Chapter III: Part 3

“I have a great mind to go to Severn himself, and put myself in his hands. But, then, of course, one couldn’t trust him,” he added, regretfully.

“He is a man of honor,” objected the other.

“And when the good name of a woman is at stake, men of honor always lie,” was the stern retort. “Oh would to Heaven you had either never told me this, or else proved it up to the very hilt.”

“I didn’t speak out of any zeal for morality, you may be sure. I had simply heard the common talk, and I naturally assumed that it was true.”

“Why?”

Despencer gave a delicate, self-satisfied smile.

“When there is any doubt, I always believe the worst. I find I am seldom wrong.”

Hammond stepped back, with an indignant gesture. He was beginning to feel ashamed of the discussion.

“And you can stand like that and smile away a reputation!” he exclaimed. “I wonder what they made you of.”

“I believe a chemical analysis of me would yield the ordinary results,” returned Despencer, with unruffled composure. “I rather think that hydrogen is the principal ingredient.”

Hammond gave a short laugh.

“Despencer, I begin actually to respect you. It can be no easy thing to attain to such a height of perfect brutality as yours. You must have taken great pains with yourself.”

“You may say what you like, Hammond, as long as you are not violent. I always draw the line at violence.”

“Do you have to draw it often?”

Even the trained and admirable temper of Despencer gave way under this taunt, and a red flush suffused his pale cheeks.

“Hammond, do you mean to be insulting?”

“Why, do you mind much? I should have thought the hydrogen would have stood it.”

The words were drowned in a sudden crash of music and hand-clapping as the door behind them opened, and Captain Mauleverer came through with Belle Yorke on his arm.

Despencer drew to one side with a bow as they approached.

“Ah, captain, taking Lord Severn’s place, I see,” he remarked, with a sarcastic emphasis intended for Hammond’s ear, and passed back into the concert-room.

Mauleverer stared after him as if he had been some noxious animal.

“What has that damned cad--beg pardon, Miss Yorke--been doing here?” he demanded of Hammond.

“Oh, only taking away some one’s character.”

“Not mine, I hope,” said Belle, with a smile.

“No, not in Hammond’s hearing, I’ll swear,” said the loyal captain.

“It was too bad of you to go outside just as I was going to sing,” said Belle to the silent Hammond. “I shall expect an explanation.”

“I have been waiting here to give it to you,” was the grave answer.

“You seem quite serious about it. I am sure Mr. Despencer has been saying something against me.”

Captain Mauleverer put in a word.

“I can’t let you give your explanation now, because Miss Yorke has promised to sit out this next piece with me. You must wait your turn, old fellow.”

“What does Miss Yorke say?” asked the other.

“I say what they say at the libraries about the book of the season. You shall have me when the captain has done with me.” She turned merrily to the captain. “But you mustn’t skip, you know. I shall allow you fourteen minutes for perusal.”

“I want to read you through,” said Hammond. And he went out.

SCENE VIII

CINDERELLA

“How very sober Mr. Hammond seems to-night! I hope he isn’t going to be cross.”

Though she spoke gayly enough, a vague sense of ill was stealing over her. She sat down on a low cane settee, over which flowering shrubs made a sort of canopy, and a sadness seemed to breathe in the heavy scent of tuberose and stephanotis.

Captain Mauleverer placed himself beside her, and looked at her with a certain respectful pity as he answered:

“That isn’t likely. I’m sure it wouldn’t be easy to be cross with you, Miss Yorke.”

Belle detected something in his voice which increased her foreboding.

“You look as grave as Mr. Hammond. Is anything the matter?”

“Yes, I’m afraid there is.”

The moment he had spoken the words he wished them unuttered. The light faded out of the beautiful eyes, and a pathetic sadness took its place.

“Oh, please don’t tell me that!” she pleaded. “I am enjoying myself so much this evening.”

“Are you? I am glad of that,” said Mauleverer, tugging uneasily at his mustache.

“Yes; I have never been to a place like this before, you know, and it is all so strange and beautiful. I am a little bit afraid of the Marchioness of Severn, but every one else has been so kind that I haven’t felt myself a stranger. I feel almost like the little chimney-sweep who wandered by accident into the state bedroom of the castle, and turned out to be the rightful heir. Please don’t send me back to my chimney.”

The captain swallowed something in his throat.

“I wish I hadn’t promised to, but the fact is I have undertaken to give you a message.”

This time Belle turned to him with a look of something like alarm.

“Can’t you put it off till to-morrow? Do let me have my dream out to-night.”

Mauleverer shook himself.

“Hang it! I have a great mind to,” he exclaimed.

“Please do, if it is an unkind message. I didn’t think I had any enemies.”

“You have none--at least, I don’t believe you have. It isn’t that. What I have promised to tell you is something about yourself, something you ought to know.”

“Something about myself! Oh, what do you mean? I haven’t been doing anything wrong, have I?”

Captain Mauleverer bit his lip and looked more than half inclined to run away. Then he said, slowly:

“Perhaps I should have said--something about your father.”

“My father!” She gazed at him in astonishment. “But he is dead! He died before I was born.”

“No!”

The answer struck her dumb. She sat still and pressed her hand against her heart. The man replied to her unspoken questions with a grave shake of the head.

“My father is not dead? Oh, Captain Mauleverer, what are you saying? What do you know about him?”

“I wish I didn’t have to speak to you like this. Your father is alive.”

“And they have always told me he was dead! My mother-- Captain Mauleverer, are you _sure_ of what you say?”

“I am. I know your father.”

“Then why--” She broke off in the midst of the question and wrung her hands. “Ah! I begin to understand. My father has done something that has made them hide his existence from me. And you are going to tell me what it is.”

“I--well, I promised that I would.”

She gave a half-sob.

“You may go on now. I find that I am only the little chimney-sweeper after all. But stay!” A fresh thought struck her with overwhelming force. “Perhaps this is some mistake after all. You say my father is alive, but did you know that my mother had been married again?”

The captain clenched his fists.

“God forgive me--I _can’t_ tell you!”

“Then--then there is only one explanation, Captain Mauleverer.” She hid her face in her hands for a minute, and then raised it again and looked him bravely in the face. “Is that it? Tell me the truth.”

Mauleverer sprang from his seat.

“No, I’m damned if I do!”

A burst of music and a babble of tongues told them that the door had opened again, and some one else was coming in. It was the Marchioness of Severn, and she was alone.

Belle rose from her seat dry-eyed.

“Ah, Miss Yorke, they told me I should find you here. That will do, Gerald. Miss Yorke and I are going to have a little talk. Pray sit down again.”

Belle resumed her seat in silence, with an inward dread of what was in store for her next, while Captain Mauleverer walked off with the hang-dog air of a man who feels he has made a brute of himself.

The marchioness sat down beside her guest.

“I have to thank you for a most delightful evening. You sang most charmingly. I almost wish I hadn’t asked you for that one called ‘Little Willy,’ though. I am so sensitive. You almost made me cry--you did, indeed.”

Belle stole a timid glance at her.

“It is very kind of you to praise me so much. That song of mine has always been a favorite.”

“I don’t wonder at it. Dear, sweet little thing, freezing to death like that! Why didn’t some one give him a seal-skin jacket? And do you really sing things like that at those dreadful places in Leicester Square?”

Belle began to feel uncomfortable. The patronage it was difficult to resent, but the hinted disparagement roused her courage.

“I am sorry you think them dreadful,” she said, modestly but quite firmly, “because, you know, I have to sing there for my living.”

The marchioness’s determined good-nature was not to be turned aside.

“No, no; of course, I ought not to have called them that before you. But one reads such shocking things about them in the newspapers when they apply for their licenses to the County Council. I’m sure I hope it isn’t half of it true.”

“I hope you won’t be offended if I stand up for them,” Belle persisted, bravely. “I must be loyal to my own profession, mustn’t I?”

“Of course! Of course! Most properly. I hope--in fact, I am sure, that they have done you no harm. But I have heard so much about these places, and the life, that it makes me feel the very gravest doubt. I take an interest in you, Miss Yorke, and I should be so sorry if you were to lower yourself by your connection with the music-halls.”

Still bleeding from the wound dealt her in all respectful kindness by the man who had been with her just before, Belle roused herself to ward off the more envenomed stabs of the woman who was with her now.

“I don’t intend to lower myself, or to let myself be lowered, by any place I may go to,” she said, with dignity, looking the marchioness in the face.

The marchioness smiled on her like a mother.

“That is right. I am so glad to hear you say that. But you can’t be too careful, you know. The world is so censorious. Society has very keen ears for the least whisper against a woman’s name.”

This time Belle realized that there was some serious purpose beneath her persecutor’s moralizing. She turned on her indignantly.

“I hope you don’t mean that society has been listening to any whispers against my name!” she cried.

The marchioness put out her hands with a soothing gesture.

“Oh, no--not yet, at all events. Still, as I say, you cannot be too careful in your unfortunate position. I thought I ought to take the opportunity of giving you a friendly warning. It is so easy to check a thing of this kind at the outset, but afterwards it may be too late.”

“I am afraid I don’t understand you yet,” said Belle, in a carefully measured voice which would have betrayed the rising anger to a duller ear than the Marchioness of Severn’s. “Do you mean to say that there is anything for me to check?”

The marchioness, becoming slightly nervous, tried to beat about the bush.

“No, no; I won’t go so far as that. I don’t put it in that way--merely a possibility, that is all. Of course, it is very natural that the men who go to such places should admire you, with your voice and figure; only don’t let one particular man admire you more openly than the rest. You understand me?”

Belle’s voice became cold and metallic.

“Do you mean that there is some one whose name has been associated with mine as an admirer more than the rest?”

The marchioness bowed and smiled.

“That is just it. You have put it very nicely.”

“May I ask you to tell me his name?”

The marchioness threw a glance of mild reproach at her young friend.

“Surely, my dear Miss Yorke, you must know that! Every one tells me that his attentions have been most marked--Mr. Hammond.”

The marchioness brought out the name with a jerk, watching her victim keenly the while. But Belle gave her no assurance, by so much as the flutter of an eyelid, that the shaft had gone home.

“Mr. Hammond’s attentions to me have always been perfectly respectful.”

The marchioness positively bubbled over with shame at the implied suggestion that she had thought otherwise.

“Of course! Naturally! But you _know_, my dear girl, that society will take a _very_ different view. Society is _so_ incredulous. It _never_ believes that a man’s friendship for a woman is perfectly respectful.”

“Not when he asks her to become his wife?” Belle could not resist the question.

“That is quite different.” The marchioness suddenly became the great lady. “We are not talking of that, as you know. Mr. Hammond is not one of those foolish young men who marry a girl out of their own class and regret it ever afterwards. You must put that idea out of your head at once, believe me. I am speaking as your friend and as a woman of the world.”

Belle looked at her friend for a moment with a silence that had something satirical in it.

“What is Mr. Hammond’s class?”

“Don’t you know? Mr. Hammond is a millionaire. He moves in the very best society. He could marry almost any woman in England, except royalty. I know dukes, even, who would feel honored by an alliance with Mr. Hammond.”

All this time it had not occurred to Belle, in her simplicity, that she could possibly be regarded by the great lady beside her as a rival, and a dangerous rival, to her own daughter. She only felt that something very dear to her was at stake, and she wrestled for it blindly.

“Is that simply because he is rich?” she demanded, with the scorn which youth always feels for wealth.

“Not entirely,” the marchioness answered, mildly, “though, of course, that has a great deal to do with it. But Mr. Hammond comes of a most respectable family, I believe. I have heard that his father was quite a gentleman towards the end of his life. And then he has a fine political career before him; he is in Parliament, and may be in the Cabinet. You can’t expect him to throw all that away to marry you, my dear.”

Belle began to fear that she was going to be beaten.

“And would he? Would it be such a very great disgrace?” she murmured below her breath.

“_I_ don’t say that it would,” replied her deeply sympathizing friend; “but society would consider it so. You see, we can none of us do all that we like. There are many things that I should like to do, but I dare not. We all feel inclined to rebel sometimes and gratify our own inclinations, but we are restrained by a higher law.”

“What higher law is there than the loyal instinct of our own hearts?” demanded Belle, with a flash of indignation.

“My dear, the prejudices of society! Its feelings must be respected. We have to mould our lives accordingly.”

“Why? Why should we obey such a code? Why should we cringe to this bogie you call society? Why should we make ourselves slaves to one another’s shadows?”

The marchioness drew herself up and regarded her young friend with real pain.

“Miss Yorke, you quite surprise me. I am shocked to hear you use such language. Do you realize what you are saying? You called society a bogie!”

“I was wrong. It is something more.”

“It is true that its dictates sometimes appear harsh and unreasonable, but that is the same for all of us. Why should you expect to be an exception to the rule more than others?”

“Shall I tell you?” All the bitterness of her newly acquired knowledge rang out in Belle’s voice. “Because I am one of the victims of society; because it placed its brand upon me before ever I was born. Society has made me an outlaw, and therefore I owe it no allegiance, and I will give it none. You tell me that because I am a public singer I have no right to the friendship of an honorable man; that there are whispers in circulation against my name already. Let them whisper! I have done with all that. I shall not abandon my friends at society’s bidding, and I won’t give up the man I love because it tells me--I won’t do it!”

The marchioness rose, deeply shocked and grieved.

“Really, I can’t stay here--”

Again the sudden loudness of the sounds from the concert-room. Again the door stood open, and John Hammond in the doorway.

SCENE IX

AND THE PRINCE

The moment she saw who had come into the conservatory the marchioness sat down again promptly, and with a decision which spoke volumes for her intention to remain.

Hammond advanced, and recognized the marchioness with a look of wonder.

“Where is Mauleverer?” he inquired.

“I sent Gerald away,” replied the marchioness, with an intonation which plainly added: “And I should like to send you away, too.”

“That was considerate of you,” retorted Hammond, with a pleasant smile.

There was a vacant space on the seat between the two women, and he took possession of it with a cool deliberateness which appeared to cause the marchioness some dismay.

“I wanted to have a little private chat with Miss Yorke,” she observed, stiffly.

“The very thing I wanted, too. You have done me out of my turn, hasn’t she, Miss Yorke? You are positively quite a cuckoo, my dear marchioness.”

The marchioness made a painful effort to smile.

“I am not at all sure that I shall allow you to speak to Miss Yorke,” she responded, trying to look past him at Belle herself.

On Hammond’s entrance Belle had shrunk back with a certain apprehension which had afforded secret satisfaction to her hostess. She now waited in silence, nervously plucking at the leaves of a camellia which brushed her shoulder where she sat.

“Now she is under my roof,” pursued the marchioness, “I feel in the position of her guardian. I regard you as a very dangerous character.”

A smile of bitter irony gleamed for a moment on Hammond’s lips.

“I rather think you must be right. I don’t know why it is, but I am feeling in a peculiarly lawless mood this evening. If Miss Yorke were not here, I am not at all sure that your diamonds would be safe.”

Something in the manner of this speech, rather than in the words, caused the marchioness to move several inches farther off along the settee. It was a distinct shock to her to hear the Severn diamonds made the subject of coarse jocularity. The one in the centre of her bosom had been given to the first Mauleverer by King John as a reward for resisting the agitation for Magna Charta. Those in the tiara above her forehead had been brought into the family by a left-handed daughter of John of Gaunt. The value of the whole was nearly a year’s income of the much-mortgaged Severn estates.

“Really, Mr. Hammond, you speak so strangely that if I didn’t know you so well I should think something was the matter with you.”

It was necessary to let her ladyship see clearly that she was out of place. Hammond cast on her a look which she had not seen in his eyes before.

“Do you know me well? Does any of us know another well? Don’t we, most of us, drift through life with our eyes half closed, ignorant of our aims, ignorant of our very natures, till some shock comes to awaken us, and in the moment of trial we find out for the first time who and what we really are?”

A subtle instinct told him, before he had finished speaking, that his words were being eagerly followed by the girl who sat on his right hand. On the marchioness they fell with something of the effect of a cold spray. She shivered and got up.

“Ah, yes, of course, all that is very true, no doubt,” she murmured, hastily. “But I must really be going back to look after the people.” She turned a feline glance on Belle. “I wouldn’t sit out here too long if I were you, Miss Yorke; you may catch cold.”

“Thank you; I am not afraid of that,” was the quiet answer.

The marchioness turned her eyes from one to the other, pursed up her lips with severity, and reluctantly retreated.

Hammond watched her exit with a sarcastic smile.

“I am afraid the marchioness believes I have been drinking,” he observed.

The cynicism jarred on Belle as harshly as the seriousness had jarred on the marchioness. There is no woman who can respond to a man through all his moods, not even she who loves him best.

“I wonder how much truth there is in what you said just now?”

Hammond turned and fixed an earnest gaze on her. He saw her for the first time in his experience with a troubled brow, but he never guessed the cause. There is no man who can follow a woman through all her moods, not even he who loves her best.

“That is what I wanted to ask you,” he said, in answer to her question. “We two have known each other for some time, haven’t we; but how much do I know of you, or you of me?”

Belle felt what was coming. She saw it in his eye, she heard it in his voice. Desperately she resolved to meet it half-way.

“I have been finding that out this evening. Since I have come here I have understood for the first time what you are and what I am. Mr. Hammond, after this evening we must not meet again.”

“Belle! Why do you say that?”

There was a note of anguish in his voice. He had been fighting a battle with himself all this time. It had never occurred to him that there might be another to overcome besides.

She looked him steadily in the face.

“Why do you call me Belle?”

“I thought we were friends,” he said. But he blushed as he said it.

“What kind of friends? Would your friendship with Lady Victoria allow you to call her by her Christian name? Don’t you see that the difference between her and me makes our friendship impossible?”

“Don’t you trust me, then?” asked the man.

“You have no right to ask me for my trust. You and I belong to different worlds. Where there is no equality there can be no friendship. It would have been better if we had never met.”

She spoke with a certain rigidity which baffled him. He did not know that the poor girl was but repeating the bitter lesson which had just been taught to her.

“But why,” he eagerly demanded--“why should you suddenly take this tone with me? I was going to ask you for your confidence. I meant to beg you to let me take your part against your enemies, and you rebuff me at the outset like this.”

“Have I enemies? I didn’t know that.” She spoke with a pathetic resignation. She had heard too much within the last half-hour to be much moved by any new disclosure. “But there is all the more reason that I should give them no handle against me. Consider what society is likely to think of such a friendship as ours--you, a public man, wealthy, ambitious, honored by the world, with a great career before you, and I a humble singer, whose very calling makes her name a mark for every spiteful tongue.”

“Why should we be afraid of what society thinks or says?”

“You can afford to ask that. You are a man, and can defy society; I am a woman, and to me its breath means life or death.”

Hammond sat silent for a minute; he felt that all this conversation was insincere. It was but the preface to what he had come there to say. How was he to pave the way for the questions he had resolved to put?

“Tell me,” he said, earnestly, “have I ever given you cause to think of me as other than an honorable man?”

Belle turned and looked at him.

“No,” was all she said.

“Will you let me tell you something--something that it may be painful for you to hear?”

Belle’s eyes opened wide. The apprehension of what was coming shone out in them, and Hammond, mistaking the meaning of that apprehension, faltered in his purpose.

“Speak! What is it?” she commanded.

“It is something which concerns yourself.”

Was he going to repeat to her the gossip at which the marchioness had only hinted, to tell her to her face that their names had been joined in the world’s calumnious breath? She gazed at him in absolute bewilderment.

“Tell it me--quickly!” she breathed.

“I am ashamed to repeat such a slander. Yet, since it is in circulation, it is only right that you should know it, if only that you may cause it to be crushed.”

“Yes; please go on.”

“They say--they pretend--they connect your name with--”

“With yours, sir?” She sat upright, with flashing eyes.

“Great heavens, no!” He stared back at her with little less amazement than her own.

She sank slowly down again, the anger in her face changing to deepest scorn.

“With whose, then?”

“With the Marquis of Severn’s.”

“What!” She started up again in sheer astonishment. “Who dares? I have never seen nor spoken to him in my life!”

“Thank God!”

Not till he had heard the denial did the man realize what a burden it had lifted from his heart; and yet he believed that he loyally loved this woman.

“Who dares to slander me? Who dares to smirch my name with falsehoods?” Come what might, he should not go away doubting her.

“It was that man Despencer who told me first.”

“And you listened to him--you, an honorable man, and my friend?”

Hammond bowed his head. He thought he could bear her reproaches now.

“Go on; you can say nothing to me that I have not said already to myself. I have been a brute, a fool; I know it. I did give him the lie once, but his words rankled in my mind, and I could not rest till I had had the charge disproved.”

“If you are satisfied, go.”

Hammond started and shivered. He had not heard that tone before; he had not seen that deeply resolute expression, in which Belle’s face was set like stone.

“Oh, not like this! You will forgive me, Belle? You must! This lie has tortured me far worse than you.”

He might have made the excuse that he had only repeated the slander for her sake, and not for the satisfaction of his own doubts. But he scorned to stoop to subterfuge with her.

“Why should I? Your good opinion or your friendship are nothing to me any longer.”

“My good opinion--friendship! Ah, it is more than that! You know, you must know, that I have loved you all the time!”

“So much the worse. For you to speak of love to me is only another insult.”

“I did not mean to insult you,” was the humble answer. “I meant to offer you the love that a man offers to his betrothed.”

“Does a man cast suspicions on his betrothed?”

“I have not cast suspicions. My worst fault is to have listened to those of others. There is no love without jealousy.”

“There is no love without perfect trust. If a man really loves a woman, does he set himself to doubt her, to gather up the malicious tattle of her enemies, and carry it to her, like an accusing judge, and ask her to clear herself? Ah, no! If he loves her, he first crushes the slander and the enemy together, and then comes to tell her what he has done.”

“Listen to me.”

“Wait! But I cannot expect to be treated like that. My good name is of no importance to me; I am public property. There would be nothing to talk about in the club smoking-rooms if we poor singers were to be respected. It is natural that we should be bad. And so you come to me and repeat the accusations which you had not the courage to despise. And that is your love!”

“I implore you--”

“No! With us poor girls it is different. We have not your prudence and self-restraint. Where we love we do not ask for references. We give our hearts without reserve, and from the moment we have given them, instead of searching for stains on the character of the man we love, we set ourselves to see only the good in him; we shut our eyes to the evil; we screen his faults; if others attack him, we defend him; and if the world casts him out, we cling to him all the more.”

Her voice sank down and ended in a sob. Hammond clasped his hands together in despair.

“Why did I ever hesitate? I was a coward. I dreaded the idea of even a whisper being raised against my wife. Forgive me.”

“And you were right. Yes, I forgive you.”

The answer came softly, and the man’s heart was thrilled to the core.

“And something more,” he pleaded passionately. “Tell me that you love me like that.”

Belle slowly, gently shook her head.

“No. Why do you make it so hard for me? Leave me, I entreat you.”

Hammond turned faint.

“You do not love me, then?” he gasped.

She gave him a despairing look, and answered passionately:

“No! I don’t love you--I don’t love you!”

He rose up, without another word, and went away from her. The next instant, as the door closed behind him, Belle sank down on the seat, like a flower whose stem is broken, and the tears began to come like rain.

A door at the far end of the conservatory softly opened, and a man stepped through and came towards her, with his finger on his lips.

It was the Marquis of Severn.

SCENE X

“A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED”

The most secluded place in the house in Berkeley Square was the picture-gallery. The most secluded spot in the picture-gallery was the Lovers’ Window.

The gallery itself ran across the back of the house on the second floor, and was thus outside the legitimate bounds within which the concert guests were entitled to wander. It was approached by a door at each end, giving on to the staircase, and the walls were hung with pictures, chiefly of the faded, washed-out schools of Lawrence and Constable.

The window was a deep and lofty bay, almost a little room, in the centre of the gallery. A cushioned seat, like a divan, ran round the bay, and on either side of the opening hung a thick curtain of dark-purple velvet.

In this sequestered nook no sound of the concert going on below could be heard. It was no doubt for this reason that the Lady Victoria Mauleverer had come thither, and was now reclining on the divan, with one beautiful white elbow resting on the sill of the open window.

As it happened, she was not alone. Captain Gerald Mauleverer, guided possibly by some cousinly instinct, had also sought a refuge from the music in the same spot. He was sitting near her, and regarding her with a reproachful countenance.

“Do you know what my aunt has been telling me about you?” he began.

Victoria gave a shrug of the most supreme indifference.

“No; but I have no doubt it was something interesting. My mother has so much imagination.”

“She told me that you were as good as engaged.”

“Did she? Ah, well, I suppose she has found a purchaser for me at last.”

“How can you!” Gerald stamped his foot. “Who is it?”

“She did tell me his name, but I have forgotten it,” drawled Victoria. “I can tell you his income, though.”

Her cousin looked at her, half angry and half pleased.

“Thank Heaven, you don’t care for him! I believe I have your heart, after all.”

“My what?” asked Victoria, in a tone of surprised curiosity.

“Your heart, you hateful creature.”

“What childish words you use, Gerald! I couldn’t understand what you meant. No; I suppose I shall be bought complete, with all fittings, but I don’t fancy a heart is mentioned in the inventory.”

“Have you really promised to marry this man, Vick?”

His cousin put her head on one side and considered.

“It hasn’t got quite to that point. The customer hasn’t actually given the order yet, but my mother is an expert saleswoman, and I have no doubt that by the next time you see me I shall have the usual ticket on to show that I am disposed of.”

The captain gnawed his mustache as his eyes sought in vain to fix those of the insolent beauty.

“Hang it! don’t you care a little bit? I have loved you for years. Does it all go for nothing with you?”

Victoria sat up and became business-like.

“Stupid fellow, why can’t you look at it rationally, like I do? There, I will give in to you so far as to say that I would much rather you bought me than anybody else. I would even give a discount in your case; you should have me at store prices. But what is the use? We couldn’t live together. You know they separate married couples in the workhouse.”

“I have eight hundred a year,” the man protested.

“That would pay for my frocks. Any debts?”

“Well, I have a little paper out,” he reluctantly admitted.

“So I thought. Small income, large debts--”

“No, not large debts.”

“Several thousands, I have no doubt. Large debts, no occupation--”

“Don’t you count the army?” he interrupted.

“Certainly not,” was the firm answer. “I mean an occupation by which you can earn a living. No occupation, idle habits, expensive tastes--”

“No, Vick!” His tone became one of honest indignation. “No, you can’t charge me with that, you know. I may be idle, but you can’t charge me with extravagance.”

“What do you pay for your cigars?” the merciless inquisitor demanded.

“A shilling. I get them at a little shop in Jermyn Street that nobody else knows of, and they are worth double the money.”

“Gerald!”

“No, really, Vick, you have no right to talk to me like that. If there’s one thing that I do pride myself on, it is that I am economical.”

“What is the use of being economical on nothing?” She turned and looked him full in the face. “I will be serious with you, Gerald. If you had any means at all, any real income or prospect of it, I would throw over all the millionaires in Christendom to-morrow, but as it is--!” A despairing gesture completed the sentence.

“Why can’t you wait for me, then?” exclaimed the desperate captain. “Give me a chance, and I will go out and raid the Transvaal, or do something desperate.”

“I didn’t know there was anything very desperate in raiding the Transvaal,” retorted Victoria, resuming her cynical vein. “I thought the worst thing you exposed yourself to was to have poetry written about you in the papers.”

A door opened at the end of the gallery, and Gerald hastily rose to his feet.

“Ah! I felt sure we should be interrupted,” said Victoria. “I believe my mother has me shadowed. Don’t go, Gerald,” she added, loudly enough for her parent to hear as she bore down upon the pair, the faithful Despencer following in the wake.

The marchioness came to a full stop at the opening, with a dramatic start.

“Victoria! I thought I had forbidden you to behave like this!”

Her daughter gave an amused smile.

“My dear mother, I thought we agreed only the other day that I was of age.”

The marchioness turned on her nephew as a less dangerous adversary.

“As for you, Gerald, I am surprised at you. You ought to know better than to come and sit here with your cousin.”

Victoria gallantly came to his rescue.

“If you and Mr. Despencer want to sit here, we will go away,” she offered, sweetly.

The marchioness recoiled, and gazed at her like King Lear listening to Goneril’s complaints about his knights.

“When you are married I shall wash my hands of you, and if your unfortunate husband likes to let you carry on an open flirtation with your cousin, he may,” she said, viciously. “But while you are on my hands I am determined to put a stop to these clandestine doings. You hear me, Gerald?”

Gerald felt that he must stand by his cousin.

“Yes, aunt,” he said, with unlooked-for courage; “but I don’t see how our flirtation can be open and yet clandestine at the same time. It must be one or the other, you know.”

As the action was becoming general, the marchioness with a look brought up her light cavalry in the person of Despencer.

“I don’t know that,” he interposed. “There is no better concealment sometimes than a parade of openness.”

“Really, mamma, this won’t do!” Victoria protested. “I have schooled myself to bear Mr. Despencer’s compliments, but I really don’t think I can stand him as a moralist. I must draw the line somewhere.”

The marchioness threw her broad shield over her luckless ally.

“Mr. Despencer was not speaking to you, and I will not allow you to talk like that when he is only acting in your true interests.”

“Well, then, I wish he wouldn’t,” was the rebellious answer. “One’s true interests are always so singularly unpleasant. How should you like it if Gerald or somebody were to begin acting in your true interests?”

The marchioness looked alarmed.

“There, that will do,” she said, hurriedly. “Understand me, Gerald, I particularly wish to speak to Victoria for a minute by herself. You won’t refuse a mother’s request?”

“Not when she is a woman,” returned the reckless youth. And he strolled off.

The marchioness watched him safely through the door of the gallery, and then seated herself by her daughter’s side.

“Thank Heaven, we have got rid of him in time!”

“Why, is anything particular going to happen?” Victoria inquired, carelessly.

The marchioness glowed with triumph.

“Mr. Hammond is coming here to propose to you!”

“Is that all?” said Victoria.

Despencer was becoming anxious to withdraw before being favored with any more of Lady Victoria’s sarcasms. The only way to escape was to take her part against the marchioness. He therefore remarked:

“A most simple occurrence, which might happen to anybody.”

His patroness turned to him indignantly.

“Mr. Despencer, do you wish to encourage her?”

“I fancy Lady Victoria requires no encouragement from me. She appears to face the situation with admirable nerve. Breeding will tell.”

“Go away, directly!” ordered the marchioness.

“Yes; where to?”

The marchioness hesitated a moment.

“To the end of the gallery.” Despencer began to move away. “And wait there for me.”

“Am I not always waiting for you, marchioness?”

And with a graceful bow to both ladies, he retired to the opposite door to that by which they had just entered.

“Aren’t you a little rough with the poor creature?” asked Victoria, in a tone of compassion as he disappeared. “You will break him some day.”

“Do you realize what I have just told you?” said her mother, ignoring the remark.

“I have forgotten. Wasn’t it something about an offer of marriage? Who did you say it was this time?”

“You will drive me distracted! Now, listen to me; this may be your last chance. If you refuse Mr. Hammond you may never get another offer.”

“There is always Gerald to fall back upon.”

“Another decent offer, I mean,” was the stern retort. “Of course, you can always marry. I dare say a dean or a county court judge, or some one of that sort, would be willing to take you with nothing but your clothes. But this is the last respectable match I shall offer you. I have taken the greatest pains to bring this man to the point, and if you refuse him now I sha’n’t try again.”

“You frighten me, mother. I hope you haven’t been resorting to extreme measures against Mr. Hammond! You haven’t been putting pressure on him by threatening to reveal his past?”

The marchioness shook her head impatiently.

“Answer me plainly, Victoria: do you intend to accept him?”

“Are you sure he is going to propose?”

“Morally sure. He just asked me where he was likely to find you, and I told him I thought you would be here about this time.”

“How did you know that?” asked Victoria, with interest.

“Because I meant to look for you myself and send you here,” was the resolute answer. “In these matters I leave nothing to chance.”

“You _have_ taken pains!” exclaimed her daughter, with genuine admiration. “But you don’t know that he is going to propose. He may only be going to say good-bye.”

“Nonsense! I know perfectly well. I can always tell when a man is going to propose. My judgment has never been deceived.”

Victoria affected to conceal a yawn.

“Well, I am much obliged to you for warning me. I shall be prepared.”

“And you will accept him, won’t you, like a good girl?” pleaded the marchioness, with maternal tenderness.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what I shall do,” was the callous reply. “I hope he won’t be sentimental over it.”

“Victoria! Do you refuse to do your duty to society and to your parents?”

Victoria was mildly annoyed.

“There, now _you_ are going to be sentimental!” she protested.

The marchioness rose to her feet in real anger.

“You shameful, depraved, ungrateful child! You wish to break your mother’s heart!”

Victoria darted a strange look at her mother, which the marchioness was unable to meet. Then she observed, quietly:

“Don’t you think the less we say about hearts the better, mamma?”

The marchioness was opening her lips to reply, when her face suddenly changed, a beautiful smile replacing the angry frown. Hammond had just entered the gallery.

SCENE XI

“AND WILL SHORTLY TAKE PLACE”

It is generally the first impulse of a man who has been rejected by the woman he loves to offer himself to the woman who loves him. When the sun has set the light of the moon becomes precious.

John Hammond did not believe that the Lady Victoria Mauleverer did him the honor to love him after the fashion in which he loved Belle Yorke. But the frankness with which she conducted their mutual flirtation made him think of her as more sincere than the over-innocent maidens who pretended to turn shy at his approach, and practised the blushes which they had been taught by a Bond Street professor at a guinea a blush. He felt that there was something flattering to him in her disdain of the small arts of cajolery, and he told himself that the preference which she so plainly showed for him must needs be genuine.

It does not require very much to convince a man of any self-confidence that he possesses a woman’s regard. The very cynicism with which Victoria discussed their relations might be the cloak of a deeper feeling, which she was too proud to confess until its return was assured. In his present mood, however, Hammond felt no desire to penetrate beneath that surface good-comradeship, which was all that either he or Victoria had yet shown to the other. He could not have gone from his interview with Belle to make love to another woman. He, no more than Victoria, desired to be sentimental. Nevertheless, it soothed him to think that this woman, who was willing to meet him in his own spirit of indifference, might be secretly more fond of him than he was of her.

It seemed to him that the die was cast, and that he could not too soon put it out of his own power to recall the throw. He had fought out the struggle between Love and Ambition, and in the moment of surrendering to Love, Love had failed him. Well, Ambition was left. The marchioness had correctly diagnosed the symptoms, though she had little idea of their cause. John Hammond had come to propose to Victoria.

It only remained for the forethoughtful parent to get herself out of the way.

“It is too bad of you, Mr. Hammond!” she exclaimed, with the playfulness of a boa-constrictor. “I believe you knew I was here, and waited down below on purpose for me to go away.”

Hammond smiled rather wearily.

“Now, that is very artful of you, marchioness. The truth is that you are going away just because I have come.”

“You are perfectly right, Mr. Hammond,” remarked Victoria.

Her mother wrenched her lips into the similitude of a smile.

“I see what it is,” she said, with immense slyness. “You two have an understanding, and you want to get rid of me. Very well, I sha’n’t interfere with your little plans. I always know when I am in the way. Good-bye. Good-bye.”

The devoted parent nodded and smiled herself out of the gallery, consumed with a frantic inward longing to take her stubborn child by the shoulders and shake her into a more becoming frame of mind.

It was fortunate that she could not hear that child’s first remark after she had gone.

“My poor mother amuses me very much. She thinks she is such a deep schemer, and she is so transparent all the time.”

“You mustn’t ask me to take sides with an undutiful daughter,” responded Hammond. “May I sit down? I am lucky in finding you here.”

“There isn’t much luck about it,” said Victoria, bluntly, as she made way for him to sit beside her. “My mother knew you were coming, and ordered me to remain here to meet you.”

“The marchioness is very considerate,” replied Hammond, fairly taken aback by this extraordinary confidence.

“Yes, but I find it a little embarrassing sometimes,” Victoria remarked. “She is so very barefaced, you know. She positively throws me at eligible men. I hope you don’t mind having me thrown at you?”

“On the contrary, I find it rather agreeable than otherwise. You don’t hurt at all.”

“I am so glad. Tell me when you are tired, and I will make her leave off and throw me at some one else.”

“Isn’t there another alternative?” Hammond saw a faint color come into Victoria’s cheeks as he spoke, and went on quietly. “Do you know, I wanted to see you, to consult you about a letter that I received this morning.”

He put his hand into his breast pocket and drew out a blue envelope of the inconvenient oblong shape still in use by so-called business men. Victoria continued to recline in the same lazy attitude on the divan, but she watched him keenly out of the corner of her eyes.

“How interesting!” she murmured, as he drew out a closely written sheet and unfolded it. “I hope it is an anonymous letter taking away my character.”

“No; curiously enough, it is from one who has a very high opinion of you.”

Victoria became more languid still.

“I am dying to hear it.”

“You shall.” He began to read aloud:

“‘BOOT AND SHOE EMPORIUM,
“HIGH STREET, TOOTING.’”

“I know who it is from!” Victoria exclaimed, eagerly. “That delightful alderman!”

“Don’t interrupt, please. ‘_My dear Mr. Hammond--_’”

“How sweetly friendly!”

“Hush! ‘_It is with considerable reluctance that I have consented, at the request of many of your leading supporters in the Division, to address you on a subject of great delicacy and importance--_’”

“Mysterious creature!”

“‘_I refer to the question of your marriage--_’”

“This is most interesting!”

Hammond frowned sternly at the fair interrupter.

“Wait! ‘_Some time ago it was generally rumored in the constituency that you were likely to lead to the altar Lady Victoria Hildegonde Jane Beauchamp-Mauleverer_, only _daughter of the most noble the Marquis of Severn, K.G.--_’”

“He must have looked me up in Whitaker’s ‘Titled Persons.’”

“‘_And the news gave us the greatest satisfaction, as it was felt that by so doing you would greatly strengthen your social prestige, and thereby deprive the Liberals of their advantage in having secured a baronet as their candidate--_’”

“He quite crushes you there.”

“‘_But I regret to state that a report has now reached us that this marriage is not likely to come off, and your enemies have the audacity to allege that you are contemplating a union with a singer on the music-hall stage whose name has been a target for the breath of scandal. Your friends have, of course, indignantly denied the rumor, but we think it would be desirable in your interest that you should at once write me a formal contradiction, which could be inserted, if necessary, in the local press. Trusting you will see your way to do this, and apologizing for the liberty I have taken, with very kind regards, I am, yours sincerely_,

“‘EDWARD DOBBIN.’”

“He gets rather prosy towards the end, doesn’t he?” commented Victoria, who had listened in silence to that part of the letter.

“You haven’t heard the postscript,” said Hammond. “‘P.S.--_If you could at the same time authorize me to announce your engagement to Lady Beauchamp-Mauleverer, we consider it would have an excellent effect._’”

“Artful old thing! He is almost as bad as my mother.”

Hammond folded up the letter and put it back in his pocket.

“Well, now, what do you advise me to do?”

“Oh, send the contradiction, by all means.”

“And what about the further announcement?”

Their eyes met seriously for the first time. Victoria answered, in the same light tone:

“Well, it seems a pity to disappoint him.”

“Then you won’t contradict it?”

“No, I never write to the papers.”

Hammond bent forward respectfully.

“Thank you. May I kiss your hand?”

“If you will promise not to be sentimental,” said Victoria, yielding gracefully.

“I think I can promise that,” said Hammond, with secret bitterness. And he bowed over the white fingers, wondering if this woman really wished to be his wife, while Victoria wondered in her turn why on earth this man wanted to marry her.

They were not left long in their mutual embarrassment. The marchioness was burning with impatience to learn the result of her arduous campaign, and as soon as she thought she had given the lovers time enough to adjust matters she returned to the spot, Despencer being admitted to share the anticipated triumph.

“So you are still here!” the mother exclaimed, with innocent surprise. “I hope that girl has not been shocking you very much, Mr. Hammond?”

“Well, she has, rather,” he answered, dryly. “She has promised to be my wife!”

“My dear child!” The loving mother rushed to fold her daughter in a close embrace, to which Victoria submitted with silent scorn. “This is sudden, but I cannot say it takes me altogether by surprise. A mother’s eye sees so much,” added the marchioness, plaintively, implying that she had long watched over her child’s secret love and seen it grow from day to day.

Despencer stood viewing the touching scene with an ironical smile. “She will overdo this if she isn’t careful,” was his unspoken comment.

The marchioness turned to her new son.

“I give her to you, John, because I know you will make her happy. If I had had the choice of a son-in-law, there is no one I should have preferred to you.”

As a bald matter of fact, there had been a slight element of choice about it.

Hammond bowed with due gratitude.

“Let me offer my congratulations, too, if I may,” Despencer put in. “This sort of thing quite touches me.”

“Thank you,” said Hammond, curtly. “I hope to have the pleasure of speaking to the marquis in the morning,” he added to the marquis’s wife.

“I will prepare him for it. I am sure you will find him ready to welcome you as a son,” responded the marchioness, with enthusiasm.

Victoria rose from her seat.

“There, that will do, mother. You are not good at domestic sentiment; it isn’t in your line. Can’t we go and bill and coo somewhere else?” she said to her betrothed.

“What a child!” murmured her parent, still deeply affected. “Take care of her, John.”

John intimated his disposition to do so by a bow, and the marchioness and Despencer found themselves alone. The latter hastened to console his companion.

“Don’t mind her, marchioness. You did that very well, indeed. The maternal embrace was perfect.”

The marchioness sat down on the divan and heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction.

“You may be as rude as you like now,” she observed, mildly, “because you have been so clever and wicked in managing this for me. I suppose it is quite settled now. He won’t go back to that horrid girl again?”

Despencer placed himself on the seat beside the marchioness at the exact distance which he thought safe, as he replied: