Chapter III: Book II: Three Potters (2)

Many had waited for the last drawing-room because it would be the smartest, others because it was a bore, to be deferred as long as possible; many had been in Italy or on the Riviera; others had been put on the list by a power higher than their own wills. From whatever combination of causes the procession of slowly moving carriages was as long as the tail of a comet, and at times, particularly while the gorgeous coaches of the ambassadors were driving smartly down the Mall, came to a dead halt. It was then that the sovereign people had their innings.

They lined the streets surrounding the Palace in serried ranks. Not even the American crowd loves a “show” as the British does, Socialists and all. Their ancestors have gaped at gilded coaches and gorgeous robes and sparkling jewels for centuries, and if the day ever comes when they shall have exchanged these amiable pageants of their betters for a full stomach, who shall dare predict that they will be entirely satisfied?

What awe they may have inherited had long since disappeared. They crowded up against the procession of carriages, devouring with their curious good-natured eyes the splendid gowns and jewels, the glimpses of bare shoulders, and the beauty or bones of women apparently insensible of their existence.

For a time Julia clutched nervously at the pearls beneath her cloak, and shrank from that sea of eyes under hats of an indescribable commonness.

“My eye, ain’t her hair red!” exclaimed one young woman, with unmistakable reference. “And a little paint wouldn’t ’urt her.”

“Paint? That there’s high-toned pallor—”

“Pearl powder—”

“Oh, I sy, wot for do they let bibies like that marry when they don’t have to? I call it a shime.”

“Right you are!”

One girl, with a violent color and black frizzled hair that stood out quite eight inches from three parts of her face, thrust her head through the open window of the coach.

“Don’t you mind wot they sy,” she said consolingly. “They’re that nonsensical they can’t ’elp chaffing. And you’re the prettiest and the most haristocratic of the whole lot—I’ve been all up and down the line. And it ain’t powder! My word, but your complexion’s _grand_!”

She withdrew without waiting for an answer. Julia turned to Lady Arabella, who, throughout the ordeal, had sat as upright as if corseted in iron, and with her long haughty profile turned unflinchingly to the mob. So, it must be conceded, stupid as she was in her pride, would she have sat if they had threatened her life. As Julia asked her timidly (in effect) if the most aristocratic function of the year was always treated like a travelling circus, Lady Arabella answered, without flickering an eyelash: “Always, and fortunately for us. The lower classes love to see us on parade, and the more we give them of this sort of thing, the longer we shall keep their loyalty. Moreover, it serves the purpose—this drawing-room procession, in particular—of bringing us in close touch with the people, serves to demonstrate that we are real mortals, not the ridiculous creatures in the sort of novels they read. I always endeavor to look a symbol. I hope you will learn to do the same in time, for the lower classes are secretly proud of us and like us to play our part. You are drooping. Sit up and present your profile.”

“What’s the use of a profile without a backbone?” said Julia, wearily. “I’m so tired.”

“You must rise above mere physical fatigue,” said the old dame, severely. “People in our class keep our backbones for our bedrooms. When you are inclined to complain, think of the poor royalties, who stand for hours. And don’t finger your pearls. You are supposed to have been born with them about your neck.”

Julia’s sense of humor was not yet fully awake, but her new relative’s words were tonic as well as reassuring; she sat erect, but turned her eyes round her profile to regard this strange lower class of London, of which she had heard much but seen nothing until to-day. They were an ugly lot; beauty would seem to be the prerogative of aristocracy in England, possibly because it is well fed; they wore rough ready-made frocks, or, where finery was attempted, feathers and ribbons inferior to anything Julia had ever seen on the negroes of Nevis; and many of the hats looked as if they might be used as nightcaps to protect the elaborate masses of frizzled hair. Julia, brought up on the soundest aristocratic principles, saw in this gaping good-natured crowd but a broad and solid foundation for the historic institution above.

The coach finally rolled through the gates of Buckingham Palace. For an hour longer she stood, her slippers pinching until her native independence of character almost induced her to kick them off. But she was so tired after a month of London, an almost sleepless night, and the excitements of an already long day, that her brain worked toward no such simple solution, and before her moment came she ached from head to foot. The scene became a blur of vast rooms, of tall women, very thin or very fat, with diamond tiaras above set faces, and trains of every color over their arms, of girls that shifted from one foot to the other and breathed audibly their wish that it were over. One by one they disappeared. There was a sharp emphatic whisper from Lady Arabella. Julia started and set her teeth. “Mind you don’t sit down like that daughter of the American ambassador,” whispered the same fierce nervous voice. “Remember all that you have rehearsed.”

Julia, terrified to her marrow, did as opera singers do in moments of distress; she “fell back on technique.” Afterward she remembered vaguely making a succession of curtsies to a long row of dazzling crowns, but no effort of memory ever recalled the features beneath. She received the train flung over her arm and backed out without disgracing herself, but also without a thrill of that joy which a loyal subject is supposed to feel when in the presence of his sovereign for the first time.

“Not bad,” said Lady Arabella, graciously, as after many more moments, they entered their carriage. But Julia was yawning. When she reached the house in Tilney Street, she went to bed and refused to get up for twenty-four hours.

VI

ON the day following the drawing-room a prearranged conference was held in the “palatial home” of Mr. Jones in Park Lane. It was the hideous and abandoned house of a South African millionnaire, this home, but Lady Ishbel had refurnished it by degrees, and her boudoir in particular, with its pale French silks and many flowers, its Empire furniture, both delicately wrought and solid, framed appropriately a soft aristocratic loveliness that almost concealed strong bones and firm lines. As she is to play so intimate a part in the development of our heroine, she may as well be described here as later. She had quantities of curly silky chestnut hair, long brown eyes with fine fringes and an expression both modest and piquant, a straight little nose with arching nostril, a gracefully cut mouth with pink lips, and a square little chin with a dimple in it. Her figure was womanly, not too thin, and her capable hands were seldom idle. Just now she was retrimming a hat that had arrived the day before from the milliner of the moment in Paris. It may be added that her smile was the sweetest in London; and her voice was always rich and deep, with a natural vibration quite at the command of her will. Charm radiated from her, and she was an outrageous flirt. In fact she looked with suspicion upon women that did not flirt, estimating them below the normal and not to be trusted in anything. Men adored her, even when she laughed at them, which she often did in the most distracting manner imaginable.

Mrs. Herbert was standing in her favorite attitude behind a low fire-screen, her black eyes flashing, her nostrils dilating, while her young brother-in-law paced excitedly up and down the room. He was thinner than when he had fallen in love a month since, almost pallid, and his eyes had a strained look. There was no possible doubt as to what was the matter with him.

“Don’t be an ass,” said Mrs. Herbert. “You are acting like the hero of a melodrama—”

“I tell you something must be done!” cried the young man. “The squadron has been sighted off the Azores—”

“Well, what are you going to do about it? She’s not in love with you—doesn’t care a rap—”

“What chance have I had to make her? I never see her alone, never get a chance to talk to her for half an hour at a time. You promised to help me—”

“Mrs. Winstone has never let the poor thing go for a minute. She’s overdone the business. Julia’s had no time to think, goes to sleep at problem plays, and knows no more than when she arrived—”

“If I only had the chance to teach her!” cried Herbert, with flashing eyes.

“Look at here,” said his sister-in-law, grasping a point of the screen with either hand; “let us have this out. If your brains are not addled, they must have conceived some sort of a plan. What is it? A liaison? An elopement? I approve of neither. I’d like to save the poor child from that man, but the frying pan’s as good as the fire—”

“No liaison! I’d elope with her to-morrow if she’d go with me—”

“And disgrace a great family!” said Ishbel, softly.

“Oh, hang the family,” cried Mrs. Herbert, whose mother’s blood was already working in her. “The duke’s an old pudding. Lady Arabella and her sisters are cracked old sign-posts; and a scandal would serve Mrs. Winstone right for not packing the child back on the next steamer to her sister with the whole unvarnished truth in a letter. Not she, however; she wants to be aunt to a duchess. What I’m thinking of is Julia. The conceit of man! What do you suppose you could give her in exchange for disgrace—”

“Love!” cried Nigel. “I tell you it can make up for anything when it is strong enough.”

“Yes, when it is,” said Mrs. Herbert, who, recovering from her own infatuation for a brainless beauty, was not in a romantic frame of mind. “But she doesn’t love you, in the first place, and in the second, no woman can live her life on love, any more than a man can. She wants children, position of some sort, the society of other women—that last is one of woman’s biggest wants, and no man ever realizes it.”

“But love must be a wonderful thing,” said Ishbel, who had never experienced it. “It would almost be worth any sacrifice, especially if one had had things first, only men are always so funny in one way or another; one becomes disenchanted just in the nick of time.”

“No man lives who can make up to a woman for the loss of everything else,” said Mrs. Herbert, decidedly. “I mean a woman with brains, and Julia has them. She doesn’t know it because she doesn’t know anything; but one day—”

“Oh, if I could be the one to train that mind—why not? Why not?”

“Let’s come down to business. I refuse to help you either to elope or to make love to her. I fancy you’ll have to wait until France drinks himself to death, or this country passes rational divorce laws. Forget yourself and think of her.”

“Very well. Save her first. That is the main thing. I’ll never give her up, but I’m willing to forget myself for a bit, if I can—”

“Well, make one practical suggestion.”

Ishbel put the hat aside and clasped her hands. “I have long since made up my mind to offer her shelter when she needs it,” she announced. “Mrs. Winstone won’t, and Julia is sure to leave him.”

“She must never go to him!” Herbert stormed up and down the room again.

“Perhaps he’s not as bad as he’s painted,” said Ishbel, who was always charitable.

“Oh, you don’t know! You don’t know!”

“I do,” said the uncompromising Mrs. Herbert. “He’s a bad lot without the usual redeeming weakness of that easy form of good nature known as a kind heart; a sensualist without an atom of real warmth; a card sharp too clever to be caught; a periodical drinker; a vile gross creature whom only the lowest women have tolerated for years, but so blasé he is tired of them—”

“We must tell her things!” cried Ishbel. “We must make her understand!”

“You couldn’t make that baby understand anything. Besides, when it came to the point, you couldn’t do it. It’s all very well to talk of enlightening girls about anything, but personally I’ve never encountered any one that had the nerve to do it. Girls in our class absorb knowledge as they grow up; instincts help; but who ever told us anything? Well, here is my plan, since you two appear to have none. We shall tell her that France is dangerous, that when he drinks he is quite mad and may kill her. She’s game, but there are certain female fears that always can be worked on. And repugnances. We will draw horrid pictures of what he looks like when he’s drunk—”

“Right you are!” cried Herbert. “No decent girl will elect to live with a common drunkard, particularly when she doesn’t love him. And if Mrs. Winstone can’t be brought round, one of you will take her in?”

“If she’ll come. Perhaps she would wish to go back to her mother. She hasn’t a penny of her own, and apparently has never heard of the self-supporting woman. But it might be managed somehow.”

“It must!” cried Ishbel. “We will hide her alternately.”

“But to what end? France might be exasperated to the point of wishing to rid himself of her, but what ground for divorce? We travel in a circle as far as Nigel is concerned.”

“I have it!” cried Nigel, whose fine imagination was fired by the most stimulative of all passions. “Give me the chance to make her love me, and then take her to America and get a divorce there. Thank heaven I have a little something of my own, and I can earn more. We’ll stay in America until the storm blows over—”

“American divorces are not legal in England—”

“Then I’ll stay there forever. Promise. Promise.”

“Not bad,” said Mrs. Herbert. “You take her in, Ishbel, and I’ll take her over. Mr. Jones would probably not consent to your desertion—a divorce must take time, even in the United States, and you have another sister to marry off next season—”

“Of course I’ll take her in, and we’ll begin to-morrow to frighten her.”

Nigel kissed them both.

But Fortune is often with the wicked. On the following morning wires flashed the news that Harold France, first lieutenant of her Majesty’s cruiser _Drake_, now on its way home from South America, was down with typhoid fever. Nobody save the duke expected a man of France’s habits to recover from any microbous assault, but that innocent and loyal relative gave immediate orders to convert several rooms of his town house into a hospital, engaged a staff of doctors and nurses, and peremptorily ordered Julia to move over and be ready to take her place at her husband’s bedside.

VII

THE four months that followed were by no means the unhappiest of Julia’s life, much as she resented being torn from her friends and the bewildering delights of London. The duke, a noble if inconspicuous pillar of the good old school, stood out for wifely duty in appearance if not in fact: the nurses barely permitted Julia to cross the threshold of the sick-chamber. But although she was of no possible use, and time hung heavy on her hands, none of her friends was permitted to call on her, and the duke himself took her for a constitutional at eight in the morning and nine in the evening. Julia’s complete indifference to her husband had caused him grave uneasiness, even before the stricken bridegroom’s return, and he embraced this opportunity to keep the child under his personal surveillance and do what he could to give a serious turn to a “female brain of eighteen.”

Julia, prompted by Ishbel, asked to have a telephone put in her room, but the request was courteously refused, and the two loyal friends were forced to content themselves with frequent notes. After Goodwood, Bridgit went to Yorkshire and Ishbel to Homburg, but Nigel remained in town, although all three were cheerfully persuaded that France would die and life be happy ever after. Nigel regained his fresh good looks and spirits, endured the hot deserted city without a murmur, and although he naturally refrained from writing to the coveted wife of a dying man, felt a certain exaltation in watching over her from afar. It was during this period that he conceived the idea of writing a novel of the slums (the unknown appealing to his adventurous imagination), and took long rambles in unsavory precincts that were productive of more results than one.

Meanwhile Julia, brought up in submission to a far stronger will than the duke’s, had ceased to rebel, and taken to heart the parting admonition of her aunt (that lady had gone with Mrs. Macmanus to Marienbad to renew her complexion) to learn all the duke was willing to teach her, and to read the novels that celebrated London society, past and present. Mrs. Winstone, too, believed that France must die, but, perceiving that her niece had a charm of her own in addition to the magnetism of youth, had another match in mind for her.

So Julia drank in the long discourses upon the abominable Gladstone and all his policies, the iniquity of the Harcourt Budget, obediently rejoiced at the failure of the second Home Rule Bill, became intimately acquainted with the other notable figures in British politics: Lord Salisbury (the duke’s idol), Lord Rosebery (the present Prime Minister), fated, in the duke’s not always erring judgment, to follow close upon the heels of Gladstone into political seclusion, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Mr. Balfour, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, George Curzon, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Goschen (the speaker), the Duke of Devonshire (Hartington), Mr. Morley, and Mr. Bryce. The treaty with Japan was a fruitful subject of discourse; and when the war broke out between that new military power and China, Julia, who was growing nervous, gratified the duke by sharing his excitement. In her lonely hours she read promiscuously and thought a good deal.

She rarely flung a thought to poor Nigel, for when the big helpless form of her husband had been taken from the ambulance and carried past her up the broad stairs, the natural tenderness and pity in her nature had stirred, and something of what she felt for little Fanny had gone out to him. She would have nursed him, had she been permitted; she inquired for him many times a day, and sincerely hoped that he would recover. She had not the faintest notion of loving him, but she would be a good wife, and, no doubt, be happy. Ishbel did not love her husband and was happy, and so, apparently, were a good many more that flitted through her aunt’s drawing-room with a temporary admirer in tow. Julia’s future plans included no infants-in-waiting; she should become one of those great political women the planets, according to her mother’s letters, had ordered her to be; how could she doubt this destiny when every circumstance was conspiring to fulfil it? So, between the sense of an inexorable fate, the serious atmosphere of her new surroundings, and the desperate struggle of her husband for his life, her mind flowered rapidly; and the duke was delighted with her. He disliked and distrusted women that stood alone, that won personal fame for themselves, even “beauties” whose notoriety threw their lords into the background; but he had a very keen appreciation of their usefulness to man, not only as dams, but as tactful distributors of political smiles. Of course there must be a certain amount of brain behind the smiles, that they occur at precisely the right moment; but any man, given fair material to work on, could do well with it and prevent mistakes. He knew that certain women in history had been the centre of famous political salons, but took for granted that they had been severely coached by men. As for the women that were famous in the arts of fiction and painting, he did not know how to account for them, therefore refused to think about them at all. Julia he regarded as a promising specimen. She was healthy, and would no doubt replenish the almost exhausted house of France; she was pretty and charming, therefore would keep her husband out of mischief; and, taking to politics as a duck takes to water, would be sure to smile, subtly, radiantly, or meditatively, as well as to listen intelligently, when the distinguished members of his party that he purposed to entertain once more were obliged to talk to her.

On the twenty-first day of France’s illness his temperature went down, he slept naturally, and upon awaking asked to see his wife. Julia was admitted, and stood for a few moments by the bed, stammering congratulations and staring at the shrunken face with its ragged beard; then went to her own room and wept stormily over the wreck of what at least had been the perfection of manly strength. France’s temperature remained normal for a fortnight, then suddenly shot up again, and twice, during the ensuing twenty days, he almost expired. Two doctors slept in the house when the relapse was at its worst, and the political talks were interrupted, although the duke never for a moment believed that the last of his race would die.

By this time the press was interested, for at all events France was heir-presumptive to a great estate and title, and daily bulletins were published. Nigel began his novel in order to divert his mind from indecent jubilation; but when France’s temperature dropped again and he improved from day to day with uncompromising persistence, his rival took the express to Yorkshire to confer with Bridgit. She could give him no encouragement. Julia in her letters had betrayed something of her state of grace, and during the relapse had written once in a strain that manifested the deepest anxiety.

“He’ll get her through her sympathy, pity; no matter what she may be in the future, she’s all female at present,” remarked Mrs. Herbert, after showing these letters to Nigel. “All women have to go through the female stage, one way or another; and now will come a long convalescence during which she will be sorrier for him than ever—big man helpless, and all the rest of it. What is worse, she will become accustomed to him. Better give her up, my boy, or wait until she runs away from him. She’s sure to, sooner or later,—unless he reforms. After all, why shouldn’t he? A serious illness often works wonders; gives one so much time to think. And physical weakness always induces such virtuous resolutions. France may look back upon his past life with horror. Then, where will you be? Julia’s a well-born well-brought-up girl of high ideals. If France treats her decently she’ll stick to him, as many another woman is sticking to a husband that is all that she doesn’t want him to be—”

“The more shame to them!” cried Nigel, hotly.

“Well, there are worse things than conventions and standards. Now run off and write your novel. I am told that a harrowed mind often produces the most moving fiction.”

“I’ll wait, but not too long,” said Nigel, doggedly. “Bosquith is being got ready for them, and is only twelve miles from here. You must ask me down, and I’ll manage to see her as soon as it’s decent. Of course I can’t cut under a man while he’s being trundled round in a bath chair.”

VIII

FRANCE’S convalescence was very slow. His superb physique had fought death victoriously, as, so far, it had saved him from the consequences of dissipation, but only youth could have given him a swift recovery. It was September before he was able to move to Bosquith. After the stifling London summer, Julia needed a change as much as he did. The duke, as soon as his heir was able to sit up, had taken a run over to Kissengen, but Julia had spent the greater part of every day in the sick-room, reading the sporting papers and light novels to her husband, or amusing him as best she could. France would barely let her out of his sight. His shrewd cunning brain recovered its strength while his body was still helpless, and he conceived that now was his opportunity to make this inexperienced child believe in a romantic devotion, and to win her love in return. He permitted her to take a daily walk or drive with one of the nurses, making much of his sacrifice, and was so touchingly happy to see her after these brief separations that Julia almost wept, and gave him her hand to hold, while she made the most of every trifle her observing eyes had taken note of during her respite.

He no longer repelled her; not only did his helplessness appeal to her deep womanly instincts, but she was become so accustomed to his touch that she was quite indifferent to it: she bathed his head with cologne several times a day, kissed him obediently when she came and went, and even gave him her shoulder as a pillow when he fretfully declared that his head could rest on nothing else. It was a young and excessively thin shoulder, and, as a matter of fact, France would have preferred feathers, but the profoundly calculating mind, even when the body is weak, disdains trifles.

As soon as he was pronounced well enough to travel, the wary duke returned and accompanied his charges to Bosquith. This great estate, some fifteen thousand acres, which included moors and grouse, as well as many farms with turnip fields, was the duke’s favorite property, not only because of the shootings, but because the air of the North Sea was the best tonic he knew. It was for this reason that he had chosen Bosquith for the last stage of his nephew’s convalescence, rather than one of his country houses nearer to London. But he had hesitated, nevertheless. Bosquith adjoined the Yorkshire estate of Bridgit Herbert’s paternal grandfather, and he knew of his new relative’s affection for a young woman of whom he had never approved since he had seen her riding astride over the moors with her brothers, pretending to be an American Indian. He had seen her occasionally since her marriage, and, no mean student of physiognomy, had labelled her dangerous, one of those women that set their nonsensical opinions above man’s and call themselves advanced. He had no intention that the intimacy should continue, nor that Julia should see aught of Nigel Herbert, whose devotion she had artlessly revealed. As for Ishbel, who visited Bridgit every year, he would not have her in the house, as he could not admit her and shut the door in her husband’s face. Somebody must take a stand, and the duke, although he might not be able to impose himself on his generation, was not only intensely loyal to his class but alive to its dangers. No snob, Julia’s lack of title and fortune did not annoy him in the least. “No one can be more than gentleman or lady,” he was wont to say magnanimously, “and I have known more than one titled bounder of historic descent. But when it comes to the James William Joneses, well, thank heaven! at least they don’t belong to us, and we are not bound to countenance them for the sake of their fathers; we cannot drag them up, and they will end by pulling us down; in other words they will vulgarize the British aristocracy until the masses lose their pride in us; and then where will we be? Democracy, Socialism, threaten us as it is. Our middle and lower classes at home, and our too independent colonies afar, must be made to retain their loyalty, at all costs.”

Julia thought these sentiments sound, but made up her mind privately that she would never drop Ishbel or Bridgit, although she had been given to understand that the duke deeply regretted the proximity of Bosquith to the happy hunting grounds of Mrs. Herbert, and would not permit her to visit them. Her rapidly awakening intellect was seeking for partnership in her still fluid character, and although books could not develop the last, inheritances from a line of men, and at least one woman, who had always thought and acted for themselves, however mistakenly, were stirring. She had been too managed and surrounded to find herself as yet, but she had begun to suspect that the ego has a life of its own and certain inalienable rights.

The journey north sent France to bed again for three days, and for a fortnight he was wheeled about the park; then he began to hobble feebly, first on the arm of his nurse or wife, then with the aid of a stick. Julia accepted him as one of the facts of existence, regarded him proprietorally, took an immense interest in his progress toward recovery, and forgot him when she could in the library or in long walks over the moors. The castle was romantically situated on a cliff overhanging the North Sea, and in appearance, as in surroundings, was all that Julia could ask. It was very brown, two-thirds of it was in ruins, and the other third included a feudal hall, two towers, and walls four feet thick. The windows, however, had been enlarged, hot-water pipes had been put in, and no modern house was more sanitary. The duke, despite a pardonable pride in his ancestry, and an unmitigated conservatism in politics, was strictly up to date where his health and comfort were concerned. Born an invalid, he had lived longer than many of his burly ancestors, owing to a thin temperament and an early and avid interest in hygiene.

He had a second reason for bringing Harold to Bosquith. The neighboring borough was much under his influence, and he proposed that his relative should stand for it at the next general election. At the last it had succumbed to the personal manipulation of Gladstone, who had taken a lively pleasure in routing the duke; but it was conservative by habit, and not a measure of either Gladstone’s government or that of his successor had met with its approval. It was in just the frame of mind to be nursed by a genial and tactful duke. France fell in with these plans, and, when able to meet the local leaders, laid aside his almost unbearable haughtiness of manner, and assumed a bluff sailorlike heartiness which impressed them deeply.

Julia quickly revived in the bracing air of sea and moor, and as France rose late and retired early, besides sleeping a good deal during the day, and as she had acquired a certain skill in dodging the duke,—who, moreover, took his local duties very seriously,—she felt happy and free once more. The library was well furnished, the moors were purple, her bedroom was in an ancient tower, and the sea boomed under her window. She wrote long letters to her grimly triumphant mother, and, now and again, to Bridgit and Ishbel. The former, accompanied by her husband and Nigel, rode over to see her, but she was obliged to receive them in the chilling presence of her husband and the duke, and when the brief visit came to an end, was put on her honor not to leave the estate.

“As soon as Harold is quite recovered,” said the duke, “we will both drive over with you, for I am far from counselling you to be rude to any one. Only, while your husband is ill, it would be highly indecorous for you to be associating with young people; and for the matter of that, the more mature minds with which you associate during the next few years, the better—for us all, my dear, for us all.”

But Julia, at this period, was quite independent of people. Her newly awakened intellect was clamoring for books and more books. Politics, the planets, the “brilliant future,” friends, were alike forgotten. Nothing mattered but the lore that scholars and worldlings had gathered, that ravening maw in her mind. Perhaps this early ingenuous stage of the mind’s development is its happiest; it is uncritical, having no standards of life and personal research for comparison, it swamps the real ego, while mightily tickling the false, it obliterates mere life, no matter how unsatisfactory, and above all it is saturated with the essence of novelty, the subtlest spring of all passion. Julia, barely educated, found in histories, biographies, memoirs, travels, even in works of science beyond her full comprehension, a wonderland of which she had never dreamed, much as she had longed for books on Nevis. That had been merely a case of inherited brain cells calling for furniture; embarked upon her adventure, these cells were crammed so rapidly that her ancestors slept in peace, and Julia felt herself an isolated and completely happy intellect.

Nevertheless, she was young.

One night, shortly after her husband, now able to grace the evening board, had gone to his room, and the duke was closeted with the conservative agent, she went to her own room, opened the window, and hung out over the sea. The moon, whose malicious alertness Captain Dundas had deplored, was at the full and flooded a scene as beautiful in its way as the tropics. The great expanse of water was almost still, and a broad path of silver seemed firm enough to walk on straight away to the continent of Europe and its untasted delights. Just round the corner was the rose garden, which covered the filled-in moat on the south side of the castle and several hundred yards beyond. The roses were not very good ones, being somewhat rusted by the salt-sea spray, but, like the pleasaunce on another side of the castle, were a part of the more modern traditions of Bosquith; and the duke, although entirely indifferent to Nature when she ceased to be useful and amused herself with being merely beautiful, was a stickler for tradition; the roses were never neglected without, although never brought within; pollen inflamed his mucous membranes.

The blossoms had gone with the summer, but Julia was fancying herself inhaling their perfumes when she became aware that the figure of a man had detached itself from the tangle. She watched him idly, supposing him to be one of the grooms, and wondering if his sweetheart would follow. But the man was alone, and in a moment he bent down, picked up a handful of loose stones, and leaned back as if to fling them upward from the narrow ledge. Simultaneously Julia and Nigel Herbert recognized each other.

“What—what—do you want?” gasped Julia, in a loud whisper.

“You,” said Nigel, grimly. “Come down here.”

“Impossible!” thrilling wildly, however.

“If you don’t, I’ll break in. I’ve prowled round here for three nights, and know the place by heart. The leads—”

“For heaven’s sake, go away!”

“Will you come down? I’m spraining the back of my neck, and may slip off this narrow shelf any minute. Do you want to see my mangled remains at the foot of the cliff?”

“No. No. But—”

“Come down. I must have a talk with you—have this thing out or go mad. It’s little to ask!”

Julia glanced behind her at the circular room hung with arras (to keep out draughts and conceal the hot-water pipes), and furnished with a big Gothic bed and hard upright chairs—and thrilled again. She was not the least in love with Nigel, but she suddenly realized that she was nearly nineteen and romance had never entered her life. After all, was love a necessary factor? Might not the romantic adventure be something to remember always, particularly when assisting a most unromantic husband achieve a political career, and entertaining some of the dullest men in London? She hesitated but an instant, then leaned out again.

“I’ll try,” she whispered.

“If you fail, I’ll come to-morrow night.”

“Very well, go into the rose garden—under the oak.”

She put on a dark cape and opened her door cautiously. The long corridor was lighted by a small lamp: gas and electricity, not being hygienic essentials, were not among the Bosquith improvements. All the bedrooms opened upon this corridor, but Julia knew that her husband slept, his capacity for instant and prolonged slumber being one of his assets. She crept past the duke’s door. He was an early bird, but was in the library still, no doubt, and the library was far away. He would be sure to mount by the small stair beside it; the grand staircase led to the unused drawing-rooms, and into the immense hall, which, at this season with no guests in the castle, and a library answering every requirement of the family, was economically inexpedient. When a hereditary duke has several entailed estates to keep up besides a town house, and a paltry income of forty thousand pounds a year, he is put to shifts of which the envious world knows nothing.

Down the grand staircase, therefore, stole Julia. It creaked even under her small feet; behind the wainscot she heard gnawing sounds of hideous import; and the darkness below was unrelieved by a single silver gleam. But Julia possessed a valiant soul; moreover, was determined to have her adventure. She felt her way past the massive pieces of furniture toward a small door in the tower room beneath her own; she dared not attempt to unchain and open the great front doors studded with nails. She had used this humble means of exit before, and although the room was full of rubbish, she found the big rusty key without difficulty, opened the door, then with another fearful glance about her stole toward the middle of the rose garden. The old bushes were very high and ragged, but had it not been for an oak tree in their midst, concealment for a man nearly six feet high would have been impossible. Julia made her way straight toward the tree, and uttered a loud “Shhh—” when Nigel impetuously left its shelter.

“And even this is not safe,” she whispered, as they met. “We are too near the castle, and the duke always takes a little walk before he goes to bed. Follow me and don’t speak or make any noise.”

She led the way out of the rose garden and across the park to a grove of ancient oaks. A brook wandered among the trees. The moonlight poured in. The dark frowning mass of the castle was plain to be seen. The sea murmured. A nightingale sang. No spot on earth could have been more romantic. Julia shivered with delight, and thanked the winking stars.

But Nigel was insensible to the romance of his surroundings. Unlike the woman, he wanted the main factor; the setting could take care of itself. And he was in a distracted and desperate frame of mind. As Julia turned to him she experienced her first misgiving; his face was set and very white.

“This is where I often read and dream,” she said conversationally. “It is my favorite spot.”

“Is it? It’s awfully good of you to come out. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I might have written, I suppose; but I can only write fiction. Couldn’t put down a word of what I wanted to say to you—of what I felt—” He broke off and added passionately, “Julia! Don’t you care for me—the least bit?”

“No.” Julia, not having the faintest idea how to handle such a situation, took refuge in the bare truth, at all times more natural to her than to most women. “I don’t love you, but I think it rather nice to meet you like this for once.”

Nigel groaned. Like all born artists, he understood something of women by instinct, and felt more hopeless in the face of this uncompromising honesty and artlessness than when alone with his imagination.

“But you don’t love your husband?”

“Oh, no. Not the way you mean, at least. I’ve read a lot about love these last months, and it must be wonderful. I’ve grown quite fond of poor Harold, but I never could love him in that way. I wish I could,” she added, with a sudden sense of loyalty to the absent and sleeping husband.

“Julia, you must try to understand! You never can even tolerate that man. You mustn’t live with him. We were plotting to save you from him when he fell ill, and then we ho—we thought he’d die. But he’s, he’s—Oh, please don’t look at me as if I were a cad. I know you are a brick, and I’ve held out until he was on his legs again—and I nearly off my head. I won’t say a word against him. Let it go at this—you never can love him. That I can swear to and _you know it_. But you could love some one, and it must, it must be me! It shall be! Julia, if you could only _guess_ what love means, then you might have some idea, at least, of how I love you. But even your instincts don’t seem to have awakened. And I haven’t the chance to teach you! You must give it to me! You must!”

“Do you want me to elope with you?” asked Julia, curiously. This was a highly interesting development, and after the manner of her sex, when indifferent, she grew cooler and more analytical as her lover’s flame mounted.

“No—no—not yet. I only wanted a chance to-night to tell you how I love you—to make you understand that much, if possible. Oh, God! It _must_ be communicable! When you are alone and think it over—I hope—I hope—Meanwhile, I want you to promise to make opportunities to meet me. I can’t go to the castle. But you can meet me. On the moor. Here at night. I have waited long enough. France no longer needs you. He is nearly well, and will get everything he wants—”

“He wants me more than anything else,” said Julia, shrewdly. “He’s as much in love with me as you are—”

“He shan’t have you!” shouted Nigel, and Julia stared, fascinated, at a face convulsed with passion. It was the first time she had seen this tremendous force unleashed, for France had done his courting under the eagle eye of his future mother-in-law, and Nigel, during their acquaintance in London, had not progressed outwardly beyond sentiment. Julia, even while deciding that sentiment became his fresh frank face better, and shrinking distastefully from a passion so close to her, was conscious of disappointment in her own unresponsiveness. Nineteen! What an ideal age for love! And what lover could fill all requirements more satisfactorily than Nigel? But she felt as cold as the moon. To her deep mortification she was obliged to stifle a yawn; it was long past her bedtime. She answered with such haste that her voice had an encouraging quiver in it.

“Oh, don’t let’s talk about him. It’s so jolly to see you again. Tell me about your book. Have you finished it?”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my book.” Nigel’s voice was rough. He came so close to her that she shrank once more, and turned away her eyes. “Oh, I’m not going to touch you. I couldn’t unless you wanted me to, unless you loved me— That is what I want: the chance to make you love me. Will you give it to me?”

“I—I don’t see how it is possible.” She longed to run, but her female instincts were budding under this tropical storm, and one prompted that if she ran, terrible things might happen. The most honest of women is dishonest in moments of danger pertaining to her sex. Julia felt danger in the air. She also rejected Nigel’s protestations. She buckled on her feminine armor and turned to him sweetly.

“I must think it over,” she said. “I never even dreamed that you were in love with me. I should never dare come out again at night. But perhaps on the moor, some morning—”

“I should prefer that. One of the keepers or servants might see us in the park, and I don’t wish our love to be vulgarized—”

“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that! How horrid! I’ll go back this minute. You stay here until I’ve had time to get inside. I’ll write to-morrow. If you follow me, I shall never believe that you love me—”

Even while she spoke she was flitting through the grove with every appearance of an alarm she did not feel at all. Nigel ran after her.

“I’ll not follow if you will swear to meet me to-morrow morning—on the cliffs three miles north from here.”

“Yes. Yes. I swear it.” And she fled into the broad moonlight beyond the trees, while Nigel flung himself on the turf and gnashed his teeth.

Julia, when she reached the upper corridor, almost ran into the duke, but he was near-sighted, used to mice, and she cowered behind an armored knight unsuspected. When she finally closed her own door behind her, she found that all inclination to sleep had fled and that she was more excited than while the immediate centre of a love storm. She sat by the window for hours, thinking hard, and feeling several years older. Quite honest once more, now that she was safe behind a locked door, she examined her new problem on every side. It was quite possible, she confessed, that if she had loved Nigel, even a bit, she might have consented to his program, for youth has its rights; she had not been consulted in her marriage, she was more or less a prisoner, with no prospect of even youthful companionship, and the idea of being a duchess did not interest her at all. Of the meaning of sin she had but the vaguest idea.

But of loyalty and honor she had a very distinct idea. Instinct and reason told her that she never would love Nigel; otherwise, with every provocation, she must have loved him long since. Therefore would it be unfair to play with him. She would far rather be married to him than to France, for he was young and clever and charming, but even were she free now, she would not marry him. Therefore was it her duty to dismiss and cure him as quickly as possible, not ruin his youth by keeping him dangling, after what she knew to be the habit of many women. Also, for the first time, she felt really drawn to her husband, so unconscious of her naughty adventure. After all, she was his, he adored her, and he deserved every reparation in her power. Who could tell?—she might love him. Love appeared to be in the nature of a mighty river at spring flood; no doubt it ingulfed everything in its way. She had leaped to one side to-night, but her husband—yes, it was conceivable that she might stand still and await the flood without making faces.

She felt extremely satisfied and virtuous as she lit her candle and wrote a kind but uncompromising letter to Nigel, taking back her promise to meet him on the morrow, and warning him that if he wrote to her she should give his letters to her husband. It was not in her to do anything of the sort, but she had the gift of a fine straightforward forcible style, and her letter so enraged Nigel that he left England as quickly as steam could take him, cursing her and all women.

So ended their first chapter.

IX

THE curtain had fallen on the first act of “La Traviata,” and Ishbel, for once alone in the box with her husband, glanced idly over the imposing tiers of Covent Garden. Royalty was present, the smart peeresses were out in full force and wore their usual brave display of tiaras and miscellaneous jewels, inherited and otherwise, so that the horseshoe glittered like Aladdin’s palace. There was also a jeweller’s window in the stalls, and altogether it was a representative night in the beginning of the season.

Nevertheless, Ishbel became suddenly and acutely aware that she had on more jewels than any woman in the house. Not only was there an all-round and almost unbearably heavy tiara on her small head, nearly a foot high and composed of diamonds and emeralds as large as plums, but she wore a rope of diamonds that reached far below her knees, a necklace of five rows of pearls as big as her husband’s thumb nails, and linked with emeralds and diamonds, a sunburst of diamonds that looked like a waterfall, and equally priceless gems cutting into the flesh of her tender shoulders where they clasped the only visible portion of her raiment. Ishbel was justly proud of her magnificent collection of jewels, but, being a young woman of unerring good taste, was in the habit of wearing a few at a time. Several hours earlier, however, her husband, grown jealous of the prosiliency of the New South African millionnaires, had come home with the rope and commanded her to put on every jewel she possessed for the opera that night, and the first great ball of the season to follow. As she had surveyed herself in her long mirror it had occurred to her that she looked like a begum, but when she had called her husband’s attention to the fact, and suggested some modification in her display of converted capital, he had replied curtly that he had spent a quarter of his fortune for the public to look at on her equally ornamental self, and that when he wished it displayed in toto, displayed it should be. That is the way for a man to talk to his wife when he means to be obeyed; and when the masterful and successful Mr. Jones delivered his ultimatums, few that had aught to do with him were so hardy as to continue the argument.

Ishbel had trained herself to take him humorously, to believe him the most generous of men because he had proved quite amenable to the family plan of marrying off her sisters (they were handsome and an additional excuse for entertaining), and because he never alluded to her enormous bills or forgot to hand her a check for pin-money every quarter. She had rewarded him with thanks couched in an endless variety of terms and glances, even caresses when he demanded them. When they were alone at table (as seldom as she could manage) she even coquetted with him, giving him the full play of her piquant eyes and sweet smile, and talking in her brightest manner, to conceal from himself how hopeless he was in conversation. She even pitied him sometimes; for, in spite of his riches, his interests in the City, and the great position in society that she had given him, he seemed to her a lonely being, and she would have loved him if she could.

To-night, however, his words had rankled. They had echoed during the drive to the opera-house, stirring her most amiable of minds to a vague anger; and now, quite suddenly, she was filled with an intense mortification and resentment. Every intelligent being that has made a signal mistake in his life’s order has some sudden moment of awakening, of vision. The phrase “kept wife” had not yet arrived in literature, but it rose in Ishbel’s mind as she glanced from her white slender body, weary in its glittering armor, to the big heavy man opposite, sitting with a hand on either knee, his hard bright little eyes surveying her with triumphant approval. She was his property; he owned her, as he owned his house in Park Lane, the castle he had recently bought from a peer terrified by the remodelling of the death duties, his princely equipages, the noisy jewels on her person. After all, she had not a penny of her own, was as poor as when she had been one of fourteen hopeless sisters in Ireland; for he had carefully abstained from settlements, that she might feel her dependence, thank him periodically for his splendid checks. Her father had been in no position to insist upon settlements, but, had he been, would she be any better off ethically than now? They would have been but another present from the man who had bought her as he had bought his other famous possessions. If she had children, they would be his, not hers, and there was nothing he could not compel her to do, and be upheld by the laws of his country, unless he both beat her and kept a mistress.