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Title: The Vicissitudes of Evangeline

Author: Elinor Glyn

Release date: April 3, 2016 [eBook #51644]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Giovanni Fini, Clarity and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VICISSITUDES OF EVANGELINE ***




Produced by Giovanni Fini, Clarity and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)







                         TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

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                                                  THE
                                                  VICISSITUDES
                                                  OF
                                                  EVANGELINE




                        _All rights reserved._

                        _Copyright in America._

[Illustration: _Evangeline._]




  THE
  VICISSITUDES
  OF
  EVANGELINE

                                            BY ELINOR GLYN

                                               AUTHOR OF
                                               “THE VISITS OF ELIZABETH”
                                               AND “THE REFLECTIONS OF
                                               AMBROSINE”

[Illustration]

  LONDON
  DUCKWORTH & CO.
  3, HENRIETTA STREET
  COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
  MDCCCCV




              CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
                  TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.




                                  TO
                        THE WOMEN WITH RED HAIR




  THE BEGINNING OF
  EVANGELINE’S JOURNAL




            THE BEGINNING OF
            EVANGELINE’S JOURNAL


  BRANCHES PARK,

  _November 3rd, 1904_.

I WONDER so much if it is amusing to be an adventuress, because that
is evidently what I shall become now. I read in a book all about it;
it is being nice-looking and having nothing to live on, and getting a
pleasant time out of life--and I intend to do that! I have certainly
nothing to live on, for one cannot count £300 a year--and I am
extremely pretty, and I know it quite well, and how to do my hair, and
put on my hats, and those things, so, of course, I am an adventuress!
I was not intended for this _rôle_--in fact Mrs. Carruthers adopted
me on purpose to leave me her fortune, as at that time she had
quarrelled with her heir, who was bound to get the place. Then she was
so inconsequent as not to make a proper will--thus it is that this
creature gets everything, and I nothing!

I am twenty, and up to the week before last, when Mrs. Carruthers got
ill, and died in one day, I had had a fairly decent time at odd moments
when she was in a good temper.

There is no use pretending even when people are dead, if one is writing
down one’s real thoughts. I detested Mrs. Carruthers most of the time.
A person whom it was impossible to please. She had no idea of justice,
or of anything but her own comfort, and what amount of pleasure other
people could contribute to her day!

How she came to do anything for me at all was because she had been
in love with papa, and when he married poor mamma--a person of no
family--and then died, she offered to take me, and bring me up, just
to spite mamma, she has often told me. As I was only four I had no say
in the matter, and if mamma liked to give me up that was her affair.
Mamma’s father was a lord, and her mother I don’t know who, and they
had not worried to get married, so that is how it is poor mamma came to
have no relations. After papa was dead she married an Indian officer,
and went off to India, and died too, and I never saw her any more--so
there it is, there is not a soul in the world who matters to me, or I
to them, so I can’t help being an adventuress, and thinking only of
myself, can I?

Mrs. Carruthers periodically quarrelled with all the neighbours, so
beyond frigid calls now and then in a friendly interval, we never saw
them much. Several old, worldly ladies used to come to stay, but I
liked none of them, and I have no young friends. When it is getting
dark, and I am up here alone, I often wonder what it would be like if
I had--but I believe I am the kind of cat that would not have got on
with them too nicely--so perhaps it is just as well; only to have had a
pretty--aunt, say, to love one, that might have been nice.

Mrs. Carruthers had no feelings like this. “Stuff and
nonsense”--“sentimental rubbish” she would have called them. To get
a suitable husband is what she brought me up for, she said, and for
the last years had arranged that I should marry her detested heir,
Christopher Carruthers, as I should have the money, and he the place.

He is a diplomat, and lives in Paris, and Russia, and amusing places
like that, so he does not often come to England. I have never seen him.
He is quite old--over thirty--and has hair turning gray.

Now he is master here, and I must leave--unless he proposes to marry me
at our meeting this afternoon, which he probably won’t do.

However, there can be no harm in my making myself look as attractive
as possible under the circumstances. As I am to be an adventuress, I
must do the best I can for myself. Nice feelings are for people who
have money to live as they please. If I had ten thousand a year, or
even five, I would snap my fingers at all men, and say, “No, I make my
life as I choose, and shall cultivate knowledge and books, and indulge
in beautiful ideas of honour and exalted sentiments, and perhaps one
day succumb to a noble passion.” (What grand words the thought even is
making me write!!) But as it is, if Mr. Carruthers asks me to marry
him, as he has been told to do by his aunt, I shall certainly say yes,
and so stay on here, and have a comfortable home. Until I have had this
interview it is hardly worth while packing anything.

What a mercy black suits me! My skin is ridiculously white--I shall
stick a bunch of violets in my frock, that could not look heartless, I
suppose. But if he asks me if I am sad about Mrs. Carruthers’ death, I
shall not be able to tell a lie.

I am sad, of course, because death is a terrible thing, and to die like
that, saying spiteful things to every one, must be horrid--but I can’t,
I can’t regret her! Not a day ever passed that she did not sting some
part of me--when I was little, it was not only with her tongue, she
used to pinch me, and box my ears until Doctor Garrison said it might
make me deaf, and then she stopped, because she said deaf people were
a bore, and she could not put up with them.

I shall not go on looking back! There are numbers of things that even
now make me raging to remember.

I have only been out for a year. Mrs. Carruthers got an attack of
bronchitis when I was eighteen, just as we were going up to town for
the season, and said she did not feel well enough for the fatigues, and
off we went to Switzerland. And in the autumn we travelled all over the
place, and in the winter she coughed and groaned, and the next season
would not go up until the last court, so I have only had a month of
London. The bronchitis got perfectly well, it was heart-failure that
killed her, brought on by an attack of temper because Thomas broke the
Carruthers vase.

I shall not write of her death, or the finding of the will, or the
surprise that I was left nothing but a thousand pounds, and a diamond
ring.

Now that I am an adventuress, instead of an heiress, of what good to
chronicle all that! Sufficient to say if Mr. Carruthers does not obey
his orders, and offer me his hand this afternoon, I shall have to pack
my trunks, and depart by Saturday--but where to is yet in the lap of
the gods!

He is coming by the 3.20 train, and will be in the house before four,
an ugly, dull time; one can’t offer him tea, and it will be altogether
trying and exciting.

He is coming ostensibly to take over his place, I suppose, but in
reality it is to look at me, and see if in any way he will be able to
persuade himself to carry out his aunt’s wishes. I wonder what it will
be like to be married to some one you don’t know, and don’t like? I am
not greatly acquainted yet with the ways of men. We have not had any
that you could call that here, much--only a lot of old wicked sort of
things, in the autumn, to shoot the pheasants, and play bridge with
Mrs. Carruthers. The marvel to me was how they ever killed anything,
such antiques they were! Some Politicians and ex-Ambassadors, and
creatures of that sort; and mostly as wicked as could be. They used
to come trotting down the passage to the schoolroom, and have tea with
Mademoiselle and me on the slightest provocation! and say such things!
I am sure lots of what they said meant something else, Mademoiselle
used to giggle so. She was rather a good-looking one I had the last
four years, but I hated her. There was never anyone young and human who
counted.

I did look forward to coming out in London, but, being so late, every
one was preoccupied when we got there--and no one got in love with
me much. Indeed, we went out very little, a part of the time I had a
swollen nose from a tennis ball at Ranelagh--and people don’t look at
girls with swollen noses.

I wonder where I shall go and live! Perhaps in Paris--unless, of
course, I marry Mr. Carruthers,--I don’t suppose it is dull being
married. In London all the married ones seemed to have a lovely time,
and had not to bother with their husbands much.

Mrs. Carruthers always assured me love was a thing of absolutely no
consequence in marriage. You were bound to love some one, some time,
but the very fact of being chained to him would dispel the feeling. It
was a thing to be looked upon like measles, or any other disease, and
was better to get it over, and then turn to the solid affairs of life.
But how she expected me to get it over when she never arranged for me
to see anyone I don’t know.

I asked her one day what I should do if I got to like some one after I
am married to Mr. Carruthers, and she laughed one of her horrid laughs,
and said I should probably do as the rest of the world. And what do
they do?--I wonder?--Well, I suppose I shall find out some day.

Of course there is the possibility that Christopher (do I like the name
of Christopher, I wonder?)--well, that Christopher may not want to
follow her will.

He has known about it for years, I suppose, just as I have, but I
believe men are queer creatures, and he may take a dislike to me. I am
not a type that would please every one. My hair is too red, brilliant
dark fiery red like a chestnut when it tumbles out of its shell, only
burnished like metal. If I had the usual white eyelashes I should be
downright ugly, but, thank goodness! by some freak of nature mine are
black and thick, and stick out when you look at me sideways, and I
often think when I catch sight of myself in the glass that I am really
very pretty--all put together--but, as I said before, not a type to
please every one.

A combination I am that Mrs. Carruthers assured me would cause
anxieties. “With that mixture, Evangeline,” she often said, “you would
do well to settle yourself in life as soon as possible. Good girls
don’t have your colouring.” So you see, as I am branded as bad from
the beginning, it does not much matter what I do. My eyes are as green
as pale emeralds, and long, and not going down at the corners with the
Madonna expression of Cicely Parker, the Vicar’s daughter. I do not
know yet what is being good, or being bad, perhaps I shall find out
when I am an adventuress, or married to Mr. Carruthers.

All I know is that I want to _live_, and feel the blood rushing through
my veins. I want to do as I please, and not have to be polite when I
am burning with rage. I want to be late in the morning if I happen
to fancy sleeping, and I want to sit up at night if I don’t want to
go to bed! So, as you can do what you like when you are married, I
really hope Mr. Carruthers will take a fancy to me, and then all will
be well! I shall stay upstairs until I hear the carriage-wheels, and
leave Mr. Barton--the lawyer--to receive him. Then I shall saunter
down nonchalantly while they are in the hall. It will be an effective
entrance. My trailing black garments, and the great broad stairs--this
is a splendid house--and if he has an eye in his head he must see my
foot on each step! Even Mrs. Carruthers said I have the best foot she
had ever seen. I am getting quite excited. I shall ring for Véronique
and begin to dress!... I shall write more presently.


  _Thursday evening._

IT is evening, and the fire is burning brightly in my sitting-room
where I am writing. _My_ sitting-room!--did I say? Mr. Carruthers’
sitting-room I meant--for it is mine no longer, and on Saturday, the
day after to-morrow, I shall have to bid good-bye to it forever.

For yes--I may as well say it at once--the affair did not walk. Mr.
Carruthers quietly, but firmly, refused to obey his aunt’s will, and
thus I am left an old maid!

I must go back to this afternoon to make it clear, and I must say my
ears tingle as I think of it.

I rang for Véronique, and put on my new black afternoon frock, which
had just been unpacked. I tucked in the violets in a careless way.
Saw that my hair was curling as vigorously as usual, and not too
rebelliously for a demure appearance, and so, at exactly the right
moment, began to descend the stairs.

There was Mr. Carruthers in the hall. A horribly nice-looking, tall
man, with a clean-shaven face, and features cut out of stone. A square
chin, with a nasty twinkle in the corner of his eye. He has a very
distinguished look, and that air of never having had to worry for his
things to fit, they appear as if they had grown on him. He has a cold,
reserved manner, and something commanding and arrogant in it, which
makes one want to contradict him at once, but his voice is charming.
One of that cultivated, refined kind, that sounds as if he spoke a
number of languages, and so does not slur his words. I believe this
is diplomatic, for some of the old ambassador people had this sort of
voice.

He was standing with his back to the fire, and the light of the big
window with the sun getting low was full on his face, so I had a good
look at him. I said in the beginning that there was no use pretending
when one is writing one’s own thoughts for one’s own self to read when
one is old, and keeping them in a locked-up journal, so I shall always
tell the truth here--quite different things to what I should say if
I were talking to someone, and describing to them this scene. Then I
should say I found him utterly unattractive, and in fact, I hardly
noticed him! As it was, I noticed him very much, and I have a tiresome
inward conviction that he could be very attractive indeed, if he liked.

He looked up, and I came forward with my best demure air, as Mr. Barton
nervously introduced us, and we shook hands. I left him to speak first.

“Abominably cold day,” he said, carelessly. That was English and
promising!

“Yes, indeed,” I said. “You have just arrived?”

And so we continued in this banal way, with Mr. Barton twirling his
thumbs, and hoping, one could see, that we should soon come to the
business of the day; interposing a remark here and there, which added
to the _gêne_ of the situation.

At last Mr. Carruthers said to Mr. Barton that he would go round and
see the house; and I said tea would be ready when they got back. And so
they started.

My cheeks would burn, and my hands were so cold, it was awkward and
annoying, not half the simple affair I had thought it would be upstairs.

When it was quite dark, and the lamps were brought, they came back to
the hall, and Mr. Barton, saying he did not want any tea, left us to
find papers in the library.

I gave Mr. Carruthers some tea, and asked the usual things about sugar
and cream. His eye had almost a look of contempt as he glanced at me,
and I felt an angry throb in my throat. When he had finished he got up,
and stood before the fire again. Then, deliberately, as a man who has
determined to do his duty at any cost, he began to speak:

“You know the wish--or rather, I should say, the command, my aunt left
me,” he said--“in fact she states that she had always brought you up
to the idea. It is rather a tiresome thing to discuss with a stranger,
but perhaps we had better get it over as soon as possible, as that
is what I came down here to-day for. The command was, I should marry
you.”--He paused a moment. I remained perfectly still, with my hands
idly clasped in my lap, and made myself keep my eyes on his face.

He continued, finding I did not answer--just a faint tone of resentment
creeping into his voice--because I would not help him out, I suppose--I
should think not! I loved annoying him!

“It is a preposterous idea in these days for any one to dispose of
people’s destinies in this way, and I am sure you will agree with me
that such a marriage would be impossible.”

“Of course I agree,” I replied, lying with a tone of careless
sincerity. I had to control all my real feelings of either anger or
pleasure for so long in Mrs. Carruthers’ presence that I am now an
adept.

“I am so glad you put it so plainly,” I went on sweetly. “I was
wondering how I should write it to you, but now you are here it
is quite easy for us to finish the matter at once. Whatever Mrs.
Carruthers may have intended me to do, I had no intention of obeying
her, but it would have been useless for me to say so to her, and so I
waited until the time for speech should come. Won’t you have some more
tea?”

He looked at me very straightly, almost angrily, for an instant;
presently, with a sigh of relief, he said, half laughing--

“Then we are agreed, we need say no more about it!”

“No more,” I answered, and I smiled too, although a rage of anger
was clutching my throat. I do not know who I was angry with--Mrs.
Carruthers for procuring this situation, Christopher for being
insensible to my charms, or myself for ever having contemplated for a
second the possibility of his doing otherwise. Why, when one thinks of
it calmly, should he want to marry me? A penniless adventuress with
green eyes, and red hair, that he had never seen before in his life. I
hoped he thought I was a person of naturally high colour, because my
cheeks from the moment I began to dress had been burning and burning.
It might have given him the idea the scene was causing me some emotion,
and that he should never know!

He took some more tea, but he did not drink it, and by this I guessed
that he also was not as calm as he looked!

“There is something else,” he said. And now there was almost an
awkwardness in his voice. “Something else which I want to say, though
perhaps Mr. Barton could say it for me--but which I would rather say
straight to you--and that is you must let me settle such a sum of
money on you as you had every right to expect from my aunt, after the
promises I understand she always made to you----”

This time I did not wait for him to finish! I bounded up from my
seat--some uncontrollable sensation of wounded pride throbbing and
thrilling through me.

“Money!--Money from you!” I exclaimed. “Not if I were starving!”--then
I sat down again, ashamed of this vehemence. How would he interpret
it! But it galled me so, and yet I had been ready an hour ago to have
accepted him as my husband! Why, then, this revolt at the idea of
receiving a fair substitute in gold? Really, one is a goose, and I had
time to realize, even in this tumult of emotion, that there can be
nothing so inconsistent as the feelings of a girl.

“You must not be foolish!” he said, coldly. “I intend to settle the
money whether you will or no, so do not make any further trouble about
it!”

There was something in his voice so commanding and arrogant, just as
I noticed at first, that every obstinate quality in my nature rose to
answer him.

“I do not know anything about the law in the matter; you may settle
what you choose, but I shall never touch any of it,” I said, as calmly
as I could; “so it seems ridiculous to waste the money, does it not?
You may not, perhaps, be aware I have enough of my own, and do not in
any way require yours.”

He became colder and more exasperated.

“As you please, then,” he said, snappishly, and Mr. Barton, fortunately
entering at that moment, the conversation was cut short, and I left
them.

They are not going back to London until to-morrow morning, and dinner
has yet to be got through. Oh! I do feel in a temper, and I can never
tell of the emotions that were throbbing through me as I came up the
great stairs just now. A sudden awakening to the humiliation of the
situation! How had I ever been able to contemplate marrying a man
I did not know, just to secure myself a comfortable home! It seems
preposterous now. I suppose it was because I have always been brought
up to the idea, and until I came face to face with the man, it did
not strike me as odd. Fortunately he can never guess that I had been
willing to accept him--my dissimulation has stood me in good stead. Now
I am animated by only one idea! To appear as agreeable and charming to
Mr. Carruthers as possible. The aim and object of my life shall be to
make him regret his decision. When I hear him imploring me to marry
him, I shall regain a little of my self-respect! And as for marriage,
I shall have nothing to do with the horrid affair! Oh dear no! I shall
go away free, and be a happy adventuress--I have read the “Trois
Mousquetaires,” and “Vingt Ans Après”--Mademoiselle had them--and I
remember milady had only three days to get round her jailer, starting
with his hating her, whereas Mr. Carruthers does not hate me, so that
counts against my only having one evening. I shall do my best--!


  _Thursday night._

I WAS down in the library, innocently reading a book when Mr.
Carruthers came in. He looked even better in evening dress, but he
appeared ill-tempered, and no doubt found the situation unpleasant.

“Is not this a beautiful house?” I said, in a velvet voice, to break
the awkward silence, and show him I did not share his unease. “You had
not seen it before, for ages, had you?”

“Not since I was a boy,” he answered, trying to be polite. “My aunt
quarrelled with my father--she was the direct heiress of all this,
and married her cousin, my father’s younger brother--but you know the
family history, of course----”

“Yes.”

“They hated one another, she and my father.”

“Mrs. Carruthers hated all her relations,” I said demurely.

“Myself among them?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, and bent forward, so that the lamplight should
fall upon my hair. “She said you were too much like herself in
character for you ever to be friends.”

“Is that a compliment?” he asked, and there was a twinkle in his eye.

“We must speak no ill of the dead,” I said, evasively.

He looked slightly annoyed, as much as these diplomats ever let
themselves look anything.

“You are right,” he said. “Let her rest in peace.”

There was silence for a moment.

“What are you going to do with your life now?” he asked, presently. It
was a bald question.

“I shall become an adventuress,” I answered deliberately.

“A _what_?” he exclaimed, his black eyebrows contracting.

“An adventuress. Is not that what it is called? A person who sees life,
and has to do the best she can for herself.”

He laughed. “You strange little lady?” he said, his irritation with me
melting. And when he laughs you can see how even his teeth are, but the
two side ones are sharp and pointed like a wolf’s.

“Perhaps after all you had better have married me!”

“No, that would clip my wings,” I said frankly, looking at him straight
in the face.

“Mr. Barton tells me you propose leaving here on Saturday. I beg
you will not do so--please consider it your home for so long as you
wish--until you can make some arrangements for yourself. You look so
very young to be going about the world alone!”

He bent down and gazed at me closer--there was an odd tone in his voice.

“I am twenty, and I have been often snubbed,” I said, calmly; “that
prepares one for a good deal. I shall enjoy doing what I please.”

“And what are you going to please?”

“I shall go to Claridge’s until I can look about me.”

He moved uneasily.

“But have you no relations? No one who will take care of you?”

“I believe none. My mother was nobody particular you know--a Miss
Tonkins by name.”

“But your father?” He sat down now on the sofa beside me; there was a
puzzled, amused look in his face--perhaps I was amazing him.

“Papa? Oh! Papa was the last of his family--they were decent people,
but there are no more of them.”

He pushed one of the cushions aside.

“It is an impossible position for a girl--completely alone. I cannot
allow it. I feel responsible for you. After all, it would do very well
if you married me--I am not particularly domestic by nature, and should
be very little at home--so you could live here, and have a certain
position, and I would come back now and then to see you were getting
on all right.”

One could not say if he were mocking, or no.

“It is too good of you,” I said, without any irony, “but I like
freedom, and when you were at home it might be such a bore----”

He leant back, and laughed merrily.

“You are candid, at any rate!” he said.

Mr. Barton came into the room at that moment, full of apologies for
being late. Immediately after, with the usual ceremony, the butler
entered and pompously announced, “Dinner is served, sir.” How quickly
they recognize the new master!

Mr. Carruthers gave me his arm, and we walked slowly down the picture
gallery to the banqueting hall, and there sat down at the small round
table in the middle, that always looks like an island in a lake.

I talked nicely at dinner. I was dignified and grave, and quite frank.
Mr. Carruthers was not bored. The _chef_ had outdone himself, hoping to
be kept on. I never felt so excited in my life.

I was apparently asleep under a big lamp, after dinner in the
library--a book of silly poetry in my lap--when the door opened and
he--Mr. Carruthers--came in alone, and walked up the room. I did not
open my eyes. He looked for just a minute--how accurate I am! Then he
said, “You are very pretty when asleep!”

His voice was not caressing, or complimentary, merely as if the fact
had forced this utterance.

I allowed myself to wake without a start.

“Was the ’47 port as good as you hoped?” I asked, sympathetically.

He sat down. I had arranged my chair so that there was none other
in its immediate neighbourhood. Thus he was some way off, and could
realize my whole silhouette.

“The ’47 port--oh yes!--but I am not going to talk of port. I want you
to tell me a lot more about yourself, and your plans.”

“I have no plans--except to see the world.”

He picked up a book, and put it down again; he was not perfectly calm.

“I don’t think I shall let you. I am more than ever convinced you ought
to have some one to take care of you; you are not of the type that
makes it altogether safe to roam about alone.”

“Oh! as for my type,” I said, languidly, “I know all about that. Mrs.
Carruthers said no one with this combination of colour could be good,
so I am not going to try. It will be quite simple.”

He rose quickly from his chair, and stood in front of the great log
fire, such a comical expression on his face.

“You are the quaintest child I have ever met,” he said.

“I am not a child--and I mean to know everything I can.”

He went over towards the sofa again, and arranged the cushions--great,
splendid, fat pillows of old Italian brocade, stiff with gold and
silver.

“Come!” he pleaded, “sit here beside me, and let us talk; you are miles
away there, and I want to--make you see reason.”

I rose at once, and came slowly to where he pointed. I settled myself
deliberately, there was one cushion of purple and silver right under
the light, and there I rested my head.

“Now talk!” I said, and half closed my eyes.

Oh! I was enjoying myself! The first time I have ever been alone with
a real man! They--the old ambassadors, and politicians, and generals,
used always to tell me I should grow into an attractive woman--now I
meant to try what I could do.

Mr. Carruthers remained silent--but he sat down beside me, and looked,
and looked right into my eyes.

“Now talk then,” I said again.

“Do you know, you are a very disturbing person,” he said at last, by
way of a beginning.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is a woman who confuses one’s thought when one looks at her. I do
not now seem to have anything to say--or too much.”

“You called me a child.”

“I should have called you an enigma.”

I assured him I was not the least complex, and that I only wanted
everything simple, and to be left in peace, without having to get
married, or worry to obey people.

We had a nice talk.

“You won’t leave here on Saturday,” he said, presently, apropos of
nothing. “I do not think I shall go myself, to-morrow. I want you to
show me all over the gardens, and your favourite haunts.”

“To-morrow I shall be busy packing,” I said, gravely, “and I do not
think I want to show you the gardens--there are some corners I rather
loved--I believe it will hurt a little to say good-bye.”

Just then Mr. Barton came into the room, fussy and ill at ease. Mr.
Carruthers’ face hardened again, and I rose to say good-night.

As he opened the door for me: “Promise you will come down to give me my
coffee in the morning,” he said.

“_Qui vivra verra_,” I answered, and sauntered out into the hall. He
followed me, and watched as I went up the staircase.

“Good-night!” I called softly, as I got to the top, and laughed a
little--I don’t know why.

He bounded up the stairs, three steps at a time, and before I could
turn the handle of my door, he stood beside me.

“I do not know what there is about you,” he said, “but you drive me
mad--I shall insist upon carrying out my aunt’s wish after all! I shall
marry you, and never let you out of my sight--do you hear?”

Oh! such a strange sense of exaltation crept over me--it is with me
still! Of course he probably will not mean all that to-morrow, but to
have made such a stiff block of stone rush upstairs, and say this much
now is perfectly delightful!

I looked at him up from under my eyelashes. “No, you will not marry
me,” I said, calmly; “or do anything else I don’t like, and now really
good-night!” and I slipped into my room, and closed the door. I could
hear he did not stir for some seconds. Then he went off down the stairs
again, and I am alone with my thoughts.

My thoughts! I wonder what they mean. What did I do that had this
effect upon him? I intended to do something, and I did it, but I am not
quite sure what it was. However, that is of no consequence. Sufficient
for me to know that my self-respect is restored, and I can now go out
and see the world with a clear conscience.

_He_ has asked me to marry him! and _I_ have said I won’t!

  BRANCHES PARK,

  _Thursday night, Nov. 3rd, 1904_.

 DEAR BOB,--A quaint thing has happened to me! Came down here to take
 over the place, and to say decidedly I would not marry Miss Travers,
 and I find her with red hair and a skin like milk, and a pair of green
 eyes that look at you from a forest of black eyelashes with a thousand
 unsaid challenges. I should not wonder if I commit some folly. One
 has read of women like this in the _cinque-cento_ time in Italy, but
 up to now I had never met one. She is not in the room ten minutes
 before one feels a sense of unrest, and desire for one hardly knows
 what--principally to touch her, I fancy. Good Lord! what a skin! pure
 milk and rare roses--and the reddest Cupid’s bow of a mouth! You had
 better come down at once, (these things are probably in your line) to
 save me from some sheer idiocy. The situation is exceptional; she and
 I practically alone in the house, for old Barton does not count. She
 has nowhere to go, and as far as I can make out has not a friend in
 the world. I suppose I ought to leave--I will try to on Monday, but
 come down to-morrow by the 4 train.

  Yours,

  CHRISTOPHER.

 P.S. ’47 port A1, and two or three brands of the old aunt’s champagne
 exceptional, Barton says; we can sample them. Shall send this up by
 express, you will get it in time for the 4 train.

(The above letter from Mr. Carruthers came into Evangeline’s possession
later, and which she put into her journal at this place.--Editor’s
note.)


  BRANCHES,

  _Friday night, November 4th._

THIS morning Mr. Carruthers had his coffee alone. Mr. Barton and I
breakfasted quite early, before 9 o’clock, and just as I was calling
the dogs in the hall for a run, with my outdoor things already on, Mr.
Carruthers came down the great stairs with a frown on his face.

“Up so early!” he said. “Are you not going to pour out my tea for me,
then?”

“I thought you said coffee! No, I am going out,” and I went on down the
corridor, the wolf-hounds following me.

“You are not a kind hostess!” he called after me.

“I am not a hostess at all,” I answered back, “only a guest.”

He followed me. “Then you are a very casual guest, not consulting the
pleasure of your host.”

I said nothing; I only looked at him over my shoulder, as I went down
the marble steps--looked at him, and laughed as on the night before.

He turned back into the house without a word, and I did not see him
again until just before luncheon.

There is something unpleasant about saying good-bye to a place, and
I found I had all sorts of sensations rising in my throat at various
points in my walk. However, all that is ridiculous, and must be
forgotten. As I was coming round the corner of the terrace, a great
gust of wind nearly blew me into Mr. Carruthers’ arms. Odious weather
we are having this autumn.

“Where have you been all the morning?” he said, when we had recovered
ourselves a little. “I have searched for you all over the place.”

“You do not know it all yet, or you would have found me,” I said,
pretending to walk on.

“No, you shall not go now,” he exclaimed, pacing beside me. “Why won’t
you be amiable and make me feel at home.”

“I do apologize if I have been unamiable,” I said, with great
frankness. “Mrs. Carruthers always brought me up to have such good
manners.”

After that he talked to me for half an hour about the place.

He seemed to have forgotten his vehemence of the night before. He asked
all sorts of questions, and showed a sentiment and a delicacy I should
not have expected from his hard face. I was quite sorry when the gong
sounded for luncheon and we went in.

I have no settled plan in my head--I seem to be drifting,--tasting
for the first time some power over another human being. It gave me
delicious thrills to see his eagerness when contrasted with the dry
refusal of my hand only the day before.

At lunch I addressed myself to Mr. Barton; he was too flattered at my
attention, and continued to chatter garrulously.

The rain came on, and poured, and beat against the window-panes with
a sudden angry thud. No chance of further walks abroad. I escaped
upstairs while the butler was speaking to Mr. Carruthers, and began
helping Véronique to pack. Chaos and desolation it all seemed in my
cosy rooms.

While I was on my knees in front of a great wooden box, hopelessly
trying to stow away books, a crisp tap came to the door, and without
more ado my host--yes, he is that now--entered the room.

“Good Lord! what is all this,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing?”

“Packing,” I said, not getting up.

He made an impatient gesture.

“Nonsense!” he said, “there is no need to pack. I tell you I will not
let you go. I am going to marry you and keep you here always.”

I sat down on the floor and began to laugh.

“You think so, do you?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t force me to marry you, you know--can you? I want to see the
world, I don’t want any tiresome man bothering after me. If I ever do
marry it will be because--oh, because----” and I stopped, and began
fiddling with the cover of a book.

“What?”

“Mrs. Carruthers said it was so foolish--but I believe I should prefer
to marry some one I liked. Oh! I know you think that silly,” and I
stopped him as he was about to speak, “but of course, as it does not
last any way, it might be good for a little to begin like that, don’t
you think so?”

He looked round the room, and on through the wide open double doors
into my dainty bedroom where Véronique was still packing.

“You are very cosy here, it is absurd of you to leave it,” he said.

I got up off the floor and went to the window and back. I don’t know
why I felt moved, a sudden sense of the cosiness came over me. The
world looked wet and bleak outside.

“Why do you say you want me to marry you, Mr. Carruthers?” I said. “You
are joking, of course.”

“I am not joking. I am perfectly serious. I am ready to carry out my
aunt’s wishes. It can be no new idea to you, and you must have worldly
sense enough to realize it would be the best possible solution of your
future. I can show you the world, you know.”

He appeared to be extraordinarily good-looking as he stood there, his
face to the dying light. Supposing I took him at his word, after all.

“But what has suddenly changed your ideas since yesterday? You told me
you had come down to make it clear to me that you could not possibly
obey her orders.”

“That was yesterday,” he said. “I had not really seen you; to-day I
think differently.”

“It is just because you are sorry for me; I suppose I seem so lonely,”
I whispered demurely.

“It is perfectly impossible--what you propose to do--to go and live by
yourself at a London hotel--the idea drives me mad!”

“It will be delightful! no one to order me about from morning to night!”

“Listen,” he said, and he flung himself into an armchair. “You can
marry me, and I will take you to Paris, or where you want, and I won’t
order you about,--only I shall keep the other beasts of men from
looking at you.”

But I told him at once I thought that would be very dull. “I have never
had the chance of any one looking at me,” I said, “and I want to feel
what it is like. Mrs. Carruthers always assured me I was very pretty,
you know, only she said that I was certain to come to a bad end,
because of my type, unless I got married at once, and then if my head
was screwed on the right way it would not matter; but I don’t agree
with her.”

He walked up and down the room impatiently.

“That is just it,” he said.” I would rather be the first--I would
rather you began by me. I am strong enough to ward off the rest.”

“What does ’beginning by you’ mean?” I asked with great candour. “Old
Lord Bentworth said I should begin by him, when he was here to shoot
pheasants last autumn; he said it could not matter, he was so old; but
I didn’t----”

Mr. Carruthers bounded up from his chair.

“You didn’t what! Good Lord, what did he want you to do!” he asked
aghast.

“Well,” I said, and I looked down for a moment, I felt stupidly shy,
“he wanted me to kiss him.”

Mr. Carruthers appeared almost relieved, it was strange!

“The old wretch! Nice company my aunt seems to have kept!” he
exclaimed. “Could she not take better care of you than that--to let you
be insulted by her guests.”

“I don’t think Lord Bentworth meant to insult me. He only said he had
never seen such a red, curly mouth as mine, and as I was bound to go to
the devil some day with that, and such hair, I might begin by kissing
him--he explained it all.”

“And were you not very angry?” his voice wrathful.

“No--not very, I could not be, I was shaking so with laughter. If you
could have seen the silly old thing, like a wizened monkey, with dyed
hair and an eyeglass, it was too comic!--I only told you because you
said the sentence ‘begin by you,’ and I wanted to know if it was the
same thing.”

Mr. Carruthers’ eyes had such a strange expression, puzzle and
amusement, and something else. He came over close to me.

“Because,” I went on, “if so, I believe if that is always the
beginning--I don’t want any beginnings--I haven’t the slightest desire
to kiss any one--I should simply hate it.”

Mr. Carruthers laughed. “Oh! you are only a baby child after all!” he
said.

This annoyed me. I got up with great dignity. “Tea will be ready in the
white drawing-room,” I said stiffly, and walked towards my bedroom door.

He came after me.

“Send your maid away, and let us have it up here,” he said. “I like
this room.”

But I was not to be appeased thus easily, and deliberately called
Véronique and gave her fresh directions.

“Poor old Mr. Barton will be feeling so lonely,” I said, as I went out
into the passage. “I am going to see that he has a nice tea,” and I
looked back at Mr. Carruthers over my shoulder. Of course he followed
me and we went together down the stairs.

In the hall a footman with a telegram met us. Mr. Carruthers tore it
open impatiently. Then he looked quite annoyed.

“I hope you won’t mind,” he said, “but a friend of mine, Lord Robert
Vavasour is arriving this afternoon--he is a--er--great judge of
pictures. I forgot I asked him to come down and look at them, it clean
went out of my head.”

I told him he was host; and why should I object to what guests he had.

“Besides, I am going myself to-morrow,” I said, “if Véronique can get
the packing done.”

“Nonsense--how can I make you understand that I do not mean to let you
go at all.”

I did not answer--only looked at him defiantly.

Mr. Barton was waiting patiently for us in the white drawing-room, and
we had not been munching muffins for five minutes when the sound of
wheels crunching the gravel of the great sweep--the windows of this
room look out that way--interrupted our manufactured conversation.

“This must be Bob arriving,” Mr. Carruthers said, and went reluctantly
into the hall to meet his guest.

They came back together presently, and he introduced Lord Robert to me.

I felt at once he was rather a pet! Such a shape! Just like the
Apollo of Belvidere! I do love that look, with a tiny waist and nice
shoulders, and looking as if he were as lithe as a snake, and yet could
break pokers in half like Mr. Rochester in “Jane Eyre”!

He has great, big, sleepy eyes of blue, and rather a plaintive
expression, and a little fairish moustache turned up at the corners,
and the nicest mouth one ever saw, and when you see him moving,
and the back of his head, it makes you think all the time of a
beautifully groomed thoroughbred horse. I don’t know why. At once--in a
minute--when we looked at one another, I felt I should like “Bob”! He
has none of Mr. Carruthers’ cynical, hard, expression, and I am sure he
can’t be nearly as old, not more than twenty-seven, or so.

He seemed perfectly at home, sat down and had tea, and talked in the
most casual, friendly way. Mr. Carruthers appeared to freeze up, Mr.
Barton got more banal--and the whole thing entertained me immensely.

I often used to long for adventures in the old days with Mrs.
Carruthers, and here I am really having them!

Such a situation! I am sure people would think it most improper! I
alone in the house with these three men! I felt I really would have to
go--but where!

Meanwhile I have every intention of amusing myself!

Lord Robert and I seemed to have a hundred things to say to one
another. I do like his voice--and he is so perfectly _sans gêne_, it
makes no difficulties. By the end of tea we were as old friends. Mr.
Carruthers got more and more polite, and stiff, and finally jumped up
and hurried his guest off to the smoking-room.

I put on such a duck of a frock for dinner, one of the sweetest
chastened simplicity, in black, showing peeps of skin through the thin
part at the top. Nothing could be more demure or becoming, and my
hair would not behave, and stuck out in rebellious waves and curls
everywhere.

I thought it would be advisable not to be in too good time, so
sauntered down after I knew dinner was announced.

They were both standing on the hearth rug. I always forget to count Mr.
Barton, he was in some chair, I suppose, but I did not notice him.

Mr. Carruthers is the taller--about one inch; he must be a good deal
over six feet, because the other one is very tall too, but now that
one saw them together Mr. Carruthers’ figure appeared stiff and set
beside Lord Robert’s, and he hasn’t got nearly such a little waist. I
wonder if any other nation can have that exquisitely _soigné_ look of
Englishmen in evening dress, I don’t believe so. They really are lovely
creatures, both of them, and I don’t yet know which I like best.

We had such an engaging time at dinner! I was as provoking as I could
be in the time--sympathetically absorbingly interested in Mr. Barton’s
long stories, and only looking at the other two now and then from under
my eyelashes--while I talked in the best demure fashion that I am
sure even Lady Katherine Montgomerie--a neighbour of ours--would have
approved of.

They should not be able to say I could not chaperone myself in any
situation.

“Dam-- good port this, Christopher,” Lord Robert said, when the ’47 was
handed round. “Is this what you asked me down to sample?”

“I thought it was to give your opinion about the pictures,” I
exclaimed, surprised. “Mr. Carruthers said you were a great judge.”

They looked at one another.

“Oh--ah--yes,” said Lord Robert, lying transparently. “Pictures are
awfully interesting. Will you show me them after dinner?”

“The light is too dim for a connoisseur to investigate them properly,”
I said.

“I shall have it all lit by electricity as soon as possible; I wrote
about it to-day,” Mr. Carruthers announced, sententiously. “But I will
show you the pictures myself, to-morrow, Bob.”

This at once decided me to take Lord Robert round to-night, and I told
him so in a velvet voice while Mr. Barton was engaging Christopher’s
attention.

They stayed such a long time in the dining-room after I left that I
was on my way to bed when they came out into the hall, and could with
difficulty be persuaded to remain for a few moments.

“I am too awfully sorry!” Lord Robert said. “I could not get away, I do
not know what possessed Christopher, he would sample ports, and talked
the hind leg off a donkey, till at last I said to him straight out I
wanted to come to you. So here I am--now you won’t go to bed, will
you--please, please.”

He has such pleading blue eyes--imploring pathetically like a baby in
distress--it is quite impossible to resist him! and we started down the
gallery.

Of course he did not know the difference between a Canaletto and a
Turner, and hardly made a pretence of being interested, in fact when we
got to the end where the early Italians hang, and I was explaining the
wonderful texture of a Madonna, he said:

“They all look sea-sick, and out of shape! don’t you think we might sit
in that comfy window seat and talk of something else!” Then he told me
he loved pictures, but not this sort.

“I like people to look human you know, even on canvas,” he said. “All
these ladies appear as if they were getting enteric like people used in
Africa, and I don’t like their halos, and things, and all the men are
old and bald. But you must not think me a Goth--you will teach me their
points, won’t you, and then I shall love them.”

I said I did not care a great deal for them myself, except the colour.

“Oh! I am so glad,” he said. “I should like to find we admired the same
things; but no picture could interest me as much as your hair. It is
the loveliest thing I have ever seen, and you do it so beautifully.”

That did please me! He has the most engaging ways, Lord Robert, and he
is very well informed, not stupid a bit, or thick, only absolutely
simple and direct. We talked softly together, quite happy for a while.

Then Mr. Carruthers got rid of Mr. Barton, and came towards us. I
settled myself more comfortably on the velvet cushions. Purple velvet
cushions and curtains in this gallery, good old relics of early
Victorian taste. Lots of the house is awful, but these curtains always
please me.

Mr. Carruthers’ face was as stern as a stone bust of Augustus Caesar. I
am sure the monks in the Inquisition looked like that. I do wonder what
he meant to say, but Lord Robert did not give him time.

“Do go away, Christopher,” he said; “Miss Travers is going to teach me
things about Italian Madonnas, and I can’t keep my attention if there
is a third person about.”

I suppose if Mr. Carruthers had not been a diplomat he would have
sworn, but I believe that kind of education makes you able to put your
face how you like, so he smiled sweetly, and took a chair near.

“I shall not leave you, Bob,” he said. “I do not consider you are a
good companion for Miss Evangeline. I am responsible for her, and I am
going to take care of her.”

“Then you should not have asked him here if he is not a respectable
person,” I said, innocently; “but Italian Madonnas ought to chasten and
elevate his thoughts. Anyway your responsibility towards me is self
constituted. I am the only person whom I mean to obey!” and I settled
myself deliberately in the velvet pillows.

“Not a good companion!” exclaimed Lord Robert, “What dam-- cheek,
Christopher. I have not my equal in the whole Household Cavalry, as you
know.”

They both laughed, and we continued to talk in a sparring way, Mr.
Carruthers sharp, subtle, and fine as a sword blade--Lord Robert
downright, simple, with an air of a puzzled baby.

When I thought they were both wanting me very much to stay, I got up,
and said good-night.

They both came down the gallery with me, and insisted upon each
lighting a candle from the row of burnished silver candlesticks in the
hall, which they presented to me with great mock homage. It annoyed
me, I don’t know why, and I suddenly froze up, and declined them both,
while I said good-night again stiffly, and walked in my most stately
manner up the stairs.

I could see Lord Robert’s eyebrows puckered into a more plaintive
expression than ever, while he let the beautiful silver candlestick
hang, dropping the grease on to the polished oak floor.

Mr. Carruthers stood quite still, and put his light back on the table.
His face was cynical and rather amused. I can’t say what irritation I
felt, and immediately decided to leave on the morrow--but where to,
Fate, or the Devil, could only know!

When I got to my room a lump came in my throat. Véronique had gone to
bed, tired out with her day’s packing.

I suddenly felt utterly alone, all the exaltation gone. For the moment
I hated the two downstairs. I felt the situation equivocal, and
untenable, and it had amused me so much an hour ago.

It is stupid and silly, and makes one’s nose red, but I felt like
crying a little before I got into bed.

  BRANCHES,

  _Saturday afternoon, Nov. 5th._

THIS morning I woke with a headache, to see the rain beating against
my windows, and mist and fog--a fitting day for the fifth of November.
I would not go down to breakfast. Véronique brought me mine to my
sitting-room fire, and, with Spartan determination, I packed steadily
all the morning.

About twelve a note came up from Lord Robert; I paste it in:

 “DEAR MISS TRAVERS,--Why are you hiding? Was I a bore last night? Do
 forgive me and come down. Has Christopher locked you in your room? I
 will murder the brute if he has!

  “Yours very sincerely,
  “ROBERT VAVASOUR.”

“Can’t, I am packing,” I scribbled in pencil on the envelope, and gave
it back to Charles, who was waiting in the hall for the answer. Two
minutes after Lord Robert walked into the room, the door of which the
footman had left open.

“I have come to help you,” he said in that voice of his that sounds so
sure of a welcome you can’t snub him; “but where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” I said, a little forlornly, and then bent down and
vigorously collected photographs.

“Oh, but you can’t go to London by yourself!” he said, aghast. “Look
here, I will come up with you, and take you to my aunt, Lady Merrenden.
She is such a dear, and I am sure when I have told her all about you
she will be delighted to take care of you for some days until you can
hunt round.”

He looked such a boy, and his face was so kind, I was touched.

“Oh no, Lord Robert! I cannot do that, but I thank you. I don’t want
to be under an obligation to any one,” I said firmly. “Mr. Carruthers
suggests a way out of the difficulty--that I should marry him, and stay
here. I don’t think he means it really, but he pretends he does.”

He sat down on the edge of a table already laden with books, most of
which overbalanced and fell crash on the floor.

“So Christopher wants you to marry him, the old fox!” he said,
apparently oblivious of the wreck of literature he had caused. “But you
won’t do that, will you? And yet I have no business to say that. He is
a dam-- good friend, Christopher.”

“I am sure you ought not to swear so often, Lord Robert, it shocks me,
brought up as I have been,” I said, with the air of a little angel.

“Do I swear?” he asked, surprised. “Oh no, I don’t think so--at least
there is no ‘n’ to the end of the ‘dams,’ so they are only an innocent
ornament to conversation. But I won’t do it, if you don’t wish me to.”

After that he helped me with the books, and was so merry and kind I
soon felt cheered up, and by lunch time all were finished, and in
the boxes ready to be tied up, and taken away. Véronique, too, had
made great progress in the adjoining room, and was standing stiff and
_maussade_ by my dressing-table when I came in. She spoke respectfully
in French, and asked me if I had made my plans yet, for, as she
explained to me, her own position seemed precarious, and yet having
been with me for five years, she did not feel she could leave me at
a juncture like this. At the same time she hoped Mademoiselle would
make some suitable decision, as she feared (respectfully) it was “_une
si drole de position pour une demoiselle du monde_,” alone with “_ces
messieurs_.”

I could not be angry, it was quite true what she said.

“I shall go up this evening to Claridge’s, Véronique,” I assured her,
“by about the 5.15 train. We will wire to them after luncheon.”

She seemed comforted, but she added, in the abstract, that a rich
marriage was what was obviously Mademoiselle’s fate, and she felt
sure great happiness and many jewels would await Mademoiselle, if
Mademoiselle could be persuaded to make up her mind. Nothing is sacred
to one’s maid! She knew all about Mr. Carruthers, of course. Poor old
Véronique--I have a big, warm corner for her in my heart--sometimes she
treats me with the frigid respect one would pay to a queen, and at
others I am almost her _enfant_, so tender and motherly she is to me.
And she puts up with all my tempers and moods, and pets me like a baby
just when I am the worst of all.

Lord Robert had left me reluctantly when the luncheon gong sounded.

“Haven’t we been happy?” he said, taking it for granted I felt the same
as he did. This is a very engaging quality of his, and makes one feel
sympathetic, especially when he looks into one’s eyes with his sleepy
blue ones. He has lashes as long and curly as a gipsy’s baby.

Mr. Carruthers was alone in the dining-room when I got in; he was
looking out of the window, and turned round sharply as I came up the
room. I am sure he would like to have been killing flies on the panes
if he had been a boy! His eyes were steel.

“Where have you been all the time?” he asked, when he had shaken hands
and said good-morning.

“Up in my room packing,” I said simply. “Lord Robert was so kind, he
helped me--we have got everything done, and may I order the carriage
for the 5.15 train, please?”

“Certainly not--confound Lord Robert!” Mr. Carruthers said. “What
business is it of his? You are not to go. I won’t let you. Dear, silly,
little child--” his voice was quite moved. “You can’t possibly go out
into the world all alone. Evangeline, why won’t you marry me? I--do you
know, I believe--I shall love you----”

“I should have to be _perfectly sure_ that the person I married loved
me, Mr. Carruthers,” I said, demurely, “before I consented to finish up
my life like that.”

He had no time to answer, for Mr. Barton and Lord Robert came into the
room.

There seemed a gloom over luncheon. There were pauses, and Lord
Robert had a more pathetic expression than ever. His hands are a nice
shape--but so are Mr. Carruthers’, they both look very much like
gentlemen.

Before we had finished, a note was brought in to me. It was from Lady
Katherine Montgomerie. She was too sorry, she said, to hear of my
lonely position, and she was writing to ask if I would not come over
and spend a fortnight with them at Tryland Court.

It was not well worded, and I had never cared much for Lady Katherine,
but it was fairly kind, and fitted in perfectly with my plans.

She had probably heard of Mr. Carruthers’ arrival, and was scandalized
at my being alone in the house with him.

Both men had their eyes fixed on my face when I looked up, as I
finished reading the note.

“Lady Katherine Montgomerie writes to ask me to Tryland,” I said;
“so if you will excuse me I will answer it, and say I will come this
afternoon,”--and I got up.

Mr. Carruthers rose too, and followed me into the library. He
deliberately shut the door and came over to the writing-table where I
sat down.

“Well, if I let you go, will you tell her then that you are engaged to
me, and I am going to marry you as soon as possible.”

“No, indeed I won’t!” I said, decidedly.

“I am not going to marry you, or any one, Mr. Carruthers. What do
you think of me--! Fancy my consenting to come back here for ever,
and live with you--when I don’t know you a bit--and having to put up
with your--perhaps--kissing me, and, and--things of that sort! It is
perfectly dreadful to think of!”

He laughed as if in spite of himself. “But supposing I promised not to
kiss you----?”

“Even so,” I said, and I couldn’t help biting the end of my pen, “it
could happen that I might get a feeling I wanted to kiss some one
else--and there it is! Once you’re married, everything nice is wrong!”

“Evangeline! I won’t let you go--out of my life--you strange little
witch, you have upset me, disturbed me, I can settle to nothing. I seem
to want you so very much.”

“Pouff!” I said, and I pouted at him.

“You have everything in your life to fill it--position, riches,
friends--you don’t want a green-eyed adventuress.”

I bent down and wrote steadily to Lady Katherine. I would be there
about 6 o’clock, I said, and thanked her in my best style.

“If I let you go, it is only for the time,” Mr. Carruthers said, as I
signed my name. “I _intend_ you to marry me--do you hear!”

“Again I say _qui vivra verra_!” I laughed, and rose with the note in
my hand.

Lord Robert looked almost ready to cry when I told him I was off in the
afternoon.

“I shall see you again,” he said. “Lady Katherine is a relation of my
aunt’s husband, Lord Merrenden. I don’t know her myself, though.”

I do not believe him--how can he see me again--young men do talk a lot
of nonsense.

“I shall come over on Wednesday to see how you are getting on,” Mr.
Carruthers said. “Please do be in.”

I promised I would, and then I came upstairs.

And so it has come to an end, my life at Branches. I am going to start
a new phase of existence, my first beginning as an adventuress!

How completely all one’s ideas can change in a few days. This day
three weeks ago Mrs. Carruthers was alive. This day two weeks ago I
found myself no longer a prospective heiress--and only three days
ago I was contemplating calmly the possibility of marrying Mr.
Carruthers--and now--for heaven--I would not marry any one! And so, for
fresh woods and pastures new. Oh! I want to see the world, and lots of
different human beings--I want to know what it is makes the clock go
round--that great, big, clock of life--I want to dance, and to sing,
and to laugh, and to _live_--and--and--yes--perhaps some day to kiss
some one I love----!

  TRYLAND COURT, HEADINGTON,

  _Wednesday, November 9th._

GOODNESS gracious! I have been here four whole days, and I continually
ask myself how I shall be able to stand it for the rest of the
fortnight. Before I left Branches I began to have a sinking at the
heart. There were horribly touching farewells with housekeepers and
people I have known since a child, and one hates to have that choky
feeling--especially as just at the end of it--while tears were still in
my eyes, Mr. Carruthers came out into the hall, and saw them--so did
Lord Robert!

I blinked, and blinked, but one would trickle down my nose. It was a
horribly awkward moment.

Mr. Carruthers made profuse inquiries as to my comforts for the drive,
in a tone colder than ever, and insisted upon my drinking some cherry
brandy. Such fussing is quite unlike his usual manner, so I suppose he
too felt it was a tiresome _quart d’heure_. Lord Robert did not hide
his concern, he came up to me and took my hand while Christopher was
speaking to the footman who was going with me.

“You are a dear,” he said, “and a brick, and don’t you forget I shall
come and stay with Lady Katherine before you leave, so you won’t feel
you are all among strangers.”

I thanked him, and he squeezed my hand so kindly--I do like Lord Robert.

Very soon I was gay again, and _insouciante_, and the last they saw of
me was smiling out of the brougham window as I drove off in the dusk.
They both stood upon the steps and waved to me.

Tea was over at Tryland when I arrived, such a long, damp drive! And
I explained to Lady Katherine how sorry I was to have had to come so
late, and that I could not think of troubling her to have up fresh for
me--but she insisted, and after a while a whole new lot came, made in
a hurry with the water not boiling, and I had to gulp down a nasty
cup--Ceylon tea, too--I hate Ceylon tea! Mr. Montgomerie warmed himself
before the fire, quite shielding it from us, who shivered on a row of
high-backed chairs beyond the radius of the hearth rug.

He has a way of puffing out his cheeks and making a noise like
“Bur-r-r-r”--which sounds very bluff and hearty, until you find he has
said a mean thing about some one directly after. And while red hair
looks very well on me, I do think a man with it is the ugliest thing in
creation. His face is red, and his nose and cheeks almost purple, and
fiery whiskers, fierce enough to frighten a cat in a dark lane.

He was a rich Scotch manufacturer, and poor Lady Katherine had to marry
him, I suppose, though, as she is Scotch herself, I daresay she does
not notice that he is rather coarse.

There are two sons and six daughters, one married, four grown-up, and
one at school in Brussels, and all with red hair!--but straight and
coarse, and with freckles and white eyelashes. So really it is very
kind of Lady Katherine to have asked me here.

They are all as good as gold on top, and one does poker work, and
another binds books and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth
knits ties--all for charities, and they ask everyone to subscribe to
them directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth one
were sitting working hard in the drawing-room--Kirstie and Jean are
their names--Jessie and Maggie, the poker worker and the bookbinder
have a sitting-room to themselves, their workshop they call it. They
were there still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We
used to meet once a year at Mrs. Carruthers’ Christmas parties ever
since ages and ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and
they generally had colds in their heads, and one year they gave every
one mumps, so they were not asked the next. The altar-cloth one, Jean,
is my age, the other three are older.

It was really very difficult to find something to say, and I can
quite understand common people fidgeting when they feel worried like
this. I have never fidgeted since eight years ago, the last time
Mrs. Carruthers boxed my ears for it. Just before going up to dress
for dinner Mr. Montgomerie asked blank out if it was true that Mr.
Carruthers had arrived. Lady Katherine had been skirting round this
subject for a quarter of an hour.

I only said yes, but that was not enough, and once started, he asked a
string of questions, with “Bur-r-r-r” several times in between. Was Mr.
Carruthers going to shoot the pheasants in November? Had he decided to
keep on the _chef_? Had he given up diplomacy? I said I really did not
know any of these things, I had seen so little of him.

Lady Katherine nodded her head, while she measured a comforter she was
knitting to see if it was long enough.

“I am sure it must have been most awkward for you, his arriving at all;
it was not very good taste on his part, I am afraid, but I suppose he
wished to see his inheritance as soon as possible,” she said.

I nearly laughed, thinking what she would say if she knew which part of
his inheritance he had really come to see. I do wonder if she has ever
heard that Mrs. Carruthers left me to him, more or less, in her will!

“I hope you had your old governess with you, at least,” she
continued, as we went up the stairs, “so that you could feel less
uncomfortable--really a most shocking situation for a girl alone in the
house with an unmarried man.”

I told her Mr. Barton was there too, but I had not the courage to say
anything about Lord Robert; only that Mr. Carruthers had a friend of
his down, who was a great judge of pictures, to see them.

“Oh! a valuer, I suppose. I hope he is not going to sell the
Correggios!” she exclaimed.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, leaving the part about the valuer
unanswered.

Mr. Carruthers, being unmarried, seemed to worry her most; she went on
about it again before we got to my bedroom door.

“I happened to hear a rumour at Miss Sheriton’s (the wool shop in
Headington, our town), this morning,” she said, “and so I wrote at once
to you. I felt how terrible it would be for one of my own dear girls
to be left alone with a bachelor like that--I almost wonder you did not
stay up in your own rooms.”

I thanked her for her kind thought, and she left me at last!

If she only knew! The unmarried ones who came down the passage to talk
to Mademoiselle were not half so saucy as the old fellows with wives
somewhere. Lord Bentworth was married, and he wanted me to kiss him,
whereas Colonel Grimston had no wife, and he never said bo! to a goose!
And I do wonder what she thought Mr. Carruthers was going to do to me,
that it would have been wiser for me to stay up in my rooms. Perhaps
she thinks diplomats, having lived in foreign places, are sort of wild
beasts.

My room is frightful after my pretty rosy chintzes at Branches. Nasty
yellowish wood furniture, and nothing much matching; however there are
plenty of wardrobes, so Véronique is content.

They were all in the drawing-room when I got down, and Malcolm, the
eldest son, who is in a Highland Militia regiment, had arrived by a
seven o’clock train.

I had that dreadful feeling of being very late, and Mr. Montgomerie
wanting to swear at me, though it was only a minute past a quarter to
eight.

He said “Bur-r-r-r” several times, and flew off to the dining-room with
me tucked under his arm, murmuring it gave no cook a chance to keep the
dinner waiting! So I expected something wonderful in the way of food,
but it is not half so good as our _chef_ gave us at Branches. And the
footmen are not all the same height, and their liveries don’t fit like
Mrs. Carruthers always insisted that ours should do.

Malcolm _is_ a tittsy-pootsy man! Not as tall as I am, and thin as a
rail, with a look of his knees being too near together. He must be
awful in a kilt, and I am sure he shivers when the wind blows, he has
that air. I don’t like kilts, unless men are big, strong, bronzed
creatures who don’t seem ashamed of their bare bits. I saw some
splendid specimens marching once in Edinburgh, and they swung their
skirts just like the beautiful ladies in the Bois, when Mademoiselle
and I went out of the Allée Mrs. Carruthers told us to try always to
walk in.

Lady Katherine talked a great deal at dinner about politics, and
her different charities, and the four girls were so respectful and
interested, but Mr. Montgomerie contradicted her whenever he could. I
was glad when we went into the drawing-room.

That first evening was the worst of all, because we were all so
strange; one seems to get acclimatized to whatever it is after a while.

Lady Katherine asked me if I had not some fancy work to do. Kirstie had
begun her ties, and Jean the altar-cloth again.

“Do let Maggie run to your room and fetch it for you,” she said.

I was obliged to tell her I never did any. “But I--I can trim hats,”
I said. It really seemed so awful not to be able to do anything like
them, I felt I must say this as a kind of defence for myself.

However, she seemed to think that hardly a lady’s employment.

“How clever of you!” Kirstie exclaimed. “I wish I could; but don’t you
find that intermittent? You can’t trim them all the time. Don’t you
feel the want of a constant employment?”

I was obliged to say I had not felt like that yet, but I could not tell
them I particularly loved sitting perfectly still, doing nothing.

Jessie and Maggie played Patience at two tables which folded up, and
which they brought out, and sat down to with a deliberate accustomed
look, which made me know at once they did this every night, and that I
should see those tables planted exactly on those two spots of carpet
each evening during my whole stay. I suppose it is because they cannot
bring the poker work and the bookbinding into the drawing-room.

“Won’t you play us something?” Lady Katherine asked, plaintively.
Evidently it was not permitted to do nothing, so I got up and went to
the piano.

Fortunately I know heaps of things by heart, and I love them, and would
have gone on, and on, so as to fill up the time, but they all said
“thank you” in a chorus after each bit, and it rather put me off.

Mr. Montgomerie and Malcolm did not come in for ages, and I could see
Lady Katherine getting uneasy. One or two things at dinner suggested to
me that these two were not on the best terms, perhaps she feared they
had come to blows in the dining-room. The Scotch, Mrs. Carruthers said,
have all kinds of rough customs that other nations do not keep up any
longer.

They did turn up at last, and Mr. Montgomerie was purple all over his
face, and Malcolm a pale green, but there were no bruises on him; only
one could see they had had a terrible quarrel.

There is something in breeding after all, even if one is of a barbarous
country. Lady Katherine behaved so well, and talked charities
and politics faster than ever, and did not give them time for any
further outburst, though I fancy I heard a few “dams” mixed with the
“bur-r-r-rs,” and not without the “n” on just for ornament, like Lord
Robert’s.

It was a frightful evening.


  _Wednesday, Nov. 9th (continued)._

Malcolm walked beside me going to church the next day. He looked a
little less depressed and I tried to cheer him up.

He did not tell me what his worries were, but Jean had said something
about it when she came into my room as I was getting ready. It appears
he has got into trouble over a horse called Angela Grey. Jean gathered
this from Lady Katherine, she said her father was very angry about it,
as he had spent so much money on it.

To me it does not sound like a horse’s name, and I told Jean so, but
she was perfectly horrified, and said it must be a horse, because they
were not acquainted with any Angela Grey, and did not even know any
Greys at all: so it must be a horse!

I think that a ridiculous reason, as Mrs. Carruthers said all young men
knew people one wouldn’t want to--and it was silly to make a fuss about
it--and that they couldn’t help it--and they would be very dull if they
were as good as gold like girls.

But I expect Lady Katherine thinks differently about things to Mrs.
Carruthers, and the daughters are the same.

I shall ask Lord Robert when I see him again if it is a horse or no.

Malcolm is not attractive, and I was glad the church was not far off.

No carriages are allowed out on Sunday, so we had to walk, and coming
back it began to rain, and we could not go round the stables, which I
understand is the custom here every Sunday.

Everything is done because it is the custom--not because you want to
amuse yourself.

“When it rains and we can’t go round the stables,” Kirstie said, “we
look at the old ‘Illustrated London News,’ and go there on our way
from afternoon church.”

I did not particularly want to do that, so stayed in my room as long as
I could. The four girls were seated at a large table in the hall, each
with a volume in front of her when I got down at last. They must know
every picture by heart, if they do it every Sunday it rains--they stay
in England all the winter!

Jean made room for me beside her.

“I am at the ‘Sixties,’” she said. “I finished the ‘Fifties’ last
Easter.” So they evidently do even this with a method.

I asked her if there were not any new books they wanted to read, but
she said Lady Katherine did not care for their looking at magazines or
novels unless she had been through them first, and she had not time for
many, so they kept the few they had to read between tea and dinner on
Sunday.

By this time I felt I should do something wicked; and if the luncheon
gong had not sounded, I do not know what would have happened.

Mr. Montgomerie said rather gallant things to me when the cheese and
port came along, while the girls looked shocked, and Lady Katherine
had a stony stare. I suppose he is like this because he is married. I
wonder, though, if young married men are the same, I have never met any
yet.

By Monday night I was beginning to feel the end of the world would
come soon! It is ten times worse than even having had to conceal all
my feelings, and abjectly obey Mrs. Carruthers. Because she did say
cynical, entertaining things sometimes to me, and to her friends,
that made one laugh. And one felt it was only she who made the people
who were dependent upon her do her way, because she, herself, was so
selfish, and that the rest of the world were free if once one got
outside.

But Lady Katherine, and the whole Montgomerie _milieu_, give you the
impression that everything and everybody must be ruled by rules; and
no one could have a right to an individual opinion in any sphere of
society.

You simply can’t laugh, they asphyxiate you. I am looking forward to
this afternoon, and Mr. Carruthers coming over. I often think of the
days at Branches, and how exciting it was, with those two, and I wish I
were back again.

I have tried to be polite and nice to them all here, and yet they don’t
seem absolutely pleased.

Malcolm gazes at me with sheep’s eyes. They are a washy blue, with the
family white eyelashes (how different to Lord Robert’s!). He has the
most precise, regulated manner, and never says a word of slang, he
ought to have been a young curate, and I can’t imagine him spending his
money on any Angela Greys, even if she is a horse or not.

He speaks to me when he can, and asks me to go for walks round the
golf course. The four girls play for an hour and three-quarters every
morning. They never seem to enjoy anything--the whole of life is a
solid duty. I am sitting up in my room, and Véronique has had the sense
to have my fire lighted early. I suppose Mr. Carruthers won’t come
until about four, an hour more to be got through. I have said I must
write letters, and so have escaped from them, and not had to go for the
usual drive.

I suppose he will have the sense to ask for me, even if Lady Katherine
is not back when he comes.

This morning it was so fine and frosty a kind of devil seemed to creep
into me. I have been _so_ good since Saturday, so when Malcolm said, in
his usual prim, priggish voice, “Miss Travers, may I have the pleasure
of taking you for a little exercise,” I jumped up without consulting
Lady Katherine, and went and put my things on, and we started.

I had a feeling that they were all thinking I was doing something
wrong, and so, of course, it made me worse. I said every kind of simple
thing I could to Malcolm to make him jump, and looked at him now and
then from under my eyelashes. So when we got to a stile, he did want to
help me! and his eyes were quite wobblish! He has a giggle right up in
the treble, and it comes out at such unexpected moments, when there is
nothing to laugh at. I suppose it is being Scotch, he has just caught
the meaning of some former joke. There would never be any use in saying
things to him like to Lord Robert and Mr. Carruthers, because one would
have left the place before he understood, if even then.

There was an old Sir Thomas Farquharson who came to Branches, and he
grasped the deepest jokes of Mrs. Carruthers, so deep that even I did
not understand them, and he was Scotch. It may be they are like that
only when they have red hair.

When I was seated on top of a stile, Malcolm suddenly announced, “I
hear you are going to London when you go. I hope you will let me come
and see you, but I wish you lived here always.”

“I don’t,” I said, and then I remembered that sounded rather rude, and
they had been kind to me. “At least--you know, I think the country is
dull--don’t you--for always?”

“Yes,” he replied, primly, “for men, but it is where I should always
wish to see the woman I respected.”

“Are towns so wicked?” I asked, in my little angel voice. “Tell me of
their pitfalls, so that I may avoid them.”

“You must not believe everything people say to you, to begin with,” he
said, seriously. “For one so young as you, I am afraid you will find
your path beset with temptations.”

“Oh! do tell me what!” I implored. “I have always wanted to know what
temptations were. Please tell me. If you come to see me--would you be
a temptation, or is temptation a thing, and not a person?” I looked at
him so beseechingly, he never for a second saw the twinkle in my eye!

He coughed pompously. “I expect I should be,” he said, modestly.
“Temptations are--er--er--Oh! I say, you know, I say--I don’t know what
to say----”

“Oh, what a pity!” I said, regretfully. “I was hoping to hear all about
it from you--specially if you are one yourself, you must know----”

He looked gratified, but still confused.

“You see when you are quite alone in London, some man may make love to
you.”

“Oh! do you think so _really_?” I asked, aghast. “That, I suppose would
be frightful, if I were by myself in the room! Would it be all right,
do you think, if I left the sitting-room door open, and kept Véronique
on the other side?”

He looked at me hard, but he only saw the face of an unprotected angel,
and, becoming reassured, he said gravely,

“Yes, it might be just as well!”

“You do surprise me about love,” I said. “I had no idea it was a
violent kind of thing like that. I thought it began with grave
reverence and respect--and after years of offering flowers and humble
compliments, and bread and butter at tea-parties, the gentleman went
down upon one knee and made a declaration--‘Clara, Maria, I adore
you, be mine,’ and then one put out a lily-white hand, and, blushing,
told him to rise--but that can’t be your sort, and you have not yet
explained what temptation means?”

“It means more or less wanting to do what you ought not to.”

“Oh, then!” I said, “I am having temptation all the time, aren’t you?
For instance, I want to tear up Jean’s altar-cloths, and rip Kirstie’s
ties, and tool bad words on Jessie’s bindings, and burn Maggie’s wood
boxes!”

He looked horribly shocked--and hurt--so I added at once--

“Of course it must be lovely to be able to do these things, they are
perfect girls, and so clever--only it makes me feel like that because I
suppose I am--different.”

He looked at me critically. “Yes, you are different, I wish you would
try to be more like my sisters--then I should not feel so nervous about
your going to London.

“It is too good of you to worry,” I said, demurely; “but I don’t think
you need, you know! I have rather a strong suspicion I am acquainted
with the way to take care of myself!” and I bent down and laughed right
in his face, and jumped off the stile on to the other side.

He did look such a teeny shrimp climbing after me! but it does not
matter what is their size, the vanity of men is just the same. I am
sure he thought he had only to begin making love to me himself, and I
would drop like a ripe peach into his mouth.

I teased him all the way back, until when we got into lunch he did not
know whether he was on his head or his heels! Just as we came up to the
door, he said:

“I thought your name was Evangeline--why did you say it was Clara
Maria?”

“Because--it is not!!” I laughed over my shoulder, and ran into the
house.

He stood on the steps, and if he had been one of the stable boys he
would have scratched his head.

Now I must stop and dress. I shall put on a black tea frock I have. Mr.
Carruthers shall see I have not caught frumpdom from my hosts!


  _Night._

I do think men are the most horrid creatures, you can’t believe what
they say, or rely upon them for five minutes! Mrs. Carruthers was
right, she said, “Evangeline, remember, it is quite difficult enough
to trust oneself, without trusting a man.”

Such an afternoon I have had! That annoying feeling of waiting for
something all the time, and nothing happening. For Mr. Carruthers did
not turn up after all! How I wish I had not dressed and expected him.

He is probably saying to himself he is well out of the business--now
I have gone. I don’t suppose he meant a word of his protestations to
me. Well, he need not worry! I had no intention of jumping down his
throat--only I would have been glad to see him because he is human, and
not like any one here.

Of course Lord Robert will be the same, and I shall probably never see
either of them again. How can Lord Robert get here, when he does not
know Lady Katherine. No, it was just said to say something nice when I
was leaving, and he will be as horrid as Mr. Carruthers.

I am thankful at least that I did not tell Lady Katherine, I should
have felt such a goose. Oh! I do wonder what I shall do next. I don’t
know at all how much things cost--perhaps three hundred a year is very
poor. I am sure my best frocks always were five or six hundred francs
each, and I daresay hotels run away with money. But, for the moment, I
am rich, as Mr. Barton kindly advanced some of my legacy to me, and oh!
I am going to see life! and it is absurd to be sad! I shall go to bed,
and forget how cross I feel!

They are going to have a shoot here next week--Pheasants. I wonder if
they will have a lot of old men. I have not heard all who are coming.

Lady Katherine said to me after dinner this evening that she was sorry
as she was afraid it would be most awkward for me their having a party,
on account of my deep mourning, and I, if I felt it dreadfully, I need
not consider they would find me the least rude if I preferred to have
dinner in my room!

I don’t want to have dinner in my room! Think of the stuffiness of it!
and perhaps hearing laughter going on downstairs.

I can always amuse myself watching faces, however dull they are. I
thanked her, and said it would not be at all necessary, as I must get
accustomed to seeing people, I could not count upon always meeting
hostesses with such kind thoughts as hers, and I might as well get used
to it.

She said yes, but not cordially.

To-morrow Mrs. Mackintosh, the eldest daughter, is arriving with her
four children. I remember her wedding five years ago. I have never seen
her since.

She was very tall and thin, and stooped dreadfully, and Mrs. Carruthers
said Providence had been very kind in giving her a husband at all. But
when Mr. Mackintosh trotted down the aisle with her, I did not think so!

A wee sandy fellow about up to her shoulder!

Oh, I would hate to be tied to that! I think to be tied to anything
could not be very nice. I wonder how I ever thought of marrying Mr.
Carruthers off hand!

I feel now I shall never marry--for years. Of course, one can’t be an
old maid! But for a long time I mean to see life first.

  TRYLAND,
  _Thursday, Nov. 10th_.

  “BRANCHES, _Wednesday_.

 “DEAR MISS TRAVERS,--I regret exceedingly I was unable to come over to
 Tryland to-day, but hope to do so before you leave. I trust you are
 well, and did not catch cold on the drive.

  “Yours very truly,
  “CHRISTOPHER CARRUTHERS.”

_This_ is what I get this morning! Pig!

Well, I sha’n’t be in if he does come--I can just see him pulling
himself together once temptation (it makes me think of Malcolm!), is
out of his way; he no doubt feels he has had an escape, as I am nobody
very grand.

The letters come early here, as everywhere, but in a bag which only Mr.
Montgomerie can open, and one has to wait until everyone is seated at
breakfast before he produces the key, and deals them all out.

Mr. Carruthers’ was the only one for me, and it had “Branches” on the
envelope, which attracted Mr. Montgomerie’s attention, and he began to
“Bur-r-r-r,” and hardly gave me time to read it before he commenced to
ask questions _à propos_ of the place, to get me to say what the letter
was about. He is a curious man.

“Carruthers is a capital fellow, they tell me--er--You had better ask
him over quietly, Katherine, if he is all alone at Branches”--this with
one eye on me in a questioning way.

I remained silent.

“Perhaps he is off to London, though?”

I pretended to be busy with my coffee.

“Best pheasant shoot in the county, and a close borough under the old
_régime_; hope he will be more neighbourly--er--suppose he must shoot
’em before December?”

I buttered my toast.

Then the “Bur-r-r-rs” began!! I wonder he does not have a noise that
ends with d--n simply, it would save him time!

“Couldn’t help seeing your letter was from Branches. Hope Carruthers
gives you some news?”

As he addressed me deliberately I was obliged to answer:

“I have no information. It is only a business letter,” and I ate toast
again.

He “bur-r-r-r-d” more than ever, and opened some of his own
correspondence.

“What am I to do, Katherine?” he said, presently; “that confounded
fellow Campion has thrown me over for next week, and he is my best gun:
at short notice like this, it’s impossible to replace him with the same
class of shot.”

“Yes, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in that kind of voice that has not
heard the question--she was deep in her own letters.

“Katherine!” roared Mr. Montgomerie. “Will you listen when I
speak--Bur-r-r-r!” and he thumped his fist on the table.

Poor Lady Katherine almost jumped, and the china rattled.

“Forgive me, Anderson,” she said, humbly, “you were saying?”

“Campion has thrown me over,” glared Mr. Montgomerie.

“Then I have perhaps the very thing for you,” Lady Katherine said, in
a relieved way, returning to her letters. “Sophia Merrenden writes
this morning, and among other things tells me of her nephew, Lord
Robert Vavasour--you know, Torquilstone’s half-brother. She says he is
the most charming young man, and a wonderful shot--she even suggests”
(looking back a page), “that he might be useful to us, if we are short
of a gun.”

“Damned kind of her,” growled Mr. Montgomerie.

I hope they did not notice, but I had suddenly such a thrill of
pleasure that I am sure my cheeks got red. I felt frightfully excited
to hear what was going to happen.

“Merrenden, as you know, is the best judge of shooting in England,”
Lady Katherine went on, in an injured voice. “Sophia is hardly likely
to recommend his nephew so highly if he were not pretty good.”

“But you don’t know the puppy, Katherine.”

My heart fell.

“That is not the least consequence--we are almost related. Merrenden is
my first cousin, you forget that, I suppose!”

Fortunately I could detect that Lady Katherine was becoming obstinate
and offended. I drank some more coffee. Oh! how lovely if Lord Robert
comes!

Mr. Montgomerie “Bur-r-r-ed” a lot first, but Lady Katherine got him
round, and before breakfast was over, it was decided she should write
to Lord Robert, and ask him to come to the shoot. As we were all
standing looking out of the window at the dripping rain, I heard her
say in a low voice,

“Really, Anderson, we must think of the girls sometimes. Torquilstone
is a confirmed bachelor and a cripple--Lord Robert will certainly one
day be Duke.”

“Well, catch him if you can,” said Mr. Montgomerie. He is coarse
sometimes!

I am not going to let myself think much about Lord Robert--Mr.
Carruthers has been a lesson to me--but if he does come--I wonder if
Lady Katherine will think it funny of me not saying I knew him when she
first spoke of him. It is too late now, so it can’t be helped.

The Mackintosh party arrived this afternoon. Marriage must have quite
different effects on some people. Numbers of the married women we saw
in London were lovely, prettier, I always heard, than they had been
before--but Mary Mackintosh is perfectly awful. She can’t be more than
twenty-seven, but she looks forty, at least; and stout, and sticking
out all in the wrong places, and flat where the stick-outs ought to
be. And the four children! The two eldest look much the same age, the
next a little smaller, and there is a baby, and they all squall, and
although they seem to have heaps of nurses, poor Mr. Mackintosh has to
be a kind of under one. He fetches and carries for them, and gives his
handkerchief when they slobber--but perhaps it is he feels proud that
a person of his size had these four enormous babies almost all at once
like that.

The whole thing is simply dreadful.

Tea was a pandemonium! The four aunts gushing over the infants, and
feeding them with cake, and gurgling with “Tootsie-wootsie-popsy-wopsy”
kind of noises. They will get to do “Bur-r-r-rs” I am sure, when they
grow older. I wonder if the infants will come down every afternoon when
the shoot happens. The guests will enjoy it!

I said to Jean as we came upstairs that I thought it seemed terrible to
get married--did not she? But she was shocked, and said no, marriage
and motherhood were sacred duties, and she envied her sister!

This kind of thing is not my idea of bliss. Two really well-behaved
children would be delicious, I think; but four squalling imps all about
the same age is _bourgeois_, and not the affair of a lady.

I suppose Lord Robert’s answer cannot get here till about Saturday. I
wonder how he arranged it! It is clever of him. Lady Katherine said
this Mr. Campion who was coming is in the same regiment, the 3rd Life
Guards. Perhaps when--but there is no use my thinking about it--only
somehow I am feeling so much better to-night--gay, and as if I did not
mind being very poor--that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little
after dinner. I _would_ play Patience, and never lifted my eyes from
the cards!

He kept trying to say things to me to get me to go to the piano,
but I pretended I did not notice. A palm stands at the corner of a
high Chippendale writing bureau, and Jessie happened to have put the
Patience table behind that rather, so the rest of them could not see
everything that was happening. Malcolm at last sat very near beside me,
and wanted to help with the aces--but I can’t bear people being close
to me, so I upset the board, and he had to pick up all the cards on the
floor. Kirstie, for a wonder, played the piano then--a cake walk--and
there was something in it that made me feel I wanted to move--to
dance--to undulate--I don’t know what, and my shoulders swayed a little
in time to the music. Malcolm breathed quite as if he had a cold, and
said right in my ear, in a fat voice,

“You know you are a devil--and I----”

I stopped him at once--looked up for the first time, absolutely shocked
and surprised.

“Really, Mr. Montgomerie, I do not know what you mean,” I said.

He began to fidget.

“Er--I mean--I mean--I awfully wish to kiss you.”

“But I do not a bit wish to kiss you!” I said, and I opened my eyes
wide at him.

He looked like a spiteful bantam, and fortunately at that moment Jessie
returned to the Patience, and he could not say any more.

Lady Katherine and Mrs. Mackintosh came into my room on the way up to
bed. She--Lady Katherine--wanted to show Mary how beautifully they had
had it done up, it used to be hers before she married. They looked all
round at the dead-daffodil-coloured cretonne and things, and at last I
could see their eyes often straying to my night-gown and dressing-gown,
laid out on a chair beside the fire.

“Oh, Lady Katherine, I am afraid you are wondering at my having pink
silk,” I said, apologetically, “as I am in mourning, but I have not had
time to get a white dressing-gown yet.”

“It is not that, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in a grave duty voice.
“I--I--do not think such a night-gown is suitable for a girl.”

“Oh! but I am very strong,” I said. “I never catch cold.”

Mary Mackintosh held it up, with a face of stern disapproval. Of course
it has short sleeves ruffled with Valenciennes, and is fine linen
cambric nicely embroidered. Mrs. Carruthers was always very particular
about them, and chose them herself at Doucet’s. She said one never
could know when places might catch on fire.

“Evangeline, dear, you are very young, so you probably cannot
understand,” Mary said, “but I consider this garment not in any way fit
for a girl--or for any good woman for that matter. Mother, I hope my
sisters have not seen it!!”

I looked so puzzled.

She examined the stuff, one could see the chair through it, beyond.

“What _would_ Alexander say if I were to wear such a thing!”

This thought seemed almost to suffocate them both, they looked
genuinely pained and shocked.

“Of course it would be too tight for you,” I said, humbly, “but it is
otherwise a very good pattern, and does not tear when one puts up one’s
arms. Mrs. Carruthers made a fuss at Doucet’s because my last set tore
so soon, and they altered these.”

At the mention of my late adopted mother, both of them pulled
themselves up.

“Mrs. Carruthers we know had very odd notions,” Lady Katherine said
stiffly, “but I hope, Evangeline, you have sufficient sense to
understand now for yourself that such a--a--garment is not at all
seemly.”

“Oh! why not, dear Lady Katherine?” I said. “You don’t know how
becoming it is.”

“Becoming!” almost screamed Mary Mackintosh. “But no nice-minded woman
wants things to look becoming in bed!”

The whole matter appeared so painful to them I covered up the offending
‘nighty’ with my dressing-gown, and coughed. It made a break, and they
went away, saying good-night frigidly.

And now I am alone. But I do wonder why it is wrong to look pretty in
bed,--considering nobody sees one, too!




  TRYLAND COURT,
  _Monday, November 14th_.


I HAVE not felt like writing; these last days have been so
stodgy,--sticky I was going to say! Endless infant talk! The methods of
head nurses, teething, the knavish tricks of nursemaids, patent foods,
bottles, bibs--everything! Enough to put one off for ever from wishing
to get married! And Mary Mackintosh sitting there all out of shape,
expounding theories that can have no results in practice, as there
could not be worse behaved children than hers!

They even try Lady Katherine, I can see, when the two eldest, who come
in while we are at breakfast each day, take the jam spoon, or something
equally horrid, and dab it all over the cloth. Yesterday they put their
hands in the honey dish which Mr. Montgomerie was helping himself to,
and then after smearing him (the “Bur-r-r-s” were awful) they went
round the table to escape being caught, and fingered the back of every
one’s chair, and the door handle, so that one could not touch a thing
without getting sticky.

“Alexander, dearie,” Mary said, “Alec must have his mouth wiped.”

Poor Mr. Mackintosh had to get up and leave his breakfast, catch these
imps, and employ his table-napkin in vain.

“Take ’em upstairs, do, Bur-r-r-r,” roared their fond grandfather.

“Oh, father, the poor darlings are not really naughty!” Mary said,
offended. “I like them to be with us all as much as possible. I thought
they would be such a pleasure to you.”

Upon which, hearing the altercation, both infants set up a yell of
fear and rage, and Alec, the cherub of four and a half, lay on the
floor and kicked and screamed until he was black in the face.

Mr. Mackintosh is too small to manage two, so one of the footmen had to
come and help him to carry them up to their nursery! Oh, I would not be
in his place for the world!

Malcolm is becoming so funny! I suppose he is attracted by me. He makes
kind of love in a priggish way whenever he gets the chance, which is
not often, as Lady Katherine contrives to send one of the girls with
us on all our walks, or if we are in the drawing-room she comes and
sits down beside us herself. I am glad, as it would be a great bore to
listen to a quantity of it.

How silly of her, though! She can’t know as much about men as even I
do--of course it only makes him all the more eager.

It is quite an object lesson for me. I shall be impossibly difficult
myself if I meet Mr. Carruthers again, as he has no mother to play
these tricks for him.

Lord Robert’s answer came on Saturday afternoon. It was all done
through Lady Merrenden.

He will be delighted to come and shoot on Tuesday--to-morrow. Oh! I am
so glad--but I do wonder if I shall be able to make him understand not
to say anything about having been at Branches while I was there. Such a
simple thing, but Lady Katherine is so odd and particular.

The party is to be a large one, nine guns--I hope some will be amusing,
though I rather fear!




  _Tuesday night_


IT is quite late, nearly twelve o’clock, but I feel so wide awake I
must write.

I shall begin from the beginning, when every one arrived.

They came by two trains early in the afternoon, and just at tea time,
and Lord Robert was among the last lot.

They are mostly the same sort as Lady Katherine, looking as good
as gold; but one woman, Lady Verningham, Lady Katherine’s niece, is
different, and I liked her at once.

She has lovely clothes, and an exquisite figure, and her hat on the
right way. She has charming manners too, but one can see she is on a
duty visit.

Even all this company did not altogether stop Mary Mackintosh laying
down the law upon domestic--infant domestic--affairs. We all sat in the
big drawing-room, and I caught Lady Verningham’s eye, and we laughed
together! The first eye with a meaning in it I have seen since I left
Branches.

Everybody talked so agreeably, with pauses, not enjoying themselves at
all, when Jean and Kirstie began about their work, and explained it,
and tried to get orders, and Jessie and Maggie too, and specimens of it
all had to be shown, and prices fixed. I should hate to have to beg,
even for a charity.

I felt quite uncomfortable for them, but they did not mind a bit, and
their victims were noble over it.

Our parson at Branches always got so red and nervous when he had to ask
for anything; one could see he was quite a gentleman--but women are
different, I suppose.

I longed for tea!

While they are all very kind here, there is that asphyxiating
atmosphere of stiffness and decorum which affects every one who comes
to Tryland. A sort of “The gold must be tried by fire, and the heart
must be wrung by pain” kind of suggestion about everything.

They are extraordinarily cheerful, because it is a Christian virtue,
cheerfulness; not because they are brimming over with joy, or that
lovely feeling of being alive, and not minding much what happens, you
feel so splendid, like I get on fine days.

Everything they do has a reason or a moral in it. This party is because
pheasants have to be killed in November--and certain people have to be
entertained, and their charities can be assisted through them. Oh! if I
had a big house, and were rich, I would have lovely parties, with all
sorts of nice people, because I wanted to give them a good time and
laugh myself. Lady Verningham was talking to me just before tea, when
the second train load arrived.

I tried to be quite indifferent, but I did feel dreadfully excited when
Lord Robert walked in. Oh! he looked such a beautiful creature, so
smart, and straight, and lithe!

Lady Katherine was frightfully stiff with him; it would have
discouraged most people, but that is the lovely part about Lord Robert,
he is always absolutely _sans gêne_!

He saw me at once, of course, and came over as straight as a die the
moment he could.

“How do, Robert!” said Lady Verningham, looking very surprised to see
him, and giving him her fingers in such an attractive way. _How_ are
you here? And why is our Campie not? Thereby hangs some tale, I feel
sure!”

“Why, yes!” said Lord Robert, and he held her hand. Then he looked at
me with his eyebrows up. “But won’t you introduce me to Miss Travers?
to my great chagrin she seems to have forgotten me!”

I laughed, and Lady Verningham introduced us, and he sat down beside
us, and every one began tea.

Lady Verningham had such a look in her eye!

“Robert, tell me about it!” she said.

“I hear they have five thousand pheasants to slay,” Lord Robert
replied, looking at her with his innocent smile.

“Robert, you are lying!” she said, and she laughed. She is so pretty
when she laughs, not very young, over thirty I should think, but such
a charm! As different as different can be from the whole Montgomerie
family!

I hardly spoke, they continued to tease one another, and Lord Robert
ate most of a plate of bread and butter that was near.

“I am dam’d hungry, Lady Ver!” he said. She smiled at him; she
evidently likes him very much.

“Robert! you must not use such language here!” she said.

“Oh, doesn’t he say them often! those dams!” I burst out, not thinking
for a moment--then I stopped, remembering. She did seem surprised.

“So you have heard them before! I thought you had only just met
casually!” she said, with such a comic look of understanding, but not
absolutely pleased. I stupidly got crimson, it did annoy me, because
it shows so dreadfully on my skin. She leant back in her chair, and
laughed.

“It is delightful to shoot five thousand pheasants, Robert,” she said.

“Now, isn’t it?” replied Lord Robert. He had finished the bread and
butter.

Then he told her she was a dear, and he was glad something had
suggested to Mr. Campion that he would have other views of living for
this week.

“You are a joy, Robert!” she said, “but you will have to behave here.
None of the tricks you played at Fotherington in October, my child.
Aunt Katherine would put you in a corner. Miss Travers has been here a
week, and can tell you I am truthful about it.”

“Indeed, _yes!_” I said.

“But I _must_ know how you got here,” she commanded.

Just then, fortunately, Malcolm, who had been hovering near, came up
and joined us, and would talk too; but if he had been a table, or a
chair, he could not have mattered less to Lord Robert! He is quite
wonderful! He is not the least rude, only perfectly simple and direct,
always getting just what he wants, with rather an appealing expression
in his blue eyes. In a minute or two he and I were talking together,
and Malcolm and Lady Verningham a few yards off. I felt so happy. He
makes one like that, I don’t know for what reason.

“Why did you look so stonily indifferent when I came up,” he asked. “I
was afraid you were annoyed with me for coming.”

Then I told him about Lady Katherine, and my stupidly not having
mentioned meeting him at Branches.

“Oh! then I stayed with Christopher after you left--I see,” he said.
“Had I met you in London?”

“We won’t tell any stories about it. They can think what they please.”

“Very well!” he laughed. “I can see I shall have to manœuvre a good
deal to talk quietly to you here, but you will stand with me, won’t
you, out shooting to-morrow!”

I told him I did not suppose we should be allowed to go out, except
perhaps for lunch--but he said he refused to believe in such cruelty.

Then he asked me a lot of things about how I had been getting on, and
what I intended to do next. He has the most charming way of making one
feel that one knows him very well, he looks at one every now and then
straight in the eyes, with astonishing frankness. I have never seen any
person so quite without airs, I don’t suppose he is ever thinking a bit
the effect he is producing. Nothing has two meanings with him like with
Mr. Carruthers. If he had said I was to stay and marry him, I am sure
he would have meant it, and I really believe I should have stayed!

“Do you remember our morning packing?” he said, presently, in such a
caressing voice. “I was so happy, weren’t you?”

I said I was.

“And Christopher was mad with us! He was like a bear with a sore head
after you left, and insisted upon going up to town on Monday just for
the day; he came over here on Tuesday, didn’t he?”

“No, he did not,” I was obliged to say, and I felt cross about it
still, I don’t know why.

“He is a queer creature,” said Lord Robert, “and I am glad you have not
seen him--I don’t want him in the way. I am a selfish brute, you know.”

I said Mrs. Carruthers had always brought me up to know men were that,
so such a thing would not prejudice me against him.

He laughed. “You must help me to come and sit and talk again, after
dinner,” he said. “I can see the red-haired son means you for himself,
but, of course, I shall not allow that!”

I became uppish.

“Malcolm and I are great friends,” I said, demurely. “He walks me
round the golf course in the park, and gives me advice.”

“Confounded impertinence!” said Lord Robert.

“He thinks I ought not to go to Claridge’s alone when I leave here,
in case some one made love to me. He feels if I looked more like his
sisters it would be safer. I have promised that Véronique shall stay at
the other side of the door if I have visitors.”

“Oh, he is afraid of that, is he! Well, I think it is very probable his
fears will be realized, as I shall be in London,” said Lord Robert.

“But how do you know,” I began, with a questioning, serious air; “how
do you know I should listen? You can’t go on to deaf people, can you?”

“Are you deaf?” he asked. “I don’t think so, anyway I would try to cure
your deafness.” He bent close over to me, pretending to pick up a book.

Oh, I was having such a nice time!

All of a sudden I felt I was really living, the blood was jumping in my
veins, and a number of provoking, agreeable things came to the tip of
my tongue to say, and I said them. We were so happy!

Lord Robert is such a beautiful shape, that pleased me too; the perfect
lines of things always give me a nice emotion. The other men look thick
and clumsy beside him, and he does have such lovely clothes and ties!

We talked on and on. He began to show me he was deeply interested in
me. His eyes, so blue and expressive, said even more than his words.
I like to see him looking down; his eyelashes are absurdly long and
curly, not jet black like mine and Mr. Carruthers’, but dark brown and
soft, and shaded, and oh! I don’t know how to say quite why they are
so attractive. When one sees them half resting on his cheek it makes
one feel it would be nice to put out the tip of one’s finger, and touch
them. I never spent such a delightful afternoon. Only alas! it was all
too short.

“We will arrange to sit together after dinner,” he whispered, as even
before the dressing gong had rung Lady Katherine came and fussed
about, and collected every one, and more or less drove them off to
dress, saying, on the way upstairs, to me, that I need not come down if
I had rather not!

I thanked her again, but remained firm in my intention of accustoming
myself to company.

Stay in my room, indeed, with Lord Robert at dinner--never!

However, when I did come down, he was surrounded by Montgomeries,
and pranced into the dining-room with Lady Verningham. She must have
arranged that.

I had such a bore! A young Mackintosh cousin of Mary’s husband, and
on the other side the parson. The one talked about botany in a hoarse
whisper, with a Scotch accent, and the other gobbled his food, and made
kind of pious jokes in between the mouthfuls!

I said--when I had borne it bravely up to the ices--I hated knowing
what flowers were composed of, I only liked to pick them. The youth
stared, and did not speak much more. For the parson, “yes” now and then
did, and like that we got through dinner.

Malcolm was opposite me, and he gaped most of the time. Even he might
have been better than the botanist, but I suppose Lady Katherine felt
these two would be a kind of half mourning for me. No one could have
felt gay with them.

After dinner Lady Verningham took me over to a sofa with her, in
a corner. The sofas here don’t have pillows, as at Branches, but
fortunately this one is a little apart, though not comfortable, and we
could talk.

“You poor child,” she said, “you had a dull time. I was watching you!
What did that M^cTavish creature find to say to you?”

I told her, and that his name was Mackintosh, not M^cTavish.

“Yes, I know,” she said, “but I call the whole clan M^cTavish--it is
near enough, and it does worry Mary so; she corrects me every time.
Now don’t you want to get married, and be just like Mary?” There was a
twinkle in her eye.

I said I had not felt wild about it yet. I wanted to go and see life
first.

But she told me one couldn’t see life unless one was married.

“Not even if one is an adventuress, like me?” I asked.

“A _what!!_”

“An adventuress,” I said. “People do seem so astonished when I say
that! I have got to be one, you know, because Mrs. Carruthers never
left me the money after all, and in the book I read about it, it said
you were that if you had nice clothes, and--and--red hair--and things
and no home.”

She rippled all over with laughter.

“You duck!” she said. “Now you and I will be friends. Only you must not
play with Robert Vavasour. He belongs to me! He is one of my special
and particular own pets. Is it a bargain?”

I do wish now I had had the pluck then to say straight out that I
rather liked Lord Robert, and would not make any bargain, but one is
foolish sometimes when taken suddenly. It is then when I suppose it
shows if one’s head is screwed on firmly, and mine wasn’t to-night.
But she looked so charming, and I felt a little proud, and perhaps
ashamed to show that I am very much interested in Lord Robert,
especially if he belongs to her, whatever that means, and so I said it
was a bargain, and of course I had never thought of playing with him,
but when I came to reflect afterwards, that is a promise, I suppose,
and I sha’n’t be able to look at him any more under my eyelashes. And I
don’t know why I feel very wide awake and tired, and rather silly, and
as if I wanted to cry to-night.

However, she was awfully kind to me, and lovely, and has asked me to go
and stay with her, and lots of nice things, so it is all for the best,
no doubt. But when Lord Robert came in, and came over to us, it did
feel hard having to get up at once and go and pretend I wanted to talk
to Malcolm.

I did not dare to look up often, but sometimes, and I found Lord
Robert’s eyes were fixed on me with an air of reproach and entreaty,
and the last time there was wrath as well?

Lady Verningham kept him with her until every one started to go to bed.

There had been music and bridge, and other boring diversions happening,
but I sat still. And I don’t know what Malcolm had been talking about,
I had not been listening, though I kept murmuring “Yes” and “No.”

He got more and more _empressé_, until suddenly I realized he was
saying, as we rose:

“You have promised! Now remember, and I shall ask you to keep
it--to-morrow!”

And there was such a loving, mawkish, wobbly look in his eyes, it
made me feel quite sick. The horrible part is, I don’t know what I
have promised any more than the man in the moon! It may be something
perfectly dreadful, for all I know! Well, if it is a fearful thing,
like kissing him, I shall have to break my word,--which I never do for
any consideration whatever.

Oh, dear! oh, dear! it is not always so easy to laugh at life as I
once thought! I almost wish I were settled down, and had not to be an
adventuress. Some situations are so difficult. I think now I shall go
to bed.

I wonder if Lord Robert--no, what is the good of wondering; he is no
longer my affair.

I shall blow out the light!




  300, PARK STREET,
  _Saturday night, Nov. 19th_.


I DO not much care to look back to the rest of my stay at Tryland. It
is an unpleasant memory.

That next day after I last wrote, it poured with rain, and every one
came down cross to breakfast. The whole party appeared except Lady
Verningham, and breakfast was just as stiff and boring as dinner. I
happened to be seated when Lord Robert came in, and Malcolm was in the
place beside me. Lord Robert hardly spoke, and looked at me once, or
twice, with his eyebrows right up.

I did long to say it was because I had promised Lady Ver I would not
play with him that I was not talking to him now like the afternoon
before. I wonder if he ever guessed it. Oh! I wished then, and I have
wished a hundred times since, that I had never promised at all. It
seemed as if it would be wisest to avoid him, as how could I explain
the change in myself. I hated the food, and Malcolm had such an air of
proprietorship, it annoyed me as much as I could see it annoyed Lady
Katherine. I sniffed at him, and was as disagreeable as could be.

The breakfasts there don’t shine, and porridge is pressed upon people
by Mr. Montgomerie. “Capital stuff to begin the day, Bur-r-r-r,” he
says.

Lord Robert could not find anything he wanted, it seemed. Every one
was peevish. Lady Katherine has a way of marshalling people on every
occasion; she reminds me of a hen with chickens, putting her wings
down, and clucking, and chasing, till they are all in a corner. And
she is rather that shape, too, very much rounded in front. The female
brood soon found themselves in the morning-room, with the door shut,
and no doubt the male things fared the same with their host, anyway we
saw no more of them till we caught sight of them passing the windows in
’scutums and mackintoshes, a depressed company of sportsmen.

The only fortunate part was that Malcolm had found no opportunity to
remind me of my promise, whatever it was, and I felt safer.

Oh! that terrible morning! Much worse than when we were alone--nearly
all of them--about seven women beyond the family--began fancy work.

One, a Lady Letitia Smith, was doing a crewel silk blotting-book that
made me quite bilious to look at, and she was very short-sighted, and
had such an irritating habit of asking every one to match her threads
for her. They knitted ties and stockings, and crocheted waistcoats and
comforters and hoods for the North Sea fishermen, and one even tatted.
Just like housemaids do in their spare hours to trim Heaven knows what
garment of unbleached calico.

I asked her what it was for, and she said for the children’s pinafores
in her “Guild” work. If one doesn’t call that waste of time, I wonder
what is!

Mrs. Carruthers said it was much more useful to learn to sit still and
not fidget than to fill the world with rubbish like this.

Mary Mackintosh dominated the conversation. She and Lady Letitia Smith,
who have both small babies, revelled in nursery details, and then
whispered bits for us--the young girls--not to hear. We caught scraps
though, and it sounded gruesome, whatever it was about. Oh! I do wonder
when I get married if I shall grow like them.

I hope not.

It is no wonder married men are obliged to say gallant things to other
people, if, when they get home, their wives are like that.

I tried to be agreeable to a lady who was next me. She was a Christian
Scientist, and wore glasses. She endeavoured to convert me, but I was
abnormally thick-headed that day, and had to have things explained over
and over, so she gave it up at last.

Finally when I felt I should do something desperate, a footman came to
say Lady Verningham wished to see me in her room, and I bounded up--but
as I got to the door I saw them beginning to shake their heads over
her.

“Sad that dear Ianthe has such irregular habits of breakfasting in her
room--so bad for her,” etc., etc., but thank heaven, I was soon outside
in the hall, where her maid was waiting for me.

One would hardly have recognized that it was a Montgomerie apartment,
the big room overlooking the porch, where she was located. So changed
did its aspect seem! She had numbers of photographs about, and the
loveliest gold toilet things, and lots of frilled garments, and
flowers, and scent bottles, and her own pillows propping her up, all
blue silk, and lovely muslin embroideries, and she did look such a
sweet cosy thing among it all. Her dark hair in fluffs round her face,
and an angelic lace cap over it. She was smoking a cigarette, and
writing numbers of letters with a gold stylograph pen. The blue silk
quilt was strewn with correspondence, and newspapers, and telegraph
forms. And her garment was low-necked, of course, and thin like mine
are. I wondered what Alexander would have thought if he could have seen
her in contrast to Mary! I know which I would choose if I were a man!

“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed, looking up and puffing smoke
clouds. “Sit on the bye-bye, Snake-girl. I felt I must rescue you from
the horde of Holies below, and I wanted to look at you in the daylight.
Yes, you have extraordinary hair, and real eyelashes and complexion,
too. You are a witch thing, I can see, and we shall all have to beware
of you!”

I smiled. She did not say it rudely, or I should have been uppish at
once. She has a wonderful charm.

“You don’t speak much, either,” she continued. “I feel you are
dangerous! that is why I am being so civil to you; I think it wisest. I
can’t stand girls as a rule!” And she went into one of her ripples of
laughter. “Now say you will not hurt me!”

“I should not hurt anyone,” I said, “unless they hurt me first--and I
like you--you are so pretty.”

“That is all right,” she said, “then we are comrades. I was frightened
about Robert last evening, because I am so attached to him, but you
were a darling after dinner, and it will be all right now; I told
him you would probably marry Malcolm Montgomerie, and he was not to
interfere.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind!” I exclaimed, moving off the bed. “I
would as soon die as spend the rest of my life here at Tryland.”

“He will be fabulously rich one day, you know, and you could get round
Père Montgomerie in a trice, and revolutionize the whole place. You had
better think of it.”

“I won’t,” I said, and I felt my eyes sparkle. She put up her hands as
if to ward off an evil spirit, and she laughed again.

“Well, you sha’n’t then! Only don’t flash those emeralds at me, they
give me quivers all over!”

“Would _you_ like to marry Malcolm?” I asked, and I sat down again.
“Fancy being owned by that! Fancy seeing it every day! Fancy living
with a person who never sees a joke from week’s end to week’s end. Oh!”

“As for that”--and she puffed smoke--“husbands are a race apart--there
are men, women, and husbands, and if they pay bills, and shoot big game
in Africa, it is all one ought to ask of them; to be able to see jokes
is superfluous. Mine is most inconvenient, because he generally adores
me, and at best only leaves me for a three weeks’ cure at Homburg, and
now and then a week in Paris, but Malcolm could be sent to the Rocky
Mountains, and places like that, continuously; he is quite a sportsman.”

“That is not my idea of a husband,” I said.

“Well, what is your idea, Snake-girl?”

“Why do you call me ‘Snake-girl?’” I asked. “I hate snakes.”

She took her cigarette out of her mouth, and looked at me for some
seconds.

“Because you are so sinuous, there is not a stiff line about your
movements--you are utterly wicked looking and attractive too, and
un-English, and what in the world Aunt Katherine asked you here for,
with those hideous girls, I can’t imagine. I would not have if my
three angels were grown up, and like them.” Then she showed me the
photographs of her three angels--they are pets.

But my looks seemed to bother her, for she went back to the subject.

“Where do you get them from? Was your mother some other nation?”

I told her how poor mamma had been rather an accident, and was nobody
much. “One could not tell, you see, she might have had any quaint
creature beyond the grandparents--perhaps I am mixed with Red Indian,
or nigger.”

She looked at me searchingly.

“No, you are not, you are Venetian--that is it--some wicked, beautiful
friend of a Doge come to life again.”

“I know I am wicked,” I said; “I am always told it, but I have not done
anything yet, or had any fun out of it, and I do want to.”

She laughed again.

“Well, you must come to London with me when I leave here on Saturday,
and we will see what we can do.”

This sounded so nice, and yet I had a feeling that I wanted to refuse;
if there had been a tone of patronage in her voice, I would have in
a minute. We sat and talked a long time, and she did tell me some
interesting things. The world, she assured me, was a delightful place
if one could escape bores, and had a good cook and a few friends. After
a while I left her, as she suddenly thought she would come down to
luncheon.

“I don’t think it would be safe, at the present stage, to leave you
alone with Robert,” she said.

I was angry.

“I have promised not to play with him, is that not enough!” I exclaimed.

“Do you know, I believe it is, Snake-girl!” she said, and there was
something wistful in her eyes, “but you are twenty, and I am past
thirty, and--he is a man!--so one can’t be too careful!” Then she
laughed, and I left her putting a toe into a blue satin slipper, and
ringing for her maid.

I don’t think age can matter much, she is far far more attractive than
any girl, and she need not pretend she is afraid of me. But the thing
that struck me then, and has always struck me since is that to have to
_hold_ a man by one’s own manœuvres could not be agreeable to one’s
self-respect. I would _never_ do that under any circumstances; if he
would not stay because it was the thing he wanted to do most in the
world, he might go. I should say, “_Je m’en fiche!_”

At luncheon, for which the guns came in,--no nice picnic in a lodge
as at Branches--I purposely sat between two old gentlemen, and did my
best to be respectful and intelligent. One was quite a nice old thing,
and at the end began paying me compliments. He laughed, and laughed at
everything I said. Opposite me were Malcolm and Lord Robert, with Lady
Ver between them. They both looked sulky. It was quite a while before
she could get them gay and pleasant. I did not enjoy myself.

After it was over, Lord Robert deliberately walked up to me.

“Why are you so capricious?” he asked. “I won’t be treated like this,
you know very well I have only come here to see you. We are such
friends--or were. Why?”

Oh! I did want to say I was friends still, and would love to talk to
him. He seemed so adorably good looking, and such a shape! and his blue
eyes had the nicest flash of anger in them.

I could have kept my promise to the letter, and yet broken it in the
spirit, easily enough, by letting him understand by inference--but of
course one could not be so mean as that, when one was going to eat her
salt, so I looked out of the window, and answered coldly that I was
quite friendly, and did not understand him, and I immediately turned
to my old gentleman, and walked with him into the library. In fact I
was as cool as I could be without being actually rude, but all the time
there was a flat, heavy feeling round my heart. He looked so cross and
reproachful, and I did not like him to think me capricious.

We did not see them again until tea; the sportsmen, I mean. But tea at
Tryland is not a friendly time. It is just as stiff as other meals.
Lady Ver never let Lord Robert leave her side, and immediately after
tea everybody who stayed in the drawing-room played bridge, where they
were planted until the dressing-bell rang.

One would have thought Lady Katherine would have disapproved of cards,
but I suppose every one must have one contradiction about them, for she
loves bridge, and played for the lowest stakes with the air of a “needy
adventurer” as the books say.

I can’t write the whole details of the rest of the visit. I was
miserable, and that is the truth. Fate seemed to be against Lord Robert
speaking to me--even when he tried--and I felt I must be extra cool and
nasty because I--Oh! well, I may as well say it--he attracts me very
much. I never once looked at him from under my eyelashes, and after the
next day, he did not even try to have an explanation.

He glanced with wrath sometimes--especially when Malcolm hung over
me--and Lady Ver said his temper was dreadful.

She was so sweet to me, it almost seemed as if she wanted to make up to
me for not letting me play with Lord Robert.

(Of course I would not allow her to see I minded that.)

And finally Friday came, and the last night.

I sat in my room from tea until dinner. I could not stand Malcolm any
longer. I had fenced with him rather well up to that, but that promise
of mine hung over me. I nipped him every time he attempted to explain
what it was, and to this moment l don’t know, but it did not prevent
him from saying tiresome, loving things, mixed with priggish advice. I
don’t know what would have happened only when he got really horribly
affectionate just after tea I was so exasperated, I launched this bomb.

“I don’t believe a word you are saying--your real interest is Angela
Grey.”

He nearly had a fit, and shut up at once. So, of course, it is not a
horse. I felt sure of it. Probably one of those people Mrs. Carruthers
said all young men knew; their adolescent measles and chicken-pox she
called them.

All the old men talked a great deal to me; and even the other two
young ones, but these last days I did not seem to have any of my usual
spirits. Just as we were going to bed on Friday night Lord Robert came
up to Lady Ver--she had her hand through my arm.

“I can come to the play with you to-morrow night, after all,” he said.
“I have wired to Campion to make a fourth, and you will get some other
woman, won’t you?”

“I will try,” said Lady Ver, and she looked right into his eyes, then
she turned to me. “I shall feel so cruel leaving you alone, Evangeline”
(at once almost she called me Evangeline, I should never do that with
strangers), “but I suppose you ought not to be seen at a play just yet.”

“I like being alone,” I said. “I shall go to sleep early.”

Then they settled to dine all together at her house, and go on; so,
knowing I should see him again, I did not even say good-bye to Lord
Robert, and he left by the early train.

A number of the guests came up to London with us.

My leavetaking with Lady Katherine had been coldly cordial. I thanked
her deeply for her kindness in asking me there. She did not renew the
invitation; I expect she felt a person like I am, who would have to
look after herself, was not a suitable companion to her altar-cloth and
poker workers.

Up to now--she told Lady Ver--of course I had been most carefully
brought up and taken care of by Mrs. Carruthers, although she had
not approved of her views. And having done her best for me at this
juncture, saving me from staying alone with Mr. Carruthers, she felt
it was all she was called upon to do. She thought my position would
become too unconventional for their circle in future! Lady Ver told me
all this with great glee. She was sure it would amuse me, it so amused
her--but it made me a teeny bit remember the story of the boys and the
frogs!

Lady Ver now and then puts out a claw which scratches, while she
ripples with laughter. Perhaps she does not mean it.

This house is nice, and full of pretty things as far as I have seen. We
arrived just in time to fly into our clothes for dinner. I am in a wee
room four stories up, by the three angels. I was down first, and Lord
Robert and Mr. Campion were in the drawing-room. Sir Charles Verningham
is in Paris, by the way, so I have not seen him yet.

Lord Robert was stroking the hair of the eldest angel, who had not gone
to bed. The loveliest thing she is, and so polite, and different from
Mary Mackintosh’s infants.

He introduced Mr. Campion stiffly, and returned to Mildred--the angel.

Suddenly mischief came into me, the reaction from the last dull days,
so I looked straight at Mr. Campion from under my eyelashes, and it
had the effect it always has on people, he became interested at once.
I don’t know why this does something funny to them. I remember I first
noticed it in the schoolroom at Branches. I was doing a horrible
exercise upon the _Participe Passé_, and feeling very _égarée_, when
one of the old Ambassadors came in to see Mademoiselle. I looked up
quickly, with my head a little down, and he said to Mademoiselle, in a
low voice, in German, that I had the strangest eyes he had ever seen,
and that up look under the eyelashes was the affair of the devil!

Now I knew even then the affair of the devil is something attractive,
so I have never forgotten it, although I was only about fifteen at the
time. I always determined I would try it when I grew up, and wanted to
create emotions. Except Mr. Carruthers and Lord Robert I have never had
much chance though.

Mr. Campion sat down beside me on a sofa, and began to say at once that
I ought to be going to the play with them; I spoke in my velvet voice,
and said I was in too deep mourning, and he apologized so nicely,
rather confused.

He is quite a decent-looking person, smart and well-groomed, like
Lord Robert, but not that lovely shape. We talked on for about ten
minutes. I said very little, but he never took his eyes off my face.
All the time I was conscious that Lord Robert was fidgeting and playing
with a china cow that was on a table near, and just before the butler
announced Mrs. Fairfax, he dropped it on the floor, and broke its tail
off.

Mrs. Fairfax is not pretty; she has reddish gold hair, with brown
roots, and a very dark skin, but it is nicely done--the hair, I mean,
and perhaps the skin too, as sideways you can see the pink sticking
up on it. It must be rather a nuisance to have to do all that, but it
is certainly better than looking like Mary Mackintosh. She doesn’t
balance nicely, bits of her are too long, or too short. I do like to
see everything in the right place--like Lord Robert’s figure. Lady Ver
came in just then, and we all went down to dinner. Mrs. Fairfax gushed
at her a good deal. Lady Ver does not like her much, she told me in the
train, but she was obliged to wire to her to come, as she could not
get any one else Mr. Campion liked, on so short a notice.

“The kind of woman every one knows, and who has no sort of pride,” she
said.

Well, even when I am really an adventuress I sha’n’t be like that.

Dinner was very gay.

Lady Ver, away from her decorous relations, is most amusing. She says
anything that comes into her head. Mrs. Fairfax got cross because Mr.
Campion would speak to me, but as I did not particularly take to her,
I did not mind, and just amused myself. As the party was so small Lord
Robert and I were obliged to talk a little, and once or twice I forgot,
and let myself be natural and smile at him. His eyebrows went up in
that questioning pathetic way he has, and he looked so attractive--that
made me remember again, and instantly turn away. When we were coming
into the hall, while Lady Ver and Mrs. Fairfax were up putting on their
cloaks, Lord Robert came up close to me, and whispered:

“I _can’t_ understand you. There is some reason for your treating me
like this, and I will find it out! Why are you so cruel, little wicked
tiger cat!” and he pinched one of my fingers until I could have cried
out.

That made me so angry.

“How dare you touch me!” I said. “It is because you know I have no one
to take care of me that you presume like this!”

I felt my eyes blaze at him, but there was a lump in my throat, I would
not have been hurt, if it had been anyone else--only angry--but he had
been so respectful and gentle with me at Branches--and I had liked him
so much. It seemed more cruel for him to be impertinent now.

His face fell, indeed, all the fierceness went out of it, and he looked
intensely miserable.

“Oh! don’t say that!” he said, in a choked voice. “I--oh! that is the
one thing, you know is not true.”

Mr. Campion, with his fur coat fastened, came up at that moment, saying
gallant things, and insinuations that we must meet again, but I said
good-night quietly, and came up the stairs without a word more to Lord
Robert.

“Good-night, Evangeline, pet,” Lady Ver said, when I met her on the
drawing-room landing, coming down. “I do feel a wretch leaving you,
but to-morrow I will really try and amuse you. You look very pale,
child--the journey has tried you probably.”

“Yes, I am tired,” I tried to say in a natural voice, but the end word
shook a little, and Lord Robert was just behind, having run up the
stairs after me, so I fear he must have heard.

“Miss Travers--please--” he implored, but I walked on up the next
flight, and Lady Ver put her hand on his arm, and drew him down with
her, and as I got up to the fourth floor I heard the front door shut.

And now they are gone, and I am alone. My tiny room is comfortable,
and the fire is burning brightly. I have a big armchair and books, and
this, my journal, and all is cosy--only I feel so miserable.

I won’t cry and be a silly coward.

Why, of course it is amusing to be free. And I am _not_ grieving
over Mrs. Carruthers’ death--only perhaps I am lonely, and I wish
I were at the theatre. No, I don’t--I--oh, the thing I do wish is
that--that--_No_, I won’t write it even.

Good-night, Journal!




  300, PARK STREET,
  _Wednesday November 23rd._


OH! how silly to want the moon! but that is evidently what is the
matter with me. Here I am in a comfortable house with a kind hostess,
and no immediate want of money, and yet I am restless, and sometimes
unhappy.

For the four days since I arrived Lady Ver has been so kind to me,
taken the greatest pains to try and amuse me, and cheer me up. We
have driven about in her electric brougham and shopped, and agreeable
people have been to lunch each day, and I have had what I suppose is a
_succès_. At least she says so.

I am beginning to understand things better, and it seems one must have
no real feelings, just as Mrs. Carruthers always told me, if one wants
to enjoy life.

On two evenings Lady Ver has been out with numbers of regrets at
leaving me behind, and I have gathered she has seen Lord Robert, but he
has not been here--I am glad to say.

I am real friends with the angels, who are delightful people, and very
well brought up. Lady Ver evidently knows much better about it than
Mary Mackintosh, although she does not talk in that way.

I can’t think what I am going to do next. I suppose soon this kind of
drifting will seem quite natural, but at present the position galls
me for some reason. I _hate_ to think people are being kind out of
charity. How very foolish of me, though!

Lady Merrenden is coming to lunch to-morrow. I am interested to see
her, because Lord Robert said she was such a dear. I wonder what has
become of him, that he has not been here--I wonder. No, I am _too_
silly.

Lady Ver does not get up to breakfast, and I go into her room, and have
mine on another little tray, and we talk, and she reads me bits out of
her letters.

She seems to have a number of people in love with her--that must be
nice.

“It keeps Charlie always devoted,” she said, “because he realizes he
owns what the other men want.”

She says, too, that all male creatures are fighters by nature, they
don’t value things they obtain easily, and which are no trouble to
keep. You must always make them realize you will be off like a snipe if
they relax their efforts to please you for one moment.

Of course there are heaps of humdrum ways of living, where the husband
is quite fond, but it does not make his heart beat, and Lady Ver says
she couldn’t stay on with a man whose heart she couldn’t make beat when
she wanted to.

I am curious to see Sir Charles.

They play bridge a good deal in the afternoon, and it amuses me a
little to talk nicely to the man who is out for the moment, and make
him not want to go back to the game.

I am learning a number of things.




  _Night._


MR. CARRUTHERS came to call this afternoon. He was the last person I
expected to see when I went into the drawing-room after luncheon, to
wait for Lady Ver. I had my outdoor things on, and a big black hat,
which is rather becoming, I am glad to say.

“You here!” he exclaimed, as we shook hands.

“Yes, why not?” I said.

He looked very self-contained, and reserved, I thought, as if he had
not the least intention of letting himself go to display any interest.
It instantly aroused in me an intention to change all that.

“Lady Verningham kindly asked me to spend a few days with her when we
left Tryland,” I said, demurely.

“Oh! you are staying here! Well, I was over at Tryland the day before
yesterday--an elaborate invitation from Lady Katherine to ‘dine and
sleep quietly,’ which I only accepted as I thought I should see you.”

“How good of you,” I said, sweetly. “And did they not tell you I had
gone with Lady Verningham?”

“Nothing of the kind. They merely announced that you had departed for
London, so I supposed it was your original design of Claridge’s, and I
intended going round there some time to find you.”

Again I said it was so good of him, and I looked down.

He did not speak for a second or two, and I remained perfectly still.

“What are your plans?” he asked abruptly.

“I have no plans----”

“But you must have--that is ridiculous--you must have made some
decision as to where you are going to live!”

“No, I assure you,” I said, calmly, “when I leave here on Saturday, I
shall just get into a cab, and think of some place for it to take me
to, I suppose, as we turn down Park Lane.”

He moved uneasily, and I glanced at him up from under my hat. I don’t
know why he does not attract me now as much as he did at first. There
is something so cold and cynical about his face.

“Listen, Evangeline,” he said at last. “Something must be settled for
you--I cannot allow you to drift about like this. I am more or less
your guardian--you know--you must feel that.”

“I don’t a bit,” I said.

“You impossible little--witch!” he came closer.

“Yes, Lady Verningham says I am a witch, and a snake, and all sorts of
bad attractive things, and I want to go somewhere where I shall be able
to show these qualities! England is dull--what do you think of Paris?”

Oh! it did amuse me, launching forth these remarks. They would never
come into my head for any one else!

He walked across the room and back. His face was disturbed.

“You shall not go to Paris--alone. How can you even suggest such a
thing,” he said.

I did not speak. He grew exasperated.

“Your father’s people are all dead, you tell me, and you know nothing
of your mother’s relations, but who was she? What was her name? Perhaps
we could discover some kith and kin for you.”

“My mother was called Miss Tonkins,” I said.

“_Called_ Miss Tonkins?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was not her name--what do you mean?”

I hated these questions.

“I suppose it was her name. I never heard she had another.”

“Tonkins,” he said, “Tonkins?” and he looked searchingly at me, with
his monk of the Inquisition air.

I can be so irritating not telling people things when I like, and it
was quite a while before he elicited the facts from me, which Mrs.
Carruthers had often hurled at my head in moments of anger, that poor
mamma’s father had been Lord de Brandreth, and her mother Heaven knows
who!

“So you see”--I ended with--“I haven’t any relations, after all, have
I?”

He sat down upon the sofa.

“Evangeline, there is nothing for it, you must marry me,” he said.

I sat down opposite him.

“Oh! you are funny!” I said. “You, a clever diplomat, to know so little
of women. Who in the world would accept such an offer!” and I laughed,
and laughed.

“What am I to do with you!” he exclaimed, angrily.

“Nothing!” I laughed still, and I looked at him with my “affair of the
devil” look. He came over, and forcibly took my hand.

“Yes, you are a witch,” he said. “A witch who casts spells, and
destroys resolutions and judgements. I determined to forget you, and
put you out of my life--you are most unsuitable to me, you know, but as
soon as I see you I am filled with only one desire. I _must_ have you
for myself--I want to kiss you--to touch you. I want to prevent any
other man from looking at you--do you hear me, Evangeline?”

“Yes, I hear,” I said. “But it does not have any effect on me. You
would be awful as a husband. Oh! I know all about them!” and I looked
up. “I saw several sorts at Tryland, and Lady Verningham has told me of
the rest; and I know you would be no earthly good in that _rôle_!”

He laughed, in spite of himself, but he still held my hand.

“Describe their types to me, that I may see which I should be,” he
said, with great seriousness.

“There is the Mackintosh kind--humble and ‘titsy-pootsy,’ and a sort of
under nurse,” I said.

“That is not my size, I fear.”

“Then there is the Montgomerie, selfish and bullying, and near about
money----”

“But I am not Scotch.”

“No--well, Lord Kestervin was English, and he fussed and worried, and
looked out trains all the time.”

“I shall have a groom of the chambers.”

“And they were all casual and indifferent to their poor wives! and
boresome, and bored!! And one told long stories, and one was stodgy,
and one opened his wife’s letters before she was down!”

“Tell me the attributes of a perfect husband, then, that I may learn
them,” he said.

“They have to pay all the bills.”

“Well, I could do that.”

“And they have not to interfere with one’s movements. And one must be
able to make their hearts beat.”

“Well, you could do _that_!” and he bent nearer to me. I drew back.

“And they have to take long journeys to the Rocky Mountains for months
together, with men friends.”

“Certainly not!” he exclaimed.

“There, you see!” I said, “the most important part you don’t agree to.
There is no use talking further.”

“Yes, there is! You have not said half enough--have they to make your
heart beat, too?”

“You are hurting my hand.”

He dropped it.

“Have they?”

“Lady Ver said no husband could do that--the fact of there being one
kept your heart quite quiet, and often made you yawn--but she said it
was not necessary, as long as you could make theirs, so that they would
do all you asked.”

“Then do women’s hearts never beat--did she tell you?”

“Of course they beat! How simple you are for thirty years old. They
beat constantly for--oh--for people who are not husbands.”

“That is the result of your observations, is it? You are probably
right, and I am a fool.”

“Some one said at lunch yesterday that a beautiful lady in Paris had
her heart beating for you,” I said, looking at him again.

He changed--so very little, it was not a start, or a wince even--just
enough for me to know he felt what I said.

“People are too kind,” he said. “But we have got no nearer the point.
When will you marry me?”

“I shall marry you--never, Mr. Carruthers,” I said, “unless I get into
an old maid soon, and no one else asks me. Then if you go on your knees
I may put out the tip of my finger, perhaps!” and I moved towards the
door, making him a sweeping and polite curtsey.

He rushed after me.

“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, “I am not a violent man as a rule, indeed
I am rather cool, but you would drive any one perfectly mad. Some day
some one will strangle you--Witch!”

“Then I had better run away to save my neck,” I said, laughing over my
shoulder as I opened the door and ran up the stairs, and I peeped at
him from the landing above. He had come out into the hall. “Good-bye,”
I called, and without waiting to see Lady Ver he tramped down the
stairs and away.

“Evangeline, what _have_ you been doing?” she asked, when I got into
her room, where her maid was settling her veil before the glass, and
trembling over it--Lady Ver is sometimes fractious with her, worse than
I am with Véronique, far.

“Evangeline, you look naughtier than ever; confess at once.”

“I have been as good as gold,” I said.

“Then why are those two emeralds sparkling so, may one ask?”

“They are sparkling with conscious virtue,” I said, demurely.

“You have quarrelled with Mr. Carruthers. Go away, Welby! Stupid woman,
can’t you see it catches my nose?”

Welby retired meekly (after she is cross Lady Ver sends Welby to the
theatre--Welby adores her).

“Evangeline, how dare you! I see it all. I gathered bits from Robert.
You have quarrelled with the very man you must marry!”

“What does Lord Robert know about me?” I said. That made me angry.

“Nothing; he only said Mr. Carruthers admired you at Branches.”

“Oh!”

“He is too attractive, Christopher! he is one of the ‘married women’s
pets,’ as Ada Fairfax says, and has never spoken to a girl before. You
ought to be grateful we have let him look at you!--minx!--instead of
quarrelling, as I can see you have.” She rippled with laughter, while
she pretended to scold me.

“Surely I may be allowed that chastened diversion,” I said, “I can’t go
to theatres!”

“Tell me about it,” she commanded, tapping her foot.

But early in Mrs. Carruthers’ days, I learnt that one is wiser when one
keeps one’s own affairs to oneself--so I fenced a little, and laughed,
and we went out to drive finally, without her being any the wiser.
Going into the Park, we came upon a troop of the 3rd Life Guards, who
had been escorting the King to open something, and there rode Lord
Robert in his beautiful clothes, and a floating plume--he did look so
lovely--and _my_ heart suddenly began to beat; I could feel it, and was
ashamed, and it did not console me greatly to reflect that the emotion
caused by a uniform is not confined to nursemaids.

Of course, it must have been the uniform, and the black horse--Lord
Robert is nothing to me. But I hate to think that mamma’s mother having
been nobody, I should have inherited these common instincts.




  300, PARK STREET,
  _Thursday, November 24th._
  _Evening_.


LADY MERRENDEN is so nice--one of those kind faces that even a tight
fringe in a net does not spoil. She is tall and graceful, past fifty
perhaps, and has an expression of Lord Robert about the eyes. At
luncheon she was sweet to me at once, and did not look as if she
thought I must be bad just because I have red hair, like elderly ladies
do generally.

I felt I wanted to be good and nice directly. She did not allude to my
desolate position, or say anything without tact, but she asked me to
lunch, as if I had been a queen, and would honour her by accepting. For
some reason I could see Lady Ver did not wish me to go, she made all
sorts of excuses about wanting me herself, but also, for some reason,
Lady Merrenden was determined I should, and finally settled it should
be on Saturday, when Lady Ver is going down to Northumberland to her
father’s, and I am going--where? Alas, as yet I know not.

When she had gone, Lady Ver said old people without dyed hair or bridge
proclivities were tiresome, and she smoked three cigarettes, one after
the other, as fast as she could. (Welby is going to the theatre again
to-night!)

I said I thought Lady Merrenden was charming. She snapped my head off,
for the first time, and then there was silence--but presently she began
to talk, and fix herself in a most becoming way on the sofa--we were
in her own sitting-room, a lovely place, all blue silk and French
furniture, and attractive things. She said she had a cold, and must
stay indoors. She had changed immediately into a tea-gown--but I could
not hear any cough.

“Charlie has just wired he comes back to-night,” she announced at
length.

“How nice for you!” I sympathized. “You will be able to make his heart
beat!”

“As a matter of fact it is extremely inconvenient, and I want you to
be nice to him and amuse him, and take his attention off me, like a
pet, Evangeline,” she cooed--and then, “What a lovely afternoon for
November! I wish I could go for a walk in the Park,” she said.

I felt it would be cruel to tease her further, and so announced my
intention of taking exercise in that way with the angels.

“Yes, it will do you good, dear child,” she said, brightly, “and I will
rest here, and take care of my cold.”

“They have asked me to tea in the nursery,” I said, “and I have
accepted.”

“Jewel of a Snake-girl!” she laughed--she is not thick.

“Do you know the Torquilstone history?” she said, just as I was going
out of the door.

I came back--why, I can’t imagine, but it interested me.

“Robert’s brother--half-brother, I mean--the Duke, is a cripple, you
know, and he is _toqué_ on one point, too--their blue blood. He will
never marry, but he can cut Robert off with almost the bare title if he
displeases him.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Torquilstone’s mother was one of the housemaids, the old Duke married
her before he was twenty-one, and she fortunately joined her beery
ancestors a year or so afterwards, and then, much later, he married
Robert’s mother, Lady Ethelrida Fitz Walter--there is sixteen years
between them--Robert and Torquilstone, I mean.”

“Then what is he _toqué_ about blue blood for, with a _tache_ like
that?” I asked.

“That is just it. He thinks it is such a disgrace, that even if he were
not a humpback, he says he would never marry to transmit this stain to
the future Torquilstones--and if Robert ever marries anyone without a
pedigree enough to satisfy an Austrian prince, he will disown him, and
leave every _sou_ to charity.”

“Poor Lord Robert!” I said, but I felt my cheeks burn.

“Yes, is it not tiresome for him? So, of course, he cannot marry until
his brother’s death; there is almost no one in England suitable.”

“It is not so sad after all,” I said, “there is always the delicious
_rôle_ of the ‘married woman’s pet’ open to him, isn’t there?” and I
laughed.

“Little cat!” but she wasn’t angry.

“I told you I only scratched when I was scratched first,” I said, as I
went out of the room.

The angels had started for their walk, and Véronique had to come with
me at first to find them. We were walking fast down the path beyond
Stanhope Gate, seeing their blue velvet pelisses in the distance, when
we met Mr. Carruthers.

He stopped, and turned with me.

“Evangeline, I was so angry with you yesterday,” he said, “I very
nearly left London, and abandoned you to your fate, but now that I have
seen you again----” he paused.

“You think Paris is a long way off!” I said innocently.

“What have they been telling you?” he said, sternly, but he was not
quite comfortable.

“They have been saying it is a fine November, and the Stock Exchange
is no place to play in, and if it were not for bridge, they would all
commit suicide! That is what we talk of at Park Street.”

“You know very well what I mean. What have they been telling you about
me?”

“Nothing, except that there is a charming French lady, who adores you,
and whom you are devoted to--and I am so sympathetic--I like French
women, they put on their hats so nicely.”

“What ridiculous gossip--I don’t think Park Street is the place for you
to stay. I thought you had more mind than to chatter like this.”

“I suit myself to my company!” I laughed, and waited for Véronique,
who had stopped respectfully behind--she came up reluctantly. She
disapproves of all English unconventionality, but she feels it her duty
to encourage Mr. Carruthers.

Should she run on, and stop the young ladies? she suggested, pointing
to the angels in front.

“Yes, do,” said Mr. Carruthers, and before I could prevent her, she was
off.

Traitress! She was thinking of her own comfortable quarters at
Branches, I know!

The sharp, fresh air, got into my head. I felt gay, and without care.
I said heaps of things to Mr. Carruthers, just as I had once before to
Malcolm, only this was much more fun, because Mr. Carruthers isn’t a
red-haired Scotchman, and can see things.

It seemed a day of meetings, for when we got down to the end, we
encountered Lord Robert, walking leisurely in our direction. He looked
as black as night when he caught sight of us.

“Hello, Bob!” said Mr. Carruthers, cheerfully. “Ages since I saw
you--will you come and dine to-night? I have a box for this winter
opera that is on, and I am trying to persuade Miss Travers to come. She
says Lady Verningham is not engaged to-night, she knows, and we might
dine quietly, and all go, don’t you think so?”

Lord Robert said he would, but he added, “Miss Travers would never come
out before; she said she was in too deep mourning.” He seemed aggrieved.

“I am going to sit in the back of the box, and no one will see me,” I
said, “and I do love music so.”

“We had better let Lady Verningham know at once then,” said Mr.
Carruthers.

Lord Robert announced he was going there now, and would tell her.

I knew that! The blue tea-gown, with the pink roses, and the lace cap,
and the bad cold were not for nothing. (I wish I had not written this,
it is spiteful of me, and I am not spiteful as a rule. It must be the
east wind.)




  _Thursday night, Nov. 24th._


“Now that you have embarked upon this,” Lady Ver said, when I ventured
into her sitting-room, hearing no voices, about six o’clock (Mr.
Carruthers had left me at the door, at the end of our walk, and I had
been with the angels at tea ever since), “Now that you have embarked
upon this opera, I say, you will have to dine at Willis’s with us. I
won’t be in when Charlie arrives from Paris. A windy day, like to-day,
his temper is sure to be impossible.”

“Very well,” I said.

Of what use after all for an adventuress like me to have sensitive
feelings.

“And I am leaving this house at a quarter to seven. I wish you to know,
Evangeline, pet!” she called after me, as I flew off to dress.

As a rule Lady Ver takes a good hour to make herself into the
attractive darling she is in the evening--she has not to do much,
because she is lovely by nature; but she potters, and squabbles with
Welby, to divert herself, I suppose.

However, to-night, with the terror upon her of a husband fresh from
a rough Channel passage, going to arrive at seven o’clock, she was
actually dressed and down in the hall when I got there, punctually at
6.45, and in the twinkle of an eye we were rolling in the electric to
Willis’s. I have only been there once before, and that to lunch in Mrs.
Carruthers’ days with some of the Ambassadors, and it does feel gay
going to a restaurant at night. I felt more excited than ever in my
life, and such a situation, too.

Lord Robert--_fruit défendu!_ and Mr. Carruthers _empressé_, and to be
kept in bounds!

More than enough to fill the hands of a maiden of sixteen, fresh from a
convent, as old Count Someroff used to say when he wanted to express a
really difficult piece of work.

They were waiting for us just inside the door, and again I noticed that
they were both lovely creatures, and both exceptionally distinguished
looking.

Lady Ver nodded to a lot of people before we took our seats in a nice
little corner. She must have an agreeable time with so many friends.
She said something which sounds so true in one of our talks, and I
thought of it then.

“It is wiser to marry the life you like, because, after a little, the
man doesn’t matter.” She has evidently done that--but I wish it could
be possible to have both--the Man and the Life!--Well! Well!

One has to sit rather close on those sofas, and as Lord Robert was not
the host, he was put by me. The other two at a right angle to us.

I felt exquisitely gay--in spite of having an almost high black dress
on, and not even any violets!

It was dreadfully difficult not to speak nicely to my neighbour, his
directness and simplicity are so engaging, but I did try hard to
concentrate myself on Christopher, and leave him alone--only I don’t
know why--the sense of his being so near me made me feel--I don’t
quite know what. However, I hardly spoke to him, Lady Ver shall never
say I did not play fair, though insensibly even she herself drew me
into a friendly conversation, and then Lord Robert looked like a happy
schoolboy.

We had a delightful time.

Mr. Carruthers is a perfect host. He has all the smooth and exquisite
manners of the old diplomats, without their false teeth and things. I
wish I were in love with him--or even I wish something inside me would
only let me feel it was my duty to marry him; but it jumps up at me
every time I want to talk to myself about it, and says “Absolutely
impossible.”

When it came to starting for the opera, “Mr. Carruthers will take you
in his brougham, Evangeline,” Lady Ver said, “and I will be protected
by Robert. Come along, Robert!” as he hesitated.

“Oh, I say, Lady Ver!” he said, “I would love to come with you--but
won’t it look rather odd for Miss Evangeline to arrive alone with
Christopher. Consider his character!”

Lady Ver darted a glance of flame at him, and got into the electric;
while Christopher, without hesitation, handed me into his brougham.
Lord Robert and I were two puppets, a part I do not like playing.

I was angry altogether. She would not have dared to have left me to
go like this, if I had been any one who mattered. Mr. Carruthers got
in, and tucked his sable rug round me. I never spoke a word for a long
time, and Covent Garden is not far off, I told myself. I I can’t say
why I had a sense of _malaise_.

There was a strange look in his face, as a great lamp threw alight on
it. “Evangeline,” he said, in a voice I have not yet heard, “when are
you going to finish playing with me--I am growing to love you, you
know.”

“I am very sorry to hear it,” I said, gently. “I don’t want you to--oh!
please _don’t_!” as he took my hand. “I--I--if you only knew how I
_hate_ being touched!”

He leant back, and looked at me. There is something which goes to the
head a little about being in a brougham with nice fur rugs, alone with
some one at night. The lights flashing in at the windows, and that
faint scent of a very good cigar. I felt fearfully excited. If it had
been Lord Robert, I believe--well----

He leant over very close to me. It seemed in another moment he would
kiss me--and what could I do then--I couldn’t scream, or jump out in
Leicester Square, could I?

“Why do you call me Evangeline?” I said, by way of putting him off. “I
never said you might.”

“Foolish child--I shall call you what I please. You drive me mad--I
don’t know what you were born for. Do you always have this effect on
people?”

“What effect?” I said, to gain time; we had got nearly into Long Acre.

“An effect that causes one to lose all discretion. I feel I would give
my soul to hold you in my arms.”

I told him I did not think it was at all nice or respectful of him to
talk so. That I found such love revolting.

“You tell me in your sane moments I am most unsuitable to you--you try
to keep away from me, and then, when you get close, you begin to talk
this stuff! I think it is an insult!” I said, angry and disdainful.
“When I arouse devotion and tenderness in some one, then I shall
listen, but to you and to this--never!”

“Go on!” he said. “Even in the dim light you look beautiful when cross.”

“I am not cross,” I answered. “Only absolutely disgusted.”

By that time, thank goodness, we had got into the stream of carriages
close to the Opera House. Mr. Carruthers, however, seemed hardly to
notice this.

“Darling,” he said, “I will try not to annoy you, but you are so
fearfully provoking. I tell you truly, no man would find it easy to
keep cool with you.”

“Oh! I don’t know what it is being cool or not cool!” I said, wearily.
“I am tired of every one, even as tiny a thing as Malcolm Montgomerie
gets odd like this!”

He leant back and laughed, and then said angrily, “Impertinence! I will
wring his neck!”

“Thank heaven we have arrived!” I exclaimed, as we drove under the
portico. I gave a great sigh of relief.

Really, men are very trying and tiresome, and if I shall always have to
put up with these scenes through having red hair, I almost wish it were
mouse coloured, like Cicely Parker’s. Mrs. Carruthers often said, “You
need not suppose, Evangeline, that you are going to have a quiet life
with your colouring--the only thing one can hope for is that you will
screw on your head.”

Lady Ver and Lord Robert were already in the hall waiting for us, but
the second I saw them I knew she had been saying something to Lord
Robert, his face so gay and _debonnaire_ all through dinner, now looked
set and stern, and he took not the slightest notice of me as we walked
to the box, the big one next the stage on the pit tier.

Lady Ver appeared triumphant; her eyes were shining with big blacks in
the middle, and such bright spots of pink in her cheeks, she looked
lovely; and I can’t think why, but I suddenly felt I hated her. It
was horrid of me, for she was so kind, and settled me in the corner
behind the curtain, where I could see and not be seen, rather far back,
while she and Lord Robert were quite in the front. It was “Carmen”--the
opera. I have never seen it before.

Music has such an effect--every note seems to touch some emotion in me.
I feel wicked, or good, or exalted, or--or---- Oh, some queer feeling
that I don’t know what it is--a kind of electric current down my back,
and as if, as if I would like to love some one, and have them to kiss
me. Oh! it sounds perfectly dreadful what I have written--but I can’t
help it--that is what some music does to me, and I said always I should
tell the truth here.

From the very beginning note to the end I was feeling--feeling. Oh,
how I understand her--Carmen!--_fruit défendu_ attracted her so--the
beautiful, wicked, fascinating snake. I also wanted to dance, and to
move like that, and I unconsciously quivered perhaps. I was cold as
ice, and fearfully excited. The back of Lord Robert’s beautifully set
head impeded my view at times. How exquisitely groomed he is, and one
could see at a glance _his_ mother had not been a housemaid. I never
have seen anything look so well bred as he does.

Lady Ver was talking to him in a cooing, low voice, after the first
act, and the second act, and indeed even when the third act had begun.
He seemed much more _empressé_ with her than he generally does. It--it
hurt me--that and the music and the dancing, and Mr. Carruthers
whispering passionate little words at intervals, even though I paid no
attention to them, but altogether I, too, felt a kind of madness.

Suddenly Lord Robert turned round, and for five seconds looked at me.
His lovely expressive blue eyes, swimming with wrath and reproach,
and--oh, how it hurt me!--contempt! Christopher was leaning over the
back of my chair, quite close, in a devoted attitude.

Lord Robert did not speak, but if a look could wither, I must have
turned into a dead oak leaf. It awoke some devil in me. What had _I_
done to be annihilated so! _I_ was playing perfectly fair--keeping my
word to Lady Ver, and oh! I felt as if it were breaking my heart.

But that look of Lord Robert’s! It drove me to distraction, and every
instinct to be wicked and attractive that I possess came up in me. I
leant over to Lady Ver, so that I must be close to him, and I said
little things to her, never one word to him, but I moved my seat,
making it certain the corner of his eye must catch sight of me, and
I allowed my shoulders to undulate the faintest bit to that Spanish
music. Oh, I can dance as Carmen too! Mrs. Carruthers had me taught
every time we went to Paris, she loved to see it herself.

I could hear Christopher breathing very quickly. “My God!” he
whispered. “A man would go to hell for you.”

Lord Robert got up abruptly and went out of the box.

Then it was as if Don Jose’s dagger plunged into my heart, not
Carmen’s. That sounds high flown, but I mean it--a sudden sick, cold
sensation, as if everything was numb. Lady Ver turned round pettishly
to Christopher. “What on earth is the matter with Robert?” she said.

“There is a Persian proverb which asserts a devil slips in between two
winds,” said Christopher; “perhaps that is what has happened in this
box to-night.”

Lady Ver laughed harshly, and I sat there still as death. And all the
time the music and the movement on the stage went on. I am glad she is
murdered in the end, glad----! Only I would like to have seen the blood
gush out. I am fierce--fierce--sometimes.




  300, PARK STREET,
  _Friday morning, Nov. 25th._


I KNOW just the meaning of dust and ashes--for that is what I felt I
had had for breakfast this morning, the day after “Carmen.”

Lady Ver had given orders she was not to be disturbed, so I did not
go near her, and crept down to the dining-room, quite forgetting the
master of the house had arrived. There he was--a strange, tall, lean
man with fair hair, and sad, cross, brown eyes, and a nose inclined to
pink at the tip--a look of indigestion about him, I feel sure. He was
sitting in front of a “Daily Telegraph” propped up on the tea-pot, and
some cold, untasted sole on his plate.

I came forward. He looked very surprised.

“I--I’m Evangeline Travers,” I announced.

He said “How d’you do” awkwardly; one could see without a notion what
that meant.

“I’m staying here,” I continued. “Did you not know?”

“Then won’t you have some breakfast--beastly cold, I fear,” politeness
forced him to utter. “No--Ianthe never writes to me--I had not heard
any news for a fortnight, and I have not seen her yet.”

Manners have been drummed into me from early youth, so I said politely,
“You only arrived from Paris late last night, did you not?”

“I got in about seven o’clock, I think,” he replied.

“We had to leave so early, we were going to the Opera,” I said.

“A Wagner that begins at unearthly hours, I suppose,” he murmured
absently.

“No, it was ‘Carmen’--but we dined first with my--my--guardian, Mr.
Carruthers.”

“Oh.”

We both ate for a little--the tea was greenish-black--and lukewarm--no
wonder he has dyspepsia.

“Are the children in, I wonder,” he hazarded, presently.

“Yes,” I said. “I went to the nursery and saw them as I came down.”

At that moment the three angels burst into the room, but came forward
decorously, and embraced their parent. They did not seem to adore him
like they do Lady Ver.

“Good morning, papa,” said the eldest, and the other two repeated it in
chorus. “We hope you have slept well, and had a nice passage across the
sea.”

They evidently had been drilled outside!

Then, nature getting uppermost, they patted him patronizingly.

“Daddie, darling, have you brought us any new dolls from Paris?”

“And I want one with red hair, like Evangeline,” said Yseult, the
youngest.

Sir Charles seemed bored and uncomfortable; he kissed his three
exquisite bits of Dresden china, so like, and yet unlike himself--they
have Lady Ver’s complexion, but brown eyes and golden hair like him.

“Yes, ask Harbottle for the packages,” he said. “I have no time to talk
to you--tell your mother I will be in for lunch,” and making excuse to
me for leaving so abruptly--an appointment in the City--he shuffled out
of the room.

I wonder how Lady Ver makes his heart beat. I _don’t_ wonder she
prefers--Lord Robert.

“Why is papa’s nose so red?” said Yseult.

“Hush!” implored Mildred. “Poor papa has come off the sea.”

“I don’t love papa,” said Corisande, the middle one. “He’s cross, and
sometimes he makes darling mummie cry.”

“We must always love papa,” chanted Mildred, in a lesson voice. “We
must always love our parents, and grandmamma, and grandpapa, and aunts
and cousins--Amen.” The “Amen” slipped out unawares, and she looked
confused and corrected herself when she had said it.

“Let’s find Harbottle. Harbottle is papa’s valet,” Corisande said, “and
he is much thoughtfuller than papa. Last time he brought me a Highland
boy doll, though papa had forgotten I asked for it.”

They all three went out of the room, first kissing me, and curtseying
sweetly when they got to the door. They are never rude, or
boisterous--the three angels, I love them.

Left alone, I did feel like a dead fish. The column “London Day by Day”
caught my eye in the “Daily Telegraph,” and I idly glanced down it--not
taking in the sense of the words, until “The Duke of Torquilstone has
arrived at Vavasour House, St. James’s from abroad,” I read.

Well, what did it matter to me; what did anything matter to me? Lord
Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the
Opera; he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his
abrupt departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have
a glass of brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to
supper, and various other _empressé_ things, looking at her with the
greatest devotion--I might not have existed.

She was capricious, as she sometimes is. “No, Robert, I am going home
to bed. I have got a chill too,” she said.

And the footman announcing the electric at that moment, we flew off,
and left them. Christopher having fastened my sable collar with an air
of possession, which would have irritated me beyond words at another
time, but I felt cold and dead, and utterly numb.

Lady Ver did not speak a word on the way back, and kissed me frigidly
as she went in to her room--then she called out:

“I am tired, Snake-girl--don’t think I am cross--good-night!” and so I
crept up to bed.

To-morrow is Saturday, and my visit ends. After my lunch with Lady
Merrenden I am a wanderer on the face of the earth.

Where shall I wander to--I feel I want to go away by myself--away
where I shall not see a human being who is English. I want to forget
what they look like--I want to shut out of my sight their well-groomed
heads--I want, oh, I do not know what I do want.

Shall I marry Mr. Carruthers? He would eat me up, and then go back to
Paris to the lady he loves--but I should have the life I like--and the
Carruthers’ emeralds are beautiful--and I love Branches--and--and----

“Her ladyship would like to see you, Miss,” said a footman.

So I went up the stairs.

Lady Ver was in a darkened room, soft pink blinds right down beyond the
half-drawn blue silk curtains.

“I have a fearful head, Evangeline,” she said.

“Then I will smooth your hair,” and I climbed up beside her, and began
to run over her forehead with the tips of my fingers.

“You are really a pet, Snake-girl,” she said, “and you can’t help it.”

“I can’t help what?”

“Being a witch. I knew you would hurt me, when I first saw you, and I
tried to protect myself by being kind to you.”

“Oh, dear Lady Ver!” I said, deeply moved. “I would not hurt you for
the world, and indeed, you misjudge me; I have kept the bargain to the
very letter and--spirit.”

“Yes, I know you have to the letter, at least--but why did Robert go
out of the box last night?” she demanded, wearily.

“He said he had got a chill, did not he?” I replied, lamely. She
clasped her hands passionately.

“A chill!!! You don’t know Robert! he never had a chill in his life,”
she said. “Oh, he is the dearest, dearest being in the world. He makes
me believe in good and all things honest. He isn’t vicious, he isn’t a
prig, and he knows the world, and he lives in its ways like the rest of
us, and yet he doesn’t begin by thinking every woman is fair game, and
undermining what little self-respect she may have left to her.”

“Yes.” I said. I found nothing else to say.

“If I had had a husband like that I would never have yawned,” she went
on, “and, besides, Robert is too masterful, and would be too jealous to
let one divert oneself with another.”

“Yes,” I said again, and continued to smooth her forehead.

“He has sentiment, too--he is not matter-of-fact and brutal--and oh,
you should see him on a horse, he is too, too beautiful!” She stretched
out her arms in a movement of weariness that was pathetic, and touched
me.

“You have known him a long, long time?” I said, gently.

“Perhaps five years, but only casually until this season. I was busy
with some one else before. I have played with so many.” Then she
roused herself up. “But Robert is the only one who has never made
love to me. Always dear and sweet and treating me like a queen, as
if I were too high for that, and having his own way, and not caring
a pin for any one’s opinion. And I have wanted him to make love to
me often. But now I realize it is no use. Only you sha’n’t have him,
Snake-girl! I told him as we were going to the Opera you were as cold
as ice, and were playing with Christopher, and I am going to take him
down to Northumberland with me to-morrow out of your way. He shall be
my devoted friend at any rate. You would break his heart, and I shall
still hold you to your promise.”

I said nothing.

“Do you hear, I say _you_ would break his heart. He would be only
capable of loving straight to the end. The kind of love any other woman
would die for, but you--you are Carmen.”

At all events not _she_, nor any other woman, shall ever see what I am,
or am not. My heart is not for them to peck at. So I said, calmly:

“Carmen was stabbed.”

“And serve her right! Fascinating, fiendish demon!” Then she laughed,
her mood changing.

“Did you see Charlie?” she said.

“We breakfasted together.”

“Cheerful person, isn’t he?”

“No,” I said. “He looked cross and ill.”

“Ill!” she said, with a shade of anxiety. “Oh, you only mean dyspeptic.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, he always does when he comes from Paris. If you could go into
his room, and see the row of photographs on his mantelpiece, you might
guess why.”

“Pictures of ‘Sole Dieppoise’ and ‘Poulet Victoria aux truffes,’ no
doubt,” I hazarded.

She doubled up with laughter. “Yes, just that!” she said. “Well, he
adores me in his way, and will bring me a new Cartier ring to make up
for it--you will see at luncheon.”

“He is a perfect husband, then?”

“About the same as you will find Christopher. Only Christopher will
start by being an exquisite lover, there is nothing he does not know,
and Charlie has not an idea of that part. Heavens! the dullness of my
honeymoon!”

“Mrs. Carruthers said all honeymoons were only another parallel to
going to the dentist, or being photographed. Necessary evils to be got
through for the sake of the results.”

“The results!”

“Yes; the nice house, and the jewels, and the other things.”

“Oh! Yes, I suppose she was right, but if one had married Robert one
would have had both.” She did not say both what, but oh! I knew.

“You think Mr. Carruthers will make a fair husband, then?” I asked.

“You will never really know Christopher. I have been acquainted with
him for years. You will never feel he would tell you the whole truth
about anything. He is an epicure and an analyst of sensations; I don’t
know if he has any gods, he does not believe in them if he has, he
believes in no one, and nothing, but perhaps himself. He is violently
in love with you for the moment, and he wants to marry you because he
cannot obtain you on any other terms.”

“You are flattering,” I said, rather hurt.

“I am truthful. You will probably have a delightful time with him, and
keep him devoted to you for years, because you are not in love with
him, and he will take good care you do not look at any one else. I
can imagine if one were in love with Christopher he would break one’s
heart, as he has broken poor Alicia Verney’s.”

“Oh, but how silly! people don’t have broken hearts now; you are
talking like out of a book, dear Lady Ver.”

“There are a few cases of broken hearts, but they are not for book
reasons--of death and tragedy, etc.; they are because we cannot have
what we want, or keep what we have,” and she sighed.

We did not speak for a few minutes, then she said quite gaily,

“You have made my head better, your touch is extraordinary; in spite
of all I like you, Snake-girl. You are not found on every gooseberry
bush.”

We kissed lightly, and I left her and went to my room.

Yes, the best thing I can do is to marry Christopher; I care for him so
little that the lady in Paris won’t matter to me, even if she is like
Sir Charles’s Poulet à la Victoria aux truffes. He is such a gentleman,
he will at least be kind to me and refined and considerate; and the
Carruthers’ emeralds are divine, and just my stones. I shall have them
reset by Cartier. The lace, too, will suit me, and the sables, and I
shall have the suite that Mrs. Carruthers used at Branches done up with
pale green, and burn all the Early Victorians. And no doubt existence
will be full of triumphs and pleasure.

But oh! I wish, I wish it were possible to obtain “both.”


  300, PARK STREET,

  _Friday night_.

LUNCHEON passed off very well. Sir Charles returned from the City
improved in temper, and, as Lady Ver had predicted, presented her with
a Cartier jewel. It was a brooch, not a ring, but she was delighted,
and purred to him.

He was a little late and we were seated, a party of eight, when he
came in. They all chaffed him about Paris, and he took it quite
good-humouredly--he even seemed pleased. He has no wit, but he looks
like a gentleman, and I daresay as husbands go he is suitable.

I am getting quite at home in the world, and can talk to any one. I
listen and I do not talk much, only when I want to say something that
makes them think.

A very nice man sat next me to-day, he reminded me of the old generals
at Branches. We had quite a war of wits, and it stimulated me.

He told me, among other things, when he discovered who I was, that he
had known papa--papa was in the same Guards with him--and that he was
the best-looking man of his day. Numbers of women were in love with
him, he said, but he was a faithless being and rode away.

“He probably enjoyed himself, don’t you think so? and he had the good
luck to die in his zenith,” I said.

“He was once engaged to Lady Merrenden, you know. She was Lady Sophia
Vavasour then, and absolutely devoted to him, but Mrs. Carruthers came
between them and carried him off; she was years older than he was, too,
and as clever as paint.”

“Poor papa seems to have been a weak creature, I fear.”

“All men are weak,” he said.

“And then he married and left Mrs. Carruthers, I suppose?” I asked. I
wanted to hear as much as I could.

“Yes--e--s,” said my old Colonel. “I was best man at the wedding----”

“And what was she like, my mamma?”

“She was the loveliest creature I ever saw,” he said; “as lovely as
you, only you are the image of your father, all but the hair, his was
fair.”

“No one has ever said I was lovely before. Oh! I am so glad if you
think so,” I said. It did please me. I have often been told I am
attractive and extraordinary, and wonderful, and divine--but never just
lovely. He would not say any more about my parents, except they hadn’t
a _sou_ to live on, and were not very happy; Mrs. Carruthers took care
of that.

Then, as every one was going, he said: “I am awfully glad to have met
you--we must be pals, for the sake of old times,” and he gave me his
card for me to keep his address, and told me if ever I wanted a friend
to send him a line, Colonel Tom Carden, The Albany.

I promised I would.

“You might give me away at my wedding,” I said, gaily. “I am thinking
of getting married, some day!”

“That I will,” he promised, “and, by Jove, the man will be a fortunate
fellow.”

Lady Ver and I drove after luncheon--we paid some calls, and went in to
tea with the Montgomeries, who had just arrived at Brown’s Hotel for a
week’s shopping.

“Aunt Katherine brings those poor girls up always at this time, and
takes them to some impossible old dressmaker of her own, in the day,
and to Shakespeare, or a concert, at night, and returns with them
equipped in more hideous garments each year. It is positively cruel,”
said Lady Ver, as we went up the stairs to their _appartement_.

There they were, sitting round the tea-table, just as at Tryland.
Kirstie and Jean embroidering and knitting, and the other two reading
new catalogues of books for their work!!!

Lady Ver began to tease them. She asked them all sorts of questions
about their new frocks, and suggested they had better go to Paris, once
in a way. Lady Katherine was like ice. She strongly disapproved of my
being with her niece, one could see.

The connection with the family, she hoped, would be ended with my visit
to Tryland. Malcolm was arriving in town, too, we gathered, and Lady
Ver left a message to ask him to dine to-night.

Then we got away.

“If one of those lumps of suet had a spark of spirit, it would go
straight to the devil,” Lady Ver said, as we went down the stairs.
“Think of it! ties and altar-cloths in London! Mercifully they could
not dine to-night. I had to ask them, and they generally come once
while they are up--the four girls and Aunt Katherine--and it is with
the greatest difficulty I can collect four young men for them if they
get the least hint who they are to meet. I generally secure a couple
of socially budding Jews, because I feel the subscriptions for their
charities, which they will pester whoever they do sit next for, are
better filched from the Hebrew, than from some pretty needy guardsman.
Oh, what a life!”

She was so kind to me on the way back; she said she hated leaving me
alone on the morrow, and that I must settle now what I was going to
do, or she would not go. I said I would go to Claridge’s where Mrs.
Carruthers and I had always stayed, and remain perfectly quietly alone
with Véronique. I could afford it for a week. So we drove there, and
made the arrangement.

“It is absolutely impossible for you to go on like this, dear child,”
she said. “You must have a chaperon; you are far too pretty to stay
alone in a hotel. What _can_ I do for you?”

I felt so horribly uncomfortable, I was really at my wits’ end. Oh! it
is no fun being an adventuress, after all, if you want to keep your
friends of the world as well.

“Perhaps it won’t matter if I don’t see any one for a few days,” I
said. “I will write to Paris; my old Mademoiselle is married there to
a flourishing poet, I believe; perhaps she would take me as a paying
guest for a little.”

“That is very visionary--a French poet! horrible, long-haired, frowsy
creature. Impossible! Surely you see how necessary it is for you to
marry Christopher as soon as you can, Evangeline, don’t you?” she said,
and I was obliged to admit there were reasons.

“The truth is, you can’t be the least eccentric, or unconventional, if
you are good-looking and unmarried,” she continued; “you may snap your
fingers at Society, but if you do, you won’t have a good time, and all
the men will either foolishly champion you, or be impertinent to you.”

“Oh, I realize it,” I said, and there was a lump in my throat.

“I shall write to Christopher to-morrow,” she went on, “and thank him
for our outing last night, and I shall say something nice about you,
and your loneliness, and that he, as a kind of relation, may go and
see you on Sunday, as long as he doesn’t make love to you, and he can
take you to the Zoo--don’t see him in your sitting-room. That will give
him just the extra fillip, and he will go, and you will be demure, and
then, by those stimulating lions’ and tigers’ cages, you can plight
your troth. It will be quite respectable. Wire to me at once on Monday,
to Sedgwick, and you must come back to Park Street directly I return on
Thursday, if it is all settled.”

I thanked her as well as I could. She was quite ingenuous, and quite
sincere. I should be a welcome guest as Christopher’s _fiancée_, and
there was no use my feeling bitter about it--she was quite right.

As I put my hand on Malcolm’s skinny arm going down to the dining-room,
the only consolation was my fate has not got to be him! I would rather
be anything in the world than married to that!

I tried to be agreeable to Sir Charles. We were only a party of six. An
old Miss Harpenden, who goes everywhere to play bridge, and Malcolm,
and one of Lady Ver’s young men, and me. Sir Charles is absent, and
brings himself back; he fiddles with the knives and forks, and sprawls
on the table rather, too. He looks at Lady Ver with admiration in his
eyes. It is true then, in the intervals of Paris, I suppose, she can
make his heart beat.

Malcolm made love to me after dinner. We were left to talk when the
others sat down to bridge in the little drawing-room.

“I missed you so terribly, Miss Travers,” he said, priggishly, “when
you left us, that I realized I was extremely attracted by you.”

“No, you don’t say so!” I said, innocently. “Could one believe a thing
like that.”

“Yes,” he said, earnestly. “You may indeed believe it.”

“Do not say it so suddenly, then,” I said, turning my head away, so
that he could not see how I was laughing. “You see, to a red-haired
person like me these compliments go to my head.”

“Oh, I do not want to flurry you,” he said, affably. “I know I have
been a good deal sought after--perhaps on account of my possessions”
(this with arrogant modesty), “but I am willing to lay everything at
your feet if you will marry me.”

“Everything!” I asked.

“Yes, everything.”

“You are too good, Mr. Montgomerie--but what would your mother say?”

He looked uneasy, and slightly unnerved.

“My mother, I fear, has old-fashioned notions--but I am sure if you
went to her dressmaker--you--you would look different.”

“Should you like me to look different then--you wouldn’t recognize me,
you know, if I went to her dressmaker.”

“I like you just as you are,” he said, with an air of great
condescension.

“I am overcome,” I said, humbly; “but--but--what is this story I hear
about Miss Angela Grey? A lady, I see in the papers, who dances at--the
Gaiety, is it not? Are you sure she will permit you to make this
declaration without her knowledge?”

He became petrified.

“Who has told you about her?” he asked.

“No one,” I said. “Jean said your father was angry with you on account
of a horse of that name, but I chanced to see it in the list of
attractions at the Gaiety--so I conclude it is not a horse, and if you
are engaged to her, I don’t think it is quite right of you to try and
break my heart.”

“Oh, Evangeline--Miss Travers”--he spluttered. “I am greatly attached
to you--the other was only a pastime--a--oh! we men you know--young
and--and--run after--have our temptations you know. You must think
nothing about it. I will never see her again, except just finally to
say good-bye. I promise you.”

“Oh! I could not do a mean thing like that, Mr. Montgomerie,” I said.
“You must not think of behaving so on my account--I am not altogether
heartbroken, you know--in fact I rather think of getting married
myself.”

He bounded up.

“Oh! you have deceived me then!” he said, in self-righteous wrath.
“After all I said to you that evening at Tryland, and what you promised
then! Yes, you have grossly deceived me.”

I could not say I had not listened to a word he had said that
night, and was utterly unconscious of what I had promised. Even his
self-appreciation did not deserve such a blow as this! so I softened my
voice, and natural anger at his words, and said quite gently,

“Do not be angry. If I have unconsciously given you a wrong
impression, I am sorry, but if one came to talking of deceiving, you
have deceived me about Miss Grey, so do not let us speak further upon
the matter. We are quits. Now, won’t you be friends, as you have always
been”--and I put out my hand, and smiled frankly in his face. The mean
little lines in it relaxed--he pulled himself together and took my
hand, and pressed it warmly. From which I knew there was more in the
affair of Angela Grey than met the eye.

“Evangeline,” he said. “I shall always love you, but Miss Grey is an
estimable young woman, there is not a word to be said against her moral
character--and I have promised her my hand in marriage--so perhaps we
had better say good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I said, “but I consider I have every reason to feel
insulted by your offer, which was not, judging from your subsequent
remarks, worth a moment’s thought!”

“Oh, but I love you!” he said, and by his face, for the time, this was
probably true. So I did not say any more, and we rose and joined the
bridge players. And I contrived that he should not speak to me again
alone before he said good-night.

“Did Malcolm propose to you,” Lady Ver asked, as we came up to bed. “I
thought I saw a look in his eye at dinner.”

I told her he had done it in a kind of way, with a reservation in
favour of Miss Angela Grey.

“That is too dreadful!” she said. “There is a regular epidemic in some
of the Guards’ regiments just now to marry these poor common things
with high moral characters, and--indifferent feet! but I should have
thought the cuteness of the Scot would have protected Malcolm from
their designs. Poor Aunt Katherine!”


  CLARIDGE’S,

  _Saturday, Nov. 26th_.

LADY VER went off early to the station, to catch her train to
Northumberland this morning, and I hardly saw her to say good-bye. She
seemed out of temper too, on getting a note, she did not tell me whom
it was from, or what it was about--only she said immediately after,
that I was not to be stupid. “Do not play with Christopher further,”
she said, “or you will lose him. He will certainly go and see you
to-morrow--he wrote to me this morning in answer to mine of last
night--but he says he won’t go to the Zoo--so you will have to see him
in your sitting-room after all--he will come about four.”

I did not speak.

“Evangeline,” she said, “promise me you won’t be a fool----”

“I--won’t be a fool,” I said.

Then she kissed me, and was off, and a few moments after I also started
for Claridge’s.

I have a very nice little suite right up at the top, and if only it
were respectable for me, and I could afford it, I could live here very
comfortably by myself for a long time.

At a quarter to two I was ringing the bell at 200, Carlton House
Terrace, Lady Merrenden’s House--with a strange feeling of excitement
and interest. Of course it must have been because once she had been
engaged to papa. In the second thoughts take to flash I remembered Lord
Robert’s words when I talked of coming to London alone at Branches; how
he would bring me here, and how she would be kind to me until I could
“hunt round.”

Oh! it came to me with a sudden stab. He was leaning over Lady Ver in
the northern train by now.

Such a stately beautiful hall it is--when the doors open--with a fine
staircase going each way, and full of splendid pictures, and the whole
atmosphere pervaded with an air of refinement and calm.

The footmen are tall, and not too young, and even at this time of the
year have powdered hair.

Lady Merrenden was upstairs in the small drawing-room, and she rose to
meet me, a book in her hand, when I was announced.

Her manners are so beautiful in her own home; gracious, and not the
least patronizing.

“I am so glad to see you,” she said. “I hope you won’t be bored, but I
have not asked any one to meet you--only my nephew, Torquilstone, is
coming--he is a great sufferer, poor fellow, and numbers of faces worry
him, at times.”

I said I was delighted to see her alone. No look more kind could be
expressed in a human countenance than is expressed in hers. She has
the same exceptional appearance of breeding that Lord Robert has, tiny
ears, and wrists, and head--even dressed as a charwoman, Lady Merrenden
would look like a great lady.

Very soon we were talking without the least restraint; she did not
speak of people, or of very deep things, but it gave one the impression
of an elevated mind, and a knowledge of books, and wide thoughts. Oh! I
could love her so easily.

We had been talking for nearly a quarter of an hour--she had
incidentally asked me where I was staying now, and had not seemed
surprised or shocked when I said Claridge’s, and by myself.

All she said was: “What a lonely little girl! but I daresay it is very
restful sometimes to be by oneself, only you must let your friends come
and see you, won’t you.”

“I don’t think I have any friends,” I said. “You see I have been out so
little--but if you would come and see me--oh! I should be so grateful.”

“Then you must count me as one of your rare friends!” she said.

Nothing could be so rare, or so sweet, as her smile. Fancy papa
throwing over this angel for Mrs. Carruthers!! Men are certainly
unaccountable creatures.

I said I would be too honoured to have her for a friend--and she took
my hand.

“You bring back the long ago,” she said. “My name is Evangeline, too.
Sophia Evangeline--and I sometimes think you may have been called so
in remembrance of me.”

What a strange, powerful factor Love must be! Here these two women,
Mrs. Carruthers and Lady Merrenden--the very opposites of each
other--had evidently both adored papa, and both, according to their
natures, had taken an interest in me, in consequence, the child of
a third woman, who had superseded them both! Papa must have been
extraordinarily fascinating for, to the day of her death, Mrs.
Carruthers had his miniature on her table, with a fresh rose beside
it--his memory the only soft spot, it seemed, in her hard heart.

And this sweet lady’s eyes melted in tenderness when she spoke of the
long ago--although she does not know me well enough yet to say anything
further. To me papa’s picture is nothing so very wonderful, just a
good-looking young guardsman, with eyes shaped like mine, only gray,
and light curly hair. He must have had “a way with him” as the servants
say.

At that moment the Duke of Torquilstone came in. Oh, such a sad sight!

A poor hump-backed man, with a strong face and head, and a soured,
suspicious, cynical expression. He would evidently have been very tall,
but for his deformity, a hump stands out on his back, almost like Mr.
Punch. He can’t be much over forty, but he looks far older, his hair is
quite gray.

Not a line, or an expression in him reminded me of Lord Robert, I am
glad to say.

Lady Merrenden introduced us, and Lord Merrenden came in then, too, and
we all went down to luncheon.

It was a rather small table, so we were all near one another, and could
talk.

The dining-room is immense.

“I always have this little table when we are such a small party,” Lady
Merrenden said. “It is more cosy, and one does not feel so isolated.”

How I agreed with her.

The Duke looked at me searchingly often, with his shrewd little eyes.
One could not say if it was with approval, or disapproval.

Lord Merrenden talked about politics, and the questions of the day, he
has a courteous manner, and all their voices are soft and refined. And
nothing could have been more smooth and silent than the service.

The luncheon was very simple, and very good, but not half the numbers
of rich dishes like at Branches, or Lady Ver’s.

There was only one bowl of violets on the table, but the bowl was
gold, and a beautiful shape, and the violets nearly as big as pansies.
My eyes wandered to the pictures--Gainsborough’s, and Reynolds’, and
Romney’s--of stately men and women.

“You met my other nephew, Lord Robert, did you not?” Lady Merrenden
said, presently. “He told me he had gone to Branches, where I believe
you lived.”

“Yes,” I said, and oh! it is too humiliating to write, I felt my cheeks
get crimson at the mention of Lord Robert’s name. What could she have
thought? Can anything be so young ladylike and ridiculous.

“He came to the Opera with us the night before last,” I continued. “Mr.
Carruthers had a box, and Lady Verningham and I went with them.” Then
recollecting how odd this must sound in my deep mourning, I added, “I
am so fond of music.”

“So is Robert,” she said. “I am sure he must have been pleased to meet
a kindred spirit there.”

Sweet, charming, kind lady! If she only knew what emotions were really
agitating us in that box that night--I fear the actual love of music
was the least of them!

The Duke, during this conversation, and from the beginning mention
of Lord Robert’s name, never took his eyes off my face--it was
very disconcerting; his look was clearer now, and it was certainly
disapproving.

We had coffee upstairs, out of such exquisite Dresden cups, and then
Lord Merrenden showed me some miniatures. Finally it happened that the
Duke and I were left alone for a minute looking out of a window on to
the Mall.

His eyes pierced me through and through--well at all events my nose and
my ears and my wrists are as fine as Lady Merrenden’s--poor mamma’s
odd mother does not show in me on the outside--thank goodness. He did
not say much, only commonplaces about the view. I felt afraid of him,
and rather depressed. I am sure he dislikes me.

“May I not drive you somewhere?” my kind hostess asked. “Or, if you
have nowhere in particular to go, will you come with me?”

I said I should be delighted. An ache of loneliness was creeping over
me. I wanted to put off as long as possible getting back to the hotel.
I wanted to distract my thoughts from dwelling upon to-morrow, and what
I was going to say to Christopher. To-morrow that seems the end of the
world.

She has beautiful horses, Lady Merrenden, and the whole turn-out,
except she herself, is as smart as can be. She really looks a little
frumpish out of doors, and perhaps that is why papa went on to Mrs.
Carruthers. Goodness and dearness like this do not suit male creatures
as well as caprice, it seems.

She was so good to me, and talked in the nicest way. I quite forgot I
was a homeless wanderer, and arrived at Claridge’s about half past
four in almost good spirits.

“You won’t forget I am to be one of your friends,” Lady Merrenden said,
as I bid her good-bye.

“Indeed I won’t,” I replied, and she drove off, smiling at me.

I do wonder what she will think of my marriage with Christopher.

Now it is night--I have had a miserable, lonely dinner in my
sitting-room, Véronique has been most gracious and coddling--she feels
Mr. Carruthers in the air, I suppose,--and so I must go to bed.

Oh! why am I not happy, and why don’t I think this is a delightful and
unusual situation, as I once would have done. I only feel depressed
and miserable, and as if I wished Christopher at the bottom of the
sea. I have told myself how good-looking he is--and how he attracted
me at Branches--but that was before--yes, I may as well write what I
was going to--before Lord Robert arrived. Well, he and Lady Ver are
talking together on a nice sofa by now, I suppose, in a big, well-lit
drawing-room, and--oh!--I wish, I _wish_ I had never made any bargain
with her--perhaps now in that case--ah well----


  _Sunday afternoon._

No! I can’t bear it. All the morning I have been in a fever, first hot
and then cold. What will it be like. Oh! I shall faint when he kisses
me. And I know he will be dreadful like that, I have seen it in his
eye--he will eat me up. Oh! I am sure I shall hate it. No man has ever
kissed me in my life, and I can’t judge, but I am sure it is frightful,
unless----I feel as if I shall go crazy if I stay here any longer. I
can’t, I can’t stop and wait, and face it. I must have some air first.
There is a misty fog. I would like to go out and get lost in it, and I
_will_ too! Not get lost, perhaps, but go out in it, and alone. I won’t
have even Véronique. I shall go by myself into the Park. It is growing
nearly dark, though only three o’clock. I have got an hour. It looks
mysterious, and will soothe me, and suit my mood, and then, when I
come in again, I shall perhaps be able to bear it bravely, kisses and
all.


  CLARIDGE’S,

  _Sunday evening, November 27th._

I have a great deal to write--and yet it is only a few hours since I
shut up this book, and replaced the key on my bracelet.

By a quarter past three I was making my way through Grosvenor Square.
Everything was misty and blurred, but not actually a thick fog, or
any chance of being lost. By the time I got into the Park it had
lifted a little. It seemed close and warm, and as I went on I got more
depressed. I have never been out alone before; that in itself seemed
strange, and ought to have amused me.

The image of Christopher kept floating in front of me, his face seemed
to have the expression of a satyr. Well, at all events, he would never
be able to break my heart like “Alicia Verney’s”--nothing could ever
make me care for him. I tried to think of all the good I was going to
get out of the affair, and how really fond I am of Branches.

I walked very fast, people loomed at me, and then disappeared in the
mist. It was getting almost dusk, and suddenly I felt tired, and sat
down on a bench.

I had wandered into a side path where there were no chairs. On the
bench before mine I I saw, as I passed, a tramp huddled up. I wondered
what his thoughts were, and if he felt any more miserable than I did. I
daresay I was crouching in a depressed position too.

Not many people went by, and every moment it grew darker. In all my
life, even on the days when Mrs. Carruthers taunted me about mamma
being nobody, I have never felt so wretched. Tears kept rising in
my eyes, and I did not even worry to blink them away. Who would see
me--and who in the world would care if they did see.

Suddenly I was conscious that a very perfect figure was coming out of
the mist towards me, but not until he was close to me, and stopping
with a start peered into my face, did I recognize it was Lord Robert.

“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, in a voice of consternation. “I--what, oh,
what is the matter?”

No wonder he was surprised. Why he had not taken me for some tramp too,
and passed on, I don’t know.

“Nothing,” I said, as well as I could, and tried to tilt my hat over my
eyes. I had no veil on unfortunately.

“I have just been for a walk. Why do you call me Evangeline, and why
are you not in Northumberland?”

He looked so tall and beautiful, and his face had no expression of
contempt or anger now, only distress and sympathy.

“I was suddenly put on guard yesterday, and could not get leave,” he
said, not answering the first part. “But, oh, I can’t bear to see you
sitting here alone, and looking so, so miserable. Mayn’t I take you
home? You will catch cold in the damp.”

“Oh no, not yet. I won’t go back yet!” I said, hardly realizing what
I was saying. He sat down beside me, and slipped his hand into my
muff, pressing my clasped fingers--the gentlest, friendliest caress,
a child might have made in sympathy. It touched some foolish chord in
my nature, some want of self-control inherited from mamma’s ordinary
mother, I suppose, anyway the tears poured down my face--I could not
help it. Oh, the shame of it! to sit crying in the Park, in front of
Lord Robert, of all people in the world, too!

“Dear, dear little girl,” he said. “Tell me about it,” and he held my
hand in my muff with his strong warm hand.

“I--I have nothing to tell,” I said, choking down a sob. “I am ashamed
for you to see me like this, only--I am feeling so very miserable.”

“Dear child,” he said. “Well, you are not to be--I won’t have it. Has
some one been unkind to you--tell me, tell me,” his voice was trembling
with distress.

“It’s--it’s nothing,” I mumbled.

I dared not look at him, I knew his eyebrows would be up in that way
that attracts me so dreadfully.

“Listen,” he whispered almost, and bent over me. “I want you to be
friends with me so that I can help you. I want you to go back to the
time we packed your books together. God knows what has come between
us since--it is not of my doing--but I want to take care of you, dear
little girl to-day. It--oh, it hurts me so to see you crying here.”

“I--would like to be friends,” I said. “I never wanted to be anything
else, but I could not help it--and I can’t now.”

“Won’t you tell me the reason?” he pleaded. “You have made me so
dreadfully unhappy about it. I thought all sorts of things. You know I
am a jealous beast.”

There can’t in the world be another voice as engaging as Lord Robert’s,
and he has a trick of pronouncing words that is too attractive, and
the way his mouth goes when he is speaking, showing his perfectly
chiselled lips under the little moustache! There is no use pretending!
I was sitting there on the bench going through thrills of emotion, and
longing for him to take me in his arms. It is too frightful to think
of! I must be bad after all.

“Now you are going to tell me everything about it,” he commanded. “To
begin with, what made you suddenly change at Tryland after the first
afternoon, and then what is it that makes you so unhappy now?”

“I can’t tell you either,” I said very low. I hoped the common
grandmother would not take me as far as doing mean tricks to Lady Ver!

“Oh, you have made me wild!” he exclaimed, letting go my hand, and
leaning both elbows on his knees, while he pushed his hat to the back
of his head. “Perfectly mad with fury and jealousy. That brute Malcolm!
and then looking at Campion at dinner, and worst of all, Christopher in
the box at ‘Carmen!’ Wicked, naughty little thing! And yet underneath
I have a feeling it is for some absurd reason, and not for sheer
devilment. If I thought that, I would soon get not to care. I did think
it at ‘Carmen.’”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

“You know what?” he looked up, startled; then he took my hand again,
and sat close to me.

“Oh, please, please don’t, Lord Robert!” I said.

It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever
known, that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.

“Please, please, don’t hold my hand,” I said. “It--it makes me not able
to behave nicely.”

“Darling,” he whispered, “then it shows that you like me, and I sha’n’t
let go until you tell me every little bit.”

“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” I felt too tortured, and yet waves of joy were
rushing over me. That _is_ a word, “darling,” for giving feelings down
the back!

“Evangeline,” he said, quite sternly, “will you answer this question
then--do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very
well, I love you.”

Oh, the wild joy of hearing him say that! What in the world did
anything else matter! For a moment there was a singing in my ears, and
I forgot everything but our two selves. Then the picture of Christopher
waiting for me, with his cold, cynic’s face and eyes blazing with
passion, rushed into my vision, and the Duke’s critical, suspicious,
disapproving scrutiny, and I felt as if a cry of pain, like a wounded
animal, escaped me.

“Darling, darling, what is it? Did I hurt your dear little hand?” Lord
Robert exclaimed tenderly.

“No,” I whispered, brokenly; “but I cannot listen to you. I am going
back to Claridge’s now, and I am going to marry Mr. Carruthers.”

He dropped my hand as if it stung him.

“Good God! Then it is true,” was all he said.

In fear I glanced at him--his face looked gray in the quickly gathering
mist.

“Oh, Robert!” I said in anguish, unable to help myself. “It isn’t
because I want to. I--I--oh! probably I love you--but I must, there is
nothing else to be done.”

“Isn’t there!” he said, all the life and joy coming back to his face.
“Do you think I will let Christopher, or any other man in the world,
have you now you have confessed that!!” and fortunately there was no
one in sight--because he put his arms round my neck, and drew me close,
and kissed my lips.

Oh, what nonsense people talk of heaven! sitting on clouds and singing
psalms and things like that! There can’t be any heaven half so lovely
as being kissed by Robert--I felt quite giddy with happiness for
several exquisite seconds, then I woke up. It was all absolutely
impossible, I knew, and I must keep my head.

“Now you belong to me,” he said, letting his arm slip down to my waist;
“so you must begin at the beginning, and tell me everything.”

“No, no,” I said, struggling feebly to free myself, and feeling so glad
he held me tight! “It is impossible all the same, and that only makes
it harder. Christopher is coming to see me at four, and I promised Lady
Ver I would not be a fool, and would marry him.”

“A fig for Lady Ver,” he said, calmly, “if that is all; you leave her
to me--she never argues with me!”

“It is not only that--I--I promised I would never play with you----”

“And you certainly never shall,” he said, and I could see a look in his
eye as he purposely misconstrued my words, and then he deliberately
kissed me again. Oh! I like it better than anything else in the world!
How could any one keep their head with Robert quite close, making love
like that?

“You certainly never--never--shall,” he said again, with a kiss between
each word. “I will take care of that! Your time of playing with people
is over, Mademoiselle! When you are married to me, I shall fight with
any one who dares to look at you!”

“But I shall never be married to you, Robert,” I said, though, as
I could only be happy for such a few moments, I did not think it
necessary to move away out of his arms. How thankful I was to the fog!
and no one passing! I shall always adore fogs.

“Yes, you will,” he announced, with perfect certainty; “in about
a fortnight, I should think. I can’t and won’t have you staying at
Claridge’s by yourself. I shall take you back this afternoon to Aunt
Sophia. Only all that we can settle presently. Now, for the moment, I
want you to tell me you love me, and that you are sorry for being such
a little brute all this time.”

“I did not know it until just now--but I think--I probably do love
you--Robert!” I said.

He was holding my hand in my muff again, the other arm round my waist.
Absolutely disgraceful behaviour in the Park; we might have been Susan
Jane and Thomas Augustus, and yet I was perfectly happy, and felt it
was the only natural way to sit.

A figure appeared in the distance--we started apart.

“Oh! really, really,” I gasped, “we--you--must be different.”

He leant back and laughed.

“You sweet darling! Well, come, we will go for a drive in a hansom--we
will choose one without a light inside. Albert Gate is quite close,
come!” and he rose, and taking my arm, not offering his to me, like in
books, he drew me on down the path.

I am sure any one would be terribly shocked to read what I have
written, but not so much if they knew Robert, and how utterly adorable
he is. And how masterful, and simple, and direct! He does not split
straws, or bandy words. I had made the admission that I loved him, and
that was enough to go upon!

As we walked alone I tried to tell him it was impossible, that I
must go back to Christopher, that Lady Ver would think I had broken
my word about it. I did not, of course, tell him of her bargain with
me over him, but he probably guessed that, because before we got
into the hansom even, he had begun to put me through a searching
cross-examination as to the reasons for my behaviour at Tryland, and
Park Street, and the Opera. I felt like a child with a strong man, and
every moment more idiotically happy, and in love with him.

He told the cabman to drive to Hammersmith, and then put his arm round
my waist again, and held my hand, pulling my glove off backwards first.
It is a great big granny muff of sable I have, Mrs. Carruthers’ present
on my last birthday. I never thought then to what charming use it would
be put!

“Now I think we have demolished all your silly little reasons for
making me miserable,” he said. “What others have you to bring forward
as to why you can’t marry me in a fortnight?”

I was silent--I did not know how to say it--the principal reason of all.

“Evangeline--darling,” he pleaded. “Oh, why will you make us both
unhappy--tell me at least.”

“Your brother, the Duke,” I said, very low. “He will never consent to
your marrying a person like me with no relations.”

He was silent for a second,--then, “My brother is an awfully good
fellow,” he said, “but his mind is warped by his infirmity. You must
not think hardly of him--he will love you directly he sees you, like
everyone else.”

“I saw him yesterday,” I said.

Robert was so astonished.

“Where did you see him?” he asked.

Then I told him about meeting Lady Merrenden, and her asking me to
luncheon, and about her having been in love with papa, and about the
Duke having looked me through and through with an expression of dislike.

“Oh, I see it all!” said Robert, holding me closer. “Aunt Sophia and
I are great friends, you know, she has always been like my mother,
who died when I was a baby. I told her all about you when I came from
Branches, and how I had fallen deeply in love with you at first sight,
and that she must help me to see you at Tryland; and she did, and then
I thought you had grown to dislike me, so when I came back she guessed
I was unhappy about something, and this is her first step to find out
how she can do me a good turn--oh! she is a dear!”

“Yes, indeed she is,” I said.

“Of course she is extra interested in you if she was in love with your
father! So that is all right, darling, she must know all about your
family, and can tell Torquilstone. Why, we have nothing to fear!”

“Oh yes we have!” I said. “I know all the story of what your brother
is _toqué_ about. Lady Ver told me. You see the awkward part is, mamma
was really nobody, her father and mother forgot to get married, and
although mamma was lovely, and had been beautifully brought up by two
old ladies at Brighton, it was a disgrace for papa marrying her--Mrs.
Carruthers has often taunted me with this!”

“Darling!” he interrupted, and began to kiss me again, and that gave me
such feelings I could not collect my thoughts to go on with what I was
saying for a few minutes. We both were rather silly--if it is silly to
be madly, wildly happy,--and oblivious of every thing else.

“I will go straight to Aunt Sophia now, when I take you back to
Claridge’s,” he said, presently, when we had got a little calmer.

I wonder what kisses do that they make one have that perfectly lovely
sensation down the back, just like certain music does, only much, much
more so. I thought they would be dreadful things when it was a question
of Christopher, but Robert! Oh well, as I said before, I can’t think of
any other heaven.

“What time is it?” I had sense enough to ask presently.

He lit a match, and looked at his watch.

“Ten minutes past five,” he exclaimed.

“And Christopher was coming about four,” I said, “and if you had not
chanced to meet me in the Park, by now I should have been engaged to
him, and probably trying to bear his kissing me.”

“My God!” said Robert, fiercely, “it makes me rave to think of it,” and
he held me so tight for a moment, I could hardly breathe.

“You won’t have anyone else’s kisses ever again, in this world, and
that I tell you,” he said, through his teeth.

“I--I don’t want them,” I whispered, creeping closer to him; “and I
never have had any, never any one but you, Robert.”

“Darling,” he said, “how that pleases me!”

Of course, if I wanted to, I could go on writing pages and pages of
all the lovely things we said to one another, but it would sound,
even to read to myself, such nonsense, that I can’t, and I couldn’t
make the tone of Robert’s voice, or the exquisite fascination of his
ways--tender, and adoring, and masterful. It must all stay in my heart;
but oh! it is as if a fairy with a wand had passed, and said “bloom” to
a winter tree. Numbers of emotions that I had never dreamed about were
surging through me--the flood-gates of everything in my soul seemed
opening in one rush of love and joy. While we were together, nothing
appeared to matter--all barriers melted away.

Fate would be sure to be kind to lovers like us!

We got back to Claridge’s about six, and Robert would not let me go up
to my sitting-room, until he had found out if Christopher had gone.

Yes, he had come at four, we discovered, and had waited twenty minutes,
and then left, saying he would come again at half-past six.

“Then you will write him a note, and give it to the porter for him,
saying you are engaged to me, and can’t see him,” Robert said.

“No, I can’t do that--I am not engaged to you, and cannot be until your
family consent, and are nice to me,” I said.

“Darling,” he faltered, and his voice trembled with emotion, “darling,
love is between you and me, it is our lives--however that can go, the
ways of my family, nothing shall ever separate you from me, or me from
you, I swear it. Write to Christopher.”

I sat down at a table in the hall and wrote,

 “DEAR MR. CARRUTHERS,--I am sorry I was out,” then I bit the end of my
 pen. “Don’t come and see me this evening. I will tell you why in a day
 or two.

  “Yours sincerely,
  “EVANGELINE TRAVERS.”

“Will that do?” I said, and I handed it to Robert, while I addressed
the envelope.

“Yes,” he said, and waited while I sealed it up, and gave it to the
porter. Then, with a surreptitious squeeze of the hand, he left me to
go to Lady Merrenden.

I have come up to my little sitting-room a changed being. The whole
world revolves for me upon another axis, and all within the space of
three short hours.


  CLARIDGE’S,

  _Sunday night, Nov. 27th._

LATE this evening, about eight o’clock, when I had re-locked my
journal, I got a note from Robert. I was just going to begin my dinner.

I tore it open, inside was another, I did not wait to look from whom, I
was too eager to read his. I paste it in.

  “CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE.

 “MY DARLING,--I have had a long talk with Aunt Sophia, and she is
 everything that is sweet and kind, but she fears Torquilstone will be
 a little difficult (_I don’t care, nothing_ shall separate us now).
 She asks me not to go and see you again to-night, as she thinks it
 would be better for you that I should not go to the Hotel so late.
 Darling, read her note, and you will she how nice she is. I shall come
 round to-morrow, the moment the beastly stables are finished, about
 12 o’clock. Oh! take care of yourself! What a difference to-night
 and last night! I was feeling horribly miserable and reckless--and
 to-night! Well, you can guess! I am not half good enough for you,
 darling, beautiful Queen--but I think I shall know how to make you
 happy. I love you!

  “Good night my own,

  “ROBERT.”

“Do please send me a tiny line by my servant--I have told him to wait.”

I have never had a love letter before. What lovely things they are! I
felt thrills of delight over bits of it! Of course I see now that I
must have been dreadfully in love with Robert all along, only I did
not know it quite! I fell into a kind of blissful dream, and then I
roused myself up to read Lady Merrenden’s. I sha’n’t put hers in too,
it fills up too much, and I can’t shut the clasp of my journal--it is
a perfectly sweet little letter, just saying Robert had told her the
news, and that she was prepared to welcome me as her dearest niece,
and to do all she could for us. She hoped I would not think her very
tiresome and old fashioned suggesting Robert had better not see me
again to-night, and if it would not inconvenience me, she would herself
come round to-morrow morning, and discuss what was best to be done.

Véronique said Lord Robert’s valet was waiting outside the door, so
I flew to my table, and began to write. My hand trembled so I made
a blot, and had to tear that sheet up, then I wrote another. Just
a little word. I was frightened, I couldn’t say loving things in a
letter, I had not even spoken many to him--yet.

“I loved your note,” I began, “and I think Lady Merrenden is quite
right. I will be here at twelve, and very pleased to see you.” I wanted
to say I loved him, and thought twelve o’clock a long way off, but of
course one could not write such things as that--so I ended with just
“Love from EVANGELINE.”

Then I read it over, and it did sound “missish” and silly--however,
with the man waiting there in the passage, and Véronique fussing in and
out of my bedroom, besides the waiters bringing up my dinner, I could
not go tearing up sheets, and writing others, it looked so flurried, so
it was put into an envelope. Then, in one of the seconds I was alone,
I nipped off a violet from a bunch on the table, and pushed it in too.
I wonder if he will think it sentimental of me! When I had written
the name, I had not an idea where to address it. His was written from
Carlton House Terrace, but he was evidently not there now, as his
servant had brought it. I felt so nervous and excited, it was too
ridiculous--I am very calm as a rule. I called the man, and asked him
where was his lordship now? I did not like to say I was ignorant of
where he lived.

“His lordship is at Vavasour House, Madame,” he said, respectfully,
but with the faintest shade of surprise that I should not know. “His
lordship dines at home this evening with his grace.”

I scribbled a note to Lady Merrenden--I would be delighted to see her
in the morning at whatever time suited her. I would not go out at all,
and I thanked her. It was much easier to write sweet things to her than
to Robert.

When I was alone I could not eat. Véronique came in to try and persuade
me. I looked so very pale, she said, she feared I had taken cold. She
was in one of her “old mother” moods, when she drops the third person
sometimes, and calls me “_mon enfant_.”

“Oh, Véronique, I have not got a cold, I am only wildly happy!” I said.

“Mademoiselle is doubtless _fiancée_ to Mr. Carruthers. _Oh! mon enfant
adorée_,” she cried, “_que je suis contente!_”

“Gracious no!” I exclaimed. This brought me back to Christopher with a
start. What would he say when he heard?

“No, Véronique, to some one much nicer--Lord Robert Vavasour.”

Véronique was frightfully interested--Mr. Carruthers she would
have preferred for me she admitted, as being more solid--more
_rangé_--_plus à la fin de ses bêtises_, but, no doubt, “Milor” was
charming too, and for certain one day Mademoiselle would be Duchesse.
In the meanwhile what kind of coronet would Mademoiselle have on her
trousseau?

I was obliged to explain that I should not have any--or any trousseau
for an indefinite time, as nothing was settled yet. This damped her a
little.

“_Un frère de Duc, et pas de couronne!_” After seven years in England
she was yet unable to understand these strange habitudes, she said.

She insisted upon putting me to bed directly after dinner--“to be
prettier for Milor _demain_!” and then, when she had tucked me up,
and was turning out the light in the centre of the room she looked
back--“Mademoiselle is too beautiful like that,” she said, as if it
slipped from her--“_Mon Dieu! il ne s’embêterai pas, le Monsieur!_”

  CLARIDGE’S,

  _Monday morning_.

I WONDER how I lived before I met Robert. I wonder what use were the
days. Oh! and I wonder, I wonder if the Duke continues to be obdurate
about me if I shall ever have the strength of mind to part from him so
as not to spoil his future.

Such a short time ago--not yet four weeks--since I was still at
Branches, and wondering what made the clock go round--the great big
clock of life.

Oh, now I know! It is being in love--frightfully in love like we are.
I must try to keep my head though, and remember all the remarks of
Lady Ver about things and men. Fighters all of them, and they must
never feel quite sure. It will be dreadfully difficult to tease Robert,
because he is so direct and simple; but I must try I suppose. Perhaps
being so very pretty as I am, and having all the male creatures looking
at me with interest will do, and be enough to keep him worried, and I
won’t have to be tiresome myself. I hope so, because I really do love
him so extremely, I would like to let myself go and be as sweet as I
want to.

I am doing all the things I thought perfectly silly to hear of before.
I kissed his letter, and slept with it on the pillow beside me, and
this morning woke at six and turned on the electric light to read it
again! The part where the “Darling” comes is quite blurry I see in
daylight; that is where I kissed most I know!

I seem to be numb to everything else. Whether Lady Ver is angry or not
does not bother me. I did play fair. She could not expect me to go on
pretending when Robert had said straight out he loved me. But I am sure
she will be angry, though, and probably rather spiteful about it.

I will write her the simple truth in a day or two, when we see how
things go. She will guess by Robert not going to Sedgwick.


  CLARIDGE’S,

  _Monday afternoon_.

AT half past eleven this morning Lady Merrenden came, and the room
was all full of flowers that Robert had sent--bunches and bunches of
violets and gardenias. She kissed me, and held me tight for a moment,
and we did not speak. Then she said in a voice that trembled a little,

“Robert is so very dear to me--almost my own child --that I want him to
be happy, and you, too, Evangeline--I may call you that, may not I?”

I squeezed her hand.

“You are the echo of my youth, when 1, too, knew the wild springtime
of love. So dear, I need not tell you that you may count upon my doing
what I can for you both.”

Then we talked and talked.

“I must admit,” she said at last, “I was prejudiced in your favour
for your dear father’s sake, but in any case my opinion of Robert’s
judgement is so high, I would have been prepared to find you charming
even without that. He has the rarest qualities, he is the truest, most
untarnished soul in this world.”

“I don’t say,” she went on, “that he is not just as the other young men
of his age and class; he is no Galahad, as no one can be with truth who
is human and lives in the world. And I daresay kind friends will tell
you stories of actresses and other diversions, but I who know him, tell
you you have won the best and greatest darling in London.”

“Oh, I am sure of it!” I said. “I don’t know why he loves me so much,
he has seen me so little; but it began from the very first minute I
think with both of us. He is such a nice shape!”

She laughed. Then she asked me if she was right in supposing all these
_contretemps_ we had had were the doing of Lady Ver. “You need not
answer, dear,” she said. “I know Ianthe--she is in love with Robert
herself, she can’t help it; she means no harm, but she often gets these
attacks, and they pass off. I think she is devoted to Sir Charles
really.”

“Y-e-s,” I said.

“It is a queer world we live in, child,” she continued, “and true love
and suitability of character are such a rare combination, but, from
what I can judge, you and Robert possess them.”

“Oh, how dear of you to say so!” I exclaimed. “You don’t think I _must_
be bad, then, because of my colouring?”

“What a ridiculous idea, you sweet child!” she laughed. “Who has told
you that?”

“Oh! Mrs. Carruthers always said so--and--and--the old gentlemen,
and--even Mr. Carruthers hinted I probably had some odd qualities. But
you do think I shall be able to be fairly good, don’t you?”

She was amused I could see, but I was serious.

“I think you probably might have been a little wicked if you had
married a man like Mr. Carruthers,” she said, smiling; “but with Robert
I am sure you will be good. He will never leave you a moment, and he
will love you so much you won’t have time for anything else.”

“Oh! that is what I shall like--being loved,” I said.

“I think all women like that,” she sighed. “We could all of us be good
if the person we love went on being demonstrative. It is the cold
matter-of-fact devotion that kills love, and makes one want to look
elsewhere to find it again.”

Then we talked of possibilities about the Duke. I told her I knew
his _toquade_, and she, of course, was fully acquainted with mamma’s
history.

“I must tell you, dear, I fear he will be difficult,” she said. “He
is a strangely prejudiced person, and obstinate to a degree, and he
worships Robert, as we all do.”

I would not ask her if the Duke had taken a dislike to me, because I
_knew_ he had.

“I asked you to meet him on Saturday on purpose,” she continued. “I
felt sure your charm would impress him, as it had done me, and as it
did my husband--but I wonder now if it would have been better to wait.
He said, after you were gone, that you were much too beautiful for the
peace of any family, and he pitied Mr. Carruthers if he married you!
I don’t mean to hurt you, child. I am only telling you everything, so
that we may consult how best to act.”

“Yes, I know,” I said, and I squeezed her hand again; she does not put
out claws like Lady Ver.

“How did he know anything about Mr. Carruthers?” I asked, “or me--or
anything?”

She looked ashamed.

“One can never tell how he hears things. He was intensely interested to
meet you, and seemed to be acquainted with more of the affair than I
am. I almost fear he must obtain his information from the servants.”

“Oh, does not that show the housemaid in him! Poor fellow!” I said,
“He can’t help it, then, any more than I could help crying yesterday
before Robert in the Park. Of course we would neither of us have done
these things if it were not for the _tache_ in our backgrounds, only,
fortunately for me, mine wasn’t a housemaid, and was one generation
further back, so I would not be likely to have any of those tricks.”

She leant back in her chair and laughed. “You quaint, quaint child,
Evangeline,” she said.

Just then it was twelve o’clock and Robert came in.

Oh! talk of hearts beating. If mine is going to go on jumping like this
every time Robert enters a room, I shall get a disease in it in less
than a year.

He looked too intensely attractive; he was not in London clothes, just
serge things and a Guard’s tie, and his face was beaming, and his eyes
shining like blue stars.

We behaved nicely; he only kissed my hand, and Lady Merrenden looked
away at the clock even for that! She has tact!

“Isn’t my Evangeline a darling, Aunt Sophia? he said. “And don’t you
love her red hair?”

“It is beautiful,” said Lady Merrenden.

“When you leave us alone I am going to pull it all down,” and he
whispered, “darling, I love you,” so close, that his lips touched my
ear, while he pretended he was not doing anything! I say again, Robert
has ways which would charm a stone image.

“How was Torquilstone last night?” Lady Merrenden asked. “And did you
tell him anything?”

“Not a word,” said Robert. “I wanted to wait and consult you both which
would be best. Shall I go to him at once, or shall he be made to meet
my Evangeline again and let her fascinate him, as she is bound to do,
and then tell him?”

“Oh, tell him straight!” I exclaimed, remembering his proclivities
about the servants, and that Véronique knows. “Then he cannot ever say
we have deceived him.”

“That is how I feel,” said Robert.

“You take Evangeline to lunch, Aunt Sophia, and I will go back and feed
with him and tell him, and then come to you after.”

“Yes, that will be best,” she said, and it was settled that she should
come in again and fetch me in an hour, when Robert should leave to go
to Vavasour House. He went with her to the lift, and then he came back.

No--even in this locked book I am not going to write of that hour--it
was too divine. If I had thought just sitting in the Park was heaven, I
now know there are degrees of heaven, and that Robert is teaching me up
towards the seventh.

  _Monday afternoon (continued)._

I FORGOT to say a note came from Christopher by this morning’s
post--it made me laugh when I read it, then it went out of my head,
but when Lady Merrenden returned for me, and we were more or less sane
again--Robert and I--I thought of it; so apparently did he.

“Did you by chance hear from Christopher whether he got your note last
night or no?” he said.

I went and fetched it from my bedroom when I put on my hat. Robert read
it aloud:

  “TRAVELLERS’ CLUB,

  “_Sunday night_.

“_Souvent femme varie, fol qui se fie!_”

Hope you found your variation worth while.

  “C. C.”

“What dam cheek!” he said in his old way; he hasn’t used any “ornaments
to conversation” since we have been--oh! I want to say it--engaged!

Then his eyes flashed. “Christopher had better be careful of himself.
He will have to be answerable to me now!”

“Do be prudent, Evangeline, dear!” Lady Merrenden said gaily, “or you
will have Robert breaking the head of every man in the street who even
glances at you! He is frantically jealous!”

“Yes, I know I am,” said Robert, rearranging the tie on my blouse with
that air of _sans gêne_ and possession that pleases me so.

I belong to him now, and if my tie isn’t as he likes, he has a perfect
right to re-tie it! No matter who is there! That is his attitude, not
the _least_ ceremony or stuff, everything perfectly simple and natural!

It does make things agreeable. When I was “Miss Travers” and he “Lord
Robert,” he was always respectful and unfamiliar--except that one night
when rage made him pinch my finger! but now that I am _his_ Evangeline,
and he is _my_ Robert (thus he explained it to me in our Paradise hour)
I am his queen and his darling--but at the same time his possession and
belonging, just the same as his watch or his coat. I adore it, and it
does not make me the least “uppish,” as one might have thought.

“Come, come, children!” Lady Merrenden said at last, “we shall all be
late!”

So we started, dropping Robert at Vavasour House on our way. It is a
splendid place, down one of those side streets looking on the Green
Park, and has a small garden that side. I had never been down to the
little square where it is before, but, of course, every one can see its
splendid frontage from St. James’s Park, though I had never realized it
was Vavasour House.

“Good luck!” whispered Lady Merrenden as Robert got out, and then we
drove on.

Several people were lunching at Carlton House Terrace, Cabinet
Ministers, and a clever novelist, and the great portrait painter,
besides two or three charming women, one as pretty and smart as Lady
Ver, but the others more ordinary looking, only so well mannered. No
real frumps like the Montgomeries. We had a delightful lunch, and I
tried to talk nicely, and do my best to please my dear hostess. When
they had all left I think we both began to feel excited, and long
apprehensively for the arrival of Robert. So we talked of the late
guests.

“It amuses my husband to see a number of different kinds of people,”
she said, “but we had nothing very exciting to-day, I must
confess--though sometimes the authors and authoresses bore me--and they
are often very disappointing, one does not any longer care to read
their books after seeing them.”

I said I could quite believe that.

“I do not go in for budding geniuses,” she continued, “I prefer to
wait until they have arrived--no matter their origin, then they have
acquired a certain outside behaviour on the way up, and it does not
_froissé_ one so. Merrenden is a great judge of human nature, and
variety entertains him. Left to myself I fear I should be quite
contented with less gifted people who were simply of one’s own world.”

In all her talk one can see her thought and consideration for Lord
Merrenden and his wishes and tastes.

“I always feel it is so cruel for him our having no children,” she
said; “the Earldom becomes extinct, so I must make him as happy as I
can.”

What a dear and just woman!

At last we spoke of Robert, and she told me stories of his boyhood,
amusing Eton scrapes, and later feats. And how brave and splendid he
had been in the war; and how the people all adored him at Torquilstone;
and of his popularity and influence with them. “You must make him go
into Parliament,” she said.

Then Robert came into the room. Oh! his darling face spoke, there was
no need for words! The Duke, one could see, had been obdurate.

“Well?” said Lady Merrenden.

Robert came straight over to me, and took my face in his two hands:
“Darling,” he said, “before everything I want you to know I love you
better than anything else in the world, and nothing will make any
difference,” and he kissed me deliberately before his aunt. His voice
was so moved--and we all felt a slight lump in our throats, I know;
then he stood in front of us, but he held my hand.

“Torquilstone was horrid, I can see,” said Lady Merrenden. “What did
he say, Robert--tell us everything? Evangeline would wish it too, I am
sure, as well as I.”

Robert looked very pale and stern, one can see how firm his jaw is in
reality, and how steady his dear blue eyes.

“I told him I loved Evangeline, whom I understood he had met yesterday,
and that I intended to marry her----”

“And he said?” asked Lady Merrenden, breathless.

I only held tighter Robert’s hand.

“He swore like a trooper, he thumped his glass down on the table and
smashed it--a disgusting exhibition of temper--I was ashamed of him.
Then he said, ‘Never, as long as he lived and could prevent it--that he
had heard something of my infatuation, so as I am not given that way he
had made inquiries, and found the family was most unsatisfactory.’ Then
he had come here yesterday on purpose to see you--darling,” turning
to me--“and that he had judged for himself. The girl was a ‘devilish
beauty’ (his words not mine) with the naughtiest provoking eyes, and
a mouth--No! I can’t say the rest, it makes me too mad!” and Robert’s
eyes flashed.

Lady Merrenden rose from her seat, and came and took my other hand. I
felt as if I could not stand too tall and straight.

“The long and short of it is, he has absolutely refused to have
anything to do with the matter; says I need expect nothing further from
him, and we have parted for good and all!”

“Oh, Robert!” it was almost a cry from Lady Merrenden.

Robert put his arms round me, and his face changed to radiance.

“Well, I don’t care--what does it matter! A few places and thousands
in the dim future--the loss of them is nothing to me if I have only my
Evangeline now.”

“But, Robert, dearest,” Lady Merrenden said, “you can’t possibly live
without what he allows you, what have you of your own? About eighteen
hundred a year, I suppose, and you know, darling boy, you are often in
debt. Why he paid five thousand for you as lately as last Easter. Oh,
what is to be done!” and she clasped her hands.

I felt as if turned to stone. Was all this divine happiness going to
slip from my grasp? Yes, it looked like it, for I could never drag
Robert into poverty, and spoil his great future.

“He can’t leave away Torquilstone, and those thousands of profitless
acres,” Lady Merrenden went on, “but unfortunately the London property
is at his disposition. Oh! I must go and talk to him!”

“No!” said Robert. “It would not be the least use, and would look as
if we were pleading. His face had fallen to intense sadness as Lady
Merrenden spoke of his money.

“Darling,” he said, in a broken voice. “No, it is true it would not be
fair to make you a beggar. I should be a cad to ask you. We must think
of some way of softening my brother after all!”

Then I spoke.

“Robert,” I said, “if you were only John Smith I would say I would
willingly go and live with you in a cottage, or even in a slum--but you
are not, and I would not for _anything in the world_ drag you down out
of what is your position in life--that would be a poor sort of love.
Oh! my dear,” and I clasped tight his hand--“if everything fails, then
we must part, and you must forget me.”

He folded me in his arms, and we heard the door shut. Lady Merrenden
had left us alone. Oh! it was anguish and divine bliss at the same time
the next half hour.

“I will never forget you, and never in this world will I take another
woman, I swear to God,” he said at the end of it. “If we must part,
then life is finished for me of all joy.”

“And for me, too, Robert!”

We said the most passionate vows of love to one another, but I will not
write them here, there is another locked book where I keep them--the
book of my soul.

“Would it be any good if Colonel Tom Carden went and spoke to him?” I
asked, presently. “He was best man at papa’s wedding, and knows all
that there is to be known of poor mamma, and do you think that as
mamma’s father was Lord de Brandreth, a very old barony, I believe,
it is--oh! can it make any difference to the children’s actual
breeding, their parents not having been through the marriage ceremony?
I--I--don’t know much of those sort of things!”

“My sweet!” said Robert, and through all our sorrow he smiled and
kissed me, “my sweet, sweet Evangeline.”

“But does the Duke know all the details of the history,” I asked, when
I could speak--one can’t when one is being kissed.

“Every little bit, it seems. He says he will not discuss the matter of
that, I must know it is quite enough, as I have always known his views,
but if they were not sufficient, your wild, wicked beauty is. You would
not be faithful to me for a year, he said. I could hardly keep from
killing him when he hurled that at my head.”

I felt my temper rising. How frightfully unjust--how cruel. I went
over and looked in the glass--a big mirror between the window--drawing
Robert with me.

“Oh! tell me, tell me what is it. Am I so very bad looking? It is a
curse surely that is upon me!”

“Of course you are not bad looking, my darling!” exclaimed
Robert. “You are perfectly beautiful--slender, stately, exquisite
tiger-lily--only--only--you don’t look cold--and it is just your red
hair, and those fascinating green eyes, and your white lovely skin and
black eyelashes that, that--oh! you know, you sweetheart! You don’t
look like bread and butter, you are utterly desirable, and you would
make any one’s heart beat!”

I thought of the night at “Carmen.”

“Yes, I am wicked,” I said, “but I never will be again--only just
enough to make you always love me, because Lady Ver says security makes
yawns. But even wicked people can love with a great, great love, and
that can keep them good. Oh! if he only knew how utterly I love you,
Robert, I am sure, sure, he would be kind to us!”

“Well, how shall we tell him?”

Then a thought came to me, and I felt all over a desperate thrill of
excitement.

“Will you do nothing until to-morrow?” I said. “I have an idea which I
will tell to no one. Let us go back to Claridge’s now, and do not come
and see me again until to-morrow at twelve. Then if this has failed, we
will say good-bye. It is a desperate chance.”

“And you won’t tell me what it is?”

“No--please trust me--it is my life as well as yours, remember.”

“My queen!” he said. “Yes, I will do that, or anything else you wish,
only _never, never_ good-bye. I am a man after all, and have numbers
of influential relations. I can do something else in life but just
be a Guardsman, and we shall get enough money to live quite happily
on--though we might not be very grand people. I will never say
good-bye--do you hear. Promise me you will never say it either.”

I was silent.

“Evangeline, darling!” he cried, in anguish, his eyebrows right up in
the old way, while two big tears welled up in his beautiful eyes. “My
God! won’t you answer me!”

“Yes, I will!” I said, and I threw all my reserve to the winds, and
flung my arms round his neck passionately.

“I love you with my heart and soul, and pray to God we shall never say
good-bye.”

When I got back to Claridge’s, for the first time in my life I felt a
little faint. Lady Merrenden had driven me back herself, and left me,
with every assurance of her devotion and affection for us. I had said
good-bye to Robert for the day at Carlton House Terrace.

They do not yet know me, either of them--quite--or what I can and will
do.

  CLARIDGE’S,

  _Monday night_.

I FELT to carry out my plan I must steady my mind a little, so I wrote
my journal, and that calmed me.

Of all the things I was sure of in the world I was most sure that I
loved Robert far too well to injure his prospects. On the other hand
to throw him away without a struggle was too cruel to both of us. If
mamma’s mother was nobody, all the rest of my family were fine old
fighters and gentlemen, and I really prayed to their shades to help me
now.

Then I rang and ordered some iced water, and when I had thought deeply
for a few minutes, while I sipped it, I sat down to my writing-table.
My hand did not shake, though I felt at a deadly tension. I addressed
the envelope first, to steady myself:

  _To_
  _His Grace_,
  THE DUKE OF TORQUILSTONE,
  _Vavasour House,_
  _St. James’s, S.W._

Then I put that aside.

“I am Evangeline Travers who writes,” I began, without any preface,
“and I ask if you will see me--either here in my sitting-room this
evening, or I will come to you at Vavasour House. I understand your
brother, Lord Robert, has told you that he loves me, and wishes to
marry me, and that you have refused your consent, partly because of
the history of my family, but chiefly because my type displeases you.
I believe, in days gone by, the prerogative of a great noble like you
was to dispense justice. In my case it is still your prerogative by
courtesy, and I ask it of you. When we have talked for a little, if you
then hold to your opinion of me, and convince me that it is for your
brother’s happiness, I swear to you on my word of honour I will never
see him again.

  “Believe me,

  “Yours faithfully,

  “EVANGELINE TRAVERS.”

I put it hastily in the envelope, and fastened it up. Then I rang the
bell, and had it sent by a messenger in a cab, who was to wait for an
answer. Oh! I wonder in life if I shall ever have to go through another
twenty-five minutes like those that passed before the waiter brought a
note up to me in reply.

Even if the journal won’t shut I must put it in.

  “VAVASOUR HOUSE,

  “_St. James’s_,

  “_Nov. 28th_.

“DEAR MADAM,--I have received your letter, and request you to excuse
my calling upon you at your hotel this evening, as I am very unwell,
but if you will do me the honour to come to Vavasour House on receipt
of this, I will discuss the matter in question with you, and trust you
will believe that you may rely upon my _justice_.

  “I remain, Madam,

  “Yours truly,

  “TORQUILSTONE.”

“His grace’s brougham is waiting below for you, Madam,” the waiter
said, and I flew to Véronique.

I got her to dress me quickly. I wore the same things exactly as he had
seen me in before, deep mourning they are, and extremely becoming.

In about ten minutes Véronique and I were seated in the brougham and
rolling on our way. I did not speak.

I was evidently expected, for as the carriage stopped the great doors
flew open, and I could see into the dim and splendid hall.

A silver-haired, stately old servant led me along, through a row of
powdered footmen, down a passage dimly lit with heavily shaded lights
(Véronique was left to their mercies). Then the old man opened a door,
and without announcing my name, merely, “The lady, your grace,” he held
the door, and then went out and closed it softly.

It was a huge room splendidly panelled with dark carved _boiserie_
Louis XV, the most beautiful of its kind I had ever seen, only it was
so dimly lit with the same sort of shaded lamps one could hardly see
into the corners.

The Duke was crouching in a chair, he looked fearfully pale and
ill, and had an inscrutable expression on his face. Fancy a man so
old-looking, and crippled, being even Robert’s half-brother!

I came forward; he rose with difficulty, and this is the conversation
we had.

“Please don’t get up,” I said, “if I may sit down opposite you.”

“Excuse my want of politeness,” he replied, pointing to a chair, “but
my back is causing me great pain to-day.”

He looked such a poor miserable, soured, unhappy creature, I could not
help being touched.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” I said. “If I had known you were ill, I would not
have troubled you now.”

“Justice had better not wait,” he answered, with a whimsical, cynical,
sour smile. “State your case.”

Then he suddenly turned on an electric lamp near me, which made a blaze
of light in my face. I did not jump. I am glad to say I have pretty
good nerves.

“My case is this: to begin with, I love your brother better than
anything else in the world----”

“Possibly: a number of women have done so,” he interrupted. “Well?”

“And he loves me,” I continued, not noticing the interruption.

“Agreed. It is a situation that happens every day among young fools.
You have known one another about a month, I believe?”

“Under four weeks,” I corrected.

He laughed bitterly.

“It cannot be of such vital importance to you then in that short time!”

“It is of vital importance to me, and you know your brother’s
character; you will be able to judge as well as I if, or not, it is a
matter of vital importance to him.”

He frowned. “Well, your case.”

“First, to demand on what grounds you condemned me as a ‘devilish
beauty?’ and why you assume that I should not be faithful to Robert for
a year?”

“I am rather a good judge of character,” he said.

“You cannot be--or you would see that whatever accident makes me have
this objectionable outside, the me that lives within is an honest
person who never breaks her word.”

“I can only see red hair and green eyes, and a general look of the
devil.”

“Would you wish people always to judge by appearances then?” I
said. “Because, if so, I see before me a prejudiced, narrow-minded,
cruel-tempered, cynical man, jealous of youth’s joys. But _I_ would not
be so unjust as to stamp you with these qualities because of that!”

He looked straight at me, startled. “I may be all those things,” he
said. “You are probably right!”

“Then, oh, please don’t be!” I went on quickly. “I want you to be kind
to us. We, oh, we do, do so wish to be happy, and we are both so young,
and life will be so utterly blank and worthless for all these years to
the end if you part us now.”

“I did not say I would part you,” he said, coldly. “I merely said I
refused to give Robert any allowance, and I shall leave everything in
my power away from the title. If you like to get married on those terms
you are welcome to.”

Then I told him I loved Robert far too much to like the thought of
spoiling his future.

“We came into each others lives,” I said. “We did not ask it of Fate,
she pushed us there; and I tried not to speak to him because I had
promised a friend of mine I would not, as she said she liked him
herself, and it made us both dreadfully unhappy, and every day we
mattered more to one another; until yesterday--when I thought he had
gone away for good, and I was too miserable for words--we met in the
Park, and it was no use pretending any longer. Oh! you _can’t_ want to
crush out all joy and life for us, just because I have red hair! It is
so horribly unjust.”

“You beautiful siren,” he said. “You are coaxing me. How you know how
to use your charms and your powers; and what _man_ could resist your
tempting face!”

I rose in passionate scorn.

“How dare you say such things to me!” I said. “I would not stoop
to coax you--I will not again ask you for any boon! I only wanted
you to do me the justice of realizing you had made a mistake in my
character--to do your brother the justice of conceding the point that
he has some right to love whom he chooses. But keep your low thoughts
to yourself! Evil, cruel man! Robert and I have got something that is
better than all your lands and money--a dear, great love, and I am
glad; glad that he will not in the future receive anything that is in
your gift. I shall give him the gift of myself, and we shall do very
well without you,” and I walked to the door, leaving him huddled in
the chair.

Thus ended our talk on justice!

Never has my head been so up in the air. I am sure had Cleopatra been
dragged to Rome in Augustus’s triumph she would not have walked with
more pride and contempt than I through the hall of Vavasour House.

The old servant was waiting for me, and Véronique, and the brougham.

“Call a hansom, if you please,” I said, and stood there like a statue
while one of the footmen had to run into St. James’s Street for it.

Then we drove away, and I felt my teeth chatter, while my cheeks burnt.
Oh! what an end to my scheme, and my dreams of perhaps success!

But what a beast of a man! What a cruel, warped, miserable creature. I
will not let him separate me from Robert, never, never! He is not worth
it. I will wait for him--my darling--and, if he really loves me, some
day we can be happy, and if he does not--but oh! I need not fear.

I am still shaking with passion, and shall go to bed. I do not want any
dinner.

       *       *       *       *       *

  _Tuesday morning, Nov. 29th._

VÉRONIQUE would not let me go to bed, she insisted upon my eating, and
then after dinner I sat in an old, but lovely wrap of white crêpe,
and she brushed out my hair for more than an hour--there is such a
tremendous lot of it, it takes time.

I sat in front of the sitting-room fire, and tried not to think. One
does feel a wreck after a scene like that. At about half past nine I
heard noises in the passage of people, and with only a preliminary
tap Robert and Lady Merrenden came into the room. I started up, and
Véronique dropped the brush, in her astonishment, and then left us
alone.

Both their eyes were shining, and excited, and Robert looked crazy with
joy; he seized me in his arms and kissed me, and kissed me, while Lady
Merrenden said, “You darling, Evangeline, you plucky, clever girl,
tell us all about it!”

“About what!” I said, as soon as I could speak.

“How you managed it.”

“Oh, I must kiss her first, Aunt Sophia!” said Robert. “Did you ever
see anything so divinely lovely as she looks with her hair all floating
like this--and it is all mine--every bit of it!!!”

“Yes, it is,” I said sadly. “And that is about all of value you will
get!”

“Come and sit down,” said Robert, “Evangeline, you darling--and look at
this!”

Upon which he drew from his pocket a note. I saw at once it was the
Duke’s writing, and I shivered with excitement. He held it before my
eyes.

“DEAR ROBERT,” it began, “I have seen her. I am conquered. She will
make a magnificent Duchess. Bring her to lunch to-morrow. Yours,
TORQUILSTONE.”

I really felt so intensely moved I could not speak.

“Oh, tell us, dear child, how did it happen--and what did you do--and
where did you meet?” said Lady Merrenden.

Robert held my hand.

Then I tried to tell them as well as I could, and they listened
breathlessly. “I was very rude, I fear,” I ended with, “but I was so
angry.”

“It is glorious,” said Robert. “But the best part is that you intended
to give me yourself with no prospect of riches. Oh, darling, that is
the best gift of all.”

“Was it disgustingly selfish of me?” I said. “But when I saw your
poor brother so unhappy looking, and soured, and unkind, with all his
grandeur, I felt that to us, who know what love means, to be together
was the thing that matters most in all the world.”

Lady Merrenden then said she knew some people staying here who had an
_appartement_ on the first floor, and she would go down and see if they
were visible. She would wait for Robert in the hall, she said, and she
kissed us good-night, and gave us her blessing.

What a dear she is! What a nice pet to leave us alone!

Robert and I passed another hour of bliss, and I think we must have got
to the sixth heaven by now. Robert says the seventh is for the end,
when we are married--well, that will be soon. Oh! I am too happy to
write coherently.

I did not wake till late this morning, and Véronique came and said my
sitting-room was again full of flowers. The darling Robert is!

I wrote to Christopher and Lady Ver, in bed as I sipped my chocolate. I
just told Lady Ver the truth, that Robert and I had met by chance, and
discovered we loved one another, so I knew she would understand--and I
promised I would not break his heart. Then I thanked her for all her
kindness to me, but I felt sad when I read it over--poor, dear Lady
Ver--how I hope it won’t really hurt her, and that she will forgive me.

To Christopher I said I had found my “variation” worth while, and I
hoped he would come to my wedding some day soon.

Then I sent Véronique to post them both.

To-day I am moving to Carlton House Terrace. What a delight that will
be--and in a fortnight, or at best three weeks, Robert says we shall
quietly go and get married, and Colonel Tom Carden can give me away
after all.

Oh the joy of the dear, beautiful world, and this sweet, dirty,
enshrouding fog-bound London! I love it all--even the smuts!

  CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE,
  _Thursday night_.

ROBERT came to see me at twelve, and he brought me the loveliest,
splendid diamond and emerald ring, and I danced about like a child with
delight over it. He has the most exquisite sentiment, Robert, every
little trifle has some delicate meaning, and he makes me _feel_ and
_feel_.

Each hour we spend together we seem to discover some new bit of us
which is just what the other wants. And he is so deliciously jealous
and masterful and--oh! I love him--so there it is!

I am learning a number of things, and I am sure there are lots to learn
still.

At half past one Lady Merrenden came, and fetched us in the _barouche_,
and off we went to Vavasour House, with what different feelings to last
evening.

The pompous servants received us in state, and we all three walked on
to the Duke’s room.

There he was, still huddled in his chair, but he got up--he is better
to-day.

Lady Merrenden went over and kissed him.

“Dear Torquilstone,” she said.

“Morning, Robert,” he mumbled, after he had greeted his aunt.
“Introduce me to your _fiancée_.”

And Robert did with great ceremony.

“Now, I won’t call you names any more,” I said, and I laughed in his
face. He bent down, and kissed my forehead.

“You are a beautiful tiger cat,” he said, “but even a year of you would
be well worth while.”

Upon which Robert glared, and I laughed again, and we all went in to
lunch.

He is not so bad, the Duke, after all!


  CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE,
  _Dec. 21st._

OH! it is three weeks since I wrote, but I have been too busy, and
too happy, for journals. I have been here ever since, getting my
trousseau, and Véronique is becoming used to the fact that I can have
no coronet on my _lingerie_!

It is the loveliest thing in the world being engaged to Robert!

He has ways!--Well, even if I really were as bad as I suppose I look,
I could never want any one else. He worships me, and lets me order
him about, and then he orders me about, and that makes me have the
loveliest thrills! And if any one even looks at me in the street, which
of course they always do--he flashes blue fire at them, and I feel--oh!
I feel, all the time!

Lady Merrenden continues her sweet kindness to us, and her tact is
beyond words, and now I often do what I used to wish to--that is, touch
Robert’s eyelashes with the tips of my fingers!

It is perfectly lovely.

Oh, what in the world is the good of anything else in life, but being
frantically in love like we are.

It all seems, to look back upon, as if it were like having porridge
for breakfast, and nothing else every day--before I met Robert!

Perhaps it is because he is going to be very grand in the future, but
every one has discovered I am a beauty, and intelligent. It is much
nicer to be thought that than just to be a red-haired adventuress.

Lady Katherine, even, has sent me a cairngorm brooch and a cordial
letter (should now adorn her circle!)

But oh! what do they all matter--what does anything matter but Robert!
All day long I know I am learning the meaning of “to dance and to sing
and to laugh and _to live_.”

The Duke and I are great friends, he has ferreted out about mamma’s
mother, and it appears she was a Venetian music mistress of the name
of Tonquini, or something like that, who taught Lord de Brandreth’s
sisters--so perhaps Lady Ver was right after all, and far, far back in
some other life, I was the friend of a Doge.

Poor dear Lady Ver! she has taken it very well after the first spiteful
letter, and now I don’t think there is even a tear at the corner of
her eye!

Lady Merrenden says it is just the time of the year when she usually
gets a new one, so perhaps she has now, and so that is all right.

The diamond serpent she has given me has emerald eyes--and such a
pointed tongue.

“It is like you, Snake-girl,” she said, “so wear it at your wedding.”

The three angels are to be my only bridesmaids.

Robert loads me with gifts, and the Duke is going to let me wear all
the Torquilstone jewels when I am married, besides the emeralds he has
given me himself. I really love him.

Christopher sent me this characteristic note with the earrings which
are his gift, great big emeralds set with diamonds:

 “So sorry I shall not see you on the happy day, but Paris, I am
 fortunate enough to discover, still has joys for me.

  “C. C.

“Wear them, they will match your eyes!”

And to-morrow is my wedding-day, and I am going away on a honeymoon
with Robert--away into the seventh heaven. And oh! and oh! I am certain
_sure_ neither of us will yawn!


                      END OF EVANGELINE’S JOURNAL


        CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
                  TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.





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