THE TIME SPIRIT
 
 Three pairs of eyes met in challenge 
 
 [PAGE 84]
 
 THE 
 
 TIME SPIRIT 
 
 A Romantic Tale 
 
 BY 
 
 J. C. SNAITH 
 
 AXTTHOK OF "THE COMING," "THE SAILOR," ETC. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 1918
 
 COPTBIOHT, 1918- BY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Printed In the United States of America
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE ARRIVAL i 
 
 II. AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 32 
 
 III. FLOWING WATER 68 
 
 IV. BRIDPORT HOUSE , . 87 
 
 V. ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 4 . 120 
 
 VI. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 149 
 
 VII. A TRAGIC COIL s ... 170 
 
 VIII. A BUSY MORNING . 186 
 
 IX. AN INTERLUDE ""' 210 
 
 X. TIME'S REVENGE 332 
 
 XI. A BOMB 253 
 
 XII. ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 273 
 
 XIII. EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 293 
 
 2138384
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Three pairs of eyes met in challenge . . . Frontispiece 
 
 "How did you come by it, Joe?" 24 
 
 "You give up your young man simply because of that?" 198 
 
 "We mustn't build castles," she sighed, and the light 
 fringed her eyelids 206
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 I 
 
 THE fog of November in its descent upon Laxton, 
 one of London's busiest suburbs, had effaced the 
 whole of Beaconsfield Villas, including the Num- 
 ber Five on the fanlight over the door of the last house 
 but two in the row. To a tall girl in black on her way 
 from the station this was a serious matter. She was 
 familiar with the lie of the land in the light of day 
 and in darkness less than Cimmerian, but this evening 1 
 she had to ask a policeman, a grocer's boy, and a 
 person of no defined status, before a kid-gloved hand 
 met the knocker of her destination. 
 
 It was the year 1890. Those days are very distant 
 now. Victoria the Good was on the throne of Britain. 
 W.G. went in first for Gloucestershire; Lohmann and 
 Lockwood bowled for Surrey. The hansom was still 
 the gondola of London. The Tube was not, and eke 
 the motor-bus. The Daily Mail had not yet invented 
 Lord Northcliffe. Orville Wright had not made good. 
 William Hohenzollern used to come over to see hi 
 grandmother.
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Indeed, on this almost incredibly distant evening in 
 the world's history, his grandmother in three colors 
 and a widow's cap, with a blue ribbon across her bosom, 
 surmounted the sitting-room chimney-piece of Number 
 Five, Beaconsfield Villas. And at the other end of the 
 room, over the dresser, was an old gentleman with a 
 beard, by common consent the wisest man in the realm, 
 who talked about "splendid isolation," and gave Heligo- 
 land to deep, strong, patient Germany in exchange for 
 a tiny strip of Africa. 
 
 Yes, there were giants in those days. And no doubt 
 there are giants in these. But it is not until little Miss 
 Clio trips in with her scroll that we shall know for 
 certain, shall we? 
 
 At the first crisp tap the door of Number Five 
 was flung open. 
 
 "Harriet, so here you are !" 
 
 There was welcome in the eyes as well as in the voice 
 of the eager, personable creature who greeted the visitor. 
 There was welcome also in the gush of mingled gas and 
 firelight from a cosy within. 
 
 "How are you, Eliza?" 
 
 The tall girl asked the question, shut the door, and 
 kissed her sister, all in one breath, so that only a 
 minute quantity of a London "partickler" was able to 
 follow her into the room. 
 
 The hostess pressed Harriet into a chair, as near the 
 bright fire as she could be persuaded to sit. 
 
 "What a night! I was half afraid you wouldn't 
 face it." 
 
 "I always try to keep a promise." The quiet, firm 
 
 2
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 voice had a gravity and a depth which made it sound 
 years older than that of the elder sister. 
 
 "I know you do and that's a lot to say of any- 
 one. How's your health, my dear? It's very good to 
 see you after all these months." 
 
 , Chattering all the time with the artlessness of a 
 nature wholly different from that of her visitor, Eliza 
 Kelly took the kettle from the hob and made the tea. 
 
 Beyond a superficial general likeness there was 
 nothing to suggest the near relationship of these two. 
 The air and manner which invested the well-made coat 
 and skirt, the lady-like muff and stole, with a dignity 
 rather austere, were not to be found in the unpreten- 
 tious front parlor opening on to the street, or in its 
 brisk, voluble, easy-going mistress. 
 
 "Harriet, you are really all right again?" Eliza im- 
 pulsively poured out the tea before it had time to brew, 
 thereby putting herself to the trouble of returning it to 
 the pot. 
 
 "Oh, yes." Harriet removed her gloves elegantly. 
 She was quite a striking-looking creature of nine-and- 
 twenty. In spite of a recent illness, she had an air 
 of strength and virility. The face and brow had been 
 cast in a mold of serious beauty, the eyes, a clear deep 
 gray, were strongholds of good sense. Even without 
 the aid of a considered, rather formidable manner, 
 this young woman would have exacted respect any- 
 where. 
 
 "Take a muffin while it's warm." 
 
 Harriet did so. 
 
 "I had no idea your illness was going to be so bad/' 
 
 The younger woman would not own that her illness 
 
 3
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 had been anything of the kind; she was even inclined 
 to make light of it. 
 
 "Why, you've been away weeks and weeks. And 
 Aunt Annie says you've had to have an operation." 
 
 "Only a slight one." The tone was casual. "Nothing 
 to speak of." 
 
 "Nothing to speak of! Aunt Annie says you have 
 keen at Brighton I don't know how long." 
 
 "Well, you know," said Harriet in a discreet, rather 
 charming voice, "they thought I was run down and 
 that I ought to have a good rest. You see, the long 
 illness of her Grace was very trying for those who had 
 to look after her." 
 
 "I suppose so. Although her Grace has been dead 
 nearly two years. Anyhow, I hope the Family paid 
 your expenses." The elder sister and prudent house- 
 wife looked at Harriet keenly. 
 
 "Everything, even my railway fare." A fine note 
 came into the voice of Harriet Sanderson. 
 
 "Lucky you to be in such service," said Eliza in a. 
 tone of envy. 
 
 Slowly the color deepened in Harriet's cheek. 
 
 "By the way, what are you doing at Buntisford? 
 Does it mean you've left Bridport House for good?" 
 
 "It does, I suppose." 
 
 "But I thought Buntisford had been closed for years ?" 
 
 "His Grace had it opened again, so that he can go 
 down there when he wants to be quiet. He was always 
 fond of it. There's a bit of rough shooting and a 
 river, and it's within thirty miles of London ; he finds 
 it very convenient. Of course, it's quite small and easy 
 to manage." 
 
 4
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 "What is your position there?" 
 
 "I'm housekeeper," said Harriet. "That is to say, 
 I manage everything." 
 
 The elder sister looked at her with incredulity, in 
 which a little awe was mingled. "Housekeeper to the 
 Duke of Bridport and you not yet thirty, Hattie. 
 Gracious, goodness, what next!" 
 
 The visitor smiled at this simplicity. "It's hardly 
 so grand as it sounds. The house doesn't need much 
 in the way of servants; the Family never go there. 
 His Grace comes down now and again for a week-end 
 when he wants to be alone. Just himself there's never 
 anyone else." 
 
 "But housekeeper !" Eliza was still incredulous. "At 
 twenty-nine! I call it wonderful." 
 
 "Is it so remarkable?" Harriet's calmness seemed 
 a little uncanny. 
 
 "The dad would have thought so, had he lived to see 
 it. He always thought the world of the Family." 
 
 The younger sister smiled at this artlessness. 
 
 "Every reason to do so, no doubt," she said with a 
 brightening eye and a rush of warmth to her voice. 
 "I am sure there couldn't be better people in this world 
 than the Dinne fords." 
 
 "That was the father's opinion, anyway. He always 
 said they knew how to treat those who served them." 
 
 "Not a doubt of that," said Harriet. "They have 
 been more than good to me." The color flowed over 
 her face. "And his Grace often speaks of the father. 
 He says he was his right hand at Ardnaleuchan, and 
 that he saved him many a pound in a twelvemonth." 
 
 "I expect he did," said Eliza, her own eyes kindling. 
 
 5
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "He simply worshiped the Family. Mother used to 
 declare that he would have sold his soul for the 
 Dinnefords." 
 
 "He was a very good man," said Harriet simply. 
 
 "It would have been a proud day for him, Hattie, 
 had he lived to see you where you are now. And not 
 yet thirty with all your life before you." 
 
 But the words of the elder sister brought a look of 
 constraint to the face of Harriet. Mistaking the cause, 
 Eliza was puzzled. "And it won't be my opinion only," 
 she said. "Aunt Annie I'm sure will think as I do. 
 She'll say you've had a wonderful piece of luck." 
 
 "But the position does mean great responsibility" 
 there was a sudden change in Harriet's tone. 
 
 Eliza kept her eyes on the face of the younger woman, 
 that fine Scots face, so full of resolution and character. 
 "Whatever it may be, Hattie, I'm thinking you'll just 
 about be able to manage it." 
 
 "I mean to try." Harriet spoke very slowly and 
 softly. "I mean to show myself worthy of his Grace's 
 confidence." 
 
 The elder sister smiled an involuntary admiration; 
 there was such a calm force about the girl. "And, of 
 course, it means that you are made for life." 
 
 But in the eyes of Harriet was a fleck of anxiety. 
 "Ah! you don't know. It's a big position an awfully 
 big position." 
 
 Eliza agreed. 
 
 "There are times when it almost frightens me." 
 Harriet spoke half to herself. 
 
 "Everything has to run like clockwork, of course," 
 
 6
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 said the sympathetic Eliza. "And it's bound to make 
 the upper servants at Bridport House very jealous." 
 
 "It may." The deep tone had almost an edge of 
 disdain. "Anyhow it doesn't matter. I don't go to 
 Bridport House now." 
 
 "But you can't tell me, my dear, that they like to hear 
 of her Grace's second maid holding the keys in the 
 housekeeper's room." 
 
 The calm Harriet smiled. "But it's only Buntisford, 
 lifter all. You speak as if it was Bridport House or 
 Ardnaleuchan." 
 
 Eliza shook a knowledgeable head. "They won't like 
 it all the same, Hattie. The dad wouldn't have, for 
 one. He was all his life on the estate, but he was turned 
 fifty before he rose to be factor at Ardnaleuchan." 
 
 "Well, Eliza" there was a force, a decision in the 
 words which made an end of criticism "it's just a 
 matter for the Duke. The place is not of my seeking. 
 I was asked to take it what else could I do?" 
 
 "Don't think I blame you. If it's the wish of his 
 Grace there is no more to be said. Still, there's no 
 denying you've a big responsibility." 
 
 At these words a shadow came into the resolute eyes. 
 
 Said the elder sister reassuringly, "You'll be equal to 
 the position, never fear. That head of yours is a good 
 one, Hattie. Even Aunt Annie admits that. By the 
 way, have you seen her lately?" 
 
 "Seen Aunt Annie?" said Harriet defensively. The 
 sudden mention of that name produced an immediate 
 change of tone in her distinguished niece. 
 
 "She's been asking about you. She wants very much 
 to see you." 
 
 7
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Thq shadow deepened in Harriet's eyes. But a* 
 instant later she had skillfully covered an air of growing 
 onstraint by a conventional question. 
 
 "How's Joe, Eliza?" 
 
 "Pretty much as usual. He'll be off duty soon. n 
 
 Joe Kelly was Eliza's husband, and a member of the 
 Metropolitan police force. In the eyes of her family, 
 Eliza Sanderson had married beneath her. But Joe, if a 
 rough diamond, was a good fellow, and Eliza could afford 
 not to be over-sensitive on the score of public opinion, 
 Joe had no superficial graces, it was as much as he could 
 do to write a line in his notebook, high rank in his calling 
 was not prophesied by his best friends, but his wife 
 knew she was well off. They had been married eight 
 years, and if only Providence had blessed a harmonious 
 union in a becoming manner, Eliza Kelly would not 
 have found it in her heart to envy the greatest lady i 
 the land. But Providence had not done so, the more 
 was the pity. 
 
 "By the way," Eliza suddenly broke a silence 
 "there's a piece of news for you, Hattie. A friend is 
 aoming to see you at five." 
 
 "A friend to see me!" 
 
 "To see you, my dear. In fact, I might say an ad- 
 mirer. Can't you guess who?" 
 
 "I certainly can't." 
 
 "Then I think you ought." Mischief had yielded to 
 laughter of a rather quizzical kind. 
 
 "I didn't know that I had any admirers in Laxton." 
 
 The touch of manner delicately suggested ducal circles. 
 
 "You can have a husband for the asking, our Harriet" 
 
 8
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 The eternal feminine was now in command of the situ- 
 a.tion. 
 
 Harriet frowned. 
 
 "I can't think who it can be." 
 
 "No?" laughed the tormentress. "You are not going 
 to tell me you have forgotten the young man you met 
 the last time you were here?" 
 
 It seemed that the distinguished visitor had. 
 
 "I do call that hard lines," mocked Eliza. "You have 
 really forgotten him?" 
 
 "I really have!" 
 
 "He has talked of you ever since. When was Miss 
 Sanderson coming again? Could he be invited to meet 
 her? He wanted to see her aboot something verra im- 
 poortant." 
 
 A light dawned upon Harriet's perplexity. 
 
 "Surely you don't mean you don't mean that red- 
 headed young policeman ?" 
 
 "Dugald Maclean. Of course, I do. He has invited 
 himself to meet you at five o'clock." Eliza sat back in 
 her chair and laughed at the face of Harriet, but the 
 face of Harriet showed it was hardly a laughing matter. 
 
 "Well!" she cried. Her eyes were smiling, yet they 
 could not veil their look of deep annoyance. 
 
 "Now, Hattie," admonished the voice of maternal 
 wisdom, "there's no need to take offense. Don't forget 
 you are twenty-nine, Dugald Maclean is a smart young 
 man, and Joe says he'll make his way in the world. 
 Of course, you hold a very high position now, but if 
 you don't want to find yourself on the shelf it's time 
 you began to think very seriously about a husband." 
 
 "We will change the subject, if you don't mind." 
 
 9
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 The tone revealed a wide gulf between the outlook of 
 Eliza Kelly and that of a confidential retainer in the 
 household of the Duke of Bridport. 
 
 "Very well, my dear. But don't bite. Have the last 
 piece of muffin. And then I'll toast another for Con- 
 stable Maclean." 
 
 II 
 
 The clock on the chimney-piece struck five. Before 
 its last echo had died there came a loud knock on the 
 front door. 
 
 Constable Maclean was a ruddy young Scotsman. He 
 was tall, lean, large-boned, with prominent teeth and 
 ears. Although freckled like a turkey's egg, he was not 
 a bad-looking fellow. His boots, however, took up a 
 lot of space in a small room, and the manner of his 
 entrance suggested that the difficult operation known as 
 "falling over oneself" was in the act of consummation. 
 But there was an intense earnestness in his manner, and 
 a personal force in his look, which gave a redeeming 
 grace of character to a shy awkwardness, verging on 
 the grotesque. 
 
 "Good afternune," said Constable Maclean, removing 
 his helmet with a polite grimace. 
 
 One of the ladies shook hands, the other welcomed 
 the young man with a cordial good-evening and bade him 
 sit down. Constable Maclean, encumbered with a 
 regulation overcoat, sat down rather like a performing 
 bear. 
 
 At first conversation languished. Yet no welcome 
 could have been more cordial than Eliza's. She felt like 
 a mother to this young man. It was her nature to feel 
 
 10
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 like a mother to every young man. Moreover, Dugald 
 Maclean, as he sat perspiring with nervousness on the 
 edge of a chair much too small for him, seemed to need 
 some large-hearted woman to feel like a mother towards 
 him. 
 
 Miss Harriet Sanderson was to blame, no doubt, for 
 the young policeman's aphasia. Her coolness and ease, 
 with a half quizzical, half ironical look surmounting it, 
 seemed to increase the bashfulness of Dugald Maclean 
 whenever he ventured to look at her out of the tail of 
 his eye. 
 
 It was clear that the young man was suffering acutely. 
 Nature had intended him to be expansive not in the 
 Sassenach sense perhaps, but given the time and the 
 place and a right conjunction of the planets, Dugald 
 Maclean had social gifts, at least they were so assessed 
 at Carrickmachree in his native Caledonia. Moreover, 
 he was rather proud of them. He was an ambitious 
 and gifted young police officer. For many moons he 
 had been looking forward to this romantic hour. Since 
 a first chance meeting with the semi-divine Miss 
 Sanderson he had been living in the hope of a second, 
 yet now by the courtesy of Providence it was granted 
 to him he might never have seen a woman before. 
 
 The lips of Constable Maclean were dry, his tongue 
 clove to the roof of an amazingly capacious mouth. As 
 for Miss Sanderson, mere silence began to achieve 
 wonders in the way of gentle, smiling irony. But the 
 hostess was more humane. For one thing she was mar- 
 ried, and although Fate had been cruel, she had a sacred 
 instinct which made her regard every young man as a 
 boy of her own. 
 
 II
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Every moment the situation became more delicate, 
 but Eliza's handling of it was superb. She brewed a 
 fresh cup of tea for Constable Maclean, and then plied 
 the toasting-fork to such purpose that the young man 
 became so busy devouring muffins that for a time he 
 forgot his sha-me. Eliza could toast and butter a muffin 
 with anyone, Constable Maclean could eat a muffin with 
 anyone thus things began to go better. And when, 
 without turning a hair, the young man entered upon his 
 third muffin, Miss Sanderson dramatically unbent. 
 
 "Allow me to give you another cup of tea." The 
 yoice was melody. 
 
 A succession of guttural noises, which might be in- 
 terpreted as "Thank ye kindly, miss," having come 
 apparently from the boots of Constable Maclean, Miss 
 Harriet Sanderson handed him a second cup of tea. 
 
 Still, the conversation did not prosper. But the per- 
 fect hostess, kneeling before the fire in order to toast 
 muffin the fifth, had still her best card to play. It was 
 the ace of trumps, in fact, and when she rose to spread 
 butter over a sizzling, delicious, corrugated surface, she 
 decided that the time had come to make use of it. 
 
 Perhaps the factor in the situation which moved her 
 to this step was that only one muffin now remained for 
 her husband when he came off duty half-an-hour hence, 
 and that his young colleague of the X Division seemed 
 ready to go on devouring them until the crack of doom. 
 
 "That reminds me," Eliza suddenly remarked as she 
 cut the fifth muffin in half, "I promised Mrs. Norris I 
 would go across after tea to have a look at her latest." 
 
 "You are not going out, Eliza, such a night as this?" 
 said Harriet in a voice of consternation. 
 
 12
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 "A promise is a promise, my dear, you know that 
 Mrs. Norris has just had her sixth the sweetest little 
 boy. Some people have all the luck." 
 
 "But the fog you can't see a yard in front of you !" 
 "It's only just across the street, my dear." 
 
 in 
 
 As soon as Eliza, hatted and cloaked, had gone to 
 see Mrs. Norris's latest, a change came over Constable 
 Maclean. He was a young man of big ideas. But all 
 that they had done for him so far was to turn life into 
 a tragedy. By nature fiercely sensitive, the shyness 
 which made his life a burden had a trick of crystallizing 
 at the most inconvenient moments into- a kind of dumb 
 madness. A crisis of this kind was upon him now. 
 Yet he had a will of iron. And in order to keep faith 
 with the highest law of his being that will was always 
 forcing him to do things, and say things, which people 
 who did not happen to be Dugald Maclean could only 
 regard as perfectly amazing. 
 
 His acquaintance with Miss Sanderson was yery 
 slight. They came from neighboring villages in their 
 native Scotland ; many times he had gazed from afar on 
 his beautiful compatriot, but only once before could he 
 really be said to have met her. That was months ago, 
 in that very room, when he had been but a few days in 
 London. Since then a very ambitious young man had 
 thought about her a great deal. The force and charm 
 of her personality had cast a spell upon him; this was 
 a demonic woman if ever there was one ; he had hardly 
 guessed that such creatures existed. It would be wrong 
 to say that he was in love with her; his passion was 
 
 13
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 centered upon ideas and not upon people; yet Harriet 
 Sanderson was already marked in the catalogue as the 
 property of Dugald Maclean. 
 
 "Do you like vairse?" inquired the young man, with 
 an abruptness which startled her. 
 
 The unexpected question was far from the present 
 plane of her thoughts, but it was answered to the best 
 of her ability. 
 
 "Yes, I like it very much," she said, tactfully. 
 
 "I'm gled." Constable Maclean unbuttoned his great 
 coat 
 
 Somewhere in the mind of Harriet lurked the roman- 
 tic hope that this remarkable young man was about to 
 produce a hare or a rabbit after the manner of a wonder- 
 worker at the Egyptian Hall. But in this she was disap- 
 pointed. He simply took forth from an inner pocket 
 of his tunic several sheets of neatly-folded white foolscap, 
 and handed them to Miss Sanderson without a word. He 
 then folded his arms Napoleonically and watched the 
 force of their impact upon her. 
 
 "You wish me to read this?" she asked, after a brief 
 but sharp mingling of confusion and surprise. 
 
 The young man nodded. 
 
 With fingers that trembled a little, she unrolled the 
 sheets of a fair, well-written copy of "Urban Love, a 
 trilogy." 
 
 She read the poem line by line, ninety-six in all, with 
 the face of a sphinx. 
 
 "What do ye think o' it, Miss Sanderrson?" There 
 -was a slight tremor in the voice of the author. The 
 silence which had followed the reading of "Urban Love,
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 a trilogy" had proved a little too much, even for that will 
 of iron. 
 
 "It is very nice, if I may say so, very nice indeed," said 
 Miss Sanderson cautiously. 
 
 "I'll be doin' better than that, I'm thinkin'." A cer- 
 tain rigidity came into the voice of the author of the 
 poem. The word "nice," was almost an affront; it had 
 come upon his ear like a false quantity upon that of a 
 classical scholar. 
 
 "Did you really do it all by yourself?" The inquiry 
 was due less to the performance, which Harriet was 
 quite unable to judge, than to the author's almost ter- 
 rible concentration of manner, which clearly implied 
 that it would not do to take such an achievement for 
 granted. 
 
 "Every worrd, Miss Sanderrson. Except " 
 
 "Except what, Mr. Maclean?" 
 
 "Mr. Lonie, the Presbyterian Minister, helped me a 
 bit wi' the scansion." 
 
 "If I may say so, I think it is remarkably clever." 
 
 It appeared, however, that these pages were only the 
 opening stanzas of a poem which was meant to have 
 many. They were still in the limbo of time, behind 
 the high forehead of the author, but upon a day they 
 would burst inevitably upon an astonished world. 
 Would Miss Sanderson accept the dedication? 
 
 Miss Sanderson, blushing a little from acute surprise, 
 said that nothing would give her greater pleasure. She 
 was amazed, she wanted to laugh, but the intense, almost 
 truculent earnestness of the young man had put an 
 enchantment upon her. 
 
 But all this was simply a prelude to the great drama 
 
 IS
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 of the emotions which Constable Maclean had now to 
 unfold. He had broken the ice with the charmer. The 
 butterfly was pinned down with "Urban Love, a trilogy," 
 through its breast. Miss Sanderson had never had time 
 for reading, therefore she was in nowise literary. Thus, 
 perhaps, it was less the merit of the work itself, which 
 must be left to the judgment of scholars, than the force, 
 the audacity, the driving-power of its author which 
 seemed almost to deliver her captive into his hands. 
 
 She, it seemed, was its onlie true begetter. The poem 
 was in her honor. Heroica, calm and fair, was the pro- 
 tagonist of "Urban Love, a trilogy," and she was Heroica. 
 The position was none of her seeking, but it carried with 
 it grave responsibilities. 
 
 In the first place it exposed her to an offer of mar- 
 riage. "Urban Love, a trilogy," had broken so much 
 of the ice that Dugald Maclean plunged horse, foot and 
 artillery through the hole it had made. At the moment 
 he could not lead Heroica to the altar; it would hardly 
 be prudent for a young constable of eight months' stand- 
 ing to offer to do so, but he sincerely hoped that she 
 would promise to wait for him. 
 
 Galled by the spur of ambition, Dugald Maclean took 
 the whole plunge where smaller men would have been 
 content merely to try the depth of the water. 
 
 Miss Sanderson was frozen with astonishment. It was 
 true that "Urban Love, a trilogy," had half prepared 
 her for a declaration in form, but she had not foreseen 
 the swiftness of the onset. This was her first experi- 
 ence of the kind, but she was a woman of the world and 
 she gathered her dignity about her like a garment. 
 
 "Ye're no offendit, Miss Sanderrson?" There was 
 
 16
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 something titanic in the slow mustering of his forces to 
 break an arid pause. 
 
 "I am not off ended, Mr. Maclean." The tone of Miss 
 Sanderson said she was offended a little. "But I do 
 think " 
 
 "What do ye think, Miss Sanderrson ?" The naivete 
 of the young man provoked a sharp intake of breath. 
 
 "I think, Mr. Maclean" the candor of Miss Sanderson 
 was deliberate but not unkind "if I were you, before I 
 offered to marry anybody, I should try seriously to 
 better myself." 
 
 The words, pregnant and uncompromising, were 
 masked by a tone so deep and calm that a first-rate intel- 
 lect was able to treat them on their merits. In spite 
 of a flirtation with the Muses, this young man was a 
 remarkable combination of wild audacity and extreme 
 shrewdness. He had a power of mind which enabled 
 him to distinguish the false from the true. Thus he 
 saw at once, without resentment or pique, that the advice 
 of Heroica was that of a friend. 
 
 She had a strong desire to box the ears of this rawboned 
 young policeman for his impertinence; but at heart this 
 was a real woman, and the dynamic forces of her sex 
 were strong in her. It was hard to keep from laughing 
 in the face of this young man in a hurry, who rushed 
 his fences in a way that was simply grotesque; yet she 
 could not help admiring the power within him, and she 
 wished him well. 
 
 "It's gude advice, Miss Sanderrson." His tone of 
 detachment drew a ripple from lips that laughed very 
 seldom. "I'm thinkin' I'll talc* it But ye'll bear the 
 matter in mind ?" 
 
 17
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "I make no rash promises, Mr. Maclean." 
 
 "Well, if ye won't, ye won't. But I'm thinkin' I'd 
 work the better at the Latin if I could count on ye." 
 
 "Studying Latin, are you, Mr. Maclean?" The sur- 
 prise of Miss Sanderson was rather respectful. 
 
 "Mr. Lonie is learnin' me," said the young man, with 
 a slight touch of vainglory. "And I'm thinkin' he'll 
 verra soon be learnin' me the Greek." 
 
 "Are you going to college ?" 
 
 "Maybe ay. Maybe no. You never can tell where 
 a pairson may get to. Anyhow I'm learnin' to speak the 
 language. Ae day I'll be as gude at the Saxon as you 
 and your sister have become, Miss Sanderrson." 
 
 It was hard not to smile, yet she knew her countrymen 
 too well to treat such a matter lightly. 
 
 "And I've a'ready set aboot writin' for the papers." 
 
 "Begun already to write for the papers, have you, Mr. 
 Maclean?" This was not a young man to smile at 
 "Well, wherever you may get to," Miss Sanderson's tone 
 was softer than any she had yet used, "I am sure I 
 wish you well." 
 
 "Thank ye," said the young man dryly. "But why 
 not gie a pairson a helping hand?" 
 
 "I am not sure that I like you well enough." Such 
 candor was extorted by the seriousness with which she 
 was now having to treat him. "You see, Mr. Maclean, 
 it is all so sudden. We have only met once before." 
 
 "May I hope, Miss Sanderrson ?" 
 
 Suddenly he moved his chair towards her and took 
 her hand. 
 
 "Mr. Maclean, you may not." The hand was with- 
 drawn firmly. 
 
 18
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 "Well, think it owre, Miss Sanderrson." 
 The young man moved back his chair to its first posi- 
 tion in order to restore the status quo. 
 
 Harriet shook her head. And then all at once, to the 
 deep consternation of Constable Maclean, she broke into 
 an anguish of laughter, which good manners, try as they 
 might, were not able to control. 
 
 IV 
 
 In the midst of this unseemly behavior on the part 
 of Miss Sanderson, the door next the street was flung 
 open with violence. A figure Homeric of aspect emerged 
 from the night. 
 
 It was that of Constable Joseph Kelly, of the Metro- 
 politan Police ; an ornament of the X Division, a splendid 
 man to look at, nearly six feet high. Broad of girth, 
 proportioned finely, his helmet crowned him like a hero 
 of old. His face, richly tinted by daily and nightly 
 exposure to the remarkable climate of London, was the 
 color of a ripe apple, and there presided in it the almost 
 god-like good-humor of the race to which he belonged. 
 
 This emblem of superb manhood was laden heavily. 
 There was his long overcoat, a tremendous, swelling 
 affair; there was his furled oilskin cape; at one side of 
 his girdle was his truncheon-case, his lamp at the other 
 side of it; in his left hand was a modest basket which 
 had contained his dinner, and in his right was a larger 
 wicker arrangement which might have contained any- 
 thing. 
 
 "Is that our Harriet?" said Constable Kelly, in the act 
 of closing the door deftly with his heel. "Good evening, 
 gal. Pleased to see you." 
 
 19
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 He set down the large basket on the floor in a rather 
 gingerly manner, placed the small one on the table, came 
 to Harriet, kissed her audibly, and then turned to the 
 room's second occupant with an air of surprise. 
 
 "Hello, Scotchie! What are you doing here?" 
 
 Before Dugald Maclean could answer the question he 
 was in the throes of a second attack of dumb madness. 
 This malady made his life a burden. When only one 
 person was by he seldom had difficulty in expressing 
 himself, but any addition to the company was apt to 
 plunge him into hopeless defeat. 
 
 "Up to no good, I expect." Joseph Kelly, disapproval 
 in his eyes, answered his own question, since other answer 
 there was none. "I never see such a feller. Been 
 mashing you, Harriet, by the look of him." 
 
 It was a bow drawn at a venture by a shrewd colleague 
 of the X Division. An immediate effusion of rose pink 
 to the young man's freckled countenance was full of 
 information for a close observer. 
 
 "Durn me if he hasn't !" Gargantuan laughter rose to 
 the ceiling. 
 
 Harriet blushed. But the look in her face was not 
 discomfiture merely. There was plain annoyance and a 
 look of rather startled anxiety for which the circum- 
 stances could hardly account. 
 
 "Scotchie, you're a nonesuch." But Joe suddenly 
 lowered his voice in answer to the alarm in the face of 
 his sister-in-law. "You are the limit, my lad. Do you 
 know what he did last week, Harriet? I'll tell you." 
 
 "Let me make you a cup of tea, Joe." And his sister- 
 in-law, who seemed oddly agitated by his arrival, rose 
 in the humane hope of diverting the attack. 
 
 20
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 But the story was too good to remain untold. 
 
 "It'll take the X Division twenty years to live it down." 
 Kelly throbbed and gurgled like a donkey-engine as he 
 fixed his youthful colleague with a somber eye. "This 
 young feller, what do you think he did last week ?" 
 
 "The kettle will soon boil, Joe." 
 
 "Harriet !" the rich rolling voice thrilled dramatically 
 "about midnight, last Monday week as ever was, this 
 smart young officer saw an old party in an eyeglass and 
 a topper and a bit o' fur round his overcoat, standin' on 
 the curb at Piccadilly Circus. He strolls up, taps him 
 on the shoulder, charges him with loitering with intent 
 and runs him in." 
 
 "Here's your tea, Joe." The voice was sweetly polite. 
 
 "And who do you think the old party was, my gal? 
 Only a Director of the Bank of England that's all. 
 The rest of the Force is guying us proper. They want 
 to know when we are going to lock up the Governor." 
 
 "Joe, your tea!" 
 
 "We'll never get over it, gal, not in my time. 
 Scotchie, you are too ambitious. There isn't scope for 
 your abilities in the Metropolitan Force. Turn your 
 attention to some other branch of the law. You ought 
 to take chambers in the Temple, you ought, my lad." 
 
 But in answer to the look in the eyes of Harriet, her 
 brother-in-law checked the laugh that rose again to his 
 lips. There was a strange anxiety upon her face, an 
 anxiety that was now in some way communicated to him. 
 It was clear from the glances they exchanged and the 
 silence that ensued, that both were much embarrassed by 
 the presence of Maclean. 
 
 However, after the young man had entered upon a 
 
 21
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 struggle for words with which to meet this persiflage and 
 they had refused to come forth, he suddenly noticed that 
 the hands of the clock showed a quarter to six and he 
 rose determinedly. 
 
 "Yes, it's time you went on duty," said the sardonic 
 Kelly with an air of relief. 
 
 Constable Maclean, feeling much was at stake, made 
 a great effort to achieve a dignified exit. He was an odd 
 combination of the thick-skinned and the hypersensitive. 
 At this moment the shattering wit of his peer of the X 
 Division made him wish he had never been born, but he 
 was too dour a fighter to take it lying down. 
 
 "Gude-nicht, Miss Sanderrson." With one more 
 grimace he offered a hand not indelicately. 
 
 "Good-night, Mr. Maclean." The tone of studied 
 kindness was a salve for his wounds. The effrontery 
 of this young man did not call for pity. And yet it was 
 his to receive it from the sterling heart of a true 
 woman. 
 
 The smile, the arch glance, the ready handshake did 
 so much to restore Dugald Maclean in his own esteem, 
 that he was able to retire with even a touch of swagger, 
 which somehow, in spite of an awkwardness almost 
 comically ursine, sat uncommonly well on such a dashing 
 young policeman. 
 
 Indeed, the exit of Constable Maclean came very near 
 the point of bravado. For as he passed the large wicker 
 basket which Kelly had placed on the floor, the young 
 man turned audaciously upon his tormentor. Said he 
 with a grin of sheer defiance : 
 
 "What hae ye gotten i' the basket, Joe?" 
 
 "Never you mind. 'Op it." 
 
 22
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 Less out of natural curiosity, which however was 
 very great, than a desire to show all whom it might 
 concern that he was again his own man, Dugald Maclean 
 laid his hand on the lid of the basket. 
 
 "What hae ye gotten, Joe? Rabbuts?" 
 
 "If you must know, it's a young spannil." The 
 answer came with rather truculent hesitation. 
 
 "A young spannil, eh? I'm thinkin' I'll hae a look." 
 
 "Be off about your duty, my lad." Joe began to look 
 threatening. 
 
 "Juist a speir." 
 
 " 'Op it, I tell you." 
 
 But in open defiance, Dugald Maclean had already 
 begun to untie the string which held the lid of the basket 
 in place. The majestic Kelly rose from his tea. With- 
 out further words he seized the young man firmly from 
 behind by the collar of his coat. And then he hustled 
 him as far as the door in a very efficient professional 
 manner, straight into the arms of Eliza, who at that 
 moment was in the act of entering it 
 
 At the open door there was a brief scurry of laughter 
 and protest which ended in a riot of confusion. And 
 then happened an odd thing. But of the three persons 
 struggling upon the threshold of Number Five only one 
 was aware of it, and he had the wit to raise a great voice 
 to its highest pitch in order to conceal a fact so remark- 
 able. 
 
 "For heaven's sake hold your noise, Joe, else you'll 
 frighten the neighbors," said Eliza, getting in it at last 
 
 23
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 and indulging in suppressed shrieks at the manner of 
 Dugald Maclean's putting out. 
 
 An instant later, the young policeman was in the street 
 and the door of Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas, had 
 closed upon him. But his singular exit was merely the 
 prelude to an incident far more amazing. 
 
 In the uproar of Joe had been fell design. As soon 
 as it ceased the reason for it grew apparent. An incred- 
 ible sound was filling the room, 
 
 "Whatever's that!" Eliza almost shrieked in sheer 
 wonderment. 
 
 Harriet's behavior was different. For a moment sb 
 was spellbound. The look in her eyes verged upon 
 horror. 
 
 It seemed that a child was crying lustily. 
 
 "Wherever can it be !" cried the frantic Eliza. 
 
 A wild glance round the room told Eliza that there 
 was only one place in which it could be. Her eyes fell 
 at once on the large wicker basket, which had been set 
 on the floor near the fire. 
 
 "Well, in all my born days !" 
 
 She rushed to the basket and began furiously to untie 
 the lid. But the maxim "the more haste the less speed" 
 was as true in 1890 as it is today. Eliza's fingers merely 
 served to double and treble knot the string. 
 
 Uncannily calm, Harriet rose from the table, the bread 
 knife in her hand. In silence she knelt by the hearth 
 and cut the knot. The deliberation of her movements 
 was in odd contrast to Eliza's frenzy. 
 
 The lid was off the basket in a trice. And the sight 
 within further emphasized the diverse bearing of the 
 two women. Harriet rose a statue; Eliza knelt in an 
 
 24
 
 "How did you come by it, Joe?'
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 ecstasy. One seemed to gloat over the sight that met 
 her eyes ; the other, with the gaze of Jocasta, stood turned 
 to stone. 
 
 It was the sweetest little baby. In every detail immac- 
 ulate, bright as a new pin, its long clothes were of a fine 
 quality, and it was wrapped in a number of shawls. A 
 hot-water bottle was under its tiny toes, and a bottle of 
 milk by its side. 
 
 Eliza's first act was to take the creature out of its 
 receptacle. And then began the business of soothing it. 
 Near the fire was a large rocking-chair, made for mother- 
 hood, and here sat Eliza, the foundling upon her knee. 
 Evidently it had a charming disposition. For in two 
 shakes of a duck's tail it was taking its milk as if nothing 
 had happened. Yet the calm, tense Harriet had a little 
 to do with that. The milk was her happy thought. 
 Moreover, she tested its quality and temperature with 
 quite an air of experience. And the effect of the milk 
 was magical. 
 
 As soon as sheer astonishment and the cares of 
 motherhood would permit, a number of searching ques- 
 tions were put to Constable Kelly. 
 
 "How did you come by it, Joe?" was question the 
 first 
 
 Before committing himself in any way, Joe scratched 
 a fair Saxon poll like a very wise policeman, indeed. 
 It was as if he had said, "Joseph Kelly, my friend, 
 anything you say now will be used in evidence against 
 you." 
 
 At last, cocking at Harriet a cautious eye, he replied 
 impressively, "I'll tell you." But it was not until Eliza 
 
 25
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 had imperiously repeated the question that he came to 
 the point of so doing. 
 
 So accustomed was Joseph Kelly to the giving of evi- 
 dence that unconsciously he assumed the air of one upon 
 his oath. 
 
 "I was percedvng," said he, "about twenty-past four 
 through Grosvenor Square, on my way to Victoria, when 
 I see through the fog this bloomin' contraption on a 
 doorstep." 
 
 "What was the number ?" Eliza asked. 
 
 "I was so flabbergasted, I forgot to look." 
 
 "Well, really, Joe!" 
 
 "When I saw what was in the basket, I was so took, 
 as you might say, that it was not until I was at the end 
 of the street that I thought of looking for the number. 
 And then it was too late to swear to the house." 
 
 "In Grosvenor Square?" said Harriet. 
 
 "I'm not percisely sure. The fog was so thick in 
 Mayfair you could hardly see your hand before you. It 
 may have been one of them cross streets going into Park 
 Lane." 
 
 "A nice one you are, Joe." And Eliza began to croon 
 softly to the babe in her arms. 
 
 Kelly stroked his head perplexedly. 
 
 "I am," he said, solemnly. "A proper guy I'll look 
 when I take it to the Yard tomorrow and they ask me 
 how I come by it." 
 
 "Take it to the where?" asked Eliza sharply. 
 
 "To Scotland Yard the first thing in the morning, to 
 the Lost Property Department." 
 
 "There's going to be no Scotland Yard for this sweet 
 lamb." 
 
 26
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 "If I had done my duty it 'd ha' gone there tonight." 
 
 Said Eliza : "You haven't done it, Joe, so it's no use 
 talking. And if I have a say in the matter, you are not 
 going to do it now." 
 
 Here were the makings of a very pretty quarrel. But 
 Eliza had one signal advantage. She knew her own 
 mind, whereas Joe evidently did not know his. By his 
 own admission he had already been guilty of a grave 
 lapse of duty. And in Eliza's view that was a strong 
 argument why the creature should stay where it was. 
 It would be foolish for Joe to give himself away by 
 taking it to Scotland Yard. 
 
 The argument was sound as far as it went, but when 
 it came to the business of the Metropolitan Force, Joe 
 was a man with a conscience. As he said, with a dour 
 look at Harriet, two wrongs didn't make a right, and to 
 suppress the truth by keeping the kid would not clear 
 him. 
 
 But Eliza was adamant. Joe had made a fool of him- 
 self already. He had nothing to gain by landing himself 
 deeper in the mire, whereas the heart of a mother had 
 yearned a long eight years for the highest gift of Provi- 
 dence. The truth was that from the outset Joseph Kelly 
 had precious little chance of doing his duty in the matter. 
 
 Perhaps he knew that. At any rate he did not argue 
 his case as strongly as he might have done. And Eliza, 
 rocking the babe on her knee, in the seventh heaven of 
 bliss, rent Joe in pieces, laughed him to scorn. Harriet, 
 standing by, a curious look on her face, well knew how 
 to second her; yet the younger woman did not say a 
 word. 
 
 In a very few minutes Joe had hauled down his flag. 
 
 27
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Really he had not a chance. It was a very serious lapse 
 from the path of duty, but what could he do, the 
 simpleton ! 
 
 " 'Finding is keeping' with this bairn," said the tri- 
 umphant Eliza. 
 
 It was then that the silent, anxious, hovering Harriet 
 claimed a share of the spoils of victory. 
 
 "Eliza," she said, "if you are to be the sweet thing's 
 mother, I must be its godmother." 
 
 "You shall be, my dear." 
 
 Harriet sealed the compact by a swift, stealthy kiss 
 upon the cheek of the foundling, who now slept like a 
 cherub on the knee of its new parent. 
 
 "The lamb !" whispered Eliza. 
 
 Tears of happiness came into the eyes of the mother- 
 elect. Harriet turned suddenly away as if unable to bear 
 the sight of them. 
 
 Said Joe to himself: "This is what I call a rum 
 'un." But even in the moment of his overthrow, he did 
 not forget the philosophical outlook of that august body 
 of men, whose trust he had betrayed. He turned to his 
 long neglected cup of tea, now cold alas! and swallowed 
 it at a gulp. He then went on with the solemn business 
 of toasting bread and eating it. 
 
 To add to Joe's sense of defeat, the two women paid 
 him no more attention now than if he had not been in 
 the room at all. 
 
 "The sweetest thing!" whispered the one ecstatically. 
 
 "What shall we call it ?" whispered the other. 
 
 "A boy or a girl?" 
 
 "Oh, a girl." 
 
 "How do you know?" 
 
 28
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 "By its mouth. A boy could never have a mouth like 
 that." 
 
 "I don't know that, my dear. I've seen boys with 
 mouths " 
 
 "But look at the dimples, my dear." 
 
 "I have seen boys with dimples " 
 
 " Joe Kelly, you are the durnedest fool alive." 
 
 This emotioned statement was the grace to a very sub- 
 stantial slice of buttered toast. Joe ate steadily, but 
 his countenance now bore a family likeness to that of 
 a bear. 
 
 "Suppose we say Mary? It's the best name there is, 
 I always think." 
 
 "But it may turn out a George, my dear. I hope it 
 will." 
 
 "I feel sure it's a Mary," affirmed the godmother of 
 the sleeping babe. "I wonder who are the parents ?" 
 
 "Whoever's child it may be," said the mother-elect, 
 "one thing is sure. They are people well up. I don't 
 think I ever saw a child so cared for. And, my dear, 
 look at the shape of that chin and the set of that ear. 
 And that lovely hand a perfect picture with its filbert 
 nails. Look at the fall of those eyelids. No wonder it 
 comes out of Grosvenor Square." 
 
 "Grosvenor Square I'll not swear to," came a further 
 interpellation from the table. 
 
 "Get on with your tea, Joe," said the mother-elect. 
 "What we are talking of is no concern of yours." 
 
 The miserable Joe took off his boots and put on a 
 pair of carpet slippers. 
 
 "You've made a bad slip-up, my boy," he remarked, as 
 he did so. 
 
 20
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 The two women continued to croon over the wonder- 
 child. Joe took a pipe, filled it with shag and lit it 
 dubiously. This was a bad business. He was a great 
 philosopher, as all policemen are, but whenever a grim 
 eye strayed across the hearth, it was followed by a frown 
 and a grunt of perplexity. 
 
 Joe smoked solemnly. The women prattled on. But 
 quite suddenly, like a bolt from a clear sky, there came 
 a very unwelcome intrusion. The street door was flung 
 open and a young constable entered breathlessly. 
 
 Dugald Maclean was received with surprise, anger, 
 and dismay. "Now then, my lad, what about it?" de- 
 manded Joe, with a snarl of suppressed fury. 
 
 "I'm seekin' 'Urban Love, a trilogy,' " proclaimed 
 Dugald Maclean; and he spoke as if the fate of the 
 empires hung upon his finding it. 
 
 "Seekin' what, you durned Scotchman?" said the 
 alarmed and disgusted Joe. 
 
 With deadly composure, Harriet rose from the side of 
 the sleeping babe. 
 
 "Mr. Maclean, it is there," she said, icily. And she 
 pointed to the table where the precious manuscript re- 
 clined. 
 
 "Thank ye," said Dugald, coolly. And he proceeded 
 to button into his tunic "Urban Love, a trilogy." 
 
 But the mischief was done. The alert eye of an ambi- 
 tious police constable had traveled from the open basket 
 at one side of the fire to the object at the other, sleeping 
 gently now upon Eliza's knee. A slow grin crept over 
 a freckled but vulpine countenance. 
 
 "Blame my cats," he muttered, "so there's the young 
 spannil." 
 
 30
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 Joe rose majestically. He said not a word, but again 
 taking the intruder very firmly by the collar of his regula- 
 tion overcoat, hustled him with quiet truculence through 
 the open door into the street. Closing the door and turn- 
 ing the key, he then went back to his meditations, looking 
 more than ever like a disgruntled bear.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 1 
 
 AUNT ANNIE was the first to be told the great 
 news. In the view of both nieces it was in the 
 natural order of things that this august lady 
 should take precedence of the rest of the world. She 
 was so incontestably the family "personage," the emi- 
 nence she occupied was such a dizzy one, that it would 
 have been just as unthinkable not to grant her priority in 
 a matter of such vital importance, as it would have been 
 to deny it to Queen Victoria in an affair of State. 
 
 In point of fact, Aunt Annie, within her own orbit, 
 was the counterpart and reflection of her Sovereign. In 
 an outlook they were alike, they were alike in the range 
 of their ideas, and well-informed people had said that 
 they had tricks of speech and manner in common. This 
 may have been a little in excess of the truth, one of those 
 genial pleasantries it is the part of wisdom to accept in 
 the spirit in which they are offered, but it would be wrong 
 to deny that in the suburb of Laxton Aunt Annie took 
 rank as a very great lady. 
 
 It is true that she lived in a small and modest house 
 in an unpretentious street, but all the world knew that 
 the flower of her years had been passed in abodes very 
 
 32
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 different. And not only that, it was also known that 
 every year on her birthday, the twenty-sixth of March, 
 those whom it is hardly right to mention in these humble 
 pages came to call on her. On the twenty-sixth of every 
 March, sometime in the afternoon, a remarkable equipage 
 would appear before the chaste precincts of "Bowley," 
 Croxton Park Road. At that hour every self-respecting 
 pair of eyes in the immediate neighborhood would be 
 ambushed discreetly behind curtains in order to watch the 
 descent of a real live princess with a neat parcel. 
 
 The contents of the parcel were said to vary from 
 year to year. Now it would be a piece of choice needle- 
 work, fashioned by the accomplished hands of Royalty 
 itself, which would take the shape of a cushion or a foot- 
 stool, now a framed photograph of Prince Adolphus or 
 Princess Geraldine in significant stages of their adoles- 
 cence, now a chart of the august features of even more 
 important members of the family. Many were the his- 
 torical objects disposed about Aunt Annie's sitting-room, 
 which the elect of the neighborhood had the privilege of 
 seeing and handling when they came to call upon her. 
 But when all was said, the undoubted gem of the collec- 
 tion was a superb edition, bound in full calf, of the 
 Poems of A. L. O. E., with a certain signature upon the 
 fly-leaf. This was always kept under glass. 
 
 It chanced that Aunt Annie had invited herself to tea 
 at Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas, the day after the 
 arrival of the babe. This was strictly in accord with 
 rule and precedent. She was far too much a personage 
 to be invited by her niece Eliza, but if she intimated by 
 a letter, which was the last word in precision, that she 
 proposed to call on a certain day, Eliza humbly and 
 
 33
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 gratefully overhauled the best tea service and polished 
 the lacquer tray which was only used on State occasions. 
 
 Not merely the mother-elect, but also godmother 
 Harriet, saw the hand of a very special Providence in 
 the impending visit of Aunt Annie to Beaconsfield Villas. 
 It was only right and fit that the news should be first told 
 to her. The matter must have her sanction. By com- 
 parison the rest of the world was of small account. The 
 entire clan Sanderson lived in awe of her, and particu- 
 larly her imprudent and demode niece Eliza. The 
 prestige of Aunt Annie was immense, and it did not make 
 things easier for those who lived within the sphere of 
 her influence that the old lady was fully alive to the 
 fact. 
 
 Eliza confided to Harriet that she would breathe more 
 freely when the morrow's visit had taken place. Harriet 
 boldly said it didn't really matter what view Aunt Annie 
 took of the affair. But Eliza knew better. In spite of 
 the joys of vicarious motherhood, there could be no 
 peace of mind for Eliza until the fateful day was over. 
 
 Half-past four in the afternoon was the hour men- 
 tioned in the official note. And it was then, punctual to 
 the minute, that a vehicle of antique design even for that 
 remote period of the world's history, in charge of a 
 Jehu to match it, drew up on the cobblestones exactly 
 opposite Number Five. The fog had cleared consider- 
 ably since the previous evening, therefore three urchins, 
 spellbound by the appearance of such a turnout in their 
 own private thoroughfare, beheld the slow and stately 
 emergence of a superbly Victorian bonnet of the most 
 authentic design and a black mantle of impressive sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 34
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 Jehu, like the equipage itself, jobbed for the occasion, 
 was the mirror of true courtliness. He had an uncle in 
 the Royal stables, therefore he knew the deference due 
 to the august Miss Sanderson. In promoting her descent 
 from the chariot he did not actually take off his hat, but 
 he stood with it off in spirit; a fact sufficiently clear to 
 the three youthful onlookers, one of whom remarked in 
 a voice of awe, "It's the mayoress." 
 
 Eliza, quaking over her best tea service on its elegant 
 tray, knew without so much as a glance through the 
 window that Aunt Annie had come. But she waited for 
 the knock. And then apronless, in her best dress, with 
 never a hair out of place, she opened the door with a 
 certain slow stateliness. Before her mesalliance she had 
 had great prospects as lady's maid. 
 
 "Good morning, dear Eliza." 
 
 It was four o'clock in the afternoon, but the distin- 
 guished visitor undoubtedly said, "Good morning, dear 
 Eliza." Moreover, she offered a large and rigid cheek 
 and Eliza pecked at it rather nervously. 
 
 The door of Number Five closed upon Jehu, upon his 
 wonderful and fearful machine, and also upon the gen- 
 eral public. 
 
 "And how is Joseph ?" 
 
 "Nicely, thank you, Aunt Annie. I hope you are quite 
 well." 
 
 "As well as my rheumatism will permit." 
 
 "Won't you take off your things ?" 
 
 "Thank you, no, my dear." 
 
 Aunt Annie would rather have died than take off her 
 things in that house. In her heart she had never been 
 able to forgive Eliza her marriage. Joseph Kelly was 
 
 35
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 a worthy fellow no doubt, a good husband, and a consci- 
 entious police officer, but by no exercise of the imagina- 
 tion could he ever occupy the plane of a Sanderson. It 
 may have been mere pride of family but then pride of 
 family is a queer thing. 
 
 Poor Eliza had fallen sadly from grace. She had come 
 down in the world, whereas a true Sanderson always 
 made a point of going up in it. Even if Eliza's relations 
 as a whole were inclined to take a sympathetic view of 
 her marriage, the one among them who really counted, 
 was never quite able to overlook the fact in her dealings 
 with her. Eliza had cause to feel nervous for Aunt 
 Annie was never so impressive as when she entered the 
 modest front parlor of Number Five. 
 
 It was easy for Aunt Annie to do that, because nature 
 was on her side. With the honorable exception of her 
 friend, Alderman Bradbury, the present mayor of the 
 borough, she had more personality than anyone in 
 Laxton. For forty years she had moved in the highest 
 circles in the land. Moreover, she had moved in them 
 modestly, discreetly, with the most punctilious good 
 sense. She had known her place exactly, had kept it, 
 therefore, with ever increasing honor and renown; but 
 the spirit of imperious self-discipline which had entered 
 into her in the process, sternly required that ordinary 
 people in their dealings with her should know their 
 place, too, and also be careful to keep it. In the domes- 
 tic circle Aunt Annie was a pitiless autocrat, and in public 
 life even the Mayor of Laxton and its leading Aldermen 
 did not withhold their deference when she condescended 
 to converse with them upon matters relating to the infant 
 life of the borough. 
 
 36
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 No wonder Laxton's leading inhabitants kow-towed 
 to Aunt Annie. No wonder niece Eliza cowered in spirit 
 when she superbly entered that modest dwelling and sat 
 in its most capacious chair. Tea was offered her, with- 
 out sugar and with only a very little milk according to 
 her stoical custom. 
 
 "Thankee, my dear." 
 
 The great lady removed a black kid glove, and 
 coquetted with a delicate slice of bread and butter. If 
 you have lived in palaces most of your days you know 
 that simplicity in all things is the true art of life. Right 
 at the back, as Eliza well knew, Aunt Annie was by no 
 means so simple as she made a point of seeming. Her 
 tastes and manners were modeled upon a sublime Origi- 
 nal, but as the memoirs of the time have shown in the 
 one case that things may not be always what they seem, 
 the same held true in the other. 
 
 Eliza had never felt so nervous in her life. Even the 
 historic hour in which she had first announced her 
 engagement to Joe could hardly compare with this. But 
 it was not until Aunt Annie had passed to her second 
 piece of bread and butter that the thunderbolt fell. 
 
 "A cradle, my dear!" 
 
 It was quite true that a cradle was in the chimney 
 corner, within three yards of Laxton's leading author- 
 ity on the subject. Moreover, it was a cradle of the latest 
 design, a cradle of the most elegant contour, it was a 
 cradle provided with springs and lace curtains. 
 
 Eliza blushed hotly and murmured something about 
 Harriet having had it sent that morning. And then all 
 at once she became so confused that she began to pour 
 
 37
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 out her own tea into the slop-basin instead of the cup 
 provided for the purpose. 
 
 "Harriet who, my dear?" 
 
 There was only one Harriet, and Eliza knew that Aunt 
 Annie knew that. It was a mere ruse to gain time 
 if such a word can be used without impropriety in such 
 connection. Eliza sought to cover her confusion by a 
 sedulous holding of the tongue, and by an attempt to 
 pour out her tea as if she really knew what she was 
 about. 
 
 "What is there in it?" 
 
 The demand was point-blank. It was almost pas- 
 sionate. 
 
 Without waiting to be told what there was in it, Aunt 
 Annie rose, tea cup and all, and with the glower of a 
 sibyl drew aside the curtains. 
 
 II 
 
 Mary was sleeping. Empirical science had proved her 
 beyond a doubt to be a Mary. And she was sleeping 
 as the best Marys do at the age of one month and a 
 bittock, with her thumb in her mouth if they are 
 allowed to do so. 
 
 To say that Aunt Annie was taken aback would be 
 like saying that Zeus was a little offended with certain 
 events when he blew the planet Earth out of the firma- 
 ment in the year 19 . However! it was as much as 
 Aunt Annie could do to believe the evidence of her eyes. 
 She fronted her niece augustly. 
 
 "And you never told me, my dear." 
 
 "It didn't come till last evening," stammered Eliza. 
 
 38
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 But a leading authority, even upon a subject so recon- 
 dite, is not deceived in that way. 
 
 "The child is five weeks old if it's an hour," scornfully 
 affirmed the expert. "Besides," the eye of the expert 
 transfixed her niece piercingly "do you suppose a 
 woman of my experience needs to be told but why 
 pursue the subject!" 
 
 For the moment Eliza felt so guilty that she was quite 
 unable to pursue the subject. Yet there was no reason 
 why she should allow herself to be overwhelmed, except 
 that Aunt Annie had an almost sublime power of putting 
 people in the wrong. The situation in sheer grandeur 
 and magnitude was altogether too much for her. And 
 the mind of Aunt Annie, capable of volcanic energy 
 when dealing with the subject it had -made its own, had 
 already traveled an alarming distance before Eliza could 
 impose any check upon it. 
 
 "A very fine child a very fine child indeed 
 but !" 
 
 The portentous gravity of the words should have 
 brought a chill to the soul of Eliza. But for some odd 
 reason it caused her to laugh hysterically. 
 
 "It is not a laughing matter," said the face of Aunt 
 Annie; her stern lips made no comment on the pre- 
 posterous behavior of her niece. 
 
 "She's mine," gasped Eliza, when laughter had brought 
 her to the verge of tears. 
 
 "Tell that to the Marines," said the face of Aunt 
 Annie. In fact the face of Aunt Annie said more 
 than that. It said, "Eliza, I should like to give 
 you the soundest shaking you have ever had in your 
 life." 
 
 39
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Joe and I have adopted it," gurgled Eliza at last. 
 
 Aunt Annie drew herself up to her full, formidable, 
 dragoon-like height of five feet ten inches, and gazed 
 sublimely down from that Olympian elevation. 
 
 "Then why not say so, my dear, in so many 
 words, without making yourself so profoundly ridicu- 
 lous?" 
 
 HI 
 
 With tingling ears, Eliza humbly admitted her fault 
 But as soon as she had done so, there arose a serious 
 problem, for a simple creature in whose sight the truth, 
 the whole truth and nothing but the truth was very pre- 
 cious. Aunt Annie began to ask questions questions 
 which forbade a person of ordinary discretion to answer 
 with candor. 
 
 Whose was the child? What was its origin? What 
 
 did the parents ? Why did the parents ? 
 
 When did the parents ? Did Eliza fully realize the 
 grave nature of the responsibility she was taking upon 
 herself? 
 
 It was the last question of the series that Eliza 
 answered first. And this she did for a sufficient reason : 
 to answer the others was wholly beyond her power. 
 
 "We may be doing a very unwise thing," said Eliza. 
 "Joe and I know that." 
 
 "I am sure I hope you do, my dear. But tell me, 
 where did you get it?" 
 
 The voice of truth enjoined on a doorstep in 
 Grosvenor Square, but the voice of prudence said other- 
 wise. And the voice of prudence sounded a very clear 
 and masterful note in Eliza's ear, for Joe, Harriet, and 
 
 40
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 she were fully agreed that the true story must 
 not be given to the world. Diplomacy was called 
 for. Such a forthright creature was quite uni- 
 versed in that dubious art, but she must prepare to use 
 it now. 
 
 "I promised I wouldn't tell." Alas! that crude 
 formula was all in the way of guile that poor flustered 
 Eliza could muster at the moment. 
 
 Less by instinctive cleverness than by divine 
 accident there was a world of meaning, however, in that 
 faltering tone. And a word to the wise is sufficient 
 There was not a wiser woman in England than Aunt 
 Annie, except of course, that is to say! speaking 
 merely for the lieges of the realm . 
 
 "Very well, I don't press the question." It was the 
 tone she had once accidentally overheard a very great 
 Personage use to Lord Gr-nv-lle. 
 
 Eliza sighed relief. 
 
 "But, let me say this," Aunt Annie looked steadily 
 at her niece. "I ask no questions in regard to the parents, 
 but whoever they may be, you must know that you run 
 a risk. The offspring of a regular union are often un- 
 satisfactory, the offspring of an irregular union, although 
 I praise heaven I have had no personal experience of 
 them, always bring sorrow to those with whom they 
 have to do." 
 
 Eliza could only reply that the creature was such a 
 dear lamb that she was quite prepared to take the risk. 
 Aunt Annie shook a solemn head at her niece, and then 
 surveyed the infant in true professional style. The babe 
 still slept. Before the great critic and connoisseur made 
 any comment she removed the thumb from the delightful 
 
 41
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 mouth. And the act was done with such delicacy as 
 not to bring a cloud to the dreams of this wonderful 
 Mary. 
 
 This was a rosebud of a creature, and she lay in her 
 grand cradle as if she simply defied even the highest 
 criticism to dispute the fact. Certainly one who knew 
 what babies were did not try to do so. Only one remark 
 was offered at that moment, but to the initiated it was 
 worth many volumes. 
 
 "Whoever's child it may be," said Aunt Annie, "and 
 mind I don't go into that, it is not a child of common 
 parents." 
 
 IV 
 
 For some odd reason, Eliza was so intensely flattered 
 by Aunt Annie's words, that she felt a desire to hug 
 her. None knew so well as Eliza that it was not a child 
 of common parents, but it was not the way of this 
 expert to say so. The wonderful creature was "wrapt 
 in mystery," but the hallmark of quality must have been 
 stamped very deep for such a one as Aunt Annie to 
 commit herself to any such statement. Her standard was 
 princes and princesses. Every babe in Christendom was 
 judged thereby, and there was perhaps one in a million 
 that could hope to survive the test. 
 
 A miracle had happened, but it was really too much to 
 expect that the cradle would have a share in it. Aunt 
 Annie shook her head over the cradle. It had too many 
 fal-lals. She approved neither its curtains nor its air of 
 grandeur. She was a believer in plainness and sim- 
 plicity. If before incurring an unwarrantable expense, 
 her niece had only mentioned the matter, the great lady 
 
 42
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 would have gone to Armitt's personally and have 
 arranged for a replica of the hygienic but unpretentious 
 design supplied by that famous firm to the Nursery over 
 which she had presided. 
 
 Eliza, however, could accept no responsibility for the 
 cradle. Harriet had sent it that morning quite unex- 
 pectedly. Aunt Annie was a little surprised that the 
 taste of Bridport House in cradles was not a little surer. 
 Yet upon thinking the matter over she found she was 
 less surprised than she thought she was. The Dinne- 
 fords were a good family, the Duke was esteemed, his 
 late Duchess, for a brief period, had been Mistress of 
 the Posset, but after all Bridport House was not Bowley. 
 After all a Gulf was fixed. 
 
 It was vain for Eliza to show how disappointed Har- 
 riet would be; the cradle had so clearly cost a great 
 deal of money. It had cost too much money, that was 
 the head and front of the cradle's offending. There 
 was an air of the parvenu about it. Such a cradle would 
 never have been tolerated at Bowley, nay, it was open to 
 doubt whether it would have been tolerated at Bridport 
 House. 
 
 Annt Annie was still discoursing upon cradles out of 
 a full mind, when Harriet herself came on the scene. 
 She was spending a few days at Number Five Beacons- 
 field Villas before going down to Buntisford, and she had 
 now returned from a day's shopping in London. She 
 knew that Aunt Annie was coming to tea, yet in spite 
 of being forewarned, the sight of the dominant old lady 
 seated at the table seemed to dash her at once. 
 
 For one thing, perhaps they were not the greatest of 
 friends. It may have been that Bowley set too high 
 
 43
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 a value upon itself in the eyes of Bridport House, it 
 may have been that Bridport House held itself too inde- 
 pendent in the eyes of Bowley. The clan Sanderson, 
 one and all, revered Aunt Annie; there was no gain- 
 saying that her career had been immensely distinguished ; 
 but at this moment Harriet's greeting certainly seemed 
 just a little perfunctory; it might even be said to have 
 a covert antagonism. 
 
 Harriet's health was tenderly inquired after, she was 
 solemnly congratulated on her recent appointment, which 
 did her much credit and conferred honor upon her 
 family; but it was soon apparent that there was only 
 one subject, to which, at that moment, Harriet could 
 give her mind. Had she been the mother of the babe, 
 instead of the godmother merely, her impatience to draw 
 aside the curtains of the cradle could hardly have been 
 greater, or her delight in looking upon a ravishing spec- 
 tacle when she had done so. 
 
 Even the stern criticism of those curtains she did not 
 heed, until she had gazed her fill. It was a babe in 
 a million. And when at last she was up against the 
 curtains, so to speak, instead of meeting the curtains 
 fairly and squarely, she began to paint extravagant pic- 
 tures of the future. 
 
 Her name was Mary. That was settled. She was 
 to be brought up most carefully; indeed, it was decided 
 already that she was to have a first-rate education. 
 
 "A first-rate education!" There was a slight curl 
 of a critical lip. 
 
 "Why not?" inquired godmother Harriet. 
 
 "The expense, my dear!" 
 
 "I think I shall be able to afford it." 
 
 44
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 "You, my dear," said Aunt Annie, rather pointedly. 
 
 "I am the godmother," said Harriet, with the light of 
 battle in her eyes. 
 
 "So I hear. But don't forget she is to be the child 
 of a police constable." 
 
 "She is not the child of a police constable," said Har- 
 riet, with a mounting color. 
 
 "I don't know whose child she is. That is a ques- 
 tion I prefer to avoid. But in my humble opinion it 
 will be a grave mistake to educate her above the class to 
 which it has pleased Providence to call her. No good 
 can come of it." 
 
 "That's nonsense !" The fine voice had a slight tremble 
 in it. 
 
 Aunt Annie looked down her large nose. "At any 
 rate, that has always been my view. And it has always 
 been the view of, I will not say who. It is very perilous 
 to tamper with the order of Divine Providence. And 
 I am surprised that one who has been called to a posi- 
 tion of high responsibility should think otherwise." 
 
 The quick flush upon Harriet's cheek showed that the 
 old lady had got home. She was always formidable 
 at close quarters ; even Harriet had to be wary in trying 
 a fall with her. 
 
 "The child must have a good, sensible upbringing. 
 Let her be taught cooking, sewing, plain needlework, and 
 so on. And / shall be very glad to give a little advice 
 from time to time. But I repeat it will be most unwise 
 to set her up, no matter who her parents may be, above 
 the station in life to which it has pleased Providence 
 to call her." 
 
 Again the light of battle darkened the eyes of Harriet 
 
 45
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "It is early days at present to talk about it," she 
 said. And she laughed suddenly in a high-pitched key. 
 
 Water flowed under London Bridge. The flight of 
 time demanded that Mary should fulfill her promise of 
 being the most wonderful child ever seen. She did not 
 fail, but grew in grace and beauty like a flower. At the 
 date of her arrival her age was deemed to be one month. 
 By the time it had been multiplied by twelve a person- 
 ality had begun to emerge, twelve months later it was 
 possible to gauge it. 
 
 There never was such a child. Eliza held that opinion 
 from the first, and godmother Harriet shared it. Aunt 
 Annie was more discreet, but her actions expressed an 
 interest of the highest kind. From the moment she had 
 committed herself to the memorable statement that 
 "Whoever's child she may be, she is not a child of com- 
 mon parents," there was really no more to be said. 
 But as the months passed and Mary became Mary yet 
 more definitely, the old lady, to the astonishment of both 
 her nieces, began to identify herself intimately with the 
 fortunes of the creature. 
 
 The critical age of two was safely passed. And the 
 age of three found Mary more than ever the cynosure 
 of Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. The infant had 
 such health, her eyes were so blue, her laugh was so 
 gay, her rose-bloom tints were so dazzling, that the 
 childless hearth of the Kelly s' was somehow touched 
 with the hues of Paradise. In moments of gloom Joe 
 had his doubts, and now and again expressed them. 
 
 46'
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 He had certainly done very wrong, the whole matter 
 was most irregular, but the look in Eliza's face was a 
 living contradiction to official pessimism. 
 
 In the meantime Aunt Annie sat many an hour, spec- 
 tacles on nose, making "undies" for her new niece. 
 The old lady was much courted by the rest of her 
 family. Even amid the remoter outposts of the clan, 
 her word was law. Apart from the romance of her 
 career, she enjoyed a substantial pension, she owned 
 house property, and the stocking in which she kept her 
 savings was known to be a long one. But beyond all 
 things was the woman herself. It was sheer weight of 
 character that gave her such a special place among her 
 peers. 
 
 The clan Sanderson was extensive, and inclined to 
 exclude. There were Sandersons holding positions of 
 trust in various parts of London and the country. There 
 was Mr. George Sanderson, who was in a bank at Sur- 
 biton, who, if he did not actually share the apex with 
 his cousin Annie, was immensely looked up to; there 
 was Francis, who, from very small beginnings, had 
 blossomed into a chartered accountant; there was young 
 Lawrence, of the new generation, who had given up 
 being a page boy in very good service, for the lures 
 of journalism. He was far from being approved by his 
 Aunt Annie, and he had not the sanction of his Uncle 
 George, but he was understood to be doing very well, 
 and if he only kept on long enough and made suf- 
 ficiently good in this eccentric way of life, the mandarins 
 of the family might regard him a little more hopefully. 
 Finally, there was Harriet. Hers was a truly remark- 
 able case. 
 
 47
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 At the age of twenty-nine, without special training 
 or any particular influence, she had been made house- 
 keeper to the Duke of Bridport at Buntisford Hall, 
 Essex. The more modern minds among the clan might 
 affect to despise a success of that kind, but for gen- 
 erations there had been a sort of feudal connection be- 
 tween the great house of Dinneford and the honest 
 race of yeomen who had served it. Chartered Account- 
 ant Francis might smile in a superior way, young 
 Lawrence of Fleet Street, a perfect anarchist of a fellow, 
 might scoff, but every true-blue Sanderson of the older 
 generation was amazed at Harriet's achievement, and 
 felt a personal pride in it. 
 
 Aunt Annie, who had a temperamental dislike of Har- 
 riet, was the first to admit that the rise of her niece had 
 been very remarkable. The august Miss Sanderson 
 was an unequaled judge of what Mr. George Sander- 
 son called "general conditions." Her own historical 
 career had given her peculiar facilities for gauging the 
 lie of a country, socially speaking, her sense of values 
 was absolutely correct, and she was constrained to admit, 
 much as it hurt her to do so, that Harriet's success 
 had no parallel in her experience. 
 
 Eliza Kelly occupied a very different place in the 
 hierarchy. She was perilously near the base of the 
 statue. Her brothers, her sisters, her uncles, her cousins, 
 and her aunts, had always made a practice of going 
 up in the world, but she had unmistakably come down 
 in it. It was not that they had anything against Joe 
 personally. He was sober, honest, a good husband, and 
 he well knew the place allotted to him by an all-wise 
 Providence. But when the best had been said for him 
 
 48
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 he was not, and could never hope to be, a Sanderson. 
 
 It was, therefore, the more surprising that Aunt Annie 
 should take so great an interest in the waif that the 
 Kellys had adopted. None knew the name of its parents, 
 none so much as ventured to hint at the source of its 
 origin, yet the mandarin-in-chief accepted it as soon as 
 she set eyes upon it, and month by month, year by year, 
 to the increasing surprise of the clan as a whole, her 
 regard for the creature waxed in ever growing pro- 
 portions. 
 
 Mrs. Francis A Miss Best, of Sheffield had given an 
 account of her afternoon call at Bowley, which she 
 had timed as usual for the day after Royalty had paid 
 its annual visit. Mrs. F. in the family, she was always 
 Mrs. F. had then seen Mary for the first time. And 
 although she had five of her own, the child had made a 
 great impression. She was like a fairy, with vivid eyes 
 and wonderful hair, which Aunt Annie used to brush 
 over a stick every time she came to Croxton Park 
 Road; her clothes were simple and in perfect taste, but 
 of a style and quality far beyond the reach of Mrs. 
 F.'s own progeny. She was then a little more than 
 three, and not only Mrs. F., but others, according to 
 Aunt Annie's account of the matter, had been greatly 
 struck by her. She certainly made a picture with her 
 dainty limbs, her laughing eyes, her flaxen curls. All 
 the same, it was very absurd that the child should 
 be turned out in that way. Eliza and Joe could not 
 possibly afford it, and if the old lady was responsible, 
 as was feared was the case, she ought to have had more 
 sense than to set her up in that way. 
 
 As the result of inquiries, Mrs. F. felt bound to 
 
 49
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 make in the matter, and there were very few matters 
 in which Mrs. F. did not feel bound to make inquiries 
 of one kind or another, it appeared that Aunt Annie 
 was not responsible for her clothes. The clothes lay at 
 the door of godmother Harriet. She had insisted on 
 choosing them, and had further insisted on sharing the 
 considerable expense they involved. Mrs. F. gathered 
 that in the opinion of Aunt Annie and also in that of 
 Eliza, godmother Harriet was inclined to abuse her 
 position. She was always insisting. No detail of the 
 creature's upbringing escaped her interference. She 
 must have her say in everything; indeed, she came over 
 from Buntisford regularly once a week for the purpose 
 of having it. At Beaconsfield Villas, and also at Bow- 
 ley, she took a very high tone, which Eliza and Aunt 
 Annie strongly resented. But it seemed there was no 
 remedy. Harriet was the godmother, she had her rights, 
 her will was as imperious as Aunt Annie's own and 
 her purse seemed fathomless. 
 
 As soon as Mary was four, it was settled that she 
 should go every morning to Bowley to be taught her 
 letters. And she must be taken there by a girl "who 
 spoke nicely." It seemed that a girl, who spoke nicely, 
 was a rather rare bird in Laxton. At any rate Eliza 
 having been compelled in the first place to yield to a 
 nursemaid, had many to review before one was found 
 whose style of delivery could satisfy the fastidious ear 
 of Aunty Harriet. 
 
 Eliza might be piqued by such "officiousness," but she 
 could not deny that Harriet had reason on her side. Per- 
 haps it was overdoing things a bit for people in their 
 position, but Eliza, if fallen from high estate, was still 
 
 50
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 at heart a Sanderson. Therefore she knew what was 
 what. And the secret was hers that the child's real home 
 was a long way from Number Five Beaconsfield Villas, 
 Laxton. Eliza could never quite forget the source o 
 origin of her adopted daughter. 
 
 Every month that went by seemed to make it increas- 
 ingly difficult to forget that. Princess Geraldine herself, 
 that figure of legend who used to call at Bowley 
 every twenty-sixth of March, could never have been 
 in more devout or judicious hands than little Mistress 
 Mary in that of the Council of Three, not to men- 
 tion those of Miss Sarah Allcock, specially coopted. 
 No child so tended and cared for, whose welfare was 
 so carefully studied by experts, could have failed to 
 grow in beauty and grace. She was so perfectly charm- 
 ing and superb when in the charge of the discreet Miss 
 Allcock, she took the air with her wonderful hair, her 
 patrician features and her white socks, that the nearest 
 neighbors began to resent it. It was considered rather 
 swank on the part of the Kellys to set up such a child 
 at all. They were surprised that Joe, a popular man, 
 should not have a truer sense of the fitness of things. 
 They were less surprised at Mrs. Joe, who was not 
 quite so popular. But Joe was a sensible fellow, and 
 he should have seen to it that the child did not become 
 the talk of the neighborhood. 
 
 Yet, after all, it may not have been so much the fault 
 of Joe or of Eliza, his wife, that the child became the 
 talk of the neighborhood. In the purview of local 
 society, whose salon was Mrs. Connor's, the green- 
 grocer's lady, at the end of the street, the blame lay 
 at the door of Miss Sarah Allcock. The truth was the 
 
 51
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 incursion of Miss Allcock was keenly resented by the 
 local ladies. She was altogether too fine yet the odd 
 thing was that she was not fine at all. But she was 
 in every way uncommonly superior. No greater tribute 
 could have been paid to the social supremacy of the pre- 
 siding genius of Croxton Park Road, or to the strength 
 of character of Aunty Harriet, than that such a one 
 as Miss Allcock should condescend to Beaconsfield Villas. 
 Truth to tell, Miss Allcock was a remote connection of 
 the clan Sanderson, although never admitted as such by 
 the mandarins. But she knew there were strings to 
 pull, and a good place had been guaranteed her when she 
 really started out in service. 
 
 All the same, as far as the neighbors were concerned, 
 Miss Sarah Allcock was an error of judgment. She was 
 amazingly neat and trim, she had the true Sanderson 
 refinement of manner and address, she was fond of 
 airing her voice to her charge with all sorts of subtle 
 Mayfair inflections, and she looked envoy from the neigh- 
 bors as if they were dirt. As if they were dirt that 
 was the gravamen of their complaint in the sympathetic 
 ear of Mrs. Bridgit Connor. 
 
 Mrs. Bridgit Connor, the greengrocer's wife, was a 
 widespread lady of Irish descent, of great but fluctuating 
 charm, and unfailing volubility. Her vocabulary was 
 immense, but scorn often taxed it. Her scorn of Miss 
 Allcock taxed it to the breaking point. Born on a 
 bog and descended in the remote past from the kings of 
 the earth, Mrs. Connor had facilities of speech and ges- 
 ture denied to the common run of her kind. She avenged 
 the slights put by Miss Allcock upon herself and friends 
 by alluding to that lady's charge in a loud voice when- 
 
 52
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 ever opportunity offered as "a by-blow," or "a no-man's 
 child." 
 
 When Mary was five there arose the grand question 
 of her education proper. At first a great clash of wills 
 was threatened. Aunt Annie had her views. Aunty 
 Harriet had hers. Eliza, being merely "the mother," was 
 not allowed to have any. Aunty Harriet thought perhaps 
 the kindergarten. Aunt Annie did not believe in such 
 new-fangled nonsense. Besides no kindergarten would 
 take her. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Aunty Harriet. But as she spoke 
 there came a slight flush to the proud face. 
 
 "Because they won't," said Aunt Annie with stern 
 finality. "All schools of the better sort are very par- 
 ticular." 
 
 Aunty Harriet bit her lip sharply. She retorted, per- 
 haps unwisely, that if they were not very particular 
 they would cease to be schools of the better sort. 
 
 "Quite so," said Aunt Annie. 
 
 For the moment it looked as if daggers were going 
 to be drawn. These two were always at the verge of 
 conflict. Both were impatient of any kind of opposition, 
 and in the matter of young Mistress Mary they seldom 
 saw eye to eye. Aunt Annie did not disguise her opinion 
 that Aunty Harriet was inclined to take too much upon 
 herself, and Aunty Harriet had no difficulty in return- 
 ing the compliment. 
 
 But Harriet had great common sense, and she was 
 a woman of action. She was not the one tamely to 
 accept the decree about schools of the better sort, but 
 began to make researches of her own into the subject. 
 She was very hard to please, both in regard to the 
 
 S3
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 style of the school and the condition of the scholars, 
 and when at last one had been found which met the 
 case, there arose the difficulties Aunt Annie had pre- 
 dicted. A child of parentage unknown, adopted by the 
 family of a police constable, did not commend herself 
 to the Misses Lippincott of Broad wood House Academy. 
 To Aunty Harriet this seemed a great pity; the school 
 presided over by those ladies was exactly suitable. Its 
 tone was high but not pretentious; the small daughters 
 and the smaller sons of Laxton's leading tradesmen 
 mingled with those of its professional classes, and its 
 reputation was so good that Aunty Harriet, after a dis- 
 creet interview with the elder Miss Lippincott, a bishop's 
 daughter and a university graduate, set her mind upon it. 
 
 Howbeit, the austere Miss Lippincott showed no incli- 
 nation to receive the adopted child of a police constable 
 as a pupil at Broadwood House Academy. This was not 
 conveyed to Miss Harriet Sanderson in so many words, 
 but in the course of the next day she received a letter, 
 delicately-worded, to that effect. However, she did not 
 give in, as smaller and weaker people might have done, 
 but she put her pride in her pocket and, looking the 
 facts in the face, went to take counsel at Bowley. 
 
 "What did I tell you, my dear!" said Aunt Annie. 
 To refrain from that observation would have been super- 
 human. But the observation duly made, the old lady 
 also revealed the divine gift of common sense. From 
 all that she had heard the establishment of the Misses 
 Lippincott was immensely desirable. Moreover, she 
 clearly remembered the Bishop, their late father, coming 
 to spend the week-end at the real Bowley, and hearing 
 him preach a singularly moving sermon in the little 
 
 54
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 parish church. Small wonder, then, that the tone of 
 Broad wood House Academy was "exactly right" in every 
 human particular; besides, Aunt Annie had met and 
 approved Miss Priscilla Lippincott on two occasions. 
 Therefore, the old lady promised Aunty Harriet that she 
 herself would see what could be done in the matter. 
 
 The first thing Aunt Annie did was to induce the 
 Mayoress, Mrs. Alderman Bradbury, to say a word on 
 the child's behalf. She promptly followed up this piece 
 of strategy by ordering her state chariot to drive Mistress 
 Mary and herself to Broadwood House Academy. 
 
 The child was looking her best. Her carefully-brushed 
 tresses shone like woven sunbeams, her slight, trim form 
 was clothed with taste and elegance, her laughing eyes 
 were frankly unabashed by the demure Miss Priscilla, 
 nay, even by the august Miss Lippincott herself. The 
 effect she made was entirely favorable. Besides, the 
 Mayoress had taken the trouble to call the previous after- 
 noon in order to speak for her, and Miss Sanderson, 
 as the Misses Lippincott knew, was looked up to in Lax- 
 ton; therefore, out of regard for all the circumstances, 
 a point was waived and little Miss Kelly was reluctantly 
 admitted to Broadwood House Academy. 
 
 VI 
 
 The Misses Lippincott never had cause to rue their 
 temerity. Little Miss Kelly remained in their care until 
 she was big Miss Kelly, a brilliant and dashing creature 
 with a quite extraordinary length of black stocking. 
 Neither Miss Lippincott nor Miss Priscilla ever regretted 
 her democratic action. In fact, it was a source of jealous 
 
 55
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 remark, even among the most distinguished scholars of 
 Broad wood House Academy, that not one of them could 
 wear the black beaver hat with the purple ribbon and its 
 gold monogram B. H. A., or the blue ulster with gilt but- 
 tons, in quite the way that these modish emblems were 
 worn by Mary Kelly. 
 
 It greatly annoyed Ethel Cliffe, who lived in The 
 Park, and was a daughter of Sir Joseph, three times 
 Mayor of Laxton, that in looks and popularity she had 
 to yield to the offspring of very much humbler parents, 
 who lived in quite an obscure part of the borough. But 
 it had to be. Year by year the cuckoo that had entered 
 the nest grew in beauty and favor, while the legitimate 
 denizens of Broadwood House could only bite their lips 
 and marvel. In the opinion of Ethel Cliffe and her 
 peers, old Dame Nature must be a perfect idiot not to 
 know her business a bit better. 
 
 It was not that Mary Kelly made enemies. Her 
 disposition was open, free, and fearless; her heart was 
 gold. Then, too, in most things, she was amazingly 
 quick. She never made any bones about reading, writ- 
 ing, arithmetic, geography, and so on, she was good at 
 freehand drawing, and the use of the globes, in Swedish 
 drill and ball games, particularly at hockey, she was 
 wonderful, and in music and dancing there was none 
 in the school to compare with her. The only things in 
 which she did not really excel were plain needlework 
 and religious knowledge. These bored her to tears 
 except that she proudly reserved her tears for matters 
 which seemed of more consequence. 
 
 As Mary Kelly's stockings got longer and longer the 
 supremacy of Ethel Cliffe grew even less secure. Even 
 
 56
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 at Broadwood House Academy it was impossible to sub- 
 sist entirely on your social eminence. Ethel had openly 
 sneered at the outsider upon her first intrusion in the 
 fold ; the only daughter of a very recent knight found it 
 hard to breathe the same air as the offspring of a humble 
 police constable. But Dame Nature, in her ignorant way, 
 bungled the whole thing so miserably, that while Ethel 
 was always very near the bottom of the class, Mary 
 was generally at the top of it; Ethel was heavy and 
 humorless, and inclined to take refuge in her dignity, 
 Mary was bon enfant, with very little in the way of dig- 
 nity in which to take refuge. And in proof of that, a 
 story was told of her, soon after she passed the age of 
 ten, which ran like wildfire throughout Broadwood 
 House Academy. 
 
 It seemed that in the vicinity of Mary's undistin- 
 guished home were certain rude boys. Foremost among 
 them was Mrs. Connor's Michael, the youngest and not 
 the least vocal of her numerous progeny. And it often 
 happened that Michael was en route from his own seat of 
 learning, where manners did not appear to be in the cur- 
 riculum, when Mistress Mary was on the way home 
 from Broadwood House Academy, where manners un- 
 doubtedly were. In the opinion of Michael's mother the 
 Connors were quite as good as the Kellys very much 
 better if it came to that! and this tradition had been 
 freely imbibed by her youngest hope. The Connors were 
 quite as good as the Kellys, Michael was always careful to 
 inform his peers, but the haughty beauty of Beacons- 
 field Villas, in her beaver hat and blue ulster with gilt 
 buttons did not share that view. She had simply not, 
 
 57
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 so much as a look for Michael and his friends. This 
 aloofness galled them bitterly. 
 
 Had she only known such aristocratic indifference 
 was rather cruel. For Michael's one distinction among 
 his mates, apart from his skill as a marble-player, which 
 was very considerable, was that he lived in the same 
 street as Miss Kelly. She was out and away the most 
 wonderful creature ever seen in that part of Laxton. 
 It was hard to forgive her for carrying her head in the 
 way she did, yet it somehow added still greater piquancy 
 to a personality that simply haunted the manly bosoms of 
 the neighborhood. But her aloofness was felt to be such 
 a reflection upon Michael himself, that at last that war- 
 rior was moved to a desperate course. 
 
 He took the extreme measure of offering Miss Kelly 
 his best blood alley. But it was in vain; Miss Kelly 
 would have none of his best blood alley, or of its owner. 
 Michael then decided upon war. 
 
 In discussing the Kellys on the domestic hearth, 
 he had heard his mother cast grave doubts upon the 
 ancestry of their so-called daughter. Therefore, the 
 spirt of revenge, rankling in Michael's tormented breast, 
 urged him to adopt a certain rhyme, current at the time, 
 for the chastening of this haughty charmer. Together 
 with a few chosen braves he lay in ambush for her as 
 she wended her proud way home from Broadwood 
 House Academy. As soon as Mary Kelly hove in sight 
 round the corner of Grove Street, S.E., these heroes 
 burst into song: 
 
 "I am Mary Plantagenet. 
 What would imagine it? 
 Eyes full of liquid fire, 
 Hair bright as jet. 
 58
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 No one knows my history 
 I am wrapt in mystery 
 I am the she-ro 
 Of a penny novelette." 
 
 On the occasion of the first performance, Miss Kelly 
 did not deign to take the slightest notice. But after 
 it had been repeated a number of times with increasing 
 reclatnce, it grew more than she could brook. One 
 never-to-be-forgotten Friday evening, in the fall of the 
 year, she suddenly handed her satchel of books to her 
 friend, Rose Pierce, and with decks cleared for action 
 and the flame of battle in her eyes, bore down upon the 
 foe. Michael Conner afterwards took his book oath to 
 the effect that he was not a coward. But the beaver hat, 
 the purple ribbon, the blue ulster and the gilt buttons 
 put the fear of God into him very surely. He ran. Alas, 
 he was a stocky youth, not exactly an Ormonde, even in 
 his best paces, whereas Mary Plantagenet, black stock- 
 ings and all, moved like a thoroughbred. She chased him 
 remorselessly the whole length of Longmore Street, 
 through the Quadrant, finally cornered him in a blind 
 alley in which he had the bad judgment to seek refuge, 
 and soundly boxed his ears. 
 
 As far as Mary Kelly was concerned the incident was 
 closed from that moment. Michael Connor very wisely 
 decided to close it also. He returned to his marble- 
 playing a chastened boy. But Rose Pierce, the daughter 
 of Laxton's leading physician, told the story breathlessly 
 at Broadwood House Academy on the following morn- 
 ing. All agreed that the prestige of the school had been 
 seriously impaired, but Miss Kelly was Mary Plantagenet 
 from that time on. 
 
 59
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 VII 
 
 By the time Mary was fourteen, Broadwood House 
 Academy had taught her most of what it knew. Then 
 arose the question of her future. The Kellys were 
 people in humble circumstances, and it was felt that the 
 child must be put in the way of getting a living. Eliza 
 suggested a shop, Aunt Annie shorthand and typewriting, 
 as she was so quick at her books, but Aunty Harriet 
 vetoed them promptly. And as year by year that auto- 
 crat promoted since the Duke's breakdown in health 
 to the very important post of housekeeper at Bridport 
 House, Mayfair had supported the operations of a 
 Strong will with an active power of the purse, she 
 carried the day as usual. Mary must be a hospital nurse. 
 
 To this scheme, however, there was one serious draw- 
 back. No hospital would admit her for training until she 
 was twenty-one. The problem now was, what she should 
 do in the -meantime. In order to meet it the Misses Lip- 
 pincott allowed her to stay on as a special pupil at Broad- 
 wood House. Paying no fees, she gave a hand with the 
 younger children, and was able to continue the study of 
 music, for which she showed a special aptitude. 
 
 For a time this plan answered very well. The Misses 
 Lippincott had a great regard for Mary. In every way 
 she was a credit to the school. Her natural gifts were 
 of so high an order that these ladies felt that a career 
 was open to her. There was nothing she might not 
 achieve if she set her mind upon it, always excepting 
 plain needlework and religious knowledge, and perhaps 
 freehand drawing, in which she was a little disappointing 
 also. Brimming with vitality and the joy of life and 
 
 60
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 yet with her gay enthusiasm was now coming to he 
 mingled a certain ambition. 
 
 As month by month she grew into a creature of charm 
 and magnetism, she seemed to learn the power within 
 herself. But that discovery brought the knowledge that 
 she was a bird in a cage. The daily round began to pall. 
 A rare spirit had perceived bars. Broadwood House 
 Academy was dear to her, but she now craved a larger, 
 a diviner air. 
 
 It chanced that she was to be put in the way of her 
 desire. Once a week there came to the school a Miss 
 Waddington, to give lessons in dancing. A pupil of the 
 famous Madame Lemaire, of Park Street, Chelsea, this 
 lady was an accomplished, as well as a very knowledge- 
 able person. From the first she had been greatly at- 
 tracted by Mary Kelly. An instructed eye saw at once 
 that the girl had personality. Not only was it expressed 
 in form and feature, it was in her outlook, her ideas. 
 There was a rhythm in all that she did, a poetry in the 
 smallest of her actions. 
 
 This girl was like no other. And Miss Waddington 
 grew so much impressed that at last came the proud day, 
 when by permission of the Misses Lippincott, Mary was 
 taken to Park Street to the academy, in order that her 
 gifts might be assessed by "Madame." 
 
 The opinion of that famous lady, promulgated in due 
 course, caused a nine days' wonder at Broadwood House. 
 Madame Lemaire, it seemed, had been so much smitten 
 by the lithe charm of young Miss Kelly, that she offered 
 to take her in at Park Street and train her free of 
 charge for three years. 
 
 At once the girl grew wild to take her chance. It 
 
 61
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 meant escape from a life that had already begun to cast 
 long shadows. But her home people saw the thing in 
 a very different light. In their opinion there was a 
 wide gulf between the respectability of Broad wood 
 House and the licentious freedom of Chelsea. Joe and 
 Eliza were at one with Aunt Annie and Aunty Harriet 
 in saying "No" to the proposal. 
 
 Mistress Mary, however, was now rising sixteen with 
 a rapidly developing character of her own. Therefore 
 she did not let the strength of opposition daunt her. 
 She set her mind firmly upon Park Street and Madame 
 Lemaire; and very soon, to the intense surprise and 
 chagrin of "her relations," she had contrived to get the 
 Misses Lippincott on her side. 
 
 Very luckily for Mary, those ladies were open-minded 
 and worldly wise. They saw that the career of a highly- 
 trained dancer had prospects far beyond those of a half- 
 educated schoolmistress. Mary was rapidly becoming an 
 asset of Broadwood House, but the ladies, although per- 
 haps a little dubious, allowed themselves to be over- 
 persuaded by Miss Waddington and the girl herself.- 
 
 There followed a pretty to-do. Aunt Annie was hor- 
 rified. Such a career, with all deference to the Misses 
 Lippincott, hardly sounded respectable. As for Aunty 
 Harriet, with her usual energy, she made first-hand in- 
 quiries in regard to Madame Lemaire. She found that 
 the name of that lady stood high in her profession. But 
 alas! one thing leads to another. Aunty Harriet, who 
 had a shrewd knack of taking long views, had already 
 espied the cloven hoof of the theater. It seemed inevi- 
 table that such a girl as Mary should drift towards it. 
 
 62
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 And of that sinister institution Aunty Harriet had a 
 pious horror. 
 
 Therefore she opposed Park Street sternly. But the 
 girl fully knew her own mind and meant from the first 
 to have her way. And she played her cards so well that 
 she got it somehow. No doubt it was judicious aid from 
 an influential quarter that finally carried the day. Be 
 that as it may, in spite of all sorts of gloomy prophecies, 
 Mary was able to accept an offer which was to change 
 completely the current of her life. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The move to Chelsea closed an epoch. At once Mary 
 found herself in a new and fascinating world. Part of 
 the arrangement with Madame Lemaire was that she 
 should "live in" at Park Street, and have freedom to 
 take a fourpenny 'bus on Sundays to Beaconsfield Villas. 
 This was greatly to Mary's liking. Chelsea, as she 
 soon discovered, had an air more rarefied than Laxton; 
 somehow it had a magic which opened up new vistas. 
 She had been by no means unhappy at Broadwood 
 House, her foster-parents had treated her with every 
 kindness, but she could not help feeling that by compari- 
 son with the new life, the old one was rather deadly. 
 
 Of course, it would have been black ingratitude to 
 admit anything of the kind. Still, the fact was there. 
 Park Street had a freedom, a gayety, a careless bonhomie 
 far removed from the austerity of Broadwood House. 
 Her life had been enlarged. The hours were long, the 
 work was hard, but her heart was in it, and the novel 
 charm of her surroundings was a perpetual delight. 
 
 63
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 A month of Park Street brought more knowledge 
 'of the world than a lustrum of Broadwood House. 
 Madame Lemaire's establishment was a famous one, 
 in fact the resort of fashion ; to the perceptive Mary the 
 people with whom she had now to rub shoulders had 
 real educational value. 
 
 The girl was one of a number of articled pupils, who 
 were taught dancing in order to teach it again. With all 
 of these she got on well. Immensely likeable herself, 
 she had an instinct for liking others. And she was now 
 among a rather picked lot, a little Bohemian perhaps in 
 the general range of their ideas, but friendly, amusing, 
 and at heart "good sorts." Madame knew her business 
 thoroughly. She seldom erred as to the character and 
 capacity of those whom she chose to help her in return 
 for a valuable training. 
 
 Some of the girls who passed through her hands found 
 their way on to the stage. Distinguished names were 
 among them. Indeed, the atmosphere of Park Street 
 was semi-theatrical. Dancing, elocution, singing, physi- 
 cal culture, and fencing were the subjects taught at 
 Madame Lemaire's academy. 
 
 Mary remained nearly three years at Park Street. In 
 that time she came on amazingly. Awake from the first 
 to a knowledge of her gifts, she was secretly determined 
 to use them in the carving out of a career. Broadwood 
 House had sown the seed of ambition; under the able 
 tutelage of Madame Lemaire it was to bear fruit. Stimu- 
 lated by the outlook of her new friends, soon she began 
 to feel the lure of a larger life. She craved for self- 
 expression through the emotions, and all her energies 
 were bent upon the satisfaction of a vital need. 
 
 64
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 In the early stages she owed much to Madame Le- 
 maire, who approved her ambition to the full. Here was 
 a talent, and that lady did all in her power to fit a brilliant 
 pupil for the field best suited to it. Unknown to Aunty 
 Harriet, who still cherished the idea of a hospital at the 
 age of twenty-one, unknown to Aunt Annie, who would 
 have been horrified, unknown to Beaconsfield Villas, 
 Mary with the future always before her, set to work 
 under the aegis of Madame to make her dreams come 
 true. 
 
 After many diligent months, in the course of which a 
 singularly dainty pair of feet were reenforced by a very 
 serviceable soprano, there came the day when she was 
 given her chance. A theatrical manager, who made a 
 point of attending the annual display of Madame's pupils 
 at the Terpsichorean Hall, was so struck by her abilities 
 that he offered her an engagement. It was true that it 
 was merely to understudy in the provinces a small part 
 in a musical comedy. But it was a beginning, if an humble 
 one, and its acceptance was strongly advised. It meant 
 the opening of the magic door at which so many are 
 doomed to knock in vain. This girl should go far; but 
 if the new life proved too hard, Madame would be more 
 than willing for her to return to Park Street as a mem- 
 ber of her staff. 
 
 Alarums and excursions followed. Before a decision 
 could be made the girl felt in honor bound to consult 
 godmother Harriet. So intensely had that lady the wel- 
 fare of Mary at heart, that she never failed to visit 
 Park Street once a week when in London. There was 
 a very real bond of sympathy between them, which time 
 had deepened. Yet hitherto Mary had not ventured 
 
 65
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 to disclose the scope and nature of her plans. Alas! 
 she had now to launch a bolt from the blue. 
 
 The blow fell one Wednesday afternoon when Aunty 
 Harriet came as usual to drink a weekly cup of tea at 
 Park Street with her adopted niece. Aunt> Harriet, 
 although she prided herself upon being a woman of the 
 world, was unable to entertain such an idea for a mo- 
 ment. Years ago it had been decided that Mary was to 
 be a hospital nurse. But Mary, now a strong-willed 
 creature of eighteen had made her own decision. For 
 many a month she had been working hard, unknown to 
 her friends, in order to seize the chance when it came. 
 ' Moreover, she felt within herself that she had found her 
 true vocation. 
 
 Aunty Harriet took a high tone. Three years before 
 she had met defeat at the hands of this headstrong young 
 woman in alliance with the Misses Lippincott. In secret, 
 and for a reason only known to herself, she had never 
 ceased to deplore that fact. She made up her mind that 
 she would not be overcome a second time. But she was 
 quite unable to shake the girl's determination. And there 
 was Madame Lemaire to reckon with. Indeed, that 
 worldly-wise person seconded her clever pupil in the 
 way the Broadwood House ladies had. Nor was it luck 
 altogether that for a second time brought the girl such 
 powerful backing when she needed it most. Behind the 
 engaging air of simple frankness was a will that nothing 
 could shake. C 
 
 The end of the matter was that two powerful natures 
 came perilously near the point of estrangement. Both 
 had fully made up their minds. That memorable Wednes- 
 day afternoon saw a veritable passage of arms, in the 
 
 66
 
 AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET 
 
 course of which Mary, her back to the wall, at last threw 
 down the gage of battle. 
 
 Her blunt refusal to submit to dictation came as a 
 shock to Harriet, whose distress seemed out of all pro- 
 portion to its cause. But to her the project was so 
 demoralizing that she fought against it tooth and nail. 
 She enlisted Aunt Annie, now very infirm and less active 
 as a power, and the girl's home people at Beaconsfield 
 Villas. But all opposition was vain. The young Amazon 
 had cast the die for better or for worse. To Harriet's 
 consternation she took the manager's offer. Disaster 
 was predicted. There were heavy hearts in Laxton, but 
 the heaviest of all was at Bridport House, Mayfair.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 ON a spring afternoon, Mary at ease, novel in lap, 
 let her mind flow over the years in their pass- 
 ing. Four had gone by since she had defied 
 her family, in order to embrace a career, which in their 
 view was full of peril. But in spite of that, so far she 
 had escaped disaster. And fortune had been amazingly 
 kind in the meantime. 
 
 On the table near Mary's elbow were five cups on a 
 tray, and opposite, also at ease, with her hands behind 
 her shrewd head, was Milly Wren. Mary had just begun 
 to share a very comfortable flat with Milly and Milly's 
 mother. 
 
 Milly herself, in Mary's opinion, was more than 
 worthy of her surroundings. Loyal, sympathetic, full 
 of courage, she had served a far longer apprenticeship 
 to success than Mary had. She had "made good" in the 
 face of heavy odds. 
 
 Milly had not a great talent. Force of character and 
 singleness of aim had brought her to the top, and only 
 these, as she well knew, would keep her there. But with 
 Mary it was a different story. All sorts of fairies had 
 attended her birth. She had every gift for the career 
 
 68
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 she had chosen, moreover, she had them in abundance. 
 Milly, who had gone up the ladder a step at a time, would 
 have been more than human had she not envied her 
 friend the qualities she wore with the indifference of a 
 regular royal queen. 
 
 The clock on the chimney-piece struck four. 
 
 "I'm feeling quite excited," Milly suddenly remarked. 
 
 From the depths of the opposite chair came the note 
 which for six months now had cast a spell upon London. 
 
 "He mustn't know that," laughed Mary. "Dignity, 
 my child, touched with hauteur, is the prescription for a 
 marquis. At least that's according to the book of the 
 words." And she gayly waved the novel she had neg- 
 lected for nearly an hour. 
 
 "Oh, Sonny," said Milly Wren, "I wasn't thinking of 
 him. I was thinking of the friend he is bringing, who 
 is simply dying to know you." 
 
 Mary knew this was quite true, for that was Milly's 
 way. 
 
 "Oh, is he!" If the tone was disdain, its sting was 
 masked by gentle irony and humor. These airs and 
 graces didn't make enemies, they so frankly belonged 
 to the wonderful Mary Lawrence her name in the 
 theater. That which might have been mere petulance in 
 a nature thinner of texture, became with her a half- 
 royal impatience for the more trivial aspects of the 
 human comedy. 
 
 "But I want to see him," persisted Milly. "Sonny 
 thinks no end of him." 
 
 "Then I'm sure he's nice." 
 
 "Why do you think so?" Milly was a little intrigued 
 by the warmth of the words. 
 
 69
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Because Lord Wrexham is charming." 
 
 Milly laughed. The naive admiration was unexpected, 
 the slightly too respectful air was puzzling. Milly her- 
 self was so blase in regard to the peerage that such an 
 attitude of mind seemed almost provincial. Yet she 
 would have been the first to own that it was the only 
 thing about her enigmatic friend which suggested any- 
 thing of the kind. 
 
 "Sonny says he raves about you." 
 
 "It's his funeral." The laugh was honestly gay. "He'll 
 be very disappointed, poor lad." 
 
 "Don't fish." 
 
 "I never fish in shallow waters, Miss Wren." 
 
 "You are the most shameless angler I know. But 
 you do it so beautifully that people don't realize what 
 you are at." 
 
 "Unconsciously say unconsciously," came a flash 
 from the opposite chair. 
 
 "So I used to think. Before I really knew you I 
 thought everything you said and did just happened so. 
 But now I am not quite sure that you have not thought 
 everything out beforehand." 
 
 "Don't make me out a horror." 
 
 "Anyway you are much the cleverest creature I have 
 ever met. You are so deep that there is no fathoming 
 you. Somehow you are not the least ordinary in any- 
 thing." 
 
 Mary abruptly brought the conversation back to 
 Sonny and his friend. The latter, it seemed, had first 
 gazed on the famous Miss Lawrence in New York, at 
 the Pumpernickel Theater, the previous year. 
 
 "An American?" 
 
 70
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 "No," said Milly. "But he's seen a lot of life out 
 West." 
 
 Before other questions could rise to Mary's lips, Mrs. 
 Wren came in. Milly's mother was an elderly lady who 
 had been on the stage. In the first flight of her 
 profession, life had given her many a shrewd knock, 
 but in the process she had picked up a considerable 
 knowledge of the world and its ways. She lived for 
 Milly, in whom her every thought was centered, for in 
 the daughter the mother lived again. Intensely am- 
 bitious for her, Mrs. Wren was a little inclined to resent 
 the intrusion within the nest of a bird of such dazzling 
 plumage as Mary Lawrence. At the same time that 
 honest woman well knew that her daughter had more 
 to gain than she had to lose by sharing a roof with such 
 a supremely attractive stable companion. 
 
 Mrs. Wren found it very difficult to place Mary 
 Lawrence. In ideas and outlook, in the face she showed 
 to the world, she was far from being a typical member 
 of her calling as the good lady knew it. As Mrs. Wren 
 reckoned success, this girl had won it on two continents 
 almost too abundantly, but she seemed to hold it very 
 cheap. Perhaps it had been gained too easily. Milly's 
 mother, rather jealous, rather ambitious as she was, 
 could hardly find it in her heart to say it was undeserved, 
 but Mary Lawrence took the high gifts of fortune so 
 much for granted, almost as if they were a birthright, 
 that the mother of her friend, remembering the long 
 years of her own thornily-crowned servitude, and Milly's 
 hard struggle "to arrive," could not help a feeling of 
 secret envy. 
 
 71
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "His lordship coming to tea?" said Mrs Wren, with 
 a demure glance at the five cups on the tray. 
 
 None knew so well as she that his lordship was coming 
 to tea. She had made elaborate preparations in toilette 
 and confectionery in order to receive him. But the 
 phrase rose so histrionically to her lips that she simply 
 couldn't resist it. Somehow it made such a perfect 
 entrance, for Milly's mother carried a sense of the 
 theater into private life. 
 
 It would have been heartless of Milly, who belonged 
 to another generation, to have uttered the words on her 
 tongue. And those words were, "You know perfectly 
 well that Sonny is coming." 
 
 "He said he was," Milly's reply was given with a 
 patient smile that concealed an infinity of boredom. 
 Her mother, fussy, trite, rather exasperating, had never 
 quite learned amid all her jousts with the world, to 
 acquire the golden mean. There were times when she 
 sorely tried her clever and ambitious daughter, whose 
 patience was little short of angelic. 
 
 "What's the name of the friend he is bringing?" 
 
 "Mr. Dinneford." 
 
 "Not another lord?" The tone of Mrs. Wren had 
 a tiny note of disappointment. 
 
 "A rich commoner," said Milly with a laugh. "At 
 least Sonny says he will be one of the richest men in 
 England when his uncle dies. His uncle, I believe, is a 
 great swell." 
 
 "I don't doubt it, dear," said Mrs. Wren. 
 
 72
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 ii 
 
 An electric bell was heard to buzz. 
 
 "They are here," said Mrs. Wren in a tone with a 
 thrill in it. 
 
 A neat parlor maid announced "Lord Wrexham, Mr, 
 Dinneford," and two stalwart young men entered cheer- 
 ily. They were hearty upstanding fellows, curiously 
 alike in manner, appearance, dress, yet in the thousand 
 and one subtleties of character immutably different. 
 But this was not a moment for the fine shades. They 
 carne into the room unaffectedly, without shyness, and 
 warmly took the hands of welcome that were offered 
 them. 
 
 Wrexham, a subaltern of the Pinks of three years' 
 standing, was an attractive but rather irresolute young 
 man. He knew that he was perilously near forbidden 
 ground. If not exactly in the toils of an infatuation, 
 the charms of Milly were growing day by day upon 
 an impressionable mind. Fully content as yet to live 
 in the moment, a wiser young man might have begun, 
 to pay the future some little attention. 
 
 As for the lively, headstrong, unconventional Jack 
 Dinneford, at present at a loose end in London, to whom 
 Wrexham himself had been appointed as a sort of un- 
 official bear-leader by the express desire of Bridport 
 House, that warrior was on a voyage of discovery. In 
 common with half the males of his age in the metropolis 
 he was already in the thrall of the wonderful Princess 
 Bedalia. In the opinion of connoisseurs she was the 
 only one of her kind; for the past two hundred nights 
 she had played "to capacity" at the Frivolity Theater, 
 
 73
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 and even Jack Dinneford, who in one way or another 
 had seen a goodish bit of the Old World and the New, 
 could not repress an exquisite little thrill as her highness 
 rose with rare politeness to receive him. 
 
 "She's even more stunning than I guessed," was the 
 thought in Jack's mind at the moment of presentation. 
 He could almost feel the magnetism in her finger tips. 
 She was so alive in every nerve that it would have called 
 for no great power of imagination to detect vibration 
 all round her. 
 
 "I feel greatly honored in meeting you," said the 
 young man with transparent honesty. He was no 
 subscriber evidently to the maxim, "Language was given 
 us to conceal our thoughts." Somehow she couldn't help 
 liking him for it. 
 
 "The honor is mine." The response was so ready, the 
 humor behind it so genuine, that they both laughed 
 whole-heartedly and became friends on the spot. There 
 was no nonsense about Princess Bedalia, and the same 
 applied to the brown-faced clear-eyed owner of the 
 fanciful scarf pin. 
 
 The neat parlor maid brought tea. Wrexham, after 
 a little amiable chaffing of Mrs. Wren, whom he had 
 met on at least six occasions, provided Milly with tea 
 and a macaroon, took the like for himself, and sat be- 
 side her without a care in the wide world. She was 
 forbidden fruit; thus to frail humanity in its present 
 phase she conveyed an idea of Paradise. Such a view 
 was quite absurd, allowing even for the fact that Milly 
 was an engaging creature, with a good heart, a ready 
 tongue, a rather special kind of prettiness, and a par- 
 ticularly shrewd head. 
 
 74
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 Jack Dinneford on the opposite sofa had stronger 
 warrant for his emotions. This girl whom he had first 
 seen in New York before the news of a great inheritance 
 had come to him, whom he had since viewed ten times 
 from the stalls of the Frivolity Theater, was a person- 
 ality. There was no doubt about that. And as he dis- 
 covered at once their minds marched together. They 
 saw men and events at the same angle. A phrase of 
 either would draw forth an instant counterpart; in five 
 minutes they had turned the whole universe into mock- 
 ery, but without letting go of the fact that they were 
 complete strangers colloguing for the first time. 
 
 Mrs. Wren withdrew presently on the pretext that 
 she had letters to write. A very pleasant hour quickly 
 sped. Each of these four people was in the mood to 
 enjoy. Life in spite of its hazards, was no bad thing 
 at the moment. Wrexham, a thorough gentleman, was 
 an immensely likeable young man. And while he basked 
 in present happiness a certain resolution began to take 
 shape in his mind. 
 
 As for Jack Dinneford at the other side of the room, 
 his thoughts followed a humbler course. But he was 
 an elemental, a very dangerous fellow if once he began 
 to play with ideas. At present he suffered from the 
 drawback of being no more than the nephew of his uncle; 
 therefore his sensations were not exactly those of 
 Wrexham, who was a natural caster of the handker- 
 chief. But in this fatal hour Jack was heavily smitten. 
 
 He had met few girls in his twenty-four years of 
 existence. In his naif way he confessed as much to Miss 
 Lawrence. She was amused by the confession and led 
 him to make others. This was easy because he liked 
 
 75
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 talking about himself, that is to say, with such a girl 
 as Mary Lawrence inciting him humorously to reveal 
 the piquant details of a life not without its adventures, he 
 would have had to be much less primitive than he was 
 to have resisted the lure of the charmer. 
 
 She was unaffectedly interested. She differed from 
 Mr. Dinneford inasmuch as she had met many young 
 men. Therefore, her heart was not worn on her sleeve 
 for daws to peck at. But he was a new type, and she 
 confessed gayly to Milly as soon as he had gone, she 
 found him very amusing. 
 
 in 
 
 So much happened in the crowded month that fol- 
 lowed, that at London Bridge the Thames might be 
 said to be in spate. The two young men were often 
 at the theater, and now and again Mary and Milly, 
 chaperoned by Mrs. Wren, would accept an invitation 
 to supper at a restaurant. Then there were the happy 
 hours these four people were able to snatch from their 
 various duties, which they spent under the trees in the 
 Park. These were golden days indeed, but the shadow 
 of the policeman could already be seen creeping up. 
 The senior subaltern had been constrained one fine 
 morning to take Wrexham so far into his confidence as 
 to inform him with brutal precision, that if a man in 
 the Household Cavalry marries an actress, he leaves the 
 regiment. 
 
 The young man was intensely annoyed. Wisdom was 
 not his long suit, and although an excellent fellow 
 according to his lights, right at the back was the arro- 
 
 76
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 gance of old marquisate. His answer to the senior sub- 
 altern was to arrange a most agreeable up-river ex- 
 cursion for the following Sunday. On returning late 
 in the evening to the flat, Milly was in rather a flutter. 
 
 Mary, who had been one of the merry party, was 
 troubled. She had certain instincts which went very 
 deep, and these warned her of breakers ahead. She 
 had a great regard for Milly, and the more she knew 
 of Wrexham the better she liked him. But she saw 
 quite clearly that difficulties must arise if the thing went 
 on, and that very powerful opposition would have to 
 be faced in several quarters. 
 
 Moreover, she had now her own problem to meet; 
 Jack had begun to force the pace. And Mary, who 
 had a sort of sixth sense in these matters, had already 
 felt this to be an inconvenience. From the first she 
 had found him delightful. Day by day this feeling had 
 grown. An original, with a strong will and a keen sense 
 of humor, he differed from his friend Wrexham inas- 
 much that he knew his own mind. He returned from the 
 river fully determined to marry Mary Lawrence. 
 
 Perhaps this heroic resolve may have been forced 
 upon him by the knowledge of other Richmonds in 
 the field. Mary was famous and admired. It savored 
 of presumption for such a one as himself, in receipt 
 of a modest two thousand a year from his kinsman, the 
 Duke, to butt in where men far richer were content to 
 walk delicately. But he was "next in" at Bridport 
 House, he was heir to a great name, therefore, at the 
 lowest estimate, he was a quite considerable parti. This 
 fact must stand his excuse, although he was far too 
 
 77
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 astute to make it one in the difficult game he was about 
 to play. 
 
 Jack was not afflicted with subtlety in any form, he 
 was not even a close observer, but he understood well 
 enough that it was going to be a man's work to persuade 
 Mary Lawrence to marry him. She had an immense 
 independence, to which, of course, she was fully en- 
 titled, a wide field of choice, and under the delightfully 
 amusing give-and-take which endeared her to Bohemia 
 was a fastidious reserve which somehow hinted at 
 other standards. Even allowing for a lover's partiality 
 this girl was to cut to a pattern far more imposing than 
 Milly Wren. Her qualities were positive, whereas Milly 
 had prettiness merely, a warm heart, a factitious charm. 
 However, as soon as this sportsman had made up his 
 mind to tackle the stiffest fence that a Nimrod has to 
 face, he decided at once that the hour had come to 
 harden his heart and go at the post and rails in style. 
 
 The next evening, as he strolled with Mary under the 
 trees, he may have been thinking in metaphor, when he 
 let his eyes dwell on the riders in the Row. 
 
 "How jolly they look!" he said. And then at the 
 instance of a concrete thought "By Jove, an idea! 
 Tomorrow morning, if I job a couple of gees, will you 
 come for a ride?" 
 
 The response was a ready one. "I should love to, 
 if you are not afraid to be seen with an absolute duffer." 
 
 "That's a bargain. But they may be screws, as there 
 doesn't seem enough decent ones to go round at this 
 time of the year." 
 
 "I know nothing about horses," was the laughing 
 reply, "except just enough not to look a hired horse 
 
 78
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 in the knees. And the worse my mount the better for 
 me, at least it reduces my chance of biting the tan." 
 
 "I expect you are a good deal better than you admit." 
 
 She was woman enough to ask why he should think 
 so. 
 
 "You have the look of a goer," he said, as his eye 
 sought involuntarily the long slender line of a frame 
 all suppleness, delicacy, and power. 
 
 "Wait till tomorrow. In the meantime I warn you 
 that you're almost certain to be disgraced in the sight 
 of the town." 
 
 "Let's risk it anyway," said the young man delightedly. 
 
 In a very few minutes, however, Mary seriously 
 regretted a rash promise. They had only gone a few 
 yards farther, Jack still inclined to exult at the pact into 
 which he had lured her, when both were brought up 
 short by a sudden clear "Hello!" from the other side 
 of the rails. 
 
 Jack had been hailed by a couple of long, lean young 
 women with mouse-colored hair, on a couple of long, 
 lean mouse-colored horses. They were followed at a 
 respectful distance by a very smart groom on a good- 
 looking chestnut. The set of the close-fitting black 
 habits and the absolute ease of the wearers denoted the 
 expert horse-woman. 
 
 "Hello, Madge hello, Blanche!" The casual greet- 
 ing was punctuated by a wave, equally casual, of the 
 young man's hand. 
 
 As the two riders went slowly by they let their eyes 
 rest upon Mary. The look she received did not amount 
 to a stare, but it had a cool impertinence which some- 1 
 how roused her fighting instinct. Unconsciously she 
 
 79
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 gave it back. On both sides was a frank curiosity 
 discreetly veiled, but the honors, if honors there were 
 in the matter, were with the occupants of the saddle. 
 Somehow that seemed so clearly to have been the place 
 for generations of these lean young women with their 
 rigidity of line, their large noses, their cool appraising 
 air of which they were wholly unconscious. 
 
 Who are they? was their reaction upon Mary Law- 
 rence. 
 
 Who is she? was her reaction upon these horse- 
 women. 
 
 "A couple of my cousins." The young man carelessly 
 answered a question that Mary was too proud to ask. 
 
 IV 
 
 Mary's riding had been confined to a few lessons 
 shared with Milly at the Brompton School of Equitation, 
 and Milly was urged to make a third on the morrow. 
 Mrs. Wren felt it to be the due of the proprieties that 
 she should do so, but Milly herself, apart from the fact 
 that she was shy of appearing in the Row, was quite con- 
 vinced that it would not be the act of "a sport" to over- 
 look the ancient maxim, "Two are company, three 
 a crowd." Therefore the invitation was declined. And 
 this discreet action on the part of Milly gave Fate the 
 opportunity for which it had seemed to be looking for 
 some little time past. 
 
 It was about twenty minutes to eleven in the fore- 
 tioon of a perfect first of June that Jack Dinneford rode 
 up gayly to the flat in Broad Place, leading a horse 
 very likely-looking, but warranted quiet. It was a 
 
 80
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 fair presumption that the guarantee covered the fact 
 of its disposition, since it had made the perilous journey 
 from the jobmaster's, three doors out of Park Lane, 
 and across the 'No Man's Land yclept Hyde Park 
 Corner, that terrible and trappy maze, without a sus- 
 picion of mental stress. 
 
 Jack's best hunting voice ascended to an open window 
 of the second story. The complete horsewoman, in 
 every detail immaculate, came on to the little balcony 
 of Number 16, Victoria Mansions. 
 
 "What a gorgeous day!" 
 
 "A ripper!" 
 
 If excitement there was on the side of either, self- 
 mastery concealed it. Yet an inconvenient pressure of 
 emotion was shared by both just then. In spite of a lib- 
 eral share of self-confidence and a will under strong 
 control Mary could hardly refrain from the hope that 
 she was not going to make a perfect fool of herself. 
 As soon as she beheld the upstanding chestnut below 
 with its slender legs and thin tail, she winged an in- 
 voluntary prayer to Allah that there were no tricks in 
 its repertory unbecoming a horse and a gentleman. 
 As for Jack, the presence of all the horses in the world 
 would not have excited him. It was not in him to be 
 excited by things of that kind, that is to say, it was 
 part of his religion not to be excited by them; all the 
 same there was a genuine, nay, almost terrible thrill in 
 his heart this morning. 
 
 In the course of a rather wakeful night he had made 
 up his mind ''to come to the 'osses'' in sober verity. 
 To the best of his present information the gods, in the 
 
 81
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 absence of the unforeseen, would discuss the matter 
 privately about twelve o'clock. 
 
 "Blanche and Marjorie will have something to look 
 at," was the proud thought in the mind of the young 
 man as the complete Diana, fit to greet Aurora and her 
 courses, emerged from the Otis elevator and took the 
 front of Broad Place with beauty. 
 
 "I wish these clothes were a little less smart, and not 
 quite so new," was the first thought in the mind of 
 Diana. "I am sure they are both of them 'Cats,' " was 
 the thought which followed close upon its heels. Until 
 that hour it had never been her lot to harbor such vain 
 companions. This gay spirit to whom the fairies had 
 been kind had always seemed to breathe a larger, a 
 diviner air. Such self -consciousness shamed her; but 
 after all those two with their old habits and their odd 
 perfection were more to blame than she. 
 
 Truth to tell, in the last seventeen hours a subtle, 
 rather horrid change had taken place in her. Up till 
 six o'clock the previous evening she had always been 
 nobly sure of herself, regally self-secure. Always when 
 she had measured herself against others of her age 
 and sex she had had a feeling of having been born to the 
 purple. Somewhere, deep down, she had seemed to 
 have illimitable reserves to draw upon when the crea- 
 tures of her own orbit had forced her to a reluctant 
 comparison. In all her dealings with her peers, she had 
 felt that she had a great deal in hand. But Marjorie 
 and Blanche, whoever Marjorie and Blanche might be, 
 had seemed to alter all that with a glance of their 
 ironical eyes. 
 
 Jack fixed her in the saddle of the tall horse and 
 
 82
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 lengthened her stirrup with quite a professional air, 
 while Milly and her mother watched the proceedings 
 in a rather thrilled silence from the balcony of Number 
 Sixteen. Their minds were dominated by a single 
 thought, which, however, bore one aspect in the mind 
 of Mrs. Wren, another in the mind of the faithful Milly. 
 
 "She is set on marrying him?" Mrs. Wren. 
 
 "He is so nice, I hope he won't disappoint her?" 
 Milly the faithful. 
 
 The cavalcade started. As if no such people as 
 Marjorie and Blanche existed in the world, Mary waved 
 the yellow-gloved hand of an excited schoolgirl to the 
 balcony of Victoria Mansions. Jack accompanied it 
 with an upward glance and a gravely-lifted hat. 
 
 In the maelstrom of promiscuous vehicles which 
 makes Knightsbridge a thoroughfare inimical to man, 
 Jack took charge of the good-looking hireling. With 
 solemn care he piloted the upstanding one and his rather 
 anxious rider into the calm of Albert Gate. 
 
 "I hope you are comfortable," he found time to say; 
 moreover, he found time to say it so nicely and sincerely, 
 almost as if his only hope of happiness, here and here- 
 after, depended upon the answer, that the answer came 
 promptly in the form of a gay "Yes," although had she 
 been quite honest she would have said she had never 
 felt less comfortable in her life. Her horse was such a 
 mountain of a fellow, that she might have been perched 
 on the top of a very old-fashioned velocipede. Then the 
 saddle was very different from the one at the riding 
 school. It had much less room and fewer points d'appu* 
 to offer. As soon as her knee tried to grip the pommel 
 she knew that she must not hope to get friends with it. 
 
 83
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 She had embarked on a very rash adventure. And if 
 she didn't make a sorry exhibition of herself in the eyes 
 of All London, including those two, she would have 
 cause to thank her private stars, who, to give them 
 their due, had certainly looked after her very well so far. 
 
 "It's very sporting of her," said Expert Knowledge 
 to Jack Dinneford. 
 
 "I hope the gee won't play the fool," said Jack Dinne- 
 ford to Expert Knowledge. 
 
 Hardly had they entered the Row, when Providence, 
 of malice prepense, as it seemed, threw them right across 
 the path of the enemy. Cousin Marjorie and Cousin 
 Blanche, walking their horses slowly along by the rails, 
 were within a very few yards. Moreover, they were 
 coming towards them. Mary, aided by the sixth sense 
 given to woman, was aware of a subtle intensity of gaze 
 upon her, even before she could trace the source of its 
 origin. She could feel it upon her upon her and every- 
 thing that was hers, from the crown of her rather too 
 modish hat to the tip of her tall friend's fetlock. 
 
 "Good morning, Jack," said a clear, strong voice. 
 
 "Hello," the tone of Jack was amazingly casual 
 "here you are again." 
 
 There was a moment's maneuvering, in the course of 
 which three pairs of feminine eyes met in challenge, 
 and then Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie, smart 
 groom and all, passed on without offering a chance of 
 coming to closer quarters. Their tactics had been cal- 
 culated so nicely that it was impossible to say whether 
 
 84
 
 FLOWING WATER 
 
 discourtesy was or was not intended. But there was a 
 subtle air about these ironically self-confident young 
 women which prevented Mary from giving them the 
 benefit of the doubt. 
 
 For a moment she felt inclined to rage within. And 
 then she bit her lip and laughed. A moment later a 
 sudden peck of the tall horse told her that it would be 
 wise for the present to give him an undivided mind. 
 Soon, however, Cousin Marjorie and Cousin Blanche 
 were forgotten in the delights and the perils of the 
 discreet canter into which she found herself launched. 
 It was a perfect morning for the Row. The play of 
 the sun on the bright leaves, the power of its rays 
 softened by a breeze from the east, the sense of rapid 
 motion, the kaleidoscope of swiftly changing figures 
 through which they passed, filled her with a zest of life, 
 a feeling of high romance which left no room for smaller 
 and meaner affairs. And the stride of the tall horse, 
 as soon as she got used to it, was such a thing of delight 
 in itself, that she even forgot the strange saddle and 
 her general fears. 
 
 They rode for an enchanted hour. And somehow, in 
 the course of it, the life forces became more insurgent. 
 Somehow they deepened, expanded, grew more imperious. 
 Jack was a real out-of-doors man, who believed that 
 hunting, shooting, field sports, and fresh air were the 
 highest good. His look of lordly health, mingled with 
 a charmingly delicate protectiveness, appealed to her in a 
 very special way. For some weeks she had known that she 
 was beginning to like him perilously much. But it was 
 not until she had returned rather tired and rather hot 
 
 85
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 to Victoria Mansions, had had a delicious bath, and a 
 very good luncheon indeed that she began at last to 
 realize that she was fairly up against the acute problem 
 of Jack Dinneford.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 X 
 
 IN the meantime Cousin Marjorie and Cousin 
 Blanche enjoyed their ride very much. It was the 
 one thing they really did enjoy in London. 
 
 They were two ordinary young women, yet even so 
 late in the Old World's history as the year 1913, their 
 own private cosmos could not quite make up its mind 
 to regard them in that light. Cousin Marjorie and 
 Cousin Blanche had surprisingly little to say for them- 
 selves. They were modest, unassuming girls, without 
 views or ideas, very proper, very dull, absurdly conven- 
 tional; in the eyes of some people as plain as the pro- 
 verbial pikestaff, passably good-looking in the sight of 
 others ; in fact, a more commonplace pair of young women 
 would have been hard to find anywhere, yet deep in the 
 hearts of the Ladies Dinneford was the sure faith that 
 the world at large did not subscribe to any such opinion. 
 
 It was not merely that they rode rather well. They 
 passed other members of their sex in the Row that 
 morning who rode quite as well as themselves. No, 
 proficiency in the saddle, the one accomplishment they 
 could boast, of which they were unaffectedly modest, was 
 far from explaining the particular angle at which the 
 
 87
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 world chose to view them. Not that in any way they 
 were feted or acclaimed. As far as the vast majority 
 of their fellow-creatures were concerned they were not 
 people to look at twice. But here and there a glance 
 of recognition or curiosity would greet them, winged by 
 a smile, now of mere interest, now of an irony faintly 
 perceptible. 
 
 Life had been very kind to Cousin Marjorie and 
 Cousin Blanche, yet they did not look conspicuously 
 happy. With both hands it had lavished upon them its 
 material best, but the gifts of fortune were taken as 
 a matter of mere personal right. Providence owed it 
 to the order of things they stood for. Far from being 
 grateful, they were a little bored by its attentions. 
 Moreover, these young women had not learned to regard 
 people to whom the fairies had been less kind with either 
 insight or sympathy. Their judgments were objective, 
 therefore they were a little hard, a little lacking in tol- 
 erance. 
 
 II 
 
 "The stage !" said Majorie with a straight-lipped smile, 
 a rather famous part of her importance. 
 
 "You think so?" said Blanche sleepily. But she was 
 not at all sleepy, else she would not have been able to 
 handle the Tiger, a recent purchase, in the way she was 
 doing at the moment. 
 
 "No mistaking it, my dear." 
 
 "Good-looking, though," lisped the somnolent Blanche, 
 giving the Tiger a very shrewd kick with a roweled heel. 
 "Reminds me of some one." 
 
 The Tiger, worried by a bit that he didn't like, and 
 
 88
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 greatly affronted by the heel of his new mistress, which 
 he liked still less, then began to behave in a way which 
 for some little time quite forbade any further discussion 
 of the subject. 
 
 For the rest of the morning, however, it was never 
 far from the minds of these ladies. Two or three times 
 they caught sight in the distance of Jack and his charge. 
 A striking-looking girl, but she didn't in the least know 
 how to ride. And somehow from that fact Blanche and 
 Marjorie seemed to draw spiritual consolation. 
 
 At twelve o'clock they left the Park. The policeman 
 at the gate pulled himself together and regarded them 
 respectfully. An elderly lady in a high-hung barouche 
 of prehistoric design, drawn by a superb pair of horses 
 and surmounted by a romantic-looking coachman and 
 footman, called out to them in a remarkably strident 
 voice as they passed her, "I am coming to luncheon." 
 
 "Bother !" said Marjorie to Blanche. 
 
 "Bother!" said Blanche to Marjorie. 
 
 They went along Park Lane, as far as Mount Street, 
 turned up that bleak thoroughfare, took the second turn- 
 ing to the right, and finally entered the courtyard of the 
 imposing residence known as Bridport House. Before 
 its solemn portals they dismounted with the help of the 
 smart groom. In the act of doing so they encountered 
 a tall, rather distinguished-looking man, who was coming 
 down the steps. He was about forty-two, clean-shaven, 
 with sandy hair; and his clothes had an air of such 
 extreme correctness as to suggest that they had been 
 donned for a special occasion. 
 
 The departing visitor bowed elaborately to the two 
 ladies, but each returned the greeting with an abbre- 
 
 89
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 viated nod, backed by an intent smile peculiarly her own. 
 There might be courtesy carried to the verge of homage 
 on the one side, but on the other was an aloofness cold 
 and quizzical. 
 
 As soon as Blanche and Marjorie had gained the 
 ample precincts of Bridport House each looked demurely 
 at the other, and then yielded a laugh, which seemed to 
 mean a great deal more than it expressed. 
 
 "Been to see papa, I suppose," said Blanche, as she 
 waddled duck fashion towards a white marble staircase 
 of grandiose design, whose cinquecento air could not 
 save it from a slight suspicion of the rococo. 
 
 "My dear!" came Majorie's crescendo. 
 
 Again they looked at each other, again their laughter 
 snarled and crackled not unpleasantly. 
 
 At one o'clock luncheon was announced. Ten minutes 
 later a well-bathed and carefully re-clothed Marjorie 
 and a Blanche to match entered an enormous dining- 
 room, which, in spite of its profusion of servants in 
 livery, had the air of a crypt. 
 
 "Good morning, father. Very pleasant to see you 
 down." 
 
 Each word of Blanche was charmingly punctuated by 
 a little pause, which might have been taken for filial 
 regard by those who heard it. But the rather acid- 
 looking gentleman, who sat at the head of the table, 
 with a face like a cameo a little out of drawing, and a 
 bowl of arrowroot in front of him, paid such slight 
 attention to Blanche that she might not have spoken 
 at all. 
 
 "Good morning, Aunt Charlotte," said Marjorie coolly, 
 taking up her own cue. She surveyed the other oocu- 
 
 90
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 pants of the table with a quietly ironical eye. And then 
 as she seated herself at her leisure, as far as she could 
 get from the object of her remarks, she proceeded in the 
 peculiar but remarkably agreeable voice which she had 
 in common with her father and sisters : "Odd we should 
 run into you coming out of the Park." 
 
 "Why odd?" said Aunt Charlotte, an elderly, large- 
 featured blonde, whose theory of life was as far as pos- 
 sible not to cherish illusions on any subject. "I always 
 go in at twelve, you always come out at twelve. Nothing 1 
 odd about it. Thank you !" 
 
 "Thank you," meant, "Yes, I will take claret." It 
 also meant, "Get on with your luncheon, Marjorie, and 
 don't be absurd. Life is too complicated nowadays for 
 such small talk as yours to interest an intelligent person." 
 
 Aunt Charlotte, if not consciously rude, was by nature 
 exceedingly dominant. For twenty-five years, in one 
 way or another, Bridport House had known her yoke. 
 She was the Duke's only surviving sister, and she lived 
 in Hill Street, among the dowagers. Her status was nil, 
 but her love of power was so great that she had gained 
 an uncomfortable ascendancy in the family councils. 
 While free to admire Aunt Charlotte's wisdom, which 
 was supposed to be boundless, the Dinneford ladies dis- 
 like her in the marrow of their bones. But Fate had 
 played against them. Their father had been left a 
 widower with a young family, and from the hour of his 
 loss his sister had taken upon herself to mother it. She 
 had done so to her own satisfaction, but the objects of 
 her regard bore her no gratitude. From Sarah, 
 who was thirty-nine, to Marjorie, who was twenty-eight, 
 they were ever ready to try a fall with Aunt Charlotte. 
 
 91
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 As for their father, he had an active dislike of her. 
 He had cause, no doubt. More than once he had tried 
 to break the spell of her dominion, but somehow it had 
 always proved too strong for him. It was not that he 
 was a weak man altogether, but there is a type born to 
 female tyranny, an affair of the stars, of human destiny. 
 Charlotte despised her brother. In her view he was a 
 lath painted to look like iron, but insight into character 
 was not her strength. She owed her position in the 
 family to dynamic power, to force of will; but in her 
 own mind it was always ascribed to the fact that she 
 acted invariably from the highest motives. 
 
 "Muriel not here," said the conversational Marjorie, 
 looking across the table to Sarah. 
 
 "Gone to the East End, I believe, to one of her com- 
 mittees." 
 
 It would have been nearer the truth for the eldest 
 flower, who was dealing with a recalcitrant fragment of 
 lobster in a masterful manner, to have said that Muriel 
 had gone to luncheon at Hayes with the Penarths. But 
 Sarah, whc did not approve of Muriel, and still less of 
 the Penarths, was content with a general statement whose 
 flagrant inaccuracy somehow crystallized her attitude 
 towards them both. Muriel had become frankly impos- 
 sible. The higher expediency could no longer take her 
 seriously. 
 
 But there are degrees of wisdom, even among the elect. 
 Sarah's place was assured at Minerva's Court, but Mar- 
 jorie and Blanche were wiser perhaps in matters equine 
 than in other things. Where angels feared to tread 
 Blanche, at any rate, for reasons of her own, had some- 
 
 92
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 times been known to butt in. A classical instance was 
 about to be furnished. 
 
 "Do tell me." Blanche suddenly looked Sarah 
 straight in the eyes. "Has Sir Dugald been to see 
 father?" 
 
 There was a long moment's pause in which Sarah 
 maintained a stranglehold upon the lobster, while Lady 
 Wargrave and the Duke, who knew they were being 
 "ragged" by a past mistress in the art, glared daggers 
 down the table. 
 
 "I believe so," said Sarah in an exceedingly dry voice, 
 followed by a hardly perceptible glance at the servants. 
 
 ra 
 
 Over the coffee cups, in the solemn privacy of the 
 blue drawing-room, the Dinneford ladies grew a little 
 less laconic. They were in a perfect hurricane of great 
 events. Even they, who seldom use two words if one 
 would suffice, had to make some concession to the pres- 
 sure of history. 
 
 "His mother, I understand," said Aunt Charlotte, seat- 
 ing herself massively in the center of her floridly 
 Victorian picture, "kept the village shop at Ardna- 
 leuchan." 
 
 "Then I've bought bull's-eye peppermints of her," said 
 Sarah, with a touch of acid humor which somehow 
 became her quite well. 
 
 "But it's so serious" Lady Wargrave stirred her 
 coffee. "Still he's been given the Home Office so she 
 thinks she moves with the times, no doubt." 
 
 93
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Has been given the Home Office?" said Blanche, 
 suddenly achieving an air of intelligence. 
 
 "The papers say so," said Sarah dryly. "But I don't, 
 think that excuses him." 
 
 "Or Muriel," interpolated Aunt Charlotte with venom. 
 "What did your father say to the man ?" 
 
 "He was deplorably rude, I believe even for father. 
 He said the man had the hide of a rhinoceros, so obvi- 
 ously he had tested it." 
 
 "All very amazing. It is charity to assume that Muriel 
 is out of her mind." 
 
 "One can't be sure," said Sarah weightily. "She says 
 he has such a good head that one day he must be Prime 
 Minister. After all, she will be a Prime Minister's 
 wife!" 
 
 "But a Radical Prime Minister's wife!" 
 
 "He may rat," said Sarah, with judicious optimism. 
 
 "He may," said Lady Wargrave, looking down her 
 long nose. "But there never was a matter in which I 
 felt less hopeful. What does your father think?" 
 
 "The man's a red rag. Don't you remember the 
 shameful way he attacked poor father on the Land 
 Question two years ago ? What was it he called him in 
 the House of Commons?" 
 
 " 'The Great Panjandrum, with little round button on 
 top,' " quoted the solemn Marjorie, whose chief social 
 asset was an amazing memory. 
 
 "And after that he dares to come here!" Aunt Char- 
 lotte quivered majestically. "Didn't your father kick 
 him downstairs?" 
 
 "I think he would have done but for his infirmity," 
 said Sarah judicially. 
 
 94
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 "I had forgotten his gout, poor man. At least, I 
 hope he ordered the servants to throw the creature into 
 the street." 
 
 "One hardly does that, does one? with his Majesty's 
 Secretaries of State," said Blanche, whose sleepy voice 
 had an odd precision which made each word bite like an 
 acid. 
 
 Aunt Charlotte hooded her eyes like a cobra to look 
 at Blanche. But she didn't say anything. Only experts 
 could handle Blanche, and even these must abide the 
 whim of the goddess opportunity. 
 
 "After all, why fuss ?" continued Blanche with a muted 
 laugh which had the power of annoying all the other 
 ladies extremely. "If one has to marry one might as 
 well marry a Prime Minister." 
 
 This was such a sublime expression of the obvious, 
 that even Lady Wargrave, who contested everything on 
 principle, was dumb before it Blanche was therefore 
 able to retire in perfect order to the comatose, her natural 
 state. But in the next moment she reemerged, so that 
 a little private thunderbolt she had been diligently nursing 
 through the whole luncheon might shake the rather 
 strained peace of the blue drawing-room. She was quite 
 sure that it would be a pleasure to launch it when the 
 moment came. A sudden pause in the great topic of 
 Muriel's affaire told her it had now arrived. 
 
 "We saw Jack riding with that girl." So sleepy was 
 the voice of Blanche as it made this announcement that 
 it seemed a wonder she could keep awake. 
 
 "What girl?" Aunt Charlotte walked straight into 
 Blanche's little trap. 
 
 95
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Oh, you didn't know." Blanche suppressed a yawn. 
 "It's a rather long story." 
 
 Still it had to be told. And Blanche, just able to keep 
 awake, told it circumstantially. The Tenderfoot the 
 heir's own name for himself, which Blanche made a point 
 of using in conversation with Aunt Charlotte because 
 that lady considered it vulgar had been seen at the 
 Savoy with a girl, he had been seen in the Park with a 
 girl, he had been seen motoring with a girl; in fact, he 
 had been going about with a girl for several weeks. 
 
 "And you never told me," said Lady Wargrave with 
 the air of a tragedy queen. She looked from Blanche 
 to Sarah, from Sarah to Marjorie. A light of sour 
 sarcasm in the eye of the eldest flower was all the com- 
 fort she took from the survey, 
 
 "Who is the girl? Tell me." 
 
 Blanche inclined to think an actress= But she was not 
 sure. 
 
 "Inquiries will have to be made at once." Already 
 Aunt Charlotte was a caldron of energy, "Steps will 
 have to be taken. It is the first I have heard of it But 
 I feel I ought to have been told sooner." 
 
 Blanche fearlessly asked why. 
 
 "Why!" Aunt Charlotte gave a little snort. At such 
 a moment mere words were futile. Then she said, 
 "I shall go at once to your father." 
 
 "But what can he do ?" 
 
 "Do?" Aunt Charlotte gave a second little snort. 
 Mere words again revealed their limitations. 
 
 "Yes?" Blanche placidly pursued the Socratic 
 method, to the increasing fury of Aunt Charlotte. 
 
 96
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 "He can tell him what he thinks of him and threaten 
 to cut off supplies." 
 
 "Much he'll care for that !" The cynicism of Blanche 
 revolted Aunt Charlotte. 
 
 That lady, whose forte, after all, was plain common- 
 sense, knew that Blanche was right. But in spite of 
 that knowledge, the resolute energy which made her so 
 much disliked impelled her to go at once to lay the 
 matter before the head of the house. 
 
 Lady Wargrave found her brother in the smaller 
 library, long dedicated by custom to his sole use. It was 
 one of the less pretentious and therefore least uncom- 
 fortable rooms in a house altogether too large to be 
 decently habitable. 
 
 For many years the Duke had been at the mercy of a 
 painful malady which had taken all the pleasure out of 
 his life. He was nearly seventy now, a man strikingly 
 handsome in spite of a sufferer's mouth and eyes weary 
 with pain and cynicism. When his sister entered the 
 room she found him deployed on an invalid chair, the 
 Quarterly Review on a book-rest in front of him, and a 
 wineglass containing medicine at his elbow. And to 
 Lady Wargrave's clear annoyance, a tall, gray-haired, 
 rather austere-looking, but decidedly handsome woman, 
 stood by the Adam chimney-piece, a bottle in one hand, 
 a teaspoon in the other. 
 
 "Perhaps you will be kind enough to leave us, Mrs. 
 Sanderson," said Lady Wargrave, in a, tone which 
 sounded needlessly elaborate. 
 
 Harriet Sanderson, without so much as a temporary 
 relaxation of muscle of her strong face, withdrew at 
 
 97
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 once very silently from the room. The bottle and the 
 teaspoon went with her. 
 
 As soon as the door had closed Lady Wargrave said, 
 "Johnnie, once more I feel bound to protest against the 
 presence of the housekeeper in the library. If the state 
 of your health really calls for such attention I will 
 engage a trained nurse." 
 
 The Duke took up the Quarterly Review with an air 
 of stolid indifference. 
 
 "I'll get one at once," she persisted. "There's a 
 capable person who nursed Mary Devizes." 
 
 The Duke seemed unwilling to discuss the question, 
 but at last, yielding to pressure, he said in a tone of dry 
 exasperation : 
 
 "Mrs. Sanderson is quite capable of looking after me. 
 She understands my ways, I understand hers." 
 
 "No one doubts her competence." The rejoinder was 
 tart and hostile. "But that is hardly the point. The 
 library is not the place for the housekeeper." 
 
 "I choose to have her here. In any case it is entirely 
 my affair." 
 
 "People talk." 
 
 "Let 'em." 
 
 "It's an old quarrel, my friend." Growing asperity 
 was in the voice of Charlotte. "You know my views 
 on the subject of Mrs. Sanderson. We none of us like 
 the woman. Considering the position she holds she has 
 always taken far too much upon herself." 
 
 The Duke shook his head. "I must be the judge of 
 that," he said. 
 
 "But surely it is a matter for the women of your 
 family." 
 
 98
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 "With all submission, it's a matter for me. I find the 
 present arrangement entirely satisfactory, and I don't 
 recognize the right of anyone to interfere." 
 
 The Duke's tone grated like a file upon his sister's 
 ear. This was an ancient quarrel that in one form or 
 another had been going on for very many years. The 
 housekeeper at Buntisford and more recently at Bridport 
 House had been a thorn in the flesh of Charlotte almost 
 from the day her sister-in-law died, but the Duke had 
 always been Mrs. Sanderson's champion. Time and 
 again her overthrow had been decided upon by the ladies 
 of the Family, but up till now the perverse determina- 
 tion of his Grace had proved too much for them and all 
 their careful schemes. 
 
 They had reached the usual impasse. Therefore, for 
 the time being, Charlotte had once more to swallow her 
 feelings. Besides, other matters were in the air, matters 
 of an interest more vital if of a nature less permanent. 
 
 As a preliminary it was necessary to glance at Muriel 
 and her vagaries, before coming to grips with the even 
 more momentous affair which had just been brought to 
 Lady Wargrave's notice. In answer to his sister's, 
 "What have you said to Maclean?" the Duke, who 
 had swallowed most of the formulas and had digested 
 them pretty thoroughly, expressed himself characteristic- 
 ally. 
 
 "I told him that before I could even begin to consider 
 the question he would have to rat." 
 
 "Was that wise?" said Charlotte, frowning. "Why 
 commit oneself to the possibility of having to take the 
 man seriously?" 
 
 Her brother laughed. "He's a very sharp fellow. A 
 
 99
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 long Scotch head, abominably full of brains. If we could 
 get him on our side perhaps he might pull us together." 
 
 "You know, of course, that his mother kept the village 
 shop at Ardnaleuchan ?" 
 
 "So he tells me." 
 
 "Do you like the prospect of such a son-in-law ?" 
 
 "Frankly, Charlotte, I don't. A tiresome business at 
 the best of it. But there it is." 
 
 "Ought one to treat it so coolly?" 
 
 His Grace laid the Quarterly Review on the book- 
 rest and plucked a little peevishly at the tuft of hair on 
 his chin. 
 
 "The times are changing, you see. We are on the 
 eve of strange things. Still, I took the liberty of telling 
 him that as long as he remained a Radical and went up 
 and down the country blackguarding me and mine, I 
 should refuse to know him." 
 
 "And what said our fine gentleman?" 
 
 "He was amused. Whether he takes the hint remains 
 to be seen. In any event it commits us to nothing." 
 
 Charlotte shook a dubious head. "You're shaping for 
 a compromise, my friend. And in my view this is not 
 a case for one." 
 
 "If she is set on marrying the brute what's going to 
 stop her?" 
 
 The question was -meant for a poser and a poser it 
 proved. Somehow it left no ground for argument. 
 Therefore, without further preface or apology, Lady 
 Wargrave turned to a matter of even more vital conse- 
 quence. 
 
 100
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 IV 
 
 By an odd chain of events, Jack Dinneford was heir 
 apparent to the dukedom of Bridport. In the course 
 of a brief twelve months two intervening lives had 
 petered out. One had been Lyme, the Duke's only 
 surviving son, who at the age of thirty-five had been 
 killed in a shooting accident a younger son, never a 
 good life, had died some years earlier the other had 
 been the Duke's younger brother, who six months ago 
 had died without male issue. The succession in conse- 
 quence would now have to pass to an obscure and rather 
 neglected branch of the family, represented by a young 
 man of twenty-four, the son of a Norfolk parson. 
 
 Jack's father, at the time of his death, had held a 
 family living. A retiring, scholarly man, he had never 
 courted the favors of the great, and the great, little 
 suspecting that their vicarious splendors might one day 
 be his, had paid him little attention. Blessed with 
 progeny of the usual clerical abundance and without 
 means apart from his stipend, the incumbent of Wickley- 
 on-the-Wold had been hard set to educate his children 
 in a manner becoming their august lineage. Even Jack, 
 the eldest of five, had to be content with four years at 
 one of the smaller public schools. It was true that 
 afterwards he had the option of Oxford or Sandhurst, 
 but by the time the young man had reached the age of 
 nineteen he had somehow acquired an independence of 
 character which did not take kindly to either. 
 
 One fine day, with a spare suit of clothes and a 
 hundred pounds or so in his pocket, he set out in the 
 most casual way to see the world, and to make his for- 
 
 101
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 tune. He went to Liverpool, shipped before the mast 
 as an ordinary seaman for the sake of the experience, 
 and made the voyage round the Horn to San Francisco. 
 For the next two years he prospected up and down the 
 America's earning a living, picking up ideas, and enlarg- 
 ing his outlook by association with all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men, and finally invested all the capital he could 
 scrape together in a business in Vancouver. 
 
 After eighteen months of the new life came the news 
 of his father's death. The brothers and sisters it seemed 
 were rather better provided for than there had been 
 reason to expect. At any rate, Mabel and Iris would 
 have a roof over their heads, Bill had passed into Sand- 
 hurst, and Frank was at Cambridge. Therefore Jack, 
 little guessing what Fate had in store, decided to stay 
 as he was, in the hope that in a few years he would have 
 made his pile. He had a taste for hard work, and the 
 new land offered opportunities denied by the old. 
 
 Some months later he received an urgent summons 
 to return home. He had suddenly and unexpectedly 
 become next of kin to the Duke of Bridport. The news 
 was little to the young man's taste. He was very loth to 
 give up a growing business for a life of parasitic idleness 
 under the aegis of the titular great. But the circum- 
 stances seemed to make it imperative. The powers that 
 were had not the slightest doubt that it was his bounden 
 duty to go into training at once. He must fit himself 
 for the dizzy eminence to which it had pleased Provi- 
 dence to call him. 
 
 Sadly enough the tiro sold out, returned to England, 
 and in due course reported himself at Bridport House. 
 It was the first time he had been there. He was such 
 
 102
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 a distant kinsman that he had never taken the ducal 
 connection seriously. 
 
 The family's reception of the Tenderfoot his own 
 humorous name for himself amused him considerably, 
 yet at the same time it filled him with a subtle annoyance. 
 Five fruitful years out West had made him an iconoclast. 
 He saw with awakened eyes the arid and sterile pom- 
 posities which were doing their best to put the old land 
 out of the race. Bridport House was going to spell 
 boredom and worse for Jack Dinneford. 
 
 Still the Duke, as became a man of the world, soon got 
 to the root of the trouble, and having the welfare of 
 a time-honored institution at heart, was at pains to deal 
 with the novice tactfully. All the same, he was far 
 from being pleased by the tricks of Providence. But 
 he made the young man an allowance of two thousand a 
 year, and exhorted him not to get into mischief ; and the 
 Dinneford ladies, who were prepared to be kind to the 
 Tenderfoot and to be more amused by his "originality" 
 than they confessed to each other, chose some rooms for 
 him in Arlington .Street, looked after his general welfare, 
 and began to make plans for the future of Bridport 
 House. Aunt Charlotte took him at once under an un- 
 gracious wing, and found him a bear-leader in the person 
 of her nephew Wrexham, a subaltern of the Pinks, a 
 picturesque young man, reputed a paragon of all 'the 
 Christian virtues, and a martyr to a sense of duty. 
 
 From this model of discretion the tiro soon received a 
 hint. Cousin Sarah owned to thirty-eight in the glare 
 of Debrett, Cousin Muriel had other views apparently, 
 but there remained Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie 
 
 103
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 the heir could take his choice, but the ukase had gone 
 forth that one of them it must be. 
 
 The Tenderfoot did not feel in a marrying mood just 
 then, but he had chivalry enough not to say so to his 
 mentor, who as the messenger of Eros began to disclose 
 quite a pretty turn of humor. It was not seemly to offer 
 advice in such a delicate matter, but Blanche was a 
 nailer to hounds, although she never kept awake after 
 dinner, while Marjorie's sphere was church decoration in 
 times of festival, in the course of which she generally 
 had an affaire with a curate. 
 
 Face to face with a problem which in one way or 
 another was kept ever before his eyes, the poor Tender- 
 foot seemed to feel that if wive he must in the charmed 
 circle, and the relentless Wrexham assured him that it 
 was a solemn duty, perhaps there was most to be said 
 for Cousin Marjorie. She was not supremely attractive 
 it was true. The Dinneford girls, one and all, were 
 famous up and down the island for a resolute absence of 
 charm. And the Dinneford frontispiece, imposing 
 enough in the male, when rendered in terms of the female 
 somehow seemed to lack poetry. Still Cousin Marjorie 
 was not yet thirty and her general health was excellent. 
 
 The heir had now been settled in Arlington Street six 
 months. And with nothing in the world to do but learn 
 to live a life which threatened to bore him exceedingly, 
 time began to hang upon his hands. Moreover, the 
 prospect of having presently to lead Cousin Marjorie to 
 the altar merely increased a sense of malaise. Here 
 was an arbitrary deepening of the tones of a picture 
 which heaven knew was dark enough already. For a 
 modern and virile young man, life at Bridport House 
 
 104
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 would only be tolerable under very happy conditions. 
 To be yoked, willy-nilly, to one of its native denizens 
 for the rest of one's days, seemed a hardship almost 
 too great to be borne. 
 
 While the Tenderfoot was in this frame of mind, 
 which inclined him to temporize, he decided to put off 
 the dark hour as long as he could. And then suddenly, 
 while still besieged by doubt, the hypnotic Princess 
 Bedalia swam into his ken. 
 
 "It was bound to happen," said Lady Wargrave. 
 "That young man has far too much time on his hands. 
 A thousand pities he didn't go into the army." 
 
 "Too old, too old." Her brother frowned porten- 
 tously. "This promises to be a very tiresome business. 
 Charlotte, I must really ask you to lose no time in 
 seeing that the fellow marries." 
 
 It was now Charlotte's turn to frown. And this she 
 did as a prelude to a frankness which verged upon the 
 brutal. 
 
 "All very well, my friend, but perhaps you'll tell me 
 how it's to be done. Neither Marjorie nor Blanche has 
 the least power of attraction. They're hopeless. And 
 please remember this young man has been five years in 
 America." 
 
 "I would to God he had stayed there !" 
 
 The futile outburst of his Grace set Charlotte glower- 
 ing like a sibyl. She was constrained to own that it was 
 all intensely annoying. He was a common young man. 
 He had none of the Dinneford feeling about things. 
 
 105
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Quite so, Charlotte." The ducal irritation was grow- 
 ing steadily. "But don't rub it in. That won't help 
 us. Let us think constructively. You see the trouble 
 is that this fellow has a rather democratic outlook." 
 
 "Then I'm afraid there's no remedy," said Charlotte, 
 "unless the girls have the brains to help us, which, of 
 course, they haven't." 
 
 His Grace became more thunderous. "Let us hope 
 he'll have the good feeling to try to look at things as we 
 do," he said after a rather arid pause. 
 
 "I'm not sure that we've a right to expect it," was the 
 frank rejoinder. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "His branch of the family has no particular cause to 
 be grateful to us." 
 
 "Our father gave his father a living, didn't he?" said 
 the Duke sharply. 
 
 "Yes, but nothing else unless it was a day's shooting 
 now and again, which he didn't accept." 
 
 "I don't see what else he could have given him." 
 
 "An eye ought to have been kept on this young man." 
 
 "You can depend upon it, Charlotte, many things 
 would have been ordered differently had there been, 
 reason to suppose that this confounded fellow would be 
 next in here. As it is we have to make the best of a 
 sorry business." 
 
 "Sorry enough," Charlotte admitted. "There I am 
 with you. But I'll have inquiries made about this chorus 
 girl. And in the meantime, Johnnie, perhaps you will 
 speak to him firmly and quietly without losing your 
 temper." 
 
 "And my last word to you, Charlotte," countered his 
 
 106
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 Grace, "is to see that he loses no time in marrying." 
 "Easy, my friend, to issue a ukase." And the redoubt- 
 able Charlotte smiled grimly. 
 
 VI 
 
 Soon after four the same afternoon Jack returned 
 to Broad Place in the garb of civilization. He was in 
 great heart. Milly had some good-natured chaff to offer 
 as to Mary's need of sticking plaster. But the young 
 man turned this persiflage aside with such a serious air 
 that the quick-witted Milly knew it for an omen. Having 
 learned the set of the wind she soon found a pretext for 
 leaving them together. 
 
 Milly's sense of a coming event, which her sudden 
 flight from the room had seemed to make the more 
 inevitable, was shared by Mary. Somehow she felt that 
 the moment of moments had come. This thing had 
 to be. But as a hand brown and virile quietly took hers 
 in a strong grip, she began almost bitterly to deplore the 
 whole business. And yet, when all was said, she was 
 absolutely thrilled. He was so truly a man that a girl, 
 no matter what her talent and quality, could hardly 
 refrain from pride in his homage. 
 
 There was no beating about the bush. 
 
 "Will you marry me ?" he said. 
 
 She grew crimson. How she had dreaded that long 
 foreseen question ! Days ago common sense and worldly 
 prudence had coldly informed her that there could only 
 be one possible answer. The case of Milly herself had 
 furnished a sinister parallel. And the sensitive, perhaps 
 over-sensitive pride of one who had begun at the bottom 
 of the ladder, revolted from all the ensuing complica- 
 
 107
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 tions. Such a situation seemed now to involve her in 
 mysteries far down within, at the very core of being 
 mysteries she had hardly been aware of until that 
 moment. 
 
 Again the question. She looked away, quite unable 
 just then to meet his eyes. Her will was strong, her 
 determination clear, but in spite of herself a deadly feel- 
 ing crept upon her that she was a bird in a snare. 
 Certain imponderables were in the room. The life 
 forces were calling to each other; there was a curious 
 magnetism in the very air they breathed. 
 
 She had meant and intended "No," but every instant 
 made that little word more difficult to utter. A dominant 
 nature had stolen the keys of her heart before she knew 
 it. And as she fought against the inevitable, a subtle 
 trick of the ape on the chain in the human breast, 
 weighed the scales unfairly. Cousin Blanche and Cousin 
 Marjorie were flung oddly, irrelevantly, fantastically, 
 upon the curtain of her mind. The challenge of their 
 ironical eyes was like a knife in the flesh. And then 
 that private, particular devil, of whose existence, until 
 that moment, she had been unaware, suddenly forced her 
 to take up the gage those eyes had flung. 
 
 VII 
 
 "Do tell me !" cried Milly the breathless. 
 
 The sight of a lone, troubled Mary in the little sitting- 
 room, the look on her face as she twisted a handkerchief 
 into knots and coils had been too much for Milly. She 
 was a downright person and the silence of Mary was 
 so trying to a forthcoming nature that the query at the 
 
 108
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 tip of Milly's tongue seemed likely to burn a hole in it. 
 
 "Has he have you did he ?" The demand was 
 
 indelicate, but it sprang from the depths as Milly 
 measured them. Suddenly she saw tears. 
 
 "I am so glad, I am so very glad !" 
 
 Mary smiled, but the look in her eyes had the power 
 to startle the affectionate Milly. 
 
 "He is the luckiest man I know, but he is such a dear 
 that he deserves to be." It was a peculiarity of Mary's 
 that she didn't like kissing, but Milly in a burst of loyal 
 affection was guilty of a sudden swoop upon her friend. 
 
 "Oh, don't," said Mary, in a voice from which all the 
 accustomed gayety was gone. 
 
 Milly gazed in consternation. 
 
 "You you have not refused him?" 
 
 "No." And then there came a sudden flame. "I'm 
 a selfish, egotistical wretch." 
 
 "As long as you have not refused him," said Milly, 
 breathing again. "All the same, I call you a very odd 
 girl." 
 
 But Mary was troubled, Milly perplexed. 
 
 "You ought to be the happiest creature alive. What's 
 the matter?" 
 
 "I'm thinking of his friends." 
 
 "If they choose to be stupi'd, it's their own lookout." 
 
 "It mayn't be stupidity," said Mary, giving her hand- 
 kerchief a bite. "I know nothing about him, except " 
 
 "Except?" 
 
 "That he's above me socially." 
 
 "I wouldn't worry about that if I were you," said 
 Milly robustly. "If they like to be snobs it's their own 
 funeral." 
 
 109
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 But Mary, having burned her boats, was afflicted now 
 by Cousin Blanche and Cousin Mar j one. They were 
 looking down upon her from their tall horses. It was 
 not that she feared them in the least, but she knew that 
 lurking somewhere in an oddly constituted mind was a 
 certain awe of the things for which they stood. 
 
 "I can't explain my feelings," said Mary. "I only 
 know they are horribly real. I feel there's a gulf be- 
 tween Jack and me and a word won't bridge it." And 
 her voice trailed off miserably. 
 
 "That's weak," said Milly severely. "I know what 
 you mean, but you exaggerate the difference absurdly. 
 Sonny is miles above me socially, but I'll make him as 
 good a wife as any of his own push, see if I don't if 
 he gives me the chance ! And in some ways I can make 
 him a better." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Because I began right down there." Milly pointed 
 to the carpet. "I know the value of things, I shall be 
 able to see that no one takes advantage of him, whereas 
 a girl who has been spoon-fed all her life couldn't do 
 that." 
 
 The honest Mary had to allow that there was something 
 to be said for the point of view, yet she would not admit 
 that it covered all the facts of the case. 
 
 "Please don't suppose my ideas have anything to do 
 with you and Lord Wrexham." Her gravity made Milly 
 feel quite annoyed. "I am merely thinking of myself. 
 And there's something in me, for which I can't account, 
 which says that it may be wrong, it may be wickedly 
 wrong, for me to marry Jack." 
 
 "It certainly will be if that's how you look at it," said 
 
 no
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 Milly scornfully. "Why not make the most of your 
 luck? I'm sure it's right. After all Providence knows 
 better than anybody. And Jack knows he's got to be 
 a duke." 
 
 "Got to be what?" Mary jumped out of her chair. 
 
 "You didn't know?" 
 
 "Of course, I didn't." She was simply aghast. In a 
 state of excitement which quite baffled Milly, she paced 
 the room. 
 
 "You odd creature!" The mantle of the arch dis- 
 sembler had now descended upon Milly. 
 
 Truth to tell, she and her mother had had a shrewd 
 suspicion of Mary's ignorance. They had learned from 
 Wrexham that Jack Dinneford, owing to a series of 
 deaths in a great family, had quite unexpectedly become 
 the next-of-kin to the Duke of Bridport. Such a 
 prospect was so little to the young man's taste that as 
 far as he could he always made a point of keeping the 
 skeleton out of sight. Rightly or wrongly he had not 
 said a word to Mary on the subject, and she with a 
 pride a little overstrained, no doubt, had allowed herself 
 no curiosity in regard to his worldly status. For what- 
 ever it might be it was obviously far removed from that 
 of a girl of no family who had to get her own living as 
 well as she could. 
 
 The news was stunning. As Mary walked about the 
 room the look on her face was almost tragic. 
 
 "I think you ought to have told me," she said at last. 
 
 "We thought you knew," was Milly's reply. This 
 was a deliberate story. Mrs. Wren and herself in dis- 
 cussing the romantic news had concluded the exact oppo- 
 site. But out of a true regard for Mary's welfare, as 
 
 in
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 they conceived it, they had decided to let her find out for 
 herself. She was such an odd girl in certain ways that 
 mother and daughter felt that the real truth about Jack 
 Dinneford might easily prove his overthrow. Thus with 
 a chaste conscience Milly now lied royally. 
 
 Mary, alas! was so resentful of the coup of fortune 
 and her friends, that for a moment she was tempted to 
 fix a quarrel on Milly. But Milly's cunning was too 
 much for her. She stuck to the simple statement that 
 she thought she knew. There was no gainsaying it. 
 And if blame there was in the matter it surely lay at 
 the door of her own proud self. 
 
 Mary was still in the throes of an unwelcome dis- 
 covery when Mrs. Wren came into the room. The 
 appearance of that lady seemed to add fuel to the flame. 
 Her felicitations, a little overwhelming in their exuber- 
 ance, were in nowise damped by the girl's dejection. To 
 Mrs. Wren such an attitude of mind was not merely 
 unreasonable, it was unchristian. To call in question 
 the highest gifts of Providence betrayed a kink in a 
 charming character. 
 
 "Fancy, my dear a duchess. You'll be next in rank 
 to royalty." 
 
 It was so hard for the victim to smother the tempest 
 within that for the moment she dare not trust herself 
 to speak. 
 
 "You're very naughty," said Mrs. Wren. "Why, you 
 ought to offer up a prayer. You've had success too 
 easily, the road has been too smooth. If you'd had a 
 smaller talent and you'd had an awful struggle to get 
 there, you'd know better than to crab your luck." 
 
 A strong will now came to Mary's aid. And the calm 
 112
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 force of her answer, when at last she was able to make 
 it, astonished Milly and her mother. "That's one side 
 of the case, Mrs. Wren," she said in a new tone. "But 
 there's another, you know." 
 
 "There is only one side for you, my dear," said the 
 older woman stoutly. "Take your chances while you 
 may that's my advice. Your luck may turn. You'll 
 not always be what you are now. Suppose you have 
 a bad illness ?" 
 
 "I'm thinking of his side of the case." The tone 
 verged upon sternness. 
 
 "You have quite enough to do to think of your own.' 
 Don't throw chances away. I have had forty years' 
 experience of a very hard profession, and even you top 
 sawyers are on very thin ice. And remember, the cards 
 never forgive. Girls who have a lone hand to play, mustn't 
 hold their heads too high. If they do they'll live to 
 regret it. And you mustn't think these swells can't box 
 their own corner. They've nothing to learn in looking 
 after Number One. A girl of your sort is quite equal 
 to any of these drawing-room noodles and Mr. Dinneford 
 knows that better than I do." 
 
 "But that's impossible. I can never be as they are." 
 
 "You needn't let that worry you. A lot of stuck-up 
 dunces that all the world kow-tows to !" 
 
 "It isn't that I think they are nicer or cleverer or 
 wiser than other people. But they are born to certain 
 things, they have been bred to them for generations, and 
 it surely stands to reason that they are better at their own 
 game than a mere outsider can hope to be." 
 
 "Fiddle-de-dee!" said Mrs. Wren. "I hope you are 
 not such a goose as to take swelldom at its own valua- 
 
 "3
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 tion. It's all a bluff, my dear. Your humble servant, 
 Jane Wren, could have been as good a duchess as the 
 best of 'em if she had been given the chance. I don't 
 want to be fulsome, my dear, but I'll back a girl of your 
 brains against Lady Agatha Fitzboodle or any other 
 titled snob." 
 
 "But I don't want to be pitted against anybody !" 
 
 "That's nonsense." Mrs. Wren shook a worldly-wise 
 head. "As for being an outsider, a girl can't be more 
 than a lady just as a man can't be more than a gentleman. 
 And if you are a lady and have always gone straight 
 you needn't fear comparison with the highest in the 
 land." 
 
 Mary shook a head of sadness and perplexity. 
 
 "Somehow it doesn't seem right to mix things in that 
 way," she said. 
 
 "It's the only way that keeps 'em going," said Mrs. 
 Wren scornfully. "And well they know it. At least 
 nature knows it. Look at Wrexham! Do you mean 
 to say that his inbred strain wouldn't be improved by 
 Milly? And it's the same with you and Mr. Dinneford. 
 It's Nature at the back of it all. It's the call of the 
 blood. If these old families keep on intermarrying long 
 enough dry rot sets in." 
 
 Mary stood a picture of woe. 
 
 "You odd creature!" said Mrs. Wren. "I've never 
 met a girl with such ideas as yours. I really believe 
 you are quite as narrow and as prejudiced as Lady 
 Agatha Fitzboodle. To hear you talk one would think 
 you believed rank to be a really important matter." 
 
 Incredulous eyes were opened upon the voluble dame. 
 
 114
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 "Of course it is." But the girl's solemnity was a 
 little too much. 
 
 "My dear!" A gust of ribald laughter overwhelmed 
 her. "Hasn't it ever struck you that the so-called aris- 
 tocracy racket is all a bluff?" 
 
 "Surely, it can't be." The tone was genuine dis- 
 may. 
 
 "Every word of it, my dear. There's only one thing 
 behind it and that's money. If Wrexham ever sticks a 
 coronet on the head of my Milly and robes her in ermine 
 she'll be the equal of any in the land, just as old Bill 
 Brown who was in the last birthday honors is as good a 
 peer as the best of 'em now that his soap business has 
 brought him into Park Lane. I knew Bill when he 
 hadn't a bob. It's just a matter of L.S.D. As for the 
 frills, they are all my eye and Elizabeth Martin. When 
 my Milly gets among them, it won't take her a week to 
 learn all their tricks. They are just so many perform- 
 ing dogs." 
 
 "You don't understand, you don't understand !" The 
 tone was tragic. 
 
 VIII 
 
 A night's reflection convinced the girl that there was 
 only one thing to be done. The engagement must end. 
 But as she soon found, it was easier to make the resolve 
 than to carry it out. To begin with, it was terribly irk- 
 some, in present circumstances, to give effect to her 
 decision and to back it with reasons. 
 
 Her debut in the Row had been so successful that a 
 ride had been arranged for the next morning. But it 
 was spoiled completely by the specter now haunting her.
 
 In what terms could she tell him that she had changed 
 her mind? How could she defend a proceeding so 
 unwarrantable ? 
 
 ! It was not until later in the day, when they took a 
 stroll under the trees in the Park, that she forced herself 
 to grasp the nettle boldly. 
 
 Jack, as she had foreseen, was immeasurably aston- 
 ished. He called, at once, for her reasons. And they 
 were terribly difficult to put into words. At last she was 
 driven back upon the cardinal fact that he had concealed 
 his true position. 
 
 He repudiated the charge indignantly. In the first 
 place, he had taken it for granted that she knew his posi- 
 tion, in the second, he always made a point of leaving it 
 as much as possible outside his calculations. 
 . "But isn't that just what one oughtn't to do?" she 
 said, as they took possession of a couple of vacant chairs. 
 "To me the whole thing's absurd," was the rejoinder. 
 "It's only by the merest fluke that I have to succeed to 
 the title, and I find it quite impossible to feel about things 
 as Bridport House does. The whole business is a great 
 bore, and if a way out could be found I'd much rather 
 stay as I am." 
 
 "But isn't that just a wee bit selfish, my dear if you 
 don't think me a prig?" 
 
 "If you are quite out of sympathy with an antedilu- 
 vian system, if you disbelieve in it, if you hate it in the 
 marrow of your bones, where's the virtue in sacrificing 
 yourself in order to maintain it?" 
 
 "Noblesse oblige!" 
 
 "Yes, but does it ? A dukedom, in my view, is just an 
 outworn convention, a survival of a darker age." 
 
 116
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 "It stands for something/' 
 
 "What does it stand for? that's the point. There's 
 no damned merit about it, you know. Any fool can be 
 a duke, and they mostly are." 
 
 Mary, if a little amused, was more than a little 
 shocked. 
 
 "I'm sure it's not right to think that/' she declared 
 stoutly. "I would say myself, although one oughtn't to 
 have a say on the subject, that it's the duty of your sort 
 of people to keep things going." 
 
 "They are not my sort of people. I was pitchforked 
 among them. And if you don't believe in them and the 
 things it is their duty to keep going what becomes of 
 your theory, Miss Scrupulous?" 
 
 "But that's Socialism," said Mary with solemn eyes. 
 
 "No, it's the common sense of the matter. All this 
 centralization of power in the hands of a few hard-shells 
 like my Uncle Albert he's not my uncle really is very 
 bad for the State. He owns one-fifth of Scotland, and 
 the only things he ever really takes seriously are his 
 meals and his health." 
 
 "He stands for something all the same." 
 
 The young man laughed outright. 
 
 "I know I'm a prig." The blushing candor disarmed 
 him. "But if one has a great bump of reverence I sup- 
 pose one can't help exaggerating one's feelings a little." 
 
 "I suppose not," laughed the young man. And then 
 there was a pause. "By jove," he said at the end of 
 it, "you'd be the last word in duchesses." 
 
 "You won't get Bridport House to think so." 
 
 "So -much the worse for Bridport House. Of course, 
 I admit it has other views for me. But the trouble is, 
 
 117
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 as always in these close corporations, they haven't the 
 art of seeing things as they are." 
 
 Mary shook a troubled head, but the argument seemed 
 to find its way home. 
 
 "The truth of the matter is," he suddenly declared, 
 "you are afraid of Bridport House." 
 
 Without shame she confessed that Bridport House 
 was bound to be very hostile, and was there not every 
 reason for such an attitude? Jack, however, would not 
 yield an inch upon that count, or on any other if it came 
 to that. He was a primitive creature in whom the call 
 of the blood was paramount. Moreover, he was a very 
 tenacious fellow. And these arguments of hers, strongly 
 urged and boldly stated, did not affect his point of view. 
 The ban of Fortune was purely artificial, it could not be 
 defended. She was fain, therefore, to carry the war to 
 the enemy's country. But if she gently hinted a change 
 of egotism he countered it astutely with the subtler one 
 of sentimentalism. Each confessed the other partially 
 right, but so far from clearing the air it seemed to make 
 the whole matter more complex. The upshot was that 
 he called upon her to find a valid reason, otherwise he 
 refused point-blank to give her up. 
 
 "Just think," he said, tracing her name on the gravel 
 with a walking-stick, "how hollow the whole business is. 
 How many of Uncle Albert's 'push' have married Ameri- 
 can wives without a question? And why do they, when 
 they wouldn't think of giving English girls of the same 
 class an equal chance? In the first place, for the sake 
 of the dollars, in the second, because it is so easy for 
 them to shed their relations and forget their origin." 
 
 But so wide was the gulf between their points of view 
 
 118
 
 BRIDPORT HOUSE 
 
 that mere argument could not hope to bridge it. If she 
 was in grim earnest, so was he; moreover she had 
 entered into a compact he was determined she should 
 fulfill. Before consenting to release her she would have 
 to show very good cause at any rate. 
 
 Suddenly, in the give-and-take of conflict, Laxton 
 came into her mind. The memory of Beaconsfield 
 Villas, the whimsical creatures of another orbit, and the 
 childhood which now seemed ages away, fired her with 
 a new idea. She would take him to see the humble 
 people among whom she had been brought up.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 I 
 
 THE flight of time had affected Beaconsfield Villas 
 surprisingly little. Laxton itself had deferred to 
 Anno Domini in many subtle ways; it had its 
 'electric trams and motor-buses, and the suburb had 
 doubled in size, but no epoch-making changes were vis- 
 ible in the front sitting-room of Number Five. In that 
 homely interior the cosmic march and profluence was 
 simply revealed by a gramophone, the gift of Mary, on 
 the top of the sewing machine in the corner, and by the 
 accession to the walls of lithograph portraits of the son 
 and grandson of the august lady who still held pride of 
 place over the chimney-piece. 
 
 The afternoon was stifling even for South London in 
 the middle of June. And Joseph Kelly, who had at- 
 tained the rank of sergeant in the Metropolitan Police 
 Force, not having to go on duty until six o'clock that 
 evening, was seated coatless and solemn, spectacles on 
 nose, smoking a well-colored clay and reading the Daily 
 Mail. At the level of his eyes, in portentous type was, 
 "Laxton Bye-Election. A Sharp Contest. New Home 
 Secretary's Chances." Joe was a shade stouter than of 
 yore, his face was even redder, a thinning thatch had 
 
 1 20
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 turned gray, but in all essentials the man himself was 
 still the genial cockney of one-and-twenty years ago. 
 
 The outer door of the sitting-room, which was next 
 the street, was wide open to invite the air. But ever 
 and again there rose such a fierce medley of noises from 
 a mysterious cause a little distance off, that at last Joe 
 got up from his chair, and waddling across the room in 
 a pair of worn list slippers, banged the door against 
 the sounds from the street which had the power to annoy 
 him considerably. 
 
 Hardly had Joe shuffled back to his chair and his 
 newspaper when the door was flung open again and an 
 excited urchin thrust a tousled head into the room. 
 
 " 'Vote for Maclean an' a free breakfast-table' !" 
 
 The law in the person of Sergeant Kelly rose from 
 its chair majestically. 
 
 "If you ain't off my word !" 
 
 Headlong flight of the urchin. Joe closed the door 
 with violence and sat down again. But the incident had 
 unsettled him. He seemed unable to fix his mind on 
 the newspaper. And the noises in the street waxed ever 
 louder. Now they took the form of cheers and counter 
 cheers, now of hoots, cat-calls and shouts of derision. At 
 last the tumult rose to such a pitch that it drew Eliza 
 from an inner room. 
 
 The years had changed her rather more than her hus- 
 band. But she was still the active, capable, bustling 
 housewife, with a keen eye for the world and all that 
 was passing in it. 
 
 "They are making noise enough to wake the dead." 
 Eliza looked eagerly through the window. 
 
 "I wish that durned Scotchman hadn't set his com- 
 
 121
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 mittee-room plumb oppersite Number Five, Beaconsfield 
 Villas," was Joe's sour comment. 
 
 At that moment the all-embracing eye of a relentless 
 housewife swooped down upon a card lying innocently 
 on the linoleum. It had been flung there by the recent 
 visitor. Eliza picked it up and read : 
 
 Vote for Maclean, thus: 
 
 MACLEAN X 
 WHITLEY. 
 
 On the back of the card was a portrait of Sir Dugald 
 Maclean, M.P. 
 
 Eliza gazed at it in astonishment mingled with awe. 
 
 "I am bound to say he is a better-favored jockey than 
 when he came a-courting our Harriet. Look, Joe!" 
 
 With scornful vehemence, Joe declined the invitation. 
 
 Eliza was sternly advised to tear up the card, but 
 instead she chose to set it on the chimney-piece. The 
 rash act was too much for her lord. Once more he rose 
 from his chair, tore the card into little pieces and flung 
 them into a grate artistically decorated with colored 
 paper. 
 
 "You are jealous !" said Eliza, laughing. 
 
 "Of the likes of him! Holy smoke ! But if you think 
 we are going to have such trash in the same room as the 
 Marquis, you make an error." 
 
 The words had hardly been uttered when shouts yet 
 more piercing came from the street. Eliza made a hasty 
 return to the window. 
 
 "Come and look, Joe!" she cried breathlessly. "Here 
 
 122
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 he is with his top hat and eyeglass. He's that dossy 
 you wouldn't know him. He's dressed up like a tailor's 
 dummy." 
 
 But Joe declined to budge. 
 
 "It fairly makes me sick to think of the feller," he 
 said. 
 
 A little later, when the tumult in the street had died 
 down a bit, Joe settled himself in his chair for an after- 
 noon nap. Eliza, duly noting the symptoms, retired on 
 tiptoe to another room, closing the door after her gently. 
 But today, alas, the skyey influences were adverse. Joe 
 had barely entered oblivion when a smart tap at the street 
 door shattered this precarious peace. With a grudge 
 against society he rose once more, shambled across the 
 room and flung open the door, half expecting to find that 
 the urchin had returned to torment him. A dramatic 
 surprise was in store. On the threshold was a creature 
 so stylishly trim that even the blase eye of the Metropol- 
 itan Force was sensibly thrilled in beholding her. "A 
 bit of class" without a doubt, although adorned by the 
 colors of the People's Candidate, and surprisingly cool 
 in sheer defiance of the thermometer. 
 
 "Good afternoon !" The tone of half-confidential inti- 
 macy was quite irresistible. "May I have a little talk 
 with you?" 
 
 "Certainly, miss." The unconscious gallantry of an 
 impressionable policeman was more than equal to the 
 occasion. "Step inside and make yourself at home." 
 
 When Joe came to review the incident afterwards, it 
 seemed very surprising that he should have yielded so 
 easily to the impact of this elegant miss. For instinc- 
 tively he knew her business. Moreover, the last thing 
 
 123
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 he desired at that moment was to be troubled by her or 
 by it. But he had been taken by surprise, and in all 
 circumstances he would have needed ample notice to 
 deny a lady. He had a great but impersonal regard for 
 a lady, as some people have for a Rembrandt or a Corot 
 or a Jan van Steen. And although the fact was not 
 important, perhaps his sense of humor was a little 
 touched by such a young woman taking the trouble to 
 come and talk to such a man as himself. 
 
 "I am here," said the voice of the dove, as soon as its 
 owner had subsided gracefully upon a chair covered with 
 horsehair, "to ask your vote and interest for Sir Dugald 
 Maclean, the People's Candidate." 
 
 The prophetic soul of Joe had told him that already. 
 But again the sense of humor, the fatal gift, may have 
 intervened. Had the elegant miss had any nous, she 
 would have known that a sergeant of the X Division has 
 not a vote to bestow. In justice to the fair democrat, 
 Joe might have reflected that in the absence of his tunic 
 there was nothing to show his status. However, he 
 didn't trouble to do that. It was enough for him that 
 she was on a fool's errand. But Joe was a man of the 
 world as well as a connoisseur of the human female. A 
 picturesque personality intrigued him. Moreover, it was 
 working for a cause that Joe despised from the depths 
 of his soul. So much was she "the real thing" that she 
 had even turned on a melodious lisp for his benefit; yet 
 he had no particular wish, even under these flattering 
 auspices, to discuss the people and their champion. He 
 had quite made up his mind about both. But, the 
 Machiavellian thought occurred to him, here was a 
 dangerous implement in the hands of the foe, therefore 
 
 124
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 it would be the part of wisdom to waste a little of her 
 time. 
 
 " 'Government of the people, by the people, for the 
 people,' " lisped the siren, "that, of course, as you may 
 know, is what Sir Dugald stands for." 
 
 "Does he !" reflected Joe. With a roguish smile he 
 looked the speaker over from her expensive top to her 
 equally expensive toe. 
 
 "You do believe in the people ?" said the siren with a 
 rather dubious air. 
 
 "Since you ask the question, miss," said Joe, "I am 
 bound to say I don't, and never have done." 
 
 "Not believe in the people!" It didn't seem possible. 
 
 "If you'd seen as much of the people as I have, miss," 
 said Joe grimly, "I'm thinking you'd not be quite so set 
 up with 'em." 
 
 The tone of conviction disconcerted the fair canvasser. 
 Somehow she had not expected it. In the course of her 
 present ministrations it was the first time she had met 
 that point of view. Laxton's working-class, which 
 for several days had been honored by her delicate flat- 
 teries, had shown such a robust faith in itself and had 
 purred so responsively to her blandishments that she 
 now took for granted that in all circumstances it would 
 fully share her own enthusiasm for it. But this rubi- 
 cund, coatless Briton, with eyes of half truculent humor, 
 was a little beyond her. Gloves were needed to handle 
 him; otherwise fingers of such flowerlike delicacy stood 
 a chance of being bruised. 
 
 "May one ask what you have against them?" lisped 
 the people's champion, opening large round eyes. 
 
 "Nothing particular, miss," said Joe urbanely. "But 
 
 125
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 you ask me whether I believe in 'em and I say I don't. 
 Mind you, the people are all right in their place. I've 
 not a word to say against 'em personally. Of a Monday 
 morning at Vine Street, when the Court has been swep' 
 an' dusted and his Worship has returned from his Sunday 
 in the country, we always try to make 'em welcome. 
 'Let 'em all come,' that's the motto of the Metropolitan 
 Force. But as for believing in 'em, that's another story." 
 
 This was rather baffling for the people's champion. 
 She was at a loss. But her faith was sublime. This 
 odd, crass, heavy-witted plebeian who denied his kind was 
 a sore problem even for the bringer of the light. Still, 
 she stuck to her guns gallantly. 
 
 "'Government of the people, by the people, for the 
 people.' " Lisping the battle cry of Demos she returned 
 stoutly to the charge. Sacred formulas flowed from her 
 lips in a stream of charming pellucidity. 
 
 "Ah, you don't know 'em, miss," ejaculated Joe, at 
 intervals. 
 
 It was a pretty joust ; vicarious enthusiasm on the one 
 side, first-hand experience on the other. But Joe was 
 a rock. The fair canvasser took forth every weapon 
 of an elegantly-furnished armory, yet without avail. 
 
 "I don't hold with the people, miss, not in no shape 
 nor form." 
 
 The tone was so final that at last a sense of defeat 
 came upon this Amazon. She was still seated, however, 
 without having quite made up her mind to the inevitable, 
 on her grand chair in the front sitting-room of Number 
 Five, Beaconsfield Villas, when Fate intervened in quite 
 a remarkable way. 
 
 All of a sudden, there appeared on the threshold of the 
 
 126
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 open door a figure tall, fine and unheralded. It was that 
 of Harriet Sanderson. 
 
 "Anybody at home?" she inquired gayly. 
 
 The unexpected visitor was looking very handsome 
 and distinguished in a well-cut black coat and skirt, and 
 a large hat too plain for fashion, but very far from 
 demode. She came into the room with that almost pro- 
 prietary air she was never without in her intercourse 
 with her own people. But it was about to suffer an 
 eclipse. 
 
 Harriet just had time to greet her brother-in-law with 
 a happy mingling of the bon camarade and the woman of 
 the world, her fixed attitude towards such an Original, 
 whom somehow she could not help liking and respecting, 
 when her eyes met suddenly those of the fair canvasser. 
 
 For a moment an intense surprise forbade either to 
 speak. But the people's champion was the first to over- 
 come the shock. 
 
 "Mrs. Sanderson!" she exclaimed. 
 
 The change in Harriet was immediate and dramatic. 
 
 "Lady Muriel !" A slight flush of a fine face accom- 
 panied the tone of awe. 
 
 The visitor rose. And in the act of so doing an acces- 
 sion of great ladyhood, almost entirely absent a few 
 minutes ago, seemed automatically to enter her manner. 
 
 "What a small world it is!" she laughed. "Fancy 
 meeting you here !" 
 
 By now the iron will of the secretly annoyed and oddly 
 discomposed Harriet was able to reassert itself. 
 
 "It is a small world, my lady." The tone was a very 
 delicate mingling of aloofness and respect. 
 
 Brief explanations followed. These quickly cul- 
 
 127
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 minated in the presentation of Joe, who then became the 
 most embarrassed of the three. Unawares and in his 
 shirt sleeves, he had been entertaining an angel. And to 
 one of Conservative views, with a profound reverence 
 for law, order and all established things, this seemed to 
 verge upon indecency. A mere "one of Scotchie's lady 
 canvassers" had been magically transformed, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, into Lady Muriel Dinneford, the 
 third daughter of one whom Number Five, Beaconsfield 
 Villas, always alluded to as "his Grace." 
 
 II 
 
 It was the work of a few tactful minutes for Lady 
 Muriel to effect a discreet retirement from the scene. 
 Yet so deeply had she been engaged by Joe's contumacy, 
 and at the back of a mind which was making the most 
 heroic efforts to be "broad" was such a sense of amuse- 
 ment, that she declared her intention of returning anon 
 with the People's Candidate, if he could possibly spare 
 a few minutes from his multifarious duties, in order that 
 the coup de grace might be given to Mr. Kelly's danger- 
 ous heresies. 
 
 The withdrawal of the distinguished visitor across the 
 street to the Candidate's committee room left a void 
 which for a few tense moments only wonder could fill. 
 
 It was Joe who broke the silence which, like a pall, 
 had suddenly descended upon the front parlor of Num- 
 ber Five. 
 
 "If that don't beat Banagher," he said. "Fancy one 
 of the Fam'ly taking the trouble to come a canvassin' 
 for Scotchie!" 
 
 128
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 Keen humor and acute annoyance contended now in 
 the eloquent face of Harriet. 
 
 "Pray, why shouldn't she canvass for Sir Dugald 
 Maclean" the level voice was pitched in a very quiet 
 key "if she really believes in his principles ?" 
 
 "How can she believe in 'em, gal?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "How can a blue blood believe in that sort of a feller?" 
 
 "Sir Dugald is a remarkably clever man. One of 
 the cleverest men in England, some people think." 
 
 "That's nothing to do with the matter. It's char- 
 acter that counts." 
 
 "There's nothing against his character, I believe. At 
 any rate, Lady Muriel is going to marry him." 
 
 The state of Joe's feelings forbade an immediate reply. 
 And when reply he did, it was in a tone of scorn. Said 
 he : " 'Government of the people, by the people, for the 
 people!' Harriet, for a dead beat fool give me a blue 
 blood aristocrat." 
 
 "Joe," came the answer, with a gleam of humor and 
 malice, "I really think you should learn to speak of our 
 governing class a little more respectfully." 
 
 This was rather hard. She ought to have realized that 
 it was because Joe respected them so much that he now 
 desired to chasten them. 
 
 "Scotchie of all people !" he muttered. 
 
 "There's no accounting for taste, you know." There 
 was a sudden flash of a very handsome pair of eyes. 
 
 "O' course there ain't," said Joe, sorrowfully mali- 
 cious. "You may have forgot there was a time when 
 Scotchie came a-courtin' you." 
 
 "Do you suppose I am ever likely to forget it!" said 
 
 129
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Harriet, with a cool cynicism which took the simple 
 Joseph completely out of his depth. 
 
 "Well, it's a queer world, I must say." 
 
 "It is," his sister-in-law agreed. 
 
 At that moment, Eliza came into the room. The 
 visit of Harriet was so unexpected as to take her by 
 surprise. But the cause of it was soon disclosed. Har- 
 riet was troubled about Mary. Ever since the girl, 
 against the wishes and advice of her friends, had taken 
 what they felt to be a fatal step, there had been a gradual 
 drifting apart. Harriet had kept in touch with her as 
 well as she could, but she had not been able to stifle 
 her own private fears. The peril of such a career, even 
 when crowned by success, was in her opinion, dif- 
 ficult to exaggerate. She disapproved of the friendship 
 with the Wren's, and had strongly opposed Mary's living 
 with them. But as the girl rose in her profession, 
 Harriet's hold upon her grew still less. And now at' 
 second and third hand had come news which had greatly 
 upset her. 
 
 With the tact for which she was famous, Harriet 
 did not speak of this in the presence of Joe. She ac- 
 companied Eliza to the privacy of the best bedroom, os- 
 tensibly to "take off her things," but really to discuss a 
 matter which for the past week had filled her with mis- 
 giving. 
 
 In the meantime, Joe in the parlor set himself doggedly 
 to compass the nap that so far had been denied him. 
 In spite of the noises in the street and romantic ap- 
 pearance of a real live member of the Family in his 
 humble abode, he had just begun to doze when the ban of 
 Fate fell once more upon him. 
 
 130
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 From the strange welter in the amazing world outside 
 there now emerged a large open motor. And royally it 
 drew up before the magic door of Number Five. Two 
 persons were seated in the car. One was no less than 
 Princess Bedalia. The other was the humblest and yet 
 the boldest of her adorers. 
 
 ill 
 
 The idea itself had been Mary's that they should use 
 a fine afternoon in motoring into Laxton, in order to see 
 her parents. Behind this simple plan was fell design. 
 A week had passed since that conversation under the 
 trees in the Park in which she had sought in vain for 
 her release. But so shallow had her reasoning appeared 
 that Jack declined to take it seriously. He had her 
 promise, and he felt he had every right to hold her to 
 it. Unless she could show a real cause for revoking it, 
 he was fully determined not to give her up. 
 
 In desperation, therefore, she had hit on the expedient, 
 a poor and vain one, no doubt, of taking him to see those 
 humble people whom she called father and mother. In the 
 course of her twenty odd years up and down the world 
 she had had intimations from various side winds and 
 divers little birds that she was an adopted child. Her 
 real parentage and the circumstances of her birth were 
 an impenetrable mystery and must always be so, no 
 doubt, but her feeling for the Kellys was one of true af- 
 fection and perfect loyalty. Not by word or deed had 
 she hinted at the possession of knowledge which had 
 come to her from other sources. 
 
 In the circumstances of the case she now allowed her- 
 self to imagine that a visit to her home people in their
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 native habit as they dwelt might help to cure Jack of his 
 infatuation. An insight into things and men told her that 
 Beaconsfield Villas must be whole worlds away from any 
 sphere in which he had moved hitherto. Nor would he 
 be likely to suspect, as she was shrewdly aware, that a 
 creature so sophisticated as herself had risen from such 
 humble beginnings. She had a ferocious pride of her 
 own, but it was not of the kind that meanly denies 
 its origin. 
 
 "Father," was her gay greeting to the astonished and 
 still coatless Joe, "I've brought somebody to see you." 
 
 Jack, wearing a dustcoat and other appurtenances of 
 the chauffeur's craft, had followed upon the heels of 
 Princess Bedalia into the front parlor of Number Five. 
 In response to the young man's bow, Kelly offered a 
 rather dubious hand. As became a symbol of law and 
 order and a member of the straitest sect of the Pharisees, 
 he didn't feel inclined to encourage Mary in gallivanting 
 up and down the land. Nor did he feel inclined to give 
 countenance to any promiscuous young man she might 
 bring to the house. 
 
 "Mr. Dinneford my father, Police-Sergeant Kelly." 
 It was a delightfully formal introduction, but rather 
 wickedly contrived. 
 
 Jack was so taken aback that he felt as if a feather 
 might have downed him. But even to the lynx eyes of 
 Mary, which were covertly upon him, not a trace of his 
 feelings was visible. He merely bowed a second time, 
 perhaps a little more gravely than the first. 
 
 "Pleased to meet you, sir," said Sergeant Kelly, in 
 a voice which showed pretty clearly that he was over- 
 stating the truth. 
 
 132
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 Mary could not repress the rogue's laugh that sprang 
 to her lips. 
 
 "Where's my old mumsie ?" she gayly demanded, partly 
 in the hope of concealing her wicked merriment. 
 
 "Upstairs with your Aunty Harriet." 
 
 "Aunt Harriet here!" The tone was full of surprise. 
 And then the charming voice took a turn affectionately 
 non-committal. "What luck! It seems an age since I 
 saw her." 
 
 In spite of himself, Joe could not help being a little in 
 awe of the girl. She was so remarkably striking that 
 every time he saw her it became harder to keep up the 
 pretense of blood relationship. She had developed into 
 the finest young woman he had ever met. Her official 
 father was very proud of her, the affection she inspired 
 in him was true and real, but at the moment he was 
 more than a little embarrassed by the impact of an 
 immensely distinguished personality. 
 
 However, in spite of such beauty and charm, he was 
 determined to do his duty by her ; as became a father and 
 a man he felt bound to admonish her. 
 
 "Since you took up with those people, none of us 
 have been seeing much of you," he forced himself to say, 
 in his most magisterial manner. 
 
 "Old story!" 
 
 "It's true and you know it." Joe declined on prin- 
 ciple to be softened by her blandishments. 
 
 "Wicked old story!" She took him by the shoulders 
 and shook him; and then she sighed as a mother might 
 have done, and gazed into his solemn face. "Father," 
 she said, "you are an old and great dear." 
 
 133
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Get along with you !" said Joe sternly, but in spite of 
 himself he couldn't help laughing. 
 
 "I'll leave you and Mr. Dinneford to have a little crack 
 while I take this to my mumsie." Brandishing an impor- 
 tant-looking milliner's box, she left the room in a laughing 
 search of Eliza. 
 
 As soon as Jack found himself alone with Mary's 
 father a period of constraint ensued. It would have 
 been wrong to deny that his reception had been the re- 
 verse of cordial. The sensitiveness of a lover, in duty 
 bound to walk delicately, made no secret of that. More- 
 over, he was still so astonished at Mary's paternity that 
 he felt quite at a loss. Nature had played an amazing 
 trick. Somehow this serio-comic London copper in half- 
 mufti, was going to make it very difficult to exercise 
 the deference due to a prospective father-in-law. 
 
 An acute silence was terminated by Joe's "Won't you 
 sit down, sir?" 
 
 Jack sat down; and then Mary's father, torn between 
 stern disapproval and the humane feelings of a host, 
 invited the young man solemnly to a glass of beer. 
 
 "Thank you very much," said Jack, with admirable 
 gravity. 
 
 Murmuring "excuse me a minute," Joe went to draw 
 the beer. Left alone the young man tried to arrange 
 his thoughts ; also he took further stock of his surround- 
 ings. He had yet to overcome a powerful feeling of sur- 
 prise. It was hard to believe that Princess Bedalia, in 
 the view of her fiance, the very last word in modern 
 young women, should have sprung from such a milieu 
 as Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. It was a facer. 
 Yet somehow the chasm between Mary and her male 
 
 134
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 parent seemed almost to enhance her value. She was so 
 superb an original that she defied the laws of nature. 
 
 The young man was engulfed in an odd train of spec- 
 ulation when Mary's father returned with the beer. He 
 poured out two glasses, gave one to the visitor, took 
 one himself, and after a solemn "Good health, sir!" 
 solemnly drank it. 
 
 Jack returned the "Good health!" and followed the 
 rest of the ri'tual. And then feeling rather more his 
 own man, he made an effort to come to business. But 
 it was only possible to do that by means of a direct- 
 ness verging upon the indelicate. 
 
 "Sergeant Kelly," he said, "have you any objection 
 to my marrying Mary?" 
 
 No doubt the form of the question was a little unwise. 
 At least it exposed the young man to the prompt re- 
 joinder: 
 
 "I know nothing whatever about you, sir." 
 
 "My name is Dinneford" he could not refrain from 
 laughing a little at the portentous gravity of a prospective 
 father-in-law. "And I think I can claim that I have 
 always passed as respectable." 
 
 "Glad to hear it, sir," said Joe, the light of a re- 
 spectful humor breaking upon him. And then measuring 
 the young man with the eye of professional experience. 
 "May I ask your occupation?" 
 
 "No occupation." 
 
 "I don't like the sound o' that." Sergeant Kelly sagely 
 shook his head. 
 
 "Perhaps it isn't quite so bad as it sounds," said the 
 young man. "At present, you see, I am a kind of under- 
 study to a sort of uncle I have. I am in training as 
 
 135
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 you might say, so that one day I may follow in his 
 footsteps." 
 
 "An actor," said the dubious Joe. He didn't mind 
 actors personally, but impersonally he didn't quite hold 
 with the stage. 
 
 "Not exactly," said the young man coolly, but with 
 a smile. "And yet he is in his way. In fact, you might 
 call him a prince of comedians." 
 
 "I'm sorry, sir." Sergeant Kelly measured each word 
 carefully. "But I'm afraid that's only a very little in 
 his favor." 
 
 "I'm sorry, too," said Jack. "My uncle is a duke, 
 and the deuce of it is, I have to succeed him." 
 
 "A duke!" Sergeant Kelly's tone of rather pained 
 surprise made it clear that such a romantic circumstance 
 greatly altered the aspect of the case. It also im- 
 plied that he was far from approving an ill-timed jest 
 on a sacred subject. His brow knitted to a heavy frown. 
 "Well, sir, I can only say that if such is the case you 
 have no right to come a-courting our Mary." 
 
 "For why not, Sergeant Kelly?" 
 
 "You know why not, sir, as well as I do. She's a 
 fine gal, although I say it who ought not, but that will 
 not put her right with your friends. They will expect 
 you to take a wife of your own sort." 
 
 "But that's rather my look-out, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, it is," said Joe, with the air of a warrior, 
 "but as you have asked me, there's my opinion. The 
 aristocracy's the aristocracy, the middle-class is the mid- 
 dle-class, and the lower orders are the lower orders 
 there they are and you can't alter 'em. At least, that's 
 my view of the matter." 
 
 136
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 Jack forced a wry smile. Mary was a chip of the old 
 block. Such an uncompromising statement seemed at 
 any rate to explain the force of her conviction upon 
 this vexed subject. 
 
 "Excuse the freedom, sir," said the solemn Joe, "but 
 you young nobs who keep on marrying out of your 
 class are undermining the British Constitution. What's 
 to become of law and order if you go on mixing things 
 up in the way you are doing?" 
 
 The young man proceeded to do battle with the 
 Philistine. But the weapons in his armory were none 
 of the brightest with which to meet the crushing onset of 
 the foe. 
 
 "It's no use, sir. As I say, the aristocracy's the aris- 
 tocracy, the middle-class is the middle-class, and the 
 lower orders are the lower orders there they are and 
 you can't alter 'em. You don't suppose I've regger- 
 lated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years 
 not to know that." 
 
 In the presence of such a conviction, the best of Jack's 
 arguments seemed vain, futile and shallow. Fate had 
 charged Joseph Kelly with the solemn duty of maintain- 
 ing the fabric of society, and in his purview, no argu- 
 ment however cunning, could set that fact aside. 
 
 While these two were still at grips, each meeting the 
 arguments of the other with a sense of growing impa- 
 tience, the cause of the trouble intervened. Mary came 
 into the room, leading her mother by the hand. With 
 the face of a sphinx followed Harriet. 
 
 137
 
 THE TIME~ SPIRIT 
 
 The blushing Eliza was adorned with a fine coat which 
 had come in the milliner's box. Mary had laughingly 
 insisted on her mother appearing in it, in spite of Eliza's 
 firm conviction that "it was much too grand." 
 
 "My word, mother!" roared Joe, at the sight of her 
 splendor. "I'm thinking I'll have to keep an eye on 
 you." 
 
 The visitor was promptly introduced, first to the wearer 
 of the coat, who offered a shy and embarrassed hand, 
 and then to Aunt Harriet, who stood mute and pale 
 in the background. 
 
 "Why why, Mrs. Sanderson," said the young man, 
 "fancy meeting you here !" 
 
 "You have met before?" said Mary, innocently. 
 
 "We meet very often." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Why, yes. Mrs. Sanderson is Uncle Albert's right 
 hand at Bridport House." 
 
 A pin might have been heard to fall in the silence that 
 followed. The blood fled from Mary's cheeks; they 
 grew as pale as those of her aunt. Even the knowledge 
 that had recently come to her had not connected Jack 
 with Bridport House. No attempt had been made to 
 realize exactly who and what he was. It had been 
 enough that he belonged to a world beyond her own. 
 And now as this new and astonishing fact presented 
 itself she saw the strongest possible justification for the 
 attitude she had taken up. 
 
 As for Harriet, stern and unbending in the background, 
 she was like an Antigone who abides the decree. Her 
 fears were realized. The worst had happened. Fate 
 
 138
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 had played such a subtle and unworthy trick that the 
 instinct uppermost was to resent it bitterly. 
 
 The feelings of the girl were very similar. But her 
 strength of character and the independence of her posi- 
 tion enabled her to take charge of a situation delicate 
 and embarrassing. In a rather high-pitched voice, she 
 began to talk generalities in order to bridge if possible 
 the arid pauses which were always threatening to sub- 
 merge the conversation. But at the back of her mind 
 was a growing sense that secret forces are always at 
 work in this strange world we inhabit forces which 
 have a peculiar malice of their own. 
 
 And yet, hopeless as the position had suddenly become 
 for these five people, the fates had one more barb 
 in their quiver. And it was of so odd a kind that it 
 was as if the stars in their courses were bent upon 
 seeing what mischief they could contrive in this partic- 
 ular matter. A sudden sharp rap from the knocker of the 
 front door fell into the midst of the growing embar- 
 rassment. Joe, welcoming this diversion as relief to a 
 tension that was almost intolerable, went at once to 
 attend the cause of it. 
 
 "As I'm a living man," came a lusty voice from the 
 threshold, "if it isn't old Joe Kelly." 
 
 The People's Candidate, resetted, dauntless and tri- 
 umphant, accompanied by the lady of his choice, stepped 
 heroically into the small room. Twenty-three years had 
 wrought a very remarkable change in a very remarkable 
 man. In that time Dugald Maclean had bent all the 
 powers of his genius to a task that Miss Harriet Sander- 
 son had discreetly imposed upon the author of "Urban 
 Love, a Trilogy." And now he came in, every inch 
 
 139
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 a victor, he had not looked to find his monitress. But 
 there she was, pale, grim, yet somehow oddly distin- 
 guished in the background of a room curiously familiar. 
 It was to her that his eyes leapt. 
 
 "Why, Miss Sanderson!" he said, with a conqueror's 
 laugh, in which there was no trace of the tongue-tied 
 youth of three and twenty years ago. Offering a con- 
 queror's hand, he went forward to greet her. 
 
 Harriet yielded hers with a vivid blush. And as she 
 did so, she was suddenly aware of two swordlike orbs 
 piercing her right through. 
 
 "I didn't know Mrs. -Sanderson was a friend of 
 yours," said the honeyed voice of Lady Muriel. 
 
 "A very old friend," said Sir Dugald gayly. 
 
 At that moment, however, it was necessary for Lady 
 Muriel to curb her curiosity. Since her exit from that 
 room half-an-hour ago other people had gathered in it. 
 She had hardly spoken when her astonished eyes fell 
 upon Cousin Jack. Their recognition of each other was 
 mutually incredulous. Yet there was really no reason 
 why it should have been. It was known to the young 
 man that Muriel had been refused permission to marry 
 a politician already on the high road to place and power, 
 and it was known to her that Jack had been going about 
 with an actress. 
 
 "A family party," said Jack, as their eyes met. "Let 
 me introduce Miss Lawrence Lady Muriel Dinneford." 
 
 An exchange of aloof bows followed. And then, 
 although very careful to seem to do nothing of the kind, 
 each measured the other with an eye as hard and bright 
 as a diamond. To neither was the result of this scrutiny 
 exactly pleasant. It came upon Cousin Muriel with a 
 
 140
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 little shock of surprise that "the Chorus Girl" should 
 look just as she did, and that she knew how to bear 
 herself in a way that did not yield an inch to the 
 enemy, yet at the same time scrupulously refrained from 
 offering battle. Here was beauty of a very compelling 
 kind, and in the hostile view of its present beholder 
 something more valuable. The distinguished air, the look 
 of breeding, went some way to excuse a deplorable infat- 
 uation. But as far as "the Chorus Girl" herself was con- 
 cerned, a little over-sensitive as circumstances may have 
 made her on the score of her own dignity, it was far from 
 pleasant to detect in this authentic member of the family 
 that power of conveying subtle insult, without speech 
 or look, which belonged to the two others, presumably 
 her sisters, whom she had met in the Park. 
 
 Somehow the girl felt a keen rage within. It may 
 have been the world of unconscious arrogance behind 
 that aloof nod, it may have been the implicit challenge 
 in the lidded glance down the long straight nose. But 
 whatever the cause, Mary suddenly felt a surge of 
 resentment in her very bones. 
 
 In the meantime, the People's Candidate was playing 
 his part to perfection. The flight of time had wrought 
 wonders in this champion of Demos. He was no longer 
 tongue-tied and awkward ; even the roll of his "r's" was 
 so diminished that Ardnaleuchan would hardly have 
 known its child. Everything was in perfect harmony. 
 After a few brief passages with Harriet, audaciously 
 humorous, in which homage was paid to old times, he 
 turned with a sportsman's eye to exchange a ready quip 
 with Joe and Eliza. 
 
 Joe, in his heart, was scandalized. A Tory to the bone, 
 
 141
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 in his view the social hierarchy was part of the cosmic 
 order. It was unchanging, immutable. "Scotchie" was 
 a charlatan, tongue in cheek; a mountebank of a fellow 
 whom it was amazing that honest men, let alone high- 
 born women, could not see through. Joe was deter- 
 mined to have no truck with him, but the People's 
 Candidate with a bonhomie which the former colleague 
 of the X Division was inclined to regard as mere brazen- 
 ness, seemed quite determined not to take rebuffs from 
 an old friend. 
 
 "You haven't a vote, Joe, I know," said Maclean, "but 
 you are a man of influence here and I want you to 
 speak for me with your pals." 
 
 Joe shook a solemn head. 
 
 "I don't believe in your principles," said he. 
 
 The voice, a growl of indignation, struck the ear of 
 Lady Muriel a veritable blow. In spite of "the breadth" 
 she was trying so hard to cultivate, the laws of her 
 being demanded that these humble people should grovel. 
 They were of another caste, another clay; somehow 
 Joe's blunt skepticism gave her a sense of personal 
 affront. 
 
 "You have not a vote, Mr. Kelly," she interposed, in 
 a sharp tone. "Pray, why didn't you tell me ? A canvas- 
 ser's time is valuable." 
 
 "Your ladyship never asked the question." 
 
 "But you knew, surely, my object in coming?" 
 
 "I did," said Joe coolly, with a slightly humorous air. 
 "And I thought your ladyship so dangerous that the 
 best thing I could do was to get you barking up the 
 wrong tree." 
 
 The answer delighted Maclean. He threw up his head 
 
 142
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 and laughed like a school boy. But in the midst of a 
 mirth that his fiancee was quite incapable of sharing 
 with him, Jack and Mary rose to go. They had been 
 waiting to seize the first chance which offered in order 
 to escape from a decidely irksome family party. 
 
 As Mary and Jack took leave, the penetrating eye 
 of the new Home Secretary regarded them. The two 
 men had not met before, but they were known to each 
 other by hearsay. Jack had heard little good of Maclean 
 Sir Dugald had heard even less good of Jack. A light 
 of amused malice sprang to their eyes in the moment 
 of recognition. But from those of the Scotsman it 
 quickly passed. For almost at once his attention was 
 caught by the affectionate intimacy of the good-bys be- 
 stowed upon Joe, Eliza, and Harriet by a girl of quite 
 remarkable interest. 
 
 Was it possible? The live thought flashed through 
 Sir Dugald's mind. In an instant it had leapt to the 
 November evening of the year 1890. Immense quan- 
 tities of water had flowed under the bridge since that 
 far distant hour. And if this vivid, unforgettable girl 
 was the creature he now suspected that she must be, 
 here was one example the more of the romance of 
 time, nature and circumstance. 
 
 As soon as Mary and Jack were away on what they 
 called a joy-ride to Richmond, all Sir Dugald's doubts 
 in the matter were laid at rest. At once there followed 
 a few brief, but pitiless and bitter passages between 
 Harriet Sanderson and Lady Muriel. 
 
 143
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Tell me, Mrs. Sanderson," said the younger woman 
 in a tone of ice, "is Miss Lawrence a connection of 
 yours ?" 
 
 "My niece, my lady," said Harriet, an odd tremor in 
 her voice. 
 
 "A daughter, I presume, of your sister and her hus- 
 band?" 
 
 "That is so, my lady." Harriet's tone was slowly 
 deepening to that of her questioner. 
 
 "Of course, the matter will have to be mentioned at 
 once to my father. And I'm afraid the consequences 
 cannot fail to be serious. You must feel that it is 
 very wrong to have connived at such a state of things." 
 
 Harriet's reply, brief but considered, made with a sud- 
 den flush of color and a lighted eye, was a cold denial. 
 It was a short but painful scene, and its three wit- 
 nesses would gladly have been spared it. Lady Muriel 
 had lost a little of her poise. In spite of her "breadth" 
 she was simply horrified by her discovery. She could 
 not believe that Harriet spoke the truth. And the cun- 
 ning, the duplicity, the chicane of a retainer who had 
 held a privileged position for so many years filled her 
 with an inward fury that was almost beyond control. 
 
 "One could not have believed it to be possible," she 
 said, in a voice that trembled ominously. And having 
 discharged that Parthian bolt, she withdrew with the 
 People's Candidate in order to canvass the next house 
 in the street. 
 
 VI 
 
 Such a departure left consternation in its train. After 
 a moment of complete silence, Eliza burst into a suddea 
 
 144
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 flood of tears, Joe put on his tunic with the air of a 
 tragedian, but Harriet remained immovable as a statue. 
 
 "This comes of the stage," wailed poor Eliza. 
 
 Joe felt the times themselves were to blame, at any rate 
 they were sadly out of joint. 
 
 "I don't know what things are coming to," he said, 
 flinging his slippers into a corner and putting on his 
 boots. "Things are all upside down these days and no 
 mistake." 
 
 Harriet blamed no one. She merely stood white and 
 shaken, a picture of tragic unhappiness. 
 
 "Gal," said Joe, turning to her a Job's comforter, "one 
 thing is sure. You are going to lose your place." 
 
 Harriet bit her lip, coldly disdaining a reply. 
 
 "As sure as eggs that'll be the upshot," proceeded Joe. 
 "I'm sorry I let that jockey go without giving him a 
 bit of my mind." 
 
 "He is not to blame," said Harriet tensely. 
 
 "Who is, then?" 
 
 "You and me, Joe," sobbed Eliza, "for letting her 
 go on the stage." 
 
 "There was no stopping her you know that well 
 enough. As soon as she took up her dancing we lost 
 all control of her. But we've got to be pretty sensible 
 now. A nice tangle things are in, and they'll take a bit 
 of straightening out." 
 
 Harriet shook a mournful head. 
 
 "What can people like ourselves possibly do?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "I've a great mind," said Joe, "to step as far as 
 Bridport House and have a few words with his Grace." 
 
 "That's merely preposterous," said Harriet decisively. 
 
 145
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "The matter must be brought to his notice at once, 
 any way," said Joe doggedly. 
 
 "You can count upon that," said Harriet grimly. 
 
 "But it'll be one side only. And there's the other, 
 my gal." 
 
 "What other?" Harriet asked with a drawn smile. 
 
 "Her side. She is not going to be made a fool of by 
 anyone if I can help it" 
 
 Sajd Harriet very gravely: "Joe, I sincerely hope 
 
 U will not meddle in this. I am quite sure that 
 
 * 
 
 interference of ours will be most unwise.'' 
 
 But Joe shook the head of a warrior. 
 
 "There you're wrong. This is our affair and we've 
 got to see it through." 
 
 "Far better let the matter alone." 
 
 "When we adopted that girl," said Joe, "we took a 
 great responsibility on ourselves, and we've got to live 
 up to it. In my opinion that young man means no 
 good." 
 
 "You have no right to say that," said Harriet quickly 
 
 "I've a right to say what I think. And you know as 
 well as I do that the likes o' him don't condescend to the 
 likes o' her with any good intention." 
 
 Harriet flushed darkly. 
 
 "I am quite sure that Mr. Dinneford would always 
 behave like a gentleman," she said sternly. 
 
 "That is more than you know." 
 
 "You seem to forget that he is one of the Family." 
 
 Joe laughed rather sardonically. "I don't blame you 
 for being so set up with your precious Family," he said. 
 "It is only right that you should be but I know what 
 I know. Human nature's human nature." 
 
 146
 
 Harriet shook her head. Not for a moment could 
 she accept this point of view. Moreover, she strongly 
 urged that there must not be interference of any kind 
 with Bridport House. 
 
 "That's as may be," said Joe stoutly. "But you can 
 take your oath that I mean to see justice done in the 
 matter." 
 
 "You talk as if she was your own daughter," said 
 Harriet, who was growing deeply annoyed. 
 
 "Ever since I gave her my name and my roof, I have 
 looked on her as a gal of my own." 
 
 "Yes, that we have," chimed Eliza tearfully. "And 
 I am sure that Joe is right to take the matter up." 
 
 Again Harriet dissented. In her view, and she did 
 not hesitate to express it forcibly, it would be sheer folly 
 for people like themselves to meddle in such a delicate 
 affair. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Eliza bitterly, "that rather than 
 go against Bridport House, you would ruin the girl." 
 
 The words struck home. Eliza had long looked up 
 to her younger sister. The position she held was one 
 of honor, but Harriet's exaggerated concern for an 
 imposing machine of which she was no more than a very 
 humble cog, somehow aroused Eliza's deepest feelings. 
 
 "It is a very wicked thing to say." And in the eyes 
 of Harriet was an odd look. 
 
 "You set these grandees above everything in the 
 world," Eliza taunted. "Like the Dad, you simply wor- 
 ship them." 
 
 . A deadly pallor overspread Harriet's face. Her 
 eyes grew grim with pain and anger. But a powerful 
 
 147
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 nature, schooled to self-discipline, fought for control and 
 was able to gain it. 
 
 "It's a futile discussion," she said suddenly, in a 
 changed tone. And then she added with an earnestness 
 strangely touching. "Joe, I implore you not to take any 
 step in the matter without first consulting me." 
 
 The solemn words seemed to gain finality from the 
 fact that Harriet Sanderson then walked abruptly out 
 of the house.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 THE Duke, in his morning-room, was reading a 
 letter which had just come to him by post As 
 he folded it neatly and returned it to an envelope 
 which bore the stamp of the south-eastern postal district, 
 the light of humor played over an expressive face. And 
 when, after much reflection, he took the letter again from 
 its envelope and solemnly re-read it, the look deepened to 
 the verge of the saturnine. 
 
 Still pondering what he plainly considered to be 
 a priceless document, a succession of odd grimaces caused 
 him to purse his lips and to frown perplexedly. At last 
 he dropped his glasses and broke into a guffaw. 
 
 Lying back in his invalid's chair, still in the throes 
 of an infrequent laughter, he was presently brought back 
 to the plane of gravity by the unexpected arrival of 
 Lady Wargrave upon the scene. 
 
 She entered the room with a gladiatorial air. 
 
 The face of his Grace underwent a sudden change at 
 the sight of this unwelcome visitor. 
 
 Charlotte seated herself ponderously. And then hav- 
 ing allowed a moment's pause for dramatic effect, she 
 
 149
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 said, marking her brother with an intent eye, "The plot 
 thickens." 
 
 "Plot?" he said, warily. 
 
 "Do you wish me to believe that you have not heard 
 the latest development?" 
 
 "Why speak in riddles, Charlotte?" He was trying 
 to suppress a growing irritability. 
 
 Charlotte smiled frostily. "One should make allow- 
 ances, no doubt, for natural simplicity. But even to 
 the aloofness of philosophers there's a limit, my friend. 
 You must know that there is only one subject in all 
 our minds just now." 
 
 The Duke, a concentrated gaze upon Charlotte, did 
 not allow himself to admit anything of the kind. For 
 one thing they were lifelong adversaries. Charlotte was 
 a meddlesome woman, an intriguer and a busybody in the 
 sacred name of Family. They had tried many a fall 
 with each other in the past, and although Providence in 
 making Albert John the head of the house had given 
 him an unfair advantage, he was often hard set by Char- 
 lotte's malice and persistency. 
 
 "Have you spoken to that young wretch?" Charlotte 
 lost no time in coming boldly to the horses. 
 
 "I have not," was the sour reply. 
 
 "Is it quite wise, do you think, to let the grass grow, 
 under your feet? particularly having regard to the fact 
 that the person happens to be a niece of Mrs. Sander- 
 son's." This was a very shrewd blow, whose manner 
 of delivery had been most carefully considered before-^ 
 hand. Indeed, so neatly was it planted now that his 
 Grace got the shock of his life. The surprise was so 
 painfully sharp that he found it hard to meet the foe
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 without flinching. He had to make a great effort to 
 hold himself in hand. And Charlotte, a cold eye upon 
 him, followed up in an extremely businesslike manner. 
 She had a very strong hand to play and a true war- 
 rior, if ever there was one, she was set on wringing out 
 of it the last ounce of advantage. There had come to 
 her at last, after many a year of watching and waiting, 
 an opportunity beyond her hopes and her prayers. 
 
 "Last evening poor Sarah came to me in great dis- 
 tress," proceeded Charlotte. "Muriel, it appears, had 
 been electioneering in the constituency of a certain per- 
 son, and in the course of her wanderings up and down 
 the suburbs, she found herself quite by chance at the 
 house of Mrs. Sanderson's brother-in-law." 
 
 By this time his Grace had sufficiently recovered from 
 the blow that had been dealt him to ask how Muriel had 
 contrived to make that particular discovery. 
 
 It seemed that she had found Mrs. Sanderson there. 
 
 "The long arm of coincidence," opined his Grace with 
 a wry smile. He opined further that the whole thing 
 began to sound uncommonly like a novel. 
 
 "Sober reality, I assure you, Johnnie. And sober 
 reality can beat any novel in the power of the human 
 mind to invent, that's why it's so stupid to write them. 
 Muriel entered the house by chance, Mrs. Sanderson 
 came there, and presently, if you please, Master Jack 
 arrived by motor with the young person. By the way, 
 Muriel says she is very good looking." 
 
 "Quite a family party." His Grace achieved a light 
 tone with difficulty. "But I incline to think, Char- 
 lotte, you a little overstate the facts." 
 
 "It is the story Muriel told Sarah."
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Well, I am very unwilling to believe that Mrs. San- 
 derson knew what was going on." 
 
 "Pray, why not?" He was raked by a goshawk's 
 eye. 
 
 "She would have told me." 
 
 Somehow those lame, impotent words revealed a man 
 badly hit. Charlotte saw that at once, and forthwith 
 proceeded to turn the fact to pitiless advantage. A 
 gust of coarse laughter swept the room. 
 
 "Johnnie, it's the first time I've read you a fool. 
 Simple Simon ! Do you think a woman who has learned 
 to play her cards like that is the one to give away 
 her hand?" 
 
 This was a second blow planted neatly on the vizor 
 of his Grace. In spite of his armor of cynicism he 
 could be seen to wince a little. And the silence which 
 followed enabled the implacable foe to perceive that he 
 was shaken worse than it seemed reasonable to expect 
 him to be. 
 
 "Perhaps you'll now permit her to be sent away. A 
 sordid intriguer. She must go at once." 
 
 In the trying moment which followed, the Duke, badly 
 hipped, fought valiantly to pull himself together. But 
 somehow he only just managed to do so. 
 
 "You make a mistake, Charlotte," he said, with an 
 effort that clearly hurt him. "She is not that kind of 
 person. You always have made that mistake. She is a 
 superior woman in every way. At least, I have always 
 found her so. I can't imagine such a woman intriguing 
 for anybody." 
 
 "Shows how little you know 'em, Johnnie." Another 
 Gargantuan gust swept the room. "Every woman in- 
 
 152
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 trigues unless she's a born fool, and this housekeeper 
 nurse of yours is very far from being that believe 
 me." 
 
 For a brief, but uncomfortable moment the Duke 
 thought the matter over with an air of curious per- 
 plexity. Then he said abruptly and with defiance: 
 
 "I must have further information." 
 
 "Sarah has the details. It would be well, no doubt, 
 to have her views on the matter." 
 
 Whereupon Charlotte rose massively, crossed to the 
 bell and rang it in order that a much tormented male 
 should enjoy this further privilege. 
 
 n 
 
 The eldest daughter of the house, when she came 
 on the scene, found the atmosphere decidedly electric. 
 Her father was glaring with very ominous eyes; while 
 it was clear from the look on the face of Aunt Char- 
 lotte that she was under the impression that she had 
 downed him at last. No doubt she had, but if those eyes 
 meant anything there was still a lot of fight in the stricken 
 warrior. 
 
 Sarah herself was a long, thin, flat-chested person. 
 Totally devoid of imagination, her horizon was so limited 
 that outside the Family nothing or nobody mattered. 
 And yet she was not in the least domesticated. In 
 fact, she was not in the least anything. She was nobly 
 and consistently null, without opinions or ideas, without 
 humor, charm or amenity. Her mental outlook had 
 somehow thrown back to the i84o's, yet with all her 
 limitations, apart from which very little remained of 
 
 153
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 her, she was a thoroughly sound, exceedingly honest 
 Christian gentlewoman of thirty-eight. 
 
 Sarah, it seemed, having heard Muriel's story, had 
 taken counsel of the dowager. And at once realizing the 
 extreme gravity of the whole affair, both ladies deter- 
 mined to make the most of a long-sought opportunity 
 to give the housekeeper her quietus. Sarah herself, who 
 was inclined to be embittered and vindictive on this par- 
 ticular point, fell in only too readily with Aunt Char- 
 lotte's desire to take full advantage of such a golden 
 chance. Called upon now to divulge all that she knew, 
 the eldest daughter re-told Muriel's remarkable story 
 of her meeting with Mrs. Sanderson, Jack and the girl, 
 in the course of political endeavors at Laxton. The 
 story, amazing as it was, was undoubtedly authentic. 
 
 "Of course, father," was Sarah's conclusion, very 
 pointedly expressed, "she will simply have to go. And 
 the sooner the better, as no doubt you agree." 
 
 To Sarah's deep annoyance, however, her sire seemed 
 very far from agreeing. 
 
 "There is no direct evidence of collusion," he said. 
 "And knowing Mrs. Sanderson to be an old and tried 
 servant, who has always had our welfare at heart, I 
 am very unwilling to place such a construction upon what 
 may be no more than a rather odd coincidence." 
 
 Sarah was too deeply angry to reply. But she looked 
 on grimly while the ruthless Charlotte showly marshaled 
 her forces. The quarrel was a very pretty one. Yet 
 the Duke, now his back was to the wall, was able to 
 take excellent care of himself. Moreover, he flatly de- 
 clined to hear a worthy woman traduced until she had 
 
 154
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 had a chance of meeting charges so recklessly, and as 
 it seemed, malevolently brought against her. 
 
 "From the way in which you speak of her," said the 
 incensed Charlotte, "you appear to regard her as a person 
 of importance." 
 
 "Charlotte, I regard her as thoroughly honest, trust- 
 worthy, competent in fact a good woman in every way." 
 
 "You willfully blind yourself, Johnnie. This creature 
 has thrown dust in your eyes. But it will be no more 
 than you deserve if one day her niece is installed as mis- 
 tress here. You will not live to see it, yet it would be 
 no more than bare justice if you did." 
 
 "Pernicious nonsense," rejoined his Grace. "Perhaps 
 in the circumstances it would be well to hear what Mrs. 
 Sanderson has to say for herself." 
 
 "She is bound to lie." 
 
 Somehow the precision of the language stung his 
 Grace. 
 
 "You are not entitled to say that," he flashed. 
 
 "It is the common sense of the situation and one has a 
 perfect right to express it." 
 
 "Not here, Charlotte not in this room before me. If 
 I trust people implicitly there are not many that I do 
 I trust them implicitly, and I can't allow even privileged 
 people to speak of them in that way at any rate, in my 
 presence." 
 
 This explosion was so unlocked for that it took the 
 ladies aback. In all the years they had fought him 
 they had never seen him moved so deeply. A new 
 Albert John had suddenly emerged. Never before had the 
 head of the house allowed these enemies to catch a 
 glimpse of such quixotic, such fantastic chivalry. Char- 
 
 155
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 lotte was sourly amused, Sarah, amazed ; but both ladies 
 were deeply angry. 
 
 However, they had fully made up their minds that 
 the housekeeper must go. Indeed, that had been already 
 arranged at the after-dinner conference at Hill Street the 
 previous evening. They were convinced that a woman 
 whom they intensely disliked, whose peculiar position 
 they greatly resented, was at last driven into a corner. 
 The Duke's indecently bold defense of her had taken 
 them by surprise, but it only made them the more deter- 
 mined to push their present advantage ruthlessly home. 
 
 in 
 
 Suddenly Sarah rose and pressed the bell. She de- 
 manded of the servant who answered it that Mrs. San- 
 derson should appear. 
 
 Harriet, already apprised of Lady Wargrave's arrival, 
 came at once. She was quite prepared for a painful 
 scene. Only too well had she reason to know the 
 state of feeling in regard to herself. She had always 
 been so able and discreet that she had enforced the 
 outward respect of those whom she served so loyally. 
 But she well knew that she was not liked by the 
 ladies of the house, and that the special position she 
 had come to hold owing to the decline of the Duke's 
 health, was a casus belli between him and the members 
 of his family. She had long been aware that in the 
 opinion of the Dinneford ladies it was no part of a 
 housekeeper's functions to act as a trained nurse to their 
 invalid father. 
 
 Harriet had a natural awe of Lady Wargrave, which 
 
 156
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 she shared with all under that roof; for Lady Sarah 
 she had the deep respect which she extended to every 
 member of the august clan it had been her privilege 
 to serve for so many years. In the devout eyes of 
 Harriet Sanderson each unit of that clan was not as 
 other men and women. In the matter of Bridport House 
 and all that it stood for, she was more royalist than the 
 king. 
 
 From the dark hour, a week ago now, in which the 
 news had come by a side wind, that the fates by a 
 stroke of perverse cruelty, as it seemed, had thrown 
 Mary across the path of Mr. Dinneford, she had hardly 
 known how to lay her head on her pillow. To her 
 mind the whole thing was simply calamitous. It had 
 thrown her into a state of profound unhappiness. She 
 now came into the room looking worn and ill, yet fully 
 prepared for short shift to be meted out to her by 
 those whom she found assembled there. 
 
 The ladies looked for defiance, no doubt. And they 
 may have looked for an undercurrent of malicious tri- 
 umph. Yet if they expected either of these things their 
 mistake was at once very clear. It was hard to find a 
 trace of the successful intriguer in the haggard cheeks 
 and somber eyes of the woman before them. But to 
 minds such as theirs portents of this kind could not 
 be expected to weigh in the scale against their pre- 
 conceived ideas. 
 
 It was left to Lady Wargrave to fix the charge. And 
 this she did with a blunt precision which was itself 
 a form of insult. The icy tones were scrupulously 
 polite, nothing was said which one in her position was 
 not entitled to say in such circumstances, yet the whole 
 
 157
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 effect was so deadly in its venom as to be absolutely 
 pitiless. 
 
 At first Harriet was overwhelmed. The force of the 
 attack was beyond anything she had looked for. More- 
 over, it seemed to fill the Duke, an unwilling auditor, 
 with anger and pain. He moved uneasily in his chair, 
 yet he was not able to check the cold torrent of quasi- 
 insult by word of mouth, for none knew better than 
 Lady Wargrave how to administer castigation without 
 going outside the rules of the game. 
 
 Even when the shock of the first blows was past, 
 Harriet could find no means of defending herself. She 
 was a very proud woman. Her blamelessness in what 
 she could only regard as a very odious matter was so 
 clear to her own mind that it did not seem to call for 
 re-statement. She, too, said nothing. But a hot flush 
 came upon the thin cheek. 
 
 Lady Wargrave grew more and more incensed by a 
 silence, the cause of which she completely mistook. 
 
 "You have been nearly thirty years here, Mrs. Sander- 
 son, and you have been guilty of a wicked abuse of 
 trust." 
 
 The painful pause which followed this final blow was 
 broken at last by the Duke. 
 
 "You must forgive me, Charlotte, if I say that the 
 facts of the case as they have been presented, hardly 
 justify such a statement." 
 
 The tone was honey. And it was in such ironical 
 contrast to Charlotte's own that nothing could have 
 shown more clearly the wide gulf between their points 
 of view or the envenomed strife of many years now com- 
 ing to a head. 
 
 158
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 "They prove the charge to the hilt." The hawk's eyes 
 of Charlotte contracted ominously. 
 
 "What charge? if you don't mind stating it ex- 
 plicitly." 
 
 "Mrs. Sanderson has used her position here to make 
 her niece known to the future head of this house, she 
 has connived at their intimacy, she appears to have fos- 
 tered it in every way." 
 
 "I don't think you are entitled to say that, Char- 
 lotte." The Duke spoke slowly and pointedly, and then 
 he turned to Harriet with an air of such delicate polite- 
 ness that it added fuel to the flame which was withering 
 her traducers. "If it is not asking too much, Mrs. San- 
 derson," he said, with a smile of grave kindness, "I 
 should personally be very grateful if you would be 
 wicked enough to defend yourself. Let me say at once 
 that I am far from accepting the construction Lady 
 Wargrave has placed on the matter. But her zeal for a 
 time-honored institution is so great that if her judgment 
 is outrun, it seems only kind to forgive her." 
 
 Such oblique but resounding blows in the sconce of 
 Charlotte filled her with a fury hard to hold in check. 
 
 "What defense is possible?" Her voice was like 
 a crane. "The facts are there to look at. Mrs. San- 
 derson's niece has extracted a promise of marriage." 
 
 The Duke turned to Harriet rather anxiously. 
 
 "I sincerely hope Lady Wargrave has been misin- 
 formed," he said. 
 
 Harriet flushed. 
 
 "I only know" speech for her had become almost 
 intolerably difficult "that Mr. Dinneford has asked my 
 brother-in-law's consent to his marrying her." 
 
 159
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 The Duke may have been deeply annoyed, but not a 
 line of his face betrayed him. 
 
 "Who is your brother-in-law, Mrs. Sanderson?" 
 
 Harriet told him. 
 
 "A very honest man" the Duke checked a laugh "I 
 have been honored by a letter from him this morning." 
 
 Even the lacerated Harriet could not forbear to smile. 
 
 "I am sure," said she, "he will not let Mary marry 
 Mr. Dinneford if he can help it." 
 
 "Why not?" sharply interposed Lady Wargrave. 
 
 "Why not, Charlotte?" Her brother took upon him- 
 self to answer the question. "Because Sergeant Kelly 
 is a very sensible and enlightened man who evidently 
 tries to see things in their right relation." 
 
 "Fiddle-de-dee 1" said Charlotte, with the bluntness 
 for which she was famous. "Depend upon it, he knows 
 as well as anybody on which side his bread is buttered." 
 
 Her brother shook his head. "I think," he said, "if you 
 had had the privilege of reading Sergeant Kelly's letter 
 you would be agreeably surprised. At any rate, he 
 seems quite to share your view of the sacredness of the 
 social fabric." 
 
 "Let us look at the facts," said Charlotte. "This 
 marriage has to be prevented at all costs. And I hope 
 it is not too much to ask Mrs. Sanderson that she will 
 give us any assistance which may lie in her power." 
 
 The look upon Lady Wargrave's face, as she made the 
 request, clearly implied that help from such a quarter 
 must, in the nature of things, be negligible. But in spite 
 of the covert insult in the tone and manner of the dowa- 
 ger, Harriet replied very simply that there was nothing 
 she would leave undone to prevent such a catastrophe. 
 
 160
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 "I am quite sure, Mrs. Sanderson, we can count upon 
 that," said the Duke, in a tone which softened consider- 
 ably the humiliating silence with which the promise had 
 been received. 
 
 "To begin with," said the Duke, turning to Harriet, 
 "I shall ask your brother-in-law to come and see me. 
 Evidently he is one of these sensible, straightforward 
 men who can be trusted to take a large view of things." 
 
 The face of Lady Wargrave expressed less optimism. 
 
 "There is one question I would like to put to Mrs. 
 Sanderson," she suddenly interposed. It seemed that she 
 had reserved for a final attack the weapon on which she 
 counted most. "Be good enough to tell me this." The 
 ruthless eye was fixed on Harriet. "How long, Mrs. 
 Sanderson, have you known of Mr. Dinneford's inti- 
 macy with your niece?" 
 
 There was a slight but painful pause, and it was broken 
 by a rather faltering reply. 
 
 "It is just a week since I first heard of it, my lady." 
 
 "Just a week ! And in the whole of that time you have 
 not thought well to mention the matter?" 
 
 The tone cut like a knife. And the stab it dealt was 
 so deep that Harriet was unable to answer the question 
 which propelled it. 
 
 "Why didn't you mention it, Mrs. Sanderson?" 
 
 The blood fled suddenly from Harriet's cheek. She 
 grew nervous and confused. 
 
 "Please answer the question." There was now a ring 
 of triumph in the pitiless tone. 
 
 "I wished to spare his Grace unpleasantness," stam- 
 mered Harriet. 
 
 "Very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Sanderson," said Lady 
 161
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Wargrave, bitingly. "No doubt his Grace appreciates 
 your regard for his feelings. But even if that was the 
 motive, surely it was your duty to report the matter 
 to Lady Sarah as soon as it came to your knowledge." 
 
 The hesitation of Harriet grew exceedingly painful to 
 witness. 
 
 "Yes," she said at last. Tears suddenly sprang to 
 her eyes. "I begin to see now that it was my duty. I 
 wish very much that I had mentioned the matter to 
 Lady Sarah." 
 
 Both ladies were so fully set on the overthrow of this 
 serpent that the air of touching, exquisite simpleness 
 went for nothing. But in any case they would have been 
 too obtuse to notice it. 
 
 "We all wish that.'* Lady Wargrave pursued her ad- 
 vantage pitilessly. "And I am sure I speak for his 
 Grace as well as for the rest of us." She trained a 
 look of malicious triumph upon the perplexed and 
 frowning face of her brother. 
 
 As became a consummate tactician who now had the 
 affair well in hand, Charlotte gave the Duke a moment to 
 intervene if he felt inclined to do so. But she well knew, 
 a kind of instinct told her, that the attack had suc- 
 ceeded completely. The housekeeper made such a feeble 
 attempt to parry it, that for the time being her cham- 
 pion was dumb. Nor was this surprising. In the opin- 
 ion of both ladies the sinister charge of collusion had 
 now been proved to the hilt. 
 
 Lady Wargrave having given her brother due oppor- 
 tunity for a further defense of Mrs. Sanderson, which 
 he had quite failed to grasp, proceeded coldly and at 
 leisure to administer the coup de grace. 
 
 162
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 "I am afraid, Mrs. Sanderson," she said, "that in 
 these circumstances only one course is open to you now." 
 
 She was too adroit, however, to state exactly what 
 that cause was. She was content merely to suggest it. 
 But Harriet did not need to be told what the particular 
 alternative was that her ladyship had in mind. 
 
 "You wish me to resign my position," she said, in a 
 low calm voice. She turned with tears in her eyes 
 to the eldest daughter of the house. "I beg leave to 
 give a month's notice from today, my lady. If you 
 would like me to go sooner, I will do so at any time you 
 wish." 
 
 The words and manner showed a consideration wholly 
 lacking in the measure meted out to herself. There 
 was so little of pride or of wounded dignity that the 
 tears were running in a stream down the pale cheeks. 
 Uppermost in Harriet Sanderson was still a feeling of 
 profound veneration for those to whom she had dedi- 
 cated the best years of her life. 
 
 IV 
 
 The ladies of the Family had won the day. Mrs. San- 
 derson was going. It was an occasion for rejoicing. 
 She had intrigued disgracefully; moreover, it had long 
 felt that this clever, unscrupulous, plausible woman had 
 gained a dangerous ascendancy over the head of the 
 house. But Aunt Charlotte, it seemed, with the tactical 
 skill for which she was famous, had driven her into a 
 corner and had forced her to surrender. 
 
 In the opinion of Sarah, Mrs. Sanderson had be- 
 haved very well. It was, of course, impossible to trust 
 
 163
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 that sort of person ; but to give the woman her due, she 
 had appeared to feel her position acutely ; she had prom- 
 ised, moreover, to undo as far as in her lay the mis- 
 chief she had caused. The ladies saw no inconsistency 
 in that. They had formed a low opinion of Mrs. San- 
 derson for what reason they didn't quite know but 
 now that she had received her congee and they were to 
 have their own way at last there would be no harm in 
 taking up a magnanimous attitude towards her. 
 
 As far as it went this was well enough, but a serious 
 and solemn task had been imposed upon various people 
 by the circumstances of the case. It now seemed of 
 vital importance to those concerned that Jack should 
 become engaged to Marjorie without further delay. 
 With that end in view the ladies of the Family were 
 now working like beavers. But all they had done so 
 far had not been enough. In vain had the lure been 
 laid in sight of the bird. In vain had they used the 
 arts and the subtleties of their sex. For several weeks 
 now Jack and Marjorie had been thrown together on 
 every conceivable pretext, yet the only result had been 
 that the future head of Bridport House had re-affirmed 
 a fixed intention of taking a wife from the stage. 
 
 Three days after Lady Wargrave had gained her signal 
 triumph over Mrs. Sanderson, the Duke was at home 
 to an odd visitor. In obedience to the written request 
 of his Grace's private secretary, Sergeant Kelly presented 
 himself about noon at Bridport House. 
 
 Fortunately, Joe had been able to arrange for a day 
 off for the purpose. Thus the dignity of man, also the 
 dignity of the Metropolitan Force, were upheld by im- 
 pressive mufti. He had discarded uniform for his best 
 
 164
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 Sunday cutaway, old and rather shining it was true, but 
 black and braided, with every crease removed by Eliza's 
 iron ; a pair of light gray trousers, superbly checked ; a 
 white choker tie and a horse-shoe pin; while to crown 
 all, a massive gold albert, a recent gift from Mary, was 
 slung across a noble expanse of broadcloth waistcoat. 
 
 "Good morning, Sergeant Kelly," said a musical voice, 
 as soon as the visitor was announced. The Duke in the 
 depths of his invalid chair looked at him from under 
 the brows of a satyr. "Excuse my rising. I'm a bit 
 below the weather, as you see." 
 
 Joe, secretly prepared for anything in the matter of 
 his reception, was impressed most favorably by such a 
 greeting. Somehow the note of cordiality was so exactly 
 that of one man of the world to another, that Joe was 
 conscious of a subtle feeling of flattery. He was invited 
 to sit, and he sat on the extreme verge of a Sheraton 
 masterpiece, pensively twisting between his hands a 
 brand-new bowler hat purchased that morning en route 
 to Bridport House. 
 
 "Sergeant Kelly," said the Duke, speaking with a di- 
 rectness that Joe admired, "I liked your letter. It was 
 that of a sensible man." 
 
 "Good of your Grace to say so," said Joe, a nice min- 
 gling of dignity and deference. 
 
 "I agree with you that the matter is extremely 
 vexatious." 
 
 Joe took a long breath. "It's haggeravating, sir," 
 said he. 
 
 "Quite so," said his Grace, with a whimsical smile. 
 "But as a matter of curiosity, may I ask what had led 
 you to that conclusion?" 
 
 165
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Just this, sir." Joe laid the new bowler hat on the 
 carpet, squared his shoulders and fixed the Duke with his 
 eye. "The aristocracy's the aristocracy, the middle-class 
 is the middle-class, and the lower h'orders are the lower 
 h'orders there they are and you can't alter 'em. Least- 
 ways that was the opinion of the Marquis." 
 
 "I'm not sure that I know your friend," said the Duke 
 with charming urbanity, "but I'm convinced his views 
 are sound. If I read your letter aright, you are as 
 much opposed to the suggested alliance between your 
 daughter and my kinsman as I am myself." 
 
 "That is so, your Grace. It simply won't do." 
 
 "I quite agree," said the Duke, "but from your point 
 of view why won't it? I ask merely for information." 
 
 "Why won't it, sir?" said Joe, surprisedly. "Don't 
 I say the aristocracy's the aristocracy?" 
 
 "In other words you disapprove of them on principle ?" 
 
 "No, sir, it's because I respect 'em so highly," said 
 Joe, with a simple largeness that bore no trace of the 
 sycophant. "I've not reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park 
 Corner all these years without learning that it won't 
 do to keep on mixing things up in the way we're 
 doing at present. Things are in a state of flux, as 
 you might say." 
 
 "Profoundly true," said the Duke, with a fine appear- 
 ance of gravity. "And I have asked you to come here, 
 Sergeant Kelly, to advise me in a very delicate matter. 
 In the first place, I assume that you have withheld your 
 consent to this ridiculous marriage." 
 
 "That is so, your Grace. But the young parties are 
 that headstrong they may not respect their elders. I 
 told the young gentleman what my feeling was, and I 
 
 166
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 told the girl, but I'm sorry to say they laughed at me. 
 Yes, sir, society is in a state of flux and no mistake." 
 
 "Well, Sergeant Kelly, what's to be done?" 
 
 "I should like your Grace to speak a word to the 
 parties. Seemingly they take no notice of me. But per- 
 haps they might of you, sir." 
 
 The Duke smiled and shook his head. 
 
 "Well, sir, they only laugh at me," said Joe. "But 
 with you it would be different." And then with admir- 
 able directness: "Why not see the girl and give her 
 your views in the matter? She's very sensible and 
 she's been well brought up." 
 
 The Duke looked at his visitor steadily. If his Grace 
 was in search of arriere pensee, he failed to find a sign 
 of it in that transparently honest countenance. 
 
 "A bold suggestion," he said, with a smile. "But I 
 don't know that I have any particular aptitude for han- 
 dling headstrong young women." 
 
 Joe promptly rebutted the ducal modesty. "Your 
 words would carry weight, sir. She's a girl who knows 
 what's what, I give you my word." 
 
 The Duke could hardly keep from laughing outright at 
 the sublime seriousness of this old bobby. But at the 
 same time curiosity stirred him. What sort of a girl 
 was this who owned such a genial grotesque of a father? 
 It would impinge on the domain of comic opera to instal 
 such a being as the future chatelaine of Bridport House. 
 Still, as his visitor shrewdly said, society was in a state 
 of flux. 
 
 "My own belief is," said Joe, "that she's the best girl 
 in England, and if your Grace would set your point of 
 
 167
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 riew before her as you have set it before me, I'm think- 
 ing she'd do her best to help us." 
 
 The Duke was impressed by such candor, such open- 
 ness, such simplicity. After all, there was just a chance 
 that things might take a more hopeful turn. 
 
 "She's not one to go where she's not wanted, sir," 
 said Joe. "And my belief is that if you have a little 
 talk with her and let her know how you feel about it, 
 you may be spared a deal o' trouble." 
 
 "You really think that?" said the Duke with a sigh 
 of relief. 
 
 "I do, sir. Leastways, if you ain't, Joseph Kelly will 
 be disappointed." 
 
 Such disinterestedness was not exactly flattering, yet 
 the Duke was touched by it. Indeed, Sergeant Kelly's 
 sturdy common sense was so reassuring that he was 
 invited to have a cigar. At the request of his host, he 
 pressed the bell, one long and one short, and in the pro- 
 cess of time a servant appeared with a box of Coronas. 
 Joe chose one, smelt it, placed it to his ear and then 
 put it sedately in his pocket. 
 
 "I'll not smoke it now, sir," he said urbanely. "I'll keep 
 it until I can really enjoy it." 
 
 He was graciously invited to take several. With an 
 air of polite deprecation he helped himself to three more. 
 Then he realized that the time had come to withdraw. 
 
 The parting was one of mutual esteem. If the girl 
 would consent to pay a visit to Bridport House, the Duke 
 would see her gladly. But again his Grace affirmed that 
 he was not an optimist. Society was in a state of flux, 
 he quite agreed, democracy was knocking at the gate 
 and none knew the next turn in the game. Still the 
 
 168
 
 PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 
 
 Duke was not unmindful of Sergeant Kelly's remarkable 
 disinterestedness, and took a cordial leave of him, fully 
 prepared to follow his advice in this affair of thorns. 
 
 As soon as the door had closed upon the dignified form 
 of Sergeant Kelly, the Duke lay back in his chair fighting 
 a storm of laughter. Cursed with a sense of humor, 
 at all times a great handicap for such a one as himself, 
 its expression had seldom been less opportune or more 
 uncomfortable. For there was really nothing to laugh 
 at in a matter of this kind. The thing was too grimly 
 serious. 
 
 Still, for the moment, this amateur of the human com- 
 edy was the victim of a divided mind. He wanted to 
 laugh until he ached over this solemn policeman uphold- 
 ing the fabric of society. 
 
 "By gad, he's right," Albert John ruminated, as he 
 dipped gout-ridden fingers in his ravished cigar box. 
 "Things are in a state of flux." He cut off the end of 
 a cigar. "My own view is that this monstrous bluff 
 which these poor fools have allowed some of us to put 
 up since the Conquest, more or less, will mighty soon 
 be about our ears. However," Albert John placed 
 the cigar between his lips "it hardly does to say so." 
 
 For a time this was the sum of his reflections. Then 
 he pressed the bell at his elbow and the servant re- 
 appeared. 
 
 "Ask Mr. Twalmley to be good enough to telephone 
 to Mr. Dinneford. I wish to see him at once."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 I 
 
 MARY, breakfasting late and at leisure, before 
 her ride at eleven, had propped the Morning 
 Post against the coffee-pot. Milly was arrang- 
 ing roses in a blue bowl. 
 
 "I'm miserable!" Mary suddenly proclaimed. She 
 had let her eyes stray to the column devoted to marriage 
 and the giving in marriage, and at last she had flung the 
 paper away from her. 
 
 "Get on with your breakfast," said the practical Milly. 
 "I've really no patience with you." 
 
 Mary rose from the table with big trouble in her face. 
 
 "You're a gaby," said Milly, scornfully. "If every- 
 body was like you there'd be no carrying on the world 
 at all. You're absurd. Mother is quite annoyed with 
 you, and so am I." 
 
 "I'm simply wretched." The tone was very far from 
 that of the fine resolute creature whom Milly adored. 
 
 The truth was Mary had been following a policy of 
 drift and it was beginning to tell upon her. Nearly a 
 week had gone since the visit to Laxton had disclosed a 
 state of things which had trebly confounded confusion. 
 Besides, that ill-timed pilgrimage had given duty a sharper 
 
 170
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 point, a keener edge, but as yet she had not gathered 
 the force of will to meet the hard logic of the matter 
 squarely. 
 
 In spite of a growing resolve to make an end of a 
 situation that all at once had become intolerable, she had 
 weakly consented to ride that morning with Jack as 
 usual. So far he had proved the stronger, no doubt 
 because two factors of supreme importance were on his 
 side. One was the promise into which very incautiously 
 she had let herself be lured, to which he had ruthlessly 
 held her, the other the simple fact that she was deeply 
 in love with him. It had been very perilous to tem- 
 porize, yet having been weak enough to do so, each pass- 
 ing day tightened her bonds. The little scheme had 
 failed. Laxton had caused not the slightest change in 
 his attitude ; he was not the kind of man to be influenced 
 by things of that kind; only a simpleton like herself 
 would expect him to be ! No, the plain truth was he was 
 set more than ever on not giving her up, and it was going 
 to be a desperate business to compel him. To make 
 matters worse his attraction for her was great. There 
 was a force, a quality about him which she didn't know 
 how to resist. When they were apart she made resolves 
 which when they were together she found herself unable 
 to keep. The truth was, the cry of nature was too 
 strong. 
 
 Milly looked up from her roses to study a picture of 
 distraction. 
 
 "You odd creature." A toss of a sagacious head. 
 
 The charge was admitted frankly, freely, and fully. 
 
 "I don't understand you in the least." A wrinkling 
 of a pert nose. 
 
 171
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "I don't understand myself." 
 
 Milly looked at her wonderingly. "I really don't. 
 You are quite beyond me. If you were actually afraid 
 of these people, which I don't for a moment think you 
 are, one might begin to see what's at the back of your 
 absurd mind." 
 
 "Why don't you think I'm afraid of them?" Mary 
 in spite of herself was a little amused by the down- 
 rightness. 
 
 The question brought her right up against an eye 
 of very honest admiration. 
 
 "Because, Miss Lawrence, it simply isn't in you to be 
 afraid of anybody." 
 
 Princess Bedalia shook a rueful head. "You say that 
 because you don't know all. I'm in a mortal funk of 
 Bridport House." 
 
 "That I won't believe," said the robust Milly. "And 
 if a fit of high-falutin' sentiment, for which you'll get 
 not an ounce of credit, causes you to throw away your 
 happiness, and turn your life into a sob-story, neither 
 my mother nor I will ever forgive you, so there !" 
 
 "You seem to forget that I am the housekeeper's 
 niece." 
 
 "As though it mattered." The pert nose twitched 
 furiously. "As though it matters a row of little apples. 
 You are yourself your big and splendid self. Any man 
 is lucky to get you." 
 
 But the large, long-lashed eyes were full of pain. 
 "We look at things so differently. I can't explain what 
 I mean or what I feel, but I want to see the whole thing, 
 if I can, as others see it." 
 
 "We are the others mother and I," said Milly, 
 
 172
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 stoutly. "But as we are not titled snobs with Bridport 
 House stamped on our notepaper, I suppose we don't 
 count." 
 
 "That's not fair." A curious look came into Mary's 
 face, which Milly had noticed before and, for a reason 
 she couldn't explain, somehow resented. "They have 
 their point of view and it's right that they should have. 
 Without it they wouldn't be what they are, would they ?" 
 
 "You speak as if they were better than other people." 
 
 "Why, of course." 
 
 "I shall begin to think you are as bad as they are," 
 Milly burst out impatiently. "You are the oddest crea- 
 ture. I can understand your not going where you are 
 not wanted, but that's no reason why you should fight 
 for the other side." 
 
 "I want them to have fair play." 
 
 "It's more than they mean you to have, any way." 
 
 "One oughtn't to say that." The tone had a quaint 
 sternness, charming to the ear, yet with a great power 
 of affront for the soul of Milly. 
 
 "Miss Lawrence," said that democrat, "you annoy me. 
 If you go on like this before mother she'll shake you. 
 The trouble with you" a rather fierce recourse to a 
 cigarette "is that you are a bit of a prig. You must 
 admit that you are a bit of a prig, aren't you now?" 
 
 "More than a bit of one," sighed Mary. And then 
 the light of humor broke over her perplexity. In the 
 eyes of Milly this was her great saving clause; and in 
 spite of an ever-deepening annoyance with her friend 
 for the hay she was making of such amazingly brilliant 
 prospects, she could not help laughing at the comic look 
 of her now. 
 
 173
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "You are much too clever to take things so seriously," 
 said Milly. "You are not the least bit of a prig in any- 
 thing else, and that's why you made me so angry. Be 
 sensible and follow your luck. Jack should know far 
 better than you. Besides, if you didn't mean to keep 
 your word, why did you give it?" 
 
 This was a facer, as the candid Milly intended it to be. 
 
 "Because I was a fool." At the moment that seemed 
 the only possible answer. 
 
 II 
 
 The argument had not gone farther when a rather 
 strident "coo-ee" ascending from the pavement below 
 found its way through the open window. 
 
 "Diana, you are wanted." The impulsive Milly ran 
 on to the little balcony to wave a hand of welcome to a 
 young man in the street. 
 
 It was the intention, however, of the young man in the 
 street, as soon as he could find someone to look after 
 his horses, to come up and have a talk with Mary. To 
 the quick-witted person to whom he made known that 
 resolve, he seemed much graver than usual. It hardly 
 required any special clairvoyance on the part of Milly to 
 realize that something was in the wind. 
 
 Three minutes later, Jack had found his way up and 
 Milly had effaced herself discreetly. This morning that 
 warrior was not quite the serenely humorous self whom 
 his friends found so engaging. Recent events had an- 
 noyed him, disquieted him, upset him generally, and the 
 previous afternoon they had culminated in a long and 
 unsatisfactory interview at Bridport House. 
 
 174
 
 Those skilled in the signs might have told, from the 
 young man's manner, that he had cast himself for a big 
 thinking part. This morning he was "all out" for diplo- 
 macy. He would like Mary to know that his back was to 
 the wall, and that he must be able to count on her implicit- 
 ly in the stern fight ahead ; but the crux of the problem 
 was, and for that reason he felt such a great need of 
 cunning, if he let her know the full force and depth of 
 the opposition the effect upon her might be the reverse 
 of what he intended. Even apart from the stab to her 
 pride, she was quite likely to make it a pretext for 
 further quixotism. Therefore, Mr. John Dinneford had 
 decided to walk very delicately indeed this morning. 
 
 His Grace, it appeared, had asked to see the lady in 
 the case. Jack, however, scenting peril in the request, 
 had by no means consented lightly to that. Diplomacy, 
 assuming a very large D, had promptly assured him that 
 his kinsman and fiancee were far too much birds of a 
 feather; their method of looking at large issues was 
 ominously alike. Mary had developed what Jack called 
 "the Aunt Sanderson viewpoint" to an alarming degree. 
 Aunt Sanderson, no doubt, had acquired it in the first 
 place from the fountain head; its authenticity therefore 
 made it the more perilous. 
 
 "Uncle Albert sends his compliments and hopes you'll 
 be kind enough to go and see him." The statement was 
 made so casually that it was felt to be a masterpiece of 
 the non-committal. He would defy anyone to tell from 
 his tone how he had fought the old wretch, how he had 
 tried to outwit him, how he had done his damnedest to 
 short-circuit a most mischievous resolve. 
 
 "Now." The diplomatist took her boldly by a very 
 175
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 fine pair of shoulders, and so made a violent end of the 
 pause which had followed the important announcement. 
 "Whatever you do, be careful not to give away the whole 
 position. There's a cunning old fox to deal with, and 
 if he finds the weak spot, we're done.'* 
 
 "You mean he thinks as I do?" 
 
 "I don't say he does exactly, but, of course, he may. 
 When you come to Bridport House, you are up against 
 all sorts of crassness." 
 
 "Or common sense, whichever you choose to call it," 
 said the troubled Mary. 
 
 "Don't you go playing for them." He shook the fine 
 shoulders in a masterful colonial manner. "If you do, 
 I'll never forgive you. Bridport House can be trusted 
 to take very good care of itself. We've got to keep our 
 own end going. If we have really made up our minds 
 to get married, no one has a right to prevent us, and it's 
 up to you to let his Grace know that." 
 
 Again came the look of trouble. "But suppose I don't 
 happen to think so?" 
 
 "I think so for you. In fact, I think it so strongly 
 that I intend to answer for both." 
 
 She could not help secretly admiring this cool audacity. 
 At any rate, it was the speech of a man who knew his 
 own mind, and in spite of herself it pleased her. 
 
 "Now, remember." Once more the over-bold wooer 
 resorted to physical violence: "You simply can't afford 
 to enjoy the luxury of your fine feelings in this scene 
 of the comedy. As I say, he's a cunning old fox and 
 he'll play on them for all he's worth." 
 
 "But why should he?" 
 
 "Because he knows you are Mrs. Sanderson's niece." 
 176
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 "In his opinion that would make one the less likely 
 to have them, wouldn't it?" She tried very hard to 
 keep so much as a suspicion of bitterness out of her tone, 
 yet somehow it seemed almost impossible to do that. 
 
 "He's not exactly a fool. Nobody knows better than 
 he that your Aunt Sanderson is more royalist than the 
 king. And my view is that he and she have laid their 
 heads together in order to work upon your scruples." 
 
 "Pray, why shouldn't they? Isn't it right that they 
 should?" 
 
 "There you go!" he said sternly. "Now, look here." 
 In the intensity of the moment his face was almost 
 touching hers. "I'm next in at Bridport House, so this 
 is my own private funeral. But I just want to say this. 
 A man can't go knocking about the world in the way 
 I have done without getting through to certain things. 
 And as soon as that happens one no longer sees Bridport 
 House at the angle at which it sees itself. White marble 
 and precedence were all very well in the days of Queen 
 Victoria, but they won't build airships, you know." 
 
 "I never heard of a duchess building airships." 
 
 "It's the duke who is going to do the building. The 
 particular hobo I'm figuring on has got to take a hand in 
 all sorts of stunts at this moment of the world's progress 
 which will make his distinguished forbears turn in their 
 graves, no doubt. It seems to me he's got to do a single 
 on the big time, as they say in vaudeville, and the finest 
 girl in the western hemisphere must keep him up to his 
 job." 
 
 " 'Some' talk," said Mary, with a smile rather drawn 
 and constrained. 
 
 "You see" the force of his candor amused her con- 
 
 177
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 siderably "I've drawn a big prize in the lottery, and if 
 I let myself be robbed of it by other people's tomfool 
 tricks, I'm a guy, a dead-beat, an out and out dud." 
 
 "But don't you see," she urged, laughing a little, 
 although suffering bitterly, "how cruel it would be for 
 them, poor souls? We must think of them a little." 
 
 "Why should they come in at all?" 
 
 "I really think they ought, poor dears. After all, they 
 stand for something." She recalled their former talk on 
 this vexed subject. 
 
 "What do they stand for? that's the point. They 
 are an inbred lot, a mass of conceit and silly prejudice. 
 I'm sorry to give them away like this, but, after all, they 
 are only very distant relations to whom I owe nothing, 
 and they have a trick of annoying me unspeakably." 
 
 "I won't have you say such things." The stern line 
 of a truly adorable mouth was a delight, a challenge. 
 "You are one of them, whether you want to be or 
 whether you don't, and it's your duty to stand by them. 
 Noblesse oblige, you know." 
 
 "And that means a scrupulous respect for the feelings 
 of other people, if it means anything. No, let us see 
 things as they are and come down to bedrock." And as 
 the Tenderfoot spoke after this manner, he took a hand 
 of hers in each of his in a fashion at once whimsical, 
 delicate, and loverlike. Somehow he had the power to 
 put an enchantment upon her. "You've got to marry me 
 whatever happens." 
 
 "Oh, don't ask me to do that." Black trouble was 
 now in her eyes. "Don't ask me to go where I'm not 
 wanted." 
 
 "Certainly you shan't. We can do without Bridport 
 
 178
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 House, and if they can do without us, by all means 
 let 'em." 
 
 "But they are in a cleft stick, aren't they? If you 
 insist, they will simply have to climb down, and that's 
 why it would be cruel to make them. Don't be too hard 
 upon them please!" A sudden change of voice, rich 
 and surprising, held him like magic. "Somehow they 
 don't quite seem to deserve it. They have their points. 
 And they are really rather big and fine if you see them 
 as I do." 
 
 "They are crass, conceited, narrow, ossified. They 
 think the world was made for 'em, instead of thinking 
 they were made for the world. It's time they had a 
 lesson. And you and I have got to teach 'em." He 
 took her wrists and drew her to him. "We've got to 
 larn 'em to be toads you and me." 
 
 "On these grounds you command me!" The flash 
 of glorious eyes was a direct challenge. 
 
 "No, on these you darling." And he took her in 
 his arms and held her in a grip of iron. 
 
 in 
 
 "Please, please!" 
 
 Reluctantly he let her go provisionally and on 
 sufferance. 
 
 But there was something in her face that looked like 
 fear. The observant lover saw it at once, and the in- 
 vincible lover tried to dispel it. 
 
 "Why take it tragically?" he said. "It's a thing to 
 laugh at, really." 
 
 She shook a solemn head. "We must think of them 
 you must at any rate. You are all they have, and you 
 
 179
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 are bound to play for them as well as you know how 
 aren't you, my dear?" The soft fall of her voice laid 
 a siren's spell upon him. His eyes glowed as he looked 
 at her. 
 
 "No, I don't see it in that way," he said. "Somehow 
 I can't. It's my colonial outlook, I daresay anyhow 
 there it is simply us two. The bedrock of the matter 
 is you and me? And when you get down to that, other 
 people don't come in, do they ?" 
 
 Again she shook a head rather woeful in its defiance. 
 "Poor Aunt Harriet came to me yesterday. I wish you 
 could have seen her. This means the end of the world 
 for her. She almost went down on her knees to implore 
 me not to marry you." 
 
 The Tenderfoot snorted with impatience. "That's 
 where this old one-horse island gets me all the time. 
 Things are all wrong here. They're positively medi- 
 eval." 
 
 "You forget" the tone of the voice was stern dissent 
 "she's been thirty years a servant in the Family." 
 
 "That should make her all the prouder to see her niece 
 married to the head of it." He was determined to stand 
 his ground. 
 
 "Yes, but she understands what it means to them. 
 She has thought herself into their skins; she lives and 
 moves and has her being in Bridport House. Dear soul, 
 it makes me weep to think of her! She almost forced 
 me to give you up." 
 
 "You can't do that, not on grounds of that kind." 
 
 "Why can't I?" 
 
 "Because I won't let you." She was bound to admire 
 this masculine decision. "Your Aunt Sanderson is a 
 
 180
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 woman of fine character and Uncle Albert has a great re- 
 gard for her, but why let ourselves be sidetracked by 
 prejudice? You see this is the call of the blood, and 
 under Providence ! it means the grafting of a very valu- 
 able new strain upon a pretty effete one. I mean no disre- 
 spect to Bridport House, but look what the system of 
 intermarriage has done for it. From all one hears poor 
 Lyme was better out of the world than in it. And that 
 parcel of stupid women! And, of course, I should never 
 have been here at all if another couple of consumptive 
 cousins hadn't suddenly decided to hand in their checks. 
 So much for the feudal system, so much for inbreeding 
 and marrying to order. No, it won't do !" 
 
 In spite of her own deep conviction, she could not 
 hope to shake such force and such sincerity. She was 
 bound to admit the strength of his case. But the power 
 of his argument left her in a miserable dilemma, from 
 which there seemed but one means of escape. There 
 must be no half-measures. 
 
 "Let us be wise and make an end now," she said very 
 softly. 
 
 "It's not playing fair if you do," was the ruthless 
 answer. "Besides, as I say, Uncle Albert wants to see 
 you." 
 
 "I am quite sure it would be far better to end it all 
 now." 
 
 "You must go and see Uncle Albert before we decide 
 upon anything," he said determinedly. 
 
 "I don't mind doing that, if really he wishes it." 
 There was a queer little note of reverence in her tone, 
 which the Tenderfoot, having intelligently anticipated, 
 was inclined to resent as soon as he heard it. "I don't 
 
 181
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 know why he should trouble himself with me, but I'll 
 go as he asks me to. But whatever happens we can't 
 possibly get married, unless " 
 
 "Unless what?" he demanded sternly. 
 
 "Unless the head of the house gives a full and free 
 consent, and of course he'll never do that." 
 
 "It remains to be seen, doesn't it?" 
 
 "Oh, no, it's all so clear. Poor Aunt Harriet has 
 made me realize that. I never saw anyone so upset as 
 she was yesterday; she nearly broke down, poor dear. 
 She has made me see that there is so much at stake for 
 them all, that it simply becomes one's duty not to go on." 
 
 "Rubbish! Rubbish! Rubbish!" The Tenderfoot 
 suddenly became tempestuous. "Mere parochialism, I 
 assure you. I've been back six months, and every day it 
 strikes me more and more what a lot we've got to learn. 
 Our so-called social fabric is mainly bunkum. Half the 
 prejudice in these islands is a mere cloak for damnable 
 incompetence. Forgive my saying just what is in my 
 mind, but this flunkeyism of ours try to keep the 
 daggers out of your eyes, my charmer! fairly gets one 
 all the time. In one form or another one's always up 
 against it." 
 
 "It isn't flunkeyism at all." The air of outrage was 
 nothing less than adorable. 
 
 "Let me finish " 
 
 "Under protest !" Her face was aglow with the light 
 of battle. 
 
 "It's perfectly absurd to take a mere pompous stunt 
 like Bridport House at its own valuation." 
 
 "I won't have you vulgar I won't allow you to be 
 vulgar !" 
 
 182
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 "Be it so, Miss Prim but I don't apologize. One's 
 uncles, cousins, aunts, they are all alike, whether they 
 are yours or mine. They simply grovel before material 
 greatness the greatness that comes of money that be- 
 gins and ends with money." 
 
 "Don't be rude, sir!" The stamp of a particularly 
 smart riding boot, and a flash of angry eyes were as 
 barbs to this fiat. 
 
 "They are all so set on things that don't matter a bit, 
 that they lose sight altogether of the one thing that is 
 really important." 
 
 "Pray, what is that?" The eyes held now a lurking, 
 troubled smile ; for him at that moment, their fascination 
 verged upon the tragic. 
 
 Suddenly both the slender wrists were seized by this 
 forcible thinker. "Why the time spirit, you charmer. 
 And that just asks one simple question. Do you love 
 me or do you not?" 
 
 IV 
 
 She tried to keep her eyes from his. 
 
 "You can't hide the truth," he cried triumphantly. 
 "And if you think I'm going to lose you for the sake of 
 some stupid piece of prejudice you don't know what it 
 means to live five years in God's own country." 
 
 She seemed to shrink into herself. "Don't you see the 
 impossibility of the whole thing?" she gasped. 
 
 "Frankly, I don't, or I wouldn't be such a cad as to 
 badger you. If you marry me an effete strain is going 
 to be your debtor. Just look at them poor devils! 
 Look at the two who died untimely. That's the feudal 
 
 183
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 system of marriage working to a logical conclusion. 
 And if I put it squarely to my kinsman, Albert John, 
 who is by no means a fool, he'd be the first to admit 
 it. No, it doesn't matter what your arguments are, if 
 you override the call of the blood sooner or later there's 
 bound to be big trouble." 
 
 The conviction of the tone, the urgency of the manner 
 were indeed hard to meet. From the only point of view 
 that really mattered it was impossible to gainsay him, 
 and she was far too intelligent to try. Suddenly she 
 broke away from him and in a wretched state of inde- 
 cision and unhappiness flung herself into a chair. 
 
 "The whole thing's as clear as daylight." Pitilessly 
 he followed up the advantage he had won. "There's 
 really no need to state it. And once more, to come down 
 to bedrock, far better to make an end of Bridport House 
 and all that it stands for just what it does stand for I 
 have not been able to make out than that it should 
 perpetuate a race of inbred incompetents who are merely 
 a fixed charge on the community." 
 
 "Oh, you don't see you don't see !" The words were 
 rather feeble, and rather wild, but just then they were 
 all she could offer. Yet in spite of herself, and in spite 
 of the half-promise the intensely unhappy Aunt Harriet 
 had wrung from her on the previous afternoon, the clear- 
 cut determination of this young man, his force and his 
 breadth, his absolute conviction were beginning to tell 
 heavily. 
 
 "You are going to Bridport House to have a word 
 with my kinsman. And if you're true blue and I know 
 you are that you will make him see honest daylight. 
 And it ought to be easy, because he has only to look 
 
 184
 
 A TRAGIC COIL 
 
 at you the finest thing up to now that has found its 
 way on to this old planet, in order to realize that he's 
 right up against it." 
 
 He knew his own mind and she didn't know hers. 
 Such a man was terribly hard to resist. 
 
 "He says any morning at twelve. I suggest tomorrow." 
 
 "You insist?" She was struggling helplessly in 
 meshes of her own weaving. 
 
 "I insist. And my last word is that if you let the 
 old beast down us, as of course he'll try to do, I go back 
 to B. C. and remain a single man to the end of my days. 
 And I'm not out for that, as long as there is half a chance 
 of something better. So that's that." In the style of 
 the great lover he laid a hand on each shoulder, looked 
 into the troubled eyes and kissed her. "And now, if 
 you please, we will witch the world with noble horse- 
 manship."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 THE next morning was a busy one for his Grace, 
 and it also marked a tide in the affairs of Brid- 
 port House. Soon after ten the ball opened with 
 the inauspicious arrival of Lady Wargrave. The head 
 of the Family had just unfolded his newspaper and put 
 on his spectacles when her ladyship was announced. 
 
 As the redoubtable Charlotte entered the room, the hard 
 glitter of her eyes and the forward thrust of a dominant 
 chin were ominous indeed. Bitter experience made her 
 brother only too keenly alive to these portents. 
 
 Without any beating about the bush she came at once 
 to the point. 
 
 "What's this I hear, Johnnie? Sarah tells me you 
 have revoked that woman's notice." 
 
 "Woman!" temporized his Grace. "What woman?" 
 The tone was velvet. 
 
 She glowered at him. 
 
 "There's only one woman in this household, my 
 friend." 
 
 The Duke laid down his Times with an air of ex- 
 tremely well assumed indifference. Were the parish 
 pump and the minor domesticities all she could find to 
 
 186
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 interest her, while all sorts of Radical infamies played 
 Old Harry with the British Constitution? 
 
 Lady Wargrave, however, was well inured to this 
 familiar gambit. 
 
 "Come, Johnnie," she said tartly, "don't waste time. 
 The matter's too serious. Sarah says you have asked 
 Mrs. Sanderson to stay on." 
 
 "Yes, I have asked her to be good enough to recon- 
 sider her decision," said his Grace in the slightly forensic 
 manner of the gilded chamber. 
 
 "On what grounds, may one ask?" 
 
 "I merely put it to her" he now began to choose each 
 word with a precision that made his sister writhe "that 
 she was indispensable to the general comfort and well- 
 being of a man as old and gout-ridden as myself." 
 
 "Did you, indeed!" 
 
 It was a facer. And yet it might have been foreseen. 
 Perhaps the ladies had been a little too elated by their 
 coup de main; or, had they assumed too confidently that 
 at last they had made an end of a shameless intriguer? 
 
 Yes, a facer. Charlotte could have slain her brother. 
 He had given away the whole position. It was the act 
 of a traitor. In a voice shaken with anger she proceeded 
 in no measured terms to tell him what she thought of 
 him. 
 
 His Grace bore the tirade calmly and with fortitude. 
 He had an instinct for justice long a source of incon- 
 venience to its possessor ! which now insisted that there 
 was something to be said for the enemy point of view. 
 Still he might not have borne its presentment so patiently 
 had Charlotte not shown her usual cunning. "She did 
 not speak for herself," she was careful to assure him, 
 
 187
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "but for the sake of the Family as a whole." The pres- 
 ence of this woman at Bridport House could no longer 
 be tolerated. 
 
 To this the Duke said little, but he committed himself 
 to the statement that Mrs. Sanderson was much maligned 
 and that they all owed a great deal to her devotion. 
 
 This was too much for Charlotte. She bubbled over. 
 "You must be mad!" Her voice was like the croak of 
 a raven. 
 
 "Personally," rejoined his mellifluous Grace, "I am 
 particularly grateful that she has consented to stay on." 
 
 "You're mad, my friend." 
 
 "So are we all." His Grace folded the Times imper- 
 turbably. 
 
 Lady Wargrave was defeated. She abruptly decided 
 to drop the subject. However, she did not quit the room 
 until one last bolt had been winged at her adversary, 
 yet in order to propel it she had to impose an iron 
 restraint on her feelings. 
 
 "Before I go" she turned as she got to the door 
 "there's something else I should like to say. Jack's 
 mother is in town and is staying with me. Like all the 
 Parington's she has plenty of sense. She will welcome 
 the Marjorie arrangement thinks it quite providential 
 has told her son so and she looks to you as the head 
 of the Family to see that it doesn't miscarry." 
 
 Her brother's ugly mouth and explosive eyes were not 
 lost upon Charlotte, but before he could reply she had 
 made a strategic retirement. Did these futile women ex- 
 pect him to play the -matrimonial agent ? The mere sug- 
 gestion was infuriating, yet well he knew the extreme 
 urgency of the matter. The whole situation called for 
 
 188
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 great delicacy. A combination of subtle finesse and iron 
 will was needed if the institution to which he pinned 
 his faith was not to be shaken to its foundations. 
 
 II 
 
 Lady Wargrave had gone but a few minutes when 
 Jack arrived at Bridport House. He had to inform his 
 kinsman that Mary Lawrence would appear at twelve 
 o'clock. 
 
 The Duke was in a vile temper. Charlotte had fretted 
 it already; moreover, the disease from which he suf- 
 fered had undermined it long ago; and at the best of 
 times the mere sight of this young Colonial, with his wild 
 ideas, was about as much as he could bear. However, 
 he was too astute a man and far too well found in the 
 ways of his world not to be able to mask his feelings on 
 an occasion of this magnitude. The fellow was a per- 
 petual source of worry and annoyance, yet so much was 
 at stake that the Duke, in order to deal with him, sum- 
 moned all the bonhomie of a prospective father-in-law. 
 If anything could have bridged the gulf such tones of 
 honey must surely have done so. 
 
 Jack, however, was in no mood to accept soft speeches, 
 no matter how flattering to the self-esteem of a raw 
 Colonial! He was determined to put all to the touch. 
 These people must learn the limit of their power. And 
 as it was the Tenderfoot's habit to leave nothing to 
 chance he began with the bold but simple declaration that 
 nothing would induce him to give up the finest girl in 
 the country. And he hoped when Mary appeared at 
 
 189
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 twelve o'clock his kinsman would bear in mind that very 
 important fact. 
 
 Months ago his Grace had begun to despair of the 
 role of the modern Chesterfield. Even since the young 
 ass had first reported himself at Bridport House, very 
 sound advice, based on intimate knowledge and first-hand 
 experience, had been lavished upon him. The best had 
 been done to correct the republican ideas he had gathered 
 in the western hemisphere. He lacked nothing in the 
 way of counsel and precept. But the seed had fallen on 
 unreceptive soil, nay, on ground singularly barren. 
 From the first the novice had shown precious little incli- 
 nation to heed the fount of wisdom. 
 
 The Duke asked the young man to look at the matter 
 in a common sense way. He would have an extraordi- 
 narily difficult place to fill J therefore, it was his clear 
 duty to trust those who knew the ropes. The lady of 
 his choice was a case for experts. Special qualities, in- 
 herited aptitudes were needed in the wife he married! 
 Surely he must realize that? I 
 
 The Tenderfoot said bluntly that he did and that Mary 
 Lawrence had them. 
 
 His Grace managed to hold a growing impatience in 
 check. But the answer of the novice had revealed such a 
 confusion of ideas that it was hard to treat it seriously. 
 
 "Unless a woman has been born to the thing and bred 
 tip in it, how can she hope to be equal to the task ?" 
 
 "Plenty of 'em are," said the Tenderfoot. "Anyhow 
 they seem to make a pretty good bluff at it" 
 
 His Grace shook a somber head. 
 
 "You can't deny that the Upper Crust is always being 
 recruited from the people underneath." 
 
 190
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 "Immensely to the detriment of the Constitution," said 
 his Grace forensically. 
 
 "It won't be so in this case," said the Tenderfoot. 
 "Any family is devilish lucky that persuades Mary 
 Lawrence to enter it. She's a very exceptional girL 
 And when you see her, sir, I'm sure you'll say so." 
 
 "A young woman of ability, no doubt." The Duke 
 was growing irritated beyond measure, yet he was deter- 
 mined to give no hint of his frame of mind. "These 
 these bohemians always are. But if you'll allow me to 
 say so, the mere fact that she is ready to undertake 
 responsibilities of which she can know nothing proves 
 the nature of her limitations." 
 
 The hit was so palpable that Jack felt bound to counter 
 it as well as he could. But his eagerness to do so led 
 him into a tragic blunder. "That's where you do her an 
 injustice," he said, not giving himself time to weigh his 
 words. "She didn't know that she might have to be a 
 duchess when she promised to marry me." 
 
 The folly of such a speech was apparent to the young 
 man almost before it was uttered. A sudden heighten- 
 ing of a concentrated gaze made him curse his own 
 damnable impetuosity. He saw at once that the admis- 
 sion would be used against him; moreover, an intense 
 desire that Mary should have fair play led him into 
 further pitfalls. "The odd thing is," he said in his 
 blunderer's way, "that she happens to see things here at 
 the angle at which you see them, sir. At least, I always 
 tell her so." 
 
 His kinsman smiled. "That gives us hope at any 
 rate." And he even showed a glint of cheerfulness. 
 
 The Tenderfoot had a desire to bite off his tongue, 
 
 191
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 He felt himself floundering deeper and deeper into a 
 morass. A sickening sensation crept upon him that he 
 had put himself at the mercy of this crafty old Jesuit. 
 
 "Now, sir, don't go taking an unfair advantage of 
 anything I may have told you." The sheer impotence of 
 such a speech served only to emphasize his tragic folly. 
 
 By now there was a sinister light in the eyes of his 
 Grace. The unlucky Tenderfoot could hardly stifle a 
 groan of vexation. Only a born idiot would have taken 
 pains to put such a weapon in the hands of the enemy! 
 
 Overcome by a sudden hopeless anger the young man 
 rose from his chair and fled the room. His course was 
 not stayed until he had passed headlong down the white 
 marble staircase and out of doors into a golden morm'ng 
 of July. For the next two hours he ranged the Park 
 grass. It was the only means he had of working off an 
 irritation and self-disgust that were almost unbearable. 
 
 in 
 
 Youth and inexperience might have put a weapon into 
 the hand of his Grace, yet when the clock on the 
 chimneypiece struck twelve he was in a very evil mood. 
 The task before him was not at all to his taste ; and the 
 more he considered it the less he liked the part he had 
 now to play. 
 
 From various sources he had heard enough of the girl 
 to stimulate his curiosity. Apart from a lover's hyper- 
 bole, of which he took no account whatever r impartial 
 observers, viewing her from afar, had commented upon 
 her; moreover, there was the extremely piquant nature 
 of her antecedents. She was a niece of the faithful 
 
 192
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 Sanderson, she was also the daughter of a police con- 
 stable. 
 
 The Duke was apt to plume himself that his instinct 
 for diplomacy amounted to second nature. But, he rue- 
 fully reflected, his powers in this direction were likely 
 to be tested to the full. His task seemed to bristle with 
 difficulties. Bridport House was no place for a young 
 woman of this kind, but it was not going to be an easy 
 matter to tell her that in just so many words. The best 
 he had to hope for was that she would prove a person 
 of common sense. 
 
 When at five minutes past the hour Miss Lawrence 
 was announced, for one reason or another, the Duke was 
 in a state of inconvenient curiosity. And as if the mere 
 circumstances of the case did not themselves suffice, a 
 chain of odd and queer reflections chose to assail his 
 mind at the very moment of her appearance. 
 
 It was terribly inconvenient for his Grace to rise from 
 his chair, mainly for the reason that one swollen, snow- 
 booted foot reclined at ease on another. But with an 
 effort that wrung him with pain he contrived to stand up. 
 
 "Please don't move," said a voice deep, clear, and 
 musical, while he was still in the act of rising. "Oh, 
 don't please !" 
 
 But without making any immediate reply the Duke 
 poised himself as well as he could on one foot, more or 
 less in the manner of an emu, and bowed rather grimly. 
 The dignity of the whole proceeding was perhaps slightly 
 over-emphasized, it was almost as if he intended to 
 overawe his visitor with the note of the grand seigneur. 
 
 Whether this was the case or not the bow was re- 
 turned ; and slight as it was, it had a dignity that matched 
 
 193
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 his own. Also it was touched ever so gently with 
 humor. A pair of gravely-searching eyes met the 
 hooded, serious, half-ironical orbs of his Grace. 
 
 "Nice of you to come and see an invalid," he said 
 slowly, very slowly, with a good deal of manner. 
 
 "A great pleasure," she smiled from the topmost inch 
 of her remarkable height. 
 
 While these brief, and on his part decidedly painful 
 maneuvers had been going on, the man of the world had 
 been busily seeking something of which so far he had 
 not been able to find a trace. In manner and bearing 
 there was not a flaw. 
 
 Already the expert's eye had been struck by a look of 
 distinction that was extraordinary. She was undoubt- 
 edly handsome, nay, more than handsome; she had the 
 subtle look of race which gives to beauty a cachet, a 
 quality of permanence. Her height was beyond the com- 
 mon, but every line of the long, slim frame was a thing 
 of elegance, of molded delicacy. She was perhaps a 
 shade too thin, but it gave her an indefinable style which 
 charmed, in spite of himself, this shrewd, instructed ob- 
 server. Then her dress and her hat, her neat gloves and 
 boots, although they were models of reticence, were all 
 touched by a subtle air of fashion which seemed some- 
 how to reflect their wearer. 
 
 The "Chorus Girl" was in the nature of a surprise. 
 The Duke indicated a chair, on the edge of which she 
 perched, straight as a willow, her chin held steadily, her 
 amused eyes veiled with a becoming gravity. As the 
 Duke painfully reseated himself he felt a cool scrutiny 
 upon him. And that very quality of coolness was a 
 little provocative. In the circumstances of the case it 
 
 194
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 had hardly a right to be there. To himself it 
 was most proper, but in this young woman, a police 
 constable's daughter, who earned her living in the theater, 
 a little embarrassment of some kind would have been 
 an added grace. If anything however she had more com- 
 posure than he ; and in spite of the charm and the power 
 of a personality that was vivid yet clear-cut, he could 
 not help resenting the fact just a little. 
 
 When at last he had slowly resettled himself on his 
 two chairs he turned eyes of ironical power full upon 
 her. Yes, she was amazingly handsome, and she re- 
 minded him strangely of a face he had seen. "I wonder 
 if you know why I have asked you to be so kind 
 as to come here," were the first words he spoke. And 
 he seemed to weigh each one very carefully before he 
 uttered it. 
 
 "I think I do, at least I think I may guess." The 
 note of absolute frankness was so much more than he 
 had a right to look for that it pleased him more than 
 it need have done. 
 
 "Well?" he said, with a gentleness in his voice of 
 which he was not aware. 
 
 "I'm afraid I've been causing a lot of trouble." The 
 tone of regret was so perfectly sincere that it threw 
 him off his guard. He had not expected this, nay, he 
 had looked for something totally different. The girl was 
 a lady, no matter what her private circumstances might 
 be, and with a sudden deep annoyance he felt that it 
 was going to be supremely difficult to say in just so 
 many words what he had to say. 
 
 To his relief, however, she seemed with the flair of her 
 sex at once to divine his difficulty. This splendid-looking 
 
 195
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 old man, every inch of whom was grand seigneur, poor 
 old snowboot included! was already asking mutely for 
 her help in a situation that she knew he must dislike 
 intensely. In his odd silence, in the defensive arrogance 
 of his manner there was appeal to her own fineness. 
 She could not help feeling an instinctive sympathy with 
 this old grandee, who at the very outset was finding 
 himself unequal to the task imposed upon him by the 
 circumstances of the case. 
 
 They entered on a long pause, and it was left to her 
 to break it. 
 
 "I didn't know when I promised to marry Jack that 
 he would be the next Duke of Bridport," she said very 
 slowly at last. 
 
 The simple speech was intended to help him, a fact 
 of which he was well aware. And with a sense of acute 
 annoyance he felt a latent chivalry begin to stir him; it 
 was a chord that she, of all people, had no right to 
 touch. 
 
 "Didn't you?" he said; and in the grip of this new 
 emotion it would have been not unpleasant to add 
 "My dear." 
 
 "Of course I'm much to blame," she went on, en- 
 couraged by his tone. "I realize that one ought to have 
 made inquiries." 
 
 He was clearly puzzled. From under heavily knitted 
 brows his keen eyes peered at her. "But why?" An 
 instinct for fair play framed the question on her behalf. 
 
 A note of pain entered the charming voice. "Oh, one 
 ought," she said. "It was one's duty to know who and 
 what he was and all about him." 
 
 196
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 "Forgive me if I don't altogether agree." In spite of 
 himself he was being conquered by this largeness and 
 magnanimity. So fully was he prepared for something 
 else that he was now rather at a loss. "In any case," he 
 said, "the fault hardly seems to be yours." 
 
 "It is kind of you to say that." A pair of wide eyes, 
 long-lashed and luminous, which seemed oddly familiar, 
 raked him with a wonderful candor. "But I seem to 
 be giving enormous trouble to others trouble it would 
 have been easy to spare them." 
 
 Again his Grace dissented. Surprise was growing, 
 along with that other, that even more inconvenient emo- 
 tion which was now driving him hard. 
 
 "Don't overlook your own side of the case," he was 
 constrained to say. 
 
 "Oh, yes, there's that but one doesn't like to insist 
 on it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "The other is so much more important." 
 
 She felt his deep eyes searching hers, but except a 
 little veiled amusement, they had nothing to conceal. 
 
 "I am by no means sure that it is." To his own 
 clear annoyance, the fatal instinct for justice began to 
 take a hand in his overthrow. "As the matter has been 
 represented to me there is no doubt, if you took it to a 
 court of law, that you would get substantial damages." 
 
 "As if one could !" She suddenly crimsoned. 
 
 "If I have hurt you in any way, I beg your pardon," 
 he said at once with a simple humility for which she 
 honored him. "After all, if you decide not to marry 
 my relation you give up a position which most people 
 allow to be exceptional." 
 
 197
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Yes but if one has never aspired to it!" 
 
 He grew more puzzled. 
 
 "Can you afford to be so fastidious? if you don't 
 think the question impertinent?" 
 
 "I have my living to earn," she said very simply, "but 
 of course I don't want that to enter into the case." 
 
 "Naturally. Of course. Let me put another question 
 if it is not impertinent?" The eyes of the Duke had 
 now a grave amusement, but they had also something else. 
 "I suppose you care a good deal for this young man?" 
 
 She simply stared at him in a kind of bewilderment. 
 
 Such an answer, unexpectedly swift, nobly complete, 
 seemed to disconcert him a little. 
 
 "And and without a word you give him up for the 
 sake of other people?" 
 
 "Yes if they insist upon it." 
 
 "If they insist upon it!" He shook his head at her 
 in rather uneasy surprise. 
 
 "I have told Jack that I cannot marry him unless he 
 has your full consent." 
 
 Again the wide gray eyes looked out fearlessly upon 
 the rather bewildered gentleman. They could hardly 
 refrain from a smile at his growing perplexity. But there 
 was something other than perplexity in his tone when 
 at last he said, "You know of course that I cannot 
 possibly give it." 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 The unhesitating reply seemed to increase his sur- 
 prise. This girl was taking him into deeper places than 
 he had ever been in before. He shook his head at her 
 in a whimsical fashion which she thought quite charm- 
 ing. "It hardly does, you know, to be too bright and 
 
 198
 
 "You give up your young man simply because of that?"
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 good for human nature's daily food," he said with a 
 softness in his deep voice, which was enchanting. 
 
 "Oh, I'm very far from being that." She smiled 
 and shook her head. "I won't own that I'm as bad as 
 all that at least I hope I'm not." 
 
 "But if you insist on being so uncommonly self-sacri- 
 ficing, you're in danger, aren't you ?" 
 
 "One can't call it self-sacrifice altogether." 
 
 "Afraid of being bored, eh ?" 
 
 "I could never be bored with Jack," she said gravely. 
 "But I don't see why one should pat oneself on the back 
 for trying to live up to one's principles." 
 
 "Principles! May I ask what principles are involved 
 in a case of this kind?" 
 
 " 'Do unto others as you would be done by.' It's 
 rather priggish, I admit, but it's a splendid motto, if only 
 one is equal to it. As a rule it is much too much for 
 me, but in this case I want to do my best to live up 
 to it." 
 
 "There you go again." The old man shook an amused 
 finger at her. "Why it's altruism, there's no other word 
 for it." 
 
 "It's common sense if one is able to think through 
 to it." 
 
 "And that is why," he said, with almost the air of a 
 father, "you give up your young man simply because 
 of that?" 
 
 She nodded. But her smile was rather drawn. 
 
 "Tell me, Miss Lawrence" the curiosity of his Grace 
 was mounting to a pitch that enabled him to match her 
 frankness with his own "why are you so sure that 
 you will be unacceptable here?" 
 
 199
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "It stands to reason, I'm afraid. If I lived at Brid- 
 port House and the future head of the Family married 
 the housekeeper's niece, I should be bound to look on it as 
 a perfectly hopeless arrangement." 
 
 He honored this candor. Choosing his words with 
 great delicacy, he could but pay homage to such clear- 
 sighted honesty. "I only hope you will not blame us too 
 much," he said finally, with an odd change of voice. 
 
 "I don't blame you at all. You are as you are. If I 
 lived here I am sure those would be my feelings." 
 
 The old man was touched by this generosity. Lest he 
 should overrate it, however, she added quickly with a 
 flash of pride, "Besides, I should simply hate to go where 
 I was not wanted." 
 
 Patrician to the bone, he admired that, too. Every 
 inch of her rang true. Somehow it had become terribly 
 difficult to treat her in the only way the circumstances 
 permitted. But no matter what his private feelings, he 
 must hold them in check. 
 
 "Well, I think, Miss Lawrence," he said, with a return 
 to the dryness of the man of the world, "you ought 
 to congratulate yourself that you don't live here." But 
 suddenly his voice trailed off. "You would not be half so 
 fine as you are" after all, he couldn't conceal that a 
 deeply-stirred old man was speaking "had you been 
 born and bred in a hot-house." 
 
 She flushed at the unexpected words. Quite suddenly 
 her eyes brimmed with tears. 
 
 "If I have said anything that wounds I humbly apolo- 
 gize," he said, with a gentleness that to her was adorable. 
 
 "Oh, nol It is only that I had not expected to have 
 such a compliment paid me." 
 
 2OO
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 "Well, it's a sincere one." As he looked at her strange 
 thoughts came into his mind; his voice began to shake 
 in a queer way. "And it is paid you by an old man 
 who is not very wise and not very happy." As he 
 continued to look at her his voice underwent further 
 surprising changes. "I wish we could have had you 
 with us. There is not one of us here fit to tie your shoe- 
 lace, my dear." 
 
 Such a speech gave pain rather than pleasure. 
 She saw him a feudal chieftain, the head of a sacred 
 order. Was it quite fit and proper that he should speak 
 in that way to the humblest of his vassals? She would 
 never be able to forget his words, but in that room, 
 with the spirit of place enfolding her like some exquisite 
 garment, she could almost have wished that they had not 
 been uttered. 
 
 Suddenly she rose to go. As he regarded her in all 
 the salient perfection of mind and mansion, it seemed too 
 bitterly ironical that he should bar the door against her. 
 Why were they not on their knees thanking heaven for 
 such a creature! 
 
 "You must forgive us, even if Fate is not likely to," 
 he said, thinking aloud. 
 
 "Please don't let us look at it in that way," was the 
 quick rejoinder. "We all have our places in the world. 
 And, after all, one ought to remember that it is very 
 much easier to be Mary Lawrence than to be Duchess 
 of Bridport." 
 
 The old man shook his head dolefully, and then, in 
 spite of her earnest prayer that he should stay as he 
 was, he rose with a great effort to say good-by. The 
 
 201
 
 THE TIME" SPIRIT 
 
 deeply-lined face was a complex, of many emotions as 
 he did so. 
 
 In the very act of taking leave, her eyes, magnetized 
 by the room itself, strayed round it almost wistfully. 
 Somehow it meant so much that they hardly knew how 
 to tear themselves away. Involuntarily the Duke's eyes 
 followed hers to a masterpiece among masterpieces on 
 the farther wall. He could trace all that was in her 
 mind, and the knowledge seemed to increase his pain 
 and his perplexity. 
 
 "There's something wonderful in this room," she said, 
 half to herself. "Something one can't put into words. 
 It's like nothing else. I suppose it's a kind of harmony." 
 
 The Duke didn't speak, but slowly brought back his 
 eyes to look at her. His favorite room held treasures 
 of many kinds, yet as he well knew he was wantonly 
 casting away a gem rarer than any in his collection. 
 His eyes were upon a noble profile instinct with the 
 dignity of an old race. Here was artistry surer, even 
 more exquisite than Corot's. He could not repress a sigh 
 of vexation. 
 
 Unwilling to part with her, he still detained her even 
 when she had turned to go. "One moment, Miss Law- 
 rence," he said. "Do these things speak to you?" Near 
 his elbow was a wonderful cabinet of Chinese lacquer 
 which housed a collection of old French snuffboxes. He 
 opened it for her inspection, and with a little air of con- 
 noisseurship she gazed at the rarities within. 
 
 "They are lovely," she said eagerly. 
 
 "Honor me by choosing one as a token of my grati- 
 tude." 
 
 She hesitated to take him at his word, but he was 
 202
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 so much in earnest that it would have seemed unkind to 
 refuse. 
 
 "May I choose any one of them?" 
 
 "Please. And I hope you will do me the honor of 
 choosing the best." 
 
 Put on her mettle she brought instinct rather than 
 knowledge to bear on a fine collection, and chose a 
 charming Louis Quinze. 
 
 "You have a flair," said the Duke, laughing. "That 
 is the one. I am so glad you found it. I should not 
 like you to have less than the best. Good-by!" Again 
 he took her hand and his voice had a father's affection 
 in it. Then he pressed the bell, opened the door, and 
 ushered her into the care of a servant with an 'air of 
 solicitude which she felt to be quite extraordinary. As 
 he did so he apologized with a humility that seemed 
 almost excessive for his inability to accompany her down- 
 stairs. 
 
 IV 
 
 As soon as the girl had gone, the Duke returned 
 painfully to his chair. He was now the prey of very 
 odd sensations, and they began to crystallize at once into 
 emotion as deep as any he had ever felt. Something 
 had happened at this interview which left him now 
 with a feeling of numb surprise. The entrance of this 
 girl into that room had brought something into his life, 
 her going away had taken something out of it. Almost 
 in the act of meeting a subtle bond had seemed to arise 
 between them. It was as if each had a sixth sense 
 in regard to the other. Their minds had marched so 
 perfectly together that it was hard to realize that 
 
 203
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 this was the first time they had met. This rare creature 
 had touched cords which had long been forgotten, 
 even had they been known to exist, in the slightly de- 
 humanized thing he called himself. 
 
 Shaken as he had never been in his life, his mind was 
 held by the thought of her long after she had gone. 
 Mystified, disconcerted, rather forlorn, a harrowing idea 
 was beginning to torment him. At last he could bear 
 it no longer. Rising from his chair with a stifled impa- 
 tience, he made his way out of the room leaning heavily 
 upon his stick. He went along the corridor as far as the 
 head of the central staircase. Here he stood a long 
 while in contemplation of a large, rather florid picture 
 by Lawrence. The subject was a young woman of dis- 
 tinguished beauty, a portrait of his famous grandmother, 
 the wife of Bridport's second duke. Apart from her 
 appearance, which had been greatly celebrated, she had 
 had a reputation for wit and charm ; her memoirs of the 
 'Thirties had long taken rank as a classic ; and no annals 
 of the time were complete without the mention of her 
 name. 
 
 The prey of some very unhappy thoughts, the Duke 
 stood long immersed in the picture before him. The 
 resemblance he sought to trace had grown so plain that 
 it provoked a shiver. The line of the cheek, the shape of 
 the eyes, the curve of the chin, the poise of the head on 
 the long and slender throat were identical with the living 
 replica he had just seen. 
 
 At last he returned to his room and rang the bell. To 
 the servant who answered it, he said: "Ask Mrs. San- 
 derson to come to me." 
 
 The summons was promptly obeyed. But as Har- 
 204
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 net came into the room she bore a small tray containing 
 a wine-glass, a teaspoon, and a bottle of medicine. At 
 the sight of these the Duke made a grimace like a 
 petulant child. 
 
 "I am sure the new medicine does you a great deal of 
 good." The tone was quite maternal in its tenderness. 
 
 "You think so?" The words were dubious; all the 
 same her voice and look seemed to have an odd power 
 of reassurance. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I think there can be no doubt of it." She 
 measured the dose gravely. 
 
 "Well, I take your word, I take your word." And 
 he drank the bitter draught. 
 
 She put back the glass on the tray, but as she was 
 about to leave the room she was abruptly detained. 
 "Don't go," he said. "Sit and let us talk a little." 
 
 She sat down. 
 
 "Did you know," he said, and the unexpectedness of 
 the words threw her off her guard, "that I have just 
 had a visit from from your niece ?" 
 
 "Mary!" She clutched her dress. "Mary here!" 
 A sudden tide of crimson flowed in the startled face. 
 But the next instant it had grown white. "No, I didn't 
 know," she said. And then, her soul in her eyes, she 
 waited for his next words. 
 
 There was one stifling moment of silence, then he 
 said: "Of course you know what is in my mind?" 
 
 She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. 
 
 While he searched his memory silence came again, and 
 now it had the power to hurt them both. "Haven't you 
 always led me to believe," he said in a voice of curious 
 intensity, "that she was a nurse in a hospital?" 
 
 205
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Harriet did not reply at once. But at last she said, 
 "Yes, I have always wanted you to think so." 
 
 He looked at her white face, and suddenly checked 
 the words that rose to his tongue. Whatever those may 
 have been, there was an immense solicitude in his man- 
 ner when he spoke again. "It is not for me," he said, 
 "to question anything you may have said, or anything 
 you may have done." 
 
 "I did everything I could to carry out your wishes." 
 Her voice trembled painfully. "And I I " 
 
 "And you didn't like to tell me," he said gently. 
 
 "Yes. I couldn't bear to tell you that she had in- 
 sisted on choosing the life of all others you would have 
 the least desired for her." 
 
 "Don't think that I complain," he said. "I know 
 you must have had a good reason. You have always 
 been very considerate. But it looks as if the stars in 
 their courses have managed to play a scurvy trick." 
 
 "That they have !" Once more the swift color flowed 
 over a fine face. 
 
 Suddenly she pressed her fingers to her eyelids to 
 repress the quick tears. 
 
 "Never mind," he said. "The gods have been a little 
 too much for us, but things might have been worse." 
 
 Tearfully she agreed. 
 
 "The other day when I talked with that excellent fel- 
 low, your brother-in-law, it didn't occur to me who this 
 girl really was. I don't think I was ever told that she 
 had been adopted by your family." 
 
 "No," said Harriet, very simply. 
 
 "Do your friends know the truth of the matter?" 
 
 206
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 "I don't think they have a suspicion not of the real 
 truth," she said slowly. 
 
 "Has anyone?" 
 
 "Not a soul that I know of." 
 
 "The girl herself, is she also in ignorance?" 
 
 "She knows, I believe, that she is only the adopted 
 child of my sister and her husband, but I don't think 
 she has gone at all deeply into the matter." 
 
 "Tell me this" the mere effort of speech seemed to 
 cost him infinite pain "do you think there is a means 
 open to anyone of learning the truth at this time of day ?" 
 
 "My brother-in-law knew from the first that the child 
 was mine, but I feel sure the real truth can never come 
 out now." 
 
 Impassive as he was, a shade of evident relief came 
 into his face. But the look of strain in his eyes deep- 
 ened to actual pain as he said, "No doubt we ought to 
 be glad that it is so. At the same time, I think you'll 
 agree, that we have a duty to face which may prove ex- 
 traordinarily difficult." 
 
 Harriet did not speak, but suddenly she bent her head 
 in a quivering assent. 
 
 "You see," he said slowly, "we can no longer burke 
 the fact that something is due to the girl herself." 
 
 Harriet's eyes suddenly filled with an intensity of suf- 
 fering he could not bear to look at. 
 
 "You know the position, of course?" he said gently, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "I know she has promised to marry Mr. Dinneford." 
 
 "But only if I give my consent." 
 
 "I am sure that is right." A note of relief came into 
 207
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 her tone. "She has done exactly as one could have 
 wished." 
 
 "If one could only see the thing as clearly as you do !" 
 he said with a reluctant shake of the head. "At any rate 
 let us try to be as just as the circumstances will allow 
 us to be." 
 
 "Can we hope to do justice and not hurt other people ?" 
 
 "I'm afraid that's impossible, as things are. But for 
 a moment let us try to consider the whole matter from 
 her point of view. Perhaps you'll allow me to say at 
 once thai the course you insisted on taking seems to have 
 justified itself completely. She is a girl to be proud of j 
 and she appears to be living a happy and useful life. 
 One sees now how wise it was not to take half-measures. 
 She has been allowed to fight her own battle with the 
 gifts of the good God, and the result does your fore- 
 sight the highest credit." 
 
 The judicial words, very simply uttered, brought a 
 flood of color to the pale cheeks. But listening with 
 bent head, she did not look up, nor did she say a word 
 in reply. 
 
 "The heroic method has proved to be the right one, 
 but I think now we have to be careful not to take any un- 
 fair advantage of that fact. It's a terribly difficult case, 
 but as far as we can we ought not to overlook what is 
 due to the girl herself." 
 
 "But the others!" said Harriet with fear in her eyes. 
 
 "Yes, a terribly difficult situation." The Duke signed. 
 "But for the moment let us try to see the matter simply 
 as it affects her. She has been made to suffer a grievous 
 injustice so that others might benefit. The question is, 
 must she still be made to sacrifice herself?" 
 
 208
 
 A BUSY MORNING 
 
 Harriet had no answer to give. The long silence which 
 followed was almost unendurable in its intensity. 
 
 "Well?" he said at last, as he looked at her white face. 
 
 She shook her head mutely, unable to speak, unable 
 to meet his eyes. Tears crept again along her eyelids. 
 
 "You wish me to decide?" 
 
 "Yes," she said at last. 
 
 He looked at her now with the light of pity in his 
 face. Not at once did he speak, and when he did it was 
 with a clear, a too-clear perception of the impotence of 
 his words. 
 
 "The truth is," he said, "the problem is beyond me."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 AS Mary made her way from Bridport House 
 across the Park, in the direction of Broad Place 
 and luncheon, it came suddenly upon her that she 
 was in a state of the most abject misery she had ever 
 been in. It was a gorgeous midday of July, but the world 
 had ceased to be habitable. She had come up against 
 a blank wall. At that moment there was nothing in life 
 to make it worth while. 
 
 In the ordeal she had just passed through a fierce 
 pride had forbade her to show one glimpse of her real 
 feelings. She had carried off the whole scene with al- 
 most an air of comedy, for she was determined that 
 "those people" should not realize what wounds it was 
 in their power to deal. But Dame Nature, now that 
 she had the high-mettled creature to herself, was having 
 something to say to her on the matter. A price was 
 being exacted for these heroics and for this stoicism. 
 
 The Duke had left an impression of fine chivalry 
 on a perceptive mind, but in spite of that, now they 
 were no longer face to face, her deepest feeling was an 
 angry resentment. Life was not playing fair. In the 
 course of a strenuous three and twenty years she had 
 
 210
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 rubbed shoulders with all sorts of men and women, but 
 in spite of an honest catholicity of outlook, she had come 
 to the conclusion already that there was only one kind 
 for which she had any real use. It was not a question of 
 loaves and fishes, or a puerile snobbishness ; it was simply 
 that one of the deepest instincts she had, the sense of the 
 artist, demanded a setting. 
 
 Walking along, blind to everything but the misery of 
 this reaction, she was suddenly brought up short, thrown 
 as it were against the world in its concrete reality, by the 
 knowledge that a pair of eyes was devouring her. Cut- 
 ting across her path at an acute angle as he converged 
 upon her from the direction of Kensington Gardens was 
 a man wholly absorbed in the occupation of looking at 
 her. With a start she awoke to the force of his gaze; 
 her subconscious perception of it was so strong that it 
 even aroused a tacit hostility. 
 
 Who was this large, lean, top-hatted creature striding 
 towards her in a pair of aggressively checked trousers? 
 Where had she seen that freckled face, those bold eyes, 
 those prognathous jaws ? As he came on he caught her 
 gaze and fixed it; but she dropped her eyes at once, 
 adroitly giving him only the line of her cheek to look 
 at. Whoever he was, he was not a gentleman! 
 
 In the next moment, however, she had begun to realize 
 that he was outside and beyond any trite symbol of 
 that kind. He was less a man than a natural force; 
 moreover, as soon as he had passed her, he stopped 
 abruptly and turned round to follow her with his eyes. 
 She did not need to turn round herself to verify her 
 sense of the act, even had personal dignity not intervened 
 to prevent her. 
 
 211
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 She felt annoyed. Again she asked herself who he 
 could be. When and where had she seen him ? And then 
 a light broke. It may have been the checked trousers, it 
 may have been the prognathous jaws, but her mind was 
 suddenly flung back upon that recent visit to Beacons- 
 field Villas, and a certain unforgettable scene. This 
 slightly fantastic figure was no less a person than 
 Lady Muriel's fiance, the new Home Secretary. 
 
 II 
 
 Crossing to Broad Place she could not check a laugh. 
 Wounded, angry, humiliated by the pressure of a recent 
 event, there still lurked in her a true appreciation of the 
 human comedy. What a pill for Bridport House to 
 have to swallow! It was poetic justice that the pride 
 which strained at a gnat so harmless as herself should 
 have to gulp a real live camel in the person of the 
 Right Honorable Gentleman. 
 
 But the laugh, after all, was hollow. Tears of vexa- 
 tion leaped to her eyes. And they owed more to the 
 perception of her own inadequacy in this smarting hour 
 than to the act of Fate. "Wretch that I am!" She was 
 ready to chasten herself with scorpions as she crossed 
 the familiar path into Albert Gate. 
 
 Within a very few yards were the loyal, warm-hearted 
 friends of her own orbit. And there, alas ! was the rub. 
 Her own orbit could not satisfy her now. She craved 
 something that all their kindness, their cheerfulness, their 
 frank affection could not give. "Just common or garden 
 snobbishness, my dear, that's the nature of your com- 
 plaint," whispered a monitor within. "You are no better 
 
 212
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 than anyone else when you are invited to call on a duke 
 in Mount Street." 
 
 That might be true, or it might not, but sore and re- 
 bellious as she was, she was strongly inclined to dispute 
 the verdict. After all, her feeling went infinitely deeper. 
 It was futile, however, to analyze it now. This was not 
 the place nor was there present opportunity. She glanced 
 at the watch on her wrist. It was one o'clock. 
 
 The watch on her wrist was as hostile as everything 
 else in her little world just now. Even one o'clock had 
 a sharp sting of its own. "Don't be late for lunch," 
 had been Milly's parting words. "Charley Cheesewright 
 is coming. And he's dying to meet you." 
 
 She managed to navigate the vortex of Knightsbridge 
 without knowing that she did so; and then, all at once, 
 she realized that she was within twenty yards of Victoria 
 Mansions, and that a rather overdressed young man was 
 a few yards ahead. 
 
 With a feeling akin to nausea she pulled up in time 
 to watch this short, squat figure disappear within the 
 precincts of Number Five. For a reason she couldn't ex- 
 plain she was quite sure that this was none other than 
 Mr. Charles Cheesewright. She didn't know him ; if a 
 back view meant anything she had no wish to know 
 him ; certainly she had no desire to make his acquaintance 
 going up in the lift. 
 
 She hung back a discreet three minutes on the pave- 
 ment of Broad Place before daring to enter the vestibule 
 of Number Five, Victoria Mansions. By then the coast 
 was clear; Mr. Charles Cheesewright, apparently, had 
 gone up in the Otis elevator. And she stood on the 
 
 213
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 mat, drawn and tense, a figure of tragedy, waiting for 
 the Otis elevator to come down again. 
 
 Ill 
 
 At last the Otis elevator came down and she went 
 up in it. And then confronted by the door of the flat, 
 she peered through the glass panel to make sure that 
 Mr. Charles Cheesewright was not standing the other 
 side of it ; then she opened it with a furtive key, slipped 
 in, and stole past the half-open door of the tiny drawing- 
 room through which came the penetrating accents of Mrs. 
 Wren attuned to the reception of "company." 
 
 Once in her own room her first act was to look in 
 the glass with a lurking sense of horror ; the second was 
 to decide, which she instantly did, that it would be quite 
 impossible to meet Mr. Cheesewright, and that she didn't 
 need any luncheon. 
 
 By the time she had taken off her hat and made herself 
 a little more presentable, both these decisions had grown 
 immutable. She could not meet Mr. Cheesewright, she 
 did not want any luncheon. All she needed was complete 
 solitude, and perhaps a cigarette. But all too soon was 
 she ravished of even these modest requirements. Milly 
 burst suddenly into the room. 
 
 "Twenty past one!" she cried reproachfully. "I didn't 
 hear you come in. We are waiting for you." 
 
 Mary saw that her plan must be given up. If she 
 really meant to forgo a meal and the honor of Mr. 
 Cheesewright's acquaintance there would have to be a 
 satisfactory explanation. But what explanation could 
 she make? Certainly none that would conceal the truth. 
 
 214
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 And at that moment she wished almost savagely for it to 
 be concealed. Confronted by a choice of evils she made a 
 dash at the less. 
 
 "I'm so sorry. I'll be with you in one minute." 
 
 Sheer pride forced her tone to a superhuman light- 
 ness, verging on gayety. But there was a formidable 
 member of her sex to deal with. In spite of that heroic 
 note, Milly was not to be taken in; she looked at the 
 dissembler with eyes that saw a great deal too much. 
 "I expect you've taken a pretty bad toss, my fine lady," 
 they seemed to say. 
 
 "I'll be with you in one minute," repeated Mary, with 
 burning cheeks and a beating heart. But Milly continued 
 to stare. Suddenly she laid impulsive hands on her 
 shoulders and gave her a kiss. 
 
 Mary didn't like kissing. Her friend's proneness to 
 the habit always irritated her secretly; this present in- 
 dulgence in it brought Mary as near to active dislike as 
 it would have been possible for her to get. 
 
 Milly went back to the drawing-room seething with an 
 excited curiosity. Before she could make up her mind 
 to follow Mary stood a long moment in black despair; 
 and then "biting on the bullet," as the soldiers say, she 
 went to join the others. 
 
 "Naughty girl !" was the arch reception of Mrs. Wren. 
 "I'm very cross. Didn't you promise not to be late? 
 But if you must call before lunch on dukes in Park Lane 
 I suppose people like us will have to take the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 Mary would gladly have given a year's salary for the 
 head of Mrs. Wren on a charger, but Milly intervened 
 
 215
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 neatly with the presentation of Mr. Cheesewright, in itself 
 a little masterpiece of quiet humor. 
 
 Princess Bedalia's reception of Mr. Charles Cheese- 
 wright was perhaps the severest test to which her 
 sterling goodness had been exposed. Every nerve was on 
 edge. She wanted to slay Mr. Cheesewright, braided 
 coat, turquoise tie-pin, diamond sleeve links, immaculate 
 coiffure and all. But for the sake of Milly she dra- 
 gooned her feelings to the pitch of bowing quite charm- 
 ingly. 
 
 Luncheon, after all, was not so bad. Mrs. Wren was 
 frankly at her worst and most tactless; her one idea 
 was to impress the guest, to let him see that money was 
 not everything, and that judged by her standards he was 
 a most ordinary young man. For such a democrat her 
 table talk was surprisingly full of Debrett. It was all 
 very lacerating, but Mary continued to play up as well 
 as she knew how. And by the time the meal was half 
 over the reward of pure unselfishness came to her in 
 the shape of a quite unexpected liking for Mr. Charles 
 Cheesewright. 
 
 By all the rules of the game, that is, if mere outward 
 appearance went for anything, Mr. Cheesewright should 
 have been insufferable. But at close quarters, with 
 curried prawns and chablis before him, and a very fine 
 girl opposite, he was nothing of the kind. Mrs. Wren 
 had confided to Mary a week ago, "that she was afraid 
 from what she had heard, that he was not out of the top 
 drawer." The statement had been provoked by an odi- 
 ous comparison with Wrexham, "who," declared Milly 
 in her most aboriginal manner, "had, as far as mother 
 was concerned, simply queered the pitch for everybody." 
 
 216
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 Perhaps in the eyes of Mary it was Mr. Cheesewright's 
 supreme merit that, in spite of his clothes, he was mod- 
 estly content to be his humble self. In every way he 
 was a very middling young man. But he knew that he 
 was and, in Mary's opinion, that somehow saved him 
 from being something worse. Mrs. Wren was far from 
 agreeing. His face and form were plebeian, but there 
 was no reason why he should take them lying down. He 
 was Eton and Cambridge certainly or was it Harrow 
 and Oxford? anyhow an adequate expression of a 
 sound convention; and it was for that reason no doubt 
 that all through a particularly trying meal he kept up 
 his end bravely. In fact, he did so well that he earned 
 the gratitude of the young woman opposite, although he 
 was far from suspecting that he had done anything of 
 the kind. 
 
 She had begun by counting the minutes and in looking 
 ahead to the time when she could retire with her wounds. 
 But there was a peculiar virtue in the meal ; at any rate 
 it agreed so well with the natural constitution of Mr. 
 Charles Cheesewright that he was able to relieve the 
 tension of the little dining-room without knowing it. 
 He wasn't brilliant, certainly, but he talked plainly, 
 sanely, modestly about the things that mattered; the 
 Brodotsky Venus at the Portman Gallery, the miserable 
 performance of Harrow, the new play at the Imperial, 
 the sure defeat of America's Big Four, Mr. Jarvey's new 
 novel, the prospect of the Kaiser lifting the pot at 
 Cowes, and other matters of international importance, so 
 that by the time coffee and creme-de-menthe had rounded 
 up the meal, Mary was inclined to feel sorry that it was 
 at an end. 
 
 217
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 When a few minutes before three Mr. Cheesewright 
 went his way to have a net at Lord's Cricket Ground 
 the famous Princess Bedalia felt a pang of regret. 
 He had played a pretty good innings already, even if he 
 didn't seem to know it. And the honest shake of her 
 hand did its best to tell him so. 
 
 IV 
 
 As soon as Mr. Cheesewright had gone, Mary pre- 
 pared to go too. But before she could retire Milly and 
 her mother were at her. Both had a pretty shrewd 
 suspicion that she had been making a sorry mess of 
 things at Bridport House. These ladies, however, were 
 so cunning, that they did not show their hands at once. 
 To begin with, they exchanged a glance full of mean- 
 ing, and then as Mary got up and made for the door, 
 Mrs Wren commanded her to sit down again and tell 
 them what she thought of Charley. That was guile. 
 She didn't in the least want to know what anyone 
 thought of Charley; besides, it would have been quite 
 possible for Mary to deliver her verdict even as she stood 
 with the knob of the door in her hand. 
 
 "I like him immensely!" she said, returning to the 
 sofa in deference to Mrs. Wren. 
 
 Mother and daughter looked at her searchingly, with 
 eyes that questioned. 
 
 "I like him immensely!" she repeated. 
 
 "He's not the kind of man," said Mrs. Wren with an 
 air of vexation, "I should have written home about when 
 I was a girl." 
 
 "What's wrong with him ?" said Milly, bridling. "Why 
 do you always crab him, mother ?" 
 
 218
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 "I crab him!" Mrs. Wren's air was the perfection 
 of injured innocence. "Nothing of the kind. It isn't 
 his fault he's not a blue blood and if my lord of 
 Wrexham's form is anything to go by, he may be none 
 the worse for that." 
 
 "Yes, of course, as far as you are concerned 
 Wrexham's the fly in the ointment," said Milly with a 
 sudden flutter of anger. 
 
 Mary would have given much to escape, but to have 
 fled with thunder and forked lightning in the air would 
 have been an act of cowardice, not to say treachery. 
 
 The truth was Mrs. Wren still had other views for 
 Milly, but up till now Wrexham had disappointed her. 
 Moreover, both these clear-headed and extremely prac- 
 tical ladies were inclined to think he would continue to 
 do so. For one thing he was under the thumb of his 
 family, who were as hostile as they could be; again 
 Wrexham was a bit of a weakling who didn't quite know 
 his own mind. Certainly he had a regard for Milly, but 
 whether it would enable him to wear a martyr's crown 
 was very doubtful. Milly, at any rate, had allowed a 
 second Richmond to enter the field of her affections, in 
 the shape of Mr. Charles Cheesewright, the sole inher- 
 itor of Cheesewright's Mixture, a young man of obscure 
 antecedents but of considerable wealth. So far Mr. 
 Cheesewright had received small encouragement from 
 Mrs. Wren, and Milly herself had been very guarded in 
 her attitude ; yet it was as plain as could be that one of 
 the more expensive of the public schools and one of the 
 older universities had made a little gentleman of Mr. 
 Cheesewright. "But," as Milly said, "the truth was 
 Wrexham had simply queered the pitch for everybody." 
 
 219
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Mary, as the friend of all parties, including Mr. 
 Cheesewright, who had unexpectedly found favor in her 
 sight, felt it to be her duty to stay in the room, so that, 
 if possible, oil might be poured on the troubled waters. 
 She had sense of acute discomfort, it was true; and it 
 was not made less by the sure knowledge that the heavy 
 weapons mother and daughter were using for the benefit 
 of each other would soon be turned against herself. 
 
 There was not long to wait for this prophecy to be 
 fulfilled. As soon as the ladies had cut off her retreat, 
 they dropped the academic subject of Mr. Cheesewright 
 and bluntly demanded to know what was the matter. 
 It was vain for Mary to try to parry this expected attack. 
 Her friends, when their feelings were deeply stirred, 
 indulged in a sledge-hammer style of warfare, against 
 which any ordinary kind of defense was powerless. 
 
 "Don't tell me," said Mrs. Wren, "that you have let 
 them bully you into giving him up !" 
 
 This was what Milly was wont to call her mother's 
 "old Sadler's Wells touch" with a vengeance. The 
 victim bit her lip sharply, but she could not prevent the 
 color from rushing to her cheeks and giving her com- 
 pletely away. 
 
 "Why, of course she has!" cried Milly, looking at 
 her pitilessly. "I knew she would. I told you, my dear, 
 she was set on doing something fantastic. And here 
 have I been telling Charley that one day she would be a 
 duchess." 
 
 "I call it soppy," said Mrs. Wren. 
 
 "Downright mental flabbiness," cried Milly. "It's the 
 sort of thing a girl would do in the Family Herald." 
 
 Mary quailed before these taunts. Even if her friends 
 
 220
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 had an unconventional way of expressing themselves, it 
 did not blind her to the poignant nature of their emo- 
 tions. In the tone of mother and daughter was a note 
 which showed how deeply they were wounded by her 
 moral weakness they could consider it nothing else. 
 And the bitterness of the attack was the measure of their 
 devotion. Mrs. Wren could hardly restrain her tongue, 
 Milly was at the verge of tears. Such a girl as Mary 
 Lawrence had no right to wreck two lives for a mere 
 whim. 
 
 "You are nothing but a fool," said Mrs. Wren. 
 "You'll never get such a chance again. I'd like to shake 
 you." 
 
 Mary had no fight left in her. She sat on the sofa 
 a picture of dismay. For the first time she saw mother 
 and daughter as they really were, in all their native 
 crudeness; yet when the worst was said of them they 
 had a generosity of soul which made them suffer on 
 her account; and that fact alone seemed to leave her at 
 their mercy. 
 
 "You've no right to let them ruin your life and his," 
 said Milly pitilessly. 
 
 "One simply can't go where one isn't wanted," said 
 Mary at last with a face of ashes. 
 
 Mrs. Wren took up the phrase, the first the girl had 
 been able to utter in her own defense, and flung it back. 
 "Not wanted forsooth! Who are they that they should 
 pick and choose! A dead charge on the community 
 neither more nor less." 
 
 "No one can't," said Mary, tormentedly. "How could 
 one!" 
 
 "Rubbish !" said Mrs. Wren. "You can't afford to be 
 
 221
 
 so proud. From the way you talk you might be the 
 Queen of England." 
 
 The girl shook her head. "And it isn't quite fair 
 that they should have to put up with me." 
 
 Those unfortunate words were made to recoil upon 
 her heavily. Both her assailants were frankly amazed 
 that she should want to look at the matter from the 
 enemy point of view. To such a mind as Mrs. Wren's 
 it could only mean that Bridport House had hypnotized 
 her with the semblance of place and power. 
 
 "I could shake you," re-affirmed the good lady. "A 
 girl as first-rate as you are has no right to be a snob." 
 
 Somehow that barb was horrible. Nothing wounds 
 like the truth. 
 
 Strong in the conviction that "she had got her" Mrs. 
 Wren proceeded. "You set as high a value on these 
 people as they set on themselves. It's noodles like you 
 who keep them up. What use are they anyway, except 
 to play the fool with honest folk ?" 
 
 "Yes, that's right," said Milly with flashing eyes, as 
 she took up the parable. "Wrexham's one of the same 
 push. His lot simply won't look at me, yet I consider 
 myself the equal of anyone. And I should make a very 
 good countess." 
 
 Mary could only gasp. She was rather overcome by 
 this naivete. 
 
 "So you would, my dear," said Mrs. Wren. "And 
 one of these days you will be a countess if you don't 
 throw yourself away on Tom, Dick, and Harry in the 
 meantime." 
 
 Mary was hard set not to break out in a hysterical 
 laugh. She was in the depths if ever soul was, yet the 
 
 222
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 sense of humor is immortal and survives every torment. 
 Fate, however, had not yet given the last turn to the 
 screw. 
 
 At this moment the neat parlormaid came into the 
 room. 
 
 "Mr. Dinneford !" she announced. 
 
 Jack stood a moment on the threshold to gaze at the 
 three occupants. He was rather like a sailor who fears 
 foul weather* and has not the courage to read the sky. 
 
 "I'm glad you've come, young man," said Mrs. Wren, 
 getting up to receive him. And she added almost at 
 once, for it was never her way to beat about the bush, 
 "We are giving her the finest talking to she has ever had 
 in her life." 
 
 Jack nearly groaned. The look of the three of them 
 had told him already that she must have made a fearful 
 hash of things. 
 
 By now the Tenderfoot had risen very high in Mrs. 
 Wren's favor. To begin with he would one day be the 
 indubitable sixth Duke of Bridport a handicap, no 
 doubt, in the sight of some types of democrat, but appar- 
 ently not, in the eyes of Mrs. Wren, an insuperable 
 barrier. Again, she was a pretty shrewd judge of a 
 man, and this one had passed all his examinations so 
 far with flying colors. He was absolutely straight- 
 forward, absolutely honorable; moreover, he knew his 
 own mind whereby he had a signal advantage over his 
 stable companion, who, in spite of great merits, was lack- 
 ing in character. 
 
 "Yes, we are setting her to rights," said Milly, 
 223
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 wrinkling a nose of charming pugnacity. The face of 
 the culprit was tense and rather piteous, but Jack's 
 glance at it was perfectly remorseless. 
 
 "I knew she would," he groaned. 
 
 "Knew she would what?" demanded Mrs. Wren. 
 
 "Let Uncle Albert down her," was the prompt re- 
 joinder. 
 
 "That didn't want much guessing," said Milly bitterly. 
 
 "Bridport-House-itis ! That's her trouble," said Mrs. 
 Wren. "And she seems to have quite a bad form of 
 the disease. I can't understand such a girl, I can't really. 
 To me she's unnatural. If I found people 'coming the 
 heavy' over me, I should just set my back to the wall and 
 say, 'Very well, my fine friends, I'm now going to let 
 you see that Jane Wren is every bit as good as you are.' " 
 
 "So would any other reasonable being." And that un- 
 premeditated speech of the Tenderfoot's would have 
 made Mrs. Wren his friend for life, had she not become 
 so already. 
 
 "That's what I call sensible," said she. "And there's 
 only one thing for you to do now, young man, and that 
 is to take her straight away and marry her." 
 
 At this point Mary got up from her sofa. But Mrs. 
 Wren held one great advantage; she had her back to 
 the door. "You don't leave this room, my fine lady" 
 again "the old Sadler's Wells touch," and Jack and Milly 
 could not deny that it was rather superb "until you 
 realize that we all think alike in this matter." 
 
 "Quite so," said the Tenderfoot, immensely stimulated 
 by this powerful backing. "Let us try to see the thing 
 as it is. This isn't a case for high falutin' sentiment. 
 
 224
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 Bridport House is steeped in crass idiocy; all the more 
 reason, I say, that we give it no encouragement." 
 
 "Quite so," chimed Mrs. Wren. 
 
 "Quite so," chimed Milly, who was irresistibly re- 
 minded of a recent command performance of "Money." 
 
 Mrs. Wren shook a histrionic finger at the luckless 
 Mary, whose eyes were seeking rather wildly a means 
 of escape. "Don't speak! Don't venture to say a 
 word!" The victim had not shown the least disposition 
 to do so. "You simply haven't a leg to stand on, you 
 know." 
 
 It was a shameful piece of bullying but the victim 
 bore it stoically. And it did not go on for long. 
 Neither Mrs. Wren nor Milly was exactly a fool. As 
 soon as they saw that main force was not likely to help 
 them, and that more harm than good might be done by 
 it, they decided to leave the whole matter to Jack. They 
 had expressed their own point of view very fully, they 
 knew that he could be trusted to make the most of his 
 case ; besides, when all was said, he was the person best 
 able to deal with an entirely vexatious affair. 
 
 Of a sudden, the astute Milly flung a swift glance at 
 her mother and got up from her chair. And without 
 another word on the subject, this pair of conspirators 
 dramatically withdrew. 
 
 VI 
 
 Such an exit from the scene was far more eloquent 
 than words. And its immediate effect was to plunge 
 Jack and Mary with a haste that was hardly decent, into 
 what both felt was perilously like a final crisis. Its very 
 nature was of a sort that a finer diplomacy would have 
 
 225
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 been careful to avoid. But Jack, baffled and angry, was 
 not in a mood to temporize; besides, that was never his 
 way. 
 
 The fine shades of emotion were not for him, but he 
 had the perception to feel that if he remained five 
 minutes longer in that little room the game might be lost 
 irretrievably. In fact, it seemed to be lost already. The 
 specter of defeat was hovering round him; nay, it was 
 embodied in the very atmosphere he breathed. 
 
 Knowing the moment to be full of peril, he determined 
 to force himself to the greatest delicacy of which he was 
 capable, for this might prove the final throw. The look 
 in her eyes seemed to tell him that all was lost, but he 
 would set the thought aside and act as if he were not 
 aware of it. 
 
 A long and very trying pause lent weight to this deci- 
 sion, and then at last he said in a tone altogether different 
 from the one he had recently used, "Tell me, why are 
 you so determined to keep a hardshell like Uncle Albert 
 on his pedestal ?" 
 
 The form of the question provoked a wry little smile. 
 "We poor females are by nature conservative." 
 
 "You are that," he said. "Take you and me. We've 
 both seen the world. And the world has changed me 
 altogether, but I should say it hasn't changed you at all." 
 
 "No; I don't think it has," she admitted ruefully, "in 
 the things that are really important." 
 
 "Six years ago, before I went West, I saw Bridport 
 House at pretty much the same angle you see it now. 
 But I suppose if you get lumbering timber, or living by 
 your wits, or looking for gold in the Yukon, it mighty 
 soon comes home to you that it is only realities that 
 
 226
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 count. And the cold truth is that Bridport House simply 
 isn't a reality at all." 
 
 "There I can't agree with you," she said with a simple 
 valor he was bound to admire. "I haven't seen the 
 Yukon, but I've seen Bridport House and it's intensely 
 real to me. Somehow the place is quite wonderful. It 
 works upon one like a charm." 
 
 "I was a fool to let you go there." 
 
 "But it only confirms my guesses." 
 
 "Why, you are as bad as your Aunt Sanderson," he 
 burst out. "And you haven't her excuse. One can 
 understand her point of view, although it's very extreme, 
 and absurdly overdone, but yours, if you'll let me say so, 
 is merely fanciful. Why you should be absolutely the 
 last person in the world to be hypnotized by mere rank 
 and pride of place." 
 
 "It isn't that at all." 
 
 "What is it, then?" 
 
 "It's something I can't explain, a kind of instinct, I 
 suppose. Please don't think I'm overawed by vain 
 shows. But there is such a thing as tradition, at least 
 there is to me, and every stick and stone of that house 
 simply glows with it." 
 
 "Mere sentiment!" 
 
 "Oh, yes I know but sentiment's the thing that rules 
 the world." 
 
 "Plain, practical common sense rules the world. 1 " 
 
 "I mean the only world worth living in." 
 
 He could do nothing with her, and the fact was now 
 hurting him horribly. A man used to his own way, of 
 clear vision, and strong will, he could not bear the 
 thought of being sidetracked or thwarted. Besides, her 
 
 227
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 reasoning was demonstrably false. He was growing bit- 
 terly annoyed but, after all, such a solicitude for others 
 only added to her value. Moreover, here was a nature 
 almost fantastically fine, and for decency's sake he must 
 constrain his egotism to respect her scruples. 
 
 But the sense of defeat was hard to bear. Since that 
 morning's fatal visit to the Mecca of tradition her will 
 had crystallized. There seemed little hope of shaking it 
 now. 
 
 "Let me ask one question," he said tensely. "Do you 
 still care for me?" 
 
 Before she could answer the question her breath came 
 quickly, her color mounted. And then she said in a low 
 voice, "I do I always shall." 
 
 It was no use telling her she was a fool. She was 
 grotesquely in the wrong, even if she was sublimely in 
 the right. He would like to have shaken her and yet 
 how dare he sully her with a point of view which was 
 purely personal? 
 
 "I expect that old barbarian is laughing finely in his 
 sleeve," he said with a sudden descent to another plane. 
 
 "You don't read him right." A warm throb of feeling 
 was in her voice. "He's quite deep and true and kind, 
 so kind you would hardly believe. When I went there 
 this morning I felt I was going to hate him, and yet I 
 find I can't." 
 
 "You are an idealist," he said. "And you've tuned up 
 that old cracked file to the pitch of your own sackbut 
 and psaltery. He's not fine in any way if you see him 
 as I do but I'm an earthworm, of course. He's just 
 a hardshell and an unbeliever, who runs tradition for all 
 
 228
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 it's worth, because that means loaves and fishes for him 
 and his." 
 
 i She countered this speech staunchly ; it was not worthy 
 of him. And yet the tone of reproof was so gentle that 
 it gave him new courage. Besides, he was a born fighter 
 and the mere thought of losing such a prize was more 
 than he could bear. 
 
 "You can't go back on your word," he burst out with 
 sudden defiance. "You made a promise that you're 
 bound to keep." 
 
 The look in her eyes asked for pity. "Oh! I could 
 never go there," she shivered, "among all those hostile 
 women." 
 
 "We will keep a thousand miles away from them." 
 "They have told me I'm not good enough." 
 "Like their damned impertinence!" He flushed with 
 anger. 
 
 "But I promised this morning that I wouldn't." 
 "You first promised me that you would." 
 Again he had her cornered. It was almost the act of 
 a cad to drive her so hard, but he was an elemental who 
 had simply to obey the laws of his being. It seemed 
 madness and damnation to let her go. And yet there 
 were tears in her eyes which he dare not look at. If he 
 saw them he was done. 
 
 With a kind of savage joy he felt her weaken a little 
 at the impact of his will. It was a piece of cruelty for 
 which there was no help, a form of bullying he could 
 not avoid. 
 
 "The best thing we can do," he said suddenly, "is to 
 get married at once and then clear off to Canada. Then 
 we shall be beyond the jurisdiction of Bridport House." 
 
 229
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "That old man would never forgive me," was the 
 simple reply. "It would make the whole thing quite 
 hopeless for everybody." 
 
 He checked the words at the tip of his tongue. She 
 had no right to play for the other side, but there was 
 something in her bearing which shamed him to silence. 
 For the first time he was torn; this immolation of self 
 might be a deeper wisdom; at least he felt thin and 
 shallow in its presence. 
 
 "Won't you help me?" She laid a hand on his. 
 Tears were now running down her cheeks. 
 
 He caught his breath sharply at the unexpected appeal ; 
 it was like the fixing of a knife. There was no alterna- 
 tive ; he saw at once with fatal clearness that these four 
 little words cut the ground from under his feet. 
 ' "Of course I will," he said miserably, "if that is how 
 you really feel about it." 
 
 She bowed her head in the moment's intensity. 
 "Thank you," she said softly. 
 
 He could only gasp. Here was the end. 
 
 "We must forget each other," she said stoically. 
 
 "Or ask the sun and moon to stand still," he said. "I 
 shall never marry anyone else." 
 
 She gave him the honest hand of the good comrade 
 and he took it to his lips. 
 
 "I shall go back to Canada." 
 
 "Won't you stay and help them?" 
 
 "No," he said, "these stupid people have got on my 
 nerves. Besides, this city is not big enough to hold us 
 both just now." 
 
 "I intend to go to Paris and study for the opera." 
 230
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 "No," he said decisively. "This time next week I shall 
 be on my way back to Vancouver, unless " 
 
 "Unless ?" 
 
 "Unless Bridport House can be made to forget the 
 Parish Pump in the meantime. And there's hardly a 
 chance of that."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 I 
 
 HIS Grace had had such a very bad night that 
 he was only just able to reach his morning- 
 room by the discreet hour of eleven. He was 
 so exceedingly irritable that even the presence of the 
 Times on the little table at his elbow was almost too 
 much for him. And barely had he settled himself in 
 his chair and put on his spectacles when an acute annoy- 
 ance with the nature of things was further increased by 
 the ill-timed appearance of his private secretary, Mr. 
 Gilbert Twalmley. 
 
 Mr. Twalmley so well understood the art of being 
 agreeable, that, of itself, his appearance was seldom if 
 ever unwelcome ; had the fact been otherwise it is reason- 
 ably certain that long ago he would have had to seek 
 some other sphere of usefulness. And even on this sin- 
 ister morning Mr. Twalmley was not the head and front 
 of his own offending; the germ of unpopularity was in 
 the message that he bore. 
 
 "Sir Dugald Maclean has rung up, sir. He would 
 like to know if you can see him on a matter of urgent 
 importance." 
 
 "When?" said the Duke sourly. 
 
 232
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 "He will come round at once." 
 
 The fact was clear that his Grace was not in a mood 
 to receive anyone just then, least of all Sir Dugald 
 Maclean, who at any time was far from being persona 
 gratissima at Bridport House. But after a mental strug- 
 gle, which if quite short was rather grim, he allowed 
 public policy to override his private feelings. 
 
 "I suppose I'd better," he said with something 
 ominously like a groan of disgust. 
 
 II 
 
 Even when the decision was taken and Mr. Twalrrtley 
 had gone to make it known, the Duke was not quite clear 
 in his mind as to why he should submit to such an ordeal. 
 Was it really necessary to see this man? Would any 
 purpose be served by his so doing? 
 
 This morning the Duke was in a mood of vacillation, 
 itself the sequel to a night of physical and mental tor- 
 ment. Men and events and Nature's own self were con- 
 spiring against him; the future and the past were alike 
 in their menace; he could see nothing ahead but a vista 
 of anxiety. 
 
 Waiting for this man whom he disliked so intensely, 
 he tried at first to fix his mind on the morning's news, 
 and failed lamentably. For one thing the paper itself 
 was a sinister portent of the times. But there were 
 others, and in the interval of waiting for an unwelcome 
 visitor his Grace reviewed them gloomily. 
 
 Albert John had lived to see dark days. At heart a 
 time-server and a cynic, his strongest wish had been to 
 go to the grave in the faith of his fathers. In the begin- 
 ning none had realized more clearly than he that dukes 
 
 233
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 were not as other men. Born to that convenient dogma, 
 or at least having imbibed it with the milk of infancy, it 
 was in the very marrow of his bones. But now, it would 
 seem, the Time Spirit had overtaken the order to which 
 he belonged. 
 
 Twin portents of that fact had hovered all night round 
 his pillow. First came the business of Jack and the 
 lady of his choice, who at close quarters had proved to 
 be so much more than his Grace had bargained for; 
 then there was the minor yet entirely vexing complica- 
 tion of Muriel and her Berserker of a Radical. 
 
 Compared with the first gigantic issue, the second was 
 a mere sideshow, which in a happier hour his Grace 
 would have treated with sardonic contempt. After all, 
 did it greatly matter if Muriel had the ill taste to prefer 
 an obvious political thruster and arriviste to a state of 
 single blessedness? The heavens were not likely to fall 
 in either case. The man was a cad and there was no 
 more to be said, yet even Albert John was not quite able 
 to maintain the standpoint of High Olympus. Such a 
 mountebank of a fellow ought not to count, yet when the 
 best had been said there was something about the brute 
 which rankled horribly. 
 
 Some years before, in a historic speech in the Gilded 
 Chamber, the Duke had drawn a lurid picture of de- 
 mocracy knocking at the gate. His words were so 
 nakedly obvious that in a single morning they awoke to 
 fame throughout a flattered and delighted island. 
 Everybody had known for a generation that democracy 
 was knocking at the gate, but the true art of prophecy as 
 a going concern is to predict the event the day after it 
 happens. 
 
 234
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 His Grace of Bridport, in the course of an admired 
 speech, left no doubt as to his own feeling in the matter. 
 He conceived it to be his duty to hold the gate as long 
 as possible against the mob. But his memorable re- 
 marks, a little touched, no doubt, with the crudity of one 
 who spoke seldom, gave opportunity for a thruster in 
 the person of a rising Scots publicist to convulse the 
 Lower House with his fanciful portrait of the Great 
 Panjandram of Bridport House with little round button 
 on top. 
 
 That had happened some years ago. But the 
 alchemies of time had now prepared a charming comedy 
 for the initiated. The temerarious Scotsman, moving 
 from triumph to triumph, had determined to consolidate 
 his fortunes by marrying the third daughter of the house 
 of Dinneford. 
 
 When Sir Dugald's decision became known to the 
 Duke, his amazement took a very caustic turn. He had 
 never forgiven the fellow for so savagely flaunting him 
 as a trophy at the end of a pole. "Rien qui blesse comme 
 la verite" It was therefore hard for his Grace to 
 knuckle down to this adventurer. Besides, had Sir 
 Dugald's opinions been other than they were, one of his 
 kidney must not look for a welcome at Bridport House. 
 
 Democracy was knocking at the gate with a vengeance. 
 Muriel's affair had shaken the Family to its base. For 
 some little time past it was known that she was cultivat- 
 ing breadth. Her coquettings with that dangerous ten- 
 dency had affected her diet, her clothes, her reading, as 
 well as her social and mental outlook. She had formed 
 quite a habit of emerging from the Times Book Club 
 with all kinds of highbrows in a strap. She had made 
 
 235
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 odd friendships, she had joined queer movements, and 
 from time to time she regaled very remarkable people 
 with tea and cake at Bridport House. 
 
 To all this there could only be one end. First she 
 consulted her oculist and changed her glasses, and then 
 she fell in love. She was the first of the Bridport ladies 
 to enter that state; thus she was less a portent than a 
 phenomenon. Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie gave her 
 the cold shoulder, and Aunt Charlotte frowned, but there 
 was no getting over the sinister fact that Breadth had 
 at last undone her. Sir Dugald had recently been seen 
 for the first time in one of the smaller and less uncom- 
 fortable drawing-rooms of Bridport House. The Dinne- 
 ford ladies seldom read the newspapers, at least the polit- 
 ical part of them, being beyond all things "healthy- 
 minded" women ; therefore they knew little of the facts 
 of his career. Moreover, they were in happy ignorance 
 of the attack he had launched three years ago upon their 
 sire. But it cannot be said of Muriel that she was 
 equally innocent. Evil communications corrupt good 
 manners ; Breadth had made a recourse to politics inevi- 
 table. And the slight importance she attached to a 
 certain incident was, to say the least, unfilial. 
 
 In the cool, appraising eyes of Sarah, Blanche, and 
 Marjorie, the bold Sir Dugald was set down already as 
 a freak of nature. They were not used to that sort of 
 person at Bridport House. Unfortunately such an atti- 
 tude forbade any just perception of the man himself. 
 His career was still in the making, and in the view of 
 keen but unsympathetic observers who had followed it 
 from the start, the hapless Muriel had been marked down 
 in order that she might advance him in it. Moreover, up 
 
 236
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 till now, his ambition had never known defeat, particu- 
 larly when inflamed by a worthy object. 
 
 According to biographies of the People's Champion, 
 portrait on cover, price one shilling net, which flooded 
 the bookstalls of his adopted country, his life had been a 
 fine expression of the deep spiritual truth, "God helps 
 those who help themselves." His career had been truly 
 remarkable, yet in the opinion of qualified judges it was 
 only just beginning. In the person of Sir Dugald 
 Maclean, Democracy was knocking at the gate with a 
 vengeance. Its keepers must be up and doing lest Demos 
 ravish the citadel within and get clear away with the 
 pictures, the heirlooms and the gold plate. 
 
 "She must be out of her mind," declared the Duke at 
 the first announcement of the grisly tidings. Lady 
 Wargrave went further. "She is out of her mind," 
 trumpeted the sage of Hill Street. 
 
 There were alarums and excursions, there was a pretty 
 todo. But Muriel had grown so Broad that she treated 
 the matter very lightly. The ruthless Sir Dugald had 
 tied her to the wheel of his car ; he was now determined 
 to lead her to the altar with or without the sanction of 
 his Grace. 
 
 ill 
 
 All too soon for the Duke's liking in this hour of fate, 
 Sir Dugald arrived for his interview. At any time he 
 was a bitter pill for his Grace to swallow; just now, in 
 the light of present circumstances, it called for the virtue 
 of a stoic to receive him at all. 
 
 Now these adversaries met again certain ugly mem- 
 ories were in their minds. But the advantage was with 
 
 237
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 the younger man who could afford to be secretly amused 
 by the business in hand. A semblance of respect, to be 
 sure, was in his bearing, but that was no more than 
 homage paid by worldly wisdom to the spirit of place. 
 Right at the back lay the mind of the cool calculator, 
 which in certain aspects had an insight almost devilish 
 into the heart of material man. Well he knew the hos- 
 tility of this peevish, brooding invalid. He was in a 
 position to flout it; yet, after all, the man who now re- 
 ceived him would have been rather more than human 
 had he not hated him like poison. 
 
 Sir Dugald could afford to smile at this figure of 
 impotence; yet the Duke, in his way, was no mean ad- 
 versary. Up to a point his mind was extremely vigorous. 
 The will to prevail against encroachment on the privi- 
 leges of his class was still strong. Besides physical suf- 
 fering had not yet bereft him of a maliciously nice 
 appreciation of the human comedy. It may even have 
 been that which now enabled him to receive "the 
 thruster." 
 
 As Sir Dugald entered the room he was keenly aware 
 that the eyes of a satyr were fixed upon him. And the 
 picture of a rather fantastic helplessness, propped in its 
 chair, was not without its pathos. The old lion, stricken 
 sore, would have given much to rend the intruder, but 
 he was in the grip of Fate. 
 
 The success of Sir Dugald had been magical, but luck 
 had played no part in it, beyond the period of the world's 
 history and the particular corner of the globe in which 
 he happened to be born. He had got as far as he had in 
 a time comparatively short for the simple reason that he 
 was a man of quite unusual powers. 
 
 238
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 No man could have had a truer perception of the con- 
 ditions among which he had been cast than Dugald 
 Maclean, no man could have had a stronger grasp of 
 certain forces, or of the alchemy transmuting them into 
 things undreamt of; no man could have had a bolder 
 outlook upon the whole amazing phantasmagoria evolved 
 by the cosmic dust out of the wonders within itself. The 
 Duke had the cynicism of the materialist; the man who 
 faced him now had the vision of him who sees too much. 
 
 The Duke, with a great air and a courtesy which was 
 second nature, begged his visitor to forgive his being as 
 he was. 
 
 Sir Dugald, with a mechanical formula and a mechan- 
 ical smile, responded with a ready sympathy. But while 
 their conventional phrases flowed, each marked the other 
 narrowly, like a pair of strange brigands colloguing for 
 the first time on the side of a mountain. It was as if 
 each knew the other for a devil of a fellow, yet not quite 
 such a devil of a fellow as he judges himself to be. 
 
 Efficiency was the watchword of Maclean. There was 
 no beating about the bush. He knew what he wanted 
 and had come to see that he got it. In a cool, aloof, 
 rather detached way he lost no time in putting forward 
 the demand he had made at a former meeting. 
 
 "But one has been led to infer from your speeches," 
 said the Duke, bluntly, "and the facts of your career, that 
 you stand for an order of things very different from 
 those obtaining here." 
 
 "Up to a point, yes," was the ready answer. "But 
 only up to a point. In order to govern efficiency it is 
 wise to aim at a centralization of power. The happiest 
 communities are those in which power is in the hands 
 
 239
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 of the few. Now there is much in the social hierarchy, 
 even as at present constituted, which deserves to survive 
 the shock of battle that will soon be upon us. It ought 
 to survive, for it has proved its worth. And in identify- 
 ing myself with it I shall be glad when the time comes 
 to help your people here if only you will help me now." 
 
 "In a word, you are ready to throw over your friends," 
 said the Duke with a narrowing eye. 
 
 "By no means! I have not the least intention of 
 doing that." 
 
 His Grace was hard to convince; besides the man's 
 nonchalance incensed him. "Well, as I have told you 
 already, the only terms on which we can begin to think 
 of having you here are that you quit your present stable." 
 
 "Don't you think you take a parochial view?" The 
 considered coolness had the power to infuriate. "Which- 
 ever stable one happens to occupy at the moment is not 
 very material. It is simply a means to an end." 
 
 "To what end?" 
 
 "The better government of the country of the Em- 
 pire, if you prefer it." 
 
 "You aim at the top?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly. And I think I shall get there." 
 
 The note of self-confidence was a little too much for 
 his Grace. He shot out an ugly lower lip and plucked 
 savagely at the small tuft of hair upon it. "That remains 
 to be seen, my friend." And he added in a tone of ice, 
 "When you have got there you can come and ask me 
 again." 
 
 "But it is going to take time," Sir Dugald spoke lightly 
 and readily, not deigning to accept the challenge. 
 
 240
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 "Meanwhile Lady Muriel and I would like to get mar- 
 ried." 
 
 It seemed, however, that the Duke had made up his 
 mind in the matter quite definitely. There must be a coat 
 of political whitewash for a dirty dog before he could 
 hope to receive any kind of official sanction as a son-in- 
 law. Such in effect was the last word of his Grace; 
 and it was delivered with a point that was meant to 
 lacerate. 
 
 It did not fail of its effect. Somehow the ducal brand 
 of cynicism was edged like a razor, and the underlying 
 contempt poisoned the wounds it dealt. The man who 
 had sprung from the people, who in accordance with 
 the brutal innuendo of the man of privilege would be 
 only too ready to throw them over as soon as they had 
 served his turn, was powerless before it. At this 
 moment, as he was ruefully discovering, place and power 
 did not hesitate to use loaded dice. 
 
 Sir Dugald was savagely angry. In spite of an iron 
 self-control, the cold insolence of one who made no secret 
 of the fact that he regarded the man before him as other 
 clay was hard to bear. A career of success, consistent 
 and amazing, had given Sir Dugald a pretty arrogance of 
 his own. And he was a very determined man playing 
 for victory. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was clear from the Duke's manner that as far as 
 he was concerned the interview was at an end. But Sir 
 Dugald had made up his mind to carry the matter a step 
 farther. He was a bold man, his position was stronger 
 
 241
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 than his Grace had reason to guess, moreover, a powerful 
 will had been reen forced by a growing animosity. 
 
 "Before I go," said Sir Dugald, "there is one last word, 
 and to me it seems of great importance." 
 
 The Duke sat silent, a stony eye fixed upon his visitor. 
 
 "First, let me say as one man of the world to another, 
 that your objection to my marrying Lady Muriel is inju- 
 dicious." 
 
 "No doubt from your point of view. But we won't 
 go into that." 
 
 "On the contrary, I think we had better. As I say, 
 it is injudicious. We have fully made up our minds to 
 marry. You can't hinder us, you know so why make 
 things uncomfortable?" 
 
 "Because I dislike it, sir I dislike it intensely !" His 
 Grace was suddenly overwhelmed by his feelings. 
 
 "Do you mind stating the grounds of your objection?" 
 
 "It would be tedious to enumerate them." 
 
 "Well, I'd like you to realize the advantages of letting 
 things go on as they are." 
 
 "There are none so far as one can see at the moment." 
 
 "We are coming to them now," said Sir Dugald 
 blandly. "In the first place, has it occurred to you that 
 I may know the history of Mr. Dinneford's fiancee?" 
 
 The Duke stared fixedly at the man before hina. 
 "What do you mean?" he said. 
 
 "Suppose one happens to know her secret?" 
 
 "Her secret!" 
 
 "Her origin and early history." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Is there really any need to ask the question?" 
 242
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 The Duke shook his head perplexedly. "I'm afraid 
 I don't follow you." 
 
 "Well," said Sir Dugald coolly, "it happens that you 
 are the one man in the world who is in a position to 
 answer the question I have ventured to ask." 
 
 They looked at each other. A rather deadly silence 
 followed. 
 
 "The question you have ventured to ask." The Duke 
 repeated the words slowly, but with a reluctance and a 
 venom he could not conceal. 
 
 "You know perfectly well what I mean." The tone, 
 direct and cool, was exasperating. 
 
 "Are you trying to blackmail me?" There was an 
 ugly light in the Duke's eyes. 
 
 Sir Dugald laughed. "Why put the matter so 
 crudely?" he said. "I am merely anxious that justice 
 should be done. You ought to be grateful to Providence 
 for giving you this opportunity." 
 
 "Opportunity ?" 
 
 "To right the wrong that has been committed." 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "I refer to Miss Lawrence's parentage." 
 
 "One fails to see that her parentage is any business of 
 yours or mine." 
 
 "It is certainly business of yours," was the sardonic 
 answer; "and it is going to be mine because I am de- 
 termined that matters shall take their present course. 
 Lady Muriel and I intend to marry, and Mr. Dinneford 
 and Miss Lawrence ought to marry." 
 
 The Duke gazed at him with an air of blank stupe- 
 faction. 
 
 "I invite you to give the matter very careful consider- 
 
 243
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 ation." Sir Dugald had constrained a harsh accent to 
 the point of mellowness. "Let me say at once that if 
 you don't withdraw your opposition it is in my power 
 to make myself rather unpleasant." 
 
 "Nature has relieved you of any obligation in that 
 matter. You are the most unpleasant man I have ever 
 had to do with." 
 
 "Let me outline the position." The mellifluous note 
 spurred his Grace to fury. "Mr. Dinneford and Miss 
 Lawrence, Lady Muriel and I are determined to marry 
 and we must have your consent." 
 
 "And if I don't give it?" The tone matched the trucu- 
 lent eyes. 
 
 "I may be tempted to use my knowledge in a way 
 which will be much more disagreeable than the things 
 you wish to prevent." 
 
 "Do I understand this to be a threat?" 
 
 Sir Dugald smiled darkly. 
 
 "Very well !" Defiance and resentment rode the Duke 
 very hard. "Use your knowledge as you like. You are 
 a scoundrel." 
 
 "A hard name." Again the Duke was met by a satur- 
 nine Scottish smile. "But my motives are sound." 
 
 "So are mine." The Duke's voice shook with fury. 
 "If you are not careful I will have you put out of the 
 house." 
 
 "We are not living in the Middle Ages, you know." 
 
 "More's the pity. I'd have found a short way with 
 you then, my friend. Your wanting to marry Muriel 
 is bad enough, your interference with Dinneford is an 
 outrage." 
 
 244
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 "In the circumstances I feel it to be my duty to do 
 what I can in an exceedingly delicate matter." 
 
 "Self-interest, sir, that's all your duty amounts to." 
 But the Duke was now thoroughly alarmed, and he saw 
 that recrimination was not going to help him. "Tell 
 me," he said* in a tone more conciliatory than he had yet 
 used, "exactly on what ground you are standing?'' 
 
 "In the first place, there is a very remarkable family 
 likeness." 
 
 "And you base your allegation upon a mere conjec- 
 ture of that kind !" said the Duke scornfully. 
 
 "Upon far more than that, believe me. I have very 
 strong and direct evidence which at the present moment 
 I prefer not to disclose." 
 
 The Duke paused at this bold statement. He turned 
 a basilisk's eye upon his adversary, but Sir Dugald 
 offered a mask, behind which, as his Grace well knew, 
 lurked unlimited depth and cunning. One thing was 
 clear: a man of this kidney was not likely to venture 
 such a coup without having carefully weighed his re- 
 sources. In any case there cannot be smoke unless there 
 is fire. A certain amount of knowledge must be in the 
 possession of Maclean ; the question was how much, and 
 what use was he prepared to make of it? 
 
 "Do I understand," said the Duke after a moment of 
 deep thought, "that you have spoken of this matter to 
 Mr. Dinneford?" 
 
 "I have not yet done so." 
 
 "Or to Miss Lawrence?" 
 
 "No nor to Mrs. Sanderson." 
 
 The Duke's look of concentration at the mention of 
 that name was not lost upon Sir Dugald. It had the 
 
 245
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 effect of hardening the ironical smile which for some 
 little time now had hung round his lips. 
 
 "May I ask you," said the Duke with the air of a man 
 pretty badly hipped, "not to speak of this matter to any- 
 one until there has been an opportunity for further dis- 
 cussion ?" 
 
 The abrupt change in the tone confessed a moral weak- 
 ness which Sir Dugald was quick to notice. But he fell 
 in with the suggestion, with a show of ready magnanimity 
 for which the Duke could have slain him. There was 
 no wish to cause avoidable unpleasantness. Sir Dugald 
 was good enough to say that it was in the interests of 
 all parties that the skeleton should be kept in the cup- 
 board. The matter was bound to give pain to a number 
 of innocent people, and if the Duke, even at the eleventh 
 hour, would be reasonable he might depend upon it that 
 Sir Dugald Maclean would be only too happy to follow 
 his example. 
 
 Upon the retirement of the unwelcome visitor, the 
 Duke gave himself up to a state of irritation verging on 
 fury. Unprepared for this new turn of the game, taken 
 at a complete disadvantage by a man of few scruples 
 and diabolical cleverness, he was now horribly smitten by 
 a sense of having said things he ought not to have said. 
 On one point he was clear. In the shock of the unfore- 
 seen he had yielded far too much to the impact of a 
 scoundrel. 
 
 The position seen as a whole was one of very grave 
 difficulty, and the instinct now dominating his mind was 
 to seek a port against a storm which threatened at any 
 
 246
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 moment to burst upon him. It was of vital importance 
 that certain facts should be kept from certain people; 
 otherwise there could be little doubt thai the private 
 cosmos of Albert John, fifth Duke of Bridport, would 
 fall about his ears. 
 
 Alone with his fluttered thoughts, the Duke spent a 
 bad half-hour trying to marshal them in battle array. 
 Face to face with a situation dangerous, disagreeable, 
 unforeseen, it would call for much tactical skill to fend 
 off disaster. Never in his life had he found it so hard 
 to choose a line of action. At last, the prey of doubt, 
 he rang for Harriet Sanderson. 
 
 She came to him at once and he told her promptly of 
 Sir Dugald's visit. And then, his eyes on her face, he 
 went on to tell her there was reason to fear that a secret 
 had been penetrated which he had always been led to 
 believe was known only to her and to himself. 
 
 Watching her narrowly while he spoke he saw his 
 words go home. She stood a picture of dismay. 
 
 "I wonder if the man really can know all?" he said 
 finally. 
 
 At first she made no attempt to answer the question ; 
 but after a while, in a low, rather frightened voice, she 
 said, "I don't think he can know possibly." 
 
 He searched her troubled eyes, almost as if he doubted. 
 "Perhaps you will tell me this." He spoke in a tone of 
 growing anxiety. "Would you say there is anything like 
 a marked family resemblance?" 
 
 "A very strong one, I'm afraid." 
 
 "It is confined, I hope, to the picture at the top of the 
 stairs?" 
 
 "Oh, no at least to my mind " 
 
 247
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "She has her father's eyes." 
 
 "Very interesting to know that." The Duke laughed, 
 but it was a curious note in which there was not a grain 
 of mirth. "Yet, even assuming that to be the case, it 
 would take a bold man to jump to such a conclusion. 
 Surely he would need better ground to go upon." 
 
 "I am sorry to say he has much more than a mere 
 likeness to help him." As Harriet spoke the bright color 
 ran from neck to brow. "He happened to be at my 
 brother-in-law's on the evening the child was first 
 brought to the house." 
 
 That simple fact was far more than the Duke had 
 bargained for. A look of dismay came upon him, he 
 shook an ominous head. "It throws a new light on the 
 matter," he said, after a pause, painful in its intensity. 
 "Now tell me this did he see the child?" 
 
 "Oh, yes!" 
 
 "That helps him to put two and two together at any 
 rate." A look of tragic concern came into his face. 
 "What an amazing world!" 
 
 She agreed that the world was amazing. And in spite 
 of the strange unhappiness in her eyes she could not help 
 smiling a little as a surge of memories came upon her. 
 She sighed softly, even tenderly as she made the confes- 
 sion. "To my mind, Sir Dugald Maclean is one of the 
 most amazing men in it." 
 
 "Have you any particular reason for saying that?"- 
 The gaze was disconcerting in its keenness "apart, I 
 mean, from the mere obvious facts of his career?" 
 
 "It is simply that I have watched him rise," said 
 
 248
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 Harriet, between a smile and a sigh. "When I knew 
 him first he was a London policeman." 
 
 "How in the world did he persuade Scotland Yard to 
 part with him?" scoffed his Grace. "One would have 
 thought such a fellow would have been worth his weight 
 in gold." 
 
 She could not repress a laugh which to herself seemed 
 to verge on irreverence. "My brother-in-law says he 
 soon convinced them he was far too ambitious for the 
 Metropolitan Police Force." 
 
 "I should say so!" 
 
 "And then he studied the law and got into parliament." 
 
 "And made his fortune by backing a downtrodden 
 people against a vile aristocracy." The Duke's smile was 
 so sour that it became a grimace. "In other words a 
 self-made man." 
 
 "Oh, yes entirely!" The sudden generous warmth 
 of admiration in Harriet's tone surprised the Duke. 
 "When one considers the enormous odds against him and 
 what he has been able to do at the age of forty-two, 
 it seems only right to think of him as wonderful." 
 
 "Personally," said his Grace, "I prefer to regard him 
 as an unscrupulous scoundrel." 
 
 Harriet dissented with a smile. "A great man," she 
 said softly. 
 
 "Let us leave it at a very dangerous man. He is a 
 real menace, not only to us, but to the country. Anyhow, 
 we have now to see that he doesn't bring down the 
 house about our ears." 
 
 There was something in the tone that swept the color 
 from Harriet's face. "That I realize." Her voice 
 trembled painfully. "Oh, I do hope he has not men- 
 
 249
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 tioned the matter to Mary." And she plucked at her 
 dress in sudden alarm. 
 
 "Not yet, I think," said the Duke venomously. "He 
 is too sure a hand to spring his mine before the time 
 is ripe. Meanwhile we are forearmed ; let us take every 
 precaution against him." 
 
 "Oh, yes, we must!" Her eyes were tragic. 
 
 "A devilish mischance," said the Duke slowly, "a devil- 
 ish mischance that he, of all men, has been able to hit 
 the trail." 
 
 VI 
 
 When Harriet had gone from the room, the Duke 
 surrendered again to his thoughts. By now they were 
 almost intolerable. Pulled this way and that by a con- 
 flict of emotion that was cruel, he was brought more than 
 once to the verge of a decision he had not the courage to 
 make. The situation was forcing it upon him, yet so 
 much was involved, so much was at stake that a weak 
 man at bottom, he was ready to grasp at anything which 
 held a slender hope of putting off the evil day. Two 
 interests were vitally opposed ; he sought to do justice to 
 both, yet as far as he could see at the moment, any 
 reconciliation between them was impossible. 
 
 He was in a state of bitter, ever-growing embarrass- 
 ment, when Jack was unexpectedly announced. 
 
 His Grace was not able to detach himself sufficiently 
 from the maelstrom within to observe the hue of resolu- 
 tion in the bearing of a rather unwelcome visitor. 
 
 "Good morning, sir," said the young man coolly, with 
 an aloofness that came near to sarcasm. And then in 
 a tone of very simple matter of fact, he said, "I have 
 
 250
 
 TIME'S REVENGE 
 
 merely called to ask if you will give a formal consent to 
 my marrying Mary Lawrence." 
 
 From the particular way in which the question was 
 put it was easy to deduce an ultimatum. But it came at 
 an unlucky moment. So delicately was the Duke poised 
 between two contending forces, that a point-blank de- 
 mand was quite enough to turn the scale. His Grace 
 replied at ence that he was not in a position to give 
 consent. 
 
 Jack was prepared for a refusal. The nature of the 
 case had made it seem inevitable. But there and then 
 he issued a ukase. His kinsman should have a week in 
 which to think over the matter. And if in that time the 
 Duke did not change his mind he would return to Canada. 
 
 The threat was taken very coolly, but his Grace was 
 far more concerned by it than he allowed Jack to see. 
 In fact, he was very much annoyed. Here was an end 
 to the plan which had been formed for the general 
 welfare of Bridport House. Such conduct was incon- 
 siderate, tiresome, irrational. But it was not merely the 
 inconvenience it was bound to cause which was so 
 troublesome. There was still the other aspect of the 
 case. He could not rid himself of the feeling that a 
 cruel injustice was being done to an innocent and de- 
 fenseless person, and that the whole blame of it must lie 
 at his own door. 
 
 He had been given a week in which to think the matter 
 over, in which to examine it in all its bearings. Just 
 now he was not in a mood to urge the least objection to 
 Jack's departure; all the same one frankly an autocrat 
 resented it deeply. Let the fellow go and be damned to 
 him! But in spite of the philosophic air with which he 
 
 251
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 sent the young fool about his business, his Grace realized 
 ,as soon as he was alone that it was quite impossible to 
 shut his eyes to certain facts. Vital issues were involved 
 and it was no use shirking them. Even if he had now 
 made up his mind to steel his heart against gross and 
 rather brutal injustice, so that the common weal might 
 prosper, nothing could alter the human aspect of a matter 
 that galled him bitterly.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 A BOMB 
 
 IT is a bad business, no doubt, when a statesman 
 stoops to sentiment. Unluckily for the Duke, now 
 that a brain cool and clear was needed in a critical 
 hour, it had become miserably overclouded by a sense of 
 chivalry. It was very inconvenient. Never in his life 
 had he found a decision so hard to reach, and even when 
 it had been arrived at he could not dismiss the girl from 
 his mind. She had impressed him in such a remarkable 
 way that it was impossible to forget her. 
 
 Beyond all things a man of the world, one fact stood 
 out with exemplary clearness. If this girl could have 
 been taken upon her merits she would have been an 
 almost ideal mate for the heir to Bridport House. She 
 had shown such a delicate regard for his welfare, so right 
 had been her feeling in the whole affair, that, even apart 
 from mere justice, it seemed wrong to exclude her from 
 a circle she could not fail to grace. In the matter of 
 Bridport House her instinct was so divinely right that 
 no girl in the land was more naturally fitted to help a 
 tiro through his novitiate. 
 
 A sad coil truly ! And Jack had gone but a very few 
 253
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 , minutes, when the matter took another and wholly unex- 
 pected turn. The prelude to a historic incident was the 
 appearance of Sarah on the scene. 
 
 The eldest flower, the light of battle in her gray eyes, 
 was plainly bent on mischief. So much was clear as 
 soon as she came into the room. She had not been able 
 to forgive her father for revoking Mrs. Sanderson's 
 notice. It had been a wanton dashing of the cup from 
 lips but little used to victory; and the act had served 
 to embitter a situation which by now was almost unbear- 
 able. 
 
 Sarah had come of fell purpose, but before playing her 
 great coup, she opened lightly in the manner of a skirm- 
 isher. Muriel, it seemed, was the topic that had brought 
 her there; at any rate, it was the topic on which she 
 began, masking with some astuteness the one so much 
 more sinister that lay behind. 
 
 "Father, I suppose you know that Muriel has quite 
 made up her mind to get married?" 
 
 "So I gather." Detachment could hardly have been 
 carried farther. 
 
 "Such a pity," Sarah lightly pursued, "but I'm afraid 
 there's nothing to be done. She was always obstinate." 
 
 "Always a fool," muttered his Grace. 
 
 "I've been discussing the matter with Aunt Charlotte." 
 
 The Duke nodded, but his portentdus eyes asked Sarah 
 not to claim one moment more of his time than the cir- 
 cumstances rendered absolutely necessary. 
 
 "Aunt Charlotte feels very strongly that it will be wise 
 for you to give your consent." 
 
 "Why?" The Duke yawned, but the look in his face 
 was not of the kind that goes with mere boredom. "Any 
 
 254
 
 A BOMB 
 
 specific ground for the suggestion?" He scanned Sarah 
 narrowly, with heavily-lidded eyes. 
 
 "On general grounds only, I believe." 
 
 The Duke was more than a little relieved, but he was 
 content to express the fact by transferring his gaze to 
 the book-rest in front of him. 
 
 "She thinks it will be in the interests of everyone to 
 make the best of a most tiresome and humiliating busi- 
 ness. And, after all, he is certain to be Prime Minister 
 within the next ten years." 
 
 "Who tells you that?" 
 
 "Last night at dinner I met Harry Truscott, and that's 
 his prediction. He says Sir Dugald Maclean is the big 
 serpent that swallows all the little serpents." 
 
 "Uncommonly true!" His Grace made a wry mouth. 
 "Still, that's hardly a reason why we should receive the 
 reptile here." 
 
 "No, of course. I quite agree. But Aunt Charlotte 
 thinks there is nothing to gain by standing out. Muriel 
 has quite made up her foolish mind. So the digni- 
 fied thing seems to be to make the best of a miserable 
 business." 
 
 "It may be," said his Grace. "But personally I should 
 be grateful if Charlotte would mind her own affairs." 
 
 The tone implied quite definitely that he had no wish 
 to pursue the topic; nay, it even invited Sarah to make 
 an end of their talk and to go away as soon as possible. 
 Clearly he was far from understanding that it was little 
 more than a red herring across the trail of a sinister 
 intention. But the fact was revealed to him by her next 
 remarks. 
 
 255
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Oh, by the way, father," she said casually, or at least 
 With a lightness of tone that was misleading, "there's one 
 other matter. I've been thinking the situation out." 
 
 "Situation!" groped his Grace. 
 
 "That has been created." Sarah's tone was almost 
 Infantile "by your insisting that Mrs. Sanderson should 
 stay on." 
 
 "Well, what of it, what of it?" 
 
 "It simply makes the whole thing impossible." Sarah 
 had achieved the voice of the dove. "So long as this 
 woman remains in the house one feels that one cannot 
 stay here." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because" Sarah fixed a deliberate eye on the face 
 of her sire "neither Aunt Charlotte nor I think that the 
 present arrangement is quite seemly." 
 
 ii 
 
 The attack had been neatly launched, and she saw by 
 the look on her father's face that it had gone right home. 
 She was a slow-witted, rather crass person, with a kind 
 of heavy conceit of her own, but like all the other Dinne- 
 ford ladies, at close quarters she was formidable. The, 
 button was off her foil. It was her intention to wound. 
 And at the instant she struck, his Grace was unpleasantly 
 aware of that fact. 
 
 "What d'ye mean ?" It was his recoil from the stroke. 
 
 "I have talked over the matter with Aunt Charlotte. 
 She agrees with me that the present arrangement is quite 
 hopeless. And she thinks that as you are unwilling for 
 
 256
 
 A BOMB 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson to be sent away, the only course for 
 Blanche, Marjorie, and myself is to leave the house." 
 
 The face of her father grew a shade paler, but for the 
 moment that was the only expression of the inward fury. 
 He saw at once that the dull fool who dared to beard 
 him was no more than a cat's-paw of the arch-schemer. 
 The mine was Charlotte's, even if fired by a hand infin- 
 itely less cunning. 
 
 "Is this a threat?" The surge of his rage was hard 
 to control. 
 
 "You leave us no alternative," said Sarah doughtily. 
 "Aunt Charlotte thinks in the circumstances we shall be 
 fully justified in going to live with her. I think so, too ; 
 and I don't doubt that Blanche and Marjorie will see the 
 matter in the same light." 
 
 "What do you think you will gain ?" His voice shook 
 with far more than vexation. "The proposal simply 
 amounts to the washing of dirty linen in public." 
 
 "There is such a thing as personal dignity, father," 
 said Sarah in her driest tone. 
 
 "No doubt; but how you are going to serve it by 
 dancing to the piping of Charlotte I can't for the life of 
 me see." 
 
 Sarah, however, could see something else. The blow 
 had met already with some success. And she was fully 
 determined to follow up a first advantage. 
 
 "Well, father" her words were of warriorlike con- 
 ciseness "if you still insist on Mrs. Sanderson's presence 
 here, that is the course we intend to take." 
 
 "Oh !" A futile monosyllable, yet at that moment full 
 of meaning. 
 
 257
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 in 
 
 The ultimatum delivered, Sarah promptly retired. 
 She took away from the interview a pleasing conscious- 
 ness that the honors were with her. And this sense of 
 nascent victory had not grown less by half-past one when 
 she reached Hill Street in time to lunch with Aunt Char- 
 lotte. 
 
 It was a rather cheerless and ascetic meal, but both 
 ladies were in such excellent righting trim that the 
 meagerness of the fare didn't matter. Sarah was sure 
 that she had scored heavily. A well-planted bomb had 
 wrought visible confusion in the ranks of the foe. "He 
 sees that it places him in a most awkward position," was 
 her summary for the grim ears of the arch-plotter. 
 
 "One knew it would." There were times when Aunt 
 Charlotte had a striking personal resemblance to Moltke ; 
 and just now, beyond a doubt, she bore an uncanny like- 
 ness to that successful Prussian. 
 
 "He hates the idea of what he calls washing dirty linen 
 in public." 
 
 "Lacks moral courage as usual." The remark was 
 made in an undertone to the coal-scuttle. 
 
 "I hope ." But Sarah suddenly bit off the end of 
 
 her sentence. After all, there are things one cannot 
 discuss. 
 
 "You hope what?" The eye of Aunt Charlotte fixed 
 her like a kite. 
 
 "No need to say what one hopes," said Sarah dourly. 
 
 "I agree." Aunt Charlotte took a sip of hot water and 
 munched a peptonized biscuit with a kind of savage glee. 
 "But we have to remember that the ice is very thin. One 
 
 258
 
 A BOMB 
 
 has always felt that well, you know what one means. 
 One has felt sometimes that your father ..." 
 
 Sarah agreed. For more years than she cared to re- 
 member she . . . 
 
 "Quite so," Aunt Charlotte took another biscuit. 
 "And everybody must know. . . . However, the time 
 has now come to make an end." 
 
 "I am sure it has," said Sarah. 
 
 "Still we are playing it up very high," said the great 
 tactician. "And we shall do well to remember . . ." 
 
 "I agree," said Sarah cryptically. 
 
 Misgiving they might have, but just now the uppermost 
 feeling was pride in their work and a secret satisfaction. 
 There could be no doubt that the blow had gone home. 
 At last they had taken the measure of his Grace, they 
 had found his limit, the point had been reached beyond 
 which he would not go. 
 
 "An fond a coward," Aunt Charlotte affirmed once 
 more, for the benefit of the coal-scuttle. And then for 
 the benefit of Sarah, with a ring of triumph, "Always 
 sets too high a value on public opinion, my dear." 
 
 Such being the case the conspirators had every right 
 to congratulate themselves. And as if to confirm their 
 victory, there came presently by telephone a most urgent 
 message from Mount Street. Charlotte was to go round 
 at once. 
 
 "There, what did I tell you !" said that lady. And she 
 sublimely ordered her chariot. 
 
 IV 
 
 Enroute to Bridport House, the redoutable Charlotte 
 did not allow herself to question that the foe was at the 
 
 259
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 point of hauling down the flag. His hurry to do so was a 
 little absurd, but it was so like him to throw up the sponge 
 at the mere threat of publicity. This indecent haste to 
 come to terms deepened a contempt which had lent a 
 grim enjoyment to a long hostility. 
 
 However, the reception in store for her ladyship in the 
 smaller library did much to modify her views. She was 
 received by her brother with an air of menace which al- 
 most verged upon truculence. 
 
 "Charlotte" there was a boldness of attack for which 
 she was by no means prepared "the time has now come 
 to make an end of this comedy." 
 
 She fully agreed, yet the sixth sense given to woman 
 found occasion to warn her that she didn't know in the 
 least to what she was agreeing. 
 
 "You would have it so, you know." 
 
 He was asked succinctly to explain. 
 
 "Well, it's a long story." Already there was a note in 
 the mordant voice which his sister heard for the first 
 time. "A long, a strange, and if you will, a romantic 
 story. And let me say that it is by no wish of my own 
 that I tell it. However, Fate is stronger than we are 
 in these little matters, and no doubt wiser." 
 
 "No doubt," said Charlotte drily. But somehow that 
 note in his voice made her uneasy, and the look in his 
 face seemed to hold her every nerve in a vise. "You are 
 speaking in riddles, my friend," she added with a little 
 flutter of impatience. 
 
 "It may be so, but before I go on I want you clearly 
 to understand that it is you, not I, who insist on bring- 
 ing the roof down upon us." 
 
 Charlotte's only reply was to sit very upright, with 
 260
 
 A BOMB 
 
 her sarcastic mouth drawn in a rigid line. She could not 
 understand in the least what her brother was driving 
 at, but in his manner was a new, a strange intensity which 
 somehow gave her a feeling of profound discomfort. 
 
 "You don't realize what you are doing," he said. 
 "Still you are not to blame for that. But the time has 
 come to pull aside the curtain, and to let you know what 
 we all owe a woman who has been cruelly maligned." 
 
 Charlotte stiffened perceptibly at these words. After 
 all, the case was no more and no less than for more 
 than twenty years she had known it to be. Still open 
 confession was good for the soul! It was a sordid 
 intrigue, an intrigue of a nature which simply made her 
 loathe the man opposite. How dare he and with a 
 servant in his own house! If looks could have slain, 
 his Grace would have been spared the necessity to con- 
 tinue a very irksome narrative. 
 
 "Make provision for her and send her away." The 
 sharp voice was like the crack of a gun. 
 
 The Duke raised himself slowly and painfully on his 
 elbows. "Hold your tongue," he said. And his eyes 
 struck at her. "Be good enough to forgo all comment 
 until you have heard the whole story." 
 
 It was trying Charlotte highly, but she set herself de- 
 terminedly to listen. 
 
 "Do you remember when she first came here, as second 
 maid to poor Rachel, a fine, upstanding, gray-eyed Scots 
 girl, one of the most beautiful creatures you ever saw? 
 Do you remember her devotion? No, I see you have 
 forgotten." He closed his eyes for an instant, while the 
 woman opposite kept hers fixed steadily upon him. 
 "Well, I don't excuse myself. But Rachel and I were 
 
 261
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 never happy; the plain truth is we ought not to have 
 married. It was a family arrangement and it recoiled 
 upon us. The Paringtons are an effete lot and the same 
 can be said of us Dinnefords. Nature asked for some- 
 thing else." 
 
 Now that he had unlocked the doors of memory a 
 growing emotion became too much for the Duke, and for 
 a moment he could not go on. His sister, in the mean- 
 time, continued to hold him with pitiless eyes. 
 
 "One might say," he went on, "that it was the call 
 of the blood. I remember her first as the factor's 
 daughter, a long-legged creature in a red tam-o'-shanter, 
 running about the woods of Ardnaleuchan. You haven't 
 forgotten Donald Sanderson, the father?" 
 
 "No, I haven't forgotten him," said Charlotte. 
 
 "That was a fine fellow. 'Man Donald' as our father 
 used to call him, helped me to stalk my first stag. We 
 ranged the woods together days on end. I sometimes 
 think I owe more to that man than to any other human 
 being." 
 
 Again he was silent, but the eyes of his sister never 
 left his face. 
 
 "Yes, it was the call of the blood." He sighed as he 
 passed his handkerchief over his face which was now 
 gray and glistening. "As I say, Rachel and I ought 
 not to have married; we didn't suit each other. Our 
 marriage was a family arrangement. It had almost 
 ceased to be tolerable long before the end, but we kept 
 our compact as well as we could, for we were deter- 
 mined that other people should not suffer. And then 
 came Rachel's long illness, and the girl's wonderful de- 
 votion do you remember how Rachel would rather have 
 
 262
 
 A BOMB 
 
 her with her than any of the nurses? And then she 
 died, and of course that altered everything." 
 
 Lady Wargrave sat as if carved out of stone, her eyes 
 still upon the bleak face of the invalid. "Is that all?" 
 she said. 
 
 "No, it is not. There's more to tell." 
 
 "Tell it then so that we may have done with it." Char- 
 lotte's voice quivered. 
 
 "Very well, since you insist." The softness of the 
 tone was surprising, yet to Charlotte it said nothing. 
 "Rachel died and everything, as I say, was altered. 'Man 
 Donald's' daughter became the only woman who ever 
 really meant anything to me. Somehow I felt I couldn't 
 do without her. And to make an end of a long and 
 tedious story, finally I married her." 
 
 "You married her!" Lady Wargrave sat as if she 
 had swallowed a poker. 
 
 "Yes, but before doing so I made a condition. Things 
 were to go on as they were, provided ..." 
 
 ". . . provided!" Excitement fought curiosity in 
 Charlotte's angry voice. 
 
 ". . . she didn't bring a boy into the world." 
 
 "I'm afraid I don't understand." Charlotte's voice 
 cracked in the middle. 
 
 "It was quite a simple arrangement, and in the cir- 
 cumstances it seemed the best. So long as there was no 
 man child to complicate the thing unduly, the world 
 was to be kept out of our secret. At the time it seemed 
 wise and right to do that. Otherwise it would have 
 meant a fearful upset for everybody." 
 
 "Is one to understand," gasped Charlotte, "that when 
 Rachel died you actually married this this woman?" 
 
 263
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 The Duke nodded. "But I made the condition that 
 our secret should be rigidly guarded always assuming 
 that Fate did not prove too much for us. She went 
 to the little house on the river at Buntisford, where 
 I used to go for the fishing and shooting. And she gave 
 me ten years of happiness the only happiness I have 
 known. And then came my breakdown, since when she 
 has nursed me with more than a wife's devotion." His 
 voice failed suddenly and he lay back in his chair with 
 closed eyes. 
 
 It was left to Charlotte to break the irksome silence 
 that followed. 
 
 "How could you be so mad!" She spoke under her 
 breath not intending her words to be heard, but a quick 
 ear caught them. 
 
 "Nay," he said in the tone that was so new to her, 
 "it was the only thing to do. It was the call of the 
 blood. And this was a devoted woman, a woman one 
 could trust implicitly." 
 
 "Madness, my friend, madness!" 
 
 He shook his head somberly. "All life is a madness, 
 if you will a divine madness. It is a madness that damns 
 the consequences. By taking too much thought for the 
 morrow we entomb ourselves. When Rachel died life 
 meant for me the woman of my choice. And, Charlotte, 
 let me say this" he raised himself in his chair and 
 looked at his sister fixedly "she is the best woman I 
 have ever known." 
 
 For a moment she sat a picture of bewilderment, and 
 then in a voice torn with emotion she said, "Out of re- 
 gard for the others things had better go on as they are. 
 
 264
 
 A BOMB 
 
 But perhaps you will tell me, are there any children of 
 this marriage?" 
 
 "There is one child." 
 
 Charlotte caught her breath sharply. 
 
 "A girl. And in accordance with our compact she 
 has been brought up in complete ignorance of her pa- 
 ternity. It seemed wise that she should know nothing. 
 Her mother had her reared among her own people, be- 
 cause it was her mother's express wish that the children 
 of the first marriage should suffer no prejudice; and at 
 the present time neither the girl herself nor the world 
 at large is any the wiser." 
 
 Charlotte began to breathe a little more freely. "At 
 all events," she said, "that fact seems to confirm one's 
 opinion that things had better go on as they are." 
 
 But her brother continued to gaze at her with somber 
 eyes. "Charlotte," he said very slowly, "you have forced 
 me to tell a story I had hoped would never be told in 
 my lifetime. I have had to suffer your suspicions, but 
 now that you are in the secret, you must share its re- 
 sponsibilities." 
 
 "I don't understand you," said Lady Wargrave bluntly. 
 
 "I will explain. A horrible injustice has been done 
 this girl, the child of the second marriage. So much 
 is clear to you, no doubt?" 
 
 Lady Wargrave's only reply was to tighten her lips. 
 
 "You wish me to be still more explicit?" 
 
 She invited him to be so. 
 
 "Well, as far as I can I will be." His air was simple 
 matter of fact. "But I warn you that we are now at 
 the point where we have to realize that Fate is so much 
 stronger than ourselves." 
 
 265
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 A momentary hesitation drew a harsh, "Go on, let me 
 hear the worst." 
 
 "Can't you guess who this girl is?" he said abruptly. 
 
 "Pray, why should one?" 
 
 "She is the girl Jack wants to marry." 
 
 A long silence followed this announcement. It would 
 have been kind perhaps had he helped his sister to break 
 it, but a clear perception of the first thought in her mind 
 had raised a barrier. With a patience that was half- 
 malicious he waited for a speech that he knew was bound 
 to come. 
 
 "It was to have been expected," she said at last with 
 something perilously like a snarl of subdued anger. 
 
 "Why expected ?" They were the words for which he 
 had waited, and he seized them promptly. 
 
 "She has been too much for you, my friend." 
 
 "Whom do you mean? 
 
 "The mother, of course. She has planned this mar- 
 riage so that she might be revenged upon us here." 
 
 He was quite ready to do Charlotte the justice of allow- 
 ing that it was the only view she was likely to hold. The 
 pressure of mere facts was too heavy. Words of his 
 would be powerless against them; and yet he was de- 
 termined to use every means at his command to clear 
 that suspicion from her mind. 
 
 "I hope you will believe me when I tell you she is 
 entirely innocent," he said in a voice of sudden emotion. 
 
 Charlotte slowly shook her head, but it was a gesture 
 of defeat. She was beyond malice now. 
 
 "Charlotte, I give you my word that she had no part 
 in it." 
 
 266
 
 A BOMB 
 
 His sister looked at him pityingly. "It is impossible 
 to believe that," she said without bitterness. 
 
 "So I see. But it is my duty to convince you." 
 For a moment he fought a growing emotion, and then 
 his mind suddenly made up, he pressed the button of the 
 electric bell that was near his elbow. 
 
 The familar summons was answered by Harriet her- 
 self. As she came into the room her rather scared eyes 
 were caught at once by the profile of the dowager. But 
 the reception in store for her was far from being of 
 the kind she had reason to expect, for which she had 
 had too little time to prepare. 
 
 To begin with Lady Wargrave rose to receive her. 
 And that stately and considered act was supplemented 
 by the simple words of the Duke. 
 
 "She knows everything," he said from the depths of 
 his invalid chair, without a suspicion of theatricality. 
 
 Harriet, all the color struck from her face, shrank back, 
 a picture of horror and timidity. 
 
 "Sit down, my dear, and let us hold a little family 
 council." That note of intimacy and affection was so 
 strange in Charlotte's ear, that it hit her almost as hard 
 as the previous words had hit the wife of his bosom. 
 However, the two ladies sat, and the Duke with a non- 
 chalance that hardly seemed credible, went on in a 
 quietly domestic voice, as he turned to Harriet again. 
 "We shall value your help and advice, if you feel in- 
 clined to give it, in this matter of Mary and the young 
 man Dinneford." 
 
 At this amazing speech Lady Wargrave stirred un- 
 267
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 easily on her cushion of thorns. She breathed hard, her 
 mordant mouth grew set, in her grim eyes were unutter- 
 able things. 
 
 "One moment, Johnnie," she interposed. "Does Mrs. 
 er Sanderson quite understand what it means to us ?" 
 
 "Perfectly," he said, "no one better." The depth of 
 the tone expressed far more than those dry words. "It 
 may help matters," he added, turning to Harriet again, 
 "if I say at once that we are going to ask you to make 
 two decisions in the name of the people you have served 
 so long and so faithfully. And the first is this : Since, 
 as you will see I have been forced, much against my will, 
 to let a third person into our secret, you have now the 
 opportunity of taking your true position in the sight of 
 the world." 
 
 Lady Wargrave shivered. Somehow this was a turn 
 of the game she had not been able to foresee. 
 
 "That is to say," the Duke went on, "you have now, 
 as far as I am concerned, full liberty to assume your true 
 style and dignity as mistress here. For more than twenty 
 years you have sacrificed yourself for others, but the 
 time has now come when you need do so no longer. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 Harriet did not speak. Lady Wargrave was silent 
 also, but a kind of stony horror was freezing her. The 
 whole situation had become so fantastic that she felt the 
 inadequacy of her emotions. 
 
 "You shall have a perfectly free hand," the Duke went 
 on. "Assume your position now, and good care shall 
 be taken that you are amply maintained in it. What do 
 you say, my dear?" he added gently. 
 
 268
 
 A BOMB 
 
 Tears were melting her now, and she was unable to 
 speak. 
 
 "Well, think it over," said his Grace. "And be as- 
 sured that whichever course you take, it will be the right 
 one. We owe you more than we can repay. However, 
 that is only one issue, and there is another, which is 
 hardly less important." 
 
 Lady Wargrave stirred again on her cushion. For a 
 moment there was not a sound to be heard in the room. 
 
 "You see," the Duke went on, "I've been giving 
 anxious thought to to this girl of ours. And I really 
 don't see, having regard to all the circumstances, why 
 justice should any longer be denied her. No matter who 
 the man is, he is lucky to get her. And, as I understand, 
 they are a very devoted couple." 
 
 "Oh, yes, they are!" The words were Harriet's and 
 they were uttered in a tone broken by emotion. 
 
 "Well, you shall make the decision," he said. "You 
 know, of course, how the matter stands." Harriet 
 bowed her head in assent, and his Grace turned an eye 
 bright with malice upon the Dowager. "You see, Char- 
 lotte, this girl of ours, brought up in a very humble 
 way, and left to fight her own battle, under the provi- 
 dence of the good God, absolutely declines to come 
 among us unless she has the full and free consent of the 
 head of the clan. So far that consent has not been given, 
 and if in the course of the next week it is not forth- 
 coming, the young man Dinneford threatens to return 
 to Canada." 
 
 "I see." The walls of Charlotte's world had fallen in, 
 her deepest feelings had been outraged, but she was still 
 perfect mistress of herself. She turned her hard eyes 
 
 269
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 upon Harriet, but in them now was a look very differ- 
 ent from the one that had been wont to regard the house- 
 keeper. 
 
 Much had happened in a very little time, but to the 
 last a fine tactician, Charlotte had contrived to keep her 
 head. She was in the presence of calamity, she had met 
 a blow that would have broken a weaker person in 
 pieces, but already a line of action was formed in her 
 mind. One thing alone could save them, and that the 
 continued goodwill of the woman they had so long mis- 
 judged and traduced. 
 
 "Mrs. Sanderson" she used the old name uncon- 
 sciously "we owe you a great deal." It was not easy 
 to make the admission, even if common justice rather 
 than policy called for it. "I hope now you will let us 
 add to the debt." 
 
 The Duke was forced to admire the dignity and the 
 directness of the appeal. He knew how hard she had 
 been hit. But that was not all. Marking his sister's 
 tone, intently watching her grim face, he saw how com- 
 pletely her attitude had changed. The other woman had 
 conquered, but in spite of all he had suffered at the 
 hands of Charlotte, it was difficult not to feel a certain 
 respect as well as a certain pity for her in the hour of 
 her defeat. 
 
 By this, Harriet, too, had become mistress of herself. 
 She, also, had suffered much, but she had never played 
 for victory, and she was very far from the thought of it 
 now. "I have but one wish," she said. 
 
 "And that is?" His tone was strangely gentle for 
 her voice had failed suddenly. 
 
 "To do what is right." 
 
 270
 
 A BOMB 
 
 The simplicity of the words held them silent. Brother 
 and sister looked at her with a kind of awe in their eyes. 
 It was as if another world had opened to their rather 
 bewildered gaze. 
 
 "I want to do right to those who have been so good to 
 me, and to my father and my grandfather before me." 
 
 Somehow that speech, gentleness itself, yet sharp as 
 a sword, brought the blood to Lady Wargrave's face. 
 In a flash she saw and felt the justification of her 
 brother's amazing deed. This devoted woman in her self- 
 lessness held the master key to life and Fate ; in a flash 
 of insight she saw that groundlings and grovelers like 
 themselves were powerless before it. Somehow those 
 words, that bearing, solved the mystery. She could no 
 longer blame her brother ; he had been caught in the toils 
 of an irresistible force. 
 
 "Mrs. Sanderson" there was reverence now in the 
 harsh voice "you are the best judge of what is right 
 We are content to leave the matter to your discretion." 
 Even if the accomplished tactician was uppermost in 
 Charlotte's words, in the act of uttering them was a large 
 rather noble simplicity. 
 
 The Duke nodded acquiescence. 
 
 "I should like the present arrangement to go on," said 
 Harriet. "Perhaps the truth will have to be known 
 some time, but let it come out after we are dead, when 
 it can hurt nobody." 
 
 Lady Wargrave drew a long breath of relief and grati- 
 tude. 
 
 "You are very wise," she said. 
 
 But the Duke took her up at once with a saturnine 
 271
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 smile. "You seem to forget, Charlotte, that the existing 
 arrangement can no longer go on." 
 
 "Pray, why not?" 
 
 "You have just been kind enough to tell us," he said 
 bitingly, "that Sarah and the girls are going to live with 
 you at Hill Street except, of course, on one condition !" 
 
 Their eyes met. Suddenly they smiled frostily at each 
 other. 
 
 "If you care to leave the matter to me," said Char- 
 lotte, "I will see to that." 
 
 "But that woman, Sarah," he persisted. "She's so 
 obstinate that we may have to tell her." 
 
 Charlotte shook her head doughtily. "I think I shall 
 be able to manage her." 
 
 "So be it." He smiled grimly. "Anyhow we shall be 
 very glad to leave that matter in your hands." 
 
 "With perfect safety, I think you may do that." And 
 Charlotte, sore and embittered as she was, rounded off 
 this comfortable assurance with a long sigh of relief.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 THERE," cried Mary upon a note of triumph. 
 An excited wave of that delightful journal, the 
 Morning Post, accompanied the paean. And then 
 it was hurled across the breakfast-table with deft pre- 
 cision into the lap of Milly. 
 
 "A marriage has been arranged," said the courier of 
 Hymen, "and will shortly take place between Charles, 
 only son of the late Simeon Cheesewright and Mrs. 
 Cheesewright, of Streatham Hill, and Mildred Ulrica, 
 younger daughter of the late H. Blandish Wren and Mrs. 
 Wren, 5, Victoria Mansions, Broad Place, Knights- 
 bridge, W." 
 
 Again arose the triumphant cry. 
 
 But Mrs. Wren, excavating the interior of a boiled 
 egg, felt it to be her duty to check this unbridled en- 
 thusiasm. For some days past, with rather mournful 
 iteration, she had let it be known that the impending 
 announcement could not hope to receive her unqualified 
 approval. 
 
 In the first place, as she frankly admitted, the Marquis 
 had spoiled her. She had to confess that he had proved 
 
 273
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 sadly lacking in backbone when brought to the test, but 
 his sternest critics could not deny that "before every- 
 thing he was a gentleman." 
 
 Mrs. Wren ascribed her own pure taste in manhood 
 to the fact that she had begun her career in the legitimate 
 drama under the aegis of Mr. Painswick at the Theater 
 Royal, Edinburgh. He, too, had been before everything 
 a gentleman. Mr. Painswick had shaped Lydia Mifflin, 
 as she was then, in his own inimitable mold. Upon a 
 day she was to play Grace to his Digby Grant in "The 
 Two Roses." Then it was, as she had always felt, that 
 she had touched her high-water mark; and the signal 
 occasion was ever afterwards a beacon in her life. From 
 that bright hour the Mr. Painswick standard had regu- 
 lated the fair Lydia's survey of the human male. Even 
 the late lamented Mr. H. Blandish Wren, who was with- 
 out a peer in "straight" comedy, whose Steggles in "Lon- 
 don Assurance" had never been surpassed, even that pala- 
 din . Still it isn't quite fair to give away State 
 
 secrets ! 
 
 Mrs. Wren had once said of Charles Cheesewright 
 "that he was not out of the top drawer." However, if 
 he was not of the caste of Vere de Vere she had to own 
 that "he had points." He was one of those young men 
 who mean more than they say, who do better than they 
 promise, who clothe their thoughts with actions rather 
 than words. Also, he had two motors a Daimler and 
 a Rolls-Royce, he had rooms in the Albany, and though 
 perhaps just a little inclined to overdress, he had such 
 a sure taste in jewelry that he took his financee once a 
 week to Cartier's. And beyond everything else, he had 
 
 274
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 the supreme advantage over my lord that he knew his 
 own mind pretty clearly. 
 
 In the opinion of Princess Bedalia, Milly was an ex- 
 tremely lucky girl. Her young man was a simple, good 
 fellow, honest as the day, he was incapable of any kind 
 of meanness, he was very rich, and, what was hardly 
 less important, he was very much in love. Milly, how- 
 ever, who had her mother's knack of seeing men and 
 events objectively, did not yield a final graceful assent 
 until she extorted a promise from Mr. Charles that he 
 would suffer the rape of his mustache, at the best a mere 
 scrub of an affair, and that he would solemnly eschew 
 yellow plush hats which hats made him look like a 
 piano- tuner. 
 
 Still, on this heroic morning, in the middle of July, 
 Mrs. Wren seemed less pleased with the world than she 
 had reason to be. She did some sort of justice to her 
 egg, but she wouldn't look at the marmalade. If the 
 truth must be told, a rather histrionic mind was still 
 haunted by the shade of the noble Marquis. As Milly, 
 in one of her moments of engaging candor, had told 
 Mary already, as far as her mother was concerned Wrex- 
 ham had simply queered the pitch for everybody. 
 
 Certainly that lady felt it to be her duty to rebuke 
 Mary's enthusiasm. There was nothing to make a song 
 about. Milly was simply throwing herself away. If 
 everyone had had their rights, she would have been Lady 
 W., with a coronet on her notepaper. As it was, there 
 was really nothing so very wonderful in being the wife 
 of an overdressed tobacconist. 
 
 Mary cried "Shame," and for her pains was sternly 
 admonished. One who has made such hay of her own 
 
 275
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 dazzling matrimonial chances must not venture to say a 
 word. She who might have queened it among the high- 
 est in the land merely by substituting the big word "Yes" 
 for the small word "No" must forever hold her peace on 
 this vexed subject. But Mary was in such wild spirits 
 at the announcement in the Morning Post that she re- 
 fused to be browbeaten. She continued to sing the 
 praises of "Charley" in spite of the clear annoyance of 
 Mrs. Wren. The good lady was unable to realize that 
 the girl was trying with might and main to stifle an ache 
 that was almost intolerable. 
 
 "What ho!" Milly suddenly exclaimed, withdrawing 
 a slightly retrousse but decidedly charming nose from 
 Page 5 of the Morning Post, "so they've actually made 
 Uncle Jacob a Bart." 
 
 "My dear, you mean a baronet. Who? made who 
 a baronet?" Mrs. Wren laid down an imperious egg- 
 spoon. 
 
 "Jacob Cheesewright, Esquire, M.P. for Bradbury, a 
 rich manufacturer and prominent philanthropist. He's 
 in the honor list just issued by the King's govern- 
 ment." 
 
 "Hooray!" Mary indulged in an enthusiastic wave 
 of the tea-pot which happily was rather less than half 
 full. "Which means, my dear Miss Wren, that one of 
 these days there's just a chance of your being my lady." 
 
 "As though that could possibly matter!" cried Milly 
 upon a note of the finest scorn imaginable. 
 
 "As though that could possibly matter!" Mary's re- 
 production of the note in question was so humorously 
 exact that it sent her victim into a fit of laughter. 
 
 But Mrs. Wren had her word to say on the subject. In 
 276
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 her opinion, which was that of all sensible people, it mat- 
 tered immensely. 
 
 "As though it could !" persisted Milly. 
 
 "My dear," said Mrs. Wren, "that is shallow and ig- 
 norant. A baronetcy is a baronetcy. All people of 
 breeding think so, anyway." 
 
 The prospect of Uncle Jacob's elevation had already 
 been canvassed in Broad Place by Charles, his nephew. 
 There was evidently something in the wind Whitehall 
 way. Uncle Jacob had professed such a heroic indif- 
 ference to Aunt Priscilla's intelligent anticipations, that 
 even Charles, his nephew, the simplest of simple souls, 
 and a singularly unworldly young man, had been con- 
 strained to take an interest in the matter. As for Aunt 
 Priscilla, she had been in such a state of flutter for the 
 past two months, that the upper servants at Thole Park, 
 Maidstone, even had visions of an earldom. Still, as 
 Mr. Bryant, the butler, who in his distinguished youth 
 had graduated at Bridport House, Mayfair, remarked to 
 Mrs. Jennings the housekeeper in his statesmanlike way, 
 "The Limit for baby's underclothing is a baronetcy." 
 
 ii 
 
 Breakfast was just at an end when the trim parlor- 
 maid came into the room with a portentous-looking 
 milliner's box. It had that moment arrived, and on ex- 
 amination was found to contain a long coat of sable. 
 This enchanting garment was with Mary's best wishes 
 for future happiness. 
 
 The donor was scolded roundly for her lavishness, but 
 Milly was delighted by the gift, and Mrs. Wren, who 
 
 277
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 had professed a stern determination to be no longer 
 friends with Mary was rather touched. She well knew 
 that she was a person "to bank on." Besides, Mrs. Wren 
 had an honest admiration for a fine talent and the im- 
 assumingness with which it was worn. She was in- 
 capable of making an enemy, for her one idea was to 
 bring pleasure to other people. If ever human creature 
 had been designed for happiness it must have been this 
 girl, yet none could have been more fully bent on casting 
 it willfully away. 
 
 As a fact, both Milly and her mother had been much 
 troubled by the course of recent events. The previous 
 afternoon Jack had taken a sad farewell of his friends 
 in Broad Place. His passage was already booked in the 
 Arcadia, which that very Saturday was to sail from 
 Liverpool to New York. All his hopes had proved futile, 
 all his arguments vain. Mary could not be induced to 
 change her mind, which even at the eleventh hour he had 
 ventured to think was just possible. In those last des- 
 perate moments, strength of will had enabled her to stick 
 to her resolve. And in the absence of any intimation 
 from Bridport House the Tenderfoot had been driven 
 to carry out his threat. Yet up till the very last he had 
 tried his utmost to persuade the girl he loved to merge 
 her own life in his and accompany him to that new world 
 where a career awaited him. 
 
 Perhaps these efforts had not been wholly reasonable. 
 She had a real vocation for the theater if ever girl had, 
 even if he had a real vocation for jobbing land. But 
 allowance has to be made for a strong man in love. He 
 was in sorry case, poor fellow, but her sense of duty to 
 
 278
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 others was so strong, that even if it meant tragic un- 
 happiness for both, as it surely must, she still sought 
 the courage not to yield. 
 
 Such a decision was going to cost a very great deal. 
 The previous afternoon, at the moment of parting, 
 she had been fully aware of that, and hour by hour 
 since she had realized it with a growing intensity. A 
 stern effort of the will had been needed for Princess 
 Bedalia to achieve her five hundred-and-sixty-second ap- 
 pearance that evening; she had spent a miserable night 
 and now, in spite of the whole-heartedness with which 
 she threw herself into Milly's affairs, her laugh was 
 pitched a little too high. 
 
 Since the visit to Bridport House she had come to 
 know her own mind quite definitely. She was deeply in 
 love with Jack, but unless the powers that were gave 
 consent, she was now resolved never to marry him. In 
 vain her friends continued to assure her that such an 
 attitude was wrong. In vain the Tenderfoot declared 
 it to be simply preposterous. Cost what it might, it had 
 become a point of honor not to yield. To one of such 
 clear vision, with, as it seemed, a rather uncanny in- 
 sight into the workings of worlds beyond her own, it was 
 of vital importance to study the interests of Bridport 
 House. 
 
 Milly, even if very angry with her friend, could not 
 help admiring this devotion to a quixotic sense of right, 
 and the force of character which faced the issue so un- 
 flinchingly. She could not begin to understand the point 
 of view, but she well knew what it was going to cost. 
 And this morning, in spite of the pleasant and piquant 
 
 279
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 drama of her own affairs, she could not rid herself of a 
 feeling of distress on Mary's account. Now it had come 
 "to footing the bill," a heavy price would have to be 
 paid. And to Milly's shrewd, engagingly material mind, 
 the whole situation was exasperating. 
 
 So much for the thoughts uppermost in a loyal heart, 
 while the misguided cause of them danced a pas seul in 
 honor of the morning's news. Milly, indeed, as she 
 gazed in the glass over the chimney-piece to see what 
 sort of a figure she made in the coat of sable, was much 
 nearer tears than was either seemly or desirable. Still, 
 in spite of that, she was able to muster a healthy curi- 
 osity upon the subject of her appearance. Fur has a 
 trick of making common people look more common, and 
 uncommon people look more uncommon, a trite fact of 
 which Milly, the astute, was well aware, It was pleasant 
 to find at any rate that a moment's fleeting survey set all 
 her doubts at rest upon that important point. The coat, 
 a dream of beauty, became her quite miraculously. What 
 a virtue there was in that deep, rich gloss ! It gave new 
 values to the eyes, the hair, the rounded chin, even the 
 piquant nose of the wearer. 
 
 "You're a dear !" Milly burst out, as she turned aside 
 from the glass. But the person to whom the tribute was 
 offered was quite absorbed in looking through the open 
 window. Indeed, at that very moment a succession of 
 royal toots from a motor horn ascended from the pre- 
 cincts of Broad Place, and Mary ran out on to the 
 veranda with a view halloa. Then, her face full of 
 humor and eloquence, she turned to look back into the 
 room with the thrilling announcement : "Charley's here !" 
 
 280
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 lit 
 
 In two minutes, or rather less as time is measured in 
 Elysium, Mr. Charles Cheesewright had entered that 
 pleasant room with all the gay assurance of an accepted 
 suitor. 
 
 "How awfully well it reads, doesn't it?" he said, taking 
 up the Morning Post with the fingers of a lover. 
 
 "Uncle Jacob's baronetcy ?" said Mary, with an eye of 
 bold mischief. 
 
 "Oh, no ! That's a bit of a bore," said Mr. Charles 
 with a polite grimace. 
 
 "Why a bore?" 
 
 "Uncle Jacob has no heir and he's trying to arrange 
 for me to be the second bart." 
 
 Princess Bedalia looked with a royal air at her favorite. 
 "The truth is, dear Charles, you are shamelessly pleased 
 about the whole matter." 
 
 "Well, ye-es, I am." Charles was hopelessly cornered, 
 but like any other self-respecting Briton he was quite 
 determined to put as good a face as possible upon a most 
 damaging admission. "I am so awfully pleased for 
 Milly. And, of course, for Uncle Jacob." 
 
 "Not to mention Aunt Priscilla," interposed Milly. It 
 was her proud boast that she had already tried a fall 
 with Aunt Priscilla, had tried it, moreover, pretty suc- 
 cessfully. That lady, within her own orbit, was a great 
 light, but Miss Wren had proved very well able for her 
 so far. The Aunt Priscillas of the world were not going 
 to harry Miss Wren, and it was by no means clear that 
 this simple fact did not count as much to her honor in 
 
 281
 
 THE JIME SPIRIT 
 
 the sight of Uncle Jacob as it undoubtedly did in the 
 sight of Charles, his nephew. 
 
 At any rate, Mr. Charles had come that morning to 
 Broad Place on a diplomatic mission. It seemed that 
 Uncle Jacob had made the sporting suggestion that the 
 happy pair should motor down to Thole Park, Maidstone, 
 for luncheon, that Charles, whose only merit in the sight 
 of heaven was that he was "plus one" at North Berwick, 
 should afterwards give careful consideration to the new 
 nine-hole course which had been laid out in front of the 
 house by the renowned Alec Thomson of Cupar, while 
 Milly had a little heart-to-heart talk with Aunt Priscilla. 
 
 In a word, it began to look like being quite a good 
 world for Charles and Milly. And even Mrs. Wren was 
 constrained to admit it. Sheer human merit was becom- 
 ing a little too much for the higher criticism. And daily 
 these twain were discovering new beauties in each other. 
 For one thing, Charles's upper lip was now as smooth 
 as a baby's, and a mouth so firm and manly was thereby 
 disclosed that it really seemed a pity to hide it. More- 
 over, for a fortnight past, in subtle, unsuspected ways he 
 had been bursting forth into fine qualities. This morn- 
 ing, for instance, he seemed to have added a cubit to his 
 stature. He was in the habit of saying in regard to 
 himself that "he was not a flyer," but really if you saw 
 him at the angle Milly did, and you came to think about 
 him in her rational manner, it began to seem after all 
 he might turn out a bit of one. If only he could be 
 persuaded to give up his piano-tuner's hat there would 
 be hope for him anyway. 
 
 282
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 IV 
 
 Milly had scarcely left the room to put on her things 
 before she was back in it. And she returned in such 
 a state of excitement that she could hardly speak. The 
 cause of it, moreover, following hard upon her heels, was 
 a wholly unexpected visitor. 
 
 "He was just coming in at the front door," Milly 
 explained, as soon as the state of her emotions would 
 allow her to do so. "I was never so taken aback in my 
 life. Why, a feather would have downed me." 
 
 In that moment of drama it was not too much to say 
 that a feather would have had an equal effect upon Mary. 
 If human resolve stood for anything, and it stood for a 
 good deal in the case of Jack Dinneford, he should have 
 been on his way to Liverpool. At six o'clock the previ- 
 ous evening they had parted heroically, not expecting 
 to see each other again. For seventeen hours or so, 
 they had been steeling their wills miserably. About 
 2 a.m., the hour when ghosts walk and pixies dance the 
 foxtrot, both had felt that, after all, they would not be 
 strong enough to bear the self-inflicted blow. But day- 
 light had found them true to the faith that was in them. 
 She had just enough fortitude not to telephone a change 
 of mind, he was just man enough to decide not to miss 
 the 10.5 from Euston. 
 
 Still, when the best has been said for it, the human 
 will is but a trivial affair. Man is not much when the 
 Fates begin to weave their magic web. A taxi was actu- 
 ally at the door of Jack's chambers, nay, his luggage had 
 even been strapped into the front of the vehicle, when 
 there came an urgent message by telephone from Brid- 
 
 283
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 port House to say that his Grace most particularly de- 
 sired that Mr. Dinneford and Miss Lawrence would come 
 to luncheon at half-past one. 
 
 What was a man to do? To obey the command was, 
 of course, to forgo all hope of sailing by the Arcadia. 
 To ignore it was to forgo all hope of entering Elysium. 
 In justice to Mr. Dinneford it took him rather less than 
 one minute to decide. His servant was promptly or- 
 dered to unship his gear and dismiss the taxi. 
 
 It was the nearest possible shave. His Grace had 
 run matters so fine, that had he delayed his communica- 
 tion another two minutes, the Tenderfoot would have 
 been on his way to New York. Some miraculous change 
 of plan had occurred at the fifty-ninth minute of the 
 eleventh hour. Exactly what it was must now be the 
 business of a distracted lover to find out. 
 
 Jack's totally unexpected return to Broad Place was 
 in itself an epic. And his unheralded appearance had 
 such an effect upon Mary, upon Milly, upon Mrs. Wren, 
 that he regretted not having had the forethought to tele- 
 phone his change of plans. He came as a bolt from 
 the blue, bringing with him an immensely difficult 
 moment ; and the presence of Mr. Charles Cheesewright, 
 of whom Jack only knew by hearsay, undoubtedly added 
 to its embarrassments. 
 
 Before anything could be done, even before the excited 
 Milly could interpose a "Tell me, is it all right?" it was 
 necessary for these paladins to be made known to each 
 other. There was wariness on the part of both in the 
 process. Neither was quite able to accept the other on 
 trust. But a brief taking of the moral temperature by 
 two members of the sex which inclines to reserve con- 
 
 284
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 vinced the one that Wrexham's successor had the air and 
 the look of a good chap, and what was quite as impor- 
 tant, convinced the other that the heir to the dukedom 
 was not the least of a swankpot. All of which was so 
 far excellent. 
 
 A desire to ask a thousand questions was simply burn- 
 ing holes in Milly. But she had to endure the torments 
 of martyrdom. Questions could not be asked in the 
 presence of Charles. It called for a great effort to be- 
 have as if the bottom had not fallen out of the universe. 
 In the most heroic way she kept the conversation at a 
 diplomatic level, remarking among other things that it 
 was an ideal day for motoring, which finally reminded 
 her that she must really go and put on her hat. 
 
 "And don't forget a thick veil," Mary called after her, 
 in a voice of superhuman detachment. 
 
 The business of not letting the innocent Charles into 
 the secret was a superb piece of comedy. There is really 
 no need to write novels or to go to the play. They are 
 the stuff our daily lives are made of. The way in which 
 these four people set themselves to hoodwink a Simple 
 Simon of a fifth was quite a rich bit of humor. Little 
 recked Mr. Charles Cheesewright that the heavens had 
 just opened in Broad Place. 
 
 At last Milly returned cap-a-pie, and then by the mercy 
 of Divine Providence Mr. Charles suddenly remembered 
 that it was a long way to Maidstone and that it was now 
 a quarter past eleven. 
 
 "I'm quite ready when you are," said Milly to her 
 cavalier, with all the guile of a young female serpent. 
 Mr. Charles shook hands gravely and Britishly all round, 
 and Mary wished them a pleasant journey, and Mrs. 
 
 285
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 Wren "hoped they would wrap up well," and then Milly 
 stepped deftly back three paces from the door, saying, 
 "You know the way down, Charley," as clear an intima- 
 tion as any young man could desire that it was up to him 
 to lead it. 
 
 Charles led the way accordingly, and then came Milly's 
 chance. 
 
 "What has happened?" 
 
 "Uncle Albert has sent for us." 
 
 "For both?" 
 
 "For both!" 
 
 Just for a moment Mary's feelings nearly proved too 
 much for her. Having come to despair of Bridport 
 House, there had been no reason to hope for this sudden 
 change of front. She simply couldn't fathom it. That 
 was also true of Milly. And as the significance of the 
 whole thing rushed upon that imperious creature, she 
 turned to Mary in the manner of Helen, the Spartan 
 Queen. "A last word to you, Miss Lawrence!" Her 
 voice trembled with excitement. "If you do anything 
 idiotic, I'll never speak to you again. And that's 
 official!" 
 
 v 
 
 As the crow flies, it is just nine minutes from Broad 
 Place to Bridport House. Therefore they had time to 
 burn. And as it was such a perfect day for motoring, 
 it was a day equally well adapted for sitting under the 
 trees in the Park. 
 
 Force majeure was applied so vigorously by Mrs. 
 Wren, with timely aid from the Tenderfoot, that Mary 
 was not given half a chance to jib at this new and amaz- 
 
 286
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 ing turn of fortune's shuttle. She must wear her new 
 hat with the roses Mrs. Wren. She must wear 
 Raquin's biscuit-colored masterpiece Mr. Dinneford. 
 Her diamond earrings thought Mrs. Wren. Mr. Dinne- 
 ford thought her old-fashioned seed pearl. There was 
 never really any question of her going to luncheon at 
 Bridport House at 1.30. Her friends and counselors did 
 not even allow it to arise. The only thing that need 
 trouble her was how she looked when she got there. 
 
 En route she made a picture of immense distinction 
 beyond a doubt. Whether it was the hat with the roses, 
 or the sunshine of July, or the dress of simple muslin, 
 which on second thoughts seemed more in keeping with 
 the occasion than the Raquin masterpiece, and in the 
 opinion of Mrs. Wren had the further merit "that it gave 
 her eyes a chance," or her favorite earrings which Aunt 
 Harriet had given her as a little girl ; or the fact that Jack 
 walked beside her, and that Happiness is still the greatest 
 of Court painters, who shall say? but in the course of 
 a pilgrimage from Albert Gate to the Marble Arch and 
 half way back again, she certainly attracted more than 
 her share of the public notice. In fact, with her fine 
 height and her lithe grace she actually provoked a hook- 
 nosed, hard-featured dame in a sort of high-hung 
 barouche to turn in the most deliberate manner and look 
 at her. Or it may have been because the Tenderfoot in 
 passing had raised a reluctant, semi-ironical hat. 
 
 "Aunt Charlotte," said he. 
 
 "I hope Aunt Charlotte is not as disagreeable as she 
 looks," was Mary's thought, but doubtless remembering 
 in the nick of time Talleyrand's famous maxim, she 
 merely said, "What a clever face !" 
 
 1*7
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 "Is it?" said Jack, unconcernedly. But his mind was 
 on other things, perhaps. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it was on other things. 
 
 "Let's sit here five minutes," he said, as they came to 
 a couple of vacant chairs. "Then I'll tell you a bit of 
 news." 
 
 They sat accordingly. And the bit of news was the 
 following : 
 
 "Muriel's hooked it." 
 
 Respect for her mother tongue caused Mary to demand 
 a repetition of this cryptic statement. 
 
 "Hooked it with her Radical," Jack amplified. "They 
 were married yesterday morning, quite quietly, 'owing 
 to the indisposition of his Grace,' the papers say. And 
 they are now in Scotland on their honeymoon." 
 
 "Let us hope they'll be happy," said Mary. "She has 
 a very brilliant husband, at any rate." 
 
 "Not a doubt of that. If brains breed happiness, 
 they'll be all right." 
 
 But do brains breed happiness? that was the question 
 in their minds at the moment. Aunt Charlotte had 
 brains undoubtedly, but as she passed them three minutes 
 since no one could have said that she looked happy. The 
 Duke had brains, but few would have said that he was 
 happy. Mary herself had brains, and they had brought 
 her within an ace of wrecking her one chance of real 
 happiness. 
 
 They were in the midst of this philosophical inquiry, 
 when Chance, that prince of magicians, gave the kaleido- 
 scope a little loving shake, and hey ! presto ! the other side 
 of the picture was laughingly presented to them. 
 
 A rather lop-sided young man in a brown bowler hat 
 288
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 was marching head in air along the gravel in front of 
 them. One shoulder was a little higher than its neigh- 
 bor, his clothes looked shabby in the sun of July, his 
 gait was slightly grotesque, yet upon his face was a smile 
 of rare complacency. In one hand he held a small girl 
 of five, and in the other a small boy to match her; and 
 that may have been why at this precise moment he looked 
 as if he had just acquired a controlling" interest in the 
 planet. And yet there must have been some deeper, 
 subtler reason for this young man's air of power mingled 
 with beatitude. 
 
 Rather mean of mansion as he was, it was impossible 
 for two shrewd spectators of the human comedy on the 
 Park chairs to ignore him as he swung gayly by. In 
 spite of his impossible hat and his weird trousers, the 
 mere look on his face was almost cosmic in its signifi- 
 cance, he was so clearly on terms with heaven. But in 
 any case he would have forcibly entered their scheme of 
 existence. Just as he came level with them he chanced 
 to lower his gaze abruptly and by doing so caught the 
 fascinated eyes of Mary fixed upon his face. 
 
 "Good morning, Miss Lawrence. What a nice day!" 
 
 He was not in a position to take off his hat, but he 
 enforced a hearty greeting with a superb bow, and passed 
 jauntily on. 
 
 The Tenderfoot could not help being amused. "Who's 
 your friend ?" He turned a quizzical eye upon a counte- 
 nance glowing with mischief. 
 
 "That's Alf." 
 
 "In the name of all that's wonderful, who is Alf?" 
 The tone was expostulation all compact, but as mirth was 
 
 289
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 frankly uppermost, even the most sensitive democrat 
 could hardly have resented it. 
 
 "He's a man on a newspaper." 
 
 "I see," said the Tenderfoot. But somehow it didn't 
 explain him. 
 
 "An old friend, my dear, and he's now the Press, with 
 a capital letter. The other day he interviewed me for 
 his paper." 
 
 "How could you let him?" gasped the Tenderfoot. 
 
 "For the sake of old times." Suddenly she loosed her 
 famous note. "That little man is in my stars. He dates 
 back to my earliest flapperdom, when my great ambition 
 was to kill him. He was the green-grocer's boy in the 
 next street, and he used to call after me : 
 
 " 'I am Mary Plantagenet ; 
 Who would imagine it? 
 Eyes full of liquid fire, 
 
 Hair bright as jet; 
 No one knows my hist'ry, 
 I am wrapt in myst'ry, 
 I am the She-ro 
 Of a penny novelette.' " 
 
 "Well, I hope," said the Tenderfoot, "you jolly well 
 lammed into him for such a piece of infernal cheek." 
 
 "Yes, I did," she confessed. "One day I turned on 
 him and boxed his ears, and I'm bound to say he's been 
 very respectful ever since. It was very amusing to be 
 reminded of his existence when he turned up the other 
 day. He paid me all sorts of extravagant compliments ; 
 he seems to hold himself responsible for any success I 
 may have had." 
 
 "Nice of him." 
 
 "He says he has written me up for the past two years ; 
 290
 
 ARDORS AND ENDURANCES 
 
 and that when he edits a paper of his own, and he's 
 quite made up his mind that it won't be long before he 
 does, I can have my portrait in it as often as I want." 
 
 "My Lord!" 
 
 "All very honestly meant," laughed Mary Plantagenet. 
 "It is very charming of Alf a nom de guerre, by the 
 way. His real name is Michael Conner, but now he's 
 Alf of the Millennium. And the other day at our inter- 
 view, when he came to talk of old times, somehow I 
 couldn't help loving him." 
 
 "What, love-that!" 
 
 "There's something to love in everybody, my dear. It's 
 really very easy to like people if you hunt for the posi- 
 tive if that's not a high brow way of putting it ! The 
 other day when Alf began to talk of his ambitions, and 
 of the wife he had married, and of the little Alfs and 
 the little Alfesses, I thought the more there are of you 
 the merrier, because after all you are rather fine, you 
 are good for the community, and you make this old world 
 go round. Anyhow we began as enemies, and now we 
 are friends 'for keeps,' and both Alf and I are so much 
 the better for knowing it." 
 
 "I wonder!" 
 
 "Of course we are. And when Alf is a great editor, 
 as he means to be, and he is able to carry out his great 
 scheme of founding a Universal Love and Admiration 
 Society, for the purpose of bringing out the best in 
 everybody, including foreign nations his very own idea, 
 and to my mind a noble one he has promised to make 
 me an original member." 
 
 "A very original member!" The Tenderfoot scoffed. 
 
 But sitting there in the eye of the morning, with the 
 291
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 gentle leaves whispering over his head, and the finest 
 girl in the land by his side drawing a fanciful picture of 
 "Alf" on the gravel with the point of her sunshade, he 
 was not in the mood for mockery. The world was so 
 full of a number of things, that it seemed but right and 
 decent to have these large and generous notions. Let 
 every atom and molecule that made up the pageant of 
 human experience overflow in love and admiration of 
 its neighbor. He was a dud himself, his dwelling-place 
 was en parterre, yet as heaven was above him and She 
 was at his elbow, there was no denying that the little man 
 who had just passed out of sight had laid hold somehow 
 of a divine idea. 
 
 Yes, the ticket for the future was Universal Love and 
 Admiration, at any rate for the heirs of the good God. 
 Not a doubt that! He didn't pretend to be a philoso- 
 pher, or a poet, but even he could see that yonder little 
 scug in the brown pot hat was a big proposition. 
 
 "I wonder," he mused aloud, "how the little bounder 
 came to think of that?" 
 
 "He says it came to him in his sleep." And the artist 
 at his elbow gave one final masterful curl to the amazing 
 trousers of the latest benefactor of the human species.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 
 
 JACK glanced at the watch on his wrist. By the 
 mercy of Allah there were fifty minutes yet. A 
 whole fifty minutes yet to stay in heaven. And 
 then . . . 
 
 Suddenly hard set by thoughts which had no right to 
 be there he looked up and away in the direction of Brid- 
 port House. 
 
 "There they go!" He gave the pavement artist a 
 little prod. 
 
 "Who goes where ?" 
 
 "Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie." 
 
 True enough ! Sublimely unconscious of two pairs of 
 amused eyes upon them, Cousin Blanche and Cousin 
 Marjorie were passing slowly by. As usual at that hour 
 they were riding their tall horses. And they became 
 their tall horses so remarkably well that they might have 
 belonged to the train of Artemis. In the saddle, at any 
 rate, Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie looked hard 
 to beat. 
 
 "Now for your precious theory," said the Tenderfoot 
 with malice. "Here's your chance to hunt ,for the 
 positive." 
 
 293
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 She fixed her eyes on the slowly-receding enemy. 
 "Well, in the first place, my dear, those old-fashioned 
 habits become them marvelously." 
 
 "No use for that sort of kit myself/' growled the 
 hostile critic. 
 
 "Then they are so much a part of their horses they 
 might be female centaurs." 
 
 "And about as amusing as female centaurs." 
 
 "But we are hunting for the positive, aren't we ? We 
 are trying 'to affirm something,' as Alf would say. Now 
 those two and their horses are far grander works of 
 art than anything that ever came out of Greece or Italy. 
 It has taken millions of years to produce them and they 
 are so perfect in their way that one wonders how they 
 ever came to be produced at all." 
 
 "You might say that of anything or anybody if you 
 come to think of it." 
 
 "Of course. I agree. And so would Alf. And 
 that's why universal love and admiration are so proper 
 and natural." 
 
 "Wait till you are really up against 'em and then 
 you'll see." 
 
 "The more I'm up against them if I am to be up 
 against them the more I shall love and admire them, 
 not for what they are perhaps, but for what they might 
 be if only they'd take a little trouble over their parts in 
 this wonderful Play, which I'm quite sure the Author 
 meant to be so very much finer than we silly amateurs 
 ever give it a chance of becoming." 
 
 The sunshade began to scratch the gravel again, while 
 Jack Dinneford sighed over its owner's crude philosophy. 
 
 294
 
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 
 
 Presently he began to realize again that they were in 
 a fool's paradise. Surely they were taking a climb down 
 too much for granted. Why should these hardshells 
 give in so inexplicably? It was in the nature of things 
 for a flaw to lurk under all this fair-seeming. Only 
 fools would ever build on such a sublime pretense as 
 Bridport House. Was it rational to expect its denizens 
 to behave like ordinary sensible human people? 
 
 In order to sidetrack his fears he turned again to 
 watch the labors of the pavement artist. The tip of a 
 gifted sunshade was doing wonderful things with the 
 gravel. It had just evolved a chef d' awure, which how- 
 ever was only apparent to the eye of faith. 
 
 "Who do you imagine that is?" 
 
 Imagination was certainly needed. It would not have 
 been possible otherwise to see a resemblance to anything 
 human. 
 
 "That is his lamp," hovered the sunshade above this 
 masterpiece. "That is his truncheon. Those are his 
 boots. That is his overcoat. And there we have his 
 helmet. And there," the tip of the sunshade traced 
 slowly, "the noble profile of the greatest- dear in exist- 
 ence." 
 
 At that he was bound to own that had the Park gravel 
 been more sensitive, here would have been a living por- 
 trait of Sergeant Kelly of the X Division. And even if 
 it was only visible to the eye of faith it was pretext 
 enough for honest laughter. 
 
 "No one knows her hist'ry, 
 She is wrapt in myst'ry," 
 
 he quoted softly. 
 
 295
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 It was quite true. Various zephyrs and divers little 
 birds had whispered the romantic fact in their ears long 
 ago. But what did it matter? It was but one plume 
 more in the cap of the Magician, a mere detail in that 
 pageant of which Mystery itself is the last expression. 
 
 There may have been wisdom in their laughter. At 
 any rate it seemed to give them a kind of Dutch courage 
 for the ordeal that was now so near. But a rather 
 forced gayety did not long continue ; it was soon merged 
 in a further piece of news which Jack suddenly re- 
 membered. 
 
 "By the way," he announced, "there's more trouble at 
 Bridport House. My cousins, I hear, are going to live 
 with Aunt Charlotte." 
 
 She was obliged to ask why, but he had to own that 
 it was beyond his power to answer her question. All 
 that he knew was that his cousins were "at serious outs" 
 with their father, and that according to recent informa- 
 tion they were on the point of leaving the paternal roof. 
 
 The Tenderfoot, however, in professing a diplomatic 
 ignorance of a matter to which he had indiscreetly re- 
 ferred, had only pulled up in the nick of time. He knew 
 rather more than he said. "There's a violent quarrel 
 about Mrs. Sanderson," was at the tip of his tongue, but 
 happily he saw in time that such words in such circum- 
 stances would be pure folly. Nay, it was folly to have 
 drifted into these perilous waters at all; and in the face 
 of a suddenly awakened curiosity, he proceeded at once 
 to steer the talk into a safer channel. 
 
 After all, that was not very difficult. As they sat under 
 the whispering leaves, gazing a little wistfully at the 
 pomp of a summer's day, heaven was so near that it 
 
 296
 
 % \Ve mustn't build castles," she sighed, and the light 
 fringed her eyelids
 
 hardly seemed rational to be giving a thought to those 
 who dwelt in spheres less halcyon. The previous eve- 
 ning at six o'clock they had parted for ever in this very 
 spot. But a swift turn of Fate's shuttle had changed 
 everything. 
 
 As now they tried to understand what had occurred, 
 it was hard to keep from building castles. An absurd 
 old planet might prove, after all, such a wonderful place. 
 When you are four-and-twenty and in love, and the 
 crooked path suddenly turns to the straight, and the 
 future is seen through magic vistas just ahead, surpris- 
 ing things are apt to arise, take shape, acquire a hue, a 
 meaning. The light that never was on sea or land is 
 quite likely to be found south of the Marble Arch and 
 north of Hyde Park Corner. They were on the thres- 
 hold of a very wonderful world. What gifts were 
 theirs! Health, youth, a high-hearted joy in existence, 
 here were the keys of heaven. Life was what they 
 chose to make it. 
 
 Poetry herself clothed them as with a garment. But 
 not for a moment must they forget, even amid the dan- 
 gerous joys of a rather wild reaction, that all might be 
 illusion. Voices whispered from the leaves that as yet 
 they were not out of the wood. Jack, it is true, was fain 
 to believe that the latest act of Bridport House implied a 
 very real change of heart. For all that, as the hour of 
 Fate drew on, he could not stifle a miserable feeling of 
 nervousness. And Mary, too, in spite of a proud surface 
 gayety, felt faint within. The dream was far too good 
 to be true. 
 
 "Of course it's a climb down," said Jack, whistling to 
 keep up his courage. "Do you suppose Uncle Albert 
 
 297
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 would have sent for us like this unless he meant to chuck 
 up the sponge?" 
 
 "We mustn't build castles," she sighed, and the light 
 fringed her eyelids. 
 
 "We'll build 'em as high as the moon !" 
 
 She shook a whimsical head. And then the goad of 
 youth drove her to a smile of perilous happiness. All 
 sorts of subtle fears were lurking in that good, shrewd 
 brain of hers. They were on the verge of chaos and 
 Old Night yet she had not the heart to rebuke him. 
 
 The dread hour of one-thirty was now so very near, 
 that it was idle to disguise the fact that one at least of 
 the two people on the Park chairs had grown extremely 
 unhappy. Mary was quite sure that a horrible ordeal 
 was going to prove too much for her. It was hardly 
 less than madness to have yielded in the way she had. 
 But qualms were useless, fears were vain. There was 
 only one thing to do. She must set her teeth and go 
 and face the music. 
 
 ii 
 
 Punctual to the minute they were at the solemn portals 
 of Bridport House. And then as a servant in a gro- 
 tesque livery piloted them across an expanse of rather 
 pretentious hall into a somber room, full of grandiose 
 decoration and Victorian furniture, a grand fighting spirit 
 suddenly rose in one whose need of it was sore. Mary 
 was quaking in her shoes, yet the joy of battle came upon 
 her in the queerest, most unexpected way. It was as if 
 a magician had waved his wand and all the paltry emo- 
 tions of the past hour were dispelled. Perhaps it was 
 that deep down in her slept an Amazon. Or a clear con- 
 
 298
 
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 
 
 science may have inspired her; at any rate she had no 
 need to reproach herself just then. She could look the 
 whole world in the face. Her attitude had been sensi- 
 tively correct; if other people did not appreciate that 
 simple fact, so much the worse for other people! 
 
 A long five minutes they waited in that large and 
 dismal room, a slight flush of anxiety upon their faces, 
 their hearts beating a little wildly, no doubt. In all 
 that time not a word passed between them; the tension 
 was almost more than they could bear. If Fate had 
 kept till the last one final scurvy trick it would be too 
 horrible ! And then suddenly, in the midst of this grim 
 thought, an old man came hobbling painfully in. Both 
 were struck at once by the look of him. There was 
 something in the bearing, in the manner, in the play of 
 the rather exquisite face which spoke to them intimately. 
 For a reason deeply obscure, which Jack and Mary were 
 very far from comprehending, the welcome he gave her 
 was quite touching. It was full of a simple kindness, 
 spontaneous, unstudied, oddly caressing. 
 
 Jack, amazed not a little by the heart-on-the-sleeve 
 attitude of this old barbarian, could only ascribe it to the 
 desire of a finished man of the world to put the best 
 possible face on an impossible matter. Yet, somehow, 
 that cynical view did not seem to cover the facts of 
 the case. 
 
 In a way that hardly belonged to a tyrant and an 
 autocrat, the old man took one of the girl's hands into 
 the keeping of his poor enfeebled ones, and was still 
 holding it when his sister and his eldest daughter came 
 into the room. Both ladies were firm in the belief that 
 this was the most disagreeable moment of their lives. 
 
 299
 
 Still it was their nature to meet things heroically, and 
 they now proceeded to do so. 
 
 The picture their minds had already formed of this 
 girl was not a pleasing one. But as far as Lady War- 
 grave was concerned it was shattered almost instantly. 
 The likeness between father and daughter was amaz- 
 ing. She had, in quite a remarkable degree, the look 
 of noblesse the world had always admired in him, with 
 which, however, he had signally failed to endow the 
 daughters of the first marriage. But there was far more 
 than a superficial likeness to shatter preconceived ideas. 
 Another, more virile strain was hers. The mettle of 
 the pasture, the breath of the moorland, had given her 
 a look of purpose and fire, even if the grace of the 
 salon had yielded much of its own peculiar amenity. 
 Whatever else she might be, the youngest daughter of 
 the House of Dinneford was a personality of a rare but 
 vivid kind. 
 
 As soon as the Duke realized that the ladies had en- 
 tered the room, he gravely presented the girl, but with 
 a touch of chivalry that she simply adored in him. The 
 little note of homage melted in the oddest way the half- 
 fierce constraint with which she turned instinctively to 
 meet these enemies. Sarah bowed rather coldly, but 
 Aunt Charlotte came forward at once with a proffered 
 hand. 
 
 "My sister," murmured his Grace. In his eyes was a 
 certain humor and perhaps a spice of malice. 
 
 For a moment speech was impossible. The girl looked 
 slowly from one to the other, and then suddenly it came 
 upon her that these people were old and hard hit. She 
 felt a curious revulsion of feeling. Their surrender was 
 
 300
 
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 
 
 unconditional, and woman's sixth sense told her what 
 their thoughts must be. They must be suffering horribly. 
 All at once the fight went out of her. 
 
 In a fashion rather odd, with almost the naivete of a 
 child, she turned aside in a deadly fight with tears, that 
 she managed to screw back into her eyes. 
 
 It was left to Lady Wargrave to break a silence which 
 threatened to become bitterly embarrassing : "Come over 
 here and talk to me," she said with a directness the girl 
 was quick to obey. 
 
 Lady Wargrave led the way to a couple of empty 
 chairs near a window, Mary following with a kind sick 
 timidity she had never felt before, and a heart that 
 beat convulsively. What could the old dragon have to 
 say to her? Even now she half expected a talon. 
 
 The Dowager pointed to a chair, sat down grimly, and 
 then said abruptly, "I hope you will be happy." 
 
 There was something in the words that threw the 
 girl into momentary confusion. The fact was a miracle 
 had occurred and her bewilderment was seeking a rea- 
 son for it. Only one explanation came to her, and it 
 was that these great powers, rather than suffer Jack to 
 depart, were ready to make the best of his fiancee. There 
 was not much comfort in the theory, but no other was 
 feasible. Place and power, it seemed, were caught in 
 meshes of their own weaving. And yet bruised in pride 
 as she was by a situation for which she was not to blame, 
 the rather splendid bearing of these old hard-bitten war- 
 riors touched a chivalry far down. Deep called unto 
 deep. At the unexpected words of the griffin, she had 
 again to screw the tears back into her eyes. And then 
 she said in a voice that seemed to be stifling her, "It's 
 
 301
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 not my fault. I didn't know ... I didn't want this . . . 
 If you will ... If you will help me I will do my best 
 ... not ... to ..." 
 
 The eyes of the Dowager searched her right through. 
 
 "No, you are not to blame," she said judicially. "We 
 are all going to help you," and then in a voice which 
 cracked in the middle she added, to her own surprise, 
 "my dear." 
 
 in 
 
 At luncheon the girl had the place of honor at the 
 right hand of his Grace. It was a rather chastened as- 
 sembly. The arrival of the cuckoo in the nest was a 
 fitting climax to Muriel. Both episodes were felt to be 
 buffets of a wholly undeservedly severity; they might 
 even be said to have shaken a sublime edifice to its base. 
 Not for a moment had the collective wisdom of the 
 Dinneford ladies connived at Muriel's Breadth, nor had 
 it in any way countenanced the absurd fellow Jack in his 
 infatuation for a chorus girl. 
 
 Simple justice, however, compelled these stern critics 
 to own that Bridport's future duchess had come as a 
 rather agreeable surprise. She differed so much from 
 the person they had expected. They couldn't deny that 
 she was a personality. Moreover, there was a force, a 
 distinction that might hope to mold and even harmonize 
 with her place in the table of precedence. So good were 
 her manners that the subtle air of the great world might 
 one day be hers. 
 
 It amazed them to see the effect she had already had 
 on their fastidious and difficult parent. He was talking 
 to her of men and events and times past in a way he 
 
 302
 
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 
 
 had not talked for years. He discoursed of the great 
 ones of his youth, the singers and dancers of the 'Sixties 
 when he was at the Embassy at Paris and ginger was hot 
 in the mouth. Then by a process of gradation he went 
 on to tell his old stories of Gladstone and Dizzy, to dis- 
 cuss books and politics and the pictures in the Uffizi, and 
 to cap with tales of his own travels an occasional brief 
 anecdote, wittily told, of her own tours in America and 
 South Africa. 
 
 Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie could not help feeling 
 hostile, yet it was clear that this remarkable girl had put 
 an enchantment on their father. While he talked to her 
 the table, the room, the people in it seemed to pass be- 
 yond his ken. Candor bred the thought that it was not 
 to be wondered at, her way of listening was so delightful. 
 The beautiful head it hurt them to admit the fact yet 
 there it was bent towards him in a kind of loving rever- 
 ence, changing each phrase of his into something rare 
 and memorable by a receptivity whose only wish was to 
 give pleasure to a poor old man struggling with a basin 
 of arrowroot that sight and the sense of a presence alive 
 in every nerve, a voice of pure music, and a face in- 
 capable of evil: was it surprising that a spell was cast 
 upon their sire? Take her as one would she was a real 
 natural force an original upon whom the fairies had 
 lavished many gifts. 
 
 The family chieftain was renewing his youth, but only 
 Charlotte understood why. In common with the rest of 
 the world, Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie were to be kept 
 in ignorance of the truth for the present at any rate. 
 But already the Dinneford ladies had taken further coun- 
 sel of the sage of Hill Street, and upon her advice all 
 
 303
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 thought of secession from Bridport House had been 
 given up. Reflection had convinced Lady Wargrave, now 
 in possession of the light, that the true interests of the 
 Family would be served by silence and submission. After 
 all, Mrs. Sanderson was an old and valued retainer ; her 
 integrity was beyond question; her devotion and single- 
 minded regard for their father's welfare ought not to be 
 forgotten ! 
 
 Taking all the circumstances into account, it was in 
 Aunt Charlotte's opinion, a case for humble pie. And to 
 do the ladies no injustice they were ready to consume it 
 gracefully. Jack, after all, was quite a distant connec- 
 tion; and what was even more important in their sight, 
 the girl herself was presentable. Their father, at any 
 rate, made no secret of the fact that he found her sympa- 
 thetic. Nay, he was even a little carried away by her. 
 As the meal went on, his manner towards her almost 
 verged upon affection; and at the end, in open defiance 
 of his doctors, he went to the length of wishing her 
 happiness in a glass of famous Madeira. 
 
 IV 
 
 At five minutes past three Mary and Jack awoke with 
 a start from a dream fantasy, to find themselves breath- 
 ing the ampler air of Park Lane. Even then they could 
 not quite grasp the meaning of all that had happened. 
 Unconditional surrender indeed, yet so sudden, so cause- 
 less, so mysterious. Why had this strange thing come 
 to be? 
 
 But just now they were not in a mood to question 
 the inscrutable wisdom of the good God. Behind the 
 curtain of appearances the sun shone more bravely than 
 
 304
 
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST 
 
 ever, the dust of July lay a shade lighter on the trees 
 across the road. No, there was really no need for Provi- 
 dence to give an account of itself at that moment; the 
 nature of things called for no analysis. 
 
 "I've fallen in love with that old man." 
 
 Even if Jack heard the words he was not in a position 
 to offer comment upon them, for he was in the act of 
 summoning a taxi from the lee of the Park railings. 
 
 "Where shall we go?" 
 
 "To the moon and back again?" 
 
 "And why not ! It is not very far to the moon if you 
 get hold of the right kind of vehicle. But MX 54,906 
 proved on inspection hardly to be adapted for the pur- 
 pose; at any rate Jack came to the conclusion after a 
 mere glance at the tires that Hampton Court, via Rich- 
 mond and Elysium, would meet the case equally well. 
 
 Meanwhile his Grace in his favorite chair in his 
 favorite room, was doing his best to envisage "The 
 Outlook for Democracy," with the aid of the Quarterly 
 Review. Of a sudden the clock on the chimneypiece 
 chimed a quarter past three, and he laid down an article 
 perfect alike in form, taste and scholarship, with the air 
 of one who expects something to happen. 
 
 Something did happen. In almost the same moment, 
 the housekeeper, Mrs. Sanderson, came into the room. 
 She carried a tray containing a glass, a spoon, and a 
 bottle. 
 
 His Grace shook his head. "I've had a glass of 
 Madeira." 
 
 "How could you be so unwise!" It was the gentle, 
 305
 
 THE TIME SPIRIT 
 
 half-smiling tone of a mother who reproves a very dear 
 but willful child. 
 
 She measured the draught inflexibly and he drank 
 it like a man. As he returned the glass to the tray he 
 sighed a little, and then with a whimsical glance upwards 
 he said slowly and softly, "She has her mother's brains." 
 
 As she looked down upon him, he saw the color dark- 
 ening a strong and beautiful face. "And her father's 
 eyes." The warmth of her voice almost stifled the words. 
 
 For nearly a minute there was so deep a silence that 
 even the clock on the chimneypiece was lost in it. And 
 then very slowly and gently, as one who thinks aloud, 
 he said, "I am trying to remember those words of Mil- 
 ton." He closed his eyes with a smile of perplexity. 
 "Ah, yes, yes. I have them now : 
 
 " 'He for God only, she for God in him.' " 
 
 (i)
 
 A 000129078 2