French in a 
 way, for she set herself to learn it and her diligence was, 
 of course, rewarded. (The invariability of its reward is 
 indeed the only excuse for diligence, a very lazy man 
 once said to her, a remark of which she quite properly 
 disapproved.) 
 
 And during her three years in the pleasant, character- 
 istic old city, some delightful, a few painful, and one very 
 wonderful thing happened to her; this last actually a 
 proposal of marriage from Mr. Duroy's partner. But 
 when, as now, she could sit, her silence covered by the 
 chatter of other people, and undisturbed and unobserved 
 go back across the plain of her uneventful years, it was 
 that August day when she had eaten a pineapple-ice all 
 alone among the tables at Chaquard's, which seemed to 
 incorporate her experience in France. 
 
 Sometimes it had rained in Angouleme, and then all 
 the windows were shut and no one went out. A noisy 
 summer rain was pelting against the window of the dining- 
 room as Miss Effie reached this point of her little excur- 
 sion into the past, and through the west window near 
 which she sat, came the sound of the great ash tossing 
 its boughs in the wind. 
 
 "So he is coming home to-morrow." The Vicar was 
 filling his pipe as La Meess melted away and Miss Effie 
 looked up. 
 
 "Who is coming, Vicar?" she asked with great brisk- 
 ness ; "the tree is so noisy, I did not quite hear." 
 
 "George." The old man smiled at her as he struck a 
 match. "Of course he ought to have stayed on till the 
 
 59
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 first, but after all, one can get measles twice," 
 
 "Of course one can." Miss Effie rose, putting her 
 knitting into her work-bag. "Well, I'm glad he is com- 
 ing; I like George and I do not believe he is any too 
 strong. Why you sent him south I never could see, you 
 know, Vicar, when there were such good schools at home. 
 The poor child must miss the Air." Miss Effie always 
 spoke as if there was no air of any kind south of Leeds. 
 
 Blundell, who was lying on the brown leather sofa 
 between the two south windows, spoke, sitting up slowly. 
 
 "How old did you say your grandson was, Dr. Lox- 
 ley?" he asked hoarsely, clearing his throat, which had 
 been bad all day. 
 
 "He is nearly nine, but he doesn't look more than 
 seven; he has always been delicate. But you must hear 
 
 him sing you must hear him sing. It is like well ' 
 
 the old man broke off, "isn't it, Flora?" 
 
 "I don't want to hear him sing," Blundell interrupted. 
 "I can't stand boys' voices, they always make me cry." 
 
 Miss Flora looked at him. 
 
 "Oh, Bob!" 
 
 "It does the little brutes make one feel such, such 
 well, unfit to hear them, you know." 
 
 He laughed again but his poor voice, bracketed by the 
 two laughs, was not quite steady and the old clergyman, 
 who in his heart had always disliked him, spoke up a"t 
 once. 
 
 "I know what you mean, Blundell," 
 
 Robert Blundell in his turn knew what the old Vicar 
 ineant by thus, for the first time, dropping the "Mister."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 GEORGE LOXLEY turned out to be, to Blundell's 
 unexpressed satisfaction, a charming child, with 
 the rather old-fashioned manners that endear chil- 
 dren to people who fundamentally do not like them. 
 George was possessed of none of the restlessness which 
 makes sitting still an impossibility to most small boys, 
 nor was he beset by a thirst for stories. For some reason 
 he liked sitting in the shade with the sick man but he 
 talked little, and allowed Blundell, who was possessed of 
 an insatiable curiosity, to ask all the questions ; it is 
 pathetic to think that the dying man of the world, tended 
 and cared for by the two sisters in a way that no one 
 knew better than himself he did not deserve, actually 
 longed for the male child to come and sit by him, for the 
 reason that, although only nine, George was at least not 
 a kind and unselfish old woman. 
 
 His own ingratitude was patent to Blundell, but he 
 could not help being bored by Miss Effie and Miss Flora, 
 unobtrusive as they were, and often he even pretended 
 to be asleep when first one and then the other would 
 come quietly across the grass to take a look at him. 
 Their relief when his closed eyes and regular breathing 
 had deceived them, was quite visible to him through his 
 lashes, as they returned to the house, though he felt no 
 resentment at knowing that they regarded this as a duty 
 and not a pleasure. 
 
 When he chose to chain them for an hour or so to his 
 chariot-wheels, he could do it, he knew, by simply allow- 
 ing his indescribable but irresistible charm to work. He 
 
 61
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 had only to open the door of the cage and even Miss 
 Effie visibly softened towards him, whereas Miss Flora, 
 when Miss Effie was not by, would become less wraith- 
 like, less like a faded old goddess, and more like a flesh 
 and blood woman than at other times. The bird, he knew, 
 could sing her mind into subjection, but he always whistled 
 it back to its cage very soon. Its voice tired him nowa- 
 days, and its tricks brought him no happiness even for 
 the moment, and as time went on the dear things bored 
 him more and more, and no one knew how strongly the 
 old lover of women, the heart-eater of a few years before, 
 longed for the society of men. Almost any man on earth 
 could he have welcomed with enthusiasm, during those 
 quiet last days of his life. 
 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora, into whose peaceful home he 
 had for a second time intruded, never dreamt of what he 
 wanted. They very naturally did not know that men of 
 his type always, when not directly engaged in the pleasures 
 of the chase, do want the society of men. What is called 
 a woman-lover has little use for the company of plain, 
 old, or impregnably virtuous women, however intelligent 
 and delightful to other men these women may be; and 
 Blundell lay in his chair a little less alive, a little more 
 dead, every twenty-four hours, waiting for the Vicar, 
 the old bookworm who disliked him, and the nine-year-old 
 George, whose one value to the invalid was that he was 
 not a female child. 
 
 The Vicar, kind man, vaguely felt that for some reason 
 poor Blundell enjoyed his reluctant visits, and nearly 
 every day he would leave his beloved study and cross the 
 stepping-stones and trot up the winding path from Widdy- 
 bank to sit for an hour with his friends' guest. Ironic- 
 ally, it pleased Blundell to read the old man's mind, and 
 to know at what a sacrifice of his own comfort he was 
 [there. From the moment that the well-pressed black hat 
 
 62
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 appeared over the wall to the westward, to that when the 
 whole Vicar became visible beyond the gate, Blundell 
 felt a wicked, amused sense of power. 
 
 "He doesn't want to come, poor old beggar," he would 
 reflect, and at the back of his mind there lay the uncon- 
 scious feeling "they have always done it, all of them, and 
 they do it even now." 
 
 But he was not all malice, any more than anyone is all 
 anything, and very soon he would find himself half inno- 
 cently opening the door of his cage, and half unconsciously 
 using his charm. Sometimes he would talk of books, of 
 which he knew little, but in this pleasant field of con- 
 versation the old man could almost roll like a horse turned 
 
 | 
 
 out to grass. 
 
 One evening, when August was at its beginninr-, Blun- 
 dell, really touched by his old visitor's look of fatigue, 
 opened his cage and deliberately let the bird out. The 
 old man had toiled up the hill in the heat and he must be 
 rewarded, but the bird, poor creature, was not the bird 
 of its prime: its once lustrous plumage had thinnea and 
 dulled; its wing-power was nearly gone; its whistle was 
 feeble and hoarse. However, it could still hop about and 
 deploy its graces, and the Vicar fell to it at once. Quite 
 suddenly he felt that after all he must have been too hard 
 on the poor fellow, and all his life the minute Robert 
 Blundell arrived at being called "the poor fellow" by 
 a disapprover, the disapprover's doom, as such, was 
 sealed. 
 
 The old man never could remember what it was that 
 the poor fellow said on that occasion, but henceforth he 
 really liked him, and when the not distant day came that 
 he stood at his grave, reading the burial service over him, 
 tears rolled down the old man's cheeks, sincere tears. 
 
 This, however, is not yet. It was a fine afternoon and 
 their shade-pursuing course had led them to the jut of 
 
 63
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the house on the east side, just outside the low, white 
 paling of the kitchen garden. 
 
 The garden was full of golden and red flowers now, and 
 even the highest fields on the hill, those just under the 
 naked moors, were shorn of their hay and only pale 
 stretches of yellow showed where it had been. On the 
 green outside the garden gate, George and Cuckoo were 
 playing at some quiet game such as the boy loved. 
 
 Blundell could see their two heads, George's small and 
 mouse-colored, Cuckoo's black and rough, as they moved 
 in their play. 
 
 "George loves Cuckoo," the Vicar said presently, bent, 
 in the fervor of his "poor fellow" mood, on making 
 Blundell happy. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose he will fall in love with her later." 
 
 "Good gracious ! my dear Blundell, why should he ?" 
 
 "Why shouldn't he? unless he is not here when she is 
 the right age." After a moment the father, who gleaned 
 much amused satisfaction from his observations of the 
 bird as it so mildly devastated the garden of th'e Vicar's 
 dislike of him, laughed gently. 
 
 "I suppose even you men of God know that at a certain 
 age young men must fall in love with somebody," and 
 every word of this speech seemed full of charm, even now 
 was the bird's power so great. 
 
 The Vicar nodded. "Of course, of course," he mur- 
 mured, "nature you know, nature," 
 
 "Exactly, well, that is what I mean. If George is 
 here when Cuckoo is say, seventeen, and he has not fallen 
 in love with some woman of thirty before then, she will 
 try her young spurs on him and," he added, sitting up 
 suddenly and breaking into a fit of coughing, "she will 
 slash him!" 
 
 There was a little pause until the coughing fit was over, 
 and then, the sun having found them out the sun seemed, 
 
 64
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Blundell complained, to pursue him with a kind of malig- 
 nance the Vicar called Esther Oughtenshaw, and the 
 little caravan moved to the next oasis ; back to the south, 
 outside the dining-room window where the elm's thick 
 shade still lay unblemished on the grass. 
 
 They were still sitting here, the Vicar telling his new 
 friend all about the last book sale he had attejided and 
 at which he had spent far too much money, Blundell 
 listening half asleep. The sound of the children's voices 
 reached him now and then, or a few bars of a hymn from 
 Esther in the kitchen. 
 
 A bird was singing below in the dale; Blundell won- 
 dered if it was a lark; he wondered if the nightingale 
 still sang in the trees of the little house at Avignon; he 
 wondered why peacocks had such horrible voices he was 
 asleep. 
 
 When Miss Flora came springing round the corner, 
 wringing her hands with excitement, her eyes luminous 
 with what appeared to be a mixture of anguish and joy, 
 he woke with a start. 
 
 "Oh, Robert! oh, dear Vicar! do come into the draw- 
 ing-room ! He is at the foot of the steep bit already, and 
 will be here in a moment and we have not a drop of 
 wine except your port, Robert! Esther is washing, and 
 there is only cold mutton for supper," 
 
 Blundell rubbed his eyes and stared at her in despair. 
 He had never seen her so excited before, but it was evident 
 that Doctor Loxley was less unused to such manifesta- 
 tions. 
 
 "My dear Flora," the old gentleman said firmly, rising 
 and looking at her through the gold-rimmed glasses 
 without which he would have looked, to the village in 
 general, as unsuitable for public view as he would have 
 looked in his nightshirt, "my dear Flora, who is coming?" 
 
 Miss Flora stopped short in her hand-wringing and 
 
 65
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 fluttering, and answered quietly, "Sir Peregrine Jane- 
 ways." 
 
 Blundell stared. "Janeways! Nonsense. Flora, what 
 on earth should Pelly Janeways be doing in this God- 
 forsaken I mean to say," 
 
 But Miss Flora had not even heard him. She was 
 explaining to the Vicar that they must make haste if 
 they were to be politely seated in the drawing-room in 
 time. 
 
 Dr. Loxley straightened his tie and drew his fat hand 
 over his bald head. 
 
 "But we do not want to be in the drawing-room," he 
 explained ; "if Sir Peregrine wishes to see you ladies, you 
 can see him there, of course. If he has come to see 
 in part Blundell he will come out here where Blundell 
 is. What," he added oratorically, waving his hand in a 
 way that would have adorned any pulpit, "could be 
 nicer?" 
 
 Miss Flora, who was in her shabbiest frock, glided away 
 with incredible speed, and the Vicar called out to Esther 
 to bring more chairs. Then he sat down. 
 
 "I didn't know Sir Peregrine Janeways was at home," 
 he observed calmly. 
 
 "At home?" A dark flush had come into Blundell's 
 hollow cheeks, and was spreading up over his cheek bones. 
 "What do you mean by at home?" 
 
 The irritability of extreme nervousness jarred in his 
 voice ; it infuriated him, this talk of which he could make 
 nothing. 
 
 "His home the Janeways' place is only twelve miles 
 from here," the Vicar explained mildly. "Didn't you 
 know ? And do you know Janeways ?'* 
 
 "I have known Sir Peregrine Janeways for years," 
 Blundell answered excitedly, "although he is a good bit 
 older than I am. My dear Vicar, we have heard the 
 
 66
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 chimes at midnight together many a time in Paris and 
 Italy! Do I know the Magnificent!" 
 
 After a movement, he went on. "I wish I'd known he 
 was near I'd have had some one to talk to." The bird 
 was indeed back in his cage. 
 
 The Vicar, however, did not mind, and a moment 
 later a horse was heard off to their right, coming up the 
 road from the dale. 
 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora, without a word on the sub- 
 ject of dress, had with an almost miraculous rapidity 
 changed into garments worthy of the occasion and were 
 sitting in stately silence in the drawing-room when their 
 caller was announced by Esther Oughtenshaw. 
 
 "Ah, Miss Effie Miss Flora I am only just back, 
 and thought I could do not better this fine day than ride 
 over and look up my old friends" 
 
 Beautifully attired in riding clothes of exactly the right 
 idegree of shabbiness, healthy, sunburnt, white-teethed, 
 jovial, Sir Peregrine Janeways came into the old room 
 like a fine high wind. The ladies shook hands with their 
 neighbor and established him in a chair which the next 
 minute he had left, going to stand with his rather short 
 legs far apart, his huge shoulders completely blocking 
 out the ornaments on the mantelpiece. 
 
 He had just come from Deauville whither he was re- 
 turning very shortly to attend to some business about 
 which Dewhurst, his steward, had been tormenting the 
 life out of him for months. Nothing but the dust of the 
 grave, he told them, could ever stop Dewhurst's mouth. 
 
 He had heard that Bob Blundell was staying at Rose- 
 roofs, so he thought he might see him as well Bob was 
 an old friend of his. 
 
 "Is it true that he is seedy, Miss Effie?" 
 
 Miss Effie bowed stiffly, and it was Miss Flora who 
 gave the sad details. 
 
 67
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Sir Peregrine was visibly shocked. "Dear me, dear 
 me," he kept murmuring, "poor fellow! dear me is he 
 really upon my soul I never knew a word of it all! 
 Dewhurst told me" 
 
 Then he asked about the health of the ladies and told 
 them that they both looked delightful, and that though 
 he did not often come to Roseroofs, he never forgot the 
 dear old house and the happy hours he had passed there 
 in his youth. . . . 
 
 Presently Miss Effie suggested that they should sojourn 
 to the garden. 
 
 "Garden?" 
 
 "Robert is there, under a tree," 
 
 "Oh, is he, that's good oh, well, if he is in the garden 
 he cannot be so ill as you fear, Miss Effie. Ladies are 
 always so easily alarmed," he said with his odd little 
 regency air that fitted so well with his grizzled hair and his 
 unconscious, graceful bows. "Ladies are always nervous." 1 
 
 But when he had followed her through the window 
 and down the path to where the chairs stood, his musical, 
 cheerful voice faltered. Miss Flora, who had gone to 
 the blue-room where Cuckoo slept, over the dining-room, 
 and who stood at the window, saw the swift change that 
 came over his face as he took off his hat to the Vicar 
 and approached the two men. 
 
 Miss Flora watched the little scene for a moment and 
 then withdrew from the window. 
 
 After a while Esther Oughtenshaw knocked at the door 
 and on being told to come in, did so. 
 
 "Miss Flossie, dear," she said, straightening a picture 
 on the wall, "they want you." 
 
 "They want me?" 
 
 Miss Flora, who was busily soaping her hands, plunged 
 them into the water and then shook the wet from them, 
 before reaching for a towel. 
 
 68
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Aye, Miss Effie sent me. Sir Peregrine is going to 
 stay for dinner." 
 
 Miss Flora laughed. "Ah, that will be delightful, 
 Esther such a very old friend as Sir Peregrine but 
 why did you call me Miss Flossie?" 
 
 Esther Oughtenshaw turned to the door. "Aw doant 
 kna-aw, Miss Flora," she answered, "it just ca-ame to 
 me; perhaps it was seeing Sir Peregrine again. In fold 
 days, when he used to come, the mistress was still here, 
 calling you Flossie," 
 
 Miss Flora laughed softly. "Yes, she always did, dear 
 mother. She liked Sir Peregrine too. Do you remember 
 the books he used to bring Effie to read, French 
 books?" 
 
 "Oh, aye, ah mind, but coom along down, Miss Flora," 
 the old servant reminded her. "They're waiting an 5 
 all," 
 
 It was only half-past six, and for a long time the 
 little party sat under the big tree. The wind had changed, 
 and the sun was going soberly down the sky, like an old 
 lady wrapping herself in a soft, gray, Shetland shawl. 
 The talk, animated at first, grew quieter little by 
 little. 
 
 And presentfy the Vicar made his adieux, and then 
 Miss Effie, bound to her duty by her knowledge of French, 
 rose without a word and went to retrieve the sure-to-be- 
 errant Cuckoo and put her to bed. The remaining three 
 sat in silence for a while, Peregrine Janeways' splendid 
 dark eyes full of pity as they rested on the invalid, a 
 new look of discontent and something like fright on 
 Blundell's face. 
 
 It was clear that Blundell was thinking that it was 
 one thing to die in the presence of two pathetic, kind, 
 old women, who would before long themselves be doing 
 the same thing, but quite another to be dying under 
 
 69
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the pitying gaze of Peregrine Janeways, a man some 
 five or six years older than himself, but still in all the 
 splendor of his health and the full enjoyment of every 
 moment of his life. 
 
 "Rotten luck, isn't it?" he broke out irrepressibly once, 
 as their eyes met, and Janeways made no pretense of not 
 understanding. 
 
 "Damnable!" he answered tersely, forgetting Miss 
 Flora, who had drawn her, chair a little to one side and 
 who was gazing at the place where the sunset was going 
 on in magnificent privacy. 
 
 "I can't you no doubt you have tried everything, 
 seen everybody?" 
 
 Blundell nodded fiercely. "My dear fellow, I have prac- 
 tically no lung left at all. They sent me back here from 
 Switzerland, and you know what that means." 
 
 Janeways bit his lip : "I can't tell you how sorry I am." 
 
 There was no answer to this, and a moment's silence 
 fell, broken by the older man's bursting out, "But tell 
 me, Bob, my dear fellow, how did you ever happen to come 
 here? Dewhurst my agent, you know told me, but I 
 could hardly believe it was you. What have you to do 
 with this part of the world?" 
 
 Blundell forced his pale lips to smile, but it was Miss 
 Flora, guiltily conscious of her own social defects, who 
 said, bursting into the conversation and turning her little 
 back to the west with great resolution: 
 
 "Of course dear Robert came here, Peregrine! You 
 see, his wife was our sister." 
 
 Janeways' dark face, full of surprise, gazed at her. 
 
 "His wife ! I never knew you were married, Blundell !" 
 and then at the look in Miss Flora's eyes, he wished 
 with fervor that he had never been born. "I knew, of 
 course, that May had married, but I never dreamt that 
 you were her husband!" 
 
 70
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Blundell broke into a hoarse laugh of sheer amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 "No, I daresay you didn't. We went to Italy first 
 and then, in Paris my wife was very quiet and did not 
 like going out ; besides," he murmured maliciously, "I was 
 not likely to introduce you to my domestic circle, you old 
 reprobate! The wonder is that any man ever tells you 
 he is married," 
 
 Miss Flora rose, her delicate face of that white whicH 
 in some people shows extreme agitation. "Robert!" she 
 cried, almost in a whisper. 
 
 Janeways had risen too, and he too was white, as if 
 the pallor of poor Miss Flora's face were reflected in his. 
 
 "Don't be an ass, Blundell," he said shortly, adding 
 in an amusingly different voice, "He is trying to frighten 
 you, Flora." 
 
 But she had seen that he was angry, and his anger 
 quieted and soothed hers. 
 
 "He is a great tease," she said with a flutter in her 
 voice, "but I understand him. Yes, he married our dear 
 sister May. She was much younger," she added with 
 dignity, "than Effie and me ; she died four years ago ; so 
 of course Robert came to us. We are greatly enjoying 
 his visit." And after this masterpiece of social diplomacy 
 she glided away in her most Miss Flora-like manner, into 
 the house. 
 
 The two men looked at each other and presently Jane- 
 ways spoke. 
 
 "You are a swine, Blundell," he said, "to hurt her 
 I am a villain if you like but I would die rather than hurt 
 that poor soul. You are a brute !" 
 
 Blundell coughed. "I am sorry, truly sorry, Pelly 
 she is a little old faded angel, like a little old faded fresco, 
 and I am sorry." Then he added maliciously, closing 
 his eyes, "How's Mrs. Browning?" 
 
 71
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 The other man's dark face did not change. "Very 
 well, thanks," he said. 
 
 Then Esther Oughtenshaw rang the gong the gong 
 had came from Burmah a hundred years ago and he 
 was obliged to help Blundell out of his chair and give him 
 his arm to the house. 
 
 Blundell leaned on him heavily, but said with the blank 
 lack of gratitude that sometimes characterized him, "Your 
 sympathy with Flora is so striking, it occurs to me that 
 Mrs. Browning's mother and sisters possibly do not come 
 under the category of 'poor souls ?' } 
 
 He was a little taller than Janeways, but he was so 
 obviously dying, his every weakness was so apparent, 
 that Janeways looked far the bigger as well as, in spite 
 of his gray hair, the younger man, and it struck Jane- 
 ways himself, angry though he was, that the fellow un- 
 doubtedly had courage to dare to speak to him in this 
 way. 
 
 "I wish you were well, Bob," he said, almost lifting 
 the sick man up the step into the drawing-room. "If 
 you were, I should pretty nearly have killed you for 
 that." 
 
 "Yes, you would it would be just like you. 'Is it 
 possible he can know what he is,' " Blundell quoted softly, 
 " 'and yet be what he is?' Just raise your arm a little," 
 he added, in an undisturbed voice, "and then I can lean 
 on you better." 
 
 Two hours later, as Sir Peregrine Janeways left Rose- 
 roofs, he stumbled, on issuing from the gate on to the 
 green where Esther Oughtenshaw had tethered his horse, 
 over a bundle lying on the grass. 
 
 Miss Effie, who, in default of a host, had accompanied 
 her guest thus far on his way, gave a little scream. 
 
 "Cuckoo !" she cried sharply, "you naughty child, what 
 are you doing there in your nightgown?" 
 
 72
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo had come, it appeared, to see the horse ; Esther 
 had told her about the horse, and of course she was in 
 her nightgown, considering that she had come straight 
 from her bed. 
 
 The child's logical explanation of her appearance 
 amused and pleased Janeways. He set her on his horse 
 and led the animal up and down for a few minutes. 
 
 "Like it?" he asked as he at last put her back into 
 Miss Effie's arms. 
 
 She nodded, "Aye." 
 
 After a moment she added in French, "Will you give 
 it to me? I want it." 
 
 "For shame, Cuckoo!" 
 
 Poor Miss Effie was really distressed, but Janeways 
 explained to the child that while he could not give her 
 Black-eyed Susan, as he needed that lady as a means to 
 get him home, yet he might one day, if she was a good 
 girl, give her a pony. 
 
 "Parole d'lionneur?" she asked. 
 
 "Parole d'honneur." 
 
 He said good-bye to Miss Effie, shook hands quite as 
 gravely with the child, and rode off. 
 
 At the corner of the wall where the road turried down 
 towards the dale, he pulled up and called out in French, 
 "By the way, my little cabbage, what's your name?" and 
 shrilly came back the answer: 
 
 "Cuckoo B'undell!" 
 
 As Black-eyed Susan, with the delicacy of Agag, felt 
 her way down the dark road, Janeways spoke aloud to 
 himself. 
 
 "So that's it," he said, adding with a little chuckle, 
 "Well, I'm damned!"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WIDDYBANK village and the church lay about 
 three miles up dale from Warcop. The 
 church was a small one, very ancient, with in- 
 controvertible signs of having been built while men who 
 had seen the Conqueror were still living, although the 
 greater part of it had been reconstructed towards the 
 end of the thirteenth century. The font bore the date of 
 1592, and on the old gravestones in -the nave were dates 
 as far back as 1390. The churchyard, too, was so closely 
 packed with what Cuckoo, aged ten, once called "eternal 
 resters," that fifty years before her birth the so-called 
 new churchyard had to be enclosed and consecrated, and 
 was now the one in general use. 
 
 It was, however, in the old churchyard that the Rev- 
 erend Arthur Rose Loxley stood one day in March, 
 nearly three years after the arrival at Roseroofs of 
 Robert Blundell and his daughter, reading the service 
 for the burial of the dead over the man whose friend he 
 so unexpectedly had become. 
 
 Blundell, after a series of ups and downs, some of the 
 ups so vigorous as to seem almost miraculous, some of 
 the downs so deep as to have made everyone who saw 
 them convinced that there could be no subsequent mount, 
 had finally died very suddenly three days before. 
 
 The Vicar had been at Roseroofs in the afternoon and 
 in the evening George had come home white-lipped, to 
 tell his grandfather that Mr. Blundell was dead, and the 
 
 74
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 two had climbed the path together, hand in hand, to see 
 the ladies. 
 
 Miss Effie they had found very calm, though worn and 
 weary, but Miss Flora's nerves had given way and she was 
 crying bitterly. 
 
 When she could do so without being conspicuous, Miss 
 Effie drew the old Vicar into the study, a room that the 
 coming of his first winter there had naturally dedicated to 
 poor Blundell, and here among the dead man's personal 
 belongings his silver cigarette-box, his case full of books, 
 his photographs, his walking-sticks and his long-unused 
 pipes Miss Effie button-holed her friend, who was mourn- 
 ing what he called Miss Flora's lack of self-control, and 
 told him a little ancient history. 
 
 "You mustn't blame Flora," Miss Effie said fiercely, her 
 hot, dry eyes gazing at him in the gloom, "she can't help 
 it." 
 
 "I know that, my dear Effie, but she will make herself 
 ill with crying. Her hands are like ice and she is weak 
 with tears." 
 
 "Let her be," declared Miss Effie with an odd break 
 in her voice and almost, the old man thought, with sacra- 
 mental solemnity. "Vicar, you are older than we. You 
 could have christened us if you had been here ten years 
 sooner, you knew our father and mother " 
 
 A dry sobbing broke the flow of her words, and the 
 kind old man took her hot hands and held them 
 gently. 
 
 "Of course, my dear, I am the oldest and I hope the 
 closest friend you have in the world. Tell me what it is 
 that is so troubling you." 
 
 Of all the habits on earth, the habit of inborn, culti- 
 vated, Northern reserve is the hardest to break, and the 
 Vicar knew how Miss Effie's struggle was hurting her. 
 
 "Tell me, my dear, tell me," he kept repeating, as they 
 
 75
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 stood by the window in the dim evening light of the raw 
 Spring day. 
 
 And finally, while the sound of Miss Flora's unre- 
 strained grief reached them for a moment as someone, 
 probably Esther Oughtenshaw, opened the drawing-room 
 door, Miss Erne spoke. 
 
 "The trouble was," she said, her strong bony hands 
 hurting the Vicar's soft, fat ones as she squeezed them, 
 "that although poor Robert married May poor May 
 Flora always cared for him, and now she is, of course, 
 heart-broken." 
 
 The Vicar had never dreamed of such a thing and said 
 
 80. 
 
 "Are you sure, my dear?" he asked, and Miss Effie 
 answered that she was sure. 
 
 "I have always known, Vicar, though she thinks I do 
 not, and though she cries so dreadfully now, she won't 
 allow me to say a word to her ; oh, if you could have seen 
 her last night he was dying all last night. Oh, Dr. Lox- 
 ley ! why," the tortured woman cried, breaking off, "must 
 it take people so long to die? First Father a fortnight 
 of death agony he had then Mother ; you remember how 
 she used to sit up in bed and try to breathe, and tried to 
 make us think that it didn't hurt ? and now poor Bob ! 
 It was frightful he was whiter than the pillows all but 
 his poor, damp hair; and his hands his hands were wet 
 all night. He kept drying them on the sheet, but they 
 were always wet. And Flora, poor, poor Flora she kept 
 going out of the room; over and over again she would 
 creep out you know how soft-footed she is well, she 
 was as silent as a ghost, and kept going out, and then 
 I would find her crying and bring her back." 
 
 "I know, I know, but that, dear Effie was last night," 
 the old man returned ; "this, by God's goodness, is another 
 night; a new one. Look!" 
 
 76
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Through the lustrous dimness of the dove-colored sky 
 came a pale, flickering light, and there, hooked as it 
 seemed to the edge of a cloud, hung the little, bright, new 
 moon. 
 
 Miss Effie grasped the old man's lesson in silence, and 
 for a moment they stood side by side, looking up. 
 
 "And why have you told me," he said presently, "about 
 our poor Flora?" 
 
 Miss Effie drew back. "Because," she answered, in a 
 low, strained voice, "I cannot bear it any longer I can- 
 not bear seeing her cry like that, and I thought perhaps 
 you might be able to say something, something to com- 
 fort her " 
 
 "Shall I go to her now?" the Vicar asked simply, for 
 they both belonged to an age when death or sorrow of any 
 kind naturally expected comfort from a clergyman. 
 
 Miss Effie nodded. "Yes," she said at last, "try to 
 comfort her; but oh, Vicar, never tell her I told you." 
 
 He patted her poor, hot hands. 
 
 "Of course not, of course not, Miss Effie, and you were 
 right to tell me, for my knowing may help me to console 
 her," he answered, with the fine simplicity of his school. 
 
 He was about to leave the room when she called him 
 back. 
 
 "Oh, Vicar, he wants wanted Robert, I mean to 
 have George sing at his grave." 
 
 The old man stared, the door in his hand. "Sing at 
 his grave ? That's a very odd idea." 
 
 "I know, but you know how he has loved George's 
 singing, ever since that first Christmas Eve and only 
 yesterday he sent for him to sing outside his door (he 
 would not let him come in lest his looks might alarm the 
 child) and George sang, 'Hark, hark, my soul' oh, Vicar ! 
 
 it was ," the poor lady's composure gave way and 
 
 she hid her face in her hands. 
 
 77
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 When she looked up she was alone in the room; the 
 Vicar was gone. He could face Miss Flora's tears but 
 not Miss Effie's. He stayed an hour with Miss Flora in 
 the pale drawing-room where the snowdrops still drooped 
 that he himself had brought Blundell only two days be- 
 fore. They were faded now, but no one had remembered to 
 throw them away. Miss Flora no longer cried; she was 
 tired out, and presently she tried to eat a little supper, 
 brought to her by Esther Oughtenshaw. 
 
 To the Vicar's sorrow and mild resentment his kind 
 platitudes on the subjects of death and resurrection were 
 met with polite lack of enthusiasm by the poor lady hang- 
 ing limply over the tray. 
 
 "It is very good of you very kind," she kept saying, 
 but that was all, and he resumed : "It is, after all, sad as 
 it is, only to be expected for a man with so little lung 
 left " 
 
 To his dismay Miss Flora gave a little, high laugh at 
 this. 
 
 "I know of course we all knew," she answered, "but 
 oh, well, Vicar, I cannot explain, but I had a very spe- 
 cial reason for crying in that horrible way. It wasn't 
 only that I couldn't help it ; I had a real reason " 
 
 "Perhaps I know your reason, my dear Flora," he be- 
 gan, but stopped at the look in her face. There was there 
 horror, and shame, and a kind of fear. 
 
 "No, oh, no," she cried, setting her tea cup down with 
 a little crash that sent part of its contents slopping into 
 the saucer, "you cannot know no one knows," she added, 
 sitting bolt upright and speaking with an earnest fierceness 
 that almost alarmed the old man. "No one shall know." 
 
 And then quite suddenly, with a complete change of 
 tone, as if she regretted her vehemence and wished to 
 destroy his memory of it, she asked him quietly if George 
 might sing at Blundell's burial. 
 
 78
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I don't don't know," he replied slowly; "it is a 
 thing I have never seen done, and it will look very odd. 
 Besides, the boy is so delicate, so nervous, I prefer to 
 avoid exciting things for him " 
 
 But Miss Flora to his surprise insisted; gently yet 
 authoritatively she insisted, and finally he gave in, on the 
 condition that the boy himself was not afraid of doing 
 it. 
 
 "I will ask him," he suggested, rising, but it was Miss 
 Flora who went into the garden and found George sit- 
 ting on the low wall watching the moon, and asked 
 him. 
 
 Miss Effie, from her room, which was over the study, 
 watched them talking, and the Vicar saw them from the 
 drawing-room; little George's pointed chin and long 
 nose outlined against the growing light of the moon, Miss 
 Flora, her damp handkerchief still being dabbed occa- 
 sionally to her eyes, standing by him. At last Miss 
 Flora stooped in her irresolute, fluttering way, and kiss- 
 ing George's cheek hastily, walked back to the house, while 
 the twelve-year-old boy, apparently neither insulted nor 
 embarrassed by the kiss, again clasped his thin knees with 
 his arms and went on looking at the sky. 
 
 And now the last words of the service were said. The 
 Vicar wiped his eyes, and the small group of people round 
 the open grave drew back a little and waited. There was 
 Esther Oughtenshaw, holding the eight-year-old Cuckoo 
 a crow-hued Cuckoo it was by the hand, old Benjie 
 Brigworthy in his best clothes, Dr. Hawes, Henry Pike, 
 the sexton, and Sir Peregrine Janeways, who had come 
 quite unexpectedly, having just heard of the death, and 
 stopped over a train in order to pay this last compliment 
 to his old crony. 
 
 The Vicar watched the heavily-built figure as it stood 
 
 79
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 back in the shade of the church and was gratified, in an 
 impersonal way, for Roseroofs. 
 
 Presently Janeways, after a little pause, crossed the 
 spongy grass and came to the grave. 
 
 "Will you kindly tell the ladies that I came," he said, 
 in the undertone proper to the presence of those whom no 
 noise can disturb, "and give them my kindest re- 
 gards? I must be off or I shall miss my train at Mid- 
 dleton." 
 
 And he did miss his train at Middleton for, as he spoke, 
 little George Loxley, in his ill-fitting surplice, opened his 
 mouth and began to sing. 
 
 It was poor Blundell's best-loved hymn, "Hark, hark, 
 my soul," and after a start that amazed himself, Jane- 
 ways stood listening, as motionless as if his tan-colored 
 raincoat had been cut out of stone and he himself one of 
 the long-dead Herberts of Wiske in the old church. Never 
 as long as he lived was he to forget the scene. 
 
 His nerves were more keenly edged than usual, that 
 day, for his appearance there in the consecrated place 
 was, as he put it to himself, sandwiched between two very 
 different engagements. He was in his usual position of 
 being not quite off with an old love before he was satis- 
 factorily on with a new, and the past morning had held 
 for him an unpleasantly painful interview, while the 
 coming evening was, he knew, to hold for him an inter- 
 view as poignant, as dramatic, though far less unpleas- 
 ant. 
 
 Also, in spite of the life he lived, the man had a sense of 
 the beautiful that was a little too keen for him to have 
 heard, in this quiet place, the words of the burial service 
 with a perfectly easy conscience. 
 
 "Poor old Bob," he had told himself, and with perfect 
 truth, while the Vicar read the beautiful words, "would 
 not have minded. He was just as bad oh, yes, quite as 
 
 SO
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 bad as I am." And yet he himself had minded. He had 
 almost wished he had not come. 
 
 And now, as if rooted to the wet grass by the sound of 
 the boy's voice, poor Pelly Janeways minded more and 
 more every minute. Exactly in front of him in the shade 
 of the ancient, ivy-covered church stood little George 
 Loxley, his mouse-colored head thrown back, his red mouth 
 as wide open as if he had been a hungry young bird, his 
 pointed chin quivering as he sang. 
 
 To the left stood the little group of mourners, and off 
 Janeways' right, outside the double row of fine ash-trees 
 that grew round the churchyard, was the Vicarage, its lit- 
 tle windows hung with freshly-washed muslin curtains. 
 The Vicarage stood a few feet higher than the church, so 
 that the drawing-room windows were visible behind the 
 leafless lilac and laburnums in the garden, and at the 
 drawing-room windows he saw two white blurs which he 
 knew must be the faces of Miss Effie and Miss Flora. 
 
 "Hark, hark, my soul, angelic songs are swelling 
 O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore," 
 
 sang the boy. His was one of the exquisite, soul-shaking 
 boy sopranos that so rarely develop into good men's 
 voices. It had a quality that cannot possibly be described 
 but that fortunately most people know, the quality called 
 bird-like, though no bird's voice ever made people cry, 
 whereas this particular boy's voice draws tears as inno- 
 cently and inevitably as sunshine draws scent from roses. 
 Possibly, too, George Loxley's physical delicacy lent 
 an added element of pathos to his voice, for he was twelve, 
 and at twelve most boys' voices have lost what for want 
 of a better name one calls the angelic quality. He was a 
 simple, fragile child, no more nervous at doing this un- 
 usual thing than if he had been six and, as he sang, un- 
 
 81
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 accompanied, his voice grew in sweetness and poignancy 
 until he was almost unbearable. He had pitched it 
 a tone too high as well, and at the last, when he reached 
 the words, "Singing to welcome," the little quiver by which 
 he reached by innocent straining the high note was like a 
 knife in the heart of at least one of his hearers. Janeways, 
 always a shamelessly emotional man, wiped his eyes 
 without reserve, and glancing at the Vicarage saw that 
 two windows were now open and that a lady sat in each. 
 One of the sisters had gone upstairs, either the better to 
 see or to be alone. 
 
 As the last note of the hymn died away, Janeways 
 turned to the Vicar. "I never," he said simply, "heard 
 anything like that." 
 
 The old man nodded. "Yes, I cannot bear it some- 
 times myself. Will you drink a glass of wine with me 
 before you go? The ladies are there " 
 
 Everyone had gone now, except old Pike and Esther 
 Oughtenshaw and the child, who were walking slowly to- 
 wards the Vicarage. 
 
 Janeways shook his head. "No, thanks, I have missed 
 my train and shall have to get on the best way I can to 
 York. I have an engagement " 
 
 The two men shook hands, and Janeways had gone 
 half-way down the damp, flagged path to the front of the 
 church where his horse stood, when something small and 
 black attacked him flank-wise and Cuckoo looked up at him 
 in triumph. 
 
 "It is, Esther," she cried. "It is, aren't you?" she in- 
 sisted, clutching his hand. 
 
 "That depends on what you said I was." 
 
 "Oh, sir, please excuse her," Esther Oughtenshaw broke 
 in. "It is only some nonsense about a horse. I told her 
 it was unseemly talk in a churchyard, but there's nowt 
 to be done with her." 
 
 82
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo did not seem to have grown much in the three 
 years since he had seen her he had been out of England 
 most of the time but she was strikingly like her father, 
 with the jut of her little jaw and the curve of her little 
 nose. 
 
 "Come along, Cuckoo," the old servant urged, dragging 
 at her charge's arm. Cuckoo turned on her fiercely. 
 
 "Go away, Esther Oughtenshaw, this is my father's 
 friend; aren't you?" she added, taking Janeways' hand. 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course I was," he agreed, although he had 
 in truth never regarded poor Blundell as more than an 
 excellent occasional boon companion, "but you must go 
 to your aunts now." 
 
 He was puzzled and a little shocked at the child's man- 
 ner, and he wondered vaguely at what age children do 
 begin to realize death, or to mourn their parents. Per- 
 haps something of this showed in his face, for Esther said 
 hurriedly, "She's tired out, poor bairn she has cried out 
 all her tears " 
 
 But however that might be, Cuckoo had no tears now 
 and no intention of pretending. Her curious little sloe- 
 like eyes gazed earnestly, avidly, up at the man her father 
 had known, and with a gesture of amusing hauteur to the 
 old servant, she said to Janeways: 
 
 "Where's the pony?" 
 
 It is odd that he should have been horrified at this 
 question, but he was, and his rebuke was so serious that 
 a moment later he had given her a sovereign to console her 
 for what he had said. 
 
 She took the sovereign but added, "You said you would, 
 you know you did." 
 
 "Yes, yes, and so I will some day, if you are a good 
 
 girl. Now, good-bye " He stooped to kiss her, but 
 
 the little creature drew back. 
 
 "When you have kept your word," she returned, and he 
 
 83
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 knew that she was repeating a phrase of her Aunt Effie's, 
 "I will kiss you," and he went his way, leaving her in the 
 churchyard, firm in her integrity of purpose. 
 
 And for the second time on leaving her, Janeways said, 
 "Well, I'm damned!"
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 GEORGE LOXLEY was, after all, educated at 
 home. His delicacy, though not of the kind from 
 which any particular disease is expected to de- 
 velop, was yet great enough to induce the school doctor in 
 the south to advise his grandfather to remove him from 
 school and keep him at home, where he could have not 
 only his fine native air, but the greatest individual care 
 care such as can be given a child only by his own 
 people. 
 
 The old man and his still older housekeeper, Mrs. 
 Bridlegoose, were wise in their unremitting oversight ; and 
 the little wisp of a boy who had looked so very small and 
 so very light on his return was hardly to be recognized 
 after two or three months at the Vicarage, in the more 
 solid, comparatively rosy child he had become. 
 
 Educationally, the Vicar was less of a success. His in- 
 tentions were of course of the best, and at first he devoted 
 several hours a day to instructing his grandson but, as 
 things turned out, it was just as well that the boy's four 
 years under the wise guidance of Mr. Porter, as well as 
 his own natural love of study, had in an unusual degree 
 prepared him for self-education. 
 
 The Vicar was a hopeless, ever-sighing book-lover; his 
 easy duties in a small, healthful, rural parish had for 
 many years allowed him to gratify his passion, with the 
 result that it was now beyond his powers to turn his 
 mind effectually to teaching his grandson the things it 
 seemed to him the boy must already know. 
 
 "Latin," he assured George gravely, "is extremely easy. 
 
 85
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 All you've got to do is to read it, and you know where all 
 my books are. Help yourself," with the unexpected re- 
 sult that George at fifteen presented him with a little 
 blank book filled with excellent but hair-raising transla- 
 tions from Catullus. 
 
 "Wh-where did you get that book, sir?" the old man 
 stammered in all innocence. 
 
 George surveyed him mildly with his big, short-sighted 
 gray eyes. "In the corner of the window next the Hor- 
 ace, sir," he answered. 
 
 The poor Vicar had forgotten the book and spent a 
 penitential day in going through his library and the din- 
 ing-room (in which for lack of room they no longer took 
 their meals) to weed out the books which were unsuitable 
 to a boy of fifteen. 
 
 Alas! this mission of pious elimination was never 
 accomplished, for the Vicar was one of those people who 
 cannot look at books without looking into them, and when 
 tea-time came it found a dusty, beatific old man crouch- 
 ing in a book-filled armchair, deep in a fine old copy of 
 Castiglione's "Courtier," while the shabby carpet round 
 him seethed an inchoate sea of volumes which, he explained 
 vaguely, he was going to look at next. 
 
 It was George who had come in and George stood, his 
 hands in the pockets of his shabby jacket, smiling whim- 
 sically at the scene. 
 
 "What are you going to do to them, Gran'pa?" he 
 asked. Dr. Loxley closed his book, rose, and blew his 
 nose, which he always did in moments of embarrassment. 
 
 "Well," he answered diplomatically, "they really ought 
 to be arranged according to subject, you know, and 
 somehow, I never have had time to do it, and it being 
 such a very wet day, I thought " 
 
 In the library, by the pleasant fire, the two sat down 
 to their tea and while George, in accordance with a habit 
 
 86
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 dear to them both, toasted the tea-cake on an ancient, 
 three-pronged toasting-fork, the subject was resumed. 
 
 "I suppose," the boy began, "that you think I ought 
 not to read all the books. Is that it ?" 
 
 The Vicar nodded, his ruddy, round face grave. 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Porter never let us get at the poets much that's 
 why I made for Catullus when I found him the other 
 day." 
 
 "Some of him is beautiful and delightful," said the 
 Vicar " this j am is excellent, my boy and some of him 
 isn't." 
 
 "That's what Porter said. So I thought I'd just try. 
 Are my translations good, Gran'pa ?" 
 
 The Vicar was a truthful man by the grace of God. 
 He spoke the truth as naturally as he breathed. So he 
 nodded, his bright old eyes the brighter for his scholarly 
 appreciation of his grandson's work. 
 
 "Yes, George, excellent. But there are other things 
 to translate. Why not try your hand at Horace?" 
 
 George, it appeared, had tried his hand at some of the 
 Odes. Also, he had put one or two of Bacon's Essays 
 into Latin. In this last feat the boy had been less suc- 
 cessful, but, in the production and criticism of his work, 
 the original reason for the Vicar's going through his 
 library was lost sight of and the two passed a delightful, 
 bookish afternoon, with no further thought of arranging 
 the volumes. 
 
 Late that night Dr. Loxley woke suddenly, and sitting 
 up in bed in the darkness, he remembered. 
 
 "Dear me, dear me," he whispered. "I must do it. 
 He is only fifteen and he must not read all those 
 books " 
 
 It was October, and very stormy. Rain pelted against 
 the windows, and the great trees in Widdybank Bottom 
 
 87
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 were holding high revel with the wind, while against the 
 side of the house the bough of a great cedar seemed to be 
 trying to saw itself in two, as it ground against the roof. 
 
 In his old four-poster the Vicar sat for a while, listen- 
 ing to the glorious uproar, then, lighting a candle with a 
 glass shade to it, he rose, his old-fashioned nightshirt 
 flapping round his fat legs as he passed the open window, 
 and put on his dressing-gown. It was very cold and it 
 had been luxuriously, almost romantically, pleasant to lie 
 in bed and listen to the wind and rain. He paused for 
 a moment and shivered. Then he went silently, resolutely, 
 down the little winding stairs, feeling his way, for the 
 stone steps were worn under the old carpet, and their nar- 
 row side was perilously narrow. 
 
 As the old man reached the little hall, he stood still, 
 listening to the clock strike three. 
 
 "I'll work," he thought, "till six. I'll put all the ones 
 he mustn't read in one corner and tell him. He will keep 
 his word, the dear boy and then he can browse as he 
 likes " 
 
 "After all," he thought, as he crept quietly towards 
 the library door, "I don't believe the Catullus hurt him. 
 He's just too young for that." And then he stood sud- 
 denly still, for there was a light on the carpet under the 
 door. Naturally, the old gentleman thought it must 
 be burglars, and creeping back to his room, he found his 
 old revolver in a drawer, saw that it was loaded, and came 
 silently downstairs again. He paused outside the library 
 door, not frightened, filled with a pleasant spirit of ad- 
 venture. He had no intention of shooting the thief, rather 
 would he argue with him. He would ask him whence he 
 came, he would ask if he was hungry, and offer him food ; 
 it was a cold night, and perhaps the poor fellow had been 
 tempted in by the fire and light. Finally, making as little 
 noise as possible, the old gentleman opened his library 
 
 88
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 door and there, quite naturally, as he at once realized, 
 he found George, busily engaged in putting aside the 
 books he ought not yet to read. 
 
 The boy, more delicate-looking than ever through his 
 fatigue and the comparative cold, looked up nervously, 
 and then, when he saw the revolver, gave a soft laugh. 
 
 "Gran'pa, how you frightened me! Did you think I 
 was a burglar?" The Vicar laughed, too. 
 
 "I did. What in the name of goodness are you doing?" 
 Suddenly his bonny old face hardened and he looked with 
 suspicion at a book in the boy's hands. 
 
 "Surely, George " he began. 
 
 George's steady, tired young eyes returned his gaze 
 for a moment, and then comprehension came to him. 
 
 "Oh, Gran'pa," he burst out, his pale little face flush- 
 ing, "how could you think that? How could you?" 
 
 He pointed to the green baize-covered, old writing- 
 table, and there lay, neatly piled together, some dozen 
 books. 
 
 "They are there," he went on passionately, adding 
 the book he held to the collection. "All the ones I knew 
 you wouldn't want me to read. How could you 
 think " 
 
 The Vicar set down his candle, laid the revolver by it, 
 and, to gain time for his grandson, looked at the books 
 on the table. 
 
 There was his Boccaccio, one of his greatest treasures, 
 brought to England after Magliaveechi's sale in Florence 
 early in the eighteenth century and bought by the Vicar's 
 father at Hever's sale in 1834; his "Heptameron" ; the 
 fatal Catullus; his Rabelais, and many others. 
 
 After a pause, the Vicar went to where the boy was 
 standing and laid his arm across the thin young shoulders. 
 "George I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me?" 
 
 George turned, his long lashes wet, his lower lip pinned 
 
 89
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Hy his teeth but not quite steady. And as he held his 
 hand, the old man kissed him and was forgiven. Subse- 
 quently, by way of a mild celebration, they made cocoa 
 with milk, in a saucepan over the library fire, and ate 
 biscuits with it. 
 
 As he munched, his bare feet in their old slippers tucked 
 up on the fender, his dressing-gown wrapped tightly round 
 him, George explained. 
 
 "I knew you'd never get I mean to say, have time 
 to sort them the books," he said, "so I was going to 
 do it for you. I had made a place for them the ones 
 I knew you wouldn't want me to read in the niche there, 
 and I was going to show you to-morrow." 
 
 "I see, dear. But a little sugar, please, I've put too 
 much cocoa in and it's bitter how did you know which 
 books I shouldn't want you to read?" 
 
 The boy looked candidly at him. "Oh, from school, 
 of course, sir. The big fellows used to read Ovid and 
 Catullus and Tibullus, and so on, and they talked a bit 
 about 'em. And Barrington Major's father had the 'De- 
 cameron,' and he Barrington Major used to read it. 
 He used to tell some of the stories but not to us little 
 boys, only we heard bits and as to Rabelais, Mr. Carter, 
 the chemistry master, had him, and Billy Erskine *bor- 
 rowed' it one day and we all had a peep. It struck me," 
 the lad went on, "as pretty filthy, so I thought I'd better 
 count it in whether you said so or not " 
 
 Dr. Loxley nodded. "It is. To tell you the truth, 
 George, I've never read it through for that very reason. 
 I keep it because it's a rare edition. By the way, I heard 
 the other day that Sir Peregrine Janeways has a Venetian 
 Boccaccio in his library. Just think of that !" 
 
 George, left perfectly cold by the information, helped 
 himself to more cocoa, and his grandfather, forgetting 
 who his listener was, pursued excitedly: 
 
 90
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "A first edition, printed in 1471 ! They are extremely 
 rare, I believe, because Savonarola preached against the 
 book, so that most of the people burned theirs, the 
 idiots " 
 
 "Did they?'* asked George, peacefully. "Well, now, 
 look here, Gran'pa. I've got together all the ones I 
 know about, and I do wish, sir, you could manage to find 
 time to pick out the others and then we could put them 
 all together; I'd never look at them, and you wouldn't 
 mind my reading what I like amongst the others." 
 
 "Quite right. I'll do it to-morrow." 
 
 The clock struck five as he spoke and he rose, but 
 George detained him. 
 
 "Oh, no, sir," he persisted gently, "please do it now. 
 After all, there can't be so many more, and you a clergy- 
 man and all !" 
 
 So the Vicar, candle in hand, made a solemn round 
 of his two rooms, and when he forgot where he was and 
 stood too long looking into some book, George roused him 
 and got him started again, so that by six o'clock the work 
 was done, and George had put the forbidden fruit into 
 a small orchard in a niche by itself. 
 
 Then the two went quietly back to their rooms, and 
 at his door the boy threw his arms round his grandfather's 
 neck and kissed him as simply as if he had been five in- 
 stead of fifteen and a half. 
 
 After that night Dr. Loxley gave up his grandson's 
 education into his grandson's own hands, and things were 
 very pleasant at the old Vicarage. 
 
 It was in the second spring following that eventful 
 night and cocoa was henceforth always to be inextric- 
 ably and inappropriately connected with naughty litera- 
 ture in George Loxley's mind that the Vicarage and the 
 Roseroofs were upset and thrilled to their marrows by 
 the arrival of Rachel. Rachel really arrived in the usual 
 
 91
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 way, in an ancient fly from Middleton, but to Cuckoo 
 Blundell her coming was a thing of mystery and ro- 
 mance. 
 
 For Cuckoo, aged at that time fourteen, had been sent 
 by her Aunt Flora to the Vicarage as the bearer of an 
 annual gift that from its persistence through many years 
 had gained a certain high solemnity. 
 
 It had become in the homely calendar of Roseroofs, 
 a red-letter day, one of those days from which lesser events 
 are dated, such as "it was just after the day Maggie 
 Walker sent the Christmas goose" ; or "it was, I am sure, 
 the day Benjie painted the kitchen-garden palings"; or 
 "it was the day I sent the white violets to the Vicar." 
 And that day in May was in future to be called "The 
 Dai/": the day Rachel first came. 
 
 It was a lo\ely blue-and-gold morning, as Miss Flora 
 with her own hands picked the big violets in her plot 
 (kneeling on an immemorial square of old carpet, to pro- 
 tect her knees from the damp) and the garden was a 
 place of promise and peace. Miss Effie's tulips already 
 showed in her garden like small green lances and there were 
 daffodils everywhere. It was a gay morning. Miss Flora 
 wore her mushroom hat with the brown ribbon on it (the 
 hat that, ten years before, on the day Cuckoo came had 
 been new and rose-begarlanded) and an old brown Hol- 
 land frock. 
 
 Cuckoo, in washed-out pink cotton, a leggy though not 
 a tall Cuckoo, stood by her aunt, her hands clasped behind 
 her, her lips pursed thoughtfully. 
 
 "You aren't leaving any for us," she exclaimed at 
 length, as Miss Flora's long, thin hands went on with their 
 work unfalteringly. "And there's heaps in the bas- 
 ket " 
 
 Miss Flora's eyes, unchanged, in the years since the 
 child's coming, but for the deeper and more thick-set 
 
 92
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 wrinkles round them, looked up reproachfully. 
 
 "I always give them all to the Vicar," she said. 
 
 "I know you do. And last year," the protester went 
 on, ruthlessly, "he gave most of them to me. I wore 'em 
 all day and you never noticed." 
 
 Miss Flora worked for a minute in silence. 
 
 "7 noticed, Cuckoo! Do you think I couldn't recog- 
 nize Flora's white violets?" Miss Effie, who had come up 
 unheard on the thick, damp grass, glared fixedly at 
 Cuckoo. "I'd have punished you for begging them of the 
 Vicar, but I didn't want your Aunt Flora to know. And 
 now you've told her!" 
 
 Miss Flora picked the last of the violets, brushing the 
 thick leaves softly to and fro with her hand to see that 
 none were lurking in their green fastnesses, and rose. She 
 had not spoken and she did not speak now. When she 
 disappeared into the dining-room, Miss Effie went on to 
 the apparently unmoved Cuckoo, "You are a hard-hearted 
 little minx, that's what you are. You care for no one but 
 yourself, and if your Aunt Flora had heard you, which 
 luckily she didn't " 
 
 "Aunt Flora's as deaf as an adder," murmured the 
 ruthless one, picking a daffodil and sticking it into her 
 dark hair just over the ear. 
 
 Miss Effie blushed, her painful, unlovely blush. 
 
 "Your Aunt Flora," she protested, not quite truthfully, 
 "is not deaf." 
 
 Cuckoo grinned, showing small, pointed, rather car- 
 nivorous-looking teeth, as white as a dog's. 
 
 "It isn't only that," she returned, swinging her hat by 
 its elastic; "she's good-tempered, you know, and kind. 
 She's as blind as a bat and always believes everything 
 good of everybody, but for all that I love her. And," 
 she added, "I only love you because you're my aunt. I'd 
 love Aunt Flora if she was no relation at all." 
 
 93
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Having made this announcement, the child moved slowly 
 across the lawn to where old Benjie was turning over the 
 earth of a flower-bed. 
 
 She and Benjie were very good friends, and though her 
 English was now perfectly good and made only a little 
 pungent by a tinge of North-countryism, yet she could 
 and did talk his own dialect to Benjie. 
 
 Miss Effie's lips were drawn into a tight bunch as if 
 pulled together by an invisible drawing-string, and her 
 eyes were opaque-looking and angry as she gazed after 
 her niece. Then suddenly, at the sound of Cuckoo's 
 laugh, the old woman's grim face relaxed and she smiled 
 and went into the house. 
 
 In the past ten years nothing had changed at Rose- 
 roofs. The very chintzes were the same, and if they were 
 faded, the eyes of their mistresses and of Esther Oughten- 
 shaw had grown dimmer, so that to the three old women 
 no difference was perceptible. 
 
 Miss Flora was standing at the little table always 
 called the flower-table, that stood by the window under 
 the stairs, arranging her violets in the old osier basket in 
 which for twenty years the first-fruits of her violet-bed 
 had made their journey to Widdybank Vicarage. 
 
 The basket was filled with well-wetted stag's-horn moss 
 and on this the violets were laid with great care, their 
 heads all one way, their feet the other. 
 
 Miss Flora looked up as her sister came in. 
 
 "You look tired, Effie is your heart bad again?" 
 
 Miss Effie shook her head and sat down on the bench 
 under which the family over-shoes stood in a row. 
 
 "No, Flora," she returned primly, "I am quite well, 
 thank you." 
 
 After a minute she added: 
 
 "Your violets are finer than ever this year." 
 
 Miss Flora smiled. "Yes, I think they really are," she 
 
 94
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 returned modestly, "and I believe your yellow tulips are 
 going to be the very finest you've ever had. It was a 
 good idea getting the bulbs direct from Holland." 
 
 As she spoke, her soft eyes suddenly changed and there 
 was in them an odd, pained acuteness, as if they were 
 seeing more than was comfortable for them to see. There 
 was in Miss Effie's harsh, bony face a look that hurt her 
 sister. 
 
 "What is Cuckoo doing?" Miss Flora asked, with an 
 unusual edge in her voice. 
 
 Miss Effie looked up. 
 
 "Cuckoo? Oh, she's talking with Benjie Brig- 
 worthy." 
 
 "Was she rude or anything, Effie?" 
 
 Miss Effie rubbed her nose with her bony forefinger. 
 
 "No, no, Flora. It's just that she's young." 
 
 Miss Flora's gaze relaxed and she went back to her 
 work of laying the violets on the moss. 
 
 "That's it, Effie; you are right, as usual. As a rule 
 you are perhaps a little hard on the child, so I feared, but 
 it's just that that she's young." 
 
 As they talked, a young and pretty girl in housemaid's 
 dress came down the stairs and went into the study and 
 a moment later was seen through the window by Cuckoo 
 and Benjie Brigworthy. 
 
 "Hullo, Agnes," Cuckoo said, "come out here a 
 moment." 
 
 "No, no, Miss Coocoo, ah must do my cleaning " 
 
 For a moment Cuckoo watched her and then went on in 
 her talk with the gardener. "She was crying again last 
 night, Benjie," she said. 
 
 The old man spat reflectively. "Aye, like enough. 
 She's a fool, is Agnes. So was 'er mother." 
 
 "Of course," Miss Blundell went on, "he is good-look- 
 ing, Chris Greening " 
 
 95
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "U-ugh!" 
 
 She laughed. "I know, but he is, Benjie. He's a great, 
 fine, strong man, and it's quite natural she should want 
 to marry him, and you've no right to interfere, even if 
 she is your niece." 
 
 The old man stuck his spade violently into the soft, 
 damp earth; so violently that it stood up. With a quick 
 movement he jerked down the sleeve of his old flannel 
 shirt, and then, as if he now felt himself in sufficiently con- 
 ventional attire to talk seriously, he turned. 
 
 "Look 'ee 'ere, Miss Coocoo," he began, maintaining his 
 composure with difficulty, "don't you go and encourage 
 the lass to do any foolishness. What's looks got to do 
 with marrying? It's brass that counts, I tell 'ee. Brass. 
 And yon lad hasn't a ha'penny. So don't you go upset- 
 ting her." 
 
 Cuckoo's odd eyes were ablaze with interest. They 
 were not so small as they once were and their thick, short 
 lashes cast distinct shadows on her cheeks, as she opened 
 and closed them rapidly before speaking. 
 
 At last she said: "I know, Benjie. Nought's any good 
 without brass. But if Chris hasn't any, neither has any- 
 one else. Anyone for Agnes, I mean." 
 
 Old Brigworthy glanced cautiously round him. 
 
 "Look 'ere, Miss Coocoo," he answered, in a harsh un- 
 dertone, "you're a sensible lass ; I believe you do know 
 what's what. All the things you've carneyed and coaxed 
 out of your aunties I like to see a young girl know what's 
 what ! Well now, look ye here. Isaac Vesper's got brass. 
 And lots of it. Lots !" 
 
 The young girl's sallow cheeks showed two little spots 
 of flame-color and her eyes glowed. 
 
 "Isaac Vosper ? The old man's son ! I didn't know he 
 had a son. Or is it a grandson?" 
 
 "No son nor grandson. It's t'owd man hisself." 
 
 96
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "But that old man can't want to marry Agnes ?" 
 
 There was in her voice a sincere horror, at which Brig- 
 worthy frowned sourly. 
 
 " 'E does then. He's not young, to be sure, but Lord, 
 t'brass t'man ha' gotten together! Horses he'd give her, 
 and servant-maids, and rings and gowd chains thirty- 
 six cows he's got, and a draaa-in'-room at farm bettern' 
 most gentlemen " 
 
 After a pause, during which he allowed the glory of 
 these possessions time to penetrate fully into his hearer's 
 mind, the old man went on : 
 
 "And all o' them fine things could be hers. He's crazy 
 about her owd f ewl !" 
 
 The invisible Agnes was now singing in a high, cheer- 
 ful voice, as she worked in the study. 
 
 Cuckoo listened for a moment and then she asked 
 slowly, her face darkened by profound thought, "How, old 
 is he, Benjie?" 
 
 "On'y six-and-fifty, Miss Coocoo " 
 
 "All right, Benjie," she declared firmly, "I'll advise 
 her to take him. I'll tell her all about the beautiful 
 things she could have, and besides," she added import- 
 antly, "there's another thing that you haven't thought 
 of." 
 
 Benjie rolled his sleeves back up over his ropy, brown 
 arms to his bony elbows. 
 
 "O aye Miss Coocoo?" 
 
 "I shall tell her," Robert Blundell's daughter declared 
 firmly, with no trace of reluctance or shamefacedness, 
 "that she must just be patient, and that he is sure to die 
 before long." 
 
 Then she went into the house, put her basket over her 
 arm, and started off down the short path to Widdybank. 
 Her young mind full of Agnes, the ineligible Chris Green- 
 ing, and the highly eligible Isaac Vosper, she crossed the 
 
 97
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 road leading up from Warcop, dived down into Flaye 
 Ghyll, a deep, wooded ravine between the dale and Mel- 
 done Edge, crawled through the brushwood to the other 
 side, then, by striking into the path from Flaye Ghyll it- 
 self to Widdybank, she saved herself nearly half an hour 
 and reached the Vicarage by eleven o'clock. 
 
 And it was in the mood nursed by her talk with old 
 Brigworthy and her musings about Agnes and her suitors, 
 that she met Rachel Poole.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RACHEL POOLE was seated in the largest arm- 
 chair in the Vicarage drawing-room, attired in 
 pale blue silk edged with swan's-down. 
 
 Near her stood three large trunks, and in front of one 
 of them knelt a narrow-shouldered, red-headed woman, 
 whose mission in life appeared to be to burrow into the 
 trunk and bring out objects desired by the sovereign in 
 silk. 
 
 "Eh bien, moi je vous dis" the sovereign was declar- 
 ing, as Cuckoo stood in the door, "qu'il y est. I saw you 
 put him there myself, with my own eyes I saw !" 
 
 Then, noting Cuckoo for the first time, the speaker 
 added composedly to the newcomer, "She's a perfect 
 idiot, you know! I told mamma so. I wanted Helo'ise, 
 but this one can't marcel for nuts, so she, mamma, made 
 me bring it." 
 
 "Who are you?" asked Cuckoo, bluntly. 
 
 "I'm Lady Rachel Poole. Who are you?" 
 
 Cuckoo, furious with herself for being impressed by the 
 title and the glory of the silken attire, returned with 
 unusual grimness that she was Nicoleta Blundell. 
 
 At this, to her surprise, Lady Rachel descended from 
 her throne and, approaching, held out her hand in a very 
 friendly manner. "I'm so glad to see you," she said; 
 "George has told me all about you." 
 
 Cuckoo shrugged her shoulders, for she was not nearly 
 so tall as her new acquaintance, and this made her angry. 
 "George is a nice boy," she remarked, with some hauteur, 
 
 99
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "but he is very forgetful. He has never mentioned you to 
 me." 
 
 At this moment the red-headed maid turned from the 
 disembowelled box before which she knelt. "Le voilci, 
 Miladi," she cried, holding up a small, green silk umbrella 
 with a jade handle. 
 
 "Bon. Didn't I tell you?" 
 
 Then Lady Rachel took Cuckoo by the arm and led 
 her upstairs into the best bedroom, the one from whose 
 window one of the Misses Plues, five years before, had 
 watched Robert Blundell's funeral, and bade her sit 
 down. 
 
 "They couldn't get our boxes up the stairs, so Jeanne 
 has to unpack in the drawing-room. How old are you?" 
 
 ''Nearly fifteen," answered Cuckoo carelessly, still 
 struggling against the horrible feeling of rusticity and 
 little-girlhood that Rachel's urban manner produced in 
 her; "how old are you?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm sixteen. The third of last month. I'm just 
 three years younger than George. His mother and my 
 mother were sisters, you know, so we are cousins." 
 
 "Obviously," remarked Cuckoo, in her most high-nosed 
 way. This new girl might be a ladyship, and tall, and 
 fair, and pretty (Cuckoo never made the mistake of 
 under-rating other people's advantages) but it was clear 
 that she wasn't very brilliant. 
 
 The two sat down in little straight-backed chairs and 
 regarded each other warily. 
 
 Lady Rachel was indeed a much taller girl than Cuckoo, 
 and she was softer-looking as well. Her beautiful, fair 
 skin was of the purest rosy white, and her heavy mass of 
 straw-colored hair hung down over her shoulders smooth 
 and broken and sculptural-looking, the hairs being ap- 
 parently of exactly the same length. Her bare throat was 
 velvety, almost downy-looking, and Cuckoo perceived with 
 
 100
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a pang of envy that her breasts were already beautifully 
 rounded. 
 
 For a moment the younger girl hated her own flat, 
 bony little chest and could have beaten it in her jealous 
 anger. 
 
 Then her face cleared suddenly, for the feet in quilted 
 blue satin slippers that Lady Rachel had crossed were 
 large and the ankles were thick. 
 
 Cuckoo stuck out one of her own narrow, bony little 
 feet which, shod as they were by the Warcop shoemaker, 
 yet showed their slim beauty and restored her trembling 
 self-confidence. 
 
 "What pretty slippers those are," she said, smiling. 
 
 Rachel nodded. "Yes, aren't they? I got them at 
 the Bon Marche. In Paris, you know " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know where the Bon Marche is. It 
 isn't," Cuckoo added, with her singular air of hauteur, 
 "so good as the shops in the rue de la Paix " 
 
 Rachel stared. "Oh, so you've been there?" 
 
 Cuckoo, though she was being an outrageous snob for 
 the moment, rarely lied. 
 
 "I've been there," she returned, "but I don't remember 
 it much, I was very young. But of course I know about 
 the rue de la Paix " 
 
 Little by little the two girls made friends, and then 
 came the episode of the green umbrella. 
 
 This umbrella, brought upstairs by Rachel and placed 
 against the dressing-table, had been the object of many 
 stolen glances from Cuckoo. Cuckoo had a passion for 
 green, and this silk was of all greens the greenest and 
 most ravishing. The umbrella was a small entout-cas of 
 delicate shape, and its handle was a duck's head carved 
 in jade. 
 
 Often, when she was older, Cuckoo recalled how fiercely, 
 how unbearably, she had wanted that umbrella. 
 
 101
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 And, after much investigatory conversation, her chance 
 came. 
 
 Rachel had explained that, her two little brothers, An- 
 gus and Jimmy, having developed scarlet fever, she had 
 been packed off to Yorkshire to be out of harm's way; 
 that she lived in Chesham Place ; that Angus was thirteen 
 and Jimmy freckled, but adorable only nine; that the 
 place in Suffolk, Planings, was let for another two years 
 to some perfectly frightful South African Jews, to save 
 up for Angus' majority (Oh, yes, Angus was the heir, 
 at least, he wasn't the heir as he was already Lord Pelter, 
 poor Papa being dead) ; and that Rachel was sure her 
 mother would marry again before long, she was so pretty, 
 and as, after all, she and poor Papa hadn't got on very 
 well together. All these things had been poured into 
 Cuckoo's little brown ears before the chance came. It 
 came with a crash ! 
 
 Rachel suddenly noticed the basket her new friend held 
 and wanted to know she was as curious as she was com- 
 municative what was under the leaves. 
 
 Very carefully, for in spite of her young disdain of her 
 Aunt Flora's funny little ways, she was not altogether 
 unimpressed by the solemnity of the yearly offering, 
 Cuckoo lifted off the broad, damp leaves and displayed 
 the treasure. 
 
 And Rachel instantly wanted them. "Do give them 
 to me, there's a dear," she begged. "You can get more, 
 and I do want them ! Let me have another sniff." 
 
 Cuckoo drew back. "Don't blow them," she said 
 roughly. 
 
 "I don't want to blow them; I want to smell them, 
 the angels. Oh, Nicky I shall call you Nicky, 
 I don't like Cuckoo do be a lamb and let me have 
 them!" 
 
 "No." 
 
 102
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Heavens, what a funny voice you have, like the wolf's 
 in 'Red Riding-Hood!' Do let me have them. I want 
 them, you see, and I always have my own way 1" 
 
 "Well, you can't have these." Cuckoo rose and 
 walked across the room, meaning to go down to the library 
 and rid herself of her troublesome offering, but as she 
 reached the door an idea occurred to her; an idea per- 
 fectly magnificent in its splendid lawlessness. 
 
 "You can't have everything you want in this world," 
 she said slowly, turning and looking at Rachel, "nobody 
 can. I want lots of things, too " 
 
 "Well, what do you want? Of mine, I mean," asked 
 the pampered Rachel eagerly. "Do you like corals? I'll 
 give you my little ones for the violets !" 
 
 "I don't like corals and I loathe beads." 
 
 "Well, these slippers, then? You said you liked them, 
 and I've got another pair " 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "They are," she answered, "miles too 
 big for me. But, if you really like the violets so much, 
 will you give me your green umbrella for them?" 
 
 Rachel looked bewildered for a moment, and then her 
 eyes fell on the object of Cuckoo's passion. "Oh, that? 
 Yes, you may have it if you like; I don't care for green, 
 and I've got a pink one " 
 
 Cuckoo's eyes, cleared a little of their bluish mist in 
 her excitement, fixed on her new friend's. "Honor 
 bright?" 
 
 "Honor bright." 
 
 "Then wait a moment, I must just speak to the Vicar," 
 and she plunged downstairs before the slower-witted Ra- 
 chel had time even to protest. 
 
 The Vicar was writing when she burst into the library, 
 but he looked up kindly, for he was fond of the little 
 girl, as he called her. He kissed her, patted her shoulder, 
 and then she burst out. For three minutes she talked, 
 
 103
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 with a volubility and richness of gesture that surprised 
 the quiet old man. 
 
 When she stopped, he shook his head. "But what on 
 earth," he asked gently, "could I do with a green sun- 
 shade?" 
 
 However, she had, in a few minutes, coaxed him into 
 accepting the violets, sending his love and thanks to Miss 
 Flora, and then giving the violets to Cuckoo herself. 
 
 "I'll never tell, dearest Vicar," she assured him, kissing 
 his pink bald spot, "but if she ever found out, I'd own up. 
 Is that all right?" 
 
 It was, and an hour later Miss Blundell was marching 
 back to Roseroofs, a green silk halo about her wicked lit- 
 tle head. Never in her life had she been so happy ; never 
 in her life had she owned anything that so absolutely ful- 
 filled her ideal of the beautiful. 
 
 She loved the umbrella, she loved Rachel, she loved 
 the Vicar, she loved everybody. And as she walked she 
 talked to herself, as her lonely walks had long since taught 
 her to do. 
 
 "Yes," she declared airily, to an imaginary girl ; a girl 
 littler, darker, thinner than herself: "I'm fond of green; 
 I have a rose-colored one, and a blue one, but this is my 
 favorite. . . . And I prefer silk nightgowns, crepe-de- 
 Chine ones, with embroidery and lace. And my dressing- 
 gowns, my dear," she went on, "are all silk, of course, and 
 trimmed with with powder-puff stuff " 
 
 "Swan's-down, Kiddy," put in a new voice, and behold, 
 there was George sitting on the grass with a book on his 
 knees. 
 
 Interdicted, she stood staring up at him, her ears 
 burning. 
 
 "I'm making believe," she declared, clutching at the 
 boldness that for a moment had failed her, "it's great 
 fun."
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "It is," George agreed. "Where'd you get the brolly, 
 Cuckoo?" 
 
 Climbing up to him, she sat down. "Rachel gave it 
 to me. I say, George, why didn't you ever tell me you 
 had a cousin in London?" 
 
 The youth smiled the sweet, lingering smile that so 
 transfigured his pale, plain face. 
 
 "I d'know. I suppose I forgot. Isn't she pretty, 
 Cuckoo?" 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. Safely in possession of the green um- 
 brella, it was nothing to her how pretty Rachel was. 
 "Yes, and her hair is lovely, isn't it?" 
 
 George Loxley at nearly nineteen looked not much more 
 than sixteen, so childlike were his great eyes, so innocent 
 of a mustache his whimsically curved lips. He had al- 
 ready reached his not very imposing full height and his 
 too short coat-sleeves revealed his wrists to be bony and 
 ugly, and as white as milk. 
 
 His hat lay on the ground beside him and his usually 
 smooth hair was ruffled. 
 
 Cuckoo surveyed him critically, wondering what the 
 grand Rachel would think of him. She herself was 
 fond of George in her cool way, for he had always been 
 kind to her, despite the fact that he often disapproved her 
 naughtiness and openly sided, in their frequent disputes, 
 against her and with the aunts. 
 
 The aunts had always loved the gentle, quiet boy, and 
 on more than one occasion Miss Flora had transplanted 
 herself to the Vicarage, to nurse him through one of his 
 childish illnesses. Once, when, at the age of twelve, he 
 was deep in Cowper's translation of the Iliad, Miss Flora, 
 to soothe a feverish night, had read to him, hour after 
 hour, out of some old book of fairy-tales. He endured it 
 very patiently and never told her how bored he was, and 
 after that, of course, he loved her all the better. So the 
 
 105
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 lad felt towards the small, black-haired child at Rose- 
 roofs much as he would have felt towards a naughty little 
 sister, and her aunts were doubtless dearer to him than 
 they were to her. 
 
 He looked at her now with mildly critical eyes as she 
 peacocked with the green umbrella. 
 
 "Are you being good to the aunts, Kiddy?" he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Yes. What are you reading, Doad?" 
 
 "Keats." 
 
 "What is a Keat, George?" 
 
 But he caught the gleam in her downcast eyes, refused 
 to be drawn and went on, "What are you studying 
 now?" 
 
 "Oh, it's Aunt Flora's turn at me, so I'm busy with 
 embroidery and the piano. I don't like them much, but 
 they're better than Euclid and Ancient History," she 
 returned, indifferently, "Aunt Effie was dreadful this time 
 with the Romans. I hate Romans." 
 
 "I see. What about literature?" 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "Oh, that's better. Wordsworth, 
 and Coleridge and Mrs. Hemans. Mrs. Hemans," she 
 commented, "goes splendidly with fuchsias in silk !" 
 
 After a pause she continued in a different voice, "Do 
 you know, George, Rachel thought Troy was in Egypt; 
 she told me so ! She had a perfectly splendid governess, 
 a Frenchwoman, such a darling! They never had any 
 lessons at all!" 
 
 "Splendid governess, indeed! Well, are you off?" 
 
 "Yes, the Vicar asked me to stay to lunch, but there's 
 curried mutton at the Vicarage, and we're having Choco- 
 late Puff-up-and-Busts, so I said I'd come back after 
 lunch." 
 
 Thus clearly explaining her reasons for refusing the 
 hospitality of the Vicarage, she went her way along the 
 
 106
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 slope, twirling and swinging the sunshade and pausing 
 every now and then to admire it. 
 
 Young Loxley watched her for a while and then re- 
 turned to his book. He had two roast beef sandwiches in 
 his pocket and was not going home to lunch. 
 
 The coming of Rachel had distracted him, but only as 
 it had disturbed his grandfather ; he was too young, nearly 
 nineteen though he was, to have experienced any pleas- 
 anter kind of emotion over the arrival in the Vicarage of 
 a pretty girl. 
 
 Very young he was, and very young he looked, as he 
 sat there in the sun for he was a chilly creature his 
 pale, long face bent over old Howell's delightful let- 
 ters. 
 
 Lady Rachel Poole stayed at Widdybank the greater 
 part of the summer, and she and Cuckoo were during 
 the whole of the time inseparable, except during the hours 
 when Cuckoo was with Miss Flora, undergoing the proc- 
 ess of education. Miss Flora was very conscientious about 
 this education; she had not forgotten her promise to 
 Blundell and to the best of her powers she was fulfilling 
 it. Cuckoo could embroider, though she had no particu- 
 lar liking for it ; she played the piano in an old-fashioned, 
 high-fingered little way ; she knew miles of verse by heart. 
 Aunt Flora's lessons were at least less irksome than Aunt 
 Effie's, she thought. 
 
 In the first flow of their friendship the two girls tried 
 to work together, but this plan was soon given up. 
 
 Rachel was lazy, luxurious, and grown-up in ways in 
 which Cuckoo was still a child, and Wordsworth bored 
 her to extinction, though she derived some entertainment 
 from an old volume of Byron that she found in the study, 
 and her clumsiness with a needle was too much for even 
 Miss Flora's long-suffering. 
 
 107
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I feel that you hurt the silk, jerking it that way," 
 Miss Flora burst out one day, in her highest voice. "I 
 can't bear to see it " 
 
 So Cuckoo's lessons, after a very short interval of 
 companionship, went on as before, alone with her instruc- 
 tress. 
 
 Rachel, although as vain as are most pretty girls with 
 no brains to speak of, had a kind of adoration for her 
 new friend, for Cuckoo was bold and brave and never 
 changed her mind, whereas Rachel's was a fluid, unstable 
 character, changing under every influence. She could, 
 however, beat Cuckoo in many varieties of grown-upness 
 and in the matter of belongings her superiority was 
 crushing. 
 
 Rachel had a necklet of small pearls, and two pretty 
 rings; she had delicate, filmy under-linen, tucked and 
 belaced; she had soft, kid slippers with soles so flexible 
 that they could be bent double ; and sashes that were satin 
 on one side and silk on the other ; she had hats gay and 
 delightful with flowers exactly like real ones, and long, 
 wrinkly gloves, whose fingers really reached to the roots 
 of her fingers instead of stopping half-way between them 
 and the second joint. Lucky Rachel! 
 
 And then, her wonderful toilet things! Scented soap 
 she had, and lots of sponges, and tooth-paste that 
 squeedged out of the tubes in jolly white worms, instead 
 of nasty, scratchy, precipitated chalk; and elder-flower 
 water for her skin, and glycerine-and-honey jelly for 
 her hands ; and heavenly skin-food that smelt of roses for 
 her face at night ; and purple crystal things that turned 
 her bath into a dream of delight. 
 
 And of these wonderful, desirable things, Cuckoo had 
 none. 
 
 George, though silent and ordinarily dreamy, was not 
 without observation and, knowing Cuckoo, he watched her 
 
 108
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 closely during the first fortnight of his cousin's visit for 
 signs of envy. 
 
 He watched in vain and the reason is this: at first 
 Rachel's belongings seemed to Cuckoo miraculous ; then 
 she saw that they were merely luxurious; and very soon 
 she realized them to be not really luxurious, but merely 
 necessities, sheer necessities of life. 
 
 And whereas she herself could never have hoped to 
 attain to the miraculous, and barely to the luxurious, she 
 knew that to life's necessities she could and would attain. 
 She, Cuckoo, must, and would, have all the things Rachel 
 already so carelessly possessed. 
 
 This conviction, not arrived at by determination 
 but by a kind of inward evolution, brought with it com- 
 plete lack of envy and a kind of high peace. 
 
 Not only would she one day have all that Rachel had, 
 but when her time came she would improve on Rachel's 
 things. Orange-flower water, for instance, instead of 
 elder-flower; her gloves should all be pale tan, instead of 
 gray; and scent that smelt of real violets, whereas Ra- 
 chel's Violette de Parme smelt of vanilla. Oh, yes, she 
 would improve on Rachel, when not if, there was no if 
 in her mind her time came! 
 
 Meantime, Miss Effie and Miss Flora were both moved 
 to admiration at what they considered their niece's sin- 
 gular lack of envy. 
 
 Cuckoo's almost abnormal acquisitiveness had always 
 troubled them, although they had never directly discussed 
 it, and they had both feared that her lust of possession 
 would have been violently stirred by her new friend's mag- 
 nificent belongings. 
 
 And when they perceived her serenity, even when con- 
 fronted by a new embroidered muslin frock that the con- 
 ceited Rachel, so to speak, brandished under her very nose, 
 Miss Effie couldn't resist commenting on it. 
 
 109
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I am pleased with Cuckoo, Flora," she said. "In spite 
 of all Rachel's beautiful things she is as satisfied as ever 
 with her own simple ones " 
 
 "Yes, I'm so pleased you noticed that, Effie." Miss 
 Flora gave her little nervous laugh. "I was a little 
 afraid " 
 
 "H'm! Yes, so was I. However, we were both wrong." 
 
 Miss Flora's laugh melted into her odd, fixed smile that 
 looked so nearly vacant. "Yes, we were wrong; I am so 
 glad you noticed it, too." 
 
 Miss Effie straightened herself in her chair. "I know 
 what you mean, Flora. You always think I'm hard on the 
 child and perhaps I may be. I have reasons of which 
 you do not know, but I hope I am never unfair, even 
 though I happen to have sharp eyes," she said, austerely. 
 
 Rachel "adored" Aunt Flora, whom she called quaint 
 and delicious; Aunt Effie she disliked and said so. "I 
 really don't like her, you know," she said to Cuckoo, "and 
 I can't help telling you so. I'm frightfully frank," she 
 added, "really horribly downright, and always say wnat 
 I think." 
 
 Cuckoo listened to these self-interpretations, not being 
 downright enough herself to disagree audibly with them. 
 
 The affair of pretty Agnes Watlass and her two suitors 
 greatly interested the girls, and they spent hours dis- 
 cussing it, particularly after one evening when, walking 
 for a wonder in silence across the grass on the uplands, 
 they came on Agnes and Chris Greening wrapped in each 
 other's arms as they said good-night. 
 
 "My word," gasped Cuckoo, when the lovers, without 
 seeing them, had separated and gone beyond earshot, "I 
 thought they were never going to stop." 
 
 She laughed, the easy, unembarrassed laugh of a child. 
 
 Rachel did not laugh. "They really love each other, 
 you see," she explained with some loftiness. "It reminded 
 
 110
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 me of 'a man had given all other something or other 
 for this, 
 
 'To waste his whole life in one kiss 
 Upon those perfect lips, ' " 
 
 Cuckoo grew round-eyed. "My goodness, Ray," she 
 exclaimed, "poor Agnes' lips aren't perfect. But I know 
 that thing. It's Tennyson. I always wondered what it 
 meant." 
 
 Rachel sighed, with an "I-could-an-I-would" manner. 
 "You are a baby, Nicky ! Of course I know more than 
 you, for I've a married sister. Although," she added, 
 "poor Phil is, of course, a hopeless outsider." 
 
 "Mr. Brinkley is?" Cuckoo asked briskly; "then why 
 did Rosamund marry him?" 
 
 "She married him for sixty thousand pounds a year, 
 my child." 
 
 Cuckoo drew a deep breath. "Oh, well, there," she 
 returned, with conviction, "of course!" 
 
 Rachel looked at her in some surprise. "How funnily 
 you said that! It really is awful, Nicky. Once, in the 
 beginning, he actually called poor mamma 'your lady- 
 ship.' " 
 
 There was a pause, and then Cuckoo remarked tensely, 
 "I shouldn't care if he called her 'ma-am,' if he had sixty 
 thousand pounds a year." 
 
 They had reached the road leading along the top of the 
 Edge, and paused, struck, despite their young egotism 
 and curiosities, by the beauty of the scene. 
 
 The sky to westward looked like liquid gold, and round 
 about them the high moorland, violet patched with deep 
 purple, gradually warmed, blossomed* as it seemed, in 
 the light. 
 
 Immediately below where they stood the hill was devas- 
 
 111
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 tated and torn by an ancient deserted lead-mine. It 
 gaped, all rough heaps of stone and ugly dark holes, like 
 a gigantic, half-healed wound. "The Cold Comfort 
 Mine," Cuckoo explained, in answer to her friend's ques- 
 tion. "An old Roman lead mine." 
 
 "How hideous it is!" 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. "Yes. Only it makes the sky and 
 the moorland look all the more splendid. Like like 
 like Mr. Brinkley's manners and his sixty thousand 
 pounds a year!" 
 
 "You are a queer thing, Nicky ! I believe you are really 
 and truly mercenary." 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "It's awfully funny, when you're so young" but how- 
 ever interesting Cuckoo's peculiarities might be, Rachel's 
 own personality was far more engrossing to Rachel and 
 she went on, "I'm not mercenary, I mean. We're fear- 
 fully poor, of course, and I'd love to be rich, but I 
 wouldn't have married Phil Brinkley if he'd had a million 
 a year." 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her shrewdly. "Love in a cottage 
 for you, I suppose?" 
 
 The elder girl gave a sentimental little laugh. 
 
 "Oh, I'd prefer a big house, of course, but if I loved a 
 poor man I'd marry him. I suppose I'm a fool but I 
 would. I should love to work for him, I'd even cook I 
 couldn't marry a man I didn't love " 
 
 These mature reflections were interrupted ruthlessly 
 by Miss Blundell, who, pausing at the top of the path by 
 the Green Bench, made her declaration of faith. 
 
 "I," she said slowly, speaking rather to the listening 
 iciale than to Rachel, "would marry anyone who had plenty 
 of money. I'd marry the ugliest, beastliest, vulgarest 
 man in the world if he was rich enough." 
 
 Rachel's disapproval, however, was not unmixed with 
 
 112
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 admiration. "You wouldn't, Nicky," she cried. "Think 
 of breakfast every day. Think," she went on, with a 
 quick glance round, "of him in bed." 
 
 Cuckoo's eyes, dulling as was their way in her moments 
 of deep feeling, were fixed on the beautiful rose-colored 
 roofs in the trees below them. "I shouldn't mind a bit," 
 she answered slowly, obviously missing the elder girl's 
 point, "not one bit. If he was rich enough. I'd marry a 
 black man if he was." 
 
 Beaten and abashed by this splendid determination, 
 Rachel gave up, openly, however, declaring for romance. 
 
 "Well," she said, "I wouldn't. You are too young, 
 I s'pose, to understand about love, but I " 
 
 "Oh, bosh, Ray! What do you know about it, with 
 your hair still down! Come along, I'll race you to the 
 gate " 
 
 But at the gate, Rachel, as she sat on the grass saying 
 good-night, reverted to the subject. 
 
 "Suppose your rich man was unfaithful to you?" 
 
 Cuckoo chewed a blade of grass and then spat it out 
 unblushingly. "How d'you mean?" 
 
 "Well, some men are, and it's horrid. It's awful, Nicky 
 darling !" 
 
 "Oh, you mean running away?" commented Cuckoo 
 coldly. "I know. The draper's wife at Upshaw ran away 
 with a commercial traveler. She left the children behind." 
 
 Rachel shuddered. "Evy Rainsford left her baby 
 and it died. She bolted with Pelly Janeways. Oh, Nicky," 
 she continued in a voice of rapture, "now there's a man !" 
 
 "He's old," answered Cuckoo, indifferently. "I know 
 him, and he's years older than my father " 
 
 Rachel gave a little scream of excitement. "No, 
 Cuckoo! You can't mean it. That you actually know 
 him? Why, he's the most fascinating man in the world. 
 He's been three times in the divorce court he married 
 
 113
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 two of them he's called the Magnificent from some old 
 Italian, Lorenzo something or other he's really Italian, 
 you know. Isn't he a pet, and aren't his eyes too won- 
 derful?" 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "He promised me a pony and never 
 gave it to me," she said. "I thought him an old pig, if 
 you ask me!" 
 
 As the two girls kissed each other good-night, Rachel 
 promised to continue the story of Sir Peregrine Janeways 
 the next day. 
 
 "He's wonderful, whatever you may say," she declared. 
 "And he owns the most wonderful jewels. Did you ever 
 hear about the Bag of Saffron?" 
 
 "No. You put saffron in puddings, don't you?" 
 
 But this bag of saffron, it seemed, was a wonderful 
 jewel on a diamond chain. "Mamma once saw it his 
 mother used to wear it when mamma was a little girl 
 good-night, darling," concluded Rachel, with a last kiss. 
 "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THERE was, however, no time for talk about Sir 
 Peregrine Janeways' jewels the next day, for this 
 was the day of Agnes and Chris. It was a very 
 marvelous adventure, the affair of Agnes and Chris. 
 
 Early in the morning Cuckoo waked, conscious that 
 she had just heard a strange noise. It was very early, 
 but her little room, which faced the east, was already 
 filled with a clear light of extreme purity that made the 
 white-washed walls look luminous. The young girl, sit- 
 ting up in bed facing the window, her thin shoulders and 
 arms covered by an ample and unadorned nightgown, 
 gazed round her. What could .the noise have been? She 
 was not afraid; she was expectant; of what, she didn't 
 know, but she was so constituted that any event was to 
 her preferable to monotony. Her little clock told her 
 that it was only half-past four, and even old Esther 
 Oughtenshaw, she knew, would not be up until six. Yet 
 someone in the house was afoot. When, after a mo- 
 ment's tense waiting, she heard a sound in the hall down- 
 stairs, she rose, and, without pausing to put on her dress- 
 ing-gown, went quietly down. The very fact of being 
 awake at such an hour was in a way an adventure, and 
 being up and about was a thing not to be described in its 
 delightful strangeness. The clock's tick seemed heavy 
 with mystery, and the pale glow coming in through the 
 fanlight had an odd effect on the shabby old hall. 
 
 Very quickly Cuckoo went down the passage and 
 opened the kitchen door. 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, disappointedly, "it's only you!" 
 
 115
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 But to Agnes it was not only she. She Agnes was 
 at that moment the very center of the universe. She 
 started violently, the tea-kettle in her hand, and stood 
 staring at the intruder, who, whatever Agnes might be 
 doing, certainly had no business in the kitchen at such an 
 hour. 
 
 "Miss Coocoo," she faltered, setting the kettle on the 
 tiny grate in the middle of the stove and drawing back. 
 
 Cuckoo sat down in a high-backed wooden chair and 
 held her hands up to the delicate, fleeting fire that the 
 elder girl had made with a few twigs. 
 
 "I know what you are up to, Agnes," she said severely. 
 "You are going to run away with Chris Greening." 
 
 Agnes turned pale, her poor, swollen eyes full of amaze- 
 ment and horror. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Coocoo " 
 
 "Yes, you are. But," added Cuckoo, thoroughly en- 
 joying herself, "you mustn't." 
 
 "You don't know what you're saying, Miss Coocoo 
 and you'd better go back to your bed. Your aunties 
 would be very angry if they knew you were up so early." 
 
 "My aunties would be very angry if they knew what a 
 silly thing you were going to do. And the kettle's boiling. 
 I'll have some tea, too, Agnes." 
 
 Agnes made the tea and cut some bread and butter, 
 presenting it to her young mistress in spite of her men- 
 tal torment, with perfect decency on a tray. 
 
 "I was up on the Edge last night," Cuckoo observed, 
 her eyes glinting in the strengthening light. "I saw you 
 and Chris, I saw you kiss each other." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" murmured Agnes. "I told him he 
 mustn't " 
 
 "You can't have told him very hard. Well, so now 
 you're going to sneak out and marry him! Is that it?" 
 
 The elder girl stared at her. There was something 
 
 116
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 singularly unyouthful in her lack of tenderness towards 
 romance and Agnes felt it. 
 
 "Ye don't understand," she retorted dreamily, "you're 
 too young, I suppose. But it isn't sneaking. It's it's 
 just t'contrary to sneaking." 
 
 "How is it? What do you mean?" insisted the un- 
 invited judge, not allowing her zest to interfere with her 
 appetite. "Cut me some more bread and butter, please. 
 What d'you mean?" 
 
 The loaf pressed to her shapely breast, the knife working 
 its way through the bread, Agnes tried to explain enough 
 without explaining too much. 
 
 "He's going to marry me," she murmured, "he's a 
 good fellow, not like some, and we're going to be mar- 
 ried." 
 
 Cuckoo frowned impatiently. 
 
 "Of course you're going to be married," she returned, 
 "I know that or you think you are. But you can't be 
 married today, you know. Where are you going?" 
 
 "To Maggie Watlass's her mother was my mother's 
 cousin. He's told her and she will let me stay there. 
 Only you mustn't tell, Miss Coocoo, or my uncle and my 
 brother will come there and make a fuss promise you 
 won't tell !" 
 
 Agnes' bonny face, restored to its natural color by the 
 fire and the tea and bread and butter, was turned anx- 
 iously to Cuckoo. 
 
 Cuckoo was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Chris is a farm-laborer, isn't he?" she asked. 
 
 "Aye. He works for William Christy " 
 
 "What wages does he get?" 
 
 Agnes faltered. "Only ten shillings a week yet, and 
 his lodgings, but he's a good worker, an' " 
 
 "Once a farm-laborer, always a farm-laborer," inter* 
 rupted Cuckoo trenchantly. "Has he a cottage?" 
 
 117
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Agnes set down her cup. "No-o, Miss Coocoo, but " 
 
 "Have you a cottage?" 
 
 "Oh, Miss Coocoo," 
 
 "Be quiet, Agnes, and answer what I ask you." (There 
 is no use in trying to hide the horrid fact that Miss Coocoo 
 was thoroughly enjoying, and as thoroughly appreciating, 
 herself. ) 
 
 "Has Chris any money? His father may have left 
 him some," 
 
 Agnes was silent. She knew, and she knew that her 
 inquisitor knew, that poor old Anty Greening had died 
 in the workhouse at Warcop. 
 
 "Perhaps, then," Cuckoo went on, putting some coals 
 softly on the waning fire, "you have the money? Just a 
 little, say fifty pounds, or so, to furnish a cottage with?" 
 
 And she watched Agnes, utterly down-hearted, burst 
 into tears, crying unrestrainedly, her mouth screwed up 
 like a child's. 
 
 "Why do you make me so miserable?'' she moaned. 
 "You like to hurt me, of course you do! It's crool of 
 you, Miss Coocoo! As if things wasn't bad enough 
 already " 
 
 Cuckoo shook her head. "No, I don't like to, Agnes. 
 I like you, and I don't want you to be miserable all your 
 life." 
 
 "Miserable!" wailed the other girl, searching wildly in 
 her pockets for a handkerchief; "if you knew how miser- 
 able I've been ever since " 
 
 She blew her nose with violence, her wet eyes suddenly 
 filled with fear. 
 
 "I know you are miserable, I've often seen you crying. 
 But think what it would be if you were married! You'd 
 have to live in a two-room cottage, you couldn't keep a 
 cow, you'd have no pigs for bacon, Chris would be away 
 all day working, and you'd have to work so hard yourself 
 
 118
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 that you'd be old and ugly in a year and then Chris 
 wouldn't love you any more." 
 
 After this lurid forecast Cuckoo rose and opened the 
 door, letting in a flood of warm light for the pale sun 
 had been gathering gold as they talked and a great gust 
 of earth and flower-scented air. 
 
 Agnes was silent and quite still for a moment, and 
 finally Cuckoo turned from the view and looked back into 
 the kitchen, in whose furthest recesses the night still 
 seemed to linger. 
 
 Agnes stood by the table, her hands tight-clasped before 
 her, her face suddenly set and white. 
 
 "Ah know Ah know all them things," she said, in a 
 whisper. "Me an' him has said 'em often and often. But 
 Ah can't help it, Miss Coocoo. Ah must do it. He's a 
 good lad, Chris. He'd never throw it in my face," 
 
 "Throw what in your face? He loves you, doesn't 
 he?" 
 
 Agnes was only twenty herself, but at that moment she 
 felt twenty years older than the fifteen-year-old girl who 
 didn't understand. 
 
 "A-aye, he looves me and all but," she faltered and 
 twisted her brown hands as if she were trying to pull the 
 fingers off. "Ah, Miss Coocoo," she burst out presently, 
 "go back to your bed. I must go he's waiting for me, 
 poor lad, I must go. I've thought and thought, and 
 there's nowt else to be done." 
 
 And then came Cuckoo's great moment. 
 
 Going slowly to the other girl, she reached up and put 
 her hands on the broad, strong shoulders in the black 
 jacket. 
 
 "There ** owt to be done," she declared, speaking pur- 
 posely in Agnes' own language; "you can marry Isaac 
 Vosper." 
 
 Agnes started, horror in her eyes. "Owd Vosper? Me 
 
 119
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 marry him? No, never, rich as he is, not even if " 
 
 She broke off and gathered up her few belongings pre- 
 paratory to going. 
 
 "Not even if what? He is rich, very rich. He'd 
 give you all the brass you want and servants, and you'd 
 have horses and cows and pigs. Don't be an idiot, Agnes. 
 Marry him!" 
 
 Chris Greening, his silly young heart full of rapture 
 and trouble, was waiting for his sweetheart at the may- 
 tree by the short cut leading to the Middleton Road, on 
 its way to where, at Canty Bridge, lived the kind Maggie 
 ^Watlass. 
 
 The poor lad had begged a day off from work and had 
 come to meet his sweetheart dressed in his best; in his 
 coat he had stuck a bunch of ragged white pinks, and his 
 curly hair was oiled and smelt of cinnamon. 
 
 He was a comely young fellow, even in his unbeautifying 
 Sunday glory of attire, and the pallor that underlay his 
 tan gave his clear-cut face an odd look of having been 
 powdered. 
 
 Agnes had promised to join him at five. At half-past 
 he began to feel anxious, and his round blue eyes were 
 fixed on the path as it rose towards Roseroofs. He never 
 knew how near he had come that morning to a life of 
 miserable grinding poverty with the girl he honestly 
 loved ; by how small a margin he missed a year of rapture 
 and a later life out of which the glow of romance had 
 died. His was a predicament as old as the world itself; 
 either way he stood to win and to lose and he lost and 
 won. 
 
 For, just as she reached the door to go to him, Agnes 
 stood still, struck dumb and motionless with terror. Some- 
 one was coming downstairs ! And she knew that someone 
 could only be her aunt, Esther Oughtenshaw. 
 
 120
 
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 As she stood, trembling with terror, Cuckoo, in the 
 quick transition of her position from one of defeat to one 
 of victory, nimble-witted and triumphant, opened the 
 cellar-door, whispering, "I'll get your print frock and 
 apron for you" closed the door, and met the unsuspi- 
 cious Esther Oughtenshaw with a beaming smile. 
 
 "I couldn't sleep, Esther, so I waked Agnes and had 
 
 her make me some tea. She's gone to dress now " 
 
 And in five minutes she had flown to poor Agnes' bare, 
 dismantled little room, found her ordinary morning clothes 
 and thrown them to her through the cellar window under 
 the dining-room. 
 
 Poor Chris, at six o'clock, turned sorrowfully back and 
 went to his work as usual, his heart aching as if it had 
 never held a doubt. 
 
 All he remembered was that he loved Agnes, and that, 
 though he was, as he as well as she innocently expressed 
 it, willing to marry her, she had played him false. On his 
 way back to the farm he passed along the path leading 
 to the Green Bench, and here, very thoughtful, hunched 
 up, her arms clasping her raised knees, was Cuckoo. 
 
 "Fine morning, Miss Coocoo," Greening said politely 
 as he passed. 
 
 "Aye. Looks like rain, though," she returned, as 
 mechanically. Then, as he turned the corner, she called 
 him. "Chris!" 
 
 "A-aye, Miss Coocoo?" 
 
 His hurt love and pride had imprinted themselves clearly 
 in his simple face, and Cuckoo was sorry for him. 
 
 "Agnes didn't come, Chris," she said, gently. 
 
 "N o. She didn't coom," 
 
 "I'm very sorry for you, Chris, and for her." 
 
 But Chris didn't care a rush whether Miss Cuckoo was 
 aorry for him or not. He stared at her dully. 
 
 121
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "It's better to tell you at once, Chris. She is not 
 going to marry you. It would be very foolish for you 
 both. You would be so miserably poor." 
 
 Chris scratched his head. This was no new idea to 
 him and had cost him much thought, but he had made up 
 his mind to disregard it, and now, knowing that Agnes 
 had decided not to disregard it, a salutary sensation of 
 indignation came into his mind. He expressed himself 
 with terseness and vigor, and leaving Cuckoo with a very 
 roughly-worded message for the faithless Agnes, went 
 his way. 
 
 After an hour's hard thinking and a short visit to the 
 house, for the purpose of breakfasting for she found 
 that matrimonial advice had produced in her a great hun- 
 ger Cuckoo went out and, after an interval of two hours, 
 arrived in visibly high feather at the Vicarage. 
 
 When she had told the whole story, vividly detailed, 
 to the delighted Rachel, she stopped and drew a long 
 breath. 
 
 "So he said," she added after a moment, "that he was 
 very much obliged to me and would step round this even- 
 ing. That means, of course, that he's going to ask her 
 again. And she's promised me to say yes. Isn't it 
 splendid?" 
 
 Rachel nodded thoughtfully. "Yes." 
 
 "It really is a jolly old farm, you know, Ray, and he 
 wasn't so 'very awful. What a good thing I heard her this 
 morning! I only hope," she went on, lying back on the 
 hillside, and staring up at the sky, "that she won't back 
 out." 
 
 Rachel glanced at her. "No (danger of that," she ob- 
 served dryly, and with an air of wisdom that did not 
 escape Cuckoo, "she'll be jolly glad to be married." 
 
 Cuckoo chewed the end of a piece of grass. "Not so 
 sure. You see, she really does care for Chris. It'll take 
 
 122
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her some time to be able to make up Her mind to marry 
 old Vosper. It would even me, if I had a a Chris and a 
 Vosper. You know what I mean." 
 
 Rachel nodded. "You're a funny kid, Nicky," she de- 
 clared, in an unbearably grown-up manner. 
 
 Just then George appeared, wandering along in his 
 desultory way, his cap in one pocket, a book in another. 
 He was singing softly in what Cuckoo called his baby 
 voice, for though he was nineteen, his voice had never 
 cracked, but was slowly mellowing into a deep tenor, a 
 process which still, at times, allowed him, when he sang 
 very softly, to produce a few bars, in a kind of soprano 
 as beautiful as a child's. 
 
 "I say, George," Rachel called, as he was about to 
 pass without seeing them, "come and hear what Cuckoo's 
 been up to," 
 
 The lad obeyed, sitting by them. "What has she been 
 up to?" he asked, looking on Rachel with the content 
 the sight of her smooth beauty never failed to produce in 
 him. 
 
 "She's been match-making." 
 
 "Match-making ?" 
 
 "Yes. She's arranged a marriage," Rachel went on 
 gaily, bridling a little under his eyes, "between Agnes, 
 their maid and a Mr. Vosper." 
 
 George started. "Vosper? Old Ike? Nonsense, 
 Rachel." 
 
 "It's quite true. Isn't it, Nicky?" 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. 
 
 "But " George's pale brows knotted nervously, 
 
 "Agnes is engaged to another man. At least I think 
 so, " 
 
 Cuckoo sat up. "She was. Now she isn't. I stopped! 
 her running away with that silly Chris Greening. Tenj 
 shillings a week they'd have had to live on!" 
 
 123
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "But, Cuckoo " the boy broke off, his pale face 
 
 flushed. "I I wish you hadn't. They they really were 
 engaged. Seriously. Very seriously. Why did you 
 interfere?" 
 
 "Don't be stupid, George. How are two people to live 
 on ten shillings a week? Besides," she added grown-up- 
 edly, "they'd be sure to have a lot of babies. Those people 
 always do." 
 
 George rose. "Good-bye," he said, "I'll I'll just 
 
 rrrv ^ " 
 
 When he had gone, Rachel gave a meaning giggle. 
 
 "You really are a baby, Nicky," she exclaimed. "Poor 
 George nearly burst with embarrassment." 
 
 "Nonsense! Why should George be embarrassed?" 
 
 And then Rachel told her, told her as some girls of her 
 age do tell such sordid, piteous little tragedies, with a 
 gloating and lingering enjoyment. 
 
 To do Cuckoo justice, she derived no pleasure from the 
 tale. She listened coldly, a little ashamed of her own 
 ignorance, but the thing that remained in her mind as the 
 vital part of the whole business was still old Isaac Vesper's 
 brass. 
 
 "He's not a bad old thing," she declared, "and he's 
 really very rich for a farmer, so at least It can be well 
 looked after if she marries him." 
 
 "But she won't dare tell him," elucidated Rachel. 
 "Lots of girls kill theirs, rather than be found out." 
 
 "Bosh! Of course she'll tell him, and no doubt he'll 
 be glad to have one ready-made, so to speak. An old 
 man like him!" 
 
 But she was very angry when, at this remarkable prog- 
 nostication, the wise Rachel burst into a shout of laughter.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 EVERY Christmas there arrived at Roseroofs a big 
 box of gifts from Lady Fabricius. The greater 
 part of these offerings being in the form of clothes, 
 they were always sent in an odd trunk of her ladyship's, 
 and to Cuckoo those trunks were things of romance and 
 mystery. 
 
 For her Aunt Marcia had always been, in a common- 
 place way, a great traveler, and these old black leather 
 boxes with "M. A. F." painted in large white letters on 
 them, were covered with old labels, and, moreover, travel- 
 ing boxes are intrinsically beautiful and romantic things. 
 To Lucerne, Lady Fabricius had been, Hotel National; 
 to Venice, "Danieli's" ; to Rome, the "Grand" ; to Munich, 
 the "Continental"; to Paris, Hotel Bristol; to Aix-les- 
 Bains, Hotel de 1'Europe; to Homburg, Hotel Victoria; 
 to Sorrento, "Tramontana's" ; and so on and so on in an 
 apparently endless trail all over the continent of Europe. 
 
 And for Cuckoo, in whose blood was, as her father had 
 said, the fatal roving drop, the torn, disfigured labels 
 had a most potent charm. Sometimes one label hid an- 
 other and had to be peeled off with moisture and delicacy, 
 to discover what was under it; sometimes only a red or 
 yellow scrap remained, and it was a fascinating puzzle to 
 think over all the towns ending in, say, "ig" or "en," and 
 decide what the missing letters were. Often one's dreams 
 of places are better than the places themselves, and, a 
 large old map of Europe on the floor beside her, Cuckoo 
 spent many hours travelling in imagination to all the 
 cities to which the shabby box beside her had had the 
 
 125
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 privilege of going. One cold December evening when she 
 was eighteen, the young girl was sitting by the fire in the 
 study engrossed in this entrancing make-believe, a new 
 trunk having just arrived. 
 
 It was half-past five, tea was over and the big, old 
 moderator lamp was lit. In the old-fashioned, black- 
 leaded grate the fire blazed cozily, and Cuckoo, on the 
 floor, the lamp drawn near the edge of the table, had just, 
 in her mind, arrived in Paris at a new hotel called the 
 "Ritz." (Formerly she had put up, in these visits, at 
 "Meurice's.") Her feet under her, her hands still thin 
 and small and dusky clasped on her lap, the girl was 
 busy with her dream-visit to Paris. She had not been 
 there since her babyhood; she had never been to London 
 since her father brought her through it on her way to 
 Roseroofs, on which occasion he had given her to believe 
 she had distinguished herself by being sick in the cab that 
 brought her from the station to the hotel; she had been 
 nowhere except into York to see a dentist, and once, after 
 measles, to Whitby. She had, in accordance with her 
 father's wishes, lived entirely at Roseroofs. 
 
 But the drop was in her blood, and her hour-long poring 
 over maps had caused much anxiety, though but little 
 discussion, to her aunts. An old Continental Bradshaw 
 that had been her father's was also one of her most cher- 
 ished treasures and this lay on the floor by her now, for, 
 to her surprise, a Budapest hotel label on the trunk had 
 informed her that her aunt had been extending her travels 
 that much out of the beaten track, and she had in imagi- 
 nation been journeying from Buda to Paris via Vienna and 
 Frankfort, in strict accordance with the train-service of 
 fifteen years before. 
 
 The firelight and lamplight falling full on her showed 
 her to have changed as little since the occasion of Rachel 
 Poole's first visit to the dale, as would be possible for 
 
 126
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 any girl between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. She 
 was still small and thin and undeveloped, and her thick, 
 black hair, though now neatly packed in plaits tight to 
 her little head, still looked too heavy for her thin neck 
 to carry. 
 
 Her lower jaw distinctly jutted, and her dream-filled 
 eyes were dull with intentness. Her bbdy sat there on 
 the shabby rug in the study, waiting for Aunt Effie to 
 come in and open the box, but her young mind had gone 
 forth in search of adventure. She had never been told 
 that she was to go to London to her unknown aunt. So 
 far as she actually knew, she was to stay on for ever at 
 Roseroofs. But with no discussion of the subject, even 
 mental, she knew that she should not be always at Rose- 
 roofs. She knew it just as she had known that she would 
 one day own beautiful things like Rachel's. Miss Effie 
 and Miss Flora had once or twice touched, very lightly, to 
 each other, on her amazing contentment in her quiet life. 
 
 "Of course," Miss Flora said, "there is no place like 
 the dale, but at her age, Effie, one shouldn't have won- 
 dered if " 
 
 Miss Effie, on whose granite exterior time seemed to 
 make no more effect than it did on the walls of their 
 house, nodded. "It is a pleasant surprise to me, Flora,' 
 that she should be so satisfied. I had anticipated rest- 
 lessness and discontent in her, but then you'll say that 
 I am naturally suspicious." 
 
 Miss Flora, whom the passing years were dimming and 
 blurring a little in everything but her springing, jocund 
 carriage, looked at her sister with a sweet, peculiar little 
 smile. She had said nothing of the kind but she did not 
 deny the imputed charge, and Miss Effie went on, "I must 
 admit too, Flora, that the life would not have suited me. 
 But then I was always so full of energy." 
 
 The next time a foreign letter arrived for Cuckoo from 
 
 127
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Rachel, the two old ladies eyed her cautiously as slie 
 read it. 
 
 "They're at Bellagio," the girl told them, "isn't it 
 delightful?" 
 
 And how could they know that her lack of envy sprang 
 from her calm certainty that before long her own time 
 for Bellagio would come? 
 
 Bellagio and Buda, Paris, Seville and Simla. These 
 places would be hers as naturally as her twentieth year 
 or her first gray hair. There was plenty of time. It 
 may be said that most young creatures naturally expect 
 all the good things of the world to come their way and 
 this, of course, is true. It is one of God's blessings that 
 it is true. But Cuckoo was in one way, if not in this, 
 an exception to other maidens. She valued her own 
 youth. Every day, as it came, was to her a delightful 
 and good thing; she had no desire to hurry events. 
 
 So, that evening, as she sat on the floor by the trunk, 
 she was perfectly happy. Roseroofs, as her thoughts 
 came back to it from Hungary, was an excellent perch, 
 but it never occurred to her to regard it as a nest. 
 
 Presently her thoughts settled like a swarm of friendly 
 bees on George Loxley, for the trunk had been to St. 
 Moritz, and at St. Moritz George had spent part of the 
 last summer. 
 
 Now the poor dear was back in Glasgow, in a bank, of 
 all places in the world for him, although Mr. Fleming, 
 who was the president of the bank, was an old friend of 
 the Vicar's and very fond of the young man. 
 
 Cuckoo had not seen George for eighteen months, and 
 she wondered how he was getting on. She remembered 
 the day when she had found him lying in the bracken, 
 his face hidden, the day after the news came that some- 
 thing had happened whereby his grandfather's income was 
 reduced by one half. 
 
 128
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 His paint-box for he had told the girl of his year- 
 long secret of trying to paint and confided to her his 
 dream of one day being able to paint the moorland 
 lay beside him, and young man though he was, she thought 
 his eyes were not quite dry. 
 
 She had sat silently by him, not knowing what to say 
 and wondering why he so horribly minded the prospect 
 of leaving the dale. 
 
 But he had minded, and only she knew, when Mr. Flem- 
 ing's offer to take him into the bank came, how bitterly 
 he dreaded the prospect of it. 
 
 "George seems quite pleased, in his quiet way," the 
 Vicar told Miss Effie and Miss Flora. "Of course, any 
 young man would enjoy a little town life," and Miss Effie 
 agreed with him. 
 
 So George had gone, and, as his first Christmas holiday 
 had been spent at Harrogate where his grandfather was 
 taking a cure, and the summer before he had gone to 
 Switzerland with Paul Fleming, his chief's delicate son, 
 he had not been back to the dale since. 
 
 But now he was coming, and Cuckoo, spurred by the 
 natural villainy of her eighteen years and much coaching 
 by the experienced Rachel, had planned a fine holiday 
 for him. George was to fall in love with her. It was 
 not that she felt drawn towards the young man other 
 than as to a very old friend, but there was a new frock 
 for her in the unopened trunk, she was eighteen, and it 
 behooved her to test her powers, and George was the only 
 young man she knew. 
 
 Rachel, the summer before, had spent three weeks at 
 Roseroofs, having, to Aunt Effie's indignation and Aunt 
 Flora's gentle amusement, invited herself, and Rachel, now 
 a young woman in her second social year, was full of 
 wisdom and guile. 
 
 "It's the greatest fun," she said, "and as easy as any- 
 
 129
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Ihing. They're all exactly alike, really, and you just 
 have to keep them wondering. The thing is to keep 'em 
 on the jump. You know nice to them one day and 
 hardly recognize them the next. And always," she added, 
 with a touch of real wisdom in the midst of all her rub- 
 bish, "be interested in their things. Horses, or golf, or 
 Japanese prints, or whatever it is they like." 
 
 "But what," inquired Miss Blundell, who was unusually 
 well acquainted with herself, "about the things I like? 
 iWhy shouldn't they be interested in them?" 
 
 "They will," Rachel answered, laughing, "after a bit. 
 I meant just at first, you know." 
 
 Rachel had developed into a large, rather Junoesque 
 young woman, with an occasional fleeting Phryne-like 
 gleam in her prominent eyes. Abnormally lazy physically 
 and mentally, sentimental, sensual, and unintelligent, she 
 had a decided charm for some men and was neither un- 
 aware nor ashamed of its nature. 
 
 She was, among much affectation and many poses, 
 genuinely fond of Cuckoo, and her advice as to the en- 
 slavement of George was quite kindly meant. "It's a 
 pity there aren't any other men here," she said, simply; 
 "but he'll be better than no one." 
 
 So it was decided that George's subjugation should be 
 accomplished at Christmas, and Cuckoo had laid her plans 
 in her own way, not altogether conforming to her friend's 
 system. 
 
 A stranger, no doubt, would have been more fun, but 
 then it was to be said for George that he would be on 
 the spot, so George it should be. George would reach the 
 Vicarage the next morning, and at seven the Vicar and 
 he would be at Roseroofs, since, for more years than 
 Cuckoo could remember, they had dined with the Misses 
 Plues on Christmas Eve. 
 
 The new frock, Cuckoo knew, would be white, but it 
 
 130
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 would be a beauty, and she had secretly sent Aunt Marcia 
 a new set of measurements, so it was sure to be long 
 enough and, what was even more vital, tight enough in the 
 waist. She wished Aunt Effie would come in. 
 
 And then she heard rapid footsteps on the gravel path 
 and the opening of the front door. 
 
 "Oh, you're all snowy, Aunt Effie," the girl exclaimed, 
 as the old woman put her parcels on the hall table, "isn't 
 it awfulty cold?" Aunt Effie was nipped and blue, but 
 she declared that the storm was no more than what was 
 seasonable. 
 
 She had, she pursued, as Cuckoo peeled off her soaking 
 galoshes and Miss Flora carried her cloak to the kitchen 
 to be dried, got everything they needed except the rum. 
 "Not a drop of rum to be had in the whole village." 
 
 "Did you," Cuckoo asked, with grave slyness, "try both 
 shops ?" 
 
 "You always laugh at Warcop, Cuckoo," murmured 
 Miss Flora, reproval in her voice, "and yet you've only 
 been once to York." 
 
 "You forget my travels my very extensive travels 
 in Spain and France," the girl replied, rising. 
 
 "Nonsense, child," Miss Effie's voice was sharp. "You 
 can't remember when you were four." 
 
 Cuckoo stood, her hands stuck into her belt in a way 
 her aunts disapproved, looking thoughtfully at the floor. 
 "Of course I can't remember, Aunt Effie," she returned 
 slowly, in her most guttural voice, "but somehow it isn't 
 quite the same as if I had never been anywhere. I can't 
 quite explain, but somehow I seem to know how Paris 
 feels and the South. I alwa} r s expect the sun to go on 
 growing hotter and hotter, and it doesn't, you know. 
 Also, I'm sure I know how orange blossoms smell, though 
 there aren't any here," 
 
 Miss Effie gave a little snort that meant a conscientious 
 
 131
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 attempt to suffer fools patiently, and marched into the 
 study. "We may as well open the box," she said, "before 
 supper," 
 
 Esther Oughtenshaw was called from the kitchen to 
 loosen the great strap with the travel-rusted buckle 
 "Budapest and Paris rain," Cuckoo reflected, watch- 
 ing her, and then the key was produced and the box 
 opened. 
 
 On the top tray, as usual, lay several handsome, very 
 slightly worn gowns of velvet and silk and cashmere, gowns 
 of Lady Fabricius' sent for her sisters, and by Cuckoo 
 irreverently called Tads. 
 
 After a very cursory examination of these offerings, 
 the tray was lifted out and put on the floor. The next 
 tray (the whole box smelt faintly of orris-root and cam- 
 phor) was the one, for in it lay, in all its glory, Cuckoo's 
 Christmas frock. 
 
 Miss Flora, as the three ladies bent over it and Miss 
 Effie removed the tissue paper that covered it, gave a 
 little scream of ecstasy. 
 
 "Oh, Effie," she cried, her eyes rolling recklessly, "it's 
 crepe-de-Chine !" 
 
 It was. And when Miss EfBe lifted it in an almost sac- 
 ramental manner and laid it on the sofa, it was seen to be 
 very long. "Much longer than ever before," Miss Effie 
 declared with disapproval, "although you haven't grown 
 since last year, Nicoleta." 
 
 Nicoleta did not reply, and Miss Effie, after taking the 
 tissue paper out of the sleeves, continued, this time in 
 a voice full of horror, "Flora look at the waist-belt !" 
 
 Miss Flora, palpitating, looked, as Miss Effie raised the 
 garment, a finger hooked gingerly in either of the shoul- 
 ders, the heavily ribbed silk inside the belt hanging down. 
 "Look at it !" 
 
 Miss Flora rounded the belt with her hands. "She'll 
 
 132
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 never be able to get it on," she agreed. "Sarah Christie 
 will have to let it out," 
 
 Cuckoo didn't smile. "I think," she said gravely, "that 
 it will be all right, Aunt Flora." 
 
 She did not add that the revised measurements sent 
 by her to Lady Fabricius had included a waist measure 
 fully four inches smaller than her previous one. What 
 would have been the use of mentioning it? She meant at 
 any price to make her waist fit the frock and there was 
 an end to it! 
 
 The ladies then turned their attention to the rest of 
 the contents of the trunk. There was a pair of pointed, 
 narrow, patent leather shoes with high heels, in each of 
 which lay rolled a filmy black silk stocking "Marcia 
 has evidently forgotten," Miss Effie decided, examining 
 the stockings, "the roughness of our roads. These things 
 will be worn out at once " 
 
 But Miss Flora protested. "Oh, Effie, she won't wear 
 them for long walks ! Only for best. She can wear them 
 tomorrow when the Vicar comes. He will like to see her 
 looking so nice !" 
 
 Busy though she was, investigating the mysteries of 
 her frock, Cuckoo turned and kissed her Aunt Flora at 
 this speech, and Miss Flora blushed, the caress was so 
 unusual. 
 
 There were other gifts, a soft woolly shawl apiece for 
 the ladies, a crimson woollen jersey for Esther Oughten- 
 shaw, a dress length for Nellie, Agnes' successor, a fine 
 collection of new novels that her sisters knew Lady 
 Fabricius had bought and read and not cared to keep ; 
 there was a basket with a big pineapple in it, and a bottle 
 apiece of preserved peaches and candied cherries (the 
 latter for the Vicar), and there were beautiful new silk 
 petticoats, one gray and one dark blue, stiff with richness 
 and pipings, for Miss Effie and Miss Flora. And when 
 
 133
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 all these treasures had been inspected, Miss Effie found, 
 amongst the packing paper, a long parcel, addressed in 
 a strange hand: "For my Cousin Cuckoo, from Bertie." 
 
 Cuckoo opened the parcel to find, in a robin's-egg blue 
 satin box, a beautiful ostrich feather fan mounted in pale 
 tortoise-shell. 
 
 "Bertie! Dear me, how charming, how kind of him," 
 murmured Miss Flora. "What a kind thought!" 
 
 Miss Effie nodded grimly. "The first time he has ever 
 remembered the existence of any one of us." 
 
 "He could hardly have remembered us," came in gentle 
 protest from Miss Flora, "considering that he never 
 saw us." 
 
 Cuckoo said nothing. She stood in the firelight, opening 
 and shutting her fan with a feeling of luxury hitherto 
 unrealized by her. It was, in fact, the first object of 
 utter, glorious, useless extravagance that she had ever 
 owned, and silently, dreamily, and sensuously she was 
 enjoying it. 
 
 All the evening she kept the fan near her. It was to 
 her not only a very beautiful and enchanting fan, it seemed 
 in some way to be a symbol. Why should her unknown 
 Cousin Hubert Fabricius send her, he who had never in 
 all his life seen her, such a fan? A fan of glorious white 
 feathers is a full-dress thing ; a thing no one could expect 
 to be used in a small, lonely house on a remote hillside. 
 Why had Bertie, if he wished to send her a gift, not chosen 
 one of the things usually considered appropriate to young 
 girls in her circumstances? Books, or a muff, or even a 
 little brooch such as girls can wear anywhere? 
 
 This great flamboyant thing could never be used in 
 Wiskedale. It could be carried only Cuckoo held her 
 breath in her corner of the dining-room, as her aunts 
 played their game of bezique by the fire only at balls. 
 And when was there to be a ball in Wiskedale?
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She was, as she sat there, the fan on her lap, very 
 near the solution of the mystery, very near discovering 
 the secret that had been kept so faithfully by the two 
 old ladies, the fact that she was to go to London, that 
 very coming May, to be presented and to go to balls. 
 
 So nearly had Bertie Fabricius' careless impulse been 
 to letting the cat out of the bag, that Cuckoo, sitting 
 there in the quiet room, was almost on the point of the 
 great discovery, but just as Miss Effie and Miss Flora's 
 rubber ended by a triumphant sequence on Miss Flora's 
 part, something happened, and in five minutes more the 
 fan and all its mysteries were forgotten.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CUCKOO and George Loxley had been to all intents 
 and purposes brother and sister since she was four 
 and he nine. They had played together, eaten 
 together, even tried, at one period, to learn together. 
 
 And as they grew older, though their intimacy had 
 waned, it was but the waning of an intimacy between a 
 boy who was unusually thoughtful and studious and a 
 little sister whose babyish interests he was outgrowing. 
 They had remained just as fond of each other as ever, 
 but their ways had inevitably divided. George's shy pas- 
 sion for painting had helped to set them apart, for 
 Cuckoo's chatter disturbed him at his work, and his sitting 
 still for hours set her restlessness raging. 
 
 And despite the fact that George remained, as time 
 went on, the only youth and young man in the country- 
 side, it never occurred to Cuckoo to regard him as a 
 possible lover or husband. He was, as he had always been, 
 just George. 
 
 Finally when, goaded by Rachel and her stories, Cuckoo 
 decided that someone must fall in love with her, she de- 
 cided on George as her victim with a feeling of regret, 
 not because George might possibly suffer, but because he 
 was only just George! 
 
 A new young man would have been much more amus- 
 ing, but there was no new young man. 
 
 So George was to love her and to suffer damnably 
 her own word. His was to be a world-shaking passion, 
 but she was to remain merely the detached and enter- 
 tained object of his flame. The flame was not to have 
 
 136
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the power even to scorch her asbestos personality. Rachel 
 had had one lover whose mind had on one occasion gone 
 to the length of turning to thoughts of suicide. She had 
 had another who had chucked up a perfectly ripping job 
 in Egypt to return to London to the devastating presence 
 of his Beloved. 
 
 Therefore it followed naturally that Cuckoo might 
 eventually have to wrench from George's frenzied hand 
 the pistol with which he wished to put an end to his 
 miserable life. 
 
 Knowing the young man as she did, Cuckoo rather 
 doubted that this vision would ever be fulfilled it seemed, 
 considering George's gentleness, almost too good to be 
 true however, buttressed by Rachel's tales, she hoped for 
 the best. 
 
 It would be great fun to see George cry, anyway, and 
 that did not seem so utterly beyond the borders of pos- 
 sibility. 
 
 She had spent many hours over this pleasant dream of 
 havoc and despair, and when, as she sat thinking of her 
 fan, she heard George's voice in the hall, it flashed into 
 her mind as a beautiful whole. She had not expected 
 him till the next day, but he was here, and she would 
 begin at once to enthral him. Her heart beat as she rose, 
 and waited for the trial to begin. 
 
 "Oh, Master George," Esther Oughtenshaw was saying 
 and then the door opened and he came in. 
 
 He kissed Aunt Effie and Aunt Flora he had always 
 called them Aunt and then turned to Cuckoo. 
 
 "Hello, Kiddy," he said, smiling at her and shaking 
 her hand. 
 
 Cuckoo drew a deep breath that hurt her. "How do 
 you do, George," she faltered. "I I didn't know you 
 had a mustache. . . ." 
 
 Christmas Day, that year in Wiskedale, outdid itself 
 
 137
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 in the matter of weather. It was snowy but clear; cold 
 but wind-still ; glittering but not dazzling. It was, Cuckoo 
 reflected during the sermon, her eyes fixed unseeingly on 
 the Vicar, the most perfect Christmas she had ever had. 
 The Vicar, who possessed the rare and very beautiful 
 priestly quality of leaving his familiar every-dayness be- 
 hind him when he went to church, preached a short, simple, 
 helpful sermon, his rosy old face grave and noble, his 
 voice full of happy solemnity. 
 
 Miss Flora and Miss Effie and Cuckoo, all wearing new 
 furs, sat in a row on the right of the church, and in the 
 Vicarage pew next old Mrs. Bridlegoose, was George, full 
 in the rich light that fell from the one old colored window 
 that had survived the years. George was very happy 
 that morning. 
 
 He loved his grandfather, and he also, as he himself 
 mentally put it, loved the Vicar of Widdybank. They 
 were to him two quite distinct people. He was proud 
 of the fine, simple old cleric and he appreciated the beauty 
 and wisdom of the sermon. 
 
 "And now, in the name of the Father and the Son. . . ." 
 
 The Roseroofs ladies had for many years dined on 
 Christmas Day at the Vicarage, but before dinner George 
 and Cuckoo climbed the hill and went to the Green Bench 
 to see how the Roofs were looking. 
 
 They were both a little silent as they climbed the path 
 in single file, and when George had brushed four inches of 
 powdery, dry snow from the Bench, they sat down and 
 they were still for a while longer. 
 
 The scene below them was one of almost incomparable 
 beauty. Boys and girls skating on the tangle of ice 
 among the three bridges at Warcop brought to the wide- 
 spread whiteness splashes and blots of warm reds and 
 blues; the fir trees up Cotherside glittered like so many 
 silver-powdered Christmas trees, and the sky was 
 
 138
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of the deep, unbroken blue so beautiful in winter and 
 so inferior to cloud-swept spaces when the world is 
 green. 
 
 And just below, the lovely old convoluted, rose-colored 
 roofs, their outlines blurred by little drifts and wreaths 
 of snow, lay like a bouquet of roses. 
 
 Presently George, wondering a little at Cuckoo's silence, 
 turned and looked at her. 
 
 She wore a new brown coat and skirt her gift from the 
 Aunts and her new musquash furs, the Vicar's offering. 
 
 She had not heard him move and was staring off up 
 Cotherside with fixed eyes. George looked at her intently. 
 She was not beautiful; her eyes were even yet too small, 
 her skin too brown, her little underhung jaw too pro- 
 truding. 
 
 But he loved the bluish mist that made her black eyes 
 unlike all the other black eyes in the world and he loved 
 her one dimple; a dimple that plainly owed its existence 
 to the slight asymmetry of her jaw. And the glo'rious 
 scarlet of her lips, he decided, any one must love. 
 
 "I must paint you, Nicky," he burst out suddenly. 
 
 "Do you still paint?" 
 
 It seemed very odd to him that she should not realize 
 how he loved his poor little attempts at the most noble 
 art, and he laughed tenderly at her. "Do I paint? Do 
 I breathe?" 
 
 Then he added, gravely, "Ah, yes, I do in a way. 
 Rather badly, I know, but still I've had lessons in Glas- 
 gow and I'm better than I used to be. Will you sit to 
 me?" 
 
 "If you like," she answered indifferently, and a new, 
 sudden, surprising fear came to him, the fear that he 
 might bore her. 
 
 "Perhaps perhaps you don't like painting, Cuckoo?" 
 
 His voice, coming after a pause, was deprecating. 
 
 139
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She sat very primly, her eyes fixed on the roofs. "Oh, 
 yes," she said, "I do. Well enough." 
 
 She had changed very much, he thought, during his 
 two years' absence. She was reserved, almost constrained, 
 and she seemed, this Cuckoo who in the old days had been 
 so like a little boy, to be intensely, almost painfully 
 feminine. 
 
 He looked at one of her narrow little hands that lay 
 basking in the sun on her muff, and an absurd feeling of 
 pity rushed over him. It was so small a hand, so thin, so 
 delicate-looking. He longed to cover it up, to put it back 
 into the muff. . . . 
 
 He wished, with the same almost unendurable acute- 
 ness, that her dear little sloe-eyes were larger; other 
 women's eyes were larger, and brutes and fools must ad- 
 mire her the less because hers were small. Her dear little 
 eyes with the bluish mist in them! 
 
 Again, if she were only taller ! He had friends, even he, 
 the reserved old "cat that walked by itself," as they called 
 him, young men who talked much about women; and he 
 had learned, indifferent listener though they had found 
 him, that, in the abstract, all men admire tall women. 
 Only a man who happens really to love some particular 
 small woman, he knew, ever admires shortness. Then, 
 he was aware, the beloved at once became a pocket Venus, 
 or "just as tall as my heart," or was compared to the 
 greatest treasures in the world, to pearls, diamonds, vio- 
 lets, small, priceless things. 
 
 So as they sat there on the Green Bench in their un- 
 usual word-scarceness, George wished that Cuckoo were 
 taller, wished it with a strength that drew the color from 
 his thin cheeks and caused his quiet heart to quicken a 
 little. 
 
 At last she spoke. "You sang beautifully, George," 
 she said. "In church, I mean." 
 
 140
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 He laughed. "My voice is not much good. I suppose 
 it's because I'm such a crock, but it's a pity, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "You aren't a crock. I hate the word," she returned 
 quickly, "and it sounded beautiful." 
 
 After a moment she went on, "Do you remember singing 
 'Hark, hark, my soul,' at Father's funeral?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Sir Peregrine Janeways cried." 
 
 "Did he?" 
 
 "Do you know him, George? Since you've grown up, 
 I mean." 
 
 He shook his head. "No, I've never seen him from 
 that day. Why?" 
 
 "I don't know. Rachel knows him, and she's told me 
 about him. He's a queer old thing, I should think, like 
 one of the Regency beaux, or something." 
 
 "Rather like Grammont. Somebody painted him a 
 while ago. I forget who I saw it at the Academy. He's 
 a magnificent-looking fellow " 
 
 She nodded. "He's been in the divorce-court three 
 times rather the modern equivalent for tournaments, 
 isn't it and married two of the women." 
 
 George frowned a little. He wished she didn't know 
 about such ugly things. "Shall we start back?" he asked, 
 "it will be pretty slippery going down the hill, you 
 know " 
 
 Cuckoo was quite willing to go, but for some reason she 
 clung to Sir Peregrine as a subject of conversation, and 
 as he followed her down the narrow path, George learned 
 that Sir Peregrine was like a man in a novel; very fas- 
 cinating and dangerous ; that no woman could resist him ; 
 that even now he was always in love with some one 
 
 "I see," George muttered at intervals. As they crossed 
 the brook by the stepping-stones, he changed the subject 
 
 141
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 by main force. "You haven't forgotten our promise to go 
 to see Nurse this afternoon ?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered readily, but her volubility had 
 ceased, and the rest of their way to the Vicarage was 
 made in almost unbroken silence. 
 
 In the drawing-room they found Miss Effie and Miss 
 Flora in all the glory of their best gowns (made-over 
 Tads of Aunt Marcia's from last year's Box), sitting by 
 the fire. Miss Flora, in silver-gray silk with long lace 
 frills at her wrists, wore that day, for the first time in her 
 life, a cap a strip of beautiful lace folded straitly across 
 her abundant gray hair and pinned down by two small 
 swallows of silver studded with minute diamonds. 
 
 George glanced at her with a flush of pleasure in his 
 large eyes ; she was quite lovely. Miss Effie, in violet 
 silk, of a thick and rich quality but exactly the wrong 
 shade for her lined and darkly-yellow face, wore her un- 
 compromising hair plastered down as usual, and as usual 
 apparently varnished. 
 
 The Vicar, much rounder, and quite as rubicund as ever, 
 stood on the hearth-rug, his hands behind his back. 
 
 "Mrs. Baker from the Post Office has just been in," 
 he declared when he had kissed Cuckoo, "to bring a a 
 something that was forgotten this morning. Guess what 
 it is?" 
 
 Proudly he produced a large, square silver frame and, 
 smiling from it, a new photograph of Rachel Poole. 
 
 "It's mine, George," he teased, "but you may look at 
 it!" 
 
 George and Cuckoo looked at it together. 
 
 Rachel wore evening dress, her long, smooth shoulders 
 already a little matronly above the wonderful satin gown. 
 Her hair was parted and rolled back in waves and twisted 
 into a long Greek knot, and her long, rather too fat arms 
 hung straight by her sides. 
 
 142
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Hers was the undeniable, over-ripe, heavy-jawed beauty 
 of many well-born English girls. 
 
 "Oh," Cuckoo cried, "isn't she splendid! Isn't she 
 lovely!" Then she added with genuine spite, "Her chin's 
 going to be double soon !" 
 
 The three elders laughed, and the Vicar accused her of 
 envy and blackheartedness, but George walked quickly 
 out of the door and up to his room and sat down on the 
 bed. For the moment his gentle soul was in an uproar. 
 He hated Rachel because she was tall and fair and curved 
 and soft, because Cuckoo was short and dark and angular 
 and thin. Poor, little unbeautiful Cuckoo, how he wanted 
 her to be beautiful, and beautifully-dressed and trium- 
 phant, and admired ! He so wanted it that he dug his nails 
 into his palms and ground his teeth aloud. "Poor, poor 
 little dark thing," he thought. And thus it was that 
 quite suddenly, with no preliminary warning of any kind, 
 he knew he loved Cuckoo. 
 
 In this matter Cuckoo had the advantage, if it were an 
 advantage, of having known, since the moment he came 
 into the Roseroofs' dining-room two evenings before to 
 break into her musings over the fire, that she loved him. 
 It came to her in a kind of delicious, humble weakness. 
 She, the strong, the pig-headed, the unaffectionate, wanted 
 to wait on George, to serve him. She would have liked 
 to be so small and light that he could carry her in his 
 arms ; she wanted to cry and have him dry her tears ; she 
 wanted to be stupid and have him laugh at her in his 
 gentle way ; she wanted to smooth his dear, mouse-colored 
 hair, and kiss his large, white eyelids. 
 
 And although there was in her feeling none of the wild- 
 ness she had been taught by books and by the lavishly-in- 
 formed Rachel to expect, she never for a moment doubted 
 its nature. It was love ; her kind of love, and she knew it. 
 
 143
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She sat in her little room that night for a long time, 
 thinking. Her plan of enthralling and torturing George 
 now looked to her like criminal lunacy. Rachel, it was 
 clear, did not know ! 
 
 Dear George, sweet George, what a love he was, with 
 his vague eyes and his baby mustache like a blessed little 
 brown caterpillar ! 
 
 She had gone to sleep perfectly, unquestioningly happy, 
 and the next day had been almost as blissful. 
 
 Because of her fears lest the new frock might prove too 
 beautiful, too entrancing, and thus give George one pang, 
 she very nearly did not wear it, but in the end she did, 
 and the dinner-party was the most exquisite dinner-party 
 that had ever been given. 
 
 So, all Christmas Eve and all Christmas morning, 
 Cuckoo and George were as happy as, at their lovely ages, 
 they deserved to be. Cuckoo had not as yet begun to 
 think, and George did not know. 
 
 During dinner the young man wondered at a variety 
 of things, but when, at about three, he and Cuckoo started 
 up over the Edge to Clavers where old Mary Watlass, 
 George's faithful and still-loving nurse lived, the delight 
 of the prospective walk and the beauty of the after- 
 noon filled her mind to the exclusion of every lesser 
 thought. 
 
 The Vicar, Miss Effie, and Miss Flora watched the two 
 young things from the window, as they went out of the 
 garden and down towards the stepping-stones. "George 
 doesn't look too strong, Vicar," Miss Effie said, as they 
 stood there. "He is too narrow across the chest to please 
 me," 
 
 "Yes, he is. But he's fatter, and Fleming treats him 
 as if he were his own son. He is very fortunate in having 
 such a chief, as he calls it, " 
 
 144
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "He seems to like Cuckoo," Miss Flora observed, 
 absently. 
 
 "Flora Flues! What do you mean?" 
 
 Miss Flora glanced at her sister. "I mean just what 
 I didn't mean to say it out loud, Effie," 
 
 The Vicar, who had gone back to the fire and was rather 
 noisily putting on coals, did not hear them, and Miss 
 Effie went on, "If I thought there was any danger of of 
 that, I'd write to Marcia to send for her now, at once, 
 instead of waiting till the spring," she declared. 
 
 Miss Flora fixed her violet eyes, the eyes so usually 
 wandering in a vague way, suddenly steadfast on her 
 sister's perturbed face. 
 
 "If you mean any danger of Cuckoo's marrying 
 George," she said, quietly, "you need not be troubled, 
 Effie. Cuckoo has plans of her own plans that do not 
 include marrying a poor man." 
 
 Miss Effie was a little annoyed at her sister's thus turn- 
 ing character-interpreter, a role she regarded exclusively 
 as her own. 
 
 "So she's been confiding in you, has she?" she returned. 
 "Did she also tell you why she didn't pick up your spec- 
 tacles last night after dinner ?" 
 
 "Why she didn't pick up " began Miss Flora 
 
 vaguely. 
 
 "Because she couldn't" Miss Effie interrupted her in 
 triumph that was tinged, as so much triumph is, with 
 malice. "That frock was so tight she could hardly 
 breathe. She dared not stoop!" 
 
 "Oh, Effie!" 
 
 "Yes, oh, Effie. It's a good thing 'oh, Effie' isn't so 
 blind as some other people, or nothing would ever be 
 noticed !" 
 
 With her springless step, Miss Effie went back to the 
 fire, and Miss Flora stood a little longer by the window, 
 
 145
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her eyes filled with a queer, half-pitying, half-pained 
 look. 
 
 George's former nurse, old Mary Watlass, lived in a 
 tiny stone cottage in the outskirts of Clavers, a dale vil- 
 lage so irregular, so scattered, that each of its wide-set 
 cottages seemed to be on the edge of it. 
 
 It was one o'clock by the time Cuckoo and George 
 arrived at her door, and the old woman was waiting for 
 them, dressed in her best. Her dinner was in the oven, 
 and she had made a special kind of suet-pudding which 
 she believed George to love, for the reason that when, 
 in his childhood, it had been prescribed for him because 
 of its fattening qualities, he had unmurmuringly partaken 
 of it. 
 
 She was a vast, clean old woman who seemed to have 
 lost her original solidity of form; Cuckoo was struck 
 with the idea that she seemed to be thawing, so shapeless 
 and fluid her contours had become ; she was, it appeared, 
 overflowing her natural boundaries. Her welcome of the 
 two young people was loud and voluble, and her delight 
 over the gifts they had brought her gave them the truest 
 kind of pleasure. 
 
 During the two years of his absence, George had nat- 
 urally changed, and the old woman's admiration for his 
 improved appearance put him literally to the blush. 
 
 "Oh, no, Mary," he protested, laughing, as she insisted 
 on unwinding the silk muffler Miss Flora had knitted for 
 him, "I really am not a handsome young gentleman, am I, 
 Cuckoo?" 
 
 Cuckoo, as she agreed with him, wondered if they could 
 possibly guess how heavenly he looked to her. 
 
 The little kitchen, though it may not have been of the 
 marvellous tidiness of those whose owners had had the 
 good fortune to be born in Yorkshire, was yet very pleas- 
 
 146
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ant, and its owner's southern nature was signalized by a 
 number of small, unnecessary luxuries that it contained. 
 
 There was not a single wooden-seated chair in the 
 room and Cuckoo, with an irresistible inward grin, remem- 
 bered an old story of the Vicar's: how Benjie Brigworthy 
 had once been heard to say, in the early days of Mary's 
 life at the Vicarage, that yon young woman from t'south 
 seemed to think, the way she scolded about the hard 
 chairs, that southern hindquarters were more delikit than 
 northern ones. 
 
 The sofa was covered with chintz, and, as Cuckoo 
 whispered to George while Mary was in the larder, you 
 could stick on it without being nailed. The roast beef 
 was tough, as most of the dale beef was, but old Mary 
 couldn't, she explained, abide mutton on Christmas Day; 
 there were roast potatoes and onions boiled in milk, be- 
 sides the suet-pudding. It was a merry little party, 
 Cuckoo and their hostess, in their gaiety, almost covering 
 George's comparative silence. 
 
 George, for his part, hardly knew what he was eating 
 until he came to the pudding, which he loathed, for he 
 was filled with an almost aching sense of the beauty of 
 Cuckoo's evident fear of meeting his eyes. The little 
 love, to be so adorably shy! 
 
 If Cuckoo was shy she did not know it. She was very 
 happy, in an utterly unquestioning way, and the old 
 woman's reminiscences of George's babyhood and child- 
 hood were to her of an incomparable interest. 
 
 "I'll show you the picture we had took of 'im in them 
 purple velvet trousers," Mary said at the end of the meal. 
 "He had just learnt to spit, and was very proud of it, and 
 spat on the floor at the photographer's " 
 
 "Oh, George," murmured Cuckoo. . . . 
 
 The album was a large, brown volume of heavily gilt, 
 corrugated leather. Its edges were apparently of solid 
 
 147
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 gold; it positively smelt of expensiveness, and had been, 
 Mrs. Watlass almost unnecessarily explained, given to 
 her on the occasion of her silver wedding. Sitting between 
 the two young people on the sofa so miraculously un- 
 slippery, the old woman exhibited her picture gallery. 
 
 First, in the place of honor, a wreath of vivid forget- 
 me-nots engarlanding him, the Vicar, in the preposterous 
 clothes of the early 'seventies. The Vicar, who had prob- 
 ably never leant on a broken pillar in his life after all, 
 very few people have was depicted not only leaning on 
 one, in obviously new clothes, but also as smelling a rose. 
 
 George and Cuckoo shouted irreverently over this mas- 
 terpiece, but Cuckoo melted into an agony of tenderness 
 over the next: George aged two months and such very 
 short months, Cuckoo thought, they looked to have been 
 "Your poor mamma gave it to me, Master George," old 
 Mary explained, "just before she died." George, lying on 
 a heavily-embroidered pillow, his sparrow-like legs wav- 
 ing incoherently, his eyes fixed in a terrific squint. The 
 pathos of this portrait nearly killed Cuckoo, though she 
 gave a loud laugh at it, but George thought shame of his 
 infant self and drew her attention to a pretty picture of 
 his father and mother, arm-in-arm, contemplating a very 
 ruinous abbey. 
 
 There were other photographs; photographs of Mrs. 
 Watlass' first mistress and her baby ; of her brothers and 
 sisters; of her friends; all of them, apparently, attired 
 in the same clothes. 
 
 Then, more Georges. George at three, in plaid trousers 
 and a braided velvet jacket; George at eight as a High- 
 land chieftain; George at ten, with too short sleeves and 
 village boots. 
 
 "That," Cuckoo said gently, pointing to the last, "is 
 the way I first remember you," 
 
 And finally came the picture that broke the dream and 
 
 148
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 caused the trouble. George had reached round his nurse's 
 enormously broad back and found Cuckoo's hand. Very 
 gently he held it, so that she might, if she chose, pretend 
 not to know where it was ; and hers was as limp as she 
 could make it, but she was conscious of his touch almost 
 to a painful degree and her eyes were, if not actually wet, 
 yet not quite dry, as she bent over the album. 
 
 "Oh, what a handsome young man," she exclaimed 
 suddenly, and it was with marked dryness that the old 
 woman replied, "Yes, Miss Cuckoo, he was 'andsome, was 
 Neddy Watlass." 
 
 "Any any relation of yours, Nurse?" George asked 
 with an effort (Cuckoo's hand was so much more impor- 
 tant !) 
 
 The fat old woman gave a sudden snort, oddly at 
 variance with her so invariably placid exterior. "Well, 
 I don't know, Master George, if he's any relation," she 
 answered, "but he's my husband." 
 
 "Good gracious, Nurse! I I didn't know you had a 
 husband. Do you mean that he's still alive ?" 
 
 Mrs. Watlass nodded with dignity. "Oh, yes so far 
 as I know he's alive," she returned. 
 
 And after a little coaxing she told them her story; 
 how, when she was twenty-one, she had come from Sussex 
 with her mistress to visit Mrs. Saltburn of Clavers Hall 
 "I was nurse to little Miss Julia she died long ago, 
 poor little darling and I met Neddy Watlass here. He 
 had no money, and no more had I, but we were two fools 
 and thought that didn't matter. Mrs. Lane, my lady, 
 gave us twenty pounds, and Mrs. Saltburn let us have 
 this cottage for four pounds a year; Ned was only a 
 farm-laborer, Miss Cuckoo, though he never looked it. 
 So we were married. And then my last baby died we'd 
 been married many years before she came, and the three 
 boys had all gone while they were small her name was 
 
 149
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Gladys, for Mrs. Lane and the Vicar came and fetched 
 me for you, Master George and that's all," 
 
 The old woman's voice trailed away into silence, and 
 the ticking of the tall clock grew very loud and then faded 
 to its normal note. 
 
 "But," Cuckoo asked, in a dull, slow way, "what what 
 happened, Nurse? Was he was he bad to you?" 
 
 "Bad? Not him!" Mrs. Watlass rose and closed the 
 album with a bang. "It was the worry that spoilt it all. 
 The babies coming, and nothing for them, and then the 
 doctor's bills, and the funerals funerals are dreadful 
 dear things, Miss Cuckoo. No, poor Ned was never a bad 
 man and he loved his 'ome, but the trouble was too much 
 for him. It was just being so poor, that's what it 
 was," 
 
 Cuckoo had drawn her hand from George's and sat 
 looking straight before her. Poverty! Poverty had 
 ruined even this simple peasant-woman's life; what, she 
 thought, would it do to hers, Cuckoo's? In an instanta- 
 neous vision she saw her coming years marching towards 
 her, and she knew that they must not come in shabbiness 
 and sordid misery. She had been a fool; she had for- 
 gotten, but now she remembered. 
 
 She rose and walked to the window. "It's beginning 
 to snow, George," she said gently, "we had better be 
 going," 
 
 The young man saw the change that had come over 
 her face, and it hurt and dismayed him, but he could not 
 read it. 
 
 They said good-bye to their old kind hostess and went 
 out into the gray afternoon. 
 
 "It's too cold," Cuckoo declared, in a hard, business- 
 like voice, "to go home by Laverock, we'd better stick to 
 the road and cut down through Cold Comfort," 
 
 There was something in her manner that prevented his 
 
 150
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 asking her why she was so different, as he mentally put it. 
 Heartsore and puzzled, he accepted her mood, and almost 
 in silence they met the oncoming storm. 
 
 In the midst of the great gash in the earth that was 
 Cold Comfort lead mine, Cuckoo stopped in the shelter 
 of a heap of stones and waste, to pin her hat more 
 securely. 
 
 "Have you a headache, Kiddy?" he asked in a voice 
 almost to be stigmatized as one of humility. 
 
 She laughed. "No. The room was stuffy, that's all. 
 And then it made me angry to think of poor old Mary's 
 having been such a fool" 
 
 He did not, in his simplicity, understand, and because 
 he was not vitally interested in old Mary, he did not ask 
 what she meant. The gray, windy world was out of joint, 
 that was all he knew; and it was more than enough. 
 
 In unbroken silence they went down the hill.
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 ALL the next day Cuckoo stayed in bed. She Kao!, 
 she said, a bad cold. Not a sore throat, so Aunt 
 Effie need not get the tannin gargle, and not fever, 
 so Aunt Flora needn't get her a draught; she just had a 
 cold and was going to stay in bed. The old ladies were 
 alarmed, for Cuckoo was never ill, and hadn't stayed in 
 bed more than ten days altogether since she came to 
 Roseroofs fourteen years before. Miss Effie and Miss 
 Flora sent for Esther Oughtenshaw and consulted with 
 her. Esther thought it was wet feet. 
 
 "Miss Coocoo didn't ought to go rampaging all over 
 the country in the deep snow," she said, shaking her 
 head. 
 
 Miss Effie wanted to send Nelly for Dr. Dawes, but Miss 
 Flora persuaded her not to. 
 
 "It would be nonsense," Miss Flora said gently; "it's 
 a dreadful day, and you know how bad his rheumatism 
 
 is,"- 
 
 Miss Effie looked at her sternly. 
 
 "The truth is, Flora," she said, "you are too easy 
 with the child. If she's ill enough to stay in bed, she's 
 ill enough to see a doctor and take whatever he gives her." 
 (Dr. Dawes was deservedly famous for the nastiness of 
 his draughts.) 
 
 Miss Flora smiled. "I know I'm not so sharp and 
 clever as you, dear Effie," she said, and Miss Effie was 
 pacified, and dropped the question of the doctor. 
 
 George Loxley came after lunch and asked for Cuckoo. 
 He looked pale and owned to a sleepless night, and Miss 
 
 152
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Flora with her own hands made him an egg-nogg which 
 he swallowed bravely, though he happened to loathe nut- 
 meg; but though he stayed two hours Cuckoo did not 
 appear. 
 
 Miss Effie went up twice and declared the child to be 
 sound asleep, and finally George asked Miss Flora to go. 
 
 "You she can't be asleep all this time, Miss Flora," 
 he begged, "and just let her know how much I want 
 to see her. I have to go back tomorrow afternoon, you 
 know." 
 
 Miss Flora went, and came back in a moment. 
 
 "I spoke to her twice," she said, "and she didn't answer, 
 so I suppose " 
 
 George's short-sighted eyes studied her intently. 
 
 "Do you think " he began, when Miss Effie came in 
 and Miss Flora turned to her. 
 
 "You thought she was asleep, didn't you, Effie?" 
 
 "She was asleep. She was even," Miss Effie answered, 
 with delicate confusion, "h'm! snoring a little just a 
 little !" 
 
 Miss Flora fluttered her hands and turned to George 
 in some triumph. "You see ! Effie is the clever one, and 
 she would be sure to know," 
 
 "Not clever, Flora," protested Miss Effie modestly. 
 "It's only that you were always too too poetic, too kind- 
 hearted, to see into things much; but the child is asleep. 
 That is certain." 
 
 George went away disconsolate. 
 
 He was very unhappy, and even the Vicar saw it an3 
 asked the reason. The truthful George of course lied, as 
 anyone would have done in such circumstances. He said 
 he had a headache, and then a little later he forgot and 
 said he had a sore throat. Luckily the Vicar, like Miss 
 Flora, was not a close observer and went on peacefully 
 with his reading, after suggesting George's going early 
 
 153
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to bed and taking a glass of rum and water, hot. Mean- 
 time, all the interminable hours of the day, Cuckoo had 
 lain in her bed, fighting her first fight. 
 
 How she had been so stupid as to forget, she declared 
 over and over again, she could not imagine. All her life 
 (and very long those eighteen years looked to her) she 
 had dreamt of one day "having things." But for the 
 firmness of her belief in this some day when she was to 
 have all and more than Rachel had, how could she have 
 borne to see Rachel's belongings? If she had not known 
 that she herself was one day to travel, how could she have 
 borne Aunt Marcia's label-covered boxes? If she had 
 not known that people were one day to be hers, how could 
 she have endured the loneliness of the dales? 
 
 The Aunts had admired her for her patience, she knew ; 
 thought her wonderful not to repine, not to be bored 
 with the unbroken dullness of Roseroofs. And oh, what 
 a repining would have been hers were it not that all along 
 she had known that one day she, Cuckoo, was to have 
 everything ! 
 
 And now she had gone and fallen in love with George ! 
 With George Loxley ! Only George ! 
 
 It seemed to her that she could have forgiven her own 
 folly if the menace to her future, the occasion of her 
 blithering idiocy, had been a stranger. If he had been 
 a genius, however poor; or divinely handsome; or even 
 a younger version of the ancient heart-breaker, Sir Pere- 
 grine Janeways; but George! George, whom she had 
 known since she was a baby ; who was gentle ; and a book- 
 worm ; and a bank clerk ; and short-sighted ; and narrow- 
 chested. George, who painted badly, and had to take care 
 of his digestion, and mind not to get his feet wet! The 
 girl actually writhed in her agony of rage over her own 
 weakness. What could it be in George that made her go 
 all to pieces and want to put both her arms round him and 
 
 154
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 take care of him? His ugly, mousy hair looked oeautiful 
 to her, though she knew it wasn't; and his long, delicate 
 nose, the end of which sometimes quivered like a rabbit's 
 it was an absurd nose! But the absurdity of George's 
 nose was of no real help to the girl, and his inability to 
 digest pork in any form, once a source of scornful mirth 
 to her, became, that wintry afternoon, a pathetic, almost 
 a winning quality. She lay as still as a mouse when her 
 aunts came and peeped at her, and, as has been said, on 
 one occasion she snored. 
 
 She knew George was downstairs ; George the Destroyer, 
 no, George the would-be Destroyer; and she would not 
 see him. 
 
 Before she went to sleep that night she had vowed a 
 vow. She knew that George must leave Warcop by the 
 four o'clock bus for Middleton, and she vowed to herself 
 that she would rise early and walk over and spend the 
 day at Thornby Lodge with old Judge Capel. She dis- 
 liked Judge Capel, a gouty recluse with a red-hot temper, 
 but at Thornby Lodge she would be safe from George. 
 
 And immediately after breakfast she set out, despite 
 Miss Effie's and Miss Flora's surprise at her announce- 
 ment of what she was going to do and Miss Effie's re- 
 minder that it was poor George's last day. Cuckoo 
 shrugged her shoulders. "I must have a walk. I need it. 
 Give George my love, and say good-bye for me," she 
 added steadily, helping herself lavishly to marmalade. 
 
 Miss Flora pushed another little glass pot towards her. 
 "That's marmalade, dear," she said, "this is the black 
 currant " 
 
 The look that Cuckoo flashed at Miss Flora was not 
 amiable, but no more was said, and a little later Cuckoo 
 was on her way to Warcop, beyond which, up Cotherside, 
 Thornby Lodge lay, a yellowish block in the snow. 
 
 155
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Judge Capel, whose wife had brought the Lodge to 
 him as part of her marriage portion, loathed the North 
 and Northern people. He was a crabbed, discontented 
 old failure of a man, who was gnawed by a feeling that he 
 had never been properly valued, either as a man or a 
 lawyer. 
 
 He detested his heir, who was a clergyman in Cumber- 
 land, and his only friends were two poor old sisters, 
 cousins, who visited him occasionally out of a badly-dis- 
 guised sense of duty ; and old Dr. Dawes, who, when occa- 
 sion arose, was quite capable of out-bullying the old bully, 
 and who, furthermore, possessed the gift of mobility and 
 invariably ended their quarrels by marching out, leaving 
 his worsted adversary to what he knew would be three or 
 four weeks' deprivation of any male society. 
 
 Cuckoo sat with the old man for several hours and 
 lunched alone in the big dining-room, which he never used 
 in the winter. She was strangely unhappy, and her little 
 face looked so white and wan that Jebbs, the old butler, 
 insisted on her having a glass of sherry and water. After 
 lunch Judge Capel proposed a game of picquet, but the 
 game came to a sudden end, for her uncontrollable dis- 
 traction caused him to lose all patience with her, and he 
 burst out, as nearly swearing at her as even rheumatoid 
 arthritis often leads a man to swear at any woman not 
 his own wife. 
 
 She rose. "I'm going now," she said, putting the card- 
 table to one side and holding out her hand. 
 
 "No, no, Cuckoo don't be so ridiculously hasty." 
 
 "I must go. Good-bye." 
 
 He apologized, but she would not stay, though she no 
 longer cared what he called her. It was simply that she 
 moist get out into the air and walk. 
 
 When she got to the Lodge gates she stood for a mo- 
 ment looking at the view. Down at the foot of the hill 
 
 156
 
 He dropped his portmanteau and held her close against 
 his well-worn old coat.
 
 / 
 
 i
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 lay Warcop, with its three bridges, the river sprawling 
 like a dark snake in the snow, and beyond, off up to the 
 right, just under the Edge, the little blot of trees that was 
 Roseroofs. Off to her left, round the curve, Widdybank 
 lay in a light haze, the church tower standing out among 
 the naked trees ; it was warmer, and the snow looked blue ; 
 it was going to thaw. And then suddenly, far up on the 
 Middleton Road, between Watlass Mill and Canty Bridge, 
 she saw a small yellow and black thing that moved. It 
 was the bus coming from the twelve o'clock train and it 
 was coming to take George away. 
 
 Suddenly the whole thing became monstrous, unbear- 
 able. She had been a wicked girl, a fool, an idiot. No- 
 thing mattered. Not money, nor travel, nor jewels 
 nothing mattered but George. Only George mattered. 
 Down the road she flew, racing for her life with the yellow 
 bus. It was slippery, and as she reached the bottom it 
 became more slippery. At Crowner Bridge (named after 
 the battle of Corunna) she slipped and fell, hurting her 
 elbow very badly, but she was up and off again before 
 young Tom Graves could help her, and dashing up the 
 hill to the little Green where the shops were. 
 
 Glancing up over her right shoulder just as she turned 
 up the bend beyond which the Middleton Road would be 
 out of sight, she took a last look up it. The coach had 
 slowed up just before it got to St. Austin's Bridge. It 
 could not be at the "Grouse" for another ten minutes 
 and it always waited there fifteen before starting back. 
 So she would catch George in the quiet of the path he 
 was sure to take from the Vicarage, the path which joined 
 the road just ahead of her. On she walked, breaking into 
 an honest run when she had left the wood. She was out of 
 breath and her elbow ached, but she did not care. 
 
 Nothing mattered but George. 
 
 iWhere the path, hitherto a closely-winding one, comes 
 
 157
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 out on the broad level just before Flaye Ghyll it keeps 
 in the open all the way to the churchyard she stopped. 
 But for the Ghyll she could see straight to the church, 
 and George was nowhere in sight. She had missed 
 him. 
 
 She waited to give him time to climb out of the Ghyll, 
 if he had already got down into it, but he did not come. 
 He must have driven, and been in some shop or at the 
 "Grouse," when she passed! 
 
 He had gone, and she had missed him. At that mo- 
 ment Cuckoo Blundell, young as she was, knew despair 
 blinding, sickening despair. She turned slowly and limped 
 back towards where the path met the steep tributary one 
 leading to Roseroofs. 
 
 Her face was wan and looked oddly streaked, as if very 
 white fingers had been pressed into its creamy-brown sur- 
 face. Her eyes, though she did not know it, were drop- 
 ping slow tears ; her hands were clenched. 
 
 He had gone. George, her George, whom she loved, had 
 gone. 
 
 And then quite suddenly he stood before her, his shabby 
 portmanteau in his hand. 
 
 "Oh, George, George," she said. "I thought you'd 
 gone, and I wanted you so." 
 
 He dropped his portmanteau and held her close against 
 his well-worn old coat. She could never remember what 
 he said, nor what she said. She didn't know whether he 
 kissed her or not, though he did know. 
 
 To her it was enough that his arms were round her and 
 that the smell in her nostrils was his, the peaty, leathery, 
 tobacco-y, very faintly eau-de-Cologne-y smell was his, 
 and that nothing else mattered. 
 
 They stood under fir-trees, and as they stood, the melt- 
 ing snow began to slide off the branches, falling with soft 
 plops. 
 
 158
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Oh, George, George," the girl went on, "sit down on 
 that log a moment. What if I'd missed you?" 
 
 He obeyed her, and pulling off his cap she knelt by him 
 and smoothed his hair with the palms of her hands. 
 
 "My little, little Doadie," she murmured, "and his 
 darling rabbit nose, and his blessed moustache like a 
 caterpillar." In a kind of frenzy of tenderness she 
 kissed him repeatedly softly, as she might have kissed 
 a baby. 
 
 He let her do as she liked, and then he kissed and 
 fondled her almost as gently, and quite as tenderly. 
 
 "My Kiddie, my own wicked little Cuckoo thank God 
 I found you. I'd been up at Roseroofs again, you know 
 for the third time." 
 
 Presently, hand in hand, they made their way back to 
 the village. 
 
 "You will write to me, Cuckoo? You won't forget?" 
 
 "No. Oh, George, you don't know what a beast I've 
 been. I wasn't ill yesterday, nor asleep," 
 
 He laughed gently. "I knew all the time. You were 
 afraid." 
 
 It was so plain that he adored her for being afraid that 
 she had not the heart to correct him. 
 
 They went into the quiet kitchen at the inn to avoid 
 the two or three idlers that in Warcop constituted a 
 crowd, and said good-bye there, old Charlotte, the cook, 
 having gone for a look at the bus. 
 
 Very solemnly, feeling as if they stood not in a warm 
 kitchen but on some shining height, they said good-bye, 
 tears in their eyes. 
 
 "I shall be back in June," George said. "Mr. Fleming 
 will surely give me a month." 
 
 Then he left her, standing by the great polished stove.
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HE next morning the Vicar sent up to Miss Effie 
 a note containing a letter from Lady Pelter. 
 
 Mrs. Bridlegoose has gone for her holiday, as usual 
 [the Vicar wrote] and will not be back till January i5th. 
 Elsie Baker does very well as a stop-gap for me, but she would 
 not be able to make Rachel comfortable, so I thought I could 
 not do better -than send poor Blanche's letter to you, my dear 
 Miss Effie 
 
 Miss Effie read the two letters several times, her lips, 
 out of which even the raspberry-color had of late years 
 faded, squeezed into a wrinkled bunch. 
 
 Then she went to the door and called Miss Flora. 
 
 Miss Flora, who was making a particular kind of jelly 
 for one of the Skelton children who had broken his leg 
 skating at the three bridges on Christmas Eve, came 
 tripping to the kitchen door. 
 
 "Yes, Effie?" 
 
 "I've just had a note from the Vicar that I'd like to 
 read to you," 
 
 But Miss Flora's jelly had arrived at a critical point in 
 its evolution, and as Esther Oughtenshaw had gone to 
 Warcop and Nelly was busy upstairs, Miss Effie was 
 forced to join her sister in the kitchen. 
 
 She sat down in the sun by the window where Esther 
 Oughtenshaw's pink geranium displayed its glories, and 
 drew a long breath. 
 
 "I hope the dear Vicar isn't ill, Effie?" Miss Flora 
 
 160
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 stood stirring the jelly over the fire, her long, thin body 
 bent in an almost incredible curve as she drew back from 
 the stove. 
 
 "No. Oh, no, he's not ill. A sore throat, he says, 
 which" Miss Effie added with an air of conscious 
 villainy "I suppose means some new book!" 
 
 0h, Effie!" 
 
 "Well, that doesn't concern us, Flora and this 
 letter from Lady Pelter apparently does, so I'll read it 
 to you. 'My dear Arthur' (it's from Planings, they're 
 there for the winter) ' I am in great distress and really 
 don't know what to do' (I'll spare you the under- 
 linings, Flora !) ' so, of course, I write to you, my dear 
 brother-in-law.' ' 
 
 "The dear Vicar," murmured Miss Flora. 
 
 " 'We have been here ever since October,' " Miss Effie 
 went on, unmoved by the apostrophe, " 'and although it's 
 the dullest place in the world, I have been quite happy until 
 now, when the blow has fallen. "What I have done to de- 
 serve such a ' Oh, bother," broke off Miss Effie, 
 
 "what a blithering creature she is, to be sure! Let me 
 see. Ah, yes, here it is 'And I have just found that 
 Rachel is having a love-affair with a young man in the 
 town, with the son of a doctor, if you please. Naturally, 
 he hasn't a penny -.two hundred a year, I believe, from his 
 mother but the silly child declares she is going to marry 
 him! 
 
 " 'His name, my dearest Arthur, is Jackson. Fancy 
 my poor Charles's daughter going through life as Lady 
 Rachel Jackson! Heaven knows I'm not' etc., etc., 
 but well the long and short of it is, Flora," Miss Effie 
 announced, laying down the letter, "she wants to send 
 Rachel up here to be out of the way, and the Vicar 
 can't have her because it's Emily Bridlegoose's yearly 
 holiday and there's only Mrs. Baker the postmistress's 
 
 161
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 sixteen-year old Elsie you know, the girl with the 
 extraordinarily fat ankles? to do the work so that he 
 wants us to take her in. Rachel, I mean." 
 
 Miss Flora poured the contents of her saucepan care- 
 fully into a mould. 
 
 "Well, what do you think, Flora?" Miss Effie's voice 
 was sharp. "I suppose we must?" 
 
 "Of course, Effie. And Cuckoo will be delighted." 
 
 "Y-yes, and Cuckoo will soon put the Jackson business 
 out of Rachel's head!" Miss Effie, at this thought, 
 gave her own head a little satisfied nod. Miss Flora 
 went to the stove and, drawing a jug of hot water from 
 the boiler, disappeared into the scullery. Then, still 
 without her having spoken, Miss Effie heard her washing 
 her hands. 
 
 As time on, Miss Effie reflected, Flora seemed more 
 and more disposed to let her sister make all the necessary 
 decisions and plans of their lives. She grew less talkative 
 too, and Miss Effie had decided, with a pang of pity, that 
 dear Flora had finally learnt that hers, Miss Effie's, judg- 
 ment, was better than her own. 
 
 Grim and dry as she was, Miss Effie loved her sister 
 whom she had not kissed since the day of Robert Blundell's 
 death and although her vanity was pleased by her read- 
 ing of Miss Flora's deferring to her, it led her to think 
 that Flora's sweet old youthfulness was going; that 
 her queer little gaiety, her fits of mirth that Miss Effie 
 had formerly condemned as "silly" were becoming less 
 and less frequent. 
 
 Miss Effie was sixty-seven, and Miss Flora sixty-nine, 
 yet Miss Flora's gentler fibre had accustomed everyone 
 to regard her as the younger of the two. 
 
 For a long time Miss Effie stood staring out at the 
 winter morning through the green mesh of che geranium. 
 She had realized for the first time, though she had long 
 
 162
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 since recognized, the fact that even poor Flora was now 
 an old woman. 
 
 Old Age had come. It was as if Old Age were a person, 
 long known to view and to-day, for the first time become 
 acquainted with. 
 
 Yes, Flora and she were old. 
 
 And while Miss Flora fluttered and skimmed about 
 the kitchen, singing a tuneless little song under her 
 breath, her pretty hair, now nearly white, hanging in 
 little loose tendrils round her warm brow, Miss Effie went 
 through a moment of that horrid experience of watching 
 a still happy person on whom some unsuspected blow is 
 about to fall. Flora might not, possibly did not, know 
 that she was old, and Miss Effie knew. It was dreadful, 
 and Miss Effie's eyes, the irises of which looked like dulled 
 tortoise-shell, burned as she listened to the poor little 
 song and watched Miss Flora moving about. 
 
 Ought she, she wondered sincerely, to convey to Flora 
 that at nine-and-sixty a woman is too old to skip and 
 spring and glide and wave her hands in the air? 
 
 Before she had decided on this point, Miss Flora, in all 
 innocence, gave one of her highest hops, as a pleasant 
 thought struck her. "Poor Cuckoo," she exclaimed, 
 "it will cheer her up to have Rachel. When can Rachel 
 be here, Effie?" 
 
 "Poor Cuckoo? Why poor Cuckoo?" snapped 
 Effie in her gruffest and most forbidding voice, "what 
 is she poor about, with her two hundred a year and 
 and her youth?" 
 
 Miss Flora stood quite still for a moment in one of 
 her absurd "poised for flight" attitudes, as Blundell had 
 called them, her wide, lucent, loose-set eyes full of 
 distress, and then they never referred to the episode 
 her pink lips moving tremulously, she made a sort of 
 soft dart at Miss Effie and kissed her. 
 
 163
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Effie never knew the reason of this kiss, and a 
 moment after its bestowal she saw Miss Flora, in her 
 old fur coat, apparently being blown up the path to the 
 Green Bench. 
 
 Rachel Poole arrived two days later, accompanied, 
 as usual, by the stupid but apparently faithful Jeanne, 
 and the meeting between Rachel and Cuckoo had, Miss 
 Flora noticed, a kind of high solemnity about it. It 
 seemed less a meeting than a consecration. 
 
 And Miss Flora was right, for the young creatures 
 were both appreciating and acting up to the full romance 
 of the situation. Rachel was the mother-persecuted dam- 
 sel of all drama, banished from her home to tear her 
 heart from her lover, and Cuckoo was her friend, 
 meant, at least by the oppressed one herself, to be confi- 
 dante and sympathizer as well. Miss Blundell, despite her 
 views about matrimony, was, perhaps because of George, 
 fairly satisfactory in her new role, although she felt not 
 the least need to exact similar tribute from Rachel. At the 
 end of the third day it was her first opportunity, for 
 Rachel's volubility about herself was indefatigable she 
 told Rachel that she was going to marry George Loxley 
 some day, but she invited no speculations about her 
 future, and no raptures, so Rachel very soon gave up 
 mentioning the subject. 
 
 Cuckoo was very queer, and, besides, Rachel's own 
 affairs were infinitely the more interesting. So by the 
 hour the two girls talked about Rachel and her enchant- 
 ing troubles. They discussed Love, Alison Jackson 
 (Rachel's Fate was named Alison), the disgusting mer- 
 cenariness of Lady Pelter, the ease and gaiety with 
 which a man and a woman Rachel loved speaking of 
 herself as a woman, but the term made Cuckoo shy 
 who truly loved each other could subsist on two-hundred 
 
 164
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a year. These things and many other collateral ones 
 they wore threadbare. , 
 
 Cuckoo had throughout an uneasy feeling that, but 
 for her subjection to that irresistible charm of George's, 
 she would have sided in the matter with Lady Pelter, 
 but there was no good in reminding the ecstatic Rachel 
 of this. 
 
 They decided gravely that the law of entail was a 
 most iniquitous thing, for was not Angus, Lord Pelter, 
 in a few years to come into a property worth four 
 thousand pounds a year? 
 
 They talked of Alison's Blue, of his delicious way of 
 saying wevver for weather, rawer for rather, etc., and, in 
 this Cuckoo as well as Rachel absolutely believed, of the 
 sublime certainty that true Love can never die. 
 
 The moors, wind-swept and vast, beheld the two in 
 their walks, their young heads nodding heavily with 
 wisdom; the early-year sunshine on their dreams lent 
 them something unforgettable. 
 
 Once they walked over to Clavers to see Mary Watlass, 
 who had known Rachel as a baby and who made an ad- 
 mirable listener to the great story. While Rachel sat 
 by the fire, conscientiously neglecting not the smallest 
 detail as she poured out what she honestly considered 
 her troubles, Cuckoo stole quietly out and wandered 
 up the road along which she and George had made their 
 way home on Christmas Day. 
 
 How sad she had been, how heavy literally, materially 
 heavy her heart had been. 
 
 Just by that old hayrick, with its sail-cloth cover, 
 George had looked at her with such troubled eyes! 
 
 Dear George. Her queer, one-sided little mouth curved 
 into softness as she took his last letter from her pocket 
 and read it while she walked. It is an odd thing that 
 whereas all the romance of Rachel's difficulties appealed 
 
 165
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to her strongly, she had none of the same feeling about 
 her own engagement. 
 
 She had enjoyed the tale of how Rachel received Mr. 
 Jackson's letters through the intermediary services of 
 the Planings' housekeeper, but she was very glad that 
 her own love-letters came to her without the smallest 
 difficulty, owing to the fact that old Jimmy Bridlegoose, 
 the postman, brought the Roseroofs' post only as far 
 as the letter-box nailed to the may-tree under which 
 poor Chris Greening had waited one morning for the 
 present Mrs. Isaac Vosper. 
 
 It had always been Cuckoo's duty to go down by the 
 kitchen-garden gate to the may-tree every morning at 
 half-past nine, to open the box and bring up the letters. 
 
 The key of the box was fastened to the little curb 
 bracelet given to her by the aunts on her sixteenth 
 birthday. 
 
 So her daily letter from George had never been seen by 
 anyone but herself. 
 
 His letters were inexpressibly dear to her; tender, 
 proud little letters they were, full of trust and hope. She 
 loved them something as she loved George himself, with 
 an indescribable mixture of protectingness and pity. 
 
 And she saw with a kind of hushed feeling of amuse- 
 ment that George as strongly wanted to protect and shield 
 her as she wanted to protect and shield him. He wrote 
 about her thinness just as she wrote about his colds, and 
 his indigestion ; he spoke about his little love of the milky 
 eyes exactly as she wrote about his blessed rabbit-nose. 
 It was wonderful! 
 
 He called her his darling, bonny blessing, and she loved 
 to be called his darling, bonny blessing. She was very 
 , happy. 
 
 George, of course, had been told about Mr. Jackson 
 and had written Rachel a note of sympathy and encour- 
 
 166
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 agement, and in the last letter Cuckoo now re-read what 
 her lover had suggested for the future. This wonderful 
 idea was nothing less than that the young couples should 
 settle in two neighboring cottages in a pleasant suburb, 
 somewhere. For, and this was a great surprise, George 
 had decided to devote himself to painting ! 
 
 Hampstead Heath, he wrote, would be the place, of 
 course, but Golder's Green could be made to do. He had 
 sent for and studied prospectuses of the latter paradise, 
 and wanted to know what Cuckoo thought of the plan? 
 
 He had, all told, nearly two hundred a year, and there 
 was no doubt of their being, in a modest way, exceedingly 
 comfortable on that sum. Also, he could see no reason 
 for putting off their marriage. Mr. Fleming knew that 
 he was going to give up his job at the bank and thor- 
 oughly sympathized with him. "He says lots of men can't 
 stand the close confinement, and that Hampstead is nearly 
 as good as Wiskedale " 
 
 Dear George what a darling he was, and what a baby ! 
 For Cuckoo, although her ambitious plans had been shat- 
 tered by the force of her own youth, was by no means 
 as easy about the future as George was. 
 
 Neither was she purified of all regrets for past dreams. 
 She loved George, but she loved him against her will, and 
 there were times when she wished that she had not caught 
 him in her mad race back from Thornby Lodge that day. 
 
 If she had missed him, she had more than once told her- 
 self, she "would have been all right in a few days," and 
 her old, well-considered dreams would in time have 
 ripened. 
 
 That blowy afternoon, as she waited for Rachel to have 
 done with old Mary, Cuckoo decided that she was just a 
 little tired of Mr. Alison Jackson and that she did almost 
 wish that she had not seen George again! 
 
 167
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 After all, there were in the world things beside Love. 
 She knew, although George did not, that life in a London 
 suburb on two hundred pounds a year would not be a life 
 of ample pleasures and generous distractions. However, 
 she sighed as Rachel, satiated with self-revelation, came 
 out from the cottage ; it couldn't be helped now ; the mis- 
 chief was done, and George was the sweetest, dearest 
 thing in the whole world. 
 
 George did not write the next day, nor the next, and on 
 Sunday, after church, the Vicar told the Roseroofs* la- 
 dies that his grandson had been ill. 
 
 "One of his very bad throats, I am afraid," the old 
 man said with a sigh. "I wish he could be in a better 
 climate you know, his poor mother died of laryngal con- 
 sumption " 
 
 After lunch Cuckoo dragged the indolent Rachel over 
 the Edge and across the High Moor to Flaye, where she 
 roused the sleepy postmistress and wrote out a telegram 
 to be sent the very moment the post-office was open on 
 the Monday morning. 
 
 Cuckoo was nervous with the nervousness of a mother 
 over an absent child who is ill. Her scarlet mouth, 
 thinned and drawn, looked old; her eyes seemed to have 
 shrunk back under her brows. 
 
 "It's only a sore throat," expostulated the ungrate- 
 fully, but not unreasonably, bored Rachel. "Once 
 Alison was thrown from his horse, and I had no news 
 for twenty-four hours. You don't know what that was, 
 Nicky what I went through!" 
 
 "George is very delicate," returned Cuckoo shortly. 
 
 When the postmistress (she was a Skelton, and her 
 mother had been a Greening) had promised several times 
 to send the wire by 8.30 the next morning, and also, when 
 the answer came, to send little David, her son, to bring it 
 over and put it into the letter box he was on no account 
 
 168
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to bring it to the house on pain of losing his promised 
 sixpence the two girls walked back to Roseroofs. Ra- 
 chel talked hard all the way, about Alison and his various 
 illnesses and hair-breadth escapes, not ceasing at accom- 
 plished mishaps but venturing into the realms of specu- 
 lation and wondering; for instance, what she should do 
 if he ever had typhoid fever or lost a leg in a railway ac- 
 cident. 
 
 Cuckoo walked along in almost unbroken silence. More 
 than ever, now that he was ill, did she love George. With 
 a passion utterly unknown to her before, did she long to 
 be physically near him. She wanted to hold him in her 
 arms, to stroke that soft, wonderful hair of his, to give 
 him his medicine, to give him broth and milk. . . . 
 
 " In spite of all that they could say," Rachel was 
 declaring dramatically, "I would. Nothing on earth could 
 prevent me, the poor angel." 
 
 "Couldn't prevent you what?" snapped Cuckoo. 
 
 Rachel looked at her reproachfully. "I don't believe 
 you've been listening to a word I said: marrying him if 
 he was paralyzed and had to be pushed about in a bath- 
 chair." 
 
 Cuckoo did not answer. She was counting the hours 
 till she could have an answer to her wire, which in its cold 
 phraseology: "Anxious, please wire here. CUCKOO," was 
 only half meant to deceive the friendly and humane Mrs. 
 Skelton. 
 
 Monday afternoon, at their third visit to the may-tree, 
 the little, longed-for, tangerine-colored envelope was 
 found in the box. Cuckoo walked away from her com- 
 panion and stood with her back turned while she read it. 
 
 Don't worry, darling much better. Writing. GEORGE. 
 
 "Idiot !" exclaimed Cuckoo, her voice sharp with anger. 
 
 169*
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Good gracious, Nicky! What is it?" 
 
 " 'Darling !' To go and put 'darling' in a wire," Cuckoo 
 answered, tearing the paper to bits and slipping it into 
 her pocket. "Now everyone in Flaye will know, and 
 everyone in Warcop, too. Mrs. Skelton was a Greening, 
 and her daughter's husband, John Oughtenshaw, keeps 
 the draper's shop at Warcop. Oh, the the fool!" 
 
 Poor Rachel was aghast. Not thus did she treat her 
 Alison's telegrams! And the worst was that she knew 
 that Cuckoo was absolutely sincere in her scorn and 
 anger. 
 
 "How can you say such awful things, Cuckoo Blun- 
 dell?" she gasped. "I don't believe you love him at all. 
 Alison " 
 
 "Oh, bother Alison. I'm sick to death of Alison. He 
 has no chin, anyhow. And I'm sick of George, and of 
 you and of myself, and everybody. Tell the Aunts I 
 sha'n't be home for lunch, will you? I'm going for a 
 tramp." 
 
 And off she sprinted (Rachel's word) up the hill, past 
 the Bench, and onwards, leaving the bewildered and in- 
 sulted Rachel staring after her. Cuckoo's thoughts as 
 she walked one might almost say flew over the wet 
 country-side, were difficult to analyze. She did love 
 George Loxley, and her misery when he was ill had been 
 nearly unendurable. Why then, now that he was well, 
 should she be so angry? To be sure, their engagement 
 was to be kept a secret until Easter, and Mrs. Skelton the 
 postmistress was not only sworn to keep telegraph secrets, 
 but a kind and worthy woman, and was not likely to give 
 Cuckoo away. 
 
 Vaguely the girl felt her resentment was not wholly 
 towards the unlucky word in the telegram: it lay deeper 
 than that, and was directed towards herself as well. She 
 was in a whirl of anger, not only because George had 
 
 170
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 called her darling in a telegram, but because her own 
 misery over his illness had strained her nerves to break- 
 ing-point, and because she loathed being so weak as to be 
 unable to bear with calmness the fact that anyone on earth 
 had a sore throat! 
 
 Deeper than this, even, lay the roots of her mental con- 
 dition. She resented, with the most unchildlike bitterness, 
 the fact that this feeling for George should so utterly have 
 upset her plans for the future. Her love was a weakness, 
 not a strength; a disease, not a fine condition of soul. 
 By the time she had skirted Flaye, made a big half-circle 
 round Clavers, and was half-way up Laverock, her hur- 
 rying, impatient mind had nearly reached its goal, and 
 when, after a big climb, too steep for any consecutive 
 thought, she stood at the edge of an old lead mine, a 
 rough hollow, filled with piles of stone and coarse gravelly 
 soil, she sat down on a stone and waited for her breath 
 and mental clarity to come to her. It was as if she had 
 done a mental, as well as a steep physical, climb and as 
 if she had only to wait for quiet breathing, to be able to 
 see clearly that for which she had been struggling. 
 
 And she was right. Gradually, as her panting breatK 
 and hurrying brain slackened, she saw, clearly and well. 
 
 Below her lay Wiskedale, the beck in the middle ; oppo- 
 site lay Widdybank Bottom, with its great cluster of 
 leafless trees; the church, Vicarage and village being 
 hidden just beneath where she stood. Opposite her 
 stretched Meldon Edge, across which, two hours before, 
 she had walked. On to the right lay Warcop, in its tangle 
 of river and bridges, and beyond the broad bend of the 
 dale, Middleton. 
 
 She studied all the familiar landmarks for a few min- 
 utes and turned to her mind-scape. 
 
 She loved George Loxley, but it was against her 
 'interests and against her will to love him. And she wished 
 
 171
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 from the bottom of her heart that she didn't. It was a 
 mistake; it was worse than a mistake: it was almost a 
 betrayal of herself to have let herself go in such a sense- 
 less and ridiculous way. She hated herself for having 
 done it. That, however, was now past, and George was 
 away and going to stay away, and therein lay her salva- 
 tion. She must for her own sake forget him and forget 
 him she would. 
 
 After standing for a long time thus instinctively fortify- 
 ing herself, she started homewards, her mouth firmly set, 
 her brows drawo down in her old scowl of determination. 
 She loved him, she could not help it, but she could and 
 would refuse to let this weakness of hers ruin her life. 
 It would be madness to marry him and she would not 
 marry him. He must suffer, and she would suffer, but 
 they must endure the pain. And the first thing to be 
 done was to forget him. 
 
 She would begin at once.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE next day it rained, and after lunch the four 
 ladies settled down for an afternoon's work in- 
 doors. Miss Effie and Miss Flora, according to 
 their custom, were shut each in her own room to do what 
 they called "their private mending"; and the two girls 
 were in the drawing-room, one on each side of the fire. 
 They were, despite Cuckoo's rudeness the previous day, 
 quite on their usual terms, for, on her return from her 
 walk, Cuckoo had plainly shown that she had forgotten 
 that she had given cause for offence, and Rachel was 
 afraid to remind her of her outburst. Cuckoo was pale 
 and looked very tired, but Miss Effie explained at dinner 
 that the walk she had taken was enough to make a strong 
 man weary, and no one said any more. 
 
 That morning the girls had a perfectly uneventful walk 
 to Warcop, during which Rachel gradually trickled back 
 to her talk about Alison, and Cuckoo listened with a sym- 
 pathy that of late had been, Rachel considered, somewhat 
 lacking. 
 
 Alison's letter that morning had been very delightful, 
 full of quotations from Keats and Byron and Ella Wheeler 
 Willcox and other great poets, so that even Cuckoo was 
 impressed by it. She, too, had had a letter, a long letter 
 Rachel knew, from George, but she had not 'communicated 
 any of its contents to her friend, and Rachel had not 
 bothered to ask questions. As a matter of fact, Rachel 
 found George rather boring and Cuckoo's love-affair quite 
 devoid of the delicious cloud of romance that overhung 
 and enriched her own. Cuckoo had studied George's let- 
 
 173
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ter very carefully, and despite her splendid resolutions of 
 the evening before it had weakened her a little. There 
 was something so touching, what she considered so child- 
 like, in his absolute trust in her; she, knowing herself to 
 be by no means so trustworthy in this matter as he be- 
 lieved, could not resist a rush of helpless tenderness to- 
 wards him as she read. She was, moreover, thoroughly 
 tired out and inclined for the moment to put thought aside 
 and let matters take their own course. She knew., or 
 thought she knew, that she was a fool to love George, and 
 yet for that one afternoon she could not help loving him. 
 So his letter was in her pocket as she went downstairs and 
 joined Rachel, who was busy with a catalogue from Har- 
 rod's, marking with red ink a number of things she con- 
 sidered indispensable to her future home. 
 
 Cuckoo cast a disparaging eye over this list. She her- 
 self would hate buying pots and pans and brooms, and 
 Rachel's monologue on the relative merits of two kinds 
 of brass polish left her completely cold. 
 
 "Things like that," she declared, "ought not to cost 
 money, they ought to grow on bushes. Bah! how detest- 
 able it is to be poor !" 
 
 However, a moment later she had settled to her darn- 
 ing, allowing her thoughts to drift to Glasgow without 
 further resistance. She had made up her mind not to 
 marry George, and she was not going to marry him, but 
 just for this one afternoon, when she was so tired, she 
 wouldn't worry. Suppose, after all, she was not to "have 
 things"; suppose she was to do without things? Dear 
 George! It is possible, although she did not suspect it 
 and would have resented help from such a quarter, that 
 the fact that the spoiled Rachel should be giving up her 
 superior possibilities for the sake of a young man as poor 
 as George Loxley, inclined her the less to face the neces- 
 sity for giving George up. Rachel was a goose, but she 
 
 174
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 was a goose of title, a goose belonging to the highest of 
 flocks, yet there was no doubt that luxurious and pam- 
 pered as she had always been, she was marrying her poor 
 man, not with Cuckoo's ceding to an irresistible force, but 
 gladly, even proudly, and for this superiority Cuckoo did 
 not love her the more. 
 
 Looking up from her stocking the younger girl studied 
 Rachel's unconscious face. Rachel was darning her first 
 stocking under her friend's guidance, and it was clear to 
 Cuckoo's shrewd eyes that only theoretically was it a 
 stocking of her own that, so far as Rachel was con- 
 cerned, it was in reality a sock of Mr. Jackson's. After a 
 moment's reflection, Cuckoo decided that she herself might 
 just as well try to believe that afternoon that she was 
 darning George's socks, and enjoying darning them, and 
 being, despite her wavering in the matter of her engage- 
 ment, fundamentally a thorough-going, determined crea- 
 ture, she gave up the next few minutes to trying to' emu- 
 late Rachel's mood of high romance. It was in the midst 
 of this mood of emulation, when she had succeeded in con- 
 juring up the feeling of inexpressible tenderness that was 
 her culmination of love, that Nellie brought in the tele- 
 gram. Cuckoo, with a flash of terror lest her indiscreet 
 lover should have gone and wired "darling," or even 
 worse, direct to Warcop, half started out of her seat and 
 held out her hand. Nellie shook her head. 
 
 "Not for you, Miss Cuckoo. It is for Lady Rachel." 
 
 Rachel, very pale, tore open the envelope and read the 
 message, turned pink, and then a tremendous, deep flush 
 overran the pinkness, as a flood might sweep over a dew- 
 wet meadow. 
 
 "Oh, Nicky!" 
 
 "What is it, Ray?" 
 
 "Yes," echoed Miss Effie and Miss Flora, who, being 
 told by Esther Oughtenshaw that "f telegraph lad was 
 
 175
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 cooming oop t' hill," had hastened down to hear the news. 
 Rachel paid no attention to them; instead she gave the 
 telegram to Cuckoo, and then, throwing her arms round 
 Miss Effie's neck (Miss Effie stood nearer to her than 
 Miss Flora) she kissed that good lady soundly. 
 
 "To Paris?" 
 
 "To Paris, Nickums, to Paris, and no mamma! Just 
 think of all the things she will give me !" 
 
 Then, more quietly, Rachel explained to her older 
 hostesses that she must leave that very day, by the four 
 o'clock bus; or no, she could get the "Grouse" fly; that 
 her sister, Lady Rosamund Brinkley, was going to Paris 
 for a month, and that Phil, her husband, who really was 
 rather a love after all, was allowing her to take Rachel too. 
 
 "He's paying all my expies, of course, or mamma 
 wouldn't let me go, and he's frightfully generous to Rosie, 
 and she's a sweet pet, so I shall come back with some really 
 decent clothes." 
 
 The disagreeable Jeanne was sen!; to pack, and Nellie 
 flew down for the "Grouse" fly. 
 
 Cuckoo listened quietly to Rachel's babble of joy and 
 plans. She was very pale and breathed hard, as if she 
 had been running. When the girls were alone and Rachel 
 was enlarging on her ideas for evening frocks which she 
 meant to get in the rue de la Paix no "clever little 
 woman" for her Cuckoo at last spoke. 
 
 "And will you wear these grand frocks in the cottage 
 for Alison's benefit?" 
 
 "How disagreeable of you, Nicky! Why shouldn't I 
 have pretty clothes, even though we are poor? It's only 
 very silly women," she added, with an air of tremendous 
 wisdom, "who give up looking nice when they are mar- 
 ried. 7," she went on proudly, delighted with her entirely 
 exceptional solution to the quandary, "shall always look 
 my best for my husband." 
 
 176
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. 
 
 "Quite right, only most of these frocks, I should think, 
 would do only for the very smartest balls." 
 
 Rachel's eyelashes, which, embellishment she already 
 darkened with a little pencil, were wet. Hers was the 
 gift of the facile tear. 
 
 "I think you are very unkind," she declared. 
 "There's the Season coming, isn't there? and we aren't 
 going to be married till September, anyhow. Anyone 
 would think that you were jealous, Cuckoo," and she 
 marched upstairs, leaving Cuckoo face to face with the 
 unpleasant fact that the indirect accusation was true. 
 She was jealous, painfully, bitterly, furiously jealous; 
 jealous, not only of Rachel's prospective new frocks, but 
 of her month in Paris; of the things she would see, the 
 new and interesting people she would meet, the very things 
 she would have to eat! Jealous of all these little things, 
 but above all jealous of the elder girl's whole life and its 
 conditions. Rachel was to have the "Season," balls, din- 
 ners, admirers and theaters, and she, Cuckoo, was to have, 
 nothing, just as she had always had nothing at Roseroofs. 
 For a moment she stood there in the shabby, faded draw- 
 ing-room, hating Roseroofs and all that belonged to it 
 with a strength of hatred that most people luckily go 
 to their grave without feeling, and even when the thought 
 of George came to her, she only frowned with impatience 
 as if a fly were buzzing in her face. Rachel had Alison 
 ^besides all the other things, so her, Cuckoo's, possession of 
 George, did nothing to even things up. Rachel was rich, 
 in everything rich, and she, Cuckoo, was poor, vilely and 
 miserably poor. She still stood there, the stocking she 
 had been darning stretched over her left hand, when Ra- 
 chel came back. 
 
 "Oh, Nicky dear," Rachel said, kissing her. "I 
 didn't mean it, I'm so sorry." 
 
 177
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Didn't mean what ?" growled Cuckoo, in the voice that 
 had so amused her father. 
 
 "That that you were jealous; of course I didn't mean 
 it. Come along upstairs, darling " 
 
 But Cuckoo didn't care a fig whether Rachel had 
 meant it or not. It was true. She was jealous, and she 
 knew that Rachel's extreme affectionateness and generos- 
 ity of words meant only that Rachel was violently, ir- 
 repressibly happy. Rachel gave her two frocks, one of 
 her best nightgowns, four pairs of silk stockings, and a 
 hat, and Cuckoo accepted them with the proper expres- 
 sions of gratitude but without enthusiasm. They were 
 given, she knew, only because Rachel was so soon to have 
 new and more beautiful ones. They were like Aunt Mar- 
 cia's annual offerings to her sisters Tads. 
 
 When the old fly had lumbered off in plenty of time to 
 catch the train, and Rachel's waving hand had finally 
 disappeared, Cuckoo went back to the house and up to her 
 room. The Tads lay on her bed. They were undoubtedly 
 the very best of their kind, but Tads they were, and the 
 sight of them filled their new owner with a kind of cold 
 rage. They seemed to be a sort* of prophecy and symbol 
 of her life as it was to be. Nothing fine and beautiful and 
 first-hand was to be hers only Tads. Her aunts were 
 good and kind to her, but they were not her father and 
 mother, and thus they, too, were Tads; Roseroofs was 
 small and humble, but to the aunts it was a real home; 
 to her, Cuckoo, who didn't really belong there, it too was 
 a Tad, and worse, worse than all, George was a Tad. 
 Yes, she loved him because she couldn't help it oh, his 
 dear rabbit-nose ! but he had no money, he had no posi- 
 tion, he had no looks, he had really not even proper health, 
 so he was a Tad. 
 
 At last, overwhelmed, beaten down, buffeted as if by 
 
 178
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a great storm, the girl lay prone on the bed and cried. 
 
 Mrs. Skelton, the postmistress of Flaye, was in her 
 kitchen getting the supper ready, about half-past six that 
 evening. The door between the kitchen, which was 
 "home," and the front room belonging to the King, 
 as the children and grandchildren thought, was open, 
 but the good woman was not expecting any more cus- 
 tomers that day. It had been a busy day, for she had 
 sent four telegrams and sold two postal orders, one 
 for four pounds, as well as in all nearly three shillings'- 
 worth of penny and half-penny stamps, but the day was 
 over now, and in an hour and a half Mrs. Skelton would 
 unhang the telephone receiver and bar the door and be- 
 long to her family again. The two youngest Skeltons 
 sat by the table in the lamplight studying their next day's 
 lessons, and in the little old oak cradle lay, sucking its 
 comforter, the youngest of Oughtenshaw the Warcop 
 draper's five daughters. 
 
 It was a pleasant time of day and Mrs. Skelton re- 
 flected as she beat up some eggs in a bowl, her daughter 
 Sarah, Mrs. Oughtenshaw, who was paying her a visit 
 of a week for a change of air, would soon be oop over 
 from her visit of inspection to the shop on the Green. 
 Sarah would be sure to bring all t' Warcop news, and they 
 would have a good talk after supper. At that point in 
 her reflections, the post-office door opened with a sharp 
 tinkle of its pendant bell, and someone came in. Mrs. 
 Skelton took off her apron and went behind the counter. 
 
 "Good evening," she began civilly, to break off in sur- 
 prise. "Why, it's Miss Effie! Lord, save us, Miss Effie, 
 'as anything 'appened?" 
 
 Miss Effie, who wore a black woollen scarf over her 
 hat and had turned up the collar of her coat, shook her 
 head. 
 
 179
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "No, Mary, nothing at all. I just want to send a tele- 
 gram ' 
 
 Mrs. Skelton produced the forms and the usual richly- 
 encrusted pens of country post-offices, and said no more. 
 She was burning with curiosity, however. Never in her 
 life had Miss Effie sent a telegram from Flaye. Moreover, 
 Flaye was a good five miles from Roseroofs whereas from 
 Roseroofs to Warcop it was barely a mile a heavy rain 
 was beating down and it was black as night, but Miss 
 Effie's grim face did not invite questions. 
 
 Miss Effie wrote out her message slowly, with the great 
 distinctness of people who rarely send telegrams. Then 
 she waited while Mrs. Skelton counted the words, and 
 paid, and the good woman suggested her coming into the 
 kitchen and standing a moment by the fire. 
 
 "You're wet through, Miss Effie." But Miss Effie 
 wouldn't stay ; she was in a hurry. 
 
 Mrs. Skelton held the door open while Miss Effie put 
 up her umbrella, and the two women shouted a final good- 
 night to each other against the great voice of the gale. 
 Then Miss Effie was swallowed by the darkness. 
 
 Mrs. Skelton closed the door, took a look at the baby 
 to see that it was still manipulating the comforter prop- 
 erly, and then went back to the office to send the tele- 
 gram. She had just got Middleton Post Office on the 
 telephone when the door again opened, this time with such 
 a bang that the startled woman dropped the receiver. 
 
 "Good evening, Mary. It's only me, Miss Flora ; did I 
 frighten you?" 
 
 Miss Flora pulled the dripping blue veil from her face 
 and took off her gloves. 
 
 "It's about the wire Miss Effie just sent. We've de- 
 cided to change it a little," and she held out her hand. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Flowra, it's against flaw. Couldn't I just 
 
 go and call Miss Effie back? Tommy could go " 
 
 180
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Miss Effie is half-way across the moor by now, 
 Tommy could never find her. Come, Mary, don't be 
 foolish!" 
 
 "But it's against flaw, Miss Flowra." 
 
 Miss Flora waved her hands. "The wire's to our sister, 
 Lady Fabricius," she said, with a most un-Flora-like 
 hauteur, "and we wish to alter it a little. Give it me, 
 Mary, unless you wish me to catch my death of cold stand- 
 ing here," and Mrs. Skelton obeyed. 
 
 Lady Fabricius, 65B, South Audley Street, London, W. 
 Please allow us to tell Cuckoo immediately that she is to come 
 to you in the Spring. Urgent. 
 
 EUPHEMIA. 
 
 Miss Flora read it slowly. 
 
 "Won't it be delightful, Mary," she said, smiling, as 
 she took up the pen, "for Miss Cuckoo to be presented to 
 the dear Queen?" 
 
 "Oo-aye, Miss Flowra! You ain't going to alter it 
 much?" she asked anxiously, her spare little form leaning 
 across the counter. 
 
 "Oh, dear, no, Mary, only a few words." Miss Flora 
 crossed out several words and printed her alterations 
 neatly above them. 
 
 "There, can you read that, Mary? I'm sure you can; 
 you're so clever " 
 
 Obliged tell Cuckoo your generous plans for Spring. 
 Strongly advise your having her immediately if possible. Very 
 important. 
 
 EUPHEMIA. 
 
 Mrs. Skelton read this message aloud, dismay on her 
 face. 
 
 "But it isn't t'same message at all, Miss Flowra." 
 
 181
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Flora smiled confidentially. 
 
 "Oh, the change is very unimportant, my dear Mary. 
 You see, between you and me, Miss Cuckoo is getting 
 a little tired of being always alone with just us. Not 
 that she doesn't love us, you know but oh, well, 
 she's eighteen, and I, Miss Effie and I, decided that it 
 would be well for her not to have to wait till Spring for 
 a little change of scene." 
 
 To Miss Flora's surprise, Mary Skelton looked at her 
 for a long moment, eye to eye, thoughtfully, as if in her 
 mind some idea were working. 
 
 "Do you understand?" Miss Flora asked. 
 
 "Aye, aye, Miss Flora, I understand. I'll send t'tele- 
 gram," the woman answered slowly. 
 
 "Of course you will, Mary," laughed Miss Flora, with 
 her characteristic, slightly artificial brightness, giving a 
 little skip. 
 
 But Mary Skelton, who had three daughters of her 
 own, didn't laugh. 
 
 "Girls get into mischief, Miss Flowra," she said gravely, 
 "if they are too much alone, even when they are lady- 
 girls 
 
 Supper was kept waiting nearly an hour that night, 
 for a boy came up with a message that Miss Flora was 
 dining at the Vicarage, and before this Miss Effie came in 
 looking very tired, saying that she had been at Barty 
 Raw's up toward Flaye. 
 
 "You know, Cuckoo? the one whose wife died last 
 Easter. It was pouring when I got there, and the old 
 man made me a cup of tea." 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. She was not at all interested in old 
 Barty Raw or in the singular fact that her aunts should 
 have chosen that particularly inclement afternoon for 
 a long walk. 
 
 182
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Flora got home about half-past nine, the Vicar 
 having had her driven up in his dog-cart, but she was 
 very wet, despite her umbrella and the rugs, and the sis- 
 ters parted almost at the door and went to bed. 
 
 Next afternoon little Bobby Christie came up the hill 
 with a telegram. Aunt Flora, Aunt Effie, and Cuckoo 
 were at tea, and when Nellie came in with her little salver 
 neither aunt showed the slightest interest in it. 
 
 "A telegram," said Miss Effie, pouring tea into her 
 cup. 
 
 "Oh, a wire," said Miss Flora, as if wires were common 
 enough in the house, but belonged to no one in particular, 
 like flies. 
 
 It is odd, however, that when Nellie, who liked living 
 in a house where telegrams came two days in succession, 
 held the salver to Cuckoo both old ladies should have 
 given a start of surprise. 
 
 The wire said : 
 
 Wish you to come immediately for a fortnight to see about 
 your presentation gown and prepare for the Season. Love to 
 your aunties. 
 
 AUNT MASCIA. 
 
 It was only on the death-bed of the first of the two 
 to go that the aunts ever told each other the story of 
 their having, unknown to each other, listened to Cuckoo's 
 mad crying that afternoon, and their resulting pilgrim- 
 ages through the storm to Flaye.
 
 PART II 
 
 Two Years Pass
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE old man leant on the counter, one elbow on a 
 little square of black velvet, and poked the string 
 of pearls about on another square. 
 
 "The little ones," he said, not more gutturally than 
 speak certain of the very great ones of the earth, "are 
 better suited to a pretty young throat." 
 
 "Yes, but think of the years when the pretty young 
 throat will be old and stringy like a drum-stick, when the 
 only pretty thing about it will be your pearls !" 
 
 He who passed his working hours among just such 
 scenes, except that the gentleman, though not older and 
 uglier than many of those who buy pearls for youg ladies, 
 was obviously only a parent of some kind, did not inter- 
 rupt the conversation. He was an elegant, princely 
 young man who wore an immaculate frock-coat and smelt 
 of eau-de-fougere. 
 
 The young lady, he thought, needed no assistance in 
 what was plainly her object, that of obtaining the best 
 possible pearls. 
 
 "These are ducks," she said, touching the string witn 
 a lingering hand. She had taken off her gloves, and the 
 jeweller's gentleman noticed that the uncut emerald on 
 her fourth finger was a fine one, only very slightly frosted. 
 
 "Shall I shall I try them on?" 
 
 The old man smiled, his face, frog-like to a remarkable 
 degree, softening charmingly as .he did so. 
 
 "You wretch ! That's why you wear no collar this icy 
 day." 
 
 She slipped the long necklet over her head without even 
 taking off her tiny black velvet toque. 
 
 187
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Am I becoming to them?" she demanded gently. 
 
 "You are, Cuckoo, you are, but they are yellowish; 
 not such a fine color as the smaller ones, are they?" he 
 returned, turning to the frock-coated expert. 
 
 "Not quite, sir, perhaps, but on the other hand they 
 are, if I may say so, possibly more becoming to the young 
 lady than the quite white ones. We find as a rule," he 
 went on, grandly proprietary, poor gentleman, on his 
 hundred and fifty pounds a year, "that only very pro- 
 nounced blondes really prefer quite white pearls " 
 
 Sir Adolph Fabricius gave his fat chuckle and said 
 quietly, his little eyes resting with a certain sharpness for 
 a moment on the speaker, "The large ones cost a hundred 
 and fifty pounds more. You are an excellent salesman, 
 and I trust that you get a good commission." 
 
 After a little more talk, the string of larger pearls 
 was decided upon, and Sir Adolph, producing a fat, gold, 
 heavily-chased fountain-pen and a book of dwarf checks, 
 wrote out a check for the amount. 
 
 The salesman, who was an observer by nature, was 
 surprised to see that the young lady watched the drawing 
 of the check as if making a mental note of its amount 
 rather than availing herself of one of the mirrors to ad- 
 mire herself in her new adornment. She was, he thought, 
 unlike a daughter; she was undoubtedly behaving like a 
 recent footlight success, one of those whose pearls are 
 worn with such unconsciousness of their being very visibly 
 and pitifully the exchange for the value of rubies. 
 
 As they turned to go, the salesman stopped them by 
 leaning over the counter. "I have here," he said, in an 
 imposing whisper, "a very curious and unusual jewel 
 that it may interest the young lady to see." 
 
 "I am buying no more today," said Sir Adolph, fearful 
 ,of an attempt on his purse by the skillful one. 
 
 "Oh, sir, no one could buy this jewel," the man re- 
 
 188
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 turned, with an odd look of vicarious pride. "It is an 
 heirloom, in our hands for a few days for some slight re- 
 pairs." 
 
 "Oh, yes, Uncle Adolph, do let us look at it," inter- 
 jected Cuckoo. 
 
 The salesman, with an officiating air, bade them sit 
 down again, and, after a moment, produced a shabby old 
 leather case and laid it on one of his sacramental velvet 
 squares. 
 
 "H'm," said Sir Adolph. Cuckoo drew a long 
 breath. It was a long chain of beautiful diamonds, deli- 
 cately, almost invisibly, set in either platinum or silver 
 with marvellous flexibility. On it hung an odd, appar- 
 ently valueless jewel. It was a kind of pale gold bag 
 about six inches long, flexibly and beautifully wrought 
 and closely studded with topazes. The string to the bag 
 was a band of diamonds with seed-pearl tassels. The 
 little jewel was delicately pretty and very old, but as a 
 pendant to such a chain it was strikingly inadequate. 
 
 "What a funny thing!" Cuckoo burst out. "What is 
 in the bag?" 
 
 The salesman smiled and held it out. 
 
 "Smell it," he said, unexpectedly. 
 
 Cuckoo took the chain and filtered it through her 
 fingers till the bag lay in her hand. 
 
 "What is it? It's sage, or thyme I don't know " 
 
 Sir Adolph took it. 
 
 "It's it's well, I don't know. It's used in cooking, 
 but I can't name it." 
 
 The young man beamed, as if he had, at one stroke, 
 achieved great personal distinction. 
 
 "You are right, sir," he said, "it is used in cooking; 
 it's saffron. I of course, I can't tell you to whom it 
 belongs, but it is saffron you smell. Odd thing, isn't it?" 
 
 As they went out of the shop, Cuckoo was frowning
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 thoughtfully. Saffron, she thought, a bag of saffron. 
 Now where had she heard of that? Suddenly she remem- 
 bered and told her uncle. 
 
 "Oh, that fellow's, is it? Janeways? Yes, I have heard 
 of it. I remember your aunt told me about it one day. 
 It's famous in its way a kind of luck, you know. I 
 believe several women have tried to make him give it to 
 them H'm, h'm," he broke off abruptly. 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. 
 
 "Yes, Rachel told me, Rachel Jackson. What a 
 strange thing it is, but very ugly, don't you think?" 
 
 Cuckoo, very slim and smart in her blue coat and skirt, 
 took her uncle's arm and gave it a little squeeze. 
 
 "It was darling of you, Onkelchen," she whispered. 
 "You were a dear to give them to me." 
 
 The old man beamed, and there was something child- 
 like and almost touching in the quality of his smile. 
 
 "I am very glad I am a rich man," he said, "it's so 
 easy to make nice people happy. Have you spent the 
 money I gave you for your pretty friendt?" he added. 
 
 "Yes, I went to such a heavenly shop in South Moulton 
 Street," she returned, "and I got such loves of things. 
 The bassinette is an absolute angel, and the little woollies 
 oh, Uncle, such dears!" 
 
 They had got into the gray-lined limousine, a car as 
 big, it pleased Cuckoo to think, as some people's drawing- 
 rooms, and the old man turned to her. 
 
 "Mind," he said, laughing, but with a look in his eyes 
 that she knew, but never spoke of, "not a word of that 
 to your Auntie." 
 
 "Never, Uncle dear. I don't think," she went on, "she 
 will mind about the pearls, do you? My birthday and 
 Christmas gift" 
 
 He chuckled. "She never knew about the other birth- 
 day present, did she?" 
 
 190
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo frowned. "No. There was, you know, nothing 
 to show for it. It wasn't likely I'd tell her about that 
 beastly Bridge." 
 
 Sir Adolph looked at her. "You kept your promise, 
 Cuckoo?" 
 
 She showed no resentment at the question, but told him, 
 with a lightness betrayed by the look in her eyes, that she 
 had kept her promise. 
 
 "Don't you trust me?" 
 
 Old Adolph Fabricius, "Old Fab," as he was called in 
 the City, looked grave. 
 
 "Not quite, mein kukuchen" She was silent, and after 
 a moment he went on, as if apologizing to her for his 
 perfectly just suspicion. "You remember about the young 
 man, my dear?" 
 
 She drew one of the deep, sobbing breaths that always 
 disturbed her in moments of emotion. 
 
 "Uncle Adolph listen a moment; that was nearly two 
 years ago. Our engagement had only been broken four 
 months, and, well, I couldn't help it; he was ill, and I just 
 had to go when he sent for me. Are you always going 
 to remember it ?" 
 
 "It was brecisely one year and seven months ago, and 
 the fact that the young man was ill had nothing to do 
 with the case." He nodded. "However, as you say, it's 
 past and done. And about de Britch. I do believe you, 
 but I must just ask you, once in a while." 
 
 She knew from long experience that it was utterly use- 
 less to try to make the old man conform to the usual rules 
 of politeness. Most people, she knew, would have gone 
 on disbelieving her after her deliberate breaking of her 
 promise about George, or have forgiven her and wiped 
 the memory, to all appearances, from their minds. But 
 the old Jewish banker did neither. He loved her very 
 dearly, and his indulgence was great, but because she had 
 
 191
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 failed him once, he took his own little measures from time 
 to time of testing her, and nothing could stop this. 
 
 As the car glided along Park Lane, he spoke again. 
 
 "Cuckoo." 
 
 "Yes, Uncle Adolph?" 
 
 "Have you seen that young man again?" 
 
 Between her black hat and her black furs her little 
 biscuit-colored face looked very pale, but she answered 
 quietly. 
 
 "Twice." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "Once about a year ago, at the play; he was in the 
 stalls; and one day in September when I came up from 
 Planings to take Kitty to the dentist." 
 
 "Did you speak to him?" 
 
 After a pause, she answered. "Yes, that time in St. 
 James's Street I did. Kitty was with me." 
 
 "What did you say, Cuckoo?" 
 
 As if something in his ugly, unimposing little face was 
 forcing her, she answered : 
 
 "I said oh, I said, 'Hallo, George, what are you doing 
 in town in September?' ' She laughed, but Sir Adolph 
 went on slowly, inexorably in his interrogatory. 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Uncle Adolph," she burst out angrily, "it's too bad 
 of you. I told you little Kitty Poole was with me. She's 
 nine and very intelligent. What could he have said before 
 her?" 
 
 "I am not asking you," pursued the old man, unmoved, 
 his confusion between d's and t's more marked as he went 
 on, "what he could say, I am asking you what he did say. 
 Tell me, Cuckoo." 
 
 The car had stopped at the old Georgian house that Sir 
 Adolph had bought some years before from an impover- 
 ished nobleman, and the footman stood at the door of the 
 
 192
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 car, ready to open it. The old man held up his left hand 
 large, flat, flabby. The man touched his hat, drew 
 back, and waited. 
 
 "Tell me, Cuckoo." 
 
 "Very well. He asked me why I wasn't married yet, 
 if you must know." Seeing the hopelessness of resist- 
 ance, she told him the exact truth, and he was satis- 
 fied. 
 
 "Ach so, and did you tell him why?" 
 
 "No, Uncle. What," she added, suddenly smiling, so 
 that her one dimple played in her cheek, "what would you 
 have told him if he had asked you ?" 
 
 The great banker looked at her a little sadly. 
 
 "I should have told him," he said, "that it was because 
 no one rich enough had asked me." 
 
 He then motioned to the footman to open the door, and 
 they went into the house. 
 
 Number 65s was one of the old houses with a TTOW of 
 windows on either side of the door, that give to South 
 Audley Street its ample, leisured aspect. The staircase, a 
 very beautiful one of carved chestnut, sprang upward 
 from a handsome, black-and-white marble floor, and sepa- 
 rated into two branches half-way up, landing in opposite 
 corners of the first floor. The walls were hung with the 
 portraits of the very fine collection that was the old bank- 
 er's greatest pride, and on the second floor, stretching 
 magnificently the full breadth of the house, was the pic- 
 ture-gallery, to which, once a month, those art-loving 
 members of the public who had provided themselves with 
 tickets from Sir Adolph's private secretary, were allowed 
 to make their way under that urbane young gentleman's 
 very perfunctory guidance. 
 
 Cuckoo went straight to her room and took off her hat 
 and furs. Then she stood for a moment looking at her- 
 self in the pier-glass that had been her first purchase with 
 
 193
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her first quarter's allowance, given to her the day of her 
 arrival in London nearly two years before. 
 
 "I hope," her aunt had said, when this acquisition 
 arrived, "that you are not vain." 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her with her funny, crooked 
 smile. 
 
 "You mean, Aunt Marcia," she answered pleasantly, 
 "that I have no occasion to be. You need not worry; I 
 know I am not pretty. That glass simply means that I 
 am going to make the best of myself," and this she had 
 learned in a really pre-eminent way to do. 
 
 Lady Fab, as most of her friends and acquaintances 
 called her behind her back, gave a fleeting thought to this 
 fact that November day as her niece came into the morn- 
 ing-room before lunch. Cuckoo was still too slim, and 
 her frocks had to be arranged with care to conceal an 
 incontrovertible flatness where she would fain have had 
 roundness, but her blouse and skirt were perfect and her 
 little head brushed and cared for until, thick and dry as 
 her hair was, it yet was lustrous and smooth, and as with- 
 out excrescences as a boy's, so closely was it packed away ; 
 and the odd little face, with its long chin and its scarlet 
 mouth had, for those who liked it at all, a very strong 
 charm. 
 
 "You look very smart, my dear," the old lady announced 
 regally, looking her up and down. "That skirt's a great 
 success, but you've got too much black stuff on your 
 eyelashes." 
 
 Cuckoo took out her handkerchief, and going to the 
 looking-glass, removed the offending surplus of grease- 
 pencil. Making up her eyes was, however reprehensible 
 the practice may be considered, a great improvement to 
 her whole face, for she did it with care and skill, and it 
 made her eyes look larger and more lustrous than they 
 really were. 
 
 194
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Where Have you been?" her aunt continued, as the 
 butler announced lunch. 
 
 Cuckoo took from its corner a strong, gold-headed st'.ck 
 that of late years had been necessary to the old lady, and 
 helping her rise, assisted her in her slow and elephantine 
 progress to the dining-room. Lady Fabricius, who was 
 now nearly seventy-five, was enormously fat, and her small 
 feet, even when enjoying the luxury of heelless velvet 
 house-shoes, could, in sober reality, hardly .carry her. 
 
 "Where have we been?" echoed Cuckoo. "That's just 
 it, Auntie; you know it isn't only my birthday present 
 we have been buying, but my Christmas present as well." 
 
 "Considering," puffed her aunt, swinging like a huge 
 chest in a crane, slowly into her place at the table, "con- 
 sidering that your birthday is in September, and Christ- 
 mas five weeks off, I don't altogether see why you had any 
 present at all today." She spoke with unusual geniality, 
 but Cuckoo received at the same time a signal of distress 
 from her uncle and didn't quite know what to say. 
 
 "When, my angel," the old gentleman asked suddenly 
 (he had, since his wife's appearance, undergone a curious 
 change of demeanor), "when did you say Bertie was 
 coming?" 
 
 Under her complexion Lady Fabricius' skin took on a 
 faint pink color. 
 
 "Thursday night, Adolph ; only two days more." 
 
 Her little eyes, eyes ugly with the inevitable physical 
 ugliness of old eyes, and which held none of the thousand- 
 fold compensations of expressional beauty seen in the 
 eyes of the old whose lives have been good and gentle, 
 filled with tears. "I can hardly wait, Adolph," she said 
 tremulously. 
 
 The old man beamed. He was afraid of his wife but 
 he adored her, and to him she was still the imperious 
 beauty who had, to his never-ending amazement, conde- 
 
 195
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 scended over forty years ago to do him the honor of 
 marrying him for his money. 
 
 "My poor Marcia," he returned. "I am even gladder 
 for you than I am for myself. He should not have stayed 
 away so long from you. I wass very angry when he 
 decided to stay on in America." 
 
 The old lady set down her claret-glass and threw up 
 her head, her poor old head richly bedight with warm 
 auburn hair arranged in a bewildering pattern of plaits 
 and rolls and little curls like sausages. 
 
 "He was right, Adolph, quite right to stay in America. 
 Young men ought to travel ; it broadens their minds," 
 
 Cuckoo, who was thinking of her pearls, caught the last 
 words. 
 
 "How old is Bertie?" she asked innocently. 
 
 Sir Adolph frowned. 
 
 "He is dear me," he answered hastily, in his most 
 broken English. "How dime does fly. It is odd that you 
 should only haf seen your cousin dat one dime, kukuchen. 
 He won't know you now, will he, Mammachen?" He 
 was allowed to call his lady "Mammachen" only, so to 
 speak, on high days, holidays, and bonfire-nights, and 
 Cuckoo realized that her aunt must, for some reason, be 
 in a propitious mood a mood not to be passed over 
 unimproved. 
 
 "Auntie dear," the girl said hurriedly, jerking the 
 pearls out from under her low collar, "look what Uncle 
 gave me to celebrate Bertie's return." 
 
 Sir Adolph gasped in a surprised way, and calling 
 Almond, the butler, broke his usual midday rule by having 
 a brandy-and-soda, but this precautionary measure was 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Lady Fabricius glared for a moment and asked the 
 price of the pearls in a voice heavy with portent; but on 
 Sir Adolph's raising his glass and drinking to the return 
 
 196
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of her peloved poy, she held up her claret glass and re- 
 turned the toast without any further discussion of the 
 gift. 
 
 Cuckoo shivered with relief for the row about her 
 emerald had been a serious one, and the ermine collar 
 on her opera cloak had nearly resulted in her being sent 
 back to Roseroofs. Not exactly ungenerous herself, Aunt 
 Marcia had a deep-rooted objection to her husband spend- 
 ing in useless gifts any of the money he had made with 
 his own brain, but from the first she had shown a dispo- 
 sition to be jealous of the old man's affection for Cuckoo. 
 
 "She's my niece, Adolph," she had said a dishearten- 
 ing number of times during the first months of Cuckoo's 
 stay with them, "no't yours." And the long-suffering 
 Adolph had bowed to the storm, thinking deep within his 
 old breast that things would indeed have been bad if 
 Linchen and Lenchen and das kleine Olgachen, his own 
 nieces, had by any evil chance been transported from 
 Ullheim to South Audley Street. Marcia, his angel, would 
 not have liked these solid young women, one of whom 
 was happily married to a rich miller and known to her 
 friends as "die Miillerin." 
 
 No, it was better, in spite of everything, that it was 
 Marcia's niece and not his, who had come to share the 
 good things he had achieved.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THURSDAY came, and Bertie was to arrive in the 
 evening, having landed in Liverpool late in the 
 morning. His rooms had been ready for some 
 days, and after tea Lady Fabricius and her niece went 
 up in the lift to inspect them. Beautiful, luxurious rooms 
 they were, and by way of a welcoming gift there was 
 spread about the dressing-room a toilet service of solid 
 gold, with "H. L. F." all over it in block letters. 
 
 "He loves gold," Lady Fabricius had said pensively, 
 as if she had said, "He loves Mozart," or "He loves 
 pansies." 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "So do most people," she said. 
 
 "They don't. Your uncle, for instance. All his things 
 are silver, aren't they, Parsons?" 
 
 Mrs. Parsons, the housekeeper, whose arrangements for 
 the coming of the great Bertie were, so to say, being 
 reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief, nodded. 
 
 "Oh, yes, my lady, everything. Everything of Sir 
 Hadolph's are silver, but Mr. Ubert, 'e was always for 
 gold, he was, cigarette-cases, and match-boxes, and all 
 such similar jee-jaws." 
 
 Cuckoo was dining out that night, but she meant to 
 have a look at the Great One before she went, so she 
 dressed early, in black which she very often wore, and 
 then, waiting till she heard the car drive up and dashing 
 downstairs in an appearance of great hurry, she met her 
 cousin on the stairs, "according to plan." They shook 
 hands hastily after his "I beg your pardon you're 
 Cuckoo, of course." And she rushed on, making, she knew, 
 
 198
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 an interesting and arresting picture in her black gown and 
 with her orange velvet cloak, with the famous ermine col- 
 lar, wrapped round her. 
 
 Hubert Fabricius was a heavily-built, brick-red man 
 of about eight-and-thirty. He was a little bald, and she 
 knew his face, already blurred in outline, the edges less 
 keen than they had been, would eventually be very shape- 
 less and heavy. His eyes, however, were really rather 
 beautiful ; dark violet eyes with long lashes ; they were 
 bloodshot and the lids were a little swollen, but the color 
 in itself was, she noticed, the deep, unusual violet of Aunt 
 Flora's. 
 
 These things- the girl turned over in her mind on the 
 way to Grosvenor Place. She had seen him only once 
 before, and that was on the evening of her arrival in 
 London nearly two years ago. He had been on the point 
 of starting for the Riviera, and though he had been in 
 London once or twice since then, she had on each occa- 
 sion chanced to be away: once at Roseroofs and once at 
 Planings with Lady Pelter, who had taken a great fancy 
 to her. She was not unaware of the effect Bertie's return 
 might not improbably have on lier own position. It could 
 be regarded as a kind of milestone on her road. Lady 
 Fabricius had been very kind to her, kind to a degree 
 that had caused surprise, though no discussion at Rose- 
 roofs. Miss Effie and Miss Flora had never realized that 
 their elder sister had really loved poor May; they had 
 known that she would keep her promise to Blundell ; they 
 knew that the two hundred pounds a year was Cuckoo's 
 for life, but they had not expected for Cuckoo, more 
 than one or two "Seasons" for Seasons were definite- 
 dated things in those days and now nearly two years 
 had passed since Cuckoo had been, not visiting, but at 
 home in South Audley Street. Twice she had been to 
 Rosexoofs for a fortnight at a time, but without a word 
 
 199
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 on the subject being said, it was quite clear to everybody 
 that she regarded herself as a guest there. Her home 
 was with Uncle and Aunt Fab, and now, as she bowled 
 along in the comfortable car that was as large as some 
 people's drawing-rooms, her quick mind was envisaging 
 all the points in her situation. She smelt danger. 
 
 Lady Fabricius adored Bertie, and Sir Adolph adored 
 Lady Fabricius. "Suppose," the girl thought with a 
 horrid pang, "that Bertie doesn't like me. If he didn't, 
 and he wanted her to, she'd pack me off at five minutes' 
 notice, and then where should I be?" 
 
 It was characteristic of her that she bore no malice 
 towards her aunt, as she faced this probable eventuality. 
 Her aunt had been remarkably kind to her and she knew 
 it, but the nest in South Audley Street was not her home, 
 and if the returned wanderer found the stranger took 
 up too much room in it, the mother-bird would not only 
 kick the stranger out, but would have a right to do so. 
 
 "I am well named," Miss Blundell thought, as the car 
 stopped. "I am a Cuckoo." 
 
 She frowned impatiently, for it made her very angry 
 that she was a failure ; and she was a failure in that she 
 had not been adroit enough to secure a nest for herself a 
 real nest of her own and she knew it. 
 
 She danced well and had a thousand friendly acquaint- 
 ances among men, and one or two of the strictly ineligible 
 class had invited her to share their futures, but not one 
 man who was, as she put it, "worth marrying," wanted 
 her. A big Australian millionaire whom she had done 
 her best to marry, had summed her up in a home letter 
 in fairly just terms. 
 
 Billy is rather smitten [he wrote] with a little girl here, a 
 niece of an old Jew banker. I rather like her myself and have 
 seen something of her. She'd do splendidly in some ways for 
 Billy, for she's as strong as a rat and has a will of iron, could 
 
 200
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 stand any kind of weather and any amount of "roughing" it if 
 she wanted to, only she would not want to! She has been 
 having a go at my s. d., but I'm not taking any, thanks; too 
 business-like to suit me, and I should think has got as much 
 capacity for -loving as a steel poker. 
 
 So poor Cuckoo was a failure. One fine thing about 
 her at that period, was her courage in boldly facing this 
 horrid fact, and, after dinner, which from her point of 
 view had been very dull, she settled herself in a lonely 
 corner to listen to Caruso who, for some little Balkan 
 king's ransom, was to sing two songs, and went on with 
 her reflections. Suddenly illumination came to her. She 
 had just reflected that, while Aunt Marcia would be sure 
 to hurl her beloved boy at the daughters of duchesses and 
 countesses and so on, the daughters of the duchesses and 
 countesses are not so keen on new money as they used to 
 be, and lots of them really seem to prefer good blood. 
 
 Then the great idea came. "Sixty thousand pounds a 
 year is not so very much nowadays, and until dear Uncle 
 Fab dies Master Bertie can't have more than five thou- 
 sand; not much of a catch for the big families, but he 
 might be made to do for me if he would have me !" 
 
 There was in her thoughts neither conceit nor humility ; 
 she was doing that thing so unusual in everybody, but 
 perhaps most of all in a young girl, facing her situation 
 with absolute candor and laying her plans according to 
 bare possibilities. And as she sat in deep distraction the 
 after-dinner guests began to arrive. 
 
 Signer Caruso was already there and stood talking to 
 a very tall Beauty. His accompanist was at the piano ; 
 there was the usual confusion as people settled into their 
 places and Cuckoo was undisturbed. She was rrot a music 
 lover, but everybody who has had the good fortune to hear 
 that most marvellous of voices, must be enthralled by it, 
 and gradually the girl's thoughts melted into a soft con- 
 
 201
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 fusion of feeling. The great tenor was singing a simple 
 song, and the inexpressible magic of his voice laid the 
 room under as strong a spell as was even the Palace of 
 the Sleeping Beauty; and suddenly Cuckoo, raising her 
 eyes and moving a little forward to get a better view of 
 the singer, caught sight of one of the latest arrivals who 
 stood at the far end of the room leaning against the door. 
 It was George. Her first feeling was one of intense, 
 sincere exasperation that he should appear now, just when 
 she was so busily arranging to marry Hubert Fabricius. 
 She would be upset for days and she knew it, and resented 
 it. George had not yet seen her, and his large eyes were 
 filled with the blindness of a deep dream. Cuckoo per- 
 ceived with approbation that his dress clothes were new, 
 but her heart trembled to see how very pale he was, and 
 that there were triangular shadows under his cheek-bones. 
 How an unknown young man from the country had the 
 good luck to be included in the list of the very great lady 
 who was his hostess, Cuckoo did not ask herself. If she 
 had met George in a thieves' kitchen, or in the Pope's 
 oratory, she would not have been surprised. He was 
 George, therefore it was always natural to her to see him. 
 Oh, how she wished he hadn't come ! 
 
 When the song ceased, of the latter part of which she 
 had not heard one note, Cuckoo rose and crept quietly 
 across the room to her hostess. She had a headache, she 
 said, and feared she must go. And there was George 
 stuck like an owl on a barn-door in her very path. She 
 waited a minute as he slowly started towards two ladies 
 sitting together not far off. 
 
 "If he speaks to them I can slip out," the girl thought, 
 but just as she neared the door, the young man turned 
 and saw her. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he cried, coming to her, "are you glad to 
 see me?" 
 
 202
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She laughed. "You idiot, George, to ask me that!" 
 
 "Yes, but are you ?" he persisted gently. 
 
 "Delighted, of course. Have you been in town long?" 
 
 "I have lived in London for six months, Cuckoo," he 
 answered quietly. "I have a studio in Chelsea and am 
 painting." 
 
 If only his eyelashes didn't flicker in that distracting 
 way, and if only his little white teeth were not so beau- 
 tiful! 
 
 "Well, I must be off," she said. "Glad to have seen 
 you, George. Give my love to the Vicar." 
 
 He looked at her gravely, shaking his head. 
 
 "You don't fool me a bit, you know. You are every 
 bit as glad to see me as I am to see you. Come to the 
 Round Pond at eleven tomorrow." 
 
 "Good Heavens, no!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because oh, don't be silly, George ; of course I can't 
 come. Besides, I don't want to." 
 
 He shook his head again and smiled. "Yes," he said, 
 with gentle obstinacy, "you do want to. And you needn't 
 be afraid," he added seriously. "I'm not going to ask 
 you to marry me." 
 
 Her stare was almost ludicrously surprised. 
 
 "Then why " she began. 
 
 "Dear old Cuckoo I want to talk to you; you aren't 
 happy " 
 
 After a pause during which she seemed to hear a crash 
 of all her defenses as they fell, she said indifferently : 
 
 "Oh, well, if you aren't going to be silly and try to 
 make love to me, I'll come. All that nonsense was over 
 nearly two years ago, anyhow, and there's no real reason 
 why we shouldn't be friends." 
 
 She nodded and left him. 
 
 Caruso was singing again as she put her cloak on, and 
 
 203
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 while the car was being called, she stole back up the stairs 
 to listen. George had changed his position and was facing 
 the door, so that he saw her. He didn't move, and yet, 
 as she stood there, he seemed to cross the room towards 
 her, to come through the door, to put his arms round 
 her; and together, it seemed to her, close together, they 
 were listening to the divine voice. . . . 
 
 When the song ceased George did not join her. Their 
 eyes broke away from each other's, and she went slowly 
 downstairs. All the way home she leant back in the corner 
 with her eyes shut.
 
 CHAPTER XVH 
 
 AS the car drew up at 65s, a taxi left the door, and 
 Cuckoo saw a man standing on the steps. It was 
 her cousin Hubert. 
 
 "That's right," he exclaimed in an undertone, taking 
 out his latchkey as she joined him, "I thought it was 
 you." 
 
 He looked very big and rather imposing, she thought, 
 in his fur-collared coat, and as she paused at the foot 
 of the branching staircase to say good-night, his violet 
 eyes held hers in a way she liked. 
 
 "Don't go up," he said. "Come into the library, and 
 we'll have something to eat and you can tell me about 
 things." 
 
 "What things?" she asked gravely. 
 
 "Oh Mother says Caruso was to sing; did he? Tell 
 me about him, or about anything else, so long as you 
 come." 
 
 He took off her cloak and laid it on a chest; then he 
 took off his own coat, and she saw that in spite of his 
 bulkiness he looked his best in evening dress. Perhaps, 
 after all, she thought, her plan might not be so dreadful 
 of accomplishment. He was physically a far handsomer 
 man than poor, thin, narrow-chested George. She also 
 liked his adroitness in forestalling any talk among the 
 servants by immediately ringing for Almond and ordering 
 a brandy-and-soda for himself, and a bottle of stone 
 ginger with lemon for her. Moreover, he did not make 
 the blunder of explaining to her that he thought it best 
 that, having opened the door with his latchkey, and the 
 
 205
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 servants being up, to have the man in, but she knew and 
 appreciated his carefulness. 
 
 "Is her ladyship in bed, Almond?" he asked, lighting a 
 cigarette. 
 
 "Yes, sir, her ladyship had a headache, I believe, and 
 went to bed very early, sir." 
 
 "Then we won't disturb her to-night, Cuckoo." 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. "Oh, dear, no." Then, with a sharp 
 glance at Almond's expressionless face, she added, "I never 
 go up to her in her room unless she sends for me." 
 
 The library, a large, square room lined with fine books, 
 was a satisfactory stage for an important interview. 
 Cuckoo liked it. Her little black-clad figure looked its 
 best against the browns and golds of the books and the 
 moss-green velvet hangings, and she knew it. She stood 
 in the big chimney-place, one hand on the mantelpiece, 
 looking into the fire. Fabricius watched her keenly ; she 
 felt the keenness and knew, without seeing, just when it 
 kindled to something more. Among the logs on the hearth 
 glowed big blocks of peat squares of liquid fire they 
 looked and their scent mingled with that of the hundreds 
 of old calf-bound books; the leisured sound of the big 
 clock ticking is too slight a word for its deep and 
 sonorous note gave the girl a strong feeling of being 
 encouraged and backed in her enterprise. She felt that 
 she had the right to live in such a room, amid such scents, 
 and sights, and sounds. She put the thought of George 
 resolutely from her mind. She would marry Fabricius and 
 "have things," but she would make him happy as well. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he said suddenly, "what are you thinking 
 of?" 
 
 She started. "Oh, nothing. I was looking at the fire; 
 you know how one does not thinking of anything but 
 I think the smell of the peat gets into one's head." 
 
 "Well, put it out of your head," he said nervously, 
 
 206
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 with a bantering note in his voice. "You have changed 
 since I last saw you." 
 
 In his study at the back of the house, old Sir Adolph 
 sat thinking. The room was small and had only one 
 window. He had chosen it because it was very quiet and 
 it was comfortable. He sat in an armchair by the fire; 
 he wore a quilted smoking- jacket of plum-colored silk, 
 and on his large, flat feet was a pair of slippers embroid- 
 ered in bullion. Those slippers were blatantly of German 
 origin and had been worked for him on the far-off banks 
 of the Main by Linchen and Lenchen as a Christmas gift. 
 Lady Fabricius could not endure them, so he wore them 
 only when he was sure that they would not wound her 
 eyes. But he liked them, for they were roomy and warm, 
 and besides, Linchen and Lenchen had made them ; Linchen 
 and Lenchen, his only sister's daughters, whom he had 
 not seen since they were little children. His smoking- 
 cap, which was very ornate and grand and had a gold 
 tassel that bobbed about his face when he moved sud- 
 denly, was an offering from an unknown niece-in-law, Frau 
 Chimney-Inspector Schlott, in Dresden. Sir Adolph had 
 lived many years in England, but his old blood was still 
 true to his kind. 
 
 There was only one electric light on, for the old man 
 liked the firelight, and as he sat there in the midnight 
 quiet he was lapped in old memories. 
 
 Over the mantelpiece hung a very badly painted por- 
 trait of a man in the high stock of Napoleon's day, and 
 Sir Adolph had begun to think of his early life, for the 
 old Jew with the subtle, clever face was his grandfather, 
 whom he could best remember as a very ancient man with 
 no teeth and eyes that still blazed like fire somewhere far 
 back in his head. This old man, Isaac Fabricius, had 
 been a horse-dealer and money-lender in one of a string 
 
 207
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of long, dirty, ugly villages on the Main, near Frankfort. 
 Where he had originally come from nobody, not even 
 himself, knew, but he had not been of the solid, agricul- 
 tural type. He was a clever, shrewd man, possessed of 
 various little lodes of knowledge from which he drew 
 unexpected treasures when occasion arose. The Napo- 
 leonic wars were, for example, an occasion for him, and 
 his knowledge of French .had been said, his grandson re- 
 membered, to have enabled him to do much profitable work 
 as a spy. At all events, when, early in the twenties, he 
 again settled, as far as such spirits ever settle, at Over- 
 heim-am-Main, it was plain that he was not a poor man. 
 Until he was very old he had, assisted by his son, gone 
 on plying his double trade, and when he died, in his grand- 
 son's childhood, he was a rich man for his class. 
 
 And now old Sir Adolph, sitting in his splendid London 
 house, passed mentally from his grandfather to contem- 
 plation of his own childhood. How well he remembered 
 the village, the long, cobbled street, the sordid, dirty, 
 etone house, possessing for a garden a kind of pit outside 
 the front door, where a manure heap lay and accumulated 
 and rotted. An occasional geranium in a window was 
 the only flower the boy and his sister ever saw in their 
 childhood. In the ill-defined little square more a widen- 
 ing of the street than a real square stood the village 
 pump, and here it was the women came to fill the great, 
 flattened casks they carried strapped to their backs. The 
 church was beautiful in the florid way of the Rococo 
 Period ; fat-bellied angels clustered on the facade ; the 
 windows were overhung by heavily-carved frills of stone, 
 and above the strong door stood a clumsy St. Christopher 
 carrying the Christ. The small Adolph and the small 
 Gretchen admired the church, but were not allowed to go 
 into it because they were Jews. 
 
 Their father's house, by far the most comfortable in 
 
 208
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the village, stood, not in the main street, but in what was 
 called "the Judenhof" the Jews' quarter, a cluster of 
 houses isolated from the village, at the end of a very 
 muddy lane. To the end of his life Adolph Fabricius 
 associated great muddiness with the lane to the Judenhof. 
 His father, Valtele (pronounced Feltyleh) was not a good 
 Jew, and he was disliked by all the orthodox Jews, but 
 as he was rich he was tolerated, tolerated by the ugly 
 women with the black jute wigs, by the serious, bearded 
 men who were then truer to the Old Testament type than 
 they are now, possessing the silent, abstemious unmirthful- 
 ness that must have been possessed by those who, in the 
 Wilderness, so eternally murmured against poor Moses. 
 Valtele Fabricius was a rich man, so he was forgiven much. 
 They had, the child knew, even forgiven him his un-Jewish 
 wife in time. 
 
 "Was my mother a Christian?" he had once asked his 
 father, as they sat at their supper a bitter cold night, in 
 the over-heated, airless living-room. His father, already 
 an old man, although the boy was but ten, turned his 
 queer, hooded eyes on him. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "Your mother was a Christian; she 
 was a good and brave woman." 
 
 His mother had been good and brave, the old man re 
 fleeted, and he too had been good. He laughed softly as 
 he thought how little people knew how he had made his 
 money. But he knew, and he knew that he had been 
 honest and fair. He had also fulfilled the practice of that 
 greatest of Jewish virtues charity. His mother would 
 not have been ashamed of him if she had lived. 
 
 When he was fourteen his father had died, and he and 
 his sister had gone to live in Frankfort. After that he 
 had had no youth. He did not dwell long on the thought 
 of his dull, monotonous work in a pawnbroker's shop that 
 had started him in his career. The Franco-Prussian war 
 
 209
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 had made his fortune in the end, and the next event in his 
 life was his meeting his beautiful and wonderful Marcia, 
 and the miracle of her becoming his wife. How beautiful 
 she had been! His dreams were very romantic, but he 
 sighed as he came to his son. They had been married 
 some years when the boy was born, and Lady Fabricius, 
 like all selfish, spoiled women, had treated her child as if 
 he were indeed herself her very flesh. She had accorded 
 to him the senseless indulgence and favor she had always 
 given herself, and as a natural result the boy had grown 
 up badly. He had grown up as no man, whether he be 
 German Jew or English gentleman, likes his son to grow 
 up. He was selfish, self-indulgent, and profligate; his 
 strength of will was tremendous in so far as it was devoted 
 to the getting of his own way, but he was weak to an 
 equal degree in any matter where his own comfort was 
 involved. He had been expelled from Eton, and his Oxford 
 career had been a series of blows to his father. "Bertie 
 Fab," as he was called, had been asked to take his name off 
 the books of his College, and later he had been obliged to 
 withdraw from a very famous club; he drank, and for 
 some years his tastes were unusually low. But of these 
 things his mother either knew or cared nothing. To her 
 he was what she indiscreetly called "her beautiful boy," 
 and, to do him justice, his good side, such as it was, was 
 always turned to her, and poor old Sir Adolph did his 
 best to bear his shame and disgrace without letting his 
 wife see that he was unhappy. 
 
 It was at this time, just after the episode of the Club, 
 that she had invented the theory, in which she came to 
 believe, that her husband had liver trouble. The old man 
 smiled as he remembered his amazement on the first occa- 
 sion when this entirely imaginary malady of his was used 
 to cover his uncontrollable depression. He had been so 
 surprised, and Marcia had been so glib ! 
 
 210
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I must take him," Lady Fab had said, "to Karlsbad. 
 It is the only place, so we must go there, though I loathe 
 it." 
 
 Sir Adolph loathed Karlsbad too, but patiently he 
 underwent the cure there year after year, saying little, 
 trotting about by himself, a small, lonely, unshapely old 
 man, not unthankful for the excuse that the liver-com- 
 plaint gave him for solitary walks and the silence and 
 moodiness that he could not always, even for his wife's 
 sake, dominate. 
 
 "After all," he wondered, as he sat that night over the 
 fire, "perhaps it wass my liver. Some old philosopher has 
 said that the liver is the seat of the affections," 
 
 It is a question whether Lady Fabricius loved her son 
 more deeply than did her husband, but there is no doubt 
 that the old man himself had always treated her love for 
 the boy as something beyond his own powers of achieve- 
 ment. For years he had been torn between his duty as a 
 father, knowing that he ought to correct his son and 
 enforce his authority over him, and his pitying, tender 
 longing to protect his wife from the very shadow of pain. 
 When things had got to their worst point, Bertie had had 
 the wisdom to be persuaded to go round the world, and 
 since then he had, off and on, traveled a good deal. "I 
 suppose," Sir Adolph mused, "that it has been a relief to 
 me to have the poor boy away, but it has nearly brolcen 
 his mother's heart" which was an entire mistake; for 
 Lady Fabricius' heart, though doubtless full of love for 
 her son, was sentimentally in the status lymphaticus, there 
 was too much of herself there to allow of anyone, even 
 Bertie, permanently disturbing its indolent well-being. 
 
 During his son's travels, Sir Adolph had had only two 
 serious liver attacks ; one supervening on a letter from 
 the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, as it was then 
 called, and one after the visit of an old Spanish friend of 
 
 211
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 his from Valparaiso. Lady Fabricius had had no know- 
 ledge of the occasion of these sharp bouts of her hus- 
 band's, but Cuckoo had been a great help to the lonely old 
 man during their duration. For she had at once seen 
 that his illness was mental, not physical, and her tact and 
 powers of distraction inherited from her father, had helped 
 him more even than she had really known. For Cuckoo, 
 like her father, had a cage with a bird in it; in fact, her 
 cage had two birds in it, of the existence of the second of 
 which she was only just beginning to be aware ; its uses, 
 even yet, were a puzzle to her, but she was beginning to 
 learn them, and Bertie Fab was destined to help her. 
 This charm, independent of beauty, for of beauty she had 
 little or none, or of intellect, for her double-barrelled edu- 
 cation had turned out rather a muddled affair and she 
 had no compensating love of books ; or of sweetness, for 
 Cuckoo was not sweet ; the charm, the one she had always 
 recognized and used, not the new one, greatly endeared her 
 to her old uncle. Under its influence he even went so far 
 as to let her see that his trouble was not unconnected 
 with his absent son. His mind turned to Cuckoo now 
 as she sat only a hundred yards from him, liming her little 
 twigs, weaving her little traps, digging her little pits. 
 Although he loved her as a niece, she puzzled him and 
 sometimes hurt him as a girl. 
 
 "I wonder," he thought, "what will become of her? 
 Perhaps, after all, we were unwise not to let her see the 
 Loxley boy. He is a good kerl, and might have brought 
 out the best in her" 
 
 Bertie Fab was an old bird and wily, but he had fallen 
 under Cuckoo's spell and saw not the lime on her twigs. 
 He was unlike George in that her attraction for him 
 blinded him to her lack of beauty. He thought her ex- 
 tremely pretty, as well as dangerously desirable, and he 
 
 212
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 was completely fooled by her attitude of detachment. He 
 had always believed himself, and with reason, a lady-killer, 
 and his love-affairs had never been distinguished by any 
 very white sense of honor ; but Cuckoo was his own cousin 
 and in his mother's house, so even that evening the idea of 
 marrying passed through his brain. He was falling in 
 love with her and knew it and welcomed the fact, for it was 
 some months since he had been in that, to him, habitual 
 and pleasant condition. He was a lonely man when not 
 in love. He had found recently somewhere the tag-end of 
 a French quotation, and with the suppleness of mind that 
 he had inherited with his Jewish blood and that so sharply 
 contrasted with his unwieldiness of build, he brought the 
 lines into the conversation : 
 
 "Et partout le spectre 1'amour 
 Et nulle part de 1'amour 
 
 "I suppose that is true," he said, as he finished his 
 brandy-and-soda, his face a little redder and a little more 
 blurred at the edges than it had been. "Ghosts of love 
 and no real love." Cuckoo looked at him with grave eyes. 
 
 "I hope that's not true," she said. "It would make life 
 very desolate." 
 
 "Spectres are all very well," he returned, "to pass the 
 time until the real thing comes along." 
 
 She nodded, playing her dimple slyly. 
 
 "How do you know the real thing, when it does come," 
 she said, "if you have tieen playing about with spectres ?" 
 
 "How do you know when a real person comes into the 
 room, after you have thought you heard people coming 
 when no one was there?" He poured out some more 
 brandy, and she rose. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know," she said. "I've never been 
 in love myself, except in a childish way." This was wis- 
 
 213
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 dom, for she knew quite well that his father or mother 
 might one day happen to reveal to him the story of 
 George. "Well, I think I'll go now. Good-night." 
 
 They went upstairs together in silence, and half-way up 
 Cuckoo's heel caught in the carpet and she would have 
 fallen in all good faith but for his catching her. Having 
 caught her in his arms he held her for a moment, his heart 
 giving a bound which she distinctly felt against her bare 
 shoulder, and he kissed her roughly. She pushed him away 
 and fled upstairs without a word. 
 
 "I say, Cuckoo," he called softly, his voice thick, "don't 
 be angry. I'm sorry I a fellow loses his head. I beg 
 your pardon" but she was gone. 
 
 She closed her door, and walking soberly to her bed, 
 sat down and reviewed the situation. 
 
 "That was true," she said. "He couldn't help it, and 
 his heart was going like a donkey-engine, I felt it; two 
 points; and his voice was like poor Captain Browne's 
 hoarse and jerky; three points. So far, so good." She 
 rose, and switching on all the lights in the room, stood 
 in front of her pier-glass and looked at herself. "You 
 have been a horrid failure up to this," she thought, as 
 deliberately as if she were speaking aloud. "The right 
 men don't want to marry you ; you haven't any real 
 friends, as other girls have, and you've got one more 
 chance, and that's Bertie. Bertie is attracted. He is 
 going to lose his head and you can marry him, if you are 
 very careful." Then she began slowly to undress, her 
 face suddenly drawn and dusky. "Aunt Marcia will 
 rage," her thoughts went on, "but that won't matter. I 
 can marry him, and I will marry him, and there will be 
 no more nonsense about George." 
 
 There was no vacillation in her mind. Her chance had 
 come and she would take it, and George would wait in 
 vain at the Round Pond. She didn't know where he lived, 
 
 214.
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 so she couldn't let him know she wa not coming, and she 
 dared not go, for she dared not see him again. "He'll have 
 a silk handkerchief round his poor, delicate throat," she 
 moaned, rolled up, a ball of misery, in her soft bed. "His 
 dear nose will be rabbitier than ever if it's cold and he'll 
 wait, and wait, and wait; his darling old blind eyes pop- 
 ping out of his head as every new girl comes into view, 
 and then and then he'll go back to his poor studio and 
 
 lock the door," 
 
 She cried herself to sleep but she didn't go to the 
 Round Pond.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CUCKOO BLUNDELL'S chase of the Fabricius 
 millions proceeded very satisfactorily for a few 
 days. Bertie was, in a secret, cautious way, very 
 devoted to her, and her influence grew every time they 
 met. However, it would behoove her to advance very 
 warily in this particular jungle, and she knew it, for not 
 only was the quarry a scarred and experienced brute, but 
 he was not alone; wary eyes watched out for him, and 
 powerful paws and jaws, she knew, were ready to destroy 
 her if her tracking of him were perceived. However, two 
 things were in her favor ; Sir Adolph and Lady Fab both 
 went early to bed and neither of them breakfasted in the 
 dining-room, Sir Adolph, because his breakfast consisted 
 of a cup of coffee and two pieces of Zwieback at six 
 o'clock, after which he worked in his study until nine and 
 then went to the City; and Lady Fab breakfasted sump- 
 tuously in bed and never came downstairs until after 
 eleven. On the third day after their first interview, Bertie 
 and Cuckoo had eaten their eggs and soles in the stimu- 
 lating atmosphere of that rarest of meals between an 
 unmarried man and a girl a tete-a-tete breakfast. 
 
 Bertie didn't look his best at 9.30 a.m. His red face, 
 which held, in spite of its redness, something of the cloudy 
 darkness of the Oriental's, looked less white than ever, 
 and his eyes were at that hour always unusually swollen 
 and bloodshot. Cuckoo looked at him in an unemotional 
 and stock-taking way during the silence that they broke 
 only by an occasional remark for the servants' benefit. 
 She was trying her best to like him, and the thickness 
 
 216
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of his neck and the powerful muscles of his shoulders 
 really attracted her, but she hated the redness of his 
 eyelids and she wished his mouth were not so moist looking. 
 
 She herself always dressed with unusual care for break- 
 fast, and her ecru crepe-de-Chine blouse, just showing the 
 pearls tucked away against her skin, threw into fine relief 
 the darkness of her hair and eyebrows and the vivid red 
 of her lips. The dining-room, a huge place with a mag- 
 nificent Adam ceiling and a few fine black-framed por- 
 traits, gave them, at their small table in the window, a 
 pleasant babes-in-the-wood feeling a feeling of two peo- 
 ple on a very little island in a big sea. It was sometimes 
 said of the Fab House that Lady Fab must have won- 
 derful taste ; but this was though, considering Adolph's 
 common and insignificant looks, a natural one a mistake. 
 It was old Fab, he who had lived in the Judenhof in the 
 German village, who made the house what it was. Whence 
 he drew it he knew no better than the people who ate 
 his food and laughed at his accent, but there it was, an 
 impregnable, delicate taste that, rooted in a really mar- 
 velous sense of period, flowered in an instinct which never 
 erred and, what is more unusual, a perfect sense of the 
 beauty of space. Hence his house was a place of ample 
 emptiness, of justice-giving lack of crowding, of respect- 
 ful placing of the treasures so many people would have 
 ruined by setting too close together. Even the shadows 
 of his splendid pieces of furniture thus had a chance of 
 being beautiful and unconfused. 
 
 Cuckoo loved the whole house, for to her, too, appre- 
 ciation if not active taste had been given. But for some 
 reason she liked the dining-room best of all, and she de- 
 cided, as she ate her breakfast under the benevolent eye 
 of Almond, that considering the beauty of the house and 
 of this particular room, Bertie would not do at all badly 
 at the head of her table for the rest of her life. He 
 
 217
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 certainly looked as if he had drunk more than was good 
 for him, and indeed she knew that there were times when 
 he drank more than would have benefited any five men. 
 But, after all, it had as yet not made much mark on him. 
 She would not let him drink too much, and then his really 
 beautiful violet eyes it was odd that they should be like 
 Aunt Flora's would lose their ugly redness and the loose 
 fat into which the points of his collar cut so deep, would 
 vanish. 
 
 Every now and then she met his eyes. He had a peculiar 
 hard stare that, in its fixity, was almost insolent. She 
 returned these gazes coolly, looking away after a moment 
 as if she instinctively felt it was not quite what he had 
 expected or wished. When she rose he politely opened the 
 door for her. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said carelessly. 
 
 "What are you doing this afternoon?" 
 
 She looked at him vaguely as if trying to remember. 
 
 "I don't know ; nothing particular." 
 
 "Come up to Hampstead Heath with me. I'll get a 
 car. We might have tea at the 'Spaniard's.' ' 
 
 She laughed. "I should be delighted," she said with 
 a little curtsey, "if Aunt Marcia says I may," and she 
 ran upstairs without waiting for his reply. 
 
 Fabricius stared after her for a moment, after he had 
 audibly damned her Ladyship, realizing the fact that her 
 dark little face, with its jutting jaw and its misty black 
 eyes, was stirring him and thrilling him as he had never 
 been stirred and thrilled before. He was a man used to 
 making a vivid impression on women, for he had very 
 strong animal magnetism and the curious brainlessness 
 that is so often found in the successful heart-eater men 
 of highly cultivated minds are rarely successful libertines, 
 not only because they don't care to be, but because there 
 is in them either a certain lack, or a certain surplus, that 
 
 218
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 is fatal to this particular form of sport. Fabricius had 
 no brain and he was a particularly perfect specimen of 
 his kind. He was a passionate man, but he also adored' 
 the menus plaisirs of love; he loved flattery, petting and 
 cajolery; he loved to be dressed for and made much of; 
 he liked dramatic scenes, he liked to be watched for, and 
 wept for, and in this last point he was a very rare male, 
 for he actually enjoyed tears up to a certain point. 
 
 As he smoked his after-breakfast cigarette, he wondered 
 how long it would take Cuckoo to be in love with him 
 as he meant her to be. Probably not long, he decided. 
 It was a great thing her being in the house with him, 
 and although, in spite of that first flashing idea of mar- 
 riage across his mind, he was now giving no thought at 
 all to the future, yet there was a strong, perverse charm 
 to him in the fact that his love-making was to take place, 
 so to speak, under the very nose of his mother. It was 
 very simplifying to live under the same roof with the 
 object of one's passion; it dispensed with the minor diffi- 
 culties, such as calling and finding the object surrounded 
 by mothers and fathers, or brothers and sisters, or friends. 
 Bertie Fab hated rain and wind; he objected to anything 
 but the most luxurious ways of getting about the wet, 
 winter streets of London. He liked comfortable chairs, 
 bright fires, and he loathed wet feet as a cat loathes a 
 bath. He need never go out to see Cuckoo and he could 
 see her at all hours of the day. All these things were very 
 pleasing. 
 
 Meantime, Cuckoo regarded him and the situation in 
 almost exactly the same way, except that her object was 
 unswervingly and unchangeably matrimonial. She knew 
 that he was violently in love with her and this amused her 
 .as well as encouraged her efforts. Passion left her as 
 untouched as if she had been Una instead of a mercenary 
 modern girl running down a husband; she would marry 
 
 219
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 him and then she would "have things." She reflected com- 
 fortably about the things she would have. 
 
 She lunched out that day, and when she got home at 
 about three, found her cousin waiting for her. 
 
 "Mother and father are out," he said. "She's playing 
 Bridge at her Club, and you and I are going to Hampstead 
 Heath. Have you got on proper shoes?" 
 
 "I have," she said, "but you haven't." 
 
 "I never wear thick boots," he said; "they hurt my 
 feet. We sha'n't walk, anyhow ; I've telephoned for a car 
 to meet us at Charbonnel's." 
 
 They walked briskly to Bond Street, and after buying a 
 box of chocolates got into the car and flew up to the 
 Highlands of London. It was a beautiful day, sunny and 
 blue-topped, and Cuckoo was very happy. The girl she 
 had lunched with, a bride of some three months' standing, 
 had been formerly as poor as she herself was and by her 
 marriage had achieved wealth and a title in one stroke. 
 She was very happy with her enormous pearls, and her 
 rubies, and her beautiful houses, yet Cuckoo knew that 
 once upon a time she had believed herself to be in love with 
 a comparatively penniless subaltern, and the fact of her 
 contentment cheered and lighted Cuckoo on her way. 
 
 Cuckoo at this period liked girls who had made rich 
 marriages and were happy. One or two cases in which 
 her acquaintances had made financially unsuccessful 
 but happy marriages she avoided instinctively, as one 
 avoids the sight of something certain to give one pain. 
 Evie was blissful she was blissful because she was rich, 
 and Cuckoo, in order to be blissful, must be rich. She 
 was going to be rich. 
 
 The little walk had lent a look of greater youth to her, 
 and, for a moment, to Bertie as well; he had gone to 
 bed early the night before and his eyes were clearer. 
 Cuckoo looked at him with a proprietary feeling not in 
 
 220
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the least betrayed in her steady little face. After all, he 
 was a great deal better than Eve's man. 
 
 They stopped the car at the top of the Heath and 
 walked for half an hour. Cuckoo, of course, was used 
 to walking and loved it, and Bertie, who detested exercise, 
 had known this, and because of it had brought her. A 
 little color crept into her thin cheeks; her eyes glowed 
 as they met the fresh, high air. 
 
 "Don't you miss the country?" he asked. 
 
 She shook her head, for the country meant Roseroofs, 
 and Roseroofs meant George, and that way misery 
 madness, lay. 
 
 "No. I like the country in summer, but I should never 
 want to live there more than a couple of months in the 
 year." 
 
 "You couldn't live in London ten months." 
 
 "No," she returned carelessly, "but I could travel. I 
 like the South of France; I should like to have a villa 
 there." 
 
 This was a well-delivered blow, for Bertie's idea of 
 heaven was Monte Carlo. 
 
 "How are the old aunts?" he began again, after 
 she had watched the idea of their similarity of tastes sink 
 into his mind. 
 
 "Oh, they're all right; much the same; drying up 
 slowly, poor old dears. I think Aunt Flora will blow away 
 some day like a dry old leaf." 
 
 "And how's old Loxley?" 
 
 "Do you know Dr. Loxley?" Cuckoo asked, figTiting 
 against the stiffness that always came to her throat when 
 she was obliged to talk of George. 
 
 "Yes, he sometimes comes to town and always comes 
 to see the Mater. A nice old fellow, I thought him." 
 
 "He is nice ; he's a great dear," she answered, and then 
 she changed the subject abruptly. It was hateful to her 
 
 221
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 that even the thought of George could, so to speak, come 
 between her and the sun. She had been quite happy until 
 that unlucky remark of Bertie's, but now the image of 
 George standing huddled together, with his collar turned 
 up and his nose red in the wind, by the Round Pond, 
 had destroyed her peace. "It's a jolly good thing," she 
 thought savagely, "that I don't know where he lives, or 
 it would be just like me to lose my head and bolt off to see 
 him, and upset the whole apple-cart." 
 
 The owner, as Bertie Fab might be called, of the apple- 
 cart in question, walked on beside her quite happily, never 
 noticing her change of mood, and this, although con- 
 venient, incensed her. George would have known that she 
 was put out, that something had come between them; 
 George always knew. 
 
 Bertie Fab suddenly looked to her almost Falstaffian in 
 his unwieldiness, and she set her teeth. "I will not think 
 about it," she vowed angrily. 
 
 They had tea at the "Spaniard's," and then got into 
 the car and went on into the country for some miles. 
 Fabricius did not break Cuckoo's persistently recurring 
 silences, and she was grateful for this, though she need 
 not have been, for his lack of volubility was not prompted 
 by any consideration for her, but by a certain Pasha- 
 like state of satisfaction into which he had fallen. He was 
 not a talkative man, and it was an unconscious relief to 
 him that Cuckoo did not demand a constant flow of con- 
 versation. He liked sitting in the car by her, watching 
 her, thinking about her. No thought of the future was 
 in his mind ; the present was good and, orientally, it satis- 
 fied him. 
 
 It was evening the early evening of a winter's day 
 when they reached town. As they came to Grosvenor 
 Square, Fabricius spoke, 
 
 "Shall we drive straight to the house?" he asked. 
 
 222
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo was taken by surprise and had to collect her 
 thoughts before answering him; then, deciding that the 
 time was not yet ripe to risk her aunt's discovery of her 
 increasing intimacy with her cousin, she answered simply, 
 "No," and he stopped the car. He looked at her sharply 
 as they stood together on the curb. They had never 
 discussed the necessity for keeping Lady Fabricius in 
 ignorance of their friendship, but they both knew. 
 
 "I'm dining out," he said slowly, "but I'll go to the 
 Club before I come to dress. Will you be up when I 
 come in?" 
 
 She held out her hand. 
 
 "No, not tonight, Bertie. I'm going to see Agatha 
 Kenyon for a few minutes now, and I shall probably dine 
 with her and come home and go to bed early ; I'm tired." 
 
 A look of displeasure, seeming almost physically to 
 blacken his face, came into his eyes ; the thick lips pro- 
 truded a little. 
 
 "Very well," he said shortly. "Good-bye," and he 
 walked off towards Park Lane. 
 
 A slight fog had blown up with the coming of the 
 evening. It was warmer and the air was heavy. Cuckoo 
 turned off and walked towards Bruton Street, where Mrs. 
 Kenyon lived. Bertie's ill-temper by no means disheart- 
 ened her as it might have done two years before. She 
 took it for what it was, and it gave her a little pang of 
 triumph. He would miss her tonight and tomorrow might 
 be rich in happenings. 
 
 As she left Grosvenor Square, a hansom came round 
 the corner, and over the apron of it leaned George Loxley. 
 He stopped the cab at once and joined her, although she 
 had bowed and was walking resolutely away. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he said, "why didn't you come the other 
 day? I waited for over an hour." 
 
 223
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I I found I couldn't," she returned. "It was quite 
 impossible." 
 
 "But you said you would." 
 
 "My dear George, I have said I would do lots of things 
 and then didn't do them." He looked pale and tired; 
 her heart smote her as his troubled eyes held hers. 
 
 "Look here, George," she said earnestly, drawing a 
 step nearer to him in the falling darkness. "It's no use, 
 you know. I'm not going to marry you, and there's not a 
 bit of use our being together." 
 
 "There is just as much use," he returned slowly, the 
 end of his nose giving a little jerk, "as there is in food for 
 hungry people, Cuckoo." 
 
 She laughed nervously. "I admire your simile. That's 
 just the trouble I can't and won't be a hungry person." 
 
 "Do you really mean then that you want never to see 
 me again ?" 
 
 She paused for a moment before answering, and it 
 seemed that she was really and seriously considering the 
 question. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "I think I do mean that." 
 
 He flushed, a deep red that stained his cheeks irregu- 
 larly. 
 
 "How can you?" he asked, with simplicity, "when you 
 love me?" And then, for their future weal or woe, she 
 blurted out the truth: 
 
 "I'm going to marry somebody else," she said. "Some- 
 body who is rich so now you know." 
 
 He had known that for the past two years, but he did 
 not say so. 
 
 "Are you engaged now?" he asked, his color fading. 
 
 It had begun to rain a little, and as he spoke he turned 
 up his coat- collar. 
 
 "Oh, no, not exactly, but I have made up my mind." 
 
 "Cuckoo, don't decide just yet. You are wrong about 
 
 224
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 money; it isn't nearly so necessary as you think. I have 
 sold two pictures already, and I believe I really am go- 
 ing to paint fairly well some day. Give me a year's 
 grace." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "No. It's perfect nonsense. I know what I want. 
 I'm not like some girls, I really do know. I've always 
 wanted the same thing. Now George, please let me go. 
 Don't try to see me again. It's it's just a waste of 
 time." 
 
 She never forgot his face as it bent towards her in the 
 wet gloom. 
 
 "If you really mean that, Cuckoo," he said. "I've 
 nothing more to say." 
 
 "I do mean it." After a minute he drew back. 
 
 "Then good-bye," he said formally, "and I hope that 
 you will be very happy." 
 
 He raised his hat and passed her, disappearing round 
 the corner. 
 
 For quite half a minute she stood perfectly still, and 
 then, as an empty hansom passed her, she hailed it, but 
 she did not go to Bruton Street. 
 
 Lady Rachel Jackson lived over a chemist's shop in a 
 small maisonette, whose supplementary postal address 
 was Belgrave Square. Cuckoo rang at the little door 
 next to the chemist's window, and waited. She waited 
 a long time, for it is more difficult to live near Belgrave 
 .Square on a very limited income than it is to live further 
 afield, and Rachel, at least, was obliged to make up the 
 difference in the number and quality of her servants. 
 Cuckoo stood at the top of the steps looking up and down 
 the depressing street. If she had been a fool half an hour 
 ago, she would have turned her boat's nose towards a 
 harbor less smart even than this, for George could not 
 have afforded Alington Street. She was glad she had been 
 
 225
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 strong and sensible, and with a determined shake of her 
 head, she pulled the bell a second time. 
 
 The very stars in their courses were fighting that after- 
 noon for Hubert Fabricius. 
 
 Cuckoo had come to see Rachel on purpose to confirm 
 herself, by the sight of Rachel's poverty, in the belief that 
 she had been wise in refusing to marry George, but the 
 stellar intervention was made visible the moment the door 
 opened. Instead of the usual smartly-dressed maid, who, 
 not unsuccessfully, tried to look on such occasions as 
 if she had never heard of the kitchen, the door was opened 
 by a charwoman, and the charwoman was not quite sober ; 
 from upstairs came the miserable wailing of children's 
 voices, and there were unmistakable signs of a quite un- 
 usual degree of domestic discomfort in the little house. 
 
 Yes, her ladyship was upstairs, she was in her bedroom. 
 The nurse had gone. Would the lady walk up? The 
 lady walked up the tiny staircase, and found Rachel in 
 a room hardly too large for a properly developed parrot. 
 She was sitting by the fire, her face swollen with crying, a 
 bad-tempered baby on each arm, for she had accentuated 
 her indiscretion in marrying Mr. Jackson by presenting 
 him with twins at the end of the first year. 
 
 "Oh, Nicky, I am glad to see you," Mr. Jackson's wife 
 exclaimed. "I can't get up ; they are in the most disgust- 
 ing tempers. They are both getting their nasty little 
 teeth, and Nurse has gone because Alison scolded her for 
 being out late when we were going out to dine, and it made 
 us late, and Lady Harrow was furious, and everything's 
 perfectly beastly." 
 
 Cuckoo sat down and unfastened her furs. A sense of 
 perfect satisfaction had come over her. 
 
 "Which is Prunella and which is Yvette?" 
 
 "Oh, / don't know," gasped the exasperated mother. 
 "It got so cold I had to put their jackets on, and I can't 
 
 226
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 see the ribbons without taking them off. It's a perfect 
 nuisance ; they get more alike every day." 
 
 Cuckoo touched one of the babies gingerly on the 
 cheek. "This is the pink-ribbon one," she said. "I can 
 see through the jacket." 
 
 "Oh, then that's Yvette. Oh, Cuckoo, what a nice coat 
 and skirt ! I've not a thing to wear. Prunella clawed the 
 ink all over us both when I'd my only decent skirt on the 
 other day. I suppose a baby of eight months' old can't 
 be really malicious, but sometimes it does seem as if Pru- 
 nella was. Yvette is much more amiable." 
 
 Both children had stopped crying by this time, and the 
 two girls could talk in comfort. Things were going badly 
 for Rachel; even Alison's perfections, it appeared, had 
 lost something of their pristine charm. He was working 
 in a Government office and hardly ever came home to 
 lunch ; not because he didn't want to, but because it was 
 cheaper for him to get it at some restaurant, and then he 
 was so tired at night that he was cross. 
 
 "Exactly," commented Cuckoo unconsciously, but with 
 conviction. 
 
 "What did you say?" asked Rachel, surprised. 
 
 But Cuckoo changed the subject. She didn't stay 
 long; she had kept her cab waiting, and as she left her 
 friend and went downstairs, the smell of dinner pervaded 
 the cramped and ridiculously narrow passage; it seemed 
 to her to be the symbolic scent of smart poverty. She 
 drove home as if she had been Qleopatra on her barge, 
 feeling rich and full of wisdom.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A FEW days later Lady Fabricius gave a large din- 
 ner-party, and Cuckoo, who was very alert to 
 anything that affected herself, knew that she was 
 in some way or other involved in her aunt's unusual inter- 
 est in the mild festivity. Aunt Marcia was very particu- 
 lar about flowers, which, as a rule, she was not disposed 
 to be lavish with ; Aunt Marcia's maid had also been sent 
 in great haste to Bond Street to fetch the new frock that 
 her ladyship wished to wear, and which for some reason 
 threatened to be late. 
 
 "Why don't you wear black velvet, Aunt Marcia?" 
 Cuckoo asked, as they lingered over their tea. Lady 
 Fabricius coughed. 
 
 "M'm ! both my black velvets have lost their freshness," 
 she returned, "and Bertie doesn't like me in black." 
 
 "I do," said Cuckoo bluntly, "it makes you look so 
 much thinner." 
 
 Lady Fabricius was well over seventy, and Cuckoo was 
 only twenty, .but Lady Fabricius answered as if they had 
 been exactly the same age. 
 
 "Can't you wear that last frock the yellow one from 
 Veinard's, my dear? *It makes you look really much 
 plumper." 
 
 "Who are coming?" Cuckoo asked, taking the veiled 
 reference to her bony structure with impenetrable phlegm. 
 
 "Oh, nobody in particular Lord and Lady Harrow, 
 the Bartons, Sir Charles Mowbray," the old lady paused ; 
 her little eyes moved restlessly about. "Oh, yes Lord 
 
 228
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 And Lady Thorsway and their girl, and that man HatH- 
 ersage, who writes novels." 
 
 Cuckoo stirred her third cup of tea reflectively, her face 
 bent, her keen gaze hidden from her aunt by her eyebrows. 
 Lady Fabricius, a huge, shapeless mass, bulging and boil- 
 ing over the edges of her chair, had her back to the 
 window, and Cuckoo could barely see her face, but at the 
 girl's next remark, she could just perceive her aunt's 
 change of expression. 
 
 "He's a Marquis, isn't he, Lord Thorsway? And isn't 
 the girl very tall and fair and pale?" 
 
 "H'm, yes ; it is one of the oldest peerages in England." 
 
 "I suppose," Cuckoo said, in a very idle voice, "they 
 are going to try and marry her to Bertie?" 
 
 Lady Fabricius started, rippling in her chair. 
 
 "My dear child, what a very vulgar thing to say! 
 How should they try to marry their daughter to Bertie; 
 although" she added, in her voice the irresistible pride 
 it always held when she spoke of her son, "why shouldn't 
 they?" 
 
 Cuckoo rose, yawning politely. 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure. I was just wondering if you 
 would like her for a daughter-in-law." And then, with- 
 out waiting for. an answer, she hastily excused herself and 
 went upstairs. Her aunt was neither very clever nor 
 very reserved, and the chances are that she might, in 
 default of anybody better, have confided her plan to her 
 niece, and this, although the girl had no idea of allowing 
 the plan to mature, and was fully bent on distressing her 
 aunt by marrying the desirable Bertie herself, she couldn't 
 quite have borne. 
 
 She knew Lady Mary Thorsway a little, and admired 
 her looks immensely. Lady Mary was six feet tall, and 
 as white, and flexible, and slim as a peeled willow wand. 
 She was a silent creature, and though Cuckoo knew that 
 
 229 

 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 this was because she was dull, she did not make the mis- 
 take of expecting other people, especially men, thus to 
 read her lack of volubility. There is great charm in the 
 silence of a very beautiful woman, and the plain and un- 
 silent Cuckoo knew it. So that was Aunt Marcia's game 
 nothing but the daughter of a Marquis was good 
 enough for her beautiful boy ! 
 
 Cuckoo dressed for dinner and went downstairs in a 
 condition, so successfully described by the French, of 
 having le diable au corps. 
 
 She wore the yellow gown, and she also wore a high 
 color that was perfectly natural, and there was a brilliant 
 light in her strange little eyes. For two or three days she 
 had hardly seen her cousin, but he had sent her flowers 
 that afternoon, and she wore a few of them. He was 
 waiting by the fire in the big drawing-room. 
 
 "Hallo," he said, when she came in, "what's the matter ? 
 What makes you look like that?" 
 
 "Aha ! I've a secret." He came close to her, his blood- 
 shot eyes full of admiration. 
 
 "You imp! What's your secret?" 
 
 "What would you say," she retorted gaily, "if I 
 should tell you that 'a marriage has been arranged !' J 
 She said it partly to tease, partly to test him, but at the 
 sudden dark flush that came up his face, and the queer, 
 childish pout of his lips, she realized the value of her 
 words. 
 
 "Who's going to be married?" he asked. "It's you, 
 Cuckoo. Tell me, are you engaged?" He caught her 
 roughly by the wrist, and she noticed that he had been 
 drinking. 
 
 "Don't be rude, Bertie. I never said I was going to be 
 married, but if I were that is no reason why you should 
 hurt my arm." 
 
 But Fabricius' jealousy was all afire. 
 
 230
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Cuckoo," he stammered, "don't tease me; you you 
 can't be engaged; it's some nonsense of mother's, isn't 
 it now?" 
 
 To Cuckoo's great relief Lady Fabricius' lift was at 
 that moment heard arriving on the landing, and Bertie, 
 without a word, left the room. 
 
 Cuckoo went in to dinner with the novelist, an agree- 
 able, absent-minded man, very well pleased wjth the epi- 
 sode in the drawing-room. Things were coming her way, 
 and coming rapidly; even Lady Mary looked less lovely 
 than usual, and Cuckoo perceived with great satisfac- 
 tion that Bertie, who sat by her, was silent and dis- 
 trait. 
 
 "He'll be wondering who my man is," she thought. "I 
 wish to goodness Captain Browne had been here, or any- 
 one who knew how to flirt. This old creature's perfectly 
 hopeless." 
 
 Cuckoo did not know it, but it was, for her plan, just 
 as well that some flirtatiously inclined man was not beside 
 her at dinner, for she was not a flirt by nature, and flirt- 
 ing is an art that can't be acquired. Even the rather 
 thick-skulled Bertie Fab must have seen through her 
 clumsy efforts in that direction. As it was, she had the 
 satisfaction after dinner of seeing her cousin make 
 straight for her when the men went through the ancient 
 and honorable ceremonial of joining the ladies. 
 
 Bertie had been drinking pretty freely of his father's 
 very best champagne, but he was one of those delightful 
 men whose tempers grow the worse, the more they drink, 
 and his mood, as he plumped down on the sofa beside her, 
 was almost to be characterized by the word dangerous. 
 His face was brutally red and his unsuitable violet eyes 
 blazed at her. 
 
 "Look here, Cuckoo," he said. "I want to have a talk 
 with you." 
 
 231
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Fire away," she answered lazily, unfurling the fan he 
 had sent her two years ago. 
 
 "I don't mean now. I mean after these (damn people 
 have gone. Never saw such a dinner-party. Never was 
 so bored in my life. Stupid owl of a woman, that tall 
 girl in blue." 
 
 At that moment one of the footmen came up. 
 
 "Sir George Porter wishes to speak to you on the tele- 
 phone, Miss," he said, "and I was to say it is very im- 
 portant." 
 
 Cuckoo seized her opportunity like lightning, and rose. 
 
 "Oh," she said, with a little affectation of confusion, 
 which was extremely well done, "I'll be back in a minute, 
 Bertie." And she went to the telephone, to be told by a 
 perfectly indifferent young man that the matinee party 
 he had planned for the next day must, for some reason, be 
 put off. 
 
 Cuckoo knew that she left ;Hubert Fabricius fuming 
 with rage and jealousy about poor Sir George Porter, who 
 had invited her to his party for the sole reason that she 
 was the friend of a young married woman with whom he 
 was very much in love. When she came back to the draw- 
 ing-room Bertie met her at the door. 
 
 "Who's this fellow?" he asked, "at the telephone, I 
 mean." 
 
 "Sir George Porter? I don't know who he is he's just 
 Sir George Porter. Bertie, your mother wants you, she's 
 beckoning." 
 
 He scowled. 
 
 "Well, will you come to the library tonight after 
 they've gone?" 
 
 "I can't," she said. "I'm tired, and besides, it will be 
 so late." 
 
 He was just drunk enough to be obstinate. "Then 
 you've got to talk to me now." 
 
 232
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 At the other end of the room Cuckoo could see her 
 aunt's face flushed and distorted with vexation and, it 
 seemed to the girl, dawning suspicion. The time was not 
 ripe for her aunt to know. 
 
 "Look here, Bertie," she said hurriedly, "you must go 
 to your mother ; and pull yourself together, for goodness* 
 sake. If you'll do whatever Aunt Marcia wants you to 
 now, and be very agreeable mind you, she's looking at 
 us, and is cross I'll come to the library tonight." 
 
 His face cleared a little, and, making a visible effort, he 
 composed his face, steadied his muscles, and went to his 
 mother. Two minutes later he was sitting talking to Lady 
 Mary, and Cuckoo made herself useful by amusing a very 
 tall man who had been asked at the last minute to fill a 
 vacant place. 
 
 Lord and Lady Thorsway, quiet, rather dowdy, middle- 
 aged people, were the first to go, and by eleven o'clock, 
 even the tall young man who naturally, being only a 
 stop-gap, had stayed to the last, as they always do had 
 gone. 
 
 Lady Fabricius was radiant, for Bertie, stimulated by 
 Cuckoo's promise, at which his vinous condition had sud- 
 denly changed for the better, had devoted himself very 
 markedly to his as markedly neglected dinner-companion. 
 Lady Mary was, moreover, so truly delightful to behold, 
 that no man, even half-drunk and wholly in love with 
 someone else, could fail to enjoy looking at her. She 
 was gentle, and unaffected, and sweet-tempered, so her 
 charm, of course, was a close-range one, and Bertie was 
 not nearly so bored as he had expected to be. So now his 
 mother drew him down to the sofa, where she sat, hideous 
 and jewel-bedecked like some old idol. She beamed with 
 satisfaction and took his hand in hers. 
 
 "Very pleasant evening, wasn't it, my darling boy?" 
 
 "Very," he agreed. 
 
 233
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She had the primitive wisdom of making no direct 
 reference to the object of her little plot, but she had a 
 pleasant word for each of the other guests, and Bertie 
 joined in dutifully. Sir Adolph, who looked rather as 
 if one of his liver attacks were coming on, said nothing. 
 He looked very small and remarkably frog-like and 
 very old, Cuckoo decided, as he sat a little apart from 
 the others, smoking one of the huge cigars in which he 
 so delighted. 
 
 "How perfectly beautiful Lady Mary is !" Cuckoo said. 
 Sir Adolph eyed her sharply. 
 
 "She's better than beautiful," he said ; "she looks good, 
 and kind and and straightforward, Cuckoo." 
 
 Cuckoo returned his glance, and something in his face 
 gave her a little shock. There were moments when it de- 
 pressed her to have so clear-sighted an uncle. 
 
 "Nice girl," Bertie agreed; "particularly nice girl, I 
 thought." 
 
 "I always feel," Lady Fabricius remarked, as she bade 
 Cuckoo fetch her stick and ring the bell for the lift to be 
 prepared for her upward flight, "that there is, after all, 
 a great deal to be said for really fine blood. I suppose 
 there are no people in England of more unblemished de- 
 scent than Lord and Lady Thorsway. She was a daugh- 
 ter of the Duke of Cheshire, and they were pure 
 Saxon " 
 
 Leaving this pleasant barb, as she thought, to sink into 
 her son's heart, the old lady said good-night to him at 
 the door of the lift, Cuckoo, as usual, going up with her. 
 The last the young girl saw as they ascended was her 
 uncle's wise, ugly face, and it was troubled and its trouble 
 troubled her. He had, she knew, smelt a rat. 
 
 At the second floor stood Rowland, Lady Fabricius* 
 maid, waiting for her, and leaning on her arm, the old 
 lady waddled slowly along to her room, Cuckoo following 
 
 234
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 meekly behind. In front of the dressing-table was a spe- 
 cially built, very large chair that turned on a pivot, like 
 those in offices. Thus Lady Fabricius sat down with her 
 back to the mirror, and when she had raised her tiny feet 
 from the ground, Rowland swung her round facing it. 
 The old lady looked at herself and heaved a deep sigh of 
 genuine satisfaction. 
 
 The evening had been successful, she thought, and even 
 Cuckoo, whom fundamentally she did not like, had behaved 
 well. 
 
 "You look very nice, my dear," she declared as her 
 maid took off her necklace and her sagging, ruinous old 
 neck was revealed in all its horrors. "I think the new 
 chef does very well, don't you?" 
 
 "I don't know," Cuckoo answered truthfully, "I never 
 noticed what I ate, but it seemed all right. Bertie 
 stuffed." 
 
 "I thought just at first," her aunt went on, "that 
 Bertie was bored, but I don't believe he was." 
 
 "No one would have thought so," Cuckoo answered with 
 care, "to see him talking to Lady Mary after dinner." 
 
 Lady Fabricius, who was now wrapped in a dressing- 
 gown, and whose head was being denuded of its wealth of 
 hair, gave a little chuckle. 
 
 "Oh, you noticed that, did you?" 
 
 Cuckoo retreated in order, for she did not wish any 
 confidences. Her one object was to allay any suspicion 
 her aunt might have had of her. 
 
 "Mr. Hathersage was very amusing," she said. "He's 
 been in the North Country and loves the moors. By the 
 way, Aunt Marcia, did I tell you I'd had a letter from 
 Aunt Flora? Aunt Effie's much better, but Dr. Dawes 
 sent for a specialist from York, and he said she 
 must go away where it's warmer ; so they are starting for 
 Bournemouth next week." 
 
 235
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Can they afford Bournemouth?" said Lady Fabricius, 
 not in the least unkindly; but her remark irritated 
 Cuckoo. 
 
 "They can afford Bournemouth because they are go- 
 ing to visit some friends; Lady Didcot, who was Aunt 
 Effie's pupil, you know, has invited them." 
 
 "How very nice." Aunt Marcia took off her rings and 
 laid them on the table amongst the ivory and silver trap- 
 pings. 
 
 Cuckoo looked round the room with a very odd feeling. 
 It might 'so possibly come one day to be her room. If 
 it ever did, she thought, without any ill-will towards her 
 aunt, she'd turn the head of the bed round so that it 
 would not look into the light, and she would not have 
 a crimson carpet! 
 
 "Well, my dear, give me a kiss and say good-night. 
 I'm very tired, and you look pale." 
 
 Cuckoo gave the outer coating of her aunt's face a very 
 gingerly peck, and nodding to the maid, left the room. 
 
 She went upstairs to her own room for a moment and 
 sat in front of her own dressing-table, gazing absently at 
 herself in the glass. She was very tired and would have 
 liked to go to bed, but there was work afoot. So after a 
 minute she rose with a little sigh, and, giving her white 
 cheeks a hard pinch, ran her tongue out at herself in dis- 
 gust at her own ugliness, and then went quietly and 
 swiftly downstairs. 
 
 As she reached the library door she paused, startled, 
 and then, as the door opened, stepped quickly behind a 
 figure in beautiful damascened Florentine armor that 
 stood to the left of it. 
 
 "Well, I thought I'd better just tell you," Sir Adolph 
 was saying as he stood for a moment at the foot of the 
 stairs. "I'm glad I was wrong, for your mother would 
 never have heard of it, and what she says," he added, with 
 
 236
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 quiet emphasis, looking up at his son, "goes, you know." 
 
 Bertie laughed. 
 
 "Cuckoo's a dear little thing," he returned carelessly, 
 "and I like her, but you needn't have worried about ray 
 intending to marry her. Such an idea never entered my 
 head." 
 
 As it happened, this statement Was an unqualified lie, 
 but Cuckoo naturally could not know it and she stood in 
 her black corner rigid and breathless with the most vio- 
 lent anger she had ever in her life felt. If thoughts could 
 have killed, that moment would have been Bertie Fab's 
 last, but they can't, and the two men shook hands undis- 
 turbed. 
 
 "Good-night, my boy. Don't stay up late, and remem- 
 ber what I told you about that champagne. It's very 
 good, but it's stronger than you know." 
 
 "I'll remember, sir," the younger man answered with 
 restrained impatience. "I'll just write my letter in the 
 library and send one of the men out to post it it's a 
 rather important one " 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 Cuckoo listened while the two sets of footsteps died 
 away into the silence her uncle's on the upper landing, 
 and her cousin's as he closed the library door. She didn't 
 move, for she knew what Bertie would do next, and he did 
 it. Two minutes later he came out in his stockinged 
 feet, a bit of paper in his hand, and went noiselessly up 
 the stairs. When he had again gone into the library she 
 in turn went up, past her uncle's door, and up another 
 flight to her own room. With a ferocious scowl, she 
 picked up the slip of paper he had pushed under her door 
 and read it. 
 
 Don't come down for about half an hour [he had written]. 
 The Pater has been .a little tiresome. I'll turn out the light in 
 
 237
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the hall when the men have gone to- bed, and that will be the 
 signal that everything's all right. I am longing to see you, 
 you Httle devil. 
 
 BERTIE. 
 
 Cuckoo opened her window and sat down by it. It 
 was a bitterly cold night, but she was not cold. So her 
 cousin had no intention of marrying her and had just 
 been amusing himself. She looked out into the star- 
 pierced darkness, her small face set in lines that would 
 have done credit to one of the Borgias. 
 
 "I'll get even with him for that," she muttered between 
 closely shut teeth. "I'll punish him for that oh, how 
 I'll punish him!" 
 
 It is rather remarkable, considering her youth, that 
 she had so much wisdom that her first step towards the 
 punishment of the man who had so bitterly wounded her 
 pride was to lock her door, undress, and go to bed. 
 
 Bertie Fab waited downstairs for nearly two hours, 
 and then, comforting himself with flagons, but in a tower- 
 ing rage, went up to his room.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Brighton, 
 
 December 2yd. 
 DEAR AUNT MARCIA, 
 
 The two days' sea air have done me a world of good and 
 my cold is almost gone, and Phil and Rosie say I actually look 
 fatter, which will delight you. I am sorry I can't get back 
 tonight as I wired you, but Rosie was having some people 
 dine with her and really needed me, whereas you won't really 
 care much if I don't grace your party with my beauteous 
 presence. 
 
 I shall be back by six, and am so excited about my new 
 frock! 
 
 My love to Uncle Adolph and you. 
 
 CUCKOO. 
 
 Brighton, 
 
 December 2jrd. 
 DEAREST RACHEL, 
 
 I hope you understood my telegram. I could not make it 
 any clearer as it was raining and I couldn't go out myself to 
 send it, and I couldn't wait to let you know the good news. 
 It is really true, and we are going to be married just after the 
 New Year. You were perfectly right in saying that -he -had 
 not meant what he said to Uncle Adolph about not wanting to 
 marry me. Uncle Adolph had smelt a rat and warned him off 
 me, so to speak, and he was naturally keeping things pleasant. 
 He was furious with me for having thought he meant it, and I 
 suppose I was rather a beast. However, it doesn't matter 
 now, and I am so happy I don't know what to do. Of course 
 there is bound to be a frightful row; the Fabs are going to be 
 
 239
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 furious, and it isn't nice to insist on being the daughter of 
 people who loathe having you. But we shall go- away at once, 
 for he hates a row even worse than I do, and of course it will 
 blow over. Uncle Adolph wouldn't mind much, poor old darl- 
 ing, only he is so utterly under auntie's stern 'thumb that he 
 will back her up and repudiate and cast us both off. Bertie 
 has four thousand pounds a year of his awn already. His 
 father has always put money aside for him, and some years ago 
 he did some speculating thing and settled the results on Bertie 
 at once. Four thousand pounds a year would seem genteel 
 poverty to Rosie, but, after all, it's better than a poke in the 
 eye with a muddy stick. I haven't told Rosie because, though 
 she is a darling, she does chatter, and Bertie doesn't strike me 
 as being one of the valiant ones of the earth, and I am sure if 
 auntie found out in time and made herself sufficiently nasty, 
 my beloved would back down. However, I really don't mind 
 him so much as I thought I should, but I shall have to check 
 the brandy habit. Of course, he never gets really drunk, but 
 I do hate the smell. He has promised me a house in town and 
 a villa somewhere near Monte Carlo. I hate Monte Carlo my- 
 self, but I da love the Riviera. 
 
 He's given me an engagement ring, and it's a perfect love, 
 a single Marquise diamond; I am wearing it round my neck 
 for the present! Am I not romantic! 
 
 I suppose you really, in your heart, think me a perfect beast, 
 Ray dear, and I suppose I am. I should hate any other girl 
 who deliberately went to work to marry a man for whom she 
 didn't care a button, just for 'his money, but I was always like 
 that and I always knew I should have to have money. There 
 are so many things that seem luxuries even to rich people and 
 are not luxuries to me at all just sheer necessities. I know 
 you adore Alison, and how nice he is, but I could never live 
 in that little house and be -happy. I have such a beast of a 
 nature that I should simply hate the man who made me; so 
 don't think me too dreadful. I'm going home to-morrow for 
 Christmas and to get together a few rags of decent clothes. 
 We are going to Paris, but I don't want to start without some- 
 thing new. I'm frightened to death lest he should give it away 
 before it is over. Poor old thing, he's really ridiculously in 
 love with me. 
 
 Well, Rosie wants me to go out with her, so good-bye. 
 
 240
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Love to the twins and Alison, and a great deal to your dear 
 old self. 
 
 From 
 
 CUCKOO. 
 
 P.S. I really am perfectly happy. It seems almost too 
 good to be true. My "bundle of myrrh" is coming to meet 
 me at Victoria, but we will part after the first raptures are 
 over! and I shall go home alone. 
 
 Cuckoo had really had a cold, as the result of her night 
 of rage and indignation over her cousin's supposed per- 
 fidy, and it had pulled her down to such a degree that 
 three days at Brighton, suggested by Lady Rosamund 
 Brinkley, were advisable as well as pleasant. It was, 
 moreover, the easiest way out of the very dangerous situ- 
 ation in which she found herself, after accepting her 
 cousin's turbulent and imperative proposal. There was 
 danger in every moment that the two were in the presence 
 of either of the old people, for Bertie was an emotional 
 man and he was, moreover, proud of his disinterested love 
 for his cousin. He knew how strongly his mother would 
 object to the marriage; he had always been afraid of his 
 mother and, in an odd, innocent sort of way, he saw him- 
 self in the light of a martyr, almost in the light of a figure 
 in high romance. His German blood inclined him to small, 
 physical demonstrations ; in his soul he would have liked 
 to sit on the sofa and hold Cuckoo's hand whenever they 
 were together. He had a most perilous trick of kissing 
 her on the stairs, or behind a just closed door, and his eyes 
 were heavy with caresses. 
 
 For two days the girl hadn't a comfortable moment, 
 and when finally, after a hairbreadth escape from the 
 vigilant eye of Sir Adolph, her strained nerves showed 
 themselves in the form of a violent headache and touch of 
 fever, Rosie's invitation fell like manna from heaven. She 
 stayed several days in Brighton, and Bertie had written 
 
 241
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 with Teutonic fidelity every one of the days ; besides send- 
 ing telegrams of an unmistakably amorous nature several 
 times. 
 
 This way of expressing his devotion irked Cuckoo to 
 boredom, but besides annoying her it caused her a subtler 
 and more respectable emotion, something remotely akin 
 to the shame with which she should have been filled. She 
 was ready to take the Fabricius money, but it would have 
 been much easier for her if Bertie had not so sincerely 
 cared for her. At times, after reading certain of his 
 letters, she almost hated him for his obvious sincerity and 
 good intentions for the future. 
 
 As her train steamed into Victoria Station, this feeling 
 of irritability was very strong, and when Fabricius met 
 her, something in his face really gave her a pang. 
 
 "My goodness, Bertie," she said, "don't look like that ; 
 everybody's staring at you." 
 
 "I don't care. You look better, darling. Oh, I am 
 so glad to see you." 
 
 Barring George, he was the only man who had ever 
 made love to her, and she wished, as many a woman has 
 wished before, that the words of one lover did not so 
 irresistibly remind her of the words of another. 
 
 On the way to the Club where she was to drop him she 
 said, suddenly drawing back from his embrace, "Now 
 listen, Bertie. It's all your wish that we are keeping our 
 engagement a secret until afterwards. I shouldn't have 
 minded telling them and facing it out, but you didn't 
 want to " 
 
 "I could see no sense in idoing so. You know what 
 mother would be," he returned sulkily. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right no more can I. But there is no 
 good in our trying to keep it a secret if you are going to 
 give it away by looking at me like that." 
 
 "You oughtn't to blame me for looking at you as if I 
 
 242
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 love you," he protested, not unreasonably, and she has- 
 tened to smooth his ruffled feelings. 
 
 "Look at me just as you like when we're alone dear," 
 she said quickly; "but do be careful before your mother 
 and father, then everything will be all right." 
 
 Such ab he was, he was deeply and honorably in love 
 with her, and after a moment he promised to do his best 
 to fulfill her wishes. 
 
 "Although," he added, "when you stick out your funny 
 little jaw and that dimple comes twinkling in your face, 
 I can't help just adoring you." He kissed her. "I've 
 found out about the special license, and the man I told 
 you of at that city church will marry us and we can 
 catch the one o'clock train for Paris. This is Tuesday, 
 and it will be for Saturday morning." 
 
 In spite of herself, Cuckoo gave a start. 
 
 "I thought I thought we were going to wait till after 
 the New Year," she protested, a dreadful feeling of irrevo- 
 cability weakening her voice. 
 
 He laughed softly. "No, my dear. No time like the 
 present, and the sooner it is done the sooner we can come 
 home for that fatted calf." 
 
 The cab had stopped at the Club, and after kissing her 
 again, he left her. 
 
 "I shall come in in about an hour's time," he said. 
 "Please wear some of the flowers I am going to send you. 
 I've got you a ripping Christmas present." 
 
 Cuckoo's eyes twinkled. "What is it?" she coaxed, 
 leaning out of the cab. 
 
 "No, I won't tell you, you baggage. It is to be a sur- 
 prise, but it's a beauty " 
 
 When she reached South Audley Street, Almond opened 
 the door and told her that her ladyship and Sir Adolph 
 were in the library and wished her to go to them at once. 
 
 She nodded. "All right, Almond." Taking off her coat 
 
 243
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and veil, she went to the library just as she was. 
 
 "Hallo, dears," she cried gaily, running in. Then she 
 stopped, looking from one to another of the two faces be- 
 fore her. They knew. 
 
 "Sit down," said her aunt. Cuckoo sat down and 
 unfastened her gloves. The game was up. She felt it 
 in the marrow of her bones, but she was not without 
 courage and her blood warmed to battle. After all, Al- 
 mond, or Frederick, or that foxy-faced Walter, whom she 
 had never liked, must have seen something and told. Oh, 
 what a "fool Bertie was ! 
 
 "What's the matter, Aunt Marcia?" she asked, very 
 distinctly. 
 
 "The matter is," burst out Lady Fabricius, stammering 
 with overwhelming anger, "that we've found you out, 
 you " 
 
 Then Sir Adolph raised his hand. 
 
 "Be quiet, Marcia." Never in his life had he so spoken 
 to her, and the old woman was hushed. Cuckoo turned 
 to her uncle, and even at that awful moment could not 
 help paying him the tribute of a strong admiration for the 
 look of power and dignity in his grotesquely ugly face. 
 
 "The matter is," he said slowly, "that you have been 
 planning to marry our son without our knowledge or 
 consent." 
 
 "Bertie has asked me to marry him, certainly," she 
 returned steadily. Then she broke off and turned to the 
 door. 
 
 "It's our son coming in," Sir Adolph explained. 
 "There was a telephone message for him at his Club. 
 We of course knew that he would meet you and that you 
 would drop him there before coming home " 
 
 The door opened as he finished speaking, and Bertie 
 came in. 
 
 "Hullo!" he burst out. "What's up?" Then he saw, 
 
 244
 
 and without a moment's hesitation he went and stood by 
 Cuckoo. 
 
 "I suppose you've found out about our engagement." 
 
 His father looked at him, an odd look of pity in his 
 face. Cuckoo quailed. 
 
 "I have sent for you, Hubert," the old man said slowly, 
 "to tell you something that will make you very unhappy." 
 
 All her life Cuckoo was glad that when his father said 
 this, Bertie took hold of her hand and drew her close to him. 
 
 "It won't make me unhappy, Father," he said. "For 
 no matter what you may say I am going to marry 
 Cuckoo." 
 
 Cuckoo pushed him away. "Oh, don't!" she said. 
 "Please let me go. I don't want to discuss this matter 
 and I'll go to Roseroofs at once." 
 
 "What on earth are you all talking about?" burst out 
 Bertie, losing his patience, his dull red flush mounting in 
 his face. 
 
 "You can tell him," Cuckoo said rapidly to her uncle. 
 "How you found out, I don't know, but I'm not going 
 to stop and hear you talk about it." 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Cuckoo ; it doesn't in the least matter, 
 their having found out. It was my fault that we didn't 
 tell them in the beginning " 
 
 But old Sir Adolph again raised his hand, with that 
 peculiar, un-English gesture. 
 
 "As to how we found out, Cuckoo," he said slowly, 
 "you yourself told us." 
 
 '7 told you?" 
 
 Sir Adolph drew from his pocket his shabby old spec- 
 tacle-case, and with great deliberation planted his spec- 
 tacles upon his nose. Then he put his hand to his pocket 
 and Cuckoo knew. 
 
 "Oh, I see," she said very rapidly. "I mixed my let- 
 ters to Aunt Marcia and Rachel Jackson. Read him the 
 
 245
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 letter if you like, but I'm going to tell him. It's this, 
 Bertie. I wanted to marry you because you are rich. 
 And Rachel Tcnew, and when you asked me to marry you 
 I wrote and told her all about it. I wish you wouldn't 
 listen to the letter; it will hurt you, and I'm very well, 
 very proud of the way you have just behaved. I I'm 
 glad," she went on, running her words together, a blaze 
 of color in her cheeks. "I'm glad for your sake that they 
 found out. I think if I'd known that you were were 
 what I know now, I couldn't have been so horrid. 
 Good-bye. Good-bye, Aunt Marcia. Good-bye, Uncle 
 Adolph." 
 
 She turned to the door, and then came her downfall. 
 Bertie stepped quickly in front of her and stood with his 
 back to the door. 
 
 "Read the letter, Father," he said, "or give it to me. 
 You've got to listen, Cuckoo." 
 
 He stood there, barring the door, his big head lowered, 
 his heavy shoulders lurching forward, his jaw set; look- 
 ing, in his anger and amazement, much finer and more 
 manly than any one had ever seen him look and in an 
 unbroken silence Sir Adolph Fabricius read aloud the let- 
 ter Cuckoo had written to Rachel Jackson. 
 
 "DEAREST RACHEL, 
 
 "I hope you understood my telegram. I could not make it 
 any clearer as it was raining, so I couldn't go out myself to 
 send it and couldn't wait to let you know the good news. It is 
 really true, and we are going to be married just after the New 
 Year. You were perfectly right in saying that he had not 
 meant what he said to Uncle Adolph about not wanting to 
 marry me. Uncle Adolph had smelt a rat and warned him off 
 me, so to speak, and he was naturally keeping things pleasant. 
 
 "He was furious with me for having thought he meant it, 
 and I suppose I was rather a beast. However, it doesn't mat- 
 ter now, and I am so happy I don't know what to do " 
 
 246
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Bertie's face relaxed at this point, and he made a slight 
 movement towards Cuckoo. But Sir Adolph raised his 
 prominent, light, masterful eyes for a moment, and his 
 son did not stir from the door. 
 
 "Of course there is bound to be a frightful row; the Fabs 
 are going to be furious, and it isn't nice to insist on being the 
 daughter of people who loathe you. . . . Uncle Adolph 
 wouldn't mind much, poor old darling, only he is so utterly 
 under auntie's stern thumb that he will back her up and re- 
 pudiate and cast us both off. Bertie has four thousand pounds 
 a year of his own already. . . . Four thousand pounds would 
 seem genteel poverty to Rosie, but, after all, it's better than a 
 poke in the eye with a muddy stick " 
 
 Cuckoo dared not look at Bertie while this was being 
 read; her face was like a little mask, her eyes nearly 
 closed. Sir Adolph read on, his voice monotonous and 
 regular as if he were reading the minutes of some dull 
 board meeting. 
 
 "I haven't told Rosie because, though she is a darling, site 
 does chatter, and Bertie doesn't strike me as being one of the 
 valiant ones of the earth, and I am sure if auntie found out in 
 time and made herself sufficiently nasty my beloved would 
 back down . . ." 
 
 Sir Adolph raised his eyelids and looked fixedly at 
 Cuckoo as he read these words. She returned his gaze 
 with a curious detached steadiness. Then she looked at 
 her aunt, and a little shudder passed over her; her aunt, 
 she knew, would be very dreadful. Sir Adolph had paused, 
 but nobody spoke, and he read on : 
 
 "However, I really don't mind him so much as I thought I 
 should, but I shall have to check the brandy habit. Of course, 
 he never gets really drunk, but I do hate the smell ..." 
 
 At this Hubert Fabricius came towards his father with 
 clenched fists. 
 
 247
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "That's enough," he said hoarsely. "Quite enough." 
 
 Sir Adolph bowed and put the letter back in his pocket. 
 
 "I thought it would be," he said quietly. 
 
 Suddenly Cuckoo saw that the door was open, and her 
 cousin standing to one side. Grateful to him for his for- 
 bearance, she was about to leave the room, when her aunt's 
 voice arrested her. What Lady Fabricius, with her un- 
 disciplined temper, her outraged vanity and her natural 
 anger for her son's sake, said to her dead sister's daughter 
 need not be told. She was so violent, so ruthless, so 
 vulgar in her unbridled hatred and spite, that none of the 
 three could think of anything to say that would stop her. 
 Sir Adolph listened horror-stricken but helpless, and 
 Bertie, after the first minute of the invective, walked to 
 the window and stood looking out into the early night. 
 
 Cuckoo turned and faced her aunt, her position, of 
 course, vastly improved by her aunt's break-down. 
 Finally, when the old woman stopped, literally because 
 she couldn't breathe, Cuckoo spoke. 
 
 "I'm very sorry, Bertie," she said, "that I've hurt 
 you, and I'm sorry that I've hurt Uncle Adolph, and I 
 can respect your anger, but as for Aunt Marcia, I am glad 
 she knows from my letter how I feel about her. It is 
 perfectly true that you bully Uncle Adolph, and he has the 
 patience of an angel, and everybody knows it. You've 
 given me clothes, but the money which you settled on me 
 because I am my mother's daughter was not your money 
 at all it was Uncle Adolph's, and I'm not a bit grateful 
 to you for it. 
 
 "Perhaps Bertie will one day forgive me, but I will 
 never forgive you. I'm ashamed that you are my aunt. I 
 am a schemer, and a plotter whatever you like but I'm 
 ashamed of being your niece." 
 
 She marched out of the room and upstairs. It seemed 
 to her in her anger anger which had utterly swept from 
 
 248
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her mind all feeling of disappointment about Bertie that 
 she couldn't live another minute in her aunt's house. 
 
 "I shall go straight back to Roseroofs." Hastily 
 packing her dressing-case with the things necessary for 
 one night, she drank a glass of water to steady herself 
 and started towards the door. 
 
 Roseroofs ! But the aunts were leaving had left that 
 very day for Bournemouth, and Esther Oughtenshaw, 
 she knew, had gone away as well. Moreover, she had no 
 money only five or six shillings at most and Rosamund 
 Brinkley, the only person to whom she could have gone 
 to borrow a little, was in Brighton. 
 
 After all, she was only twenty and she stood still in 
 the middle of the room, sick with fright. What should 
 she do? Even her uncle, she knew, would never forgive 
 what she had said to her aunt, and she would die rather 
 than see Bertie again. 
 
 Suddenly she saw, on a little table by the window, a 
 large square parcel in thick brown paper. Hardly real- 
 izing what she was doing, she read the address. It was 
 in George's writing. She could hardly have been more 
 surprised if the heavens had opened and one of the Saints 
 had bent down to help her. George! 
 
 Tearing open the paper she saw what it was. It was 
 a small, careful painting of Roseroofs in the early 
 Spring, in a plain gold frame. In one corner there was a 
 note. 
 
 DEAR CUCKOO [the note said], 
 
 I shall do as you ask and not try to see you again, but this 
 is Christmas and you must let me send you the present I had 
 prepared for you; for I do want you to be happy. I shall al- 
 ways love you, and no matter where I am, I will always come 
 to do any mortal thing for you that I can. 
 
 GEORGE. 
 249
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She stared at the letter for a moment, then she laughed 
 aloud. There was his address at the corner of the paper : 
 
 i6A, Barker Street, 
 
 Chelsea. 
 
 Taking the picture under her arm, she went quietly 
 downstairs. Almond was in the hall, as servants seem to 
 have the knack of being at crucial moments. 
 
 "Call me a cab, will you?" Cuckoo said, nearly com- 
 posing her voice to its usual tone. 
 
 "Very good, miss." 
 
 The man went outside to blow his whistle, and at that 
 moment Bertie came out of the library. 
 
 " Where are you going?" he asked. 
 
 Cuckoo didn't answer for fear of being melodramatic. 
 
 Bertie Fab was obviously shaken; his large face was 
 white, and the flesh looked loose on the bones. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he said awkwardly, "you mustn't go off 
 like this. I am very sorry my mother spoke as she did." 
 
 To her horrified amazement, Cuckoo burst into tears 
 as she turned to the door. 
 
 Almond still stood at the curb, blowing his whistle. 
 Practically the two were alone. 
 
 "Don s t cry," Fabricius said. 
 
 She turned to him. 
 
 "There's no use my asking you to forgive me," she 
 said, trying hard to control herself. "I don't deserve 
 it, and it would be ridiculous, for if they hadn't found 
 out, I should never have been sorry." 
 
 "Good God," the poor fellow broke out, "neither 
 should I !" 
 
 "But I am sorry I have hurt you, Bertie, and I am 
 sorry I hurt Uncle Adolph. Don't forget that I'm sorry." 
 
 As she spoke a cab stopped at the door and she went 
 out. After a second he followed her, and waving the 
 
 250
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 butler on one side, helped her into the vehicle, which hap- 
 pened to be an antediluvian "growler," and leaning his 
 hand on the window, he answered her. 
 
 "I shall not forget," he said. "Are you quite sure, 
 Cuckoo, that you meant it all the letter, I mean?" 
 
 Amongst her many bad qualities was the good one of not 
 shrinking, at another's expense, from pain. 
 
 "I am perfectly sure," she said. "I did mean it all. 
 I was going to marry you only for your money. Tell the 
 man to drive to Victoria Station." 
 
 He watched the cab out of sight, and after a moment 
 went slowly up the steps. Almond had discreetly with- 
 drawn, so he shut the door himself. 
 
 Poor Bertie Fab!
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 LADY ROSAMUND BRINKLEY knocked sharply 
 at the window of her car, and it stopped. 
 "This must be the place, William," she said to 
 the footman, doubtfully; "don't you think so?" 
 
 William knew very conclusively that it was the place, 
 for he was a denizen of the lowish neighborhood himself, 
 but having risen in the world, he chose to deny his birth- 
 place. 
 
 "I'll just ask at that greengrocer's shop, M'lady," he 
 returned, assuming a puzzled look, as of an explorer who 
 has lost the path in a jungle. 
 
 Lady Rosamund sat forward, her chin in her hand, 
 Staring curiously at the sordid street and the few, de- 
 pressed-looking passers-by. 
 
 Large, luxurious, two-manned limousines were not usual 
 in Barker Street, Chelsea, and several children, whose 
 little noses needed maternal attention, stood staring at 
 it; a fine rain was filtering through the thick, smoke- 
 charged air a huge factory chimney was near, sending 
 forth oily smoke the houses were small, and mean, and 
 dirty, and most of their parlor windows showed cards 
 announcing a desire for lodgers. The car had stopped, 
 however, not at one of these houses, but at a dingy arch- 
 way leading into a courtyard, and above it stretched rows 
 of tall, narrow windows set into a wall of blackened red 
 bricks. 
 
 Lady Rosamund was looking for Whistler Mansions, 
 and this dog's-eared-looking building looked like Man- 
 
 252
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 sions, or a Court fine words count, so to speak, in tfie 
 world. 
 
 William, after a few words with the greengrocer's wife, 
 who called him Bill and gave him some hasty information 
 about the funeral of one of his sisters, returned presently 
 to confirm his mistress's foreboding. 
 
 "Yes, M'lady," he told her, opening the door, "it is 
 Whistler Mansions." 
 
 She got out, refusing his professional suggestion that 
 he should go in search of whomever she might be looking 
 for, and disappeared under the arch. 
 
 It led into a broad asphalt courtyard, to the left of 
 which there was a door marked Estate Office, and to the 
 estate office the young woman tripped in her thin shoes. 
 She was a brave soul, less pampered, despite her mer- 
 cenary marriage, than Rachel, and her nerves were sound, 
 but she shuddered a little as she went up stair after 
 stair, following the directions of the woman in the 
 office. 
 
 The stairs were narrow and dirty; the cheap iron of 
 the banisters, and the concrete, gave out a loud echo 
 under her footsteps. It was, she thought, like what a 
 prison or a workhouse must be. 
 
 At last, out of breath, she stopped and looked in vain 
 for a card or a name on the three doors facing her. 
 
 "It must be here," she thought. "Oh, poor, poor 
 Cuckoo!" 
 
 After ringing at the middle door and receiving no an- 
 swer, she tried the one to the left. A*s she waited, the 
 door on the right opened suddenly and someone came out, 
 clattering recklessly down the echoing stairs. 
 
 Rosamund turned and caught sight, at the turning, of 
 a pale, agitated face under a soft hat. 
 
 "Good gracious," she said aloud. Then, without wait- 
 ing any longer at the door where she had rung, she went 
 
 253
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to the door out of which the man had come, and rang 
 there. 
 
 No one answered, and she rang again. Her feet were 
 ice-cold from the stones, which felt damp as well as cold, 
 though of course they were not, and her teeth chattered 
 a little. Presently she rang again, and the queer hollow 
 silence that broods in such places, so easily to be shat- 
 tered into thin echoes by any noise, remained unbroken. 
 She stood at the top landing of the building, and on 
 the murky skylight over her head a heavy rain was now 
 falling. 
 
 A thought of him whom her friends, particularly the 
 hard-up ones, called her appalling husband, came to the 
 young woman's mind, and it was an affectionate thought. 
 How frightful to have to live in a place like this! 
 
 The silence continuing, she at length knocked on the 
 thickly ribbed glass of the door with her knuckles. Then, 
 shaking the handle, she called close to the keyhole. 
 
 "Cuckoo, Cuckoo, let me in! Cuckoo " 
 
 After a pause she called again. "Cuckoo, let me in 
 it's me, Rosie !" 
 
 "Who is it?" boomed a deep, hoarse voice from behind 
 the door. 
 
 "Rosamund Brinkley. Let me in." 
 Cuckoo opened the door and stood staring at her so 
 utterly unexpected guest. 
 
 "So it's you," she said at last, in a more everyday 
 key. 
 
 "Yes I I just thought I'd come to see you " 
 
 They shook hands, and Rosamund noted in Cuckoo's 
 face the odd kind of weariness that she had observed in 
 the faces of poor women whom she had, through notions 
 of charity, visited uninvited. 
 
 When Cuckoo had led the way into the large room that 
 was evidently studio, dining-room, library and drawing- 
 
 254
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 room in one, Rosamund threw her muff into a chair and 
 turned. 
 
 "Cuckoo," she cried, "aren't you a little glad to see 
 me?" 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her coldly. "No," she returned, "not 
 particularly; why should I be?" 
 
 "Would you would you rather I went?" Rosamund 
 stammered, feeling the most inexcusable of intruders. 
 "I only came because because I heard " 
 
 Cuckoo laughed shortly. "No, I don't want you to 
 go. Sit down and rest your legs. Those stairs must 
 have tired them " 
 
 Rosamund sat down, and Cuckoo went on, as she put 
 some coals on the shabby fire, "Why did you say you 
 came ?" 
 
 "Because I heard about your poor little baby." 
 
 Cuckoo turned from the fire, brushing the coal-dust 
 from her fingers. "The baby," she answered, indiffer- 
 ently, "died nearly a year ago." 
 
 "I have been away over a year. We were in Japan 
 when it happened. Oh, Cuckoo," the elder young woman 
 broke out, "I am so sorry, dear." 
 
 "I am not. I'm glad." 
 
 Cuckoo sat motionless as she spoke, her hands folded 
 in her lap, her eyes fixed vacantly on the space behind 
 her caller. 
 
 Rosamund Brinkley was sincerely horrified, but she 
 did not speak, for she did not know what to say. 
 
 "Did you meet George?" Cuckoo asked, after a mo- 
 ment. "He went out just before you came " 
 
 "I I saw him running downstairs. He didn't see 
 me " 
 
 "No, he wouldn't. I suppose you gathered we'd had 
 a row? Well, we had. We have one every day of our 
 lives. Jolly, isn't it?" 
 
 255
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "OH, Cuckoo dear " 
 
 Cuckoo laughed again. "But never mind us. Tell me 
 about yourself, Rosie. I really am glad to see you in 
 a way, you know. How's Phil, and when did you get 
 back?" 
 
 "We got back about six weeks ago. Phil is very well. 
 He's going in for politics. He really quite a lot of 
 people important people want him to. He's he's 
 clever, you know " 
 
 "He always was clever. And I, for one, always liked 
 him." 
 
 Rosamund blushed suddenly. "I know you did, dear, 
 and I I am so glad " 
 
 Cuckoo eyed her for a moment, her eyes full of scrutiny. 
 "I believe," she declared, "that you are in love with him 
 as well!" 
 
 "Oh! How ridiculous you are and besides, what <3o 
 you mean by 'as well?' ' 
 
 Cuckoo rose and, going to a dresser, took down some 
 cups and saucers. 
 
 "I'll give you a cup of our delicious tea," she said, 
 wearily, "and I meant that it seems you've got every- 
 thing. The caring as well as as the rest. That's all." 
 
 The appalling Mr. Brinkley's wife did not answer her. 
 She was looking into the fire, a shy smile on her plump, 
 pretty face. 
 
 Cuckoo went into the next room, and the sound of a 
 match being struck was followed by the breathy noise of 
 the lighting gas. 
 
 Rosamund seized the opportunity for a survey of the 
 studio. It was a large, oblong room with a high, grimy 
 ceiling, the walls were distempered yellow, the floor 
 painted black. 
 
 The scant furniture was good of its kind, though in- 
 expensive, and at the far end, under a large window, was 
 
 256
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 scattered the paraphernalia of a painter. Behind where 
 she sat stood the dining-table, still piled with unwashed 
 dishes. An air of neglect and indifference hung over 
 everything; the brass candlesticks were dull, the hearth 
 unwhitened, there was not a flower anywhere. 
 
 Beside the kitchen door, another, half open, led into 
 the bedroom, and Rosamund could see an untidy dressing- 
 table crowded with blurred silver and ebony things. 
 Cuckoo, coming in with a tea-cloth, noticed the observa- 
 tion of her guest. 
 
 "Love's young dream, eh?" she remarked, with her 
 short laugh; "the traditional cottage at least has a 
 garden !" 
 
 "It's a jolly big room," Rosie protested, faintly. 
 
 "It is. Jolly is exactly the word that describes it, 
 and George, and me ! Oh, Rosie," she broke off, dropping 
 the unfolded cloth on the little table and stretching her 
 arms out in a gesture of wild protest, "how I loathe it. 
 How I hate it all!" 
 
 "But, Cuckoo darling, you don't really you can't, 
 I mean; it is a nice room, and I must send you some 
 flowers," she concluded, "they always help." 
 
 At this inadequate climax Cuckoo burst into a real 
 laugh and went on with her work of setting the table. 
 "You are a funny old plutocrat," she said, "and I'd love 
 the flowers. Even George can't object to them. George," 
 she explained, as Rosamund opened her eyes wide, "objects 
 to most things, but more particularly to gifts of any kind. 
 Aunt Flora and Aunt Effie are allowed the honor and dis- 
 tinction of conferring benefits on His Wife (observe the 
 capital letters in my voice!), but no one else may give 
 that fortunate woman so much as a box of chocolates !" 
 
 "But who else is there?" Rosamund asked, in good 
 faith. 
 
 Cuckoo gave her a sliarp glance. "I see what you 
 
 257
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 mean. There used to be no one, of course, in the begin- 
 ning, but two years have passed since Uncle Adolph was 
 so angry, and he he is the kindest of old men has for- 
 given me long since, and but let's have tea, even cheap 
 tea is better than nothing and I'll tell you prop- 
 erly." 
 
 Lady Rosamund of course knew of the various hap- 
 penings that immediately succeeded Cuckoo's departure 
 from South Audley Street; the romance of her sudden 
 arrival at George's rooms; their scurrying about for a 
 room for her that night; their marriage at the King's 
 Road Registry Office the next day; these things had at 
 the time been told to Rosamund by Rachel, and, in view 
 of Rachel's positive asseverations that despite everything 
 Nicky really loved George, there had seemed to Phil 
 Brinkley's wife every chance of happiness for the young 
 couple. 
 
 For Rosamund had even then begun to discover that 
 her own happiness depended, incredible though it at first 
 seemed to her, less on her husband's millions than on her 
 husband's personality, and she could not regret Nicky's 
 having been, so to speak, catapulted into the arms of the 
 man she cared for. 
 
 "It's a good thing she did make that idiotic blunder, 
 Ray," the elder sister had remarked at the time; "she'd 
 have been miserable with Bertie Fab." 
 
 She had never forgotten Rachel's stare of surprise. 
 "That's a funny thing for you to say, Rosie," Rachel had 
 said, and she had returned hastily: 
 
 "I know I know what you mean, dear, but well, 
 Bertie Fab is pretty awful." 
 
 It was at about this time that the subject of Phil 
 Brinkley's awfulness had begun to be less easily alluded 
 to by his mother- and sister-in-law. 
 
 "Rachel was dreadfully upset about about Mr. Fab- 
 
 258
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ricius, you know," Rosamund went on, as Cuckoo refilled 
 her cup. "She actually cried about it." 
 
 "I remember. You see," Cuckoo elucidated, "Rachel 
 knew. Knew, I mean, what all this this 'all for love 
 and the world well lost' business really means. Heavens, 
 what fools we were, and what an almighty mess we have 
 made of our lives! Have another bit of bun?" 
 
 "Is is George well?" Rosamund asked, after a while. 
 
 "Well? No, he's never well," Cuckoo answered bit- 
 terly. 
 
 "Poor fellow ! But tell me about the Fabs I mean to 
 say the Fabriciuses." 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind their being called the Fabs! The 
 Vicar used to call them the Fabricii. You mean about 
 the time after the battle? Well, I heard nothing of them 
 or even about them for nearly a year. Bertie, you know, 
 reajly showed up remarkably well, considering that he is 
 Aunt Marcia's son but Aunt Marcia soon talked him 
 round. I met Almond, the butler, one day, just after 
 he came back to town, and he told me. Low to talk to 
 a servant, wasn't it? but I wanted to know. It appears 
 that, little by little, Bertie took to reviling me in Aunt 
 Marcia's best style " 
 
 "But surely they wouldn't discuss you before the ser- 
 vants ?" 
 
 Cuckoo shrugged her shoulders. "Wouldn't they ! Oh, 
 I suppose they thought they didn't, they'd stop when 
 Almond came in, and begin when he left the room again 
 you know. And servants have wonderful ears. At any 
 rate, Almond, who always liked me, seems really indig- 
 nant. Poor Bertie, even at his best, was never really a 
 gentleman, you know, and Almond was rather a swell in 
 his own line. I've often wondered," she broke off, smiling 
 reflectively, "what he'd think of Mrs. Peacock, our char ! 
 But I was going to tell you of poor old Uncle Adolph. 
 
 259
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 You know he settled two hundred a year on me? It was 
 his, so I've kept it. His anger was pretty fierce, but it 
 was just, and I never resented anything he said; well, 
 George has only one hundred and fifty pounds of his own. 
 Did you know the Vicar was dead?" 
 
 "No. Poor old man, is he really?" 
 
 "Yes, he died eight months ago. Heavens, how I'm 
 wandering! Well, Uncle Adolph knew we were horribly 
 poor, of course, and it appears he saw me getting in a bus 
 in the Strand one day, and knew I was going to have a 
 baby. So just before the poor little wretch was born a 
 box came with the loveliest layette you ever saw. You 
 remember his giving me money to buy some baby-clothes 
 for Ray? These things came from the same shop, and 
 the poor old darling must have picked them out himself 
 it wasn't it sweet of him, Rosamund?" She cleared 
 her throat, and, crumbling a bit of bun with her thin 
 fingers, went on slowly, "I I was really awfully pleased." 
 
 "Of course you were, dear." 
 
 "I spread them all out on the bed, and it seemed to 
 make things not so hopeless after all I don't mean be- 
 cause Uncle Adolph was rich; I believe that for once I 
 was really quite decent about money, in my mind but 
 about the baby, and us." 
 
 Rosamund laid her hand on her friend's. 
 
 "And then," Cuckoo went on, the softness leaving her 
 eyes and her voice, "George came home and made me 
 send the things back." 
 
 "But I thought George Loxley such a gentle crea- 
 ture " 
 
 "You haven't had the privilege of knowing George 
 Loxley the husband! Oh, yes, he was very much the 
 husband on that occasion. 'My wife; my child; my 
 honor.' Oh, such wretched sentimental twaddle as he 
 talked! However, I hadn't the courage to fight, so I 
 
 260
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 sent the things back. He wouldn't even let me write a 
 note to explain!" 
 
 "But, Nicky, I don't see why he did it. There was no 
 sense in it. The old man is your uncle, and he hadn't 
 ever been horrid to you " 
 
 "That made no difference. He's Aunt Marcia's hus- 
 band and Bertie's father, and that was enough." 
 
 Rosamund thought for a moment. "Perhaps it is a 
 kind of jealousy. He may still resent your having been 
 willing to marry Mr. Fabricius, and, what's more, he may 
 be jealous that he can't give you beautiful things. 
 Jealousy shows itself in the very oddest ways, you 
 know " 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. ''No doubt it was something of the 
 kind. He was very fond of me in those days, 
 of course " 
 
 "But" something in her own inner life was giving 
 Rosamund Brinkley an odd, new shyness in speaking of 
 great things, so she hesitated as she asked her question, 
 "you don't mean that he doesn't love you now?" 
 
 "Of course he doesn't, but here he is you can judge," 
 Cuckoo answered, with that very ugliest of all facial dis- 
 tortions, a sneer, "for yourself." 
 
 George Loxley escorted his wife's caller to her car with 
 the same cold indifference that had marked their whole 
 interview. His cousin, who had always known him very 
 slightly, was struck^with the change in him, and on her 
 way home she thought more of him than of Cuckoo. 
 
 His boyish sweetness of aspect was utterly gone; his 
 face was lined, his voice full of a weary passivity, his very 
 eyes looked different. 
 
 He told her that he was still painting, adding casually, 
 "I paint very badly, you know, so of course I sell once in 
 a while " 
 
 There was about Cuckoo an activity of misery that in 
 
 261
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a way was less dreadful to see than this five-and-twenty- 
 year-old boy's springless, passive indifference. 
 
 "Poor, poor George," Rosamund thought, as she rang 
 her door-bell. "I must get Phil to buy one of 
 his things " 
 
 "Mr. Brinkley is in the library, my lady," the butler 
 told her, "and would like your ladyship to go to speak 
 to him " 
 
 As she went down the hall the young woman buried her 
 face for a moment in her muff, and when she raised her 
 head a beautiful tremulous smile illuminated her.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WHEN George Loxley went upstairs after seeing 
 his cousin Rosamund's car glide away up the 
 sordid street, he met his wife on the first land- 
 ing coming down. 
 
 "Where are you going?" he asked. 
 
 "For a walk," she returned. 
 
 "It's six, and it's simply pouring " 
 
 "That doesn't matter. Don't expect me till I'm back." 
 
 They spoke with that assumption of politeness that is, 
 of all demonstrations, the most disheartening between a 
 man and wife who are quarreling; their eyes looked be- 
 yond each other. 
 
 "Very well. If I go out I'll leave the key under the 
 mat." 
 
 Cuckoo walked to the Embankment and slowly along 
 it. The streets were empty, for it was a miserable even- 
 ing, and would soon be night. The trees in Battersea 
 Park were already partly denuded of their leaves, and the 
 water between Cuckoo and them was dark and swollen. 
 On her left, windows were now lighted, and several times 
 she caught the extension of an arm and the descent of a 
 blind; these things gave her a little added grievance a 
 shut-out, homeless feeling. Once a hurrying cab splashed 
 her with mud at a crossing, and she wiped her face on her 
 coat sleeve as a tramp woman might have done. She was 
 going nowhere in particular, but she walked quickly, keep- 
 ing time with her reflections. 
 
 Rosamund Brinkley's unexpected visit had, so to speak, 
 stirred up the torpid waters of her thoughts ; for a long 
 
 263
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 time she had been growing into a dull, resistanceless con- 
 dition into which her quarrels with her husband brought a 
 kind of irritated amusement. She had begun to feel that 
 there was for her nothing else in the world but this 
 weary, hopeless round of shiftless, monotonous unhappi- 
 ness. 
 
 In the early days their quarrels had usually ended in 
 reconciliation, and sometimes in a brief renewal of happi- 
 ness, but this had long since ceasedi Now they had ar- 
 rived at a condition of utter weariness, and each of 
 them, spent with anger, would slowly realize the profit- 
 lessness of wrangling, and offer listless, indifferent apolo- 
 gies that would be met by the other in the same spirit of 
 apathy. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Nicky," George would say, "I beg your 
 pardon"; and she would answer: "Oh, it doesn't matter, 
 George; all right." 
 
 Or she would say, after some wild flight of invective : 
 
 "I was a beast to lose my temper. Sorry." His an- 
 swer to which would be: "You've been no worse than I 
 have. It doesn't matter" and to this the girl had been 
 slowly growing inured; years of such days seemed to lie 
 before her in gray horror and monotony. But Rosie's 
 visit had somehow disturbed this mental condition. After 
 all, there was happiness in the world, and not far remote 
 from her. George and she, through their solitary life, 
 had grown to be of irrational, disproportionate import- 
 ance to one another, and now she grasped the fact that 
 their whole perspective was out of gear. As she walked 
 in the rain, it seemed to her that, instead of being in 
 the middle of an endless straight road from which she 
 could never turn aside, she had suddenly come to cross- 
 roads. Without any definite plan for escape, the feeling 
 was growing within her that soon escape might be by no 
 means impossible. Ever since the episode of the layette 
 
 264
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 she had felt something like hatred for her husband, and 
 unconsciously, in a kind of self-defence, she had strength- 
 ened this hatred by mentally dwelling on little peculiari- 
 ties of his that, but for the great fact of their poverty 
 and what she considered his idiotic refusal of help from 
 Sir Adolph, would have been regarded by her with indul- 
 gence, if not with actual tenderness. 
 
 She was very healthy herself wiry and sound to the 
 core and George's constitutional delicacy, since she Kad 
 been obliged to live with it at close quarters with but little 
 of amusement or interest to draw her mind from it, had 
 from the beginning irritated her intensely. He had a 
 little throat-spray which he used as a preventive against 
 colds, the very sight of which, after the first few months, 
 drove her to a frenzy of malicious anger. This was one 
 of the hundred little pinpricks from which collectively she 
 bled. They seemed to her, with her exasperated nerves, 
 even worse than the big fact that on the Vicar's death 
 George had been obliged to pay out something like three 
 hundred pounds to cover the effects of some speculations 
 the old man had innocently been drawn into on the occa- 
 sion of one of his visits to London on some book-hunting 
 prowl; or the other fact that there were various book- 
 sellers' bills and such minor matters that had further 
 depleted young Loxley's purse. 
 
 Cuckoo had been fond of the Vicar but when the fact 
 of his indiscretion had been made clear to her, and she 
 realized that she had to suffer for the old man's stupidity, 
 her feeling had turned to one of impatient loathing. After 
 their marriage they had lived some six months in a village 
 on the South Coast, and at the end of this six months the 
 fact that she had made a hopeless and irrevocable mis- 
 take had turned the girl so bitterly against her husband 
 that at last, after some quarrel, he, too, had lost his 
 temper and reminded her and this she had never for- 
 
 265
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 given him that, after all, their marrying had been more 
 her doing than his. 
 
 George's gentle spirit had suffered limitlessly from 
 shame and horror for this speech, but he had made it, and 
 Cuckoo was of those women who never quite forget. 
 
 On her two hundred and George's one hundred pounds 
 they had lived for a while in rooms on their return to 
 town, and after the birth and death of the child, George, 
 ill and feverish himself, and worried to death by the fact 
 that Cuckoo, in her utter indifference, did not recover 
 as she should have done, committed the great and unfor- 
 givable folly of not only speculating with his tiny capital, 
 but actually of speculating under the advice of the very 
 man who had so disastrously counselled the grandfather. 
 At this Cuckoo had undoubtedly a right to be angry, but 
 George had an equal right to be angry with her cruel 
 expositions of her wrath, and he broke down under the 
 awful trial of having for the next few months to live 
 entirely on her money. Too ill to paint, too unhappy to 
 read, his nerve utterly broken, he was indeed an almost 
 unbearable housemate ; and any woman who was his wife 
 would have deserved pity. Moreover, he had suffered in 
 the loss of the poor little baby, for, manlike, he had hoped 
 that the child's coming might have proved a bridge be- 
 tween him and Cuckoo. His anger with her for her un- 
 feigned indifference to the death of the child, who and 
 this seemed to George to make it worse was a girl, was 
 a just anger, but in his turn, he, too, had blundered in 
 the expression of what he felt, and Cuckoo never forgave 
 him for some of the ways in which he had shown her that 
 he could never forgive her for her lack of motherly feeling. 
 
 These things had gone from bad to worse, and in the 
 hopeless, tragic jumble in which the two young people 
 found themselves at the end of their second year of mar- 
 riage, Rosamund Brinkley's visit seemed to have some- 
 
 266
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 how lit one little star of hope ; and just because the high 
 gods have an imperishable sense of humor, it chanced that 
 afternoon that a large and vainglorious touring car un- 
 derwent, near the timber yard on the Embankment, a 
 humiliating minor accident of some kind that caused it to 
 be stopped at the curb while the chauffeur performed 
 some small operation on its interior. 
 
 Cuckoo wore a shabby coat and skirt and a cheap yel- 
 low oilskin coat. Through the oilskin coat the lithe lines 
 of her figure were visible as a fly is visible in amber, and 
 between its high collar and her little dark hat her angry, 
 brooding face, white as chalk, with close-drawn brows 
 and swollen scarlet mouth, was, in the dismal, rain-swept 
 street, as poignant and tragic as a bare stiletto. She 
 had, perhaps, never in her life looked so arresting as, 
 making her way over the muddy crossing, she drew near 
 to the car. And in the car sat the person of all people 
 who could observe and appreciate her face. 
 
 A big man in a rough frieze coat on which the rain- 
 drops lay as dew lies on cobwebs in the morning, sat in 
 the back of the car. A man with a striking un-English 
 face, clean-cut, noble in outline ; the face of one who was, 
 in some way, a leader or commander. Cuckoo glanced 
 at him as she paused, and the blaze of interest it seemed 
 almost of recognition in his splendid dark eyes, fairly 
 stopped her rapid walk. So close did he seem to come 
 to her in that intent look that yet was not a stare, that 
 she all but bowed. 
 
 "What a splendid old man !" she thought, as she hurried 
 on in the dusk. 
 
 As she passed Westminster Abbey a car passed her 
 from behind, and, turning, she saw that it was the man 
 she had noticed a few minutes before. He was leaning 
 forward without his hat, and the rapid rush through the 
 air had ruffled his hair, which was quite gray. 
 
 267
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo knew that he had turned and followed her 
 although he passed and didn't come back on purpose for 
 another look at her, and, although among her many faults 
 there had never been the ignoble one of indiscriminate 
 flirtation and though her personal dignity had always 
 been very great, she was glad. It was something to her 
 after all her months of hopeless dullness and dull hope- 
 lessness much to her that a man of such obvious im- 
 portance and charm as this old stranger should have 
 taken the trouble to follow her in her thirty-shilling coat 
 and her three-year-old hat. It gave her a long-forgotten 
 sense of power as well as a minor one of pleased vanity. 
 
 George, she knew, would go to his club, a humble club 
 of minor painters and literary men held at a little restau- 
 rant near their house. He would dine there and sit and 
 smoke until he believed her to be asleep, so there was no 
 hurry for her to get home. Suddenly an idea struck her, 
 and by means of a couple of buses she achieved a point 
 near South Audley Street. She would go and have a 
 look at 65s. Since the day she had left it she had never 
 set eyes on the house. 
 
 As she went along Curzon Street she saw that it was 
 the hour when the earlier diners, those who were bound 
 for the theater, set out for the evening. Cars stood at 
 several doors, and more than one door opened as she 
 passed, giving her a glimpse of comfortable halls, as well- 
 dressed men and women, under carefully held umbrellas, 
 hurried to their cars. It was a long time since Cuckoo 
 had seen women in evening dress, and the sight of their 
 bare shoulders and jewels, and particularly of their deli- 
 cate satin-shod feet, gave her an almost physical pang 
 of jealousy. Fool, thrice fool that she had been! 
 
 Nobody noticed her. She was, to these people to whose 
 caste she belonged, merely a scurrying, wet-footed little 
 work-girl going home. No one turned to look at her even, 
 
 268
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 except one flaccid-faced butler, who, as he crossed his 
 master's door, condescended to bestow on her an abom- 
 inable leer. 
 
 No. 65, South Audley Street, she found, was either 
 closed or empty, and partly because her aunt's car, a 
 new one she noticed, was standing before the door, and 
 partly because she suddenly found herself extremely tired, 
 she sat down on the step in the shadow of the balustrade. 
 Someone was giving a party nearly opposite and a con- 
 stant stream of cars and carriages came up to the door. 
 Amongst the people who got out of them was that Sir 
 George Porter, whose telephone message she had made 
 such good use of centuries before it seemed, with Bertie 
 Fabricius. 
 
 Cuckoo wondered what had become of poor little 
 Captain Browne, the only man of all she had met at her 
 aunt's, except Bertie, who had cared for her, or even, 
 she realized now, really liked her. She was very wet, her 
 feet ached, her little old hat, pierced by many pins, let 
 the water through on to her hair; but in an odd way she 
 liked being wet and miserable ; it increased the feeling that 
 had come to her that Rosie's visit had marked, not so 
 much a beginning of a period in her life, as an end. She 
 did not know what was going to begin but she knew that 
 something was, because it grew clearer to her with every 
 moment that her recent life with George had come, so to 
 speak, to an end. 
 
 So there she sat, until the door on her left opened 
 and she heard Almond's voice saying good evening to 
 the chauffeur, as he opened a huge umbrella, dedicated 
 to Lady Fabricius' passages from house-door to car and 
 from car to house-door. Then she heard a thud and 
 the well-known roll of red carpet bounced down the steps 
 to where a new footman stood with his hand on the door 
 of the car. Cuckoo, huddled in her place, strained her 
 
 269
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ears to hear, and at last came the sound of voices and 
 the stiff tap of her aunt's little shoes on the polished 
 floor. Majestic though unwieldy, the old lady, who was 
 fatter than ever, stumped slowly down the steps, leaning 
 on the devoted arm of Almond, while Walter held the 
 umbrella over them as an acolyte in a religious pro- 
 cession in the South holds an umbrella over the priest. 
 Behind her, looking very small in a new coat, holding 
 an umbrella over his silk hat, went Sir Adolph. When 
 the two were safely settled in their car, Cuckoo leaned 
 forward and listened, while the butler told the chauffeur 
 where to take them, and on hearing the direction she 
 gave a soft laugh. They were dining with Lord and 
 Lady Thorsway, so perhaps Bertie's wounded heart had 
 healed and he was going to be a good boy and marry 
 according to his Mamma's behests. But a moment later 
 the girl strained back closer than ever in her corner, 
 for Bertie Fabricius himself came up the street towards 
 her on foot. She saw his face distinctly as the door on 
 her right opened and the light fell on it. He looked 
 much the same, but he was in a tearing hurry and took 
 out his watch with a jerk and a muttered "damn" as he 
 passed her. 
 
 When the door had slammed behind him the eaves- 
 dropper rose and walked on to Oxford Street. She went 
 into an A.B.C. crowded at the hour, ill-ventilated, and 
 filled with probably worthy people whose early education 
 in the matter of table manners had obviously been neg- 
 lected and dined on two excellent buns and a glass of 
 milk. How, she didn't know, any more than years ago 
 she had known that her life at Roseroofs would one day 
 come to an end, but she knew that George and she were 
 on the edge of parting. She munched her bun and drank 
 her milk with deliberation that almost approached the 
 point of comfort. She was not unhappy now; it seemed 
 
 270
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 to her as if she were rousing and stretching herself after 
 a bad dream; as if her eyes were newly opened to the 
 realities of life and to the fact that one of the realities 
 of life was not that she should go on wasting her youth, 
 and her capacity for living, in Barker Street with George. 
 
 When Loxley came in that night, after a long evening 
 in a hot, stuffy room, thick with various kinds of offen- 
 sively cheap tobacco, he found his wife sitting by the 
 fire in the clothes in which she had gone out. She had 
 not changed her shoes and they were steaming as she 
 held them to the flame. 
 
 "George," she asked briskly. "Do you know where 
 that Professor Withers lives ?" 
 
 He looked at her indifferently. 
 
 "Of course I do why?" 
 
 "Because I have been thinking," she said, "that it was 
 a great mistake your not accepting his offer." 
 
 He frowned irritably. "Nonsense. How could I accept 
 his offer? Go off to Cyprus and leave you here " 
 
 He sat down, crossing his thin legs wearily, half-hiding 
 a yawn with his hand. 
 
 "I," she went on, "am going to Roseroofs to stay with 
 my aunts. It's going to be a fearful winter here; if you 
 stay you'll be ill and unfit for work, and you know what 
 he said about the climate out there. I've been thinking 
 about it and I want you to write to him." 
 
 George looked at her glumly. 
 
 "Poor old Cuckoo," he said. "Can't stand any more 
 of it, eh?" 
 
 She paid no attention to this remark but went on : 
 
 "He'll pay you well for these drawings, and we cer- 
 tainly can't go on like this any longer. Aunt Effie and 
 Aunt Flora won't mind having me, I'm sure. What do you 
 think?" 
 
 271
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 There was a long pause, during which his hollow eyes 
 regained a little of their gentleness as he looked at her. 
 
 "Why do you want me to go?" he said. "Not just 
 because of my health because I may be quite well this 
 winter, you know," 
 
 She shook her head. "There is no reason why you 
 should be quite well this winter. You've never been well 
 any winter in London yet." 
 
 He got up and walked restlessly about the room, taking 
 up and putting down various little objects without know- 
 ing what they were. At last he came back to her and 
 stood by her chair. 
 
 "Look here, Cuckoo," he said. "You're quite right, 
 of course, to say that this kind of thing can't go on. 
 It's perfectly miserable. But it's my fault as much as 
 yours, if not more. My wretched nerves have not been 
 right for ever so long, but what do you say to having 
 another try ? Just sort of beginning over ?" 
 
 He laid his hand on her wet hair, and by a tremendous 
 effort she let it stay there. She paused for a moment, 
 knowing that on her reply rested the whole of her imme- 
 diate future. At last she wisely decided telling the truth 
 so far as possible. 
 
 "I don't see," she said, "that there would be a bit of 
 use in trying to begin over now. We are frightfully on 
 each other's nerves ; neither of us is well, and with winter 
 coming on and so little money honestly, George, I don't 
 think that with the best will in the world we'd stand a 
 chance of getting things right!" 
 
 He sighed. "Perhaps not. I've been an awful failure, 
 Cuckoo, and I know it. I've said some things to you for 
 which I ought to have been killed, and the funny part of 
 it is that I never knew before that I had a temper. But 
 there are two things that in spite of everything are un- 
 changeable, my wish to paint really well and " 
 
 272
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know, and you will paint well one day, 
 probably very soon in a decent climate with no worries. 
 George, do go." 
 
 He went to an untidy writing-table in the corner of 
 the room, switched on the light over it, and, after turning 
 over and searching through a pile of papers, found the 
 letter and came back with it. 
 
 "Here's Withers' address. I suppose it could be 
 arranged," he said, "but I don't like to leave you, Cuckoo. 
 Even though things seem to have got into such a horrible 
 mess. I do love you, you know." 
 
 She turned away from him, and at the words her face 
 contracted angrily. After a little pause the young man 
 went on. 
 
 "You'd be very dull with the Aunts all winter." 
 
 The bitter sarcasm that rose to her lips at this she 
 suppressed with an effort. 
 
 "It's a long time since I have seen the Aunts," she 
 said. "I shall be glad to be with them for a while." 
 
 At that minute George Loxley sneezed several times 
 with great violence. She shrugged her shoulders with a 
 laugh, which she vainly attempted to make good-tem- 
 pered. 
 
 "There you are, you see. You'll sneeze all night and 
 you'll wake up with fever, and the day after to-morrow is 
 the first of November " 
 
 A week later George Loxley set out for Cyprus to 
 paint a series of twelve sketches of that historical island 
 to illustrate Professor Withers' forthcoming book. The 
 Professor, who in the kindness of his heart went to the 
 train to see his young friend off, was much touched by 
 the presence of her whom he called "Lesley's little wife." 
 There was in her face a look of purpose that the kind 
 old man mistook for one of fortitude, and when the last 
 
 273
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 moment came, he turned his back on the adieux of the 
 poor little people whom he believed himself to be brutally 
 tearing from each other's arms. 
 
 "There, there, my dear," he said kindly, patting 
 Cuckoo's shoulder, "he'll soon be back with you in three 
 months ; you must cheer up only three months and he'll 
 be back with you. Just bear that in mind, and you'll be 
 all right." 
 
 Cuckoo looked at the infinitesimal amount of face that 
 his beard allowed her to see and answered him with appro- 
 priateness. Then she climbed on top of a bus, for the 
 day was fine, and made her way back to Chelsea.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CUCKOO LOXLEY went to Wiskedale as she 
 had arranged to do, and she stayed there a fort- 
 night. 
 
 She had laid the fuse of her plans and had decided 
 that until the spark had reached the explosive she could 
 afford to wait and to rest. She was very nearly a nervous 
 wreck and she knew it, but the dale air and the quiet 
 life of Roseroofs would heal her. 
 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora were delighted to have her 
 with them again, and the evening of her arrival they sat 
 in the drawing-room till after eleven a most unusual 
 thing listening to her version of her affairs. 
 
 The immortal Bowdler himself could not with greater 
 skill have glossed over the acerbities of the matter of her 
 story with greater skill than she showed. 
 
 George was seedy, she said, and their large studio did 
 not warm well, so she had feared the winter for him, and 
 they had jumped at the chance of his going to Cyprus 
 for the dear old Professor. "It's only for three months, 
 you know," she added easily, "and it's sure to do him 
 good." 
 
 "You don't look well yourself, Cuckoo," Miss Effie re- 
 marked in a voice that sounded severe, looking over the 
 tops of her spectacles. 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "I'm not. I'm as thin as a kipper, 
 George says one cold after another I've had ever since 
 early in September ! Chelsea is lovely, of course, but it's 
 very low, you know, and I don't think it suits either of us 
 
 particularly " 
 
 275
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 The old sisters had not changed much since she had 
 seen them she and George had spent a fortnight with 
 them that first summer they were growing older in a 
 very satisfactory, even manner. Their eyes, and ears, 
 and hair, and skin, were marching steadily on towards 
 the enemy in a rhythmic, dignified way, only Miss Flora's 
 teeth still looking too young for the rest of her. 
 
 They had, Cuckoo noticed, put on their best to do her 
 honor, and she knew that up to the last Christmas the 
 blue and brown silk gowns had adorned the body of her 
 enemy. Lady Fab, she reflected, must now, considering 
 the different effects of age on them, make four of Miss 
 Flora, who was as thin as her eldest sister was fat. 
 
 Neither old lady mentioned Lady Fabricius; they had 
 been told the story of the quarrel by Marcia, but luckily 
 for their peace of mind Marcia had always been given to 
 exaggeration, particularly in anger, so they had received 
 her charges against Cuckoo with a certain innocent mental 
 reserve, especially as Cuckoo, with wisdom beyond her 
 years, had abstained from explanations and justifications 
 of any kind. 
 
 George, always, as they knew, a scrupulously truthful 
 person, on the occasion of his visit to the dale with his 
 bride, had told the story in his way, and his words had 
 consoled Miss Eflie and Miss Flora a great deal. 
 
 They never knew that his version was not to be believed 
 entirely, as Cuckoo in her first rage had been too excited, 
 too upset, to adhere strictly to the truth, and because after 
 that first evening he had avoided all reference to the 
 horrid scene. 
 
 "Let's forget all about your Aunt Marcia, darling," 
 he had said to her. "She was a wicked old woman to 
 treat you so abominably, but after all 7 can't be expected 
 to bear her any lasting grudge!" So they had pretty 
 completely dropped the subject, and George, until long 
 
 276
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 afterwards, did not know how much truth there had been 
 in Lady Fab's outrageously expressed accusations. 
 
 And now Cuckoo settled down in her old room at Rose- 
 roofs, and in pursuance of her plan proceeded to give her 
 health and her looks a chance to recover themselves before 
 she left the dale. 
 
 Miss Flora brought her bread and milk after she was in 
 bed; Miss Effie dosed her with some tea made out of a 
 bitter root and supposed to contain highly tonic qualities, 
 and old Esther Oughtenshaw waited on her hand and foot, 
 and made for her all her old pet dishes. 
 
 It was by chance a very beautiful autumn, and though 
 the only flowers left were a few asters and chrysanthe- 
 mums, and a semi-occasional hardy rose-bud, with red- 
 dened edges and a bitten aspect, yet the moors were still 
 haunted by the ghost of the purple of the heather, the 
 grass in the dale was green, and the air only pleasantly 
 sharp. 
 
 Cuckoo slept and ate well, and every day she found her 
 nerves to be better, her so irritable temper less in a whirl, 
 and her morning and evening walks grew longer and 
 longer. 
 
 Once she and Aunt Flora walked to Widdybank and 
 put some flowers on the old Vicar's grave under the south 
 transept window. "We do so miss him," Miss Flora 
 told her, as she rose from her knees ; "he was a good, dear 
 man." 
 
 Cuckoo nodded gravely. "Yes, he was," she agreed, 
 quite forgetting the old man's speculative crimes and re- 
 membering him only as he had been in her childhood and 
 young girlhood. "How do you like Mr. Kane?" Mr. 
 Kane was the new vicar, whom the visitor had not yet 
 seen. 
 
 Miss Flora gave a little skip of embarrassment, as if 
 she were skipping away from a distressing subject. "Oh, 
 
 277
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 he's very nice," she answered. "Your Aunt Effie says 
 his sermons are excellent " 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her with grave eyes in which there was 
 a secret glimmer. "What does my Aunt Flora say?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Aunt Flora glanced at her with a look almost of fear. 
 "Oh, what I think about new people," she said, "never 
 amounts to much your Aunt EfBe would tell you how 
 unobservant I am. ..." 
 
 "I know," replied Cuckoo dryly. "I've often heard her 
 say it, and I've sometimes wondered if she was altogether 
 right,"- 
 
 At this moment the new vicar appeared, and was intro- 
 duced to Mrs. Loxley by her aunt. 
 
 He was a large, blond man with easily pursable lips, 
 and a long nose. He was a married man, and three of his 
 children were with him. 
 
 When he had expressed his gratification at meeting 
 the granddaughter-in-law of his greatly honored prede- 
 cessor, his delight in the beauty of the dale, and his hope 
 of seeing the Roseroofs ladies in church the next day, he 
 went his way, and Cuckoo and Miss Flora went 
 theirs. 
 
 "So you don't like him," Cuckoo observed quietly, as 
 they reached the beck, "well, no more do I." 
 
 "Good gracious, Cuckoo, I never said I didn't like 
 him " 
 
 "Yes, you did, Aunt Flora, with everything but your 
 tongue. I am a sharp-witted Cockney nowadays, you 
 know." But neither of them mentioned the matter to 
 Miss Effie, and as the days passed Cuckoo was confirmed 
 in her new idea that Miss Flora's silence covered some- 
 thing which, in the old days, she had never suspected. 
 
 One afternoon Cuckoo walked up to Settle Farm, old 
 Isaac Vesper's place. She found the old man in a big 
 
 278
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 chair by the fire in the kitchen, his wife reading aloud to 
 him from a newspaper. 
 
 "Well, Agnes, well, Mr. Vosper, I thought I'd come up 
 and have a look at you " 
 
 Agnes, a sad-faced woman of six or seven and twenty, 
 flushed oddly and let her husband answer. He was voluble, 
 but not very easy to understand, for he had had his second 
 stroke a few months before. 
 
 "He says he's very glad to see you, Miss Coocoo," his 
 wife translated, but the old man was not satisfied and went 
 on mumbling something over and over again. 
 
 "You feel what?" Cuckoo asked, kindly, but hating the 
 sound he made and the spluttering. 
 
 He repeated the remark as best he could, scowling at 
 his wife, who was trying to quiet him. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I understand, Mr. Vosper I've got it, Agnes 
 how stupid we were not to understand him! He says 
 he feels he owes me a good turn. Because of you, of 
 course. What a nice compliment to us both !" 
 
 The old farmer nodded and gurgled in his satisfaction, 
 and while Cuckoo talked to him his wife went to the window 
 and stood there looking out. 
 
 When Cuckoo left, the woman walked with her across 
 the paddock to the gate. "He's very ill, I fear," Cuckoo 
 said, as they went along. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Coocoo. He's been ill for fower year 
 now " 
 
 "Oh, poor Agnes !" 
 
 Agnes nodded her smooth brown head. "Oo-aye, poor 
 Agnes indeed, Miss Coocoo " 
 
 They had reached the big whitewashed gate and stood 
 by it looking down the road. 
 
 "He will not live long, poor old man," Cuckoo said 
 softly. "It's very sad, of course, but he has had a long 
 
 life, and then you will be all right " 
 
 279
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Isaac Vesper's wife raised her brown, broad hand and 
 brought it down passionately on the top bar of the gate. 
 "All right ! An' my Chris married a year ago last Christ- 
 mas ! Ah, ye meant well, no doot, Miss Coocoo, that 
 time," she went on, broadly Doric as she proceeded, "but 
 God knows it's maany a time Ah've wished you had let 
 things bee " 
 
 Cuckoo went her way deep in thought. Who was right ? 
 Rachel had married for love and had been unhappy ; Rosie 
 had married for money and was blissful with her awful 
 husband ; and here was Agnes, married for money and like 
 a woman in an old tragedy, with her worn, wistful 
 face. 
 
 It was to be a long time before Cuckoo found out the 
 true answer to her question, but when she did, very sud- 
 denly and conclusively, she remembered as if a picture of 
 it had been put before her, the late autumn road lead- 
 ing down to the dale from Settle Farm and the very 
 turning at which she had asked herself, aloud, "Which 
 is right?" 
 
 At the end of ten days Cuckoo, coming down to break- 
 fast a little late, found on her plate two letters with for- 
 eign stamps. 
 
 "This is from George," she said, cordially, as she opened 
 it. George wrote from Athens, where he was staying 
 for a few days with a Greek friend of Professor Withers. 
 "He's very well, and adores Athens," she announced, after 
 a moment. "He sends his love to you both he's sending 
 me some photographs of Athens. Wasn't it nice of Pro- 
 fessor Withers," she added, with a little burst of, to her, 
 unusual enthusiasm, "to have him stop over in Athens, 
 instead of going straight to Cyprus ?" 
 
 Miss Flora's large eyes, that seemed to have grown more 
 globular and even more limpid with the years, rested for 
 
 280
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a second on her niece's face, as Miss Effie answered that it 
 undoubtedly was kind of the Professor. 
 
 "What is the book that George is illustrating?" Miss 
 Flora asked, after a pause, while Cuckoo finished her 
 letter. 
 
 "On the ancient civilization of Cyprus. He has all the 
 dull, technical pictures of buildings, and so on, but he 
 wants reproductions in color of the scenery, so of course 
 George will be blissful " 
 
 The old ladies went on with their breakfasts, and 
 Cuckoo looked at them, swept over by an intense, sudden 
 wave of entirely uncalled-for pity. How many breakfasts 
 had they eaten in that shabby, pleasant room? After a 
 moment's calculation that it must be, she decided, for 
 say five years spent away from home, something like 
 twenty-three thousand. Three-and-twenty thousand eggs, 
 usually boiled ; six-and-forty thousand cups of tea apiece ! 
 It was an appalling thought to the girl, for what her 
 father had called her "roving drop" had for the time being 
 taken command of her, and the horror of what he had 
 named one-placeness was strong on her. As to her, she 
 was going to Paris ! 
 
 Her plan had grown successfully, and the letter she had 
 just read and laid down beside her cup was its flowering. 
 Its fruit would be Paris. 
 
 The year before the return to England of Bertie 
 Fabricius, Cuckoo had gone to Cowes with Lady Pelter 
 and there she had met, amongst Lady Pelter's gay friends, 
 one Countess Lensky, an American married, or formerly 
 married, to a Pole. This Countess Lensky was enormously 
 rich, enormously vital, and, some people said, as enor- 
 mously common. A very large woman, corseted in a way 
 that struck admiration to the souls of some of her be- 
 holders and terror to the souls of others, she was gay, 
 noisy, good-tempered, indefatigable in the pursuit of 
 
 281
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 pleasure ; and it must be added that she invariably came 
 up with this elusive quarry. She made a solid success at 
 the regatta, despite the obvious things that might have 
 been, and were, said against her. 
 
 Her yacht, the Tiger Lily, flowed, so to speak, with 
 milk and honey; she was generosity itself as well as hos- 
 pitable, and at the end of the great week Lady Pelter and 
 Cuckoo went for a short cruise with her. 
 
 "I like you the best of the lot, my dear," she had once 
 said to Cuckoo ; "you aren't so mean as most of the 
 women, and you've got a temper. I haven't any use for 
 those swell English women who couldn't get real mad if 
 they tried " 
 
 For some time after they separated, Cuckoo and this 
 lady had kept up a desultory correspondence, but they 
 had never met again, for the Countess had already tried 
 London, and, as she frankly declared, couldn't stand it. 
 
 "Parrus for me," she would say, "and any of you w^ho 
 want to see me must come and see me in my little wooden 
 hut there " 
 
 Her little wooden hut was a huge flat in the Champs- 
 Elysees, and to this sylvan spot Cuckoo had sent the 
 letter, the answer to which arrived the morning of George's 
 first communication from Greece. The Countess wrote, 
 in a very large, very spidery hand, each word of which 
 had a dashing little tail : 
 
 MY DEAR, 
 
 I was glad 4o hear from you after all this time. I did get your 
 letter about your engagement, but I lost it somehow, and then I 
 went to America where my brother was married Edwin, you 
 know, the one I used to want you to meet. He married such a 
 sweet girl. ... Of course I shall just love to have you visit me 
 while your husband is away. It will do you good to be a bache- 
 lor for awhile. I always say it does a woman just as much 
 good to be separated from her husband, as it does a man to be 
 
 282
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 away from his wife for awhile. I just love men, of course, 
 but husbands get sort of troublesome, don't they? . . . Well, 
 come just as soon as you can, and I promise you a warm wel- 
 come and a nice warm bedroom. I've got a new cook, and, I 
 tell you as shouldn't, he's a real daisy. . . . My love to you, 
 honey. Send me a wire when you are coming. 
 Yours ever, 
 
 MARGUERITE LENSKY. 
 
 The Aunts were much interested in Cuckoo's prospective 
 visit to Paris. Aunt Flora insisted on lending her two 
 of the quaint old rings that on great occasions adorned 
 her own old fingers, and Aunt Effie, as the family linguist, 
 regretted that Cuckoo's French was not better. 
 
 When she had left them standing at the gate in the pale 
 November sunlight, the girl felt a little pang, not quite of 
 love, not quite of pity, for them. They had always been 
 kind to her, and they were old and she was young. She 
 possessed the great quality of living in the beginnings of 
 things ; during her last weeks with George she had for the 
 first time felt herself at an end, but her nature was to dwell 
 in a land of beginnings. Hers was the tough vitality of 
 mind that trouble cannot break, and even boredom can but 
 temporarily bend. 
 
 The mystery and glamor of "just round the corner" 
 would never leave her, and therefore she would never really 
 grow old. Vaguely she knew this, and from it sprang 
 her queer mood of sympathy for the two stay-at-home old 
 ladies. 
 
 Her own affairs were far too engrossing, however, for 
 her to waste much time thinking about her aunts, and her 
 journey to London seemed but an hour, so busy was she 
 with the glowing future. 
 
 On arriving at King's Cross she took a cab to a small 
 hotel in Bloomsbury, and the next morning a young man 
 in a jeweler's shop in Oxford Street came to meet her 
 
 283
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 as with an assured mien she entered his multi-millionaire 
 master's famous premises. 
 
 "What can I show you, madam?" the young man 
 asked. 
 
 Cuckoo smiled. "Nothing, thanks," sHe answered 
 tranquilly. "It is I who have something to show 
 you "
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 CUCKOO'S first impression of Paris, during her 
 drive from the Gare du Nord to the Place de 
 1'Opera and thence up the Champs-Elysees, was one 
 not of the streets but of the indescribable, mechanical 
 gaiety of its lights. Against the overhead blackness of 
 the November night flashed and glowed and burned in 
 all directions, words and symbols in all colors and of all 
 degrees of stability. Red globes forming letters changed 
 to blue squares, and then to triangles of emerald. A huge 
 golden bottle hung apparently from the sky for several 
 seconds, and then melted into the surrounding darkness, 
 replaced by the word, in crimson, "Vinofer." 
 
 Cuckoo was tired, but though this chaos of brilliancy 
 wearied her eyes, its effect on her mind was one of ex- 
 citement and stimulation. She sat well forward in her 
 rickety little fiacre gazing up, drinking in the subtle ex- 
 citement of the Parisian night. She had forgotten 
 George ; she had forgotten Roseroofs ; she had, in a way, 
 forgotten herself. She was not Cuckoo Loxley, the em- 
 bittered wife of a poor man, going away for a stolen 
 holiday; she was just any girl arriving in Paris for a 
 delightful visit and full of the intensity of anticipation 
 possible only to a creature capable of the greatest heights 
 and the greatest depths of temperamental fluctuations. 
 She was thrilled to the marrow by the Rue de la Paix, 
 and did it the honor of forgetting, in her contemplation 
 of its close-shuttered shops, the intoxicating heaven of 
 whimsical lights that had so enthralled her. At the sight 
 
 285
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of Napoleon standing on his pillar in the Place Vendome, 
 she gave a little laugh. She, Cuckoo Blundell, was actu- 
 ally there in the Place Vendome, and that big white build- 
 ing with its blazing lights and its never quiet swing-door 
 must, she knew, be the new hotel at which Rosie Brinkley 
 had stayed on her last visit to Paris. At last her fiacre 
 drew up at a great door in the Champs-Elysees and a 
 uniformed personage came out and possessed himself of 
 her luggage. 
 
 "I had better settle with the driver myself," the func- 
 tionary said. "They are all thieves and pirates." He 
 was, Cuckoo saw, an Irishman, and this trifling fact added 
 new pleasure to the other pleasures which were crowding 
 round her for recognition. 
 
 The stairs that mounted round the little lift were, she 
 saw, of white marble, and a very thick red carpet was 
 laid on them. The lift, though highly gilded and ornate 
 in design, seemed like a toy in the big, imposing hall. 
 
 The Countess Lensky lived on the second floor of the 
 house, and the huge mahogany door was opened at 
 Cuckoo's ring by the grandest butler she had ever seen 
 in her life. While she was struggling to answer a ques- 
 tion he put to her in French, a tall girl with a waist of 
 enviable slimness and a very coquettish muslin apron, 
 came up the long passage that led from the square hall, 
 parallel with the street, and told Cuckoo that Madame 
 la Comtesse wished her to come to her dressing-room. 
 
 The Countess was delighted to see Cuckoo and kissed 
 her several times in French fashion, pecking unsuccess- 
 fully at her ears. Then she made the girl sit down in an 
 extremely comfortable easy chair and turned to the maid 
 saying something in French. 
 
 "Did you bring your luggage with you?" she broke off 
 to ask, and Cuckoo said "Yes." 
 
 "Good. Give the keys to Josephine and she'll unpack 
 
 286
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 for you. We dine at half-past eight at the 'Ritz' with 
 some Argentines, and shall be going on somewhere, so 
 make yourself smart. You do look well, my dear. Mar- 
 riage has improved you, as it does every woman, just at 
 first." 
 
 The Countess's hair had taken on a new color since 
 Cuckoo had seen her and was worn in an entirely new 
 way, but the kind, common face, though a little more 
 flaccid and a little redder than Cuckoo remembered it, was 
 not much changed. She looked as gay, as indifferent to 
 the deeper things of life, as ever. 
 
 "I'm going to wear pink," she said, "so for goodness' 
 sake don't you ; pinks do swear so at each other." 
 
 "I shall wear black," Cuckoo announced indifferently. 
 "I usually do." 
 
 The Countess, holding her chin up and speaking indis- 
 tinctly as she rubbed some thick white liquid over her 
 neck with a piece of cotton wool, went on talking. 
 
 "Awfully sorry I couldn't send a car to meet you, but 
 my chauffeur's wife had a baby this afternoon and I had 
 to let him go home and see her, and the second man is 
 new and I daren't trust him with my new car. The new 
 car is a beauty, by the way, Nicky. It has such a nice 
 lining and all the fittings are blue enamel. I'm sure you'll 
 like it. Now you'd better run along, dear. Josephine will 
 have drawn your bath. You didn't bring a maid, did 
 you?" 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "Good gracious, no. I'm far too 
 hard up for a maid." 
 
 She didn't look in the least hard up as she stood there 
 in her very well made, dark blue coat and skirt and a 
 very severe, very expensive little hat. Her boots, too, 
 were the best London could provide, and her handbag 
 was a masterpiece from Bond Street. 
 
 "Hurry up, then," the Countess called out, as a maid 
 
 287
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 answered her ring and Cuckoo prepared to follow her. 
 
 "I'll come along to your room as soon as I'm ready, 
 and if you want Josephine, ring for her. You're to make 
 yourself perfectly at home, you know. I'm an awfully 
 bad hostess, because I always forget to ask people what 
 they want, but it's so much easier if they'll just help 
 themselves." 
 
 Cuckoo walked what seemed about a quarter of a mile 
 idown the crimson-carpeted corridor, and presently found 
 herself alone in her room. It was a very ornate, extremely 
 comfortable room opening off a small salon, and flanked 
 on the other side by a bathroom composed entirely of 
 glossy pink tiles. There was a great deal of white enamel 
 and pink brocade and gilding about the little suite, yet 
 Cuckoo, whose eye was trained not only by the exquisite 
 fineness of Sir Adolph's taste, but also by the simplicity 
 and fine atmosphere of Roseroofs, decided, as she looked 
 round her in making ready for her bath, that everything 
 was perfection. Oh, the difference between this and that 
 awful place in Barker Street ! 
 
 Despite her declaration that she was a bad hostess, the 
 Countess Lensky's hospitality had indeed foreseen almost 
 every need any guest could have. Cuckoo had never seen 
 so many towels in her life, nor towels of so many different 
 textures ; and on the glass shelves, and table, and the huge 
 marble washing-stand in her dressing-room, she found 
 toilet accessories of an ingenuity and luxury that put 
 anything she had hitherto seen to shame. There were 
 big glass jars of different colored bath salts; there was 
 a huge bottle of Russian eau-de-cologne and another of 
 lavender water ; there was a powder-box as big as a wash- 
 basin, full of powder that smelt gloriously of orris ; there 
 was a porcelain box full of fragrant cold cream, and 
 another with gelee de miel, and there was another, a 
 barrel-shaped box full of a grayish, glutinous mass that 
 
 288
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo remembered as being the Countess's own favorite 
 oatmeal and glycerine for the hands. 
 
 Cuckoo took her bath singing under her breath, and 
 before she was quite dressed the Countess came in. 
 Cuckoo had half expected some exclamation of admira- 
 tion of her dressing-table silver; for this, severely plain, 
 was the best of its kind and fresh from Regent Street. 
 But no remarks were made, and the girl realized with a 
 little gibe at herself that grand as these objects seemed 
 to her, they naturally looked very simple almost humble 
 to her hostess. 
 
 "That's right," the Countess exclaimed, as the skilful 
 Josephine fastened her guest's frock. "Who made it?" 
 
 Cuckoo named one of the biggest houses in London; 
 and she spoke the truth. 
 
 The Countess, resplendent in shell-pink brocade, and 
 wearing three large ropes of pearls, as well as very long 
 diamond ear-rings and a diamond fillet in her hair, looked 
 very well in her way, although her lips were far too red 
 and her cheeks too heavily powdered. 
 
 "Come along, we mustn't be late. Juan Martinez is 
 giving the dinner, and a cousin of his, Vicente Ojeda, who 
 is the richest man in the Argentine! They are sure to 
 have Mimi Galgenstein, Juan is rather taken with her, 
 and I suppose they'll have Olivier Ledru. He's a delight- 
 ful creature, dances like an angel ; one of the nicest men in 
 Paris." 
 
 The two ladies hurried downstairs, there scarcely being 
 room in the lift for Cuckoo, and then glided away in 
 the big car that put Aunt Marcia's, the one Cuckoo had 
 loved because it was as big as some people's drawing- 
 rooms, into the limbo of old-fashioned things. Cuckoo, 
 according to the plans that she had made for herself 
 during^ her stay in Paris, maintained a pleasant but nil 
 admirare attitude, and no one would have thought as 
 
 289
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 she walked up the long corridor at the Ritz behind her 
 effulgent friend, that she had never set foot in the place 
 before. The two Spaniards and the Baroness Galgenstein 
 were waiting for them near the dining-room door at a 
 table on which stood a tray containing six glasses filled 
 with an amber liquid in which floated a preserved cherry. 
 Cuckoo laughed. 
 
 "You know," she said, "I haven't tasted a cocktail since 
 I left the dear old Tiger Lily!" 
 
 The restaurant was crowded with people of all nation- 
 alities, and the hum of voices in the warm-scented air, and 
 the blaze of lights, and the beautifully dressed women, 
 filled Cuckoo with an excitement and exaltation that she 
 could hardly hide. Oh, it was good to be there not in 
 Barker Street ! 
 
 The Baroness Galgenstein, a tall, handsome, dark 
 woman of fairly remote Jewish extraction, was given the 
 place of honor at the little table in the middle of the room. 
 
 At first the words spoken round her confused and dulled 
 Cuckoo's ear. Since her childhood she had not heard the 
 French of French people, and besides this she had to con- 
 tend orally with Spanish French, and French Spanish, 
 German French and German Spanish, Spanish English, 
 and English Spanish, with American French and American 
 Spanish, and American German. Behind her two Italians 
 were talking volubly, and an enormously tall, bearded 
 man, who, she learned, was a Russian Grand Duke, was 
 speaking Russian to the Oriental-looking woman dining 
 with him. The room reeked of scents, and there were 
 enough pearls within its four walls to have paid for an 
 army campaign a few centuries before. 
 
 Olivier Ledru, who really was, in his way, one of the 
 best known men about Paris, was a small, pale man, with 
 a waist and just a suspicion of an "Imperial." Cuckoo, 
 who sat between him and Ojeda, was rather silent through 
 
 290
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 sheer force of enjoyment; the scents, and luxury, and 
 leisure, and irresistible happiness, seemed to be soaking 
 in through the very pores of her skin. She was in a 
 bath of well-being. Ojeda, who was considerably younger 
 than Martinez, and a very handsome boy on a diminutive 
 scale, paid little attention to his younger neighbor, his 
 mission in life, for the time, being very obviously that of 
 offering incense at the Countess's shrine. Cuckoo noticed, 
 as she looked round the room, that in all the parties this 
 curious sub-division was apparent. Every woman, or 
 almost every woman, seemed to have her own special 
 cavalier, and the worshipping attitude of these gentlemen 
 was more apparent than the worshipping attitude, no mat- 
 ter how great the inner adoration might be, could ever 
 have been in any but a really cosmopolitan gathering. 
 There was an air of unreality about the whole thing; 
 nobody was at home, everybody seemed to be, as Cuckoo 
 mentally put it, out for a lark. If a huge idol plainly 
 marked "Amusement" had stood at one end of the room, 
 the object of the worship of these people could not have 
 been more clearly divined. 
 
 Theirs was a merry party, for the handsome Baroness 
 Galgenstein was a clever woman and talked well, while 
 Ledru was deservedly famous for the amusing quality of 
 his flippant conversation. The Countess, leaning across 
 Ojeda, who sat on her left, gave Cuckoo from time to 
 time, in a perfectly audible voice, bits of information about 
 the people at the surrounding tables. 
 
 "That thin girl with the Grand Duke," she said, "is 
 Tamar, the Russian dancer, and the bald old man with 
 the yellow carnation in his coat is G. M. Taylor." 
 
 "Who's G. M. Taylor?" Cuckoo asked. 
 
 "Good gracious, my dear ! President of the Soft Soap 
 Trust richest man in the world." 
 
 Cuckoo's indifference gave way to a look of eager inter- 
 
 291
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 est, and she gazed at the plain old gentleman with the 
 yellow carnation so fixedly that presently he saw her and 
 smiled; whereupon she turned away angrily. As the din- 
 ner went on most of the parties became noisier, and the 
 Countess expressed her disapproval of her young guest's 
 comparative silence. 
 
 "Cheer up, Nicky," she called. "You're boring those 
 two dear men to death. You didn't use to be so silent." 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "You forget that I lead a very quiet 
 life as a rule," she said, "and this quite confuses me." 
 
 Suddenly in the midst of her odd dreamlike mood she 
 looked up and saw in a glass in front of her a man's face. 
 She set down her champagne glass with a little jar. Who 
 could it be? The man's eyes held hers, and it was quite 
 plain he was asking the same question. They had met 
 before, but where or when she could not remember. 
 
 Ojeda had drawn nearer the Countess, the Baroness 
 was busily engaged with Martinez. Cuckoo looked at 
 Ledru. 
 
 "Can you tell me," she said, "who that man is? He 
 must be sitting almost behind you, at least over your 
 right shoulder. He's alone at a table. I can just see 
 his face in the glass." 
 
 "Who the Japanese?" 
 
 "No, no. An old man, he looks I shouldn't think he 
 was English." 
 
 Ledru put up his eyeglass and turned it round. 
 
 "Oh, that!" he said, "that's a man we call the Mag- 
 nificent. I believe he's partly Italian, and someone nick- 
 named him II Magnifico. He seems to know you, by the 
 way " 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "No, but I've seen him somewhere." 
 
 At that moment she saw in the glass that the man in 
 question had risen and was coming towards them. He 
 threaded his way among the little tables, walking, despite 
 
 292
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 his very broad shoulders and his six feet of height, with 
 singular delicacy, as if his feet were small and of fine 
 muscle. He went straight to the Countess, who was flirt- 
 ing with Ojeda, and spoke her name. 
 
 With a little shriek of joy she recognized him and held 
 out her jewel-covered hand. 
 
 "You, Magmfico! How perfectly delightful. Mire 
 listed Martinez," she cried, "look, Martinez, here's II 
 Magnifico." 
 
 Martinez turned and shook hands with the newcomer. 
 
 "I thought you were in Cairo," he said. 
 
 "I was," the stranger answered in a deep, pleasant 
 voice, his white teeth shining. "I've been back about a 
 week. Baronin" he added, bowing over the Baroness's 
 hand, which, Cuckoo noticed, he kissed, "Wie geht es 
 Ihnen?" 
 
 When Martinez had persuaded him to join their party 
 and he had shaken hands with Ledru, the Countess, 
 leaning across the table, introduced him to Cuckoo, and 
 he sat down between her and Ojeda, who drew up close 
 to the Countess. 
 
 He was a very handsome man, with a well-cut, dark 
 face, and really magnificent eyes, eyes of the very rare 
 golden brown that is so indescribably beguiling. He was 
 heavily built and looked to be of great strength, although 
 he was close on sixty. His hair, almost snow-white, was 
 of the crisp kind that would have curled had he not worn 
 it close cropped. About his finely modeled mouth there 
 was an ironical expression that was utterly and delight- 
 fully belied by the sweetness of his smile. Cuckoo had 
 remembered him the moment he approached the table. He 
 was the man she had seen in the motor-car on the Embank- 
 ment the day of Rosamund Brinkley's visit. 
 
 "It was a wet night, wasn't it?" he asked. 
 
 "It was," she returned. 
 
 293
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 It seemed to Cuckoo his appearance, and his sitting 
 there by her, was the most natural thing in the world, as 
 if for a very long time she had known he was coming 
 expected it. Suddenly all her absent-mindedness, her 
 silence, what had seemed her dullness, dropped from her 
 like some disguising garment for which she had no more 
 need. Ledru stared at her ; it was quite plain to him that 
 the woman he had thought simply dull and boring must 
 have been, herself, bored by him and Ojeda. She was 
 better than pretty now, as she chattered to the Mag- 
 nificent, and her queer eyes, like the eyes of a little boar, 
 he thought, were blazing with interest and excitement. 
 
 He and Martinez, chancing to catch each other's eye, 
 exchanged a significant glance on the subject of Cuckoo 
 and the white-haired man. It was as if they had said, 
 "Here's another of them." The Countess, speaking in 
 what she considered an undertone, remarked to the 
 Baroness and Martinez "that there was life in the old 
 dog yet." 
 
 "Of course he's perfectly incorrigible, the old sinner, 
 isn't he?" the Baroness laughed. She was one of the 
 myriad women who had loved Peregrine Janeways, and 
 yet she had, after his inevitable flitting, gone on being 
 friends with him in the way that women do ; as they did 
 long ago with the inimitable and ever-to-be-lamented 
 Casanova. 
 
 "II est delicieux" she murmured, "toujours beau et 
 toujours irresistible, ce cTier Magnifique!" 
 
 At about half-past ten the party adjourned to Mont- 
 martre, and sat until about two in the cabaret that was 
 for the moment the most fashionably improper of all. 
 
 Cuckoo was not particularly interested in the scores of 
 beautifully dressed cocottes, with their odd, tragic resem- 
 blance to each other, and the bad air and metallic gaiety 
 of the place did not much amuse her, but Sir Peregrine 
 
 294
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Janeways did. He had a remarkable and romantic blend 
 of the desperado and the courtier in his manners. He 
 was a man of immense personal dignity and an impeccable 
 knowledge of the world. He made no pretense at youth, 
 and in his magnificent health and boundless love of life 
 and humanity he seemed to turn the worn-out 
 pleasure-seekers round him into ancient and decrepit 
 beings. 
 
 His hands, too, brown, slim and muscular, might have 
 been the hands of a young man in his twenties. Cuckoo 
 knew that he had been called "the last of the dandies," 
 and that jokes were made about his having been a crony 
 of the Regent's, but she found in him a quality she had 
 hitherto never met and to which she could give no name. 
 During her first two years in London he had been, she 
 knew, in India and China, which explained her never 
 having seen him. Once she was about to tell him that 
 she was Robert Blundell's daughter and that he still owed 
 her a pony, promised her at the age of four, but some 
 unanalysed feeling came to her like a warning that it 
 would be better that he should not know who she was, so 
 she said nothing. He was a man of great courtesy and 
 great urbanity, and besides devoting himself almost ex- 
 clusively to her for the whole evening, he had a few words 
 quiet talk with Mimi Galgenstein and what the Countess 
 called a long "pow-wow" with her, during which she 
 chaffed him unmercifully and a little vulgarly about some 
 of his adventures. But Cuckoo, as he shook hands with 
 the Countess and her at the door of the Countess's 
 appartement, felt that in essentials the last six hours had 
 been exclusively hers, and in this she was right. 
 
 "You've done the trick, dear," the Countess said 
 sleepily, between the yawns, as they sat in her morning- 
 room drinking camomile tea before going to bed. "fife's 
 crazy about you." 
 
 295
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "I suppose you mean Sir Peregrine, 
 as I so obviously bored the other two to sobs." 
 
 "I do mean him. Dear old Magnified Oh, Nicky, I 
 was so gone on him once. I wish it hadn't all happened 
 when you were crawling on the nursery floor. He never 
 cared a button about me really, you know, but oh, what 
 a darling he was ! He was so good-looking ! That was 
 in the Duchess of Galway's day, but he was awfully kind 
 to me. I have still got a purple ribbon that was round 
 a bunch of violets he once sent me." 
 
 "Well, I wish he'd send me some violets," said Cuckoo, 
 rising. "Perhaps he will, if I'm good." 
 
 Countess Lensky kissed her. 
 
 "Good-night, Nicky dear." 
 
 "Good-night, Countess." 
 
 The elder woman laughed merrily. 
 
 "Good gracious! You mustn't go on calling me 
 'Countess.' In those days I was Blanche Pelter's friend 
 and you were a child, but now I'm your friend, so you must 
 call me Marguerite." 
 
 Cuckoo responded prettily. 
 
 "With pleasure," she said. "Thanks so much for a 
 delightful evening, and good-night Marguerite."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 FOR a week Cuckoo lived in an unbroken whirl of 
 gaiety, perfectly innocent in itself but strangely 
 deadening in its cumulative effect; she ate too 
 much, smoked too much, even in a way drank too much. 
 She never got to bed before three or four in the morning 
 and learnt without effort to sleep until eleven or twelve. 
 
 Day after day she lunched and dined in a crowd of 
 people who with curious rapidity had advanced to the 
 rank of what they called friends. 
 
 The Baroness Galgenstein, now called Mimi, was one 
 of these; Annina Lerminoff, a small, bloodless Russian, 
 was another; Queenie Vaux, who since the Warrenden 
 divorce case found Paris better for her health than Lon- 
 don, another. 
 
 Of these, and others like them, was the Comtesse 
 Lensky's social world composed, but one thing could be 
 said of her friends that could not be said of other similar 
 coteries: the women, most of them a little vulgar or a 
 little flawed morally, were at least all of them women with 
 brains. 
 
 The Baroness Galgenstein played the piano as well as 
 many professional musicians, and in the side of her life 
 of which the Countess saw nothing for the reason that 
 it would only have bored her there was work, and 
 thought, and serious criticism, and earnest, conscientious 
 artist friends. 
 
 The little Russian was a distinguished student of the 
 literature of her own country and came to la Lensky 
 only for mental rest and diversion, whereas even Lady 
 
 297
 
 THE BAG OF 'SAFFRON 
 
 Vaux, gray sheep though she was, was a brilliantly enter- 
 taining woman, the honored friend of many distinguished 
 scientific and artistic people. 
 
 The men whom Cuckoo met were less interesting, being 
 chiefly little dark creatures from southern countries, re- 
 markable more for their riches and the diversity and 
 extravagance of their amours than for anything else. 
 
 It was plain to la petite Loxley from the first that in 
 the commodious and elegant aviary into which her errant 
 wings had borne her, Sir Peregrine Janeways was only 
 an occasional sojourner. His was a stronger, more savage 
 pinion than those of the other birds there, his note a 
 wilder one. 
 
 "He's staying on in Paris entirely on your account, you 
 know," Lady Vaux said to her on one occasion. 
 
 "I'm sure you are mistaken," Cuckoo answered. "He 
 has hundreds of friends here" 
 
 The elder woman smiled not altogether merrily. "My 
 dear child," she said, "I've known Pelly Janeways for 
 fifteen years and I'm pretty well used to his little ways! 
 Where, by the way," she added, suddenly, "is your hus- 
 band?" 
 
 "In Cyprus. Why, do you think I am in danger of 
 being snatched from him?" 
 
 Lady Vaux laughed. "Emphatically not. The dear 
 Magnificent never snatched, even in his most dangerous 
 days. He he whistles, and we go to him," she added, 
 whimsically. 
 
 "He sounds quite odious," Cuckoo criticized, her nose 
 in the air. "Like the irresistible hero in a servants' half- 
 penny novelette !" 
 
 "Yes, he does, rather," conceded the other woman, 
 slowly; "it would take a genius to tell his story without 
 vulgarizing him into that kind of thing. Anthony Hamil- 
 ton might have done it " 
 
 298
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "If he had, there'd have been more of Anthony Hamil- 
 ton in the book than of Peregrine Janeways," commented 
 Cuckoo. "He ought to write it himself, as Casanova 
 did his. Monsieur Ledru says he is like Casanova, any- 
 how " 
 
 Meantime Janeways' attentions to young Mrs. Loxley 
 were of a highly un-Casanovesque type. 
 
 A lover of beautiful and noble things himself, he as- 
 sumed in her a better taste than she really possessed, and 
 he took her to see, a few at a time, some of the finest 
 pictures in the world, one or two masterpieces of sculpture, 
 and, what she liked better, some of the unspoilt corners of 
 old Paris. 
 
 He took her in his car to all the usual shrines of the 
 imagination in which the environs of the beautiful town 
 so generously abound, and to which she found, a little 
 to her surprise, he reverently bowed his gay old head. 
 
 Versailles, the vulgarization of which was patent even 
 to the inexperienced and unstoried Cuckoo, still held for 
 him the magic he had found in it nearly half a century 
 before, and as they stood looking at the little Trianon his 
 big eyes swam in tears. 
 
 "Poor little queen," he said, quite unashamed of his 
 emotion, "poor little thing !" And for a moment Cuckoo, 
 too, could nearly see through the magic casement that 
 so plainly stood wide open to her companion. 
 
 Malmaison, on the contrary, did not greatly move him. 
 He expressed a polite sympathy for Josephine, but he 
 despised Napoleon as an underbred fellow with no 
 romance in him. 
 
 On one unforgettable golden afternoon Janeways took 
 Cuckoo to a little old convent in a steep street in old 
 Paris. It was a warm day ; Cuckoo wore a new frock that 
 had been made for her as no other frock had ever been, 
 
 299
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 by a great artist, and she looked her highest best. Jane- 
 ways, dressed as he usually was, in blue serge, had a 
 flower in his coat; there was also, obviously, a flower in 
 his heart, and that flower was blossoming furiously as 
 they walked up the steep, cobbled street at the foot of 
 which they had been obliged to leave the car. 
 
 "Sister Marie Seraphine," he explained, as they paused 
 outside a little old church in the square, to get their 
 breath, and looked back over their rugged way, "was the 
 prettiest girl you ever saw in your life, forty years ago. 
 Ah, how long ago it is, forty years ! She lived with her 
 grandmother, and I, a youth, was often at the house. She 
 was fiancee with a young man who adored her and they 
 were to be married in a month, when suddenly she broke 
 the engagement and came here to the convent. Poor 
 Xavier nearly broke his heart he is still alive, and still 
 unmarried and now you will see in the heroine of this 
 real romance, a little old dried-up nun " 
 
 He broke off, looking dreamily down the street, and 
 Cuckoo studied his face in its unconsciousness. That he 
 could be and was, all of a sudden, so innocent of the 
 presence of anyone and anything but his own dream, had 
 always been one of his most attractive qualities, but this 
 she could not know, and it struck her as odd and in a 
 way childlike. 
 
 After a while they resumed their climb, and having 
 waited some minutes at the gate, were admitted into the 
 convent garden. 
 
 At the far end of the sunny, warm enclosure, where a 
 few roses still clung to the bushes and where a great vine 
 on the south wall was still green, lay the old yellow build- 
 ing with its many windows and its big closed door. 
 
 The sister who let them in opened a small door that was 
 cut in the large one, and presently they found themselves 
 in a little austere parlor. Janeways was very grave as 
 
 300
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 he sat by the window, facing the door whence his old 
 friend must come. 
 
 Cuckoo looked round her; the atmosphere of the place 
 made her vaguely uncomfortable; it smlt of soap and 
 damp, and beeswax and shut-in-ness and incense, and all 
 these things together made a combination which she men- 
 tally called a smell of piety. This smell she disliked, and 
 she hated the simian face of the late Pope as it grinned 
 at her in an exasperating rictus from its frame on the 
 wall. 
 
 In the garden behind the house she saw various feminine 
 figures flitting noiselessly about, some of them busy, others 
 walking for their health's sake, but, she saw with a nervous 
 movement of impatience, praying as they walked. 
 
 She wished she had not come ; she wished she could go ; 
 she wished . . . 
 
 Then the door opened and Sister Marie Seraphine came 
 in. 
 
 The Order was not one of the strictest, so she was not 
 behind a grating but sat in a chair opposite her old friend, 
 and talked to him without any particular air of reserve. 
 
 She smiled very kindly at Cuckoo, when Janeways 
 introduced them, and the girl saw that her eyes were full 
 of love and sweetness. 
 
 Janeways and she talked together, speaking so rapidly 
 that Cuckoo could hardly follow them, but presently the 
 nun turned to her and said very slowly, "You are English, 
 Mademoiselle ?" 
 
 "I am English," Cuckoo answered in her indifferent 
 French, "but I am not Mademoiselle." 
 
 "Ah! you must forgive my mistake. It interests me 
 to meet an English lady," the nun went on. "I have 
 never before met one." 
 
 In answer to Cuckoo's surprise she added, with a smile 
 
 301
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of peculiar beauty, "Indeed, Sair Peregrine is the only 
 English person I have ever known." 
 
 When Cuckoo and Janeways again stood outside the 
 high garden wall, he asked her if she had enjoyed her 
 visit. 
 
 "I don't like the the feel of a convent," she returned. 
 "It seemed to be going to take my breath away. But I 
 liked her. She is beautiful." 
 
 "Yes. She was always nearly an angel. I once very 
 nearly fell in love with her, we are just of an age, and 
 did I ever tell you," he broke off, "the story of an old 
 jewel of mine, called the Bag of Saffron?" 
 
 She shook her head. "No." 
 
 He smiled down at her. "I'll tell it to you. Let's 
 sit on that bench outside the church, and I'll tell you. 
 Conte" he added with sudden sadness, "d'un grandpere." 
 They sat down on the bench, and taking off his hat and 
 leaning his head against the dingy wall of the church, he 
 told his story. 
 
 "Once upon a time," he began, "there lived in Genoa, 
 by the sea, an old man who had only one son ; 
 
 Below them stretched the rough street, which, running 
 between high walls, was almost like a village street, and 
 beyond the houses at its foot they could see miles of roofs 
 and a vast pale sky out of which dripped unevenly the 
 golden light that so delicately painted the irregular gabled 
 roofs and the glittering curve that was the river. 
 
 " So the son, whose name has been forgotten," the 
 story went on, "took his bundle and three pieces of gold, 
 like the youths in all the fairy-tales, and crossed the sea, 
 leaving the sun behind him, and came to a chilly, gray 
 island where reigned an old king who wore a red rose in 
 his crown. 
 
 "The young man, who as you know was a goldsmith, 
 went to a great maker of jewels in the king's town and 
 
 302
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 showed him his work, and the old man said, 'By my soul, 
 young stranger, your work is finer than mine. Who are 
 you, and whence come you?' Are you listening, Mrs. 
 Loxley?" 
 
 Cuckoo started. "I am." 
 
 "Good. So the young man said in Italian, 'Son pel- 
 ligrino Genovese,' which means, 'I am a Genoese pilgrim.' ' 
 
 "Now the old goldsmith could not speak Italian, so 
 when he tried to say 'pelligrino Genovese,' he said 'pelli- 
 grin Janeways' " 
 
 "Oh!" Cuckoo turned, her face flashing with interest, 
 "I see. That's " 
 
 "Yes, that's the origin of my name. From Pelligrin 
 it naturally evolved into Peregrine, and ever since the 
 eldest son of my people has been called Peregrine." 
 
 "But who was the old king with the red rose in his 
 crown?" 
 
 "The good King Henry VII. But I really want to 
 tell you the story of the Bag of Saffron. You are not 
 tired of it, are you? There is an old Ligurian legend 
 about saffron, it was said to harm those in whom lay the 
 germ of illness, mental or physical, but to a sound person 
 it was believed to give strength, and a continuance and 
 perfection of his or her goodness. Therefore it follows 
 that it should be worn only by a man who is brave or a 
 woman who is good. Do you see?" 
 
 "Yes. Then you think valor in a man and goodness 
 in a woman are equally necessary things?" 
 
 Janeways looked gravely out over the widespread scene 
 before them, the afternoon light turning his eyes to little 
 pools of gold. "Of course," he said, simply, "a man who 
 is not brave is surely as horrible as a woman who isn't 
 good." 
 
 There was a pause, and then Cuckoo went on slowly, 
 urged by a strong wish to know what he thought, "But - 
 
 303
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 surely you yourself have not you have not done much 
 to help women be good?" 
 
 He did not move, and she saw that he was frowning, 
 not so much angrily as thoughtfully. "I know what you 
 mean, of course," he answered at length, "but you see, 
 you don't exactly see what I mean by goodness." 
 
 "It is obvious that I don't. Won't you tell me?" 
 
 He took her hand and kissed it gently. "My dear," 
 he said, "I am an old man and I love women all of them. 
 I have known a few good ones, but by good I mean some- 
 thing I can't quite explain. Only one thing is really ex- 
 pressible. I mean by the word good something much more 
 than mere physical virtue. I mean, possibly chiefly, kind- 
 ness of mind as well as kindness of heart ; and I mean fair- 
 ness of vision; and forgivingness ah, I mean many 
 things ! 
 
 "But to get back to my story. That first Peregrine 
 Janeways fell in love one day with a girl who was the 
 daughter of a neighbor of his master. And the girl I 
 hope her name was Mary seemed to him so good, so 
 perfect, that he set his mind to finding some gift he could 
 give her. 
 
 "According to his Ligurian legend, saffron was the best 
 of gifts, and saffron he would give the maid he loved. So 
 he bought gold and wrought a little bag, and in the mesh 
 he wove topazes probably because they were cheap 
 and he walked to a garden in the country and picked 
 saffron leaves, and put them into the bag and gave it to 
 his sweetheart " 
 
 "And the bag now hangs on a beautiful diamond chain 
 and you own it, and I have had it in my hands !" 
 
 At Cuckoo's words he turned and stared at her in ludi- 
 crous surprise. 
 
 "What do you mean?" he cried. 
 
 And she told him Tier story: of the day her uncle had 
 
 304
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 bought her a string of pearls, and how the salesman had 
 showed them the odd jewel. When he had expressed his 
 amazement at the curious hazard, he told the rest of the 
 story. 
 
 "It was my great, great grandmother, also, curiously 
 enough, a Genoese, who revived our interest in the little 
 bag, and her husband had the chain made for it. It's a 
 funny little thing, isn't it?" 
 
 "It's delightful. But who wears it, and what did you 
 mean about Sister Marie Seraphine?" 
 
 There was a little pause, and then he answered both 
 questions. 
 
 "Each Janeways each eldest son gives it during his 
 life to some woman. But never, no matter what happens, 
 to more than one. So you see one must be pretty sure 
 about the one woman, and about one's own feelings about 
 her. I was perfectly sure that Marie Aumonier was the 
 best woman I had ever met or ever should meet. It was 
 only of myself that I was not sure." 
 
 "That, of course," Cuckoo said very softly, "was why 
 she went into the convent?" 
 
 "Yes. She told me years after. It's so long ago now 
 that it's like talking of some other man she did love 
 me, and she knew that I was not sure, so she engaged 
 herself to poor Xavier and then, at the last minute " 
 
 "She could not marry him and became a nun." 
 
 After a time Janeways spoke again. "My mother was 
 the last woman round whose neck that chain has hung, 
 and I have no son. When I die I shall have the bag 
 not the chain buried with me." 
 
 Then he rose, gave himself a shake and laughed. "So 
 there is the history of the Bag of Saffron! Come, Mrs. 
 Loxley by the way, what is your name? It can't be 
 Nicky !" 
 
 "Nicoleta. I have Italian blood, too." 
 
 305
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Good. I thought you had. Come, then, Madame 
 Nicoleta, let us get back to our coach " 
 
 Cuckoo did not ask herself why she had not told him 
 who she was, even that Loxley and not Locksley, as he 
 had assumed, was her name. He had sent her flowers 
 addressed to Mrs. Locksley, and thus she knew why he 
 did not associate her with his old acquaintance, the Vicar 
 of Widdybank; and there seemed to her to lie in her in- 
 cognito a safeguard against some as yet undeclared 
 danger. 
 
 That evening she wrote to George, telling him simply 
 that she was visiting the Countess, who was an old friend 
 of Lady Pelter's, and that she had met Sir Peregrine 
 Janeways. "He is," she added, "a charming old 
 thine "
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MARGUERITE LENSKY was a very nice woman 
 in many ways, and despite her little external 
 vulgarities, she had what Cuckoo in self-com- 
 munion called a very decent mind. She had the delicacy 
 of not asking questions, and it was her stopping teasing 
 her young guest about Sir Peregrine Janeways' attentions 
 that first opened Cuckoo's eyes to the fact that the old 
 beau really meant anything beyond a delightful and ro- 
 mantic friendship. At first, all of the little coterie had 
 chaffed her about II Magnifico, and what was worse, some 
 of them had even ventured to chaff her under Janeways' 
 very nose. That organ, however, remained so blandly 
 unconscious of the very possibility of anyone's taking such 
 a liberty with it, that even Lady Vaux soon gave up mak- 
 ing remarks that were meant to pique him. 
 
 One very wet afternoon, the Countess and her guest 
 were sitting in a little smoking-room hung with crimson 
 Florentine brocade, waiting for dressing-time. The 
 Countess, who was very tired, wore an elaborate tea- 
 gown, and Cuckoo felt ashamed of herself for noting that 
 her kind friend's outline under the meager disguise of 
 the tea-gown was, in its uncorseted state, not unlike Aunt 
 Marcia's. The Countess lay on a chaise-longue, smoking 
 and polishing her nails ; Cuckoo sat on the rug by the fire, 
 her head against one of the big easy-chairs. The Count- 
 ess had just finished the story of her own marriage to 
 Paul Lensky and of the inevitable breaking of that more 
 or less sacred tie. 
 
 "He would have cleaned me out," she wound up, "in 
 
 307
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 another two years. My trustees did hate him like poison, 
 but he managed to get money out of them. It was a 
 real gift with him " 
 
 Cuckoo nodded. "So in reality you just paid him off?" 
 
 "I did. I give him a fairly good income now, you 
 know. Poor old Paul; I'm sort of fond of him in spite 
 of everything. He seems to be quite happy trotting about 
 with little .Minnas and Josephines, as he calls them. He 
 came to see me not long ago, and I was real glad to hear 
 his voice. He stayed to dinner and we had a long talk 
 but, my ! I was glad when he went." 
 
 After a minute she added with a good-natured laugh, 
 "And so was he, I suppose! Well, that's my little lot. 
 Now suppose you tell me about your husband, Nicky." 
 
 Cuckoo had for a long time been expecting just this 
 conversation, and she was prepared for it. 
 
 "There's very little to tell," she said ; "he's a delight- 
 ful person, but we shouldn't have married; not enough 
 money, and we're both too nervous. George ought to 
 have married a woman like a feather pillow, and I 
 well, I don't know whom I should have married nobody, 
 if I'd had any money." 
 
 The Countess glanced at her curiously. "Do you really 
 mean that?" she said. "You English women lie so hor- 
 ribly about that kind of thing. Now, as for me, I'm al- 
 ways in love with somebody even now when I'm really 
 far enough to know better, and English women are cer- 
 tainly much more loving than we are. E.ven poor Queenie 
 and everybody knows about her love affairs lies like 
 a whale ; pretends she never cared for anybody but War- 
 renden." 
 
 Cuckoo stared into the fire. "I certainly cared for 
 George," she said slowly, "although, from what I have 
 seen of ether people, I'm not sure that I was in love with 
 him." 
 
 308
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "And you never cared for anybody else?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Well," said the Countess, "I'd rather die in a ilitcK 
 than be like that. I'd like to see your husband. Have 
 you got a picture of him?" 
 
 Cuckoo had, and fetched it from her room. It was a 
 large, well-taken photograph in a leather frame, and the 
 Countess looked at it for a long while in silence. 
 
 "Nice boy he looks," she declared at length. "Young, 
 isn't he?" 
 
 "He's twenty-five." 
 
 "Beautiful eyes; looks a little delicate, doesn't he? 
 Perhaps he's just a little too tame for you, Nicky?" 
 
 Cuckoo reflected. Tame was not exactly the word, 
 but she didn't know how to better it. She would not 
 have minded telling the whole truth to this common, 
 noisy American woman, for the common, noisy American 
 was kind, and sincere, and really sympathetic. But 
 Cuckoo had not learned the whole truth about herself and 
 George, so she took the photograph and put it on the 
 table. 
 
 "He isn't tame," she said, "he's a (dear, really. Some- 
 times I think it's just that I'm not good enough for him." 
 
 The Countess sat up suddenly. 
 
 "Then you don't get on well together?" she cried, with 
 the joy of one who is justified in an intuition. 
 
 "Not very. You see, we're poor, and we're too much 
 together, and we're both nervous and we get on each oth- 
 er's nerves, I think." 
 
 The telephone bell rang in the library close at hand, 
 and the Countess rose to go to it. 
 
 "That's sure to be Juan," she said. "Look here, 
 Nicky," she added, putting her hand on the younger 
 woman's shoulder, and speaking, despite her make-up and 
 her dyed hair, in an earnest, motherly way. "Give your- 
 
 309
 
 self another chance. Don't get too involved with Pelly 
 Janeways, or anyone else. You and George are both 
 young, and after all, marriage does mean something. 
 Perhaps" and her over-red face saddened suddenly 
 "you may have a child some day, and that would make 
 it all right. I believe it would have made things all right 
 even for Paul and me. Oh, damn," she went on suddenly 
 to the telephone bell, as she lumbered across the floor to- 
 wards it. "Do shut up, I'm coming." 
 
 They dined with Janeways that night, in his apparte- 
 ment in the Avenue de Bois. The only other guest was a 
 Greek, who, because his name was Diamantopoulos, was 
 usually known as Mantepop, and the dinner in the quiet, 
 sober, dining-room, served by grave French servants, 
 seemed to Cuckoo an amazing change from the dinners 
 that had of late fallen to her lot. Janeways was a little 
 distrait, and Mantepop, who never had been known to 
 stop talking, carried on his flow of conversation almost 
 uninterruptedly. Janeways had engaged a box at the 
 Folies Bergeres, and after coffee they went on there. 
 Mantepop devoted himself to the Countess, who shrieked 
 with laughter over his whispered tales and called him a 
 sale type, evidently under the impression that this phrase 
 was one of great elegance; and Cuckoo and Janeways, 
 both tired, both for some reason a little out of spirits, 
 hardly spoke to each other. The program was not a 
 particularly exciting one, and Janeways, who was always 
 bored at music-halls, looked as nearly cross as Cuckoo had 
 ever seen him. The evening bade fair to be very dull, but 
 towards its middle an unexpected diversion was the arrival 
 in the box, or, to speak more accurately, the "pen" in 
 which Janeways and his party were sitting, of two men 
 and two ladies. They came in very quietly, and Cuckoo, 
 who was sitting with her back to the box, didn't notice 
 them. But after a while she straightened in her chair 
 
 310
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and listened. It was Bertie Fabricius' voice speaking be- 
 hind her, and Bertie Fabricius had not yet seen her or 
 her companions, for he was seated with his back to their 
 box, thus facing the stage. At that moment Janeways, 
 who had gone to speak to some friend, made his way back 
 towards his place, and one of the ladies with Fabricius 
 asked who he was. 
 
 "Oh, that's Janeways, the chap they call The Magnifi- 
 cent," Bertie explained, as Janeways came quietly into 
 the box and sat down almost behind him. "You must have 
 heard of him, Mrs. Grant." Mrs. Grant craned her neck 
 and looked off to the left. 
 
 "Of course, I have heard of him where's he gone? 
 Has he run away with anybody lately?" 
 
 Cuckoo, leaning back, could feel Janeways' breath on 
 her shoulders, so closely were they packed in the tiny 
 place. Fabricius laughed, of course in perfect ignorance 
 of the fact that Janeways, by stretching out his hand, 
 could have touched him. 
 
 "I don't know," he said; "he's not so much in the 
 public eye as he used to be. He's a most delightful fellow. 
 He must be getting on, you know, and you can't expect 
 the man to go on coveting his neighbor's wife for ever." 
 
 "It must be horrid," Mrs. Grant returned in a perfectly 
 kind voice, "for a man of that type to grow old. I've 
 often thought how dreadful it must be for very beautiful 
 women of the corresponding kind, when they begin to 
 lose their charm and power, but for a man it must be 
 almost worse. I remember when I was a girl hearing 
 my mother talk about Pelly Janeways, as she called him. 
 She was devoted to him and never would hear a word 
 against him. I believe he has hosts of friends." 
 
 Bertie shrugged his shoulders, and Cuckoo knew from 
 his voice that he was annoyed. "Oh, yes, he was always 
 a popular man, to give the devil his due; but the funny 
 
 311
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 part is that of all the women he has ill-treated and there 
 must have been hundreds not one has ever made real 
 trouble for him, and nearly all of them have remained 
 his friends. What a very dull show this is !" 
 
 After a minute Mrs. Grant went on. "If we should 
 chance to meet him as we go out, do introduce him to me, 
 Sir Hubert." 
 
 Cuckoo started. If Bertie were Sir Hubert, poor old 
 Uncle Adolph must be gone, and it was only a few weeks 
 since she had seen him following his wife to the car that 
 night. Bertie, she reflected angrily, had not lost much 
 time in mourning. And then came the thought that if 
 Fabricius had married her she would have been rich now 
 enormously rich. By leaning back she could catch a 
 glimpse of her cousin's right profile as he bent towards 
 pretty, fluffy Mrs. Grant. The two years had not im- 
 proved him. The back of his neck was very red and 
 bulged over the top of his collar. Cuckoo noticed it, but 
 knew it would have made no difference to her. .With all 
 her soul she wished she had married him. 
 
 Sir Peregrine had not spoken since coming into the box, 
 and she knew that, whereas it might have amused some 
 men to embarrass the neighboring chatterers, he, with his 
 old-fashioned courtesy, would be distressed if they should 
 find out that he was there; so she took his lead and re- 
 mained silent, and it may be doubted whether even Jane- 
 ways ever knew how much depended on Mrs. Grant's next 
 remark. 
 
 "By the way, how old must Felly Janeways be nearly 
 seventy, isn't he?" 
 
 Cuckoo heard Peregrine Janeways draw himself up be- 
 hind her and, urged by a simple and absolutely innocent 
 impulse of sympathy, she reached her hand towards him. 
 He took it in his for a moment, and ground her fingers 
 together in a grip that hurt. 
 
 312
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "No," Fabricius said indifferently, as the lights went 
 up and he directed his glasses on somebody on the other 
 side of the box. "He can't be that old, but he's well over 
 sixty. His career as Don Juan must be about over. I 
 wonder if he realizes," the younger man went on, "that 
 he's a back number?" 
 
 Cuckoo felt her hand gently released, and the next sec- 
 ond the door of th*e box clicked and Janeways had gone. 
 A few minutes later, during an interval, he came in, rather 
 noisily, and said to .Cuckoo: 
 
 "Excuse me, dear Donna Nicoleta, for having left you. 
 I hope you haven't been bored?" Cuckoo knew that 
 Bertie had heard his voice, and that when she spoke he 
 must recognize hers ; and she was not above giving a be- 
 lated dig at the man who had abused her before his 
 mother's butler. 
 
 "I haven't been bored at all, Sir Peregrine," she said; 
 "in fact, I've something rather amusing to tell you." 
 
 Janeways sat down. 
 
 The guilty pair in the next box sat very still, waiting. 
 The game was in Sir Peregrine's hands, and nobly and 
 deftly he played it. Leaning behind Cuckoo he tapped 
 his neighbor on the back. 
 
 "Surely that's you, Fabricius?" he said cordially. 
 "How are you, my dear fellow?" He had never called 
 Bertie Fab "my dear fellow" before in his life, and Bertie 
 Fab knew it. The two men shook hands, and then Jane- 
 ways was introduced to Mrs. Grant, who, dreadfully con- 
 fused and remorseful, was quite pretty enough to reward 
 his generosity in going into her box for a moment. While 
 they talked Bertie found courage to turn to his cousin. 
 
 "Look here, Cuckoo," he said, without any prelimin- 
 aries, "you surely wouldn't be such a beast as to tell 
 him?" 
 
 "Tell him what?" Cuckoo asked innocently. 
 
 313
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Oh, what we were saying while he was out of the box." 
 
 "He wasn't out of the box." 
 
 "Do you mean he heard?" 
 
 "Every word, my dear cousin." 
 
 Bertie was visibly shaken. 
 
 "By Jove!" he muttered. 
 
 "Did you get my letter ?" he went on after a second. "I 
 sent it to the bank because I didn't know your address." 
 
 "Your letter? No." 
 
 Bertie lowered his voice. 
 
 "My poor father died on the eighteenth of this month, 
 and just before the end he asked me to give you a mes- 
 sage." 
 
 "Oh, Bertie," she burst out, "I am so sorry ; really and 
 truly sorry. The eighteenth the last day I was in town. 
 I did love him, you know." 
 
 "I believe you did and he was very fond of you. He 
 never got over that that business. But he never said one 
 word against you, Nicky. Where are you staying? Can 
 I come and see you?" 
 
 She was about to say yes, and then she realized how 
 little she wished any conversation about her to take place 
 between her cousin and Janeways. 
 
 "I don't think there would be any good in your coming 
 to see me. My husband is in Cyprus and I am visiting 
 the Countess Lensky for a few weeks. Can't you tell me 
 now what the message is?" 
 
 "AH right, just as you like. It was only to give you 
 his love and to say that he hoped you would be happy, 
 and something about something you returned to him 
 that he knew it was not your fault. I think that's what 
 he meant ; that he knew it wasn't your fault." 
 
 "I see. I'm glad he said that. Thank you for telling 
 me." Then she said in a lower voice, "I'm very tired. 
 I'm going to ask the Countess if she'd mind going home." 
 
 314
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Bertie looked at her. He was wondering wherein had 
 lain her enormous charm for him, and she could see him 
 wondering. 
 
 "How's Aunt Marcia?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, she's fairly fit, although the shock was very great. 
 I'm taking her down to Hyeres to-morrow. That's why 
 I'm here. Oh, Cuckoo, I forgot to tell you father left 
 you five hundred pounds." 
 
 She gave a little gasp. "Oh, Bertie, how kind of him !" 
 
 "Yes. He saw Loxley not long ago and thought he 
 looked very seedy, and I think he had an idea that you 
 might like to get him to a good climate " 
 
 At this juncture Janeways rose, and shaking hands with 
 Mrs. Grant and the other woman in her party, came back 
 to his own box. He had heard Cuckoo talking to Fabri- 
 cius, but had not caught any of their words, and when 
 the Countess, who really had a headache, suggested to 
 him that they might as well go now before the general 
 exodus, he bowed gravely and they made their way out 
 to where his car was waiting for them. 
 
 "You must come back with me," he said, "and I'll 
 make you some real Turkish coffee. It's only a little 
 after eleven " 
 
 For some reason Cuckoo had, at his words, a sudden 
 extremely clear vision of Aunt Flora and Aunt Effie 
 going up their narrow stairs at Roseroofs at sharp ten 
 o'clock, each with her bedroom candle lighted in her hand. 
 
 Janeways made the coffee himself over a little lamp on 
 a beaten brass tray in his big library, Cuckoo sitting by 
 him, while Marguerite and the still steadily talking Man- 
 tepop sat on a distant sofa, where, she said, the light 
 would not hurt her eyes. Janeways had given her aspirin, 
 and she lay back very comfortably, not even listening 
 to the unceasing sound of her companion's words. That 
 
 315
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 was the beauty of Mantepop one didn't Have to listen 
 to him. 
 
 Janeways, Cuckoo saw, was pale, and the lines from 
 his nose to the corners of his mouth seemed deeper. 
 It was clear, in a way pathetically clear, that the con- 
 versation in the next box had hurt him. Cuckoo was 
 sincerely sorry for him; for all his age and vast experi- 
 ence, he reminded her, as he carefully stirred his coffee 
 after damping it with a little rose-water, of a hurt child. 
 
 "Wasn't it funny," she said, with an apparent lack of 
 tact that covered a really kindly impulse, "Bertie Fab- 
 ricius talking such nonsense?" 
 
 He bent over the smoking brass pot until she could 
 only see his beautiful white hair. Then he looked slowly 
 up at her through the steam, and his eyes were full of 
 anguished questioning. 
 
 "Would anybody," he asked, "really take me for sev- 
 enty?" 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "Never! I'm a fairly good guesser 
 of ages, and I never would have taken you for more than 
 fifty." 
 
 His face cleared a little. 
 
 "Honor bright ?" he asked. 
 
 "Honor bright." 
 
 "But you, you see," he said mournfully, "you are 
 clever. You don't judge me entirely by my hair, as most 
 people judge their fellow-creatures." 
 
 "No," she said cheerfully. "I think I judge you more 
 by the way you move and then by your hands " 
 
 He held one of his hands up, and looked at it critically. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "It's certainly not the hand of a back 
 number " 
 
 He took Cuckoo's hand, and, hid from the others as 
 they were by the projecting corner of a splendid Coro- 
 mandel screen, kissed it. It seemed to her afterwards, 
 
 316
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 looking back on that moment, as if his kiss had begun as 
 one of simple gratitude and friendship, but it ended dif- 
 ferently. 
 
 Suddenly he drew her to him, took her in his arms, and 
 kissed her. 
 
 "I love you," he said hoarsely, "my little red-lipped 
 Nicoleta, I love you."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 PEREGRINE JANEWAYS was a perfectly honest 
 man, not only did he never try to deceive others, 
 but he never attempted the far more usual and sub- 
 tle form of deceit of trying to deceive himself. 
 
 Therefore, the day after his declaration to Nicoleta 
 Locksley, as he called her, he sat down in his study and 
 deliberately and honestly thought things out. He had 
 made his declaration, spurred not only by the feeling that 
 for days had been growing within him, but also and even 
 more, by the shock he had sustained in hearing little Mrs. 
 Grant suggest that he must be seventy. He had never 
 condescended to the absurdity of trying to be younger 
 than he was, but he had to the full realized that he was, 
 so to speak, younger than he was. In no way but the 
 whitening of his abundant hair had the approach of age 
 manifested itself in him; his eyes were as bright as ever, 
 his teeth were perfect, his immense physical strength 
 practically unimpaired. 
 
 And what meant, in reality, more than these things, 
 his mental vitality was as remarkable as ever. He could 
 learn things by heart as easily as he had done in his child- 
 hood; his memory was excellent; his interest in people 
 and in events as keen as it had been in his twenties. 
 
 He had not been vain of these remarkable advantages, 
 for they had always been his as much as had his faculty 
 of indefatigability, or the iron strength of his hands; 
 but he had been aware of them, and unconsciously he had 
 expected other people to be aware of them as well. 
 
 Every human being inclines to regard his or her self 
 
 318
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 mpre or less as an exception from the general run of 
 humanity, but Janeways was in truth an exception and 
 had always known it. 
 
 And now this fat Fabricius fellow, bloated and coars- 
 ened and degenerated by drink and other excesses, this 
 man just over forty, whom he, Janeways, could undoubt- 
 edly double up and throw downstairs if he wished to, had 
 relegated him to the category of worn-out old men; to 
 the class of men whose life lies behind them, while they 
 accumulate dust and cobwebs on the shelf whence they 
 will descend only to exchange it for the hardly duller 
 grave ! 
 
 Never in his life had he had such a blow,, and in the very 
 tremor of anger that the blow roused in him had he re- 
 ceived his unmistakable sign that he was an old man. Not 
 so would his blood have shaken his heart a few years ago ; 
 not so would his breath have failed him. He remembered 
 the sensation almost of giddiness that had beset him as he 
 walked up and down the foyer after his unheard exit from 
 the box. He had had to wipe his brow, he recollected, 
 and he had seen his own hands tremble. 
 
 These manifestations were the manifestations of the old 
 age of a man, who, though he had been able a few minutes 
 later to go back into the box, speak to his traducer, and 
 carry the whole thing off with a high manner, had yet 
 had to make a tremendous effort to do it ! 
 
 And this fact, he saw clearly, proved that the objec- 
 tionable and out-of-condition Bertie Fabricius had not 
 been his traducer after all. Bertie Fabricius had been his 
 illuminator, his elucidator, his mirror, all at once. 
 
 It rained, as it had rained the day before, and Jane- 
 ways sat in his pleasant, firelit study all the afternoon, 
 wounded to the soul, hurt as he had never been hurt, in 
 his vanity, his pride of manhood, even in his pride of 
 intellect, for had not his failing to recognize what was so 
 
 319
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 clear to that ass Fabricius been a sign that his brain had 
 indeed lost something of its vigor? 
 
 Giulio, his valet, a small, dark, surly Italian, who rarely 
 spoke but always saw, twice came into the room on some 
 pretext, and looked at his master with eyes of anxiety. 
 
 "Is the Signore well?" he asked the second time. 
 
 Janeways' gloom softened a little as he looked at the 
 surly little fellow. 
 
 "No, Giulio," he answered sadly. "Not well. Fve 
 been" he tapped his broad chest "Mi duole U 
 cuore " 
 
 Englishman as he regarded himself, he could not have 
 said in English that his heart ached, but to this Italian it 
 came natural to him to say it in Italian. 
 
 Giulio nodded. "Courage," he said, "it is only that 
 we are not, you and I, sir, as young as we once were " 
 
 So, then, the little dried-up servant had had more sense 
 than his master. Giulio had known that they were grow- 
 ing old, the pair of them, while he, Janeways, had over- 
 looked his age as a trifling matter! 
 
 "Yes, Giulio" he said, after a pause, "that is it, and 
 I don't like it. Accidente," he broke out in sudden anger, 
 "I don't want to grow old. I've been young all my life !" 
 
 Giulio nodded. "The signore," he declared, with a 
 respectful confidence that is characteristic of the best 
 class of Italian servants, "should have grown children 
 masculines and feminines. One of his feminines could 
 be a grandmother herself, these days when they marry 
 young then il signore would not have to sit alone on a 
 day of rain, and dream without profit " 
 
 Janeways stared at him for a moment. Not only a 
 grandfather might he be, but a great-grandfather! 
 
 Giulio watched him with patient, loving eyes. 
 
 Suddenly Janeways burst into a gale of laughter that 
 literally shook him as a gale of wind shakes a tree. 
 
 320
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Giulio's idea of comfort struck him as very absurd, but 
 his own dismay at the realization of his potential great- 
 grandfatherhood was funnier still. 
 
 He lay back in his chair and laughed until his eyes were 
 wet. 
 
 "You are right, mascalzone," he cried, at last, "I am 
 old, old, old! My great-grandchildren might indeed be 
 crawling round me there on the carpet behind you they 
 might be " 
 
 Giulio turned seriously and glanced down, as if he ex- 
 pected to see little ghosts sporting in the firelight, and 
 then Janeways dismissed him with a friendly word, and 
 was alone. 
 
 He felt better for his laugh, for the first shock of his 
 awful discovery was over and, like all resolutely faced 
 troubles, it dwindled as he looked at it. Bon! he was 
 an old man. But and vanity rushed, in its pleasant and 
 endearing way, to the rescue he was of all old men, the 
 strongest and most vigorous. 
 
 What other man of his age, he reflected, rising and walk- 
 ing up and down the room, could have felt as young as he 
 did last night when he kissed Nicoleta Loxley! 
 
 She, it was plain, did not think him old. How she had 
 blushed ! 
 
 It was true that Cuckoo had blushed, but it was not 
 altogether, if at all, through emotion. It was vanity that 
 brought the color so violently to her face! The great 
 Pelly Janeways loved her, and she triumphed in the 
 thought. Up to that moment she had seen in his devo- 
 tion nothing more than a pleasant event in her life, but 
 as he kissed her there stirred in her the germ of an idea 
 that was destined to grow with amazing rapidity. 
 
 For his part he had kissed her partly out of gratitude 
 for her belief in his youth, partly out of the sincere though 
 
 321
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ephemeral passion that was still strong in him, and partly 
 to demonstrate to himself that Fabricius was an ass. 
 
 These motives he acknowledged to himself with his cus- 
 tomary honesty, as he walked up and down in his dark- 
 ening room. 
 
 Until that evening Cuckoo had seemed to him almost a 
 child; a child with a peculiarly subtle, caviar-to-the- 
 general kind of charm. He had been a little in love with 
 her, but no idea of loving her seriously had entered his 
 head. She was one of the numerous young wives with 
 invisible and obviously unsatisfactory husbands, who 
 never seem to deny themselves the gratification of any 
 desultory emotions that come their way, and he had liked 
 her and had not regarded her as a possible victim any 
 more than he regarded her as a possible victimizer. He 
 himself had never been a flirt; flirting he regarded as a 
 peculiarly unpleasant and ignoble amusement. He was 
 a Lover, not a player at love, and he despised those who 
 did play at it. 
 
 For women who encouraged men to lose their heads 
 and then turned on them and rended them, he had ugly 
 words, and feigning any emotion honestly seemed to him 
 an utterly abominable thing. His code of morals was pe- 
 culiar, but he was sincere in his devotion to it. 
 
 As he walked about, the telephone-bell rang, and he 
 seated himself at the table where it stood. It was a 
 woman's voice, which at first he didn't recognize, asking 
 if he was at home. 
 
 "Who shall I say wishes to speak to Sir Peregrine 
 Janeways?" he asked. 
 
 "Mrs. Loxley." Cuckoo's voice sounded very nervous 
 and strained. There was in it more emotion than he had 
 ever heard in it, and to his amazement she had rung up to 
 ask him to drive her out into the country somewhere to 
 dinner. 
 
 322
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 'Til take you with pleasure," he returned, "but you 
 know it's pouring." 
 
 "I don't care. I want to get out of Paris for a few 
 hours, and I don't care whether I get wet or not. Couldn't 
 we have dinner at one of those little restaurants you spoke 
 of the other night ? And, if you don't mind, I'll come for 
 you. I'll come in a fiacre. Will you have the car at the 
 door, for of course I can't go up " 
 
 Janeways, who had always been a very abstemious man, 
 rang for a brandy-and-soda. He would never again allow 
 himself to forget that he was nearly sixty-two years old. 
 People like Fabricius should never again have a chance 
 of jeering at him for his assumption of youth but he 
 was not old as he made his arrangements by telephone 
 for dining at a little restaurant on the way to Fontaine- 
 bleau. He was a man, amongst other qualities, of ex- 
 treme mental delicacy. He wouldn't, for instance, take a 
 woman whom he liked and respected to dine where he 
 had formerly taken a woman whom he had liked but had 
 not respected. There were, scattered about the world, 
 some dozens of spots, village inn or isolated house, each 
 of which was to his memory a half-forgotten but undese- 
 crated little shrine. Since a woman he had once loved had 
 died in Dresden, he had never set foot in the town; and 
 there was a remote cottage in Cornwall where he did go 
 very semi-occasionally and where he always went alone, 
 and whence he came with a beautiful look of reverence on 
 his fine face. So he hesitated for some time before decid- 
 ing on a restaurant for Cuckoo. 
 
 Les Terrasses was a delightful place, and the cook was a 
 personal friend of his, but to Les Terrasses he had not 
 very long ago pilgrimaged with a very delightful and witty 
 lady to whom he would not for the world have introduced 
 the little Nicoleta. So Les Terrasses was out of the 
 question. A little further on there was an old farmhouse 
 
 323
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 where the woman made a wonderful omelette in a wonder- 
 ful old kitchen, but the last time he had been there some 
 years before he had been accompanied by a poor creature 
 of whose all-too-lasting affection he had proved miserably 
 unworthy, so that farm must remain sacred to her. 
 Presently, however, he remembered a little restaurant 
 on the Fontainebleau road where he had once been with 
 a party that had neither sanctified nor desecrated it. 
 Hither he would take Nicoleta. He ordered his car, wrote 
 one or two notes, and sat down to wait. 
 
 Cuckoo, despite the very unusual frame of mind she 
 was in, had no idea of precipitating matters by talking 
 about them. So she told Marguerite Lensky that she was 
 going to dine with her aunt, Lady Fabricius, at Meurice's ; 
 and that she was to go to the station to see her and her 
 son off for the South afterwards. 
 
 When the fiacre stopped at the big white house in the 
 Avenue de Bois, Janeways' big gray touring car, with its 
 hood up, already stood there, and when he saw her, Jane- 
 ways' chauffeur approached the window. 
 
 "You are the lady who has come for Sir Peregrine 
 Janeways? I am to ring the lift-bell and he will come 
 down at once " 
 
 Cuckoo, who had been trembling with rage and desire 
 for revenge for hours, felt her liking for Janeways kindle 
 into something more vital as he came down the steps. 
 He looked so big, so sure of himself, so far above the 
 miserable jangle of nerves that made George Loxley so 
 difficult to live with. He settled her in the car, put a 
 hot-water bottle to her feet, poked a red leather cushion 
 behind her, got in himself, and off they started. 
 
 Cuckoo didn't explain why she had telephoned him, nor 
 make any of the usual apologies, for the reason that these 
 things didn't seem worth while, and he for his part asked 
 no questions, but they were very glad to be together; 
 
 324
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 each was to the other an antidote to a miserable poison ; 
 and each liked the other the more because the other was 
 so eminently likeable. 
 
 There was a blaze of color in Cuckoo's irregular little 
 face and her tear-washed eyes were brilliant. Janeways 
 could have kissed her feet in gratitude for the feeling she 
 roused in him. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "it is good to be with you." 
 
 She looked at him with a penetrating expression. "It 
 is good to be with /ow," she said. "I have been so angry 
 so angry, and I knew at once that only you could help 
 me." 
 
 "Tell me how can I help you ?" 
 
 "Only just by being you. You are so sure and so 
 resolute and so sincere." 
 
 These were odd characteristics for a young woman to 
 pick out to praise in any man who had told her he loved 
 her. The choice appealed to Janeways; although love 
 in its various manifestations could never lose its charm 
 for him, he had been surfeited at last; a little overfed 
 with expressions both of uncontrollable passion and the 
 momentary, delightful sweetness that almost invariably 
 changes into insipidity. This little thing was reasoning; 
 she was making definite use of him in her mental need, and 
 this for some reason he liked. 
 
 The big car ran smoothly along through the rain and 
 Janeways, though he did not forget that he was an old 
 man, realized that only outsiders people who didn't 
 know could doubt his wonderful youth. 
 
 They dined, despite the rain, in a little arbor of un- 
 barked logs, looking over what would have been a ditch 
 anywhere else, but which, in the curious, cultivated atmo- 
 sphere of artificiality that prevails in establishments of 
 the kind in France, had taken on the charms of a wild 
 and unfathomable ravine. 
 
 325
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 The rain had stopped, and the smell of fresh, clean 
 pine needles came down to them from the cluster of pine 
 trees round and under which the garden was made. The 
 idea of dining outside at the end of November pleased 
 Cuckoo, and Janeways, to his own gratification, had ar- 
 rived at the point with greater suddenness than he was 
 used to but quite as conclusively, that it didn't matter 
 to him where he was as long as Nicoleta was there too. 
 Their dinner was excellent and they drank champagne, 
 which Cuckoo loved as a debutante loves it, not only in a 
 gustatory, but also in a symbolic way. Champagne to her 
 meant high festival with undeniable dissipation thrown 
 in; it also meant forgetfulness of unpleasant, and a rosy 
 appreciation of pleasant, things. 
 
 At last, as they drank their coffee, she told him the 
 story of her day. 
 
 "I've had a letter," she said, "from my husband he's 
 in Cyprus ordering me to go back to England." 
 
 "Well? Why shouldn't you? You'd be in London, of 
 course ?" 
 
 "Should I? I'd be," she declared, with intense bitter- 
 ness, "buried in the depths of the country with two old 
 women and not a single neighbor." 
 
 "Why does your husband want you to go to such an 
 impossible place? Doesn't he like Marguerite Lensky? 
 Marguerite is a thoroughly good sort and much better 
 than many who criticize her manners." 
 
 "Oh, it isn't that. He doesn't know her. He thinks 
 it isn't right that a young woman should be in Paris with- 
 out her husband." 
 
 At the fierceness of the sneer in her voice, Janeways 
 looked at her sharply. 
 
 "Who is he? What is he? Tell me about him." 
 
 "He's a painter he paints rather badly. He's a 
 very nice man," she added, with unwilling, but very effec- 
 
 326
 
 'You must come," he said, "my little Nicoleta."
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 tive justice. "He's furious because I came here. Such 
 & letter !" 
 
 Sir Peregrine naturally felt the unholy joy that any 
 man in his position would have felt. But he, too, had a 
 sense of justice. 
 
 "Why did he go to Cyprus and leave, you?" he asked. 
 
 Cuckoo groaned. "Oh, to earn money. I made him 
 go." She sat in the corner of the little arbor, Janeways 
 on her right. To all intents and purposes they were quite 
 alone, and the wind in the pine trees made a soft, sylvan 
 accompaniment to their voices. 
 
 "You see," Cuckoo went on, as Janeways took her hand 
 and kissed it, "I had a string of pearls given to me by my 
 uncle." 
 
 "Who was your uncle?" he interrupted. 
 
 "He's dead. And when I couldn't stand things any 
 more, I sold the pearls, and that was the money that 
 brought me here. George says that it was an outrageous 
 thing to do; but the pearls were mine, and came from 
 my uncle, and I don't see it was any of his business." 
 
 Janeways didn't answer, for the reason tHat he did 
 think it her husband's business if his wife, without telling 
 him, sold her jewels. He was in love with Cuckoo he 
 was growing more in love with her every moment, but 
 his love was not so spontaneous or so irresistible as to 
 destroy, as it might have done a few years before, his 
 sense of proportion and truth. He was, although he only 
 half knew it, encouraging himself to be recklessly in love 
 with this strange, unbeautiful, fascinating little woman. 
 As he did not know what to say about the pearls, he played 
 the trump card of lovers. He kissed her, and then, quite 
 beautifully and naturally, he lost his head and made vio- 
 lent love to her. He meant every word he said, just as 
 he had always meant every word he said. He did feel 
 that the only thing to be done was for her to come away 
 
 327
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 with him; he was sure and this he had a good reason 
 for that he could make her happy. He had made many 
 and many a woman happy, and he knew just how to do it. 
 
 Cuckoo did not lose her head, though he saw that she 
 was very much stirred by his sincere passion; and the 
 fact that her brain, although a brain of no particular 
 weight or profundity, was so well balanced added vastly 
 to her charm for him. 
 
 "I can't decide anything to-night," she said at last. 
 "It's all so horribly sudden, and if George hadn't been so 
 idiotic about the pearls I probably shouldn't have felt like 
 this at all." 
 
 "Then you do feel like this?" 
 
 Cuckoo looked at him levelly. 
 
 "I am not sure," she said, with her marvelous instinct 
 for knowing how to manage him, "that I love you at all, 
 but I hate my husband, and you are good and kind to me, 
 and well, every woman likes to be loved." 
 
 That was the utmost satisfaction she would give him, 
 and as they drove back she sat quite quietly, staring out 
 into the dark, while he beside her had utterly forgotten 
 his preoccupation about his age and his youth; his heart 
 was thumping in his big chest; he was as much in love 
 as he had been any time in the last twenty years. 
 
 Cuckoo's anger with George was so sincere, so virulent, 
 that she was by this time almost too tired to think, and 
 when at last the car stopped at the Countess's apartment, 
 she sat still for a moment while Janeways leaned on the 
 side of the car. 
 
 "Trust me," he said. "I'll take you to India, Italy 
 anywhere you like. I'll be very good to you." 
 
 She leaned towards him, her exhausted little face very 
 white in the arc-light overhead. 
 
 "It all seems like a dream," she said slowly. "Per- 
 haps it is one. I'll have to think, you know. I'm so 
 
 328
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 alone; I haven't any relations except a couple of old 
 aunts who can't live long, so my life is my own as far as 
 that's concerned. But it seems a dreadful thing to do." 
 
 It was raining again and the street was, fortunately, 
 quite deserted. Janeways' face was very white. He 
 looked supremely handsome. 
 
 "You must come," he said, "my little Nicoleta." 
 
 Taking off his hat, he leaned towards her. 
 
 "Kiss me." 
 
 A man passed them, struggling with his umbrella for 
 the wind had come up, and Janeways started back. She 
 had kissed him and he was very happy ; they shook hands 
 and she went in to the brightly lit hall. 
 
 The Countess was out, for it was almost eleven o'clock, 
 and Cuckoo went straight to her room. She was almost 
 asleep when a knock came at her door and a note was 
 brought to her. 
 
 DEAR CUCKOO [the note said], 
 
 Happening to pass the Countess Lensky's house just now, it 
 was my misfortune to see you parting from that old scoundrel 
 Janeways. I thought last night that something was up and 
 now I know. It is no business of mine, but someone is sure to 
 tell Loxley, so this is just to give you a friendly warning. The 
 five hundred pounds my father left you will be sent to your 
 bank in the course of a day or two. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 HUBERT FABRICIUS. 
 
 Cuckoo read the note two or three times, and then 
 put it away in her writing-case. She knew Bertie well 
 enough to realize that although he might mean not to 
 tell what he had seen, he was certain at some time or 
 other to let it slip out. So her answer to Janeways was 
 pretty well decided before she went to sleep. 
 
 329
 
 PART III 
 
 Two Years and a Half Pass
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 TARRING-PEVERELL stood on a long, slanting 
 stretch of ground that, spreading between the up- 
 lands and the dale, was sheltered to the north and 
 east by abrupt heights, and more closely wooded round 
 than was usual in that part of Yorkshire. 
 
 The house itself looked as if it had been carried up 
 from the south and planted there in the moorland as an 
 architectural example by some god of ornate taste. 
 Instead of being like its neighbors, a sober rectangular 
 gray stone building, it was an almost perfect specimen of 
 the Palladian. 
 
 One of Janeways' idiosyncrasies being never to allow 
 anything he owned to get out of repair or even to degen- 
 erate into superficial shabbiness, the house was always 
 dazzling in its whiteness and shone through the trees rather 
 like a huge bride-cake. There were, moreover, very large 
 and beautiful gardens, and even when its owner stayed 
 away for three or four years at a time the staff of garden- 
 ers was never diminished. 
 
 The present Peregrine Janeways' grandfather, an 
 enthusiastic and scientific horticulturist, had spent an 
 incredible sum of money on the gardens, and the park 
 boasted a great number of rare trees, both foreign and 
 native. This old Sir Peregrine had also caused walls to 
 be built, some of them twelve or fifteen feet high, to break 
 the onrush of the keen northern winds. At the foot of 
 what was known as the Marble Terrace, an expensive ca- 
 price of the Janeways of Charles I's day, the gardening 
 Janeways had made a sunken garden, from whose mellow 
 
 333
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 3epths rose on all sides broad, shallow steps of tKe same 
 marble as the Terrace. Here grew the famous Tarring- 
 Peverell roses, and there was a saying in the countryside 
 that under the marble steps ran a cunning series of hot 
 pipes that tempered the air always, even in the depths of 
 winter. 
 
 In the center of the sunken garden was a little fountain 
 with a very beautiful Cupid who stood with drooping 
 wings, bending over the bubbling water as if about to 
 drink from it. What seemed miles of herbaceous borders 
 stretched in all directions for more than twenty acres of 
 garden-land, and in one of the greenhouses there grew, 
 in a deep basin, pink lotus flowers from the Summer Pal- 
 ace near Pekin. 
 
 The original Janeways, whose story the present man 
 had told Cuckoo Loxley that evening in Paris, had had 
 a shop in Cheapside, so the story went, and for several 
 generations his descendants had been nothing more than 
 clever goldsmiths. But gradually they had risen in the 
 world and had evolved not only into fine artists but, what 
 was far more important for the well-being of their future 
 garden in Yorkshire, extremely astute business men. 
 
 Their baronetcy dated almost from the very first batch 
 of James I., and henceforth they were, as a family, im- 
 portant, not only through their wealth which grew without 
 ceasing and which, oddly enough, never underwent any 
 marked fluctuations because of the various wars in which 
 they took different sides, but also because of a certain 
 very pronounced though indescribable charm which they 
 possessed, almost to a man. They made great marriages, 
 they made enormously wealthy marriages, and whenever 
 one wished to do so, he married a woman of no birth and 
 of no money. A star must have danced when the first 
 Janeways was born, so almost unbrokenly fortunate had 
 their line been. But now their line was on the point of 
 
 334
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 extinction, and two people who, one evening in June, stood 
 outside the drawing-room window on the top of the first 
 flight of marble steps of which the beautiful Italian Ter- 
 race was composed, were thinking of this unfortunate fact. 
 It was a beautiful evening and the sun was still high in the 
 heavens, so that the old house almost glittered against 
 its background of trees. Far down below in the valley, 
 the little river glittered back at it, and a church-bell was 
 ringing half a mile or so away. 
 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora Flues, both arrayed in un- 
 usual splendor, stood looking off to the westward, for 
 over there towards the setting sun lay Roseroofs, and 
 the two old ladies, unused to being from home, were a 
 little homesick, though neither would for worlds have 
 said so to the other. 
 
 "It is all very splendid, Flora," Miss Effie said, her 
 eyes resting on a little statue of a running girl, who, 
 to her, seemed insufficiently clothed. "I've never seen 
 such a beautiful house." 
 
 Miss Flora nodded. "Aye, Effie. It would be a great 
 pity if the name died out." 
 
 Miss Effie thought Miss Flora rather indelicate to make 
 such a speech under the circumstances. 
 
 "It's odd," Miss Flora went on, "that he never had 
 any children, considering that he has been married twice 
 before." 
 
 They walked slowly along, past the drawing-room 
 windows, which were open and in which lace curtains 
 of a delicacy and softness unequaled by any they had 
 ever seen swung gently in the breeze, and went down 
 the steps to the side towards the sunken garden. There 
 was a vastness about Tarring-Peverell in which the two 
 little old ladies felt a little lost, perhaps a little chilly. 
 They were used to less wide spaces, to protective corners, 
 and the sunny pit that was the sunken garden seemed to 
 
 335
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 offer them, and to hold them in, a kind of warm embrace. 
 
 They sat down on the steps opposite those by which 
 they had come, their backs to the West, and went on 
 with their talk. 
 
 "I'm glad Lady Pelter's here, and Rachel," Miss Effie 
 remarked, "it takes the edge off somehow." 
 
 "Yes, it does," agreed Miss Flora. "The world is 
 changed since our day, Effie. No one seems to mind any- 
 thing any more." 
 
 They looked mournfully at each other, their frosty 
 reserve melting a little towards each other in their un- 
 avowed isolation. 
 
 Miss Flora and Miss Effie had aged considerably in 
 the two years and a half that had passed since Cuckoo's 
 last visit to Roseroofs. Anyone who had thought it im- 
 possible at that time for Miss Flora to grow thinner 
 would have been obliged to recant had he seen her that 
 evening in the rose-garden in a delicate lavender frock 
 which had been made for her and was not a Tad (Lady 
 Janeways did not believe in Tads), and Miss Flora's deep- 
 violet eyes looked almost black in the ethereal whiteness 
 of her face. 
 
 Miss Effie probably weighed to an ounce what she had 
 weighed then. She had, or she looked as if she had, hard- 
 ened and solidified by some subtle process of petrifac- 
 tion. 
 
 Miss Flora's long white hands fluttered more than ever, 
 and to this delicate demonstration was added the more 
 menacing one of a slight tremulousness of the head. 
 
 They had been at Tarring-Peverell for something over 
 a week, and they wanted, they wanted with all the 
 strength of their old hearts, to go home. 
 
 "Cuckoo is most kind, isn't she?" Miss Effie said after 
 a while. 
 
 "She's a delightful hostess," agreed Miss Flora, "and 
 
 336
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Peregrine is perfection. We ought to be very thankful, 
 Effie, that things have turned out so well." 
 
 Miss Effie did not answer. It was literally an impos- 
 sibility for these two old sisters, living as they did always 
 in the closest intimacy, to discuss vital and intimate 
 things. Other people, however, were less reserved, and 
 presently a handsome, middle-aged woman in a flowing 
 rose colored tea-gown came down the steps towards them, 
 a very short-skirted, knock-kneed little girl on either 
 side of her. 
 
 This was Lady Pelter and her grandchildren, Yvette 
 and Prunella Jackson. 
 
 "Oh, here you are!" Lady Pelter cried. "The little 
 girls and I are taking a walk, and we thought we heard 
 voices, didn't we, my loves? Go away and play now," 
 she added, in quite a different voice. 
 
 Then she sat down and lighted a cigarette. It was a 
 very warm evening and she was dressed for dinner in 
 the delightful and comfortable way that some middle- 
 aged ladies do dress for dinner, but Miss Effie and Miss 
 Flora considered the display of her still beautiful arms 
 out of place in a garden, and they regarded with horror 
 the careful make-up of her charming face. Lady Pelter 
 had always been of the "poor little Blanche" type. She 
 had coaxed and petted her way through life, taking for 
 granted all the good things that had been given her; sin- 
 cerely and vociferously amazed when anything bad fell 
 to her share. She had disliked her husband intensely, and 
 not without reason. Her sons she was fond of, particu- 
 larly Angus, who, when he had come of age, celebrated 
 his majority by making his mother a very good allowance; 
 and she was fond in her way of Rosamund Rosamund 
 the successful, Rosamund the rich, Rosamund the bril- 
 liantly and flatteringly happy. Rachel, since her mar- 
 riage, her mother had not liked much. Her daughter's 
 
 337
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 very name now offended her, and it hurt her to feel that 
 not only Rachel herself, but other people, wondered that 
 she Rachel's mother did not share her good things with 
 the Jacksons. Lady Pelter was one of those women who, 
 with perfect good faith, can lament their poverty while 
 wearing round their necks thousands of pounds' worth 
 of jewels that nothing prevents their selling at any mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "I have come out to tell you," she said, "that I have 
 a little scheme. Dear Peregrine has, I know, just bought 
 some emeralds for Nicoleta. I believe he has given them 
 to her this afternoon. Thinking about them has re- 
 minded me that I don't believe you have ever seen the 
 most famous of the Janeways jewels the Bag of Saf- 
 fron have you?" 
 
 The old ladies shook their heads. 
 
 "No. We have heard of it, of course," Miss Flora 
 said, "but we've never seen it." 
 
 "I have once," Lady Pelter went on, finishing her 
 cigarette and lighting another, "and it's rather interest- 
 ing. I've never seen Nicoleta wear it. Dear me! It's 
 hard to call her Nicoleta, but he won't have her called 
 Nicky." 
 
 "We shall always call her Cuckoo, as her mother did," 
 put in Miss Effie with some acerbity. 
 
 "Oh, you you could call her Messalina if you liked. 
 He wouldn't care. Everybody knows that you two can 
 do nothing wrong." 
 
 Miss Flora fluttered. 
 
 "No," she repeated nervously, to change the subject, 
 "we've never seen the Bag of Saffron." 
 
 "Well, I'll ask him to-night to show it to us. I wonder 
 he hasn't given it to Nicky already. Perhaps," she 
 added, with the knowing air that was so extremely of- 
 fensive to Miss Effie and Miss Flora, "he's waiting for 
 
 338
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a great occasion." As neither of them spoke, she re- 
 sumed, her shallow blue eyes hardening, "Although it 
 doesn't look very much as if such an occasion were going 
 to arise. It's two years and a half now " 
 
 If the "occasion" was not likely to arise, Miss Effie 
 and Miss Flora rose at that very moment. 
 
 "I think we'll go back to the house," Miss EfBe said 
 severely. 
 
 Lady Pelter gave a lazy little laugh. "I'm sorry," 
 she said, "I really am; I didn't mean to shock you. 
 After all, everybody knows, and it always seems to me 
 that anything that can be done can be talked about " 
 
 The two old ladies stood by the little Cupid, gazing 
 down at him. At last Miss Flora raised her eyes and, 
 looking between the wings, met Lady Pelter's gaze. 
 
 "My sister and I are very old-fashioned, Lady Pelter," 
 she said. "It will always be a great grief to us that 
 our niece went through that dreadful experience, and 
 we prefer not to think of it." 
 
 Lady Pelter, who was really a perfectly good-natured 
 woman, apologized once more. 
 
 "I am sorry, Miss Flora," she said, "and I understand. 
 I should have hated it if it had been one of my girls. 
 But then, you see, Peregrine is so wonderful, no one 
 ever minds anything he does no one ever has, and Nicky, 
 being his, she has been forgiven as well. Granted that 
 they had to run away with each other, surely he managed 
 everything in the most beautiful way staying in the 
 East not only until it was all over, but not coming back 
 till they'd been married over a year. It was clever ! And 
 then, think of the beautiful things he gives her, and those 
 emeralds to-day. If I were you, I should really only 
 think of the present. I'd put that other time out of my 
 head. They have been married a year and a half, and he 
 treats her like a queen, and everybody's coming round. 
 
 339
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 I was told a certain very great person has decided to ac- 
 cept her." At the unfortunate word "accept" Miss Flora 
 blushed again and gave a little spring in her anguish. 
 Miss Effie slipped her arm into her sister's. 
 
 "I am sure you mean very kindly, Lady Pelter," she 
 said in her deepest, gruffest voice, "but please don't 
 say any more. My sister and I are doing our best to 
 take what you think such a trifle, in the wisest way. Sir 
 Peregrine is most kind to us, and, as you say, Cuckoo 
 has a great many jewels. In our youth we were taught 
 that there was one jewel of far greater importance than 
 any of these, and we can't help regretting that that one 
 has gone from her for ever." 
 
 Lady Pelter sat and smoked as the two old ladies 
 went slowly up the steps, their pretty frocks trailing 
 behind them, their little backs narrower than of old and 
 a little bent. 
 
 "Poor old things," she thought with compassion. "I 
 do really believe they would rather have Nicky starving 
 in a garret with that poisonous George Loxley than enjoy- 
 ing all this." 
 
 The two little Jackson girls, who had run away obe- 
 diently to play when ordered to do so by their somewhat 
 unsatisfactory grandmother, came running back to her 
 with their hands full of flowers, and as she had, a few 
 minutes before, heard the first gong go for dinner, she 
 knew that some of the guests at least would be downstairs 
 by the time she reached the house. So, one of her beauti- 
 ful hands on each of the curly heads, she marched the 
 little creatures up the steps and slowly along the terrace, 
 making, she knew, a very effective picture in the westering 
 light. 
 
 There were a good many people in the house-party, 
 but Lady Pelter was glad when she saw that the eyes 
 that looked appreciatively at her little group as it 
 
 340
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 reached the house were the eyes of her host himself. Jane- 
 ways stood at the door, two or three dogs round him, 
 looking down the dale with a pair of field-glasses. 
 
 "Those people are going to be late for dinner," he 
 said. "My dear Blanche, what a delightful-looking crea- 
 ture you are!" 
 
 "So are you, Pelly and this place is very becoming 
 to you. Is Nicoleta down yet?" 
 
 "No. She went up late. She's been playing tennis 
 with Taylor." 
 
 Together they went into the broad hall, and passing 
 through it came out on the Terrace, to the left of which 
 stretched back from the main body of the house the 
 dining-room, which was the only remains of the original 
 Tudor building, torn down by the disciple of Inigo Jones 
 who had built the present house. Here were long chairs, 
 and small tables covered with books and magazines 
 and papers, and on the steps were piled cushions of blue 
 and green peacock colors. The curtains on this side of 
 the house were also of heavy green and blue brocade, for 
 this was the famous Peacock Terrace, and on the grass 
 beyond and down the steps that in their turn led to the 
 Italian garden, minced and ambled splendid blue and green 
 birds and their rarer brethren the milk-white peacocks 
 that had graced Tarring-Peverell ever since Charles II.'s 
 time. The fine birds made a beautiful pattern of weaving 
 light in their slow and pompous perambulations on the 
 white marble or the green grass. Lady Pelter and Jane- 
 ways came down. 
 
 "Have you given Nicoleta the emeralds?" she asked 
 curiously. 
 
 "I have." 
 
 "Does she like them?" 
 
 "She says she does." 
 
 At that moment Lady Janeways joined them. She 
 
 34-1
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 wore white and round her neck hung the gift a very 
 beautiful necklace. She had grown a little since the 
 Paris days, and walked with a new air of assurance that 
 was almost hardihood. Her beautifully dressed head was 
 held markedly high, and her eyes, in which poor Miss 
 Effie and Miss Flora had in vain looked for signs of re- 
 pentance or shame, gazed out on the world from under 
 insolently drooped eyelids. 
 
 "Haven't those people got back?" she asked sharply. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Ridiculous! I told Kathleen I'd have no nonsense 
 about a breakdown, and Captain Ferrier heard me say it. 
 Absurd creatures they are! I wish they'd hurry up and 
 marry. I can hardly bear it." 
 
 "Perhaps they've run away," suggested Lady Pelter, 
 with her genuine blunder-headedness. 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her coldly. 
 
 "Where are the children?" she asked. 
 
 "Good gracious ! / don't know. I forgot all about 
 them. Pelly, did you see where they went?" 
 
 At that minute the two little girls appeared, dragged 
 unmercifully along by their nurse. They kissed their 
 grandmother good-night and their Auntie Nicoleta and 
 then, with one accord, flew at their Uncle Peregrine, and 
 tried to climb up his legs. 
 
 "Carry us upstairs, Uncle Pelly. You said you 
 would!" 
 
 Janeways took one on each shoulder and trotted off 
 into the great hall with them, laughing as loudly as they, 
 in evident enjoyment. 
 
 "What a great boy he is!" Lady Pelter observed, as 
 Cuckoo watched her husband disappear, her eyes inscrut- 
 able. "He's very fond of children, isn't he?" 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her, her expression unchanged. Then 
 she walked slowly away without a word.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 LADY PELTER'S plan of asking Janeways to ex- 
 hibit the Bag of Saffron did not come off that night. 
 But two or three days later, when the very large 
 house-party had dwindled to a small and more or less in- 
 timate one, she remembered her idea and proceeded to 
 attempt to crystallize it. It was at lunch that she made 
 the proposal. 
 
 "Peregrine," she said suddenly, "I've just thought of 
 something. Do you know that Miss Effie and Miss Flora 
 have never seen the Bag of Saffron? Do get it out and 
 show it to us." 
 
 It was a rainy day, and everyone had been wondering 
 how they could pass the afternoon, so that there was some 
 excuse for Lady Pelter's suggestion. Janeways smiled. 
 
 "It isn't worth looking at," he said. "Just an ugly 
 little gold bag with a few dry leaves in it ; even the leaves 
 are chiefly dust by this time. I think you have not been 
 in the library, Blanche the real library? That would 
 be a good way to spend this rainy afternoon." 
 
 "Yes, it would be delightful, but do let's see the Bag 
 of Saffron. I have seen it, you know, years and years 
 ago." 
 
 He looked at her inquiringly. "Have you?" 
 
 "Yes. When I was a very young girl your mother 
 wore it, one evening when she dined at our house, on pur- 
 pose to show it to my mother. I can distinctly remember 
 her, and that her frock was of dark blue silk, and her 
 hair was parted in the middle." 
 
 Janeways nodded: "Yes, she was always very fond of 
 
 343
 
 Lady Blois. I still have somewhere a miniature of Lady 
 Blois that she gave my mother. By the way," he went 
 on, with a deliberateness that took from his manner any 
 hint of purposely changing the subject, "how is that little 
 boy, Blois's grandson? Is he better?" 
 
 Cuckoo, from her end of the table, watched the little 
 scene with visible amusement of a not very genial kind, 
 and the young man on her left, a beautiful youth with an 
 almost Greek face and rather long curly hair, asked for 
 an explanation. 
 
 "What on earth- is the Bag of Saffron?" he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "You've heard. It's an ugly little old family jewel." 
 
 "What's it like?" he asked. 
 
 At that moment there was a pause, and everyone heard 
 Cuckoo's reply. 
 
 "I don't know," she said. "I've never seen the Bag of 
 Saffron." 
 
 "Good gracious, Nicky!" burst out Rachel Jackson, 
 "haven't you seen it? I thought you once said you saw 
 it in some shop." 
 
 Luncheon was over, and Cuckoo gave the signal for 
 rising. 
 
 "I saw it years ago, but only by accident," she an- 
 swered quietly, "so I really have no right to any knowl- 
 edge of it." 
 
 That afternoon Cuckoo took her Aunt Effie for a long 
 drive in her own little Victoria. There were several motor- 
 cars at Tarring-Peverell, but Lady Janeways preferred 
 to machinery, however perfect and noiseless it might be, 
 the pleasant patter of horses' hoofs and the easy swing 
 of a well-made carriage. They drove several miles along 
 the highroad towards the pass leading to Cotherdale, 
 and when they had reached the foot of the pass Cuckoo 
 said: 
 
 344
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Would you like to drive up the Pass to the Cross, 
 Aunt Effie, and look up the dale ?" 
 
 Miss Effie, who sat very erect in her place, hesitated 
 for a moment. 
 
 "Yes, Cuckoo I should. I haven't been so long away 
 from home since your father first brought you to us, and 
 I'd rather like to have a glimpse of our own moors." 
 
 The horses drew the little carriage up the steep road 
 with no apparent effort, and in about an hour's time the 
 two ladies got out and walked to a little natural plat- 
 form above the road where an old stone cross marked some 
 long-forgotten accident, and stood there looking round 
 the shoulder of a hill into Cotherdale. They were very 
 far from Warcop, but they could just see it lying like a 
 handful of children's toys, the river twisting through it, 
 and off to the left they could see the Edge against the 
 sky, and just beyond their eyeshot they knew Roseroofs 
 lay. 
 
 "You are not getting tired of staying with me, are 
 you?" Cuckoo asked gently, as the old woman walked 
 away from her and stood looking up the dale. 
 
 "I like being with you, Cuckoo. You are all we've 
 got, you know, and Peregrine is most kind, but perhaps 
 we are both a little too old for parties." And Cuckoo 
 knew. 
 
 On the way home she asked her aunt for news of 
 Cotherdale, and Miss Effie, who felt vaguely encouraged 
 by her attitude to believe that the time of their banish- 
 ment might be shortened, talked of all the small events of 
 which she learnt in Esther Oughtenshaw's letters. Benjie 
 had broken his leg ; Esther suspected Nellie, the maid, of 
 a suitor ; Judge Capel's heir had turned out to be charm- 
 ing and had a most beautiful little boy ; Maggie Watlass 
 of the Mill had had a stroke, so her daughter, who was 
 in service in Cumberland, would have to come back and 
 
 345
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 look after her, and Joss Skelton had married again, the 
 old fool, a girl from York twenty times younger than he. 
 
 Cuckoo had not her father's gift of being curious about 
 the affairs of everybody she met, but she had known these 
 people since her childhood, and she was more interested 
 in them than Aunt Effie would have expected. 
 
 "Tell me about the Vicar," she asked at length. "How 
 has he turned out?" 
 
 "We don't like him. He despises us all as dull, and 
 naturally he isn't popular. Besides he is very stand-offish 
 with the poor people; he refused to go out at night 
 to see Kate Skelton, when she was dying, because he had 
 a cold. A cold indeed!" finished Miss Effie, with a sniff 
 of wrath. 
 
 Cuckoo laughed softly. "I knew," she said, "he was 
 going to be a failure." 
 
 "How could you tell?" 
 
 "Aunt Flora knew." 
 
 "My dear Cuckoo your Aunt Flora is the best woman 
 in the world, but she has as much judgment about people 
 as a cat has about pockets." 
 
 Cuckoo said nothing, but smiled to herself. "My 
 father," she went on presently, "once told me that Aunt 
 Flora was a very wise woman." 
 
 Miss Effie sat forward suddenly. "Did he?" she asked 
 indignantly, "then he had no business to say it, for he 
 knew perfectly well it wasn't true. / have heard him say 
 as much." 
 
 "From all I can gather about my father, he must have 
 been a man of chameleon viewpoints. I'm afraid if he 
 were alive now I shouldn't put much trust in his word." 
 
 Miss Effie's grim face saddened. "Never say that to 
 your Aunt Flora, my dear," she said. 
 
 It was very pleasant rolling along in the comfortable 
 carriage behind the strong, well-matched horses, and 
 
 346
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo, leaning back, consciously exercised to the full 
 her sense of enjoyment. It had become a habit with her 
 of late to compare her present with her past, and she 
 thought how much more comfortable, how much happier 
 she was now than she had been three years ago, bumbling 
 along the King's Road in a crowded, bad-smelling bus. 
 After a while her thoughts came back to her companion. 
 
 "Aunt Effie," she said, "I believe you have always 
 thought that Aunt Flora cared for my poor father?" 
 
 Miss Effie frowned fiercely. "I have never said such a 
 thing," she declared; "you've no right to say that I 
 have." 
 
 "I didn't say you said it. I was only saying that I 
 thought you thought it." 
 
 "Did you! Of course, you being at the time of your 
 father's death nine years old, your opinion most naturally 
 would be of greater weight than mine," returned her 
 aunt. "However, neither you nor I have any right to 
 pry into my sister's secrets " 
 
 "I don't mean to pry," Cuckoo said gently. 
 
 Her aunt had noticed that, however reserved and 
 haughty her manner was to other people since her return 
 to London six months before, she was to her aunts more 
 gentle, more deferential, than she had ever been. Miss 
 Effie relented. 
 
 "I'm sure you didn't mean to," she returned, "and 
 I've always been grieved and sorry for many things about 
 your father, but I will say one thing for him: whatever 
 his faults might have been, if Flora ever did care for him, 
 it was by no wish of his, and I am sure he never knew." 
 
 "You both knew Peregrine, too, when he was young, 
 didn't you?" Cuckoo asked. 
 
 "Oh, yes," Miss Effie answered briskly; "when he was 
 quite young, just after his mother's death, he often came 
 to Tarring-Peverell, and that was before the railway was 
 
 347
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 built to Redcastle, so he came by way of Middleton and 
 used to stop the night at the 'Grouse.' We often saw him ; 
 he was very fond of our mother. Ah, my dear, he was a 
 beautiful young man. I've traveled, you know, but even 
 in Paris I never saw anyone so splendid." 
 
 At this odd confusion of ideas Cuckoo did not smile; 
 Aunt Effie's innocent boasting rather touched her nowa- 
 days. 
 
 "I remember once," Miss Effie went on, "we went to 
 a ball at Middleton. Dear mama took us. And Pelly was 
 there with some young officers, and he danced half the 
 night with Flora. She was very pretty, and she had a 
 beautiful frock pale green, with little flounces all the 
 way up, and a little tucker threaded with black velvet 
 ribbon." 
 
 Miss Effie gave a deep sigh. She had never enjoyed 
 herself at the few balls to which she had been, but 
 she remembered Miss Flora's triumph with simple 
 pride. 
 
 Suddenly Cuckoo laid her hand on the old woman's. 
 
 "Listen, Aunt Effie," she said. "I want to tell you 
 something I have never said before, and I shall never say 
 it again, but I don't want you to forget: I was sorry 
 when you and Aunt Flora were hurt by what I did, and 
 I was grateful when you forgave me " 
 
 Miss Effie stared at her in amazement. It was the first 
 time in her life that she had ever heard Cuckoo make an 
 apology, and, what was more, Cuckoo's small, fathomless 
 eyes were wet as she spoke. 
 
 "There, there," the old lady answered. "Thank you, 
 my dear ; I'm glad you said that. It was a shock to us, 
 of course. We were so sorry for poor I mean I mean 
 to say " 
 
 "You mean to say you were sorry for George ?" Cuckoo 
 interrupted. "Then I'll tell you something else. George 
 
 348
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and I were dreadfully unhappy, Aunt Effie. It was all a 
 mistake; we never suited each other at all." 
 
 "But you were so happy that first summer at Rose- 
 roofs," protested the old woman, bewildered as to whether 
 she should feel glad or sorry. "Don't you remember?" 
 
 "I do remember," Cuckoo said in a hard voice, "but it 
 didn't last. I suppose it was just that neither of us was 
 fine enough to put up with all the horrid little things that 
 poor people have to put up with." 
 
 "Perhaps it was only that you were too young," Miss 
 Effie suggested. "George was a dear, good boy ; as sweet- 
 tempered a boy as I ever knew. Perhaps if you had tried 
 
 a little more, Cuckoo " She broke off suddenly. 
 
 "But goodness gracious me, what am I saying? Dear 
 Peregrine is so good and so fond of you, and you are so 
 happy! By the way, Cuckoo, did you know George was 
 ill?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Yes. Flora had a letter yesterday from old Mary at 
 Clavers. He's had pneumonia and been very bad." 
 
 "I'm sorry. Aunt Effie, have you ever seen him 
 since ?" 
 
 Miss Effie shook her head. "No, he's not been back 
 to the Dale. It's all very dreadful, my dear, and I can't 
 think it right. I do hope he's happy." 
 
 "So do I," Cuckoo said. "Poor George! It was my 
 fault as well as his." 
 
 Miss Effie suggested cheerfully that George might 
 marry, and Cuckoo agreed that such a denouement would 
 be very desirable. 
 
 That evening most of the men played billiards, so that 
 in the drawing-room after dinner there sat only six or 
 seven people ; the two Janeways, Lady Pelter, Mantepop, 
 who had turned up from Paris full of news of that delight- 
 ful city, the Greek-looking youth, whose name was Adrian 
 
 349
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Taylor, and who was never very far away from Cuckoo, 
 and the two Misses Plues. Taylor was playing the piano ; 
 he played with charm, though in a scrappy, unsatisfying 
 way, and the others sat near the fire, as it was a chilly 
 evening, listening to him. Janeways, sitting in his usual 
 chair, a kind of throne of crimson brocade, with heavily- 
 carved, gilded legs and arms, was reading, as usual with 
 him in the evening. The light from the shaded lamp fell 
 on his head, and his serene, kind, high-bred face might 
 almost have been the face of a priest; a priest of some 
 austere and noble religion. There was in it no sign of the 
 stormy and diversified life he had led; there was no sel- 
 fishness in it, and not a hint of coarseness. 
 
 Diamantopoulos, who was talking to Lady Pelter, 
 studied him for a while. 
 
 "Wonderful, Janeways, is he not?" the little old Greek 
 gentleman asked. Lady Pelter understood at once. 
 
 "Amazing," she said. "He is well named the Magni- 
 ficent. There he sits as deep in his book as if we were 
 all dead and stuffed, instead of fidgeting about as we all 
 do fidget, we moderns " 
 
 Mantepop nodded. 
 
 "Yes, that's just it we moderns. He is not a modern. 
 He's a man of the Mediaevo. He ought to have a Court, 
 like one of the old dukes in Italy. Have you ever," he 
 asked meditatively, "seen him in a temper?" 
 
 Lady Pelter shook her head with a mock shudder. "No, 
 and I don't want to, thank you." 
 
 "I have, but I won't tell you about it. He has changed 
 a little," his friend went on. "I can't exactly describe 
 the change, but it is there. I hadn't seen him since 
 since the marriage. We met in Hawaii " 
 
 Lady Pelter lowered her voice as Taylor ceased playing. 
 
 "They were married in Tokio, you know. He's a very 
 wise man; it was clever of him to go on traveling for 
 
 350
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 another year after the marriage. They camped out in 
 Morocco, the spring and part of the summer before they 
 came back. She is a lucky woman, is Nicky." 
 
 The little Greek looked meditatively to where Cuckoo 
 sat with her aunts, young Taylor on a stool a little way 
 off, gazing at her. 
 
 "It's a pity," he said abruptly, "that there is not a 
 child." 
 
 "Yes, I was saying so only the other day to the old 
 ladies." 
 
 "However, there's plenty of time, though he is sixty- 
 four, and so far a.s I know never had any children at all. 
 Esperons le bien! Shall I show you some card tricks?" 
 
 The little man had a positive genius for this innocent 
 kind of entertainment, but Lady Pelter shook her 
 head. 
 
 "No. I want him to show us the Bag of Saffron. There 
 seems to be some mystery about it." 
 
 She turned in her seat and called to her host. 
 
 "Peregrine." 
 
 Instantly he put down his book and came towards her. 
 
 "Yes, my dear Blanche." Young Taylor looked at him, 
 unwilling admiration in his handsome face. 
 
 "By Jove !" he muttered. 
 
 Cuckoo smiled. "Yes, isn't he ?" she said. 
 
 "Peregrine, don't be a bore. Do get the Bag of Saf- 
 fron and show it to us." Lady Pelter, very pretty indeed 
 in her fluffy black gown, looked up with a childish grimace 
 of entreaty. 
 
 "I have told you," he said gravely, "that the thing isn't 
 worth looking at." 
 
 "And I have said that I have seen it and think it is. 
 Nicky, make him show it to us." 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "Dear Lady Pelter," she murmured, 
 "how could I make him?" 
 
 351
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Sir Peregrine looked from his wife to the speaker and 
 back. Then he said slowly: 
 
 "Very well, Blanche, if you insist, I'll go and get the 
 thing, but remember, I'll not let it out of my own hands." 
 
 He left the room and there was a momentary silence. 
 
 "What is the thing? Tell me about it?" Taylor 
 pleaded, moving nearer to Cuckoo. 
 
 Lady Pelter answered. "It's a very, very old jewel 
 that is supposed to bring luck, or health, or something, 
 to the woman who wears it. It's hideous, I know that 
 much, and it hangs on a gloriously beautiful diamond 
 chain, so if I were you, Nicky, I'd wear it." 
 
 Cuckoo hid a little yawn. 
 
 "I've only seen it, as I said the other day at lunch, 
 once years ago, by chance, in a jeweller's shop. My hus- 
 band has never shown it to me and he never talks about 
 it. Did you not see," she added to Lady Pelter, "that he 
 didn't wish to get it now?" 
 
 Lady Pelter shrugged her shoulders. "He was very 
 tiresome about it," she pouted in what Rachel called 
 "mother's maddening, spoilt-baby way," "so I made up 
 my mind I'd make him." 
 
 Janeways came in a few minutes later, with a little 
 brass chest in his hand. Then he set it on the table by 
 the group of people that drew near him. "I warn you," 
 he said, "you are all going to be disappointed." He 
 opened the box by touching some spring and took from 
 it a bag of worn, dark blue velvet brocade. 
 
 "There," he said, "this is the Bag of Saffron." 
 
 He held the chain over his two hands, the magnificent 
 diamonds flashing in the light, the little shabby pendant 
 looking curiously inadequate as it swayed to and fro. 
 
 Cuckoo alone had not moved. She sat, her face politely 
 turned towards them, but without a ray of interest in it. 
 No one offered to take the jewel from its owner's hands 
 
 352
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and after a moment he put it back into its bag and closed 
 the lid of the box on it. 
 
 "Was it worth while?" he asked. 
 
 Mantepop had drawn back a little and was watching 
 Cuckoo, who now stared absently into the fire. Now he 
 went up to her. 
 
 "Don't you care for diamonds, Lady Janeways?" 
 
 She started. "I love jewels of all kinds, and I suppose 
 I love diamonds and rubies best, because they are the 
 most valuable," she said quietly. 
 
 The little man was very much interested, very curious, 
 but dared say no more. 
 
 That evening, much later, Lady Janeways knocked at 
 the door of her husband's dressing-room 
 
 "May I come in, Pelly?" she asked. 
 
 "Come in, my dear." He rose and put a chair for 
 her by the fire. 
 
 She was in her dressing-gown, but she had not touched 
 her hair and she still wore her little high-heeled satin 
 shoes. 
 
 "I've come to ask you something," she said. 
 
 "I hope you know, my dear, that anything I can do 
 for you, I do with the greatest pleasure." 
 
 Suddenly she knelt down on the hearth-rug, and turn- 
 ing, put both hands on his knee. 
 
 "Pelly," she said, "I want the Bag of Saffron." 
 
 His face changed a little, but he laid his hand on hers. 
 
 "You want a diamond chain, my dear?" he asked. 
 
 She shook her head. "No, it isn't only the chain. I 
 want the Bag of Saffron itself. Do you remember that 
 day when you told me the story about it ? Sitting outside 
 the little church by the conventj in Paris?" 
 
 "I remember everything," he said, sadly, but with a 
 little smile. 
 
 353
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Well, why haven't you given it to me?" 
 
 Looking over her head into the fire, he was silent for 
 what seemed a long time. Finally she interrupted his si- 
 lence. 
 
 "I remember what you told me. You've never given 
 it to anyone, and only that nun was good enough. Pere- 
 grine, is it," she asked, rising to her knees and looking 
 straight into his eyes, "because you think I'm not good?" 
 
 "If I didn't think you good, you would not be my wife, 
 Nicoleta," he answered, with the sternness that lay some- 
 how so near always to his gentle kindness. 
 
 "I could see Aunt Flora thinking to-night that that was 
 why, because because of George what I did to him. 
 Was it that?" 
 
 He rose. "My dear, no. I know you to be an abso- 
 lutely virtuous woman. I would stake my soul on your 
 never having had so much as your hand kissed by any 
 man but Loxley and myself. But I can't give you the 
 Bag of Saffron." 
 
 "But why?" she persisted. "Why? It's yours and 
 you could if you wanted to. These people know the story ; 
 everybody knows the story, and if I don't wear it this 
 Season in town what will people think?" 
 
 "People must think as, du reste, they always do," he 
 returned quietly; "what they like. I can't explain my 
 feeling to you it's in my blood. If there is any other 
 jewel that you would like to have, that is within my means, 
 I will get it for you. Thank God, I am a very rich man." 
 
 Cuckoo did not answer and he went on : 
 
 "Would you like another string of pearls ?" 
 
 She was frowning, angry and hurt, but at these words 
 her face gradually lightened. 
 
 "Yes," she said, her voice breaking a little, "I should 
 like some pearls, and I want a ruby, a big, uncut one, 
 like a little pear, to wear round my neck." 
 
 354
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Janeways' brows contracted for a second, but not in 
 anger. 
 
 "You shall have them," he said, "and soon. Now, 
 good-night, my dear. You look tired." 
 
 He kissed her forehead and opened the door, holding 
 it open until he had heard her door close. 
 
 Then he went back and again sat down by the fire.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 f f TT7HERE are you going, Nicky?" 
 VV "I'm going on the lake." 
 
 Rachel looked at her thoughtfully. 
 
 "Not with Adrian?" 
 
 "With Adrian." 
 
 The two girls sat on the broad stone balustrade of the 
 peacock terrace one morning two or three days later. 
 Cuckoo was in white, and wore a funny, cone-shaped hat 
 of iridescent green and blue. It had pleased her of late 
 to wear peacock colors, and with her look of abounding 
 health and strength, the colors did not quench her little 
 face. Rachel wore blue and looked, beside her friend, a 
 little dowdy. 
 
 "You'll have trouble with him," Rachel went on, after 
 a moment. "I've been watching." 
 
 "It must have been dull," Cuckoo returned indifferently. 
 
 "It wasn't dull; and what is more, your Aunt Effie 
 has noticed him, too." 
 
 "It's a pity it wasn't Aunt Flora. Poor dear aunts," 
 Cuckoo laughed. "It really hurts them to think of me 
 as a daughter of Belial, but they can't help it, poor things. 
 Peregrine says that Aunt Flora was as pretty as a picture 
 when he was a young man. How dreadful old age is," she 
 added dreamily. 
 
 Rachel was silent for a moment and then, visibly taking 
 her courage in her hands, she went on. 
 
 "Look here, Nicky, I'm going to tell you something, 
 and you mustn't be angry, because it's only because she's 
 fond of you." 
 
 356
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "What's because who's fond of me?" Cuckoo's voice 
 had changed. 
 
 "It's mamma. She's afraid Peregrine will notice about 
 Adrian Taylor." Rachel drew back, almost as if in fear, 
 as Cuckoo turned round and looked her in the face. 
 
 "Say exactly what you mean, please, Rachel. What 
 is there in Adrian Taylor that it could possibly concern 
 my husband to notice?" 
 
 Rachel's worn, rather fretful face flushed. "You 
 needn't put on your great airs with me, Nicky. You 
 don't frighten me and it's silly. Everyone can see that 
 he's crazy about you, even Yvette said something about 
 it the other day somebody was looking for you, and 
 Yvette said she had just seen Mr. Taylor go to the rose- 
 garden, so that you would probably be there." 
 
 "The poor young man is a poet ; his manners overleap 
 his feelings. Ah, here he comes." 
 
 She rose, but Rachel went on hurriedly, laying her hand 
 on Cuckoo's sleeve. 
 
 "Look here, Cuckoo, do be careful. Mamma says every- 
 thing's gone so splendidly for you, it would be too awful 
 if you made a mistake now and spoilt it all." 
 
 Taylor had come up the steps of the terrace and was 
 approaching them slowly in order not to disturb the pea- 
 cocks, who were having a small durbar of their own. 
 Cuckoo looked at him. 
 
 "I shall go," she said in an even voice, "wherever I 
 like with Adrian Taylor, or with anyone else, and when- 
 ever I like. What I do is nobody's business but my own." 
 
 Rachel could not help being impressed by her manner, 
 but for all that she went on doggedly. 
 
 "Mamma has known Pelly Janeways since before you 
 were born," she persisted, "and she says that he can be 
 perfectly dreadful if he's angry. Cuckoo, do be careful. 
 If you are really fond of Adrian " 
 
 357
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 The marble under Lady Janeways* feet received a sharp 
 smack from one of her small brown shoes. 
 
 "Heavens and earth, Rachel, you make me sick! Do 
 you suppose I don't know about Captain Gascoyne? I 
 ran away and left my husband for another man. You 
 have not left your husband, and you've not run away with 
 the other man, therefore you think yourself a model wife 
 and dare to suspect me of being a sneak and a beast. 
 Hallo, Adrian," she cried, "I'm ready," adding in an 
 undertone to the terrified Rachel, "You are quite right. I 
 am a beast, but I'm a beast in my own way and my way 
 isn't your way." 
 
 She joined young Taylor, who was looking ex- 
 tremely handsome in his white flannels, and the two 
 strolled away over the beautifully kept lawn, down the 
 marble steps so like the steps in a fairy story, and dis- 
 appeared in the belt of trees that hid from the terrace 
 all but a glimmering streak of the lake, whither they 
 were bound. 
 
 Rachel Jackson was angry, but hers was not the anger 
 of righteousness and soon died away, for there was in 
 it a disintegrating element of vanity. She was proud of 
 her inconsiderable conquest of Captain Gascoyne and 
 could not help being glad that Cuckoo had noticed it ; so 
 in a few moments her anger had evaporated, and she went 
 upstairs to have her first look that day at the children. 
 It was only ten o'clock, for amongst Cuckoo's good points 
 was the one of early rising, and the two girls and one or 
 two stray guests had had their breakfast an hour ago. 
 But as she passed the breakfast-room window, Rachel saw 
 that several of the little breakfast-tables were occupied. 
 
 After she had disappeared, Miss Flora and Miss Effie 
 finished their breakfast and went out together on the 
 west terrace, where, at the south end, there was a shady 
 oasis of chairs and tables. 
 
 358
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Have you seen Nicoleta this morning?" Miss Flora 
 asked, for Miss Effie had been down before her. 
 
 "Yes, Flora. She sat with me at breakfast until some 
 of the others came down. She doesn't seem to have a real 
 place. I suppose it is very delightful, this way of little 
 tables, but I shall always think that there ought to be a 
 tea and coffee service and the hostess sitting pouring 
 out " 
 
 "Of course, when there are so many people in the 
 house," Miss Flora replied in timid defence of the new 
 customs, which she liked no better than did her sister, 
 "it would make her very tired pouring out for them, 
 particularly if they all took two cups. And the little 
 separate tea and coffee services are very pretty, Effie. 
 But where did you say Cuck Nicoleta went?" 
 
 "She's gone off somewhere with the long-legged poet." 
 The scorn in Miss Effie's voice was most audible. 
 
 "I wonder," Miss Flora mused, "whether Peregrine 
 likes Mr. Taylor ? Sometimes I have thought he doesn't." 
 
 "He says he's very gifted." 
 
 "Oh, Effie, so was Lord Byron gifted." 
 
 It was a curious chance that Miss Flora and Janeways 
 should have been together at the foot of the terrace a few 
 hours later, when young Taylor came tearing through the 
 wood, bearing in his arms an unconscious and dripping 
 Cuckoo. 
 
 She had slipped in getting out of the boat, he explained ; 
 and Janeways, after feeling his wife's pulse, took her from 
 the young man and carried her to the house without a 
 word. 
 
 Half an hour later Cuckoo had come to and was better, 
 and Aunt Flora sat by her bed, hearing her story. 
 
 They had rowed to the far side of the lake, walked up 
 over the moors, and taken the boat back, and then somehow 
 the boat overturned and she could remember no more. 
 
 359
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "You must have stepped on the edge of the boat, 
 Cuckoo," Miss Flora murmured, stroking her hand softly. 
 
 Cuckoo stared. "How could I have stepped on the 
 edge," she said, "when I was sitting in the middle?" 
 
 Janeways, who stood by the window, his hands behind 
 his back, turned at this. 
 
 "Come, Flora," he said, "you and I had better go down 
 now, and perhaps she'll go to sleep." 
 
 He paused for a moment at the foot of the bed, looking 
 at his wife, his dark eyes full of an expression that poor 
 Miss Flora could not understand but which vaguely 
 alarmed her, and as he and she went down the broad 
 stairs together they met Taylor coming up. The young 
 man's face, as he had emerged from the little wood, had 
 made an unforgettable impression on Miss Flora, and even 
 now, when he had had time to recover and change his 
 clothes, he looked unnecessarily, and too conspicuously, 
 shaken. 
 
 Janeways looked at him, his position on the stairs 
 giving him the advantage of a couple of feet. 
 
 "How did it happen?" he asked gravely. 
 
 "She was getting out and lost her balance and must 
 
 have stepped on the edge of the boat " He broke 
 
 off, his eyes wavering. Janeways stood very erect, look- 
 ing at him. 
 
 "That is the explanation Miss Plues just suggested to 
 my wife herself," he said, measuredly. "It isn't a good 
 explanation, Taylor." 
 
 "I I" 
 
 "Don't do it again," Janeways went on. Then, lean- 
 ing forward a little, he said, very quietly, "I am sorry I 
 can't ask you to stay in my house any longer. The car 
 will be at the door in half an hour's time, and you can 
 easily catch the two-fifteen train from Redcastle." After 
 a second he added politely, "Good-bye," and walked slowly 
 
 360
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 downstairs. He crossed the great hall and went out on 
 the terrace, then, after a moment, without paying any 
 attention to Miss Flora, whom he seemed to have forgot- 
 ten, went down the steps and on and on, till he reached 
 a path leading between eight-foot yew hedges on to the 
 left. Down this path he disappeared. 
 
 Miss Flora, who was trembling from head to foot, whose 
 hands shook so that, to get them out of her sight, she 
 folded them away under her arms, stood for a moment in 
 the door, and then with a resolute air that sat oddly on 
 her tenuous, tremulous old frame, followed him. 
 
 She had never been a morally brave woman and she 
 was very frightened at her undertaking, but she walked 
 quickly on, her head high. It had rained the night before 
 and the smell of freshly-clipped yew, pungent and sug- 
 gestive of romance, filled the air. At the far end of the 
 green alley there was a path leading up to the high moor 
 and there she knew she would find Janeways. She had 
 known the man almost all her life, but she had never 
 known him well; he, as a young man, had had for her 
 and her sister the kind of careless, uninterested affection 
 that young men living in a great world do have for quiet, 
 old-fashioned women in the country. 
 
 His wild doings, the tales of which had reached Rose- 
 roofs off and on throughout many years, had frightened 
 and hurt Miss Flora, though she had never spoken of 
 them. But the greatest hurt of all had been when he 
 had shown so little respect for her mother's memory and 
 for her own and her sister's friendship, as to bring 
 shame and grief to the little house that had never held 
 for him anything but hospitality. There was no one in 
 the world by running away with whom Cuckoo could have 
 brought so much sorrow to her aunts, as Peregrine Jane- 
 ways, and Miss Flora had lain awake many a night 
 grieving as much for the fact that it was he, as for the 
 
 361
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 fact that Cuckoo had broken her vows and brought shame 
 and ruin to her husband. 
 
 But now the old lady believed Janeways to be in 
 trouble, so down the long path she went and out from the 
 green shadow into the broad sunlight, up the narrow, 
 winding way to the moor, and there she found him seated 
 on the edge of an abrupt precipitous fall to the dale, 
 much as he might have sat on a headland by the sea. 
 
 He rose when he saw her and threw away his cigar. 
 
 "My dear Miss Flora!" he exclaimed, surprised. "I 
 hope nothing has happened? She isn't worse?" 
 
 Miss Flora stood, one hand to her heart, which was 
 beating very hard. "You forget," she said, "I left her 
 when you did. No, I wanted to speak to you about 
 things." 
 
 He bowed courteously, his white hair shining in the 
 sun. 
 
 "Shall we walk on a little further? There's a bench a 
 little way on." 
 
 They sat down on the bench, and Miss Flora, with the 
 desperate courage of shy people, burst out suddenly into 
 the depths of things. 
 
 "It's about Cuckoo, and that young man." Janeways 
 looked at her. 
 
 "What young man?" 
 
 "The one you sent away Mr. Taylor." 
 
 "Oh, Taylor, yes, yes. I forgot you were there," he 
 returned, obviously sincere. "What about him?" 
 
 Miss Flora clasped her hands to still their tremble. 
 
 "I'm glad you sent him away," she said. "I didn't 
 like him ; neither did Effie." 
 
 Janeways smiled a little. 
 
 "Dear Flora," he said, his voice very gentle, "I'm sorry 
 you were there on the stairs. I'm afraid you misunder- 
 stood." 
 
 362
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I didn't misunderstand. We are old-fashioned people 
 and know nothing of modern ways, but some things are 
 the same everywhere, and even when one is old one does 
 not forget how to recognize them." 
 
 "Yes ?" He looked at her, a very kind smile in his dark 
 eye. 
 
 "It is flirting," she said. "He has been flirting with 
 Cuckoo, and that is why you sent him away. But I'm 
 sure," she hurried on, "I'm perfectly sure, Peregrine, that 
 that it wasn't Cuckoo's fault." 
 
 Janeways laid one hand on hers. "I am very glad 
 this has happened," he said, "that you have come to me. 
 Between us we may arrive at the truth we two old people 
 for we are old, you know, Flora " 
 
 She nodded. "Yes," she said simply. "It's a dread- 
 ful thing, isn't it?" 
 
 He didn't answer this, but went on in response to what 
 she had said before. 
 
 "To begin with, you are no more sure than I that 
 Taylor has been doing what can only be expressed by 
 that hideous and most vulgar word, flirting. Nicoleta 
 never flirts. As to the young man, I didn't put him out 
 of my house because he was flirting with my wife or be- 
 cause he made love to her. I put him out of my house 
 because he made love to her against her will, and was 
 therefore a nuisance." 
 
 "Oh!" said Miss Flora, with a little gasp. "I was 
 afraid you would be angry with her." 
 
 There was a long pause, during which she studied Jane- 
 ways' strong, keenly-edged profile as he stared out across 
 the dale. This little conversation was one of the events 
 in Miss Flora's long, nearly eventless life. She was shaken 
 with its portent, but it had filled her heart with a queer 
 sensation of youth. It amazed her to think, as she looked 
 at her companion, that there was to-day nothing, abso- 
 
 363
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 lutely nothing, that she, Flora Angela Plues, would not 
 dare to say to Peregrine Janeways, the Magnifi- 
 cent. 
 
 At last he spoke without turning. 
 
 "I was angry a little," he said, "but only as I should 
 be angry with any one who disturbed the atmosphere of 
 my house by unwelcome demonstrations of any kind. 
 What you have seen in me and mistaken for anger, Flora, 
 is worse than anger it is, my dear friend, trouble. 
 Trouble," he repeated. 
 
 "I knew there was something, Pelly." It was five-and- 
 f orty years since she had called him Pelly, but they neither 
 of them noticed the transition. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I have deeply, irrevocably wronged 
 your niece." 
 
 "But Lady Pelter said " 
 
 He laughed compassionately and looked at her. 
 
 "I shall have to explain to you, I see. Lady Pelter, of 
 course, has said that the world is going to forgive Nicoleta 
 for running away from her husband and for marrying me. 
 That was not what I meant. That kind of forgiveness 
 is worth nothing." 
 
 Even now poor Miss Flora did not understand, and her 
 chin quivered as she asked him in a hushed voice: 
 
 "Do you mean religion?" 
 
 He laughed again, still in the gentle way peculiar to 
 him, that never hurt anybody. 
 
 "No; I don't mean religion or perhaps I do. Shall 
 I try to tell you? I don't think I've ever tried to tell 
 anybody, but I shouldn't mind you." 
 
 The flush that at these words rose in Miss Flora's face 
 was so bright, so beautiful, that something stirred in his 
 chest and burned in his eyes at the sight of it. Just so 
 had she flushed nearly half a century before when he had 
 talked to her. She said nothing, and he began. 
 
 364
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Have you ever wondered," he asked, "how I could so 
 hurt you and your sister as to do what I did?" 
 
 Miss Flora bent over her hands. "Yes," she said, "I 
 have wondered." 
 
 "Then I will tell you, and that will perhaps help you 
 to understand what I mean by saying that I've hurt Nico- 
 leta. Flora, I didn't know until after our marriage, that 
 she was Bob Blundell's daughter." 
 
 "You didn't know!" 
 
 "No. I never saw her name written, and assumed that 
 it was Locksley. She never mentioned her family; she 
 said very little about her husband, and it was two or three 
 days after our wedding that I happened to ask her her 
 father's name. This seems incredible, but it's perfectly 
 true. You see, we had been traveling all the time of the 
 divorce. I was very happy in making her happy; she's 
 a born traveler, a born sight-seer, of the best kind. She 
 was never tired, and the world was full of things that I 
 wanted her to see. I was," he added slowly, "deeply in 
 love with her. I was also bent on putting out of my mind 
 a fact that I had only recently discovered the fact that, 
 in spite of my health, my muscular strength, and what I 
 suppose is my irresistible love of life, I was really, by 
 God's will, an old man. So thus it happened that for 
 over a year I didn't know who she was." 
 
 "Did she did she never mention us ?" asked poor Miss 
 Flora. 
 
 "Often; but only as 'my two aunts.' I asked her who 
 her father had been, and when she told me, I think it was 
 the greatest shock I had ever had in my life. I was very, 
 very sorry, Flora." 
 
 Miss Flora sighed deeply. 
 
 "Even if you had known, dear Peregrine," she said, 
 "you couldn't have helped falling in love with her." 
 
 "Yes, ah, yes, I could. If I had known in Paris I should 
 
 365
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 never have seen her again. Her father, though he was in 
 a way a friend of mine, didn't so much matter. But I 
 loved jour mother, when I was a little chap, and I've al- 
 ways regarded Effie and you as among my few real 
 friends." 
 
 "I'm glad," said Miss Fiona softly. 
 
 "Besides," he went on in a musing voice, speaking as 
 much to himself as to her, "I didn't, as you say, fall in 
 love with Nicoleta; I walked in deliberately, waded out 
 to my armpits and then plunged; and the wrong that I 
 have done her " 
 
 "And poor George," suggested Miss Flora. 
 
 Janeways rose and walked up and down, his arms folded, 
 his head bent. 
 
 "George, or someone else. Nicoleta," he said, "isn't 
 really alive yet. She has none of the faults and none of 
 the virtues of her age. She never loved me, to do her 
 justice she never said she did. She didn't run away to 
 me, she ran away from poverty and poor Loxley." 
 
 "That makes it worse," said Miss Flora unexpectedly. 
 "We always thought she loved you." 
 
 "You don't think so now, do you?" he asked with a 
 whimsical smile, devoid of all bitterness or hurt vanity. 
 
 "No," she said, "and I'm sorry. You must never tell 
 Erne this, you know: Effie is the clever one of the family 
 and she doesn't know, and it would shock her to have me 
 know ; but there has always been something dreadful about 
 Cuckoo, and I first learned it when she was a little child. 
 I love her and I am sorry for her, but I think it my duty 
 to tell you that I do not believe you to have wronged her 
 as you might have wronged, in doing what you did, a dif- 
 ferent kind of girl " 
 
 "Dear Flora, don't say any more, I understand. So 
 you've known all these years what I have known only a 
 few months." 
 
 366
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Flora's face was very white and drawn. 
 
 "Oh, Peregrine," she said, "it has always been dreadful 
 to me. I've never been able to help seeing things, though 
 everybody always thought I didn't see anything, and it 
 makes me feel so guilty towards Effie." She wrung her 
 hands gently, and her eyes were full of tears. After a 
 moment's hesitation she went on, "At the time that every- 
 one was saying how wicked it was of you to run away 
 with her and that she was so young, I always felt, al- 
 though it seemed ridiculous, that you were more to be 
 pitied than she. It seemed to me that, in a way, you were 
 the young and innocent one. And now you are unhap- 
 py. Oh, Peregrine, I do wish you didn't love her so 
 much." 
 
 He sat down and put his arms round her bent, hard 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Dear Flora," he murmured, "don't be troubled about 
 me. You spoke just like your mother then. Ah, I re- 
 member her so well ! As to poor little Nicoleta, the fault 
 isn't hers, and about my love, well, it was a thing of vanity 
 and selfishness. I deliberately encouraged it to prove to 
 myself that I was still young. The thing that troubles 
 me now is not myself, but the fact that I have taken from 
 a human creature her right to develop and grow on natural 
 lines. It's as if I had bent a rose-tree and fastened it 
 down to the earth and forced it to grow that way " 
 
 Miss Flora said nothing. 
 
 "Nicoleta is only twenty-three now; I am forty years 
 older than she is. I have made her rich and given her 
 the things she thinks she loves best in the world, but I 
 have taken from her the right to love the right things and 
 to live the right way. What ought to be to her the beau- 
 tiful accomplishment of her youth I have made into a 
 potential sin. I declare to you, Flora," he added, "that 
 I am sincere in saying that I wish I could die now and 
 
 367
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 leave that poor child free honorably to fulfil her natural 
 destiny." 
 
 Miss Flora's eyes were still full of tears tears that 
 fell slowly down her delicate, faded face. "But you are 
 so good to her," she cried, "so good." 
 
 "I'm kind to her," he said, "I'm fond of her. The 
 women I have really loved in my life, and," he added with a 
 whimsical but rather sad little smile, "they have been 
 many, Flora, might have been her grandmothers so far 
 as age goes. I was in love with Nicoleta at first, but I 
 did not love her, and now it would not be true to say that 
 I love her as a wife or anything but a friend, or a 
 grandfather! I am fond of her, and I believe I am the 
 only person in the world who can see in her the poor little 
 cramped, undeveloped germ of a soul that is all she has. 
 And that," he added quietly, "is my trouble, Flora." 
 
 He took out his fine cambric handkerchief and gave 
 it to the old lady, who was vainly struggling to find the 
 pocket that in her smart London frock did not exist. 
 
 "Wipe your eyes, my dear," he said. "I wonder if 
 you would have married me if I had asked you forty years 
 ago. You were the right age and perhaps we might have 
 been happy, and then your Cuckoo would have been my 
 niece, too." 
 
 He spoke with a whimsical gaiety, smiling down on the 
 weeping Miss Flora. 
 
 Suddenly she looked up, having wiped her eyes, which 
 shone as brightly as any girl of twenty's. 
 
 "We are so old now, Peregrine Janeways," she said, 
 "that I'm not ashamed to tell you that I'd have married 
 you and thanked God on my knees for you, when I was 
 young." 
 
 Sir Peregrine raised her hands and kissed them gal- 
 lantly. 
 
 "My dear, my dear," he said in a voice that main- 
 
 368
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 tained her feeling of perfect composure. "Would you, 
 indeed? And to think that I never knew it! I should 
 like," he added, "to have had you wear the Bag of Saf- 
 fron." 
 
 Then he gave her his arm and they walked slowly back 
 to the house. 
 
 Perhaps that was the happiest day of Miss Flora's 
 life.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 LATE one afternoon, a few days later, Cuckoo and 
 Rachel were sitting in a boat in the middle of the 
 little lake; the sky was gray, but there was no 
 menace of rain, and the oppressive air seemed less heavy 
 here than anywhere else. 
 
 Cuckoo had rowed to the middle of the lake and an- 
 chored the boat, and on the middle seat stood the contents 
 of a small tea-basket. 
 
 The two girls were lying on cushions very comfortably, 
 their hats off, their tea-cups waiting for the water to boil. 
 For a long time Rachel, who, as she grew older, was 
 developing the pleasant indolence of her mother, lay 
 quiet, her head on her hand, watching the blue flame 
 under the kettle that stood on the middle seat, without 
 speaking. Cuckoo, who had never been lazy, had divided 
 the bread and butter and the little cakes on two of the 
 enamel plates and arranged everything for the tea-making. 
 It was so still that the blue flame under the shining kettle 
 was as motionless as if carved out of a bit of stone, and 
 the dwarf birches that grew round the north end of the 
 small lake were reflected in water so quiet that it was 
 impossible to see where the reflection began and where 
 the real leaves stopped. 
 
 Every now and then Cuckoo looked at her friend, half 
 expectantly, but it was some time before Rachel spoke. 
 Then she burst out suddenly, looking fixedly at the bot- 
 tom of the boat: 
 
 "Cuckoo, will you lend me two hundred pounds?" 
 
 Cuckoo burst out laughing. "Is that all? And here 
 
 370
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 was I expecting you to tell me that you had slain the 
 twins and buried them somewhere in the rose-garden! 
 Of course I will, you goose ; that is, I'll ask Pere- 
 grine." 
 
 Rachel sat up and clasped her knees. 
 
 "Oh, no. You mustn't tell anyone. If Alison were 
 to hear of it I don't know what he'd do to me." 
 
 The kettle was boiling, and Cuckoo, before answering, 
 took it off and quenched the little flame. 
 
 "Debts?" she asked concisely. 
 
 Rachel nodded. "Yes." 
 
 "Bridge or clothes?" 
 
 "Forty pounds for Bridge I won at first, you know; 
 I made quite a lot last summer; and the rest, clothes for 
 me and the children; and then I bought some shares in a 
 silver mine in Arizona that Freddie Welbeck told me 
 about. He lost hundreds, poor dear, and I about seventy 
 pounds. Wasn't it disgusting?" 
 
 Very deftly and quickly Cuckoo made the tea. Then 
 she sat back and looked at Rachel. 
 
 "Poor old Ray, but where are the clothes?" she asked. 
 
 Rachel blushed, her face, which had kept its early 
 promise of heaviness and was too thick about the jaw 
 and throat, a little sulky. 
 
 "Oh, they weren't much, anyhow only a couple of 
 smart frocks I had for the Billington-Sykes' house-party 
 last August." 
 
 Cuckoo poured out the tea. 
 
 "You don't take sugar, do you? I see. Lady Pelter 
 and Alison weren't at the Sykes', and Captain Gascoyne 
 was. H'm!" 
 
 "Oh, Nicky, don't be nasty to me. If you had the 
 slightest idea how dull and disgusting my life is, you 
 wouldn't grudge me a little pleasure once in a while." 
 
 "I don't grudge you pleasure; and I think I do know 
 
 371
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 how dull life can be, my dear. Nobody in this world 
 was ever more bored than I." 
 
 "Of course you were, darling. I'm quite sure George 
 was worse even than Alison. Poor Alison at least 
 works." 
 
 "George worked, too," flashed out Cuckoo angrily, "he 
 worked like a black, and don't you say he didn't. And if 
 I was bored then, Lord knows, I'm bored enough now." 
 
 "Nicky!" 
 
 There was a little pause, and Cuckoo drained her cup 
 of boiling tea, which was so hot that it brought tears to 
 her eyes. 
 
 "Oh, well, of course I didn't mean that, and I know 
 it sounds ridiculous for me to express moral sentiments 
 of any kind, but I do wish, Rachel, you'd drop that dis- 
 gusting Billy Gascoyne. However, it's only a matter of 
 time, so I needn't lose my temper; he'll be dropping you 
 before long." 
 
 Rachel looked sulky. "You're a cat this afternoon. 
 However, there's no harm in Billy; he's a dear thing 
 and I'm not a bit in love with him, if that's what you 
 mean." 
 
 "That is what I mean one of the things. If you 
 were I shouldn't mind half so much, but pretending 
 working oneself up to emotion, playing games with one's 
 own feelings I think it's perfectly loathsome. However, 
 you must let me ask Peregrine for the money; he'll lend 
 it you like a shot and never tell a soul. He'll forget all 
 about it in a day or two " 
 
 "Thanks very much," Rachel said slowly, "but 
 couldn't you possibly let me have it without telling him, 
 Nicky?" 
 
 "No." Cuckoo's voice was very gruff and harsh. "I 
 haven't a penny of my own. Whenever I want money 
 he gives it to me, no matter how much, but I have no 
 
 372
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 allowance, and he made me promise him once never to 
 lend a penny to anyone without telling him." 
 
 "Oh. All right," Rachel went on reluctantly, "if I 
 don't pay that brute of a woman, she'll summon me, and 
 I must pay Billy " 
 
 "Rachel!" barked Cuckoo, her eyebrows meeting in 
 her old hideous frown. "You don't mean to say you've 
 done that ! Borrowing money of a man you are having 
 a love-affair with. My God !" 
 
 Rachel began to cry. Cuckoo put the tea-cups away 
 hastily. "It's perfectly disgraceful of you," she said. "I 
 don't wonder you're afraid to have Alison know. I believe 
 Peregrine would kill me if I did such a thing." 
 
 "Oh, would he?" Rachel snapped. "7 didn't run away 
 from my husband, and make a disgusting scandal, and be 
 in all the papers, anyhow." 
 
 Cuckoo closed the lid of the tea-basket very softly and 
 put it in the bottom of the boat. Then she rose, seated 
 herself, and took the oars in her hands. 
 
 "I think, as your hostess," she said, "that this picnic 
 has lasted long enough." 
 
 In unbroken silence she pulled back to the little boat- 
 house, and when she had fastened the boat, stepped out 
 with the tea-basket and held out her hand. 
 
 "Be careful," she said, "the boat is very unsteady. 
 Are you going back to the house, Rachel? I'm not com- 
 ing just yet." 
 
 Rachel stood and watched her as she went off to the 
 left, towards the greenhouses, light-footed and trim in 
 her well-cut coat and skirt. 
 
 Before dinner Cuckoo asked her husband for two hun- 
 dred pounds to lend Rachel. 
 
 "I hope Rachel hasn't been playing cards," Janeways 
 said gravely, as he stood in front of the library fire. 
 
 Cuckoo didn't answer. 
 
 373
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "May I have it?" she repeated. 
 
 "Yes, my dear. Rachel is your friend and I like to 
 have you help her, but for her sake and poor Jackson's 
 you must make her understand that it had better not 
 occur again." 
 
 He sat down at the writing-table and, unlocking a 
 drawer, took out a check-book. It was not the great 
 library with the famous collection of books, but a smaller 
 room, which, though lined with books, partook more 
 of the nature of a study or a smoking-room than of a 
 retreat for book-lovers. 
 
 "Why do you call Alison 'poor Jackson,' Peregrine?" 
 
 Janeways signed his name carefully, blotted the 
 check and glanced up at her before filling in the counter- 
 foil. 
 
 "Because I'm sorry for him, aren't you?" 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sorry for Rachel, most certainly, 
 but I hadn't thought of Alison." 
 
 Janeways rose and handed the check to her. 
 
 "There, my dear. So you are more sorry for Rachel?" 
 
 "Thanks, Peregrine. Yes, I am, it's dreadful for her 
 to be so poor." 
 
 "Sometimes I wonder," he said, looking down at her 
 in the grave, thoughtful way that she had noticed seemed 
 to grow with him, "whether it's right that everything 
 should be judged by the standard of money." 
 
 ''I thought," she returned indifferently, "that it was 
 generally conceded that that standard is undoubtedly bad ; 
 bad," she added with a little laugh, "but universal, like 
 drink." 
 
 He did not laugh and the intentness of his gaze em- 
 barrassed her. 
 
 "Thanks so much for this," she said hurriedly. "I'll 
 go and give it to her." 
 
 She left the room, and he stood for a while just where 
 
 374
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 she had left him, his fine old face heavy with thought. 
 Very little had been said between them about the ques- 
 tion of Adrian Taylor. Janeways was a man who asked 
 very few questions, and Cuckoo was a woman who gave 
 very little unsolicited information. A few hours after 
 the young man's departure, Janeways had gone to his 
 wife's room and told her briefly that Taylor had gone. 
 
 "You sent him?" she asked, her little face looking 
 very small and white amid her loosened hair as she lay 
 back on her pillows. 
 
 "Yes, he was a nuisance, wasn't he?" 
 
 "He was, Peregrine." 
 
 "Is it true," he said, "that you slipped getting out of 
 the boat?" 
 
 Cuckoo closed her eyes, arching her eyebrows in faint 
 disgust at the memory of the incident. 
 
 "No," she returned; "is that what he said?" 
 
 "Yes, that's why I sent him away." 
 
 That was all, but as she went up to Rachel's room 
 with the check, Cuckoo recalled the little scene. Some 
 dim idea about her husband was beginning to stir at the 
 back of her mind, but she didn't look into it closely, for 
 she was training herself, half unconsciously, half delib- 
 erately, in self-defence, to avoid even mentally anything 
 that might disturb her. 
 
 "Here's the money, Rachel," she said, going into her 
 friend's room. 
 
 Lady Rachel was sitting at her glass, putting the fin- 
 ishing touches to her hair. Cuckoo laid the check on 
 the table and there was a short silence, which she herself 
 broke with a little laugh. 
 
 "You owe me an apology," she said. "You were abom- 
 inably rude ; but I hate apologies, so don't make one. To 
 get even with you, I'll tell you that the tops of your arms 
 are entirely too fat. You must exercise more, Ray." 
 
 375
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "I can't exercise," Rachel returned fretfully, "only 
 the rich can afford exercise. I am much obliged for the 
 money, Nicky, and I'll pay it back as soon as I can, little 
 by little." 
 
 "I shouldn't if I were you," Cuckoo answered care- 
 lessly. "I don't think Peregrine would like you to." She 
 looked round the room as she spoke, and the discontent 
 that had been hanging over her all day gave way to a 
 feeling of satisfaction. Rachel's silver and crystal dress- 
 ing-table things were scratched and dented; her silk 
 petticoat was of the kind seen hanging in bunches like 
 monstrous grapes, all exactly alike, in big stores; the 
 dressing-gown over the back of her friend's chair looked 
 almost, if not quite, dirty, and the evening frock on the 
 bed had, Cuckoo knew, for the second time undergone the 
 usually depressing process of freshening up. And she, 
 Cuckoo, had everything in the world she had always 
 wanted ! 
 
 "Do you remember, Ray, the green sunshade you gave 
 me, the first day we met?" 
 
 "I don't know ; no. What was it ?" 
 
 And even this small fact of Lady Rachel's having 
 forgotten what to her had been so unimportant and to 
 Cuckoo so remarkably vital, added, without her knowing, 
 to Cuckoo's sudden sense of well-being and self-congratu- 
 lation. Poor Rachel ! Poor, shabby, untidy Rachel, with 
 no beautiful "things." 
 
 Cuckoo was very gay that evening, laughing and jest- 
 ing in a way that pleased Miss Effie and Miss Flora, and 
 after dinner Miss Flora tripped across the room to 
 Janeways in a little flutter of excitement. 
 
 "You see, Peregrine," she whispered, flushing her pretty, 
 shell-pink flush, "she's glad that foolish 'young man has 
 gone. Did you see the smile she gave you as we left the 
 dining-room?" 
 
 376
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Janeways' own smile was very kind and pleasant as he 
 looked down at the old lady. 
 
 "I am going to give her a ruby," he said, "and she likes 
 rubies." 
 
 The next day the house-party began to break up, and 
 on the Monday no one was left except Miss Flora and Miss 
 Effie, and Mantepop, who was going back to London with 
 Janeways. 
 
 At the last minute Cuckoo, to everybody's surprise 
 and to the real pleasure of the aunts, had announced her 
 intention of not accompanying her husband and his 
 friend. 
 
 "I'm going to Roseroofs for a couple of days, if the 
 aunts will have me," she said at dinner. "I'll join yon 
 in town Thursday or Friday." 
 
 Janeways face lighted with pleasure. 
 
 "Good," he said heartily, "that will be delightful. If 
 you like, take the big car and the luggage can all go on 
 it; Marsh can put it up at the 'Grouse.' If you like 
 you might even go as far as York in it you and Marthe." 
 
 Miss Effie and Miss Flora were very happy over this 
 (decision, and the next morning they started off with 
 Cuckoo, Cuckoo's maid sitting in front with the chauffeur. 
 
 Janeways had not forgotten his promise about the ruby 
 and the pearls, and as he said good-bye to his wife he 
 promised her that he would have them ready when she 
 arrived in town. She looked up at him with a new look, 
 which he had seen several times of late and about which 
 he had wondered each time, and thanked him. 
 
 "You are very good to me, Peregrine," she said, 
 "and " She broke off. 
 
 There was in her, as the car rolled along up over the 
 pass towards Wiskedale, not a vestige of the new Nicoleta 
 of the haughty eyelids and the cold manner she had dis- 
 
 377
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 played as hostess at her first house-party. She seemed 
 younger, and though not perhaps happier, yet a little 
 more merry, and she was honestly glad to be going back 
 to her old home. The aunts were delighted with her. 
 
 It chanced that she was the first to see the windows of 
 Roseroofs shining in the sun as they rounded the shoulder 
 of the hill. She stood up and pointed. 
 
 "Look, oh look! There it is, Aunt Flora, there it is, 
 Aunt Effie ! Oh, the dear little place !" 
 
 Miss Flora made a mental note that she would very 
 soon write Janeways a long letter, encouraging him to 
 hope for beautiful changes in his wife. 
 
 As the car passed up the Dale and through Warcop, 
 Cuckoo glanced about her with something of the excite- 
 ment of a child. 
 
 "Oh, there's Joss Skelton; I suppose that's his new 
 wife ; heavens ! isn't she plain ! And there's Sarah Ought- 
 enshaw with a new baby. Oh, how utterly unchanged it 
 all looks!" 
 
 "Why shouldn't it look unchanged?" asked Miss Effie 
 austerely ; "what do you expect to happen in Warcop in 
 less than three years?" 
 
 It was true that Warcop looked as if nothing but the 
 last trump could ever change it ; yet Cuckoo felt that she 
 had been away for half a century. 
 
 As they crossed the bridge she remembered the very spot 
 where she had slipped and fallen the day she raced down 
 from Thornby Lodge to catch George on his way to the 
 bus. Her face hardened, and she sat silent until the car 
 had reached the gate. 
 
 Esther Oughtenshaw, now wearing a thick, fluted white 
 cap, stood at the gate, welcome and delight written all 
 over her face. Greatly to her own surprise, Cuckoo put 
 her arms round the old woman's neck and gave her a 
 sound kiss, then she ran on into the house ahead of her 
 
 378
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 aunts and into the drawing-room. It, too, had not 
 changed. It looked small and shabby and faded, but, 
 almost to her own annoyance, it looked home to her. 
 Then she went upstairs to the blue room, which was to 
 be hers, and knelt by the window, looking out over the 
 Dale. 
 
 When Marthe, Lady Janeways' smart Parisian maid, 
 entered, she found her mistress sitting by the window with 
 a languid air. An English maid under similar circum- 
 stances might have tried to curry favor with her lady 
 by expressing wonder as to how that lady would be able 
 to make herself comfortable in such cramped and old- 
 fashioned quarters. But Marthe was a Frenchwoman, so 
 she was ecstatic over the view ; she was delighted with the 
 charming room; she even went to the length of admiring 
 Esther Oughtenshaw. 
 
 Cuckoo listened languidly, quite seeing through the 
 subtle flattery. But she enjoyed the quiet supper in the 
 old, many-windowed dining-room, and Esther's tea-cakes 
 were praised by her in a way that surprised that shrewd 
 old woman. 
 
 "Miss Coocoo's changed," she said to Nellie, who had 
 not married and was still with them. 
 
 "Aye, she's not so proud now, for all she's sae rich." 
 
 Aunt EfBe and Aunt Flora each, separately and with- 
 out expressing the thought to each other, wondered if she 
 had not possibly been a little hard on Cuckoo at Tarring- 
 Peverell. She was delightfully simple and natural now; 
 in a way more simple and natural than she had ever been 
 before. They did not know, the two old ladies, that 
 achievement often brings with it a simplicity unknown to 
 the striving that went before it.
 
 CHAPTER xxxn 
 
 THE next day it rained and the ladies sat indoors. 
 Cuckoo had relapsed somewhat into her Tarring- 
 Peverell manner, but the day passed very pleas- 
 antly. She sat for a long time in the kitchen, watching 
 Esther make pastry and listening to the old woman's tales 
 of her own childhood. 
 
 "I can see ye now, Miss Coocoo my lady, I mean to 
 say sitting there on t' table on t' creepy stool to keep 
 your frock clean the day Miss Marcia came." 
 
 "I can remember that day, Esther," Cuckoo answered, 
 leaning her elbows on the table, and cupping her chin in 
 her hands. "But you needn't call me 'my lady,' I like 
 being called 'Miss Coocoo.' ' 
 
 Esther looked at her shrewdly. "You've changed a 
 good bit," she said slowly. 
 
 Cuckoo did not answer, and then she announced briskly 
 that the said changes were due to her old age. "I'm five- 
 and-twenty, you know, Esther a quarter of a century 
 old !" She looked round the kitchen, in which not a single 
 thing had changed, and then suddenly she remembered 
 Agnes. 
 
 "Tell me about Agnes Vosper," she said suddenly. 
 Esther shook her head. "I can't tell you about Agnes 
 Vosper, Miss Coocoo." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because" the old woman held her dough in one hand 
 while she freshly spread the board with flour "because," 
 she answered, "there is no Agnes Vosper." 
 
 For some reason Cuckoo felt a pang as of guilt at these 
 
 380
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 words. She remembered Agnes's miserable face on the 
 occasion of her visit to the farm. It was she who had 
 made Agnes marry Vosper, and now "What do you 
 mean, Esther?" 
 
 Esther laughed as she rolled out her pastry. "I mean 
 that she has been married to Chris Greening for over a 
 year. Didn't Miss Flora tell you, Miss Coocoo?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad," Cuckoo returned, her face brighten- 
 ing suddenly. "I was so sorry for her the last time I saw 
 her." 
 
 Esther looked at her very severely. "You remember 
 whose doing it was?" she asked. 
 
 "I do. But all's well that ends well, and they'd have 
 been miserable if they'd married then, Esther." 
 
 "No, they wouldn't; they were young and strong and 
 could 'a worked, and t'was a bad life she had with Ike 
 Vosper. Howsoever, she's happy enough now, and she's 
 gotten a little baby. It was born last Sunday, and they're 
 that pleased, the two of 'em ! Chris Greening goes about 
 as if he was the only man since Jacob who ever got a 
 child." 
 
 Cuckoo did not ask why Jacob was honored with this 
 distinguishing allusion, but the next morning being a fine 
 day, she told her aunts she was going up Cotherside to 
 see Agnes Greening's baby. 
 
 When she had gone Miss Effie and Miss Flora looked at 
 each other, something almost like dismay in their faces, 
 but they didn't say anything. Miss Effie thought that 
 poor Cuckoo perhaps was grieving because she had no 
 bairn herself, but Miss Flora, deceitful, fluttering, wise 
 Miss Flora, was desolated and troubled. Her letter to 
 Sir Peregrine would, she felt, be less easy and pleasant to 
 write than she had hoped. 
 
 Meantime Cuckoo walked down the hill gaily briskly; 
 for a long time she had had no really long walk and she 
 
 381
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 enjoyed the ease and lightness with which her feet carried 
 her. Crossing the Green she met and spoke to several 
 people she had known all her life; she gave pennies to 
 Sarah Oughtenshaw's children and bought a London 
 paper at the little shop where, as a child, she had pur- 
 chased slate-pencils and bull's-eyes. The very smell of 
 the shop had not changed; it smelt of rubber, and print- 
 er's ink, and peppermint, and stuffiness; above all, of 
 stuffiness. The window, she knew, had never been opened, 
 and the constant quick opening and closing of the door 
 had hardly impaired the solidity of the ancient smell that 
 dwelt in the corners. She held her breath, as she had 
 always done, as she made her purchases, and then tore 
 the door open almost frantically. 
 
 As she crossed the Green, she saw ahead of her a stout 
 black figure in an absurd hat. It was Mr. Wick, the 
 Methodist minister. She had forgotten Mr. Wick hadn't 
 thought of him for years, of him, or his flat-nosed wife, or 
 his many children, and here he was, looking exactly as he 
 had looked ever since she could remember. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Wick," she cried, stopping and 
 holding out her hand. 
 
 "Good morning," he said hastily, as he took off his 
 hat. 
 
 "Don't you know me?" she asked, laughing, and real- 
 izing with a little pang of pleasure how unlikely it was 
 that the leggy, badly-dressed girl of the old days should 
 be recognizable to the good man in the smart young 
 woman of that morning. "I'm Lady Janeways Cuckoo 
 Blundell from Roseroofs." 
 
 Over Mr. Wick's fat face crept a blush and he drew 
 back, looking away from her. 
 
 Cuckoo stared at him. Then she realized what it meant. 
 Mr. Wick was not an unkind man, he was not trying to 
 hurt her, he was in fact plainly distressed and embar- 
 
 382
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 rassed by the situation, but Mr. Wick, the Methodist 
 minister of this remote Yorkshire village, plainly consid- 
 ered Lady Janeways to be a person not fit for him to 
 shake hands with. 
 
 "I I good morning, madam," he stammered, and 
 with a little sideways duck he doubled back on the way 
 he had come, turning his toes in in the ridiculous manner 
 that even now, in the midst of her amused anger, she 
 remembered always to have been his. She went on down 
 the street to Crowner's Bridge, pausing a moment to look 
 at the pool of olive-green water below the little waterfall, 
 down the footpath that led to the road to Thornby Lodge, 
 her head high, her cheeks lit with little scarlet flames. 
 She was extremely annoyed with Mr. Wick, and her an- 
 noyance was slow in dying out. She would have liked, 
 in return for the uncomfortable moment he had caused 
 her, to do him some injury; she hated him. It never 
 occurred to her that he could be in any way right or that 
 she was unjust in her anger. She despised him for de- 
 spising her. 
 
 It was a beautiful, windy, moorland day. The sky was 
 full of huge and cumbrous clouds that shouldered and 
 jostled each other in their haste westward; it was a day 
 good for being alive and for walking. 
 
 Christopher Greening's cottage, she knew, was about 
 half a mile beyond Thornby Lodge. He was gamekeeper 
 to the new owner of that estate, and on reaching the lodge 
 Cuckoo passed and looked up at the house, the sunset 
 glitter of whose windows was a part of her memories of 
 Roseroofs. Poor old Judge Capel, she thought, what an 
 awful life his has been always lonely, always cross, al- 
 ways ill. He had been kind to her in his way, and her 
 thoughts of him in return were kind, as she raced up the 
 road, a little blue figure in one of the close-fitting Mercury 
 hats she affected. She was glad that Agnes was happy at 
 
 383
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 last ; poor Agnes ! And in her present mood she con- 
 gratulated herself on her youthful wisdom in preventing 
 the young servant from marrying her impecunious sweet- 
 heart. It had not done Agnes any real harm to wait a 
 few years, and now she and her new husband were com- 
 fortably off and happy. She smiled at this pleasant 
 thought, for the memory of poor Agnes Vesper's 
 face as she had last seen it at the gate of Set- 
 tle Farm had sometimes refused to be banished from her 
 mind. 
 
 The cottage, a mere outcrop of the stony soil from 
 which it sprang, was reached by a small path leading 
 from the road, through the heather that encroached on 
 all sides as if about to flow in across the small garden and 
 overgrow it entirely. Two or three bright milk-pans were 
 sweetening in the sun on the flagged place outside the 
 door, and bees boomed in the sweet-williams and stocks 
 and single pinks, from which the sun was drawing a royal 
 smell. 
 
 It was all very quiet, the moorland hush hardly dis- 
 turbed by the existence of the little human habitation in 
 its midst. A rush-bottomed chair stood on the flag-stones, 
 and Cuckoo sat down without knocking and looked about 
 her. A black cat with white paws lay on top of the stone 
 wall and eyed her with grave indifference; in the byre at 
 the far end of the house a calf moved softly; that, and 
 the sound of the bees were 'the only things that disturbed 
 the old-fashioned, sunny silence. The very hens pecked 
 quietly in the grass, or strutted about, badly balanced 
 on their silly legs in too short pantaloons. Cuckoo won- 
 dered why the hen, which is surely, next to the cow, the 
 most valuable of domestic creatures, should be cursed 
 with so idiotic and unprepossessing an appearance. 
 
 Presently she heard someone coming, and, pushed by 
 an instinct that she was never able to explain, she rose 
 
 384
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and stepped behind a thick clump of lilac that grew on the 
 far side of the door. 
 
 Through the leaves she could see Chris Greening's face 
 as he came across the moor to his home. He had been a 
 good-looking youth in rather a silly way, and now he was 
 just as good-looking and just as silly-looking. The ex- 
 pression on his face as he came up the path, almost on 
 tip-toes, was one that Cuckoo had never before seen. He 
 stopped outside the cottage door, sat down in the chair, 
 and unlaced and took off his big, clumsy boots. His coarse, 
 gray woollen socks were, she could see, a perfect mosaic 
 of careful darns. Evidently Agnes took good care of 
 him. Setting the boots, which looked like rhinoceros heads 
 so crumpled and corrugated were they, by the chair, he 
 tip-toed softly into his house. After a moment Cuckoo 
 followed him and stood in the door. 
 
 It was a large and roomy cottage; to her right was 
 the kitchen, the door just ajar; to her left, where Chris 
 went in, the door was wide open. It was a small room, 
 as the bedrooms of peasants almost always are, and the 
 bed took up nearly half of it. In the bed, under a narrow 
 canopy of faded chintz, a spotlessly-clean patch-work 
 quilt over her, Cuckoo saw Agnes. She lay with her 
 eyes shut, her baby tucked into the crook of one arm. By 
 her, Chris had knelt down, and was looking at her with 
 the nearest thing to adoration poor Cuckoo Janeways 
 had ever seen in her life. She stood still, afraid to move. 
 Only once had she seen anything even approaching the 
 look that was in the face of this poor, common man, as 
 he knelt by his wife and child, and that was in George's 
 big, dim eyes, the day of the birth of their little girl. 
 George had loved her, she knew, although she now knew 
 what a poor thing her love for George had been, but even 
 he, even on that day, had not achieved this fine rapture. 
 Presently Agnes opened her eyes, and her wan face, look- 
 
 385
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ing so much older than it had a right to look, lighted up 
 in splendid response to what she saw in her husband's. 
 
 "Is she asleep?" Chris whispered. 
 
 "Aye, luv," the woman smiled. 
 
 A few minutes later when Greening went into the 
 kitchen to fetch his wife a glass of milk, there was no 
 one in the passage, but something lay on the floor. He 
 took it up and spread it out on his big brown hand in 
 amazement. It was a filmy square of batiste and in the 
 corner was a little monogram. 
 
 First Chris Greening looked at it, then he smelt it, 
 then, together with the glass of milk, he took it back to 
 his wife. 
 
 "Look what I've found in t'passage, Agnes," he said. 
 "Someone's been in but there's no one there now." 
 
 Agnes looked at the handkerchief. "That belongs to 
 our Miss Coocoo, Chris," she said. "I thought I heard 
 something before I opened my eyes " 
 
 Greening wondered why Cuckoo had not made her 
 presence known but Agnes was not surprised. 
 
 "Poor Miss Coocoo," she said softly, holding her baby 
 closer. "I know why she didn* coom in "
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 IT was only about half-past eleven when Lady Jane- 
 ways left Chris Greening's cottage. When she 
 reached the road she stood for a moment staring 
 absently before her. She had no wish to go back to Rose- 
 roofs ; she hated, for some reason, the thought of crossing 
 the Green at Warcop ; she would take a long, long walk. 
 The Aunts would not expect her, for she had told them 
 that she might spend the whole day out of doors, as she 
 had so often done in her girlhood, and in her pocket she 
 had a couple of bars of chocolate, so she would not be 
 hungry. Below, slightly to the left, lay Warcop ; a little 
 to her right she could cross the river near Watlass Mill 
 and go up Meldon Side and walk along up dale as far as 
 Clavers. She would walk along the Edge and return home 
 by the Green Bench. 
 
 So she went down the hill to the Dale, walked for a 
 couple of miles along the shady highroad, and then, 
 crossing by the Mill, made her way slowly up the slope. 
 The mood she was in was strange to her and a little 
 frightening. It was absurd, she told herself angrily, for 
 her to have a lonely, desolate feeling because Chris Green- 
 ing had looked at his wife with something in his eyes that 
 had never been in any eyes that looked on her. It was 
 ridiculous that the glory and comfort of her husband's 
 wealth should have seemed to depart from her as she stood 
 in the poor little moorland cottage. She had tried the 
 equivalent of her class for love in a cottage, and a miser- 
 able failure it had been. Suppose she had been still living 
 in that awful Whistler Mansions with only one servant, 
 
 387
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 a constantly changing incarnation of exactly the same 
 spirit, how wretched she would have been! She caught 
 hold of her pearls, which she always wore under her 
 blouse, and remembered the ones poor old Uncle Adolph 
 had given her, and which she had sold to a pawnbroker 
 in order to have a fling in Paris. If she had gone back, 
 everything would have been the same, only there would 
 have been no pearls ! She would have had to have under- 
 clothes even worse than Rachel's, and ready-made-by-the- 
 hundred petticoats. Rachel's best patent leather shoes 
 had an incipient crack across one toe; Cuckoo's would 
 have had cracks. And, oh, the misery of going in buses ! 
 Cuckoo had discovered in herself, on her return to town 
 after her marriage, a full-grown and vigorous hatred of 
 buses. Probably fastidious people never like this demo- 
 cratic mode of progress, but Cuckoo hated it with a 
 hatred not only of mean fastidiousness, but also of the 
 finer dislike of crowding and contact that naturally ex- 
 ists in people used to noble distances and clear, unpolluted 
 air. She remembered how she had loathed the King's 
 Road on a wet night in a crowded bus. George had 
 laughed at her gently, and not at all unkindly, for this 
 daintiness, but the idea had been almost an obsession with 
 her. As she reached Meldon Edge and turned off west- 
 wards, following the narrow, deep-rutted path that had 
 probably been first made by the Romans in the earliest 
 days of the lead mines, she remembered one night in par- 
 ticular when she and George had been dining somewhere, 
 and she sat in a bus in evening dress that was a relic of 
 her South Audley Street days, angrily withdrawing into 
 herself from a half-drunken man on one side, and a sway- 
 ing, gin-flavored woman who was hanging on to a strap. 
 It was one of the first occasions on which George had 
 spoken sharply to her, for she had muttered under her 
 breath some words expressive of her intense discomfort 
 
 388
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 and loathing of everyone in the bus, and he had an- 
 swered : 
 
 "It's no worse for you, Cuckoo, than it is for every- 
 body else. If you can catch that point of view it might 
 help you." 
 
 She was hurt and angry, but it was in the very early 
 days of their marriage and reconciliation had followed. 
 
 What was the little rhyme he had made the next even- 
 ing as they sat over the fire happily together and the 
 wind beat on the big north window of the studio ? It was, 
 so far as she knew, George's only venture into the King- 
 dom of Poesy, and she had thought the little verse not 
 without a queer, George-like charm. She had learnt it by 
 heart, she remembered, and now she had forgotten. Al- 
 though it had been quiet in the Dale, the presage of the 
 morning's scudding clouds was more than fulfilled up on 
 the heights. A strong wind on which she could almost lie 
 back, carried her along the top, flocks of cloud-shadows 
 wandered over the hillsides as if looking for a ghostly 
 shepherd. After a while, Cuckoo, out of breath and tired, 
 sat down in a hollow to rest. It was a very small hollow 
 and gave her, as she sat in it, a comfortable, tucked-in 
 feeling. The sun came out brightly, all the shadows disap- 
 peared, and then, one by one, she saw, as she leaned over 
 the edge of her nest, the incorporeal flocks come back. 
 
 She tried to think about her ruby, but it seemed an 
 unsubstantial thing and slipped away from her repeat- 
 edly. She would be going to town the next day, and the 
 ruby would be waiting for her at St. James's Square. She 
 had always been glad that Janeways' town house was sit- 
 uated here in the very seats of the mighty. She thought 
 of the huge hall and its fine old staircase ; it was a mag- 
 nificent house. Although Janeways had not lived in it for 
 some three years, it would be, she knew, thanks to his habit 
 of keeping everything he owned in most meticulous repair, 
 
 389
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 in as perfect order as if a passionately devoted mistress 
 had never left it. Cuckoo, of course, could not be pre- 
 sented on her marriage, but her first Season in London 
 was, for all that, going to be a very brilliant one. 
 
 She tried to ponder all these things as she sat in the 
 little hollow, looking over the edge across the Dale. But 
 the side of a hill on a fine summer's day is not a place in 
 which such splendors and satisfactions can for long occupy 
 the foreground of one's thoughts. And then a lark began 
 to sing. She could see it in the sky and she lay back in 
 the heather and listened to it. So Agnes was quite happy 
 Agnes and Chris, with his foolish, wonderful face. Of 
 course they had the thousand pounds that old Vosper had 
 left his widow, but it could not be that, she realized, that 
 made Chris's face so shine with happiness. Of course he 
 loved her, but love, after all, did not make men look like 
 that. As to the baby, whose little black head she had seen 
 in the hollow of Agnes's arm, everybody had babies and 
 the first one always seemed remarkable to its parents. 
 No, it could not be that. Then she fell to wondering 
 about the poem George had written about the children in 
 the buses ; how did it go ? It was five years ago, so no 
 wonder she couldn't remember it, she thought, with an im- 
 patient frown and then, quite suddenly, she did remem- 
 ber it. 
 
 But oh! the pitiful small babes who jog 
 
 Late in the night in buses going home. 
 
 Their little faces graying from fatigue, 
 
 Their eyes half shut and troubled, as they lie 
 
 Fitfully staring at the ugly light; 
 
 Their chilled, appealing hands, like little paws, 
 
 Seeking so weakly, yet so yearningly 
 
 The mother's arm, too tired to clasp them close; 
 
 Their weary heads wobbling on weary necks 
 
 Like pale wild-flowers the frost has kissed too soon. 
 
 . . . Oh, God! the pitiful small babes who jog 
 
 Late in the night in buses going home 
 
 390
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 She said the lines aloud, slowly and softly, and sud- 
 denly she rose, a ready-made decision in her mind. She 
 would walk on to Clavers and go to see old Mary and get 
 news of George. It had affected her very little two or 
 three days ago to hear from one of her aunts that George 
 had been ill, but now she felt she must know how he was. 
 On looking at her watch, she was surprised to find that 
 she had sat for two hours in her warm nook ; also that she 
 had not noticed the dulling and leadening of the sky. 
 Only a small patch of blue remained, and the countryside 
 was almost shadowless in the absence of sun. 
 
 Lunch time had come and gone and she was hungry. 
 So she walked along, battling against the wind, which 
 had shifted a little and was beating her towards the edge 
 of the high place where she walked, eating chocolate and 
 humming under her breath. It was quite natural that 
 being at Roseroofs should have brought George to her 
 mind more vividly than he had been for years, she told 
 herself, and besides, it would be a kind and friendly thing 
 to go and see his old nurse. She paused where Roseroofs 
 lay below embosomed in trees ; in the garden there moved 
 something like a fly which she knew must be one of the 
 Aunts. It would please them, she thought, if she went 
 down to Widdybank to stand for a moment by her fath- 
 er's grave, perhaps on her way back. A mile and a half 
 further on she came to the old, ruined mine where she and 
 George had had a talk on their way home from Mary 
 Watlass's the last Christmas she had spent at Roseroofs. 
 Cold Comfort, it was called, and cold comfort it certainly 
 looked, gray and ugly in the sullen afternoon light. 
 
 For many, many years no work had been done there 
 and the gray hollows and trenches were, in a measure, 
 softened by the gradual accumulation of bracken and the 
 hardier kind of wild plants, but nothing could do any 
 good to, or soften, the blank ugliness of the piles and 
 
 391
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 cataracts of lustreless, useless gray stones that lay about 
 in all directions. A sort of desolation seemed to hang 
 over the place and to chill the heart of its beholder. At 
 the foot of it, almost directly opposite, a mile or so away, 
 Widdybank Church tower pointed a squat finger towards 
 heaven. If Cuckoo went down that way she could go 
 through the churchyard and pay the little sentimental 
 visit that would please her aunts and for some reason 
 she felt that afternoon as if she would like to please some- 
 body. There was a path through the ugly, desolate place, 
 very rough and broken, but she could find it, she thought ; 
 and after leaving the churchyard she could go along the 
 side of the hill without mounting again, to Clavers. 
 
 As she stood there, looking very small and girlish in 
 her short skirt, a drop of rain fell on her face and, looking 
 up, she saw that the clouds had lowered and darkened in 
 a menacing way and that a sharp rain-storm was coming. 
 A few feet below her there had been, she knew, the remains 
 of an old miner's hut, half dug out of the hill, half roofed 
 over with ancient and rotting boards. There was prob- 
 ably little of it left by now, but it would afford at least 
 a measure of shelter, and, running down the slope, she 
 looked for it. It was indeed ruined now, the timber lay 
 in bits on the ground, half overgrown with weeds and 
 creepers, and only by pressing herself close against the 
 inner wall could Cuckoo find any protection from the rain, 
 which now came down thickly. Luckily, the wind came 
 from behind her, so she had, as she stood there, though 
 uncomfortable, an odd feeling of cosiness. The shower 
 was sure not to last long, she thought, and it was a curi- 
 ous and not uninteresting experience, standing there dry 
 in the abandoned, wet place. And then quite suddenly, 
 looking off to her right where a tangle of undergrowth 
 marked the edge of the unbroken moorland, she saw George 
 Loxley, as white as death, sitting on the ground leaning 
 
 392
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 against a tree, his hat off, his hands lying limply by his 
 sides. For a moment she could not believe her eyes. 
 George had been, in her thoughts, so plainly and naturally 
 in Chelsea, that she stared at him as if he were a ghost. 
 Then she noticed that not only did he not see her, but that 
 he was in some way badly hurt, and she walked out into 
 the rain towards him. 
 
 "George," she said, "George, what's the matter?" For 
 a moment he did not answer, his eyes didn't open, and she 
 repeated her question. 
 
 "What's the matter, George? You've hurt yourself." 
 
 Then his gray eyes, dark with pain, looked up at her. 
 
 "I've hurt my knee I think it's put out sorry, 
 Cuckoo," and closing his eyes, he fainted away without 
 more ado. 
 
 When he came to he looked up at her as she knelt by 
 him, bathing his temples with a rain-soaked handkerchief, 
 and smiled faintly. 
 
 "The same old scent," he murmured. 
 
 She laughed nervously. "Yes, Aunt Marcia gave me 
 a bottle of it my first birthday in London; I've used it 
 ever since. How funny that you remember." 
 
 "Oh, I remember," he answered quietly. 
 
 Then suddenly they both remembered. Cuckoo rose. 
 "I'm afraid the pain is awful," she said formally, "and 
 how on earth are you ever going to get down the hill?" 
 She had forgotten that he no longer lived at the Vicarage. 
 
 "I don't want to get down the hill. I want to get to 
 Clavers. I'm staying with Mary Watlass." 
 
 "Oh !" There was a pause, while the rain pelted down, 
 gradually making little pools among the piles of stones 
 that would later shine in the renewed light. 
 
 "I wonder," she said, "if I could help you? Can you 
 stand at all?" 
 
 He struggled up and stood leaning against a tree, his 
 
 393
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 right leg crooked, his brows drawn together with almost 
 unbearable pain. 
 
 "Suppose I run to Clavers and send someone back for 
 you," she suggested. "Oh, George, you do look ill!" 
 
 He tried to laugh, and the attempt was rather a failure. 
 
 "Oh, it's not the pain that makes me look so bad," he 
 said. "I've been ill with pneumonia and came up here for 
 the air. I only arrived yesterday, and in a few days I 
 shall be all right." 
 
 After a moment they decided to try and walk along the 
 path, which led almost without ascending from the lead 
 mine to Clavers. George laid his arm over Cuckoo's 
 shoulders, and leaning on his stick, which luckily was a 
 stout ash with a broad crook, hobbled along. 
 
 They walked in silence for a while, a silence broken 
 only by occasional questions from her or an irrepressible 
 groan from him. 
 
 The rain had settled down steadily, and suddenly George 
 stopped, and with a gesture painfully familiar to her, put 
 up his coat collar. 
 
 She burst into a nervous laugh, almost a giggle. 
 
 "It has its funny side, hasn't it?" she asked. 
 
 He nodded: "Yes, I suppose it has. Why did you 
 laugh?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 Their progress was naturally very slow, for his knee 
 had received a severe strain, and after a while the embar- 
 rassment that, but for his disabled condition, must in- 
 evitably have distressed them on this their first meeting 
 since he had left London for Cyprus nearly three years 
 ago, fell on them both at the same time. Naturally 
 Cuckoo, being a woman, tried to cover her sense of awk- 
 wardness by talking. 
 
 "Do you know," she said, her voice husky and deep, 
 "I was thinking about you not more than an hour ago. 
 
 394
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Do you remember the verse you wrote about the babies 
 in one of those horrible King's Road buses?" 
 
 They had paused to rest for a moment, and George 
 looked at her mildly, his eyes full of a vague questioning 
 that long ago she had loved, and which, in the days she 
 had just mentioned, the Chelsea days, had so exasperated 
 her. 
 
 "I don't remember the verse," he said, "but I remember 
 the babies, poor little things." 
 
 "Well, the poetry was really quite good at least, I 
 thought so though Peregrine says I'm the worst judge 
 of poetry alive." 
 
 She broke off short ; Janeways' name had seemed thor- 
 oughly out of place between them. 
 
 "Have you written any more poetry, I mean?" 
 
 As she looked at him, a deep flush darkened his thin, 
 white face and the end of his nose stirred. Cuckoo's heart 
 gave a little throb. 
 
 "I have written only one thing since then," he returned, 
 in a voice which the word "grave" expresses inade- 
 quately. "Shall I tell you what it was?" 
 
 She looked at him, completely puzzled, and he began 
 slowly : 
 
 "It is an epitaph," he said, "on a little baby: 
 
 "Spring brought her, little and serene and grave, 
 And like a flower. She drew one wondering breath, 
 Nestled once closely to her mother's side, 
 Then closed her eyes, and kissed the face of Death." 
 
 As he ended the lines he burst into a fit of coughing, 
 leaning against a wall. Cuckoo drew away from him. 
 
 "You mean you wrote that for for ours?" she asked, 
 her words oddly divided, each one, it seemed, quite alone. 
 
 "Yes ; I had the stone put up and thought I would like 
 
 395
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 just something on it. I've put 'Delia, 5 for my grand- 
 mother; I thought you wouldn't mind " 
 
 There was a little pause, and then she answered: 
 
 "Oh, George, no, I don't mind. I was thinking to-day," 
 she added, "that she would have been four " 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm as she spoke, and, perhaps 
 for the second or third time in his life, he saw tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "I was thinking to-day how dreadful it was that I've 
 never cared about the baby, I mean." 
 
 Loxley drew away from her. 
 
 "Come," he said, with gentle coldness, "we must be 
 getting on." 
 
 It seemed to Cuckoo that he was being brutal. If she 
 wished to lay her hand on anybody's arm like that, whose 
 arm, in the name of goodness, could she lay it on if not his ? 
 It was preposterous the way he drew aside. She flung 
 up her head and gave a little shrug. 
 
 "I'd rather not talk about about it all, Cuckoo, if 
 you don't mind," he continued. "I don't mean it un- 
 kindly, but I'd rather not." 
 
 They walked slowly on. 
 
 George said no more, but she felt that he felt that the 
 little grave, with the poor little verse on it, was his, ex- 
 clusively his, and that she was an outsider, an intruder. 
 Yet he had told her the verse, which otherwise she would 
 never have known. 
 
 "George," she said hurriedly, "you've never said an 
 unkind word written, I mean to me about what I did. 
 I don't suppose you cared much, but still it must have 
 hurt you a little." She paused. 
 
 "Yes," he said, as he hobbled along. "I should like 
 to tell you, not only because I'm cold and wet and tired, 
 but I think I've often wanted to, deep down. I'm sorry 
 about those times in Chelsea. I think it was more my 
 
 396
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 fault than jours, and I'd like to know that you forgive 
 me, Cuckoo." 
 
 She drew a long breath. "Of course," she answered 
 wearily, as they reached the end of the path and stood, 
 separated from the little village only by a field, at the 
 other side of which stood Mary Watlass's cottage. 
 
 "I think I'll sit down here, Cuckoo, if you don't mind. 
 I can't stand much more of the pain, I mean," he added, 
 as she turned. "Do you mind going and telling Mary, 
 and she'll send someone to help me to the house." 
 
 He sat down on the sodden grass, and leant exhaustedly 
 against the wall. 
 
 "George," she said sharply, stricken with a sudden fear, 
 "you haven't got consumption, have you?" He didn't 
 open his eyes. 
 
 "No, I don't think I have. I've had some very bad 
 colds the winters are dreadful in London now." 
 
 "Then why," she asked, forgetting for the moment what 
 she so well knew, "why don't you go to Italy or the South 
 of France? It's ridiculous your allowing 3 r ourself to get 
 so thin !" 
 
 At this remark he looked at her, smiling faintly, and 
 she saw how deeply changed his face was. 
 
 "That's what the doctors all say that I must live in 
 a good climate and keep out of the fogs. But you may 
 remember that my means hardly go that far." 
 
 Horrified at her own gaucheness, ashamed that she 
 must seem to him to have acquired with dreadful quickness 
 the rich woman's belief that everyone has money, she stam- 
 mered out an apology that made matters much worse, and 
 bolted off down the Edge. She did not come back with 
 old Mary Watlass who, despite the rain, herself came 
 out bareheaded to the succor of her old nursling but 
 walked to the tiny inn and persuaded the host to drive her 
 home down dale in his cart. She sat huddled over the fire, 
 
 397
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 waiting until he should be ready to start. It is a pity 
 that Janeways could not have been an invisible witness of 
 her progress across the hill with George, and it is an even 
 greater pity that he was not in the stuffy little inn parlor, 
 where his wife sat staring into the fire.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 LADY JANEWAYS arrived at King's Cross at 
 about six the following evening and was met by 
 Giulio with a note from his master. In the car she 
 read the note, which was merely a few words to express 
 her husband's regret at being unable to meet her and his 
 hope that when she reached the house his reason for so 
 failing in courtesy would cause her to forgive him. 
 
 A little shiver of pleasure ran over her as she tore the 
 note up and dropped the bits out of the window. It was 
 the ruby, of course, which, in some way, was detaining him. 
 She had always wanted a large single ruby ; she could see 
 it in her mind's eye now, as they sped through the ugly, 
 sordid streets towards the more comfortable part of the 
 town. It would be pear-shaped, and of the pigeon-blood 
 color that surely, of all colors, is one of the most beauti- 
 ful. She felt that its narrow end would be held by a little 
 cap of diamonds, and that it would depend from a chain 
 almost invisible in its tenuity. Surely such a gift was a 
 much finer possession than the Bag of Saffron ! And then 
 her mind, tired yet unresting, like a captive squirrel, went 
 back to its little treadmill of thought. 
 
 George's mother had died of laryngeal consumption. He 
 had always been perilously delicate and, in his displeasure 
 at her inconsiderate suggestion about his spending his 
 winters in the South of France, he had and she knew, 
 with inadvertence given away the fact that his doctor 
 had urged on him this very concession. George was a man 
 so obviously poor that no sensible doctor, she felt, could 
 possibly have ordered him to a warm climate unless his 
 
 399
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 health was seriously enough affected to make such a step 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 "I'm not sorry I left him," she thought fiercely, "and 
 it was only the way his poor nose quivered that made me 
 feel as I did for a moment. But he needs another climate, 
 and another climate he shall have." And at the thought 
 of her husband's splendid liberality her heart warmed to- 
 wards the old man on whose kindness she could so safely 
 count. She would ask Sir Peregrine for five hundred 
 pounds; she would have Rachel send this five hundred 
 pounds to the old Scottish banker, Mr. Fleming, and 
 through him the money could be made over to George 
 without his ever having a suspicion from whom it really 
 came. "If I knew he was safe in some nice, sunny place, 
 I shouldn't worry about him," she thought, as the car 
 drew up at the house in St. James's Square. 
 
 For a few moments, in the revival of her interest and 
 delight in her own material welfare, under the influence 
 of the splendid old house that was hers, Cuckoo forgot 
 all about Loxley and his threatened lungs. She had been 
 in the house once before, but only to decide which room 
 she would have, and the painters had been at work on that 
 occasion throughout the lower floor, so that she had been 
 able to see but little of the dignified glories of her new 
 home. But now it came on her as if a new revelation of 
 what she had achieved were being made to her. 
 
 Sir Peregrine had not yet come in, but tea was in the 
 white drawing-room. The white drawing-room, a vast 
 apartment that its owner liked less than any room in the 
 house, pleased its new mistress, and she felt, as she sat at 
 the tea-table a tea-table on which every article was in 
 itself old and beautiful, as well as of value very happy. 
 
 The minute Peregrine came in she would tell him about 
 George. She knew he would be sorry, and she hadn't a 
 doubt of his willingness to help her in the matter. 
 
 400
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 When she had had her tea, she rang for the house- 
 keeper and went all over the house. Compared to it, the 
 house in South Audley Street looked small -and almost 
 shabby, for Cuckoo did not know that poor old Uncle 
 Adolph's taste had been a thousand times finer than the 
 taste 1 of the various Janeways who had devised and ac- 
 complished, in their different periods, the magnificence that 
 so pleased her. 
 
 Her own bedroom Janeways had had done recently, 
 and it was perfect. But Cuckoo, although she had learned 
 much of taste from her uncle, would have preferred some- 
 thing a little more brilliant than the sober restraint of its 
 pearl-gray background. Marthe, however, was in her ele- 
 ment, and cried upon Heaven and various saints to behold 
 the glories on all sides. 
 
 Presently the little telephone on the writing-table in 
 Cuckoo's sitting-room rang loudly, and Janeways asked 
 if he might come up. He came in, a moment later, looking 
 pleased to see her as he always was, something almost of 
 excitement in his dark eyes. 
 
 "I think," he said, as they sat down on a sofa, "that 
 you will like what I have for you. It was by a piece of 
 luck that I got it, and I believe, although Masterton was 
 very discreet, that it has belonged to a Russian Grand 
 Duchess." 
 
 Cuckoo's eyes sparkled. "Oh, do let me see !" 
 
 "First tell me how the Aunts are, and how you are 
 yourself." 
 
 "Splendid, all of us. Now let me see." 
 
 "You must take off that blouse first. This thing must 
 be worn against your skin " 
 
 Pulling the blouse from under her skirt, she tore it off, 
 and threw it on the floor, standing in the paling light with 
 her thin but shapely shoulders bare. Janeways gazed 
 at her for a moment, an odd look of regret in his eyes. 
 
 401
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Then he opened a black leather case he had taken from 
 his pocket, and, with an end of the thin chain in either 
 hand, held the jewel up. From where she stood, it was 
 full of the late afternoon light and glowed like a great 
 drop of crimson liquid; it was far larger than one had 
 expected it to be, and far more beautiful, for in all her 
 life she had never seen such a stone. 
 
 "Do you like it?" 
 
 He fastened it round her neck and stood smiling at her. 
 
 "Oh, Peregrine," she gasped, "how perfectly glorious !" 
 
 He laughed. "Go and look in the glass, you peacock. 
 It suits you well, you little dark thing ; it suits you well !" 
 
 Cuckoo, her face flaming with excited joy, looked, even 
 to herself, prettier than ever before, and, running to her 
 husband, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him 
 with real feeling. He laughed. 
 
 "I'm glad you like it, my dear, and it suits you well," 
 he repeated. "You will, of course, wear it to-night at the 
 Embassy." 
 
 "Wear it? Of course I shall. Even Spanish Ambas- 
 sadors can't have anything like this " 
 
 "No; I think it will probably outshine anything of 
 Madame di Sant' Ignacio's," he answered quietly. "You 
 must wear white with it." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I've a very good frock white satin." 
 
 He took out his watch. "It's a quarter past seven, and 
 we dine at half-past eight. Good-bye, my dear; it makes 
 me very happy to have given you pleasure." 
 
 He had reached the door, when she called him back. 
 
 "Oh, Peregrine !" He turned. 
 
 "Yes, my dear?" 
 
 "I want you to do something for me that is, not for 
 me exactly. I met George Loxley the other day in Wiske- 
 dale, and he's very ill I'm afraid seriously ill. He told 
 me the doctors say he ought to go abroad somewhere." 
 
 402
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Janeways looked at her, a little surprise in his face. 
 
 "You don't mean to say Loxley came to see you at 
 Roseroofs ?" 
 
 "No, no ; it was in the lead mine, Cold Comfort Mine 
 and cold comfort it certainly was," she added. "He had 
 hurt his knee and the rain was coming down in torrents, 
 and I had to help him get back to Clavers, where he 
 was staying with an old woman who used to be his 
 nurse." 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then Janeways said: 
 
 "I am sorry he's ill, poor fellow. You hadn't known 
 he was there, had you?" 
 
 "Oh, no, it was by accident. You don't think," she 
 went on, with a little hauteur, "that I would have seen him 
 on purpose?" 
 
 "No, I suppose not," her husband returned in a specu- 
 lative voice that seemed to her to mean more than she 
 just then had time to decipher. 
 
 "Well, make haste, Nicoleta, we shall be late for din- 
 ner. If you want me to buy a bad picture from Loxley, 
 I'm perfectly willing to do so, but it must be done through 
 some third person, for, unless I'm mistaken, he wouldn't 
 sell anything to me." 
 
 "I don't want you to buy a picture, Pelly. It's that 
 he's so very ill, I'm really worried about him. I want 
 you to give me five hundred pounds, or a thousand, to 
 give to him I can arrange it through Mr. Fleming that 
 he will never know that it was you to go to some good 
 climate and live comfortably for a year. You will, won't 
 you?" 
 
 It had grown dark in the room, and without speaking 
 Janeways quietly stretched out his hand and switched 
 on the light. 
 
 "You want me to give you a thousand pounds?" he 
 repeated slowly, ignoring, because he knew her so well, 
 
 403
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her first mention of five hundred. "Why should I do 
 that?" 
 
 She frowned as the clock struck. "There, it's half-past 
 seven. Oh, do say you will ! I'm sure you would if you'd 
 seen his poor face, and you're always so kind." 
 
 Still he did not answer. 
 
 "Peregrine, I'm surprised at you!" There was real 
 indignation and disappointment in her voice, and at this 
 his finely-cut mouth quivered a little, though the gravity 
 of his eyes was undiminished. 
 
 "I'm sorry to have to deal a blow to your belief in me," 
 he said quietly, "but I can't see why you should ask me 
 to do this." 
 
 "Then you won't?" she gasped. "Do you mean to say 
 you really and truly refuse?" 
 
 An unseen spectator would have been puzzled by the 
 look on Janeways' face at that moment. It was a look 
 almost of relief, and of relief heightened by expectation. 
 
 "Are you so deeply sorry, then," he asked, "for Lox- 
 ley?" 
 
 "Yes, I am." 
 
 "Have you ever thought, Nicoleta," he said deliber- 
 ately, evidently forgetting the flight of time, "that you 
 made a mistake in leaving your husband? Don't think 
 of my feelings ; I'm asking you in the spirit in which your 
 father or your grandfather might have asked you." 
 
 She stared at him. "George and I were perfectly mis- 
 erable," she answered unhesitatingly; "I daresay it was 
 chiefly my fault; if it was, it was from no fault that I 
 could help, but it was dreadful." 
 
 Her hands strayed to the heavy jewel on her neck and 
 her voice changed. 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm not very satisfactory to you, Pere- 
 grine," she went on gently. "I'm not much of a success 
 as a wife and I know it, but never believe that I'm not fond 
 
 404
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of you and grateful to you for all your kindness to me." 
 
 "Then if it were possible," he persisted, "supposing we 
 lived in the days of miracles and it were possible for one 
 of us, at a word from you, to undo all that has happened 
 since well, let us say since Loxley went to Greece would 
 the word be said?" 
 
 "Never !" she answered decisively. 
 
 "Ah!" he sighed, and the unseen observer, if he had 
 heard it, might have questioned the nature of that sigh. 
 
 "Peregrine, you will let me have the money, won't you? 
 You can't have any resentment against poor George, and 
 I assure you that he looks alarmingly ill." 
 
 His eyes fell on the crimson drop as her white fingers 
 played with it, and he stood suddenly motionless. 
 
 "That ruby," he said, "is worth a great deal more than 
 the money you want for Loxley, and the ruby is yours." 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked. 
 
 "I mean," he went to the door, and stood with his back 
 to it, his heavy shoulders looking enormously broad as 
 he bent his head forward and looked at her weightily, "I 
 mean that the ruby is yours, and that you are free to do 
 with it whatever you like. I am not disposed myself to 
 do anything for your former husband, but if you choose to 
 sell the ruby you are at liberty to do whatever you like 
 with the money you get for it, and you will have no 
 trouble in finding someone to buy it. Think it over." 
 
 He went quietly out and shut the door. His rooms were 
 up another flight of stairs, and as he hurriedly dressed 
 there was a look in his face that finally caused the faithful 
 Giulio to ask him if anything was the matter. 
 
 "II signore e torbato?" 
 
 Janeways arranged his tie with the greatest nicety. 
 
 "I don't quite know, my old Giuilo," he answered, 
 "Whether I am troubled or not, but that I am disturbed 
 is certain." 
 
 405
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 The old servant shook his head, and murmured the first 
 words of a proverb to the effect that for an old man to 
 take a young wife in the end always means strife. 
 
 "No, no, you are wrong. The Signora is never quar- 
 relsome and talkative like most women." 
 
 Giulio shot him a quick glance from eyes as dark as his 
 own. "Surely," he said, "the Signore ?" 
 
 Janeways burst out laughing. "No, you old rascal, 
 of course not. With all my faults, as you ought to know, 
 I've always respected my wives, and besides," he added 
 sadly, "I'm too old a man. I couldn't fall in love again 
 if I tried." 
 
 He went downstairs and waited in the library with the 
 idoor open for the arrival of Cuckoo. He was very ner- 
 vous and bit his lips hard as he listened for her footsteps. 
 His very color had changed and the lines under his eyes 
 looked dark, almost as if they were artificial. He was 
 waiting, it would have been plain to the invisible witness 
 that the man was waiting not only for his wife's coming 
 downstairs, but for something far more important. 
 
 It was three minutes to eight when he heard her voice 
 speaking to her maid on the landing, and he went out to 
 the hall, where Walters, the butler, helped him on with 
 his coat. Cuckoo came slowly down the broad staircase, 
 her white frock flowing behind her, for it was before the 
 days of the apotheosis of legs. 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm awfully late," she said as she joined 
 him. Her cloak, with its broad -chinchilla collar, was 
 fastened close to her throat. Without a word he followed 
 her to the car. 
 
 They were dining at the Spanish Ambassador's. 
 Neither of them spoke until the car was drawing up in the 
 line, a little way from the door of their destination. 
 
 Then Cuckoo said pleasantly, "I don't believe I've 
 thanked you for the beautiful way in which you have 
 
 406
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 arranged my rooms, Peregrine. I fear I'm a very spoilt 
 
 person " 
 
 When he met her outside the room where she had left 
 her cloak, he glanced quickly at her neck. Round it hung 
 the ruby.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 MISS FLORA PLUES, dressed in deep mourning, 
 sat by the fire in the library at Sir Peregrine 
 Janeways' town house. A very, very old woman 
 she looked in her black gown. There were not merely 
 lines in her face, but the skin was like the wrinkled skin 
 on scalded milk; it was white and soft, but wrinkled as 
 only the skin of very old people ever is. Yet as she sat 
 there, bending over her embroidery, the model for which, 
 a few Parma violets, stood in a glass of water beside her, 
 there was in her eyes, looking through huge tortoise-shell 
 spectacles, still a look of impregnable, undying youth. 
 Beside her, on a low chair by the fire, sat Lady Rachel 
 Jackson. The eighteen months that had passed since the 
 house-party at Tarring-Peverell had of course changed 
 Rachel very little, for she was only twenty-seven, but the 
 faults of her character were already beginning to make 
 faint but unmistakable traces in her face. She looked 
 more like her mother than formerly, and she was too fat, 
 a soft, enveloping fat, and the lines in her face were all 
 downward lines. She was well-dressed in a way but it was 
 not in the best way, and her hair, although waved and 
 smartly-dressed, was lustreless and rough-looking. 
 
 Alison Jackson had not done badly ; his income had more 
 than doubled since his marriage and he stood in the way 
 of steady progress in his profession. But a little boy had 
 come to join the twins, and life as Rachel understood it 
 was an expensive thing. But for an occasional gift from 
 Janeways, Rachel would have been hard put to it to keep 
 
 408
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 up appearances, and these gifts were no longer called 
 loans. 
 
 "I wonder where Nicky is," she said, after a while. 
 "She said she'd be in by tea-time." 
 
 Miss Flora did not answer but pursed her lips a little 
 as she filled her needle with purple silk. 
 
 "How do you think Nicky is looking?" went on the 
 younger woman. "Don't you find her much improved?" 
 
 "She's much prettier than I ever expected her to be," 
 answered Miss Flora, in a voice whose tenuity matched 
 her extremely fragile look. "She ought to be well with 
 such an excellent husband." 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes," murmured Rachel absently. "Pere- 
 grine's a dear, of course he's grown a good deal older, 
 hasn't he?" 
 
 Miss Flora pushed her owl-like glasses to the end of her 
 nose and looked over them severely. 
 
 "Not at all," she said, "I think him very young-look- 
 ing." 
 
 The conversation lagged, as it always did between these 
 two. In the old days Rachel had considered Aunt Flora 
 delicious, and quaint, and a pet, but of late years the 
 distance between them had seemed to widen, and Aunt 
 Flora stood, as indeed she now stood in connection with 
 everybody, as one on a vessel, receding from the land where 
 the other remained. 
 
 "You're to be here all winter, aren't you, Miss Flora?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear. Cuckoo won't hear of my going back 
 to Roseroofs and Sir Peregrine, too, has invited me to 
 stay." 
 
 "I'm glad of that," Rachel said with sincerity, though 
 with no particular interest. "Roseroofs would have been 
 very lonely for you without poor Miss Effie." 
 
 Miss Effie Plues had died nearly a year ago, quite 
 suddenly of heart failure, and for a time it had seemed that 
 
 409
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Miss Flora would follow her. But as Janeways said to 
 his wife, it didn't appear as if Flora could do anything 
 so violent as to die, though there seemed to be no reason 
 why she should go on living. However, the old lady now 
 considered herself quite well, and was certainly far happier 
 in her niece's house than she could have been anywhere 
 else. 
 
 Rachel had waited for nearly an hour, and growing 
 impatient she rose and walked about the beautiful room. 
 
 "I've got something funny to tell Nicky," she said. 
 "I saw Bertie Fab yesterday, with his little boy on a 
 pony. It's the ugliest little animal that ever lived, and 
 Bertie Fab looked as proud as possible of it." 
 
 Miss Flora glanced up at her. "If he's a little boy," 
 she asked gently, "why don't you call him 'him'?" 
 
 Cuckoo sometimes thought her Aunt Flora tried occa- 
 sionally to be like Aunt Effie nowadays, and this was one 
 of the times when the old lady spoke really more like her 
 dead sister than like herself. 
 
 Rachel only laughed, and wandered about the room in 
 her restless way, leaving her muff and stole on the hearth- 
 rug where they had fallen. Both of the women were 
 thoroughly bored when at last Cuckoo came in. 
 
 "I'm sorry to be late, and I'm glad you've had tea," she 
 said. "You'll never guess where I've been." 
 
 "Where, Nicky?" 
 
 "I've been to see Aunt Marcia, Aunt Flora. I met 
 Bertie this morning, and he told me that she had said 
 she would like to see me, so I thought I. might as well 
 go." 
 
 Miss Flora flushed and dropped her sewing. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I am glad. I thought poor Marcia 
 looking very ill the other day, and, after all, six years is 
 a long time to harbor resentment against anybody for 
 anything." 
 
 410
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Cuckoo stood by the fire drawing off her gloves. She 
 nodded gently. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "it is a long time. Poor Aunt Marcia ! 
 I didn't want to go I didn't think I could be nice to Her, 
 and somehow it seemed quite easy when I got there. I 
 just wasn't angry any more " 
 
 "Lady Fabricius has had a stroke, hasn't she?" asked 
 Rachel. 
 
 Miss Flora answered. "Yes, my poor sister has been 
 very ill for some months. I suppose," she added, turning 
 to Cuckoo, "that Hubert's little boy is a great comfort 
 to her?" 
 
 Rachel laughed. "Ugly little toad, how could he be !" 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her, with the touch of hauteur that 
 so perturbed Rachel. "You forget," she said, "that little 
 Dolph is Aunt Flora's great-nephew." 
 
 She sat down near the old lady, and smelt the violets in 
 the glass. 
 
 "He's a very ugly little boy, Aunt Flora, but he's a 
 dear. He's so like Uncle Adolph, it it quite upset me." 
 
 Rachel rose. "You are a funny thing, Nicky. Some- 
 times you're as hard as nails, and then another time you 
 are sentimental like this. I heard some people saying 
 the other day how queer and inhuman you are, but I 
 think you're much softer than you used to be." 
 
 Cuckoo did not answer, and Rachel, after giving a 
 message that explained why she had waited, said good-bye 
 to the old lady and then to her friend. 
 
 Cuckoo followed her to the hall and they stood talking 
 together for a few minutes. 
 
 "Nicky, that wasn't really why I came, but I didn't 
 want to tell Miss Flora. I've I've just seen someone, 
 and I think you ought to know." 
 
 "Who was it?" 
 
 Rachel watched her closely. "George George Lox- 
 
 411
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ley, and oh, Nicky, he looks so ill. I hardly knew him !" 
 
 Cuckoo's strange eyes were perfectly expressionless. 
 She turned on the electric light. 
 
 "I'm afraid," she returned, "that he's very delicate. 
 
 Rachel gave a little snort. " 'M, delicate ! He looks 
 as if he was dying." 
 
 "He looked as if he was dying last time I saw him, and 
 that's a year and a half ago. Where did you see him, 
 Ray?" 
 
 "Just outside the Stores. He didn't see me, and I'd 
 have gone after him, only he wasn't alone." 
 
 "Who was with him?" 
 
 "Oh, nobody we know a girl; at least, she looked a 
 girl. They were going along in the snow with their heads 
 bent down and their bodies sort of huddled together, the 
 way poor people do. I I thought I'd just tell you, 
 Nicky." 
 
 Cuckoo's little face, which had gained something that 
 can only be aptly expressed by the word importance, re- 
 mained unchanged. 
 
 "Thanks, Ray. I'm afraid it's no business of mine, but 
 I'm very, very sorry he's ill." 
 
 Rachel hesitated for a moment and then, as she fastened 
 her furs and settled her hands in her muff, she said, hur- 
 riedly, "I know where he lives, Nicky, in case you should 
 want to know. He's still in the old studio. Frank Eard- 
 ley's sculptor friend lives in the same buildings and he 
 told me. I was wondering whether the girl I saw with him 
 is his wife or something." 
 
 Cuckoo laughed. "If anything, my dear, she's his 
 wife, and not 'something.' I'm sorry, Ray, but I must 
 go upstairs now. I walked home and my feet are soaked." 
 
 They kissed each other good-bye, and Lady Rachel 
 went her way. 
 
 Cuckoo sat by the fire in her pleasant room without 
 
 412
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ringing for her maid a most unusual thing for the lux- 
 urious Lady Janeways, took off her shoes and put on a 
 pair of slippers. She was frowning as she took off her 
 hat and sables, and then began to walk up and down the 
 room, in a way that any observer would have seen to be a 
 habit of hers. 
 
 Presently she took off her jacket, and her little figure 
 was visible. She was very thin, though her beautifully 
 cut clothes and cunningly devised blouse saved her from 
 any look of boniness. Her waist was almost absurdly 
 small, and her head, with its beautifully cared-for hair 
 was held in a way that made her neck look too long and 
 too thin. Hers was not a pleasant face, it was troubled, 
 but its trouble was of some complex kind that took from 
 it any look of hardness. Her gloomy eyes were not sullen, 
 but had an odd look of perplexed tragedy in them. 
 Among modern faces, hers stood out in a way that was 
 almost distinguished, with its lack of tenderness and facile 
 good-nature and also its look of intense pride. 
 
 Up and down the room she marched, deep in unhappy 
 thought. From the night, a year and a half ago, when 
 she had decided that not even to help her former husband 
 could she give up her ruby, she had resolutely and with 
 remarkable success, put from her all thought of George 
 Loxley and her life with him. Her will-power was enor- 
 mous, and her instinct for self-defence had taught her 
 that the feelings she had experienced in' Cold Comfort Mine 
 that rainy June day were feelings full of peril for her; 
 feelings that at all costs must be suppressed. Her life 
 was full, busy, prosperous, almost triumphant; her hus- 
 band was kindness itself, and she was intensely proud of 
 him. She was also, without realizing it, full of the pride 
 that sets a woman beyond and above the small vulgari- 
 ties that have grown like weeds in what is called the new 
 field of women. Her life was as austere and dignified as 
 
 413
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the most severe grandmother could have wished the life 
 of her grand-daughter to be. 
 
 So ardent was her self-respect and her respect for her 
 husband that some of the most rigid old women in So- 
 ciety had forgiven her her bad beginnings. Yes, her life, 
 she thought, as she walked up and down, had been mar- 
 vellously successful. Then, because she was quick-witted 
 and fine-nerved, she caught the absurd pathos of the past 
 tense she had used. She was seven-and-twenty and she 
 had spoken of herself as if she had been fifty. She was 
 amazed by the strength of the feeling called to the sur- 
 face by Rachel's story of George ; she could not bear to 
 think of his walking in the snow-storm with his head bent 
 and his poor shoulders drawn together. If that girl with 
 him was his wife, she ought to be beaten for allowing him 
 to be out in a snow-storm. She, Cuckoo, had prevented 
 that, even in her worst Chelsea days. 
 
 If only she could know how he really was ! "If only 
 I dared write to him," she said under her breath. Pres- 
 ently she went into her sitting-room and switched on the 
 light. No, she couldn't write to him, for he had never 
 answered the letter she had sent to Mary Watlass, after 
 their meeting in the rain-storm, to ask how his knee was. 
 She had been very angry at his disregarding her letter, 
 and her anger had helped her to overcome the dangerous 
 feeling of weakness that had come over her at the sight 
 of his face and the sound of his voice. 
 
 She went to the window and looked out. It was still 
 snowing hard, and she could imagine him and his com- 
 panion his idiotic fool of a companion, to let him get 
 his poor feet wet huddled in a bus, jostled and trodden 
 upon by unwashed, bad-smelling people. She could see 
 him getting out into the mud and hurrying up horrible, 
 sordid Barker Street, down which the wind from the river 
 always whistled as through some canyon. And then
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 they'd climb up those long, resonant, cold stairs, and he 
 would open the door with his latch-key, and they would 
 go in and the fire in the studio would be out and he would 
 not be able to find the matches. She gave a little nervous 
 laugh. George never was able to find the matches in the 
 dark and when he did, the wood would be damp, and 
 Mrs. Peacock would have forgotten the milk for tea. 
 Suddenly she drew a long breath and turned away from 
 the window. How absurd she was ! It was in her day that 
 the fire went out and the matches were lost, and the milk 
 was forgotten. Probably the girl whom Rachel had seen 
 was a good manager, and the room was cosy, and the 
 curtains drawn and the hearth swept. How bored she, 
 Cuckoo, had been by George's hatred of an untidy hearth ! 
 As she reached the fire, the door of her room opened and 
 Janeways came in. 
 
 She went straight to him, and putting both hands on 
 his arm, leant her little head on her hands. He seemed 
 not at all surprised by this silent demonstration, and put 
 his arm round her gently. 
 
 "My dear Nicoleta poor little Cuckoo," he said ten- 
 'derly. "What's the matter?" 
 
 She shook her head without answering and he went on: 
 
 "Nothing? Just the same old Camelius hump?" 
 
 Then, with a sigh, she looked at him. "Yes, Pelly. I'm 
 so glad you've come in. I don't know why I should be 
 miserable, but I am." 
 
 They sat down on the sofa by the fire, Janeways hold- 
 ing her hand and looking at her with an immense and 
 pitiful tenderness in his eyes. Anyone seeing them thus 
 together would never have dreamt that he was her hus- 
 band. If not her grandfather, he must be, one would have 
 thought, an adoring, indulgent father. 
 
 He said little or nothing, and she did not seem to 
 expect words from him. In the vast and vague malaise 
 
 415
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 that was always just on the point of enveloping her 
 an undefined, dull sense of loss and misery she had 
 come to regard him as the only person in the world who 
 understood and could help her. And this although they 
 had never discussed the matter and rarely spoke of any 
 but the most superficial things. 
 
 "Where have you been this afternoon, my dear?" he 
 said at length. 
 
 Her face lighted up as if she were about to give him 
 something. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I went to see poor Aunt Marcia. I'm glad 
 I went ; she's very piteous, her poor face all drawn down. 
 I think you know that she misses Uncle Adolph dread- 
 fully." He nodded. 
 
 "Very likely. He adored her, and no one likes to miss 
 adoration." 
 
 Cuckoo then told him about the funny little boy, Ber- 
 tie Fab's son. 
 
 "It's a pity he didn't take after his mother," Sir Pere- 
 grine said. "From that glimpse I had of her the famous 
 night of the Follies Bergeres, I thought her very pretty. 
 iWhat was her name Grant?" 
 
 "Yes. But Adolph is a dear little fellow, although he's 
 so ugly," Cuckoo explained. "And he has the sweetest 
 little manners." 
 
 Janeways looked at her with the fine gravity that was 
 his. 
 
 "I am sorry, my dear," he said, "that we haven't a 
 son. I have often noticed that a little boy takes away 
 all feeling of loneliness from a woman who is alone." 
 
 She caught his hand and laid her face for .a minute 
 against it. 
 
 "But I have you, Peregrine," she said. "I don't want 
 a little boy." 
 
 416
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "You haven't yet learnt," he returned gently, "what 
 the things are that you really want." 
 
 Cuckoo rose, her momentary softness gone. 
 
 "I know well," she answered, "and what I wanted I 
 have got. I need no pity from anybody, except for my 
 silly Cameliusness. And now I must go and dress for din- 
 ner, dear Magnificent." 
 
 He rose obediently. "You've got what you wanted, 
 no doubt," he returned smiling ; "what I said was, that your 
 don't know, and you have not yet learned, what you 
 leapt!" 
 
 "No, no," she said, shaking her head, "you are not to 
 say again that you are too old for me, or that my youth is 
 wasted. I won't have it, for it isn't true. When I was 
 born something was left out of me ; I suppose it's the thing 
 they call sentiment; and from what I can see of people 
 who have it, I'm only to be envied for the lack." 
 
 She smiled, a brilliant, conventional smile which she had 
 learned early in their married life, but which, since then, 
 she had brought to a high state of perfection, and they 
 parted. 
 
 When she was alone, she went to her dressing-room 
 and stood for a moment to settle her thoughts before 
 speaking to her maid. 
 
 She would put, and keep, George Loxley out of her 
 mind. She would have loved to tell her husband about 
 George, but she had never forgotten the one time he had 
 failed her ; the time when she had asked him to help. No, 
 she could not tell Peregrine. 
 
 They had guests to dinner that night, and Cuckoo, 
 who had developed through the reading her husband, al- 
 most without her knowing, had taught her to do and 
 through meeting the clever and brilliant people who com- 
 pose what is probably the best society in the world, was, 
 in her way, an almost exceptionally good talker. She 
 
 417
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 had learnt French, too, studying hard, applying herself 
 in a way that surprised and delighted her husband, and 
 the guest of the evening, a distinguished French painter, 
 showed his admiration for her in the delightfully cour- 
 teous manner of his race. After dinner she went, as was 
 her wont, upstairs for a moment to see Aunt Flora, who 
 preferred to dine alone when there were guests. Miss 
 Flora gave a little cry at the sight of her, and waved her 
 hands in the way that had caused such a distressing mix- 
 ture of feeling in Aunt Effie. 
 
 "My dear," she cried, "how pretty you look!" 
 
 Cuckoo burst out laughing, a laugh Aunt Flora had 
 just begun to notice because of a new frankness and 
 spontaneity it held. 
 
 "I'm a lovely woman," she returned, kissing the old 
 lady, "and it's a delightful thing to be appreciated at 
 home." 
 
 Miss Flora stretched out her hand, that trembled a 
 little, and touched the great jewel that hung on her niece's 
 neck. "I do love your ruby," she said; "it's the most 
 beautiful thing I have ever seen, Cuckoo." 
 
 Cuckoo caught it in her hand and held it tight for a 
 moment, the light dying out of her face, her mouth hard- 
 ening. 
 
 "Yes," she said shortly, "it's very beautiful." 
 
 She did not stay long in the quiet upstairs room, and 
 when she had gone back to her guests, old Miss Flora 
 sat gazing into the fire. 
 
 Presently, quite unconsciously, the old lady spoke 
 aloud. 
 
 "I think," she said, "that Peregrine is right." 
 
 418
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 NEXT morning, Lady Janeways, very plainly 
 dressed and wearing over her dark coat and skirt 
 an old country Burberry, left her house so quietly 
 that not even the servants knew she had gone. It was 
 a dull, damp morning, yesterday's snow transmuted into 
 black, sticky puddles and mud; and fog, the dirty, de- 
 pressing fog which, gray and filmy, has none of the 
 charm, even for confirmed Londonophiles, that has a 
 real, impenetrable yellow one. 
 
 Cuckoo walked quickly to St. James's Street and got 
 a taxi. 
 
 "I don't know the address I want to go to," she said 
 to the man; "it's in Chelsea, close to the Embankment, 
 and one end of the street comes out not very far from 
 the Underground Station. I'll knock on the glass when 
 we get there." 
 
 She drove along, leaning back in the corner, thinking 
 hard. She had slept little, for an insistent, annoying 
 thought of George had not left her all night. She had 
 no wish to see him personally, but she felt after Rachel's 
 story that she could not bear not knowing how he really 
 was. She had never dared to think much about what 
 she had done in connection with the ruby, but the very 
 fact of her fearing to reflect about the matter proved 
 that, at least subconsciously, she knew how base her act, 
 or rather her lack of action, had been. And now, as the 
 taxi made its way to Sloane Square, she was fighting a 
 furious onslaught of memories. She knew that she might, 
 if she had sold the ruby, have provided for George for the 
 
 419
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 rest of his life, without his ever suspecting the source of 
 his independence. 
 
 Paul Fleming, the invalid son of the old banker in 
 Glasgow, had lived in London in the early days of her 
 married life with Janeways, and she had chanced to meet 
 and know him. He had been fond of George, but he had 
 taken a great liking to Cuckoo, a liking so great that she 
 knew, in spite of her fierce withdrawal from any senti- 
 mental contact with anyone, that she could use his feeling 
 for her to a great extent just as she liked. The money 
 could have passed through Fleming's hands as the post- 
 humous gift from his old father, who had died just before 
 Cuckoo and her husband went to Tarring-Peverell. It 
 would all have been so easy, so simple, if only she could 
 have made up her mind to part with her splendid bauble. 
 But this she had been unable to do, and George had gone 
 on being poor and ill. 
 
 Since her husband left her sitting-room after giving 
 her the jewel, Cuckoo had never referred to the matter. 
 She had worn the ruby and she had not failed to notice 
 the look in his eyes when, after her taking off her cloak 
 at her hostess's house, he had seen it on her neck. He 
 had said nothing then or afterwards, and she had often 
 wondered what he thought. It seemed to her that morn- 
 ing on her way to Chelsea that she was pretty sure what 
 Janeways must think. She had always resented his re- 
 fusal to help George, and she had buttressed herself 
 against her own conscience by trying to believe Jane- 
 ways mean in the matter. But she knew that he was not 
 mean; she knew that he was generosity itself. She had 
 come to know indirectly the kind and thoughtful things 
 the old man did every day of his life, and she knew that 
 one of the things that was always said of him was how 
 well he deserved his great wealth, because with it he made 
 the lives of so many people at least more bearable, if not 
 
 420
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 really happy; and the thought, with time, had become 
 more insistent to Cuckoo that there must be some really 
 good reason for the strange attitude he had taken about 
 George. 
 
 She had never allowed herself to go to the bottom of 
 the thing and look at the truth that she knew must be 
 there. She loved her ruby; it was hers, and Janeways 
 had been cruel to give it to her and then try to make her 
 part with it. But now she was obliged to own to herself 
 definitely, without reserve, that Janeways was not cruel. 
 He had refused to help George, and she could no longer 
 refuse to recognize that his reason must have been that 
 he wished in some way to test her. Well, he had tested 
 her, and she had failed. She drew a deep breath and bit 
 her lip. It hurt her, in a way that surprised her, that 
 she had failed in Janeways' eyes, and she laughed angrily. 
 "It's ridiculous to feel the way I do. The idea of his 
 being disappointed in me ! After all, the ruby was mine, 
 and when one considers the things he has done in his 
 
 life the trouble he has made " She broke off. It 
 
 was no good. She was ashamed, because she knew that 
 Janeways was ashamed of her. 
 
 At last they came to a corner where she paid the chauf- 
 feur and dismissed him. From the sordid street in which 
 she stood ran a smaller, still poorer little street, com- 
 posed of very small, very ancient cottages that must 
 have stood there when Chelsea was a riverside village; 
 and each little cottage still had in front of it a narrow 
 strip of garden, separated from its neighbor by tumble- 
 down palings. It was no thoroughfare and at the far 
 end pf it was a high wall, on the other side of which she 
 could see, amid naked trees, a squat church-tower. Yes, 
 this was the place. She walked slowly up the street, at- 
 tracting in her shabby coat very little attention. It was 
 raining now, and at every door-step was clustered a swarm 
 
 421
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of children, who otherwise, she thought, would have been 
 roaring and screaming in the streets. There was among 
 the children the usual proportion of unwiped noses ; and 
 they were dirty and unattractive-looking. Cuckoo shud- 
 dered as she looked at them. She had forgotten the num- 
 ber of the house she wanted, but as she walked along she 
 stopped, and looking at one of the windows on her right, 
 stopped and gave a little laugh. In the window, behind 
 stiffly starched Manchester lace curtains, stood on a little 
 table a turquoise-colored jardiniere with an artificial rub- 
 ber-plant in it. 
 
 "I always knew she had taken that thing," she said 
 aloud. Then she went into the little garden and knocked 
 at the door. Ass she stood there waiting for the answer 
 to her knock, which was long in coming, a curious feeling 
 of other days came over her. She was not Lady Jane- 
 ways, of St. James's Square and Tarring-Peverell, York- 
 shire; she was not even Cuckoo Blundell, of 65s, South 
 Audley Street ; she was Mrs. George Loxley, of Whistler 
 Mansions. It seemed to her that she had but just left 
 the untidy, miserable studio and that in a moment she 
 would be going back there, .up the cold, damp stairs and 
 into the room she so hated. She thought with a shudder 
 of the badly hacked, cold leg of mutton that would be 
 in the larder; and of the gas-stove that, although the 
 man assured her it didn't leak, always smelt and made 
 her head ache. 
 
 'When the door opened she started, so deep had she been 
 in her bad dream. The slatternly woman with the wisp 
 of red hair and the teeth that moved up and down when 
 she talked, looked at her dully, without recognition. 
 
 "Are you Mrs. Peacock?" Cuckoo asked. "Yes, of 
 course you are. I'm Lady that is, I used to be Mrs. 
 Loxley, of Whistler Mansions. Do you remember me?" 
 
 Mrs. Peacock did, and expressed her interest and 
 
 422
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 pleasure at seeing her ladyship. Cuckoo, on her invita- 
 tion, followed her into the little, stuffy parlor. Mrs. 
 Peacock had, with the passage of years, evidently forgot- 
 ten the blue jardiniere which, as she herself would have 
 said, she had "pinched" from the place where it had been 
 put after the unlamented death of the palm it had orig- 
 inally contained. She had also forgotten the lace-edged 
 tea-cloth that had become hers in the same way. 
 
 Mrs. Peacock had not changed for the better, and her 
 servility (she had in the old days been anything but a 
 polite woman) annoyed Cuckoo. So very quickly she 
 got to the matter in hand. 
 
 "Do you still work for Mr. Loxley?" she asked. 
 
 "No, not now, m'm my lady. You see, I married 
 again shortly after your ladyship went away; and what 
 with two babies comin' and my 'usband 'avin' good work, 
 I didn't go out for a while. But a friend o' mine, Mrs. 
 Briggs she lives in the 'ouse opposite, I gaive 'er the job 
 and she still goes reg'lar. Pore gentleman," she added, 
 in an unpleasantly sentimental way, "she says as 'e coughs 
 somethink awful." 
 
 "That is just what I've come to see you about," Cuckoo 
 said, in a voice afterwards characterized by Mrs. Pea- 
 cock as "that proud." "I'm in a great hurry, so I'll 
 tell you quickly what I wish you to do." 
 
 The little woman rubbed her hands. She smelt of soap, 
 so it was obviously washing-day in Rosetree Grove. 
 
 "Anythink I could do, my lady, I'm sure " 
 
 Cuckoo frowned. "Please don't interrupt me. My 
 husband and I are very anxious to find out exactly how 
 Mr. Loxley is. We've been very distressed to hear of 
 his ill-health. I will give you five pounds if you will find 
 means to go to the flat and see Mr. Loxley yourself, and, 
 if you can, without letting him know that you've seen me, 
 find out just how he is, what his plans are in short, I 
 
 423
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 wish to know all that you can find out, and particularly 
 if he is painting, and where, if he is, he sells his pictures. 
 Do you understand?" 
 
 Mrs. Peacock did understand, and Cuckoo was obliged 
 to cut short her ecstatic appreciation of her ladyship's 
 kindness towards the poor gentleman. 
 
 "Thanks," she said, "that will do. Now, if you should 
 ever tell anyone that Sir Peregrine Janeways and I have 
 taken means to inform ourselves about Mr. Loxley," she 
 added, rising, "I will have you arrested for stealing that 
 flower-pot and this lace cloth." 
 
 Mrs. Peacock was offended; Mrs. Peacock was indig- 
 nant; but Mrs. Peacock was frightened and filled with 
 cupidity as well. So at the end of five minutes the mat- 
 ter was arranged and Cuckoo stood at the door, listen- 
 ing unwillingly to the woman's repeated promises to do 
 everything her ladyship required. 
 
 "Mind you don't lose the address," Cuckoo said, "and 
 when you ask to see me, be very, very careful to say 
 nothing to any of my servants that could get you not 
 me, Mrs. Peacock, but you into trouble." 
 
 Just as she was leaving, she turned. 
 
 "By the way," she said carelessly, "I forgot to ask 
 you whether Mr. Loxley has married again. I saw him 
 the other day with a lady, and I hoped " 
 
 Mrs. Peacock interrupted, a sly smile in her unpleasant 
 little face. 
 
 "No, m'm my lady, he isn't married, though I know 
 a lidy as would give her eyes if 'e was, and to 'er, too." 
 
 "Indeed?" Bitterly ashamed of herself, Cuckoo stood 
 as if nailed to the path, waiting. 
 
 "She's a Miss Carson lives in the same buildin's she 
 does. She paints fans. Quite a noise lidy always 
 pleasant. Mr. Loxley 'e often goes to see 'er, Mrs. Briggs 
 says, and she goes to see 'im, too. Wore 'erself quite 
 
 424
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 out, takin' care of 'im, she did, when 'e was ill last 
 time." 
 
 Lady Janeways stood, her little figure remarkably 
 straight, her little face white and haughty. 
 
 "Oh, I am glad of that! It's dreadful to be alone 
 when, one is ill," she said. "Good morning, Mrs. Pea- 
 cock. I shall expect you one evening at the end of the 
 week." Mrs. Peacock stood at the door and watched her 
 visitor making- her way up the street. She was thoroughly 
 frightened, for the blue jardiniere and the tea-cloth were 
 not the only things that had, under her guidance, tchanged 
 their abode in the old days. She was busy that morning, 
 but in the afternoon she would go and have a cup of tea 
 with Maud Briggs and arrange to take that lady's place 
 at Mr. Loxley's flat the following day. Mrs. Peacock 
 would have liked to be very angry with Lady ^Janeways, 
 but she didn't dare, so she decided to put all thought of 
 the stolen things out of her mind and comfort herself 
 with planning what she was to do with the five pounds 
 her ladyship had promised her. 
 
 Meantime Cuckoo had gone out into the broad thorough- 
 fare and was making her way back towards Sloane 
 Square. The rain had ceased, and as she was perturbed 
 and nervous, she decided to walk part of the way home. 
 She went quickly on, deep in thought, hating herself for 
 the humiliation of her scene with Mrs. Peacock, trying to 
 plan what she could do for George if Mrs. Peacock's 
 report on him should be very bad. She .could sell her 
 jewels at any moment, she knew Peregrine would not 
 mind ; a she was even beginning to have a shrewd idea that 
 he would, on the contrary, be glad if she did so. But 
 she had no wish to part from the beautiful things she loved 
 with an intensity of which few women could have any 
 idea. One of her greatest pleasures was to lock her door 
 and spread out on a big table all those wonderful gifts 
 
 425
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of her husband's and look at and play with them. She 
 loved her silky, big pearls with something like passion, 
 and she had many of them. Diamonds she did not so 
 greatly care for, so Janeways had given her only a few, 
 but they were, very fine ones and she was fond of them 
 because of their intrinsic value. Her emeralds were very 
 good, and the ruby she had never seen beaten, although 
 there are in London some of the finest rubies in the world. 
 Of course, she reflected, if George were really seriously 
 ill she could, and would, sell some of the things, but when 
 it came to deciding which she would part with, each single 
 object seemed absolutely indispensable to her. Presently 
 she came out on the Embankment. The river was full 
 and oily-looking, rolling smoothly along, the color of cafe 
 au lait. For a while she stood leaning on the parapet, 
 staring absently across towards Battersea Park. She 
 remembered the day she had rushed out of the house, de- 
 ciding that she could no longer go on and that she must 
 have a change. It had been raining then, and it was not 
 raining now, but the time of the year was the same and 
 there was the same slippery, slimy, brown mud in the 
 road, and if it had rained she knew the dull scene would 
 have the look of the day she had never forgotten, for it 
 was the day she had seen Janeways sitting in his car. 
 
 Suddenly she saw a man and woman walking slowly 
 towards her. .The man was slight and bent and leaning 
 on the woman as if he had been ill. 
 
 At first she thought it was George; but it wasn't, and 
 for some reason as she passed them she felt a great relief. 
 The young woman, who was extremely pretty, said, as 
 she passed, "Does the air make you feel better, darling?" 
 Cuckoo frowned. That was not George and his Miss 
 Carson, but it might have been. She laughed as she 
 realized she did not like Miss Carson, who painted fans. 
 "Pm an idiot," she said't'o herself. "Poor George! I 
 
 426
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ought to be glad someone is taking care of him yes, 
 and I am, really." 
 
 Halfway down the Embankment she hailed a taxi 
 and drove to Curzon Street, whence she went home on 
 foot. 
 
 She was very busy the rest of the day, for two days 
 later she was to give her first ball, before which there was 
 to be a dinner-party that she was bent .on making a great 
 success. One or two minor Royalties would be there, and, 
 what she knew from her husband .was of more real impor- 
 tance, two old, frumpish and extremely dull ladies of the 
 old school, who had never before honored her with their 
 presence in her house. 
 
 Aunt Flora was deeply interested in all the arrange- 
 ments for these festivities, and Cuckoo had invented vari- 
 ous little ways in which the old lady might suppose herself 
 to be helping. She was growing very fond of her old 
 aunt, and she knew besides that it pleased Janeways to 
 have her pay these little attentions to Miss Flora. 
 
 When she went upstairs that morning she found Miss 
 Flora very busy and very important, giving orders to a 
 grand young gentleman from the florist's about the deco- 
 ration of one of the rooms. 
 
 "Cuckoo, dear, don't you think tulips would be lovely 
 in the gray drawing-room ? All yellow and white tulips ?" 
 
 Cuckoo kissed her aunt. "Beautiful, of course, but 
 horribly expensive, you wicked woman!" 
 
 Miss Flora drew herself up. 
 
 "Peregrine will not mind that," she said with pride.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 ON the afternoon of the ball, Janeways came up 
 into Miss Flora's room, looking troubled. 
 "Have you seen Nicoleta?" he said. 
 
 The old lady, who was rearranging some beautiful old 
 lace on the black silk gown Cuckoo had given her for the 
 party at which she insisted she should appear, shook her 
 head. 
 
 "No. She went out about three. She told me where 
 she was going, but I've forgotten; my memory, Pere- 
 grine, is not what it used to be." 
 
 "You have," he said, "the most beautiful memory, 
 Flora, because you remember only kind things." 
 
 Miss Flora smiled at him, the happy, new smile that 
 had come to her, despite her sister's death, in the last few 
 months. She was useful now, and useful to the man with 
 whonij for many years in her youth, she had been deeply 
 and quietly in love. 
 
 "You always say kind things to me, Peregrine. I'm a 
 Tery happy old woman." 
 
 Contrary to his usual courteous way, he was not, she 
 saw, "giving her his undivided attention. He sat down, 
 and for a moment leaned his white head on his hands. 
 
 "Something is wrong," he said, "and I don't know what 
 it is. Flora, let's talk." 
 
 Miss Flora laid aside her work and drew a little closer 
 to the fire. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "we'll 'talk. You begin, Peregrine." 
 
 He looked up, and she saw that his forehead was drawn 
 into a most unusual tangle of perplexed lines. 
 
 428
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "It's about Nicoleta," he said. "I don't know what 
 it is." Miss Flora nodded. 
 
 "Yes, there has been something for several days. I've 
 noticed it, too. She thought that we should think it was 
 excitement about the ball, but," she added with a little 
 laugh, "we didn't, did we?" 
 
 Janeways shook his head. 
 
 "No. Do you remember.our talk the day I sent young 
 Taylor away from Tarring-Peverell, Flora?" 
 
 "Do I remember ! Why, Peregrine, it was the happiest 
 day of my life; how could I forget it? It is just like my 
 luck, you know, to have had the happiest day at the end 
 instead of the beginning of my life; it makes old age so 
 pleasant a thing. Well, what about that day ?" 
 
 "I told you then," he returned, "that I feared I had 
 wronged Nicoleta. I have been since then growing surer 
 of it every day and yet I have had the feeling, or rather 
 the hope, that though I rob her with one hand, I might 
 be allowed to give to her with the other. Do you know 
 what I mean?" 
 
 "Yes, I know. You've been trying to educate her; 
 to develop her; you've been trying well, to wake her 
 up." 
 
 Janeways rose and walked restlessly about the room. 
 
 "You're right. I have tried very hard, and because 
 she's grateful for the things I've given her material 
 things and for what she considers my kindness to her, 
 she has been very bribable in doing what I asked her. 
 She has read many books that at first bored her to death, 
 and now I find that it is easier for her to read fine ones ; 
 and good books help everybody. I think she's beginning 
 to see that although she's rich and has whatever she 
 wants, she yet has not everything that she needs, or that 
 she ought to want. In any other woman I should have 
 feared the coming of the other man, but Cuckoo is per- 
 
 429
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 fectly to be trusted in that way. I don't think," he added 
 slowly, "that she would ever deceive me." 
 
 Miss Flora turned and looked eagerly at him, where 
 he stood by the window. "She has never been deceitful 
 although she has always been reticent." 
 
 "Did she ever tell you, Flora, what she once asked me 
 a propos of George Loxley?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "She once wanted me to give her a large sum of money 
 for him. What do you think I did?" 
 
 Miss Flora was thoughtful for a moment. "I'm sure," 
 she said, with a queer little note of pride in her voice, 
 "that whatever you did, it was the right thing." 
 
 "I hope it was, and I believe it was. I refused to give 
 him a penny." 
 
 There was a long silence, for Miss Flora, in spite of her 
 resolution to believe in his wisdom, was, he saw, a little 
 staggered at this. 
 
 "Do you see why I refused?" he asked. 
 
 "No, Peregrine." 
 
 "Well, it was because I wanted to see if she would do 
 something for him herself; if she was sorry enough for 
 his condition of health to sacrifice to it, not an unim- 
 portant sum of my money, but something that was dear 
 to her personally. It was the day I gave her the ruby, 
 and as a matter of fact, Flora, I told her that she was 
 at liberty to sell the ruby and give every penny of the 
 money she got for it to Loxley, if she wanted to." 
 
 Miss Flora's hands fluttered for a moment in the old 
 way, then she clasped them in her lap. 
 
 "And she kept the ruby?" 
 
 "She kept the ruby." 
 
 "You were sorry, Peregrine?" 
 
 "I was very sorry and what is more," he added 
 thoughtfully, "she knows knew all along that I was 
 
 430
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 sorry, and she's a little ashamed of it. Well, just after 
 lunch to-day I went to see Lady Pelter about some busi- 
 ness I am seeing to for her, and Rachel was there. 
 Rachel tells me that young Loxley is in seriously bad 
 health; she saw him, it appears. On top of this she told 
 me that she had told Nicoleta. I come in and find Nico- 
 leta almost in a state of hysteria. I have never before 
 seen her in such a mental condition. I asked if anything 
 was the matter, and she told me," he laughed sadly, "that 
 she was nervous about the ball. Imagine her being 
 nervous about the ball! And now she's gone out." 
 
 Miss Flora rose ; she was very much agitated. 
 
 "Surely, Peregrine," she exclaimed, "you don't think 
 she's gone to George?" 
 
 Janeways looked at her almost sternly. "No, of course 
 she hasn't. It would," he added, as if that settled the 
 matter, "be an improper thing to do for her to go and 
 see him who was once her husband. But I don't know 
 I feel that we've come to some kind of a crisis." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Flora, "she has changed of late." 
 
 He sat down again by her, and taking her old hand, 
 kissed it. 
 
 "No, Flora, I don't think she's changed," he said. "I 
 think she's grown." 
 
 He meant so much by this that Miss Flora was silent 
 for a while, and, before the silence was broken, Cuckoo 
 came in. She had returned quite to her usual manner 
 the manner that had newly become usual to her. She 
 rang for tea and poured it out for them and herself, 
 talking quietly about the ball and looking with real inter- 
 est at Aunt Flora's new gown. 
 
 Janeways watched her in almost unbroken silence, and 
 at last he said: "Where have you been, my dear?" 
 
 She looked at him, her clear eyes suddenly veiled secret 
 places. 
 
 431
 
 THE BA'G OF SAFFRON' 
 
 "In Chelsea," she said, "walking, and then I went to 
 Bond Street, and then I stopped to see Aunt Marcia for 
 a moment. Where have you been?" 
 
 At the mention of Chelsea, Janeways and Miss Flora 
 looked at each other, and Miss Flora suddenly rose to a 
 height of valor that surprised herself. 
 
 "Have you heard," she asked, her voice trembling a 
 little, "anything about George of la'te, Cuckoo?" 
 
 Cuckoo looked at her with the fine gravity she had learnt 
 since her marriage a gravity that had always distin- 
 guished Janeways even in his wildest days and which she 
 seemed to have caught from him. 
 
 "Yes, Aunt Flora, poor George is very ill I fear. I 
 saw him coming out of a shop in the King's Road." 
 
 "Oh, poor boy! You of course you didn't speak to 
 him?" 
 
 Cuckoo shook her head and poured out tea. 
 
 "Oh, no, I could hardly do that. I don't think he 
 would have liked it; besides, he was not alone. He was 
 with," she added quietly, "a girl, a very pretty girl with 
 red hair." 
 
 Miss Flora, unjustly and ridiculously, felt a little 
 shocked by this piece of news, but Janeways it was who 
 answered. 
 
 "I'm afraid the poor fellow will never be strong," he 
 said, "as long as he lives in this vile climate." 
 
 Cuckoo said nothing and, after a moment, left the 
 room. She went to her own room and, looking at the 
 clock, saw that she had two hours in which to collect 
 her thoughts. So, putting on her dressing-gown, she lay 
 down on a sofa by the fire and switched off the lights. 
 Into the whirl of emotion she had lived in for the last 
 three hours and which she had shut away in her mind so 
 long as she was in Miss Flora's room, came now the other 
 pang, that she had thus far kept at bay jealousy. She 
 
 432
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 told herself that it was absurd; that no one on earth 
 had as little right as she to be jealous of George Loxley 
 or anything he did. But her telling herself this did no 
 good. She could see them now as they came out of the 
 shop, George leaning on the arm of his companion, much 
 as the young man on the Embankment had done that day 
 the young man whom she had at first taken for George. 
 And the girl was so pretty so pretty, with such a fine, 
 radiant air of youth and health, in spite of her obvious 
 poverty; she looked like a Spring day that had strayed 
 by chance into the wilds of November ; she looked like an 
 apple-tree blossoming in the sun. 
 
 In the firelit darkness Cuckoo buried her face in her 
 hands in shame at what she had done, for she had followed 
 them up the crowded King's Road and seen them dis- 
 appear round the corner of Barker Street. That was 
 bad enough, but she had done worse ; after walking for 
 an hour trying to quell the tumult that had arisen in her, 
 she had gone to Whistler Mansions and, after studying 
 the address-board in the hall, she had called on Miss 
 Carson. 
 
 The girl was at home and alone, sitting by the window 
 at a little table painting. Under the pretext of having 
 heard of her fans somewhere, Lady Janeways went in, 
 bought a fan, and sat by the fire to dry her wet feet, 
 she said. Miss Carson, of course not suspecting who she 
 was, and grateful for the unexpected sale, talked without 
 reserve of her work, and, in an innocent way, of her own 
 life. Cuckoo learned that her father was dead and that 
 her mother lived in Bristol, which she couldn't leave be- 
 cause her two little sons were at school there. Miss 
 Carson herself had been living in the Mansions for the 
 past year and liked it very much. 
 
 "Don't you long to go back to Bristol?" Cuckoo had 
 asked, and a bright flush had spread over the girl's face. 
 
 433
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 No, she didn't want to go back to Bristol ; she liked Lon- 
 don ; she was very comfortable in the Buildings. Cuckoo, 
 sick with shame yet driven by wild curiosity to go on, 
 then asked her if she had many friends in London. 
 
 "No ; I only know one or two people. I've some cousins 
 in Cricklewood, but I don't see much of them. I have 
 one friend living here, of whom I see a good deal 
 
 Cuckoo looked the other way. "Is she a painter too?" 
 
 Nina Carson shook her head and blushed again. 
 
 "Yes, but it isn't a 'she ;' it's a 'he.' Oh, yes, he paints 
 beautifully. He's taught me a good deal. I'm expecting 
 him down any minute, he's promised to put in the figures 
 on the little Trianol fan that parchment one on your 
 left." 
 
 Cuckoo rose. "You're very lucky to have someone to 
 help you," she said kindly; but something in her voice 
 made the girl stare. "Do tell me your name, won't you," 
 she said, "and who told you about me? He George 
 would be so interested." 
 
 "My name is Bunbury," Cuckoo returned, in involun- 
 tary tribute to Oscar Wilde's delightful play. "I can't 
 remember who told me about you; however, it doesn't 
 matter, as I've got the fan." 
 
 A few minutes later she had found herself in the street, 
 and now, in her beautiful room, surrounded by all her 
 "things," she was in such a turmoil of misery and jeal- 
 ousy as she had never in her life experienced. 
 
 She was too confused, too upset, to be able to analyze 
 her feelings or even to set them in order and look at 
 them squarely. Everything seemed in a whirl round her. 
 She didn't want poverty; she certainly wasn't in love 
 with George again she was quite sure about that she 
 didn't know what she wanted ; she didn't know even what 
 she did not want. If it had been about anything else in 
 the world, she would have gone to Janeways and told him. 
 
 434
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 But that she could not do. Presently she rose, and took 
 from its hiding-place her great leather jewel-case, and, 
 locking the doors of her bedroom, she turned on the lights 
 and spread all the jewels out on the lace counterpane; 
 and there they lay and sparkled at her. She took them 
 in her hands, let the light play on them ; she pressed the 
 pearls to her cheek; she covered her little fingers with 
 rings and waved her hands to herself in the glass. Here, 
 here were her "things" ; the things she had always wanted, 
 the things she had achieved. 
 
 When Marthe came in to dress her, she found her 
 mistress sitting quietly by the fire, reading. 
 
 Miss Flora came in just before dinner, an ethereal, un- 
 substantial, but delightfully pretty Miss Flora; and 
 pinned to the lace in the front of her gown was a beautiful 
 diamond brooch. 
 
 "Cuckoo, look, look, my dear, what Peregrine has given 
 me!" the old lady cried, skipping just a little, old as she 
 was, in her joy. 
 
 Cuckoo kissed her. "I am glad, dear Aunt Flora. 
 That was kind of him, wasn't it?" 
 
 Miss Flora left her and went down to the library where 
 she knew Janeways would be. When she thanked him 
 for the gift, which had been sent her in a bunch of violets, 
 he took her hands and swung them out to her full length 
 and then back again, in a boyish kind of way. 
 
 "Flora," he said, "here we stand, you and I, an old 
 man and an old woman " 
 
 "I'm years older than you, Peregrine," she broke in. 
 
 " Waiting for something to happen. The feeling is 
 strong on me. If anything should happen to-night after 
 the ball has begun, may I come straight to you?" 
 
 "Peregrine Janeways," the old woman said steadily, 
 "if my death would do you or Cuckoo the least little bit 
 
 435
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 of good in the world, I would gladly die for you to-night." 
 
 He was moved by her earnestness, but he laughed softly. 
 "I don't want you to die for me, but I may want you to 
 get up at an ungodly hour and let me talk to you, for I 
 know something is going to happen. We've come to the 
 end of a chapter; we've come to the end of a period; 
 we are going to have to begin over, old as we are, my 
 dear." 
 
 Miss Flora looked at him and saw that he was very 
 grave under his smile. 
 
 "Then we'll begin over, the best way we can," she an- 
 swered. "Be sure you come if you need me. And now," 
 she added, emboldened and less titubating than usual, for 
 now that he really needed her her old timidity had gone, 
 "I've a favor to ask you." 
 
 "It's granted." 
 
 "No, no, wait till you hear what it is, Peregrine. To- 
 night is a very important night for Cuckoo. Oh, I don't 
 mean something we don't know about, the way you mean, 
 but I mean this dinner and the ball. It's going to be very 
 splendid and she's going to be very proud, and I want you 
 oh, Pelly, please let her wear the Bag of Saffron." 
 
 After a pause, Janeways answered, very quietly: 
 
 "I'm sorry, Flora, but I can't. If I'd a son, or possibly 
 even a daughter, he or she would understand; it's in our 
 blood. But I couldn't make you understand, and I 
 sha'n't try." 
 
 "But people know about it, Peregrine. Blanche Pelter 
 was talking about it only a few days ago, and it appears 
 people have asked her why your wife doesn't wear it." 
 
 Janeways frowned. "It doesn't follow that because I 
 have a wife she must wear the thing; neither of my two 
 former wives wore it, as you know. Besides, it's a hideous 
 thing. The diamonds, though very good, are not so fine 
 as others I have given Nicoleta." 
 
 436
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "For all that," Miss Flora persisted, "I wish you would 
 let her, even if it is only this once." 
 
 Janeways put one of his hands on each of her shoulders 
 and looked closely into her beautiful old eyes. 
 
 "I am almost inclined," he said gently, "to offer to 
 let you wear it, my very dear Flora, but I can't let 
 Nicoleta. Please don't ask me again." 
 
 Miss Flora went sorrowfully away. She had forgotten 
 all about the brooch on her own bodice.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 MISS FLORA lived several years after that night, 
 but she never forgot one single incident of it. 
 She had lived so long quietly in the country that 
 she was apt to become confused when she found herself 
 with many people ; her memories even of the house-parties 
 at Tarring-Peverell had been blurred, and overlapped a 
 little ; she could not quite remember which of two episodes 
 had been before the other, and so on. But the great ball 
 the ball that had been given after many months of 
 wary and skilful waiting by Janeways was destined to 
 remain in her mind so long as she lived, perfectly clear 
 and sharp. 
 
 Cuckoo, looking better than she had ever looked in 
 her life, all in white, with her best jewels, seemed to Miss 
 Flora, as she received her guests, to have an odd air of 
 conferring on them the honor and pardon they were in 
 reality supposed to be bestowing on her. Even the 
 Duchess that greatest of Duchesses, Her Grace of 
 Trafalgar seemed to lose in majesty as she shook hands 
 with the little nobody whom that old fool, Pelly Jane- 
 ways, had run away with. The Duchess had hated the 
 idea of Cuckoo and opposed with all her might the recep- 
 tion into the fold of the dingy little mutton. Miss Flora, 
 who was standing on the landing above, peering down, too 
 excited to move, knew this, and observed with joy the 
 gracious, unflattered air of the little gray mutton in 
 question. 
 
 "She looks better than any of them, Pelly," the old 
 lady whispered to Janeways a little later, when the danc- 
 
 438
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 ing had begun and she had chanced to meet him as she 
 went into the library. 
 
 He laughed. "She does she's exceeding magnifical, 
 Flora. God bless her," he added gently. 
 
 Miss Flora saw that he looked pale and that his ex- 
 treme pallor, against the snowy whiteness of his hair, 
 seemed to have taken on a yellowish tinge. 
 
 "Are you not well?" she asked hastily. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, I am quite well." 
 
 They stood together for a moment unobserved in the 
 softly lighted library, and Miss Flora could hardly have 
 been prouder of him, possibly not so proud, if she had 
 been his wife. He was so very handsome, so very dis- 
 tinguished-looking, she thought. 
 
 "Do you still feel," she asked him, "that something is 
 going to happen?" 
 
 He nodded gravely. "Yes. To-night, you see, is an 
 etape a kind of station, a milestone on the Dover Road, 
 Flora. We've all of us come to an end, as I told you 
 before dinner, and in order to make a new beginning, 
 something must happen. However, my dear and beau- 
 tiful friend, will you do me the honor of walking through 
 the ballroom with me? I wish to introduce you to one 
 or two people." 
 
 Miss Flora took his arm, and they went through the 
 white drawing-room into the ballroom. The orchestra 
 was playing a waltz, and Miss Flora, on listening to it 
 with a keenness of delight that had, on her first hearing 
 music in London, surprised herself, recognized with 
 amazement a melody that seemed to be threaded through 
 the dance music. 
 
 "What is that thing th'ey are playing?" she asked, 
 her violet eyes full of light. 
 
 "I don't know; it's a waltz." 
 
 "Yes, but it's something I know.'* And then, as they 
 
 439
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 walked across the great room close to the wall, Miss Flora 
 Plues blushed as violently, as beautifully as if she had 
 been eighteen. She had recognized the melody and it was 
 the "Wedding March," Mendelssohn's "Wedding March," 
 adapted to waltz time by the caprice and cunning of some 
 transatlantic composer. And here t was she Flora 
 Angela Plues marching to it down the huge room, 
 crowded with fine people, with her hand on Peregrine 
 Janeways' arm ! To that tune ! 
 
 Janeways did not notice, but Miss Flora kept time, 
 with an exactitude that somewhat impeded her progress, 
 to the subdominant melody, and several times when they 
 stopped and Janeways introduced her as his dear and 
 old friend and his wife's aunt, Miss Plues, of Wiskedale, 
 Miss Flora's little old feet, instead of keeping still under 
 her lavish silken skirts, continued in spite of herself to 
 beat time to the music. It was a wonderful moment to 
 the old lady. 
 
 Cuckoo was waltzing, and passed her husband and her 
 aunt as they reached the far end of the room, and, 
 pausing, she looked back over her shoulder and blew them 
 a little kiss and smiled. 
 
 "I wonder," Janeways said thoughtfully, "what it is 
 that is going to happen? Something somewhere is on its 
 way to us the Lame Messenger is coming." 
 
 And while the music played and the freshness of the 
 thousands of flowers gradually dwindled to the faintly 
 unpleasant scent flowers have in great crowds; while 
 minor Royalty looked on with the resigned amiability of 
 its kind, and London Society finally gave its definite con- 
 sent to the return to the fold of the naughty Lady Jane- 
 ways, the messenger, limping indeed, was coming to St. 
 James's Square. A lame messenger in a groggy bonnet 
 and a dirty, crumpled black jacket; a messenger lame, 
 not through having flayed her feet for love, but because 
 
 440
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 the high-heeled old boots she wore cramped and squeezed 
 her neglected toes. Mrs. Peacock, having left her bus 
 at Piccadilly Circus, was hobbling down Lower Regent 
 Street through a fall of dirty snow. The shifty-eyed old 
 woman hurried along through the wet, muttering to her- 
 self under her red and discouraged looking nose. She 
 wanted a drink, but there was not time, and besides, 
 despite the general inferiority of her nature, she was really 
 alarmed and horrified by the news she was bringing. 
 When she rang at the area bell of Jane ways' house, she 
 was made to understand at once that her visit was not 
 only unwelcome, but, on that night of high revelry, abso- 
 lutely unacceptable to the powers of the kitchen. 
 
 "I tell ye," she said, "I 'ave to see 'er laidyship. I've 
 got noos for 'er important noos." 
 
 "A likely story that!" sneered one of the servants, 
 with the ugly, vulgar heartlessness of the well-fed, com- 
 fortably-housed dependent towards one of the lowest of 
 his kind. 
 
 Mrs. Peacock whimpered and pleaded, but in vain. At 
 last, spurred by the memory of the scene she had just 
 left, she lost her temper and burst out into a few words 
 that gave pause to her tormentors. 
 
 "If ye don't let me in," she wound up, "it'll cost you 
 yer jawb, I can tell ye. She told me to come, 'er laidyship 
 did. I've got a message for 'er, and you'd better let 
 me in." 
 
 Something in her voice brought conviction to one of 
 the maid-servants, and seeing that the woman was really 
 cold and wet and that under her unpleasant aggressive- 
 ness there was something like real fright, she called her 
 in and gave her a chair. 
 
 "I'll go and get hold of one of the footmen," she said, 
 "if you'll tell me your name?" 
 
 "Peacock's my name Mrs. Peacock. She'll remember 
 
 441
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 'er laidjship will. You tell 'er I've come from 
 Chelsea " 
 
 It must have been nearly half an hour afterwards that 
 the maid-servant came down again. 
 
 "You're to go up," she said; "wipe your boots good. 
 Come along." 
 
 Mrs. Peacock followed her up the stairs, at the head 
 of which she was handed over to a young footman, who 
 surveyed her with intentionally visible disfavor. The poor 
 woman on her upward career caught short glimpses of 
 beautiful, brilliantly-lighted rooms, and heard snatches of 
 music, only to be compared with the music of the Guards' 
 Band in the Park on a Sunday afternoon. Finally the 
 young man stopped and opened a door. 
 
 "You're to go in here and wait," he said. But Mrs. 
 Peacock had not to wait long. The room that she was 
 in was a small sewing-room at the top of the house, and 
 through the open door the music still reached her; she 
 stood listening, until Lady Janeways came in. 
 
 "What is it?" she said sharply. 
 
 "Oh, your laidyship ! Your laidyship promised me five 
 pounds if I'd give ye any noos of the pore gentleman, so 
 
 I thought " Mrs. Peacock broke off, rubbing her 
 
 uninviting-looking hands together and glancing upward 
 in a cringing way that made Cuckoo want to beat her. 
 
 "What is the news?" 
 
 "Well me and Mrs. Briggs was sittin' over the fire 
 in 'er 'ouse an hour ago or maybe hour and a' 'alf 
 when the porter from Whistler Mansions come over to 
 fetch 'er. We was just 'avin a cup o* tea " 
 
 "What's your news?" Cuckoo repeated, stamping her 
 foot. 
 
 Mrs. Peacock felt aggrieved, and showed it. Like 
 other people, when she had a good story to tell, she liked 
 to tell it in her own way. 
 
 442
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Mr. White," she retorted with dignity, "said, 'would 
 Mrs. Briggs come hover to the gentleman in Number 
 fifty-nine?' So we went hover, and oh, ma'am my lady* 
 I mean the pore gentleman, the pore gentleman!" and 
 Mrs. Peacock, who did not need alcohol as much as she 
 thought she did, began to cry tears whose source was 
 not unconnected with the "Lamb and Compasses" at the 
 corner of Barker Street and Weaver Street, S.W. 
 
 Lady Janeways, whose face had lost every vestige of 
 color, laid her hand on the woman's dirty jacket. 
 
 "Tell me," she said very quietly, "tell me at once! Is 
 Mr. Loxley ill?" 
 
 "111!" Mrs. Peacock gave a little shiver and drew her 
 wrist across her face. "If blood all over the floor is 
 bein' ill, then 'e is. In a dead faint we found 'im, 
 and 
 
 Lady Janeways, who had evidently not forgotten her 
 bargain, handed her a five-pound note. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, "you may go now; and hold 
 your tongue downstairs." 
 
 As the woman started 'to the door, Lady Janeways 
 called her back. 
 
 "Wait a minute. Was Mr. Loxley absolutely alone?" 
 
 "Habsolutely, except for Miss Carson, wot paints fans 
 I she was there. They'd been 'avin' supper." 
 
 "Take this woman downstairs, Judson." The young 
 footman, who had been hovering in the passage, led Mrs. 
 Peacock away. 
 
 Five minutes later, Janeways, crossing the lower hall 
 with one of his guests, saw at the top of the stairs a little 
 figure wrapped in a long black cloak. Excusing himself, 
 he went towards her; supper had begun, and that part 
 of the house was nearly deserted; Janeways had only a 
 moment to himself, having just seen the guest-in-chief to- 
 
 443
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 her car and intending to devote himself to the next hungry 
 lady of rank. He walked towards his wife and met her 
 ~at the foot of the stairs. Cuckoo looked at him. 
 
 **I want a taxi," she said. 
 ; ""Where are you going?" 
 
 "She was very white, and he noticed that her lips looked 
 clry as if she had had fever and stuck to her teeth as she 
 spoke. 
 
 "George is dying," she said slowly. 
 
 There was no one in the library, and without answer- 
 ing, Janeways drew her into the room and closed the 
 door. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" he asked. 
 
 She stared at him, and he could see the whites of her 
 eyes above the irises, but she did not answer. 
 
 He laid his hands on her shoulders. "You mustn't go 
 out now. You must remember your guests. To-morrow 
 I will go with you and we'll do for him all that can be 
 done." 
 
 The invisible spectator of whom mention has been made 
 before, had he been there, would have noticed on the old 
 man's face an odd, watchful, almost artful look. 
 
 "I will help you," he went on. 
 
 "She said blood on the floor. His mother died of 
 consumption," Cuckoo answered, not heeding what he 
 had said. 
 
 Then Peregrine Janeways did something very odd. 
 "Do you wish," he asked slowly, his eyes bent on hers, 
 "do you wish him to get well?" 
 
 AS again she did not answer, he went on. "Then I 
 will help you. Shall I sell for you some of your 
 jewels?" 
 
 "Some of my jewels ?" 
 
 "Yes. If you let me sell your ruby it would probably 
 
 save his life " 
 
 444
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 As he spoke the orchestra in the distant ballroom began 
 to play some kind of an interlude. It was a medley of 
 American negro songs, which, at that time, were popular. 
 Cuckoo stared over her husband's head, her eyes dilated, 
 her mouth half open. 
 
 " *Nellie was a lady : last night she (died,' " she said 
 softly, under her breath. 
 
 Janeways watched her, in his eyes an agony of hope 
 and distress mingled in a way that would greatly have 
 puzzled that hypothetical spectator, and then suddenly 
 she raised her hands, tearing from her neck the rreat 
 ruby that hung there, and wrenching at the diamonds at 
 her breast. Some of the things she dropped without 
 heeding, the others she held out and pressed into his 
 hands. 
 
 "Take them," she said, "take 'them, the horrible dread- 
 ful things. I hate them. I hate everything. I I'm 
 going." 
 
 "Where are you going, Nicoleta?" 
 
 Almost as if she had been asleep, she passed her hand 
 over her eyes, and then, her face clearing, she answered 
 him. 
 
 "Forgive me, Peregrine," she said gently. "I shouldn't 
 have spoken like that. But George is dying, and I'm 
 going to him. You see, he is really my husband not 
 you." And without a word more she left him and went 
 out into the night. 
 
 He followed her, called a taxi and put her into it. 
 
 "Tell him Whistler Mansions, Barker Street, King's 
 Read," she said, without looking at him. And the taxi 
 turned round and carried her off. 
 
 Janeways went back into the house, had a stiff brandy 
 and soda, and the next half-hour was very busy doing 
 his duties as host. He explained to his guests that his 
 wife was ill and that he had insisted on her going to her 
 
 445
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 room ; "I think she'll be quite all right," he added, "in an 
 hour's time." 
 
 When everyone was busy with supper, and he had made 
 sure that Cuckoo's absence would cause no discussion, 
 he went up and found Miss Flora. The old lady had 
 put on her dressing-gown, and was sitting by the fire 
 drinking a glass of milk. 
 
 v ai l have just come to tell you, Flora," he said, "that 
 everything is all right, and that I am very happy." 
 
 Miss Flora looked up. "Has anything happened?" 
 
 He nodded. "Yes, I think so. I think the best thing 
 of all has happened, and I thought I'd come and tell you. 
 I'll explain to-morrow." 
 
 Bending over, he tilted her little old face back with his 
 hand and kissed her. 
 
 "Good-night, my dear," he said, "I shall have much to 
 tell you to-morrow." 
 
 Half an hour later a girl who was sitting on the stairs, 
 wrapped in her cloak, at Whistler Mansions, was startled 
 and frightened by footsteps coming towards her. She rose 
 Jiastily, wiping her eyes, and faced the newcomer. 
 
 "I wish to see Mr. Loxley." 
 
 "He's I'm afraid he can't see anybody," she said. 
 "He's been very ill. The doctor has just gone." 
 
 Janeways looked at her in a way that would have been 
 stern but for the wonderful glow in his big eyes. 
 
 "You must let me in," he said. "I'm Sir Peregrine 
 Janeways, and a very old friend of the family." 
 
 Miss Carson, who painted fans, shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "There's a lady there," she said. "I don't think they 
 want anybody." 
 
 There was a little pause, and then Janeways 
 went on: 
 
 
 
 "When the lady came were you in the room?" 
 
 446
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I wonder if you would trust me enough to tell me 
 what happened?" 
 
 The poor little girl, whose promise of happiness had an 
 hour ago been knocked sky-high, looked at him and she 
 did trust him. 
 
 "Oh, she just came in" she answered wearily. "He 
 had just come out of his faint. I'd got the doctor, and 
 well, it was just as if they belonged to each other 
 so I'm going home." 
 
 Janeways helped her to her feet, and laid his hand on 
 her shoulder. 
 
 "They do belong to each other, my dear," he said 
 gently. "He'll tell you all about it, no doubt, in good 
 time. In the meantime will you promise me to tell nobody 
 one word about it?" 
 
 This was a little too much for Miss Carson, who did not 
 see what he had to do with it and who said so. 
 
 Janeways smiled. "But I have a great deal to do with 
 it," he retorted. "You see, I'm her husband." 
 
 When the door had closed behind him, after the silent 
 use of poor Miss Carson's key Janeways took off his hat 
 and felt in his pocket for something. Then very quietly 
 he walked to the end of the passage. 
 
 A generous fire was burning on the hearth, but only 
 one electric light was lit, so that the big, dusty room had 
 lost its simplicity of shape and seemed to be full of 
 mystery. In an arm-chair by the fire, his ruffled fair hair 
 standing out against the light behind him, lay George 
 Loxley, his head against a pillow no whiter than his 
 face; his eyes were shut, and at first Janeways thought 
 he was asleep. At his feet, half-kneeling, half-crouching, 
 was Cuckoo, her cheek leaned against one of the sick 
 man's hands, her eyes filled with the firelight. For the 
 first time, she looked, to Peregrine, like a wife. 
 
 447
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Presently Loxley spoke. 
 
 "Are you there?" His voice had an exhausted sound, 
 and he hardly moved his lips. 
 
 Bending forward, listening acutely, Janeways waited 
 for the answer. Never, even to Miss Flora, did he tell 
 what it was that Cuckoo answered, but it was enough. 
 Purposely he moved a little, so that the two by the fire 
 looked up and saw him. Neither of them spoke, but they 
 drew closer together, and Cuckoo's left hand went up and 
 joined George's right. Janeways advanced slowly out of 
 the darkness, his two hands held before him in an odd 
 way, almost as a man holds a skein of wool that some 
 woman is winding, and from his hands there seemed to 
 drop great splashes of fiery light. Without a word he 
 came to the fireplace, his eyes fixed on his wife's. She 
 did not rise, and he could see her press closer to Loxley, 
 but as he reached her she spoke. 
 
 "Hush," she said ; "he mustn't be agitated " 
 
 Still Janeways did not speak, but bending over her, he 
 passed his hands above her head, and opened them. She 
 looked down. The Bag of Saffron hung round her neck. 
 She took the little, inadequate bauble in her hand, and 
 looked up at him. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He smiled, and there was in his smile an extraordinary 
 nobility and sweetness. 
 
 "Because, my dear, you have earned it to-night." And 
 then he sat down and explained to them. 
 
 "At last you've found," he said, "what it is that you 
 have always wanted, and I, who have always feared that 
 through my act you had lost the power to know, am glad. 
 When you told me, Nicoleta, there in the library, that you 
 were going to your husband, you told me only what I 
 had known for a very long time and what I have been 
 waiting for you to learn." 
 
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 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 Loxley had not spoken, but, at these words, he stretched 
 out his hand to the old man. Janeways took it. 
 
 "I think," he said, with a little laugh that eased the 
 strain they were all under, "that not many men have 
 been as relieved as I was under the circumstances. No- 
 thing for many years has made me so happy as your 
 suddenly finding that I, and all I stood for, were not 
 worth while." 
 
 She made a little gesture of protest, but he went on. 
 
 "I mean in the right way. To have you see, even now 
 so late in the day, that jewels and riches, after all, count 
 very little, made me more happy than I can tell you. 
 To have you leave me to-night of all nights and, mark 
 you, I knew that something was going to happen and 
 that it would happen in a dramatic way has given me a 
 degree of thankfulness and real contentment that I can- 
 not explain. You love each other," he broke off sharply 
 to say. 
 
 Cuckoo answered. "Yes, I think I always have loved 
 George, only I was such a fool I didn't know it." 
 
 "But you've known more or less since your adventure 
 in the old lead mine?" 
 
 She stared at him. "How did you know, Peregrine?" 
 
 He rose. "My dear, I have the privilege of knowing a 
 great deal about women, and that was quite plain. But 
 now," he* added, rising and taking from a chair her cloak 
 which she had thrown there, "we must be going." 
 
 Cuckoo drew back. "I'm not going. I shall never leave 
 him again." 
 
 Janeways smiled. "Don't be a goose, my dear. No 
 woman can possibly survive two scandals! George, tell 
 her she must go with me. I have telephoned for a nurse 
 for you. She ought to be here by now, and the kind 
 little girl I met on the stairs will, I am sure, do anything 
 she can to help you. But Nicoleta must come back home 
 
 449
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 with me. Don't say you can't, my dear," he added 
 sternly, "for you can and you must." 
 
 Loxley raised his head a little. "Quite right," he cried, 
 hoarsely. "Do what he says, Nicky. But you'll let her 
 come hack," he went on, adding, with an odd little rever- 
 sion to his boyish way of speech, "won't you sir?" 
 
 Cuckoo had risen, and her husband threw the cloak 
 round her. 
 
 "She will come back in time, Loxley," the old man said. 
 "You mustn't be impatient, either of you. You may 
 have to wait for some time, for no one can force events. 
 Thus far we are all right, so surely we can leave the 
 future to itself " 
 
 "I can't leave him, Peregrine," she whispered. 
 
 Janeways took up the little gold bag that hung from 
 the splendid chain round her neck. 
 
 "I haven't given this," he said, "for the first time in 
 my life to a woman to have that woman prove not to 
 deserve it. You must trust me, both of you." 
 
 And there was in his manner, in his voice, something 
 so fine, so generous, that they did trust him. 
 
 George, he said, was to go to the South as soon as he 
 was able to travel, and before then he and Cuckoo should 
 meet many times. 
 
 "After that," he added, "you will, as I have said, just 
 have to wait. It can't be for so very long." 
 
 Loxley held out his hand. "I can't tell you," he gasped 
 out, in little broken sentences, "how splendid I think 
 you, or how grateful I am. It's wonderful, and I don't 
 even want it it you know what I mean to be soon. 
 It's hard to explain, sir, but I should be happy like this 
 for a very long time." 
 
 Janeways shook hands with him. 
 
 "I'll come and see you to-morrow, and we mustn't any 
 of us vulgarize things by sentimentality. The chief point 
 
 450
 
 THE BAG OF SAFFRON 
 
 is that Cuckoo has well you know what I mean." 
 
 Cuckoo knelt by Loxley and kissed him good-bye. 
 
 "That Cuckoo has deserved the Bag of Saffron, you 
 mean," she added; and a few moments later Sir Pere- 
 grine and Lady Janeways were in a taxi going home. 
 
 No one was much surprised when Lady Janeways, at 
 the very end of the ball, appeared again. The story of 
 her sudden indisposition had been accepted without re- 
 serve, and when she said good-night to her guests, every 
 one of them noticed that instead of the splendid ruby 
 and the diamonds she had worn earlier in the evening, she 
 wore now but one jewel. Lady Pelter was delighted. 
 
 "Oh, my dear," she said, "I am so glad! It's really 
 very quaint !" 
 
 When the last guest had gone Cuckoo knocked at her 
 aunt's door. 
 
 Miss Flora was in bed, her pretty hair screwed up in 
 tight wads on her forehead. She wore a pink flannel 
 jacket, and on her little nose sat the owl-like spectacles. 
 She was reading. 
 
 "Well, my dear," she said, as her niece came in, "and 
 have they all gone at last?" 
 
 "Yes, dear Aunt Flora, they Have all gone at last, and 
 I I just thought I'd come and say good-night to you.'* 
 
 Bending over the old woman, the young one kissed her, 
 and suddenly Miss Flora gave a little shriek in her most 
 piercing voice. 
 
 "Cuckoo Blundell!" she cried. "What is it? it can'* 
 
 Cuckoo smiled at her, and the old woman was struck 
 by the new expression in her niece's clear little eyes. 
 "It is," she said.
 
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