Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Ted had seen it all, and I knew he was a determined fellow, with a devilish temper when he was roused, and he had enough to rouse him that night. When we came on the stage together for our clog dancing he was apparently as cool and smiling as ever, but I saw danger in his eye. Mine didn't quail, I don't think; and as we stood side by side, our arms and shoulders touching, while the clogs clattered and we sang our best songs full of good hits, I knew that the final struggle was coming that night, and I knew, too, that it would be on the trapeze. Naturally I took fire too, and cared no more for breaking up the Valbella Brothers and interfering with Sam Stacker's plans, nor, indeed, for anything except that Ted should not get the better of me. The jealous devil possessed us both. The performance went off first-rate. The Dagmar was ill again for a wonder--this time a real _bona fide_ illness--and Jenny had to take her place. She came out all in clouds of tulle, and danced a _ballet divertissement_ called "La Marguerite," in which she pulled a daisy to pieces to see if she was loved. She danced it beautifully, and fairly brought the house down, and when she got through she had half a dozen bouquets of flowers, and a great big trapeze made of flowers was tilted over the heads of the orchestra to her. I had had nothing to do with it, but she thought I had, and turned to me as I stood in the wings and courtesied so prettily that it fairly maddened Ted, who saw it all, and thought, too, I had sent it to her, and thereby broken our agreement. I didn't choose to explain then and there how it was, and the next minute it was our turn to go on the stage.

We got through our part pretty well. Ted was cool, and so was I. The people applauded tremendously, and when the red balloon came slowly sailing down they almost went wild. As usual, when it came just above our heads, we jumped up, caught the trapeze, got rid of the weights by sleight-of-hand, and went up through the roof, vaulting and tumbling over each other.

In a minute or two we were through the big hole in the top. It was then the time for one of us to throw the rope to the fellows who stood about on the roof to catch it, and to haul the balloon back. But instead of throwing the rope--it was Ted's turn to throw it that night--he seized it, and gathered it up out of reach of the fellows on the roof grabbing for it, and--the balloon went flying up into the black sky!

It was a murky night, but the moon shone fitfully at intervals. As we shot up from the roof I heard a wild cry, and then another, louder and wilder, from the people in the street, who saw us darting upward to a hideous death. For my own part, I don't remember anything for a while, but I clung instinctively to the trapeze and braced myself against the horizontal bars. I could feel that we were rushing through currents of air, but the balloon was steady, and as soon as I recovered my senses at all I looked steadily upward. We were going through clouds, and I could feel that Ted was crawling toward me on the trapeze.

At last he got quite close to me. His white, desperate face was fearful in the ghastly uncertain glare. The moon shone out, and I saw that the small rope connecting with the safety-valve was fastened around his wrist. He held it up to me.

"You understand what this means?" he said. "If I go over, the valve comes open."

I understood well enough.

"Now," he said, "we can settle about Jenny Hobbs."

It was cold, and my teeth were chattering, but I managed to say: "It's all settled, it strikes me. We are both dead men."

"Not I," said he. "I have been studying up balloons on the sly. I know all about this one. I can manage her. Now tell me, will you give up Jenny Hobbs? If you don't--" He pointed to the clouds scurrying beneath us.

"You are a sneak and a coward," I said. "We've both got to die this Christmas Eve, but you'll meet your Maker a murderer and a suicide."

The balloon, it seemed to me, was stationary then. He crept closer and closer to me. I could see the whites of his eyes. I thought my time had come. I could not remember any words of prayer, but my soul uttered its inarticulate cry for mercy, which God can hear.

Suddenly the balloon gave a furious lurch, and before my very eyes I saw him jerked violently backward. I have no clear recollection of what happened next. I suppose, with an acrobat's instinct, he clutched the bar. But I felt the balloon descending with a horrible rush that no human being could describe. Then it slacked up, and I saw Ted clinging with both hands to the trapeze, but his legs were dangling frightfully in the air. The rope was still tied to his wrist, and the spring of the valve had closed.

It is easy enough for any active young fellow to climb on a bar if he has a good purchase with his hands; but the best acrobat in the world, suspended he knows not how far from the earth, in mortal danger and mortal terror, can't do it. I saw that Ted couldn't. I saw his terrified and distorted face turned up to mine. I won't describe what I felt in that moment. But in the half darkness I felt the rope that the balloon had been held by slap against my face. I reached up and caught it. Then I crawled along the bar to Ted. I wanted to save him; but I also knew, if he let go, the valve would come open, and we would both be dashed into limitless space. He saw me coming toward him. I suppose he thought I meant to push him off, for he uttered the first loud sound I had heard in that awful stillness--a piercing scream of anguish. I saw him clutch the bar with a wild determination that gave me courage to proceed. I made the rope into a big loop, and threw it around his body. It caught the first time, and I drew it up under his arms. Then he seemed to realize that I was trying to save him. I took the ends of the rope, and, holding on firmly to the bar, wrapped the ends securely around it, and tied them, hard and tight. Then I reached over and grasped the valve rope, and began to pull it gently.

I suppose the gas in the balloon had been considerably exhausted before, for as soon as I touched the valve we began to go down frightfully fast. I closed it up for a few moments, and noticed we were descending slowly. I opened the valve again the least in the world, and we began to go down pretty fast--not so alarmingly fast; but it had flashed through me that perhaps if we went too slowly in the beginning the gas would be exhausted before we reached the bottom and we would be dashed to pieces, and I didn't understand enough about balloons to know that the same quantity of gas would carry us the same distance fast or slow. Presently I saw a line of light which I took to be the river, then the masts of shipping in the harbor, then the church steeples, the houses, the street lamps. Oh, God! I heard the cries of human voices--so close, so close! and when we were only a few feet from the ground I got dizzy and fell--far, far into space--and went to sleep before I reached the bottom.

* * * * *

The next morning was Christmas morning. Ah, what a day! May be people think that professional acrobats haven't any religious instincts; but I know I went to church that day, and found Jenny there, and afterward we took a walk out into the country. It was a very happy walk, and it was God's day, and she had screamed "Oh, Ned!" after all, the night that Jack made the row. This gave me much solid satisfaction.

Before I got out of my bed that morning (I had had a regular fainting spell, and had tumbled off the trapeze about ten feet from the ground, but had been caught) I opened my eyes and saw Ted standing over me. He looked like a ghost.

"Ned," said he, "I can't talk about it. I can hardly think or feel yet; but you understand," he gasped out.

I thought I did understand, so I held out my hand. His hand felt like a lump of ice. Sam Stacker was a sight to see. He had the hang of the whole thing. Its value as an advertisement made him perfectly dizzy with delight, but he was wild with misery at the same time, because he hadn't the cheek--and Sam was a cheeky fellow too--to propose that the Valbella Brothers should continue their performances; and between admiration and chagrin he was almost crazy. All that day he was like a wild man, and finally, considering the Valbella Brothers would discontinue their performances immediately, as our reconciliation didn't go the length of acting together again, we concluded to appear before the curtain at the close of the Christmas performance that night, just to please Sam.

As soon as Sam found it out he got out the biggest posters to be had for love or money, saying we would appear on the stage that night, although we were both too disabled by the severe shock we had received to take any further part in the performances. We went, and when the curtain rose at the end of the last act, and we were bowing, one on each side of Sam, you never heard such a perfectly terrible commotion in your life; and the next instant a party of gentlemen rustled out of a box, headed by the mayor of the town, and, advancing to the stage, made a long address. I didn't take in what it was about, but at last it dawned upon my feeble intelligence that the mayor was commending my bravery for rescuing my comrade by tying him to the trapeze, and presenting me with a magnificent gold watch and chain. Of course I couldn't say a word, but Sam Stacker returned thanks for me. He said it was the greatest occasion of his life, and I believe it was. He spoke three quarters of an hour, in a voice like a steam calliope, and waving his arms up and down like a Dutch windmill. It makes my head swim now to think about that speech. After it was all over I took Sam aside.

"Sam," says I, "don't you know if I hadn't tied Ted to the trapeze he'd have fallen and dragged the valve open, and we'd both have been killed?"

"D'ye think I'm a durned fool?" said Sam quite fiercely. "Certainly I know it, but I ain't a-going to tell them blooming idiots and lunk-heads yonder that don't know beans from thunder."

These were the gentlemen whom Sam had just been apostrophizing as the noblest examples of human virtue and intelligence he had ever yet come across during a long experience with the greatest show on earth.

Well, there isn't much more to tell. The Valbella Brothers partnership was dissolved, but I stayed on with Sam, and am at present part proprietor of the show.

I forgot to say that Jenny and I were married just before the performance that Christmas night.

THEODORA.

One morning in April, 1889, all that part of the population around Prince's Gate that was up and stirring at seven o'clock, gaped with surprise and said to each other, "The McGuckin houses are let." The footmen loitering in the gorgeous vestibules, the housemaids lazily straightening their caps as they threw wide the silken curtains, the milkmen clattering upon their rounds, all regarded with interest the great granite pile that had stood tenantless since the day the builders and decorators left it ten years before. For the McGuckin houses were so vast and splendid that living in them would have been dear had the rent been thrown in. Luckily, there were but two of them. The lack of tenants had driven the original McGuckin to suicide--but--it never rains but it pours. The tenants that had been ten years in coming both arrived the same week. One house was taken by Sir John Blood, of Blood Hall, Suffolk, nephew and heir of the Marquis of Longacre, and the other by an American family named March.

Although Sir John's wealth and position may be inferred from the meager particulars already given of him, yet must the Marches be described first. And Theodora March must not only take precedence of the nephew and heir of the Marquis of Longacre, but of her own family as well--for to Theodora had this precedence always been allowed, although the very youngest scion of the house of March. She was slender and supple, and had a beautiful head of rich gold hair that made an aureole around her pure and sparkling face. By one of those freaks, so common in American civilization, Theodora, whose ancestors had for unnumbered generations sold hardware and cutlery and groceries, and were born and bred to trade and barter, looked as if she had all of the blood of all of the Howards in her veins. March _père_, like Napoleon, might have been called the first of his family, but Theodora had grown up with all the tendencies toward a privileged class floating around in American society. She stamped her letters with a crest she could almost persuade herself her ancestors had borne at the battle of Agincourt, and adopted the Earls de la Marche of the middle ages as her progenitors. Like many others who may be called fugitives from the lower middle class, she hated it with indescribable intensity, and shook her small white fist at it and stoned it whenever she got a chance.

Besides Theodora there was Anne, a pretty but incomplete model of Nature's gorgeous after-thought, the younger sister. Theodora was a leonine blonde, while Anne was a nondescript. Mrs. March, an amiable, obstinate old person, was the third and last and least interesting of the family.

The Marches had endured for years the nomadic existence preferred by many rich Americans. Like the Bedouins of the desert, they had moved their belongings from place to place at a moment's notice. But an acquaintance at Homburg with the Honorable Mrs. Wodehouse had inspired in Theodora a yearning for a London season--and Theodora, being the master spirit and motor for the March family, promptly transported them all to London, and the first week in April found them settled in one of the two finest mansions at Prince's Gate. Meanwhile a great event had happened in Anne's life. One William McBean, a lieutenant in a Highland regiment, with one thousand pounds to his fortune besides his pay, had met Anne on the Continent, and, after falling hopelessly in love and communicating the same malady to her, was just about exchanging into a regiment going to India because he had not the courage to ask the rich American girl to marry him. Theodora, who had a good heart, and was grieved to see Anne pale and _distrait_, and poor William McBean looking like a ghost, homely and red-headed at that, took matters into her own hands. She made a vigorous sortie on William McBean, wormed his secret out of him, laughed at his scruples, proposed for him, accepted for Anne, and had the satisfaction of seeing two worthy people perfectly happy, and all her own doing too. Mrs. Wodehouse laughed at the match; but Theodora extended her protecting arm over the lovers, and, slender and white as that arm was, it was a mighty ægis.

It can not be supposed that the Marches remained long in ignorance of the name and quality of their next neighbor at Prince's Gate. Within a fortnight Theodora had seen Sir John on his balcony smoking, had heard the click of his billiard balls through the open window, while Sir John had listened with pleasure to her clear trilling as she took her singing lesson. Anne did nothing now but sit on a bench in Kensington Palace Gardens and gaze in rapture on William McBean's honest, ugly face--a gaze which the red-headed lieutenant returned with compound interest. The sight of their innocent happiness amused and pleased Theodora excessively. It was love's young dream with a vengeance.

One morning Mrs. Wodehouse arrived at the Marches' house in a great flutter. She had got cards for them to a grand ball to be given at the house of a K. G., K. C. B., S. E. I., and what not, and the cards bore the talisman "To meet H. R. H.--" It was the finest of the very great balls of the season, and Mrs. Wodehouse was in high feather at the notion of introducing her young friends on such an occasion, for Mrs. March had thankfully rendered up to her the office of chaperon. The question of a presentation at court was wisely deferred until another season.

"And it's not improbable, dear," said Mrs. Wodehouse, surveying with admiration Theodora's fresh beauty and captivating air, "that you may go as Miladi with--"

"A great big lozenge on my carriage," laughed Theodora. "I used to think," she added more gravely, "that Englishmen were pachyderms, but upon my word they are the spooniest set--Anne, what are you blushing for?"

"I was thinking of--of--," answered Anne, turning a yet more fiery red.

"Of William McBean," said Theodora, with cruel mirth, "you know you were. You're always thinking of William McBean."

"My dear girl," remarked Mrs. Wodehouse plaintively to Anne, "with your opportunities and nice looks, and money--you might look higher than a lieutenant in a marching regiment. It's a sacrifice, dear--a sacrifice which I--"

"Mrs. Wodehouse," cried Anne, rising and looking at Mrs. Wodehouse quite savagely, "I insist that you shall not mention this matter again. I'm--I'm not called upon to justify myself to you--but I think when a girl marries a man and a gentleman--even if he is poor--she does herself honor, and although we've got money ourselves, I feel the greatest respect for a poor gentleman--and if he is so disinterested that he almost forces her to make the offer herself, it's no sacrifice--"

If a meek and much enduring sheep had turned on a hungry wolf, Mrs. Wodehouse could not have been more surprised than at Anne's spirit. But Theodora, who rarely permitted Anne to finish a sentence, here broke in:

"No, it _isn't_ a sacrifice--even if he _has_ a red head and lisps dreadfully. Fortunately, I don't want to marry William McBean myself. I want--I don't know what I want. Not money--I have plenty of that."

"I think," continued Anne quite boldly, "that American girls are seldom mercenary. We have our faults, but that's not one of--"

"Yes," said Theodora, with an air of great magnanimity, marching up and down the room, "we have our faults, but at least we are not mercenary, or designing, or mean, or anything of that sort. Nor are we headstrong like English girls are sometimes--or ungenerous toward each other, or given to gossip. We make ourselves agreeable abroad, but that does not prevent our making our homes little paradises for those we love--and we are not a bit conceited."

Anne attempted a mild suggestion that Theo hadn't left any faults at all with which American girls could be justly charged, but it was ruthlessly swept away in a hurricane of merry talk and laughter from Theodora about the ball, her gown, and all the cheerful, costly things that made up the life of Josiah C. March's lucky daughter. Mrs. Wodehouse left, arranging to come to their house on the evening of the ball, whence they would all go in the March's carriage and she would remain the rest of the night at Prince's Gate.

* * * * *

The night of the ball finally arrived. By one of those occult processes so difficult for the masculine intelligence to comprehend, Theodora and Anne and Mrs. March found out that Sir John Blood was going to the ball too. Many speculations as to whether he would ask to be introduced or not went through the head of this young daughter of the great republic, but she said never a word. Anne and her mother though prattled incessantly about Sir John and the ball, to all of which Theodora listened with the air of lofty indifference which an American girl assumes where men are concerned, and apparently cared no more about Sir John Blood than she did about the future King of Bulgaria. The March carriage containing Mrs. Wodehouse drove up to Prince's Gate about ten o'clock on a bright May evening. At the same instant Sir John Blood's brougham was whirled to his door. Mrs. March stood in the doorway to enjoy the sight of her nestlings getting into the carriage. Mrs. Wodehouse did not descend. Anne came first, tripping down the carpeted steps, looking uncommonly pretty in a blue gown.

"How charming you are, dear!" cried Mrs. Wodehouse.

"Just wait till you see Theo," answered Anne a little discontentedly. It is hard to be always and invariably outshone even when one has an angel named McBean to soothe one's self-love.

At that moment Sir John Blood appeared at his own door. He might well have got into his brougham and gone, but he delayed a moment or two--and in that moment Theodora sailed down the steps. A cloud of silver _crêpe_ enveloped her and floated far behind her. Her slender form was molded into a bodice so simple and yet so exquisite that it was a poem in satin. Around the white pillar of her matchless throat she wore a string of pearls, and pearls hung upon the front of her corsage and skirt until both seemed sowed with gems. Mrs. Wodehouse threw up her hands in silent ecstasy. The coachman turned and gaped with delight, and so did the footman who shut the carriage door after her.

Not only did Sir John Blood as well as his servants gaze in admiration, but a group of ragged urchins began to "hooray," as the carriage rolled off. Theodora leaned back in her corner of the carriage, enjoying her little triumph as only a young and beautiful woman can. Nor did the triumph end there. When they ascended the grand staircase and entered the ball-room, a kind of admiring murmur followed Theodora. The whole evening was a repetition of these trivial but delicious successes that are dear to every woman's heart.

The very first person on whom Theodora's eyes rested was Sir John Blood, and half an hour had scarcely passed before he came up and asked for an introduction. Theodora was surprised to see Mrs. Wodehouse receive Sir John with something like haughtiness. She barely consented to introduce him, and seized the first opportunity to whisper in Theodora's ear agonizingly--"He's a widower--don't for Heaven's sake--dear girl--"

Theodora thought Mrs. Wodehouse had gone suddenly crazy, but she retained her self-possession and gracefully returned Sir John's bow, which was a kind of salaam or kowtow.

"I have the honor," he said, "of living next to Miss March."

Theodora smiled her own dazzling smile at this. "Yes," she replied, "and I want you to credit me with great virtue in shutting tight all the double windows when I am taking my singing lessons so that I shall not make myself odious to my neighbors."

"Do you call that kind?" said Sir John. "Shall we take a turn and talk about it?"

Mrs. Wodehouse actually put out her hand to detain Theodora, but Theo was already beyond her grasp.

She stole a side glance at her companion as they moved off, that gave her a much better idea of him than she had before. He was very tall and certainly distinguished looking, but there was something, an intense blackness around the eye, and a bluish tinge about the full black beard that gave him a sinister look. As they passed through the throng of splendid women and thorough-bred looking men, a very old man, much braced and padded, who stood up stiffly as if he feared he could not get up again if he sat down, and whose breast was covered by a broad blue ribbon, touched Sir John on the arm and mumbled something in his ear. Sir John, smiling, said to Theodora:

"That is the Marquis of Longacre. He wants to be presented to you. He is nearly ninety, but his eye for beauty is as keen as it was fifty years ago."

Theodora colored brilliantly. A marquis asking to be presented to Josiah C. March's daughter was a big thing, as the defunct March would have expressed it--and although Sir John had not said a word about his relationship to the old gentleman, yet Theodora knew all about it, having studied the subject thoroughly in Debrett. So, after taking a turn about the ball-room, they returned. Sir John presented the marquis, and then courteously stepped aside that the old gentleman might have her all to himself.

This was the marquis's first observation: "Good Gad! are all the girls in America as pretty as you are?"

"Most of them are a great deal prettier," laughed Theodora, with the ready adaptability of her compatriots.

"It must be a doosid jolly place, then," chuckled the marquis.

"Why don't you come over and take a look at us?" archly remarked the sprightly Theo, purposely oblivious of the marquis's eighty-five years.

"Because I'm eighty-five. Eighty-five's a bore, my dear young lady. You don't believe me, eh? Women never believe a man unless he lies to 'em," remarked the marquis with a wheeze which was meant for a sigh. "I often tell my nephew John--the one you're walking with--he won't have to wait long to be Marquis of Longacre. It's a pity that none of his wives could live to enjoy it."

"His wives!" cried Theodora, surprised into an exclamation. The marquis seemed disposed to confidence.

"Yes, he's had three. All died like sheep. Something ailed 'em, I dare say. I'm advising him to get another, and 'pon my soul, Americans seem to be the fashion, he, he!"

A sudden shock not far from disgust thrilled Theodora. Three wives already--and he not a day over forty-five, apparently. As in a dream she heard the marquis's tremulous old voice saying something she only half understood. But in a moment or two she pulled herself together. After all it was an illiberal prejudice. Should a man's domestic misfortune be made a subject of reproach to him?

In a moment Sir John came to fetch her and carried her back to Mrs. Wodehouse. Then that lady began the same inexplicably aggressive tactics toward him again. But it was in vain. He was not to be frozen out or bullied, and if ever a man was winged at the first shot, it was Sir John Blood. He hovered near Theodora, asked permission to call, and showed in every way a passionate admiration for her.

But Sir John was not the only one who bit the dust, so to speak, in consequence of Theodora's charms. She levied on the Church as well as the state. An archbishop, although attended by a body guard of four hawk-eyed single daughters, suddenly found himself deep in a roaring flirtation with this new star of the West, and it can not be said that his Grace did not hold up his end of the line valiantly. The four single daughters stood like a Roman phalanx against all widows, whom they considered their natural enemies, but it never occurred to them to be on their guard against anything as young and apparently as artless as Theodora--they being unfamiliar with the type of the wily American maiden, who, under an exterior as harmless as a dove, conceals the wisdom of the serpent. In addition to the archbishop, a general officer, who had gone through eighteen London seasons without a scratch, was slain at Theodora's first fire, and as for the lieutenants, the slaughter was fearful. It was a Waterloo, and Theodora was a she-Wellington.

At last the ball was over. Theodora and her party were rolling homeward. A certain constraint existed among them, and Sir John Blood's name was not once mentioned. When they reached home all the ladies scurried into a cozy morning room, where a sleepy footman gave them tea. A little fire crackled on the hearth, and what will not a wood fire do toward unlocking the secret confidences of the female breast? Therefore, as Mrs. Wodehouse saw Theodora's tiny satin slippered feet seek hers in friendly juxtaposition on the fender, a sudden determination seized her to make a clean breast of it all.

"Theodora," she said, "do you know anything about Sir John Blood, who was so attentive to you to-night?"

"Nothing in the world except that he is very distinguished looking, very sensible, and lives in the next house," answered Theodora, debonairly.

"And will be Marquis of Longacre when that old stuffed penguin dies we saw to-night. I'd rather have a poor lieutenant with a Tel-el-Kebir medal--" began Anne, but as usual was promptly cut short. This time it was Mrs. Wodehouse who broke in, after putting down her cup in some agitation.

"Theodora, do you know Sir John's domestic history?"

"I know he has had three wives," answered Theo with much indifference, as if three wives were the usual allowance.

"But d-d-do you know _how they died?_" cried Mrs. Wodehouse, becoming every moment more agitated; "and the terrible closet in Blood Hall?" And beginning to wring her hands, she sobbed.

"Oh, Theo, Theo--I've introduced to you the original Bl--I can't call the dreadful name. But he's the original B-Bluebe--"

At this Anne turned deadly pale, and running over to her sister threw her arms about Theodora's neck.

"Oh, Theo, darling, don't--don't have anything to do with that dreadful man! Did you notice the color of his beard--it was perfectly _blue black! I_ understand, if Theo doesn't--"

Just then a scream resounded behind them. Mrs. March, in a costume very like the one in which Zerlina in the opera dances before the looking-glass, had entered unobserved, and had heard it all and being a highly nervous and excitable person, shrieked at the terrible insinuation which she at once comprehended. Theodora jumped up and gazed around imperiously.

"For Heaven's sake, don't behave so! I never saw Sir John in my life until to-night, and here you are going on as if I were to marry him to-morrow!"

"This is the way he always does," whimpered Mrs. Wodehouse. "The poor misguided girls fall in love with him and marry him--the last one at Constantinople--her name was Fatima--something or other."

"I dare say," said Theodora, with wide, bright eyes and a voice full of scorn, "he never married an American girl. He wouldn't find one of them so easy to get rid of if he is what you intimate he is."

"Theodora," sobbed Mrs. March, "I'll never, never give my consent. I don't care if he is Marquis of Longacre, or Duke of Longacre, or Prince of Longacre, he shall never have my precious child."

Theodora by this time was walking up and down the room with her pretty brows bent. Presently she came and stood in front of her mother.

"Mamma," said she, "it has just occurred to me that perhaps it is my duty--_my duty_--to marry this misguided man. Three women have already fallen victims to him--but not one was an American. I believe, from the very depths of my soul, that, if a really clever American girl should take hold of him, she could make him a model husband. Yes," cried Theodora, warming with her own eloquence, and beginning again to march up and down, "look at Sir Roger MacTurk. Wasn't he a perfect terror until he got a wife from New York?--and now I believe he would play the concertina if Lady MacTurk told him to. And Lord Cantantram--everybody knows how that soft-voiced little thing from the South dragoons him. Oh, I can tell you, when an Englishman marries an American he doesn't have any bed of roses. Of course they don't let on--that's their British pluck--and they do fib in the most manly and splendid way about it all--but I think an Englishman married to an American girl, and who lives and dies a Christian, ought to be painted with a nimbus around his head. Yes, I do. Anne, don't glower at me in that way. Now, an Englishman, for all he is so big and brave, can't resist an American girl when she looks at him this way." Here Theodora paused, quite breathless, threw up her head, and assumed an air that might well make a six-footer shake in his shoes.

These observations seemed to nettle Mrs. Wodehouse somewhat.

"I remember Colonel Cairngorm telling me--" began she.

"Colonel Cairngorm!" cried Theodora, throwing up her hands in a paroxysm of despair that would have made her fortune at the Comédie Française.

"You needn't laugh at him," responded Mrs. Wodehouse tartly; and then, with a slight blush, she added: "It is not impossible that--in fact--to be very confidential--he proposed last week; I've got it under consideration--he is certainly a very pleasant person."

"Yes," agreed Theodora candidly, "he is a nice man--but he does make the greatest gaby of himself when he is in the act of proposing I ever saw in my life, and I've heard half a dozen girls say the same thing." The look in Theodora's eye said as plainly as could be, "Aha! we are quits for what you have said of Sir John Blood"; and for Mrs. Wodehouse, the iron had entered her soul.

"And I think," continued Theodora, with an air of profound philosophy, "that the art of proposing is a gift with some men, and others, like Colonel Cairngorm, can't acquire it even after much practice. I recollect he made me perfectly ill on the occasion."

Mrs. Wodehouse had always thought American girls too nimble of wit, and was more than ever convinced of it then.

"Theo," began Anne, timidly, "for a woman who loves, there is a certain glorious kind of slavery, says Wil--"

Theodora dashed at her sister and good-naturedly boxed her ears and touzled her hair.

"Anne, if you wish to drive me wild, continue to talk about that long-legged lieutenant. William McBean will be my death, I know he will. Come, I'm going. Good-night, everybody. Go to bed, Anne, and dream about the McBean person." And she was off, the silver gauze of her train floating after her like a comet's tail.

* * * * *

All the next day gloom hung over the March household. Nobody mentioned Sir John Blood's name. Mrs. Wodehouse left early. It was well she did, for at precisely five o'clock, when Theodora with Mrs. March and Anne were sitting in the drawing-room, the footman threw open the door and announced:

"The Marquis of Longacre and Sir John Blood."

* * * * *

The object in bringing the tottering and doddering old marquis along soon appeared. He at once engaged in a senile and simultaneous flirtation with Mrs. March and Anne, while Sir John devoted himself to Theodora. Anne, too, was finally drawn into conversation with the pair, and so fascinating were Sir John's manners that she quite forgot his character and experiences, and, strangely _maladroit_, made some allusion to Henry the Eighth, whom she declared to be a murderous old tyrant.

"Why?" mildly asked Sir John, and taking up the subject of Henry's killing his wives, he elucidated it in so masterly a manner that to Anne's amazement she found herself admitting that Henry was a much maligned individual, and deserved all the credit which he claimed before Parliament in being willing to assume the fetters of matrimony a sixth time for the good of his beloved subjects, after five successive disappointments.

But why prolong the tale? Theodora was full of enthusiasm--Sir John was full of love--and proposed within a fortnight. Anne wept, tormented her lover with her apprehensions for Theodora, Mrs. March implored, but Theodora, bright and brave, would not be dissuaded.

"You'll see," she cried. "Fatima--don't talk to me about Fatima--a great fat creature with no spirit at all. I'll charm him if he'll let me. Don't you suppose I believe in love as much as every other woman does? But if he undertakes to cut my throat--"

Shrieks from Mrs. March completed the sentence. But it was of no use. Theodora's mind was made up and with that young woman, her word was law.

* * * * *

In July, Theodora March and Sir John Blood were married at St. George's, Hanover Square. The Archbishop of Canterbury performed the ceremony, the American minister gave the bride away, and the Prince of Wales signed the register. The settlements were splendid. Sir John voluntarily resigned all interest in Theodora's fortune in case he survived her. This affair about the settlements gave Theodora, a slight shock, as she turned it over in her mind. For the first time she realized what it was to marry a man with such a fatal facility for getting rid of his wives.

"Pshaw!" she said to herself, "no doubt the story books have exaggerated very much. There can't be a whole closet full. And he is such a delightful person, just like the charming man Heine met at the Spanish ambassador's, who turned out to be the devil. However, I'm an American"--and at this a mighty exultation filled her breast--"I am from that glorious land of pink and white tyranny. Sir John Blood can't frighten me with any children's stories of a closet full of defunct wives." And so she went on, to Anne's and her mother's distress and William McBean's intense amusement, who was willing to back Theodora against Blue Beard and give long odds any day.

Immediately after the marriage they went abroad, and after some months of travel they returned to England. Theodora had made but one request of her husband since her marriage. It was that her sister Anne might meet her in London and accompany her to Blood Hall. This Sir John granted with the uniform tenderness he had shown to her. It was a clear autumn evening when, after a rapturous meeting at the station, the sisters had traveled down to Suffolk, and for the first time found themselves alone in the drawing-room, while Sir John smoked his after-dinner cigar on the terrace.

"Theo," said Anne, placing her hands on her sister's shoulders. "Tell me, darling, are you happy?"

"Happy!" echoed Theodora brightly. "I am the happiest girl in the world, and Sir John is the best and kindest of men."

"Except Wil--"

"No, I don't except anybody. To think you and mamma should have disliked him so much. Anne, he's so changed sometimes I doubt if he is the real Bl--you know what. But if he is, he'll find out what kindness and firmness together can do--and American pluck and the habit of command."

"Dear, happy, sweet Theo!"

"And that horrid Mrs. Wodehouse--Anne, he has told me all about his wives. They all died perfectly natural deaths. When his last wife died he wanted to throw himself in the grave."

"Theo, please don't talk that way--I wouldn't say such a thing about William for--"

"And he says if I die he means to marry another American girl."

"Oh, please, please, Theo," cried Anne in a distressed voice.

Just then Sir John sauntered in, smiling and bland, with a request for some music.

Although Theodora had told Anne the truth about some things, she had not told her the whole truth. She saw very plainly that Sir John kept back more than he told about her predecessors. But this story has been a total failure if its readers do not yet know that Theodora possessed a superb and matchless courage that might well make Sir John tremble. Nor had Sir John been married to this dauntless creature five months without seeing that the was made of sterner stuff than poor Fatima and the rest. Each had felt, in golden days by Como's lake and in starlit Venetian nights, that sometime or other there would come a tussle for ascendency, and by a sort of tacit arrangement it was postponed until their arrival at Blood Hall. When Theodora had asked for her sister Anne's company, Sir John had taken it as a confession of weakness. Theodora, on the contrary, when she had carried her point, felt flushed with victory. Naturally she kept a sharp lookout for the closet which Mrs. Wodehouse had dwelt upon; and in forty-eight hours after her arrival she had pitched upon it. It opened into a pleasant room which Sir John called his study, and where he usually spent his mornings. The door was of black Spanish oak, beautifully carved in early English designs. Theodora had mapped out a campaign in which that closet figured, and about two weeks after her arrival she opened hostilities.

* * * * *

One stormy December night, Theodora, leaving Anne cowering over the drawing-room fire, sauntered off into Sir John's study, carrying her favorite poodle in her arms.

"Come in," said he in response to her knock, and rising with ready courtesy. "You'll excuse my continuing my paper," he remarked, wheeling a comfortable chair to the sparkling wood fire for her.

"Indeed I will not!" cried Theodora playfully, still holding on to the poodle, and taking the paper out of his hands almost before he knew it.

Sir John frowned and then smiled. His American wife had certain ways that baffled him. She was always amiable, gay, and affectionate, but she took a tone toward him which startled while it amused him; and then her surprising glibness, her humor, her propensity to make small, though admirable jokes, her way of looking at life from the comic side, was astonishing, not to say appalling. Sir John wondered sometimes if American men were subject to much of this sort of thing.

"No," kept on Theodora, with a pretty grimace, and pinching the poodle, "you positively shan't read the paper. I want you to talk to me and Hector."

"What about?" asked Sir John, still half frowning. Theodora went up close to him and standing on tip-toe, with one arm yet around the poodle, leaned forward and putting two rosy fingers under her husband's chin said coquettishly:

"About that closet over yonder, where people say you keep your murdered wives. Don't we, Hector?"

"Yap! yap!" went the poodle.

The change that came over Sir John's face at these words was indescribable. He started to his feet, his face black with rage, his eyes flaming as he seized Theodora violently by the arm.

"How dare you?" he yelled, almost frothing at the mouth.

"How dare I?" asked Theodora, carefully putting the poodle in Sir John's vacant chair. "Now, keep quiet, Hector. Because I want to know and I'm going to find out."

"Very well," answered Sir John, recovering his self-possession. But his cold fury was worse than his hot anger. A woman less intrepid than Theodora would have sunk under the appalling glare of his eye. "Listen, then, and I will tell you. But first put down that infernal dog."

Theodora had seated herself with Hector in her lap, but she thought it wisest to let him go, as it was a case where force could be used to her disadvantage. "Just wait a minute," she said briskly. "It's his bed-time, anyway. I'll ring for James," and suiting the action to the words, she went forward and rung the bell like a church warden.

James appeared in a twinkling, and Theodora confided the poodle to his care with many injunctions. Then she returned to her seat.

"Now, madam, I will begin."

"Do," said Theodora pleasantly. "I'm dying to hear."

"You shall be gratified," answered Sir John darkly. "My first wife was thought to be a very amiable and attractive woman. We lived happily together until her indiscreet curiosity--mark well my words--about that closet, caused her to try the lock with a chisel. The chisel slipped and cut an artery. She was found weltering in her blood."

"How awkward!" exclaimed Theodora, spreading her handkerchief out in her lap, and examining it as if she had never seen it before. "Of course I mean how awkward for you."

"It was a great deal more awkward for her," gloomily remarked Sir John--and continued:

"My second, was a gifted creature, but she, too, got the devil in her."

"She must have caught it from--hem--!--hem!" replied Theodora, coughing gently.

Sir John glowered at her and kept on. "She, too, longed to see the inside of the closet. Her curiosity--do you hear me, madam?--kept her awake, and she spent her nights wandering about the house. One night she missed a step at the top of the stairs and broke her neck. There was no one but myself in the house except the servants."

"Good gracious!" cried Theodora. "How frightened you must have been!"

"My third--"

"Oh, yes--Fatima--my latest predecessor--"

"Well, there was an absurd rumor at the time of Fatima's death--she, too, died of curiosity--that I had been killed by her brothers. Of course the truth came out after a number of unpleasant things had been printed about me. My Uncle Longacre advised me to sue the papers for libel. And now, madam," he said with a malignant smile, "do you still wish to see the closet?"

"Of course I do!" cried Theodora jumping up with the greatest alacrity. "Now more than ever, since it is the remote cause that I am Lady Blood and will one day be Marchioness of Longacre. Come, hurry up with the key."

Sir John gazed at her with a sort of stupefied amazement.

"Rash girl!" he cried. "Do you know what you ask?"

"Perfectly," answered Theodora, coming up to him and holding out a little jeweled hand, "Give me the key."

"Great Heavens!" shouted Sir John, "this is intolerable. God forgive me for marrying an American! I will never marry another. I shall have to silence her as I did Fatima."

"Give me the key, _you old goose_!" screamed Theodora in his face, and shaking his arm violently.

At that instant their eyes met. Sir John's were blazing with anger, while in Theodora's there shone a fire that--no, it could not be--yes, yes, it was--that made something like fear come into Sir John's handsome devilish face. She tightened her grip on his arm, and occasionally jerked it up and down to emphasize her remarks, while she cried:

"I want that key. You may well say" (shaking his arm furiously) "that you'll never marry another American girl. You'll never have the chance" (shake, shake). "When I married you I was willing to love you, just as Anne does that Scotch angel of hers, but I am not going to put up with your hectoring ways like poor Fatima." (Shake.) "You thought I'd be afraid of you--ha! ha! I'm an American girl, you great booby. Don't look at me in that way" (shake, shake, shake), "but give me the key this instant, or I'll order the carriage and drive to the nearest magistrate and denounce you on your own confession!" (Shake, with variations.)

Sir John's countenance during this tirade was a study. At first a furious, helpless rage, then over-powering amazement, followed by a hideous fear, and at last an abject, helpless, hysterical breaking down. He fell on his knees at Theodora's feet, clutching her gown, and bursting out into wild lamentations, he screamed:

"Spare me! Spare me!"

"The key," panted Theodora, with a relentless smile on her beautiful sensitive mouth. The miserable man feeling in his trousers' pocket produced a key--with the identical blood stain on it left by poor Fatima.

"Now," said Theodora, letting him go and transferring the key to her pocket, "I don't want to see in the closet--no doubt it is a horrid place--but I shall keep hold of this and see that you don't get it again."

Her contemptuous tone aroused a faint spark of the spirit that made the worm turn. He called up all his coward's courage, and, rising to his feet, said sullenly:

"All is not yet over between us."

"Do go away," replied Theodora scornfully. "You bore me to death with your heroics. But I think you've found out now what it is to be married to an American girl. It's like a mustard plaster--wholesome, if not pleasant, and not to be ignored."

* * * * *

Some months after this a large party was assembled at Castle Longacre, for Sir John Blood was Marquis of Longacre, and she who was once Theodora March was now Theodora, Marchioness of Longacre. Mrs. Wodehouse was of the party, and so was Anne, now Mrs. William McBean, and sweeter, prettier, and gentler than ever. Not so gentle was she, however, that anybody dared to offer her any commiseration on account of her long-legged lieutenant, for at the first hint of the kind she showed fight so unmistakably, that even Theodora was fain to desist. Anne esteemed William as the first man in the world. With a refined and noble arrogance she conveyed to the world her pride and satisfaction in being the choice of such a man--and from being the meekest and most lamb-like of girls, developed into a person of considerable spirit, fully determined to sustain the honor of being William McBean's wife. She was not only openly and candidly and deeply in love with her lieutenant, whose strong sense and firm character were but dimly obscured by his red head and his hard features, but she loved the whole clan of McBean, was a rampant Jacobite, and went in for tartans, cairngorms, bag-pipes, Flora McDonald, Highland Mary, etc., with an ardor truly American. Meanwhile, as Anne became more determinedly Scotch, William McBean, who was a reading fellow, showed a strong leaning toward America and republicanism. Thus they were supplied with something to squabble about--lacking which, steady matrimony is apt to become a little tedious, it is said.

The first evening after dinner, before the men had come up from the dining-room, the ladies gathered around the drawing-room fire, and about the piano. "Dear Theodora," said Mrs. Wodehouse, going up to her and taking her hand, "How proud I am of you! When you went into dinner on the Prince's arm, you never looked lovelier. Nobody would ever have imagined that you had not been born a marchioness."

"Yes," said Theodora with a brilliant smile. "You see, here there are only a few marchionesses, but with us we are all marchionesses in our own esteem."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Wodehouse meditatively, "you American peeresses certainly are--er--a--remarkable lot--all of you seem to have been born in the purple, and every one I've seen yet is a red-hot Tory."

"_That_ I am," cried Theodora playfully, stamping her pretty foot. "I believe in my Order, as Ouida calls it, the more because it's all new and delightful."

"And a--your husband seems a charming man," continued Mrs. Wodehouse a little timidly.

"Yes," said Theodora heartily. "We've agreed to let by-gones be by-gones. He's thoroughly domesticated."

Just then occurred the little flutter that announces an irruption from the lower regions. A number of men came in at once, the marquis and William McBean among them. Six months of his American wife had aged the marquis ten years. His hair was whitened and his once bold eyes had a cowed and uneasy look.

The talk ran to hunting. The marquis said: "To-morrow the Marsh meadow is to be drawn, and I can promise you as good sport as is to be found in the country. There is an old red fox--"

"Dearest," cried Theodora, softly but reproachfully, from her sofa, "if you go out to-morrow how are you to finish painting the front of my satin gown which I am to wear at the hunt ball?"

Everybody had heard her. William McBean grinned delightedly, and whispered to Anne, "Now the British lion's tail will be twisted."

The marquis's face grew three quarters of a yard long. He shifted uneasily in his chair.

"My love, do you really want that gown?"

"Of course I do, darling."

"Then," said the miserable marquis, with a ghastly assumption of a joke, "I'll have to give up the Marsh meadow to-morrow. But the next day, Wednesday--"

"Oh--oh!" cried Theodora with coquettish playfulness, pinching his ear, "don't you know you've got to take mamma up to town to do some shopping? Forgetful man!"

"I really had forgotten," exclaimed the poor marquis, turning very red, "I'm glad you reminded me, my dear."

"And Friday's the day you promised to take Hector to have his picture taken. I couldn't think of trusting my precious poodle to a heartless footman."

"Quite true," said the marquis, turning pale, "but Saturday, my pet--"