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THE THREE FATES

THE THREE FATES

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

AUTHOR OF “MR. ISAACS,” “DR. CLAUDIUS,” “SARACINESCA,” ETC.

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK

1893

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1891,

By MACMILLAN AND CO.

Set up and electrotyped January, 1892.

Reprinted April, May, October, 1892.

Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A.

To

FREDERICK MACMILLAN

AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE

FROM AN AUTHOR TO HIS PUBLISHER

AND OF HIGH ESTEEM ENTERTAINED

BY ONE MAN FOR ANOTHER

Rome, February 21, 1892

THE THREE FATES.

CHAPTER I.

Jonah Wood was bitterly disappointed in his son. During five and twenty years he had looked in vain for the development of those qualities in George, which alone, in his opinion, could insure success. But though George could talk intelligently about the great movements of business in New York, it was clear by this time that he did not possess what his father called business instincts. The old man could have forgiven him his defective appreciation in the matter of dollars and cents, however, if he had shown the slightest inclination to adopt one of the regular professions; in other words, if George had ceased to waste his time in the attempt to earn money with his pen, and had submitted to becoming a scribe in a lawyer’s office, old Wood would have been satisfied. The boy’s progress might have been slow, but it would have been sure.

It was strange to see how this elderly man, who had been ruined by the exercise of his own business faculties, still pinned his faith upon his own views and theories of finance, and regarded it as a real misfortune to be the father of a son who thought differently from himself. It would have satisfied the height of his ambition to see George installed as a clerk on a nominal salary in one of the great banking houses. Possibly, at an earlier period, and before George had finally refused to enter a career of business, there may have been in the bottom of the old man’s heart a hope that his son might some day become a financial power, and wreak vengeance for his own and his father’s losses upon Thomas Craik or his heirs after him; but if this wish existed Jonah Wood had honestly tried to put it out of the way. He was of a religious disposition, and his moral rectitude was above all doubt. He did not forgive his enemies, but he sincerely meant to do so, and did his best not to entertain any hope of revenge.

The story of his wrongs was a simple one. He had formerly been a very successful man. Of a good New England family, he had come to New York when very young, possessed of a small capital, full of integrity, industry, and determination. At the age of forty he was at the head of a banking firm which had for a time enjoyed a reputation of some importance. Then he had married a young lady of good birth and possessing a little fortune, to whom he had been attached for years and who had waited for him with touching fidelity. Twelve months later, she had died in giving birth to George. Possibly the terrible shock weakened Jonah Wood’s nerves and disturbed the balance of his faculties. At all events it was at this time that he began to enter into speculation. At first he was very successful, and his success threw him into closer intimacy with Thomas Craik, a cousin of his dead wife’s. For a time everything prospered with the bank, while Wood acquired the habit of following Craik’s advice. On an ill-fated day, however, the latter persuaded him to invest largely in a certain railway not yet begun, but which was completed in a marvellously short space of time. In the course of a year or two it was evident that the road, which Craik insisted on running upon the most ruinous principles, must soon become bankrupt. It had of course been built to compete with an old established line; the usual war of rates set in, the old road suffered severely, and the young one was ruined. This was precisely what Craik had anticipated. So soon as the bankruptcy was declared and the liquidation terminated, he bought up every bond and share upon which he could lay his hands. Wood was ruined, together with a number of other heavy investors. The road, however, having ceased to pay interest on its debts continued to run at rates disastrous to its more honest competitor, and before long the latter was obliged in self-defence to buy up its rival. When that extremity was reached Thomas Craik was in possession of enough bonds and stock to give him a controlling interest, and he sold the ruined railway at his own price, realising a large fortune by the transaction. Wood was not only financially broken; his reputation, too, had suffered in the catastrophe. At first, people looked askance at him, believing that he had got a share of the profits, and that he was only pretending poverty until the scandal should blow over, though he had in reality sacrificed almost everything he possessed in the honourable liquidation of the bank’s affairs, and found himself, at the age of fifty-seven, in possession only of the small fortune that had been his wife’s, and of the small house which had escaped the general ruin, and in which he now lived. Thomas Craik had robbed him, as he had robbed many others, and Jonah Wood knew it, though there was no possibility of ever recovering a penny of his losses. His nerve was gone, and by the time people had discovered that he was the most honest of men, he was more than half forgotten by those he had known best. He had neither the energy nor the courage to begin life again, and although he had cleared his reputation of all blame, he knew that he had made the great mistake, and that no one would ever again trust to his judgment. It seemed easiest to live in the little house, to get what could be got out of life for himself and his son on an income of scarcely two thousand dollars, and to shut himself out from his former acquaintance.

And yet, though his own career had ended in such lamentable failure, he would gladly have seen George begin where he had begun. George would have succeeded in doing all those things which he himself had left undone, and he might have lived to see established on a firm basis the great fortune which for a few brief years had been his in a floating state. But George could not be brought to understand this point of view. His youthful recollections were connected with monetary disaster, and his first boyish antipathies had been conceived against everything that bore the name of business. What he felt for the career of the money-maker was more than antipathy; it amounted to a positive horror which he could not overcome. From time to time his father returned to the old story of his wrongs and misfortunes, going over the tale as he sat with George through the long winter evenings, and entering into every detail of the transaction which had ruined him. In justice to the young man it must be admitted that he was patient on those occasions, and listened with outward calm to the long technical explanations, the interminable concatenation of figures and the jarring cadence of phrases that all ended with the word dollars. But the talk was as painful to him as a violin played out of tune is to a musician, and it reacted upon his nerves and produced physical pain of an acute kind. He could set his features in an expression of respectful attention, but he could not help twisting his long smooth fingers together under the edge of the table, where his father could not see them. The very name of money disgusted him, and when the great failure had been talked of in the evening it haunted his dreams throughout the night and destroyed his rest, so that he awoke with a sense of nervousness and distress from which he could not escape until late in the following day.

Jonah Wood saw more of this peculiarity than his son suspected, though he failed to understand it. With him, nervousness took a different form, manifesting itself in an abnormal anxiety concerning George’s welfare, combined with an unfortunate disposition to find fault. Of late, indeed, he had not been able to accuse the young man of idleness, since he was evidently working to the utmost of his strength, though his occupations brought him but little return. It seemed a pity to Jonah Wood that so much good time and so much young energy should be wasted over pen, ink, paper, and books which left no record of a daily substantial gain. He, too, slept little, though his iron-grey face betrayed nothing of what passed in his mind.

He loved his son in his own untrusting way. It was his affection, combined with his inability to believe much good of what he loved, that undermined and embittered the few pleasures still left to him. He had never seen any hope except in money, and since George hated the very mention of lucre there could be no hope for him either. A good man, a scrupulously honest man according to his lights, he could only see goodness from one point of view and virtue represented in one dress. Goodness was obedience to parental authority, and virtue the imitation of parental ideas. George believed that obedience should play no part in determining what he should do with his talent, and that imitation, though it be the sincerest flattery, may lay the foundation for the most hopeless of all failures, the failure to do that for which a man is best adapted. George had not deliberately chosen a literary career because he felt himself fitted for it. He was in reality far too modest to look forward from the first to the ultimate satisfaction of his ambitions. His lonely life had driven him to writing as a means of expressing himself without incurring his father’s criticism and contradiction. Not understanding in the least the nature of imagination, he believed himself lacking in this respect, but he had at once found an immense satisfaction in writing down his opinions concerning certain new books that had fallen into his hands. Then, being emboldened by that belief in his own judgment which young men acquire very easily when they are not brought into daily contact with their intellectual equals, he had ventured to offer the latest of his attempts to one editor and then to another and another. At last he had found one who chanced to be in a human humour and who glanced at one of the papers.

“It is not worthless,” said the autocrat, “but it is quite useless. Everybody has done with the book months ago. Do you want to earn a little money by reviewing?”

George expressed his readiness to do so with alacrity. The editor scribbled half a dozen words on a slip of paper from a block and handed it to George, telling him where to take it. As a first result the young man carried away a couple of volumes of new-born trash upon which to try his hand. A quarter of what he wrote was published in the literary column of the newspaper. He had yet to learn the cynical practice of counting words, upon which so much depends in dealing with the daily press, but the idea of actually earning something, no matter how little, overcame his first feeling of disgust at the nature of the work. In time he acquired the necessary tricks and did very well. By sheer determination he devoted all his best hours of the day to the drudgery of second class criticism, and only allowed himself to write what was agreeable to his own brain when the day’s work was done.

The idea of producing a book did not suggest itself to him. In his own opinion he had none of the necessary gifts for original writing, while he fancied that he possessed those of the critic in a rather unusual degree. His highest ambition was to turn out a volume of essays on other people’s doings and writings, and he was constantly labouring in his leisure moments at long papers treating of celebrated works, in what he believed to be a spirit of profound analysis. As yet no one had bestowed the slightest attention upon his efforts; no serious article of his had found its way into the press, though a goodly number of his carefully copied manuscripts had issued from the offices of various periodicals in the form of waste paper. Strange to say, he was not discouraged by these failures. The satisfaction, so far as he had known any, had consisted in the writing down of his views; and though he wished it were possible to turn his ink-stained pages into money, his natural detestation of all business transactions whatsoever made him extremely philosophical in repeated failure. Even in regard to his daily drudgery, which was regularly paid, the least pleasant moment was the one when he had to begin his round from one newspaper cashier to another to receive the little cheques which made him independent of his father so far as his only luxuries of new books and tobacco were concerned. Pride, indeed, was now at the bottom of his resolution to continue in the uninteresting course that had been opened before him. Having once succeeded in buying for himself what he wanted or needed beyond his daily bread he would have been ashamed to ever go again for pocket-money to his father.

The nature of this occupation, which he would not relinquish, was beginning to produce its natural effect upon his character. He felt that he was better than his work, and the inevitable result ensued. He felt that he was hampered and tied, and that every hour spent in such labour was a page stolen from the book of his reputation; that he was giving for a pitiful wage the precious time in which something important might have been accomplished, and that his life would turn out a failure if it continued to run on much longer in the same groove. And yet he assumed that it would be absolutely impossible for him to abandon his drudgery in order to devote himself solely to the series of essays on which he had pinned his hopes of success. His serious work, as he called it, made little progress when interrupted at every step by the necessity for writing twaddle about trash.

It may be objected that George Wood should not have written twaddle, but should have employed his best energies in the improvement of second class literature by systematically telling the truth about it. Unfortunately the answer to such a stricture is not far to seek. If he had written what he thought, the newspapers would have ceased to employ him; not that it is altogether impossible to write honestly about the great rivers of minor books which flow east and west and north and south from the publishers’ gardens, but because the critic who has the age, experience, and talent to bestow faint praise without inflicting damnation commands a high price and cannot be wasted on little authors and their little publications. The beginner often knows that he is writing twaddle and regrets it, and he very likely knows how to write in strains of enthusiastic eulogium or of viciously cruel abuse; but though he have all these things, he has not yet acquired the unaffected charity which covers a multitude of sins, and which is the result of an ancient and wise good feeling entertained between editors, publishers and critics. He cannot really feel mildly well disposed towards a book he despises, and his only chance of expressing gentle sentiments not his own, lies in the plentiful use of unmitigated twaddle. If he remains a critic, he is either lifted out of the sphere of the daily saleable trash to that of serious first class literature, or else he imbibes through the pores of his soul such proportional parts of the editor’s and the publisher’s wishes as shall combine in his own character and produce the qualities which they both desire to find there and to see expressed in his paragraphs.

It could not be said that George Wood was discontented with what he found to do, so much as with being constantly hindered from doing something better. And that better thing which he would have done, and believed that he could have done, was in reality far from having reached the stage of being clearly defined. He had never felt any strong liking for fiction, and his mind had been nourished upon unusually solid intellectual food, while the outward circumstances of his life had necessarily left much to his imagination, which to most young men of five and twenty is already matter of experience. As a boy he had been too much with older people, and had therefore thought too much to be boyish. Possibly, too, he had seen more than was good for him, for his father had left him but a short time at school in the days of their prosperity, and, being unable to leave New York for any length of time, had more than once sent him abroad with an elderly tutor from whom the lad had acquired all sorts of ideas that were too big for him. He had been wrongly supposed to be of a delicate constitution, too, and had been indulged in all manner of intellectual whims and fancies, whereby he had gained a smattering of many sciences and literatures at an age when he ought to have been following a regular course of instruction. Then, before he was thought old enough to enter a university, the crash had come.

Jonah Wood was far too conscientious a man not to sacrifice whatever he could for the completion of his son’s education. For several years he deprived himself of every luxury, in order that George might have the assistance he so greatly needed while making his studies at Columbia College in his native city. Then only did the father realise how he had erred in allowing the boy to receive the desultory and aimless teaching that had seemed so generous in the days of wealth. He knew more or less well a variety of subjects of which his companions were wholly ignorant, but he was utterly unversed in much of their knowledge. And this was not all, for George had acquired from his former tutor a misguided contempt for the accepted manner of dealing with certain branches of learning, without possessing that grasp of the matters in hand which alone justifies a man in thinking differently from the great mass of his fellows. It is not well to ridicule the American method of doing things until one is master of some other.

It was from the time when George entered college that he began to be a constant source of disappointment to his father. The elderly man had received a good, old-fashioned, thoroughly prejudiced education, and though he remembered little Latin and less Greek, he had not forgotten the way in which he had been made to learn both. George’s way of talking about his studies disturbed his father’s sense of intellectual propriety, which was great, without exciting his curiosity, which was infinitesimally small. With him also prevailed the paternal view which holds that young men must necessarily distinguish themselves above their companions if they really possess any exceptional talent, and his peace of mind was further endangered by his sense of responsibility for George’s beginnings. If he had believed that George was stupid, he would have resigned himself to that dispensation of Providence. But he thought otherwise. The boy was not an ordinary boy, and if he failed to prove it by taking prizes in competition, he must be lazy or his preparation must have been defective. No other alternative was to be found, and the fault therefore lay either with himself or with his father.

George never obtained a prize, and barely passed his examinations at all. Jonah Wood made a point of seeing all his examiners as well as the instructors who had known him during his college life. Three-quarters of the number asserted that the young fellow was undeniably clever, and added, expressing themselves with professorial politeness, that his previous studies seemed to have taken a direction other than that of the college “curriculum,” as they called it. The professor of Greek presumed that George might have distinguished himself in Latin, the professor of Latin surmised that Greek might have been his strong point; both believed that he had talent for mathematics, while the mathematician remarked that he seemed to have a very good understanding, but that it would be turned to better account in the pursuit of classical studies. Jonah Wood returned to his home very much disturbed in mind, and from that day his anxiety steadily increased. As it became more clear that his son would never accept a business career, but would probably waste his opportunities in literary dabbling, the good man’s alarm became extreme. He did not see that George’s one true talent lay in his ready power of assimilating unfamiliar knowledge by a process of intuition that escapes methodical learners, any more than he understood that the boy’s one solid acquirement was the power of using his own language. He was not to be too much blamed, perhaps, for the young man himself was only dimly conscious of his yet undeveloped power. What made him write was neither the pride of syntax nor the certainty of being right in his observations; he was driven to paper to escape from the torment of the desire to express something, he knew not what, which he could express in no other way. He found no congenial conversation at home and little abroad, and yet he felt that he had something to say and must say it.

It should not be supposed that either Jonah Wood’s misfortunes or his poverty, which was after all comparative, though hard to bear, prevented George from mixing in the world with which he was connected by his mother’s birth, and to some extent by his father’s former position. The old gentleman, indeed, was too proud to renew his acquaintance with people who had thought him dishonourable until he had proved himself spotless; but the very demonstration of his uprightness had been so convincing and clear that it constituted a patent of honour for his son. Many persons who had blamed themselves for their hasty judgment would have been glad to make amends by their cordial reception of the man they had so cruelly mistaken. George, however, was quite as proud as his father, and much more sensitive. He remembered well enough the hard-hearted, boyish stare he had seen in the eyes of some of his companions when he was but just seventeen years old, and later, at college, when his father’s self-sacrifice was fully known, and his old associates had held out their hands to his in the hope of making everything right again, George had met them with stony eyes and scornful civility. It was not easy to forgive, and with all his excellent qualities and noble honesty of purpose, Jonah Wood was not altogether displeased to know that his son held his head high and drew back from the renewal of fair weather friendships. Almost against his will he encouraged him in his conduct, while doing his best to appear at least indifferent.

George needed but little encouragement to remain in social obscurity, though he was conscious of a rather contemptible hope that he might one day play a part in society, surrounded by all the advantages of wealth and general respect which belong especially to those few who possess both, by inheritance rather than as a result of their own labours. He was not quite free from that subtle aristocratic taint which has touched so many members of American society. Like the wind, no man can tell whence it comes nor whither it goes; but unlike the ill wind in the proverb it blows no good to any one. It is not the breath of that republican inequality which is caused by two men extracting a different degree of advantage from the same circumstances; it is not the inevitable inequality produced by the inevitable struggle for existence, wealth and power; but it is the fictitious inequality caused by the pretence that the accident of a man’s birth should of itself constitute for him a claim to have special opportunities made for him, adapted to his use and protected by law for his particular benefit. It is a fallacy which is in the air, and which threatens to produce evil consequences wherever it becomes localised.

Perhaps, at some future time yet far distant, a man will arise who shall fathom and explain the great problems presented by human vanity. No more interesting study could be found wherewith to occupy the greatest mind, and assuredly none in the pursuit of which a man would be so constantly confronted by new and varied matter for research. One main fact at least we know. Vanity is the boundless, circumambient and all-penetrating ether in which all man’s thoughts and actions have being and receive manifestation. All moral and intellectual life is either full of it and in sympathy with it, breathing it as our bodies breathe the air, or is out of balance with it in the matter of quantity and is continually struggling to restore its own lost equilibrium. It is as impossible to conceive of anything being done in the world without also conceiving the element of vanity as the medium for the action, as it is to imagine motion without space, or time without motion. To say that any man who succeeds in the race for superiority of any sort is without vanity, is downright nonsense; to assert that any man can reach success without it, would be to state more than any one has yet been able to prove. Let us accept the fact that we are all vain, whether we be saints or sinners, men of action or men of thought, men who leave our sign manual upon the page of our little day or men who trudge through the furrows of a nameless life ploughing and sowing that others may reap and eat and be merry. After all, does not our conception of heaven suggest to us a life from which all vanity is absent, and does not our idea of hell show us an existence in which vanity reigns supreme and hopeless, without prospect of satisfaction? Let us at least strive that our vanity may neither do injury to our fellow-men, nor recoil and become ridiculous in ourselves.

Enough has been said to define and explain the character and life of the young man whose history this book is to relate. He himself was far from being conscious of all his virtues, faults, and capabilities. He neither knew his own energy nor was aware of the hidden enthusiasm which was only just beginning to make itself felt as a vague, uneasy longing for something that should surpass ordinary things. He did not know that he possessed singular talents as well as unusual defects. He had not even begun to look upon life as a problem offered him for solution, and upon his own heart as an object for his own study. He scarcely felt that he had a heart at all, nor knew where to look for it in others. His life was not happy, and yet he had not tasted the bitter sources of real unhappiness. He was oppressed by his surroundings, but he could not have told what he would have done with the most untrammelled liberty. He despised money, he worked for a pittance, and yet he secretly longed for all that money could buy. He was profoundly attached to his father, and yet he found the good man’s company intolerable. He shrank from a society in which he might have been a welcome guest, and yet he dreamed of playing a great part in it some day. He believed himself cynical when he was in reality quixotic, his idols of gold were hidden behind images of clay, and he really cared little for those things which he had schooled himself to admire the most. He fancied himself a critic when he was foredestined by his nature and his circumstances to become an object of criticism to others. He forced his mind to do what it found least congenial, not acting in obedience to any principle or idea of duty, but because he was sure that he knew his own abilities, and that no other path lay open to success. He was in the darkest part of the transition which precedes development, for he was in that period during which a man makes himself imagine that he has laid hold on the thread of the future, while something he will not heed warns him that the chaos is wilder than ever before. In the dark hour before manhood’s morning he was journeying resolutely away from the coming dawn.

CHAPTER II.

“It is very sad,” observed Mrs. Sherrington Trimm, thoughtfully. “Their mother died in London last autumn, and now they are quite alone—nobody with them but an aunt, or something like that—poor girls! I am so glad they are rich, at least. You ought to know them.”

“Ought I?” asked the visitor who was drinking his tea on the other side of the fireplace. “You know I do not go into society.”

“The girls go nowhere, either. They are still in mourning. You ought to know them. Who knows, you might marry one or the other.”

“I will never marry a fortune.”

“Do not be silly, George!”

The relationship between the two speakers was not very close. George Winton Wood’s mother had been a second cousin of Mrs. Sherrington Trimm’s, and the two ladies had not been on very friendly terms with each other. Moreover, Mrs. Trimm had nothing to do with old Jonah Wood, the father of the young man with whom she was now speaking, and Jonah Wood refused to have anything to do with her. Nevertheless she called his son by his first name, and the latter usually addressed her as “Cousin Totty.” An examination of Mrs. Sherrington Trimm’s baptismal certificate would have revealed the fact that she had been christened Charlotte, but parental fondness had made itself felt with its usual severity in such cases, and before she was a year old she had been labelled with the comic diminutive which had stuck to her ever since, through five and twenty years of maidenhood, and twenty years more of married life. On her visiting cards, and in her formal invitations she appeared as Mrs. Sherrington Trimm; but the numerous members of New York society who were related to her by blood or marriage, called her “Totty” to her face, while those who claimed no connection called her “Totty” behind her back; and though she may live beyond three score years and ten, and though her strength come to sorrow and weakness, she will be “Totty” still, to the verge of the grave, and beyond, even after she is comfortably laid away in the family vault at Greenwood.

After all, the name was not inappropriate, so far at least, as Mrs. Trimm’s personal appearance was concerned; for she was very smooth, and round, and judiciously plump, short, fair, and neatly made, with pretty little hands and feet; active and not ungraceful, sleek but not sleepy; having small, sharp blue eyes, a very obliging and permanent smile, a diminutive pointed nose, salmon-coloured lips, and perfect teeth. Her good points did not, indeed, conceal her age altogether, but they obviated all necessity for an apology to the world for the crime of growing old; and those features which were less satisfactory to herself were far from being offensive to others.

She bore in her whole being and presence the stamp of a comfortable life. There is nothing more disturbing to society than the forced companionship of a person who either is, or looks, uncomfortable, in body, mind, or fortune, and many people owe their popularity almost solely to a happy faculty of seeming always at their ease. It is certain that neither birth, wealth, nor talent will of themselves make man or woman popular, not even when all three are united in the possession of one individual. But on the other hand they are not drawbacks to social success, provided they are merely means to the attainment of that unobtrusively careless good humour which the world loves. Mrs. Sherrington Trimm knew this. If not talented, she possessed at all events a pedigree and a fortune; and as for talent, she looked upon culture as an hereditary disease peculiar to Bostonians, and though not contagious, yet full of danger, inasmuch as its presence in a well-organised society must necessarily be productive of discomfort. All the charm of general conversation must be gone, she thought, when a person appeared who was both able and anxious to set everybody right. She even went so far as to say that if everybody were poor, it would be very disagreeable to be rich. She never wished to do what others could not do; she only aimed at being among the first to do what everybody would do by and by, as a matter of course.

Mrs. Trimm’s cousin George did not understand this point of view as yet, though he was beginning to suspect that “Totty and her friends”—as he generally designated society—must act upon some such principle. He was only five and twenty years of age, and could hardly be expected to be in the secrets of a life he had hitherto seen as an outsider; but he differed from Totty and her friends in being exceedingly clever, exceedingly unhappy, and exceedingly full of aspirations, ambitions, fancies, ideas, and thoughts; in being poor instead of rich, and, lastly, in being the son of a man who had failed in the pursuit of wealth, and who could not prove even the most distant relationship to any one of the gentlemen who had signed the Declaration of Independence, fought in the Revolution, or helped to frame the Constitution of the United States. George, indeed, possessed these ancestral advantages through his mother, and in a more serviceable form through his relationship to Totty; but she, on her part, felt that the burden of his cleverness might be too heavy for her to bear, should she attempt to launch him upon her world. Her sight was keen enough, and she saw at a glance the fatal difference between George and other people. He had a habit of asking serious questions, and of saying serious things, which would be intolerable at a dinner-party. He was already too strong to be put down, he was not yet important enough to be shown off. Totty’s husband, who was an eminent lawyer, occasionally asked George to dine with him at his club, and usually said when he came home that he could not understand the boy; but, being of an inquiring disposition, Mr. Trimm was impelled to repeat the hospitality at intervals that gradually became more regular. At first he had feared that the dark, earnest face of the young man, and his grave demeanour, concealed the soul of a promising prig, a social article which Sherrington Trimm despised and loathed. He soon discovered, however, that these apprehensions were groundless. From time to time his companion gave utterance to some startling opinion or freezing bit of cynicism which he had evidently been revolving in his thoughts for a long time, and which forced Mr. Trimm’s gymnastic intelligence into thinking more seriously than usual. Doubtless George’s remarks were often paradoxical and youthfully wild, but his hearer liked them none the less for that. Keen and successful in his own profession he scented afar the capacity for success in other callings. Accustomed by the habits and pursuits of his own exciting life to judge men and things quickly, he recognised in George another mode of the force to which he himself owed his reputation. To lay down the law and determine the precise manner in which that force should be used, was another matter, and one in which Sherrington Trimm did not propose to meddle. More than once, indeed, he asked George what he meant to do in the world, and George answered, with a rather inappropriate look of determination that he believed himself good for nothing, and that when there was no more bread and butter at home he should doubtless find his own level by going up long ladders with a hod of bricks on his shoulder. Mr. Trimm’s jovial face usually expressed his disbelief in such theories by a bland smile as he poured out another glass of wine for his young guest. He felt sure that George would do something, and George, who got little sympathy in his life, understood his encouraging certainty, and was grateful.

Mrs. Trimm, however, shared her cousin’s asserted convictions about himself so far as to believe that unless something was done for him, he might actually be driven to manual labour for support. She assuredly had no faith in general cleverness as a means of subsistence for young men without fortune, and yet she felt that she ought to do something for George Wood. There was a good reason for this beneficent instinct. Her only brother was chiefly responsible for the ruin that had overtaken Jonah Wood, when George was still a boy, and she herself had been one of the winners in the game, or at least had been a sharer with her brother in the winnings. It is true that the facts of the case had never been generally known, and that George’s father had been made to suffer unjustly in his reputation after being plundered of his wealth; but Mrs. Trimm was not without a conscience, any more than the majority of her friends. If she loved money and wanted more of it, this was because she wished to be like other people, and not because she was vulgarly avaricious. She was willing to keep what she had, though a part of it should have been George’s and was ill-gotten. She wished her brother, Thomas Craik, to keep all he possessed until he should die, and then she wished him to leave it to her, Charlotte Sherrington Trimm. But she also desired that George should have compensation for what his father had lost, and the easiest and least expensive way of providing him with the money he had not, was to help him to a rich marriage. It was not, indeed, fitting that he should marry her only daughter, Mamie, though the girl was nineteen years old and showed a disquieting tendency to like George. Such a marriage would result only in a transfer of wealth without addition or multiplication, which was not the form of magnanimity most agreeable to cousin Totty’s principles. There were other rich girls in the market; one of them might be interested in the tall young man with the dark face and the quiet manner, and might bestow herself upon him, and endow him with all her worldly goods. Totty had now been lucky enough to find two such young ladies together, orphans both, and both of age, having full control of the large and equally divided patrimony they had lately inherited. Better still, they were reported to be highly gifted and fond of clever people, and she herself knew that they were both pretty. She had resolved that George should know them without delay, and had sent for him as a preliminary step towards bringing about the acquaintance. George met her at once with the plain statement that he would never marry money, as the phrase goes, but she treated his declaration of independence with appropriate levity.

“Do not be silly, George!” she exclaimed with a little laugh.

“I am not,” George answered, in a tone of conviction.

“Oh, I know you are clever enough,” retorted his cousin. “But that is quite a different thing. Besides, I was not thinking seriously of your marrying.”

“I guessed as much, from the fact of your mentioning it,” observed the young man quietly.

Mrs. Trimm stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again.

“Am I never thinking seriously of what I am saying?”

“Tell me about these girls,” said George, avoiding an answer. “If they are rich and unmarried, they must be old and hideous——”

“They are neither.”

“Mere children then——”

“Yes—they are younger than you.”

“Poor little things! I see—you want me to play with them, and teach them games and things of that sort. What is the salary? I am open to an engagement in any respectable calling. Or perhaps you would prefer Mrs. Macwhirter, my old nurse. It is true that she is blind of one eye and limps a little, but she would make a reduction in consideration of her infirmities, if money is an object.”

“Try and be serious; I want you to know them.”

“Do I look like a man who wastes time in laughing?” inquired George, whose imperturbable gravity was one of his chief characteristics.

“No—you have other resources at your command for getting at the same result.”

“Thanks. You are always flattering. When am I to begin amusing your little friends?”

“To-day, if you like. We can go to them at once.”

George Wood glanced down almost unconsciously at the clothes he wore, with the habit of a man who is very poor and is not always sure of being presentable at a moment’s notice. His preoccupation did not escape cousin Totty, whose keen instinct penetrated his thoughts and found there an additional incentive to the execution of her beneficent intentions. It was a shame, she thought, that any relation of hers should need to think of such miserable details as the possession of a decent coat and whole shoes. At the present moment, indeed, George was arrayed with all appropriate correctness, but Totty remembered to have caught sight of him sometimes when he was evidently not expecting to meet any acquaintance, and she had noticed on those occasions that his dress was very shabby indeed. It was many years since she had seen his father, and she wondered whether he, too, went about in old clothes, sure of not meeting anybody he knew. The thought was not altogether pleasant, and she put it from her. It was a part of her method of life not to think disagreeable thoughts, and though her plan to bring about a rich marriage for her cousin was but a scheme for quieting her conscience, she determined to believe that she was putting herself to great inconvenience out of spontaneous generosity, for which George would owe her a debt of lifelong gratitude.

George, having satisfied himself that his appearance would pass muster, and realising that Totty must have noticed his self-inspection, immediately asked her opinion.

“Will I do?” he asked with an odd shade of shyness, and glancing again at the sleeve of his coat, as though to explain what he meant, well knowing that all explanation was unnecessary.

Totty, who had thoroughly inspected him before proposing that they should go out together, now pretended to look him over with a critical eye.

“Of course—perfectly,” she said, after three or four seconds. “Wait for me a moment, and I will get ready,” she added, as she rose and left the room.

When George was alone, he leaned back in his comfortable chair and looked at the familiar objects about him with a weary expression which he had not worn while his cousin had been present. He could not tell exactly why he came to see cousin Totty, and he generally went home after his visits to her with a vague sense of disappointment. In the first place, he always felt that there was a sort of disloyalty in coming at all. He knew the details of his father’s past life, and was aware that old Tom Craik had been the cause of his ruin, and he guessed that Totty had profited by the same catastrophe, since he had always heard that her brother managed her property. He even fancied that Totty was not so harmless as she looked, and that she was very fond of money, though he was astonished at his own boldness in suspecting the facts to be so much at variance with the outward appearance. He was very young, and he feared to trust his own judgment, though he had an intimate conviction that his instincts were right. On the whole he was forced to admit to himself that there were many reasons against his periodical visits to the Trimms, and he was quite ready to allow that it was not Totty’s personality or conversation that attracted him to the house. Yet, as he rested in the cushioned chair he had selected and felt the thick carpet under his feet, and breathed that indefinable atmosphere which impregnates every corner of a really luxurious house, he knew that it would be very hard to give up the habit of enjoying all these things at regular intervals. He imagined that his thoughts liquefied and became more mobile under the genial influence, forgetting the grooves and moulds so unpleasantly familiar to them. Hosts of ideas and fancies presented themselves to him, which he recognised as belonging to a self that only came to life from time to time; a self full of delicate sensations and endowed with brilliant powers of expression; a self of which he did not know whether to be ashamed or proud; a self as overflowing with ready appreciation, as his other common, daily self was inclined to depreciate all that the world admired, and to find fault with everything that was presented to its view. Though conscious of all this, however, George did not care to analyse his own motives too closely. It was disagreeable to his pride to find that he attached so much importance to what he described collectively as furniture and tea. He was disappointed with himself, and he did all in his power not to increase his disappointment. Then an extreme depression came upon him, and showed itself in his face. He felt impelled to escape from the house, to renounce the visit Totty had proposed, to go home, get into his oldest clothes and work desperately at something, no matter what. But for his cousin’s opportune return, he might have yielded to the impulse. She re-entered the room briskly, dressed for walking and smiling as usual. George’s expression changed as he heard the latch move in the door, and Mrs. Sherrington Trimm must have been even keener than she was, to guess what had been passing in his mind. She was not, however, in the observant mood, but in the subjective, for she felt that she was now about to appear as her cousin’s benefactress, and, having got rid of her qualms of conscience, she experienced a certain elation at her own skill in the management of her soul.

George took his hat and rose with alacrity. There was nothing essentially distasteful to him in the prospect of being presented to a pair of pretty sisters, who had doubtless been warned of his coming, and his foolish longing for his old clothes and his work disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

It was still winter, and the low afternoon sun fell across the avenue from the westward streets in broad golden patches. It was still winter, but the promise of spring was already in the air, and a faint mist hung about the vanishing point of the seemingly endless rows of buildings. The trees were yet far from budding, but the leafless branches no longer looked dead, and the small twigs were growing smooth and glossy with the returning circulation of the sap. There were many people on foot in the avenue, and Totty constantly nodded and smiled to her passing acquaintances, who generally looked with some interest at George as they acknowledged or forestalled his companion’s salutation. He knew a few of them by sight, but not one passed with whom he had ever spoken, and he felt somewhat foolishly ashamed of not knowing every one. When he was alone the thought did not occur to him, but his cousin’s incessant smiles and nods made him realise vividly the difference between her social position and his own. He wondered whether the gulf would ever be bridged over, and whether at any future time those very correct people who now looked at him with inquiring eyes would be as anxious to know him and be recognised by him as they now seemed desirous of knowing Totty and being saluted by her.

“Do you mean to say that you really remember the names of all these friends of yours?” he asked, presently.

“Why not? I have known most of them since I was a baby, and they have known me. You could learn their names fast enough if you would take the trouble.”

“Why should I? They do not want me. I should never be a part of their lives.”

“Why not? You could if you liked, and I am always telling you so. Society never wants anybody who does not want it. It is founded on the principle of giving and receiving in return. If you show that you like people, they will show that they like you.”

“That would depend upon my motives.”

Mrs. Sherrington Trimm laughed, lowered her parasol, and turned her head so that she could see George’s face.

“Motives!” she exclaimed. “Nobody cares about your motives, provided you have good manners. It is only in business that people talk about motives.”

“Then any adventurer who chose might take his place in society,” objected George.

“Of course he might—and does. It occurs constantly, and nothing unpleasant happens to him, unless he makes love in the wrong direction or borrows money without returning it. Unfortunately those are just the two things most generally done by adventurers, and then they come to grief. A man is taken at his own valuation in society, until he commits a social crime and is found out.”

“You think there would be nothing to prevent my going into society, if I chose to try it?”

“Nothing in the world, if you will follow one or two simple rules.”

“And what may they be?” inquired George, becoming interested.

“Let me see—in the first place—dear me! how hard it is to explain such things! I should say that one ought never to ask a question about anybody, unless one knows the answer, and knows that the person to whom one is speaking will be glad to talk about the matter. One may avoid a deal of awkwardness by not asking a man about his wife, for instance, if she has just applied for a divorce. But if his sister is positively engaged to marry an English duke, you should always ask about her. That kind of conversation makes things pleasant.”

“I like that view,” said George. “Give me some more advice.”

“Never say anything disagreeable about any one you know.”

“That is charitable, at all events.”

“Of course it is; and, now I think of it, charity is really the foundation of good society,” continued Mrs. Trimm very sweetly.

“You mean a charitable silence, I suppose.”

“Not always silence. Saying kind words about people you hate is charitable, too.”

“I should call it lying,” George observed.

Totty was shocked at such bluntness.

“That is far too strong language,” she answered, beginning to look as she did in church.

“Gratuitous mendacity,” suggested her companion. “Is the word ‘lie’ in the swearing dictionary?”

“Perhaps not—but after all, George,” continued Mrs. Trimm with sudden fervour, “there are often very nice things to be said quite truly about people we do not like, and it is certainly charitable and magnanimous to say them in spite of our personal feelings. One may just as well leave out the disagreeable things.”

“Satan is a fallen angel. You hate him of course. If he chanced to be in society you would leave out the detail of the fall and say that Satan is an angel. Is that it?”

“Approximately,” laughed Totty, who was less shocked at the mention of the devil than at hearing tact called lying. “I think you would succeed in society. By-the-bye, there is another thing. You must never talk about culture and books and such things, unless some celebrity begins it. That is most important, you know. Of course you would not like to feel that you were talking of things which other people could not understand, would you?”

“What should I talk about, then?”

“Oh—people, of course, and—and horses and things—yachting and fashions and what people generally do.”

“But I know so few people,” objected George, “and as for horses, I have not ridden since I was a boy, and I never was on board of a yacht, and I do not care a straw for the fashions.”

“Well, really, then I hardly know. Perhaps you had better not talk much until you have learned about things.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps I had better not try society after all.”

“Oh, that is ridiculous!” exclaimed Mrs. Trimm, who did not want to discourage her pupil. “Now, George, be a good boy, and do not get such absurd notions into your head. You are going to begin this very day.”

“Am I?” inquired the young man in a tone that promised very little.

“Of course you are. And it will be easy, too, for the Fearing girls are clever——”

“Does that mean that I may talk about something besides horses, fashions, and yachting?”

“How dreadfully literal you are, George! I did not mean precisely those things, only I could think of nothing else just at that moment. I know, yes—you are going to ask if I ever think of anything else. Well, I do sometimes—there, now do be good and behave like a sensible being. Here we are.”

They had reached a large, old-fashioned house in Washington Square, which George had often noticed without knowing who lived in it, and which had always attracted him. He liked the quiet neighbourhood, so near the busiest part of the city and yet so completely separated from it, and he often went there alone to sit upon one of the benches under the trees and think of all that might have been even then happening to him if things had not been precisely what they were. He stood upon the door-step and rang the bell, wondering at the unexpected turn his day had taken, and wondering what manner of young women these orphan sisters might be, with whom cousin Totty was so anxious to make him acquainted. His curiosity on this head was soon satisfied. In a few seconds he found himself in a sombrely-furnished drawing-room, bowing before two young girls, while Mrs. Trimm introduced him.

“Mr. Winton Wood—my cousin George, you know. You got my note? Yes—so sweet of you to be at home. This is Miss Constance Fearing, and this is Miss Grace, George. Thanks, no—we have just been having tea. Yes—we walked. The weather is perfectly lovely, and now tell me all about yourself, Conny dear!”

Thereupon Mrs. Sherrington Trimm took Miss Constance Fearing beside her, held her hand affectionately, and engaged in an animated conversation of smiles and questions, leaving George to amuse the younger sister as best he could.

At first sight there appeared to be a strong resemblance between the two girls, which was much increased by their both being dressed in black and in precisely the same manner. They were very nearly of the same age, Constance being barely twenty-two years old and her sister just twenty, though Mrs. Trimm had said that both had reached their majority. Both were tall, graceful girls, well-proportioned in every way, easy in their bearing, their heads well set upon their shoulders, altogether well grown and well bred. But there was in reality a marked difference between them. Constance was fairer and more delicate than her younger sister, evidently less self-reliant and probably less strong. Her eyes were blue and quiet, and her hair had golden tinges not to be found in Grace’s dark-brown locks. Her complexion was more transparent, her even eyebrows less strongly marked, her sensitive lips less firm. Of the two she was evidently the more gentle and feminine. Grace’s voice was deep and smooth, whereas Constance spoke in a higher though a softer key. It was easy to see that Constance would be the one more quickly moved by womanly sympathies and passions, and that Grace, on the contrary, would be at once more obstinate and more sure of herself.

George was pleasantly impressed by both from the first, and especially by the odd contrast between them and their surroundings. The house was old-fashioned within as well as without. It was clear that the girls’ father and mother had been conservatives of the most severe type. The furniture was dark, massive, and imposing; the velvet carpet displayed in deeper shades of claret, upon a claret-coloured ground, that old familiar pattern formed by four curved scrolls which enclose as in a lozenge an imposing nosegay of almost black roses. Full-length portraits of the family adorned the walls, and the fireplace was innocent of high art tiles, being composed of three slabs of carved white marble, two upright and one horizontal, in the midst of which a black grate supported a coal fire. Moreover, as in all old houses in New York, the front drawing-room communicated with a second at the back of the first by great polished mahogany folding-doors, which, being closed, produce the impression that one-half of the room is a huge press. There were stiff sofas set against the wall, stiff corner bookcases filled with histories expensively bound in dark tree calf, a stiff mahogany table under an even stiffer chandelier of gilded metal; there were two or three heavy easy-chairs, square, dark and polished like everything else, and covered with red velvet of the same colour as the carpet, each having before it a footstool of the old style, curved and made of the same materials as the chairs themselves. A few modern books in their fresh, perishable bindings showed the beginning of a new influence, together with half a dozen magazines and papers, and a work-basket containing a quantity of coloured embroidering silks.

George looked about him as he took his place beside Grace Fearing, and noticed the greater part of the details just described.

“Are you fond of horses, yachting, fashions, and things people generally do, Miss Fearing?” he inquired.

“Not in the least,” answered Grace, fixing her dark eyes upon him with a look of cold surprise.

CHAPTER III.

The stare of astonishment with which Grace Fearing met George’s singular method of beginning a conversation rather disconcerted him, although he had half expected it. He had asked the question while still under the impression of Totty’s absurd advice, unable any longer to refrain from communicating his feelings to some one.

“You seem surprised,” he said. “I will explain. I do not care a straw for any of those things myself, but as we walked here my cousin was giving me a lecture about conversation in society.”

“And she advised you to talk to us about horses?” inquired Miss Grace, beginning to smile.

“No. Not to you. She gave me to understand that you were both very clever, but she gave me a list of things about which a man should talk in general society, and I flatter myself that I have remembered the catalogue pretty accurately.”

“Indeed you have!” This time Grace laughed.

“Yes. And now that we have eliminated horses, yachts, and fashions, by mutual consent, shall we talk about less important things?”

“Certainly. Where shall we begin?”

“With whatever you prefer. What do you like best in the world?”

“My sister,” answered Grace promptly.

“That answers the question, ‘Whom do you like best—?’”

“Very well, Mr. Wood, and whom do you like best?”

“Myself, of course. Everybody does, except people who have sisters like yours.”

“Are you an egotist, then?”

“Not by intention, but by original sin, and by the fault of fate which has omitted to give me a sister.”

“Have you no near relations?” Grace asked.

“I have my father.”

“And you are not more fond of him than of yourself?”

“Is one not bound to believe one’s father, when he speaks on mature reflection, and is a very good man besides?”

“Yes—I suppose so.”

“Very well. My father says that I love myself better than any one else. That is good evidence, for, as you say, he must be right. How do you know that you love your sister more than yourself?”

“I think I would sacrifice more for her than I would for myself.”

“Then you must be subject to a natural indolence which only affection for another can overcome.”

“I am not lazy,” objected Grace.

“Pardon me. What is a sacrifice, in the common meaning of the word? Giving up something one likes. To make a sacrifice for oneself means to give up something one likes for the sake of one’s own advantage—for instance, to give up sleeping too much, in order to work more. Not to do so, is to be lazy. Laziness is a vice. Therefore it is a vice not to sacrifice as much as possible to one’s own advantage. Virtue is the opposite of vice. Therefore selfishness is a virtue.”

“What dreadful sophistry!”

“You cannot escape the conclusion that one ought to love oneself at least quite as much as any one else, since to be unwilling to take as much trouble for one’s own advantage as one takes for that of other people is manifestly an acute form of indolence, and is therefore vicious and a cardinal sin.”

“Selfishness is certainly a deadly virtue,” retorted Grace.

“Can that be called deadly which provides a man with a living?” asked George.

“That is all sophistry—sophistical chaff, and nothing else.”

“The original sophists made a very good living,” objected George. “Is it not better to get a living as a sophist than to starve?”

“Do you make a living by it, Mr. Wood?”

“No. I am not a lawyer, and times have changed since Gorgias.”

“I may as well tell you,” said Grace, “that Mrs. Trimm has calumniated me. I am not clever, and I do not know who Gorgias was.”

“I beg your pardon for mentioning him. I only wanted to show off my culture. He is of no importance——”

“Yes he is. Since you have spoken of him, tell me who he was.”

“A sophist, and one of the first of them. He published a book to prove that Helen of Troy was an angel of virtue, he fattened on the proceeds of his talking and writing, till he was a hundred years old, and then he died. The thing will not do now. Several people have lately defended Lucretia Borgia, without fattening to any great extent. That is the reason I would like to be a lawyer. Lawyers defend living clients and are well paid for it. Look at Sherry Trimm, my cousin’s husband. Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“He is fat and well-liking. And Johnny Bond—do you know him too?”

“Of course,” answered Grace, with an almost imperceptible frown. “He is to be Mr. Trimm’s partner soon.”

“Well, when he is forty, he will be as sleek and round as Sherry Trimm himself.”

“Will he?” asked the young girl with some coldness.

“Probably, since he will be rich and happy. Moral and physical rotundity is the natural attribute of all rich and happy persons. It would be a pity if Johnny grew very fat, he is such a handsome fellow.”

“I suppose it could not be helped,” said Grace, indifferently. “What do you mean by moral rotundity, Mr. Wood?”

“Inward and spiritual grace to be always right.”

At this point Totty, who had said all she had to say to Constance, and was now only anxious to say it all over again to Grace, made a movement and nodded to her cousin.

“Come, George,” she said, “take my place, and I will take yours.”

George rose with considerable reluctance and crossed the room. There was something in Grace Fearing’s manner which gave him courage in conversation, and he had felt at his ease with her. Now, however, the ice must be broken afresh with the other sister. Unlike Mrs. Trimm, he did not want to repeat himself, and he was somewhat embarrassed as to how he should begin in a new strain. To his surprise, however, his new companion relieved him of any responsibility in this direction. While listening as much as was necessary to Totty’s rambling talk, she had been watching the young man’s face from a distance. Her sympathetic nature made her more observant than her sister, and she spent much time in speculating upon other people’s thoughts. George interested her from the first. There was something about him, of which he himself was wholly unconscious, which distinguished him from ordinary men, and which it was hard to define. Few people would have called him handsome, though no one could have said that he was ugly. His head was strongly modelled, with prominent brows, and great hollows in the temples. The nose was straight, but rather too long, as is generally the case with melancholy people; and the thin, dark moustache did not conceal the scornful expression of the mouth. The chin would have been the better for a little more weight and prominence, and the whole face might have been more attractive had it been less dark and thin. As for the rest, the man was tall and well built, though somewhat too lean and angular, and he carried himself well, whether in motion or repose. He was evidently melancholic, nervous, and impressionable, as might be seen from his brown and sinewy hands, of which the smooth and pointed fingers contrasted oddly with the strength of the lower part. But the most minute description of George Wood’s physical characteristics would convey no such impression as he produced upon those who first saw him. He was discontented with himself as well as with his surroundings, and his temper was clouded by perpetual disappointment. Sometimes dull and apathetic, there were moments when a vicious energy gleamed in his dark eyes, and when he looked like what fighting men call an ugly customer. Mirth was never natural to him, and when he laughed aloud there was scarcely the semblance of a smile upon his features. Yet he had a keen sense of humour, and a facility for exhibiting the ridiculous side of things to others.

“What do you do, Mr. Wood?” asked Constance Fearing, when he was seated beside her.

“Nothing—and not even that gracefully.”

Constance did not laugh as she looked at him, for there was something at once earnest and bitter in the way he spoke.

“Why do you do nothing?” she asked. “Everybody works nowadays. You do not look like a professed idler. I suppose you mean that you are studying for a profession.”

“Not exactly. I believe my studies are said to be finished. I sometimes write a little.”

“Is that all? Do you never publish anything?”

“Oh yes; countless things.”

“Really? I am afraid I cannot remember seeing——”

“My name in print? No. There is but one copy of my published works, and that is in my possession. The pages present an irregular appearance and smell of paste. You do not understand? My valuable performances are occasionally printed in one of the daily papers. I cut them out, when I am not too lazy, and keep them in a scrap-book.”

“Then you are a journalist?”

“Not from the journalist’s point of view. He calls me a paid contributor; and when I am worse paid than usual, I call him by worse names.”

“I do not understand—if you can be what you call a paid contributor, why not be a journalist? What is the difference?”

“The one is a professional, the other is an amateur. I am the other.”

“Why not be a professional, then?”

“Because I do not like the profession.”

“What would you like to be? Surely you must have some ambition.”

“None whatever, I assure you.” There was an odd look in George’s eyes, not altogether in accordance with his answer. “I should prefer to live a student’s life, since I must live a life of some kind. I should like to be always my own master—if you would give me my choice, there are plenty of things I should like. But I cannot have them.”

“Most of us are in that condition,” said Constance, rather thoughtfully.

“Are we? Is there anything in the world that you want and cannot have?”

“Yes. Many things.”

“No, I mean concrete things,” George insisted. “Of course I know that you have the correct number of moral and intellectual aspirations. You would like to be a heroine, a saint, and the managing partner of a great charity; you would like to be a scholar, historian, a novelist, and you would certainly like to be a great poetess. You would probably like to lead the fashion in some particular way, for I must allow you a little vanity with so much virtue, but on Sundays, in church, you would like to forget that there are such things as fashions. Of course you would. But all that is not what I mean. When I speak of wants, I mean wants connected with real life. Have you not everything you desire, or could you not have everything? If you do not like New York, can you not go and live in Siberia? If you do not like your house, can you not turn it inside out and upside down and trim it with green parakeet’s wings, if you please? If you have wants, they are moral and intellectual.”

“But all the things you speak of merely depend upon money,” said Constance a little shyly. “They are merely material wants—or rather, according to your description, caprices.”

“I do not call my desire to lead the unmolested life of a student either a caprice or a material want, but the accomplishment of my wish depends largely upon money and very little upon anything else.”

Constance looked furtively at her companion, who sat beside her with folded hands, apparently contemplating his shoes. He had spoken very quietly, but his tone was that of the most profound contempt, whether for himself, or for the wealth he was weak enough to desire, it was impossible to say. Constance felt that she was in the presence of a nature she did not understand, though she was to some extent interested and attracted by it. It is very hard for people who possess everything that money can give, and have always possessed it, to comprehend the effect of poverty upon a sensitive person. Constance, indeed, had no exact idea of George Wood’s financial position. He might be really poor, for all she knew, or he might be only relatively impecunious. She inclined to the latter theory, partly because he had not the indescribable look which is supposed to belong to a poor man, and partly on account of his readiness to speak of what he wanted. A person of less keen intuitions would probably have been repelled by what might have been taken for vulgar discontent and covetousness. But Constance Fearing’s inceptions were more delicate. She felt instinctively that George was not what he represented himself to be, that he was neither weak, selfish, nor idle, and that those who believed him to be so would before long find themselves mistaken. She made no answer to his last words, however, and there was silence for a few moments.

Then George began to speak of her return to New York, and fell into a very commonplace kind of conversation, which he sustained with an effort, and with a certain sensation of awkwardness. Presently Totty, who had finished the second edition of her small talk, rose from her seat and began the long operation of leave-taking, which was performed with all the usual repetitions, effusive phrases, and affectionalities, if such a word may be coined, which are considered appropriate and indispensable. As a canary bird pecks at a cherry, chirps, skips away, hops back, pecks, chirps, and skips again and again many times, so do certain women say good-bye to the dear friends they visit. Meanwhile George stood at hand, holding his hat and ready to go.

“I hope we shall see you again,” said Constance as she gave him her hand.

“May I come?” he asked.

“Of course. We are generally at home about this time.”

At last Totty tore herself away, and the ponderous front door closed behind her and her cousin as they came out into the purple light that flooded Washington Square.

“Well, George, I hope you were properly impressed,” said Mrs. Sherrington Trimm, when they had walked a few steps and were near the corner of the avenue.

“Profoundly.”

“In what way? Come, be confidential.”

“In what way? Why, I think that the father and mother of those girls must have been very rich, very dull, and very respectable. I never saw anything like the solidity of the furniture.”

Totty was never quite sure whether George was in earnest or was laughing at her.

“Did you spend your time in looking at the chairs?” she asked rather petulantly.

“Partly. I could not help seeing them. I believe I talked a little.”

“I hope you were sensible. What did you talk about? I do not think the Fearing girls would thoroughly appreciate the style of wit with which you generally favour me.”

“You need not be cross, cousin Totty. I believe I was decently agreeable.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Mrs. Trimm.

“You think I flatter myself, do you? I daresay. The opinion of the young ladies would be more valuable than my own. At all events my conscience does not reproach me with having been more dull than usual, and as for the furniture, you will admit that it was very impressive.”

“Well,” sighed Totty, “I suppose that is your way of looking at things.” She did not know exactly what she wanted him to say, but she was sure that he had not said it, and that his manner was most unsatisfactory. They walked on in silence.

“I am tired,” she said, at last, as they reached the corner of the Brevoort House. “I will go home in a cab. Good-bye.”

George opened the door of one of the numerous broughams stationed before the hotel, and helped his cousin to get in. She nodded rather indifferently to him, as she was driven away, and left him somewhat at a loss to account for her sudden ill temper. Under any ordinary circumstances she would assuredly have bid him enter the carriage with her and drive as far as her house, in order to save him a part of the long distance to his own home. The young man stood still for a moment and then turned into Clinton Place, walking rapidly in the direction of the elevated road.

He had spoken quite truly when he had said that the visit he had just made had produced a profound impression on him, and it was in accordance with his character to keep that impression to himself. It was not that he felt himself attracted by either one of the sisters more than by the other. He had not fallen in love at first sight, nor lost his heart to a vision of beatitude that had only just received a name. But as he walked he saw constantly before him the two graceful young girls in their simple black dresses, full of the freshness and beauty of early youth and contrasting so strongly with their old-fashioned surroundings. That was all, but the picture stirred in him that restless, disquieting longing for something undefined, for a logical continuation of the two lives he had thus glanced upon, which belongs to persons of unusual imagination, and which, sooner or later, drives them to the writing of books as to the only possible satisfaction of an intimate and essential want.

There are people who, when they hear any unusual story of real life, exclaim, “What a novel that would make!” They are not the people who write good fiction. Most of them have never tried it, for, if they had, they would know that novels are not made by expanding into a volume or volumes the account of circumstances which have actually occurred. True stories very rarely have a conclusion at all, and the necessity for a conclusion is the first thing felt by the born novelist. He dwells upon the memory of people he has seen, only for the sake of imagining a sequel and end to their lives. Before he has discovered that he must write books to satisfy himself, he does not understand the meaning of the moods to which he is subject. He is in a room full of people, perhaps, and listening to a conversation. Suddenly a word or a passing face arrests his attention. He loses the thread of the talk, and his thoughts fly off at a tangent with intense activity. As before the sight of a drowning man, the panorama of a life is unfolded to him in an instant, full of minute details, all distinct and clear. His lips move, repeating fragments of imaginary conversations. His eyes fix themselves, while he sees in his brain sights other than those around him. His heart beats fast, then slowly, in a strange variety of emotions. Then comes the awakening voice of the persecutor. “A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Tompkins,” or, “My dear Tompkins, if you do not care to listen to me,” etc. The young man is covered with confusion and apologises for his absence of mind, while still inwardly attempting to fix in his memory the fleeting visions of which he has just enjoyed such a delicious glimpse.

Fortunately for George Wood, there was no one to disturb his meditations as he strode along the quiet street, ascended the iron steps and mechanically paid his fare before passing through the wicket gate. Nor did the vivid recollection of Constance and Grace Fearing abandon him as the snake-like train came puffing up and stopped before his eyes; still less, when he had taken his seat, and was being carried away up-town in the direction of his home.

He lived with his father in the small house which the latter still owned, and in which, by dint of rigid economy the two succeeded in leading a decently comfortable existence, so far as their material lives were concerned. A more complete contrast to the residence in Washington Square, where George had just been spending half an hour, could hardly be imagined. The dwelling of the Woods was one of those conventional little buildings which abound in the great American cities, having a front of about sixteen feet, being three stories high, and having two rooms on each floor, one looking upon the street and one upon a small yard at the back. Within, everything was of the simplest description. There was no attempt at anything in the nature of luxury or embellishment. The well-swept carpets were threadbare, the carefully-dusted furniture was of the plainest kind, the smooth, tinted walls were innocent of decoration and unadorned with pictures. There were few books to be seen, except in George’s own room, which presented a contrast to the rest of the house, inasmuch as there reigned in it that sort of disorder which seemed the most real order in the opinion of its occupant. A huge deal table took up fully a quarter of the available space, and deal shelves full of books both old and new lined the walls, indeed almost everything was of deal, from the uncarpeted floor to the chairs. A pile of new volumes in bright bindings stood on a corner of the table, which was littered with printed papers, sheets of manuscript, galley proofs, and cuttings from newspapers. A well-worn penholder lay across a half-written page, and the red cork of a bottle of stylo-graphic ink projected out of the confusion.

George entered this sanctum, and before doing anything else proceeded to divest himself of the clothes he wore, putting on rusty garments that seemed to belong to different epochs. Then he went to the window with something like a sigh of relief. The view was not inspiring, but the familiarity of it doubtless evoked in his mind trains of thought that were pleasant. There was the narrow brickyard with its Chinese puzzle of crossing and recrossing clothes’ lines. Then a brick wall beyond which he could see at a considerable distance the second and third rows of windows of a large house. Above, a row of French roofs and then the winter sky, red with the last rays of the sun. George did not remain long in contemplation of this prospect; a glance was apparently enough to restore the disturbed balance of his mind. As he turned away and busied himself with lighting a green glass kerosene lamp, the vision of Constance and Grace Fearing dissolved, and gave place to more practical considerations. He sat down and laid hold of the uppermost volume from the pile of new books, instinctively feeling for his paper-cutter with the other hand, among the disorderly litter beside him.

After cutting a score of pages, he began to look for the editor’s letter. The volumes had been sent him for review, and were accompanied by the usual note, stating with appalling cynicism the number of words he was expected to write as criticism of each production.

“About a hundred words a-piece,” wrote the literary editor, “and please return the books with the notices on Monday at twelve o’clock, at the latest.”

It was Thursday to-day, and there were six volumes to be read, digested, and written about. George made a short calculation. He must do two each day, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, in order to leave himself Monday morning as a margin in case of accidents. Six books, six hundred words, or rather more than half a column of the paper for which he wrote. That meant five dollars, for the work was well paid, as being supposed to require some judgment and taste on the part of the writer. There was of course nothing of much importance in the heap of gaily-bound printed matter, nothing to justify a serious article, and nothing which George would care to read twice. Nevertheless the exigencies of the book trade must be satisfied, and notices must appear, and editors must find persons willing and able to write such notices at prices varying from fifty cents to a dollar a-piece. Nor was there any difficulty about this. George knew that the pay was very good as times went, and that there were dozens of starving old maids and hungry boys who would do the work for less, and would perhaps do it as well as he could. Nor was he inclined to quarrel with the conditions which allowed him so short a time for the accomplishment of such a task. He had worked at second class reviewing for some time, and was long past the period of surprises. On the contrary, he looked upon the batch of publications with considerable satisfaction. The regularity with which such parcels had arrived during the last few months was a proof that he was doing well, and it seemed probable that in the course of the coming year he might be entrusted with more important work. Once or twice already, he had been instructed to write a column, and those were white days in his recollections. He felt that with a permanent engagement to produce a column a week he should be doing very well, but he knew how hard that was to obtain. No one who has not earned his bread by this kind of labour can have any idea of the crowd that hangs upon the outskirts of professional journalism, a crowd not seeking to enter the ranks of the regular newspaper men, but hoping to pick up the crumbs that fall from the table which appears to them so abundantly loaded. To be a professional journalist in America a man must in nine cases out of ten begin as a reporter. He must possess other qualifications besides those of the literary man. He must have a good knowledge of shorthand writing and a knack for the popular style. He must have an iron constitution and untiring nerves. He must be able to sit in a crowded room under the glaring gaslight and write out his impressions at an hour when ordinary people are in bed and asleep. He must possess that brazen assurance which sensitive men of taste rarely have, for he will be called upon to interview all sorts and conditions of men when they least expect it and generally when they least like it. He must have a keen instinct for business in order to outwit and outrun his competitors in the pursuit of news. Ever on the alert, he must not dwell upon the recollections of yesterday lest they twine themselves into the reports of to-day. Altogether, the commencing journalist must be a remarkable being, and most remarkable for a set of qualities which are not only useless to the writer of books, but which, if the latter possessed them, would notably hinder his success. There is no such thing as amateur journalism possible within the precincts of a great newspaper’s offices, whereas the outer doors are besieged by amateurs of every known and unknown description.

In the critical and literary departments, the dilettante is the cruel enemy of those who are driven to write for bread, but who lack either the taste, the qualifications, or the opportunities which might give them a seat within, among the reporters’ desks! Cruellest of all in the eyes of the poor scribbler is the well-to-do man of leisure and culture who is personally acquainted with the chief editor, and writes occasional criticisms, often the most important, for nothing. Then there is the young woman who has been to college, who lacks nothing, but is ever ready to write for money, which she devotes to charitable purposes, thereby depriving some unfortunate youth of the dollar a day which means food to him, for whose support the public is not already taxed. But she knows nothing about him, and it amuses her to be connected with the press, and to have the importance of exchanging a word with the editor if she meets him in the society she frequents. The young man goes on the accustomed day for the new books. “I have nothing for you this week, Mr. Tompkins,” says the manager of the literary department as politely as possible. The books are gone to the Vassar girl or to the rich idler, and poor Tompkins must not hope to earn his daily dollar again till seven or eight days have passed. His only consolation is that the dawdling dilettante can never get all the work, because he or she cannot write fast enough to supply the demand. Without the spur of necessity it is impossible to read and review two volumes a day for any length of time. It is hard to combine justice to an author with the necessity for rushing through his book at a hundred pages an hour. It is indeed important to cut every leaf, lest the aforesaid literary manager should accuse poor little Mr. Tompkins of carelessness and superficiality in his judgment; but it is quite impossible that Tompkins should read every word of the children’s story-book, of the volume of second class sermons, of the collection of fifth rate poetry, and of the harrowing tale of city life, entitled The Bucket of Blood, or The Washerwoman’s Revenge, all of which have come at once and are simultaneously submitted to his authoritative criticism.

George Wood cut through thirty pages of the volume he held in his hand, then went to the end and cut backwards, then returned to the place he had reached the first time, and cut through the middle of the book. It was his invariable system, and he found that it succeeded very well.

“It is not well done,” he said to himself, quoting Johnson, “but one is surprised to see it done at all. What can you expect for fifty cents?”

CHAPTER IV.

Many days passed before George thought of renewing his visit to Washington Square, and during that time he was not even tempted to go and see Mrs. Trimm. If the truth were to be told it might appear that the vision of the two young girls, which had kept George in company as he returned to his home, did not present itself again for a long time with any especial vividness. Possibly the surroundings and occupations in the midst of which he lived were not of a nature to stir his memories easily; possibly, too, and more probably, the first impression had lacked strength to fascinate his imagination for more than half an hour. The habit of reading a book, writing twenty lines of print about it and throwing it aside, never to be taken up again, may have its consequences in daily life. Though quite unconscious of taking such a superficial view of so serious a matter, George’s mind treated the Misses Fearing very much as it would have treated a book that had been sent in for notice, dealt with and seen no more. Now and then, when he was not at work, and was even less interested than usual in his father’s snatches of conversation, he was conscious of remembering his introduction to the two young ladies, and strange to say there was something humorous in the recollection. Totty’s business-like mode of procedure amused him, and what seemed to him her absurd assumption of a wild improbability. The ludicrous idea of the whole affair entertained his fancy for a few seconds before it slipped away again. He could not tell exactly where the source of his mirth was situated in the chain of ideas, but he almost smiled at the thought of the enormous, stiff easy-chairs, and of the bookcase in the corner, loaded to the highest shelf with histories bound in tree calf and gold. He remembered, too, the look of disappointment in Totty’s eyes when he had alluded to the respectability of the furniture, as they walked up Fifth Avenue.

Those thoughts did not altogether vanish without suggesting to George’s inner sight the outlines of the girls’ faces, and at the same time he had a faint memory of the sounds of their voices. It would not displease him to see and hear both again, but, on the other hand, a visit in the afternoon was an undertaking of some importance, a fact which cannot be realised by people who have spent their lives in society, and who go to see each other as a natural pastime, just as the solitary man takes up a book, or as the sailor who has nothing to do knots and splices odds and ends of rope. It is not only that the material preparations are irksome, and that it is a distinctly troublesome affair for the young literary drudge to make himself outwardly presentable; there is also the tiresome necessity of smoothing out the weary brain so that it may be capable of appreciating a set of unfamiliar impressions in which it anticipates no relaxation. Add to all this the leaven of shyness which so often belongs to young and sensitive natures, and the slight exertion necessary in such a case swells and rises till it seems to be an insurmountable barrier.

A day came, however, when George had nothing to do. It would be more accurate to say that on a particular afternoon, having finished one piece of work to his satisfaction, he did not feel inclined to begin another; for, among the many consequences of entering upon a literary life is the losing for ever of the feeling that at any moment there is nothing to be done. Let a writer work until his brain reels and his fingers can no longer hold the pen, he will nevertheless find it impossible to rest without imagining that he is being idle. He cannot escape from the devil that drives him, because he is himself the driver and the driven, the fiend and his victim, the torturer and the tortured. Let physicians rail at the horrible consequences of drink, of excessive smoking, of opium, of chloral, and of morphine—the most terrible of all stimulants is ink, the hardest of taskmasters, the most fascinating of enchanters, the breeder of the sweetest dreams and of the most appalling nightmares, the most insinuating of poisons, the surest of destroyers. One may truly venture to say that of an equal number of opium-eaters and professional writers, the opium-eaters have the best of it in the matter of long life, health, and peace of mind. We all hear of the miserable end of the poor wretch who has subsisted for years upon stimulants or narcotics, and whose death, often at an advanced age, is held up as a warning to youth; but who ever knows or speaks of the countless deaths due solely to the overuse of pen, ink, and paper? Who catalogues the names of those many whose brains give way before their bodies are worn out? Who counts the suicides brought about by failure, the cases of men starving because they would rather write bad English than do good work of any other sort? In proportion to the whole literary profession of the modern world the deaths alone, without counting other accidents, are more numerous than those caused by alcohol among drinkers, by nicotine among smokers, and by morphine and like drugs among those who use them. For one man who succeeds in literature, a thousand fail, and a hundred, who have looked upon the ink when it was black and cannot be warned from it, and whose nostrils have smelled the printer’s sacrifice, are ruined for all usefulness and go drifting and struggling down the stream of failure till death or madness puts an end to their sufferings. And yet no one ventures to call writing a destroying vice, nor to condemn poor scribblers as “ink-drunkards”.

George walked the whole distance from his house to Washington Square. He had not been in that part of the city since he had come with his cousin to make his first visit, but as he drew near to his destination he began to regret that he had allowed more than a fortnight to pass without making any attempt to see his new acquaintances. On reaching the house he found that Constance Fearing was at home. He was sorry not to see the younger sister, with whom he had found conversation more easy and sympathetic. On the other hand, the atmosphere of the house seemed less stiff and formal than on the first occasion; the disposition of the heavy furniture had been changed, there were flowers in the old-fashioned vases, and there were more books and small objects scattered upon the tables.

“I was afraid you were never coming again!” exclaimed the young girl, holding out her hand.

There was something simple and frank about her manner which put George at his ease.

“You are very kind,” he answered, “I was afraid that even to-day might be too soon. But Sherry Trimm says that when he is in doubt he plays trumps—and so I came.”

“Not at all too soon,” suggested Constance.

“The calculation is very simple. A visit once a fortnight would make twenty-six visits a year with a fraction more in leap year, would it not? Does not that appal you?”

“I have not a mathematical mind, and I do not look so far ahead. Besides, if we are away for six months in the summer, you would not make so many.”

“I forgot that everybody does not stay in town the whole year. I suppose you will go abroad again?”

“Not this year,” answered Miss Fearing rather sadly.

George glanced at her face and then looked quickly away. He understood her tone, and it seemed natural enough that the fresh recollection of her mother’s death should for some time prevent both the sisters from returning to Europe. He could not help wondering how much real sorrow lay behind the young girl’s sadness, though he was somewhat astonished to find himself engaged in such an odd psychological calculation. He did not readily believe evil of any one, and yet he found it hard to believe much absolute good. Possibly he may have inherited something of this un-trustfulness from his father, and there was a side in his own character which abhorred it. For a few moments there was silence between the two. George sitting in his upright chair and bending forward, gazing stupidly at his own hands clasped upon his knee, while Constance Fearing leaned far back in her deep easy-chair watching his dark profile against the bright light of the window.

“Do you like people, Miss Fearing?” George asked rather suddenly.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, is your first impulse, about people you meet for the first time, to trust them, or not?”

“That is not an easy question to answer. I do not think I have thought much about it. What is your own impulse?”

“You are distrustful,” said George in a tone of conviction.

“Why?”

“Because you answer a question by a question.”

“Is that a sign? How careful one should be! No—I will try to answer fairly. I think I am unprejudiced, but I like to look at people’s faces before I make up my mind about them.”

“And when you have decided, do you change easily? Have you not a decided first impression to which you come back in spite of your judgment, and in spite of yourself?”

“I do not know. I fancy not. I think I would rather not have anything of the kind. Why do you ask?”

“Out of curiosity. I am not ashamed of being curious. Have you ever tried to think what the world would be like if nobody asked questions?”

“It would be a very quiet place.”

“We should all be asleep. Curiosity is only the waking state of the mind. We are all asking questions, all the time, either of ourselves, of our friends, or of our books. Nine-tenths of them are never answered, but that does not prevent us from asking more.”

“Or from repeating the same ones—to ourselves,” said Constance.

“Yes; the most interesting ones,”

“What is most interesting?”

“Always that which we hope the most and the least expect to have,” George answered. “We are talking psychology or something very like it,” he added with a dry laugh.

“Is there any reason why we should not?” asked his companion. “Why do you laugh, Mr. Wood? Your laugh does not sound very heartfelt either.” She fixed her clear blue eyes on him for a moment.

“One rarely does well what one has not practised before an audience,” he answered. “As you suggest, there is no reason why we should not talk psychology—if we know enough about it—that is to say, if you do, for I am sure I do not. There is no subject on which it is so easy to make smart remarks.”

“Excepting our neighbour,” observed Constance.

“I have no neighbours. Who is my neighbour?” asked George rather viciously.

“I think there is a biblical answer to that question.”

“But I do not live in biblical times; and I suppose my scratches are too insignificant to attract the attention of any passing Samaritan.”

“Perhaps you have none at all.”

“Perhaps not. I suppose our neighbours are ‘them that we love that love us,’ so the old toast says. Are they not?”

“And those whom we ought to love, I fancy,” suggested Constance.

“But we ought to love our enemies. What a neighbourly world it is, and how full of love it should be!”

“Fortunately, love is a vague word.”

“Have you never tried to define it?” asked the young man.

“I am not clever enough for that. Perhaps you could.”

George looked quickly at the young girl. He was not prepared to believe that she made the suggestion out of coquetry, but he was not old enough to understand that such a remark might have escaped from her lips without the slightest intention.

“I rather think that definition ends when love begins,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “All love is experimental, and definition is generally the result of many experiments.”

“Experimental?”

“Yes. Do you not know many cases in which people have tried the experiment and have failed? It is no less an experiment if it happens to succeed. Affection is a matter of fact, but love is a matter of speculation.”

“I should not think that experimental love would be worth much,” said Constance, with a shade of embarrassment. A very faint colour rose in her cheeks as she spoke.

“One should have tried it before one should judge. Or else, one should begin at the other extremity and work backwards from hate to love, through the circle of one’s acquaintances.”

“Why are you always alluding to hating people?” asked the young girl, turning her eyes upon him with a look of gentle, surprised protest. “Is it for the sake of seeming cynical, or for the sake of making paradoxes? It is not really possible that you should hate every one, you know.”

“With a few brilliant exceptions, you are quite right,” George answered. “But I was hoping to discover that you hated some one, for the sake of observing your symptoms. You look so very good.”

It would have been hard to say that the expression of his face had changed, but as he made the last remark the lines that naturally gave his mouth a scornful look were unusually apparent. The colour appeared again in Constance’s cheeks, a little brighter than before, and her eyes glistened as she looked away from her visitor.

“I think you might find that appearances are deceptive, if you go on,” she said.

“Should I?” asked George quietly, his features relaxing in a singularly attractive smile which was rarely seen upon his face. He was conscious of a thrill of intense satisfaction at the manifestation of the young girl’s sensitiveness, a satisfaction which he could not then explain, but which was in reality highly artistic. The sensation could only be compared to that produced in an appreciative ear by a new and perfectly harmonious modulation sounded upon a very beautiful instrument.

“I wonder,” he resumed presently, “what form the opposite of goodness would take in you. Are you ever very angry? Perhaps it is rude to ask such questions. Is it?”

“I do not know. No one was ever rude to me,” Constance answered calmly. “But I have been angry—since you ask—I often am, about little things.”

“And are you very fierce and terrible on those occasions?”

“Very terrible indeed,” laughed the young girl. “I should frighten you if you were to see me.”

“I can well believe that. I am of a timid disposition.”

“Are you? You do not look like it. I shall ask Mrs. Trimm if it is true. By-the-bye, have you seen her to-day?”

“Not since we were here together.”

“I thought you saw her very often. I had a note from her yesterday. I suppose you know?”

“I know nothing. What is it?”

“Old Mr. Craik is very ill—dying, they say. She wrote to tell me so, explaining why she had not been here.”

George’s eyes suddenly gleamed with a disagreeable light. The news was as unexpected as it was agreeable. Not, indeed, that George could ever hope to profit in any way by the old man’s death; for he was naturally so generous that, if such a prospect had existed, he would have been the last to rejoice in its realisation. He hated Thomas Craik with an honest and disinterested hatred, and the idea the world was to be rid of him at last was inexpressibly delightful.

“He is dying, is he?” he asked in a constrained voice.