Chapter III: Book II: I (1)

No one can possibly imagine the unpleasantness of a honey-moon until they have tried it. It is no wonder one is told nothing at all about it. Even to keep my word and obey grandmamma I could never have undertaken it if I had had an idea what it would be like. Really, girls' dreams are the silliest things in the world. I can't help staring at all the married people I see about. "You--poor wretches!--have gone through this," I say to myself; and then I wonder and wonder that they can smile and look gay. I long to ask them when the calmness and indifference set in; how long I shall have to wait before I can really profit by grandmamma's lesson of the caterpillar. It was useful for the _fiançailles_, but it has not comforted me much since my wedding.

In old-fashioned books, when the heroine comes to anything exciting, or when the situation is too difficult for the author to describe, there is always a row of stars. It seems to mean a jump, a break to be filled up as each person pleases. I feel I must leave this part of my life marked with this row of stars.

It is two weeks now since I wrote my name Ambrosine de Calincourt Athelstan for the last time, two weeks since I walked down the rose-strewn guillotine steps on Augustus's arm, two weeks since he--Ah, no! I will never look back at that. Let these hideous two weeks sink into the abyss of oblivion!

It hardly seems possible that in fifteen days one could so completely alter one's views and notions of life. I cannot look at anything with the same eyes. It is all very well for people to talk philosophy, but it is difficult to be philosophical when one's every sense is being continually _froissé_. I feel sometimes that I could commit murder, and I do not know when I shall be able to take the Marquis's advice to remain placid and shut my eyes and try to get what good out of life I can.

Augustus as a husband is extremely unpleasant. I hate the way his hair is brushed--there always seems to be a lock sticking up in the back; I hate the way he ties his ties; I hate everything he says and does. I keep saying to myself when I hear him coming, "remember the caterpillar, caterpillar, caterpillar." And once in the beginning, when I was screwing up my eyes not to see, he got quite close before I knew and he heard me saying it aloud.

He bounced away, thinking I meant there was one crawling on him, and then he got quite cross.

"There are no caterpillars here, Ambrosine. How silly you are!" he said.

He revels in being at once recognized as a bridegroom. He has dreadfully familiar ways and catches hold of my arm in public, making us both perfectly ridiculous. He has insisted upon buying me numbers of gorgeous garments for my outer covering, but when I ventured to order some very fine other things he grumbled at the cost.

"I don't mind your getting clothes that will show the money I've put into them," he explained, "but I'm bothered if I'll encourage useless extravagance in this way."

At the play he never understands more than a few words, but is always asking me to explain what it means when there is anything interesting, so I miss most of it myself from having to talk, and some of the French plays are really very funny, I find, and have opened my eyes a great deal, and I--even I--could laugh if I were left in peace to listen a little.

Augustus is furiously angry, too, when the Frenchmen look at me. I never thought I could even notice the gaze of strangers, but I am ashamed to say that last night it quite pleased me.

We were dining at Paillard's, and two really nice-looking Frenchmen had the next table. They looked at me, and Augustus glared at them and fussed the waiters more than usual, and wanted to hurry me as much as possible to get away; so I asked for other dishes and peaches and nectarines and things out of season. At last, when I had dawdled quite an extra half-hour, it came to an end, and the usual sums on the margin of the bill began--Augustus adds up every item to see no sou has been overcharged. At this point I looked up and caught one of the Frenchmen's eye. Of course I glanced away at once, but there was such a gleam of fun in his that I nearly smiled. Then, suddenly the recollection came upon me that this creature, this thing sitting opposite me, belonged to me. I have his name, he is my husband. I must not laugh with others at his odious ways. After that I was glad to creep away.

I am worried about grandmamma. She has not written; there only came a small note from the Marquis. I am sure she must be very ill, if not already dead. I cannot grieve; I almost feel as if I wished it so. Augustus as a grandson-in-law would sting her fine senses unbearably. He blusters continually, and his airs of proprietorship _envers moi_ would irritate her; besides, she would always have the idea that she is cheating me by remaining alive, that, after all, my marriage was not a necessity if she is still there to keep me. Oh, dear grandmamma! if I could save you a moment's sorrow you know I would. When I said good-bye to her she held me close and kissed me. "Ambrosine," she said, "I shall have started upon my journey before you come back; you must not grieve or be sad. My last advice to you, my child, is to remember life is full of compensations, as you will find. Try to see the bright and gay side of things, and, above all, do not be dramatic."

She was always cheerful, grandmamma, but if I could just see her again to tell her I will, indeed I will, try to follow her advice! Hush! here is Augustus; I hear his clumsy footsteps. He has a telegram.

Alas! alas! My fears are true--grandmamma died this morning. Oh! I cannot write, the tears make everything a mist.

* * * * *

It is late July and I am at Ledstone as its nominal mistress--I say nominal, for Augustus's mother reigns, as she always did.

The sorrow of grandmamma's death, the feeling that nothing can matter in the world now, has kept me from caring or asserting myself in any way. I feel numb. I seem to be a person listening from some gallery when they all speak around me, and that the Ambrosine who answers placidly is an automaton who moves by clockwork.

Shall I ever wake again? I sit night after night in my mother-in-law's "budwar," the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus's perfections. I have now heard every incident of his childhood: what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous teeth of his.

One little trait appears to have been considered a sign of great astuteness and infantine perception. His fond parents--the late Mr. Gurrage was alive then--gave him a new threepenny bit each week to give to a barrel-organ man who played before the house at Bournemouth. Augustus at the age of two invariably changed it on the stairs with the butler for two pennies and two halfpennies, keeping one penny halfpenny for himself.

"Me dear"--my mother-in-law always completes this story with this sentence--"Mr. Gurrage said to me, 'Mark my word, Mary Jane, the boy will get on!'"

In the class of my _belle famille_, mourning is fortunately a matter of such importance that the wearing of crêpe for grandmamma has been allowed to be sufficient reason for abandoning the wedding rejoicings.

Dear grandmamma! it would please you to know your death had done me even this service. I am encouraged to grieve, especially in public. Mrs. Gurrage herself put on black, and her face beamed all over with enjoyable tears the first Sunday we rustled into the family pew stiff with crêpe and hangings of woe. They gave grandmamma what Miss Hoad--I mean Amelia--called a "proper funeral."

And so all is done--even the Marquis has gone back to France, and only Roy is left.

There is something in his brown eyes of sympathy which I cannot bear; the lump keeps coming in my throat. Kind dog, you are my friend.

Next week Lady Tilchester will have returned to Harley, and soon Augustus and I are to go and pay a three days' visit there.

Once what joy this thought would have caused me--I was going to say when I was young!--I shall be twenty next October, but I feel as if I must be at least fifty years old.

Augustus is not a gay companion. He has a sulky temper; he is often offended with me for no reason, and then a day or so afterwards will be horribly affectionate, and give me a present to make up for it. I can never get accustomed to his calling me Ambrosine--it always jars, as if one suddenly heard a shopman taking this liberty. It is equally unpleasant as "little woman" or "dearie," both of which besprinkle all his sentences. He has not a mind that makes it possible to have any conversation with him. He told me to-day that I was the stupidest cold statue of a woman he had ever met, and then he shook me until I felt giddy, and kissed me until I could not see. After a scene of this kind I feel too limp to move. I creep out into the garden and hide with Roy in a clump of laurel bushes, where there is a neglected sun-dial that was once the centre of the old garden, and left there when the new shrubbery was planted; there is about six feet bare space around it, and no one ever comes there, so I am safe.

Sometimes from my hiding-place I hear Augustus calling me, but I never answer, and yesterday I caught sight of him through the bushes biting his nails with annoyance; he could not think where I had disappeared to. It comforted me to sit there and make faces at him like a gutter-child.

I have never had the courage to go back to the cottage. It is just as it was, with all grandmamma's dear old things in it, waiting for me to decide where I will have them put. Hephzibah has married her grocer's man, and lives there as caretaker.

I suppose some day I shall have to go down and settle things, but I feel as if it would be desecration to bring the Sèvres and miniatures and the Louis XV. _bergère_ here to hobnob with the new productions from Tottenham Court Road.

Augustus is having some rooms arranged for me, so that I, too, shall have a "budwar" for myself. He has not consulted my taste; it is all to be a surprise. And an army of workmen are still in the house, and I have caught glimpses of brilliant, new, gilt chairs and terra-cotta and buffish brocade (I loathe those colors) being carried up.

"Then I'll be able to have you more to myself in the evening," said Augustus. "The drawing-rooms are too big and the mater's budwar is too small, and you hate my den, so I hope this will please you."

I said "Thank you," without enthusiasm. I would prefer the company of my mother-in-law or Amelia to being more alone with Augustus. The crimson-satin chairs are so uncomfortable that now he leaves us almost directly after dinner to lounge in his "den," and I have to go there and say good-night to him. The place smells of stale smoke, some particularly strong, common tobacco he will have in a pipe. He gets into a soiled, old, blue smoking-coat, and sits there reading the comic papers, huddled in a deep arm-chair, a whiskey-and-soda mixed ready by his side. He is generally half-asleep when I get there. I do not stay five minutes if I can help it; it is not agreeable, the smell of whiskey.

There are so few books in the house. The first instalment of my handsome "allowance" will soon be paid me, and then I will have books of my own. I shall feel like a servant receiving the first month's wages in a new place--a miserable beginner of a servant who has never been "out" before. I feel I have earned them, though--earned them with hard work.

Just this last month numbers of people have been to call on me. They left only cards at first, because of my "sad loss," but we often are at home now when they come.

My mother-in-law's visiting-list is a large one, and comprises the whole of the "villa" people from Tilchester as well as the county families. With the former she is deliciously patronizingly friendly; they are all "me dears," and they talk about their servants and ailments and babies, mixed with the doings of Lady Tilchester--they always speak of her as the "Marchioness of Tilchester." They are at home when we return the visits sometimes, too, and this kind of thing happens: our gorgeous prune-and-scarlet footman condescendingly walks up their paths and thumps loudly at their well-cleaned brass knocker, and presses their electric bell. A jaunty lump of a parlor-maid in a fluster at the sight of so much grandeur says "At home" (some of them have "days"), and we are ushered into a narrow hall and so to a drawing-room. They seem always to be papered with buff-and-mustard papers and to have "pongee" sofa-cushions with frills. There is often tennis going on on the neat lawn beyond, and we see visions of large, pink-faced girls and callow youths taking exercise. The hostess gushes at us: "Dear Mrs. Gurrage, so good of you to come--and this is Mrs. Gussie?" (Yes, I am called Mrs. Gussie, Oh! grandmamma, do you hear?) We sit down.

I have no intention of freezing people, but they are hideously ill at ease with me, and say all kinds of foolishnesses from sheer nervousness.

The worst happened last week, when one particularly motherly, blooming solicitor's wife, after recounting to us in full detail the arrival of her first grandchild, hoped Mrs. Gurrage would soon be in her happy position!

Merciful Providence, I pray--that--never!

The county people are not so often at home, but when they are it is hardly more interesting. There do not seem to be many attractive people among them. They are stiff, and it is my mother-in-law who is sometimes ill at ease, though she gushes and blusters as usual. The conversation here is of societies, the Girls' Friendly Society, the Cottage Hospital, the movements of the Church, the continuance of the war, the fear the rest of the Tilchester Yeomanry will volunteer; and now and then the hostess warms up, if there is a question of a subscription, to her own pet hobby. Their houses are for the most part tasteless, too; they seem to live in a respectable _borné_ world of daily duties and sleep. Of the three really big houses within driving distance, one is shut up, one is inhabited for a month or two in the autumn, and the third is let to a successful oil merchant to whom Augustus and my mother-in-law have a great objection, but I can see no difference between oil and carpets. I have seen the man, and he is a weazly looking little rat who drives good horses.

I wonder what has become of my kinsman, Antony Thornhirst. He came with Lady Tilchester to the wedding. I saw his strange eyes looking at me as I walked down the aisle on Augustus's arm. His face was the only one I realized in the crowd. We did not speak; indeed, he never was near me afterwards until I got into the carriage. I wonder if he will be at Harley--I wonder!

Augustus wishes me to be "very smart" for this visit; he tells me I am to take all my best clothes and "cut the others out." It really grieves him that my garments should be black. He suggested to his mother that she had better lend me some of the "family jewels" to augment my own large store, but fortunately Mrs. Gurrage is of a tenacious disposition and likes to keep her own belongings to herself, so I shall be spared the experience of the park-paling tiara sitting upon my brow. Such things being unsuitable to be worn at dinner I fear would have little influence upon Augustus; I am trembling even now at what I may be forced to glitter in.

We are to drive over to Harley late in the afternoon.

II

In spite of Augustus--in spite of everything--I suddenly feel as if I had become alive again here at Harley!

The whole place pleases me. It is an old Georgian house, with long wings stretching right and left, and from a large salon in the centre the other reception-rooms open.

Lady Tilchester is so kind, and makes one feel perfectly at home. A number of people were assembled upon the croquet lawn and in the great tent playing bridge when we arrived, and as no one seems to introduce any one it has taken me two whole days to find out people's names. Some of them, indeed, I have not grasped yet! It does seem a strange custom. Either it is because every one in this set is supposed to be acquainted with the other, and strangers are things that do not count, or that meeting under one roof constitutes an introduction. I have not yet found out which it is.

Anyway, it makes things dull at first. Augustus found it "deuced unpleasant," he told me, as, instead of remaining quiet until he knew his ground, he proceeded to commit a series of _bêtises_.

The first afternoon I subsided into a low chair, and a gruff-looking man handed me some tea, and patted and talked to a bob-tailed sheep-dog that was near.

I don't know if he expected me to answer for the dog, and so make a conversation. He was disappointed, however, if so, as I remained silent. Presently I discovered he was our host.

Lady Tilchester was busy being gushed at by Augustus. A little woman with light hair came and sat down at the other side of me. She looks like a young, fluffy chicken, and has a lisp and an infantile voice, and wears numbers of trinkets, and her name, "Babykins," spelled in a brooch of diamonds. I should not like to be called "Babykins," and I wonder why one should want strangers to read one's name printed upon one's chest.

Everything of hers is marked with that. Chain bracelets with "Babykins" in sapphires and diamonds. On her handkerchief, which she plays with, "Babykins" again stares at you. Even the corner of her chemise, which shows through her transparent blouse, has "Babykins" embroidered on it. It is no wonder even the young men never call her anything else.

You have the first impression that you are talking to a child, but afterwards you are surprised to find what a lot of grown-up, scandalous things she has said.

She was very agreeable to me, and gave me to understand she was so interested to make my acquaintance, as Lady Tilchester had told her so much about me.

"You come from Yorkshire, don't you?" she said; "and your husband has that wonderful breed of black pigs, hasn't he?"

"No," I said, "we live only sixteen miles off."

"Oh, of course! How stupid of me! You are quite another person, I see," and she laughed. "But the pig farmers are coming, and I am so anxious to meet them, as I have a perfect mania for piglets myself. I want to start a new sort, and I hoped you could tell me about them."

"I am so sorry," I said. "I wish I could help you, but I do not believe--except casually in the village--that I have ever seen a pig; they must be delightful companions."

"Yes, indeed! I have large families of the fat white ones, and really the babies are most engaging, and the very image of my step-children. I always tell my husband it seems like eating Alice or Laura when he insists upon having suckling-pig for luncheon. I suppose one would not mind eating one's step-children, though--would one? What do you think?"

Her great, blue eyes looked at me pathetically.

I tried to consider seriously the problem of the consumption of possible step-children; it was too difficult for me.

"I quite hoped to make it pay," she continued--"keeping prize pigs, I mean; we are so frightfully poor. But I am away so much I fear it does not do very well. You play bridge, of course?"

This did not seem to have much to do with the pigs.

"No, I do not play."

"You don't play bridge? How on earth do you get through the day?"

"I really do not know."

"Oh, you must learn at once. I can give you the address of a woman in London who goes out for five pounds an afternoon and who would teach you in three or four lessons. It does seem funny, your not playing."

I said "Yes."

She did not appear to want many answers from me after this, but prattled on about people and the world in general, and before half an hour was over I was left with the impression that society is chiefly composed of people living upon an agreeable and amusing ground somewhere at the borderland of the divorce court.

"So tiresome of the husbands!" she concluded. "Before the war they used to be the most docile creatures; as long as they got a percentage, and the wives did not worry at their own little affairs, all went smoothly. Now, since going out there and fighting, they have come back giving themselves great airs, and talking about wounded honor, and ridiculous things of that sort that one reads of in early Victorian books. One does not know where it will end."

She yawned a little after this, and Lord Tilchester shuffled up and sat down in the corner of the sofa near her. He has the manner of an awkward school-boy.

"You are taking away every one's character, as usual, I suppose, Babykins," he chuckled. "What will Mrs. Gurrage think of it all, I wonder?"

Lady Tilchester interrupted further conversation by carrying me off to see the garden. She is the most fascinating personality I have yet met. There is something like the sun's rays about her--you feel warmed and comforted when she is near. She looks so great and noble, and above all common things, one cannot help wondering why she married Lord Tilchester, who is quite ordinary. When she talks, every one listens. Her voice is like golden bells, and she never says stupid things that mean nothing. We had half an hour in the glorious garden, and she made me feel that life was a fair thing, and that even I should find bits to smile over. How great to have a nature like this, that one's very presence does good to other human beings!

"There are a lot of tiresome people here, I am afraid," she said, at last; "but I wanted you to come to the first party we had after our return, so you must try and not be bored. You shall sit next Mr. Budge to-night; he will be obliged to take in Lady Lambourne, but I will put you on the other side. He will amuse you; he is the cleverest man I know."

"Mr. Budge is a politician, is he not?" I asked. "I think I have heard his name."

"That is delightful," she laughed, "Poor Mr. Budge! He--and, indeed, many of us in England--fancies there is no other name to be heard. He has a fault, though. He writes sentimental poetry which is complete rubbish, and he prides himself upon it far more than upon his splendid powers of oratory or wonderful organization capacities."

"What a strange side for a great man to have!" I said. "Sentimental poetry--it seems so childish, does it not?"

"We all have our weaknesses, I suppose," and she smiled. "We should be very dull if we left nothing for our friends to criticise."

"_Si nous n'avions point de défauts nous ne prendrions pas tant de plaisir à en remarquer dans les autres!_" I quoted.

After a while we went back to the house.

Augustus and I got down at half-past eight for dinner, as grandmamma had always told me that punctuality is a part of politeness, but only one or two men were standing by the huge wood-fire that burns all the time in the open fireplace in the salon where we assembled.

We did not know any of their names, and I suppose they did not know ours. We stared at one another, and they went on talking again, all about the war. Augustus joined in. He is dreadfully uneasy in case the rest of the Tilchester Yeomanry may volunteer at last to go out, and was anxious to hear their views of the possibility. I sat down upon a fat-pillowed sofa, one of those nice kind that puff out again slowly when you get up, and make you feel at rest any way you sit.

A short man with a funny face came and sat beside me.

"What a wonderful lady, to be so punctual!" he said. "You evidently don't know the house. We shall be lucky if we get dinner at nine o'clock."

"Why did you come down, then," I asked, "since you are acquainted with the ways?"

"On the off chance, and because a bad habit of youth sticks to me, and I can't help being on time."

"I am finding it absurd to have acquired habits in youth; they are all being upset," I said.

He had such a cheery face, in spite of being so ugly, it seemed quite easy to talk to him. We chatted lightly until some one called out: "Billy, do ring and ask if we can have a biscuit and a glass of sherry, to keep us up until we get dinner."

At that moment--it was nearly nine--more people strolled in, two women with their husbands, and several odd pairs--the last among the single people quite the loveliest creature I have ever seen. She does not know how to walk, her lips were almost magenta with some stuff on them, but her eyes flashed round at every one, and there seemed to be a flutter among the men by the fireplace.

Augustus dropped his jaw with admiration. She had on a bright purple dress and numbers of jewels. I feel sure he was saying to himself that she was a "stunner." She did not look at all vulgar, however, only wicked and attractive and delightful.

"Darling Letitia," she pleaded, to a stiff-looking old woman sitting bolt-upright under a lamp, "don't glare at me so. I am not the last to-night; there are still Babykins and Margaret and several others to come."

"Oh, Lord, how hungry I am!" announced Mr. Budge, in a loud voice. I recognized him now from his picture being so often in the papers.

Then, from a door at the other end, in tripped Babykins, and close behind her Lord Tilchester, and, last of all, when the clock had struck nine-fifteen, and even the funny-faced man next me had exhausted all his conversation, the door at the north end of the salon opened, and serenely, like a lovely ship, our beautiful hostess sailed towards us.

"So sorry to be a little late," she said, calmly. "Tilchester, as you have, of course, told every one whom they are to take in, we may as well start."

Lord Tilchester had been sitting in the window-seat with Babykins, and had completely forgotten this duty, I suppose. He got up guiltily and fumbled for a paper in his pocket.

"Oh, don't let us wait for that," said Mr. Budge, gruffly. "Come, Lady Tilchester, I shall take you and lead the way," and he gave her his arm.

She laughed and took it.

"Very well," she said.

Every one scrambled for the people they wanted or knew best; and so it happened that I found myself standing staring at a pale young man with weak blue eyes and a wonderfully well-tied tie, the last of the company.

He held out his arm nervously, and we finally got to the dining-room and found two seats.

It was not until dinner was almost over that I found out he was the Duke of Myrlshire, and ought to have taken in Lady Tilchester.

Augustus had placed himself next the purple lady, and his face grew a gray mauve with excitement at her gracious glances.

My ducal partner was unattractive. He had a squeaky voice and a nervous manner, but said some _entreprenant_ things in a way which made me understand he is accustomed to be listened to with patience, not to say pleasure.

He told me he was grateful to Mr. Budge for his move, as he had been admiring me since the moment we arrived, and had determined, directly the _mêlée_ began, to secure me if possible.

"Er--you don't look like an Englishwoman," he said, "and it is a nice change. My eye is wearied with them; their outlines are all exactly alike."

He further informed me that Paris was the only place to live in, and that the English as a nation were crude in their vices.

"They make such a noise about everything here," he added. "One cannot do a thing that it is not put the wrong way up in the halfpenny papers."

"The penalty of greatness," I said, laughing. "They don't worry at all, for instance, about what I am doing."

"Then they show extremely bad taste," he said, with a look of frank admiration.

Before the women swept in a body from the room, I understood that his object in life would henceforth be to make me sensible of his great worth and charm. All these masterful, forward sentiments sounded so comic, expressing themselves in his squeaky voice, I could not help smiling. He became radiant. He did not guess in the least what amused me.

Although the salon is immense, the ten or twelve women all crowded around the fireplace. It was a damp, chilly evening.

They all seemed to know one another very well, and called each other by their Christian names, so until Babykins again gave me some information I did not realize who people were.

The purple lady is Lady Grenellen; her husband is at the war. She is most attractive. She sat on a big sofa and smoked cigarettes rapidly in a little amber holder. She must have got through at least three or four of them before the men came in.

Lady Tilchester and two other women were deep in South-African news, the rest talked about books and their clothes, but Babykins and Letitia exchanged views upon the scandal of the time.

"In my day," Letitia said, "it sometimes happened that men made love and ran away with a woman because they found they liked her better than anything else in the world. It was a great sin, but their passion was mixed with respect, and the elopement constituted the wedding ceremony. Now you remain on at home until you are found out, and then the husband takes a gratuity and the matter is hushed up, and probably the lover passes on to your best friend, an added feather in his cap."

"Dear Lady Lambourne, how severe you are!" chirped Babykins. "And you really should not use that little word 'you.' Of course, you don't mean any of us, but it sounds unkind and might be misunderstood--especially," she added, in a whisper to me, "as that is the exact case of Cordelia Grenellen."

Letitia (Lady Lambourne) has a distinct voice and decided opinions. She continued, as though no interruption had taken place:

"If the matter was only for love, too, I should still have nothing to say; but it is so often for a string of pearls, or some new carriage-horses."

"But, surely, it is more logical to have that reason than no reason at all, like the case of your poor cousin. I understood that was sheer foolishness, and Lord Edam did not even pretend to care for her."

Lady Lambourne looked daggers and remained speechless. "What scandalous things you are all saying," laughed Lady Grenellen from her sofa. "Letitia, you are sitting there and being epigrammatic, just like the people in those unreal society plays they had last year. We are all perfectly contented and happy if you would let us alone."

"One cannot but deplore the change," said Lady Lambourne.

"Personally, I am delighted with everything as it is," cooed Babykins. "Life must be much pleasanter now than in your day, dear Lady Lambourne; such a fuss and pretending, and such hypocrites you must all have been--as, of course, human nature was the same then, and since the beginning of time. We have always eaten and drank too rich food and wine in our class and have not had enough to do, so we can't help being as we are, can we?"

"Babykins, you silly darling, as if what we eat makes any difference!" said Lady Grenellen, puffing her cigarette-smoke into cloudy rings in the neatest way.

"Of course it does, Cordelia! Food makes all the difference, you know. I have kept those white pigs for four years and I know all about it."

Babykins has the most pathetic blue eyes, and her childish voice is arresting. Lady Grenellen went into a fit of laughter.

"You are perfectly mad about those horrid pigs!" she told her.

Lady Lambourne interrupted again, in a dignified voice. "Human nature was _not_ the same in my day--as you call it--Mrs. Parton-Mills" (thus she discovered to me Babykins' name). "We lived much more simply, and enjoyed our pleasures and did our duties, and stayed at home more."

"And I expect you were frightfully bored, Letitia, darling," said Lady Grenellen, "and that is why you never stay at home now."

It seemed to me quite wonderful how they could be so disrespectful to this elderly lady, but she did not seem at all offended.

"You are incorrigible, Cordelia," was all she said, and she laughed.

"You had no bridge, and it must have been exactly like it still is when I stay with Edward's relations in Scotland," Babykins continued. "As we arrive there I feel 'goose-flesh' on my arms, with the stiffness and decorum of everything. We chat about the weather at tea, and no one ever says a word they really think; and we play idiotic, childish games of cards for love in the evening; and it is all feeble and wearisome, and the guests are always looking at the clock."

Lady Tilchester came and joined us; it seemed a breath of fresh sunlight illuminating the scene.

"You appear all to be talking scandal," she said.

Imperceptibly the conversation changed, and we were discussing the war news when the double doors of the dining-room opened.

Augustus looked very flushed in the face and unattractive as he came towards us, but Lady Grenellen moved her skirts and made room for him on her sofa. She smiled at him divinely, and was perfectly lovely to him--as friendly and caressing as if he were an equal. It perfectly astonished me. I could not talk and joke familiarly that with Augustus any more than if he were one of the footmen. And she is a viscountess, and must at least know what a gentleman is.

Half the party moved off to play bridge in one of the drawing-rooms; the rest arranged themselves comfortably, two and two. Lady Tilchester and Mr. Budge wandered into the music-room, and I, who had not stirred, found myself almost alone by the fireplace with the Duke.

He proceeded to say a number of things to me that astonished me greatly. I should not have understood them all had I not been to those plays in Paris.

I suppose he was beginning to make love to me--if this is what is called making love. His personality is not attractive, so it did not touch me at all, and I am only able to look upon men now through eyes which see coarse brutes. Perhaps they may be really nice, some of them, but as I look at them one after another, the thought always comes, how revolting could they appear in the eyes of their wives? This is not nice of me, and I am sure grandmamma would reprove me for it.

III

Next day, Sunday, some of us went to church. Augustus insisted upon my going. He thought it would be a good opportunity of showing I was in Lady Tilchester's company, although what it could have mattered to the Harley villagers I do not know.

He himself stayed behind with Lady Grenellen, he said, to take her for a walk in the woods.

After lunch every one seemed to play bridge but Lady Tilchester and I and her politician and the weak-eyed Duke. We climbed the hill to the ruins of the old castle and there sat until tea-time.

"Isn't it a bore for me I shall have to marry an heiress?" the Duke said, pathetically. "Marriage is the most tiresome ennui at any time, but to be forced through sheer beggary to take some ugly woman you don't like and don't want is cruel hard luck, is it not?"

"Yes," I said, feelingly.

He was melted by the sympathy in my voice.

"You are a delicious woman; you seem to understand one directly. People have got into the way of thinking it is no hardship to have to do these things for the sake of one's title, but I can see you are sympathetic."

"Yes, indeed!" I said.

"Cordelia Grenellen is arranging it for me. I have not seen her yet--I mean the heiress."

"If I were a man I think I should keep my freedom and--and--work," I faltered.

He looked at me, perfectly astonished.

"But what can I do?" he asked. "Only go into the city, and that is quite played out now. I have no head for business, and it would seem to me to be rather mean just to trade upon my name to get unsuspecting people to take shares in concerns; whereas if I marry an heiress it is a square game--I at least give her some return for her money."

"There is a great deal in what you say," I agreed.

"I told Cordelia--she is a cousin of mine, you know--I told her I would not have a very ugly one, and I should prefer that she should be a good, healthy brewer's daughter. Our family is over-well bred. You see, if you are going to sacrifice yourself to keep up your name, you may as well choose some one that will be of some ultimate use to it. Now we want a strain of thick red blood in our veins; ours is a great deal too blue. We are becoming reedy shaped, and more or less idiotic."

He said all this quite gravely. He had evidently studied the subject, and as I looked at him I felt he was perfectly right. If he represented the type of his race, it had certainly grown effete.

"I won't have an American," he continued. "They are intellectual companions before marriage, and they are generally so agreeable you don't notice how nervous and restless they are really, but I would not contemplate one as a wife. I must have a solid English cow-woman."

He stretched himself by my side and began pulling a bit of grass to pieces. His hands look transparent, and he has the most beautifully shaped filbert nails; his ears, on the contrary, are not perfect, but stick out like a monkey's.

"You see, I should always live my own life," he went on, lazily. "I worship the beautiful. The pagans' highest expression of beauty which moved the world was in sculpture--cold and pure marble of divine form. That awakened their emotions; one reads they had a number of emotions. The Renaissance people, to take a medium time, expressed themselves by painting glorious colors on flat canvas; they also had emotions. Those two arts now are more or less dead. At any rate, they have ceased to influence masses of people. Our great expression is music. We are moved by music. It gives us emotions _en bloc_--all of us--some by the tune of 'Tommy Atkins,' and others by Wagner. Well, all these three--sculpture, painting, and music--give me pleasure, but I should not want my cow duchess to understand any of them. I should want her to have numbers of chubby children and to fulfil her social duties, and never have to go into a rest-cure, or have a longing for sympathy."

I said a few "yeses" and "reallys" during this long speech, and he continued, like a mill grinding coffee:

"It don't do to over-breed. You are bound to turn out some _toqués_ if not altogether idiotic, and then my sense of beauty is outraged by the freaks that happen in our shapes--you should see my two sisters, the plainest women in England. Now you give me joy to look at. You are quite beautiful, you know. I never saw any one with a nose as straight and finely cut as yours. Why do you keep putting your parasol so that I cannot see it?"

"One uses a parasol to keep off the sun, which is hot. Would you wish me to get a sunstroke to oblige you?" And I put down my parasol still lower.

"You are selfish!" in an aggrieved voice.

"Of course."

"And not the least ashamed of it!"

"Not the least."

He moved his position deliberately so that he came to my other side, where the sun was not.

"I learned a certain amount of manoeuvring in South Africa, where I went for a month or two," he said. "I hope this side of your face will be as pretty. People always have a better and a worse side."

I laughed. It was too hot to circumvent him again, and his looking at me could not hurt me.

"This is even prettier," he said, presently. "Where did you hide yourself, that we none of us ever saw you before you married?"

"I lived rather near here for a little while."

"Now you look sad again. I never watched any one's face so much. Yours is not like other people's; you look like a cameo, you know."

"Tell me about the people here," I said. "They are all strangers to me."

"But I would much rather talk about you."

"That does not interest me; you said I was selfish, so you do what I wish."

"What can I tell you of them? They are like all companies--dull and amusing, mixed. They are a fair specimen of most people one meets in the _monde où l'on s'amuse_. My cousin Lady Grenellen is perhaps the most interesting among them, as she had the most histories."

"Histories?"

"Yes; her career has been one of riding for a series of falls, and escaping even a peck."

"She is very lovely."

"Oh yes, Cordelia is good-looking enough," he said, as though there was considerably more to add.

I did not continue the subject further. We talked of books, the war, and various other things, and by-and-by our hostess called to us from the higher level of the old drawbridge where she was sitting.

"We must be descending for some tea," she said, and started on with her politician.

When we got back, Augustus was swinging Lady Grenellen in a lovely Louis XV. _balançoire_, fixed up between two elm-trees; she put one foot out, and looked so lovely and radiant!

Augustus had the expression of one of those negro pages Thackeray drew in _The Virginians_--a mixture of pride and self-complacency--a he held the red silk ropes.

Tea was so merry! No one was witty like grandmamma and the Marquis, but every one was in a good temper and it was gay.

The party was rather more punctual at dinner on Sunday night, and Lady Tilchester had arranged, as she meant to the night before, that I should sit next her politician. Mr. Budge and Mrs. Gurrage--the names went well together!

I do not know anything about politics, but he is what I suppose must be a Radical, as he preaches home rule for Ireland, and equal rights for all mankind, and an apologetic tone to other nations, and a general dividing up of all one's _biens_. But they say he has a splendid house in Grosvenor Square, and a flat in Paris, and never asks any but the smartest titled people to his big pheasant shoot in Suffolk.

He was delightful at dinner, anyway, and made me laugh. His voice is clear, with just the faintest touch of Irish in it. And he sparred with Lady Tilchester across me.

She is the greatest _grande dame_ one could meet, and a Tory to the backbone in politics, but her manner to the servants is not nearly so haughty as Mr. Budge's.

I do not like his hands; I cannot say why; they are neither big nor ill-shapen, but there is something fat and feminine about the fingers. I dare say, underneath, he could be like Augustus.

Lady Tilchester is devoted to him, and he has the greatest admiration and respect for her. Their conversation is most interesting.

Some of the other men are very nice, and several of them almost come up to grandmamma's criterion of the perfect male--that he should "look like a man and behave like a gentleman."

The women are very smartly dressed all the time, but they do not show a great sense of the fitness of things. Only Lady Grenellen and Lady Tilchester are always adorable and attractive in anything and in any way.

I believe they do not love one another very much, although they are quite friendly; one somehow can see it in their eyes.

The Tilchester boy, who is thirteen, has just gone to Eton, but will soon be home for the holidays; the little girl is at the sea. So I have not seen either of them.

The whole house here is so beautifully done; there is no fuss, and everything is exactly where one wants to find it. I shall be sorry when we leave.

Just as we had begun luncheon to-day, Sir Antony Thornhirst came in, and, after a casual greeting to every one, sat down near me.

He seems quite at home here, and as if he were accustomed to turning up unannounced in this way.

I felt such a queer, quick beating in my heart. I suppose because among all these strangers he was some one I knew before.

"So you decided not to cut the Gordian knot," he said, presently, as if we were continuing the discussion of some argument we had had a moment before.

He bridged in an instant the great gulf since my wedding. This _sang froid_ stupefied me. I found nothing to say.

He continued:

"Do you know, I have heard since that to give any one a knife cuts friendship, and brings bad luck and separation, and numbers of dreadful things. So you and I are now declared enemies, I suppose. Shall we go and throw the little ill-omen in the lake after lunch?"

"No; I will not part with my knife; I find it very useful," I said, in a _bête_ way.

"Antony," called out Lord Tilchester, "you have arrived in the nick of time to save Babykins from turning into a hospital nurse. She thinks the costume becoming, and threatens to leave us for the wounded heroes. Cannot you restrain her?"

"How?" asked Sir Antony, helping himself to some chicken curry. "Really excellent curry your chef makes, Tilchester."

"Don't tell him about it, Reggie," lisped Mrs. Parton-Mills. "The unfeeling creature is only thinking of his food."

"You seem to have all the qualities for an ideal convalescent nurse," said Sir Antony, with an air of detaching himself with difficulty from the contemplation of the curry.

"And those qualities are--?" asked Lord Tilchester.

"Principally stimulating," and he selected a special chutney from the various kinds a footman was handing.

"What do you mean?" demanded Babykins, pouting.

"Exactly what you do," and he looked at her, smiling in a way I should have said was insolent had it been I who was concerned.

"But I want to go and help the poor dear fellows, and to cheer them and make their time pleasanter."

"I said you would be an ideal convalescent nurse. But what would become of the pigs?"

"Oh, Edward could look after them. I think too little attention has been paid to the poor boys who are getting well. I could read to them and write their letters home for them," and she looked pathetically sympathetic.

"Hubble-bubble, toil and trouble," quoted Sir Antony.

"Who for?" laughed Lord Tilchester, in his rough, gruff way.

"The recipients of the letters, who would certainly receive them in the wrong envelopes," said Sir Antony. "I think, Tilchester, you had better persuade Babykins to stay in England, for the sake of the peace of many respectable and innocent families."

"How wicked you are to me," flashed Babykins.

"Just what you deserve," chuckled Lord Tilchester.

"What tiresome nonsense these people talk," said Sir Antony, calmly, to me. "You and I were in the middle of an interesting problem discussion, were we not? And now I have lost the thread."

"It does not in the least matter," I said.

The Duke, who was on the other side of me, did not care to be left out, and persistently talked to me for the rest of lunch.

Sir Antony consumed his with the appreciation of a connoisseur. It appeared to be the only thing which interested him.

Babykins, from the other side, did her utmost to engage him in a war of wits, but he remained calm, with the air of a placid lion.

When we got outside in the great tent he came up to me.

"I am going to take you for a walk," he said--"a nice, cool walk in the woods. Will you get your parasol?"

The Duke was at that moment fetching it for me from the hall table, where I had left it.

"I do not know what we shall do to-day," I said, "I believe I am going to play croquet."

"Oh no, you are not. It is much too hot, and you must see the woods. They are historical, and--Here, take this parasol and let us start." This last hurriedly, as the Duke was seen returning with mine.

I cannot say why I allowed myself to be dragged off like this. My natural impulse has always been to do the opposite thing when ordered by any one but grandmamma. But here I found myself walking meekly beside my kinsman down a yew-bordered path, holding a mauve silk parasol over my head which did not belong to me.

We did not speak until we got quite to the end, where there is a quaint fountain, the centre of four _allées_ of clipped yews.

My heart still continued to beat in a quick, tiresome manner.

"You look changed, Comtesse," Sir Antony said. "Your little face is pale. Do you remember the night we danced together? It was round and rosy then. Is it a hundred years ago?"

There is a something in his voice which is alluring. The mocking sound goes out of it now and then, and when it does one feels as if one must listen. Oh, but listen with both one's ears!

"Yes, it is a hundred years ago," I said.

"I was so sorry to hear of your grandmother's death," he continued. "I wanted to tell you how I felt for you, but I was away in Norway, and have only just returned. Did you think I was unkind?"

"No, I never thought at all. Grandmamma was glad to die. I knew she could not live, but it came suddenly at the end."

"What a splendid personality! How I wish I had seen more of her! I generally manage to seize the occasion, but fate kept you and her beyond my reach. Why did we not all meet this time last year?"

"Oh, do not talk of that!" I cried. I felt I could not bear to hear any more. "I am trying to forget, and to find life full of compensations. Grandmamma and the Marquis promised me that I should."

He looked at me, stopped in the path, and bent down to a level with my face. His eyes seemed as if they could see right through my mind then, as on another occasion in our lives.

"Dear little white Comtesse!" he said. Almost the same words.