The Island Pharisees...........................................................................................................................................1

John Galsworthy......................................................................................................................................1

Each man born into the world is born like Shelton in this bookto go a journey, and for the most part he is

born on the high road. At first he sits there in the dust, with his little chubby hands reaching at nothing, and

his little solemn eyes staring into space. As soon as he can toddle, he moves, by the queer instinct we call the

love of life, straight along this road, looking neither to the right nor left, so pleased is he to walk. And he is

charmed with everythingwith the nice flat road, all broad and white, with his own feet, and with the

prospect he can see on either hand. The sun shines, and he finds the road a little hot and dusty; the rain falls,

and he splashes through the muddy puddles. It makes no matterall is pleasant; his fathers went this way

before him; they made this road for him to tread, and, when they bred him, passed into his fibre the love of

doing things as they themselves had done them. So he walks on and on, resting comfortably at nights under

Suddenly one day, without intending to, he notices a path or opening in the hedge, leading to right or left, and

he stands, looking at the undiscovered. After that he stops at all the openings in the hedge; one day, with a

Out of ten of him that try the narrow path, nine of him come back to the broad road, and, when they pass the

next gap in the hedge, they say: "No, no, my friend, I found you pleasant for a while, but after thatah! after

that! The way my fathers went is good enough for me, and it is obviously the proper one; for nine of me came

And when he comes to the next inn, and snuggles in his wellwarmed, bed, he thinks of the wild waste of

heather where he might have had to spend the night alone beneath the stars; nor does it, I think, occur to him

But the poor silly tenth is faring on. It is a windy night that he is travelling through a windy night, with all

things new around, and nothing to help him but his courage. Nine times out of ten that courage fails, and he

goes down into the bog. He has seen the undiscovered, andlike Ferrand in this bookthe undiscovered

has engulfed him; his spirit, tougher than the spirit of the nine that burned back to sleep in inns, was yet not

tough enough. The tenth time he wins across, and on the traces he has left others follow slowly,

cautiouslya new road is opened to mankind! A true saying goes: Whatever is, is right! And if all men from

the world's beginning had said that, the world would never have begunat all. Not even the protoplasmic

jelly could have commenced its journey;. there would have been no motive force to make it start.

And so, that other saying had to be devised before the world could set up business: Whatever is, is wrong!

But since the Cosmic Spirit found that matters moved too fast if those that felt "All things that are, are

wrong" equalled in number those that felt "All things that are, are right," It solemnly devised polygamy (all,

be it said, in a spiritual way of speaking); and to each male spirit crowing "All things that are, are wrong" It

decreed nine female spirits clucking "All things that are, are right." The Cosmic Spirit, who was very much

an artist, knew its work, and had previously devised a quality called courage, and divided it in three, naming

the parts spiritual, moral, physical. To all the malebird spirits, but to no female (spiritually, not corporeally

speaking), It gave courage that was spiritual; to nearly all, both male and female, It gave courage that was

physical; to very many henbird spirits It gave moral courage too. But, because It knew that if all the

malebird spirits were complete, the proportion of male to femaleone to tenwould be too great, and

cause upheavals, It so arranged that only one in ten male bird spirits should have all three kinds of courage;

so that the other nine, having spiritual courage, but lacking either in moral or in physical, should fail in their

extensions of the poultryrun. And having started them upon these lines, it left them to get along as best they

Thus, in the subdivision of the poultryrun that we call England, the proportion of the others to the complete

malebird spirit, who, of course, is not infrequently a woman, is ninetynine to one; and with every Island

Pharisee, when he or she starts out in life, the interesting question ought to be, "Am I that one?" Ninety very

soon find out that they are not, and, having found it out, lest others should discover, they say they are. Nine of

the other ten, blinded by their spiritual courage, are harder to convince; but one by one they sink, still

Now, the journey of this young man Shelton, who is surely not the hundredth Pharisee, is but a ragged effort

to present the working of the truth "All things that are, are wrong," upon the truth "All things that are, are

The Institutions of this country, like the Institutions of all other countries, are but halftruths; they are the

working daily clothing of the nation; no more the body's permanent dress than is a baby's frock. Slowly but

surely they wear out, or are outgrown; and in their fashion they are always thirty years at least behind the

fashions of those spirits who are concerned with what shall take their place. The conditions that dictate our

education, the distribution of our property, our marriage laws, amusements, worship, prisons, and all other

things, change imperceptibly from hour to hour; the moulds containing them, being inelastic, do not change,

but hold on to the point of bursting, and then are hastily, often clumsily, enlarged. The ninety desiring peace

and comfort for their spirit, the ninety of the wellwarmed beds, will have it that the fashions need not

change, that morality is fixed, that all is ordered and immutable, that every one will always marry, play, and

worship in the way that they themselves are marrying, playing, worshipping. They have no speculation, and

they hate with a deep hatred those who speculate with thought. This is the function they were made for. They

are the dough, and they dislike that yeasty stuff of life which comes and works about in them. The Yeasty

Stuffthe other tenchafed by all things that are, desirous ever of new forms and moulds, hate in their turn

the comfortable ninety. Each party has invented for the other the hardest names that it can think of:

Philistines, Bourgeois, Mrs. Grundy, Rebels, Anarchists, and Ne'erdoweels. So we go on! And so, as each

of us is born to go his journey, he finds himself in time ranged on one side or on the other, and joins the

But now and thenah! very seldomwe find ourselves so near that thing which has no breadth, the middle

When this book was published first, many of its critics found that Shelton was the only Pharisee, and a most

unsatisfactory young man and so, no doubt, he is. Belonging to the comfortable ninety, they felt, in fact,

the need of slinging names at one who obviously was of the ten. Others of its critics, belonging to the ten,

wielded their epithets upon Antonia, and the serried ranks behind her, and called them Pharisees; as dull as

One of the greatest charms of authorship is the privilege it gives the author of studying the secret springs of

many unseen persons, of analysing human nature through the criticism that his work evokes criticism

welling out of the instinctive likings or aversions, out of the very fibre of the human being who delivers it;

criticism that often seems to leap out against the critic's will, startled like a fawn from some deep bed, of

sympathy or of antipathy. And so, all authors love to be abusedas any man can see.

In the little matter of the title of this book, we are all Pharisees, whether of the ninety or the ten, and we

A quiet, welldressed man named Shelton, with a brown face and a short, fair beard, stood by the bookstall at

Dover Station. He was about to journey up to London, and had placed his bag in the corner of a thirdclass

After his long travel, the flatvowelled voice of the bookstall clerk offering the latest novel sounded

pleasantpleasant the independent answers of a bearded guard, and the stodgy farewell sayings of a man

and wife. The limber porters trundling their barrows, the greyness of the station and the good stolid humour

clinging to the people, air, and voices, all brought to him the sense of home. Meanwhile he wavered between

purchasing a book called Market Hayborough, which he had read and would ,certainly enjoy a second time,

and Carlyle's French Revolution, which he had not read and was doubtful of enjoying; he felt that he ought to

buy the latter, but he did not relish giving up the former. While he hesitated thus, his carriage was beginning

to fill up; so, quickly buying both, he took up a position from which he could defend his rights. "Nothing," he

The carriage was almost full, and, putting his bag, up in the rack, he took his seat. At the moment of starting

"I was a fool to go third," thought Shelton, taking in his neighbours from behind his journal.

They were seven. A grizzled rustic sat in the far corner; his empty pipe, bowl downwards, jutted like a handle

from his face, all bleared with the smear of nothingness that grows on those who pass their lives in the current

of hard facts. Next to him, a ruddy, heavy shouldered man was discussing with a greyhaired,

hatchetvisaged person the condition of their gardens; and Shelton watched their eyes till it occurred to him

how curious a look was in thema watchful friendliness, an allied distrustand that their voices, cheerful,

even jovial, seemed to be cautious all the time. His glance strayed off, and almost rebounded from the

semiRoman, slightly cross, and wholly selfcomplacent face of a stout lady in a blackandwhite costume,

who was reading the Strand Magazine, while her other, sleek, plump hand, freed from its black glove, and

ornamented with a thick watchbracelet, rested on her lap. A younger, brightcheeked, and selfconscious

"There's something about that girl," thought Shelton, "they don't like." Her brown eyes certainly looked

frightened, her clothes were of a foreign cut. Suddenly he met the glance of another pair of eyes; these eyes,

prominent and blue, stared with a sort of subtle roguery from above a thin, lopsided nose, and were at once

averted. They gave Shelton the impression that he was being judged, and mocked, enticed, initiated. His own

gaze did not fall; this sanguine face, with its twoday growth of reddish beard, long nose, full lips, and irony,

puzzled him. "A cynical face!" he thought, and then, "but sensitive!" and then, "too cynical," again.

The young man who owned it sat with his legs parted at the knees, his dusty trouserends and boots slanting

back beneath the seat, his yellow fingertips crisped as if rolling cigarettes. A strange air of detachment was

about that youthful, shabby figure, and not a scrap of luggage filled the rack above his head.

The frightened girl was sitting next this pagan personality; it was possibly the lack of fashion in his looks that

The girl did not reply, twisting her hands on an old bag in her lap. Silence had stolen on the carriagea

silence such as steals on animals at the first approach of danger; all eyes were turned towards the figures of

Something seemed to have destroyed their look of mutual distrust. The plump, sleek hand of the lady with the

Roman nose curved convulsively; and this movement corresponded to the feeling agitating Shelton's heart. It

"Monsieur," said the girl, with a tremble in her voice, "I am very unhappy; can you tell me what to do? I had

"Don't lose courage, ma'moiselle." The young man slid his eyes from left to right, and rested them on

"Oh, monsieur!" sighed the girl, and, though it was clear that none but Shelton understood what they were

"I wish I could assist you," said the foreign youth; "unfortunately " he shrugged his shoulders, and again

"Certainly, sir; you could render this young lady the greatest possible service by lending her the money for a

Shelton produced a sovereign, which the young man took. Passing it. to the girl, he said:

The misgivings which attend on casual charity crowded up in Shelton's mind; he was ashamed of having

them and of not having them, and he stole covert looks at this young foreigner, who was now talking to the

girl in a language that he did not understand. Though vagabond in essence, the fellow's face showed subtle

spirit, a fortitude and irony not found upon the face of normal man, and in turning from it to the other

passengers Shelton was conscious of revolt, contempt, and questioning, that he could not define. Leaning

back with half closed eyes, he tried to diagnose this new sensation. He found it disconcerting that the faces

and behaviour of his neighbours lacked anything he could grasp and secretly abuse. They continued to

converse with admirable and slightly conscious phlegm, yet he knew, as well as if each one had whispered to

him privately, that this shady incident had shaken them. Something unsettling to their notions of

proprietysomething dangerous and destructive of complacencyhad occurred, and this was unforgivable.

Each had a different way, humorous or philosophic, contemptuous, sour, or sly, of showing this resentment.

But by a flash of insight Shelton saw that at the bottom of their minds and of his own the feeling was the

same. Because he shared in their resentment he was enraged with them and with himself. He looked at the

plump, sleek hand of the woman with the Roman nose. The insulation and complacency of its pale skin, the

passive righteousness about its curve, the prim separation from the others of the fat little finger, had acquired

a wholly unaccountable importance. It embodied the verdict of his fellow passengers, the verdict of Society;

for he knew that, whether or no repugnant to the wellbred mind, each assemblage of eight persons, even in a

But being in love, and recently engaged, Shelton had a right to be immune from discontent of any kind, and

he reverted to his mental image of the cool, fair face, quick movements, and the brilliant smile that now in his

probationary exile haunted his imagination; he took out his fiancee's last letter, but the voice of the young

"From what she tells me, sir," he said, bending forward to be out of hearing of the girl, "hers is an unhappy

case. I should have been only too glad to help her, but, as you see"and he made a gesture by which Shelton

observed that he had parted from his waistcoat"I am not Rothschild. She has been abandoned by the man

who brought her over to Dover under promise of marriage. Look"and by a subtle flicker of his eyes he

marked how the two ladies had edged away from the French girl "they take good care not to let their

garments touch her. They are virtuous women. How fine a thing is virtue, sir! and finer to know you have it,

"Haven't you observed," went on the youthful foreigner, "that those who by temperament and circumstance

are worst fitted to pronounce judgment are usually the first to judge? The judgments of Society are always

childish, seeing that it's composed for the most part of individuals who have never smelt the fire. And look at

this: they who have money run too great a risk of parting with it if they don't accuse the penniless of being

Shelton was startled, and not only by an outburst of philosophy from an utter stranger in poor clothes, but at

this singular wording of his own private thoughts. Stifling his sense of the unusual for the queer attraction

"I've been in England seven months, but not yet in London," replied the other. "I count on doing some good

thereit is time!" A bitter and pathetic smile showed for a second on his lips. "It won't be my fault if I fail.

"Forgive my asking; your voice lacks something I've nearly always noticed in the English a kind

of'comment cela s'appelle' cocksureness, coming from your nation's greatest quality."

"I should rather say, monsieur, a great defect in what is always a great people. You are certainly the most

highlycivilised nation on the earth; you suffer a little from the fact. If I were an English preacher my desire

"Hum!" he said at last, "you'd be unpopular; I don't know that we're any cockier than other nations."

"In effect," said he, "it is a sufficiently widespread disease. Look at these people here"and with a rapid

glance he pointed to the inmates of the carnage,"very average persons! What have they done to warrant

their making a virtuous nose at those who do not walk as they do? That old rustic, perhaps, is differenthe

never thinks at allbut look at those two occupied with their stupidities about the price of hops, the

prospects of potatoes, what George is doing, a thousand things all of that sortlook at their faces; I come of

the bourgeoisie myselfhave they ever shown proof of any quality that gives them the right to pat

themselves upon the back? No fear! Outside potatoes they know nothing, and what they do not understand

they dread and they despisethere are millions of that breed. 'Voila la Societe'! The sole quality these people

have shown they have is cowardice. I was educated by the Jesuits," he concluded; "it has given me a way of

Under ordinary circumstances Shelton would have murmured in a well bred voice, "Ah! quite so," and taken

refuge in the columns of the Daily Telegraph. In place of this, for some reason that he did not understand, he

"When you've travelled like me," he said, as if resolved to speak the truth, "you acquire an instinct in

choosing to whom and how you speak. It is necessity that makes the law; if you want to live you must learn

Shelton, who himself possessed a certain subtlety, could not but observe the complimentary nature of these

words. It was like saying "I'm not afraid of you misunderstanding me, and thinking me a rascal just because I

"A broken jug," said he; "you'll never mend her. She's going to a cousin in London to see if she can get

help; you've given her the means of getting thereit's all that you can do. One knows too well what'll

"Oh! that's horrible! Could n't she be induced to go back home? I should be glad"

"Mon cher monsieur," he said, "you evidently have not yet had occasion to know what the 'family' is like.

'The family' does not like damaged goods; it will have nothing to say to sons whose hands have dipped into

the till or daughters no longer to be married. What the devil would they do with her? Better put a stone about

her neck and let her drown at once. All the world is Christian, but Christian and good Samaritan are not quite

Shelton looked at the girl, who was sitting motionless, with her hands crossed on her bag, and a revolt against

"Yes," said the young foreigner, as if reading all his thoughts, "what's called virtue is nearly always only

luck." He rolled his eyes as though to say: "Ah! La, Conventions? Have them by all means but don't look

like peacocks because you are preserving them; it is but cowardice and luck, my friendsbut cowardice and

"Look here," said Shelton, "I'll give her my address, and if she wants to go back to her family she can write to

Shelton caught the cringing glance of the girl's eyes; in the droop of her lip there was something sensuous,

"I had better not give them my private address," he thought, glancing at the faces opposite; and he wrote

down the following: "Richard Paramor Shelton, c/o Paramor and Herring, Lincoln's Inn Fields."

"You're very good, sir. My name is Louis Ferrand; no address at present. I'll make her understand; she's half

Shelton returned to the perusal of his paper, too disturbed to read; the young vagrant's words kept sounding in

his ears. He raised his eyes. The plump hand of the lady with the Roman nose still rested on her lap; it had

been recased in its black glove with large white stitching. Her frowning gaze was fixed on him suspiciously,

"He did n't get anything from me," said the voice of the redfaced man, ending a talk on taxgatherers. The

train whistled loudly, and Shelton reverted to his paper. This time he crossed his legs, determined to enjoy the

latest murder; once more he found himself looking at the vagrant's longnosed, mocking face. "That fellow,"

he thought, "has seen and felt ten times as much as I, although he must be ten years younger."

He turned for distraction to the landscape, with its April clouds, trim hedgerows, homely coverts. But strange

ideas would come, and he was discontented with himself; the conversation he had had, the personality of this

young foreigner, disturbed him. It was all as though he had made a start in some fresh journey through the

Five years before the journey just described Shelton had stood one afternoon on the barge of his old college at

the end of the summer races. He had been "down" from Oxford for some years, but these Olympian contests

The boats were passing, and in the usual rush to the barge side his arm came in contact with a soft young

shoulder. He saw close to him a young girl with fair hair knotted in a ribbon, whose face was eager with

excitement. The pointed chin, long neck, the fluffy hair, quick gestures, and the calm strenuousness of her

"Do you know my people, Shelton?" said a voice behind his back; and he was granted a touch from the girl's

shy, impatient hand, the warmer fingers of a lady with kindly eyes resembling a hare's, the dry handclasp of

"Are you the Mr. Shelton who used to play the 'bones' at Eton?" said the lady. "Oh; we so often heard of you

from Bernard! He was your fag, was n't he? How distressin' it is to see these poor boys in the boats!"

Shelton went back with them to their hotel, walking beside Antonia through the Christchurch meadows,

telling her details of his college life. He dined with them that evening, and, when he left, had a feeling like

The Dennants lived at Holm Oaks, within six miles of Oxford, and two days later he drove over and paid a

call. Amidst the avocations of reading for the Bar, of cricket, racing, shooting, it but required a whiff of some

fresh scenthay, honeysuckle, cloverto bring Antonia's face before him, with its uncertain colour and its

frank, distant eyes. But two years passed before he again saw her. Then, at an invitation from Bernard

Dennant, he played cricket for the Manor of Holm Oaks against a neighbouring house; in the evening there

was dancing oh the lawn. The fair hair was now turned up, but the eyes were quite unchanged. Their steps

went together, and they. outlasted every other couple on the slippery grass. Thence, perhaps, sprang her

respect for him; he was wiry, a little taller than herself, and seemed to talk of things that interested her. He

found out she was seventeen, and she found out that he was twentynine. The following two years Shelton

went to Holm Oaks whenever he was asked; to him this was a period of enchanted games, of cubhunting,

theatricals, and distant sounds of practised music, and during it Antonia's eyes grew more friendly and more

curious, and his own more shy, and schooled, more furtive and more ardent. Then came his father's death, a

voyage round the world, and that peculiar hour of mixed sensations when, one March morning, abandoning

He found her at one of those exclusive hostelries amongst the pines where the best English go, in common

with Americans, Russian princesses, and Jewish families; he would not have been shocked to find her

elsewhere, but he would have been surprised. His sunburnt face and the new beard, on which he set some

undefined value, apologetically displayed, were scanned by those blue eyes with rapid glances, at once more

friendly and less friendly. "Ah!" they seemed to say, "here you are; how glad I am! Butwhat now?"

He was admitted to their sacred table at the table d'hote, a snowy oblong in an airy alcove, where the

Honourable Mrs. Dennant, Miss Dennant, and the Honourable Charlotte Penguin, a maiden aunt with

insufficient lungs, sat twice a day in their own atmosphere. A momentary weakness came on Shelton the first

time he saw them sitting there at lunch. What was it gave them their look of strange detachment? Mrs.

"What a pity! The kitten was rather nice!" The maiden aunt, placing the knitting of a red silk tie beside her

"Look, Auntie," said Antonia in her clear, quick voice, "there's the funny little man again!"

"Oh," said the maiden aunta smile revealed her upper teeth; she looked for the funny little man (who was

Shelton did not look for the funny little man; he stole a glance that barely reached Antonia's brow, where her

eyebrows took their tiny upward slant at the outer corners, and her hair was still ruffled by a windy walk.

"Mr. Shelton, do you know anything about these periscopic binoculars?" said Mrs. Dennant's voice; "they're

splendid for buildin's, but buildin's are so disappointin'. The thing is to get human interest, isn't it?" and her

Shelton was not again visited by his uneasiness at their detachment; he accepted them and all their works, for

there was something quite sublime about the way that they would leave the diningroom, unconscious that

they themselves were funny to all the people they had found so funny while they had been sitting there, and

In the ensuing fortnight, chaperoned by the maiden aunt, for Mrs. Dennant disliked driving, he sat opposite to

Antonia during many drives; he played sets of tennis with her; but it was in the evenings after dinnerthose

long evenings on a parquet floor in wicker chairs dragged as far as might be from the heating apparatusthat

he seemed so very near her. The community of isolation drew them closer. In place of a companion he had

assumed the part of friend, to whom she could confide all her homesick aspirations. So that, even when she

was sitting silent, a slim, long foot stretched out in front, bending with an air of cool absorption over some

pencil sketches which she would not show himeven then, by her very attitude, by the sweet freshness that

clung about her, by her quick, offended glances at the strange persons round, she seemed to acknowledge in

some secret way that he was necessary. He was far from realising this; his intellectual and observant parts

were hypnotised and fascinated even by her failings. The faint freckling across her nose, the slim and virginal

severeness of her figure, with its narrow hips and arms, the curve of her long neckall were added charms.

She had the wind and rain look, a taste of home; and over the glaring roads, where the palmtree shadows lay

One afternoon he had taken her to play tennis with some friends, and afterwards they strolled on to her

favourite view. Down the Toulon road gardens and hills were bathed in the colour of ripe apricot; an evening

crispness had stolen on the air; the blood, released from the sun's numbing, ran gladly in the veins. On the

right hand of the road was a Frenchman playing bowls. Enormous, busy, pleased, and upright as a soldier,

pathetically trotting his vast carcass from end to end, he delighted Shelton. But Antonia threw a single look at

the huge creature, and her face expressed disgust. She began running up towards the ruined tower.

Shelton let her keep in front, watching her leap from stone to stone and throw back defiant glances when he

pressed behind. She stood at the top, and he looked up at her. Over the world, gloriously spread below, she,

like a statue, seemed to rule. The colour was brilliant in her cheeks, her young bosom heaved, her eyes shone,

and the flowing droop of her long, full sleeves gave to her poised figure the look of one who flies. He pulled

himself up and stood beside her; his heart choked him, all the colour had left his cheeks.

She started, as if his whisper had intruded on her thoughts; but his face must have expressed his hunger, for

They stood for several minutes without speaking, and then went home. Shelton painfully revolved the riddle

of the colour in her face. Had he a chance then? Was it possible? That evening the instinct vouchsafed at

times to lovers in place of reason caused him to pack his bag and go to Cannes. On returning, two days later,

and approaching the group in the centre of the Winter Garden, the voice of the maiden aunt reading aloud an

"Don't you think that's rather nice?" he heard her ask, and then: "Oh, here you aye! It's very nice to see you

Shelton slipped into a wicker chair. Antonia looked up quickly from her sketchbook, put out a hand, but did

He watched her bending head, and his eagerness was changed to gloom. With desperate vivacity he sustained

the five intolerable minutes of inquiry, where had he been, what had he been doing? Then once again the

A touch on his sleeve startled him. Antonia was leaning forward; her cheeks were crimson above the pallor of

To Shelton, bending above those sketches, that drawl of the wellbred maiden aunt intoning the wellbred

"My dear Dick," Mrs. Dennant said to him a fortnight later, "we would rather, after you leave here, that you

don't see each other again until July. Of course I know you count it an engagement and all that, and

everybody's been writin' to congratulate you. But Algie thinks you ought to give yourselves a chance. Young

He had to swallow down this pill with what grace he could command. There was no alternative. Antonia had

acquiesced in the condition with a queer, grave pleasure, as if she expected it to do her good.

He postponed departure as long as possible, and it was not until the end of April that he left for England. She

came alone to see him off. It was drizzling, but her tall, slight figure in the golf cape looked impervious to

cold and rain amongst the shivering natives. Desperately he clutched her hand, warm through the wet glove;

She ran forward as the train began to move; her clear "Goodbye!" sounded shrill and hard above the rumble

of the wheels. He saw her raise her hand, an umbrella waving, and last of all, vivid still amongst receding

After his journey up from Dover, Shelton was still fathering his luggage at Charing Cross, when the foreign

girl passed him, and, in spite of his desire to say something cheering, he could get nothing out but a

shamefaced smile. Her figure vanished, wavering into the hurlyburly; one of his bags had gone astray, and

so all thought of her soon faded from his mind. His cab, however, overtook the foreign vagrant marching

along towards Pall Mall with a curious, lengthy stridean observant, disillusioned figure.

The first bustle of installation over, time hung heavy on his hands. July loomed distant, as in some future

century; Antonia's eyes beckoned him faintly, hopelessly. She would not even be coming back to England for

. . . I met a young foreigner in the train from Dover [he wrote to her]a curious sort of person altogether,

who seems to have infected me. Everything here has gone flat and unprofitable; the only good things in life

are your letters . . . . John Noble dined with me yesterday; the poor fellow tried to persuade me to stand for

Parliament. Why should I think myself fit to legislate for the unhappy wretches one sees about in the streets?

If people's faces are a fair test of their happiness, I' d rather not feel in any way responsible . . . .

The streets, in fact, after his long absence in the East, afforded him much food for thought: the curious

smugness of the passersby; the utterly unending bustle; the fearful medley of miserable, over driven

women, and fullfed men, with leering, bullbeef eyes, whom he saw everywherein club windows, on

their beats, on box seats, on the steps of hotels, discharging dilatory duties; the appalling choas of hardeyed,

capable dames with defiant clothes, and whitecheeked huntedlooking men; of splendid creatures in their

cabs, and cadging creatures in their broken hatsthe callousness and the monotony!

Excuse me for recalling to your memory the offer of assistance you so kindly made me during the journey

from Dover to London, in which I was so fortunate as to travel with a man like you. Having beaten the whole

town, ignorant of what wood to make arrows, nearly at the end of my resources, my spirit profoundly

discouraged, I venture to avail myself of your permission, knowing your good heart. Since I saw you I have

run through all the misfortunes of the calendar, and cannot tell what door is left at which I have not knocked.

I presented myself at the business firm with whose name you supplied me, but being unfortunately in rags,

they refused to give me your address. Is this not very much in the English character? They told me to write,

and said they would forward the letter. I put all my hopes in you. Believe me, my dear sir, (whatever you may

Shelton looked at the envelope, and saw, that it, bore date a week ago. The face of the young vagrant rose

before him, vital, mocking, sensitive; the sound of his quick French buzzed in his ears, and, oddly, the whole

whiff of him had a power of raising more vividly than ever his memories of Antonia. It had been at the end of

the journey from Hyeres to London that he had met him; that seemed to give the youth a claim.

He took his hat and hurried, to Blank Row. Dismissing his cab at the corner of Victoria Street he with

difficulty found the house in question. It was a doorless place, with stoneflagged corridorin other words,

a "dosshouse." By tapping on a sort of ticketoffice with a sliding window, he attracted the attention of a

blowsy woman with soapsuds on her arms, who informed him that the person he was looking for had gone

"Yes; there's a Frenchman." And opening an inner door she bellowed: "Frenchy! Wanted!" and disappeared.

A driedup, yellow little man, cynical and weary in the face, as if a moral steamroller had passed over it,

answered this call, and stood, sniffing, as it were, at Shelton, on whom he made the singular impression of

"He left here ten days ago, in the company of a mulatto. What do you want with him, if I may ask?" The little

"Ah! now I know you"a pale smile broke through the Frenchman's crow'sfeet"he spoke of you. 'If I

can only find him,' he used to say, 'I 'm saved.' I liked that young man; he had ideas."

"Do you think he will come back here? But by that time I suppose, you'll hardly be here yourself?"

"I? Oh, yes, sir! Once upon a time I cherished the hope of emerging; I no longer have illusions. I shave these

specimens for a living, and shall shave them till the day of judgment. But leave a letter with me by all means;

he will come back. There's an overcoat of his here on which he borrowed moneyit's worth more. Oh, yes;

he will come backa youth of principle. Leave a letter with me; I'm always here."

Shelton hesitated, but those last three words, "I'm always here," touched him in their simplicity. Nothing

"Can you find me a sheet of paper, then?" he asked; "please keep the change for the trouble I am giving you."

"Thank you," said the Frenchman simply; "he told me that your heart was good. If you don't mind the

Shelton wrote his letter at the table of this stoneflagged kitchen in company with an aged, driedup

gentleman; who was muttering to himself; and Shelton tried to avoid attracting his attention, suspecting that

he was not sober. Just as he was about to take his leave, however, the old fellow thus accosted him:

"Did you ever go to the dentist, mister?" he said, working at a loose tooth with his shrivelled fingers. "I went

to a dentist once, who professed to stop teeth without giving pain, and the beggar did stop my teeth without

pain; but did they stay in, those stoppings? No, my bhoy; they came out before you could say Jack Robinson.

Now, I shimply ask you, d'you call that dentistry?" Fixing his eyes on Shelton's collar, which had the

misfortune to be high and clean, he resumed with drunken scorn: "Ut's the same all over this pharisaical

counthry. Talk of high morality and AngloShaxon civilisation! The world was never at such low ebb!

Phwhat's all this morality? Ut stinks of the shop. Look at the condition of Art in this counthry! look at the

fools you see upon th' stage! look at the pictures and books that sell! I know what I'm talking about, though I

am a sandwich man. Phwhat's the secret of ut all? Shop, my bhoy! Ut don't pay to go below a certain depth!

Shelton stood disconcerted, not knowing if he were expected to reply; but the old gentleman, pursing up his

"Sir, there are no extremes in this fogsmitten land. Do ye think blanks loike me ought to exist? Whoy don't

they kill us off? Palliativespalliativesand whoy? Because they object to th' extreme course. Look at

women: the streets here are a scandal to the world. They won't recognise that they existtheir noses are so

dam high! They blink the truth in this middleclass counthry. My bhoy" and he whispered

confidentially"ut pays 'em. Eh? you say, why shouldn't they, then?" (But Shelton had not spoken.) "Well,

let'em! let 'em!. But don't tell me that'sh morality, don't tell me that'sh civilisation! What can you expect in a

counthry where the crimson, emotions are never allowed to smell the air? And what'sh the result? My bhoy,

the result is sentiment, a yellow thing with blue spots, like a fungus or a Stilton cheese. Go to the theatre, and

see one of these things they call plays. Tell me, are they food for men and women? Why, they're pap for

Shelton listened with mingled feelings of amusement and dismay, till the old actor, having finished, resumed

"You don't get dhrunk, I suppose?" he said suddenly"too much of 'n Englishman, no doubt."

"There speaks the Englishman! Why should Oi give up me only pleasure to keep me wretched life in? If

you've anything left worth the keeping shober for, keep shober by all means; if not, the sooner you are dhrunk

"Oh, and Englishman! Yes, yes, from Belfast very drunken old man. You are a drunken nation"he made a

motion with his hands "he no longer eatsno inside left. It is unfortunatea man of spirit. If you have never

"Yes, yes," said the Frenchman, making a wry nose and taking a cigarette; "I'm accustomed to it. But you're

"This," said the guide, leading him upstairs and opening a door, "is a specimen of the apartments reserved

for these princes of the blood." There were four empty beds on iron legs, and, with the air of a showman, the

Frenchman twitched away a dingy quilt. "They go out in the mornings, earn enough to make them drunk,

sleep it off, and then begin again. That's their life. There are people who think they ought to be reformed.

'Mon cher monsieur', one must face reality a little, even in this country. It would be a hundred times better for

these people to spend their time reforming high Society. Your high Society makes all these creatures; there's

no harvest without cutting stalks. 'Selon moi'," he continued, putting back the quilt, and dribbling cigarette

smoke through his nose, "there's no grand difference between your high Society and these individuals here;

both want pleasure, both think only of themselves, which is very natural. One lot have had the luck, the

otherwell, you see." He shrugged. "A common set! I've been robbed here half a dozen times. If you have

new shoes, a good waistcoat, an overcoat, you want eyes in the back of your head. And they are populated!

Change your bed, and you'll run all the dangers of not sleeping alone. 'V'la ma clientele'! The half of them

don't pay me!" He, snapped his yellow sticks of fingers. "A penny for a shave, twopence a cut! 'Quelle vie'!

Here," he continued, standing by a bed, "is a gentleman who owes me fivepence. Here's one who was a

soldier; he's done for! All brutalised; not one with any courage left! But, believe me, monsieur," he went on,

opening another door, "when you come down to houses of this sort you must have a vice; it's as necessary as

breath is to the lungs. No matter what, you must have a vice to give you a little solace'un peu de

soulagement'. Ah, yes! before you judge these swine, reflect on life! I've been through it. Monsieur, it is not

nice never to know where to get your next meal. Gentlemen who have food in their stomachs, money in their

pockets, and know where to get more, they never think. Why should they'pas de danger'! All these cages

are the same. Come down, and you shall see the pantry." He took Shelton through the kitchen, which seemed

the only sittingroom of the establishment, to an inner room furnished with dirty cups and saucers, plates,

and knives. Another fire was burning there. "We always have hot water," said the Frenchman, "and three

times a week they make a fire down there"he pointed to a cellar"for our clients to boil their vermin. Oh,

Shelton returned to the kitchen, and directly after took leave of the little Frenchman, who said, with a kind of

"Trust me, monsieur; if he comes backthat young manhe shall have your letter without fail. My name is

Shelton walked away; he had been indulging in a nightmare. "That old actor was drunk," thought he, "and no

doubt he was an Irishman; still, there may be truth in what he said. I am a Pharisee, like all the rest who are

n't in the pit. My respectability is only luck. What should I have become if I'd been born into his kind of life?"

and he stared at a stream of people coming from the Stares, trying to pierce the mask of their serious,

complacent faces. If these ladies and gentlemen were put into that pit into which he had been looking, would

a single one of them emerge again? But the effort of picturing them there was too much for him; it was too

One particular couple, a large; fine man and wife, who, in the midst of all the dirt and rumbling hurry, the

gloomy, ludicrous, and desperately jovial streets, walked side by side in wellbred silence, had evidently

bought some article which pleased them. There was nothing offensive in their manner; they seemed quite

unconcerned at the passing of the other people. The man had that fine solidity of shoulder and of waist, the

glossy selfpossession that belongs to those with horses, guns, and dressingbags. The wife, her chin

comfortably settled in her fur, kept her grey eyes on the ground, and, when she spoke, her even and unruffled

voice reached Shelton's ears above all the whirring of the traffic. It was leisurely precise, as if it had never

hurried, had never been exhausted, or passionate, or afraid. Their talk, like that of many dozens of fine

couples invading London from their country places, was of where to dine, what theatre they should go to,

whom they had seen, what they should buy. And Shelton knew that from day's end to end, and even in their

bed, these would be the subjects of their conversation. They were the bestbred people of the sort he met in

country houses and accepted as of course, with a vague discomfort at the bottom of his soul. Antonia's home,

for instance, had been full of them. They were the bestbred people of the sort who supported charities, knew

everybody, had clear, calm judgment, and intolerance of all such conduct as seemed to them "impossible," all

breaches of morality, such as mistakes of etiquette, such as dishonesty, passion, sympathy (except with a

canonised class of objectsthe legitimate sufferings, for instance, of their own families and class). How

healthy they were! The memory of the dosshouse worked in Shelton's mind like poison. He was conscious

that in his own groomed figure, in the undemonstrative assurance of his walk, he bore resemblance to the

couple he apostrophised. "Ah!" he thought, "how vulgar our refinement is!" But he hardly believed in his

own outburst. These people were so well mannered, so well conducted, and so healthy, he could not really

understand what irritated him. What was the matter with them? They fulfilled their duties, had good appetites,

clear consciences, all the furniture of perfect citizens; they merely lackedfeelers, a loss that, he had read,

was suffered by plants and animals which no longer had a need for using them. Some rare national faculty of

seeing only the obvious and materially useful had destroyed their power of catching gleams or scents to right

The lady looked up at her husband. The light of quiet, proprietary affection shone in her calm grey eyes,

decorously illumining her features slightly reddened by the wind. And the husband looked back at her, calm,

practical, protecting. They were very much alike. So doubtless he looked when he presented himself in snowy

shirtsleeves for her to straighten the bow of his white tie; so nightly she would look, standing before the

fulllength mirror, fixing his gifts upon her bosom. Calm, proprietary, kind! He passed them and walked

behind a second less distinguished couple, who manifested a mutual dislike as matteroffact and free from

nonsense as the unruffled satisfaction of the first; this dislike was just as healthy, and produced in Shelton

about the same sensation. It was like knocking at a neveropened door, looking at a circlecouple after

couple all the same. No heads, toes, angles of their souls stuck out anywhere. In the sea of their environments

they were drowned; no leg braved the air, no arm emerged wet and naked waving at the skies; shoppersons,

aristocrats, workmen, officials, they were all respectable. And he himself as respectable as any.

He returned, thus moody, to his rooms and, with the impetuosity which distinguished him when about to do

an unwise thing, he seized a pen and poured out before Antonia some of his impressions:

. . . . Mean is the word, darling; we are mean, that's what 's the matter with us, dukes and dustmen, the whole

human speciesas mean as caterpillars. To secure our own property and our own comfort, to dole out our

sympathy according to rule just so that it won't really hurt us, is what we're all after. There's something about

human nature that is awfully repulsive, and the healthier people are, the more repulsive they seem to me to be

He paused, biting his pen. Had he one acquaintance who would not counsel him to see a doctor for writing in

that style? How would the world go round, how could Society exist, without commonsense, practical

He looked out of the open window. Down in the street a footman was settling the rug over the knees of a lady

in a carriage, and the decorous immovability of both their faces, which were clearly visible to him, was like a

He got up and walked up and down. His rooms, in a narrow square skirting Belgravia, were unchanged since

the death of his father had made him a man of means. Selected for their centrality, they were furnished in a

very miscellaneous way. They were not bare, but close inspection revealed that everything was damaged,

more or less, and there was absolutely nothing that seemed to have an interest taken in it. His goods were

accidents, presents, or the haphazard acquisitions of a pressing need. Nothing, of course, was frowsy, but

everything was somewhat dusty, as if belonging to a man who never rebuked a servant. Above all, there was

. . . I don't think I understand what you mean by "the healthier people are, the more repulsive they seem to

be"; one must be healthy to be perfect, must n't one? I don't like unhealthy people. I had to play on that

wretched piano after reading your letter; it made me feel unhappy. I've been having a splendid lot of tennis

DEAR BIRD [for this was Shelton's college nickname], My wife has gone down to her people, so I'm 'en

garcon' for a few days. If you've nothing better to do, come and dine tonight at seven, and go to the theatre.

Shelton had nothing better to do, for pleasant were his friend Halidome's wellappointed dinners. At seven,

therefore, he went to Chester Square. His friend was in his study, reading Matthew Arnold by the light of an

electric lamp. The walls of the room were hung with costly etchings, arranged with solid and unfailing taste;

from the carving of the mantelpiece to the binding of the books, from the miraculouslycoloured

meerschaums to the chased fireirons, everything displayed an unpretentious luxury, an order and a finish

significant of life completely under rule of thumb. Everything had been collected. The collector rose as

Shelton entered, a fine figure of a man, clean shaven,with dark hair, a Roman nose, good eyes, and the

rather weighty dignity of attitude which comes from the assurance that one is in the right.

Taking Shelton by the lapel, he drew him into the radius of the lamp, where he examined him, smiling a slow

smile. "Glad to see you, old chap. I rather like your beard," he said with genial brusqueness; and nothing,

perhaps, could better have summed up his faculty for forming independent judgments which Shelton found so

admirable. He made no apology for the smallness of the dinner, which, consisting of eight courses and three

wines, served by a butler and one footman, smacked of the same perfection as the furniture; in fact, he never

apologised for anything, except with a jovial brusqueness that was worse than the offence. The suave and

reasonable weight of his dislikes and his approvals stirred Shelton up to feel ironical and insignificant; but

whether from a sense of the solid, humane, and healthy quality of his friend's egoism, or merely from the fact

that this friendship had been long in bottle, he did not resent his mixed sensations.

"By the way, I congratulate you, old chap," said Halidome, while driving to the theatre; there was no vulgar

hurry about his congratulations, no more than about himself. "They're awfully nice people, the Dennants."

"Where are you going to live? You ought to come down and live near us; there are some ripping houses to be

had down there; it's really a ripping neighbourhood. Have you chucked the Bar? You ought to do something,

you know; it'll be fatal for you to have nothing to do. I tell you what, Bird: you ought to stand for the County

But before Shelton had replied they reached the theatre, and their energies were spent in sidling to their stalls.

He had time to pass his neighbours in review before the play began. Seated next to him was a lady with large

healthy shoulders, displayed with splendid liberality; beyond her a husband, redcheeked, with drooping,

yellow grey moustache and a bald head; beyond him again two men whom he had known at Eton. One of

them had a cleanshaved face, dark hair, and a weathertanned complexion; his small mouth with its upper

lip pushed out above the lower, his eyelids a little drooped over his watchful eyes, gave him a satirical and

resolute expression. "I've got hold of your tail, old fellow," he seemed to say, as though he were always busy

with the catching of some kind of fox. The other's goggling eyes rested on Shelton with a chaffing smile; his

thick, sleek hair, brushed with water and parted in the middle, his neat moustache and admirable waistcoat,

suggested the sort of dandyism that despises women. From his recognition of these old schoolfellows Shelton

turned to look at Halidome, who, having cleared his throat, was staring straight before him at the curtain.

Antonia's words kept running in her lover's head, "I don't like unhealthy people." Well, all these people,

anyway, were healthy; they looked as if they had defied the elements to endow them with a spark of anything

Slowly, unwillingly, for he was of a trustful disposition, Shelton recognised that this play was one of those

masterpieces of the modern drama whose characters were drawn on the principle that men were made for

morals rather than morals made by men, and he watched the play unfold with all its careful sandwiching of

A married woman anxious to be ridded of her husband was the pivot of the story, and a number of scenes,

ingeniously contrived, with a hundred reasons why this desire was wrong and inexpedient, were revealed to

Shelton's eyes. These reasons issued mainly from the mouth of a wellpreserved old gentleman who seemed

to play the part of a sort of Moral Salesman. He turned to Halidome and whispered:

Halidome's countenance grew cold, a little shocked, as though he had been assailed in person.

Shelton turned to the play rebuffed; he felt guilty of a breach of manners, sitting as he was in one of his

friend's stalls, and he naturally set to work to watch the play more critically than ever. Antonia's words again

recurred to him, "I don't like unhealthy people," and they seemed to throw a sudden light upon this play. It

The scene was a drawingroom, softly lighted by electric lamps, with a cat (Shelton could not decide whether

The husband, a thickset, healthy man in evening dress, was drinking off neat whisky. He put down his

tumbler, and deliberately struck a match; then with even greater deliberation he lit a goldtipped cigarette....

Shelton was no inexperienced playgoer. He shifted his elbows, for he felt that something was about to

happen; and when the match was pitched into the fire, he leaned forward in his seat. The husband poured

more whisky out, drank it at a draught, and walked towards the door; then, turning to the audience as if to

admit them to the secret of some tremendous resolution, he puffed at them a puff of smoke. He left the room,

returned, and once more filled his glass. A lady now entered, pale of face and dark of eyehis wife. The

husband crossed the stage, and stood before the fire, his legs astride, in the attitude which somehow Shelton

Shelton suddenly perceived that he was face to face with one of those dumb moments in which two people

declare their inextinguishable hatred the hatred underlying the sexual intimacy of two ill assorted

creaturesand he was suddenly reminded of a scene he had once witnessed in a restaurant. He remembered

with extreme minuteness how the woman and the man had sat facing each other across the narrow patch of

white, emblazoned by a candle with cheap shades and a thin green vase with yellow flowers. He remembered

the curious scornful anger of their voices, subdued so that only a few words reached him. He remembered the

cold loathing in their eyes. And, above all, he remembered his impression that this sort of scene happened

between them every other day, and would continue so to happen; and as he put on his overcoat and paid his

bill he had asked himself, "Why in the name of decency do they go on living together?" And now he thought,

as he listened to the two players wrangling on the stage: "What 's the good of all this talk? There's something

The curtain came down upon the act, and he looked at the lady next him. She was shrugging her shoulders at

"I do dislike these unhealthy women," he was saying, but catching Shelton's eye he turned square in his seat

The face of Shelton's friend beyond, composed, satirical as ever, was clothed with a mask of scornful

curiosity, as if he had been listening to something that had displeased him not a little. The goggleeyed man

"I'll bet you anything," he said, "I know what's going to happen now. You'll have that old asswhat's his

name?lunching off cutlets and champagne to fortify himselffor a lecture to the wife. He'll show her how

unhealthy her feelings areI know himand he'll take her hand and say, 'Dear lady, is there anything in this

poor world but the good opinion of Society?' and he'll pretend to laugh at himself for saying it; but you'll see

perfectly well that the old woman means it. And then he'll put her into a set of circumstances that are n't her

own but his version of them, and show her the only way of salvation is to kiss her husband"; and Shelton

grinned. "Anyway, I'll bet you anything he takes her hand and says, 'Dear lady.'"

Leaving the theatre, they paused a moment in the hall to don their coats; a stream of people with spotless

bosoms eddied round the doors, as if in momentary dread of leaving this hothouse of false morals and

emotions for the wet, gusty streets, where human plants thrive and die, human weeds flourish and fade under

the fresh, impartial skies. The lights revealed innumerable solemn faces, gleamed innumerably on jewels, on

the silk of hats, then passed to whiten a pavement wet with newlyfallen rain, to flare on horses, on the

"Has it ever struck you," answered Shelton, "that in a play nowadays there's always a 'Chorus of

"I've a prejudice for keeping the two things separate," went on Shelton. "That ending makes me sick."

"Why?" replied Halidome. "What other end is possible? You don't want a play to leave you with a bad taste

Halidome increased his stride, already much too long; for in his walk, as in all other phases of his life, he

"How do you mean?" he asked urbanely; "it's better than the woman making a fool of herself."

Some note of battle in Shelton's voice, rather than the sentiment itself, caused his friend to reply with dignity:

"There's a lot of nonsense talked about that sort of thing. Women don't really care; it's only what's put into

"That's much the same as saying to a starving man: 'You don't really want anything; it's only what's put into

But nothing was more calculated to annoy Halidome than to tell him he was "begging the question," for he

"Not at all, old chap. Here is a case where a woman wants her freedom, and you merely answer that she dogs

Shelton pondered this and smiled; he had recollected an acquaintance of his own, who, when his wife had left

him, invented the theory that she was mad, and this struck him now as funny. But then he thought: "Poor

devil! he was bound to call her mad! If he didn't, it would be confessing himself distasteful; however true,

you can't expect a man to consider himself that." But a glance at his friend's eye warned him that he, too,

"Surely," he said, "even if she's his wife, a man's bound to behave like a gentleman."

Halidome paused in the act of turning the latchkey in his door; there was a rather angry smile in his fine

The word "sentimental" nettled Shelton. "A gentleman either is a gentleman or he is n't; what has it to do with

Halidome turned the key in the lock and opened the door into his hall, where the firelight fell on the decanters

"No, Bird," he said, resuming his urbanity, and gathering his coat tails in his hands; "it's all very well to talk,

"I don't mean anything personal, of course, but apply the situation to yourself."

"I shouldn't stand any humbugtake her travelling; shake her mind up. She'd soon come round."

Halidome cleared his throat; the idea was so obviously indecent. How could anybody loathe him? With great

composure, however, regarding Shelton as if he were a forward but amusing child, he answered:

"It appears to me," said Shelton, "to be a question of common pride. How can you, ask anything of a woman

"A man ought not to suffer," he said, poring over his whisky, "because a woman gets hysteria. You have to

think of Society, your children, house, money arrangements, a thousand things. It's all very well to talk. How

"Commonsense," returned his friend; "I believe in justice before sentiment." He drank, and callously blew

smoke at Shelton. "Besides, there are many people with religious views about it."

"It's always seemed to me," said Shelton, "to be quaint that people should assert that marriage gives them the

right to 'an eye for an eye,' and call themselves Christians. Did you ever know anybody stand on their rights

except out of wounded pride or for the sake of their own comfort? Let them call their reasons what they like,

"I don't know about that," said Halidome, more and more superior as Shelton grew more warm; "when you

stand on your rights, you do it for the sake of Society as well as for your own. If you want to do away with

"But I don't," said Shelton:" is it likely? Why, I'm going" He stopped without adding the words "to be

married myself," for it suddenly occurred to him that the reason was not the most lofty and philosophic in the

world. "All I can say is," he went on soberly, "that you can't make a horse drink by driving him. Generosity is

the surest way of tightening the knot with people who've any sense of decency; as to the rest, the chief thing

"I tell you what"for late at night a certain power of vision came to him"it's humbug to talk of doing

things for the sake of Society; it's nothing but the instinct to keep our own heads above the water."

"All right," he said, "call it that. I don't see why I should go to the wall; it wouldn't do any good."

"You admit, then," said Shelton, "that our morality is the sum total of everybody's private instinct of

But the compelling complacency of his fine eyes, the dignified posture of his healthy body, the lofty slope of

his narrow forehead, the perfectly humane look of his cultivated brutality, struck Shelton as ridiculous.

"Hang it, Hall" he cried, jumping from his chair, "what an old fraud you are! I'll be off."

"No, look here!" said Halidome; the faintest shade of doubt had appeared upon his face; he took Shelton by a

Shelton walked home, letting the spring wind into him. It was Saturday, and he passed many silent couples.

In every little patch of shadow he could see two forms standing or sitting close together, and in their presence

Words the Impostors seemed to hold their tongues. The wind rustled the buds; the stars, one moment bright

as diamonds, vanished the next. In the lower streets a large part of the world was under the influence of drink,

but by this Shelton was far from being troubled. It seemed better than Drama, than dressing bagged men,

unruffled women, and padded points of view, better than the immaculate solidity of his friend's possessions.

"So," he reflected, "it's right for every reason, social, religious, and convenient, to inflict one's society where

it's not desired. There are obviously advantages about the married state; charming to feel respectable while

you're acting in a way that in any other walk of life would bring on you contempt. If old Halidome showed

that he was tired of me, and I continued to visit him, he'd think me a bit of a cad; but if his wife were to tell

him she couldn't stand him, he'd still consider himself a perfect gentleman if he persisted in giving her the

burden of his society; and he has the cheek to bring religion into ita religion that says, 'Do unto others!'"

But in this he was unjust to Halidome, forgetting how impossible it was for him to believe that a woman

could not stand him. He reached his rooms, and, the more freely to enjoy the clear lamplight, the soft, gusty

"I wonder," thought he, "if I shall turn out a cad when I marry, like that chap in the play. It's natural. We all

want our money's worth, our pound of flesh! Pity we use such fine words'Society, Religion, Morality.'

He went in, and, throwing his window open, remained there a long time, his figure outlined against the

lighted room for the benefit of the dark square below, his hands in his pockets, his head down, a reflective

frown about his eyes. A halfintoxicated old ruffian, a policeman, and a man in a straw hat had stopped

"Yus," the old ruffian said, "I'm a rackety old blank; but what I say is, if we wus all alike, this would n't be a

They went their way, and before the listener's eyes there rose Antonia's face, with its unruffled brow;

Halidome's, all health and dignity; the forehead of the goggleeyed man, with its line of hair parted in the

centre, and brushed across. A light seemed to illumine the plane of their existence, as the electric lamp with

the green shade had illumined the pages of the Matthew Arnold; serene before Shelton's vision lay that

Elysium, untouched by passion or extremes of any kind, autocratic; complacent, possessive, and wellkept as

any Midland landscape. Healthy, wealthy, wise! No room but for perfection, selfpreservation, the survival

of the fittest! "The part of the good citizen," he thought: "no, if we were all alike, this would n't be a world!"

My dear Richard" (wrote Shelton's uncle the next day), "I shall be glad to see you at three o'clock tomorrow

afternoon upon the question of your marriage settlement...." At that hour accordingly Shelton made his way

to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where in fat black letters the names "Paramor and Herring (Commissioners for

Oaths)" were written on the wall of a stone entrance. He ascended the solid steps with nervousness, and by a

small redhaired boy was introduced to a back room on the first floor. Here, seated at a table in the very

centre, as if he thereby better controlled his universe, a pug featured gentleman, without a beard, was

writing. He paused. "Ow, Mr. Richard!" he said; "glad to see you, sir. Take a chair. Your uncle will be

disengaged in 'arf a minute"; and in the tone of his allusion to his employer was the satirical approval that

comes with long and faithful service. "He will do everything himself," he went on, screwing up his sly,

Shelton never saw his uncle's clerk without marvelling at the prosperity deepening upon his face. In place of

the look of harassment which on most faces begins to grow after the age of fifty, his old friend's countenance,

as though in sympathy with the nation, had expandeda little greasily, a little genially, a little

coarselyevery time he met it. A contemptuous tolerance for people who were not getting on was spreading

beneath its surface; it left each time a deeper feeling that its owner could never be in the wrong.

"I hope you're well, sir," he resumed: "most important for you to have your health now you're

goingto"and, feeling for the delicate way to put it, he involuntarily winked"to become a family man.

We saw it in the paper. My wife said to me the other morning at breakfast: 'Bob, here's a Mr. Richard

Paramor Shelton goin' to be married. Is that any relative of your Mr. Shelton?' ' My dear,' I said to her, ' it's

It disquieted Shelton to perceive that his old friend did not pass the whole of his life at that table writing in

the centre of the room, but that somewhere (vistas of little grey houses rose before his eyes) he actually lived

another life where someone called him "Bob." Bob! And this, too, was a revelation. Bob! Why, of course, it

"That's your uncle"; and again the head clerk's voice sounded ironical. "Goodbye, sir."

He seemed to clip off intercourse as one clips off electric light. Shelton left him writing, and preceded the

Edmund Paramor was a mediumsized and upright man of seventy, whose brown face was perfectly

cleanshaven. His grey, silky hair was brushed in a cock's comb from his fine forehead, bald on the left side.

He stood before the hearth facing the room, and his figure had the springy abruptness of men who cannot

fatten. There was a certain youthfulness, too, in his eyes, yet they had a look as though he had been through

fire; and his mouth curled at the corners in surprising smiles. The room was like the manmorally large,

void of redtape and almost void of furniture; no tin boxes were ranged against the walls, no papers littered

up the table; a single bookcase contained a complete edition of the law reports, and resting on the Law

Directory was a single red rose in a glass of water. It looked the room of one with a sober magnanimity, who

went to the heart of things, despised haggling, and before whose smiles the more immediate kinds of humbug

"Tell her that I'm going to sell her Easterns after all, and put into this Brass thing. You can say it's safe, from

His uncle looked through him with his keen, halfsuffering glance, and up went the corners of his mouth.

The transaction, however, did not interest him; his uncle's judgment in such matters had a breezy soundness

"Well, about your settlement"; and, touching a bell three times, Mr. Paramor walked up and down the room.

The stalwart commissionaire reappearing with a document"Now then, Dick," said Mr. Paramor. "She 's not

Mr. Paramor's lips quivered; he drew the draft closer, took up a blue pencil, and, squeezing Shelton's arm,

began to read. The latter, following his uncle's rapid exposition of the clauses, was relieved when he paused

"If you die and she marries again," said Mr. Paramor, "she forfeits her life interestsee?"

Mr. Paramor waited, biting his pencil; a smile flickered on his mouth, and was decorously subdued. It was

Mr. Paramor was a keen fisherman; he watched his nephew as he might have watched a fish he had just

When he was dead, he would have no other way of seeing that she continued to belong to him. Exactly!

Exactly! Why should she have his money if she married again? She would forfeit it. There was comfort in the

thought. Shelton came back and carefully reread the clause, to put the thing on a purely business basis, and

What wiser provision for a man passionately in love could possibly have been devised? His uncle's eye

travelled beyond him, humanely turning from the last despairing wriggles of his fish.

The blood rushed into Shelton's face; he felt he had been detected in a piece of sentiment.

Her uncle's pencil descended on the clause, and he resumed the reading of the draft, but Shelton could not

follow it; he was too much occupied in considering exactly why Mr. Paramor had been amused, and to do this

he was obliged to keep his eyes upon him. Those features, just pleasantly rugged; the springy poise of the

figure; the hair neither straight nor curly, neither short nor long; the haunting look of his eyes and the

humorous look of his mouth; his clothes neither shabby nor dandified; his serviceable, fine hands; above all,

the equability of the hovering blue pencil, conveyed the impression of a perfect balance between heart and

"'During coverture,'" quoted Mr. Paramor, pausing again, "you understand, of course, if you don't get on, and

If they didn't get on! Shelton smiled. Mr. Paramor did not smile, and again Shelton had the sense of having

This time his uncle smiled. It was difficult for Shelton to feel angry at that ironic merriment, with its sudden

ending; it was too impersonal to irritate: it was too concerned with human nature.

"Ifhumit came to the other thing," said Mr. Paramor, "the settlement's at an end as far as she 's

The memory of the play and his conversation with Halidome was still strong in Shelton. He was not one of

those who could not face the notion of transferred affectionsat a safe distance.

"All right, Uncle Ted," said he. For one mad moment he was attacked by the desire to "throw in" the case of

divorce. Would it not be common chivalry to make her independent, able to change her affections if she

wished, unhampered by monetary troubles? You only needed to take out the words "during coverture."

Almost anxiously he looked into his uncle's face. There was no meanness there, but neither was there

encouragement in that comprehensive brow with its wide sweep of hair. "Quixotism," it seemed to say, "has

merits, but" The room, too, with its wide horizon and tall windows, looking as if it dealt habitually in

commonsense, discouraged him. Innumerable men of breeding and the soundest principles must have

bought their wives in here. It was perfumed with the atmosphere of wisdom and lawcalf. The aroma of

Precedent was strong; Shelton swerved his lance, and once more settled down to complete the purchase of his

"I can't conceive what you'rein such a hurry for; you 're not going to be married till the autumn," said Mr.

Replacing the blue pencil in the rack, he took the red rose from the glass, and sniffed at it. "Will you come

with me as far as Pall Mall? I 'm going to take an afternoon off; too cold for Lord's, I suppose?"

"Have you seen this new play of Borogrove's?" asked Shelton, as they passed the theatre to which he had

Shelton glanced at him; he wore his hat rather far back on his head, his eyes haunted the street in front; he

"The French succeed in doing it," replied Shelton, and the Russians; why should n't we?"

"What's right for the French and Russians, Dick," he said "is wrong for us. When we begin to be real, we only

really begin to be false. I should like to have had the catching of that fellow; let's send him to your mother."

"Now, my dear," he continued, as they went on, "do you tell me that it's decent for men and women on the

It suddenly struck Shelton that, for all his smile, his uncle's face had a look of crucifixion. It was, perhaps,

"Bad endings and the rest," said Mr. Paramor, pausing under one of Nelson's lions and taking Shelton by a

He stood there, very straight, his eyes haunting his nephew's face; there seemed to Shelton a touching muddle

in his optimisma muddle of tenderness and of intolerance, of truth and secondhandedness. Like the lion

"No, my dear," he said, handing sixpence to a sweeper; "feelings are snakes! only fit to be kept in bottles with

tight corks. You won't come to my club? Well, goodbye, old boy; my love to your mother when you see

her"; and turning up the Square, he left Shelton to go on to his own club, feeling that he had parted, not from

his uncle, but from the nation of which they were both members by birth and blood and education.

He went into the library of his club, and took up Burke's Peerage. The words his uncle had said to him on

hearing his engagement had been these: "Dennant! Are those the Holm Oaks Dennants ? She was a Penguin."

No one who knew Mr. Paramor connected him with snobbery, but there had been an "Ah! that 's right; this is

Shelton hunted for the name of Baltimore: "Charles Penguin, fifth Baron Baltimore. Issue: Alice, b. 184, m.

186 Algernon Dennant, Esq., of Holm Oaks, Cross Eaton, Oxfordshire." He put down the Peerage and took

up the 'Landed Gentry': "Dennant, Algernon Cuffe, eldest son of the late Algernon Cuffe Dennant, Esq., J. P.,

and Irene, 2nd daur. of the Honble. Philip and Lady Lillian March Mallow; ed. Eton and Ch. Ch., Oxford, J.

P. for Oxfordshire. Residence, Holm Oaks," etc., etc. Dropping the 'Landed Gentry', he took up a volume of

the 'Arabian Nights', which some member had left reposing on the bookrest of his chair, but instead of

reading he kept looking round the room. In almost every seat, reading or snoozing, were gentlemen who, in

their own estimation, might have married Penguins. For the first time it struck him with what majestic

leisureliness they turned the pages of their books, trifled with their teacups, or lightly snored. Yet no two

were alikea tall manwith dark moustache, thick hair, and red, smooth cheeks; another, bald, with stooping

shoulders; a tremendous old buck, with a grey, pointed beard and large white waistcoat; a cleanshaven

dapper man past middle age, whose face was like a bird's; a long, sallow, misanthrope; and a sanguine

creature fast asleep. Asleep or awake, reading or snoring, fat or thin, hairy or bald, the insulation of their red

or pale faces was complete. They were all the creatures of good form. Staring at them or reading the Arabian

Nights Shelton spent the time before dinner. He had not been long seated in the diningroom when a distant

"Ah, Shelton! Back? Somebody told me you were goin' round the world." He scrutinised the menu through

his eyeglass. "Clear soup! . . . Read Jellaby's speech? Amusing the way he squashes all those fellows. Best

Shelton paused in the assimilation of asparagus; he, too, had been in the habit of admiring Jellaby, but now he

wondered why. The red and shaven face beside him above a broad, pure shirtfront was swollen by good

humour; his small, very usual, and hard eyes were fixed introspectively on the successful process of his

"Success!" thought Shelton, suddenly enlightened"success is what we admire in Jellaby. We all want

"Oh," said he, "I somehow thought so"; and Shelton almost heard him adding, "There's something not quite

"Knows his own mind," replied his neighbour; "it 's more than the others do . . . . This whitebait is n't fit for

cats! Clever fellow, Jellaby! No nonsense about him! Have you ever heard him speak? Awful good sport to

watch him sittin' on the Opposition. A poor lot they are!" and he laughed, either from appreciation of Jellaby

sitting on a small minority, or from appreciation of the champagne bubbles in his glass.

"I mean," said Shelton, "it's irritating to look at people who have n't a chance of successfellows who make

"Eryes, quite," said he; " don't you take mint sauce? It's the best part of lamb, I always think."

The great room with its countless little tables, arranged so that every man might have the support of the gold

walls to his back, began to regain its influence on Shelton. How many times had he not sat there, carefully

nodding to acquaintances, happy if he got the table he was used to, a paper with the latest racing, and

someone to gossip with who was not a bounder; while the sensation of having drunk enough stole over him.

"Look at poor little Bing puffin' about," said his neighbour, pointing to a weazened, hunchy waiter. "His

In the hall Shelton went from force of habit to the weighingscales and took his weight. "Eleven stone!" he

thought; "gone up!" and, clipping a cigar, he sat down in the smokingroom with a novel.

After half an hour he dropped the book. There seemed something rather fatuous about this story, for though it

had a thrilling plot, and was full of wellconnected people, it had apparently been contrived to throw no light

on anything whatever. He looked at the author's name; everyone was highly recommending it. He began

Looking up, he saw Antonia's second brother, a young man in the Rifles, bending over him with sunny

"Pillbottle of the Duchess!" read young Dennant, taking up the book. "You been reading that? Rippin', is n't

"Rippin' plot! When you get hold of a novel you don't want any rot aboutwhat d'you call it?psychology,

"That's an awfully good bit where the President steals her diamonds There's old Benjy! Hallo, Benjy!"

This Benjy was a young, cleanshaven creature, whose face and voice and manner were a perfect blend of

In addition to this young man who was so smooth and hard and cheery, a grey, shortbearded gentleman,

with misanthropic eyes, called Stroud, came up; together with another man of Shelton's age, with a

moustache and a bald patch the size of a crownpiece, who might be seen in the club any night of the year

"You know," began young Dennant, "that this bounder"he slapped the young man Benjy on the knee"is

going to be spliced tomorrow. Miss Casserolyou know the CasserolsMuncaster Gate."

"By Jove!" said Shelton, delighted to be able to say something they would understand.

"Young Champion's the best man, and I 'm the second best. I tell you what, old chap, you 'd better come with

me and get your eye in; you won't get such another chance of practice. Benjy 'll give you a card."

"St. Briabas; twothirty. Come and see how they do the trick. I'll call for you at one; we'll have some lunch

Shelton nodded his assent; the piquant callousness of the affair had made him shiver, and furtively he eyed

the steely Benjy, whose suavity had never wavered, and who appeared to take a greater interest in some

approaching race than in his coming marriage. But Shelton knew from his own sensations that this could not

really be the case; it was merely a question of "good form," the conceit of a superior breeding, the duty not to

give oneself away. And when in turn he marked the eyes of Stroud fixed on Benjy, under shaggy brows, and

"Who 's that fellow with the game legI'm always seeing him about?" asked the racing man.

And Shelton saw a sallow man, conspicuous for a want of parting in his hair and a certain restlessness of

"His name is Bayes," said Stroud; "spends half his time among the Chinesemust have a grudge against

Shelton gazed at the twitching eyebrows of old Stroud; he saw at once how it must annoy a man who had a

billet in the "Woods and Forests," and plenty of time for "bridge" and gossip at his club, to see these people

with untidy lives. A minute later the man with the "game leg" passed close behind his chair, and Shelton

perceived at once how intelligible the resentment of his fellowmembers was. He had eyes which, not

uncommon in this country, looked like fires behind steel bars; he seemed the very kind of man to do all sorts

of things that were "bad form," a man who might even go as far as chivalry. He looked straight at Shelton,

and his uncompromising glance gave an impression of fierce loneliness; altogether, an improper person to

belong to such. a club. Shelton remembered the words of an old friend of his father's: "Yes, Dick, all sorts of

fellows belong here, and they come here for all sorts o' reasons, and a lot of em come because they've

nowhere else to go, poor beggars"; and, glancing from the man with the "game leg" to Stroud, it occurred to

Shelton that even he, old Stroud, might be one of these poor beggars. One never knew! A look at Benjy,

contained and cheery, restored him. Ah, the lucky devil! He would not have to come here any more! and the

thought of the last evening he himself would be spending before long flooded his mind with a sweetness that

Stroud and the racing man went to watch the game; Shelton was left once more to reverie.

"Good form!" thought he; "that fellow must be made of steel. They'll go on somewhere; stick about half the

He crossed over to the window. Rain had begun to fall; the streets looked wild and draughty. The cabmen

were putting on their coats. Two women scurried by, huddled under one umbrella, and a thin clothed,

doggedlooking scarecrow lounged past with a surly, desperate step. Shelton, returning to his chair, threaded

his way amongst his fellowmembers. A procession of old school and college friends came up before his

eyes. After all, what had there been in his own education, or theirs, to give them any other standard than this

"good form"? What had there been to teach them anything of life? Their imbecility was incredible when you

came to think of it. They had all the air of knowing everything, and really they knew nothingnothing of

Nature, Art, or the Emotions; nothing of the bonds that bind all men together. Why, even such words were

not "good form"; nothing outside their little circle was "good form." They had a fixed point of view over life

because they came of certain schools, and colleges, and regiments! And they were those in charge of the

state, of laws, and science, of the army, and religion. Well, it was their systemthe system not to start too

"Successful!" he thought, nearly stumbling over a pair of patent leather boots belonging to a moonfaced,

Somebody came and picked up from the table the very volume which had originally inspired this train of

thought, and Shelton could see his solemn pleasure as he read. In the white of his eye there was a torpid and

composed abstraction. There was nothing in that book to startle him or make him think.

The moonfaced member with the patent boots came up and began talking of his recent visit to the south of

France. He had a scandalous anecdote or two to tell, and his broad face beamed behind his gold

nosenippers; he was a large man with such a store of easy, worldly humour that it was impossible not to

appreciate his gossip, he gave so perfect an impression of enjoying life, and doing himself well. "Well,

goodnight!" he murmured" An engagement!"and the certainty he left behind that his engagement must

And, slowly taking up his glass, Shelton drank; the sense of well being was upon him. His superiority to

these his fellowmembers soothed him. He saw through all the sham of this club life, the meanness of this

worship of success, the sham of kidgloved novelists, "good form," and the terrific decency of our education.

It was soothing thus to see through things, soothing thus to be superior; and from the soft recesses of his chair

he puffed out smoke and stretched his limbs toward the fire; and the fire burned back at him with a discreet

"I bet old Benjy's feeling a bit cheap," said he, as they got out of their cab at the church door and passed

between the crowded files of unelect, whose eyes, so curious and pitiful, devoured them from the pavement.

The ashen face of a woman, with a baby in her arms and two more by her side, looked as eager as if she had

never experienced the pangs of ragged matrimony. Shelton went in inexplicably uneasy; the price of his tie

was their board and lodging for a week. He followed his future brotherinlaw to a pew on the bridegroom's

side, for, with intuitive perception of the sexes' endless warfare, each of the opposing parties to this contract

had its serried battalion, the arrows of whose suspicion kept glancing across and across the central aisle.

"There's old Benjy!" he whispered; and Shelton looked at the hero of the day. A subdued pallor was traceable

under the weathered uniformity of his shaven face; but the wellbred, artificial smile he bent upon the guests

had its wonted steely suavity. About his dress and his neat figure was that studied ease which lifts men from

the ruck of common bridegrooms. There were no holes in his armour through which the impertinent might

"Good old Benjy!" whispered young Dennant; "I say, they look a bit short of class, those Casserols."

Shelton, who was acquainted with this family, smiled. The sensuous sanctity all round had begun to influence

him. A perfume of flowers and dresses fought with the natural odour of the church; the rustle of whisperings

and skirts struck through the native silence of the aisles, and Shelton idly fixed his eyes on a lady in the pew

in front; without in the least desiring to make a speculation of this sort, he wondered whether her face was as

charming as the lines of her back in their delicate, skintight setting of pearl grey; his glance wandered to the

chancel with its stacks of flowers, to the grave, business faces of the presiding priests, till the organ began

Shelton was conscious of a shiver running through the audience which reminded him of a bullfight he had

seen in Spain. The bride came slowly up the aisle. "Antonia will look like that," he thought, "and the church

will be filled with people like this . . . . She'll be a show to them!" The bride was opposite him now, and by an

instinct of common chivalry he turned away his eyes; it seemed to him a shame to look at that downcast head

above the silver mystery of her perfect raiment; the modest head full, doubtless, of devotion and pure

yearnings; the stately head where no such thought as "How am I looking, this day of all days, before all

London?" had ever entered; the proud head, which no such fear as "How am I carrying it off?" could surely

He saw below the surface of this drama played before his eyes, and set his face, as a man might who found

himself assisting at a sacrifice. The words fell, unrelenting, on his ears: "For better, for worse, for richer, for

poorer; in sickness and in health" and opening the Prayer Book he found the Marriage Service, which he

had not looked at since he was a boy, and as he read he had some very curious sensations.

All this would soon be happening to himself! He went on reading in a kind of stupor, until aroused by his

companion whispering, "No luck!" All around there rose a rustling of skirts; he saw a tall figure mount the

pulpit and stand motionless. Massive and highfeatured, sunken of eye, he towered, in snowy cambric and a

crimson stole, above the blackness of his rostrum; it seemed he had been chosen for his beauty. Shelton was

still gazing at the stitching of his gloves, when once again the organ played the Wedding March. All were

smiling, and a few were weeping, craning their heads towards the bride. "Carnival of secondhand

emotions!" thought Shelton; and he, too, craned his head and brushed his hat. Then, smirking at his friends,

In the Casserols' house he found himself at last going round the presents with the eldest Casserol surviving, a

"I always think it's so awkward for the man waiting up there for the bride to come."

"That was my idea; I think it 's very chic. They 've had fifteen teasetsso dull, is n't it?"

"Oh, its fearfully useful to have a lot of things you don't want; of course, you change them for those you do."

The whole of London seemed to have disgorged its shops into this room; he looked at Miss Casserol's face,

"Is that your future brotherinlaw?" she asked, pointing to Bill Dennant with a little movement of her chin;

"I think he's such a bright boy. I want you both to come to dinner, and help to keep things jolly. It's so deadly

They adjourned to the hall now, to wait for the bride's departure. Her face as she came down the stairs was

impassive, gay, with a furtive trouble in the eyes, and once more Shelton had the odd sensation of having

sinned against his manhood. Jammed close to him was her old nurse, whose puffy, yellow face was pouting

with emotion, while tears rolled from her eyes. She was trying to say something, but in the hubbub her

farewell was lost. There was a scamper to the carriage, a flurry of rice and flowers; the shoe was flung against

the sharply drawnup window. Then Benjy's shaven face was seen a moment, bland and steely; the footman

folded his arms, and with a solemn crunch the brougham wheels rolled away. "How splendidly it went off!"

said a voice on Shelton's right. "She looked a little pale," said a voice on Shelton's left. He put his hand up to

"Dick," said young Dennant in his ear, "this isn't good enough; I vote we bolt."

Shelton assenting, they walked towards the Park; nor could he tell whether the slight nausea he experienced

Bill Dennant stopped in the middle of the crossing, and clapped his future brotherinlaw upon the shoulder.

The dinner at the Casserols' was given to those of the bride's friends who had been conspicuous in the day's

festivities. Shelton found himself between Miss Casserol and a lady undressed to much the same degree.

Opposite sat a man with a single diamond stud, a white waistcoat, black moustache, and hawklike face. This

was, in fact, one of those interesting houses occupied by people of the upper middle class who have imbibed

a taste for smart society. Its inhabitants, by nature acquisitive and cautious, economical, tenacious, had learnt

to worship the word "smart." The result was a kind of heavy froth, an air of thoroughly domestic vice. In

addition to the conventionally fast, Shelton had met there one or two ladies, who, having been divorced, or

having yet to be, still maintained their position in "society." Divorced ladies who did not so maintain their

place were never to be found, for the Casserols had a great respect for marriage. He had also met there

American ladies who were "too amusing"never, of course, American men, Mesopotamians of the financial

or the racing type, and several of those gentlemen who had been, or were about to be, engaged in a

transaction which might or again might not, "come off," and in conduct of an order which might, or again

might not be spotted. The line he knew, was always drawn at those in any category who were actually found

out, for the value of these ladies and these gentlemen was not their claim to pitynothing so

sentimentalbut their "smartness," clothes, jokes, racing tips, their "bridge parties," and their motors.

In sum, the house was one whose fundamental domesticity attracted and sheltered those who were too

His host, a grey, cleanshaven city man, with a long upper lip, was trying to understand a lady the audacity of

whose speech came ringing down the table. Shelton himself had given up the effort with his neighbours, and

made love to his dinner, which, surviving the incoherence of the atmosphere, emerged as a work of art. It was

"I always say that the great thing is to be jolly. If you can't find anything to make you laugh, pretend you do;

"I tell the governor, when he 's glum, that I shall put up the shutters and leave him. What's the good of mopin'

and lookin' miserable? Are you going to the FourinHand Meet? We're making a party. Such fun; all the

The splendour of her shoulders, her frizzy hair (clearly not two hours out of the barber's hands), might have

made him doubtful; but the frank shrewdness in her eyes, and her carefully clipped tone of voice, were

guarantees that she was part of the element at the table which was really quite respectable. He had never

realised before how "smart" she was, and with an effort abandoned himself to a sort of gaiety that would have

And when she left him, he reflected upon the expression of her eyes when they rested on a lady opposite, who

was a true birdofprey. "What is it," their envious, inquisitive glance had seemed to say, "that makes you so

really ' smart'?" And while still seeking for the reason, he noticed his host pointing out the merits of his port

to the hawklike man, with a deferential air quite pitiful to see, for the hawklike man was clearly a "bad

hat." What in the name of goodness did these staid bourgeois mean by making up to vice? Was it a craving to

be thought distinguished, a dread of being dull, or merely an effect of overfeeding? Again he looked at his

host, who had not yet enumerated all the virtues of his port, and again felt sorry for him.

"So you're going to marry Antonia Dennant? said a voice on his right, with that easy coarseness which is a

mark of caste. "Pretty girl! They've a nice place, the, Dennants. D' ye know, you're a lucky feller!"

The speaker was an old baronet, with small eyes, a dusky, ruddy face, and peculiar hailfellowwellmet

expression, at once morose and sly. He was always hard up, but being a man of enterprise knew all the best

"You're a lucky feller," he repeated; "he's got some deuced good shootin', Dennant! They come too high for

me, though; never touched a feather last time I shot there. She's a pretty girl. You 're a lucky feller!"

"Wish I were in your shoes. Who was that sittin' on the other side of you? I'm so dashed shortsighted. Mrs.

Carruther? Oh, ay!" An expression which, if he had not been a baronet, would have been a leer, came on his

Shelton felt that he was referring to the leaf in his mental pocket book covered with the anecdotes, figures,

and facts about that lady. "The old ogre means," thought he, "that I'm lucky because his leaf is blank about

Antonia." But the old baronet had turned, with his smile, and his sardonic, wellbred air, to listen to a bit of

"What! You don't collect anything? How's that? Everybody collects something. I should be lost without my

"No, I don't collect anything. Given it up; I was too awfully had over my Walkers."

Shelton had expected a more lofty reason; he applied himself to the Madeira in his glass. That, had been

"collected" by his host, and its price was going up! You couldn't get it every day; worth two guineas a bottle!

How precious the idea that other people couldn't get it, made it seem! Liquid delight; the price was going up!

Soon there would be none left; immense! Absolutely no one, then, could drink it!

"Poor old chap!" thought Shelton; "after all, he's not a bad old boy. I wish I had his pluck. His liver must be

The drawingroom was full of people playing a game concerned with horses ridden by jockeys with the latest

seat. And Shelton was compelled to help in carrying on this sport till early in the morning. At last he left,

He thought of the wedding; he thought over his dinner and the wine that he had drunk. His mood of

satisfaction fizzled out. These people were incapable of being real, even the smartest, even the most

respectable; they seemed to weigh their pleasures in the scales and to get the most that could be gotten for

Between the dark, safe houses stretching for miles and miles, his thoughts were of Antonia; and as he reached

his rooms he was overtaken by the moment when the town is born again. The first new air had stolen down;

the sky was living, but not yet alight; the trees were quivering faintly; no living creature stirred, and nothing

spoke except his heart. Suddenly the city seemed to breathe, and Shelton saw that he was not alone; an

The individual on the doorstep had fallen into slumber over his own knees. No greater air of prosperity clung

about him than is conveyed by a rusty overcoat and wisps of cloth in place of socks. Shelton endeavoured to

"Ah, it's you, monsieur!" he said "I received your letter this evening, and have lost no time." He looked down

The young foreigner's condition was indeed more desperate than on the occasion of their first meeting, and

"You can well understand," stammered Ferrand, following his host, "that I did n't want to miss you this time.

His visitor's face had a week's growth of reddish beard; the deep tan of his cheeks gave him a robust

appearance at variance with the fit of, trembling which had seized on him as soon as he had entered.

Shelton left him seated on the edge of an armchair, and brought him in some whisky.

"Clothes," said Ferrand, when he had drunk, "are what I want. These are really not good enough."

The statement was correct, and Shelton, placing some garments in the bathroom, invited his visitor to make

himself at home. While the latter, then, was doing this, Shelton enjoyed the luxuries of self denial, hunting

up things he did not want, and laying them in two portmanteaus. This done, he waited for his visitor's return.

The young foreigner at length emerged, unshaved indeed, and innocent of boots, but having in other respects

"This is a little different," he said. "The boots, I fear"and, pulling down his, or rather Shelton's, socks he

exhibited sores the size of half a crown. "One does n't sow without reaping some harvest or another. My

stomach has shrunk," he added simply. "To see things one must suffer. 'Voyager, c'est plus fort que moi'!"

Shelton failed to perceive that this was one way of disguising the human animal's natural dislike of

workthere was a touch of pathos, a suggestion of Godknowswhatmighthavebeen, about this fellow.

"I have eaten my illusions," said the young foreigner, smoking a cigarette. "When you've starved a few times,

your eyes are opened. 'Savoir, c'est mon metier; mais remarquez ceci, monsieur': It 's not always the

"You accuse me of restlessness? Shall I explain what I think about that? I'm restless because of ambition; I

want to reconquer an independent position. I put all my soul into my trials, but as soon as I see there's no

future for me in that line, I give it up and go elsewhere. 'Je ne veux pas etre rond de cuir,' breaking my back

to economise sixpence a day, and save enough after forty years to drag out the remains of an exhausted

existence. That's not in my character." This ingenious paraphrase of the words "I soon get tired of things" he

"It's not all butter," he replied; "one is obliged to do things that are not too delicate. There's nothing I pride

Like a good chemist, however, he administered what Shelton could stand in a judicious way. "Yes, yes," he

seemed to say, "you'd like me to think that you have a perfect knowledge of life: no morality, no prejudices,

no illusions; you'd like me to think that you feel yourself on an equality with me, one human animal talking

to another, without any barriers of position, money, clothes, or the rest'ca c'est un peu trop fort'! You're as

good an imitation as I 've come across in your class, notwithstanding your unfortunate education, and I 'm

grateful to you, but to tell you everything, as it passes through my mind would damage my prospects. You

In one of Shelton's old frockcoats he was impressive, with his air of natural, almost sensitive refinement.

The room looked as if it were accustomed to him, and more amazing still was the sense of familiarity that he

inspired, as, though he were a part of Shelton's soul. It came as a shock to realise that this young foreign

vagabond had taken such a place within his thoughts. The pose of his limbs and head, irregular but not

ungraceful; his disillusioned lips; the rings of smoke that issued from themall signified rebellion, and the

overthrow of law and order. His thin, lopsided nose, the rapid glances of his goggling, prominent eyes, were

"How do I live when I am on the tramp?" he said. "well, there are the consuls. The system is not delicate, but

when it's a question of starving, much is permissible; besides, these gentlemen were created for the purpose.

There's a coterie of German Jews in Paris living entirely upon consuls." He hesitated for the fraction of a

second, and resumed: "Yes, monsieur; if you have papers that fit you, you can try six or seven consuls in a

single town. You must know a language or two; but most of these gentlemen are not too well up in the

tongues of the country they represent. Obtaining money under false pretences? Well, it is. But what's the

difference at bottom between all this honourable crowd of directors, fashionable physicians, employers of

labour, ferrybuilders, military men, country priests, and consuls themselves perhaps, who take money and

give no value for it, and poor devils who do the same at far greater risk? Necessity makes the law. If those

Shelton's face remaining doubtful, Ferrand went on instantly: "You're right; they would, from fear, not

principle. One must be hard pressed before committing these indelicacies. Look deep enough, and you will

see what indelicate things are daily done by the respectable for not half so good a reason as the want of

Shelton also took a cigarettehis own income was derived from property for which he gave no value in

"I can give you an instance," said Ferrand, "of what can be done by resolution. One day in a German town,

'etant dans la misere', I decided to try the French consul. Well, as you know, I am a Fleming, but something

had to be screwed out somewhere. He refused to see me; I sat down to wait. After about two hours a voice

bellowed: 'Has n't the brute gone?' and my consul appears. 'I 've nothing for fellows like you,' says he; 'clear

"'Sergeant,' I say, 'this house is France!' Naturally, I had calculated upon that. In Germany they're not too fond

"'Here, then, get out!' I can tell you, monsieur, one must n't have a thin skin if one wants to exploit consuls."

His yellow fingers slowly rolled the stump of his cigarette, his ironical lips flickered. Shelton thought of his

"I suppose," he said feebly, "you've often starved." For, having always been so well fed, the idea of starvation

"Four days is the longest," said he. "You won't believe that story. . . . It was in Paris, and I had lost my money

on the racecourse. There was some due from home which didn't come. Four days and nights I lived on

water. My clothes were excellent, and I had jewellery; but I never even thought of pawning them. I suffered

most from the notion that people might guess my state. You don't recognise me now?"

By a flash of insight Shelton saw the welldressed boy, with sensitive, smooth face, always on the move

about the streets of Paris, for fear that people should observe the condition of his stomach. The story was a

valuable commentary. His thoughts were brusquely interrupted; looking in Ferrand's face, he saw to his

"I 've suffered too much," he stammered; "what do I care now what becomes of me?"

Shelton was disconcerted; he wished 'to say something sympathetic, but, being an Englishman, could only

"Ah! when you've lived my life," broke out his visitor, "nothing 's any good. My heart's in rags. Find me

Moved though he was, Shelton wriggled in his chair, a prey to racial instinct, to an ingrained

overtenderness, perhaps, of soul that forbade him from exposing his emotions, and recoiled from the

revelation of other people's. He could stand it on the stage, he could stand it in a book, but in real life he

could not stand it. When Ferrand had gone off with a portmanteau in each hand, he sat down and told

. . . The poor chap broke down and sat crying like a child; and instead of making me feel sorry, it turned me

into stone. The more sympathetic I wanted to be, the gruffer I grew. Is it fear of ridicule, independence, or

He went on to tell her of Ferrand's starving four days sooner than face a pawnbroker; and, reading the letter

over before addressing it, the faces of the three ladies round their snowy cloth arose before himAntonia's

face, so fair and calm and windfresh; her mother's face, a little creased by time and weather; the maiden

aunt's somewhat too thinand they seemed to lean at him, alert and decorous, and the words "That's rather

nice!" rang in his ears. He went out to post the letter, and buying a fiveshilling order enclosed it to the little

barber, Carolan, as a reward for delivering his note to Ferrand. He omitted to send his address with this

donation, but whether from delicacy or from caution he could not have said. Beyond doubt, however, on

>From every wellborn soul humanity is owing. A thousand thanks. I received this morning your postal

A few days later he received a letter from Antonia which filled him with excitement:

. . . Aunt Charlotte is ever so much better, so mother thinks we can go homehurrah! But she says that you

and I must keep to our arrangement not to see each other till July. There will be something fine in being so

near and having the strength to keep apart . . . All the English are gone. I feel it so empty out here; these

people are so funnyall foreign and shallow. Oh, Dick! how splendid to have an ideal to look up to! Write at

once to Brewer's Hotel and tell me you think the same . . . . We arrive at Charing Cross on Sunday at

halfpast seven, stay at Brewer's for a couple of nights, and go down on Tuesday to Holm Oaks.

"Tomorrow!" he thought; "she's coming tomorrow!" and, leaving his neglected breakfast, he started out to

walk off his emotion. His square ran into one of those slums that still rub shoulders with the most

distinguished situations, and in it he came upon a little crowd assembled round a dogfight. One of the dogs

was being mauled, but the day was muddy, and Shelton, like any wellbred Englishman, had a horror of

making himself conspicuous even in a decent cause; he looked for a policeman. One was standing by, to see

fair play, and Shelton made appeal to him. The official suggested that he should not have brought out a

Shelton appealed indefinitely to the lower orders. The lower orders, however, were afraid of being bitten.

He was therefore obliged to cast away respectability, spoil his trousers and his gloves, break his umbrella,

drop his hat in the mud, and separate the dogs. At the conclusion of the "job," the lower orders said to him in

"Well, I never thought you'd have managed that, sir"; but, like all men of inaction, Shelton after action was

"Dn it!" he said, "one can't let a dog be killed"; and he marched off, towing the injured dog with his

pockethandkerchief, and looking scornfully at harmless passersby. Having satisfied for once the

smouldering fires within him, he felt entitled to hold a low opinion of these men in the street. "The brutes," he

thought, "won't stir a finger to save a poor dumb creature, and as for policemen" But, growing cooler, he

began to see that people weighted down by "honest toil" could not afford to tear their trousers or get a bitten

hand, and that even the policeman, though he had looked so like a demigod, was absolutely made of flesh

He was already tortured by the doubt whether or no he might venture to meet Antonia at the station, and, after

sending his servant with the dog to the address marked on its collar, he formed the resolve to go and see his

mother, with some vague notion that she might help him to decide. She lived in Kensington, and, crossing the

Brompton Road, he was soon amongst that maze of houses into the fibre of whose structure architects have

wrought the motto: " Keep what you have wives, money, a good address, and all the blessings of a moral

Shelton pondered as he passed house after house of such intense respectability that even dogs were known to

bark at them. His blood was still too hot; it is amazing what incidents will promote the loftiest philosophy. He

had been reading in his favourite review an article eulogising the freedom and expansion which had made the

upper middle class so fine a body; and with eyes wandering from side to side he nodded his head ironically.

Each housefront was cold and formal, the shell of an owner with from three to five thousand pounds a year,

and each one was armoured against the opinion of its neighbours by a sort of daring regularity. "Conscious of

my rectitude; and by the strict observance of exactly what is necessary and no more, I am enabled to hold my

head up in the world. The person who lives in me has only four thousand two hundred and fiftyfive pounds

each year, after allowing for the income tax." Such seemed the legend of these houses.

Shelton passed ladies in ones and twos and threes going out shopping, or to classes of drawing, cooking,

ambulance. Hardly any men were seen, and they were mostly policemen; but a few disillusioned children

were being wheeled towards the Park by freshcheeked nurses, accompanied by a great army of hairy or of

There was something of her brother's large liberality about Mrs. Shelton, a tiny lady with affectionate eyes,

warm cheeks, and chilly feet; fond as a cat of a chair by the fire, and full of the sympathy that has no insight.

She kissed her son at once with rapture, and, as usual, began to talk of his engagement. For the first time a

tremor of doubt ran through her son; his mother's view of it grated on him like the sight of a bluepink dress;

it was too rosy. Her splendid optimism, damped him; it had too little traffic with the reasoning powers.

"What right," he asked himself, "has she to be so certain? It seems to me a kind of blasphemy."

"The dear!" she cooed. "And she is coming back tomorrow? Hurrah! how I long to see her!"

Mrs. Shelton rocked her foot, and, holding her head on one side like a little bird, looked at her son with

Half a century of sympathy with weddings of all sortsgood, bad, indifferentbeamed from her.

"I suppose," said Shelton gloomily, "I ought not to go and see her at the station."

That "Cheerup!"the panacea which had carried her blind and bright through every evilwas as void of

"Oh, pretty bad," returned his mother; "I expect it's all right, really. Cheer up!" She stretched her little figure,

"Wonderful woman!" Shelton thought. She had, in fact, like many of her fellowcountrymen, mislaid the

darker side of things, and, enjoying the benefits of orthodoxy with an easy conscience, had kept as young in

Shelton left her house as doubtful whether he might meet Antonia as when he entered it. He spent a restless

The next daythat of her arrivalwas a Sunday. He had made Ferrand a promise to go with him to hear a

sermon in the slums, and, catching at any diversion which might allay excitement, he fulfilled it. The

preacher in questionan amateur, so Ferrand told himhad an original method of distributing the funds

that he obtained. To male sheep he gave nothing, to ugly female sheep a very little, to pretty female sheep the

rest. Ferrand hazarded an inference, but he was a foreigner. The Englishman preferred to look upon the

preacher as guided by a purely abstract love of beauty. His eloquence, at any rate, was unquestionable, and

It was not yet seven o'clock, so, entering an Italian restaurant to kill the halfhour before Antonia's arrival, he

ordered a bottle of wine for his companion, a cup of coffee for himself, and, lighting a cigarette, compressed

his lips. There was a strange, sweet sinking in his heart. His companion, ignorant of this emotion, drank his

wine, crumbled his roll, and blew smoke through his nostrils, glancing caustically at the rows of little tables,

the cheap mirrors, the hot, red velvet, the chandeliers. His juicy lips seemed to be murmuring, "Ah! if you

only knew of the dirt behind these feathers!" Shelton watched him with disgust. Though his clothes were now

so nice, his nails were not quite clean, and his fingertips seemed yellow to the bone. An anaemic waiter in a

shirt some four days old, with greasespots on his garments and a crumpled napkin on his arm, stood leaning

an elbow amongst doubtful fruits, and reading an Italian journal. Resting his tired feet in turn, he looked like

overwork personified, and when he moved, each limb accused the sordid smartness of the walls. In the far

corner sat a lady eating, and, mirrored opposite, her feathered hat, her short, round face, its coat of powder,

and dark eyes, gave Shelton a shiver of disgust. His companion's gaze rested long and subtly on her.

"Excuse me, monsieur," he said at length. "I think I know that lady!" And, leaving his host, he crossed the

room, bowed, accosted her, and sat down. With Pharisaic delicacy, Shelton refrained from looking. But

presently Ferrand came back; the lady rose and left the restaurant; she had been crying. The young foreigner

"I was right," he said; "she is the wife of an old friend. I used to know her well."

He was suffering from emotion, but someone less absorbed than Shelton might have noticed a kind of relish

in his voice, as though he were savouring life's dishes, and glad to have something new, and spiced with

"You can find her story by the hundred in your streets, but nothing hinders these paragons of virtue"he

nodded at the stream of carriages"from turning up their eyes when they see ladies of her sort pass. She

came to Londonjust three years ago. After a year one of her little boys took feverthe shop was

avoidedher husband caught it, and died. There she was, left with two children and everything gone to pay

the debts. She tried to get work; no one helped her. There was no money to pay anyone to stay with the

children; all the work she could get in the house was not enough to keep them alive. She's not a strong

woman. Well, she put the children out to nurse, and went to the streets. The first week was frightful, but now

"No," returned his companion. "I know that sort; if they once take to it all's over. They get used to luxury.

One does n't part with luxury, after tasting destitution. She tells me she does very nicely; the children are

happy; she's able to pay well and see them sometimes. She was a girl of good family, too, who loved her

husband, and gave up much for him. What would you have? Three quarters of your virtuous ladies placed in

It was evident that he felt the shock of this discovery, and Shelton understood that personal acquaintance

"This is her beat," said the young foreigner, as they passed the illuminated crescent, where nightly the

shadows of hypocrites and women fall; and Shelton went from these comments on Christianity to the station

of Charing Cross. There, as he stood waiting in the shadow, his heart was in his mouth; and it struck him as

Presently, amongst the stream of travellers, he saw Antonia. She was close to her mother, who was parleying

with a footman; behind them were a maid carrying a bandbox and a porter with the travellingbags. Antonia's

figure, with its throat settled in the collar of her cape, slender, tall, severe, looked impatient and remote

amongst the bustle. Her eyes, shadowed by the journey, glanced eagerly about, welcoming all she saw; a wisp

of hair was loose above her ear, her cheeks glowed cold and rosy. She caught sight of Shelton, and bending

her neck, staglike, stood looking at him; a brilliant smile parted her lips, and Shelton trembled. Here was the

embodiment of all he had desired for weeks. He could not tell what was behind that smile of

herspassionate aching or only some ideal, some chaste and glacial intangibility. It seemed to be shining

past him into the gloomy station. There was no trembling and uncertainty, no rage of possession in that

brilliant smile; it had the gleam of fixedness, like the smiling of a star. What did it matter? She was there,

beautiful as a young day, and smiling at him; and she was his, only divided from him by a space of time. He

took a step; her eyes fell at once, her face regained aloofness; he saw her, encircled by mother, footman,

maid, and porter, take her seat and drive away. It was over; she had seen him, she had smiled, but alongside

his delight lurked another feeling, and, by a bitter freak, not her face came up before him but the face of that

lady in the restaurant short, round, and powdered, with blackcircled eyes. What right had we to scorn

them? Had they mothers, footmen, porters, maids? He shivered, but this time with physical disgust; the

powdered face with darkfringed eyes had vanished; the fair, remote figure of the railwaystation came back

He sat long over dinner, drinking, dreaming; he sat long after, smoking, dreaming, and when at length he

drove away, wine and dreams fumed in his brain. The dance of lamps, the creamcheese moon, the rays of

clean wet light on his horse's harness, the jingling of the cab bell, the whirring wheels, the night air and the

branchesit was all so good! He threw back the hansom doors to feel the touch of the warm breeze. The

crowds on the pavement gave him strange delight; they were like shadows, in some great illusion, happy

With a headache and a sense of restlessness, hopeful and unhappy, Shelton mounted his hack next morning

In the sky was mingled all the languor and the violence of the spring. The trees and flowers wore an

awakened look in the gleams of light that came stealing down from behind the purple of the clouds. The air

was rainwashed, and the passers by seemed to wear an air of tranquil carelessness, as if anxiety were

Near to Hyde Park Corner a figure by the rails caught Shelton's eye. Straight and thin, one shoulder humped a

little, as if its owner were reflecting, clothed in a frockcoat and a brown felt hat pinched up in lawless

fashion, this figure was so detached from its surroundings that it would have been noticeable anywhere. It

belonged to Ferrand, obviously waiting till it was time to breakfast with his patron. Shelton found pleasure in

It was just at that spot where riders, unable to get further, are for ever wheeling their horses for another turn;

and there Ferrand, the bird of passage, with his head a little to one side, watched them cantering, trotting,

Three men walking along the rails were snatching off their hats before a horsewoman at exactly the same

angle and with precisely the same air, as though in the modish performance of this ancient rite they were

Shelton noted the curl of Ferrand's lip as he watched this sight. "Many thanks, gentlemen," it seemed to say;

What a singular gift the fellow had of divesting things and people of their garments, of tearing away their veil

of shams, and their phylacteries! Shelton turned and cantered on; his thoughts were with Antonia, and he did

He was glancing at the sky, that every moment threatened to discharge a violent shower of rain, when

suddenly he heard his name called from behind, and who should ride up to him on either side but Bill

They had been galloping; and she was flushedflushed as when she stood on the old tower at Hyeres, but

with a joyful radiance different from the calm and conquering radiance of that other moment. To Shelton's

delight they fell into line with him, and all three went galloping along the strip between the trees and rails.

The look she gave him seemed to say, "I don't care if it is forbidden!" but she did not speak. He could not

take his eyes off her. How lovely she looked, with the resolute curve of her figure, the glimpse of gold under

They reined in round the bend and jogged more soberly down on the far side; still not a word from her to

Shelton, and Shelton in his turn spoke only to Bill Dennant. He was afraid to speak to her, for he knew that

her mind was dwelling on this chance forbidden meeting in a way quite different from his own.

Approaching Hyde Park Corner, where Ferrand was still standing against the rails, Shelton, who had

forgotten his existence, suffered a shock when his eyes fell suddenly on that impassive figure. He was about

to raise his hand, when he saw that the young foreigner, noting his instinctive feeling, had at once adapted

himself to it. They passed again without a greeting, unless that swift inquisition; followed by

unconsciousness in Ferrand's eyes, could so be called. But the feeling of idiotic happiness left Shelton; he

grew irritated at this silence. It tantalised him more and more, for Bill Dennant had lagged behind to chatter

to a friend; Shelton and Antonia were alone, walking their horses, without a word, not even looking at each

other. At one moment he thought of galloping ahead and leaving her, then of breaking the vow of muteness

she seemed to be imposing on him, and he kept thinking: "It ought to be either one thing or the other. I can't

stand this." Her calmness was getting on his nerves; she seemed to have determined just how far she meant to

go, to have fixed coldbloodedly a limit. In her happy young beauty and radiant coolness she summed up that

sane consistent something existing in nine out of ten of the people Shelton knew. "I can't stand it long," he

thought, and all of a sudden spoke; but as he did so she frowned and cantered on. When he caught her she

was smiling, lifting her face to catch the raindrops which were falling fast. She gave him just a nod, and

waved her hand as a sign for him to go; and when he would not, she frowned. He saw Bill Dennant, posting

after them, and, seized by a sense of the ridiculous, lifted his hat, and galloped off.

The rain was coming down in torrents now, and every one was scurrying for shelter. He looked back from the

bend, and could still make out Antonia riding leisurely, her face upturned, and revelling in the shower. Why

had n't she either cut him altogether or taken the sweets the gods had sent? It seemed wicked to have wasted

such a chance, and, ploughing back to Hyde Park Corner, he turned his head to see if by any chance she had

His irritation was soon gone, but his longing stayed. Was ever anything so beautiful as she had looked with

her face turned to the rain? She seemed to love the rain. It suited hersuited her ever so much better than the

sunshine of the South. Yes, she was very English! Puzzling and fretting, he reached his rooms. Ferrand had

not arrived, in fact did not turn up that day. His nonappearance afforded Shelton another proof of the

delicacy that went hand in hand with the young vagrant's cynicism. In the afternoon he received a note.

. . . You see, Dick [he read], I ought to have cut you; but I felt too crazyeverything seems so jolly at home,

even this stuffy old London. Of course, I wanted to talk to you badlythere are heaps of things one can't say

by letterbut I should have been sorry afterwards. I told mother. She said I was quite right, but I don't think

she took it in. Don't you feel that the only thing that really matters is to have an ideal, and to keep it so safe

that you can always look forward and feel that you have beenI can't exactly express my meaning.

Shelton lit a cigarette and frowned. It seemed to him queer that she should set more store by an "ideal" than

"I suppose she 's right," he thoughts"I suppose she 's right. I ought not to have tried to speak to her!" As a

On Tuesday morning he wandered off to Paddington, hoping for a chance view of her on her way down to

Holm Oaks; but the sense of the ridiculous, on which he had been nurtured, was strong enough to keep him

from actually entering the station and lurking about until she came. With a pang of disappointment he

retraced his steps from Praed Street to the Park, and once there tried no further to waylay her. He paid a round

of calls in the afternoon, mostly on her relations; and, seeking out Aunt Charlotte, he dolorously related his

encounter in the Row. But she found it "rather nice," and on his pressing her with his views, she murmured

As he was dressing for dinner his eye fell on a card announcing the "at home" of one of his own cousins. Her

husband was a composer, and he had a vague idea that he would find at the house of a composer some quite

unusually free kind of atmosphere. After dining at the club, therefore, he set out for Chelsea. The party was

held in a large room on the groundfloor, which was already crowded with people when Shelton entered.

They stood or sat about in groups with smiles fixed on their lips, and the light from balloonlike lamps fell in

patches on their heads and hands and shoulders. Someone had just finished rendering on the piano a

composition of his own. An expert could at once have picked out from amongst the applauding company

those who were musicians by profession, for their eyes sparkled, and a certain acidity pervaded their

enthusiasm. This freemasonry of professional intolerance flew from one to the other like a breath of

unanimity, and the faint shrugging of shoulders was as harmonious as though one of the high windows had

Shelton made his way up to his cousina fragile, greyhaired woman in black velvet and Venetian lace,

whose starry eyes beamed at him, until her duties, after the custom of these social gatherings, obliged her to

break off conversation just as it began to interest him. He was passed on to another lady who was already

talking to two gentlemen, and, their volubility being greater than his own, he fell into the position of

observer. Instead of the profound questions he had somehow expected to hear raised, everybody seemed

gossiping, or searching the heart of such topics as where to go this summer, or how to get new servants.

Trifling with coffeecups, they dissected their fellow artists in the same way as his society friends of the

other night had dissected the fellow"smart"; and the varnish on the floor, the pictures, and the piano were

reflected on all the faces around. Shelton moved from group to group disconsolate.

A tall, imposing person stood under a Japanese print holding the palm of one hand outspread; his unwieldy

"War," he was saying, "is not necessary. War is not necessary. I hope I make myself clear. War is not

necessary; it depends on nationality, but nationality is not necessary." He inclined his head to one side, "Why

do we have nationality? Let us do away with boundarieslet us have the warfare of commerce. If I see

France looking at Brighton"he laid his head upon one side, and beamed at Shelton,"what do I do? Do I

say 'Hands off'? No. 'Take it,' I saytake it!'" He archly smiled. "But do you think they would?"

"The soldier," the person underneath the print resumed, "is necessarily on a lower planeintellectuallyoh,

intellectually than the philanthropist. His sufferings are less acute; he enjoys the compensations of

advertisementyou admit that?" he breathed persuasively. "For instanceI am quite impersonalI suffer;

but do I talk about it?" But, someone gazing at his wellfilled waistcoat, he put his thesis in another form: "I

have one acre and one cow, my brother has one acre and one cow: do I seek to take them away from him?"

"Come, come! Take the case of women: now, I consider our marriage laws are barbarous."

For the first time Shelton conceived respect for them; he made a comprehensive gesture, and edged himself

into the conversation of another group, for fear of having all his prejudices overturned. Here an Irish sculptor,

standing in a curve, was saying furiously, "Bees are not bhumpkins, dn their sowls! "A Scotch painter,

who listened with a curly smile, seemed trying to compromise this proposition, which appeared to have

relation to the middle classes; and though agreeing with the Irishman, Shelton felt nervous over his discharge

of electricity. Next to them two American ladies, assembled under the tent of hair belonging to a writer of

"I don't know if you can call the fleshly lusts divine," replied the thinner, looking into the eyes of the writer of

Amidst all the hum of voices and the fumes of smoke, a sense of formality was haunting Shelton.

Sandwiched between a Dutchman and a Prussian poet, he could understand neither of his neighbours; so,

assuming an intelligent expression, he fell to thinking that an assemblage of free spirits is as much bound by

the convention of exchanging their ideas as commonplace people are by the convention of having no ideas to

traffic in. He could not help wondering whether, in the bulk, they were not just as dependent on each other as

the inhabitants of Kensington; whether, like locomotives, they could run at all without these opportunities for

blowing off the steam, and what would be left when the steam had all escaped. Somebody ceased playing the

violin, and close to him a group began discussing ethics. Aspirations were in the air all round, like a lot of

hungry ghosts. He realised that, if tongue be given to them, the flavour vanishes from ideas which haunt the

"Cock gracious!" said the Prussian poet, falling into English as the fiddle ceased: "Colossal! 'Aber, wie er ist

"The man's dreadful," pursued the voice, shriller than ever; "nothing but a volcanic eruption would cure him."

Shelton turned in alarm to look at the authors of these statements. They were two men of letters talking of a

"These fellows don't exist," resumed the first; his small eyes gleamed with a green light, his whole face had a

look as if he gnawed himself. Though not a man of letters, Shelton could not help recognising from those

Shelton turned away, as if he had been too close to one whose hair smelt of cantharides; and, looking round

the room, he frowned. With the exception of his cousin, he seemed the only person there of English blood.

Americans, Mesopotamians, Irish, Italians, Germans, Scotch, and Russians. He was not contemptuous of

them for being foreigners; it was simply that God and the climate had made him different by a skin or so.

But at this point his conclusions were denied (as will sometimes happen) by his introduction to an

Englishmana Major Somebody, who, with smooth hair and blond moustache, neat eyes and neater clothes,

seemed a little anxious at his own presence there. Shelton took a liking to him, partly from a fellowfeeling,

and partly because of the gentle smile with which he was looking at his wife. Almost before he had said

"Admitting all that," said Shelton, " what I hate is the humbug with which we pride ourselves on benefiting

Shelton saw his argument in peril. If we really thought it, was it humbug? He replied, however:

"Why should we, a small portion of the world's population, assume that our standards are the proper ones for

The soldier, without taking his hands out of his pockets, but by a forward movement of his face showing that

"Well, it must be a good sort of stupidity; it makes us the nation that we are."

Shelton felt dazed. The conversation buzzed around him; he heard the smiling prophet saying, "Altruism,

altruism," and in his voice a something seemed to murmur, "Oh, I do so hope I make a good impression!"

He looked at the soldier's clearcut head with its wellopened eyes, the tiny crow'sfeet at their corners, the

conventional moustache; he envied the certainty of the convictions lying under that wellparted hair.

"I would rather we were men first and then Englishmen," he muttered; "I think it's all a sort of national

"If you come to that," said the soldier, "the world lives by illusions. I mean, if you look at history, you'll see

"So," continued the soldier (who was evidently a highly cultivated man), "if you admit that movement,

labour, progress, and all that have been properly given to building up these illusions, thaterin fact,

they're what you might callerthe outcome of the world's crescendo," he rushed his voice over this phrase

Shelton thought a moment, then, squeezing his body with his folded arms, replied:

"The past has made us what we are, of course, and cannot be destroyed; but how about the future? It 's surely

time to let in air. Cathedrals are very fine, and everybody likes the smell of incense; but when they 've been

"By your own admission," he said, "you'll only be creating a fresh set of illusions."

"Yes," answered Shelton, "but at all events they'll be the honest necessities of the present."

The pupils of the soldier's eyes contracted; he evidently felt the conversation slipping into generalities; he

Shelton felt in danger of being thought unpractical in giving vent to the remark:

"One must trust one's reason; I never can persuade myself that I believe in what I don't."

A minute later, with a cordial handshake, the soldier left, and Shelton watched his courteous figure

"Dick, may I introduce you to Mr. Wilfrid Curly?" said his cousin's voice behind, and he found his hand

being diffidently shaken by a freshcheeked youth with a domelike forehead, who was saying nervously:

He now remembered that when he had first come in he had watched this youth, who had been standing in a

corner indulging himself in private smiles. He had an uncommon look, as though he were in love with

lifeas though he regarded it as a creature to whom one could put questions to the very endinteresting,

humorous, earnest questions. He looked diffident, and amiable, and independent, and he, too, was evidently

"YesnoI don't know; I think my brain does n't work fast enough for argument. You know how many

motions of the braincells go to each remark. It 's awfully interesting"; and, bending from the waist in a

mathematical position, he extended the palm of one hand, and started to explain.

Shelton stared at the youth's hand, at his frowns and the taps he gave his forehead while he found the

expression of his meaning; he was intensely interested. The youth broke off, looked at his watch, and,

"I must be off, too," said Shelton. Making their adieux together, they sought their hats and coats.

"May I ask," said Shelton, as he and the youth came out into the chilly street, "What it is you call the 'Den'?"

"Oh, the night club. We take it in turns. Thursday is my night. Would you like to come? You see a lot of

They reached the corner house in an angle of a, dismal street, through the open door of which two men had

just gone in. Following, they ascended some wooden, freshwashed stairs, and entered a large boarded room

smelling of sawdust, gas, stale coffee, and old clothes. It was furnished with a bagatelle board, two or three

wooden tables, some wooden forms, and a wooden bookcase. Seated on these wooden chairs, or standing up,

were youths, and older men of the working class, who seemed to Shelton to be peculiarly dejected. One was

reading, one against the wall was drinking coffee with a disillusioned air, two were playing chess, and a

A little man in a dark suit, with a pale face, thin lips, and deep set, blackencircled eyes, who was obviously

"You 're rather late," he said to Curly, and, looking ascetically at Shelton, asked, without waiting for an

A youth with a wooden face, already seated before a flyblown chess board, asked him drearily if he would

have black or white. Shelton took white; he was oppressed by the virtuous odour of this room.

The little man with the deep blue eyes came up, stood in an uneasy attitude, and watched:

"Your play's improving, young Smith," he said; "I should think you'd be able to give Banks a knight." His

eyes rested on Shelton, fanatical and dreary; his monotonous voice was suffering and nasal; he was

continually sucking in his lips, as though determined to subdue 'the flesh. "You should come here often," he

said to Shelton, as the latter received checkmate; "you 'd get some good practice. We've several very fair

players. You're not as good as Jones or Bartholomew," he added to Shelton's opponent, as though he felt it a

duty to put the latter in his place. "You ought to come here often," he repeated to Shelton; "we have a lot of

very good young fellows"; and, with a touch of complacence, he glanced around the dismal room. "There are

Shelton, too, looked anxiously around. He could not help feeling sympathy with Toombs and Body.

"They 're getting slack, I'm afraid," said the little deepeyed man. "Our principle is to amuse everyone.

Excuse me a minute; I see that Carpenter is doing nothing." He crossed over to the man who had been

drinking coffee, but Shelton had barely time to glance at his opponent and try to think of a remark, before the

little man was back. "Do you know anything about astronomy?" he asked of Shelton. "We have several very

"I wish you'd come sometimes on Wednesdays; we have most interesting talks, and a service afterwards.

We're always anxious to get new blood"; and his eyes searched Shelton's brown, rather toughlooking face,

as though trying to see how much blood there was in it. "Young Curly says you 've just been around the

"Oh," he said, "we take anybody, unless there 's anything against them. The Day Society sees to that. Of

course, we shouldn't take anyone if they were to report against them. You ought to come to our committee

"We should be pleased," said the little man; and his face seemed to suffer more than ever. "They 're mostly

young fellows here tonight, but we have married men, too. Of course, we 're very careful about that," he

added hastily, as though he might have injured Shelton's prejudices"that, and drink, and anything criminal,

"Oh yes," replied the little man; "if you were to come to our committee meetings you would see for yourself.

Everything is most carefully gone into; we endeavour to sift the wheat from the chaff."

The little man smiled a suffering smile. The twang of his toneless voice sounded a trifle shriller.

"I was obliged to refuse a man todaya man and a woman, quite young people, with three small children.

He was ill and out of work; but on inquiry we found that they were not man and wife."

There was a slight pause; the little man's eyes were fastened on his nails, and, with an appearance of

"We make a point of not encouraging sin, of course. Excuse me a minute; I see they've finished bagatelle."

He hurried off, and in a moment the clack of bagatelle began again. He himself was playing with a cold and

spurious energy, running after the balls and exhorting the other players, upon whom a wooden acquiescence

Shelton crossed the room, and went up to young Curly. He was sitting on a bench, smiling to himself his

"Oh, not at all!" said Shelton; "on the contrary. Only I 've had a rather tiring day, and somehow I don't feel up

But he had not time to finish before the clack of bagatelle balls ceased, and the voice of the little deepeyed

man was heard saying: "Anybody who wants a book will put his name down. There will be the usual

prayermeeting on Wednesday next. Will you all go quietly? I am going to turn the lights out."

One gasjet vanished, and the remaining jet flared suddenly. By its harder glare the wooden room looked

harder too, and disenchanting. The figures of its occupants began filing through the door. The little man was

left in the centre of the room, his deep eyes smouldering upon the backs of the retreating members, his thumb

"Do you know this part?" asked young Curly as they emerged into the street. "It 's really jolly; one of the

darkest bits in Londonit is really. If you care, I can take you through an awfully dangerous place where the

police never go." He seemed so anxious for the honour that Shelton was loath to disappoint him. "I come here

pretty often," he went on, as they ascended a sort of alley rambling darkly between a wall and row of houses.

The young man threw up his nose and sniffed, as if eager to add any new scent that might be about to his

"No, that's one of the reasons, you know," he said; "one must find out. The darkness is jolly, too; anything

might happen here. Last week there was a murder; there 's always the chance of one."

Shelton stared; but the charge of morbidness would not lie against this freshcheeked stripling.

"There's a splendid drain just here," his guide resumed; "the people are dying like flies of typhoid in those

three houses"; and under the first light he turned his grave, cherubic face to indicate the houses. "If we were

in the East End, I could show you other places quite as good. There's a coffeestall keeper in one that knows

all the thieves in London; he 's a splendid type, but," he added, looking a little anxiously at Shelton, "it might

n't be safe for you. With me it's different; they 're beginning to know me. I've nothing to take, you see."

"They 're rather too highclass for me," he said. "I like to go where you can see people eatschool treats, or

somewhere in the country. It does one good to see them eat. They don't get enough, you see, as a rule, to

make bone; it's all used up for brain and muscle. There are some places in the winter where they give them

"Oh, they don't mind; most of them are halfdead with cold, you know. You see splendid types; lots of

dipsomaniacs . . . . It 's useful to me," he went on as they passed a policestation, "to walk about at night; one

can take so much more notice. I had a jolly night last week in Hyde Park; a chance to study human nature

Shelton thought of the little deepeyed man; who made a point of not encouraging sin.

"He was one of the professionals from Notting Hill, you know; told me his life. Never had a chance, of

course. The most interesting part was telling him I 'd seen him pick three pocketslike creeping into a cave,

"No, thank you," he said; "I have to walk to Whitechapel. I 'm living on porridge now; splendid stuff for

making bone. I generally live on porridge for a week at the end of every month. It 's the best diet if you're

Shelton went upstairs and sat down on his bed. He felt a little miserable. Sitting there, slowly pulling out the

ends of his white tie, disconsolate, he had a vision of Antonia with her gaze fixed wonderingly on him. And

this wonder of hers came as a revelation just as that morning, when, looking from his window, he had seen

a passerby stop suddenly and scratch his leg; and it had come upon him in a flash that that man had thoughts

and feelings of his own. He would never know what Antonia really felt and thought. "Till I saw her at the

station, I did n't know how much I loved her or how little I knew her"; and, sighing deeply, he hurried into

The waiting in London for July to come was daily more unbearable to Shelton, and if it had not been for

Ferrand, who still came to breakfast, he would have deserted the Metropolis. On June first the latter presented

himself rather later than was his custom, and announced that, through a friend, he had heard of a position as

"If I had money to face the first necessities, he said, swiftly turning over a collection of smeared papers with

his yellow fingers, as if searching for his own identity, "I 'd leave today. This London blackens my spirit."

"I think so," the young foreigner replied; "I 've got some good enough recommendations."

Shelton could not help a dubious glance at the papers in his hand. A hurt look passed on to Ferrand's curly

"You mean that to have false papers is as bad as theft. No, no; I shall never be a thiefI 've had too many

opportunities," said he, with pride and bitterness. "That's not in my character. I never do harm to anyone.

This"he touched the papers"is not delicate, but it does harm to no one. If you have no money you must

have papers; they stand between you and starvation. Society, has an excellent eye for the helplessit never

"You 've made me what I am, amongst you," he seemed to say;, "now put up with me!"

"Workhouses!" returned Ferrand; "certainly there areregular palaces: I will tell you one thing: I've never

been in places so discouraging as your workhouses; they take one's very heart out."

"I always understood," said Shelton coldly; "that our system was better than that of other countries."

Ferrand leaned over in his chair, an elbow on his knee, his favourite attitude when particularly certain of his

"Well he replied, "it 's always permissible to think well of your own country. But, frankly, I've come out of

those places here with little strength and no heart at all, and I can tell you why." His lips lost their bitterness,

and he became an artist expressing the result of his experience. "You spend your money freely, you have fine

buildings, selfrespecting officers, but you lack the spirit of hospitality. The reason is plain; you have a

horror of the needy. You invite usand when we come you treat us justly enough, but as if we were

numbers, criminals, beneath contemptas if we had inflicted a personal injury on you; and when we get out

The nervous gesture escaping Ferrand at this juncture betrayed how far the most independent thinkers are

dependent when they have no money in their pockets. He took the note that Shelton proffered him.

"A thousand thanks," said he; " I shall never forget what you have done for me"; and Shelton could not help

He stood at the window watching Ferrand start into the world again; then looked back at his own comfortable

room, with the number of things that had accumulated somehowthe photographs of countless friends, the

old armchairs, the stock of coloured pipes. Into him restlessness had passed with the farewell clasp of the

He took his hat, and, heedless of direction, walked towards the river. It was a clear, bright day, with a bleak

wind driving showers before it. During one of such Shelton found himself in Little Blank Street. "I wonder

how that little Frenchman that I saw is getting on!" he thought. On a fine day he would probably have passed

No. 3 Little Blank Street had abated nothing of its stoneflagged dreariness; the same blowsy woman

answered his inquiry. Yes, Carolan was always in; you could never catch him outseemed afraid to go into

the street! To her call the little Frenchman made his appearance as punctually as if he had been the rabbit of a

"It 's five days since I came out of hospital," muttered the little Frenchman, tapping on his chest; "a crisis of

this bad atmosphere. I live here, shut up in a box; it does me harm, being from the South. If there's anything I

"Nothing," replied Shelton, "I was just passing, and thought I should like to hear how you were getting on."

"Come into the kitchen,monsieur, there is nobody in there. 'Brr! Il fait un froid etonnant'!"

"What sort of customers have you just now?" asked Shelton, as they passed into the kitchen.

"Always the same clientele," replied the little man; "not so numerous, of course, it being summer."

"When I first came to London," said he, "I secured an engagement at one of your public institutions. I thought

my fortune made. _ Imagine, monsieur, in that sacred place I was obliged to shave at the rate of ten a penny!

Here, it's true, they don't pay me half the time; but when I'm paid, I 'm paid. In this, climate, and being

'poitrinaire', one doesn't make experiments. I shall finish my days here. Have you seen that young man who

interested you? There 's another! He has spirit, as I had once'il fait de la philosophie', as I doand you

will see, monsieur, it will finish him. In this world what you want is to have no spirit. Spirit ruins you."

Shelton looked sideways at the little man with his sardonic, yellow, halfdead face, and the incongruity of the

word "spirit" in his mouth struck him so sharply that he smiled a smile with more pity in it than any burst of

"Merci, monsieur, it is always a pleasure to smoke a good cigarette. You remember, that old actor who gave

you a Jeremiad? Well, he's dead. I was the only one at his bedside; 'un vrai drole'. He was another who had

spirit. And you wi11 see, monsieur, that young man in whom you take an interest, he'll die in a hospital, or in

some. hole or other, or even on the highroad; having closed his eyes once too often some cold night; and all

because he has something in him which will not accept things as they are, believing always that they should

"According to you, then," said Sheltonand the conversation seemed to him of a sudden to have taken too

"Ah!" replied the little man, with the eagerness of one whose ideal it is to sit under the awning of a caf� and

talk life upside down, "you pose me a great problem there! If one makes rebellion; it is always probable that

one will do no good to any one and harm one's self. The law of the majority arranges that. But I would draw

your attention to this"and he paused; as if it were a real discovery to blow smoke through his nose"if

you rebel it is in all likelihood because you are forced by your nature to rebel; this is one of the most certain

things in life. In any case, it is necessary to avoid falling between two stoolswhich is unpardonable," he

Shelton thought he had never seen a man who looked more completely as if he had fallen between two stools,

and he had inspiration enough to feel that the little barber's intellectual rebellion and the action logically

"By nature," went on the little man, "I am an optimist; it is in consequence of this that I now make pessimism.

I have always had ideals; seeing myself cut off from them for ever, I must complain; to complain, monsieur,

Shelton wondered what these ideals had been, but had no answer ready; so he nodded, and again held out his

cigarettes, for, like a true Southerner, the little man had thrown the first away, half smoked.

"The greatest pleasure in life," continued the Frenchman, with a bow, "is to talk a little to a being who is

capable of understanding you. At present we have no one here, now that that old actor's dead. Ah! there was a

man who was rebellion incarnate! He made rebellion as other men make money, 'c'etait son metier'; when he

was no longer capable of active revolution, he made it getting drunk. At the last this was his only way of

protesting against Society. An interesting personality, 'je le regrette beaucoup'. But, as you see, he died in

great distress, without a soul to wave him farewell, because as you can well understand, monsieur, I don't

Shelton had continued staring kindly at the little man; the barber added hastily:

"Oh!" he said, "it 's to the destitute that such things are important. When one has money, all these

He shrugged his shoulders. A smile had lodged amongst his crow's feet; he waved his hand as though to end

"Monsieur," replied the little barber, "a plutocrat knows too well that if he mixes in that 'galere' there 's not a

"The rain is over. I hope you 'll soon be better; perhaps you 'll accept this in memory of that old actor," and he

"Whenever you are passing, monsieur," he said eagerly, "I shall be charmed to see you."

And Shelton walked away. "'Not a dog in the streets more lost,'" thought he; "now what did he mean by

Something of that "lost dog" feeling had gripped his spirit. Another month of waiting would kill all the

savour of anticipation, might even kill his love. In the excitement of his senses and his nerves, caused by this

strain of waiting, everything seemed too vivid; all was beyond life size; like Artwhose truths; too strong

for daily use, are thus, unpopular with healthy people. As will the, bones ;in a worn face, the spirit underlying

things had reached the surface; the meanness and intolerable measure of hard facts, were too apparent. Some

craving for help, some instinct, drove him into Kensington, for he found himself before his, mother's house.

Mrs. Shelton was in town; and, though it was the first of June, sat warming her feet before a fire; her face,

with its pleasant colour, was crow'sfooted like the little barber's, but from optimism, not rebellion. She,

smiled when she saw her son; and the wrinkles round her eyes twinkled, with vitality.

"Well, my dear boy," she said, "it's lovely to see you. And how is that sweet girl?"

"Give it up? My dear Dick, give what up? You look quite worried. Come and sit down, and have a cosy chat.

Cheer up!" And Mrs. Shelton; with her head askew, gazed at her son quite irrepressibly.

Mother," said Shelton, who, confronted by her optimism, had never, since his time of trial began, felt so

Mrs. Shelton stopped; the question seemed so vulgarone might have asked it of a groom.

"Come!" said Mrs. Shelton, taking his hand between her own; "you never used to be like this."

Shelton, holding his head, stared at the fire, which played and bubbled like his mother's face.

"You don't understand," muttered Shelton gloomily; "it 's not her it's nothingit'smyself!"

Mrs. Shelton again seized his hand, and this time pressed it to her soft, warm cheek, that had lost the

"Oh!" she cried again; "I understand. I know exactly what you 're feeling." But Shelton saw from the fixed

beam in her eyes that she had not an inkling. To do him justice, he was not so foolish as to try to give her one.

Mrs. Shelton sighed. "It would be so lovely if you could wake up tomorrow and think differently. If I were

you, my dear, I would have a good long walk, and then a Turkish bath; and then I would just write to her, and

tell her all about it, and you'll see how beautifully it'll all come straight"; and in the enthusiasm of advice Mrs.

Shelton rose, and, with a faint stretch of her tiny figure, still so young, clasped her hands together. "Now do,

that 's a dear old Dick! You 'll just see how lovely it'll be!" Shelton smiled; he had not the heart to chase away

this vision. "And give her my warmest love, and tell her I 'm longing for the wedding. Come, now, my dear

Mrs. Shelton had taken up her stand with one foot on the fender, in spite of her sciatica,.

Wonderful woman! The uncomplicated optimism that carried her through good and ill had not descended to

>From pole to pole he had been thrown that day, from the French barber, whose intellect accepted nothing

without carping, and whose little fingers worked all day, to save himself from dying out, to his own mother,

whose intellect accepted anything presented with sufficient glow, but who, until she died, would never stir a

I can't wait about in London any longer; I am going down to Bideford to start a walking tour. I shall work my

way to Oxford, and stay there till I may come to Holm Oaks. I shall send you my address; do write as usual.

He collected all the photographs he had of heramateur groups, taken by Mrs. Dennantand packed them

in the pocket of his shooting jacket. There was one where she was standing just below her little brother, who

was perched upon a wall. In her halfclosed eyes, round throat, and softly tilted chin, there was something

cool and watchful, protecting the ragamuffin up above her head. This he kept apart to be looked at daily, as a

One morning then, a week later, Shelton found himself at the walls of Princetown Prison.

He had seen this lugubrious stone cage before. But the magic of his morning walk across the moor, the sight

of the pagan tors, the songs of the last cuckoo, had unprepared him for that dreary building. He left the street,

and, entering the fosse, began a circuit, scanning the walls with morbid fascination.

This, then, was the system by which men enforced the will of the majority, and it was suddenly borne in on

him that all the ideas and maxims which his Christian countrymen believed themselves to be fulfilling daily

were stultified in every cellule of the social honeycomb. Such teachings as "He that is without sin amongst

you" had been pronounced unpractical by peers and judges, bishops, statesmen, merchants, husbandsin

"Yes," thought Shelton, as if he had found out something new, "the more Christian the nation, the less it has

Society was a charitable organisation, giving nothing for nothing, little for sixpence; and it was only fear that

He took a seat on a wall, and began to watch a warder who was slowly paring a last year's apple. The

expression of his face, the way he stood with his solid legs apart, his head poked forward and his lower jaw

thrust out, all made him a perfect pillar of Society. He was undisturbed by Shelton's scrutiny, watching the

rind coil down below the apple; until in a springing spiral it fell on the path and collapsed like a toy snake. He

took a bite; his teeth were jagged; and his mouth immense. It was obvious that he considered himself a most

superior man. Shelton frowned, got down slowly, from the wall, and proceeded on his way.

A little further down the hill he stopped again to watch a group of convicts in a field. They seemed to be

dancing in a slow and sad cotillon, while behind the hedge on every side were warders armed with guns. Just

While he thus stood looking, a man, walking, rapidly, stopped beside him, and asked how many miles it was

to Exeter. His round visage; and long, brown eyes, sliding about beneath their, brows, his cropped hair and

"Why! it's the Bird!" exclaimed the traveller; putting out his hand. "Have n't seen you since we both went

Shelton returned his handgrip. Crocker had lived above his head at college, and often kept him, sleepless half

Shelton noted with alarm the expression of his eye; there was a sort of stubborn aspiration in it. "Still an

idealist!" he thought; "poor fellow!" "Well," he inquired, "what sort of a time have you had in India?"

"I see," said Shelton; "plague and famine! I suppose you fellows really think you 're doing good out there?"

"Well," said Shelton gruffly, " how can progress be imposed on nations from outside?"

The Indian civilian, glancing at Shelton in an affectionate and doubtful way, replied:

"No, no," said Shelton; "you 're not going to get out of it that way. Give me a single example of a nation, or

an individual, for that matter, who 's ever done any good without having worked up to it from within."

"That 's it," said Shelton; "we take peoples entirely different from our own, and stop their natural

development by substituting a civilisation grown for our own use. Suppose, looking at a tropical fern in a

hothouse, you were to say: 'This heat 's unhealthy for me; therefore it must be bad for the fern, I 'll take it up

Crocker knitted his brows, trying to see the point of view his friend was showing him.

"Come, now! Should we go on administering India if it were dead loss? No. Well, to talk about administering

the country for the purpose of pocketing money is cynical, and there 's generally some truth in cynicism; but

to talk about the administration of a country by which we profit, as if it were a great and good thing, is cant. I

hit you in the wind for the benefit of myselfall right: law of nature; but to say it does you good at the same

"No, no," returned Crocker, grave and anxious; "you can't persuade me that we 're not doing good."

"Wait a bit. It's all a question of horizons; you look at it from too close. Put the horizon further back. You hit

India in the wind, and say it's virtuous. Well, now let's see what happens. Either the wind never comes back,

and India gasps to an untimely death, or the wind does come back, and in the pant of reaction your

blowthat's to say your labouris lost, morally lost labour that you might have spent where it would n't

"I may be, but I keep my mouth shut about the benefits we 're conferring upon other people."

"Quite so. We always think our standards best for the whole world. It's a capital belief for us. Read the

speeches of our public men. Does n't it strike you as amazing how sure they are of being in the right? It's so

charming to benefit yourself and others at the same time, though, when you come to think of it, one man's

meat is usually another's poison. Look at nature. But in England we never look at naturethere's no

necessity. Our national point of view has filled our pockets, that's all that matters."

"I say, old chap, that's awfully bitter," said Crocker, with a sort of wondering sadness.

"It 's enough to make any one bitter the way we Pharisees wax fat, and at the same time give ourselves the

moral airs of a balloon. I must stick a pin in sometimes, just to hear the gas escape." Shelton was surprised at

his own heat, and for some strange reason thought of Antoniasurely, she was not a Pharisee.

His companion strode along, and Shelton felt sorry for the signs of trouble on his face.

"To fill your pockets," said Crocker, "is n't the main thing. One has just got to do things without thinking of

"Do you ever see the other side to any question?" asked Shelton. "I suppose not. You always begin to act

"He's a Pharisee, too," thought Shelton, "without a Pharisee's pride. Queer thing that!"

The wind had now begun to drop, and something of the morning's magic was stealing again upon the moor.

They were nearing the outskirt fields of cultivation. It was past five when, dropping from the level of the tors,

"They say," said Crocker, reading from his guidebook"they say this place occupies a position of unique

The two travellers, in tranquil solitude, took their seats under an old limetree on the village green. The

smoke of their pipes, the sleepy air, the warmth from the baked ground, the constant hum, made Shelton

"Do you remember," his companion asked, "those 'jaws' you used to have with Busgate and old Halidome in

Crocker took hold of his arm above the elbow, and, squeezing it, he grunted. Shelton had not received

"I should like to get married while I 'm home," said the civilian after a long pause. His legs were stretched

apart, throwing shadows on the green, his hands deep thrust into his pockets, his head a little to one side. An

The sun had sunk behind a tor, but the warmth kept rising from the ground, and the sweetbriar on a cottage

bathed them with its spicy perfume. From the converging lanes figures passed now and then, lounged by,

staring at the strangers, gossiping amongst themselves, and vanished into the cottages that headed the incline.

A clock struck seven, and round the shady limetree a chafer or some heavy insect commenced its booming

rushes. All was marvellously sane and slumbrous. The soft air, the drawling voices, the shapes and murmurs,

the rising smell of woodsmoke from freshkindled fires were full of the spirit of security and of home.

The outside world was far indeed. Typical of some island nation was this nest of refugewhere men grew

quietly tall, fattened, and without fuss dropped off their perches; where contentment flourished, as sunflowers

Crocker's cap slipped off; he was nodding, and Shelton looked at him. >From a manor house in some such

village he had issued; to one of a thousand such homes he would find his way at last, untouched by the

struggles with famines or with plagues, uninfected in his fibre, his prejudices, and his principles, unchanged

by contact with strange peoples, new conditions, odd feelings, or queer points of view!

The chafer buzzed against his shoulder, gathered flight again, and boomed away. Crocker roused himself,

Shelton continued to travel with his college friend, and on Wednesday night, four days after joining company,

they reached the village of Dowdenhame. All day long the road had lain through pastureland, with thick

green hedges and heavily feathered elms. Once or twice they had broken the monotony by a stretch along the

towingpath of a canal, which, choked with waterlily plants and shining weeds, brooded sluggishly beside

the fields. Nature, in one of her ironic moods, had cast a grey and ironhard cloak over all the country's bland

luxuriance. From dawn till darkness fell there had been no movement in the steely distant sky; a cold wind

ruffed in the hedge tops, and sent shivers through the branches of the elms. The cattle, dappled, pied, or bay,

or white, continued grazing with an air of grumbling at their birthright. In a meadow close to the canal

Shelton saw five magpies, and about five o'clock the rain began, a steady, coldlysneering rain, which

Crocker, looking at the sky, declared was going to be over in a minute. But it was not over in a minute; they

were soon drenched. Shelton was tired, and it annoyed him very much that his companion, who was also

tired, should grow more cheerful. His thoughts kept harping upon Ferrand: "This must be something like

what he described to me, tramping on and on when you're deadbeat, until you can cadge up supper and a

bed." And sulkily he kept on ploughing through the mud with glances at the exasperating Crocker, who had

skinned one heel and was limping horribly. It suddenly came home to him that life for three quarters of the

world meant physical exhaustion every day, without a possibility of alternative, and that as soon as, for some

cause beyond control, they failed thus to exhaust themselves, they were reduced to beg or starve. "And then

we, who don't know the meaning of the word exhaustion, call them 'idle scamps,'" he said aloud.

It was past nine and dark when they reached Dowdenhame. The street yielded no accommodation, and while

debating where to go they passed the church, with a square tower, and next to it a house which was certainly

"Suppose," said Crocker, leaning on his arms upon the gate, "we ask him where to go"; and, without waiting

The door was opened by the parson, a bloodless and cleanshaven man, whose hollow cheeks and bony

hands suggested a perpetual struggle. Ascetically benevolent were his grey eyes; a pale and ghostly smile

"What can I do for you?" he asked. "Inn? yes, there's the Blue Chequers, but I 'm afraid you 'll find it shut.

They 're early people, I 'm glad to say"; and his eyes seemed to muse over the proper fold for these damp

sheep. "Are you Oxford men, by any chance?" he asked, as if that might throw some light upon the matter.

"Of Mary's? Really! I'm of Paul's myself. LadymanBillington Ladyman; you might remember my

youngest brother. I could give you a room here if you could manage without sheets. My housekeeper has two

Shelton accepted gladly, feeling that the intonation in the parson's voice was necessary unto his calling, and

"You 're hungry, I expect, after your tramp. I'm very much afraid there 'sernothing in the house but

Conducting them into the kitchen, he made a fire, and put a kettle on to boil; then, after leaving them to shed

their soaking clothes, returned with ancient, greenish coats, some carpet slippers, and some blankets.

Wrapped in these, and carrying their glasses, the travellers followed to the study, where, by doubtful

lamplight, he seemed, from books upon the table, to have been working at his sermon.

"We 're giving you a lot of trouble," said Shelton, "it's really very good of you."

It was a truly dismal contrast to the fatness of the land they had been passing through, and the parson's voice

issuing from bloodless lips, although complacent, was pathetic. It was peculiar, that voice of his, seeming to

indicate an intimate acquaintanceship with what was fat and fine, to convey contempt for the vulgar need of

money, while all the time his eyesthose watery, ascetic eyesas plain as speech they said, "Oh, to know

Everything in the room had been bought for cheapness; no luxuries were there, and necessaries not enough. It

was bleak and bare; the ceiling cracked, the wallpaper discoloured, and those booksprim, shining books,

"My predecessor," said the parson, "played rather havoc with the house. The poor fellow had a dreadful

struggle, I was told. You can, unfortunately, expect nothing else these days, when livings have come down so

Crocker, who had drunk his steaming lemonade, was smiling and already nodding in his chair; with his black

garment buttoned closely round his throat, his long legs rolled up in a blanket, and stretched towards the

feeble flame of the newlylighted fire, he had a rather patchy air. Shelton, on the other hand, had lost his

feeling of fatigue; the strangeness of the place was stimulating his brain; he kept stealing glances at the

scantiness around; the room, the parson, the furniture, the very fire, all gave him the feeling caused by seeing

legs that have outgrown their trousers. But there was something underlying that leanness of the landscape,

something superior and academic, which defied all sympathy. It was pure nervousness which made him say:

A faint red mounted to the parson's cheeks; its appearance there was startling, and Crocker chuckled, as a

Shelton would now have changed the subject, but at this moment the unhappy Crocker snored. Being a man

"It seems to me," said Shelton hurriedly, as he saw the parson's eyebrows rising at the sound, "almost what

"I don't know," he said, "only one hears of such a lot of cases clergymen's families; I've two uncles of my

A new expression gathered on the parson's face; his mouth had tightened, and his chin receded slightly. "

Why, he 's like a mule!" thought Shelton. His eyes, too, had grown harder, greyer, and more parroty. Shelton

"Perhaps you and I," the parson said, "would not understand each other on such matters."

"I should like to ask you a question in turn, however," the parson said, as if desirous of meeting Shelton on

his low ground: "How do you justify marriage if it is not to follow the laws of nature?"

"I should have thought it a pleasure likely to pall with too much repetition. Motherhood is motherhood,

"I 'm afraid," replied the parson, with impatience, though still keeping on his guest's low ground, "your

"Have you ever lived in London?" Shelton asked. "It always makes me feel a doubt whether we have any

"Surely," said the parson with wonderful restraint, and the joints of his fingers cracked with the grip he had

upon his chair, "you are leaving out duty towards the country; national growth is paramount!"

"There are two ways of looking at that. It depends on what you want your country to become."

"I did n't know," said the parsonfanaticism now had crept into his smile"there could be any doubt on

The more Shelton felt that commands were being given him, the more controversial he naturally

becameapart from the merits of this subject, to which he had hardly ever given thought.

"I dare say I'm wrong," he said, fastening his eyes on the blanket in which his legs were wrapped; "but it

seems to me at least an open question whether it's better for the country to be so well populated as to be quite

"Surely," said the parson, whose face regained its pallor, "you're not a Little Englander?"

On Shelton this phrase had a mysterious effect. Resisting an impulse to discover what he really was, he

The parson followed up his triumph, and, shifting the ground of the discussion from Shelton's to his own, he

"Surely you must see that your theory is founded in immorality. It is, if I may say so, extravagant, even

But Shelton, suffering from irritation at his own dishonesty, replied with heat:

"Why not say at once, sir, 'hysterical, unhealthy'? Any opinion which goes contrary to that of the majority is

"Well," returned the parson, whose eyes seemed trying to bind Shelton to his will, "I must say your ideas do

seem to me both extravagant and unhealthy. The propagation of children is enjoined of marriage."

"We live in very dangerous times," he said, "and it grieves me when a man of your standing panders to these

"Those," said Shelton, "whom the shoe does n't pinch make this rule of morality, and thrust it on to such as

"Oh!" said Shelton, "I beg your pardon." He was in danger of forgetting the delicate position he was in. "He

wants to ram his notions down my throat," he thought; and it seemed to him that the parson's face had grown

more like a mule's, his accent more superior, his eyes more dictatorial: To be right in this argument seemed

now of great importance, whereas, in truth, it was of no importance whatsoever. That which, however, was

But Crocker had suddenly ceased to snore; his head had fallen so that a peculiar whistling arose instead. Both

Shelton forgot all his annoyance, for his host seemed suddenly pathetic, with those baggy garments, hollow

cheeks, and the slightly reddened nose that comes from not imbibing quite enough. A kind fellow, after all!

The kind fellow rose, and, putting his hands behind his back, placed himself before the blackening fire.

Whole centuries of authority stood behind him. It was an accident that the mantelpiece was chipped and

"I don't wish to dictate," said he, "but where it seems to me that you are wholly wrong in that your ideas

foster in women those lax views of the family life that are so prevalent in Society nowadays."

Thoughts of Antonia with her candid eyes, the touch of freckling on her pinkwhite skin, the fair hair

gathered back, sprang up in Shelton, and that word"lax" seemed ridiculous. And the women he was wont

to see dragging about the streets of London with two or three small children, Women bent beneath the weight

of babies that they could not leave, women going to work with babies still unborn, anaemiclooking women,

impecunious mothers in his own class, with twelve or fourteen children, all the victims of the sanctity of

"That, sir, may have been all right for the last generation, the country is more crowded now. I can't see why

"Such a view of morality," said the parson, looking down at Crocker with a ghostly smile, "to me is

"What I hate," said Shelton, "is the way we men decide what women are to bear, and then call them immoral,

"Mr. Shelton," said the parson, "I think we may safely leave it in the hands of God."

"The questions of morality," said the parson promptly, "have always lain through God in the hands of men,

"I 'm sorry, sir; but how can you expect women nowadays to have the same views as our grandmothers? We

men, by our commercial enterprise, have brought about a different state of things; yet, for the sake of our own

comfort, we try to keep women where they were. It's always those men who are most keen about their

comfort" and in his heat the sarcasm of using the word "comfort" in that room was lost on him"who are

"Forgive me," explained Shelton; "we 're talking of working morality, I imagine. There's not a man in a

"I think," he saidand his voice sounded as if he had pinched it in the endeavour to impress his

listener"that any welleducated man who honestly tries to serve his God has the right humblyI say

Shelton was on the point of saying something bitter, but checked himself. "Here am I," thought he, "trying to

At this moment there was heard a piteous mewing; the parson went towards the door.

"Excuse me a moment; I 'm afraid that's one of my cats out in the wet." He returned a minute later with a wet

cat in his arms. "They will get out," he said to Shelton, with a smile on his thin face, suffused by stooping.

And absently he stroked the dripping cat, while a drop of wet ran off his nose. "Poor pussy, poor pussy!" The

sound of that "Poor pussy!" like nothing human in its cracked superiority, the softness of that smile, like the

The last sunlight was playing on the roofs when the travellers entered that High Street grave and holy to all

Oxford men. The spirit hovering above the spires was as different from its concretions in their caps and

But each looked at his clothes, for two elegant young men in flannel suits were coming out.

Shelton shook his head. Never before had he felt such love for this old city. It was gone now from out his life,

but everything about it seemed so good and fine; even its exclusive air was not ignoble. Clothed in the calm

of history, the golden web of glorious tradition, radiant with the alchemy of memories, it bewitched him like

the perfume of a woman's dress. At the entrance of a college they glanced in at the cool grey patch of stone

beyond, and the scarlet of a window flowerboxsecluded, mysteriously calma narrow vision of the

sacred past. Pale and trenchercapped, a youth with pimply face and random nose, grabbing at his cloven

gown, was gazing at the noticeboard. The college porterlarge man, freshfaced, and small

mouthedstood at his lodge door in a frank and deferential attitude. An image of routine, he looked like one

engaged to give a decorous air to multitudes of pecadilloes. His blue eyes rested on the travellers. "I don't

know you, sirs, but if you want to speak I shall be glad to hear the observations you may have to make," they

Against the wall reposed a bicycle with tennisracquet buckled to its handle. A bulldog bitch, working her

snout from side to side, was snuffling horribly; the great ironstudded door to which her chain was fastened

stayed immovable. Through this narrow mouth, human metal had been poured for centuriespoured,

They now entered the Bishop's Head, and had their dinner in the room where Shelton had given his Derby

dinner to fourandtwenty wellbred youths; here was the picture of the racehorse that the wineglass, thrown

by one of them, had missed when it hit the waiter; and there, serving Crocker with anchovy sauce, was the

very waiter. When they had finished, Shelton felt the old desire to rise with difficulty from the table; the old

longing to patrol the streets with arm hooked in some other arm; the old eagerness to dare and do something

heroic and unlawful; the old sense that he was of the forest set, in the forest college, of the forest country

in the finest world. The streets, all grave and mellow in the sunset, seemed to applaud this afterdinner stroll;

the entrance quad of his old collegespaciously majestic, monastically modern, for years the heart of his

universe, the focus of what had gone before it in his life, casting the shadow of its grey walls over all that had

come afterbrought him a sense of rest from conflict, and trust in his own important safety. The gardengate,

whose lofty spikes he had so often crowned with empty waterbottles, failed to rouse him. Nor when they

passed the staircase where he had flung a leg of lamb at some indelicate disturbing tutor, did he feel remorse.

High on that staircase were the rooms in which he had crammed for his degree, upon the system by which the

scholar simmers on the fire of cramming, boils over at the moment of examination, and is extinct for ever

after. His coach's face recurred to him, a man with thrusting eyes, who reeled off knowledge all the week, and

"I wonder if little Turl would remember us?" said Crocker; "I should like to see him. Shall we go and look

A little man with a pink face and large red ears was sitting in a fat pink chair, as if he had been grown there.

Crocker, who had not been shaved since starting on his travels, chuckled feebly.

"Shelton? Oh yes! How do you do, Shelton? Sit down; take a cigar"; and, crossing his fat little legs, the little

gentleman looked them up and down with drowsy interest, as who should say, "Now, after, all you know,

Shelton and Crocker took two other chairs; they too seemed thinking, "Yes, why did we come and wake him

up like this? "And Shelton, who could not tell the reason why, took refuge in the smoke of his cigar. The

panelled walls were hung with prints of celebrated Greek remains; the soft, thick carpet on the floor was

grateful to his tired feet; the backs of many books gleamed richly in the light of the oil lamps; the culture and

tobacco smoke stole on his senses; he but vaguely comprehended Crocker's amiable talk, vaguely the answers

of his little host, whose face, blinking behind the bowl of his huge meerschaum pipe, had such a queer

resemblance to a moon. The door was opened, and a tall creature, whose eyes were large and brown, whose

"Oh!" he said, looking round him with his chin a little in the air, "am I intruding, Turl?"

The visitor called Berryman sat down, and gazed up at the wall with his fine eyes.

Shelton had a faint remembrance of this don, and bowed; but the new comer sat smiling, and did not notice

"Trimmer and Washer are coming round," he said, and as he spoke the door opened to admit these gentlemen.

Of the same height, but different appearance, their manner was faintly jocular, faintly supercilious, as if they

tolerated everything. The one whose name was Trimmer had patches of red on his large cheekbones, and on

his cheeks a bluish tint. His lips were rather full, so that he had a likeness to a spider. Washer, who was thin

An awkward silence followed. Shelton tried to rouse the cultured portion of his wits; but the sense that

nothing would be treated seriously paralysed his faculties; he stayed silent, staring at the glowing tip of his

cigar. It seemed to him unfair to have intruded on these gentlemen without its having been made quite clear

to them beforehand who and what he was; he rose to take his leave, but Washer had begun to speak.

"Madame Bovary!" he said quizzically, reading the title of the book on the little fat man's bookrest; and,

holding it closer to his boiledlooking eyes, he repeated, as though it were a joke, "Madame Bovary!"

As might have been expected, this celebrated novel's name had galvanised him into life; he strolled over to

the bookcase, took down a book, opened it, and began to read, wandering in a desultory way about the room.

"Ha! Berryman," said a conciliatory voice behindit came from Trimmer, who had set his back against the

hearth, and grasped with either hand a fistful of his gown"the book's a classic!"

"Classic!" exclaimed Berryman, transfixing Shelton with his eyes; "the fellow ought to have been

A feeling of hostility instantly sprang up in Shelton; he looked at his little host, who, however, merely

"Berryman only means," explains Washer, a certain malice in his smile, "that the author is n't one of his

"For God's sake, you know, don't get Berryman on his horse!" growled the little fat man suddenly.

Berryman returned his volume to the shelf and took another down. There was something almost godlike in

"Imagine a man writing that stuff," he said, "if he'd ever been at Eton! What do we want to know about that

sort of thing? A writer should be a sportsman and a gentleman"; and again he looked down over his chin at

"I really don't care," said he, "to know what a woman feels when she is going to the dogs; it does n't interest

He had stretched his legs like compasses,and the way he grasped his gownwings seemed to turn him to a

pair of scales. His lowering smile embraced the room, deprecating strong expressions. "After all," he seemed

to say, "we are men of the world; we know there 's not very much in anything. This is the modern spirit; why

"Do I understand you to say, Berryman, that you don't enjoy a spicy book?" asked Washer with his smile; and

at this question the little fat man sniggered, blinking tempestuously, as if to say, "Nothing pleasanter, don't

Berryman paid no attention to the impertinent inquiry, continuing to dip into his volume and walk up and

"I've nothing to say," he remarked, stopping before Shelton, and looking down, as if at last aware of him, "to

Shelton did not answer, because he could not tell whether Berryman was addressing him or society at large.

"Do we want to know about the feelings of a middleclass woman with a taste for vice? Tell me the point of

"You come to the question ofahsubjects," the voice of Trimmer genially buzzed he had gathered his

garments tight across his back "my dear fellow, Art, properly applied, justifies all subjects."

"For Art," squeaked Berryman, putting back his second volume and taking down a third, "you have Homer,

There was a laugh; Shelton glanced round at all in turn. With the exception of Crocker, who was half asleep

and smiling idiotically, they wore, one and all, a look as if by no chance could they consider any subject fit to

move their hearts; as if, one and all, they were so profoundly anchored on the sea of life that waves could

only seem impertinent. It may have been some glimmer in this glance of Shelton's that brought Trimmer once

"The French," said he, "have quite a different standard from ourselves in literature, just as they have a

He was clearly going to add to this, but it was lost; for the little fat man, taking the meerschaum with

Without returning the third volume to its shelf, Berryman took down a fourth; with chest expanded, he

"Quite so," said Trimmer; "the change from duelling to law courts is profoundly"

Whether he were going to say "significant" or "insignificant," in Shelton's estimate he did not know himself.

"Law courts or not, when a man runs away with a wife of mine, I shall punch his head!"

Shelton had a gleam of inspiration. "If your wife deceived you," he thought, looking at Trimmer's eyes, "you

Washer passed his hand over his pale chaps: his smile had never wavered; he looked like one for ever lost in

The punching theorist stretched his body, holding the books level with his shoulders, as though to stone his

hearers with his point of view. His face grew paler, his fine eyes finer, his lips ironical. Almost painful was

this combination of the "strong" man and the student who was bound to go to pieces if you hit him a smart

"As for forgiving faithless wives," he said, "and all that sort of thing, I don't believe in sentiment."

The words were highpitched and sarcastic. Shelton looked hastily around. All their faces were complacent.

He was conscious that he had never before made an impression of this sort, and that he never would again.

The cold hostility flashing out all round was most enlightening; it instantly gave way to the polite, satirical

indulgence peculiar to highlycultivated men. Crocker rose nervously; he seemed scared, and was obviously

relieved when Shelton, following his example, grasped the little fat man's hand, who said goodnight in a

"Eleven o'clock," said Crocker, as they went out of college. "I don't feel sleepy; shall we stroll along the

Shelton assented; he was too busy thinking of his encounter with the dons to heed the soreness of his feet.

This, too, was the last day of his travels, for he had not altered his intention of waiting at Oxford till July.

"We call this place the heart of knowledge," he said, passing a great building that presided, white and silent,

over darkness; "it seems to me as little that, as Society is the heart of true gentility."

Crocker's answer was a grunt; he was looking at the stars, calculating possibly in how long he could walk to

"No," proceeded Shelton; "we've too much commonsense up here to strain our minds. We know when it's

time to stop. We pile up news of Papias and all the verbs in 'ui' but as for news of life or of oneself! Real

seekers after knowledge are a different sort. They fight in the darkno quarter given. We don't grow that

He had halted opposite a garden, and taken hold of Shelton by a button of his coat. His eyes, like a dog's,

stared wistfully. It seemed as though he wished to speak, but feared to give offence.

"They tell you," pursued Shelton, "that we learn to be gentlemen up here. We learn that better through one

"Hum!" muttered Crocker, twisting at the button; "those fellows who seemed the best sorts up here have

"I hope not," said Shelton gloomily; "I was a snob when I was up here. I believed all I was told, anything that

Crocker smiled in the darkness; he had been too "cranky" to belong to Shelton's "set."

Shelton turned away, sniffing the perfume of the limes. Images were thronging through his mind. The faces

of his old friends strangely mixed with those of people he had lately metthe girl in the train, Ferrand, the

lady with the short, round, powdered face, the little barber; others, too, and floating, mysterious,connected

with them all, Antonia's face. The scent of the limetrees drifted at him with its magic sweetness. From the

street behind, the footsteps of the passersby sounded muffled, yet exact, and on the breeze was borne the

For he's a jolly good fellow! For he's a jolly good feellow! And so say all of us!"

"I used to think," said Crocker dreamily, "that some of them had too much side."

"The thing sickens me," said he, "the whole snobbish, selfish business. The place sickens me, lined with

"It's a splendid old place," he said, his eyes fastening at last on Shelton's boots. "You know, old chap," he

"Don't be waxy, old boy," he said; "I mean that you seem somehowto beto be losing yourself."

Crocker did not answer; his face was disappointed. Of what exactly was he thinking? In Shelton's heart there

was a bitter pleasure in knowing that his friend was uncomfortable on his account, a sort of contempt, a sort

"I think I shall do a bit more walking tonight," he said; "I feel very fit. Don't you really mean to come any

And there was anxiety in his voice, as though Shelton were in danger of missing something good. The latter's

"She lives near here. Well, then, I'll say goodbye. I should like to do another ten miles tonight."

"No," he said; "I want to get on. See you in London. Goodbye!" and, gripping Shelton's hand, he turned and

But the sole answer was the pale moon of Crocker's face screwed round towards him in the darkness, and the

Shelton strolled slowly on; leaning over the bridge, he watched the oily gleam of lamps, on the dark water

underneath the trees. He felt relieved, yet sorry. His thoughts were random, curious, half mutinous, half

sweet. That afternoon five years ago, when he had walked back from the river with Antonia across the

Christchurch meadows, was vivid to his mind; the scent of that afternoon had never died away from himthe

aroma of his love. Soon she would be his wifehis wife! The faces of the dons sprang up before him. They

had wives, perhaps. Fat, lean, satirical, and compromisingwhat was it that through diversity they had in

common? Cultured intolerance! . . . Honour! . . . A queer subject to discuss. Honour! The honour that made a

fuss, and claimed its rights! And Shelton smiled. "As if man's honour suffered when he's injured!" And

slowly he walked along the echoing, empty street to his room at the Bishop's Head. Next morning he received

He passed a fortnight at the Bishop's Head, waiting for the end of his probation, and the end seemed long in

coming. To be so near Antonia, and as far as if he lived upon another planet, was worse than ever. Each day

he took a sculling skiff, and pulled down to near Holm Oaks, on the chance of her being on the river; but the

house was two miles off, and the chance but slender. She never came. After spending the afternoons like this

he would return, pulling hard against the stream, with a queer feeling of relief, dine heartily, and fall

adreaming over his cigar. Each morning he awoke in an excited mood, devoured his letter if he had one, and

sat down to write to her. These letters of his were the most amazing portion of that fortnight. They were

remarkable for failing to express any single one of his real thoughts, but they were full of sentiments which

were not what he was truly feeling; and when he set himself to analyse, he had such moments of delirium that

he was scared, and shocked, and quite unable to write anything. He made the discovery that no two human

beings ever tell each other what they really feel, except, perhaps, in situations with which he could not

connect Antonia's iceblue eyes and brilliant smile. All the world was too engaged in planning decency.

Absorbed by longings, he but vaguely realised the turmoil of Commemoration, which had gathered its

hundreds for their annual cure of salmon mayonnaise and cheap champagne. In preparation for his visit to

Holm Oaks he shaved his beard and had some clothes sent down from London. With them was forwarded a

Forgive me for not having written to you before, but I have been so bothered that I have felt no taste for

writing; when I have the time, I have some curious stories to tell you. Once again I have encountered that

demon of misfortune which dogs my footsteps. Being occupied all day and nearly all night upon business

which brings me a heap of worries and next to no profit, I have no chance to look after my things. Thieves

have entered my room, stolen everything, and left me an empty box. I am once again almost without clothes,

and know not where to turn to make that figure necessary for the fulfilment of my duties. You see, I am not

lucky. Since coming to your country, the sole piece of fortune I have had was to tumble on a man like you.

Excuse me for not writing more at this moment. Hoping that you are in good health, and in affectionately

Upon reading this letter Shelton had once more a sense of being exploited, of which he was ashamed; he sat

I am grieved to hear of your misfortunes. I was much hoping that you had made a better start. I enclose you

He posted it with the satisfaction that a man feels who nobly shakes off his responsibilities.

Three days before July he met with one of those disturbing incidents which befall no persons who attend

The night was unbearably hot, and he had wandered out with his cigar; a woman came sidling up and spoke

to him. He perceived her to be one of those made by men into mediums for their pleasure, to feel sympathy

with whom was sentimental. Her face was flushed, her whisper hoarse; she had no attractions but the curves

of a tawdry figure. Shelton was repelled by her proprietary tone, by her blowzy face, and by the scent of

patchouli. Her touch on his arm startled him, sending a shiver through his marrow; he almost leaped aside,

and walked the faster. But her breathing as she followed sounded laboured; it suddenly seemed pitiful that a

"The least I can do," he thought, "is to speak to her." He stopped, and, with a mixture of hardness and

In spite of her smile, he saw by her disappointed eyes that she accepted the impossibility.

At the corner of the street he turned his head. The woman was hurrying uneasily; a policeman coming from

His heart began to beat. "Heavens!" he thought, "what shall I do now?" His first impulse was to walk away,

and think no more about it to act, indeed, like any averagely decent man who did not care to be concerned

He retraced his steps, however, and halted half a dozen paces from their figures.

"Ask the gentleman! He spoke to me,"she was saying in her brassy voice, through the emphasis of which

"Youpolice!" cried the woman tearfully; "I 've got to get my living, have n't I, the same as you?"

Shelton hesitated, then, catching the expression in her frightened face, stepped forward. The policeman

turned, and at the sight of his pale, heavy jowl, cut by the cheekstrap, and the bullying eyes, he felt both hate

and fear, as if brought face to face with all that he despised and loathed, yet strangely dreaded. The cold

certainty of law and order upholding the strong, treading underfoot the weak, the smug front of meanness that

only the purest spirits may attack, seemed to be facing him. And the odd thing was, this man was only

"Oh, I 'm making a mistake? I 'll take your name and address, please; we have to report these things."

"Perhaps you'll come up to the court tomorrow morning, and repeat that," replied the policeman, with

"You had better be careful, constable," he said; but in the act of uttering these words he thought how pitiable

"You're a gentleman," replied the policeman. "I'm only a policeman. You've got the riches, I've got the

He went to Grinnings' Club, and flung himself down upon a sofa. His feeling was not one of pity for the

woman, nor of peculiar anger with the policeman, but rather of dissatisfaction with himself.

"One or other of us," he reflected, "we make these women what they are. And when we've made them, we

can't do without them; we don't want to; but we give them no proper homes, so that they're reduced to prowl

about the streets, and then we run them in. Ha! that's good that's excellent! We run them in! And here we

sit and carp. But what do we do? Nothing! Our system is the most highly moral known. We get the benefit

without soiling even the hem of our phylacteries the women are the only ones that suffer. And why should

"I'll go to the Court," he thought; but suddenly it occurred to him that the case would get into the local papers.

The press would never miss so nice a little bit of scandal"Gentleman v. Policeman!" And he had a vision

of Antonia's father, a neighbouring and conscientious magistrate, solemnly reading this. Someone, at all

events, was bound to see his name and make a point of mentioning it too good to be missed! And suddenly he

saw with horror that to help the woman he would have to assert again that he had spoken to her first. "I must

go to the Court!" he kept thinking, as if to assure himself that he was not a coward.

"But I did n't speak to her first," he told himself; "I shall only be telling a lie, and they 'll make me swear it,

He tried to persuade himself that this was against his principles, but at the bottom of his heart he knew that he

would not object to telling such a lie if only guaranteed immune from consequences; it appeared to him,

"But why should I suffer?" he thought; "I've done nothing. It's neither reasonable nor just."

He hated the unhappy woman who was causing him these horrors of uncertainty. Whenever he decided one

way or other, the policeman's face, with its tyrannical and muddy eyes, rose before him like a nightmare, and

forced him to an opposite conviction. He fell asleep at last with the full determination to go and see what

He woke with a sense of odd disturbance. "I can do no good by going," he thought, remembering, aid lying

very still; "they 're certain to believe the policeman; I shall only blacken myself for nothing;" and the combat

began again within him, but with far less fury. It was not what other people thought, not even the risk of

perjury that mattered (all this he made quite clear)it was Antonia. It was not fair to her to put himself in

He breakfasted. In the room were some Americans, and the face of one young girl reminded him a little of

Antonia. Fainter and fainter grew the incident; it seemed to have its right proportions.

Two hours later, looking at the clock, he found that it was lunch time. He had not gone, had not committed

perjury; but he wrote to a daily paper, pointing out the danger run by the community from the power which a

belief in their infallibility places in the hands of the policehow, since they are the sworn abettors of right

and justice, their word is almost necessarily taken to be gospel; how one and all they hang together, from

mingled interest and esprit de corps. Was it not, he said, reasonable to suppose that amongst thousands of

human beings invested with such opportunities there would be found bullies who would take advantage of

them, and rise to distinction in the service upon the helplessness of the unfortunate and the cowardice of

people with anything to lose? Those who had in their hands the sacred duties of selecting a practically

irresponsible body of men were bound, for the sake of freedom and humanity, to exercise those duties with

However true, none of this helped him to think any better of himself at heart, and he was haunted by the

feeling that a stout and honest bit of perjury was worth more than a letter to a daily paper.

He never saw his letter printed, containing, as it did, the germs of an unpalatable truth.

In the afternoon he hired a horse, and galloped on Port Meadow. The strain of his indecision over, he felt like

a man recovering from an illness, and he carefully abstained from looking at the local papers. There was that

Holm Oaks stood back but little from the roadan old manorhouse, not set upon display, but dwelling

close to its barns, stables, and walled gardens, like a good mother; long, flatroofed, red, it had Queen Anne

In front of it a fringe of elms, of all trees the tree of most established principle, bordered the stretch of turf

between the gravel drive and road; and these elms were the homes of rooks of all birds the most conventional.

A huge aspenimpressionable creature shivered and shook beyond, apologising for appearance among

such imperturbable surroundings. It was frequented by a cuckoo, who came once a year to hoot at the rules of

life, but seldom made long stay; for boys threw stones at it, exasperated by the absence of its morals.

The village which clustered in the dip had not yet lost its dread of motorcars. About this group of flatfaced

cottages with gabled roofs the scent of hay, manure, and roses clung continually; just now the odour of the

limes troubled its servile sturdiness. Beyond the dip, again, a squaretowered church kept within grey walls

the record of the village flock, births, deaths, and marriageseven the births of bastards, even the deaths of

suicidesand seemed to stretch a hand invisible above the heads of common folk to grasp the forgers of the

manorhouse. Decent and discreet, the two roofs caught the eye to the exclusion of all meaner dwellings,

The July sun had burned his face all the way from Oxford, yet pale was Shelton when he walked up the drive

"Mrs. Dennant at home, Dobson?" he asked of the grave butler, who, old servant that he was, still wore

coloured trousers (for it was not yet twelve o'clock, and he regarded coloured trousers up to noon as a sacred

"Mrs. Dennant," replied this personage, raising his round and hairless face, while on his mouth appeared that

apologetic pout which comes of living with good families"Mrs. Dennant has gone into the village, sir; but

Shelton crossed the panelled, lowroofed hall, through whose far side the lawn was visible, a vision of

serenity. He mounted six wide, shallow steps, and stopped. From behind a closed door there came the sound

of scales, and he stood, a prey to his emotions, the notes mingling in his ears with the beating of his heart. He

Antonia was at the piano; her head was bobbing to the movements of her fingers, and pressing down the

pedals were her slim monotonously moving feet. She had been playing tennis, for a racquet and her tam

o'shanter were flung down, and she was dressed in a blue skirt and creamy blouse, fitting collarless about

her throat. Her face was flushed, and wore a little frown; and as her fingers raced along the keys, her neck

Shelton's eyes fastened on the silent, counting lips, on the fair hair about her forehead, the darker eyebrows

slanting down towards the nose, the undimpled cheeks with the faint fingermarks beneath the iceblue eyes,

the softlypouting and undimpled chin, the whole remote, sweet, suntouched, glacial face.

"Dick! What fun!" She gave him both her hands, but her smiling face said very plainly, "Oh; don't let us be

"Glad to see you! You are funny, Dick!as if you did n't know! Why, you 've shaved your beard! Mother

and Sybil have gone into the village to see old Mrs. Hopkins. Shall we go out? Thea and the boys are playing

tennis. It's so jolly that you 've come! "She caught up the tamo'shanter, and pinned it to her hair. Almost as

tall as Shelton, she looked taller, with arms raised and loose sleeves quivering like wings to the movements of

her fingers. "We might have a game before lunch; you can have my other racquet."

"You can have some of old Bernard's; he's got any amount. I'll wait for you." She swung her racquet, looked

Shelton ran upstairs, and dressed in the undecided way of men assuming other people's clothes. She was in

the hall when he descended, humming a tune and prodding at her shoe; her smile showed all her pearly upper

"Come along, old Dick!" she cried; and, flinging open the glass door, ran into the garden.

The tennisground was divided by tall netting from a paddock. A holm oak tree shaded one corner, and its

thick dark foliage gave an unexpected depth to the green smoothness of the scene. As Shelton and Antonia

carne up, Bernard Dennant stopped and cordially grasped Shelton's hand. From the far side of the net Thea, in

a shortish skirt, tossed back her straight fair hair, and, warding off the sun, came strolling up to them. The

umpire, a small boy of twelve, was lying on his stomach, squealing and tickling a collie. Shelton bent and

One and all they stood round Shelton, and there was a frank and pitiless inquiry in their eyes, in the angle of

their noses something chaffing and distrustful, as though about him were some subtle poignant scent exciting

When the setts were over, and the girls resting in the double hammock underneath the holm oak, Shelton

"I say, old chap," said his old schoolfellow, smiling dryly, "you're in for a wigging from the Mater."

"I don't know much about it, but from something she let drop it seems you've been saying some queer things

"Oh, don't ask me. The Mater thinks she's in a bad wayunsettled, or what d' you call at. You've been telling

her that things are not what they seem. That's bad, you know"; and still smiling he shook his head.

"Sacred! Nothing's sacred, except" But Shelton did not finish his remark. "I don't understand," he said.

"Ideals, that sort of thing! You've been diving down below the line of 'practical politics,' that's about the size

of it, my boy"; and, stooping suddenly, he picked up the last ball. "There is the Mater!" Shelton saw Mrs.

By the time they reached the holm oak the three girls had departed towards the house, walking arm in arm,

and Mrs. Dennant was standing there alone, in a grey dress, talking to an undergardener. Her hands, cased in

tan gauntlets, held a basket which warded off the bearded gardener from the severe but ample lines of her

usefullooking skirt. The collie, erect upon his haunches, looked at their two faces, pricking his ears in his

In his intercourse with Mrs. Dennant, Shelton never failed to mark the typical nature of her personality. It

always seemed to him that he had met so many other ladies like her. He felt that her undoubtable quality had

a nonindividual flavour, as if standing for her class. She thought that standing for herself was not the thing;

yet she was full of character. Tall, with nose a trifle beaked, long, sloping chin, and an assured, benevolent

mouth, showing, perhaps, too many teeththough thin, she was not unsubstantial. Her accent in speaking

showed her heritage; it was a kind of drawl which disregarded vulgar merits such as tone; leaned on some

syllables, and despised the final 'g'the peculiar accent, in fact, of aristocracy, adding its deliberate joys to

Shelton knew that she had many interests; she was never really idle, from the time (7 A.M.) when her maid

brought her a little china pot of tea with a single biscuit and her pet dog, Tops, till eleven o'clock at night,

when she lighted a wax candle in a silver candlestick, and with this in one hand, and in the other a new novel,

or, better still, one of those charming volumes written by great people about the still greater people they have

met, she said good night to her children and her guests. No! What with photography, the presidency of a

local league, visiting the rich, superintending all the poor, gardening, reading, keeping all her ideas so tidy

that no foreign notions might stray in, she was never idle. The information she collected from these sources

was both vast and varied, but she never let it flavour her opinions, which lacked sauce, and were drawn from

He liked her. No one could help liking her. She was kind, and of such good quality, with a suggestion about

her of thin, excellent, and useful china; and she was scented, toonot with verbena, violets, or those

essences which women love, but with nothing, as if she had taken stand against all meretricity. In her

intercourse with persons not "quite the thing" (she excepted the vicar from this category, though his father

had dealt in haberdashery), her refinement, gently, unobtrusively, and with great practical good sense, seemed

continually to murmur, "I am, and youwell, are you, don't you know?" But there was no

selfconsciousness about this attitude, for she was really not a common woman. She simply could not help it;

all her people had done this. Their nurses breathed above them in their cradles something that, inhaled into

their systems, ever afterwards prevented them from taking good, clear breaths. And her manner! Ah! her

Shelton listened to the kindly briskness with which she dwelt upon the undergardener.

"Poor Bunyan! he lost his wife six months ago, and was quite cheerful just at first, but now he 's really too

distressin'. I 've done all I can to rouse him; it's so melancholy to see him mopin'. And, my dear Dick, the way

he mangles the new rosetrees! I'm afraid he's goin' mad; I shall have to send him away; poor fellow!"

It was clear that she sympathised with Bunyan, or, rather, believed him entitled to a modicum of wholesome

grief, the loss of wives being a canonised and legal, sorrow. But excesses! O dear, no!

"I 've told him I shall raise his wages," she sighed. "He used to be such a splendid gardener! That reminds me,

Consulting the memorandumbook in which she had been noting the case of Mrs. Hopkins, she slightly

It was somewhat late that afternoon when Shelton had his "wigging"; nor did it seem to him, hypnotised by

"Now, Dick," the Honourable Mrs. Dennant said, in her decisive drawl, "I don't think it 's right to put ideas

"We all know," continued Mrs. Dennant, "that things are not always what they ought to be."

Shelton looked at her; she was seated at her writingtable, addressing in her large, free writing a dinner

invitation to a bishop. There was not the faintest trace of awkwardness about her, yet Shelton could not help a

certain sense of shock. If sheshe did not think things were what they ought to bein a bad way things

Mrs. Dennant looked at him firmly but kindly with the eyes that would remind him of a hare's.

"She showed me some of your letters, you know. Well, it 's not a bit of use denyin', my dear Dick, that you've

Shelton perceived that he had done her an injustice; she handled "things" as she handled

"My dear boy! you'll never get on that way. Now, I want you to promise me you won't talk to Antonia about

He saw that to press Mrs. Dennant to say what she meant by "things" would really hurt her sense of form; it

To his extreme surprise, flushing the peculiar arid pathetic flush of women past their prime, she drawled out:

"About the poorand criminalsand marriagesthere was that wedding, don't you know?"

Shelton bowed his head. Motherhood had been too strong for her; in her maternal flutter she had committed

"Does n't she really see the fun," he thought, "in one man dining out of gold and another dining in the gutter;

or in two married people living on together in perfect discord 'pour encourages les autres', or in worshipping

Jesus Christ and claiming all her rights at the same time; or in despising foreigners because they are

foreigners; or in war; or in anything that is funny?" But he did her a certain amount of justice by recognising

that this was natural, since her whole life had been passed in trying not to see the fun in all these things.

But Antonia stood smiling in the doorway. Brilliant and gay she looked, yet resentful, as if she knew they had

been talking of her. She sat down by Shelton's side, and began asking him about the youthful foreigner whom

he had spoken of; and her eyes made him doubt whether she, too, saw the fun that lay in one human being

"But I suppose he's really good," she said, "I mean, all those things he told you about were only"

"So he is," said Shelton, half ashamed; " he's not a bit mad, really that is, I only wish I were half as mad."

"Who's that mad?" queried Mrs. Dennant from behind the urn"Tom Crocker? Ah, yes! I knew his mother;

"You were very sweet to that young foreigner, Dick," she murmured with a smile at Shelton. "I wish that we

A desire to get close to her, half fear, half ache, a sense of futility and bafflement, an inner burning, made him

Just as Shelton was starting to walk back to Oxford he met Mr. Dennant coming from a ride. Antonia's father

was a spare man of medium height, with yellowish face, grey moustache, ironical eyebrows, and some tiny

crow'sfeet. In his old, short grey coat, with a little slit up the middle of the back, his drab cord breeches,

ancient mahogany leggings, and carefully blacked boats, he had a dry, threadbare quality not without

"Ah, Shelton!" he said, in his quietly festive voice; "glad to see the pilgrim here, at last. You're not off

already?" and, laying his hand on Shelton's arm, he proposed to walk a little way with him across the fields.

This was the first time they had met since the engagement; and Shelton began to nerve himself to express

some sentiment, however bald, about it. He squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, and looked askance at

Mr. Dennant. That gentleman was walking stiffly, his cord breeches faintly squeaking. He switched a yellow,

jointed cane against his leggings, and after each blow looked at his legs satirically. He himself was rather like

that yellow canepale, and slim, and jointed, with features arching just a little, like the arching of its handle.

"My dear fellow, you don't know your farmer, I 'm afraid. We ought to hang some farmersdo a world of

"I suppose," said Shelton, glad to postpone the evil moment, "in a climate like this a man must grumble."

"Quite so, quite so! Look at us poor slaves of landowners; if I couldn't abuse the farmers I should be

wretched. Did you ever see anything finer than this pasture? And they want me to lower their rents!"

And Mr. Dennant's glance satirically wavered, rested on Shelton, and whisked back to the ground as though

"If they'd said, now," he remarked jocosely, "that the frost had nipped the partridges, there 'd have been some

"Yes," he said, "it 's awfully hard to put up with, but what can a fellow do? One must have farmers. Why, if it

Shelton laughed spasmodically; again he glanced askance at his future fatherinlaw. What did the waggling

of his head mean, the deepening of his crow'sfeet, the odd contraction of the mouth? And his eye caught Mr.

Dennant's eye; its expression was queer above the fine, dry nose (one of the sort that reddens in a wind).

"Have n't you? Lucky fellow! The mostyes, quite the most trying portion of the human speciesnext to

A large black cloud had covered up the sun, and some drops were spattering on Mr. Dennant's hard felt hat.

Shelton welcomed the shower; it appeared to him an intervention on the part of Providence. He would have to

"I 'll go on," he said; "I don't mind the rain. But you'd better get back, sir."

"Dear me! I've 'a tenant in this cottage,' said Mr. Dennant in his, leisurely, dry manner "and a beggar he is to

poach, too. Least we can do 's to ask for a little shelter; what do you think? "and smiling sarcastically, as

though deprecating his intention to keep dry, he rapped on the door of a prosperouslooking cottage.

The sweetlooking Phoebe dusted them two chairs, and, curtseying, left them in the parlour.

"Yes, she's a pretty girl; half the young fellows are after her, but she won't leave her father. Oh, he 's a

This remark suddenly brought home to Shelton the conviction that he was further than ever from avoiding the

necessity for speaking. He walked over to the window. The rain. was coming down with fury, though a

golden line far down the sky promised the shower's quick end. "For goodness' sake," he thought, "let me say

something, however idiotic, and get it over!" But he did not turn; a kind of paralysis had seized on him.

It would have been just as easy to say: "I believe your daughter to be the sweetest thing on earth; I love her,

and I 'm going to make her happy!" Just as easy, just about the same amount of breath required; but he

couldn't say it! He watched the rain stream and hiss against the leaves and churn the dust on the parched road

with its insistent torrent; and he noticed with precision all the details of the process going on outside how the

raindrops darted at the leaves like spears, and how the leaves shook themselves free a hundred times a

minute, while little runnels of water, iceclear, rolled over their edges, soft and quick. He noticed, too, the

Mr. Dennant had not replied to his remark about the rain. So disconcerting was this silence that Shelton

turned. His future fatherinlaw, upon his wooden chair, was staring at his wellblacked boots, bending

forward above his parted knees, and prodding at the carpet; a glimpse at his face disturbed Shelton's

resolution. It was not forbidding, stern, discouragingnot in the least; it had merely for the moment ceased

to look satirical. This was so startling that Shelton lost his chance of speaking. There seemed a heart to Mr.

Dennant's gravity; as though for once he were looking grave because he felt so. But glancing up at Shelton,

"What a day for ducks!" he said; and again there was unmistakable alarm about the eye. Was it possible that

"You 'll be with us for that dinnerparty next week, eh? Capital! There's the Bishop of Blumenthal and old

"The Bishop's a great antidivorce man, and old Buckwell 's been in the court at least twice'

"Will you please to take some tea, gentlemen?" said the voice of Phoebe in the doorway.

"No, thank you, Phoebe. That girl ought to get married," went on Mr. Dennant, as Phoebe blushingly

withdrew. A flush showed queerly on his sallow cheeks. "A shame to keep her tied like this to her father's

apronstringsselfish fellow, that!" He looked up sharply, as if he had made a dangerous remark.

Shelton suddenly felt certain that Antonia's father was just as anxious to say something expressive of his

But Mr. Dennant's eyebrows rose, his crow'sfeet twinkled; his personality seemed to shrink together.

"By Jove!" he said, "it's stopped! Now's our chance! Come along, my dear fellow; delays are dangerous!" and

with his bantering courtesy he held the door for Shelton to pass out. "I think we'll part here," he said"I

He held out his dry, yellow hand. Shelton seized it, wrung it hard, and muttered the word:

Again Mr. Dennant's eyebrows quivered as if they had been tweaked; he had been found out, and he disliked

it. The colour in his face had died away; it was calm, wrinkled, deadlooking under the flattened, narrow

brim of his black hat; his grey moustache drooped thinly; the crow'sfeet hardened round his eyes; his

Shelton's face quivered; he raised his hat, and, turning as abruptly as his senior, proceeded on his way. He

had been playing in a comedy that could only have been played in England. He could afford to smile now at

his past discomfort, having no longer the sense of duty unfulfilled. Everything had been said that was right

and proper to be said, in the way that we such things should say. No violence had been done; he could afford

to smilesmile at himself, at Mr. Dennant, at tomorrow; smile at the sweet aroma of the earth, the shy,

The luncheon hour at Holm Oaks, was, as in many wellbred country housesout of the shooting season, be

it understoodthe soulful hour. The ferment of the daily doings was then at its full height, and the clamour

of its conversation on the weather, and the dogs, the horses, neighbours, cricket, golf, was mingled with a

literary murmur; for the Dennants were superior, and it was quite usual to hear remarks like these "Have you

read that charmin' thing of Poser's?" or, "Yes, I've got the new edition of old Bablington: delightfully

boundso light." And it was in July that Holm Oaks, as a gatheringplace of the elect, was at its best. For in

July it had become customary to welcome there many of those poor souls from London who arrived

exhausted by the season, and than whom no seamstress in a twopair back could better have earned a

holiday. The Dennants themselves never went to London for the season. It was their good pleasure not to. A

week or fortnight of it satisfied them. They had a radical weakness for fresh air, and Antonia, even after her

presentation two seasons back, had insisted on returning home, stigmatising London balls as "stuffy things."

When Shelton arrived the stream had only just begun, but every day brought fresh, or rather jaded, people to

occupy the old, dark, sweetsmelling bedrooms. Individually, he liked his fellowguests, but he found

himself observing them. He knew that, if a man judged people singly, almost all were better than himself;

only when judged in bulk were they worthy of the sweeping criticisms he felt inclined to pass on them. He

knew this just as he knew that the conventions, having been invented to prevent man following his natural

It was in the bulk; then, that he found himself observing. But with his amiability and dread of notoriety he

remained to all appearance a wellbred, docile creature, and he kept his judgments to himself.

In the matter of intellect he made a rough division of the guests those who accepted things without a

murmur, those who accepted them with carping jocularity; in the matter of morals he found they all accepted

things without the semblance of a kick. To show sign of private moral judgment was to have lost your soul,

and, worse, to be a bit of an outsider. He gathered this by intuition rather than from conversation; for

conversation naturally tabooed such questions, and was carried on in the loud and cheerful tones peculiar to

people of good breeding. Shelton had never been able to acquire this tone, and he could not help feeling that

the inability made him more or less an object of suspicion. The atmosphere struck him as it never had before,

causing him to feel a doubt of his gentility. Could a man suffer from passion, heartsearchings, or

misgivings, and remain a gentleman? It seemed improbable. One of his fellowguests, a man called

Edgbaston, smalleyed and semibald, with a dark moustache and a distinguished air of meanness,

disconcerted him one day by remarking of an unknown person, "A halfbred lookin' chap; did n't seem to

Everything seemed divided into classes, carefully docketed and valued. For instance, a Briton was of more

value than a man, and wives than women. Those things or phases of life with which people had no personal

acquaintance were regarded with a faint amusement and a certain disapproval. The principles of the upper

He was in that hypersenstive and nervous state favourable for recording currents foreign to itself. Things he

had never before noticed now had profound effect on him, such as the tone in which men spoke of

womennot precisely with hostility, nor exactly with contempt best, perhaps, described as cultured jeering;

never, of course, when men spoke of their own wives, mothers, sisters, or immediate friends, but merely

when they spoke of any other women. He reflected upon this, and came to the conclusion that, among the

upper classes, each man's own property was holy, while other women were created to supply him with gossip,

jests, and spice. Another thing that struck him was the way in which the war then going on was made into an

affair of class. In their view it was a baddish business, because poor hack Blank and Peter BlankBlank had

lost their lives, and poor Teddy Blank had now one arm instead of two. Humanity in general was omitted, but

not the upper classes, nor, incidentally, the country which belonged to them. For there they were, all seated in

Late one evening, billiards and music being over and the ladies gone, Shelton returned from changing to his

smokingsuit, and dropped into one of the great armchairs that even in summer made a semicircle round the

fendered hearth. Fresh from his goodnight parting with Antonia, he sat perhaps ten minutes before he began

to take in all the figures in their particoloured smoking jackets, crosslegged, with glasses in their hands,

The man in the next chair roused him by putting down his tumbler with a tap, and seating himself upon the

cushioned fender. Through the mist of smoke, with shoulders hunched, elbows and knees crooked out, cigar

protruding, beakways, below his nose, and the crimson collar of his smoking jacket buttoned close as

"The Veau d'Or 's the best place; they give you Turkish baths for nothing!" drawled a fat man with a tiny

The suavity of this pronouncement enfolded all as with a blessing. And at once, as if by magic, in the old,

oakpanelled room, the world fell naturally into its three departments: that where they do you well; that

where they do you better; and that where they give you Turkish baths for nothing.

"If you want Turkish baths," said a tall youth with clean red face, who had come into the room, and stood, his

mouth a little open, and long feet jutting with sweet helplessness in front of him, "you should go, you know,

Shelton saw an indescribable appreciation rise on every face, as though they had been offered truffles or

"Oh no, Poodles," said the man perched on the fender. "A Johnny I know tells me they 're nothing to Sofia."

His face was transfigured by the subtle gloating of a man enjoying vice by proxy.

"Ah!" drawled the smallmouthed man, "there 's nothing fit to hold a candle to Baghdaad."

Once again his utterance enfolded all as with a blessing, and once again the world fell into its three

departments: that where they do you well; that where they do you better; andBaghdad.

Shelton thought to himself: "Why don't I know a place that's better than Baghdad?"

He felt so insignificant. It seemed that he knew none of these delightful spots; that he was of no use to any of

his fellowmen; though privately he was convinced that all these speakers were as. ignorant as himself, and

merely found it warming to recall such things as they had heard, with that peculiar gloating look. Alas! his

anecdotes would never earn for him that prize of persons in society, the label of a "good chap" and

The fat man did not answer; he had begun an anecdote, and in his broad expanse of face his tiny mouth

With the exception of Antonia, Shelton saw but little of the ladies, for, following the wellknown custom of

the country house, men and women avoided each other as much as might be. They met at meals, and

occasionally joined in tennis and in croquet; otherwise it seemed almost Orientallyagreed that they were

Chancing one day to enter the withdrawing room, while searching for Antonia, he found that he had lighted

on a feminine discussion; he would have beaten a retreat, of course, but it seemed too obvious that he was

The Honourable Charlotte Penguin, still knitting a silk tiethe sixth since that she had been knitting at

Hyeressat on the low windowseat close to a hydrangea, the petals of whose round flowers almost kissed

her sanguine cheek. Her eyes were fixed with languid aspiration on the lady who was speaking. This was a

square woman of medium height, with grey hair brushed from her low forehead, the expression of whose face

was brisk and rather cross. She was standing with a book, as if delivering a sermon. Had she been a man she

might have been described as a bright young man of business; for, though grey, she never could be old, nor

ever lose the power of forming quick decisions. Her features and her eyes were prompt and slightly hard,

tinged with faith fanatical in the justice of her judgments, and she had that fussy simpleness of dress which

indicates the right to meddle. Not red, not white, neither yellow nor quite blue, her complexion was suffused

with a certain mixture of these colours, adapted to the climate; and her smile had a strange sour sweetness,

"I don't care what they tell you," she was sayingnot offensively, though her voice seemed to imply that she

had no time to waste in pleasing" in all my dealings with them I've found it best to treat them quite like

A lady, behind the Times, smiled; her mouthindeed, her whole hard, handsome facewas reminiscent of

dappled rockinghorses found in the Soho Bazaar. She crossed her feet, and some rich and silk stuff rustled.

Her whole personality seemed to creak as, without looking, she answered in harsh tones:

Sybil Dennant, seated on the sofa, with a feathery laugh shot a barking terrier dog at Shelton.

Shelton looked around him, scared. The elder ladies who had spoken had fixed their eyes on him, and in their

"Oh, that young man!" they seemed to say. "Expect a practical remark from him? Now, come!"

The person on her feet, whose name was Mrs. Mattock, directing her peculiar sweetsour smile at the

"The poor, my dear," began Mrs. Mattock, "are not the least bit what you think them"

"Oh, d' you know, I think they're rather nice!" broke in Aunt Charlotte close to the hydrangea.

"You think so?" said Mrs. Mattock sharply. "I find they do nothing but grumble."

"They don't grumble at me: they are delightful persons", and Lady Bonington gave Shelton a grim smile.

He could not help thinking that to grumble in the presence of that rich, despotic personality would require a

She continued, "One must do them good, one, must do one's duty, but as to getting thanks"

"The little children!" murmured Aunt Charlotte, with a flushing cheek and shining eyes; "it 's rather pathetic."

"Children indeed!" said Mrs. Mattock. "It puts me out of all patience to see the way that they neglect them.

Lady Bonington creaked again. Her splendid shoulders were wedged into her chair; her fine dark hair,

gleaming with silver, sprang back upon her brow; a ruby bracelet glowed on the powerful wrist that held the

journal; she rocked her copperslippered foot. She did not appear to be too sentimental.

"I know they often have a very easy time," said Mrs. Mattock, as if some one had injured her severely. And

Shelton saw, not without pity, that Fate had scored her kind and squashedup face with wrinkles, whose tiny

furrows were eloquent of good intentions frustrated by the unpractical and discontented poor. "Do what you

will, they are never satisfied; they only resent one's help, or else they take the help and never thank you for

Mrs. Mattock's brown eyes flew at him; Lady Bonington spoke to the Times; her ruby bracelet and a bangle

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Mattock, "I put myself entirely in their place. I quite understand their feelings. But

"They seem unable to put themselves in your place," murmured Shelton; and in a fit of courage he took the

Yes, that room was wonderfully consistent, with its air of perfect secondhandedness, as if each picture, and

each piece of furniture, each book, each lady present, had been made from patterns. They were all widely

different, yet all (like works of art seen in some exhibitions) had the look of being after the designs of some

original spirit. The whole room was chaste, restrained, derived, practical, and comfortable; neither in virtue

nor in work, neither in manner, speech, appearance, nor in theory, could it give itself away.

Still looking for Antonia, Shelton went up to the morningroom. Thea Dennant and another girl were seated

in the window, talking. From the look they gave him he saw that he had better never have been born; he

hastily withdrew. Descending to the hall, he came on Mr. Dennant crossing to his study, with a handful of

Shelton grinned, said "Yes," and went on looking. He was not fortunate. In the diningroom sat Mrs.

"Do give me your opinion, Dick," she said. "Everybody 's readin' this thing of Katherine Asterick's; I believe

"Well," returned Mrs. Dennant, "I hate doin' things just because other people do them, and I sha'n't get it."

"Here 's Linseed's last, of course; though I must say I don't care for him, but I suppose we ought to have it in

the house. And there's Quality's 'The Splendid Diatribes': that 's sure to be good, he's always so refined. But

what am I to do about this of Arthur Baal's? They say that he's a charlatan, but everybody reads him, don't

Decision had vanished from her face, with its arched nose and slightly sloping chin, as though some one had

suddenly appealed to her to trust her instincts. It was quite pathetic. Still, there was always the book's

"I think I 'd better mark it," she said, "don't you? Were you lookin' for Antonia? If you come across Bunyan

in the garden, Dick, do say I want to see him; he's gettin' to be a perfect nuisance. I can understand his

Primed with his message to the undergardener, Shelton went. He took a despairing look into the

billiardroom. Antonia was not there. Instead, a tall and fatcheeked gentleman with a neat moustache,

called Mabbey, was practising the spotstroke. He paused as Shelton entered, and, pouting like a baby, asked

The gentleman called Mabbey, plaintively feeling the places where his moustaches joined his pink and glossy

The gentleman called Mabbey chalked his cue, and, moving his round, knockkneed legs in their tight

"What price that?" he said, as he regained the perpendicular; and his wellfed eyes followed Shelton with

Shelton hurried out, and was about to run down the lower lawn, when he was accosted by another person

walking in the sunshinea slight built man in a turneddown collar, with a thin and fair moustache, and a

faint bluish tint on one side of his high forehead, caused by a network of thin veins. His face had something

of the youthful, optimistic, stainedglass look peculiar to the refined English type. He walked elastically, yet

with trim precision, as if he had a pleasant taste in furniture and churches, and held the Spectator in his hand.

"Ah, Shelton! "he said in hightuned tones, halting his legs in such an easy attitude that it was impossible to

Shelton's own brown face, nondescript nose, and his amiable but dogged chin contrasted strangely with the

"I hear from Halidome that you're going to stand for Parliament," the latter said.

Shelton, recalling Halidome's autocratic manner of settling other people's business, smiled.

The eyebrows quivered on the stainedglass man. It had never occurred to him, perhaps, that to stand for

"Ah, well," he said, "now you mention it, perhaps not." His eyes, so carefully ironical, although they differed

from the eyes of Mabbey, also seemed to ask of Shelton what sort of a dark horse he was.

The stainedglass man stooped to sniff a rosebush. "Yes," he said; "it suits me very well. I get lots of time for

"That must be very interesting," said Shelton, whose glance was roving for Antonia; "I never managed to

"Never had a hobby!" said the stainedglass man, brushing back his hair (he was walking with no hat); "why,

"I really don't know," he said, embarrassed; "there's always something going on, as far as I can see."

The stainedglass man placed his hands within his pockets, and his bright glance swept over his companion.

"An interest in life?" repeated Shelton grimly; "life itself is good enough for me."

"Oh!" replied the stainedglass man, as though he disapproved of regarding life itself as interesting.

"That's all very well, but you want something more than that. Why don't you take up woodcarving?"

"The moment I get fagged with office papers and that sort of thing I take up my woodcarving; good as a

"You 'll find not having a hobby does n't pay," he said; "you 'll get old, then where 'll you be?"

It came as a surprise that he should use the words "it does n't pay," for he had a kind of partially enamelled

look, like that modern jewellery which really seems unconscious of its market value.

"You've given up the Bar? Don't you get awfully bored having nothing to do?" pursued the stainedglass

Shelton felt a delicacy, as a man naturally would, in explaining that being in love was in itself enough to do.

To do nothing is unworthy of a man! But he had never felt as yet the want of any occupation. His silence in

"That's a nice old article of virtue," he said, pointing with his chin; and, walking round the sundial, he made

its acquaintance from the other side. Its grey profile cast a thin and shortening shadow on the turf; tongues of

moss were licking at its sides; the daisies clustered thick around its base; it had acquired a look of growing

from the soil. "I should like to get hold of that," the stained glass man remarked; "I don't know when I 've

His eyebrows were still ironically arched, but below them his eyes were almost calculating, and below them,

again, his mouth had opened just a little. A person with a keener eye would have said his face looked greedy,

and even Shelton was surprised, as though he had read in the Spectator a confession of commercialism.

"You could n't uproot a thing like that," he said; "it would lose all its charm."

His companion turned impatiently, and his countenance looked wonderfully genuine.

"Couldn't I?" he said. "By Jove! I thought so. 1690! The best period." He ran his forger round the sundial's

edge. "Splendid lineclean as the day they made it. You don't seem to care much about that sort of thing";

and once again, as though accustomed to the indifference of Vandals, his face regained its mask.

They strolled on towards the kitchen gardens, Shelton still busy searching every patch of shade. He wanted to

say "Can't stop," and hurry off; but there was about the stainedglass man a something that, while stinging

Shelton's feelings, made the showing of them quite impossible. "Feelings!" that person seemed to say; "all

very well, but you want more than that. Why not take up woodcarving? . . . . Feelings! I was born in

"Are you staying long?" he asked Shelton. "I go on to Halidome's tomorrow; suppose I sha'n't see you there?

Shelton, reddening slowly, turned his head away; he picked a gooseberry, and muttered, "Yes."

"The eldest girl especially; no nonsense about her. I thought she was a particularly nice girl."

Shelton heard this praise of Antonia with an odd sensation; it gave him the reverse of pleasure, as though the

"Really!" said the stainedglass man, and again his bright, clear, ironcommittal glance swept over

It was as if he said: "You're a man of taste; I should say she would go well in almost any drawingroom!"

"Thanks," said Shelton; "there she' is. If you'll excuse me, I want to speak to her."

Antonia, in a sunny angle of the old brick wall, amid the pinks and poppies and cornflowers, was humming to

herself. Shelton saw the stainedglass man pass out of sight, then, unobserved, he watched her smelling at the

flowers, caressing her face with each in turn, casting away spoiled blossoms, and all the time humming that

In two months, or three, all barriers between himself and this inscrutable young Eve would break; she would

be a part of him, and he a part of her; he would know all her thoughts, and she all his; together they would be

as one, and all would think of them, and talk of them, as one; and this would come about by standing half an

hour together in a church, by the passing of a ring, and the signing of their names.

The sun was burnishing her hairshe wore no hat flushing her cheeks, sweetening and making sensuous her

limbs; it had warmed her through and through, so that, like the flowers and bees, the sunlight and the air, she

"Oh, Dick!" she said: "Lend me your handkerchief to put these flowers in, there 's a good boy!"

Her candid eyes, blue as the flowers in her hands, were clear and cool as ice, but in her smile was all the

warm profusion of that corner; the sweetness had soaked into her, and was welling forth again. The sight of

those sunwarmed cheeks, and fingers twining round the flowerstalks, her pearly teeth, and hair all fragrant,

Curving back her neck, she cried out, "Catch!" and with a sweep of both her hands flung the flowers into

Under the rain of flowers, all warm and odorous, he dropped down on his knees, and put them one by one

together, smelling at the pinks, to hide the violence of his feelings. Antonia went on picking flowers, and

every time her hand was full she dropped them on his hat, his shoulder, or his arms, and went on plucking

more; she smiled, and on her lips a little devil danced, that seemed to know what he was suffering. And

"Are you tired?" she asked; "there are heaps more wanted. These are the bedroomflowersfourteen lots. I

can't think how people can live without flowers, can you?" and close above his head she buried her face in

He kept his eyes on the plucked flowers before him on the grass, and forced himself to answer,

"Poor old Dick!" She had stepped back. The sun lit the clearcut profile of her cheek, and poured its gold

over the bosom of her blouse. "Poor old Dick! Awfully hard luck, is n't it?" Burdened with mignonette, she

came so close again that now she touched his shoulder, but Shelton did not look; breathless, with wildly

beating heart, he went on sorting out the flowers. The seeds of mignonette rained on his neck, and as she let

the blossoms fall, their perfume fanned his face. "You need n't sort them out!" she said.

Was she enticing him? He stole a look; but she was gone again, swaying and sniffing at the flowers.

"I like to see you on your knees, you look so funny!" and as she spoke she flung a clove carnation at him.

"Why, picking flowers!" and once more she was back, bending and sniffing at the blossoms.

Antonia stood before him with her hands against her sides; her figure was so slim and young, her face

"Because," she said, and, flushing, touched a bee that had settled on her skirt, "because of something in you I

Shelton snatched from the mass in front of him an Iceland poppy with straight stem and a curved neck, white

"Oh no, it is n't!" and behind her back her fingers slowly crushed the petals of a bloodred poppy. She shook

her head, smiling a brilliant smile. The blossoms fell, he flung his arms around her, and kissed her on the lips.

But his hands dropped; not fear exactly, nor exactly shame, had come to him. She had not resisted, but he had

kissed the smile away; had kissed a strange, cold, frightened look, into her eyes.

"She did n't mean to tempt me, then," he thought, in surprise and anger. "What did she mean?" and, like a

"Where now?" Antonia asked, wheeling her chestnut mare, as they turned up High Street, Oxford City. "I

"We could have a gallop on Port Meadow, cross the Upper River twice, and get home that way; but you 'll be

Antonia shook her head. Aslant her cheek the brim of a straw hat threw a curve of shade, her ear glowed

A difference had come in their relations since that kiss; outwardly she was the same good comrade, cool and

quick. But as before a change one feels the subtle difference in the temper of the wind, so Shelton was

affected by the inner change in her. He had made a blot upon her candour; he had tried to rub it out again, but

there was left a mark, and it was ineffaceable. Antonia belonged to the most civilised division of the race

most civilised in all the world, whose creed is "Let us love and hate, let us work and marry, but let us never

give ourselves away; to give ourselves away is to leave a mark, and that is past forgive ness. Let our lives be

like our faces, free from every kind of wrinkle, even those of laughter; in this way alone can we be really

He felt that she was ruffled by a vague discomfort. That he should give himself away was natural, perhaps,

and only made her wonder, but that he should give her the feeling that she had given herself away was a very

"Do you mind if I just ask at the Bishop's Head for letters?" he said, as they passed the old hotel.

A dirty and thin envelope was brought to him, addressed "Mr. Richard Shelton, Esq.," in handwriting that

was passionately clear, as though the writer had put his soul into securing delivery of the letter. It was dated

This is already the third time I have taken up pen to write to you, but, having nothing but misfortune to

recount, I hesitated, awaiting better days. Indeed, I have been so profoundly discouraged that if I had not

thought it my duty to let you know of my fortunes I know not even now if I should have found the necessary

spirit. 'Les choses vont de mal en mal'. From what I hear there has never been so bad a season here. Nothing

going on. All the same, I am tormented by a mob of little matters which bring me not sufficient to support my

life. I know not what to do; one thing is certain, in no case shall I return here another year. The patron of this

hotel, my good employer, is one of those innumerable specimens who do not forge or steal because they have

no need, and if they had would lack the courage; who observe the marriage laws because they have been

brought up to believe in them, and know that breaking them brings risk and loss of reputation; who do not

gamble because they dare not; do not drink because it disagrees with them; go to church because their

neighbours go, and to procure an appetite for the midday meal; commit no murder because, not

transgressing in any other fashion, they are not obliged. What is there to respect in persons of this sort? Yet

they are highly esteemed, and form three quarters of Society. The rule with these good gentlemen is to shut

their eyes, never use their thinking powers, and close the door on all the dogs of life for fear they should get

Shelton paused, conscious of Antonia's eyes fixed on him with the inquiring look that he had come to dread.

In that chilly questioning she seemed to say: "I am waiting. I am prepared to be told things that is, useful

I have eyes, and here I am; I have a nose 'pour, flairer le humbug'. I see that amongst the value of things

nothing is the equal of "free thought." Everything else they can take from me, 'on ne pent pas m'oter cela'! I

see no future for me here, and certainly should have departed long ago if I had had the money, but, as I have

already told you, all that I can do barely suffices to procure me 'de quoi vivre'. 'Je me sens ecceuye'. Do not

pay too much attention to my Jeremiads; you know what a pessimist I am. 'Je ne perds pas courage'.

Hoping that you are well, and in the cordial pressing of your hand, I subscribe myself,

He rode with the letter open in his hand, frowning at the curious turmoil which Ferrand excited in his heart. It

was as though this foreign vagrant twanged within him a neglected string, which gave forth moans of a

Should he show it to her? If he might not, what should he do when they were married?

"He looks very well in a frockcoat," he replied; "his father was a wine merchant."

"Of course," she murmured, "I don't want to hear if there's anything I ought not."

But instead of soothing Shelton, these words had just the opposite effect. His conception of the ideal wife was

"Oh, all right!" she cried, and, touching her horse, flew off in front. "I hate dismal things."

Shelton bit his lips. It was not his fault that half the world was dark. He knew her words were loosed against

himself, and, as always at a sign of her displeasure, was afraid. He galloped after her on the scorched turf.

"Darling, I can't help it if things are n't cheerful. We have eyes," he added, quoting from the letter.

"Well, I don't want to see the gloomy side," she said, "and I can't see why YOU should. It's wicked to be

It was not his fault if there were a thousand different kinds of men, a thousand different points of view,

outside the fence of her experience! "What business," he thought, digging in his dummy spurs, "has our class

to patronise? We 're the only people who have n't an idea of what life really means." Chips of dried turf and

dust came flying back, stinging his face. He gained on her, drew almost within reach, then, as though she had

"Aha, Dick! I knew you'd never catch me" and she patted the chestnut mare, who turned her blowing muzzle

with contemptuous humour towards Shelton's steed, while her flanks heaved rapturously, gradually darkening

"We'd better take them steadily," grunted Shelton, getting off and loosening his girths, "if we mean to get

"We oughtn't to have galloped them like this; they 're not in condition. "We'd better go home the way we

The road led up and up a hill, and from the top a vision of Saxonia lay disclosed in waves of wood and

pasture. Their way branched down a gateless glade, and Shelton sidled closer till his knee touched the mare's

Antonia's profile conjured up visions. She was youth itself; her eyes so brilliant, and so innocent, her cheeks

so glowing, and her brow unruffled; but in her smile and in the setting of her jaw lurked something resolute

She looked down at the river, gleaming below the glade in a curving silver line. "Dick, there are such a lot of

Did she mean, amongst those splendid things, that they might understand each other; or were they fated to

They crossed the river by a ferry, and rode a long time in silence, while the twilight slowly fell behind the

aspens. And all the beauty of the evening, with its restless leaves, its grave young moon, and lighted campion

flowers, was but a part of her; the scents, the witchery and shadows, the quaint field noises, the yokels'

whistling, and the splash of waterfowl, each seemed to him enchanted. The flighting bats, the forms of the

dim hayricks, and sweetbrier perfumeshe summed them all up in herself. The fingermarks had deepened

underneath her eyes, a languor came upon her; it made her the more sweet and youthful. Her shoulders

seemed to bear on them the very image of our landgrave and aspiring, eager yet contained before there

came upon that land the grin of greed, the folds of wealth, the simper of content. Fair, unconscious, free!

That night, after the ride, when Shelton was about to go to bed, his eyes fell on Ferrand's letter, and with a

sleepy sense of duty he began to read it through a second time. In the dark, oakpanelled bedroom, his

fourpost bed, with back of crimson damask and its dainty sheets, was lighted by the candle glow; the copper

pitcher of hot water in the basin, the silver of his brushes, and the line of his wellpolished boots all shone,

and Shelton's face alone was gloomy, staring at the yellowish paper in his hand.

"The poor chap wants money, of course," he thought. But why go on for ever helping one who had no claim

on him, a hopeless case, incurableone whom it was his duty to let sink for the good of the community at

large? Ferrand's vagabond refinement had beguiled him into charity that should have been bestowed on

hospitals, or any charitable work but foreign missions. To give a helping hand, a bit of himself, a nod of

fellowship to any fellowbeing irrespective of a claim, merely because he happened to be down, was

sentimental nonsense! The line must be drawn! But in the muttering of this conclusion he experienced a

twinge of honesty. "Humbug! You don't want to part with your money, that's all!"

So, sitting down in shirtsleeves at his writing table, he penned the following on paper stamped with the

I am sorry you are having such a bad spell. You seem to be dead out of luck. I hope by the time you get this

things will have changed for the better. I should very much like to see you again and have a talk, but shall be

away for some time longer, and doubt even when I get back whether I should be able to run down and look

Before he had written out the cheque, a moth fluttering round the candle distracted his attention, and by the

time he had caught and put it out he had forgotten that the cheque was not enclosed. The letter, removed with

One morning a week later he was sitting in the smokingroom in the company of the gentleman called

Mabbey, who was telling him how many grouse he had deprived of life on August 12 last year, and how

many he intended to deprive of life on August 12 this year, when the door was opened, and the butler entered,

"A young man is asking for you, sir," he said to Shelton, bending down discreetly; "I don't know if you would

"I should say a sort of foreigner, sir," apologetically replied the butler. "He's wearing a frockcoat, but he

"All right," said Shelton; "I 'll come and see him. Now, what the deuce!" he thought, running down the stairs.

It was with a queer commingling of pleasure and vexation that he entered the little chamber sacred to the

birds, beasts, racquets, golfclubs, and general young ladies' litter. Ferrand was standing underneath the cage

of a canary, his hands folded on his pinchedup hat, a nervous smile upon his lips. He was dressed in

Shelton's old frockcoat, tightly buttoned, and would have cut a stylish figure but far his look of travel. He

wore a pair of pincenez, too, which somewhat veiled his cynical blue eyes, and clashed a little with the

pagan look of him. In the midst of the strange surroundings he still preserved that air of knowing, and being

"Forgive this liberty," began Ferrand, "but I thought it due to you after all you've done for me not to throw up

my efforts to get employment in England without letting you know first. I'm entirely at the end of my

A flicker passed across the vagrant's face; he drew the letter from his pocket and held it out.

Ferrand did not smile; there was a look about him as though Shelton by forgetting to enclose that cheque had

Too subtle to say anything, Ferrand curled his lip., "I am capable of much, but not of that," he seemed to say;

"I had no intention of intruding here," said Ferrand; "I hoped to see you in the neighbourhood, but I arrive

exhausted with fatigue. I've eaten nothing since yesterday at noon, and walked thirty miles." He shrugged his

shoulders. "You see, I had no time to lose before assuring myself whether you were here or not."

"I should very much like," the young foreigner went on, "for one of your good legislators to find himself in

these country villages with a penny in his pocket. In other countries bakers are obliged to sell you an

equivalent of bread for a penny; here they won't sell you as much as a crust under twopence. You don't

"As I told you," replied Ferrand, "there 's nothing to be done at Folkestone, though I should have stayed there

if I had had the money to defray certain expenses"; and again he seemed to reproach his patron with the

omission of that cheque. "They say things will certainly be better at the end of the month. Now that I know

English well, I thought perhaps I could procure a situation for teaching languages."

As a fact, however, he was far from seeing; he literally did not know what to do. It seemed so brutal to give

Ferrand money and ask him to clear out; besides, he chanced to have none in his pocket.

"It needs philosophy to support what I 've gone through this week," said Ferrand, shrugging his shoulders.

"On Wednesday last, when I received your letter, I had just eighteenpence, and at once I made a resolution

to come and see you; on that sum I 've done the journey. My strength is nearly at an end."

"Well," he had just begun, "we must think it over," when by Ferrand's face he saw that some one had come

in. He turned, and saw Antonia in the doorway. "Excuse me," he stammered, and, going to Antonia, drew her

With a smile she said at once: "It's the young foreigner; I'm certain. Oh, what fun!"

"Yes," answered Shelton slowly; "he's come to see me about getting some sort of tutorship or other. Do you

think your mother would mind if I took him up to have a wash? He's had a longish walk. And might he have

He gave her a grateful, furtive look, and went back to his guest; an impulse had made him hide from her the

Ferrand was standing where he had been left his face still clothed in mordant impassivity.

"Come up to my room!" said Shelton; and while his guest was washing, brushing, and otherwise embellishing

his person, he stood reflecting that Ferrand was by no means unpresentable, and he felt quite grateful to him.

He took an opportunity, when the young man's back was turned, of examining his counterfoils. There was no

record, naturally, of a cheque drawn in Ferrand's favour. Shelton felt more mean than ever.

A message came from Mrs. Dennant; so he took the traveller to the diningroom and left him there, while he

"How many days did you say he went without food that timeyou know?" she asked in passing.

Mrs. Dennant was writing, in a darkblue dress starred over with white spots, whose fine lawn collar was

"Have you seen the new hybrid Algy's brought me back from Kidstone? Is n't it charmin'?" and she bent her

face towards this perfect rose. "They say unique; I'm awfully interested to find out if that's true. I've told Algy

Shelton thought of the unique hybrid breakfasting downstairs; he wished that Mrs. Dennant would show in

him the interest she had manifested in the rose. But this was absurd of him, he knew, for the potent law of

hobbies controlled the upper classes, forcing them to take more interest in birds, and roses, missionaries, or

limited and highlybound editions of old books (things, in a word, in treating which you knew exactly where

"Oh, Dick, about that young Frenchman. Antonia says he wants a tutorship; now, can you really recommend

him? There's Mrs. Robinson at the Gateways wants someone to teach her boys languages; and, if he were

quite satisfactory, it's really time Toddles had a few lessons in French; he goes to Eton next half."

Shelton stared at the rose; he had suddenly realised why it was that people take more interest in roses than in

"He's not a German, I hope," Mrs. Dennant answered, passing her forgers round a petal, to impress its fashion

on her brain; "I don't like Germans. Is n't he the one you wrote aboutcome down in the world? Such a pity

with so young a fellow! His father was a merchant, I think you told us. Antonia says he 's quite refined to

"Oh, yes," said Shelton, feeling on safe ground; "he's refined enough to look at."

"Delicious perfume! That was a very touchin' story about his goin' without food in Paris. Old Mrs. Hopkins

has a room to let; I should like to do her a good turn. I'm afraid there's a hole in the ceilin', though. Or there's

the room here in the left wing on the groundfloor where John the footman used to sleep. It's quite nice;

"I should like to do something to restore his selfrespect,", went on Mrs. Dennant, "if, as you say, he 's clever

and all that. Seein' a little refined life again might make a world of difference to him. It's so sad when a young

Shelton was much struck by the practical way in which she looked at things. Restore his selfrespect! It

"I don't believe in doin' things by halves," said Mrs. Dennant; "he does n't drink, I suppose?"

"Well, that's a mercy! You would n't believe the trouble I 've had with drink, especially over cooks and

"Oh, you'd have no trouble with Ferrand," returned Shelton; " you couldn't tell him from a gentleman as far as

"My dear Dick," she said, "there's not much comfort in that. Look at poor Bobby Surcingle, look at Oliver

Semples and Victor Medallion; you could n't have better families. But if you 're sure he does n't drink! Algy

Shelton felt guilty; being quite unprepared for so rapid an adoption of his client.

"I really believe there's a lot of good in him," he stammered; "but, of course, I know very little, and from

"Where was he educated?" inquired Mrs. Dennant. "They have no public schools in France, so I 've been told;

but, of course, he can't help that, poor young fellow! Oh, and, Dick, there 's one thinghas he relations? One

has always to be so careful about that. It 's one thing to help a young fellow, but quite another to help his

family too. One sees so many cases of that where men marry girls without money, don't you know."

"He has told me," answered Shelton, "his only relations are some cousins, and they are rich."

Mrs. Dennant took out her handkerchief, and, bending above the rose, removed a tiny insect.

"Very sad story; can't they do anything for him?" and she made researches in the rose's heart.

"He's quarrelled with them, I believe," said Shelton; "I have n't liked to press him, about that."

"No, of course not," assented Mrs. Dennant absentlyshe had found another greenfly "I always think it's

Shelton was silent; he was thinking deeply. He had never before felt so distrustful of the youthful foreigner.

"I think," he said at last, "the best thing would be for you to see him for yourself."

"Very well," said Mrs. Dennant. "I should be so glad if you would tell him to come up. I must say I do think

that was a most touchin' story about Paris. I wonder whether this light's strong enough now for me to

Shelton withdrew and went downstairs. Ferrand was still at breakfast. Antonia stood at the sideboard

Both girls were following the traveller's movements with inscrutable blue eyes. A shiver ran down Shelton's

spine. To speak truth, he cursed the young man's coming, as though it affected his relations with Antonia.

>From the interview, which Shelton had the mixed delight of watching, between Ferrand and the Honourable

Mrs. Dennant, certain definite results accrued, the chief of which was the permission accorded the young

wanderer to occupy the room which had formerly been tenanted by the footman John. Shelton was lost in

admiration of Ferrand's manner in this scene.. Its subtle combination of deference and dignity was almost

"Charmin' young man, Dick," said Mrs. Dennant, when Shelton lingered to say once more that he knew but

very little of him; "I shall send a note round to Mrs. Robinson at once. They're rather common, you

But Mrs. Dennant's eyes, fervent, harelike, were fixed on something far away; turning, he saw the rose in a

tall vase on a tall and spindly stool. It seemed to nod towards them in the sunshine. Mrs. Dennant dived her

"The light's perfect now," she said, in a voice muffled by the cloth. "I feel sure that livin' with decent people

will do wonders for him. Of course, he understands that his meals will be served to him apart."

Shelton, doubly anxious, now that his efforts had lodged his client in a place of trust, fell, back on hoping for

the best; his instinct told him that, vagabond as Ferrand was, he had a curious self respect, that would save

In fact, as Mrs. Dennant, who was by no means void of commonsense, foresaw, the arrangement worked all

right. Ferrand entered on his duties as French tutor to the little Robinsons. In the Dennants' household he kept

himself to his own room, which, day and night, he perfumed with tobacco, emerging at noon into the garden,

or, if wet, into the study, to teach young Toddles French. After a time it became customary for him to lunch

with the houseparty, partly through a mistake of Toddles, who seemed to think that it was natural, and partly

through John Noble, one of Shelton's friends, who had come to stay, and discovered Ferrand to be a most

awfully interesting person he was always, indeed, discovering the most awfully interesting persons. In his

grave and toneless voice, brushing his hair from off his brow, he descanted upon Ferrand with enthusiasm, to

which was joined a kind of shocked amusement, as who should say, "Of course, I know it's very odd, but

really he 's such an awfully interesting person." For John Noble was a politician, belonging to one of those

two Peculiar parties, which, thoroughly in earnest, of an honesty above suspicion, and always very busy, are

constitutionally averse to anything peculiar for fear of finding they have overstepped the limit of what is

practical in politics. As such he inspired confidence, not caring for things unless he saw some immediate

benefit to be had from them, having a perfect sense of decency, and a small imagination. He discussed all

sorts of things with Ferrand; on one occasion Shelton overheard them arguing on anarchism.

"No Englishman approves of murder," Noble was saying, in the gloomy voice that contrasted with the

optimistic cast of his fine head, "but the main principle is right. Equalisation of property is bound to come. I

Shelton perceived that he had meant to add, "but with the heart, the lungs, the liver." He drew a deeper

meaning from the saying, and seemed to see, curling with the smoke from Ferrand's lips, the words: "What do

you, an English gentleman, of excellent position, and all the prejudices of your class, know about us outcasts?

If you want to understand us you must be an outcast too; we are not playing at the game."

This talk took place upon the lawn, at the end of one of Toddles's French lessons, and Shelton left John Noble

maintaining to the youthful foreigner, with stubborn logic, that he, John Noble, and the anarchists had much,

in common. He was returning to the house, when someone called his name from underneath the holm oak.

There, sitting Turkish fashion on the grass, a pipe between his teeth, he found a man who had arrived the

night before, and impressed him by his friendly taciturnity. His name was Whyddon, and he had just returned

from Central Africa; a brownfaced, largejawed man, with small but good and steady eyes, and strong,

"Oh, Mr. Shelton!" he said, "I wondered if you could tell me what tips I ought to give the servants here; after

Shelton sat down beside him; unconsciously assuming, too, a cross legged attitude, which caused him much

"I was listening," said his new acquaintance, "to the little chap learning his French. I've forgotten mine. One

"Oh, Arabic, and a dialect or two; they don't count. That tutor has a curious face."

The traveller spread his hands, palms downwards, on the grass and looked at Shelton with, a smile.

"I should say he was a rolling stone," he said. "It 's odd, I' ve seen white men in Central Africa with a good

"I 'm always sorry for those fellows. There's generally some good in them. They are their own enemies. A

bad business to be unable to take pride in anything one does!" And there was a look of pity on his face.

"That's exactly it," said Shelton. "I 've often tried to put it into words. Is it incurable?"

"I rather think," he said at last, "it must be because they have too strong a faculty of criticism. You can't teach

a man to be proud of his own work; that lies in his blood "; folding his arms across his breast, he heaved a

sigh. Under the dark foliage, his eyes on the sunlight, he was the type of all those Englishmen who keep their

spirits bright and wear their bodies out in the dark places of hard work. "You can't think," he said, showing

his teeth in a smile, "how delightful it is to be at home! You learn to love the old country when you're away

Shelton often thought, afterwards; of this diagnosis of the vagabond, for he was always stumbling on

instances of that power of subtle criticism which was the young foreigner's prime claim to be "a most awfully

An old schoolfellow of Shelton's and his wife were staying in the house, who offered to the eye the picture

of a perfect domesticity. Passionless and smiling, it was impossible to imagine they could ever have a

difference. Shelton, whose bedroom was next to theirs, could hear them in the mornings talking in exactly the

tones they used at lunch, and laughing the same laughs. Their life seemed to accord them perfect satisfaction;

they were supplied with their convictions by Society just as, when at home, they were supplied with all the

other necessaries of life by some cooperative stores. Their fairly handsome faces, with the fairly kind

expressions, quickly and carefully regulated by a sense of compromise, began to worry him so much that

when in the same room he would even read to avoid the need of looking at them. And yet they were

kindthat is, fairly kind and clean and quiet in the house, except when they laughed, which was often,

"Mr. Shelton," Ferrand said one day, "I 'm not an amateur of marriagenever had the chance, as you may

well suppose; but, in any case, you have some people in the house who would make me mark time before I

went committing it. They seem the ideal young married peopledon't quarrel, have perfect health, agree

with everybody, go to church, have childrenbut I should like to hear what is beautiful in their life," and he

grimaced. "It seems to me so ugly that I can only gasp. I would much rather they illtreated each other, just to

show they had the corner of a soul between them. If that is marriage, 'Dieu m'en garde!'"

The saying of John Noble's, "He's really a most interesting person," grew more and more upon his nerves; it

seemed to describe the Dennant attitude towards this stranger within their gates. They treated him with a sort

of wonder on the "don't touch" system, like an object in an exhibition. The restoration, however, of, his

selfrespect proceeded with success. For all the semblance of having grown too big for Shelton's clothes, for

all his vividly burnt face, and the quick but guarded play of cynicism on his lipshe did much credit to his

patrons. He had subdued his terror of a razor, and looked well in a suit of Shelton's flannels. For, after all, he

had only been eight years exiled from middleclass gentility, and he had been a waiter half that time. But

Shelton wished him at the devil. Not for his manners' sakehe was never tired of watching how subtly the

vagabond adapted his conduct to the conduct of his hosts, while keeping up his critical detachmentbut

because that critical detachment was a constant spur to his own vision, compelling him to analyse the life into

which, he had been born and was about to marry. This process was disturbing; and to find out when it had

commenced, he had to go back to his meeting with Ferrand on the journey up from Dover.

There was kindness in a hospitality which opened to so strange a bird; admitting the kindness, Shelton fell to

analysing it. To himself, to people of his class, the use of kindness was a luxury, not significant of sacrifice,

but productive of a pleasant feeling in the heart, such as massage will setup in the legs. "Everybody's kind,"

he thought; "the question is, What understanding is there, what real sympathy?" This problem gave him food

The progress, which Mrs. Dennant not unfrequently remarked upon, in Ferrand's conquest of his strange

position, seemed to Shelton but a sign that he was getting what he could out of his sudden visit to green

pastures; under the same circumstances, Shelton thought that he himself would do the same. He felt that the

young foreigner was making a convenient bow to property, but he had more respect for the sarcastic smile on

It was not long before the inevitable change came in the spirit of the situation; more and more was Shelton

"Curious fellow you've got hold of there, Shelton," Mr. Dennant said to him during a game of croquet; " he 'll

"Do you know his story? I will bet you sixpence"and Mr. Dennant paused to swing his mallet with a

"I think," said Mr. Dennant, with bent knees carefully measuring his next shot, "that you ought to make

"I never could draw," returned Shelton, nettled and uneasy; "but I understandI 'll give him a hint to go."

"Don't," said Mr. Dennant, moving after his second ball, which Shelton had smitten to the farther end, "be

offended, my dear Shelton, and by no means give him a hint; he interests me very much a very clever,

That this was not his private view Shelton inferred by studying Mr. Dennant's manner in the presence of the

vagabond. Underlying the wellbred banter of the tranquil voice, the guarded quizzicality of his pale brown

face, it could be seen that Algernon Cuffe Dennant, Esq., J.P., accustomed to laugh at other people, suspected

that he was being laughed at. What more natural than that he should grope about to see how this could be? A

vagrant alien was making himself felt by an English Justice of the Peaceno small tribute, this, to Ferrand's

personality. The latter would sit silent through a meal, and yet make his effect. He, the object of their

kindness, education, patronage, inspired their fear. There was no longer any doubt; it was not of Ferrand that

they were afraid, but of what they did not understand in him; of horrid subtleties meandering in the brain

under that straight, wetlooking hair; of something bizarre popping from the curving lips below that thin,

But to Shelton in this, as in all else, Antonia was what mattered. At first, anxious to show her lover that she

trusted him, she seemed never tired of doing things for his young protege, as though she too had set her heart

on his salvation; but, watching her eyes when they rested on the vagabond, Shelton was perpetually reminded

of her saying on the first day of his visit to Holm Oaks, "I suppose he 's really goodI mean all these things

Curiosity never left her glance, nor did that story of his four days' starving leave her mind; a sentimental

picturesqueness clung about that incident more valuable by far than this mere human being with whom she

had so strangely come in contact. She watched Ferrand, and Shelton watched her. If he had been told that he

was watching her, he would have denied it in good faith; but he was bound to watch her, to find out with

what eyes she viewed this visitor who embodied all the rebellious underside of life, all that was absent in

"He was once a sort of gentleman," she said; "why shouldn't he become one again?"

Sitting on the low wall of the kitchengarden, her head was framed by golden plums. The sun lay barred

behind the foliage of the holm oak, but a little patch filtering through a gap had rested in the plum tree's

heart. It crowned the girl. Her raiment, the dark leaves, the red wall, the golden plums, were woven by the

passing glow to a block of pagan colour. And her face above it, chaste, serene, was like the scentless summer

evening. A bird amongst the currant bushes kept a little chant vibrating; and all the plumtree's shape and

With the falling sunglow the charm passed off the tree. Chilled and harder, yet less deep, it was no more a

block of woven colour, warm and impassive, like a southern goddess; it was now a northern tree, with a grey

"Suppose," he said"I don't pretend to know, I only supposewhat Ferrand really cares for is doing things

differently from other people? If you were to load him with a character and give him money on condition that

"You don't seem to think there 's any use in trying," she said, and turned away.

Shelton made a movement as if he would go after her, and then stood still, watching her figure slowly pass,

her head outlined above the wall, her hands turned back across her narrow hips. She halted at the bend,

A moment's vision from without himself would have shown him that it was he who moved and she who was

standing still, like the figure of one watching the passage of a stream with clear, direct, and sullen eyes.

One day towards the end of August Shelton took Antonia on the river the river that, like soft music,

soothes the land; the river of the reeds and poplars, the silver swansails, sun and moon, woods, and the

white slumbrous clouds; where cuckoos, and the wind, the pigeons, and the weirs are always singing; and in

the flash of naked bodies, the play of waterlily leaves, queer goblin stumps, and the twilight faces of the

The reach which Shelton chose was innocent of launches, champagne bottles and loud laughter; it was

uncivilised, and seldom troubled by these humanising influences. He paddled slowly, silent and absorbed,

watching Antonia. An unaccustomed languor clung about her; her eyes had shadows, as though she had not

slept; colour glowed softly in her cheeks, her frock seemed all alight with golden radiance. She made Shelton

pull into the reeds, and plucked two rounded lilies sailing like ships against slowmoving water.

The brim of her linen hat kept the sun from her face, but her head was drooping like a flower's head at noon.

Shelton saw that the heat was really harming her, as too hot a day will dim the icy freshness of a northern

plant. He dipped his sculls, the ripples started out and swam in grave diminuendo till they touched the banks.

He shot the boat into a cleft, and caught the branches of an overhanging tree. The skiff rested, balancing with

"I should hate to live in London," said Antonia suddenly;" the slums must be so awful. What a pity, when

"There are some bad cottages at the lower end of Cross Eaton. I went them one day with Miss Truecote. The

people won't help themselves. It's so discouraging to help people who won't help themselves."

She was leaning her elbows on her knees, and, with her chin resting on her hands, gazed up at Shelton. All

around them hung a tent of soft, thick leaves, and, below, the water was deepdyed with green refraction.

Willow boughs, swaying above the boat, caressed Antonia's arms and shoulders; her face and hair alone were

"Doubts don't help you," she said suddenly; "how can you get any good from doubts? The thing is to win

He had risen to his feet, and grasped stunted branch, canting the boat towards the bank.

"Have you such a bad opinion of him, then?" asked Shelton. He felt on the verge of some, discovery.

"I liked him at first," she said; "I thought that he was different. I thought he couldn't really be"

Shelton still stood, holding to the branch, and the oscillation of the boat freed an infinity of tiny ripples.

He ought to have seen her face grow younger, more childish, even timid. She said in a voice smooth, round,

"You know, Dick, I do think we ought to try. I know I don't try half hard enough. It does n't do any good to

think; when you think, everything seems so mixed, as if there were nothing to lay hold of. I do so hate to feel

like that. It is n't as if we didn't know what's right. Sometimes I think, and think, and it 's all no good, only a

"What has n't been through fire's no good," he said; and, letting go the branch, sat down. Freed from restraint,

"I lay awake last night wondering what makes you like him so. He's so bitter; he makes me feel unhappy. He

never seems content with anything. And he despises"her face hardened"I mean, he hates us all!"

The boat was drifting on, and gleams of sunlight chased across their faces. Antonia spoke again.

"He seems to be always looking at dark things, or else he seems as ifas if he couldenjoy himself too

A startled rat went swimming for its life against the stream; and Shelton saw that he had done a dreadful

thing: he had let Antonia with a jerk into a secret not hitherto admitted even by himselfthe secret that her

eyes were not his eyes, her way of seeing things not his nor ever would be. He quickly muffled up his

laughter. Antonia had dropped her gaze; her face regained its languor, but the bosom of her dress was

heaving. Shelton watched her, racking his brains to find excuses for that fatal laugh; none could he find. It

was a little piece of truth. He paddled slowly on, close to the bank, in the long silence of the river.

The breeze had died away, not a fish was rising; save for the lost music of the larks no birds were piping;

On the homeward journey in the ponycart, rounding a corner of the road, they came on Ferrand in his

pincenez, holding a cigarette between his fingers and talking to a tramp, who was squatting on the bank.

"Oh!" she, cried, when they were out of hearing, "I wish he 'd go. I can't bear to see him; it's like looking at

That night, having gone up to his room, Shelton filled his pipe for his unpleasant duty. He had resolved to

hint to Ferrand that he had better go. He was still debating whether to write or go himself to the young

"I should be sorry," he said, breaking an awkward silence, "if you were to think me ungrateful, but I see no

future for me here. It would be better for me to go. I should never be content to pass my life in teaching

As soon as what he had been cudgelling his brains to find a way of saying had thus been said for him, Shelton

"Thanks to your kindness," replied the latter, "I find myself restored. I feel that I ought to make some good

"I have, and it seems to me that I'm wasting my time. For a man with any courage languages are no career;

Shelton let his pipe go out, so pathetic seemed to him this young man's faith in his career; it was no pretended

faith, but neither was it, he felt, his true motive for departure. "He's tired," he thought; "that 's it. Tired of one

place." And having the instinctive sense that nothing would keep Ferrand, he redoubled his advice.

"I should have thought," he said, "that you would have done better to have held on here and saved a little

"To save," said Ferrand, "is impossible for me, but, thanks to you and your good friends, I 've enough to

make front to first necessities. I'm in correspondence with a friend; it's of great importance for me to reach

Paris before all the world returns. I 've a chance to get, a post in one of the West African companies. One

makes fortunes out thereif one survives, and, as you know, I don't set too much store by life."

"We have a proverb," said Shelton, "'A bird in the hand is worth two birds in the bush!'"

"That," returned Ferrand, "like all proverbs, is just half true. This is an affair of temperament. It 's not in my

character to dandle one when I see two waiting to be caught; 'voyager, apprendre, c'est plus fort que moi'." He

paused; then, with a nervous goggle of the eyes and an ironic smile he said: "Besides, 'mon cher monsieur', it

is better that I go. I have never been one to hug illusions, and I see pretty clearly that my presence is hardly

"What makes you say that?" asked, Shelton, feeling that the murder was now out."

"My dear sir, all the world has not your understanding and your lack of prejudice, and, though your friends

have been extremely kind to me, I am in a false position; I cause them embarrassment, which is not

extraordinary when you reflect what I have been, and that they know my history."

"It's enough," the vagrant said, "that they feel I'm not a bird of their feather. They cannot change, neither can

Shelton turned to the window, and stared into the darkness; he would never quite understand this vagabond,

so delicate, so cynical, and he wondered if Ferrand had been swallowing down the words, "Why, even you

"I 've arranged with a man to carry my things to the early train. I think it better not to say goodbye. I 've

written a letter instead; here it is. I left it open for you to read if you should wish,"

"Then," said Shelton, with a curious mingling of relief, regret, goodwill, "I sha'n't see you again?"

"Yes, yes"the, vagrant's face was oddly twisted"you don't know what a difference it makes to have a

correspondent; it gives one courage. I hope to remain a long time in correspondence with you."

"You will do me the justice to remember that I have never asked you for anything," said Ferrand. "Thank you

He again wrung his patron's hand in his damp grasp, and, going out, left Shelton with an odd sensation in his

throat. "You will do me the justice to remember that I have never asked you for anything." The phrase

seemed strange, and his mind flew back over all this queer acquaintanceship. It was a fact: from the

beginning to the end the youth had never really asked for anything. Shelton sat down on his bed, and began to

It will be insupportable to me, after your kindness, if you take me for ungrateful. Unfortunately, a crisis has

arrived which plunges me into the necessity of leaving your hospitality. In all lives, as you are well aware,

there arise occasions that one cannot govern, and I know that you will pardon me that I enter into no

explanation on an event which gives me great chagrin, and, above all, renders me subject to an imputation of

ingratitude, which, believe me, dear Madame, by no means lies in my character. I know well enough that it is

a breach of politeness to leave you without in person conveying the expression of my profound

reconnaissance, but if you consider how hard it is for me to be compelled to abandon all that is so

distinguished in domestic life, you will forgive my weakness. People like me, who have gone through

existence with their eyes open, have remarked that those who are endowed with riches have a right to look

down on such as are not by wealth and breeding fitted to occupy the same position. I shall never dispute a

right so natural and salutary, seeing that without this distinction, this superiority, which makes of the

wellborn and the wellbred a race apart, the rest of the world would have no standard by which to rule their

lives, no anchor to throw into the depths of that vast sea of fortune and of misfortune on which we others

drive before the wind. It is because of this, dear Madame, that I regard myself so doubly fortunate to have

been able for a few minutes in this bitter pilgrimage called life, to sit beneath the tree of safety. To have been

able, if only for an hour, to sit and set the pilgrims pass, the pilgrims with the blistered feet and ragged

clothes, and who yet, dear Madame, guard within their hearts a certain joy in life, illegal joy, like the desert

air which travellers will tell you fills men as with wine to be able thus to sit an hour, and with a smile to

watch them pass, lame and blind, in all the rags of their deserved misfortunes, can you not conceive, dear

Madame, how that must be for such as I a comfort? Whatever one may say, it is sweet, from a position of

security, to watch the sufferings of others; it gives one a good sensation in the heart.

In writing this, I recollect that I myself once had the chance of passing all my life in this enviable safety, and

as you may suppose, dear Madame, I curse myself that I should ever have had the courage to step beyond the

boundaries of this fine tranquil state. Yet, too, there have been times when I have asked myself: "Do we

really differ from the wealthywe others, birds of the fields, who have our own philosophy, grown from the

pains of needing breadwe who see that the human heart is not always an affair of figures, or of those good

maxims that one finds in copybooksdo we really differ?" It is with shame that I confess to have asked

myself a question so heretical. But now, when for these four weeks I have had the fortune of this rest beneath

your roof, I see how wrong I was to entertain such doubts. It is a great happiness to have decided once for all

this point, for it is not in my character to pass through life uncertainmistaken, perhapson psychological

matters such as these. No, Madame; rest happily assured that there is a great difference, which in the future

will be sacred for me. For, believe me, Madame, it would be calamity for high Society if by chance there

should arise amongst them any understanding of all that side of life whichvast as the plains and bitter as

the sea, black as the ashes of a corpse, and yet more free than any wings of birds who fly awayis so justly

beyond the grasp of their philosophy. Yes, believe me, dear Madame, there is no danger in the world so much

to be avoided by all the members of that circle, most illustrious, most respectable, called high Society.

>From what I have said you may imagine how hard it is for me to take my flight. I shall always keep for you

the most distinguished sentiments. With the expression of my full regard for you and your good family, and

Shelton's first impulse was to tear the letter up, but this he reflected he had no right to do. Remembering, too,

that Mrs. Dennant's French was orthodox, he felt sure she would never understand the young foreigner's

subtle innuendoes. He closed the envelope and went to bed, haunted still by Ferrand's parting look.

It was with no small feeling of embarrassment, however, that, having sent the letter to its destination by an

early footman, he made his appearance at the breakfasttable. Behind the Austrian coffeeurn, filled with

French coffee, Mrs. Dennant, who had placed four eggs in a German eggboiler, said "Goodmorning," with

"My dear," continued Mr. Dennant, who was talking to his youngest daughter, "you'll have no chance

"Before it 's too late, then, I will eat a muffin. Shelton, pass the muffins! "But in making this request, Mr.

Antonia, too, seemed to keep her eyes away from him. She was talking to a Connoisseur on Art of

supernatural appearances, and seemed in the highest spirits. Shelton rose, and, going to the sideboard, helped

"Who was the young man I saw yesterday on the lawn?" he heard the Connoisseur remark. "Struck me as

His own intelligent physiog, raised at a slight slant so that he might look the better through his nosenippers,

was the very pattern of approval. "It's curious how one's always meeting with intelligence;" it seemed to say.

Mrs. Dennant paused in the act of adding cream, and Shelton scrutinised her face; it was harelike, and

superior as ever. Thank goodness she had smelt no rat! He felt strangely disappointed.

"You mean Monsieur Ferrand, teachin' Toddles French? Dobson, the Professor's cup."

"I hope I shall see him again," cooed the Connoisseur; "he was quite interesting on the subject of young

German working men. It seems they tramp from place to place to learn their trades. What nationality was he,

Shelton saw that their good breeding alone prevented all from adding, "And thank goodness, too!"

"Now, Algie," murmured Mrs. Dennant, "it 's quite a charmin' letter. Must have taken the poor young man an

And Shelton felt his face go crimson. He had suddenly remembered that her French was better than her

"Yes," echoed Mr. Dennant; "he 's had some singular experience. If you want to know the details, ask friend

The Connoisseur, never quite devoid of absentminded malice, spurred his curiosity to a further effort; and,

"My dear Dick," said Mrs. Dennant, "that was really a most touchin' story about his goin' without food in

Shelton shot another look at Antonia; her face was frigid. "I hate your dd superiority!" he thought, staring

"There's nothing," said that gentleman, "more enthralling than starvation. Come, Mr Shelton."

He cared not a straw for Ferrand, his coming, going, or his history; for, looking at Antonia, his heart was

The morning was sultry, brooding, steamy. Antonia was at her music, and from the room where Shelton tried

to fix attention on a book he could hear her practising her scales with a cold fury that cast an added gloom

upon his spirit. He did not see her until lunch, and then she again sat next the Connoisseur. Her cheeks were

pale, but there was something feverish in her chatter to her neighbour; she still refused to look at Shelton. He

felt very miserable. After lunch, when most of them had left the table, the rest fell to discussing country

"Of course," said Mrs. Dennant, "there are the Foliots; but nobody calls on them."

"It's really distressin'; she looks so sweet ridin' about. Many people with worse stories get called on,"

continued Mrs. Dennant, with that large frankness of intrusion upon doubtful subjects which may be made by

certain people in a certain way," but, after all, one couldn't ask them to meet anybody."

"No," the Connoisseur assented. "I used to know Foliot. Thousand pities. They say she was a very pretty

"Oh, not pretty!" said Mrs. Dennant! "more interestin than pretty, I should say."

Shelton, who knew the lady slightly, noticed that they spoke of her as in the past. He did not look towards

Antonia; for, though a little troubled at her presence while such a subject was discussed, he hated his

conviction that her face, was as unruffled as though the Foliots had been a separate species. There was, in

fact, a curiosity about her eyes, a faint impatience on her lips; she was rolling little crumbs of bread.

Suddenly yawning, she muttered some remark, and rose. Shelton stopped her at the door.

"Yes," the Connoisseur said, sipping at his sherry, "I 'm afraid it's all over with young Foliot."

"Such a pity!" murmured Mrs. Dennant, and her kindly face looked quite disturbed. "I've known him ever

since he was a boy. Of course, I think he made a great mistake to bring her down here. Not even bein' able to

"Ah!" said the Connoisseur, "but d' you suppose that makes much difference? Even if What 'shisname

"Oh, it does! So many people would be inclined to look over it in time. But as it is it's hopeless, quite. So

very awkward for people, too, meetin' them about. The Telfords and the Butterwicks by the way, they're

"Did you ever meet her beforeerbefore the flood?" the Connoisseur inquired; and his lips parting and

"Yes; I did meet her once at the Branksomes'. I thought her quite a charmin' person."

"Poor fellow!" said the Connoisseur; "they tell me he was going to take the hounds."

"And there are his delightful coverts, too. Algie often used to shoot there, and now they say he just has his

brother down to shoot with him. It's really quite too melancholy! Did you know him, Dick?"

"Foliot?" replied Shelton absently. "No; I never met him: I've seen her once or twice at Ascot."

Through the window he could see Antonia in her scarlet Tamo' shanter, swinging her stick, and he got up

feigning unconcern. Just then Toddles came bounding up against his sister. They went off arm in arm. She

had seen him at the window, yet she gave no friendly glance; Shelton felt more miserable than ever. He

stepped out upon the drive. There was a lurid, gloomy canopy above; the elmtrees drooped their heavy

blackish green, the wonted rustle of the aspen tree was gone, even the rooks were silent. A store of force lay

heavy on the heart of nature. He started pacing slowly up and down, his pride forbidding him to follow her,

and presently sat down on an old stone seat that faced the road. He stayed a long time staring at the elms,

asking himself what he had done and what he ought to do. And somehow he was frightened. A sense of

loneliness was on him, so real, so painful, that he shivered in the sweltering heat. He was there, perhaps, an

hour, alone, and saw nobody pass along the road. Then came the sound of horse's hoofs, and at the same time

he heard a motorcar approaching from the opposite direction. The rider made appearance first, riding a grey

horse with an Arab's high set head and tail. She was holding him with difficulty, for the whirr of the

approaching car grew every moment louder. Shelton rose; the car flashed by. He saw the horse stagger in the

He ran, but before he reached the gate the lady was on foot, holding the plunging horse's bridle.

"Are you hurt?" cried Shelton breathlessly, and he, too, grabbed the bridle. "Those beastly cars!"

Shelton let go, and watched her coax the horse. She was rather tall, dressed in a grey habit, with a grey

Russian cap upon her head, and he suddenly recognised the Mrs. Foliot whom they had been talking of at

"I do hope he has n't hurt you," Shelton said. He was quite close to her, well able to see her facea curious

face with high cheekbones and a flatfish moulding, enigmatic, yet strangely passionate for all its listless

pallor. Her smiling, tightened lips were pallid; pallid, too, her grey and deepset eyes with greenish tints;

"Ththanks!" she said; "I shall be all right directly. I'm sorry to have made a fuss."

"I 'm sure you're hurt; do let me go for" stammered Shelton. "I can easily get help."

She left the gate, and crossed the road to where he held the horse. Shelton, to conceal embarrassment, looked

at the horse's legs, and noticed that the grey was resting one of them. He ran his hand down.

"He'll be lame when he gets cold. Would n't you like to put him in the stable here? I 'm sure you ought to

Her voice sounded as though something had offended her. Rising from inspection of the horse's leg, Shelton

saw Antonia and Toddles standing by. They had come through a wicketgate leading from the fields.

There are moments when the expression of a face fixes itself with painful clearness; to Shelton this was such

a moment. Those two faces close together, under their coverings of scarlet and of grey, showed a contrast

almost cruelly vivid. Antonia was flushed, her eyes had grown deep blue; her look of startled doubt had

"Would you like to come in and wait? We could send you home, in the brougham," she said.

The lady called Mrs. Foliot stood, one arm across the crupper of her saddle, biting her lips and smiling still

her enigmatic smile, and it was her face that stayed most vividly on Shelton's mind, its ashy hail, its pallor,

Out of Antonia's face the timid, doubting friendliness had fled, and was replaced by enmity. With a long, cold

look at both of them she turned away. Mrs. Foliot gave a little laugh, and raised her foot for Shelton's help.

He heard a hiss of pain as he swung her up, but when he looked at her she smiled.

She bowed, smiled inscrutably once more, touched the Arab with her whip, and started, Toddles trotting at

Shelton was left with Antonia underneath the elms. A sudden puff of tepid air blew in their faces, like a

warning message from the heavy, purple heat clouds; low rumbling thunder travelled slowly from afar.

Antonia nodded. She was pale now, and her face still wore its cold look of offence.

Shelton tried to speak, but something kept him silentsubmission to what was coming, like the mute

He watched her go, and went back to his seat. And the silence seemed to grow; the flowers ceased to exude

their fragrance, numbed by the weighty air. All the long house behind him seemed asleep, deserted. No noise

came forth, no laughter, the echo of no music, the ringing of no bell; the heat had wrapped it round with

drowsiness. And the silence added to the solitude within him. What an unlucky chance, that woman's

accident! Designed by Providence to put Antonia further from him than before! Why was not the world

composed of the immaculate alone? He started pacing up and down, tortured by a dreadful heartache.

"I must get rid of this," he thought. "I 'll go for a good tramp, and chance the storm."

"I saw her home," he crowed. "I say, what a ripper, isn't she? She 'll be as lame as a tree tomorrow; so will

This meeting showed Shelton that he had been an hour on the stone seat; he had thought it some ten minutes,

and the discovery alarmed him. It seemed to bring the import of his miserable fear right home to him. He

started with a swinging stride, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, the perspiration streaming down his face.

It was seven and more when Shelton returned, from his walk; a few heat drops had splashed the leaves, but

the storm had not yet broken. In brooding silence the world seemed pent beneath the purple firmament.

By rapid walking in the heat Shelton had got rid of his despondency. He felt like one who is to see his

mistress after long estrangement. He, bathed, and, straightening his tieends, stood smiling at the glass. His

fear, unhappiness, and doubts seemed like an evil dream; how much worse off would he not have been, had it

It was dinnerparty night, and when he reached the drawingroom the guests were there already, chattering

of the coming storm. Antonia was not yet down, and Shelton stood by the piano waiting for her entry. Red

faces, spotless shirtfronts, white arms; and freshly twisted hair were all around him. Some one handed him

a clove carnation, and, as he held it to his nose, Antonia came in, breathless, as though she had rushed

downstairs, Her cheeks were pale no longer; her hand kept stealing to her throat. The flames of the coming

storm seemed to have caught fire within her, to be scorching her in her white frock; she passed him close, and

Never again will Shelton breathe the perfume of melons and pineapples without a strange emotion. From

where he sat at dinner he could not see Antonia, but amidst the chattering of voices, the clink of glass and

silver, the sights and sounds and scents of feasting, he thought how he would go to her and say that nothing

mattered but her love. He drank the frosted, palegold liquid of champagne as if it had been water.

The windows stood wide open in the heat; the garden lay in thick, soft shadow, where the pitchy shapes of

trees could be discerned. There was not a breath of air to fan the candleflames above the flowers; but two

large moths, fearful of the heavy dark, flew in and wheeled between the lights over the diners' heads. One fell

scorched into a dish of fruit, and was removed; the other, eluding all the swish of napkins and the efforts of

the footmen, continued to make soft, fluttering rushes till Shelton rose and caught it in his hand. He took it to

the window and threw it out into the darkness, and he noticed that the air was thick and tepid to his face. At a

sign from Mr. Dennant the muslin curtains were then drawn across the windows, and in gratitude, perhaps,

for this protection, this filmy barrier between them and the muffled threats of Nature, everyone broke out in

talk. It was such a night as comes in summer after perfect weather, frightening in its heat, and silence, which

was broken by the distant thunder travelling low along the ground like the muttering of all dark places on the

earthsuch a night as seems, by very breathlessness, to smother life, and with its fateful threats to justify

The ladies rose at last. The circle of the rosewood diningtable, which had no cloth, strewn with flowers and

silver gilt, had a likeness to some autumn pool whose brown depths of oily water gleam under the sunset with

red and yellow leaves; above it the smoke of cigarettes was clinging, like a mist to water when the sun goes

down. Shelton became involved in argument with his neighbour on the English character.

"In England we've mislaid the recipe of life," he said. "Pleasure's a lost art. We don't get drunk, we're

ashamed of love, and as to beauty, we've lost the eye for' it. In exchange we have got money, but what 's the

good of money when we don't know how to spend it?" Excited by his neighbour's smile, he added: "As to

thought, we think so much of what our neighbours think that we never think at all.... Have you ever watched a

foreigner when he's listening to an Englishman? We 're in the habit of despising foreigners; the scorn we have

for them is nothing to the scorn they have for us. And they are right! Look at our taste! What is the good of

"That's rather new to me," his neighbour said. "There may be something in it.... Did you see that case in the

papers the other day of old Hornblower, who left the 1820 port that fetched a guinea a bottle? When the

purchaserpoor feller!came to drink it he found eleven bottles out of twelve completely ullagedha! ha!

At once he was enveloped in a bath of heat. A heavy odour, sensual, sinister, was in the air, as from a sudden

flowering of amorous shrubs. He stood and drank it in with greedy nostrils. Putting his hand down, he felt the

grass; it was dry, and charged with electricity. Then he saw, pale and candescent in the blackness, three or

four great lilies, the authors of that perfume. The blossoms seemed to be rising at him through the darkness;

as though putting up their faces to be kissed. He straightened himself abruptly and went in.

The guests were leaving when Shelton, who was watching; saw Antonia slip through the drawingroom

window. He could follow the white glimmer of her frock across the lawn, but lost it in the shadow of the

trees; casting a hasty look to see that he was not observed, he too slipped out. The blackness and the heat

were stifling he took great breaths of it as if it were the purest mountain air, and, treading softly on the grass,

stole on towards the holm oak. His lips were dry,,his heart beat painfully. The mutter of the distant thunder

had quite ceased; waves of hot air came wheeling in his face, and in their midst a sudden rush of cold. He

thought, "The storm is coming now!" and stole on towards the tree. She was lying in the hammock, her figure

a white blur in, the heart of the tree's shadow, rocking gently to a little creaking of the branch. Shelton held

his breath; she had not heard him. He crept up close behind the trunk till he stood in touch of her. "I mustn't

There was a faint stir in the hammock, but no answer. He stood over her, but even then he could not see her

face; he only, had a sense of something breathing and alive within a yard of himof something warm and

soft. He whispered again, "Antonia!" but again there came no answer, and a sort of fear and frenzy seized on

him. He could no longer hear her breathe; the creaking of the branch had ceased. What was passing in that

silent, living creature there so close? And then he heard again the sound of breathing, quick and scared, like

the fluttering of a bird; in a moment he was staring in the dark at an empty hammock.

He stayed beside the empty hammock till he could bear uncertainty no longer. But as he crossed the lawn the

sky was rent from end to end by jagged lightning, rain spattered him from head to foot, and with a deafening

He sought the smokingroom, but, recoiling at the door, went to his own room, and threw himself down on

the bed. The thunder groaned and sputtered in long volleys; the lightning showed him the shapes of things

within the room, with a weird distinctness that rent from them all likeness to the purpose they were made for,

bereaved them of utility, of their matteroffactness, presented them as skeletons, abstractions, with

indecency in their appearance, like the naked nerves and sinews of a leg preserved in, spirit. The sound of the

rain against the house stunned his power of thinking, he rose to shut his windows; then, returning to his bed,

threw himself down again. He stayed there till the storm was over, in a kind of stupor; but when the boom of

the retreating thunder grew every minute less distinct, he rose. Then for the first time he saw something white

When he had read this note, Shelton put it down beside his sleeve links on his dressing table, stared in the

mirror at himself, and laughed. But his lips soon stopped him laughing; he threw himself upon his bed and

pressed his face into the pillows. He lay there halfdressed throughout the night, and when he rose, soon after

dawn, he had not made his mind up what to do. The only thing he knew for certain was that he must not meet

I have had a sleepless night with toothache, and think it best to run up to the dentist at once. If a tooth must

He addressed it to Mrs. Dennant, and left it on his table. After doing this he threw himself once more upon

He woke with a start, dressed, and let himself quietly out. The likeness of his going to that of Ferrand struck

He tramped on till noon without knowing or caring where he went; then, entering a field, threw himself down

He was awakened by a whirr. A covey of partridges, with wings glistening in the sun, were straggling out

across the adjoining field of mustard. They soon settled in the oldmaidish way of partridges, and began to

Some cattle had approached him in his sleep, and a beautiful bay cow, with her head turned sideways, was

snuffing at him gently, exhaling her peculiar sweetness. She was as fine in legs and coat as any racehorse.

She dribbled at the corners of her black, moist lips; her eye was soft and cynical. Breathing the vague

sweetness of the mustardfield, rubbing dry graspstalks in his fingers, Shelton had a moment's

happinessthe happiness of sun and sky, of the eternal quiet, and untold movements of the fields. Why

could not human beings let their troubles be as this cow left the flies that clung about her eyes? He dozed

He fancied he was in a room, at once the hall and drawingroom of some country house. In the centre of this

room a lady stood, who was looking in a handglass at her face. Beyond a door or window could be seen a

garden with a row of statues, and through this door people passed without apparent object.

Suddenly Shelton saw his mother advancing to the lady with the hand glass, whom now he recognised as

Mrs. Foliot. But, as he looked, his mother changed to Mrs. Dennant, and began speaking in a voice that was a

sort of abstract of refinement. "Je fais de la philosophic," it said; "I take the individual for what she's worth. I

do not condemn; above all, one must have spirit!" The lady with the mirror continued looking in the glass;

and, though he could not see her face, he could see its imagepale, with greenish eyes, and a smile like scorn

itself. Then, by a swift transition, he was walking in the garden talking to Mrs. Dennant.

It was from this talk that he awoke with laughter. "But," she had been saying, "Dick, I've always been

accustomed to believe what I was told. It was so unkind of her to scorn me just because I happen to be

secondhand." And her voice awakened Shelton's pity; it was like a frightened child's. "I don't know what I

shall do if I have to form opinions for myself. I was n't brought up to it. I 've always had them nice and

secondhand. How am I to go to work? One must believe what other people do; not that I think much of other

people, but, you do know what it isone feels so much more comfortable," and her skirts rustled. "But,

Dick, whatever happens"her voice entreated"do let Antonia get her judgments secondhand. Never mind

for meif I must form opinions for myself, I mustbut don't let her; any old opinions so long as they are

old. It 's dreadful to have to think out new ones for oneself." And he awoke. His dream had had in it the

element called Art, for, in its gross absurdity, Mrs. Dennant had said things that showed her soul more fully

"No," said a voice quite close, behind the hedge, "not many Frenchmen, thank the Lord! A few coveys of

Shelton raised himself with drowsy curiositystill half asleepand applied his face to a gap in the high,

thick osiers of the hedge. Four men were seated on campstools round a foldingtable, on which was a pie

and other things to eat. A gamecart, welladorned with birds and hares, stood at a short distance; the tails of

some dogs were seen moving humbly, and a valet opening bottles. Shelton had forgotten that it was "the

first." The host was a soldierly and freckled man; an older man sat next him, squarejawed, with an

absentlooking eye and sharpened nose; next him, again, there was a bearded person whom they seemed to

call the Commodore; in the fourth, to his alarm, Shelton recognised the gentleman called Mabbey. It was

really no matter for surprise to meet him miles from his own place, for he was one of those who wander with

a valet and two guns from the twelfth of August to the end of January, and are then supposed to go to Monte

Shelton had not decided whether or no to sneak away, when the Commodore's thick voice began:

"My man tellsh me that Mrs. Foliothawhas lamed her Arab. Does she mean to come out cubbing?"

Shelton observed the smile that came on all their faces. "Foliot 's paying for his good time now; what a

"Never could shee anything wonderful in her looks," went on the Commodore; "so quiet, you never knew that

she was in the room. I remember sayin' to her once, "Mrs. Lutheran, now what do you like besht in all the

"He was always a dark horse, Foliot: It 's always the dark horses that get let in for this kind of thing"; and

"They say," said the voice of the host, "he never gives you back a greeting now. Queer fish; they say that

Coming so closely on his meeting with this lady, and on the dream from which he had awakened, this

"If he gives up his huntin' and his shootin', I don't see what the deuce he 'll do; he's resigned his clubs; as to

"Very queer fellows, those Foliots," said the Commodore. "There was his father: he 'd always rather talk to

any scarecrow he came across than to you or me. Wonder what he'll do with all his horses; I should like that

"You can't tell what a fellow 'll do," said the voice of Mabbey "take to drink or writin' books. Old Charlie

Wayne came to gazin' at stars, and twice a week he used to go and paddle round in Whitechapel, teachin'

"Obliged to get rid of him." Shelton tried again to close his ears, but again he listened. "Getting a bit too old;

"As a matter of fact, his sonyou remember him, Sir James, he used to load for you?got a girl into

trouble; when her people gave her the chuck old Smollet took her in; beastly scandal it made, too. The girl

refused to marry Smollett, and old Smollett backed her up. Naturally, the parson and the village cut up rough;

my wife offered to get her into one of those reformatory whatd' youcall'ems, but the old fellow said she

should n't go if she did n't want to. Bad business altogether; put him quite off his stroke. I only got five

There was a silence. Shelton again peeped through the hedge. All were eating pie.

"In Warwickshire," said the Commodore, "they always marryhawand live reshpectable ever after."

"Quite so," remarked the host; "it was a bit too thick, her refusing to marry him. She said he took advantage

"She's sorry by this time," said Sir James; "lucky escape for young Smollett. Queer, the obstinacy of some of

"The next field," said the host, "is pasture. We line up along the hedge, and drive that mustard towards the

"On the twelfth, shootin' in two parties," followed the voice of Mabbey from the distance.

Whether from his walk or from his sleepless night, Shelton seemed to ache in every limb; but he continued

his tramp along the road. He was no nearer to deciding what to do. It was late in the afternoon when he

reached Maidenhead, and, after breaking fast, got into a London train and went to sleep. At ten o'clock that

The lamplight dappled through the tired foliage on to these benches which have rested many vagrants.

Darkness has ceased to be the lawful cloak of the unhappy; but Mother Night was soft and moonless, and

Shelton was not alone upon the seat, for at the far end was sitting a young girl with a red, round, sullen face;

and beyond, and further still, were dim benches and dim figures sitting on them, as though life's institutions

"Ah!" thought Shelton, in the dreamy way of tired people; "the institutions are all right; it's the spirit that's

"Wrong?" said a voice behind him; "why, of course! You've taken the wrong turn, old man."

He saw a policeman, with a red face shining through the darkness, talking to a strange old figure like some

"Thank you, constable," the old man said, "as I've come wrong I'll take a rest." Chewing his gums, he seemed

"You'll excuse me, sir, I'm sure," he said in shaky tones, and snatching at his battered hat; "I see you was a

gentleman"and lovingly he dwelt upon the word"would n't disturb you for the world. I'm not used to

being out at night, and the seats do get so full. Old age must lean on something; you'll excuse me, sir, I 'm

"I'm a respectable old man, really," said his neighbour; "I never took a liberty in my life. But at my age, sir,

you get nervous; standin' about the streets as I been this last week, an' sleepin' in them dosshousesOh,

they're dreadful rough placesa dreadful rough lot there! Yes," the old man said again, as Shelton turned to

A movement of his head, which grew on a lean, plucked neck like that of an old fowl, had brought his face

into the light. It was long, and run to seed, and had a large, red nose; its thin, colourless lips were twisted

sideways and apart, showing his semitoothless mouth; and his eyes had that aged look of eyes in which all

colour runs into a thin rim round the iris; and over them kept coming films like the films over parrots' eyes.

He was, or should have been, cleanshaven. His hairfor he had taken off his hat was thick and lank, of

dusty colour, as far as could be seen, without a speck of grey, and parted very beautifully just about the

"I can put up with that," he said again. "I never interferes with nobody, and nobody don't interfere with me;

but what frightens me" his voice grew steady, as if too terrified to shake, is never knowin' day to day what

"Ah! it is," the old man said; "and the winter cumin' on. I never was much used to open air, bein' in domestic

service all my life; but I don't mind that so long as I can see my way to earn a livin'. Well, thank God! I've got

a job at last"; and his voice grew cheerful suddenly. "Sellin' papers is not what I been accustomed to; but the

Westminister, they tell me that's one of the most respectable of the evenin' papersin fact, I know it is. So

"I 've got my character," the old fellow said, making a gesture with a skinny hand towards his chest, as if it

"Thank God, nobody can't take that away! I never parts from that"; and fumbling, he produced a packet,

holding first one paper to the light, and then another, and he looked anxiously at Shelton. "In that house

where I been sleepin' they're not honest; they 've stolen a parcel of my thingsa lovely shirt an' a pair of

beautiful gloves a gentleman gave me for holdin' of his horse. Now, would n't you prosecute 'em, sir?"

"I know they had 'em. A man must stand up for his rights; that's only proper. I can't afford to lose beautiful

"There!" said the old man, smoothing out a piece of paper shakily, "that's Sir George!" and his withered

fingertips trembled on the middle of the page: 'Joshua Creed, in my service five years as butler, during

which time I have found him all that a servant should be.' And this 'ere'he fumbled with another"this 'ere

's Lady Glengow : 'Joshua Creed' I thought I'd like you to read 'em since you've been so kind."

"Thank ye, sir," replied the aged butler, filling his clay from Shelton's pouch; then, taking a front tooth

between his finger and his thumb, he began to feel it tenderly, working it to and fro with a sort of melancholy

"My teeth's acomin' out," he said; "but I enjoys pretty good health for a man of my age."

"Seventytwo! Barrin' my cough, and my rupture, and this 'ere affliction"he passed his hand over his

face" I 've nothing to complain of; everybody has somethink, it seems. I'm a wonder for my age, I think."

"Seventytwo!" he said; "yes, a great age. You remember the country when it was very different to what it is

"Ah!" said the old butler, "there was gentry then; I remember them drivin' down to Newmarket (my native

place, sir) with their own horses. There was n't so much o' these here middle classes then. There was more,

too, what you might call the milk o' human kindness in people thennone o' them amalgamated stores, every

man keepin' his own little shop; not so eager to cut his neighbour's throat, as you might say. And then look at

"No," he answered, shaking his old head; "they've lost the contented spirit. I see people runnin' here and

runnin' there, readin' books, findin' things out; they ain't not so selfcontented as they were."

"No," repeated the old man, again sucking at his pipe, and this time blowing out a lot of smoke; "I don't see

as much happiness about, not the same look on the faces. 'T isn't likely. See these 'ere motor cars, too; they

say 'orses is goin' out"; and, as if dumbfounded at his own conclusion, he sat silent for some time, engaged in

The girl at the far end stirred, cleared her throat, and settled down again; her movement disengaged a scent of

frowsy clothes. The policeman had approached and scrutinised these illassorted faces; his glance was

jovially contemptuous till he noticed Shelton, and then was modified by curiosity.

"There's good men in the police," the aged butler said, when the policeman had passed on" there's good

men in the police, as good men as you can see, and there 's them that treats you like the dirt a dreadful low

class of man. Oh dear, yes! when they see you down in the world, they think they can speak to you as they

like; I don't give them no chance to worry me; I keeps myself to myself, and speak civil to all the world. You

have to hold the candle to them; for, oh dear! if they 're crossedsome of themthey 're a dreadful

"It's nice and warm tonight," replied the aged butler. "I said to the man at that low place I said: 'Don't you

ever speak to me again,' I said, 'don't you come near me!' Straightforward and honest 's been my motto all my

life; I don't want to have nothing to say to them low fellows"he made an annihilating gesture"after the

way they treated me, takin' my things like that. Tomorrow I shall get a room for three shillin's a week, don't

you think so, sir? Well, then I shall be all right. I 'm not afraid now; the mind at rest. So long as I ran keep

myself, that's all I want. I shall do firstrate, I think"; and he stared at Shelton, but the look in his eyes and the

halfscared optimism of his voice convinced the latter that he lived in dread. "So long as I can keep myself,"

"No," thought Shelton; and for some time sat without a word. "When you can;" he said at last, "come and see

"Thank ye, sir; I will," he said, with pitiful alacrity. "Down by Belgravia? Oh, I know it well; I lived down in

them parts with a gentleman of the name of Batesonperhaps you knew him; he 's dead nowthe

Honourable Bateson. Thank ye, sir; I'll be sure to come"; and, snatching at his battered hat, he toilsomely

secreted Shelton's card amongst his character. A minute later he began again to nod.

The policeman passed a second time; his gaze seemed to say, "Now, what's a toff doing on that seat with

"Ah!" he thought; "exactly! You don't know what to make of mea man of my position sitting here! Poor

devil! to spend your days in spying on your fellowcreatures! Poor devil! But you don't know that you 're a

The policeman passed again, and, seeing that the lower creatures were both dozing, he spoke to Shelton:

"Not very safe on these 'ere benches, sir," he said; "you never know who you may be sittin' next to. If I were

you, sir, I should be gettin' onif you 're not goin' to spend the night here, that is"; and he laughed, as at an

Shelton looked at him, and itched to say, "Why shouldn't I?" but it struck him that it would sound very odd.

"Besides," he thought, "I shall only catch a cold"; and, without speaking, he left the seat, and went along

He reached his rooms at midnight so exhausted that, without waiting to light up, he dropped into a chair. The

curtains and blinds had been removed for cleaning, and the tall windows admitted the night's staring gaze.

Shelton fixed his eyes on that outside darkness, as one lost man might fix his eyes upon another.

An unaired, dusty odour clung about the room, but, like some Godsent whiff of grass or flowers wafted to

one sometimes in the streets, a perfume came to him, the spice from the withered clove carnation still

clinging, to his buttonhole; and he suddenly awoke from his. queer trance. There was a decision to be made.

He rose to light a candle; the dust was thick on everything he touched. "Ugh!" he thought, "how wretched!"

and the loneliness that had seized him on the stone seat at Holm Oaks the day before returned with fearful

On his table, heaped without order, were a pile of bills and circulars. He opened them, tearing at their covers

with the random haste of men back from their holidays. A single long envelope was placed apart.

I enclose you herewith the revised draft of your marriage settlement. It is now shipshape. Return it before the

end of the week, and I will have it engrossed for signature. I go to Scotland next Wednesday for a month;

shall be back in good time for your wedding. My love to your mother when you see her. Youraffectionate

He put it down and sank back in his chair, the chair in which the foreign vagrant had been wont to sit on

He did not stay there long, but in sheer unhappiness got up, and, taking his candle, roamed about the room,

fingering things, and gazing in the mirror at his face, which seemed to him repulsive in its wretchedness. He

went at last into the hall and opened the door, to go downstairs again into the street; but the sudden certainty

that, in street or house, in town or country, he would have to take his trouble with him, made him shut it to.

He felt in the letter box, drew forth a letter, and with this he went back to the sitting room.

It was from Antonia. And such was his excitement that he was forced to take three turns between the window

and the wall before he could read; then, with a heart beating so that he could hardly hold the paper, he began:

I was wrong to ask you to go away. I see now that it was breaking my promise, and I did n't mean to do that. I

don't know why things have come to be so different. You never think as I do about anything.

I had better tell you that that letter of Monsieur Ferrand's to mother was impudent. Of course you did n't

know what was in it; but when Professor Brayne was asking you about him at breakfast, I felt that you

believed that he was right and we were wrong, and I can't understand it. And then in the afternoon, when that

woman hurt her horse, it was all as if you were on her side. How can you feel like that?

I must say this, because I don't think I ought to have asked you to go away, and I want you to believe that I

will keep my promise, or I should feel that you and everybody else had a right to condemn me. I was awake

His first sensation was a sort of stupefaction of relief that had in it an element of anger. He was reprieved!

She would not break her promise; she considered herself bound! In the midst of the exaltation of this thought

He read it through again, and, like a judge, began to weigh what she had written, her thoughts when she was

The vagrant's farewell document had done the business. True to his fatal gift of divesting things of clothing,

Ferrand had not vanished without showing up his patron in his proper colours; even to Shelton those colours

were made plain. Antonia had felt her lover was a traitor. Sounding his heart even in his stress of indecision,

"Then in the afternoon, when that woman hurt her horse" That woman! "It was as if you were on her side!"

He saw too well her mind, its clear rigidity, its intuitive perception of that with which it was not safe to

sympathise, its instinct for selfpreservation, its spontaneous contempt for those without that instinct. And

she had written these words considering herself bound to hima man of sentiment, of rebellious sympathies,

of untidiness of principle! Here was the answer to the question he had asked all day: "How have things come

Poor child! She could not jilt him; there was something vulgar in the word! Never should it be said that

Antonia Dennant had accented him and thrown him over. No lady did these things! They were impossible! At

the bottom of his heart he had a queer, unconscious sympathy with, this impossibility.

Once again he read the letter, which seemed now impregnated with fresh meaning, and the anger which had

mingled with his first sensation of relief detached itself and grew in force. In that letter there was something

tyrannous, a denial of his right to have a separate point of view. It was like a finger pointed at him as an

unsound person. In marrying her he would be marrying not only her, but her classhis class. She would be

there always to make him look on her and on himself, and all the people that they knew and all the things

they did, complacently; she would be there to make him feel himself superior to everyone whose life was cast

in other moral moulds. To feel himself superior, not blatantly, not consciously, but with subconscious

But his anger, which was like the paroxysm that two days before had made him mutter at the Connoisseur, "I

hate your dd superiority," struck him all at once as impotent and ludicrous. What was the good of being

angry? He was on the point of losing her! And the anguish of that thought, reacting on his anger, intensified it

threefold. She was so certain of herself, so superior to her emotions, to her natural impulsessuperior to her

very longing to be free from him. Of that fact, at all events, Shelton had no longer any doubt. It was beyond

A photograph hung in his bedroom at Holm Oaks of a group round the hall door; the Honourable Charlotte

Penguin, Mrs. Dennant, Lady Bonington, Halidome, Mr. Dennant, and the stainedglass manall were

there; and on the lefthand side, looking straight in front of her, Antonia. Her face in its youthfulness, more

than all those others, expressed their point of view: Behind those calm young eyes lay a world of safety and

And from that photograph Mr. and Mrs. Dennant singled themselves out; he could see their faces as they

talkedtheir faces with a peculiar and uneasy look on them; and he could hear their voices, still decisive, but

They, too, thought him unsound, and did n't want him; but to save the situation they would be glad to keep

him. She did n't want him, but she refused to lose her right to say, "Commoner girls may break their

promises; I will not!" He sat down at the table between the candles, covering his face. His grief and anger

grew and grew within him. If she would not free herself, the duty was on him! She was ready without love to

As if she stood before him, he could see the shadows underneath her eyes that he had dreamed of kissing, the

eager movements of her lips. For several minutes he remained, not moving hand or limb. Then once more his

anger blazed. She was going to sacrifice herself andhim! All his manhood scoffed at such a senseless

He went to the bureau, took a piece of paper and an envelope, and wrote as follows:

There never was, is not, and never would have been any question of being bound between us. I refuse to trade

on any such thing. You are absolutely free. Our engagement is at an end by mutual consent.

He sealed it, and, sitting with his hands between his knees, he let his forehead droop lower and lower to the

table, till it rested on his marriage settlement. And he had a feeling of relief, like one who drops exhausted at