Ричард Марш
Amusement Only

"In a dream! You did not tell him-the little history?"

"I entered into no particulars."

"I entreat you, Monsieur, not to tell him the little history. There will be a scandal; he is so quick to misconceive."

"I will endeavour to observe Madame's wishes."

"It is like a little romance, is it not, Monsieur? Perhaps I should explain myself a little further. That night" – she emphasized the that-"I left my husband. In effect, he had become unbearable. I have seen and heard nothing of him since. But I am beginning to become conscious of a desire to meet with him again. I know not why! I suppose, when one loves one's husband truly, one wishes to meet him-once a year. I do not wish our reconciliation to be inaugurated by a quarrel-no, I entreat you, Monsieur, not recount to him that little history."

"I should inform Madame that I expect the Vicomte d'Humières to return."

"Return? Where? Here? When?"

"Very shortly-with a friend. In fact, unless I am mistaken, he comes already."

The lady listened.

"It is Philippe's voice! Mon Dieu! He must not find me here."

"But, Madame-"

"Ah, the screen! It is like a farce at the Palais Royal-is it not a fact? I will be your model, Monsieur, behind the screen!"

"Madame!"

Before he could interpose to prevent her, the lady vanished behind the screen. The door of the studio opened, and the Vicomte d'Humières entered, accompanied by his friend.

CHAPTER II
AND AWAKE

The Vicomte's friend was a gentleman of a figure which is not uncommon in France, even to-day. His attitude suggested a ramrod, he breathed powder and shot; and he bristled-what shall we say? – with bayonets. The last person in the world with whom a modern Briton should have a serious difference of opinion. The ideas of that sort of person upon matters which involve a difference of opinion are in such contrast to ours. The Vicomte performed the ceremony of introduction.

"Mr. Gerald Lovell, permit me to introduce to your courteous consideration my friend, M. Victor Berigny!"

M. Berigny bowed, ceremoniously. Mr. Lovell only nodded-his thoughts were behind the screen. The Vicomte turned to his friend.

"Victor, I have explained to you that I have already had the pleasure of an interview with Mr. Gerald Lovell." M. Berigny bowed. "I have also explained to you that I have desired him to inform me by whose authority he exhibits a portrait of my wife in a public exhibition. To that he has replied that his picture, 'A Vision of the Night,' is not a portrait of my wife. I request you, Victor, to state, in Mr. Gerald Lovell's presence, whether that picture, in your opinion, is or is not a portrait of my wife."

"Certainly, it is a portrait."

M. Berigny's accent was more marked than the Vicomte's, but still he did speak English.

"I thank you, Victor. It remains for me to once more request, in your presence, Mr. Gerald Lovell to explain how it was that he happened to dream of the face of my wife last August, in the Hôtel de Flandre, at Spa. Mr. Gerald Lovell, I have the honour to await your explanation."

The Vicomte, his arms crossed upon his chest, his left foot a little protruding, his head thrown back, awaited the explanation.

Mr. Lovell's thoughts ran screenwards.

"What the deuce shall I do if he discovers her behind the screen?"

"Monsieur, I am waiting."

"If he does discover her-there'll be a row."

"I still am waiting, Mr. Gerald Lovell."

With each repetition of the statement the Vicomte's tone became more acidulated. The artist arrived at a sudden resolution.

"Then I am afraid, Vicomte, that you will have to wait."

The Vicomte looked at the artist with an evident inclination to add a cubit to his own stature.

"Is it possible that I understand your meaning, Mr. Gerald Lovell?"

"My language is sufficiently simple."

"In France, Mr. Gerald Lovell, an artist is supposed to be a gentleman."

"And so in England, Vicomte. And therefore, when an artist is interrupted at his work by another gentleman, he feels himself at liberty to beg that other gentleman-to excuse him."

Mr. Lovell waved his hand, affably, in the direction of the door. The Vicomte's countenance assumed a peculiar pallor.

"You are a curious person, Mr. Gerald Lovell."

His friend interposed.

"Philippe, you had better leave the matter to me."

M. Berigny approached the painter-with a ramrod down his back.

"I have the honour, Monsieur, to request from you the name of a friend."

"Of a friend? What for?"

"Ah, Monsieur-to arrange the preliminaries!"

"What preliminaries?"

"Is it that Monsieur amuses himself?"

"Is it possible that you suppose that I am going to fight a duel?"

"Monsieur intends, then, to offer an explanation to my friend?"

"M. Berigny, I do not wish to say to you anything uncourteous, or anything unworthy an English gentleman; but I do beg you to believe that, because you choose to be an idiot, and your friend chooses to be an idiot, it does not follow that I choose to be an idiot, too."

"Monsieur!"

"One other observation. I have not seen much of you, M. Beringy, but that little has not disposed me to see more. May I therefore ask you-to leave my studio?"

"Monsieur!"

"Or-must I turn you out?"

"Turn me out!"

The Vicomte had been listening to this little dialogue. He now turned towards his friend.

"Ah, my friend, it is as he says! He will turn you out, neck and crop, as the English say. He will throw you down the stairs, he will heave half a brick at your head, to help you on your way. Then, when you require satisfaction, he will refer you to a magistrate. You will summon him-it will be in the papers-he will be fined half-a-crown! That is how they manage these affairs in England. It is true!"

"But-among gentlemen!"

"Ah, mon ami, voila! In England, nowadays, there are no gentlemen!"

Mr. Lovell moved a step towards M. Berigny.

"I have asked you, as a gentleman, to leave my studio."

"Monsieur, you are a coward!"

The painter's eyes gleamed. But he kept his temper pretty well, considering.

"You appear to have been taught singularly ill manners in your native country, sir. I will endeavour to teach you better manners here. Are you going? Or must I eject you?"

"Polison!"

That was M. Berigny's answer. There was just a momentary hesitation. Then, grasping M. Berigny firmly by the shoulders, Mr. Lovell began to move him, more rapidly than gently, in the direction of the door. The Vicomte came forward, with the evident intention of interposing. There would probably have been a slightly undignified scramble had not a diversion been created by the opening of the door, and the entrance of Mr. Warren. That gentleman glanced from one person to another.

"I beg your pardon," he observed. "I hope I don't intrude!"

Mr. Lovell laughed, a little forcedly. His complexion was distinctly ruddy.

"Not at all! I wish you had come in sooner. The most ridiculous thing has happened."

"Indeed! I have an eye for the ridiculous."

"You know that picture of mine, 'A Vision of the Night'?"

"I've heard of it."

"This gentleman says that it's a portrait of his wife."

Mr. Lovell pointed to the Vicomte d'Humières.

"No? Then, in that case, this gentleman's wife came into your bedroom in the middle of the night, and-kissed you, wasn't it?"

Mr. Warren spoke in the innocence of his heart, but, at that moment, Mr. Lovell could have struck his boyhood's friend. There was a listener behind the screen. The young gentleman's cheeks grew crimson, as the lady's had done a few minutes before. He was conscious, too, that the Vicomte's unfriendly eyes were fixed upon his face.

"So! That is it! You-you-" The Vicomte moved a step forward, then checked himself. "Tell me, where is my wife at this instant?"

Mr. Lovell could have told him, but he refrained.

"I decline to give you any information of any kind whatever."

"You decline?" The Vicomte raised his hand. He would have struck the artist. Mr. Warren interposed to avert the blow.

"He declines for the very simple reason that he has never seen your wife; isn't that so, Gerald?"

Mr. Lovell hesitated. He scarcely saw his way to a denial while the lady was behind the screen.

"You see! He does not even dare to lie!"

"Don't talk nonsense, sir! Gerald, why don't you tell the man that you have never seen the woman in your life?"

"I repeat that I decline to give this person any information of any kind whatever."

"You decline?"

The Vicomte uttered the words in a kind of strangled screech. His patience was exhausted. He seemed to think that he was being subjected to treatment which was more than flesh and blood could bear. He rushed at Mr. Lovell. Mr. Lovell, probably forgetting himself on the impulse of the moment-or he would have been more careful-swung the Vicomte round against the screen. It tottered, reeled, and, raising a cloud of dust, it fell with a bang to the floor!

It was a leaf out of Sheridan.

For an instant the several members of that little party did not distinctly realize what it was that had happened. Then they saw. There was a pause-a curious pause. Their attitudes betrayed a charming diversity of emotions. The Vicomte, his coat a little disarranged, owing to the somewhat rough handling which he had just received, stood and glared. M. Berigny, more ramroddy than ever, stared. Mr. Warren gasped. Mr. Lovell's quickened breathing, crimsoned cheeks, and flashing eyes seemed to suggest that his breast was a tumult of conflicting feelings. The lady, whose presence had been so unexpectedly revealed, stood behind the fallen screen, with the most charming air of innocence in the world, and she smiled.

It was she who broke the silence. She held out her hand to the Vicomte.

"Bon jour, Philippe!"

"Ah-h-h!" The Vicomte drew himself away with a sort of shuddering exclamation. "Antoinette! It is you! It cannot be!"

"My dear Philippe-why not?"

"Why not?"

"Why not? She asks why not!" The Vicomte held out his hands, as though he appealed to the eternal verities. "Traîtresse! Once more is woman false and man betrayed!"

The Vicomte's gesture was worthy of the tragic stage-in France. The lady still held out her hand, and still she smiled.

"My dear Philippe-try comedy!"

"Comedy? Ah, yes, I will try comedy-the comedy of r-r-revenge!" The Vicomte distinctly rolled his r's. He turned to Mr. Lovell. "I will kill you, even though for killing you, by the law of England, I am hanged. Victor, where is my hat?"

The Vicomte put this question to his friend with a peculiar coldness. M. Berigny shrugged his shoulders.

"How should I know? It is not a question of a hat."

"As you say, it is not a question of a hat. It is a question" – the Vicomte moved towards Mr. Lovell-"of that!"

He raised his hand with the intention of striking the artist on the cheek. Mr. Lovell never flinched; but the lady, rushing forward, caught her husband by the wrist. She looked at him, still with laughter in her eyes.

"Try not to be insane."

The Vicomte glared at her with a glare which, at least, was characteristic.

"Why do I not kill her-why?"

The lady only smiled.

"They say that a woman is devoid of humour. How is it then sometimes with a man? You, Philippe, are always thinking of the Porte St. Martin-I, of the Bouffes Parisiens."

The Vicomte turned to his friend.

"Victor, why do I not kill this woman?"

M. Berigny only shrugged his shoulders. Possibly because he was not ready with a more adequate reply. The lady turned to the artist.

"Monsieur, I offer you ten thousand apologies, which my husband will one day offer you himself, as becomes a gentleman of France."

The Vicomte repeated his inquiry:

"Victor, why do I not kill this woman?"

Only a shrug in reply. The lady went on:

"You have immortalized my poor face, Monsieur; my husband insults you in return."

The Vicomte folded his arms across his chest.

"It is certain, Victor, that she still lives!"

"One night, Monsieur, my husband locked me in my room. He designed to make of me a prisoner. Why? Ah, do not ask me why? When he had left me, I escaped, not by the door which he had locked, but by a door he had not noticed. This door led into an apartment in which there was a stranger sleeping. I was but an instant in that apartment-but the instant in which it was necessary to pass through. The sleeper never spoke to me; he never saw me with his waking eyes. But, even in his sleep, my poor, frightened face so flashed upon his brain that, even in his waking hours, it haunted him so that he made of it a picture-a picture of that Vision of the Night!"

The Vicomte approached closer to his friend. He addressed him in a sort of confidential, but still distinctly audible, aside:

"Victor, is it possible that this is true?"

"I beg, my friend, that of me you will ask nothing."

"Monsieur, this morning I was at your Academy. I saw my own countenance looking at me from the walls. For the first time I learned that my poor, frightened woman's face had appeared to a sleeping stranger in a Vision of the Night. Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!"

The lady covered her face with her hands. It would, perhaps, be rash to say that she cried; but, at least, she seemed to cry, and if it was only seeming, she did it very well.

"Victor," again inquired the Vicomte of his friend, "is it possible that this is true?"

M. Berigny wagged his finger in the Vicomte's face.

"D'Humières, it now becomes a question of hats." The Vicomte laid his hand on his companion's arm.

"One instant, Victor-still one instant more."

The lady, uncovering her eyes-which actually were sparkling with tears-continued to address the artist.

"Monsieur, I will not speak to you of my love for my husband-my Philippe! I will not speak to you of how we have been parted for a year-a whole, long year-mon Dieu, Monsieur, mon Dieu! I will not speak to you of how, every instant of that long, long year I have thought of him, of how I have yearned for him, of how I have longed for one touch of his hand, one word from his lips, one glance from his eyes. No, Monsieur, I will not speak to you of all these things. And for this reason: That, with me all things are finished. I go, never to return again. My face-you have made immortal; the rest of me-will perish. For the woman whose heart is broken there remains but one place-the grave. It is to that place I go!"

The lady had become as tragic as her husband-even more so, in her way. She moved across the room with the air of a tragedy queen-Parisian. The Vicomte was visibly affected. He fastened a convulsive clutch upon M. Berigny's arm.

"Victor, tell me, what shall I do? Advise me, oh, my friend! This is a critical moment in my life! It is impossible that I should let her go. Antoinette!"

The Vicomte advanced, just in time, between the lady and the door.

"Monsieur, I entreat of you this last boon, to let me go. You have insulted me in the presence of a stranger; for me, therefore, nothing else remains. You have inquired if you should kill me. No, Philippe, you need not kill me; it is myself I will kill!"

"Antoinette!"

"I am no longer Antoinette; I am the woman whose happiness you have destroyed. It is only when I am dead that you will learn what is written on my heart for you."

"Antoinette," the strong man's voice faltered, "Antoinette, am I never, then, to be forgiven?"

There was a momentary pause. Then the lady held out both her hands. "Philippe!"

"My heart! my soul! thou treasure of my life! thou star of my existence! Is it possible that a cloud should have interposed itself between thy path and mine?"

He took her in his arms. He pressed her to his breast. M. Berigny turned away. From his attitude it almost seemed as if the soldier-the man of ramrods and of bayonets! – wiped away a tear.

"Philippe! Take care, or you will derange my hat!"

"Antoinette! My beautiful, my own!"

"Philippe, do you not think you should apologize-take care, my friend, or you certainly will derange my hat! – to the stranger who has made immortal the face of the woman who loved you better than her life-my friend, take care! – who has made her appear on canvas so much more beautiful than she is in life?"

"No, Antoinette, that I will not have. It is impossible. Beauty such as yours in not to be rendered by a painter's brush!"

"If that be so, all the more reason why we should be grateful to Mr. Lovell for endeavouring the impossible."

The lady peeped at Mr. Lovell with the quaintest malice in her eyes.

"Certainly, Antoinette, there is something in what you say. And, after all, it is a charming painting. I said, Victor, when I saw it, there can be no doubt, as a painting, it is charming-did I not say so?" M. Berigny inclined his head. With his handkerchief the Vicomte smoothed his moustache. He advanced towards Mr. Lovell: "Monsieur, a Frenchman-a true Frenchman-seldom errs. On those rare occasions on which he errs he is always willing, under proper conditions, to confess his error. Monsieur, I perceive that I have done you an injustice. For the injustice which I have done you-I desire to apologize."

Mr. Lovell smiled. He held out his hand.

"My dear fellow! There's nothing for which you need apologize."

The Vicomte grasped the artist's hand in both of his.

"My dear friend!" he cried.

"Philippe," whispered the lady into her husband's ear, "do you not think that you would like Mr. Lovell and his friend to favour us with their company at luncheon?"

The Vicomte seemed to think he would. They lunched together-all the five! Why not?

THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN
(Miss Whitby writes to her Mother.)

My Dearest Mamma, – You will be surprised, and I hope you will be pleased to hear that I am engaged to be married! You are not to smile-it would be cruel-this, really, is serious. Charlie is all that a husband should be-you are not to laugh at that-you know exactly what I mean. I am nearly twenty, and, this time, I feel that my happiness really is at stake. I may not be able to keep my looks for long-some girls lose them when they are quite young-and something seems to tell me that I ought to begin to look life seriously in the face, and become responsible. I almost wish that I had taken to district visiting, like Emma Mortimer-it might have balanced me. Poor Emma! what a pity she is so plain.

Will you mind hinting to Tom Wilson that I think he might be happy with Nora Cathcart? It is true that I made him promise that he would never speak to her again, but all that is over. I hope you will not think me fickle, dear mamma. I enclose the ring Tom gave me. Will you please give it to him? And point out to him that I am now persuaded that boy and girl attachments never come to anything serious.

By the way, do not forget to tell them to send two pairs of evening shoes. Those which I have are quite worn out. Let both pairs be perfectly plain bronze. Charlie thinks that they make my feet look almost ethereal. Is he not absurd? But I hope that you will not think so, when you come to know him, for he loves your child. You might also ask them to send me a dozen pairs of stockings-nice ones. All mine seem to be in holes. You know I like them as long as you can get them.

I have been here nearly a month, and I have been almost engaged to three different men. How time does seem to fly! Lily says I am a heartless little flirt. I think that perhaps I was, until he came. He has been here just a week, and I seem to have known him years.

Lily seems to be under the impression that I was engaged to Captain Pentland. She is wrong. Captain Pentland has some very noble qualities. He is destined to make some true woman profoundly happy. Of that I have no doubt whatever. But I am not that woman. No, dear mamma, I feel that now. Besides, he wears an eyeglass. As you are aware, I have always had an insuperable objection to an eyeglass. It seems to savour of affectation. And affectation I cannot stand. And then he lisps. As I told you, when I wrote you last, when I sprained my ankle on Highdown Hill, he carried me in his arms for over a mile. Of course, I was grateful. And, between you and me, dear mamma, he held me so very closely to him, that, afterwards I felt as if I ought to marry him. I have explained everything to Charlie. He quite agrees with me that it is absurd for Captain Pentland to think himself ill-used.

While I think of it, when you are in town will you tell them to send me a box of assorted chocolates? You know the kind I like. There is nothing of that sort to be had here, and I do so long for some.

Charlie is Lily's cousin. Do you think that cousins ought to kiss each other? I wish I could get the opinion of someone on whose judgment I could implicitly rely. At any rate, even supposing that they ought I am quite sure that there should be limits. Before long I am afraid that I shall have to give Charlie a hint that I do not think, under the circumstances, that he ought to kiss Lily quite as much as he does me. She may be his cousin, but she is young, and she is pretty. And cousins are not sisters. It is nonsense for people to pretend they are.

The odd part of it is that if Charlie had not been so fond of kissing Lily I might not be going to marry him now. I knew that he was coming. And I was sitting alone in the drawing-room, in a half-light, with my back to the door, when suddenly someone, putting his arm round my waist, lifting me off my feet, twisted me right round, and began kissing me on my eyes and lips and everywhere.

I thought it was Captain Pentland. Though I was astonished at such behaviour even from him-because it was only that morning we quarrelled. You may judge of my astonishment when I was again able to look out of my own eyes, to find myself being held, as if I were a baby, or a doll, in the arms of a perfect giant of a man, whom I had never seen before. You may imagine how shocked I felt, because, as you know well, my views on such subjects-which I owe to your dear teaching-are, if anything, too severe. I will do him the justice to admit that he seemed to be almost as much shocked as I was.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "ten thousand times. I thought that you were Lily."

He put me down very much as you handle your Chelsea cups, mamma-softly and delicately, as if he had been afraid of chipping pieces off me.

"I suppose you're Charlie?"

I spoke more lightly and more cheerfully than I felt. He seemed so ashamed of himself, and so confused, that I pitied him. You know, dear mamma, that when people know, and feel, that they have done wrong, I always pity them. I cannot help it. It is my nature. All flesh is weak. I myself am prone to err. When Lily did appear, we were talking quite as if we knew each other. And that is how it began. It is odd how these sort of things sometimes do begin. As you are aware, I speak as one who has had experience. I shall always believe that it was only the breaking of a shoelace which first brought Norman Eliot and me together.

But those chapters in my life are closed. In the days which are past I may have seemed to hesitate, to occasionally have changed my mind. But now my life is linked to Charlie's by bonds which never shall be broken. I feel as if I were already married. The gravity of existence is commencing to weigh upon my mind. A woman when she is nearly twenty is no longer young.

While I remember it, when you send the chocolates don't send any walnuts. I am sick of them. Variously flavoured creams are what I really like. And let two pairs of the stockings be light blue, with bronze stripes high up the leg.

I cannot truly say that Lily is behaving to me quite nicely in my relations with Charlie. I do not wish to wrong her, even in my thoughts-she is the very dearest friend I have! – but, sometimes, I cannot help thinking that she had an eye on Charlie for herself. Because when the other morning I was telling her how strongly I disapproved of cousins marrying, if she had not been Lily-whose single-hearted affection I have every faith in-I should have said that she was positively rude. Charlie only proposed to me last night, yet, although she must have seen what was coming, in the afternoon she was actually talking to me of Norman Eliot-as if I had been to blame! Mr. Eliot and I never really were engaged-some people jump to conclusions without proper justification. And am I compelled to answer a person's letters if, for reasons of my own-quite private reasons-I do not choose to?

She came to my bedroom last night, just as I was going to bed. I told her what Charlie had said, and what I had said. Of course I expected her to congratulate me-as, in circumstances such as mine, a girl's best friend ought to do. She heard me to an end, and she looked at me, and said:

"So you've done it again."

"I don't know about again, dear Lily," I replied. "But it would seem as if I had done it at last. I am feeling so happy that it almost makes me afraid."

"Some girls would feel afraid if they had reason to be conscious of the fact that they had engaged themselves to marry three men at once."

I could not help but notice that a jarring something was in her tone. But I paid no heed to it.

My thoughts were elsewhere.

"How wrong it is," I murmured, "for people to scoff at love. They cannot know what love is-as I do."

"Perhaps not. I should think that what you don't know about love, May, isn't worth knowing." I sighed.

"I fancy, Lily dear, that I have heard stories about you."

"I daresay; but I never snapped up your favourite cousin from under your nose. Possibly you will not mind telling me if you do mean to marry one of them, and, if so, which."

"Lily! How can you ask me such a question? Have I not just been telling you that there is only one man in the world for me, henceforth and for ever, and that his name is Charlie?"

"Exactly. Only last week you told me precisely the same story, and his name was Jim, while about a fortnight ago, it was Norman."

My dearest mamma, you see I am making a clean breast of everything to you. I own, quite candidly, that since I have been here I have not behaved precisely as I might have done, and, indeed, ought to have done. I do not know how it is, I meant to be good; I am sure that nothing could have been better than my resolutions. I had no idea that they could have been so easily broken. It only shows, after all, how fragile we are. I felt that, strange and sad though it seems, Lily was not wholly unjust. I got up from my chair, and I knelt at her feet, and I pillowed my head in her lap and I cried:

"Oh, Lily, I've been so wicked! You can't think how sorry I am, now that it's too late. I wish you'd help me, and tell me what I ought to do."

"I'm a bit of a dab at a cry myself," she said. "So, if you take my advice, to begin with, you'll literally dry up."

Was it not unkind? And was it not vulgar? But I sometimes think that Lily's heart is like the nether millstone-so hard, you know. She went on:

"If you do mean business with Charlie, and you do want my advice, you'll just tell him everything you have been doing, and leave the solution of the situation to him."

I made up my mind there and then that that was exactly what I would do. I resolved that I would have no secrets from my husband-particularly as he would be sure to be told them by unfriendly lips if he did not learn them from mine. Besides, in such matters, a man is so much more generous, and so much more sympathetic than a woman-especially the man. Nor does he value you any the less because he finds that someone else happens to value you a little too.

So, directly Lily had gone I let my hair down, and I put on my light blue dressing-jacket and a touch of powder, and I waited. Presently I heard steps coming along the passage. I opened the door. Sure enough it was Charlie, just going to bed. At sight of me he started. I was conscious that I was, perhaps, acting with some imprudence. But I could not help it. My entire happiness was at stake. You know, dear mamma, that I do look nice in that pretty dressing-jacket, with my hair, not at all untidy, but simply let down. You yourself have told me that, in every sense of the word, I look so young. He held out his hands to me-under a misapprehension. I shrank back.

"Mr. Mason," I began very softly, with, in my voice, a sort of sob, "I could not rest until I had told you all that has passed between us to-night must be considered as unsaid."

He started as if I had struck him. I could see that his face went white.

"Miss Whitby! May! What do you mean?" He seemed to gasp for breath. "After all, it is only natural that you should not love a great hulking idiot such as I am."

"You are mistaken. You are not a great hulking idiot. And I do love you. I shall never love anyone but you. It is you who will not love me when you have heard all I have to say."

"What nonsense are you talking?"

Again he held out his arms to me. And again I shrank away.

"It is not nonsense. I wish it were. So far is it from being nonsense that I felt that I could not be at peace until my conscience was unburdened." I paused. I felt the crucial moment was arriving. My voice sank lower. "Someone else was staying here before you came."

"Yes, I know; Lily told me-a man named Pentland."

"Oh, Lily told you so much, did she? Did Lily also tell you that the man named Pentland had bad taste enough to fancy that he had fallen in love with me?"

"Bad taste, you call it. I know nothing about the man, but there, evidently, can be no sort of doubt about his perfect taste."

"But, Charlie-I mean, Mr. Mason."

"You don't-you mean Charlie."

Dear mamma, once more I sighed. I perceived that it would have to be. Some men are so dictatorial.

"The worst of it is that he worried and worried me so-I was staying in the same house, and couldn't get away from him, you see-that he made me almost think I cared for him. But now you have come, and made me see what a mistake it was."

"My little love."

For the third time he held out his arms to me. And, this time, he took me in them. I could not find it in my heart to resist him any longer; it might be the last time he would ever hold me there. I continued my remarks with my head not very far away from his waistcoat. He smoothed my hair, very softly, with his great right hand.