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Title: Miss Cayley's Adventures

Author: Grant Allen

Illustrator: Gordon Browne

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MISS CAYLEY'S ADVENTURES




RECENT FICTION


By A. CONAN DOYLE.

  A Duet. 6s.

By GRANT ALLEN.

  An African Millionaire. 6s.
  Linnet. 6s.

By FREDERIC BRETON.

  True Heart. 6s.
  'God Save England!' 6s.

By M. P. SHIEL.

  Contraband of War. 6s.
  The Yellow Danger. 6s.

By GRAMMONT HAMILTON.

  The Mayfair Marriage. 6s.

By HALDANE MACFALL.

  The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer. 6s.

By F. C. CONSTABLE.

  Aunt Judith's Island. 6s.
  Morgan Hailsham. 6s.

By FRANK NORRIS.

  Shanghaied. 3s. 6d.

By MARIE CONNOR LEIGHTON and ROBERT LEIGHTON.

  Convict 99. 3s. 6d.
  Michael Dred, Detective. 3s. 6d.

       *       *       *       *       *

London: GRANT RICHARDS, 1899




[Illustration: ALL AGOG TO TEACH THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS.--_See page_
142.]




MISS CAYLEY'S ADVENTURES


BY
GRANT ALLEN


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GORDON BROWNE


London
GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

1899


_Printed April 1899_
_Reprinted July 1899_




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

   1. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CANTANKEROUS OLD LADY                       1

   2. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUPERCILIOUS _ATTACHÉ_                     29

   3. THE ADVENTURE OF THE INQUISITIVE AMERICAN                       59

   4. THE ADVENTURE OF THE AMATEUR COMMISSION AGENT                   85

   5. THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPROMPTU MOUNTAINEER                     115

   6. THE ADVENTURE OF THE URBANE OLD GENTLEMAN                      141

   7. THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNOBTRUSIVE OASIS                         170

   8. THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEA-GREEN PATRICIAN                       199

   9. THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAGNIFICENT MAHARAJAH                     225

  10. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CROSS-EYED Q.C.                           252

  11. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ORIENTAL ATTENDANT                        281

  12. THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNPROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE                  305




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                    PAGE

  All agog to teach the higher mathematics                _Frontispiece_

  I am going out, simply in search of adventure                        5

  Oui, Madame; Merci Beaucoup, Madame                                  8

  Excuse me, I said, but I think I can see a way out of your
    difficulty                                                        10

  A most urbane and obliging Continental gentleman                    17

  Persons of Miladi's temperament are always young                    20

  That succeeds? the shabby-looking man muttered                      24

  I put her hand back firmly                                          30

  He cast a hasty glance at us                                        35

  Harold, you viper, what do you mean by trying to avoid me?          37

  Circumstances alter cases, he murmured                              43

  Miss Cayley, he said, you are playing with me                       50

  I rose of a sudden, and ran down the hill                           54

  I was going to oppose you and Harold                                56

  He kept close at my heels                                           63

  I was pulled up short by a mounted policeman                        64

  Seems I didn't make much of a job of it                             66

  Don't scorch, miss; don't scorch                                    78

  How far ahead the first man?                                        82

  I am here behind you, Herr Lieutenant                               83

  Let them boom or bust on it                                         86

  His open admiration was getting quite embarrassing                  91

  Minute inspection                                                   96

  I felt a perfect little hypocrite                                   99

  She invited Elsie and myself to stop with her                      103

  The Count                                                          107

  I thought it kinder to him to remove it altogether                 110

  Inch by inch he retreated                                          113

  Never leave a house to the servants, my dear!                      118

  I may stay, mayn't I?                                              123

  I advanced on my hands and knees to the edge of the precipice      129

  I gripped the rope and let myself down                             132

  I rolled and slid down                                             136

  There's enterprise for you                                         145

  Painting the sign-board                                            148

  The urbane old gentleman                                           150

  He went on dictating for just an hour                              153

  He bowed to us each separately                                     156

  I waited breathless                                                164

  What, you here! he cried                                           168

  He read them, cruel man, before my very eyes                       174

  'Tis Doctor Macloghlen, he answered                                177

  Too much Nile                                                      181

  Emphasis                                                           184

  Riding a camel does not greatly differ from sea-sickness           186

  Her agitation was evident                                          189

  Crouching by the rocks sat our mysterious stranger                 194

  An odd-looking young man                                           201

  He turned to me with an inane smile                                205

  Nothing seemed to put the man down                                 210

  Yah don't catch me going so fah from Newmarket                     214

  Wasn't Fra Diavolo also a composah?                                216

  Take my word for it, you're staking your money on the wrong
    fellah                                                           220

  I am the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar                              227

  Who's your black friend?                                           232

  A tiger-hunt is not a thing to be got up lightly                   238

  It went off unexpectedly                                           245

  I saw him now the Oriental despot                                  248

  It's I who am the winnah!                                          250

  He wrote, I expect you to come back to England and marry me        254

  It was endlessly wearisome                                         256

  The cross-eyed Q.C. begged him to be very careful                  262

  I was a grotesque failure                                          265

  The jury smiled                                                    270

  The question requires no answer, he said                           272

  I reeled where I sat                                               279

  The messenger entered                                              284

  He took a long, careless stare at me                               291

  I beckoned a porter                                                293

  You can't get out here, he said, crustily                          296

  We told our tale                                                   298

  I have found a clue                                                303

  I've held the fort by main force                                   306

  Never! he answered. Never!                                         308

  We shall have him in our power                                     312

  Victory!                                                           316

  You wished to see me, sir?                                         320

  Well, this is a fair knock-out, he ejaculated                      325

  Harold, your wife has bested me                                    329




I

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CANTANKEROUS OLD LADY


On the day when I found myself with twopence in my pocket, I naturally
made up my mind to go round the world.

It was my stepfather's death that drove me to it. I had never seen my
stepfather. Indeed, I never even thought of him as anything more than
Colonel Watts-Morgan. I owed him nothing, except my poverty. He married
my dear mother when I was a girl at school in Switzerland; and he
proceeded to spend her little fortune, left at her sole disposal by my
father's will, in paying his gambling debts. After that, he carried my
dear mother off to Burma; and when he and the climate between them had
succeeded in killing her, he made up for his appropriations at the
cheapest rate by allowing me just enough to send me to Girton. So, when
the Colonel died, in the year I was leaving college, I did not think it
necessary to go into mourning for him. Especially as he chose the
precise moment when my allowance was due, and bequeathed me nothing but
his consolidated liabilities.

'Of course you will teach,' said Elsie Petheridge, when I explained my
affairs to her. 'There is a good demand just now for high-school
teachers.'

I looked at her, aghast. '_Teach!_ Elsie,' I cried. (I had come up to
town to settle her in at her unfurnished lodgings.) 'Did you say
_teach_? That's just like you dear good schoolmistresses! You go to
Cambridge, and get examined till the heart and life have been examined
out of you; then you say to yourselves at the end of it all, "Let me
see; what am I good for now? I'm just about fit to go away and examine
other people!" That's what our Principal would call "a vicious
circle"--if one could ever admit there was anything vicious at all about
_you_, dear. No, Elsie, I do _not_ propose to teach. Nature did not cut
me out for a high-school teacher. I couldn't swallow a poker if I tried
for weeks. Pokers don't agree with me. Between ourselves, I am a bit of
a rebel.'

'You are, Brownie,' she answered, pausing in her papering, with her
sleeves rolled up--they called me 'Brownie,' partly because of my dark
complexion, but partly because they could never understand me. 'We all
knew that long ago.'

I laid down the paste-brush and mused.

'Do you remember, Elsie,' I said, staring hard at the paper-board,' when
I first went to Girton, how all you girls wore your hair quite straight,
in neat smooth coils, plaited up at the back about the size of a
pancake; and how of a sudden I burst in upon you, like a tropical
hurricane, and demoralised you; and how, after three days of me, some of
the dear innocents began with awe to cut themselves artless fringes,
while others went out in fear and trembling and surreptitiously
purchased a pair of curling-tongs? I was a bomb-shell in your midst in
those days; why, you yourself were almost afraid at first to speak to
me.'

'You see, you had a bicycle,' Elsie put in, smoothing the half-papered
wall; 'and in those days, of course, ladies didn't bicycle. You must
admit, Brownie, dear, it _was_ a startling innovation. You terrified us
so. And yet, after all, there isn't much harm in you.'

'I hope not,' I said devoutly. 'I was before my time, that was all; at
present, even a curate's wife may blamelessly bicycle.'

'But if you don't teach,' Elsie went on, gazing at me with those
wondering big blue eyes of hers, 'whatever will you do, Brownie?' Her
horizon was bounded by the scholastic circle.

'I haven't the faintest idea,' I answered, continuing to paste. 'Only,
as I can't trespass upon your elegant hospitality for life, whatever I
mean to do, I must begin doing this morning, when we've finished the
papering. I couldn't teach' (teaching, like mauve, is the refuge of the
incompetent); 'and I don't, if possible, want to sell bonnets.'

'As a milliner's girl?' Elsie asked, with a face of red horror.

'As a milliner's girl; why not? 'Tis an honest calling. Earls' daughters
do it now. But you needn't look so shocked. I tell you, just at present,
I am not contemplating it.'

'Then what _do_ you contemplate?'

I paused and reflected. 'I am here in London,' I answered, gazing rapt
at the ceiling; 'London, whose streets are paved with gold--though it
_looks_ at first sight like muddy flagstones; London, the greatest and
richest city in the world, where an adventurous soul ought surely to
find some loophole for an adventure. (That piece is hung crooked, dear;
we shall have to take it down again.) I devise a Plan, therefore. I
submit myself to fate; or, if you prefer it, I leave my future in the
hands of Providence. I shall stroll out this morning, as soon as I've
"cleaned myself," and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers.
Our Bagdad teems with enchanted carpets. Let one but float my way, and,
hi, presto, I seize it. I go where glory or a modest competence waits
me. I snatch at the first offer, the first hint of an opening.'

Elsie stared at me, more aghast and more puzzled than ever. 'But, how?'
she asked. 'Where? When? You _are_ so strange! What will you do to find
one?'

'Put on my hat and walk out,' I answered. 'Nothing could be simpler.
This city bursts with enterprises and surprises. Strangers from east and
west hurry through it in all directions. Omnibuses traverse it from end
to end--even, I am told, to Islington and Putney; within, folk sit face
to face who never saw one another before in their lives, and who may
never see one another again, or, on the contrary, may pass the rest of
their days together.'

I had a lovely harangue all pat in my head, in much the same strain, on
the infinite possibilities of entertaining angels unawares, in cabs, on
the Underground, in the aërated bread shops; but Elsie's widening eyes
of horror pulled me up short like a hansom in Piccadilly when the
inexorable upturned hand of the policeman checks it. 'Oh, Brownie,' she
cried, drawing back, 'you _don't_ mean to tell me you're going to ask
the first young man you meet in an omnibus to marry you?'

[Illustration: I AM GOING OUT, SIMPLY IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURE.]

I shrieked with laughter, 'Elsie,' I cried, kissing her dear yellow
little head, 'you are _impayable_. You never will learn what I mean. You
don't understand the language. No, no; I am going out, simply in search
of adventure. What adventure may come, I have not at this moment the
faintest conception. The fun lies in the search, the uncertainty, the
toss-up of it. What is the good of being penniless--with the trifling
exception of twopence--unless you are prepared to accept your position
in the spirit of a masked ball at Covent Garden?'

'I have never been to one,' Elsie put in.

'Gracious heavens, neither have I! What on earth do you take me for? But
I mean to see where fate will lead me.'

'I may go with you?' Elsie pleaded.

'Certainly _not_, my child,' I answered--she was three years older than
I, so I had the right to patronise her. 'That would spoil all. Your dear
little face would be quite enough to scare away a timid adventure.' She
knew what I meant. It was gentle and pensive, but it lacked initiative.

So, when we had finished that wall, I popped on my best hat, and popped
out by myself into Kensington Gardens.

I am told I ought to have been terribly alarmed at the straits in which
I found myself--a girl of twenty-one, alone in the world, and only
twopence short of penniless, without a friend to protect, a relation to
counsel her. (I don't count Aunt Susan, who lurked in ladylike indigence
at Blackheath, and whose counsel, like her tracts, was given away too
profusely to everybody to allow of one's placing any very high value
upon it.) But, as a matter of fact, I must admit I was not in the least
alarmed. Nature had endowed me with a profusion of crisp black hair, and
plenty of high spirits. If my eyes had been like Elsie's--that liquid
blue which looks out upon life with mingled pity and amazement--I might
have felt as a girl ought to feel under such conditions; but having
large dark eyes, with a bit of a twinkle in them, and being as well able
to pilot a bicycle as any girl of my acquaintance, I have inherited or
acquired an outlook on the world which distinctly leans rather towards
cheeriness than despondency. I croak with difficulty. So I accepted my
plight as an amusing experience, affording full scope for the congenial
exercise of courage and ingenuity.

How boundless are the opportunities of Kensington Gardens--the Round
Pond, the winding Serpentine, the mysterious seclusion of the Dutch
brick Palace! Genii swarm there. One jostles possibilities. It is a land
of romance, bounded on the north by the Abyss of Bayswater, and on the
south by the Amphitheatre of the Albert Hall. But for a centre of
adventure I choose the Long Walk; it beckoned me somewhat as the
North-West Passage beckoned my seafaring ancestors--the buccaneering
mariners of Elizabethan Devon. I sat down on a chair at the foot of an
old elm with a poetic hollow, prosaically filled by a utilitarian plate
of galvanised iron. Two ancient ladies were seated on the other side
already--very grand-looking dames, with the haughty and exclusive
ugliness of the English aristocracy in its later stages. For frank
hideousness, commend me to the noble dowager. They were talking
confidentially as I sat down; the trifling episode of my approach did
not suffice to stem the full stream of their conversation. The great
ignore the intrusion of their inferiors.

[Illustration: OUI, MADAME; MERCI BEAUCOUP, MADAME.]

'Yes, it's a terrible nuisance,' the eldest and ugliest of the two
observed--she was a high-born lady, with a distinctly cantankerous cast
of countenance. She had a Roman nose, and her skin was wrinkled like a
wilted apple; she wore coffee-coloured point-lace in her bonnet, with a
complexion to match. 'But what could I do, my dear? I simply _couldn't_
put up with such insolence. So I looked her straight back in the
face--oh, she quailed, I can tell you; and I said to her, in my iciest
voice--you know how icy I can be when occasion demands it'--the second
old lady nodded an ungrudging assent, as if perfectly prepared to admit
her friend's rare gift of iciness--'I said to her, "Célestine, you can
take your month's wages, and half an hour to get out of this house." And
she dropped me a deep reverence, and she answered: "_Oui, madame; merci
beaucoup, madame; je ne desire pas mieux, madame._" And out she
flounced. So there was the end of it.'

'Still, you go to Schlangenbad on Monday?'

'That's the point. On Monday. If it weren't for the journey, I should
have been glad enough to be rid of the minx. I'm glad as it is, indeed;
for a more insolent, upstanding, independent, answer-you-back-again
young woman, with a sneer of her own, _I_ never saw, Amelia--but I
_must_ get to Schlangenbad. Now, there the difficulty comes in. On the
one hand, if I engage a maid in London, I have the choice of two evils.
Either I must take a trapesing English girl--and I know by experience
that an English girl on the Continent is a vast deal worse than no maid
at all: _you_ have to wait upon _her_, instead of her waiting upon you;
she gets seasick on the crossing, and when she reaches France or
Germany, she hates the meals, and she detests the hotel servants, and
she can't speak the language, so that she's always calling you in to
interpret for her in her private differences with the _fille-de-chambre_
and the landlord; or else I must pick up a French maid in London, and I
know equally by experience that the French maids one engages in London
are invariably dishonest--more dishonest than the rest even; they've
come here because they have no character to speak of elsewhere, and they
think you aren't likely to write and enquire of their last mistress in
Toulouse or St. Petersburg. Then, again, on the other hand, I can't wait
to get a Gretchen, an unsophisticated little Gretchen of the Taunus at
Schlangenbad-- I suppose there _are_ unsophisticated girls in Germany
still--made in Germany--they don't make 'em any longer in England, I'm
sure--like everything else, the trade in rustic innocence has been
driven from the country. I can't wait to get a Gretchen, as I should
like to do, of course, because I simply _daren't_ undertake to cross the
Channel alone and go all that long journey by Ostend or Calais, Brussels
and Cologne, to Schlangenbad.'

'You could get a temporary maid,' her friend suggested, in a lull of the
tornado.

The Cantankerous Old Lady flared up. 'Yes, and have my jewel-case
stolen! Or find she was an English girl without one word of German. Or
nurse her on the boat when I want to give my undivided attention to my
own misfortunes. No, Amelia, I call it positively unkind of you to
suggest such a thing. You're _so_ unsympathetic! I put my foot down
there. I will _not_ take any temporary person.'

I saw my chance. This was a delightful idea. Why not start for
Schlangenbad with the Cantankerous Old Lady?

Of course, I had not the slightest intention of taking a lady's-maid's
place for a permanency. Nor even, if it comes to that, as a passing
expedient. But _if_ I wanted to go round the world, how could I do
better than set out by the Rhine country? The Rhine leads you on to the
Danube, the Danube to the Black Sea, the Black Sea to Asia; and so, by
way of India, China, and Japan, you reach the Pacific and San Francisco;
whence one returns quite easily by New York and the White Star Liners. I
began to feel like a globe-trotter already; the Cantankerous Old Lady
was the thin end of the wedge--the first rung of the ladder! I proceeded
to put my foot on it.

[Illustration: EXCUSE ME, I SAID, BUT I THINK I SEE A WAY OUT OF YOUR
DIFFICULTY.]

I leaned around the corner of the tree and spoke. 'Excuse me,' I said,
in my suavest voice, 'but I think I see a way out of your difficulty.'

My first impression was that the Cantankerous Old Lady would go off in a
fit of apoplexy. She grew purple in the face with indignation and
astonishment, that a casual outsider should venture to address her; so
much so, indeed, that for a second I almost regretted my well-meant
interposition. Then she scanned me up and down, as if I were a girl in a
mantle shop, and she contemplated buying either me or the mantle. At
last, catching my eye, she thought better of it, and burst out laughing.

'What do you mean by this eavesdropping?' she asked.

I flushed up in turn. 'This is a public place,' I replied, with dignity;
'and you spoke in a tone which was hardly designed for the strictest
privacy. If you don't wish to be overheard, you oughtn't to shout.
Besides, I desired to do you a service.'

The Cantankerous Old Lady regarded me once more from head to foot. I did
not quail. Then she turned to her companion. 'The girl has spirit,' she
remarked, in an encouraging tone, as if she were discussing some absent
person. 'Upon my word, Amelia, I rather like the look of her. Well, my
good woman, what do you want to suggest to me?'

'Merely this,' I replied, bridling up and crushing her. 'I am a Girton
girl, an officer's daughter, no more a good woman than most others of my
class; and I have nothing in particular to do for the moment. I don't
object to going to Schlangenbad. I would convoy you over, as companion,
or lady-help, or anything else you choose to call it; I would remain
with you there for a week, till you could arrange with your Gretchen,
presumably unsophisticated; and then I would leave you. Salary is
unimportant; my fare suffices. I accept the chance as a cheap
opportunity of attaining Schlangenbad.'

The yellow-faced old lady put up her long-handled tortoise-shell
eyeglasses and inspected me all over again. 'Well, I declare,' she
murmured. 'What are girls coming to, I wonder? Girton, you say; Girton!
That place at Cambridge! You speak Greek, of course; but how about
German?'

'Like a native,' I answered, with cheerful promptitude. 'I was at school
in Canton Berne; it is a mother tongue to me.'

'No, no,' the old lady went on, fixing her keen small eyes on my mouth.
'Those little lips could never frame themselves to "schlecht" or
"wunderschön"; they were not cut out for it.'

'Pardon me,' I answered, in German. 'What I say, that I mean. The
never-to-be-forgotten music of the Fatherland's-speech has on my infant
ear from the first-beginning impressed itself.'

The old lady laughed aloud.

'Don't jabber it to me, child,' she cried. 'I hate the lingo. It's the
one tongue on earth that even a pretty girl's lips fail to render
attractive. You yourself make faces over it. What's your name, young
woman?'

'Lois Cayley.'

'Lois! _What_ a name! I never heard of any Lois in my life before,
except Timothy's grandmother. _You're_ not anybody's grandmother, are
you?'

'Not to my knowledge,' I answered, gravely.

She burst out laughing again.

'Well, you'll do, I think,' she said, catching my arm. 'That big mill
down yonder hasn't ground the originality altogether out of you. I adore
originality. It was clever of you to catch at the suggestion of this
arrangement. Lois Cayley, you say; any relation of a madcap Captain
Cayley whom I used once to know, in the Forty-second Highlanders?'

'His daughter,' I answered, flushing. For I was proud of my father.

'Ha! I remember; he died, poor fellow; he was a good soldier--and
his'--I felt she was going to say 'his fool of a widow,' but a glance
from me quelled her; 'his widow went and married that good-looking
scapegrace, Jack Watts-Morgan. Never marry a man, my dear, with a
double-barrelled name and no visible means of subsistence; above all, if
he's generally known by a nickname. So you're poor Tom Cayley's
daughter, are you? Well, well, we can settle this little matter between
us. Mind, I'm a person who always expects to have my own way. If you
come with _me_ to Schlangenbad, you must do as I tell you.'

'I _think_ I could manage it--for a week,' I answered, demurely.

She smiled at my audacity. We passed on to terms. They were quite
satisfactory. She wanted no references. 'Do I look like a woman who
cares about a reference? What are called _characters_ are usually essays
in how not to say it. You take my fancy; that's the point! And poor Tom
Cayley! But, mind, I will _not_ be contradicted.'

'I will not contradict your wildest misstatement,' I answered, smiling.

'_And_ your name and address?' I asked, after we had settled
preliminaries.

A faint red spot rose quaintly in the centre of the Cantankerous Old
Lady's sallow cheek. 'My dear,' she murmured, 'my name is the one thing
on earth I'm really ashamed of. My parents chose to inflict upon me the
most odious label that human ingenuity ever devised for a Christian
soul; and I've not had courage enough to burst out and change it.'

A gleam of intuition flashed across me, 'You don't mean to say,' I
exclaimed, 'that you're called Georgina?'

The Cantankerous Old Lady gripped my arm hard. 'What an unusually
intelligent girl!' she broke in. 'How on earth did you guess? It _is_
Georgina.'

'Fellow-feeling,' I answered. 'So is mine, Georgina Lois. But as I quite
agree with you as to the atrocity of such conduct, I have suppressed the
Georgina. It ought to be made penal to send innocent girls into the
world so burdened.'

'My opinion to a T! You are really an exceptionally sensible young
woman. There's my name and address; I start on Monday.'

I glanced at her card. The very copperplate was noisy. 'Lady Georgina
Fawley, 49 Fortescue Crescent, W.'

It had taken us twenty minutes to arrange our protocols. As I walked
off, well pleased, Lady Georgina's friend ran after me quickly.

'You must take care,' she said, in a warning voice. 'You've caught a
Tartar.'

'So I suspect,' I answered. 'But a week in Tartary will be at least an
experience.'

'She has an awful temper.'

'That's nothing. So have I. Appalling, I assure you. And if it comes to
blows, I'm bigger and younger and stronger than she is.'

'Well, I wish you well out of it.'

'Thank you. It is kind of you to give me this warning. But I think I can
take care of myself. I come, you see, of a military family.'

I nodded my thanks, and strolled back to Elsie's. Dear little Elsie was
in transports of surprise when I related my adventure.

'Will you really go? And what will you do, my dear, when you get there?'

'I haven't a notion,' I answered; 'that's where the fun comes in. But,
anyhow, I shall have got there.'

'Oh, Brownie, you might starve!'

'And I might starve in London. In either place, I have only two hands
and one head to help me.'

'But, then, here you are among friends. You might stop with me for
ever.'

I kissed her fluffy forehead. 'You good, generous little Elsie,' I
cried; 'I won't stop here one moment after I have finished the painting
and papering. I came here to help you. I couldn't go on eating your
hard-earned bread and doing nothing. I know how sweet you are; but the
last thing I want is to add to your burdens. Now let us roll up our
sleeves again and hurry on with the dado.'

'But, Brownie, you'll want to be getting your own things ready.
Remember, you're off to Germany on Monday.'

I shrugged my shoulders. 'Tis a foreign trick I picked up in
Switzerland. 'What have I got to get ready?' I asked. 'I can't go out
and buy a complete summer outfit in Bond Street for twopence. Now, don't
look at me like that: be practical, Elsie, and let me help you paint the
dado.' For unless I helped her, poor Elsie could never have finished it
herself. I cut out half her clothes for her; her own ideas were almost
entirely limited to differential calculus. And cutting out a blouse by
differential calculus is weary, uphill work for a high-school teacher.

By Monday I had papered and furnished the rooms, and was ready to start
on my voyage of exploration. I met the Cantankerous Old Lady at Charing
Cross, by appointment, and proceeded to take charge of her luggage and
tickets.

Oh my, how fussy she was! 'You will drop that basket! I hope you have
got through tickets, _viâ_ Malines, _not_ by Brussels-- I won't go by
Brussels. You have to change there. Now, mind you notice how much the
luggage weighs in English pounds, and make the man at the office give
you a note of it to check those horrid Belgian porters. They'll charge
you for double the weight, unless you reduce it at once to kilogrammes.
_I_ know their ways. Foreigners have no consciences. They just go to the
priest and confess, you know, and wipe it all out, and start fresh again
on a career of crime next morning. I'm sure I don't know why I _ever_ go
abroad. The only country in the world fit to live in is England. No
mosquitoes, no passports, no--goodness gracious, child, don't let that
odious man bang about my hat-box! Have you no immortal soul, porter,
that you crush other people's property as if it was blackbeetles? No, I
will not let you take this, Lois; this is my jewel-box--it contains all
that remains of the Fawley family jewels. I positively decline to appear
at Schlangenbad without a diamond to my back. This never leaves my
hands. It's hard enough nowadays to keep body and skirt together. _Have_
you secured that _coupé_ at Ostend?'

[Illustration: A MOST URBANE AND OBLIGING CONTINENTAL GENTLEMAN.]

We got into our first-class carriage. It was clean and comfortable; but
the Cantankerous Old Lady made the porter mop the floor, and fidgeted
and worried till we slid out of the station. Fortunately, the only other
occupant of the compartment was a most urbane and obliging Continental
gentleman--I say Continental, because I couldn't quite make out whether
he was French, German, or Austrian--who was anxious in every way to meet
Lady Georgina's wishes. Did madame desire to have the window open? Oh,
certainly, with pleasure; the day was so sultry. Closed a little more?
_Parfaitement_, there _was_ a current of air, _il faut l'admettre_.
Madame would prefer the corner? No? Then perhaps she would like this
valise for a footstool? _Permettez_--just thus. A cold draught runs so
often along the floor in railway carriages. This is Kent that we
traverse; ah, the garden of England! As a diplomat, he knew every nook
of Europe, and he echoed the _mot_ he had accidentally heard drop from
madame's lips on the platform: no country in the world so delightful as
England!

'Monsieur is attached to the Embassy in London?' Lady Georgina inquired,
growing affable.

He twirled his grey moustache: a waxed moustache of great distinction.
'No, madame; I have quitted the diplomatic service; I inhabit London now
_pour mon agrément_. Some of my compatriots call it _triste_; for me, I
find it the most fascinating capital in Europe. What gaiety! What
movement! What poetry! What mystery!'

'If mystery means fog, it challenges the world,' I interposed.

He gazed at me with fixed eyes. 'Yes, mademoiselle,' he answered, in
quite a different and markedly chilly voice. 'Whatever your great
country attempts--were it only a fog--it achieves consummately.'

I have quick intuitions. I felt the foreign gentleman took an
instinctive dislike to me.

To make up for it, he talked much, and with animation, to Lady Georgina.
They ferreted out friends in common, and were as much surprised at it as
people always are at that inevitable experience.

'Ah yes, madame, I recollect him well in Vienna. I was there at the
time, attached to our Legation. He was a charming man; you read his
masterly paper on the Central Problem of the Dual Empire?'

'You were in Vienna then!' the Cantankerous Old Lady mused back. 'Lois,
my child, don't stare'--she had covenanted from the first to call me
Lois, as my father's daughter, and I confess I preferred it to being
Miss Cayley'd. 'We must surely have met. Dare I ask your name,
monsieur?'

I could see the foreign gentleman was delighted at this turn. He had
played for it, and carried his point. He meant her to ask him. He had a
card in his pocket, conveniently close; and he handed it across to her.
She read it, and passed it on: 'M. le Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret.'

'Oh, I remember your name well,' the Cantankerous Old Lady broke in. 'I
think you knew my husband, Sir Evelyn Fawley, and my father, Lord
Kynaston.'

The Count looked profoundly surprised and delighted. 'What! you are then
Lady Georgina Fawley!' he cried, striking an attitude. 'Indeed, miladi,
your admirable husband was one of the very first to exert his influence
in my favour at Vienna. Do I recall him, _ce cher_ Sir Evelyn? If I
recall him! What a fortunate rencounter! I must have seen you some years
ago at Vienna, miladi, though I had not then the great pleasure of
making your acquaintance. But your face had impressed itself on my
sub-conscious self!' (I did not learn till later that the esoteric
doctrine of the sub-conscious self was Lady Georgina's favourite hobby.)
'The moment chance led me to this carriage this morning, I said to
myself, "That face, those features: so vivid, so striking: I have seen
them somewhere. With what do I connect them in the recesses of my
memory? A high-born family; genius; rank; the diplomatic service; some
unnameable charm; some faint touch of eccentricity. Ha! I have it.
Vienna, a carriage with footmen in red livery, a noble presence, a crowd
of wits--poets, artists, politicians--pressing eagerly round the
landau." That was my mental picture as I sat and confronted you: I
understand it all now; this is Lady Georgina Fawley!'

I thought the Cantankerous Old Lady, who was a shrewd person in her way,
must surely see through this obvious patter; but I had under-estimated
the average human capacity for swallowing flattery. Instead of
dismissing his fulsome nonsense with a contemptuous smile, Lady
Georgina perked herself up with a conscious air of coquetry, and asked
for more. 'Yes, they were delightful days in Vienna,' she said,
simpering; 'I was young then, Count; I enjoyed life with a zest.'

[Illustration: PERSONS OF MILADI'S TEMPERAMENT ARE ALWAYS YOUNG.]

'Persons of miladi's temperament are always young,' the Count retorted,
glibly, leaning forward and gazing at her. 'Growing old is a foolish
habit of the stupid and the vacant. Men and women of _esprit_ are never
older. One learns as one goes on in life to admire, not the obvious
beauty of mere youth and health'--he glanced across at me
disdainfully--'but the profounder beauty of deep character in a
face--that calm and serene beauty which is imprinted on the brow by
experience of the emotions.'

'I have had my moments,' Lady Georgina murmured, with her head on one
side.

'I believe it, miladi,' the Count answered, and ogled her.

Thenceforward to Dover, they talked together with ceaseless animation.
The Cantankerous Old Lady was capital company. She had a tang in her
tongue, and in the course of ninety minutes she had flayed alive the
greater part of London society, with keen wit and sprightliness. I
laughed against my will at her ill-tempered sallies; they were too funny
not to amuse, in spite of their vitriol. As for the Count, he was
charmed. He talked well himself, too, and between them I almost forgot
the time till we arrived at Dover.

It was a very rough passage. The Count helped us to carry our nineteen
hand-packages and four rugs on board; but I noticed that, fascinated as
she was with him, Lady Georgina resisted his ingenious efforts to gain
possession of her precious jewel-case as she descended the gangway. She
clung to it like grim death, even in the chops of the Channel.
Fortunately I am a good sailor, and when Lady Georgina's sallow cheeks
began to grow pale, I was steady enough to supply her with her shawl and
her smelling-bottle. She fidgeted and worried the whole way over. She
_would_ be treated like a vertebrate animal. Those horrid Belgians had
no right to stick their deck-chairs just in front of her. The
impertinence of the hussies with the bright red hair--a grocer's
daughters, she felt sure--in venturing to come and sit on the same bench
with _her_--the bench 'for ladies only,' under the lee of the funnel!
'Ladies only,' indeed! Did the baggages pretend they considered
themselves ladies? Oh, that placid old gentleman in the episcopal
gaiters was their father, was he? Well, a bishop should bring up his
daughters better, having his children in subjection with all gravity.
Instead of which--'Lois, my smelling-salts!' This was a beastly boat;
such an odour of machinery; they had no decent boats nowadays; with all
our boasted improvements, she could remember well when the cross-Channel
service was much better conducted than it was at present. But _that_ was
before we had compulsory education. The working classes were driving
trade out of the country, and the consequence was, we couldn't build a
boat which didn't reek like an oil-shop. Even the sailors on board were
French--jabbering idiots; not an honest British Jack-tar among the lot
of them; though the stewards were English, and very inferior Cockney
English at that, with their off-hand ways, and their School Board airs
and graces. _She'd_ School Board them if they were her servants; _she'd_
show them the sort of respect that was due to people of birth and
education. But the children of the lower classes never learnt their
catechism nowadays; they were too much occupied with literatoor,
jography, and free-'and drawrin'. Happily for my nerves, a good lurch to
leeward put a stop for a while to the course of her thoughts on the
present distresses.

At Ostend the Count made a second gallant attempt to capture the
jewel-case, which Lady Georgina automatically repulsed. She had a fixed
habit, I believe, of sticking fast to that jewel-case; for she was too
overpowered by the Count's urbanity, I feel sure, to suspect for a
moment his honesty of purpose. But whenever she travelled, I fancy, she
clung to her case as if her life depended upon it; it contained the
whole of her valuable diamonds.

We had twenty minutes for refreshments at Ostend, during which interval
my old lady declared with warmth that I _must_ look after her registered
luggage; though, as it was booked through to Cologne, I could not even
see it till we crossed the German frontier; for the Belgian _douaniers_
seal up the van as soon as the through baggage for Germany is unloaded.
To satisfy her, however, I went through the formality of pretending to
inspect it, and rendered myself hateful to the head of the _douane_ by
asking various foolish and inept questions, on which Lady Georgina
insisted. When I had finished this silly and uncongenial task--for I am
not by nature fussy, and it is hard to assume fussiness as another
person's proxy--I returned to our _coupé_ which I had arranged for in
London. To my great amazement, I found the Cantankerous Old Lady and the
egregious Count comfortably seated there. 'Monsieur has been good enough
to accept a place in our carriage,' she observed, as I entered.

He bowed and smiled. 'Or, rather, madame has been so kind as to offer me
one,' he corrected.

'Would you like some lunch, Lady Georgina?' I asked, in my chilliest
voice. 'There are ten minutes to spare, and the _buffet_ is excellent.'

'An admirable inspiration,' the Count murmured. 'Permit me to escort
you, miladi.'

'You will come, Lois?' Lady Georgina asked.

'No, thank you,' I answered, for I had an idea. 'I am a capital sailor,
but the sea takes away my appetite.'

'Then you'll keep our places,' she said, turning to me. 'I hope you
won't allow them to stick in any horrid foreigners! They will try to
force them on you unless you insist. _I_ know their tricky ways. You
have the tickets, I trust? And the _bulletin_ for the _coupé_? Well,
mind you don't lose the paper for the registered luggage. Don't let
those dreadful porters touch my cloaks. And if anybody attempts to get
in, be sure you stand in front of the door as they mount to prevent
them.'

The Count handed her out; he was all high courtly politeness. As Lady
Georgina descended, he made yet another dexterous effort to relieve her
of the jewel-case. I don't think she noticed it, but automatically once
more she waved him aside. Then she turned to me. 'Here, my dear,' she
said, handing it to me, 'you'd better take care of it. If I lay it down
in the _buffet_ while I am eating my soup, some rogue may run away with
it. But mind, don't let it out of your hands on any account. Hold it
so, on your knee; and, for Heaven's sake, don't part with it.'

[Illustration: THAT SUCCEEDS? THE SHABBY-LOOKING MAN MUTTERED.]

By this time my suspicions of the Count were profound. From the first I
had doubted him; he was so blandly plausible. But as we landed at Ostend
I had accidentally overheard a low whispered conversation when he passed
a shabby-looking man, who had travelled in a second-class carriage from
London. 'That succeeds?' the shabby-looking man had muttered under his
breath in French, as the haughty nobleman with the waxed moustache
brushed by him.

'That succeeds admirably,' the Count had answered, in the same soft
undertone. '_Ça réussit à merveille!_'

I understood him to mean that he had prospered in his attempt to impose
on Lady Georgina.

They had been gone five minutes at the _buffet_, when the Count came
back hurriedly to the door of the _coupé_ with a _nonchalant_ air. 'Oh,
mademoiselle,' he said, in an off-hand tone, 'Lady Georgina has sent me
to fetch her jewel-case.'

I gripped it hard with both hands. '_Pardon_, M. le Comte,' I answered;
'Lady Georgina intrusted it to _my_ safe keeping, and, without her
leave, I cannot give it up to any one.'

'You mistrust me?' he cried, looking black. 'You doubt my honour? You
doubt my word when I say that miladi has sent me?'

'_Du tout_,' I answered, calmly. 'But I have Lady Georgina's orders to
stick to this case; and till Lady Georgina returns I stick to it.'

He murmured some indignant remark below his breath, and walked off. The
shabby-looking passenger was pacing up and down the platform outside in
a badly-made dust-coat. As they passed their lips moved. The Count's
seemed to mutter, '_C'est un coup manqué._'

However, he did not desist even so. I saw he meant to go on with his
dangerous little game. He returned to the _buffet_ and rejoined Lady
Georgina. I felt sure it would be useless to warn her, so completely had
the Count succeeded in gulling her; but I took my own steps. I examined
the jewel-case closely. It had a leather outer covering; within was a
strong steel box, with stout bands of metal to bind it. I took my cue at
once, and acted for the best on my own responsibility.

When Lady Georgina and the Count returned, they were like old friends
together. The quails in aspic and the sparkling hock had evidently
opened their hearts to one another. As far as Malines they laughed and
talked without ceasing. Lady Georgina was now in her finest vein of
spleen: her acid wit grew sharper and more caustic each moment. Not a
reputation in Europe had a rag left to cover it as we steamed in beneath
the huge iron roof of the main central junction.

I had observed all the way from Ostend that the Count had been anxious
lest we might have to give up our _coupé_ at Malines. I assured him more
than once that his fears were groundless, for I had arranged at Charing
Cross that it should run right through to the German frontier. But he
waved me aside, with one lordly hand. I had not told Lady Georgina of
his vain attempt to take possession of her jewel-case; and the bare fact
of my silence made him increasingly suspicious of me.

'Pardon me, mademoiselle,' he said, coldly; 'you do not understand these
lines as well as I do. Nothing is more common than for those rascals of
railway clerks to sell one a place in a _coupé_ or a _wagon-lit_, and
then never reserve it, or turn one out half way. It is very possible
miladi may have to descend at Malines.'

Lady Georgina bore him out by a large variety of selected stories
concerning the various atrocities of the rival companies which had
stolen her luggage on her way to Italy. As for _trains de luxe_, they
were dens of robbers.

So when we reached Malines, just to satisfy Lady Georgina, I put out my
head and inquired of a porter. As I anticipated, he replied that there
was no change; we went through to Verviers.

The Count, however, was still unsatisfied. He descended, and made some
remarks a little farther down the platform to an official in the
gold-banded cap of a _chef-de-gare_, or some such functionary. Then he
returned to us, all fuming. 'It is as I said,' he exclaimed, flinging
open the door. 'These rogues have deceived us. The _coupé_ goes no
farther. You must dismount at once, miladi, and take the train just
opposite.'

I felt sure he was wrong, and I ventured to say so. But Lady Georgina
cried, 'Nonsense, child! The _chef-de-gare_ must know. Get out at once!
Bring my bag and the rugs! Mind that cloak! Don't forget the
sandwich-tin! Thanks, Count; will you kindly take charge of my
umbrellas? Hurry up, Lois; hurry up! the train is just starting!'

I scrambled after her, with my fourteen bundles, keeping a quiet eye
meanwhile on the jewel-case.

We took our seats in the opposite train, which I noticed was marked
'Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Paris.' But I said nothing. The Count jumped in,
jumped about, arranged our parcels, jumped out again. He spoke to a
porter; then he rushed back excitedly. '_Mille pardons_, miladi,' he
cried. 'I find the _chef-de-gare_ has cruelly deceived me. You were
right, after all, mademoiselle! We must return to the coupé__!'

With singular magnanimity, I refrained from saying, 'I told you so.'

Lady Georgina, very flustered and hot by this time, tumbled out once
more, and bolted back to the _coupé_. Both trains were just starting. In
her hurry, at last, she let the Count take possession of her jewel-case.
I rather fancy that as he passed one window he handed it in to the
shabby-looking passenger; but I am not certain. At any rate, when we
were comfortably seated in our own compartment once more, and he stood
on the footboard just about to enter, of a sudden he made an unexpected
dash back, and flung himself wildly into a Paris carriage. At the
self-same moment, with a piercing shriek, both trains started.

Lady Georgina threw up her hands in a frenzy of horror. 'My diamonds!'
she cried aloud. 'Oh, Lois, my diamonds!'

'Don't distress yourself,' I answered, holding her back, for I verily
believe she would have leapt from the train. 'He has only taken the
outer shell, with the sandwich-case inside it. _Here_ is the steel box!'
And I produced it, triumphantly.

She seized it, overjoyed. 'How did this happen?' she cried, hugging it,
for she loved those diamonds.

'Very simply,' I answered. 'I saw the man was a rogue, and that he had a
confederate with him in another carriage. So, while you were gone to the
_buffet_ at Ostend, I slipped the box out of the case, and put in the
sandwich-tin, that he might carry it off, and we might have proofs
against him. All you have to do now is to inform the conductor, who will
telegraph to stop the train to Paris. I spoke to him about that at
Ostend, so that everything is ready.'

She positively hugged me. 'My dear,' she cried, 'you are the cleverest
little woman I ever met in my life! Who on earth could have suspected
such a polished gentleman? Why, you're worth your weight in gold. What
the dickens shall I do without you at Schlangenbad?'




II

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUPERCILIOUS _ATTACHÉ_


The Count must have been an adept in the gentle art of quick-change
disguise; for though we telegraphed full particulars of his appearance
from Louvain, the next station, nobody in the least resembling either
him or his accomplice, the shabby-looking man, could be unearthed in the
Paris train when it drew up at Brussels, its first stopping-place. They
must have transformed themselves meanwhile into two different persons.
Indeed, from the outset, I had suspected his moustache--'twas so _very_
distinguished.

When we reached Cologne, the Cantankerous Old Lady overwhelmed me with
the warmth of her thanks and praises. Nay, more; after breakfast next
morning, before we set out by slow train for Schlangenbad, she burst
like a tornado into my bedroom at the Cologne hotel with a cheque for
twenty guineas, drawn in my favour. 'That's for you, my dear,' she said,
handing it to me, and looking really quite gracious.

I glanced at the piece of paper and felt my face glow crimson. 'Oh, Lady
Georgina,' I cried; 'you misunderstand. You forget that I am a lady.'

'Nonsense, child, nonsense! Your courage and promptitude were worth ten
times that sum,' she exclaimed, positively slipping her arm round my
neck. 'It was your courage I particularly admired, Lois; because you
faced the risk of my happening to look inside the outer case, and
finding you had abstracted the blessed box: in which case I might quite
naturally have concluded you meant to steal it.'

'I thought of that,' I answered. 'But I decided to risk it. I felt it
was worth while. For I was sure the man meant to take the case as soon
as ever you gave him the opportunity.'

'Then you deserve to be rewarded,' she insisted, pressing the cheque
upon me.

[Illustration: I PUT HER HAND BACK FIRMLY.]

I put her hand back firmly. 'Lady Georgina,' I said, 'it is very amiable
of you. I think you do right in offering me the money; but I think I
should do altogether wrong in accepting it. A lady is not honest from
the hope of gain; she is not brave because she expects to be paid for
her bravery. You were my employer, and I was bound to serve my
employer's interests. I did so as well as I could, and there is the end
of it.'

She looked absolutely disappointed; we all hate to crush a benevolent
impulse; but she tore the cheque up into very small pieces. 'As you
will, my dear,' she said, with her hands on her hips: 'I see, you are
poor Tom Cayley's daughter. He was always a bit Quixotic.' Though I
believe she liked me all the better for my refusal.

On the way from Cologne to Eltville, however, and on the drive up to
Schlangenbad, I found her just as fussy and as worrying as ever. 'Let me
see, how many of these horrid pfennigs make an English penny? I never
_can_ remember. Oh, those silly little nickel things are ten pfennigs
each, are they? Well, eight would be a penny, I suppose. A mark's a
shilling; ridiculous of them to divide it into ten pence instead of
twelve; one never really knows how much one's paying for anything. Why
these Continental people can't be content to use pounds, shillings, and
pence, all over alike, the same as we do, passes _my_ comprehension.
They're glad enough to get English sovereigns when they can; why, then,
don't they use them as such, instead of reckoning them each at
twenty-five francs, and then trying to cheat you out of the proper
exchange, which is _always_ ten centimes more than the brokers give you?
What, _we_ use their beastly decimal system? Lois, I'm ashamed of you.
An English girl to turn and rend her native country like that! Francs
and centimes, indeed! Fancy proposing it at Peter Robinson's! No, I
will _not_ go by the boat, my dear. I hate the Rhine boats, crowded with
nasty selfish pigs of Germans. What _I_ like is a first-class
compartment all to myself, and no horrid foreigners. Especially Germans.
They're bursting with self-satisfaction--have such an exaggerated belief
in their "land" and their "folk." And when they come to England, they do
nothing but find fault with us. If people aren't satisfied with the
countries they travel in, they'd better stop at home--that's _my_
opinion. Nasty pigs of Germans! The very sight of them sickens me. Oh, I
don't mind if they _do_ understand me, child. They all learn English
nowadays; it helps them in trade--that's why they're driving us out of
all the markets. But it _must_ be good for them to learn once in a way
what other people really think of them--civilised people, I mean; not
Germans. They're a set of barbarians.'

We reached Schlangenbad alive, though I sometimes doubted it: for my old
lady did her boisterous best to rouse some peppery German officer into
cutting our throats incontinently by the way; and when we got there, we
took up our abode in the nicest hotel in the village. Lady Georgina had
engaged the best front room on the first floor, with a charming view
across the pine-clad valley; but I must do her the justice to say that
she took the second best for me, and that she treated me in every way
like the guest she delighted to honour. My refusal to accept her twenty
guineas made her anxious to pay it back to me within the terms of our
agreement. She described me to everybody as a young friend who was
travelling with her, and never gave any one the slightest hint of my
being a paid companion. Our arrangement was that I was to have two
guineas for the week, besides my travelling expenses, board, and
lodging.

On our first morning at Schlangenbad, Lady Georgina sallied forth, very
much overdressed, and in a youthful hat, to use the waters. They are
valued chiefly for the complexion, I learned; I wondered then why Lady
Georgina came there--for she hadn't any; but they are also recommended
for nervous irritability, and as Lady Georgina had visited the place
almost every summer for fifteen years, it opened before one's mind an
appalling vista of what her temper might have been if she had _not_ gone
to Schlangenbad. The hot springs are used in the form of a bath. '_You_
don't need them, my dear,' Lady Georgina said to me, with a
good-humoured smile; and I will own that I did not, for nature has
gifted me with a tolerable cuticle. But I like when at Rome to do as
Rome does; so I tried the baths once. I found them unpleasantly smooth
and oily. I do not freckle, but if I did, I think I should prefer
freckles.

We walked much on the terrace--the inevitable dawdling promenade of all
German watering-places--it reeked of Serene Highness. We also drove out
among the low wooded hills which bound the Rhine valley. The majority of
the visitors, I found, were ladies--Court ladies, most of them; all
there for their complexions, but all anxious to assure me privately they
had come for what they described as 'nervous debility.' I divided them
at once into two classes: half of them never had and never would have a
complexion at all; the other half had exceptionally smooth and beautiful
skins, of which they were obviously proud, and whose pink-and-white
peach-blossom they thought to preserve by assiduous bathing. It was
vanity working on two opposite bases. There was a sprinkling of men,
however, who were really there for a sufficient reason--wounds or
serious complaints; while a few good old sticks, porty and whisty, were
in attendance on invalid wives or sisters.

[Illustration: HE CAST A HASTY GLANCE AT US.]

From the beginning I noticed that Lady Georgina went peering about all
over the place, as if she were hunting for something she had lost, with
her long-handled tortoise-shell glasses perpetually in evidence--the
'aristocratic outrage' I called them--and that she eyed all the men with
peculiar attention. But I took no open notice of her little weakness. On
our second day at the Spa, I was sauntering with her down the chief
street--'a beastly little hole, my dear; not a decent shop where one can
buy a reel of thread or a yard of tape in the place!'--when I observed a
tall and handsome young man on the opposite side of the road cast a
hasty glance at us, and then sneak round the corner hurriedly. He was a
loose-limbed, languid-looking young man, with large, dreamy eyes, and a
peculiarly beautiful and gentle expression; but what I noted about him
most was an odd superficial air of superciliousness. He seemed always to
be looking down with scorn on that foolish jumble, the universe. He
darted away so rapidly, however, that I hardly discovered all this just
then. I piece it out from subsequent observations.

Later in the day, we chanced to pass a _café_, where three young
exquisites sat sipping Rhine wines after the fashion of the country. One
of them, with a gold-tipped cigarette held gracefully between two
slender fingers, was my languid-looking young aristocrat. He was blowing
out smoke in a lazy blue stream. The moment he saw me, however, he
turned away as if he desired to escape observation, and ducked down so
as to hide his face behind his companions. I wondered why on earth he
should want to avoid me. Could this be the Count? No, the young man with
the halo of cigarette smoke stood three inches taller. Who, then, at
Schlangenbad could wish to avoid my notice? It was a singular mystery;
for I was quite certain the supercilious young man was trying his best
to prevent my seeing him.

That evening, after dinner, the Cantankerous Old Lady burst out
suddenly, 'Well, I can't for the life of me imagine why Harold hasn't
turned up here. The wretch knew I was coming; and I heard from our
Ambassador at Rome last week that he was going to be at Schlangenbad.'

'Who is Harold?' I asked.

'My nephew,' Lady Georgina snapped back, beating a devil's tattoo with
her fan on the table. 'The only member of my family, except myself, who
isn't a born idiot. Harold's not an idiot; he's an _attaché_ at Rome.'

I saw it at a glance. 'Then he _is_ in Schlangenbad,' I answered. 'I
noticed him this morning.'

The old lady turned towards me sharply. She peered right through me, as
if she were a Röntgen ray. I could see she was asking herself whether
this was a conspiracy, and whether I had come there on purpose to meet
'Harold.' But I flatter myself I am tolerably mistress of my own
countenance. I did not blench. 'How do you know?' she asked quickly,
with an acid intonation.

If I had answered the truth, I should have said, 'I know he is here,
because I saw a good-looking young man evidently trying to avoid you
this morning; and if a young man has the misfortune to be born your
nephew, and also to have expectations from you, it is easy to understand
that he would prefer to keep out of your way as long as possible.' But
that would have been neither polite nor politic. Moreover, I reflected
that I had no particular reason for wishing to do Mr. Harold a bad turn;
and that it would be kinder to him, as well as to her, to conceal the
reasons on which I based my instinctive inference. So I took up a strong
strategic position. 'I have an intuition that I saw him in the village
this morning,' I said. 'Family likeness, perhaps. I merely jumped at it
as you spoke. A tall, languid young man; large, poetical eyes; an
artistic moustache--just a trifle Oriental-looking.'

'That's Harold!' the Cantankerous Old Lady rapped out sharply, with
clear conviction. 'The miserable boy! Why on earth hasn't he been round
to see me?'

I reflected that I knew why; but I did not say so. Silence is golden. I
also remarked mentally on that curious human blindness which had made me
conclude at first that the supercilious young man was trying to avoid
_me_, when I might have guessed it was far more likely he was trying to
avoid my companion. I was a nobody; Lady Georgina Fawley was a woman of
European reputation.

'Perhaps he didn't know which hotel you were stopping at,' I put in. 'Or
even that you were here.' I felt a sudden desire to shield poor Harold.

'Not know which hotel? Nonsense, child; he knows I come here on this
precise date regularly every summer; and if he didn't know, is it likely
I should try any other inn, when this is the only moderately decent
house to stop at in Schlangenbad? And the morning coffee undrinkable at
that; while the hash--_such_ hash! But that's the way in Germany. He's
an ungrateful monster; if he comes now, I shall refuse to see him.'

[Illustration: HAROLD, YOU VIPER, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY TRYING TO AVOID
ME?]

Next morning after breakfast, however, in spite of these threats, she
hailed me forth with her on the Harold hunt. She had sent the
_concierge_ to inquire at all the hotels already, it seemed, and found
her truant at none of them; now she ransacked the _pensions_. At last
she hunted him down in a house on the hill. I could see she was really
hurt. 'Harold, you viper, what do you mean by trying to avoid me?'

'My dear aunt, _you_ here in Schlangenbad! Why, when did you arrive? And
what a colour you've got! You're looking _so_ well!' That clever thrust
saved him.

He cast me an appealing glance. 'You will not betray me?' it said. I
answered, mutely, 'Not for worlds,' with a faltering pair of downcast
eyelids.

'Oh, I'm _well_ enough, thank you,' Lady Georgina replied, somewhat
mollified by his astute allusion to her personal appearance. He had hit
her weak point dexterously. 'As well, that is, as one can expect to be
nowadays. Hereditary gout--the sins of the fathers visited as usual. But
why didn't you come to see me?'

'How can I come to see you if you don't tell me where you are? "Lady
Georgina Fawley, Europe," was the only address I knew. It strikes me as
insufficient.'

His gentle drawl was a capital foil to Lady Georgina's acidulous
soprano. It seemed to disarm her. She turned to me with a benignant wave
of her hand. 'Miss Cayley,' she said, introducing me; 'my nephew, Mr.
Harold Tillington. You've heard me talk of poor Tom Cayley, Harold? This
is poor Tom Cayley's daughter.'

'Indeed?' the supercilious _attaché_ put in, looking hard at me.
'Delighted to make Miss Cayley's acquaintance.'

'Now, Harold, I can tell from your voice at once you haven't remembered
one word about Captain Cayley.'

Harold stood on the defensive. 'My dear aunt,' he observed, expanding
both palms, 'I have heard you talk of so _very_ many people, that even
_my_ diplomatic memory fails at times to recollect them all. But I do
better: I dissemble. I will plead forgetfulness now of Captain Cayley,
since you force it on me. It is not likely I shall have to plead it of
Captain Cayley's daughter.' And he bowed towards me gallantly.

The Cantankerous Old Lady darted a lightning glance at him. It was a
glance of quick suspicion. Then she turned her Röntgen rays upon my face
once more. I fear I burned crimson.

'A friend?' he asked. 'Or a fellow-guest?'

'A companion.' It was the first nasty thing she had said of me.

'Ha! more than a friend, then. A comrade.' He turned the edge neatly.

We walked out on the terrace and a little way up the zigzag path. The
day was superb. I found Mr. Tillington, in spite of his studiously
languid and supercilious air, a most agreeable companion. He knew
Europe. He was full of talk of Rome and the Romans. He had epigrammatic
wit, curt, keen, and pointed. We sat down on a bench; he kept Lady
Georgina and myself amused for an hour by his crisp sallies. Besides, he
had been everywhere and seen everybody. Culture and agriculture seemed
all one to him.

When we rose to go in, Lady Georgina remarked, with emphasis, 'Of
course, Harold, you'll come and take up your diggings at our hotel?'

'Of course, my dear aunt. How can you ask? Free quarters. Nothing would
give me greater pleasure.'

She glanced at him keenly again. I saw she had expected him to fake up
some lame excuse for not joining us; and I fancied she was annoyed at
his prompt acquiescence, which had done her out of the chance for a
family disagreement. 'Oh, you'll come then?' she said, grudgingly.

'Certainly, most respected aunt. I shall much prefer it.'

She let her piercing eye descend upon me once more. I was aware that I
had been talking with frank ease of manner to Mr. Tillington, and that I
had said several things which clearly amused him. Then I remembered all
at once our relative positions. A companion, I felt, should know her
place: it is not her _rôle_ to be smart and amusing. 'Perhaps,' I said,
drawing back, 'Mr. Tillington would like to remain in his present
quarters till the end of the week, while I am with you, Lady Georgina;
after that, he could have my room; it might be more convenient.'

His eye caught mine quickly. 'Oh, you're only going to stop a week,
then, Miss Cayley?' he put in, with an air of disappointment.

'Only a week,' I nodded.

'My dear child,' the Cantankerous Old Lady broke out, 'what nonsense you
do talk! Only going to stop a week? How can I exist without you?'

'That was the arrangement,' I said, mischievously. 'You were going to
look about, you recollect, for an unsophisticated Gretchen. You don't
happen to know of any warehouse where a supply of unsophisticated
Gretchens is kept constantly in stock, do you, Mr. Tillington?'

'No, I don't,' he answered, laughing. 'I believe there are dodos and
auks' eggs, in very small numbers, still to be procured in the proper
quarters; but the unsophisticated Gretchen, I am credibly informed, is
an extinct animal. Why, the cap of one fetches high prices nowadays
among collectors.'

'But you will come to the hotel at once, Harold?' Lady Georgina
interposed.

'Certainly, aunt. I will move in without delay. If Miss Cayley is going
to stay for a single week only, that adds one extra inducement for
joining you immediately.'

His aunt's stony eye was cold as marble.

So when we got back to our hotel after the baths that afternoon, the
_concierge_ greeted us with: 'Well, your noble nephew has arrived,
high-well-born countess! He came with his boxes just now, and has taken
a room near your honourable ladyship's.'

Lady Georgina's face was a study of mingled emotions. I don't know
whether she looked more pleased or jealous.

Later in the day, I chanced on Mr. Tillington, sunning himself on a
bench in the hotel garden. He rose, and came up to me, as fast as his
languid nature permitted. 'Oh, Miss Cayley,' he said, abruptly, 'I do
want to thank you so much for not betraying me. I know you spotted me
twice in the town yesterday; and I also know you were good enough to say
nothing to my revered aunt about it.'

'I had no reason for wishing to hurt Lady Georgina's feelings,' I
answered, with a permissible evasion.

His countenance fell. 'I never thought of that,' he interposed, with one
hand on his moustache. 'I-- I fancied you did it out of fellow-feeling.'

'We all think of things mainly from our own point of view first,' I
answered. 'The difference is that some of us think of them from other
people's afterwards. Motives are mixed.'

He smiled. 'I didn't know my deeply venerated relative was coming here
so soon,' he went on. 'I thought she wasn't expected till next week; my
brother wrote me that she had quarrelled with her French maid, and
'twould take her full ten days to get another. I meant to clear out
before she arrived. To tell you the truth, I was going to-morrow.'

'And now you are stopping on?'

He caught my eye again.

[Illustration: CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES, HE MURMURED.]

'Circumstances alter cases,' he murmured, with meaning.

'It is hardly polite to describe one as a circumstance,' I objected.

'I meant,' he said, quickly, 'my aunt alone is one thing; my aunt with a
friend is quite another.'

'I see,' I answered. 'There is safety in numbers.'

He eyed me hard.

'Are you mediæval or modern?' he asked.

'Modern, I hope,' I replied. Then I looked at him again. 'Oxford?'

He nodded. 'And you?' half joking.

'Cambridge,' I said, glad to catch him out. 'What college?'

'Merton. Yours?'

'Girton.'

The odd rhyme amused him. Thenceforth we were friends--'two 'Varsity
men,' he said. And indeed it does make a queer sort of link--a
freemasonry to which even women are now admitted.

At dinner and through the evening he talked a great deal to me, Lady
Georgina putting in from time to time a characteristic growl about the
_table-d'hôte_ chicken--'a special breed, my dear, with eight drumsticks
apiece'--or about the inadequate lighting of the heavy German _salon_.
She was worse than ever: pungent as a rule, that evening she was grumpy.
When we retired for the night, to my great surprise, she walked into my
bedroom. She seated herself on my bed: I saw she had come to talk over
Harold.

'He will be very rich, my dear, you know. A great catch in time. He will
inherit all my brother's money.'

'Lord Kynaston's?'

'Bless the child, no. Kynaston's as poor as a church mouse with the
tithes unpaid; he has three sons of his own, and not a blessed stiver to
leave between them. How could he, poor dear idiot? Agricultural
depression; a splendid pauper. He has only the estate, and that's in
Essex; land going begging; worth nothing a year, encumbered up to the
eyes, and loaded with first rent-charges, jointures, settlements. Money,
indeed! poor Kynaston! It's my brother Marmaduke's I mean; lucky dog,
_he_ went in for speculation--began life as a guinea-pig, and rose with
the rise of soap and cocoa. He's worth his half-million.'

'Oh, Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst'

Lady Georgina nodded. 'Marmy's a fool,' she said, briefly; 'but he knows
which side of his bread is buttered.'

'And Mr. Tillington is--his nephew?'

'Bless the child, yes; have you never read your British Bible, the
peerage? Astonishing, the ignorance of these Girton girls! They don't
even know the Leger's run at Doncaster. The family name's Ashurst.
Kynaston's an earl-- I was Lady Georgina Ashurst before I took it into
my head to marry and do for poor Evelyn Fawley. My younger brother's the
Honourable Marmaduke Ashurst--women get the best of it there--it's about
the only place where they do get the best of it: an earl's daughter is
Lady Betty; his son's nothing more than the Honourable Tom. So one
scores off one's brothers. My younger sister, Lady Guinevere Ashurst,
married Stanley Tillington of the Foreign Office. Harold's their eldest
son. Now, child, do you grasp it?'

'Perfectly,' I answered. 'You speak like Debrett. Has issue, Harold.'

'And Harold will inherit all Marmaduke's money. What I'm always afraid
of is that some fascinating adventuress will try to marry him out of
hand. A pretty face, and over goes Harold! _My_ business in life is to
stand in the way and prevent it.'

She looked me through and through again with her X-ray scrutiny.

'I don't think Mr. Tillington is quite the sort that falls a prey to
adventuresses,' I answered, boldly.

'Ah, but there are faggots and faggots,' the old lady said, wagging her
head with profound meaning. 'Never mind, though; _I'd_ like to see an
adventuress marry off Harold without my leave! _I'd_ lead her a life!
I'd turn her black hair gray for her!'

'I should think,' I assented, 'you could do it, Lady Georgina, if you
gave your attention seriously to it.'

From that moment forth, I was aware that my Cantankerous Old Lady's
malign eye was inexorably fixed upon me every time I went within
speaking distance of Mr. Tillington. She watched him like a lynx. She
watched _me_ like a dozen lynxes. Wherever we went, Lady Georgina was
sure to turn up in the neighbourhood. She was perfectly ubiquitous: she
seemed to possess a world-wide circulation. I don't know whether it was
this constant suggestion of hers that I was stalking her nephew which
roused my latent human feeling of opposition; but in the end, I began to
be aware that I rather liked the supercilious _attaché_ than otherwise.
He evidently liked me, and he tried to meet me. Whenever he spoke to me,
indeed, it was without the superciliousness which marked his manner
towards others; in point of fact, it was with graceful deference. He
watched for me on the stairs, in the garden, by the terrace; whenever he
got a chance, he sidled over and talked to me. Sometimes he stopped in
to read me Heine: he also introduced me to select portions of Gabriele
d'Annunzio. It is feminine to be touched by such obvious attention; I
confess, before long, I grew to like Mr. Harold Tillington.

The closer he followed me up, the more did I perceive that Lady Georgina
threw out acrid hints with increasing spleen about the ways of
adventuresses. They were hints of that acrimonious generalised kind,
too, which one cannot answer back without seeming to admit that the cap
has fitted. It was atrocious how middle-class young women nowadays ran
after young men of birth and fortune. A girl would stoop to anything in
order to catch five hundred thousand. Guileless youths should be thrown
among their natural equals. It was a mistake to let them see too much of
people of a lower rank who consider themselves good-looking. And the
clever ones were the worst: they pretended to go in for intellectual
companionship.

I also noticed that though at first Lady Georgina had expressed the
strongest disinclination to my leaving her after the time originally
proposed, she now began to take for granted that I would go at the end
of my week, as arranged in London, and she even went on to some overt
steps towards securing the help of the blameless Gretchen.

We had arrived at Schlangenbad on Tuesday. I was to stop with the
Cantankerous Old Lady till the corresponding day of the following week.
On the Sunday, I wandered out on the wooded hillside behind the village;
and as I mounted the path I was dimly aware by a sort of instinct that
Harold Tillington was following me.

He came up with me at last near a ledge of rock. 'How fast you walk!' he
exclaimed. 'I gave you only a few minutes' start, and yet even my long
legs have had hard work to overtake you.'

'I am a fairly good climber,' I answered, sitting down on a little
wooden bench. 'You see, at Cambridge, I went on the river a great deal--
I canoed and sculled: and then, besides, I've done a lot of bicycling.'

'What a splendid birthright it is,' he cried, 'to be a wholesome
athletic English girl! You can't think how one admires English girls
after living a year or two in Italy--where women are dolls, except for a
brief period of intrigue, before they settle down to be contented frumps
with an outline like a barrel.'

'A little muscle and a little mind are no doubt advisable adjuncts for a
housewife,' I admitted.

'You shall not say that word,' he cried, seating himself at my side. 'It
is a word for Germans, "housewife." Our English ideal is something
immeasurably higher and better. A companion, a complement! Do you know,
Miss Cayley, it always sickens me when I hear German students
sentimentalising over their _mädchen_: their beautiful, pure, insipid,
yellow-haired, blue-eyed _mädchen_; her, so fair, so innocent, so
unapproachably vacuous--so like a wax doll--and then think of how they
design her in days to come to cook sausages for their dinner, and knit
them endless stockings through a placid middle age, till the needles
drop from her paralysed fingers, and she retires into frilled caps and
Teutonic senility.'

'You seem to have almost as low an opinion of foreigners as your
respected aunt!' I exclaimed, looking quizzically at him.

He drew back, surprised. 'Oh, no; I'm not narrow-minded, like my aunt, I
hope,' he answered. 'I am a good cosmopolitan. I allow Continental
nations all their own good points, and each has many. But their women,
Miss Cayley--and their point of view of their women--you will admit that
there they can't hold a candle to English women.'

I drew a circle in the dust with the tip of my parasol.

'On that issue, I may not be a wholly unprejudiced observer,' I
answered. 'The fact of my being myself an Englishwoman may possibly to
some extent influence my judgment.'

'You are sarcastic,' he cried, drawing away.

'Not at all,' I answered, making a wider circle. 'I spoke a simple fact.
But what is _your_ ideal, then, as opposed to the German one?'

He gazed at me and hesitated. His lips half parted. 'My ideal?' he said,
after a pause. 'Well, _my_ ideal--do you happen to have such a thing as
a pocket-mirror about you?'

I laughed in spite of myself. 'Now, Mr. Tillington,' I said severely,
'if you're going to pay compliments, I shall have to return. If you want
to stop here with me, you must remember that I am only Lady Georgina
Fawley's temporary lady's-maid. Besides, I didn't mean that. I meant,
what is your ideal of a man's right relation to his _mädchen_?'

'Don't say _mädchen_,' he cried, petulantly. 'It sounds as if you
thought me one of those sentimental Germans. I hate sentiment.'

'Then, towards the woman of his choice.'

He glanced up through the trees at the light overhead, and spoke more
slowly than ever. 'I think,' he said, fumbling his watch-chain
nervously, 'a man ought to wish the woman he loves to be a free agent,
his equal in point of action, even as she is nobler and better than he
in all spiritual matters. I think he ought to desire for her a life as
high as she is capable of leading, with full scope for every faculty of
her intellect or her emotional nature. She should be beautiful, with a
vigorous, wholesome, many-sided beauty, moral, intellectual, physical;
yet with soul in her, too; and with the soul and the mind lighting up
her eyes, as it lights up--well, that is immaterial. And if a man can
discover such a woman as that, and can induce her to believe in him, to
love him, to accept him--though how such a woman can be satisfied with
any man at all is to me unfathomable--well, then, I think he should be
happy in devoting his whole life to her, and should give himself up to
repay her condescension in taking him.'

'And you hate sentiment!' I put in, smiling.

[Illustration: MISS CAYLEY, HE SAID, YOU ARE PLAYING WITH ME.]

He brought his eyes back from the sky suddenly. 'Miss Cayley,' he said,
'this is cruel. I was in earnest. You are playing with me.'

'I believe the chief characteristic of the English girl is supposed to
be common sense,' I answered, calmly, 'and I trust I possess it.' But
indeed, as he spoke, my heart was beginning to make its beat felt; for
he was a charming young man; he had a soft voice and lustrous eyes; it
was a summer's day; and alone in the woods with one other person, where
the sunlight falls mellow in spots like a leopard's skin, one is apt to
remember that we are all human.

That evening Lady Georgina managed to blurt out more malicious things
than ever about the ways of adventuresses, and the duty of relations in
saving young men from the clever clutches of designing creatures. She
was ruthless in her rancour: her gibes stung me.

On Monday at breakfast I asked her casually if she had yet found a
Gretchen.

'No,' she answered, in a gloomy voice. 'All slatterns, my dear; all
slatterns! Brought up in pig-sties. I wouldn't let one of them touch my
hair for thousands.'

'That's unfortunate,' I said, drily, 'for you know I'm going to-morrow.'

If I had dropped a bomb in their midst they couldn't have looked more
astonished. 'To-morrow?' Lady Georgina gasped, clutching my arm. 'You
don't mean it, child; you don't mean it?'

I asserted my Ego. 'Certainly,' I answered, with my coolest air. 'I said
I thought I could manage you for a week; and I have managed you.'

She almost burst into tears. 'But, my child, my child, what shall I do
without you?'

'The unsophisticated Gretchen,' I answered, trying not to look
concerned; for in my heart of hearts, in spite of her innuendoes, I had
really grown rather to like the Cantankerous Old Lady.

She rose hastily from the table, and darted up to her own room. 'Lois,'
she said, as she rose, in a curious voice of mingled regret and
suspicion, 'I will talk to you about this later.' I could see she was
not quite satisfied in her own mind whether Harold Tillington and I had
not arranged this _coup_ together.

I put on my hat and strolled off into the garden, and then along the
mossy hill path. In a minute more, Harold Tillington was beside me.

He seated me, half against my will, on a rustic bench. 'Look here, Miss
Cayley,' he said, with a very earnest face; 'is this really true? Are
you going to-morrow?'

My voice trembled a little. 'Yes,' I answered, biting my lip. 'I am
going. I see several reasons why I should go, Mr. Tillington.'

'But so soon?'

'Yes, I think so; the sooner the better.' My heart was racing now, and
his eyes pleaded mutely.

'Then where are you going?'

I shrugged my shoulders, and pouted my lips a little. 'I don't know,' I
replied. 'The world is all before me where to choose. I am an
adventuress,' I said it boldly, 'and I am in quest of adventures. I
really have not yet given a thought to my next place of sojourn.'

'But you will let me know when you have decided?'

It was time to speak out. 'No, Mr. Tillington,' I said, with decision.
'I will _not_ let you know. One of my reasons for going is, that I think
I had better see no more of you.'

He flung himself on the bench at my side, and folded his hands in a
helpless attitude. 'But, Miss Cayley,' he cried, 'this is so short a
notice; you give a fellow no chance; I hoped I might have seen more of
you--might have had some opportunity of--of letting you realise how
deeply I admired and respected you--some opportunity of showing myself
as I really am to you--before--before----' he paused, and looked hard at
me.

I did not know what to say. I really liked him so much; and when he
spoke in that voice, I could not bear to seem cruel to him. Indeed, I
was aware at the moment how much I had grown to care for him in those
six short days. But I knew it was impossible. 'Don't say it, Mr.
Tillington,' I murmured, turning my face away. 'The less said, the
sooner mended.'

'But I must,' he cried. 'I must tell you now, if I am to have no chance
afterwards. I wanted you to see more of me before I ventured to ask you
if you could ever love me, if you could ever suffer me to go through
life with you, to share my all with you.' He seized my trembling hand.
'Lois,' he cried, in a pleading voice, 'I _must_ ask you; I can't expect
you to answer me now, but _do_ say you will give me at least some other
chance of seeing you, and then, in time, of pressing my suit upon you.'

Tears stood in my eyes. He was so earnest, so charming. But I remembered
Lady Georgina, and his prospective half-million. I moved his hand away
gently. 'I cannot,' I said. 'I cannot-- I am a penniless girl--an
adventuress. Your family, your uncle, would never forgive you if you
married me. I will not stand in your way. I-- I like you very much,
though I have seen so little of you. But I feel it is impossible--and I
am going to-morrow.'

[Illustration: I ROSE OF A SUDDEN, AND RAN DOWN THE HILL.]

Then I rose of a sudden, and ran down the hill with all my might, lest I
should break my resolve, never stopping once till I reached my own
bedroom.

An hour later, Lady Georgina burst in upon me in high dudgeon. 'Why,
Lois, my child,' she cried. 'What's this? What on earth does it mean?
Harold tells me he has proposed to you--proposed to you--and you've
rejected him!'

I dried my eyes and tried to look steadily at her. 'Yes, Lady Georgina,'
I faltered. 'You need not be afraid. I have refused him; and I mean it.'

She looked at me, all aghast. '_And_ you mean it!' she repeated. 'You
mean to refuse him. Then, all I can say is, Lois Cayley, I call it pure
cheek of you!'

'What?' I cried, drawing back.

'Yes, cheek,' she answered, volubly. 'Forty thousand a year, and a
good old family! Harold Tillington is my nephew; he's an earl's
grandson; he's an _attaché_ at Rome; and he's bound to be one of the
richest commoners in England. Who are you, I'd like to know, miss, that
you dare to reject him?'

I stared at her, amazed. 'But, Lady Georgina,' I cried, 'you said you
wished to protect your nephew against bare-faced adventuresses who were
setting their caps at him.'

She fixed her eyes on me, half-angry, half-tremulous.

'Of course,' she answered, with withering scorn. 'But, _then_, I thought
you were trying to catch him. He tells me now you won't have him, and
you won't tell him where you are going. I call it sheer insolence. Where
do you hail from, girl, that you should refuse my nephew? A man that any
woman in England would be proud to marry! Forty thousand a year, and an
earl's grandson! That's what comes, I suppose, of going to Girton!'

I drew myself up. 'Lady Georgina,' I said, coldly, 'I cannot allow you
to use such language to me. I promised to accompany you to Germany for a
week; and I have kept my word. I like your nephew; I respect your
nephew; he has behaved like a gentleman. But I will _not_ marry him.
Your own conduct showed me in the plainest way that you did not judge
such a match desirable for him; and I have common sense enough to see
that you were quite right. I am a lady by birth and education; I am an
officer's daughter; but I am not what society calls "a good match" for
Mr. Tillington. He had better marry into a rich stockbroker's family.'

It was an unworthy taunt: the moment it escaped my lips I regretted it.

[Illustration: I WAS GOING TO OPPOSE YOU AND HAROLD.]

To my intense surprise, however, Lady Georgina flung herself on my bed,
and burst into tears. 'My dear,' she sobbed out, covering her face with
her hands, 'I thought you would be sure to set your cap at Harold; and
after I had seen you for twenty-four hours, I said to myself, "That's
just the sort of girl Harold ought to fall in love with." I felt sure he
would fall in love with you. I brought you here on purpose. I saw you
had all the qualities that would strike Harold's fancy. So I had made up
my mind for a delightful regulation family quarrel. I was going to
oppose you and Harold, tooth and nail; I was going to threaten that
Marmy would leave his money to Kynaston's eldest son; I was going to
kick up, oh, a dickens of a row about it! Then, of course, in the end,
we should all have been reconciled; we should have kissed and made
friends: for you're just the one girl in the world for Harold; indeed, I
never met anybody so capable and so intelligent. And now you spoil all
my sport by going and refusing him! It's really most ill-timed of you.
And Harold has sent me here--he's trembling with anxiety--to see whether
I can't induce you to think better of your decision.'

I made up my mind at once. 'No, Lady Georgina,' I said, in my gentlest
voice--positively stooping down and kissing her. 'I like Mr. Tillington
very much. I dare not tell you how much I like him. He is a dear, good,
kind fellow. But I cannot rest under the cruel imputation of being moved
by his wealth and having tried to capture him. Even if _you_ didn't
think so, his family would. I am sorry to go; for in a way I like you.
But it is best to adhere to our original plan. If _I_ changed my mind,
_you_ might change yours again. Let us say no more. I will go
to-morrow.'

'But you will see Harold again?'

'Not alone. Only at dinner.' For I feared lest, if he spoke to me alone,
he might over-persuade me.

'Then at least you will tell him where you are going?'

'No, Lady Georgina; I do not know myself. And besides, it is best that
this should now be final.'

She flung herself upon me. 'But, my dear child, a lady can't go out into
the world with only two pounds in pocket. You _must_ let me lend you
something.'

I unwound her clasping hands. 'No, dear Lady Georgina,' I said, though I
was loth to say it. 'You are very sweet and good, but I must work out my
life in my own way. I have started to work it out, and I won't be turned
aside just here on the threshold.'

'And you won't stop with me?' she cried, opening her arms. 'You think me
too cantankerous?'

'I think you have a dear, kind old heart,' I said, 'under the quaintest
and crustiest outside such a heart ever wore; you're a truculent old
darling: so that's the plain truth of it.'

She kissed me. I kissed her in return with fervour, though I am but a
poor hand at kissing, for a woman. 'So now this episode is concluded,' I
murmured.

'I don't know about that,' she said, drying her eyes. 'I have set my
heart upon you now; and Harold has set his heart upon you; and
considering that your own heart goes much the same way, I daresay, my
dear, we shall find in the end some convenient road out of it.'

Nevertheless, next morning I set out by myself in the coach from
Schlangenbad. I went forth into the world to live my own life, partly
because it was just then so fashionable, but mainly because fate had
denied me the chance of living anybody else's.




III

THE ADVENTURE OF THE INQUISITIVE AMERICAN


In one week I had multiplied my capital two hundred and forty-fold! I
left London with twopence in the world; I quitted Schlangenbad with two
pounds in pocket.

'There's a splendid turn-over!' I thought to myself. 'If this luck
holds, at the same rate, I shall have made four hundred and eighty
pounds by Tuesday next, and I may look forward to being a Barney Barnato
by Christmas.' For I had taken high mathematical honours at Cambridge,
and if there is anything on earth on which I pride myself, it is my firm
grasp of the principle of ratios.

Still, in spite of this brilliant financial prospect, a budding
Klondike, I went away from the little Spa on the flanks of the Taunus
with a heavy heart. I had grown quite to like dear, virulent, fidgety
old Lady Georgina; and I felt that it had cost me a distinct wrench to
part with Harold Tillington. The wrench left a scar which was long in
healing; but as I am not a professional sentimentalist, I will not
trouble you here with details of the symptoms.

My livelihood, however, was now assured me. With two pounds in pocket, a
sensible girl can read her title clear to six days' board and lodging,
at six marks a day, with a glorious margin of four marks over for
pocket-money. And if at the end of six days my fairy godmother had not
pointed me out some other means of earning my bread honestly--well, I
should feel myself unworthy to be ranked in the noble army of
adventuresses. I thank thee, Lady Georgina, for teaching me that word.
An adventuress I would be; for I loved adventure.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me that I might fill up the interval by going
to study art at Frankfort. Elsie Petheridge had been there, and had
impressed upon me the fact that I must on no account omit to see the
Städel Gallery. She was strong on culture. Besides, the study of art
should be most useful to an adventuress; for she must need all the arts
that human skill has developed.

So to Frankfort I betook myself, and found there a nice little
_pension_--'for ladies only,' Frau Bockenheifner assured me--at very
moderate rates, in a pleasant part of the Lindenstrasse. It had dimity
curtains. I will not deny that as I entered the house I was conscious of
feeling lonely; my heart sank once or twice as I glanced round the
luncheon-table at the domestically-unsympathetic German old maids who
formed the rank-and-file of my fellow-boarders. There they sat--eight
comfortable Fraus who had missed their vocation; plentiful ladies,
bulging and surging in tightly stretched black silk bodices. They had
been cut out for such housewives as Harold Tillington had described, but
found themselves deprived of their natural sphere in life by the
unaccountable caprice of the men of their nation. Each was a model
Teutonic matron _manquée_. Each looked capable of frying Frankfort
sausages to a turn, and knitting woollen socks to a remote eternity. But
I sought in vain for one kindred soul among them. How horrified they
would have been, with their fat pudding-faces and big saucer-eyes, had I
boldly announced myself as an English adventuress!

I spent my first morning in laborious self-education at the Ariadneum
and the Städel Gallery. I borrowed a catalogue. I wrestled with Van der
Weyden; I toiled like a galley-slave at Meister Wilhelm and Meister
Stephan. I have a confused recollection that I saw a number of stiff
mediæval pictures, and an alabaster statue of the lady who smiled as she
rode on a tiger, taken at the beginning of that interesting episode. But
the remainder of the Institute has faded from my memory.

In the afternoon I consoled myself for my herculean efforts in the
direction of culture by going out for a bicycle ride on a hired machine,
to which end I decided to devote my pocket-money. You will, perhaps,
object here that my conduct was imprudent. To raise that objection is to
misunderstand the spirit of these artless adventures. I told you that I
set out to go round the world; but to go round the world does not
necessarily mean to circumnavigate it. My idea was to go round by easy
stages, seeing the world as I went as far as I got, and taking as little
heed as possible of the morrow. Most of my readers, no doubt, accept
that philosophy of life on Sundays only; on week-days they swallow the
usual contradictory economic platitudes about prudential forethought and
the horrid improvidence of the lower classes. For myself, I am not built
that way. I prefer to take life in a spirit of pure inquiry. I put on my
hat: I saunter where I choose, so far as circumstances permit; and I
wait to see what chance will bring me. My ideal is breeziness.

The hired bicycle was not a bad machine, as hired bicycles go; it jolted
one as little as you can expect from a common hack; it never stopped at
a Bier-Garten; and it showed very few signs of having been ridden by
beginners with an unconquerable desire to tilt at the hedgerow. So off
I soared at once, heedless of the jeers of Teutonic youth who found the
sight of a lady riding a cycle in skirts a strange one--for in South
Germany the 'rational' costume is so universal among women cyclists that
'tis the skirt that provokes unfavourable comment from those jealous
guardians of female propriety, the street boys. I hurried on at a brisk
pace past the Palm-Garden and the suburbs, with my loose hair straying
on the breeze behind, till I found myself pedalling at a good round pace
on a broad, level road, which led towards a village, by name Fraunheim.

As I scurried across the plain, with the wind in my face, not
unpleasantly, I had some dim consciousness of somebody unknown flying
after me headlong. My first idea was that Harold Tillington had hunted
me down and tracked me to my lair; but gazing back, I saw my pursuer was
a tall and ungainly man, with a straw-coloured moustache, apparently
American, and that he was following me on his machine, closely watching
my action. He had such a cunning expression on his face, and seemed so
strangely inquisitive, with eyes riveted on my treadles, that I didn't
quite like the look of him. I put on the pace, to see if I could
outstrip him, for I am a swift cyclist. But his long legs were too much
for me. He did not gain on me, it is true; but neither did I outpace
him. Pedalling my very hardest--and I can make good time when
necessary--I still kept pretty much at the same distance in front of him
all the way to Fraunheim.

[Illustration: HE KEPT CLOSE AT MY HEELS.]

Gradually I began to feel sure that the weedy-looking man with the alert
face was really pursuing me. When I went faster, he went faster too;
when I gave him a chance to pass me, he kept close at my heels, and
appeared to be keenly watching the style of my ankle-action. I gathered
that he was a connoisseur; but why on earth he should persecute me I
could not imagine. My spirit was roused now-- I pedalled with a will; if
I rode all day I would not let him go past me.

Beyond the cobble-paved chief street of Fraunheim the road took a sharp
bend, and began to mount the slopes of the Taunus suddenly. It was an
abrupt, steep climb; but I flatter myself I am a tolerable mountain
cyclist. I rode sturdily on; my pursuer darted after me. But on this
stiff upward grade my light weight and agile ankle-action told; I began
to distance him. He seemed afraid that I would give him the slip, and
called out suddenly, with a whoop, in English, 'Stop, miss!' I looked
back with dignity, but answered nothing. He put on the pace, panting; I
pedalled away, and got clear from him.

[Illustration: I WAS PULLED UP SHORT BY A MOUNTED POLICEMAN.]

At a turn of the corner, however, as luck would have it, I was pulled up
short by a mounted policeman. He blocked the road with his horse, like
an ogre, and asked me, in a very gruff Swabian voice, if this was a
licensed bicycle. I had no idea, till he spoke, that any license was
required; though to be sure I might have guessed it; for modern Germany
is studded with notices at all the street corners, to inform you in
minute detail that everything is forbidden. I stammered out that I did
not know. The mounted policeman drew near and inspected me rudely. 'It
is strongly undersaid,' he began, but just at that moment my pursuer
came up, and, with American quickness, took in the situation. He
accosted the policeman in choice bad German. 'I have two licenses,' he
said, producing a handful. 'The Fräulein rides with me.'

I was too much taken aback at so providential an interposition to
contradict this highly imaginative statement. My highwayman had turned
into a protecting knight-errant of injured innocence. I let the
policeman go his way; then I glanced at my preserver. A very ordinary
modern St. George he looked, with no lance to speak of, and no steed but
a bicycle. Yet his mien was reassuring.

'Good morning, miss,' he began--he called me 'Miss' every time he
addressed me, as though he took me for a barmaid. 'Ex-cuse _me_, but why
did you want to speed her?'

'I thought you were pursuing me,' I answered, a little tremulous, I will
confess, but avid of incident.

'And if I was,' he went on, 'you might have con-jectured, miss, it was
for our mutual advantage. A business man don't go out of his way unless
he expects to turn an honest dollar; and he don't reckon on other folks
going out of theirs, unless he knows he can put them in the way of
turning an honest dollar with him.'

'That's reasonable,' I answered: for I am a political economist. 'The
benefit should be mutual.' But I wondered if he was going to propose at
sight to me.

He looked me all up and down. 'You're a lady of con-siderable personal
attractions,' he said, musingly, as if he were criticising a horse; 'and
I want one that sort. That's jest why I trailed you, see? Besides which,
there's some style about you.'

'Style!' I repeated.

'Yes,' he went on; 'you know how to use your feet; and you have good
understandings.'

I gathered from his glance that he referred to my nether limbs. We are
all vertebrate animals; why seek to conceal the fact?

'I fail to follow you,' I answered frigidly; for I really didn't know
what the man might say next.

[Illustration: SEEMS I DIDN'T MAKE MUCH OF A JOB OF IT.]

'That's so!' he replied. 'It was _I_ that followed _you_; seems I didn't
make much of a job of it, either, anyway.'

I mounted my machine again. 'Well, good morning,' I said, coldy. 'I am
much obliged for your kind assistance; but your remark was fictitious,
and I desire to go on unaccompanied.'

He held up his hand in warning. 'You ain't going!' he cried, horrified.
'You ain't going without hearing me! I mean business, say! Don't chuck
away good money like that. I tell you, there's dollars in it.'

'In what?' I asked, still moving on, but curious. On the slope, if need
were, I could easily distance him.

'Why, in this cycling of yours,' he replied. 'You're jest about the very
woman I'm looking for, miss. Lithe--that's what I call you. I kin put
you in the way of making your pile, I kin. This is a _bonâ-fide_ offer.
No flies on _my_ business! You decline it? Prejudice! Injures you;
injures me! Be reasonable anyway!'

I looked round and laughed. 'Formulate yourself,' I said, briefly.

He rose to it like a man. 'Meet me at Fraunheim; corner by the Post
Office; ten o'clock to-morrow morning,' he shouted, as I rode off, 'and
ef I don't convince you there's money in this job, my name's not Cyrus
W. Hitchcock.'

Something about his keen, unlovely face impressed me with a sense of his
underlying honesty. 'Very well,' I answered,'I'll come, if you follow me
no further.' I reflected that Fraunheim was a populous village, and that
only beyond it did the mountain road over the Taunus begin to grow
lonely. If he wished to cut my throat, I was well within reach of the
resources of civilisation.

When I got home to the Abode of Blighted Fraus that evening, I debated
seriously with myself whether or not I should accept Mr. Cyrus W.
Hitchcock's mysterious invitation. Prudence said _no_; curiosity said
_yes_; I put the question to a meeting of one; and, since I am a
daughter of Eve, curiosity had it. Carried unanimously. I think I might
have hesitated, indeed, had it not been for the Blighted Fraus. Their
talk was of dinner and of the digestive process; they were critics of
digestion. They each of them sat so complacently through the
evening--solid and stolid, stodgy and podgy, stuffed comatose images,
knitting white woollen shawls, to throw over their capacious shoulders
at _table d'hôte_--and they purred with such content in their
middle-aged rotundity that I made up my mind I must take warning
betimes, and avoid their temptations to adipose deposit. I prefer to
grow upwards; the Frau grows sideways. Better get my throat cut by an
American desperado, in my pursuit of romance, than settle down on a rock
like a placid fat oyster. I am not by nature sessile.

Adventures are to the adventurous. They abound on every side; but only
the chosen few have the courage to embrace them. And they will not come
to you: you must go out to seek them. Then they meet you half-way, and
rush into your arms, for they know their true lovers. There were eight
Blighted Fraus at the Home for Lost Ideals, and I could tell by simple
inspection that they had not had an average of half an adventure per
lifetime between them. They sat and knitted still, like Awful Examples.

If I had declined to meet Mr. Hitchcock at Fraunheim, I know not what
changes it might have induced in my life. I might now be knitting. But I
went boldly forth, on a voyage of exploration, prepared to accept aught
that fate held in store for me.

As Mr. Hitchcock had assured me there was money in his offer, I felt
justified in speculating. I expended another three marks on the hire of
a bicycle, though I ran the risk thereby of going perhaps without
Monday's dinner. That showed my vocation. The Blighted Fraus, I felt
sure, would have clung to their dinner at all hazards.

When I arrived at Fraunheim, I found my alert American punctually there
before me. He raised his crush hat with awkward politeness. I could see
he was little accustomed to ladies' society. Then he pointed to a close
cab in which he had reached the village.

'I've got it inside,' he whispered, in a confidential tone. 'I couldn't
let 'em ketch sight of it. You see, there's dollars in it.'

'What have you got inside?' I asked, suspiciously, drawing back. I don't
know why, but the word 'it' somehow suggested a corpse. I began to grow
frightened.

'Why, the wheel, of course,' he answered. 'Ain't you come here to ride
it?'

'Oh, the wheel?' I echoed, vaguely, pretending to look wise; but
unaware, as yet, that that word was the accepted Americanism for a
cycle. 'And I have come to ride it?'

'Why, certainly,' he replied, jerking his hand towards the cab. 'But we
mustn't start right here. This thing has got to be kept dark, don't you
see, till the last day.'

Till the last day! That was ominous. It sounded like monomania. So
ghostly and elusive! I began to suspect my American ally of being a
dangerous madman.

'Jest you wheel away a bit up the hill,' he went on, 'out o' sight of
the folks, and I'll fetch her along to you.'

'Her?' I cried. 'Who?' For the man bewildered me.

'Why, the wheel, miss! _You_ understand! This is business, you bet! And
you're jest the right woman!'

He motioned me on. Urged by a sort of spell, I remounted my machine and
rode out of the village. He followed, on the box-seat of his cab. Then,
when we had left the world well behind, and stood among the sun-smitten
boles of the pine-trees, he opened the door mysteriously, and produced
from the vehicle a very odd-looking bicycle.

It was clumsy to look at. It differed immensely, in many particulars,
from any machine I had yet seen or ridden.

The strenuous American fondled it for a moment with his hand, as if it
were a pet child. Then he mounted nimbly. Pride shone in his eye. I saw
in a second he was a fond inventor.

He rode a few yards on. Next he turned to me eagerly. 'This ma-chine,'
he said, in an impressive voice, '_is_ pro-pelled _by_ an eccentric.'
Like all his countrymen, he laid most stress on unaccented syllables.

'Oh, I knew you were an eccentric,' I said, 'the moment I set eyes upon
you.'

He surveyed me gravely. 'You misunderstand me, miss,' he corrected.
'_When_ I say an eccentric, I mean, a crank.'

'They are much the same thing,' I answered, briskly. 'Though I confess I
would hardly have applied so rude a word as _crank_ to you.'

He looked me over suspiciously, as if I were trying to make game of him,
but my face was sphinx-like. So he brought the machine a yard or two
nearer, and explained its construction to me. He was quite right: it
_was_ driven by a crank. It had no chain, but was moved by a pedal,
working narrowly up and down, and attached to a rigid bar, which
impelled the wheels by means of an eccentric.

Besides this, it had a curious device for altering the gearing
automatically while one rode, so as to enable one to adapt it to the
varying slope in mounting hills. This part of the mechanism he explained
to me elaborately. There was a gauge in front which allowed one to sight
the steepness of the slope by mere inspection; and according as the
gauge marked one, two, three, or four, as its gradient on the scale,
the rider pressed a button on the handle-bar with his left hand once,
twice, thrice, or four times, so that the gearing adapted itself without
an effort to the rise in the surface. Besides, there were devices for
rigidity and compensation. Altogether, it was a most apt and ingenious
piece of mechanism. I did not wonder he was proud of it.

'Get up and ride, miss,' he said in a persuasive voice.

I did as I was bid. To my immense surprise, I ran up the steep hill as
smoothly and easily as if it were a perfectly-laid level.

'Goes nicely, doesn't she?' Mr. Hitchcock murmured, rubbing his hands.

'Beautifully,' I answered. 'One could ride such a machine up Mont Blanc,
I should fancy.'

He stroked his chin with nervous fingers. 'It ought to knock 'em,' he
said, in an eager voice. 'It's geared to run up most anything in
creation.'

'How steep?'

'One foot in three.'

'That's good.'

'Yes. It'll climb Mount Washington.'

'What do you call it?' I asked.

He looked me over with close scrutiny.

'In Amurrica,' he said, slowly, 'we call it the Great Manitou, because
it kin do pretty well what it chooses; but in Europe, I am thinking of
calling it the Martin Conway or the Whymper, or something like that.'

'Why so?'

'Well, because it's a famous mountain climber.'

'I see,' I said. 'With such a machine you'll put a notice on the
Matterhorn, "This hill is dangerous to cyclists."'

He laughed low to himself, and rubbed his hands again. 'You'll do,
miss,' he said. 'You're the right sort, you are. The moment I seen you,
I thought we two could do a trade together. Benefits me; benefits you. A
mutual advantage. Reciprocity is the soul of business. You hev some go
in you, you hev. There's money in your feet. You'll give these Meinherrs
fits. You'll take the clear-starch out of them.'

'I fail to catch on,' I answered, speaking his own dialect to humour
him.

'Oh, you'll get there all the same,' he replied, stroking his machine
meanwhile. 'It was a squirrel, it was!' (He pronounced it _squirl_.) 'It
'ud run up a tree ef it wanted, wouldn't it?' He was talking to it now
as if it were a dog or a baby. 'There, there, it mustn't kick; it was a
frisky little thing! Jest you step up on it, miss, and have a go at that
there mountain.'

I stepped up and had a 'go.' The machine bounded forward like an agile
greyhound. You had but to touch it, and it ran of itself. Never had I
ridden so vivacious, so animated a cycle. I returned to him, sailing,
with the gradient reversed. The Manitou glided smoothly, as on a gentle
slope, without the need for back-pedalling.

'It soars!' he remarked with enthusiasm.

'Balloons are at discount beside it,' I answered.

'Now you want to know about this business, I guess,' he went on. 'You
want to know jest where the reciprocity comes in, anyhow?'

'I am ready to hear you expound,' I admitted, smiling.

'Oh, it ain't all on one side,' he continued, eyeing his machine at an
angle with parental affection. 'I'm a-going to make your fortune right
here. You shall ride her for me on the last day; and ef you pull this
thing off, don't you be scared that I won't treat you handsome.'

'If you were a little more succinct,' I said, gravely, 'we should get
forrader faster.'

'Perhaps you wonder,' he put in, 'that with money on it like this, I
should intrust the job _into_ the hands of a female.' I winced, but was
silent. 'Well, it's like this, don't you see; ef a female wins, it makes
success all the more striking and con-spicuous. The world to-day _is_
ruled _by_ adver_tize_ment.'

I could stand it no longer. 'Mr. Hitchcock,' I said, with dignity, 'I
haven't the remotest idea what on earth you are talking about.'

He gazed at me with surprise. 'What?' he exclaimed, at last. 'And you
kin cycle like that! Not know what all the cycling world is mad about!
Why, you don't mean to tell me you're not a pro-fessional?'

I enlightened him at once as to my position in society, which was
respectable, if not lucrative. His face fell somewhat. 'High-toned, eh?
Still, you'd run all the same, wouldn't you?' he inquired.

'Run for what?' I asked, innocently. 'Parliament? The Presidency? The
Frankfort Town Council?'

He had difficulty in fathoming the depths of my ignorance. But by
degrees I understood him. It seemed that the German Imperial and
Prussian Royal Governments had offered a Kaiserly and Kingly prize for
the best military bicycle; the course to be run over the Taunus, from
Frankfort to Limburg; the winning machine to get the equivalent of a
thousand pounds; each firm to supply its own make and rider. The 'last
day' was Saturday next; and the Great Manitou was the dark horse of the
contest.

Then all was clear as day to me. Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock was keeping his
machine a profound secret; he wanted a woman to ride it, so that his
triumph might be the more complete; and the moment he saw me pedal up
the hill, in trying to avoid him, he recognised at once that I was that
woman.

I recognised it too. 'Twas a pre-ordained harmony. After two or three
trials I felt that the Manitou was built for me, and I was built for the
Manitou. We ran together like parts of one mechanism. I was always famed
for my circular ankle-action; and in this new machine, ankle-action was
everything. Strength of limb counted for naught; what told was the power
of 'clawing up again' promptly. I possess that power: I have prehistoric
feet: my remote progenitors must certainly have been tree-haunting
monkeys.

We arranged terms then and there.

'You accept?'

'Implicitly.'

If I pulled off the race, I was to have fifty pounds. If I didn't, I was
to have five. 'It ain't only your skill, you see,' Mr. Hitchcock said,
with frank commercialism. 'It's your personal attractiveness as well
that I go upon. That's an element to consider in business relations.'

'My face is my fortune,' I answered, gravely. He nodded acquiescence.

Till Saturday, then, I was free. Meanwhile, I trained, and practised
quietly with the Manitou, in sequestered parts of the hills. I also took
spells, turn about, at the Städel Institute. I like to intersperse
culture and athletics. I know something about athletics, and hope in
time to acquire a taste for culture. 'Tis expected of a Girton girl,
though my own accomplishments run rather towards rowing, punting,
bicycling.

On Saturday, I confess, I rose with great misgivings. I was not a
professional; and to find oneself practically backed for a thousand
pounds in a race against men is a trifle disquieting. Still, having
once put my hand to the plough, I felt I was bound to pull it through
somehow. I dressed my hair neatly, in a very tight coil. I ate a light
breakfast, eschewing the fried sausages which the Blighted Fraus pressed
upon my notice, and satisfying myself with a gently-boiled egg and some
toast and coffee. I always found I rowed best at Cambridge on the
lightest diet; in my opinion, the raw beef _régime_ is a serious error
in training.

At a minute or two before eleven I turned up at the Schiller Platz in my
short serge dress and cycling jacket. The great square was thronged with
spectators to see us start; the police made a lane through their midst
for the riders. My backer had advised me to come to the post as late as
possible, 'For I have entered your name,' he said, 'simply as Lois
Cayley. These Deutschers don't think but what you're a man and a
brother. But I am apprehensive of con-tingencies. When you put in a show
they'll try to raise objections to you on account of your being a
female. There won't be much time, though, and I shall rush the
objections. Once they let you run and win, it don't matter to me whether
I get the twenty thousand marks or not. It's the adver_tize_ment that
tells. Jest you mark my words, miss, and don't you make no mistake about
it--the world to-day is governed by adver_tize_ment.'

So I turned up at the last moment, and cast a timid glance at my
competitors. They were all men, of course, and two of them were German
officers in a sort of undress cycling uniform. They eyed me
superciliously. One of them went up and spoke to the Herr
Over-Superintendent who had charge of the contest. I understood him to
be lodging an objection against a mere woman taking part in the race.
The Herr Over-Superintendent, a bulky official, came up beside me and
perpended visibly. He bent his big brows to it. 'Twas appalling to
observe the measurable amount of Teutonic cerebration going on under
cover of his round, green glasses. He was perpending for some minutes.
Time was almost up. Then he turned to Mr. Hitchcock, having finally made
up his colossal mind, and murmured rudely, 'The woman cannot compete.'

'Why not?' I inquired, in my very sweetest German, with an angelic
smile, though my heart trembled.

'Warum nicht? Because the word "rider" in the Kaiserly and Kingly
for-this-contest-provided decree is distinctly in the masculine gender
stated.'

'Pardon me, Herr Over-Superintendent,' I replied, pulling out a copy of
Law 97 on the subject, with which I had duly provided myself, 'if you
will to Section 45 of the Bicycles-Circulation-Regulation-Act your
attention turn, you will find it therein expressly enacted that unless
any clause be anywhere to the contrary inserted, the word "rider," in
the masculine gender put, shall here the word "rideress" in the feminine
to embrace be considered.'

For, anticipating this objection, I had taken the precaution to look the
legal question up beforehand.

'That is true,' the Herr Over-Superintendent observed, in a musing
voice, gazing down at me with relenting eyes. 'The masculine habitually
embraces the feminine.' And he brought his massive intellect to bear
upon the problem once more with prodigious concentration.

I seized my opportunity. 'Let me start, at least,' I urged, holding out
the Act. 'If I win, you can the matter more fully with the Kaiserly and
Kingly Governments hereafter argue out.'

'I guess this will be an international affair,' Mr. Hitchcock remarked,
well pleased. 'It would be a first-rate adver_tize_ment for the Great
Manitou ef England and Germany were to make the question into a _casus
belli_. The United States could look on, and pocket the chestnuts.'

'Two minutes to go,' the official starter with the watch called out.

'Fall in, then, Fräulein Engländerin,' the Herr Over-Superintendent
observed, without prejudice, waving me into line. He pinned a badge with
a large number, 7, on my dress. 'The Kaiserly and Kingly Governments
shall on the affair of the starting's legality hereafter on my report
more at leisure pass judgment.'

The lieutenant in undress uniform drew back a little.

'Oh, if this is to be woman's play,' he muttered, 'then can a Prussian
officer himself by competing not into contempt bring.'

I dropped a little curtsy. 'If the Herr Lieutenant is afraid even to
_enter_ against an Englishwoman----' I said, smiling.

He came up to the scratch sullenly. 'One minute to go!' called out the
starter.

We were all on the alert. There was a pause; a deep breath. I was
horribly frightened, but I tried to look calm. Then sharp and quick came
the one word 'Go!' And like arrows from a bow, off we all started.

I had ridden over the whole course the day but one before, on a mountain
pony, with an observant eye and my sedulous American--rising at five
o'clock, so as not to excite undue attention; and I therefore knew
beforehand the exact route we were to follow; but I confess when I saw
the Prussian lieutenant and one of my other competitors dash forward at
a pace that simply astonished me, that fifty pounds seemed to melt away
in the dim abyss of the Ewigkeit. I gave up all for lost. I could never
make the running against such practised cyclists.

[Illustration: DON'T SCORCH, MISS; DON'T SCORCH.]

However, we all turned out into the open road which leads across the
plain and down the Main valley, in the direction of Mayence. For the
first ten miles or so, it is a dusty level. The surface is perfect; but
'twas a blinding white thread. As I toiled along it, that broiling June
day, I could hear the voice of my backer, who followed on horseback,
exhorting me in loud tones, 'Don't scorch, miss; don't scorch; never
mind ef you lose sight of 'em. Keep your wind; that's the point. The
wind, the wind's everything. Let 'em beat you on the level; you'll catch
'em up fast enough when you get on the Taunus!'

But in spite of his encouragement, I almost lost heart as I saw one
after another of my opponents' backs disappear in the distance, till at
last I was left toiling along the bare white road alone, in a
shower-bath of sunlight, with just a dense cloud of dust rising gray far
ahead of me. My head swam. It repented me of my boldness.

Then the riders on horseback began to grumble; for by police regulation
they were not allowed to pass the hindmost of the cyclists; and they
were kept back by my presence from following up their special champions.
'Give it up, Fräulein, give it up!' they cried. 'You're beaten. Let us
pass and get forward.' But at the self-same moment, I heard the shrill
voice of my American friend whooping aloud across the din, 'Don't you do
nothing of the sort, miss! You stick to it, and keep your wind! It's the
wind that wins! Them Germans won't be worth a cent on the high slopes,
anyway!'

Encouraged by his voice, I worked steadily on, neither scorching nor
relaxing, but maintaining an even pace at my natural pitch under the
broiling sunshine. Heat rose in waves on my face from the road below; in
the thin white dust, the accusing tracks of six wheels confronted me.
Still I kept on following them, till I reached the town of Höchst--nine
miles from Frankfort. Soldiers along the route were timing us at
intervals with chronometers, and noting our numbers. As I rattled over
the paved High Street, I called aloud to one of them. 'How far ahead the
last man?'

He shouted back, good-humouredly: 'Four minutes, Fräulein.'

Again I lost heart. Then I mounted a slight slope, and felt how easily
the Manitou moved up the gradient. From its summit I could note a long
gray cloud of dust rolling steadily onward down the hill towards
Hattersheim.

I coasted down, with my feet up, and a slight breeze just cooling me.
Mr. Hitchcock, behind, called out, full-throated, from his seat, 'No
hurry! No flurry! Take your time! Take--your--time, miss!'

Over the bridge at Hattersheim you turn to the right abruptly, and begin
to mount by the side of a pretty little stream, the Schwarzbach, which
runs brawling over rocks down the Taunus from Eppstein. By this time the
excitement had somewhat cooled down for the moment; I was getting
reconciled to be beaten on the level, and began to realise that my
chances would be best as we approached the steepest bits of the mountain
road about Niederhausen. So I positively plucked up heart to look about
me and enjoy the scenery. With hair flying behind--that coil had played
me false--I swept through Hofheim, a pleasant little village at the
mouth of a grassy valley inclosed by wooded slopes, the Schwarzbach
making cool music in the glen below as I mounted beside it. Clambering
larches, like huge candelabra, stood out on the ridge, silhouetted
against the skyline.

'How far ahead the last man?' I cried to the recording soldier. He
answered me back, 'Two minutes, Fräulein.'

I was gaining on them; I was gaining! I thundered across the
Schwarzbach, by half-a-dozen clamorous little iron bridges, making easy
time now, and with my feet working as if they were themselves an
integral part of the machinery. Up, up, up; it looked a vertical ascent;
the Manitou glided well in its oil-bath at its half-way gearing. I rode
for dear life. At sixteen miles, Lorsbach; at eighteen, Eppstein; the
road still rising. 'How far ahead the last man?' 'Just round the corner,
Fräulein!'

I put on a little steam. Sure enough, round the corner I caught sight of
his back. With a spurt, I passed him--a dust-covered soul, very hot and
uncomfortable. He had not kept his wind; I flew past him like a
whirlwind. But, oh, how sultry hot in that sweltering, close valley! A
pretty little town, Eppstein, with its mediæval castle perched high on a
craggy rock. I owed it some gratitude, I felt, as I left it behind, for
'twas here that I came up with the tail-end of my opponents.

That one victory cheered me. So far, our route had lain along the
well-made but dusty high road in the steaming valley; at Nieder-Josbach,
two miles on, we quitted the road abruptly, by the course marked out for
us, and turned up a mountain path, only wide enough for two cycles
abreast--a path that clambered towards the higher slopes of the Taunus.
That was arranged on purpose--for this was no fair-weather show, but a
practical trial for military bicycles, under the conditions they might
meet with in actual warfare. It was rugged riding: black walls of pine
rose steep on either hand; the ground was uncertain. Our path mounted
sharply from the first; the steeper the better. By the time I had
reached Ober-Josbach, nestling high among larch-woods, I had distanced
all but two of my opponents. It was cooler now, too. As I passed the
hamlet my cry altered.

[Illustration: HOW FAR AHEAD THE FIRST MAN?]

'How far ahead the first man?'.

'Two minutes, Fräulein,'

'A civilian?'

'No, no; a Prussian officer.'

The Herr Lieutenant led, then. For Old England's sake, I felt I must
beat him.

The steepest slope of all lay in the next two miles. If I were going to
win I must pass these two there, for my advantage lay all in the climb;
if it came to coasting, the men's mere weight scored a point in their
favour. Bump, crash, jolt! I pedalled away like a machine; the Manitou
sobbed; my ankles flew round so that I scarcely felt them. But the road
was rough and scarred with waterways--ruts turned by rain to runnels. At
half a mile, after a desperate struggle among sand and pebbles, I passed
the second man; just ahead, the Prussian officer looked round and saw
me. 'Thunder-weather! you there, Engländerin?' he cried, darting me a
look of unchivalrous dislike, such as only your sentimental German can
cast at a woman.

[Illustration: I AM HERE BEHIND YOU, HERR LIEUTENANT.]

'Yes, I am here, behind you, Herr Lieutenant,' I answered, putting on a
spurt; 'and I hope next to be before you.'

He answered not a word, but worked his hardest. So did I. He bent
forward: I sat erect on my Manitou, pulling hard at my handles. Now, my
front wheel was upon him. It reached his pedal. We were abreast. He had
a narrow thread of solid path, and he forced me into a runnel. Still I
gained. He swerved: I think he tried to foul me. But the slope was too
steep; his attempt recoiled on himself; he ran against the rock at the
side and almost overbalanced. That second lost him. I waved my hand as I
sailed ahead. 'Good morning,' I cried, gaily. 'See you again at
Limburg!'

From the top of the slope I put my feet up and flew down into Idstein. A
thunder-shower burst: I was glad of the cool of it. It laid the dust. I
regained the high road. From that moment, save for the risk of
sideslips, 'twas easy running--just an undulating line with occasional
ups and downs; but I saw no more of my pursuers till, twenty-two
kilometres farther on, I rattled on the cobble-paved causeway into
Limburg. I had covered the forty-six miles in quick time for a mountain
climb. As I crossed the bridge over the Lahn, to my immense surprise,
Mr. Hitchcock waved his arms, all excitement, to greet me. He had taken
the train on from Eppstein, it seemed, and got there before me. As I
dismounted at the Cathedral, which was our appointed end, and gave my
badge to the soldier, he rushed up and shook my hand. 'Fifty pounds!' he
cried. 'Fifty pounds! How's that for the great Anglo-Saxon race! And
hooray for the Manitou!'

The second man, the civilian, rode in, wet and draggled, forty seconds
later. As for the Herr Lieutenant, a disappointed man, he fell out by
the way, alleging a puncture. I believe he was ashamed to admit the fact
that he had been beaten in open fight by the objurgated Engländerin.

So the end of it was, I was now a woman of means, with fifty pounds of
my own to my credit.

I lunched with my backer royally at the best inn in Limburg.




IV

THE ADVENTURE OF THE AMATEUR COMMISSION AGENT


My eccentric American had assured me that if I won the great race for
him I need not be 'skeert' lest he should fail to treat me well; and to
do him justice, I must admit that he kept his word magnanimously. While
we sat at lunch in the cosy hotel at Limburg he counted out and paid me
in hand the fifty good gold pieces he had promised me. 'Whether these
Deutschers fork out my twenty thousand marks or not,' he said, in his
brisk way, 'it don't much matter. I shall get the contract, and I shall
hev gotten the adver_tize_ment!'

'Why do you start your bicycles in Germany, though?' I asked,
innocently. 'I should have thought myself there was so much a better
chance of selling them in England.'

[Illustration: LET THEM BOOM OR BUST ON IT.]

He closed one eye, and looked abstractedly at the light through his
glass of pale yellow Brauneberger with the other. 'England? Yes,
England! Well, see, miss, you hev not been raised in business. Business
is business. The way to do it in Germany is--to manufacture for
yourself: and I've got my works started right here in Frankfort. The way
to do it in England--where capital's dirt cheap--is, to sell your patent
for every cent it's worth to an English company, and let them boom or
bust on it.'

'I see,' I said, catching at it. 'The principle's as clear as mud, the
moment you point it out to one. An English company will pay you well for
the concession, and work for a smaller return on its investment than you
Americans are content to receive on your capital!'

'That's so! You hit it in one, miss! Which will you take, a cigar or a
cocoa-nut?'

I smiled. 'And what do you think you will call the machine in Europe?'

He gazed hard at me, and stroked his straw-coloured moustache. 'Well,
what do _you_ think of the _Lois Cayley_?'

'For Heaven's sake, no!' I cried, fervently. 'Mr. Hitchcock, I implore
you!'

He smiled pity for my weakness. 'Ah, high-toned again?' he repeated, as
if it were some natural malformation under which I laboured. 'Oh, ef you
don't like it, miss, we'll say no more about it. I am a gentleman, I am.
What's the matter with the _Excelsior_?'

'Nothing, except that it's very bad Latin,' I objected.

'That may be so; but it's very good business.'

He paused and mused, then he murmured low to himself, '"When through an
Alpine village passed." That's where the idea of the _Excelsior_ comes
in; see? "It goes up Mont Blanc," you said yourself. "Through snow and
ice, A cycle with the strange device, Excelsior!"'

'If I were you,' I said, 'I would stick to the name _Manitou_. It's
original, and it's distinctive.'

'Think so? Then chalk it up; the thing's done. You may not be aware of
it, miss, but you are a lady for whose opinion in such matters I hev a
high regard. _And_ you understand Europe. I do not. I admit it.
Everything seems to me to be _verboten_ in Germany; and everything else
to be _bad form_ in England.'

We walked down the steps together. 'What a picturesque old town!' I
said, looking round me, well pleased. Its beauty appealed to me, for I
had fifty pounds in pocket, and I had lunched sumptuously.

'_Old_ town?' he repeated, gazing with a blank stare. 'You call this
town _old_, do you?'

'Why, of course! Just look at the cathedral! Eight hundred years old, at
least!'

He ran his eye down the streets, dissatisfied.

'Well, ef this town is old,' he said at last, with a snap of his
fingers, 'it's precious little for its age.' And he strode away towards
the railway station.

'What about the bicycle?' I asked; for it lay, a silent victor, against
the railing of the steps, surrounded by a crowd of inquiring Teutons.

He glanced at it carelessly. 'Oh, the wheel?' he said. 'You may keep
it.'

He said it so exactly in the tone in which one tells a waiter he may
keep the change, that I resented the impertinence. 'No, thank you,' I
answered. 'I do not require it.'

He gazed at me, open-mouthed. 'What? Put my foot in it again?' he
interposed. 'Not high-toned enough? Eh? Now, I do regret it. No offence
meant, miss, nor none need be taken. What I meant to in-sinuate was
this: you hev won the big race for me. Folks will notice you and talk
about you at Frankfort. Ef you ride a Manitou, that'll make 'em talk the
more. A mutual advantage. Benefits you; benefits me. You get the wheel;
I get the adver_tize_ment.'

I saw that reciprocity was the lodestar of his life. 'Very well, Mr.
Hitchcock,' I said, pocketing my pride, 'I'll accept the machine, and
I'll ride it.'

Then a light dawned upon me. I saw eventualities. 'Look here,' I went
on, innocently--recollect, I was a girl just fresh from Girton--'I am
thinking of going on very soon to Switzerland. Now, why shouldn't I do
this--try to sell your machines, or, rather, take orders for them, from
anybody that admires them? A mutual advantage. Benefits you; benefits
me. You sell your wheels; I get----'

He stared at me. 'The commission?'

'I don't know what commission means,' I answered, somewhat at sea as to
the name; 'but I thought it might be worth your while, till the Manitou
becomes better known, to pay me, say, ten per cent on all orders I
brought you.'

His face was one broad smile. 'I do admire at you, miss,' he cried,
standing still to inspect me. 'You may not know the meaning of the
_word_ commission; but durned ef you haven't got a hang of the _thing_
itself that would do honour to a Wall Street operator, anyway.'

'Then that's business?' I asked, eagerly; for I beheld vistas.

'Business?' he repeated. 'Yes, that's jest about the size of
it--business. Adver_tize_ment, miss, may be the soul of commerce, but
Commission's its body. You go in and win. Ten per cent on every order
you send me!'

He insisted on taking my ticket back to Frankfort. 'My affair, miss; my
affair!' There was no gainsaying him. He was immensely elated. 'The
biggest thing in cycles since Dunlop tyres,' he repeated. 'And
to-morrow, they'll give me advertizements gratis in every newspaper!'

Next morning, he came round to call on me at the Abode of Unclaimed
Domestic Angels. He was explicit and generous. 'Look here, miss,' he
began; 'I didn't do fair by you when you interviewed me about your
agency last evening. I took advantage, _at_ the time, _of_ your youth
and inexperience. You suggested 10 per cent _as_ the amount of your
commission on sales you might effect; and I jumped at it. That was
conduct unworthy _of_ a gentleman. Now, I will not deceive you. The
ordinary commission on transactions in wheels is 25 per cent. I am going
to sell the Manitou retail at twenty English pounds apiece. You shall
hev your 25 per cent on all orders.'

'Five pounds for every machine I sell?' I exclaimed, overjoyed.

He nodded. 'That's so.'

I was simply amazed at this magnificent prospect. 'The cycle trade must
be honeycombed with middlemen's profits!' I cried; for I had my
misgivings.

'That's so,' he replied again. 'Then jest you take and be a
middlewoman.'

'But, as a consistent socialist----'

'It is your duty to fleece the capitalist and the consumer. A mutual
benefit--triangular this time. I get the order, the public gets the
machine, and you get the commission. I am richer, you are richer, and
the public is mounted on much the best wheel ever yet invented.'

'That sounds plausible,' I admitted. 'I shall try it on in Switzerland.
I shall run up steep hills whenever I see any likely customers looking
on; then I shall stop and ask them the time, as if quite accidentally.'

He rubbed his hands. 'You take to business like a young duck to the
water,' he exclaimed, admiringly. 'That's the way to rake 'em in! You go
up and say to them, "Why not investigate? We defy competition. Leave the
drudgery of walking uphill beside your cycle! Progress is the order of
the day. Use modern methods! This is the age of the telegraph, the
telephone, _and_ the typewriter. You kin no longer afford to go on with
an antiquated, ante-diluvian, armour-plated wheel. Invest in a
Hill-Climber, the last and lightest product of evvolootion. _Is_ it
common-sense to buy an old-style, unautomatic, single-geared,
inconvertible ten-ton machine, when for the same money or less you can
purchase the self-acting Manitou, a priceless gem, as light as a
feather, with all the most recent additions and improvements? Be
reasonable! Get the best!" That's the style to fetch 'em!'

I laughed, in spite of myself. 'Oh, Mr. Hitchcock,' I burst out, 'that's
not _my_ style at all. I shall say, simply "This is a lovely new
bicycle. You can see for yourself how it climbs hills. Try it, if you
wish. It skims like a swallow. And I get what they call five pounds
commission on every one I can sell of them!" I think that way of dealing
is much more likely to bring you in orders.'

His admiration was undisguised. 'Well, I _do_ call you a woman of
business, miss,' he cried. 'You see it at a glance. That's so. That's
the right kind of thing to rope in the Europeans. Some originality about
you. You take 'em on their own ground. You've got the draw on them, you
hev. I like your system. You'll jest haul in the dollars!'

'I hope so,' I said, fervently; for I had evolved in my own mind, oh,
such a _lovely_ scheme for Elsie Petheridge's holidays!

He gazed at me once more. 'Ef only I could get hold of a woman of
business like you to soar through life with me,' he murmured.

[Illustration: HIS OPEN ADMIRATION WAS GETTING QUITE EMBARRASSING.]

I grew interested in my shoes. His open admiration was getting quite
embarrassing.

He paused a minute. Then he went on: 'Well, what do you say to it?'

'To what?' I asked, amazed.

'To my proposition--my offer.'

'I-- I don't understand,' I stammered out bewildered. 'The 25 per cent,
you mean?'

'No, the de-votion of a lifetime,' he answered, looking sideways at me.
'Miss Cayley, when a business man advances a proposition, commercial or
otherwise, he advances it because he means it. He asks a prompt reply.
Your time is valuable. So is mine. _Are_ you prepared to consider it?'

'Mr. Hitchcock,' I said, drawing back, 'I think you misunderstand. I
think you do not realise----'

'All right, miss,' he answered, promptly, though with a disappointed
air. 'Ef it kin not be managed, it kin not be managed. I understand your
European ex-clusiveness. I know your prejudices. But this little episode
need not antagonise with the normal course of ordinary business. I
respect you, Miss Cayley. You are a lady _of_ intelligence, _of_
initiative, and _of_ high-toned culture. I will wish you good day for
the present, without further words; and I shall be happy at any time to
receive your orders on the usual commission.'

He backed out and was gone. He was so honestly blunt that I really quite
liked him.

Next day, I bade a tearless farewell to the Blighted Fraus. When I told
those eight phlegmatic souls I was going, they all said 'So!' much as
they had said 'So!' to every previous remark I had been moved to make
to them. 'So' is capital garnishing: but viewed as a staple of
conversation, I find it a trifle vapid, not to say monotonous.

I set out on my wanderings, therefore, to go round the world on my own
account and my own Manitou, which last I grew to love in time with a
love passing the love of Mr. Cyrus Hitchcock. I carried the strict
necessary before me in a small waterproof bicycling valise; but I sent
on the portmanteau containing my whole estate, real or personal, to some
point in advance which I hoped to reach from time to time in a day or
two. My first day's journey was along a pleasant road from Frankfort to
Heidelberg, some fifty-four miles in all, skirting the mountains the
greater part of the way; the Manitou took the ups and downs so easily
that I diverged at intervals, to choose side-paths over the wooded
hills. I arrived at Heidelberg as fresh as a daisy, my mount not having
turned a hair meanwhile--a favourite expression of cyclists which
carries all the more conviction to an impartial mind because of the
machine being obviously hairless. Thence I journeyed on by easy stages
to Karlsruhe, Baden, Appenweier, and Offenburg; where I set my front
wheel resolutely for the Black Forest. It is the prettiest and most
picturesque route to Switzerland; and, being also the hilliest, it would
afford me, I thought, the best opportunity for showing off the Manitou's
paces, and trying my prentice hand as an amateur cycle-agent.

From the quaint little Black Eagle at Offenburg, however, before I
dashed into the Forest, I sent off a letter to Elsie Petheridge, setting
forth my lovely scheme for her summer holidays. She was delicate, poor
child, and the London winters sorely tried her; I was now a millionaire,
with the better part of fifty pounds in pocket, so I felt I could afford
to be royal in my hospitality. As I was leaving Frankfort, I had called
at a tourist agency and bought a second-class circular ticket from
London to Lucerne and back-- I made it second-class because I am opposed
on principle to excessive luxury, and also because it was three guineas
cheaper. Even fifty pounds will not last for ever, though I could scarce
believe it. (You see, I am not wholly free, after all, from the
besetting British vice of prudence.) It was a mighty joy to me to be
able to send this ticket to Elsie, at her lodgings in Bayswater,
pointing out to her that now the whole mischief was done, and that if
she would not come out as soon as her summer vacation began--'twas a
point of honour with Elsie to say _vacation_, instead of _holidays_--to
join me at Lucerne, and stop with me as my guest at a mountain
_pension_, the ticket would be wasted. I love burning my boats; 'tis the
only safe way for securing prompt action.

Then I turned my flying wheels up into the Black Forest, growing weary
of my loneliness--for it is not all jam to ride by oneself in
Germany--and longing for Elsie to come out and join me. I loved to think
how her dear pale cheeks would gain colour and tone on the hills about
the Brünig, where, for business reasons (so I said to myself with the
conscious pride of the commission agent), I proposed to pass the greater
part of the summer.

From Offenburg to Hornberg the road makes a good stiff climb of
twenty-seven miles, and some 1200 English feet in altitude, with a fair
number of minor undulations on the way to diversify it. I will not
describe the route, though it is one of the most beautiful I have ever
travelled--rocky hills, ruined castles, huge, straight-stemmed pines
that clamber up green slopes, or halt in sombre line against steeps of
broken crag; the reality surpasses my poor powers of description. And
the people I passed on the road were almost as quaint and picturesque
in their way as the hills and the villages--the men in red-lined
jackets; the women in black petticoats, short-waisted green bodices, and
broad-brimmed straw hats with black-and-crimson pompons. But on the
steepest gradient, just before reaching Hornberg, I got my first
nibble--strange to say, from two German students; they wore Heidelberg
caps, and were toiling up the incline with short, broken wind; I put on
a spurt with the Manitou, and passed them easily. I did it just at first
in pure wantonness of health and strength; but the moment I was clear of
them, it occurred to the business half of me that here was a good chance
of taking an order. Filled with this bright idea, I dismounted near the
summit, and pretended to be engaged in lubricating my bearings; though
as a matter of fact the Manitou runs in a bath of oil, self-feeding, and
needs no looking after. Presently, my two Heidelbergers straggled
up--hot, dusty, panting. Woman-like, I pretended to take no notice. One
of them drew near and cast an eye on the Manitou.

'That's a new machine, Fräulein,' he said, at last, with more politeness
than I expected.

'It is,' I answered, casually; 'the latest model. Climbs hills like no
other.' And I feigned to mount and glide off towards Hornberg.

'Stop a moment, pray, Fräulein,' my prospective buyer called out. 'Here,
Heinrich, I wish you this new so excellent mountain-climbing machine,
without chain propelled, more fully to investigate.'

'I am going on to Hornberg,' I said, with mixed feminine guile and
commercial strategy; 'still, if your friend wishes to look----'

[Illustration: MINUTE INSPECTION.]

They both jostled round it, with _achs_ innumerable, and, after minute
inspection, pronounced its principle _wunderschön_. 'Might I essay it?'
Heinrich asked.

'Oh, by all means,' I answered. He paced it down hill a few yards; then
skimmed up again.

'It is a bird!' he cried to his friend, with many guttural
interjections. 'Like the eagle's flight, so soars it. Come, try the
thing, Ludwig!'

'You permit, Fräulein?'

I nodded. They both mounted it several times. It behaved like a beauty.
Then one of them asked, 'And where can man of this new so remarkable
machine nearest by purchase himself make possessor?'

'I am the Sole Agent,' I burst out, with swelling dignity. 'If you will
give me your orders, with cash in hand for the amount, I will send the
cycle, carriage paid, to any address you desire in Germany.'

'You!' they exclaimed, incredulously. 'The Fräulein is pleased to be
humorous!'

'Oh, very well,' I answered, vaulting into the saddle; 'If you choose to
doubt my word----' I waved one careless hand and coasted off.
'Good-morning, meine Herren.'

They lumbered after me on their ramshackled traction-engines. 'Pardon,
Fräulein! Do not thus go away! Oblige us at least with the name and
address of the maker.'

I perpended--like the Herr Over-Superintendent at Frankfort. 'Look
here,' I said at last, telling the truth with frankness, 'I get 25 per
cent on all bicycles I sell. I am, as I say, the maker's Sole Agent. If
you order through me, I touch my profit; if otherwise, I do not. Still,
since you seem to be gentlemen,' they bowed and swelled visibly, 'I will
give you the address of the firm, trusting to your honour to mention my
name'--I handed them a card--'if you decide on ordering. The price of
the palfrey is 400 marks. It is worth every pfennig of it.' And before
they could say more, I had spurred my steed and swept off at full speed
round a curve of the highway.

I pencilled a note to my American that night from Hornberg, detailing
the circumstance; but I am sorry to say, for the discredit of humanity,
that when those two students wrote the same evening from their inn in
the village to order Manitous, they did _not_ mention my name, doubtless
under the misconception that by suppressing it they would save my
commission. However, it gives me pleasure to add _per contra_ (as we say
in business) that when I arrived at Lucerne a week or so later I found a
letter, _poste restante_, from Mr. Cyrus Hitchcock, inclosing an English
ten-pound note. He wrote that he had received two orders for Manitous
from Hornberg; and 'feeling considerable confidence that these must
necessarily originate' from my German students, he had the pleasure of
forwarding me what he hoped would be the first of many similar
commissions.

[Illustration: FELT A PERFECT LITTLE HYPOCRITE.]

I will not describe my further adventures on the still steeper mountain
road from Hornberg to Triberg and St. Georgen--how I got bites on the
way from an English curate, an Austrian hussar, and two unprotected
American ladies; nor how I angled for them all by riding my machine up
impossible hills, and then reclining gracefully to eat my lunch (three
times in one day) on mossy banks at the summit. I felt a perfect little
hypocrite. But Mr. Hitchcock had remarked that business is business; and
I will only add (in confirmation of his view) that by the time I reached
Lucerne, I had sown the good seed in fifteen separate human souls, no
less than four of which brought forth fruit in orders for Manitous
before the end of the season.

I had now so little fear what the morrow might bring forth that I
settled down in a comfortable hotel at Lucerne till Elsie's holidays
began; and amused myself meanwhile by picking out the hilliest roads I
could find in the neighbourhood, in order to display my steel steed's
possibilities to the best advantage.

By the end of July, Elsie joined me. She was half-angry at first that I
should have forced the ticket and my hospitality upon her.

'Nonsense, dear,' I said, smoothing her hair, for her pale face quite
frightened me. 'What is the good of a friend if she will not allow you
to do her little favours?'

'But, Brownie, you said you wouldn't stop and be dependent upon _me_ one
day longer than was necessary in London.'

'That was different,' I cried. 'That was Me! This is You! I am a great,
strong, healthy thing, fit to fight the battle of life and take care of
myself; you, Elsie, are one of those fragile little flowers which 'tis
everybody's duty to protect and to care for.'

She would have protested more; but I stifled her mouth with kisses.
Indeed, for nothing did I rejoice in my prosperity so much as for the
chance it gave me of helping poor dear overworked, overwrought Elsie.

We took up our quarters thenceforth at a high-perched little guest-house
near the top of the Brünig. It was bracing for Elsie; and it lay close
to a tourist track where I could spread my snares and exhibit the
Manitou in its true colours to many passing visitors. Elsie tried it,
and found she could ride on it with ease. She wished she had one of her
own. A bright idea struck me. In fear and trembling, I wrote, suggesting
to Mr. Hitchcock that I had a girl friend from England stopping with me
in Switzerland, and that two Manitous would surely be better than one as
an adver_tize_ment. I confess I stood aghast at my own cheek; but my
hand, I fear, was rapidly growing 'subdued to that it worked in.' Anyhow
I sent the letter off, and waited developments.

By return of post came an answer from my American.

     'DEAR MISS--By rail herewith please receive one lady's No. 4
     automatic quadruple-geared self-feeding Manitou, as per your
     esteemed favour of July 27th, for which I desire to thank you. The
     more I see of your way of doing business, the more I do admire at
     you. This is an elegant poster! Two high-toned English ladies,
     mounted on Manitous, careering up the Alps, represent to both of
     us quite a mint of money. The mutual benefit, to me, to you, and
     to the other lady, ought to be simply incalculable. I shall be
     pleased at any time to hear of any further developments of your
     very remarkable advertising skill, and I am obliged to you for
     this brilliant suggestion you have been good enough to make to
     me.--Respectfully,

  'CYRUS W. HITCHCOCK.'

'What? Am I to have it for nothing, Brownie?' Elsie exclaimed,
bewildered, when I read the letter to her.

I assumed the airs of a woman of the world. 'Why, certainly, my dear,' I
answered, as if I always expected to find bicycles showered upon me.
'It's a mutual arrangement. Benefits him; benefits you. Reciprocity is
the groundwork of business. _He_ gets the advertisement; _you_ get the
amusement. It's a form of handbill. Like the ladies who exhibit their
back hair, don't you know, in that window in Regent Street.'

Thus inexpensively mounted, we scoured the country together, up the
steepest hills between Stanzstadt and Meiringen. We had lots of nibbles.
One lady in particular often stopped to look on and admire the Manitou.
She was a nice-looking widow of forty-five, very fresh and round-faced;
a Mrs. Evelegh, we soon found out, who owned a charming _chalet_ on the
hills above Lungern. She spoke to us more than once: 'What a perfect
dear of a machine!' she cried. 'I wonder if I dare try it!'

'Can you cycle?' I asked.

'I could once,' she answered. 'I was awfully fond of it. But Dr.
Fortescue-Langley won't let me any longer.'

'Try it!' I said dismounting. She got up and rode. 'Oh, isn't it just
lovely!' she cried ecstatically.

'Buy one!' I put in. 'They're as smooth as silk; they cost only twenty
pounds; and, on every machine I sell, I get five pounds commission.'

'I should love to,' she answered; 'but Dr. Fortescue-Langley----'

'Who is he?' I asked. 'I don't believe in drug-drenchers.'

She looked quite shocked. 'Oh, he's not that kind, you know,' she put
in, breathlessly. 'He's the celebrated esoteric faith-healer. He won't
let me move far away from Lungern, though I'm longing to be off to
England again for the summer. My boy's at Portsmouth.'

'Then, why don't you disobey him?'

Her face was a study. 'I daren't,' she answered in an awe-struck voice.
'He comes here every summer; and he does me _so_ much good, you know. He
diagnoses my inner self. He treats me psychically. When my inner self
goes wrong, my bangle turns dusky.' She held up her right hand with an
Indian silver bangle on it; and sure enough, it was tarnished with a
very thin black deposit. 'My soul is ailing now,' she said in a
comically serious voice. 'But it is seldom so in Switzerland. The moment
I land in England the bangle turns black and remains black till I get
back to Lucerne again.'

When she had gone, I said to Elsie, 'That _is_ odd about the bangle.
State of health might affect it, I suppose. Though it looks to me like a
surface deposit of sulphide.' I knew nothing of chemistry, I admit; but
I had sometimes messed about in the laboratory at college with some of
the other girls; and I remembered now that sulphide of silver was a
blackish-looking body, like the film on the bangle.

However, at the time I thought no more about it.

[Illustration: SHE INVITED ELSIE AND MYSELF TO STOP WITH HER.]

By dint of stopping and talking, we soon got quite intimate with Mrs.
Evelegh. As always happens, I found out I had known some of her cousins
in Edinburgh, where I always spent my holidays while I was at Girton.
She took an interest in what she was kind enough to call my
originality; and before a fortnight was out, our hotel being
uncomfortably crowded, she had invited Elsie and myself to stop with her
at the _chalet_. We went, and found it a delightful little home. Mrs.
Evelegh was charming; but we could see at every turn that Dr.
Fortescue-Langley had acquired a firm hold over her. 'He's so clever,
you know,' she said; 'and so spiritual! He exercises such strong odylic
force. He binds my being together. If he misses a visit, I feel my inner
self goes all to pieces.'

'Does he come often?' I asked, growing interested.

'Oh, dear, no,' she answered. 'I wish he did: it would be ever so good
for me. But he's so much run after; I am but one among many. He lives at
Château d'Oex, and comes across to see patients in this district once a
fortnight. It is a privilege to be attended by an intuitive seer like
Dr. Fortescue-Langley.'

Mrs. Evelegh was rich--'left comfortably,' as the phrase goes, but with
a clause which prevented her marrying again without losing her fortune;
and I could gather from various hints that Dr. Fortescue-Langley,
whoever he might be, was bleeding her to some tune, using her soul and
her inner self as his financial lancet. I also noticed that what she
said about the bangle was strictly true; generally bright as a new pin,
on certain mornings it was completely blackened. I had been at the
_chalet_ ten days, however, before I began to suspect the real reason.
Then it dawned upon me one morning in a flash of inspiration. The
evening before had been cold, for at the height where we were perched,
even in August, we often found the temperature chilly in the night, and
I heard Mrs. Evelegh tell Cécile, her maid, to fill the hot-water
bottle. It was a small point, but it somehow went home to me. Next day
the bangle was black, and Mrs. Evelegh lamented that her inner self must
be suffering from an attack of evil vapours.

I held my peace at the time, but I asked Cécile a little later to bring
me that hot-water-bottle. As I more than half suspected, it was made of
india-rubber, wrapped carefully up in the usual red flannel bag. 'Lend
me your brooch, Elsie,' I said. 'I want to try a little experiment.'

'Won't a franc do as well?' Elsie asked, tendering one. 'That's equally
silver.'

'I think not,' I answered. 'A franc is most likely too hard; it has base
metal to alloy it. But I will vary the experiment by trying both
together. Your brooch is Indian and therefore soft silver. The native
jewellers never use alloy. Hand it over; it will clean with a little
plate-powder, if necessary. I'm going to see what blackens Mrs.
Evelegh's bangle.'

I laid the franc and the brooch on the bottle, filled with hot water,
and placed them for warmth in the fold of a blanket. After _déjeûner_,
we inspected them. As I anticipated, the brooch had grown black on the
surface with a thin iridescent layer of silver sulphide, while the franc
had hardly suffered at all from the exposure.

I called in Mrs. Evelegh, and explained what I had done. She was
astonished and half incredulous. 'How could you ever think of it?' she
cried, admiringly.

'Why, I was reading an article yesterday about india-rubber in one of
your magazines,' I answered; 'and the person who wrote it said the raw
gum was hardened for vulcanising by mixing it with sulphur. When I heard
you ask Cécile for the hot-water-bottle, I thought at once: "The sulphur
and the heat account for the tarnishing of Mrs. Evelegh's bangle."'

'And the franc doesn't tarnish! Then that must be why my other silver
bracelet, which is English make, and harder, never changes colour! And
Dr. Fortescue-Langley assured me it was because the soft one was of
Indian metal, and had mystic symbols on it--symbols that answered to the
cardinal moods of my sub-conscious self, and that darkened in sympathy.'

I jumped at a clue. 'He talked about your sub-conscious self?' I broke
in.

'Yes,' she answered. 'He always does. It's the key-note of his system.
He heals by that alone. But, my dear, after this, how can I ever believe
in him?'

'Does he know about the hot-water-bottle?' I asked.

'Oh, yes; he ordered me to use it on certain nights; and when I go to
England he says I must never be without one. I see now that was why my
inner self invariably went wrong in England. It was all just the sulphur
blackening the bangles.'

I reflected. 'A middle-aged man?' I asked. 'Stout, diplomatic-looking,
with wrinkles round his eyes, and a distinguished grey moustache,
twirled up oddly at the corners?'

'That's the man, my dear! His very picture. Where on earth have you seen
him?'

'And he talks of sub-conscious selves?' I went on.

'He practises on that basis. He says it's no use prescribing for the
outer man; to do that is to treat mere symptoms: the sub-conscious self
is the inner seat of diseases.'

'How long has he been in Switzerland?'

'Oh, he comes here every year. He arrived this season late in May, I
fancy.'

'When will he visit you again, Mrs. Evelegh?'

'To-morrow morning.'

I made up my mind at once. 'Then I must see him, without being seen,' I
said. 'I think I know him. He is our Count, I believe.' For I had told
Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie the queer story of my journey from London.

'Impossible, my dear! Im-possible! I have implicit faith in him!'

'Wait and see, Mrs. Evelegh. You acknowledge he duped you over the
affair of the bangle.'

[Illustration: THE COUNT.]

There are two kinds of dupe: one kind, the commonest, goes on believing
in its deceiver, no matter what happens; the other, far rarer, has the
sense to know it has been deceived if you make the deception as clear as
day to it. Mrs. Evelegh was, fortunately, of the rarer class. Next
morning, Dr. Fortescue-Langley arrived, by appointment. As he walked up
the path, I glanced at him from my window. It was the Count, not a doubt
of it. On his way to gull his dupes in Switzerland, he had tried to
throw in an incidental trifle of a diamond robbery.

I telegraphed the facts at once to Lady Georgina, at Schlangenbad. She
answered, 'I am coming. Ask the man to meet his friend on Wednesday.'

Mrs. Evelegh, now almost convinced, invited him. On Wednesday morning,
with a bounce, Lady Georgina burst in upon us. 'My dear, such a
journey!--alone, at my age--but there, I haven't known a happy day since
you left me! Oh, yes, I got my Gretchen--unsophisticated?--
well--h'm--that's not the word for it: I declare to you, Lois, there
isn't a trick of the trade, in Paris or London--not a perquisite or a
tip that that girl isn't up to. Comes straight from the remotest
recesses of the Black Forest, and hadn't been with me a week, I assure
you, honour bright, before she was bandolining her yellow hair, and
rouging her cheeks, and wearing my brooches, and wagering gloves with
the hotel waiters upon the Baden races. _And_ her language: _and_ her
manners! Why weren't you born in that station of life, I wonder, child,
so that I might offer you five hundred a year, and all found, to come
and live with me for ever? But this Gretchen--her fringe, her shoes, her
ribbons--upon my soul, my dear, I don't know what girls are coming to
nowadays.'

'Ask Mrs. Lynn-Linton,' I suggested, as she paused. 'She is a recognised
authority on the subject.'

The Cantankerous Old Lady stared at me. 'And this Count?' she went on.
'So you have really tracked him? You're a wonderful girl, my dear. I
wish you were a lady's maid. You'd be worth me any money.'

I explained how I had come to hear of Dr. Fortescue-Langley.

Lady Georgina waxed warm. 'Dr. Fortescue-Langley!' she exclaimed. 'The
wicked wretch! But he didn't get my diamonds! I've carried them here in
my hands, all the way from Wiesbaden: I wasn't going to leave them for
a single day to the tender mercies of that unspeakable Gretchen. The
fool would lose them. Well, we'll catch him this time, Lois: and we'll
give him ten years for it!'

'Ten years!' Mrs. Evelegh cried, clasping her hands in horror. 'Oh, Lady
Georgina!'

We waited in Mrs. Evelegh's dining-room, the old lady and I, behind the
folding doors. At three precisely Dr. Fortescue-Langley walked in. I had
difficulty in restraining Lady Georgina from falling upon him
prematurely. He talked a lot of high-flown nonsense to Mrs. Evelegh and
Elsie about the influences of the planets, and the seventy-five
emanations, and the eternal wisdom of the East, and the medical efficacy
of sub-conscious suggestion. Excellent patter, all of it--quite as good
in its way as the diplomatic patter he had poured forth in the train to
Lady Georgina. It was rich in spheres, in elements, in cosmic forces. At
last, as he was discussing the reciprocal action of the inner self upon
the exhalations of the lungs, we pushed back the door and walked calmly
in upon him.

His breath came and went. The exhalations of the lungs showed visible
perturbation. He rose and stared at us. For a second he lost his
composure. Then, as bold as brass, he turned, with a cunning smile, to
Mrs. Evelegh. 'Where on earth did you pick up such acquaintances?' he
inquired, in a well-simulated tone of surprise. 'Yes, Lady Georgina, I
have met you before, I admit; but--it can hardly be agreeable to you to
reflect under what circumstances.'

Lady Georgina was beside herself. 'You dare?' she cried, confronting
him. 'You dare to brazen it out? You miserable sneak! But you can't
bluff me now. I have the police outside.' Which I regret to confess was
a light-hearted fiction.

'The police?' he echoed, drawing back. I could see he was frightened.

I had an inspiration again. 'Take off that moustache!' I said, calmly,
in my most commanding voice.

[Illustration: I THOUGHT IT KINDER TO HIM TO REMOVE IT ALTOGETHER.]

He clapped his hand to it in horror. In his agitation, he managed to
pull it a little bit awry. It looked so absurd, hanging there, all
crooked, that I thought it kinder to him to remove it altogether. The
thing peeled off with difficulty; for it was a work of art, very firmly
and gracefully fastened with sticking-plaster. But it peeled off at
last--and with it the whole of the Count's and Dr. Fortescue-Langley's
distinction. The man stood revealed, a very palpable man-servant.

Lady Georgina stared hard at him. 'Where have I seen you before?' she
murmured, slowly. 'That face is familiar to me. Why, yes; you went once
to Italy as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's courier! I know you now. Your name
is Higginson.'

It was a come-down for the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, but he swallowed
it like a man at a single gulp.

'Yes, my lady,' he said, fingering his hat nervously, now all was up.
'You are quite right, my lady. But what would you have me do? Times are
hard on us couriers. Nobody wants us now. I must take to what I can.' He
assumed once more the tone of the Vienna diplomat. '_Que voulez-vous_,
madame? These are revolutionary days. A man of intelligence must move
with the Zeitgeist!'

Lady Georgina burst into a loud laugh. 'And to think,' she cried, 'that
I talked to this lackey from London to Malines without ever suspecting
him! Higginson, you're a fraud--but you're a precious clever one.'

He bowed. 'I am happy to have merited Lady Georgina Fawley's
commendation,' he answered, with his palm on his heart, in his grandiose
manner.

'But I shall hand you over to the police all the same! You are a thief
and a swindler!'

He assumed a comic expression. 'Unhappily, not a thief,' he objected.
'This young lady prevented me from appropriating your diamonds.
_Convey_, the wise call it. I wanted to take your jewel-case--and she
put me off with a sandwich-tin. I wanted to make an honest penny out of
Mrs. Evelegh; and--she confronts me with your ladyship, and tears my
moustache off.'

Lady Georgina regarded him with a hesitating expression. 'But I shall
call the police,' she said, wavering visibly.

'_De grace_, my lady, _de grace_! Is it worth while, _pour si peu de
chose_? Consider, I have really effected nothing. Will you charge me
with having taken--in error--a small tin sandwich-case--value,
elevenpence? An affair of a week's imprisonment. That is positively all
you can bring up against me. And,' brightening up visibly, 'I have the
case still; I will return it to-morrow with pleasure to your ladyship!'

'But the india-rubber water-bottle?' I put in. 'You have been deceiving
Mrs. Evelegh. It blackens silver. And you told her lies in order to
extort money under false pretences.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'You are too clever for me, young lady,' he
broke out. 'I have nothing to say to you. But Lady Georgina, Mrs.
Evelegh--you are human--let me go! Reflect; I have things I could tell
that would make both of you look ridiculous. That journey to Malines,
Lady Georgina! Those Indian charms, Mrs. Evelegh! Besides, you have
spoiled my game. Let that suffice you! I can practise in Switzerland no
longer. Allow me to go in peace, and I will try once more to be
indifferent honest!'

[Illustration: INCH BY INCH HE RETREATED.]

He backed slowly towards the door, with his eyes fixed on them. I stood
by and waited. Inch by inch he retreated. Lady Georgina looked down
abstractedly at the carpet. Mrs. Evelegh looked up abstractedly at the
ceiling. Neither spoke another word. The rogue backed out by degrees.
Then he sprang downstairs, and before they could decide was well out
into the open.

Lady Georgina was the first to break the silence. 'After all, my dear,'
she murmured, turning to me, 'there was a deal of sound English
common-sense about Dogberry!'

I remembered then his charge to the watch to apprehend a rogue. 'How if
'a will not stand?'

'Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the
rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.' When
I remembered how Lady Georgina had hob-nobbed with the Count from Ostend
to Malines, I agreed to a great extent both with her and with Dogberry.




V

THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPROMPTU MOUNTAINEER


The explosion and evaporation of Dr. Fortescue-Langley (with whom were
amalgamated the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, Mr. Higginson the courier,
and whatever else that versatile gentleman chose to call himself)
entailed many results of varying magnitudes.

In the first place, Mrs. Evelegh ordered a Great Manitou. That, however,
mattered little to 'the firm,' as I loved to call us (because it shocked
dear Elsie so); for, of course, after all her kindness we couldn't
accept our commission on her purchase, so that she got her machine cheap
for £15 from the maker. But, in the second place--I declare I am
beginning to write like a woman of business--she decided to run over to
England for the summer to see her boy at Portsmouth, being certain now
that the discoloration of her bangle depended more on the presence of
sulphur in the india-rubber bottle than on the passing state of her
astral body. 'Tis an abrupt descent from the inner self to a hot-water
bottle, I admit; but Mrs. Evelegh took the plunge with grace, like a
sensible woman. Dr. Fortescue-Langley had been annihilated for her at
one blow: she returned forthwith to common-sense and England.

'What will you do with the _chalet_ while you're away?' Lady Georgina
asked, when she announced her intention. 'You can't shut it up to take
care of itself. Every blessed thing in the place will go to rack and
ruin. Shutting up a house means spoiling it for ever. Why, I've got a
cottage of my own that I let for the summer in the best part of
Surrey--a pretty little place, now vacant, for which, by the way, I want
a tenant, if you happen to know of one: and when it's left empty for a
month or two----'

'Perhaps it would do for me?' Mrs. Evelegh suggested, jumping at it.
'I'm looking out for a furnished house for the summer, within easy reach
of Portsmouth and London, for myself and Oliver.'

Lady Georgina seized her arm, with a face of blank horror. 'My dear,'
she cried. 'For you! I wouldn't dream of letting it to you. A nasty,
damp, cold, unwholesome house, on stiff clay soil, with detestable
drains, in the deadliest part of the Weald of Surrey,--why, you and your
boy would catch your deaths of rheumatism.'

'Is it the one I saw advertised in the _Times_ this morning, I wonder?'
Mrs. Evelegh inquired in a placid voice. '"Charming furnished house on
Holmesdale Common; six bedrooms, four reception-rooms; splendid views;
pure air; picturesque surroundings; exceptionally situated." I thought
of writing about it.'

[Illustration: NEVER LEAVE A HOUSE TO THE SERVANTS, MY DEAR!]

'That's it!' Lady Georgina exclaimed, with a demonstrative wave of her
hand. 'I drew up the advertisement myself. Exceptionally situated! I
should just think it was! Why, my dear, I wouldn't let you rent the
place for worlds; a horrid, poky little hole, stuck down in the bottom
of a boggy hollow, as damp as Devonshire, with the paper peeling off the
walls, so that I had to take my choice between giving it up myself ten
years ago, or removing to the cemetery; and I've let it ever since to
City men with large families. Nothing would induce me to allow you and
your boy to expose yourself to such risks.' For Lady Georgina had taken
quite a fancy to Mrs. Evelegh. 'But what I was just going to say was
this: you can't shut your house up; it'll all go mouldy. Houses always
go mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can't leave it to your servants;
_I_ know the baggages; no conscience--no conscience; they'll ask their
entire families to come and stop with them _en bloc_, and turn your
place into a perfect piggery. Why, when I went away from my house in
town one autumn, didn't I leave a policeman and his wife in charge--a
most respectable man--only he happened to be an Irishman. And what was
the consequence? My dear, I assure you, I came back unexpectedly from
poor dear Kynaston's one day--at a moment's notice--having quarrelled
with him over Home Rule or Education or something--poor dear Kynaston's
what they call a Liberal, I believe--got at by that man Rosebery--and
there didn't I find all the O'Flanagans, and O'Flahertys, and O'Flynns
in the neighbourhood camping out in my drawing-room; with a strong
detachment of O'Donohues, and O'Dohertys, and O'Driscolls lying around
loose in possession of the library? Never leave a house to the servants,
my dear! It's positively suicidal. Put in a responsible caretaker of
whom you know something--like Lois here, for instance.'

'Lois!' Mrs. Evelegh echoed. 'Dear me, that's just the very thing. What
a capital idea! I never thought of Lois! She and Elsie might stop on
here, with Ursula and the gardener.'

I protested that if we did it was our clear duty to pay a small rent;
but Mrs. Evelegh brushed that aside. 'You've robbed yourselves over the
bicycle,' she insisted, 'and I'm delighted to let you have it. It's I
who ought to pay, for you'll keep the house dry for me.'

I remembered Mr. Hitchcock--'Mutual advantage: benefits you, benefits
me'--and made no bones about it. So in the end Mrs. Evelegh set off for
England with Cécile, leaving Elsie and me in charge of Ursula, the
gardener, and the _chalet_.

As for Lady Georgina, having by this time completed her 'cure' at
Schlangenbad (complexion as usual; no guinea yellower), she telegraphed
for Gretchen--'I can't do without the idiot'--and hung round Lucerne,
apparently for no other purpose but to send people up the Brünig on the
hunt for our wonderful new machines, and so put money in our pockets.
She was much amused when I told her that Aunt Susan (who lived, you will
remember, in respectable indigence at Blackheath) had written to
expostulate with me on my 'unladylike' conduct in becoming a bicycle
commission agent. 'Unladylike!--the Cantankerous Old Lady exclaimed,
with warmth. 'What does the woman mean? Has she got no gumption? It's
"ladylike," I suppose, to be a companion, or a governess, or a
music-teacher, or something else in the black-thread-glove way, in
London; but not to sell bicycles for a good round commission. My dear,
between you and me, I don't see it. If you had a brother, now, _he_
might sell cycles, or corner wheat, or rig the share market, or do
anything else he pleased, in these days, and nobody'd think the worse of
him--as long as he made money; and it's my opinion that what is sauce
for the goose can't be far out for the gander--and _vice-versâ_. Besides
which, what's the use of _trying_ to be ladylike? You _are_ a lady,
child, and you couldn't help being one; why trouble to be _like_ what
nature made you? Tell Aunt Susan from me to put _that_ in her pipe and
smoke it!'

I _did_ tell Aunt Susan by letter, giving Lady Georgina's authority for
the statement; and I really believe it had a consoling effect upon her;
for Aunt Susan is one of those innocent-minded people who cherish a
profound respect for the opinions and ideas of a Lady of Title.
Especially where questions of delicacy are concerned. It calmed her to
think that though I, an officer's daughter, had declined upon trade, I
was mixing at least with the Best People!

We had a lovely time at the _chalet_--two girls alone, messing just as
we pleased in the kitchen, and learning from Ursula how to concoct
_pot-au-feu_ in the most approved Swiss fashion. We pottered, as we
women love to potter, half the day long; the other half we spent in
riding our cycles about the eternal hills, and ensnaring the flies whom
Lady Georgina dutifully sent up to us. She was our decoy duck: and, in
virtue of her handle, she decoyed to a marvel. Indeed, I sold so many
Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial
faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort:
'The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the
machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the
suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I concluded at a glance you had the
material of a first-class business woman about you; but I reckon I did
not know what a traveller meant till you started on the road. I am now
enlarging and altering this factory, to meet increased demands. Branch
offices at Berlin, Hamburg, Crefeld, and Düsseldorf. Inspect our stock
before dealing elsewhere. A liberal discount allowed to the trade. Two
hundred agents wanted in all towns of Germany. If they were every one of
them like _you_, miss--well, I guess I would hire the town of Frankfort
for my business premises.'

One morning, after we had spent about a week at the _chalet_ by
ourselves, I was surprised to see a young man with a knapsack on his
back walking up the garden path towards our cottage. 'Quick, quick,
Elsie!' I cried, being in a mischievous mood. 'Come here with the
opera-glass! There's a Man in the offing!'

'A _what_?' Elsie exclaimed, shocked as usual at my levity.

'A Man,' I answered, squeezing her arm. 'A Man! A real live Man! A
specimen of the masculine gender in the human being! Man, ahoy! He has
come at last--the lodestar of our existence!'

Next minute, I was sorry I spoke; for as the man drew nearer, I
perceived that he was endowed with very long legs and a languidly
poetical bearing. That supercilious smile--that enticing moustache!
Could it be?--yes, it was--not a doubt of it--Harold Tillington!

I grew grave at once; Harold Tillington and the situation were serious.
'What can he want here?' I exclaimed, drawing back.

'Who is it?' Elsie asked; for, being a woman, she read at once in my
altered demeanour the fact that the Man was not unknown to me.

'Lady Georgina's nephew,' I answered, with a tell-tale cheek, I fear.
'You remember I mentioned to you that I had met him at Schlangenbad. But
this is really too bad of that wicked old Lady Georgina. She has told
him where we lived and sent him up to see us.'

'Perhaps,' Elsie put in, 'he wants to charter a bicycle.'

I glanced at Elsie sideways. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that she
said it slyly, like one who knew he wanted nothing of the sort. But at
any rate, I brushed the suggestion aside frankly. 'Nonsense,' I
answered. 'He wants _me_, not a bicycle.'

He came up to us, waving his hat. He _did_ look handsome! 'Well, Miss
Cayley,' he cried from afar, 'I have tracked you to your lair! I have
found out where you abide! What a beautiful spot! And how well you're
looking!'

'This is an unexpected----' I paused. He thought I was going to say,
'pleasure,' but I finished it, 'intrusion.' His face fell. 'How did you
know we were at Lungern, Mr. Tillington?'

'My respected relative,' he answered, laughing. 'She
mentioned--casually--' his eyes met mine--'that you were stopping in a
_chalet_. And as I was on my way back to the diplomatic mill, I thought
I might just as well walk over the Grimsel and the Furca, and then on to
the Gotthard. The Court is at Monza. So it occurred to me ... that in
passing ... I might venture to drop in and say how-do-you-do to you.'

'Thank you,' I answered, severely--but my heart spoke otherwise--'I do
very well. And you, Mr. Tillington?'

'Badly,' he echoed. 'Badly, since _you_ went away from Schlangenbad.'

I gazed at his dusty feet. 'You are tramping,' I said, cruelly. 'I
suppose you will get forward for lunch to Meiringen?'

'I-- I did not contemplate it.'

'Indeed?'

He grew bolder. 'No; to say the truth, I half hoped I might stop and
spend the day here with you.'

'Elsie,' I remarked firmly, 'if Mr. Tillington persists in planting
himself upon us like this, one of us must go and investigate the kitchen
department.'

Elsie rose like a lamb. I have an impression that she gathered we wanted
to be left alone.

[Illustration: I MAY STAY, MAYN'T I?]

He turned to me imploringly. 'Lois,' he cried, stretching out his arms,
with an appealing air, 'I _may_ stay, mayn't I?'

I tried to be stern; but I fear 'twas a feeble pretence. 'We are two
girls, alone in a house,' I answered. 'Lady Georgina, as a matron of
experience, ought to have protected us. Merely to give you lunch is
almost irregular. (Good diplomatic word, irregular.) Still, in these
days, I suppose you _may_ stay, if you leave early in the afternoon.
That's the utmost I can do for you.'

'You are not gracious,' he cried, gazing at me with a wistful look.

I did not dare to be gracious. 'Uninvited guests must not quarrel with
their welcome,' I answered severely. Then the woman in me broke forth.
'But indeed, Mr. Tillington, I am glad to see you.'

He leaned forward eagerly. 'So you are not angry with me, Lois? I may
call you _Lois_?'

I trembled and hesitated. 'I am not angry with you. I-- I like you too
much to be ever angry with you. And I am glad you came--just this
once--to see me.... Yes,--when we are alone--you may call me Lois.'

He tried to seize my hand. I withdrew it. 'Then I may perhaps hope,' he
began, 'that some day----'

I shook my head. 'No, no,' I said, regretfully. 'You misunderstand me.
I like you very much; and I like to see you. But as long as you are rich
and have prospects like yours, I could never marry you. My pride
wouldn't let me. Take that as final.'

I looked away. He bent forward again. 'But if I were poor?' he put in,
eagerly.

I hesitated. Then my heart rose, and I gave way. 'If ever you are poor,'
I faltered,--'penniless, hunted, friendless--come to me, Harold, and I
will help and comfort you. But not till then. Not till then, I implore
you.'

He leant back and clasped his hands. 'You have given me something to
live for, dear Lois,' he murmured. 'I will try to be poor--penniless,
hunted, friendless. To win you I will try. And when that day arrives, I
shall come to claim you.'

We sat for an hour and had a delicious talk--about nothing. But we
understood each other. Only that artificial barrier divided us. At the
end of the hour, I heard Elsie coming back by judiciously slow stages
from the kitchen to the living-room, through six feet of passage,
discoursing audibly to Ursula all the way, with a tardiness that did
honour to her heart and her understanding. Dear, kind little Elsie! I
believe she had never a tiny romance of her own; yet her sympathy for
others was sweet to look upon.

We lunched at a small deal table in the veranda. Around us rose the
pinnacles. The scent of pines and moist moss was in the air. Elsie had
arranged the flowers, and got ready the omelette, and cooked the chicken
cutlets, and prepared the junket. 'I never thought I could do it alone
without you, Brownie; but I tried, and it all came right by magic,
somehow.' We laughed and talked incessantly. Harold was in excellent
cue; and Elsie took to him. A livelier or merrier table there wasn't in
the twenty-two Cantons that day than ours, under the sapphire sky,
looking out on the sun-smitten snows of the Jungfrau.

After lunch, Harold begged hard to be allowed to stop for tea. I had
misgivings, but I gave way--he _was_ such good company. One may as well
be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, says the wisdom of our ancestors: and,
after all, Mrs. Grundy was only represented here by Elsie, the gentlest
and least censorious of her daughters. So he stopped and chatted till
four; when I made tea and insisted on dismissing him. He meant to take
the rough mountain path over the screes from Lungern to Meiringen, which
ran right behind the _chalet_. I feared lest he might be belated, and
urged him to hurry.

'Thanks, I'm happier here,' he answered.

I was sternness itself. 'You _promised_ me!' I said, in a reproachful
voice.

He rose instantly, and bowed. 'Your will is law--even when it pronounces
sentence of exile.'

Would we walk a little way with him? No, I faltered; we would not. We
would follow him with the opera-glasses and wave him farewell when he
reached the Kulm. He shook our hands unwillingly, and turned up the
little path, looking handsomer than ever. It led ascending through a
fir-wood to the rock-strewn hillside.

Once, a quarter of an hour later, we caught a glimpse of him near a
sharp turn in the road; after that we waited in vain, with our eyes
fixed on the Kulm; not a sign could we discern of him. At last I grew
anxious. 'He ought to be there,' I cried, fuming.

'He ought,' Elsie answered.

I swept the slopes with the opera-glasses. Anxiety and interest in him
quickened my senses, I suppose. 'Look here, Elsie,' I burst out at last.
'Just take this glass and have a glance at those birds, down the crag
below the Kulm. Don't they seem to be circling and behaving most oddly?'

Elsie gazed where I bid her. 'They're wheeling round and round,' she
answered, after a minute; 'and they certainly _do_ look as if they were
screaming.'

'They seem to be frightened,' I suggested.

'It looks like it, Brownie,'

'Then he's fallen over a precipice!' I cried, rising up; 'and he's lying
there on a ledge by their nest. Elsie, we must go to him!'

She clasped her hands and looked terrified. 'Oh, Brownie, how dreadful!'
she exclaimed. Her face was deadly white. Mine burned like fire.

'Not a moment to lose!' I said, holding my breath. 'Get out the rope and
let us run to him!'

'Don't you think,' Elsie suggested, 'we had better hurry down on our
cycles to Lungern and call some men from the village to help us? We are
two girls, and alone. What can we do to aid him?'

'No,' I answered, promptly, 'that won't do. It would only lose time--and
time may be precious. You and I must go; I'll send Ursula off to bring
up guides from the village.'

Fortunately, we had a good long coil of new rope in the house, which
Mrs. Evelegh had provided in case of accident. I slipped it on my arm,
and set out on foot; for the path was by far too rough for cycles. I was
sorry afterwards that I had not taken Ursula, and sent Elsie to Lungern
to rouse the men; for she found the climbing hard, and I had difficulty
at times in dragging her up the steep and stony pathway, almost a
watercourse. However, we persisted in the direction of the Kulm,
tracking Harold by his footprints; for he wore mountain boots with
sharp-headed nails, which made dints in the moist soil, and scratched
the smooth surface of the rock where he trod on it.

We followed him thus for a mile or two, along the regular path; then of
a sudden, in an open part, the trail failed us. I turned back, a few
yards, and looked close, with my eyes fixed on the spongy soil, as keen
as a hound that sniffs his way after his quarry. 'He went off _here_,
Elsie!' I said at last, pulling up short by a spindle bush on the
hillside.

'How do you know, Brownie?'

'Why, see, there are the marks of his stick; he had a thick one, you
remember, with a square iron spike. These are its dints; I have been
watching them all the way along from the _chalet_!

'But there are so many such marks!'

'Yes, I know; I can tell his from the older ones made by the spikes of
alpenstocks because Harold's are fresher and sharper on the edge. They
look so much newer. See, here, he slipped on the rock; you can know that
scratch is recent by the clean way it's traced, and the little
glistening crystals still left behind in it. Those other marks have been
wind-swept and washed by the rain. There are no broken particles.'

'How on earth did you find that out, Brownie?'

How on earth did I find it out! I wondered myself. But the emergency
seemed somehow to teach me something of the instinctive lore of hunters
and savages. I did not trouble to answer her. 'At this bush, the tracks
fail,' I went on; 'and, look, he must have clutched at that branch and
crushed the broken leaves as the twigs slipped through his fingers. He
left the path here, then, and struck off on a short cut of his own along
the hillside, lower down. Elsie, we must follow him.'

She shrank from it; but I held her hand. It was a more difficult task
to track him now; for we had no longer the path to guide us. However, I
explored the ground on my hands and knees, and soon found marks of
footsteps on the boggy patches, with scratches on the rock where he had
leapt from point to point, or planted his stick to steady himself. I
tried to help Elsie along among the littered boulders and the dwarf
growth of wind-swept daphne: but, poor child, it was too much for her:
she sat down after a few minutes upon the flat juniper scrub and began
to cry. What was I to do? My anxiety was breathless. I couldn't leave
her there alone, and I couldn't forsake Harold. Yet I felt every minute
might now be critical. We were making among wet whortleberry thicket and
torn rock towards the spot where I had seen the birds wheel and circle,
screaming. The only way left was to encourage Elsie and make her feel
the necessity for instant action. 'He is alive still,' I exclaimed,
looking up; 'the birds are crying! If he were dead, they would return to
their nest-- Elsie, we _must_ get to him!'

She rose, bewildered, and followed me. I held her hand tight, and coaxed
her to scramble over the rocks where the scratches showed the way, or to
clamber at times over fallen trunks of huge fir-trees. Yet it was hard
work climbing; even Harold's sure feet had slipped often on the wet and
slimy boulders, though, like most of Queen Margherita's set, he was an
expert mountaineer. Then, at times, I lost the faint track, so that I
had to diverge and look close to find it. These delays fretted me. 'See,
a stone loosed from its bed--he must have passed by here.... That twig
is newly snapped; no doubt he caught at it.... Ha, the moss there has
been crushed; a foot has gone by. And the ants on that ant-hill, with
their eggs in their mouths--a man's tread has frightened them.' So, by
some instinctive sense, as if the spirit of my savage ancestors revived
within me, I managed to recover the spoor again and again by a miracle,
till at last, round a corner by a defiant cliff--with a terrible
foreboding, my heart stood still within me.

We had come to an end. A great projecting buttress of crag rose sheer in
front. Above lay loose boulders. Below was a shrub-hung precipice. The
birds we had seen from home were still circling and screaming.

They were a pair of peregrine hawks. Their nest seemed to lie far below
the broken scar, some sixty or seventy feet beneath us.

'He is not dead!' I cried once more, with my heart in my mouth. 'If he
were, they would have returned. He has fallen, and is lying, alive,
below there!'

[Illustration: I ADVANCED ON MY HANDS AND KNEES TO THE EDGE OF THE
PRECIPICE.]

Elsie shrank back against the wall of rock. I advanced on my hands and
knees to the edge of the precipice. It was not quite sheer, but it
dropped like a sea-cliff, with broken ledges.

I could see where Harold had slipped. He had tried to climb round the
crag that blocked the road, and the ground at the edge of the precipice
had given way with him; it showed a recent founder of a few inches. Then
he clutched at a branch of broom as he fell; but it slipped through his
fingers, cutting them; for there was blood on the wiry stem. I knelt by
the side of the cliff and craned my head over. I scarcely dared to look.
In spite of the birds, my heart misgave me.

There, on a ledge deep below, he lay in a mass, half raised on one arm.
But not dead, I believed. 'Harold!' I cried. 'Harold!'

He turned his face up and saw me; his eyes lighted with joy. He shouted
back something, but I could not hear it.

I turned to Elsie. 'I must go down to him!'

Her tears rose again. 'Oh, Brownie!'

I unwound the coil of rope. The first thing was to fasten it. I could
not trust Elsie to hold it; she was too weak and too frightened to bear
my weight: even if I wound it round her body, I feared my mere mass
might drag her over. I peered about at the surroundings. No tree grew
near; no rock had a pinnacle sufficiently safe to depend upon. But I
found a plan soon. In the crag behind me was a cleft, narrowing
wedge-shape as it descended. I tied the end of the rope round a stone,
a good big water-worn stone, rudely girdled with a groove near the
middle, which prevented it from slipping; then I dropped it down the
fissure till it jammed; after which, I tried it to see if it would bear.
It was firm as the rock itself. I let the rope down by it, and waited a
moment to discover whether Harold could climb. He shook his head, and
took a notebook with evident pain from his pocket. Then he scribbled a
few words, and pinned them to the rope. I hauled it up. 'Can't move.
Either severely bruised and sprained, or else legs broken.'

There was no help for it, then. I must go to him.

My first idea was merely to glide down the rope with my gloved hands,
for I chanced to have my dog-skin bicycling gloves in my pocket.
Fortunately, however, I did not carry out this crude idea too hastily;
for next instant it occurred to me that I could not swarm up again. I
have had no practice in rope-climbing. Here was a problem. But the
moment suggested its own solution. I began making knots, or rather
nooses or loops, in the rope, at intervals of about eighteen inches.
'What are they for?' Elsie asked, looking on in wonder.

'Footholds, to climb up by.'

'But the ones above will pull out with your weight.'

'I don't think so. Still, to make sure, I shall tie them with this
string. I _must_ get down to him.'

I threaded a sufficient number of loops, trying the length over the
edge. Then I said to Elsie, who sat cowering, propped against the crag,
'You must come and look over, and do as I wave to you. Mind, dear, you
_must_! Two lives depend upon it.'

'Brownie, I daren't? I shall turn giddy and fall over!'

I smoothed her golden hair. 'Elsie, dear,' I said gently, gazing into
her blue eyes, 'you are a woman. A woman can always be brave, where
those she loves are concerned; and I believe you love me.' I led her,
coaxingly, to the edge. 'Sit there,' I said, in my quietest voice, so as
not to alarm her. 'You can lie at full length, if you like, and only
just peep over. But when I wave my hand, remember, you must pull the
rope up.'

She obeyed me like a child. I knew she loved me.

[Illustration: I GRIPPED THE ROPE AND LET MYSELF DOWN.]

I gripped the rope and let myself down, not using the loops to descend,
but just sliding with hands and knees, and allowing the knots to slacken
my pace. Half-way down, I will confess, the eerie feeling of physical
suspense was horrible. One hung so in mid-air! The hawks flapped their
wings. But Harold was below; and a woman can always be brave where those
she loves--well, just that moment, catching my breath, I knew I loved
Harold.

I glided down swiftly. The air whizzed. At last, on a narrow shelf of
rock, I leant over him. He seized my hand. 'I knew you would come!' he
cried. 'I felt sure you would find out. Though, _how_ you found out,
Heaven only knows, you clever, brave little woman!'

'Are you terribly hurt?' I asked, bending close. His clothes were torn.

'I hardly know. I can't move. It may only be bruises.'

'Can you climb by these nooses with my help?'

He shook his head. 'Oh, no. I couldn't climb at all. I must be lifted,
somehow. You had better go back to Lungern and bring men to help you.'

'And leave you here alone! Never, Harold; never!'

'Then what can we do?'

I reflected a moment. 'Lend me your pencil,' I said. He pulled it
out--his arms were almost unhurt, fortunately. I scribbled a line to
Elsie. 'Tie my plaid to the rope and let it down.' Then I waved to her
to pull up again.

I was half surprised to find she obeyed the signal, for she crouched
there, white-faced and open-mouthed, watching; but I have often observed
that women are almost always brave in the great emergencies. She pinned
on the plaid and let it down with commendable quickness. I doubled it,
and tied firm knots in the four corners, so as to make it into a sort of
basket; then I fastened it at each corner with a piece of the rope,
crossed in the middle, till it looked like one of the cages they use in
mills for letting down sacks with. As soon as it was finished, I said,
'Now, just try to crawl into it.'

He raised himself on his arms and crawled in with difficulty. His legs
dragged after him. I could see he was in great pain. But still, he
managed it.

I planted my foot in the first noose. 'You must sit still,' I said,
breathless. 'I am going back to haul you up.'

'Are you strong enough, Lois?'

'With Elsie to help me, yes. I often stroked a four at Girton.'

'I can trust you,' he answered. It thrilled me that he said so.

I began my hazardous journey; I mounted the rope by the nooses--one,
two, three, four, counting them as I mounted. I did not dare to look up
or down as I did so, lest I should grow giddy and fall, but kept my eyes
fixed firmly always on the one noose in front of me. My brain swam: the
rope swayed and creaked. Twenty, thirty, forty! Foot after foot, I
slipped them in mechanically, taking up with me the longer coil whose
ends were attached to the cage and Harold. My hands trembled; it was
ghastly, swinging there between earth and heaven. Forty-five, forty-six,
forty-seven-- I knew there were forty-eight of them. At last, after some
weeks, as it seemed, I reached the summit. Tremulous and half dead, I
prised myself over the edge with my hands, and knelt once more on the
hill beside Elsie.

She was white, but attentive. 'What next, Brownie?' Her voice quivered.

I looked about me. I was too faint and shaky after my perilous ascent to
be fit for work, but there was no help for it. What could I use as a
pulley? Not a tree grew near; but the stone jammed in the fissure might
once more serve my purpose. I tried it again. It had borne my weight;
was it strong enough to bear the precious weight of Harold? I tugged at
it, and thought so. I passed the rope round it like a pulley, and then
tied it about my own waist. I had a happy thought: I could use myself as
a windlass. I turned on my feet for a pivot. Elsie helped me to pull.
'Up you go!' I cried, cheerily. We wound slowly, for fear of shaking
him. Bit by bit, I could feel the cage rise gradually from the ground;
its weight, taken so, with living capstan and stone axle, was less than
I should have expected. But the pulley helped us, and Elsie, spurred by
need, put forth more reserve of nervous strength than I could easily
have believed lay in that tiny body. I twisted myself round and round,
close to the edge, so as to look over from time to time, but not at all
quickly, for fear of dizziness. The rope strained and gave. It was a
deadly ten minutes of suspense and anxiety. Twice or thrice as I looked
down I saw a spasm of pain break over Harold's face; but when I paused
and glanced inquiringly, he motioned me to go on with my venturesome
task. There was no turning back now. We had almost got him up when the
rope at the edge began to creak ominously.

It was straining at the point where it grated against the brink of the
precipice. My heart gave a leap. If the rope broke, all was over.

With a sudden dart forward, I seized it with my hands, below the part
that gave; then--one fierce little run back--and I brought him level
with the edge. He clutched at Elsie's hand. I turned thrice round, to
wind the slack about my body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh; but
nothing mattered now, except to save him. 'Catch the cloak, Elsie!' I
cried; 'catch it: pull him gently in!' Elsie caught it and pulled him
in, with wonderful pluck and calmness. We hauled him over the edge. He
lay safe on the bank. Then we all three broke down and cried like
children together. I took his hand in mine and held it in silence.

When we found words again I drew a deep breath, and said, simply, 'How
did you manage to do it?'

[Illustration: I ROLLED AND SLID DOWN.]

'I tried to clamber past the wall that barred the way there by sheer
force of stride--you know, my legs are long--and I somehow overbalanced
myself. But I didn't exactly fall--if I had fallen, I must have been
killed; I rolled and slid down, clutching at the weeds in the crannies
as I slipped, and stumbling over the projections, without quite losing
my foothold on the ledges, till I found myself brought up short with a
bump at the end of it.'

'And you think no bones are broken?'

'I can't feel sure. It hurts me horribly to move. I fancy just at first
I must have fainted. But I'm inclined to guess I'm only sprained and
bruised and sore all over. Why, you're as bad as me, I believe. See,
your dear hands are all torn and bleeding!'

'How are we ever to get him back again, Brownie?' Elsie put in. She was
paler than ever now, and prostrate with the after-effects of her
unwonted effort.

'You are a practical woman, Elsie,' I answered. 'Stop with him here a
minute or two. I'll climb up the hillside and halloo for Ursula and the
men from Lungern.'

I climbed and hallooed. In a few minutes, worn out as I was, I had
reached the path above and attracted their attention. They hurried down
to where Harold lay, and, using my cage for a litter, slung on a young
fir-trunk, carried him back between them across their shoulders to the
village. He pleaded hard to be allowed to remain at the _chalet_, and
Elsie joined her prayers to his; but, there, I was adamant. It was not
so much what people might say that I minded, but a deeper difficulty.
For if once I nursed him through this trouble, how could I or any woman
in my place any longer refuse him? So I passed him ruthlessly on to
Lungern (though my heart ached for it), and telegraphed at once to his
nearest relative, Lady Georgina, to come up and take care of him.

He recovered rapidly. Though sore and shaken, his worst hurts, it turned
out, were sprains; and in three or four days he was ready to go on
again. I called to see him before he left. I dreaded the interview; for
one's own heart is a hard enemy to fight so long: but how could I let
him go without one word of farewell to him?

'After this, Lois,' he said, taking my hand in his--and I was weak
enough, for a moment, to let it lie there--'you _cannot_ say No to me!'

Oh, how I longed to fling myself upon him and cry out, 'No, Harold, I
cannot! I love you too dearly!' But his future and Marmaduke Ashurst's
half million restrained me: for his sake and for my own I held myself in
courageously. Though, indeed, it needed some courage and self-control. I
withdrew my hand slowly. 'Do you remember,' I said, 'you asked me that
first day at Schlangenbad'--it was an epoch to me now, that first
day--'whether I was mediæval or modern? And I answered, "Modern, I
hope." And you said, "That's well!"-- You see, I don't forget the least
things you say to me. Well, because I am modern--'my lips trembled and
belied me--'I can answer you No. I can even now refuse you. The
old-fashioned girl, the mediæval girl, would have held that because she
saved your life (if I _did_ save your life, which is a matter of
opinion) she was bound to marry you. But _I_ am modern, and I see things
differently. If there were reasons at Schlangenbad which made it
impracticable for me to accept you--though my heart pleaded hard--I do
not deny it--those reasons cannot have disappeared merely because you
have chosen to fall over a precipice, and I have pulled you up again. My
decision was founded, you see, not on passing accidents of situation,
but on permanent considerations. Nothing has happened in the last three
days to affect those considerations. We are still ourselves: you, rich;
I, a penniless adventuress. I could not accept you when you asked me at
Schlangenbad. On just the same grounds, I cannot accept you now. I do
not see how the unessential fact that I made myself into a winch to pull
you up the cliff, and that I am still smarting for it----'

He looked me all over comically. 'How severe we are!' he cried, in a
bantering tone. 'And how extremely Girtony! A System of Logic,
Ratiocinative and Inductive, by Lois Cayley! What a pity we didn't take
a professor's chair. My child that isn't _you_! It's not yourself at
all! It's an attempt to be unnaturally and unfemininely reasonable.'

Logic fled. I broke down utterly. 'Harold,' I cried, rising, 'I love
you! I admit I love you! But I will never marry you--while you have
those thousands.'

'I haven't got them yet!'

'Or the chance of inheriting them.'

He smothered my hand with kisses--for I withdrew my face. 'If you admit
you love me,' he cried, quite joyously, 'then all is well. When once a
woman admits that, the rest is but a matter of time--and, Lois, I can
wait a thousand years for you.'

'Not in my case,' I answered through my tears. 'Not in my case, Harold!
I am a modern woman, and what I say I mean. I will renew my promise. If
ever you are poor and friendless, come to me; I am yours. Till then,
don't harrow me by asking me the impossible!'

I tore myself away. At the hall door, Lady Georgina intercepted me. She
glanced at my red eyes. 'Then you have taken him?' she cried, seizing my
hand.

I shook my head firmly. I could hardly speak. 'No, Lady Georgina,' I
answered, in a choking voice. 'I have refused him again. I will not
stand in his way. I will not ruin his prospects.'

She drew back and let her chin drop. 'Well, of all the hard-hearted,
cruel, obdurate young women I ever saw in my born days, if you're not
the very hardest----'

[Illustration]

I half ran from the house. I hurried home to the _chalet_. There, I
dashed into my own room, locked the door behind me, flung myself wildly
on my bed, and, burying my face in my hands, had a good, long,
hard-hearted, cruel, obdurate cry--exactly like any other mediæval
woman. It's all very well being modern; but my experience is that, when
it comes to a man one loves--well, the Middle Ages are still horribly
strong within us.




VI

THE ADVENTURE OF THE URBANE OLD GENTLEMAN


When Elsie's holidays--I beg pardon, vacation--came to an end, she
proposed to return to her High School in London. Zeal for the higher
mathematics devoured her. But she still looked so frail, and coughed so
often--a perfect _Campo Santo_ of a cough--in spite of her summer of
open-air exercise, that I positively worried her into consulting a
doctor--not one of the Fortescue-Langley order. The report he gave was
mildly unfavourable. He spoke disrespectfully of the apex of her right
lung. It was not exactly tubercular, he remarked, but he 'feared
tuberculosis'--excuse the long words; the phrase was his, not mine; I
repeat _verbatim_. He vetoed her exposing herself to a winter in London
in her present unstable condition. Davos? Well, no. _Not_ Davos: with
deliberative thumb and finger on close-shaven chin. He judged her too
delicate for such drastic remedies. Those high mountain stations suited
best the robust invalid, who had dropped by accident into casual
phthisis. For Miss Petheridge's case--looking wise--he would not
recommend the Riviera, either: too stimulating, too exciting. What this
young lady needed most was rest: rest in some agreeable southern town,
some city of the soul--say Rome or Florence--where she might find much
to interest her, and might forget the apex of her right lung in the new
world of art that opened around her.

'Very well,' I said, promptly; 'that's settled, Elsie. The apex and you
shall winter in Florence.'

'But, Brownie, can we afford it?'

'Afford it?' I echoed. 'Goodness gracious, my dear child, what a
bourgeois sentiment! Your medical attendant says to you, "Go to
Florence": and to Florence you must go; there's no getting out of it.
Why, even the swallows fly south when their medical attendant tells them
England is turning a trifle too cold for them.'

'But what will Miss Latimer say? She depends upon me to come back at the
beginning of term. She _must_ have _somebody_ to undertake the higher
mathematics.'

'And she will get somebody, dear,' I answered, calmly. 'Don't trouble
your sweet little head about that. An eminent statistician has
calculated that five hundred and thirty duly qualified young women are
now standing four-square in a solid phalanx in the streets of London,
all agog to teach the higher mathematics to anyone who wants them at a
moment's notice. Let Miss Latimer take her pick of the five hundred and
thirty. I'll wire to her at once: "Elsie Petheridge unable through ill
health to resume her duties. Ordered to Florence. Resigns post. Engage
substitute." _That's_ the way to do it.'

Elsie clasped her small white hands in the despair of the woman who
considers herself indispensable--as if we were any of us indispensable!
'But, dearest, the girls! They'll be _so_ disappointed!'

'They'll get over it,' I answered, grimly. 'There are worse
disappointments in store for them in life-- Which is a fine old crusted
platitude worthy of Aunt Susan. Anyhow, I've decided. Look here, Elsie:
I stand to you _in loco parentis_.' I have already remarked, I think,
that she was three years my senior; but I was so pleased with this
phrase that I repeated it lovingly. 'I stand to you, dear, _in loco
parentis_. Now, I can't let you endanger your precious health by
returning to town and Miss Latimer this winter. Let us be categorical. I
go to Florence; you go with me.'

'What shall we live upon?' Elsie suggested, piteously.

'Our fellow-creatures, as usual,' I answered, with prompt callousness.
'I object to these base utilitarian considerations being imported into
the discussion of a serious question. Florence is the city of art; as a
woman of culture, it behoves you to revel in it. Your medical attendant
sends you there; as a patient and an invalid, you can revel with a clear
conscience. Money? Well, money is a secondary matter. All philosophies
and all religions agree that money is mere dross, filthy lucre. Rise
superior to it. We have a fair sum in hand to the credit of the firm; we
can pick up some more, I suppose, in Florence.'

'How?'

I reflected. 'Elsie,' I said, 'you are deficient in Faith--which is one
of the leading Christian graces. My mission in life is to correct that
want in your spiritual nature. Now, observe how beautifully all these
events work in together! The winter comes, when no man can bicycle,
especially in Switzerland. Therefore, what is the use of my stopping on
here after October? Again, in pursuance of my general plan of going
round the world, I must get forward to Italy. Your medical attendant
considerately orders you at the same time to Florence. In Florence we
shall still have chances of selling Manitous, though possibly, I admit,
in diminished numbers. I confess at once that people come to Switzerland
to tour, and are therefore liable to need our machines; while they go to
Florence to look at pictures, and a bicycle would doubtless prove
inconvenient in the Uffizi or the Pitti. Still, we _may_ sell a few. But
I descry another opening. You write shorthand, don't you?'

'A little, dear; only ninety words a minute.'

'_That's_ not business. Advertise yourself, _à la_ Cyrus Hitchcock! Say
boldly, "I write shorthand." Leave the world to ask, "How fast?" It will
ask it quick enough without your suggesting it. Well, my idea is this.
Florence is a town teeming with English tourists of the cultivated
classes--men of letters, painters, antiquaries, art-critics. I suppose
even art-critics may be classed as cultivated. Such people are sure to
need literary aid. We exist, to supply it. We will set up the Florentine
School of Stenography and Typewriting. We'll buy a couple of
typewriters.'

'How can we pay for them, Brownie?'

[Illustration: THERE'S ENTERPRISE FOR YOU!]

I gazed at her in despair. 'Elsie,' I cried, clapping my hand to my
head, 'you are not practical. Did I ever suggest we should pay for them?
I said merely, buy them. Base is the slave that pays. That's
Shakespeare. And we all know Shakespeare is the mirror of nature. Argal,
it would be unnatural to pay for a typewriter. We will hire a room in
Florence (on tick, of course), and begin operations. Clients will flock
in; and we tide over the winter. _There's_ enterprise for you!' And I
struck an attitude.

Elsie's face looked her doubts. I walked across to Mrs. Evelegh's desk,
and began writing a letter. It occurred to me that Mr. Hitchcock, who
was a man of business, might be able to help a woman of business in this
delicate matter. I put the point to him fairly and squarely, without
circumlocution; we were going to start an English typewriting office in
Florence; what was the ordinary way for people to become possessed of a
typewriting machine, without the odious and mercenary preliminary of
paying for it? The answer came back with commendable promptitude.

     DEAR MISS,--Your spirit of enterprise is really remarkable! I have
     forwarded your letter to my friends of the Spread Eagle
     Typewriting and Phonograph Company, Limited, of New York City,
     informing them of your desire to open an agency for the sale of
     their machines in Florence, Italy, and giving them my estimate of
     your business capacities. I have advised their London house to
     present you with two complimentary machines for your own use and
     your partner's, and also to supply a number of others for disposal
     in the city of Florence. If you would further like to undertake an
     agency for the development of the trade in salt codfish (large
     quantities of which are, of course, consumed in Catholic Europe),
     I could put you into communication with my respected friends,
     Messrs. Abel Woodward and Co., exporters of preserved provisions,
     St John, Newfoundland. But, perhaps in this suggestion I am not
     sufficiently high-toned.--Respectfully, CYRUS W. HITCHCOCK.

The moment had arrived for Elsie to be firm. 'I have no prejudice
against trade, Brownie,' she observed emphatically; 'but I do draw the
line at salt fish.'

'So do I, dear,' I answered.

She sighed her relief. I really believe she half expected to find me
trotting about Florence with miscellaneous samples of Messrs. Abel
Woodward's esteemed productions protruding from my pocket.

So to Florence we went. My first idea was to travel by the Brenner route
through the Tyrol; but a queer little episode which met us at the outset
on the Austrian frontier put a check to this plan. We cycled to the
border, sending our trunks on by rail. When we went to claim them at the
Austrian Custom-house, we were told they were detained 'for political
reasons.'

'Political reasons?' I exclaimed, nonplussed.

'Even so, Fräulein. Your boxes contain revolutionary literature.'

'Some mistake!' I cried, warmly. I am but a drawing-room Socialist.

'Not at all; look here.' And he drew a small book out of Elsie's
portmanteau.

What? Elsie a conspirator? Elsie in league with Nihilists? So mild and
so meek! I could never have believed it. I took the book in my hands and
read the title, 'Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies.'

'But this is astronomy,' I burst out. 'Don't you see? Sun-and-star
circling. The revolution of the planets.'

'It matters not, Fräulein. Our instructions are strict. We have orders
to intercept _all_ revolutionary literature without distinction.'

'Come, Elsie,' I said, firmly, 'this is _too_ ridiculous. Let us give
them a clear berth, these Kaiserly-Kingly blockheads!' So we registered
our luggage right back to Lucerne, and cycled over the Gotthard.

[Illustration: PAINTING THE SIGN-BOARD.]

When at last, by leisurely stages, we arrived at Florence, I felt there
was no use in doing things by halves. If you are going to start the
Florentine School of Stenography and Typewriting, you may as well start
it on a proper basis. So I took sunny rooms at a nice hotel for myself
and Elsie, and hired a ground floor in a convenient house, close under
the shadow of the great marble Campanile. (Considerations of space
compel me to curtail the usual gush about Arnolfo and Giotto.) This was
our office. When I had got a Tuscan painter to plant our flag in the
shape of a sign-board, I sailed forth into the street and inspected it
from outside with a swelling heart. It is true, the Tuscan painter's
unaccountable predilection for the rare spellings 'Scool' without an _h_
and 'Stenografy' with an _f_, somewhat damped my exuberant pride for the
moment; but I made him take the board back and correct his Italianate
English. As soon as all was fitted up with desk and tables we reposed
upon our laurels, and waited only for customers in shoals to pour in
upon us. _I_ called them 'customers'; Elsie maintained that we ought
rather to say 'clients.' Being by temperament averse to sectarianism, I
did not dispute the point with her.

We reposed on our laurels--in vain. Neither customers nor clients seemed
in any particular hurry to disturb our leisure.

I confess I took this ill. It was a rude awakening. I had begun to
regard myself as the special favourite of a fairy godmother; it
surprised me to find that any undertaking of mine did not succeed
immediately. However, reflecting that my fairy godmother's name was
really Enterprise, I recalled Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock's advice, and
advertised.

'There's one good thing about Florence, Elsie,' I said, just to keep up
her courage. 'When the customers _do_ come, they'll be interesting
people, and it will be interesting work. Artistic work, don't you
know--Fra Angelico, and Della Robbia, and all that sort of thing; or
else fresh light on Dante and Petrarch!'

'When they _do_ come, no doubt,' Elsie answered, dubiously. 'But do you
know, Brownie, it strikes me there isn't quite that literary stir and
ferment one might expect in Florence. Dante and Petrarch appear to be
dead. The distinguished authors fail to stream in upon us as one
imagined with manuscripts to copy.'

I affected an air of confidence--for I had sunk capital in the concern
(that's business-like--sunk capital!). 'Oh, we're a new firm,' I
assented, carelessly. 'Our enterprise is yet young. When cultivated
Florence learns we're here, cultivated Florence will invade us in its
thousands.'

But we sat in our office and bit our thumbs all day; the thousands
stopped at home. We had ample opportunities for making studies of the
decorative detail on the Campanile, till we knew every square inch of it
better than Mr. Ruskin. Elsie's notebook contains, I believe, eleven
hundred separate sketches of the Campanile, from the right end, the left
end, and the middle of our window, with eight hundred and five distinct
distortions of the individual statues that adorn its niches on the side
turned towards us.

At last, after we had sat, and bitten our thumbs, and sketched the Four
Greater Prophets for a fortnight on end, an immense excitement occurred.
An old gentleman was distinctly seen to approach and to look up at the
sign-board which decorated our office.

I instantly slipped in a sheet of foolscap, and began to type-write with
alarming speed--click, click, click; while Elsie, rising to the
occasion, set to work to transcribe imaginary shorthand as if her life
depended upon it.

The old gentleman, after a moment's hesitation, lifted the latch of the
door somewhat nervously. I affected to take no notice of him, so
breathless was the haste with which our immense business connection
compelled me to finger the keyboard: but, looking up at him under my
eyelashes, I could just make out he was a peculiarly bland and urbane
old person, dressed with the greatest care, and some attention to
fashion. His face was smooth; it tended towards portliness.

He made up his mind, and entered the office. I continued to click till I
had reached the close of a sentence--'Or to take arms against a sea of
troubles, and by opposing, end them.' Then I looked up sharply. 'Can I
do anything for you?' I inquired, in the smartest tone of business. (I
observe that politeness is not professional.)

[Illustration: THE URBANE OLD GENTLEMAN.]

The Urbane Old Gentleman came forward with his hat in his hand. He
looked as if he had just landed from the Eighteenth Century. His figure
was that of Mr. Edward Gibbon. 'Yes, madam,' he said, in a markedly
deferential tone, fussing about with the rim of his hat as he spoke, and
adjusting his _pince-nez_. 'I was recommended to your--ur--your
establishment for shorthand and typewriting. I have some work which I
wish done, if it falls within your province. But I am _rather_
particular. I require a quick worker. Excuse my asking it, but how many
words can you do a minute?'

'Shorthand?' I asked, sharply, for I wished to imitate official habits.

The Urbane Old Gentleman bowed. 'Yes, shorthand. Certainly.'

I waved my hand with careless grace towards Elsie--as if these things
happened to us daily. 'Miss Petheridge undertakes the shorthand
department,' I said, with decision. 'I am the typewriting from
dictation. Miss Petheridge, forward!'

Elsie rose to it like an angel. 'A hundred,' she answered, confronting
him.

The old gentleman bowed again. 'And your terms?' he inquired, in a
honey-tongued voice. 'If I may venture to ask them.'

We handed him our printed tariff. He seemed satisfied.

'Could you spare me an hour this morning?' he asked, still fingering his
hat nervously with his puffy hand. 'But perhaps you are engaged. I fear
I intrude upon you.'

'Not at all,' I answered, consulting an imaginary engagement list. 'This
work can wait. Let me see: 11.30. Elsie, I think you have nothing to do
before one, that cannot be put off? Quite so!--very well, then; yes, we
are both at your service.'

The Urbane Old Gentleman looked about him for a seat. I pushed him our
one easy chair. He withdrew his gloves with great deliberation, and sat
down in it with an apologetic glance. I could gather from his dress and
his diamond pin that he was wealthy. Indeed, I half guessed who he was
already. There was a fussiness about his manner which seemed strangely
familiar to me.

He sat down by slow degrees, edging himself about till he was thoroughly
comfortable. I could see he was of the kind that will have comfort. He
took out his notes and a packet of letters, which he sorted slowly. Then
he looked hard at me and at Elsie. He seemed to be making his choice
between us. After a time he spoke. 'I _think_,' he said, in a most
leisurely voice, 'I will not trouble your friend to write shorthand for
me, after all. Or should I say your assistant? Excuse my change of plan.
I will content myself with dictation. You can follow on the machine?'

'As fast as you choose to dictate to me.'

He glanced at his notes and began a letter. It was a curious
communication. It seemed to be all about buying Bertha and selling
Clara--a cold-blooded proceeding which almost suggested slave-dealing. I
gathered he was giving instructions to his agent: could he have business
relations with Cuba, I wondered. But there were also hints of mysterious
middies--brave British tars to the rescue, possibly! Perhaps my
bewilderment showed itself upon my face, for at last he looked queerly
at me. 'You don't quite like this, I'm afraid,' he said, breaking off
short.

I was the soul of business. 'Not at all,' I answered. 'I am an
automaton--nothing more. It is a typewriter's function to transcribe the
words a client dictates as if they were absolutely meaningless to her.'

'Quite right,' he answered, approvingly. 'Quite right. I see you
understand. A very proper spirit!'

Then the Woman within me got the better of the Typewriter. 'Though I
confess,' I continued, 'I _do_ feel it is a little unkind to
sell Clara at once for whatever she will fetch. It seems to
me--well--unchivalrous.'

He smiled, but held his peace.

'Still--the middies,' I went on: 'they will perhaps take care that these
poor girls are not ill-treated.'

He leaned back, clasped his hands, and regarded me fixedly. 'Bertha,' he
said, after a pause, 'is Brighton A's--to be strictly correct, London,
Brighton, and South Coast First Preference Debentures. Clara is Glasgow
and South-Western Deferred Stock. Middies are Midland Ordinary. But I
respect your feeling. You are a young lady of principle.' And he
fidgeted more than ever.

[Illustration: HE WENT ON DICTATING FOR JUST AN HOUR.]

He went on dictating for just an hour. His subject-matter bewildered me.
It was all about India Bills, and telegraphic transfers, and selling
cotton short, and holding tight to Egyptian Unified. Markets, it seemed,
were glutted. Hungarians were only to be dealt in if they
hardened--hardened sinners I know, but what are hardened Hungarians? And
fears were not unnaturally expressed that Turks might be 'irregular,'
Consols, it appeared, were certain to give way for political reasons;
but the downward tendency of Australians, I was relieved to learn, for
the honour of so great a group of colonies, could only be temporary.
Greeks were growing decidedly worse, though I had always understood
Greeks were bad enough already; and Argentine Central were likely to be
weak; but Provincials must soon become commendably firm, and if Uruguays
went flat, something good ought to be made out of them. Scotch rails
might shortly be quiet-- I always understood they were based upon
sleepers; but if South-Eastern stiffened, advantage should certainly be
taken of their stiffening. He would telegraph particulars on Monday
morning. And so on till my brain reeled. Oh, artistic Florence! was
_this_ the Filippo Lippi, the Michael Angelo I dreamed of?

At the end of the hour, the Urbane Old Gentleman rose urbanely. He drew
on his gloves again with the greatest deliberation, and hunted for his
stick as if his life depended upon it. 'Let me see; I had a pencil; oh,
thanks; yes, that is it. This cover protects the point. My hat? Ah,
certainly. And my notes; much obliged; notes _always_ get mislaid.
People are so careless. Then I will come again to-morrow; the same hour,
if you will kindly keep yourself disengaged. Though, excuse me, you had
better make an entry of it at once upon your agenda.'

'I shall remember it,' I answered, smiling.

'No; will you? But you haven't my name.'

'I know it,' I answered. 'At least, I think so. You are Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst. Lady Georgina Fawley sent you here.'

He laid down his hat and gloves again, so as to regard me more
undistracted. 'You are a most remarkable young lady,' he said, in a very
slow voice. 'I impressed upon Georgina that she must not mention to you
that I was coming. How on earth did you recognise me?'

'Intuition, most likely.'

He stared at me with a sort of suspicion. '_Please_ don't tell me you
think me like my sister,' he went on. 'For though, of course, every
right-minded man feels--ur--a natural respect and affection for the
members his family--bows, if I may so say, to the inscrutable decrees of
Providence--which has mysteriously burdened him with them--still, there
_are_ points about Lady Georgina which I cannot conscientiously assert I
approve of.'

I remembered 'Marmy's a fool,' and held my tongue judiciously.

'I do not resemble her, I hope,' he persisted, with a look which I could
almost describe as wistful.

'A family likeness, perhaps,' I put in. 'Family likenesses exist, you
know--often with complete divergence of tastes and character.'

He looked relieved. 'That is true. Oh, how true! But the likeness in my
case, I must admit, escapes me.'

I temporised. 'Strangers see these things most,' I said, airing the
stock platitudes. 'It may be superficial. And, of course, one knows that
profound differences of intellect and moral feeling often occur within
the limits of a single family.'

'You are quite right,' he said, with decision. 'Georgina's principles
are not mine. Excuse my remarking it, but you seem to be a young lady of
unusual penetration.'

I saw he took my remark as a compliment. What I really meant to say was
that a commonplace man might easily be brother to so clever a woman as
Lady Georgina.

[Illustration: HE BOWED TO US EACH SEPARATELY.]

He gathered up his hat, his stick, his gloves, his notes, and his
typewritten letters, one by one, and backed out politely. He was a
punctilious millionaire. He had risen by urbanity to his brother
directors, like a model guinea-pig. He bowed to us each separately as if
we had been duchesses.

As soon as he was gone, Elsie turned to me. 'Brownie, how on earth did
you guess it? They're so awfully different!'

'Not at all,' I answered. 'A few surface unlikenesses only just mask an
underlying identity. Their features are the same; but his are plump;
hers, shrunken. Lady Georgina's expression is sharp and worldly; Mr.
Ashurst's is smooth, and bland, and financial. And then their manner!
Both are fussy; but Lady Georgina's is honest, open, ill-tempered
fussiness; Mr. Ashurst's is concealed under an artificial mask of
obsequious politeness. One's cantankerous; the other's only pernicketty.
It's one tune, after all, in two different keys.'

From that day forth, the Urbane Old Gentleman was a daily visitor. He
took an hour at a time at first; but after a few days, the hour
lengthened out (apologetically) to an entire morning. He 'presumed to
ask' my Christian name the second day, and remembered my father--'a man
of excellent principles.' But he didn't care for Elsie to work for him.
Fortunately for her, other work dropped in, once we had found a client,
or else, poor girl, she would have felt sadly slighted. I was glad she
had something to do; the sense of dependence weighed heavily upon her.

The Urbane Old Gentleman did not confine himself entirely, after the
first few days, to Stock Exchange literature. He was engaged on a
Work--he spoke of it always with bated breath, and a capital letter was
implied in his intonation; the Work was one on the Interpretation of
Prophecy. Unlike Lady Georgina, who was tart and crisp, Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst was devout and decorous; where she said 'pack of fools,' he
talked with unction of 'the mental deficiencies of our poorer brethren.'
But his religious opinions and his stockbroking had got strangely mixed
up at the wash somehow. He was convinced that the British nation
represented the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel--and in particular Ephraim--a
matter on which, as a mere lay-woman, I would not presume either to
agree with him or to differ from him. 'That being so, Miss Cayley, we
can easily understand that the existing commercial prosperity of England
depends upon the promises made to Abraham.'

I assented, without committing myself. 'It would seem to follow.'

Mr. Ashurst, encouraged by so much assent, went on to unfold his System
of Interpretation, which was of a strictly commercial or
company-promoting character. It ran like a prospectus. 'We have
inherited the gold of Australia and the diamonds of the Cape,' he said,
growing didactic, and lifting one fat forefinger; 'we are now inheriting
Klondike and the Rand, for it is morally certain that we shall annex the
Transvaal. Again, "the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the
precious things of the everlasting hills." What does that mean? The
ancient mountains are clearly the Rockies; can the everlasting hills be
anything but the Himalayas? "For they shall suck of the abundance of the
seas"--that refers, of course, to our world-wide commerce, due mainly to
imports--"and of the treasures hid in the sand." Which sand?
Undoubtedly, I say, the desert of Mount Sinai. What then is our obvious
destiny? A lady of your intelligence must gather at once that it
is----?' He paused and gazed at me.

'To drive the Sultan out of Syria,' I suggested tentatively, 'and to
annex Palestine to our practical province of Egypt?'

He leaned back in his chair and folded his fat hands in undisguised
satisfaction. 'Now, you are a thinker of exceptional penetration,' he
broke out. 'Do you know, Miss Cayley, I have tried to make that point
clear to the War Office, and the Prime Minister, and many leading
financiers in the City of London, and I _can't_ get them to see it. They
have no heads, those people. But _you_ catch at it at a glance. Why, I
endeavoured to interest Rothschild and induce him to join me in my
Palestine Development Syndicate, and, will you believe it, the man
refused point blank. Though if he had only looked at Nahum iii. 17----'

'Mere financiers,' I said, smiling, 'will not consider these questions
from a historical and prophetic point of view. They see nothing above
percentages.'

'That's it,' he replied, lighting up. 'They have no higher feelings.
Though, mind you, there will be dividends too; mark my words, there will
be dividends. This syndicate, besides fulfilling the prophecies, will
pay forty per cent on every penny embarked in it.'

'Only forty per cent for Ephraim!' I murmured, half below my breath.
'Why, Judah is said to batten upon sixty.'

He caught at it eagerly, without perceiving my gentle sarcasm.

'In that case, we might even expect seventy,' he put in with a gasp of
anticipation. 'Though I approached Rothschild first with my scheme on
purpose, so that Israel and Judah might once more unite in sharing the
promises.'

'Your combined generosity and commercial instinct does you credit,' I
answered. 'It is rare to find so much love for an abstract study side by
side with such conspicuous financial ability.'

His guilelessness was beyond words. He swallowed it like an infant. 'So
I think,' he answered. 'I am glad to observe that you understand my
character. Mere City men don't. They have no soul above shekels. Though,
as I show them, there are shekels in it, too. Dividends, dividends,
di-vidends. But _you_ are a lady of understanding and comprehension. You
have been to Girton, haven't you? Perhaps you read Greek, then?'

'Enough to get on with.'

'Could you look things up in Herodotus?'

'Certainly?'

'In the original?'

'Oh, dear, yes.'

He regarded me once more with the same astonished glance. His own
classics, I soon learnt, were limited to the amount which a public
school succeeds in dinning, during the intervals of cricket and football
into an English gentleman. Then he informed me that he wished me to hunt
up certain facts in Herodotus "and elsewhere" confirmatory of his view
that the English were the descendants of the Ten Tribes. I promised to
do so, swallowing even that comprehensive "elsewhere." It was none of my
business to believe or disbelieve: I was paid to get up a case, and I
got one up to the best of my ability. I imagine it was at least as good
as most other cases in similar matters: at any rate, it pleased the old
gentleman vastly.

By dint of listening, I began to like him. But Elsie couldn't bear him.
She hated the fat crease at the back of his neck, she told me.

After a week or two devoted to the Interpretation of Prophecy on a
strictly commercial basis of Founders' Shares, with interludes of mining
engineers' reports upon the rubies of Mount Sinai and the supposed
auriferous quartzites of Palestine, the Urbane Old Gentleman trotted
down to the office one day, carrying a packet of notes of most
voluminous magnitude. "Can we work in a room alone this morning, Miss
Cayley?" he asked, with mystery in his voice: he was always mysterious.
"I want to intrust you with a piece of work of an exceptionally private
and confidential character. It concerns Property. In point of fact," he
dropped his voice to a whisper. "I want you to draw up my will for me."

"Certainly," I said, opening the door into the back office. But I
trembled in my shoes. Could this mean that he was going to draw up a
will, disinheriting Harold Tillington?

And, suppose he did, what then? My heart was in a tumult. If Harold were
rich--well and good, I could never marry him. But, if Harold were poor--
I must keep my promise. Could I wish him to be rich? Could I wish him to
be poor? My heart stood divided two ways within me.

The Urbane Old Gentleman began with immense deliberation, as befits a
man of principle when Property is at stake. 'You will kindly take down
notes from my dictation,' he said, fussing with his papers; 'and
afterwards, I will ask you to be so good as to copy it all out fair on
your typewriter for signature.'

'Is a typewritten form legal?' I ventured to inquire.

'A most perspicacious young lady!' he interjected, well pleased. 'I have
investigated that point, and find it perfectly regular. Only, if I may
venture to say so, there should be no erasures.'

'There shall be none,' I answered.

The Urbane Old Gentleman leant back in his easy chair, and began
dictating from his notes with tantalising deliberateness. This was the
last will and testament of him, Marmaduke Courtney Ashurst. Its verbiage
wearied me. I was eager for him to come to the point about Harold.
Instead of that, he did what it seems is usual in such cases--set out
with a number of unimportant legacies to old family servants and other
hangers-on among 'our poorer brethren.' I fumed and fretted inwardly.
Next came a series of quaint bequests of a quite novel character. 'I
give and bequeath to James Walsh and Sons, of 720 High Holborn, London,
the sum of Five Hundred Pounds, in consideration of the benefit they
have conferred upon humanity by the invention of a sugar-spoon or silver
sugar-sifter, by means of which it is possible to dust sugar upon a
tart or pudding without letting the whole or the greater part of the
material run through the apertures uselessly in transit. You must have
observed, Miss Cayley--with your usual perspicacity--that most
sugar-sifters allow the sugar to fall through them on to the table
prematurely.'

'I have noticed it,' I answered, trembling with anxiety.

'James Walsh and Sons, acting on a hint from me, have succeeded in
inventing a form of spoon which does not possess that regrettable
drawback. "Run through the apertures uselessly in transit," I think I
said last. Yes, thank you. Very good. We will now continue. And I give
and bequeath the like sum of Five Hundred Pounds--did I say, free of
legacy duty? No? Then please add it to James Walsh's clause. Five
Hundred Pounds, free of legacy duty, to Thomas Webster Jones, of Wheeler
Street, Soho, for his admirable invention of a pair of braces which will
not slip down on the wearer's shoulders after half an hour's use. Most
braces, you must have observed, Miss Cayley----'

'My acquaintance with braces is limited, not to say abstract,' I
interposed, smiling.

He gazed at me, and twirled his fat thumbs.

'_Of_ course,' he murmured. '_Of_ course. But most braces, you may not
be aware, slip down unpleasantly on the shoulder-blade, and so lead to
an awkward habit of hitching them up by the sleeve-hole of the waistcoat
at frequent intervals. Such a habit must be felt to be ungraceful.
Thomas Webster Jones, to whom I pointed out this error of manufacture,
has invented a brace the two halves of which diverge at a higher angle
than usual, and fasten further towards the centre of the body in
front--pardon these details--so as to obviate that difficulty. He has
given me satisfaction, and he deserves to be rewarded.'

I heard through it all the voice of Lady Georgina observing, tartly,
'Why the idiots can't make braces to fit one at first passes _my_
comprehension. But, there, my dear; the people who manufacture them are
a set of born fools, and what can you expect from an imbecile?' Mr.
Ashurst was Lady Georgina, veneered with a thin layer of ingratiating
urbanity. Lady Georgina was clever, and therefore acrimonious. Mr.
Ashurst was astute, and therefore obsequious.

He went on with legacies to the inventor of a sauce-bottle which did not
let the last drop dribble down so as to spot the table-cloth; of a
shoe-horn the handle of which did not come undone; and of a pair of
sleeve-links which you could put off and on without injury to the
temper. 'A real benefactor, Miss Cayley; a real benefactor to the
link-wearing classes; for he has sensibly diminished the average annual
output of profane swearing.'

When he left Five Hundred Pounds to his faithful servant Frederic
Higginson, courier, I was tempted to interpose; but I refrained in time,
and I was glad of it afterwards.

At last, after many divagations, my Urbane Old Gentleman arrived at the
central point--'and I give and bequeath to my nephew, Harold Ashurst
Tillington, Younger of Gledcliffe, Dumfriesshire, attaché to Her
Majesty's Embassy at Rome----'

[Illustration: I WAITED BREATHLESS.]

I waited, breathless.

He was annoyingly dilatory. 'My house and estate of Ashurst Court, in
the County of Gloucester, and my town house at 24 Park Lane North, in
London, together with the residue of all my estate, real or
personal----' and so forth.

I breathed again. At least, I had not been called upon to disinherit
Harold.

'Provided always----' he went on, in the same voice.

I wondered what was coming.

'Provided always that the said Harold Ashurst Tillington does not
marry----leave a blank there, Miss Cayley. I will find out the name of
the young person I desire to exclude, and fill it in afterward. I don't
recollect it at this moment, but Higginson, no doubt, will be able to
supply the deficiency. In fact, I don't think I ever heard it; though
Higginson has told me all about the woman.'

'Higginson?' I inquired. 'Is he here?'

'Oh, dear, yes. You heard of him, I suppose, from Georgina. Georgina is
prejudiced. He has come back to me, I am glad to say. An excellent
servant, Higginson, though a trifle too omniscient. All men are equal in
the eyes of their Maker, of course; but we must have due subordination.
A courier ought not to be better informed than his master--or ought at
least to conceal the fact dexterously. Well, Higginson knows this young
person's name; my sister wrote to me about her disgraceful conduct when
she first went to Schlangenbad. An adventuress, it seems; an
adventuress; quite a shocking creature. Foisted herself upon Lady
Georgina in Kensington Gardens--unintroduced, if you can believe such a
thing--with the most astonishing effrontery; and Georgina, who will
forgive anything on earth, for the sake of what she calls
originality--another name for impudence, as I am sure you must
know--took the young woman with her as her maid to Germany. There, this
minx tried to set her cap at my nephew Harold, who can be caught at once
by a pretty face; and Harold was bowled over--almost got engaged to her.
Georgina took a fancy to the girl later, having a taste for dubious
people (I cannot say I approve of Georgina's friends), and wrote again
to say her first suspicions were unfounded: the young woman was in
reality a paragon of virtue. But _I_ know better than that. Georgina has
no judgment. I regret to be obliged to confess it, but cleverness, I
fear, is the only thing in the world my excellent sister cares for. The
hussy, it seems, was certainly clever. Higginson has told me about her.
He says her bare appearance would suffice to condemn her--a bold, fast,
shameless, brazen-faced creature. But you will forgive me, I am sure, my
dear young lady: I ought not to discuss such painted Jezebels before
you. We will leave this person's name blank. I will not sully your
pen--I mean, your typewriter--by asking you to transcribe it.'

I made up my mind at once. 'Mr. Ashurst,' I said, looking up from my
keyboard, '_I_ can give you this girl's name; and then you can insert
the proviso immediately.'

'_You_ can? My dear young lady, what a wonderful person you are! You
seem to know everybody, and everything. But perhaps she was at
Schlangenbad with Lady Georgina, and you were there also?'

'She was,' I answered, deliberately. 'The name you want is--Lois
Cayley!'

He let his notes drop in his astonishment.

I went on with my typewriting, unmoved. 'Provided always that the said
Harold Ashurst Tillington does not marry Lois Cayley; in which case I
will and desire that the said estate shall pass to----whom shall I put
in, Mr. Ashurst?'

He leant forward with his fat hands on his ample knees. 'It was really
_you_?' he inquired, open-mouthed.

I nodded. 'There is no use in denying the truth. Mr. Tillington did ask
me to be his wife, and I refused him.'

'But, my dear Miss Cayley----'

'The difference in station?' I said; 'the difference, still greater, in
this world's goods? Yes, I know. I admit all that. So I declined his
offer. I did not wish to ruin his prospects.'

The Urbane Old Gentleman eyed me with a sudden tenderness in his glance.
'Young men are lucky,' he said, slowly, after a short pause; '--and--
Higginson is an idiot. I say it deliberately--an idiot! How could one
dream of trusting the judgment of a flunkey about a lady? My dear,
excuse the familiarity from one who may consider himself in a certain
sense a contingent uncle--suppose we amend the last clause by the
omission of the word _not_. It strikes me as superfluous. "Provided
always the said Harold Ashurst Tillington consents to marry"-- I think
that sounds better!'

He looked at me with such fatherly regard that it pricked my heart ever
to have poked fun at his Interpretation of Prophecy on Stock Exchange
principles. I think I flushed crimson. 'No, no,' I answered, firmly.
'That will not do either, please. That's worse than the other way. You
must not put it, Mr. Ashurst. I could not consent to be willed away to
anybody.'

He leant forward, with real earnestness. 'My dear,' he said, 'that's not
the point. Pardon my reminding you that you are here in your capacity as
my amanuensis. I am drawing up my will, and if you will allow me to say
so, I cannot admit that anyone has a claim to influence me in the
disposition of my Property.'

'_Please!_' I cried, pleadingly.

He looked at me and paused. 'Well,' he went on at last, after a long
interval; 'since _you_ insist upon it, I will leave the bequest to stand
without condition.'

'Thank you,' I murmured, bending low over my machine.'

'If I did as I like, though,' he went on, 'I should say, Unless he
marries Miss Lois Cayley (who is a deal too good for him) the estate
shall revert to Kynaston's eldest son, a confounded jackass. I do not
usually indulge in intemperate language; but I desire to assure you,
with the utmost calmness, that Kynaston's eldest son, Lord Southminster,
is a con-founded jackass.'

I rose and took his hand in my own spontaneously. 'Mr. Ashurst,' I said,
'you may interpret prophecy as long as ever you like, but you are a dear
kind old gentleman. I am truly grateful to you for your good opinion.

'And you will marry Harold?'

'Never,' I answered; 'while he is rich. I have said as much to him.'

'That's hard,' he went on, slowly. 'For ... I should like to be your
uncle.'

I trembled all over. Elsie saved the situation by bursting in abruptly.

I will only add that when Mr. Ashurst left, I copied the will out
neatly, without erasures. The rough original I threw (somewhat
carelessly) into the waste-paper basket.

That afternoon, somebody called to fetch the fair copy for Mr. Ashurst.
I went out into the front office to see him. To my surprise, it was
Higginson--in his guise as courier.

[Illustration: WHAT, YOU HERE! HE CRIED.]

He was as astonished as myself. 'What, _you_ here!' he cried. 'You dog
me!'

'I was thinking the same thing of you, M. le Comte,' I answered,
curtsying.

He made no attempt at an excuse. 'Well, I have been sent for the will,'
he broke out, curtly.

'And you were sent for the jewel-case,' I retorted. 'No, no, Dr.
Fortescue-Langley; _I_ am in charge of the will, and I will take it
myself to Mr. Ashurst.'

'I will be even with you yet,' he snapped out. 'I have gone back to my
old trade, and am trying to lead an honest life; but _you_ won't let
me.'

'On the contrary,' I answered, smiling a polite smile. 'I rejoice to
hear it. If you say nothing more against me to your employer, I will not
disclose to him what I know about you. But if you slander me, I will. So
now we understand one another.'

And I kept the will till I could give it myself into Mr Ashurst's own
hands in his rooms that evening.




VII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNOBTRUSIVE OASIS


I will not attempt to describe to you the minor episodes of our next
twelve months--the manuscripts we type-wrote and the Manitous we sold.
'Tis one of my aims in a world so rich in bores to avoid being tedious.
I will merely say, therefore, that we spent the greater part of the year
in Florence, where we were building up a connection, but rode back for
the summer months to Switzerland, as being a livelier place for the
trade in bicycles. The net result was not only that we covered our
expenses, but that, as chancellor of the exchequer, I found myself with
a surplus in hand at the end of the season.

When we returned to Florence for the winter, however, I confess I began
to chafe. 'This is slow work, Elsie!' I said. 'I started out to go round
the world; it has taken me eighteen months to travel no further than
Italy! At this rate, I shall reach New York a gray-haired old lady, in a
nice lace cap, and totter back into London a venerable crone on the
verge of ninety.'

However, those invaluable doctors came to my rescue unexpectedly. I do
love doctors; they are always sending you off at a moment's notice to
delightful places you never dreamt of. Elsie was better, but still far
from strong. I took it upon me to consult our medical attendant; and
his verdict was decisive. He did just what a doctor ought to do. 'She is
getting on very well in Florence,' he said; 'but if you want to restore
her health completely, I should advise you to take her for a winter to
Egypt. After six months of the dry, warm desert air, I don't doubt she
might return to her work in London.'

That last point I used as a lever with Elsie. She positively revels in
teaching mathematics. At first, to be sure, she objected that we had
only just money enough to pay our way to Cairo, and that when we got
there we might starve--her favourite programme. I have not this
extraordinary taste for starving; _my_ idea is, to go where you like,
and find something decent to eat when you get there. However, to humour
her, I began to cast about me for a source of income. There is no
absolute harm in seeing your way clear before you for a twelvemonth,
though of course it deprives you of the plot-interest of poverty.

'Elsie,' I said, in my best didactic style--I excel in didactics--'you
do not learn from the lessons that life sets before you. Look at the
stage, for example; the stage is universally acknowledged at the present
day to be a great teacher of morals. Does not Irving say so?--and he
ought to know. There is that splendid model for imitation, for instance,
the Clown in the pantomime. How does Clown regulate his life? Does he
take heed for the morrow? Not a bit of it! "I wish I had a goose," he
says, at some critical juncture; and just as he says it--pat--a super
strolls upon the stage with a property goose on a wooden tray; and Clown
cries, "Oh, look here, Joey; _here's_ a goose!" and proceeds to
appropriate it. Then he puts his fingers in his mouth and observes, "I
wish I had a few apples to make the sauce with"; and as the words escape
him--pat again--a small boy with a very squeaky voice runs on, carrying
a basket of apples. Clown trips him up, and bolts with the basket.
_There's_ a model for imitation! The stage sets these great moral
lessons before you regularly every Christmas; yet you fail to profit by
them. Govern your life on the principles exemplified by Clown; expect to
find that whatever you want will turn up with punctuality and dispatch
at the proper moment. Be adventurous and you will be happy. Take that as
a new maxim to put in your copy-book!'

'I wish I could think so, dear,' Elsie answered. 'But your confidence
staggers me.'

That evening at our _table-d'hôte_, however, it was amply justified. A
smooth-faced young man of ample girth and most prosperous exterior
happened to sit next us. He had his wife with him, so I judged it safe
to launch on conversation. We soon found out he was the millionaire
editor-proprietor of a great London daily, with many more strings to his
journalistic bow; his honoured name was Elworthy. I mentioned casually
that we thought of going for the winter to Egypt. He pricked his ears
up. But at the time he said nothing. After dinner, we adjourned to the
cosy _salon_. I talked to him and his wife; and somehow, that evening,
the devil entered into me. I am subject to devils. I hasten to add, they
are mild ones. I had one of my reckless moods just then, however, and I
reeled off rattling stories of our various adventures. Mr. Elworthy
believed in youth and audacity; I could see I interested him. The more
he was amused, the more reckless I became. 'That's bright,' he said at
last, when I told him the tale of our amateur exploits in the sale of
Manitous. 'That would make a good article!'

'Yes,' I answered, with bravado, determined to strike while the iron
was hot. 'What the _Daily Telephone_ lacks is just one enlivening touch
of feminine brightness.'

He smiled. 'What is your forte?' he inquired.

'My forte,' I answered, 'is--to go where I choose, and write what I like
about it.'

He smiled again. 'And a very good new departure in journalism, too! A
roving commission! Have you ever tried your hand at writing?'

Had I ever tried! It was the ambition of my life to see myself in print;
though, hitherto, it had been ineffectual. 'I have written a few
sketches,' I answered, with becoming modesty. As a matter of fact, our
office bulged with my unpublished manuscripts.

'Could you let me see them?' he asked.

I assented, with inner joy, but outer reluctance. 'If you wish it,' I
murmured; 'but--you must be _very_ lenient!'

[Illustration: HE READ THEM, CRUEL MAN, BEFORE MY VERY EYES.]

Though I had not told Elsie, the truth of the matter was, I had just
then conceived an idea for a novel--my _magnum opus_--the setting of
which compelled Egyptian local colour; and I was therefore dying to get
to Egypt, if chance so willed it. I submitted a few of my picked
manuscripts accordingly to Mr. Elworthy, in fear and trembling. He read
them, cruel man, before my very eyes; I sat and waited, twiddling my
thumbs, demure but apprehensive.

When he had finished, he laid them down.

'Racy!' he said. 'Racy! You're quite right, Miss Cayley. That's just
what we want on the _Daily Telephone_. I should like to print these
three,' selecting them out, 'at our usual rate of pay per thousand.'

'You are very kind.' But the room reeled with me.

'Not at all. I am a man of business. And these are good copy. Now, about
this Egypt. I will put the matter in the shape of a business
proposition. Will you undertake, if I pay your passage, and your
friend's, with all travelling expenses, to let me have three descriptive
articles a week, on Cairo, the Nile, Syria, and India, running to about
two thousand words apiece, at three guineas a thousand?'

My breath came and went. It was positive opulence. The super with the
goose couldn't approach it for patness. My editor had brought me the
apple sauce as well, without even giving me the trouble of cooking it.

The very next day everything was arranged. Elsie tried to protest, on
the foolish ground that she had no money: but the faculty had ordered
the apex of her right lung to go to Egypt, and I couldn't let her fly in
the face of the faculty. We secured our berths in a P. and O. steamer
from Brindisi; and within a week we were tossing upon the bosom of the
blue Mediterranean.

People who haven't crossed the blue Mediterranean cherish an absurd idea
that it is always calm and warm and sunny. I am sorry to take away any
sea's character; but I speak of it as I find it (to borrow a phrase from
my old gyp at Girton); and I am bound to admit that the Mediterranean
did not treat me as a lady expects to be treated. It behaved
disgracefully. People may rhapsodize as long as they choose about a life
on the ocean wave; for my own part, I wouldn't give a pin for
sea-sickness. We glided down the Adriatic from Brindisi to Corfu with a
reckless profusion of lateral motion which suggested the idea that the
ship must have been drinking.

I tried to rouse Elsie when we came abreast of the Ionian Islands, and
to remind her that 'Here was the home of Nausicaa in the Odyssey.' Elsie
failed to respond; she was otherwise occupied. At last, I succumbed and
gave it up. I remember nothing further till a day and a half later, when
we got under lee of Crete, and the ship showed a tendency to resume the
perpendicular. Then I began once more to take a languid interest in the
dinner question.

I may add parenthetically that the Mediterranean is a mere bit of a sea,
when you look at it on the map--a pocket sea, to be regarded with
mingled contempt and affection; but you learn to respect it when you
find that it takes four clear days and nights of abject misery merely to
run across its eastern basin from Brindisi to Alexandria. I respected
the Mediterranean immensely while we lay off the Peloponnesus in the
trough of the waves with a north wind blowing; I only began to temper my
respect with a distant liking when we passed under the welcome shelter
of Crete on a calm, star-lit evening.

It was deadly cold. We had not counted upon such weather in the sunny
south. I recollected now that the Greeks were wont to represent Boreas
as a chilly deity, and spoke of the Thracian breeze with the same
deferentially deprecating adjectives which we ourselves apply to the
east wind of our fatherland; but that apt classical memory somehow
failed to console or warm me. A good-natured male passenger, however,
volunteered to ask us, 'Will I get ye a rug, ladies?' The form of his
courteous question suggested the probability of his Irish origin.

'You are very kind,' I answered. 'If you don't want it for yourself, I'm
sure my friend would be glad to have the use of it.'

'Is it meself? Sure I've got me big ulsther, and I'm as warrum as a
toast in it. But ye're not provided for this weather. Ye've thrusted too
much to those rascals the po-uts. 'Where breaks the blue Sicilian say,'
the rogues write. _I'd_ like to set them down in it, wid a nor'-easter
blowing!'

He fetched up his rug. It was ample and soft, a smooth brown camel-hair.
He wrapped us both up in it. We sat late on deck that night, as warm as
a toast ourselves, thanks to our genial Irishman.

[Illustration: 'TIS DOCTOR MACLOGHLEN, HE ANSWERED.]

We asked his name. ''Tis Dr. Macloghlen,' he answered. 'I'm from County
Clare, ye see; and I'm on me way to Egypt for thravel and exploration.
Me fader whisht me to see the worruld a bit before I'd settle down to
practise me profession at Liscannor. Have ye ever been in County Clare?
Sure, 'tis the pick of Oireland.'

'We have that pleasure still in store,' I answered, smiling. 'It spreads
gold-leaf over the future, as George Meredith puts it.'

'Is it Meredith? Ah, there's the foine writer! 'Tis jaynius the man has:
I can't undtherstand a word of him. But he's half Oirish, ye know. What
proof have I got of it? An' would he write like that if there wasn't a
dhrop of the blood of the Celt in him?'

Next day and next night, Mr. Macloghlen was our devoted slave. I had won
his heart by admitting frankly that his countrywomen had the finest and
liveliest eyes in Europe--eyes with a deep twinkle, half fun, half
passion. He took to us at once, and talked to us incessantly. He was a
red-haired, raw-boned Munster-man, but a real good fellow. We forgot the
aggressive inequalities of the Mediterranean while he talked to us of
'the pizzantry.' Late the second evening he propounded a confidence. It
was a lovely night; Orion overhead, and the plashing phosphorescence on
the water below conspired with the hour to make him specially
confidential. 'Now, Miss Cayley,' he said, leaning forward on his deck
chair, and gazing earnestly into my eyes, 'there's wan question I'd like
to ask ye. The ambition of me life is to get into Parlimint. And I want
to know from ye, as a frind--if I accomplish me heart's wish--is there
annything, in me apparence, ar in me voice, ar in me accent, ar in me
manner, that would lade annybody to suppose I was an Oirishman?'

I succeeded, by good luck, in avoiding Elsie's eye. What on earth could
I answer? Then a happy thought struck me. 'Dr. Macloghlen,' I said, 'it
would not be the slightest use your trying to conceal it; for even if
nobody ever detected a faint Irish intonation in your words or
phrases--how could your eloquence fail to betray you for a countryman of
Sheridan and Burke and Grattan?'

He seized my hand with such warmth that I thought it best to hurry down
to my state-room at once, under cover of my compliment.

At Alexandria and Cairo we found him invaluable. He looked after our
luggage, which he gallantly rescued from the lean hands of fifteen Arab
porters, all eagerly struggling to gain possession of our effects; he
saw us safe into the train; and he never quitted us till he had safely
ensconced us in our rooms at Shepheard's. For himself, he said, with
subdued melancholy, 'twas to some cheaper hotel he must go; Shepheard's
wasn't for the likes of him; though if land in County Clare was wort'
what it ought to be, there wasn't a finer estate in all Oireland than
his fader's.

Our Mr. Elworthy was a modern proprietor, who knew how to do things on
the lordly scale. Having commissioned me to write this series of
articles, he intended them to be written in the first style of art, and
he had instructed me accordingly to hire one of Cook's little steam
dahabeeahs, where I could work at leisure. Dr. Macloghlen was in his
element arranging for the trip. 'Sure the only thing I mind,' he said,
'is--that I'll not be going wid ye.' I think he was half inclined to
invite himself; but there again I drew a line. I will not sell salt
fish; and I will not go up the Nile, unchaperoned, with a casual man
acquaintance.

He did the next best thing, however: he took a place in a sailing
dahabeeah; and as we steamed up slowly, stopping often on the way, to
give me time to write my articles, he managed to arrive almost always at
every town or ruin exactly when we did.

I will not describe the voyage. The Nile is the Nile. Just at first,
before we got used to it, we conscientiously looked up the name of every
village we passed on the bank in our Murray and our Baedeker. After a
couple of days' Niling, however, we found that formality quite
unnecessary. They were all the same village, under a number of aliases.
They did not even take the trouble to disguise themselves anew, like Dr.
Fortescue-Langley, on each fresh appearance. They had every one of them
a small whitewashed mosque, with a couple of tall minarets; and around
it spread a number of mud-built cottages, looking more like bee-hives
than human habitations. They had also every one of them a group of
date-palms, overhanging a cluster of mean bare houses; and they all
alike had a picturesque and even imposing air from a distance, but faded
away into indescribable squalor as one got abreast of them. Our progress
was monotonous. At twelve, noon, we would pass Aboo-Teeg, with its
mosque, its palms, its mud-huts, and its camels; then for a couple of
hours we would go on through the midst of a green field on either side,
studded by more mud-huts, and backed up by a range of gray desert
mountains; only to come at 2 P.M., twenty miles higher up, upon
Aboo-Teeg once more, with the same mosque, the same mud-huts, and the
same haughty camels, placidly chewing the same aristocratic cud, but
under the alias of Koos-kam. After a wild hubbub at the quay, we would
leave Koos-kam behind, with its camels still serenely munching
day-before-yesterday's dinner; and twenty miles further on, again,
having passed through the same green plain, backed by the same gray
mountains, we would stop once more at the identical Koos-kam, which this
time absurdly described itself as Tahtah. But whether it was Aboo-Teeg
or Koos-kam or Tahtah or anything else, only the name differed: it was
always the same town, and had always the same camels at precisely the
same stage of the digestive process. It seemed to us immaterial whether
you saw all the Nile or only five miles of it. It was just like
wall-paper. A sample sufficed; the whole was the sample infinitely
repeated.

However, I had my letters to write, and I wrote them valiantly. I
described the various episodes of the complicated digestive process in
the camel in the minutest detail. I gloated over the date-palms, which I
knew in three days as if I had been brought up upon dates. I gave
word-pictures of every individual child, veiled woman, Arab sheikh, and
Coptic priest whom we encountered on the voyage. And I am open to
reprint those conscientious studies of mud-huts and minarets with any
enterprising publisher who will make me an offer.

[Illustration: TOO MUCH NILE.]

Another disillusion weighed upon my soul. Before I went up the Nile, I
had a fancy of my own that the bank was studded with endless ruined
temples, whose vast red colonnades were reflected in the water at every
turn. I think Macaulay's Lays were primarily answerable for that
particular misapprehension. As a matter of fact, it surprised me to find
that we often went for two whole days' hard steaming without ever a
temple breaking the monotony of those eternal date-palms, those calm and
superciliously irresponsive camels. In my humble opinion, Egypt is a
fraud; there is too much Nile--very dirty Nile at that--and not nearly
enough temple. Besides, the temples, when you _do_ come up with them,
are just like the villages; they are the same temple over again, under a
different name each time, and they have the same gods, the same kings,
the same wearisome bas-reliefs, except that the gentleman in a chariot,
ten feet high, who is mowing down enemies a quarter his own size, with
unsportsmanslike recklessness, is called Rameses in this place, and
Sethi in that, and Amen-hotep in the other. With this trifling
variation, when you have seen one temple, one obelisk, one hieroglyphic
table, you have seen the whole of Ancient Egypt.

At last, after many days' voyage through the same scenery daily--rising
in the morning off a village with a mosque, ten palms, and two minarets,
and retiring late at night off the same village once more, with mosque,
palms, and minarets, as before, _da capo_--we arrived one evening at a
place called Geergeh. In itself, I believe, Geergeh did not differ
materially from all the other places we had passed on our voyage: it had
its mosque, its ten palms, and its two minarets as usual. But I remember
its name, because something mysterious went wrong there with our
machinery; and the engineer informed us we must wait at least three days
to mend it. Dr. Macloghlen's dahabeeah happened opportunely to arrive
at the same spot on the same day; and he declared with fervour he would
'see us through our throubles.' But what on earth were we to do with
ourselves through three long days and nights at Geergeh? There were the
ruins of Abydus close at hand, to be sure; though I defy anybody not a
professed Egyptologist to give more than one day to the ruins of Abydus.
In this emergency, Dr. Macloghlen came gallantly to our aid. He
discovered by inquiring from an English-speaking guide that there was an
unobtrusive oasis, never visited by Europeans, one long day's journey
off, across the desert. As a rule, it takes at least three days to get
camels and guides together for such an expedition: for Egypt is not a
land to hurry in. But the indefatigable Doctor further unearthed the
fact that a sheikh had just come in, who (for a consideration) would
lend us camels for a two days' trip; and we seized the chance to do our
duty by Mr. Elworthy and the world-wide circulation. An unvisited
oasis--and two Christian ladies to be the first to explore it: there's
journalistic enterprise for you! If we happened to be killed, so much
the better for the _Daily Telephone_. I pictured the excitement at
Piccadilly Circus. 'Extra Special, Our Own Correspondent brutally
murdered!' I rejoiced at the opportunity.

I cannot honestly say that Elsie rejoiced with me. She cherished a
prejudice against camels, massacres, and the new journalism. She didn't
like being murdered: though this was premature, for she had never tried
it. She objected that the fanatical Mohammedans of the Senoosi sect, who
were said to inhabit the oasis in question, might cut our throats for
dogs of infidels. I pointed out to her at some length that it was just
that chance which added zest to our expedition as a journalistic
venture: fancy the glory of being the first lady journalists martyred in
the cause! But she failed to grasp this aspect of the question.
However, if I went, she would go too, she said, like a dear girl that
she is: she would not desert me when I was getting my throat cut.

[Illustration: EMPHASIS.]

Dr. Macloghlen made the bargain for us, and insisted on accompanying us
across the desert. He told us his method of negotiation with the Arabs
with extreme gusto. '"Is it pay in advance ye want?" says I to the dirty
beggars: "divvil a penny will ye get till ye bring these ladies safe
back to Geergeh. And remimber, Mr. Sheikh," says I, fingering me pistol,
so, by way of emphasis, "we take no money wid us; so if yer friends at
Wadi Bou choose to cut our throats, 'tis for the pleasure of it they'll
be cutting them, not for anything they'll gain by it." "Provisions,
effendi?" says he, salaaming. "Provisions, is it?" says I. "Take
everything ye'll want wid you; I suppose ye can buy food fit for a
Crischun in the bazaar in Geergeh; and never wan penny do ye touch for
it all till ye've landed us on the bank again, as safe as ye took us. So
if the religious sintiments of the faithful at Wadi Bou should lade them
to hack us to pieces," says I, just waving me revolver, "thin 'tis
yerself that will be out of pocket by it." And the ould divvil cringed
as if he took me for the Prince of Wales. Faix, 'tis the purse that's
the best argumint to catch these haythen Arabs upon.'

When we set out for the desert in the early dawn next day, it looked as
if we were starting for a few months' voyage. We had a company of camels
that might have befitted a caravan. We had two large tents, one for
ourselves, and one for Dr. Macloghlen, with a third to dine in. We had
bedding, and cushions, and drinking water tied up in swollen pig-skins,
which were really goat-skins, looking far from tempting. We had bread
and meat, and a supply of presents to soften the hearts and weaken the
religious scruples of the sheikhs at Wadi Bou. 'We thravel _en prince_,'
said the Doctor. When all was ready we got under way solemnly, our
camels rising and sniffing the breeze with a superior air, as who should
say, 'I happen to be going where you happen to be going; but don't for a
moment suppose I do it to please you. It is mere coincidence. You are
bound for Wadi Bou: I have business of my own which chances to take me
there.'

[Illustration: RIDING A CAMEL DOES NOT GREATLY DIFFER PROM
SEA-SICKNESS.]

Over the incidents of the journey I draw a veil. Riding a camel, I find,
does not greatly differ from sea-sickness. They are the same phenomenon
under altered circumstances. We had been assured beforehand on
excellent authority that 'much of the comfort on a desert journey
depends upon having a good camel.' On this matter, I am no authority. I
do not set up as a judge of camel-flesh. But I did not notice _any_ of
the comfort; so I venture to believe my camel must have been an
exceptionally bad one.

We expected trouble from the fanatical natives; I am bound to admit, we
had most trouble with Elsie. She was not insubordinate, but she did not
care for camel-riding. And her beast took advantage of her youth and
innocence. A well-behaved camel should go almost as fast as a child can
walk, and should not sit down plump on the burning sand without due
reason. Elsie's brute crawled, and called halts for prayer at frequent
intervals; it tried to kneel like a good Mussulman many times a day; and
it showed an intolerant disposition to crush the infidel by rolling over
on top of Elsie. Dr. Macloghlen admonished it with Irish eloquence, not
always in language intended for publication; but it only turned up its
supercilious lip and inquired in its own unspoken tongue what _he_ knew
about the desert.

'I feel like a wurrum before the baste,' the Doctor said, nonplussed.

If the Nile was monotonous, the road to Wadi Bou was nothing short of
dreary. We crossed a great ridge of bare, gray rock, and followed a
rolling valley of sand, scored by dry ravines, and baking in the sun. It
was ghastly to look upon. All day long, save at the midday rest by some
brackish wells, we rode on and on, the brutes stepping forward with
slow, outstretched legs; though sometimes we walked by the camels' sides
to vary the monotony; but ever through that dreary upland plain, sand in
the centre, rocky mountain at the edge, and not a thing to look at. We
were relieved towards evening to stumble against stunted tamarisks,
half buried in sand, and to feel we were approaching the edge of the
oasis.

When at last our arrogant beasts condescended to stop, in their
patronising way, we saw by the dim light of the moon a sort of uneven
basin or hollow, studded with date-palms, and in the midst of the
depression a crumbling walled town, with a whitewashed mosque, two
minarets by its side, and a crowd of mud-houses. It was strangely
familiar. We had come all this way just to see Aboo-Teeg or Koos-kam
over again!

We camped outside the fortified town that night. Next morning we essayed
to make our entry.

At first, the servants of the Prophet on watch at the gate raised
serious objections. No infidel might enter. But we had a pass from
Cairo, exhorting the faithful in the name of the Khedive to give us food
and shelter; and after much examination and many loud discussions, the
gatemen passed us. We entered the town, and stood alone, three Christian
Europeans, in the midst of three thousand fanatical Mohammedans.

I confess it was weird. Elsie shrank by my side. 'Suppose they were to
attack us, Brownie?'

'Thin the sheikh here would never get paid,' Dr. Macloghlen put in with
true Irish recklessness. 'Faix, he'll whistle for his money on the
whistle I gave him.' That touch of humour saved us. We laughed; and the
people about saw we could laugh. They left off scowling, and pressed
around trying to sell us pottery and native brooches. In the intervals
of fanaticism, the Arab has an eye to business.

We passed up the chief street of the bazaar. The inhabitants told us in
pantomime the chief of the town was away at Asioot, whither he had gone
two days ago on business. If he were here, our interpreter gave us to
understand, things might have been different; for the chief had
determined that, whatever came, no infidel dog should settle in _his_
oasis.

[Illustration: HER AGITATION WAS EVIDENT.]

The women with their veiled faces attracted us strangely. They were
wilder than on the river. They ran when one looked at them. Suddenly,
as we passed one, we saw her give a little start. She was veiled like
the rest, but her agitation was evident even through her thick covering.

'She is afraid of Christians,' Elsie cried, nestling towards me.

The woman passed close to us. She never looked in our direction, but in
a very low voice she murmured, as she passed, 'Then you are English!'

I had presence of mind enough to conceal my surprise at this unexpected
utterance. 'Don't seem to notice her, Elsie,' I said, looking away.
'Yes, we are English.'

She stopped and pretended to examine some jewellery on a stall. 'So am
I,' she went on, in the same suppressed low voice. 'For Heaven's sake,
help me!'

'What are you doing here?'

'I live here--married. I was with Gordon's force at Khartoum. They
carried me off. A mere girl then. Now I am thirty.'

'And you have been here ever since?'

She turned away and walked off, but kept whispering behind her veil. We
followed, unobtrusively. 'Yes; I was sold to a man at Dongola. He passed
me on again to the chief of this oasis. I don't know where it is; but I
have been here ever since. I hate this life. Is there any chance of a
rescue?'

'Anny chance of a rescue, is it?' the Doctor broke in, a trifle too
ostensibly. 'If it costs us a whole British Army, me dear lady, we'll
fetch you away and save you.'

'But now--to-day? You won't go away and leave me? You are the first
Europeans I have seen since Khartoum fell. They may sell me again. You
will not desert me?'

'No,' I said. 'We will not.' Then I reflected a moment.

What on earth could we do? This was a painful dilemma. If we once lost
sight of her, we might not see her again. Yet if we walked with her
openly, and talked like friends, we would betray ourselves, and her, to
those fanatical Senoosis.

I made my mind up promptly. I may not have much of a mind; but, such as
it is, I flatter myself I can make it up at a moment's notice.

'Can you come to us outside the gate at sunset?' I asked, as if speaking
to Elsie.

The woman hesitated. 'I think so.'

'Then keep us in sight all day, and when evening comes, stroll out
behind us.'

She turned over some embroidered slippers on a booth, and seemed to be
inspecting them. 'But my children?' she murmured anxiously.

The Doctor interposed. 'Is it childern she has?' he asked. 'Thin they'll
be the Mohammedan gintleman's. We mustn't interfere wid _them_. We can
take away the lady--she's English, and detained against her will: but we
can't deprive anny man of his own childern'.

I was firm, and categorical. 'Yes, we can,' I said, stoutly; 'if he has
forced a woman to bear them to him whether she would or not. That's
common justice. I have no respect for the Mohammedan gentleman's rights.
Let her bring them with her. How many are there?'

'Two--a boy and girl; not very old; the eldest is seven.' She spoke
wistfully. A mother is a mother.

'Then say no more now, but keep us always in sight, and we will keep
_you_. Come to us at the gate about sundown. We will carry you off with
us.'

She clasped her hands and moved off with the peculiar gliding air of the
veiled Mohammedan woman. Our eyes followed her. We walked on through
the bazaar, thinking of nothing else now. It was strange how this
episode made us forget our selfish fears for our own safety. Even dear
timid Elsie remembered only that an Englishwoman's life and liberty were
at stake. We kept her more or less in view all day. She glided in and
out among the people in the alleys. When we went back to the camels at
lunch-time, she followed us unobtrusively through the open gate, and sat
watching us from a little way off, among a crowd of gazers; for all Wadi
Bou was of course agog at this unwonted invasion.

We discussed the circumstance loudly, so that she might hear our plans.
Dr. Macloghlen advised that we should tell our sheikh we meant to return
part of the way to Geergeh that evening by moonlight. I quite agreed
with him. It was the only way out. Besides, I didn't like the looks of
the people. They eyed us askance. This was getting exciting now. I felt
a professional journalistic interest. Whether we escaped or got killed,
what splendid business for the _Daily Telephone_!

The sheikh, of course, declared it was impossible to start that evening.
The men wouldn't move--the camels needed rest. But Dr. Macloghlen was
inexorable. 'Very well, thin, Mr. Sheikh,' he answered, philosophically.
'Ye'll plaze yerself about whether ye come on wid us or whether ye
shtop. That's yer own business. But _we_ set out at sundown; and whin ye
return by yerself on foot to Geergeh, ye can ask for yer camels at the
British Consulate.'

All through that anxious afternoon we sat in our tents, under the shade
of the mud-wall, wondering whether we could carry out our plan or not.
About an hour before sunset the veiled woman strolled out of the gate
with her two children. She joined the crowd of sight-seers once more,
for never through the day were we left alone for a second. The
excitement grew intense. Elsie and I moved up carelessly towards the
group, talking as if to one another. I looked hard at Elsie: then I
said, as though I were speaking about one of the children, 'Go straight
along the road to Geergeh till you are past the big clump of palms at
the edge of the oasis. Just beyond it comes a sharp ridge of rock. Wait
behind the ridge where no one can see you. When we get there,' I patted
the little girl's head, 'don't say a word, but jump on my camel. My two
friends will each take one of the children. If you understand and
consent, stroke your boy's curls. We will accept that for a signal.'

She stroked the child's head at once without the least hesitation. Even
through her veil and behind her dress, I could somehow feel and see her
trembling nerves, her beating heart. But she gave no overt token. She
merely turned and muttered something carelessly in Arabic to a woman
beside her.

We waited once more, in long-drawn suspense. Would she manage to escape
them? Would they suspect her motives?

After ten minutes, when we had returned to our crouching-place under the
shadow of the wall, the woman detached herself slowly from the group,
and began strolling with almost overdone nonchalance along the road to
Geergeh. We could see the little girl was frightened and seemed to
expostulate with her mother: fortunately, the Arabs about were too much
occupied in watching the suspicious strangers to notice this episode of
their own people. Presently, our new friend disappeared; and, with
beating hearts, we awaited the sunset.

[Illustration: CROUCHING BY THE ROCKS SAT OUR MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.]

Then came the usual scene of hubbub with the sheikh, the camels, the
porters, and the drivers. It was eagerness against apathy. With
difficulty we made them understand we meant to get under way at all
hazards. I stormed in bad Arabic. The Doctor inveighed in very choice
Irish. At last they yielded, and set out. One by one the camels rose,
bent their slow knees, and began to stalk in their lordly way with
outstretched necks along the road to the river. We moved through the
palm groves, a crowd of boys following us and shouting for backsheesh.
We began to be afraid they would accompany us too far and discover our
fugitive; but fortunately they all turned back with one accord at a
little whitewashed shrine near the edge of the oasis. We reached the
clump of palms; we turned the corner of the ridge. Had we missed one
another? No! There, crouching by the rocks, with her children by her
side, sat our mysterious stranger.

The Doctor was equal to the emergency. 'Make those bastes kneel!' he
cried authoritatively to the sheikh.

The sheikh was taken aback. This was a new exploit burst upon him. He
flung his arms up, gesticulating wildly. The Doctor, unmoved, made the
drivers understand by some strange pantomime what he wanted. They
nodded, half terrified. In a second, the stranger was by my side, Elsie
had taken the girl, the Doctor the boy, and the camels were passively
beginning to rise again. That is the best of your camel. Once set him on
his road, and he goes mechanically.

The sheikh broke out with several loud remarks in Arabic, which we did
not understand, but whose hostile character could not easily escape us.
He was beside himself with anger. Then I was suddenly aware of the
splendid advantage of having an Irishman on our side. Dr. Macloghlen
drew his revolver, like one well used to such episodes, and pointed it
full at the angry Arab. 'Look here, Mr. Sheikh,' he said, calmly, yet
with a fine touch of bravado; 'do ye see this revolver? Well, unless ye
make yer camels thravel sthraight to Geergeh widout wan other wurrud,
'tis yer own brains will be spattered, sor, on the sand of this desert!
And if ye touch wan hair of our heads, ye'll answer for it wid yer life
to the British Government.'

I do not feel sure that the sheikh comprehended the exact nature of each
word in this comprehensive threat, but I am certain he took in its
general meaning, punctuated as it was with some flourishes of the
revolver. He turned to the drivers and made a gesture of despair. It
meant, apparently, that this infidel was too much for him. Then he
called out a few sharp directions in Arabic. Next minute, our camels'
legs were stepping out briskly along the road to Geergeh with a
promptitude which I'm sure must have astonished their owners. We rode on
and on through the gloom in a fever of suspense. Had any of the Senoosis
noticed our presence? Would they miss the chief's wife before long, and
follow us under arms? Would our own sheikh betray us? I am no coward, as
women go, but I confess, if it had not been for our fiery Irishman, I
should have felt my heart sink. We were grateful to him for the reckless
and good-humoured courage of the untamed Celt. It kept us from giving
way. 'Ye'll take notice, Mr. Sheikh,' he said, as we threaded our way
among the moon-lit rocks, 'that I have twinty-wan cartridges in me case
for me revolver; and that if there's throuble to-night, 'tis twinty of
them there'll be for your frinds the Senoosis, and wan for yerself; but
for fear of disappointing a gintleman, 'tis yer own special bullet I'll
disthribute first, if it comes to fighting.'

The sheikh's English was a vanishing quantity, but to judge by the way
he nodded and salaamed at this playful remark, I am convinced he
understood the Doctor's Irish quite as well as I did.

We spoke little by the way; we were all far too frightened, except the
Doctor, who kept our hearts up by a running fire of wild Celtic humour.
But I found time meanwhile to learn by a few questions from our veiled
friend something of her captivity. She had seen her father massacred
before her eyes at Khartoum, and had then been sold away to a merchant,
who conveyed her by degrees and by various exchanges across the desert
through lonely spots to the Senoosi oasis. There she had lived all those
years with the chief to whom her last purchaser had trafficked her. She
did not even know that her husband's village was an integral part of the
Khedive's territory; far less that the English were now in practical
occupation of Egypt. She had heard nothing and learnt nothing since that
fateful day; she had waited in vain for the off-chance of a deliverer.

'But did you never try to run away to the Nile?' I cried, astonished.

'Run away? How could I? I did not even know which way the river lay; and
was it possible for me to cross the desert on foot, or find the chance
of a camel? The Senoosis would have killed me. Even with you to help me,
see what dangers surround me; alone, I should have perished, like Hagar
in the wilderness, with no angel to save me.'

'An' ye've got the angel now,' Dr. Macloghlen exclaimed, glancing at me.
'Steady, there, Mr. Sheikh. What's this that's coming?'

It was another caravan, going the opposite way, on its road to the
oasis! A voice halloaed from it.

Our new friend clung tight to me. 'My husband!' she whispered, gasping.

They were still far off on the desert, and the moon shone bright. A few
hurried words to the Doctor, and with a wild resolve we faced the
emergency. He made the camels halt, and all of us, springing off,
crouched down behind their shadows in such a way that the coming caravan
must pass on the far side of us. At the same moment the Doctor turned
resolutely to the sheikh. 'Look here, Mr. Arab,' he said in a quiet
voice, with one more appeal to the simple Volapuk of the pointed
revolver; 'I cover ye wid this. Let these frinds of yours go by. If
there's anny unnecessary talking betwixt ye, or anny throuble of anny
kind, remimber, the first bullet goes sthraight as an arrow t'rough that
haythen head of yours!'

The sheikh salaamed more submissively than ever.

The caravan drew abreast of us. We could hear them cry aloud on either
side the customary salutes: 'In Allah's name, peace!' answered by 'Allah
is great; there is no god but Allah.'

Would anything more happen? Would our sheikh play us false? It was a
moment of breathlessness. We crouched and cowered in the shade, holding
our hearts with fear, while the Arab drivers pretended to be unsaddling
the camels. A minute or two of anxious suspense; then, peering over our
beasts' backs, we saw their long line filing off towards the oasis. We
watched their turbaned heads, silhouetted against the sky, disappear
slowly. One by one they faded away. The danger was past. With beating
hearts we rose up again.

The Doctor sprang into his place and seated himself on his camel. 'Now
ride on, Mr. Sheikh,' he said, 'wid all yer men, as if grim death was
afther ye. Camels or no camels, ye've got to march all night, for ye'll
never draw rein till we're safe back at Geergeh!'

And sure enough we never halted, under the persuasive influence of that
loaded revolver, till we dismounted once more in the early dawn upon the
Nile bank, under British protection.

Then Elsie and I and our rescued country-woman broke down together in an
orgy of relief. We hugged one another and cried like so many children.




VIII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEA-GREEN PATRICIAN


Away to India! A life on the ocean wave once more; and--may it prove
less wavy!

In plain prose, my arrangement with 'my proprietor,' Mr. Elworthy (thus
we speak in the newspaper trade), included a trip to Bombay for myself
and Elsie. So, as soon as we had drained Upper Egypt journalistically
dry, we returned to Cairo on our road to Suez. I am glad to say, my
letters to the _Daily Telephone_ gave satisfaction. My employer wrote,
'You are a born journalist.' I confess this surprised me; for I have
always considered myself a truthful person. Still, as he evidently meant
it for praise, I took the doubtful compliment in good part, and offered
no remonstrance.

I have a mercurial temperament. My spirits rise and fall as if they were
Consols. Monotonous Egypt depressed me, as it depressed the Israelites;
but the passage of the Red Sea set me sounding my timbrel. I love fresh
air; I love the sea, if the sea will but behave itself; and I positively
revelled in the change from Egypt.

Unfortunately, we had taken our passages by a P. and O. steamer from
Suez to Bombay many weeks beforehand, so as to secure good berths; and
still more unfortunately, in a letter to Lady Georgina, I had chanced
to mention the name of our ship and the date of the voyage. I kept up a
spasmodic correspondence with Lady Georgina nowadays--tuppence-ha'penny
a fortnight; the dear, cantankerous, racy old lady had been the
foundation of my fortunes, and I was genuinely grateful to her; or,
rather, I ought to say, she had been their second foundress, for I will
do myself the justice to admit that the first was my own initiative and
enterprise. I flatter myself I have the knack of taking the tide on the
turn, and I am justly proud of it. But, being a grateful animal, I wrote
once a fortnight to report progress to Lady Georgina. Besides--let me
whisper--strictly between ourselves--'twas an indirect way of hearing
about Harold.

This time, however, as events turned out, I recognised that I had made a
grave mistake in confiding my movements to my shrewd old lady. She did
not betray me on purpose, of course; but I gathered later that casually
in conversation she must have mentioned the fact and date of my sailing
before somebody who ought to have had no concern in it; and the
somebody, I found, had governed himself accordingly. All this, however,
I only discovered afterwards. So, without anticipating, I will narrate
the facts exactly as they occurred to me.

[Illustration: AN ODD-LOOKING YOUNG MAN.]

When we mounted the gangway of the _Jumna_ at Suez, and began the
process of frizzling down the Red Sea, I noted on deck almost at once an
odd-looking young man of twenty-two or thereabouts, with a curious faint
pea-green complexion. He was the wishy-washiest young man I ever beheld
in my life; an achromatic study: in spite of the delicate pea-greeniness
of his skin, all the colouring matter of the body seemed somehow to have
faded out of him. Perhaps he had been bleached. As he leant over the
taffrail, gazing down with open mouth and vacant stare at the water, I
took a good long look at him. He interested me much--because he was so
exceptionally uninteresting; a pallid, anæmic, indefinite hobbledehoy,
with a high, narrow forehead, and sketchy features. He had watery,
restless eyes of an insipid light blue; thin, yellow hair, almost white
in its paleness; and twitching hands that played nervously all the time
with a shadowy moustache. This shadowy moustache seemed to absorb as a
rule the best part of his attention; it was so sparse and so blanched
that he felt it continually--to assure himself, no doubt, of the reality
of its existence. I need hardly add that he wore an eye-glass.

He was an aristocrat, I felt sure; Eton and Christ Church: no ordinary
person could have been quite so flavourless. Imbecility like his is only
to be attained as the result of long and judicious selection.

He went on gazing in a vacant way at the water below, an ineffectual
patrician smile playing feebly round the corners of his mouth meanwhile.
Then he turned and stared at me as I lay back in my deck-chair. For a
minute he looked me over as if I were a horse for sale. When he had
finished inspecting me, he beckoned to somebody at the far end of the
quarter-deck.

The somebody sidled up with a deferential air which confirmed my belief
in the pea-green young man's aristocratic origin. It was such deference
as the British flunkey pays only to blue blood; for he has gradations of
flunkeydom. He is respectful to wealth; polite to acquired rank; but
servile only to hereditary nobility. Indeed, you can make a rough guess
at the social status of the person he addresses by observing which one
of his twenty-seven nicely graduated manners he adopts in addressing
him.

The pea-green young man glanced over in my direction, and murmured
something to the satellite, whose back was turned towards me. I felt
sure, from his attitude, he was asking whether I was the person he
suspected me to be. The satellite nodded assent, whereat the pea-green
young man, screwing up his face to fix his eye-glass, stared harder than
ever. He must be heir to a peerage, I felt convinced; nobody short of
that rank would consider himself entitled to stare with such frank
unconcern at an unknown lady.

Presently it further occurred to me that the satellite's back seemed
strangely familiar. 'I have seen that man somewhere, Elsie,' I
whispered, putting aside the wisps of hair that blew about my face.

'So have I, dear,' Elsie answered, with a slight shudder. And I was
instinctively aware that I too disliked him.

As Elsie spoke, the man turned, and strolled slowly past us, with that
ineffable insolence which is the other side of the flunkey's
insufferable self-abasement. He cast a glance at us as he went by, a
withering glance of brazen effrontery. We knew him now, of course: it
was that variable star, our old acquaintance, Mr. Higginson the courier.

He was here as himself this time; no longer the count or the mysterious
faith-healer. The diplomat hid his rays under the garb of the
man-servant.

'Depend upon it, Elsie,' I cried, clutching her arm with a vague sense
of fear, 'this man means mischief. There is danger ahead. When a
creature of Higginson's sort, who has risen to be a count and a
fashionable physician, descends again to be a courier, you may rest
assured it is because he has something to gain by it. He has some deep
scheme afloat. And _we_ are part of it.'

'His master looks weak enough and silly enough for anything,' Elsie
answered, eyeing the suspected lordling. 'I should think he is just the
sort of man such a wily rogue would naturally fasten upon.'

'When a wily rogue gets hold of a weak fool, who is also dishonest,' I
said, 'the two together may make a formidable combination. But never
mind. We're forewarned. I think I shall be even with him.'

That evening, at dinner in the saloon, the pea-green young man strolled
in with a jaunty air and took his seat next to us. The Red Sea, by the
way, was kinder than the Mediterranean: it allowed us to dine from the
very first evening. Cards had been laid on the plates to mark our
places. I glanced at my neighbour's. It bore the inscription, 'Viscount
Southminster.'

That was the name of Lord Kynaston's eldest son--Lady Georgina's nephew;
Harold Tillington's cousin! So _this_ was the man who might possibly
inherit Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's money! I remembered now how often and
how fervently Lady Georgina had said, 'Kynaston's sons are all fools.'
If the rest came up to sample, I was inclined to agree with her.

It also flashed across me that Lord Southminster might have heard
through Higginson of our meeting with Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst at Florence,
and of my acquaintance with Harold Tillington at Schlangenbad and
Lungern. With a woman's instinct, I jumped at the fact that the
pea-green young man had taken passage by this boat, on purpose to baffle
both me and Harold.

Thinking it over, it seemed to me, too, that he might have various
possible points of view on the matter. He might desire, for example,
that Harold should marry me, under the impression that his marriage with
a penniless outsider would annoy his uncle; for the pea-green young man
doubtless thought that I was still to Mr. Ashurst just that dreadful
adventuress. If so, his obvious cue would be to promote a good
understanding between Harold and myself, in order to make us marry, so
that the urbane old gentlemen might then disinherit his favourite
nephew, and make a new will in Lord Southminster's interest. Or again,
the pea-green young man might, on the contrary, be aware that Mr.
Ashurst and I had got on admirably together when we met at Florence; in
which case his aim would naturally be to find out something that might
set the rich uncle against me. Yet once more, he might merely have heard
that I had drawn up Uncle Marmaduke's will at the office, and he might
desire to worm the contents of it out of me. Whichever was his design, I
resolved to be upon my guard in every word I said to him, and leave no
door open to any trickery either way. For of one thing I felt sure, that
the colourless young man had torn himself away from the mud-honey of
Piccadilly for this voyage to India only because he had heard there was
a chance of meeting me.

That was a politic move, whoever planned it--himself or Higginson; for a
week on board ship with a person or persons is the very best chance of
getting thrown in with them; whether they like it or lump it, they can't
easily avoid you.

It was while I was pondering these things in my mind, and resolving with
myself not to give myself away, that the young man with the pea-green
face lounged in and dropped into the next seat to me. He was dressed
(amongst other things) in a dinner jacket and a white tie; for myself, I
detest such fopperies on board ship; they seem to me out of place; they
conflict with the infinite possibilities of the situation. One stands
too near the realities of things. Evening dress and _mal-de-mer_ sort
ill together.

[Illustration: HE TURNED TO ME WITH AN INANE SMILE.]

As my neighbour sat down, he turned to me with an inane smile which
occupied all his face. 'Good evening,' he said, in a baronial drawl.
'Miss Cayley, I gathah? I asked the skippah's leave to set next yah. We
ought to be friends--rathah. I think yah know my poor deah old aunt,
Lady Georgina Fawley.'

I bowed a somewhat, freezing bow. 'Lady Georgina is one of my dearest
friends,' I answered.

'No, really? Poor deah old Georgey! Got somebody to stick up for her at
last, has she? Now that's what I call chivalrous of yah. Magnanimous,
isn't it? I like to see people stick up for their friends. And it must
be a novelty for Georgey. For between you and me, a moah cantankerous
spiteful acidulated old cough-drop than the poor deah soul it 'ud be
difficult to hit upon.'

'Lady Georgina has brains,' I answered; 'and they enable her to
recognise a fool when she sees him. I will admit that she does not
suffer fools gladly.'

He turned to me with a sudden sharp look in the depths of the
lack-lustre eyes. Already it began to strike me that, though the
pea-green young man was inane, he had his due proportion of a certain
insidious practical cunning. 'That's true,' he answered, measuring me.
'And according to her, almost everybody's a fool--especially her
relations. There's a fine knack of sweeping generalisation about deah
skinny old Georgey. The few people she reahlly likes are all archangels;
the rest are blithering idiots; there's no middle course with her.'

I held my peace frigidly.

'She thinks me a very special and peculiah fool,' he went on, crumbling
his bread.

'Lady Georgina,' I answered, 'is a person of exceptional discrimination.
I would almost always accept her judgment on anyone as practically
final.'

He laid down his soup-spoon, fondled the imperceptible moustache with
his tapering fingers, and then broke once more into a cheerful expanse
of smile which reminded me of nothing so much as of the village idiot.
It spread over his face as the splash from a stone spreads over a
mill-pond. 'Now that's a nice cheerful sort of thing to say to a
fellah,' he ejaculated, fixing his eye-glass in his eye, with a few
fierce contortions of his facial muscles. 'That's encouraging, don't yah
know, as the foundation of an acquaintance. Makes a good cornah-stone.
Calculated to place things at once upon what yah call a friendly basis.
Georgey said you had a pretty wit; I see now why she admiahed it. Birds
of a feathah: very wise old proverb.'

I reflected that, after all, this young man had nothing overt against
him, beyond a fishy blue eye and an inane expression; so, feeling that I
had perhaps gone a little too far, I continued after a minute, 'And your
uncle, how is he?'

'Marmy?' he inquired, with another elephantine smile; and then I
perceived it was a form of humour with him (or rather, a cheap
substitute) to speak of his elder relations by their abbreviated
Christian names, without any prefix. 'Marmy's doing very well, thank
yah; as well as could be expected. In fact, bettah. Habakkuk on the
brain: it's carrying him off at last. He has Bright's disease very
bad--drank port, don't yah know--and won't trouble this wicked world
much longah with his presence. It will be a happy release--especially
for his nephews.'

I was really grieved, for I had grown to like the urbane old gentleman,
as I had grown to like the cantankerous old lady. In spite of his
fussiness and his Stock Exchange views on the interpretation of
Scripture, his genuine kindliness and his real liking for me had
softened my heart to him; and my face must have shown my distress, for
the pea-green young man added quickly with an afterthought: 'But _you_
needn't be afraid, yah know. It's all right for Harold Tillington. You
ought to know that as well as anyone--and bettah: for it was you who
drew up his will for him at Florence.'

I flushed crimson, I believe. Then he knew all about me! 'I was not
asking on Mr. Tillington's account,' I answered. 'I asked because I have
a personal feeling of friendship for your uncle, Mr. Ashurst.'

His hand strayed up to the straggling yellow hairs on his upper lip once
more, and he smiled again, this time with a curious undercurrent of
foolish craftiness. 'That's a good one,' he answered. 'Georgey told me
you were original. Marmy's a millionaire, and many people love
millionaires for their money. But to love Marmy for himself-- I do call
that originality! Why, weight for age, he's acknowledged to be the most
portentous old boah in London society!'

'I like Mr. Ashurst because he has a kind heart and some genuine
instincts,' I answered. 'He has not allowed all human feeling to be
replaced by a cheap mask of Pall Mall cynicism.'

'Oh, I say; how's that for preaching? Don't you manage to give it hot to
a fellah, neithah! And at sight, too, without the usual three days of
grace. Have some of my champagne? I'm a forgiving creachah.'

'No, thank you. I prefer this hock.'

'Your friend, then?' And he motioned the steward to pass the bottle.

To my great disgust, Elsie held out her glass. I was annoyed at that. It
showed she had missed the drift of our conversation, and was therefore
lacking in feminine intuition. I should be sorry if I had allowed the
higher mathematics to kill out in me the most distinctively womanly
faculty.

From that first day forth, however, in spite of this beginning, Lord
Southminster almost persecuted me with his persistent attentions. He
did all a fellah could possibly do to please me. I could not make out
precisely what he was driving at; but I saw he had some artful game of
his own to play, and that he was playing it subtly. I also saw that,
vapid as he was, his vapidity did not prevent him from being worldly
wise with the wisdom of the self-seeking man of the world, who utterly
distrusts and disbelieves in all the higher emotions of humanity. He
harped so often on this string that on our second day out, as we lolled
on deck in the heat, I had to rebuke him sharply. He had been sneering
for some hours. 'There are two kinds of silly simplicity, Lord
Southminster,' I said, at last. 'One kind is the silly simplicity of the
rustic who trusts everybody; the other kind is the silly simplicity of
the Pall Mall clubman who trusts nobody. It is just as foolish and just
as one-sided to overlook the good as to overlook the evil in humanity.
If you trust everyone, you are likely to be taken in; but if you trust
no one, you put yourself at a serious practical disadvantage, besides
losing half the joy of living.'

'Then you think me a fool, like Georgey?' he broke out.

'I should never be rude enough to say so,' I answered, fanning myself.

'Well, you're what I call a first-rate companion for a voyage down the
Red Sea,' he put in, gazing abstractedly at the awnings. 'Such a lovely
freezing mixture! A fellah doesn't need ices when _you're_ on tap. I
recommend you as a refrigeratah.'

'I am glad,' I answered demurely, 'if I have secured your approbation in
that humble capacity. I'm sure I have tried hard for it.'

[Illustration: NOTHING SEEMED TO PUT THE MAN DOWN.]

Yet nothing that I could say seemed to put the man down. In spite of
rebuffs, he was assiduous in running down the companion-ladder for my
parasol or my smelling-bottle; he fetched me chairs; he stayed me with
cushions; he offered to lend me books; he pestered me to drink his wine;
and he kept Elsie in champagne, which she annoyed me by accepting. Poor
dear Elsie clearly failed to understand the creature. 'He's so kind and
polite, Brownie, isn't he?' she would observe in her simple fashion. 'Do
you know, I think he's taken quite a fancy to you! And he'll be an earl
by-and-by. I call it romantic. How lovely it would seem, dear, to see
you a countess.'

'Elsie,' I said severely, with one hand on her arm, 'you are a dear
little soul, and I am very fond of you; but if you think I could sell
myself for a coronet to a pasty-faced young man with a pea-green
complexion and glassy blue eyes--I can only say, my child, you have
misread my character. He isn't a man: he's a lump of putty!'

I think Elsie was quite shocked that I should apply these terms to a
courtesy lord, the eldest son of a peer. Nature had endowed her with the
profound British belief that peers should be spoken of in choice and
peculiar language. 'If a peer's a fool,' Lady Georgina said once to me,
'people think you should say his temperament does not fit him for the
conduct of affairs: if he's a roué or a drunkard, they think you should
say he has unfortunate weaknesses.'

What most of all convinced me, however, that the wishy-washy young man
with the pea-green complexion must be playing some stealthy game, was
the demeanour and mental attitude of Mr. Higginson, his courier. After
the first day, Higginson appeared to be politeness and deference itself
to us. He behaved to us both, _almost_ as if we belonged to the titled
classes. He treated us with the second best of his twenty-seven
graduated manners. He fetched and carried for us with a courtly grace
which recalled that distinguished diplomat, the Comte de
Laroche-sur-Loiret, at the station at Malines with Lady Georgina. It is
true, at his politest moments, I often caught the undercurrent of a
wicked twinkle in his eye, and felt sure he was doing it all with some
profound motive. But his external demeanour was everything that one
could desire from a well-trained man-servant; I could hardly believe it
was the same man who had growled to me at Florence, 'I shall be even
with you yet,' as he left our office.

'Do you know, Brownie,' Elsie mused once, 'I really begin to think we
must have misjudged Higginson. He's so extremely polite. Perhaps, after
all, he is really a count, who has been exiled and impoverished for his
political opinions.'

I smiled and held my tongue. Silence costs nothing. But Mr. Higginson's
political opinions, I felt sure, were of that simple communistic sort
which the law in its blunt way calls fraudulent. They consisted in a
belief that all was his which he could lay his hands on.

'Higginson's a splendid fellah for his place, yah know, Miss Cayley,'
Lord Southminster said to me one evening as we were approaching Aden.
'What I like about him is, he's so doosid intelligent.'

'Extremely so,' I answered. Then the devil entered into me again. 'He
had the doosid intelligence even to take in Lady Georgina.'

'Yaas; that's just it, don't you know. Georgey told me that story.
Screamingly funny, wasn't it? And I said to myself at once, "Higginson's
the man for me. I want a courier with jolly lots of brains and no
blooming scruples. I'll entice this chap away from Marmy." And I did. I
outbid Marmy. Oh, yaas, he's a first-rate fellah, Higginson. What _I_
want is a man who will do what he's told, and ask no beastly unpleasant
questions. Higginson's that man. He's as sharp as a ferret.'

'And as dishonest as they make them.'

He opened his hands with a gesture of unconcern. 'All the bettah for my
purpose. See how frank I am, Miss Cayley. I tell the truth. The truth is
very rare. You ought to respect me for it.'

'It depends somewhat upon the _kind_ of truth,' I answered, with a
random shot. 'I don't respect a man, for instance, for confessing to a
forgery.'

He winced. Not for months after did I know how a stone thrown at a
venture had chanced to hit the spot, and had vastly enhanced his opinion
of my cleverness.

'You have heard about Dr. Fortescue-Langley too, I suppose?' I went on.

'Oh, yaas. Wasn't it real jam? He did the doctor-trick on a lady in
Switzerland. And the way he has come it ovah deah simple old Marmy! He
played Marmy with Ezekiel! Not so dusty, was it? He's too lovely for
anything!'

'He's an edged tool,' I said.

'Yaas; that's why I use him.'

'And edged tools may cut the user's fingers.'

[Illustration: YAH DON'T CATCH ME GOING SO FAH FROM NEWMARKET.]

'Not mine,' he answered, taking out a cigarette. 'Oh deah no. He can't
turn against _me_. He wouldn't dare to. Yah see, I have the fellah
entirely in my powah. I know all his little games, and I can expose him
any day. But it suits me to keep him. I don't mind telling yah, since I
respect your intellect, that he and I are engaged in pulling off a big
_coup_ togethah. If it were not for that, I wouldn't be heah. Yah don't
catch me going away so fah from Newmarket and the Empire for nothing.'

'I judged as much,' I answered. And then I was silent.

But I wondered to myself why the neutral-tinted young man should be so
communicative to an obviously hostile stranger.

For the next few days it amused me to see how hard our lordling tried to
suit his conversation to myself and Elsie. He was absurdly anxious to
humour us. Just at first, it is true, he had discussed the subjects that
lay nearest to his own heart. He was an ardent votary of the noble
quadruped; and he loved the turf--whose sward, we judged, he trod mainly
at Tattersall's. He spoke to us with erudition on 'two-year-old form,'
and gave us several 'safe things' for the spring handicaps. The Oaks he
considered 'a moral' for Clorinda. He also retailed certain choice
anecdotes about ladies whose Christian names were chiefly Tottie and
Flo, and whose honoured surnames have escaped my memory. Most of them
flourished, I recollect, at the Frivolity Music Hall. But when he
learned that our interest in the noble quadruped was scarcely more than
tepid, and that we had never even visited 'the Friv.,' as he
affectionately called it, he did his best in turn to acquire our
subjects. He had heard us talk about Florence, for example, and he
gathered from our talk that we loved its art treasures. So he set
himself to work to be studiously artistic. It was a beautiful study in
human ineptitude. 'Ah, yaas,' he, murmured, turning up the pale blue
eyes ecstatically towards the mast-head. 'Chawming place, Florence! I
dote on the pickchahs. I know them all by heart. I assuah yah, I've
spent houahs and houahs feeding my soul in the galleries.'

'And what particular painter does your soul most feed upon?' I asked
bluntly, with a smile.

The question staggered him. I could see him hunting through the vacant
chambers of his brain for a Florentine painter. Then a faint light
gleamed in the leaden eyes, and he fingered the straw-coloured moustache
with that nervous hand till he almost put a visible point upon it. 'Ah,
Raphael?' he said, tentatively, with an inquiring air, yet beaming at
his success. 'Don't you think so? Splendid artist, Raphael!'

'And a very safe guess,' I answered, leading him on. 'You can't go far
wrong in mentioning Raphael, can you? But after him?'

He dived into the recesses of his memory again, peered about him for a
minute or two, and brought back nothing. 'I can't remembah the othah
fellahs' names,' he went on; 'they're all so much alike: all in _elli_,
don't yah know; but I recollect at the time they impressed me awfully.'

'No doubt,' I answered.

He tried to look through me, and failed. Then he plunged, like a noble
sportsman that he was, on a second fetch of memory. 'Ah--and Michael
Angelo,' he went on, quite proud of his treasure-trove. 'Sweet things,
Michael Angelo's!'

'Very sweet,' I admitted. 'So simple; so touching; so tender; so
domestic!'

I thought Elsie would explode; but she kept her countenance. The
pea-green young man gazed at me uneasily. He had half an idea by this
time that I was making game of him.

However, he fished up a name once more, and clutched at it. 'Savonarola,
too,' he adventured. 'I adore Savonarola. His pickchahs are beautiful.'

'And so rare!' Elsie murmured.

'Then there is Fra Diavolo?' I suggested, going one better. 'How do you
like Fra Diavolo?'

He seemed to have heard the name before, but still he hesitated.
'Ah--what did he paint?' he asked, with growing caution.

I stuffed him valiantly. 'Those charming angels, you know,' I answered.
'With the roses and the glories!'

'Oh, yaas; I recollect. All askew, aren't they; like this! I remembah
them very well. But----' a doubt flitted across his brain, 'wasn't his
name Fra Angelico?'

'His brother,' I replied, casting truth to the winds. 'They worked
together, you must have heard. One did the saints; the other did the
opposite. Division of labour, don't you see; Fra Angelico, Fra Diavolo.'

[Illustration: WASN'T FRA DIAVOLO ALSO A COMPOSAH?]

He fingered his cigarette with a dubious hand, and wriggled his
eye-glass tighter. 'Yaas, beautiful; beautiful! But----' growing
suspicious apace, 'wasn't Fra Diavolo also a composah?'

'Of course,' I assented. 'In his off time, he composed. Those early
Italians--so versatile, you see; so versatile!'

He had his doubts, but he suppressed them.

'And Torricelli,' I went on, with a side glance at Elsie, who was
choking by this time. 'And Chianti, and Frittura, and Cinquevalli, and
Giulio Romano.'

His distrust increased. 'Now you're trying to make me commit myself,' he
drawled out. 'I remembah Torricelli--he's the fellah who used to paint
all his women crooked. But Chianti's a wine; I've often drunk it; and
Romano's--well, every fellah knows Romano's is a restaurant near the
Gaiety Theatre.'

'Besides,' I continued, in a drawl like his own, 'there are Risotto, and
Gnocchi, and Vermicelli, and Anchovy--all famous paintahs, and all of
whom I don't doubt you admiah.'

Elsie exploded at last. But he took no offence. He smiled inanely, as if
he rather enjoyed it. 'Look heah, you know,' he said, with his crafty
smile; 'that's one too much. I'm not taking any. You think yourselves
very clevah for kidding me with paintahs who are really macaroni and
cheese and claret; yet if I were to tell you the Lejah was run at Ascot,
or the Cesarewitch at Doncastah, why, you'd be no wisah. When it comes
to art, I don't have a look in; but I could tell you a thing or two
about starting prices.'

And I was forced to admit that there he had reason.

Still, I think he realised that he had better avoid the subject of art
in future, as we avoided the noble quadruped. He saw his limitations.

Not till the last evening before we reached Bombay did I really
understand the nature of my neighbour's project. That evening, as it
chanced, Elsie had a headache and went below early. I stopped with her
till she dozed off; then I slipped up on deck once more for a breath of
fresh air, before retiring for the night to the hot and stuffy cabin. It
was an exquisite evening. The moon rode in the pale green sky of the
tropics. A strange light still lingered on the western horizon. The
stifling heat of the Red Sea had given way long since to the refreshing
coolness of the Indian Ocean. I strolled a while on the quarter-deck,
and sat down at last near the stern. Next moment, I was aware of
somebody creeping up to me.

'Look heah, Miss Cayley,' a voice broke in; 'I'm in luck at last! I've
been waiting, oh, evah so long, for this opportunity.'

I turned and faced him. 'Have you, indeed?' I answered. 'Well, I have
_not_, Lord Southminster.'

I tried to rise, but he motioned me back to my chair. There were ladies
on deck, and to avoid being noticed I sank into my seat again.

'I want to speak to you,' he went on, in a voice that (for him) was
almost impressive. 'Half a mo, Miss Cayley. I want to say--this last
night--you misunderstand me.'

'On the contrary,' I answered, 'the trouble is--that I understand you
perfectly.'

'No, yah don't. Look heah.' He bent forward quite romantically. 'I'm
going to be perfectly frank. Of course yah know that when I came on
board this ship I came--to checkmate yah.'

'Of course,' I replied. 'Why else should you and Higginson have bothered
to come here?'

He rubbed his hands together. 'That's just it. You're always clevah. You
hit it first shot. But there's wheah the point comes in. At first, I
only thought of how we could circumvent yah. I treated yah as the enemy.
Now, it's all the othah way. Miss Cayley, you're the cleverest woman I
evah met in this world; you extort my admiration.'

I could not repress a smile. I didn't know how it was, but I could see I
possessed some mysterious attraction for the Ashurst family. I was fatal
to Ashursts. Lady Georgina, Harold Tillington, the Honourable Marmaduke,
Lord Southminster--different types as they were, all succumbed without
one blow to me.

'You flatter me,' I answered, coldly.

'No, I don't,' he cried, flashing his cuffs and gazing affectionately at
his sleeve-links. ''Pon my soul, I assuah yah, I mean it. I can't tell
you how much I admiah yah. I admiah your intellect. Every day I have
seen yah, I feel it moah and moah. Why, you're the only person who has
evah out-flanked my fellah, Higginson. As a rule I don't think much of
women. I've been through several London seasons, and lots of 'em have
tried their level best to catch me; the cleverest mammas have been aftah
me for their Ethels. But I wasn't so easily caught: I dodged the Ethels.
With you, it's different. I feel'--he paused--'you're a woman a fellah
might be really proud of.'

'You are too kind,' I answered, in my refrigerator voice.

'Well, will you take me?' he asked, trying to seize my hand. 'Miss
Cayley, if you will, you will make me unspeakably happy.'

It was a great effort--for him--and I was sorry to crush it. 'I regret,'
I said, 'that I am compelled to deny you unspeakable happiness.'

[Illustration: TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, YOU'RE STAKING YOUR MONEY ON THE
WRONG FELLAH.]

'Oh, but you don't catch on. You mistake. Let me explain. You're backing
the othah man. Now, I happen to know about that: and I assuah you, it's
an error. Take my word for it, you're staking your money on the wrong
fellah.'

'I do not understand you,' I replied, drawing away from his approach.
'And what is more, I may add, you could never understand me.'

'Yaas, but I do. I understand perfectly. I can see where you go wrong.
You drew up Marmy's will; and you think Marmy has left all he's worth to
Harold Tillington; so you're putting every penny you've got on Harold.
Well, that's mere moonshine. Harold may think it's all right; but it's
not all right. There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the Probate Court.
Listen heah, Miss Cayley: Higginson and I are a jolly sight sharpah than
your friend Harold. Harold's what they call a clevah fellah in society,
and I'm what they call a fool; but I know bettah than Harold which side
of my bread's buttahed.'

'I don't doubt it,' I answered.

'Well, I have managed this business. I don't mind telling you now, I had
a telegram from Marmy's valet when we touched at Aden; and poor old
Marmy's sinking. Habakkuk's been too much for him. Sixteen stone going
under. Why am I not with him? yah may ask. Because, when a man of
Marmy's temperament is dying, it's safah to be away from him. There's
plenty of time for Marmy to altah his will yet--and there are othah
contingencies. Still, Harold's quite out of it. You take my word for it;
if you back Harold, you back a man who's not going to get anything;
while if you back me, you back the winnah, with a coronet into the
bargain.' And he smiled fatuously.

I looked at him with a look that would have made a wiser man wince. But
it fell flat on Lord Southminster. 'Do you know why I do not rise and go
down to my cabin at once?' I said, slowly. 'Because, if I did, somebody
as I passed might see my burning cheeks--cheeks flushed with shame at
your insulting proposal--and might guess that you had asked me, and that
I had refused you. And I should shrink from the disgrace of anyone's
knowing that you had put such a humiliation upon me. You have been frank
with me--after your kind, Lord Southminster; frank with the frankness of
a low and purely commercial nature. I will be frank with you in turn.
You are right in supposing that I love Harold Tillington--a man whose
name I hate to mention in your presence. But you are wrong in supposing
that the disposition of Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's money has or can have
anything to do with the feelings I entertain towards him. I would marry
him all the sooner if he were poor and penniless. You cannot
_understand_ that state of mind, of course: but you must be content to
_accept_ it. And I would not marry _you_ if there were no other man left
in the world to marry. I should as soon think of marrying a lump of
dough.' I faced him all crimson. 'Is _that_ plain enough? Do you see now
that I really mean it?'

He gazed at me with a curious look, and twirled what he considered his
moustache once more, quite airily. The man was imperturbable--a
pachydermatous imbecile. 'You're all wrong, yah know,' he said, after a
long pause, during which he had regarded me through his eye-glass as if
I were a specimen of some rare new species. 'You're all wrong, and yah
won't believe me. But I tell yah, I know what I'm talking about. You
think it's quite safe about Marmy's money--that he's left it to Harold,
because you drew the will up. I assuah you that will's not worth the
paper it's written on. You fancy Harold's a hot favourite: he's a rank
outsidah. I give you a chance, and you won't take it. I want yah
because you're a remarkable woman. Most of the Ethels cry when they're
trying to make a fellah propose to 'em; and I don't like 'em damp: but
_you_ have some go about yah. You insist upon backing the wrong man. But
you'll find your mistake out yet.' A bright idea struck him. 'I say--why
don't you hedge? Leave it open till Marmy's gone, and then marry the
winnah?'

It was hopeless trying to make this clod understand. His brain was not
built with the right cells for understanding me. 'Lord Southminster,' I
said, turning upon him and clasping my hands, 'I will not go away while
you stop here. But you have some spark enough of a gentleman in your
composition, I hope, not to inflict your company any longer upon a woman
who does not desire it. I ask you to leave me here alone. When you have
gone, and I have had time to recover from your degrading offer, I may
perhaps feel able to go down to my cabin.'

He stared at me with open blue eyes--those watery blue eyes. 'Oh, just
as you like,' he answered. 'I wanted to do you a good turn, because
you're the only woman I evah really admiahed--to say admiah, don't you
know; not trotted round like the Ethels: but you won't allow me. I'll go
if you wish it; though I tell you again, you're backing the wrong man,
and soonah or latah you'll discover it. I don't mind laying you six to
four against him. Howevah, I'll do one thing for yah: I'll leave this
offah always open. I'm not likely to marry any othah woman--not good
enough, is it?--and if evah you find out you're mistaken about Harold
Tillington, remembah, honour bright, I shall be ready at any time to
renew my offah.'

By this time I was at boiling-point. I could not find words to answer
him. I waved him away angrily with one hand. He raised his hat with
quite a jaunty air and strolled off forward, puffing his cigarette. I
don't think he even knew the disgust with which he inspired me.

I sat some hours with the cool air playing about my burning cheeks
before I mustered up courage to rise and go down below again.




IX

THE ADVENTURES OF THE MAGNIFICENT MAHARAJAH


Our arrival at Bombay was a triumphal entry. We were received like
royalty. Indeed, to tell you the truth, Elsie and I were beginning to
get just a leetle bit spoiled. It struck us now that our casual
connection with the Ashurst family in its various branches had succeeded
in saddling us, like the Lady of Burleigh, 'with the burden of an honour
unto which we were not born.' We were everywhere treated as persons of
importance; and, oh dear, by dint of such treatment we began to feel at
last almost as if we had been raised in the purple. I felt that when we
got back to England we should turn up our noses at plain bread and
butter.

Yes, life has been kind to me. Have your researches into English
literature ever chanced to lead you into reading Horace Walpole, I
wonder? That polite trifler is fond of a word which he coined
himself--'Serendipity.' It derives from the name of a certain happy
Indian Prince Serendip, whom he unearthed (or invented) in some obscure
Oriental story; a prince for whom the fairies or the genii always
managed to make everything pleasant. It implies the faculty, which a few
of us possess, of finding whatever we want turn up accidentally at the
exact right moment. Well, I believe I must have been born with
serendipity in my mouth, in place of the proverbial silver spoon, for
wherever I go, all things seem to come out exactly right for me.

The _Jumna_, for example, had hardly heaved to in Bombay Harbour when we
noticed on the quay a very distinguished-looking Oriental potentate, in
a large, white turban with a particularly big diamond stuck
ostentatiously in its front. He stalked on board with a martial air, as
soon as we stopped, and made inquiries from our captain after someone he
expected. The captain received him with that odd mixture of respect for
rank and wealth, combined with true British contempt for the inferior
black man, which is universal among his class in their dealings with
native Indian nobility. The Oriental potentate, however, who was
accompanied by a gorgeous suite like that of the Wise Men in Italian
pictures, seemed satisfied with his information, and moved over with his
stately glide in our direction. Elsie and I were standing near the
gangway among our rugs and bundles, in the hopeless helplessness of
disembarkation. He approached us respectfully, and, bowing with extended
hands and a deferential air, asked, in excellent English, 'May I venture
to inquire which of you two ladies is Miss Lois Cayley?'

'_I_ am,' I replied, my breath taken away by this unexpected greeting.
'May I venture to inquire in return how you came to know I was arriving
by this steamer?'

[Illustration: I AM THE MAHARAJAH OF MOOZUFFERNUGGAR.]

He held out his hand, with a courteous inclination. 'I am the Maharajah
of Moozuffernuggar,' he answered in an impressive tone, as if everybody
knew of the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar as familiarly as they knew of
the Duke of Cambridge. 'Moozuffernuggar in Rajputana--_not_ the one in
the Doab. You must have heard my name from Mr. Harold Tillington.'

I had not; but I dissembled, so as to salve his pride. 'Mr. Tillington's
friends are _our_ friends,' I answered, sententiously.

'And Mr. Tillington's friends are _my_ friends,' the Maharajah retorted,
with a low bow to Elsie. 'This is no doubt, Miss Petheridge. I have
heard of your expected arrival, as you will guess, from Tillington. He
and I were at Oxford together; I am a Merton man. It was Tillington who
first taught me all I know of cricket. He took me to stop at his
father's place in Dumfriesshire. I owe much to his friendship; and when
he wrote me that friends of his were arriving by the _Jumna_, why, I
made haste to run down to Bombay to greet them.'

The episode was one of those topsy-turvy mixtures of all places and
ages which only this jumbled century of ours has witnessed; it impressed
me deeply. Here was this Indian prince, a feudal Rajput chief, living
practically among his vassals in the Middle Ages when at home in India;
yet he said 'I am a Merton man,' as Harold himself might have said it;
and he talked about cricket as naturally as Lord Southminster talked
about the noble quadruped. The oddest part of it all was, we alone felt
the incongruity; to the Maharajah, the change from Moozuffernuggar to
Oxford and from Oxford back again to Moozuffernuggar seemed perfectly
natural. They were but two alternative phases in a modern Indian
gentleman's education and experience.

Still, what were we to do with him? If Harold had presented me with a
white elephant I could hardly have been more embarrassed than I was at
the apparition of this urbane and magnificent Hindoo prince. He was
young; he was handsome; he was slim, for a rajah; he wore European
costume, save for the huge white turban with its obtrusive diamond; and
he spoke English much better than a great many Englishmen. Yet what
place could he fill in my life and Elsie's? For once, I felt almost
angry with Harold. Why couldn't he have allowed us to go quietly through
India, two simple unofficial journalistic pilgrims, in our native
obscurity?

His Highness of Moozuffernuggar, however, had his own views on this
question. With a courteous wave of one dusky hand, he motioned us
gracefully into somebody else's deck chairs, and then sat down on
another beside us, while the gorgeous suite stood by in respectful
silence--unctuous gentlemen in pink-and-gold brocade--forming a court
all round us. Elsie and I, unaccustomed to be so observed, grew
conscious of our hands, our skirts, our postures. But the Maharajah
posed himself with perfect unconcern, like one well used to the fierce
light of royalty. 'I have come,' he said, with simple dignity, 'to
superintend the preparations for your reception.'

'Gracious heavens!' I exclaimed. 'Our reception, Maharajah? I think you
misunderstand. We are two ordinary English ladies of the proletariat,
accustomed to the level plain of professional society. We expect no
reception.'

He bowed again, with stately Eastern deference. 'Friends of
Tillington's,' he said, shortly, 'are persons of distinction. Besides, I
have heard of you from Lady Georgina Fawley.'

'Lady Georgina is too good,' I answered, though inwardly I raged against
her. Why couldn't she leave us alone, to feed in peace on dak-bungalow
chicken, instead of sending this regal-mannered heathen to bother us?

'So I have come down to Bombay to make sure that you are met in the
style that befits your importance in society,' he went on, waving his
suite away with one careless hand, for he saw it fussed us. 'I mentioned
you to His Honour the Acting-Governor, who had not heard you were
coming. His Honour's aide-de-camp will follow shortly with an invitation
to Government House while you remain in Bombay--which will not be many
days, I don't doubt, for there is nothing in this city of plague to stop
for. Later on, during your progress up country, I do myself the honour
to hope that you will stay as my guests for as long as you choose at
Moozuffernuggar.'

My first impulse was to answer: 'Impossible, Maharajah; we couldn't
dream of accepting your kind invitation.' But on second thoughts, I
remembered my duty to my proprietor. Journalism first: inclination
afterwards! My letter from Egypt on the rescue of the Englishwoman who
escaped from Khartoum had brought me great _éclat_ as a special
correspondent, and the _Daily Telephone_ now billed my name in big
letters on its placards, so Mr. Elworthy wrote me. Here was another
noble chance; must I not strive to rise to it? Two English ladies at a
native court in Rajputana! that ought to afford scope for some rattling
journalism!

'It is extremely kind of you,' I said, hesitating, 'and it would give us
great pleasure, were it feasible, to accept your friendly offer.
But--English ideas, you know, prince! Two unprotected women! I hardly
see how we could come alone to Moozuffernuggar, unchaperoned.'

The Maharajah's face lighted up; he was evidently flattered that we
should even thus dubiously entertain his proposal. 'Oh, I've thought
about that, too,' he answered, growing more colloquial in tone. 'I've
been some days in Bombay, making inquiries and preparations. You see,
you had not informed the authorities of your intended visit, so that you
were travelling _incognito_--or should it be _incognita_?--and if
Tillington hadn't written to let me know your movements, you might have
arrived at this port without anybody's knowing it, and have been
compelled to take refuge in an hotel on landing.' He spoke as if we had
been accustomed all our lives long to be received with red cloth by the
Mayor and Corporation, and presented with illuminated addresses and the
freedom of the city in a gold snuff-box. 'But I have seen to all that.
The Acting-Governor's aide-de-camp will be down before long, and I have
arranged that if you consent a little later to honour my humble roof in
Rajputana with your august presence, Major Balmossie and his wife will
accompany you and chaperon you. I have lived in England: of course I
understand that two English ladies of your rank and position cannot
travel alone--as if you were Americans. But Mrs. Balmossie is a nice
little soul, of unblemished character'--that sweet touch charmed
me--'received at Government House'--he had learned the respect due to
Mrs. Grundy--'so that if you will accept my invitation, you may rest
assured that everything will be done with the utmost regard to the--the
unaccountable prejudices of Europeans.'

His thoughtfulness took me aback. I thanked him warmly. He unbent at my
thanks. 'And I am obliged to you in return,' he said. 'It gives me real
pleasure to be able, through you, to repay Harold Tillington part of the
debt I owe him. He was so good to me at Oxford. Miss Cayley, you are new
to India, and therefore--as yet--no doubt unprejudiced. You treat a
native gentleman, I see, like a human being. I hope you will not stop
long enough in our country to get over that stage--as happens to most of
your countrymen and countrywomen. In England, a man like myself is an
Indian prince; in India, to ninety-nine out of a hundred Europeans, he
is just "a damned nigger."'

I smiled sympathetically. 'I think,' I said, venturing under these
circumstances on a harmless little swear-word--of course, in quotation
marks--'you may trust me never to reach "damn-nigger" point.'

'So I believe,' he answered, 'if you are a friend of Harold
Tillington's. Ebony or ivory, he never forgot we were two men together.'

[Illustration: WHO'S YOUR BLACK FRIEND?]

Five minutes later, when the Maharajah had gone to inquire about our
luggage, Lord Southminster strolled up. 'Oh, I say, Miss Cayley,' he
burst out, 'I'm off now; ta-ta: but remembah, that offah's always open.
By the way, who's your black friend? I couldn't help laughing at the
airs the fellah gave himself. To see a niggah sitting theah, with his
suite all round him, waving his hands and sunning his rings, and
behaving for all the world as if he were a gentleman; it's reahly too
ridiculous. Harold Tillington picked up with a fellah like that at
Oxford--doosid good cricketer too; wondah if this is the same one?'

'Good-bye, Lord Southminster,' I said, quietly, with a stiff little bow.
'Remember, on your side, that your "offer" was rejected once for all
last night. Yes, the Indian prince _is_ Harold Tillington's friend, the
Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar--whose ancestors were princes while ours
were dressed in woad and oak-leaves. But you were right about one
thing; _he_ behaves--like a gentleman.'

'Oh, I say,' the pea-green young man ejaculated, drawing back; 'that's
anothah in the eye for me. You're a good 'un at facers. You gave me one
for a welcome, and you give me one now for a parting shot. Nevah mind
though, I can wait; you're backing the wrong fellah--but you're not the
Ethels, and you're well worth waiting for.' He waved his hand. 'So-long!
See yah again in London.'

And he retired, with that fatuous smile still absorbing his features.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our three days in Bombay were uneventful; we merely waited to get rid of
the roll of the ship, which continued to haunt us for hours after we
landed--the floor of our bedrooms having acquired an ugly trick of
rising in long undulations, as if Bombay were suffering from chronic
earthquake. We made the acquaintance of His Honour the Acting Governor,
and His Honour's consort. We were also introduced to Mrs. Balmossie, the
lady who was to chaperon us to Moozuffernuggar. Her husband was a
soldierly Scotchman from Forfarshire, but she herself was English--a
flighty little body with a perpetual giggle. She giggled so much over
the idea of the Maharajah's inviting us to his palace that I wondered
why on earth she accepted his invitation. At this she seemed surprised.
'Why, it's one of the jolliest places in Rajputana,' she answered, with
a bland Simla smile; '_so_ picturesque--he, he, he--and _so_ delightful.
Simpkin flows like water-- Simpkin's baboo English for champagne, you
know--he, he, he; and though of course the Maharajah's only a native
like the rest of them--he, he, he--still, he's been educated at Oxford,
and has mixed with Europeans, and he knows how to make one--he, he,
he--well, thoroughly comfortable.'

'But what shall we eat?' I asked. 'Rice, ghee, and chupatties?'

'Oh dear no--he, he, he--Europe food, every bit of it. Foie gras, and
York ham, and wine _ad lib_. His hospitality's massive. If it weren't
for that, of course, one wouldn't dream of going there. But Archie hopes
some day to be made Resident, don't you know; and it will do him no
harm--he, he, he--with the Foreign Office, to have cultivated friendly
relations beforehand with His Highness of Moozuffernuggar. These
natives--he, he, he--so absurdly sensitive!'

For myself, the Maharajah interested me, and I rather liked him.
Besides, he was Harold's friend, and that was in itself sufficient
recommendation. So I determined to push straight into the heart of
native India first, and only afterwards to do the regulation tourist
round of Agra and Delhi, the Taj and the mosques, Benares and Allahabad,
leaving the English and Calcutta for the tail-end of my journey. It was
better journalism; as I thought that thought, I began to fear that Mr.
Elworthy was right after all, and that I was a born journalist.

On the day fixed for our leaving Bombay, whom should I meet but Lord
Southminster--with the Maharajah--at the railway station!

He lounged up to me with that eternal smile still vaguely pervading his
empty features. 'Well, we shall have a jolly party, I gathah,' he said.
'They tell me this niggah is famous for his tigahs.'

I gazed at him, positively taken aback. 'You don't mean to tell me,' I
cried, 'you actually propose to accept the Maharajah's hospitality?'

His smile absorbed him. 'Yaas,' he answered twirling his yellow
moustache, and gazing across at the unconscious prince, who was engaged
in overlooking the arrangements for our saloon carriage. 'The black
fellah discovahed I was a cousin of Harold's, so he came to call upon me
at the club, of which some Johnnies heah made me an honorary membah.
He's offahed me the run of his place while I'm in Indiah, and, of
course, I've accepted. Eccentric sort of chap; can't make him out
myself: says anyone connected with Harold Tillington is always deah to
him. Rum start, isn't it?'

'He is a mere Oriental,' I answered, 'unused to the ways of civilised
life. He cherishes the superannuated virtue of gratitude.'

'Yaas; no doubt--so I'm coming along with you.'

I drew back, horrified. 'Now? While I am there? After what I told you
last week on the steamer?'

'Oh, that's all right. I bear yah no malice. If I want any fun, of
course I must go while _you're_ at Moozuffernuggar.'

'Why so?'

'Yah see, this black boundah means to get up some big things at his
place in your honah; and one naturally goes to stop with anyone who has
big things to offah. Hang it all, what does it mattah who a fellah is if
he can give yah good shooting? It's shooting, don't yah know, that keeps
society in England togethah!'

'And therefore you propose to stop in the same house with me!' I
exclaimed, 'in spite of what I have told you! Well, Lord Southminster, I
should have thought there were limits which even _your_ taste----'

He cut me short with an inane grin. 'There you make your blooming little
erraw,' he answered, airily. 'I told yah, I keep my offah still open;
and, hang it all, I don't mean to lose sight of yah in a hurry. Some
other fellah might come along and pick you up when I wasn't looking; and
I don't want to miss yah. In point of fact, I don't mind telling yah, I
back myself still for a couple of thou' soonah or latah to marry yah.
It's dogged as does it; faint heart, they say, nevah won fair lady!'

If it had not been that I could not bear to disappoint my Indian prince,
I think, when I heard this, I should have turned back then and there at
the station.

The journey up country was uneventful, but dusty. The Mofussil appears
to consist mainly of dust; indeed, I can now recall nothing of it but
one pervading white cloud, which has blotted from my memory all its
other components. The dust clung to my hair after many washings, and was
never really beaten out of my travelling clothes; I believe part of it
thus went round the world with me to England. When at last we reached
Moozuffernuggar, after two days' and a night's hard travelling, we were
met by a crowd of local grandees, who looked as if they had spent the
greater part of their lives in brushing back their whiskers, and we
drove up at once, in European carriages, to the Maharajah's palace. The
look of it astonished me. It was a strange and rambling old Hindoo
hill-fort, high perched on a scarped crag, like Edinburgh Castle, and
accessible only on one side, up a gigantic staircase, guarded on either
hand by huge sculptured elephants cut in the living sandstone. Below
clustered the town, an intricate mass of tangled alleys. I had never
seen anything so picturesque or so dirty in my life; as for Elsie, she
was divided between admiration for its beauty and terror at the
big-whiskered and white-turbaned attendants.

'What sort of rooms shall we have?' I whispered to our moral guarantee,
Mrs. Balmossie.

'Oh, beautiful, dear,' the little lady smirked back. 'Furnished
throughout--he, he, he--by Liberty. The Maharajah wants to do honour to
his European guests--he, he, he--he fancies, poor man, he's quite
European. That's what comes of sending these creatures to Oxford! So
he's had suites of rooms furnished for any white visitors who may chance
to come his way. Ridiculous, isn't it? _And_ champagne--oh, gallons of
it! He's quite proud of his rooms, he, he, he--he's always asking people
to come and occupy them; he thinks he's done them up in the best style
of decoration.'

He had reason, for they were as tasteful as they were dainty and
comfortable. And I could not for the life of me make out why his
hospitable inclination should be voted 'ridiculous.' But Mrs. Balmossie
appeared to find all natives alike a huge joke together. She never even
spoke of them without a condescending smile of distant compassion.
Indeed, most Anglo-Indians seem first to do their best to Anglicise the
Hindoo, and then to laugh at him for aping the Englishman.

After we had been three days at the palace and had spent hours in the
wonderful temples and ruins, the Maharajah announced with considerable
pride at breakfast one morning that he had got up a tiger-hunt in our
special honour.

Lord Southminster rubbed his hands.

'Ha, that's right, Maharaj,' he said, briskly. 'I do love big game. To
tell yah the truth, old man, that's just what I came heah for.'

'You do me too much honour,' the Hindoo answered, with quiet sarcasm.
'My town and palace may have little to offer that is worth your
attention; but I am glad that my big game, at least, has been lucky
enough to attract you.'

The remark was thrown away on the pea-green young man. He had described
his host to me as 'a black boundah.' Out of his own mouth I condemned
him--he supplied the very word--he was himself nothing more than a born
bounder.

[Illustration: A TIGER-HUNT IS NOT A THING TO BE GOT UP LIGHTLY.]

During the next few days, the preparations for the tiger-hunt occupied
all the Maharajah's energies. 'You know, Miss Cayley,' he said to me, as
we stood upon the big stairs, looking down on the Hindoo city, 'a
tiger-hunt is not a thing to be got up lightly. Our people themselves
don't like killing a tiger. They reverence it too much. They're afraid
its spirit might haunt them afterwards and bring them bad luck. That's
one of our superstitions.'

'You do not share it yourself, then?' I asked.

He drew himself up and opened his palms, with a twinkling of pendant
emeralds. 'I am royal,' he answered, with naïve dignity, 'and the tiger
is a royal beast. Kings know the ways of kings. If a king kills what is
kingly, it owes him no grudge for it. But if a common man or a low caste
man were to kill a tiger--who can say what might happen?'

I saw he was not himself quite free from the superstition.

'Our peasants,' he went on, fixing me with his great black eyes, 'won't
even mention the tiger by name, for fear of offending him: they believe
him to be the dwelling-place of a powerful spirit. If they wish to speak
of him, they say, "the great beast," or "my lord, the striped one." Some
think the spirit is immortal except at the hands of a king. But they
have no objection to see him destroyed by others. They will even point
out his whereabouts, and rejoice over his death; for it relieves the
village of a serious enemy, and they believe the spirit will only haunt
the huts of those who actually kill him.'

'Then you know where each tiger lives?' I asked.

'As well as your gamekeepers in England know which covert may be drawn
for foxes. Yes; 'tis a royal sport, and we keep it for Maharajahs. I
myself never hunt a tiger till some European visitor of distinction
comes to Moozuffernuggar, that I may show him good sport. This tiger we
shall hunt to-morrow, for example, he is a bad old hand. He has carried
off the buffaloes of my villagers over yonder for years and years, and
of late he has also become a man-eater. He once ate a whole family at a
meal--a man, his wife, and his three children. The people at Janwargurh
have been pestering me for weeks to come and shoot him; and each week he
has eaten somebody--a child or a woman; the last was yesterday--but I
waited till you came, because I thought it would be something to show
you that you would not be likely to see elsewhere.'

'And you let the poor people go on being eaten, that we might enjoy this
sport!' I cried.

He shrugged his shoulders, and opened his palms. 'They were villagers,
you know--ryots: mere tillers of the soil--poor naked peasants. I have
thousands of them to spare. If a tiger eats ten of them, they only say,
"It was written upon their foreheads." One woman more or less--who would
notice her at Moozuffernuggar?'

Then I perceived that the Maharajah was a gentleman, but still a
barbarian.

The eventful morning arrived at last, and we started, all agog, for the
jungle where the tiger was known to live. Elsie excused herself. She
remarked to me the night before, as I brushed her back hair for her,
that she had 'half a mind' not to go. 'My dear,' I answered, giving the
brush a good dash, 'for a higher mathematician, that phrase lacks
accuracy. If you were to say "seven-eighths of a mind" it would be
nearer the mark. In point of fact, if you ask my opinion, your
inclination to go is a vanishing quantity.'

She admitted the impeachment with an accusing blush. 'You're quite
right, Brownie; to tell you the truth, I'm afraid of it.'

'So am I, dear; horribly afraid. Between ourselves, I'm in a deadly funk
of it. But "the brave man is not he that feels no fear"; and I believe
the same principle applies almost equally to the brave woman. I mean
"that fear to subdue" as far as I am able. The Maharajah says I shall be
the first girl who has ever gone tiger-hunting. I'm frightened out of my
life. I never held a gun in my born days before. But, Elsie, recollect,
this is _splendid_ journalism! I intend to go through with it.'

'You offer yourself on the altar, Brownie.'

'I do, dear; I propose to die in the cause. I expect my proprietor to
carve on my tomb, "Sacred to the memory of the martyr of journalism. She
was killed, in the act of taking shorthand notes, by a Bengal tiger."'

We started at early dawn, a motley mixture. My short bicycling skirt did
beautifully for tiger-hunting. There was a vast company of native
swells, nawabs and ranas, in gorgeous costumes, whose precise names and
titles I do not pretend to remember; there were also Major Balmossie,
Lord Southminster, the Maharajah, and myself--all mounted on
gaily-caparisoned elephants. We had likewise, on foot, a miserable crowd
of wretched beaters, with dirty white loin-cloths. We were all very
brave, of course--demonstratively brave--and we talked a great deal at
the start about the exhilaration given by 'the spice of danger.' But it
somehow struck me that the poor beaters on foot had the majority of the
danger and extremely little of the exhilaration. Each of us great folk
was mounted on his own elephant, which carried a light basket-work
howdah in two compartments: the front one intended for the noble
sportsman, the back one for a servant with extra guns and ammunition. I
pretended to like it, but I fear I trembled visibly. Our mahouts sat on
the elephants' necks, each armed with a pointed goad, to whose
admonition the huge beasts answered like clock-work. A born journalist
always pretends to know everything before hand, so I speak carelessly of
the 'mahout,' as if he were a familiar acquaintance. But I don't mind
telling you aside, in confidence, that I had only just learnt the word
that morning.

The Maharajah protested at first against my taking part in the actual
hunt, but I think his protest was merely formal. In his heart of hearts
I believe he was proud that the first lady tiger-hunter should have
joined his party.

Dusty and shadeless, the road from Moozuffernuggar fares straight across
the plain towards the crumbling mountains. Behind, in the heat mist, the
castle and palace on their steeply-scarped crag, with the squalid town
that clustered at their feet, reminded me once more most strangely of
Edinburgh, where I used to spend my vacations from Girton. But the
pitiless sun differed greatly from the gray haar of the northern
metropolis. It warmed into intense white the little temples of the
wayside, and beat on our heads with tropical garishness.

I am bound to admit also that tiger-hunting is not quite all it is
cracked up to be. In my fancy I had pictured the gallant and
bloodthirsty beast rushing out upon us full pelt from some grass-grown
nullah at the first sniff of our presence, and fiercely attacking both
men and elephants. Instead of that, I will confess the whole truth:
frightened as at least one of us was of the tiger, the tiger was still
more desperately frightened of his human assailants. I could see clearly
that, so far from rushing out of his own accord to attack us, his one
desire was to be let alone. He was horribly afraid; he skulked in the
jungle like a wary old fox in a trusty spinney. There was no nullah
(whatever a nullah may be), there was only a waste of dusty cane-brake.
We encircled the tall grass patch where he lurked, forming a big round
with a ring-fence of elephants. The beaters on foot, advancing, half
naked, with a caution with which I could fully sympathise, endeavoured
by loud shouts and gesticulations to rouse the royal beast to a sense of
his position. Not a bit of it: the royal beast declined to be drawn; he
preferred retirement. The Maharajah, whose elephant was stationed next
to mine, even apologised for the resolute cowardice with which he clung
to his ignoble lurking-place.

The beaters drew in: the elephants, raising their trunks in air and
sniffing suspicion, moved slowly inward. We had girt him round now with
a perfect ring, through which he could not possibly break without
attacking somebody. The Maharajah kept a fixed eye on my personal
safety. But still the royal animal crouched and skulked, and still the
black beaters shrieked, howled, and gesticulated. At last, among the
tall perpendicular lights and shadows of the big grasses and bamboos, I
seemed to see something move--something striped like the stems, yet
passing slowly, slowly, slowly between them. It moved in a stealthy
undulating line. No one could believe till he saw it how the bright
flame-coloured bands of vivid orange-yellow on the monster's flanks, and
the interspersed black stripes, could fade away and harmonise, in their
native surroundings, with the lights and shades of the upright jungle.
It was a marvel of mimicry. 'Look there!' I cried to the Maharajah,
pointing one eager hand. 'What is that thing there, moving?'

He stared where I pointed. 'By Jove,' he cried, raising his rifle with a
sportsman's quickness, 'you have spotted him first! The tiger!'

The terrified beast stole slowly and cautiously through the tall
grasses, his lithe, silken side gliding in and out snakewise, and only
his fierce eyes burning bright with gleaming flashes between the gloom
of the jungle. Once I had seen him, I could follow with ease his sinuous
path among the tangled bamboos, a waving line of beauty in perpetual
motion. The Maharajah followed him too, with his keen eyes, and pointed
his rifle hastily. But, quick as he was, Lord Southminster was before
him. I had half expected to find the pea-green young man turn coward at
the last moment; but in that I was mistaken: I will do him the justice
to say, whatever else he was, he was a born sportsman. The gleam of joy
in his leaden eye when he caught sight of the tiger, the flush of
excitement on his pasty face, the eagerness of his alert attitude, were
things to see and remember. That moment almost ennobled him. In sight of
danger, the best instincts of the savage seemed to revive within him. In
civilised life he was a poor creature; face to face with a wild beast he
became a mighty shikari. Perhaps that was why he was so fond of big-game
shooting. He may have felt it raised him in the scale of being.

He lifted his rifle and fired. He was a cool shot, and he wounded the
beast upon its left shoulder. I could see the great crimson stream gush
out all at once across the shapely sides, staining the flame-coloured
stripes and reddening the black shadows. The tiger drew back, gave a
low, fierce growl, and then crouched among the jungle. I saw he was
going to leap; he bent his huge backbone into a strong downward curve,
took in a deep breath, and stood at bay, glaring at us. Which elephant
would he attack? That was what he was now debating. Next moment, with a
frightful R'-r'-r'-r', he had straightened out his muscles, and, like a
bolt from a bow, had launched his huge bulk forward.

I never saw his charge. I never knew he had leapt upon me. I only felt
my elephant rock from side to side like a ship in a storm. He was
trumpeting, shaking, roaring with rage and pain, for the tiger was on
his flanks, its claws buried deep in the skin of his forehead. I could
not keep my seat; I felt myself tossed about in the frail howdah like a
pill in a pill-box. The elephant, in a death grapple, was trying to
shake off his ghastly enemy. For a minute or two, I was conscious of
nothing save this swinging movement. Then, opening my eyes for a second,
I saw the tiger, in all his terrible beauty, clinging to the elephant's
head by the claws of his fore paws, and struggling for a foothold on
its trunk with his mighty hind legs, in a wounded agony of despair and
vengeance. He would sell his life dear; he would have one or other of
us.

Lord Southminster raised his rifle again; but the Maharajah shouted
aloud in an angry voice: 'Don't fire! Don't fire! You will kill the
lady! You can't aim at him like that. The beast is rocking so that no
one can say where a shot will take effect. Down with your gun, sir,
instantly!'

[Illustration: IT WENT OFF UNEXPECTEDLY.]

My mahout, unable to keep his seat with the rocking, now dropped off his
cushion among the scrub below. He could speak a few words of English.
'Shoot, Mem Sahib, shoot!' he cried, flinging his hands up. But I was
tossed to and fro, from side to side, with my rifle under my arm. It was
impossible to aim. Yet in sheer terror I tried to draw the trigger. I
failed; but somehow I caught my rifle against the side of my cage.
Something snapped in it somewhere. It went off unexpectedly, without my
aiming or firing. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again, I saw a
swimming picture of the great sullen beast, loosing his hold on the
elephant. I saw his brindled face; I saw his white tusks. But his
gleaming pupils burned bright no longer. His jaw was full towards me: I
had shot him between the eyes. He fell, slowly, with blood streaming
from his nostrils, and his tongue lolling out. His muscles relaxed; his
huge limbs grew limp. In a minute, he lay stretched at full length on
the ground, with his head on one side, a grand, terrible picture.

My mahout flung up his hands in wonder and amazement. 'My father!' he
cried aloud. 'Truly, the Mem Sahib is a great shikari!'

The Maharajah stretched across to me. 'That was a wonderful shot!' he
exclaimed. 'I could never have believed a woman could show such nerve
and coolness.'

Nerve and coolness, indeed! I was trembling all over like an Italian
greyhound, every limb a jelly; and I had not even fired: the rifle went
off of itself without me. I am innocent of having ever endangered the
life of a haycock. But once more I dissembled. 'Yes, it _was_ a
difficult shot,' I said jauntily, as if I rather liked tiger-hunting.
'I didn't think I'd hit him.' Still the effect of my speech was somewhat
marred, I fear, by the tears that in spite of me rolled down my cheek
silently.

''Pon honah, I nevah saw a finah piece of shooting in my life,' Lord
Southminster drawled out. Then he added aside, in an undertone, 'Makes a
fellow moah determined to annex her than evah!'

I sat in my howdah, half dazed. I hardly heard what they were saying. My
heart danced like the elephant. Then it stood still within me. I was
only aware of a feeling of faintness. Luckily for my reputation as a
mighty sportswoman, however, I just managed to keep up, and did not
actually faint, as I was more than half inclined to do.

Next followed the native pæan. The beaters crowded round the fallen
beast in a chorus of congratulation. Many of the villagers also ran out,
with prayers and ejaculations, to swell our triumph. It was all like a
dream. They hustled round me and salaamed to me. A woman had shot him!
Wonderful! A babel of voices resounded in my ears. I was aware that pure
accident had elevated me into a heroine.

'Put the beast on a pad elephant,' the Maharajah called out.

The beaters tied ropes round his body and raised him with difficulty.

The Maharajah's face grew stern. 'Where are the whiskers?' he asked,
fiercely, in his own tongue, which Major Balmossie interpreted for me.

The beaters and the villagers, bowing low and expanding their hands,
made profuse expressions of ignorance and innocence. But the fact was
patent--the grand face had been mangled. While they had crowded in a
dense group round the fallen carcass, somebody had cut off the lips and
whiskers and secreted them.

'They have ruined the skin!' the Maharajah cried out in angry tones. 'I
intended it for the lady. I shall have them all searched, and the man
who has done this thing----'

[Illustration: I SAW HIM NOW THE ORIENTAL DESPOT.]

He broke off, and looked around him. His silence was more terrible by
far than the fiercest threat. I saw him now the Oriental despot. All the
natives drew back, awe-struck.

'The voice of a king is the voice of a great god,' my mahout murmured,
in a solemn whisper. Then nobody else said anything.

'Why do they want the whiskers?' I asked, just to set things straight
again. 'They seem to have been in a precious hurry to take them!'

The Maharajah's brow cleared. He turned to me once more with his
European manner. 'A tiger's body has wonderful power after his death,'
he answered. 'His fangs and his claws are very potent charms. His heart
gives courage. Whoever eats of it will never know fear. His liver
preserves against death and pestilence. But the highest virtue of all
exists in his whiskers. They are mighty talismans. Chopped up in food,
they act as a slow poison, which no doctor can detect, no antidote guard
against. They are also a sovereign remedy against magic or the evil eye.
And administered to women, they make an irresistible philtre, a puissant
love-potion. They secure you the heart of whoever drinks them.'

'I'd give a couple of monkeys for those whiskahs,' Lord Southminster
murmured, half unnoticed.

We began to move again. 'We'll go on to where we know there is another
tiger,' the Maharajah said, lightly, as if tigers were partridges. 'Miss
Cayley, you will come with us?'

I rested on my laurels. (I was quivering still from head to foot.) 'No,
thank you, Maharajah,' as unconcernedly as I could; 'I've had quite
enough sport for my first day's tiger-hunting. I think I'll go back now,
and write a newspaper account of this little adventure.'

'You have had luck,' he put in. 'Not everyone kills a tiger his first
day out. This will make good reading.'

'I wouldn't have missed it for a hundred pounds,' I answered.

'Then try another.'

'I wouldn't try another for a thousand,' I cried, fervently. That
evening, at the palace, I was the heroine of the day. They toasted me in
a bumper of Heidsieck's dry monopole. The men made speeches. Everybody
talked gushingly of my splendid courage and my steadiness of hand. It
was a brilliant shot, under such difficult circumstances. For myself, I
said nothing. I pretended to look modest. I dared not confess the
truth--that I never fired at all. And from that day to this I have never
confessed it, till I write it down now in these confiding memoirs.

[Illustration: IT'S I WHO AM THE WINNAH.]

One episode cast a gloom over my ill-deserved triumph. In the course of
the evening, a telegram arrived for the pea-green young man by a
white-turbaned messenger. He read it, and crumpled it up carelessly in
his hand. I looked inquiry. 'Yaas,' he answered, nodding. 'You're quite
right. It's that! Pooah old Marmy has gone, aftah all! Ezekiel and
Habakkuk have carried off his sixteen stone at last! And I don't mind
telling yah now--though it was a neah thing--it's _I_ who am the
winnah!'




X

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CROSS-EYED Q.C.


The 'cold weather,' as it is humorously called, was now drawing to a
close, and the young ladies in sailor hats and cambric blouses, who
flock to India each autumn for the annual marriage-market, were
beginning to resign themselves to a return to England--unless, of
course, they had succeeded in 'catching.' So I realised that I must
hurry on to Delhi and Agra, if I was not to be intercepted by the
intolerable summer.

When we started from Moozuffernuggar for Delhi and the East, Lord
Southminster was starting for Bombay and Europe. This surprised me not a
little, for he had confided to my unsympathetic ear a few nights
earlier, in the Maharajah's billiard-room, that he was 'stony broke,'
and must wait at Moozuffernuggar for lack of funds 'till the oof-bird
laid' at his banker's in England. His conversation enlarged my
vocabulary, at any rate.

'So you've managed to get away?' I exclaimed, as he dawdled up to me at
the hot and dusty station.

'Yaas,' he drawled, fixing his eye-glass, and lighting a cigarette.
'I've--p'f--managed to get away. Maharaj seems to have thought--p'f--it
would be cheepah in the end to pay me out than to keep me.'

'You don't mean to say he offered to lend you money?' I cried.

'No; not exactly that: _I_ offahed to borrow it.'

'From the man you call a nigger?'

His smile spread broader over his face than ever. 'Well, we borrow from
the Jews, yah know,' he said pleasantly, 'so why the jooce shouldn't we
borrow from the heathen also? Spoiling the Egyptians, don't yah
see?--the same as we used to read about in the Scripchah when we were
innocent kiddies. Like marriage, quite. You borrow in haste--and repay
at leisure.'

He strolled off and took his seat. I was glad to get rid of him at the
main line junction.

In accordance with my usual merciful custom, I spare you the details of
our visit to Agra, Muttra, Benares. At Calcutta, Elsie left me. Her
health was now quite restored, dear little soul-- I felt I had done that
one good thing in life if no other--and she could no longer withstand
the higher mathematics, which were beckoning her to London with
invisible fingers. For myself, having so far accomplished my original
design of going round the world with twopence in my pocket, I could not
bear to draw back at half the circuit; and Mr. Elworthy having willingly
consented to my return by Singapore and Yokohama, I set out alone on my
homeward journey.

[Illustration: HE WROTE, I EXPECT YOU TO COME BACK TO ENGLAND AND MARRY
ME.]

Harold wrote me from London that all was going well. He had found the
will which I drew up at Florence in his uncle's escritoire, and
everything was left to him; but he trusted, in spite of this untoward
circumstance, long absence might have altered my determination. 'Dear
Lois,' he wrote, 'I _expect_ you to come back to England and marry me!'

I was brief, but categorical. Nothing, meanwhile, had altered my
resolve. I did not wish to be considered mercenary. While he was rich
and honoured, I could never take him. If, some day, fortune
frowned--but, there--let us not forestall the feet of calamity: let us
await contingencies.

Still, I was heavy in heart. If only it had been otherwise! To say the
truth, I should be thrown away on a millionaire; but just think what a
splendid managing wife a girl like me would have made for a penniless
pauper!

At Yokohama, however, while I dawdled in curiosity shops, a telegram
from Harold startled me into seriousness. My chance at last! I knew what
it meant; that villain Higginson!

'Come home at once. I want your evidence to clear my character.
Southminster opposes the will as a forgery. He has a strong case; the
experts are with him.'

Forgery! That was clever. I never thought of that. I suspected them of
trying to forge a will of their own; but to upset the real one--to throw
the burden of suspicion on Harold's shoulders--how much subtler and
craftier!

I saw at a glance it gave them every advantage. In the first place, it
put Harold virtually in the place of the accused, and compelled him to
defend instead of attacking--an attitude which prejudices people against
one from the outset. Then, again, it implied positive criminality on his
part, and so allowed Lord Southminster to assume the air of injured
innocence. The eldest son of the eldest brother, unjustly set aside by
the scheming machinations of an unscrupulous cousin! Primogeniture, the
ingrained English love for keeping up the dignity of a noble family, the
prejudice in favour of the direct male line as against the female--all
were astutely utilised in Lord Southminster's interest. But worst of
all, it was _I_ who had typewritten the will--I, a friend of Harold's, a
woman whom Lord Southminster would doubtless try to exhibit as his
_fiancée_. I saw at once how much like conspiracy it looked: Harold and
I had agreed together to concoct a false document, and Harold had forged
his uncle's signature to it. Could a British jury doubt when a Lord
declared it?

Fortunately, I was just in time to catch the Canadian steamer from Japan
to Vancouver. But, oh, the endless breadth of that broad Pacific! How
time seemed to lag, as each day one rose in the morning, in the midst of
space; blue sky overhead; behind one, the hard horizon; in front of one,
the hard horizon; and nothing else visible: then steamed on all day, to
arrive at night, where?--why, in the midst of space; starry sky
overhead; behind one, the dim horizon; in front of one, the dim horizon;
and nothing else visible. The Nile was child's play to it.

[Illustration: IT WAS ENDLESSLY WEARISOME.]

Day after day we steamed, and night after night were still where we
began--in the centre of the sea, no farther from our starting-point, no
nearer to our goal, yet for ever steaming. It was endlessly wearisome;
who could say what might be happening meanwhile in England?

At last, after months, as it seemed, of this slow torture, we reached
Vancouver. There, in the raw new town, a telegram awaited me. 'Glad to
hear you are coming. Make all haste. You may be just in time to arrive
for the trial.'

Just in time! I would not waste a moment. I caught the first train on
the Canadian Pacific, and travelled straight through, day and night, to
Montreal and Quebec, without one hour's interval.

I cannot describe to you that journey across a continent I had never
before seen. It was endless and hopeless. I only know that we crawled up
the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range, over spider-like viaducts,
with interminable effort, and that the prairies were just the broad
Pacific over again. They rolled on for ever. But we did reach Quebec--in
time we reached it; and we caught by an hour the first liner to
Liverpool.

At Prince's Landing-stage another telegram awaited me. 'Come on
at once. Case now proceeding. Harold is in court. We need your
evidence.--GEORGINA FAWLEY.'

I might still be in time to vindicate Harold's character.

At Euston, to my surprise, I was met not only by my dear cantankerous
old lady, but also by my friend, the magnificent Maharajah, dressed this
time in a frock-coat and silk hat of Bond Street glossiness.

'What has brought you to England?' I asked, astonished. 'The Jubilee?'

He smiled, and showed his two fine rows of white teeth. 'That,
nominally. In reality, the cricket season (I play for Berks). But most
of all, to see dear Tillington safe through this trouble.'

'He's a brick!' Lady Georgina cried with enthusiasm. 'A regular brick,
my dear Lois! His carriage is waiting outside to take you up to my
house. He has stood by Harold--well, like a Christian!'

'Or a Hindu,' the Maharajah corrected, smiling.

'And how have you been all this time, dear Lady Georgina?' I asked,
hardly daring to inquire about what was nearest to my soul--Harold.

The cantankerous old lady knitted her brows in a familiar fashion. 'Oh,
my dear, don't ask: I haven't known a happy hour since you left me in
Switzerland. Lois, I shall never be happy again without you! It would
pay me to give you a retaining fee of a thousand a year--honour bright,
it would, I assure you. What I've suffered from the Gretchens since
you've been in the East has only been equalled by what I've suffered
from the Mary Annes and the Célestines. Not a hair left on my scalp; not
one hair, I declare to you. They've made my head into a _tabula rasa_
for the various restorers. George R. Sims and Mrs. S. A. Allen are going
to fight it out between them. My dear, I wish _you_ could take my maid's
place; I've always said----'

I finished the speech for her. 'A lady can do better whatever she turns
her hand to than any of these hussies.'

She nodded. 'And why? Because her hands _are_ hands; while as for the
Gretchens and the Mary Annes, "paws" is the only word one can honestly
apply to them. Then, on top of it all comes this trouble about Harold.
So distressing, isn't it? You see, at the point which the matter has
reached, it's simply impossible to save Harold's reputation without
wrecking Southminster's. Pretty position that for a respectable family!
The Ashursts hitherto have been _quite_ respectable: a co-respondent or
two, perhaps, but never anything serious. Now, either Southminster sends
Harold to prison, or Harold sends Southminster. There's a nice sort of
dilemma! I always knew Kynaston's boys were born fools; but to find
they're born knaves, too, is hard on an old woman in her hairless
dotage. However, _you've_ come, my child, and _you'll_ soon set things
right. You're the one person on earth I can trust in this matter.'

Harold go to prison! My head reeled at the thought. I staggered out into
the open air, and took my seat mechanically in the Maharajah's carriage.
All London swam before me. After so many months' absence, the
polychromatic decorations of our English streets, looming up through the
smoke, seemed both strange and familiar. I drove through the first half
mile with a vague consciousness that Lipton's tea is the perfection of
cocoa and matchless for the complexion, but that it dyes all colours,
and won't wash clothes.

After a while, however, I woke up to the full terror of the situation.
'Where are you taking me?' I inquired.

'To my house, dear,' Lady Georgina answered, looking anxiously at me;
for my face was bloodless.

'No, that won't do,' I answered. 'My cue must be now to keep myself as
aloof as possible from Harold and Harold's backers. I must put up at an
hotel. It will sound so much better in cross-examination.'

'She's quite right,' the Maharajah broke in, with sudden conviction.
'One must block every ball with these nasty swift bowlers.'

'Where's Harold?' I asked, after another pause. 'Why didn't he come to
meet me?'

'My dear, how could he? He's under examination. A cross-eyed Q.C. with
an odious leer. Southminster's chosen the biggest bully at the Bar to
support his contention.'

'Drive to some hotel in the Jermyn Street district,' I cried to the
Maharajah's coachman. 'That will be handy for the law courts.'

He touched his hat and turned. In a sort of dickey behind sat two
gorgeous-turbaned Rajput servants.

That evening Harold came round to visit me at my rooms. I could see he
was much agitated. Things had gone very badly. Lady Georgina was there;
she had stopped to dine with me, dear old thing, lest I should feel
lonely and give way; so had Elsie Petheridge. Mr. Elworthy sent a
telegram of welcome from Devonshire. I knew at least that my friends
were rallying round me in this hour of trial. The kind Maharajah himself
would have come too, if I had allowed him, but I thought it inexpedient.
They explained everything to me. Harold had propounded Mr. Ashurst's
will--the one I drew up at Florence--and had asked for probate. Lord
Southminster intervened and opposed the grant of probate on the ground
that the signatures were forgeries. He propounded instead another will,
drawn some twenty years earlier, when they were both children, duly
executed at the time, and undoubtedly genuine; in it, testator left
everything without reserve to the eldest son of his eldest brother, Lord
Kynaston.

'Marmy didn't know in those days that Kynaston's sons would all grow up
fools,' Lady Georgina said tartly. 'Besides which, that was before the
poor dear soul took to plunging on the Stock Exchange and made his
money. He had nothing to leave then but his best silk hat and a few
paltry hundreds. Afterwards, when he'd feathered his nest in soap and
cocoa, he discovered that Bertie--that's Lord Southminster--was a
first-class idiot. Marmy never liked Southminster, nor Southminster
Marmy. For after all, with all his faults, Marmy _was_ a gentleman;
while Bertie--well, my dear, we needn't put a name to it. So he altered
his will, as you know, when he saw the sort of man Southminster turned
out, and left practically everything he possessed to Harold.'

'Who are the witnesses to the will?' I asked.

'There's the trouble. Who do you think? Why, Higginson's sister, who was
Marmy's _masseuse_, and a waiter--Franz Markheim--at the hotel at
Florence, who's dead they say--or, at least, not forthcoming.'

'And Higginson's sister forswears her signature,' Harold added gloomily;
'while the experts are, most of them, dead against the genuineness of my
uncle's.'

'That's clever,' I said, leaning back, and taking it in slowly.
'Higginson's sister! How well they've worked it. They couldn't prevent
Mr. Ashurst from making this will, but they managed to supply their own
tainted witnesses! If it had been Higginson himself now, he'd have had
to be cross-examined; and in cross-examination, of course, we could have
shaken his credit, by bringing up the episodes of the Count de
Laroche-sur-Loiret and Dr. Fortescue-Langley. But his sister! What's she
like? Have you anything against her?'

'My dear,' Lady Georgina cried, 'there the rogue has bested us. Isn't it
just like him? What do you suppose he has done? Why, provided himself
with a sister of tried respectability and blameless character.'

'And she denies that it is her handwriting?' I asked.

'Declares on her Bible oath she never signed the document.'

I was fairly puzzled. It was a stupendously clever dodge. Higginson must
have trained up his sister for forty years in the ways of wickedness,
yet held her in reserve for this supreme moment.

'And where is Higginson?' I asked.

Lady Georgina broke into a hysterical laugh. 'Where is he, my dear?
That's the question. With consummate strategy, the wretch has
disappeared into space at the last moment.'

'That's artful again,' I said. 'His presence could only damage their
case. I can see, of course, Lord Southminster has no need of him.'

'Southminster's the wiliest fool that ever lived,' Harold broke out
bitterly. 'Under that mask of imbecility, he's a fox for trickiness.'

I bit my lip. 'Well, if you succeed in evading him,' I said, 'you will
have cleared your character. And if you don't--then, Harold, our time
will have come: you will have your longed-for chance of trying me.'

'That won't do me much good,' he answered, 'if I have to wait fourteen
years for you--at Portland.'

[Illustration: THE CROSS-EYED Q.C. BEGGED HIM TO BE VERY CAREFUL.]

Next morning, in court, I heard Harold's cross-examination. He described
exactly where he had found the contested will in his uncle's escritoire.
The cross-eyed Q.C., a heavy man with bloated features and a bulbous
nose, begged him, with one fat uplifted forefinger, to be very careful.
How did he know where to look for it?

'Because I knew the house well: I knew where my uncle was likely to keep
his valuables.'

'Oh, indeed; _not_ because you had put it there?'

The court rang with laughter. My face grew crimson.

After an hour or two of fencing, Harold was dismissed. He stood down,
baffled. Counsel recalled Lord Southminster.

The pea-green young man, stepping briskly up, gazed about him,
open-mouthed, with a vacant stare. The look of cunning on his face was
carefully suppressed. He wore, on the contrary, an air of injured
innocence combined with an eye-glass.

'_You_ did not put this will in the drawer where Mr. Tillington found
it, did you?' counsel asked.

The pea-green young man laughed. 'No, I certainly didn't put it theah.
My cousin Harold was man in possession. He took jolly good care _I_
didn't come neah the premises.'

'Do you think you could forge a will if you tried?'

Lord Southminster laughed. 'No, I don't,' he answered, with a
well-assumed _naïveté_. 'That's just the difference between us, don't
yah know. _I'm_ what they call a fool, and my cousin Harold's a precious
clevah fellah.'

There was another loud laugh.

'That's not evidence,' the judge observed, severely.

It was not. But it told far more than much that was. It told strongly
against Harold.

'Besides,' Lord Southminster continued, with engaging frankness, 'if I
forged a will at all, I'd take jolly good care to forge it in my own
favah.'

My turn came next. Our counsel handed me the incriminated will. 'Did you
draw up this document?' he asked.

I looked at it closely. The paper bore our Florentine water-mark, and
was written with a Spread-Eagle. 'I type-wrote it,' I answered, gazing
at it with care to make sure I recognised it.

Our counsel's business was to uphold the will, not to cast aspersions
upon it. He was evidently annoyed at my close examination. 'You have no
doubts about it?' he said, trying to prompt me.

I hesitated. 'No, no doubts,' I answered, turning over the sheet and
inspecting it still closer. 'I type-wrote it at Florence.'

'Do you recognise that signature as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's?' he went
on.

I stared at it. Was it his? It was like it, certainly. Yet that _k_? and
those _s_'s? I almost wondered.

Counsel was obviously annoyed at my hesitation. He thought I was playing
into the enemy's hands. 'Is it his, or is it not?' he inquired again,
testily.

'It is his,' I answered. Yet I own I was troubled.

[Illustration: I WAS A GROTESQUE FAILURE.]

He asked many questions about the circumstances of the interview when I
took down the will. I answered them all. But I vaguely felt he and I
were at cross-purposes. I grew almost as uncomfortable under his gaze as
if he had been examining me in the interest of the other side. He
managed to fluster me. As a witness for Harold, I was a grotesque
failure.

Then the cross-eyed Q.C., rising and shaking his huge bulk, began to
cross-examine me. 'Where did you type-write this thing, do you say?' he
said, pointing to it contemptuously.

'In my office at Florence.'

'Yes, I understand; you had an office in Florence--after you gave up
retailing bicycles on the public roads; and you had a partner, I
think--a Miss Petherick, or Petherton, or Pennyfarthing, or something?'

'Miss Petheridge,' I corrected, while the Court tittered.

'Ah, Petheridge, you call it! Well, now answer this question carefully.
Did your Miss Petheridge hear Mr. Ashurst dictate the terms of his last
will and testament?'

'No,' I answered. 'The interview was of a strictly confidential
character. Mr. Ashurst took me aside into the back room at our office.'

'Oh, he took you aside? Confidential? Well, now we're getting at it. And
did anybody but yourself see or hear any part whatsoever of this
precious document?'

'Certainly not,' I replied. 'It was a private matter.'

'Private! oh, very! Nobody else saw it. Did Mr. Ashurst take it away
from the office in person?'

'No; he sent his courier for it.'

'His courier? The man Higginson?'

'Yes; but I refused to give it to Higginson. I took it myself that night
to the hotel where Mr. Ashurst was stopping.'

'Ah! You took it yourself. So the only other person who knows anything
at first hand about the existence of the alleged will is this person
Higginson?'

'Miss Petheridge knows,' I said, flushing. 'At the time, I told her of
it.'

'Oh, _you_ told her. Well, that doesn't help us much. If what you are
swearing isn't true--remember, you are on your oath--what you told Miss
Petherick or Petheridge or Pennyfarthing, "at the time," can hardly be
regarded as corroborative evidence. Your word then and your word now are
just equally valuable--or equally worthless. The only person who knows
besides yourself is Higginson. Now, I ask you, _where_ is Higginson?
_Are_ you going to produce him?'

The wicked cunning of it struck me dumb. They were keeping him away, and
then using his absence to cast doubts on my veracity. 'Stop,' I cried,
taken aback, 'Higginson is well known to be a rogue, and he is keeping
away lest he may damage your side. I know nothing of Higginson.'

'Yes, I'm coming to that in good time. Don't be afraid that we're going
to pass over Higginson. You admit this man is a man of bad character.
Now, what do you know of him?'

I told the stories of the Count and of Dr. Fortescue-Langley.

The cross-eyed cross-examiner leant across towards me and leered. 'And
this is the man,' he exclaimed, with a triumphant air, 'whose sister you
pretended you had got to sign this precious document of yours?'

'Whom Mr. Ashurst got to sign it,' I answered, red-hot. 'It is not _my_
document.'

'And you have heard that she swears it is not her signature at all?'

'So they tell me. She is Higginson's sister. For all I know, she may be
prepared to swear, or to forswear, anything.'

'Don't cast doubt upon our witnesses without cause! Miss Higginson is an
eminently respectable woman. You gave this document to Mr. Ashurst, you
say. There your knowledge of it ends. A signature is placed on it which
is not his, as our experts testify. It purports to be witnessed by a
Swiss waiter, who is not forthcoming, and who is asserted to be dead, as
well as by a nurse who denies her signature. And the only other person
who knows of its existence before Mr. Tillington "discovers" it in his
uncle's desk is--the missing man Higginson. Is that, or is it not, the
truth of the matter?'

'I suppose so,' I said, baffled.

'Well, now, as to this man Higginson. He first appears upon the scene,
so far as you are concerned, on the day when you travelled from London
to Schlangenbad?'

'That is so,' I answered.

'And he nearly succeeded then in stealing Lady Georgina Fawley's
jewel-case?'

'He nearly took it, but I saved it.' And I explained the circumstance.

The cross-eyed Q.C. held his fat sides with his hands, looking
incredulously at me, and smiled. His vast width of waistcoat shook with
silent merriment. 'You are a very clever young lady,' he murmured. 'You
can explain away anything. But don't you think it just as likely that it
was a plot between you two, and that owing to some mistake the plot came
off unsuccessful?'

'I do not,' I cried, crimson. 'I never saw the Count before that
morning.'

He tried another tack. 'Still, wherever you went, this man
Higginson--the only other person, you admit, who knows about the
previous existence of the will--turned up simultaneously. He was always
turning up--at the same place as you did. He turned up at Lucerne, as a
faith-healer, didn't he?'

'If you will allow me to explain,' I cried, biting my lip.

He bowed, all blandness. 'Oh, certainly,' he murmured. 'Explain away
everything!'

I explained, but of course he had discounted and damaged my explanation.

He made no comment. 'And then,' he went on, with his hands on his hips,
and his obtrusive rotundity, 'he turned up at Florence, as courier to
Mr. Ashurst, at the very date when this so-called will was being
concocted?'

'He was at Florence when Mr. Ashurst dictated it to me,' I answered,
growing desperate.

'You admit he was in Florence. Good! Once more he turned up in India
with my client, Lord Southminster, upon whose youth and inexperience he
had managed to impose himself. And he carried him off, did he not, by
one of these strange coincidences to which _you_ are peculiarly liable,
on the very same steamer on which _you_ happened to be travelling?'

'Lord Southminster told me he took Higginson with him because a rogue
suited his book,' I answered, warmly.

'Will you swear his lordship didn't say "_the_ rogue suited his
book"--which is quite another thing?' the Q.C. asked blandly.

'I will swear he did not,' I replied. 'I have correctly reported him.'

'Then I congratulate you, young lady, on your excellent memory. My lud,
will you allow me later to recall Lord Southminster to testify on this
point?'

The judge nodded.

'Now, once more, as to your relations with the various members of the
Ashurst family. You introduced yourself to Lady Georgina Fawley, I
believe, quite casually, on a seat in Kensington Gardens?'

'That is true,' I answered.

'You had never seen her before?'

'Never.'

'And you promptly offered to go with her as her lady's maid to
Schlangenbad in Germany?'

'In place of her lady's maid, for one week,' I answered.

'Ah; a delicate distinction! "In place of her lady's maid." You are a
lady, I believe; an officer's daughter, you told us; educated at
Girton?'

'So I have said already,' I replied, crimson.

'And you stick to it? By all means. Tell--the truth--and stick to it.
It's always safest. Now, don't you think it was rather an odd thing for
an officer's daughter to do--to run about Germany as maid to a lady of
title?'

[Illustration: THE JURY SMILED.]

I tried to explain once more; but the jury smiled. You can't justify
originality to a British jury. Why, they would send you to prison at
once for that alone, if they made the laws as well as dispensing them.

He passed on after a while to another topic. 'I think you have boasted
more than once in society that when you first met Lady Georgina Fawley
you had twopence in your pocket to go round the world with?'

'I had,' I answered--'and I went round the world with it.'

'Exactly. I'm getting there in time. With it--and other things. A few
months later, more or less, you were touring up the Nile in your steam
dahabeeah, and in the lap of luxury; you were taking saloon-carriages on
Indian railways, weren't you?'

I explained again. 'The dahabeeah was in the service of the _Daily
Telephone_,' I answered. 'I became a journalist.'

He cross-questioned me about that. 'Then I am to understand,' he said at
last, leaning forward with all his waistcoat, 'that you sprang yourself
upon Mr. Elworthy at sight, pretty much as you sprang yourself upon Lady
Georgina Fawley?'

'We arranged matters quickly,' I admitted. The dexterous wretch was
making my strongest points all tell against me.

'H'm! Well, he was a man: and you will admit, I suppose,' fingering his
smooth fat chin, 'that you are a lady of--what is the stock phrase the
reporters use?--considerable personal attractions?'

'My Lord,' I said, turning to the Bench, 'I appeal to you. Has he the
right to compel me to answer that question?'

[Illustration: THE QUESTION REQUIRES NO ANSWER, HE SAID.]

The judge bowed slightly. 'The question requires no answer,' he said,
with a quiet emphasis. I burned bright scarlet.

'Well, my lud, I defer to your ruling,' the cross-eyed cross-examiner
continued, radiant. 'I go on to another point. When in India, I
believe, you stopped for some time as a guest in the house of a native
Maharajah.'

'Is that matter relevant?' the judge asked, sharply.

'My lud,' the Q.C. said, in his blandest voice, 'I am striving to
suggest to the jury that this lady--the only person who ever beheld this
so-called will till Mr. Harold Tillington--described in its terms as
"Younger of Gledcliffe," whatever that may be--produced it out of his
uncle's desk-- I am striving to suggest that this lady is--my duty to my
client compels me to say--an adventuress.'

He had uttered the word. I felt my character had not a leg left to stand
upon before a British jury.

'I went there with my friend, Miss Petheridge----' I began.

'Oh, Miss Petheridge once more--you hunt in couples?'

'Accompanied and chaperoned by a married lady, the wife of a Major
Balmossie, on the Bombay Staff Corps.'

'That was certainly prudent. One ought to be chaperoned. Can you produce
the lady?'

'How is it possible?' I cried. 'Mrs. Balmossie is in India.'

'Yes; but the Maharajah, I understand, is in London?'

'That is true,' I answered.

'And he came to meet you on your arrival yesterday.'

'With Lady Georgina Fawley,' I cried, taken off my guard.

'Do you not consider it curious,' he asked, 'that these Higginsons and
these Maharajahs should happen to follow you so closely round the
world?--should happen to turn up wherever you do?'

'He came to be present at this trial,' I exclaimed.

'And so did you. I believe he met you at Euston last night, and drove
you to your hotel in his private carriage.'

'With Lady Georgina Fawley,' I answered, once more.

'And Lady Georgina is on Mr. Tillington's side, I fancy? Ah, yes, I
thought so. And Mr. Tillington also called to see you; and likewise Miss
Petherick-- I beg your pardon, Petheridge. We must be strictly
accurate--where Miss Petheridge is concerned. And, in fact, you had
quite a little family party.'

'My friends were glad to see me back again,' I murmured.

He sprang a fresh innuendo. 'But Mr. Tillington did not resent your
visit to this gallant Maharajah?'

'Certainly not,' I cried, bridling. 'Why should he?'

'Oh, we're getting to that too. Now answer me this carefully. We want to
find out what interest you might have, supposing a will were forged, on
either side, in arranging its terms. We want to find out just who would
benefit by it. Please reply to this question, yes or no, without
prevarication. Are you or are you not conditionally engaged to Mr.
Harold Tillington?'

'If I might explain----' I began, quivering.

He sneered. 'You have a genius for explaining, we are aware. Answer me
first, yes or no; we will qualify afterward.'

I glanced appealingly at the judge. He was adamant. 'Answer as counsel
directs you, witness,' he said, sternly.

'Yes, I am,' I faltered. 'But----'

'Excuse me one moment. You promised to marry him conditionally upon the
result of Mr. Ashurst's testamentary dispositions?'

'I did,' I answered; 'but----'

My explanation was drowned in roars of laughter, in which the judge
joined, in spite of himself. When the mirth in court had subsided a
little, I went on: 'I told Mr. Tillington I would only marry him in case
he was poor and without expectations. If he inherited Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst's money, I could never be his wife,' I said it proudly.

The cross-eyed Q.C. drew himself up and let his rotundity take care of
itself. 'Do you take me,' he inquired, 'for one of Her Majesty's
horse-marines?'

There was another roar of laughter--feebly suppressed by a judicial
frown--and I slank away, annihilated.

'You can go,' my persecutor said. 'I think we have got--well, everything
we wanted from you. You promised to marry him, if all went ill! That is
a delicate feminine way of putting it. Women like these equivocations.
They relieve one from the onus of speaking frankly.'

I stood down from the box, feeling, for the first time in my life,
conscious of having scored an ignominious failure.

Our counsel did not care to re-examine me; I recognised that it would be
useless. The hateful Q.C. had put all my history in such an odious light
that explanation could only make matters worse--it must savour of
apology. The jury could never understand my point of view. It could
never be made to see that there are adventuresses and adventuresses.

Then came the final speeches on either side. Harold's advocate said the
best he could in favour of the will our party propounded; but his best
was bad; and what galled me most was this-- I could see he himself did
not believe in its genuineness. His speech amounted to little more than
a perfunctory attempt to put the most favourable face on a probable
forgery.

As for the cross-eyed Q.C., he rose to reply with humorous confidence.
Swaying his big body to and fro, he crumpled our will and our case in
his fat fingers like so much flimsy tissue-paper. Mr. Ashurst had made a
disposition of his property twenty years ago--the right disposition, the
natural disposition; he had left the bulk of it as childless English
gentlemen have ever been wont to leave their wealth--to the eldest son
of the eldest son of his family. The Honourable Marmaduke Courtney
Ashurst, the testator, was the scion of a great house, which recent
agricultural changes, he regretted to say, had relatively impoverished;
he had come to the succour of that great house, as such a scion should,
with his property acquired by honest industry elsewhere. It was fitting
and reasonable that Mr. Ashurst should wish to see the Kynaston peerage
regain, in the person of the amiable and accomplished young nobleman
whom he had the honour to represent, some portion of its ancient dignity
and splendour.

But jealousy and greed intervened. (Here he frowned at Harold.) Mr.
Harold Tillington, the son of one of Mr. Ashurst's married sisters, cast
longing eyes, as he had tried to suggest to them, on his cousin Lord
Southminster's natural heritage. The result, he feared, was an unnatural
intrigue. Mr. Harold Tillington formed the acquaintance of a young
lady--should we say young lady?--(he withered me with his glance)--well,
yes, a lady, indeed, by birth and education, but an adventuress by
choice--a lady who, brought up in a respectable, though not (he must
admit) a distinguished sphere, had lowered herself by accepting the
position of a lady's maid, and had trafficked in patent American cycles
on the public high-roads of Germany and Switzerland. This clever and
designing woman (he would grant her ability--he would grant her good
looks) had fascinated Mr. Tillington--that was the theory he ventured to
lay before the jury to-day; and the jury would see for themselves that
whatever else the young lady might be, she had distinctly a certain
outer gift of fascination. It was for them to decide whether Miss Lois
Cayley had or had not suggested to Mr. Harold Tillington the design of
substituting a forged will for Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's undeniable
testament. He would point out to them her singular connection with the
missing man Higginson, whom the young lady herself described as a rogue,
and from whom she had done her very best to dissociate herself in this
court--but ineffectually. Wherever Miss Cayley went, the man Higginson
went independently. Such frequent recurrences, such apt juxtapositions
could hardly be set down to mere accidental coincidence.

He went on to insinuate that Higginson and I had concocted the disputed
will between us; that we had passed it on to our fellow-conspirator,
Harold; and that Harold had forged his uncle's signature to it, and had
appended those of the two supposed witnesses. But who, now, were these
witnesses? One, Franz Markheim, was dead or missing; dead men tell no
tales: the other was obviously suggested by Higginson. It was his own
sister. Perhaps he forged her name to the document. Doubtless he thought
that family feeling would induce her, when it came to the pinch, to
accept and endorse her brother's lie; nay, he might even have been
foolish enough to suppose that this cock-and-bull will would not be
disputed. If so, he and his master had reckoned without Lord
Southminster, a gentleman who concealed beneath the careless exterior of
a man of fashion the solid intelligence of a man of affairs, and the
hard head of a man not to be lightly cheated in matters of business.

The alleged will had thus not a leg to stand upon. It was 'typewritten'
(save the mark!) 'from dictation' at Florence, by whom? By the lady who
had most to gain from its success--the lady who was to be transformed
from a shady adventuress, tossed about between Irish doctors and Hindu
Maharajahs, into the lawful wife of a wealthy diplomatist of noble
family, on one condition only--if this pretended will could be
satisfactorily established. The signatures were forgeries, as shown by
the expert evidence, and also by the oath of the one surviving witness.

The will left all the estate--practically--to Mr. Harold Tillington, and
five hundred pounds to whom?--why, to the accomplice Higginson. The
minor bequests the Q.C. regarded as ingenious inventions, pure play of
fancy, 'intended to give artistic verisimilitude,' as Pooh-Bah says in
the opera, 'to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.' The fads,
it was true, were known fads of Mr. Ashurst's: but what sort of fads?
Bimetallism? Anglo-Israel? No, braces and shoe-horns--clearly the kind
that would best be known to a courier like Higginson, the sole begetter,
he believed, of this nefarious conspiracy.

The cross-eyed Q.C., lifting his fat right hand in solemn adjuration,
called upon the jury confidently to set aside this ridiculous
fabrication, and declare for a will of undoubted genuineness, a will
drawn up in London by a firm of eminent solicitors, and preserved ever
since by the testator's bankers. It would then be for his lordship to
decide whether in the public interest he should recommend the Crown to
prosecute on a charge of forgery the clumsy fabricator of this
preposterous document.

The judge summed up--strongly in favour of Lord Southminster's will. If
the jury believed the experts and Miss Higginson, one verdict alone was
possible. The jury retired for three minutes only. It was a foregone
conclusion. They found for Lord Southminster. The judge, looking grave,
concurred in their finding. A most proper verdict. And he considered it
would be the duty of the Public Prosecutor to pursue Mr. Harold
Tillington on the charge of forgery.

[Illustration: I REELED WHERE I SAT.]

I reeled where I sat. Then I looked round for Harold.

He had slipped from the court, unseen, during counsel's address, some
minutes earlier!

That distressed me more than anything else on that dreadful day. I
wished he had stood up in his place like a man to face this vile and
cruel conspiracy.

I walked out slowly, supported by Lady Georgina, who was as white as a
ghost herself, but very straight and scornful. 'I always knew
Southminster was a fool,' she said aloud; 'I always knew he was a sneak;
but I did not know till now he was also a particularly bad type of
criminal.'

On the steps of the court, the pea-green young man met us. His air was
jaunty. 'Well, I was right, yah see,' he said, smiling and withdrawing
his cigarette. 'You backed the wrong fellah! I told you I'd win. I won't
say moah now; this is not the time or place to recur to that subject;
but, by-and-by, you'll come round; you'll think bettah of it still;
you'll back the winnah!'

I wished I were a man, that I might have the pleasure of kicking him.

We drove back to my hotel and waited for Harold. To my horror and alarm,
he never came near us. I might almost have doubted him--if he had not
been Harold.

I waited and waited. He did not come at all. He sent no word, no
message. And all that evening we heard the newsboys shouting at the top
of their voice in the street, 'Extra Speshul! the Ashurst Will Kise;
Sensational Developments' 'Mysterious Disappearance of Mr. 'Arold
Tillington.'




XI

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ORIENTAL ATTENDANT


I did not sleep that night. Next morning, I rose very early from a
restless bed with a dry, hot mouth, and a general feeling that the solid
earth had failed beneath me.

Still no news from Harold! It was cruel, I thought. My faith almost
flagged. He was a man and should be brave. How could he run away and
hide himself at such a time? Even if I set my own anxiety aside, just
think to what serious misapprehension it laid him open!

I sent out for the morning papers. They were full of Harold. Rumours,
rumours, rumours! Mr. Tillington had deliberately chosen to put himself
in the wrong by disappearing mysteriously at the last moment. He had
only himself to blame if the worst interpretation were put upon his
action. But the police were on his track; Scotland Yard had 'a clue': it
was confidently expected an arrest would be made before evening at
latest. As to details, authorities differed. The officials of the Great
Western Railway at Paddington were convinced that Mr. Tillington had
started, alone and undisguised, by the night express for Exeter. The
South-Eastern inspectors at Charing Cross, on the other hand, were
equally certain that he had slipped away with a false beard, in company
with his 'accomplice' Higginson, by the 8.15 P.M. to Paris. Everybody
took it for granted, however, that he had left London.

Conjecture played with various ultimate destinations--Spain, Morocco,
Sicily, the Argentine. In Italy, said the _Chronicle_, he might lurk for
a while--he spoke Italian fluently, and could manage to put up at tiny
_osterie_ in out-of-the-way places seldom visited by Englishmen. He
might try Albania, said the _Morning Post_, airing its exclusive
'society' information: he had often hunted there, and might in turn be
hunted. He would probably attempt to slink away to some remote spot in
the Carpathians or the Balkans, said the _Daily News_, quite proud of
its geography. Still, wherever he went, leaden-footed justice in this
age, said the _Times_, must surely overtake him. The day of universal
extradition had dawned; we had no more Alsatias: even the Argentine
itself gives up its rogues--at last; not an asylum for crime remains in
Europe, not a refuge in Asia, Africa, America, Australia, or the Pacific
Islands.

I noted with a shudder of horror that all the papers alike took his
guilt as certain. In spite of a few decent pretences at not prejudging
an untried cause, they treated him already as the detected criminal, the
fugitive from justice. I sat in my little sitting-room at the hotel in
Jermyn Street, a limp rag, looking idly out of the window with swimming
eyes, and waiting for Lady Georgina. It was early, too early, but--oh,
why didn't she come! Unless _somebody_ soon sympathised with me, my
heart would break under this load of loneliness!

Presently, as I looked out on the sloppy morning street, I was vaguely
aware through the mist that floated before my dry eyes (for tears were
denied me) of a very grand carriage driving up to the doorway--the porch
with the four wooden Ionic pillars. I took no heed of it. I was too
heart-sick for observation. My life was wrecked, and Harold's with it.
Yet, dimly through the mist, I became conscious after a while that the
carriage was that of an Indian prince; I could see the black faces, the
white turbans, the gold brocades of the attendants in the dickey. Then
it came home to me with a pang that this was the Maharajah.

It was kindly meant; yet after all that had been insinuated in court the
day before, I was by no means over-pleased that his dusky Highness
should come to call upon me. Walls have eyes and ears. Reporters were
hanging about all over London, eager to distinguish themselves by
successful eavesdropping. They would note, with brisk innuendoes after
their kind, how 'the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar called early in the
day on Miss Lois Cayley, with whom he remained for at least half an hour
in close consultation.' I had half a mind to send down a message that I
could not see him. My face still burned with the undeserved shame of the
cross-eyed Q.C.'s unspeakable suggestions.

Before I could make my mind up, however, I saw to my surprise that the
Maharajah did not propose to come in himself. He leaned back in his
place with his lordly Eastern air, and waited, looking down on the
gapers in the street, while one of the two gorgeous attendants in the
dickey descended obsequiously to receive his orders. The man was dressed
as usual in rich Oriental stuffs, and wore his full white turban swathed
in folds round his head. I could not see his features. He bent forward
respectfully with Oriental suppleness to take his Highness's orders.
Then, receiving a card and bowing low, he entered the porch with the
wooden Ionic pillars, and disappeared within, while the Maharajah folded
his hands and seemed to resign himself to a temporary Nirvana.

[Illustration: THE MESSENGER ENTERED.]

A minute later, a knock sounded on my door. 'Come in!' I said, faintly;
and the messenger entered.

I turned and faced him. The blood rushed to my cheek. 'Harold!' I cried,
darting forward. My joy overcame me. He folded me in his arms. I allowed
him, unreproved. For the first time he kissed me. I did not shrink from
it.

Then I stood away a little and gazed at him. Even at that crucial moment
of doubt and fear, I could not help noticing how admirably he made up
as a handsome young Rajput. Three years earlier, at Schlangenbad, I
remembered he had struck me as strangely Oriental-looking: he had the
features of a high-born Indian gentleman, without the complexion. His
large, poetical eyes, his regular, oval face, his even teeth, his mouth
and moustache, all vaguely recalled the highest type of the Eastern
temperament. Now, he had blackened his face and hands with some
permanent stain--Indian ink, I learned later--and the resemblance to a
Rajput chief was positively startling. In his gold brocade and ample
white turban, no passer-by, I felt sure, would ever have dreamt of
doubting him.

'Then you knew me at once?' he said, holding my face between his hands.
'That's bad, darling! I flattered myself I had transformed my face into
the complete Indian.'

'Love has sharp eyes,' I answered. 'It can see through brick walls. But
the disguise is perfect. No one else would detect you.'

'Love is blind, I thought.'

'Not where it ought to see. There, it pierces everything. I knew you
instantly, Harold. But all London, I am sure, would pass you by,
unknown. You are absolute Orient.'

'That's well; for all London is looking for me,' he answered, bitterly.
'The streets bristle with detectives. Southminster's knaveries have won
the day. So I have tried this disguise. Otherwise, I should have been
arrested the moment the jury brought in their verdict.'

'And why were you not?' I asked, drawing back. 'Oh, Harold, I trust
you; but why did you disappear and make all the world believe you
admitted yourself guilty?'

He opened his arms. 'Can't you guess?' he cried, holding them out to
me.

I nestled in them once more; but I answered through my tears--I had
found tears now--'No Harold; it baffles me.'

'You remember what you promised me?' he murmured, leaning over me and
clasping me. 'If ever I were poor, friendless, hunted--you would marry
me. Now the opportunity has come when we can both prove ourselves.
To-day, except you and dear Georgey, I haven't a friend in the world.
Everyone else has turned against me. Southminster holds the field. I am
a suspected forger; in a very few days I shall doubtless be a convicted
felon. Unjustly, as you know; yet still--we must face it--a convicted
felon. So I have come to claim you. I have come to ask you now, in this
moment of despair, will you keep your promise?'

I lifted my face to his. He bent over it trembling. I whispered the
words in his ear. 'Yes, Harold, I will keep it. I have always loved you.
And now I will marry you.'

'I knew you would!' he cried, and pressed me to his bosom.

We sat for some minutes, holding each other's hands, and saying nothing;
we were too full of thought for words. Then suddenly, Harold roused
himself. 'We must make haste, darling,' he cried. 'We are keeping Partab
outside, and every minute is precious, every minute's delay dangerous.
We ought to go down at once. Partab's carriage is waiting at the door
for us.'

'Go down?' I exclaimed, clinging to him. 'How? Why? I don't understand.
What is your programme?'

'Ah, I forgot I hadn't explained to you! Listen here, dearest--quick; I
can waste no words over it. I said just now I had no friends in the
world but you and Georgey. That's not true, for dear old Partab has
stuck to me nobly. When all my English friends fell away, the Rajput
was true to me. He arranged all this; it was his own idea; he foresaw
what was coming. He urged me yesterday, just before the verdict (when he
saw my acquaintances beginning to look askance), to slip quietly out of
court, and make my way by unobtrusive roads to his house in Curzon
Street. There, he darkened my face like his, and converted me to
Hinduism. I don't suppose the disguise will serve me for more than a day
or two; but it will last long enough for us to get safely away to
Scotland.'

'Scotland?' I murmured. 'Then you mean to try a Scotch marriage?'

'It is the only thing possible. We must be married to-day, and in
England, of course, we cannot do it. We would have to be called in
church, or else to procure a license, either of which would involve
disclosure of my identity. Besides, even the license would keep us
waiting about for a day or two. In Scotland, on the other hand, we can
be married at once. Partab's carriage is below, to take you to King's
Cross. He is staunch as steel, dear fellow. Do you consent to go with
me?'

My faculty for promptly making up such mind as I possess stood me once
more in good stead. 'Implicitly,' I answered. 'Dear Harold, this
calamity has its happy side--for without it, much as I love you, I could
never have brought myself to marry you!'

'One moment,' he cried. 'Before you go, recollect, this step is
irrevocable. You will marry a man who may be torn from you this evening,
and from whom fourteen years of prison may separate you.'

'I know it,' I cried, through my tears. 'But-- I shall be showing my
confidence in you, my love for you.'

He kissed me once more, fervently. 'This makes amends for all,' he
cried. 'Lois, to have won such a woman as you, I would go through it all
a thousand times over. It was for this, and for this alone, that I hid
myself last night. I wanted to give you the chance of showing me how
much, how truly you loved me.'

'And after we are married?' I asked, trembling.

'I shall give myself up at once to the police in Edinburgh.'

I clung to him wistfully. My heart half urged me to urge him to escape.
But I knew that was wrong. 'Give yourself up, then,' I said, sobbing.
'It is a brave man's place. You must stand your trial; and, come what
will, I will strive to bear it with you.'

'I knew you would,' he cried. 'I was not mistaken in you.'

We embraced again, just once. It was little enough after those years of
waiting.

'Now, come!' he cried. 'Let us go.'

I drew back. 'Not with you, dearest,' I whispered. 'Not in the
Maharajah's carriage. You must start by yourself. I will follow you at
once, to King's Cross, in a hansom.'

He saw I was right. It would avoid suspicion, and it would prevent more
scandal. He withdrew without a word. 'We meet,' I said, 'at ten, at
King's Cross Station.'

I did not even wait to wash the tears from my eyes. All red as they
were, I put on my hat and my little brown travelling jacket. I don't
think I so much as glanced once at the glass. The seconds were precious.
I saw the Maharajah drive away, with Harold in the dickey, arms crossed,
imperturbable, Orientally silent. He looked the very counterpart of the
Rajput by his side. Then I descended the stairs and walked out boldly.
As I passed through the hall, the servants and the visitors stared at me
and whispered. They spoke with nods and liftings of the eyebrows. I was
aware that that morning I had achieved notoriety.

At Piccadilly Circus, I jumped of a sudden into a passing hansom.
'King's Cross!' I cried, as I mounted the step. 'Drive quick! I have no
time to spare.' And, as the man drove off, I saw, by a convulsive dart
of someone across the road, that I had given the slip to a disappointed
reporter.

At the station I took a first-class ticket for Edinburgh. On the
platform, the Maharajah and his attendants were waiting. He lifted his
hat to me, though otherwise he took no overt notice. But I saw his keen
eyes follow me down the train. Harold, in his Oriental dress, pretended
not to observe me. One or two porters, and a few curious travellers,
cast inquiring eyes on the Eastern prince, and made remarks about him to
one another. 'That's the chap as was up yesterday in the Ashurst will
kise!' said one lounger to his neighbour. But nobody seemed to look at
Harold; his subordinate position secured him from curiosity. The
Maharajah had always two Eastern servants, gorgeously dressed, in
attendance; he had been a well-known figure in London society, and at
Lord's and the Oval, for two or three seasons.

'Bloomin' fine cricketer!' one porter observed to his mate as he passed.

'Yuss; not so dusty for a nigger,' the other man replied. 'Fust-rite
bowler; but, Lord, he can't 'old a candle to good old Ranji.'

As for myself, nobody seemed to recognise me. I set this fact down to
the fortunate circumstance that the evening papers had published rough
wood-cuts which professed to be my portrait, and which naturally led the
public to look out for a brazen-faced, raw-boned, hard-featured
termagant.

I took my seat in a ladies' compartment by myself. As the train was
about to start, Harold strolled up as if casually for a moment. 'You
think it better so?' he queried, without moving his lips or seeming to
look at me.

'Decidedly,' I answered. 'Go back to Partab. Don't come near me again
till we get to Edinburgh. It is dangerous still. The police may at any
moment hear we have started and stop us half-way; and now that we have
once committed ourselves to this plan it would be fatal to be
interrupted before we have got married.'

'You are right,' he cried; 'Lois, you are always right, somehow.'

I wished I could think so myself; but 'twas with serious misgivings that
I felt the train roll out of the station.

Oh, that long journey north, alone, in a ladies' compartment--with the
feeling that Harold was so near, yet so unapproachable: it was an
endless agony. _He_ had the Maharajah, who loved and admired him, to
keep him from brooding; but I, left alone, and confined with my own
fears, conjured up before my eyes every possible misfortune that Heaven
could send us. I saw clearly now that if we failed in our purpose this
journey would be taken by everyone for a flight, and would deepen the
suspicion under which we both laboured. It would make me still more
obviously a conspirator with Harold.

Whatever happened, we must strain every nerve to reach Scotland in
safety, and then to get married, in order that Harold might immediately
surrender himself.

[Illustration: HE TOOK A LONG, CARELESS STARE AT ME.]

At York, I noticed with a thrill of terror that a man in plain clothes,
with the obtrusively unobtrusive air of a detective, looked carefully
though casually into every carriage. I felt sure he was a spy, because
of his marked outer jauntiness of demeanour, which hardly masked an
underlying hang-dog expression of scrutiny. When he reached my place,
he took a long, careless stare at me--a seemingly careless stare, which
was yet brim-full of the keenest observation. Then he paced slowly along
the line of carriages, with a glance at each, till he arrived just
opposite the Maharajah's compartment. There he stared hard once more.
The Maharajah descended; so did Harold and the Hindu attendant, who was
dressed just like him. The man I took for a detective indulged in a
frank, long gaze at the unconscious Indian prince, but cast only a hasty
eye on the two apparent followers. That touch of revelation relieved my
mind a little. I felt convinced the police were watching the Maharajah
and myself, as suspicious persons connected with the case; but they had
not yet guessed that Harold had disguised himself as one of the two
invariable Rajput servants.

We steamed on northward. At Newcastle, the same detective strolled, with
his hands in his pockets, along the train once more, and puffed a cigar
with the nonchalant air of a sporting gentleman. But I was certain now,
from the studious unconcern he was anxious to exhibit, that he must be a
spy upon us. He overdid his mood of careless observation. It was too
obvious an assumption. Precisely the same thing happened again when we
pulled up at Berwick. I knew now that we were watched. It would be
impossible for us to get married at Edinburgh if we were thus closely
pursued. There was but one chance open; we must leave the train abruptly
at the first Scotch stopping station.

The detective knew we were booked through for Edinburgh. So much I could
tell, because I saw him make inquiries of the ticket examiner at York,
and again at Berwick, and because the ticket-examiner thereupon entered
a mental note of the fact as he punched my ticket each time: 'Oh,
Edinburgh, miss? All right'; and then stared at me suspiciously. I could
tell he had heard of the Ashurst will case. He also lingered long about
the Maharajah's compartment, and then went back to confer with the
detective. Thus, putting two and two together, as a woman will, I came
to the conclusion that the spy did not expect us to leave the train
before we reached Edinburgh. That told in our favour. Most men trust
much to just such vague expectations. They form a theory, and then
neglect the adverse chances. You can only get the better of a skilled
detective by taking him thus, psychologically and humanly.

By this time, I confess, I felt almost like a criminal. Never in my life
had danger loomed so near--not even when we returned with the Arabs from
the oasis. For then we feared for our lives alone; now, we feared for
our honour.

I drew a card from my case before we left Berwick station, and scribbled
a few hasty words on it in German. 'We are watched. A detective! If we
run through to Edinburgh, we shall doubtless be arrested or at least
impeded. This train will stop at Dunbar for one minute. Just before it
leaves again, get out as quietly as you can--at the last moment. I will
also get out and join you. Let Partab go on; it will excite less
attention. The scheme I suggest is the only safe plan. If you agree, as
soon as we have well started from Berwick, shake your handkerchief
unobtrusively out of your carriage window.'

[Illustration: I BECKONED A PORTER.]

I beckoned a porter noiselessly without one word. The detective was now
strolling along the fore-part of the train, with his back turned towards
me, peering as he went into all the windows. I gave the porter a
shilling. 'Take this to a black gentleman in the next carriage but one,'
I said, in a confidential whisper. The porter touched his hat, nodded,
smiled, and took it.

Would Harold see the necessity for acting on my advice?-- I wondered. I
gazed out along the train as soon as we had got well clear of Berwick. A
minute--two minutes--three minutes passed; and still no handkerchief. I
began to despair. He was debating, no doubt. If he refused, all was
lost, and we were disgraced for ever.

At last, after long waiting, as I stared still along the whizzing line,
with the smoke in my eyes, and the dust half blinding me, I saw, to my
intense relief, a handkerchief flutter. It fluttered once, not markedly,
then a black hand withdrew it. Only just in time, for even as it
disappeared, the detective's head thrust itself out of a farther window.
He was not looking for anything in particular, as far as I could
tell--just observing the signals. But it gave me a strange thrill to
think even now we were so nearly defeated.

My next trouble was--would the train draw up at Dunbar? The 10 A.M. from
King's Cross is not set down to stop there in Bradshaw, for no
passengers are booked to or from the station by the day express; but I
remembered from of old when I lived at Edinburgh, that it used always to
wait about a minute for some engine-driver's purpose. This doubt filled
me with fresh fear; did it draw up there still?--they have accelerated
the service so much of late years, and abolished so many old accustomed
stoppages. I counted the familiar stations with my breath held back.
They seemed so much farther apart than usual. Reston--Grant's
House--Cockburnspath--Innerwick.

The next was Dunbar. If we rolled past _that_, then all was lost. We
could never get married. I trembled and hugged myself.

The engine screamed. Did that mean she was running through? Oh, how I
wished I had learned the interpretation of the signals!

Then gradually, gently, we began to slow. Were we slowing to pass the
station only? No; with a jolt she drew up. My heart gave a bound as I
read the word 'Dunbar' on the station notice-board.

I rose and waited, with my fingers on the door. Happily it had one of
those new-fashioned slip-latches which open from inside. No need to
betray myself prematurely to the detective by a hand displayed on the
outer handle. I glanced out at him cautiously. His head was thrust
through his window, and his sloping shoulders revealed the spy, but he
was looking the other way--observing the signals, doubtless, to discover
why we stopped at a place not mentioned in Bradshaw.

Harold's face just showed from another window close by. Too soon or too
late might either of them be fatal. He glanced inquiry at me. I nodded
back, 'Now!' The train gave its first jerk, a faint backward jerk,
indicative of the nascent intention of starting. As it braced itself to
go on, I jumped out; so did Harold. We faced one another on the platform
without a word. 'Stand away there:' the station-master cried, in an
angry voice. The guard waved his green flag. The detective, still
absorbed on the signals, never once looked back. One second later, we
were safe at Dunbar, and he was speeding away by the express for
Edinburgh.

It gave us a breathing space of about an hour.

[Illustration: YOU CAN'T GET OUT HERE, HE SAID, CRUSTILY.]

For half a minute I could not speak. My heart was in my mouth. I hardly
even dared to look at Harold. Then the station-master stalked up to us
with a threatening manner. 'You can't get out here,' he said, crustily,
in a gruff Scotch voice. 'This train is not timed to set down before
Edinburgh.'

'We _have_ got out,' I answered, taking it upon me to speak for my
fellow-culprit, the Hindu--as he was to all seeming. 'The logic of facts
is with us. We were booked through to Edinburgh, but we wanted to stop
at Dunbar; and as the train happened to pull up, we thought we needn't
waste time by going on all that way and then coming back again.'

'Ye should have changed at Berwick,' the station-master said, still
gruffly, 'and come on by the slow train.' I could see his careful
Scotch soul was vexed (incidentally) at our extravagance in paying the
extra fare to Edinburgh and back again.

In spite of agitation, I managed to summon up one of my sweetest
smiles--a smile that ere now had melted the hearts of rickshaw coolies
and of French _douaniers_. He thawed before it visibly. 'Time was
important to us,' I said--oh, he guessed not how important; 'and
besides, you know, it is so good for the company!'

'That's true,' he answered, mollified. He could not tilt against the
interests of the North British shareholders. 'But how about yer luggage?
It'll have gone on to Edinburgh, I'm thinking.'

'We _have_ no luggage,' I answered boldly.

He stared at us both, puckered his brow a moment, and then burst out
laughing. 'Oh, ay, I see,' he answered, with a comic air of amusement.
'Well, well, it's none of my business, no doubt, and I will not
interfere with ye; though why a lady like you----' He glanced curiously
at Harold.

I saw he had guessed right, and thought it best to throw myself
unreservedly on his mercy. Time was indeed important. I glanced at the
station clock. It was not very far from the stroke of six, and we must
manage to get married before the detective could miss us at Edinburgh,
where he was due at 6.30.

So I smiled once more, that heart-softening smile. 'We have each our own
fancies,' I said blushing--and, indeed (such is the pride of race among
women), I felt myself blush in earnest at the bare idea that I was
marrying a black man, in spite of our good Maharajah's kindness. 'He is
a gentleman, and a man of education and culture.' I thought that
recommendation ought to tell with a Scotchman. 'We are in sore straits
now, but our case is a just one. Can you tell me who in this place is
most likely to sympathise--most likely to marry us?'

He looked at me--and surrendered at discretion. 'I should think anybody
would marry ye who saw yer pretty face and heard yer sweet voice,' he
answered. 'But, perhaps, ye'd better present yerself to Mr. Schoolcraft,
the U.P. minister at Little Kirkton. He was aye soft-hearted.'

'How far from here?' I asked.

'About two miles,' he answered.

'Can we get a trap?'

'Oh ay, there's machines always waiting at the station.'

[Illustration: WE TOLD OUR TALE.]

We interviewed a 'machine,' and drove out to Little Kirkton. There, we
told our tale in the fewest words possible to the obliging and
good-natured U.P. minister. He looked, as the station-master had said,
'soft-hearted'; but he dashed our hopes to the ground at once by telling
us candidly that unless we had had our residence in Scotland for
twenty-one days immediately preceding the marriage, it would not be
legal. 'If you were Scotch,' he added, 'I could go through the ceremony
at once, of course; and then you could apply to the sheriff to-night for
leave to register the marriage in proper form afterward: but as one of
you is English, and the other I judge'--he smiled and glanced towards
Harold--'an Indian-born subject of Her Majesty, it would be impossible
for me to do it: the ceremony would be invalid, under Lord Brougham's
Act, without previous residence.'

This was a terrible blow. I looked away appealingly. 'Harold,' I cried
in despair, 'do you think we could manage to hide ourselves safely
anywhere in Scotland for twenty-one days?'

His face fell. 'How could I escape notice? All the world is hunting for
me. And then the scandal! No matter where you stopped--however far from
me--no, Lois darling, I could never expose you to it.'

The minister glanced from one to the other of us, puzzled. 'Harold?' he
said, turning over the word on his tongue. 'Harold? That doesn't sound
like an Indian name, does it? And----' he hesitated, 'you speak
wonderful English!'

I saw the safest plan was to make a clean breast of it. He looked the
sort of man one could trust on an emergency. 'You have heard of the
Ashurst will case?' I said, blurting it out suddenly.

'I have seen something about it in the newspapers; yes. But it did not
interest me: I have not followed it.'

I told him the whole truth; the case against us--the facts as we knew
them. Then I added, slowly, 'This is Mr. Harold Tillington, whom they
accuse of forgery. Does he look like a forger? I want to marry him
before he is tried. It is the only way by which I can prove my implicit
trust in him. As soon as we are married, he will give himself up at once
to the police--if you wish it, before your eyes. But married we must be.
_Can't_ you manage it somehow?'

My pleading voice touched him. 'Harold Tillington?' he murmured. 'I know
of his forebears. Lady Guinevere Tillington's son, is it not? Then you
must be Younger of Gledcliffe.' For Scotland is a village: everyone in
it seems to have heard of every other.'

'What does he mean?' I asked. 'Younger of Gledcliffe?' I remembered now
that the phrase had occurred in Mr. Ashurst's will, though I never
understood it.

'A Scotch fashion,' Harold answered. 'The heir to a laird is called
Younger of so-and-so. My father has a small estate of that name in
Dumfriesshire; a _very_ small estate: I was born and brought up there.'

'Then you are a Scotchman?' the minister asked.

'Yes,' Harold answered frankly: 'by remote descent. We are trebly of the
female line at Gledcliffe; still, I am no doubt more or less Scotch by
domicile.'

'Younger of Gledcliffe! Oh, yes, that ought certainly to be quite
sufficient for our purpose. Do you live there?'

'I have been living there lately. I always live there when I'm in
Britain. It is my only home. I belong to the diplomatic service.'

'But then--the lady?'

'She is unmitigatedly English,' Harold admitted, in a gloomy voice.

'Not quite,' I answered. 'I lived four years in Edinburgh. And I spent
my holidays there while I was at Girton. I keep my boxes still at my old
rooms in Maitland Street.'

'Oh, that will do,' the minister answered, quite relieved; for it was
clear that our anxiety and the touch of romance in our tale had enlisted
him in our favour. 'Indeed, now I come to think of it, it suffices for
the Act if one only of the parties is domiciled in Scotland. And as Mr.
Tillington lives habitually at Gledcliffe, that settles the question.
Still, I can do nothing save marry you now by religious service in the
presence of my servants--which constitutes what we call an
ecclesiastical marriage--it becomes legal if afterwards registered; and
then you must apply to the sheriff for a warrant to register it. But I
will do what I can; later on, if you like, you can be re-married by the
rites of your own Church in England.'

'Are you quite sure our Scotch domicile is good enough in law?' Harold
asked, still doubtful.

'I can turn it up, if you wish. I have a legal handbook. Before Lord
Brougham's Act, no formalities were necessary. But the Act was passed to
prevent Gretna Green marriages. The usual phrase is that such a marriage
does not hold good unless one or other of the parties either has had his
or her usual residence in Scotland, or else has lived there for
twenty-one days immediately preceding the date of the marriage. If you
like, I will wait to consult the authorities.'

'No, thank you,' I cried. 'There is no time to lose. Marry us first, and
look it up afterwards. "One or other" will do, it seems. Mr. Tillington
is Scotch enough, I am sure; he has no address in Britain but
Gledcliffe: we will rest our claim upon that. Even if the marriage turns
out invalid, we only remain where we were. This is a preliminary
ceremony to prove good faith, and to bind us to one another. We can
satisfy the law, if need be, when we return to England.'

The minister called in his wife and servants, and explained to them
briefly. He exhorted us and prayed. We gave our solemn consent in legal
form before two witnesses. Then he pronounced us duly married. In a
quarter of an hour more, we had made declaration to that effect before
the sheriff, the witnesses accompanying us, and were formally affirmed
to be man and wife before the law of Great Britain. I asked if it would
hold in England as well.

'You couldn't be firmer married,' the sheriff said, with decision, 'by
the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey.'

Harold turned to the minister. 'Will you send for the police?' he said,
calmly. 'I wish to inform them that I am the man for whom they are
looking in the Ashurst will case.'

Our own cabman went to fetch them. It was a terrible moment. But Harold
sat in the sheriff's study and waited, as if nothing unusual were
happening. He talked freely but quietly. Never in my life had I felt so
proud of him.

At last the police came, much inflated with the dignity of so great a
capture, and took down our statement. 'Do you give yourself in charge on
a confession of forgery?' the superintendent asked, as Harold ended.

'Certainly not,' Harold answered. 'I have not committed forgery. But I
do not wish to skulk or hide myself. I understand a warrant is out
against me in London. I have come to Scotland, hurriedly, for the sake
of getting married, not to escape apprehension. I am here, openly,
under my own name. I tell you the facts; 'tis for you to decide; if you
choose, you can arrest me.'

The superintendent conferred for some time in another room with the
sheriff. Then he returned to the study. 'Very well, sir,' he said, in a
respectful tone, 'I arrest you.'

So that was the beginning of our married life. More than ever, I felt
sure I could trust in Harold.

The police decided, after hearing by telegram from London, that we must
go up at once by the night express, which they stopped for the purpose.
They were forced to divide us. I took the sleeping-car; Harold travelled
with two constables in a ordinary carriage. Strange to say,
notwithstanding all this, so great was our relief from the tension of
our flight, that we both slept soundly.

Next morning we arrived in London, Harold guarded. The police had
arranged that the case should come up at Bow Street that afternoon. It
was not an ideal honeymoon, and yet, I was somehow happy.

At King's Cross, they took him away from me. Still, I hardly cried. All
the way up in the train, whenever I was awake, an idea had been haunting
me--a possible clue to this trickery of Lord Southminster's. Petty
details cropped up and fell into their places. I began to unravel it all
now. I had an inkling of a plan to set Harold right again.

The will we had proved----but I must not anticipate.

When we parted, Harold kissed me on the forehead, and murmured rather
sadly, 'Now, I suppose it's all up. Lois, I must go. These rogues have
been too much for us.'

[Illustration: I HAVE FOUND A CLUE.]

'Not a bit of it,' I answered, new hope growing stronger and stronger
within me. 'I see a way out. I have found a clue. I believe, dear
Harold, the right will still be vindicated.'

And red-eyed as I was, I jumped into a hansom, and called to the cabman
to drive at once to Lady Georgina's.




XII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNPROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE


'Is Lady Georgina at home?' The discreet man-servant in sober black
clothes eyed me suspiciously. 'No, miss,' he answered. 'That is to
say--no, ma'am. Her ladyship is still at Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's--the
late Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst, I mean--in Park Lane North. You know the
number, ma'am?'

'Yes, I know it,' I replied, with a gasp; for this was indeed a triumph.
My one fear had been lest Lord Southminster should already have taken
possession--why, you will see hereafter; and it relieved me to learn
that Lady Georgina was still at hand to guard my husband's interests.
She had been living at the house, practically, since her brother's
death. I drove round with all speed, and flung myself into my dear old
lady's arms.

'Kiss me,' I cried, flushed. 'I am your niece!' But she knew it already,
for our movements had been fully reported by this time (with picturesque
additions) in the morning papers. Imagination, ill-developed in the
English race, seems to concentrate itself in the lower order of
journalists.

She kissed me on both cheeks with unwonted tenderness. 'Lois,' she
cried, with tears in her eyes, 'you're a brick!' It was not exactly
poetical at such a moment, but from her it meant more than much gushing
phraseology.

'And you're here in possession!' I murmured.

[Illustration: I'VE HELD THE FORT BY MAIN FORCE.]

The Cantankerous Old Lady nodded. She was in her element, I must admit.
She dearly loved a row--above all, a family row; but to be in the thick
of a family row, and to feel herself in the right, with the law against
her--that was joy such as Lady Georgina had seldom before experienced.
'Yes, dear,' she burst out volubly, 'I'm in possession, thank Heaven.
And what's more, they won't oust me without a legal process. I've been
here, off and on, you know, ever since poor dear Marmy died, looking
after things for Harold; and I shall look after them still, till Bertie
Southminster succeeds in ejecting me, which won't be easy. Oh, I've held
the fort by main force, I can tell you; held it like a Trojan. Bertie's
in a precious great hurry to move in, I can see; but I won't allow him.
He's been down here this morning, fatuously blustering, and trying to
carry the post by storm, with a couple of policemen.'

'Policemen!' I cried. 'To turn you out?'

'Yes, my dear, policemen: but (the Lord be praised) I was too much for
him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet; and I won't budge an
inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he's fulfilled every one of
them. Mark my words, child, that boy's up to some devilry.'

'He is,' I answered.

'Yes, he wouldn't be in such a rampaging hurry to get in--being as lazy
as he's empty-headed--takes after Gwendoline in that--if he hadn't some
excellent reason for wishing to take possession: and depend upon it, the
reason is that he wants to get hold of something or other that's
Harold's. But he sha'n't if I can help it; and, thank my stars, I'm a
dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones,
child. I've been overhauling everything of Marmy's, I can tell you, to
checkmate the boy if I can; but I've found nothing yet, and till I've
satisfied myself on that point, I'll hold the fort still, if I have to
barricade that pasty-faced scoundrel of a nephew of mine out by piling
the furniture against the front door-- I will, as sure as my name's
Georgina Fawley!'

'I know you will, dear,' I assented, kissing her, 'and so I shall
venture to leave you, while I go out to institute another little
enquiry.'

'What enquiry?'

I shook my head. 'It's only a surmise,' I said, hesitating. 'I'll tell
you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back
in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I
return, and mind you don't let Lord Southminster have access to
anything.'

'I'll shoot him first, dear.' And I believe she meant it.

I drove on in the same cab to Harold's solicitor. There I laid my fresh
doubts at once before him. He rubbed his bony hands. 'You've hit it!' he
cried, charmed. 'My dear madam, you've hit it! I never did like that
will. I never did like the signatures, the witnesses, the look of it.
But what could I do? Mr. Tillington propounded it. Of course it wasn't
my business to go dead against my own client.'

'Then you doubted Harold's honour, Mr. Hayes?' I cried, flushing.

[Illustration: NEVER! HE ANSWERED. NEVER!]

'Never!' he answered. 'Never! I felt sure there must be some mistake
somewhere, but not any trickery on--your husband's part. Now, _you_
supply the right clue. We must look into this, immediately.'

He hurried round with me at once in the same cab to the court. The
incriminated will had been 'impounded,' as they call it; but, under
certain restrictions, and subject to the closest surveillance, I was
allowed to examine it with my husband's solicitor, before the eyes of
the authorities. I looked at it long with the naked eye and also with a
small pocket lens. The paper, as I had noted before, was the same kind
of foolscap as that which I had been in the habit of using at my office
in Florence; and the typewriting--was it mine? The longer I looked at
it, the more I doubted it.

After a careful examination I turned round to our solicitor. 'Mr.
Hayes,' I said, firmly, having arrived at my conclusion, 'this is _not_
the document I type-wrote at Florence.'

'How do you know?' he asked. 'A different machine? Some small
peculiarity in the shape of the letters?'

'No, the rogue who typed this will was too cunning for that. He didn't
allow himself to be foiled by such a scholar's mate. It is written with
a Spread Eagle, the same sort of machine precisely as my own. I know the
type perfectly. But----' I hesitated.

'But what?'

'Well, it is difficult to explain. There is character in typewriting,
just as there is in handwriting, only, of course, not quite so much of
it. Every operator is liable to his own peculiar tricks and blunders.
If I had some of my own typewritten manuscript here to show you, I could
soon make that evident.'

'I can easily believe it. Individuality runs through all we do, however
seemingly mechanical. But are the points of a sort that you could make
clear in court to the satisfaction of a jury?'

'I think so. Look here, for example. Certain letters get habitually
mixed up in typewriting; _c_ and _v_ stand next one another on the
keyboard of the machine, and the person who typed this draft sometimes
strikes a _c_ instead of a _v_, or _vice versâ_. I never do that. The
letters I tend to confuse are _s_ and _w_, or else _e_ and _r_, which
also come very near one another in the arbitrary arrangement. Besides,
when I type-wrote the original of this will, I made no errors at all; I
took such very great pains about it.'

'And this person did make errors?'

'Yes; struck the wrong letter first, and then corrected it often by
striking another rather hard on top of it. See, this was a _v_ to begin
with, and he turned it into a _c_. Besides, the hand that wrote this
will is heavier than mine: it comes down _thump_, _thump_, _thump_,
while mine glides lightly. And the hyphens are used with a space between
them, and the character of the punctuation is not exactly as I make it.'

'Still,' Mr. Hayes objected, 'we have nothing but your word. I'm afraid,
in such a case, we could never induce a jury to accept your unsupported
evidence.'

'I don't want them to accept it,' I answered. 'I am looking this up for
my own satisfaction. I want to know, first, who wrote this will. And of
one thing I am quite clear: it is _not_ the document I drew up for Mr.
Ashurst. Just look at that _x_. The _x_ alone is conclusive. My
typewriter had the upper right-hand stroke of the small _x_ badly
formed, or broken, while this one is perfect. I remember it well,
because I used always to improve all my lower-case _x_'s with a pen when
I re-read and corrected. I see their dodge clearly now. It is a most
diabolical conspiracy. Instead of forging a will in Lord Southminster's
favour, they have substituted a forgery for the real will, and then
managed to make my poor Harold prove it.'

'In that case, no doubt, they have destroyed the real one, the
original,' Mr. Hayes put in.

'I don't think so,' I answered, after a moment's deliberation. 'From
what I know of Mr. Ashurst, I don't believe it is likely he would have
left his will about carelessly anywhere. He was a secretive man, fond of
mysteries and mystifications. He would be sure to conceal it. Besides,
Lady Georgina and Harold have been taking care of everything in the
house ever since he died.'

'But,' Mr. Hayes objected, 'the forger of this document, supposing it to
be forged, must have had access to the original, since you say the terms
of the two are identical; only the signatures are forgeries. And if he
saw and copied it, why might he not also have destroyed it?'

A light flashed across me all at once. 'The forger _did_ see the
original,' I cried, 'but not the fair copy. I have it all now! I detect
their trick! It comes back to me vividly! When I had finished typing the
copy at Florence from my first rough draft, which I had taken down on
the machine before Mr. Ashurst's eyes, I remember now that I threw the
original into the waste-paper basket. It must have been there that
evening when Higginson called and asked for the will to take it back to
Mr. Ashurst. He called for it, no doubt, hoping to open the packet
before he delivered it and make a copy of the document for this very
purpose. But I refused to let him have it. Before he saw me, however,
he had been left by himself for ten minutes in the office; for I
remember coming out to him and finding him there alone: and during that
ten minutes, being what he is, you may be sure he fished out the rough
draft and appropriated it!'

[Illustration: WE SHALL HAVE HIM IN OUR POWER.]

'That is more than likely,' my solicitor nodded. 'You are tracking him
to his lair. We shall have him in our power.'

I grew more and more excited as the whole cunning plot unravelled itself
mentally step by step before me. 'He must then have gone to Lord
Southminster,' I went on, 'and told him of the legacy he expected from
Mr. Ashurst. It was five hundred pounds--a mere trifle to Higginson, who
plays for thousands. So he must have offered to arrange matters for Lord
Southminster if Southminster would consent to make good that sum and a
great deal more to him. That odious little cad told me himself on the
_Jumna_ they were engaged in pulling off "a big _coup_" between them. He
thought then I would marry him, and that he would so secure my
connivance in his plans; but who would marry such a piece of moist clay?
Besides, I could never have taken anyone but Harold.' Then another clue
came home to me. 'Mr. Hayes,' I cried, jumping at it, 'Higginson, who
forged this will, never saw the real document itself at all; he saw only
the draft: for Mr. Ashurst altered one word _viva voce_ in the original
at the last moment, and I made a pencil note of it on my cuff at the
time: and see, it isn't here, though I inserted it in the final clean
copy of the will--the word 'especially.' It grows upon me more and more
each minute that the real instrument is hidden somewhere in Mr.
Ashurst's house--Harold's house--our house; and that _because_ it is
there Lord Southminster is so indecently anxious to oust his aunt and
take instant possession.'

'In that case,' Mr. Hayes remarked, 'we had better go back to Lady
Georgina without one minute's delay, and, while she still holds the
house, institute a thorough search for it.'

No sooner said than done. We jumped again into our cab and started. As
we drove back, Mr. Hayes asked me where I thought we were most likely to
find it.

'In a secret drawer in Mr. Ashurst's desk,' I answered, by a flash of
instinct, without a second's hesitation.

'How do you know there's a secret drawer?'

'I don't know it. I infer it from my general knowledge of Mr. Ashurst's
character. He loved secret drawers, ciphers, cryptograms,
mystery-mongering.'

'But it was in that desk that your husband found the forged document,'
the lawyer objected.

Once more I had a flash of inspiration or intuition. 'Because White, Mr.
Ashurst's valet, had it in readiness in his possession,' I answered,
'and hid it there, in the most obvious and unconcealed place he could
find, as soon as the breath was out of his master's body. I remember now
Lord Southminster gave himself away to some extent in that matter. The
hateful little creature isn't really clever enough, for all his
cunning,--and with Higginson to back him,--to mix himself up in such
tricks as forgery. He told me at Aden he had had a telegram from
"Marmy's valet," to report progress; and he received another, the night
Mr. Ashurst died, at Moozuffernuggar. Depend upon it, White was more or
less in this plot; Higginson left him the forged will when they started
for India; and, as soon as Mr. Ashurst died, White hid it where Harold
was bound to find it.'

'If so,' Mr. Hayes answered, 'that's well; we have something to go upon.
The more of them, the better. There is safety in numbers--for the honest
folk. I never knew three rogues hold long together, especially when
threatened with a criminal prosecution. Their confederacy breaks down
before the chance of punishment. Each tries to screen himself by
betraying the others.'

'Higginson was the soul of this plot,' I went on. 'Of that you may be
sure. He's a wily old fox, but we'll run him to earth yet. The more I
think of it, the more I feel sure, from what I know of Mr. Ashurst's
character, he would never have put that will in so exposed a place as
the one where Harold says he found it.'

We drew up at the door of the disputed house just in time for the siege.
Mr. Hayes and I walked in. We found Lady Georgina face to face with Lord
Southminster. The opposing forces were still at the stage of
preliminaries of warfare.

'Look heah,' the pea-green young man was observing, in his drawling
voice, as we entered; 'it's no use your talking, deah Georgey. This
house is mine, and I won't have you meddling with it.'

'This house is not yours, you odious little scamp,' his aunt retorted,
raising her shrill voice some notes higher than usual; 'and while I can
hold a stick you shall not come inside it.'

'Very well, then; you drive me to hostilities, don't yah know. I'm sorry
to show disrespect to your gray hairs--if any--but I shall be obliged to
call in the police to eject yah.'

'Call them in if you like,' I answered, interposing between them. 'Go
out and get them! Mr. Hayes, while he's gone, send for a carpenter to
break open the back of Mr. Ashurst's escritoire.'

'A carpentah?' he cried, turning several degrees whiter than his pasty
wont. 'What for? A carpentah?'

I spoke distinctly. 'Because we have reason to believe Mr. Ashurst's
real will is concealed in this house in a secret drawer, and because the
keys were in the possession of White, whom we believe to be your
accomplice in this shallow conspiracy.'

He gasped and looked alarmed. 'No, you don't,' he cried, stepping
briskly forward. 'You don't, I tell yah! Break open Marmy's desk! Why,
hang it all, it's my property.'

'We shall see about that after we've broken it open,' I answered grimly.
'Here, this screw-driver will do. The back's not strong. Now, your help,
Mr. Hayes--one, two, three; we can prise it apart between us.'

Lord Southminster rushed up and tried to prevent us. But Lady Georgina,
seizing both wrists, held him tight as in a vice with her dear skinny
old hands. He writhed and struggled all in vain: he could not escape
her. 'I've often spanked you, Bertie,' she cried, 'and if you attempt to
interfere, I'll spank you again; that's the long and the short of it!'

He broke from her and rushed out, to call the police, I believe, and
prevent our desecration of pooah Marmy's property.

[Illustration: VICTORY.]

Inside the first shell were several locked drawers, and two or three
open ones, out of one of which Harold had fished the false will.
Instinct taught me somehow that the central drawer on the left-hand side
was the compartment behind which lay the secret receptacle. I prised it
apart and peered about inside it. Presently I saw a slip-panel, which I
touched with one finger. The pigeon-hole flew open and disclosed a
narrow slit I clutched at something--the will! Ho, victory! the will! I
raised it aloft with a wild shout. Not a doubt of it! The real, the
genuine document!

We turned it over and read it. It was my own fair copy, written at
Florence, and bearing all the small marks of authenticity about it which
I had pointed out to Mr. Hayes as wanting to the forged and impounded
document. Fortunately, Lady Georgina and four of the servants had stood
by throughout this scene, and had watched our demeanour, as well as Lord
Southminster's.

We turned next to the signatures. The principal one was clearly Mr.
Ashurst's-- I knew it at once--his legible fat hand, 'Marmaduke Courtney
Ashurst.' And then the witnesses? They fairly took our breath away.

'Why, Higginson's sister isn't one of them at all,' Mr. Hayes cried,
astonished.

A flush of remorse came over me. I saw it all now. I had misjudged that
poor woman! She had the misfortune to be a rogue's sister, but, as
Harold had said, was herself a most respectable and blameless person.
Higginson must have forged her name to the document; that was all; and
she had naturally sworn that she never signed it. He knew her honesty.
It was a master-stroke of rascality.

'The other one isn't here, either,' I exclaimed, growing more puzzled.
'The waiter at the hotel! Why, that's another forgery! Higginson must
have waited till the man was safely dead, and then used him similarly.
It was all very clever. Now, who are these people who really witnessed
it?'

'The first one,' Mr. Hayes said, examining the handwriting, 'is Sir
Roger Bland, the Dorsetshire baronet: he's dead, poor fellow; but he
was at Florence at the time, and I can answer for his signature. He was
a client of mine, and died at Mentone. The second is Captain Richards,
of the Mounted Police: he's living still, but he's away in South
Africa.'

'Then they risked his turning up?'

'If they knew who the real witnesses were at all--which is doubtful. You
see, as you say, they may have seen the rough draft only.'

'Higginson would know,' I answered. 'He was with Mr. Ashurst at Florence
at the time, and he would take good care to keep a watch upon his
movements. In my belief, it was he who suggested this whole plot to Lord
Southminster.'

'Of course it was,' Lady Georgina put in. 'That's absolutely certain.
Bertie's a rogue as well as a fool: but he's too great a fool to invent
a clever roguery, and too great a knave not to join in it foolishly when
anybody else takes the pains to invent it.'

'And it _was_ a clever roguery,' Mr. Hayes interposed. 'An ordinary
rascal would have forged a later will in Lord Southminster's favour and
run the risk of detection; Higginson had the acuteness to forge a will
exactly like the real one, and to let your husband bear the burden of
the forgery. It was as sagacious as it was ruthless.'

'The next point,' I said, 'will be for us to prove it.'

At that moment the bell rang, and one of the house-servants--all puzzled
by this conflict of interests--came in with a telegram, which he handed
me on a salver. I broke it open, without glancing at the envelope. Its
contents baffled me: 'My address is Hotel Bristol, Paris; name as usual.
Send me a thousand pounds on account at once. I can't afford to wait. No
shillyshallying.'

The message was unsigned. For a moment, I couldn't imagine who sent it,
or what it was driving at.

Then I took up the envelope. 'Viscount Southminster, 24 Park Lane North,
London.'

My heart gave a jump. I saw in a second that chance, or Providence, had
delivered the conspirators into my hands that day. The telegram was from
Higginson! I had opened it by accident.

It was obvious what had happened. Lord Southminster must have written to
him on the result of the trial, and told him he meant to take possession
of his uncle's house immediately. Higginson had acted on that hint, and
addressed his telegram where he thought it likely Lord Southminster
would receive it earliest. I had opened it in error, and that, too, was
fortunate, for even in dealing with such a pack of scoundrels, it would
never have occurred to me to violate somebody else's correspondence had
I not thought it was addressed to me. But having arrived at the truth
thus unintentionally, I had, of course, no scruples about making full
use of my information.

I showed the despatch at once to Lady Georgina and Mr. Hayes. They
recognised its importance. 'What next?' I inquired. 'Time presses. At
half-past three Harold comes up for examination at Bow Street.'

Mr. Hayes was ready with an apt expedient. 'Ring the bell for Mr.
Ashurst's valet,' he said, quietly. 'The moment has now arrived when we
can begin to set these conspirators by the ears. As soon as they learn
that we know all, they will be eager to inform upon one another.'

I rang the bell. 'Send up White,' I said. 'We wish to speak to him.'

The valet stole up, self-accused, a timid, servile creature, rubbing his
hands nervously, and suspecting mischief. He was a rat in trouble. He
had thin brown hair, neatly brushed and plastered down, so as to make it
look still thinner, and his face was the average narrow cunning face of
the dishonest man-servant. It had an ounce of wile in it to a pound or
two of servility. He seemed just the sort of rogue meanly to join in an
underhand conspiracy, and then meanly to back out of it. You could read
at a glance that his principle in life was to save his own bacon.

[Illustration: YOU WISHED TO SEE ME, SIR?]

He advanced, fumbling his hands all the time, and smiling and fawning.
'You wished to see me, sir?' he murmured, in a deprecatory voice,
looking sideways at Lady Georgina and me, but addressing the lawyer.

'Yes, White, I wished to see you. I have a question to ask you. _Who_
put the forged will in Mr. Ashurst's desk? Was it you, or some other
person?'

The question terrified him. He changed colour and gasped. But he rubbed
his hands harder than ever and affected a sickly smile. 'Oh, sir, how
should _I_ know, sir? _I_ had nothing to do with it. I suppose--it was
Mr. Tillington.'

Our lawyer pounced upon him like a hawk on a titmouse. 'Don't
prevaricate with me, sir,' he said, sternly. 'If you do, it may be worse
for you. This case has assumed quite another aspect. It is you and your
associates who will be placed in the dock, not Mr. Tillington. You had
better speak the truth; it is your one chance, I warn you. Lie to me,
and instead of calling you as a witness for our case, I shall include
you in the indictment.'

White looked down uneasily at his shoes, and cowered. 'Oh, sir, I don't
understand you.'

'Yes you do. You understand me, and you know I mean it. Wriggling is
useless; we intend to prosecute. We have unravelled this vile plot. We
know the whole truth. Higginson and Lord Southminster forged a will
between them----'

'Oh, sir, _not_ Lord Southminster! His lordship, I'm sure----'

Mr. Hayes's keen eye had noted the subtle shade of distinction and
admission. But he said nothing openly. 'Well, then, Higginson forged,
and Lord Southminster accepted, a false will, which purported to be Mr.
Marmaduke Ashurst's. Now, follow me clearly. That will could not have
been put into the escritoire during Mr. Ashurst's life, for there would
have been risk of his discovering it. It must, therefore, have been put
there afterward. The moment he was dead, you, or somebody else with your
consent and connivance, slipped it into the escritoire; and you
afterwards showed Mr. Tillington the place where you had set it or seen
it set, leading him to believe it was Mr. Ashurst's will, and so
involved him in all this trouble. Note that that was a felonious act. We
accuse you of felony. Do you mean to confess, and give evidence on our
behalf, or will you force me to send for a policeman to arrest you?'

The cur hesitated still. 'Oh, sir,' drawing back, and fumbling his hands
on his breast, 'you don't mean it.'

Mr. Hayes was prompt. 'Hesslegrave, go for a policeman.'

That curt sentence brought the rogue on his marrow-bones at once. He
clasped his hands and debated inwardly. 'If I tell you all I know,' he
said, at last, looking about him with an air of abject terror, as if he
thought Lord Southminster or Higginson would hear him, 'will you promise
not to prosecute me?' His tone became insinuating. 'For a hundred
pounds, I could find the real will for you. You'd better close with me.
To-day is the last chance. As soon as his lordship comes in, he'll hunt
it up and destroy it.'

I flourished it before him, and pointed with one hand to the broken
desk, which he had not yet observed in his craven agitation.

'We do not need your aid,' I answered. 'We have found the will,
ourselves. Thanks to Lady Georgina, it is safe till this minute.'

'And to me,' he put in, cringing, and trying after his kind, to curry
favour with the winners at the last moment. 'It's all _my_ doing, my
lady! I wouldn't destroy it. His lordship offered me a hundred pounds
more to break open the back of the desk at night, while your ladyship
was asleep, and burn the thing quietly. But I told him he might do his
own dirty work if he wanted it done. It wasn't good enough while your
ladyship was here in possession. Besides, I wanted the right will
preserved, for I thought things might turn up so; and I wouldn't stand
by and see a gentleman like Mr. Tillington, as has always behaved well
to me, deprived of his inheritance.'

'Which is why you conspired with Lord Southminster to rob him of it, and
to send him to prison for Higginson's crime,' I interposed calmly.

'Then you confess you put the forged will there?' Mr. Hayes said,
getting to business.

White looked about him helplessly. He missed his headpiece, the
instigator of the plot. 'Well, it was like this, my lady,' he began,
turning to Lady Georgina, and wriggling to gain time. 'You see, his
lordship and Mr. Higginson----' he twirled his thumbs and tried to
invent something plausible.

Lady Georgina swooped. 'No rigmarole!' she said, sharply. 'Do you
confess you put it there or do you not--reptile?' Her vehemence startled
him.

'Yes, I confess I put it there,' he said at last, blinking. 'As soon as
the breath was out of Mr. Ashurst's body I put it there.' He began to
whimper. 'I'm a poor man with a wife and family, sir,' he went on,
'though in Mr. Ashurst's time I always kep' that quiet; and his lordship
offered to pay me well for the job; and when you're paid well for a job
yourself, sir----'

Mr. Hayes waved him off with one imperious hand. 'Sit down in the corner
there, man, and don't move or utter another word,' he said, sternly,
'until I order you. You will be in time still for me to produce at Bow
Street.'

Just at that moment, Lord Southminster swaggered back, accompanied by a
couple of unwilling policemen. 'Oh, I say,' he cried, bursting in and
staring around him, jubilant. 'Look heah, Georgey, _are_ you going
quietly, or must I ask these coppahs to evict you?' He was wreathed in
smiles now, and had evidently been fortifying himself with brandies and
soda.

Lady Georgina rose in her wrath. 'Yes, I'll go if you wish it, Bertie,'
she answered, with calm irony. 'I'll leave the house as soon as you
like--for the present--till we come back again with Harold and _his_
policemen to evict you. This house is Harold's. Your game is played,
boy.' She spoke slowly. 'We have found the other will--we have
discovered Higginson's present address in Paris--and we know from White
how he and you arranged this little conspiracy.'

[Illustration: WELL, THIS IS A FAIR KNOCK-OUT, HE EJACULATED.]

She rapped out each clause in this last accusing sentence with
deliberate effect, like so many pistol-shots. Each bullet hit home. The
pea-green young man, drawing back and staring, stroked his shadowy
moustache with feeble fingers in undisguised astonishment. Then he
dropped into a chair and fixed his gaze blankly on Lady Georgina. 'Well,
this is a fair knock-out,' he ejaculated, fatuously disconcerted. 'I
wish Higginson was heah. I really don't quite know what to do without
him. That fellah had squared it all up so neatly, don't yah know, that I
thought there couldn't be any sort of hitch in the proceedings.'

'You reckoned without Lois,' Lady Georgina said, calmly.

'Ah, Miss Cayley--that's true. I mean, Mrs. Tillington. Yaas, yaas, I
know, she's a doosid clevah person--for a woman,--now isn't she?'

It was impossible to take this flabby creature seriously, even as a
criminal. Lady Georgina's lips relaxed. 'Doosid clever,' she admitted,
looking at me almost tenderly.

'But not quite so clevah, don't yah know, as Higginson!'

'There you make your blooming little erraw,' Mr. Hayes burst in,
adopting one of Lord Southminster's favourite witticisms--the sort of
witticism that improves, like poetry, by frequent repetition.
'Policemen, you may go into the next room and wait: this is a family
affair; we have no immediate need of you.'

'Oh, certainly,' Lord Southminster echoed, much relieved. 'Very propah
sentiment! Most undesirable that the constables should mix themselves up
in a family mattah like this. Not the place for inferiahs!'

'Then why introduce them?' Lady Georgina burst out, turning on him.

He smiled his fatuous smile. 'That's just what I say,' he answered. 'Why
the jooce introduce them? But don't snap my head off!'

The policemen withdrew respectfully, glad to be relieved of this
unpleasant business, where they could gain no credit, and might possibly
involve themselves in a charge of assault. Lord Southminster rose with a
benevolent grin, and looked about him pleasantly. The brandies and soda
had endowed him with irrepressible cheerfulness.

'Well?' Lady Georgina murmured.

'Well, I think I'll leave now, Georgey. You've trumped my ace, yah know.
Nasty trick of White to go and round on a fellah. I don't like the turn
this business is taking. Seems to me, the only way I have left to get
out of it is--to turn Queen's evidence.'

Lady Georgina planted herself firmly against the door. 'Bertie,' she
cried, 'no, you don't--not till we've got what we want out of you!'

He gazed at her blandly. His face broke once more into an imbecile
smile. 'You were always a rough 'un, Georgey. Your hand did sting! Well,
what do you want now? We've each played our cards, and you needn't cut
up rusty over it--especially when you're winning! Hang it all, I wish I
had Higginson heah to tackle you!'

'If you go to see the Treasury people, or the Solicitor-General, or the
Public Prosecutor, or whoever else it may be,' Lady Georgina said,
stoutly, 'Mr. Hayes must go with you. We've trumped your ace, as you
say, and we mean to take advantage of it. And then you must trundle
yourself down to Bow Street afterwards, confess the whole truth, and set
Harold at liberty.'

'Oh, I say now, Georgey! The whole truth! the whole blooming truth!
That's really what I call humiliating a fellah!'

'If you don't, we arrest you this minute--fourteen years' imprisonment!'

'Fourteen yeahs?' He wiped his forehead. 'Oh, I say. How doosid
uncomfortable. I was nevah much good at doing anything by the sweat of
my brow. I ought to have lived in the Garden of Eden. Georgey, you're
hard on a chap when he's down on his luck. It would be confounded cruel
to send me to fourteen yeahs at Portland.'

'You would have sent my husband to it,' I broke in, angrily, confronting
him.

'What? You too, Miss Cayley?-- I mean Mrs. Tillington. Don't look at me
like that. Tigahs aren't in it.'

His jauntiness disarmed us. However wicked he might be, one felt it
would be ridiculous to imprison this schoolboy. A sound flogging and a
month's deprivation of wine and cigarettes was the obvious punishment
designed for him by nature.

'You must go down to the police-court and confess this whole
conspiracy,' Lady Georgina went on after a pause, as sternly as she was
able. 'I prefer, if we can, to save the family--even you, Bertie. But I
can't any longer save the family honour-- I can only save Harold's. You
must help me to do that; and then, you must give me your solemn
promise--in writing--to leave England for ever, and go to live in South
Africa.'

He stroked the invisible moustache more nervously than before. That
penalty came home to him. 'What, leave England for evah?
Newmarket--Ascot--the club--the music-halls!'

'Or fourteen years' imprisonment!'

'Georgey, you spank as hard as evah!'

'Decide at once, or we arrest you!'

He glanced about him feebly. I could see he was longing for his lost
confederate. 'Well, I'll go,' he said at last, sobering down; 'and your
solicitaw can trot round with me. I'll do all that you wish, though I
call it most unfriendly. Hang it all, fourteen yeahs would be so beastly
unpleasant!'

We drove forthwith to the proper authorities, who, on hearing the facts,
at once arranged to accept Lord Southminster and White as Queen's
evidence, neither being the actual forger. We also telegraphed to Paris
to have Higginson arrested, Lord Southminster giving us up his assumed
name with the utmost cheerfulness, and without one moment's compunction.
Mr. Hayes was quite right: each conspirator was only too ready to save
himself by betraying his fellows. Then we drove on to Bow Street (Lord
Southminster consoling himself with a cigarette on the way), just in
time for Harold's case, which was to be taken, by special arrangement,
at 3.30.

A very few minutes sufficed to turn the tables completely on the
conspirators. Harold was discharged, and a warrant was issued for the
arrest of Higginson, the actual forger. He had drawn up the false will
and signed it with Mr. Ashurst's name, after which he had presented it
for Lord Southminster's approval. The pea-green young man told his tale
with engaging frankness. 'Bertie's a simple Simon,' Lady Georgina
commented to me; 'but he's also a rogue; and Higginson saw his way to
make excellent capital of him in both capacities--first use him as a
catspaw, and then blackmail him.'

[Illustration: HAROLD, YOUR WIFE HAS BESTED ME.]

On the steps of the police-court, as we emerged triumphant, Lord
Southminster met us--still radiant as ever. He seemed wholly unaware of
the depths of his iniquity: a fresh dose of brandy had restored his
composure. 'Look heah,' he said, 'Harold, your wife has bested me! Jolly
good thing for you that you managed to get hold of such a clevah woman!
If you hadn't, deah boy, you'd have found yourself in Queeah Street!
But, I say, Lois-- I call yah Lois because you're my cousin now, yah
know--you were backing the wrong man aftah all, as I told yah. For if
you'd backed _me_, all this wouldn't have come out; you'd have got the
tin and been a countess as well, aftah the governah's dead and gone,
don't yah see. You'd have landed the double event. So you'd have pulled
off a bettah thing for yourself in the end, as I said, if you'd laid
your bottom dollah on me for winnah!'

Higginson is now doing fourteen years at Portland; Harold and I are
happy in the sweetest place in Gloucestershire; and Lord Southminster,
blissfully unaware of the contempt with which the rest of the world
regards him, is shooting big game among his 'boys' in South Africa.
Indeed, he bears so little malice that he sent us a present of a trophy
of horns for our hall last winter.


THE END




THE WINCHESTER EDITION OF THE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN


10 Vols. Demy 8vo, Cloth, 5s. net each Vol.

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GRANT RICHARDS, 9 HENRIETTA ST., COVENT GARDEN, W.C.





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