THE MAN WITH
THE DOUBLE HEART

Some starlit garden grey with dew
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?
—W. L. Henley.

"Flower o' the broom
Take away love and our earth is a tomb!"
—R. Browning.

The hour was close on midday, but the lamps in Cavendish Square shone with a blurred light through the unnatural gloom.

The fog, pouring down from Regent's Park above, was wedged tight in Harley Street like a wad of dirty wool, but in the open space fronting Harcourt House it found room to expand and took on spectral shape; dim forms with floating locks that clung to the stunted trees and, shuddering, pressed against the high London buildings which faded away indistinctly into the blackened sky.

From thence ragged pennons went busily fluttering South to be caught in the draught of the traffic in noisy Oxford Street, where hoarse and confusing cries were blent with the rumble of wheels in all the pandemonium of man at war with the elements.

The air was raw and sooty, difficult to breathe, and McTaggart, already irritable with the nervous tension due to his approaching interview, his throat dry, his eyes smarting as he peered at the wide crossing, started violently as the horn of an unseen motor sounded unpleasantly near at hand.

"Confound the man!" he said, in apology to himself and stepped back quickly onto the narrow path as a shapeless monster with eyes of flame swung past, foiled of its prey.

"A nice pace to go on a day like this!" And here something struck him sharply in the rear, knocking his hat forward onto the bridge of his nose.

"What the...!" he checked his wrath with a sudden shamefaced laugh as he found his unseen adversary to consist of the square railings.

Somewhere down Wigmore Street a clock boomed forth the hour. A quarter to twelve. McTaggart counted the strokes and gave a sigh of relief not unmixed with amusement: the secret congratulation of an unpunctual man redeemed by an accident from the error of his ways.

Wedging his hat more firmly down on his head, he dared again the black space before him, struck the curb on the opposite side and, one hand against the wall, steered round the corner and up into Harley Street.

Under the first lamp he paused and hunted for the number over the nearest door where four brass plates menaced the passer-by with that modern form of torture that few live to escape—the inquisitorial process known as dentistry.

Making a rapid calculation, he came to the conclusion that the house he sought must lie at the further end of the street—London's "Bridge of Sighs"—where breathless hope and despair elbow each other ceaselessly in the wake of suffering humanity.

The fog was changing colour from a dirty yellow to opal, and the damp pavement was becoming visible as McTaggart moved forward with a quick stride that held an elasticity which it did not owe to elation.

He walked with an ease and lightness peculiar in an Englishman who, athletic as he may be, yet treads the earth with a certain conscious air of possessing it: a tall, well-built man, slender and very erect, but without that balanced stiffness, the hall-mark of "drill."

A keen observer would guess at once an admixture of blood that betrayed its foreign strain in that supple grace of his; in the olive skin, the light feet, and the glossy black hair that was brushed close and thick to his shapely head.

Not French. For the Frenchman moves on a framework of wire, fretting toward action, deadly in attack. But the race that bred Napoleon, subtle and resistant, built upon tempered steel that bends but rarely breaks.

Now, as he reached the last block and the house he sought, McTaggart paused for a second, irresolute, on the step.

He seemed to gather courage with a quick indrawn breath, and his mouth was set in a hard line as his hand pressed the bell.

Then he raised his eyes to the knocker above, and with the slight action his whole face changed.

For, instead of being black beneath their dark brows, the man's eyes were blue, an intense, fiery blue; with the clear depths and the temper touch that one sees nowhere else save in the strong type of the hardy mountain race. They were not the blue of Ireland, with her half-veiled, sorrowful mirth; nor the placid blue of England, that mild forget-me-not. They were utterly unmistakable; they brought with them a breath of heather-gloried solitude and the deep and silent lochs.

Here was a Scot—a hillsman from the North; no need of his name to cry aloud the fact.

And yet...

The door was opened, and at once the imprisoned fog finding a new outlet drove into the narrow hall.

A tall, bony parlour maid was staring back at him as, mechanically, McTaggart repeated the great man's name.

"You have an appointment, sir?" Her manner seemed to imply that her dignity would suffer if this were not the case.

Satisfied by his answer, she ushered him into a room where a gas fire burned feebly with an apologetic air, as though painfully conscious of its meretricious logs. Half a dozen people, muffled in coats and furs, were scattered about a long dining table, occupied in reading listlessly the papers, to avoid the temptation of staring at each other. The place smelt of biscuits, of fog and of gas, like an unaired buffet in a railway station.

McTaggart, weighed down by a sense of impending doom, picked up a "Punch" and retired to the window, ostensibly to amuse himself, in reality to rehearse for the hundredth time his slender stock of "symptoms." The clock ticked on, and a bleak silence reigned, broken at intervals by the sniff of a small boy, who, accompanied by a parent and a heavy cold in the head, was feasting his soul on a volume of the "Graphic."

Something familiar in the cartoon under his eyes drew McTaggart away from his own dreary thoughts.

"I mustn't forget to tell him..." he was saying to himself, when he realized that the paper he held was dated five months back! He felt immediately quite unreasonably annoyed. A sudden desire to rise up and go invaded his mind. In his nervous state the excuse seemed amply sufficient. A "Punch" five months old! ... it was a covert insult.

A doctor who could trade on his patient's credulity—pocketing his three guineas, don't forget that!—and offer them literature but fit to light the fire...

A "Punch" Five Months Old! ... he gathered up his gloves.

But a noiseless step crossed the room, a voice whispered his name.

"Mr. McTaggart? This way, please."

He found himself following the bony parlour maid, past the aggressive eyes of the still-waiting crowd, out into the hall and down a glass-roofed passage.

"Now I'm in for it..." he said silently... "Oh! ... damn!" He put on his most truculent air.

The maid tapped at a door.

"Come in," said a sharp voice.

McTaggart entered and stood still for a moment, blinking on the threshold, irresolute.

For the scene was unexpected. Despite the heavy fog that filtered through the windows with its insidious breath, a hint of Spring was there in the fresh white walls, the rose-covered chintzes and the presence of flowers.

The place seemed filled with them. An early bough of blossom, the exquisite tender pink of the almond in bloom, stood against a mirror that screened a recess; and the air was alive with the scent of daffodils, with subtle yellow faces, like curious Chinamen, peering over the edge of a blue Nankin bowl.

In the centre of the room a man in a velvet coat was bending over a mass of fresh violets, adding water carefully to the surrounding moss out of a copper jug that he held in his hands.

McTaggart stared at him; at the lean, colourless face under its untidy thatch of coarse, gray hair; at the spare figure, the long, steady hands and the loose, unconventional clothes that he wore. He might have been an artist of Rossetti's day in that shabby brown coat and soft faded shirt. But the great specialist—whose name carried weight wherever science and medicine were wont to foregather. Had he made a mistake? It seemed incredible.

The doctor gave a parting touch to an overhanging leaf and wheeled round to greet his patient with a smile.

"I can't bear to see flowers die from lack of care, and this foggy weather tries them very hard. Excuse me a moment." He passed into the recess, and washed his hands vigorously, talking all the while.

"Some years ago," he switched off the tap, "I went to a public dinner of agriculturists. Found to my surprise I was sitting next Oscar Wilde—one doesn't somehow associate him with such a function! On my left was a farmer of the good old-fashioned type, silent, aggressive, absorbed in his food. I happened to remark that the flowers were all withered; the heat of the room had been too much for them.

"'Not withered'—Wilde corrected me—'but merely weary...'

"The farmer turned his head, and gave him one glance.

"'Silly Ass!' he said explosively and returned to his dinner. It was his single contribution to the evening's conversation. I've never forgotten it, nor the look on Wilde's face."

McTaggart laughed. He felt oddly at ease.

The doctor glanced at his nails and came back into the room.

He pushed an easy-chair toward his patient and leaning against the mantelpiece with his hands in his pocket:

"Now, tell me all the trouble," he suggested quietly.

A slight flush crept up under the olive skin. McTaggart was suddenly immensely ashamed.

"I don't believe really ... there's anything ... wrong..." He gave an apologetic, husky little laugh ... "but the fact is, a friend of mine—he's a medical student—ran over me the other day, and, well—he said—there was something odd—that he couldn't understand—something about the beat of my heart. I'd fainted, you know—awfully inconvenient—at a supper party, too ... I'd been feeling pretty cheap..." He broke off, confused, as for the first time the older man deliberately fixed his eyes upon him. Hazel eyes they were with curious flecks of yellow, bright and hard beneath his pince-nez.

"You fainted? For how long were you unconscious?" He added a few more questions, nodded his shaggy head, and crossing the room sat down at his desk. He opened a book, massively bound, where on each page was printed, hideous and suggestive, an anatomical sketch of the human form divine.

"I'd like your name in full." He picked up the card which McTaggart had sent in by the parlour maid.

"P. M. McTaggart—what does that stand for?"

"It's rather a mouthful." The owner smiled. "Peter Maramonte."

The specialist glanced up shrewdly.

"Italian?—I thought so."

"On my mother's side. My father was Scotch, an Aberdonian."

"Your parents are living?"

"No, both dead." He stood there, tall and sombre, watching the other write in a thin, crabbed hand the unusual name.

"Any hereditary tendency to heart trouble?"

"Not that I know of. My father was drowned—out fishing, one day. The boat overturned, caught by a squall. He was, I believe, a strong healthy man."

"And your mother?"

"She never seemed the same after his death. And then the climate tried her. She'd been brought up in the South. The end was pneumonia. I was only twelve at the time, but I don't think that either of them suffered from the heart."

"I see. And now if you'll take off your things—strip to the waist, please—and lie on that sofa."

It seemed to McTaggart that at this juncture the devil himself entered into his clothes. Buttons multiplied and waxed evasive, his collar stud stuck, his vest clove to his head.

He dragged it off at last, breathless and ruffled.

"That's capital." The great man adjusted his stethoscope and leaned over the white young body outstretched. McTaggart felt dexterous hands passing swiftly, surely; tapping here, pressing there, over his bare flesh.

"A deep breath—so. Thank you, that will do. Now gently in and out ... quite naturally. Ah...!" He paused, listened a second and gave a grunt. "I wonder?"

A wave of anger swept over the prostrate man.

"He's found something, damn him!" he said to himself, resenting the eager light on that lean, absorbed face.

"Curious!" The specialist drew himself upright, and reached round for a shorter, wooden instrument.

Another silence followed, pregnant of disaster. The pressure of the wooden disk upon McTaggart's chest seemed to become insupportable—a thing of infinite weight.

The doctor's coarse gray hair exhaled a faint scent where brilliantine, ineffectually, had played a minor part, and in some mysterious way it added to the other's annoyance. The suspense was unbearable.

"Found anything wrong?" His voice, unnaturally cheerful, brought a frown to the doctor's face.

"Don't move, please. Keep silent, now." The disk slid across his chest and settled above his ribs, on the right side this time, with its load of discomfort.

"Marvellous ... extraordinary! One's read of it, of course, but never come across it ... my first experience." The great man stood erect, perplexity at end, a vast enthusiasm glowing in his eyes.

Suddenly he divined the patient's anxiety. "Nothing to worry about," he added soothingly. "You can dress now. Your heart's perfectly sound." He walked away to his writing table, still engrossed in thought.

McTaggart felt an immense relief that swamped curiosity. The ordeal was over, and life still smiled at him. He tumbled into his clothes and groped for his collar stud, which, with the guile of these wayward things, had crept away to hide.

Suddenly in a glass he caught his own reflection—his hair dishevelled, his collar bent, and felt an insane desire, despite these minor flaws, to shake himself by the hand, as though, by personal effort, he had prolonged his days!

The doctor still stood motionless, gazing into space. In the silence of the room a faint pattering told of the almond blossom falling on the polished floor.

McTaggart straightened his tie, and with his back turned, surreptitiously began to dive in his pocket for the fee.

He found it at last, and took a step forward toward the absorbed figure at the desk.

"I'd like to know," he suggested, "what you really think is the cause...."

"Of course!" The lean face lifted with a start. "You must forgive me. The fact is"—he smiled—"I'm too interested in your case to remember your natural anxiety. I think your present trouble is caused by an error in digestion. The palpitation comes from that and the other symptoms too. A little care with your diet—I'll write you a prescription—a bismuth mixture to be taken after meals. But if you've further worry, come to me again. As a friend—you understand? ... Oh, no!—it's pure selfishness. I don't want to lose sight of you. You see—to cut it short—you're by way of being a freak! You've got—for want of a better name—what I call a Double Heart. One heart's on your right side and one's in the proper place. It's the most amazing thing I've ever come across. You're perfectly healthy—sound as a bell. I shouldn't wonder, upon my soul, if you hadn't two lives!"

McTaggart stared at him, trying to take it in.

"It sounds rather mad. But you say it doesn't matter?"

"It doesn't seem to affect your circulation in the least. I'm certain what you complain about is due to indigestion—the aftermath perhaps of a touch of Influenza."

A twinkle crept into the blue eyes watching him. "I suppose one heart's Italian and the other purely Scotch?" He ventured the joke against himself in a spirit of relief.

"That's it!" His new friend laughed ... "a dual personality. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with a physical excuse." He gave loose reins for a moment to his vivid imagination, which swept him on with the current of his thoughts.

"You're not married, you say? Well—you'd better be careful. It might lead to bigamy! If so, refer to me."

A curious expression came into the young man's face as he echoed the other's laugh with a trace of confusion.

"A fair wife and a dark one? Porridge and ... Chianti!"

He paid his fee and went out into the London fog.

McTaggart walked down Harley Street, his blue eyes full of light, still hugging the consciousness of a new lease of life.

High above him an orange sun was swung in the misty heavens, putting to shame the wistful gleam of the pale lamps below, with their air of straggling revellers caught by the dawn. A carriage rolled down the street and was met by a passing taxi, and then, as he moved forward rejoicing to himself, into the foggy calm came a sudden stir of life: the sound of young voices, of laughter and light feet.

From under a gloomy portico a crowd of girls swept forth, gathered in groups of twos and threes and dissolved into the fog, chattering and linking arms, swinging bags of books, north and south they scattered with a sweet note of youth.

And at the sight McTaggart came to a sudden halt, conscious that he had received the answer to his prayer; that steadily growing wish for the presence of a friend to share in the new-born exuberance of his mood.

He crossed the street quickly and joined in the crowd, receiving demure glances of studied unconcern and here and there a frown from elderly duennas whose acid displeasure added to his amusement. But cool, and imperturbable, he proceeded to run the gauntlet until on the steps of the College itself he saw a lonely figure busily engaged in tightening the strap that held together exercises and books.

His hand was already midway to his hat when the girl raised a pair of dark-fringed gray eyes and favoured him with a cold glance of non-recognition. For a second McTaggart stared, clearly taken aback. Then, with an impatient gesture, he walked straight past, recrossed the road and turned up a side street. Here he slackened his pace, and, smiling to himself, was presently rewarded by the sound of hurrying steps; but, conscious of former warnings, refrained from looking back until a breathless voice sounded in his ear.

"Peter!"

He walked on with mischievous intention,

"Peter—it's me!" He felt a touch on his arm.

"Hullo!" He wheeled round. "Why, it's Jill!—what a surprise!"

The gray-eyed girl looked up at him with a reproving frown, at his handsome, laughing face and unrepentant air.

"I wish you'd remember!" She stood there, slim and straight; as it seemed to him, a-quiver with the miracle of life. For not all the shabby clothes she wore, from the little squirrel cap which, with the tie about her throat, had seen better days, to the short tweed skirt revealing mended boots, could mar the spring-like radiance of her golden youth.

"You're a prim little school miss," said McTaggart teasingly.

"I'm not." She drew back, her head very high, the thick plait of dark hair swinging with the movement.

"You don't understand, you really are dense! I've told you heaps of times, not in Harley Street."

He gave a happy chuckle, warming to the fray. "Now, don't stand there quarrelling, but give me your books. I'll walk home with you if you're a good girl."

Unresisted he took the strap from her, with its tightly wedged pencil case above the school primers. For her thoughts were far away, her dark brows drawn together as she went on steadily in her own defence.

"I hate being cross with you—but it's not fair play! You wouldn't like it yourself if you were me, Peter. It didn't matter last year when I was in the Juniors, but now I'm a First Senior" ... pride lay in the words ... "it's quite a different thing. We think it jolly bad form in my set, you know."

Instinctively in talking she had fallen into his step. McTaggart glanced sideways, as they turned up Portland Place, at the pretty, flushed face with its dark frame of hair under the little furry cap, pulled close about her ears.

"All right, Jill. I won't do it again. I'll admit I was tempted, being sorely in need of a pal. I'd just been through a bad half hour, you see, and was weakly yearning for a little sympathy."

She looked up quickly with affectionate concern; for he knew the royal road to her instant forgiveness.

"Bills?" He laughed aloud at the laconic suggestion. Then a shade of pity seized the man. Despite her youthful years she spoke from experience.

"Not this time." On the verge of confidence, he checked himself, moved by a sudden reticence.

"Do you think your mother would give me some lunch? Or, better still, will you come and lunch with me?"

He halted as he spoke. "There's Pagani's now, it's not far from here,—in Great Portland Street."

She shook her head. "I'd love to"—her voice was regretful—"but I must get back. I've promised Roddy. He's home for his exeat and we're going to the Zoo. You'd better lunch with us if you don't mind pot luck. But we mustn't be late; we've got a new cook."

"Another?" McTaggart laughed. It seemed a familiar joke.

"The fourth since the Summer," the girl answered dryly. "But Stephen found this one, so she ought to be perfect!"

They turned up the Broad Walk where the fog still hung, white and shadowy over the sodden grass. Here and there a nurse moved with steady intention, children trotting beside her, homeward to lunch; and upon a damp bench, oblivious of the weather, a loving couple lingered, speechlessly hand in hand.

"And how is the great Stephen? I haven't seen him for years."

"Oh, he's just the same." The girl's voice was weary. She stared straight ahead as they swung along together, and a short silence followed that both understood. For they met here on the grounds of a common mistrust, and a hatred shared is a stronger link than even that of love. At the turnstile McTaggart paused, watching her thoughtful face.

"Let's go by the Inner Circle, it's a much nicer way."

"All right." The words were husky, and, as she passed through, the dark lashes hid from him her downcast eyes. But not before McTaggart had seen what she tried to disguise—the tears standing there in their clear gray depths.

"Why, Jill!—why, my dear, whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing." She bit her under lip, furious with herself.

The fog swallowed them up again in the narrow hedged-in road, and McTaggart tucked a hand through his companion's arm.

"Tell me all about it," he said persuasively, "a worry only grows by being bottled up."

She gave him a swift look from under her wet lashes, tempted by the sympathy which rang in his voice.

"It's Stephen. That's all."

"I thought so," his face was dark; "what's he been doing now? What a rotter the fellow is!"

"It's not so much what he does," she pulled herself together and with a defiant gesture passed a hand across her eyes. "It's the fact of his being there, all day long ... it's difficult to explain. But I can't bear to see him, sitting in Father's chair, as if it were his by right, as though he were the master..."

She broke off indignantly, her tears dried by anger, her smooth cheeks flushed, her hand unconsciously tightening on his arm.

"It makes Roddy furious! Of course he's only a boy, but he's such an old dear,"—her love for her brother was plain. "If only Stephen would let him alone instead of teasing him! He treats him like a kid, with a 'Run away and play!' And no boy will stand that—in his own home too! And of course there are rows, and Mother takes his side."

"What—Stephen's?" McTaggart stared in surprise.

"Rather! He can't do wrong—'poor dear Stephen'! And it's no good chiming in, it only makes things worse. For if I do Mother says it's because ... I'm jealous."

The little break in her voice showed how deep the shaft had sped.

"Poor old girl"—McTaggart pressed her arm. "It's jolly rough on you—I'd like to kick the chap! He's a regular parasite; he can't support himself, and he's always hanging around sponging on his friends."

But Jill was following out her own line of thought.

"And I'm not jealous, Peter—not in that mean way. But since Father died I've got to think of Roddy. It's not that Mother isn't really fond of him, but she doesn't understand or see he's growing up. She's always so busy with all this Suffrage work, and Stephen eggs her on. She's no time for home. We never seem to have her now for a second to ourselves without Stephen in the background like a sort of household spy!"

"What excuse does he give for haunting the place? He's no relation of yours, by any chance?"

"Thank Heaven, no!" She gave a shaky laugh. "Why, we only know him since Father died. He was Secretary to a branch of the Woman's Suffrage League. Mrs. Braid, you know, took Mother to a meeting, and then she got keen on the movement herself. I was pleased at the time because it seemed to rouse her. She simply collapsed after Father's death, and anything seemed better than to see her lying there, caring for nothing, utterly crushed.

"I never thought then she'd become a Suffragette. Militant too!—it's so unlike Mother. She's always been so gentle and hated publicity—the very thought of a crowd would keep her at home. But when she took it up she went quite mad about it. That's where Stephen came in—he was Secretary, you see. Mother's no earthly good at any sort of business—she always depended on Father for everything. And of course she missed him frightfully, and Roddy's only a boy. So Stephen used to come and explain things to her."

They turned into the open park where the wet asphalt path cut across the empty grass like a tight-drawn wire. "Where does Stephen live?" McTaggart's voice was hard. This child-friend of his was very dear to him.

"Just round the corner, but, like the poor, you know, he's 'with us always'—it's practically his home. Mother found him new digs up by Primrose Hill. She thought West Kensington air too depressing!—that Stephen looked pale, was inclined to be anæmic."

McTaggart smiled at her rueful grimace.

"So now he nurses his failing strength under your Mother's eye?"

"She gives him rum and milk and warm Winter socks!—which by the way I was once asked to darn. I did strike at that! I don't mind mending Roddy's, but Stephen's?—No thanks!"

Her clear young laugh rang out as she caught McTaggart's eye.

"He's a somewhat spoilt young man, from all accounts. D'you think..." he paused a moment, then risked the question ... "d'you think your Mother's really ... a bit ... fond of him?"

"No." Her tone was definite—"not ... like that." A faint colour stole up into her childish face, but loyally she went on, resenting the imputation. "Mother never flirts, you know. She hates that sort of thing. She's awfully down on other people too. That Mrs. Molineux, d'you remember the gossip? Mother cuts her now whenever they meet."

McTaggart looked amused.

"Funny, isn't it? Because, I suppose people ... talk! It's not everyone who'd understand Stephen."

"Don't!" The girl's hand slipped from his arm. Then at his quick:

"Oh—I don't mean that!—Of course I know your mother—she's one of the best—I didn't mean anything—don't be vexed, Jill. It's only that outsiders might be rather dense"—her face relaxed and she turned impulsively, gratitude shining in the gray eyes.

"That's just what hurts most—to have her misjudged. When one knows ... it's Mother!—that she couldn't stoop..." The hot blood surged up into her face. "To think that people can say nasty, mean things—that she gives them the chance! It makes me wild. And Mother all the time doesn't see it a bit. She thinks because it's her" (vehemence ousted grammar) "that everyone must know it's bound to be all right. And she goes to all sorts of places, lecturing, you know, and takes Stephen with her and stays away for days. Only yesterday"—her words poured on—"Aunt Elizabeth came to tea and the first thing she said was: 'I hear you were at Folkestone, staying at the Grand?—and Mr. Somerville?' And Mother answered calmly: 'Yes—I took Stephen. He's such a help, you know. I couldn't do without him.' And Aunt Elizabeth gave such a nasty little laugh and said—'Really, Mary, I think I must get a Stephen!'

"But Mother didn't see it." She gave an impatient sigh.

"She's a law unto herself," McTaggart suggested. "I vote we drown Stephen. Some dark night—in the Regent's Park Canal. And here it is; let's choose the spot."

He paused as he spoke on the little iron bridge that spans the narrow stream, where the barges come and go; slowly drifting along the still line of water, a mute protest against the feverish haste of the age.

"The worst of it is," said Jill, ignoring his suggestion to remove the enemy into a better world, "that Stephen eggs her on in all this militant work. And Mother isn't strong; she's not fit for it. Why, last year she was ill for weeks after that trouble when the windows were smashed in Regent Street. And her name was in the papers. Roddy got so ragged. All the boys at school were pulling his leg. And he's so proud of Mother!—it nearly broke his heart—to think of her being taken off to a common police station. Why! ..."

She stopped short, leaning over the bridge,—"There he is, on the foot path, with his fishing rod."

She put her hands to her mouth and called in her clear voice, "Rod-dy!"

"Hullo!" came an answering hail. "You up there, Jill?"

There came a scrambling in the bushes that fringed the waterway, and, with a noise of snapping twigs at the summit of the bank, a leg and an arm shot out, then a laughing boy's face, with a great black smudge neatly bisecting it.

"Hullo, Peter!" The pair shook hands.

"Had any sport?" said McTaggart gravely.

"No such luck," replied that ardent fisherman. "I wonder what the time is?—it feels like lunch."

"You'd better cut home and wash"—his sister smiled at him—"You look as if you'd spent the morning sweeping chimneys."

"I think I'll slip in with you," the schoolboy winked, "there's a new cook to-day and I'm warned off the area. Stephen's about." He tucked a hand through her arm, and the three moved on over the bridge.

"Look here, old girl, you're coming to the Zoo? Half past two sharp. I've bought a bag of nuts."

"Rather," said his sister. She turned to McTaggart. "You come too?"

"I will." Peter decided.

"Good biz," said Roddy, "he can carry the bread." He sniffed up the air as they mounted the slope. "Jolly smell the fog has!" and, as the others laughed, proceeded to explain his singular predilection. "It smells of holidays, of good old town. You know what I mean—a sort of smell of its own. I can tell you I long for it sometimes at school. Talk about 'clear air' and 'Yorkshire moors.' Give me London any blessed day."

They left the Park behind, and skirting Primrose Hill came to a terrace facing the North. At the third porch Jill produced a key, and fitting it in the lock, noiselessly opened the door.

"In you go, Roddy, the coast's quite clear..."

The boy slipped past and up the narrow stairs.

Then she turned to Peter with a sudden hesitation. "If you don't mind waiting here I'll go and find Mother."

McTaggart stood in the gloomy hall, watching the girl, as she walked down the passage with her long, boyish step, opened a door beyond and closed it behind her and a sound of voices drifted across to him.

He was just beginning to regret his sudden impulse when the door was reopened and a man appeared. Tall and very blond, dressed with studied care in a coat that curved in to his narrow waist, the light from above fell on his face, weakly good-looking, with a loose under lip and sentimental eyes of a pale greenish hue, thickly shadowed by long fair lashes.

"H'are you, McTaggart." He drawled out the greeting in a thin, light voice that somehow matched his hair. He held out a limp hand with carefully tended nails. McTaggart shook it like a terrier with a rat.

"You'll find Mrs. Uniacke in he-are," he went on. McTaggart silently following in his wake experienced a sudden tingling in his toes.

Within the little study that faced on a strip of garden suggestive of cats a lady was seated before a littered desk, piled up with pamphlets which she was directing.

She rose as he entered, and came forward quickly—passing her tall daughter—with outstretched hand.

Slight and fragile, with wide dark eyes, something bird-like in the eager poise of the head—reminded McTaggart instinctively of a linnet—the last type imaginable of the "Militant Suffragette."

"I'm so glad to see you," her voice was sweet and low. "You're quite a stranger, Peter!—And only yesterday Stephen was saying he thought you had left town."

"I have been away," McTaggart replied—"down in Devonshire—and when I met Jill near Regent's Park, I was tempted to walk across and look you up. Especially," he added with his sunny smile, "when I heard my friend Roddy would be at home."

"Very much at home," Stephen interposed, conscious of Jill's swift glance of disgust—"the window, you observe, bears silent witness to it." He pointed a slender finger at the broken pane. Then went on smoothly: "You'll stay to lunch, of course." But Peter ignored him, his eyes on his hostess.

"Of course he will," Mrs. Uniacke echoed the words, "and there goes the gong." She pushed her papers together with a regretful glance at the unfinished work, as Roddy, his face shining with its hurried ablutions, slipped in noiselessly and joined the little group.

"It's very kind of you," McTaggart replied, "and I'd simply love to lunch with you and the kids."

As they passed through the hall Jill heard her friend say politely to Somerville:

"You lunching too?"

Cydonia sat in the window seat, her face full of dreams, her white hands folded above her needlework. The smooth and slender fingers with their faintly pink nails, the small head so proudly set on the long rounded neck, her air of self-possession, of calm dignity suggested an ancient lineage that in truth was not hers.

For Cydonia was a miracle. In a freakish spring-tide mood Dame Nature had evolved a jest at the expense of caste. From the union of a withered, elderly governess with a rich cheesemonger past the prime of life she had sprung on an astounded world this exquisite young creature with all the outward signs of patrician birth.

Exquisite she was: exquisite and inert. From the slim, arched feet beneath her satin gown to the pale golden hair parted above her brow and gathered in a great knot behind her little ears, flawless she showed against the window's light, like a picture by a master's hand in delicate silver point.

Now as she sat there pensive, the full-lidded eyes fixed unseeing upon a bowl of early lilies, one wondered what unutterable, deep, maiden thoughts held her thus absorbed, with slightly parted lips, motionless save for the rise and fall of the low girlish breast.

And once she gave a little sigh and into her soft brown eyes under the long gold lashes stole a light of warm content.

Her mother glanced up from the book upon her knee as the faint sound broke through the silence of the room; a tall, gaunt woman with an energetic face under the plaited coronet of iron-gray hair.

"What are you dreaming about, Cydonia?"

The girl in the window slowly turned her head.

"I was thinking, Madre dear, if the Bishop is coming to lunch that Mrs. Nix will send us up a pine-apple cream. She always remembers that it's his favourite dish."

She gave a little laugh, musical and low.

"I like pine-apple cream." The curved lips closed.

A slight frown showed between Mrs. Cadell's eyes behind the pince-nez that nipped her high-arched nose.

"You don't seem to be getting on very quickly with your work."

Cydonia, obediently, re-threaded her needle and proceeded to make minute stitches in the narrow strip of lace.

Mrs. Cadell still watched her with restless dark eyes.

"Do you like doing that?"

Cydonia raised her head.

"Oh yes, Madre." Her voice was mildly surprised, "I'm copying that Byzantine piece we found at Verona. Don't you remember, dear?—the day it rained so hard."

Her mother smiled. "Would you care to go back there again?—to Italy, I mean? I really think we must stay at Venice for Easter—you'd like that beautiful service at St. Mark's—and then"—her thoughts ran on—"we could go through the Dolomites and perhaps put in a week in Vienna. What do you think of the plan yourself?"

"It sounds very nice." Cydonia's even voice held no enthusiasm, and again Mrs. Cadell gave a little frown. She had the net impression that had she said Margate her daughter would have acquiesced with equal serenity.

"Well, it's some way off yet." She was gathering up her book when the door was burst open and a short fat man, red-faced and impatient, bounced into the room as though propelled by an invisible force behind.

"Just looked in, Helen, to say I'm going now. Back to dinner eight sharp and bringing Cleaver Jones. Why, Cydonia!"—he paused by his daughter's side, hands thrown up in jesting admiration. "How smart we are!— Is this for the Bishop?" With clumsy affection he caught her by the chin.

"Give your father a kiss ... there's my good girl!" Dutifully she pressed her lips to his rough cheek. Then, bustling round, in his harsh loud voice he added a final instruction to his wife.

"You won't forget, Helen, about Cleaver Jones? And tell Harris to get up some of the old port. I want to come to terms with him over that group." He laid his hand as he spoke on a beautiful bronze that stood on a column near the open door. "Shall never get another bargain like this"—a note of regret sounded through the speech. "Oh—by the way—can you come to-morrow to Christie's? There's a picture that Amos thinks..." He checked himself abruptly as a bell below pealed through the house.

"That's the Bishop—I'm off!" and the door slammed behind him. They heard his heavy steps clattering downstairs.

Mrs. Cadell drew a breath of relief, Cydonia, imperturbable, added another stitch. Her father's volcanic methods rarely disturbed her nerves, though they left the older woman quivering.

Mrs. Cadell rose to her feet and straightened her hair in the mirror beside her. Very tall and angular in her draped black dress, she had that indefinable air of authority which clings to those whose mission in life has been to instruct the young.

Past long since was the drudgery of those days: the cramped school hours, the dreary evenings alone. But the educational atmosphere still lingered about her, the outward stamp of hard-won culture.

Well—it had brought her much! This life of luxury, an outlet for her insatiable ambition; and, greater miracle, a fair young daughter, flesh of her own flesh—but no child of her mind.

This was the flaw in her crown of success. For if ever a woman worshipped brains, measured humanity by the standard of intellect, scorned the ignorant, and shrank from stupidity, that woman was Helen Cadell.

It was the one link which bound her to her husband, the knowledge that with all his faults he was a clever man. He had too that driving force behind his shrewd wits which spells nowadays the secret of success. Hard-headed, tireless, smiling at rebuffs, steadily he had accomplished his task; building up a fortune by personal effort, with, under his vulgarity, something rather fine, a belief in his star which amounted to power.

Perhaps his first moment of weakness and doubt was the one that witnessed the height of his achievement; when money bred money, regular and sustained, and a new life where leisure lurked opened out to him.

For in the long struggle Ebenezer Cadell had hardly given a thought to the end of the fight. He had no time to speculate, no tendency to dream what money should bring him once it was his.

And he found, to his surprise, that to be a rich man involved on a larger scale the qualms of the poor; the risk of being cheated out of his wealth; to lose moreover pounds where once he risked pence.

Ambition dies harder even than vanity, and ostentation took the place of his thrift. He craved the outward signs of opulence, a house filled with treasures that other men of mark could recognize and covet and openly discuss.

But here commercial instinct failed him at the start. No longer could he wholly depend on himself. He lacked the inherited knowledge, the slow experience and the everyday atmosphere of a cultured home.

Advisers could be bought, but were they trustworthy? It maddened him, this closed door to a rich man's clue. Suddenly he became sensitive to a sneer. Above all he dreaded the smile of the connoisseur.

He realized that a partner was what he required, and for the first time began to think of a wife. Fate threw Helen Greaves at this juncture in his path. He found her in a small hôtel upon the East coast with her youngest pupil, whose health required care, and was interested immediately when he heard her discussing the merits of a certain picture with her charge.

Their tables, side by side, in the deserted dining room gave him the opportunity he sought. An acquaintance was formed and friendship ripened quickly between the curious, dissimilar pair.

Past her first youth, withered, austere, Helen Greaves nevertheless possessed a certain charm: the impress of the class she had lived with and served, that knowledge of the cultured world which Ebenezer lacked.

Moreover, for many years, she had taught the daughters of a certain peer; in a well-known house full of art treasures, inherited and added to by the present owner; and with her quick brain and love of the beautiful had become herself no mean connoisseur.

She had travelled largely with her pupils, had learned to criticize and discriminate. Here was a woman after Ebenezer's heart, grounded in that hobby he longed to make his own.

The object of his visit to the little sea-side town had been to attend a neighbouring sale where the death of the owner had thrown on the market a certain much-discussed old master.

Impressed by Helen Greaves' obvious knowledge, he begged her to accompany him, and under her advice he had bought that bronze group now in his London house, somehow overlooked by the dealers at the sale.

Without her encouragement he would have passed it by, misled by the absurdly low price, and even at the time he made the purchase he wondered to himself if she were not at fault.

On his return, however, he showed it to a dealer, and found to his amazement that Helen's acumen had secured him an undoubted treasure. For the first time he tasted the peculiar deep joy of the bargain hunter in his hour of triumph.

Then and there he made up his mind. Here was the partner his new life entailed. And the realization of all he had to offer, with the fact of her present subordinate position, swung him back again on to his old pedestal, with a returned consciousness of mastery. For the man had to reign. It was no passing weakness. Abdication meant paralysis of his powers.

In cold-blooded terms, void of sentiment, he had worded a letter to Helen Greaves. No deed of partnership was ever made more clear than this formal proposal of marriage! Six months later they were man and wife, launched on a honeymoon planned to include a thorough course of study at the foreign galleries.

It speaks for the character of the ex-governess that this business alliance was sealed in a church. For Ebenezer was a staunch Nonconformist and lived and died loyal to his creed.

Slowly but surely in his wife's clever hands he mastered the intricaces of his new cult. He came to the fore as an ardent collector, and, to crown his success, Cydonia appeared.

With the advent of her child, Helen's ambition found a new outlet. She became more social, seeking to force those doors where money, though a help, could not purchase right of admission.

Here she found a new factor in her Church. Always religiously inclined, she turned to Charity—whose cloak nowadays shelters many "climbers"—poured forth money in big bazaars, and fed the clergy, who flocked to her house. Ebenezer grumbled, but bent before her will. Little by little her name appeared as patroness of the pleasure schemes devised to "help the poor." She was sought for on committees, pestered for donations, patronized herself by that upper class, which used her and smiled at her and let her drift among them.

But Helen Cadell had come to stay. Slowly and quietly she strengthened her position, inconspicuous, yet ever to the fore, looking to that day when her daughter should step as though by right on this hallowed ground.

The only flaw in the long campaign was the sleeping soul of Cydonia.

For as the years passed over her head, and her mother watched with anxious eyes, it seemed to her that her offspring lacked that latent force which in both her parents had spurred them on to fulfill themselves.

She had no energy, no enthusiasm. Beautiful, passive, sweetly good, no one could truly call her clever. Beneath her lily-white, delicate grace, she was just a healthy young animal, content to exist, without ambition, to eat and walk and deeply sleep.

And watching this, with her restless mind, the mother began to pin her hope on the element she herself had scorned, the stimulus of awakening love. It stung her pride at times to feel that a daughter of hers could lack brain power! Education had been her all—the motive force of her strenuous life.

And now Minerva, with wise cold eyes, must be set aside for the God of Love. With ever the risk of the sacrifice: that his altar might snatch from her her child.

Something of this passed through her mind as Helen stood before the glass, mechanically smoothing her hair in its straight gray bands above her brow.

She could see the reflection of the room; the long white walls where the pictures hung, each with its own reflecting light, each a great man's masterpiece. Here and there the wintry sun caressed a statue or carven pillar, gilding the backs of the great high chairs, where long-dead prelate and prince had sat. For the room was a very treasure house, breathing history at each turn, filled with beauty of colour and form, mellowed by the touch of age.

And the thought pierced through her with sharp pain that all she had accomplished here, knowledge and forethought of long years, the daily care from the hour of birth when in agony she had borne her child: all could be swept aside, made nought by the first love-words breathed by a man.

"Cydonia"—her voice was sharp, reflecting the tension of her mood, and the girl looked up with a mild surprise.

"Put your work away, my dear," she smiled with an effort as her daughter complied. "I can hear the Bishop coming upstairs."

But as she spoke the door went wide.

"Mr. McTaggart," the man announced.

Nothing could ruffle Cydonia's calm. The smile she had, unconsciously, prepared for the Bishop warmed McTaggart as he entered the room. Dazed him a little, truth to tell, she looked so lovely sitting there.

On her mother's face he read surprise and hastened to explain his mission.

"I'm the bearer of a message from Lady Leason. I must apologize for the hour, but she asked me to come on at once. She's dreadfully worried about the Tableaux. It seems Marie Dilke is off to Cannes. 'Doctor's orders'—so she says. Anyhow," he smiled mischievously, "one can understand the excuse this weather! So now the third picture is spoilt. We want another Sleeping Beauty. And I thought—we thought," he glanced at Cydonia—"that perhaps your daughter would help us out."

"But she's acting already in the first." Mrs. Cadell, secretly pleased, did not wish the fact to appear.

"I know. But there'll be loads of time." McTaggart swept the excuse aside. "The second tableau is in three parts; it will take at least a quarter of an hour. And it's really such a lovely scene—the stage will be a mass of flowers. Do say 'Yes.'" His blue eyes pleaded as he glanced from the mother back to the girl.

"Would you like it, Cydonia?" Mrs. Cadell consulted her daughter, but before the latter could find time to reply the door was opened by the butler, announcing the long-expected guest.

The Bishop of Oxton hurried in: a slight, bent man past the prime of life with a domed head which seemed too large for the small and delicate features beneath. His short-sighted, prominent eyes held a look of chronic bewilderment, and about his thin lips hovered a smile, sweet and deprecating, as though he felt perpetual astonishment at the high position thrust upon him.

"I fear I'm a trifle late," he said, shaking hands with Mrs. Cadell—"the fact is I have been detained by a matter of business in the City." He beamed affectionately at Cydonia, with an absent-minded glance towards McTaggart.

The hostess introduced the men.

"Ah yes." The Bishop blinked. "I fancy we have met before—at my cousin's, Lady Leason."

"That's curious." McTaggart laughed—"I've just this moment come from her, hot-foot on a begging errand."

"Then I'm sure," the Bishop responded suavely, "that your mission will not be in vain! This is the house of Charity."

The butler, to emphasize the fact, announced that the prelate's lunch was served.

McTaggart began to take his leave, but his hostess would not hear of it.

"You must stay and lunch with us—we have to decide about the Tableaux."

"I've half promised a man at the Club..." He offered the well-worn excuse, but Mrs. Cadell moved to the door.

"A half promise," she said lightly, "is surely one that can be broken."

As they passed out on to the stairs she referred the matter to the Bishop.

"You mustn't ask for my opinion," he entered into the little joke. "I'm not a believer in half measures! But if you make it a point of conscience I should say it depended upon the host."

"In that case"—McTaggart smiled—"I may consider myself absolved. It was what the Americans call 'Dutch Treat'—each to pay his own expenses."

They settled themselves at the round table, curiously inlaid with brass, smooth and innocent of cloth, where oysters in old Wedgwood plates lay on mats of Italian lace. The fruit, piled high on a centre dish—grapes with peaches and pears beneath—and the gold-flecked Venetian glass gave it a wholly foreign look. And this was emphasized by the room; the faded tapestry of the walls forming a mellow-toned background for the high-backed chairs and painted chest—once a wedding-coffer of state—and the heavy curtains of brocade, where the gold thread, tarnished, caught the light.

A perfect setting, McTaggart thought, for the fair-haired girl in her satin gown, as he watched the small patrician head bend attentive to the Bishop.

He wondered if she herself had chosen that misty, metallic blue, and the single ornament that hung from a fine gold chain around her neck. He looked at the latter with curious eyes, appreciating the design; seed pearls strung about a cross of pale and flawed emeralds, set with barbaric carelessness in the rough hand-wrought metal, and weighed down by loops of pearls, quivering with each breath she drew.

Meanwhile, the hostess was explaining the reason for the young man's visit. The Bishop, happy over his oysters, beamed his approval of the scheme.

"But who, may I ask, is to be the Prince?" His voice was sly and a twinkle gleamed in the prominent short-sighted eyes, as McTaggart, somewhat hurriedly, admitted that the part was his.

"In doublet and hose and pointed shoes. And a dreadful cap that won't stay on. You've no idea"—he turned to Cydonia—"the agony of mind it causes! Supposing—at the crucial moment"—he watched her still face as he spoke—"it tilted forward on to my nose? What a death-blow to Romance! And they won't allow me to wear an elastic, neatly fastened under my chin. And hat-pins are no earthly use. Can you suggest a remedy?"

"I should hold it in my hand," she said.

"Wonderful!"—McTaggart laughed—"and it never even occurred to me."

He was relieved—at the same time piqued—by her smiling air of unconcern.

"Under the circumstances, too, it might appear more chivalrous."

He added the speech in a lower tone, with a sudden mischievous desire to stir in her a slight revolt. And, as if conscious of his thought, the brown eyes were averted. A faint fugitive color stole under the fairness of her skin.

The Bishop's glance sought his hostess. Between the pair of elderly folk a silent question and answer flashed.

"That's what I shall do," said McTaggart, "kneel and press it to my heart. I'd far rather have it there than balanced on my luckless head. Unfortunately," his voice was light—"you'll miss all my exquisite acting—unless you peep beneath your lashes. Do tell me that you will? Of course you're supposed to be asleep."

"You talk as if it were quite settled," Mrs. Cadell with a smile, interposed, "but I haven't yet decided whether Cydonia will take the part."

"Oh! you couldn't be so cruel!" McTaggart showed his disappointment. "Think of poor Lady Leason. You've no idea how worried she is. And, if your daughter refuses to help us, we're threatened with Mrs. Bertie Eying. She's simply dying to take it on. Just picture her as a Sleeping Beauty!"

He gave a sudden shiver and turned toward the amused Bishop.

"One of those new ropy girls—all shoulders and feet, you know. No spine, and straight hair drawn down over her ears. Like a French fashion-plate with all the Frenchness left out."

"I observe there are no half-measures here," the Bishop gave a little chuckle. "I had no idea of the harassing details involved in an effort of charity. It's for some hospital, is it not?"

Mrs. Cadell supplied the name.

"We hope to clear off part of the debt. Since the Insurance Act was passed the subscriptions have decreased. So seriously in fact they talk of closing down a ward."

"Indeed?" The Bishop, nervously, evaded the lead into politics.

"Talking of financial losses——" he went on somewhat hurriedly—"reminds me of my morning's work. I'm afraid the ways of the City are quite beyond my understanding."

He sighed as he helped himself to curry.

Mrs. Cadell, to fill the pause, remarked that McTaggart was on the Stock Exchange.

"Really?" The Bishop looked up quickly. "Then, perhaps, he can relieve my mind on the question that is puzzling me."

Into the younger man's blue eyes came a shrewd look of attention. Inwardly he was summing up the possibility of a client.

"Delighted—if I can help at all."

Cydonia stole a glance at him. Here was another side to the picture she already knew by heart.

She watched the serious olive face with its strong chin and tight-closed lips—a hint of obstinacy there which added a strongly British look to his slightly foreign grace, banishing all effeminacy, suggesting a hidden power.

It seemed to her he was snatched away into a world remote from her, and for the first time in her life she felt uneasy, half-afraid ...

"Some years ago," the Bishop blinked, "six, to be strictly accurate, I was induced to invest some money in a new company. I am not quite sure as to the process, but it—the invention—claimed to produce a liquid fuel out of coal-slag at an absurdly low cost. The shares had run up quickly until they were eight pounds apiece—one pound shares, you understand. I gave eight." He paused ruefully.

"And now?" McTaggart prompted gently.

"I believe," the Bishop gave a sigh—"they are selling at ... about twelve shillings! The worst of it is——" his voice rose. "They have never paid a dividend."

"How did you hear of it?" McTaggart felt a half-amused sense of pity.

"One night I was dining with Lord Warleigh. His place, you know, is near Oxton. And the principal director—the promoter of the affair—was staying with him for the week-end, in order to place a block of shares to provide for further working expenses. Warleigh was enthusiastic and as to the man himself, he seemed most reliable, heart and soul absorbed in the scheme. Of German origin, naturalized—Herman Schliff—— Do you know the name?"

"Never heard of it—or the company." McTaggart shook his head.

"No, really?" The Bishop frowned.

"One of the most eloquent men I have ever come across. I remember, at the time——" he smiled apologetically—"I thought what a preacher was lost to the Church! And with it an enthusiasm, a grip of his subject and a faith in the prospects, which carried his listeners bodily away. To give you an example of this, Warleigh's poor old butler invested his savings—the hardly won nest-egg of forty years' service—then and there in the affair. He handed every penny of it over to Schliff before he left."

"What a shame!" Mrs. Cadell's sympathy was plainly aroused—"I suppose he will never get it back?"

"I fear not. And he's one of many." The Bishop frowned thoughtfully. "Looking through a list of shareholders only this morning I was surprised to find many names I knew personally of quite small people with narrow incomes. Good people too, I mean. Service men and petty squires living in the depths of the country."

"Exactly." McTaggart's face was grim—"the usual victims, I'm afraid. But it seems to have dragged on rather longer than these forlorn hopes generally do. What reason do they give for the fall in shares? and the absence of a dividend? What do the reports say?"

"Oh—they're full of excuses." The Bishop's thin, delicate hand went out in a gesture of impatience. "For instance—new machinery—some hitch in the process—a technical difference of opinion between the experts they employ. With always the same golden future dangled before our weary eyes, in Schliff's magnetic and pompous speeches, bolstered up by his tame directors. And the money sunk in it—thousands squandered! With nothing practical to show—to warrant the huge expenditure."

"I suppose by now," McTaggart hazarded, "Schliff's a pretty prosperous man?"

"I couldn't say. To give him his due I should hesitate to class the man in any way as unscrupulous. He has a firm belief in himself and in anything that he undertakes. It's temperamental and most misleading; but I think, according to his light, he's honest. I really think so! That's the perplexing part to me. But he's hypnotized by his own verbosity——" the Bishop paused, pleased with the phrase—"he sees himself a second Napoleon—alas! without his genius for management."

McTaggart allowed himself the luxury of a long-repressed smile.

"The type is perhaps not uncommon. If you like I'll make a few inquiries—quite quietly, of course—and find out what sort of a record he bears in the city. I conclude this isn't his first venture? Herman Schliff ... and the Company?" He made a note upon his cuff. "Oh, it's really no trouble—I'm interested in the affair."

"I wish I were not!" The victim smiled. "But I went on buying after the fall."

Mrs. Cadell's restless eyes met McTaggart's. They both smiled. Then she signalled to the butler to fill up the Bishop's glass.

"Yes, I insist——" as the prelate protested—"it won't hurt you, it's quite light. And here comes your favourite sweet—ordered expressly for you."

The worn face cleared, and he smiled, touched by the other's kindly thought.

"I'm always spoilt in this house," he said, "and I'm afraid that the shocking result is that I take advantage of it, and come too often to loosen my pack of worries here. What can the Sleeping Beauty think of all this dreary business talk?"

He looked across wistfully at Cydonia's lovely face, with next to it the virile contrast of her dark-haired, handsome friend. Only too well he realized the heavy burden of the years and the narrowing road ahead where he must pass with lonely feet. Death he feared not. For the Faith he had long preached was indeed his own. Yet the human in him shrank, faced with the decay of power.

Cydonia's soft brown eyes met his with a child's affection. His question cut across her dreams.

"I?" she hesitated, smiling. "Oh! I like to hear of things."

McTaggart, watching her, caught into his memory an elusive dimple, near the fresh young mouth.

Following up the train of thought provoked by this miracle, he heard the doctor's voice once more, with a note of mischief, in his ears.

"Not married, are you, Mr. McTaggart? Well—you'd better take care ... a fair wife and a dark one..." He was certain, then and there, that his "Scotch heart" lay in Cydonia's hands.

He watched them now, with a languid grace remove the velvety skin of a peach. The faint colour of the fruit was not more fair than her little pink nails.

But swift on the thought came a vision of Fantine—mischievous, provocative, tingling with life; of dark-fringed eyes and full red lips, and honey-coloured fingers that flashed in quick gesture matching each turn of her gay clipped speech.

He thrust aside the picture, half-angrily; conscious of the atmosphere that hung about the Cadells' house, vaguely ecclesiastic and super-refined. The intrusion of Fantine seemed almost profane, the contrast too crude between this sheltered home and the gilded, over-lighted flat. He could see the long rooms with the doors flung wide and the ever-changing brilliant crowd, elbowing each other round the green table with the piled-up stakes and fluttering cards. He could feel once more the strain that hung in the air, the excitement of the lust for gain, the grasping hands and greedy eyes...

"A penny for your thoughts?" He gave a guilty start. Cydonia was watching him with childish curiosity.

"Impossible—the price is too high!"

He answered her lightly but his face was grave.

"I believe you've gone back to that velvet cap? You looked so solemn. It must be that!"

"More likely I was harassed with this cruel suspense." He leaned a little nearer and lowered his voice.

"You are going to help us? Tell me, don't you want to?—You've no idea how anxious I am that you should take the part."

Then, seeing her hesitate, he added with malice, "Mrs. Bying would jump at it."

"But I'm not Mrs. Bying."

Up went Cydonia's head in pride.

"Thank Heaven, no." He laughed at her voice. "I didn't mind Marie Dilke—she's such a good sort"—he went on meditatively, forgetful of his listener—"but as to kissing Mrs. Bying..."

The moment the word was out he felt, with horror, the folly of his mistake. "Pretend to,—I mean," he corrected hurriedly. "Of course in acting—it's always pretence—and in this instance—I only ... you know——"

He broke off, at a loss for words. He dared not even look at her. The ominous pause prolonged itself. He felt an insane desire to laugh.

"With any other girl"—he thought—"but this girl ... oh! hang it all!" He grabbed at a peach. Viciously he dug his fork into it, searching in his empty brain for some sensible remark. But....

"I think it's going to snow——" was all that came to him after due thought. He said it with the air of a weather expert. "It's so awfully chilly..." And then a faint laugh startled him into a side-long glance.

Cydonia's face was pink and in her smooth cheek the dimple betrayed her battle with mirth.

"Snow?" said the Bishop. "Indeed, I trust not. One hopes at this time of year the winter is getting past. Not that we have much snow at Oxton."

He turned again to Mrs. Cadell.

"A wonderful year for chrysanthemums."

They started to discuss the Temple show.

"Say I'm forgiven?" McTaggart's voice was humble.

But Cydonia had recovered. She sat bolt upright, brown eyes discreetly lowered upon her plate.

"If you don't speak to me soon—" this in tragic tones—"I'll cut my throat with a silver knife. It will be a long business—painful too..." He checked his rising mischief, trying to probe her thought.

But the fact was Cydonia was somewhat at a loss. For the first time she tasted the consciousness of power—sweet, indeed, to the schoolgirl in her opening year of life. She wanted to be dignified and she wanted to laugh. And behind it all lay a curious joy—a touch of excitement and of wonder that hurt ... She wrapped it up in silence, mistrustful of speech.

"I want you to understand," McTaggart was watching her. The little scene had gained a sudden significance. "However I might laugh—or joke, you know, I never could think of you without respect. And if you take this part I'd hate you to feel ... that you weren't quite safe with me. D'you see what I mean." He took a deep breath and plunged in again. "I might flirt with Mrs. Bying—she's fair game, you know—but you——you're different..."

He stammered on the word.

For Cydonia had looked up and in her shy eyes he read a childish gratitude and with it, sweet and deep, the dawn of a woman's comprehension of men.

Something in the absorbed attitude of the pair caught the mother's restless glance.

"Well, Cydonia," she rose as she spoke, for the Bishop had snatched a quick look at the clock—"Have you made up your mind about the Tableaux, dear?"

"I think so, Madre. I think it sounds ... nice."

"You blessed child," said McTaggart in his heart.

McTaggart lay in bed, his eyes half-closed, watching the gray light spread from under the blind. His head ached and he felt unusually tired and heavy, bound down to his pillow by invisible chains.

From the sitting-room beyond came the clatter of plates, boards creaking in the wake of his housekeeper's step, and through the open window stole a muffled steady hum—the day-song of the London streets. A door banged loudly, and blessed silence followed. He drew the bed-clothes tighter under his chin. But now sleep had fled and into his brain thoughts rushed swiftly as though against his will; a baffling succession of events and surmises, throwing up pictures before his closed eyes.

He reached out a hand in search of his watch and found that the hour was close upon ten. A vast dissatisfaction settled down upon him. "Another day to be lived through?" it whispered in his ear. He felt a sick disgust for this business of life.

His eyes, from under their heavy lids, roaming about the room, marked on his dressing-table, without exultation, the little heap of silver and gold and crinkled bank-notes, thrown among his brushes from overnight.

In his fastidious mood the sight brought no joy, merely a memory of the long hot hours, with their inevitable accompaniment of frequent drinks. For the gambler's instinct was not his. He played carelessly, more as a means to pass the time than from any feverish attraction for the game.

And Fortune, that fickle jade, had stood by his side, tempting his indifference with a long run of luck.

He wondered as he lay there how Fantine could stand the life, night after night watch the same sordid scene, with that slightly aloof and mocking air of hers that warred with the welcome he read in her eyes.

He wondered, drearily, if the game could pay? He wondered what was to be the end of it all? It was not a woman's work, the strain was too great. For he knew the risks that underlay the affair.

He knew that she lived in fear of the police. What a horrible atmosphere! He shivered in his bed. He wished now he had not won. That heap of money there seemed to prolong the struggle of her days.

How pretty she was! He stirred restlessly, conjuring up her picture against the dark blind. With something beyond beauty, that inexpressible charm of the subtle Parisian, conscious of her power.

Something hyper-feminine set her apart from the women of that other world in which he moved. Delicately rounded, with tiny hands and feet, witty, provocative, dangerously sweet, she showed a curious contrast to the modern English girl with her sporting instincts and brusque, boyish speech.

Soft? That was the adjective—fragrant and warm, made for a strong man to love and protect. So few women nowadays held this appeal, meeting men on equal terms, half-ashamed of sex.

And all McTaggart's vanity and young virile pride were stirred by her silent call to his knight-errantry.

How he would like to snatch her away from her present feverish life! He braced himself between the sheets at the sudden stirring thought.

And then, with perplexing speed, another vision rose. He saw the face of Cydonia, with her childish smile. That was the right setting for a young girl, he decided, that cultured, shrine-like home, locked from the world outside.

For man still clings fondly to feudal memories. His reason may force him to approve the great stride of woman to the foreground of intellectual power, but his instinct still whispers that the woman he loves should be guarded from evil and from too curious eyes.

Some day this may fade away, swept aside in the course of the growing cry for freedom, but with it will pass a hidden safeguard to the sex, a human note divine—that tenderness towards the weak, purifying passion.

Well—it was all a mystery! McTaggart yawned and stretched. Almost as bewildering as his own curious case. He fell to thinking again about his double heart, Cydonia and Fantine at the back of his mind.

"It might lead to bigamy." He recalled the doctor's words—not without a certain youthful complacency! He dallied with the notion of possible married life, attracted by the novelty but mistrustful of the tie.

And here Romance was rudely assailed by an interruption from the world without and he became conscious of a knocking, loud and long, on the further door of his sitting-room.

McTaggart cursed the invisible one. Struggling out of bed he threw on a dressing-gown and blinking at the light made his way through the folding-doors to where his breakfast lay and called an exasperated, husky "Come in."

"Hullo, Peter!" a cheery voice replied—"hope I didn't wake you from your beauty sleep?"

In the open doorway stood a thick-set man, rendered still more bulky by a tweed overcoat, with merry dark eyes under shaggy brows, gleaming out of his pale, square face.

"Just off shooting," he explained hurriedly—"and run out of whiskey"—he held up a flask—"no time to get it in, so I thought as I passed your door I'd try and cadge some from you, old man."

McTaggart seized the decanter from off the sideboard, his face relaxing into a smile.

"Help yourself—confound yon! I was half asleep, after a somewhat late night."

"Sorry." The visitor grinned as he spoke. "Better for you, sonnie, up with the dawn. How doth the busy little bee—or rather how did he sacrifice to the gods his heritage of sleep?"

"In a silly game that's called chemin-de-fer, varied by supper and fifth-rate fizz."

"Any luck?" Bethune carefully filled the flask. "How's that for a steady hand?" He screwed in the stopper.

"More than mine is! Yes, I won—forty pounds odd—as far as I remember."

"The devil you did!" Bethune stared—"you wouldn't like to lend me a fiver, would you?"

"D'you mean it?" McTaggart turned toward his room, but his visitor caught him by the arm.

"Don't be an ass! I was only rotting. Nice stuff that——" he fingered the dressing-gown—"lapped in luxury—and wins forty pounds!"

His brown eyes rested for a second affectionately on his friend's weary face.

"Pity, all the same," he said abruptly. "Do you an almighty good to work. No—I mean it..." as McTaggart laughed—"a slack life's all wrong for a fellow like you. Now here I am, at it hard, every blessed day in the week. And what's the result? When I get a Saturday clear for a day's shoot or golf, you've no idea how I enjoy it. I'm like a school-boy at a bean-feast!"

"Bless you, my child," McTaggart mocked. "I don't grudge you your virtuous pleasure—go and paddle and make mud-pies—it keeps you nice and young—and fat!"

"Shut up!" Bethune made for the door—"Oh, by the way, would you like the car? If so ring up Central 609, and one of the men will bring it round. Any time before two o'clock, but you'll have to take it back yourself. It's half-day at the works, you know."

"Right-o! Hope you'll have good sport."

He watched Bethune clamber down the narrow staircase out of sight, with his broad shoulders and thick brown coat, not unlike an enormous bumble-bee.

Then, closing his door, he poured out a cup of tepid coffee and drank it thirstily. He lifted the cover off the dish that flanked the battered rack of toast. Spread-eagled, gray and cold, a mackerel met his disgusted gaze.

"Looks dead," said McTaggart thoughtfully. He replaced the cover rather quickly, played with some toast upon his plate and gathered up his pile of letters.

Three bills, a stockbroker's list and an invitation to a dance. Then, with a slight awakening of interest, he found a letter in Jill's round hand.

"DEAR PETER,

Many happy returns of the day. I'm awfully sorry your present's not ready, but I've been so busy all this term. I'll explain better when we meet and I hope to send it you next week.

Wishing you no end of luck.

Yours affectionately,
    JILL."

McTaggart laid the letter down, a sudden glow in the "double heart." He was pleased that the child should remember the date.

His birthday? Why—of course, it was!

"And I'll take her out and give her a treat. By Jove, there's the car—it's Saturday too. I'll send her a wire to say I'm coming—she'll find it when she gets back from school."

Under the spur of awakened energy the old depression fell away. To his surprise he found himself singing, midway through his bath.

Jill herself opened the door.

"Come in and have some coffee," her eyes passed from McTaggart to the big gray car. "Doesn't it look jolly! I'm longing to go in it, but I'm rather bothered too—I'll tell you why..."

She led the way through the hall into the dining-room, where the remains of a frugal lunch on a much-darned cloth were scattered around a dying fern in a tarnished brass pot, sole ornament of the long bare table.

The room had a forlorn look, with its dingy, crooked blinds, the mantel-piece littered with circulars above the feeble gas fire. It had the unhomelike air one associates with lodgings—a place to be used, not loved, and shunned when meals were over.

"Now don't say you can't come." McTaggart frowned severely—"because I mean to carry you off whether you like it or not. I've got the car for the day, and we'll go right into the country and have tea somewhere—at a little village pub!"

"Lovely!" Jill clapped her hands. She poured out a brimming cup of a thin and cloudy mixture from a chipped coffee-pot. "There you are!—Sugar? The only thing is I'd promised to go and see the baker's wife."

McTaggart laughed at her serious face.

"Oh, bother the baker's wife! Surely for one day you might relax your ... social efforts. Think of poor me."

"Poor you!" Jill mocked—"I shall have to go there first if we can fit it in. She's been so ill—it's rather a sad story, but I'll tell you if you like."

"Nothing infectious, I hope?" McTaggart stirred his muddy coffee; then, manfully, took a great gulp.

"Oh, dear, no." Jill's voice was calm. "She's had a baby, that's all." There came a little pause.

"It's dead too," the girl went on in clear, steady tones. "That's the cruel part. It needn't have been."

"No?" McTaggart felt somewhat at a loss. But Jill was plainly absorbed in the simple tragedy. She leaned towards him, elbows planted on the table, her chin propped on her hands, her eyes far away.

"She was such a nice little thing!—I've known her for years. She used to come with her grandmother, who did upholstery work, on Saturday afternoons and give her a hand. She, herself, was employed at a laundry and engaged to the baker even then.

"For five long years they saved all they could and at last they were married and took a tiny house next door to where our charwoman lives. It's not the baker himself, you know, but one of his employés who makes the bread—he's the head man. They were so happy, and then—all this trouble came!

"The 'bakers' went out on strike—d'you remember it?—and, bit by bit, all their savings melted away. The husband was worried out of his life. He couldn't go back on his pals, you see, or find any other job to do; and so at last his wife returned to the laundry and begged for some employment again.

"There happened to be a vacancy in the ironing room just then—far too heavy work for a delicate woman!—but the rate of pay is higher there, so, pluckily, she took it on. She kept this a secret from her husband and gave the latter to understand it was just a matter of light mending, without dangerous exertion. And in this way she earned enough to keep them afloat to the end of the strike. Then she collapsed—broke down utterly!—and her baby was born, before its time. The baker nearly went off his head when the true story leaked out. To think of her, with those heavy irons, on her feet all day in the heat and steam! ... I call her a real heroine." Jill's gray eyes flashed as she spoke, then softened as she added, sadly:

"But the baby died. It hadn't a chance, so the doctor said, and she was so ill. Now she's simply broken-hearted at losing it and can't pick up. I heard about it from our charwoman and promised to go and see her to-day. I must, Peter." Her voice was firm. "You won't mind if I call there first?"

"Of course not——" said McTaggart gravely. He felt a trifle taken aback by this pitiful, sordid chapter of life from the lips of his little friend: a man's discomfort, too, at the thought of her youthful knowledge of matters he deemed better kept from her awhile. He realised with sudden force the outlook, purely practical, of the growing generation of girls. Healthy, but somewhat startling too, this determination to face the facts of life in defiance of old traditions.

Jill still sat there, chin on hands, absorbed in the problem offered to her by this contrast in the life of the poor with that of the well-to-do around him.

Serenely devoid of self-consciousness she looked up suddenly at McTaggart, meeting the kindly blue eyes with a faint trouble in their depths.

"I wish these strikes could be avoided. They seem to bring such misery. I can't understand life at all!—the hopeless suffering involved..." Her voice held a note of rebellion.

"Everyone seems to be fighting hard, not for the present but the future—for something they'll never live to see!—ruining their own lives meanwhile. Supposing these strikers get their way—higher wages and all that—" she waved her hand with a broad gesture—"D'you think the generations ahead will be contented in their turn? Or will they be fighting for more, too? I don't see any end to it!"

"Well, I wouldn't worry if I were you," McTaggart nodded his head wisely. "I expect it's always been the same. It's what we're pleased to call 'Progress'.

"I think your plan's the best, my dear. To help and comfort where you can; and leave the larger questions alone for those who have really studied the matter.

"We'll go and see the baker's wife, and—can't we take her something, Jill? Food—or money? what d'you think?"

"Not money!" Jill winced. "They aren't really paupers, you know. It's so easy to hurt the pride of the poor—the working poor. We might get her some flowers."

"Well, come along then. Thanks for my coffee." He rose to his feet. "You'll want a thick coat, old girl, the wind's in the North—but a good blow will do you good—scatter the cobwebs."

As they passed into the hall he asked after Mrs. Uniacke.

"She's not very well." Jill still looked troubled. "She's gone to Reading for a suffrage meeting."

"I say—did you tell her about the baker's wife?" He tucked the rug closely around her as she settled herself in the car.

"Oh, yes." She gave him a comical glance, half-annoyed, half-amused. "Can't you guess what she said?"

But Peter was winding up the engine. He sprang back into his seat and the girl went on, raising her voice above the noisy throbbing note.

"She said—'You must try and win her at once to the Cause. Of course when we get the vote, all this will be put to rights.' They always think of the mass, you see, never of the individual. I suppose there's some truth in it." She paused doubtfully—"I wonder?"

"Well, I don't!" said McTaggart shortly. "I'm not very keen on present day politics, but I think when women are allowed to add a new party it will be a case of confusion worse confounded! So don't you go and get involved, Jill. You keep an open mind. I'd hate to see you in any way mixed up in this militant folly."

"Well—I wish Mother weren't. It's simply killing her. She hasn't the nerve for these perpetual scenes."

They slowed down at a corner where a flower-woman stood with a basket of yellow chrysanthemums.

"Will these do for you?" McTaggart bought a bunch and laid them in Jill's lap; the heavy golden heads on their long pale stems preserving their subtle and Eastern charm, as though a secret lay beneath the curled petals in each still and exquisite flower heart.

They twisted through mean streets until they came to a row of little houses behind the Circus Road.

"It's number 36," directed Jill; but as the car stopped before the door it was opened from within and a woman emerged, old and bent, shrouded in a shawl.

Jill got down and spoke to her, and after a few words returned to McTaggart's side.

"She's fast asleep"—her voice was hushed—"so I won't go in and wake her up." The woman, with suspicious eyes, stared at the young man in the car, as Jill took the flowers and held them out.

"Give her these, please, and say I'll come again. I'm so glad she's getting on. Thank you—good-bye."

McTaggart was amused at the lack of gratitude. For the woman took the offering without another word. He guessed shrewdly that the sight of the car—the outward sign of luxury—had roused the deep slumbering resentment of the poor, their latent fear of being patronized.

"Charming old lady," he suggested. But Jill seemed unconscious of the slight.

"That's her Aunt," she informed him with a sigh, spelling relief at a duty done. "She's come from Stratford to look after her. So now we can have a lovely drive."

She turned a smiling face toward him, cheeks rosy with the air, keen and crisp, of the winter day, and drew the shabby fur tighter round her throat as the car backed slowly out of the narrow road.

"Where are we going?"

"That's for you to decide. But I think through Hampstead, now we've come this way. Sure you're warm enough? I put in my other coat—so burrow into that if the wind gets keen."

He turned the car up the long hilly road leading to Swiss Cottage and leaned back easily.

"How's school going?" He smiled at her with pride. She looked so pretty with her childish, flushed cheeks.

"College, d'you mean?" Jill corrected him. "Nothing exciting since the row over ancient history. I'm working rather hard for the Exams now."

"I don't think you told me that. Let's hear about it."

"Well, it's rather a long story——" she settled herself back with her cold hands thrust beneath the fur rug. "So if you get bored, please say so at once."

"Fire away," McTaggart observed.

"You remember that unholy fuss last Boat Race day? When I and the other Cambridge girls held the Bun Shop against Oxford?"

"No—not exactly. What Bun Shop?"

McTaggart saw fun ahead, for Jill's gray eyes were full of mischief beneath their dark lashes. He noticed, for the first time, how long and thick they were, curling back in a rippling line that cast a faint shadow when she lowered the lids.

"Oh, the Bun Shop is a little room in the basement of the college where old Mother Griggs sells all sorts of cakes, sticks of chocolate and hot coffee—for 'Elevens' or lunch, you know. It's at the end of a long passage, quite by itself, with just a counter across it and a dim religious sort of light from a top-window into the area. There Mother Griggs sits and barters—rather like a grim old idol—and in between she grumbles and knits socks. She must have knitted hundreds by now! Well, on boat race day we all wear colors—I'm Cambridge, of course, because Uncle was at King's. And some Oxford girl had a wonderful cousin who was rowing in the boat. So she simply 'swanked,' you know, and swore Oxford was sure to win. The end of it was we got riled. So we formed up into the Bun Shop—all of us Cambridge girls—and we held the place against Oxford right through the mid-day hour—— We wouldn't let a single Dark Blue pass. It was fun!—a gorgeous scrimmage. Until some sneak went up and told, and down came the Principal. As luck would have it, she fell on me. So I got put in the Black Book."

She paused for breath as they crossed FitzJohn's Parade and started on the steep climb to Hampstead.

McTaggart glanced at her and laughed.

"What does that mean?" he inquired.

"The very worst." Her voice was tragic. "It's the only punishment we get. You see, it's not like any school. It's run on University lines. Just lectures you're supposed to attend and if you don't it's your lookout—you get ploughed in the Exams. But for any serious, big offence your name is written in the Black Book. And after a third entry (which rarely happens) you're 'sent down'—that is, expelled."

"Phew...!" McTaggart whistled. "May I ask how many times you've managed to get yourself inscribed?"

"Twice." The girl's face was grave. "It's bad luck, isn't it? And the other day at ancient history I very nearly was nabbed again!"

She paused for a moment to turn the collar of her coat up round her ears. Her eyes above the gray fur shone like stars in the frosty air.

"We got a new Professor last term; rather young, just down from Oxford. I don't think..." she smiled mischievously—"he quite understands girls. It isn't like a school, you see. We're rather keen on that idea. We don't mind hard work or a man who insists on our attention. But the Professor thought it funny to—well, to patronize, you know. He used to be satirical and make allowance for female brains. Just as if we weren't as sharp—and sharper, too, than a pack of boys! He had bright ginger hair and a brand-new cap and gown—rather a 'nut'!"—McTaggart roared—"with a drawly sort of 'superior' voice. Well, Judy Seton——" Jill broke off—"she's a pal of mine—a splendid girl, always up to sport—arrived one day just before his lecture and handed round envelopes. Inside was a card and stitched to it was a little curl cut off a door-mat—one of those ginger ones, you know. It's woolly stuff, but exactly the shade of the Professor's Titian glory!

"Underneath it she had written—'In fond memory'—and below—'R.I.P. The Oxford man—ah!'

"We were all in the class-room ready for lecture and some girl had a box of pins. So it ended in our fastening the love-locks over our hearts!

"Well, presently my Lord arrives, in his brand-new cap and gown with his sheaf of notes, and mounts the platform, very suave and very bored.

"And the first thing that he did—you'd never believe it!—was to run his hand smoothly across his head.

"'He's missing them!' Judy whispered, and, of course, we all went off at that. We daren't laugh out aloud, but there we were, giggling hopelessly, while the Professor glared at us.

"He started in his most sarcastic voice:

"'A little less amusement, ladies. I can understand that it is difficult for youth to stoop to serious subjects...' And then he stopped with a little gasp and we knew he had seen the red curls! Just at that moment the door opened and in came a lady visitor. You know they're sort of inquisitors, very often 'old girls'—who can walk into any class-room and sit there to hear a lecture. Judy calls them 'Propriety Pills,' and, although some are really nice, here and there you get a Tartar who carries stories to the Principal.

"This one was a Mrs. Bevis—we'd nicknamed her 'The Beaver.' She really was rather like that animal, with a snub-nosed, anxious face, and she always wore a black mantle and waddled as she walked. Well—you're sure you're not bored?"

"Sure." McTaggart's voice was hearty. This sidelight on a school for girls was entertaining and unexpected.

"Go on. What happened then?"

"The Professor gave the Beaver a chair by the fire, facing the room. We'd hurriedly removed the curls during their polite palaver. This is the idiotic part. I'd put mine into a book that lay with others on my desk. I didn't notice at the time that it was an 'Ancient History.' As it happened, that day I was sitting just beneath the platform. We were, all of us, solemn as owls under the Beaver's sharp black eyes. For she's about the worst of the pack for nosing out any trouble.

"The Professor lent her his primer and started on the lecture, still looking a little flushed, while we were busy taking notes. As luck would have it, midway, some date tripped him up and before I could collect my wits he asked me for my 'Ancient History.'"

"Where the curl was?" McTaggart suggested.

"Exactly." Jill's voice was tragic. "He leaned down from the platform and picked it up off my desk. Of course, it opened at the page! There was the red lock—the card as well!

"You can just imagine how I felt and I heard Judy Seton gasp. Luckily the Beaver missed it. The Professor never said a word, but his face was like a thunder-cloud. He hunted up the date he wanted, closed the book with a snap and put it down on his desk. At the end of the lecture he handed it back with a curt word of thanks and went off with the 'lady visitor,' talking fourteen to the dozen."

"That's not the end?" McTaggart saw by the girl's face there was more to follow.

"No—of course not. All that morning I simply sat on thorns, expecting between every lecture to be sent for by the Principal. But nothing happened. At five o'clock I went down from my last lecture and passed by the Professors' room, where the door was wide open. Inside was Mr. Jackson—the Professor—you know—writing hard. So, then, I had an inspiration. I knocked and said: 'May I speak to you, sir?' And he wheeled round, looked surprised and said in a chilly voice:

"'Certainly. What do you want?'

"It was no good mincing matters, so I asked, outright:

"'Are you going to report me, sir?'

"He didn't answer for a moment. He seemed to be thinking hard. Then, in the same cold, absent manner——

"'No.' Just that and nothing more."

Jill stopped, her attention caught by the first glimpse of the open heath as the car breasted the last rise, and the wind came blustering in their teeth.

"Oh, isn't it lovely here!" She drew a deep breath of content.

"Straight across?" McTaggart asked. She nodded her head, her eyes fixed on the far-away vista of trees, bare but shrouded in a violet haze.

Over Hendon a misty sun was veiled in banks of gray clouds, but high in the sky a wide streak showed of a pale and tender bird's egg blue.

"Well—what happened next?" McTaggart brought her, with a sudden drop, back to earth.

"Oh ... I felt so relieved I just rushed ahead, you know. I told him he was a regular brick! And then, as he seemed a bit surprised, I explained about the Black Book—how a third entry now might end in my being sent down for good.'

"'Good Heavens!' he said, 'I'd no idea,' and, really, he looked sympathetic. So I said I was awfully sorry that we'd all of us played the goat. Well, what d'you think he said then? quite simply—without 'side.'

"'It's partly my own fault, too ... I'm not popular, I know—I can't get the atmosphere...'

"You might have knocked me down with a feather!"

"I'll bet anything you explained it!" McTaggart smiled to himself.

"Why, of course I did." Jill stared at him. "I felt so awfully sorry. I said:

"'Look here, sir, we'd like you all right if only you'd treat us more like men. It's not a girl's school, it's a college. And lots of us are working hard to earn our own living when we leave. So, perhaps, we think a good deal of the ... usefulness of our work. We like to feel the Professors know it, and help and ... respect us—just like men. In the senior lectures most of us, too, are in our third year course, you know, and you treat us exactly like the juniors! It's all wrong, sir, don't you see?'"

"Bravo you! ..." McTaggart cried. "How did he take your ... candid help?"

"He said: 'Thank you—I see the point—you aren't Freshers any more. And, perhaps ... Yes—the manner's wrong.' Then, quite suddenly, he laughed. 'The Oxford man—ah! eh, Miss Uniacke?'

"I felt rather a fool then, Peter."

Irrelevantly, she added: "He's got nice eyes when he laughs."

"Oh ... Jill, Jill!" McTaggart's glance swerved from the steering wheel aside to find his little friend's face flushed beyond the excuse of the breeze.

"Anyhow, we shook hands," Jill went on hurriedly, "and he said, 'Well I hope at the next lecture I shall find a more attentive class.'"

"So I told him I'd see to that! and I went downstairs and talked to the girls. And the next Friday we were good. You could hear a pin fall," Jill laughed.

"I must say he looked nervous but, when the lecture was over and he stood on the platform ready to leave, Judy got up and gave the signal—'Three Cheers for Mr. Jackson.'

"We let it rip—such a row! He looked rather taken aback but awfully pleased, said 'Thank you, ladies,' and then simply did a bolt."

"Well, I'm blessed!" McTaggart roared—"but glad I'm not a Professor for girls."

"We thought him such a brick, you see, for not reporting the whole matter. And, after all," Jill smiled—"he can't help his red hair."

"Nor his 'nice eyes'?" Peter added.

But Jill refused to be drawn.

Mrs. Merrod gazed into her mirror across the littered dressing-table.

It was a gilded triple affair, each side panel swinging on a pivot so that the woman sitting there could study herself from all angles. Under the crude electric light, from which she had removed the rose-coloured shade, her face looked sallow and almost plain, but was saved from insignificance by the intelligence of her eyes.

Dark topaz colour they were under the fine arched brows, full of deep slumbering fire that accentuated the hint of passion in the full-lipped and mocking mouth.

After a moment's steady gaze, drawing her lace peignoir about her, she rang the bell that lay on the table: a dainty little silver toy where a winged Eros stooped to kiss a smiling Psyche with arms uplifted. When the lips of the little creatures met the electric poles were united, and away in her maid's room she could hear the distant reverberation.

The door opened noiselessly.

"Mélanie, my velvet dress, and the boots with the gray suede tops."

"Bien, Madame." The maid passed into the dressing-room adjoining, where a looped-up curtain of rose-coloured silk revealed an elaborately fitted bath.

"The ermine scarf—no! The gray fox." She still studied her pale face—"and I want those new combs from Lalique—and long gray gloves and my violet toque."

She glanced as she spoke at the little clock which pointed to half-past six, and, with a sigh of relief, leaned back comfortably in her chair.

To pass the time while the maid came and went between the cupboards of the two rooms, Mrs. Merrod opened her manicure case, and began to polish her pink nails.

Then, as the door closed at last behind Mélanie's brisk step, she stirred herself and started upon the lengthy business of her toilette.

Into a saucer she poured from a bottle a thick creamy-looking liquid, and, with a broad camel's hair brush, spread it smoothly over her face. She waited for the skin to absorb it, then, with a piece of chamois leather, she polished the whitened surface lightly, added a faint dust of powder and peered again into the glass.

Satisfied with the result, she drew out the nearest drawer of the satin-wood dressing table, disclosing a number of pencils and lip-salves and little pots of cosmetic.

She hunted for a tiny brush, dipped it in a dark powder and, holding back each eyelid, proceeded to brush the lashes upward. Next a black pencil for her eyebrows, the merest line, traced with skill; then another, this time blue to accentuate the length of her eyes.

Finally, with care, she selected a lip-salve case from among many and held it thoughtfully for a moment against the creamy-white face.

"Too red." Fantine sighed. Her weakness was for carmine lips, but she feared McTaggart's critical gaze, those keen and mischievous blue eyes.

Picking out a paler shade, she passed it slowly over her mouth. At once the face became alive, losing the suggestion of a mask. Beneath the dark curls, bunched low on her ears, she coloured carefully each lobe, and, with her head tilted back, added a touch inside her nostrils.

This singular performance over, she rose briskly to her feet, shed the filmy lace peignoir and stood before the long mirror.

She nodded happily to her image, conscious of her perfect figure. In the shimmering long black silk tights with the frilled lace about her bosom, she looked like a dainty travesty of a Harlequin in a Transformation.

Slipping quickly into her dress, she was sheathed now in black velvet; very severe but with a cut that whispered Paris in each line.

She fastened a single deep red rose into the folds above her waist, then swayed slowly from side to side, very supple, her hands to her hips, a slight smile on the reddened lips.

"Bon!" She reached back for her hat—a violet splash on the lace counterpane—settled it closely on her head, with a final touch to the glossy hair, doubly black now against the warmth of the crumpled purple velvet.

At this moment the knocker sounded. Close at hand it seemed to clatter, for her bedroom door faced the entrance with only a narrow strip of hall.

She heard the maid's step pass and then the well-known voice of McTaggart.

"Entrez donc!" She cried gaily, "I am almost ready, Pierrot." Through the half-open door, glancing sideways with bright eyes, her hands still lifted to her head, she caught a glimpse of his laughing face.

He hesitated on the threshold, drinking in the pretty picture of the dainty pink room with its gleaming mirror and silver toys and the perfect silhouette of Fantine in her sombre velvet dress.

"Épatante! Comment ça va?" For he prided himself on a slender stock of French slang acquired mostly from a painstaking study of Willy's works.

"You do look nice!" He eased the strain of a conversation begun in French.

"Just one?" He stooped down and lightly kissed her smiling lips. Then he stood back, holding her hands, and, with a comprehensive glance, looked her over from head to foot, touched anew by her feminine charm.

"Only my boots now—and gloves, mon cher."

Her eyes with their half-veiled topaz lights returned his gaze hardily, with an answering pressure of tiny hands. "Go, now—there's a good boy. Mélanie!" she raised her voice—"vite! mes bottines." She sank down on a low chair, her feet outstretched.

"Let me do it," McTaggart begged, "I'm sure I'd make a splendid maid."

"No, no—Mélanie." The sly face of the femme de chambre drove him effectually from the room.

He sauntered across into the salon, where a fire was burning cosily. The wide portière was drawn across the larger room beyond where, on the evenings when they played, the card table was set out.

He warmed his hands before the blaze, glancing at the crowded mantel-piece, covered with many photographs, most of them portraits of men.

He smiled as he recognized the face of a youthful college friend. It was signed in a sprawling hand—"Yours, Archie," and the thought flashed into his mind that no power of blandishment could win from himself a similar trophy.

Whatever his weakness for Fantine might cost, McTaggart knew, deep down in his heart, respect did not share in the feeling; his shrewdness would balance his desire. But he knew as well that she held a charm which set her apart from her type, not only physical but mental, appealing to his intellect.

There lay the danger. For after her the English women he admired seemed heavy; they lacked her spice; their calmer beauty was apt to cloy on close acquaintance.

He was idly scanning the photographs, his mind partially abstracted, when he caught a glimpse of a curious face, half-hidden from his sight.

The portrait, old and faded, had slipped into the crack between mirror and wall and he rescued it and held it a moment underneath the electric light.

A man with a short square beard, his dark hair cut "en brosse," with evil eyes and an aquiline nose, rather crooked below the bridge. Something Eastern, McTaggart thought, lay in the lazy, sensuous smile, in the heavily lidded narrow eyes, slightly tilted toward the temples.

A Frenchman? hardly. A Greek? perhaps. A "wrong un'"!—of that he was sure.

He had just time to replace the photo before Fantine entered the room.

"Me voilà donc!—you admire my gallery?—all the men I have loved and lost..."

"It makes me glad I am not among them." McTaggart turned with a short laugh. "I should like to flatter myself with the thought, that I am the one you will love ... and keep!"

"That depends." She came nearer and the faint perfume she affected floated up into his nostrils as he looked down from his height at her.

"On what?" Despite his control the narrow face upturned to him, above the shimmering gray fur, with its red lips in a mocking line cutting the dead-white of her skin, made his pulses beat faster.

"On yourself." She turned away with a quick, indifferent shrug. Fully aware of her power, she never strained a situation.

"My friend—I'm famished!" She fastened her glove. "Why talk about the little heart when the big rest of one is empty? I thought you were here to take me out to a new restaurant to-night?"

"But it's only seven o'clock." He smiled at the rueful note in her voice. "You can't eat anything yet, can you? Of course we'll start—at once, if you like."

"Good." She clapped her hands like a child. "I'm ver' hungry, really, Pierrot. I slept late and missed lunch."

McTaggart noticed, with amusement, that the question of his own appetite never occurred to the fair speaker. Manlike, a trait which would have aggrieved his sense of mastership in his home, appeared to him as involving no martyrdom in this piquante egoist's hands.

"Greedy child! As a matter of fact, I told my taxi to wait. It's such a nice one, almost new. I thought, perhaps, you'd like a drive?"

"Merci, non." She drew her furs carefully about her shoulders, the gray head of the fox nestling under her little pink ear.

"Lucky beast!" said McTaggart, with a gesture pointing his remark. "Why wasn't I born a fox?"

"Because the English are born sheep!" Her topaz eyes flashed wickedly. "They only ask for a stupid leader—and off they go, baa ... baa ... quite contented—straggling down the same dull path paved with precepts."

They passed out as she spoke and entered the narrow lift where a saddened-looking individual clung to the rope like a drowning man. Mrs. Merrod glanced at him, recognizing a new porter.

"Slowly, please,"—she commanded. "I hate..." she explained to McTaggart—"to feel my feet running up my spine. Once when I went into the City to see my lawyer the lift went down at such a terrible pace, mon Dieu!—I found a boot-button in my hair."

"You're sure it wasn't the top of a hat-pin?"

McTaggart's voice was studiously grave.

"Mais non! A button. But I'm not quite certain whether it came off a boot..."

The sad-looking porter, his back turned, relaxed into a sudden grin. He saw the pair into their taxi and stood for a moment watching them.

"There goes a little bit of all right!"—he confided to the world at large. Then he solemnly spat on McTaggart's shilling "for luck" and burrowed back into the lift.

The Restaurant "Au Bon Bourgeois" faced on a dingy Soho street, the newly painted white door flanked by myrtle-trees in tubs. The entrance was through a narrow passage which led to a low room in the rear, divided from the one in front by a partition of plate glass.

The latter place was reserved for the Café, where marble tables were closely packed on a red-tiled and sanded floor; and it boasted its own separate entrance, carefully remote from the other. It gave a Bohemian atmosphere to the newly opened Restaurant. For the diners in the room beyond could watch the ever-changing scene—undisturbed by smoke or chatter—like a slice of French life cut bodily from the gay capital over seas.

The proprietor had been head-waiter in a fashionable London hôtel; a shrewd Swiss—known as "Monsieur Auguste"—he had learned the secret underlying the modern demand for catering.

He realized that the Englishman will readily pay an exorbitant price for rich food badly cooked in a first-class Restaurant; impervious to a hurried service, to overcrowding and noise, provided that the place held a fixed reputation for "smartness."

But he knew, besides, that success waited at the other end of the long scale: that it tickled the average British mind to strike a bargain over dinner: to justify the national shrewdness and play the pauper (without discomfort)—with a hint, too, of mild Bohemia to salt its sense of respectability. The fact that he gave them well-cooked whiting instead of a tepid "Sole Normande"; "pot-au-feu" which was mainly stock, in place of a glue-like "Consommé" his clients manfully ignored. Conscious of the economy of dining "Au Bon Bourgeois," their virtue was rewarded, doubtless, by the after ease of their digestion.

No noisy band rent the air. The service was clean and prompt under the all-pervading eye of the busy proprietor. And for those who found no special interest in the Café life the place offered as a perpetual mise-en-scène, two rooms on the first floor were provided, where the tables ranged along the walls were screened by match-wood partitions, offering a sanctuary for flirtation and isolation for the "Select."

McTaggart had reserved a table in the coveted angle of the room where no waiter could jar his chair by darting feverishly behind it. It allowed his guest a full view through the screen of plate-glass and, as Fantine took her place, under the cool, admiring eye of "Monsieur Auguste," in attendance, she gave a quick exclamation of mingled pleasure and surprise.

"Charming—quite Continental..."

A wistful note crept into her face. Absorbed by this travesty of the Boulevards, she peeled off her long suede gloves and smoothed her hair with an absent gesture.

Monsieur Auguste, in spotless white—linen coat and long apron—relieved by a huge black cravatte fastened with the famous pin (the present of a Grand Duke), glanced at McTaggart with the smile of a serene and confident host.

"Look at those men playing dominoes! and the long-haired creature with the cape—He's drinking absinthe ... oh! how nice...!" Fantine's eyes shone with golden lights.

"Madame is pleased?" Monsieur Auguste handed the Wine Carte to McTaggart, the page carelessly opened where the list of champagnes began. With a long nail cut into a point he underlined a special brand. "Madame would like this," he said, "not too dry, a good vintage."

But "Madame" was not of his opinion. With all her artistic little soul she revelled in the atmosphere, recognizing the bourgeois note—"Red wine, n'est ce pas, Pierrot?—something that sings aloud of France."

And, suddenly, before her eyes, the scene blurred and, in its place, memory tricked her. She was back in a smoke-wreathed cabaret at Montmartre. She could hear the merry chorus rise and see Bruant, with his shaggy mane, roaring out the "Song of the Grape"; while by her side, his arm about her, was the one man she had really loved.

Ah! those days ... She caught her breath and was conscious again of Auguste's stare.

He studied the white, piquante face and wondered if he had made a mistake. But he added a new shade of respect to his suave acknowledgment of her order. Not many ladies with such red lips, combined with a costume of faultless cut, carelessly dismissed champagne. He bowed himself away from her, and sent the pair his best waiter.

"I'm glad you approve of the little place." McTaggart took on an explorer's pride. "I found it by the merest chance and since then have come often. The food's not bad—well, you'll see for yourself!—and it always comes in piping hot. Now, what shall we have?" He gathered up the big card with its printed list.

"Petite Marmite,—d'you agree to that? and fish—you choose——" he handed it over.

"Skate," she said decidedly—"with 'black butter'" (she translated). "It sounds vile in English, somehow—what a difference language makes to things. Listen, now—'Raie au beurre noir'—Isn't there a charm about it?—and ... 'Veal Schnitzel' ... and 'Petits Pois'—Yes, I know they're tinned——" she forestalled his objection—"but with plenty of butter and well cooked...." she flashed an expressive little gesture.

"What potatoes?" McTaggart asked.

"Fi donc!" She smiled indulgently—"a boiled potato for you, mon cher—the hall-mark of the English 'home.' And cabbage, perhaps, to make you happy!"

"No—I draw the line at that!—What do you say to a bird, to follow?"

"Comme tu veux!—For me it's enough—with a little fruit and good coffee ... and a 'petit verre.' Say, now, Pierrot, shall we come one day and sit there?" She pointed gaily through the screen to the crowded noisy room beyond.

"I should love that! To sip absinthe—dressed like a little milliner! Look at that woman on the right with the shabby ulster and elegant boots. You rarely see that over here—It's a feathered hat in the latest fashion and no thought for the 'dessous.' And the hair all scrabbled up and dull—the gloves old or far too tight—everything squandered on the dress, with colors to make one's ... 'digestion' turn!"

"Even the women in higher classes don't seem 'soignées'—only smart. And you call yourself a clean race! ... Because you walk through a cold bath."

For that sudden mirage of the Past had aroused in her the mal du pays. She flogged the Present with a rod, pickled in salt experience.

McTaggart felt a trifle ruffled. He was English enough to hold the theory that nothing outside the little island—with a patronizing lesser degree of excellence for its colonies—could nearly approach the standard set by British prosperity—plus its morals.

"Oh, come, now"—he paused a moment as the waiter ladled out their soup. "I defy you to find anywhere a finer type than our English girls. Look at their skin—their teeth—their hair—the healthy, well-bred look of them. Oh, no—I grant, there's charm, and style and an inborn sense of dress in foreign women and they're generally witty and can talk fourteen to the dozen! But give me an English girl"—his thoughts flashed back to Cydonia—-"unless," he added somewhat quickly—"unless, of course, I can have Fantine."

"Ah! merci——" she clapped her hands—"I'm the exception to prove the rule? But, seriously, I think you're biassed, though part of what you say is true. They've everything to make them perfect, these rose-leaf tinted, long-limbed girls—everything! That's what annoys me—save the wit to profit by Nature's gifts. It's such a prodigal waste of beauty ... Look at that girl at the end table——" she lowered her voice as she spoke—"with the colouring of Titian's 'Flora.' And she wears—bon Dieu!—an orange blouse. Because she's taking Tango lessons! And with it a cheap amethyst necklace. Someone has told her—without doubt!—they're Queen Alexandra's favorite stones. Her hat? Yes—it cost two guineas. So she compromised with shoes from a Sale and last year's skirt, taken in rather badly round the ankles. What a hotch-potch!—bound about that divine figure—ruined by cheap corsets—and yes! I was sure of it—a hole in a pair of openwork thread stockings!"

"I give in!——" McTaggart laughed—"or I know you won't enjoy your dinner. You see I'm half-Italian, too, so it's not real disloyalty."

She looked up, interested.

"Tiens! Perhaps it explains your ... un-English charm? On your mother's side, I suppose?"

"Yes. She was a Maramonte. They've lived for centuries at Siena. I believe they've got a palace there a good bit older than the Tower! But I've never met my relations. My uncle is the present marquis—with two sons and a second wife. So there's no chance for me as heir—beyond what was left me by my mother."

He laughed, happily unconcerned. "I can't picture myself, somehow, the lordly owner of feudal lands. You know Siena's quite mediæval in many of its customs now. 'Il Palio,'—those weird races are still run twice a year. Every quarter of the city sends a horse to compete, and the jockeys wear historic clothes and tear round the market-place. It's a little bigger than Hanover Square and sloped on the side of a hill, so at the most dangerous angle they lay out a row of mattresses! Fact, I assure you"—he smiled. "I mean to see it myself some day. And, after the race is run, the jockey leads the winning horse, in gorgeous trappings with the banner of the victorious Quarter, right into the Cathedral! There it receives a solemn blessing and after that a feast is held in the market-place by torch light and the horse, if you please, presides—with his bin of corn—at the head of the table! Isn't it quaint? In these days of 'wireless' and Zeppelins there's something rather refreshing about it—the glamour of a fairy-tale."

"Delightful. Take me with you, Pierrot." She sent him a mocking smile over the edge of her wine-glass.

"Will you come?" McTaggart's voice was low,

The "intime" atmosphere of the place, with the magnetism of Fantine, her strange and nameless charm, were not without effect on him.

"Per'aps..." She shrugged her shoulders lightly. "If you will promise to leave behind that rather alarming British half sacred to the 'English Miss.'"

His "Scotch heart!" Whimsically he studied the proposition. It seemed just now a small item beside the beat of his other organ.

A sudden moodiness beset him. Was he never to understand himself? To be swayed with every turn of the wind at the mercy of his temperament?

For the foreign blood in his veins warred perpetually with the Scotch. It was in truth a heady mixture, typical South and typical North. With the passion of the former, its restless fiery love of beauty, were blent the caution and the strength and something vaguely religious—'dour'—tinged with a faint melancholy, the heritage with his blue eyes from a long-dead Covenanter.

Never, he said to himself, should he find a woman who suited both sides; gave him ardour and left him respect, satisfying body and soul...

Fantine, with her subtle instinct, divined the change in his mood. She swept aside personalities and started to talk of the Russian Ballet.

"It's curious how it has left its mark. It seems to have bitten and to have scratched!"

McTaggart, despite himself, smiled at the clever, brutal touch. This was Fantine at her best.

"To succeed now one must surprise!—the days of Mendelssohn are past. I suppose the world is getting old with emotions that Time has dulled."

"Or the Worldlings too degenerate." McTaggart still felt gloomy. "These Cubists now ... What do you think of their pictures? Do you call it really Art?"

"I can't somehow make up my mind. I like the idea at the back of it. I think they're groping in the dark for a sign not yet vouchsafed to us."

McTaggart tried to follow her thought, failed and asked for a nearer clue.

Fantine's eyes were far away, the fine brows drawn together in an effort of concentration. She pushed her plate away from her and, with hands clasped on the table, leaned unconsciously toward him.

"Have you ever read Swedenborg? His 'Heaven and Hell!' No? What a pity! Well one of his favourite theories is on what he calls 'Correspondences.' He thinks that everything lovely here is the symbol, materialized, of a higher, more exquisite spiritual force—known to angels in Paradise. For instance, a rose—with its perfect shape, its colour, its scent, has a counterpart—a 'Correspondence' is his word—with a 'state'—it's difficult to explain—-a ... sense of happiness above. Well, it seems to me that artists now, in music and painting—in all the arts—are trying to get away from form to express the meaning in their work. It's a wireless message to the mind away beyond the animal senses; something above the mere glamour of appeal to the flesh—it's 'correspondence.'"

McTaggart nodded his head gravely.

"It sounds bigger than I imagined." He felt a half-ashamed surprise at these depths in a woman he deemed light.

And, as if in answer to his thought, the old mocking look returned to the painted lips that smiled at him. But scorn was in her half-veiled eyes. For Fantine knew the ways of men: the forfeit that her class must pay—to be used and loved and set aside as a thing of nought when custom staled.

She felt a keen stab of revolt, a fierce desire to extort to the full her share of the bargain, blow for blow, to prey on the weaknesses she served.

And McTaggart's next careless remark sealed his fate as far as it lay in the hands of the shrewd adventuress, turning the scales against the man.

"I didn't know you read so much. How on earth do you find the time?"

The speech, innocently meant, stung the wound in her heart.

But she gave him a daring glance.

"Mon cher—I am alone ... sometimes!"

"You wouldn't be if I had my way." He checked himself as the waiter poured the fragrant coffee into their cups.

"Talking of the Cubists' work"—Fantine reverted to the subject. "I was over in Paris last year when they held their exhibition. Rather a funny thing happened." She dipped the long slab of sugar daintily into her cup and sucked it like a wilful child, conscious of stolen pleasure. "We used to call that a 'canard,' Pierrot——" laughingly, she interjected—"Well, revenons! There was a picture—I can't quite remember the name. But I think it was called 'A woman, falling downstairs.' There was always a little crowd before it—the artist was the 'dernier cri'—and I stood one day and amused myself by listening to their remarks. One man said: 'There—don't you see? It's her head—and that touch of white is an arm—and, well, of course! her foot is plain against the background of the wall.' The poor lady by his side tried in vain to see the outline. She screwed up both her eyes and looked like a child with a jig-saw puzzle. As to myself——" Fantine laughed—"I must confess I could make out nothing but a blur of colour and sharp lines without the slightest human form. Well, some months later I happened to meet this very artist and I told him of the enthusiasm in Paris and the remarks I had overheard. Ma foi!—I thought he would have slain me. He said:

"'Madame—They are fools, fools, fools! There is no woman—But—of course! It's the feeling ... the fear ... I have painted. The sense of falling down steep stairs.'"

McTaggart laughed heartily.

"Well—it's a bit above my head! I'm afraid I've no artistic merit. I like a picture I understand."

"I know." Fantine's voice was sweet, but malice lay underneath—"a picture that tells its own story—like that famous Scotch cow lost in the snow."

But her host's attention was wandering. The Titian "Flora" had caught his eye. With flushed cheeks and an air of pride she was smoking her first cigarette. He pointed it out to his companion.

"Let's hope it will agree with her. Hullo! she's choked—poor child! She's really quite a pretty girl—I don't know why you find fault with her."

"Not with her face," Fantine corrected—"one sees that the Bon Dieu modelled that. It's the sinful clothes she makes for herself—without celestial inspiration! She reminds me of an English girl my husband used to adore in Algiers."

McTaggart felt a sudden curiosity. This was the first time Mrs. Merrod had mentioned to him the late partner of her married joys and cares.

"Yes? And what did you say to that?"

"I? why nothing." She laughed lightly. "I'm not jealous—pas si bête! He was always very kind to me and I liked to watch his little affairs. But in this instance it proved tragic..."

She smiled the meaning out of the word.

"What happened?" McTaggart asked, his eyes still on the distant "Flora."

"She was very pretty—the wild-rose type—and poor Gustave was quite captured. You see, she always wore gloves..." She paused with a pensive, teasing air.

"Too tight, perhaps? or shabby, eh?" He remembered her sweeping remarks.

"Oh, dear, no—far worse than that! One evening she took them off and he found ... that she actually bit her nails!"

"And that finished it?"

Fantine nodded as the waiter handed McTaggart's bill.

"But, of course! Gustave wept with chagrin. But I told him it was his own fault. He should have laid his volatile heart at the feet of a Parisienne."

"The love then was only skin-deep?"

Obedient to her little sign, he handed his guest her furs, watching her with amused blue eyes as she powdered her face in the glass.

"Not ever, that, mon cher Pierrot"—she flashed him a mocking glance, hard and brilliant, holding a hint of the resentment in her heart. Then she rose to her feet with a supple movement, gathering her furs about her.

"He loved her," she volunteered—"as far as—jusqu'aux bouts des ongles!"

Ebenezer Cadell was one of those men—daily becoming more rare—who, after a life of strenuous work, can face, at breakfast, a mutton chop. In this nervous age the fact in itself stands for an attribute of success. For next to money a good digestion will thrust an ambitious man far.

He did not even take his chop in obedience to his doctor's wishes, but out of a healthy appetite for that peculiar delicacy. He liked it as a second course, after eggs or fish or bacon, rather underdone and large, remembering lean years of porridge.

Breakfast over, he filled his pipe before the fire, where his boots were warming, and steeped his soul in the Liberal papers with the air of governing the Empire.

Mrs. Cadell, naturally, took in the Morning Post to keep in touch with that social world where names mean more than personal effort.

Cydonia was given the Daily Mirror, generally left unread by her and devoured in the Servants' Hall. Once a week Punch arrived and an unwieldy Ladies' journal, while into the depths of the smoking-room was smuggled a certain apricot paper.

On this particular winter morning the master of the house had failed to find the notice of a sale in his beloved Chronicle. Slightly aggrieved, he made his way into the morning-room beyond, where Helen was occupied poring over household matters. He begged the loan of those crisp sheets, white and pleasant to the touch, that seem to hold a faint suggestion of the class they represent.

He was leaving the room when his wife turned and stopped him with an imperious gesture.

"Can you spare me a moment, Ebenezer?" The request was in truth a command. "I want to talk about Cydonia?"

Cadell, unwillingly, glanced at the clock.

"Well—five minutes—if that will do. What's the trouble about, my dear? Hope there's nothing wrong with the child?"

"Oh, no. I'm thinking of giving a dance. Cydonia's birthday falls next month. It would be a 'coming-out' affair and I want it—naturally—well done."

"Quite right. Dear me!"—the man sighed. "It seems only the other day she was running about in pinafores! I can't think of her as grown-up."

The tender look came into his face that only his daughter could evoke. Mrs. Cadell saw it and smiled, as he added in his pompous manner:

"If it's a question of money, my dear, you needn't spare it. Order the best. I'll settle the bills."

"Thank you. There'll be a good deal to arrange ... But since you approve I'll take it in hand."

The old man lingered at the door.

"Who are you going to invite?" he asked—"You're not counting on me for men?"

"Oh, no!"—She spoke hurriedly, with a faint note of satire he knew full well—"But I'm counting on you for good champagne."

"H'm ... I see. But I always thought it didn't matter much at a dance—more quantity than quality."

"A popular mistake," said Helen, "or rather most unpopular! It's like this"—she explained—"we don't know many dancing-men—at least not of the kind I want! But it's quite easy nowadays. You ask people to make up parties. Only they're not your guests, you see, but friends of the people who dine and bring them; and they feel they can grumble openly at any flaw in the entertainment. So I want the arrangements and the wine—(it's more important than the food) to be quite—well, above suspicion. Then, you see," she smiled enigmatically, "the men will come again—by themselves."

Ebenezer's face grew red.

"I'd like to see them grumble here! Dash it all!—we make no charge—it's my hospitality."

He bristled visibly at the thought.

"That counts for nothing nowadays." Helen's voice was quite composed. "They come to enjoy themselves—for what they can get out of it! The only people who can give small parties and consider themselves the attraction are artists or Royalty. They can afford simplicity."

"H'm!—A pretty state of affairs. And what about Cydonia? You'd think any man would be proud to dance with my lovely girl."

"Ah! you're her father." Helen laughed. "I don't say, mind, that I approve of the present-day attitude. But the fact remains that the modern youth considers that his presence at a party confers a favour ... and, in return, he demands a first-class entertainment."

She met his eyes, smiled again, and turned to her desk with an air of dismissal.

"What about presenting the child? I'd like that done, you know, Helen. It don't mean much to my mind to bob down before Royalty, but I gather it's a sort of hall-mark."

He gave a gruff, contented laugh.

"That will come later," said Mrs. Cadell. "I was talking to Lady Leason about it, and she knows of a certain friend of hers who arranges these little matters. For a consideration, of course."

"I didn't know you had to pay?" Ebenezer was interested. Secretly he admired his wife's steady assault on Society.

"My dear, one pays for everything. Look at the people who get honours! It will mean, I should say, about three figures to get a well-known name to present her—a titled woman of good standing; and then there will be Lady Leason's present—and the commission..." She knit her brows. "Anyhow, Cydonia's worth it."

"That she is—bless her pretty face! She's the crowning gem of my collection! And I mean her to make a fine marriage! If it costs me every penny I've got."

He turned his sharp, near-set eyes shrewdly on Helen's countenance.

"What's this young man who's always around? McTaggart, I think, is his precious name. A tall fellow with blue eyes and a damned cool manner when I meet him!"

"He's all right," said the mother quickly, "and rather useful just now. He's a great friend of Lady Leason's and moves in a very good set."

"Well—don't allow any nonsense there. He don't come here to see me! And he don't seem to do any work—I can't stand his 'haw, haw' style."

The door banged behind him loudly.

Mrs. Cadell took up her pen, but held it a moment, absently, gazing out on the Mayfair street, empty at this early hour.

Did her daughter like McTaggart? That was the question she asked herself. Was his society the reason that Cydonia of late had seemed to quicken, to lose her slumbering childish calm?

And if so...? She frowned at the thought. Then she sighed. Ebenezer was right. But the mother-love warred within her with the ambition of her life. All the happiness she had missed!—she reached for it with nervous hands, longing to pile it, height on height, into the lap of her only child.

And, as if her thoughts had drawn the girl, Cydonia, that moment, entered the room.

"Am I disturbing you, Madre, dear?"

She stood there, radiant, in coat and hat; the fair face full of life, an eager look in the soft brown eyes. There seemed a little suppressed air of excitement in her bearing.

Helen stretched out her hand. Her daughter took it indifferently, pressed it lightly and let it fall.

"It's just to ask may I go out?—with Mason, of course—to do some shopping?"

"Wouldn't you rather wait for me? I shall be ready about twelve."

"Well ... you see, Madre,"—a faint flush stole into the clear skin as she spoke. "Christmas is getting very near and I've no presents at all, as yet. And——" a sudden excuse seemed to strike her—"I rather thought ... I'd get yours."

"Oh, very well." Helen laughed, "I mustn't trespass on any 'secret.'"

Cydonia averted her brown eyes, conscious of a twinge of conscience.

"Thank you, Madre, dear." She stooped and kissed her mother gratefully, hesitated for a moment, and breathed an indistinct "Good-bye."

But once outside the front door her spirits began to rise. She looked unusually animated, beautiful in her costly furs.

The maid shuffled along beside her, a subdued black form of indeterminate shape, rather like an unwilling retriever, dragged by an invisible leash.

They crossed Berkeley Square and swerved up to the right into Bond Street. Here Cydonia's step quickened as she glanced eagerly about her. She paused once or twice before a shop, gazing abstractedly into the window, and bought a bunch of Parma violets, which she pinned on to her white fox.

Then, with the gold head proudly carried, shining in the wintry sun like a halo under her black hat, she moved on, very sedate, avoiding all admiring glances.

"Hullo! Here's a stroke of luck."

McTaggart barred her further progress.

"What are you doing out so early?" His blue eyes were mischievous.

"How do you do?" she said demurely. "I'm shopping." Conversation failed her.

"Can I come, too?" McTaggart asked. He turned without waiting for permission.

The maid, with dog-like fidelity, fell to heel behind the pair, and, lowering his voice, he added:

"I began to think I must have missed you."

"Am I late?" said Cydonia. "I shall really have to buy something. I told Mother it was Christmas presents... And I shouldn't like to tell a lie."

"We'll buy the whole street," said McTaggart, ministering to the wounded conscience. "Let's cross over and look at Asprey's—their window's bursting with 'suitable gifts.'"

They dodged across between the taxis, heedless of the nervous maid.

"Can't we lose her?" he suggested. "I'm not used to a royal escort."

Glancing round him, he observed a Gallery close at hand where an Exhibition was advertised, and jumped at the way of escape.

"Come in and see the pictures." He raised his voice as he spoke.

"You really ought to—they're fine!—done by that man..." he spelled out the name.

Cydonia giggled, recovered herself and turned to the reluctant maid.

"Mason—we're going in here. Do you think, meanwhile, that you'd have time to run up to Marshall's and match that satin for my frock?"

"Yes, miss." The girl's face brightened. She much preferred to shop alone and dawdle down the long counters. "I'd be back within half-an-hour."

"Excellent," said McTaggart. As Cydonia passed through the doors he slipped his hand into his pocket and noiselessly tipped the maid.

"Take your time," he said kindly. The pale, subdued Cockney thanked him.

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"I'll bet you do!" thought the man.

They passed down a narrow passage and into the long empty room with its crude top-light, so trying to many a fair-haired woman.

But Cydonia stood the test triumphantly, her skin shell-like above her furs.

A single sad-faced man was standing in possession of the scene, gazing with ardent eyes at a violent blue seascape.

"I'll guarantee that's the artist." McTaggart whispered in her ear. "Don't let's break into his dreams—— That sofa looks comfortable."

They sat down on the green plush, side by side, and Cydonia played with the violets at her breast, conscious of McTaggart's eyes.

"Don't you want to see the pictures?" She made an effort at small talk. "I thought—you said—they were rather fine."

"Never heard of them in my life! Besides, I'm looking at a picture."

Cydonia vainly pretended to miss the meaning of his speech. She pointed a slender finger at the portrait of a Spanish girl, facing the pair with a bold smile, a red rose behind her ear.

"I like the colour of her hair—that glossy black which looks blue..."

"So do I." McTaggart smiled, "but it's not black—it's ... spun sunshine! And the only blue that I can see is a tiny vein near the temple."

"I wonder," said Cydonia desperately, "how much we've made by those Tableaux?"

"Fifteen pounds, four and tuppence."

"Really? ... Not more than that?" She turned a bewildered face toward him.

"Ah ... that's better," said McTaggart. "To tell you the truth," he admitted, "I haven't the faintest idea of the sum. But I was getting tired of your profile." He saw her frown and stopped short.

"All right! I'll be good. But it's such fun, now, isn't it? When I think of the patient Mason matching yards of satin up at Marshall's."

Cydonia laughed. The soft note echoed through the empty room, for the artist had quietly slipped away into a further one beyond.

One quick glance he had given them, and his sensitive mind had received the impression. The girl, with her apple-blossom face, Spring incarnate, wooed by Summer.

"It isn't often I have the chance of your company without Mamma. Don't you ever go to dances?" He watched her lips move as she answered.

"Not yet—but, Peter, I forgot! I've such a lovely piece of news. I'm going to have a birthday party next month ... You'll come, won't you?"

"Rather. I say, that's ripping! A dance? Good," as she nodded her head. "I'll bet your people will do it well." Unconsciously he voiced the sentiments expressed that morning by Mrs. Cadell.

"How many dances may I have? I suppose you can't spare the lot?"

The infection of his mood was catching.

"One and an extra..." Cydonia laughed.

"Nonsense!" He hunted for a pencil and pulled out his cuff aggressively.

"Five at least. And supper too. Oh, Cydonia! you really might..."

But over the girl's merry face a shadow fell. She turned her head with startled eyes and a quick "Hush!" as a voice outside, loud and harsh, echoed down the long passage.

"It's Father!" She gave a gasp. "Oh, Peter, what shall we do?"

McTaggart was on his feet.

"The inner room"—he grasped her arm—"don't speak!" On tiptoe they fled.

"Stand here—in this corner—it's hidden from either door." He whispered the words, his lips brushing the soft hair drawn over her ears.

"Worth it—even if we're caught!" He said to himself with inward joy, conscious of the girl's hand, tightly clasped in his own.

They heard the heavy step pass and enter the room beyond; then a sound of men's voices broke across their strained attention.

McTaggart crept to the curtain that half veiled their hiding-place, then back to Cydonia, his smile showing his vast relief.

"He's talking to that artist chap. Now, softly into the passage, and then we'll make a bolt for it."

But he paused for a moment, very near her, his eyes on her frightened face.

"You dear thing—don't worry! I hate to see you look like that."

For a second's space he fought hard against the temptation of her answering smile. Then, drawing back, he led the way noiselessly into the hall.

The ruse succeeded, but outside a further problem awaited them. For Mason was "taking her time" conscientiously earning her tip.

"I can't leave you here alone." McTaggart's glance swept the street. "What shall we do? Walk to Marshall's? or—isn't that your car there?" He pointed out a landaulette, drawn up against the curb.

"Is Willcox safe, do you think?"

Willcox was the Cadells' chauffeur. He despised the family whom he served, realizing with the flair of his kind their status as parvenu. But he made an exception of Cydonia. Her sweet voice and well-bred face induced in him the belief of blue blood—achieved by some worthy misdemeanor!

The girl, aware of his silent worship, welcomed the sight of him with relief.

"He'll say nothing—how splendid! I'll just get into the car and wait."

McTaggart agreed. "You can explain you saw your Father go into the Gallery. And, as you felt tired, dispatched Mason to do your shopping, while you rested."

"Yes. That's it." She nodded her head. "Please go now. He might come out. You know what a rush he's always in."

She reached the carriage breathlessly, with a glance at the chauffeur's impassive face.

"Willcox—I'll wait inside. Mr. Cadell won't be long."

McTaggart tucked the rug around her.

"To-morrow," he whispered, "at Lady Leason's." Then, out loud, "Good-bye, Miss Cadell—I won't forget your Mother's dance."

"Good-bye, Mr. McTaggart." She smiled at the formal address.

Stiff and discreet on the box Willcox was smiling too. He was conscious of the whole manoeuvre, and in his heart he approved. He watched McTaggart stride away, with his careless, well-bred walk, pause at the corner and glance back surreptitiously through the crowd.

And then he heard his young mistress call in a low, quick voice, "Mason!"

And the maid's excuse, rather frightened.

"I hope I'm not late, miss—I've got the satin."

"A little," Cydonia calmly replied, "but you needn't wait. Give me the parcel. I'm driving home with Mr. Cadell when he's bought that picture we went to see."

"If you please, miss"—the untidy maid stood in the doorway, aggressively—"the chicken 'asn't come yet and Cook sez it would be no good sending round, as the shop's shut."

Jill jumped up from the floor where she crouched drying her wet hair before the fire. She glanced up at the clock and frowned.

"Why, it's half past seven!—Of course. She ought to have told me long ago."

"I'm sure, miss"—the other protested with a faint smile not unmixed with malice—"it isn't Cook's fault—she does 'er best. But I'm sure in this 'ouse it's 'ard to please. What with meals at any hour and never knowing if it's two or three ... I'm sure..." She stopped short at the sudden anger in Jill's expressive gray eyes.

"That will do." She threw back her hair, which fell in a dark cloud over her shoulders, narrowing into damp points far below the line of her waist. "I'll come down and see Cook myself."

Lizzie retreated, her face sullen, before the peremptory young voice. Then, changing her mind, she whisked round and barred Jill's passage insolently.

"I'd like to say I want to leave. This day month." She tossed her head. "I don't seem to suit—and it don't suit me!—such goings-on ... an' lawless talk. I ain't used to a mistress as ups and breaks windows—it ain't decent!—an' my young man, 'e sez..."

"Be silent!"—Jill was white with suppressed rage—"If you want to give notice you must speak to Mrs. Uniacke."

"Or Mr. Somerfield, I s'pose..."

The barbed shaft stung the girl as she ran down the stairs, leaving Lizzie, quivering, in possession of the field.

Jill reached the basement, breathless and angry.

"Cook!" she called at the kitchen door. A stout and slovenly woman turned slowly round from before the range.

"Yes, miss?" She wiped her greasy hands on a torn apron, and stood there, expectant.

"What's all this about the chicken? Lizzie tells me it hasn't come?"

"No, miss." She leaned against the table, massive, inert, with an over-red face. Her person exhaled a faint smell of brandy and the glazed eyes completed the story.

"Then what are we going to have for dinner?"

"I'm sure I don't know, miss."

Jill gave her one look and passed with a quick stride into the larder. Thrown anyhow on the dingy shelves were scraps of fish, butter and suet, jars of dripping, some shrivelled apples and the scraggy remains of a leg of mutton. The closed-in place smelled of cheese and mice. Jill explored with hopeless disgust. Too well she knew the domestic chaos that balanced her mother's political activity.

For Mrs. Uniacke had no time for "home." She scorned the narrow "sheltered life" and wore out her strength in that daily fight to prove that Woman was fitted to rule.

"This mutton now..." Jill tipped the bone onto a clean plate from its close companionship with a raw herring, and came back, still frowning, into the kitchen.

"You could grill it, couldn't you?" she asked sharply.

The cook, stupidly, turned it over.

"I could..." she debated with tipsy solemnity. "But there's only, then, enough for two."

"Well, we are two!" Jill was impatient.

The cook sniffed. "More often three! ... I'm sure it's enough to drive one crazy, never knowing what's wanted. An' the tradesmen clamouring for their money ... There's the butcher to-day—'e told me straight: 'That's the last j'int you'll get from us!'—I've never lived in such a place...." Her voice rose. She stuck her hands on her hips and faced her young mistress.

"And I won't stay—what's more! I've always been a respectable woman ... and 'ard-working ... an' treated as such..." (The quick anger induced by spirits brought the tears to her bleary eyes.) "I'm sure if my pore 'usband was 'ere, 'e'd say: 'Martha—you clear, my girl.' 'E'd be ashamed—that's wot 'e'd be ... a butler 'e were in good service. So you can tell yer mother, miss, I've made my mind up—an' I goes!"

With a sob of injured pride she seized the bone in a shaky hand.

"Look at that!" She brandished it under Jill's disgusted nose.

"That's been our dinner since Sunday—and Canterb'ry—that's what it is!"

Poor Jill swallowed hard, struggling to keep her temper in check. Diplomacy she knew full well was the only weapon she dared use.

"Now, look here, Cook. I'm awfully sorry. But I don't want to bother Mother. She's not well—and she's worried to death ... You know what it is to feel bad."

"That I do, Miss Jill!" The cook, mollified, wiped her eyes. "I'm sure with my 'eart as is always flutt'ring—an' the 'ot kitchen—an' pore food ... I didn't ought to do scrubbing—it's a crool shame at my age ... But there..." the facile sentiment born of alcohol was bubbling up and drowning anger. "I don't want to upset yer, miss. Yer don't 'ave too gay a life, you an' Master Roddy—bless 'im!—as always 'as a kind word for Cook..."

She maundered on as Jill retreated, aware that the crisis was postponed.

"That's right, Cookie—you'll see to it? You always make a ripping grill."

"And may Heaven forgive me for the fib," she added as she ran upstairs.

"I wonder why it's such a muddle? Always changing servants like this?"

But in her heart she knew the fault lay in the lack of proper management. The justice of her clear young brain told her that never could they expect a good class of maid to stay in this disorganized "feckless" house! The discomfort of the servants' quarters, the wretched food and poor pay forced Mrs. Uniacke to take the riff-raff whose characters held obvious flaws—like the unsober creature below or Lizzie, lazy and insolent.

And it struck the girl with sudden force that her Mother was giving up her life to secure the Vote with the main object of ameliorating the condition of women.

Yet here in her own small kingdom were servants badly housed and fed, expected to work for a barren wage sixteen hours without complaint.

And there was Roddy—her own brother—with riddled socks and worn-out clothes at a cheap school, while his mother spent their meagre surplus in outside expenses involved by this omnivorous Cause!

A memory of old times when her father lived rose in her mind. For Colonel Uniacke had held a firm rule over the house. In common with many retired officers, he supervised the daily ménage, with the result that when he died his wife missed his wise authority.

And if they couldn't govern their houses—Jill's active mind ran on—with the skill of the "old-fashioned woman," how were they going to govern the Empire?

It came to her with a sudden flash of childish insight that, in the new, inexorable cry of her sex, the Usefulness of the Individual was being carelessly swept aside for the dangerous Power of the Mass.

She had reached by now the second floor, immersed in her sombre thoughts, when she heard the front door open and paused to lean over the rail.

"That you, darling?" she called down—"it's so late—I was getting anxious."

She checked the impulse to retrace her steps as she saw below the shadow of Stephen.

Slowly toiling up the stairs, Mrs. Uniacke appeared, with a worn face where dark circles heightened the brilliance of her eyes.

"Oh, Mother—how tired you look!—and wet through..." Jill's hands ran with anxious fondness over the coat that shrouded the fragile form.

The older woman smiled feebly.

"I've had a hard day, Jill." She kissed her daughter's fresh cheek and moved on shakily into the bedroom.

"What luxury!"—her thin hands went out to the cheerful blaze—"did you tell Lizzie to light it, dear?"

"Yes. I washed my head, you see," Jill explained, "and I thought—it's so cold to-night—I could dry it here by your fire and then it would warm your room for you."

"It's very nice." Her mother sank down in the armchair as she spoke. Jill, with quick fingers, undid her veil and removed the soaking hat.

"Now, your boots..." She began to unlace them. "I put your slippers to toast—there, isn't that nice? Look here, darling, just to please me, won't you go straight to bed?"

"I can't." Mrs. Uniacke sighed. "I've brought Stephen back to dinner. He's been so good ... and he's wet too. I do hope he won't get a chill."

A shadow fell on the girl's bright face.

"Well—he can dine with me—for once! I'll bring you up your dinner myself, so it won't make extra work for Lizzie."

She tossed back her mane of hair and tried to speak in a cheerful tone. But Mrs. Uniacke's mouth hardened.

"I promised to go through some papers to-night ... I can't, Jill—though it's very tempting..." She pressed her hand to her hot forehead. "This wet weather gives me neuralgia. Oh dear! I wish I were stronger."

"Do go to bed"—Jill pleaded. "Look here—if you must work this evening, why can't Stephen come up here? I could put a table by your side and you've got that lovely pink jacket Aunt Elizabeth sent at Christmas."

"Here? In my bedroom?" Mrs. Uniacke stared. "I shouldn't think of such a thing! Really, Jill, you must be mad!"

The girl's face went suddenly scarlet at the horror in her mother's voice.

"Well—he's almost one of the family. I don't see..." She bit her lip.

"All right, Mother—you know best." She hesitated for a moment, then went slowly toward the door. "It's getting late. I must do my hair."

But on the landing outside she gave vent to her impatience.

"Bother him!—I know she'll be ill." Then a voice called her back.

"Jill—I think—after all—I'll go to bed—my head's so bad. Will you look after Stephen? He likes a glass of port, remember. And I'm wondering if Roddy's slippers..."

"Too small," said Jill promptly. "There goes the gong!—don't you worry—I'll see to everything all right."

"No meat for me," her Mother added—"just a little soup—with a rack of toast. I'm too tired for anything solid."

"That's a mercy in disguise," said Jill as she fled up the further stairs. Her mind was much relieved as she thought of the debatable grilled bone. She brushed back her rebellious locks and tied them hurriedly with a ribbon. "I'm glad about the chicken now. Stephen will enjoy his dinner!"

That worthy greeted her with his supercilious smile. "H'are you—Where's your mother?" He held out a limp white hand.

"She's dead-tired and gone to bed. You'll have to put up with me to-night."

"An unexpected pleasure." He drawled with a side-long glance at the girl, her face rosy from the fire in its mass of waving dark-brown hair. "'Pon me word, you're growing up!" He stuck his glass into his eye and moved leisurely to take the head of the long table.

"My place," said Jill politely. "Roddy's away. Will you sit here?"

With an air of childish dignity she began to ladle out the soup.

Stephen laughed—a trifle sourly.

"Sorry to hear your mother's ill. What's the matter?"

"Overwork."

Their eyes met, and at last the man lowered his against his will.

"I suppose you know you're killing her? She can't go on at this rate! I should have thought"—Jill paused a moment—"you would have seen it for yourself."

Stephen laid his spoon down. His irritation at her words was increased by his first taste of the soup, a muddy, thin brown mixture.

"Is this the cook I found for you?" Purposely he ignored her speech and spoke in a languid voice, with studied indifference.

"Yes. Aren't you pleased?" Jill laughed aloud. "You really are a comfort, Stephen! What should we do without your help?" She rose to her feet as she spoke. "Roddy was saying the other day"—she covered her mother's basin of soup and went on with mischievous glee—"'What I do like about Stephen is he always knows what's what! You've only to look at his socks and ties—they match to a T—he's such a K-nut!' D'you like being a Nut, Stephen?"

Her voice was innocence itself.

She turned with the tray in her hand, and added, as he answered nothing:

"Drink your soup—it will do you good! And Mother's sure to ask for news of your appetite."

The door banged and she was gone.

Stephen turned with a frown to Lizzie, now recovered from her tantrums and inwardly enjoying the sport, for the servants all hated the man.

He enjoyed in the kitchen circle the pseudonym of "The Cuckoo"—a flight of fancy on Cook's part, who likened the house to a Robin's nest!

"Sherry, please," he ordered sharply.

"There's none up, sir," the maid snapped. She would miss nothing by her manner, for Stephen rarely gave a tip.

Down came Jill with a kind message.

"Mother hopes you've all you want? She's feeling a little more rested. I think I shall keep her in bed a week."

"I'm afraid that's impossible." Stephen sneered. "She's going to speak at a meeting to-morrow, and on Friday we're off to Leeds—for the great Demonstration." ("One back," he said to himself, as he saw the girl's mouth tighten.)

"It's an odd thing," said Jill shortly, "that rest's not included in Woman's Rights."

"Not until we get the Vote." Somerfield eyed with suspicion a scraggy, blackened object borne by Lizzie toward his little hostess.

"Silver Grill," she explained, "cooked 'à point' by your treasure-trove. Like a bit?" She dug the fork into the charred meat and smiled.

"It's best Canterbury," she added, with a reminiscence from below. "You know, we have to economize or there'd be nothing for the Cause."

Stephen's temper began to slide.

"Look here, Jill. Don't talk of things you're too young yet to understand."

He turned the unpalatable fragments over angrily on his plate.

"Potatoes?—Onions?" Her voice was sweet. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Stephen. I quite forgot you couldn't eat them! But then, you see, I didn't expect you. If you'd only given us a little warning. If you'd told me, for instance, yesterday—or was it Monday you lunched with us? No. Sunday supper. How stupid I am!—I never can remember dates."

Upstairs Mrs. Uniacke was lying back against the pillows and enjoying the rare luxury of a quiet rest in bed.

"I hope they're getting on all right?" Her thoughts were with the pair below. "I don't know how it is that Jill seems always to upset Stephen."

She knew her children resented his presence and the claim he made upon her time. But habit was too strong for her, and each day cemented the tie. She had always leaned. From nursery days she had never learnt to stand alone, and since her husband's death Stephen had slowly become a part of her life.

The friendship was that rare achievement, a purely platonic affair. Perhaps, as her children grew older, strong and capable, she missed the sense of tenderness about her, the touch of baby clinging hands. With all her utterly feminine nature, she longed to comfort and to guide. And in this parasite who had crept into the heart of her home she found the two attributes needed in her barren and widowed life.

She could "mother" him. He loved "fuss," with none of her children's independence. And at the same time she could lean on his young strength and masculine mind.

But her thoughts of him were utterly pure. It was no sentimental affair cropping up in her middle age with a last desperate clutch at romance.

And to strengthen the link between them stood the Cause—the cry of Woman's wrongs; the excitement of new-found power and the secret thrill of martyrdom.

She had reached an impressionable age, and broken by her great sorrow—for her husband had been the love of her life—her arms went out to her suffering sisters.

If only she could ease the burden, throw her failing strength into the balance, she could die with the sense of something achieved.

Humbly she offered her "widow's mite."

*****

Meanwhile in the dingy dining-room Jill had checked her love of fun. Her natural courtesy forbade an open quarrel with her mother's guest. She felt she had gone quite far enough...!

Assuming a more serious air, she asked the man for information respecting the long day's work.

Stephen, a little mollified by a glass of the late Colonel's port, smoking an excellent cigarette (recommended by him to Mrs. Uniacke), launched forth into description of a visit to a factory; a lengthy investigation of wages and the hours allotted to the female "hands"; while Jill sat at the end of the table, listening thoughtfully.

She held as yet no settled opinions on the question of Woman's Suffrage. Undetermined, she kept herself, by McTaggart's advice, slightly aloof.

Nevertheless the atmosphere of the house stimulated thought. It made life a bigger affair to picture a broader field for her sex.

"You say"—she leaned her chin on her hands, her dark-fringed eyes full of light. "That the finer, more delicate work is undertaken by the women. That they do it better, are paid less ... No, it doesn't sound a bit fair!"

"Ah! you begin to see," said Somerfield. "They do it too in less time. Their fingers are smaller, their work neater—in fact it's economy to employ them."

"Then what do you propose?" said Jill—"to get them paid the same as men?"

"Undoubtedly—or even more. It's their due—and we shall see it's done."

"But—wait a minute. You can't make money. I mean—it's got to come from somewhere. And if the employers can't give more, I suppose ... they'll take it from the men?" She went on thoughtfully, thinking aloud. "They could level down and pay all alike. Is that the idea?"

Somerfield nodded. "Well—one of them—but there are other methods."

"Let's stick to the first." Jill was logical, true to the broad college training.

It saved her from the common pitfall of feminine minds in argument. She could weigh the various pros and cons free from personalities.

"I suppose most of the men are married?"

"About two-thirds, roughly speaking."

"Then what about their wives and children? If you cut down the wages the husbands earn won't it come pretty hard on them? It seems unfair that the factory women—who are most of them, I suppose, unmarried—should take the bread out of the mouths of their married sisters—and the children."

Somerfield looked annoyed.

"Oh, I don't say that would happen exactly. There are other ways ... But what we want is to see women get decent wages, full value for their work. The employers will have to come forward. If we make a strong stand they're bound to give way..."

"Strikes?" Jill raised her eyebrows. "I thought they ruined the nation's trade? And that women always suffered more—the wives and mothers in these times. Besides..." relentlessly she pursued her way with a child's honest search for knowledge. "I don't really understand ... But, supposing that wages all round are raised, well then the employers—to make a profit—will have to sell at a higher cost. And won't that make living dearer?—in case of food and necessities?"

"Not in the end. You ought to study Political Economy. I doubt if it much affects the class we're working for at any rate. It may hit ours!" He smiled sadly with an air of secret martyrdom—"And the rich too, I sincerely hope!"

"But if you keep on 'hitting the rich'"—Jill adopted his expression—"and the large class of employers—won't they some day have to retrench? And doesn't that mean cutting down employment in every grade—for women too?"

"More likely smaller dividends!" Somerfield sneered. "These syndicates and capitalists are the curse of England"—his voice rose—"that's where the people's money goes—back to the pockets of the rich!"

"But aren't there a lot of decent people, middle-class and rather poor, investors too, dependent on dividends? Oh, I can't understand it all!—It seems to me whatever you do to alter the distribution of wealth you ruin some one—and always, always it pans out harder for those who work!"

"We're not talking of Socialism," Somerfield hastily interposed—"we're discussing the need for the Vote—for women to have a hand in the Government. To see that their own sex don't suffer—to put down all sorts of wrongs that have lingered on from feudal days when women were nothing more than slaves!"

"It sounds glorious." Jill was moved, but the doubt still haunted her.

"If only one could pick the women. They're such a lot of us, you see—and—really—some are awful fools!"

"And what about the present Government? And the next too, if it comes to that! D'you think their brains are above suspicion?" He gave her a mocking glance.

"No." Jill nodded her head. "But allowing that they're rather stupid, do you want to add to the general confusion by pairing them with the other sex—an equal number of ignorant women?"

"Oh! you're hopeless!" He got up and poured himself out another glass from the port decanter on the sideboard. "I thought you really wanted to learn?"

"So I do." Jill sat tight. "But I won't be swept off my feet by ... a sort of hypnotism of Sex! I want to keep an unprejudiced eye. Of course I'd like to see women take a leading place everywhere. But if they make a mess of it, we're worse off than we were before. We stand to lose as well as gain by rushing into public life." She threw back a lock of hair that had fallen forward, blinding her.

"Now, look here, Stephen, we've got a lot ... I'm not talking of influence and the right to expect chivalry—which by the way I think we're losing, through the tactics of the Militants! You've only to stand in a Suffrage crowd and listen to some of the remarks. Why, fifty ... a hundred years ago ... a decent man would have taken umbrage. Men were run through in those days for far less said of their sisters or wives! But—to go back—-we've got some pull. To begin with, men, when they marry, keep us! I dare say I'm old-fashioned. Yes—of course! I knew you'd laugh!—but it's big, really. It means a home—and protection—and a fair chance for ... bringing up a family."

She flushed slightly under his smile, but went on bravely with her argument.

"It seems to me that by and by we'll have to work, share and share alike, ill or well, on equal terms. And what's to become of our home life—and—well ... the next generation?"

Stephen saw his chance at last.

"Are you thinking of marriage yourself, Jill? You seem to arrange for all possibilities..."

His greenish eyes were insolent under their long fair lashes.

"Oh!" She sprang up. "Oh! you beast...!"

But she faced him still, breathless, white.

"At any rate, if I did, I'd live in my own house!" she cried.

McTaggart drew his chair forward from behind the curtain of the box and gazed out on the crowded Hippodrome.

Not a seat was vacant. For to-night a famous composer was conducting his masterpiece with a picked company brought over for a fleeting visit to England.

As he watched, the lights were lowered in the body of the hall and the beautiful overture began, stealing like a spirit of sun-lit shores across the artificially warm atmosphere. The curtain rolled up to disclose a narrowed stage and the cheap, garish scenery that seems a necessary adjunct to the opera in Italy.

McTaggart's eyes took it in with a careless glance, and returned to the other occupant of the box.

To-night Fantine seemed to acquire a new personality. An air faintly tragic and dignified hung over the pale face, and even her dress enhanced the suggestion, with that subtle link that lies between a Parisian and her clothes.

She wore a long cloak of velvet brocade: dull wine-coloured flowers on an oyster ground, relieved by a border of silver fox and the faint gleam of metallic threads running through the material.

Beneath this, one caught a glimpse of a demi-toilette of black and white: that veiled décolletage dear to the foreigner, suggesting without revealing each line of the neck and arms which the Englishwoman seems more ready to expose. Her hair, waved, glossy and black, was perfectly dressed without ornament, and among the crowd of women there, each with nodding Paradise plumes or a jewelled fillet, the delusive simplicity struck a restful, distinctive note, throwing into strong relief the haunting charm of her pale face.

McTaggart's eyes rested on her, with a quiet sense of pleasure. Where other women of her class would have welcomed the occasion to outvie in "smartness" the "respectable rich," Fantine seemed to have drawn back with unconscious pride relying on some hidden power to set her apart.

A faint buzz of applause broke through the young man's silent admiration. The fat tenor had achieved a wonderful feat of long-drawn breath. The air still trembled with the vibration of sound, and it seemed to add to the scented heat of the over-packed, excited house.

"Would you mind the door ajar?" McTaggart whispered in her ear. "I can close it directly you feel the draught."

Fantine, absently, nodded assent, her eyes riveted on the stage, heart and soul absorbed in the music.

He got up noiselessly, and effected the improvement, standing there for a few seconds—to breathe the cooler air without. Down the curved corridor some late arrivals were hastening, a short, stout, red-faced man and a young girl with golden hair.

McTaggart started. He gave them a quick, searching glance and ducked back. To his annoyance the pair paused outside, and he heard the attendant's voice:

"This way, please."

The door of the next box grated on its hinges, and steps echoed beyond the partition.

McTaggart listened, his face very grim. Then he heard Cydonia's voice, clear and gentle. "Yes, Papa. Please, Papa," and the scrabbling noise of chairs dragged forward over the floor.

The unlooked-for contretemps clouded his pleasure. He had no desire the two women should meet. Above all he mistrusted Cadell's shrewd eyes and the use he might make of the innocent adventure.

He closed the door softly again. Fantine was plainly far away, lost to a world of heat or cold. She leaned forward, listening, her hands tightly clasped together on the broad velvet edge before her.

"I wish she'd keep back!" thought McTaggart. He could picture in the next box Cydonia's golden head at just the same angle and in between the narrow velvet curtains barely separating the pair.

In the dim light he groped for and found his own chair, lifted it with bated breath and placed it down again behind that of his guest, who turned at his movement with a faint frown of displeasure over her broken dreams.

"What are you doing there, Pierrot?" The whisper was sharp.

"I thought," McTaggart explained mendaciously, "this way I could hear without seeing too much. That fat soprano is murdering romance!"

"Quel enfant!" Fantine smiled. For the singer in question with her capacious bosom, now clasped fervently in the fat tenor's arms, appealed suddenly to her dormant sense of humor.

"Rather a ... magnificent figure for a maiden..." McTaggart followed up his remark. Some one below them breathed an indignant "Sh! ..." and Fantine held up an admonitory finger.

McTaggart leaned back, conscious again of the heat. "Stifling in here—wish I hadn't come!" His thoughts ran on, seeking a plan to get his guest away before the final rush.

He was determined the pair should not meet. Oddly enough sub-consciously he blamed Cydonia—with that hateful parent—exonerating himself in the matter.

His flirtation with the girl had lapsed a little of late, owing to the serious illness of Mrs. Cadell. A chill followed up by a tiring sale of work in a draughty hall had resulted in pneumonia. The dance had been postponed and Cydonia herself, bereft of her chaperone, had rarely made an appearance among the few friends she shared with McTaggart.

Stolen meetings had been few and far between. The anxiety caused by her mother's condition had roused the slumbering conscience in the girl, and McTaggart's love for her had suffered from the test. It needed propinquity to keep the fires alight.

Fantine had profited by the disaffection. Daily her hold on him grew more strong. Her ever-changing moods, her daring speech, her open dependence on his attentions, had forged new links in the chain between them, riveted by the subtle ties of habit.

Without home interests or the urgent need to work, McTaggart found time hang heavy on his hands. He had long since wearied of London's appeal to the moneyed youth on his emancipation from school. The round of music hall and supper club, of cards and drink and doubtful ladies had held him a victim but a very short time. His brains had saved him the career of a "Nut."

He had no active distaste for work; it was more that work did not come his way. For his first three years on the Stock Exchange he had thrown himself unwearied into the task of absorbing the details of his profession in the interest of his few clients.

But, bit by bit, these had fallen away.

College friends for the greater part, they had drifted abroad, lost money or married, preferring few investments to many speculations.

For a brief period McTaggart had tried to hunt up others through social means. But his soul shrank from the merest suggestion of touting without the strong spur of necessity.

Bad times, heavy taxes and perpetual wars had broken the confidence of the public. He found himself at the end of the third year several hundreds out of pocket!

The cost of entertaining well—not for pleasure but possible profit—and bad debts had more than swallowed the sum of his hard-won commissions.

His father had left him a steady income quite sufficient for his needs, and from his mother he had inherited a fluctuating interest from property abroad.

Had he been poor, it is probable that he would have made a career for himself. His idleness was undoubtedly due to the lack of necessity: that poor man's stimulus.

Unfortunately for his comfort, his vitality resented inaction. With no outlook his restlessness fed on itself, and he waxed irritable, a prey to sudden moods.

He was not a man to live alone. Healthy, impulsive, and full of life, he had nothing of the celibate in his mixed composition.

But a certain fastidiousness held him back from the casual vice of many men, and his hot blood was generally balanced by the finer instincts of his brain.

Nevertheless the man suffered. And, since his memorable visit to the specialist, his imagination had been disturbed, to a degree hardly healthy, by a physical self-consciousness.

It bred in him a profound distrust. It set him apart from other men. It seemed to give him a moral excuse for an irresolute habit of thought.

He had kept the secret to himself, fearing ridicule from his kind and with a shrewd appreciation of its doubtful value in feminine circles.

Once he had nearly confided in Jill, realizing that with the girl sex still lay in abeyance, almost ignored by her clean young soul.

But something had checked him; a feeling perhaps that it led into a further field, impossible to discuss with her, this child who claimed his loyal respect.

And meanwhile Fantine lured him on with the skill of her vast experience.

The drop scene fell amid loud applause, and lights flashed up about the house.

McTaggart felt a sudden thirst, but dare not leave the sheltering box unaware whether Mr. Cadell would take advantage of the entr'acte.

Fantine turned and smiled at him, tears not far from the topaz eyes, a faint colour in her face, soft with the pleasure of the music.

"Like it?" He knew as he said the words that the question was superfluous, and went on a little quickly, full of his own immediate cares.

"We'll have supper at the Savoy—it's sure to be packed to-night." He drew out his watch as he spoke, and glanced at it with a slight frown. "Jove! it's getting pretty late..."

Fantine smiled, resigning herself. She knew exactly what he wanted, guessing him bored by the music.

"Would you like to go before the end? After all"—she checked a sigh—"one knows by heart the tragic story. We could slip out before the finale."

The man brightened visibly.

"Well, you see—it's like this—I haven't reserved a table to-night. We shall have to take our chance, so we'd better be there before the rush."

He still avoided the front of the box, conscious of his neighbour's eyes, but, now that the danger seemed averted, he felt a mischievous delight. He could picture Cydonia, very correct, in her white frock and string of pearls, with her inevitable "Isn't it nice?" addressed to the somewhat bored parent.

And at the thought a slight shame ran through him; the knowledge, too, of all the young girl represented in his somewhat aimless life.

But Fantine was addressing him.

"Say now, Pierrot, would you mind—instead of going to the Savoy—a picnic supper at my flat?"

His face fell, and immediately she added quickly: "We'd leave early—but ... the fact is I can't bear to think of that aggressive band. It seems almost profane to me—after the feast of music here. But of course—if you're hungry?" Her voice pleaded. "I think I've got some foie gras—and a cold tongue—won't that do? And we'd have ... a cosy evening together."

"Do?" McTaggart laughed softly, relieved by the saving clause, "Why, I'd infinitely prefer it. One gets so tired of the Savoy."

"Good." She slipped her hand sideways and laid it a moment on his knee.

"Rather fun, eh, Pierrot?—to play at being Darby and Joan."

McTaggart nodded, without speaking. He felt a sudden tinge of excitement, the forerunner of adventure. "We're hardly old enough for that"—mischief was in his laughing eyes—"Why not 'Paul et Virginie?'—brought a little up-to-date."

The lights went down. Behind the curtain a bell tolled as if for Mass, cutting through the buzz of chatter, a summons from another world. Then, like a clear call to love, came the sweet sound of Santuzza's voice.

Fantine caught a quick breath. The scene to come was significant. For she knew that this night spelled the last of many a happy one with McTaggart. And she wondered ... Would she miss the man?

For a second her whole soul recoiled from the task she had set herself: the crisis of the long-drawn-out and carefully prepared betrayal. She saw in a flash the years ahead on that stony downward path of intrigue, a tool herself in another man's hands, to be cast aside when Time should blunt it ...

The mood lasted until they reached the flat. McTaggart believed her still to be under the spell of the music. He respected her silence and enjoyed his cigarette as they sat side by side in the speeding taxi.

She opened the door with her latch-key, and switched on the hall light, leading the way into the drawing-room, where before a bright fire a table was spread with a dainty supper laid for one.

"I'm all alone to-night—it will be a real picnic." She took off her opera cloak and threw it on the sofa. "My cook sleeps out—she's a married woman—and Mélanie has gone home for a short holiday."

She told the lie coolly, knowing that near at hand the maid, well coached, was waiting for her cue; an important witness if subsequent events should necessitate her reappearance.

"You aren't nervous?" McTaggart looked surprised—"I mean, of staying here alone all night."

"Oh, dear no." She shrugged her shoulders. "I could ring up the porter in case of need."

She studied her face a moment in the glass, fingering the tulle that covered her shoulders. "I think perhaps... Yes!—I'll get out of this and slip into a comfortable tea-gown. You don't mind waiting, do you, Pierrot? I shan't be long." She turned to the door, then came back again with a forced smile.

"I wonder—could you undo these hooks." She turned her back to him as she spoke. "I can manage all the rest ... but just those between the shoulders?"

Gallantly McTaggart stooped to the task.

As the tulle fell away, leaving her neck bare, a sudden temptation seized the man. He lowered his head and kissed the warm flesh, honey-tinted, and soft to his lips.

But she swung round quickly with an incoherent cry. "Non, non, Pierrot—je ne veux pas!" Her face looked frightened. She thrust him back, a sudden remorse awake in her heart.

McTaggart laughed. She read in his eyes amusement at her show of resistance.

And the knowledge of this and his lack of respect swept aside her lingering scruples. Her mood veered round. A feverish exultation spurred her now down the path of revenge.

"Naughty boy!" She shook her head and was gone, with a laughing backward glance.

Left to himself, McTaggart strolled about, stretching his long legs, cramped in the box.

A memory brought him back to the mantelpiece, and he sought for and found the faded photograph.

Once more he gazed at the sinister face, with its black beard and evil eyes. It held a curious fascination for him, repulsive and mesmeric at the same time. He saw that a name was written beneath, indistinct in violet ink, and holding it nearer to the light he deciphered "Gustave," with a slight start. Below it was a blotted date and then "Alger" clear and bright, where a frame had once protected the edge.

He put it back behind the mirror, a frown on his face, his mouth tight.

So that was the husband. What a brute! ...

His pity stirred beneath his disgust. He thought of Fantine, dainty and sweet, at the mercy of such a type. Thank God the man was dead!

He recalled her remark in the restaurant, the night they had dined at the "Bon Bourgeois."

"He was always very kind to me..."

"Kind?"—with those eyes!—He shuddered slightly, connecting the pair in his mind.

Poor little woman ... what a life!

It sobered him, bringing the best to the surface, and he turned with a very real affection on his handsome face as she opened the door.

But here was a new irresistible Fantine. With bright eyes, she danced toward him, mischief incarnate, her pale face laughing above a peignoir, diaphanous, intimate; showing gleams of silk-shod ankles through the daring draperies.

"You see! I make myself at home ... And now for supper." She laid down a silver tray with a plate and glass and arranged his knives and forks for him.

"Monsieur est servi." She caught up a napkin and threw it gaily over her arm.

"Monsieur will not forget the poor waiter—who—how absurd!—cannot open the wine!" She held out toward him a bottle of champagne.

"Vite, mon cher!—I die of thirst."

McTaggart felt suddenly relieved. He entered heartily into the sport.

"What would the poor waiter like for a tip? Furs perhaps, or a motor car?"

"I'll tell you later," she flashed him a glance as he cut the wire and extracted the cork.

He poured it foaming in the glasses.

"Here's to ... to-night!" He drank it off.

As supper proceeded the desire of adventure drowned all else in McTaggart's mind. A man can only be young once, he told himself, and refilled his glass.

And Fantine seemed to lay aside all thought of to-morrow, to drift content through this golden hour the Gods vouchsafed, ignoring the loom where the Grey Fates spun.

When the last drop of wine was gone and satiety claimed them as willing victims, McTaggart dragged the table back and pulled the sofa near the fire.

"Now—come and talk to me, mon amie—here's a stool for those little feet. You really are a dream to-night!—I never saw you look so ... tempting!"

She lay back against the cushions, watching him stir the coals in the grate.

"Let's sit in the fire light," he suggested, and switched off the electricity.

Behind his back she stole a glance at the clock, and her face fell, then grew thoughtful.

"Another hour," she said to herself, with the odd sensation of a respite.

"A cigarette first—please, Pierrot."

"What nonsense! You've smoked enough." His voice was masterful and she pouted.

"Méchant! give me one, at once."

He lit it, somewhat grudgingly, watching the flame of the match spurt and illumine her piquante face in the semi-darkness of the room.

She drew the smoke in lazily, through the pursed-up, vivid lips.

"Have one too?" She handed the box—"and tell me ... all about yourself."

"That's clever..." McTaggart smiled. "You've hit upon my favorite subject. But I think to-night we'll talk of you. Tell me"—he paused—"of your life in Algiers." Strange, how that picture haunted him!

"That's long ago," she shrank slightly, then rallied herself to the task. "I went there as a bride, you see. My husband was head of a kind of syndicate. It's a nice place in the Winter-time—there's a large French Colony there. And plenty of English people too—it's quite gay—with music—and cards."

McTaggart smiled to himself. At the words he made a shrewd guess at Gustave's business in Algiers. But Fantine skillfully led the talk through devious channels back to himself. Once launched on the stream he told her of his early years, his parents' death, his college career, and the growing boredom of his days.

And between the lines Fantine gleaned all that she needed; his obvious means and that fastidiousness of his—an important factor in her game.

The clock ticked on and the fire died low. The little room seemed shut off from the world.

"It sounds lonely..." she said at last—"You poor boy!—I understan'."

"Do you?" he leaned eagerly nearer. "No one cares—that's about it!" His arm stole round her. "Fantine ... dear, it's in your hands to cure, you know."

He stooped down and their lips met ...

The clock struck with a silver chime, ringing out the midnight hour; and Fantine, startled, drew away. Not yet—the warning rang in her ears.

But McTaggart, fired by that close embrace, stung too by her shrinking gesture, caught her roughly in his arms.

"Pierrot!"—she gasped—"wait ... wait! There's something—I must tell you—first..."

His strong young arms were like a vise, his eyes were brilliant, pleading for him.

"Fantine...?" he breathed.

"No! no!" She forced him back with all her strength, aware of his sudden loss of control, but perfect mistress of herself. Her hands, pressed against his chest, checked him for a fleeting moment. Within his coat that the struggle forced open, her eyes detected a note of white—the corner of an envelope, and in a flash her fingers sought and found the letter, purloining it.

She heard him give a little gasp, incredulous and vexed at once; his arms relaxed, the spell snapped, and twisting sidewards she slipped away out of his reach, breathless, triumphant.

Little she guessed what the trick cost her! For McTaggart in common with his kind was scrupulous toward correspondence. Nothing on earth would have induced him to trifle with another's letters.

And now as Fantine stood before him with a mocking smile, and in her grasp an envelope with his name upon it, in Jill's childish scrawling hand, it added the last fatal spark to resentment caused by baffled desire.

"That's mine, I think." His husky voice, almost rude in his sudden anger, proved to the woman she had found the right excuse to delay her surrender.

"Ah non, mon cher Pierrot!—I think I will keep your ... lettre d'amour. I'm very, ver-ry cross with you..." But her eyes belied the implied reproof. She stepped back, and the glow from the fire fell on her flushed and mischievous face, on the crumpled transparent peignoir that had fallen away from one bare shoulder.

And suddenly it came to McTaggart what she was ... and his own folly!

He saw that passion swayed him alone without the redeeming touch of love.

"I'm sorry." He stood up, stiff and straight. "You're quite right—I lost my head!" For the shrewder side of his nature swung him back once more into safe balance. He switched on the electric light and glanced openly at the clock.

"I'm afraid, too, I'm keeping you up. I'd no idea it was so late."

His voice was frigidly polite, a mask to hide his deep anger. For there she stood, with Jill's letter—Jill's of all people on earth!—that note of hers yet unread, caught up at the Club before he started.

He held out his hand for it.

Silently she gave it up. For once the woman in her quailed before the wrath in his blue eyes.

"Thank you." He placed it in his pocket and smiled, his young face still hard.

"Now we're quits ... eh! Fantine."

She began to realize her mistake.

"Quits?" she pouted. With one hand she smoothed the tumbled laces about her. "I think ... that you're unkind, Pierrot."

To his dismay she began to cry.

For indeed her nerve had given out, and the tears, at first assumed, grew real. She sobbed on, her head in her hands.

"You're not going?—oh—Pierrot! ... don't go ... Mon Dieu! ... Mon Dieu! ... I didn't mean ... I only ... tease ... oh! unkind..." she choked on the word.

McTaggart's heart began to soften.

"Why! Fantine ... why—my dear ...! I'm not cross ... honour bright! But it's getting deuced late, you know ... there ... there ... don't cry."

He soothed her like a fractious child.

"You go to bed—-you're dog-tired. That's it—I'm a selfish ass! ..." He tried to thrust the thought aside of what was really troubling her.

And in his friendly voice she read the failure of her deep-laid plans, conscious too that their early return had thrown out the scheme of time. Well, it was over—no! postponed...

She lifted her tear-stained face, oddly swayed between relief and infinite discouragement.

"Good night, Pierrot—I'm ... so tired! I'll go to bed—you're quite right. But come and see me very soon. Promise, Pierrot."

He smiled at her.

"Rather!—why! what d'you think?"

But once outside the front door he felt a sudden sense of blankness. He hated tears and shrank from scenes with the wholesome distrust of perfect nerves. And then—that letter! His face darkened ... What an end to the evening! The unexpected with a vengeance. He started to descend the stairs when a sound below made him pause.

Some one was coming slowly up. The steps passed the third floor and moved toward the last flight.

McTaggart glanced quickly round. He felt a curious distaste to be found there at this hour, and his eyes fell on the lift, level with Fantine's door. He remembered he had brought her up, working the ropes himself, and there it stood in semi-darkness offering a hiding-place.

He stepped inside and sat down in the far corner, holding his breath, as a tall man came into sight muffled in an overcoat.

"He's going to the opposite flat. Jolly lucky the lift being here." McTaggart's soliloquy stopped short. He gave a little gasp of wonder.

For the man passed him, unaware of his presence, making straight for Fantine's door, with a light, noiseless step that seemed to the other oddly furtive.

Arrived there he paused a moment, then bent down and with his finger lifted up the narrow flap of the letter box and peered through.

Instantly McTaggart was on the defensive. He thought of Mrs. Merrod alone, without a single soul to guard her, and the opportunity it offered.

But the next moment the pseudo-thief produced a latch-key from his pocket, fitted it softly in the lock, and the light shone out through the opened door. Here the first check greeted him. For the key stuck and, as he turned, McTaggart caught a glimpse of his face with a sudden and bewildering shock.

The square-cut beard had been shaved away, but above it gleamed those evil eyes and the hooked nose slightly bent of the man in the faded photograph!

"Gustave"—"Alger"—The two words flashed into remembrance. Here in the flesh was Fantine's husband—the dead returned! No doubt of it!

The man, with a shrug of his narrow shoulders, ceased to wrestle with the lock, and through the door left ajar McTaggart, his face glued to the glass of the lift, could see him cross the narrow hall, still on tiptoe, and bend to listen at the opposite key-hole.

What did it mean? A sudden suspicion shot through McTaggart's brain. He caught dimly the thread of the plot and a cold chill ran down his spine.

The next moment the bedroom door was flung wide, and Fantine stood, half dressed, her white face sharp and haggard, but undismayed.

A quick volley of words passed, unintelligible, in French. The sudden draught caught the outer door, and it slammed to with a loud bang.

Alone, in the darkness of the lift, McTaggart crouched, his brain on fire. A single word from the woman's lips had reached him and vaguely repeated itself.

"Raté...!" He found no meaning to it. With the consciousness of his equivocal position came the desire to escape. His hand groped for the cords and the lift slid down to the ground floor.

He fumbled with the heavy door, and was outside in the cold night air. Like a thief himself, he took to his heels, running down the deserted street, hailed a belated four-wheeler and arrived at length at his own chambers.

Once inside his sitting-room, he seemed to awaken from his stupor. He caught a glimpse of himself in the glass, forced a laugh at his white face and helped himself to a stiff drink.

Blackmail. The ugly word supplied the link that was missing. Blackmail—that was it. And Fantine? He felt suddenly sick. But as the brandy sent a glow through his cold disgusted frame, another memory returned to set the seal on his doubts.

He crossed to his bookcase and drew out from a pile of tattered French novels a shabby book bound in leather, thumbed and torn by days of school.

With nervous haste he turned the pages. "P," "Q," "R"—here it was! His eyes strained down the narrow print.

"Rater—(verb) to miss fire."

"Flower o' the quince
I let Lisa go and what good's in life since?"
R. BROWNING.

"I dreamed last night," said Jill, "that you and Stephen were having a fencing match. The worst of it was"—she sighed—-"I woke before the end!"

She settled herself back more firmly in her corner as the car swept them down a steep incline between high hedges bared of leaves, gathering impetus for the upward hill beyond. Roddy sat in front, his cap pulled down to his eyes, his back like a ramrod, every muscle braced. He was deeply engrossed in watching Bethune drive, pouring questions into his new friend's ear.

McTaggart pulled the rug higher about the girl as the keen wind smote them with its frosty breath. "You don't feel cold, Jill?" His blue eyes rested affectionately on the glowing face beside him.

"Not a bit! I love it." She returned to her dream. "Wasn't it annoying to wake like that?"

"Which side were you backing?" McTaggart gave a chuckle at her indignant:

"Why—you—of course! Fancy backing Stephen! I forgot to tell you, Peter. We had a real row the other night. And the worst of it is he told Mother something. He's such a sneak!—and now she's cross with me."

"Poor old girl!" McTaggart groped for her hand under the heavy rug; and the girl, contentedly, let it lie in his warm clasp with a child's confidence.

"Dreams are funny things," she went on happily, conscious of his sympathy, her eyes fixed ahead on the long line of trees fringing the country road, gaunt against the sky, warmed by the sunset hour. "D'you ever dream the same one over and over again?"

"I don't think so," said Peter. "I can't remember them—not distinctly, I mean, when I'm awake."

"I do." Jill turned to him with a far-away expression, "and there's one dream returns and seems to haunt me. A cluster of white towers that rise up on a hill against a deep blue sky and glitter in the sunshine. It's all so vivid!—I can see it now. Just that—those high white towers with a darker one among them. It seems to have a little cap—like a chimney pot—snow white ... And, although I've never been there, it's like a memory. I know it sounds absurd, but it feels"—she paused for words—"like coming home ... And then, I wake up."

"How odd! Perhaps it's part of another life. You know"—his face was thoughtful—"I think we've lived before. I can't believe that this is the whole of my existence; that all those centuries back bold no trace of me. Any more than I can think, as lots of fellows do, that we're snuffed out when we die like a row of little candles!"

"Of course not." Jill spoke with the certainty of youth—"though Heaven always sounds such a dreadfully dull place! That 'Heaven' I mean of the 'goody-goody' people, with no work to do but only eternal rest. I don't see the use of all we learn here if spiritual experience dies with the body. It's such a waste of power and so unlike Nature. Why—even the trees, you know, after centuries, turn into coal!" She drew a deep breath. "That's always so comforting! When I get the blues and feel afraid of death I like to look at the fire and believe that nothing's lost ... it all goes on, forward in the Scheme."

"That's true." McTaggart's hand tightened on hers. "Bethune—over there"—he lowered his voice—"was talking the other day—we're great pals, you know—he's a chap you can talk to, awfully sane—and we'd got on to religion and how it's broken up into rival camps and endless confusion—and he said: 'I haven't any particular creed and I don't go to Church, but ... it's just like this. I've always felt the Almighty's been so awfully good to me—he's cast my lot in very pleasant places, and given me health and strength and a jolly good time. It seems a dirty trick to doubt what He's planned, when He sees fit to shift me from this old Earth.'"

"I like that. How nice!" Jill nodded her head. "It does sound rather like ingratitude; and, now one comes to think of it, it is cheek to question the future after this lovely world. Look at that sky there and those little pink clouds!"

She spoke simply, with no lack of reverence, but rather that deeper one needing no outward show.

Silence fell between the pair as the car scudded on: that truest proof of minds in perfect sympathy.

The distant hills were veiling themselves in a violet haze, and in the high hedgerows the birds were still. Away to the right a deep blue line showed the river flowing along to London and the sea.

Jill broke the spell first, with a little sign to attract his attention.

"I'm sure I hear music—a long way off. There!" She bent her head, straining forward. "It's a band down in the valley. How funny at this hour!—and right away from everywhere!"

"Territorials, perhaps."

McTaggart listened too.

"We're about midway, I should say, between Henley and town."

For Jill's letter with the news of Roddy's return—the school having broken up through a sudden epidemic—had suggested this outing in Bethune's car on one of his rare Saturdays of holiday. They had gone to see the Cambridge crew practice for the boat race and lunched at Henley, a merry quartette.

Jill's letter!—McTaggart's mind swung off at a tangent. He felt a new-born gratitude to his schoolgirl friend. Had it not been for this and Fantine's want of tact—(he could see her now holding the letter to her breast)—he must have stumbled headlong into the trap.

He felt again heart-sore at the betrayal.

"We're getting nearer," said Jill. "I don't think it's a band."

The car swerved round a bend and lights flashed out, pale in the twilight like glow-worms on the green.

"Oh, Peter—look!" Jill clapped her hands. "It's a Village Fair—how lovely!—with merry-go-rounds!"

"So it is." Peter smiled as Roddy twisted round, his boy's face alight, with an eager request.

"Can't we stop, Peter?—and have one turn ... My hat! there's a cocoanut shy! Oh, do pull up..."

McTaggart leaned forward and consulted the driver. "Have you time, old man? These kids are awfully keen."

"Rather," Bethune laughed good-naturedly. "We'll run the car first into the Inn yard. Can't leave it here—the road's too narrow."

They skirted the crowd slowly at the end of the village street, the horn (worked by Roddy) vying with the strains of the cracked "Steam Band," and, handing over the rugs to the care of the ostler, proceeded on foot to the scene of the fun.

It was hardly a fair, but one of those travelling shows that wander across the country with a handful of caravans.

Dark gypsy faces, the hoarse cry of the showmen, the flaring petroleum jets and the noisy metallic music were blent in a scene garish and crude but strangely exciting after the lonely roads.

"The merry-go-rounds first," Jill declared. "I choose the piebald horse—you take the black!" McTaggart swarmed up, infected by her mood, Roddy in front of them, with a roar of delight as Bethune settled his bulky form on a wooden donkey.

"Off we go!—Houp-là! ..." They whirled round and round.

"Two to one on the rat-tailed mare!" McTaggart's voice rang out.

Jill, clinging to the piebald's neck, with a fine show of ankles, her dark hair streaming back, looked like a Bacchante.

"Isn't it ripping?" Her motor veil swung loose, her fur cap slid back, and about her glowing face the straying curls blew. Her gray eyes like stars met McTaggart's open smile. Joy was in her heart.

The machine ran down. Panting, they descended.

"Now—the cocoanuts!" Roddy led the way to where a narrow screen of sacking protected the crowd of village folks from too violent an onslaught.

A hoarse voice greeted them:

"This way—guv'nor! Six sticks a penny! All-the-fun-o'-the-fair! Now then—young sir—move on ... Hi!—Don't shove the lidy!—Six sticks a penny!" They found themselves in the centre of the firing line.

"Got 'im!" Bethune shouted his approval. "Bravo, Miss Uniacke!" as Roddy with a yell captured the cocoanut his sister had dislodged.

The crowd pressed round them, and McTaggart found himself suddenly isolated from his own party.

"Cross the gypsy's 'and, my fine gentleman..." A coaxing voice chanted in his ear.

"There's fortune for you, dearie; I see it in your face—it's coming over the seas—with a golden crown..."

Peter turned quickly. In the dim half light he looked back into a pair of glowing dark eyes: a gypsy woman's face with glossy black hair and long coral earrings hanging on each side.

He was going to draw back when he felt his hand caught; held by dark fingers, supple and strong, the palm turned upward as the husky voice went on with its curious crooning lilt, its patter of words.

"It's under the cloud you stand, my fine gentleman; the cloud of a lie ... but it clears ... it clears.... There's a far-off journey and castle walls ... and love all the time—hidden—by your side...."

She bent her head lower, tracing the lines with a forefinger stiff with a broad gold ring. The light of the flares fell on her bare neck and the bright Paisley shawl, crossed on her full bosom.

"Beware of a dark woman!—she's playing you false. Between two fires you will burn and burn ... And then, when the light fades ... on the turn of the tide ... there's the Lucky Moon and the Dream of your life...!"

Her voice sank away. She straightened herself, with a clink of silver bangles, and let his hand fall. Her lips were still muttering and her eyes, opened wide, were like pools of ink as McTaggart stared at her.

"And what about the golden crown?" He felt in his pocket. With an effort he spoke lightly to break the uncanny charm.

"It will come, my fine gentleman—before the year is dead."

"Peter!" He heard Jill calling to him. "Peter! where are you?" The coin changed hands.

"A blessing on your head—the gypsy's blessing, sir. The eyes that see and the ears that hear ... And through the dark clouds the sun shining bright—with love coming swiftly ... love by your side..."

"Peter!" Impatiently Jill caught his arm—"we thought we had lost you."

He turned with a start.

"Hullo, Jill!" He felt a trifle dazed. "I've been listening to a gypsy—having my fortune told."

"No?—what fun! What did she tell you?"

He glanced behind him, but the woman had gone.

"All sorts of things. I'm to have a golden crown—and a castle somewhere. In Spain, I should think!"

"Well, come along now—they've gone to the swings."

He slipped a hand through his little friend's arm. "Let me carry that cocoanut. Did you win it, Jill?" But the girl refused, guarding her treasure.

They crossed the trodden grass, damp with the dew, to where a row of booths with poisonous-looking sweets, cheap ribands and laces and ginger-bread "snaps" had attracted the usual pairs of village lovers.

"Buy yer lidy a fairing!" A shrill voice hailed them—"a pretty brooch now—a bracelet?—a ring? Come now, young sir—yer 'and in yer pocket!—there's yer sweet'art waitin' ... the price of a kiss!"

McTaggart laughed back with a side glance at Jill.

"Would you like a fairing?" His eyes ran over the stall.

"Have a ring with 'Mizpah'?—Let's buy one for Stephen."

But the girl shook her head, with a gesture of annoyance.

"Come now, dearie"—the woman entreated—"choose a pretty keepsake—the gen'leman 'ull pay."

McTaggart bent forward, searching for a gift, suddenly obstinate.

"You'll have to have something!"

"Hullo! what's this?" From the tray of tawdry jewellery, he picked up a locket with a smile to himself.

Two little hearts in bright red glass, with a true lover's knot joining them together.

Cheap and meretricious, the toy was saved from vulgarity by the colour which glowed like a pigeon-blood ruby.

It reminded McTaggart of his own curious case—the Double Heart—surely a symbol!

"There, Jill! Never say I'm not a generous man."

He tossed a shilling across to the woman—and with due solemnity made his offering.

"Thanks awfully." Jill's grey eyes were hidden by the dark fringe of lashes, sweeping down on to her cheeks. "I'll keep it for Court ... or wear it on my sleeve. Thank you, Peter."

She slipped it in her pocket.

"Hi! McTaggart!" Bethune from afar was waving to them. "Time we were off!" He shouted the warning as they hastened toward him where he stood with Roddy, still breathless from the swings.

"It's awfully late..." he added apologetically. "I'm sorry to rush you—but I think we'd better start."

They made for the Inn, Bethune by his friend, Roddy hanging onto his sister's arm.

"We'll have to go slow when we get to Hounslow—those beastly trams spoil the run. Here we are!" He babbled on—"now, bundle in..."

But Jill checked her brother, with one foot on the step. "I think I'd rather like to ride in front. D'you mind, Mr. Bethune?" She smiled up at him.

"Mind? I should think not." The man looked pleased, but McTaggart's face fell at the words.

"Going to desert me? You little turn-coat!—After that lovely fairing too."

But Jill was settling herself beside the driver.

"Rather rough on Roddy!" was all she said.

The schoolboy laughed. He produced a bag, brimming over with highly coloured sweets.

"Have a suck?" he said, and diving into it drew out a sugar stick, striped pink and yellow.

"Thanks—no. Not just now." McTaggart's face was eloquent.

"All right," said Roddy with happy unconcern. "You just tell me when you feel like it."

The car trundled out between the narrow posts, and, avoiding the crowd, turned to the right; then, as the road, devoid of life, stretched straight ahead, took on speed.

The noisy music faded away into darkness and silence and the rustling breeze. McTaggart drowsily closed his eyes, as the stars began to peer out of the heavens. His head sank lower, his thoughts became involved ... Then with a flash he came back to life. Awoke to find the lamps glowing about him, the hum of the traffic, the busy London streets, and, against the light, Bethune's broad back and the girl's clear profile like a silhouette.

Jill was chattering, plainly absorbed.

Every now and then, her companion would lean to catch a sentence broken by the wind, and a laugh would float back with the hearty ring that seemed a part of the man's honest nature.

McTaggart watched them in a moody silence, still slightly piqued by Jill's desertion.

Roddy, surfeited, with a nearly empty bag, was rolled up in the corner like a happy dormouse.

They turned more slowly into dimly lighted roads, and the trees of Regent's Park came into sight.

Jill was giving directions now to Bethune. "It's the turning before Primrose Hill," McTaggart heard her say.

Then the car slackened, mounted the slight hill and they were in front of the terrace of gloomy little houses.

Stiff and pleasantly tired, they stepped down on the pavement, Bethune's strong arm for a moment supporting Jill.

Hurried adieux and thanks and the pair were off again, McTaggart now in the corner, still warm, where the girl had sat beside the driver on the long ride home.

A sudden silence had fallen between them, each engrossed in his own train of thought.

Bethune broke it first.

"Shall I drop you at the Club? I've got to take the car home—it's on our way."

"Thanks." McTaggart roused himself. "Can't you come back and dine with me?—or we'll have a grill somewhere—if you prefer it?"

"Sorry—I can't. I've promised to meet a man—it's a business matter. Otherwise I would."

"Well—some other night." He felt a shade relieved. "It's very good of you to have given us this run. Those kids will talk of it till Kingdom Come—it's a great treat for them."

Bethune grunted.

"Oh—as to that—I enjoyed it myself. That's a nice boy..." there came a little pause—"and Miss Uniacke's ... perfectly ripping!—pretty too." He nodded his head.

"Think so?" McTaggart's voice was coolly indifferent.

"Of course," he added, "she's only a child."

It was the night of Cydonia's dance.

Although the band had been playing since the stroke of ten, guests were still arriving at the Cadells' door; in parties "personally conducted" by the hostess with whom they had dined, their cards already filled and flirtations well started, wearing an air of frozen indifference toward the rest of the gay crowd; in knots of twos and threes hastening from the play; and in stray units, chiefly men, cheered by the thought of approaching supper.

The morning room had been arranged to hold the coats and hats, and for the moment the hall was free from guests. A young man with straight, red hair brushed back from his forehead, and a discontented expression about his tired eyes, emerged from the cloak-room buttoning his gloves and, with a faint start of pleased surprise, nodded to a friend who stood above him on the stairs.

"Hullo, Merivale!—fancy meeting you!"

"Thesiger—by all that's strange!—Thought you barred dances?"

"So I do—loathe 'em. But Susan dragged me here. Wait a second, will you?—This confounded glove..."

His friend nodded, leaning against the banisters: a short dark youth with a tiny moustache, that hovered like a butterfly about to take wing under his finely cut aquiline nose.

"What's the name of the people here? I've clean forgotten."

"Cadell," answered Merivale as Thesiger joined him.

"D'you know the hostess by sight?—I promised to meet Susan, but cut it rather fine. Point her out, will you? or give me a description."

"Tall bony woman—face like the Sphinx—and big black pearls, suggesting the prize product of a poultry farm."

"Sounds opulent. What time's supper? I say—there's Kilmarny! Now, who could have brought him?"

"So it is." Merivale waved his hand. "Pity he's getting fat. I suppose Letty Urquhart. Have you heard of that smash?"

"Yes." Thesiger nodded. "Bound to come to it—the pace he was goin'. Good old Urquhart! But I'm sorry for her—a nice little woman. What's she doing here, 'dans cette galère'?"

"Well, I think..." he lowered his voice, "she's going to present the Cadell girl next season. Lady Leason's fixed it up—she's trying to help Letty. There's precious little left, you know, for her and the kids."

"I don't blame her. Look at Kilmarny trying to dance the Tango! Let's stand here and watch. Oh—by the way, I heard rather a funny yarn about one of these new steps—'Bunny Hug' or something. Man was watching a girl in a sort of knot with her partner, and some one else objected on the score of Mother Grundy. 'Oh,' said the man—'I'm sorry for the girl. More danced against than dancing'—eh?—what!'"

Merivale laughed, as they stood on the landing outside the ballroom watching the scene within.

"Miss Cadell," said he, "is by way of being a beauty. Rather statuesque, with pale gold hair. Jinks knows her—you remember Jinks of Trinity—calls her 'The Heavy Angel!'—Rather a good name."

He leaned a little forward.

"There she goes, now ... dancing with McTaggart—and not for the first time! He's in the running to-night. Pots of money, you know. Poppa was in biscuits—or beer—no! Cheese..."

He broke off suddenly as a short red-faced man turned the corner abruptly and cannoned into them.

He seemed all shirt front, a starched battering-ram, painfully hot and labouring for breath.

"Sorry, sorry!" He stopped to apologize, puffing out the words with a forced cordiality.

"Why aren't you dancing, you young men?—Want some partners? Let's see your cards."

Thesiger stared at him with open disgust.

"No—er—thanks." He turned to his friend as the thick-set man bustled away downstairs, mopping his brow with a large silk handkerchief.

"Who's that bounder?"

"Sh ... I—it's the host."

"Good Lord!—that?" he frowned impatiently—"I can't see Susan—I've a great mind to cut it!"

"Better wait for supper," Merivale suggested. "Look here"—he added—"if you're not already booked we'll have it together."

"Righto!—and then you come on with me—for a game of 'Chemmy,' eh?—I feel in luck to-night."

"Well ... we'll see. How's Mrs. Merrod?" His dark eyes twinkled as he watched Thesiger's face.

"The fair Fantine?—oh—goin' pretty strong ... How are you, McTaggart——?" He broke off to greet a couple approaching.

The man nodded back.

"Hullo, Archie?—d'you know Miss Cadell?"

Cydonia was introduced, dazzling in white, her brown eyes glowing with suppressed excitement.

"Can't you spare him a dance? He's an old pal of mine?" McTaggart asked the girl with a subtle air of possession.

Cydonia smiled mischievously.

"I might give him that extra I half promised you..."

"I'll see that you don't!" said her partner aggressively.

"Rather!" said Thesiger, entering into the sport. "Which is it, Miss Cadell?—the first, I hope?"

Cydonia glanced from one man's face to the other, unusually animated, conscious of her power.

"If Peter lets me off—it's the second supper dance."

"That's all right." McTaggart laughed—"You're supping with me—you seem to forget that!"

"Greedy brute!" Thesiger wrote it down with ostentatious care. "I'll come and look for you. In the supper-room!"

The music ceased and a gay crowd passed through the narrow opening dividing the trio.

"Upstairs, Cydonia." McTaggart lowered his voice—"and I'm not going to be cheated—even by Archie. Here—I'll lead the way——" he forged ahead, passing the couples preceding them. They reached the second landing, then up the third flight. Here seats were arranged in isolated pairs.

"Where does that lead to?" McTaggart, as he spoke, pointed to a narrow passage blocked by palms.

"The servants' staircase." Cydonia paused, but her companion deliberately drew the plants aside, holding back the leaves for her to pass.

"Come along, quick!" She gave him a glance, then obeyed with a sudden giggle.

"I say—this is fine!" He continued to explore, mounting the twisted dingy stairs.

"Let's go up and sit on the top." A faint glimmering light showed him the way. "Now—here we are—all to ourselves!"

Cydonia, a little scared by her own sense of daring, settled herself, her dress drawn about her, her little feet in their silver shoes shimmering beyond the dead-white brocade.

"It's rather narrow..." she suggested; then blushed as McTaggart, unabashed, took the step below.

He looked up into the beautiful face, still faintly flushed, transparent as a shell: into brown eyes like some clear woodland pool, where the sunshine through the trees cast golden gleams. His hand stole across and captured the girl's with the pretence of playing with her fan.

"Cydonia...!" The word was music in his ears. "How the name suits you—you lovely child!"

She drew back a little against the further wall.

"No—don't move—Cydonia—are you happy?" He slipped his right arm between her shoulders and the stairs. "There's a cushion for you—isn't that better?"

But Cydonia protested, sitting bolt upright. "No—Peter—don't. I'd really ... rather ... not."

"Why?—there's no one here. Can't you trust me, sweet?"

For McTaggart was drifting on the tide of his desire. He knew, too, it was part of his own fixed plan; no mere folly due to the place and hour.

Fantine's treachery had served to accentuate, by contrast, the value of his other love. Her girlhood, her purity, her quiescent charm stood out like snow against that dark background.

This night should decide it. No more would he stand, tossed by every impulse, with every change of mood. He would anchor in the haven of Cydonia's love, safe from the storms of life without.

Marriage, he thought, with a young man's confidence, would be the "settling down" of body and mind. He held that curious faith in established institutions which is the mainspring of British orthodoxy.

A duet of words intoned in a Church was to conquer his temperament from that moment until death. Faithful, he swore, he would be to her, by these holy vows, publicly pledged; and, the miracle accomplished, his hot blood should turn into the quiet circulation of a saint.

Love should work the charm and passion complete it. He thrust far from him its shadow, satiety; and that still greater pitfall for those who wed in haste, a dissimilarity in habit and thought.

So now as he lay, stretched on the stairs, so near to the fragrance of the girl's golden youth, drinking in the beauty of rounded arms and neck, and the shy, tender curve of her childish mouth, he felt that life held no deeper desire than to know her his until Death should part.

"Peter ... I don't think we ought to be here." This wise remark came a trifle late. For the faint smile with which she mitigated her sentence revealed for a second her white even teeth, and the parted lips and famous dimple completed the strain on McTaggart's control.

"Don't you, my darling?" His face was close to hers, his blue eyes, dilated, pleaded for him.

"Peter ... no!" She stiffened in his arms—then, with a little sigh, her lips met his, and clung...

"Well!—I'll be damned!" A harsh angry voice tore them apart, startled and bewildered.

Ebenezer Cadell, with apoplectic face, was glaring from below at the absorbed pair. The next moment heavy feet shook the stairs; the old man was on them—a fiery retribution.

He caught McTaggart roughly by the shoulder. "What the devil..." he stuttered—"is the meaning of this?"

Cydonia scrambled up with more speed than grace, retreating to the landing with a shamed cry:

"Father!"

McTaggart, honestly taken aback, sat there, dazed, finding no reply.

For Cadell was almost beside himself.

Cydonia to him was more than a daughter; she was the ideal of his work-a-day life: the crowning proof of his money's worth.

In the depths of his parental heart love was tinged with awe—the emotion he felt before a masterpiece.

That a man should dare ... under his own roof ... to hold her in his arms—to kiss her untouched mouth! Here was sacrilege. He shook McTaggart, his social veneer cracking apart.

"Now, then, sir—haven't you a tongue? How dare you come here—into my house—and treat my girl like a...?"

"Silence!"

The young man was on his feet, his face very white, his blue eyes aflame.

"If you'd give me time to speak——" each word was measured—"you'd find there's no need to insult your daughter!"

"Shall I—you puppy—you!" for the shaft had sped. "You leave my house first—This minute—see?"

He pointed down the stairs with a hand that shook.

"You git—now!—I'll have no truck with you!" He was back once more in his master grocer days.

"With pleasure"—McTaggart stood his ground—"when you have listened to what I have to say. I shall call on you at twelve to-morrow, Mr. Cadell—to ask you for the honour of your daughter's hand."

Melodramatic?—with a touch of the South, but not without a certain youthful dignity.

The very fact of this, of the young man's breeding, served but to remind Cadell of his own.

"I tell you," he boiled, "I'll have no words about it. Marry Cydonia——? a pauper like you!" He fought for his breath as McTaggart smiled. "You can call if you choose and be damned to you!"

Peter bowed, outwardly calm. He turned his head once. Cydonia had vanished, safely sheltered in the house-maid's bedroom.

Then, leisurely, he walked downstairs, conscious that the moral victory was his.

But the flights seemed endless. He passed the ball-room door and joined in the steady stream pouring down to supper.

The thought stung him suddenly as he drew on his coat and tipped the man who handed him his hat.

"Hardly hospitable!"

But his smile twisted. He refused, as he passed out, the appeal of loitering taxis, and with long angry strides he forged ahead down the empty pavements in a bee line for his club.

The night was still young. The stars above shone down through the glow that London spreads upon the domed sky: orange-colored smoke, incense offered up from the fires of her pleasure and burnt sacrifice.

In Piccadilly a woman accosted him, with painted lips that brought to mind Fantine.

He hurried on, restless, with a feeling in his heart that all was crooked in this maddening world. Love bartered—love profaned ... His eyes still filled with Cydonia's light shrank from that ghastly pageant of lust which decorous London openly allows.

In the hall of his club a page ran after him, a pile of letters outstretched on a tray.

He took them absently and turned into the smoking-room, with a breath of relief at finding it empty, save for a solitary form, half-buried in a chair, feet outstretched toward the fire.

"Hullo!—Bethune." The man reading turned. "Luck, finding you here."

For he felt a real pleasure at the sight of the burly figure of his friend and a sudden, uncontrollable longing for sympathy.

They drew their chairs together before the cheerful blaze and exchanged commonplaces as the waiter brought drinks.

Then, as the door closed, Bethune's voice changed. "What's up, Peter?—got the flu?"

"No—the sack!" He laughed as he spoke, amused at the other's perspicacity.

For Bethune was a man to whom his friends turned instinctively in trouble, with—perhaps?—no memory that, on other occasions more hilarious, they voted this "quiet chap" a trifle "slow."

"Turned you down—eh? Not that Merrod woman?"

"Good Lord, no! I've done with her. It's a girl ... a young girl. Or rather her father! I'm feeling a bit hipped over it all."

He told the story from beginning to end, Bethune listening with an occasional grunt.

"Nice sort of man for a father-in-law! Seems to me you're well out of it."

"But I don't want to be! Never mind Cadell! I'm not marrying the family." Bethune smiled. "I'm hard hit this time—and I'll see it through—if it comes to a good old Gretna Green bolt!"

"Better take my car," Bethune was amused—"You're a Scotchman, aren't you? Once across the border you've only got to say you're husband and wife and the thing's fair and square, I understand."

"Jove! I never thought of it." McTaggart looked up. "She's the prettiest thing you ever set eyes on."

"Anything like Jill?"

"Not a scrap!" The sudden contrast checked his flow of words on the crest of a lover-like flood of description. Then followed one of those swift afterthoughts peculiar to his analytical brain. The difference was not all to Cydonia's advantage; she lacked the mentality of the other girl.

Angrily he thrust aside the fleeting disloyalty as Bethune went on in his calm voice.

"I don't see why the old man was so riled? ... You're quite decent to look at——" his honest eyes twinkled—"and you've got a steady income, rare in these days. What does he want? A title, I suppose. Some young ass with debts who'll make her 'milady.'"

"That's about it." McTaggart scowled.

"D'you think she'll stand by you?"

"Of course," said the lover.

"Then—that's all serene. I don't suppose you hanker for fatherly attention and the family circle?"

"Well, not much!" McTaggart shuddered. "He's utterly impossible. The mother's not so bad—too stiff, you know, and conscious of her 'dignity,' but quite presentable—pass in a crowd."

"Then go in and win, my son."

Silence fell between them and at last McTaggart rose to his feet.

"I'm going to have some nourishment—I missed supper, you know."

Bethune grinned. "That's a nasty jar! He might have stood you a parting drink."

"I'll come back presently——" but still he lingered. His whiskey and soda had quenched his thirst and he found he had but little taste for food.

Mechanically he gathered up his letters; then sat down again in his chair.

"I'll read these first—it isn't late."

"Lost your appetite?" Bethune rubbed it in.

His friend, ignoring this ignoble sally, began to tear open the envelopes.

At the bottom of the pile was a large square letter which he recognized as bearing his lawyer's writing.

He frowned a little at the sight, in no mood for business, then settled down grudgingly to study the contents. Inside was an envelope with a deep black edge sealed with an elaborate coat-of-arms.

Bethune was staring into the fire, his mind still full of his friend's adventure. He felt that deep, rather wistful, admiration which a man of his type extends to those more brilliant.

A quick exclamation made him turn his head. McTaggart was plainly startled by his news.

"I say—Bethune—Good Lord—it's impossible!"

He re-read the document in his hand.

"My Uncle's dead!—and both my cousins! A motor-smash outside Rome. What an awful thing!—the car overturned..." He skimmed on, breathless—"the old man was killed ... on the spot—the eldest son, too ... the other lingered ... died on Tuesday..."

He turned the letter over. "Why, it's nearly a week old. Oh, I see!—it went to Scotland and then to my lawyers, who sent it here. They want me to go to Siena at once."

Bethune began to voice condolences.

"Oh! I never knew them. But, of course, I'm sorry. He was my mother's brother. (Just touch that bell.) They quarrelled when she married ... I shall have to go."

He turned to the waiter answering the summons.

"Bring me a Continental Bradshaw."

"Do you come in for anything?" asked the practical Bethune.

"Anything?"—the young man laughed with a touch of excitement. "I'm the only one left. There's a palace in Siena ... and a flat in Rome ... and a villa somewhere. And a lot of land, vines and olive groves and a nice fat income ... and—Bethune—don't roar!—I'm the present Marquis. They actually address me..." he choked with mirth—"as the Illustrious Marquis Maramonte!"

"Good for you." Bethune leaned across and the two shook hands. "I'm jolly glad. It'll make old Cadell sit up a bit—you've a dead cert there." He chuckled with glee.

"Splendid—I forgot that." His face sobered suddenly. "Although I've half a mind ... yes!—Look here, Bethune—keep this between ourselves—it's not likely to leak out—and I'd rather win Cydonia as plain Peter McTaggart."

His voice softened on the girl's name. What a setting for her—this palace in Siena!

"All right, old man. I quite understand. You can count on me to keep my mouth shut."

The waiter returned and they fell to ways and means, wrestling with the Bradshaw, discussing the route.

"I'll come back and give you a hand with your packing. You'll be wanting a car now, Monsieur le Marquis?"

McTaggart chuckled.

"Good old Bethune! always an eye to business, what? You can take the order—and spare no cost. Line it with white. It'll do for the wedding."

Then a sudden memory clouded his mirth as his thoughts reverted to the tragedy at Rome.

"I'm glad all the same I'm too late for the funeral..."

Early next morning he started for Siena.

At Dover he remembered Mr. Cadell.

With a sense of guilt he sent the following wire:

"Cannot call to-day. Obliged to go abroad on important business. Will write.

"McTAGGART."

Once on board the boat he began a letter to Cydonia; but the passage was rough and he abandoned the attempt, returning to the deck to enjoy the sight of the great rollers slapping up against the sides of the steamer and breaking into high columns of spray, glittering like mica in the wintry sunshine.

He consoled himself with the thought that Mr. Cadell would undoubtedly keep a stern eye on the post, and that his missive was unlikely to reach the lady of his heart.

His luggage was registered through to Siena, and, when he arrived at the Gare du Nord, he took an "auto," directing the man to drive him down the Boulevards. After the damp of London, the air, light and exciting, went to his head. He drew it in, in deep breaths, with its sharp familiar scent of roasting coffee-berries, of waxed floors and of wine, that the crowded cafés wafted toward him as he passed: that typical smell of Paris, pungent, unforgettable, which welcomes the votaries of the City of Light.

He dined at Noël Peter's and felt absurdly pleased when the gérant recognized him as one of a quartette who more than a year since had frequented the restaurant on an Easter holiday visit.

Then, turning up the Passage des Princes, he strolled along happily, glad to stretch his legs before his long night journey.

The flower shops were fairy-like; the jewellers' ablaze. Slim forms, muffled in furs, slipped past with that subtle air of conscious power, of sure and sensuous appeal which marks the Parisienne in every grade of life. Clubmen were strolling toward their 'aperitifs,' husbands with wives, sedately arm in arm, trim 'midinettes' and bare-headed 'bonnes'; all combined to give the crowded pavements the sense of a meeting place, an outdoor haunt of pleasure spiced with intrigue instead of a mere channel for the traffic.

McTaggart reached the Madeleine, glanced down the Rue Royale and, with a sigh of regret, hailed a passing auto. He was jarred and rattled over the stones of that aggressive road which ends at the Gare de Lyon.

Bethune had wired that morning for a wagon-lit, a wise precaution as the train was packed. The conductor, in reply to his stilted French, led McTaggart down the long corridor.

"A telegram without name? From London, Monsieur?" He produced it and McTaggart smiled. In the hurry of departure his careful friend had omitted this essential.

"Voici, Monsieur."

The young man peeped past him into the narrow coupé. The beds were already arranged for the night and on the lower berth, impassive, there sat a very fat priest, absorbed in his breviary. The windows were shut, the heat turned on full.

McTaggart drew back with a gesture of disgust.

"This won't do." Unconsciously his voice took on that arrogant note which the travelling Englishman employs for the benefit of foreign servants.

"What name did you say, Monsieur?" The shrewd French face was studying him, gauging the value of his tip.

A sudden idea flashed into McTaggart's brain. He would test here and now the value of his title.

"I'm the Marquis Maramonte," he answered, steadily watching the black eyes fixed on his.

"Pardon, Monsieur?" The man looked puzzled. Then a ray of light illumined his face.

"It is ... the English milord? who inherits ... Mon Dieu! what a sad affair! ..." he became voluble—"the papers were full of it ... and Monsieur le feu Marquis has often travelled by this train. He loved well Paris. If Monsieur le Marquis had but given his name..." He backed ceremoniously and threw open the door of an empty compartment. "I will see that Monsieur is not disturbed. He has only to ring. I am here all night. And at Modane I will warn the Customs. Monsieur would like an extra 'couverture'?"

McTaggart was smiling in his sleeve.

"C'est bien." He tipped the man generously, delighted at the result of his tactics.

"Monsieur, sans doute, travels to Siena?—a cold journey ... the passes are full of snow. But Monsieur will be quite undisturbed"—a gleam of mischief came into the dark shrewd face—"one understands Monsieur could not travel with the Church!"

This puzzled Peter. He had yet to learn that his Uncle had been a member of the Anti-clerical party. Like most Protestants, he lived in the error that the nearer one approached to Rome the more fervent the Catholicism. He had heard of the two great factions in that city, the "Black" and the "White," without measuring their importance. Moreover, he did not realize the curious apathy of the lower classes in the land of the Saints and that deep-rooted hatred of the Socialist and "Patriot" for monastic institutions and temporal power.

But he smiled at the sally, conscious of hidden meaning, and the man, encouraged, lowered his voice.

"This berth, milord, was reserved for a German—un banquier Juif—qui vient de Hambourg..." he reached up and removed the ticket from its slot—"we will place him to-night on the road to salvation!"

"With the priest?"—McTaggart laughed until he cried as the door closed on his new friend's parting grin. He tried to picture the same scene in England with the typical conductor of a Pullman Car.

What a nation it was! Light and witty, with under the froth a curious depth. He thought of its paralyzing series of defeats in the Franco-Prussian war, its mad Revolutions and that marvellous recuperative force which had brought France back to her present era of prosperity. Then he began to dream of Italy; to picture Siena and, in the far distance, Cydonia beside him there ... Cydonia in his arms.

With her name on his lips he fell asleep.

He woke, refreshed, made a leisurely toilette and wandered forth in search of breakfast. In the Restaurant Car he announced his nationality by demanding eggs with his café au lait; then settled down to the long day's journey, thankful now for the full steam heat as they mounted steadily toward the Alps and plunged with a shrill whistle into the tunnel.

On and on, with tantalizing peeps of the Mont Cenis Pass. The hoar frost without traced fairy patterns on the window-pane. The wind roared past them but the sun shone bright on snow-clad peaks and valleys dazzling white. Through Turin, with its broad blue river twisting like a serpent round her ancient walls, on and on, now heading South, as the snow vanished swiftly and the plains spread about them.

McTaggart grew restless. He paced up and down the narrow corridor, smoking innumerable cigarettes as the light slowly faded away from the sky.

Genoa! He drew a breath of relief and barricaded himself again in his coupé. A swarm of passengers besieged the train and he let the window down, amused at the sight. Boys were selling oranges and glasses of "sirops," Bologna sausages and lurid papers.

Then the train moved out and the salt smell of the sea tempted him to search in vain through the dark. The Mediterranean. He remembered, with a smile, it had stood for a test of spelling at school! Once he thought he saw a faint dark line; then it vanished into the night.

He began to feel drowsy after his dinner. This would never do! He marched up and down, conscious he had to change at Pisa—then at Empoli. He yawned, stiff and tired.

After what seemed an interminable spell, with a grisly noise of brakes, they slackened speed. "Pisa ... Pi-sa ...!" He gathered up his rug and descended the steep step on to the platform.

His train puffed out. He felt, suddenly, as if he had parted with his only friend, as he stood there waiting for the Florence express, stamping his feet, in the bitter cold.

"If this is the South..." he said to himself—"Give me London!" He turned up his collar, straining his eyes through the vaulted tunnel of the long station into the dark.

Great lamps flaring like hungry eyes and in she roared with her high-built engine, spiteful, frost-rimmed, spitting steam ...

McTaggart found a seat in a crowded carriage.

Then on again through this endless night and Empoli, a God-forsaken spot, quite unscreened from the icy blast, with twenty frozen minutes to wait.

At last a faint streak of golden smoke rewarded his patience. "Siena—Siena," a hoarse voice shouted. He made for the nearest door labelled First Class and clambered in, finding a single occupant.

An old man with a white imperial, the soft black felt beloved of Italy, a thick coat with a wolf-skin collar and a lawyer's portfolio across his knees.

He raised the aforementioned hat courteously.

"Fa freddo," he said in a musical voice.

McTaggart lifted his cap, with pleased surprise, his loneliness fading before the stranger's smile.

"Do you speak French?" He asked in that language. "I'm afraid my Italian's somewhat scanty."

"Si, si, Monsieur." Again he raised his hat.

Again McTaggart clutched at his cap.

"I hope it isn't necessary with every word!" he thought with an Englishman's distaste for ceremony.

"A cold night for travelling," the stranger suggested. "Monsieur has come far?" His keen black eyes shone like bright coal in their wrinkled sockets.

"From London," said McTaggart with the conscious pride of a tired man at the end of his journey. "I'm bound for Siena," he volunteered. "Is it generally as cold as this in Italy?"

The old man smiled.

"It is Winter still, Monsieur. What would you have?"

He spread out his hands. "In Siena we are high ... altis ... simo! But healthy—one gets few fevers there. Monsieur is 'en touriste'?" His gentle curiosity was freed from all impertinence by his charming manner.

"No—not exactly. I'm going there on business."

McTaggart paused a moment, then made up his mind.

"I've inherited a property from my mother's brother. He was killed in an accident, near Rome, with his sons."

The effect on his audience was electrical.

"But, Monsieur!" ... he stuttered—"è impossibile!—Monsieur is not the English Milord?—the new Marchese Maramonte?"

For the third time off came his hat.

"I'm afraid so." Peter laughed outright. For the old man, wiry and light, was on his feet, bowing before him with a deferential air.

"My humble 'félicitations' to Monsieur le Marquis. His lawyer, Jacopo Vanni—at his service."

"No!—really?" McTaggart held out his hand and shook the other's heartily; and by that simple act, unknown to himself, he secured a life-long friend.

"You're just the very man I wanted to meet."

"We were in despair," Vanni continued, "no news from England when I left yesterday! I have been in Florence on business for the Marchesa, and, I suppose, the message arrived later."

"I only wired early this morning. The letter had miscarried and reached me last night. As you see, I have wasted no time in coming!" McTaggart smiled back at the eager old face.

"And now, can you tell me some of my new duties? I am anxious to learn the extent of my inheritance and I feel rather like a duck out of water! Not speaking Italian makes it worse. I should really be grateful for any advice."

"Monsieur le Marquis does me honour." The bright eyes devoured him, approving his handsome face. "Every inch a Maramonte!" Unconsciously, he spoke aloud.

"Really?" McTaggart was interested. "I was always told I resembled my mother."

"Sicuro!" Vanni's voice was stirred. "All save the eyes—of the English blue. And when Monsieur sees his gallery of portraits, he will feel at home! Monsieur le Marquis is like his famous ancestor—that Giordano Maramonte, the hero of Montaperti, who led in the capture of the Carroccio of Firenze ... And there is a look of the Marchese Cesare—who went down to fame for his attack on the Citadel. He drove the Spaniards out of Siena—that was before the last great siege..."

His words poured on. He was plainly lost in the history of the house he served, back in those war-like days of the past when great names testified to greater deeds.

McTaggart realized he had touched on a hobby. "Tell me all about my family." He leaned back, happy, and lit a cigarette while the old man drew with lightning gestures on his absorbing hoard of knowledge.

Of Guelph and Ghibeline intrigue, of wars with Spain and Florentine raids; of Popes and Emperors, Patriots, Tyrants; of the endless strife between the nobles and people; of the "Sacrifice of the Useless Mouths" and the Plague that ran like a burning flame.

So enthralled was McTaggart that the time passed on flying wings until, at length, the train swept into the last noisy tunnel.

Vanni started. He glanced at his watch.