By Mary C. E. Wemyss

ORANGES AND LEMONS.
IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE.
PRUDENT PRISCILLA.
PEOPLE OF POPHAM. Illustrated.
THE PROFESSIONAL AUNT.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Boston and New York

ORANGES AND LEMONS

ORANGES
AND LEMONS
BY
MARY C. E. WEMYSS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1919

COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY MARY C. E. WEMYSS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ORANGES AND LEMONS

ORANGES & LEMONS

I

The man who lives alone lives long;

The bird is not like that, and so—his song.

If a bishop had asked Elsie Carston, “Do you really and truly believe that islands, in far-off seas, were made islands and peopled by black races, solely in order that your brother should govern them, and you—in his absence—govern his children?” Elsie would have looked straight into the eyes of the bishop and would have answered, “I do not”; but she did.

If Marcus Maitland had been asked by any one, “Do you really think and believe that God made the hills in India solely for the preservation of the white woman’s complexion? that where He did not make hills He did not mean white women to go?” Marcus would have answered, “I do”; but he did not.

So far as Marcus knew, the island chosen for the future education of his brother-in-law, Eustace Carston, in the art of governing might have hills. On the other hand, the faith of some former governor’s wife might have removed them and taken them away with her, there being no limit to the luggaged importance of governors’ wives. Marcus knew because he had travelled. He had been on boats where every one was cramped excepting some governor’s wife and her suite. He had suffered the indignity of a tropical discomfiture in order that she might acquire an importance that was as new to her as was discomfort to him.

If it had not been for Eustace Carston, he had not travelled. When a man’s only sister marries a man he does not know, there are left to him but two things to do—to like him or to leave him alone. Marcus left him alone: left England. He had meant to travel until such time as his sister should write and beg him to come back, but she did not write and beg him to come back. She wrote at intervals saying what a delightful time he must be having; said intelligent things about tropical vegetation; and wrote, as they came, of charming babies, all exactly like their father. Marcus thought they should have been like her and therefore like him; for between him and his sister there was a strong family likeness. In Sibyl’s eyes there was no one to be compared with Eustace Carston. He stood alone. Marcus was tired of hearing that, so when an American he met on board ship assured him he was a white man, and suggested they should go into business together, Marcus, after making exhaustive enquiries about the man and his business, agreed. And he went to America; there lived and made money. When he had made as much money as he wanted, he began to long for home and he turned his face homewards, taking with him both the affection of his American friend and an interest in the business. London was still home to him; so he settled there and at certain times of the year turned his thoughts to a moor in Scotland, and at others to his collection of china, pictures, and prints, and so he occupied himself—at leisure. Before he had left England he had begun buying china. He had since learned how little he had then known.

On his return to London the only person he wanted to see was his sister and she was away; and her children were with their aunt in the country. If he could have seen the children without seeing the aunt, he would have done it, but he disliked the aunt. He wondered what Sibyl would do with the children when her husband took up his new appointment. She could not surely ask Carston’s sister to have them indefinitely.

It must have been suggested to thousands of bachelor uncles that they should take an interest in their nephews and nieces. And thousands of bachelor uncles must have responded by taking an interest—and more than a life interest—in their nephews and nieces. The methods of suggestion are usually two. Either by prayer indirectly, or by an appeal, made directly, either after church on a suitable Sunday (the hedges should be white with hawthorns, and the cows, red and white, should be knee-deep in buttercups, and if possible a trout should dart in and out the shallows of the stream); or at Christmas-time when all churches are decorated and all relations are demonstrative.

Either appeal would possibly have moved Marcus Maitland. He was susceptible to environment: had, no doubt, as a boy, tickled trout, and must have known something of the meaning of mistletoe. But of a letter however delicately expressed he was always suspicious. All letters he read, firstly, to see what was in them: secondly, to see what was behind them. In a letter Sibyl told him her husband had been appointed governor of yet another island that was as hot as it was remote: which fact she stated clearly enough. Behind it was the suggestion that no mother could subject so delicate and delicious and new a thing as Diana’s complexion to the ravages of so intemperate a climate.

Dear Marcus,—Do you feel inclined to take charge of the child while her parents are governing wisely and well that far-away island? Diana is delightful. If you had not gone round the world, just as a squirrel goes vaguely round and round its cage, you must have discovered it for yourself.

I want you to have Diana. I could leave her with Elsie, Eustace’s sister, who is a dear and so proud of Diana, but she rather resents my having the child when I am at home. So when I go away this time I want to leave her with some one else just to show Elsie I dare. It’s a tremendously brave thing to do—requiring true courage on my part—but I must do it because Elsie, having no children of her own, is centring herself on the child, and I know if Diana should want to marry, she might try to dissuade her. So, Marcus, will you have her? Elsie, dear as she is, is rather too strong-minded a woman for a girl to be with altogether. She is a little too earnest and strenuous. I want Diana to frivol. I don’t want her to see too deeply into the things of life—yet. Everything with Elsie is spelt with a capital letter, and is heavily underlined. Woman to her is so much more than mere woman. I don’t want Diana at her age to be faced with sex problems. Dear Elsie is inclined to see in man woman’s chief and natural enemy. You will understand! She wants Diana to do great things in life. I want life to do great things for her. I know you will give her the chance to see its beautiful side, and, of course, if there should be a question of her falling in love—as there is bound to be—you will guide her gently to fall in love with the right kind of man—a man like—dear old thing, you are bristling all over—did you imagine I was going to say Eustace when I want to persuade you to do something for me? I took the child to her first dance last night. She looked like a rose; her complexion is delicious.

Marcus was glad Diana had a complexion. Was she pretty? He should say not. When especial mention is made of a woman’s skin it usually means that it is the only thing that can with truth be commended. If everything else is good, the complexion is thrown in, as it were. Sibyl’s had been delicious, and he did not remember mentioning it in writing to any one—not even to his tutor at Magdalen—No!

Marcus returned to the letter. Sibyl was in London and she had not let him know—that was hard to forgive; however, she had now made a definite demand upon him and he must respond. Hitherto she had asked of him nothing more than an unbounded admiration of Carston and that he had been obliged to deny her—on principle. She spoilt Carston, indulged him, so much so that he would allow her, expect her even, to follow him to any and every part of the world regardless of whether the climate were good or bad for a woman’s delicate skin.

Marcus rang the bell. To the man who answered it, he said: “Pillar, I am expecting a young lady.”

“Ah, sir,” said Pillar, “I have been expecting this—”

“Since when?”

“Well, sir, at any time during the last eighteen years the question would not have come upon me as a shock—I saw her last night. She looked beautiful—if I may say so, sir, like a rose.”

“Who?”

“Miss Diana, sir.”

“You saw her?”

“Yes, sir; there was a ball at Rygon House. The valet is a friend of mine. I looked in. Miss Diana held her own. She stood out among the disputants. She excited a certain—a creditable amount of jealousy, among the right people. It was the opinion, expressed on the other side of the swing door, that she should go far.... Yes, sir, she is taller than her ladyship and, in a sense, fairer. I should say her hair is hardly golden, although I suspect in sunlight I should discover myself in error. Her skin is dazzling.... You will remember, sir, calling my attention to the skins of the women—in Munich I think it was?—And her carriage—you will perhaps remember drawing my attention to the carriage of the women in—the Andalusian women? Yes, sir, Andalusian—I think I am correct—How was she dressed, sir?”

Mr. Maitland had not asked the question.

“In white, sir. It didn’t look white. I mean, if you will excuse me, there were many in white, but Miss Diana looked conspicuous. She might have been in scarlet—she showed up so—stood out. I have heard you use the expression with regard to the paintings of old masters. As we left Madrid, I think it was, sir, you lamented the lost art of paintrature.”

“That will do, Pillar. Did her ladyship see you?”

“Her ladyship did me that honour, sir. I handed her a cup of coffee in order to make myself known, saying, ‘Sugar, my lady,’ if I remember rightly. Miss Diana took no refreshment. Her ladyship asked for you, sir; she thought you were not in town. I told her you had just returned from Norway.”

“Thank you, Pillar; that’s all.”

“Miss Carston comes here, sir?”

“Yes. That’s all.”

Pillar took from his pocket a small red notebook, in which he began to write.

“What is it, Pillar? What are you writing?”

“Awning, sir. So far only awning. That’s all.”

“Why awning?”

“The usual accompaniment to a wedding, sir. It’s as well to get things in hand.”

II

The woman who lives alone and weeds

Forgets her own and gives to others’ needs.

Elsie Carston lived in the country, in the village of Bestways, and her life she ordered according to the sojournings abroad of her brother and his wife. It was for their children—she told herself and sometimes others—that she lived in the country; but she knew it was not quite true. When we deceive ourselves and know it, we are on the way to salvation. Elsie was undoubtedly on the way to salvation,—a long way on,—but she did stop on the way, now and then, to look back. She liked to feel that if she had not devoted herself to her brother’s children she would have travelled. She sometimes allowed people to believe that she thirsted for deserts and longed to climb camels; but if those people had seen her in her garden fringing the skirts of the walks with thrift, and embroidering the borders with pansies and pinks, they would not have believed her anxious to leave her garden and her work. She loved Bestways. Her house was of warm red brick—Georgian, she would tell you with pride. It was old, certainly: the garden that held it in its arms—as it were, hugging it—was old too, older than the house possibly. The yew hedges had been planted by people of long ago, who perhaps spoke of the day when the hedges should be grown quite high and they not there to see. There must always be in a garden that sadness. Therefore those who have a garden should also—if they may—have children, whose children will live to walk under the trees they plant.

Elsie had no children, of course; and she would have admitted it, if asked the direct question; otherwise she was inclined to look upon her brother’s children as hers, and in no way would she have allowed that they belonged to her sister-in-law’s brother. It was in her garden they should walk in years to come, not in his.

At one end of the village Elsie Carston lived. At the other, back from the road, in a house surrounded by a large park, with every other evidence around it of riches—quiet riches—lived Mrs. Sloane. She walked under trees that had been planted by Sloanes many years before, and in church she sat beneath monuments to Sloanes: but in the pew beside her must sit borrowed children, there being no little Sloanes. They would, by this time, have been grandchildren, if there had been. Though borrowed children are not what they should be, those would slip their little hands into Mrs. Sloane’s—one from each side—just as if they had been real grandchildren, and sit quietly, longing for the sermon to be done; and if it were longer than it should be, a little squeeze from the hand of their old friend would bid them take courage. She had been a child once and she knew! So must preachers also once have been children, yet do they think of the child to whom it is real pain to sit still? Some do.

Mrs. Sloane sat in the chancel, and sometimes into the chancel would come, during the service, a little bird. Then would the words of the preacher become winged words and would find their way into the heart of every child in the congregation. So robins as well as men may be evangelists.

Mrs. Sloane and Elsie Carston were great friends. They were both gardeners, which may make for friendship. There was between them this difference: Elsie weeded her garden because in her garden there were weeds; Mrs. Sloane weeded hers because to find a weed would have been something of an excitement—likewise a triumph. Elsie Carston planted and weeded and watered entirely oblivious to the hatred that she (aunt to Diana) had aroused in the heart of Marcus (uncle to Diana). And as she weeded and watered and planted, it was of Diana she thought, and she grudged not that far-off island its flowers and its luxurious vegetation, because it gave her Diana. She no longer found it in her heart to bemoan the sandy soil of her garden and its unquenchable thirst.

For Diana’s sake she watered the flowers as much as for their own. Diana loved flowers and Elsie stooped to pull up a weed that had dared to push its way into Diana’s border. She stooped easily, much more easily than Marcus would have imagined possible. He was pleased to think of her as middle-aged and crabbed and sour and disagreeable and grasping, whereas she was thirty-six and young at that and delightful—easily amused and a friend to every one in her small world. She was expecting Diana on a long stay, so there lurked a smile at the corners of her mouth and a twinkle in her honest grey eyes. While Eustace was abroad, Diana would be hers. She was thankful Eustace had married so devoted a wife. She had known people express surprise that Lady Carston should leave her children, suggesting that however much you love your husband your children should not be neglected. Sibyl’s children were not neglected, nor had they ever been. Elsie loved them. Not even a mother could feel more for them than she felt. When Dick, the boy, was small she had said to him, “I wish, Dick, you were mine—my own little boy.”

“Why?” he had asked, not seeing the necessity.

“Well—because I wish you were.” She had no better reason to give than this.

“But you have all the feelingship of a mother towards me,” he had said; and it was true: she had. What more than the feelingship could she desire? Not even all mothers possess it. Elsie, as she watered, wondered how Diana had looked at the dance; what her mother had thought of her, what the world in general had thought of her, what any one man had thought of her. Elsie frowned, assuring herself that she wished some man to fall in love with Diana. Of course she did. The pansies at her feet knew better. They would have allowed that she was kind and strangely gentle for one so capable—but of those children, they must have admitted, she was a little jealous. She would have “thinned” the children’s relations, on the other side, just as drastically as she thinned theirs on both sides of the border. On to the sterling qualities of a generous nature Elsie had grafted some of Sibyl’s tenderness. “But,” said Diana, “you can see where it joins”; but it did join—that was something; moreover, the soldering held. At twelve o’clock the second post came in and a letter was brought out to Elsie. It was from Sibyl, her sister-in-law, and she opened it thinking here was the news she had been waiting for—the date of Diana’s coming. She read the letter, and re-read it. Then she turned back and read it for the third time.

Dearest Elsie,—no one dearer,—you know that. Shall I make you understand what I want you most desperately to understand? I am more than grateful to you for all you have done for Diana. Every time she comes into the room Eustace is grateful. For much of what she is she is indebted to you: her frankness, her honesty are yours. Her goodness, a reflection of yours. Everything, therefore, that is best in her I acknowledge as your gift to her, to me, to her father. But, Elsie, I want her to see something of the world; I want her to have the amusement a girl of her age should have. I want her to see men so that she may choose between them. I want her to stay in London for a few months and I want to leave her with my brother. I don’t think you like him? He was a dear to me when I was Diana’s age and a fierce chaperon. You have never seen him. He was so long abroad. I remember you said you had heard things about him: but they may not have been true, and if they were—if he is what you call a man of the world—it will only make him more fiercely particular with Diana than he would otherwise have been. It is my fault that he has drifted away from me. He was always jealous of Eustace. I wonder if you will understand that? No, you are too generous a nature to understand anything so small. So, will you write to Diana and say you are pleased she should go to London? Because without that she won’t stay willingly, and I want her to stay willingly. Marcus would never keep her unless she wanted to stay. That’s his way. It will be so good for him to have her. Pillar, his man, says he wants something young about the house (Marcus, not Pillar). What have you to do with that? you will say. Don’t say it. I want you and Marcus to be friends—I want Diana to see something of the world and the world to see something of her. There, it’s out! Worldly woman that I am! You have a literary recluse at your gate (they are so dangerous when they come out). I am afraid of him. You have a muscular parson. I am afraid of him. I am afraid of all men—tinkers, tailors, soldiers and sailors, rich men, poor men, apothecaries, and thieves—they are all thieves. I am afraid of all but the right one.

Your dear Eustace’s Wife

Elsie pondered over that letter—she was hurt—she was indignant—beaten—but there was one to whom she always could turn for comfort—one who always understood.

“Marcus,” she called, and to her feet came slithering a black dog, and he lay on his back before her, presenting all that was most vulnerable in his person to the tender ministrations of her wavering foot. One hind leg, to all appearances, was broken past mending. One front paw was badly damaged.

He was asking but the raking movement of his beloved physician’s well-booted foot and he should be healed. How long, how long, must he wait? There were other things to be done all on a summer’s day. There was a yellow cat—a stranger—not far off, that needed a lesson. There were more sparrows than there should be in a good woman’s garden. They needed a fright, that was all. Low-growing gooseberries there were within the reach of the shortest-legged and best-bred spaniel. He gave up the remote chance of healing by the scraping up and down of feet, and was off in the wake of the yellow cat, flushing sparrows as he went. The brambles did for him what his mistress would not. But brambles, being self-taught scratchers, have not the firmness of touch desirable; moreover, they don’t know when to leave go, or how.

“Marcus, do you hear me when I speak?” called Elsie.

“He’s that obstinate, that he be,” said the old gardener, who always came when any one was called, answering to any name if it were called loud enough.

He was deaf, so it was best to make sure: besides, his wife had lately died and he felt lonely if left entirely to vegetables.

“He just does it for the sake of contrariness,” he went on; “at his age he did ought to know better—but he don’t mean half he does—if you don’t take no notice of him he’ll come skeewithering back.”

And skeewithering back Marcus came, and resting his head on Elsie’s lap looked up into her face with that in his eyes that must forever disarm all feelings of anger, hatred, and malice against uncles—even uncles!

“Why, oh, why were you called Marcus?” she asked, and Marcus said, in his own particular manner of speech, that he had often asked himself the same question—and would now ask her.

Elsie remembered well the day Marcus had arrived—already named—in a basket. When she had opened the basket she had seen the smallest of black spaniels, and the blackest of black dogs, whose mother, judging by his neck, might have been a swan, and whose father, judging by the rest of him, the best spaniel ever bred. When she questioned the suitability of his name she discovered that he looked the wisest thing in the world—that a philosopher beside him must have lost in seriousness of demeanour. On his forehead there stood, strongly pronounced, the bumps of benevolence—so as Sibyl had named him Marcus, Marcus he remained.

The other Marcus was then nothing more than the forgotten name of a negligible brother—the children’s uncle—on the other side.

III

If a sister knows not a brother’s heart he has none to know.

“Dearest Sibyl,” wrote Marcus, “why didn’t you tell me you were in London and taking Diana to her first dance? I had always meant to give her a pearl necklace for her coming-out ball. I will take her, of course, while you are abroad, on one condition, and that is that she isn’t always rushing off to her aunt in the country. I dislike that woman, as you know. I dislike all strong-minded, self-opinionated women. You are quite right, she is no fit companion for a girl of Diana’s age. Who has a better right to Diana than I have? I can’t have Miss Carston interfering. Sibyl, my dear, I am longing to see you.”

Hardly had he written the words when the telephone bell rang at his elbow.

He lifted the receiver and heard Sibyl’s voice telling him he was a darling old owl. In answer to his gentle reproof she said, Of course she had written to tell him she was bringing Diana to London, but she had forgotten to post the letter! Couldn’t he have guessed that? There was the same tenderness in the voice there had always been. She used the same absurd endearments she had always used. He knew she must be unchanged. Might she come and see him? Now? At once? She would!

He put back the receiver—and was astonished at his emotion. The force of his feelings shocked him. He had imagined himself past caring for anything very much. His life was so easy—so well ordered—so few demands were made upon him, except for money—and those were easily met. There was nothing to disturb him—nothing to excite him—except perhaps now and then a rather bigger venture than usual in the city—which as a rule meant more money (he was lucky) with which to buy china, glass, prints, anything he liked, and to his manifold likes his room testified. His house was beautiful and the things in it were chosen for their beauty. For these things he had come to care because he had been left alone in the world. He liked to think of himself as neglected. He had felt for his sister a deep affection and she had chosen to marry and leave him.

He couldn’t compete for her love. He never competed. Even as a collector he had suffered from this amiable inability to assert himself. Now he deputed others less sensitive to buy for him. In his young days, before he had gone to America, he remembered at an auction losing a vase he had particularly wanted. He had allowed himself to be outbidden by a girl with wide, grey eyes—who wore dogskin gloves. He could have outbidden her, but something had moved him to pity. Her gloves probably—they betrayed such a lack of social knowledge. It was a blue vase he would have bought. He loved the colour of it—the feel of it. She could have known nothing of the feel of it, for she held it in gloved hands, for which lack of feeling and understanding he pitied her—pitied her ignorance. She held the vase upside down to look at the mark: even about that she was undecided—or else she was short-sighted, which probability the clearness of her eyes questioned. Having examined the mark, she handed the vase back to the man from whom she had taken it and sharply bid a figure to which Marcus could have gone if he had wished. But he had not. So the vase became hers and she looked him straight in the eyes—and her eyes said “Beaten!”

“Goth!” thought Marcus as he recalled the scene. “She held the vase in gloved hands. Vandal—nice grey-eyed, clean, ignorant woman—” But he had thought of her oftener than he knew in those days, bemuse for a certain time he had thought of her every time he had seen a woman whose eyes were not grey.

Marcus, thinking now only of his sister, walked to a mirror that hung on the wall between two windows and looked at himself anxiously. Would she find him changed? At forty-six he was bound to look different, a little grey, of course. That did not matter, so long as she was not grey. He lit a cigarette; then put it down unsmoked, remembering that as a girl she had hated the smell of tobacco. Then he went to the window and ran up the blind; then pulled it down again halfway: not too strong a light, he decided; and pulled all the blinds down halfway. It would be kinder to Sibyl. Or should he pull them right up and face the worst? Leave her to face the light? A taxi stopped in the street below. It was absurd, but he was too nervous to go down and meet her and he counted the seconds it would take Pillar to get upstairs, to open the door. One! He must have been waiting in the hall. Supposing she were grey-haired, old, and wrinkled—or fat—? How should he keep it from her that he was shocked, distressed, pained? The door opened and in a moment two arms were round his neck. He almost said, “Where is your mother?”—was delighted he should almost have said it; wished he had really said it. What prettier compliment could he have paid this delightful being he held in his arms?

She was still young—still brown-haired—still impulsive. He held her at arm’s length—Still in love with Eustace! He could see that: no woman remains so young who is not in love.

“Marcus, Marcus, you dear funny old thing!”

“Why funny?” he asked, gently disengaging himself from her arms; “let me look at you again.”

With a feeling of apprehension he knew to be absurd, he looked again, gaining courage as he looked. Had he overestimated the youthfulness of her appearance? Did not her pallor detract just a little from the radiance that had been her greatest beauty? Had he missed wrinkles? Yes, one or two—finely drawn, put in with a light hand, emphasizing only the passage of smiles—nothing more. If she had lost anything in looks she had gained much in expression. He might have left the blinds up. Her eyes were large. There were women he knew whose eyes got smaller as they grew older; that he could not have borne. Sibyl’s eyes were just as they had always been. They had lost naturally something of their look of childlike questioning. That he did not mind. The childlike woman he had long ceased to admire. He read here true womanliness; a depth of real understanding, and a certain knowledge of the big things in life—things that mattered.

“Sit down,” he said, and he drew her down on to the sofa beside him. “She looked like a rose, did she?”

“My Diana?”

Marcus nodded. “Pillar saw her.”

“Did he say she looked like a rose? Well, then it must have been very evident.”

“Not necessarily,” said Marcus, unconsciously championing Pillar. Not that he altogether trusted Pillar’s taste. He had shown in the Louvre, Marcus remembered, a weakness for Rubens’s women. He might have admired the consummate technique of a great master while deploring a certain coarseness in his choice of subjects, but he had not done so—

“Is she pretty?” asked Marcus.

“She’s rather delicious.”

“When is she coming to see me?”

“At any moment, but she’s a will-o’-the-wisp. She comes and goes as she wills.”

“She’s slight, then?”

“Oh, slight! You could pull her through a ring.”

Marcus was glad of that.

“Now tell me about your dear self, Marcus.”

There was so little to tell, he said.

“Not when everything interests me—Give me a cigarette.”

“But you used not to—” he began, handing her his cigarette case.

“Smoke? No—but Eustace likes me to sit with him, and we smoke—you get to like it in hot climates.”

“I shouldn’t have let you smoke if you had been mine.”

“No?” she laughed gently. “Dear old Marcus!”

Looking at Sibyl, and finding her so perfectly satisfying to his artistic sense, he fell to wondering what Diana was really like. And whom she was like? He dared not ask. He had no wish to hear she was like her father. She could not be like her mother or the papers would be bound to have got hold of it. He was glad they hadn’t—but still girls far less pretty were advertised.

“I’m so glad,” said Sibyl; “it shows you won’t let Diana.”

“Smoke? No, certainly not.”

“You don’t know Diana—I must tell you about her—a little about her, without saying she is like her father, is that it?” She laughed—how gay she was! When she had told him that little, omitting that much, she asked: “Does she sound nice?” And Marcus, smiling, said she sounded delicious.

“She is.”

Marcus laughed; this was the old Sibyl back again, with all her enthusiasms, the same charming companion she had been as a girl. Because of that charm of hers, he liked to think, he had not married.

“Sibyl, is she like you?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes.”

He breathed again.

“And I so wanted her to be like her father,” she added.

“I suppose so—Is his sister—the one you call Elsie—married?”

“No.”

“You said she had no children—”

“She hasn’t.”

“But naturally. It was hardly necessary to say it, was it?”

And Sibyl laughed. Marcus needed just what she was going to give him, a disturbing young thing to live with him. Marcus dreaded it, although he would not have said so because of that sister he so disliked, who wanted Diana.

“I won’t have Diana running off whenever Miss Carston chooses to send for her. That I think you understand.”

“But there will be times when you will want to get rid of her. You won’t want to give up travelling, will you?”

“Couldn’t she come with me?”

“You can’t conceive, dear, the trouble a woman is travelling. You would hate to have to think of some one else—another place to find in a crowded train—another person’s luggage to look after—another ticket to lose—you would hate it.”

“Then I shan’t travel.”

“But surely it would be easier to send Diana to Elsie than to do that.”

“I detest that woman—”

“She has—nice eyes. You are a dear old thing, Marcus, and not a bit changed.”

“I never change.”

Marcus waited all day. Diana did not come. He was disappointed. It showed a want of reverence for the older on the part of the younger generation. At last he went to bed with a volume of Rabelais to read (in order to keep up his French). He read until he grew sleepy. He put out the light and slept until a flash of light awoke him and he wondered—What was this thing sitting on the end of his bed in white—a being so slim and so exquisite!

“Darling! the same old Marcus,” the being exclaimed,—“so sleepy and I woke him up. I couldn’t wait to see him—such years since we met!”

“Sibyl!” he murmured.

“Not this time, it’s Diana—is she like Sibyl? I am so glad—well, darling, talk!”

The slim being sat on his bed and sticking out her feet, on which twin shoe-buckles twinkled, urged him to amuse her. He dreaded “This little pig went to market” played through the bedclothes. He saw Diana eyeing the spot where she must know his toes were bound to be.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“Pillar opened wide the portal and we walked in. He wasn’t in the least surprised.”

“Not surprised?”

“Not in the least. He said we might turn up the carpet and dance—if we liked. He offered us a gramaphone—his own—to dance to.”

“My dear Diana, you ought to be in bed.”

“Ought? Why?”

“It’s time.”

“What is he reading?” She put out her hand. He seized the book.

“A bedside classic, is it?”

He put it under his pillow.

“You look nice in bed,” she said softly, “but not a bit what I expected.”

“I am not what I was, of course,” he said hastily.

“Are you a Once Was? Poor darling—does it hurt? Do you like my frock?”

He said he liked it—enormously.

“And my shoes?”

He nodded.

“Mother says I get my slim feet from you.”

“Oh, does she? Do go home, my child. How are you going home?”

“Where are your slippers?” She dived down.

“You’ve kicked them under the bed,” he moaned; “they were there.”

“I never touched them; here they are!” She slipped her feet into them; huge, red morocco slippers they were. Pillar would have remembered where they had been bought, the day on which they had been bought, and what kind of a woman she was who had passed at the moment of buying. They must have been the only size left in the bazaar. Diana sat on the edge of the bed again and put out her feet, the slippers swinging like pendulums from the tips of her toes. “Mummy must retract her words—she spoke in her haste—Marcus, my Once Was, I’ve been dancing—did you ever dance?”

“Dear child, do go, who is taking you home?”

“Six people. Pillar is taking care of them downstairs—Well, if you insist, I suppose I must. I shall love to stay with you. You don’t mind my coming like this—do you? Look at me! D’you like me?”

She was exactly—in theory—what Marcus would have liked another man’s niece to be, slight, graceful, with just that amount of assurance he found right in woman; but one does not always want one’s theories to live with one.

When he awoke a few hours later, he was firmly convinced he had dreamed and had dreamed pleasantly enough, and he closed his eyes to dream again; but the dream had vanished. Pillar remained. He brought him his tea, pulled up the blinds, put his things in order, stooped and picked up from the floor something that sparkled and laid it down on the dressing-table.

When he had gone Marcus jumped out of bed, went to the dressing-table and saw lying upon it a small stone of glittering paste. He had not dreamed then. He was glad—in a way. Diana would be a disturbing element in a quiet life—distracting, perhaps, rather than disturbing.

IV

A mother may laugh with a master; she goes and

the joke goes with her: the boy stays behind.

Sibyl Carston, having arranged things entirely to her satisfaction, straightway made preparations to join her husband in that far-off dependency. The preparations were quickly made. She went down to see Dick at school: walked with him through cool cloisters, out into the sun; paced close-shaven lawns; drank in the beauty of it all and expressed a hope that it was sinking into the soul of her son.

“Oh, rather,” said the son, a little surprised that his soul should be discussed. He realized the occasion was a special one, otherwise it was the sort of thing you didn’t talk about. It was there all right, his soul, he supposed. It stirred to the sound of beautiful music; also when he read in history of deeds of valour!—you bet it did—at the greatness of England in general; at the left-hand bowling of one master in particular. It was all there, but he didn’t want to talk about it.

“I understand, darling,” said his mother, “but don’t stifle it.”

He wouldn’t, rather not. “But, I say, what’s this about Diana and this London business and Aunt Elsie? Rough on her, isn’t it?”

“No, darling, I don’t think so. I want Diana to have some fun.”

“There’s lots at Aunt Elsie’s. There are the dogs, they’re good fun, and the rabbits, and the farm. There’s always something to do there. Aunt Elsie is jolly good fun, isn’t she?”

“So is Uncle Marcus.”

“Is he?” This doubtfully.

“He’s my brother, darling.”

“Oh, I see. I suppose you are bound in a kind of way to think him funny then—you like him in a way.”

“Very much.”

“Aunt Elsie doesn’t.”

“She has never seen him.”

“She jolly well doesn’t want to either.”

“Dick, darling, you will take care of Diana, won’t you?” said his mother, changing the subject: it was so difficult to keep to any subject with the good-bye looming in the near distance.

Any one who says good-bye to the child she loves for a long time (and a year to a mother is an eternity) drinks deep of the cup of self-sacrifice. Sibyl’s one thought was that Dick should not know what she was suffering. Of course he knew: but if it were her business—as mother—to bridge the distance across the sea, to talk of the near days when they should be together again, it was his—as son—to pretend he believed her. He assured her it was no distance: he didn’t mind: it happened to lots of boys: it was all right.

“You will take care of Diana?” she repeated—readjusting the distance.

“Yes, rather; you don’t want her to marry while you’re away, I suppose?—because I don’t quite see how I should manage that.”

“I don’t want her to marry while I’m away, of course, although I hope she may some day.”

“Taboret Major admires her so, I thought I would just ask.”

“He would be young to marry, wouldn’t he?”

“Well, so would she—anyway, he wouldn’t like me to talk about his private affairs, so don’t say anything about it. And, I say, if you do see him, I think you’d better not speak to him at all; he doesn’t like people speaking to him. He’s going to be a great writer—he thinks.”

Sibyl promised she wouldn’t speak to Taboret Major, but Mr. Wane she must see. Mr. Wane was Dick’s house-master, and Dick allowed he was very fairly decent. But Dick had started early in life with prejudices against masters and it was difficult to overcome them. When he had come back from his first term at a private school, he had resented with the whole force of his small being the injustice of being given a holiday task. Until he had got home he hadn’t known the beastly thing had come with him. The perfidy of the master had embittered him. “How could he have wished me a happy holiday when he knew all the time that he had given me this beastly thing to do?” he had asked.

It was a difficult question to answer. Masters must answer it for themselves—at that day when they too must answer questions: not only ask them.

“Oh, yes, you must see old Wane,” Dick admitted.

“We will walk about a little first—and talk—there is so much to say—isn’t there?” said his mother.

Dick nodded: she tightened the pressure of her arm on his, and it spoke volumes. He kicked at the little pebbles in the path, anything seemed to help. “How high do you suppose that tree is?” he asked. “It’s awfully old.”

The sun was in his mother’s eyes, she couldn’t see. Neither could he, but he knew; it was sixty feet high, so it wasn’t quite a fair question, was it?

“Not quite fair, my Dick.”

So much wasn’t quite fair.

If you can’t talk you can always eat an ice, at least you can if you are a boy. Sibyl suggested it. “Good business,” said Dick.

The ice was a help—a still greater help, two ices. They seemed to help the swallowing part of the business and good-byes largely consist of that. Then Sibyl went to see Mr. Wane and Dick waited outside—hoping she wouldn’t do anything funny—or try to make the old man laugh. If Sibyl had been, as a mother, a little less pretty and charming, it is possible Dick would have been—as a boy—a little less forward for his age, and might have been possessed of a character that was less surprising in its strength to his house-master. It is possible.

Mr. Wane was a just man and honourable, but perhaps, to convince himself that Dick’s mother had dimples, he may have emphasized a little more than he need have done certain things that had been “curiously brought to his notice” about Dick. A certain sterling honesty of purpose—unusual in so young a boy—Yes, they were there! Two of them, one on each side of her mouth. A very pretty mouth—a mouth that told of a certain fastidiousness of character that appealed to Mr. Wane. He only needed to give one or two instances, which bore out what he had said about Dick’s character, and a depth he had suspected, in the eyes of Dick’s mother, he found and fathomed.

“Show me a boy’s mother!” he was wont to say.

Dick had shown him a pretty mother, and had waited patiently outside while she talked about him! At last she joined him. Old Wane came out with her and he was laughing, but he seemed all right, otherwise.

Dick and his mother walked back through the cool cloisters, out into the sun and over close-shaven lawns. “Point out to your mother,” Mr. Wane had said, “architectural features of interest, my boy!” And Dick proceeded to do it. “That gate, see? It was built—I don’t know when—in the year, I don’t know what—by—I don’t know who,”—and his mother was duly impressed. To pay for this knowledge and other things there must be spent years in hot climates. Money must be saved so that when Dick was grown to be a man he should look back to this time as the happiest in his life. If all this and the sense of its past should sink into his soul, it must help to make him one of England’s proudest sons.

At the railway station they parted, and Sibyl watched till she could no longer see her small pink-faced son, who was growing, for all his smallness—so big, so tall, so reserved.

After Dick’s mother had left him, an uncomfortable way all visiting mothers have, Dick, unconscious of that curious nobility of character that Mr. Wane, somewhat to his own surprise, had endowed him with, felt very lonely. He hated islands, beastly far-off islands, rotten places for mothers to go to—what was the matter with England? He asked Taboret Major, and Taboret Major said, “Nothing, absolutely nothing—England was all right.” And he and Dick walked down to the cricket fields (their England) and it was all right.

Mrs. Wane, who had lately been brought to bed of her third son, was propped up on her pillows and Mr. Wane was sitting beside her. That he had something on his mind she knew. Mothers always upset him: they upset boys too; being altogether upsetting things.

“He is a very nice boy—a very nice boy—a particularly nice boy, I should say,” he said thoughtfully.

He had said it three times, so Mrs. Wane put out her hand and closing it on his said—“Was she so very charming and attractive?” And Mr. Wane laughed, for in spite of what Dick knew to the contrary, “old Wane” could see a joke, and that joke against himself.

“You dear!” he said to his wife, and she answered: “He is a nice boy—a very nice boy—a particularly nice boy—and there’s another just as nice—and you might tell his mother so without its causing you any after pricks of conscience, or remorse.” And she looked towards the cradle in which slept profoundly Wane Minimus.

“He’s very good and quiet,” admitted his father.

“He knows perhaps,” said his mother, “that his father is one from whom it is supposed the secrets of no small boy can be hid. By instinct he knows that: later on I shall tell him that he need not be quite so good, or so quiet; that although as a schoolmaster it is your bounden duty to know the secrets of all small schoolboys, as a father you are just as blind—and just as weak as any other well-dispositioned father. It is in order to make schoolmasters human that mothers marry them—there could be no other reason. Now tell me all about Carston’s mother and just what it was you said to her about him?”

That night, as Mr. Wane undressed, he was still a little uneasy.

“He is a particularly nice boy,” he murmured; but this it was that rankled—Barker’s mother had been down, too, and Barker was a particularly nice boy—he had faults, of course, so had Dick—but he had told Barker’s mother of Barker’s faults. He had not spared her: nor had he cared whether she had dimples or not—perhaps because she had not.

Before he got into bed he thanked God for the inestimable gift of a good wife—and he meant it; and of an understanding wife—he meant that too; and of a beautiful wife—he meant that too—in the highest sense.

V

If my sister have a child then am I straightway

an uncle, and who shall save me?

When Diana took up her abode in the house of her uncle, she arrived late, dressed, and went out again to dinner. That was not how Marcus would have had her arrive. She must understand that order was the keynote of his establishment. How otherwise could he expect to keep so excellent a housekeeper as Mrs. Oven? Pillar, too, must be considered. She must state definitely when she would be in to dinner and when not.

“I was not,” she said later, when taxed, “definitely not.”

Marcus dined alone. As he came downstairs dressed for dinner, he met a housemaid going up, with a glass of milk on a tray. On the tray there was also a plate, on the plate there was a banana, and beside the banana lay glistening a halfpenny bun. The meal of some one’s particular choosing, he should say. In no other way could it have found its way upstairs in his house. But whose meal was it?

That he had two housemaids he knew. He saw evidence of their being in the brightness of the brasses, the polish of the furniture, but he hardly knew them apart. The bun-bearer was one of them. He went on his way deploring that in his house there was no back staircase. But for whom could a vagrant banana be?

Tentatively he put the question to Pillar, as ashamed to ask it as Pillar was to answer it. Pillar murmured something about a mischance, and Mr. Maitland was quick to admit it. It was certainly an accident meeting the banana on the stairs; but the meal itself remained unexplained, and inexcused; it must have been predestined. Then it struck him that Diana must have brought a maid. It was quite right she should. He might have guessed it. But a maid who lived on buns and bananas, could she be efficient?

Marcus dined uncomfortably. The dinner seemed less good than usual. Gradually it was borne in upon him that it must be Mrs. Oven who was in bed and who was feeding on buns and bananas. She had lost her taste, her sense, her gastronomic taste—her sense of taste. Everything!

Towards twelve o’clock Diana came in, unrepentant and delightful; she floated in, as it were, on a cloud of tulle, a veritable will-o’-the-wisp, a thing as light as gossamer, as elusive as a firefly. She had a great deal to tell Marcus and told him none of it. She was lost in the depth of his huge sofa—she looked like drifted snow—blown there by the wind. He didn’t tell her that, even if he thought it. What he did tell her was that he expected his guests to go to bed early. This in obedience to an instinct that told him to begin as he meant to go on—

Diana said she could not go to bed early—that night, at all events. She would go as early as she could—as early in the morning. “I have a confession to make. Shall I make it now or wait till to-morrow? In ten minutes it will be to-morrow. To-morrow never used to come so soon.”

“Why not now?”

“No, I could not sleep unforgiven.”

“But why should you? What if I forgave you?”

Horrible thoughts flashed through Marcus’s mind. What could she have to confess? Happier thoughts—what could there be that he would not forgive? forgive her? There were things he could not forgive a man. All the things he had heard of modern girls and their ways passed through his mind, all the things he had ever heard of men from the days of man’s innocency until now. Then he looked at Diana. The modern girl was all right; she was delicious. But men—men? Would they find Diana distracting? Or was it because he was no longer young that her youth seemed so appealing, her freshness, her gaiety so infectious? He had always felt he could never have made a successful or even a comfortably happy father. A creature like this he could never have let out of his sight: all men would have become his enemies by very reason of their existence.

“Once Was,” said Diana softly, “why so dreamy? You make me sleepy. Good-morning!”

She went to bed, unconfessed, unforgiven. Pillar put out the lights downstairs. Marcus put them out on his landing. Above that it was Diana’s business. “Don’t forget the lights, Diana,” he called.

At one o’clock in the morning Diana was singing in her bath and Marcus lay in bed wondering what it was she wanted to confess. He fell asleep uncertain whether he liked a niece in the house or not. He had pictured to himself a quiet, mousey niece, demure and obedient! But how charming she had looked on the sofa!—she got her feet from him, did she? A great attraction in women, pretty feet; and none too common. He must see that she gave enough for her boots. It was where some women economized. He shuddered to think of women out in the street, on muddy days, in house shoes. Horrible!

Diana came down to breakfast. That was to her credit. To bed late: yet up early. She looked delicious: not in the least tired and very fresh and clean. A girl may be both without looking triumphantly so, as Diana did.

After breakfast with Marcus was a sacred hour, dedicated to his newspapers and his pipe, yet after breakfast Diana planted herself on the edge of his chair and proceeded to get to know him. Not until she had done that, she said, could she make her confession.

“What is it?” he asked, ready to forgive anything, if only that he might be left in peace.

“I brought Shan’t with me; do you mind?”

“A maid?” he said. “A dyspeptic maid,” he added to himself.

“Well, she’s female—certainly—I’ll say that for her.”

Marcus would have allowed that himself—in spite of her addiction to zoölogical fare.

“She’s such a willing little beast. She won’t eat if I go away—so I had to bring her—see, my Once Was?”

“Oh, a dog? My dear Diana, of course, I can’t have it upstairs, but Pillar will be delighted to exercise the little beast—”

No dog explained the banana and the milk, but he said nothing.

“Dear child!”—he was feeling very fond of Diana—“I should like to see—whatever you call it—is it trained and—”

“Shan’t! Shan’t!” called Diana up the stairs. “Come! Hurry up!”

“It was a funny way to talk to a dog,” thought Marcus. If at that moment he had looked up from his paper he would certainly have thought it a funny dog that walked into the dining-room. “Well?”

Marcus turned in answer to the interrogation and beheld a small girl of four or five, standing, beaming at him, the very quintessence of willingness and loving-kindness. “We-ell?” she repeated.

There are those in life who carry the mackintoshes of others; who leave the last fresh egg for others; the early peas for others; the first asparagus for others; who look up trains for others; find servants for others; houses for others; who cry with others; who laugh with others. They are as a rule spinsters who do these things and they do them gladly—even the crying. Yes! Shan’t-if-I-don’t-want-to, Shan’t for short, was a spinster, and Marcus recognized her as one of those born to do things for others. She could laugh and cry at the same time, run faster than any child of her age to do your bidding. She could soothe your pain with her smile: and touch your heart with her laugh. These things Marcus did not as yet know. But he was glad directly he saw her that she was not a dog, and he grudged her neither the milk, nor the bun, nor the banana, nor the distracting of Mrs. Oven from the cooking of his dinner, which said much for the fascination of Shan’t.

There she stood longing to do things, aching, benevolence beaming from her eyes. “Well?” she repeated.

“Good gracious!” said Marcus, and he got up and stood looking down with amazement on this small person, who stood so willingly waiting. Suddenly she looked at his feet and like a flash she was gone.

“Who in the world is it, Diana?” he asked sternly, but his heart had become as water, and his bones like wax. Here was the child of his dreams, the child he had played Hide-and-Seek with, told his longest stories to, taken to the Zoo, saved from drowning.

“That’s Shan’t-if-I-don’t-want-to! That’s one of her names, but she always does want to. She’s the jolliest little beggar in the world. Mummy says I can’t have her for my own, but she is my own and I am hers. Here she is. She is bound to have fetched something for you. For Heaven’s sake, say ‘Thank you.’”

She had fetched his slippers. Now Marcus Maitland would rather go without breakfast than breakfast in slippers, but he said, “Tha-ank you.”

“Now,” said Diana, “if by chance I ruffled your hair she’d be off for your hair-brushes before you knew where you were.”

“I don’t know where I am, as it is,” said Marcus, edging away from the devastating hands of Diana. He loathed his hair ruffled.

“Put on your slippers,” said Shan’t, pointing to his feet.

“But I have only just put on my boots.”

“Put—them—on and don’t—argue,” said Shan’t.

“But—”

“Pe—lease!” Shan’t looked at him, and Marcus, feeling about as determined as a worm can feel under the steady pressure of a garden-roller, stooped down and began to unlace his boots. To do it properly he must have a button-hook. Could Shan’t know to what an exquisite discomfort she was putting him?

“No,” said Diana, “you needn’t. No, Shan’t, you can fetch something else.”

“No, sit down, Shan’t,” commanded her uncle. “I want to look at you.”

She sat down on a footstool, folded her hands and looked up at her uncle. “Funny old fing!” she said, wrinkling her nose; “you didn’t know I was coming, did you?”

Marcus said he had had no idea.

“Diana said you didn’t.”

“Say your poem, Shan’t,” said Diana. “It’s her own—her very own,” she added. “Go on, Shan’t.”

“I forget it.”

“How can you forget it when it’s your own?”

“Well, I have.”

“Shan’t—One-two-three.”

Marcus knew it to be the fashion among poets to read their own works. He wondered if they needed treatment as drastic as this, or if they did it more willingly? In the muse of charity perhaps they did.

“One—two—three,” said Diana sternly, and Shan’t began:

“Swing me higher,

Oh, Delia, oh, Delia!

Swing me over the garden wall—

Only do not let me fall.

“Found in the garden

Dead in her beauty.

Was she not a dainty dish

To set before the king?”

All this very, very fast, and at the end of it Shan’t, pink and breathless, as any poet should be after being called upon to recite his own poem half an hour after breakfast.

“Does your aunt know you’re here?” asked Marcus.

“She does—now,” said Shan’t seriously.

“How did you get away without being seen?” Marcus thought that no well-brought-up child could ever escape from its Nannies and nursery-maids. The safety of England depended on the safeguarding of her children. He had heard that said, and he knew there were societies to enforce it because he had subscribed to them.

Up sprang Shan’t, the better to tell her story. A dramatic sense was hers. “I ran down the back stairs—and I ran down the drive—and I ran down the garden—and I ran froo the gates—and I ran down the road and I ran over the be-ridge. And then I didn’t run any—more. I just waited for Diana—and we came.”

A deep sigh followed this statement. The air escaping from an air cushion was the only thing Marcus could think of that compared with the exhaustiveness of the sigh. At that moment Pillar brought a telegram and Mr. Maitland opened it. Pillar glanced quickly at the child and Shan’t’s smile proclaimed him her friend. He was on her side.

“Diana, it is from your aunt,” said Marcus; “she says, ‘Return Shan’t at once’!”

“No,” said Shan’t; “shan’t if I don’t want to.” And she was off and out of the room, out of the front door, opened by the telegraph boy, who boylike was always as ready to let anything out as he was to catch and cage anything, through the door into the street: across the road and into the square through the garden gate that stood ajar.

“Let her run!” called Diana to her vanishing uncle; “she’ll soon tire.” But Marcus had gone in eager pursuit. He crossed the street, was through the gate and on to Shan’t before she had gone many yards down the straight path that ran through the square. He caught her in his arms. “By Jove, how she wriggles!” There was imminent danger of the uncle being left with the clothes of Shan’t in his arms, and no Shan’t. Appreciating the danger he relaxed his hold. Off she went, but to be caught again, and easily enough. She was hot. He could feel her heart beating in her small body, as a bird might flutter against the bars of the cage that imprisons it. She was such a little thing. “Shan’t,” he said, “come here.” He drew her towards him; he sat down and lifted her on to his knee.

“Shan’t if I don’t want to!” she whispered.

“But you’re going to want to.”

“Always do—mostly always do,” she said, crying softly; not really crying, she assured him, smiling.

“Look here,” said her uncle, “d’you know what you are?”

“Lucky little devil,” she hazarded.

“Well—but seriously—a good little girl—and such a willing little beggar, isn’t that it?”

She nodded. “Always—mostly always.”

“Look here—willing little beggars always do what they are asked and Aunt”—Marcus paused—“Aunt—what do you call her?”

“Elsie—only-aunt-in-the-world.”

“There are others, of course,” said Marcus stiffly; “Aunt Elsie—”

“Only-aunt-in-the-world,” said Shan’t; “say it!” She laid a finger on his lips.

“Well, Aunt Elsie-only-aunt-in-the-world wants you to go back to her because she’s lonely.”

“She’s got free dogs!”

“Free?”

“One—two—free—” “Free” found the tip of Shan’t’s forefinger lightly laid on the tip of Marcus’s nose.

“Yes; but she wants you—and if you are a good little girl and go back you shall come again and stay—”

“When?”

“We might say Christmas-time.”

“When else?”

“—Easter, perhaps.”

“We have eggs at Easter,”—this softly reminiscent.

“You shall have eggs here.”

“What inside of them?”

“Oh—little presents.”

“What little presents? Whistles?”

“Yes, I dare say.”

“And knives?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I should know.”

“What would you know?”

“Well, about the knives.”

“Would you guess?”

“I expect so.”

“I’ve thought of something—No, you do!”

“I think of something?”

“Yes. Have you?”

“Yes.”

“Is it animal, vegetable, or amiable?”

“It’s animal.”

“Is it in this room?”

Marcus gently pointed out that they were not in a room, and Shan’t pointed out less gently that he wasn’t playing properly. Marcus had had very serious thoughts as to whether he should allow Shan’t’s version of animal, vegetable, or mineral to pass unquestioned, or whether he should tell her she wasn’t playing the game?

“Is it the poker?” asked Shan’t.

“A poker isn’t animal.”

“Then you should have said it was amiable—that’s what pokers are. I did guess quickly, didn’t I?”

At this moment Diana joined them, and the inhabitants of the square garden saw the unusual sight of that rather unfriendly Mr. Maitland sitting on a garden seat, with a child on his knee, while a girl, a very attractive girl, stood by, egging him on as it were.

“She’s going back to Aunt Elsie, Diana,” he said.

“Only-aunt-in-the-world—Say it,” said Shan’t.

He said it, repeating, “She’s going back.”

“Shan’t if I don’t want to.”

“But you will, Shan’t,” said Diana, “because—look at me!”

Shan’t threw back her head and looked at Diana.

“Because I—want you to,” said Diana.

Shan’t slipped off her uncle’s knee, ran across the grass, over the road, in at the hall door, at which Pillar was standing, into the dining-room, and laid her head on a chair and sobbed.

“Poor little beggar,” said Diana.

“Diana, shall I?” He was longing to comfort her.

“No, you’ll spoil it all. You can’t give in now—if you say a child must do a thing, make her do it. You have lost your chance.”

As one convicted of a crime Marcus returned to the dining-room. When Pillar came into the room he looked at Mr. Maitland as he had never looked at him before—looked as if he were saying: “A little sunshine comes into the house and you shut it out—you draw down the blinds!”

It fell to the lot of Mrs. Oven to take Miss Shan’t back to her aunt. She called her Miss Charlotte, thinking Shan’t was but the correct way of pronouncing Charlotte. She had lived with a Lady Harriet who had been very particular to pronounce her name curiously, and Mrs. Oven recognized a distinction attached to curiously pronounced names and respected those who knew how to pronounce them.

“You see, Diana,” explained her uncle, “I am delighted to have you, but two extra in the house do make a difference, especially when the second one is a child. There are the servants to consider, and besides there is your aunt—”

Diana said Aunt Elsie would never let him have Shan’t, so he needn’t worry.

“My dear Diana, your aunt has not the power to prevent me from having Shan’t if I wish to—”

“You will wish to. The day will come when you will find you can’t live without her. I can’t imagine what I shall do without her, but I quite see you can’t have two of us—it’s too darling of you to have me, and Aunt Elsie must be considered.”

“With your Aunt Elsie I have nothing whatever to do. I owe her no consideration. I don’t know her—”

“All right, darling, don’t be flurried. She doesn’t want to know you. She dislikes you quite amazingly.”

“Why should she?” asked Marcus, finding the unreasonableness of women difficult to understand.

That evening Mr. Maitland offered Pillar Zoo tickets for Sunday.

“No, thank you, sir; I would not deprive another more fitted—”

“There’s a new baby giraffe.” This was an attraction never before known to fail in its lure.

“Oh, well, sir, at the Zoölogical Gardens one’s mind harks back, as it were, to children. It’s better not to think of children when you’re in a house where there are none, and none to come—so to speak.”

The next day Marcus got a letter from the only aunt in the world and the letter ran as follows:

Dear Mr. Maitland,—I think it should be clearly understood before we go any further that I have as much right to my brother’s children as you have to the children of your sister. I do not wish to stand in Diana’s way and I am delighted she should have such a chance as you are giving her, but Shan’t is mine. Her mother did not leave her in your charge. She left her in mine. She is a most charming companion, but would be utterly lost upon a bachelor—as you appear to be—living in London.

If, however, at any time you should agree to lend me Diana for a week, I will lend you Shan’t. But it must be quite clearly understood that you do not have both together, at any time. If the two sisters should wish to be together, and it is only natural they should, I think their mother would say the place for them to be together is here. You are not likely to appreciate the extraordinary character of Shan’t, and it is quite possible the child would wear herself out as your slave. With Diana there is no such danger. You will find her delightful, but the slaving must be on your side. Shan’t has just returned safely, so far as I can see none the worse for her adventure. I must thank you for sending her back in the care of so respectable and excellent a woman. Shan’t has a name, by the way: it is Elsie; you must have known it.

Yours truly,
Elsie Carston

“A most disagreeable letter,” said Marcus as he folded it and put it into his pocket, to re-read later. “A most uncalled-for letter. I sent the child back at once. Most men would have kept her.”

He began then and there to wonder why he had not kept her. Talk of dogs! (Miss Carston was devoted to dogs, it seemed.) What dog had ever attracted him as Shan’t had done? What dog had ever looked so willing? Not even a retriever was so humbly anxious to do anything in the world to please. She was such a jolly little thing to hold—so small—so easily crushed—funny, jolly little thing! Why should Miss Carston have her? Under the care of Miss Carston she would grow up a suffragette; would grow up everything a man would wish a girl not to be; self-opinionated, strong-minded, argumentative; always right, never wrong. It was a horrible thought. And Pillar had been perfectly willing that Shan’t should stay. If Pillar didn’t mind, who should?

It was only right that Diana and Shan’t should not be separated. Miss Carston could have Dick in the holidays. That should satisfy her. If anything could satisfy a nature so exacting!

VI

A man may win; the woman keeps the winnings.

So far Elsie had won—so she thought. She had got Shan’t back, but Shan’t, with the glamour of London upon her, was restless, longing to talk, aching to tell all she had seen and heard in London—“darlin’ old London.” But Aunt Elsie was obdurate. She did not want to hear anything about Uncle Marcus, and London was Uncle Marcus just as Uncle Marcus was London. She wanted to know what Shan’t had remembered of her Bible lesson? What she had remembered about Zacharias? She had learnt all about him just before she had gone to London!

“Did I?” asked Shan’t, doubting, but open to conviction.

Before Aunt Elsie, as a prisoner before the judge, she stood. She made one or two manœuvres, the first to make Aunt Elsie smile; the next to distract her attention. But Aunt Elsie neither smiled nor allowed her attention to be distracted. “Tell me what you remember about Zacharias,” she said.

Shan’t sighed. It was no good. “Zacha-ri-as?” she pondered. She stood first on one leg, then on the other. What did she remember? Raising pellucid eyes to Aunt Elsie, and higher still to Heaven, she began, “Zacharias was—a just man and he stood before the altar of the Lord—and—an angel came to him and said, ‘Zacharias, you are goin’ to have a baby,’ and Zacharias said, ‘I am not,’ and the angel said, ‘I beg your pardon, you are, and what’s more you’ll be dumb till you get it—’ That’s all,” said Shan’t.

“You know that wasn’t what you learnt, Shan’t.”

“Wasn’t it?” she said surprised; then added, “It’s a pity, isn’t it?” She looked at her Aunt Elsie, and Aunt Elsie saw with relief Mrs. Sloane coming towards her. She had never loved her neighbour better, and she had always loved her well.

As she walked along Mrs. Sloane bowed to those flowers she knew by sight, recognized and spoke to those she personally knew, and exclaimed she had never met another. A garden-lover was she in another woman’s garden. A generous visitor! There was nothing that grew in her garden better than in Elsie’s. She never said: “Ah, yes, of course, the same thing exactly, but mine are deeper—richer in colour; a matter of soil, of course. That only three inches high! Why, mine grew that in one night—a much better night, of course. It’s only a question of—”

Mrs. Sloane never said the wrong thing in the gardens of others. She was dearly loved in consequence, and every gardener felt in her presence a better gardener than he really was—just as every man felt a better man. And that, after all, is a good woman’s work in life, to make men feel better than they are—for by the time they grow accustomed to the feeling and get over the shyness it entails, they find it has become a habit and they are better.

It could be truthfully said of Mrs. Sloane, as was said of somebody by somebody—that whatever her age she didn’t look it. The tribute savours of the wit and understanding of Sidney Smith, whose judgment on the matter of babies is almost as well known as Solomon’s. Mrs. Sloane was triumphantly young, although to Shan’t she was a very, very old lady; but Shan’t was too young to recognize youth when she met it in the guise of old age.

Across the lawn, to the rescue of Aunt Elsie, came Mrs. Sloane. She wore a mushroom hat and gardening gloves and used a spud as walking-stick. “How goes the war?” she asked.

“You may go, Shan’t,” said Aunt Elsie.

“You got her back, then? With or without difficulty?”

“You may go, Shan’t.”

“I came back with Mrs. Oven,” said Shan’t, swinging her leg, reluctant to go.

“Shan’t, you may go.”

At that moment Shan’t would rather have turned head over heels. She would have found it easier.

“Run along, darling.”

“Must I?”

“Must she?” asked Mrs. Sloane.

Shan’t edged nearer, leant up against Mrs. Sloane, who slipped an arm round her. “Did you have a nice time?” she whispered.

“Diana’s got b-blue silk curtains on her bed.”

“Has she? Is she very happy?”

Shan’t nodded. “I watched her dress. Then I went downstairs—and Uncle Marcus didn’t know I was comin’—he was surprised—”

“Run along, Shan’t; you must do what I tell you, whatever you did with your uncle—”

Shan’t walked away backwards, stopped to seize Marcus, clutched at every excuse to linger—every daisy became a valid excuse—

“This is what comes of going to London,” said Aunt Elsie; “I knew what it would be.”

Shan’t walked away trailing her feet as she went, stubbing the toes of her shoes into the ground—disgusted with life. No one ran after her—made much of her and begged her to be good when she was good all the time. She had liked Pillar! He had “amoozed” her. She had liked Mrs. Oven! London! everything! Moreover, Diana was there—Diana, whom she adored; life without her was dull. Shan’t wished it was tea-time.

“Now tell me,” said Mrs. Sloane to Elsie.

“There is nothing to tell. Shan’t went with Diana. It was very wrong of Diana. The child, of course, wasn’t to blame. I wired for her and he sent her back at once, in the care of a most excellent woman. She looked a good cook—you can tell, can’t you?”

“At a glance, just as easily as you can tell a good coachman—or, for the matter of that, a good clergyman—”

“Talking of clergymen—” And Elsie unburdened her heart about Shan’t and Zacharias.

“Dear Zacharias!” said Mrs. Sloane; “I wonder if he had a sense of humour.” This was beside the point, so Elsie brought her back to the odious uncle, who obviously had none. What should she do? It was evident he had designs upon the children, he might even kidnap them. She didn’t trust him a yard. Mrs. Sloane suggested counter-attractions. Sparks lit in the eyes of the harassed aunt. What distraction could the country offer that could compare with the attraction of London?

“There is no reason a dance should not be given when you want Diana back—a dance in the country is very delightful, so long as it be sufficiently well done, and the right people come, and the right band plays, and the bright moon shines.”

“Who would give one?—you wouldn’t?” This was a bow at a venture.

“And why not in so good a cause?”

“You are an angel.”

“It is not the first time I have been told so when I have but done my most obvious duty against my neighbour’s enemy.”

“There is no one like you.”

“There is much to be thankful for. By the way, does Mr. Watkins come and doze these days in your garden?”

Mr. Watkins, the literary recluse, of whom Lady Carston was afraid, had taken to sitting in Miss Carston’s garden. He found he could write better, read better, and dream better there than anywhere. The peace of it all he found wonderfully soothing. The clatter of the milk-pails at the farm distracted him: the lowing of the cows depressed him (it made him feel the bitterness of his loneliness): the squealings of the pigs were too suggestive: the cackling of hens reminded him of women he had known and would fain forget.

“He must enjoy these lovely days,” said Mrs. Sloane slyly.

Elsie said he had not been for some time. She supposed he was busy.

“And Mr. Pease, the curate? His rooms were so stuffy, he said; didn’t he? Does he come? I suppose so?”

No, Elsie was bound to admit that the curate had not been for some time. She supposed he, too, was busy.

And Mrs. Sloane went on her way smiling. “Diana! Diana!” she said to herself, “oh, to be young again! How you must enjoy it all!” She stopped. “Well, well, my dear! I never expected to see you rioting like this. Why are you so shy in some gardens? What’s this about not growing unless you are put in a draughty place?” And she lifted a trail of Tropæolum and put it on its right way.

Just outside Elsie’s gate Mrs. Sloane met Mr. Watkins. “You are coming in?”—and she held the gate open.

“Not to-day, I think,” said the weary Mr. Watkins, adding something about his soul’s solitude,—“not to-day!”

“You should not keep all your beautiful thoughts to yourself,” said Mrs. Sloane. It was perhaps an unfortunate remark, because Mr. Watkins hastened to inform her that for two and sixpence, postage paid, she could read his latest and best—whatever the critics might choose to say.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mrs. Sloane, “but I am sure you have thoughts that are too beautiful to be put into words, on paper! They may pass from true friend to true friend—in the quiet of a friend’s garden. Among the flowers words may be spoken that printer’s ink would blur.”

Now Mr. Watkins felt that this dear old lady was trying to encroach upon his garden of thought, to wander down the paths of beautiful thoughts which were for his feet alone to travel. If any one in Bestways said beautiful things he surely was the one to do it, so he thought a moment, waved his hand, and smiling sadly murmured: “They come and go—lighter than air, finer than gossamer, ephemeral—butterflies—butterflies of thought, transparent—nebulous—”

“Moonshine!” said Mrs. Sloane, delighted to have found a word. If she had had less than ten thousand a year Watkins would have been very deeply pained. But as she was said to have rather more than that he was amused.

“You may want to sit in the garden—Miss Carston’s garden—again some day. Don’t let the briars grow over the path, or you may not find it again.”

“What does she mean?” thought Mr. Watkins, as he went on his way thinking sadly of Diana, who alone in Bestways had had the power to inspire him.

A little further on Mrs. Sloane met the curate. “Going to Miss Carston’s garden?” she asked.

“No, I wasn’t.” He stopped. “Do you think I ought? Would it be politic?” he asked.

And Mrs. Sloane told him he would be a bishop one day.

“That’s what you meant?” he asked.

“You are brighter than Mr. Watkins.”

“I might be that without setting the Thames on fire, mightn’t I?”

Mrs. Sloane went on her way, and Mr. Pease on his, both thinking of Diana. What a ripping old lady Mrs. Sloane was! Of course, if he didn’t go and sit in Miss Carston’s garden when Miss Diana was away—it would look as if he only went there to see Miss Diana!—and he felt the ghost-like grip of gaiters on his legs.

VII

Where trespassers are not prosecuted they must

pray to be forgiven; or else change their ways.

Of course Sibyl’s friends were surprised that she should have left her children, and of course they said so; what are friends for if they do not say what they think?

Said one: “I should be afraid to love a man so much; he might die.” Said another: “Is that reason enough for not loving a man?” Another, a great friend, found it an extraordinary thing leaving her girl, just out.

“You know what the girl says of her mother?” asked another. “She says she is grande amoureuse!”

“Most extraordinary leaving her,” said yet another, having nothing more original to say.

It was passed along the dado of dowagers at a ball and most of them agreed. Only one said a husband came first, but she was a moderately young dowager with a tilted tiara and memories in her eyes.

“When he’s young,” suggested another.

“Yes, but Eustace is old enough to look after himself,” several agreed.

Meanwhile Marcus looked after Diana. She found him curiously and delightfully old-fashioned—much more so than Aunt Elsie.

She loved to tease him about his collections. “That darling little Ming thing,” she said, with her head on one side, an invitation to correction.

He wished she would speak more reverently of the Chinese—“The Ming thing, as you call it—”

“Darling Ming thing,” interposed Diana, with her head on the other side.

“—As you call it,” went on Marcus, disapproving her attitude of irreverence, “is a thing before which experts bow.”

“Worshipping it as its maker worshipped his ancestors.”

“I wish I could educate you, Diana, to speak wisely, at all events.”

“Is ‘darling little Ming thing’ not wise?” she asked. “Well, now,—let us consider it. If it’s not darling, what is it? You won’t let me call it dear, and it’s not impatient—obstructive—indifferent—argumentative—callous—but it is darling, just darling. Soft to the touch—pleasing to the eye—a very ready-money way of spending. Do you know what you could do with what you paid for that darling little Ming thing?”

Marcus shook his head.

“You could take a baby from its earliest days, from its cradle—you could feed it, clothe it. You could teach it to write, to talk (when spoken to), to spell—talk wisely, write wisely, and spell correctly. You could send it to school—privately, publicly. You could college it—if it scholarshipped itself. You could train it in the business way it should go. It might become a politician, a financier, a collector of Chinese porcelain—or a useful member of society and a good citizen; and for all that there stands the darling little Ming thing in a cabinet—untouched by housemaids.”

“You ridiculous child,” said Marcus, and his thoughts flew to that girl who had taken in her dogskin-gloved hands a vase less beautiful, infinitely less valuable, than any in his collection, yet most desirable.

“Aunt Elsie’s got a delicious powder-blue vase,” said Diana.

“Has she?” said Marcus, knowing the kind of blue china women with country cottages invest in.

Marcus was not so wise as he thought. Diana discovered that before she had been in his house a week. While she was discovering him not so very wise, he was finding her delightfully sympathetic. Discounting her understanding—certain of her sympathy—he unburdened his soul to her because, he said, she must have suffered just as he had. Her mother’s absorption in her father must have grieved her: she must have felt out of it: she and Dick too—

“You think that? How strange!” said Diana, her chin in her hands, her eyes looking at him with their habitual expression of understanding. “Why, Dick and I have often discussed it and we think quite differently. We are so glad she should have that tremendous happiness. We love to see her. An ordinary humdrum affection would never have satisfied her. I believe their love for each other is the kind of which you read in history—more particularly in French memoirs—it’s almost terrifying. She’s his inspiration and without her he isn’t himself. The sympathy between them is amazing. Once when I was ill—he was away—she tried to keep it from him; she said nothing in her letters and he telegraphed: ‘What is it? Tell me.’ It’s no use standing against that, my Uncle Marcus, and we don’t want to. No one could be more to me than Mummy is, but Dick and I are very near to one another,—nearer than most brothers and sisters,—and somehow or other we feel as if we ought to be more understanding than most children whose parents don’t understand each other at all—See?”

“Yes—and if you marry—as your mother married?” said Marcus, still seeking an excuse for the hurt that was within him—even now.

Diana said: “If I did, Dick would be very pleased. Love can’t be selfish and live—even Shan’t says, ‘Love can’t be shelfish,’ and it can’t.”

“Then I don’t love,” said Marcus ruefully.

“Yes, my uncle, you do.”

“It’s a devilish selfish kind of love, then.”

“It is that,” agreed Diana softly.

“I can’t,” confessed Marcus, “bear to think of your aunt waiting to snatch you from me. She’s so violent.”

Diana laughed. “What a delightful description of Aunt Elsie!”

“Tell me—what is she like?”

“She’s devilish unselfish—very charming—and she wears an elastic to keep her hat on—”

“Don’t!” said Marcus; he had had enough.

There entered into Marcus’s soul a great peace (when he could forget the aunt); into his house floods of sunshine. The blinds were pulled up, right up to the top, let go with a bang. The things in his house that he had accounted beautiful must now court comparison with a slip of a girl, who to her uncle’s mind was the very first expression of beauty. Imagine, then, his chagrin when, one night at a ball, a friend of his, who had bought for him many of his treasures, who was known to be a judge of beauty, pronounced Diana attractive and fascinating without being strictly beautiful. If a connoisseur had found his Charles II chalice a copy he could not have felt more keenly the affront. If he had been a child he would have said, “Shan’t play any more,” so deeply was he hurt. Seeing a nice-looking, pretty woman sitting by herself, with an expression on her face as though she were singing hymns to her babies in bed, he went up and spoke to her. He knew her, of course, but did not always find time to speak to her, for she never gathered a crowd and he hated to be conspicuous—unless at the same time distinguished.

“I am with my niece,” he said, sitting down.

“And which is your niece?” she asked, turning her kind eyes towards him. She seemed to hold up her tiara by the force of uplifted eyebrows. Marcus showed her.

“That lovely thing!” she exclaimed with a generous enthusiasm, and Marcus felt a tingle all down his spine and an inclination to cry. How could any man with a pretension to taste have pronounced her fascinating without being strictly beautiful?

“Yes,” he said; “you admire her?”

“Admire her! Could I do anything else?”

“If you were less beautiful yourself—yes!” said Marcus, with a rush of gratitude.

To say the little woman was astonished does not express in the least what she felt, but she was as shaken as was Marcus by the hysterical outburst. He felt he could never trust himself again.

He had told quite the wrong kind of woman she was beautiful.

He wasn’t happy again until he had drawn Diana’s attention to the little woman and asked her what she thought of her.

“That dear little Madonna? Why, she’s exactly what Aunt Elsie goes second-class to Italy to gaze upon—the type exactly. Do go and tell her she’s beautiful. It’s all she needs.”

“I have,” said Marcus.

“Stout heart!” said Diana, patting his arm.

Marcus found it necessary and expedient to pass the little woman again to see if she had recovered, and he found her asleep under her tiara. He would have passed on, but she awoke. “It’s so late, isn’t it? But they must enjoy themselves, mustn’t they?”

Marcus said it seemed imperative nowadays.

“You are a very lucky uncle,” said the little woman.

Again that curious feeling in the spine, like the running down of cold water, assailed Marcus. “I am,” he agreed.

“He’s so perfectly charming and delightful—”

“Who?” The feeling of flappiness changed to one of apprehension.

The little woman looked: Marcus’s eyes followed hers, and saw standing in the doorway a tall man, on whose arm rested the hand of a great personage. Up the stairs which were straight opposite the doorway came a figure in white—the radiant figure of a niece. In her face he thought was all the joy in the world, concentrated into one look. That look, he feared, was captured and kept by the younger of the two men. The elder man, with an amused gesture and a look of kind understanding, walked away.

“Her mother, all over again,” groaned Marcus.

As they drove home together—radiant niece, discomfited uncle—he said nothing, and she said: “You funny old thing.” Then there was a pause. She put out one slim foot (she had kicked off her satin shoe) and rested it on the seat opposite.

“You wouldn’t do that, Diana, if you were driving with a strange man—would you?” he asked anxiously, handing her the shoe.

“I might—but of course I should have to marry him—according to your creed. The world of your making, Marcus, must be a very dangerous place to live in. It must be difficult in your world to avoid pitfalls. The sins are many. In a world of my making there would be sins, of course,—lying and cheating, meanness,—they should be great sins. Greater sins should be jealousy—unkindness to children—and that’s all for to-day, thank you.”

“My dear Diana, there is a very big sin about which you probably know nothing and it has its beginnings in what you call—”

Diana laid her hand on his. “Marcus,” she said, “think, wouldn’t the sin of which you are thinking come under the head possibly of unkindness to children—?”

“My dear child, your ideas are very curious.”

“Do you think so?”

“Tell me what you think about things. I know so little of young people.”

“What can I tell? My religion? I am a broad-minded Christian.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Of course, I know that, dear child.”

“Which?”

“Which what?”

“That I am broad-minded or that I am a Christian?”

“A Christian, and it’s as well to be broad-minded, without being too broad-minded.”

“There are many ways to Heaven; I must choose one. Is that it?”

“Perhaps. I don’t see what you want with new religions.”

“You think the well-worn narrow path the better way—the path down which two can’t go abreast.”

“I didn’t mean religion exactly; that goes without saying.”

“Does it? Yes, I think you are right. One can’t say much about what one most feels, can one?”

“Your ideas about life generally is more what I mean.”

“Life? What life? Which life? This everyday dancing life—or the life that comes later?”

“The life that comes later—your life. What life do you look forward to?” If Marcus imagined Diana looked forward to a life wherein visits to Uncle Marcus on Sundays were things of delirious delight, he was likely to be disappointed.

“Oh, I see—well, I suppose when I have danced a great deal and frivolled a great deal—and cried a great deal—and laughed a great deal—I shall marry.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean, I suppose.” The Sunday visits after all were not so improbable. He would have every conceivable clockwork toy in the cupboard. “Now what are your ideas of marriage—just having a good time?”

“Partly; of course, I should like a pearl necklace—or a rope, perhaps—and three babies.”

“And what sort of a mother would you be?”

“A good, hard-working, honest mother, of course—”

“Hard-working?”

“I should work hard to make them good babies.”

“And their father? What sort of a man should he be?”

“Like my father, if another exists.”

The vision of visits on Sundays faded away, the clockwork toys were put back in the cupboard, they wouldn’t go—not one of them.

“Your father? Is he your ideal?”

“Of course—there is no one like him.”

“And for this man who is to be so good, you will keep yourself—good?”

“What do you mean?” asked Diana passionately, her eyes shining, her cheeks aflame.

In a moment Marcus was humble, explaining eagerly that he was only trying to find out—if these friendships between boys and girls were good things—and wise? He had been frightened—

“By dowagers,” said Diana; “why do you go and sit among them and gossip? Why don’t you say straight out, ‘Diana, would you let a man kiss you?’ Say it—be quick—or I shall go.”

She held the speaking-tube to her lips, threatening; Marcus was dumb.

“Stop!” she commanded, and Tooke, the chauffeur, obeyed.

She opened the door of the car and stepped out—into the street. It all happened in a second before Marcus realized what she was going to do. He followed her as quickly as he could, but she was too quick for him. What a sight for London—he thought—at four o’clock on a summer’s morning: the day dawning—or dawned—and into the arms of the rising sun, like a leaf blown by the wind, hardly seeming to touch the ground, flew Diana—to Marcus’s astonished vision a whirl of white tulle and long legs; and after her ran he—Marcus Maitland, uncle, bachelor, taxpayer, and citizen. Behind him he heard the hoot of a horn and the car stopped. “Better get in, sir; you can’t go the pace and Miss Diana will tire. Very good, sir—” This at an impatient gesture from Mr. Maitland, and Marcus went on, Tooke not driving fast enough to catch the niece fleeing, or slow enough to witness the discomfiture of the uncle pursuing. When Marcus arrived at his door he presumed he would find a beaten and humbled niece, unable to get in: but he found the door wide open, a detestable habit of hers: she must have had her key. He went into the hall—listened. Not a sound; he stole upstairs and listened. He heard a sound of running water—it was Diana’s bath filling. He was very, very angry with her. She was like her aunt—exactly like; he had known that aunt was a violent woman.

He went to bed and he slept badly. A few hours later, with his morning tea Pillar brought him a note. He opened it and read:

You have trespassed where an uncle may not go—there are places in our hearts that are barred, even to mothers, and mothers know it and understand. I know, dear old thing, you don’t realize how big your feet are or how heavily you tread. You have squashed all sorts of little plants that were beginning to grow in my heart—that’s a pity, you know! Aunt Elsie never trespasses, for all her violence. You have lived too long in your narrow world, dear old Marcus. A world in which no man can be trusted at all and women only a little. I have become more distrustful of men since I lived with you than I ever was before. You will say that is what you wish. But it is not what I wish. Why are you and Aunt Elsie both afraid of the opposite sex? Aunt Elsie is frightened if she meets a drunken bricklayer in a lane after sundown. Why? You are just as afraid of a woman. Why? I would rather go round the world alone with a man than with a woman. I shan’t do it because it’s not done—as they say. But Dick says there should be no possible harm in it.

When Marcus came down to breakfast he was as silent, as quiet, as a heron fishing on the shore of a Highland loch—and as shy. He was sure Diana would put her arms round his neck and forgive him—and ask his forgiveness. (He was an old-fashioned uncle.) But no Diana came. When he told Pillar to send up word that—Pillar said Miss Diana had been called very early—in fact had not been to bed, he believed—and had gone—

“Where?”

“To Miss Carston, sir.”

“How did she go?”

“The car, sir; it happened—Tooke chanced to be about; after all, it’s the best way of going, sir, isn’t it?”

“When Tooke returns I want to see him.”

The joys of living alone were once more Marcus’s. What were they? There was no one to seize the coffee-pot when he wanted it; to ask him whom his letters were from; to read him bits out of the paper; bits he didn’t want to hear; bits he had read the evening before. There was no one to discuss plans that could never come off. There were no engagements read out to him, between people he had never heard of—at all events, by the names of Toddy and Doddy and Buffy and Bunny.

On the other hand, there were things he missed. She had amused him. Her girl friends had seemed to him amazing people: her boy friends not less amazing. Their spirits were wonderful, their ways past finding out, their ingenuity remarkable, their patronage almost tender in its pity. Diana and her friends were no more. Pillar remained. And in the country lived Miss Carston and to her Diana had gone—in his car!

That evening entered Pillar. “Tooke is here, sir.”

“Send him in,” said Marcus, glad that his anger had in no way grown less during the day.

Entered Tooke, cap in hand. A chauffeur unarmed: he said nothing, of course. But there was a look in his eyes that said as clearly as though he had spoken it—as man to man: “What would you have done in my place? What would you have done if she had arst you?”

A capless, unarmed chauffeur, yet armed to the eyes—invulnerable was Tooke.

“Tooke?”

“Sir?”

“Car run well?”

“Fine, sir.”

“I was thinking, Tooke, that we ought to have a lining made if Miss Diana is going much into the country—what is the stuff? You know—kind of drill, isn’t it? It would save the lining; see to it, will you?”

“Very good, sir. A detachable lining, I take it you mean, sir?”

“Yes.”

VIII

A thought may be a link; it may also be a barrier.

Elsie Carston grew restless. It was all very well that Diana should go to London to have a good time, but the season in London was over. There was nothing left for Diana to do but find the streets hot and the parks empty. To be with Mr. Maitland could not in any way be called a pleasure. Diana was wonderfully loyal to her uncle. Elsie was glad of that. She wouldn’t have had the child otherwise, but that it was loyalty that prevented her really saying what she thought of him, she knew. It could be nothing else. She was glad she had said to Diana when she had left for London: “Now, Diana, remember, whatever you think of your uncle, you mustn’t say it—even to me. He means to be very kind.”

Diana had implicitly obeyed her aunt. Loyally she had persisted that he was a dear. Elsie, of course, knew he could not be that, but she knew that uncles with money are people to propitiate—one cannot afford to treat them as they should be treated.

“When’s Diana comin’?” asked Shan’t, at breakfast, over the edge of her porridge-bowl.

“That was just what I was wondering, Shan’t.”

“Why do you wonder?”

“Yes, exactly; why, my child?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And I shall probably say it again.”

Poor Aunt Elsie, thought Shan’t, she was feeling the heat—that is what makes people cross.

“Why?” she repeated—in order to find out if Aunt Elsie was really cross or only just pretending.

“Because I want to.”

“Suppose we went on saying ‘Why?’ forever—what d’you suppose would happen?”

Aunt Elsie didn’t answer, so Shan’t knew she was really cross. “I want Diana,” she said plaintively.

“We all want Diana,” answered Aunt Elsie snappily.

“Won’t she ever come?”

“Of course.”

“She hasn’t gone to Heaven, then—or anything awful like that?” suggested Shan’t cheerfully.

“My dear Shan’t, what an awful idea!—I mean—it isn’t really an awful idea—I didn’t mean that—”

“Goin’ to Heaven is ge’rally called, ‘Oh, that will be joyful,’ isn’t it?”

“Yes, dear—shall I write and ask Diana if she is coming?”

Shan’t nodded; then she jumped up and down in her chair and did dangerous things with her spoon, and the porridge within the spoon, and the only-aunt-in-the-world had to tell her to sit still and to put her spoon down or to finish her porridge. It is extraordinary the dulness of the alternatives grown-ups offer children, always ending up with “or else.”

“Or else what?” ask the children, always hoping, perhaps, that the grown-ups will think of something new—going to bed early, no jam for tea, are ridden to death. There is no child that doesn’t despair at the lack of enterprise shown by grown-ups in the inventing of punishments for crimes which are not strictly punishable. Why shouldn’t Shan’t, if she chose, wave her spoon in the air at the thought of Diana’s return? She didn’t make the porridge: it wasn’t her fault it was made wet and squashy—and splashable about.

“I will ask her,” said Aunt Elsie; and she meant it, too, and if she just mentioned the prospect of a dance—was it not perfectly justifiable? She had not suggested it. If Mrs. Sloane chose—to be so kind—

Aunt Elsie went to her writing-table and she wrote until she found Shan’t biting the edge of the table. Then she left off writing to show Shan’t the teeth-marks she had made. Shan’t was intensely interested, but not in the least surprised. Why, she was making them on purpose all the time! Didn’t Aunt Elsie think she was? It was then Aunt Elsie determined that Uncle Marcus should have his furniture bitten. It would do him all the good in the world. To her letter she added a post-script—“Tell Mr. Maitland he can have Shan’t for a few days if he likes. This is, I believe, the arrangement we made. She can then return a few days before you come back—” And Elsie folded the letter, feeling she was doing the right and honourable thing—while Shan’t, with her chin resting on the edge of the table, made tiger faces at her. Aunt Elsie knew Mr. Maitland gave large sums for furniture and that his furniture consisted of “pieces.” Shan’t should set her mark upon them.

At that moment the door opened and in walked Diana.

“Darlings!” she cried, snatching up Shan’t and putting her on Aunt Elsie’s lap so that she might hug them both together and so make up for lost time.

“Why did you come?” asked Aunt Elsie; “not that; but how did you get away?”

“Quite easily.”

“You haven’t—?”

“Of course not: he’s a dear, but London is hot—and Shan’t is a darling and the only-aunt-in-the-world—is—”

“I am just offering him Shan’t,” said Aunt Elsie.

“Writing to him?”

“No, I was writing to you—”

“Well, write to him; say I have arrived. Say I look so well—”

“You do, darling—you do!”

“Yes—and add that you can’t take Shan’t to the seaside this year.”

“Oh, do—take me to the seaside,” moaned Shan’t.

“You tell Uncle Marcus that Aunt Elsie won’t take you to the seaside, Shan’t, poor little thing!”

“Don’t say won’t,” said Aunt Elsie.

“What shall I say, then?” asked Shan’t.

“Say won’t,” said Diana.

“She won’t—she won’t—she wo-n’t,” murmured Shan’t.

“It is delightful to have you back,” said Aunt Elsie, as arm in arm she and Diana went round the garden, leaving Shan’t to write to Uncle Marcus—a rash thing to do—“with re-al ink,” sighed Shan’t.

It was rather curious, but that very morning Mr. Pease, remembering what Mrs. Sloane had said, determined to go and sit in Miss Carston’s garden. He quite saw it was the politic thing to do. Then Miss Carston couldn’t think what she would be almost bound to think—

Mr. Watkins had thought over that brambly, overgrown path to which Mrs. Sloane had referred. At last he remembered the source from which the idea had flowed. It was from a Persian poem. Any idea Mr. Watkins must always run to ground. If any new idea were to burst upon Bestways it must come from him. He could bear a woman to be anything rather than original. He would have talked more if he could have afforded to. But his thoughts were to him as valuable as jewels, he must keep them until he could be paid for them. He couldn’t afford to be amusing like ordinary people. But still the thought that had inspired Mrs. Sloane had been a wise one—Of course, if he only went to Miss Carston’s garden when Miss Diana was there, Miss Carston would think—that he only went—what would she think? He would therefore go at once. So by three o’clock on the day Diana came home two men had passed through the garden gate, and the first person they each came upon, of course, was Diana.

Mr. Pease was the first to find her. “You here!” he exclaimed. “Well—I am—surprised—I mean I really am—do you know why I came to-day?”

Diana had no idea.

“Because I thought you weren’t here.”

There was a pause. “Why are you laughing, Miss Diana? I mean I came because you weren’t here, so that I might come when you were.”

“I see!”

“Do you, really?”

And Mr. Pease hastened to say that if he only came when she was there it would look as if—

“You came to see me?”

Mr. Pease said he felt he had somehow or other not said quite what he meant to say.

Diana quickly assured him she knew exactly what he had meant to say—that he really came to see Aunt Elsie, but that if he waited till Aunt Elsie had her niece back, then it would look as if it was the niece he had wanted to see. It was very clever of him—and Aunt Elsie would never suspect.

“That isn’t in the least what I meant; it was rather the other way round.”

“And Mr. Watkins, why does he come to sit in Aunt Elsie’s garden?”

Across the lawn, towards the fount of his inspiration, knowing not she was there, came Mr. Watkins, murmuring as he walked: smiling as apt phrases broke from his lips—“rippling rhythmetic phrases,” he would have called them. He spoke to his sisters, the bees; sang to his brothers, the birds; conscious all the while of the suitability of his garb and the length of his hair. If Diana were but there to see! Diana was there and she saw, and she looked at Mr. Pease. Mr. Pease looked away. He carried Christianity to the length of never making fun of another less well placed than himself, and well placed he now was; next to Diana. And Diana, as she sat, had no other side. A matter for congratulation to any man, or child, who loves. To halve sides may mean an acute mental agony. On Diana’s other side rose a pillar of rambling roses, of which no man could be jealous. Mr. Pease had not got so far as to be jealous of the breezes that played in his lady’s hair, or of the roses that fluttered their petals over her. He left such things to Watkins.

“Well, Watkins?” he said.

“Is it well?” questioned Watkins, from despondent habit; then he caught sight of Diana. The spring went from his walk, the lilt from his voice. She had come back and Pease had known she was coming. Pease without a sense of honour was no longer his friend—the past must be as though it had never been. Never again would he confide in Pease: never again read him his poems: share his Sunday sausages.

“This is delightful!” he said, looking first at Pease, then at the pillar of roses that stood as it were on Diana’s left hand; finally he sank down at Diana’s feet. “Now tell me—everything,” he said; “what saw you in London?”

“Men and things—things and men,” said Diana.

“Just men?”

“Yes, just men, and unjust—poets and policemen.”

“Bad poets?”

“Bad poets.”

“And what did the poets do?”

“One sold bootlaces for a living.”

“And does he yet live?”

“No, he died.”

“Who got the bootlaces?”

“The policeman got the bootlaces.”

“Who gave him—a button-hook?” asked Shan’t, remembering that Uncle Marcus could not lace or unlace his boots without one.

“What a strange thing,” said Mr. Watkins. “Out of the mouth of babes and—and yet—why strange? Strange that it should be true that out of the—”

“Aren’t we getting in a bit deep?” asked Mr. Pease, who felt that the poet was trespassing on his ground. Poets in general he handed over to Watkins to play with as he liked, but the Bible—and as a future bishop—button-hooks—well, after all, they were his province.

“What nonsense we talk!” said Diana; “I propose we go in to tea.”

“You ought to propose,” said Shan’t to Mr. Pease; “you could if you liked—and you,” she said, nodding at Mr. Watkins; “couldn’t they, Diana?”

“They might.”

“Will you?” Shan’t said, turning to Mr. Pease; “do let him, Diana.”

Diana thought it better not. It was too hot—too delicious a day altogether to spoil.

Shan’t was very disappointed. She slipped her hand into that of the curate. “You do—” she whispered,—“it would be such fun. Then you could be married—wouldn’t you like it?”

Mr. Pease said he would like it very much—only people never did propose on Wednesdays.

“On what days, then?”

“Only on Saturday afternoons—at half-past three—on half-holidays—”

“Truthfully?”

“More or less—”

“I am going to the seaside,” said Shan’t, “with my darling uncle”—this unctuously.

“Are you? That will be delightful.”

“I thought you were goin’ to say, ‘Oh, that will be joyful,’ but that’s about dying, isn’t it?”

Mr. Pease thought it was.

“Do you think it’s such a very joyful thing to die?”

Mr. Pease hesitated. He had no wish to die. He raised his eyes to the heavens above him: they looked their best, he was sure, from where he stood: his eyes to the waving tree-tops; they had not whispered half the secrets they had to tell him. He looked at the daisy-sown lawn; at Diana who walked a few paces in front of him; at Shan’t who walked beside him. He didn’t want to die; he wanted desperately to live. To live till that day when he should be asked to pay the bill for some blue stuff such as Shan’t’s frock was made of. Blue stuff like that must be fairly cheap. It was not much to aspire to—the blue cottony stuff, he meant! His grasp tightened on the hand of Shan’t.

“You do squeeze hard,” she said—“it makes my hand so hot, like when you hold daisies, you know.”

“I was afraid I might lose you,” he explained, releasing her hand.

“I wouldn’t run away, it would be rude—wouldn’t it? Only if I go to the sea—that won’t be so very rude—” Then she added: “I didn’t want to leave go—not specially.” She slipped her hand in his.

“That would be different,” said Mr. Pease, referring to the visit to the seaside.

“Why would it be?”

“Because—the sea is always different from anything else in the world. There will be deep, deep golden sands at the sea—there are none here—and there will be crabs and starfish—and babies of all sizes—and shapes—round and square—think of that!”

“Squ-are?” queried Shan’t; “I don’t think they could be that.”

“I think so.”

“I don’t think their mothers would let them.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“Gardens are square in London—aren’t they?”

Mr. Pease said, of course they were. Perhaps he was thinking of square gardens.

“What else will there be at the sea?”

“There will be coast-guardsmen.”

“What are they like?”

“They are great big men—and they have beards—and they look through telescopes—and they never tell you what they see.”

“Not if you asked them very nicely, wouldn’t they?”

“No, not even then.”

“P’r’aps they don’t see anything.”

“I believe you have lighted on a great truth.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“What you said.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s play something else. You be funny—or something—or shall we just have tea?”

Mr. Pease thought, just have tea. It was so much easier than being funny.

Meanwhile Mr. Watkins thought he had proposed to Diana and was in an agony of mind not knowing whether she knew it or not. If she did not know it, he thought he would leave things alone. But if she knew he had proposed, he would be equally willing to let things stand. Glad to let them! But he had been rushed, as it were, into a declaration. The perfidy of Pease had upset him; the prettiness of Diana had distracted him. And yet he had always vowed that nothing should ever induce him to marry a pretty woman. True beauty must be strange: must not be admired of the people—or understood by the crowd. He would rather be one of those who admired “the other sister far more.” It showed discrimination: argued a critical faculty. Diana was too obviously pretty. He didn’t suppose any one had ever argued the point. Therefore she did not come up to what he had set as his standard. But still, if he had proposed—he was quite glad—quite. It was possible he had been so subtle, disguised his meaning so cleverly that Diana had not seen whither he was drifting. Mr. Watkins decided to go by the size of the tea she was able to eat.

Diana was able to eat quite a good tea. The colour in her cheeks neither deepened nor paled, and she forgot whether Mr. Watkins liked sugar or not in his tea. So he decided he had carried subtlety too far. Or perhaps it had served him well. He would be better able to judge of that later on. To-morrow morning! After proposing he had always heard it was the next morning that tells.

Night had come. Shan’t had been asleep for hours. Diana was asleep. Only Aunt Elsie was awake—and she asked of herself this question—“Is she in love and has she told him?”

He, alone in London, asked of himself the same question: “Is she in love—and has she told her?” If he had known that Aunt Elsie lay awake, as he lay awake, wondering, he would have been happier.

In a Government House far, far away, two people asked of each other the same question. The red carpet was rolled up, the band had gone to bed, the tiara was taken off, and the A.D.C.’s were no longer “studies in scarlet and gold,” but were presumably asleep, dreaming of trout streams and England; and Sibyl and her husband sat together—Sibyl with her hair in two long plaits looking absurdly like Diana. Her husband loved her like that. It amused him to see how young she looked. And the dinner? How had it gone off? They did not talk of dinners. They sat for some time saying nothing. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers, a breeze blew through the open windows. “What is Diana doing?” asked Sibyl. “No, don’t bother about the difference in time. Supposing it is there what it is here—what is she doing?”

Her father hoped she was in bed.

Diana in bed! Countless memories there—delicious memories. Memories that brought tears to the mother’s eyes—and because of the tears in her eyes, to the father’s eyes too.

“And—Dick?”

Again they were both silent. They were never so silent as when they talked of their children—there was so much to say.

“And Shan’t?”

There was another silence; then Sibyl said: “I wonder if she is in love?”

“I suppose it’s possible at her age.”

“She’s nineteen.”

“That doesn’t seem possible.”

“I sometimes hope she will marry—”

“He’s not good enough.”

“You don’t know who I was going to say?”

“It makes no difference,” said Diana’s father.

And one of the aides-de-camp asked of himself the same question. “Is she in love?” and he was properly and horribly and happily miserable.

Before he got into bed he took from his despatch-case a photograph (he had stolen it, by the way) and put it on the table beside his bed. “Good-night, you darling,” he whispered; “you’ll wait till you’ve seen me, won’t you? I mean—you’ll give me a chance before you fall in love?” And he fell asleep, thinking, and he slept, dreaming, of Diana. And Diana hardly knew of his existence—never dreamed that the prayers of an A.D.C. committed her every night to God’s safe keeping, until he should be able to keep guard over her himself.

Her mother had mentioned once or twice that Captain Hastings was fond of weeding.

Captain Hastings would not have slept so well as he did had he known that was all Lady Carston had said about him. He hated weeding—except as a means to an end. What had she done, he would have asked, with all the beautiful things he had said about love and marriage and life in general, and His Excellency in particular, if she had not sent them on to her whose photograph had inspired them?

IX

A man may build his house on what he wills,

A child with sand her painted bucket fills.

Diana wrote to her uncle and said poor Shan’t wanted to go to the seaside, but Aunt Elsie could not manage to take her there. Poor little Shan’t! She did so love the sea, and her legs were so pale!

“Selfish woman,” said Marcus; “why couldn’t she make an effort?” To some children the seaside was an absolute necessity. If she wouldn’t he would, and he wrote and said so.

From then onwards, until the day came on which he took Shan’t to the seaside, he lay awake at night pondering on many things—buttons and strings—hooks and eyes—strings and buttons—hooks and strings—buttons and eyes—and he wondered if there were any place at which an uncle—anxious to learn—could be instructed in the dressing and undressing of a small niece on the sands—under the shadow of an upturned boat—on the beach of a favourite watering-place? Would it be possible to go to a watering-place that was not a favourite? Then as he fell asleep there rose before his closing eyes the vision of a house on wheels—cream to palish pink in colour—which boasted of two side windows and dropped steps from its front door. He had seen such buildings years ago—bathing-machines! And in a bathing-machine the uncle found shelter. They are safer, and wiser and better things, than aunts. Where Aunt Elsie might have helped him, the bathing-machine got him out of a difficulty, and protected him.

Marcus Maitland had forgotten what the seaside was like. It compared in no way with the shores of a sea loch in Scotland—where the peace and beauty are indescribable; where he had many a time watched the swift sweep of the gulls on the wing—the diving of terns. He had seen seals swimming about—wise old men of the sea. He had heard, up on the hill, the croak of the raven; had seen the shadow on the hillside of an eagle’s wings: and there were no babies. An uncle could sit at peace: with no violent aunt in the background. But a favourite watering-place! It was hotter than he had remembered it—more glaring: the people on the beach were less attractive: the babies less pink and less plentiful than the advertisements had promised. Not less plentiful in a way, but they did not stretch right across the beach away to the horizon, hand in hand, nor did they smile at him an invitation to arise and bathe. They squatted in groups about the sand, making castle puddings. Nurses knelt beside them. Nannies, with rugs and bags and baskets, and bottles—and mackintoshes even, and umbrellas, on hot days; and large quantities of white needle-work—garments for the children. It distressed Marcus to think that all this time there was nothing being made for Shan’t. All along the beach, so far as he could see, nurses sewed. Her wardrobe would get terribly out of date. But she didn’t seem to mind; she was very happy. The tucking-in of petticoats had been less difficult than Marcus had imagined: in fact he began to wonder if these things came naturally to men, as they were supposed to come to women. Perhaps in all men there lay dormant the paternal instinct. Certainly, whether the instinct were there or not, he took to this sort of thing amazingly naturally. That he looked the part he never thought. He knew himself to be an uncle, so never thought of himself as anything else.

A mother and daughter began to take notice of Shan’t. One morning they smiled at her and Shan’t smiled back, all over her small person. There was no exclusiveness about this, the younger of his nieces. Diana did at times put her small head up in the air and walk as though the whole world belonged to her—but Shan’t—never! She belonged to the whole world—quite another thing. The next morning the mother smiled again and the daughter dropped her book. Whereas Shan’t would promptly have buried it in the sand, Marcus felt bound to pick it up and restore it to its glowing owner. He was thanked by the young woman with a warmth that surprised him. Her voice throbbed with thankfulness, so much so that he wished he had looked at the title of the book. Was the tribute to the author?

The following morning Marcus would have chosen another place in the sun, but Shan’t liked her old haunts—there was a darlin’ crab—she had promised it to come back—faithfully. Uncle Marcus sought to assure her that where a crab was one day, it was not bound to be the next. The sea took it out—right out!

“Right out—right out,” said Shan’t, and she looked so like crying over the departure of the crab seawards that he made for the spot where it had been, and, of course (so hard on uncles this sort of thing!) there was a crab, “in the very same place”—so Shan’t said—“and,” she added, “it was a darlin’ and it looked so pleased to see me—it smiled!”

This kind of thing, too, it was that distressed Marcus. Ought he, as uncle, to tell her that crabs did not smile, or should he leave it alone. “It’s a darlin’,” she repeated. She stood looking at him in grave displeasure—looked at him under her eyelashes. He had lied. The sea had not taken her darlin’ crab away. She knew it hadn’t. The sea had been falsely accused. Shan’t was ever on the side of the injured. The mother and daughter came along and found Marcus standing thus being judged of Shan’t, and this time they both smiled.

“What a darling!” said the younger of the two women, and Shan’t turned and frowned at her. “Aren’t you?” asked the girl.

“No,” said Shan’t.

“What’s your name?”

“Shan’t-if-I-don’t-want-to.”

“Oh, don’t, please, if you don’t want to.”

“It’s that,” said Shan’t.

“What?”

“Shan’t-if-I-don’t—want—to.”

“I don’t want you to,” said the girl with infinite patience—maternal patience, if Marcus could but have appreciated it. The mother looked to see if it were lost upon the man—and saw it was lost. Therefore she sat down beside Marcus, and Shan’t and the girl—friends by this time—were told to run and play.

The mother opened her sunshade and turned a deeply sympathetic face towards a very miserable and bewildered Marcus. This wasn’t the kind of woman with whom he was at ease. She made him shy, which was a thing he was not accustomed to be. He made other people shy as a rule.

“She’s a dear little child,” said the unwelcome woman.

“She is,” said Marcus. “Do you mind if I smoke?” He had found smoking as efficacious against some kinds of women as it is said to be against some kinds of insects—what kinds has not as yet been specified.

“I love it—my daughter is so fond of it.” Seeing Marcus’s look of indifference, perhaps of repugnance—she could not tell which—she added for safety, “The smell of it.”

“Umph,” said Marcus.

“How old is she?”

“Your daughter?” asked Marcus.

And the mother laughed. “How amusing you are! And yet you don’t feel it, do you? you don’t look it.”

“Umph!”

“My daughter and I said how sad you looked—your whole life, we could see, is centred in that child.”

“Not entirely,” said Marcus, thinking of his collections.

“No? But still for a man alone it is a great responsibility.”

“I’ve got some one with me, thank you, to help—a housemaid, her father’s a coast-guardsman.”

“Of course, yes.”

“It’s the buttons and things, on the beach.”

“Of course, yes. Is she like her mother?”

“Like her mother? Yes, I suppose she is—wider between the eyes, perhaps—a little.”

“Ah, the tragedies of life!” A pause, then she added: “Was she taken early?”

“Who?”

“Her mother—that sacred name.”

“Her mother is abroad.”

“Oh, really, I see, of course. We never thought of that. A man alone with a child always suggests—”

“What?” He was really interested. How he appeared to others was a subject that always held him.

“A widower—bereavement.”

“Oh, no, I’m not a widower, far from it—”

The mother found the sun too hot, she must go; she rose, called to her daughter, and they went on, little knowing that, although they had not found a widower, they had found a bachelor, which is in some ways a far better thing—

“Nice lady,” said Shan’t decisively, pouring sand from her spade on to Marcus’s shoes.

“What did she talk about?” he asked.

“Cwabs.”

“What did she say about crabs?”

“She said—there was one called Penepoly—I think it was—and she was very nice indeed—and she’s dead, so we buried her—and we aren’t goin’ to be sad about it because it is happier for her, because her—husband is dead too—and there aren’t any children—at least not many—There was lots more, only I forget—she was very silly, really.”

“Am I silly, Shan’t?”

“Yes,” said Shan’t; then seizing him round the neck she ecstatically hugged him.

After Shan’t’s prayers were said there lay a long evening before Marcus. He made Shan’t’s going to bed as late as he dared with the housemaid on the watch. It could hardly be made to last over seven o’clock—and then it was over-late, so the housemaid said. Shan’t was inclined to lengthen her day by means of inordinate praying. The prayers ran on to an extraordinary length. Uncle Marcus could not know that Aunt Elsie strictly limited the number of people prayed for. When Shan’t got down to postmen what posted letters, and cwabs what went to sea—and old gentlemen who hadn’t got any buns, and old ladies who hadn’t got any cake—and po-or little children who hadn’t got any bull’s-eyes, Uncle Marcus should have brought her up with a round turn; but he let her wander on till she came to her darlin’ Aunt Elsie, when he said it was time to stop. “One more, please,” said Shan’t; and she shut her eyes tight and prayed: “Please God, give me a nice donkey ride to-morrow morning at ten o’clock sharp.” She waited, then said, “Thank you,” bowed, and turning to Marcus said triumphantly: “God says he will.”

And Marcus gave her the nice donkey ride the next morning at ten o’clock—sharp.

After Shan’t was in bed and asleep, Marcus took to walking on the sea-front and there he met again the daughter of the mother. She was certainly an attractive girl—and she said she found him sympathetic and understanding. This was gratifying in the extreme to Marcus—few can withstand so subtle a form of appreciation. He had imagined himself unsympathetic outwardly, difficult to know; but at heart capable of intense feeling. He is not the only man who has thus pictured himself.

Then he took to meeting the girl accidentally by day, surprising her reading, or gazing out to sea, with the book on her lap upside down. Her eyes were wonderfully expressive, full of a sadness she did not feel. This she knew. Marcus did not.

In this manner, seeking to comfort where sorrow was not, but only simple femininity, Marcus lost Shan’t. Hurriedly he sought her: up and down the beach, stooping to inspect closely the faces of bending babies, entirely forgetting, it seemed, the age and size of Shan’t. As he rushed along the sea-front, he chanced upon an upturned perambulator. It was in the charge of a small girl hardly bigger than Shan’t, though possibly much older. She was groping in the gutter, heedless of the baby’s perilous position. “’Ave you seen ’is satisfoyer?” asked the small woman-child of Marcus. Marcus righted the perambulator, rearranged the baby in the righted perambulator, and said he had not seen the “satisfoyer.” But he searched for it, found it: wiped it, and popped it into the baby’s mouth, just as any lamentably ignorant nurse or mother or woman-child might have done. But he knew better: even mere man knows what danger there lies to the future of England in the snare of the “satisfoyer.” But Marcus was too busy to think of the future of England and her citizens; he was frightfully busy. He had just time to find the baby’s “satisfoyer,” and to find the baby the ugliest he had ever seen, and was off on his search for Shan’t. What should he say to Sibyl if he should fail to find her? To that detestable aunt? To Diana?

He found Shan’t in the process of being converted, and she was enjoying it immensely. Her eyes were cast heavenwards in an abandonment of religious ecstasy: her mouth was rounded to its widest. She was singing a hymn: sharing a hymn-book with a black man—not even a man black in parts, as is commonly to be met at the seaside, but a real black man.

Marcus watched in despair. For his niece he had ceased to exist—only as part of this world had she known him. She was translated to another: a world where the sands were more golden, the sea more glassy than they could ever be here on earth.

Marcus waited. Waited until Shan’t, with a radiant smile, turned to the black man, thanked him, folded her small hands, gloved in white cotton gloves, the fingers of which turned up as only white cotton fingers can, and gave herself up to the sermon.

“Poor devil!” murmured Marcus, perhaps at the thought of Shan’t’s extreme fairness.

In the middle of the sermon the attention of Shan’t slackened: she swallowed: she removed her gaze from the face of the preacher, just to look around, to see, perhaps, if there were any little boys less religious—or as religious—as herself, and her eyes met those of her reproachful uncle. Hers straightway became fixed on that far-away something. Things have—in the history of the world—looked as innocent as she looked: but very few—among them puppies in chicken-yards. She was absorbed in that far-away something—but what gave her away was the pink flush which stole over her little face, then flooded it. Tears gathered in her eyes. But she still gazed bravely—intently—absorbedly.

Marcus walked round, behind the crowd, stooped down behind her and whispered. She rose, and putting her hand in his walked away with him.

“Did you like it, Shan’t?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “You see, I hadn’t got a hymn-book of my own.”

“So I supposed,” he said stiffly.

“I turned over.”

“Did you? Did you like the preacher?”

“Yes. He was rather silly, really.” Shan’t’s usual summary, this.

“What did the preacher say?”

Shan’t hesitated—what did he say? “He said I must love God—and not eat any more apples.”

“Oh!” said Marcus, not recognizing in this brief summary the story of the Garden of Eden. He didn’t believe “that aunt” would either.

“D’you think you’ll go to Heaven?” asked Shan’t cheerfully.

Marcus humbly answered that he hoped he might if he were very good.

“What will God call you?”

This Marcus didn’t know; couldn’t say; had never thought.

“‘Mis-ter Maitland’—or ‘Marcus’—which would you like best?”

Marcus thought—his Christian name was nicest—just as Shan’t said it.

“But the butler must say ‘Mister Maitland,’ mustn’t he?”

“What butler?”

“God’s butler,” said Shan’t, solemnly, rather overcome at the thought of a personage so grand—so awe-inspiring.

“I don’t suppose God has a butler, Shan’t.”

“Don’t you? Who are the Pillars of God’s house, then? Nannie reads about them—”

“Oh, I see.”

“There m-ust be, mustn’t there—because of Pillar?”

“Of course there must be.”

“Will you give Pillar up to God for his house—if God wanted him?”

“I suppose I should have to.”

“I expect he would do things for you—all the same, when you go to Heaven, if God goes away for a few days—and other times too?”

“Who, Pillar?”

“Yes.”

“I expect he would.”

“He says you can’t do without him, so he’d have to.”

“Does he say that?” asked Marcus, feeling a glow of absurd thankfulness permeating his being—

Shan’t nodded and said fervently that she liked Pillar. Marcus had to assure her that he did, too, and there the matter ended—so far as Shan’t was concerned; but not for Marcus. He wasn’t superstitious, but he wished Shan’t hadn’t broached the subject of giving Pillar up to any one. Existence without Pillar would be an impossibility. That afternoon by letter Marcus raised the wages of Pillar five pounds a year, and after listening to Shan’t’s prayers asking God to bless Pillar, he wished he had made it ten pounds. It was disturbing. Life generally was disturbing. An elderly woman in a bath-chair saw that it was so, or guessed it rather than saw it. She was an adept at guessing things. She had seen Marcus meet and walk away with the girl with big brown eyes, which held tragedy in their depths. She could see by the cut of Marcus’s clothes, by his shoes, all she wanted to know of his circumstances in life. She guessed him to be a bachelor and defenceless, because bored. This was not entirely astuteness on her part; she had heard Shan’t call him “Uncle,” and it is only a bachelor uncle who would take a small niece away with him, knowing nothing of the dangers of so doing, and the difficulties. No married man would attempt to do what it takes at least two women to do properly—judging by the babies on the shore and their attendants.

So the next time Marcus passed the elderly woman in her bath-chair, she smiled at him. Not as the other woman had smiled, hoping to attract him, but knowing she would. He was attracted. He liked elderly women as many bachelors do. They find in them a safe outlet.

“Come and talk to me,” said this one, and Marcus felt delighted to do so. “What have you done with your little girl?” she asked.

Marcus said he had left her on the sands—with—

“Oh, yes, I know, the nice girl with dark eyes—tragic eyes, tragic eyes set in a calm face. Nature plays curious tricks, doesn’t she?”

“Yes—I suppose she does. She is my niece.”

“The girl with the tragic eyes—that accounts for it, then.”

“No—no—the child.”

“A delightful child.”

That started Marcus—off he went. It was astonishing how much he found to say about Shan’t. From her getting up in the morning to her going to bed at night: he told it all—and the woman in the bath-chair listened with gentle amusement. Here was a father utterly wasted. This man should marry: but not the girl with tragic, happy, big brown eyes. She mustn’t marry a man who would criticize her and be ashamed of her connections. This man was not a big enough man to marry her. He must marry one of his set; who knew what to say and when to say it, and how to say it: who would have things social at her finger-tips. The woman in the bath-chair liked the girl with brown eyes, but she saw at a glance what background should be hers. She settled her in her home with a devoted husband. They would furnish in suites. The girl would have her embroidered tea-cosy: that was certain and a table centre of Indian embroidery—it might be worked in gold thread: it might be worked in green beetles. She would wear—? She would dress in the height of the fashion. This was delightful. The elderly woman loved making up stories about people. But it didn’t amuse Marcus; he didn’t know what she was smiling at.

“What amuses you?” he asked.

“So much—nearly everything! In fact everything except the tragedies of life—and those often might have been avoided if some one had laughed at the right moment.”

“The difficulty is to know the right moment,” said Marcus. “What amused you?”

She told him: described the home she had chosen for the girl. Marcus said she was very unkind. Why unkind? she wanted to know. She was praising the girl, if only he could see it. That was why he could never marry a girl like that: he could never see how delightful, how wholesome, how splendid she was.

“If you had a son—would you like him to marry her?”

“No, because my son might, I am afraid, be something like you. Too spoilt to be natural. Both you and he would look for things that are superficial and unnecessary—a certain easy manner—a ready jargon. You are perfectly right to look for it, for you have come to expect it. As I say, you would criticize this girl—and criticism would stunt her growth. She would be unnatural, and in course of time she would be unhappy. But the young man she should marry will admire her: bring out the best in her: encourage her; and in course of time what she must learn will be taught her by her sons and daughters. The daughters will criticize her and the sons will force her to be different. By that time she will be ready to change—and in the background there will always be her husband to tell her, when they find themselves alone, that he liked her best as she was, and things as they used to be. And if she had not been so happy young she would never have such fine boys and girls, and it is her boys and girls—girls particularly—who are going to make England. Now let us see the little niece—I am rather blind—I cannot see her face at a distance.”

Marcus called “Shan’t” and Mrs. Sloane smiled. This Marcus did not see. He was rearranging the skirts of Shan’t: pulling up her socks; arranging her hair, so that some of it at least showed under her hat; then he patted her generally, as any mother might have done.

“Well?” said the elderly woman.

“Oh!” said Shan’t, beaming.

Marcus was delighted to see how quickly they made friends. Every one took to Shan’t.

He turned and found the dark-eyed girl coming towards him—shyly advancing. She was certainly too self-conscious. “My mother says we should be so pleased if you would come shrimping with us this afternoon and come to supper afterwards.” She had made the great advance; Marcus would have retreated, but he had been caught unprepared; he hesitated, seeking an excuse. The first that presented itself to him was that his legs were too pale, as Shan’t’s had been: the next that he didn’t shrimp.

“But you must have supper somewhere?” she suggested.

Marcus could not say that as a rule he did not have it anywhere, so he said—“Oh, thank you—”

“Then you will?”

While Marcus was talking to the girl the elderly woman stooped forward—and drew Shan’t towards her. “Shan’t, darling,” she said, “don’t tell Uncle Marcus I know you. For a joke, let’s pretend.”

“Let’s!” said Shan’t, enchanted. She required no more than a hint, and when Marcus came back, deeply engaged to supper, he found the two talking—making conversation.

“Have you many children?” asked Shan’t, sitting down on an inverted tin bucket.

“No—I have no children.”

“That’s—a pity, isn’t it?”

“Yes—it’s a great pity.”

“No boys—not one? Perhaps you’ve forgotten—? You might have one or two—perhaps in the toy cupboard—”

“Not one.”

“Oh, dear—I hope your little dog is quite well?”

“Thank you very much—but my little dog is dead.”

“Oh, dear—I am surprised—they don’t generally—but the gooseberries are very good this year, at least I think they are.”

“Excellent,” said the elderly lady; “I have never seen better.”

“And the red-currants are rather good,” said Shan’t.

“Excellent.”

“Do you paddle often?” asked Shan’t.

“No, I have just had influenza.”

“Oh, dear—that’s rather a pity.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“It is—what shall I say next?” she whispered.

“You mustn’t whisper,” said Marcus; “it isn’t polite.”

“I think—I’ll just go—and look for—crabs,” said Shan’t, getting pink.

“Do,” said the elderly woman. “A most intelligent child,” she added, turning to Marcus, “but why does she wear shoes and socks and a hat?”

“Ought she not?” asked Marcus anxiously.

“She would be happier without—but leave her now. Tell me about her.”

“She’s a curious child in some ways—the way she makes friends, surely, is unusual; and her conversation with you—rather advanced for a child of her age, isn’t it?”

“Most unusual.”

“It’s not dangerous, is it?”

“I see no possible danger in her talking to me.”

“No; I mean she isn’t too clever for her age, is she?”

“She is so much with you—isn’t she?”

Marcus smiled—“Oh, I didn’t mean that.”

That evening Mrs. Sloane wrote a letter and it ran as follows:

Dearest Elsie,—I have met the ogre. He’s really rather an ingratiating ogre and the most attentive of uncles. He is delightful with Shan’t. He is taken for a widower with his little girl. One dark-eyed siren has already tried to enchant him. I have interfered. The girl is much too good for him, and in other ways unsuitable. He couldn’t make her happy and she certainly would make him very unhappy. He would be in no danger at all if he were not bored and the mother managing. I don’t see, Elsie, why you should dislike him. He doesn’t know that I know you. Amusing, isn’t it? Shan’t and I are in the secret. She plays up splendidly—makes conversation and asks me how many children I have. She seems very happy and quite at home. She is too heavily hatted and stoutly shod, but I have interfered there, too. To me the uncle seems wasted. He should marry. I should make friends, if I were you.

To which Elsie wrote back that she was perfectly friendly towards Mr. Maitland. It was he who was impossible. She certainly couldn’t make advances. He had been very rude and very selfish about Diana. Diana, dear child, was very loyal to him and never said anything against him. Shan’t, of course, childlike, would be fond of any one who indulged her.

The elderly woman lay back in her chair and laughed when she read Elsie’s letter. Elsie was perfectly friendly towards the poor uncle. What would she be if she were unfriendly?

X

It takes an engineer to dam a river: a mere man

may stem the tide of a child’s crying, and if he can’t

there is always the woman waiting; it’s her job.

“Horrible!” thought Marcus as he made his way towards the house where lodged the girl and her mother, and he supposed her brothers and sisters. Supper? And shrimps for supper? The shrimps he had been asked to shrimp for? Why had Shan’t got him into this difficulty?

It was her fault. If she had been less get-at-able, less ready with her all-embracing smile, he would never have known the girl and her mother. If Sibyl hadn’t married Eustace Carston this could never have happened.

Arrived at the house Marcus found the door wide open. He knocked on it with his stick and viciously broke a blister in the paint which took him back to the joys of boyhood. Out rushed a small boy—exactly the kind of small boy he should have expected. A boy covered with sand—his hair full of it—his knees sandy—his stockings held sand in every rib.

“Hullo! You have come, then? Mum said you would funk it at the last moment.”

“Did she?” asked Marcus. Was here an excuse he could seize—

“Come in—the teapot’s on the table.”

Marcus followed the sandy boy into a room that seemed full to overflowing—of the girl’s relations. They all had great big eyes, some brown, some blue: all too big. Their cheeks were too pink—they were all horribly healthy. It was just the sort of family she would belong to. The girl detached herself from a crowd gathered round what they chose to call an aquarium, to make much of Marcus—to put him at his ease. She wore a pink blouse and was quite free from sand. Her cheeks were flushed, but that might come from shrimping. She was a little too pleased to see him, and a little too grateful to him for coming. Perhaps she knew how much he was suffering. She must know he wasn’t accustomed to this kind of thing. He thought of Diana. How would she look in the midst of this family? Delightfully cool, he knew, and tremendously amused. She would love to see him being made a fuss of by the wrong kind of people.

The sandy boy, having given his sister her chance, proceeded to take his and monopolized Mr. Maitland.

Marcus thought in despair that the tea, if ever possible at this hour, must by now be quite undrinkable. The sandy boy had a crab in water to show Mr. Maitland, and a starfish imprisoned—it had died—and there were jellyfish in a bucket—jellyfish of all pets the least likely to move Marcus to enthusiasm. He tried to be interested—was beginning to like the small boy a little—when the mother came and told Sandy to leave Mr. Maitland alone.

“Why should Rose have him?” asked the sandy boy, defiantly.

“Sandy, you scamp,” said his mother, “what nonsense you talk!”

“It isn’t—you said—we were to leave Rosie with Mr. Maitland—”

“Sandy, Sandy, where do you expect to go to—?”

“When? Well—you said, we were to leave him”—nodding in Marcus’s direction—“to Rosie—it comes to the same thing.”

“Are you interested in old things, Mr. Maitland?” asked Mrs. Madder.

Marcus said he was—in some old things.

“We are always on the lookout—this is a sweet little print, isn’t it?” She held out a cheaply framed, hand-coloured print for his inspection.

Marcus looked at it and asked where she had got it.

“Oh, that’s telling,” she answered playfully; “the man said it was a bargain, though I don’t think even he knew its true value. What do you think I gave for it?”

Marcus said he had no idea. Mrs. Madder challenged him to guess, but did not wait to hear whether he made a good guess or not. He must see the quaintest little bit of china she had bought! Was he jealous? That it was quaint Marcus could say with perfect truth—with less truth that he was very jealous.

“It’s such fun collecting, isn’t it?” she asked impetuously. She was terribly impetuous and inclined to be playful.

He admitted it was—great—fun.

“And it doesn’t cost much, if you know!”

Marcus said no doubt she was right, it was a question of knowledge, and he sat with the china woolly lamb in his hands, with his thoughts on that horrible teapot.

“Isn’t supper ready?” asked some one.

“Ages ago,” said the sandy boy; “I simply yelled that the teapot was on the table.”

“You should have said it louder,” suggested another.

Marcus was put next to Rosie; Mrs. Madder explaining that there was no need for ceremony; besides, she was so busy with the teapot she wouldn’t be able to amuse Mr. Maitland:—and Auntie was deaf, so she liked to have her next her, so that she could repeat the jokes to her. “Here, Auntie! Next to me; I will tell you if Mr. Maitland says anything amusing.”

On the other side of Marcus sat a man who, gathering that Mr. Maitland was interested in old things, told him of all the cheap places he knew in London—and after having done that, told him most of the contents of a shilling hand-book on “How to collect anything, and everything.” It was most interesting—only a shilling! He would lend it to Mr. Maitland.

Mr. Maitland said he had hardly time to collect everything. The man smiled and said it did not mean “everything” literally, naturally, and he was hurt and refused to talk any more. Gratefully Marcus turned to the quiet Rose at his other side who had nothing to teach him, but a generous sympathy to offer any one. She was ready to be sorry about anything—sorry that he wouldn’t have any more tea—no more lobster salad? Well, blanc-mange, then? Not with strawberry jam? Well—sardines? Shrimps, then? Shrimps, he must, because they were the shrimps he ought to have caught.

No, nothing, Marcus assured her. He had dined—suppered—he had had quite enough.

“We make cocoa when we come in,” said Rose, beaming at him.

Here at least was certain comfort and something to look forward to.

“Come in from where?” he asked.

“Oh, we just go out and wander about—it’s so delicious—you will—won’t you? It’s too hot to stay indoors, isn’t it?”

“Much too hot.”

“Before you go out, Rosie,” said her mother, “just play Mr. Maitland that dear little Berceuse—Tum-ti tum-ti tum—you know.”

“Oh, no, mother.”

“Oh, no,” said Marcus.

“Don’t you like music?” she asked, surprised, men so often did.

“I have never—”

“Well you should hear Rosie. I’m sure you would like it—but I’m afraid the piano hasn’t been tuned—”

“Please don’t, mother!”

“After all we have paid for you, Rosie! Rosie!”

“Some other time,” pleaded Marcus; “it’s so hot indoors.”

“Do you find it hot? Sandy, let Mr. Maitland sit next the door; there, do move, Mr. Maitland! Auntie, make room for Mr. Maitland and Rosie.” She shook her head, “She can’t hear. Well, shall we go out, then?”

Marcus stepped out into the fresh, cool air with a sigh of deepest thankfulness. Even the girl who trod the red-bricked path beside him he could forgive for daring to fall in love with him. The mother for trying to catch him he should never forgive; but there was something attractive about Rosie. “Shall we sit here?” she asked when they reached the sands. He would rather she had left it to him to choose the place; but in full view of the whole watering-place and that a favourite one, there should be no immediate danger. Under the shelter of a rock they sat. Yes—she was attractive—he could see no reason why she should marry as the old lady in the bath-chair had imagined she should. Surely there must be something between Marcus Maitland and that other man? Rose knew how to be quiet, which was a great thing in woman.—She stuck out her feet. Her shoes? Bad shape; and her stockings? They weren’t quite right. He didn’t see what was wrong exactly—unless it was that the other sides of the seams showed through—but still she was very attractive: her simplicity was engaging. Well-shaped shoes were after all a matter—a question of money.

“It’s funny you should be Mr. Maitland, isn’t it?” she said, digging her heels into the soft sand and looking up at him under her long, dark eyelashes.

“It would be far funnier if I was not—funnier to me, at all events.”

“Yes, of course: you are so amusing, aren’t you?”

“Am I? I don’t think so.” He was open to conviction.

“Yes, you are—I’m serious—don’t you think you are?”

“Amusing?”

“Yes.”

“I never thought so.”

“Well, you are—and I’m sure you are—kind too!”

“Are you, why?” Unconsciously, perhaps, Marcus put on the kindest face in the world—an absurd face it was, but Rose was looking the other way.

“You look it,” she said softly.

Marcus said she had said he looked so many things, amongst them a widower.

“Oh, I am so glad you are not that.” The tragic eyes were turned upon him—they were positively wells of deep thankfulness.

“Why?” He was terrified—yet, fascinated, he must know why.

She said she would have hated him to be unhappy.

“But,”—he was getting very uncomfortable: he wished Shan’t would come and bury him in the sand, as she was wont to do—deep, deep, deep. “But,” he went on desperately, “I might not have been unhappy—”

“Not if your wife had died? I should have hated that—I mean I should hate you to be—shallow. I know you would have been heart-broken: I should wish you to be.” That settled it, once and for all—

“Why?” Marcus felt he was now paddling in pathos. He saw himself a widower walking to church with a child on either side: their hands in his.

“Because I want you to think rather wonderfully of marriage—and married life.”

Marcus said hastily that he could not think of them at all.

“Why—you must—for my sake. You will—if I ask you to.”

“Because there are reasons” (there were none, of course) “I can never marry.”

“I—am—so sorry—” There was a terrific silence—an impossible silence.

She broke it gently—broke it as softly as the waves broke upon the sands. “But you won’t mind if I do?”

“My dear child, of course not—do you want to?” This was a marvellous way out.

She said, Yes, but she could not do it without him.

He asked what he had to do with it, and she said, “More than you know,” which he was willing enough to admit!—So far as he could see he had nothing to do with it.

“Much more than you know,” she repeated.

She drew up her feet. They were very pretty slim feet, he discovered. He liked the shoes even, except that they were white. He didn’t really like white shoes. She clasped her hands round her knees. He liked her hands, particularly liked them. They were long and delightfully brown. He didn’t mind brown hands—not a bit—at the seaside.

“Whom do you want to marry?” he asked, feeling a sudden rush of tenderness towards this dark-eyed girl, and a slight resentment towards the man she would marry. This girl had found him both sympathetic and amusing. If Diana thought him amusing she would never tell him so.

“That’s the curious part of the whole thing—I heard from some one this morning.”

“The some one?” said Marcus, with marvellous intuition. He really was sympathetic, he felt the glow of it himself.

“Yes, and he said you were here—”

“Why did he say that?” What business had any one to say Marcus Maitland was anywhere—even if he were? He hated his movements discussed.

“Because you are, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But how does he know?”

“He’s in your office—isn’t it extraordinary?”

“Very—and what is he in my office? And my office, by the way, is so little mine. I have left the business—”

“Yes—I know! It’s rather a pity, from our point of view.”

“It was hardly worth the trouble of getting to know me?” suggested Marcus.

“No—I don’t mean that—but although he doesn’t see you now, he knew you in America—he was sent over there for a year or two—”

“What position does he hold?”

“He’s getting on very well—for his age wonderfully well—but I thought if you could just tell me what his prospects are—I might tell my mother—and she would give her consent, I am sure—if I could just say he was getting on wonderfully well—and—”

“What’s his name?”

“Flueyn—pronounced Flynn—he said you never got it right.”

“Does he? I’m sorry. Flueyn? Why, he’s a most excellent fellow. I remember him.”

“Will—he—get on?”

“Yes—of course—bound to—”

“How—much a year will he get on?”

Marcus thought for a moment—Flueyn—excellent chap—fine big fellow—he had rather a terrible laugh: too boisterous in private life, he should say. But he didn’t know him in private life—no question of knowing him—very good worker—very keen—it was quite possible he would get on. But why did this girl want to marry him?

“How—much—?” The tragic eyes were turned upon him; they were pleading eyes, dangerous eyes—the red lips trembled a little—dangerous too—very. How much was going to make such a tremendous difference—the hands tensely clasped said that: the eyes clouded expressed that—the parted lips meant that.

“Of course—I would do anything within my power—but I am not in a—”

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t cry—it will be all right—tell your mother it will be all right—don’t thank me.”

“How can I thank you?”

“By not thanking me—Flueyn’s an excellent chap—no, I won’t come and have cocoa, thank you. I never drink it at night. You will be all right? Then you will forgive me if I go home; I have letters to write. I won’t forget, only don’t build on it—because—”

“I have built—it’s finished—all but the roof.”

Marcus looked at her—there were tears in her eyes. “Please don’t look so—happy,” he said; “it frightens me.”

On his way back to the hotel, he called in to see Mrs. Sloane. She was delighted to see him and to hear his news.

“Tell me all about it—begin at the very beginning. Tell me first about the young man.”

“He’s very big and I should say wonderfully healthy: has lots of hair—fair! It stands on end at the slightest provocation. He laughs, I should imagine, tremendously. Out of office hours he would be boisterous, I am sure of that—but none of her family will mind—‘Auntie’ wouldn’t hear him if he wasn’t. He plays games, I believe—I don’t know what else to tell you. You see I didn’t know him—I didn’t even know how to pronounce his name.”

“But you ought to have known him. He sounds so eminently desirable.”

“For her—yes, but he would jar upon you a thousand times a day.”

“That would be my fault—it’s a bad thing for a woman when she grows too fragile, too exotic, to stand a boisterous laugh. You are very gentle, my friend, to an old woman.... I told Shan’t I felt very old to-day, and she said, so kindly: ‘You’re not so old as Moses would have been if he had lived.’”

She put out her hand and Marcus took it and held it as delicately and as carefully as he would have held a vase of the Ming period.

“The Flueyns must be happy,” she said. “You will see that they are.”

“I have very little influence—really.”

“Is that quite true?”

“Not quite.”

Mrs. Sloane said that was rather a comfort to her because she had a confession to make. She had not been quite—well, truthful herself. Marcus was a little alarmed. He could not imagine an elderly woman in a bath-chair departing in any way from the path of goodness and righteousness. He asked what she had to confess and asked it so charmingly that she vowed he had missed his vocation in life. “You would forgive so nicely,” she explained.

“Hardly as nicely as you would tell a—lie,” he suggested.

“A lie is perhaps a little too strong—no, I suppose it’s not—I led you to believe I did not know Shan’t, whereas I know her very well: and of course I know Elsie. I live in Bestways, and I have known her for a long time, and the longer I know her the better I love her. Now, am I forgiven?”

“The best thing I have heard of her is that you are her friend,” said Marcus.

“How nice of you—to tell an untruth so charmingly! But tell me why you dislike each other so much? It was in order to find out if Elsie was justified in her ridiculous attitude towards you that I did not tell you who I was.”

“Does she really dislike me?” asked Marcus. “Why should she? I have never done anything to her.”

Mrs. Sloane asked him if he hadn’t made the children rather fond of him.

“But surely she couldn’t mind that?”

“Why do you dislike her?”

“I don’t; but she is always trying to keep the children away from me.”

“I see very little difference between you,” said Mrs. Sloane; and after what she had said about Elsie, Marcus was obliged to say he was glad of that.

When Marcus reached the hotel he was met by the hall porter, who astonished him by saying: “I’m a family man myself, sir, you will excuse me—but will you go upstairs at once? I was told to say—directly you came in.”

Marcus went upstairs. Over the banisters at each landing hung an anxious housemaid. Each housemaid expressed her relief at seeing him, each begged him to hurry. Each assured him the lift was working. He had been in too great a hurry to remember the lift. When he got near his room a voice broke upon his ear—a long wail—the cry of one in great distress; the wail spoke loudly of Irish blood in the veins of her who wailed. It was the voice of his niece. Infuriated old women glanced at him through half-opened doors. “What had he been doing gallivanting about at night?” they seemed to say and no doubt they would have liked to add: “If he had left the mother he might at least stay with the child.”

“Shan’t,” he called, “I’m coming.” He passed lady’s-maids gathered together, and strode into Shan’t’s room. Then and there he decided that he had never seen a child cry—never imagined a child could cry—not the child of any one belonging to him—as this child cried. It was impossible that anything could cry so terribly. Tears poured down her face: her eyes were screwed up. It was a horrible exhibition showing a deplorable lack of self-restraint.

“Shan’t, stop!” He sat down beside her, he shook her gently—nothing made any difference. “I’m here, your Uncle Marcus is here—”

This was why there were people in the world who didn’t love children. They had seen them like this.

“I don’t want him—I want my darlin’—Aunt Elsie—”

“No, Shan’t, you don’t. You are at the seaside with your darling uncle.”

“I’m—not—I won’t be at the seaside. I want my darlin’ Aunt Elsie.”

“Shan’t—listen!” He tried to take her in his arms. She became rigid, unbendable—unbreakable—“Shan’t—!”

“I—want—my—darlin’ Aunt—Elsie.”

The management sent up to say, Would the young lady be quiet? There was an elderly gentleman above her—and an old lady below her—who could get no sleep.

“Shan’t—be quiet!”

“Nasty Uncle Marcus!”

“Shan’t—listen—”

But she refused to listen—she wriggled away under the bedclothes.

“What do you want, Shan’t?”

She emerged from under the bedclothes.

“I want my darlin’ Aunt Elsie.”

“But you can’t have her—she’s miles away. Would you like the kind lady who played with you on the sands?”

“She’s dead!” cried Shan’t—wailing afresh.

“No—she’s not. Look here, will you be good if I fetch her?”

“Will she bring my darlin’ crab—what was on the sands—?”

“Yes—yes—”

“W—ill—you fet-ch—her?”