Chapter II: I (2)

That evening, during the first act a note was sent round to Dorothy from Wilfred Curlew to say that he had been to see her every night this week, and that he had persuaded a friend of his to give her some publicity in a magazine with which he was connected.

"At a cost of twelve and six," Dorothy scoffed to herself.

She did not send a word of thanks to Wilfred, and being unable from the stage to perceive his presence anywhere in the theater, she supposed that, having been there every night this week, he must by now have reached the gallery.

When the interview appeared the other girls were very jealous, and all of them vowed that they had never heard of _The Boudoir_.

"With a blush Miss Lonsdale handed our interviewer an exquisite bunch of flowers culled by the beautiful young actress from her garden, a 'thing of beauty' in the dreary desert of London streets," read out one of the girls.

"Good God, have mercy on us!" exclaimed Clarice Beauchamp, holding a hairpin dipped in eye-black over the gas. "It's a wonder the editor hasn't written before now to ask if he can't keep you."

The irritation in the dressing-room caused by the interview was allayed by a rumor that John Richards would visit the Alexandra Theater, Stoke Newington, where they were playing their last week in the suburbs, with a view to choosing girls for the Vanity production in the autumn. No confirmation could be obtained of this; but the chorus put on extra make-up and acted with all its eyes and all its legs for a shadowy figure at the back of one of the private boxes. After the first act the business manager, who had come behind for some purpose, was surrounded by all the girls, each of whom in turn begged him to tell her confidentially what Mr. Richards had said about the show and if he had had any criticisms to make about herself.

"Mr. Richards?" repeated the manager.

"Now, don't pretend you know nothing about it," they expostulated. "_We_ know he's in front."

"Well, you know more than I do," said the manager.

"Then who is it at the back of the box on the prompt side?"

"You silly girls! That's the late mayor of Hackney."

"Then why do they make such a fuss of him?" persisted the girl who had started the rumor. "There was a carriage outside the box-office half an hour before the overture, and people were all round it, staring as if it was the king."

"It's a very sad story," the manager explained. "He's blind, poor fellow, and now, whenever he goes to the theater, they watch him being helped out of his brougham."

During the second act not an eye nor a leg was thrown in the direction of the mysterious stranger, whose identity was a great disappointment to the girls; they had counted on Mr. Richards visiting them in the course of the tour, and here it was coming to an end without a sign of him.

However, they were consoled by being told at the last minute that they were going to play three nights at Oxford before the tour came to a definite conclusion. Everybody agreed that it would be a delightful way to wind up, and when the company assembled at Paddington on a brilliant morning in earliest June, they seemed, in the new clothes they had been able to buy during the last month in London, more like a large picnic-party going up to Maidenhead than a touring company.

Dorothy had decided that the visit to Oxford was an occasion to justify breaking into the L500 she had got out of her mother, which was still practically intact, owing to the economy exerted all these weeks. Her new dresses and new hats, combined with that interview in _The Boudoir_, gave the rest of the chorus an impression that there was somebody behind Dorothy, and they regarded her with a jealous curiosity that was most encouraging.

IV

The three girls had only just finished dinner at their lodgings in Eden Square when Sylvia proposed a walk round Oxford. Dorothy agreed to go out if she were allowed time to change her things; but Lily declared that she was tired after the journey, and preferred to look at illustrated papers in deshabille. Many undergraduates turned their heads to stare at Dorothy's beauty or Sylvia's eye-glass when the two girls were walking down the High toward St. Mary's College, through the gates of which Sylvia calmly suggested that they should pass in order to explore the gardens.

"But suppose they tell us that girls aren't allowed to go in," Dorothy demanded, in a panic.

"We'll go out again."

"But we should look so foolish."

"We always look foolish," said Sylvia. "Anything more foolish than you look at the present moment I can't imagine, except myself."

Before Dorothy could prevent her, Sylvia had asked a tall and haughty undergraduate if there was any reason why they should not take a walk in the college grounds. The young man blushed painfully, and Dorothy, who could see that his embarrassment at being spoken to by an actress was causing intense delight to a group of idlers in the college lodge, was angry with Sylvia for exposing the two of them to a share in the ridicule.

"All right, Dorothy," said Sylvia, cheerfully. "He says we can."

The tall and haughty undergraduate strode away up the High to escape from his friends' chaff, and the two girls wandered about the college until they found themselves in the famous St. Mary's Walks, where upon a seat embowered in foliage they listened to the bells that were ringing down the golden day and ringing in the unhastening Sabbath eve. Close at hand, but hidden from view by leafy banks, the pleasurable traffic of the Cherwell sounded continuously in a low murmur of talk that, blending with the swish of paddles and comfortable sound of jostling punts, seemed the very voice of indolent June. Dorothy supposed that she, like nature, must be looking most beautiful in this bewitching light, and regretted that the only passers-by should be ecclesiastical figures bent in grave intercourse, or a few young men arguing in throaty voices about topics she did not recognize.

"I don't think we've chosen a very good place," she complained, with a discontented pout.

"We've chosen the place," said Sylvia, "where nearly four years ago, on a Sunday afternoon in August, I agreed to get married."

"Married?" repeated Dorothy, in amazement. "Are you married?"

"Yes, I believe I'm married for the present; but I sha'n't be soon."

"Oh, Sylvia, do tell me about it! I won't say a word to anybody else."

But Sylvia, having said so much, would say no more; jumping up and insisting that she was thirsty, she reminded Dorothy that they had promised to help Charlie Clinton entertain his brother and some undergraduate friends. Charlie Clinton was an obscure member of the company who had suddenly sprung into considerable prominence by revealing that he had a brother at Oxford and was himself the black sheep of a respectable family. Dorothy, realizing that the blackest sheep is better form than the whitest goat, had accepted the invitation, but she was not much impressed by the collection of undergraduates gathered in his rooms, and was vexed that she had wasted her most becoming hat on young men who wanted to talk about nothing but music. She was vexed, too, at finding that David Bligh had been invited, and that he was talking affectedly about good music and sounding with his fluty voice rather like an undergraduate himself. Lily came and danced a classical dance which seemed to please everybody else, though Dorothy could not see anything in it. Bligh sang German songs, and was so much applauded that he condescendingly proposed that his pupil should sing, who refused so angrily that none of the undergraduates dared approach her. It was indeed a thoroughly boring evening, and she wondered if Oxford was going to produce nothing better than this.

The theater on Monday night, notwithstanding the fine weather, was packed; but the audience was noisy, and the men in the chorus who had not been invited to Charlie Clinton's party severely condemned the bad manners of undergraduates.

"They're a rowdy lot of bounders, that's what they are," Tom Hewitt proclaimed, loosening the collar around his aggressive neck.

Dorothy, who had been looking forward to astonishing some of the girls in the dressing-room with her news about Sylvia, forgot everything in a delightful triumph she was able to enjoy at the expense of Clarice Beauchamp. A note was brought round after the first act addressed:

To the fair artist's model in pink. Front row. O. P. side.

Clarice Beauchamp had the impudence to contest Dorothy's right to open this note, and while some of the artist's models were rapidly transforming themselves into Polynesian beauties and others as rapidly assuming the aristocratic costumes of a millionaire's yachting-party, Clarice and Dorothy, who belonged to the latter division, argued heatedly. At last Fay Onslow, to whom the note could not possibly refer, was allowed to open it and give her verdict:

Fair lady, my name is Lonsdale. On the Grampian hills my father
feeds his flock! In other words, will you and the lady with the
monocle who yesterday afternoon picked out quite the most
unattractive man in St. Mary's as your guide come and picnic with
me on the upper river to-morrow? A friend of mine at the House is
dying to meet you, but he is much too shy to write himself. If you
can come, just send back your address by bearer and I'll send my
tame cab to fetch you to-morrow at twelve o'clock.

Yours sincerely,

ARTHUR LONSDALE.

"I knew it was for me," said Dorothy. "Sylvia and I were in St. Mary's College yesterday afternoon."

Clarice Beauchamp, much mortified, had to surrender her claim to the note.

"But what a strange coincidence that he should be called Lonsdale!" Onzie exclaimed. "Most extraordinary, I call it. Who knows? He might be a relation."

"He might be," said Dorothy, calmly.

Lily looked up from her place as if she were going to speak, but, though she said nothing, Dorothy was glad that the terms of the note gave her no excuse for asking her to-morrow, even if Sylvia did maliciously propose that Lily should go instead of herself.

"Oh, but they particularly want you," Dorothy protested.

"Anyway, I can't go," Lily said; "I've promised to go round some of the colleges with Tom."

Dorothy winced at the threatened sacrilege.

Next morning a cab jingled up to the girls' lodgings, and they were driven to the nearest point of embarkation for a picnic on the upper river. Their host, a short young man with very fair hair and a round pink face, introduced himself and led the way to the Rollers, over which punts and canoes were dragged from the lower level of the Cherwell to the wider sweeps of the Isis. A tall young man who was standing by a couple of canoes moored to the bank came forward to greet them. His most immediately conspicuous feature was a pair of white flannel trousers down the seams of which ran stripes of vivid blue ribbon; but when he was introduced to Dorothy as Lord Clarehaven she forgot about his trousers in the more vivid blue of his name. All sorts of ideas rushed through her mind--a sudden dread that he might think Sylvia more attractive than herself, a sudden contempt for the party of the evening before, a sudden rapture in which blue sky, blue blood, and the blue stripes of the trousers merged exquisitely, and a sudden apprehension created by her pleated reflection in the water that she was not looking her best. After Lord Clarehaven she should not have been surprised if the first young man had also had a title; but he was apparently only Mr. Lonsdale, and, though entitled to respect as a friend of Lord Clarehaven, would probably interest Sylvia more than herself.

Dorothy's dread that she and Lord Clarehaven might not find themselves in the same canoe was soon dispelled, because Lord Clarehaven was evidently as eager for her company as she was for his, and they were soon leaving the others behind. There is no form of conveyance which makes for so much intimacy of regard as a canoe, and Dorothy, when she had once been able to reassure herself by means of a pocket-mirror that she had not been ruffled by the cab-drive or by the nervous business of getting gracefully into a wabbling canoe, settled herself down to be admired at a distance of about four feet. Moreover, she indulged for the first time in her life in the pleasure of admiring somebody else, a state of mind which doubled her charm by taking away much of her self-consciousness. If Lord Clarehaven was below the standard of aristocracy set by our full-blooded lady novelists, he was equally far removed from the chinless convention of banal caricature. He had the long legs, the narrow hips and head, and the big teeth of the Norman; but his fair hair was already thinning upon a high, retreating forehead, his nose was small, and if the protuberant eyes that one sees in Pekinese spaniels and other well-bred mammals were a faint intimation of approaching degeneracy in the stock, Dorothy was not sufficiently versed in physiognomy to recognize such symptoms; already fascinated by his title and his trousers, she was quite ready to be fascinated by his eyes.

"I was lunching in St. Mary's yesterday with Arthur Lonsdale," he was explaining, "and I noticed you from the lodge. I should have come up and spoken to you myself, but I was rather frightened by your friend's eye-glass. In fact, I'm still not at all at ease with her. She looks deuced clever, I mean, don't you think?"

"She is awfully clever."

"Poor girl, but I suppose it's not such a bore for a girl as it would be for a man. I'm an awful ass myself, you know. I mean, I'm absolutely incapable of doing anything."

"How did you know we belonged to the company?" asked Dorothy, implying that with all his modesty he must possess acute powers of judgment hidden away somewhere.

"Well, to tell you the truth, we didn't know. Somebody said your friend was a medical student, only I wasn't going to have that, and some man said he'd noticed you at the station, so Lonnie and I went to the theater on the off-chance and tried to spot you."

"Which you did?"

"Oh, rather. Only, then we couldn't spot your name. I was all for Clarice Beauchamp."

"She's an awfully horrid girl," said Dorothy, quickly.

"Is she? I'm sorry to hear that. And Lonnie betted you were Fay Onslow. So we were quits. Funny thing you should have the same name as Lonnie. No relation, I suppose?"

He was evidently so sure of this that Dorothy was rather piqued and asked, loftily, which Lonsdale he was.

"Cleveden's son."

"Oh, then I am a relation," said Dorothy. "Though of course a very, very distant one."

"By Jove! that's great!" said Clarehaven.

He seemed enthusiastic, but Dorothy could not make out whether he believed her or not, and she rather wished she had kept the relationship for the dressing-room. She hoped that Sylvia would not give Lonsdale an impression that she claimed to be his first cousin; this abrupt plunge into the whirlpool of society might make her act extravagantly. What a pity that she had not known who he was before they met, and "Oh!" she cried, aloud.

"What's the matter?" Clarehaven asked.

"Nothing. At least I think I touched a fish," said Dorothy.

But her exclamation was caused by dismay at recalling that she had addressed him as "Arthur Lonsdale, Esquire," when for the first time in her life she might have written "The Honorable Arthur Lonsdale," for everybody to see. What must he have thought of her ignorance? And now here in a canoe with her was Lord Clarehaven, but, owing to the foolish modesty that English titles affect, she did not know if he was a marquis, an earl, a viscount, or a mere baron. The prospect of the green river was leaden with the thought of her stupidity.

"You're looking very sad," said Clarehaven. "What's the matter?"

"I was thinking how beautiful it was here," she sighed.

"Topping, isn't it?"

"Topping," she echoed, awarding to the utterance of the epithet as much emotion as if it were robbed from Shakespeare's magic store. Amid a sweet smell of grass and to the accompaniment of lapping water and a small sibilant wind they lunched on the salmon and mayonnaise, the prawns in aspic, the galantine and cold chicken, the meringues and strawberries of how many Oxford picnics. Above them dreamed a huge sky; elm-trees guarded the near horizon; wasps had not begun, nor did Sylvia tease Dorothy about being related to Lonsdale when Clarehaven presented them as long-lost cousins.

By the end of the afternoon Dorothy had sufficiently confirmed her admirer's first impression to be invited to lunch with him at Christ Church the following day, in which invitation Sylvia was of course included. Then slowly they drifted back down the river, on the dimples and eddies of which the overhanging trees cast a patina as upon the muscles of an ancient bronze.

"How unreal the theater seems!" sighed Dorothy when they drove up to the stage-door.

"Does it?" Sylvia laughed. "It seems to me much more real than our pretty behavior this afternoon."

V

Dorothy slept badly that night. Her regret for the mistake she had made in addressing Arthur Lonsdale as esquire magnified itself horribly in the mean little bedroom of the lodgings in Eden Square. All night long she was waking up to reproach herself for her stupidity in not taking the trouble to make sure who he was before she sent back the note. Her blunder was all the more unpardonable because she should have been sufficiently interested in receiving a letter from a namesake to take this trouble. And now suppose Lord Clarehaven were to put her under the necessity of addressing him on the outside of an envelope? How was she to know what to write? "Lord Clarehaven, Christ Church College"? It sounded rather empty. In any case, she should have to ask for him at the lodge to-morrow, and how the porter would sneer behind her back if she should make a mistake! In despair Dorothy wandered into the next room where Sylvia and Lily were sleeping tranquilly.

"Oh dear!" she lamented.

"What's the matter?" asked Sylvia, jumping up in bed.

"Sylvia, I can't sleep. I think there's a rat in my room. I suppose Arthur Lonsdale didn't say if Lord Clarehaven was a marquis, did he?"

"Damn your eyes, Dorothy, did you wake me up to ask that? Go and get hold of Debrett, if you want to know so badly."

Dorothy went back to her bedroom in peace of mind. Of course! How easy it was, really, and she fell into a delicious sleep, from which, notwithstanding her disturbed night, she was early awake to dress and be out of the house by ten o'clock in order to search the Oxford bookshops for a _Peerage_.

"We have a _Baronetage_" said one bookseller.

Dorothy shrugged her shoulders compassionately, and went from shop to shop until she found the big red volume of her desire. She paid without a moment's hesitation the price of it, called a cab, and drove back to Eden Square, that she might have plenty of time to devour the contents before going to Christ Church. Her breath came fast when she actually read Clarehaven and began to absorb the wonderful information below:

CLAREHAVEN, EARL OF. (Clare) [Earl U.K. 1816. Bt. E. 1660.]

ANTHONY GILBERT CLARE, 5th Earl, and 10th Baronet; _b._ Oct. 15, 1882; _s._ 1896; ed. at Eton and Christ Church; is 2d Lieut, in North Devon Dragoons, and patron of one living.

_Arms_--Purpure, two flanches ermine, on a chief sable a moon in her complement argent. _Crest_--A moon in her complement argent, arising from a cloud proper. _Supporters_--Two angels vested purpure, winged and crined or, each holding in the exterior hand a key or. _Motto_--_Claro non clango_.

_Seat_--Clare Court, Devonshire. _Town residence_--129 Curzon Street, W. _Club_--Bachelors'.

SISTERS LIVING

_Lady_ Arabella. b. 1885.

_Lady_ Constantia. b. 1887.

WIDOW LIVING OF FOURTH EARL

Augusta (Countess of Clarehaven) 2d dau. of 9th Earl of Chatfield: _m._ 1880 the 4th Earl who _d._ 1896. _Residence_--Clare Court, Devonshire.

PREDECESSORS--[1] Anthony Clare, _M.P._ for Devon (a descendant of Richard Fitzgilbert, Baron of Clare, a companion of the Conqueror, son of Gilbert Crispin, Earl of Brione in Normandy, who was son of Geoffrey, a natural son of Richard I. Duke of Normandy), was cr. a Bt. 1660; _d._ 1674; _s._ by his son [2] _Sir_ Gilbert, 2d Bt.; _d._ 1710; _s._ by his son [3] _Sir_ Anthony, 3d Bt.; _d._ 1747; _s._ by his nephew [4] _Sir_ William, 4th Bt.; _d._ 1764; _s._ by his cousin [5] _Sir_ Anthony, 5th Bt.; cr. _Baron Clarehaven_ (peerage of Great Britain) 1796; _d._ 1802; _s._ by his son [6] Gilbert, 2d Baron; cr. _Viscount Clare_ and _Earl of Clarehaven_ (peerage of United Kingdom) 1816; _d._ 1826; _s._ by his son [7] Richard Crispin, 2d Earl. _b._ 1788. _m._ 1818 Lady Caroline Lacey who _d._ 1859, 2d dau. of 3d Marquess of Longlan; _d._ 1864; s. by his son [8] Geoffrey William, _P.C._, 3d Earl. _b._ 1820; sometime Lord Lieut. of Devon; M.P. for S. Devon (C); Vice-Chamberlain of H. M. Queen Victoria's Household. _m._ 1845 the Hon. Louisa Travers, who _d._ 1890, dau. of the 26th Baron Travers; _d._ 1867; _s._ by his son [9] Gilbert Crispin, 4th Earl, _b._ 1845; Lieut. Royal Horse Guards, 1866-67: _m._ 1880 Lady Augusta Fanhope, 2d dau. of 9th Earl of Chatfield; _d._ 1896; _s._ by his son [10] Anthony Gilbert, 5th Earl and present peer; also Viscount Clare and Baron Clarehaven.

Half a dozen times word for word she read through these magic pages, until she felt that she simply could not make a mistake at lunch. Then a page or two farther on, past Clarendon and Clarina, she came to:

CLEVEDEN, BARON. (Lonsdale) [Baron G.B. 1762.]

CHARLES ARTHUR BRABAZON LONSDALE. _G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E._ 5th Baron; _b._ Oct. 10, 1858; _s._ 1888; ed. at Eton and at Ch. Ch. Oxford. (B.A. 1880); is a J.P. and D.L. for Warwickshire and Verderer of the Forest of Arden; Hon. Col. of Yeo.; sat as M.P. for West Warwick--(C) 1880-1884; was Assist. Private Sec. to the Premier--(M. Salisbury) 1885-6; Gov. and Com. in Ch. of E. Australia. 1893-99; and Gov. of Central India. 1899-1901; _K.C.M.G._ 1893; _G.C.M.G._ 1898; _G.C.I.E._ 1899: _m._ 1882 Lady Helen Druce (an Extra Woman of the Bed-chamber to H.M. Queen Victoria), dau. of 10th Earl of Monteith and has issue.

_Arms_--Argent, an oak tree englante vert. _Crest_--A bugle horn or, enguiche and stringed vert. _Supporters_--On either side a forester sounding a horn proper. _Motto_--J'y serai.

_Seat_--Cressingham Hall, Warwick. _Clubs_--Carlton. Travellers'.

SON LIVING

_Hon._ ARTHUR GEORGE MORNINGTON. _b._ Feb. 24, 1883.

DAUGHTER LIVING

_Hon._ Sylvia May. _b._ 1885.

"Sylvia?" Dorothy said to herself. But she decided to stick to the name Dorothy, and went on reading about her family.

BROTHER LIVING

_Rev_. the Hon. George, _b._ 1860; ed. at Eton, and at St. Mary's Coll. Oxford. (B.A. 1883. M.A. 1886); is R. of Bingham-cum-Bingham Monachorum; _m._ 1894 Mary Alice, dau. of the late Rev. Francis Greville, V. of St. Wilfred's, Tilchester, and Hon. Canon of Tilchester, and has issue living, Arthur Brabazon--_b._ 1896. Mary--_b._ 1898. Georgina Maud--_b._ 1900. _Residence_--Bingham Rectory, Hants.

SISTERS LIVING

_Hon._ Frances Louisa, _b._ 1863. _m._ 1885 Sir William Honeywood-Greene, 6th Bt. _Residence_--Arden Towers, Warwick.

_Hon._ Caroline, _b._ 1865. _m._ 1886 Sir Stanley Pinkerton, K.C.V.O. Master of the King's Spaniels. _Residence_--210 Eaton Square, S.W.

_Hon._ Horatia. _b._ 1867.

There followed a couple of pages devoted to collateral branches of the Lonsdales. These were something new: the Clares apparently lacked collaterals. Presently it dawned on Dorothy that these collaterals treated of the more distant relations of the family, and in a fever she began to search for confirmation of the legend in Lonsdale Road that through their grandmother, Mrs. Doyle, the Caffyns were connected with Lord Cleveden. On and on she read through colonels and rectors with their numerous offspring, through consuls and captains and judges and doctors even; but there was no mention of Doyles, still less of Caffyns. The connection must indeed be very remote: perhaps it was hidden among the predecessors.

PREDECESSORS.--[1] George Lonsdale, Verderer of the Forest of Arden; M.P. for Warwickshire 1740-62; cr. _Baron Cleveden_, of Cressingham, co. Warwick (peerage of Great Britain) 1762; _d._ 1764; _s._ by his son [2] Arthur, 2d Baron; _d._ 1822; _s._ by his son [3] Charles, 3d Baron; _b._ 1790: _m._ 1830 the Hon. Horatia Brabazon, who _d._ 1851, dau. of 3d Viscount Brabazon; _d._ 1840; _s._ by his son [4] George Brabazon, 4th Baron; _b._ 1832; a Lord-in-Waiting to H. M. Queen Victoria 1858-64: _m._ 1856 Lady May Mornington, who _d._ 1895, 3d dau. of 11th Earl of Belgrove; _d._ 1888; _s._ by his son [5] Charles Arthur Brabazon, 5th Baron and present peer.

Dorothy sighed her disappointment, but resolved that she would adopt the family crest and motto as her own. _J'y serai_ underneath a bugle-horn: how well it would look on her note-paper. Fired by its inspiration, she began to dress herself for lunch with the Earl of Clarehaven, and when, an hour later, she ushered Sylvia into the Christ Church lodge with a hardihood that contrasted strongly with the reluctance she had shown when Sylvia had dragged her into St. Mary's on Sunday, there was no need to inquire for Lord Clarehaven by his correct title, because the host was there himself to meet his guests and escort them across the spaciousness of Tom Quad to his rooms in Peckwater. It appeared that at the last minute an urgent summons to play cricket for the Eton Ramblers had prevented Lonsdale from coming. Dorothy, notwithstanding her knowledge of the Lonsdale collaterals, was not sorry, for she did not wish to discuss the relationship with one of the family, especially before Sylvia, to whom she now turned with a hint of patronage.

"My dear, you will be disappointed. Mr. Lonsdale is not coming to lunch."

Sylvia said she would try to put up with the disappointment and hoped that an equally entertaining substitute had been provided.

"I've asked a fellow called Tufton," said Clarehaven. "His father's a sleeping partner or something of jolly old John Richards at the Vanity, and I thought he might be useful. Besides, he's not at all a bad egg. We elected him to the Bullingdon this term."

Dorothy looked at her host gratefully and admiringly.

"How awfully sweet of you!" she murmured, with the lightest, briefest touch of her fingers on his wrist, and thinking how well the people who mattered knew how to do things.

They had reached Peckwater by now, the architecture of which, brightened by many window-boxes in full bloom, reminded Dorothy of streets in Mayfair. Her morning with Debrett had in fact turned her head so completely that she sought everywhere for illustrations of grandeur in the life around her; in this regard Clarehaven's rooms, by conforming perfectly to her notions of what they should be, made her want to kiss herself with satisfaction. To begin with, the door of his bedroom, slightly ajar, allowed a glimpse of numerous pairs of boots running up the scale from brogues to waders, which somehow spoke more eloquently of riches and leisure than if the luncheon-table had been laid with gold. Dorothy was contemplating the tints of these boots like a poet in an autumnal glade when Clarehaven presented Mr. Tufton, who, to do him justice, looked as well turned out as one of his host's hunting-tops and in a chestnut-colored suit with extravagantly rolled collar maintained his personality against the boots and the cigars and the brown sherry and the old paneling and the studies of grouse by Thorburn that gave this room its air of mellow opulence.

Dorothy told Mr. Tufton brightly that he had missed a wonderful afternoon yesterday.

"I was playing polo," he explained.

Dorothy, having an idea that polo was nearly as dangerous as bull-fighting, shuddered.

"I say, do you feel a draught?" inquired the host, anxiously.

"Oh no, it's delicious here."

A voice from the quad was shouting "Tony," and Dorothy, remembering Anthony from Debrett, could not resist telling Clarehaven that he was being called. Clarehaven was moving over to the window to discourage whoever was demanding his presence, when another voice came clearly up through the June air.

"Shut up, Ridgway! Tony's lunching some does, you silly ass!"

Dorothy could not help thinking that Sylvia ought to have pretended not to hear this allusion instead of bursting out into what was really a vulgar peal of laughter.

"I think there _is_ a draught," said Mr. Tufton, closing the windows so gravely that one felt much of his inmost meditation was devoted to the tactful handling of moments like this.

"Are these your sisters?" Dorothy asked, picking up a photograph of two girls, each holding a foxhound.

"Yes, those are my sisters Bella and Connie," Clarehaven replied. "They're awful keen on puppy-walking."

Perhaps, after all, abbreviations were sometimes tolerable, and names like Arabella and Constantia were rather long.

"Isn't your second name Gilbert?" she asked.

"Yes. Dreadful infliction, isn't it?"

Dorothy decided not to say that her father's name was Gilbert, to which she had been leading up, and took her seat at table, noticing with pleasure that the full moon of the house of Clare adorned the silver. After lunch they looked at albums of snapshots, during the examination of which Mr. Tufton was most useful, because he was continually saying: "By Jove! Isn't that Lady Connie?" or: "By Gad! Isn't that the covert where Lady Bella got her left and right last October?" or: "Hello! I see Lady Clarehaven has followed my advice about the pergola." If Mr. Tufton could advise countesses as stately as the Countess of Clarehaven and refer to the daughters of an earl as Lady Bella and Lady Connie, what might not Dorothy do with patience and discretion? Meanwhile she took no risks, and if she had to mention the members of her host's family she alluded to them as "your mother" or "your elder sister" or "your younger sister."

"But what a glorious place Clare Court must be!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, I don't know," said the owner of it. "The train service is absolutely rotten."

"You'll have your new car this vac.," Mr. Tufton reminded him. "I wrote the firm a very strong letter yesterday." Then seeing that his friend was growing gloomy at the prospect of Devonshire even with a new car, he suggested a stroll round Meadows, and cleverly arranged to lag behind with Sylvia.

Clarehaven when he was alone with Dorothy did not find much more to say, but he was able to look at her with a more open admiration than when his glances had been disconcerted by Sylvia's monocle.

"You know I'm tremendously quelled by your friend," he avowed. "By Jove! you know, I feel she's always criticizing a fellow. Now with you I feel absolutely at my ease."

"I'm glad," Dorothy murmured. Then for two full moments she let her deep eyes flash into his.

"I say, when you look at me like that," said Clarehaven, solemnly, "you absolutely bring my heart into my mouth. By Gad! I feel it being hooked up like a trout."

"I'm afraid it's a very easy heart to hook," she laughed.

"Oh no, it's not! Oh no, really it's not! I can assure you that I'm not in the least susceptible."

"Ah, you'll forget all about me to-morrow."

"My dear Dorothy! You don't object to my calling you Dorothy? My dear Dorothy, if you knew how unlikely I am to forget all about you to-morrow...."

"Well?"

"Well, I'm not going to forget about you, that's all."

"We shall see."

"Yes, we shall," said Clarehaven, fiercely.

Dorothy was anxious to add still a small touch to his obvious appreciation, and she conceived the daring idea of inviting him back to tea in the lodgings. She felt that there in the dingy little room her grace and beauty would appear more desirable than ever, and if he should fancy from her invitation that she intended to make herself cheap he would soon perceive from her behavior how far removed she was from the average chorus-girl. Clarehaven applauded the suggestion, and though Sylvia looked rather bored by it, Tufton was enthusiastic; so they visited a pastry-cook's and bought lots of expensive cakes and chocolates, for which the guest of honor paid.

"How the poor live!" exclaimed Dorothy, pointing with a dramatic gesture at the drab little houses of Eden Square as if she would comment upon an aspect of Oxford that was hardly credible after Christ Church.

"Yes, this is our quad," chuckled Sylvia. "Old Tom!"

"I've never been here before," said Clarehaven, anxious to convince Dorothy that really he was not susceptible. "I've heard of Eden Square, of course, but this is my first visit. It's where all the theatrical people stay, isn't it, Tuffers?"

"It may be," replied Mr. Tufton, who, having paid for everything he possessed with money his father was making out of the theater, naturally did not wish to show himself too familiar with its domestic life.

"Number ten," said Dorothy, gaily. "Here we are!"

She opened the front door and led the way along a narrow passage to the sitting-room, and, flinging wide open the door, drew back for Clarehaven to enter first.

"You'll have to excuse the general untidiness," she warned him.

The sentence was out before she had time to realize that the general untidiness included a searing vision of Lily in an arm-chair, imparadised upon the lap of the impossible Tom Hewitt. Sylvia dashed forward to the rescue of Dorothy, who was standing speechless with mortification, and began introducing everybody to one another as fast as she could. Clarehaven's devotion to the stage did not seem impaired by this abrupt manifestation of low life behind the scenes, and Tufton, who in other company would probably have been as much outraged as Dorothy herself by such a reflection upon the source of his wealth, copied his friend's lead. Tom Hewitt with a mumbled excuse about having to see the manager retired as soon as possible. Lily, notwithstanding that her left cheek was flushed and that the hair on the left side of her head was more conspicuously a part of the general untidiness than the hair on the right, seemed utterly unconscious of having as good as torn up the Debrett in which Dorothy had invested this morning, and actually talked away in her languorous style to Clarehaven and Tufton as if Tom Hewitt's lap was the natural place on which to pass a lovely summer afternoon.

For Dorothy that tea-party was a martyrdom from which she began to think that she should never recover. Wherever she looked she saw that horrible picture of Lily and Tom. Once Clarehaven asked for another lump of sugar, and, tormented by the vision, she put two chocolates in his cup. Tufton passed his cup for a little more milk, and she emptied it away into the slop-bowl. Finally in an effort to restore her equanimity she took a chocolate that concealed a sticky caramel within, and when her mouth was all twisted and her teeth felt as if they were being pulled out by the roots Clarehaven asked if she could not spare him a photograph. He was being kind, thought Dorothy, miserably; the Fitzgilberts and Crispins and Clares of all those generations were gathering to help him hide the contempt he must feel for this tea-party; Lacy and Travers and Fanhope were behind him, pleading the obligations of nobility. And if he were not being kind she must suppose that he rather liked Lily, which would be worst of all. But what a lesson she had been given, what a lesson, indeed! If but once it might be granted to her that a folly should be expiated in the pain of the moment, she would never play tricks with fortune again.

When Clarehaven rose to make his farewells Dorothy did not attempt to detain him, but with a sorrowful grace shook his hand and would not even give him the photograph.

"No, no, I'd rather send you one from London."

"But you'll forget," he protested.

"No, I sha'n't. One hundred and twenty-nine Curzon Street. Or will you be at Clare Court?"

"I'll write to you."

"No, no," said Dorothy. It would never do for him to write to Lonsdale Road; besides, he might take it into his head to visit her there, which might be more disastrous than this tea-party. What would he think, for instance, of the misshapen boots that were usually waiting outside Roland's room like two large black-beetles? No, when she had thought out her campaign she would send him a photograph, and if, looking back on this afternoon, he decided that she was not worth while--well, she must put up with it. Dorothy was so sorry for herself that Clarehaven was flattered by her melancholy countenance into supposing that he had made a deep impression. In the narrow passage Tufton slipped behind and whispered to her that she must look her best to-night.

"Why?"

"Stable information," he said, and hurried after his friend, Lord Clarehaven.

When the three girls were alone together in the fatal sitting-room Dorothy's repressed rage with Lily broke out uncontrollably.

"I hope you don't think I'll ever live with you again after that disgusting exhibition. I suppose you think just because you went with me to Walter Keal that you can do as you like. I don't know what Sylvia thinks of you, but I can tell you what I think. You make me feel absolutely sick. That beastly chorus-boy! The idea of letting anybody like that even look at you! Thank Heaven, the tour's over. I'm going down to the theater. I can't stay in this room. It makes me blush to think of it. I'll take jolly good care who I live with in future."

Something in Lily's fragility, something in her still untidy hair and uncomprehending muteness, inflamed Dorothy beyond the bounds of toleration, and in despair of just words to humiliate her sufficiently she slapped her face.

"Hit her back, my lass," cried Sylvia, putting up her eye-glass to watch the fray; but Lily collapsed tearfully into the arm-chair, and Dorothy rushed out of the room.

The sight of Debrett's scarlet and gold upon her dressing-table was enough to reconjure all her mortification, and she was just going to weep her heart out upon the bed as, no doubt, below Lily was weeping hers out upon the shoulders of a ghostly Tom Hewitt, when Tufton's parting advice recurred to her. She had to look her best to-night. Why? He must have some reason to say that.

"_J'y serai_?" cried Dorothy, mustering all her family pride to keep back her tears.

VI

Although fortified by the motto, Dorothy was still suffering from the memory of that afternoon, and when she arrived at the theater to dress and saw Tom Hewitt standing by the stage-door she tried to pass him without acknowledging his salute.

"Mr. Richards will be in front to-night," he told her, portentously.

"Oh, we're always hearing that," said Dorothy. "I don't believe it."

"It's a fact. Warren told me so himself. And Mr. Keal's come down with him."

So this was why Tufton had advised her to look her best to-night; the visit could only mean that the great man wanted girls for the autumn production at the Vanity. Dorothy began to cheer up. Even if Lily's behavior had disgusted Lord Clarehaven irreparably, such behavior would not spoil her own chance of being engaged by John Richards, and at the Vanity there would be plenty of titled admirers. No doubt most of them would be younger sons or elder sons who had not yet succeeded, but ... "_j'y serai_," murmured Dorothy. "It's a good thing that I don't fall in love very easily. And it's lucky I didn't let myself cry," she added, congratulating her reflection in the dressing-room mirror.

Every girl was painting herself and powdering herself and pulling up her stockings and patting her hair and, regardless of the undergraduates she had met during the week, preparing to act as she had never acted before. Dorothy took neither more nor less trouble with her appearance than she took every night.

This time rumor was incarnate in fact, for the great Mr. Richards came and stood in the wings during a large portion of the play, and Dorothy, convinced that the one thing she ought not to do was to throw a single glance in his direction, devoted all her attention to the front of the house. There were lots of flowers; but nobody, neither principal nor chorus-girl, was handed such a magnificent basket of pink roses as herself, and nobody who had not suffered as she had suffered that afternoon in the depths could have been so gloriously thrilled on the heights as Dorothy was when the curtain fell at the close of the performance amid the shouts and cheers of youthful art-loving England, and she was stopped in the wings by Mr. Water Keal.

"Come here, dear," he said. "I want to introduce you to Mr. Richards."

The impresario was a large and melancholy man whose voice reverberated in the back of a cavernous throat with so high a palate that consonants were lost in its echoes and his speech seemed to consist entirely of vowels.

"Who sent you the prehy flowers, dear?" he asked, lugubriously.

"The Earl of Clarehaven," said Dorothy, with a brilliant smile.

"Ha--ha, vehy 'ice, vehy 'ice," he muttered, fondling the card attached. "Goo' gir'! Goo' gir'!"

The millionaire's yachting friends wore evening gowns for the latter part of the second act, and Dorothy in old rose, with her basket of flowers and exquisite neck and shoulders, was indeed looking her best.

"Goo' gir'!" Mr. Richards boomed once more; then as she passed from the royal presence he patted her shoulder in congratulation, dusted the powder from his fingers, lit an enormous cigar, and wandered away with Mr. Keal.

When Dorothy reached the dressing-room every girl was speculating on the depth of the impression she had made upon Mr. Richards, but not one of them could claim that the great man had patted her on the back or noticed her flowers. Presently the call-boy came with a message that Miss Lonsdale was to be at the theater to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock without fail, and it was obvious to the most jealous observer that Dorothy's chance had come. She was so much elated by her good fortune that she was reconciled to Lily, told everybody what a delightful lunch she had had with Lord Clarehaven and what a delightful picnic she had had with Lord Clarehaven and how she had met a cousin of hers, Arthur Lonsdale, who was the only son of Lord Cleveden.

"You know, he was governor of Central India," Dorothy reminded the dressing-room.

"India!" echoed Miss Onslow. "That sounds hot stuff, anyway."

Dorothy buried her face in the roses to get rid of the effluvium of such vulgarity. And then in the middle of her success, just when her true friends should have been most pleased, Sylvia, who had shared--well, not shared, but had been allowed to assist at her triumph--Sylvia it was who asked, in a voice audible to the whole dressing-room:

"On which side of the road are you related to young Lonsdale?"

Luckily the joke was too obscure to be generally understood; but Dorothy decided to banish Sylvia from the list of her friends that in Lily's company she might henceforth inhabit an outer darkness unlit by Debrett's scarlet and gold.

"I expect I shall soon forget what an awful life touring is," said Dorothy to herself that night, as she turned back the limp cotton sheets and looked distastefully at the hummocky mattress. There was a trenchant symbolism, too, in massacring a flea with Debrett; no other volume would have been heavy enough.

The next morning Mr. Richards seemed to be inviting her--so gentle were his accents, so soft his intonation--to join the Vanity company next September at three pounds a week. Mr. Keal and his Jewish assistant, Mr. Fitzmaurice, were present at her triumph; and when Dorothy was going down-stairs from the manager's office, Mr. Fitzmaurice hurried after her and begged her not to forget that it was he who had been the first to recognize her talents.

"Well, call me a cab, there's a good boy," said Dorothy, to reward him; and Mr. Fitzmaurice, who only six months ago had looked at her so critically on that wet December morning in Leicester Square, now ran hither and thither in the summer weather until he had found her a cab.

"What swank!" Dorothy heard Clarice Beauchamp say when, with a rattle and a dash, she drove up to the station, where the company were mustering for their last journey together. But she had only a gracious smile for poor Clarice; and at Paddington, although she parted with Sylvia and Lily cordially enough, she did not invite either of them to come and see her in Lonsdale Road.