Chapter III: Part 3

"I never thought of that," said Bob, "but now I remember that it was very moony when I sent him over to you. Baker said you'd like him. His kennel is next to Baker's house."

"I'm much obliged to Baker," said De Vere. "But the tail of the Borzois is still bald, Bob."

Bob opened his eyes wide.

"Oh, dear, I thought you would have cured him by now; and how about his bronchitis?"

"That's better, I hope and trust," said the poet. And Penelope, who was very greatly touched by his kindness to all these dogs, sent Bob into the library.

"It's so good of you to be kind to Bob," she said. "Bob's a dear, and he adores me. He says that he's going to live with me always, even when I'm married."

"Oh!" gasped De Vere. "We were talking about Goby, I think, when dear Bob came in. You'll find him much improved, I'm sure, my dear Lady Penelope. He has read a great deal of Shelley and Keats and Browning with me. He was especially struck with 'Sordello.' I read it to him and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking it all in. And every now and again he said, 'Great Scott!' which is his way of expressing wonderment and admiration. I do not know its origin. I've written to Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows. And Goby, oh, yes, you'll find him improved. I've done my best with him, and I've really struggled hard. Any improvement you notice is, I really believe, under you and Providence, due to me."

And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.

"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog bites and the howling of the retriever. I think--I think I could almost love him!"

And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber and Carteret Williams and Jimmy Carew and Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved. Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show that he had some ambition in him, and, if he did not tell Penelope his exact mind about Plant, he did show some little appreciation of the American's qualities.

"Associating with him has done you good," said Pen. "I see it has. You lived far too much for yourself, Lord Bramber. I cannot endure selfishness."

"I'm not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber. "I rather like Plant. He seems a man, take him all around. He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal. I own I've found him trying, and he says things one finds it hard to forgive."

"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly. "Oh, he told me he said you ought to be beaten severely, and he said you took it very nicely. Did you?"

Bramber bit his lip.

"I did."

"That's right," said Pen. "Oh, I'm improving you all so much. You've no idea how much improved you are. Mr. Mytton said he'd make something out of you, Lord Bramber."

"Did he really?"

"Oh, yes. He said he made fair successes out of very much worse material.

"He's quite a dear," she sighed, when he was gone, but, before she could add that she might almost love him, Carew and Williams came in together. And before she could greet them, Gordon came, too. Williams eyed him with strange ferocity, for he was by nature a hater of Hebrews, and wanted to dust the floor with him. Pen, who was as quick as lightning, caught his glances and said to him, sweetly:

"I think you would get on nicely with Mr. Gordon."

And Williams blenched visibly.

"Oh, I couldn't leave Carew," he said. "I'm deep in art, very deep; I adore it. Carew has introduced me to several Academicians, and I have bought a box of paints. One Academician took me home with him and showed me his pictures. He doesn't agree with Jimmy altogether, and he says Jimmy will alter his opinions presently. His idea is that when a man is an A.R.A., he is only beginning, you see. He also explained to me the attitude of the R.A. with regard to the Chantrey Bequest. He says that if they found a good picture not by an Academician, they would buy it, which is interesting, isn't it? He was painting a picture called 'War,' and wanted my opinion. I said I'd ask Jimmy, because I didn't know anything about war except what I'd seen. I don't know why he was chuffy about it. I find artists get chuffy and huffy very quick, and I don't know what for. Do you think there will be war soon?"

Penelope didn't know, and said she wanted eternal peace and happiness for every one, and meant having it if it could be got by any legitimate influence.

"War is horrible!"

"It is," said Carew, who joined in just here, after getting away from Gordon, who told him to buy Hittites at 3-1/8. "War is horrid. Williams is always talking of it."

"I'm not," said Williams, angrily. "I want peace, eternal peace and happiness for every one."

"Ah, so do I," put in Gordon. "My idea is to have a peaceful life, far from the roar of London, in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and there are no Chinese or crushing reports. Why is it that most reports from mines are crushing? I wish I knew."

"Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful Penelope. "You could keep cows, Mr. Gordon."

"I adore them," said Gordon. "There is a breed without horns, isn't there?"

"They look incomplete," said Jimmy.

"What are you painting now?" asked Pen.

"I'm not really painting, I'm modelling in clay, as you told me," said the obsequious lover. "Don't you remember saying I was to model in clay? I'm doing Williams in clay. He looks very well in it. I'm also doing a bull going at a gate. When I get tired of Williams, I do the bull, and when I'm fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams."

"And are they like?" asked Penelope.

"Oh, exactly," replied Carew.

And the interesting conversation was interrupted by Chloe and Ethel. But Penelope said to herself that they were all dears.

"Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she murmured happily. "And Mr. Carew looks more healthy and less engrossed in himself. I was awfully glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about a peaceful life."

And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step and went to his club. He roared of war till two o'clock in the morning, and then got three out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told them the great story of his love. But Jimmy went down to Chelsea, and damned modelling in clay to other impressionist painters, and had a real good time. As for Gordon of the "deep green vale," he went home and found a clerk waiting with a bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining globe. He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off an engagement to hear a debate on drains.

On the whole, every one was tolerably happy, if we do not include Titania and the retriever who howled at nights.

*CHAPTER VII.*

It is possible that Penelope never enjoyed herself so much as she did at this period. She was so busy that she had no time to worry; her team took all her time. She was young, she was beautiful, she was adored, she was popular, she was even notorious. A dozen reporters dogged her footsteps, and when they lost her they followed her lovers. They haunted her door-step armed with kodaks; they invented paragraphs; they hunted her men and her maids. They made love to the girls, and seduced the men into neighbouring bars. One newspaper man, who belonged to the _Mayfair Daily_, got into her establishment as a footman, and was discovered by the butler drawing Penelope at dinner when he should have been drawing corks. A search in his clothes revealed some pencils and a note-book and another book of drawings. They were of such a character that the reporter was put outside into the street. The butler could have forgiven the sketch of his mistress: there was one of himself that no man could forgive.

The great desire of all these men was to spot the winner. Penelope's maid, Harriet Weekes, who was more or less engaged to Timothy Bunting, the groom (a sad _mesalliance_, by the way), found it impossible to go out without being accosted respectfully by a new admirer, who tried to lead the conversation around to her mistress.

"If you please, my lady, another of them spoke to me to-day. I hope, my lady, you don't think it my fault," said Weekes.

"What do they say?" asked Penelope, curiously. She took great interest in the manners and customs of other classes, perhaps with a view of altering them when she got time.

"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing. I think men are very much the same all over the world. They say 'It's a fine day,' even if it's raining, and of course it is, and they say they want to walk a little way with me (begging your pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and that they have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and have been trying to speak about it for years. And I tell 'em I don't want 'em, and I don't, to be sure, though one (he's on the _Piccadilly Circus Gazette_) is a very handsome man with a heagle's glance, dressed in gray tweeds. And they won't be put off, I assure you, my lady. Men on newspapers are hextremely persevering with a fine flow of language. And if, being persuaded to take a little walk, for they are difficult to put off by trade, I do take one, they begin to ask, begging your pardon, I'm sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and I'm sure I'm as like you as a butterfly is to a beetle, as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the ground I walk on, if he's to be believed, which I'm not sure of yet, and the butler is very angry with me about the whole affair. And one, who said he was the editor of the _Times_, which I don't believe in the least, because it doesn't seem likely, does it, my lady, that the editor of the _Times_ would do such things himself? said he wanted to marry me and put me on the staff as his lovely bride. I must say he spoke most beautifully, and he said he knew Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and he said they were getting thin he thought. And another, quite the gentleman, though by his trousers poor and careful, said he owned most of the _Daily Telegraph_. And I couldn't help looking at his clothes. He was very quick, and said that was owing to the competition of the half-penny papers. Would I save the _Daily Telegraph_ from himpending ruin by telling him which it would be, he said. And I said flatly that I wouldn't. I never saw such wicked impudence. Oh, yes, my lady, your hair's done now, and it's as lovely as a dream."

And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered, quite as much as any of the newspaper men, who it was to be.

"It's my belief," she said to Timothy, a little later, "that my lady is beginning to incline to one of 'em. I've noticed she's quieter like and more gentle. And there's a soft sadness in her eye and a colour that comes and goes."

"There ain't one of the biling worthy of her," said Timothy, bitterly. "But there, Miss Weekes, there ain't no man worthy of a real beautiful, good lidy. A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some day far off, when motor-cars has killed every 'orse, you'll be Mrs. Bunting."

"It's a great come down, Tim," said Harriet. "Mr. Gubbles says he wonders, too."

"If he wasn't the butler, and old, I'd plug 'im," said Timothy, crossly. "It's all right for me to wonder, but he ain't in it."

"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over, Mr. Bunting," said Harriet. "You must pardon a butler's feelings. Even Mr. Gubbles has his feelings. And he agrees with you that there's no one but a duke ought to marry our dear lady. And she demeaning herself (if I dare say so) with Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men; not but what Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and generous. Only yesterday, Mr. Bunting, he says to me when he met me outside, 'Do you read?' And I says, 'Yes, sir,' being some flustered, and he says, 'You read that.' And it was a five-pound note. And he adds something about 'your vote and hinfluence.' But I can't do it, Mr. Bunting, I can't. If it was Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young Lord Bramber I might more so, and even if it was Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but for a Jewish man I can't. So I said, 'Thank you, sir,' and he went off. But some one is beginnin' to rise up in my lady's mind, I saw it plainly when I was dressing her. It would be worth more than five pounds to know who is risin'."

"Yes," said Timothy. "'Ow much would it run to, do you think?"

"I believe it would be worth a public 'ouse."

"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.

"And a corner 'ouse at that," replied Harriet, nodding her head.

"Oh, 'Arriet," said Timothy, with a gasp, "you fairly dazzle me."

The newspaper men had dazzled Harriet.

But indeed what she said seemed true to her. And it seemed true to Lord Bradstock, who had, like the man of the _Circus Gazette_, an eagle's glance.

"She has been playing fair," said Bradstock, "but one of them is drawing ahead, Titania."

"Good heavens, who is he, and how do you know?" asked Titania.

"It's intuition," said Bradstock, "intuition combined with, or founded on, a little observation. She's different, Titania. She takes no interest in the London County Council."

"You don't say so!" cried the duchess, in alarm.

Bradstock nodded.

"It's a fact. I asked her if she had read the last debate, and she hadn't, and when I mentioned the Deceased Wife's Sister she yawned."

"That looks bad," said Titania, "for only a week ago she raved about her, and Goring said he'd vote for her if she insisted on it. And she did insist, and tears came in her eyes about the poor thing."

"Well, I told you so," said Bradstock, "and I do hope it isn't Williams. I'm afraid of Williams. He's capable of knocking her down and carrying her off on his shoulder. Do you remember with what joy she read us the account of the savage tribe somewhere (was it the east of London?) where they do that?"

"It made me shiver with apprehension," said Titania. "Oh, if she was only married safely to a good duke, one not like Goring! Is there a good duke, Augustin?"

"Several, so I'm informed," replied Bradstock, "and there are quite a number of good earls, some quite admirable. But I wish you'd get hold of Chloe Cadwallader, and find out something."

Titania bristled like a porcupine.

"There is no need to find out anything about Mrs. Cadwallader," she said. "If Penelope wasn't too dangerously innocent to be single, she would not have anything to do with her."

"I'm sure the poor woman was only silly," said Bradstock. "Haven't we all been silly in our time, Titania? Didn't I marry twice? And you married once."

"I'll speak to her," said the duchess, hastily. "If we can only find out who it is, we can, I'm sure, prevent her doing as she says and making a secret marriage of it. The scandal would be horrid. Oh, Augustin, suppose she did it, and had a large family suddenly. I should die of it."

"Good heavens," said Bradstock, "you alarm me, Titania, you are so gloomy. She would surely acknowledge her marriage then?"

Titania threw up her hands.

"Augustin, I'm sure of nothing with Penelope. I cannot answer for her. She will bring my gray hairs with sorrow--"

"To cremation," said Bradstock. "She has invested money in a crematorium."

"I thought it was dairy-farming," cried Titania. "Oh, but think, Augustin, of the horror of the situation as it might be! What would her Royal Highness say to me? Imagine her marrying and keeping it dark, and having, as I say, a large family suddenly without a husband producible on the moment to answer natural inquiries! Imagine her saying _then_ that her marriage was her own business, and her certificate of marriage firmly withheld by a young and obstinate mother in a safe! She has a safe. She has a safe, Augustin, with many keys. I wish I could get at it, and find things out that are in it. I wish I knew a burglar, a good honest and reliable burglar, married and trustworthy, that I could send in to break it open. Most girls have a desk with an ordinary key, easy to open, but Penelope has a Lord Milner's safe with patent things to keep it shut. It's not natural, it's wicked. Oh, I did hope, when I found out what the duke was like and what his ways were, that I knew the extent of my troubles, but there is no end to them, and Penelope begins where Goring leaves off."

"Is it as bad as that?" asked Bradstock.

"And then there's Bob--"

"By Jove," said Augustin, "I believe Bob's the key to the safe! Titania, he's more likely to find something out than any one."

Titania nodded solemnly.

"Augustin, you are right. I'll speak to Bob."

"Let me do it."

"No, no, Augustin. He is very quick and suspicious, and he loves her, he adores her. This requires a feminine intelligence. I will work upon him quietly."

And she went away to work upon Bob quietly.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

Now Titania believed that she was very smart and very clever, and that she would do things subtly and do them better than Bradstock or a barrister, even if he was a K.C. And as it is the most invariably weak point in people that they think young people fools, or at any rate easily hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly beloved young scoundrel of a grandson, would be as easy to work on as butter. And yet she had the sense to see that Bob adored Penelope.

"I am very greatly troubled about Penelope, Bob," she said to him, as soon as she got him alone.

"Don't you worry about Pen, granny," replied Bob, cheerfully, "she can take care of herself. Why, she can drive a motor-car now up to about thirty miles an hour, and Geordie Smith says she's all there. And so does old Guth. He had long talks with her, and he says she has brains. I tell you old Guth knows 'em when he sees 'em."

Titania nodded.

"Oh, I know she is clever, dear, but her ideas are so extraordinary."

"Ain't they?" said Bob. "I do wonder which of 'em she'll marry, don't you?"

"Indeed I do," replied his grandmother. "Have you any idea, Bob, which she likes best?"

Bob shook his head.

"Not me. I wish it was Goby; old Goby is a ripping good sort. He knows what's what, does old Goby."

Goby tipped him freely and frequently, and Bob sold him a spavined pony, aged fifteen years.

"He's a bit of a fool, of course," said Bob, thoughtfully. "Do you know, granny, he isn't the judge of horses you'd think he is?"

"Does Penelope ever confide in you, Bob?" asked Titania.

There was a touch of anxiety in her voice that the boy felt at once. He put his head on one side and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He didn't answer the question.

"I say, granny, don't you think I can have a bigger allowance now? I find mine much too little. If I had ten shillings a week more, I could get on for a bit."

"You shall have it," said Titania. "Does she ever confide in you, Bob?"

"Some," said Bob, carelessly.

"Which do you think she likes best?" asked Titania.

"I don't know," said Bob, "but I dare say I could find out. I say, should you be very angry if it was Gordon?"

Titania uttered a little scream.

"Great heavens, Bob, I should die of it!"

Bob sat down and looked at her.

"He's not bad, granny, not half mean, oh, no, not at all!"

He had given Bob as much as he gave Miss Harriet Weekes about three days before.

"I rather like him," said Bob. "Pen thinks he's much improved since she put him in harness with the Frenchy. It touched her his going up in a balloon. I say, may I go up in a balloon? Rivaulx said I might."

"No!" screamed his grandmother. "Oh, Bob, you wouldn't?"

"I won't if you don't want me to," sighed Bob, "but it's a horrid disappointment. He says going up in one is jolly, and London underneath is ripping. If I don't, will you ask grandfather to give me another hunter?"

"Yes, of course," said poor Titania; "but what do you think about Penelope? Could you find out anything, Bob, if I let you go and stay with her?"

Bob's eyes gleamed.

"Rather," he said, "of course. But I needn't worry about old Guth if I do? I've been working very hard, and I think a holiday would do him good, too. I'm very much overworked. Do I look tired, granny? I always feel tired now in my head. Guth says a breakdown from overwork is much worse than most fatal diseases."

"You shall go to Penelope if she'll have you," said his anxious grandmother. "Do you have headaches, Bob?"

"Not headaches," said Bob, "I shouldn't call 'em headaches exactly. They're pains, and old Guth says he had 'em when he was at Oxford. They get worse, he says, and then the breakdown comes, and you have to take a very long rest. I'll go on working if you like, though."

He sighed.

"You shall go to your cousin's," said Titania, "and my dear, dear Bob, keep your eye on Penelope and tell me all you discover. Her ideas are very strange, you know, and we are all so anxious about her future."

"So am I," said Bob. "If she married the wrong one I shall be out of it. I couldn't get on well with old De Vere, and if she married him I'm quite convinced he wouldn't buy any more dogs. I want her to marry Goby or Bramber. But I think Bramber is rather mean in some ways, and very thoughtless of others. I told him I wanted some salmon fishing at his father's place in Scotland, and he's said nothing about it since."

"I shouldn't mind Lord Bramber so much," said Titania. "But I'm afraid it won't be Bramber."

"Cheer up," said her grandson. "I'll look after her. But don't forget about the extra ten shillings and the horse. Could you give me the ten shillings for six weeks now, granny?"

And he went off to Penelope's house and marched in on her.

"Pen, I'm coming to stay with you if you'll have me," he said.

"Of course I will," said Penelope. "But how did you manage it?"

"I'm overworked," said Bob, solemnly, "and sitting on chairs and learning Latin don't agree with me. I want more open air, I think, or I shall get consumption."

He was fat and ruddy and as strong as a bull-calf. He put his arm around Pen's neck.

"I say, Pen, I do love you," he said. "I think it's rot I'm so young, or I'd have married you myself. Granny's in an awful state about you, Pen. She asked me if I knew who it was you liked best, and she threw out hints a foot wide that I was to find out if I could."

"Indeed," said Pen; "and what did you say?"

Bob chuckled.

"I said the best thing would be for me to come and stay with you. And that's why I'm here. But I say, Pen, I'll never sneak, not even if you marry Mr. de Vere. Granny's raised my allowance ten bob a week, and I'm to have another hunter. I got too big for the pony, so I sold him to Goby; Goby looked very melancholy, but he said he wanted him badly for some reason. And he said he hoped I'd be his friend always. I like poor old Goby. I think I'll go into the park, Pen. My things will be here by and by. Couldn't we go to the theatre to-night? There's a ripping farce with a fight in it at the Globe. And will you have plum pudding for dinner, and ice meringues?"

He went into the park and met Williams there.

"I say, Mr. Williams, where's Mr. Carew?" he asked.

"Damn Carew," said Williams. "I don't know where he is, and I don't want to."

"I'm staying at my cousin's," said Bob.

"At Lady Penelope's?" asked the war correspondent.

"That's it," said Bob. "Would you like to know what theatre we are going to to-night?"

"Yes," said Williams, eagerly.

Bob shook his head.

"I don't suppose I ought to tell you. Tell me something very exciting about some bloody war, Mr. Williams."

Williams grunted.

"Or an execution. Have you ever seen heads chopped off with a sword?"

"Often in China, Bob."

"I say, what fun!" said Bob. "Tell me all about it. Is it true they smoke cigarettes while they are being chopped? And do they mind? Could I see one if I went out? I say, if you'll describe it, I'll see if I can tell you about the theatre."

Carteret Williams described it.

"Seventeen!" said Bob. "By Jove, I'll tell this to Penelope. She'll be greatly interested. Do you think I could be a war correspondent, Mr. Williams? I'd like to be, because Latin wouldn't be needed. I'm awfully sorry for war correspondents in those days when no one but the Roman chaps did any fighting. I've enjoyed that story of yours more than anything I've heard for years, Mr. Williams. When they write about these things in books, why don't they describe the blood the way you do? It's the Globe we're going to; there's a ripping farce there. I wish they would do an execution of pirates. I say, don't tell Pen I told you; she might be waxy with me. Think of something else to tell me. Good-bye."

And he went to look at the ducks.

"Williams is all right," said Bob; "I wonder if it is Williams."

And at home Pen began to know who it was. And Ethel Mytton began to know it was some one. And so did Chloe Cadwallader.

Miss Weekes was right, there is no mistake about that.

*CHAPTER IX.*

Penelope was certainly on the verge of being in love, to go no farther than that. She discovered that certain of the horde had a curious tendency to disappear from her mind, though none of them lost any opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room. She was so sorry for those she didn't love that her kindness to them increased. Her dread of the one she began to adore forbade her to show how soft she had grown to him. Not even Ethel and Chloe together could make anything out of it, which shows every one, of course, that they were two simple idiots, or that Penelope had a very remarkable character. It seems to me that the latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no fool in spite of the folly she had shown on one particular occasion.

"Am I a fool?" she asked Ethel Mytton, "or is Penelope the deepest, darkest mystery of modern times? I am convinced she has made her choice."

"Oh, which do you think?" asked Ethel, with much anxiety. "Do you--do you think it is Captain Goby?"

"I don't know," replied Chloe; "it may be. I give it up. I shall ask Bob."

"I've asked him," said Ethel, "and he won't say anything. I think he knows more than we do. He's a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a ferret."

But of course Bob knew no more than they did, though he would never own to it. He threw out casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and the only one he was in the least frank with was Lord Bradstock, who asked him to lunch and was infinitely amused with him.

"I say, Lord Bradstock, if you'll keep it dark, I'll tell you something!"

Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry plate.

"All these women think I know who Penelope's sweet on, and I don't. And, what's more, I wouldn't tell if I did. Would you?"

"Certainly not," said Bradstock.

"You can't think how I'm chased," said Bob. "Ethel Mytton is the worst. She's dead nuts on poor Goby, and Goby doesn't see her when Pen's in the room. And Mrs. Cadwallader, she's always mugging up to me with chocolates or something to get things out of me. And the newspaper Johnnies are on me, too. And Williams takes me out, and Carew (I don't care for Carew), and I like Goby best. Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don't you think? The marquis was at Pen's, and he said that if Pen didn't marry him he'd go up in a balloon and never come back. I want him to take me in a balloon. Don't you think I might go? Granny's cross when I speak of it. I've always wanted to go in a balloon, and I think it hard lines I can't go because she doesn't like 'em. Pen won't go, either. She thinks that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come down again, or something. I daresay he wouldn't; he's quite mad, I think, sometimes. Baker says all Frenchmen are mad. Do you think so?"

Bradstock didn't know; he wasn't sure of it, though he owned to thinking it was possible.

"After all, Bob," he said, when Bob went at last, "and after all I dare say Penelope won't marry any of them."

And of course that is what a good many people said. They said it was Lady Penelope's fun. The Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one's affairs, said so to Titania.

"Why wasn't she beaten, my dear, when she was young?" asked the marchioness. "I was severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense. I always used to beat my girls with the flat of my hand, and now they are _most_ sensible and married excellently, although I own they are not beauties. I can afford to own it now. I shall speak to Penelope myself."

She did it and was routed. Pen was direct; she beat no one, and certainly did not beat about the bush. She had no fear of the world, and dreaded no marchioness.

"I'll attend to my own affairs, thank you," said Pen.

"My dear love," said the marchioness, "you ought to have been beaten while you were still young. This conduct of yours is a scandal. It is merely a means of attracting public notice. And I am old enough to speak about it. I will speak about it."

Pen left her speaking and went out.

"She is distinctly rude," said the marchioness, viciously. "I wish she was about ten and I was her mother!"

But Pen could not endure being spoken to.

"I love him," said Pen, "and what business is it of theirs? If they disapprove I shall hate them! If they approve I shall hate them worse. Oh, I almost wish I was going to marry some one who would make them die!"

"Mark me," said the marchioness to Titania, "this will end in her marrying a groom. Has she a good-looking one?"

Titania started.

"Oh, a very good-looking one," she cried.

"What did I say? Remember what I said," said the marchioness, darkly. "No really good girl could act as she does. She will marry a groom!"

She went around saying so in revenge for Penelope's want of politeness. The journalists took Timothy Bunting's photograph, and Miss Weekes was proud till she heard the dreadful rumour. Timothy beat a man on a paper, and Bob was delighted. Titania took to her bed, and said the end of the world was at hand. Bradstock laughed till he cried, and cut the marchioness in the park. Her husband was very much pleased at this, and said it served her right. Chloe Cadwallader wrote her first letter since the scandal to Cadwallader in the Rockies, for she felt he would be the only man in the world who hadn't heard of it. Ethel lay wait for Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some one. There was not a soul in London who did not hear of it. And then Timothy quarrelled with Harriet Weekes. He went to Penelope, and with a crimson face and bated breath and much humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.

"You shall go," said Penelope, with great decision. "I can trust you, I know."

"My lady, you can trust me with untold gold and diamonds," replied Timothy Bunting, almost with tears.

"I shall send you to a house of mine you have never heard of," said Penelope. "And I expect you, Bunting, not to write to any one from there. I do not wish any one to know I live there."

"I'll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury 'imself, my lady, not if he begged me on his knees, with lighted candles in his 'and," said Bunting. "And, above all, my lady, I'll not tell it to Miss Weekes. Her and me 'ave quarrelled, and 'ave parted for hever. And I wouldn't trust her, my lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the tail, my lady. I've trusted her to my rueing, so I have, and if she finds out hanything she'll sell it to the _Times_, which 'ave promised her a public 'ouse at a corner."

This revelation of the methods of Printing House Square shocked Penelope dreadfully.

"Oh, I always thought the _Times_ was a respectable journal," she said.

But Timothy Bunting shook his head.

"Their sportin' tips ain't a patch on many of the penny papers, my lady. But don't you forget what I says of Miss Weekes. She's a serpent in your boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to newspaper men outside the harea like an 'ousemaid. Not but that I knows an 'ousemaid far above such dirty work, my lady."

A little encouragement might have led him to say more about the housemaid who would not condescend to talk with journalists. But Penelope gave him an address, verbally.

"You will go to this place to-morrow," she said. "There are no horses now, but there will be next week. I trust you to do what I tell you."

"Miss--my lady, I mean," said Timothy, proudly, "I wouldn't reveal where I was if the Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that purpose all along of the ground, making speeches as he went."

Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly, and she wondered how it happened that he thought of placing the emperor in such an absurd position; a position, too, which was very unlikely.

"Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?" she asked.

"Miss Mackarness, Moat 'Ouse, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire," repeated Timothy.

"And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness, who will give you every instruction," said his young mistress. "I hope you don't drink, Bunting?"

"Never," said Bunting, promptly, "at least I won't from now on till you give the word, my lady. But, my lady, as I'm goin' from here I don't mind revealin' to you that Mr. Gubbles does. Mr. Gubbles 'as been very unkind to me, and--"

"That will do," said Penelope. "Good-bye, Bunting. I expect to see you in about a month. It may be less."

"I 'opes, my lady, it will be much less," said the groom, and as he went away he nodded his close-cropped head.

"This is a damned rum start," he murmured. "Wot's up, I wonder? This 'ere Miss Mackarness was 'ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I'm a Dutchman if any one of us 'as ever 'eard of Moat 'Ouse. She's goin' to do it, as she said, goin' to be married and keep it dark. Women is wonderful strange and, so to speak, dreadful. I thot I knew 'Arriet Weekes through and through, and she turned out to be a serpent with false teeth, ready to sell Lady Penelope to the _Times_. And my lady 'as turned me round 'er finger. I'm knee-deep in secret hoaths, and, without knowin' what I was doin', I've swore off drink. Well, I always did like ginger-beer!"

But he sighed all the same. And that afternoon he packed up and disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him. Neither he nor any one of those who hunted for news had any notion of the fame which would presently be his. Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when this nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by her orders.

But Penelope was in love.

*CHAPTER X.*

Love is a pathological state which can only be cured by one means. It is a disease, and robs the most humourous of their humour. When Rabelais was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he afterward destroyed. When Dante was in love he did the Paradiso. When he cheered up he wrote the Inferno. Neither of these is any joke. But then, Dante had no more humour than Penelope. It can be imagined (or it cannot be imagined) how unhumourous Pen became when she found she had made her choice between Plant and De Vere and Goby and Carew and Williams and Bramber and Gordon and Rivaulx. She wept at night over those she could not marry. And it added grief to grief to think that the unmarried would probably relapse into their evil ways.

"What can one poor girl do with so many?" she asked. "I'm sure they will turn around on me, and once more follow their dreadful instincts! And they have improved so much!"

The result of her sorrow was such pity that every poor wretch of them all was convinced she loved him better and better. They were quite cheerful. They looked at each other almost sympathetically. They grieved for each other, and struggled on the hard cinder-path of duty, with Penelope at least a long lap ahead. The amount of good they did was wonderful. Plant got his university started, Rivaulx went over to Paris and asked Dreyfus to dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity in the House and voted with the insistence of a whip. De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor sports, with an appendix on bulldogs. He also owned that poetry was not everything, and went so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very good fellow. Gordon floated a company without any water in the capital, and ran the whole affair with absolute honesty and no waiver clause. Carew learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the Chantry Bequest.

Williams never swore in public, and painted in water-colours. And none of them played bridge or went into good society.

"And when they know?" said poor Penelope.

"I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and myself on the altar of duty?" said Pen. But she was in love, and the motor-car in which she was to disappear stood ready. She made weekly trips in it with Bob. Sometimes they stayed away for three days, sometimes even for a week.

"Oh, Bob, I'm so unhappy: so happy," said Pen.

And Bob looked at her critically.

"Well, you look stunning, anyhow," he replied, "you get better looking every day, Pen. Old De Vere said so. He let on that you were a cross between a lily and a rose, or some such rot. You mark me, Pen, he'll go back to poetry if you marry him, and give up dogs. I don't want him to do that. Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of very savage dog, and I'm halves in 'em. Can't you give me a tip as to whether it's De Vere? If it is, I'll sell him one now, cheap."

But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth shut. Neither Bob nor Titania nor Bradstock could extract a word from her. And, nevertheless, the whole world grew suspicious. The society papers said she had made her choice. The sporting papers gave tips. They said, "For the _Lady Penelope Stakes_ we give Plant or Bramber," or at least one of them did. Others selected De Vere, and one rude man said a rank outsider would get it. Of course he didn't believe in Pen's word. But then, no one did.

And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as obstinate as a government mule to all persuasion. Ethel cried and said:

"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"

Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:

"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."

Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out of Penelope.

"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married without publicity. I shall found a society presently," said Penelope.

When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously, Bradstock smiled.

"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock. But even he was very curious.

"Have you found out anything yet, Bob?" he asked that young financier.

"I'm on the way," said Bob, "give me time, Lord Bradstock. I feel sure it's not De Vere. He's buying all the dogs I offer him. If he was sure, he wouldn't."

But Bradstock wasn't certain. Penelope might have no humour, but she was quite equal to ordering De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.

"I never thought of that," said Bob. "I frankly own Pen's a deal worse than Euclid. And I never thought to say that of anything."

And upon a certain day in June, when June was doing its best to live up to the poet's ideal, Pen disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home with Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the young vagabond doing something. She came back after lunch, and Bob found her abnormally silent. She had nothing to say, and there was a curious far-off look in her eyes. Her interest in dogs was nil; she showed no appreciation of ferrets; when he spoke she said "Oh" and "Ah" and "what's that you say?" And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever, just as clever people never have when they might be expected to show their wisdom.

When she did speak, though, it was to the point.

"I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your grandmother's," she declared, suddenly, and back he went in spite of all his cajoleries. Pen was very strange, he thought, and rather beastly. There certainly was a change in her, for she dismissed Harriet Weekes with a douceur which did not really sweeten that lady's departure.

And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to Chloe that she was going out of town for three days. When she said so the motor-car was at the door, and Geordie Smith was there too.

If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was as deep in his lady's confidence as he was himself, he would have been jealous. But he must have been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of Piccadilly:

"How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?"

"My lady, with this new racing-car I'll get there when you like," replied Smith, firmly.

Pen remembered that Bob said Smith's ambition was to ride through the city regardless of fines.

"I wouldn't try to do it under three hours," she said.

"Unless we are followed," said Smith. "If we are followed, my lady, may I let her go?"

"Yes," said Penelope.

Geordie Smith nodded to himself.

"Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto," said Smith to himself; "wait, my darling, till we get through the traffic."

He meant "darling" for his new car. He adored it as much as he did his mistress. He used to dream of it at night and had nightmares about it. Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the middle of Salisbury Plain without petrol; "she" refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock. But now she moved under him smooth and cosy, with a vast reserve of power; she was quick, swift, docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless of the limping law.

"If my lady wants to go quick, I'm the man," said Geordie. "But I wonder what's up?"

Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the violin, or Paderewski the piano. She skated, she swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was responsive to his lightest touch. He heard her music as every engineer does, and found it as lovely as a dream song.

"Oh, for a clear road," said the player. He found some of it clear before they reached Barnet, and then he fingered the keyboard, as it were, like a master.

"Horses, horses," said Smith, "the poor miserable things! Ain't I sorry for Tim Bunting! Here we go, my lady."

He broke the law magnificently, and with such skill that Penelope wondered. But only once he ran against the law in the shape of a policeman, north of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to him to stop.

"Shall I?" said Smith.

"No!" shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.

They passed him flying and saw him run as they passed.

"He'll wire to Hitchin and have us there," said Smith. But he knew his roads. "Oh, will he?"

He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn and roared through Stevenage to Baldock and found the main road again at Sandy. They reached Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and three quarters.

"And I've never let her out but once," said Smith; "she's a daisy!"

The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at a speed that made Penelope bend her head. She felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star. They slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and rolled through it delicately. She looked about her and remembered the dear bishop who had christened her when he was no more than a vicar.

"We'll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith." A car followed them out of Spilsborough, and Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.

"Catch us, my son," he said, contemptuously. But when they were well clear of town and he turned her loose, so to speak, Pen's nerve went, or it appeared to go.

"Don't go so fast, Smith," she commanded.

And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.

"They can't stand it," he said; "none of 'em can stand it really. They let on they can, but it's no go. A few hot miles gives them the mulligrubs."

But nevertheless they were running over thirty miles an hour. The car behind crawled up to them.

"All I've got to do, my lady, is to ask her to shake 'em off, and away we go and leave 'em," he suggested.

"Oh, no, no," said Pen.

At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was not a hundred yards behind. But in the town Smith got ahead. He did not see Penelope trembling. Smith had taken a look at the one behind.

"There's power there," he said, savagely. "If he lets her out and my lady squeals, I'm passed!"

She did "squeal" the other side of Spalding, but not for herself. The other car had to stop.

"That's done 'em," said Smith; "they're in the ditch." He gained ten miles on them, and Penelope wept.

And just as they were coming into Boston at an easy gait, Smith turned and saw the other car coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust astern of her in a fume.

"That chap can drive after all," said Smith. "Won't you try to let me get away from him before we get to Spilsby, my lady?"

"I--I don't want to," said Pen.

And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing car drew up with them. Two indistinguishable monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles Smith glared at them as they came alongside.

"Stop," said Penelope, suddenly. "Stop, Smith."

And the other car stopped too.

"I'll go on with the other car," said Penelope. She took her place by the most unrecognizable portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden and terrific cloud of dust.

"Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith.

*CHAPTER XI.*

It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from London in a motor-car, and was carried off by a motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore a peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and gigantic goggles, making him resemble a diver or a cuttlefish.

It was Monday when she returned to town in a motor-car with Geordie Smith. And all the way into town Geordie said:

"Blessed if I'd ha' thought it. I always reckoned it would have been one of the others. I lose money on this, but if I do, it warms the cockles of my heart to see my lady happy. Bless her sweet face, I wish she'd leave the blooming world alone and have a good time. I never set eyes on such an aggravatin' beautiful sweet lady for interferin' with men. Just as if the queen herself could alter our ways! Women always gas that they can or mean to, and they're just like hens with men for ducks."

If he had been a classical scholar he might have remembered Ariadne up to her knees in the sea, with her lover on the deep in a boat.

"When I saw who it was at Moat House," said Geordie, "you could have knocked me endwise with something less than a steel spanner. And that horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took aback. For somehow we never spotted him as likely to make the non-stop run. Humph, humph!"

And he left Penelope at her house just in time for afternoon tea. As she lay on the sofa she handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:

"I wish you would send out cards to all these people for Thursday night."

"That's very short notice, darling," said Chloe.

"They'll come," said Pen.

And when Chloe looked at the list she found it included only Pen's particular friends, her most bitter relations, and the whole of the "horde."

"I wonder--" said Chloe, and she wondered somewhat later with Ethel.

"Is it?" said Ethel.

"Can it be?" cried Chloe.

"It can't be," said Ethel.

"Who knows?" asked Chloe. "She is so plain and so simple and straightforward that there is no certainty about anything she does. I understand the wicked and the weak, but Penelope--"

She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out the cards. And Penelope was trying "to a degree," as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came helter-skelter in a hansom.

"You'll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him.

Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood straddle-legs. He stared at her. What was hidden from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the simplicity of this boy.

"Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I'll stick by you till death. But ain't you going to tell me who it is?"

"Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly.

"Him," said Bob. "Pen, you've been and gone and done it."

Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.

"Don't snivel," said Bob. "It can't be helped now, I suppose, unless you get a divorce. Do you want one?"

"Oh, no!" said Pen. "Not at all!"

Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.

"I say, what makes you cry?" he asked.

"I--I don't know," said Penelope.

"Girls are very rum. Baker says they are. He's not married, you know. He says mules are easy to them. He drove mules once in India, he says. You know you are doing all this off your own bat, Pen, ain't you? Why don't you chuck it?"

"Chuck what, dear?"

"Oh, this notion of not letting on. Baker says it's the rummest start he ever knew, and he says he's seen some rum things in his life, especially when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. Can't you chuck it?"

"Oh, no, certainly not," said Pen, firmly. "It's only, Bob, that I'm not used to it yet, you see."