THE SLAVES
OF SOCIETY

A Comedy in Covers

By THE MAN WHO
HEARD SOMETHING

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS
1900

Copyright, 1900, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

THE SLAVES OF SOCIETY

SCENE I
A MOTHER’S CARES

“After all,” sighed the marchioness, as she conveyed a three-cornered piece of muffin from the silver chafing-dish to her mouth, and nibbled delicately at one of the corners—“after all, what are we but slaves of society?”

Mr. Despencer extended a hand almost as white and slender as the marchioness’s own, and abstracted a small cube of sugar from the porcelain basin, of the thinness and transparency of a sea-shell, on the marchioness’s silver tray, while he meditated a becoming response.

“Yes,” he exclaimed, giving his head a slow, mournful movement from side to side, “you are right. We are no better off than prisoners on the treadmill. Even you are but a bird of paradise held captive in a gilded cage.”

The bird of paradise removed the piece of muffin from its beak to turn a pair of bright, steel-blue eyes on the speaker, gazing at him for some moments as though in doubt whether to accept this beautiful sentiment as a tribute or to rebuke it as a familiarity.

The cage so feelingly referred to was one of a set of drawing-rooms on the first floor of a mansion in Berkeley Square—that is to say, in the heart of that restricted area within which society requires its bond-servants to reside during the spring and early summer. The gilding consisted in a mural decoration of the very latest and most artistic design, representing a number of Japanese dragons going through a kind of dragon drill, apparently adapted to develop their tail muscles according to the system of Mr. Sandow; in curtains of lemon-colored silk on each side of the window and other curtains of lemon-colored plush across the doorways; in a carpet of that rich but chaotic pattern which has been compared to the poetical style of the late Robert Montgomery, and in a thicket of fantastic and inconvenient chairs, of china-laden cabinets and palms in Satsuma jars, which would have rendered it extremely hazardous for the gymnastic dragons to have come down from the walls and transferred their exercises to the floor of the apartment.

The inhabitant of this dungeon was a handsome young woman of forty, or possibly forty-five, with the fresh complexion and vivacious expression of a girl, united with a certain massiveness of outline, the inseparable distinction of the British matron. Just at this moment, moreover, her features were hardened into that business-like aspect which the British matron assumes when she is engaged in doing that duty which England expects of her no less than of its sea-faring population.

Her companion looked even younger than the marchioness. A rather pale face, set off by a carefully cultivated black mustache, gave him that air of concealed wickedness which women find so interesting. His attire was a little too elegant to be in perfect taste. His bow was tied with an artistic grace repugnant to the feelings of an English gentleman. He was a typical specimen of that class of man whom men instinctively taboo and women instinctively confide in; who are blackballed in the best clubs and invited to all the best country-houses, who have no male friends, and are on intimate terms with half our peeresses. Sometimes these men end by getting found out, and sometimes they marry a dowager countess with money—and a temper. As yet neither fate had overtaken Mr. Despencer.

The marchioness decided that her companion had been familiar.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said, with some sharpness. “I sent for you because I want your assistance.”

Despencer meekly submitted to the reproof.

“You know I am always at your disposal,” he murmured.

The marchioness glanced at him with a questioning air, much as King John may be supposed to have glanced at Hubert before proceeding to introduce the subject of Prince Arthur’s eyes.

“They tell me you are horribly wicked,” she remarked, in the tone of one who pays a distinguished compliment, “so I feel I can rely on you.”

“In that case I must positively ask you to go into another room,” returned Despencer, with his best smile. “In your presence I find my better instincts overpower me.”

The marchioness leaned back in her chair, and half closed her eyes with an expression of well-bred fatigue.

“Please don’t begin to say clever things. I want to talk sensibly.” She reopened her eyes. “You see, I can’t speak to the marquis because—well, he is rather old-fashioned in some of his ideas; so I have to fall back on you.”

Despencer slightly shrugged his shoulders.

“Lord Severn is certainly a trifle out of date. He belongs to the solid-tire period.”

“Exactly!” exclaimed the marchioness, with some eagerness. The next moment she recollected herself and frowned. Even the fireside cat will sometimes protrude its claws from under their velvet caps, and the marchioness was not quite sure that she had not felt a scratch. She frowned beautifully—the marchioness’s frown was celebrated. Then she observed: “Though I think it is extremely impertinent of you to say so. Please to remember that the marquis is my husband.”

“Ah! to be sure he is. I apologize. It is so difficult to keep in mind these legal distinctions.”

This time the marchioness felt certain she had been scratched. She glanced furtively at her companion, who preserved the composure of entire innocence as he set down his empty teacup on a small ebony stool, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and made himself more at ease by drawing back into his chair and crossing his superbly trousered legs. After a little pause, she asked suddenly:

“You know Mr. Hammond?”

“No.” The word was spoken with a touch of disdain.

“Not know Mr. Hammond! Why, I thought Hammond’s ales were drunk in all the clubs?”

“It doesn’t follow that you know a man because you drink his beer. But I have heard of him. Isn’t he rather an outsider?”

The marchioness looked indignant.

“He is run after by all the best people,” she remonstrated.

“Yes, but is he worth it?” returned Despencer.

“He is worth two millions,” retorted the marchioness.

Despencer sat up in his chair and glanced at her.

“Rather a loud kind of man, they tell me,” he observed.

“They tell me it is the thing to be loud now,” said his companion.

“The sort of man that takes ballet-girls to Richmond?”

“The sort of man that every mother in England would welcome as a son-in-law.”

Despencer smiled compassionately and leaned back in his chair again.

“Oh, quite so. There could be no possible objection to him as a son-in-law. I thought you meant as an acquaintance.”

“Don’t be so insolent,” said the marchioness; “but listen. A man like that ought to marry, and to marry well. If he were to fall into the clutches of some vulgar adventuress, I should regard it as a misfortune for society.”

“This is very noble of you,” murmured her companion.

She went on: “We are all so wretchedly poor in society now that we can’t afford to lose two millions. Besides, with his money and a seat in Parliament, they are sure to make him a peer.”

“I should think that very likely. The House of Lords is the one club in London where you can’t be blackballed.”

The marchioness condescended to smile.

“How wretchedly jealous and spiteful you are to-day! To come to the point. I have determined to do my duty to society by marrying Victoria to this man.”

“Congratulations! Let me see, ought I to call you a Spartan mother, or a Roman one? I really forget.”

The marchioness raised her hand in languid remonstrance.

“I begged you just now not to be clever. Unfortunately, there is an obstacle in the way.”

“Ah! I think I have heard something about a gallant cousin?” Despencer suggested.

“No, no. Victoria has far too much sense for that sort of thing. Besides, I don’t allow Gerald here now. No, the obstacle I mean is not a man, but a woman.”

“Ah! now I see it is going to be serious. Who is she?”

“Belle Yorke.”

“Belle Yorke!” Even Despencer’s careful training did not enable him to hide his stupefaction on hearing the name. “The celebrated Belle Yorke?” he asked, staring hard at the marchioness.

“The notorious Belle Yorke,” was the scornful answer. “I understand she is all the rage at the music-halls just now, and Mr. Hammond is among her admirers.”

“He is not the only one,” said Despencer, dryly.

“Why do you look like that?” demanded the marchioness. “Is there some mystery about Belle Yorke?”

“Oh no! Oh, dear no! Very little mystery, I should say,” and Despencer smiled.

The marchioness detected a history in the smile.

“Then there is some scandal?” she asked, eagerly, lowering her voice as people do when they do not wish to be overheard by their conscience. “I felt sure of it. I read in a paper only the other day that all those people on the stage were alike. Ahem! Mr. Despencer—what do people say?”

Despencer gave another light shrug. He shrugged consummately. Despencer’s shrugs were as celebrated as the marchioness’s frowns.

“What do people generally say? It is the usual story: the usual little cottage at Hammersmith, the usual widowed mother, and the usual friend who pays the rent.”

The marchioness’s look of horror would have deceived experts.

“How utterly depraved and shocking! I never dreamed it was so bad as that! I almost wish you hadn’t told me anything about it. Ahem! Mr. Despencer—what do they say is the friend’s name?”

“Oh, really!” For a moment Despencer looked startled, then he smiled queerly. “That is not at all a nice question. I really don’t think you ought to ask me that. I have such a dislike for scandal.”

“So have I, except when I am listening to it in the interest of propriety,” was the firm answer. “I insist on knowing the friend’s name.”

“Well, I have heard the lease is in the name of a Mr. Brown.”

“Brown? Nonsense! That must be an assumed name.”

“Very likely. In these cases I believe it is not usual to put the gentleman’s real name in the lease.”

“Then—then—Mr. Despencer, what is the real name?”

“Oh, marchioness!” Despencer drew back and shook his head reproachfully. “Really, you will bore me if you go on. I couldn’t even guess the gentleman’s real name. It might be anything—Smith, or Jones, or President Kruger. It might be Hammond.”

The marchioness shook her head with conviction.

“It isn’t Hammond. I see you don’t understand the situation.” An ironical smile played for a moment on her companion’s face. “No, if it were only idle folly, I should try to shut my eyes to it. But I haven’t told you the worst. I hear that Mr. Hammond’s admiration for this person is perfectly honorable.”

“That does sound bad!” Despencer returned, gravely. “But I warned you against the man. I told you he was an outsider.”

“You are not to be so flippant,” said the marchioness, crossly. “Remember, you are talking to a mother whose child’s happiness is at stake, and tell me what I am to do. You see, the poor man evidently believes that this girl is perfectly proper.”

“Oh, he won’t believe that long, you may be quite sure.”

“The question is, who will undertake to open his eyes? It will really be doing him a kindness.”

“Yes; but people are so ungrateful for kindness,” objected the other. “Does this man Hammond know the marquis?” he asked, after a little hesitation.

“I expect so. But it is quite useless to think of him. He mustn’t be brought into it.”

Despencer smiled discreetly, as if he thought it might be rather difficult to keep the marquis out.

“Now, Mr. Despencer, you are my only hope,” pursued the marchioness. “I appeal to you in the interests of society.”

“You know I am your slave, marchioness. But it will be a difficult thing to manage. I almost think—”

Despencer broke off, and gazed thoughtfully at his companion.

“Well, what is it? What do you suggest?”

“I fancy that the best thing you can do, if you wish to bring matters to a head, is to have Miss Yorke here.”

“Mr. Despencer!”

“Why not? You see, it isn’t as though she weren’t quite respectable. There may be rumors about her, but then there are rumors about everybody. If we paid attention to rumors, we should all have to shut ourselves up like hermits; except you, there is not a woman in London whom I could visit. As long as nothing is known about her, you will be quite safe in having her here—of course, I mean professionally.”

The marchioness looked a little relieved.

“That doesn’t sound quite so bad,” she admitted. “I could have her at my concert, and let her sing something. I suppose she wouldn’t be altogether too frightfully improper?”

“Oh, dear no! you needn’t fear anything of that kind. Improper songs are quite gone out at the halls now. All Belle Yorke’s are about seamstresses who starve to death in the East End, and ragged boys who insist on taking off their jackets to wrap them round their little sisters on doorsteps in the snow. She makes people cry like anything. I have seen a stockbroker sobbing in the stalls of the Empire as if his heart would break when the ragged boy gets frozen to death, and the little sister wonders why he doesn’t answer her any more.”

“How sweetly touching! I shall insist on her singing that one here. I am sure I shall cry.” The marchioness lifted a small gold watch, the size of a bean, that swung from a brooch on her left shoulder. “Can you reach the bell? I must speak to Victoria before anybody comes.”

Despencer rose, and walked across the room to press a small malachite knob placed in the wall beside the fireplace, in accordance with that mysterious law of connection which every one must have observed, though we believe it has never been decided whether the bell is an acquired characteristic of the fireplace, or the fireplace an acquired characteristic of the bell.

A perfectly constructed machine, bearing considerable resemblance to a human being, attired in a chocolate-colored suit relieved with pink braid, opened the door, and glided noiselessly into the room, stopping with a slight jerk, as though the clockwork had run down, at about three paces inside.

“That is settled, then,” the marchioness was saying when the machine entered. “I shall get her here, and see what she is like.” Her ladyship turned to the machine. “Go and find Lady Victoria, and tell her I want to speak to her.”

The machine made an inclination, revolved on its castors, and noiselessly disappeared. The marchioness continued:

“I must have Mr. Hammond here as well, I suppose?”

“That is indispensable,” was the answer. “And, by the way, I think it will be better not to say anything beforehand to Lord Severn.”

The marchioness looked surprised.

“Why?” she demanded.

Despencer gave another shrug.

“I thought we agreed just now that he was a trifle Early Victorian in some of his ideas. He may have heard the rumors, you know.”

The marchioness had caught a step approaching. She raised her hand with a warning gesture.

“Not a word before Victoria!”

SCENE II
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

While the marchioness was confiding her maternal anxieties to Mr. Despencer’s sympathetic ear, her daughter, Lady Victoria Mauleverer, was engaged in calmly defying her affectionate parent’s behests.

She was now in the adjoining room; but the dust which yet lingered on her small and delicately made shoes of dark green kid would have revealed to the eye of one of those marvels of astuteness who formerly flourished, and, for aught we know, flourish still in the pages of the popular monthlies, that she had recently returned from out of doors. Her perfectly plain skirt, not quite long enough to conceal the shoes already mentioned, might have suggested further that the excursion had not been wholly unconnected with a bicycle. Further incriminating evidence was supplied by a dark cloth jacket, similar in design to that worn by the steward on board a yacht, but ornamented with a number of oxidized steel buttons of the size of crown pieces, and by a straw hat indistinguishable from those ordinarily worn by undergraduates.

In spite of these evidences of that removal of the barrier between the sexes which is the crowning triumph of our civilization, Lady Victoria was a most attractive girl. She was not quite so youthful as the marchioness, but that could hardly have been expected. At twenty, one is usually a hardened woman of the world; at forty, one begins to be an innocent little thing.

We have hinted that Lady Victoria had just returned from a bicycle ride. It is necessary to add that she had not returned alone.

The companion who had escorted her, not only to the door of the house, but up-stairs, to that of the drawing-room, was a tall, fine-looking man of twenty-eight or thirty, whose whole surface, from his boots to his forehead, gleamed with that excess of physical polish which is the religion of the British soldier. It is not the only religion which demands some intellectual sacrifice on the part of its votaries.

As soon as the two were inside the room, Lady Victoria turned to her companion.

“How can you be so imprudent, Gerald! Do you know my mother is in the next room?”

Captain Mauleverer walked boldly forward, and sat down without waiting to be asked.

“Certainly,” he answered, coolly. “That is the reason why I have come into this room. It was not my aunt whom I wanted to see. You know, we are barely on speaking terms.”

“You needn’t tell me that. I assure you my mother has taken good care to let me know her opinion of you. I warn you plainly that if she comes in and finds you here, I shall abandon you to her.”

Captain Mauleverer tried to look unconcerned.

“I didn’t think you were such a coward as that, Vick,” he remonstrated. “But, after all, I don’t see that I have done anything so very dreadful. She can’t forbid me the house altogether, you know. I’m her own husband’s nephew.”

Lady Victoria smiled with good-natured scorn.

“That’s nothing. You don’t know my mother. She wouldn’t hesitate to forbid her husband the house, if she wanted to. Husbands occupy a very uncertain position in society nowadays; they are only tolerated.”

“Is that a warning for me, I wonder?”

Something in her cousin’s tone, and the look with which he accompanied the question, brought out an impatient frown on Victoria’s face. She walked over to the window, and stood tapping her foot against the floor.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gerald! You know as well as I do that it is not the slightest use for this sort of thing to go on.”

She kept her back turned on him while she spoke. There was a touch of softness in his voice as he answered:

“It has gone on a long time, Vick, hasn’t it?”

“A great deal too long,” was the reply, spoken with decision. “You know it is perfectly hopeless. You can’t afford me; I have told you so over and over again. Why on earth don’t you go and invest yourself in a pork-butcher’s daughter from Chicago, like everybody else?”

She turned on him with some fierceness as she put the question. The captain looked up at her reproachfully as he exclaimed:

“What a hateful girl you are to talk like that! You know perfectly well that you love me.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Gerald!” was the sharp rebuke. “What has that to do with the question? You know I am for sale, just like the Zulu women. I don’t know exactly how many cows I am worth, but I know I am one of the most expensive girls in London.”

Captain Mauleverer pulled his mustache, gazing at her with ill-concealed admiration.

“Well, anyway, that is no reason why I shouldn’t look in at the shop-window,” he retorted, cheerfully.

It was at this moment that the machine despatched by the marchioness entered the room to summon Victoria to her mother’s presence.

“Is there any one with the marchioness?” she inquired.

The machine believed that Mr. Despencer was with her ladyship.

“Very good; I’ll come.”

As soon as the machine had withdrawn to its subterranean abode, Captain Mauleverer asked, in the tone of a man who really desires information:

“Who on earth is that man?”

Victoria looked blandly surprised.

“Mr. Despencer, do you mean? I haven’t the slightest idea.”

It was the captain’s turn to look surprised.

“Why, I thought he was constantly in the house.”

Victoria lifted her shoulders with fine disgust.

“Yes, but I don’t know him. He is not anybody, you know. I call him the Ladies’ Journal. He is not received; he circulates. My mother takes him in, but I don’t.”

“Is he one of those writing chaps?” inquired the captain, with military contempt.

“I dare say. He may be the Poet Laureate for aught I know. But you must really go away now, or there will be a row.”

“And when may I come back?”

“It would be much better if you didn’t come back at all.”

Captain Mauleverer shook his head as he rose reluctantly.

“It’s no good talking like that, Vick. You have got to put up with me, so you may as well make the best of it.”

“Gerald! what nonsense!” Victoria spoke as though she were exceedingly cross. “Go away directly; do you hear?”

“You haven’t told me when I may see you again yet,” returned the obstinate Gerald.

“I am not going to do anything of the kind.”

“Then I shall stay here and compromise you,” said Gerald, preparing to sit down again.

“Well”—she lowered her voice, with a glance towards the door of communication with the next room—“my mother has a concert on Thursday night.”

Captain Mauleverer brightened up.

“But if you come to it, I sha’n’t let you speak to me.”

“Won’t you?” He walked slowly towards her.

As Captain Mauleverer went out of the room by one door to go down-stairs and out of the house, Lady Victoria went through the other into the presence of her mother and Mr. Despencer.

SCENE III
THE SLAVE OF ALDERMAN DOBBIN

“Yes, mother?”

Lady Victoria bowed slightly to Despencer, who had risen at her entrance, and walked across to where the marchioness was seated.

The marchioness gazed at her daughter as if she had been a chimney-sweeper.

“You dreadful child! You know this is my day, and you come in like that! Have you no regard for people’s feelings?”

Victoria smiled disdainfully.

“I suppose you mean Mr. Despencer’s feelings?” she observed.

“I mean the feelings of society,” returned her mother sternly. “You are more like an anarchist than a well-bred girl.”

Lady Victoria indulged in the tiniest of yawns.

“I think the anarchists are very interesting people,” she remarked. “If it weren’t for them, there would be nothing to read about in the papers.”

“There would be China,” returned the marchioness in a shocked voice.

The marchioness considered herself a politician. Her husband had once been Master of the Deerhounds.

“Bother China!” said Lady Victoria, dropping into a chair. “Is that what you sent for me about?”

The marchioness raised her eyes in mute appeal to the ceiling.

“I sent for you because I wanted to speak to you privately before anybody comes.”

Despencer, who had been about to sit down again, stood up, and moved towards the door. The marchioness recalled him.

“Where are you going?”

“I thought you wanted to be alone.”

“Don’t be absurd! I don’t count you.”

“Perhaps Lady Victoria does,” Despencer suggested, with a rather nervous glance in her direction.

Lady Victoria did not condescend to return the look.

“Pray, don’t trouble yourself about me, Mr. Despencer,” she said, negligently. “I assure you I never know that you are in the room.”

“Don’t be rude, Victoria!” said her mother, more crossly than she had spoken yet. “Mr. Despencer is one of your best friends.”

“I suppose that means he has been saying something unpleasant about me?” was the retort.

Despencer ventured to interpose.

“I may be a poet, but my imagination doesn’t carry me so far as that,” he said, in his most insinuating tones.

Lady Victoria gave him one crushing look, and turned to the marchioness.

“My dear mother, I wish you wouldn’t train Mr. Despencer to say these silly things. Surely he is not a suitor for my hand?”

“Be quiet, Victoria!” said her indignant parent. “From the way you treat him he might be your husband. But I’m sure it isn’t a thing for you to joke about. Do you remember that this is your third season, and that you are nearly twenty?”

Her daughter smiled in good-tempered derision.

“I think, as there is only Mr. Despencer here, I may as well remember that it is my fourth season, and that I am over twenty-one.”

The marchioness passed over the correction.

“All the more reason that you should seriously consider your position. The question is whether you really intend to be married or not.”

“Surely it isn’t a question of my intentions. You had better ask the men theirs. I presume they know I am in stock by this time.”

“It is idle to talk like that. I have offered you three men already, and you found fault with each of them.” The marchioness spoke with real feeling. “There was Sir Humphrey Bewley, a most eligible man, who quite raved about you. You complained that he was too old.”

“Old! He was prehistoric. He used to get excited about the Conquest.”

“Then you shouldn’t have encouraged him. You let him spend a fortune in jewelry for you.”

“That was because I mistook his intentions. I thought he wanted to adopt me.”

The marchioness gasped.

“Don’t talk like that! Then there was the Earl of Mullet. You objected to him because he was a Scotchman.”

“And took snuff. Put down the snuff.”

“He wouldn’t have made you take it. And last year you refused Mr. Jacobson, whose father owns three gold mines. You said he was a Jew.”

“No, excuse me, I merely said his father had been one.”

The marchioness shook herself impatiently.

“The Jews are most respectable,” she proclaimed, “when they are rich enough. They go everywhere.”

“Except to the Holy Land, marchioness.”

The interruption came from Despencer. If he threw in the remark with the hope of propitiating Lady Victoria it was a failure. That young lady took not the slightest notice. Her mother glared at the traitor for an instant, and continued as though he had not spoken.

“It is high time you made up your mind. Now, there is Mr. Hammond, who has promised to come here this afternoon. He has been paying you attentions for some time. You can’t say anything against him.”

Victoria had changed color slightly at the mention of this name. But she responded, in the same tone of languid indifference:

“I have nothing to say against him, except that so far his intentions have not been very oppressive. He has danced with me three times, and he once peeled me an orange, but you can hardly found a breach of promise case on that.”

“I’m not sure,” ventured the unabashed Despencer. “I fancy something might be made out of the orange.”

Before the marchioness could proceed with her lecture, the door opened, and the voice of the machine announced, “Mr. Hammond!”

“Bother the man!” muttered the marchioness, impatiently, as she rose to receive him. “He is a quarter of an hour too soon. This is so good of you!” she exclaimed, in an altered voice, as the form of the visitor appeared in the doorway.

Mr. Hammond entered.

About his personal appearance there was nothing remarkable. It is bad form to look remarkable, and much of John Hammond’s life had been devoted to avoiding everything in the way of bad form. His attire was in every respect a perfect replica of that of any other hundred men to be met between Waterloo Place and Hyde Park Corner of an afternoon in the London season. He was clean-shaven, and his clear-cut features were those of an able man, not yet entered upon middle age, who has been accustomed to have the world at his feet, and whose only anxieties have been caused to him by his own ambition.

John Hammond was a favorable representative of the class which is gradually replacing the last remains of our feudal aristocracy. The Hammond fortune had been created by his father, so that he was not a self-made man. In the sense in which the word is used to-day, he was undoubtedly a gentleman. He had been educated at the best public school—that is to say, the most expensive—in England, and in the most fashionable college of the most fashionable university. He had been in the best set, both at school and at college, an advantage which his smartness as a wicket-keeper and his inherited millions perhaps contributed about equally to procure. He had taken a good degree; he now took a cold bath every morning, rode to hounds, and sat in the House of Commons as a Conservative.

But John Hammond lacked one thing, which neither money nor merit could procure. He had not been born and reared in an ancestral mansion, built in the days of the Tudors or the Stuarts, on the site of a Norman keep. He had not wandered as a child through dusty galleries from whose oak-panelled walls looked down the portraits of dead generations of his name. He had not heard from his nurse the story of the loyal ancestor who fought for King Charles, and of the wicked ancestor who killed his rival in a duel, and of the beautiful ancestress in whose praise poems had been written by Waller or by Davenant. He had not roamed as a boy through hereditary woodlands, and bullied the keepers’ sons whose forefathers had served his from time immemorial. He had not grown up with the feeling in his blood that all this was part of him, and he was part and lord of it. He was only lord of a brewery, in which his father had once brewed with his own hands.

If John Hammond had been brought up in that other environment, he might not have set store by it. If his lot had not cast him among those to whom such things were matter of course he might not have felt the deprivation. He knew well enough that he had advantages which, in the world’s estimation, far outweighed those which he was without. He knew that he lived in an age when the homage which birth pays to wealth is open and unashamed. He had seen peers bringing their wives to wait in the halls of African Jews. He had heard of mysterious checks received by men of Norman lineage from millionaires who sprang up in a night like monstrous toadstools, and decayed, leaving the air poisoned all around them. He had seen the noblest blood of England in the dock, and the oldest blood of Scotland warned off the turf.

His reason told him that he was immensely the superior of such men; but no man’s beliefs, any more than his actions, are governed by reason. The acute logician who has failed to prove to himself the existence of a God takes refuge in the infallibility of a man. John Hammond’s instinct told him that the boasts of low-born poets were not altogether truth, that the blood of the Howards did not lose all its virtues even in the veins of sots and slaves, that a gentleman was as much above a king’s might as an honest man was, and that neither kind heart nor simple faith could take the place of one drop of Norman blood.

Every man’s character has its weak spot, and this was the weak spot in John Hammond’s. There were moments when he despised himself for the halo with which his imagination encircled the heads of the caste into which he had not been born. There were other moments when he felt inclined to marry the Lady Victoria Mauleverer.

Mr. Hammond entered.

“I’m afraid you find me brutally punctual, marchioness,” he said, in a vigorous, masculine voice that seemed to go through the atmosphere of the drawing-room like a breath of fresh air. “That is the worst of business habits. I wanted to wait down in the hall till somebody else came, but they wouldn’t let me.”

The marchioness smiled graciously, with a horrible inward misgiving that Mr. Hammond had overheard her rash protest against his arrival.

“But you needn’t talk to me unless you like,” he added, remorselessly, as he finished shaking hands with the two women. “I will sit still and look at photographs. Is this a new one of Lord Severn?”

“You are not a moment too soon,” the dismayed marchioness hastened to say. “Do you know Mr. Cyril Despencer, Mr. Hammond?” The two men bowed with mutual distrust. “I assure you we were absolutely dying when you came.”

“Really! I must apply for a medal from the Royal Humane Society for saving life.” He turned to Victoria, who had dropped into her chair again with an elaborate assumption of being bored to distraction. “Lady Victoria, you are looking remarkably well for a corpse.”

He laid down the marquis’s photograph, and placed himself in a chair beside the young woman. She barely raised her head.

“Thanks. I will tell my maid what you say. She will be glad of a little encouragement, poor thing!”

The marchioness gave a low moan.

“Victoria! I hope you are accustomed to the modern girl, Mr. Hammond.”

“The modern girl is my particular hobby,” was the grave answer. “I may say that I collect her. I keep an album at home, in which I get young ladies to record their most secret thoughts and yearnings for my especial benefit. It is such interesting reading.” He turned again to the scornful beauty beside him. “Mayn’t I put you in my album?”

“I hardly know. I am afraid I should shock you; I am so perfectly depraved,” drawled Victoria. “You would have to keep me apart, like those very select works of which only a hundred copies are printed on hand-made paper and sold by private subscription to scholars.”

“Victoria!” There was a note of real distress in the marchioness’s voice. “What are you talking about?”

“I dare say Mr. Hammond knows,” was the reply, in the same unmoved tone.

“Perhaps Mr. Hammond collects those works as well. They are generally written by young ladies,” Despencer interposed.

Hammond turned and looked at him as if a dog had barked.

“Yes; but I think I have got a volume of yours on the same shelf, if you are the author of Fig Leaves.”

Despencer became loftily indifferent.

“I remember writing a book with that name when I was a boy. Do people still read it?”

“No; but they still look at the illustrations.”

The marchioness came to the rescue of her satellite.

“Ah! but Mr. Despencer has reformed since then,” she said, with unction. “He is writing a novel in favor of marriage.”

“How daring!” Hammond answered. “Of course it will be refused by the libraries.”

“Come, I sha’n’t allow you to say that marriage is improper,” said the marchioness, with an earnestness that was slightly clumsy. “We still marry in society.”

“You don’t say so!” Hammond pretended to exclaim. “I fancied it had quite gone out. Isn’t it considered a rather middle-class thing to do?”

The marchioness refused to be baffled.

“How horrid and cynical of you to talk like that! You know that you ought to get married yourself. Society expects it of you.”

Hammond shook his head.

“My dear marchioness, the views of society are the last thing I think of considering. My life is ordered by the views of Alderman Dobbin.”

“Alderman Dobbin? That person you asked me to send a card to? Who is he?”

“Really, this ignorance is discreditable to you, marchioness. Alderman Dobbin is the autocrat of the constituency I have the honor to represent, the Chairman of the Tooting Conservative Association. In me you behold Alderman Dobbin’s slave. He is my moral mentor and political taskmaster. Since I sat for Tooting I have ceased to be a free citizen with thoughts or ideas of my own. I am a mere puppet, the strings of which are pulled by him. The lips may be the lips of Hammond, but the voice is the voice of Alderman Dobbin.”

Lady Victoria raised her head with an appearance of interest during this speech. She now remarked:

“From what you say, I am sure he is a charming person. You have made me quite in love with him. I shall flirt with him when he comes.”

Hammond gazed at her with stern reproach.

“Lady Victoria, you commit yourself most painfully. Alderman Dobbin is married. Alderman Dobbin is the father of a large family. Alderman Dobbin, moreover, is a church-warden, and in the High Street of Tooting the sinner trembles when he passes the shop which bears Alderman Dobbin’s name and superscription.”

“Don’t you see that you are simply making me more determined by all this?” returned Victoria. “I shall feel like the loreley, or whatever they call it, luring the well-conducted fisherman to his destruction.”

“Did you say he kept a shop?” put in the marchioness, who already began to see in the alderman a possible ally. “What does he sell?”

“Boots. Since I was returned for Tooting my unworthy feet have been clothed in Alderman Dobbin’s handiwork. The shoes which I have on are made of a substance which he supposes to be patent leather. They are his choice, not mine. I am as wax in his hands. If he required me to wear Wellingtons, I should obey. At his bidding I have changed my tailor and discharged my groom; and if ever I want to choose a wife I shall first have to ask Alderman Dobbin’s consent.”

“I have no doubt he is a very sensible man, and you could not do better than take his advice,” said the marchioness, who was quite serious. “I am very glad he is coming here. We don’t see nearly enough of the—er—the other classes. When my husband was Master of the Deerhounds, I once gave a thing they called a Primrose Tea down at our place in Worcestershire, but I didn’t speak to any of the creatures that came to it, except one dreadful person, who, they told me, was a justice of the peace. He called me ‘My lady,’ exactly like that delightful character who wants to murder everybody in one of somebody’s novels.”

“I expect the alderman will call you ‘ma’am,’” observed Hammond, reflectively.

“I once knew a solicitor in a Welsh town,” said Despencer, slowly, “where they had just elected a peer of royal descent as mayor, and this solicitor urged that they should return another solicitor, who happened to be a Jubilee knight, to the town council, in order that his lordship might have some one of his own rank to talk to.”

This time it was the marchioness who administered a snub to the unlucky speaker. She observed severely:

“As soon as any gentleman, in whatever position, has received the accolade of his sovereign, he ceases, in my opinion, to be a proper subject for ridicule.”

Just as this rebuke was ended the door opened quickly, and a small, insignificant-looking man in a rather shabby lounge suit strolled into the room. On catching sight of the group round the marchioness he stopped short, and looked as if meditating flight.

The marchioness promptly took him into custody.

“Pray come in, George! This is quite too charmingly domestic and suburban,” she observed, addressing the company generally. “My husband has actually come home to tea.”

The Marquis of Severn, who was generally supposed to haunt a small dark room somewhere near the kitchen stairs, called by courtesy the library, was plainly disconcerted by the position in which he found himself.

“I’m really very sorry, Jane; but I didn’t know you had a party on.” By this time he had succeeded in recognizing the two men. He gave Despencer a careless nod, and walked across the room to shake hands with Hammond. “How d’ye do? I see you know my women,” he remarked.

“My dear father,” Victoria remonstrated, “if you are not careful you will wake up some day and find yourself covered with moss. Mr. Hammond and I are all but engaged.”

“Victoria!” came in tones of stifled anguish from the marchioness.

“Don’t you believe her, Severn,” laughed Hammond. “I haven’t given your daughter the slightest encouragement—as yet.”

“Well, you should have my consent, if it counted for anything,” said the marquis, beginning to make his retreat from the room.

Again his wife’s voice arrested him.

“George, now you have come in, you must stay, you know. I should consider it very marked if you went away.”

“You don’t want me, Jane; I should only be in the way,” he objected, feebly.

“You underrate your social powers, George. Besides, I don’t ask you to talk to any one. I only want you to show yourself.”

“If that’s all, I’m sure I needn’t stay. But I leave you my photograph.”

With these words Lord Severn made a bolt for it, and succeeded in getting out of hearing before his wife could launch a fresh injunction.

The marchioness bit her lip in some embarrassment. Despencer caught her eye and managed to infuse a certain meaning into his look, as he asked aloud:

“Who are you going to have to sing on Thursday night?”

The marchioness took her cue with the dexterity of an old diplomatist. She leaned back in her chair with an air of utter unconcern, as she responded:

“I have almost forgotten. Some people they recommended to me at the music-seller’s.” She raised her hand to her brow, as though studying to recollect. “Let me see. Oh yes, there is one woman who I believe is perfectly charming. They told me that at the music-halls all the young men were dying for her.”

Hammond moved his head rather abruptly to look at the speaker.

“Do you remember her name?” he asked.

“I think she calls herself Belle Yorke. Why, have you seen her?”

The marchioness’s expression was one of innocent surprise at the strong interest plainly depicted on her listener’s countenance.

Before he could reply to her, the conversation was again interrupted. The machine had brought a Dowager Lady Rollox and an Honorable Edith Rollox to see his mistress.

The marchioness seized the occasion with the instinct of a match-maker.

“Come and help me to talk to these stupid people,” she breathed hurriedly in Despencer’s ear, as she rose and went to meet the newcomers. Despencer meekly obeyed.

The little piece of by-play between her mother and Despencer had not been lost on the Lady Victoria Mauleverer. As soon as she and Hammond were left together she inquired, with an air of doubt:

“Do you know anything about this Belle Yorke?”

Hammond roused himself with a start from his reflections.

“I? Belle Yorke? Yes, yes. I know something about her.”

“I hope there’s nothing wrong about her coming here?” pursued Victoria, with superb coolness. “She won’t do anything dreadful, will she?”

Hammond braced himself up.

“I have the honor of being a friend of Miss Yorke’s, and I respect her as much as any other lady of my acquaintance,” he said firmly.