ill 
 
 
 .1 |!!!!h!||i! : . 
 
 i 1 ! hi: 
 
 Tie::: Novels •of j 
 
 Richard Pryce 
 
 ymmm 
 
 Chiistopher '■'''*' 
 
 Jezebel f 
 
 The Burden of a Woii 
 Elementary Jane 
 Time andtheWoman 
 David Penstephen 
 
 
 i iHH'!" 
 
 LJiiiii 
 
 !!i 
 
 mm 
 
 
 m 
 
 I'nuiili' 
 
 III 
 
 liintimK! 
 
 !! 
 
 iiillllii!

 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 •jNiVERSIlY OF CALlFeRNlA 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 CDS ANQELEa CAUF.
 
 ^p Ktc()arB flrpce 
 
 CHRISTOPHER. 
 
 JEZEBEL. 
 
 ELEMENTARY JANE. 
 
 THE BURDEN OF A WOMAN. 
 
 TIME AND THE WOMAN. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 Boston and New York
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 7 <J Q *} *}
 
 COPYRIOHT, I915, DY RICHARD PRTCE 
 ALL RIGHTS RESBRV2D 
 
 Published November iqi^
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 
 -^T<. 
 
 £> 
 
 ^ '-' . ■> 
 
 P> 
 
 CttT . 
 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK OF 
 DAVID 
 
 ^1 
 
 ^
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 One of David's early recollections was of being taken out 
 of his warm bed in what seemed like the middle of the 
 night, but was really towards six o'clock of a winter's morn- 
 ing, and dressed by cold candlelight for one of the jour- 
 neys to which he had been accustomed ever since he was 
 born. Most of his recollections had to do with travelling. 
 This one, more vivid somehow than the rest, stood out af- 
 terwards from its fellows. He was still half asleep when he 
 was lifted from the warm pillow, and, protesting, whimper- 
 ing even a little, he tried to go to sleep again during the 
 first stages of his toilet. 
 
 "Now, Master David. Wake up. Wake up, will you? 
 Wake up like a good boy, or are you going to be a naughty 
 one? 'Ow do you think I 'm to get you dressed if you lollop 
 like that, to say nothing of your little sister good as gold 
 over there and surprised at you! With the train to catch 
 and all, do you hear me? There! Let's 'elp, for goodness 
 sake, 'stead of 'inderin'. Put your arms in; now over your 
 little head. That's right. Caught his poor fingers, did I? 
 Careless old Betsy! Ought to know better, didn't she? 
 There's a boy — there's a little man, though. And now for 
 the wash wash wash." 
 
 The wash wash wash woke him. The water was n't 
 properly hot and Betsy was in a hurry. He squirmed and 
 wriggled — 'indering, it is to be feared, very much more 
 than he 'elped. Perhaps the water was nearly cold ; perhaps 
 Betsy's hands, which were kind, were rough. Perhaps the
 
 4 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 soap did get into his eyes, as he said. But he was awake 
 at last and presently he was dressed. 
 
 He stood by the table then and watched Betsy go 
 through much the same exercises with Georgina. Georgina 
 had the advantage of him, however, in having been wide 
 awake by the time her turn came. Georgina made no fuss. 
 Presently two dressed children stood by the table, and 
 watched Betsy as, having finished them, she proceeded to 
 finish herself. 
 
 Something had happened the night before. Things often 
 did happen. Later, when David was old enough to observe, 
 he knew that there was something connected with the fam- 
 ily that made ' things' always liable to happen. His father's 
 face would wear a frown and his mother's an anxious but 
 unsurprised look, and generally it would not be long before 
 they moved on somewhere else. Arrivals, departures, un- 
 packings and packings, trains, porters, cloakrooms, luggage, 
 douanes, omnibuses, hotels, hotel servants, lodgings, beds 
 with curtains, beds without curtains, beds with mosquito 
 nets, beds in recesses: these were life and life was these. 
 David aged seven took these and took this for granted — 
 for a matter and for matters of course. 
 
 There was himself, and there was Father (when there 
 was Father, that is, for sometimes Father was not there), 
 and Mother (almost always Mother), and quite always 
 Betsy. There was also Georgina — since the arrival of 
 Georgina. That was the family. What there was n't, 
 though David did not know it yet, was a home. David's 
 mother, with the pale gentle face and the tired eyes, had 
 almost given up hope that there ever would be. 
 
 David had been born at Calais of all places — the mark 
 of the bird of passage on him for always. Some sand, a 
 Tower, and a Gate. But the painters have always known 
 Calais. And Calais: is it not itself a Gate? Most seemly 
 place for your birth, David. One of the gates of France. 
 A little Frenchman? A certain rise in the young days. 
 Georgina was a native of Florence. By the Calais argu-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 5 
 
 ment Georgina would be held an Italian. You might thus 
 have brothers and sisters every one of whom was of a difTer- 
 ent nationality, German, Spanish, Austrian, Norwegian — 
 Oriental even at a stretch. Which 'like Euclid' was ab- 
 surd. You were, of course, what your father was, and 
 David's father was English. So David the schoolboy; be- 
 fore he learned that, even at the cost of hearing himself 
 called a foreigner, it was better, perhaps, not to speak of his 
 father at all. Time enough. It was not near his school- 
 days yet. He was still very much in the nursery, where, 
 though strictly speaking, it was n't a nursery, since it was a 
 bedroom in a hotel, the most intimate and domestic things 
 happened. 
 
 Betsy's toilet was always enthralling — such portions 
 of it as her charges were permitted to see performed. 
 These consisted chiefly in the hooking of her stays, an or- 
 dinance always put off to the last possible moment and 
 accomplished to a sort of suspended or sectional indrawing 
 of the breath ; and perhaps the doing of Betsy's hair — 
 a large portion of which went on ready done. Then came 
 Betsy's dress, and behold Betsy the shape which she took 
 for the day. 
 
 "Doesn't it hurt?" David asked this morning when 
 all was done. 
 
 "What hurt?" said Betsy, patting her chignon. 
 
 "Not your hair. Nor," as she smoothed out her creases, 
 "buttoning your dress. But when you get the brass things 
 into the eyes. You have to go grunt, grunt, grunt, you 
 know, Betsy." 
 
 "Have to go grunt, grunt, grunt," echoed Georgina. 
 
 Betsy knocked their heads together smiling. 
 
 A waiter, not the one that David had made friends with 
 the day before, came to say that breakfast was ready, and 
 the three went into the sitting-room next door, where the 
 children found their mother and flew to her, and where 
 their father presently joined them. 
 
 Nobody talked much after Mr. Penstephen appeared,
 
 6 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 except Georgina, who from her place beside Betsy kept 
 up a patter of baby prattle. 
 
 "Betsy goes grunt, grunt, grunt," she announced k pro- 
 pos of nothing; and Betsy said, " 'Ush, Miss Georgy. Eat 
 your nice bread and milk like a little lady. Look at Master 
 David." 
 
 "Is the children's luggage ready?" Mr. Penstephen 
 asked, breaking his own silence. 
 
 "I've only to fasten the straps, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen had been crying, she saw. She, Betsy, 
 had heard something of what had happened. 
 
 "No, eat your own breakfast, Betsy," Mrs. Penstephen 
 said gently. "One of the eggs is for you. I'll look after 
 Miss Georgy presently while you see to the things. Yes, 
 David, when you 've drunk your milk you can have a little 
 coffee." 
 
 "Grunt, grunt, grunt," said Georgina again. 
 
 Betsy looked at her master from under her eyebrows, 
 rather to see whether the little girl's prattle was irritating 
 him than from any apprehension for what might come, 
 and smiled to herself. 
 
 But "That's what little pigs say," Mr. Penstephen 
 said, running his hand over his daughter's curls. 
 
 How kind he was really. How kind — and him so 
 wrong! Why could n't he make her mistress happy? It 
 was plain to see how she suffered. And all for views — 
 just views. Not sinfulness; not deliberate sinfulness. 
 There was no obstacle — no cause or impediment. Just 
 views and cleverness; and look how these things affected 
 those whom he loved ! She watched him with his child — 
 his girl child; his boy he did not understand so well. Yet 
 "Now, David, your coffee — and a nice flat lump of 
 sugar"; he loved his boy too. All for views and cleverness 
 — wrong-headedness she called it. Wrong-headedness, ob- 
 stinacy. "I should just like to shake him." 
 
 Her egg was delicious — as good as an English egg, 
 though it had been laid by a Belgian hen. She had been
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 7 
 
 up since before five o'clock packing, and was hungry. 
 
 Betsy enjoyed her breakfast. 
 
 ^_ "Now 'm. A quarter of an hour will see us ready." 
 
 Georgina had finished her breakfast, David his; so she 
 took the children with her, while her mistress went to 
 put on her hat and coat, and her master to pay the bill. 
 
 There were no cheerful leave-takings in that hotel. No 
 au revoirs from bowing officials and servants. Even the 
 waiter whom David had made friends with kept out of the 
 way. But to David's delight, at the very moment when 
 his father was saying, "We never set foot there again," 
 David espied him looking out from behind one of the blinds 
 in the coffee-room, and received a deprecating wave of the 
 hand from hifti which he longed to but dared not return. The 
 Penstephens were leaving Brussels in gravest displeasure. 
 
 Then came the usual journey. But every journey was 
 a new adventure to the funny little boy in the Scotch 
 cap, the knickerbocker suit, the knitted comforter, and 
 the pilot's-cloth great-coat. Children were oddly dressed 
 in those days — but so was every one else. David's fa- 
 ther, for instance, wore a black coat and check trousers 
 travelling, and changed his rather square felt hat in the 
 train for a cap which had been bought at a bookstall. His 
 mother wore what was known as a "polonaise," a round 
 sealskin jacket, and a hat which sloped up towards the 
 back from her forehead; a string of onyx beads as large 
 as marbles round her neck; and carried her watch in a 
 watch-pocket. Betsy wore . . . but, goodness, what did 
 not Betsy? — who was the shape, moreover, if not quite 
 the size, of a pillar box! Yet the family looked distin- 
 guished. People, pointing them out or asking perhaps who 
 they were, said, "Those nice-looking people," — till they 
 were - old, when they left out 'nice-looking' at once and 
 put worlds of meaning into what remained. Those peo- 
 ple! Those. Betsy was thus the imposing servitor of the 
 distinguished, or the damaged hanger-on of the damaged, 
 and both, in less time than it takes to say so.
 
 8 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 David kneeling on the seat looked out of the window 
 — not the big square window of these days, but a pane 
 shaped like the lower half of a moon in its second quarter. 
 Dusty blue curtains, hung on ivory rings, had to be pushed 
 back from time to time. 
 
 "What are you looking at, David?" 
 
 He was so intent that his mother had to repeat her 
 question. 
 
 "What do you see out there?" 
 
 He started and turned back to the inside of the com- 
 partment. 
 
 "The telegraph wires." 
 
 Then David's mother watched them too. They dipped, 
 down, down. Now they were going up. They seemed to be 
 engaged in a struggle to rise. Up. Up. They were going 
 up. They would go surely right up to where they would be 
 safe. When they seemed nearest to the attainment of their 
 wish, a pole suddenly, and down they would come again 
 with a rush ! It was as if they could not escape? — evade? 
 They were like many things, but mostly things hunted or 
 trapped: hunted things seeking covert and overtaken at 
 the brink of safety; hunted people — slaves, say — making 
 for sanctuary, detected, caught or shot down; flies that 
 nearly succeeded in disentangling themselves from webs; 
 men trying to rise — perhaps on ' stepping-stones of their 
 dead selves to higher things,' but always, always dragged 
 down ; creatures swimming for dear life ever to be washed 
 back with the wave that had brought them almost to the 
 shore. 
 
 "Germany next, David. How shall you like that?" 
 
 "Groschen," said David who had been there and knew. 
 
 "Kreuzers," said his father. " More in your line, my 
 son." 
 
 "Koitzers," echoed Georgina. 
 
 "Marks," said David stoutly. 
 
 "Marks," said Georgina. 
 
 "I once had a florin," said David.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 9 
 
 They had the compartment to themselves. The racks 
 were full of their luggage: valises, the carpetbag, the 
 hold-all, 'straps,' a square box in a brown holland cover 
 bound with red tape : the odd hand-luggage of the sixties 
 and seventies — a dressing-case (Mother's) with tortoise- 
 shell fittings inside it, including a comb with a tail ; another 
 dressing-case (Father's) with silver fittings and a secret 
 drawer; the Dispatch Box (also Father's); some toys; a 
 watering-can put to strange uses; The Shawl (a large plaid 
 square capable of enveloping both children) and some rugs. 
 Mrs. Penstephen was wrong if she thought that her chil- 
 dren had no home. 
 
 What a domestic scene they and these must have pre- 
 sented, David often thought when he looked back to the 
 young years of the travelling! The intimate, familiar 
 things which accompanied them made the railway carriage 
 an intimate, familiar place — fit setting for the family 
 group. Father, mother, son, daughter, with Betsy servant 
 and friend. 
 
 All the odd luggage, even to the corded trunks in the 
 luggage van, had the tender value in retrospect of things 
 loved and lost. No household gods, no chairs or tables 
 or sofas or cupboards or chests-of-drawers or book-cases 
 or pictures, were ever more closely connected with a life 
 than, say, the holland-covered box with David's. He had 
 lived his seven years to the sight of it. It was as much 
 a part of his mother as the rings on her fingers, and it was 
 thus somehow a very part of him. 
 
 And how respectable! Respectability must have been 
 the dominant note of that assemblage of persons and things. 
 An English gentleman of good position and sufficient 
 means, an English lady of delicate and 'refined' appear- 
 ance, their well-bred presentable children, their children's 
 elderly comfortable nurse: the valises, carpetbag, hold-all, 
 dressing-cases, straps, etc., etc. Could Mr. and Mrs. 
 Grundy themselves with family and luggage have shown 
 more blameless a front? '
 
 10 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Now came the guard to look at the tickets, climbing 
 dangerously along the footboard outside the carriages, and, 
 the window having been let down, putting his head and 
 shoulders in at the aperture. 
 
 "Ze tickets." 
 
 "Father can speak French," David kad to say, and 
 wanted to add, "Even I can." 
 
 "Les billets, alors. Monsieur," said the guard, bowing to 
 David who fetched them from his father, and handed them 
 one by one — three wholes and two halves as he pointed 
 out — to the guard who proceeded to clip them. Georgina 
 on Betsy's knee had to be held up to see too. 
 
 A domestic scene. All that there was of most domestic 
 and respectable.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Something had, Indeed, happened at the hotel in Brussels 
 
 — the sort of thing that had always been liable to happen, 
 only somehow rather more dreadful than ever had happened 
 before. Aloofness was the most that happened generally 
 
 — aloofness covering coldness, recedings, withdrawals, and 
 the usual starings or blindnesses. People saw the Penste- 
 phens only too well, or did not see them at all. They made 
 friendly overtures — to the children, perhaps, the strange 
 little ruminant David, or the engaging Georgina — and, 
 inexplicably, or anyway unexplainedly, retreated. David 
 deep down in his soul had always known. Georgina, too 
 young, and also too content, to be perceptive, did not 
 know. But this time things had gone further. 
 
 Some one — a great lady, an old client, the kind that 
 bowing hotel managers dare not or will not offend — had 
 given her ultimatum. "Either those people or I." 
 
 The scraping manager was to take his choice. It had of 
 course to be Those People. Madame, with her companion 
 who was almost her lady-in-waiting, her secretary, her 
 maids (two) and her courier, had a suite upon the first 
 floor. Her ultimatum, since she breakfasted, lunched, and 
 dined in her own apartments, and need, and would, it is 
 probable, have seen as little of the persons who outraged 
 her as if continents instead of stairs and corridors had 
 separated her from them, was preposterous — a piece of 
 self-righteous despotism. But she had spoken. They or she. 
 The matter, the hotel manager gathered, had something 
 to do with the roof. Madame, representing outraged virtue, 
 and they, open scandal, could not, it seemed, sleep under 
 the same slates. 
 
 "If I put them in the D6pendance? A separate en- 
 trance as Madame knows. Only the public salons. I go to
 
 12 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Monsieur. I say, 'Your rooms un'appily we find engaged. 
 A mistake most regrettable. An erreur. But in the D4- 
 pendance . . .*" 
 
 Madame felt her bracelets — slabs of jet upon parallel 
 strings of elastic; the centre slab on each wrist showing, if 
 you please, a coronet in diamonds — and was silent. She 
 had spoken. 
 
 "Oh, pardon, miladi. It shall be as Madame wishes. 
 But of course. I go to Monsieur without delay. The rooms 
 engaged; the Dependance un'appily quite full, ^a s'ar- 
 rangera." 
 
 Her great-ladyship bowed. 
 
 "The gentleman will understand, I think," she said 
 grimly. "But I give you full permission to mention my 
 name." 
 
 The companion, who scraped nearly as much as the 
 manager, said, " I think you 're quite right," as soon as the 
 manager had scraped himself out of the room. "Quite, 
 quite right." 
 
 "Of course I'm right." 
 
 "Yes, that's what I say, dear." 
 
 "Of course it's what you say." 
 
 "Well, I only — " 
 
 "Yes, dear, I know." 
 
 We leave these ladies agreeing with each other. 
 
 The manager's part was more difficult. He had 'agreed,' 
 to be sure, but in a different sense, and he wished himself 
 well through a bad quarter of an hour. These old women 
 were monsters. As well hope to reason with basilisks. He 
 did not suppose that the ' un'appily engaged ' would work 
 with Mr. Penstephen. He did not see himself saying that 
 the Dependance was full either. He did not, for that matter, 
 see the Dependance entering at all into the question. Scrap- 
 ing might do the thing. There was, of course, always 
 insolence to fail back upon. But he did not somehow 
 see himself, or indeed any one else, being insolent to Mr. 
 Penstephen.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 13 
 
 The old woman had said that he might mention her 
 name. So be it. 
 
 He nerved himself to what might be before him. 
 
 Mr. Penstephen spoke as little as the basilisk. He heard 
 M. Quarantier out. He did not speak, indeed, for some 
 moments after M. Quarantier had told what he had to tell, 
 but this does not mean till after M. Quarantier had finished 
 speaking. M. Quarantier did not seem able to finish speak- 
 ing. He could have stopped excusing himself if his guest 
 would only interrupt him. He heard himself going over the 
 ground again and again. He did not speak for himself, 
 Monsieur would see. He was, Monsieur knew, the serv- 
 ant of the company owning the hotel. He was helpless. 
 Madame la comtesse — the Countess of Harbington, a 
 great English lady with estates he understood in the islands 
 of Ireland and Wight (Monsieur doubtless would know) — 
 came every year. But every single year. It would not do 
 to offend — but would not do. These great ladies. Mon- 
 sieur knew. He, the hotel manager, was by example with- 
 out prejudices. One arrived, one stayed, one paid one's 
 bill. One — the hotel now — asked no questions. Where 
 would a hotel be asking questions? Ah, he should think so, 
 there were whom one could not receive. Oh, by example. 
 But these one knew at a glance. They asked the best rooms, 
 too, these sometimes; so money was nothing to go by. But 
 Monsieur, Madame, and the little ones, so distinguished, 
 so well placed, so amiable. All that there was of most 
 desirable. He would only ask Monsieur to think of him 
 as one who performed a duty — a duty most unreason- 
 able, most uncalled for, against his inclination, his will. 
 
 "For me I ask no better patrons. But what can I, me? 
 I throw myself upon the goodness, the generosity, the kind 
 discretion of Monsieur ..." 
 
 Still Mr. Penstephen did not speak. A calm, attentive 
 eye rested on the scraper. He seemed, indeed, to be listen- 
 ing with his eyes. M. Quarantier, generally so bland, so 
 complacent, felt as if he were being slowly taken to pieces.
 
 14 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 It was then that he made his mistake. Constrained to go 
 on speaking, constrained by Mr. Penstephen's very silence, 
 he was unwise enougli to recommend another hotel. 
 
 "In this town?" 
 
 In the rue So-and-So. Monsieur would find it very com- 
 fortable. When the hotel was full they often sent on their 
 patrons there. If Monsieur would permit, a note very 
 express should be sent round — 
 
 The storm broke. The rest was another sort of silence 
 altogether — the silence in which the family left the next 
 morning. Mr. Penstephen never 'set foot' again in Brus- 
 sels. Mrs. Penstephen, more forgiving, perhaps, more 
 understanding certainly, did in after years; but not till 
 enough water had flowed under the bridges to wash to 
 faintness the recollection of her tears and her humiliation. 
 
 The frown gradually left Mr. Penstephen's face. David 
 did not observe this, but he was conscious of a lightening 
 or a brightening generally. It was as when a lamp which 
 has been burning, but burning dully, is turned up. Betsy 
 became more cheerful. She talked to the children and 
 might have been supposed to be inviting some one whose 
 face did not at once change to be of good cheer. She painted 
 the joys of nice lodgings after hotels — they were going to 
 lodgings ; the teas you could have with the help of an sctna ; 
 real English tea which you made yourself; pots of jam; 
 bought cakes — none of your hotel pastry. No foreign hotel 
 understood tea. Oh, yes, you could have tea — T. H. E. — 
 such a way to spell it! No wonder it did n't taste right! — 
 but when you had tried it a time or two you always fell back 
 upon coffee, which she granted you they could make. That 
 showed pretty well what their tea was like. David was 
 just to think. You brought the water in the aetna up to a 
 boil, put your tea in the teapot (having warmed that), 
 poured in the boiling water which went in with oh, such a 
 gurgle; let stand for a minute or two, and there you were. 
 Betsy thought the sound of water being poured into a tea-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 15 
 
 pot (earthenware for choice — or, of course, silver, but 
 never 'metal' nor anything like that) from, if possible, a 
 black kitchen kettle, polished but with just a belt of soot 
 on it, the most musical sound in the world. 
 
 " I know it," said David. " It 's right down in the teapot's 
 stomach," 
 
 "Say heart, dear." 
 
 It was Mrs. Penstephen. She was listening, then? There 
 was a smile on her lips as she spoke. 
 
 "Have teapots hearts?" asked David. 
 
 "Have little boys stomachs!" said Betsy. "And nice 
 bread-and-butter cut from the loaf. To be sure that's tar- 
 teens, but tar-teens always did seem to me to go better 
 with coflfee, and it's tea we're talking about. I'll make 
 such tea in the lodgings! You'll all be glad to be done 
 with hotels for a little. I '11 make such tea." 
 
 "You make me want to arrive," said David's mother. 
 "No, we don't get tea like yours, Betsy, in hotels." 
 
 "It's all the boil of the water," said Betsy. 
 
 She had diverted her mistress's thoughts from what 
 occupied them, and that was what she wanted. 
 
 The talk of the tea, moreover, had made them all hungry, 
 and it was really nearly time for luncheon — quite nearly 
 enough, anyway, after their early start, to make them all 
 welcome the thought of it. Mr. Penstephen got down the 
 square box, and its cover was loosened just sufficiently to 
 allow the lid to be raised. Betsy became an upright pillar 
 box at once, and having deposited Georgina upon the seat 
 by her mother, helped to make ready. The cold chicken 
 which she had been out to buy the night before was ready 
 car\'ed. The pulling of a pink riband released wings, slices 
 of the breast, thigh bones, drumsticks. There were but- 
 tered rolls; pinches of salt in paper. There was a bottle of 
 wine for the elders (Betsy bidden to share it), a bottle of 
 milk for the children. There were little tartlets — a sponge 
 cake, or the Belgian equivalent of a sponge cake, for Geor- 
 gina — and there were some grapes. No restaurant cars
 
 i6 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 then, no organised system of luncheon baskets. The tray 
 of the holland-covered box represented what had not then 
 been invented. 
 
 Everybody felt better for having eaten — even Mrs. 
 Penstephen, Betsy knew. Betsy was wonderful. Her 
 bosom was a haven of shelter and comfort for more than 
 the heads of children. In the spirit her mistress's head had 
 lain there and been pressed there often and often to the 
 binding-up of the bruised heart. Once it had actually been 
 held there, and neither ever forgot. That marked a crisis. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen, watching her as she cleaned up and 
 tidied and put away, thought of that now. Her movements 
 were extraordinarily deft. How neatly everything fitted 
 back into its place. She never seemed to hurry and yet was 
 so quick. There, all was stowed away again. No fear that 
 the lid would not close down under, or rather over, Betsy's 
 skilful packing. Now she was turning the key in the lock; 
 now readjusting the holland cover; now with a strong 
 hoist swinging the box — which held other things below 
 the tray and was heavy — up into the rack again ; and now, 
 all signs of the recent meal removed, perching Georgina 
 again on to the place where her lap would have been if she 
 had had a lap, and settling down once more as the children's 
 nurse. 
 
 She caught her mistress's eye fixed upon her and smiled. 
 
 "I should n't be surprised but what we did n't some of 
 us drop off before very long." 
 
 Georgina dropped first — but not off her perch. David 
 next, his head against his mother's warm sealskin. Then 
 Mr. Penstephen in his corner, his long legs stretched out 
 under his rug. But neither Betsy slept, her arms clasped 
 round the sleeping Georgina, nor Mrs. Penstephen, who 
 took David's hand into her muff. 
 
 "Betsy, it was dreadful." 
 
 The words came of the memory and the meeting of the 
 eyes. 
 
 "Oh, 'm, don't think of it. And we shall be so much
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 17 
 
 *appier in lodgings. I believe myself we always should be. 
 Hotels are all very well, but there's the people and one 
 thing and the other, and I 'm sure, though trouble 's saved 
 for you, what with the housekeeping done for you, and the 
 service and so on, I don't in me own mind privately think 
 — not meself , that is — that it makes up for not having a 
 place of your own, so to speak. Lodgings, now, or — how 
 would it be — a nice — well, a nice furnished house?" 
 
 " I've thought of that. I 've often thought of that. But 
 again there would be difficulties. It might not be every one 
 who would care to let to us." 
 
 "Show such your banker's reference, 'm. Let 'em see the 
 colour of money. One gold-piece is as good as another all 
 the world over." 
 
 "Our gold-pieces don't seem to have counted for much 
 where we've come from to-day," said Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 "Ah, hotels," said Betsy. "People — 'erded up like." 
 
 "Not much herding. She had her own suite of rooms, 
 I'm told. No, there would be difficulties." 
 
 "Abroad, do you think, 'm? Or, come to that, at home. 
 London. Think how big it is. Why, you can get lost in it. 
 There's whole districts. Beautiful houses where nobody 
 lives that you and the Master 'd be likely to know. Big 
 houses, too. With gardens. Or there's small country 
 places." 
 
 "The country would n't do. The country would be quite 
 out of the question. The country — just think." 
 
 Betsy just thought. 
 
 People calling and not calling. True. Difficult to say 
 which would be worse. No, the country, she supposed, 
 would not do. 
 
 But London — some nice unfashionable quarter. Why, 
 in London, even in good neighbourhoods, you did n't know 
 the name sometimes of people who lived next door to you, 
 and as to people in the next street — why, you did n't 
 know them so much as by sight. 
 
 But Mrs. Penstephen shook her head. Dreams] Dreams !
 
 i8 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Dreams were not for her. It was no good thinking of 
 London. It could n't be England at all. 
 
 David stirred in his sleep. She settled his head more 
 comfortably against her sealskin. Betsy, leaning forward 
 without dislodging Georgina, pulled the rug up about her 
 and the slumbering boy. 
 
 Neither spoke for a few minutes after that. The train 
 swung on with its even unevenness. Outside the telegraph 
 wires rose and dipped unheeded. 
 
 Betsy said, "Wouldn't you try to sleep, 'm, a little? 
 You 've hours to make up. Let me have Master David here 
 by me. He'd be off again in a minute." 
 
 But Mrs. Penstephen was not sleepy. She had even slept 
 in the night, she said. It was poor Betsy who had the hours 
 to make up. She must have spent one half of the night 
 packing, and the other half — 
 
 "There can't have been much other half. It must have 
 been time to get up almost as soon as you got to bed." 
 
 "Oh, bless you, 'm, I don't mind. Went to me heart, 
 though, to wake Master David. That boy '11 always have 
 one comfort through life. He '11 be able to sleep away his 
 troubles. There's an endowment for anybody. There's a 
 — what shall I call it? — equipment. That's it. As good 
 as a armour. Like taking a refuge about with you. Some- 
 thing to creep into and lie snug in till the storm's past." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen looked at her sleeping son. The shadow 
 had not fallen upon him yet, or if it had, he could not be 
 conscious of it. But it must fall upon him. Let him sleep. 
 He would need equipment; armours, refuges. 
 
 Betsy guessed what her mistress was thinking. It sent 
 her own thoughts back to the events of the last twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 "The hotel behaved disgraceful," she said suddenly. 
 " I 'd like to have given them me mind — in pieces. All of 
 them. The manager should have been ashamed. Such a 
 way to treat people. He should have known better." 
 
 "He could n't help himself," said Mrs. Penstephen. "I
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 19 
 
 think he was really distressed. I did n't see him. But I am 
 quite sure." 
 
 "She, then," said Betsy. "She could help herself. So 
 onchristian. I 'd 've saved the pieces of me mind for her. 
 I 'd 've let her have them. Taking upon herself to dictate. 
 And her with rouge on her cheeks — as I saw myself with 
 me own eyes. Two ladies' maids, too, if you please. One to 
 do one cheek and one to do the other, I suppose." 
 
 "Betsy!" said Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 "Yes, 'm, disrespectful I know. I'm forgetting meself, I 
 dare say, but it makes me blood boil. Lady, indeed! Al- 
 though with maids and seckertry and companion! The 
 companion looked a poor put-upon thing, I can tell you — 
 for all she said ' Dear ' to her ladyship as they got out of the 
 carriage. Some poor relation, no doubt." 
 
 "Betsy," said Mrs. Penstephen. "Betsy, you mustn't. 
 I can't allow you." 
 
 "No, 'm, I know," said Betsy. 
 
 She was silent for a moment or two. 
 
 "Clergy I could understand," she said then. "Might 
 think it their duty — even if mistaken. But for her to sit 
 up in judgment, just because she happens to have a handle 
 to her name (though only, I suppose, through her husband) 
 and a suite of apartments to keep it in, makes me ill. Yes, 
 'm, when I think of it you must let me forget meself." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen smiled. 
 
 "We mustn't be uncharitable," she said. "She was 
 right, perhaps, — right from her point of view, I mean." 
 
 "Did we contaminate the air, 'm?" Betsy always as- 
 sociated herself with the family. " Did we poison it so that 
 people in private suites even could n't trust themselves to 
 breathe it? We might have been criminals. We might 
 have been dangerous characters. We might have been in- 
 fectious. Oh, no, 'm, I haven't common patience."' 
 
 So Betsy argued and yet Betsy deplored. She would 
 fight tooth and nail, but no one deplored more than Betsy.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Frau Finkel's apartments happily were vacant. Mr. 
 Penstephen had telegraphed, but there had been no time 
 for an answer, and the family arrived at the house in Hein- 
 rich-Strasse uncertain whether they could be taken in or 
 whether they must seek other lodging. Frau Finkel re- 
 ceived them with open arms. She had their old rooms for 
 them. Aired? They had only ceased to be occupied the 
 week before — a Russian family, very highly placed; the 
 beds had been before the fire all day. The stoves were 
 lighted, the rooms warm, everything ready. And was this 
 the young Herr David? So grown. So tall. So like his 
 noble father. And this the baby of two years ago? So 
 wonder-beautiful. So like her gracious mother (which 
 Georgina was n't particularly). And Fraulein Betsee. 
 Ach's and So's and adverbs and adjectives and pent-up 
 verbs filled the passage. 
 
 Mr. Penstephen said, "Yes, yes, yes," in a tone of good- 
 natured impatience. 
 
 But the good woman's welcome was grateful to every one. 
 Smiling servants relieved arms and hands of rugs and bag- 
 gage. David yielded up The Shawl and the bundle of toys 
 to some one called Anna, and some one else called Gretchen 
 relieved Betsy of the holland-covered box. Frau Finkel, 
 talking still and carrying both the dressing-cases, led the 
 way up. 
 
 High rooms, painted ceilings, china stoves: these Da- 
 vid's dominant impressions. He remembered these things 
 vaguely from his last visit, but saw them now freshly. The 
 woodwork which he did not notice was painted to resemble 
 other wood — perhaps even itself. There were huge look- 
 ing-glasses. The furniture, which was old and rather hand- 
 some, was upholstered in faded brocade. There were loose
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 21 
 
 covers over this on some of the chairs. David recognised 
 the chair which he had broken. It was still broken. He 
 pointed it out to his mother. 
 
 "Do you remember that, darling?" 
 
 " I knocked it down and a piece came off. Father said I 
 was n't to tip up my chair because it would fall if I did, and 
 I just wanted to see, and I tipped it once just the least little 
 bit further and it did. Of course I did n't mean to — at 
 least I did n't mean it to." 
 
 "Your father was right, you see." 
 
 "Fathers always are, are n't they?" 
 
 "Always," said David's mother; but as Mrs. Penstephen 
 she was n't sure. 
 
 "He had to pay for it, had n't you, Father?" 
 
 "When things are broken," said David's father, "they 
 generally have to be paid for." 
 
 David gave his funny little laugh. 
 
 "It's the fathers that have to pay." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen was thinking that it was sometimes the 
 mothers. But that would not matter if it were not that it 
 was also sometimes the children. She looked at the broken 
 chair. 
 
 "Fancy your remembering," was what she said. 
 
 "But I remember everything," said David. 
 
 He was full of excitement. The luggage was bumping its 
 way up to the bedrooms. He ran out of the room to see it 
 pass. Frau Finkel stood guard over her wall-papers and 
 her banisters, and gave voluble directions, or wrinkled her 
 forehead when the stairs creaked under the weight of the 
 trunks, or scratches to paint or plaster seemed imminent. 
 The women servants giggled from time to time — when a 
 corner was difficult to negotiate or a chandelier was in 
 danger. Women carrying a heavy trunk always giggled, 
 David in the course of his travels had long since observed. 
 An awkward turn in the stairs or a moment of jeopardy was 
 always enough to send them into laughing hysterics. One 
 generally pushed a little too much or the other perhaps
 
 22 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 pulled. Men porters, the 'boots' in hotels, flymen, and the 
 like — never found weight-lifting so exhilarating. Why 
 was it? 
 
 He asked Frau Finkel in German, and she answered him 
 in English. 
 
 Because girls were great sillies she said. Oh, so sillies. 
 Look at Anna now, laughing because she had nearly carried 
 away de door-post, and Gretchen too in sympatee. 
 
 "Dey tink of deir own silliness, not of my vails, not of 
 de chentleman's and de ladies' tronks. I tell dem vait! 
 Vait till dey have houses of deir own if ever. Vait till dey 
 have so much as a tronk. Den dey see. Den perhaps dey 
 laugh on de oder site. Just sillinesses like I tell you." 
 
 Oh, that was it? David thought he rather liked silli- 
 nesses. 
 
 Anna and Gretchen were taking a momentary rest on 
 the landing. They had not stopped laughing. Anna had 
 blue earrings and a striped 'Garibaldi' and, as she sat on 
 the trunk, very fat legs. Her hair was in a net. Gretchen 
 had, chiefly, a broad face with little screwed-up eyes set 
 very far apart, and a mouth with small white teeth in it. 
 She had some pins and a needle or two — one of the needles 
 threaded — stuck into the bosom of her dress. Her hair, 
 of which she seemed to have a great quantity, was done in 
 plaits bound closely round her head. 
 
 "Na — now," said Frau Finkel, speaking to the girls in 
 English for the benefit it is to be supposed of David, " Na — 
 now ve finish. No more restings. No more sillinesses. 
 Forvarts!" 
 
 But as the girls lifted the trunk and became conscious 
 once more of the strain on their muscles they had to laugh. 
 
 David clapped his hands, hopped on one leg, and looked 
 at Frau Finkel. 
 
 "Anna, vill you attention! I am ashamed of you. Such 
 laughings not seemly. De young chentleman tink I have 
 noting but sillies for servants. Gretchen, you drop de ent 
 if you pay not carefulness. And vearing still your timble !
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 23 
 
 Vas ever ! Vy dee n 't you take it off, foolish? How can you 
 hold tight mit a timble on de finger. Na — now, vonce 
 more again, attention!" 
 
 The bumping proceeded. To David's dehght Anna, who 
 mounted the stairs backwards, sat suddenly. Even Betsy, 
 who came out of one of the bedrooms at that moment, had 
 to laugh. 
 
 "We like lodgings better than hotels, don't we, Master 
 David?" 
 
 " I should think we did," said David. 
 
 Frau Finkel said, "Please excuse, Fraulein Betsee." 
 
 "Oh, we'll excuse," said Betsy. 
 
 So they arrived cheerfully. They slept that night. Oh, 
 how they all slept — even Mrs. Penstephen who had not 
 thought to sleep. Betsy, awake betimes, did not call the 
 children, and saw too that her mistress was not called. Mrs. 
 Penstephen should have slept the clock round if Betsy had 
 had her way. 
 
 And now things began to happen in German instead of 
 Belgian-French. The people were different, the dogs were 
 different, the wares in the shops. Everything smelled dif- 
 ferent. In the grocer's shop where some of the provisions 
 were bought, there was the most delicious smell that David 
 had ever smelt. It was compounded of many things, but 
 sugar-candy, dried figs, and coffee were its most recognis- 
 able ingredients. The molasses and the sugar-cane of the 
 boys' books, which became part of his life later on, always 
 made him think of the smell of this shop. He carried, in- 
 deed, a recollection of it through the length of his days. It 
 took its place amongst the nice smells which he stored in 
 his mind. Everything had its smell for David's young 
 nostrils: the faces of Georgina's wax dolls; the tin ducks 
 with the shining metallic colours which he 'swam' in his 
 bath and which followed a magnet; his leaden soldiers; his 
 tops; his box of paints; doU's-house furniture, the little 
 wooden chests-of -drawers particularly; books, their bind-
 
 24 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 ings — a gluey smell ; and many things which were n't sup- 
 posed to have a smell at all, such as marbles and glass and 
 china. Natural, then, that for David, different countries 
 should have their distinguishing smells — different towns 
 even. The smell of Brussels, for instance, was quite differ- 
 ent from that of Antwerp, but both were Belgian, and quite 
 different from French. Cookery entered into the smells of 
 all towns. David knew Swiss smells (there were not many, 
 somehow) from Italian. Homburg he told Betsy smelt 
 German — but not a bit like Cologne. 
 
 To Betsy the smells of one place were pretty much like 
 those of another. Some, to be sure, worse than others. 
 Homburg, it was true, was wholly agreeable. 
 
 "I like England meself," she said — "for choice and for 
 preference — where there's none." 
 
 David would have found some. 
 
 "None to speak of," she said. "There's right and there's 
 proper smells, of course. Vinegar, now. I 've noticed that, 
 perhaps in the street passing an oyster stall. And maybe 
 oranges at the play. And if it's coffee you want, why, they 
 roast that too in England. There's windows I could take 
 you past as'd make your mouth water. And the flowers 
 I 'm sure smell lovely. It is n't only abroad. Master David, 
 that there's coffee and flowers. Covent Garden, now. I 've 
 been there. Nothing to equal it. And a shop in the Strand 
 where the berries are roasted and ground for the customer. 
 What I mean to say, in England there's no drains." 
 
 Oh, it was n't only drains, David said. 
 
 "It's just the smells of places." 
 
 "Be rights," said Betsy, "places did n't ought to have 
 none." 
 
 "Well, they have," said David. 
 
 The smell of the delicious grocer's might stand to him 
 for the smell of Homburg. 
 
 "When we was here before," said Betsy, who had a way 
 of changing the subject when any particular point seemed 
 to her to have been discussed long enough, or perhaps
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 25 
 
 when she could not think of anything more to say regard- 
 ing it, "there was the Tables. It was the summer and the 
 place full of grand folks. There was one lady I remember 
 as they said had gambled away a whole street — the Chrys- 
 alis-Strass if I remember right. There was royalties here 
 too. H.R.H.'s of all sorts. You wouldn't hardly re- 
 member." 
 
 "I wish you would n't think I did n't remember things, 
 Betsy. You always do. And I do remember. I remember 
 the taste of the black bread — that was here. I remember 
 the rusks and the goat's milk and feeding the deer. They 
 put their noses through railings with bark on them, and 
 breathed quite hot on your hand when you gave them grass. 
 Sniffing it, you know. Then they turned their tongues 
 round it." 
 
 He did appear to remember. 
 
 "Bless the boy," said Betsy. 
 
 Georgina now said that she remembered. 
 
 "Oh, come, come," said Betsy. 
 
 Georgina could n't. David knew that. She had only 
 been a baby. Goodness, he remembered longer ago than 
 Homburg. He believed he remembered the smell of warm 
 india-rubber which must have dated from the bottle days; 
 but perhaps in that he was remembering through and for 
 Georgina. 
 
 Long words, gutturals, in the ears; attempts and achieve- 
 ments on the lips. David's German was said to be coming 
 back to him. 
 
 "Get 'em a German nursery-maid," counselled Mr. Pen- 
 stephen. "Some one to help Betsy and talk German to 
 them. Some one who only knows a few words of English." 
 
 So the family was to stay on at Homburg. Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen consulted Betsy and then consulted Frau Finkel. 
 Frau Finkel knew of no one just then. A fortnight ago and 
 she could have laid her hand upon the very person for 
 them.
 
 26 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 " Ach, vat a pity. Dere vas Carlotta Meinz — de very 
 ting for you. So goot vid children. De daughter of de man 
 dat vinds de clocks. Tree months she vant a situvation. 
 A lady engages her de veek before last. Dat is all, just de 
 veek before last. But I look about. I enkvire for you. I 
 ask de maids. Dey may know." 
 
 A young girl, Mrs. Penstephen thought. About seven- 
 teen or eighteen. Younger even if she was steady. Some 
 one who would play with the children. 
 
 " I know joost vat you vant. To play mit de children in 
 Chairman." . 
 
 "Just so." 
 
 "And dey learn de habit of speaking vidout knowing dey 
 learn. Alvays vid games. She should be a little above, den. 
 A little educated more. Better perhaps I do not ask de 
 maids." 
 
 ' ' Not a nursery governess , " said M rs . Penstephen . * ' The 
 children are hardly old enough for that." 
 
 "Na — no, betvixtand betveen. I speak to my sister-in- 
 law. She teaches a school. Very likely she know some von. 
 I go to her dis efening." 
 
 "Well, not any one too superior." 
 
 "No, no, Madame. But just of nice peoples and a goot 
 bringing-up. Leave it to me. Perhaps I find you some one 
 even petter dan Carlotta Meinz." 
 
 She found Katinka Heinz. 
 
 Katinka Heinz was of nice peoples and a good bringing- 
 up, the daughter of the grocer (no less) of the shop with the 
 delightful smell. Katinka, who got her odd name from her 
 mother, who had not been German, and many other for- 
 eignesses also, was not destined for service, but, for the 
 advantage which it would be to her to be with a distin- 
 guished English family, her father was ready to allow her 
 (and she most anxious to be allowed) to take the place 
 which Mrs. Penstephen wanted to fill. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen, oddly, Frau Finkel thought, seemed to 
 demur. She had thought of a nursery-maid — not some
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 27 
 
 one in the position of Katinka Heinz. Frau Finkel knew 
 the moderate terms which she had proposed to offer. 
 
 Dat, Frau Finkel said, was understood. It was de vish 
 of Katinka to take de place. She vished to be treated, more- 
 over, just like as if she was de oder. Not like a governess 
 at all. She was not a governess. She was just de children's 
 maid under Fraulein Betsee. Katinka loved children. 
 She had seen already dese at her fader's shop, and asked 
 nothing better dan to be allowed to come. 
 
 Still Mrs. Penstephen demurred. 
 
 "Oh, Madame, be advise. Even better dan Carlotta 
 Meinz, and dat was not likely. I know Katinka's fader all 
 my life — so respected. Belief me, you can trust de chil- 
 dren wid her mit an easy mind. I make myself surety of 
 it." 
 
 "Oh, it is n't that," said Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 "And a good accent," said Frau Finkel; "so important, 
 like I always say, in learning a lankvidge. I had myself de 
 advantage of my moder's broder who married an Enklish 
 voman. Dat 's how I spik so easy. Enklish is kvite natcherl 
 to me." 
 
 Mr. Penstephen was out. So, at the moment, was even 
 Betsy. There was no one to consult. 
 
 "If you would perhaps see Katinka — " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I would see her." 
 
 "I send her up," said Frau Finkel. 
 
 Katinka it seemed was below. Frau Finkel was at the 
 door before Mrs. Penstephen had made up her mind what 
 to answer. Almost at once the two could be heard ascend- 
 ing, Frau Finkel talking all the way. 
 
 "Dis is de young person. Dis is Katinka Heinz who has 
 come about de gracious lady's situvation." 
 
 The blushing Katinka made her obeisance. 
 
 "Better now I leave you," said Frau Finkel. "And you 
 speak up, Katinka, and answer all vat de lady asks you." 
 
 Katinka turned her smiling blush toward her. Frau 
 Finkel, admonishing with her eyelids, withdrew.
 
 28 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 The lady did not seem to have much to ask. What she 
 appeared to want to know chiefly was whether Katinka 
 was quite certain that she wanted to come to her. 
 
 Katinka was quite certain, more certain than ever since 
 she had seen the gracious lady face to face. 
 
 "Tell me why you want to come," said Mrs. Penstephen, 
 looking at her kindly, but still with perplexity on her fore- 
 head and in her eyes. She spoke in German. 
 
 "I love children," said Katinka in the same language. 
 " I have always loved to be with them. I have little broth- 
 ers and sisters, but they are little no longer. We are four. I 
 am seventeen and a half already — and the youngest is 
 twelve. Not, Madame will see, little any more. Not to 
 need me if the lady will understand." 
 
 "But my children won't need you in that sense," said 
 Mrs. Penstephen, still looking at her, as Katinka saw, very 
 kindly. "They have their old nurse." 
 
 "That is true. It would be my hope to make them like 
 me too. I am happy with children. I have the lucky way 
 with them. It is thus happy for me also." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen considered. She continued to look at 
 Katinka. Katinka thought she had the kindest face she had 
 ever seen, and wondered why it was also one of the saddest. 
 This, inside Katinka; Katinka outside showed fluttering 
 eyelids and a colour which came and went — which came 
 again, indeed, each time almost before it had quite gone. 
 
 "I am indeed good with children," she said out of the 
 silence and speaking for sheer shyness. "There are some 
 like that. They will tell you at home. Or Frau Finkel. 
 She will speak for me." 
 
 "You don't need any one to speak for you," said Mrs. 
 Penstephen. "You do that for yourself — better than it 
 could be done for you." 
 
 "Oh, have I said too much? Pardon. I did not mean to 
 praise myself. I — I am so anxious." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen laid a hand on Katinka's arm. 
 
 /'My child, you have n't praised yourself. You have n't
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 29 
 
 said a word too much. It would have been the same if you 
 had n't spoken. I meant — oh, it does n't matter what I 
 meant, does it? — since it's quite plain, as far as that goes, 
 that I am pleased with you, Katinka." 
 
 "Oh; gracious lady. You engage me." 
 
 Katinka trembled with excitement. She looked younger 
 even than her seventeen years — ' and a half already ' — 
 at that moment. She was very pretty, with blue eyes and a 
 very fair skin, and hair as abundant as that of the laugh- 
 ing Gretchen, but richer in colour and finer in texture. A 
 daughter of whom a parent would be proud. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen was beginning to shake her head when 
 Katinka's eyes filled with sudden tears. She engaged her.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Katinka came every morning at half past seven and left 
 every evening when the children were in bed. Betsy, at first 
 just the least little bit antagonistic to her, — or perhaps 
 rather to the idea of her than to Katinka herself, — was 
 not of a jealous disposition, so she bore no malice, and when 
 she grew accustomed to the idea of Katinka she soon ac- 
 cepted Katinka. She would have been obliged to admit 
 anyway that Katinka was a success. 
 
 It had been a disappointment to Katinka that she was 
 not to sleep at her employer's. Mrs. Penstephen, when she 
 had spoken to Frau Finkel about a nursery-maid, had 
 certainly meant one who should sleep in, but with Katinka 
 she had settled that she should come by the day. Katinka's 
 home was so near that the arrangement naturally suggested 
 itself. 
 
 The plan certainly answered admirably. Katinka was 
 never late in the morning. Half past seven, or even a little 
 before that, saw her at the door of the room known as the 
 nursery. 
 
 "Hallo, Katinka," from David. 
 
 "Hallo, Katinka," from Georgina the echo. 
 
 "But in German," said Katinka, and reminded them 
 every morning that she was not allowed to speak English. 
 
 Betsy always laughed. 
 
 "You'll be turning them into little foreigners," she 
 said. 
 
 "Dis is vat I am here for," said Katinka, also laughing. 
 She was allowed to speak English to Betsy. 
 
 She was, indeed, as she had said, good with children. 
 Betsy was wonderful, but Katinka was wonderful in an- 
 other way. Her appeal was always to the imagination.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 31 
 
 She cast a spell over the most ordinary things so that a 
 walk became as great an adventure as the longest journey 
 David had ever taken; and the trivial round was illumined 
 and glorified. From a walk she would bring back fir cones 
 which she would sow with grass seed, and, lo, presently 
 miniature forests on miniature mountain peaks. She 
 showed the children how to plant mustard and cress upon 
 flannel; and how a beautiful palm-like plant would spring 
 from a mere carrot-top in a saucer of water. Any one 
 could have done this. But the process of enchantment — 
 it took a Katinka for that. The saucer was a lake, the car- 
 rot-top an island in the middle of it. Inhabitants were 
 invented to dwell under the shade of its one palm-like tree. 
 Katinka knew the way; had the secret; understood or 
 remembered the child-mind. 
 
 When it was stormy they would n't be able to get away 
 from the island, David would say. 
 
 The lake was n't often stormy, she would answer. It 
 was quite clear. It was white like the bottom of a beauti- 
 ful swimming-bath. They did swim in it sometimes. 
 
 They took off their clothes under the tree, said David. 
 
 Yes, and left some one to look after them for fear they 
 should be stolen. And they always put one toe into the 
 water before they stepped in, to see if it was warm. 
 
 And if it was n't warm, what did they do? 
 
 The brave ones still went in. They splashed about and 
 said, 'Oh, you don't know how delicious it is to-day.' But 
 the other ones knew they were only pretending. 
 
 What did they do? 
 
 Put their clothes on again and waited for another day. 
 
 " I should have gone in." 
 
 Betsy would stand sometimes looking on. 
 
 "7 don't understand your gibberish," she would say to 
 Katinka. "What's it all about?" 
 
 David would explain. 
 
 "Well, the carrot-top's very pretty, that I will say, and 
 it's marvellous to me what all those leaves grow out of,
 
 32 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 considering that it's decapitated, so to speak, and no soil 
 to nourish it either. The mustard and cress, of course, is 
 English." 
 
 "You have not de carrot in Enkland, no?" 
 
 "Oh, bless you, we've carrots," said Betsy, "and I dare 
 say they'd grow in an English saucer. But there would n't 
 be these fairy tales about them." 
 
 "You have not fairies in Enkland, no?" 
 
 "No," said Betsy. 
 
 There was the exact difference in wonderfulness. 
 
 Betsy was wonderful, but she had no fairies. Katinka 
 was wonderful and had. 
 
 She told the children about them. Even Georgina 
 seemed to understand. David stood enthralled at Ka- 
 tinka's knee. 
 
 Or she would teach them games. There was Lotto. 
 Betsy would play for Georgina. Or she would dress dolls — 
 not a bit like just dressing dolls (which David affected to 
 despise, but could not help being interested in); or she 
 would fold some paper — newspaper would do — into a long 
 cone-shaped wedge, and giving it cuts on alternate sides 
 with the nursery scissors, would transform it into hanging 
 net-like baskets. With coloured paper she said you could 
 make, thus, 'ornaments' for the looking-glasses, or decora- 
 tions for the stoves. She was never at a loss. She could 
 transform a wet day when they could n't go out into some- 
 thing better than a fine one. She it was who introduced 
 David to the delights of transfer pictures. That was the 
 day of the Great Rain when it never stopped pouring from 
 morning till night. 
 
 Katinka said in English " I know vat ve do," and put on 
 her hat and her cloak and borrowed Betsy's goloshes, and 
 went out mysteriously into the deluge with some kreuzers 
 and her big umbrella. She came back to the expectant 
 children in ten minutes or so, saying, " My vord but it vas 
 vet," and carrying something wrapped up in paper. Some- 
 thing was itself paper — paper all over little pictures.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 33 
 
 Decalcomanie, as nearly as David could arrive at what she 
 called them! 
 
 "You vait," she said. "You vill see. You put dem on 
 books or on china or on glass — on any ting dat you vant." 
 
 None of Georgina's came off whole. David tore most of 
 his or spoilt them by lifting up a corner to see how they 
 were getting on, — as the boiling of a pot is delayed by 
 lifting its cover, — but breathless interest filled the nursery. 
 That was a wet day redeemed. 
 
 Or she amused them all with her photograph album. 
 This was her father in his best coat, and that was her 
 mother who was dead. Here were her paternal and mater- 
 nal grandparents. Yes, funny the clothes of their day so 
 long ago already. The stern old woman in the cap was her 
 father's mother who yet lived and whom they all visited 
 from time to time, never forgetting to take her a present of 
 a particular sausage which she was very fond of and which 
 was not to be obtained so good at Frankfort where she 
 lived. These were Katinka's aunts — Tante Maria with 
 the edging of forget-me-nots round the photograph, and 
 Tante Wilhelmina with the lace shawl. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen, it chanced, came in while the album 
 was being shown. She looked over the blushing, happy 
 Katinka's shoulder, while David of his knowledge told her 
 eagerly who every one was. 
 
 "The ugly one is Katinka's Aunt Wilhelmina," he 
 finished. 
 
 Of nice peoples and good bringing-up, plainly. Can it 
 have been because this was so unmistakably so, that, as 
 Mrs. Penstephen went back to the sitting-room, her face 
 wore the anxious look with which those who knew and 
 loved it best were familiar? Nothing but contentment, 
 however, in the faces round the nursery lamp. 
 
 Or Katinka would sing to them, Ihr Kiiiderlein kommet, 
 and Ich hat' einen Kamaraden, Keinen hessern finds du nicht, 
 and Im Rosen Garten, and Der Winter ist kommen. David 
 presently could sing some of these. He could sing Der
 
 34 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 ; 
 
 Tannerhaum through; and join in the Juvivalara chorus 
 of the haunting Wanderlied. He would pipe to himself by 
 the hour — laying up for himself, if he could have known 
 it, by weaving the melodies upon which they were to string 
 themselves, memories by the dozen. In after years he 
 never heard the Tannerhaum without recalling not Katinka 
 only, but by reason of the atmosphere with which she was 
 surrounded and which spread itself over the German town, 
 and all that it held, many things with which it would have 
 been difficult to connect her even indirectly. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Penstephen would come in to hear the 
 singing. By degrees peace seemed to be stealing over her 
 and banishing the look of apprehension from her face. She 
 would take Georgina on her lap, sometimes even David, 
 and would join in. Then must the scene presented have 
 looked more domestic than ever. Betsy by the stove work- 
 ing; Katinka holding the tune when the other voices wa- 
 vered; his mother and Georgina, a Madonna and Child; 
 David often tried to recall the scene completely. Sometimes 
 Mr. Penstephen would look in for a few minutes. He fitted 
 into the picture too, and yet he was a little bit disturbing. 
 Betsy and Katinka, rising to their feet, had to be told to sit 
 down. They rose equally, of course, for Mrs. Penstephen 
 when she came in; but Katinka, when it was Mr. Pen- 
 stephen, had generally to be told more than once before 
 she could be prevailed upon to resume her seat, while from 
 Mrs. Penstephen the merest gesture sufficed. 
 
 "Not hymns, are they?" he had said the first time. 
 
 David's mother had shaken her head. 
 
 Der Tannerhaum? Wanderlied? Der Winter? Ich hat' 
 einen Kamaraden ? 
 
 Not those. The Kinderlein one. 
 
 "Let them alone, John." 
 
 The Kinderlein one was dangerously like a hymn. It 
 was also Mrs. Penstephen's favourite. 
 
 Mr. Penstephen let them alone. 
 
 "Now the Mill song," David's mother would say.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 35 
 
 This was a new one sung to an accompaniment of tissue 
 paper (though, as in the case of the material for the net- 
 work baskets, even newspaper would do!), rubbed slowly- 
 round and round on the nursery table to imitate the sound 
 of water churned by a wheel. Very popular the Mill with 
 David and little Georgina, who churned and churned as 
 they sang. 
 
 "It's supposed to be water, Father. Did you guess?" 
 
 Father had guessed. But he had also made Katinka shy. 
 The accompaniment, which had been so pretty before, was 
 perhaps silly? It was n't silly, of course, really. It was one 
 of Katinka's wonderfulnesses. On the whole, the singing 
 went better, and the picture must consequently have been 
 more in key (like the singing) when Mr. Penstephen did not 
 come in. 
 
 David was perhaps too young to notice that, though Ihr 
 Kinderlein kommet was undoubtedly his mother's favourite, 
 she never asked for it when his father was there. 
 
 Und seh't was in dieser hochheiliger Nacht 
 Der Vater im Himmel fur . . . 
 
 Betsy noticed, we may be sure. But then Betsy, who 
 understood not one word of German, had understood only 
 too well — had been the only one except her mistress to 
 understand — the allusion to hymns. Ihr Kinderlein 
 kommet, albeit 'as good as Greek' to her, became her fa- 
 vourite also. 'Der Vater im HimmeV may have conveyed 
 its meaning to her and it is probable that she recognised 
 the word 'Bethlehem' as it came. Betsy, unlike her 
 incomprehensible master, dearly dearly dearly liked a 
 hymn. 
 
 Nothing had been said to Katinka. It had been thought, 
 perhaps, that the point — religion — would just not arise. 
 It did not directly. She was there to play with them (in 
 German), not to teach them. Indirectly, of course, it did 
 arise many times. But the children were too young to know- 
 that anything was lacking. Missing nothing, they did
 
 36 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 not know that something was withheld. Betsy, who was 
 not allowed to teach them prayers, mentioned them, we 
 may be sure, in her own. 
 
 No. Mr. Penstephen might make his mind easy ; the songs 
 were not hymns (with the possible exception of the Kinder- 
 lein one) ; but they took the place of hymns in the strangely 
 regulated family. David all his life looked back to the 
 songs, as others look back to ' Gentle Jesu, meek and mild,' 
 or ' Now the day is over,' or the ' Promised Land,' and with 
 kindred or perhaps the very same feelings. Ihr Kinderlein 
 would always be sacred to him, but so would Wanderlied, 
 even with its jubilant exulting rousing chorus — a very 
 Onward-Christian-Soldiers of a chorus ! — and of course 
 Ich hat' einen Kamaraden. 
 
 "Don't you wish you could sing them, Betsy?" 
 
 "Ah, I can listen. Perhaps that's better." 
 
 That was something David admitted, but it could n't be 
 the same as singing them. Why did n't Betsy join in? 
 Georgina did, though she could n't manage the words. 
 Even he, David, did n't understand all of them, though of 
 course he could say them. 
 
 "Me sing German?" said Betsy. 
 
 "I teach you," said Katinka. 
 
 "Thank you," said Betsy, "English is good enough for 
 me. There's songs in that, though I dare say you won't 
 believe me." 
 
 "Betsy can sing 'Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington 
 Green.'" 
 
 "And ' Polly put the kettle on.' " 
 
 "All Pollies!" said Katinka. 
 
 "A popular name in my country," said Betsy. "Oh, 
 there's songs there right enough. Sims Reeves, I 've heard 
 him. There's *Tom Bowling' if you want a good cry, and 
 'Annabel Lee,' and 'The 'eart bowed down,' and 'When 
 other lips.' And there's 'The Perfect Cure' if you want to 
 laugh, and ' I 'm ninety-five, I 'm ninety-five, and to keep
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 37 
 
 single I'll contrive' — Oh, all the songs are n't German, 
 Katinka, my dear, and don't you think it." 
 
 "Gote safe de Qveen," said Katinka, to show that she 
 knew. 
 
 "Ah, there I agree with you," said Betsy. 
 
 Are we spending too much time in a nursery? The gentle 
 reader will bear with us. His own early days were passed 
 there and made him, or perhaps only shewed him to have 
 been then, what he is to-day. Many things had their be- 
 ginning, or began to find their expression or their outlet in 
 the room called the nursery at Frau Finkel's house that 
 winter. For David in later years events, happenings, be- 
 ginnings, endings were apt to date from that morning 
 when he was taken whimpering from his warm bed in 
 Brussels, to prepare for the journey which was to land him 
 in Homburg and bring the blushing Katinka's influence to 
 bear upon his life. 
 
 7 9 R 9 9 
 
 •^ M ^ T^iM ■■*!»
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 There were other diversions besides singings and transfer 
 pictures and growings of plants on such impossible things 
 as flannel or in saucers. There were paintings of pictures 
 with paints from Katinka's own paint box, which she 
 brought round to supplement those of the children, which 
 lacked the usual percentage of the little flat bricks of colour. 
 Some of the bricks in Katinka's box were worn through to 
 a hole, notably the crimson lake which was a mere rim, and 
 the gamboge which shewed the wood of the box under- 
 neath most perceptibly; but till the children used them not 
 any of them were stained to any appreciable degree with 
 colours which were not their own. Katinka conscientiously 
 used the little saucers provided for mixing, and washed 
 and wiped her brushes continually. She liked to paint 
 flowers: roses, convolvuluses, forget-me-nots. David drew 
 and painted trains. It would be difficult to say what 
 Georgina drew or painted. Betsy got through a great deal 
 of work when it was painting. 
 
 There was making paste. This was called making paste, 
 but the paste was prepared before it was given to the chil- 
 dren to play with — flour and water kneaded to the con- 
 sistency of a firm dry dough. With the substance thus pro- 
 duced, exercises, if you please, in the plastic art! They 
 made and unmade and remade things : snakes (very popu- 
 lar) ; the human form (very difficult — Katinka's models 
 the only ones recognisable !) ; sausages (popular too) ; ani- 
 mals — well, pigs anyway; ropes (indistinguishable from 
 snakes) ; plaits (Katinka) ; and loaves — English loaves 
 particularly, with an elbow-mark made with the finger on 
 top. Lastly generally the loaves, by which time, however 
 clean the hands to start with, the paste was nearly black. 
 The loaves were then baked on the stove and smelt de-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 39 
 
 Hcious. The disappointment came always when, delicious 
 as they smelt, they might not be eaten. 
 
 "Eat them! Well, I never, nor nobody else, I should 
 think, in their senses. After messing them all over the table 
 and on the window-sill, to say nothing of how many times 
 they've been on the floor. Black as me hat the nasty stuff 
 was last time I looked at it." 
 
 David pointed out that it was not black now that it 
 was baked, and that you could eat black bread anyway, 
 could n't you, Katinka? 
 
 "You won't eat this black bread, Master David. And 
 here's Miss Georgina baked one of the worms — well, 
 snakes, then. Fancy eating a snake even if it was clean. 
 And I 'm bound to say, what with the knots and things, it 
 still looks to me more like a worm. No, no, now it's done 
 with we'll throw this all out for the birds." 
 
 Invariable end of their masterpieces ! There were serious 
 drawbacks, it will be seen, to the beguiling diversion of 
 paste-making. The pastime fell perhaps under too many 
 heads: if it was cooking, the end should surely have been 
 the table; if modelling, the efforts should surely have been 
 preserved — treated, by courtesy at least, as works of art, 
 and so reputedly imperishable. A loaf, or. Model of a Loaf; 
 a fancy biscuit, or. Model of a Snake Recumbent. 
 
 Betsy did not get through so much work when the diver- 
 sion was paste-making. 
 
 There was Acting. David could sometimes recapture the 
 thrill of these early actings. Katinka was perhaps at her 
 most wonderful when it was acting. She was stage-man- 
 ager, playwright, scene-painter, scene-shifter, prompter, 
 wardrobe-keeper, dresser, leading lady, juvenile, first old 
 man, first old woman, singing chambermaid, voice without, 
 crowd 'off,' and innumerable other things of which (as of 
 these) David was not even to know the names till much 
 later in his life. The Shawl, fastened by Katinka's ingenu- 
 ity to David could never remember afterwards what, was 
 the curtain. The rugs disposed over footstools and chairs
 
 40 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 were rocks, or mossy banks, or forest glades as the case 
 might be. Or, with paper doors and windows pinned on to 
 them, they were Baronial Halls or Cottage Exteriors, or 
 Fronts of Palaces. Nothing baffled Katinka. If she had 
 ever heard of a Transformation Scene she would have con- 
 trived to produce one. The plays were all in English in the 
 interests of Betsy, the audience (who had to pay for her 
 seat, as had also Mrs. Penstephen when she came to the 
 performances, and even Frau Finkel when she came — 
 which was once. Only Anna and Gretchen were on the free 
 list). The stage-directions were in German and so supposed 
 to be inaudible. 
 
 "Ach, who are dese that come into dis lonely place? 
 Better I visdraw into de house and vatch." Exit Katinka. 
 "Now," in rapid German whispers, "you go on with Miss 
 Georgina by the hand and say" (breaking into English), 
 "Ah, vat a lovely place. I so tired am. And also as veil 
 my little sister. Rest ve here a little under shade of dis 
 tree." 
 
 Enter David leading Georgina. Words in his piping 
 treble as above. 
 
 Katinka prompting (David repeating sentence by sen- 
 tence) : "But vat is dis? A house? And see. Oh, vat is dis 
 dat I beholt? All made of chincherbread. And de vindows 
 of barley sugar. Break ve off a piece. Eat ve." 
 
 Voice of the Witch from within: "Who is dis dat breaks 
 my vindows, dat munches off pieces of my house? Oh, 
 vat mischievousnesses. Vait till I come. Listen. You hear 
 my footsteps. I approach. I draw by. I am here." 
 
 Entry of Katinka as the Witch. Howls of terror from 
 Georgina, who has to be comforted by the audience and re- 
 assured by a sight of Katinka herself through her disguise, 
 before the play can proceed. 
 
 And so on and so forth. Oh, the nursery in Katinka's 
 day was an enchanted place. It was there that David 
 knew first that when he grew up he wanted to be an 
 actor.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 41 
 
 -And the readings. Most enthralling perhaps of all. Is it 
 possible that he had read Captain Marryat's Jacob Faith- 
 ful in German? Jacob Erlich. How else should he have 
 known the name? It is quite certain that he was introduced 
 to the many magics of the Brothers Grimm — in English, 
 too, oddly enough, the book in translation being an old 
 school prize of Katinka's and the rule of German only hav- 
 ing been relaxed by then in the interests of poor isolated 
 Betsy and the partly isolated Georgina. A round-eyed 
 David at Katinka's knee. An excited David struggling to 
 his feet sometimes; dancing round her; hardly able to con- 
 tain himself. A David moved to laughter. A David moved 
 to tears. The Golden Bird; The Youth who could not Shiver 
 and Shake; The Fisherman and his Wife; Hansel and Grethel 
 (known these before in Katinka's dramatic version and 
 rapturously recognised); The False Bride (oh, Falada, Fal- 
 ada, most lovable of talking horses !) ; The Magic Mirror 
 ('Mirror, Mirror on the wall. Who is most beautiful of 
 all?'); we may envy him. 
 
 What did Katinka's accent matter as she read? — 
 
 " Fair qveen at home, dere is none like dee, 
 But over de mountains is Snow-vite free, 
 Vid sefen little dvarts, who are strange to see, 
 She is a tousand times fairer dan dee! " 
 
 Even Betsy was interested. Georgina, who could n't 
 be expected to concentrate her attention upon what she 
 imperfectly understood, generally slid to the floor in the 
 course of a reading, but managed to amuse herself well 
 enough, there, not to prove a serious interruption. 
 
 When one story was finished David begged for another. 
 Georgina always joined in the begging whether she under- 
 stood or not. Betsy said, "She likes the sound of the 
 voice." Children often did, it seemed. "But are n't you 
 tired, Katinka?" Katinka always shook her head. 
 
 "She is n't tired," said David; and truly she never was. 
 
 "De Lankvidge of Animals. Vould you like dat?" 
 
 David seemed uncertain that he would like that.
 
 42 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Z)e King of de Gotten Mountain." 
 
 Yes, that, that. No uncertainty here. His preferences 
 gradually became apparent. He liked things with ' Golden ' 
 in them: The Golden Bird: The Golden Castle of Strom- 
 berg; The Three Golden Hairs. And things with numbers. 
 Threes and sevens particularly: the Golden Hairs doubly 
 then; The Three Spinning Fairies; The Three White 
 Snakes; The Three Little Men in the Wood; The Seven 
 Ravens; The Seven Wise Men; The Wolf and the Seven 
 Young Kids. And things made of things: The Coffin of 
 Glass; The Crystal Ball. And things with adjectives: The 
 Magic Fiddle; The Wonderful Travellers; The Fearless 
 Prince. 
 
 Sometimes bedtime came in the middle of a story. 
 Pleadings then. Firmness under difficulties on the part of 
 Betsy. He learnt the seduction of the 'To be Continued,' 
 a phrase which was to be very familiar to him later on. He 
 looked forward to the reading hour as he looked forward to 
 nothing else in his happy shadowed young life. So uncon- 
 sciously, happily, was it shadowed ! Just then even to his J 
 mother it did not seem shadowed at all. In the calm and 
 the domesticity of Frau Finkel's apartments she was be- 
 ginning to forget again. Presently, of course, something 
 would happen; something always did; but, in the mean- 
 time, peace. She found herself slipping in to listen to the 
 readings. Readings were not new things. She used often 
 to read to the children herself, and to their invariable 
 pleasure. But it had fallen to Katinka to light upon the 
 magic Grimm. 
 
 Hans Andersen she promised herself should be for her. 
 
 What was it about Grimm? Some of the stories could not 
 be said to be quite rightly conceived. 'The Frog Prince,' 
 for instance. Could justice — poetic justice even — be said 
 to be satisfied in that? The little spoilt Princess, obliged 
 by the King, her father, to keep her promise to the ugly 
 frog, that, for rescuing her ball from the fountain, he should 
 eat from her golden plate, drink from her cup, and sleep in
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 43 
 
 her silken bed, keeps it no better than by dashing him with 
 all her strength against the wail of her outraged room — 
 — when, lo, as if she had deserved reward, the frog changes 
 into a handsome young Prince with beautiful friendly eyes, 
 and the two live happily ever after ! 
 
 Something amiss there surely. She looked at David, ex- 
 pecting to see him indignant or puzzled. He was for a 
 moment. Then she saw his face light up. He jumped about 
 in his eagerness. 
 
 "He meant her to. He meant her to. That was why — 
 why he said sleep in her silken bed. Don't you see?" 
 
 "How do you mean, David?" 
 
 "Don't you see?" flushed, breathless. "The frog knew 
 she would n't. He was wet and cold. He could n't sleep in 
 a bed. He had to be dashed against a wall to be turned 
 into a Prince, and that was the only way he could think of." 
 
 It was rather wonderful. Was Grimm or was David the 
 more wonderful? It took a child to see what was intended 
 for children. She abandoned her criticism. You don't 
 criticise masters. You accept them. Thereafter she ac- 
 cepted Grim^m as David did. 
 
 So Katinka continued to read. There were many stories 
 to choose from. A hundred and thirty, indeed. David 
 made her count them. 
 
 "When we've heard them all we can begin again, can't 
 we?" 
 
 Katinka looked at Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 "It is n't learning German." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen smiled back at her. 
 
 "Perhaps it 's as good for them," she said. After David's 
 luminous speech she was n't sure that it was n't better than 
 learning anything. 
 
 How did Katinka understand so well? 
 
 So the weeks passed. Even Mr. Penstephen seemed to 
 have come to anchor. It was long since he had been con- 
 tent to stay so lengthy a period in any one place. He shewed
 
 44 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 no signs of wishing to move — none, even, of restlessness. 
 The luggage was having a hoHday. One of these days the 
 order must come, but it did not. Betsy began to put down 
 tentative roots; said she wanted one or two Httle things for 
 the rooms; was allowed to buy them. Suggested new anti- 
 macassars for the sitting-room chairs. Was allowed to 
 make them. Saw some nice delft jars for holding flower- 
 pots. Was allowed to get these. Jars, mark you, which 
 would have to be left behind. That looked like staying. 
 A case of wine which arrived was a healthy sign, too. You 
 removed wine no more than unpackable delft jars. Nor 
 was that all. At first the meals had come in from a neigh- 
 bouring hotel — layers of covered dishes packed in deep 
 round baize-lined wicker baskets, with a vertical gap at one 
 side through which you might see the stacked porcelain 
 and pewter tier upon tier, with steam coming out of the 
 top. Quite hot and satisfactory but rather unhomely. Now 
 Mrs. Penstephen did her own housekeeping and Frau 
 Finkel cooked. That gave you a feeling of stability. Where 
 there was housekeeping there was necessarily a house to 
 keep. You did not lay in provisions that you would not 
 have time to use, and the big chiffonniere in the dining- 
 room was almost now a storeroom. All the signs were 
 favourable. 
 
 "We never were more comfortable," she ventured to her 
 mistress. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen was a little superstitious and she did 
 not answer. 
 
 "Nearly as good as a furnished house, anyway," said 
 Betsy. She might at least say that. 
 
 It wanted a piano to make the thing secure — the clinch- 
 ing, final, locking, or sealing, fact of a piano. Katinka, with 
 her successful singings and actings and paste-makings and 
 readings, was something. The antimacassars were some- 
 thing. The housekeeping, the stocked chiffonniere, the case 
 of wine — the case of wine especially — all something. 
 But a piano by the month, carried, moreover, up all those
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 45 
 
 stairs, — to more creakings and jeopardislngs of paint and 
 plaster than the largest or the heaviest of the trunks was 
 capable even of suggesting to the anxious mind of the most 
 apprehensive of landladies, — that would have meant 
 something, indeed, and much more than something! That 
 would have promised weeks and more than weeks; months; 
 three, perhaps even six. Betsy, little partial as she was 
 to what she called comprehensively Abroad, thought she 
 could have welcomed the prospect of as many as make a 
 year in peaceful Homburg. 
 
 But there was no talk of a piano. 
 
 There had been one the winter they spent in Florence — 
 and it had been a whole winter they had spent there. There 
 had been one in Paris — a stretch of six months. There had 
 been one at Geneva — three. A piano, in this sense, a 
 piano of course from the shop. Quite a different thing from 
 the pianos you found in hotels, or in lodgings, as part of the 
 furniture. Those meant nothing. The piano to mean any- 
 thing — to be a gage, or to hold a promise — must be 
 hired. 
 
 Not a word of one. 
 
 Betsy looked about for music shops. 
 
 Found one. 
 
 "I don't know what it is about the drawing-room," she 
 said to her mistress that evening as she brushed her hair. 
 
 "What about it?" asked Mrs. Penstephen. * 
 
 "That's what I say, 'm. I don't know what it is about 
 it. What would it be?" 
 
 "What would what be ? " 
 
 "What's wrong with it?" 
 
 " I don't understand. Is anything wrong with it? I don't 
 see anything wrong with it." 
 
 "No, 'm — I shall bring the plait again across the top to- 
 morrow if you '11 let me. I 'm sure it suits you that way 
 best — No, 'm, not to say wrong exactly." 
 
 "It's more comfortable flat," said Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 "The parting, 'm? Yes, I grant you, your head being so
 
 46 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 classical. I would n't dream of touching that. But like I 
 used to do it for you in Paris. Just the plait — " 
 
 "Well, we'll see. But the sitting-room here — " 
 
 "Yes, 'm. I don't know, I'm sure. Always looks to me 
 a little bit bare, 'm." 
 
 "Bare! But it's full of furniture." 
 
 "Then I can't think what it would be." 
 
 She went back to the subject of hair-dressing. 
 
 " If it was n't for me, 'm, I believe you 'd still be doing it 
 the way it was worn ten years ago. And you with such 
 beautiful hair and such a quantity, though so fine. I de- 
 clare it 's a shame. I don't believe you 'd ever think of the 
 fashion." 
 
 "I don't believe I should," Mrs. Penstephen said, but 
 she smiled. 
 
 "There's a confession," said Betsy. 
 
 "But about the room — " 
 
 " I shall just do it the new way and see if the Master 
 notices." 
 
 "He won't like it." 
 
 " He won't notice. Besides it is n't new really — because 
 of Paris, as you remember. Though, to be sure, I must try 
 it just a little different — nothing that you 'd notice your- 
 self even, but just a little more in the mode. The sitting- 
 room, 'm ? Yes, seems to me to want something, and I 
 can't for the life of me think what it is — unless" — Betsy 
 selected a strand from the rest and brushed vigorously, 
 pausing to comb out the ends — "unless it would be a 
 piano. Do you think perhaps, 'm, it's a piano?"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Betsy's Becauses never proved anything. 
 
 "There is a shop," she said now, "because I've hap- 
 pened to see one. German, of course, but there's Grands 
 and Cottages like anywhere-else because I took it upon me 
 just to peep in. I suppose if you got one it'd be a Cottage." 
 
 It would of course be a 'Cottage.' You never somehow 
 thought of grand pianos in connection with hiring. 
 
 "Because of the stairs," said Betsy. 
 
 "Because of the expense," said Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 But really because you somehow always did hire cottage 
 pianos and life was governed — even for people who set 
 certain conventions at defiance — by what you did and 
 what you did not, in the seventies. 
 
 "A cottage piano, of course," Mrs. Penstephen said. 
 "But I had n't thought of one." 
 
 "It's only the look of the thing," said Betsy, plaiting 
 now very busily. "A room without a piano, to my mind, 
 
 that is — " 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Mrs. Penstephen. It was like what- 
 ever Betsy had been about to say. 
 
 "Besides it is n't only that," Betsy proceeded — having 
 just said that it was! "It's your music, 'm. Your own 
 singing. It's I don't know how long since you've touched 
 one — a piano, I mean. And you ought n't to give up your 
 singing if it 's only for the children's sake — let alone your 
 own — and the Master's. Have I done it too tight, 'm?" 
 
 "No, you've done it just right." 
 
 The allusion to the children would do it if anything did. 
 
 "Nothing else I can do for you?" 
 
 "No, Betsy." 
 
 "Then good-night, 'm." 
 
 "Good-night."
 
 48 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Betsy knew when to stop. What she had said must have 
 time to soak in. She was conscious of having been the least 
 little bit disingenuous, for it was neither the look of the 
 room nor the thought of the music that had primarily 
 moved her to speak. These certainly had their place in her 
 thoughts, as had the children in connection with the one 
 indirectly, and with the other very directly indeed; but 
 the real incentive was her longing for branchings-out, for 
 enmeshments, entanglements even — anything that should 
 make the usual upheavals a little more difhcult. Let us 
 then be involved with big things, with cumbersome things, 
 with heavy things. Weight even counted. The idea was 
 less confused than it may appear. 
 
 Nothing was said the next day. Betsy did not even im- 
 pose upon her mistress's reluctant head the threatened 
 change in the hair-dressing. To have done so would have 
 brought up the subject with which she had allied it, too 
 soon. She would stay her hand, reserving this till she 
 should need it — if she should need it — for a stepping- 
 stone or a bridge by which she might pass from the one 
 topic to the other. "But what was it we was talking about 
 the other night when I made the suggestion? The plait so, 
 I thought. A piano, to be sure, 'm, — the room looking so 
 bare." In some such way if need be. Meanwhile, need 
 might not be. 
 
 Was not that Mrs. Penstephen humming to herself over 
 her work? As Betsy listened there came words — 
 
 "Oh how shall I woo thee, beautiful Spring, 
 What shall my offering be — " 
 
 That was what Betsy called More Like. 
 The song changed presently to another. Better and 
 better! 
 
 " I 'm afloat, I 'm afloat on the deep rolling tide, 
 The ocean 's my home and my bark is my bride- 
 Up, up with my flag, let it wave in the sea — 
 I 'm afloat, I 'm afloat and the Rover is free, 
 I 'm afloat, I 'm afloat and the Rover is free."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 49 
 
 Not one of her own songs, of course, but one of the songs 
 of the moment. 
 
 Betsy smiled to herself. It was long since her mistress 
 had sung. Was it the talk of the night before? She sang 
 again in the course of the next day or two. 
 
 It was now that Betsy ventured to unpack the music 
 that lay at the bottom of one of the large trunks. 
 
 She appeared at the sitting-room door with a flat pile of 
 it in her hands. 
 
 " I thought perhaps you would n't mind this lying here, 
 'm. I had to go to the bottom of the box for a paper pattern 
 I thought might be there but was n't, and a little bit of the 
 lining of the box wants mending, I see, when I've time. 
 There, 'm, I '11 put them on this lower shelf of the what-not 
 where they'll be out of the way." 
 
 "Very well, Betsy. For the present. They'd better go 
 back when you've mended the lining." 
 
 "Just for the time being, 'm — that's what I thought." 
 
 But later in the day she had the satisfaction of seeing her 
 mistress kneeling by the what-not with a chair beside her, 
 going through the sheets one by one. Betsy had not un- 
 packed all — just her mistress's favourite songs. Mrs. 
 Penstephen looked at each as she smoothed out its creases 
 and dog's-ears. The covers of almost all of them were em- 
 bellished with the steel or copper arabesques and flourishes 
 of the fifties and sixties. Betsy, like David who knew them 
 well, always associated these curves and twists and loops 
 and spirals with an attempt upon the part of the engraver 
 to picture melody itself — draw, as perhaps she, or more 
 probably David, would have said, the sound of the tune. 
 
 "They've got folded, I'm afraid, some of them, from 
 lying in the same place so long and under the weight of the 
 other things in the box. I ought to have unpacked them 
 before. But somehow it did n't seem hardly worth while. 
 Shall I look through them and straighten them out?" 
 
 "La Donna ^ Mobile. I'd forgotten I had that. I used 
 to sing it years ago. No, Betsy, I like doing it."
 
 56 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Some of them you '11 find torn, I 'm afraid, but I *11 soon 
 mend those up with some strips of paper and gum." 
 
 "Rose of the Garden, She wore a Wreath of Roses, Mem- 
 ory's Chaplet, The Harp that once through Tara's Halls. 
 I used to sing all those. I wonder whether I 've forgotten 
 them." 
 
 A miscellany rather than a repertory. A plentiful sprin- 
 kling of Claribel — many songs, inherited some of them, 
 done with long since even then, but some that were not 
 done with, perhaps never would be. 
 
 "Is The Banks of Allan Water there, 'm? I mis-re- 
 member." 
 
 It was there. 
 
 And Barbara Allen, and Hunting Tower, and Annie 
 Laurie, and, oh, yes, Drink to me only. 
 
 Even then Betsy did not speak of the piano. But she 
 left Mrs. Penstephen still occupied with the music and her 
 memories, and went back to the nursery well satisfied. 
 
 Katinka, looking up from bead-threading, with the ab- 
 sorbed young heads one on each side of her, said "Frau- 
 lein Betsee looks happy." 
 
 The absorbed young heads looked up too. 
 
 "Frorleen Betsy is fairly this evening, she thanks you," 
 said Betsy. "And are we to have no reading? 'Snow- 
 ,white and Red-rose,' was n't it, last night when we went 
 to bed? Are n't we to know the end of that?" 
 
 No mention of pianos the next day. But Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen asked for the gum. Betsy, bringing it in to her, 
 found her seated at a table cutting linen into strips of dif- 
 ferent sizes; the torn music before her. 
 
 "Should n't I have done that for you, 'm — or Katinka? 
 Anything with pasting she's very good at. Mended all the 
 children's picture books, and made them think it was a 
 game, too. Them standing by watching like mice. Shan't 
 I take them to her?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 51 
 
 But Mrs. Penstephen shook her head. 
 
 "No, Betsy. It gives me occupation. Besides, it's a 
 pleasure to me." 
 
 That it was was evident. Betsy, departing, saw her bend 
 over her work. 
 
 Another day passed. The music lay pressing under some 
 heavy volumes — Frau Finkel's, part of the furniture of 
 the sitting-room. Well, if the piano was coming ultimately 
 the very delay was promising. Rightly seen, every day 
 without it was a day gained, a day snatched from the 
 wandering. But Betsy wanted an assurance. Nay, the 
 piano itself was the assurance she wanted. It stood to her 
 for a symbol of permanency. 
 
 But that night a conversation — nine words in all — • 
 took place between David's mother and father which it 
 would have pleased his nurse to hear. 
 
 Mr. Penstephen was reading as his custom was in the 
 evening, and Mrs. Penstephen was knitting. The domestic 
 picture again if there had been any to see ! She had a book 
 open upon her knees, but she was not reading. She was not 
 a quick knitter nor perhaps a very expert one. Even after 
 years of knitting she had difficulties with such subtleties as 
 the heels of stockings, graduations, and the like; but the 
 simple nature of what she was engaged upon just then — a 
 woollen comforter for David — would have allowed her to 
 read while she worked if she had been so minded. So the 
 book was there to have its part in the unconscious and un- 
 seen picture. Never surely was irregularity more regular. 
 
 She had looked over at David's father two or three times, 
 when she broke the silence. 
 
 "John." 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "I want a piano." 
 
 "Get one." 
 
 That was all. Perhaps David's mother had some such 
 thought as Betsy. Perhaps she, equally, learned thus that 
 they were to stay on at Homburg. Perhaps guessing then
 
 52 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 by analogy or by very sympathy what had been in Betsy's 
 mind and what was still in it, she determined, with a twin- 
 kle in her happier eyes, that she would punish her. It was 
 anyway not till the next morning that Betsy heard that 
 her hope was to be realised. 
 
 "Of course we shall only hire it by the day," Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen said. 
 
 "The day, 'm!" said Betsy, dismayed. 
 
 "What would be the use of any other arrangement? It 
 is n't as if we were likely to be here for any time." 
 
 "No, 'm?" 
 
 "Why, we've been here five weeks already." 
 
 "Is it so much, 'm?" 
 
 Betsy's round face was a yard long. 
 
 "I doubt," she began gravely, "whether they'll let you 
 have one — not by the day, 'm. ..." She caught her 
 mistress's eye and broke off. "Oh, 'm. You're laughing! 
 Well, there!" 
 
 Yes, Mrs. Penstephen was laughing. 
 
 "Did you think I did n't see through you, Betsy? By 
 the month, of course, you old goose. You can make your 
 mind easy. As far as I can see we've no thought just yet 
 of moving on anywhere. There, does that make you 
 happy?" 
 
 "And you making game of poor Betsy! Well ! But I con- 
 fess I 'm anxious not to begin packing up again yet awhile. 
 And it does somehow give an air of stability, now, does n't 
 it?" 
 
 "What does?" 
 
 "A piano." 
 
 "As anxious as that?" said Mrs. Penstephen. 
 
 "As anxious," said Betsy. 
 
 "Oh, Betsy," said Mrs. Penstephen suddenly, "how you 
 must hate it all." 
 
 So completely did mistress and maid understand each 
 other.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 53 
 
 The business of choosing the piano included Betsy (for 
 sheer kindness as Betsy knew), and, to David's joy, in- 
 cluded David. Nothing was much more delightful to him 
 than grown-up shoppings. He was always fairly good in 
 a shop and did n't touch — though he did, of course, ask 
 questions. There were shops, for which reason, that he 
 was n't taken to — the chemist's, for easy example, where 
 questions were apt to be embarrassing. In a music shop, 
 however, he might safely ask about everything that he 
 saw. 
 
 A very happy little boy put his hand into his mother's 
 to go and choose a piano. 
 
 "For that's what we're going to choose," she said, smil- 
 ing, "though Betsy here will have it it's an anchor." 
 
 "Awhat?" said David. 
 
 His mother nodded. 
 
 "That ships are tied to?" 
 
 "To prevent their moving away." 
 
 "I should like it to be an anchor," said David, "but I'd 
 rather it was a piano." 
 
 "Perhaps it will be both," said Betsy. 
 
 They reached the shop. There were long rows of pianos, 
 — more pianos than David had ever seen before in the 
 course of his life, — for it was out of the season and nearly 
 all were in. There were some eight or nine for his mother 
 to choose from — not one in the remotest degree like an 
 anchor. 
 
 David for some reason or other often thought of this day. 
 Was it that it was one of those when his mother seemed 
 happy? Was he perhaps more conscious than he knew that 
 such days were rare? He went and stood beside her as she 
 sat down to a piano and tried it. She had taken off her 
 gloves. He liked to look at her hands on the keys. He 
 liked the blue of the turquoise in one of her rings, and the 
 white of the pearls in another, and the red of a ruby in a 
 third. He looked up from her hands to her face. She seemed 
 to be listening with her eyes.
 
 54 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "The treble 's a little weak, is n't it, David?" 
 
 David said "Yes," but looked astray, and she laughed. 
 
 "We'll try another one, shall we?" 
 
 The next was too stiff. 
 
 "This is better," said his mother at the third. 
 
 It was all rather like Grimm. Was that why he was 
 enjoying it so much? 
 
 "Oh, try another." 
 
 "I don't think we shall do better than this." 
 
 But she tried another and another to please him, or just 
 for happiness. She went back to the one she had com- 
 mended. David tried now on his own account — tenta- 
 tively striking a note or several in a discordant bunch. 
 
 "This is the best, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," said David judicially; "that one" — he pointed 
 to the first — "the tremble 's weak, is n't it . . . the what 
 you said." 
 
 "Yes, in that one the tremble's weak — what you said, 
 David." 
 
 David laughed because she did. Betsy laughed too, 
 though she used wrong words herself! The piano which 
 was called the best was chosen and David was said to have 
 chosen it. It was a very happy day. 
 
 "Contented, Betsy Prig?" 
 
 But that was David's mother's own joke and shewed how 
 happy she was that day, for Betsy's real name was Tarver. 
 
 That afternoon the piano arrived. Frau Finkel danced 
 on the landings in anxiety for her walls and her banisters. 
 But all was well and the symbol of perpetuity was set up 
 in the sitting-room. Every one came in to see; Anna and 
 Gretchen even, and of course Katinka. Betsy looked in 
 again early in the morning as if to make sure that it had 
 not disappeared in the night. Then David's mother took 
 up her singing once more — did exercises, Ah's and La's, 
 runs and trills, for half an hour by the clock every day, so 
 that the sound of her practising — with the very word —
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 55 
 
 established itself amongst the things which from their fa- 
 miliar nature seemed enduring. David would have spoken 
 of it in connection with time future, as he would have 
 spoken or thought of anything else that was habitual and 
 so part of life as he knew it. To-morrow's practising seemed 
 as certain as to-morrow's breakfast. There was a particu- 
 lar set of exercises that his mother used — Ah's and La's 
 to captivating tunes — which gave him almost as much 
 pleasure as a song with words. These exercises came to be 
 the sound of these quiet times, as German foi.. was the 
 taste of them, and the pot-pourri of the delicious grocer's 
 shop the smell of them. 
 
 So, with the piano for a symbol, — something, according 
 to Betsy, to look at, or to go by, — things might be said to 
 have taken on some semblance of stability. The 'Brad- 
 shaw' lay unopened on a shelf instead of on the writing- 
 table, or, indeed, instead of wherever Mr. Penstephen had 
 sat last; and was, moreover, not the issue for the current 
 month. The literature of travel was not now in evidence — 
 Murray's 'Guides,' hotel tariffs, local time-tables, etc. The 
 larger trunks, empty at last, or holding such things only as 
 were not likely to be in immediate requisition, were allowed 
 to find their way to Frau Finkel's box-room. And for all 
 these things, — blessed tokens, as she considered them, 
 of the fulfilment of her heart's desire, — Elizabeth Tarver 
 burned her grateful incense before a rosewood cottage 
 piano.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 What a curious family David came of! Irregularity one 
 could have understood, but what was this? If this was ir- 
 regularity, never then was regularity itself more regular. 
 Betsy looked upon it as All Because of Books and Clever- 
 ness — a certain sort of books, of course, and a certain sort 
 of cleverness. Traced back, everything would be found to 
 begin with the books being supposed to have found out 
 that the Book of all was mistaken, and that the world had 
 not been made in six days. Six days were good enough for 
 Betsy. The books and Mr. Penstephen, and Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen's late parents (who had been Advanced), and of 
 course Mrs. Penstephen (who was not intended by nature 
 to be advanced at all, but who believed necessarily what 
 her parents believed before her), all asked for millions of 
 years for the accomplishment of what every one had been 
 accustomed to accept as the completed work of the inside 
 of a week. The inside, too, at the outside — "Because, " as 
 Betsy would have told you, "of Sunday." It all began there. 
 The rest, as she understood it, was the trembling, the tot- 
 tering, the collapsing, that was supposed to follow such an 
 undermining of the elaborate structure. Mr. Penstephen, 
 the rebellious outcome of his upbringing at the hands of a 
 Calvinistic uncle and aunt, had thought himself glad to see 
 the whole thing go. The iron had entered deeply into his 
 young indignant soul, and when he saw himself able, as he 
 supposed, to pull it out, he recked little, in his pride, of 
 what came with it. He broke away from his family. Those 
 were the days when people who chose to think for them- 
 selves were not generally found amongst what were then 
 known, as a matter of course, as the upper classes. The 
 Penstephens were related to many of the oldest families in 
 the kingdom, and the age of the baronetcy in their own was
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 57 
 
 respectable enough to make it of account. Sir John, brother 
 of the Calvinist but lax enough himself, spoke of his God- 
 fearing sons — despite the dimensions of the crop of wild 
 oats they managed to sow, the one at Oxford and the other 
 in his regiment — but always of his Infidel nephew. His 
 sons at least conformed to the tenets of their order and 
 sinned in accepted ways, settling down later to eminently 
 desirable marriages. Edward, the elder, died childless and 
 left an invalid wife, but the second, Joseph, who presently 
 succeeded him, happily had a son to cut the Infidel out of 
 the succession. John, David's father, — the Infidel as his 
 relations called him, — sowed no wild oats. He did what 
 was thought to be worse. He was young then, wielded an 
 easy pen, and, in an amused, contemptuous sort of way, 
 ranged himself with the fighters. The attitude of his family 
 cannot have failed to increase his own inborn pride. He 
 professed himself — though always a little bit as one who 
 stoops — at war with stupidity, bigotry, superstition, and 
 (though he loved orderliness and was at heart a Tory !) the 
 established order. In this — the established order — he 
 included most of the things which in themselves he found 
 admirable. It stood, however, for what had brought it 
 about. It stood, moreover, for the enemy's citadel. It 
 must go with the rest. When his uncles died, the fight, to 
 be sure, lost some of its zest for him; and, in his thirtieth 
 year, more and more content to be amused and contemptu- 
 ous, and the ardours of youth being over, he ceased active 
 fighting. But, by then, the cry had gone up for supporters 
 with the courage of their opinions, and he had made his 
 protest once for all. In it — a new era being supposed, as 
 in Rousseau's time, to have dawned or to be dawning — he 
 was but carrying out to their logical end the views which 
 the parents of David's mother had held so earnestly in 
 their lives, and in it she herself, ignorant of the world, in- 
 spired by love, admiration, and sympathy, and with a con- 
 fidence that was unfeigned and that was certainly in one 
 sense not misplaced, had most unreservedly concurred.
 
 58 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 David's father and David's mother made their protest 
 jointly. Thus, as we see with Betsy — primarily and, so, 
 finally — thus of the Books and the Cleverness ! 
 
 David, then, on his father's side had plenty of substan- 
 tial and even grandish relations, if, upon his mother's, — 
 the Professor's Daughter as these contemptuously called 
 her, — he had none. His father's mother had been a Miss 
 Cheshire — of the Cheshires of Oulton, a family of some 
 importance; hers a Miss Fitz-Urse. There was a Pen- 
 stephen great-aunt. There were Penstephen cousins, and 
 cousins once-removed, and others. There had been a Pen- 
 stephen aunt; unmarried; but she had died. There were 
 Cheshire and Fitz-Urse cousins of various degrees. And 
 there were others and yet others as the several families 
 branched. Amongst all these not one that he knew. He 
 had often heard of his Aunt Flora, and had once seen her, 
 but he could not be said to have known her. The rest were 
 less than names to him. Occasionally a birth or a death or a 
 marriage in their ranks may have caused some of them to 
 be mentioned in his presence, but his mind took no record 
 of what did not appear to concern him. Other children 
 know even unseen connections by their birthday presents, 
 their Christmas cards, their Valentines, messages, and the 
 like; but happily, or unhappily, David and Georgina did 
 not know other children. David, relationless to all in- 
 tents and purposes, did not miss, then, what he was not 
 aware that he lacked. 
 
 Two persons only were there of all who had been or were 
 connected with him of whom he formed any clear concep- 
 tion. These were his mother's father and mother. They 
 had died, as we know, long before he had been born, but so 
 often did his mother talk to him of them, and so familiar 
 was he with the 'daguerreotypes' of them which accom- 
 panied her wherever she went, and of the later photographs 
 of a stern yet benign old gentleman and a calm but very 
 bright-eyed old lady, that it would not have been difficult 
 for him to believe that he had known them in the flesh.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 59 
 
 David, trying to reconstruct his mother's home by the light 
 of the daguerreotypes, or rather, perhaps, of the faded 
 photographs, could never quite succeed. He could see a 
 certain distance, but beyond that all was dim and con- 
 fused. He could see his grandparents, his mother beside 
 them; but never their curious friends: or, more accurately, 
 he could never see his mother in the company their opinions 
 drew about them. How came she at all in that galley? By 
 reason of her parents and their views. But how came they? 
 That always stumped him. As he thought of them they 
 had all the early Victorian virtues, the rigidities even, the 
 kindly primnesses. Their very clothes — something Quak- 
 erish about them — were the expression of the rectitude 
 of disciplined lives. Were the influences of the time too 
 strong for them? David did not think so. The qualities 
 were inherent, the expression of them no mere concession 
 to appearances. Why should they make concessions, more- 
 over, who, in their beliefs which were honest, made none? 
 They were content, too, to suffer for their beliefs. No, think- 
 ing themselves to have done with religion, they lived re- 
 ligiously because they were religious people. Could it be, 
 David was to ask himself, that there were Christians, who 
 did not, or thought they did not, believe in Christ? Were 
 there followers who did not believe in a Leader? Only thus 
 could he account for his grandparents; and only thus, 
 assuredly, could he account for his mother. 
 
 If he had needed to account for her — nay, as if! Noth- 
 ing would have shaken his love for her; nothing ever did. 
 He accepted unquestioningly — as unquestioningly as she 
 had accepted his father. However mistaken she herself 
 may have come to see or to believe that she had been, she 
 was never anything but wise in his eyes, never anything 
 but good, never anything but altogether lovely. 
 
 In his mind, later, he always felt that it was of such a 
 woman that it was written that her price was above rubies; 
 that her children arose up and called her blessed. 
 
 "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excel-
 
 6o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 lest them all" — it took the words of the Book which 
 she was supposed to reject to describe her! 
 
 But that was just it. She did not reject it — did not, at 
 all events, reject its teaching. The key to the whole mys- 
 tery was there. Her parents, advanced as they thought 
 themselves, had not rejected it either. It was thus that her 
 own training had escaped the perils which might have be- 
 set it; thus that her home had preserved its exemplary 
 Victorian atmosphere; thus that, whatever she did not 
 teach David and his little sister, she taught, or strove to 
 teach them, to seek peace and ensue it, to love righteous- 
 ness and to hate iniquity. 
 
 Those were the days of transition : the adjustments, the 
 compromises, the middle way generally, not then arrived 
 at, for such as supposing the old order discredited knew not 
 where to set about the search for the new. A modus vivendi 
 had yet to be found for these. It may be that David's 
 parents by very slow degrees were finding it, and that in- 
 sensibly it was leading them back to the point which had 
 seemed the parting of the ways. It may be — nay, for 
 David (with Betsy), it may have been anything at all ex- 
 cept wickedness of any-kind-so-ever upon the part of one 
 of them. Perhaps nobody would ever quite understand. 
 David, when he was old enough to do so, was content not 
 to, and never in the course of his life was to attach any 
 blame to her. Not quite so much could be said of his later 
 attitude towards his father. The wrong done to his mother, 
 howsoever willingly endured, howsoever acquiesced in, 
 shared, welcomed even, had been too great. The wrong 
 done to himself, and, in a far lesser degree, to Georgina, 
 did not weigh in this feeling. The sacrifice had been his 
 mother's and should not have been asked. 
 
 And yet even here . . . 
 
 Strangeness everywhere.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 All went quietly for two months, for even three. The 
 days lengthened; winter merged gradually into spring. 
 Homburg began to put on a different air. There were leaves 
 presently on the trees, flowers in the Kursaal Gardens. 
 Summer would be here soon and the town fill up. Then 
 would the ways be thronged. Groups of people would 
 gather about the Springs while the attendants filled 
 bunches of glass mugs — so many to the handful. David, 
 who knew the taste of the Ludwigsbrunnen quite well, and 
 was always to be able to remember it, liked to see the 
 bunches of glasses. The glasses in these clusters clicked 
 against each other as they were caught up by their handles 
 and dipped with a soft gathering sound into the gushing 
 spring, but none was ever broken. Some people had their 
 own. There was a stall at which you could buy them — 
 every sort, from plain ones like those which were supplied, 
 to beautiful tall ones with white goats dancing upon them. 
 These, David would have told you, urging you to buy, 
 you could use for flowers. You could buy glass tubes too, 
 to drink your waters through — striped ones if you liked. 
 At the innocuous Ludwigsbrunnen, where David, in com- 
 mon with other children, was allowed to drink, no one used 
 tubes. But at the Elisabethenbrunnen and the Stahlbrun- 
 nen and the Kaiserbrunnen, severely grown-up springs 
 which no children ever tasted, you had to — Because (as 
 he would have told you with Betsy) of your Teeth! For 
 years any discoloured teeth that David saw he attributed 
 to tubeless drinking at one of the stronger springs. Better 
 to have been careful he used to think sagely ! Better even 
 to have been contented with the plain tasteless ordinary 
 water which flowed from a stone lion's mouth near the 
 harmless Ludwigsbrunnen, and with which he himself, at
 
 62 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Betsy's ordering discretion, had sometimes most unwil- 
 lingly to be satisfied ! 
 
 There were other things to be bought at the stalls : paper- 
 cutters, the handle a deer's slender shank and polished 
 hoof, the blade ivory, or brass or tortoiseshell ; work-boxes 
 with painted lids; ornaments made of black horn inlaid 
 with ivory — the designs, nearly always, stags and hinds 
 and fawns; penholders of carved bone with a speck of glass 
 at the opposite end from that which held the nib — • a speck 
 of glass upon the back of which might be discerned a still 
 minuter speck of black, which, when you held the glass up 
 to your eyes and looked through it to the light, revealed 
 itself as a photograph of the Kursaal or the Gardens or the 
 Bandstand, to your infinite admiration and wonder. There 
 were books of views — strips a yard and a half long which 
 the sellers as you passed would shake out of the shining 
 cardboard covers into which they folded so neatly, and hold 
 out from arm to arm like lengths of riband; there were 
 laces; fans; silks; there were Oriental wares: stuffs, em- 
 broideries, brasses; there was jewellery — rings, earrings, 
 chains, bracelets, brooches; and, most memorable of all, 
 there was the stall of the cut and polished stones. That 
 was young David's stall — the stall of the red agate, of the 
 ringed onyx, where his father had bought the beads for his 
 mother (everybody wore such things then and thought 
 them beautiful!), and where the divine marbles were; the 
 marbles the very click of which was different from that of 
 other marbles, as well it might be since they were them- 
 selves of agate, red or ringed, with wonderful lights and 
 veinings and transparencies — marbles made, if you please, 
 of 'precious' stones! 
 
 These things were not yet in their glory. But the glory 
 of them was coming with the coming summer. 
 
 Already, after the stagnation of the winter, the town 
 shewed signs of movement. People were arriving: Ger- 
 mans mostly; a few Italians and French. The English 
 never put in an appearance in any numbers till July and
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 63 
 
 August. Landladies were bestirring themselves. Lucky 
 ones, like Frau Finkel, had achieved winter lettings, but 
 the majority looked to the brief season for the harvest of 
 the year. The hotels began to restaff themselves, and such 
 as had been closed to open their doors. 
 
 It was now that David, if he had been old enough to 
 observe, might have seen the anxious look begin to show 
 itself again sometimes in his mother's eyes. Afterwards — 
 but many years afterwards — he used to wonder how far 
 his father had seen, how far he had been conscious of what 
 the conditions of the strange position cost her. . . . 
 
 Was it the very calm of these days that disturbed her? 
 Were things going too smoothly? What was it that the 
 awakening of the town threatened? 
 
 Or was it that a new thought was finding its way into her 
 mind? Suppose the established order were right? The old 
 way the way that had been arrived at as the most workable 
 — perhaps the only workable way? The experiments, the 
 siftings, the choosings, the discardings and rejectings of un- 
 told ages had resulted in what she and David's father had 
 broken away from. What was their protest worth after 
 all, against the accumulated teachings of un-numbered 
 centuries? 
 
 Sometimes restlessness possessed her. These were not 
 the days of the active woman. Books, needlework, the man- 
 agement of the house, the gentler arts and handicrafts, 
 were supposed to be outlet enough for the activities then, 
 and for the most part they effected their purpose admirably. 
 Many a scrapwork screen, or crocheted set of doilies, or 
 length of embroidery, was the outward expression of feel- 
 ings which could only, now, be worked off by strenuous 
 physical exercise. Women had ceased to faint and had not 
 begun to scream. It is not probable that their nature has 
 altered. Less was permitted to them — by each other — 
 and they asked for less, not dreaming that anything was
 
 64 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 denied them. David's mother may have become dimh/ 
 conscious then of what was denied her. 
 
 Betsy saw; no one else apparently. She knew all things; 
 knew through brick walls when her mistress could not 
 settle to any of her usual occupations; when her work was 
 put down, and taken up again, and again put down; when 
 her hands were pressed to her eyes; when she paced the 
 room in spirit as when she paced it in earnest. She would 
 read and cease reading. She would play and cease playing. 
 Even the exercises were interrupted. Something was go- 
 ing to happen. Betsy knew as well as if her mistress had 
 told her so, that this was what her mistress was thinking. 
 
 Then, almost luckily, David fell ill. A rash on his little 
 fat chest. Scarlatina? Dreadful thought. Georgina was 
 separated from him — sent down with Katinka to rooms 
 downstairs just then happily vacant. Small-pox? Not that 
 sort of eruption. Chicken-pox? Not that either. Nettle 
 rash? Something he had eaten? Ailments, pains especially, 
 were generally that. Measles? Most likely. David with a 
 headache and feeling rather sick (and dreadfully sorry for 
 himself) did n't mind. What he did mind, over and above 
 the bodily discomfort, was the strange doctor who could n't 
 say yet. He had to put out his tongue. He did so. But he 
 was required to shew his throat by the aid of a paper-knife 
 — one of the black horn ones with the white stag on them, 
 which he had always loved and which he would never be able 
 even to like again. A tussle over this. He closed his teeth 
 on the horrid flat thing which pressed his tongue down and 
 nearly made him sick. Why could n't the doctor with the 
 long black beard and the spectacles let him alone? He 
 could n't shew his throat if they made him sick. He hated 
 the doctor; hated his beard; hated his spectacles; hated the 
 paper-knife. The worst of it was that his mother and Betsy 
 took the doctor's part; took even the part of the paper- 
 knife, which, from being a nice friendly thing, had suddenly 
 assumed the guise of an instrument of torture.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 65 
 
 "Let the doctor look, darling." 
 
 Very nearly a Scene now. Not with the paper-knife. 
 
 "Listen, darling. How can you be made well if you don't 
 let us see what's the matter with you?" 
 
 David did n't want to be made well. He wanted to be left 
 alone. 
 
 "Now, Master David, my dear . . ." 
 
 " Open de mout and let me see. I do not hurt you. Just 
 open de mout." 
 
 Not with the paper-knife. 
 
 Three people round the stubborn bed. His mother whom 
 he trusted ; Betsy whom he trusted too ; the doctor whom he 
 did not. And the three conspiring against him. 
 
 "David!" 
 
 "Master David!" 
 
 It was poor Betsy whom he turned upon. It was no good 
 Betsy's being Surprised. (He 'would have' for his mother, 
 but he would not for Betsy just backing up the horrid black 
 beard.) He pushed Betsy away; pushed her away with his 
 elbow; turned over upon his face, was near screaming, 
 knew he was being naughty and did n't care. 
 
 The doctor went on saying, "Just open de mout." 
 
 He would n't' open de mout. He would n't even show the 
 outside of it. When Betsy with gentle force turned him 
 over, he completed the revolution, landing upon his face 
 again. 
 
 Yes, very nearly a Scene. Then his mother whispered to 
 him. He lay quite still. She whispered again. Still quite 
 still. 
 
 "David!" A different sort of 'David.' 
 
 Very slowly he turned over. 
 
 "Send Betsy away then." 
 
 "Poor old Betsy," said Betsy, and went to the other 
 side of the room. 
 
 "Him too." 
 
 But the doctor was surely the point at issue. 
 
 "Just for a minute."
 
 66 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 The doctor, after a moment's hesitation on the part of 
 David's mother, was informed of David's wish. He and his 
 black beard and his spectacles joined Betsy at the window. 
 
 So very nearly a Scene ! Only a little less understanding 
 on the part of one of the three and it must have become one. 
 
 "Now I'll show you,'' said David. 
 
 It was all, you see, the question of the paper-knife. 
 David could show his throat perfectly without it. Even 
 the black beard and the spectacles, called over from the 
 window, had to admit that David's tongue did not get in 
 the way. 
 
 Measles. But only and most suitably — and, to David's 
 view, since Homburg was Germany, most naturally — the 
 mere German kind. 
 
 "What we call in England German Measles," his mother 
 said. 
 
 "If you vish," said the doctor, who probably did not 
 understand. 
 
 After that David rather enjoyed being ill. He was not 
 very ill, and he was very important. He liked being in- 
 fectious and took a keen interest in what he learned to call 
 the Precautions, though so slight were precautions in those 
 days that only David's pride could have glorified them with 
 a capital. No carbolic sheets then to hang over the doors 
 and catch in them every time they were opened. No overalls 
 for infected attendants, with bands buttoned close at the 
 wrists. No immediate washings of hands that had minis- 
 tered to him. But just a keeping away of Georgina and Ka- 
 tinka, a desultory separating of tainted from untainted toys, 
 a certain amount of talk, and the occasional donning of 
 a mackintosh, if she remembered it, upon the part of Frau 
 Finkel (a man's, by the way — left, indeed, by a former 
 lodger), when she looked into the room to say, "Veil and 
 how feel ve dis efening?" — or "dis morning," as the case 
 might be. These things, however, gave David great satis- 
 faction.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 67 
 
 But the really satisfactory thing, from Betsy's point 
 of view, was that David's little illness occupied David's 
 mother. The anxious look was replaced by another. Quite 
 a different sort of anxiety while it still was anxiety — be- 
 fore the doctor's visit, that is — and not anxiety at all 
 after that; just happy solicitude. Let Master David con- 
 tinue ill, Betsy thought (seeing of course how little ill he 
 was), and let her mistress's ministrations in the sick-room, 
 which were so eminently good for her, continue also. 
 David, his bed piled with the infected toys (which, it was 
 said, were duly to be burnt when they should have served 
 their purpose), was nothing loath. 
 
 Very happy days the ill days. Happier still when Geor- 
 gina developed German Measles too — an attack even 
 milder, more German, as David said, than David's own — 
 and the two had no longer to be separated. She had prob- 
 ably, David thought, caught hers from his love which he had 
 sent her every day and which must, after all, have been 
 infectious. 
 
 It seemed unnecessary now to keep Katinka out of the 
 room any longer, as, if it was fated that she was to have the 
 malady, she must certainly have contracted it by this 
 time. So Katinka, Mrs. Penstephen having sounded her 
 father as to his views, was added to the happy party. 
 
 David has a photograph of Katinka to this day. It is 
 easy to believe that the possessor of the pretty smiling face 
 which it presents brought joy into the strange household, 
 or, at the least, increased the sum of the happiness of its 
 members. No wages could adequately have represented 
 her value to the growing young minds, just as no wages 
 could have wiped out the family debt to the incomparable 
 Betsy. Mrs. Penstephen at closer quarters wi-th her, now 
 that for so long at a stretch the walls of one room held them 
 both, — herself and Katinka, — realised more than ever 
 her own and her children's good fortune. 
 
 And, since everything that occupied her mind gently was 
 good for it and for her, Betsy encouraged her to talk of
 
 68 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Katinka. Mrs. Penstephen was wondering whether the 
 girl would come to her permanently. 
 
 "One says permanently," she said that night when 
 Betsy was brushing her hair, — "I mean whether she 
 would come away with us." 
 
 It was Betsy's belief that Katinka would. 
 
 "What she'll do when our time's up here, or what she'd 
 do if she had to part with Master David and Miss Georgina, 
 I don't know." 
 
 "Her father may want her at home or have other views 
 for her." 
 
 "She may have views of her own, 'm. I think that's much 
 more likely. I should ask her anyway." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen consulted David's father and did ask 
 her. She put the question tentatively. Supposing they 
 should want her, she said. 
 
 Katinka flushed with pleasure. She was now sleeping at 
 Frau Finkel's. Was she not making her way? She re- 
 membered how at first Mrs. Penstephen had hesitated 
 about taking her at all. Of course she would go. She even 
 clapped her hands, and then blushed again for her childish- 
 ness. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen smiled and Katinka felt, as she always 
 did when her mistress's smile was for her, that she would 
 and could die for her gladly. 
 
 "We must think about it, then. There would be your 
 father to ask and also to consider." 
 
 He would not object, Katinka declared. He wished 
 her to be with nice people — a distinguished English 
 family. 
 
 "And always have I myself vished to go to England." 
 
 But at the word England the look came into Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen's face which Katinka had seen in it at the first 
 interview. To her it represented withdrawal. Again she 
 remembered, but with different feelings from those of a few 
 moments before when the thought had come to her, how 
 Mrs. Penstephen had hesitated to engage her — nay, had
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 69 
 
 seemed to shrink from engaging her. All her elation was 
 suspended. 
 
 "It would n't be England," Mrs. Penstephen said. "We 
 should be travelling. I don't know yet where it would be. 
 But it is almost certain that it would n't be England." 
 Katinka dared to breathe again. ' 
 
 "Anywhere," she said. " It is my wish, yes, to see Eng- 
 land. But anywhere. I should like to travel. Oh, it does 
 not matter where. Where the gracious lady is that is 
 England for me." 
 
 Nothing was settled, but it began to be felt that Katinka's 
 place in the family was no longer temporary and Katinka 
 took heart of grace. What, after all, could hinder? Mrs. 
 Penstephen, her hesitation apart, seemed to wish it. The 
 children Katinka was sure would wish it. Fraulein Betsy 
 certainly wished it. 
 
 "And mind you, there is n't many girls I could stand," 
 Betsy said frankly. "As for nursery-maids generally, 
 they're more plague than profit, that I've always consid- 
 ered. But you, Katinka, my dear, for all your outlandish 
 name — making me think of pots and kettles to mend every 
 blessed time I say it! — you are somehow different, now, 
 are n't you?" 
 
 "You tink I shall be engaged?" said Katinka, her eyes 
 shining. 
 
 Betsy only said "We shall see"; and Mrs. Penstephen 
 continued to say nothing further. As the days went 
 on, however, it did appear to be assumed all round that 
 Katinka was 'permanent.* 
 
 Meanwhile just peaceful busy days — for Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen, her restlessness over; for Betsy, content with her 
 observations; for Katinka, waiting. In the course of a 
 very few the children in turn went through the various 
 stages from slops to solids; from being allowed up for an 
 hour to being up in earnest; from being up to being out.
 
 TO DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 They were convalescent. They were well. Followed the 
 very moderate disinfectings deemed all that was necessary : 
 a little scrubbing, a little burning of sulphur; Frau Finkel, 
 even, asked no more. And when it came to the point was it 
 really necessary to burn the infected toys? Even the sensi- 
 ble Betsy said All Nonsense. Even Mr. Penstephen, the 
 matter referred to him, said he did n't suppose it mattered. 
 The doctor said, "Oh, just put dem in de room mit de 
 sulphur." Yet there had been at least the talk about Pre- 
 cautions! 
 
 Betsy perhaps hit the nail on the head when she said And 
 Besides. 
 
 "Yes, Betsy?" 
 
 Betsy looked up from the things under discussion: a 
 woolly bear, a doll with curls, some coloured picture-books, 
 a stuffed elephant, a clown that played cymbals when you 
 pinched his rag stomach, a dancing nigger, a steam-engine, 
 a clock-work mouse and a humming-top — all, with the 
 exception perhaps of the steam-engine and the humming- 
 top and, but more doubtfully, of the nigger and the clock- 
 work mouse, eminently capable of harbouring germs, — 
 and knocked disinterestedness out of all precautions. "You 
 can't catch things from yourself 'm," she said, — "not 
 that ever I 've heard of, and it is n't as if it was only one of 
 them had had it. Why, they've both had their measles. 
 What possible need?" 
 
 Well, as far as may be known, the spared toys did no 
 mischief, and in course of time, it is to be supposed, became 
 once more innocuous. 
 
 For the rest, the calm unthreatened days looked like to 
 continue. David's mother resumed her practising. But 
 the dead season drew to an end.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The train of Mrs. Penstephen's thought having, as we have 
 seen, been gently interrupted, something no longer seemed 
 about to happen. Without apprehension or anxiety she 
 saw shutters opened, blinds pulled up, the occasional but 
 more frequent carriage laden with luggage. Nothing was 
 changed. The year was moving. Then why was her mind 
 easier? That the blue might be more serenely blue from 
 which the bolt fell? Almost it seemed so. 
 
 Nothing, anyway, could have been bluer than the sky. 
 There was not the smallest warning. Less than none, for 
 what shot from the unclouded azure to drop at her startled 
 feet was neither more nor less than Katinka — poor adoring 
 Katinka about whom in this connection Mrs. Penstephen's 
 misgivings were now as if they had never been. 
 
 David's birthday was approaching. He was to be Eight 
 after having been only Seven for a period which seemed to 
 him quite unjustifiably long. The conditions of his life 
 tending probably to sharpen his perceptions, he had, in- 
 deed, perhaps been eight mentally (if not nine or even ten) 
 for a considerable time. He was now to be Eight in earnest. 
 He was to have a party — not a real Party, of course, since 
 there was no one to ask to it — but a party of sorts: Ka- 
 tinka's brother and sister to tea and possibly Anna and 
 Gretchen: and there were to be games and a Surprise. 
 Katinka was arranging the Surprise. 
 
 For days the Surprise had been in the air. A mask was 
 part of it, for David had caught a glimpse of a pink shining 
 face lying amazingly upon the table at which Betsy did her 
 sewing, before Katinka, pouncing upon it with a little 
 scream, had whisked it out of sight and hidden it away in a 
 drawer. But what the whole secret was neither Katinka
 
 72 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 nor Betsy, who was in it (and also, indeed, like the hidden 
 mask, was somehow part of it), would divulge. They spoke 
 mysteriously of a Distinguished Guest who was to be ex- 
 pected at the party — but not till after tea — and the 
 rest was silence and evasions. We, who are more than eight 
 or nine or ten but have been all three, may guess perhaps 
 at our old friend the Dwarf. David exhausted himself in 
 guessings and could not guess. His face, we may suppose, 
 was set towards his birthday. 
 
 Blue skies, as we see; and under them tranquil happy ex- 
 pectancy. David's birthday was next week; David's birth- 
 day was the day after to-morrow: David's birthday was 
 to-morrow. His mother found herself looking forward to it; 
 his father, even, in one of those rare moments when a look 
 perhaps or a note in his voice made sudden amends for 
 everything, said there was something in anniversaries. Not 
 a cloud, not the shadow of a cloud, in the blue. Then, out 
 of the tranquillity a mysterious summons to Katinka — 
 a note from her father. 
 
 Gretchen had brought the note to the nursery where the 
 nursery dinner was in progress. Katinka, 'cutting up' for 
 Georgina, had taken it with wonder. She laid down the 
 knife and fork, and Betsy, that the meat might not get 
 cold, drew Georgina's plate toward her and went on with 
 what Katinka had been doing. David, as curious as Ka- 
 tinka herself as to the contents of the letter, found time, 
 none-the-less, to go on watching the work of the cutting-up 
 which always interested him. Betsy held the knife in quite 
 a different way from Katinka. Katinka sometimes cut 
 against the fork in a way that would have been said to 
 scratch it if Frau Finkel's forks had been silver; Betsy 
 never. With one eye on Katinka and her letter and the 
 waiting Gretchen, who probably was curious too, he yet 
 saw how Betsy paused in the cutting to push a little bit of 
 fat or gristle to the side of the plate. Georgina, her spoon 
 in her hand and also, it is to be admitted, in and out of her
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 73 
 
 mouth, was more interested just then in the food that was 
 being prepared for her than anything else. 
 
 "What can he want?" Katinka said blankly when she 
 had read and made known the contents of her father's note. 
 She was to come home at once. No explanation; nothing! 
 
 Betsy asked if anybody could be ill. She paused in her 
 cutting, and Georgina thumped on the table with the handle 
 of her spoon. Betsy continuing her work answered herself 
 with "He'd say, sure to, if any one was ill," and asked who 
 had brought the note. 
 
 Katinka asked Gretchen. The two became voluble in 
 German. Betsy, retaining the knife and fork, gave Geor- 
 gina her plate, and said she and the children, at any rate, 
 would go on with their dinners. 
 
 Katinka's brother had brought the note and had said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Then nothing 's really the matter," decided Betsy. 
 "Have your own dinner and go round directly after." 
 
 She helped Katinka as she spoke, and Katinka sat down. 
 Gretchen stood for a moment or two to join in the expres- 
 sion of wonderings and speculations, and then went back 
 to the kitchen. Katinka made haste with her meal and 
 presently was ready to go. 
 
 "Shall I ask Mrs. Penstephen?" 
 
 Betsy shook her head. 
 
 "They won't be done luncheon and you won't be gone 
 long. I '11 tell her I gave you leave to run round." 
 
 Katinka put on her hat and coat as Gretchen, reappear- 
 ing, brought in the nursery pudding. 
 
 "Back in few minutes den," said Katinka. She nodded 
 and smiled and was gone. They heard her tripping lightly 
 down the stairs. 
 
 The nursery dinner was finished and cleared away. It 
 was then two o'clock. The children would go for their walk 
 at three o'clock. Katinka would be back long before that. 
 Betsy, propping East Lynne against her work basket so that
 
 74 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 she might read a few lines from time to time as she worked, 
 went back to her sewing. David and Georgina amused 
 themselves with a box of bricks — David building, Geor- 
 gina demolishing. David builded methodically and very 
 carefully. Georgina knocked down even when she pur- 
 posed to help. "Look out," sang David every now and 
 then. 
 
 Half past two came; a quarter to three. Five more min- 
 utes and it would be time to begin to get ready. 
 
 What could be keeping Katinka? The grocer's shop was 
 not more than a few minutes* walk. The hands of the clock 
 moved on to the hour. 
 
 "Well, we must go without her," Betsy said to herself, 
 and called the children. 
 
 "But why does n't Katinka . . . ?" said David. Geor- 
 gina echoed his question. 
 
 "And so she will," said Betsy, "by the time we're ready. 
 Get your hat now, Master David, there's a good boy. 
 You'll find it on the bed. And Miss Georgie, come and be 
 dressed." 
 
 The children were presently ready. Betsy herself was 
 ready. She buttoned her gloves. Still no Katinka. 
 
 And then, suddenly, Katinka! But a Katinka whom 
 David's mother, coming, at some unaccustomed sound, out 
 on to the landing to see if anything were the matter, hardly 
 recognised — a sobbing Katinka with a face swollen and 
 sodden with tears; a shaken Katinka who flung herself on 
 to the ground and clasped her mistress's knees. 
 
 David, before he and Georgina were urged gently but 
 firmly into the nursery by Betsy, there to besiege her with 
 questions and even to fight against their temporary im- 
 prisonment, reproaching her, accusing her, saw his mother's 
 face grow white to the lips, and the look upon it which he 
 had seen there at Brussels. 
 
 "What's been done to her?" he cried, struggling against 
 his own tears. "What have they done?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 75 
 
 But he could hardly have told whether at that moment 
 he meant to Katinka or to his mother. 
 
 Outside, Mrs. Penstephen raised Katinka to her feet and 
 led her to her own bedroom. She went in, pushing the girl 
 gently before her, much as Betsy had impelled David and 
 Georgina into the nursery : and then, like her, shut the door. 
 
 Katinka threw herself again to her knees, sobbing and 
 rocking her body to and fro. 
 
 "Katinka, you must n't," Mrs. Penstephen said. 
 
 The colour was slowly coming back to her lips, but the 
 look which Betsy knew, and which David, young as he was, 
 knew also, and which David's father must have known too, 
 was there — was graven there, as if this time it would never 
 wear away or be removed. 
 
 Katinka moaned and rocked herself. 
 
 "You must tell me what has happened," said Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen. "Try to calm yourself." 
 
 But Katinka only moaned and wept and rocked the more. 
 
 " Katinka, listen to me. You must n't give way like this. 
 Get up now from the ground and come and sit down beside 
 me here. You must control yourself or I can't talk to you. 
 That's better. No, sit down beside me. I wish it." 
 
 "Oh, Madame," breathed Katinka. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen drew her down on to the sofa. Katinka 
 gave a little gulp, and, turning away her head, buried her 
 face in her arm. She sobbed for a few moments, but more 
 quietly. 
 
 "You are so good to me," she said brokenly when she 
 could speak. "I have been so happy. Never have I been 
 so happy before." 
 
 "You're leaving us, are n't you, Katinka? It is that, I 
 think, is n't it?" 
 
 But now again Katinka could not speak. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen waited. Katinka must tell her, but 
 already she knew that there was nothing to tell, or rather 
 that she had nothing to learn. She had been through all
 
 76 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 this before, though the conditions had never been these. 
 The more the conditions changed, however, the more what 
 underlay them remained the same thing. She sat looking 
 at the girl's thick hair and heaving shoulders, thinking her 
 own thoughts. 
 
 Presently she glanced round the room. A large square 
 looking-glass in a carved gold frame hung at an angle upon 
 the wall opposite, and in it she saw herself and Katinka. 
 The picture she saw must, if she could have seen it with 
 later eyes, have been like a Millais illustration to a novel 
 in the pages of a magazine of that date. To her there was 
 nothing odd in the amplitude of her draperies, the size of 
 her jet brooch, or the abundant trimmings of a dress which 
 Betsy considered almost too simple. What did seem odd to 
 her was that it should be Katinka who wept and not she. 
 A stranger, she thought, would have seen in Katinka a 
 penitent if not The Penitent, and in her The Confessor or 
 The Counsellor. A Kind Lady gives Advice to a Young 
 Girl in Trouble. And the case was in reality, if not exactly 
 the reverse, yet almost the reverse. It was she who had 
 been found out, she who should be the suppliant, she whose 
 head should be bowed ! Tears found their way to her own 
 eyes but she blinked them back. 
 
 " I ought n't to have taken you," she said. "I did hesi- 
 tate. I should have trusted the feeling that made me do 
 this. Or I ought to have told your father. Yet I could not 
 have told him. No, that sounds as if I were ashamed of 
 what I have done. And that would n't be true." She paused. 
 "You see I have guessed, Katinka," she said gently. 
 "Your father has learnt that according to accepted ideas 
 and to all rites — civil as well as religious — Mr. Penstephen 
 and I are not married. Is n't it so?" 
 
 "Ah, Madame, please — please — " 
 
 But the relation in which the two stood to each other — 
 mistress and maid, employer and servant — was nothing 
 to David's mother just then. 
 
 "He thinks that you ought n't to live with us."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 77 
 
 "I will not go," said Katinka vehemently. "I will not. 
 I do not understand but I know you are good. Oh par- 
 don, Madame, that I should even speak like this. You had 
 reasons. It is enough for me. Oh, Madame — I am ashamed 
 that my father — that I — through me — me whom you 
 have treated so kindly — Oh, oh, oh — " her voice trailed 
 away miserably into inarticulate sobbings. 
 
 "But, my child, your father 's right. It's true that he 
 does n't know the circumstances in which the step was 
 taken. He would think probably that there were obstacles 
 in the way of our marriage. There were none. What we 
 did, we did openly. We dispensed, that's all, with forms in 
 which we did n't believe. Whether, if either of us had quite 
 foreseen the consequences, we should have had the courage 
 of our views I — sometimes I don't know, Katinka." Her 
 voice shook, and she paused again for a moment. " But we 
 did what we thought to be reasonable and — and right. 
 No, I know you're not asking. Perhaps that's why I wish 
 to say these things to you. But actually they're beside 
 the point. Your father is right. Thinking as he does, he 
 could n't do otherwise than wish you to go home. It 
 would be a poor sort of father who would leave his child in 
 what he thought to be danger. You would n't like him to 
 be indifferent." 
 
 "No, no, but I am so ashamed. If he knew he would 
 understand. He does not understand. It is that that you 
 must pardon. But oh, I cannot go, I cannot. And I thought 
 perhaps you would take me with you when you go from 
 Homburg." She had been speaking in German. She broke 
 now into impassioned English. "Oh, Madame, if you vould 
 overlook dis. My father by himself never. It is dese ladies, 
 what dese ladies have said to him. I am ashamed for him 
 as for myself. But it is dese ladies. Oh, why did dey come 
 to make us all so unhappy?" 
 
 "Some ladies told him?" 
 
 "De ladies who vere here last year and every year al- 
 ready. Dey have always de great suite of apartments next
 
 78 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 door to us — in de big house at de corner, and dey talk vid 
 my father as dey pass. Dey come early in de year and dey 
 stay for de season after. A very grand lady — English — 
 de Countess of Harbington." 
 
 David's mother made a little movement. 
 
 "Lady Harbington is in Homburg?" 
 
 "T'ree days," said Katinka. 
 
 There was a pause before either spoke then. There were 
 sounds outside: the opening of a door and voices; the chil- 
 dren's (protestant), Betsy's (quietly authoritative). Betsy, 
 who had probably guessed, had decided, it is to be supposed, 
 that the children were best out of the way, and was taking 
 them for their walk. She was having some difficulty. "I 
 don't want to go out," was a shout that penetrated to the 
 bedroom. There was the sound of running but arrested 
 footsteps, and, " No you 're not to go to your mamma's room, 
 do you hear me ! " David might be pictured for one moment 
 tugging at a restraining hand. There was even, perhaps, 
 the suggestion of authority defied and a scuffle. Mrs. Pen- 
 stephen rose and went softly to the door, ready to lock it, 
 if need be, or to go out on to the landing and lend Betsy the 
 support of her presence. But David contented himself 
 with a shout for Katinka — which Georgina was heard to 
 echo, and which sent Katinka back to her sobbing — and 
 presently the sounds moved their location and died away 
 on the stairs. The hall-door was heard to close. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen, who was not Mrs. Penstephen, went 
 back to the sofa whence Katinka had now sunk to the floor. 
 There, half-kneeling, half-sitting, the girl wept into the 
 hollow of her arm. 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen sat down beside her, and drew her head 
 gently on to her own knees. She was such a child, Katinka. 
 She soothed her now as one soothes a child. 
 
 "There," she murmured. "There. There, Katinka. 
 You've nothing to reproach yourself with. That must be 
 your comfort. I, on the other hand, have. Not what your 
 father thinks, perhaps — certainly not what Lady Harbing-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 79 
 
 ton thinks. I ought to have spoken to your father privately 
 before I engaged you. He would then have had the choice 
 of letting you come to me or not as he thought best. You 
 can tell him that I don't think, whatever he may have 
 heard of us, that we have done you any harm, and you 
 can tell him that I am very sorry to lose you. You've 
 been a good girl, and perhaps more useful to my children 
 than I even know myself, yet. But you must go, Katinka." 
 "To-day?" 
 "Now." 
 
 "Oh, Madame. Now? Now?" 
 "Before the children come back." 
 
 Well, it was a day of tears. David's mother herself was 
 crying before all was over. With streaming eyes Katinka 
 packed her little box. The things which she had brought 
 from home with such joy when she had come to Frau 
 Finkel's to sleep would go back wetted with her tears. She 
 had to hurry, too, lest the children should come in from 
 their walk. 
 
 " Dey vill miss me. Oh, tell me dey vill miss me. " She 
 took a last look round. She opened a drawer and drew 
 forth a shining pink mask. "Oh, de Dvart — de Dvart for 
 de party to-morrow. Who vill do de body and de legs of 
 de Dvart?" 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen smiled. 
 
 "The Dwarf? " she said. " I believe we shan't have much 
 heart ourselves for the party to-morrow, Katinka." 
 "Oh, but Herr David. He must have his party." 
 " I will help Betsy, then. I promise you. Master David 
 shall have his party." 
 
 "Katinka vill be here in de spirit," said Katinka. "No 
 one vill see her. But dat is just as veil, for if dey could see 
 her she vould be veeping." 
 
 She put away the mask in its hiding-place and closed the 
 drawer. 
 
 "What had they said of us?" Mr. Penstephen asked
 
 8o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 David's mother in the course of the long talk that fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 "What would they say, John? I did n't ask Katinka. I 
 don't quite know what occurred. They take an interest in 
 the family. They probably asked Katinka's father about 
 her, and heard that she was in a situation with nice English 
 people. Very distinguished, perhaps. A gentleman and a 
 lady, a little boy and a little girl. Penstephen the name. If 
 they said that we had been turned out of a hotel in Brussels 
 it would be true. John, John, I can't bear it. I thought 
 I could, but I can't. Outcasts. David. My baby. Every 
 one pointing at us. Shrugging their shoulders. Turning 
 their backs. My children's mother like a woman of the 
 streets. Wanderers all of us. Branded. Dwellers on suffer- 
 ance. Our own people, strangers, the very servants. It 
 will kill me, John. I 'm done. I can't face it any more. I 
 can't go on . . ." 
 
 Like Katinka's her voice trailed away to inarticulate 
 miseries.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 No distinguished stranger came to David's party. There 
 was no party to come to. Betsy's mistress was ill; Betsy, 
 single-handed now, too busy to think of parties, and with 
 divided cares as nurse and nurse, far too busy to think of 
 impersonating the head, trunk, legs, and feet, or even the 
 less responsible hands and arms of dwarfs, to please any 
 one, birthday or no birthday. So, to herself poor exercised 
 Betsy. Her heart, bleeding for her mistress, bled in neces- 
 sarily smaller measure for David. But it was because it 
 did so copiously bleed that, to the children that day, 
 she seemed cross when in reality she was only grieved and 
 grieving. 
 
 For David the world seemed to have collapsed about 
 him. With Katinka mysteriously gone, his mother sud- 
 denly ill, and the stuffing knocked out of his birthday, the 
 day was dark indeed. The shadow of the sick-room was 
 upon the nursery, whither borrowed Gretchen, amiable, 
 but wholly incompetent after competent, wonderful Ka- 
 tinka, brought her sewing that she might watch over Betsy's 
 charges and leave Betsy free to minister to her suffering 
 lady. David and Georgina played half-heartedly with 
 David's birthday presents. 
 
 But the shadow of more than the sick-room was over the 
 house. The inevitable talk was going on downstairs. 
 Gretchen, though she smiled and smiled, probably felt she 
 was missing it. There were visitors, of course, in the kitchen. 
 Betsy, super-sensitive perhaps, knew every time that a 
 door was opened and shut. Oh, Frau Finkel was friendly 
 enough. She would not encourage gossip, but Frau Finkel 
 was human, and Betsy knew landladies. She knew Down- 
 stairs, too, all the world over. Was it any wonder that, to 
 David with a birthday and Georgina too young to under-
 
 82 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 stand anything, she seemed cross when she was only heart- 
 sick and on edge! 
 
 What ailed David's mother? She lay white and wide- 
 eyed in the bed gazing at the ceiling and moaning faintly 
 when she stirred. The strength seemed to have gone out of 
 her. She was like one who has had a paralytic stroke, but 
 she had not had a stroke. Her mind seemed elsewhere and 
 yet to be feverishly occupied. Her lips moved sometimes, 
 and Betsy, as if the secret of the illness might be learnt 
 from the sufferer herself, tried in vain to catch the words 
 she did not speak. She might have been asleep and dream- 
 ing but though her state had succeeded to sleeplessness 
 she was not asleep. The Beard, the first of the doctors to be 
 called, said she had had a Shoke — did not even say that 
 she must have had one. Every one in the house knew the 
 nature of the shock which the poor lady had sustained, and 
 it was Anna who had been sent for him. The second opin- 
 ion confirmed his. It was accepted that Mrs. Penstephen 
 was suffering from shock — which may have accounted for 
 her condition, but did not very clearly explain it. Betsy 
 saw, however, that it was not her mistress only who had 
 had a shock. Her exercised eyes were drawn to her master 
 again and again from the bed. 
 
 All day Mrs. Penstephen lay in the same state. It was 
 impossible to say whether she was actually suffering. Mr. 
 Penstephen went in and out. It was he now who could settle 
 to nothing. Neither his books nor his writings could hold 
 him. No question as to whether he was suffering! Betsy's 
 heart shed some of its blood for him too. But it was all his 
 own fault — nay, it was that it was his own fault ! She 
 could have shaken him, and felt also that she could have 
 wept for him. 
 
 " Is she better, Betsy? Is she in pain? Does she know us, 
 do you think? Does she? Do you, Mary? Mary darling, 
 don't you know me? Don't you see me? It's John. Don't
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 83 
 
 you hear me? Look at me. I'm here beside you. Mary, 
 Mary." 
 
 She made no sign, unless a movement of her head — was 
 it ever so Httle from side to side? — was a sign. Was she 
 denying him? Refusing to Hsten to him? Refusing to 
 comfort or be comforted. 
 
 Betsy, as much for his sake as for her mistress's, said 
 now: "I would n't sir, I think. Really I would n't. I'd let 
 her be. We must give the medicine time. Sedatives they 
 said — just something to calm the nerves. They're not 
 alarmed about her. I 'd go out a bit, sir, if I might advise." 
 
 " How can I go out?" said Mr. Penstephen. 
 
 "I would, though," said Betsy. "I'd go out, sir, and 
 come back and maybe find her better. The doctor 's coming 
 again this evening, did n't he say? I dare say he would n't 
 expect much change till later." (She was contradicting 
 herself, as indeed she perceived, but that did not seem to 
 her just then greatly to matter — or even to matter at all 
 so long as she went on talking that he might not talk.) "So 
 there 'd be plenty of time, and it would do you good, sir." 
 
 But he would not be persuaded. 
 
 " Do they know what's the matter with her? Do you?" 
 
 Betsy did not answer. 
 
 "Have you ever seen any one like this before?" 
 
 "Bless you, yes, sir." She sought about for an instance, 
 and, not finding one, took refuge in " If it was you, sir, or 
 any male, I should be more anxious." 
 
 "But she's never been hysterical," he said after a pause 
 — "never shown the smallest sign of any weakness of that 
 sort. She hysterical! It's not to be thought." 
 
 "No, sir. But that would not put it out of the question. 
 And it would n't, perhaps, be weakness anyway. What 
 doctors know is only enough to tell them that they can't 
 know. No man could, sir, — gentle or simple, — and you '11 
 excuse me for speaking so free. We know, sir, but if 
 you ask us, we're done! It would be a clever woman who 
 could tell you. No, sir, not weakness — not necessarily.
 
 84 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Differentness I should call it. But my mistress will come 
 out of this you'll see." 
 
 Mr. Penstephen heard her attentively. She had n't done 
 with him; she did n't mean to be done with him just yet. 
 But this was not the moment. 
 
 "If I could know that she was n't suffering." 
 
 He was so entirely at her, Betsy's, mercy! 
 
 "It's like when you groan under laughing-gas, sir. You 
 cr\' out, perhaps, but you don't know about it." 
 
 She wanted him to go. She wanted to have her mistress 
 to herself if only that she might put her arm round her, 
 as you put your arm about a child, and tr>^ to get com- 
 fort through to her. She thought she could, far off as 
 the troubled spirit seemed, if she could but have her to 
 herself. 
 
 "Take Master David," she said at last. "After all it is 
 the poor child's birthday." 
 
 That settled it. Mr. Penstephen, who would not for his 
 own sake, would for David's. Gretchen was told to get 
 him ready. 
 
 "I get myself ready," said David. 
 
 David had, it is to be feared, an uncomfortable walk. 
 His father talked to him with wandering attention or did 
 not talk to him, and David, sensitive to influences, did not 
 know which was most disconcerting. Moreover, walking 
 down what Betsy called the Chr\'salis Strasse, they walked 
 so fast that David had difficulty in keeping up. He was 
 wondering when his father would see that he was setting a 
 pace which would oblige his own shorter legs to run if he 
 was to maintain it, when his father suddenly became aware 
 of his case. 
 
 "David, my boy, I was forgetting you." 
 
 David had to say, "Oh, it's all right, Father," though it 
 had been nothing of the sort. 
 
 "You set it, David. I '11 keep pace with you." 
 
 "No, vou. Father."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 85 
 
 "This about right? Change step. There, that bet- 
 ter?" 
 
 It was — if David's father would only have remembered, 
 but in five minutes David found himself breaking into a 
 trot once more. 
 
 Talk, pace, atmosphere, all equally disturbed. But 
 through the uncomfortableness he was somehow conscious 
 of something which seem.ed to bring his father nearer to 
 him, or to bring him nearer to his father, than ever before. 
 It was not exactly what was said, or what was not said in 
 the frequent embarrassing silences. It went deeper than 
 talk or than silences. If he could have put what he dimly 
 felt into words at all, he would have said that he knew for 
 the first time that his mother was in both of them — and 
 have meant much more than that for the moment she was 
 in the mind of each of them. His mother was part of his 
 father as she was part of himself. His father was thus a 
 more intimate relation than he had hitherto supposed him. 
 No words however for any of this. These things were feel- 
 ings. You hardly spoke of them even if you could. 
 
 The walk was marked by one incident. Near the Kursaal 
 they passed two ladies, who sat upon a seat, and, by the 
 spread of their draperies and something of importance in 
 the aspect of at least one of them, contrived to make it 
 look like a throne. They seemed to be arguing — not per- 
 haps about anything in particular. The impression, indeed, 
 which an acute observer would have got would probably 
 have been the true one: that they argued because argu- 
 ment was the form which any conversation between them 
 naturally assumed. As they wrangled, the important one, 
 who had a parasol with a green silk fringe, and whose 
 cheeks were very pink, and who wore primrose kid gloves 
 and many bracelets, looked about her. With calm eyes, 
 and without relaxing her part in the argument, she took 
 stock in an impersonal, aloof sort of way, of all who 
 passed.
 
 86 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "But that's what I say, you spoke without thinking. 
 You always do." 
 
 David could hear quite well as he approached with his 
 father. 
 
 "I know I do, dear, but in this case I did n't. Besides 
 I don't think I do, and even if I did — " 
 
 "I don't suppose you know whether you did or did 
 not—" 
 
 The words that fell on his nearing ear are of no special 
 significance. We, no more than he, are to know what the 
 ladies were discussing, though with him we may allow our- 
 selves to wonder. But what was significant was that, the 
 calm impersonal eye of the one, and the suffused, deprecat- 
 ing eye of the other, resting upon the approaching pair at 
 the same moment, the ladies simultaneously nudged each 
 other, and even ceased speaking. 
 
 David saw. David recognised. David's father, occu- 
 pied with his own thoughts, did not see. David could not 
 have told why he did not tell him, but he did not, either 
 then or afterwards; and in this curious day, this strange 
 eighth anniversary of his birthday, this reticence of his took 
 its place amongst the odd intangible things which seemed 
 to bind him, or seemed like to bind him, more closely to 
 his father. The shared secret, the unshared secret — which 
 shows sometimes most understanding? What could it have 
 been which held him back from speaking of what he had 
 seen? Shyness? The uncomfortableness of the uncomfort- 
 able walk? Or some vaguely protective instinct? This, one 
 would say, for such binding. But was it possible? David 
 looking back, did not know. 
 
 Betsy meanwhile, alone with her mistress, watching, 
 tending, ministering, had a mind which was not idle. Betsy 
 could see into the heart of things and into the hearts of 
 people. Betsy, who had achieved the piano, might, with 
 such powers of achievement, be counted on not to stop at
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 87 
 
 pianos. It was as she looked from the bed to her master 
 that she had seen suddenly the lever which her mistress's 
 illness had placed in hands, which, untutored as they were, 
 she had not often found to fail her. There was help for her 
 moreover in this very connection. For if the Finger of God 
 had been discernible as she believed in David's trifling 
 illness, nothing less than the whole Divine Hand (we are 
 talking of hands !) was to be perceived in the more serious 
 illness of David's mother. Betsy's anxiety thenceforward 
 was tempered by hope. 
 
 She was not less anxious. She who knew what the strain 
 had been, knew also now what the strain must have been. 
 The accumulated sufferings of years were expressing them- 
 selves in this present suffering. It is unlikely that Betsy had 
 heard of the Death of the Thousand Cuts. But she had 
 heard of breaking-point (nearer the mark, perhaps) and of 
 last straws and the like, and it was breaking-point which her 
 long-suffering mistress had reached. Strange that the last 
 straw should have been supplied, howsoever indirectly, by 
 Katinka! 
 
 Presently, thinking busily as she sat by the sufferer, 
 Betsy saw that it could only have been supplied by one 
 who loved her, or for whom she had regard. It had to be 
 Katinka, then, — poor aching Katinka. Poor, though? 
 Poor? Katinka, who adored where she had overwhelmed, 
 would not, could she know, have thought so. Blessed 
 rather. Yes, blessed so to have been chosen, though she 
 never should know of her blessedness ! 
 
 "I should see to it that she did know," Betsy promised 
 herself, however, and went on with her thinking. This 
 might be Shoke as the doctors called it; they were wise 
 enough (with Betsy!) to know that it was not a stroke. It 
 was the nervous imitation of a stroke — overstrained na- 
 ture's counterfeit of something which had actually been 
 escaped. To all seeming Mrs. Penstephen was slightly 
 paralysed, but it was only in seeming. Presently, Betsy 
 believed firmly, the arrested faculties would resume their
 
 88 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 functions; the wandering spirit, like the dove to the ark, 
 would come back to the body, the light of consciousness 
 shine freely in the clouded open eyes. 
 
 From time to time the low moaning sound came from 
 the bed — the moaning which had so distressed David's 
 father, 
 
 "What is it, dearie, 'm?" Betsy would murmur — the 
 ' 'm,' even in her solicitude, for respect, and to qualify the 
 'dearie' which she could not help. "What is it dearie, 'm? 
 Anything we can do for you? Anything you'd like? Is it 
 your poor head?" (It was the 'Where does it hurt?' to a 
 bruised child!) "Aching, is it? No, 'm, you can't tell. 
 Aching all over, perhaps — and tired. Oh, tired, I know. 
 There. Betsy's hand's cool — if it is n't too rough?" She 
 laid a hand tenderly on the low beautiful forehead. "There, 
 my darling. There, is that better? " 
 
 As to a child. But the right way, surely, in that sick- 
 room. Betsy knew — seemed to know by instinct. There 
 was a crooning quality in her voice when she spoke thus — 
 the children knew it well, and sick or sorry or sleepless, had 
 often responded to it — and her hand could lull pain. 
 Something did get through perhaps to the wounded spirit. 
 The moaning grew less. 
 
 "There," she said, "there." She might have been put- 
 ting their mother to sleep as so often she had put them. 
 
 Less than an hour brought Mr. Penstephen and David 
 back. David begged to be allowed to see his mother, but 
 Betsy said no. She went in to tea in the nursery while 
 David's father sat with her mistress, and answered protest- 
 ing questions as best she could. David would be able, she 
 hoped, to see his mother next day. 
 
 Not to-day at all? 
 
 Not to-day at all. 
 
 David's face fell. More than anything in the world he 
 wanted to see his mother. 
 
 "Now, if you're going to be a spoiled boy — " began
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 89 
 
 Betsy. Which shewed that the strain was beginning to 
 tell upon her. She was supposed to be cross, we must re- 
 member. 
 
 David's answer, old as he was, was to burst into tears. 
 Which shewed how the strain told on him.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The lights were low in the sick-room where Betsy sat, doz- 
 ing a little sometimes, but, even when she dozed, alert for 
 the smallest sound or movement in the bed. She had re- 
 fused to go to her own, — to give up her place by her mis- 
 tress to any one. A pretty pass if an able-bodied woman of 
 her years could n't do without rest for a night! Besides, 
 she would be resting. At six o'clock, since Frau Finkel was 
 so kind, she would cede the chair to her and go and lie down 
 for an hour or two, but, meanwhile, with the pillow which 
 Anna had fetched for her, she would do very well. Tired? 
 She was n't tired. It was n't as if there was anything to do. 
 All that she had to do was just to be there doing nothing, 
 and to give the patient her medicines and nourishments at 
 the proper times. 
 
 "Good-night to you all," she said three or four times 
 before she could rid herself of willing helpers. 
 
 "If you vant anyting in de night, you touch de bell, von't 
 you? I sleep so lightly, I hear de moment you ring. Hot 
 vater or anyting like dat, you can have in few minutes 
 already. Or de doctor — You have matches, yes? And 
 de candle? And spirit for de aetna?" 
 
 "Everything," said Betsy. "If I want more than that 
 I'll ring, I promise you." 
 
 So she got rid of them. Mr. Penstephen was the last to 
 go. He was sleeping in the dressing-room at the end of the 
 passage. To him, too, she had said good-night. But that, 
 perhaps, was not more than a matter of form. 
 
 He had come back at one o'clock. Mrs. Penstephen was 
 quiet — not moaning, but her eyes were open as before, 
 and, though he bent over her, she did not appear to see him. 
 He went out abruptly. He had come back at two o'clock.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 91 
 
 There was no change. She had taken the hot milk which 
 had been ordered her. 
 
 "She takes nourishment as good as gold," Betsy said. 
 It seemed impossible to get away from that way of speak- 
 ing — as of a child, or to a child. A sick person, but more 
 especially this one, was a child to Betsy — and a sick child 
 at that. Nothing much was said and Mr. Penstephen went 
 away as before. 
 
 With his last going the house had seemed to become very 
 still. In the small hours the night grew chilly, and Betsy, 
 moving very gently, put more wood on the fire in the stove. 
 There were no sounds from the street. It was now that 
 Betsy sat most still. Dozing and waking, waking and 
 dozing, she sat in the big chair. . . . 
 
 "It's no good, Betsy, I can't sleep." 
 
 It was Mr. Penstephen again at the door. He closed it, 
 and, putting down his candle on a table at hand, came over 
 once more to the bed. Betsy had risen and they stood on 
 each side of it, looking down at the motionless figure. The 
 moment for which Betsy had waited was coming. 
 
 "If she would close her eyes," Mr. Penstephen said. 
 "The open eyes that don't see . . ." 
 
 He, like Betsy before him, laid a cool hand upon the low 
 smooth forehead. He bent down and laid his face against 
 the face upon the pillow. 
 
 Betsy did not speak. She saw the broad shoulders move, 
 and waited. 
 
 "What's to be done?" he said at last. 
 
 "Nothing now," she said slowly. 
 
 "How do you mean, nothing?" he asked, and because 
 he was frightened he sounded angry. 
 
 Betsy nodded her head and repeated the words. 
 
 "But what do you mean? " he asked her. "Why do you 
 say 'now'? You don't mean that something ought to have 
 been done and was n't! You don't think — Betsy!" 
 
 "No, sir. Everything is being done that can be. Nothing
 
 92 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 more can be now. It's only now that nothing can be 
 done." 
 
 " I suppose you'll tell me what you do mean presently," 
 said Mr. Penstephen helplessly. 
 
 Betsy looked him full in the face. 
 
 "My mistress will come out of this," she said as she had 
 said earlier. "It'll be then, sir." 
 
 There was a pause during which the two looked at each 
 other across the bed. There was dead silence in the house. 
 Not a mouse seemed to be stirring; not a board creaked. 
 The flame of the candle which Mr. Penstephen had not ex- 
 tinguished burnt steadily, and seemed by its unwavering 
 stillness to lay stress upon the universal stillness. 
 
 "I don't follow you," said Mr. Penstephen at length. 
 "I'm astray — or you are. I have n't understood a word 
 you've been saying." 
 
 " I could speak more plainly," said Betsy. 
 
 "Then for Heaven's sake, do." 
 
 It was all Betsy wanted. She gathered herself up. 
 
 "Very well, sir," she said. "Though there's one thing I 
 suppose that I ought to ask, and that's that you'll be so 
 good as to remember that you told me to." She did not 
 pause for Mr. Penstephen's nod — though he did nod — 
 but proceeded. " I 've seen this coming, sir, — seen it com- 
 ing for years if you have n't. I 've not lived by the side of 
 my lady here without knowing something of her and of 
 what she was suffering. This is n't a shock, sir, in one sense, 
 any more than it's a stroke — not any one shock, sir. It's 
 a adding up of blow upon blow, of shock upon shock. New 
 wounds on old wounds; wounds on wounds that were n't 
 healed. Some people wouldn't have felt them. There's 
 natures like that — blunted or toughened or maybe not 
 sensitive at all. But hers is n't like that. Every stripe 
 told. Goodness, when I think of it! I've seen her flush to 
 the roots or go white — a head turned, perhaps, or a child 
 called away from the children. That 'urt most — when it 
 was the children ; Master David or Miss Georgina, one or
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 93 
 
 the other — though most, I Ve sometimes thought, when 
 it was Master David. Visiting it on them, I suppose she 
 thought, and Master David nearer the time when he would 
 understand. She never said anything. She is n't one to 
 complain, is she? — not Mrs. Penstephen, sir. I've seen 
 her wince as if she had been struck. Yes, though she pre- 
 tended not to see or to hear, whichever the case was, or, if 
 that was past doing, at least not to mind. I 've thought of 
 the Bible, sir, often, which you don't believe in and which 
 she thinks she does n't, sir, — ' Forgive them for they know 
 not what they do.' You'll know, sir, what I mean and 
 where the words come from, although you may n't hold 
 with them. I 've thought of those words, sir. She bears no 
 more malice than He did." 
 
 Betsy paused. Mr. Penstephen had not moved — had 
 not withdrawn his eyes from hers, but, for the term of the 
 last few lowered sentences, it was her eyelids they had 
 rested on, for she herself was looking down at her apron, a 
 bit of the hem of which, as she spoke, she was folding and 
 unfolding with unconscious fingers. 
 
 "She's one of the gentle ones," she went on after a mo- 
 ment; "but one of the strong ones, too — one of the endur- 
 ing ones, that is, the ones that bear things and say nothing 
 about them, so that if you did n't, perhaps, know for your- 
 self what they were suffering, you would n't for them. 
 They'd go on till they dropped, sir." Betsy raised her 
 eyes. "I'm making bold I know — bolder than I ever 
 thought I 'ad it in me. You ought to have seen, sir. It's 
 been there for you to see, and in a manner of speaking 
 you've not so much as looked. Times and again. Time 
 after time. Well — my mistress has dropped, sir." 
 
 There was a long silence after that. 
 
 "You don't spare me," said Mr. Penstephen when at 
 length he broke it. 
 
 " I don't want to, sir. My mistress has done that. It's 
 time that you knew — time, if you could n't know other- 
 wise, that somebody told you."
 
 94 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Silence again. Mr. Penstephen came round to her side of 
 the bed. He seemed shaken and unnerved. He pulled a 
 chair forward and sat down, and motioned to Betsy to sit 
 down too. 
 
 Betsy would not, however. 
 
 " If I ignore my station," she said, "and take upon me to 
 speak out to my master, I'd rather do it standing." 
 
 So lately the other scene in this room — the curious 
 scene between mistress and maid, in which as in this, 
 though differently, the barriers of caste had been so arbi- 
 trarily set aside. The reflections of Mrs. Penstephen and 
 the weeping Katinka have hardly been wiped out before the 
 hanging looking-glass is shewing this strange picture of 
 Mr. Penstephen and Betsy. . . . 
 
 Silence again. Mr. Penstephen sat apparently thinking. 
 He made no attempt to combat what Betsy had said. He 
 seemed to be waiting for what she should say further, 
 she, upon her part, in no hurry to go on. She was waiting, 
 perhaps, for what she had said to soak in. 
 
 " You said you were n't alarmed," he reminded her when 
 he spoke next. 
 
 "No more am I," said Betsy; "but that 'snot to say that 
 I shan't be, sir. I 've told you that I believe this will pass. 
 I'm sure of it. It will lift like a fog. It's after, sir. You 
 won't lose her now, but if this life goes on — well, hers 
 won't. You'll lose her as sure as I am taking upon me to 
 tell you so." 
 
 "What makes you think — " 
 
 "Think!" cried Betsy. It was the first time she had 
 raised her voice. "Think! I'm not thinking, sir. I'm 
 knowing. Yes, and I know more. I know why," she low- 
 ered her voice again. "She's doing what can't be done. 
 That 's the shape of it. What it's not possible for man or 
 woman to do, sir." 
 
 Mr. Penstephen asked what that was.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 95 
 
 "She doesn't know it," said Betsy. "She thinks she 
 thinks as you do, sir, — believes, if I may put it like this, 
 that she does n't believe. But I've seen! There was the 
 children's prayers, sir, which you forbade me to teach them 
 — you may remember about that. I had taught them as 
 you may recollect. You may have noticed that time; / 
 shan't forget. 'Suffer little children' . . . she said. Could 
 there be any 'arm in that? But you would n't have it, sir, — 
 would n't 'ear of it. Very well. It was to be as you wished, 
 and it was; then and afterwards. But I remember what I 
 remember, and it was that day that, servant as I am, I 
 held her in my arms. I always knew after that. In a way 
 I had known before, but it came to me then as certain 
 knowledge." 
 
 "Betsy, you'll drive me mad," said Mr. Penstephen. 
 "Speak out, woman. What did you know?" 
 
 "She's living against her conscience," said Betsy at 
 once. 
 
 Half-an-hour later Mr. Penstephen was still there. His 
 candle unheeded was burning itself low in the socket. He 
 was sitting beside the bed, his arms stretched over it, and 
 his head between them. Betsy, her say said, was sitting 
 once more in her own chair. She was very tired now, but 
 had no inclination to sleep. She looked over from time to 
 time at her master. 
 
 There were sounds now from the street. The occasional 
 footfall of the labourer going to his work was heard, and 
 the rumble of an early cart. Light had shewn itself for 
 some time round the edges of the curtained windows, and 
 where two of the curtains did not quite meet. Birds were 
 singing. There was the cheep, cheep, of sparrows sometimes 
 from the window-sill, and, from somewhere near-by, the 
 recurring chorus of nestlings at the approach of a parent 
 bird with food. Soon the town itself would be waking; 
 soon movements in the house would tell of the rising of the
 
 96 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 servants; soon Frau Finkel herself would appear to take 
 Betsy's place by the bed. 
 
 Mr. Penstephen clasped his hands above his head, but 
 did not otherwise move. To be near the children's mother 
 seemed to ease him. He, no more than Betsy, was sleeping 
 or even sleepy. After any change of position upon the part 
 of either of the two watchers, stillness settled down upon 
 the room as before. 
 
 In the stillness suddenly a slight movement: the turning 
 of the head upon the pillow. 
 
 Betsy, on her feet in a moment, met her mistress's eyes. 
 
 "Is that you, Betsy?" 
 
 Mr. Penstephen started up. 
 
 "John?" 
 
 He bent over her, kissing her, stroking her hand, mur- 
 muring endearments. 
 
 She looked then from one to the other; round the room 
 then, and back to their faces. 
 
 "But ..." She was struggling to remember. "Have 
 I been here all the time? Are you sure?" 
 
 "Quite sure, my darling." 
 
 She looked at them doubtingly. 
 
 " I 've been thinking I was in London. I thought I had 
 bought David a back-gammon board in Regent Street for 
 his birthday. John, are you sure? Betsy?" She searched 
 their faces again. "Surely I did buy it. It has a marbled- 
 paper back — the usual sort of thing — like book-binding, 
 only I chose this particular paper. John, do you mean that 
 I have n't been away at all? I thought I was staying 
 in Half Moon Street. I could shew you the house. The 
 knocker on the door was a dolphin." 
 
 They explained to her. 
 
 " I could have told you the dress I was wearing — it was 
 my striped linsey, Betsy, and what's more, I did n't find 
 it warm enough." 
 
 "The night turned cold between three and four, 'm. I 
 made up the stove."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 97 
 
 "What time is it now?" 
 
 Betsy looked at her watch. 
 
 "But . . ." 
 
 Again the long puzzled But. 
 
 " It was so real. I remember my journey — the crossing. 
 It was smoother when I came back than when I went. I 
 sat on deck coming back. I can see the paddle-boxes now, 
 and the smoke from the funnels — the way it lay on the 
 sea. If this was a dream ..." 
 
 "Just a dream." 
 
 He took both her hands in his own, enveloped them with 
 his, uncovered them to look at them and kiss them. 
 
 "But you've come back to me," he said huskily. He 
 jerked his head in the direction of Betsy. "She," he said, 
 "promised that you would." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen's eyes, quite clear now, but still ques- 
 tioning, turned to Betsy. 
 
 "Dreaming," she said. 
 
 "Yes, 'm. But you've done with all that now. Finely 
 you frightened us, 'm, but we shall have you well in no 
 time." 
 
 "How long have I been ill?" 
 
 "Just under twenty-four hours." 
 
 Even now she seemed hardly convinced. 
 
 "The paddle-wheels and the smoke on the sea — like 
 smoke from an engine spreading itself on fields. The man 
 who sold me the back-gammon board had spectacles. I 
 should know him again, I can see him now. He was rather 
 tall and stooped a little. I looked at several boards, and 
 chose the one I bought because it reminded me of one 
 which belonged to my father." 
 
 "David shall have one like it," Mr. Penstephen said. 
 "We'll choose one together the first day you're able to go 
 out." 
 
 "Twenty-four hours!" she said slowly. "And I thought 
 I had been away a week." 
 
 She was silent for a minute or so, thinking, taking her
 
 98 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 bearings, sifting realities from imaginings. The candle on 
 the table spluttered and went out, and Betsy, hastily put- 
 ting the extinguisher over its smoking remains, took it out 
 into the passage. 
 
 "What I don't remember is why I went," her mistress 
 was saying when she came back into the room. "Of course 
 there was Katinka — I have n't forgotten that — and all 
 that dreadful business — " 
 
 "Don't try to remember now, Mary. Would you like 
 anything? Betsy has hot milk for you. Will you have some 
 of that?" 
 
 "If I could have some tea — " 
 
 "Of course you can, 'm. I 've the aetna here. I '11 have a 
 cup ready for you in less than five minutes." 
 
 "Why, I thought I went, I mean — since I did n't go at 
 all and have just been lying here. Have I had a doctor?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "I did n't know that. When?" 
 
 "Yesterday morning." 
 
 He did not say that she had had two, nor speak of the 
 second visit. 
 
 "No, I did n't know. How funny David was about the 
 paper-knife — would n't shew his throat if he used it. Have 
 n't you been to bed at all?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Betsy?" 
 
 "No, Betsy has n't." 
 
 "Never you mind about Betsy, 'm. Betsy's done very- 
 well-thank-you, with armchairs and pillows and I don't 
 know what-all. Rested in perfect luckshry, Betsy has. We 
 shall soon have your tea ready, 'm. You fix your mind 
 upon that." 
 
 "What is it, my darling?" 
 
 She moved her head helplessly upon the pillow. 
 
 " I don't know, John. I 'm so tired. I think I must have 
 been that journey, I'm so dreadfully tired. Oh," she be- 
 gan to sob weakly. "I don't want to cry. I don't know
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 99 
 
 what's making me or what's the matter with me. Don't 
 let me cry or I shall be ill again. Oh, John. Oh, Betsy." 
 
 It was Betsy to the rescue then, and Betsy who succeeded 
 in calming her — or perhaps even the tea!
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Far-reaching the results of Mrs. Penstephen's illness — 
 far-reaching, then, if poor Katinka was implicated, the re- 
 sults of the engagement which had been made on the day 
 when the blushing girl had presented herself at Frau Fin- 
 kel's, and Mrs. Penstephen so apprehensively had acted 
 against what she thought of as her better judgment. This, 
 however, is to look ahead, and the immediate results are 
 all that yet concern us. 
 
 These, as Mrs. Penstephen regained her strength, 
 shewed themselves in results of their own. 
 
 Betsy went about singing. She was the old Betsy again 
 who was never cross. She devised pleasures for the children : 
 little picnics mostly — their luncheon or their tea taken 
 with them to the woods or the fields, where flowers starred 
 the grass, and butterflies looked so like flying flowers that 
 sometimes it seemed as if the flower you were making for 
 got up and flew away. At these picnics she became a sort of 
 Katinka — finding quaker grasses for their delight, slender 
 nodding things the like of which they had never seen before : 
 or weaving the daisies which they brought her — Georgina's 
 one at a time in a little hot clutching hand — into chains 
 with which she wreathed them and even herself. She might 
 have been decking them all to a bridal. 
 
 It would be "This afternoon if you're good and when 
 I've seen to your mamma, we'll go for some more. Yes, 
 we'll take the setna." 
 
 It was the jetna, with Betsy's basket and a paper bag or 
 two to help, which turned a walk into a picnic. 
 
 The rooms at Frau Finkel's were full of the flowers they 
 gathered. They brought back great bunches from all such 
 expeditions, and always one bunch composed entirely of 
 white ones.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN loi 
 
 "Does Mother like white ones best?" David asked when 
 he saw that the white bunch, which Betsy picked herself, 
 was always for his mother. 
 
 Betsy smiled. 
 
 " I 've a fancy that she should have them," she said. 
 
 Something was in the air — something that was not 
 only the spring and the imminent summer. The spring was 
 in tune with it, that was all, so that to Betsy the birds 
 seemed to sing rather to her singing — the singing in her 
 heart — than because it was the season for their song. The 
 very grasshoppers, making their happy scratching noises 
 in the warm grass, rejoiced with her and for her, 
 
 "What's so nice about the spring is that it comes after 
 the long winter," she said to David. 
 
 David pointed out that the winter had not been long. 
 
 "Long enough, then," said Betsy; — "and the stalks, 
 talking of length, not quite so short Miss Georgina, dear, if 
 you want me to thread them — long enough, I should say, if, 
 thank God, not too long for its memory to be wiped out all 
 the same now the summer 's before us." She contemplated 
 a grasshopper which alighted on her skirt as she spoke. 
 "The 'ead for all the world like a goat's, and the legs like 
 two pairs of step-ladders! And to think they can sing like 
 they do. Rubbin' one leg against the other, as I think I 've 
 read somewhere. Well, if any one had ever told me I could 
 feel friendly to a insect ... !" 
 
 Smiles, singings, hummings all the day long. It was 
 Betsy, with hands full enough one would have supposed, 
 who suggested the expedition to Frankfort to see the town 
 and the Zoological Gardens. David, who was to bring back 
 the recollection for all time of some fearsome black swine 
 which the Zoological Gardens held just then, was, it was 
 plain, to be made to feel that if he had missed his birthday, 
 his birthday had been made up to him — in full measure, 
 too, pressed down, running over! 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen, looking strangely like a Madonna, lay 
 propped-up with pillows in her bed. She felt as weak as if
 
 102 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 she had had a long illness, but daily she was gaining strength. 
 Her books and her work were beside her, but she would 
 stop reading or working to go into long reveries from which 
 she would emerge with starry eyes. Hardly yet did she 
 seem quite back from her dreamings, when, as Betsy had 
 suggested, her state, since she had had no sense of discom- 
 fort in her imagined journey, or at least had brought back 
 none with her to consciousness, must truly have been like 
 that of one who groans under an anaesthetic. No question 
 that her present dreamings were not happy! Peace en- 
 veloped her and shone in her expression. Her thoughts 
 were as the long long thoughts of youth, and tinged with 
 no more than youth's happy melancholy. 
 
 She spoke of Katinka, sometimes, with solicitude and 
 even affection, but of the Dreadful Business not at all. 
 Well, perhaps, that David said nothing of his glimpse of 
 the ladies connected with that. The peace a fragile thing. 
 If Mr. Penstephen caught sight of them subsequently, as 
 would seem probable, he did not speak of them either. 
 They had played their part, and for the time being were 
 done with. Betsy may have seen them — or, perhaps, may 
 not, for the picnics took her and her charges away from the 
 beaten tracks — but she in any case was far too wise to 
 have alluded to what would have been disturbing. She be- 
 lieved, moreover, that, their work finished, they were in- 
 deed thenceforward negligible. No mention of them came 
 to menace the tranquillity of the quiet room, where David's 
 mother lay and rested and dreamed. . . . 
 
 Then, for stillness, suddenly movement — that for which 
 Betsy had been waiting. Not marching orders, surely? 
 Betsy? Betsy, who had conceived the idea of the piano for 
 an anchor ! Not exactly marching orders ; something to do 
 with marching orders for all that. Mr. and Mrs. Penstephen 
 were going away. 
 
 We see Betsy, at once, laughing and crying, kissing the 
 children, kissing and kissed by her mistress. We see David's
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 103 
 
 mother pale, as one who has been ill, but with what David 
 thought of afterwards as the Shining look in her face; and 
 we see David's father going about with a light but de- 
 termined step and a protecting glance for David's mother. 
 Georgina, if we think of her at all, we may think of as much 
 as usual — just fatly and comfortably complacent. But 
 David, older, observant and sensitive to influences, we see 
 excited and not a little perplexed. 
 
 Years before he was to know — years and years as the 
 young count years ! His mother and father had been away 
 before — his father often. But this going away was some- 
 how different. They were n't going for very long, Betsy 
 said that; his mother said it. Why was Betsy in such spirits 
 — yet somehow tearful spirits? Not just ordinary spirits. 
 Why did she look at him in — well, the way that she did 
 look at him? His mother looked at him in something of the 
 same way too. He even found his father's eyes fixed con- 
 templatively upon him. After such a look, whichsoever of 
 them it was from whom it came, the looker always smiled. 
 Once, when it was his mother, she turned away her head 
 very quickly, and it was a moment or two before he saw 
 her face. But when he did see it, it was resolutely smil- 
 ing. 
 
 "Why are n't we going too?" he asked. 
 
 She did not answer quite at once, and when she did, it 
 was not to answer what he asked. 
 
 " Your father thinks that nothing but a change will make 
 me quite well. David, I think he's right." 
 
 "But could n't we come with you? Could n't I?" 
 
 His mother shook her head. 
 
 He persisted. 
 
 " But could n't I? I should n't have to have Betsy. She 
 could stop with Georgina." 
 
 "No, David. But the time will soon pass and we shall 
 come back to you. You '11 be with me really — all the time, 
 every moment. And Georgina too. You're both in my
 
 I04 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 heart every hour of the day. And we shan't be far off — 
 only Frankfort where you went the other day." 
 
 "We could go over and see you." 
 
 "Perhaps," said his mother. 
 
 "You could come over and see us." 
 
 " Perhaps," she said again; but again she shook her head 
 almost at once and said No. 
 
 "We shall be back too soon for visits." 
 
 Yet every one seemed happy. David, excited by what 
 was in the air or perhaps by Betsy's concrete excitement, 
 was conscious of the joyous feeling, even in himself, but 
 could see no cause for rejoicing. 
 
 The day came for his parents to go. That morning the 
 children's mother seemed hardly able to let either of them 
 out of her sight for a moment. It did seem as if there was 
 something special in this going away. It was not David's 
 imagination that made all the circumstances that attended 
 it appear unusual. Even Betsy's packings — and David 
 had so often seen her pack ! — were not like the usual pack- 
 ings. Not that much luggage was to be taken. David's 
 father and David's mother, indeed, were taking as little as 
 might be. Something. Something in the way that Betsy 
 laid out and folded her mistress's things . . . Something in 
 the way that she laid them in the trunk . . . Something in 
 the directions that she gave about one particular dress — 
 a new one and, by chance (Providence, Betsy said!), even 
 a grey one . . . 
 
 "The gloves you'll have to get, 'm — in Frankfort. Now, 
 you won't forget, 'm, will you, and wear what you've got 
 when there's not a pair suitable. White would have done, 
 but you 're out of whites by my stupidity. A pearl grey, 'm, 
 remember — the delicate shade. Not too dark, 'm, what- 
 ever you do. I've put everything together just as you'll 
 want it. Your shoes and your stockings and the handker- 
 chief separate. One of the lace ones that you've never 
 used."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 105 
 
 "Does n't Betsy spoil us all, David?" 
 
 "You, 'm? Not much fear of that. Beyond spoiling you 
 are. The kind that can't be spoiled, 'm. Yes, Master David, 
 that's the kind that your mamma is." 
 
 David's mother laughed. 
 
 "You hear that, children?" she said, catching Georgina 
 up into her arms — because it was her girl-child that was of 
 the size that she could lift — "you hear what this bad old 
 Betsy says — that your mother 's past spoiling. And I 'm 
 not sure that it is n't true. You 've all done your best to 
 make it true anyway — she and both of you and your 
 father, David. Your father. Oh, I wonder whether I'm 
 right to let him?'' 
 
 But Betsy only said something more about the gloves 
 and went on with her packing. 
 
 Mr. Penstephen was packing his things in his dressing- 
 room. They could hear him moving about — opening and 
 shutting drawers. David, when he looked in, emboldened 
 by circumstances, saw folded clothes on the bed beside an 
 open portmanteau, a pile of shirts upon a chair, and an 
 array of boots and shoes, from which his father seemed to 
 be choosing which he should take with him. 
 
 " It 's the making up your mind that takes time, my boy. 
 There's no difficulty when you can put in all you've got." 
 
 "I know all about that sort of packing," David said. 
 "Everything that 's left over goes into the hold-all." 
 
 "That's just it," said his father. "A man and a woman 
 go forth with little more than they stand up in. As it was 
 in the beginning, my son, before the accumulations. No 
 hold-all this little journey." 
 
 David wandered round the perplexing room; examined 
 his father's razors and strop; his watch and chain which 
 lay on the dressing-table beside them ; his brushes (grown- 
 up ones with ivory backs and no handles), his tortoiseshell 
 combs; the studs and gold links and 'solitaires' and tie- 
 pins on the lacquer tray under the looking-glass. Every- 
 thing connected with his father was wonderful — much
 
 io6 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 more mysterious, somehow, than the things connected with 
 his mother. 
 
 "Mother's taking her new dress," he said. 
 
 His father smiled. 
 
 " I should take a new suit myself, if I had one," he said. 
 "Tell your mother that she'll have to put up with me in 
 old clothes." 
 
 At the door David heard himself called back. 
 
 "Tell her that with my love, David." 
 
 And David, returning to his mother, delivered his mes- 
 sage. Detached from its context it required explanation. 
 But Betsy saw it at once. 
 
 " He means this, 'm," she said and touched the grey dress. 
 
 "With his love ..." said David's mother. "Clothes 
 don't matter, do they, David?" 
 
 But what Betsy said was "And to think I shan't be 
 there to dress you!" 
 
 The rest was hurry and bustle. In spite of oceans of 
 time the fly came to the door a little before any one was 
 ready. There were writings of labels with one hand, while 
 a key on its ring was shaken from a lock with the other; 
 hurried adjustings of straps; last looks round. The chil- 
 dren and Betsy were to see them off. At length all were 
 bundled into the carriage. 
 
 Frau Finkel, with Gretchen and Anna behind her, stood 
 on the pavement waving. 
 
 "A goot chairney and auj wiedersehen, and, if you will 
 permit, goot vishes, — de best vishes." 
 
 Something even here . . . 
 
 The fly drove off. 
 
 " It's as if we was all going," said Betsy. But the after- 
 math of the hurrying was over the drive, and "Have I got 
 the key of my bonnet-box?" said David's mother. 
 
 Nothing was said in the fly. There was talk, but it was 
 of the trivial things of the moment ; things they saw as they
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 107 
 
 passed. The dogs in the little carts were always an inex- 
 haustible topic, and one, who, by his hanging tongue, 
 seemed in need of a drink, was pointed out and discussed 
 most of the way. 
 
 "Did you put in my blue veil, Betsy?" 
 
 Betsy had done so. A little more it will be seen, than 
 just what the man and the woman stood up in. 
 
 Only, near the station: "If either of them wasn't well 
 you'd let me know at once." 
 
 " Sooner than that, 'm. Make your mind quite easy." 
 ■ At the station, while David's father was getting the tick- 
 ets and seeing to the luggage, his mother suddenly drew 
 both her children to her. 
 
 "Never love me any less," she said, "either of you. 
 Promise me, David. Promise me, Georgina." 
 
 That, with her look as she said it, was what David was 
 always to remember most vividly of the small happenings 
 of that day. 
 
 They both promised. 
 
 Then the train came in and David's father came back. 
 Leanings from the window; good-byes; last directions. 
 
 "And if I was n't forgetting!" said Betsy. "I thought 
 one of these days, if you 'd no objection, I 'd take them over 
 for the afternoon to Wiesbaden. There might come one 
 when we, who are left behind so to speak, felt we should 
 like a little bit of an extra treat — a sort of fete like, and 
 I thought we'd mark it with a little excursion." 
 
 "Yes, yes," cried the children. 
 
 Their parents had no objection. 
 
 " I shall think of you all, you may be sure," said their 
 mother, "when that day comes." 
 
 The train began to move. They waved her out of sight. 
 
 On the way home they talked of the projected excursion. 
 David was for having it at once and proposed the next day. 
 But this, it seemed, was not at all Betsy's intention. It was 
 to be kept, she said, for the very last — for something to
 
 io8 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 look forward to, all the time. Thus it must be on the day 
 before that on which his parents came back. 
 
 "That 's the day we'll celebrate," she said. "That's the 
 day we '11 fix on to keep in our minds. We '11 have a special 
 cake for tea and make the day what it will be — a day of 
 rejoicing."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 There were days which David was always to remember. 
 The day before his parents came back was one of these; 
 the day which saw them come back was another. The 
 time had passed quickly. The holiday spirit helped, per- 
 haps, for David's lessons had been suspended in his parents' 
 absence, and the setna and the basket with the paper bags 
 had been a feature of almost every day's walk. Betsy had 
 seemed determined to make the period one of special well- 
 being. So, to the accompaniment of blue skies and unfail- 
 ing sunshine, the days had slipped by — to the last but one 
 
 — that set apart by Betsy for Wiesbaden and what she 
 called the Rejoicing. 
 
 "Rejoicing," she said, "because your dear papa and 
 mamma come back to us next day." 
 
 Betsy proposed, however; the barometer disposed. Nine 
 o'clock saw the rain beginning to fall. Betsy, who had 
 been up at half-past-six, when the morning was almost too 
 beautiful, saw with dismay the clouds begin to gather. She 
 hoped for rain at seven if rain there must be. It became 
 plain that there must be rain. Then let there be showers. 
 Above all let nine o'clock pass drily. The clocks were strik- 
 ing nine when the deluge began. 
 
 The odd thing, from David's point of view, was that 
 Wiesbaden which, as the morning went by, shewed itself 
 to be out of the question, hardly seemed to be in Betsy's 
 thoughts at all. She comforted the children mechanically 
 
 — even a little impatiently. David, smarting with disap- 
 pointment and reminded of the day when his mother had 
 been taken ill, burst out with "Well, you need n't be cross. 
 It's us that ought to be cross — Georgina and me." 
 
 "I'm not cross. Master David. How you can dare to 
 say such a thing! Me doing my best all the time. It's
 
 no DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 provoking enough as It is without being called cross, as if 
 I could 'elp the weather. And so would anybody be cross. 
 As if it could n't have rained any other day from morning 
 till night if it had wanted to. It's enough to make a saint 
 cross. Miss Georgina, will you stop licking the window 
 with your tongue and clean pinafore and all. How many 
 times must I tell you?" 
 
 The children wanted to go in the rain. They were for the 
 Rejoicing which had been promised them if they had to re- 
 joice wet-foot or soaked to the skin. But "Wiesbaden!" 
 said Betsy contemptuously, and, having herself opened the 
 window to look at the sky, shut it with something like a 
 bang. As if Wiesbaden couldn't wait! As if Wiesbaden 
 mattered ! 
 
 " If it don't stop by twelve," she said, "it can go on for a 
 week." 
 
 Well, it did n't stop by twelve. All day long the rain 
 beat upon the windows. David watched the drops. Thore 
 would be an accumulation of them, and then, one running 
 into another, there would be a sudden sHde; a rush down 
 the pane, leaving for a moment or two a course like the 
 course of a river. Then the thing would begin over again. 
 You might speculate on the hazards of the rush. When 
 would it be? Now? or now? It was always sudden when it 
 came and lightning-quick. It reminded David somehow of 
 the telegraph wires, which, when the exact moment struck, 
 swung downwards as suddenly. Up, up, up, down; splash, 
 splash, splash, collapse, cascade, what you will! He saw 
 an analogy but could not have defined it. 
 
 Tea brought a measure of solace. There was honey, and 
 the cake which had been promised. Betsy had sent out for 
 the cake. It was not, she said, quite what she had wished 
 for, but it had sugar on the top of it, and it was, as far as it 
 could be, what she called Special. She cheered up a little at 
 tea-time and ceased to be what the children meant by 
 'cross.' She said, "We couldn't have got what I really
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN iii 
 
 meant, even in England, because of having to buy a whole 
 one. They're very big, you know, with sugar ornaments — 
 though they do say some of that's plaster of Paris. But we 
 could have got a very good substitute in any good pastry- 
 cook's. Well, we're lucky to have this such a wet day, and 
 no one to choose it who knew." 
 
 "Who knew what?" asked David. 
 
 "Oh, about cakes," said Betsy — "English cakes. 
 There 's cakes and cakes. Birthday cakes and Bride's 
 cakes and Christening cakes. What's fit for one isn't fit 
 for another. Birthday cakes have candles, and Bride's cakes 
 or Wedding cakes have almond under the sugar — very 
 unwholesome, of course — and Christening cakes . . . well, 
 I'm sure I don't know, though of course there is such a 
 thing. All white, I expect. Now, if this had been Bride's 
 cake, do you know what we should all have had to do?" 
 
 Neither David nor munching Georgina knew. 
 
 "Why, each put a little bit of it under our pillows to 
 dream on." 
 
 " Dream on? " said David. 
 
 Betsy laughed. 
 
 " It's supposed to make you," she said. 
 
 David, who knew something of the properties of things 
 that were said to disagree with you, thought perhaps that 
 was the almond, and Betsy said perhaps so; but it was de- 
 cided that an experiment should be made with this cake 
 which had none. Three little morsels found their way 
 under three pillows that night. It is not on record that any 
 one dreamt anything — unless Georgina's alleged dream 
 that she had eaten hers in the night (when it had certainly 
 disappeared) could be said to count. A rite, however, in 
 connection with the cake had been performed, and served 
 in its turn to mark the day. 
 
 Something else was to mark it. These were the days 
 when a telegram was an event, and threw the recipient into 
 a condition of apprehension if not of active alarm. It was 
 ill news to some purpose which flew apace then. You kept
 
 112 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 good tidings for letters and only resorted to the electric 
 telegraph to tell of deaths or other disasters. Betsy could 
 have counted on her ten fingers the telegrams that had 
 come to her employers in all the years spent in their service. 
 It was very natural, then, that a telegram which arrived 
 soon after tea, and, unlike a mere letter, was brought to 
 the room by Frau Finkel herself, should cause flutterings. 
 Betsy with a startled face took it from its portentous 
 bearer. Her first thought was, of course, that it was from 
 Frankfort to say that something had happened to her 
 master or mistress. To her relief, however, she saw that it 
 was addressed to Mr. Penstephen. She turned it over and 
 over in her hands, examining it, and wondering then 
 whether or not she ought to open it. Frau Finkel stood 
 waiting, discussing fors and againsts, but shewing, as Betsy 
 saw, a decided bias. Frau Finkel was for opening — which 
 was, in the end, perhaps, what turned the scale. Betsy 
 abruptly put the envelope down upon the table beside her 
 and took up her work. 
 
 And yet — Frau Finkel urged, and paused significantly. 
 
 Betsy threaded her needle. The master would be back 
 in the morning — in the afternoon at latest. The message, 
 whatever it was, must wait. 
 
 "But if important," said Frau Finkel, "it should maybe 
 be telegraphed on. Always am I anxious vid a telegram. 
 So urgent often — " 
 
 Betsy shook her head. 
 
 "Nothing could be done at this hour. My master and 
 mistress shall have their quiet evening." 
 
 Frau Finkel raised her eyebrows and her shoulders. 
 
 "You know best," she said, "but if it was me I should 
 be anxious." 
 
 Which was precisely what Betsy was. She had been re- 
 lieved of her first dreadful fear, but she had been startled. 
 She put the telegram against the clock and went quietly 
 on with her work. But from that moment, like the ship- 
 wrecked saint and his companions, she wished for the day.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 113 
 
 So it came that the hours were marked. Something, for 
 David, lay behind all that happened or did not happen. It 
 would be too much to say that apprehension had any part 
 in his feelings, but he had seen the momentary apprehen- 
 sion of Betsy, who still looked at the envelope from time 
 to time; and David, cheated again of promised pleasures, 
 depressed by the weather, and conscious always of the feel- 
 ings of those about him, was disturbed. An unusual day, 
 somehow, the day before the return of his parents. 
 
 They arrived in the morning. Betsy had not known the 
 hour at which to expect them, or she would have taken the 
 children to meet the train. A fly drew up at Frau Finkel's 
 about noon — just after the three had come in from their 
 walk. David saw it from the window, and was out of the 
 room and on the stairs before Betsy knew what had hap- 
 pened. She followed with Georgina, 
 
 "My darling boy, and Georgina, and Betsy too," David's 
 mother, happy tears in her eyes, — these the days of tears 
 — clung to them all. She released the children to let them 
 go to their father and then caught them to her again. 
 
 "And Betsy Prig," she said laughing and crying, "and 
 Betsy Prig." 
 
 It was some moments before the concourse of persons 
 left the passage; then, Frau Finkel, who had run up to re- 
 ceive and welcome her patrons, having gone back to her 
 kitchen to expedite luncheon, all mounted the stairs, each 
 carrying something, and the servants following with the 
 heavier luggage. In the sitting-room the embracings were 
 gone through again. Betsy saw that her mistress looked 
 years younger. 
 
 "And so well, 'm — quite different from when you went 
 away, though you were better then, of course. Worlds 
 better now, does n't she, sir?" 
 
 Mr. Penstephen nodded amiably, and Mrs. Penstephen 
 said, "Do I, Betsy?" 
 
 Betsy, gazing at her, gave a little exclamation.
 
 114 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "There's something — why — " She broke off and 
 looked again, "I declare! If you have n't done your own 
 hair the new way, 'm! The way I wanted to do it for you!" 
 
 Her mistress met her eyes, laughing. 
 
 "Successfully?" 
 
 " If you '11 take your hat off, 'm, I shall be able to judge." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen removed her hat, and Betsy clasped 
 her hands in approval. 
 
 "Not," she said, "but what I shan't be able to do it 
 better for you than that, 'm, though wonderfully and well, 
 considering." 
 
 Mrs. Penstephen laughed again, happily, and turned 
 once more to her children. 
 
 "And have you been good both of you? Not trouble- 
 some? And have you missed your parents? Glad to have 
 your father and mother back, David?" 
 
 "There's a telegram for Father," said David. 
 
 At once his mother's face clouded. 
 
 "A telegram?" she said. 
 
 " If I was n't forgetting," said Betsy, and fled to fetch it. 
 
 A check on the happiness. The strange property of a 
 word ! David was conscious of something. There was some- 
 thing even in the way that his father waited, . . . 
 
 Betsy came back with the envelope, and, while her 
 master opened it, told of her perplexities. She ended with 
 "So I did nothing, and hope I did right, sir," 
 
 There seemed to be a long pause. Betsy called Georgina 
 to her and retied her sash which was loose. Mr. Penstephen 
 read the message and read it again. David, in one of the 
 rather wriggly attitudes of young boyhood, watched every 
 one — saw how his mother searched his father's face, saw 
 that his father's face told nothing, saw that Betsy was 
 almost pretending to be occupied with Georgina. He was 
 too well-brought-up, or too much in awe of his father, to 
 ask questions, but he hoped to know what the telegram 
 said. 
 
 "No bad news?" came at last from his mother.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 115 
 
 For a moment his father did not answer. Then he put 
 the paper into her hands, and watched her absently as she 
 read its message. 
 
 "John," she said at length. "Poor things! How dread- 
 ful." 
 
 But it was the sort of 'dreadful' that you employed in 
 reference to calamities which happened to other people. 
 Betsy breathed again. Even David was conscious that 
 tension was relaxed. 
 
 "Oh, poor, poor things ! " said his mother again, and then 
 a very curious look came into her face. She got up and 
 went over to David's father, ignoring David who was now 
 saying, "What, Mother? What, Mother?" 
 
 "Good gracious, John," she said; "this will make — " 
 
 "Yes," he said shortly. 
 
 Betsy rose now from her kneeling position beside Geor- 
 gina, and called softly to the children to follow her from the 
 room. They both demurred, but Betsy was quietly insist- 
 ing when Mrs. Penstephen, appearing to remember, turned 
 to her, and put the telegram into her hand, as, a moment or 
 two before, Mr. Penstephen had put it into her own. 
 
 Betsy, while David still said, "What, Mother?" half 
 under his breath, read it, looked at her and read it again. 
 
 "Dear, dear, 'm. How dreadful. The two of them. How 
 terrible." And then her face in turn underwent a change. 
 She looked from one to the other and flushed suddenly to 
 the eyes. "But this '11 — why, father and son — then the 
 Master's ..." 
 
 She broke off and used what David, clamouring now to 
 be told, thought the most extraordinary expression. For, 
 labouring under considerable excitement and apostrophis- 
 ing his mother with Ohs of wonder and surprise, she 
 breathed a tentative but unmistakeable and even jubilant 
 M' lady. His mother hushed her down at once, but it was 
 quite plain that something significant had happened.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 It was some moments before David, strung up now to a 
 pitch of excited expectancy, which, in the unusualness of 
 all the existing conditions, found voice rather unrestrain- 
 edly, could get an answer to his breathless questions. 
 When it came, it was, he thought, disappointing. He had 
 looked to share the emotions of his elders. He only learned 
 that two people were dead. To be sure, they had died in 
 tragic circumstances — by misadventure: the overturning 
 of a sailing boat somewhere unnamed in the telegram. But 
 he knew neither of them. He was not thrilled. He had 
 hardly known that his cousins Sir Joseph Penstephen and 
 his son Edward were alive till he heard that they were dead. 
 No, at first he was not thrilled. The telegram told nothing 
 but the meagre facts. "Letter follows" was its promise, 
 but letter had not followed yet. 
 
 But as he saw the concern of his parents and of Betsy, — 
 the odd effect which the news had upon them, — his curi- 
 osity was wakened afresh. His mother had grown very 
 grave, and his father was absently looking out of the win- 
 dow. Betsy's expression now was frankly triumphant. Her 
 mistress's 'Hush, Betsy,' had not abashed her. His mind 
 jumped back to the term she had employed. 
 
 Why had Betsy who (slurring one vowel) always called 
 his mother, 'm, called her m' lady (slurring another)? 
 
 Questions thereupon tripped themselves upon his tongue. 
 They were parried or unanswered. The time, it seemed, 
 was not yet. 
 
 All the rest of that day mystery was in the air. As these 
 were the days when telegrams were events, so were they 
 days when the young were not lightly taken into the con- 
 fidence of their elders. Betsy, even, kept her own counsel,
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 117 
 
 though she hinted at possible changes. She danced Geor- 
 gina to the ceiHng — an exercise which, in view of Geor- 
 gina's size and weight, she only performed when her spirits 
 were at their highest. She overflowed with good-humour, 
 sang to herself, and broke off in her singing to say, "There 'II 
 be mourning, of course. I expect you '11 both have to go 
 into black." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Your cousins, of course, — first once-removed and sec- 
 ond, I suppose they'd be, but near relations for all that. 
 Sir Joseph was your papa's first cousin." 
 
 David had lived too much abroad not to know about 
 mourning. Visions of crepe-clad families rose before him — 
 French chiefly — companies of persons garlanded with the 
 trappings of woe. A very welter of crepe ! 
 
 "But we've never — " he began. He had lost relations 
 before. 
 
 This, Betsy said, was different. 
 
 It soon became apparent that this was indeed different 
 — that everything was different, and that things were go- 
 ing to be even more different still. His reluctant mother, 
 it seemed, was really 'my lady,' and his father had amaz- 
 ingly become 'Sir John.' His mother at length explained 
 to him. 
 
 Then came the letter. It added little, materially, to the 
 information contained in the telegram. The accident had 
 happened off the west coast of Ireland. The boat had been 
 upset by a sudden squall. The bodies of Sir Joseph Pen- 
 stephen, his son, and a boatman, had been recovered the 
 next day. The bodies of the first two had been conveyed 
 to England and were to be buried in the family vault at 
 Ettringham. David's father consulted time-tables, but 
 found he could not by any means be in time for the funeral ; 
 and here was ' differentness ' at once. There had never been 
 any talk, any remotest suggestion, of his attending the 
 funeral of a relation before.
 
 ii8 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Excitement now seized all but one. It was as if Betsy's 
 excitement had infected the rest of the household. Betsy 
 had started it, as David the attack of measles which had 
 presently spread to Georgina. But measles had stopped at 
 Georgina, and excitement ran, like a cold in the head, 
 through the house, and extended itself beyond the house to 
 the tradespeople and others. Only while every one else was 
 excited, — even in a contemptuous sort of way, David's 
 father, — his mother remained grave. Almost one might 
 have supposed her frightened. 
 
 And in some subtle way which David did not under- 
 stand, in his mother's graveness as in the excitement of the 
 others, the recent absence of his parents seemed linked to 
 the news which had greeted them on their return. Betsy's 
 excitement, most of all, seemed to be the outcome of the one 
 in connection with the other. David caught scraps of what 
 was said. According to Betsy the order of things had been 
 Providential — not the actual order either, for Sir Joseph 
 and his son were dead before . . . (whatever Betsy may 
 have meant!), but the seeming order. There would have 
 been the delay if . . . Besides which it would have looked 
 so strange. Whereas . . . No, things could n't have 
 worked out better. Providential. There was no other 
 word. 
 
 Questioned afterwards by David upon these unfinished 
 and enigmatic droppings, she said, "Oh, well, it would n't 
 have looked very seemly for your papa and mamma to go 
 away after they heard the sad news, would it?" 
 
 David conceded that it would not, but he suspected a 
 parry in Betsy's answer (the more so that Betsy looked as 
 if she thought she had got out of something rather cleverly), 
 and remained, as for many years he was to remain, mysti- 
 fied and a little restive under his mystification. It was as 
 if he did not ask — did not know how to ask — the right 
 sort of questions. 
 
 When his father went to England, as he did the next day 
 after the arrival of the letter, the feeling of excitement did
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 119 
 
 not cease. His mother gave herself up to the three in the 
 nursery — had her meals with them, walked with them 
 when they went out, played with them, sang with them, 
 read to them. But were they refuge to her from her 
 thoughts? David was to ask himself that, later. The grave- 
 ness would lift from her face and she would laugh, as she 
 had laughed on the day of her return before she had heard 
 of the telegram. But always the grave look would come 
 back. Yet, in spite of it, excitement was in the air . . . 
 
 There was open talk of England now. No wonder there 
 was excitement. To David, as to Betsy, England stood for 
 the Promised Land. Every now and then David's mother 
 would say, "I don't know yet how it will be"; or, "If we do 
 settle to go back." But, "Yes, Yes, Yes," David would 
 protest at once, and, "Yes, Yes, Yes," Georgina would 
 echo, and the talk would be allowed to play round England. 
 
 " It'll mean school for you presently," his mother would 
 remind him by way of warning, if for a moment she allowed 
 herself to be infected by their spirit. An English school, 
 however, and David did n't care. 
 
 Letters began to come from his father — long letters, 
 bits of which his mother read to him, and other bits of 
 which she read to Betsy. 
 
 "It will be England," she said one day, and called David 
 to her and kissed him. 
 
 From that day it seemed no time to the day when, all 
 preparations having been made, boxes packed, bills paid, 
 the piano sent back to the shop, the family gathered itself 
 up and said good-bye to Homburg. 
 
 There were Auf wiedersehens and shakings of hands. The 
 speeding of the children's parents so lately had but fore- 
 shadowed this larger speeding. Half the street turned out 
 to see them go, and at the station was Katinka who kissed 
 and was kissed and wept. 
 
 "You come again," Frau Finkel had said, and "You 
 come again," now said Katinka.
 
 I20 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 She had brought flowers for her mistress, fruit for the 
 children, and a handkerchief for Betsy. 
 
 "I shall never forget you," David heard his mother say 
 to her. " If I ever do come back, Katinka, it will be because 
 you have helped to make me sorry to go. I leave a friend 
 behind me, I know." 
 
 Katinka could not answer. She turned to Betsy. 
 
 "Sometimes you write to me, Fraulein Betsee." 
 
 "Yes, indeed she will," said David's mother. 
 
 And so the family left Homburg. 
 
 David's father was to meet them at Dover, and there, 
 sure enough, he was, in unfamiliar black, when the Calais 
 boat came alongside. They were going to London where he 
 had taken lodgings for them. 
 
 He espied them and waved to them from the quay. 
 
 "Fancy, David, home!" 
 
 But the words were spoken so low that David hardly 
 heard them. He was wedged tight in a crowd of luggage- 
 laden passengers. His mother was beside him and, just 
 behind her, Betsy with Georgina by the hand. People's 
 umbrellas and sticks dug him in the ribs. The holland- 
 covered box, part of the burden of one of the sailors, was 
 at his elbow. The hold-all and the valise, borne by another 
 sailor, were occasionally visible as the crowd moved. Diffi- 
 cult to attend ! 
 
 Presently they were ashore, and David heard the word 
 again. His father spoke it to his mother as he greeted her. 
 
 "Welcome home, Mary." 
 
 Betsy said it too, docking it of a letter. 
 
 " 'Ome at last," was what she said. 
 
 But his mother looked stricken. 
 
 Then the novelty of everything seized David's attention 
 and held it. There were trains, there were porters, there 
 was luggage, but everything looked different and no one 
 seemed to be angry. He heard English on all sides of him
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 121 
 
 and his heart leapt. In a sort of dream as it seemed to 
 David (and perhaps to his mother) they drew in time to 
 London. In a sort of dream they rattled to their lodgings. 
 In a sort of dream they had their first English meal, and 
 went to their English beds. 
 
 Long after the children had fallen asleep their parents 
 sat talking. 
 
 "You're not sorry about Ettringham, Mary?" 
 
 He was not to have the place. That went, for her life at 
 least, to the dead man's widow. 
 
 As if it were that ! 
 
 "No, John. I'm glad. It would have been an embarrass- 
 ment to me. How should I manage a large house? It was 
 a relief to me to know that I should n't have to." 
 
 "We'll find a house." He did so want her to be happy. 
 "London, perhaps. We'll see how we like it. We shall be 
 considerably better off. There was Penstephen money that 
 Joseph could not leave away." 
 
 David's mother, who had flagged during the later stages 
 of the journey and now looked really ill, made an effort to 
 respond, and, trying to think of something to say which 
 should not voice her deadly anxiety, asked about Lady 
 Penstephen. 
 
 "Susan? Oh, she's well provided for." 
 
 "I didn't mean that." She roused herself. "Was it 
 dreadful? Is it going to be?" 
 
 "How, dreadful? Oh, her attitude. No, not dreadful at 
 all. She was putting a great restraint upon herself I could 
 see, but she was quite civil." He paused and smiled. " It 
 had been a shock to her, all the same, to hear we were 
 married. I could see that, too. She looked forward, I think, 
 to not being able to receive you." 
 
 "She can still refuse, John." 
 
 "No, Mary. She is going to receive you. She thinks it 
 her duty, I believe." 
 
 Mary Penstephen fell into reverie.
 
 122 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Was anything changed? — actually? Lady Penstephen, 
 who could n't have received her before, could receive her 
 now. She would be pointed at still, of course, pointed out, 
 talked about, but she was no longer outside the law and 
 could be met on sufferance. How strange it all was. David's 
 father proceeded. 
 
 "We're to stay there, presently," he said. "If you will 
 • — if, that is, I can prevail upon you to come. Susan is to 
 be seen receiving you. The world is to know that she does 
 receive you. The odd thing is that the ridiculous woman 
 means well." 
 
 "Is she ridiculous?" 
 
 "I think so. But I think you'll have to go, Mary. She 
 does so genuinely believe that she will be doing the right 
 thing. She will be too. That's what makes it ridicu- 
 lous." 
 
 But he wished her to go. 
 
 "Oh, I'll go, John." 
 
 As if she would not do anything to please him. He had 
 done so wonderful a thing for her — if, in view of an awful 
 possibility, so disastrous. Was not his act a negation of his 
 whole life? Yet he had not hesitated. She would do any- 
 thing — even try to be happy. He still did not ask her 
 what ailed her, for he knew, or thought he knew. Was there 
 not that which neither of them had said, though each knew 
 that the other must have thought of it? Impossible that 
 the unspoken thing should have escaped either of them. 
 Even Betsy, determined as she was to see nothing but good 
 in the family's changed fortunes, must have come face to 
 face with it in the first five minutes of her excitement. 
 
 He tried to distract her thoughts with talk of the future. 
 Years, after all, were long. He himself comparatively 
 young. He went back to the question of the house. The 
 first thing to do, or one of the first things, was to settle 
 where they wished to live. There was all England to choose 
 from — all the world for that matter — but actually all 
 England.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 123 
 
 "For we've finished with the Continent," he said, hop- 
 ing to please her. 
 
 But it seemed to her, looking back across the present 
 dread anxieties, that the years of the wandering had been 
 not unhappy years. 
 
 "There are places I shall want to see again," she said, 
 partly to gain time. "Oh, a great many, I shall certainly 
 want to go back some day to Homburg." 
 
 Yes, Homburg had treated her well. Homburg had made 
 her happy, if it had also dealt her its blow and made her 
 very unhappy. 
 
 "We'll go back some day to Homburg." 
 
 It was no use. The talk languished. There was a long 
 pause. 
 
 "John, I'm so frightened," she said at last. 
 
 He took her hand in his. The thing had to be spoken, 
 then? Better, perhaps, that it should be. 
 
 '♦Yes," he said. "David. I know." 
 
 But he did not know, and the knowledge that he did not 
 and that she had to tell him, froze what she had been about 
 to say on her lips. He was silent for a moment or two, 
 gently pressing the hand he held. There was so little that 
 he could say that would avail anything. 
 
 "Mary, we could not have foreseen." He had to take 
 refuge in that. These wretched little dignities that had so 
 complicated things ! What could have been unlikelier than 
 that he should ever succeed? "We just did not know. We 
 have to remember that we could n't have known. Noth- 
 ing 's changed really, though everything seems to be." 
 
 He looked at her, questioning her with his eyes, but she 
 did not speak. 
 
 "I don't withdraw from anything that I have held," he 
 said then. That was a challenge. 
 
 But still she did not speak. She could not or would not 
 tell him whether or not she withdrew. 
 
 "Our children," he heard himself saying, "were born
 
 124 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 outside no laws except the arbitrary laws of men's making. 
 They were born in wedlock, Mary, whatever men may say, 
 or may say that wedlock means. You've only to look at 
 them to know that — love-children in the truest sense of an 
 ill-used word — love-children, as all children should be. 
 Isn't it so, Mary?" 
 
 She nodded to that. 
 
 "Oh, in that sense, yes." 
 
 But she gave him no help. She hardly knew, herself, what 
 she thought. All that she knew was that if she had had her 
 life over again, nothing — no love, no passion, no faith 
 even — would have induced her to do what she had done. 
 
 "What then, Mary?" 
 
 She wanted her hands to put over her eyes, but he held 
 one of them and she would not draw it away. She bent 
 her head over the hand that was free and buried her face in 
 the hollow of her wrist. 
 
 "Our marriage," she said at last. 
 
 He thought he had not heard her aright. 
 
 " It's as if by protecting ourselves we had pushed David 
 further outside the law than he was before. Oh, he is out- 
 side it, John, whatever we tell ourselves. You and I know, 
 perhaps, but who else? And I 've defeated my own purpose. 
 It was n't all for my own peace of mind. I 'd been wretched, 
 I know, but it was n't only for myself. It was because they 
 were outside. I thought that people would forget in time. 
 I thought that when it could n't be said any longer that we 
 were defying opinion — " She broke off. He pressed the 
 hand he held more tightly. "And they would have for- 
 gotten. In time the four of us would have been taken for 
 granted. But now it will always be remembered against 
 David that he can't succeed you. And, oh, John, it may be 
 worse than that — much, much worse." She raised her 
 head and met his eyes in a long look. " I 've been afraid for 
 some days," she said. "I'd been ill — I might have been 
 mistaken. But now I 'm almost sure." 
 ■-- There was a longer pause than before. The breath
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 125 
 
 seemed to go out of her body, and it was in a voice that 
 was scarcely audible that she spoke next. 
 
 "If it's a boy, John, I hope I shall die." 
 
 So David's mother in the wretched night that should 
 have been so happy. 
 
 But David slept dreamlessly, to wake in the morning to 
 new and wonderful adventure — the adventure of unex- 
 plored England.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 These, then, were the circumstances in which the strangely 
 placed family landed on the shores of England. Small 
 wonder if the heart of one of them was heavy with dread. 
 
 It was now, however, that the influence of David made 
 itself felt. For to him the adventure of England was stu- 
 pendous — the adventure of London — and, infecting his 
 mother with his young excitement at a time when every 
 influence mattered, he may be said perhaps to have saved 
 her. Impossible, though skies were to fall to-morrow, to be 
 with David in London to-day and give way to despondency. 
 She suffered herself to fall under the spell of his rapture. 
 England. London. His wildest dream. He had fervour 
 enough for them both. 
 
 Yes, for David at least the adventure was immeasurable. 
 It began with what he thought of as the differentness — 
 difference a word that would not in the least have expressed 
 what he meant! — quite different bread; quite different 
 rooms and furniture; quite different windows; quite differ- 
 ent sights to be seen through them: carriages, carts, people. 
 It went on to the shops, taking everything else on its way. 
 There was a grocer's, for instance, where it chanced that 
 his mother bought tea the day after the arrival. No buy- 
 ing of tea had been quite like this. First two separate 
 papers, an inner and an outer, were spread upon the 
 counter. Then a canister from a row of canisters was 
 lightly swung down and held beneath the salesman's right 
 arm, while with his left hand he twisted off the most beau- 
 tifully fitting lid. Then scales which hung on a little pulley 
 overhead were drawn downwards, the weighing rapidly 
 but very accurately accomplished — a little more, a little 
 less, still a little less — the tea poured from the scales on
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 127 
 
 to the papers waiting to receive it, the scales, one inside the 
 other now, sent flying back to mid air where they swung 
 themselves to gradual repose, the lid clapped on to the can- 
 ister, the canister hoisted ever so lightly back to its place 
 in the row of canisters ; and the process of the wrapping up 
 began. Fascinating, absorbing, the process of the wrapping 
 up — from the preliminary indentation made with the 
 finger in the exact middle of the pyramid, to the moment 
 when, the rituals of the folding, the propping on one end, 
 the smoothing, the turning over, the refolding, having all 
 been gone through in undeviating order — David was wit- 
 ness to the processes on numberless occasions — the sales- 
 man, who from being just the 'man at the tea counter* 
 became in course of time Mr. King and was waited for if 
 he was serving other customers, snapped the string with a 
 sudden jerk, put the parcel down beside others, and, lean- 
 ing deferentially forward, waited the name and the nature 
 of what was then always called the Next Article. 
 
 And all this against an engaging background of neat 
 purple rectangular parcels containing white sugar, and neat 
 blue triangular ones containing brown! 
 
 Or the day's shoppings would take these great adven- 
 turers to a draper's, and David would see such common- 
 place things as buttons become wonderful because they 
 were sewn on to enchanting sheets of gold or of silver; to 
 remind him of the golds and the silvers of Grimm. Or he 
 would see ribands that were rolled on large reels or even 
 cardboard wheels, from which, the 'matching' being ef- 
 fected, they would be rapidly pulled in lengths till enough 
 lay upon the counter to allow of the measuring. One, two, 
 three — three and a half yards: snip! then, wind, wind, 
 wind, from thumb to little finger, the hand moving like a 
 shuttle, and it is time in turn for the draper's And the Next 
 Article! (A confusion of ideas at this period left David, 
 hearing of many things for the first time in his life, with a 
 vague impression that, of conceivable or at any rate likely 
 articles, there were exactly thirty-nine !)
 
 128 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Or he would see the coloured borders, not meant to be 
 used, which finished-off the blackest of black silks; or the 
 brilliant arabesques that ornamented a mere label. Noth- 
 ing was too trivial to be interesting. There were sights, 
 there were sounds, there were rituals. There was some- 
 thing to be got, if you were receptive, from the mere way 
 in which the fiat rolls of silk or calico or flannel, or what 
 was comprehensively known as Material, were flopped 
 down on to the counter, and flopped over and over in the 
 unrolling; from (again) the measuring — so many rapid 
 loopings from end to end of the marked yard at the back of 
 the counter; from the ultimate exquisite horror of the tear- 
 ing. Yes, even the draper's shop yielded its secrets (which 
 were its mysteries) to the enthralled little boy. 
 
 And there were secrets which were mysteries waiting for 
 him everywhere — in the streets, in the parks, in the grey 
 river. . , . 
 
 Thus, you see, and thus, so that, through David, de- 
 vouring London with wide eyes, his mother was induced 
 or even obliged to keep hold on life at a time when her 
 grasp was like to have been relaxed. No uncertainty pres- 
 ently. The thing was decreed; and David, supporting her, 
 strengthening her, contributed, as she in darker moments, 
 we may be sure, did not fail to perceive, to the well-being 
 of that potential life which some day might shadow his 
 own. . . . 
 
 But it would not shadow his own. The worst was to be 
 spared her. She was sure of it. As she became accustomed 
 to the idea of what had filled her with such dismay, so did 
 the conviction grow with her that, in this at least, the fates 
 would prove compassionate. Her spirits recovered them- 
 selves. She sang "II segretto per esser felice" to the yellow- 
 keyed piano in the drawing-room. Her child — oh, this 
 would be granted to her if nothing else in all her life! — 
 would be a girl.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 129 
 
 Meanwhile, with the shoppings and sight-seeings, were 
 house-huntings; a visit to the Depository in Baker Street, 
 where, all these years, the furniture with which they had 
 started what she always thought of as their married life, 
 had been stored; visits to dealers; a sale or two — a very 
 busy husband. Then a house having been found (in Cheyne 
 Walk) and given over to plumbers, painters, and paper 
 hangers, and August by this being half through, a sojourn 
 of some weeks at the seaside. In October came the move in, 
 and after that a month or so of the process known as set- 
 tling down. Their Christmas dinner — they had always 
 bowed so far to convention as to have one — was eaten, in 
 no picnic fashion, amongst their own household gods, each 
 now in its place. 
 
 Peace again; the fear strangely lulled; Mary, perhaps, 
 in the dream which was David's. Peace, anyway; a home 
 for her children; passive days of waiting. Afterwards she 
 looked back on these days with wonder. The house oc- 
 cupied her. That she should have one — and in England ! 
 Perhaps she might always have had one? Perhaps Betsy 
 had been right about London, where you did not indeed 
 know so much as the names of your neighbours. No, 
 marriage had made a difference — or was it only that she 
 no longer looked for the averted eye or the more deadly 
 stare? If so the change was in herself. But though she 
 knew presently that the change was indeed partly in her- 
 self, she saw very plainly that marriage had made a very 
 considerable difference. The leper cleansed, no longer the 
 heralding cry, but no longer, also, the anticipative parting 
 of the crowd. What taint remained was retrospective. . . . 
 
 There were clear shining frosty days that winter. You 
 came in from your walk to cheerful firelit rooms. There 
 was often rime on the trees. There came a very cold spell, 
 and blocks of ice floated down the river. The windows were 
 for the river; the river and its craft for the windows. David
 
 I30 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 never tired of watching the barges. And after the cold 
 spell, a warm. The ice disappeared, and the gulls, which 
 came inland for shelter, went back to the sea; but there 
 were always the boats and the barges; always the long 
 windows through which to see them. Except when the fogs 
 came, and the fogs came too; and David liked even the fogs. 
 
 Here Betsy applauded him. She was proud of them. 
 "Something they can't do," she said, "in your Frances and 
 Italics. Just nasty wet mists when they try. These are 
 fogs. There's fogs here that you would n't believe not if I 
 was to tell you. I'm London born and I know." 
 
 The fogs with the rest. And all the time things going 
 on out of sight — in the womb of time, in the womb of the 
 sleeping earth. The first snowdrops presently, for outward 
 and visible sign; the first crocus. 
 
 David's father came and went. The servants said, Yes, 
 Sir John, and No, Sir John, and hurried to do his bidding. 
 David's mother, smiling a little to herself, believed in her 
 heart of hearts that he liked it. She could smile over this 
 little weakness as yet. He had spoken of his tuppenny 
 'handle' — the tuppenny honours which his cousins' death 
 had conferred upon him — but she could see that he found 
 such honours easy. She was well content, and saw him go 
 backwards and forwards, as we say, between Cheyne Walk 
 and Ettringham without misgiving. Her own visit had not 
 been paid yet — at first because house-hunting and settling 
 in had made it difficult to arrange, and then for other 
 reasons. It would be best now to wait till after — well, 
 till she should be quite strong again. Meanwhile Susan, 
 whom she could never think of otherwise than as Lady Pen- 
 stephen — the real Lady Penstephen — had written and 
 had written kindly. 
 
 So time went on. She was well; she was ailing; she was 
 well. On the whole she was well. It was when she was not 
 well that the dark moments came in which the fixed idea
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 131 
 
 which was sustaining her seemed not fixed at all. At such 
 moments if her eyes fell on David they would be full of a 
 very frenzy of remorse. Years afterwards David recalling 
 such a look comprehended it. 
 
 A dame-school now for David, who forthwith grew and 
 expanded, adding new words to his vocabulary. His mo- 
 ther, in view of his history and his somewhat unusual bring- 
 ing-up, had some qualms as to what might lie in store for 
 him, but he fitted quite comfortably into his niche, and 
 nothing of any importance happened to make his tenure 
 of it insecure or to make her uncomfortable. Some trifling 
 difficulties arose in connection with his religious teaching, 
 but a few concessions on both sides, his parents' and that 
 of the lady who kept the school (and who Sir Johned Da- 
 vid's father, and Lady Penstephened his mother, almost as 
 much as the obsequious servants) brought matters to an 
 amicable agreement. David might 'learn' what was called 
 Divinity, but must have no dogmatic instruction. His 
 music lesson — Miss Doubleday with the pink fingers — 
 was made to clash conveniently with the inconvenient half 
 hour. Such things could generally be arranged. 
 
 But every time John came back from Ettringham, Mary 
 was conscious of some little modification of his attitude 
 toward the world he had professed to despise. He no longer 
 spoke of Susan as ridiculous. She upon her part seemed to 
 have reconsidered him. Circumstances in connection with 
 the settlement of the estate had at first necessitated his 
 presence two or three times at Ettringham, and she had got 
 into the way of relying upon his advice. Insensibly he 
 slipped into the position which, in less unusual conditions, 
 would naturally have been his, as her nearest male con- 
 nection. He had hated his own family and had lumped her 
 in with it. He was inclined, perhaps, to believe that he had 
 done her an injustice! Mary saw the change come gradu- 
 ally, and still saw nothing in it to alarm her.
 
 132 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Her dream held her. The time was getting near now. A 
 girl child. Another Georgina. What stores of love she had 
 waiting for her — love that would be the greater in that it 
 could never rival the love which she had for David her 
 first-born. Her heart was large enough for the precious 
 three that had made up her world hitherto. It would be 
 large enough for this fourth. 
 
 " Betsy, she'll have my David's eyes, and she'll be round 
 and soft and firm too, like my little Georgina." 
 
 "If she's like her mother she'll have all the eyes and all 
 the figure she need have. And she will be." 
 
 "No, she'll have her father's figure. She'll be tall later 
 — soft and round at first. Sometimes I see her quite 
 clearly. I can't tell you whether she's dark or fair." 
 
 " I should like her to be very fair, m* lady. And yet again 
 I don't know. Neither one nor the other, 'm, perhaps. She '11 
 be a beauty whichever it is. Not a doubt about that." 
 
 This sort of talk; not a word of a man child. Nor was 
 it foolishness on the part of David's mother. It was a 
 species of faith — a blind belief that, in this supreme in- 
 stance, the powers that be would not fail her. It was as if 
 she had been promised a daughter, as the Mary of Maries 
 had been promised a Son. And so to within a day or two 
 of the child's birth. Then at the last, at the eleventh hour, 
 her heart failed her. No one knew or could know — she 
 as little as the least concerned. In vain that Betsy kept 
 her bolstering attitude. In vain that she pleaded the long 
 months of unshaken — scarcely shaken — conviction. In- 
 comprehensible now the feeling of security which had sus- 
 tained her. She had cried peace to herself when there had 
 been no peace. What had she to go upon? Nothing. True 
 she had believed that the being who came to be David 
 would be a boy. And Georgina — she had hoped for a girl 
 when Georgina was born. But what were these but idle 
 guessings? You must be right or wrong. She had chanced 
 to be right. No, the hazards were appalling. She felt as if 
 she had been trapped or betrayed or overtaken. And while
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 133 
 
 she had slumbered time had gone steadily on. There was 
 nothing that she could have done, yet she felt as if every 
 moment she had spent calmly had been a moment lost. 
 
 "What am I to do, Betsy? What am I to do?" 
 
 "Don't excite yourself, m'lady. Oh, it'll be all right. 
 You'll see." 
 
 "Ah, you mean whatever happens," said her mistress. 
 "And it can't be — don't you see, either of you? You, 
 Betsy, or Sir John? If it's a boy there's David ... It 
 must be a girl, and it won't be. Oh, I know that now, and 
 I've deceived myself all these months." 
 
 The doctor was warned that night and the nurse was in- 
 stalled before the morning. Anxiety then, a hushed house, 
 a room to be passed on tiptoe. Straw presently in the road 
 outside — most surprising straw which Georgina at least 
 would have liked to play in. 
 
 Horrible anxiety; mysteries; terrors. Then an announce- 
 ment more surprising to the children than even the straw. 
 They — and somehow particularly David (as it seemed to 
 David) — had a little brother. 
 
 Was that, David asked, why his mother had been ill? 
 
 Yes, that, it seemed, after the briefest pause on the part 
 of Betsy, was why his mother had been ill. But she was 
 better, and, please God, was very soon going to be well. 
 Later in the day David was allowed to peep at her and at 
 his baby brother. His mother whispered something to him, 
 but so low that he did not hear it.
 
 THE SECOND BOOK OF 
 DAVID
 
 BOOK THE SECOND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Changes after that. You could n't quite say what they 
 were — just changes. It was from then that David, as it 
 seemed to him later, began his growing up. Looking back 
 he would have said oflf-hand that there had been little in- 
 terval before he was at school in earnest, but, as he did not 
 leave his dame-school till he was eleven, nearly three years 
 must have passed before this change came for him. 
 Changes for all that — odd little indefinable things. Betsy 
 becomes dim at this point. There was always something 
 in her arms. Betsy's arms were not less open to David or 
 Georgina, but Johnny was there you see already. Also 
 David himself had less need of them. Georgina, encased 
 in comfortable fat and now boldly growing, had always 
 been self-sufficing. David's father was certainly changing. 
 That had something to do with Johnny, who had the same 
 importance in his eyes as in the eyes of the impressed and 
 impassioned Betsy. The person who was not changed was 
 David's mother. She loved Johnny, but he did not fill her 
 arms somehow as he filled Betsy's. David, quite unaware 
 that he needed solace of any sort soever, found and provided 
 solace there. 
 
 Then a notable sign of change — for David's mother. 
 David, even if he had known of it, would not have grasped 
 its significance. It was after one of the visits to Ettringham 
 that David's father spoke, out of a fidgety silence. Silences 
 were not usually fidgety with David's father. He had 
 something to say and presently said so. 
 
 "Yes, John." 
 
 He was intent upon the newspaper which he was folding 
 and unfolding, or he would have seen that she looked at 
 him curiously.
 
 138 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "It's about Baby." 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 He did not speak for a moment or two, and then Mary 
 spoke for him. 
 
 "You want to have him baptised." 
 
 "Mary!" he said; and then, as she looked at him, "How 
 did you know?" 
 
 "I don't know," she said. "I just did know." 
 
 There was silence again after that — a silence no longer 
 fidgety (he had put down the paper), yet not quite tranquil. 
 
 "Susan was talking to me. You know how she would 
 regard this — " 
 
 "Yes. How every one would regard it. Not only Susan." 
 
 "She more than most people. Yes, she more than most. 
 It's bred in the bone with her — part of her. It's such a 
 little thing." 
 
 "Is it, John?" 
 
 "Well, to us. To her it's a very big thing. Do you 
 think we might please her?" 
 
 "There are godparents," Mary said. "What about god- 
 parents?" 
 
 "We discussed that. She offered to stand godmother 
 herself." 
 
 "And the godfathers? A boy has two." 
 
 "Well, that was a difficulty. I told her I would n't ask 
 any of my relations. She said she would undertake to find 
 me godfathers." 
 
 "One might like to know something of one's child's 
 godparents." 
 
 "Oh, she had General Burke in her mind, I fancy, from 
 what she said. He's known me all my life. He's a neigh- 
 bour. And she spoke of Archdeacon Eversley who is a very 
 old friend of the family." 
 
 Archdeacons ; old friends ; the return to the fold was un- 
 compromising. 
 
 "It's just Baby?" 
 
 "How do you mean?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 139 
 
 "She did n't speak of David and Georgina?" 
 
 "Their names did n't come up." 
 
 "Their souls should be as precious, John, from her point 
 of view, if . . ." 
 
 She did not finish. 
 
 "She was talking of Baby." 
 
 "It's different too, isn't it?" There was the first note 
 of bitterness in her voice that he had perhaps ever heard 
 there — if, indeed, he heard it now. 
 
 "You see it's the usual thing. She asked me when it 
 was to be? She took it for granted, you see. It was when 
 I hesitated — " 
 
 "You did hesitate." 
 
 "I was taken a little unawares." 
 
 Mary finished the work she had in hand — she was 
 darning a hole in one of David's stockings — and put it 
 away. 
 
 "Yes, John," she said. "I don't know that I have any 
 objection." 
 
 "Thank you, Mary." 
 
 She saw that he thanked her for raising no difficulty in 
 pleasing Susan. 
 
 "John," she said, more in her own voice, "what about 
 David and Georgina — ?" 
 
 He had been about to go out of the room — perhaps with 
 the intention of writing to Susan at once. He paused at the 
 door. 
 
 "If Baby," she said, "why not they?" 
 
 There was no reason except — yes, there was a reason. 
 Baby would be christened in the usual course. Baby was 
 so many weeks old. But David and Georgina. Now and 
 here? Would it not be raking up the whole thing over 
 again? There were the servants. There was any one at all 
 who might see or might hear. 
 
 Mary said no more. 
 
 David's father wrote to Susan that night. The answer 
 to his letter came to Mary.
 
 I40 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Might not, Lady Penstephen wrote, the christening take 
 place at Ettringham, and would not Mary pay her the long- 
 deferred visit now? Would not Mary and John give her 
 this pleasure? Mary, from her place behind the tea-urn, 
 handed him the letter in silence. 
 
 "Will you, Mary?" 
 
 "Yes, John, of course." 
 
 " She speaks of next week. Can you be ready by then? " 
 
 " I can be ready at once." 
 
 "Then write and say Monday. It will please her that 
 we should choose the earliest day. We'll go from Monday 
 to Thursday. That will leave us Friday and Saturday if 
 we want to stay on. Betsy can be ready, I suppose?" 
 
 "Betsy will be ready. She'll be as pleased as you are, 
 John." 
 
 He laughed a little. 
 
 "Yes. I don't deny that I'm pleased. If my httle son 
 is to be christened" (he avoided the other word, the word 
 Mary had used), " I should like it to be there. There have 
 been Penstephens at Ettringham for a good many years. 
 That goes for something, does n't it, even in these days. 
 And," he added, " I greatly want Susan to know you." 
 
 Betsy was sent for. 
 
 She was as excited as her mistress had expected. 
 
 "You'll let me come with you to choose the christening 
 robe, won't you 'm — won't you, m'lady? It did really 
 want but this, did n't it? And he'll be as good as gold. 
 You'll see. Yes, my precious, you 're going to Ettringham, 
 There's for you!" 
 
 There was no difificulty about David and Georgina. 
 Betsy had a most efficient helper now in one called Ellen. 
 She, with Matilda the good-natured and competent house- 
 maid, would look after them and make them quite happy 
 in her superior's absence. Their mother had no misgivings 
 on their account. Yet it was with a heart that was not 
 wholly unsore that she set out for the home of their father's 
 fathers.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 141 
 
 Ettringham, as the home of the Penstephens, should, by 
 the rule of the Tre-, Pol-, and Pen-, have been in Cornwall. 
 It was, however, in the Midlands whither a branch of the 
 Cornish family had migrated in the early part of the 
 seventeenth century. The oldest portions of the house 
 were Tudor; to the newest Early Victoria had contributed. 
 
 Externally the result might be a little perplexing. In- 
 ternally the house was very gracious, had a pleasant at- 
 mosphere, and, thanks, rather to Victoria than to James 
 or Anne or even the Georges, was solidly comfortable. 
 There was a small park round it ; or, more accurately speak- 
 ing there was park-land, for what should have been park 
 was divided up into fields which the late master, who did 
 a little farming on his own account, had used for pasture. 
 This, with some farms and the gardens in which Lady Pen- 
 stephen took her pride, comprised the estate. 
 
 For Mary, Ettringham began at the station where she and 
 John with Betsy and the sleeping child were met, and where 
 something in the look of the waiting carriage, the sleek 
 horses, the imposing Penstephen liveries, made a curious 
 impression upon her. 
 
 Just what this impression was she could not have said. 
 The things themselves seemed to stand for solidity, the 
 established order. The very footman, touching his hat and 
 carrying her dressing bag, was, in his long coat with the 
 silver buttons, less a servant than a symbol of dignified 
 service, and not of dignified service only, but, by implica- 
 tion, of the dignity of that which was served. A propos the 
 thought came to her cruelly that in her own case (and more 
 unhappily the case of her children) the symbol would have 
 had to be a commissionnaire I She shook the thought from 
 her. 
 
 The footman was putting the dressing-case into the 
 carriage beside Betsy. 
 
 "The luggage will follow in the cart, my lady. Yes, Sir 
 John, her ladyship is very well thank you. No, Sir John, 
 her ladyship is alone, except of course for Miss Ingoldby."
 
 142 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 The carriage — a landau — was very comfortable. The 
 drive was through a flat but very pleasing country, well- 
 wooded and well-farmed. David's father talked, pointing 
 out this and that, and Mary, a little nervous now, answered 
 intermittently. But she was seeing; beginning, she thought, 
 even to understand. 
 
 "We shall pass the village of Ettringham in a minute. 
 There 's the church through the trees — a Norman tower. 
 I don't know whether the ceremony will be there or in the 
 house." 
 
 "Baby's equal to anything," said Betsy complacently. 
 "If it was immersion even, he would n't mind." 
 
 "Oh, the sprinkling of a few drops of water," said 
 David's father. "What is it?" 
 
 "No, sir," nodded Betsy. 
 
 "Here is the lodge. But we're not there yet. Look, 
 Mary. Is n't it a pretty house? There used to be the 
 sternest old woman in it when I used to stay here as a boy. 
 She frightened me every time she opened the gates. Good- 
 ness, the austerity of those days! Goodness! Goodness!" 
 
 A buxom young woman opened the gates now. She curt- 
 seyed cheerfully. 
 
 "I'm glad you should see these rhododendrons in flower," 
 said David's father. "I always remember what they look 
 like. There's a quarter of a mile of them. There were rhodo- 
 dendrons at Cheddington too" (the home of the Calvinist 
 uncle where his own repressed boyhood had passed) — "I 
 used to wonder they were allowed there ..." He broke off. 
 
 Mary shuddered — remembering many things. 
 
 "It must have been dreadful!" she said. 
 
 "Beauty wasn't thought right, at Cheddington. Here 
 it was a little difl'erent — though not so very. Beauty then 
 was n't thought quite right anywhere in what were called 
 religious circles. Ettringham was austere enough in my 
 uncle's time — though at Cheddington I don't think even 
 he was thought to be quite sound. You could n't quench 
 the spirit of Ettringham, that was all. Cheddington, except
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 143 
 
 for the rhododendrons, had no spirit — no beauty anyway 
 — to quench. You'll see the house in a moment. It's an 
 odd jumble but there's something about it ... " 
 
 There was. Mary's heart warmed to it when she saw. 
 
 The baby was awake now. His father leaned towards him. 
 
 "Lift him up, Betsy. I want him to see. I want my son 
 to see Ettringham." 
 
 Betsy complied proudly. It was only a way of speaking, 
 of course, for Johnny took notice as yet of nothing at 
 wider range than arm's length. With exhortations and 
 encouragement she was duly shewn, then, what he did not 
 see. 
 
 David's mother sat back in the shadow. 
 
 A few minutes later the carriage had drawn up at the 
 door. Its approach had been heard, and a butler and 
 another footman were already on the steps. 
 
 Lady Penstephen rose from a low chair as they were an- 
 nounced. Of the two Lady Penstephens it was she who 
 appeared the more nervous, though, even as Mary observed 
 this, she saw that the frail little woman in the widow's 
 cap could, none the less, be formidable. She seemed un- 
 certain whether to kiss her or not, and when she decided 
 to do so Mary had drawn back a little, so that there was 
 the slightest pause before her greeting was complete. She 
 turned to John as to some one with whom she was at ease, 
 and then back to Mary, asking her about her journey, but 
 somehow giving the impression that she was still address- 
 ing John. 
 
 "You'd like some tea now, and then to be shewn to your 
 rooms. You will find my arrangements comfortable, I 
 hope. The room I have made the nursery is quite near 
 yours — just across the passage. You know the rooms, 
 John. Yours and Mary's is the one you have always had. 
 There's a sitting-room ofT it on one side, you may remem- 
 ber, where you '11 like perhaps to write your letters, and the
 
 144 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 dressing-room's the other. Your son bore the journey well? 
 That's right! I'll come up and see him when you've had 
 some tea. Now, let me give you some tea — Oh, I 'm just 
 waiting for the tea-pot, I see. If you kindly ring that bell, 
 John. Ah, here it is." 
 
 No, on second thoughts Mary did not think she was 
 nervous. She remembered a phrase or two of John's after 
 his first visit. "She was putting a great restraint upon her- 
 self I could see that ..." "She had been a little dis- 
 appointed, I think, to hear we were married . . ." "She had 
 looked forward, I think, to not being able to receive you . . ." 
 
 The tea, which Mary welcomed for its own sake, eased 
 the situation a little. John was talking now. Mary, drink- 
 ing her tea and answering her hostess's enquiries, became 
 conscious, though the stiffness was there, that kindliness 
 underlay it. 
 
 "I thought we would be alone for this evening. To- 
 morrow one or two people are coming to dinner — just 
 quietly — General Burke, whom you '11 like to talk to, as 
 he's to be one of the godfathers, and my dear old Arch- 
 deacon Eversley. When you come to me next I shall hope 
 to give some dinner-parties for you. I think I told you, 
 John, I should have wished it even now if there had been 
 time, for I would n't have allowed the consideration of my 
 mourning, which would be a selfish one in this case, to in- 
 terfere with what should be done in your honour. However, 
 as I say, there has n't been time, and I promise myself this 
 pleasure for your next visit." 
 
 Mary, who knew how carefully the guests would have 
 had to be chosen and how discreetly approached, thought 
 she was glad to be spared the dinner-parties. She accepted 
 at once, however, the kindness of the intention. She could 
 see this stiff, odd, little woman taking infinite trouble. She 
 murmured her thanks rather than spoke them and was 
 grateful to John who answered for her. 
 
 "It's very good of you, Susan. It would have been out 
 of the question now. But later, later."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 145 
 
 "It will be better later," said Lady Penstephen. 
 A door opened just then at the further end of the room 
 and another lady entered. This was Miss Ingoldby, who 
 had been governess to Lady Penstephen's dead son when 
 he had been a small boy, and who had lived on at Ettring- 
 ham since, as his mother's companion. She was a dumpy, 
 round-about, good-tempered person in spectacles and a 
 garden hat, and, the spectacles and the garden hat some- 
 how helping, she relieved the tension at once. She was pre- 
 sented to Mary and shook hands with John. 
 "I long," she said, "to see Baby." 
 
 Presently a move was made. Lady Penstephen — 
 Susan — led the way. She was a little lame and walked 
 slowly. She was probably not much more than fifty but 
 looked, as was indeed almost the custom then with middle- 
 aged people, some ten or even fifteen years older than 
 her age. Her voluminous crepe skirts swept the polished 
 floors. 
 
 "I don't know," she said, "whether you're fond of 
 pictures. Some of these portraits are supposed to be good." 
 She paused before a picture as she spoke. 
 "Since I 've known John here I 've thought this very like 
 him. It's an Edward Penstephen — his, let me see, his 
 great-great-grandfather — yes, his grandfather's grand- 
 father, that would be it. I get mixed among the greats. 
 Do you see what I mean? — in the eyes, I think, and per- 
 haps the mouth. If you stand here — no, a little more to 
 the left. The light's bad. Draw that curtain a little. That's 
 better. Now stand beside it, John." 
 
 Yes, Mary saw. But her eyes had fallen on something 
 else. Yes, she quite saw, she said. The mouth particularly. 
 But that one? 
 
 "Oh, that?" said Lady Penstephen without interest. 
 "That's another Edward Penstephen." 
 
 They proceeded. In the room which had been tem- 
 porarily made into a nursery they found Betsy and the 
 baby, surrounded by a little group of women servants who
 
 146 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 had gathered to do homage. This group vanished as if by 
 magic as the other appeared, 
 
 Betsy rose and made obeisance. 
 
 "Now," said Lady Penstephen, "let us have a look at 
 him." 
 
 Betsy's face was one huge beam. 
 
 Lady Penstephen looked long. She touched the round 
 cheeks then and the little pink hands. The little pink 
 fingers closed round one of hers. At that point she turned 
 away. 
 
 "He does us all credit," she said to Mary. 
 
 Miss Ingoldby said more, yet less somehow than she. 
 
 John was delighted. 
 
 "Couldn't be better," he said when they were alone. 
 "She likes you, too, Mary, I can see that. She accepts us 
 both. After all, one has to remember that from their point 
 of view there was something to swallow." 
 
 "Yes," Mary said, "there was indeed something to 
 swallow." 
 
 "Well, it's swallowed," said John. 
 
 Mary was n't so sure. She was still feeling a little sore. 
 It hurt her somehow to see John himself so well satisfied. 
 Betsy's satisfaction she could understand — though even 
 Betsy's . . . no, not even Betsy's satisfaction was entirely 
 comprehensible. 
 
 "Oh, David," she said to herself, "oh, David, and oh, 
 my little Georgina." 
 
 It was as if they belonged to the years of the wandering, 
 and the years of the wandering were to be wiped out — as 
 if that, the wiping out, was to be the sign and the earnest 
 of her rehabilitation. What had come to John that he 
 should suffer it to be so? There was, one at least must 
 think, no need for this rehabilitation if what they had done 
 had been right. And if what they had done had been wrong 
 all along, then — but even she, accustomed to sorrows, 
 could not face the sorrow that lay there. 
 
 And then she saw that she was not putting the case quite
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 147 
 
 fairly. Had she not admitted, a moment before, that from 
 Susan's point of view — the accepted point of view — 
 there was much to get over? The thing was self-evident, 
 and why had she come at all if she was not going to be 
 reasonable? Why had it hurt her that her baby, whom she 
 so tenderly loved, should be shewn Ettringham, and be 
 shewn in turn to Ettringham? Why should Lady Pen- 
 stephen's approval, wound her too? 
 
 "Betsy." 
 
 "Yes, 'm." 
 
 Betsy could never quite get out of the old ways. 
 
 "May I have him now?" 
 
 "While I unpack, m'lady. I was going to lay him in the 
 cradle. Have you seen it, 'm? Look. Cupids, don't they call 
 them, holding a great shell. They say it has held a French 
 king. Well, Baby 's worthy of it, that's all I 've got to say." 
 
 "Give him to me," said his mother.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 "It is curious," said John as they went down to dinner, 
 "that you should have noticed that picture." They were 
 passing it then, — the Httle portrait which Mary had re- 
 marked while Lady Penstephen was pointing out the big 
 one. 
 
 There was nothing particular about it except that it bore 
 a likeness to David — or rather that David bore a likeness 
 to it. 
 
 "It would have been more curious if I had n't. You had 
 seen it too! Why did n't Lady Penstephen — " She broke 
 off. "Had you spoken of it?" 
 
 "Yes. It struck me greatly." 
 
 Then she had not been mistaken. Lady Penstephen had 
 not responded. 
 
 "What's the matter, Mary?" 
 
 "Nothing," she said. "Nothing. What should be?" 
 
 "I thought you— " 
 
 He did not say what he had thought, not quite knowing 
 perhaps, but he looked at her a little anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, no," she said. 
 
 A door opened in the corridor at hand and Miss In- 
 goldby appeared. The three went down together. Mary 
 admired the hall — darkish now in the light of its oil 
 lamps. 
 
 "Yes, it's a dear house," said Miss Ingcldby. "You'll 
 like it more when you see it in full daylight. It's been ex- 
 traordinarily pulled about — you'll see what I mean when 
 Lady Penstephen takes you over it. It has been altered, 
 and added to, and pulled down, and rebuilt, and restored, 
 and goodness knows what else, and yet it is harmonious." 
 
 Lady Penstephen was down before them. She put a 
 marker into her book as they came in, and took off her
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 149 
 
 spectacles. These she slipped into a case which hung at 
 her side. Mary came to know the peculiar look-down 
 which accompanied this action. 
 
 " I hope your rooms are comfortable and that your nurse 
 has all that she wants. She seems a nice woman." 
 
 "Betsy? I don't know what we should do without her. 
 Yes, everything she could possibly want, thank you." 
 
 Lady Penstephen turned to John. 
 
 "The Archdeacon told me he had heard from you," she 
 said. "You wrote to General Burke too?" 
 
 "Yes, at once. It's really very good of him. Very good 
 of them both." 
 
 "Your little son is to be congratulated on his godfathers. 
 Two good men," she said to Mary. 
 
 Mary at that moment could not speak. It was John who 
 said, "On his godparents. I count him luckiest of all in his 
 godmother." 
 
 "Oh, me," said Lady Penstephen. "Ah, well. He must 
 make the best of me." 
 
 Dinner was announced now and the party proceeded to 
 the dining-room. 
 
 "To-morrow," Lady Penstephen said to John, "you will 
 take the end of the table. To-night I want you beside me. 
 One on each side of me." She motioned Mary to her right. 
 "That's it." 
 
 Mary had been hungry. Her late tea had not taken the 
 edge off her modest appetite. But now she was not hungry. 
 Lady Penstephen sat on a raised chair and carved. " Let 
 me give you a little more," was a recurring phrase at dinner 
 in those days. 
 
 "Not any more, thank you," was Mary's answer each 
 time that it was addressed to her. 
 
 "After your journey," Lady Penstephen remonstrated 
 with her once. 
 
 But Mary protested that she was doing very well. She 
 was glad when the time came for dessert. You could eat 
 fruit when you were inclined for nothing else.
 
 150 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 She helped herself to some grapes. The bloom on them 
 was beautiful. 
 
 The Ettringham vines were famous, John told her. 
 
 "Ah, they're not what they used to be," Lady Pen- 
 stephen said. "Since Evans died none of them seem to have 
 borne so well. He had been head gardener here for twenty- 
 five years. The younger men are n't what their elders were. 
 If I did n't look after the gardens myself, they would n't 
 be what they are, and that is n't saying very much. How- 
 ever, such as they are I look forward to shewing them to 
 you to-morrow, Mary. You care for flowers?" 
 
 Mary cared for flowers. 
 
 "I forget whether you have any garden yourself. As I 
 remember Chelsea — but years ago that is — many of the 
 houses had gardens." 
 
 The house in Cheyne Walk had a garden. There was a 
 pear-tree in it and one of London's rare mulberry-trees. 
 
 "A mulberry-tree," said Miss Ingoldby. "Come, that 
 sounds like a real garden." 
 
 "It's a real mulberry tree," said Mary, smiling. "It 
 even bears fruit. The fruit they tell us — we have n't seen 
 it yet ourselves — does n't ripen very well — but there 
 it is." 
 
 "I never hear of a mulberry-tree without thinking of 
 silkworms," said Lady Penstephen. "We had silkworms 
 as children and a neighbour of ours in Hampshire had a 
 mulberry-tree. We used to go to him for the leaves. We 
 called it borrowing them, I remember, or rather our nurse 
 did, for she was our spokeswoman. 'The young ladies 
 were wondering if you would be so kind as to lend them 
 some — or some more (it was always some more) — mul- 
 berry leaves for the silkworms.'" 
 
 "David keeps silkworms," said David's mother, and 
 then was angry with herself, for, of her pride, she had made 
 up her mind not to mention him till her hostess should have 
 spoken of him. A pause followed the remark, and, when 
 conversation was renewed, it had gone back to the subject
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 151 
 
 of gardens and gardeners, upon both of which Lady Pen- 
 stephen had much to say. The servants put the decanters 
 on the table and withdrew. 
 
 Mary's heart was aching now. It was some moments be- 
 fore she could recover control of herself. No one saw — 
 not Lady Penstephen, it is probable; certainly not Miss 
 Ingoldby who was peeling a pear; not even David's father. 
 Outwardly she was calm; inwardly her very soul was in 
 arms for her first-born. For a few moments, under the 
 black moire and the aquamarines on their velvet bands, 
 her bosom heaved with the stress of the storm that shook 
 her. John seemed in league with the forces which dis- 
 turbed her. When he spoke of his son he meant, not David, 
 but the baby that lay sleeping upstairs in Betsy's arms 
 or in the royal cradle. Did n't he see — even he? Did they 
 want her to lose her love for her latest-born? Did they 
 want the love which she bore him to turn to bitterness? 
 
 Susan caught her eye. 
 
 "If you won't have any more fruit? Nor you, Miss In- 
 goldby? No? Shall we go, then? John, we leave you to 
 your wine." 
 
 John opened the door and they all swept out, their 
 dresses rustling. 
 
 Yet the kindness was unmistakeable — the kindly inten- 
 tion. Lady Penstephen made a place for Mary on the sofa 
 beside her, and may be said to have devoted herself to her. 
 Mary, gentle always, repented her of her recent anger. 
 She reminded herself again of how much her relation had 
 had to get over to her. She was doing all she could — or, 
 if not quite all, a great great deal. They spoke of the 
 christening now which was to be on the next morning but 
 one. They discussed the arrangements. Lady Penstephen 
 informing or suggesting, Mary vaguely approving. Miss 
 Ingoldby commenting or confirming, even occasionally 
 contradicting. 
 
 "Miss Ingoldby is inclined to be High Church," Lady 
 Penstephen said at one point.
 
 152 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "I like things done decently," said Miss Ingoldby im- 
 perturbably. "I don't see why we shouldn't offer the 
 Almighty the best we have in outward things as well as 
 in spiritual." 
 
 Mary liked the relations that existed between these two 
 ladies. The conditions spoke well for each of them, she 
 thought. Miss Ingoldby by no means always agreed with 
 Lady Penstephen. 
 
 "There would n't be surplices," she said to Mary now 
 in parenthesis, "if it was n't for me." 
 
 Mary smiled but said nothing. It was so long since she 
 had heard that sort of talk. Vestments; the Eastward 
 Position. She used to hear these words, surely, long long 
 ago! 
 
 "You are calling him John," Lady Penstephen said 
 presently. 
 
 "His name is John," Mary said. She meant that he had 
 been registered as John. 
 
 The two ladies beside her exchanged glances. 
 
 "She said that exactly like Zacharias," was what they 
 said to each other afterwards. 
 
 Lady Penstephen was making a scrap-work screen. The 
 frame itself, fourfold and covered with canvas, had been 
 made by the village carpenter. Her friends collected pic- 
 tures for her — odds and ends, the coloured plates from 
 magazines or the special numbers of the illustrated weekly 
 papers; old Christmas cards, valentines; shiny pictures 
 from the covers of bon-bon boxes or glove boxes; pictures 
 from advertisements; decorative oddments, arabesques, 
 initial letters, tail-pieces. Nothing came amiss to the het- 
 erogeneous collection. She had now much more material 
 than she could use, but from time to time more arrived. 
 
 One panel was finished. It was, of course, a panel 
 spoiled, the plain canvas looking much better than that 
 which was covered. Nobody, however, thought so, for in 
 those days scrap-work was the fashion. 
 
 "When the whole is done you have it varnished," Miss
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 153 
 
 Ingoldby explained. "I believe I could do the varnishing 
 myself, but Lady Penstephen does n't trust me." 
 
 "It would be such a pity if anything went wrong, I don't 
 so much distrust your ability, Posy, as your varnish. 
 Think, if it was sticky and would n't dry, or if it turned 
 yellow as varnishes so often do. No, I shall send it up 
 to London." 
 
 The situation grew momentarily easier. Even Miss In- 
 goldby's Christian name helped, as before her garden-hat 
 and her spectacles had helped. Mary wondered what it was 
 short for. She was never to know, for she never heard and 
 she never asked. All the same. Posy — Posy Ingoldby! 
 Yes, it helped. She forgot her soreness. 
 
 " Perhaps Lady Penstephen would like to do some," Miss 
 Ingoldby suggested tentatively. 
 
 Do some what, Mary wondered vaguely. Susan seemed 
 to know for she said, "Oh, not to-night. She is tired after 
 her journey. It would try her eyes. You would n't, would 
 you? or would you?" 
 
 Mary protested that she was n't tired. 
 
 "We generally cut out in the evening, Miss Ingoldby 
 and I, when we are alone — " 
 
 "The pictures, you know," said Miss Ingoldby — "the 
 scraps. They have to be cut out. There are margins and 
 things." 
 
 "Oh, I should like it," said David's mother. 
 
 "Then will you kindly ring," said Lady Penstephen to 
 Miss Ingoldby. 
 
 Miss Ingoldby rang — twice, Mary noticed. The double 
 ring was probably an indication of what was required, for, 
 when the footman appeared, he carried two trays which he 
 placed upon chairs near his mistress. The trays contained 
 the materials. 
 
 "These," Lady Penstephen said, "are what we have 
 still to do, and these are what we have done." 
 
 Scissors were brought then to the two ladies of the house, 
 and a pair found for the visitor. When John joined the
 
 154 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 three ladies, a few minutes later, he found them all busily 
 snipping. 
 
 Again he was pleased. Mary met his eye and smiled to 
 him. She was sorry for the anger which he had not per- 
 ceived. She wanted him to know that all had gone 
 smoothly in his absence. John wanted to cut out also. 
 Amid jestings and banterings he too was provided with 
 scissors, and the four, the three women and the man, were 
 presently all engaged in the work. A family picture at once. 
 
 They all worked in different ways: John, resolutely, yet 
 a little impetuously — running his scissors where it was 
 possible up a line without moving them at the joint; Susan 
 Penstephen, very slowly but very accurately, never making 
 a false cut or needing to go over a bit a second time; Miss 
 Ingoldby, in a business-like mode and with a good deal of 
 scissor play, like a barber, who, between his snippings, 
 snips in the air as if to keep his hand in, or even to preserve 
 unbroken the chain of sound; Mary, quietly and pains- 
 takingly, neither quickly nor slowly, thinking her own 
 thoughts, but intent, nevertheless, on the work of her 
 fingers. 
 
 Every now and then somebody spoke. 
 
 When John's scissors moved very quickly — he chose 
 for the most part big pictures with straight edges — his 
 cousin looked up a little anxiously. She said nothing to 
 him, but asked Miss Ingoldby if, snipping as she did, she 
 was not afraid she would snip something which she did not 
 intend to snip. 
 
 "I believe," she said, "in hastening slowly." 
 
 "John," said Mary, "go carefully." 
 
 "Oh, he is all right," said Lady Penstephen. 
 
 "It's the scissors," said Miss Ingoldby. "They sound 
 as if they were running away with me, but they're not." 
 
 Mary suddenly thought of Katinka and of the room at 
 Homburg which she had made so delightful by her gentle 
 enchantments. This was her sort of work. How she would 
 have loved it. How she would have delighted in directing
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN i55 
 
 the young scissors of David and Georgina. 'Ach, not so 
 kvick — not pressing so much — Softly round de Hne Hke 
 dis.' Mary could see her, hear her. Some day, she thought, 
 she would like to have Katinka near her again. But this 
 she knew would never be. Katinka had played her part (as 
 — though Mary did not think of this — the ladies of Brus- 
 sels and again of Homburg had played theirs), and be- 
 longed to, though actually it was she who had brought to 
 an end, the days of the wandering. Mary cut for a moment 
 blindly, and nearly did what John, for all his haste, had 
 not done. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "I all but cut it in half." She was cut- 
 ting out a horse. " I stopped myself in time. But how care- 
 less of me." 
 
 "My dear, it would n't have mattered." 
 
 Miss Ingoldby asked if there was n't somebody's horse 
 which was cut in half — some horse of history or fable. 
 She searched in the recesses of her mind. 
 
 No one remembered. 
 
 It was then Miss Ingoldby who was like to make false 
 cuts. She puckered her brow as she racked and raked her 
 brain. 
 
 Snip, snip, snip went the four pairs of scissors. Snip, 
 snip, snip — rhythmic sometimes as the stitch, stitch, 
 stitch, of the Song of the Shirt. 
 
 "How the scissors hurt the base of your thumb when 
 it is cardboard you are cutting." Lady Penstephen was 
 struggling with the top of a chocolate box. 
 
 "Let me," said John. 
 
 " No, I 've nearly done it. I steam these off. I want just 
 to make it small enough to go over the slop-basin when tea 
 comes in. It saves so much trouble." 
 
 The servants appeared with tea almost as she spoke. 
 The rather elaborate equipage which included a tea-caddy 
 and a hissing urn into which at the last moment a red hot 
 heater had been dropped, was placed on a table near the 
 hearth. Miss Ingoldby put down her scissors and rose at
 
 156 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 once. She shook out her skirts into the fender and went to 
 the table. 
 
 David's mother watched the process of the tea-making 
 much as David himself might have watched it. Miss In- 
 goldby poured boiling water into the tea-pot, rinsed it, and 
 warmed all the cups. She then unlocked the tea-caddy — 
 a matter of form, for the key had arrived in the lock and 
 was left there — and with a little shell-shaped spoon which 
 she heaped generously she put the delicious smelling leaves 
 into the tea-pot. She turned on the tap of the urn and the 
 pleasant gurgling sound which Betsy had once described 
 was heard in the tea-pot. After that she returned to her 
 work for a few minutes, which, Mary saw, she measured by 
 the clock on the mantelpiece. At an exact moment she put 
 down her scissors again and went back to the tea-table. 
 
 "Tea," she said. An announcement not an interrogation. 
 
 Lady Penstephen watched for the moment when she 
 might have the use of the slop-basin for steaming her 
 scraps, as a dog watches for a promised biscuit. She was 
 happy when with its aid she was enabled to peel off the 
 waiting pictures from the stubborn cardboard. 
 
 So the evening passed. Towards ten o'clock John began 
 to fidget a little. Mary, who knew him, felt herself to be 
 waiting. 
 
 The servants came back and cleared away the tea- 
 things. Lady Penstephen kept back the slop-basin with 
 which she had not quite finished. 
 
 "Give us," Lady Penstephen said to the butler, "till a 
 quarter past." 
 
 "Very good, my lady," 
 
 He bowed and withdrew. John put down his scissors and 
 took them up again. 
 
 Lady Penstephen turned to Mary. 
 
 "We have Prayers," she said. 
 
 Mary said "Yes?" vaguely, and felt herself to be wait- 
 ing. 
 
 "John may have told you."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 157 
 
 He had not. 
 
 Lady Penstephen tried the edge of a steaming picture. 
 It came away a little from the cardboard but was not quite 
 ready. She tried another. Mary watched it as it peeled off, 
 curling up as it came away free. 
 
 "They come off so easily," Lady Penstephen said, "when 
 they are quite ready. If one tries to force them they only 
 tear. How hot this water is. The steam quite burns me. 
 I don't know, Mary, whether you would care to join us." 
 
 She did not look up. Mary watched her fingers as she 
 made little dabs at the hot wet paper. Miss Ingoldby's 
 scissors went snip, snip, snip. John cut vigorously. 
 
 Everyone now seemed to be waiting, though the work 
 went on. Mary noticed many things in the room, things 
 which she had seen all along but had not observed. The 
 carpet had roses in its pattern. There were some big 
 Italian chairs with carved gold backs and arms. The great 
 glass chandelier, in which the candles were not lighted, must 
 be of immense weight. There was a great deal of china in 
 and on the cabinets, and two groups of figures on each side 
 of the clock on the mantelpiece were specially beautiful. 
 
 "You must do exactly as you like," Lady Penstephen 
 was saying. 
 
 What Mary wanted greatly to know, but would not ask, 
 was whether John when he was at Ettringham attended 
 Prayers. A hush seemed to her to have come over the 
 room. Lady Penstephen bent over her work, but not more 
 than before. Her widow's cap was very white against the 
 quite different white of her face. 
 
 "Yes," Mary said at last, "I think I should like to." 
 
 John did not move, but some sort of tension seemed to 
 be relaxed. 
 
 "Munchausen!" said Miss Ingoldby with a jerk. 
 
 Lady Penstephen looked towards her. 
 
 "Munchausen," she said again, "don't you remember? 
 The horse. I knew I should think of it presently. Cut in 
 two, you know, by the portcullis."
 
 158 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "To be sure," said John, "Baron Munchausen." 
 
 Lady Penstephen slowly pushed the bowl from her. 
 
 "Do you know," she said solemnly, "this is the first 
 time that I realised that he was n't an Englishman." 
 
 She looked round at them all with a pucker of laughter 
 somewhere behind her spectacles. She took them off now 
 and Mary saw the down-look (one eyelid 'catching' a 
 little) as she sheathed them in the case at her waist. 
 
 "How?" said Miss Ingoldby. 
 
 "You'll hardly believe it of me," she said gravely, "but 
 I suppose I have been giving him his seat in our own House 
 of Lords, for not till this moment have I known that he 
 was n't called Baron Mun-Chawson." 
 
 She began then to laugh at herself. She laughed till the 
 tears stood in her eyes. 
 
 "Baron Mun-Chawson!" she repeated. 
 
 Mary was quite sure, now, that she liked her. She even 
 understood in a measure John's wish to please her. They 
 were all still laughing at nothing when the butler appeared. 
 
 "A quarter-past ten, my lady." 
 
 "Very well. Barton." 
 
 He withdrew. Lady Penstephen, recovering her gravity 
 at once, rose and she and Miss Ingoldby shook out their 
 skirts into the fender. Mary followed suit. Then, Lady 
 Penstephen leading, the four made their way through two 
 dimly lighted rooms to what Mary saw must be the library. 
 
 A lamp stood on a table at the far end of it. Lady Pen- 
 stephen seated herself at this table, took out the spectacles 
 she had just put away, adjusted them, and opened the 
 books. She found her places. Armchairs were on each side 
 of her and in these the others seated themselves, John and 
 Mary on one side, Miss Ingoldby on the other. There was 
 a pause. Then a side door, at the end of the room at which 
 they had entered, opened, and there came in a long pro- 
 cession of servants, who ranged themselves in order on 
 chairs which had been placed to receive them. There was 
 a rustling, a creaking, and then silence.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 159 
 
 What was John thinking? That was what David's 
 mother was wondering. It was evident to her now, that 
 he had attended Prayers when he had stayed at Ettringham 
 without her. It was odd that he had not told her. Yet it 
 was not odd. What was he thinking, though? What did he 
 think? Again she felt wounded, — hurt somewhere deep 
 down in her soul. So deeply, however, that she did not 
 know the nature of the wound, nor could she even gauge 
 the extent of her suffering. So might one suffer under an 
 incomplete anaesthetic; so did one suffer sometimes when 
 one yet spoke of one's pain as numbed. It was not that she 
 did not wish to be there, or wish him to be there. Had 
 she not ached often and often for the consolation which she 
 knew others found in religious exercises, — yes, and in reli- 
 gion? Had she not wished in her heart that her children 
 might not be denied what had been denied to her — what 
 she, perhaps, had denied to herself? 
 
 The incident of their forbidden young prayers — Betsy 
 and her pious leanings, yearnings, nay, in this instance, 
 strivings — had been a very real thing to her. With Betsy 
 she had wished them to learn to pray. Who had forbidden 
 that? Yet why should it make her sore to see David's 
 father acquiescing, howsoever passively, in what stood for 
 that which she secretly had desired and he had opposed? 
 Ought she not rather to be glad? 
 
 What was he thinking? 
 
 There were eleven servants. She had counted them half- 
 consciously as they filed to their places. Their faces, when 
 she glanced in their direction, were whiter dimnesses in the 
 dimness of the end of the big room. The cook, who sat next 
 to Lady Penstephen's maid Denham, looked a very small 
 person to be at the head of the large household. She was the 
 smallest person in the room, Mary thought — half the size 
 of both the young women whom, from their lowly position 
 in the row, she judged to be the kitchen maids. 
 
 Lady Penstephen, quite unconsciously it was probable, 
 assumed a strange voice when she read, sounding the ' ed's'
 
 i6o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 of past participles and even changing the pronunciation of 
 a word or two, as for instance when she said 'er-red' in the 
 General Confession, the 'er' as in 'errand' — though, else- 
 where, Mary felt sure, she would have said the word as if 
 it had been spelt 'er'd.' She read, that is to say, as was the 
 fashion then, in what has since been described as a holy 
 way, and, when the prayer was supplicatory, addressed the 
 Almighty in a tone of anguish. If she had been a dissenter 
 she would have prayed with groanings. She contrived, as 
 it was, to make some of the prayers from the Book of 
 Common Prayer sound as if they had been ex tempore — 
 yet always somehow without spoiling their beauty. To 
 "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord," Mary, 
 facing the sombre leather of the chair against which she 
 knelt — the dimness contributing, the night-feeling, night 
 thoughts — felt her heart warm. She would like David, 
 she thought, to commit himself to sleep with some such 
 words as these. "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 
 O Lord ; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils 
 and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen." 
 
 And then the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 She had been ten years old when her parents had broken 
 away from convention and the course of her training had 
 been changed. Something had always remained to her of 
 what had gone before. Did the root of her unhappiness lie 
 in that? She listened to the words as in a dream. 
 
 "Which art in heaven ..." 
 
 Something even about the 'Which.' (David presently, 
 as we may see, was to feel much in the same way.) The 
 words came to her, — not that they had not all along been 
 familiar to her, yet as across a great distance. She knew 
 them intimately, as one knows the cliches of everyday talk, 
 but she heard them freshly. 
 
 "Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our 
 trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. 
 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN i6i 
 
 For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. For 
 ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 The model prayer for all time. If the whole thing could 
 have been left there. . . . And then as she heard the next 
 words she felt that she did not quite want it left there. 
 
 "The peace of God which passeth all understanding keep 
 our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and 
 of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord . . ." 
 
 That could not be spared. Nor this surely — 
 
 "The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make his 
 face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. The Lord 
 lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace, both now 
 and evermore. Amen." 
 
 She heard herself say 'Amen' to that. 
 
 She was still in her dream when a pushing-back of chairs 
 and a scraping of feet on the polished boards told her that 
 Prayers were over. 
 
 The servants trooped out. 
 
 Mary did not look at David's father but she was very 
 conscious of him — conscious too, somehow, that he would 
 not, if possible, speak of this part of the evening's doings, 
 or, if he did, that he would do so superficially. 
 
 They went back to the drawing-room which felt very 
 light and warm after the dim library. Lady Penstephen 
 finished unpeeling the last of her cardboard pictures, and 
 put it with the others that she had done, into one of the 
 china ornaments, there to dry undisturbed. Miss Ingoldby 
 gave a final snip or two to the figure upon which she had 
 been engaged when she had been interrupted, and a final 
 series of snips in the air, and then, gathering the done and 
 the undone into their respective trays, she put these one 
 on top of the other for the servants to put away. Despite 
 the careful shakings-out, a litter of little bits of paper 
 lay on the carpet. In the hall was a tray of silver candle- 
 sticks. 
 
 There was a fire, Lady Penstephen told John, in the 
 smoking-room.
 
 i62 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 He lighted the three ladies' candles and wished his 
 cousin and Miss Ingoldby good-night. 
 
 So passed the evening. Lady Penstephen came with 
 Mary to her room to see for herself that all was comfort- 
 able. She touched things here and there, straightened an 
 ornament on the mantelpiece, poked the fire, rearranged 
 the cushions on the couch at the foot of the bed. 
 
 She asked again if Mary was sure that she had every- 
 thing that she wanted, and Mary, one thing being so griev- 
 ously lacking, assured her that she had. 
 
 "Then I'll say good-night to you," Lady Penstephen 
 said. She looked about for her candle. Ah, to be sure, on 
 the table. She had extinguished it as she came in — there- 
 by, perhaps, causing Mary to think she was going to stop 
 for that talk which, as holding potential balm for her 
 wounded spirit, she, Mary, would have welcomed so 
 heartily. 
 
 "Everything, thank you," Mary said again, disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 The two ladies exchanged kisses.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 It was long before David's mother slept that night. 
 John came up about an hour later, and, for the first time 
 in her life, Mary, that she might not have to talk, that she 
 might not be tempted to talk, and also in a measure to 
 spare him embarrassment, pretended to be asleep. She was 
 touched when he bent over her and kissed her ever so 
 lightly. 
 
 When by the sound of his regular breathing she knew 
 that he slept, she lay with wide-open eyes and watched the 
 firelight play on the ceiling. All sounds ceased in the house. 
 The stillness grew intense. The hours passed; she heard 
 them strike, up to three, from some outdoor clock in one 
 of the buildings. She found it next day — a black-faced 
 clock with weather-worn hands, over the stables. After 
 three o'clock she must have slept. 
 
 There were Morning Prayers, but these were held before 
 breakfast and were over when she and John came down the 
 next day. Lady Penstephen and Miss Ingoldby were in the 
 dining-room. The urn had just been brought in, and with 
 it the post-bag which Lady Penstephen unlocked when she 
 had greeted her guests, and from which she proceeded then 
 to dispense the letters. 
 
 "You slept well, I hope?" 
 
 John answered for them both. 
 
 "And Baby?" 
 
 Baby had had an excellent night. 
 
 Though they had left home but the day before there was 
 already a letter from Ellen, who interpreted her instruc- 
 tions to write every day quite literally, to say that all was 
 well in Cheyne Walk. 
 
 It was a lovely morning of early summer. The chilliness
 
 i64 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 which had made fires so welcome the day before was quite 
 gone, though it would come back, Lady Penstephen 
 prophesied, by the evening, and sunlight streamed in 
 through the windows, Mary, heartened by it and by her 
 letter, felt her spirits rising. The room was delightful. 
 English food after the years of the foreign hotels and apart- 
 ments was still delicious to her. She was interested as a 
 child in what was about her. There was a silver egg-boiler 
 presided over by Miss Ingoldby, which pleased her greatly, 
 and it was as much for the sake of seeing it in operation as 
 for the sake of the egg laid that morning that she smiled 
 her thanks to Miss Ingoldby's nodded invitation. 
 
 "Two," said Miss Ingoldby persuasively, "we're so 
 proud of our eggs," 
 
 "Oh, one," said Mary, with bacon already on her plate. 
 
 "But John will have two," said Lady Penstephen. 
 
 A friendly atmosphere. Everything very simple, but 
 everything very perfect of its kind. The heavy tea-pot was 
 Georgian ; the cups Worcester, and as rare as many of those 
 which were treasured in the cabinets, Mary thought to her- 
 self that she liked using beautiful things. The tea-caddy, 
 with the key in it, was beside Lady Penstephen who had 
 evidently made the tea in the room. The urn was still hiss- 
 ing and steaming. It, too, was very beautiful. All these 
 things, with even the pleasant smell of coffee and of hot 
 rolls, had their part in lifting the weight from Mary's heart. 
 
 "I thought we would drive this afternoon," Lady Pen- 
 stephen was saying. "This morning you would like per- 
 haps to see the house and the gardens." 
 
 Mary said she would like that — like both those pro- 
 posals, and spoke of the view from the windows of her 
 room. She had hardly known that a country without hills 
 could be so lovely. 
 
 Lady Penstephen was Warwickshire-born and said 
 "Isn't it? Isn't it?" and looked at Miss Ingoldby. "Miss 
 Ingoldby," she said, "is a Sussex woman and won't admit 
 our good looks."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 165 
 
 "Oh, I'll admit them with pleasure," said Miss Ingoldby, 
 "but give me hills, give me downs. Give me something to 
 dimb." 
 
 Lady Penstephen smiled at her affectionately. Mary 
 could see that she was very fond of her companion, 
 
 "Your native heath before mine. Posy." 
 
 "That's it," said Miss Ingoldby, smiling back at her. 
 "But Ettringham I concede to you." She turned to the 
 other Lady Penstephen. "There's something about Et- 
 tringham. You'll see what I mean — you'll feel it." 
 
 " I think I do already," said Mary. 
 
 John looked pleased. So did Lady Penstephen, the 
 widow. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Everyone feels it. There's some- 
 thing about Ettringham." 
 
 When breakfast was over the two ladles of the house, 
 excusing themselves on the plea of household matters 
 which would claim them for half an hour, disappeared, and 
 John and Mary were left alone. 
 
 "Come out into the garden," said John, and led the way 
 by a side door on to the terrace outside. 
 
 The beautiful flat country lay before them, and de- 
 lighted Mary again, — pasture — pasture everywhere, and 
 trees. There was a humming of bees, a slow cawing of 
 rooks, the cooing of amorous pigeons. All the influences of 
 the morning were pleasant. 
 
 "How could you ever have said she was ridiculous?" 
 she asked, speaking with her thoughts for context. 
 
 Her eyes travelled over the landscape from point to 
 point. The whole world seemed to be green. 
 
 "You like her too," John said. " I knew you would like 
 her." 
 
 And then at the corner of the house, at a point where 
 Victoria across the centuries shook hands most improbably 
 with the second Charles, they came upon Betsy bearing 
 her precious charge for his airing. 
 
 She raised his veil, and his mother bent over him. His
 
 i66 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 eyes were open and he jerked in Betsy's arms and smiled, 
 and his mother's heart swelled with love for him. He had 
 caused her the greatest sorrow she had known yet, but as 
 he smiled she forgot everything except that he was flesh of 
 her flesh. 
 
 "Give him to me, Betsy." 
 
 She held him to her, laughing into his funny little eyes, 
 but inwardly yearning over him. He ought to have been a 
 girl. On every count he ought to have been a girl. But — 
 oh, David, forgive her! — there was that, after all, in having 
 brought a man-child into the world which made her know 
 that, come what might, she would not have changed him 
 now if a miracle had given her the power to do so. 
 
 She gave him back hurriedly to Betsy. 
 
 Presently the two ladies joined them. Lady Penstephen 
 now wore over her dress a brown holland apron with ca- 
 pacious pockets bound and outlined with red braid, and 
 on her head a garden-hat of the shape known as 'Dolly 
 Varden.' Miss Ingoldby, in her garden-hat also, carried, 
 with her flat wooden basket, a pair of shears. The idea of 
 benevolent snipping was, it seemed, always to be asso- 
 ciated with Miss Ingoldby. 
 
 These were the days when care of the complexion — the 
 protection of it, that is, from the influences of sun and 
 wind — was looked upon in the light of almost a religious 
 obligation, and Lady Penstephen, at the sight of the hat- 
 less Mary, held up her hands in horror. 
 
 " My dear, the sun ! " she said. "Your complexion. You'll 
 ruin it — ruin it. Let John, I beg of you, fetch your 
 hat." 
 
 Mary was for shaking her head. She was endowed with 
 a healthy skin and took no thought for it. But as she saw 
 that Lady Penstephen was really exercised about her lack 
 of caution, she suffered the hat to be fetched — John, with 
 a twinkle for her, volunteering to go for it — and, like an 
 obedient child, she put it on when it arrived.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 167 
 
 Thus equipped she was led through the gardens. The 
 morning passed delightfully. 
 
 But afterwards Mary found that, as before, something all 
 through had been overlooked, or withheld, or barred-out. 
 In spite of herself she began now again to watch and to 
 wait for mention of her two other children. During the 
 drive that afternoon Lady Penstephen did not name either 
 of them. She spoke of Baby, with the most capital of B's, 
 continually, but David and Georgina, for any sign that she 
 gave, might not have existed at all. 
 
 Mary,, not knowing what to make of so strange a reti- 
 cence, felt with some alarm her soreness returning. For 
 John's sake she wanted this visit to pass off successfully. 
 A tremendous concession had been made, she knew, in hav- 
 ing her there at all. She was being received intimately — • 
 warmly, affectionately, even. The trifling incident of the 
 hat that morning shewed the personal note in Susan's rela- 
 tions with her. Everything shewed it; a word, a look, the 
 unceremonious evening with the scraps and the scissors. 
 She was 'accepted.' But her children? David? Georgina? 
 What did it mean? 
 
 She went up to her room with lagging steps. The beauty 
 of the staircase and of the gracious landings and passages 
 said nothing to her. She experienced a sudden and acute 
 nostalgia for the house which held her children; for Hom- 
 burg; for odd little French and Italian towns; for railway- 
 stations, trains, hotel omnibusses; for pass-ports, tickets, 
 the aetna, the hoUand-covered box; for the sounds of 
 travel, shuntings, shoutings, hootings, whistles — for the 
 days of the wandering, the old distrusted days which had 
 yet held her children so closely. Those seemed the safe days 
 now — the unthreatened days even. Her heart was very 
 heavy. 
 
 And, at the mercy now of her thoughts, a sort of nerv- 
 ousness seized her as the hour approached for dinner.
 
 i68 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 The idea of meeting strangers oppressed her — strangers 
 too, who, strangers as they were to her, had been asked to 
 stand in intimate relation to her son. She suffered Betsy to 
 dress her, when the time came for dressing, in the dress 
 which Betsy had decided she must wear. She submitted to 
 Betsy's choice of the jewellery which was to adorn her for 
 what Betsy insisted on calling the dinner-party. But when 
 all was done and she had taken her fan and her gloves 
 from her, she could hardly have told you what she was 
 wearing, 
 
 Betsy, though all was indeed done, the finishing touches 
 given, pats, smoothings, straightenings, lingered. She was 
 like a chef whose efforts have not been appreciated. It was 
 she, though she did not know it, who was to help her mis- 
 tress to get through the evening. 
 
 "Yes, Betsy?" 
 
 "Nothing, m'lady. That is if you've nothing to say? I 
 thought myself — " 
 
 David's mother turned troubled eyes on her. 
 
 "Not so much as a look in the glass. Not a word. It is 
 a little disheartening." 
 
 "Betsy!" 
 
 "Well, is n't it, m'lady? And you looking like a picture. 
 It's as if you did n't care. As if your beautiful looks was 
 wasted on you. The time come when you take your 
 rightful place in the world, and us all so proud of you, and 
 no more interest in what you put on than if this," she 
 touched her mistress's dress which afforded her so much 
 satisfaction and which she had helped to choose and design, 
 "was a reach-me-down." 
 
 Well, she would go through with it. John found her 
 smiling when he came in from his dressing-room. He, at 
 least, said what pleased Betsy, for he declared that her mis- 
 tress had never looked better. 
 
 "There, m'lady, you see," said Betsy, appeased, yet still 
 only partly appeased.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 169 
 
 "I've hurt Betsy's feelings," said Mary, "but indeed, 
 Betsy, I did n't mean it. I think you do wonders with me." 
 
 "There you go," said Betsy. "Ah no, sir, it's enough to 
 make one. As if — " with privileged exasperation — " the 
 wonder was n't in your ladyship's self." 
 
 But Mary was smiling, and the spirit of the smile, shew- 
 ing the diverted thoughts, took her to the drawing-room. 
 What matter, after all? What matter? David, if she knew 
 him, would justify himself. 
 
 The evening, as Lady Penstephen had prophesied, was 
 chilly, and the four persons whom the room held stood by 
 the fire. Archdeacon and Mrs. Eversley had just been an- 
 nounced. Mary saw a little old man with white hair and 
 shrewd if benevolent eyes, and a lady whom she took at 
 first to be of the rather masterful kind. But even her sen- 
 sitiveness could find no fault with their reception of the in- 
 troduction when it was made. Lady Penstephen in making 
 it said, "My dear cousin, Lady Penstephen." Both re- 
 sponded cordially. Nor, Mary saw, did the lady look at 
 her unduly. John they both knew. If there was a shade 
 of reserve in their manner this was kept for him. Mary 
 would have said that time had been when they had dis- 
 approved of him very gravely. But the reserve, if at all it 
 existed, was generally imperceptible. Mary may even have 
 imagined it, and before the evening was over she believed 
 that she had. 
 
 There was a little desultory talk about nothing in par- 
 ticular, and then the remaining guest was announced, and 
 the party was complete. 
 
 Mary looking round the dinner table saw that she need 
 not have felt nervous. The two old men, representing the 
 Church, and, less directly perhaps, the World, who had 
 undertaken to be sponsors for her little son, inspired con- 
 fidence, and there was nothing in the manner of either of 
 them to suggest that the circumstances were felt to be
 
 I70 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 other than usual. This, of course, is to say no more than 
 that Lady Penstephen's two friends were gentlemen, but 
 Mary, who had suffered so grievously, had not suffered for 
 nothing. 
 
 "I've known John from a boy," General Burke said. 
 " It delights me to be godfather to his son." 
 
 The Archdeacon, talking to her later, said much the same 
 thing, and if he, upon his part, conveyed that what really 
 made him happier was that John should come at last to see 
 need for godfathers, he did this so tactfully that there was 
 nothing in his words that savoured of preaching. 
 
 And as the evening passed pleasantly Mary saw that, 
 though none of the three attempted to understand, each 
 was ready unreservedly to accept her. The past was done 
 with: this was the unspoken attitude towards it and her — 
 a generous, and, for the dark and narrow seventies, an 
 exceptional attitude as she knew. If, she felt, she could but 
 know that David and Georgina were accepted with her she 
 would be happy. Well, she was to be happy for this eve- 
 ning. The three strangers severally asked her for and about 
 her other children, and her relation, though she made no 
 comment or enquiries upon her own account, patted her 
 hand, when in answering some question of Mrs. Eversley's 
 about David, Mary shewed perhaps something of her 
 heart. Then Mary, if she could not quite forgive her, felt 
 at least partly appeased — though, like Betsy, whose 
 grievance she now suddenly comprehended, not more, even 
 then, when all was weighed and considered, than partly 
 appeased! Still, on the whole and in howsoever qualified a 
 measure, happy. 
 
 "Those nice people," she said when they were gone. 
 "That nice Mrs. Eversley. I was n't sure at first whether 
 she was n't going to be a little alarming. But she is n't 
 alarming at all. And the Archdeacon who looks like a 
 Bellini saint — yes, and your nice General Burke." 
 
 "My dear, they were charmed with you. They all man- 
 aged to say so before they went,"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 171 
 
 Yes, on the whole a very happy evening. The next day 
 the baby was christened — 'John,' as he had already long 
 since been named — and, on the day following, the visitors, 
 to the tune of repeated expressions of good-will upon both 
 sides, thankings, renewed invitations, and the like, re- 
 turned to London. 
 
 "I am so glad to know you, my dear Mary," were 
 Susan's last words, "and to know our little John here. 
 We must see a great deal of him by and by at Ettringham. 
 I expect great things of him. His godmother is, and is going 
 to be, very proud of him." 
 
 John shewed his pleasure and Mary hers. But, deep 
 down in her heart, and not to be shaken by the fact that 
 before a month was out her other two children (at their 
 father's wish) had been christened also, Mary had the 
 knowledge that she and they — and somehow especially 
 she and David — had once and for all been betrayed.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Was it Katinka and the Homburg actings? Was it the 
 element of drama that the peculiar conditions of his wan- 
 dering life had made an essential factor of it? Was it his 
 first pantomime which he had seen that year — at Astley's 
 (Betsy's treat this!) in the Westminster Bridge Road — 
 and which he was never to forget? Or was it something 
 deeper? Part of him? Something that ran in his blood? 
 David knew if no one else did. All the mysteries were here. 
 
 He was eleven when he began to know ; at school in ear- 
 nest in his first term, and something had happened. Some- 
 thing had happened at the very outset. The inevitable 
 "What's your father?" of the first few bewildering min- 
 utes had led to an incomprehensible situation which, if it 
 was not to endure for very long, was yet to taint all 
 memories of his school-days with vague discomfort. They 
 — his school-days — were not to be unhappy. After the 
 first few weeks they were indeed to be quite tolerable, but 
 always, behind what negative or even positive happiness 
 they gave him, there was to be the recollection of the thing 
 which had given him so false a start. Something had been 
 said. That it should be possible that something could be 
 said ! The sting lav there. 
 
 "What's your father?" 
 
 The big bullying boy of every school, of every story of 
 any school, the conventional, nay, the traditional bully 
 asked it, and had to ask twice, for David had not under- 
 stood. 
 
 "How do you mean, what is he?" 
 
 "How do I mean, what is he?" David's shy treble was 
 mimicked, to a roar from a gallery of little asses, not one of 
 whom, maybe, was actually ill-disposed towards him. 
 
 "What is he, you young fool? Is he in the Army?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 173 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Or the Navy?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, is he in the Civil Service or at the Bar?" 
 
 David did not think so. The idea had never occurred to 
 him. Had your father to be something? It seemed so. 
 His dame-school had been too young and too ladylike a 
 place for such blunt questionings. 
 
 "He's a gentleman at large, I suppose." Our assertive 
 friend was being funny, and the gallery laughed again. 
 
 David supposed so. He had not the vaguest notion of 
 what At Large meant. He knew what Gentleman meant. 
 His father was one. He was one himself. He did not believe 
 that the good-looking boy who was baiting him was or 
 could be. He conceived an immortal hatred of him — a 
 hatred that hurt because the bullying boy was good-look- 
 ing, and it was always dreadful to him not to worship any 
 one who pleased his eye. 
 
 "Well, what's he called, anyway?" 
 
 "How do you mean, called?" 
 
 David, it must be admitted, was not doing himself jus- 
 tice. 
 
 "How do I mean, called?" An opportunity again, it will 
 be seen, for the mimic. The gallery shouted, 
 
 David was told he was green. 
 
 " Is he Mister, you young fool. Or is he a parson, or per- 
 haps he's a doctor?" 
 
 "He was Mister." 
 
 "Oh, he was Mister, was he? And what is he now?" 
 
 "Sir John," said David at last, getting very red. 
 
 "Oh, he's Sir John, is he? Well, why did n't you say so 
 at first?" 
 
 David did n't know. 
 
 " Is he a baronet or only a knight," somebody asked; and 
 the good-looking boy said, "I bet he's only a knight." 
 
 "You're quite wrong," David said to that. He did, it 
 happened, know the difference between the one and the
 
 174 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 other. You could n't inherit a knighthood, and his father 
 had inherited. 
 
 "Are you the eldest?" was the next question, and David 
 said that he was. 
 
 "Then, when your father dies you'll be Sir Thingamy 
 Penstephen." 
 
 David supposed so, but so low that he was n't heard. 
 
 "What does he say?" 
 
 " He says when his father dies he'll be Sir Thingamy P." 
 
 That was all, for the moment. The common attention 
 fastened on to something or to somebody else, and David, 
 only smarting a little, was released from the inquisition. 
 But the thing was n't over. What he was said to have said 
 was repeated. The good-looking boy was a day-boy, and 
 may have talked at home. His parents may have pricked 
 up their ears and talked too. Nothing dreadful happened, 
 but it became known in the school that there was some- 
 thing about young Penstephen — something about his 
 father; something vaguely discreditable. He must be one 
 of those Penstephens was what the good-looking boy's 
 father may have said, looking, let us suppose, at the good- 
 looking boy's mother — (some particular Penstephens, it 
 would seem, differing from all other Penstephens) — and 
 if so, poor boy . . . well . . . H'm . . . Ha . . . But Sir 
 Thingamy P., eh? Sir Thingamy P., eh? That was just 
 what . . . However, the poor boy himself had done nothing 
 and we must n't be uncharitable. One could n't, of course, 
 help wondering whether he would be quite a desirable com- 
 panion for other boys. Still . . . 
 
 Thus and thus. But quite enough to make talk in a 
 school. Quite enough to mark David out from the rest. 
 He found himself saddled with a nickname, and would 
 not have minded that, if something which he did not under- 
 stand and which even some of those who employed it did 
 not understand either, had not quite obviously lain behind 
 it. It was as if the name was given negatively — given to 
 him because it was not (as of course it was not) his.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 175 
 
 Well, the incident passed — more or less. He was 
 wounded and bore a scar, but other things cropped up to 
 occupy his exercised thoughts. Difficulties in so many 
 directions confronted him, — difficulties which, owing to 
 the peculiarities of his up-bringing, were incalculable. How 
 could he do himself justice? Everywhere he found him- 
 self astray or up against what was unfamiliar to him. 
 Chapel! Misery. He did not know how to behave in 
 Chapel. 
 
 His father, sending him to school, had withdrawn all 
 restrictions. How handicapped he was we may guess. 
 There was a ritual and he did not know it. He set his 
 teeth and aped what the others did, only to discover that 
 there were things that no mere copying would cover. He 
 could not find his places. There were some awful moments 
 during which he was conscious of nothing but a boy next 
 to him who was, and who had been, watching him. Then, 
 "Can't you read?'' whispered the boy, and he whispered 
 back angrily that of course he could read. But he could 
 not pretend to be able to find the Psalms, nor presently 
 the Te Deum, nor, when the time came for the Litany, 
 the Litany. Shame dyed his cheeks. He hated the boy 
 who watched him. He had presently to hate many more. 
 He would have enjoyed Chapel (it had even to do with his 
 discovery) if he had not felt that any false move would 
 betray him — that his hesitations were betraying him, 
 had betrayed him. He forestalled the questions that would 
 be put to him. Why could n't he find the Psalms? Why 
 was he left standing up that time — well, nearly left — 
 when all the rest were sitting? Why had he scrambled 
 to his feet when he ought to have been kneeling? Shame 
 unspeakable ! 
 
 And all the time he was doing so well. Inevitable that 
 he should make some mistakes; little short of wonderful 
 that he should make so few! 
 
 What the boy said afterwards was, "I believe you're a 
 dissenter."
 
 176 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "A what?" said David. 
 
 "A dissenter — Chapel, you know." 
 
 David was further astray, but (or and) closed on the 
 word Chapel. This was Chapel, was n't it? 
 
 "It's called Chapel here because they always are in 
 schools, but it's Church, of course, really. Church of Eng- 
 land. I believe you're a Methodist or a Wesleyan or a 
 Plymouth Brother or something. Yes, you are. If you 
 aren't you'd know how to find the Psalms. Then, why 
 could n't you? It was n't as if it was one of those days 
 when you have Proper Psalms — you know. Proper 
 Psalms Appointed for this Morning — when you have to 
 find them by the Roman numbers, X's and L's and C's. 
 It was just an ordinary day of the month." 
 
 David had nothing to say — or a great deal too much ! 
 — so very wisely held his peace. But he felt deeply humili- 
 ated. He contrived the next day to smuggle a prayer- 
 book out of Chapel with him and set himself resolutely to 
 learn to find his way about its pages. This, so little privacy 
 has a boy at school, he had to do at odd times and in the 
 strangest places. Difficulties, perplexities, humiliations. 
 
 Then, suddenly a change. Chapel, from being terrible, 
 became a delight to him. He was too aloof from conven- 
 tional religious exercises for the real spirit of them to take 
 hold of him, or even to mean much to him, but the beauty 
 of the Services themselves made a powerful impression 
 on him. The sound of the rolling sentences was a joy to 
 him. AfterW'ards he knew that what he was to mean later 
 by the Theatre — the Theatre in the French sense — was 
 here also. 
 
 Rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the 
 Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger , 
 and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. 
 
 To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, 
 though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed 
 the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he 
 set before us.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 177 
 
 / will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, 
 Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am 
 no more worthy to be called thy son. 
 
 This one particularly. Consider. These things came to 
 him newly. No 'Line upon Line' had prepared him for 
 them; no 'Peep o' Day' opened his eyes to the wide 
 range of what lay behind them. All was sheer new wonder 
 to him. A fresh opening, of course, for the enemy. He was 
 interested where the rest were bored, and . . . well, we all 
 know boys! 
 
 "Nineteenth morning of the month, Sir Thingamy P. 
 O come let us sing." 
 
 "When you are Sir Thingamy you'll have a private 
 chapel of your own, won't you, and you'll be able to have 
 service all day long if you like and say. Oh, ain't the collix 
 lovely! Which do you like best, Thingamy, the Psalms 
 or the sermon?" 
 
 W^ell, what matter? Let the tongues wag. 
 
 David did not care for sermons. He did like the Psalms. 
 He had lighted on the seventy-eighth in his explorations 
 and it had thrilled him. 
 
 So he commanded the clouds above, and opened the doors 
 of heaven. 
 
 David could see 'Him' doing that. 
 
 He caused the east wind to blow under heaven, and through 
 his power he brought in the south-west-wind . . . 
 
 He smote their cattle with hail-stones, and their flocks with 
 hot thunderbolts . . . 
 
 Hot thunderbolts! 
 
 He cast upon them the furiousness of his wrath, anger, 
 displeasure and trouble, and sent evil spirits among them . . . 
 
 Furiousness! Evil spirits! 
 
 He made a way to his indignation and spared not their 
 soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence . . . 
 
 A way to his indignation. The word Death. The word 
 Pestilence. 
 
 And the wonderful hundred-and-seventh, with the un-
 
 178 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 even beat of its refrain! Young as he was, he perceived the 
 unevenness of the beat, and he counted the verses to see 
 exactly how uneven it was. The refrain came after the 
 seventh verse, he found; then after the fourteenth; then 
 after the twentieth; then not till after the thirtieth; and 
 then, when your ear and your eye had got accustomed to 
 its uncertain recurrence and watched for it as astronomers 
 for the (surer) return of a comet, it came no more at all. 
 This in itself was fascinating, but how fascinating (not 
 David's word, but what David meant!) it was. How — 
 David's word had to be 'jolly' — then, how very jolly! 
 
 O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his good- 
 ness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of 
 men. 
 
 Nor was this all. The Psalm was full of pictures. 
 
 Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being 
 fast bound in misery and iron. 
 
 To hear such words for the first time. Think of it. 
 
 They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their 
 business in great waters. 
 
 (Can we be sure that David was not greatly privileged?) 
 
 These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders 
 in the deep. 
 
 Wonders in the deep! 
 
 Pictures of the sea then: 
 
 For at his word the stormy wind ariseth which lifteth up 
 the waves thereof. 
 
 They are carried up to the heaven, and down again to the 
 deep: their soid melteth away because of the trouble. 
 
 They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and 
 are at their wits end. 
 
 So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble he de- 
 livereth them out of their distress. 
 
 Then the lovely For he maketh the storm to cease so that 
 the waves thereof are still; and the thrice lovely (even David 
 knew this !) Then are they glad because they are at rest, and 
 so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 179 
 
 that men — Yes, the refrain came there right enough. 
 There the refrain had to come — could not help itself. 
 
 Worth being laughed at to be so happy? David made 
 half his discovery then. There were compensations? Cer- 
 tainly there were compensations. What matter if there 
 was something about you? If you were n't to the accepted 
 pattern? If you did not know your way; had to go cau- 
 tiously where others were sure-footed, to learn by painful 
 experience what to the rest was second nature — what 
 matter any of these things when there were such compen- 
 sations? Nor were compensations all. There were sanc- 
 tuaries. You could get away. You could get where they 
 could not follow you — where they, the boys to scale and 
 to pattern, had not the wit to follow you. You were free 
 of them the day you knew that. It was then as it was with 
 Alice in Wonderland when she said, "You're only a pack 
 of cards." You had only to know. 
 
 So, more slowly than most boys, but also quite surely, 
 David settled down. He was never to be entirely popular, 
 for the reasons stated, and also such other reasons as that 
 he spoke French too well for an Englishman, 'knew' Ger- 
 man, and even had a smattering of Italian. But he had all 
 the friends he wanted. The masters liked him, and the 
 French master, since David was the only boy who could 
 answer him in his own tongue without effort, and since, 
 moreover, he was perhaps the only boy in the school who 
 saw nothing to laugh at in the fact of your being a foreigner, 
 shewed a marked preference for him. These things, in the 
 odd boy-world, went also against him. But for the most 
 part he had managed to get himself accepted, and, because 
 there was a quiet force in the little withdrawn boy which 
 by degrees made itself felt, accepted upon his own terms. 
 He would have his own terms or none. He found pres- 
 ently, too, that he could make a friend of an enemy if he 
 chose, and could, before the term was over, have captured 
 the good-looking bullying boy. But here he did not choose.
 
 i8o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 And then, quite suddenly, he made further discovery. 
 
 He did not mean to be unhappy. Vaguely he knew that 
 he had something to contend with — something that he 
 himself had nothing to do with, but that had ever^'thing 
 in the world to do with him. If once he gave in to it, it 
 would overcome him, but he was not going to give in to it. 
 Whatever it was, he was going to live it down — more, he 
 was going to turn it to account as the oyster turns grits 
 to account, making pearls of them . . . turning them to 
 enduring beauty. 
 
 And his discovery — his real discovery of which every 
 other discovery was only a part? Outwardly it was a toy. 
 Inwardly it was everything — literature, music (somehow), 
 painting, sculpture (somehow), the joys and the joy of 
 life. Anything that it was not, it stood for. It was the 
 opening of all the doors. 
 
 A boy called Smith initiated him — a rather stupid boy 
 with a cold in the head and a cow's-lick, who did not in 
 the smallest degree himself understand. But he knew 
 about the things, and of a shop, out of bounds for boarders, 
 but accessible to day-boys like himself, where they could 
 be bought. 
 
 "But what are they like?" David asked. 
 
 "Like real theatres, only very small." 
 
 David tried to imagine. 
 
 "How small?" 
 
 "Oh, not so very." 
 
 "But how big?" 
 
 "About as big as — Oh, I don't know." 
 
 "They've scenes?" said David. 
 
 "Rather, /^nd side-wings." 
 
 "Side-wings." David thrilled at a new word. "You 
 might tell me." 
 
 "I am telling you. You can get plays — lots. I don't 
 think much of them. They're only for kids." 
 
 "But your pater had one."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN i8i 
 
 "They're quite old things really, he says. You've 
 heard of Mrs. Siddons. She's in some of the plays — 
 they were made when she was alive." 
 
 "But do," said David, "tell me what they're like." 
 
 He was aflame to know now. Heaven knows what he 
 saw, but he saw as clearly as Blake. 
 
 "Scenes," he said, "and what did you say? Yes, side- 
 wings." 
 
 "There are foot-pieces, too, and top-drops." 
 
 David caught his breath. 
 
 Smith proceeded. No one had ever been so much in- 
 terested in anything he said, or might have to say, be- 
 fore. 
 
 "My father says he spent all his pocket money on them 
 when he was a boy. The characters are on sheets, you 
 know, — plates they call them. Some of the scenes are 
 meant to be cut out, you know, so that you can see through 
 them." 
 
 David thought of the pantomime. He believed he knew. 
 
 "Like the transformation scene." 
 
 "There are transformation scenes." 
 
 "Pantomimes?" 
 
 It seemed there were pantomimes. 
 
 After that David could not rest till he should see what 
 Smith had described, or, more exactly, had not described. 
 Smith was disappointing. He was only interesting be- 
 cause he knew of the things, and he was not interesting 
 because he was not interested. 
 
 "They're only for kids," he repeated from time to time. 
 He had rather a contempt for them. But David was sure. 
 He ceased to talk to Smith about them, and could not 
 bring himself to ask the snuffling boy to go to the shop for 
 him. The November evening when, breaking bounds, he 
 went himself, marked a turning-point in his life. Every- 
 thing led to it — the shadow over his life, of the existence 
 of which school had now caused him to become dimly 
 conscious ; the early wanderings ; Katinka certainly and the
 
 i82 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 actings, with the brothers Grimm behind those, and 
 the wonders of the unfamiHar Bible to follow them; and 
 many, many other mysteries besides these. All the external 
 things, yes, but something deeper; something, in truth, in 
 David himself. He entered the shop with a beating heart.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The shop was very dark. It was in a back street. A single 
 candle lighted the window, and a smoky oil lamp stood 
 on the counter. 
 
 David stood looking into the window for some moments 
 before he went in. Cheap writing-materials were what it 
 held chiefly — paper, pens of various rather unattractive 
 sorts, inks of two or three colours, hard pink blotting- 
 paper which did not look absorbent. There were other 
 things; bottles of gum, rulers, a dusty writing-desk or two, 
 and many things on cards — cards with gaps on them 
 where this or that had been sold. 
 
 The light of the candle was very dim, but not dim 
 enough to have obscured what he sought, if it had been 
 there. It was not there. He went in. 
 
 A bell tinkled as he opened the door, and continued to 
 tinkle long after it had closed itself and he stood shyly be- 
 hind it. No one came for a minute or so, and he had time 
 to look about him. The stock was meagre and had an air 
 of being dusty. There was a window at the back of the shop 
 with a red rep curtain on the farther side of it, but this 
 was drawn so that he could not see into the room beyond 
 it. There was a rep curtain also over the glazed half of the 
 door beside the windovv% No sign of life. 
 
 He was startled when the bell tinkled suddenly behind 
 him, and an old man entered from the street. 
 
 The old man eyed him, and said, "What is it?" curtly, 
 as if a customer was not at all what he wanted to see, and 
 then, making odd little protesting noises, went round be- 
 hind the counter, where, with his back for a moment to 
 David, he put something away on a shelf out of sight. He 
 turned, then, to the waiting David with another "What is 
 it?" but, before David could answer him, he volunteered
 
 i84 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 that David was one of the College Boys and that he did n't 
 sell fireworks. 
 
 " I don't want fireworks," said David. 
 
 "Nor sweets," said the old man. 
 
 "I don't want sweets," said David. "I want — do you 
 sell — I mean, have you got — I don't exactly know what 
 you call them — " 
 
 "Nobody comes for an hour-and-a-half," said the old 
 man — "upwards of that — and then when I only so 
 much as step over to the chemist's for a spot of pepper- 
 mint for my indigestion, and have n't been gone not half 
 a minute, the blessed bell goes for somebody as, to the best 
 of my belief, doesn't know what he does want! If it 
 is n't fireworks, young gentleman, what is it? Python's 
 Eggs I do keep. Everybody pleased. Roars of Innocent 
 Amusement and No Danger. Just a match to the Egg 
 (don't tell me y' don't want something with scrope for 
 playing with matches!) and the Serpent uncoiling to a 
 length of Upwards of Two Feet, vide printed Directions, 
 though I would n't go measuring. They're a penny if I 've 
 got any left. If it's tobacco I don't keep it, nor would n't 
 feel myself justified in selling it to you if I did." 
 
 He was meant to laugh then? He laughed and began 
 to explain, but he hadn't got further than "Plays, you 
 know — scenes, characters," when a hand was thrust 
 across the counter to him and his own gripped tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 "At last!" the old man was saying, and David felt as 
 one who has been found after long search and is 'ac- 
 claimed'! "Somebody asks for the Juvenile Drama — 
 somebody comes in and ackshally asks. You'll excuse me, 
 young gentleman. Ackshally asks! You'll pardon an old 
 man making so bold. The Juvenile Drama! Skelt's, Red- 
 ington's, Webb's, Park's — Skelt's! there's a name for 
 you! there's a sound! It has been music to many in its 
 time. But now. Where's boys with the — the Soul for it? 
 Yes, the Soul. And it's a boy's toy (though mind y' /
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 185 
 
 don't really call it a toy) — but a boy's, mark me, what- 
 ever it is, for I never yet met a female who rightly under- 
 stood, much less appreciated it. They — females — might 
 play with it, like they play with dolls. It's a boy has the 
 feeling. I know. Why, don't I remember? I used to 
 tremble. Nothing else in all my life give me the thrill. It's 
 a kind of — but I need n't tell you. You know. I ought to 
 recognised you at once. I ought to sensed you the moment 
 I come into the shop — the moment I set eyes on you." 
 
 "But I don't know," said David, rather breathlessly, 
 so bewildered was he. "I want to. I've only heard of 
 them. I 've never seen one." 
 
 "He's never seen one," said the old man to the dusty 
 stock and the ceiling. "He's never seen one. But he will 
 know. And let me tell you I envy you. Yes, with the accu- 
 mulated wisdom and experience of a lifetime I envy you. 
 You wait. You'll know right enough, and, unless I'm 
 very much mistaken (which I never am, I may say), be- 
 fore you're many minutes older. But — " he broke off — 
 "where did you hear of them, and what brought you to 
 me?" 
 
 "A boy told me of them. He said you kept them. He 
 did n't care for them." 
 
 "What did I tell you! That's why I've took 'em out of 
 the window. What's the good? Nobody worthy of 'em, 
 that's what I said to myself. Let's put 'em away, A 
 dying industry. In another ten or fifteen years there's no 
 one '11 have heard of them. There'll be imitations, mind, 
 in toyshops — all they're fit for — German conglomera- 
 tions — with Op'ra wrote over them. . . . Op'ra! . . . and 
 no more like them than a Baptist Chapel is like St. Paul's 
 Cathedral. But the real thing — " 
 
 "Oh, could n't I see them?" said David. He was burn- 
 ing with excitement now. Though he did not understand 
 half the old man had said to him, he knew that what he 
 was to be shown would be to him all that the old man 
 predicted — that in this sense he was, from the old man's
 
 186 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 point of view, at least not one of the wholly unworthy. 
 The old man put on a pair of spectacles, looked at him, 
 nodded his head two or three times smiling, and turned 
 to a drawer behind him. He pulled it out and proceeded 
 to take from it what seemed to the feverish David to be 
 an infinity of baulking, tiresome, exasperating things — 
 sheets of cardboard, foolscap and drawing-paper, packets 
 of dish-papers, curUng-papers, and what-indeed-not? — 
 before a largish brown paper parcel was brought to view. 
 This the old man lifted to the counter. He pulled the 
 string which bound it, and David felt his heart give a leap. 
 
 Well, he was n't disappointed. The old man, fingering 
 this and that lovingly, and watching him, was n't dis- 
 appointed either. 
 
 '"Stage-Front,"' David read, '"Redington's."' And 
 something about Building higher than any other pub- 
 lished at a larger price. "What does Building mean? And 
 look here. It says Flat or Built. What is Built?" 
 
 The old man explained how that, when the stage-front 
 was mounted on cardboard, certain cuttings and bendings 
 would sink the opening and bring the boxes into position. 
 
 " Bevel it and make it solid-like, see? As if it really was 
 built. You can buy 'em all ready done, stage and all. But 
 you take my advice. I'll draw you out a little plan, and 
 when you go home for the holidays you get a carpenter to 
 make your own stage for you. You can have it deeper 
 then. More scrope for effects. More practicable. You 
 won't be able to do much at school, I don't expect. Past- 
 ing your scenes and characters on brown paper, and cut- 
 ting out and such. You'll be impatient, I 've no manner of 
 doubt, to begin — to set to work-like, but if you'll believe 
 me, the spirit of the thing, the real meaning is n't in all 
 that at all. It's the things themselves. The names. 
 Pizarro. There's a name for you. Rolla — look at him 
 with the child when he has to cross the waterfall. I forget 
 whose great part that was, but some one's. There's one
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 187 
 
 scene called The Temple of the Sun. And there's Dun- 
 geons. My goodness, the Dungeons! Chains, rings in the 
 walls, barred windows." 
 
 It was certain that the old man knew. 
 
 David, round-eyed, looked and listened. He could have 
 stayed for ever, but found suddenly to his dismay that it 
 was now a quarter to five. The school gates were locked in 
 the winter at five. He decided hurriedly on Pizarro (uncol- 
 oured), and, with this and a Stage-Front (coloured) pressed 
 closely to him under his coat, and with promises, as much 
 to himself as to the old man, to come again very soon, he 
 took his hurried and excited flight. 
 
 Thus, in the little dark shop in the back street, upon this 
 November evening, was found that which was to have its 
 influence on far more than the short years which passed 
 before, in the natural course, the thing itself — the out- 
 ward and visible sign of all that it represented — was out- 
 grown. What matter the form which the symbol may take? 
 For one it is ships. Oh, the flat bit of wood with the mast 
 and the sail of skewered paper — nay, earlier than this 
 even, the paper boat itself which your grandmother, per- 
 haps, knew how to make for you ! From those a short cut 
 maybe to the great ships which really go down to the sea. 
 For another, engines. For a third, books. For David, all 
 these probably, but now the thing which to his present 
 young imagination (the appeal was to that!) embraced 
 everything else. He hung over the sheets. Pizarro, Rolla, 
 the Lady Elvira seated (an Empire couch if his memory 
 serves him). Old Blind Man and Boy (the blindness rep- 
 resented by bandaged eyes), these and many others with 
 their First Dress and Second Dress, and (but, for this, 
 seek the Book, if haply in these degenerate days it may 
 still be found) their Plate So-and-So, Figure So-and-So. 
 Plate! Figure! The sound, as the old man had said, of 
 words! Yes, and the type itself — several founts — the 
 shape and the size of the letters in which the words with 
 the inspiring sounds were printed ! Difficult in after years
 
 i88 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 to apportion the various plays which passed through his 
 hands to their several pubHshers. Was Pizarro Skelt? 
 And here again magic! For the allurement of names and 
 of the sound of words extended itself to the very addresses 
 of these publishers. Skelt of Swan Street, Minories. What 
 and where was — or were — Minories? Where, where, 
 where? Webb sanctified Old Street, St. Luke's. Oh, the 
 sound of St. Luke's in connection with Old Street! And 
 Redington, of the fourpenny stage-front which built higher 
 than any other published at sixpence, from his number in 
 Hoxton Street, formerly, as a footnote to the plates took 
 enthralling pains to explain, called Hoxton Old Town, 
 turned Hoxton presently into the Mecca of David's wild- 
 est dreams. For all the length of the period over which the 
 spell of the Juvenile Drama cast itself, his keenest desire 
 was to see the enchanted spot whence came — where were 
 born — the wonderful plates, the characters, scenes, side- 
 wings, top-drops, and foot-pieces, which reached him in 
 term-time by way of the little shop in the back street, and 
 in the holidays by post. A name and a number dominated 
 a considerable portion of an impressionable boyhood. 
 
 His dream while it was yet a dream was never realised. 
 London, as we may suppose, gave him many delights; real 
 theatres at Christmas-time, pantomimes anyway; the 
 Aquarium (which had held a whale, though he does not 
 remember to have seen that, and Zazel, whom he did see 
 walking her wire blindfold, diving from the roof, and even 
 fired from her cannon) ; the Crystal Palace, of course ; 
 Madame Tussaud's, heard of from afar even in the days 
 of the wandering; the Zoological Gardens; the Baker 
 Street Bazaar; but never Hoxton — or the Minories, or 
 even Old Street, St. Luke's. Hoxton was out of every one's 
 beat. Nobody, in Cheyne Walk, anyway, knew quite 
 where it was, or how to get to it. You could n't take it on 
 your walks, at all events. So, though never relinquishing 
 hope, he employed the post and waited upon it. How he 
 waited upon it . . . with what excitement hailed a double
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 189 
 
 knock in the distance, listened for a step, watched a figure 
 by day, a jerking lamp by night! He could recall the face 
 of a particular postman now for no other reason than that 
 he brought, or did not bring, the parcel for which on some 
 occasion or other he clamoured. He was not patient, or 
 perhaps he learnt his first lessons in patience then. Boys 
 had less pocket money in those days — the sons of the 
 well-to-do with the rest — and additions to his repertory 
 meant savings-up, small self-denials in other things. Yet, 
 so deeply are the waitings impressed on his mind, that, for 
 some time, each one of the holidays as it came must have 
 seen the belated arrival of at least one play. 
 
 Names, names, names. It was Grimm over again and 
 the magic of the golden things and the numbered things. 
 The Miller and his Men; The Blue Jackets (with Admiral 
 Trunnion, Ben Binnacle — names surely to set young blood 
 coursing! — Fanny Trunnion, 'alias Lieutenant Firefly of 
 the Skyrocket Fireship,' and an engaging Betsy Bodkin) ; 
 The Silver Palace (Volcano, Lumina, Corla Crown) ; Paul 
 Clifford; The Waterman; and — but here his mother, startled, 
 searched in her memory for an allusion by that time no 
 longer quite recent, and shewed an interest great almost 
 as his own — the redoubtable Baron Munchausen. 
 
 Food for the young imagination, that is all, but would 
 one thing have done as well as another — the ship, the 
 engine? Not for David. Not for David, for whom his 
 mother came to see, if she did not indeed see at once, that 
 it had to be what it was. The very list stood for something 
 — the list, that is, of the Hoxton Firm, for that was some- 
 how the only one which ever came into his hands. Skelt 
 and Webb and Park had been swallowed up already, per- 
 haps? But he might read the names of twenty-three plays 
 even there. These, the Hoxton Street list announced to 
 have been Republished — an announcement which, as im- 
 plying some earlier era, interested him keenly. The Corsi- 
 can Brothers was amongst them, The Brigand, Douglas, 
 Timour the Tartar.
 
 I90 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 And then, the twenty-three being finished, there fol- 
 lowed a catalogue of names more thrilling, more enthrall- 
 ing still — if only by reason of three lines, which, prefacing 
 it, put all that it held out of the reckoning. 
 
 "Having the Copper-Plates likewise of the following 
 Plays," said Hoxton, "I shall Republish them also in due 
 time, when they will always be kept in print, both plain 
 and coloured, with Books complete," 
 
 And then the names — names to make his mouth 
 water: The Flying Dutchman; Belphegor; Rob Roy; The 
 Red Rover (oh, the Red Rover!); Wapping Old Stairs; 
 Wreck Ashore; Dred; and Sixteen-String Jack! These were 
 but a few of them. 
 
 Due time was not David's time. He might sigh for the 
 moon. Jac^ 5/j^/>/>ar(/ had sixty-four sheets ! To have been 
 able to possess them! To have been able only to see them! 
 And Red Rover, Red Rover which ran like the refrain of 
 a song in his head, and Dred (covering what?), and the 
 beloved mysterious Sixteen-String Jack! 
 
 Not, it will be seen, just the thing itself. For the old 
 man knew — knew David, anyway. He might have proph- 
 esied. Knowing so much he must know more, surely. 
 There were Fire Pans at a penny, for your Red Fire; 
 slides ; footlights in shiniest tin at a penny a burner, and up 
 to twelve burners. By the smell of the colza oil with 
 which they were trimmed, and by the smell of the smok- 
 ing of them when they smoked, and by the other linked 
 and hallowed smells of the theatre in little, those notably 
 of glue and paste, and (more subtle but still delectable) of 
 paints with such names as Crimson Lake, Vermillion, 
 Ultramarine, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Gamboge and 
 Yellow Ochre, he, knowing these in common with David, 
 might surely have prophesied. 
 
 What to say? That the little theatre would one day be 
 changed for, nay, become, the big one? That David would 
 be an actor? Or that he would follow beauty, search for it, 
 find it?
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 191 
 
 He did say one day in the dark little shop that David 
 would never look back. 
 
 "How look back?" asked David. 
 
 "Oh, I dunno. What comes will come out of this — 
 whether it's acting in earnest, which it has been with some, 
 or music, the piano or the voice or maybe the violin ; or 
 whether it's painting or sculpsher, or poetry. I could tell 
 you what it won't be; but what it will, that's a different 
 matter. In old age, pictures, I dare say, and china and an 
 eye for the genuine thing. A collector, that's what it's 
 come to with some. Prints especially, mezzotints or line- 
 engravings — the eye trained perhaps by observing the 
 differences in these. Ah, you've noticed that, have you! 
 I thought so. Seen the difference between the drawings of 
 Don Quixote, eh, and your favourite Silver Palace ?" 
 
 David had. And the difference, too, between the easy 
 lines of the graceful Bluejackets and the wooden clumsi- 
 ness of the figures in the Mistletoe Bough. Not that he 
 would have allowed himself really to call even the stumpy 
 Lady Agnes wooden or clumsy. Good and bad, all shared 
 the glamour. He perceived for all that; knew the quick 
 from the dead; and how different a hand had drawn the 
 characters in Douglas, Lady Randolph with the air which 
 he came to think of later as 'Siddons,' Randolph, Glen- 
 alvon, the Stranger, and notably the Servant — blood, 
 bone, muscle to each of them — from the hand which 
 (though he loved The Waterman) could have perpetrated 
 such a Wilhelmina, such a Robin, so monkey-faced a Tom 
 Tug. He would have been Smith who did n't understand, 
 not David at all, if he had n't been conscious of differences. 
 But it is certain that the contemplation of the different 
 hands, expressing themselves so differently in the different 
 drawings, must already have begun to train his eye.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Unlikely, one would have thought that the uncomfort- 
 able little incident which had marked the beginning of 
 David's school-days should have come to his mother's 
 knowledge. David unquestioned could never have spoken 
 of it. It was through a question — through the very acci- 
 dent of the words in which he clothed it — that slumbering 
 memories were stirred. The sequel was almost automatic. 
 
 Time was passing. The term-times and holidays came 
 and went. David was twelve, was thirteen, and still the 
 little theatre, which was the symbol of so much else, held 
 him. She had looked to see it outgrown long since, but 
 though it would be outgrown when it had served its pur- 
 pose, that hour had not struck yet. Whither tending? 
 Whereto all the thoughts too deep for words which it 
 inspired in him? What was it doing to him and for him? 
 Watching the engrossed boy generally, she asked herself 
 these things. 
 
 One day, really watching him, she asked him. 
 
 "David." 
 
 "Yes, Mother." 
 
 "What are you going to be?" 
 
 There had been a pasting the day before — sheets of 
 characters pasted on to sheets of brown paper, most of 
 the household helping, and now David had begun to cut 
 out. The cutting-out he liked to do unaided. He could 
 trust no one else, his mother always excepted, with the 
 minutenesses and intricacies of the delicate work. 
 
 "Does one have to be something?" he asked, and knew 
 at once to a momentary dismay — or a dismay that was 
 at least potential — that he had reminded himself of 
 something which he wished to forget. "Can't one," he 
 said after a pause, — "can't one just be?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 193 
 
 "You would n't wish to be idle," his mother said. 
 
 David was n't so sure. 
 
 "Have you thought at all what you'd like to be?" she 
 asked then. 
 
 David, cutting out more busily, said, "Oh, I don't 
 know," and held the tip of his tongue between his teeth 
 as his scissors effected a difficult manoeuvre. 
 
 "Suppose I 'd cut off his sword," he said, the uncomfort- 
 able moment past. 
 
 It was actually Baron Munchausen upon whom he was 
 working. She had seen the plates, as we know, and even 
 the horse which was cut in two by the fall of the portcullis. 
 Her thoughts, with the bisected steed for a mount, or per- 
 haps David's scissors for a sort of broomstick, fled to 
 Ettringham. She heard again Miss Ingoldby's snip, snip, 
 snip; saw Lady Penstephen and her slop-basin; heard the 
 sound of John's impetuous thrustings. 
 
 "But you'll have to, David. Don't the masters ever 
 ask you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " But you ought to be working for something. What do 
 you think you'd like to be?" 
 
 "Can I be what I like?" 
 
 " I don't say that, but it would be some sort of guide if 
 we knew what your tastes were." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said David again; but he thought, 
 all the same, that he did know. 
 
 Everything was leading him to the knowledge then ; not 
 the little theatre only; though, since he had had that for a 
 symbol of the desired thing, the knowledge lay behind all 
 that he did. There were times when he could hardly con- 
 tain himself for the urgency of his feelings. Music told him 
 — if, as is to be feared, he called everything that had a tune 
 music, from the noises made by the dark-eyed little Pied- 
 montese with the unmastered accordions with whom Eng- 
 land swarmed just then, and those of the piano-organs, 
 with their Santa Lucia s and their Oh-my- Fie- For -Shame' s^
 
 194 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 only beginning then to take the place of the Voici-le- 
 Sabre s and the Hearts-Bowed-Down and the When-Other- 
 Lips, of the groaning wooden-legged hurdy-gurdies, to the 
 strains of the German bands which murdered Handel and 
 Offenbach and Mozart and Verdi and Lecocq quite impar- 
 tially everywhere. Music told him; books told him; things 
 seen and things half-seen told him. He knew when he 
 heard the lessons read in Chapel. Did n't this one or that 
 of the monitors understand what he read, that the recital 
 of things which made David's heart leap should be so 
 savourless? He knew on Glee Club nights when his soft 
 treble ('tremble' might really sometimes have been the 
 word here!) took its part in Oh, who will o'er the downs so 
 free? and See our oars with feathered spray, and Row, Broth- 
 ers, Row, and — the Glee Club, like many another, using 
 the Harrow Glee Book — Katinka's Wanderlied and Katin- 
 ka's Lorelei, and (but shorn of its exquisite crumpled paper 
 accompaniment!) Katinka's Mill. Goodness! He knew 
 then. There could be only one outlet for the feelings with 
 which he was blessed or burdened. 
 
 Not David's words any of these, you will understand. 
 All that he felt was still inarticulate. He only knew that 
 he did feel, and that somehow, ultimately, what he felt, 
 or what he had the power of feeling, would have to be ex- 
 pressed. When as a smaller boy he had seen a circus and 
 had wanted to be a circus rider and jump through a hoop, 
 or, by a jigging of his arms, balance himself on his but- 
 tocks in a slipping position on the extreme slope of the 
 cantering horse's near hind-quarter, or to be a trapeze per- 
 former and fly from swinging bar to swinging bar in mid- 
 air, while the audience held its breath and even the band 
 stopped, it was the same compelling need that had been 
 there. The little theatre appeased it. He could be Pizarro, 
 you see, or Rolla, or Coral Crown with the golden-scale 
 armour, or Volcano whose pictured lines were so beautiful 
 even in defeat. The Let's Pretend of the nursery days? 
 Not quite that. Or else that so thoroughly, so completely, as
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 195 
 
 to endue simulation with the divine properties of creation. 
 The gods that David would have made in the likeness of 
 men would all, as Galatea for Pygmalion, have come to life. 
 
 But to his mother's question he could only say that he 
 did n't know. 
 
 "Soldier?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "At least I should like to be one. But I'm not one." 
 
 "How, David?" 
 
 " I don't know. I don't believe I am." 
 
 "The Navy, then?" 
 
 Again David found himself reminded of the incident of 
 his first term. The uncomfortable moment had returned. 
 It was also, this time, not a moment. 
 
 He grew red quite suddenly, to his mother's surprise, 
 and then, to something more than her surprise, gradually 
 rather white. She made a little rapid movement, a leaning 
 of her body towards him, but did not speak. He went on 
 cutting out, but, conscious probably of her eyes upon him, 
 no longer easily. 
 
 What had she said? She reviewed the few brief sen- 
 tences spoken in the last few minutes, seeking any possible 
 cause in them for what she was observing, and could find 
 none. Had he been twitted with the need of a goal, of an 
 aim or a purpose? — told that he was n't of the stuff that 
 soldiers or sailors were made of? She did not think so. He 
 was n't a fighter, but he was stubborn on occasion and had 
 plenty of courage. He could hold his own, she believed, if 
 his opponents played fairly. But opponents? She had no 
 reason to suppose that, in the sense of adversaries, there 
 were any. 
 
 He looked up, irked, maybe, by the tension. 
 
 "You're quite happy at school, David, are n't you?" 
 
 "Yes, Mother, of course." 
 
 She was not satisfied. Her eyes, with a reminiscence in 
 them of the look they used so often to wear, were question- 
 ing him.
 
 196 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Tell me, David." 
 
 "Tell you what, Mother?" 
 
 "Why you — why you — " No, she couldn't put it 
 that way. "Tell me," she said gently, "what's the mat- 
 ter." 
 
 "Nothing's the matter, Mother." 
 
 And so obviously something was, or something had 
 been! 
 
 She would have liked to say, "David, you're keeping 
 something back from me," but shrank before the possibil- 
 ity of endangering their confidence in each other, by seem- 
 ing to press for what, if it was to have any value at all, 
 must be given. 
 
 "Get me a pair of scissors and I '11 cut out too," she said 
 instead. "You'll find a pair in my workbasket. It's on the 
 chest of drawers in my room." 
 
 So she eased the stress. But what could it have been 
 . . . ? The Army . . . the Navy . . . and at once the 
 changing of colour followed by the constraint, which, 
 though it shewed itself in no faltering of his eyes when she 
 met them, was none the less palpable to beings at least as 
 sensitive to atmospheres and influences as she was and as 
 she knew him to be. And, as she threw her mind back over 
 the trifling events of the last few minutes, had she not been 
 vaguely sensible of something of the same sort a few min- 
 utes earlier? 
 
 He left the room and she heard his feet on the polished 
 stairs. She looked at the sheets of characters on their 
 brown paper, which all night had lain pressing under 
 heavy books to flatten them after the day before's pasting, 
 and at the little shower of clippings, brown and white, on 
 the table and on the floor under where David had been 
 sitting, as if from these things she might discover a clue 
 to what was puzzling and disturbing her. 
 
 "Does one have to be something?" It had been upon 
 that. His funny little "Can't one just be " had been in the 
 nature of a recover^'. She built up the scene once more:
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 197 
 
 David, the light on his hair, bending a Httle over his scis- 
 sors, and in his face the absorbed expression that it always 
 wore when he was doing work that interested him. What 
 . . . ? 
 
 Well, she would not ask. When he came back he found 
 his own scissors in her hands, and her attention fixed upon 
 the figure she was cutting out. 
 
 " I wonder whether the screen at Ettringham is fin- 
 ished," she said. 
 
 "I could have helped with it, could n't I, Mother?" 
 
 She went into his room that night to tuck him up as she 
 used to do when he was a little boy. She lingered a little, 
 hoping that he would tell her then, but he did not. 
 
 "Well, good-night, darling." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 He called her back as she was closing the door, but it was 
 only to ask her to sing Annie Laurie and Hunting Tower, two 
 of his favourites of her songs, and to leave the drawing- 
 room door open. 
 
 And he could not have told you why he could not tell 
 her! It was as it had been when he had kept silence after 
 he had seen the two ladies on the seat at Homburg, on the 
 day of his mother's illness when he had taken his memorable 
 walk with his father. His mother in turn kept silence. 
 Time was when she would have unburdened her heart to 
 David's father, but she could not do this so freely now, and 
 the odd little incident added itself to the sum of those 
 things which she kept in her heart. 
 
 The explanation came to her months later, and then 
 once more by a changing of colour upon the part of a bigger 
 David, and a putting of two and two together upon her 
 own. 
 
 They had met a school-fellow of David's, and David's 
 mother heard her son's nickname for the first time.
 
 198 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Sir Thingamy P.," she said. "Is that what they call 
 you?" 
 
 His mother was ' not thinking,' as we say, or she would 
 not have asked why they called him that. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said David; " I suppose because of 
 Father." 
 
 He was furious with himself as he felt himself growing 
 red. 
 
 Her attention was arrested. 
 
 "Your father?" 
 
 David nodded. "They always ask a new boy what his 
 father is, you know. Why, I do now. Everybody always 
 does." 
 
 Even then she might not have got her clue if David, 
 stumbling a little, — fumbling, anyway, for words, because 
 he was conscious that he was giving himself away, — had 
 not explained himself a Uttle further. "What he's in, you 
 know." 
 
 She had it now. How simple it was. The Army or the 
 Navy, and David's father not in either. What was he, 
 then? She could construct that scene as easily as she had 
 reconstructed the other — as easily, indeed, as if she had 
 witnessed it. David, a little shy new boy, and the inquisi- 
 tors. They knew, then, and David, who had said nothing 
 at home, had been through the fire! 
 
 For a moment she felt stunned. 
 
 But did they? She looked at him quickly. He was up 
 to her shoulder now — growing, she thought, every day. 
 Already he had a separate existence from hers. What ex- 
 periences were his in that other life which was hidden from 
 her? Did they know? And did he? And (miserable inde- 
 cision for her, here), what did she wish? 
 
 "But why should they call you Sir Thingamy?" She 
 heard herself asking at last and even contriving a banter- 
 ing tone. "Your father, yes: if they ever had occasion 
 to speak of him, I could understand — impertinent little
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 199 
 
 wretches! — their calling him Sir Thingamy. But why 
 your 
 
 David wanted to get off the subject. He looked about 
 as if in the material objects around him he might find aid, 
 means of escape from it, means whereby he might change 
 it. He found none, though it was in Battersea Park they 
 were walking, and Battersea Park abounded in interests. 
 
 "Oh," he said, "I don't know." The phrase held him 
 and he was conscious of that too — of seeming to have 
 nothing else for an answer to every question. "I suppose 
 because — oh, I don't know." 
 
 He broke off and looked at the river. His mother did not 
 speak. She did not look at him. She was determined that 
 nothing should be forced from him. She too looked at the 
 river. They both stopped and leant on the railing. But 
 because she did not speak he had to. 
 
 " Because — I suppose, because some day I shall be . . ." 
 
 His mother caught her breath with a little sound. 
 
 "Myself," he finished with a little gulp. "They meant 
 after years and years, of course, when I'm quite old." 
 
 The sword turned in Mary's heart. They did n't know, 
 then, or, at any rate, he did n't. But she felt suddenly 
 that she wished fervently that he did. She breathed quickly 
 for a few moments, and, to steady herself, closed her hand 
 upon the railing. David, suspecting nothing, did not ob- 
 serve her. The discomfort of the last minute or two — a 
 discomfort which he would yet have had great difficulty to 
 account for or explain — had, he supposed, been all his. 
 
 "It was only a silly joke, you see," he said, dismissing 
 the whole thing; and, eased of it, and as conscious of relief 
 as one who puts down a load, he moved away a few paces 
 and looked for pebbles to throw into the water. 
 
 But Mary leaning upon the railing was beset by a very 
 torture of perplexity. This was perhaps the moment for 
 telling him? Now while he would imperfectly understand
 
 200 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 and so imperfectly realise. Perhaps never again would so 
 favourable, nay, so easy, an opportunity occur. She had 
 only to call him to her now and to say, "David, you never 
 will be Sir Thingamy P." — even the 'Sir Thingamy' to 
 her hand to soften the blow it must deal, to give a lulling 
 appearance of comedy to the tragedy, and so ward off the 
 pain of knowledge till the mind should have accustomed 
 itself to the idea! — "not in the years and years, not even 
 when you're quite quite old." For, oh, he would get accus- 
 tomed to the idea. Sooner or later he must be told, and 
 with all her heart she believed, now, that the telling ought, 
 on every count, to be sooner rather than later. 
 
 "David." 
 
 She had called to him. She had heard herself call to him. 
 She was going to tell him, then? 
 
 " You did n't say that? You did n't say that, yourself 
 I mean — about some day becoming — succeeding — " 
 
 "No, Mother. Of course not." 
 
 His face had clouded again. He looked at the pebbles 
 he was holding and threw one of them, and ran to the rail- 
 ing to watch for the ring that should mark its fall. It was 
 probably forbidden to throw stones into the river, she 
 thought, and, part of her mind detaching itself as it were 
 from the contemplation of the problem which exercised 
 her so mercilessly, she wondered, with that part of it, why 
 a park-keeper, who was standing some forty or fifty yards 
 off and must see him, did not interfere. Then she knew 
 that she wished that he would interfere. And then she 
 knew that she was wavering; that — coward that her love 
 made her! — she wanted to gain time; and that to gain 
 time was to lose it. 
 
 And then, desperately, her whole mind attacked the prob- 
 lem afresh. Dare she spare herself? All David's life was 
 involved. And though it was plain that he himself did not 
 know, it was by no means certain that those who had 
 bestowed his nickname upon him did not know. There 
 might be nothing more in the incident than he of his igno-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 201 
 
 ranee supposed, or there might be a malice which as yet had 
 not revealed itself. Was there? and did he all ignorantly 
 somehow suspect it? For, clear as it was that the circum- 
 stances that had attended the schoolboy questionings had 
 taught him nothing, it was at least equally clear that he 
 looked back upon them, for some reason or other, with 
 distaste, and that he could only bring himself to allude to 
 them with a very real reluctance. 
 
 Then, now, surely! Now when the iron was hot; or the 
 wax was soft; or the twig would bend without breaking. 
 
 And then — and all in the few moments during which, 
 outwardly calm, she stood clutching the railing — a thought 
 of John, and, and in the light of other thoughts which came 
 in its train, a sudden check! Had she, without consulting 
 the boy's father, the right to tell him? Ought she upon her 
 own responsibility to take a step from which there would 
 be no returning? The thoughts thronged her now, each as 
 it came involving another. John and she were one. No 
 real barrier could have raised itself between them. She saw 
 him as she had seen him at Homburg, leaning over her, 
 when she came back to life after her illness, the tears of his 
 inexpressible relief and thankfulness in his eyes, felt his 
 head bowed beside her on the bed, his hands gathering her 
 hands into his — Christ's simile, the simile for all time of 
 protective sheltering love — as a hen gathers her chickens 
 under her wings, and knew that there could be no barrier 
 between them. To act independently of him would be to 
 acknowledge, nay, to establish, the existence of what did 
 not exist, and she had been on the point of doing this. She 
 held her breath for a moment and closed her eyes. David, 
 as before, found himself released. 
 
 But both came in from their walk a little older than when 
 they had started out for it an hour or so earlier. Both, in 
 their different ways, had the feeling of having passed 
 through something which left them not quite where they 
 had been before. For David, mysteries seemed to be in
 
 202 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 the air, the ground not quite solid as heretofore under his 
 feet; for Mary, nothing new, it was true, but a new aspect 
 for old misgivings and fears and perplexities. The sending 
 of David to school seemed now to have been like sending 
 him into the world alone and unequipped to fend and to 
 fight for himself. Well, he would have all his life perhaps 
 to fight for himself. Better that he should begin from the 
 first. But fight blindfold? 
 
 David, the elasticity of youth helping, recovered him- 
 self quickly. He had, moreover, always, refuges into which 
 he could creep. Betsy, as we may or may not remember, 
 had instanced sleep. That boy, she had said, would al- 
 ways be able to sleep. But sleep was only for the night. 
 A book was his particular entrenchment at this moment. 
 He was reading Ainsworth's Tower of London, and once 
 more we may envy him. His mother, recovering herself 
 less quickly, but recovering herself, nevertheless, for the 
 knowledge, perhaps, that, whatever happened, she of 
 necessity must keep going, saw him curled up on the 
 leather sofa in the schoolroom, the book on the arm of it, 
 one of his own arms half round the volume, the other sup- 
 porting his absorbed head as he bent over it, and knew that 
 all was well with him. But he would have to be told. Upon 
 that point she had no hesitations. She would speak to his 
 father that evening. 
 
 i
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 She spoke after dinner, as she had spoken before when it 
 was only a piano that she wanted. 
 
 John was reading just as he had been reading then, and 
 she knitting. She had even a book upon her knee. And 
 she was not reading or attempting to read. For the back- 
 ground of Frau Finkel's room, with the grained woods and 
 the looking-glasses, there was the very different back- 
 ground of the panelled room in Cheyne Walk, with its long 
 windows and its pilasters, and its beautiful old hob fire- 
 places with the reed backs. 
 
 A few words — nine, was it? — had settled the matter 
 of the piano. She did not think that a few words would 
 settle this. She searched in her mind how best to begin, 
 and while she was deliberating he looked up. Something 
 in her expression arrested his attention. 
 
 "What is it, Mary?" 
 
 " I want to talk to you, John." 
 
 "Something worrying you?" 
 
 She nodded. She rolled up her knitting, and, putting it 
 into her book, pushed both away from her. 
 
 "It's about David." 
 
 "What's he been doing?" he asked. 
 
 He put down his book, but did not close it. 
 
 "It's not anything that he's been doing," Mary said. 
 "It's what we've done, or rather what we haven't done. 
 John," she leaned forward a little, "what is your plan 
 about David?" 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 He too leaned forward a little. 
 
 " I learnt something to-day which brought things home 
 to me. I 've been wanting to speak to you about him for a 
 long time. Somehow I have n't been able."
 
 204 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "What Is It you learnt, Mary?" 
 
 "Oh, a very small thing in itself. There may be nothing 
 in it. But there may be everything. Only his nickname 
 at school." 
 
 And at the sound of its ridiculous syllables as she pro- 
 nounced them to his father, it did seem to her for a mo- 
 ment that there could be no cause for misgiving in what 
 was so frankly absurd. 
 
 John laughed as he heard it, and she even laughed a 
 little too. 
 
 "Sir Thingamy P.," he said. "So that's what they call 
 him." 
 
 But any comic aspect the name might have, vanished 
 with his next words. " I suppose they do know," he said 
 gravely. "It would be surprising if they did n't." 
 
 He saw, then, as she did. 
 
 "Yet," she said, "they certainly have n't told him that 
 they do, for it is evident that he does n't. And that's the 
 point. They're bound to know, probably many of them 
 do already, and so it's bound to come to his ears, and if it 
 comes that way — John, it mustn't come that way! — • 
 baldly, brutally, perhaps. It's unthinkable!" 
 
 There was silence when she had spoken. The house itself 
 seemed quite still. Then faint sounds, telling of life in the 
 more distant parts of it, reached her; the mufHed clatter- 
 ing of plates and dishes from below, and perhaps an almost 
 indistinguishable jingle of silver or of glass; the poking of 
 the kitchen fire and the hooking-up or the replacing of 
 rings in the kitchen grate ; the opening of a door and a rapid 
 series of little cal's to the cat of the moment, and then the 
 shutting and the locking of the door and the shooting of 
 bolts; and, from upstairs, the footfall of a soft-shod Ma- 
 tilda doing the rooms, and a still fainter sound which was 
 the whirr of Betsy's sewing-machine. These things, like 
 the faint noises in Frau Finkel's house on the night when 
 we heard them but she in her trance did not, only made 
 the stillness seem more complete.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 205 
 
 "We must remember," John said, breaking the silence 
 at last, "that so far David's ignorance has protected him. 
 It did certainly when they were questioning him — when 
 they were asking him what I was. If he had known then, 
 it would have been much more difficult for him." 
 
 "Ah, yes, then, maybe, but it would n't protect him 
 again. That it did was an accident. Now he would be at 
 their mercy. But what had you thought of doing, John? 
 You have had some plan. You're wiser than I am. When 
 had you thought it would be best to tell him?" 
 
 The words might have sounded impatient in any other 
 tone than that in which she spoke them. On her own ac- 
 count she would have been no more capable of impatience 
 with David's father than of sarcasm. No doubt of his 
 wisdom would ever have entered her mind. 
 
 "Do you want him told?" 
 
 " I think he ought to be told at once. I nearly told him 
 this afternoon. I would have, I think, if I could have had 
 your consent. Would you have given it?" 
 
 David's father closed his book and began to pace the 
 room. Mary watched him as he walked the length of it 
 and then walked back, halting to take up and to put down 
 things that she did not think he even saw. A black horn 
 paper-knife inlaid with ivory — a hind and fawn feeding — 
 was one of such objects. She feared that he would break 
 it, but he put it down unharmed. 
 
 "He hated talking about it? What made you think 
 that?" 
 
 "Oh, it was easy enough to see that. That was why I 
 thought at first that he must know; but he does n't." 
 
 "You're quite certain he does n't?" 
 
 "Quite certain." 
 
 "Boys are odd creatures, remember, — shy with their 
 parents to a degree that's unbelievable." 
 
 "David is n't shy with me, and, no John, he truly does 
 n't know. I wish now that I had told him to-day. I should 
 be sitting here with an easier mind."
 
 2o6 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 He had not answered her question. There was an earlier 
 question which he had not answered either, and this one, 
 conscious, now, that she was pressing him, but urged by 
 the stress of her anxieties, she asked him again. 
 
 "What had you meant to do, John?" 
 
 He stopped in his pacing and drew a chair up to hers. 
 
 " Do you remember a talk we had the night we arrived 
 in London?" he said slowly. 
 
 Yes, Mary remembered it; every word that had been 
 spoken, she thought. 
 
 "You were very unhappy that night — do you remem- 
 ber how we had to remind ourselves that we could n't have 
 foreseen the circumstances that had placed us in the posi- 
 tion in which we found ourselves then? . . . the position 
 which made you so unhappy. It's all in that still. From 
 our point of view we had n't done wrong. In the result we 
 just could not help ourselves. We could n't have averted, 
 as we could n't have foreseen, what had happened. Well, 
 Mary, I had my plan, as you say, clearly enough defined 
 and fixed before that — before we married, that is, and 
 before the unlikely things happened and I stepped so un- 
 expectedly into Joseph's shoes. It was all quite simple 
 then. The children would have grown up to know the 
 protest their parents had thought it right to make. As 
 soon as they could have understood it, we should have 
 explained it to them. They would have been prepared for 
 it. It would have come to them quite naturally and they 
 would have accepted it as naturally. Things which we 
 could no more control than we could foresee changed all 
 that." 
 
 He had no plan, then. The circumstances, he meant, 
 admitted now of no plan. He was tr>'ing to spare her, she 
 knew that; trying to comfort her too, as he had tried to 
 comfort her before. She could never forget what he had 
 done for her, the great instance of his love for her — that 
 and a hundred others. But he had no plan. 
 
 "What had you thought, Mary?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 207 
 
 " I was waiting for my boy's father to speak to me." 
 
 "We could only both wait. We have to face this, dear. 
 We've faced things before." 
 
 "Together," Mary said. "But this — oh, it's David 
 who has to face this." 
 
 The cry was wrung from her. 
 
 "Mary, dearest, think. What could have been done? 
 Could he have been told before he went to school? Would 
 it, at his age then, have been possible to tell him?" 
 
 She knew that it would not. 
 
 "Then what could we have done but wait?" 
 
 She had to admit that they could have done nothing else. 
 
 "But now," she said. "You do think he ought to be 
 told now? You would have consented to my telling him 
 to-day if I had been able to ask you? You would n't have 
 thought I had acted wrongly if I had told him?" 
 
 "No. I don't think I should ever think you had acted 
 wrongly about anything. But I should see a very different 
 David going back to school." 
 
 Mary turned harassed eyes on him. 
 
 "Why different?" 
 
 "A sort of Ishmael. His hand against every man be- 
 cause he suspected every man's hand to be against him. 
 Don't you see, Mary? He'd become self-conscious too — 
 think every one's eye was on him, and that every one was 
 talking of him before his face and behind his back. He 
 would n't have an easy moment at school — I'm thinking 
 of my school-days — and you would n't either. Oh, you'd 
 know. You'd know at a hundred miles distance if he was 
 unhappy. Wouldn't you? You'd know from the other 
 side of the world." 
 
 "I think I should," said Mary. 
 
 "Then, do you see why?" said David's father. 
 
 Late into the night they talked. One or other of the 
 three lamps, with what David called the clockwork in- 
 sides, gave a little click at times, or an inward gurgle.
 
 208 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 John sometimes resumed his pacing and sometimes sat 
 still. 
 
 "Not tell him?" Mary said at last. 
 
 "I should wait. If they know, he'll know, and I don't 
 think it would spare him very much if he did know be- 
 fore they told him. They may never tell him, though 
 that, I grant you, is very unlikely." 
 
 "But he'll have to know even if they don't tell him." 
 
 "He will know," said David's father. 
 
 If she could but be certain of something else! If she 
 could but feel once more the unshakeable confidence that 
 she had placed in her husband's judgment, and — shrink 
 as she would from the thought — in her husband himself 
 before he had become her husband! Was he not, had he 
 never been, as strong as she in her worship of him had sup- 
 posed him? "He for God only — she for God in him." 
 Oh, she was ready to admit her dependence. But had he 
 not been for God at all — taking * God ' in this sense to 
 mean all that they had always been agreed that 'God' 
 meant — and had the God in him failed her? It was not her 
 fault that such doubts — no, they were still but shadows of 
 doubts — should assail her. She beat them back, but they 
 returned again and again to the assault. Ettringham, 
 with all that had happened there, — all, indeed, that Et- 
 tringham stood for, — had affected her more than she 
 knew. The christening, with its solemn ritual, the family 
 prayers, assentings, silences that gave assent, — what 
 were these but public recantings of all that had been held 
 sacred? Not that in her heart of hearts David's mother 
 did not welcome these things in themselves. The consola- 
 tions which religion had to offer had long since ceased to 
 be to her as vain things, and with poor faithful Betsy, she 
 had, as we have seen, desired them, and desired them ar- 
 dently, for her children. But — ah, the But remained. 
 Could she forget that, by implication at least, John, in 
 consenting to accept the Church's ministrations on behalf 
 of the son of his tardy marriage, swept away all that had
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 209 
 
 sanctified her own former state, or even saved it from be- 
 ing indeed what those who had hurt her so grievously had 
 thought it? 
 
 So the hours went by. Twelve struck, and one. All the 
 sounds in the house had ceased, the servants long ago in 
 their beds and sleeping the sleep of finished labour, or, 
 maybe equally soundly, the sleep of labour shamelessly 
 scamped. David slept; Georgina; and Johnny — Johnny 
 of the assured position, of the one unassailable right to 
 a place in the scheme of things and to a name of his 
 own. 
 
 "My poor children," Mary said to herself. "My poor 
 three children." 
 
 And so, like Pepys, to bed. Nothing was settled — 
 what could be? — unless it may be said to have been set- 
 tled that David was not to be told. But, as at the very 
 last moment Mary reserved the right to tell him herself, 
 if, in her judgment, an occasion should urgently arise, 
 even this was not definitely settled. And that anything 
 that concerned David so intimately and so tragically 
 should be left undecided, and thus to chance or accident, 
 seemed to his mother of all things most horrible. 
 
 Well, for to-night she could think no more, nor, worn 
 out with suffering, even suffer any more. She sat for some 
 minutes on the side of her bed, too tired even to begin to 
 undress. 
 
 As she sat so she heard a little sound from David's room, 
 which was on the same floor. She pulled herself together 
 and listened. It was repeated. It was only a little cough; 
 nothing — a mere clearing of the throat. 
 
 Hardly knowing what she was doing she slipped from 
 the room and across the passage, but as her hand was on 
 the latch of the door she knew what she was going to do. 
 If he was awake she was going to tell him. He sat up in 
 bed as she crossed the threshold. 
 
 She went over to him quickly and put her arms round
 
 210 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 him. She had not brought her candle with her, but the 
 blind was up and the room was not wholly dark. 
 
 "David," she said quickly, without giving herself time 
 to think, "you know what you told me to-day about — 
 about succeeding — about becoming Sir Thingamy P. 
 yourself some day. You're not counting on it, are you?" 
 
 "No," he said shortly, and then said "No" again. 
 
 " Because — I 've something to tell you, David, some- 
 thing you must know ..." 
 
 He said "Yes," in the same way. 
 
 Her arms closed more tightly round him. He was strong 
 and firm, and gave promise of fine development in the 
 next few years. She knew suddenly that there would be 
 shelter for her head upon his shoulder when all the storms 
 should have passed over her. At the same moment she 
 felt a slight tremor pass through him. 
 
 "Is that you, Mother?" 
 
 She held him from her that she might look at him. 
 
 "Have n't you heard what I've been saying?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "What time is it?" 
 
 " But you answered me." 
 
 He shook his head again. She thought for a moment 
 and then said absently — "Very late, darling, — nearly 
 half past one." 
 
 "You did n't hear me come in?" she said after a pause. 
 
 "No. Why did you? Why are n't you in bed?" 
 
 "Your father and I have been talking." 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 "Oh, you, perhaps." 
 
 Even now she was half minded to tell him. 
 
 But he spoke. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I really want to he, Mother." 
 
 "What darling?" 
 
 "You promise you won't try to prevent me?" 
 
 "I can't promise that, David." 
 
 "You can promise that you'll think about it?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 211 
 
 "We're sure to do that, your father and I, whatever it 
 
 is." 
 
 " I want to be — No, I think I won't tell you to-night, 
 Mummy." 
 
 "Very well, darling. In your own good time. Perhaps 
 things are better not told on impulses, or for that matter 
 in the middle of the night." 
 
 She smiled in the darkness as she kissed him, and then, 
 conscious suddenly of the deadly fatigue which had held 
 her, and which now as a fog that rolls back enveloped her 
 once more, body and mind, clogging her movements and 
 clouding her brain, she dragged herself painfully and with 
 great effort from the room, and across the landing to her 
 own!
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The day of her walk with David and of her talk with his 
 father was the day when Mary reached the second of the 
 three stages of her pilgrimage. From being a young woman 
 she entered then, definitely, upon the period of her middle- 
 age. 
 
 Not all at once did the signs of this make themselves 
 generally apparent. Not for many years yet was her girl- 
 ish figure to lose its slenderness or its flowing lines. But 
 it was from this day that grey hairs began to show them- 
 selves in the thick brown strands and the shining coils that 
 were Betsy's pride. From the morning when Betsy said, 
 "Why, if you haven't got some grey hairs, m'lady!" 
 (while as yet they were countable, and even counted!) to 
 the day when Betsy's moan, "Why, you're going grey, 
 m'lady, — absolutely going grey,'' was almost accusatory 
 in its protesting vehemence, seemed but a short time. 
 
 Betsy, far more concerned than her mistress, pointed 
 this out. 
 
 "Very likely, Betsy. One can't keep young for ever." 
 
 "But at your age, m'lady. Why,'m, at your age, even 
 I'd hardly began. Of course I've been pepper-and-salt 
 for some years, but think of the difference between you, 
 'm, and me — and me a working woman into the bargain. 
 A lady has no call to go grey till years and years older than 
 you are." 
 
 David's mother smiled. 
 
 "It's what goes on inside one's head that settles how 
 long the colour of the outside of it is to last, I suppose." 
 
 "I've never held much with washes or lotions," Betsy 
 said, "but if this continues I shall have to look out for 
 something — I can see — make enquiries, anyway." 
 
 "I'll use no messes," said David's mother. "If I'm to 
 be grey I 'm to be grey."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 213 
 
 It became plain that she was to be grey. Before she was 
 fifty, — but this is to look forward a long way, of course, 
 — quite grey. In time, Betsy, deploring as long as there 
 remained any hope, had to admit that the greyness was 
 very becoming. Her mistress, indeed, was only exchanging 
 one beauty for another. 
 
 Her face was subtly altering too. All that the years 
 had written upon it was beginning to be perceptible now 
 in faint but indisputable lines. David, when he was old 
 enough to read the writings of the years, was to under- 
 stand why the beauty of the face was never diminished by 
 them. Rather, he sometimes thought, did their presence 
 enhance it. Nothing ignoble was written there, nothing 
 small, nothing selfish. But before he was old enough to 
 understand fully, he was to become conscious of the 
 changes that had begun. 
 
 Mary had never had very much colour, but it was now 
 that her cheeks began to assume the ivory whiteness which 
 was the tone of her complexion in all her later life. Her 
 skin never lost the fineness of its texture. It was always 
 clear as wax. The pallor which it now wore had no look of 
 ill-health. 
 
 She was, however, not so strong as before. This shewed 
 itself in many small ways. Johnny had grown very quickly 
 too big for her to carry. He now became too big for her to 
 lift. From "Goodness, what a heavy boy!" it was a short 
 step to "No, Johnny, too great a weight altogether for 
 your poor old mother." Johnny was, thus, in after years 
 never to be able to remember, as David and Georgina al- 
 ways could, a young mother at all. To him, to his uncon- 
 scious loss, parents and guardians — fathers, mothers, 
 Betsys — were all equally elderly persons of certainly no 
 like passions with himself. She could not read out for 
 hours at a stretch. It was Georgina who claimed the read- 
 ings now — Georgina for the attentive listener who used 
 to be David, with Johnny for the Georgina who had 
 played about on the floor of old, half listening and half
 
 214 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 occupied with other diversions. She read often till her 
 voice failed, but it failed sooner than it used, and then 
 she had to put the book aside — the Arabian Nights (ex- 
 purgated) or The Swiss Family Robinson, or Holiday House, 
 or, later, The Wide Wide World, as the case might be — 
 and confess herself unable to go on. Her step, at the out- 
 set, at least, lost nothing of its spring. She was as ready 
 as ever for the walks with David, which were always her 
 chief delight in the holidays that brought him back to her 
 three times a year, but presently David noticed that there 
 began to be days when he had to adapt his pace to hers, 
 as once in turn his father had had to adapt (but had not 
 adapted!) his pace to David's. 
 
 "Tired, Mummy?" 
 
 "No, darling, but your legs are getting longer than 
 mine" (as, with the coming of each fresh holidays, they 
 indeed were), or, "No, darling, but I'm not growing 
 younger," and sometimes even "Yes, darling, a little." 
 
 So the changes came and time went on. Nor were the 
 changes only in Mary. She for her part saw plenty. With 
 her they had begun in, and on, a day; that was all. 
 
 But a thing that gave Mary extraordinary pleasure at 
 this time was the devotion that she began to observe as 
 existing increasingly between David and his little brother. 
 Johnny, from the moment when he had been able to dis- 
 tinguish one person from another, had shewn unmistake- 
 able signs of a predilection for David, and David had spas- 
 modically responded, but of late it had become apparent 
 that the attraction had become mutual, and that in each 
 case it had drawn to itself a whole-hearted and genuine 
 affection. This could not but make Mary happy. One of 
 her fears had always been that her sons should dislike one 
 another. It had seemed to her sometimes that two persons 
 of one parentage, so strangely placed, could not fail — all 
 ignorant as they might be of their position — to have some 
 deep-lying mistrust of each other. This fear had been laid
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 215 
 
 now for good. It rested perhaps upon no very reasonable 
 foundations. It had been real enough, for all that. David 
 coming back to London, or only perhaps from a walk, 
 would call for Johnny. Johnny, regardless of the feelings of 
 those who had been playing with him, or looking after him, 
 would fly to David — and from no matter what. Behold 
 Johnny pick-a-back then, his arms tight round his brother's 
 throat, proud as a peacock, and shouting the house down ! 
 
 "David, you'll spoil him, I can never get him to be good 
 when he's been with you." 
 
 David would laugh, showing his white young teeth. 
 
 "Then call for me. Mother, and I'll make him good!" 
 
 "I'll be good, for David," Johnny had the impudence 
 to say once. But to that David answered immediately, 
 "You'll jolly well be good, for your mother!" 
 
 The supreme proof of David's power was that David 
 could, if need were, even make him take medicine! Betsy, 
 when a pill or a powder was the grim order of the day or 
 night, made no scruple to call for David when he was there, 
 or upon his name when he was n't. 
 
 Calm once more; the trivial round, the common task. 
 But it was another sort of calm. Resignation was in it, 
 and even renouncement. Mary, whether against her bet- 
 ter judgment or not she no longer knew, had given in to 
 waiting. She had not spoken to David. She did not even 
 yet know whether he knew. 
 
 How little in some ways she did know of him. He was 
 franker, perhaps, than most boys, but a whole side of his 
 life was hidden from her. She guessed vaguely at the diffi- 
 culties which must have beset him, and at which we have 
 glanced. He never told her of these. They were, as she 
 divined, the things that he could not have brought himself 
 to speak of. She never heard of the purgatory of the early 
 Chapels. She heard of the beauty that he discovered in 
 the services, and the delight which the poetry of the new- 
 found Bible was to him. They talked of those things
 
 2i6 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 often. What were his young religious views? She dared 
 not ask him outright. There was the term which saw his 
 confirmation. How anxious she had been then. His father 
 had raised no objections when the head master, who of 
 course did know, had written to him on the subject of this. 
 He had replied in a letter which he had shown to her, mak- 
 ing all easy by leaving the matter to the discretion of the 
 authorities and to the feeling of the boy himself. "Your 
 son," came the answer, "seems to wish it, and I think we 
 should be guided by that." John wrote that he had no 
 more to say. And David was confirmed. 
 
 But, oh, what lay behind it all? There must have been 
 heart-searchings for him, as there were heart-searchings 
 for her then. She envied other mothers whom no doubts 
 assailed. They at least could pray for their sons at such 
 times. She too could pray, and did pray, we may be sure, 
 but, oh, to have had, as they had, a Person to address! And 
 to have been able, as they, she supposed, were able, to 
 talk on these matters openly, and, from her own greater 
 knowledge, give counsel and help. 
 
 She looked for signs of some notable spiritual experi- 
 ence when she saw David next. But she found no differ- 
 ence in him, and was perplexed, and then somehow thank- 
 ful. Not yet was she left behind. But it puzzled her 
 sometimes, and even sometimes made her unhappy, that 
 he asked her no questions. 
 
 Why did he not comment to her on his own upbringing 
 and Georgina's? Betsy was allowed to take Johnny to 
 church, Georgina sometimes accompanying her, and some- 
 times David himself. Why did he not ask her why he at 
 Johnny's age had not been taken? Why did he not tell 
 her of the distress that must have been caused in the early 
 days (she was guessing!) not, as was usual with boys, by 
 having to say his sensitive prayers in the face of derision, 
 but by his not having any to say? Why did he not ask her 
 the reason for all the things which marked his home lessons 
 as having been different from those of other boys?
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 217 
 
 She believed sometimes that he knew. 
 
 She could only watch him, hoping that one day the 
 strings of his tongue would be loosed. 
 
 He had outgrown the little theatre now, though its day 
 had been a long one. Perhaps the toy (which was n't a 
 toy) grew too elaborate in its later phases. The successive 
 stages had grown deeper and deeper to admit of more am- 
 bitious effects. When a row of gas-burners took the place 
 of the delightful tin footlights with the wicks and the 
 smelly colza oil, perhaps its doom was already struck. He 
 had turned to other things; begun to learn dancing. The 
 plays were put away; the theatre itself (swathed, to be 
 sure, in sheets of newspaper to keep the dust from it and 
 preserve it) was relegated to a shelf in the box-room at the 
 top of the house. It was done with, but it had served its 
 purpose. 
 
 It had gone the way of old toys. When you are a man, 
 or going to be a man, you put away childish things, that is 
 all. But it was in good company in its retirement. On the 
 same shelf stood the little holland-covered box of enduring 
 memory. 
 
 She believed that he knew. She could not have told 
 when first the conviction came to her. She searched his face 
 sometimes for confirmation of her suspicions. He was grow- 
 ing very like now to what his father had been as a young 
 man — the same steady outlook from level eyes ; the 
 same tall well-covered slenderness ; the same easy carriage. 
 His voice even had something of the same tone. But 
 there all resemblances ceased. 
 
 It seemed to her so wonderful sometimes that this grow- 
 ing unknowable creature should once have been part of 
 herself; or that what she had known so intimately should, 
 under her eyes, have developed into this big young stran- 
 ger. No, it was not under her eyes that the miracle had 
 taken place. It was in the months of the years of the re- 
 curring separations that the changes were worked. Always
 
 2i8 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 he came back to her a Uttle bigger, a little older, a little more 
 mature. Difficult to say whether the changes were the 
 more apparent mentally or physically. Listening to him 
 sometimes — he had opinions now, if you please, on poli- 
 tics, literature, art! — she thought the one. Looking at 
 his body which athletics had developed, the other. Her 
 heart swelled with pride when she saw him stripped for 
 bathing. She remembered a term that her husband had 
 applied to her children. Yes, David was truly as he had 
 claimed for him, in the most sacred sense, a Love-Child. 
 Happier women might have envied her here, and probably 
 did so envy her. But there was a little despair even in this 
 thought also. 
 
 But as the fear for the harmony between the brothers 
 was dissipated, another began slowly to take its place. 
 She began to see that there was no communion of thought 
 between David and his father. In his father's presence 
 David was silent. At first when she became aware of this 
 she had been content to attribute it to shyness. David 
 had never, she thought, been on such unrestricted terms 
 of confidence with his father as those which had always 
 marked his relations with herself. Were any boys quite 
 free from some feeling of awe of their fathers? But pres- 
 ently, though she called to mind John's "Boys are odd 
 creatures, remember — shy with their parents to a degree 
 that's unbelievable," she saw, or thought she saw, that 
 awe, in the sense in which she had applied the word to the 
 case, had no part in David's feelings. David's was not the 
 shyness, then, that is based on any sort of fear, or indeed 
 on any self-distrust. John's words took a fresh signifi- 
 cance. They shewed her suddenly that he was conscious 
 of the reserve in the attitude of his son. Poor John. Were 
 they even in some sort an admission of failure? She would 
 not let herself think this. But she continued, now, reluc- 
 tantly to observe. 
 
 Georgina, who took life very smoothly indeed, as her long-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 219 
 
 suffering governess could have told you, and altogether 
 was contented with things as they were, joked frankly with 
 her father. No 'shyness' there, no suggestion of restraint. 
 She respected his authority, but, out of hours, as it were, 
 could meet him on bantering terms, taking and thrusting, 
 wholly at her very comfortable ease. Atmospheres trou- 
 bled not the Georgina, who had babbled on, as we may re- 
 member, upon the dreadful morning of the departure from 
 Brussels. A frown did not abash her. 
 
 Nor was Johnny tongue-tied in the presence of John. 
 He knew his own importance too well for that. He, for all 
 the world to see, was the apple of his father's eye. 
 
 Only David was silent with him. Or perhaps it was not 
 so much that he was silent, as that he did not address him 
 if there was any one else whom he could address. And 
 perhaps even that was to overstate the case. For the two 
 did talk, of course, — often, as she reminded herself, at 
 great length. But . . . no, it was not her imagination . . . 
 there was between them an acting and reacting constraint. 
 Was it, as she suspected, that David knew? She was 
 afraid now to bring things to a head by seeming to perceive. 
 Might she not confirm what as yet she only feared? Not 
 that she did not hope that David did indeed know; her 
 dread was that knowledge should have implied judgment. 
 
 "David," — so far she ventured one day when he had 
 asked her to go for a walk with him, — "why don't you 
 sometimes get your father to go with you?" 
 
 "Don't you want to come. Mother?" 
 
 His mother laughed. 
 
 " I think I always want to go with you, — and — that's 
 perhaps why." 
 
 "Oh, Father would say if he wanted to come too." 
 
 "I meant alone with you." 
 
 "Instead of you?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 She had just told him.
 
 220 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 " I think he might like to be asked." 
 
 "Oh, well, you come this time," David said that time, 
 and the matter dropped. 
 
 She watched to see whether her suggestion would be 
 carried out later. She thought that David, who never as a 
 rule was undecided about anything that he meant or 
 wanted to do, did linger the next day on the flagged paths 
 of the garden, where his father was sitting after luncheon, 
 but whether he spoke or not she did not know, and she did 
 know that that afternoon David went out alone. 
 
 Was it knowledge and judgment, and if judgment, what 
 would follow? 
 
 Why, why had she not told him? She had known in her 
 heart that it was she or his father who ought to have told 
 him, and that the telling ought to have taken place while 
 his mind was still very young. She knew now that she 
 had deceived herself, and it was against her better judg- 
 ment that she had been silent. And so it was open rupture 
 that she feared — not between David and herself ; come 
 what might she was sure of David; but between David 
 and his father. How could David be expected to under- 
 stand? If the iron had entered into his soul the sense of 
 injury would be ineradicable, the wound also too deep for 
 healing. And the shock, though it could not have been 
 averted, might have been mitigated. The sting, for her, 
 lay there. 
 
 And as time went on and nothing happened, her fears 
 would be lulled and something like happiness would en- 
 fold her. So much that she could never have hoped for had 
 come to her. Ker home — that she should have a home! 
 — was an abiding solace to her. What shelter the pan- 
 elled walls of her own little sitting-room afforded her. In 
 the days of the wandering she had not been able to do 
 much work, nor cared greatly for the sewings and stitch- 
 ings that engross most women, but here her needle was her 
 constant agreeable companion. She made and she em-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 221 
 
 broidered and she mended. She took pride in her linen 
 cupboard, and marked or re-marked every sheet and table- 
 cloth, napkin and towel, with cunning embroideries. For 
 pleasant hours the sound of her thread passing rhythmi- 
 cally through hemp or flax would be for her the gentle 
 sound, as it were, of the passing of time itself. 
 
 "You don't leave me enough to do, m'lady," Betsy 
 would complain. "All this ought by rights to be done in 
 the nursery, which should stand for the workroom in this 
 house. There's Ellen eating her head off. I'm sure I'm 
 often put to it to find something to give her to do." 
 
 David's mother smiled to herself. 
 
 "Look, Betsy," — she held up an embroidered initial 
 for Betsy's inspection. "Would a young thing hke Ellen 
 do them quite Hke this, do you think?" She was really 
 proud of her handiwork. Not a stitch was ill-placed or ill- 
 executed. 
 
 "Most probably and not," was the exact form of Betsy's 
 admission. 
 
 "Then don't grudge me my occupation," said David's 
 mother. 
 
 Her work was to her what other women's social duties 
 and amusements were to them. What greater pleasure 
 than the sense of housewifery that these domestic activi- 
 ties afforded her? They represented to her all that had for 
 so long been denied to her. The mothers of Israel, after 
 the forty years of tents in the wilderness, may have felt 
 something akin to what she felt when, at length, they knew 
 what it was to have roofs once more over their heads, and 
 houses to set and keep in order. She enjoyed all that had 
 to do with her housekeeping: her shoppings; her modest 
 still-room; the stocking and the disposition of her store- 
 room. It was one of Georgina's and Johnny's most treas- 
 ured pleasures, as, in its time, it had been one of David's 
 and Georgina's, to be present when she gave out the gro- 
 ceries for the week. Servants had their allowances then: 
 so much tea, so much sugar. The sweet-smelling store-
 
 222 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 room behind the pantry — what was there that it did not 
 contain, from coffee to candles; tapioca to treacle or even 
 tin tacks; soap, starch, soda, to spices and semolina and 
 sago and string; jams to juniper berries; figs to flavourings? 
 -■ — was a grocer's shop in little. 
 
 The years of lodgings and hotels had not unfitted her 
 for housekeeping. She fell into it as readily and as easily as 
 if all her life had been spent in managing a house, and the 
 time abroad but a brief interruption in a long and famil- 
 iar routine. She knew instinctively what to order and 
 how much; knew approximately what things ought to cost; 
 how to choose and how to control her servants. Every- 
 thing that went smoothly spoke to her personal care and 
 her good generalship. She took pride, as she took pleasure, 
 in the ordering of her house. There was thus a refuge for 
 her in all the businesses of the busy day. Without these, 
 as she grew older, her life would have been unprotected 
 indeed. They stood to her, that is, as, in its time and its 
 turn, the little theatre to David, for solace and for sanc- 
 tuary.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Neither had David given her the confidence which was 
 on his Hps on the night when she had gone to his room and 
 wakened him out of sleep. He might have spoken then, 
 as she, in turn, could have spoken. What he was to be was 
 still undivulged. He was to go to Oxford; so much was 
 assumed to be settled. But for him, as for her, though for 
 very different reasons, Oxford meant but a marking of time. 
 
 When he turned his mind, in after years, to this period 
 he could be surprised at his own tenacity. He never wa- 
 vered in his purpose — never, as the old man in the dingy 
 shop had prophesied, looked back. His school -days them- 
 selves were shadowy in comparison. Individual boys at 
 whose arrival he had been excited, and with whom he 
 made friends or did not achieve friendship, or who upon 
 acquaintance were disappointing, stood out for him in 
 recollection. Individual days: summer evenings when the 
 softness of the air, or the way the light lingered on the 
 trees and the slopes, almost hurt him for sheer beauty: 
 wistful autumn afternoons, brown and shining: cold misty 
 winter evenings : ardent days of spring — these too stood 
 out. Boys he had hated — often for some physical rea- 
 son, some want of proportion or some defect or even trick 
 which offended him — he could remember too. And days, 
 but not so very many, which had seemed to be cursed. 
 But, for the rest, the second ten years of his life, which 
 embraced the whole of his school-days, did not make so 
 deep an impression upon him as the first, and they passed 
 for him like a dream. A dream, however, which held a 
 dream, and it was this inner dream which was real. 
 
 The little theatre had been but a young outlet for young 
 feelings. The feelings grew with the power to feel. The 
 need to express became correspondingly urgent. And so,
 
 224 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 while external things slipped by without leaving much 
 mark upon him, so that he was never to have any vivid 
 recollection of his schooling, his dream was ever before 
 him. He told no one — not the best-beloved of his friends ; 
 not one of the successive Davids to his own Jonathan, or 
 Jonathans, as the case might be, to his own David. Yet 
 all his friendships, particularly the less happy ones, were 
 involved — as everything else that caused him any sort 
 of emotion. His emotions, in other words, were what 
 counted with him. Something, oddly, was accomplished 
 when he had put the friend who hurt him, or who had the 
 power to hurt him, out of his heart. He could not have 
 explained this, nor did he try to explain it even to himself. 
 He had to accept it, as each one of us, at some time or 
 other, has to accept his own temperament with all its 
 qualities and limitations. So where his dream was con- 
 cerned, if his mother was not vouchsafed his confidence, 
 neither was any one else. He would have told her if he 
 could have told anyone. Why then did he not tell her? 
 It was not wholly that he anticipated opposition — though 
 that he did expect it he had shewn, when, on that mid- 
 night impulse which she had not attempted to encourage, 
 he had begun the avowal which he could not finish. He 
 could detach himself sufficiently to be able to hear, as it 
 would strike other ears, the phrase which he would prob- 
 ably have employed, and perhaps he had enough sense of 
 humour to perceive the absurd sound which it would have 
 for them. He was wholly untried as yet. He must have 
 something to shew, something to his credit, before he could 
 proclaim his ambition. For it was an ambition, not a mere 
 fancy. The phrase, which he could not bring himself to 
 speak, held, in suggestion, all that could be used in argu- 
 ment against — against the putting of what it expressed 
 into practice! Vaingloryings, struttings, boastings, swag- 
 gerings, with every sort of self-conceit, these with a dozen 
 other meretricious things were conveyed, he knew, in the 
 sound of the four words. There could be but opposition in
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 225 
 
 the face of what made thus for prejudice. But these were 
 not what the words meant to him. And how to show what 
 they did mean till the opportunity of proving what he 
 could do should present itself? So he waited, chafing 
 often, filled sometimes with divine despairs, but — the 
 despairs, indeed, as he dimly guessed, part of his equip- 
 ment! — never wholly discouraged. What that was worth 
 doing had ever been done easily? The kingdom which he 
 desired would have to be conquered. There were citadels 
 for him to storm. 
 
 Luck was against him for a long time. Theatricals 
 always ended the winter term. There were excitements 
 in the air about midway through November, and then it 
 would become known that a play had been chosen and 
 was being cast. The lot would fall upon this one and that 
 of the boys, who would be sent for by the committee of 
 management, which was composed of one or two of the 
 younger masters and a group of the monitors and older 
 boys. The bigger parts were divided, not always too suit- 
 ably, amongst this committee ; for the others there was the 
 rest of the school to recruit from. 
 
 Amongst two hundred boys, there was, it is safe to say, 
 plenty of talent which for one reason or another was over- 
 looked. David used to hold his breath, as it were, till 
 every part was filled. Here was Chessington Minor who 
 spoke as if potatoes were in his mouth, and who got a part 
 two years running; here was Litterson who could n't say his 
 s's or c's and called himself 'Litterthon,' but who was cast 
 one year for Cassius in Julius Ccesar, which he called 
 ' Cathiuth in Juliuth ThcBthar '; here was a part even for 
 Smith, who thought all acting rot, and who only took it 
 because, if you were in the theatricals, you got off some of 
 your lessons on the ground of the rehearsals which you 
 had to attend. There were many others who could act and 
 who did, — some of them admirably, — but there were 
 more (amongst whom he most passionately included him- 
 self), who, if it could only somehow be known, could act
 
 226 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 too and even perhaps act better. There was a boy called 
 CHptop, a born comedian (he made his name afterwards 
 and a fortune into the bargain!), who never once got a 
 look-in. David never was bitter. His disappointment 
 sometimes was. 
 
 Four years passed before he got his first part. For four 
 years, once in each, he endured the suspenses, yes, and the 
 hopes too (they had to be 'endured' like the fears!) which 
 came regularly for him when the preliminaries were being 
 arranged; and for four years ate his heart out while the 
 happier chosen, having been admitted to the mysteries of 
 the rehearsals, were presently actually rehearsing. Thrice 
 happy chosen! For four years, then, the disappointments 
 having been got over as they always were and the Night 
 arrived, he kicked his excited heels, and clapped his excited 
 hands, from the happy back benches where the boys sat be- 
 hind the rest of the audience in the transformed Great Hall. 
 
 Then, in his fifth year, he got a part. Even then he did 
 not get it because it was supposed that he had any special 
 aptitude for acting. Why, then? Because the play was 
 Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and it was known, by 
 no means to his credit, that he could speak French. 
 
 "It's the tailor's part. You're supposed to be a tailor, 
 you know, and you have to bring M. Jourdain" (the stage- 
 manager who spoke said ' Jourdon'), "his clothes. Do you 
 think you could do that?" 
 
 David thought so. 
 
 "It's not a big part. I should think you'd be able to 
 manage it all right." 
 
 It was certainly not a big part, as the penclllings in the 
 script shewed him, but it was a part at last. 
 
 "Well, here it is. You'd better read it through with me 
 just to get the hang of it. I'm M. Jourdon. Are you a 
 quick study?" 
 
 David thought fairly quick. 
 
 "Well, I '11 run through it with you presently. I 'd meant 
 the part for young Jackson — I don't much believe in
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 227 
 
 making experiments — but Jackson's accent's so bad, 
 you see." 
 
 David, who knew Jackson, 'saw' right enough. The 
 surprising thing, as perhaps he saw also, was that M. 
 'Jourdon' should see. 
 
 He had to be content with this, anyway, and to have 
 passed the mystic portals at all was so wonderful that the 
 reason for his admission hardly mattered. Now he would 
 not be shut out of the Great Hall when the stage was being 
 erected! Now his eyes would no longer vainly follow the 
 lucky company of the players as they went off to rehearsal. 
 Boyish thoughts? Very real ones even in the supreme 
 moment of his joy that a chance should have come to him 
 at last. The feeling of being outside had not been one of 
 the least difficult to bear calmly in the years of his young 
 waiting. What wonder that such trifling aspects of his 
 good fortune should present themselves to his excitement? 
 The chance which had come to him might be small, but 
 it brought all the coveted privileges in its train. He had 
 suffered too much outside shut doors not to exult in their 
 mere opening. 
 
 He took the script and retired with it to the back of the 
 room, while Tarpalin, the stage-manager, — ' Jourdon 
 Tarpalin' as David called him now in his own mind, — 
 interviewed another boy who had been sent for about an- 
 other part. The other boy, one Crawton Minimus, in the 
 lower school, did not get it, because of his accent, though 
 this in David's opinion was quite as good (as well it might 
 be!) as that of most of his judges. 
 
 "It isn't Bourgewaw," David heard Tarpalin say; 
 "it's Bourgewah — VV A H — wah; like a in far." 
 
 That was the beginning. We are not to suppose that 
 he did great things, that he brought down the house, or 
 played the others off the stage. He did none of these things. 
 He was more nervous on the Night than he would have 
 supposed possible. He could eat nothing to speak of at
 
 228 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 dinner or tea, and carried his script about with him all 
 day. His fear was that he would forget his words. He 
 wanted to arrange a code of signals of distress beforehand 
 with the prompter. 
 
 "Goodness," said Tarpalin, sweating, himself, with nerv- 
 ousness, "if you're going to be like that . . ." 
 
 "I'm not," said David. "Only in case, I meant." 
 
 " I knew we were wrong to try experiments," said Tar- 
 palin. 
 
 And then Tarpalin wanted reassuring, himself. It was 
 his wig that felt so tight, and he would never be able to 
 stoop in these breeches either. He believed they must 
 have sent the wrong ones from Abraham's. And had n't 
 the man given him too many lines? Sure? "Well, don't 
 you give me wrong cues, young Penstephen, or it'll jolly 
 well be the worse for you. Do you know your words or 
 don't you?" 
 
 "Of course I do," said David. 
 
 "Then what do you want to talk about the prompter 
 for? You ought n't to think that there was such a person. 
 Good Lord, if you dry up or if you make any one else . . ." 
 
 And behind the nervousness, and through it, and even 
 in it, David was conscious of an intoxicating feeling of 
 excitement. He might be frightened, but he would not 
 have changed his fear for any other emotion. The rehears- 
 als had gone but too quickly. He had lived from one to 
 the next, counting the hours, almost, betw^een them. It was 
 so enthralling to watch and to see how the play shaped. 
 Whether it was a good play or not he had not the remot- 
 est idea: it was a play; that was enough for him. From 
 the chaos of the stumbling first reading — Heavens, the 
 stumbling, and Heavens, the French ! — to the compara- 
 tive order of the dress rehearsal, what an absorbing process 
 and progression! Not that there seemed to be much prog- 
 ress sometimes. There were days when all movement 
 seemed to be retrograde — when the proverbial miracu-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 229 
 
 lous Allrightness of the Night seemed to be the only pos- 
 sible hope for the play. It was as interesting to watch 
 as to act — or almost as interesting, or — no, you were 
 panting to play all the parts yourself . . . playing them, 
 too, inside you, and, as you waited for your own cue, often 
 playing them quite differently. That was why a rehearsal 
 in which you took no active part was so oddly tiring. You 
 could often do the parts which you did n't have to do, so 
 much better than your own which you had ! 
 
 During this time life had been more vivid, more keenly 
 lived, than ever before. He was n't mistaken in what he 
 wanted. This was, as David saw it, life. All the other 
 interests and pleasures and excitements seemed pale and 
 misty in comparison. Some of the boys did not work at 
 their parts. They would glance at them at the last mo- 
 ment and trust to luck. They would mislay their books. 
 (David's was, ridiculously, under his pillow when he 
 slept.) They would make the same mistakes every time; 
 forget their positions; miss their cues; be foohng when 
 they should have been at attention; be absent even, keep 
 the stage waiting. 
 
 "Where's Collingham? Where's that young idiot, Col- 
 lingham! Collingham! Collingham!" 
 
 The name would go resounding through the Hall ; through 
 the passage outside, where hats and coats hung, and where 
 the notice board was on which were posted daily the school 
 orders or directions or announcements (the hours of the 
 rehearsals amongst them) ; and then through the cloisters 
 below, where the grub-shop kept by the porter was, from 
 which perhaps a protesting, spluttering Collingham would 
 hurriedly and shamefacedly issue, his mouth full of bis- 
 cuit or cake. 
 
 To care, nay, to be able, to think of anything else! 
 
 Or, mistaking buffoonery for comedy, a boy would want 
 to play the fool on the stage itself; or would be stupid; or 
 be mule-obstinate. 
 
 And yet, out of all this, some sort of order. Act I would
 
 230 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 go vilely, and then Act I would go well. Act II would go 
 well, and then it would be Act I that seemed flat and stale 
 and unprofitable. And then, lo, two acts would go fairly 
 smoothly. Fascinating, all of it. 
 
 And other satisfactions. To his surprise he began to see 
 that Jourdon Tarpalin's manner toward him was changing. 
 The patronising tone had been dropped at an early re- 
 hearsal, and that, since he was quick to see that the older 
 boy was not prodigal of praise, was perhaps as much in 
 the way of approval as David had allowed himself to ex- 
 pect; but by degrees he became conscious of something 
 more. Tarpalin, in small ways, let David see that he was 
 well disposed toward him. This, David with quite un- 
 assumed modesty put down at first to his merely not being 
 troublesome. Tarpalin, equable enough generally, could 
 pitch into the boys who gave him trouble, and, if he was 
 really angry, let his tongue fly to some purpose. As he, 
 David, was keenly interested on his own account in all 
 that went on, he was naturally on the spot when he was 
 wanted. But presently David saw that it was for no nega- 
 tive qualities that he had grown in his manager's estima- 
 tion, but that, unlikely as it seemed, Tarpalin believed in 
 him. He never told David that his performance was good. 
 He just watched it, not, after the first, interrupting it con- 
 stantly as he did most of the others, but keeping a silence 
 that David knew somehow was not condemnatory. He 
 would put another boy to stand for Jourdain, and would 
 go down into the body of the hall. Sometimes he whispered 
 to one of the others of the principals. 
 
 His severest comment to David was that sometimes he 
 could n't hear him. 
 
 "Speak up — no, not you. Penstephen, I mean. The 
 last boy on the last bench has got to hear you, remember." 
 
 Then David would speak a little louder. 
 
 Some of the others he never let alone for a moment. 
 
 " No, no, no. Yes, you, CoUingham. Not a bit like it. 
 Good Lord, you get worse every time. Take your entrance
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 231 
 
 again, and, for goodness' sake, man, try to remember that 
 you're a girl. Not a blooming little shrimp tr>ang to play 
 a coal-heaver. And where ought you to be now? Below 
 the table, you ass, below, not above it ! Which is above and 
 which is below? Do you know? And which is your right 
 hand and which is your left? Then behave as if you did. 
 Now, have you marked it? Well, mark it. Good Lord, how 
 many times have I got to tell you! For goodness' sake, 
 some one see that he does mark it. Now, are we ready! 
 Then once more." 
 
 And then it would be another of the young actors or an- 
 other who would come in for his displeasure. 
 
 "Johnson. Stop. Stop, I say. Do you hear me! Cross 
 on that line. Yes, you 've always crossed on that. Not so 
 far. There. Stand still. Now, speak." 
 
 Johnson would cross, fidget with his hands and his feet, 
 and be struck with dumbness. 
 
 "Give him the line." 
 
 And perhaps the prompter would have lost his place, 
 and would give the wrong line. And then it would be the 
 prompter's turn. 
 
 Tarpalin was very just. He did not turn upon you with- 
 out cause. So that not to be pitched into, and above all 
 not to be pulled up too often, meant that you were giving 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Presently, though David was so much younger than he, 
 Tarpalin would talk to him as to one of the bigger boys. 
 
 "Have you done much acting?" 
 
 David practically had done none. 
 
 Tarpalin looked surprised. 
 
 "Then how do you know what to do?" 
 
 "Oh, I suppose one tries to think what one would do if 
 one really were the person one's supposed to be. The words 
 are a guide, are n't they?" 
 
 "I sometimes wonder," said Tarpalin, "when I listen 
 to some of these chaps!" 
 
 Another day he wanted to know how David knew as 
 much as he did of — well, the ropes.
 
 232 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "How, ropes?" David asked. 
 
 "Oh, the positions of things. The points of the com- 
 pass — If I tell you to go up stage, you don't immediately 
 come down." 
 
 That was the work of the little theatre. He remembered 
 the ingenuous direction, on the back of the fly-leaf of every 
 play-book, which told you that R meant Right and L Left, 
 and that the Stage was supposed to face the Audience. 
 It had all begun there. 
 
 "Oh, I 've always been interested," he said. He could 
 n't have spoken of the little theatre. "You pick up things 
 when you are." 
 
 And then one day Tarpalin stopped calling Jourdain 
 'Jourdon,' and David, though Tarpalin said nothing, and 
 though, in a cast the members of which spoke with various 
 accents, there were of course plenty of others beside him- 
 self who said 'Jourdain,' knew instinctively that it was to 
 him and not to these others that a rather subtle and most 
 unexpected compliment had been paid. That made him 
 extraordinarily happy. 
 
 And so, with excitements on the way, things moved 
 toward the Night. There was the excitement of the day 
 when the Great Hall was filled with hammerings, and the 
 stage was being erected. David watched spell-bound. It 
 had no such proscenium as that of his own miniature stage. 
 No grouped Neptune and Tritons, blowing shells for 
 horns, surmounted the opening. There were just a couple 
 of painted Corinthian columns, some stencilled scroll- 
 work of an Adamsy pattern, a bunch of musical instru- 
 ments festooned about with floating ribands, and, at each 
 of the upper corners, a mask — Tragedy with strained eye- 
 sockets and drooping lips (yet the whole mouth somehow 
 four-square) on the one side, and Comedy, with the same 
 four-square mouth, yet twisted in laughter, on the other. 
 Very simple, but oddly satisfying. All there was need for 
 seemed to be there in visible emblem or inspiring sugges-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 233 
 
 tion. The curtain was a sort of Fragonard picture, such 
 as he had often seen in the galleries that he had been taken 
 to abroad when he was a little boy. He liked the hooped 
 ladies and the satin-coated periwigged gallants. They too 
 were inspiring. It was delightful somehow, when the cur- 
 tain was at last in its place, to see it roll up and down in its 
 frame. He must needs examine the pulleys, and master 
 them, as though, it were he and not the exercised prompter 
 who would have the working of them. Even the hammer- 
 ing-in of the nails in the boards of the platform itself, with 
 its gentle rake, had fascinated him. How surely and swift- 
 ly each nail, taken by the carpenters from a mouthful of 
 nails, went home under the deafening hammerings! His, 
 we may be sure, was the first foot to tread the boards 
 when the rough joists were covered. And the footlights — 
 gas, like those of his own elaborate model! No electric 
 light then; gas still the last word in lighting. What a hot 
 glowing row ! You could feel the warmth of them on your 
 face when they were turned up. That, too, with the sort 
 of gulf or river of light which they made, to divide you 
 from the audience — that, too, was inspiring. 
 
 There had been the day of the measuring when, for the 
 guidance of the costumiers, your height, and the length of 
 your limbs, and your waist- and chest- and head-measure- 
 ments, had been taken and set down against the name of 
 the character you were to play. David had proved to be 
 nearly an inch taller than he had thought. Perhaps that 
 was caused by excitement. And then after an interval had 
 come the day when the dress-baskets arrived — neat square 
 wicker trunks with 'Abraham's' painted across them, and 
 an address in Covent Garden. David promised himself 
 to see the outside of Abraham's shop, when the hoH- 
 days came and he should be back in London. The boxes 
 stood in one of the two classrooms which had been vacated 
 and partly dismantled for dressing-rooms. Then had come 
 the unpacking and the distributing. None of the gar- 
 ments, the accurate measuring notwithstanding, quite
 
 234 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 fitted at first. On one boy, clothes would hang like rags on 
 a scarecrow; on another, sleeves would leave inches of 
 wrist bare, or breeches be filled to bursting. But a ward- 
 robe woman had come down with the baskets, and under 
 her skilful tackings and pinnings and lettings-out — these 
 last, however, more reluctant than any takings-in — 
 miracles happened. 
 
 "Not fit? Go on, my dear. I've seen that coat on a 
 chest like a cheese, and fit that, and the very next week on 
 a little manikin of a fella with no more breast to him than a 
 barn-door, and fit 'im too. You don't rightly know what a 
 coat 's capable of, not till you get a needle in your 'and and 
 a mouthful of safety-pins. Things should start large, 
 that's all I say." 
 
 Oddly garbed figures buzzed round her. 
 
 "Yes, one at a time. I '11 take you next, or you. I 'm not 
 particular. Settle it amongst you, young gentlemen. 
 There, that's better. Too tight, sir! Not it. You can 
 breathe right enough if you choose to, and if y' can't, why, 
 il fo soofray, as they say, pour ate belle. Well, I '11 give you 
 another eighth of a hinch. That do?" She would take a 
 dozen rapid stitches and then bite her thread. "Now the 
 sleeves. Too long? Well, nothing to speak of, and stand 
 still, dear, for goodness gracious sake, or you'll 'ave my 
 needle in y'r arm, and then you'll holler, / know! I'll 
 shorten the ruffie. I 'm not going to touch the velvet for 
 you, sir, nor nobody else." 
 
 She too was part of it. The magic was in her, too. Her 
 name was Vokins. Miss Vokins! The magic of that! 
 London was written all over her, and that particular bit of 
 London (just north of the Strand) which clustered round 
 the older theatres. She was plump and shabby, had a 
 pleasant, pert, good-tempered face, rather battered by 
 time, and a little — not to any disfiguring extent — pitted 
 by smallpox. It was her hair which seemed to point her 
 connection, direct or indirect, with the concerns of the 
 theatre. This — she had heaps of it — was towzled rather
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 235 
 
 than 'done,' and was of a dingy reddish colour darkening 
 to a very decided brown near the roots. She had very 
 shrewd eyes with a twinkle in them and — yes, it was that 
 partly — a look of Nell Gwynne. 
 
 All the time that she worked she kept up a running flow 
 of rather hoarse talk of which the foregoing is but a sample. 
 She called them all 'dear,' from Tarpalin himself to the 
 smallest super. 
 
 "Stop for the show? Not me. I 've got to be in Canter- 
 bury this time to-morrow. 'Amlet they're doin' there. 
 Some of them amachoors 'ave n't 'alf got a cheek. I only 
 come down just to get this to rights, and off I go again. 
 Worse than bein' on the road I call it. Now let 's look at 
 you, dear. No wonder it 's uncomfortable. If 'e 'as n't got 
 it back to front! Very plain you wasn't meant to wear 
 petticoats. Oh, don't worry me about y' wigs. They're 
 not my business. Kressler's man, 'e'll see about them 
 when 'e comes to make y' up." 
 
 At last it was David's turn. It was almost a disappoint- 
 ment to him that his dress needed so little alteration. 
 
 "Might 'a' been made for y'. We'll just draw y ' in, sir, 
 a little bit more at the waist. Like that, see. There, a 
 Picture I call you. Now, into the next room, all of you, 
 and off with 'em, and careful, mind, like good gentlemen, 
 not to burst the tackings, or move the pins, and I '11 'ave 
 'em all ready for y' in an hour." 
 
 David hoped he should see her again. He seemed, as 
 never before, to have been in touch with the real thing. 
 But she did her work incredibly quickly, and by the time 
 they reassembled for the dress rehearsal she was gone. 
 
 "Yes, a funny old thing," Tarpalin said. "She comes 
 every year. Good old sort, is n't she?" 
 
 David would n't have called her old. As he saw her she 
 was even comely. He had seen her arrive in her tight yel- 
 low ulster with the amazing lines and the big horn buttons, 
 which, in conjunction with the tilted beaver hat, made her 
 look like the principal boy in a pantomime. Dressed so,
 
 236 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 and with the addition of a cane under her arm, she would 
 have looked ready to sing Ladida or Tiddy-fol-lol, or what- 
 ever just then was the song of the moment. Even when 
 she had peeled off the ulster, and stood displayed in her 
 under shabbiness of bursting black satin, her ample bosom 
 stuck over with pins and threaded and unthreaded needles, 
 she did not lose a certain raffish charm. Nothing so alive 
 as Miss Vokins could ever have seemed old to David. 
 
 She ought to have been an actress herself David was 
 thinking, and spoke his thought. 
 
 "So she has," said Tarpalin — "at least a pro, of sorts. 
 She was in the chorus of Madame Angot and a lot of other 
 things. She 's understudied too — Serpolette in Les Cloches 
 de Corneville on tour, and something in La Mascotte. She told 
 me that last year. She'll talk your head off if you'll let her." 
 
 David opened his eyes wide. It wanted but that she 
 should have been born in Wych Street or Holiwell Street 
 or Drury Lane. These names had 'sounds' for him, as the 
 Hoxton Street, formerly Hoxton, Old Town, and the Swan 
 Street, Minories, and the Old Street, St. Luke's, of the little 
 theatre. Perhaps she even had been! 
 
 "Then why — ?" he began. 
 
 "Oh, lost her voice," said Tarpalin — "after an illness 
 she says. But if you ask me, Anno Domini." 
 
 She was a figure of tragedy then. He, at least, would 
 never think of her as old. 
 
 And then, Kressler's man arrived with his make-up 
 boxes, his paints and his powders, his bistres and anti- 
 monies, his crayons noirs and lining pencils, his plaited 
 ropes of crepe hair, his spirit gums, his powder puffs and 
 hare's feet ; and a whole new world of wonder and enchant- 
 ment was opened up before David's eyes. With the aid of 
 these things you could be changed, as if by necromancy, 
 into almost any other conceivable or inconceivable type of 
 person. The whole cast of your features, or at all events of 
 their expression, could be altered, with almost, if not quite,
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 2yj 
 
 the very shape of some of them. David had known this, of 
 course, but it was none the less wonderful to see it in prac- 
 tice. As the clothes, under the adroit fingers of Miss Vo- 
 kins, were made to fit bodies, so faces, under the hands of 
 Kressler's man, were made to fit parts. CoUingham, quite 
 an ugly boy with a rather pasty face and pale eyelashes, 
 became a vision of feminine loveliness. Tarpalin put on 
 thirty years or so, and became quite unrecognisable, as he 
 turned veritably into the redoubtable Bourgeois Gentil- 
 homme. 
 
 David, with the others waiting their turns, watched, fasci- 
 nated. Eyelids would tremble and eyes water, perhaps, as 
 the fine black or blue lines were applied to unaccustomed 
 rims. How heavy the lines were sometimes which, pres- 
 ently, in the glare of the footlights, were to show them- 
 selves as no more than looked just (artificially) natural. 
 How eyes shone which before perhaps had been lack-lustre ! 
 
 Some of the more experienced of the players gave di- 
 rections. Tarpalin had been amongst these. He had his 
 own views of what M. Jourdain should look like. 
 
 " Not so much rouge, man," David had heard him pro- 
 test. " I don't want to look like Punch or an Aunt Sally." 
 
 The rouge had been toned down with powder. He came 
 back while the next boy was in Kressler's hands to com- 
 plain that it wanted toning down still more. Kressler's 
 man, with no time as he said to argue, appUed some more 
 powder and turned back to the boy in the chair. 
 
 "Let 'em 'ave it their own way, I say," he murmured 
 when Tarpalin was gone. " But don't let 'im blame me if 
 kind friends in front tell 'im 'e's too pale. Nothing like 
 footlights for takin' the colour out of you." 
 
 Presently it was David's turn and he took the chair. 
 He felt as he leaned his head back, a towel round his neck, 
 as if he were at the barber's, or perhaps the dentist's. 
 
 "Let's see, sir, you're — oh, ah, yes. The Tailor, of 
 course. Have you any views of yoiiro^rx, sir, before I begin?" 
 
 David should think so, indeed, but had hardly expected
 
 238 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 to be asked. As he was, however, he gave them sturdily. 
 
 "That is n't just how we generally make up the part." 
 
 "It's the way I see it," David said; and added, "if you 
 don't mind." 
 
 Rather to his surprise — or perhaps it was only that the 
 man from Kressler's had not, as he had said, time to argue? 
 — he found his views were not combatted. 
 
 But it was n't indifference. Tarpahn had taken him the 
 wrong way, perhaps. 
 
 The man, taciturn hitherto, began to talk. 
 
 "I like y' t' 'ave views, y' know. Shows an intelligent 
 interest. Within reason, that is. There's some amatures 
 worries y' life out. Gets their 'eads swelled quicker, I've 
 noticed, than any mere pro. Some of 'em thinks they know 
 better than anybody else." (Rub, rub, rub, meanwhile; it 
 was as if David was being lathered for shaving.) "Some of 
 these 'ere society ladies ! Want to look pretty when they 're 
 playing character. 'Ow, not any wrinkles!' (Mrs. Mala- 
 prop, if you please!) Or, 'I couldn't look like that! It 
 does n't look a bit nice.' (Mrs. Hardcastle, maybe, — 
 Tony Lumpkin's mother — you know, in She Stoops. Or, 
 'Gracious, you've made me look fifty!' (Mrs. Candour, I 
 trouble you, in The School for Scandal 1) They all want to 
 be ongenues. I 'ave n't common patience! But we know at 
 once what we've to deal with, and if Lady Macbeth wants 
 to look like Juliet, well, let 'er, I say. But reasonable views, 
 that's different. Now, sir, look up. Quite still, please." 
 
 David did n't need to be told. He could keep quite still. 
 What mattered a little tickling? His eyes did not water. 
 
 "And of course, be rights, as I don't forget in me own 
 mind, we don't exist. Not prop'ly we don't. Who ever 
 'eard of a pro letting any one make him up but 'imself? 
 That 's why I listen when there is views and reason. For 
 why again? Because owner of said views ought, in point 
 of fact, mind, to be talking to 'imself." 
 
 "Could my eyebrows be made a little higher?" David 
 suggested.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 239 
 
 "I see. Wait a minute. We'll have these out. More 
 arched like? There," — after a pause during which he 
 worked busily, — "that more what you mean?" 
 
 "That's got it." 
 
 Curious the difference it made. Curious, too, in the 
 light of his inexperience, that the difference should have 
 been exactly what he had hoped. His face was changing 
 every moment. 
 
 Kressler's man read his thoughts. 
 
 "Ah, your own mother would n't know y *, sir, time I 've 
 done with y'." 
 
 He worked on for some minutes, David watching him in 
 the looking-glass. But his words had sent David's thoughts 
 flying homewards. He wished that his mother were coming 
 like other boys' mothers to see him. Neither of his parents 
 had ever been down yet for any ceremonies connected with 
 the school. In his present frame of mind, to the content- 
 ment of which everything lately had contributed, he be- 
 lieved he was not going to be bad in his small part. And if 
 he was n't bad, if he made any sort of little success in it, it 
 would help toward the ultimate telling. But no. This was 
 but the thin end of the wedge. He would get better parts 
 than this. Time enough. His mother should see him when 
 there was something to see. All the same he would have 
 liked her to be there to see him even when there was n't. 
 
 Kressler's man, the lines all in, the colour applied, gave 
 his face its final light dusting of powder. 
 
 " Now, y ' wig, sir." He had tried it before, but taken it 
 off to have freer scope for his ground work. "Sent y' a 
 good one, I was glad to see. Fits, too, as if it'd been made 
 for y'. Wants just a little dressin', though. And I'll do 
 that before to-morrow night. There you are, sir, and 'ow 
 do you like y'self?" 
 
 "Jolly good, Sir Thingamy P.," said the next boy. 
 " Jolly good. You just do me as well as that, Mr. Kressler." 
 
 "Ah, there 's faces and faces," said the man from Kress- 
 ler's darkly.
 
 240 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 David, looking at himself in the long glass in the dressing- 
 room next door, was quite sure that he did wish that his 
 mother could see him. She would most certainly not have 
 recognised him. 
 
 And so to the delicious terrors and delights of the Night, 
 when he made his first appearance on any stage, and, if his 
 performance was not such as to set the Thames on fire, of 
 his yet quite palpable and quite significant success. Out- 
 wardly nothing particular happened — the part was not 
 showy, and the honours naturally went to the bigger r61es. 
 
 When all was over, and he stood devouring sandwiches 
 and drinking claret-cup with the rest in the crowded up- 
 roarious dressing-room, he knew that a beginning had been 
 made, indeed, and that the gates of his terrestrial paradise 
 were open to him thenceforward. 
 
 Tarpalin, flushed with his own success, clapped him on 
 the back, nearly making him choke: "By Jove, young 
 Penstephen, next year we'll show them." 
 
 There it was in words. 
 
 "I shall get other parts?" 
 
 " I should jolly well think so." 
 
 There were groups still hanging about the entrance when 
 at last David came out. Still under the spell of the acting, 
 he likened them to those that hung, as he had read, about 
 the stage-doors of theatres to see actors emerge in mufti. 
 He saw all the world as a stage that night. 
 
 "There's Tarpalin," he heard some one say, — "who 
 played the old chap." And then he heard his own name. 
 
 A figure detached itself from the others and made for 
 him, David. 
 
 It was the little old man of the shop in the back street. 
 
 "Hullo," David said, smiling. 
 
 " I was there," said the old man. 
 
 "Were you?" said David. 
 
 "You'd never guess where. In the organ Icrft. Ah, I 
 thought that'd surprise you. Your head porter's brother 's 
 a friend of mine, that's how. I wanted to come. Well!"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 241 
 
 David waited. 
 
 "You've plenty to learn, sir, I won't say that you have 
 n't. You want more breadth and leisure; you want to hold 
 things like, and not hurry your words. You want practice 
 and experience. But, God forgive me, if it 's this I 've been 
 fostering with my penny plains and tuppence coloureds, 
 you won't stop, I venture to predict, what you've begun 
 to-night." 
 
 "What?" said David, not quite following. 
 
 The old man shook his head ominously. 
 
 "What do you mean?" said David. "Out with it." 
 
 "Ah, it'll out right enough. That's the trouble. The 
 trouble for your anxious relations, I mean. Was any of 
 them here?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "That's a pity, and yet again I don't know." 
 
 "What do you mean?" said David. 
 
 "Why, only that you've got something that perhaps 
 they won't like you to have. It was a fairly good show all 
 round. I 've seen many worse — here, yes, and in theatres 
 too. I 've been a theatre-goer all my life." 
 
 "But what have I got?" said David. His eyes were 
 shining. He had not quite got all his make-up off, and 
 there was still a shadow round his lids that made his eyes 
 even consciously burn. 
 
 "I don't think I've ever been mistaken yet," the old 
 man said, looking at him. "Well, sir, my congratulations 
 for what they may be worth." 
 
 But he would not tell him quite what he meant. 
 
 "Something," he said, "that not one of the others had 
 — though some of 'em, mind you, were better than you — 
 something that not one in twenty has — no, nor fifty for 
 that matter." 
 
 "I have n't the least idea what you mean," David said; 
 but he felt suddenly as if he had passed an examination.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 It was in the year that followed, not these theatricals, but 
 the next (in which, a year older and more than a year big- 
 ger, David had the happiness of playing Sebastian in 
 Twelfth Night), that his mother was torturing herself with 
 the second of her fears. She had been watching him long 
 before that for signs and indications of that knowledge 
 that might be supposed to be his, and even, as we have 
 seen, half persuading herself that she had found them. 
 But she was wrong. Surrounded though he was by people 
 who might know, and unlikely as it thus seemed that he 
 could escape knowledge, he had yet so far escaped it. One 
 or other of the masters would sometimes look at him with 
 the interest which his peculiar case must necessarily have 
 excited in the minds of any who were aware of it. They, 
 like his mother, may have wondered whether he knew. 
 More probably they would have supposed that he did. 
 But it was not in any case for them to enlighten him. His 
 intimates at school may not have known. It appears prob- 
 able that they did not. Tact is not a conspicuous attribute' 
 of the school-boy. He knew, of course, that there was 
 ' something,' and that this, whatever it was, was connected 
 in some way with his father. There had been talk in the 
 early days. But talk dies down sometimes as easily as it 
 arises. The good-looking boy, whose questions had started 
 it, liad left, it chanced, in David's third term. David could 
 never look back without aversion to the incident in which 
 he was concerned, and the uncomfortable feeling it had 
 left behind it; but no more had come of it than that it had 
 entailed for him a sort of false start — the 'way' lost to him 
 in consequence of which he had long since made up — and by 
 degrees there had come to be whole periods when he could 
 put it out of his mind. The circumstances, it can only be
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 243 
 
 supposed, had not arisen which must inevitably have led 
 to his enUghtenment. Up to his sixteenth, and then his 
 seventeenth, and then even his eighteenth year, he was 
 still uninformed. It seemed possible that he would attain 
 to manhood in ignorance of his true position. 
 
 Thus it was that, though the constraint which his mother 
 feared between David and his father did indeed exist, its 
 presence was not attributable to the causes which she so 
 apprehensively assigned to it. It arose actually out of 
 David's father's manner toward David. 
 
 The knowledge of the injury, all unwitting, or, at least, 
 unintentioned, as it may have been, that he had done to 
 his firstborn, could never, we may be sure, have been quite 
 absent from John Penstephen's consciousness. Reason as 
 he would, it must have been there at the back of his mind, 
 and insensibly, as was inevitable, its presence expressed 
 itself in an uneasiness — a dis-ease rather — of the spirit 
 which acted unconsciously upon his manner, and reacted 
 thus upon David. Mary's quite different uneasiness, the 
 existence of which David did not suspect any more than he 
 suspected that of his father, had no such effect upon him. 
 But nothing could ever have come between David and his 
 mother. 
 
 He knew quite well that he did not talk to his father. 
 It did not need her words to point this out to him. But he 
 did not know that the fault was not wholly his own. He 
 thought, indeed, that it was. He ought, he believed, to be 
 able to be upon the same terms with his father as other 
 boys with theirs. But somehow he could not. A walk 
 with him was as embarrassing an ordeal to David, now, as 
 the memorable walk at Homburg, and left him, moreover, 
 not, as that walk had done, with a feeling that a closer 
 communionship had been established between them, but 
 with a sense of the impossibility that any such commun- 
 ionship should be lasting or in any degree real. It was a 
 relief to him, and not a grief (or even a grievance), that his 
 father so obviously found the company of his little brother
 
 244 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 more congenial. There, indeed, was their one point of con- 
 tact. 
 
 Yet even here their contact was not quite easy, for Da- 
 vid's father, knowing what he knew, must assuredly have 
 felt some sort of compunction when he saw David's affec- 
 tion for the child who one day must be the very token of 
 the wrong that had been done him. Mary, in the depths of 
 her heart, had a conviction which she would not acknow- 
 ledge even to herself. Was John happier when David was 
 at school? Was that even why David had been sent to 
 school at all? In the boy's unusual circumstances the en- 
 gaging of a private tutor for him would perhaps have been 
 the advisable, maybe even the obvious, solution of the 
 difficulties which had presented themselves when the 
 question of his education had been considered. She had 
 herself, in her anxiety for his well-being, wished that David 
 should be educated at home. But David's father had over- 
 ruled her. Public-school life was the making of a boy, 
 knocked the corners off him, gave him grit and pluck and 
 self-reliance — all the incontrovertible arguments, which, 
 in the case of any other boy, she would herself have used. 
 But in David's case . . . ? All the more in the case of Da- 
 vid, he might have reminded her (but did not), who, she 
 knew only too well, — or thought that she knew, — would 
 need all the grit and the pluck and the self-reliance he 
 could command. She had had no thought then that he had 
 anything but David's welfare in mind — nor had she actu- 
 ally now. But, that she should have to combat such 
 thoughts shewed, not only how sensitive she was to all that 
 affected David, but also how far she and John had travelled 
 on that road which they had unconsciously taken on the 
 fateful day when he had made her his wife. 
 
 David, quite unjealous of Johnny, came, then, as he saw 
 that there was some intangible constraint between himself 
 and his father, even where they were so patently of one 
 accord, to wonder whether it was possible that his father, 
 where Johnny was concerned, could be jealous of him.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 245 
 
 Surely not. Then why, here also, should there not be per- 
 fect ease between them? 
 
 So he tried to explain, and, as a thought is crystallised 
 by being put into words, so the idea that there was any- 
 thing to be explained, that there should even seem to be 
 anything, gave to phantom nothings substance. The 
 breach which Mary feared between her husband and her 
 son was like to widen without, in a sense, — the sense, at 
 least, in which she imagined it, — having any existence in 
 fact. She saw it as an ominous frightening thing because 
 she thought that she knew cause for it. The cause which 
 she ascribed to it was not there. Yet a breach was daily 
 becoming real. 
 
 But though Mary's fears, as we have seen, would be 
 lulled from time to time, and she would let the sheltered 
 feeling of the house in Cheyne Walk envelop her, so that 
 sometimes she was almost able to forget, the consciousness 
 of the sword that hung over her by its single thread never 
 wholly left her. And though David did not know, he was 
 becoming more and more aware of the strangeness of the 
 conditions that ruled his life. Why this and why that, he 
 would ask himself. Why, for example, so few visitors? 
 Mary, for reasons that her son knew nothing of, had gone 
 no more to Ettringham. Where David and Georgina could 
 not go, their mother would not go. Nothing in the nature of 
 an explanation had passed between the two ladies. Susan 
 had very warmly renewed her invitation in the course of 
 the year which followed the visit at which we assisted, but 
 Mary made regrets and excuses. Then came a period dur- 
 ing which Susan still affectionately invited her. Mary 
 still made excuses. John urged her for a time. Mary had 
 but one answer to anything that he might say: Susan knew 
 why she could not go to Ettringham. Mary, however, 
 urged him, in turn, to go, though she might not. She 
 wished him to go. In the interests of Johnny he ought to 
 go. There was every reason, she felt truly, why he should 
 go and none why he should not. Betsy was sent meanwhile
 
 246 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 with Johnny; and presently John took to going as before. 
 Relations remained quite cordial between Susan and 
 Mary. Letters, which were even genuinely affectionate, 
 were written by one to the other, but neither put what 
 each knew (and knew that the other knew) into words. 
 The letters continued, but presently the invitations ceased. 
 The last took the form of a standing one: Susan could well 
 understand that, with a house to look after (Mary did not 
 think it necessary to go very far afield for her excuses, or 
 even to vary them!), dear Mary must find it difficult to 
 leave home, but, whenever she felt inclined to come to 
 Ettringham, she had only to write, and that she would be 
 sure of a welcome she did not need to be told. 
 
 So the dinner-parties which were to have reinstated her 
 had not taken place. People who would have been asked 
 to call upon her were not asked to do so, and Mary, though 
 she fully realised what she was doing, would not have had 
 things othenvise. 
 
 Well, David had no wish for visitors. No young boy has. 
 Visitors as visitors are to him but persons at whose ap- 
 proach — a bell heralding it — you make yourself scarce, 
 and for whose departure — a bell, but a different one, her- 
 alding that also — you impatiently wait. Intruders, oust- 
 ing you from rooms you look upon as your own; interrup- 
 tions; bores with pretended claims upon the time of those 
 whose whole attention should be yours! No, the young 
 male has no use for visitors. But as David grew older, he 
 saw that his parents led oddly isolated lives. He would 
 wonder sometimes how they managed to fill their time. 
 Not so much his mother, perhaps, who, attaching herself 
 more and more to her home and its thousand and one oc- 
 cupations, was always busy. But his father. How did he 
 content himself? Other men were in touch with their kind 
 all day long; had their clubs; a dozen recreations. His 
 father, except perhaps when he went away, saw few people 
 outside his own circle. How had this curious state of things 
 arisen? Why did it continue?
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 247 
 
 If he had ever asked his mother outright she would per- 
 haps have told him. He had become too much accustomed 
 to accepting life as it presented itself to him to ask? It was 
 not quite that. He had come to know a look which came 
 into his mother's eyes when questions were in his heart. 
 It came into them — a sort of pleading apprehension — ■ 
 before his questions could frame themselves into words. 
 There was, it seemed, even in his close intercourse with 
 her, one reservation; one barred door; one tract of country 
 which his feet might not tread, or were begged not, at 
 least, to explore. 
 
 But though he did not wish for visitors, he did wish that 
 he could have brought his own friends to the house freely. 
 When he came across any of them in the holidays, he never 
 felt quite unhindered in pressing upon them, or even prof- 
 fering, the informal invitations which pass as a matter of 
 course between schoolboys. He was never told in so many 
 words not to do so, but, though he knew that all the in- 
 stincts and inclinations of his parents were hospitable, he 
 could not but see that he was not encouraged to ask his 
 school-fellows to Cheyne Walk. Difficult indeed to ac- 
 count for this. The few people who did come to the house, 
 former friends of his father's for the most part, and the one 
 or two people who had called, were made welcome at all 
 times. David thought his mother was never more delight- 
 ful than on the occasions when any of the rare callers 
 came to luncheon or dinner. When the conditions were 
 favourable — those conditions which he knew nothing of, 
 but guessed at vaguely — she loved, as he could see, to 
 have people about her. She blossomed then as the rose. 
 It was abundantly plain at such times that she was not 
 meant by nature for the solitary life that had so strangely 
 been forced upon her. And when she met his friends her 
 manner was so exactly right with them, and they upon 
 their part showed so unmistakeably their response to it, 
 and to the charm which David was so proud of in her, that 
 it was the more surprising that never of her own accord did
 
 248 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 she invite them to his home. She never failed, it is true, 
 to endorse his tentative invitation when he gave it, but 
 always qualified it with the stipulation that its acceptance 
 should be contingent upon the consent of parents or guard- 
 ians as the case might be. David, a little humiliated, as 
 she, we may be sure, sorely perceived, pointed out some- 
 times how unnecessary this was. Boys, he used to explain 
 to her when he was younger, were allowed, to a greater ex- 
 tent than she supposed, to do as they liked. And when, as 
 often happened, invitations came for him, there were hesi- 
 tations, and always consultations with his father, before 
 he was allowed, if he was allowed, to accept them. And 
 always, always, behind all this, there was somehow the 
 feeling that his mother could not help it, was not a free 
 agent either . . . 
 
 Meanwhile another year passed after that which had 
 seen him play Sebastian in the school theatricals, and, to 
 his further pride and happiness, he stepped into leads with 
 young Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer. That was a proud 
 moment for him and he forgot all his troubles. He worked 
 day and night at his part and justified two people's belief 
 in him — Tarpalin's which had given him the part, and 
 his old friend's from the shop. But the old man from the 
 shop shook his head more than ever. 
 
 "What did I say?" he said. "But there's some meant 
 for one thing and some for another. What 's it got to do 
 with any of us? We 're as we 're born, I suppose, and they 
 won't be able to stop you. But it 's a pity you 're not poor, 
 sir, — some one who 's got to." 
 
 "Got to what?" 
 
 " Make his way. Earn his living like." 
 
 "Oh, I have to do that," said David. He had never de- 
 clared himself, but what he intended to do with his life was 
 now, it may be seen, an understood thing between them. 
 
 "Not in the way I mean," said the old man. "When 
 shall you tell them?" 
 
 "I don't know yet," said David.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 249 
 
 "When are they coming to see you? What I can't under- 
 stand, if you'll pardon the liberty, is why they don't." 
 
 It was what David could not understand either. 
 
 "Have they ever seen you?" 
 
 David shook his head. 
 
 "What I mean to say it would break it to them in a 
 manner of speaking. It isn't, mind you, that you ought to 
 be playing parts like this — not for another five or six 
 years you ought n't. I 'd have everybody go through the 
 mill. Stock Company. General Utility. Anything, every- 
 thing — see? That's how most of the big ones got there. 
 In one sense the part's nothing. For me I could judge of 
 you just as well in y' ten o' twenty lines, two years ago 
 when you played the Tailor, as in what I call a limelight 
 part like Marlow. For me this only endorses what I thought 
 then and proves me right. But for most people, who judge 
 by quantity whatever they think, it'd seem more of a test 
 like of what you can do. You've made a success with it. 
 As they'll have to know sometime, you might 'a' done 
 worse than let 'em see y' in this Marlow of yours." 
 
 What pleased David most was that Tarpalin was 
 pleased. Tarpalin looked upon David as his discovery. 
 
 "I knew you would," he said. 
 
 David looked upon Tarpalin as the agent of his chance. 
 But for Tarpalin he might have been kicking his heels out- 
 side to that day. 
 
 Tarpalin said suddenly, " I wish we could give it again 
 — at home, I mean. You and I in our parts, and three or 
 four of the others. For a charity. The Hospital probably. 
 Would you come?" 
 
 "Would n't I!" said David. And then felt annoyed that 
 he should have to qualify this with a reflective " If I could, 
 that is — if I find I could get away." 
 
 "Oh, you'd be able to do that, wouldn't you, if you 
 wanted to?" 
 
 " I should certainly want to," David said, feeling, almost 
 as he spoke, that that only made what he had in mind
 
 250 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 worse. "I'd love to," he said then. "I should think I 
 should be able." 
 
 "I'll write to you. By George, it would be fun. We'd 
 have to get ladies for the women's parts, of course, but we 
 could easily do that." 
 
 There was more talk. David went back to London the 
 next day happy and expectant. A week passed; the eighth 
 day brought Tarpalin's letter. The thing, it seemed, was 
 as good as arranged. Most of the others would come. 
 Would David? A note from Mrs. Tarpalin was enclosed 
 cordially seconding her son's invitation. 
 
 Would there be difficulties? 
 
 He sat for a long time with the letters in his hand. As he 
 had grown older, and as his friends had grown correspond- 
 ingly older, he fancied that irksome restrictions had been 
 relaxed somewhat. Perhaps his parents held that older 
 boys might, indeed, be allowed to do as they liked. He was 
 seventeen now, rising eighteen, and Tarpalin a couple of 
 years older. It would be absurd if difficulties were raised. 
 Perhaps there would be none. After much thinking he de- 
 termined that if his mother objected he would not oppose 
 her; but that if it proved to be his father who stood in the 
 way of his accepting this invitation, he would at least de- 
 mand his reasons. 
 
 He took the letters to his mother and laid them before 
 her. 
 
 " I want to go," he said. 
 
 His mother read Tarpalin's letter first. She had not met 
 him, but she knew him for one of David's heroes, as, by 
 hearsay at least, she knew most of his friends, from all the 
 Jonathans to the old man of the shop, the yearly Miss Vo- 
 kins of Abraham's, and the (equally yearly) man from 
 Kressler's. When she had read Mrs. Tarpalin's note she 
 looked up, smiling. 
 
 "Yes, darling, of course you must go," she said. 
 
 He had been so prepared for some sort of demurring, for 
 at least a referring of the matter to his father, that her un-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 251 
 
 hesitating approval took him aback. She saw this and her 
 eyes filled with tears. For, as we may guess, though he 
 could n't, she, not knowing whether or not he really 
 'knew,' could n't explain to him that it was because the 
 Tarpalins were people of the world, and would know what 
 Penstephen it was that they were asking, that he might go 
 to them safely. 
 
 He always remembered the night before he started for 
 his visit to the Tarpalins. It was to be what might be 
 called his first grown-up visit. He had developed extraor- 
 dinarily, as even he himself could not have failed to be 
 aware, in the last year or so. He had had new evening 
 clothes made during the winter term — his first ' tails ' — 
 and, to break them in, and to the eloquent admiration of 
 Georgina and his mother (and Betsy), he wore them that 
 night. Mary, looking at him in them, realised suddenly, 
 and with a curious stab at her heart, that she was now the 
 mother of a man. He was as tall as his father, and had 
 none of that callow gawkiness that so often characterises 
 the transition stage from youth to young manhood. The 
 lines of his figure, on the contrary, in the extremely well- 
 fitting clothes, were clean and definite, and, Mary thought, 
 quite unusually beautiful. She, like Georgina, could not 
 take her eyes off him. Even his father gave him his ap- 
 proval. 
 
 "By Jove, David," he said, "you'll have to give me an 
 introduction to that tailor of yours." 
 
 David coloured with pleasure, Mary saw, as he laughed 
 and said, "Are they all right, Father?" 
 
 "Fit you like a glove," said his father. 
 
 But everything was right that night, not his clothes 
 only. There was no tension, even when, after Georgina 
 and his mother had gone to bed, he and his father were 
 left alone. That, he supposed, was why he remembered. 
 All the evening he was conscious of it — the feeling of well- 
 being. It was not self-satisfaction — though it would be
 
 252 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 vain to say that his very satisfying new appearance, with 
 its immediate and successful appeal to the eye, had no 
 part in it! — nor was it just the pleasurable excitement of 
 anticipation. It was something more than these, though 
 these undoubtedly contributed. It was a sort of realisation 
 — the tension between him and his father being tempo- 
 rarily laid — of his home, and of what, under everything 
 that disturbed him, this home of his meant to him. A veil 
 seemed to be lifted from his eyes and his eyes allowed to 
 see. All that they lighted upon was familiar. The warm 
 lamplit room, the mellow brown walls of which, with their 
 pilasters and mouldings, gave his mother so much pleasure; 
 the hanging glass chandelier, which his father had refused 
 to have replaced by one of the abominations which the use 
 of gas had introduced into every other drawing-room; the 
 flower-piece over the fireplace; the slender steel fire-irons 
 in which the flames danced in reflection ; the wine-colour of 
 the curtains and of the brocade which covered the chairs 
 and stools — these things, taken for granted generally as 
 mere adjuncts to life, or parts of the background against 
 which it was lived, showed themselves now not merely as 
 the beautiful things that they were, but, like the little 
 Holland-covered box of the memories, upstairs in the lum- 
 ber-room beside the outgrown little theatre of the inspira- 
 tions, things in life itself, interested too and actively 
 friendly. It was as if he suddenly saw them all to have 
 souls. He sat by the fire, his book on his knee, dreaming 
 happily. 
 
 His father broke in on his musings. 
 
 "How are you off for money, David? Five pounds any 
 good to you?" 
 
 He was on his allowance now. Five pounds was five 
 pounds — and a good deal more than five pounds ! This 
 was splendid of his father! 
 1 "All right, my boy, all right." 
 
 He would have liked to say something, but, conscious 
 that the influences of the moment were all emotional and
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 253 
 
 therefore not quite to be trusted, he contented himself 
 with repeating his thanks. He folded the note and put it 
 into his pocket. But he went to his mother's room on his 
 way to his own. 
 
 Betsy had just left her and she was sitting by the fire in a 
 dressing-gown. A newspaper was in her hand. She had 
 put it down as she heard his knock and his voice asking if 
 he might come in. With her hair in the thick long tail into 
 which Betsy always plaited it for the night, she looked — 
 its visible greyness notwithstanding — almost like a girl. 
 
 "Father 's just given me five pounds," he said. 
 
 She was as pleased, he saw, as he was himself. 
 
 She put up her face to be kissed. 
 
 "Don't spend it all on theatres," she said, smiling. He 
 knew that she thought he went to the play too often. 
 
 But, as he stooped to kiss her, he saw that she had been 
 reading (again) the account of his performance in the re- 
 cent theatricals. 
 
 "Next year," he said, "you'll have to come down for 
 them. Why would n't you, this?" 
 
 " Darling, I never go anywhere." 
 
 "Well, next year you must. I shall make a point of it. 
 You've never come down. It is rather beastly of you, 
 Mummy, is n't it?" 
 
 " I 've always wanted to go down." 
 
 " If I were of the huffy sort I should be rather sore about 
 it." 
 
 But that was n't what he had come in to say. 
 
 "This five pounds," he said, and hesitated — "this five 
 pounds that I 'm going to spend on theatres and riotous 
 living. It 's frightfully decent of Father." He paused. "I 
 wish you'd tell him." 
 
 "Why don't you tell him yourself, David?" 
 
 " I have." 
 
 He kissed her again and said good-night. 
 
 "Tell him all the same," he said. 
 
 What he was trying to let her know — the infhiences of
 
 254 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 the evening working upon him, and the money meaning 
 really far less as money than as evidence of his father's 
 thought for him — was that when he came back things 
 should be different. His father, if the fault had hitherto 
 lain with David, should no longer be outside his life. He 
 would let him into it if it should be in any way possible. 
 "Good-night," he said again. 
 
 The next day he went down to the Tarpalins.
 
 THE THIRD BOOK OF 
 DAVID
 
 BOOK THE THIRD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Ten minutes after David's train had started his mother 
 would have given a year of her Hfe to recall him. 
 
 For the pleasure that it always gave her to be with him 
 in his holidays, she had, at the last moment, when the cab 
 was at the door, suggested half in play, half wistfully, that 
 she should see him off at Paddington. 
 
 "Why should n't I? Shall I?" 
 
 David jumped at the proposal. 
 
 "Get your things. Quick, Betsy, Mother's coat and hat. 
 I can give you two minutes." 
 
 "I can be ready in less than that," his mother cried, 
 laughing, and, slipping past the bulkier Betsy, sped lightly 
 upstairs to her room. She had her hat on before the pant- 
 ing Betsy reached her, and was back at the hall-door, in 
 her coat and with her gloves in her hand, in less than sixty 
 seconds all told. She, too, was panting a little, but none 
 the worse for her haste. She was in great spirits now, and 
 waved a laughing hand from the cab to the group on the 
 doorstep as she and David drove ofT. Betsy reappeared 
 just in time to shake a remonstrant finger, and David's 
 mother laughed again. 
 
 "How foolish I am, aren't I, David?" (She said, "Are 
 n't I.") 
 
 " I wish you were coming with me," David said. 
 
 She did not quite wish that, though she did wish, per- 
 haps, that she were not to lose two precious weeks of his 
 time. 
 
 David was in great spirits too. He had heard again from 
 Tarpalin that morning. The theatre in the neighbouring 
 town had been secured for the performance. 
 
 David, like the war-horse scenting battle, was eager and 
 excited.
 
 258 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "All this acting," said his mother. "We shall have you 
 going on the stage." 
 
 That was his chance, but he did not take it. 
 
 An idea struck him. 
 
 "Why should n't you come down for the night — to an 
 hotel?" 
 
 It was a great idea. Even Mary thought it an idea. She 
 would n't promise, but they played with it all the way to 
 the station. 
 
 At Paddington, while he was getting his ticket and seeing 
 to his luggage, Mary, still revolving the idea in her mind, 
 went to the book-stall and bought some papers for him. 
 As there was not too much time to spare, she asked a 
 porter which platform the train started from, and having 
 learnt its number made her way to it to wait for him there. 
 When he appeared she saw that he also held a sheaf of 
 papers. 
 
 "Oh, I'd got you some," she said, a little disappointed, 
 but recovering herself at once. "Let me see what you have 
 there and if you have any of the same ones, I '11 take those 
 back for your father." 
 
 By chance the Morning Post only was represented in 
 duplicate, and the copy of this amongst her papers she 
 kept. She opened it absently while she was standing at 
 the door of his carriage, and, when he walked a few yards 
 up the platform to ask a question of the guard, she turned 
 it inside out and ran her eye over the news. He came back 
 and she folded the paper once more, but without turning it 
 back. He stood there talking to her, and she thought again 
 how much a man he looked, and had a momentary pang as 
 she knew that others beside herself would love him, and as 
 fleeting a misgiving also as to what might be in store for 
 him even now. 
 
 But it was not a day for misgivings. A clear winter sun- 
 light penetrated even into the station. One of those rare 
 days had dawned that morning which in mid-winter some- 
 times breathe a promise of spring.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 259 
 
 There was a map in the compartment, and David, while 
 he was waiting, jumped in to look at it. Red Alban, the 
 Tarpalins' place, was in Shropshire. The station was As- 
 tonbury where he was to be met. He found it on the map. 
 His mother said Red Alban was a pretty name for a place. 
 
 "Isn't it?" said David. "There's a White Alban too. 
 It belongs to Tarpalin's father as well, but it's too big for 
 them, so they let it." 
 
 " Don't get out again, darling. The guard 's shutting the 
 doors." 
 
 But he did get out to kiss her. 
 
 "You've got to come, mind. You've got to come." He 
 hesitated for a moment and added, "And Father too." 
 
 "We'll see, darling. We'll think about it. So much I 
 will promise you." 
 
 "No, it's not to be a question of thinking. You're to 
 come, do you hear. Mummy?" 
 
 "Yes, darling, I hear." 
 
 "I shall look for an hotel." 
 
 "No, David. No. You must n't do that." 
 
 "Why?" he asked her. 
 
 " It might be supposed — by your friends, you know — 
 that we wanted to come," she said after a brief pause. 
 
 "You do," he said. 
 
 "But not to be put up somewhere. If you made enquir- 
 ies .. . Don't you see? No, you can let me know just the 
 name of an hotel. If we go, it must be at the last moment." 
 
 "All right," he said. "I see. So long as you do come." 
 
 He got back into the carriage and leant from the window. 
 There was a further shutting of doors, the shrill sound of a 
 whistle. 
 
 Mary waved to him till he was out of sight and then 
 turned her face homewards. It was a pleasant idea, that of 
 going down. It was in keeping with the beautiful day. 
 How beautiful the day was! She would like to walk, she 
 thought, — across the park, at any rate. 
 
 At the corner of Westbourne Street she noticed that she
 
 26o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 was still carrying the paper. Did she want it, after all? 
 She would give it to the crossing-sweeper, who, with his 
 broom for the mud which was not there to sweep, was 
 standing in the roadway a few yards ahead of her. Because, 
 upon this beautiful day there was no mud to make his oc- 
 cupation profitable (but chiefly because David had looked 
 so good-looking as the train bore him away!), she thought 
 that she would give the man sixpence as well as the news- 
 paper. She opened her purse, but the sixpence she wanted 
 eluded her gloved fingers. She fumbled for it for some 
 moments without success, so, turning the contents of the 
 purse out on to the folded paper, she separated the coin 
 from the rest which she put back, and then with the coin 
 and newspaper was advancing toward the man when she 
 stopped suddenly, a name on her lips. 
 
 White Alban! 
 
 She looked round her, perplexed. 
 
 Yes, David had spoken it. Yes, but since, since. Nay, 
 that very moment. It had come to her from nowhere. 
 
 There was not any one near her. The crossing-sweeper, 
 all unconscious of her benevolent intentions, had his back 
 to her. A hansom was coming up the street, and a rail- 
 way omnibus piled with luggage and bound probably for 
 the station she had just left. The only foot-passengers 
 which the street held besides herself were two girls on the 
 other side of the road, and a postman at the extreme end 
 of it. 
 
 "White Alban," she said to herself. 
 
 And then her eye fell upon the paper. She must have 
 read the name in it unconsciously as she held it under her 
 purse. 
 
 No, it did not seem to be there; and then suddenly, just 
 as before, it was with her again. And then again she lost it, 
 and then yet again it was there. The thing happened three 
 times. 
 
 Then she knew where she had seen it. It was on the very 
 edge of one of the folds. Owing to the way in which the
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 261 
 
 paper was folded she could only read half the paragraph 
 which held it : 
 
 " — in residence," she read, "at White Alban in Shrop- 
 shire, which she has rented for a term of years from 
 Colonel Tarpalin." 
 
 She unfolded the paper to read the whole sentence. It 
 was amongst the paragraphs in that column devoted to 
 chronicling the comings and goings of the important or the 
 merely vulgar, their engagements, or the brealdng-off of 
 their engagements, their illnesses or their convalescences, 
 and the like. She was able now to read the whole sentence. 
 The missing portion of it sent her hand to her mouth in 
 sudden dismay, and her thoughts flying tumultuously to 
 Brussels and Homburg. 
 
 "The Countess of Harbington," it ran, "has returned 
 from Paris and is now in residence at White Alban ..." 
 
 It was like a hand stretched out to drag the escaping 
 swimmer down. It was like one of the relentless tele- 
 graph posts that (long long ago — almost it seemed in 
 some former existence) had pulled the soaring wires earth- 
 wards. Twice this woman had touched her life with her 
 inexorable stupid malice. No, her inexorable malignant 
 stupidity. Brussels, Homburg, — was there no safety 
 from her? The third time the blow would be struck at her 
 through David . . . would be struck at David himself. 
 She knew it. And in the same moment she knew something 
 else. David did not know. He did not know, and it was 
 for this that he had been kept from day to day, from month 
 to month, from year to year, in his surprising ignorance! 
 Oh, why, why had she not told him? Knowledge would 
 not have saved him, she knew that. But it would have 
 prepared him. The blow in the dark; that was what she 
 had always feared for him; and that — oh, she knew this 
 if in all her life she had never known anything before ! — 
 was what was now going to be dealt him. 
 
 She was presently in the park. How she got there she 
 could hardly have told. There seemed to have been no in-
 
 262 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 terval of time between the houses for a background and 
 then the curving avenue of trees. There were people and 
 there were carriages, and she turned back and into the 
 greater quiet of Kensington Gardens. The wide stretch of 
 grass on that side of the western end of the Serpentine was 
 deserted save by a few children whose presence she scarcely 
 noticed. She walked about aimlessly. The sunlight was 
 everywhere. The grass was quite dry. She became con- 
 scious of an overpowering lassitude, and looked about her 
 for a chair. There were no chairs near her. 
 
 She overcame her fatigue and walked round by the end 
 of the lake to the beautiful glades beyond. Here she found 
 a secluded chair and sat down. 
 
 Her mind began to work again. But it is significant that 
 she did not try to persuade herself that her fears were 
 groundless or foolish. She knew that they were neither. 
 She knew, also, that nothing could be done. If she could 
 have recalled David, she would have done so. A telegram 
 might have caught him somewhere on his way, but it was a 
 telegram which could not be sent. If she could have inter- 
 cepted him herself, that would have been different. She 
 journeyed after him in imagination, appearing before his 
 startled eyes on some platform. 'David, you must come 
 back with me. Or you must hear what I have to tell you, 
 and then go on if you like. You must judge for yourself, 
 but you must just know, so that things can't be sprung 
 upon you.' How would he take it? If she could but hope 
 that he would still go! Yes, that, at the back of everything, 
 was her one hope. It was more than that, if she could have 
 realised it. It was her unacknowledged belief. She did not 
 know, as we do, that, conscious of his capacity for unhap- 
 piness, conscious too of its value to him as an artist, he 
 cherished it, but did not intend that it should conquer him 
 as a man. She did not know that, like the oyster, he 
 meant to turn the grits in his life into pearls — that the 
 nature, with which she herself perhaps had partly endowed 
 him, did this for him, or at least helped him to do it for
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 263 
 
 himself. But in all her dread and her misery she must have 
 had some sort of inkUng that it was thus with him. If, 
 then, she could have seen him! Or if she could but have 
 seen the few lines in the paper but one quarter of an hour 
 earlier ! Then all would have been easy. 
 
 "David, here is something that makes it necessary that 
 I should tell you, now, this moment, what I have put off 
 and put off and put off telling you." 
 
 Too late. Nor could she write it to him. Imagine the 
 effect of such a letter ... in a strange house, amongst 
 strangers, amongst people gathered together for amuse- 
 ment! That would be, indeed, to spring the knowledge 
 upon him. It was not in human endurance to bear the 
 shock of so sudden a revelation. He would want to hide 
 himself in the first staggering moments. They would send 
 up to his room, perhaps, where in fancy she could see him 
 lying on his bed, his face in his hands or turned to the wall, 
 to ask why he did not come down, whether he was ill, 
 whether anything was the matter. She could hear his muf- 
 fled answer telling them that he was all right, not ill, that 
 he would be down presently. And the half-hours would go 
 by and he would not be able to go down ; or he would go 
 down and know that they were all looking at him, and he 
 would try to appear just as usual, as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 No, not to be thought of, such a letter. She was power- 
 less. Things must take their course. 
 
 An hour later she was still sitting in Kensington Gar- 
 dens. The sunshine had not faltered. The west was red- 
 dening now, and the shadows of the trees were growing 
 very long. The shadow of the man who was coming toward 
 her now to collect the penny for her chair reached her many 
 moments before he did. She still held the sixpence which 
 she had meant to give to the crossing-sweeper. She paid 
 for her chair with it, and, that he might not embarrass her 
 with a handful of coppers, the man sought in his leathern
 
 264 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 wallet for a threepenny bit. His action, as he fumbled for 
 it, reminded her of her own in the pursuit of the sixpence 
 she had just given him, and she lived again through the 
 moment of her recent experience. She sat then with the 
 ticket in her hand, looking after him and his long retreating 
 shadow. The fingers of one of his hands were extended as 
 his arm hung down, and the shadows of them as they 
 passed over a smooth bare patch a few yards in front of her, 
 were long as walking-sticks. A giant skeleton hand was 
 silhouetted grotesquely before her. She watched how it 
 dipped and swung as the longer trail of which it was part 
 undulated over the unevenness of the ground. And as he 
 stood beside her the man was rather a short man, she 
 remembered, and the fingers that had fumbled for the three- 
 penny bit were short, too, and blunt. 
 
 It was these observations more than any sense of the 
 passage of time that recalled her to a realisation of the 
 hour. 
 
 Even then she did not move at once. There were not 
 many people about now — a few lovers, or couples rather 
 in attitudes of love, on the chairs which stood, always in 
 pairs, under the trees. The nurses and the children had all 
 cleared away from the glades and open spaces. The west 
 grew momentarily redder. There was going to be a won- 
 derful sunset, the faint mists of London helping. From a 
 rift in the clouds low on the horizon came sudden rays. 
 
 And then, at a moment when she had not even been 
 conscious of her suffering, or that she was suffering, she 
 was crying, crying desperately; a very storm of tears 
 sweeping over her. Her sobs shook her. They were like 
 the sobs of a child. She struggled for her handkerchief and 
 pressed it over her mouth to stifle them. 
 
 Wave after wave broke over her. The pent emotions of 
 years were finding outlet in the tears that gushed from her 
 eyes, and the sobs that seemed wrung from her very heart. 
 She had pushed up her veil, but it slipped down and was 
 soon limp and sodden. For some minutes she wept thus,
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 265 
 
 and then, like a storm in the tropics, as suddenly as it had 
 come upon her, the tempest passed. 
 
 She took off her gloves and unfastened her veil, which, 
 after a moment's hesitation, she threw away. There was 
 happily a second handkerchief in the pocket of her coat, 
 and she dried her eyes and her face. She looked about her 
 quickly but no one was watching her. The lovers, intent 
 on their dallyings, had not observed her and were too far 
 off to have heard her. She felt lighter now, extraordinarily 
 relieved. All her sorrows had found expression in her 
 tears, all her love. Not for David only had she wept, but 
 for herself and Georgina and Johnny and John — oh, yes, 
 and especially John. He had failed her in some strange 
 way that she did not understand. Her pity for him was 
 the more poignant. She saw him somehow standing quite 
 alone. . . . 
 
 With the sunset the air had grown cold. There was a 
 sound overhead, and a couple of wild ducks, their necks 
 outstretched, passed across the shining face of the sun. 
 They wheeled eastwards, then back toward the Serpen- 
 tine. There had been sparrows and some starlings and a 
 few pigeons on the grass searching for food. These were all 
 gone now, but the tree under which she sat was alive with 
 chirpings and twitterings. Soon it would be night. She 
 shivered a little and rose to her feet. She felt stiff and 
 chilled. Through the gardens sounded the cry of the park- 
 keepers. 
 
 "All out. All out. All out" ... a long-drawn cry. 
 
 It came from different parts of the gardens — a sort of 
 Angelus. The couples rose. A straggling procession of 
 people who had not seemed to be there trailed toward the 
 gates.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 David meanwhile sped toward Red Alban and whatever 
 might be in store for him there. He had the compartment 
 to himself and was very comfortably disposed in a corner 
 of it, with his rug over his knees and his newspapers about 
 him. As his mother and he between them had seen to it 
 that he should have so many newspapers, he did little more 
 than glance over the contents of any of them. Thus he did 
 not see the paragraph which had so greatly disturbed his 
 mother. 
 
 He looked out of the window and wondered, with the 
 pleasant anticipation of pleasure, who would be at Red 
 Alban, and who would play the parts which would not be 
 filled by the boys who had played them before. He was at 
 an age when a visit is an adventure, and the meeting of 
 people an excitement. 
 
 He lifted his dressing-case down from the rack, pres- 
 ently, and putting it on the seat beside him, opened it and 
 took from it a small drab-coloured paper book. It was out 
 of shape from much handling, and the pages had a tend- 
 ency to curl. It was his scored and pencilled copy of the 
 play. He went through the whole of his part — hearing it 
 to himself by reading his cues and covering up Marlow's 
 lines with an envelope. Doubtful lines, and lines his own 
 interpretation of which did not quite satisfy him, he re- 
 peated several times. He was practically word-perfect, he 
 found, but there was still plenty to work at. He looked 
 forward to the rehearsals. 
 
 Then the windows claimed him again. The winter land- 
 scapes, he thought, were very delightful. The bareness of 
 the trees and of the hedges had its part in the charm of 
 them. The trees shewed their delicate tracery against the 
 clear sky. The hedgerows were brown, with a warm reddish
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 267 
 
 tinge, like dark hair that in certain lights shows itself to be 
 not dark at all, but touched with copper. Ploughed fields 
 were peculiarly beautiful. Rooks were busily at work in 
 the furrows, and from time to time he saw plover. He im- 
 agined the cawings and the cryings which he could not 
 hear. Smoke from cottage chimneys was richly blue. The 
 day was full of colour. Sometimes a little church would 
 whisk by. Sometimes it was a horse and cart on a road 
 below him which would hold his attention for as long as it 
 was in sight; or cattle or horses in a field. Some children in 
 a garden waved to the train. Everything looked happy in 
 the sunshine. 
 
 By degrees the sun sank in the heavens, and David, 
 presently, was watching the sunset which witnessed his 
 mother's tears in Kensington Gardens. By the time he 
 reached Birmingham the evening had closed in. 
 
 At Birmingham he got out to stretch his legs and get 
 himself some tea. The boy with the tea was some distance 
 down the platform, and when David, a cup and saucer in 
 one hand and a bun in the other, came back to his com- 
 partment he found it no longer empty. He had left nothing 
 to shew particularly which seat he had been occupying, 
 for his belongings had been strewn rather impartially 
 about the cushions, so perhaps he could not reasonably 
 complain that his seat had been taken. A young man sat 
 in it. But surely the least the newcomer could have done, 
 David thought, was to ask now whether the place he had 
 appropriated had been free. This he did not do. 
 
 David, after the briefest pause, took the corresponding 
 seat at the other end of the compartment. He finished his 
 tea first and then collected his belongings about him. As 
 his dressing-case was in the rack at the stranger's end, the 
 significance of a new disposal of the things which the car- 
 riage had held must have been quite apparent. The 
 stranger, however, made no sign of observing it. 
 
 The short twilight had waned in the ten minutes or so 
 of the Birmingham stop. When the train left the lights of
 
 268 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 the station, it ran into a dusk which soon became darkness. 
 But this, half dusk, half darkness, made the conditions 
 exactly right for the sight of the Black Country through 
 which they were now passing, and, in the abounding inter- 
 est of the views from the windows, his indignation began 
 to cool. After all, what was it to him that a fellow-travel- 
 ler, some one he had never seen before and in all proba- 
 bility would never see again, should be ill-mannered? Rib- 
 ands of flame flapped upwards from a hundred scattered 
 buildings. The crown of fire on some of the chimneys was 
 like a flower. There was one like a water-lily of which the 
 heart was red heat and every petal a flame. Some of the 
 furnaces sent up a single tongue of gold. Some, so rhyth- 
 mic was the leaping of their fires, seemed to breathe. 
 
 The train sped too quickly for David now. What re- 
 mained of the sunset was like a perpetuation of these mid- 
 land fires. By day this strange country shewed its ugU- 
 ness, he knew. In reality it was a great wound in the 
 earth's fair surface, a spreading sore which ate into the 
 green of the countr>^side, fouling its waters and killing its 
 trees. But evening transfigured it; night gave it mystery. 
 Unsightly mounds of slag put on beauty as a garment. 
 The dingiest shed took fitful colour from throbbing fires. 
 There were black spaces here and there, like the unfathomed 
 spaces in the heavens between stars and where no stars 
 are visible. And then, beyond these, fires; and beyond these 
 again, fires ; and the glowings of fires reflected on the skies. 
 
 The train ran into Wolverhampton, and the Black 
 Country was passed. 
 
 David became aware once more of his fellow-traveller. 
 The young man was on his feet now, leaning out of the 
 carriage window, blocking the door and the approach to 
 the door. David did not, as it happened, want to get out, 
 but if he had wished to, or even to look on to the platform, 
 he could not have done so without asking him to move. A 
 complete disregard of the possible inchnations of any one 
 but himself marked his attitude.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 269 
 
 It was again nothing, but again David was conscious 
 of annoyance, and of something more than annoyance. 
 Every line of the back that was presented to him was arro- 
 gant, insolent, an assertion or denial. It was a well-made 
 back too, and encased in a well-made coat. A man, in such 
 circumstances as the coat seemed to suggest for its wearer, 
 had no excuse for such manners. With rising indignation 
 and a tapping foot, David considered whether he should 
 not cross the floor and oblige him to make way. If there 
 were time, he thought, he would even like to get into an- 
 other carriage. No, this would be to pay him too much 
 attention. But he would make him move. He rose to his 
 feet. At the same moment the guard's whistle sounded. 
 
 At least at Shrewsbury, where he had to change, he 
 would be rid of him. He had seldom, he thought, taken 
 such a dislike to any one — certainly not to any one with 
 whom he had not exchanged a word. And then as before 
 he gradually cooled down. It was ridiculous to let his feel- 
 ings disturb him, absurd to allow the behaviour of a 
 stranger to affect him at all. 
 
 It was growing chilly now. He turned up the collar of 
 his ulster, pulled his rug up about him and closed his eyes. 
 He would soon be at Shrewsbury. 
 
 He dozed as far, perhaps, as Wellington; woke finally to 
 the sight of the dimly lit Severn below him. They were 
 running into Shrewsbury. His fellow-traveller, it seemed, 
 was alighting here also. As he was next to the door it fol- 
 lowed that he got the first porter, and David had to wait 
 till he could find another. But so glad was he to think that 
 he had seen the last of some one so fundamentally uncon- 
 genial to him, that he welcomed rather than regretted the 
 delay. 
 
 He managed after a little difficulty to get hold of a 
 porter, and in due time found himself in the train for As- 
 tonbury. Three quarters of an hour brought him to that 
 station. ,
 
 270 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 It had been market-day at the Httle Shropshire town, 
 and, though the bulk of the farmers and the country peo- 
 ple generally that a market-day brings together, had been 
 cleared off by earlier trains, there was still a considerable 
 bustle about the platform. Women, with baskets on their 
 knees or at their feet, sat on the benches, or, with their bas- 
 kets on their arms, pushed their way toward the incoming 
 train. Children dragged at skirts or were dragged at by 
 flurried hands. Gaitered men, in weather-beaten coats and 
 rain-stained or sun-browned felt hats, talked in groups, 
 and were jocose or surly or indifferent according to their 
 several natures. A few were a little drunk. 
 
 Into the midst of all this David stepped, and a few min- 
 utes later was following a footman to the brougham which 
 was waiting to take him to Red Alban. It was a relief to 
 him to find that he was to be its only occupant, for at the 
 luggage van he had come face to face with his late fellow- 
 traveller. The trifling coincidence, suggesting as it did the 
 further probability of their being bound for the same desti- 
 nation, had caused him a discomfort, which, for the mo- 
 ment or two of its duration, was quite out of proportion 
 to its importance. Actually it had no importance. As the 
 brougham drove away he saw our unmannered friend get 
 into a closed landau of old-fashioned but rather imposing 
 appearance, which had evidently been waiting to receive 
 him, and which took, David was glad to observe, a differ- 
 ent direction from that in which he himself was being 
 driven. 
 
 He tried, but not quite successfully, to put the whole 
 incident from him. 
 
 The night in spite of a clear sky was dark, or looked dark 
 from the inside of the brougham. There were stars he saw 
 when he let down a window, but tliere was no moon. He 
 watched the lights of the carriage lamps dancing on the 
 hedges that seemed to stream by unendingly, and the 
 gently swaying backs — a slim back and a stout back — 
 of the servants on the box in their grey liveries. The road
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 271 
 
 presently climbed a steep hill which midway brought the 
 horse to a walk, and then the hedges no longer seemed 
 fluid, but jogged past the windows in short jerks. At what 
 David would have thought the steepest part of the hill, the 
 horse quickened his pace to the trot into which he broke 
 automatically a few moments later as they reached the top 
 of it. There was a mile or so of even ground then, and then 
 another dip and a plunge into what looked like a dense 
 forest, but was indeed but a narrow band of the Red Alban 
 woods. Through thick darkness then, always in the circum- 
 scribed circle of light which here brought the trunks of 
 trees one by one into rapid sight and one by one discarded 
 them for others, and then a sudden emergence into open 
 country once more. A straggle of houses presently — the 
 outskirts evidently of a village ; lights, more houses, a shop 
 or two, a church, the village itself — Red Alban, as David 
 heard the next day; and then a long stone wall, iron 
 gates which admitted to a short gravelled drive, and the 
 brougham had drawn up before a pillared and porticoed 
 doorway. 
 
 The footman had hardly descended and rung the bell, 
 before the door had opened, and Tarpalin was out on the 
 steps giving David welcome. 
 
 "Now we shall be all right," he said; "we've got our 
 leading man!" 
 
 He led David in, his arm affectionately round his shoul- 
 ders. There was a sort of outer hall, where they were met by 
 the butler and another footman on their way to the door 
 (in the opening of which TarpaHn had forestalled them), 
 and where David was relieved by them of his hat and coat, 
 while Tarpalin waited. 
 
 "Now, come along," said Tarpalin, his hand on David's 
 arm. "Jove, I am glad to see you. What sort of a jour- 
 ney? All right? It 's the devil's own nuisance having to 
 change at Shrewsbury, though! I say, I was sorry not to 
 meet you! I was just ready to start when old Harrowby 
 who 's lending the theatre was announced, and I had to
 
 272 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 stop and hear him jaw for half an hour to keep him in good 
 temper. He 's only just gone." 
 
 He led the way across another hall, where a big fire was 
 burning on an open hearth, to a room at the farther end of 
 it. Here some half-dozen persons were assembled. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin gave David a very friendly fat hand and 
 drew him to the fire. She was like her son in appearance, 
 but had run to good-natured, and perhaps a little indolent, 
 flesh. She was to play Mrs. Hardcastle in the forthcoming 
 play, and had her part on the sofa beside her, as David 
 saw, when she made a place for him there. Her three chins, 
 he could not help thinking, would be invaluable to her as 
 the mother of Tony Lumpkin. She introduced David to a 
 girl with pretty twinkling eyes who sat nursing a sleeping 
 kitten. 
 
 "This is Miss Davenport who plays Miss Neville for us. 
 She has played it before, so we were as lucky to be able to 
 get her as to be able to get you. Mr. Penstephen — Miss 
 Davenport. There will be some fresh tea in a minute." 
 
 David bowed to Miss Davenport, and then turned back 
 to his hostess to say he had had tea. 
 
 "But at Birmingham," she said. "As if that counted, 
 and besides, here it is." 
 
 Two or three of his school-fellows were in the room, and 
 these now came forward and greeted him. The party 
 seemed all to be young. 
 
 Tarpalin brought him his cup, and the boys, and even 
 Miss Davenport, who was near the tea-table, plied him 
 with food. It was all very friendly and natural. David was 
 conscious of a delightful quality in the atmosphere of the 
 room. He was at home in it at once. 
 
 From a door the other side of it there came in now an 
 elderly man, whom David guessed rightly to be Tarpalin's 
 father. 
 
 "I thought I heard the carriage going round to the 
 stables. Ah, yes. You have come, Mr. Penstephen. Don't 
 get up. Go on with your tea. I 'm very glad to see you."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 273 
 
 He held a billiard cue, and said no he had n't finished 
 his game, in answer to an enquiry from his wife, and, to 
 David, after a word or two more of cordial welcome, that 
 he must go back now that he had shaken his hand. 
 
 "Theo 's beating me into fits," he said to his son over his 
 shoulder, as he turned to go. 
 
 "She would," said Tarpalin. 
 
 David was asked if he played, but he said he did not. 
 
 "That 's right," Tarpalin said, "you'll be much too busy 
 for billiards. We 're going to work you all like niggers now 
 we've got you. Are n't we. Mother?" 
 
 "I shall never know my words," said Mrs. Tarpalin 
 plaintively. 
 
 "Who plays Tony?" David asked, — "Welwyn?" 
 
 "Welwyn. He's in the billiard-room. Watching my 
 father." 
 
 "Watching Theo," said his mother. 
 
 "Theo," said Tarpalin to David, "is Miss Nevern — 
 your Kate Hardcastle." 
 
 The boys and even Mrs. Tarpalin looked at him as if to 
 say, 'Wait till you see her!' Tarpalin, with his 'your Kate 
 Hardcastle,' had spoken as if David was in luck. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin now said, with a smile for herself as much 
 as for her son, "I don't think, in all the years I've been 
 married to him, I've ever, before, known your father to 
 play billiards in the afternoon." 
 
 "Theo," said Miss Davenport, "would make any one 
 play anything, anywhere, at any hour." 
 
 The boys all grinned. 
 
 "You haven't met her yet, I think?" Mrs. TarpaUn 
 said to David. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "If I had n't promised myself that you should take me 
 in to dinner to-night," she said, "you should take her, Mr. 
 Penstephen. I '11 put her on your other side." 
 
 "Father would never forgive you." 
 
 "That 's true," she said, — "nor Mr. Penstephen either,
 
 274 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 for that matter. Gracious, and to-morrow night we shall 
 have Eric here!" 
 
 It was Tarpalin who grinned then. 
 
 "He'll want to sit on both sides of her," he said. 
 
 The talk branched off to other topics; market-day at 
 Astonbury, which always made the station unbearable; a 
 local light railway, which had been mooted for years, and 
 which Mrs. Tarpalin wished for and Colonel Tarpalin did 
 not; the sunset that day which had been so beautiful that 
 they had all walked to the top of the hill to see it. 
 
 Did Mr. Penstephen know Shropshire? 
 
 He did not. 
 
 Then they must show as much as they could of it while 
 he was there. 
 
 Tarpalin said, " I won't have you taking him away from 
 rehearsals." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin said, "And I won't have you working him 
 to death. All work and no play — " 
 
 "Frank wants it to be all play," said Miss Davenport. 
 
 "All jolly fine," said Tarpalin. "We've exactly a fort- 
 night. You try producing She Stoops in a fortnight!" 
 
 So they chattered. 
 
 The servants came in to clear away the tea-things, and 
 the butler bowed over David to ask for his keys. 
 
 Soon after this a general move was made. Some of the 
 party adjourned to the billiard-room, and Tarpalin went 
 up with David to shew him his bedroom. Mrs. Tarpalin 
 going to her own room, accompanied them as far as the top 
 of the stairs. 
 
 "Does Mr. Penstephen know Eric?" 
 
 David appealed to Tarpalin. 
 
 "Do I?" he asked. 
 
 "Eric Dunstable. Do you?" 
 
 David shook his head. 
 
 "He 's Theo Nevern's cousin. He plays Hastings for us. 
 He 's staying at White Alban. You '11 meet him to-mor- 
 
 row."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 275 
 
 "How he ever came to be Theo's cousin!" Tarpalin's 
 mother said. 
 
 "I know you hate him," said Tarpahn. "But what 
 could I do? Perman could n't have played Hastings here. 
 He looked too young even in the school show — did n't he, 
 Penstephen? And Eric was coming to White Alban. Any- 
 way, he 's not in the house this time, so what does it mat- 
 ter?" 
 
 "Yes, he's not in the house," said Mrs. Tarpahn. She 
 turned to David. "Of course we've all known him since he 
 was a boy. (Dinner *s at eight. I do hope your room 's 
 comfortable. I 've put you near Frank. You '11 ask him for 
 anything you want, won't you.) I never liked him and I 
 never shall, but he 's a very good actor and I dislike his 
 aunt still more. You'll know what I mean when you see 
 him." 
 
 Thus David had his attention fixed, as it were for him, 
 upon two people whom he did not yet know. Frank Tar- 
 pahn shewing him to his room continued to talk of one of 
 them. At the door of the room it was seen that a servant 
 was still unpacking, so they went into Tarpalin's room till 
 he should have done, and here Tarpalin talked still more. 
 
 "I'd have given anything to keep him out of it. But 
 there 's Theo. She wanted him, — most perversely, for she 
 does n't reaUy like him. And there 's that horrid old woman 
 at White Alban who would have been offended if we'd 
 offended him, and we want her silly patronage for the sake 
 of the Hospital." 
 
 "Who 's the horrid old woman? " asked David. 
 
 "Oh, Lady Harbington," said Tarpalin. 
 
 Something stirred in David faintly, something fast asleep 
 — waking? 
 
 And then, like his mother, though without at once know- 
 ing why, he in turn was whisked back across the years to 
 Brussels and to Homburg. The sense of being lifted from a 
 warm bed in the middle of the night was certainly present 
 to him for a moment; of being washed and dressed by
 
 276 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 candle-light (soap in your eyes, fingers straining at your 
 buttons!); of the unusualness — the unnaturalness — of 
 activities very early in the morning — a yawny feeling; 
 the taste and scent of raw air on the way to a station; the 
 smell of a cold early train, so entirely different from the 
 smell of a later warmed one. He had lived through these 
 happenings at some time — ages and ages ago — and was 
 living through them again. Was n't there some one nice — 
 a waiter, yes, a waiter — who had waved to him from be- 
 hind the curtain of a window? He saw his father's face, 
 grim — wearing the unapproachable look; his mother's? 
 — oh, the look that he used to know; Betsy's; and he saw, 
 of course, the holland-covered box; a chicken tied up with 
 ribands — remembered the taste of chicken which you 
 *ate in your fingers,' dipping the bone, which you were 
 allowed to 'pick' (because a meal in a train was so different 
 from a meal at a table where you had knives and forks), 
 into your own particular little portion of salt on a bit of 
 paper for a plate. Why did he suddenly remember these 
 things? And, as suddenly, not exactly Katinka, but the 
 going of Katinka, his marred birthday party, the mask, 
 even, thrust into a drawer; and the sight of two ladies who 
 sat on a seat in the Kurgarten at Homburg and argued 
 . . . and stopped arguing . . .? 
 
 Ten years since he had heard the name. But he remem- 
 bered . . . remembered, though he had not understood.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Something akin to excitement held David after Tarpalin 
 had shewn him to his quarters and left him. In the 
 beautifully proportioned room, with the Queen Anne 
 furniture which he appreciated without wholly perceiving, 
 he dressed quickly as if he had some reason for wishing to 
 be down early. Under the skilful arrangement of his be- 
 longings by the servant who had unpacked for him, every- 
 thing was exactly where his hand fell upon it most readily. 
 No time had to be wasted in hunting for this or for that, or 
 even in changing what had been put out for him for what 
 had not. What had been put out was in every instance 
 what he wanted. So it came that of the men of the party 
 he was down first. Afterwards, it was as if he must have 
 known that, by the fire in the hall, he would find reason 
 alike for his haste and his excitement. 
 
 A girl was standing by the great open hearth. She 
 turned at the sound of his steps on the polished boards. 
 He did not know what other girls there might be in the 
 house, but he knew at once as he approached her that this 
 was Miss Nevern. 
 
 "You're Mr. Penstephen," she said to him. "I should 
 have known you from Frank's description." 
 
 David said boyishly that he would like to know what 
 Frank had said. 
 
 "Ah, no," said Miss Nevern. 
 
 She looked very straightly at you. That was his first 
 impression of her. 
 
 He did not say, 'You're Miss Nevern.' There was no 
 need. He came over to her and they looked at each other, 
 the light of the flames dancing on their faces. 
 
 ("Theo," he heard Miss Davenport saying, "would 
 make any one play anything, anywhere, at any hour.")
 
 278 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 What was it about her? Not beauty — or not beauty- 
 only. Miss Davenport was much better-looking. But it 
 was not of Miss Davenport that any one would have said 
 what Miss Davenport had said of her; and it was not of 
 Miss Davenport that Tarpalin would have said that 
 ' Eric,' whoever he was, — or any one else, — would want 
 to sit on both sides of her. Miss Nevern was twenty, per- 
 haps, but years of victory over every one lay behind her; 
 years of such victories were before her. She was an in- 
 nocent mischievous Ninon de I'Enclos, who would have 
 lovers at eighty. 
 
 We are not to suppose that David at seventeen-and-a- 
 half was going to be her lover. Love, as love is understood, 
 does not come into this part of David's life at all. Friend- 
 ships, as romantic as you please, had claimed him long 
 since, and would claim him again. But love — time enough 
 for love in the years still before him. 
 
 If, however, we have been able to realise anything of the 
 appeal of his looks at this period, of his strong slim young 
 body with its mixture of boyishness and strength, — slen- 
 derness and muscle, — his strong-looking throat on which 
 the head was set so attractively, the rather melancholy 
 eyes which his mother had given him, and the boyish 
 laugh which was his own, we shall understand that to so 
 experienced, albeit so young, a natural huntress as the 
 curious girl he was admiring so frankly, he stood for very 
 desirable quarry indeed. 
 
 Theo Nevern was of those who are born to play havoc 
 with hearts. She had roguish eyes and a plaintive httle 
 mouth. The eyes invited, provoked, challenged; the 
 mouth, with the tremulous lips of a child, was a plea for 
 compassion. 
 
 They continued to look at each other, as the light of the 
 flames, dancing like the lights of the furnaces, continued to 
 play on their young faces. At the back of David's mind 
 was the knowledge that in a minute or two some one else 
 would come down and the spell be broken. In some strange
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 279 
 
 way he knew that, though he was not nor ever would be 
 in love with her, these were perhaps the most wonderful 
 moments that he had known in his life. 
 
 What was it about her? 
 
 It seemed quite natural and not even impertinent to 
 hear himself putting his thought into words. 
 
 She looked at him oddly then. 
 
 "You, too?" she said and shook her head. The roguish- 
 ness went out of her eyes. It was as if it was with her pa- 
 thetic mouth only that she spoke. 
 
 What she said next was really extraordinary. 
 
 "Eric comes to-morrow," she said. She did not even 
 say 'Mr. Dunstable.' She must have been speaking to 
 herself. 
 
 " I 've heard of him also," David said. 
 
 "What have you heard of him? " 
 
 It was David now who said "Ah, no." 
 
 "They don't like him here," she said — "even Mrs. 
 Tarpalin who likes everybody." 
 
 "But you do?" 
 
 "He's not like any one else." 
 
 It may have been just for the sake of the sound of the 
 words themselves that David said — 
 
 "Then he must be like just one other person." 
 
 " Eric like me? You don't know him — or do you? " 
 
 David shook his head. 
 
 "I had never heard of him till this evening." 
 
 "You would n't have said that if you had." 
 
 There was a little pause. 
 
 "He's one of the most disagreeable people I know. He 
 makes one angry. One could strike him — be glad to see 
 him struck — in the face. His face is so" — she hesitated 
 for a word — "so insolent. It 's that that is so desperately 
 — no, I won't say it." 
 
 But she had said it. It was extraordinary that she 
 should have said it — more extraordinary than either of 
 them knew then.
 
 28o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "It 's because of that, you mean?" 
 
 She nodded slowly. 
 
 "While everybody else . . .!" 
 
 She appeared to think this over, but finally nodded 
 again. 
 
 "We make each other furious," she said. 
 
 Some realisation of the extraordinariness of what she 
 was saying seemed to come to her, for she gave a little ex- 
 clamation and said abruptly, "How do we come to be talk- 
 ing like this? How did we begin? " 
 
 "I can't remember," said David. 
 
 He could not. It all only seemed quite natural. 
 
 " I believe — " he began and broke off. 
 
 She looked at him, waiting. 
 
 "He's at White Alban, isn't he? — Mr. Dunstable, I 
 mean." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "That's near here, somewhere?" 
 
 "About five miles." 
 
 "Was he arriving to-day?" 
 
 "Yes. Why?" 
 
 "So that's Mr. Dunstable! We were in the same train. 
 We travelled part of the way in the same carriage. So 
 that's—" 
 
 "I should think it is most probable," said Miss Nevern. 
 " If he struck you as being extremely repellent I should say 
 it was certainly Eric. Anyway, you'll know to-morrow. 
 But not till to-morrow." 
 
 Her eyes, the roguishness coming into them again, held 
 him and released him. Some of the others were coming, 
 and the spell was broken. Not till afterwards did David 
 realise how curious the experience had been. 
 
 It was Frank Tarpalin who came Into the hall now with 
 two of the boys. . 
 
 " I went to your room to look for you," he said to David, 
 ** but I saw you had come down. You know Miss Nevern? "
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 281 
 
 "We introduced ourselves," said she. 
 
 The gong was sounded somewhere nearby as she spoke, 
 and the hands of all went to their ears. 
 
 "I ought," Frank said, "to make you all work after 
 dinner. We could take the scenes that don't want every- 
 body." 
 
 But "No, no," said Miss Nevern. "We start work to- 
 morrow. Don't we, Mr. Penstephen? We face realities 
 then. For to-night we enjoy ourselves." 
 
 "If there 's one thing certain it is that you'll do as you 
 like, Theo dear," Frank said. "Your stage-manager may 
 make up his mind to that, may n't he?" 
 
 He put his hand lightly on hers. David, who was really 
 fond of his friend, was yet conscious, to his own surprise, 
 of a momentary but quite appreciable twinge of pain. 
 Jealousy of any sort was so foreign to his nature that the 
 incident, trifling as it was, seemed to expose him uncom- 
 promisingly to himself, and even, though surely inconse- 
 quently, to throw a reflected light upon Miss Nevern — a 
 light, nevertheless, by which he saw her for a brief instant 
 very clearly. He stooped and picking up a bit of wood 
 thrust it into the heart of the fire. When he looked up 
 Frank's hand had been withdrawn. David felt penitent 
 and very much ashamed of himself. He was not happy 
 again till Frank's arm was Hnked with his. 
 
 But he had realised Miss Nevern. You could not be un- 
 aware of her any more than you could help liking her. If 
 you had been in love with her you would still have liked 
 her. A more curious thing was, perhaps, that the other 
 girls in the house liked her — there were two, it ap- 
 peared, besides Miss Davenport; a Miss Aylmer, Lucy, 
 and a Miss Blake, Emma, who now joined the group by 
 the fire, and clustered, with Miss Davenport who came in 
 a moment later, round the all-eclipsing Theo. He listened 
 to them now. 
 - .."You've done your hair differently, Theo."
 
 282 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "So she has." 
 
 "Let me see." 
 
 "And me." 
 
 "Theo!" 
 
 "Like it?" 
 
 "You look heavenly. Mrs. Tarpalln, look, Theo 's done 
 her hair the new way. Does n't she look an angel?" 
 
 "Theo always looks nice," Mrs. Tarpalin said, and 
 brought sensibleness back to the hearth. But David knew 
 that she, too, was devoted to Miss Nevern. 
 
 All through dinner he was conscious of her. He was 
 separated from her by the whole length of the table, but 
 he never lost acute sense of her presence. Colonel Tarpalin 
 had taken her in to dinner, and one of the school-boys who 
 were staying in the house sat on her left. It was a sort of 
 relief to David that this boy should be HuUway, who was 
 younger than himself, and not Welwyn, who was older. 
 He recognised the significance of this relief, but it did not 
 make him ashamed, as the momentary pain which his 
 friend had caused him had made him ashamed. But, like 
 the sudden disconcerting twinge of pain, it was neverthe- 
 less tribute to the girl's curious power. While he answered 
 his hostess's questions and talked to her — about his 
 school mostly, the recent theatricals (which she had wit- 
 nessed), Frank, the school sports, the Glee Club, the 
 games, his tastes and the like — he just went on being con- 
 scious of Theo. He managed not to look too often in her 
 direction, and he knew that she hardly looked in his at all. 
 Not once, from the soup to the dessert, did he catch even 
 the tail of her roguish eye. He was inclined to be a little 
 bit offended. When he thought of their extraordinary con- 
 versation . . . for it had been extraordinary ... or was it 
 only her way of dealing with him? 
 
 That thought pulled him up with a jerk. And was this 
 too only her way of dealing with him? 
 
 He saw how differently she dealt with Colonel Tarpalin
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 283 
 
 who was telling her his best stories. Her mouth asked for 
 no pity with him. The childish droop of the lips was gone. 
 The lips were parted in smiles or in laughter. She had 
 adorable teeth — like the finest porcelain, only more trans- 
 parent. They were strong, too, though their whiteness 
 made them look fragile — as if, like porcelain, they would 
 chip easily. And from time to time she turned to Hullway, 
 and made him happy with a word or a laugh or a look. 
 And sometimes she contrived that the talk at her end of 
 the table should be general, and one or another of her 
 admirers would be made happy also. 
 
 But not a look for David, to whom so short a time ago 
 she had said, "You, too?" and "Eric comes to-morrow," 
 and the other words that had been so unusual and so curi- 
 ously intimate. When he had sat down to dinner he felt 
 that he, who knew her not at all, knew her better, perhaps, 
 than any one else in the room. To no one else at least 
 could quite the same confidence have been shewn or given, 
 in quite the same way. Well, was that just her way with 
 him? 
 
 He had a sudden sense of his own inexperience, and felt 
 humiliated; and as immediate a sense of the experience 
 which must be hers, and felt angry. 
 
 She might anyway just look at him. But she did not. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin had turned to Welwyn, who was on her 
 other side, and David heard her pleasant "Now, tell me," 
 as he crumbled his bread. 
 
 The long table gleamed with silver and glass. The room 
 was brown, panelled, not unlike the dining-room in Cheyne 
 Walk and of about the same period. It was of course very 
 much larger. It had the same long narrow windows. Like 
 his bedroom,it was beautifully proportioned. The dinner- 
 table was lighted with candles; the rest of the room was in 
 shadow, except at that end of it where the sideboard was, 
 and the great screen of Spanish leather which hid the 
 door at which the servants entered. You could only dimly 
 see the portraits on the walls.
 
 284 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 David noted these details in his determination not to 
 let his eyes stray toward Miss Nevern. 
 
 His neighbour on the other side, disentangling herself 
 from her own partner at the feast, now claimed him. 
 
 "Was n't it sporting," she said, "of Frank Tarpalin to 
 get up these theatricals? When he asked me to act I 
 simply jumped. I 'm only playing the Maid, you know, 
 but one gets all the fun in a small part without any of 
 the responsibility. Frank Tarpalin says you 're frightfully 
 good. No, don't deny it. He says you are." 
 
 And then she took him aback with "What do you think 
 of Miss Nevern?" 
 
 "I haven't seen her," he answered, choosing to think 
 that she meant Miss Nevern's acting. 
 
 "No, no," said Miss Aylmer, "I didn't mean that. I 
 meant of Theo herself." 
 
 However, she answered for him. 
 
 "I think she's perfectly lovely," she said, "don 't you? 
 She's far and away the prettiest girl in this part of the 
 world. They live near Astonbury, you know, but she's 
 hardly ever at home. Everybody wants her, you see. 
 She's always staying about. You have n't seen her dance 
 yet, have you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Perhaps we shall dance after dinner. I do hope so, 
 don't you?" 
 
 It was all chatter, but it recovered David's spirits for 
 him. He allowed himself to look down the table. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin at this moment returned to him. 
 
 "Now, Ettringham," she said, "tell me. I was at school 
 with Lady Penstephen — Susan Cantrell she was then. I 
 have n't seen her for years, now. She's your aunt, would 
 it be, or your cousin?" 
 
 "Cousin," David said — " that is, her husband was my 
 father's first cousin." 
 
 "I remember going over to Ettringham years ago when 
 I was staying near Warwick. We drove over to luncheon,
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 285 
 
 I think. The house fascinated me, I recollect. Has n't it 
 been very curiously and yet very successfully added to?" 
 
 " I believe so," David said. " I 've heard so." 
 
 " I 've never seen it," he added after a moment. 
 
 For the first time it struck him as curious — really curi- 
 ous — that he had not. The natural thing would surely 
 have been that he should, at least, have had Ettringham 
 as a topic to discuss with any one who should speak of the 
 place to him. And he had not even that. 
 
 "I never met Sir Joseph. He was away — fishing, if I 
 remember rightly. He was drowned fishing, was n't he? 
 And his only son. So dreadful. How many years ago is 
 that? Eight or nine, I suppose. I remember so well reading 
 the account in the papers. Somewhere in Ireland, was n't 
 it?" 
 
 David remembered too. He was fated to be whisked 
 back to Homburg, it seemed, that evening. He remem- 
 bered Frau Finkel's room with the grained woodwork and 
 the big gold-framed 'mirrors,' and the chair which he had 
 broken, and the telegram and the curious effect of the tele- 
 gram. It was from then that the real changes had dated, 
 though they had seemed to date from so much later. His 
 father and mother had been away, and there had been the 
 strange day of what Betsy had called the Rejoicing. How 
 it had rained on the day of the Rejoicing! He remembered 
 that too. And his mother, who had looked anxious at the 
 sight of the telegram, had looked frightened when she 
 heard its contents. 
 
 How vividly he remembered. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin was speaking. 
 
 "I should greatly like to see Susan Cantrell again. I 
 wonder whether I could induce her to come here. I think I 
 must write to her. Yes, I '11 write and tell her you 're stay- 
 ing here." 
 
 Somehow David felt that the conversation was becoming 
 uncomfortable. He did not know why he should feel this, 
 but he did. Mrs. Tarpalin thought, it was clear, that he
 
 286 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 made a bond, or at any rate a link. And though he knew 
 of no reason why he should not, he knew that he made 
 neither. Why had he never been asked to Ettringham? 
 It was surely strange that he had not, for Johnny was often 
 asked there. Why did his mother not go there now? His 
 father went from time to time. He felt constrained to tell 
 Mrs. Tarpalin that he had not met his cousin, and after a 
 moment's hesitation he did so. 
 
 Her surprise was so genuine that she had shewn it before 
 (as it seemed to him — and as he would have expressed 
 it to himself) she knew what she was doing. 
 
 " But surely — " she began, and broke oflf. 
 
 "No," he said, "oddly enough, I've never seen her. I 
 don't think she ever comes to London, and you see I 've 
 never been to Ettringham." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Tarpalin, smiling, and mistress once 
 more of her wits, "all I can say is that we have the advan- 
 tage of her at Red Alban." 
 
 She gave David a look, as she spoke, that he felt he 
 ought to have been able to interpret, but could not. It 
 seemed to hold more than the kindliness which was so 
 clearly defined in it. No doubt about the kindliness. 
 There was something protective in that — almost affec- 
 tionate, almost what is known as motherly. What else 
 there was, what else that was to which he lacked the key, 
 seemed as if it must be — though why should it be? — an 
 unspoken criticism of his relation. 
 
 She said no more about asking her old school friend to 
 Red Alban, and when she spoke next, which she did im- 
 mediately, it was to change the conversation. 
 
 David, mystified and perplexed, listened to, or at least 
 heard, her reasons for desiring the light railway. 
 
 " If you were a housekeeper, and lived five miles from a 
 fishmonger who never has anything, you would under- 
 stand," she said. "And, oh, how I envy you, living as you 
 do in London, with everything at your very doors. It was 
 the dream of my life when I was a girl to live in London, so
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 287 
 
 of course I married a soldier and had to follow the drum 
 all my young days, and just when I might have hoped to 
 settle down in Kensington Square — I had always in- 
 tended it to be Kensington Square! — my husband came 
 in for what they call down here the Coloured Albans, and 
 here I am a country woman for the rest of my natural life." 
 
 Dinner drew to an end. The servants put the decanters 
 upon the table and disappeared. As the party was en- 
 tirely young, Mrs. Tarpalin had no more important eye to 
 catch than Miss Nevern's. David, who had not once been 
 able to catch it, saw that his hostess caught it without 
 difficulty. He was quite certain then that the withholding 
 of her gaze was not unintentional. And then, just as she 
 was passing him, she gave him a smile all to himself and 
 took him captive once more. When Theo Nevern smiled 
 at you . . . 
 
 He turned back to the table in a happy dream. 
 
 Yes, his vanity only, and his boyish vanity at that, for 
 his heart — even his heart of a boy — was not touched. 
 What her smile had done was to put him once more on 
 good terms with himself. In spite of his physical develop- 
 ment which allowed him to play a man's part on the stage, 
 and perhaps off the stage too, he was quite as young as his 
 seventeen-and-a-half years, or he would probably have 
 seen in her smile (bestowed after it had been withheld) 
 but a further instance of her way of dealing with that one 
 of her admirers who happened to be David Penstephen. 
 He was, however, and he did not. His spirits rose at a 
 bound. 
 
 Colonel Tarpalin had moved now and was hospitably 
 busy with the decanters — a purely nominal hospitality, 
 for the party was too young to make wine the real occupa- 
 tion of the moment. The 'What are you drinking's?' were 
 cordial but not unduly pressing. 
 
 "Mr. Penstephen, another glass won't hurt you. Well, 
 half a glass, then. Frank, has Mr. Welwyn all he wants?"
 
 888 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 They were spared, or not indulged in, the half -hour's 
 ialk about vintages, which in those days would still have 
 followed if his guests had been older. Claret, as well as 
 port wine, was still drunk after dinner; the cigarette only 
 beginning then to revolutionise the men's hour. 
 
 Frank Tarpalin, however, — young modern! — brought 
 out his cigarette case. His father never lit his cigar till he 
 was in the smoking-room. Ladies were still supposed not 
 to like the smell of smoke. 
 
 "To be sure, Frank. Yes, not a bit. Mr. Penstephen, 
 you will smoke, and Mr. Welw>m — ? No, Mr. HuUway, 
 I won't split on you — nor on you, Mr. Filston, if you can 
 see your way to reconcile the vicious act with your own 
 conscience. Let me tell you, though, all of you, that you 're 
 ruining your palates." He shook his head. "England is 
 changing, Mr. Penstephen. I see the time coming — no, 
 it won't be just yet, maybe — when a taste in wine, dis- 
 crimination, a fine appreciation of shades and meanings, 
 will be things of the past. We've got away from abuses, I 
 grant you. Our grandfathers' days — the two-bottle men, 
 yes, and the three; loosened cravats; more than just legs 
 under the mahogany; more than just a loosening of cra- 
 vats ! Shocking. Most reprehensible. But a real palate, the 
 educated tongue of a gentleman, a perception of, and for, 
 what I might call the poetry of the grape . . . Ah, a differ- 
 ent thing altogether . . . going, too, going, presently to be 
 gone. A pity, I think, and you help it on its way. There, 
 Frank, your father's protest. He was once as young as 
 you. Enjoy your cigarettes." 
 
 HuUway, not to be done out of one good thing by an- 
 other, sipped his claret as he smoked; and Filston who 
 could not resist the delights of chocolate-creams, a dish of 
 which was at his elbow, added them to the joys of tobacco. 
 
 "Well, well," said Colonel Tarpalin, "who knows but 
 you're right?" And, like Mrs. Tarpalin a few minutes 
 earlier, turned to David with a question about Ettring- 
 ham. The shooting used to be very good in Sir Joseph's
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 289 
 
 time, Colonel Tarpalin had always heard. Did Lady 
 Penstephen preserve much game there? Difficult, of 
 course, always, for a woman. How had her pheasants done 
 that year? 
 
 David knew, it chanced, that the Ettringham shooting 
 was let. He was able, therefore, to make answer without 
 hesitation. 
 
 "Ah, it generally comes to that," said his host. "The 
 men of the family, however, might have wished otherwise, 
 eh? Your father, for instance, and now of course there 's 
 yourself." 
 
 But David did not shoot. 
 
 "It's the difficulty of the keepers," Colonel Tarpalin 
 went on. "A woman can't look after them, can't know 
 how to, can she? I have trouble enough myself. If Frank 
 would allow me I 'd let the White Alban shooting and con- 
 tent myself with what I have here." 
 
 David hoped the talk had left Ettringham. For some 
 reason he did not want to have to say again that he had 
 never been there. But he had to. Colonel Tarpalin spoke 
 of the house and its interesting oddness. 
 
 "Yes," David said, "I know, of course, but I have n't 
 seen it." 
 
 As before this caused surprise. 
 
 "No, I've never been to Ettringham." 
 
 To cover what seemed a momentary awkwardness he 
 drew on his slender knowledge. 
 
 "General Burke has the shooting — a neighbour; my 
 little brother's godfather. My father has shot there with 
 him." 
 
 "Ah, yes, to be sure. General Burke. Yes, Owen Burke 
 — the 60th — no, the Horse Artillery, was n't it? Let me 
 see. Windlebury, is n't that the name of his place? A fine 
 old house, I believe, but not much land. Ah. He has the 
 shooting." 
 
 There was a desultory moment. Colonel Tarpalin, 
 seeming to turn things over in his mind, took a walnut and
 
 290 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 looked about for the nut-crackers. They were near David, 
 who handed them to him. He cracked his nut and peeled 
 its kernel, talking the while of pheasants and partridges, 
 hares and rabbits, and then forgot to eat it. David knocked 
 the ash from the end of his cigarette, and, with his dessert 
 knife, pushed the ash about upon his plate, fitting it to the 
 outlines of a flower in the pattern. 
 
 Afterwards David wondered whether there had really 
 been any pause before, lest he should have seemed to im- 
 pute inhospitality to his relation, he explained that the 
 rest of his family had been to Ettringham. It was only he 
 who had not been there — oh, yes, and his sister. 
 
 "It's babies she adores," he said. "I think she'd like 
 to have my little brother there always." He thought of 
 Johnny and smiled to himself. "Any one would," he said. 
 
 "How old is he?" Colonel Tarpalin said. This was a 
 question one might ask. 
 
 David told him to a day. 
 
 "But he was a baby quite lately," he added, smiling. 
 
 "They have a charm, haven't they, young things?" 
 said Colonel Tarpalin. "All young things." And, "Well, 
 well," he finished, with his wife's look and almost with her 
 very words, "we have the advantage of your cousin, Mr. 
 Penstephen." 
 
 Ten minutes later he remembered his walnut, ate it, 
 emptied his glass, and proposed, if no one would have any 
 more wine, that they should join the ladies in the drawing- 
 room.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Again for David the sense of meanings which escaped 
 him. He had, moreover, the same feehng as before that, in 
 some way which he did not understand, his cousin at Et- 
 tringham was held to have laid herself open to criticism. 
 Whatever this criticism was, it appeared to react favour- 
 ably upon himself. He had, he knew, made a favourable 
 impression upon his hosts at the start, but the favour they 
 both showed him had perceptibly, and quite unaccount- 
 ably, increased. The curious thing was that this should 
 have shewn itself, not in the attitude of one of them only, 
 but in that of each of them and in exactly the same man- 
 ner. They had both looked a sort of protective warmth at 
 the friend of their son. Though he did not understand it, 
 it contributed to his present comfort. He forgot that there 
 had been two moments which had not seemed quite com- 
 fortable. He was very happy at Red Alban. 
 
 The ladies were found, not in the drawing-room, but in 
 the billiard-room, using that as a passage to the music- 
 room which was beyond it. Miss Nevern and Miss Aylmer 
 — Theo and Lucy — were playing a game of Fifty up ; 
 Miss Blake — Emma — marking for them and hanging 
 with Oo's of admiration upon Theo's strokes. Mrs. Tar- 
 palin sat by the hearth, winding a skein of wool which 
 Miss Davenport was holding for her. All these ladies, as 
 the men came in, looked up or looked round, except Theo, 
 who chalked her cue. 
 
 "I thought perhaps you'd like to dance," Mrs. Tarpalin 
 said. "We 're waiting for the fire to burn up in the music- 
 room. (Sure your arms are n't tired?" — to Miss Daven- 
 port.) "Just see, Frank, if the room's warm — really 
 warm, mind. You'll all keep warm enough. It's your
 
 292 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 poor old bird of a mother at the piano I *m thinking 
 of." 
 
 " Oo ! Well played ! Good stroke ! " — little shrieks from 
 the worshipping Blake. "Oo! Oo! Did you see that?" 
 
 "Such bias in the marker is n't fair," wailed the Aylmer, 
 who was indeed playing a losing game. " It 's calculated to 
 put me off my stroke." 
 
 "If you get another stroke," cried the Blake. "Oo — 
 Theo 's in for one of her long breaks. You are, Theo, I 'm 
 sure of it. Oo!" 
 
 And Theo seemed to be. David, watching now, mar- 
 velled at the ease with which she brought off what often 
 looked so difficult. Colonel Tarpalin had come over to 
 watch, too. Gradually all lined up to watch, except the two 
 who were concerned with the wool-winding, and they 
 watched over their shoulders. 
 
 Frank came back to say the fire was burning satisfacto- 
 rily and the room quite warm. 
 
 "Really warm?" his mother asked. 
 
 " Even over by the piano." 
 
 Theo put down her cue. 
 
 "To the ball, then!" she said. 
 
 "No, no," they all protested, "finish your break." 
 
 "No." She shook her head. "The game's drawn. Come 
 along, Frank, I 'm going to dance with you." 
 
 "Not till I 've done my winding," said the band. 
 
 "Go on, Theo, finish." 
 
 They could not prevail upon her. 
 
 " I 'm going to play for you till Mrs. Tarpalin is ready. 
 Come along, Colonel Tarpalin, bring your cigar into the 
 music-room. Give these young men a lead." 
 
 "No, no, Theo, you must dance." The worshipping 
 Emma reached the piano first. She broke into the waltz of 
 the moment. 
 
 Theo swayed to the rhythm of it, and, though she had 
 told Frank Tarpalin that she would dance with him, it 
 was to David that she gave herself. David took Frank's
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 293 
 
 laughing punch in the ribs, as he caught her, and, laughing 
 too and a Httle bit flushed with the pleasure her choice of 
 him gave him, danced away with her. 
 
 "Traitors both of you!" Frank called after them. 
 
 Welwyn danced with Miss Aylmer. Frank threw the 
 other two boys at each other, and, giggling, and with the 
 gainly ungainliness of calves or puppies or colts or other 
 young animals, they took the floor together, while he went 
 to fetch Miss Davenport and to hurry his mother. 
 
 He returned with Miss Davenport, having wrested the 
 wool from her, and left his mother, who would not be hur- 
 ried, winding it from the unhelping back of a chair, 
 
 " I knew you could dance," Miss Nevern said to David. 
 
 "Only because I care for it," said David. "I get no 
 practice." 
 
 He thought on as he danced. He liked all that you did 
 with the suppleness of your body — skating, swimming. 
 It was the control of your body in dancing, was n't it, that 
 made the joy of dancing? The response of your body to 
 your will, and to something more than your will. Yes, and 
 in the response of another body to your own. His partner 
 was easy to steer, answering like a horse with a delicate 
 mouth to a lightest hand on the bridle. The two, as the 
 old novels used to say, moved as one. Yes, David could 
 dance, and so could Miss Nevern, Mrs. Tarpalin coming 
 in now, her wool-winding finished, stopped at the door to 
 watch them. Welwyn and Miss Aylmer stopped; Frank 
 and Miss Davenport. There were left dancing the two 
 giggling, pulling boys, and David and Theo. The gigghng 
 boys stopped, and there danced on David and Theo. 
 
 "They 're watching us," David whispered, half smiling. 
 
 "What does it matter?" 
 
 They danced the dance to the end. 
 
 Miss Blake — Emma — could play, Mrs. Tarpalin 
 could play too, but with a difference. It takes a dancer, 
 perhaps, for dance music, and Miss Blake, David found,
 
 294 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 her Oo's notwithstanding, could dance. She had the light- 
 ness of foot of most fat persons. Mrs. Tarpalin may have 
 had it when she followed the drum; but many drums had 
 been beaten since then, and her waltzes were of the tum- 
 tum-tum order. Not till Miss Blake played again, when 
 Theo Nevern shamelessly threw over one of the nice calves 
 or puppies or colts for David, did David get such another 
 dance as had opened the evening's proceedings. 
 
 He was now enjoying himself greatly. Miss Nevern 
 made no pretence of not counting him her best partner. 
 She, prima ballerina assoliita of all the balls of the neigh- 
 bourhood, might speak, and spoke. 
 
 "You'll have to spare Mr. Penstephen to us next year 
 for the hunt ball," she said to Mrs. Tarpalin, before him. 
 
 "Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Tarpalin. "Mr. Pen- 
 stephen, if we can induce him to come down for it, will 
 come to us. Theo! This is positive poaching. I never 
 heard of anything so unblushing." 
 
 It was the happy David who did the blushing. Nothing 
 in all life so delightful, perhaps, as the sense of being 
 wanted; nothing so flattering to young vanity. All the 
 promises are here. Impossible not to enjoy his 'success.' 
 
 So the evening passed. David's ears should have burned 
 later. 
 
 In two rooms at Red Alban that night David was the 
 topic of conversation. 
 
 The girls congregated by Theo's fire. 
 
 "He can dance," said Emma Blake. 
 
 "Can't he!" said Lucy Aylmer. 
 
 "He's very good-looking," said Miss Davenport.^- 
 
 They looked at her gratefully. That seemed to be what 
 they both meant. 
 
 "He 's got the most beautiful hands," said Miss Aylmer 
 at once. " I was noticing them at dinner." 
 
 "I noticed them too," said Emma, and forgot her Oo's 
 in the soft influences of the moment. "They 're so expres- 
 sive. They really say things, don't they? Should n't you
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 295 
 
 think he was a poet? Or do you think they ought to paint 
 pictures?" 
 
 Theo did not say anything. She was in a pensive mood, 
 but seemed to Hke hearing the others talk. A gentle melan- 
 choly came over them. These young girls — Theo perhaps 
 excepted — were ready to be quite frank with themselves 
 and each other. They were in love with love, and inclined 
 to think themselves in love with David. In their dressing- 
 gowns and with their hair down, they looked, in the fire- 
 light, like a detachment of the Twenty Lovesick Maid- 
 ens, or, since it was Theo's fancy to sit in the firelight and 
 they had all blown out their candles as they came in, 
 like four — perhaps only three — of the Wise or Foolish 
 Virgins. 
 
 "Hands mean so much." 
 
 " I think they 're hands for the piano." 
 
 "Or the violin." 
 
 "Yes, I can see him playing the violin. Have you ever 
 been over a china factory?" 
 
 Emma and Lucy had not. Theo did not answer. 
 
 "You see hands like his there." 
 
 "Potter's hands!" 
 
 "Yes, hands bred to whiteness and slenderness by the 
 generations of hands that have preceded them. Father to 
 son, father to son. Delicate sensitive work — moulding, 
 turning on the wheel. The vessel rising up under the in- 
 spiring long fingers. The man who made the cup which I 
 bought for a memento, had hands like a Botticelli angel. 
 The cup seemed to be drawn up under them as they only 
 hovered over it. I have the cup now. When I look at it I 
 can always recall the magic." 
 
 "A cup. That 'sit. That really is it. I can see his hands 
 holding a Chalice." 
 
 "Priest's hands?" Theo spoke suddenly. 
 
 " Not exactly. I was thinking of the Graal." 
 
 "Oh, Sir Galahad." 
 
 "Well?"
 
 296 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Theo shook her head. 
 
 "They 're strong hands." 
 
 "That's why I thought the violin." 
 
 "Or the piano." 
 
 " I see them holding a skull," said Theo. 
 
 "Hamlet," said Emma Blake enthusiastically. "You 
 mean they 're actor's hands." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " But we've to see whether he can act. We shall see to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "They are strong hands," said Miss Aylmer. " I 'm sure 
 he 's strong. You can feel that he is when he 's dancing with 
 you. He holds you so well. Frank 's strong, too, but then 
 he 's thickset, would n't you say? A sailor's figure. He 
 dances well and he holds you comfortably. But not like 
 Mr. Penstephen." 
 
 "Isn't David a wonderful name?" said Emma. "A 
 king's name, is n't it?" 
 
 "A psalmist's. Your poet, Emma. Good for you!" 
 
 Miss Blake sighed happily. 
 
 "But I agree with Theo," she said. " I do see him hold- 
 ing a skull." 
 
 There was silence upon that. The girls had all fallen 
 into attitudes fitting their tender mood — all except Theo, 
 who, though she was pensive, sat upright. Miss Aylmer 's 
 face might have been bowed over a harp or a lute or other 
 rather mournful instrument of music. Miss Davenport's 
 head was supported on her arm. Emma's two hands were 
 folded upon her breast. 
 
 Presently one by one they spoke again. 
 
 "He couldn't, you know, be ordinary with that ap- 
 pearance." 
 
 "Would you call him dark or fair?" 
 
 "He would be dark or fair according to which one iad* 
 mired. I should call him fair — not as fair, of course, as 
 Frank Tarpalin, but fair." 
 
 Miss Davenport said this.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 297 
 
 "Oh, would you?" said Miss Aylmer. "I think of him 
 as dark." 
 
 "How do you think of him, Theo? As dark or fair?", \ 
 
 " I don't know that I do think of him." 
 
 "Theo does n't have to think of people," said Emma. 
 "People think of Theo. I wonder whether they talk of 
 us." 
 
 "They?" 
 
 "Men." 
 
 "There isn't one in the house," said Theo. "We're 
 talking of boys. Do we realise that he 's a schoolboy! If 
 we don't, let us!" 
 
 " Do you want us to go, Theo? " 
 
 "Oh, Theo, have we tired you?" 
 
 "Have we outstayed our welcome?" 
 
 Soulful as they had been to that moment, they were as 
 ready to giggle as the calves or puppies or colts. 
 
 "No. I really agree with all of you. Only he's a nice 
 healthy, normal boy, and because we 're sitting in the dark 
 (which was my doing, I know) and because it 's midnight, 
 — but really I suppose because we 're girls and can't help 
 it, — we 're turning him into priests and poets and kings 
 and — " 
 
 "And Hamlets," put in Miss Davenport. 
 
 Theo fell into silence. Her silence was an admission; 
 said as much as all the eloquence of the three. 
 
 In that roomful of girls it had to be admitted that David 
 was very attractive. They continued to talk of him. At 
 the moment when at last the conversation began to flag — 
 though only then by reason of the lateness of the hour — 
 it was Theo who gave it a fillip. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin had said that he had a romantic history. 
 
 Drowsy eyes grew bright. 
 
 "Oh, Theo. And you kept it to yourself . Till now, any- 
 way, like good wine. Why did n't you tell us? " 
 
 "Romantic!" 
 
 They looked at each other.
 
 298 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "How absolutely thrilling. I said his eyes were melan- 
 choly." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 "Mrs. Tarpalin would n't tell me." 
 
 "Wouldn't tell you?" 
 
 "Or couldn't. I don't know. It was yesterday, you 
 see, — the day before yesterday now. One did n't know 
 him then." 
 
 " It can't be he himself. He 's too young for anything to 
 have happened to him. It must be his parents, must n't 
 it?" 
 
 "Perhaps they eloped or something." 
 
 "Why^if^w'^youask?" 
 
 " I think Mrs. Tarpalin stopped me. You know how you 
 can stop people asking questions without saying anything. 
 I have a sort of idea that she had let what she said slip and 
 regretted it. Anyway, I did n't know then that it would be 
 interesting to know." 
 
 "Could you ask now?" 
 
 "No, I could n't. No one could." 
 
 "He lives in London," Miss Blake said. "He told me so 
 when we were dancing. Was n't it rather hard on me that 
 I could n't dance to my own playing? Mrs. Tarpalin 's a 
 darling, but I do play dance music better than she does. I 
 wish I lived in London. Oo, I did n't mean that. Not be- 
 cause, I did n't mean. I meant I did just wish I did. It 
 must be something about his parents." 
 
 "Perhaps they did elope. That would be romantic 
 enough, would n't it? You played divinely, Emma. He 
 said you did. I tell you from motives of gratitude." 
 
 "That 's nice of you, Lucy. But it is n't any of us. It's 
 Theo." 
 
 "It is n't Theo," said Theo, "so it is n't any one." 
 
 They lit their candles. 
 
 As they were going, all having kissed Theo, one of them 
 said, "If it only gave elopements and things in Peerages 
 and Baronetages we could look him up."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 299 
 
 "Oh, well, it would say something about him." 
 
 So thin the ice on which the unconscious David skated ! 
 
 The other talk of him was in Mrs. Tarpalin's bedroom 
 the other side of the house. Mrs. Tarpalin also wore a 
 dressing-gown, but she did not look like a Lovesick 
 Maiden or a Wise or a Foolish Virgin. She looked much 
 more like the Mrs. Hardcastle she was to play in the com- 
 ing theatricals. 
 
 "Is it possible," she said to her husband, "that he has 
 n't been asked to Ettrlngham?" 
 
 "Yes, he seems not to have been asked." 
 
 "And is it possible that that 's because — ?" 
 
 "They've been there — his parents and the young one." 
 
 "The young one? The brother?" 
 
 Colonel Tarpalin nodded. 
 
 "He told me that at dinner. He did n't appear to attach 
 any meaning to it. That 's the odd thing. It seemed to me 
 as if he only mentioned it because he did n't want to do his 
 relation an injustice." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "She does n't cut the family." 
 
 " It 's just the family that I 'm afraid she does cut — the 
 first family." 
 
 " It looks like that," said Colonel Tarpalin. 
 
 They looked at each other and into the fire. Mrs. Tar- 
 palin took the tongs, and carefully, but absently also, put 
 back some bits of coal which had fallen on to the hearth. 
 
 "Could any one be so — so narrow?" she said. "That 
 
 — that perfectly charming boy. That poor boy." 
 
 " Instead of being proud of him!" said Colonel Tarpalin 
 
 — irrelevantly only in a grammatical sense. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin said, "I can hardly believe it. Susan 
 Cantrell was quite human — a rather generous girl. She 
 once wrote twenty-five lines for me of fifty which were set 
 me as a punishment for what in boys' schools is called 
 cribbing. She put kindness then before mere correctness,
 
 300 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 so she had sympathy for sinners. It is n't even as if this 
 nice boy was the sinner. And what 's more, I don't beheve 
 his mother was. No boy with a face like this boy's face 
 ever had a bad mother. Don't tell me!" 
 
 " I 'm not telling you," said her husband, smiling. " I 'm 
 with you. No, I 'm rejoicing that you 're with me." 
 
 "Of course I 'm with you," said Mrs. Tarpalin, "and of 
 course you 're with me. I 'm thoroughly ashamed of Susan 
 Penstephen." 
 
 "The conventional woman's view," he reminded her. 
 
 "Then I 'm ashamed of women," said Mrs. Tarpalin. 
 
 She put down the tongs. 
 
 "Really, really," she said, "the more I think of it! The 
 opportunity! The way people miss their chances! It's 
 amazing. Getting old. A widow. Her own son dead. And 
 this boy to her hand. Goodness, the privilege of it! To 
 have been able just to try in some degree to make up to 
 him! She could n't ever really make up to him — no one 
 could, but to have the power to do something, and not to 
 use it! She does n't know him apparently — has n't seen 
 him, I gathered. Either has n't taken the trouble to see 
 him, or has deliberately taken the trouble not to. Well, all 
 I can say is, she richly deserves her loss." 
 
 David's hostess, too, under the spell of him! A Lady 
 Jane, after all, to the Maidens offering their young hom- 
 age at that moment in Theo's room? 
 
 She thought for a little, and then said from her thoughts, 
 which, apparently, she expected her husband to follow, 
 " If she 's had the other boy there, it can't, of course, mean 
 anything else." 
 
 Colonel Tarpalin had not, however, kept pace with her. 
 
 "Why, ignoring the first family, of course. She starts 
 the family, as the law does, from him — the legitimate, 
 the heir. Oh, George, that poor boy, that poor poor boy!" 
 
 In spite of her Hardcastle double chins her eyes filled 
 with tears. 
 
 "He'll be all right," said Colonel Tarpalin at once.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 301 
 
 "He 's got something better than legitimacy. Are n't you 
 proving it, dear? You, who never saw him till to-day, are 
 crying over him." 
 
 "Crying for him, George." 
 
 She felt for her handkerchief and blew her nose. 
 
 "How his mother must love him," she said, snivelling. 
 
 "But something is worrying me," her husband said — 
 as if, as she thought to herself even through her snufflings, 
 nothing were worrying her! — "I can hardly think it, yet, 
 from what he said, from his manner ... Is it possible, do 
 you think, that he himself does n't know?" 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin stopped crying. 
 
 "They could n't wo/ have told him!" 
 
 "So I should have supposed." 
 
 "They could n't have kept it from him. Why, every- 
 body knows. It was common knowledge. They must 
 know it at the school. Frank knew. Why, the name ..." 
 
 "I have an idea all the same that he does n't." 
 
 "But — why, he would only have to look himself up in 
 the book ..." 
 
 "He may not have done that. It 's just conceivable. If 
 he had no reason for supposing — Boys don't think of 
 these things." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin looked frightened. 
 
 "I took it for granted he knew. We must ask Frank. 
 If he does n't, I shan't have an easy moment while he's 
 here. George, it's ridiculous," she came back to that. 
 "He must have been told." 
 
 But her husband did not reassure her. He could only 
 tell her again of the vague impression which he had re- 
 ceived. 
 
 "I have nothing to go on," he said, "beyond the boy's 
 manner." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin groaned. 
 
 "Oh, dear," she said, "with the house full of girls all in- 
 terested in him! Look at the way they wanted to dance 
 with him. Even Theo, who has the pick of the young men
 
 302 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 wherever she goes. Oh, yes, they'll be looking him up, we 
 may be perfectly certain of that. Perfectly, perfectly cer- 
 tain. I know girls — what they are when they fancy them- 
 selves interested. They 're probably talking about him 
 this minute." 
 
 She got up from her chair, tying the tasselled cords of 
 her dressing-gown. 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "To put away a few books," said Mrs. Tarpalin. "They 
 need n't, at any rate, be lying about." 
 
 In about ten minutes she came back. 
 
 "There," she said, "all I could find — Lodge, Debrett, 
 Burke's Landed Gentry. Is there anything else? I shall 
 put them in my wardrobe. No, Tilson would find them 
 there. You must make room for them in one of the cup- 
 boards in your dressing-room. You must lock them up. I 
 hope I've remembered them all. Use n't there to be an- 
 other Debrett in the smoking-room? You must look in the 
 morning, George, in case I've missed any. These are all 
 fairly recent ones, but anything not older than nine or ten 
 years would matter, and there might be others knocking 
 about somewhere in some of the rooms. Whittaker, — 
 would there be anything in that? I don't want to run any 
 risks. It 's criminal of them if they have n't told him — 
 though from his mother's point of view I can quite under- 
 stand that they just have n't been able." 
 
 She opened one of the volumes and turned the pages. 
 
 "Penshant, Penshurst, Penstable — Penstephen. Here 
 we are. Yes. Well, what else was possible? Here, take it. 
 Take them away." She put the volume blindly into his 
 arms with the others. "And I was right," she said. "Those 
 silly girls have n't gone to bed yet. They're all still talk- 
 ing in Theodore's room."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Frank Tarpalin, interrogated early the next morning, 
 was found not to know whether David knew. He, hke his 
 mother, had taken it for granted that he did — that he 
 must. He was considerably upset by the doubt that his 
 father had put upon what had seemed to him a certainty. 
 
 "Good Lord!" he said; "poor chap, if he does n't!" 
 
 What could David's parents be about? 
 
 But Mrs. Tarpalin said she understood only too well 
 what one of them was about. 
 
 "She has put off telling him. And now she does n't dare. 
 Or she has hoped, against hope, probably, that he does 
 know — that somebody else has told him. My heart bleeds 
 for her. She's tried to shelter him. It's the maternal in- 
 stinct. She 's the unhappiest woman in England. She just 
 does n't know what to do." 
 
 Frank and his father demurred with a But or two. 
 
 "No," she said, "it's that. I'm only guessing, but I'm 
 guessing right. She just does n't know what to do, so she 
 does nothing, and the years slip by." 
 
 "Well, nothing is likely to happen here," said Frank. 
 "We shall be too busy." 
 
 "I tell your mother it is most unlikely," said Colonel 
 Tarpalin. 
 
 But Mrs. Tarpalin shook her two chins. 
 
 "It's the unlikely that does happen," she said. "If it 
 was n't, how could I possibly count on knowing my words? " 
 
 So, into a company, the greater part of which for one 
 reason or another was acutely conscious of him, the un- 
 conscious David came down to breakfast. 
 
 He was in excellent spirits. All the influences of the 
 house contributed to his well-being. He always slept well,
 
 304 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 and had waked only when he was called. It had been 
 pleasant from between the warm sheets to watch the foot- 
 man who valeted him, preparing the way for him from 
 slumber to the duties and pleasures of the day. The pleas- 
 ures preponderated. The duties, too, would be pleasures. 
 He looked forward to the rehearsals. Work? Work that 
 you loved was n't work. He was full of pleasurable anti- 
 cipations. To the pleasant tune of them he went to sleep 
 again. When he woke again the day was half-an-hour older. 
 But he had been told that the breakfast hour was as elastic 
 as you pleased, so he did not hurry. As he bathed and 
 dressed he whistled of sheer lightness of heart. His cold 
 bath was not too cold for him. As he rubbed his body to a 
 glow, the long glass must have given him an exceedingly 
 pleasant picture of naked youth and health. This too may 
 have helped. He began the day without a care. 
 
 He was late, but not the last. There were two vacant 
 places at the table, at which, as they came down, the guests 
 had seated themselves as they liked, or as chance ordained. 
 These two places were next to each other. David, looking 
 round and exchanging good-mornings, saw that Miss 
 Nevern was not down yet. The other of them, then, would 
 be for her. He was helping himself to coffee at the side- 
 table as she came in. 
 
 She leant over Mrs. Tarpalin and kissed her, and fol- 
 lowed Frank Tarpalin to where David stood now lifting the 
 covers. 
 
 David had just helped himself to omelette — a fresh one 
 had just been brought in — and as she saw it she said 
 omelette without looking farther. 
 
 It even pleased David in his happy mood that, as they 
 sat side by side presently, they should be eating the same 
 thing. 
 
 It was a beautiful morning. Winter though it was — 
 January, heart of the winter — the sunshine was so bright 
 that a blind or two had been partly lowered to keep the 
 light out of the eyes of those who faced it at the table.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 305 
 
 From below these blinds the sun streamed on to the table, 
 catching itself in silver here, in the cut-glass of a honey pot 
 or a jam jar there, and everywhere in the gleaming damask. 
 There had been frost in the night and a white rime was still 
 on the bushes outside, and on the grass under the trees. 
 David from his seat could see shining lawns. 
 
 "You ought all to spend the whole day out of doors," 
 Mrs. Tarpalin said, "but your stage-manager is not going 
 to let you." 
 
 "We can have till a quarter past eleven," said Frank. 
 "Then solid work." 
 
 "Has n't he a stiff lip!" said his father. "Thank good- 
 ness, I 'm not an actor." 
 
 "You ought to be playing Mr. Hardcastle," said Frank. 
 
 "No, no, I'm not young enough to play old men." 
 
 He had finished his breakfast, and drifted out of the 
 room. Mrs. Tarpalin went off presently to interview the 
 cook, and one by one, or in twos and threes, others who had 
 finished drifted away also. The later ones stayed on. 
 
 David and Theo Nevern, as the last down, were pres- 
 ently left alone. 
 
 "I'm a very healthy young woman in the morning," 
 Miss Nevern said. "I have n't nearly done. I want some 
 marmalade, please, Mr. Penstephen, — unless there's any 
 honey-in-the-comb. Oh, then I want some honey." 
 
 David also ate honey-in-the-comb. Again the intimate 
 isolated feeling. It was delightful. David had never en- 
 joyed a breakfast more. 
 
 When they had finished they went out Into the garden, 
 where they found some of the rest of the party throwing 
 crumbs to the birds. Then they strolled for a few minutes 
 in the sunshine on the polished gravel paths. Frank Tar- 
 palin, going in, called to them to say that the rehearsal 
 would be in the music-room. 
 
 "A quarter past eleven sharp, mind," he said; and they 
 answered, "A quarter past, all right."
 
 306 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Presently, from strolling hatless in the sunshine, they 
 were going for a walk in earnest — a short walk, Theo 
 had got her hat and coat, and David his cap and stick. 
 They had three quarters of an hour nearly. Exercise would 
 be good for them before they began. There would be time 
 to walk as far as the kennels — no, as far as the bottom of 
 the wood by the lower road and back through the village. 
 
 Any one else coming? The girls had not their boots on. 
 Welwyn had followed Frank into the house. The younger 
 boys were shy, perhaps, or perhaps they were sportsmen, 
 and felt that when Miss Nevern chose a companion, he 
 should have the field to himself. The girls smiled at each 
 other. They were all loyal to Theo's acknowledged su- 
 premacy. If David must go walking with one of them, 
 they would rather it was with her than — each, of course, 
 excepting herself — any other of their number. 
 
 But over those that were left there fell a temporary 
 blight. David and Theo withdrawn, the interest of the 
 passing minutes seemed gone too. Even the boys were con- 
 scious of some sort of blank; but they, more self-sufficing 
 than the girls, almost at once found amusement in an old 
 tennis ball, which by chance lay on the path, and which 
 they shied in turn into the blue overhead (from which the 
 bolts fall!) and caught or tried to catch as it returned to 
 earth. The girls looked at their pointed shoes and at the 
 melting rime of the grass and went back into the house. 
 They did not talk of David as they went, but the thoughts 
 of each of them — and each of them knew it of the other 
 two — followed the couple on their walk. 
 
 Miss Davenport said she ought to write some letters, 
 but made no attempt to do so. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "how I hate writing letters. I never 
 know what to say. I wonder what time the early post 
 goes." 
 
 The others told her. 
 
 "Oh, then I have n't much time. What are you going to 
 do?"
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 307 
 
 "I don't know," said Lucy Aylmer. "What are you, 
 Emma?" 
 
 "I don't quite know." 
 
 Eventually they all gravitated to the library. They idled 
 there by the fire, looked at the newspapers, played with 
 one of the dogs. Emma Blake went over to a table on which 
 an expanding bookcase held such books of reference as 
 the London Directory, the Clergy List, the Postal Guide, 
 the Red Book, and Army and Navy Lists, and the like. 
 
 Mrs, Tarpalin, coming in to write some menus, asked 
 her if there was anything that she wanted. 
 
 No, Emma said, blushing, a Peerage in her hand — but 
 a Peerage which she saw did not contain a Baronetage — 
 no, thank dear Mrs. Tarpalin, she was only fiddling. 
 
 "The rehearsal's in the music-room," she said, "isn't 
 it?" 
 
 As if everybody did n't know that? She went back to the 
 smiling girls by the fire, and Mrs. Tarpalin began to write 
 out her menus. 
 
 "Could n't we help you with them?" said Miss Daven- 
 port. 
 
 "What did I tell you?" Mrs. Tarpalin said to Colonel 
 Tarpalin afterwards. "Wasn't I right to go round last 
 night collecting them all? Goodness, goodness, these girls! 
 It is n't that one of them has an idea. It's only, as I said, 
 that they're all interested. Anything about him would be 
 food for their curiosity. It is n't malice we 've got to guard 
 against, it 's admiration. How I wish the next fortnight was 
 safely over." 
 
 The girls, as soon as their hostess was out of the room, 
 chaffed Emma. "*No, thank you, dear Mrs. Tarpalin, 
 I'm only fiddling!'" 
 
 "There does n't seem to be one in the room," said Miss 
 Blake, unperturbed. "It's no good your looking at that, 
 Lucy; it's only a Peerage." 
 
 "/'m only fiddling," said Miss Aylmer. "But I know 
 I've seen one somewhere."
 
 308' DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "What else could I have said? " asked Emma. " It 's the 
 sort of thing you can't ask for, is n't it?" 
 
 The boys had found an old tennis racquet and were play- 
 ing cricket now with the ball. The girls were still idling by 
 the cheerful library fire. Mrs. Tarpalin was snatching a 
 look at her part, and talking to one of the housemaids at 
 the same time. David and Miss Nevern were somewhere 
 near the bottom of the wood ; and Eric Dunstable was driv- 
 ing from White to Red Alban. 
 
 At a little before eleven, Frank Tarpalin, arranging the 
 music-room for the rehearsal with the help of Welwyn, was 
 informed that Mr. Dunstable had arrived, and went out to 
 receive him. Mrs. Tarpalin, her book in her hand, came 
 downstairs as they were shaking hands in the hall, and, the 
 girls at the same moment coming out of the library and the 
 three boys chancing to come in from the lawn, a general 
 move was made for the music-room. 
 
 The next few minutes saw the arrival of a brake from 
 Astonbury with such of the members of the cast as were 
 not staying in the house, and thus, nearly a quarter of an 
 hour before the time arranged for the rehearsal, most of the 
 company had assembled. 
 
 It was perhaps the fault of the sun. It was a day for 
 loitering. The bottom of the wood was a delightful spot. 
 Theo, like Diana, was a huntress, and David very young 
 and very comely. In the sunshine and the sharp clear air 
 it was pleasant to add a captive to your captives; in the 
 sunshine and the sharp clear air equally pleasant to let 
 yourself be taken (more or less) captive by the desire of 
 every one's eye. There was a stile dividing the path skirt- 
 ing the wood from the field, below which ran the lane which 
 led to the village. Here they sat for some time talking; 
 breaking twigs from the dry hedge; presently playing a 
 game on the fiat top of the stile with the bits of wood so
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 309 
 
 obtained. It was a game that you generally played with 
 matches. You made a rough pyramid of the matches, and 
 with two used as pHers, you had, turn about, to extract 
 matches from the pile without knocking the whole thing 
 down. The twisted, bent, crooked, knotted, curved, or 
 even forked, nature of the bits of stick used instead of the 
 matches, made your task more difficult. Your heads were 
 brought very near together as you played and watched. 
 You had to take off your gloves. Your fingers sometimes 
 touched. 
 
 "You moved it." 
 
 "I did n't." \ 
 
 "How can you!" 
 
 *' I 'm quite certain." 
 
 "Well, I'm going to watch you very carefully. I'm not 
 going to let you cheat. Let me see." 
 
 The brim of her hat grazed the brim of his cap. Neither 
 stirred while the hands that had been discussed so copiously 
 the night before in Theo's room did their delicate work 
 amongst the little bits of stick. 
 
 He extricated a remarkably crooked fragment of twig 
 without jeopardising the hazardous balance of the rest. 
 The hat and the cap — touching — did not move, even 
 then, for a moment or two. Then Miss Nevern moved, 
 and the little spell was broken. 
 
 She was quite different, David was thinking, from what 
 she had seemed at their first meeting. Difficult now to 
 believe that the curious talk beside the fire in the hall had 
 ever taken place. Her lips and teeth and eyes were laugh- 
 ing now ; the tremulous droop of the lips that gave her face, 
 at times, what he thought of as the Greuze look, gone. But 
 she had not receded. On the contrary, he felt that he knew 
 her better. And she was n't a bit less dangerous. He re- 
 membered his sudden momentary jealousy of his friend — 
 and understood it. All that she did, all that she shewed of 
 her different moods might, indeed, as he had suspected, 
 be her 'way' with whichever of her admirers was with her,
 
 310 DAVID PENSTEPHEN / 
 
 but this, if it was so, seemed no longer to matter. It was 
 himself that she had chosen for this walk. He was the 
 favoured one of all for the time being. She had given a 
 general invitation to the others to come, too, but she had 
 not meant it to be accepted. 
 
 She gave a cry. She had thought the stick she was mov- 
 ing was clear of the rest, and a minute branching at the end 
 of it had caught in the others. She had knocked the whole 
 pile down. 
 
 Well, it was a game that was supposed to be played not 
 with crooked bits of twig, but with matches (so that how- 
 ever you played it, perhaps, you were playing approximately 
 with fire !) , and they had both done wonders in keeping the 
 structure, as they diminished it, standing so long. 
 
 "Game to you, though," said Miss Nevern and asked 
 him the time. 
 
 It was twenty-five minutes past eleven, and (not that it 
 mattered, or could have been supposed to matter) they 
 were a mile and a half from home. 
 
 ^ In the music-room at Red Alban the rehearsal was in 
 progress. There was no need to wait for David or Miss 
 Nevern. So at about half-past eleven a start was made 
 without them. Their absence, however, at the rehearsal 
 (at which, as amateurs, all the other members of the cast, 
 whether or not they were likely to be wanted, thought it 
 necessary to assist) made them duly conspicuous, and, as 
 the company had assembled a quarter of an hour before its 
 time, by so much the more late would they appear to be 
 when at length they should arrive. 
 
 The girls watched Eric Dunstable and exchanged smiles. 
 Mrs. Tarpalin, conscious of nerves, her own and other 
 people's, felt, as she saw the sulky look deepening on his 
 face, that she was extremely glad that Theo was late, and 
 quite unchristianly glad to think that David, when Eric 
 Dunstable should see what manner of person it was that 
 the delinquent Theo had been with, would shew himself to
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 311 
 
 be of so considerable a mettle. She disliked Eric Dunstable 
 greatly, and, though she hoped she never forgot her good 
 manners, always found it difficult to conceal her feelings. 
 If she had not been so worried about David she would not 
 perhaps have been so irritated by the sulkiness of Mr. 
 Dunstable. She knew that his sulkiness, which she still 
 observed even after the rehearsal had begun and she was 
 supposed to be giving her whole attention to her part, was 
 itself an expression of irritation. But what right had he to 
 be irritated by Theo's absence — by Theo's absence even 
 though it should be in company with some one else? He 
 was not engaged to Theo. At least she did not think he 
 was. And if he had been engaged to her fifty times over 
 that would n't have given him the right to be irritated — 
 or if he were irritated to shew it. She looked at the big, 
 handsome, ill-conditioned young man and felt very angry. 
 
 All the same it was rather naughty of Theo, for, though 
 she could find it in her heart to be glad that Theo had con- 
 trived to annoy Eric, she had no intention of letting her 
 make a fool of David. 
 
 So It came that when David and Miss Nevern appeared, 
 half-an-hour late, but in plenty of time to take up their 
 parts, it was quite obvious that they came into an assem- 
 blage of persons who, if they had not been talking of them, 
 had had them very clearly in mind. The fact of this seemed 
 to link them more closely together, so that, if it had mat- 
 tered their being late, they would have felt deliciously 
 fellow-culprits. 
 
 It chanced that there was a break in the rehearsal just 
 as they came in. Frank, stage-managing and acting too, 
 had sent for some notes he had made embodying business 
 which was not in the script. 
 
 " No, heaps of time," he said in answer to their apologies, 
 which were addressed partly to him and partly to their 
 hostess on the stage. 
 
 Miss Nevern now saw Eric Dunstable and shook hands 
 with him with a "Hullo, Eric," and turned back, laughing,
 
 312 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 to David, to associate herself with his explanation of how 
 he had underestimated distance and overestimated time. 
 
 All the girls looked at him, smiling, and Frank Tarpalin 
 punched him affectionately in the chest, and Mrs. Tar- 
 palin, smiling at him warmly too, — still from her place 
 on the 'stage,' — took this moment, as if remembering, to 
 make him and Mr. Dunstable known to each other. 
 
 She did, it is true, introduce Mr. Penstephen to Mr. 
 Dunstable, but in such a way that she seemed to be intro- 
 ducing Mr. Dunstable to Mr, Penstephen. 
 
 David^ advancing a little, met the eyes of his fellow- 
 traveller, who inclined his head without otherwise moving. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin, a prey perhaps to her irritation, was not 
 quite tactful when she added cordially that Mr. Penstephen 
 was their leading man. 
 
 Theo exchanged greetings with the other newcomers, 
 with whom she was acquainted, and to whom David was 
 now introduced. There was a chair beside Mr. Dunstable, 
 but she took another, and the young men from Astonbury 
 made a place amongst them for David, A servant came 
 back with the notes, and the interrupted rehearsal was re- 
 sumed and proceeded. But the mischief was done. 
 
 I Frank followed David into his room that night. 
 
 "Look here," he said, "you mustn't mind him. No- 
 body who knows him minds him." 
 
 "It is n't that I mind him exactly," said David. 
 
 "It's his manner," Frank said, "his perfectly damnable 
 manner. He's the same with everybody. I told you, 
 did n't I? And my mother did too. She can't bear him. 
 Everybody feels it." 
 
 "It was rather difficult to act with him," David said. 
 \ "I know. I could see." 
 
 Goodness, as they looked back over the events of the 
 day, everybody had been able to see! 
 
 "He made it difficult. He seemed as if he meant to 
 make it difficult. Why did he? "^
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 313 
 
 David suddenly was asking him. For David had re- 
 membered as he spoke exactly how difficult Dunstable had 
 made it to act with him. Hastings and Marlow were sup- 
 posed to be friends. You could n't convey much idea of 
 friendship when a person — the person you are supposed to 
 be friends with — looked at you as if he did n't see you. 
 
 "He's like that," Frank said, in his anxiety for David. 
 "He does n't mean it." 
 
 David shook his head. 
 
 "Not particularly — not individually, I mean. He's a 
 swine. He can't help it. He was out of temper to-day. 
 Something had put him out." 
 
 "He seemed put out," said David. "But it was as if I 
 had put him out." 
 
 "If only I had n't asked him to act!" said Frank. "Good 
 Lord, if only I had n't! I might have known!" He set his 
 teeth. " If he can't behave himself to-morrow, I '11 tell him 
 we don't want him." 
 
 But David would not hear of that. 
 
 "It was Theo, really, you know, not you!" Frank said 
 at last. 
 
 "MissNevern?" 
 
 "Who had put him out." 
 
 David looked at him quickly. 
 
 " He did mean it," Frank said. " I 'm frantically ashamed 
 of him. He meant it. He was venting things on you. But 
 it was Theo."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Frank's explanation — there was this solace for David — 
 could not but be flattering to a vanity which yet was 
 really very modest; but David should, perhaps, have taken 
 warning. There was, however, Miss Nevern to reckon with, 
 and Miss Nevern was staying in the house. If there be 
 anything to be said for Mr. Dunstable, we may remind 
 ourselves that perhaps this rankled — that while he, Hast- 
 ings (second fiddle, anyway), was at White Alban and had 
 to go back there, they. Young Marlowand Kate Hardcastle 
 (first fiddles), were at Red Alban, under one roof, and free, 
 if they were so minded, to continue their counterfeit dally- 
 ings, or change mock love-making for love-making in 
 earnest. There was something to be said for the ungracious 
 young man — the more, perhaps, by very reason of his 
 ungraciousness — and David should have taken warning. 
 What, though, about Theo? 
 
 Miss Nevern shewed herself likely to go on as she had 
 begun. She had certainly, as her stage-manager said, 
 spared her sullen admirer nothing at the first rehearsal. 
 There had been David as himself when there had not been 
 David as Young Marlow, and since the whole play had been 
 run through — the company, as had been arranged, dining 
 at Red Alban (in what they stood up in) to admit for that 
 day of a complete rehearsal — there had been quite a great 
 deal of David in both capacities. 
 
 Theo, Frank Tarpalin said to himself, was a little wretch. 
 He now, like his mother, looked forward to the happenings 
 of the next fortnight with apprehension. David had be- 
 haved like a brick; was a brick — a very brick of bricks; 
 but human nature was human nature. There was a point 
 beyond which it was not possible to endure. Would that 
 point be passed? Theo was the person who ought to be
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 315 
 
 spoken to, but Frank Tarpalin shrank for some reason from 
 'speaking' to Theo. Perhaps things would be better on the 
 morrow. A whole day's rehearsal — morning, afternoon, 
 and evening — was rather a strain. The evening had been 
 worst. It was in the evening that, when Marlow, by the 
 stage-manager's direction, had laid his hand upon his 
 friend Hastings's arm, his friend Hastings had shaken it 
 off! There would be no more evening rehearsals for the 
 present; no more unwieldy dinners at which Theo could 
 take advantage, as she had done that night, of the in- 
 formality of the occasion to plant herself — nobody having 
 taken anybody else in — between David and one of the 
 younger boys, instead of sitting beside the raging Dunstable 
 as it was plain that she had been intended to do. 
 
 David had, indeed, spent rather a difficult day. But, 
 howsoever unwittingly, he had been, and he knew it, a 
 little to blame. For he was aware of Miss Nevern's power 
 to make you jealous, and he had not been without some 
 sort of inkling that Eric Dunstable was jealous. He had 
 borne Dunstable's hardly veiled enmity, affecting not to 
 perceive it, but he had taken no steps to assuage Dun- 
 stable's anger or to allay his suspicions. He would try, 
 then, to be more judicious the next day. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin 'spoke' to Theo. She asked her help in 
 settling some flowers, and, all the girls at once volunteering 
 their services, she set the Davenport and the Aylmer and 
 the Blake to work on those in the drawing-room, and took 
 Theo with her up to her own sitting-room. 
 
 "These only want their stalks cut," she said, "and a little 
 weeding-out. They were fresh yesterday. January is 
 rather hard on flowers and Hacket is a tyrant — all good 
 gardeners are. Theo, you're being very naughty." 
 
 "Me, dear Mrs. Tarpalin?" 
 
 "You, dear Theo, and you know it just as well as I 
 do."
 
 3i6 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Theo was all round eyes and innocence and drooping 
 mouth. 
 
 "Me?" she said again. "Dearest Mrs. Tarpalin!" 
 
 "You, dearest Miss Nevern. Yes, bad Theo, you. Now 
 tell me." 
 
 "She's going to lecture me," said Miss Nevern to the 
 chrysanthemums. 
 
 "You richly deserve that I should. Why did you want 
 Eric Dunstable to be asked to act if you were going to 
 behave like this to him?" 
 
 Theo took refuge in "Like what?" 
 
 " If you '11 just lift the vases for me I '11 spread this under 
 them. Now we can lay everything on the newspaper. As 
 if you did n't know, my dear." 
 
 "He should n't be such a — ruffian," said Theo, paus- 
 ing for the word she wanted. 
 
 "But that's why you like him." 
 
 Theo looked at her with respect. 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 " My dear, I don't pretend to like him myself, but I can't 
 pretend, either, that for one moment I can be indifferent to 
 him or even unconscious of him when he 's there. I suppose 
 that's how I know. The more I disliked him, the more trib- 
 ute I should be paying to some quality that he has." 
 
 "You do see that he has qualities." 
 
 "Very grudgingly," said Mrs. Tarpalin. 
 
 " I 've got to find out somehow whether I can bear him,** 
 said Miss Nevern. 
 
 "But not through somebody else." 
 
 Miss Nevern smiled and cut some stalks, shaking the 
 drops of water from them first, and from her fingers also, 
 on to the newspaper. 
 
 "No, Theo, you're being abominable and I won't have 
 it." 
 
 "He's a delightful boy." 
 
 "That's why. No, that is n't why at all. It is n't only 
 because I like him that I won't have it. You're being
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 317 
 
 extremely naughty. Do you want them at each other's 
 throats?" 
 
 "It would be rather exciting," said Theo. "I don't 
 think I've ever been actually fought over." 
 
 "Well, it is to stop," said Mrs. Tarpalin. " I could n't go 
 through another day like yesterday, and what 's more, my 
 dear, I would n't. Now, Theo, kiss me and be a good girl." 
 
 Things were really better after that. Theo was in the 
 hall when Eric Dunstable arrived, and perhaps that helped. 
 She said "Hullo, Eric," but quite differently from her 
 "Hullo, Eric!" of the day before. 
 
 He said, "That you, Theo?" 
 
 We, who may guess now at Theo, may ask ourselves 
 whether 'That' had not equally been Theo the day before. 
 However, things were better. Let this suffice. Sufficient 
 unto the moment, as unto the day, the evil thereof. He 
 had arrived punctually this time — not a quarter of an 
 hour too soon. But there was still a quarter of an hour to 
 spare, for the proprietor of the theatre had driven over to 
 Red Alban again upon some matter connected with the 
 arrangements and was closeted with Frank in the library, 
 and the rehearsal was not to begin till he was gone. The 
 brake from Astonbury was heard on the drive, and Eric and 
 Theo slipped out into the garden. They strolled now where 
 she and David had strolled before they went for their un- 
 fortunate walk. This, too, may have helped. Eric Dun- 
 stable certainly started the day in better temper. 
 
 Both Frank and Mrs. Tarpalin felt reassured. 
 
 "You'd better sit next him at luncheon," Mrs. Tarpalin 
 whispered to Theo. " It's bribery, I know, but in this case 
 we'll call bribery reward — which in one sense it is, a 
 merely anticipated reward." 
 
 "The result justifying the means? You don't mind 
 sacrificing me." 
 
 "Ah, Theo dear, I know you," said Mrs. Tarpalin. 
 "You're very well able to take care of yourself."
 
 3i8 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "I'm not at all sure that you mean that for a compli- 
 ment," said Theo, but, smiling and amiable, she sat on one 
 side of Mr. Dunstable at luncheon, and Emma Blake on the 
 other, and the afternoon with but some trifling restiveness 
 passed smoothly also. 
 
 David, writing to his mother that evening, was able to 
 tell her how much he was enjoying himself. Partly because 
 he could not have done this unreservedly the day before, 
 he had sent her a post-card only, reporting his safe arrival. 
 Now he wrote a full and very cheerful letter giving an ac- 
 count of himself and his surroundings. He dwelt most, it 
 would perhaps be observable, upon the first and third days 
 of his stay — told her of Red Alban with its friendly at- 
 mosphere, his delightful hosts and the welcome they had 
 given him, the pleasant party in the house, gave some de- 
 scription of the girls (giving prominence, it is likely, to 
 that one of them who stood out for him from the rest), and 
 told of the progress made at that day's rehearsals. 
 
 " It 's the jolliest house to stay in. You do exactly as you 
 like. Nobody bothers you about anything. I am enjoying 
 myself awfully." 
 
 He did not mention the allusions of both his host and his 
 hostess to Ettringham, or even say that Mrs. Tarpalin had 
 been at school with Lady Penstephen. Something uncom- 
 fortable had hung about the moments connected with those 
 topics, and an obscure instinct may have told him to avoid 
 them. But he gave a casual line or two to Mr. Dunstable, 
 and saw no reason for not saying that he did not like him. 
 "However," he wrote, dismissing the subject, "he is stay- 
 ing at White Alban, I 'm glad to say, not Red, so as a dis- 
 turbing influence he's only here part of the time, and we 
 manage to keep the peace." 
 
 His letter reached Cheyne Walk by what was called the 
 second post, and was actually, where posts were frequent, 
 the third or fourth. It found her pale and left her not less
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 319 
 
 pale, when she had read it and passed it on to his father. 
 She was getting through the days and had not shewn 
 David's father her heart. To what use? She was not very 
 well, and was supposed to be missing David. She had been 
 supposed only to be missing David when she came back 
 from her strange afternoon in Kensington Gardens. She 
 had left the house laughing and had returned to it having 
 wept. That was why. 
 
 "He seems to be enjoying himself," John said, when he 
 had read the letter through. 
 
 Yes, he was undoubtedly enjoying himself, but she knew 
 now, as well as if she had been told, how Lady Harbing- 
 ton's blow was destined to be struck. Her intuition gave 
 her exact values and proportions. She was prepared, and 
 knew almost, though not quite, what she would say to 
 David when he came back to her with knowledge but not 
 reproach in his eyes. It is significant of her deep under- 
 standing of him that she knew there would be no reproach. 
 The reproaches would be, as they always had been, from 
 herself to herself. 
 
 She wrote him a long cheerful letter in answer. There 
 were reticences in her letter as in his, though, like all her 
 .letters to him and to his father, this one was circumstantial 
 as a diary. Without any literary equipment she had the 
 rare secret of the ' satisfactory ' letter — the letter which 
 tells you all you want to know, and conjures up pictures of 
 familiar intimate things. She took up her count from the 
 moment at which they parted; told him that she had sat 
 — actually sat, the day was so warm — for quite a long 
 time in Kensington Gardens after seeing him off. There 
 had been a very beautiful sunset with that sort of rays 
 which, from association with foreign picture galleries, they 
 both knew as 'Annunciations.' She hoped he had seen it 
 from the train. She had gone back to Cheyne Walk then, 
 taking a hansom in Kensington Gore, and had found tea 
 just coming in — that sort of letter. She commented on 
 all that he told her, rallied him on his obvious admiration
 
 320 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 of his Kate Hardcastle, and only at the end touched on 
 what she knew to be vital (though he did not) in his letter 
 to her. 
 
 Let him, in the case of the one member of the company 
 with whom he found it difficult to get on, avoid friction as 
 far as possible. She had no experience of theatricals, but 
 could conceive that the conditions made for little irrita- 
 tions. Peace was so fragile a thing. There had to be give 
 and take. "Give good, David, and take evil gently." She 
 was preaching him the gospel of the soft answer that 
 turneth away wrath. 
 
 So she wrote to him hopefully, but in her heart she had 
 no hope. For to her, whom life had struck at so relent- 
 lessly, it was not and could not be for nothing that the one 
 person who was not friendly to him should ' chance ' to be 
 staying at White Alban. Useless then to write this? Use- 
 less. Yet on the off chance, as it were, of averting catas- 
 trophe she wrote it, and vowed to herself and to the powers 
 that be that if he should be returned to her unenlightened, 
 if for once fate sparing him should spare her, she would face 
 uncertainties no longer, but lay his case and hers frankly 
 and fully before him. «• 
 
 Thus she was able to preserve not only her counsel, and 
 go on seeming only to be missing him, but her sanity also. 
 Thus she worked off some of her misery and felt better. 
 To his postscript, " I hope you still think of coming down," 
 she made no answer. 
 
 David, when her letter reached him, was a little puzzled 
 by her exhortations — the more so that the day and a half 
 that had elapsed, between the writing of his own letter and 
 the arrival of her reply to it, had produced conditions which 
 gave what she said an added point. The Hastings of the 
 cast had become increasingly hostile to the Marlow, the 
 Eric Dunstable of the meals and the intervals generally, 
 to the David Penstephen. It was as if his mother divined 
 that there might be a real hostility. And there seemed to 
 be now a hostility which was very real, indeed. It dis-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 321 
 
 tressed David more almost than it angered him. But there 
 were times when it angered him too. How did his mother 
 know, or what had made her think that this might happen? 
 He looked at Dunstable sometimes and wondered what 
 went on behind the unfriendly face. He knew that Dun- 
 stable's conduct was reacting upon Miss Nevern. Miss 
 Nevern, he could not fail to see, had turned once more to 
 him, David; and Dunstable was jealous. It was now, per- 
 haps, — though it was not David who thought this, — 
 that Theo began to be deliberately mischievous. . . . 
 
 Everybody was conscious of the overcharged state of the 
 atmosphere. An explosion seemed imminent. The girls 
 were all watching; the boys even; the Astonbury contin- 
 gent. There were no factions, for every one was on David's 
 side. , 
 
 The girls said to each other, "Mr. Dunstable really 
 isl" — hating him, yet because they hated him, secretly 
 attracted too — and therein, perhaps, throwing some sort 
 of light for us, howsoever dim it might be, upon Theo and 
 her attitude. The boys kept out of his way, and laughed at 
 him as much as they dared. They moved away sometimes 
 when he came near them. 
 
 The young men from Astonbury spoke to him as little 
 as possible, and spoke of him as Offensive: A Poisonous 
 Feller. 
 
 Mr. Dunstable in short was not popular, and David, 
 who had begun by incurring his displeasure, was; and 
 Theo Nevern, who had started the whole thing by her 
 thoughtlessness, — or perhaps not by anything of the sort, 
 — was being increasingly provoking. 
 
 "Theo!" Mrs. Tarpalin said. 
 
 "I know," said Theo. 
 
 "Then, Theo!" said Mrs. Tarpalin sharply. 
 
 But Theo was out of hand. ' 
 
 "I've a good mind to put off the performance alto- 
 gether," said Mfs. Tarpalin.
 
 322 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 And then Theo surprised her by saying plaintively that 
 she half wished she would. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpahn said no more then, but later she exchanged 
 exasperated looks with her son. 
 
 "I shall have to speak to Eric," she said. 
 
 "Shall I speak to him?" said Frank. "Shall I just tell 
 him this can't go on? Why should it go on? I could get 
 another Hastings. Merton could play Hastings, and I 
 could get some one else for Diggory. Why on earth should 
 we put up with Eric?" 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin did not answer this. "I've threatened 
 Theo," she said, " that we'll give up these theatricals once 
 for all if she goes on making trouble." 
 
 "Oh, you couldn't do that," said Frank quickly. 
 "Half the seats are sold. You absolutely could n't. Think 
 of old Harrowby. Besides, there's the Hospital. Besides, 
 we're jolly well not going to give up anything just on 
 Eric's account." 
 
 "It is Theo, you know," Mrs. Tarpalin said. "I have 
 spoken to her twice." 
 
 " I know," said Frank. "What the dickens she's up to! 
 It certainly is n't Penstephen's fault." 
 
 " No, indeed it is n't," said Mrs. Tarpalin warmly. " I 'm 
 full of admiration for him. I think his forbearance is per- 
 fectly wonderful." 
 
 "Well, shall I speak to Eric?" 
 
 "No, no; that would n't do. That would mean a row at 
 once, and it's just a row that I want to avoid. If anybody 
 does, I will. I 'd better, I suppose. I think I will." 
 
 But she did not. 
 
 And David knew that they were all watching. The re- 
 hearsals were now a strain upon his nerves. If his brief 
 acquaintance with Miss Nevern had not enabled him to 
 understand something of the reason for the grudge which 
 Dunstable bore him, he must, he thought, have given up 
 his part. This, on the one hand, and the knowledge that
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 323 
 
 the sympathies of the company were with him, on the 
 other, combined — opposed reasons as in a sense they 
 were! — to sustain him. 
 
 That night, after a particularly trying day, both Colo- 
 nel and Mrs. Tarpalin took him aside to thank him for 
 what each of them called his perfectly splendid perform- 
 ance, but what he knew, with a flush of gratitude for both 
 in turn, meant something else. They knew that he was 
 trying to keep the peace. They wanted him to know that 
 they knew, and that they appreciated his efforts. 
 
 " I don't know what we should do without you," Colonel 
 Tarpalin said. 
 
 "And you've anything but an easy part," was Mrs. 
 Tarpalin's comment. 
 
 " I like that boy more and more," Mrs. Tarpalin said to 
 Frank, and Frank told David. 
 
 Somehow, David said to himself before he fell asleep, 
 somehow, — however difficult it should prove, — just 
 somehow, he would contrive to carry the fragile thing 
 called peace through to the end.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The next day there was no rehearsal. Frank Tarpalin had 
 said that his company must have exercise and air. His 
 company, nothing loth, had agreed that it must have exer- 
 cise and air. Mrs. Tarpalin said that she for her part had 
 said so all along. 
 
 So they all spent a delightful day of idleness, and even 
 put the play out of their minds. Eric Dunstable was con- 
 nected with the play, and they certainly all wanted to put 
 him out of their minds. Extraordinary the difference his 
 absence made! Mrs. Tarpalin went about the house hum- 
 ming In the Gloaming (a survival), or The Miller and the 
 Maid, or For Ever and For Ever. A weight seemed to be 
 lifted from every one's mind. The boys 'ragged' (as we 
 should say now) on the lawn. The girls put on their boots 
 early and ragged with them. The ragging turned into a 
 game of rounders in which even Colonel Tarpalin joined. 
 Theo became normal at once — if Theo could be said ever 
 to be quite normal — and devoted herself to her host. 
 \ "Goodness, what children," Mrs. Tarpalin said. 
 
 She had come out from her hummings to know what 
 they all wanted to do. There had been talk at breakfast, 
 but nothing settled. She stood on the path, her laces flut- 
 tering, and shaded the sun from her eyes with one of her 
 small fat hands. 
 
 "Now, attend to me, please. I've my housekeeping to 
 think of and I must know what to order. Is it to be the 
 big waggonette and a picnic luncheon, or Shrewsbury by 
 train and luncheon at the William and Mary, or what? I 
 want to shew Mr. Penstephen something of the country. 
 He has n't been here before and he must n't go back to 
 London and say that we shewed him nothing. Now, tell 
 me. No, put it to the vote."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 325 
 
 The big waggonette carried the day. 
 
 "Very well, we'll start in about an hour. Will that suit 
 you all? Half-past eleven, then. And, like dear people, be 
 ready. No, indeed, I won't play rounders!" 
 
 She went back to the house humming again. 
 
 The day was a holiday, nothing less; but a holiday not 
 from work, but from a person. 
 
 Colonel Tarpalin with Theo beside him drove the wag- 
 gonette, and Frank the supplementary dog-cart. It was 
 Mrs. Tarpalin who suggested that her husband should 
 drive, perhaps because she knew that he would then in- 
 vite Theo to the box seat. David she placed next to her- 
 self. But she had not, indeed, any fear of Theo that day. 
 Everybody was going to be good. 
 
 David experienced again the sense of well-being that 
 had marked the day of his arrival. He had, once more, not 
 a care in the world. Just occasionally the thought of Dun- 
 stable came to remind him that the respite of the pleasant 
 hours was but temporary — a marking of time — but his 
 spirits were too buoyant to be greatly affected by this. 
 Every moment took him farther, he knew, from White 
 Alban, where the disturber of his peace might be thought of 
 as anchored for that day at least. Nothing, then, marred 
 the hours. 
 
 In later years, when David looked back, this picnic in 
 the hills stood out from more important events. It always 
 seemed to him to mark the end of his boyhood. On the 
 other side of it were quite a number of things, connected or 
 disconnected, which never entirely came over to this side 
 of it — things as connected, say, as books and pictures 
 and plays, and as disconnected as a certain sort of match- 
 box sold then in the streets, and the songs which Mrs. Tar- 
 palin had sung and did hum. Actually, of course, the line 
 was not so arbitrary. People continued to read Ouida, to
 
 326 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 admire " Little Mrs. Gamp," and to be satisfied with what 
 were known as Pally Roy'l farces for many years after Mrs. 
 Tarpalin's picnic; the elastic-flapped box of wax matches 
 continued to be sold and bought, and there were singers 
 for songs addressed to Darlings — Oh, my darling! — and 
 concerned with hearts Crushed with Longing, or Cursed 
 with Thoughts ; or songs telling of Silver Rivers and Storms 
 of Fate : or, very pleasantly, of Millers and Maids. But the 
 fashion of these, with the photographs of the Professional 
 Beauties of then (and now), and Bishops (of then), and 
 Actresses (of then), in the shop windows, belonged to 
 David's boyhood; and if he would have us believe that on 
 a particular day a clean sweep was made of the pictures of 
 the nuns with raised eyes, and ladies beside tea-tables, or 
 ladies in snow-storms, it is only that these at some time or 
 other undoubtedly did give place to others, and that these 
 are sacred to the days before the picnic, when he was still 
 a schoolboy and gave them his ardent worship. 
 
 Yes, when David looked back. . . . 
 
 No motors then, no tubes or taxis; no telephones; no 
 aeroplanes or submarines — and no apparent need for any 
 one of these or of many other of Time's many inventions. 
 And, for David, hardly anybody dead. Did nobody die 
 when you and the world were younger? Only people like 
 Sir Joseph and his son, it seemed; people whom you did n't 
 know, or did n't know well; very few people according to 
 David — very few that you cared for. 
 
 Wonderful days, the days of the years before Mrs. Tar- 
 palin's picnic in the hills. All the people who mattered were 
 alive then — and for many years after: Nelly Farren, 
 Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 David's heart often ached when he looked back. 
 
 And the picnic which made the dividing line? Nothing 
 particular about this picnic — nothing much, perhaps, in 
 the way of a picnic — nothing happened at it, anyway, to 
 mark it from any other. A hostess to amuse her guests
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 327 
 
 takes them up a hill to eat their mid-day meal out of doors 
 and admire the view. If we picture them rightly we shall 
 see them as a Punch drawing by du Maurier, in the gar- 
 ments of the early eighties, with David (for his good looks) 
 and Theo (for hers) easily recognisable. Colonel Tarpalin, 
 Mrs. Tarpalin, Frank, Welwyn, the boys — we may see 
 them all as du Mauriers. 
 
 The luncheon was excellent. Mrs. Tarpalin, who had so 
 often to arrange shooting luncheons, understood exactly 
 what you liked to eat out of doors : what you liked hot and 
 what you liked cold; what you liked to drink, were you 
 man, matron, or maid; and nothing was forgotten. 
 
 David wished his mother could see the view over which 
 his eyes ranged. 
 
 "Yes, Shropshire where you 're looking," Frank told him 
 as he put his questions. "Now, turn. Wales. What, never 
 been to Wales? This must be seen to, my son." 
 
 David would have liked to dip down into the rich valley 
 then and there. 
 
 "We'll do a walking tour, you and I, some day, shall 
 we?" 
 
 "You may safely promise, Mr. Penstephen," Mrs. Tar- 
 pahn said to him — "if Frank's in it, it will not be a walk- 
 ing tour." 
 
 "Well, a driving tour," said Frank. "By Jove, we will. 
 Dolgelly, Barmouth — there 's a road for you ! You '11 
 find it difficult to beat with all your travelling! Yes, and 
 before that the country up in the hills by Dinas Mawddy, 
 or by Machynlleth. By Jove, David Penstephen, we will." 
 
 "We will," said David, smiHng. 
 
 "Isn't it horrid to hear them arranging what they're 
 going to do?" said Emma Blake to Lucy Aylmer. "Why 
 can't we go walking tours or driving tours!" 
 
 "We will," said Theo. "Why should n't we?" 
 '^ So they chattered happily. A marking of time! 
 
 After luncheon the party broke up in twos and threes.
 
 328 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Frank Tarpalin and Theo, David and Lucy Aylmer, went 
 together for a walk; the other young people disposed of 
 themselves in one way or another, and Colonel and Mrs. 
 Tarpalin seized the opportunity of calling on some ac- 
 quaintances in the neighbourhood, with whom they ex- 
 changed visits about once a year. At four o'clock the party 
 reassembled and drove home, stopping for tea, on the way, 
 at an inn where, by the forethought of their hostess as they 
 passed it that morning, the meal had been ordered to await 
 them. Nothing happened at tea. What should happen? 
 There were cakes and there was home-made bread, the 
 sort of bread that you cannot get now for money, and that 
 you can get very seldom for love. There were home-made 
 jams. Nothing happened that evening, when they danced 
 and when the girls of the party all fell in love with David 
 once more for his dancing. Nothing happened the next 
 day — which was Sunday. There was church ; there was 
 Sunday beef; there were walks; there was music in the 
 evening. Mrs. Tarpalin played Mendelssohn — some of 
 the Songs without Words; Emma Blake, Chopin — Noc- 
 turnes, a Prelude or two. Lucy Aylmer sang Absent yet 
 Present (with perfect modesty), and Welwyn The Midship- 
 mite, and, pressed for something with a chorus, We 'II all 
 go a-hunting to-day. 
 
 David denied that he sang. But he had sung at Glee 
 Club concerts at school, and Frank Tarpalin was there to 
 give him away. He sang Way down upon the Suwanee River ^ 
 and the chorus was taken up by the rest — Mrs. Tarpalin 
 singing out of tune under the impression that she was sing- 
 ing second. Then he gave Wrap me up in my old Stable 
 Jacket, and Theo Nevern looked at him. 
 
 " Wrap me up in my old stable jacket 
 And say a poor buffer lies low, lies low, 
 And six stalwart lancers shall carry me 
 With steps solemn, silent, and slow." 
 
 To think of the young singer lying low gave you a deli- 
 cious stab at your heart. It must be you only who min-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 329 
 
 istered to him. You must be the one to hold the cup to the 
 clean young lips, to lay a cool hand on the burning fore- 
 head and smooth the hair back — with such tenderness as 
 you knew that you alone had it in you to apply. It must 
 be you who bent over him, straining to catch the failing 
 words; you, when the young spirit fled, who closed the 
 fading eyes. . . . 
 
 You also wanted to be one of the six stalwart lancers who 
 carried him. . . . 
 
 And you wanted to love them too for loving him. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin, pleasantly moved, herself, in a middle- 
 aged way, was not certain that, when Theo for two whole 
 days had been so good, it had been wise to press the al- 
 ready sufficiently disturbing David to sing. The evening 
 of the second day of respite closed on a dangerous note of 
 sentiment. 
 
 Theo Nevern was really rather unaccountable. For Eric 
 Dunstable, who was the blind agent of fate, there is less 
 need to account. We may suppose him in his ungracious 
 way to be indeed suffering acutely, and be sorry for him if 
 we can. Theo could make you jealous we know, and Theo 
 had made him desperately jealous. He had nothing else 
 against David when he met him, it is certain. We may 
 doubt whether he was conscious of David in the railway 
 carriage. He was a selfish traveller, that is all. David's 
 dislike of him then had been instinctive, perhaps even in 
 a measure prophetic. He knew nothing of David till the 
 day of the picnic, when, at a loose end at White Alban, he 
 went out for a drive with his aunt. Lady Harbington, and 
 the carriage took Astonbury on its way home. 
 
 It chanced that the bills announcing the coming theat- 
 ricals were out that day, and as they passed the theatre 
 they saw them. Now, Mr. Dunstable was never ill-tem- 
 pered with his great relation, but Lady Harbington, during 
 this drive, was finding some little difficulty in entertaining 
 him. She had left Miss Dunstable, her companion and dis-
 
 330 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 tant connection, at home that day, because she knew that 
 Miss Dunstable (who was certainly very tiresome) bored 
 him. Miss Dunstable, whom we may remember as having 
 been with her at Brussels and Homburg, was his connec- 
 tion also, but he allowed himself to shew occasional ill- 
 temper to her. 
 
 Lady Harbington had not changed very materially in 
 the nine or ten years which had turned David from a little 
 boy into a young man. She was a little more rouged, per- 
 haps, than formerly, but was not very perceptibly older. 
 Allowing for alterations in the fashions we see her in much 
 the same sort of clothes. She still wore cuffs, for instance, 
 fastened with large jet solitaires on which there was a de- 
 vice in diamonds. She wore the same heavy bracelets and 
 brooches. She did not (in the summer) wear primrose- 
 coloured gloves or carry quite the same sort of parasol, but 
 she had never got beyond shining kid as a covering for her 
 hands, and when she used a parasol she carried it in a way 
 peculiar to the day when parasols had the long silk fringes 
 of the sixties and seventies. 
 
 "Oh, there," she said, hoping to interest her rather dif- 
 ficult nephew, "is the notice of your performance. Would 
 you like to stop and look at it?" 
 
 Mr. Dunstable did not particularly want to stop, but 
 his aunt had called to the footman and given her direction. 
 There was a bill on one of the pillars of the portico. Lady 
 Harbington and her nephew could read this from the car- 
 riage. It announced that on the evening of the 19th Jan- 
 uary, under the Distinguished Patronage of a list of names 
 which included that of the august lady who now read it, 
 there would be given a Performance of Oliver Goldsmith's 
 Comedy, She Stoops to Conquer, in aid of the funds of the 
 Astonbury Hospital. The Following Ladies and Gentle- 
 men were kindly giving their Services, 
 
 Lady Harbington, reading half aloud, paused at David's 
 name. 
 
 " Penstephen," she said.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 33i 
 
 "He plays Young Marlow," said her nephew. 
 
 "I wonder what Penstephen," she said, thoughtfully, 
 but also rather absently. 
 
 "I don't know. A school-fellow of Frank Tarpalin's. He 
 played the part in the school theatricals. A son of Sir 
 Somebody Penstephen, I believe." 
 
 "The Ettringham Penstephens, then. I don't know that 
 there are any others. Really. A son of John Penstephen, 
 the present man." 
 
 "Yes, that's it. Sir John Penstephen. I forget who said 
 so." 
 
 "Really. A son of John Penstephen. There were two 
 children, I think, and one of them was a boy. Yes, a boy 
 and a girl, I fancy. Really! A son of John Penstephen!" 
 
 "Do you know him?" 
 
 " I know all about him," said Lady Harbington, and said 
 no more just then. 
 
 But presently she was pouring out her story, and, for the 
 duration at least of the rest of the drive, she found no dif- 
 ficulty in entertaining her difficult nephew. 
 
 "The manager quite saw," she said. "I was very firm. 
 I knew Joseph Penstephen's father, you see, this man's 
 uncle, and the whole circumstances — though for that 
 matter it was an open scandal and everybody knew. They 
 had, of course, to live abroad." 
 
 "And they went?" 
 
 "At once," said Lady Harbington. 
 
 "And that wasn't all," she added, and proceeded to 
 tell him of the rescue of Katinka. 
 
 "The father behaved altogether properly and was very 
 grateful to me, poor man, for telling him. Such a dangerous 
 influence for a young girl. I dare say she would never have 
 got over it. I was not, I may say, so pleased with the girl 
 herself." 
 
 Her nephew's eyebrows questioned, perhaps. 
 
 "Oh, she had attached herself to the children and in- 
 deed to the children's mother too, who I dare say had got
 
 332 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 round her. She, the — er — the children's mother, was 
 not, I am bound to say, the sort of woman — to look at — 
 that you'd quite expect. She was a quiet-looking person 
 — rather well-bred in appearance — and not, I believe, 
 badly born. But that, as I said to Harriet Dunstable, only 
 made it so much the worse. It was one of those distressing 
 cases which oblige one to take a firm stand." 
 
 "And this is the son." 
 
 "Yes, the natural son. There was another, I think, born 
 after they married. Oh, yes, they married eventually. You 
 see the cousin died and John succeeded, so I suppose they 
 thought it time to gather up what shreds of respectability 
 were left to them, and make at least a show of decency by 
 putting things right in the sight of the law." 
 
 "What people!" was Eric Dunstable's comment, and it 
 must be conceded that the case for David's family, as it 
 was put by the great lady who sat so complacently in judg- 
 ment upon it, did not make for admiration. 
 
 That was all, just then. 
 
 But Eric Dunstable began to think, and Eric Dunstable 
 was already very sore. 
 
 He heard his aunt telling her companion when she got 
 home, and Miss Dunstable, tumbling over herself to show 
 exactly the right sort of sympathetic interest, making her 
 inept exclamations and remarks. 
 
 "Down here!" Miss Dunstable said. "Down here! 
 You don't say so!" 
 
 " I am saying so. I'm telling you." 
 
 " I know, dear, but Astonbury, and acting in these very 
 theatricals!" 
 
 "V/ell, whynot?" 
 
 "But with you as one of the patronesses." 
 
 Miss Dunstable seemed to think Lady Harbington's 
 sacred name profaned. 
 
 "Well, my goodness, Harriet, the wretched young man's 
 done nothing."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 333 
 
 "No, dear, I know, but I think you ought to have been 
 told. You might n't have quite hked it. I don't think it was 
 quite right of Mrs. Tarpalin. Of course, as you say, one 
 would n't condemn the poor young man; but with such a 
 history — " 
 
 Miss Dunstable, who was much more than ten years 
 older than when we caught our last glimpse of her at Hom- 
 burg, was like a dog with a bone. 
 
 Lady Harbington said, "Stuff!" — and went up to her 
 room to the hands of her two maids, and Miss Dunstable 
 took her bone to Eric. 
 
 "Your aunt is almost too charitable," she said. "She's 
 so unfailingly kind, is n't she! But these people defied 
 opinion. You can't do that with impunity, and the in- 
 nocent have always to suffer for the guilty. I can't think 
 it quite right of Mrs. Tarpalin, though your aunt is her 
 husband's tenant." 
 
 Eric Dunstable, almost as unceremoniously as Lady 
 Harbington herself, said, "Rot ! " — the masculine equiva- 
 lent, perhaps, for her more elegant "Stuff." 
 
 But Miss Dunstable, who was accustomed to being 
 snubbed, was, to all intents and purposes, impervious to 
 snubbings. She worried away at her bone, and in the end 
 succeeded in detaching something from its apparent bare- 
 ness. 
 
 "What I chiefly feel is that it is n't fair on the others. 
 Theatricals are what I call such intimate things. One 
 really wonders whether they quite know." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Eric. 
 
 "Well, people are so much thrown together in theatricals 
 — meeting every day for rehearsals and all that, and even 
 having to make love to each other, though I believe, of 
 course, that on the stage itself they don't really — well, 
 really kiss. Still, even to pretend to. And if there were 
 any entanglements, how dreadful it would be — the 
 young man so — so out of the question ! I really do 
 think—"
 
 334 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 Eric Dunstable was angry enough to be able to snub 
 still. 
 
 "What absolute nonsense!" he said. "Why, he's a boy. 
 Has n't left school yet. A mere schoolboy." 
 
 "He must be growing up," said Miss Dunstable. "And 
 if he's old enough to act ..." 
 
 "What girls are acting?" she asked presently. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said Eric. 
 
 "There's Theodore Nevern, anyway," said the persist- 
 ent old woman. 
 
 But this she said to the back of his head, for he had 
 lunged away from her and was making for the empty 
 library. 
 
 He might be angry with his tiresome relation, but what 
 she had said, coming, as it did, on top of what he had just 
 learnt, did most furiously give him to think! So this was 
 who (and what) the Young Marlow that they were all 
 making so much of at Red Alban turned out to be! It was 
 with this nameless offspring of a shameful and shameless 
 intrigue that Theo Nevern made counterfeit love in the 
 traffic of the stage; went for walks that kept her late for 
 rehearsal; spent, he was sure of it, most of her time! 
 
 His anger underwent a change. He had been angry with 
 David before, but only as he might have been angry with 
 any one else in whom she chose to show an interest. Now 
 however, a new element had entered into his wrath which 
 not only changed it, but caused it to boil up afresh. He was 
 the vehicle of a righteous, a justified anger. He saw David 
 now as an undesirable — some one whom Theo ought to 
 avoid, with whom she ought not to be thrown into contact, 
 and, above all, he saw him as one who ought not to pre- 
 sume to approach her. 
 
 His aunt came into the room, and — exactly as Emma 
 Blake had done at Red Alban — took a book from a table. 
 But she, unlike Miss Blake, was to find what she wanted. 
 He heard her turning over the pages.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 335 
 
 "Yes, here it is," she said; "just as I thought." 
 
 She took the volume across to him and bent over him 
 as he read. 
 
 "Yes, born the year after we heard of them at Hom- 
 burg — quite a young child, you see. Not a word of this 
 David that you speak of. They were only married the year 
 Sir Joseph died." 
 
 " I wonder if Mrs. Tarpalin knows." 
 
 "Oh, of course she knows. They're well-known people, 
 the Penstephens. Every one knew at the time." 
 
 " I wonder if he knows." 
 [ "Colonel Tarpalin?" 
 
 "No; I meant the chap himself — this David Pen- 
 stephen." * 
 
 Lady Harbington gave a little laugh and settled her 
 striped linen cuffs. 
 
 "My dear, of course he knows," she said. 
 
 And that, like the gentle looks and the good-breeding of 
 David's mother, which had been held to make her conduct 
 but so much the more reprehensible, did very naturally 
 make the case and conduct of David — whom Eric's 
 cousin, all ignorant of what he concealed, actually met 
 upon equal terms! — more outrageous, more flagrant, 
 still. 
 
 "He holds up his head," Eric Dunstable thought — 
 "has the damned cheek to hold up his head!" 
 
 This David certainly did, and — if, on our knowledge of 
 him, we may now venture to predict — always would do.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 "The more one thinks of it . . ." said Eric Dunstable to 
 himself that night, and "The more one thinks of it . . ." 
 he said to himself when he woke in the morning. 
 
 The long dull Sunday at White Alban did not help to 
 stop his thinking or to soothe him. All day his thoughts 
 strayed to Red Alban where Theo was, and where this 
 David Penstephen, as he called himself, was too. It was 
 monstrous; a scandalous thing; intolerable that the fellow 
 should go about unlabelled. When he thought of Theo ex- 
 posed to his nearness, he set his teeth. Harriet Dunstable, 
 who was an old fool and whom he had never known to be 
 right about anything, was right for once in her life. The 
 more, yes, the more one thought of it. . . ., 
 
 He came back and came back to a phrase the very in- 
 completeness of which made its adequacy. 
 
 He went to church in Astonbury with his aunt and her 
 companion, and, going and coming, heard what more they 
 had to tell him of the Penstephen scandal, as, with reten- 
 tive memories, they were able to recall it. He may have 
 been a little disappointed to hear that there had never 
 existed any obstacle to the marriage of David's parents. 
 That shattered his first conception of their alliance as a 
 vulgar intrigue. But as his aunt or old Harriet pointed out, 
 Atheism was so much more dreadful than any other plea 
 or motive could possibly have been. 
 
 "Are they Atheists?" 
 
 " I don't know whether they called themselves that. All 
 I know is that John Penstephen in his writings — which 
 I need n't say I never read — denied the authority of Holy 
 Scripture, of Divine Revelation generally. I remember one 
 phrase which I did read, and which he took, most incon- 
 sistently as I thought, from the Bible itself to justify the
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 337 
 
 course he was taking. 'Male and female created He them.' 
 He actually quoted that in what I should call his defence! 
 Just as if it was n't because we are males and females that 
 the holy ordinance of marriage was instituted." 
 
 "It was all disgraceful," contributed Miss Dunstable. 
 
 "And they had to live abroad." 
 
 "Naturally, nobody could know them." 
 
 "And if it was conviction, why did they marry eventu- 
 ally?" 
 
 That was what poor Mary, calm now, waiting for the 
 blow to fall, had never ceased to ask herself. Yet, since 
 marriage had been a concession to her own weakness, she 
 knew only too well why they had married. Lady Harbing- 
 ton summed up the case against her unanswerably. 
 
 "Shall you go?" asked Miss Dunstable now. 
 
 "Go? Go where?" 
 
 "To these theatricals?" 
 
 "Why not, pray?" 
 
 "I thought perhaps you would feel it looked like coun- 
 tenancing — " 
 
 There was the silence that shewed that Miss Dunstable, 
 after being fairly sensible, had said something silly. 
 
 To the persons at Red Alban who were directly or indi- 
 rectly concerned in the fortunes of David, the break which 
 had come as a relief in the rehearsals was all too short. 
 More than ever Frank Tarpalin regretted having asked 
 Eric Dunstable to act. It was insufferable that David 
 should be subjected to annoyance; insufferable — David 
 apart — that what had been designed as an amusement 
 should be turned into a penance. He was very loth to have 
 what he called a row with any one of his company, but by 
 Monday morning he had quite made up his mind that if 
 Dunstable gave them any more of his nonsense, Dunstable 
 should go. He knew exactly whose the fault was, but, even 
 to spare Theo, he could not allow the tension, of which 
 every one was so painfully conscious, to continue. He did
 
 338 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 not speak of his determination to his mother, who, he 
 knew, would have tried to dissuade him from taking ac- 
 tion, but it certainly enabled him to face the difficulties 
 that were possibly in store for him. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin, upon her part, had, though he did not 
 know it, come to a like decision. She had decided that on 
 the least provocation she would herself speak to Eric. She 
 did not share her son's intention of telling him to go. She 
 meant to take him aside and * have it out with him.' It was 
 clearly useless to speak to the privileged Theo. Mrs. Tar- 
 palin thought she could be trusted to manage Eric Dun- 
 stable (much as she disliked him), and, on this assumption 
 only, felt able, like the exercised Frank, to face the new 
 day. 
 
 David woke on that morning with the feelings of a boy 
 who has enjoyed an exeat and has to go back to school. He 
 was really suffering very considerably by reason of the un- 
 pleasant Dunstable's animosity. If his conscience had been 
 quite clear as to his own share in what he believed to have 
 caused it, he would, he thought, have spoken, himself, to 
 his enemy. It would have been quite easy to ask what he 
 had done, if he had done nothing. A few reasonable words 
 to him could not have failed to ease the situation which his 
 hostility had brought about. But there was Miss Nevern, 
 and David knew only too well what his offence was. He 
 had certainly had no intention to offend; but he had done 
 so, and he understood not only the nature of the offence 
 he had given, but the nature of the feelings it had aroused. 
 
 He could not, then, make any appeal to Dunstable for 
 the truce during rehearsals which would have been so un- 
 speakable a boon, not to himself alone, but to every one else. 
 
 As he dressed he foresaw the renewal of the strain under 
 which his nerves had laboured, and he did not look for- 
 ward to the hours that were before him without some mis- 
 giving. 
 
 Miss Nevern joined him on the stairs as he went down to 
 breakfast. She had some violets tucked into her belt, and
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 339 
 
 she looked as fresh as the sparkHng morning, and as gentle 
 as the flowers she wore. As he had wondered what went on 
 behind the sullen face of Eric Dunstable, so now, as he saw 
 her, he wondered suddenly what she really thought and 
 felt about everything — about anything? He looked back 
 with increasing wonder to the curious nature of their first 
 meeting. Never since then had their relations with each 
 other touched even the fringe of the same intimacy. He 
 could perhaps in his heart be glad that they had not done 
 so, but he was nevertheless perplexed. All he knew was 
 that the influence of Dunstable, who was then but a name 
 to him, had yet been over the strange moments, making 
 them more strange, and in some odd way foreshadowing 
 the days that were to follow. With the recollection of his 
 first impressions of her, he looked at Miss Nevern now. 
 He, it was probable, was an open book to her, but she to 
 him was secret, veiled, inscrutable. What went on behind 
 the soft, shining eyes? 
 
 But Theo Nevern was destined to remain a mystery to 
 David. For him she was to be Woman, the Eternal Mys- 
 tery. Afterwards he was never able to determine what mo- 
 tives had inspired her actions, or even whether she had 
 consciously had any motives for some of them. Was she 
 friend or foe? Did she or did she not care for Eric Dun- 
 stable? Had she or had she not a plan? Was her way with 
 him, David, calculated with regard to Dunstable? 
 
 As if to silence the questions he did not ask, she took 
 some of the violets from her belt and gave them to him. 
 
 He took her offering, nothing doubting. 
 
 So, in an atmosphere once more charged with electricity, 
 the company assembled to the first rehearsal of the new 
 week. 
 
 David wore Theo's violets — a dozen of them, perhaps, 
 — thrust, unfastened, their stalks hanging, into his but- 
 tonhole. Theo wore their brothers and sisters — a couple
 
 34o| DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 of score, maybe, with a few leaves — at her waist. A di- 
 vided bunch of violets — so small a thing to have so dis- 
 turbing a power! It may be said that Eric when he ar- 
 rived saw nothing else ; or that what else and whom else he 
 saw — from the music-room itself, with its furniture, to 
 Theo, David, Mrs. Tarpalin, Frank, and the other actors 
 — he saw only in the light of that broken bunch. There 
 were two bunches; there was one bunch. When he looked 
 (without looking) from David to Theo, his eye ran along a 
 violet thread looping from the one to the other. When he 
 looked (in the same way) from Theo to David, the patch of 
 colour which he had left at her waist reappeared glowing 
 over David's left breast. The two were thus isolated for 
 him, always, from the others, and, wherever they were, 
 close or even apart, linked, bound, entwined. In thought 
 he could not get away from the empurpled strands. As the 
 two wearers moved they were everywhere, crossing you 
 this way and that, like floating cobwebs on a summer's 
 evening, in the flimsy nothingnesses of which you entangle 
 yourself as you walk. Or the purple patches — red was 
 mingled with the blue for him — flashed messages by pur- 
 ple rays as from purple lamps, or sent or received them by 
 invisible wires. . . . 
 
 The rehearsal proceeded. Now Marlow and Hastings, 
 the friends, were together on the stage; now Marlow and 
 Kate, the lovers. Every time the separated violets came 
 near to each other, every time Marlow and Kate touched, 
 the wretched Eric could have cried out. 
 
 Again every one was watching. 
 
 "He can hardly hold himself," Lucy Aylmer whispered 
 to Emma Blake. 
 
 "You know, there'll be a row," one of the Astonbury 
 men said to Tony Lumpkin. 
 
 Frank Tarpalin's pencil tapped the script restlessly. 
 Nothing had happened that he could 'take hold of.' He 
 tapped the script unconsciously, but as one who ticks off 
 seconds.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 341 
 
 Mrs, Tarpalin sighed from time to time. Her foot moved 
 much in the same way as the stage-manager's pencil. Now 
 and then she changed her position. A little rustling sound 
 came from her as her foot tapped a footstool. Her face 
 showed no strain — only her occasional sighs and the little 
 movements spoke to her uneasiness. Frank spun out a scene 
 between Hastings and Miss Neville, when it came. Safety 
 for the moment was reached there. Only the second pair 
 of lovers were on the stage. Respite — if Theo, who was 
 unconsciousness itself, should not chance to join David in 
 the audience. . . . 
 
 But she did join him. 
 
 Now, if there was a thing that David, as a sensitive, 
 thoughtful, and understanding actor, never did do, it was 
 to talk while his fellow-actors were acting. Nothing so dis- 
 turbing to the player at his work as the sound (and the 
 sight) of conversation in progress amongst those near 
 enough to come within the range of his consciousness. In 
 the theatre, it is true, there can seldom be silence. Lucky 
 at rehearsals if there be not hammerings, or at least the 
 muffled shaking thuds of distant hammerings! There is 
 always a murmur. But the stage is separated as by a gulf 
 from the auditorium, and your fellow-artists, who are prob- 
 ably seated behind you or on one side of you, are not, as in 
 even so large a room as the music-room at Red Alban, just 
 under your nose. 
 
 It was Theo who talked — actually, so far as Eric Dun- 
 stable was concerned, it was probably the violets! David 
 did no more than answer. He was watching the scene — 
 appreciating, indeed, if Dunstable could have known it, 
 Dunstable's easy handling of it, for the disagreeable young 
 man was a very clever and even agreeable actor. There was 
 the most subdued whisper of voices. Frank Tarpalin be- 
 came conscious of it through the Hastings on the stage be- 
 fore he noted it with his ears of a stage-manager. 
 
 Hastings's hands were moving as Frank Tarpalin's pen- 
 cil had been moving; as Mrs. Tarpalin's foot had moved.
 
 342 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 His body as he stood by Miss Neville had something of 
 rigidity. The ease of his carriage was gone. 
 
 "Take that a little quicker, Miss Neville, and come a 
 little more forward. No, that's too much. There, yes, 
 that's it exactly. Now, again, if you don't mind." 
 
 Frank Tarpalin looked round as he spoke, the script and 
 pencil in his hand. Theo Nevern, in quite a harmless mat- 
 ter-of-fact way, was tidying-up the violets in David's but- 
 tonhole; collecting their straggling stalks together and 
 fastening them with a pin. 
 
 "Isn't that better?" he heard her say; and he heard 
 David say, "Yes, much better, probably. Thank you." 
 
 Hastings on the stage did not look in their direction. 
 He held himself stiffly and gave the cue once more. But 
 to him, above the subdued murmur, the violets seemed to 
 be shouting. A moment and the whole room would be 
 shouting. What would it be exactly that would precipitate 
 the commotion? He even asked himself this, conscious of 
 what was dangerous in himself. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin's foot began to move again. She cleared 
 her throat and shifted her position. Frank's pencil began 
 to tap. The others as before — all except, apparently, Theo 
 and David — became conscious of menace. 
 
 Miss Neville spoke her speech again. Hastings should 
 have answered. 
 
 Theo said something to David. 
 
 David answered with a whispered monosyllable. 
 
 Theo whispered again. 
 
 David shook his head or nodded. 
 
 Theo gave a little laugh — aloud. It fell on a dead 
 silence. 
 
 This silence, tense as the silence after lightning, while 
 you wait, your breath held, perhaps, for the thunder that 
 will crash about your ears and deafen you, lasted for a 
 moment. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin gave a little gasp. Frank moved forward 
 a step or two. Eric Dunstable, his face livid, had stepped
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 343 
 
 to the front of the space which was marked off from the 
 rest of the room as the stage. 
 
 "It's impossible," he said, hardly able to articulate. 
 "Impossible! One can't — " He looked at Frank. "It's 
 — it 's absolutely impossible — a bit too much." He looked 
 at David. "Can't you stop talking? You," he said, "I 
 mean you, Mr." — he paused and looked steadily — 
 "whatever you call yourself." 
 
 David was on his feet. 
 
 "My name's Penstephen," he said quietly, "if you're 
 speaking to me." 
 
 "Is it!" 
 
 There was a deadly silence for a moment, in which some 
 meaning that he seemed to have, and that was not clear to 
 David, wrung a cry from Mrs. Tarpalin, and jerked a 
 "Good God!" out of Frank, who then sprang to him, 
 clutching him by the arm, shaking him. 
 
 "For God's sake, man," David, through the blood drum- 
 ming in his ears, heard him say huskily, "for God's sake, 
 remember yourself ! " 
 
 But Eric for the time being had lost all control of him- 
 self, and, through the Babel of voices that now rose, David 
 to his bewilderment heard him answer, as he shook off 
 Frank's arm, " I know what I 'm saying. I know what I 'm 
 saying. And you know too. As much right — " 
 
 Frank's hand was over his mouth. 
 
 What was it he was trying to prevent being said? What 
 was it that had been said? David's head was swimming. 
 Everybody seemed to be speaking. Theo, very white but 
 her eyes shining, was saying, "Besides, it was I who was 
 talking, not Mr. Penstephen. And I've absolutely done 
 with you, Eric. You're making an exhibition of yourself. 
 I 'm ashamed of you." 
 
 She, too, seemed to have said something with a meaning 
 for such as should understand. She was trembling and 
 turned to where David had been standing. But David was 
 not there.
 
 344 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 David was saying to Frank, "Get them away, will you, 
 or let us go out. I must speak to Mr. Dunstable alone." 
 
 "I'm ready," Dunstable said to David, breathing hard. 
 
 "Shall we go, then?" said David. 
 
 But Mrs. Tarpalin had recovered herself. 
 
 "No," she said, very quietly, "I won't have that." 
 
 The girls, rather huddled together, — except Theo, who 
 stood apart, — were listening apprehensively. 
 
 Theo moved suddenly, and, eluding the others who 
 stretched out their hands to her, slipped from the room; 
 but not before she had given David a long clear look in 
 which many things seemed to be struggling for expression. 
 The boys and the young men from Astonbury were 
 waiting, ready to do anything that might be required of 
 them. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin addressed all these comprehensively. 
 "Will you wait for us here for a few minutes. Eric, will you 
 come with me, and Frank, and Mr. Penstephen." She led 
 the way from the room. She shut the door when they had 
 passed out, and said to Eric and Frank, "Will you go to 
 the library." 
 
 She watched them go, standing quite still, her hand de- 
 taining David till they had crossed the hall and the library 
 had received them. She drew David into the drawing-room. 
 But Theo was there. She was standing by the piano, still 
 trembling, David saw, but with something that puzzled 
 him in her eyes. She did not speak, but, as if divining Mrs. 
 Tarpalin's wishes, slipped out of this room also. Then Mrs. 
 Tarpalin turned to David. 
 
 "I want you not to come to the library," she said. 
 
 "But I must see him, Mrs, Tarpalin." 
 
 "I want you not to." 
 
 " I must know what he meant. I don't know what he 
 meant." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin's look seemed to say, "I know you don't. 
 I know you don't." 
 
 "Do you know what he meant?" David said suddenly.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 345 
 
 Thus challenged, Mrs. Tarpalin, without a moment's 
 hesitation, answered: — 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Penstephen, I do." 
 
 David's face grew white. 
 
 "Did the others know?" 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 " Do other people know — what it was that he meant? " 
 
 "Some must. Frank knew." 
 
 "You knew when you asked me to stay here? " 
 
 "Of course — as if it would make any difference." 
 
 "And I don't know," said David, very slowly. " I 'm the 
 one all the time who does n't know." 
 
 "Mr. Penstephen," said Mrs. Tarpalin desperately, 
 "will you wait for me here?" 
 
 "I must see him afterwards." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin shook her head. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "don't you see?" 
 
 But he shook his. 
 
 " I 'm making an appeal to you," she said at last. " If 
 you see him, you '11 fight. You 've had horrible provoca- 
 tion. I — I 'm Frank's mother, and I should even wish 
 you to. But I can't have it. I can't have it. Oh, my 
 dear boy, if you knew how I 'm on your side — how we all 
 are. I am unchristian enough to wish him thrashed as he 
 deserves. But I just can't have it. Now, will you wait 
 here?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll wait here," said David. "But," he added, 
 "I can't promise about afterwards." 
 
 " I '11 go to him, then. Shall I send Frank to you?" 
 
 "Yes," David said, " I '11 get him to tell me." 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin paused, hesitating. 
 
 "You would n't rather — that is, you don't think that 
 you ought to give your parents the opportunity — Oh, I 
 don't know how to say this. Ought n't they, perhaps, to 
 be consulted?" 
 
 "I don't think so," David said. "If it's something that 
 other people know, I think I ought to know it too.",
 
 346 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Very well," said Mrs. Tarpalin after a further pause. 
 "I'll send Frank to you." 
 
 David, left alone, went over to one of the windows and 
 looked out. As his blood cooled down he felt bewildered 
 and even partly stunned, but he experienced no feelings of 
 surprise. All the days of the years of his life seemed in a 
 way to have been leading up to this day. There had always 
 been something, and now he was to know what the some- 
 thing was. It would be the explanation, he knew, of all that 
 had ever happened to him — of such puzzlements as he 
 only dimly remembered. He had no fear. Everything 
 hitherto had fitted into its place in the unconsidered scheme 
 of his life, and knowledge, when he should have that too, 
 would just fit into its place like the rest. He still itched to 
 fight Dunstable, because, whatever the instrument to his 
 hand, Dunstable had used it like a cad; but in his heart he 
 knew that Dunstable himself had but been used as an in- 
 strument, and that Dunstable's own quarrel also was with 
 Fate and not man. Meanwhile he felt that he could have 
 done anything in the world for Mrs. Tarpalin. 
 
 What was happening in the library? The minutes passed. 
 The numbness left David, and left him restless. He re- 
 hearsed again and again the extraordinary scene in the 
 music-room, recalling what each voice had said, what each 
 speaker had looked like. He recalled the silences too. He 
 saw the huddle of the three girls. Miss Davenport, playing 
 Miss Neville, had somehow joined Miss Blake and Miss 
 Aylmer, though, when Dunstable had sprung his mine upon 
 the startled company, she had been on the stage with him. 
 He could see again the men and the boys exchanging 
 glances. He could hear deep breaths. Dunstable's tones 
 were clear in his ears. 
 
 "Whatever you call yourself ..." And, "I know what 
 I'm saying" (twice spoken, this); "And" (to Frank) 
 "you know too"; and the broken sentence, "about as
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 347 
 
 much right — " broken there by Frank's hand over his 
 mouth. . . . 
 
 And for background the calm brown room, with the long 
 windows, so like the long windows at home. Peace behind 
 storm. He thought of his mother. It was for her, he 
 knew, in defence of her, somehow, that he tingled to plant 
 his fist in Dunstable's insolent face. At that, with a sudden 
 catching of the breath, he thought of Theo and knew that 
 she had used him. 
 
 "One could strike him — be glad to see him struck — 
 in the face. His face is so — so insolent . . ." 
 
 He was pulled up short, and, like a horse dragged to his 
 haunches by the violence of a wrench at the bridle, sway- 
 ing, beating the air for lost balance, he felt the world swing 
 dizzily round him. 
 
 Yes, Theo had used him for her own purposes, yet, using 
 him, Theo too had been used. She no less than Dunstable 
 had been but an instrument in the hands that choose their 
 instruments blindly. If not this one, then another. He, 
 David, was to come by knowledge. This way or that. This 
 way or that. 
 
 So, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, 
 his mind worked as he waited. 
 
 Yet, when Frank came to him, David, outwardly, at 
 least, was the calmer of the two. On the subject of Dun- 
 stable it was Frank who found it difficult to contain him- 
 self. He did not try, indeed. Words exploded on his 
 indignant tongue. "But for once," he said, when he had 
 exhausted his vocabulary, " he 's heard the truth about him- 
 self, and if he ever comes to believe it, I don't envy him." 
 
 He shut his lips tightly. It was his hands that were 
 twitching, not David's. 
 
 "Never mind him," David said. " It is n't about him I 
 want to talk. I did n't know what he meant — that's my 
 trouble. I 've got to, Frank, and you've got to tell me."
 
 348 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Oh, he did n't know what he was saying," Frank said. 
 "He only wanted to be offensive. You were sitting next 
 Theo— " 
 
 "Yes, yes, but I've got to know," David said. "He 
 implied that I had no right to my name." 
 
 Frank was desperate now. 
 
 "Of course you've a right to it. It's your parents' 
 name, isn't it? I tell you, he was mad. He's a lunatic 
 — a raving lunatic, as well as a swine when he loses his 
 temper. I knew we should have rows. Good Lord, what 
 a fool I was!" 
 
 But David was not to be put off. 
 
 "Did he mean that my parents aren't married?" He 
 faced Frank squarely. "Are n't they married?" 
 
 "Yes, they are married. Of course they're married. Oh, 
 why do you go on like this?" 
 
 "They are!" Hope returned to him. "You know that 
 they are?" 
 
 "Of course they are. I could shew you. You could see 
 for yourself." 
 
 He did not follow this up, remembering. 
 
 "Then, what did he mean?" 
 
 As David himself had done once, long ago in Battersea 
 Park, Frank looked for a way of escape. 
 
 "Those wretched people waiting!" he said. " I must tell 
 them this rehearsal's put off — " 
 
 "Frank!" David put out his hand. 
 
 "Very well," said Frank. "But do, do forgive usf I'd 
 give a year of my life that this should n't have happened. 
 I don't know the whole story." 
 
 Stumbling and fumbling for words he told then what he 
 knew. 
 
 "There's nothing discreditable in it," he said as he 
 finished. "It was quite open and deliberate, as I under- 
 stand it. A question of views." 
 
 Frank was thinking that he would never forget David's 
 face. It was the face of some one listening dispassionately
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 349 
 
 but very Intently. He did not seem moved. He asked a 
 few questions. 
 
 Frank, driven, answered as he was able. 
 
 Yes or No, Yes or No, as the case might be. 
 
 "They married afterwards," he said at last. 
 
 "I see. After I was born." 
 
 David considered for a few moments. 
 
 "He was right, then. I have n't any particular claim to 
 my name." 
 
 "Oh," Frank said, "you made me tell you." 
 
 There was silence then, during which David thought 
 again, and Frank, setting his teeth, turned to the window. 
 
 Into the silence came the sound of a piano. The girls in 
 the music-room had some tact and sense. Emma Blake was 
 filling in the pause there — was making a diversion. It was 
 good of her. She was a silly sort of a girl, but she was being 
 very wise now. They were not all talking about David and 
 the awful * scene ' — that was the message of her playing. 
 He wanted to look round to see if David perceived it. But 
 David was standing quite still, and Frank could n't look 
 round. 
 
 Emma Blake was playing Chopin — the waltz which 
 Frank knew as George Sand's Little Dog (surely it ought 
 to be Kitten!) Running after his Tail. Her fingers flew 
 over the keys. On the whole she played very few wrong 
 notes. 
 
 Still silence. 
 
 What was keeping his mother in the library? What 
 could she be saying to Eric that he had not said? Not that 
 she could say what he had said ! She had only to tell the 
 fellow what she thought of him, and to ring for his horse 
 to be brought round. He listened for the sound of the open- 
 ing or shutting of a door, but he did not hear it. He could 
 only hear the piano and, paradoxically, David's silence. 
 
 At the back of his mind, behind his preoccupation, he was 
 trying to settle, to guess even, what was to be done. Could
 
 350 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 the theatricals be proceeded with at all? Eric was out of 
 them, that was one good thing, and his part could be filled 
 by Diggory, and for Diggory some one would easily be 
 found. Theo, Eric once gone, would no longer give trouble. 
 But David? Could David go on? Could it be expected of 
 him that he should? 
 
 He almost started when David spoke. 
 
 "You said you could shew me," David said, and Frank 
 felt as if that was of all things what he had been dreading 
 most to hear David say. 
 
 "Yes, of course," he said, but he did not move. 
 
 "Now?" said David. "Oh, I see. Of course I should n't 
 be there." 
 
 "It's odd, isn't it," he said presently, quite without 
 bitterness, "that I should never have looked myself 
 up." 
 
 "It shews how absolutely unsnobbish you are," said 
 Frank gruffly. 
 
 "I don't think I ever thought of it," said David. 
 
 There was silence again, and then David said: "But it 
 would give the date of the marriage, I suppose?" 
 
 "Oh," Frank cried explosively, "ought it to be me? 
 They have n't told you. They must have had their reasons 
 for not telling you." 
 
 It was the same thought as Mrs. Tarpalin's. 
 
 But David, too, had another thought, which, though he 
 did not know it, was strangely the same as another of Mrs. 
 Tarpalin's. 
 
 "No," he said, "you're wrong. They've been hoping 
 that some one would tell me. They 've even hoped that I 
 knew. I have only to look back to know that." 
 
 His voice shook for the first time. "I know now, that 
 I've seen my mother trying to tell me." 
 
 He turned away and walked up and down the room. 
 
 "There's one thing you've got to understand," he said, 
 struggling now to keep his voice steady. "My mother's 
 not — not to — to blame. She 's good. Nobody ever had
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 351 
 
 such a mother. Whatever she did she believed to be right. 
 No, it's more than that. Whatever she did was right." 
 
 Frank groaned. 
 
 "Oh, my dear chap," he said, "as if I thought — " He 
 turned away. "Oh, damn you," he said. 
 
 "All right," said David. He resumed his pacing. He 
 was piecing things together now. 
 
 Betsy and her Day of Rejoicing . . . Yes, and her Cake, 
 and her talk of cakes . . . Yes, and before that the picnics, 
 the singings, the white flowers. And the packing that had 
 been quite unlike other packings, and the grey dress and 
 something about pearl-coloured gloves; and things Betsy 
 had said, lamentations mingling with her rejoicings; di- 
 rections, too, that she had given. And things his mother 
 had said ... at the station . . . something about always 
 knowing that she loved them — they were always to know 
 that she loved them — and something in the way she had 
 looked at them, and the way she had held them. And some- 
 thing (before that) in the way Frau Finkel and the serv- 
 ants had waved to them — to his father and mother — 
 when they started ... 
 
 Oh, he knew. He had no need of books to help him. How 
 clear it was. How easily the pieces all fitted into the puzzle 
 once you had the key. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I believe I know exactly when. What 
 I don't know yet is why." 
 
 Poor Frank, who had thought the worst was over, felt 
 himself grow crimson. At the sight of him for one dreadful 
 moment David doubted. The colour mounted to his own 
 face, and ebbed, leaving it white. Then he gave what was 
 almost a shout of relief. 
 
 For, as on the evening of his arrival, across the long years 
 and out of the dimnesses which yet were not so dim but 
 that he could pierce them, there had come to him the vi- 
 sion of Frau Finkel, Betsy, and the waiting telegram: Frau 
 Finkel urging; Betsy going on with her work; the disputed
 
 352 
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 envelope just waiting. This time the vision had meaning. 
 All night that envelope, its contents unknown, had lain on 
 the nursery mantelpiece waiting his parents' return. 
 
 "They didn't know," he said. "They were married 
 before they knew, and that's all that matters." 
 
 "Oh, damn you," Frank said again, choking.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 No, on that memorable day when they had set out so mys- 
 teriously from Homburg, they had not known (and could 
 not have anticipated) the change that was imminent in 
 their fortunes. Two lives had stood then between them and 
 what David knew indeed to have been as uncoveted as it 
 was unforeseen. The injury which had been done to him by 
 the belated marriage seemed a small thing beside the shame 
 that would have been his if a mere change in their fortunes 
 had been enough to overthrow the beliefs (or unbeliefs) by 
 which they had lived, and for which his mother, at least, 
 had made her supreme sacrifice. But, whatever the ex- 
 planation of their marriage, it was not that. The conditions 
 which had allowed them not to marry, had been the same 
 conditions which had allowed them to marry. So much was 
 certain. He blessed Frau Finkel's inquisitive urgings and 
 Betsy's dignified obstinacy which had caused the telegram 
 to remain in his mind. 
 
 And David, piecing, piecing together, learnt more and 
 more, as the pattern of the great puzzle which was his life 
 declared itself. And as he pieced and pieced, collecting, 
 rejecting, selecting, discarding, the pattern, whatever the 
 intricacies of its whole design, began to show more and 
 more clearly the features of an enshrined portrait — the 
 portrait of his mother. When at length the picture stood 
 revealed, it reminded him, the many galleries he had seen 
 in the days of the wandering giving his thoughts colour 
 and form, of many Madonnas, many of the chosen Marys, 
 with or without the divine rays which he (and his mother) 
 knew as 'Annunciations,' but always with the haloes that, 
 by the same association, he had grown to think of as the 
 crowns that come by suffering.
 
 354 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 How his mother had suffered! As, by the light of his 
 newly gained knowledge, he looked back over the half- 
 remembered, half-forgotten days, he saw, for the first time, 
 into the meaning of them and could guess how she had suf- 
 fered. The light turned here and there, probing, searching. 
 To the steady ray brought thus to bear upon them, all the 
 little memories and impressions of his childhood yielded up 
 their secrets, — each secret a piece to fit presently into its 
 place with the rest. Nothing that had happened to him but 
 was seen newly; nor was it the keenness of the searchlight 
 only that made the shadows look so black. 
 
 So he searched and pieced, searched and pieced, and 
 came by further knowledge. Everything furnished some- 
 thing. Reconsidered, many a fragment, which at first he 
 had rejected as useless, or which he had discarded as super- 
 fluous, found its billet. What unexpected findings were 
 here ! What surprising dovetailings ! How clear the emerg- 
 ing significances and indications! 
 
 He knew now why his mother had been condemned to 
 the nomad life — she, whose instincts and activities were 
 all domestic. How she must have hated it. He could guess 
 at the reasons for such sudden disintegrating upheavals 
 as that which had routed them all out of Brussels and de- 
 posited them in Homburg. To such strikings and repitch- 
 ings of the tent, her life must cruelly have accustomed her. 
 When he thought of her in Cheyne Walk he knew how 
 cruelly. But he also saw (as we have seen) how, longing for 
 a home, she had contrived that her children should never 
 know what they lacked, or that they lacked anything. They 
 had lacked nothing. The caravan to them had been abiding 
 as any house. Memories clung for them — for David, any- 
 way, and he thought he could have answered for Georgina 
 too — round railway carriages with their wide netted racks 
 like mangers, and their blue or grey upholsterings, and 
 their flapping curtains on the ivory rings. Carriage was 
 linked to carriage by a feeling of which the holland-cov- 
 ered box, perhaps, was the outward and visible sign, and
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 355 
 
 the atmosphere created by his mother certainly the inward 
 and spiritual grace. The railway carriages were just rooms 
 in the children's great home, and rooms so like each other 
 that to them they were the same rooms. The rooms in the 
 hotels and the lodging-houses were for them just other 
 rooms. The children thus had a big delightful home, ever 
 changing, ever the same. It was their mother only who had 
 none. Yet her suffering, David knew, was always for them. 
 
 And so, gradually, David arrived at the answer even to 
 his second question. He knew why his parents had not 
 married; he knew now why they had. 
 
 He could not yet think quite calmly of his father. How- 
 ever willing his mother might have been to make her sacri- 
 fice upon the altar of his and her own beliefs, he should not 
 have asked it of her. All too late she had seen the impos- 
 sibility of the conditions she had accepted. You could not 
 live outside the law. Oh, David knew why the tardy mar- 
 riage had taken place. 
 
 And, as he looked at the enshrined portrait, it told him 
 more. It had the sad tranquil outlook which was his 
 mother's always when her face was in repose — which, if 
 he had known it, was even his own. But her eyes had not 
 always been tranquil. He could remember them with al- 
 most a hunted look in them. They had worn this look at 
 the time of the arrival in England. No one would have 
 supposed that, child as he was, he could have noticed it; 
 but he had noticed it and he had remembered it. They had 
 worn it at a later period too. And there was another look 
 that had haunted him — the look she had turned on him 
 when he had been taken in to see her after Johnny was 
 born. . . . 
 
 In her extremity she had been trying to say something 
 to him then. He had felt its purport dimly; he knew it now. 
 
 His face lit up; was illumined, as it were, from within : — 
 Like the stone which the builders rejected and which be- 
 came the head stone of the corner, one stubborn piece 
 which had baffled him again and again fitted smoothly into
 
 356 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 its place. His eyes filled with sudden tears. Johnny him- 
 self had been as unexpected at the time of the marriage as 
 the passing of the two sound lives . . . 
 It was the ultimate enlightenment. 
 
 He might break up the puzzle now, sweep the pieces 
 together, put them away in their box. They could yield 
 him nothing more. 
 
 Not Mary herself, waiting in Cheyne Walk, could have 
 added a word or a thought to the telling if it had fallen to 
 her — though, as she perceived how he took it, she might, 
 for the pride she would have felt in him, have wished that 
 she had indeed had the anguish of the telling! 
 
 For, looking into his heart, as she, we need not doubt, 
 would have been able to do, she would have seen that no 
 bitterness was there, nor any envy, nor any repining. His 
 love for her was unshaken, his esteem for her, his trust in 
 her. Even for the brother who all unwittingly had usurped 
 the birthright that should have been his, his feelings had 
 undergone no change. No, David's affections had stood 
 the great test on all counts but perhaps one. It will be true 
 of him to say that, though he still hurried his thoughts 
 away from his father, he was glad that Johnny was there — 
 there, for his own sake ; there, to be loved as he loved him ; 
 there, especially, maybe, to carry on the name which he 
 himself had indeed no right to bear. /
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Descent then to the things of the moment. And yet not so 
 great a descent either, for, if the things of the moment were 
 trivial in themselves, they were urgent also, and there were, 
 as Mrs. Tarpalin saw, — to her pride in the guest she had 
 come well-nigh to love! — big as well as small ways of deal- 
 ing with them. All was well, and even for the interrupted 
 undertaking all was to be well also. 
 
 She knew that, as soon as she saw David's face. After- 
 wards she always spoke of it as 'transfigured.' It was 
 so, anyway, that she saw it when she came back to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Her own face was tremulous. She had had a curious 
 experience with Dunstable. 
 
 "He's going," she said, and paused. " I wanted you not 
 to see him," she said then, coming over to David and laying 
 her hand on his arm. "Now I want to know if you will." 
 
 She did not say what had passed between them. With 
 that look on David's face there was, she felt, no need. 
 
 "Yes, of course I '11 see him," David said without hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 He in his turn was always to remember that she asked 
 no assurances of him. 
 
 She watched him go from the room, and set herself to 
 wait. 
 
 She went over to the fireplace and straightened the orna- 
 ments on the mantelpiece. Frank had disarranged them, 
 or perhaps even David. Frank, it was probable. Then she 
 sat down and closed her eyes. Five minutes passed; ten. 
 She clasped and unclasped her hands. She was listening 
 acutely for sounds, but she had not any fear. She saw from 
 David's look when he came back that everything had fallen 
 out as she had expected.
 
 358 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 "Oh," she said, "you don't need that I should tell you 
 what I feel, or what I think of you." 
 
 But David had something to say that must be said 
 quickly. Dunstable had asked for his horse. What David 
 had to say must be said and answered before the horse 
 came round. 
 
 "Mrs. Tarpalin," he said, a little breathlessly, "do you 
 want him to go?" 
 
 "Indeed I do," was on her tongue, but David's look 
 arrested the words before they had passed her lips. 
 
 "You did," David was saying; "but do you now? If 
 any one goes, ought n't it to be me?" 
 
 " I 'd give up the whole thing rather than that," she said 
 emphatically. 
 
 "But it must n't be given up," David said. 
 
 "Well, that is the question," Mrs. Tarpahn said. "I 
 want you to do exactly as you like. Oh, I do mean this in 
 spite of what I myself may wish." ; 
 
 "The play must n't be given up," David said again. 
 
 " I want you not to consider us at all. Please, please — " 
 
 "Then I think it would even be easier for me," he said. 
 
 Her eyes questioned his. She hoped so much that he 
 would not go, but she did so honestly want not to bias 
 him. 
 
 "Would n't you like time to think it over?" 
 
 "I have had time," he said. 
 
 "Or even to go home for a night?'* 
 
 "No," he said, — "unless you thought it would be 
 better?" 
 
 " I 'm afraid I have shewn only too plainly what I want," 
 Mrs. Tarpalin said, smiling, "but that must not influence 
 you." 
 
 "I should like to stay, then, and see the thing through," 
 David replied. "But I should like more than that. I should 
 like things as far as possible to go on as if nothing had 
 happened." 
 
 "They will," said Mrs. Tarpalin. "Of course they will."
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 359 
 
 "Yes, but Dunstable." 
 
 "Do you mean you really want him to stay?" 
 
 "You've seen him," David said. 
 
 " Oh, I 'm sorry enough for him. He 's abjectly ashamed 
 of himself, I know that. I quite believe that his tongue ran 
 away with him — ran amok, indeed. But that's no ex- 
 cuse. He was unspeakable. He behaved like a cad." 
 
 "He says that," David said. 
 
 There was what seemed to be a long pause, and time 
 pressed. David chafed a little. For, with a clearness that 
 came perhaps of the stress of the emotions he had experi- 
 enced, he had seen that for every one's sake the going of 
 Dunstable must be averted. Dunstable was down. It 
 would be like kicking him to let him go. He did not think 
 of himself unduly. For himself, indeed, he did not greatly 
 care, but he did care very greatly for the honour of Red 
 Alban, which, for the moment, was bound up with his own, 
 and he saw clearly that scandal on his account must not 
 attach itself to these theatricals. 
 
 And, behind all this, a strange new feeling for Dunstable 
 himself, who, howsoever indefensible his action had been, 
 and howsoever little claim he had to any one's considera- 
 tion, had done him the service which even his mother with 
 all her love for him — though of her very love for him — 
 had not been able to do him. By Dunstable's outrageous 
 savagery, David stood now with eyes unbound; fore- 
 warned; forearmed; equipped. 
 
 "I must speak to Frank," Mrs. Tarpalin said at last. 
 ; "Butit will be too late then. He'll be gone." 
 
 " I '11 ask him to put off going for five minutes. I '11 find 
 
 a reason." 
 
 She came back to say, " I 'm going to have some difficulty 
 with Frank and perhaps every one else. But I think you 
 are right, and I don't care whether you like to hear it or 
 not, I think you're — I think you're — " 
 ^ She could not say it.
 
 36o DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 We follow the lady. 
 
 Dunstable was coming out of the library as she left the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 "Eric, wait a minute, please." 
 
 She gave him no reason. After all, if she failed, she could 
 tell him. Indeed, whether she failed or not, she was deter- 
 mined that he should know that David had wished him to 
 stay. Sorry as she reluctantly was for him, she still felt 
 vindictive if David did not. Dunstable bent his head in 
 silence and went back to the library. And then she felt 
 sorry again. 
 
 "But it will do him all the good in the world," she said 
 to herself. "If he comes out of this alive, it may make a 
 gentleman of him yet." 
 
 She had reached the door of the music-room. She opened 
 it and went in. 
 
 "Frank, I want you," she said. 
 
 Somebody had been as tactful as Emma Blake who had 
 played. Cards had been found. The waiting company were 
 filling up the time with a little mild gambling. 
 
 At the sight of their occupation she changed her mind. 
 
 Frank had come toward her, 
 
 " No," she said, " I think I '11 put it to you all." 
 
 Without any preliminaries she plunged into what she 
 had come to say. 
 
 They heard her attentively. 
 
 It seemed best to her, even in the presence of the three 
 young girls, to couch on David's history. She said briefly 
 that his parents were unorthodox, and that, for the period 
 which had unfortunately covered his entrance into the 
 world, they had had the courage of opinions which they had 
 seen good to modify later. Whether they had been justi- 
 fied or not concerned no one in that room. What did con- 
 cern them, one and all, was the terrible use that had been 
 made of the knowledge by some one whom she need not 
 name, but who was now heartily and remorsefully and even 
 pitiably ashamed of himself.
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 361 
 
 "So he ought to be," from Frank, under his breath. 
 "My God! so he ought to be." 
 
 "Yes, Frank, and I am telling you that he is. We know 
 that control of his temper is n't his strong point. We may 
 take the charitable view, I think, and believe that for the 
 moment he was n't responsible. Since he has come to him- 
 self he has made Mr. Penstephen his profound apology. 
 Now, the question for us to determine is whether we can go 
 on with our play. We only can, I think, if we can put what 
 has happened out of our minds altogether. Can we do 
 this?" 
 
 "What does David Penstephen say?" Frank asked. 
 
 When they heard that David wished the play to pro- 
 ceed there was a sudden burst of cheers for him. 
 
 David must have heard it from the drawing-room ; Dun- 
 stable, even, from the distant library. 
 
 "And he '11 go on with his part? " Frank said. He turned 
 to the rest comprehensively. "We would n't unless." 
 
 There was another shout. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin faltered. "Oh, everybody here," she 
 said, "if I ever felt proud of any one under this roof . . . 
 No, I know I can't speak, Frank, but if I could I should 
 find it difficult to say what I felt for him." 
 
 "Oh, Mother," Frank said, "and you're doing it so 
 beautifully." 
 
 There was a shout for Mrs. Tarpalin. Every one, not 
 the girls only, seemed to be trying to hold her dimpled 
 hands. 
 
 "But wait," she said, "wait! You have n't heard. You 
 won't like it. But it makes it ten times bigger." 
 
 There was silence when David's full wish became known. 
 Looks were exchanged. 
 
 Emma Blake broke the silence. 
 
 "It's huge of him. Oo, absolutely huge of him!" 
 
 "It's also exactly like him," said Mrs. Tarpalin quietly. 
 
 "But it's out of the question," said Frank. "Good 
 Lord! You can't wipe things out like that. A man who
 
 362 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 would do what Eric Dunstable did is n't fit to know. No, 
 Mother, it's impossible." He turned to the others. "Isn't 
 it?" 
 
 There was not a voice for Dunstable. The room was 
 filled with clamour. Every thumb was down. But Mrs. 
 Tarpalin held up her hand. 
 
 "One moment!" she said. "Frank, I know what you 
 feel, I know what we all feel. If I followed my own in- 
 clinations I should n't move a finger to stop his going — ■ 
 though I think I should be wrong. But with due deference 
 to everybody, there is only one person whose wishes we 
 have to consider, and that is Mr. Penstephen." 
 
 There was a murmur of agreement upon that, and then 
 again silence. 
 
 "But can we bear It?" said Frank. 
 
 " If he can. And after all, though he says it would make 
 things easier for him, he's really thinking of us." 
 
 "If it did that," said Miss Davenport, and struck the 
 right note. 
 
 Mrs. Tarpalin thought it might. 
 
 "There's Theo," said Frank, at last. 
 
 "Yes, I have n't forgotten Theo. But before I speak to 
 her I want to know what you all feel. If we go on it must 
 be as if nothing had happened." 
 
 "As if" — she turned to Frank again and underlined 
 every word — "nothing, do you understand me, had hap- 
 pened." 
 
 Frank fidgeted and looked round. 
 
 "I think Mrs. Tarpalin 's right," Welw^^n said. 
 
 Every one cordially if reluctantly thought so. Frank was 
 the last to assent. 
 
 "But cheerfully ? ' ' said Mrs . Tarpalin . ' ' Not grudgingly 
 as of necessity. Cheerful givers?" 
 
 Cheerful. 
 
 They promised her. 
 
 But in the end it was David who carried the thing 
 through, for he it was who tackled Miss Nevern success-
 
 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 363 
 
 fully, after a somewhat heated Mrs. Tarpalin had failed 
 with her, and he it was who prevailed with the shamed 
 Dunstable. 
 
 "I can't face them," Dunstable said. "I can't; it's no 
 good." 
 
 But David, linking his arm through his, said, "We'll 
 face them together." 
 
 So the rehearsals were resumed and peace was restored, 
 or, more accurately, where no peace had been, peace was 
 established. Even the inscrutable Theo was amenable. 
 But she was to remain inscrutable. If her wish had been 
 to rid herself of Dunstable, she had attained her wish and 
 more than her wish. For it was David now who seemed 
 master of Dunstable's jealous heart. The sore sullen young 
 man followed him with his eyes like a beaten faithful dog. 
 And Theo seemed satisfied. 
 
 "You shewed me Eric," we may suppose ourselves to 
 hear her saying, if we may hazard a guess! "You shewed 
 me Eric, and freed me." 
 
 "You shewed me Theo," we may suppose Eric Dunstable 
 to say in turn. "You shewed me Theo and freed me." 
 
 But what had really happened was that between them 
 they had shewn David to himself and freed him. 
 
 He wrote two letters that night. One was a long long 
 happy one to his mother in Chelsea. Everything was in it 
 that could make glad her heart — everything that could 
 ease her, solace her, make up to her for past suffering. Love 
 was the keynote of this letter — love and understanding, 
 and undimmed hope. Nothing more than the truth. 
 
 We may know that it made Mary happy. , 
 
 The other letter was to his old friend of the shop. 
 
 "You said that when the time came you could help me. 
 Was it at Margate that you thought I stood a chance of 
 getting the training I should want? I was to start at the
 
 364 DAVID PENSTEPHEN 
 
 bottom, wasn't I? and play everything — be General 
 Utility if need be — or was it Call Boy? Well, I am ready, 
 and not afraid of work. And another thing: you once said 
 that you wished my circumstances made it necessary that 
 I should earn my own living. They don't quite do that, 
 perhaps, but they make it very urgent that I should make 
 — try at least to make — some sort of a name for myself. 
 And I swear by all I hold sacred — or, by Skelt, shall I say, 
 of the Minories, Redington of Hoxton, and Webb of Old 
 Street, St. Luke's ! — that if it is in me I mean to do that or 
 die. I don't mean to give in." 
 That, too, was true. 
 
 And here, as he stands on the threshold of a new life, 
 but a life that has its foundations firmly cemented in the 
 enduring fabric of the old, we may, I think, in all hope and 
 confidence, leave him. He could turn an enemy into a 
 friend; more, in very truth, perhaps, like the oyster of his 
 boyish fancy, make pearls of the grits sent to wound him. 
 Why not a great pearl, then, of the great grit of all? A 
 name of his namelessness. 
 
 The way at least was open to him now to the land of his 
 heart's desire. Not his mother, even, would wish to hold 
 him back. . . . 
 
 London, 1912-1914. 
 
 THE END
 
 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 By Richard Pryce 
 
 ** A refreshing book for the reader who knows and 
 loves human nature, who delights in the quiet realities 
 of life." — Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 " The charm of the story and the leisureliness of its 
 narration remind one of De Morgan's 'Joseph Vance/ 
 or Locke's 'The Beloved Vagabond.' There is enjoy- 
 ment on every page." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 " He can draw characters — aristocratic old ladies, 
 maiden ladies and ladies' maids — which are unforget- 
 table, and he describes houses and rooms so incisively 
 that the reader can share them with their occupants." 
 
 — London Punch. 
 
 " Full of quality, leisure, and the possibility of keen 
 yet unhurried enjoyment." — Life. 
 
 " A brilliant piece of work, full of ripeness and an 
 understanding of the richness of life." — N. V. Even- 
 ing Sun. 
 
 Crown 8vo. $1.35 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON 7^S BOSTON 
 
 MIFFLIN /^^ ^^^ 
 
 (DOMPANY (fe^r^ NEW YORK
 
 PEOPLE OF POPHAM 
 
 By MARY C. E. WEMYSS 
 
 " As vivid in its way as ' Cranford.' " — Boston Tranr 
 script. i 
 
 " One of the most charming chronicles of village 
 life evor written." — Living Age. 
 
 " Such a book as this may be read aloud evening 
 after evening, with recurrent zest, with enjoyment of 
 its humor, its quaint and human personages as they 
 take their unhurried way through agreeable pages."— 
 Louisville Courier yournal. 
 
 " A book which will give many readers a rare plea- 
 sure." — Chicago Eve fling Post. 
 
 ** A sort of modern * Cranford,' good to read all the 
 way through." — Mitmeapolis Journal, 
 
 Illustrated. ;^i,20 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON /^^ BOSTON 
 
 MIFFUN i-^W" ^^^ 
 
 CXDMPANY rara NEW YORK 
 
 J
 
 THE WITCH 
 
 By Mary Johnston 
 
 Miss Johnston's most successful historical novel, a 
 romance glowing with imagination, adventure, and 
 surging passions. The stormy days of Queen Eliza- 
 beth live again in this powerful tale of the " witch " 
 and her lover, 
 
 "A well-told and effective story, the most artistic 
 that Miss Johnston has written." — New York Stm. 
 
 "A powerful, realistic tale." — New York World. 
 
 " This is Mary Johnston's greatest book." — Cleve- 
 land Plain Dealer. 
 
 " An extraordinarily graphic picture of the witch- 
 craft delusion in England in the age that followed 
 Queen Elizabeth's death." — San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 " Far more artistic than anything that Miss John- 
 ston has written since 'To Have and To Hold.' " — 
 Providcfice Journal. 
 
 With frontispiece in color. $1.40 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON /^S BOSTON 
 
 MIFFLIN /:^S ^^^ 
 
 COMPANY ralra NEW YORK
 
 THE POET 
 
 By Meredith Nicholson 
 
 Aj clever, kindly portrait of a famous living poet, 
 interwoven with a charming love story. 
 
 " Not since Henry Harland told us the story of the 
 gentle Cardinal and his snuffbox, have we had any- 
 thing as idyllic as Meredith Nicholson's ' The Poet.' " 
 — New York Evming Sun. 
 
 " This delightful story, so filled with blended poetry 
 and common sense, reminds one, as he reaches instinc- 
 tively for a parallel, of the rarely delicate and beauti- 
 ful ones told by Thomas Bailey Aldrich." — Washing- 
 ion Star. 
 
 "A rare performance in American literature. Every- 
 body knows who the Poet is, but if they want to 
 know him as a kind of Good Samaritan in a different 
 way than they know him in his verses, they should 
 read this charming idyll." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 Illustrated in color. $1.30 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON f^S. BOSTON 
 
 MIFFLIN JL^W ^^^ 
 
 COMPANY (ferUBl NEW YORK
 
 LEWIS RAND 
 
 By MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 " One of the strongest works of fiction that has seen 
 the light of day in America." — New York Times. 
 
 "In * Lewis Rand' we have historical fiction at its 
 very best, and Miss Johnston also at the highest point 
 of her inventive, her pictorial and her constructive 
 skill." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 " The story is a strong one. It provides a vivid pre- 
 sentation of a deeply interesting period of our national 
 annals, and it throbs with real life." — Chicago Dial 
 
 "Aside from its high dramatic quality and tense 
 dramatic interest ' Lewis Rand ' portrays admirably 
 the manners and customs of an important historical 
 epoch." — Philadelphia North American. 
 
 Illustrated in color by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 Sq. crown 8vo, 1^1.50 
 
 HOUGHTON Y^Sk BOSTON 
 
 MIFFUN /^S ^^^ 
 
 COMPANY feira NEW YORK
 
 CLARK'S FIELD 
 
 By ROBERT HERRICK 
 
 7t 
 
 " Easily in the front rank of serious American fiction. 
 
 Philadelphia Press. 
 
 *' A book well worth reading, the writing of which would 
 have been a credit to any American novelist." — 
 
 Brooklyji Eagle. 
 
 " Worth reading and worth thinking about as a study of 
 American life and as an extremely interesting depiction of 
 the development of a human soul." — N. Y. Times. 
 
 *' Mr. Herrick has again justified himself as a writer of fas- 
 cinating tales, with the sympathy that illuminates and the 
 psychology that understands, analyzes and indicates with- 
 out explaining." — Boston Globe. 
 
 " Every reader who is seriously interested in American fic- 
 tion will make his own acquaintance with the book." — 
 
 Chicago Evetiing Post. 
 
 " Few will dispute the statement that Robert Herrick is 
 to-day the most significant of our novelists. He is always 
 sincere and he is always worth our while. . . . ' Clark's 
 Field' is packed with meaning." — JVew York Tribune. 
 
 i2mo, $1.40 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON 
 
 MIFFLIN 
 COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 AND 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 O PIONEERS! 
 
 By WILLA SIBERT GATHER 
 
 " A great romantic novel, written with striking brilliancy 
 and power, in which one sees emerge a new country and 
 a new people. . . . Throughout the story one has the sense 
 of great spaces; of the soil dominating everything, even 
 the human drama that takes place upon it ; renewing it- 
 self while the generations come and pass away." 
 
 McClure's Magazine. 
 
 " The book is big in its conception and strikes many 
 great live topics of the day — the feminist movement and 
 the back-to-the-soil doctrines being two of the most con- 
 spicuous. There is a spirit of the open spaces about this 
 story — a bigness that suggests that Miss Gather has taken 
 more than her title from Whitman's hymn to progress, 
 'Pioneers, O Pioneers.' " San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 With frontispiece in color. 
 
 i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON 
 
 MIFFLIN 
 COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 AND 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS 
 
 By Mary Roberts Rinehart 
 
 A story of two young lovers — students in far-away 
 Vienna — and their struggle with poverty and tempta- 
 tion. Incidentally, a graphic picture of life in the 
 war-worn city of the Hapsburgs. 
 
 From Letters to the Author: 
 
 " Fresh and clean and sweet — a story which makes 
 one feel the better for having read it and wish that he 
 could know all of your dear characters." — California. 
 
 "Little that has been Avritten in the last decade has 
 given me such pleasure, and nothing has moved me to pen 
 to an author a word of praise until to-day." — Utah. 
 
 " ' The Street of Seven Stars ' will be read fifty years 
 from now, and will still be helping people to be braver and 
 better." — 'New York. 
 
 " It stands far above any recent fiction I have read." 
 — Massachusetts. 
 
 " Quite the best thing you have ever written." — Connec- 
 ticut. 
 
 $1.25 net. 
 
 HOUGHTON '/^^ BOSTON 
 
 MIFFLIN /-^^ft ^^^ 
 
 COMPANY ^^^M NEW YORK
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 g£c>c u)-y«^ 
 
 
 Form L9— Series 444
 
 q lllllii 
 
 3 115 
 
 3 1158 00690 
 
 9120 
 
 'V 
 
 
 I^C sou™™ REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 376 610