A HOUSE
DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

BY MRS OLIPHANT
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXVI

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.

CHAPTER XVII.

“Yes, I hope you will come and see me often. Oh yes, I shall miss my sister; but then I shall have all the more of papa. Good night. Good night, Captain Gaunt. No; I don’t sketch; that was Frances. I don’t know the country either. It was my sister who knew it. I am quite ignorant and useless. Good night.”

Waring, who was on the loggia, heard this in the clear tones of his only remaining companion. He heard her come in afterwards with a step more distinct than that of Frances, as her voice carried farther. He said to himself that everything was more distinct about this girl, and he was glad that she was coming, glad of some relief from the depression which overcame him against his will. She came across one room after another, and out upon the loggia, throwing herself down listlessly in the usurped chair. It did not occur to him that she was unaware of his presence, and he was surprised that she said nothing. But after a minute or two, there could be no doubt why it was that Constance did not speak. There was no loud outburst of emotion, but a low suppressed sound, which it was impossible to mistake. She said, after a moment, to herself, “What a fool I am!” But even this reflection did not stem the tide. A sensation of utter solitude had seized upon her. She was abandoned, among strangers; and though she had so much experience of the world, it was not of this world that Constance had any knowledge. Had she been left alone among a new tribe of people unknown to her, she would not have been afraid! Court or camp would have had no alarms for her; but the solitude, broken only by the occasional appearance of these rustic companions; the simple young soldier, who was going to bestow his heart upon her, an entirely undesired gift; the anxious mother, who was about to mount guard over her at a distance; the polite old beau in the background. Was it possible that the existence she knew had altogether receded from Constance, and left her with such companions alone? She was not thinking of her father, neither of himself nor of his possible presence, which was of little importance to her. After a while she sat upright and passed her handkerchief quickly over her face. “It is my own fault,” she said, still to herself; “I might have known.”

“You don’t see, Constance, that I am here.”

She started, and pulled herself up in a moment. “Oh, are you there, papa? No, I didn’t see you. I didn’t think of any one being here. Well, they are gone. Everybody came to see Frances off, as you divined. She bore up very well; but, of course, it was a little sad for her, leaving everything she knows.”

“You were crying a minute ago, Constance.”

“Was I? Oh, well, that was nothing. Girls cry, and it doesn’t mean much. You know women well enough to know that.”

“Yes, I know women—enough to say the ordinary things about them,” said Waring; “but perhaps I don’t know you, which is of far more consequence just now.”

“There is not much in me to know,” said the girl in a light voice. “I am just like other girls. I am apt to cry when I see people crying. Frances sobbed—like a little foolish thing; for why should she cry? She is going to see the world. Did you ever feel, when you came here first, a sort of horror seize upon you, as if—as if—as if you were lost in a savage wilderness, and would never see a human face again?”

“No; I cannot say I ever felt that.”

“No, to be sure,” cried Constance. “What ridiculous nonsense I am talking! A savage wilderness! with all these houses about, and the hotels on the beach. I mean—didn’t you feel as if you would like to run violently down a steep place into the sea?” Then she stopped, and laughed. “It was the swine that did that.”

“It has never occurred to me to take that means of settling matters; and yet I understand you,” he said gravely. “You have made a mistake. You thought you were philosopher enough to give up the world; and it turns out that you are not. But you need not cry, for it is not too late. You can change your mind.”

“I—change my mind! Not for the world, papa! Do you think I would give them the triumph of supposing that I could not do without them, that I was obliged to go back? Not for the world.”

“I understand the sentiment,” he said. “Still, between these two conditions of mind, it is rather unfortunate for you, my dear. I do not see any middle course.”

“Oh yes, there is a middle course. I can make myself very comfortable here; and that is what I mean to do. Papa, if you had not found it out, I should not have told you. I hope you are not offended?”

“Oh no, I am not offended,” he said, with a short laugh. “It is perhaps a pity that everybody has been put to so much trouble for what gives you so little satisfaction. That is the worst of it; these mistakes affect so many others besides one’s self.”

Constance evidently had a struggle with herself to accept this reproof; but she made no immediate reply. After a while: “Frances will be a little strange at first; but she will like it by-and-by; and it is only right she should have her share,” she said softly. “I have been wondering,” she went on, with a laugh that was somewhat forced, “whether mamma will respect her individuality at all; or if she will put her altogether into my place? I wonder if—that man I told you of, papa——”

“Well, what of him?” said Waring, rather sharply.

“I wonder if he will be turned over to Frances too? It would be droll. Mamma is not a person to give up any of her plans, if she can help it; and you have brought up Frances so very well, papa; she is so docile—and so obedient——”

“You think she will accept your old lover, or your old wardrobe, or anything that offers? I don’t think she is so well brought up as that.”

“I did not mean to insult my sister,” cried Constance, springing to her feet. “She is so well brought up, that she accepted whatever you chose to say to her, forgetting that she was a woman, that she was a lady.”

Waring’s face grew scarlet in the darkness. “I hope,” he said, “that I am incapable of forgetting on any provocation that my daughter is a lady.”

“You mean me!” she cried, breathless. “Oh, I can——” But here she stopped. “Papa,” she resumed, “what good will it do us to quarrel? I don’t want to quarrel. Instead of setting yourself against me because I am poor Con, and not Frances, whom you love—— Oh, I think you might be good to me just at this moment; for I am very lonely, and I don’t know what I am good for, and I think my heart will break.”

She went to him quickly, and flung herself upon his shoulder, and cried. Waring was perhaps more embarrassed than touched by this appeal; but after all, she was his child, and he was sorry for her. He put his arm round her, and said a few soothing words. “You may be good for a great deal, if you choose,” he said; “and if you will believe me, my dear, you will find that by far the most amusing way. You have more capabilities than Frances; you are much better educated than she is—at least I suppose so, for she was not educated at all.”

“How do you mean that it will be more amusing? I don’t expect to be amused; all that is over,” said Constance, in a dolorous tone.

He was so much like her, that he paused for a moment to consider whether he should be angry, but decided against it, and laughed instead. “You are not complimentary,” he said. “What I mean is, that if you sit still and think over your deprivations, you will inevitably be miserable; whereas, if you exert yourself a little, and make the best of the situation, you will very likely extract something that is amusing out of it. I have seen it happen so often in my experience.”

“Ah,” said Constance, considering. And then she withdrew from him and went back to her chair. “I thought, perhaps, you meant something more positive. There are perhaps possibilities: Frances would have thought it wrong to look out for amusement—that must have been because you trained her so.”

“Not altogether. Frances does not require so much amusement as you do. It is so in everything. One individual wants more sleep, more food, more delight than others.”

“Yes, yes,” she cried; “that is like me. Some people are more alive than others; that is what you mean, papa.”

“I am not sure that it is what I mean; but if you like to take it so, I have no objection. And in that view, I recommend you to live, Constance. You will find it a great deal more amusing than to mope; and it will be much pleasanter to me.”

“Yes,” she said, “I was considering. Perhaps what I mean will be not the same as what you mean. I will not do it in Frances’ way; but still I will take your advice, papa. I am sure you are right in what you say.”

“I am glad you think so, my dear. If you cannot have everything you want, take what you can get. It is the only true philosophy.”

“Then I will be a true philosopher,” she said, with a laugh. The laugh was more than a mere recovery of spirits. It broke out again after a little, as if with a sense of something irresistibly comic. “But I must not interfere too much with Mariuccia, it appears. She knows what you like better than I do. I am only to look wise when she submits her menu, as if I knew all about it. I am very good at looking as if I knew all about it. By the way, do you know there is no piano? I should like to have a piano, if I might.”

“That will not be very difficult,” he said. “Can you play?”

At which she laughed once more, with all her easy confidence restored. “You shall hear, when you get me a piano. Thanks, papa; you have quite restored me to myself. I can’t knit you socks, like Frances; and I am not so clever about the mayonnaises; but still I am not altogether devoid of intellect. And now, we completely understand each other. Good night.”

“This is sudden,” he said. “Good night, if you think it is time for that ceremony.”

“It is time for me; I am a little tired; and I have got some alterations to make in my room, now that—now that—at present when I am quite settled and see my way.”

He did not understand what she meant, and he did not inquire. It was of very little consequence. Indeed it was perhaps well that she should go and leave him to think of everything. It was not a month yet since the day when he had met that idiot Mannering on the road. To be sure, there was no proof that the idiot Mannering was the cause of all that had ensued. But at least it was he who had first disturbed the calm which Waring hoped was to have been eternal. He sat down to think, almost grateful to Constance for taking herself away. He thought a little of Frances hurrying along into the unknown, the first great journey she had ever taken—and such a journey, away from everything and everybody she knew. Poor little Fan! he thought a little about her; but he thought a great deal about himself. Would it ever be possible to return to that peace which had been so profound, which had ceased to appear capable of disturbance? The circumstances were all very different now. Frances, who would think it her duty to write to him often, was henceforth to be her mother’s companion, reflecting, no doubt, the sentiments of a mind, to escape from the companionship of which he had given up the world and (almost) his own species. And Constance, though she had elected to be his companion, would no doubt all the same write to her mother; and everything that he did and said, and all the circumstances of his life, would thus be laid open. He felt an impatience beyond words of that dutifulness of women, that propriety in which girls are trained, which makes them write letters. Why should they write letters? But it was impossible to prevent it. His wife would become a sort of distant witness of everything he did. She would know what he liked for dinner, the wine he preferred, how many baths he took. To describe how this thought annoyed him would be impossible. He had forgotten to warn Frances that her father was not to be discussed with my lady. But what was the use of saying anything, when letters would come and go continually from the one house to the other? And he would be compelled to put up with it, though nothing could be more unpleasant. If these girls had been boys, this would not have happened. It was perhaps the first time Waring had felt himself within reach of such a wish, for boys were far more objectionable to his fine taste than girls, gave more trouble, and were less agreeable to have about one. In the present circumstances, however, he could not but feel they would have been less embarrassing. Constance might grow tired, indeed, of that unprofitable exercise of letter-writing. But Frances, he felt sure, would in all cases be dutiful, and would not grow tired. She would write to him perhaps (he shivered) every day; at least every week; and she would think it her duty to tell him everything that happened, and she would require that he should reply. But this, except once or twice, perhaps, to let her down easily, he was resolved that nothing should induce him to do.

Constance was neither tired nor sleepy when she went to her room. She had never betrayed the consciousness in any way, being high-bred and courteous when it did not interfere with her comfort to be so; yet she had divined that Frances had given up her room to her. This would have touched the heart of many people, but to Constance it was almost an irritation. She could not think why her sister had done it, except with that intention of self-martyrdom with which so many good people exasperate their neighbours. She would have been quite as comfortable in the blue room, and she would have liked it better. Now that Frances was safely gone and her feelings could not be hurt any more, Constance had set her heart upon altering it to her own pleasure, making it bear no longer the impress of Frances’ mind, but of her own. She took down a number of the pictures which Frances had thought so much of, and softly pulled the things about, and changed it more than any one could have supposed a room could be changed. Then she sat down to think. The depression which had seized upon her when she had felt that all was over, that the door was closed upon her, and no place of repentance any longer possible, did not return at first. Her father’s words, which she understood in a sense not intended by him, gave her a great deal of amusement as she thought them over. She did not conceal from herself the fact that there might ensue circumstances in which she should quote them to him to justify herself. “Frances does not require so much amusement as you do. One individual requires more sleep, more food, more delight than another.” She laid this dangerous saying up in her mind with much glee, laughing to herself under her breath: “If you cannot get what you want, you must take what you can get.” How astounded he would be if it should ever be necessary to put him in mind of these dogmas—which were so true! Her father’s arguments, indeed, which were so well meant, did not suit the case of Constance. She had been in a better state of mind when she had felt herself to awake, as it were, on the edge of this desert, into which, in her impatience, she had flung herself, and saw that there was no escape for her, that she had been taken at her word, that she was to be permitted to work out her own will, and that no one would forcibly interfere to restore all her delights, to smooth the way for her to return. She had expected this, if not consciously, yet with a strong unexpressed conviction. But when she had seen Markham’s face disappear, and realised that he was gone, actually gone, and had left her to exist as she could in the wilderness to which she had flown, her young perverse soul had been swept as by a tempest.

After a while, when she had gone through that little interview with her father, when she had executed her little revolution, and had seated herself in the quiet of the early night to think again over the whole matter, the pang returned, as every pang does. It was not yet ten o’clock, the hour at which she might have been setting out to a succession of entertainments under her mother’s wing; but she had nothing better to amuse her than to alter the arrangement of a few old chairs, to draw aside a faded curtain, and then to betake herself to bed, though it was too early to sleep. There were sounds of voices still audible without—people singing, gossiping, enjoying, on the stone benches on the Punto, just those same delights of society which happy people on the verge of a new season were beginning to enjoy. But Constance did not feel much sympathy with the villagers, who were foreigners, whom she felt to be annoying and intrusive, making a noise under her windows, when, as it so happened, she had nothing to do but to go to sleep. When she looked out from the window and saw the pale sky spreading clear over the sea, she could think of nothing but Frances rushing along through the night, with Markham taking such care of her, hastening to London, to all that was worth living for. No doubt that little thing was still crying in her corner, in her folly and ignorance regretting her village. Oh, if they could but have changed places! To think of sitting opposite to Markham, with the soft night air blowing in her face, devouring the way, seeing the little towns flash past, the morning dawn upon France, the long levels of the flat country sweep along, then Paris, London, at last! She shut the persiani almost violently with a hand that trembled, and looked round the four walls which shut her in, with again an impulse almost of despair. She felt like a wild creature newly caged, shut in there, to be kept within bolts and bars, to pace up and down, and beat against the walls of her prison, and never more to go free.

But this fit being more violent, did not go so deep as the unspeakable sense of loneliness which had overwhelmed her soul at first. She sprang up from it with the buoyancy of her age, and said to herself what her father had said: “If you cannot get what you want, you must take what you can get.” There was yet a little amusement to be had out of this arid place. She had her father’s sanction for making use of her opportunities; anything was better than to mope; and for her it was a necessity to live. She laughed a little under her breath once more, as she came back to this more reassuring thought, and so lay down in her sister’s bed with a satisfaction in the thought that it had not taken her any trouble to supplant Frances, and a mischievous smile about the corners of her mouth; although, after all, the thought of the travellers came over her again as she closed her eyes, and she ended by crying herself to sleep.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Captain Gaunt called next day to bring, he said, a message from his mother. She sent Mr Waring a newspaper which she thought he might like to see, an English weekly newspaper, which some of her correspondents had sent her, in which there was an article—— He did not give a very clear account of this, nor make it distinctly apparent why Waring should be specially interested; and as a matter of fact, the newspaper found its way to the waste-paper basket, and interested nobody. But, no doubt, Mrs Gaunt’s intentions had been excellent. When the young soldier arrived, there was a carriage at the door, and Constance had her hat on. “We are going,” she said, “to San Remo, to see about a piano. Do you know San Remo? Oh, I forgot you are as much a stranger as I am; you don’t know anything. What a good thing that there are two ignorant persons! We will keep each other in countenance, and they will be compelled to make all kinds of expeditions to show us everything.”

“That will be a wonderful chance for me,” said the young man, “for nobody would take so much trouble for me alone.”

“How can you tell that? Miss Tasie, I should think, would be an excellent cicerone,” said Constance. She said it with a light laugh of suggestion, meaning to imply, though, of course, she had said nothing, that Tasie would be too happy to put herself at Captain Gaunt’s disposition; a suggestion which he, too, received with a laugh—for this is one of the points upon which both boys and girls are always ungenerous.

“And failing Miss Tasie,” said Constance, “suppose you come with papa and me? They say it is a pretty drive. They say, of course, that everything here is lovely, and that the Riviera is paradise. Do you find it so?”

“I can fancy circumstances in which I should find it so,” said the young soldier.

“Ah, yes; every one can do that. I can fancy circumstances in which Bond Street would be paradise—oh, very easily! It is not far from paradise at any time.”

“That is a heaven of which I know very little, Miss Waring.”

“Ah, then, you must learn. The true Elysian fields are in London in May. If you don’t know that, you can form no idea of happiness. An exile from all delights gives you the information, and you may be sure it is true.”

“Why, then, Miss Waring, if you think so——”

“Am I here? Oh, that is easily explained. I have a sister.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Ah, I understand you have heard a great deal about my sister. I suffer here from being compared with her. I am not nearly so good, so wise, as Frances. But is that my fault, Captain Gaunt? You are impartial; you are a new-comer. If I could, I would, be as nice as Frances, don’t you believe?”

The young man gave Constance a look, which, indeed, she expected, and said with confusion, “I don’t see—any need for improvement,” and blushed as near crimson as was possible over the greenish brown of his Indian colour.

Constance for her part did not blush. She laughed, and made him an almost imperceptible curtsey. The ways of flirtation are not original, and all the parallels of the early encounters might be stereotyped, as everybody knows.

“You are very amiable,” she said; “but then you don’t know Frances, and your opinion, accordingly, is less valuable. I did not ask you, however, to believe me to be equal to my sister, but only to believe that I would be as nice if I could. However, all that is no explanation. We have a mother, you know, in England. We are, unfortunately, that sad thing, a household divided against itself.”

Captain Gaunt was not prepared for such confidences. He grew still a little browner with embarrassment, and muttered something about being very sorry, not knowing what to say.

“Oh, there is not very much to be sorry about. Papa enjoys himself in his way here, and mamma is very happy at home. The only thing is that we must each have our turn, you know—that is only fair. So Frances has gone to mamma, and here am I in Bordighera. We are each dreadfully out of our element. Her friends condemn me, to begin with, as if it were my fault that I am not like her; and my friends, perhaps—— But no; I don’t think so. Frances is so good, so nice, so everything a girl ought to be.”

At this she laughed softly again; and young Gaunt’s consciousness that his mother’s much vaunted Frances was the sort of girl to please old ladies rather than young men, a prim, little, smooth, correct maiden, with not the least “go” in her, took additional force and certainty. Whereas—— But he had no words in which to express his sense of the advantages on the other side.

“You must find it,” he said, knowing nothing more original to say, “dreadfully dull living here.”

“I have not found anything as yet; I have only just come. I am no more than a few days older than you are. We can compare notes as time goes on. But perhaps you don’t mean to stay very long in these abodes of the blest?”

“I don’t know that I did intend it. But I shall stay now as long as ever I can,” said the young man. Then—for he was shy—he added hastily, “It is a long time since I have seen my people, and they like to have me.”

“Naturally. But you need not have spoiled what looked like a very pretty compliment by adding that. Perhaps you didn’t mean it for a compliment? Oh, I don’t mind at all. It is much more original, if you didn’t mean it. Compliments are such common coin. But I don’t pretend to despise them, as some girls do; and I don’t like to see them spoiled,” Constance said seriously.

The young man looked at her with consternation. After a while, his moustache expanded into a laugh, but it was a confused laugh, and he did not understand. Still less did he know how to reply. Constance had been used to sharper wits, who took her at half a word; and she was half angry to be thus obliged to explain.

“We are going to San Remo, as I told you,” she said. “I am waiting for my father. We are going to look for a piano. Frances is not musical, so there is no piano in the house. You must come too, and give your advice. Oh, are you ready, papa? Captain Gaunt, who does not know San Remo, and who does know music, is coming with us to give us his advice.”

The young soldier stammered forth that to go to San Remo was the thing he most desired in the world. “But I don’t think my advice will be good for much,” he said, conscientiously. “I do a little on the violin; but as for pretending to be a judge of a piano——”

“Come; we are all ready,” said Constance, leading the way.

Waring had to let the young fellow precede him, to see him get into the carriage without any articulate murmur. As a matter of fact, a sort of stupor seized the father, altogether unaccustomed to be the victim of accidents. Frances might have lived by his side till she was fifty before she would have thought of inviting a stranger to be of their party—a stranger, a young man, which was a class of being with which Waring had little patience, a young soldier, proverbially frivolous, and occupied with foolish matters. Young Gaunt respectfully left to his senior the place beside Constance; but he placed himself opposite to her, and kept his eyes upon her with a devout attention, which Waring would have thought ridiculous had he not been irritated by it. The young fellow was a great deal too much absorbed to contribute much to the amusement of the party; and it irritated Waring beyond measure to see his eyes gleam from under his eyebrows, opening wider with delight, half closing with laughter, the ends of his moustache going up to his ears. Waring, an impartial spectator, was not so much impressed by his daughter’s wit. He thought he had heard a great deal of the same before, or even better, surely better, for he could recollect that he had in his day been charmed by a similar treatment, which must have been much lighter in touch, much less commonplace in subject, because—he was charmed. Thus we argue in our generations. In the meantime, young Gaunt, though he had not been without some experience, looked at Constance from under his brows, and listened as if to the utterances of the gods. If only they could have had it all to themselves; if only the old father had been out of the way!

The sunshine, the sea, the beautiful colour, the unexpected vision round every corner of another and another picturesque cluster of towns and roofs; all that charm and variety which give to Italy above every country on earth the admixture of human interest, the endless chain of association which adds a grace to natural beauty, made very little impression upon this young pair. She would have been amused and delighted by the exercise of her own power, and he would have been enthralled by her beauty, and what he considered her wit and high spirits, had their progress been along the dullest streets. It was only Waring’s eyes, disgusted by the prospect before him of his daughter’s little artifices, and young Gaunt’s imbecile subjection, which turned with any special consciousness to the varying blues of the sea, to the endless developments of the landscape. Flirtation is one of the last things in the world to brook a spectator. Its little absurdities, which are so delightful to the actors in the drama, and which at a distance the severest critic may smile at and forgive, excite the wrath of a too close looker-on, in a way quite disproportioned to their real offensiveness. The interchange of chatter which prevents, as that observer would say, all rational conversation, the attempts to charm, which are so transparent, the response of silly admiration, which is only another form of vanity—how profoundly sensible we all are of their folly! Had Constance taken as much pains to please her father, he would, in all probability, have yielded altogether to the spell; but he was angry, ashamed, furious, that she should address those wiles to the young stranger, and saw through him with a clearsightedness which was exasperating. It was all the more exasperating that he could not tell what she meant by it. Was it possible that she had already formed an inclination towards this tawny young stranger? Had his bilious hues affected her imagination? Love at first sight is a very respectable emotion, and commands in many cases both sympathy and admiration. But no man likes to see the working of this sentiment in a woman who belongs to him. Had Constance fallen in love? He grew angry at the very suggestion, though breathed only in the recesses of his own mind. A girl who had been brought up in the world, who had seen all kinds of people, was it possible that she should fall a victim in a moment to the attractions of a young nobody—a young fellow who knew nothing but India? That he should be subjected, was simple enough; but Constance! Waring’s brow clouded more and more. He kept silent, taking no part in the talk, and the young fools did not so much as remark it, but went on with their own absurdity more and more.

The transformation of a series of little Italian municipalities, although in their nature more towns than villages, rendered less rustic by the traditions of an exposed coast, and many a crisis of self-defence, into little modern towns full of hotels and tourists, is neither a pleasant nor a lovely process. San Remo in the old days, before Dr Antonio made it known to the world, lay among its olive-gardens on the edge of the sea, which grew bluer and bluer as it crept to the feet of the human master of the soil, a delight to behold, a little picture which memory cherished. Wide promenades flanked with big hotels, with conventional gardens full of green bushes, and a kiosk for the band, make a very different prospect now. But then, in the old days, there could have been no music-sellers with pianos to let or sell; no famous English chemist with coloured bottles; no big shops in which travellers could be tempted. Constance forgot Captain Gaunt when she found herself in this atmosphere of the world. She began to remember things she wanted. “Papa, if you don’t despise it too much, you must let me do a little shopping,” she said. She wanted a hat for the sun. She wanted some eau-de-Cologne. She wanted just to run into the jeweller’s to see if the coral was good, to see if there were any peasant-ornaments which would be characteristic. At all this her father smiled somewhat grimly, taking it as a part of the campaign into which his daughter had chosen to enter for the overthrow of the young soldier. But Constance was perfectly sincere, and had forgotten her campaign in the new and warmer interest.

“So long as you do not ask me to attend you from shop to shop,” he said.

“Oh no; Captain Gaunt will come,” said Constance.

Captain Gaunt was not a victim who required many wiles. He was less amusing than she had hoped, in so far that he had given in, in an incredibly short space of time. He was now in a condition to be trampled on at her pleasure, and this was unexciting. A longer resistance would have been much more to Constance’s mind. Captain Gaunt accompanied her to all the shops. He helped her with his advice about the piano, bending his head over her as she ran through a little air or two, and struck a few chords on one after the other of the music-seller’s stock. They were not very admirable instruments, but one was found that would do.

“You can bring your violin,” Constance said; “we must try to amuse ourselves a little.” This was before her father left them, and he heard it with a groan.

Waring took a silent walk round the bay while the purchases went on. He thought of past experiences, of the attraction which a shop has for women. Frances, no doubt, after a little of her mother’s training, would be the same. She would find out the charms of shopping. He had not even her return to look forward to, for she would not be the same Frances who had left him, when she came back. When she came back?—if she ever came back. The same Frances, never; perhaps not even a changed Frances. Her mother would quickly see what an advantage she had in getting the daughter whom her husband had brought up. She would not give her back; she would turn her into a second Constance. There had been a time when Waring had concluded that Constance was amusing and Frances dull; but it must be remembered that he was under provocation now. If she had been amusing, it had not been for him. She had exerted herself to please a commonplace, undistinguished boy, with an air of being indifferent to everything else, which was beyond measure irritating to her father. And now she had got scent of shops, and would never be happy save when she was rushing from one place to another—to Mentone, to Nice perhaps, wherever her fancied wants might lead her. Waring discussed all this with himself as he rambled along, his nerves all set on edge, his taste revolted. Flirtations and shops—was he to be brought to this? he who had been free from domestic encumbrance, who had known nothing for so many years but a little ministrant, who never troubled him, who was ready when he wanted her, but never put forth herself as a restraint or an annoyance. He had advised Constance to take what good she could find in her life; but he had never imagined that this was the line she would take.

The drive home was scarcely more satisfactory. Young Gaunt had got a little courage by the episode of the shops. He ventured to tell her of the trifles he had brought with him from India, and to ask if Miss Waring would care to see them; and he described to her the progress he had made with his violin, and what his attainments were in music. Constance told him that the best thing he could do was to bring the said violin and all his music, so that they might see what they could do together. “If you are not too far advanced for me,” she said with a laugh. “Come in the morning, when we shall not be interrupted.”

Her father listened, but said nothing. His imagination immediately set before him the tuning and scraping, the clang of the piano, the shriek of the fiddle, and he himself only two rooms off, endeavouring in vain to collect his thoughts and do his work! Mr Waring’s work was not of the first importance, but still it was his work, and momentous to him. He bore, however, a countenance unmoved, if very grave, and even endured without a word the young man’s entrance with them, the consultation about where the piano was to stand, and tea afterwards in the loggia. He did not himself want any tea; he left the young people to enjoy this refreshment together while he retired to his bookroom. But with only two rooms between, and with his senses quickened by displeasure, he heard their voices, the laughter, the continual flow of talk, even the little tinkle of the teacups—every sound. He had never been disturbed by Frances’ tea; but then, except Tasie Durant, there had been nobody to share it, no son from the bungalow, no privileged messenger sent by his mother. Mrs Gaunt’s children, of whom she talked continually, had always been a nuisance, except to the sympathetic soul of Frances. But who could have imagined the prominence which they had assumed now?

Young Gaunt did not go away until shortly before dinner; and Constance, after accompanying him to the anteroom, went along the corridor singing, to her own room, to change her dress. Though her room (Frances’ room that was) was at the extremity of the suite, her father heard her light voice running on in a little operatic air all the time she made her toilet. Had it been described in a book, he thought to himself it would have had a pretty sound. The girl’s voice, sweet and gay, sounding through the house, the voice of happy youth brightening the dull life there, the voice of innocent content betraying its own satisfaction with existence—satisfaction in having a young fool to flirt with, and some trumpery shops to buy unnecessary appendages in! At dinner, however, she made fun of young Gaunt, and the morose father was a little mollified. “It is rather dreadful for other people when there is an adoring mother in the background to think everything you do perfection,” Constance said. “I don’t think we shall make much of the violin.”

“These are subjects on which you can speak with more authority than I—both the violin and the mother,” said Waring.

“Oh,” she cried, “you don’t think mamma was one of the adoring kind, I hope! There may be things in her which might be mended; but she is not like that. She kept one in one’s proper place. And as for the violin, I suspect he plays it like an old fiddler in the streets.”

“You have changed your mind about it very rapidly,” said Waring; but on the whole he was pleased. “You seemed much interested both in the hero and the music, a little while ago.”

“Yes; was I not?” said Constance with perfect candour. “And he took it all in, as if it were likely. These young men from India, they are very ingenuous. It seems wicked to take advantage of them, does it not?”

“More people are ingenuous than the young man from India. I intended to speak to you very seriously as soon as he was gone—to ask you——”

“What were my intentions?” cried Constance, with an outburst of the gayest laughter. “Oh, what a pity I began! How sorry I am to have missed that! Do you think his mother will ask me, papa? It is generally the man, isn’t it, who is questioned? and he says his intentions are honourable. Mine, I frankly allow, are not honourable.”

“No; very much the reverse, I should think. But it had better be clearly defined, for my satisfaction, Constance, which of you is true—the girl who cried over her loneliness last night, or she who made love to Captain Gaunt this morning——”

“No, papa; only was a little nice to him, because he is lonely too.”

“These delicacies of expression are too fine for me.—— Who made the poor young fellow believe that she liked his society immensely, was much interested, counted upon him and his violin as her greatest pleasures.”

“You are going too far,” she said. “I think the fiddle will be fun. When you play very badly and are a little conceited about it, you are always amusing. And as for Captain Gaunt—so long as he does not complain——”

“It is I who am complaining, Constance.”

“Well, papa—but why? You told me last night to take what I had, since I could not have what I want.”

“And you have acted upon my advice? With great promptitude, I must allow.”

“Yes,” she said with composure. “What is the use of losing time? It is not my fault if there is somebody here quite ready. It amuses him too. And what harm am I doing? A girl can’t be asked—except for fun—those disagreeable questions.”

“And therefore you think a girl can do—what would be dishonourable in a man.”

“Oh, you are so much too serious,” cried Constance. “Are you always as serious as this? You laughed when I told you about Fanny Gervoise. Is it only because it is me that you find fault? And don’t you think it is a little too soon for parental interference? The Gaunts would be much surprised. They would think you were afraid for my peace of mind, papa—as her parents were afraid for Miss Tasie.”

This moved the stern father to a smile. He had thought that Constance did not appreciate that joke; but the girl had more humour than he supposed. “I see,” he said, “you will have your own way; but remember, Constance, I cannot allow it to go too far.”

How could he prevent it going as far as she pleased? she said to herself with a little scorn, when she was alone. Parents may be medieval if they will; but the means have never yet been invented of preventing a woman, when she is so minded and has the power in her hands, from achieving her little triumph over a young man’s heart.

CHAPTER XIX.

“Where is George? I scarcely ever see him,” said the General, in querulous tones. “He is always after that girl of Waring’s. Why don’t you try to keep him at home?”

Mrs Gaunt did not say that she had done her best to keep him at home, but found her efforts unsuccessful. She said apologetically, “He has so very little to amuse him here; and the music, you know, is a great bond.”

“He plays like a beginner; and she, like a—like a—as well as a professional, I don’t understand what kind of bond that can be.”

“So much the greater a compliment is it to George that she likes his playing,” responded the mother promptly.

“She likes to make a fool of him, I think,” the General said; “and you help her on. I don’t understand your tactics. Women generally like to keep their sons free from such entanglements; and after getting him safely out of India, where every man is bound to fall into mischief——”

“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs Gaunt, “if it ever should come to that—think, what an excellent connection. I wish it had been Frances; I do wish it had been Frances. I had always set my heart on that. But the connection would be the same.”

“You knew nothing about the connection when you set your heart on Frances. And I can’t help thinking there is something odd about the connection. Why should that girl have come here, and why should the other one be spirited away like a transformation scene?”

“Well, my dear, it is in the peerage,” said Mrs Gaunt. “Great families, we all know, are often very queer in their arrangements. But there can be no doubt it is all right, for it is in the peerage. If it had been Frances, I should have been too happy. With such a connection, he could not fail to get on.”

“He had much better get on by his own merits,” retorted the General with a grumble. “Frances! Frances was not to be compared with this girl. But I don’t believe she means anything more than amusing herself,” he added. “This is not the sort of girl to marry a poor soldier without a penny—not she. She will take her fun out of him, and then——”

The General kissed the end of his fingers and tossed them into the air. He was, perhaps, a little annoyed that his son had stepped in and monopolised the most amusing member of the society. And perhaps he did not think so badly of George’s chances as he said.

“You may be sure,” said Mrs Gaunt, indignantly, “she will do nothing of the kind. It is not every day that a girl gets a fine fellow like our George at her feet. He is just a little too much at her feet, which is always a mistake, I think. But still, General, you cannot but allow that Lord Markham’s sister——”

“I have never seen much good come of great connections,” said the General; but though his tone was that of a sceptic, his mind was softer than his speech. He, too, felt a certain elation in the thought that the youngest, who was not the clever one of the family, and who had not been quite so steady as might have been desired, was thus in the way of putting himself above the reach of fate. For of course, to be brother-in-law to a viscount was a good thing. It might not be of the same use as in the days when patronage ruled supreme; but still it would be folly to suppose that it was not an advantage. It would admit George to circles with which otherwise he could have formed no acquaintance, and make him known to people who could push him in his profession. George was the one about whom they had been most anxious. All the others were doing well in their way, though it was not a way which threw them into contact with viscounts or fine society. George would be over all their heads in that respect, and he was the one that wanted it most,—he was the one who was most dependent on outside aid.

“I don’t quite understand,” said Mrs Gaunt, “what Constance’ position is. She ought to be the Honourable, don’t you think? The Honourable Constance sounds very pretty. It would come in very nicely with Gaunt, which is an aristocratic-sounding name. People may say what they like about titles, but they are very nice, there is such individuality in them. Mrs George might be anybody; it might be me, as your name is George too. But the Honourable would distinguish it at once. When she called here, there was only Miss Constance Waring written on her father’s card; but then you don’t put Honourable on your card; and as Lady Markham’s daughter——”

“Women don’t count,” said the General, “as I’ve often told you. She’s Waring’s daughter.”

“Mr Waring may be a very clever man,” said Mrs Gaunt, indignantly; “but I should like to know how Constance can be the daughter of a viscountess in her own right without——”

“Is she a viscountess in her own right?”

This question brought Mrs Gaunt to a sudden pause. She looked at him with a startled air. “It is not through Mr Waring, that is clear,” she said.

“But it is not in her own right—at least I don’t think so; it is through her first husband, the father of that funny little creature” (meaning Lord Markham).

“General!” said Mrs Gaunt, shocked. Then she added, “I must make some excuse to look at the Peerage this afternoon. The Durants have always got their Peerage on the table. We shall have to send for one too, if——”

“If what? If your boy gets a wife who has titled connections, for that is all. A wife! and what is he to keep her on, in the name of heaven?”

“Mothers and brothers are tolerably close connections,” said Mrs Gaunt with dignity. “He has got his pay, General; and you always intended, if he married to your satisfaction—— Of course,” she added, speaking very quickly, to forestall an outburst, “Lady Markham will not leave her daughter dependent upon a captain’s pay. And even Mr Waring—Mr Waring must have a fortune of his own, or—or a person like that would never have married him; and he would not be able to live as he does, very comfortably, even luxuriously——”

“Oh, I suppose he has enough to live on. But as for pinching himself in order to enable his girl to marry your boy, I don’t believe a word of it,” exclaimed the General. Fortunately, being carried away by this wave of criticism, he had forgotten his wife’s allusion to his own intentions in George’s favour; and this was a subject on which she had no desire to be premature.

“Well, General,” she said, “perhaps we are going a little too fast. We don’t know yet whether anything will come of it. George is rather a lady’s man. It may be only a flirtation; it may end in nothing. We need not begin to count our chickens——”

“Why, it was you!” cried the astonished General. “I never should have remarked anything about it, or wasted a moment’s thought on the subject!”

Mrs Gaunt was not a clever woman, skilled in the art of leaving conversational responsibilities on the shoulders of her interlocutor; but if a woman is not inspired on behalf of her youngest boy, when is she to be inspired? She gave her shoulders the slightest possible shrug and left him to his newspaper. They had a newspaper from England every morning—the ‘Standard,’ whose reasonable Conservatism suited the old General. Except in military matters, such questions as the advance of Russia towards Afghanistan, or the defences of our own coasts, the General was not a bigot, and preferred his politics mild, with as little froth and foam as possible. His newspaper afforded him occupation for the entire morning, and he enjoyed it in very pleasant wise, seated under his veranda with a faint suspicion of lemon-blossom in the air which ruffled the young olive-trees all around, and the blue breadths of the sea stretching far away at his feet. The garden behind was fenced in with lemon and orange trees, the fruit in several stages, and just a little point of blossom here and there, not enough to load the air. Mrs Gaunt had preserved the wild flowers that were natural to the place, and accordingly had a scarlet field of anemones which wanted no cultivation, and innumerable clusters of the sweet white narcissus filling her little enclosure. These cost no trouble, and left Toni, the man-of-all-work, at leisure for the more profitable culture of the olives. From where the General sat, there was nothing visible, however, but the terraces descending in steps towards the distant glimpse of the road, and the light-blue margin, edged with spray, of the sea—under a soft and cheering sun, that warmed to the heart, but did not scorch or blaze, and with a soft air playing about his old temples, breathing freshness and that lemon-bloom. Sometimes there would come a faint sound of voices from some group of workers among the olives. The little clump of palm-trees at the end of the garden—for nothing here is perfect without a palm or two—cast a fantastic shadow, that waved over the newspaper now and then. When a man is old and has done his work, what can he want more than this sweet retirement and stillness? But naturally, it was not all that was necessary to young Captain George.

Mrs Gaunt went over to the Durants in the afternoon, as she so often did, and found that family, as usual, on their loggia. It cost her a little trouble and diplomacy to get a private inspection of the Peerage, and even when she did so, it threw but little light upon her question. Geoffrey Viscount Markham, tenth lord, was a name which she read with a little flutter of her heart, feeling that he was already almost a relation; and she read over the names of Markham Priory and Dunmorra, his lodge in the Highlands, and the town address in Eaton Square, all with a sense that by-and-by she might herself be directing letters from one or other of these places. But the Peerage said nothing about the Dowager Lady Markham subsequent to the conclusion of the first marriage, except that she had married again, E. Waring, Esq.; and thus Mrs Gaunt’s studies came to no satisfactory end. She introduced the subject, however, in the course of tea. She had asked whether any one had heard from Frances, and had received a satisfactory reply.

“Oh yes; I have had two letters; but she does not say very much. They had gone down to the Priory for Easter; and she was to be presented at the first drawing-room. Fancy Frances in a Court train and feathers, at a drawing-room! It does seem so very strange,” Tasie said. She said it with a slight sigh, for it was she, in old times, who had expounded Society to little Frances, and taught her what in an emergency it would be right to do and say; and now little Frances had taken a stride in advance. “I asked her to write and tell us all about it, and what she wore.”

“It would be white, of course.”

“Oh yes, it would be white—a débutante. When I went to drawing-rooms,” said Mrs Durant, who had once, in the character of chaplainess to an Embassy, made her courtesy to her Majesty, “young ladies’ toilets were simpler than now. Frances will probably be in white satin, which, except for a wedding dress, is quite unsuitable, I think, for a girl.”

“I wonder if we shall see it in the papers? Sometimes my sister-in-law sends me a ‘Queen,’” said Mrs Gaunt, “when she thinks there is something in it which will interest me; but she does not know anything about Frances. Dear little thing, I can’t think of her in white satin. Her sister, now——”

“Constance would wear velvet, if she could—or cloth-of-gold,” cried Tasie, with a little irritation. Her mother gave her a reproving glance.

“There is a tone in your voice, Tasie, which is not kind.”

“Oh yes; I know, mamma. But Constance is rather a trial. I know one ought not to show it. She looks as if one was not good enough to tie her shoes. And after all, she is no better than Frances; she is not half so nice as Frances; but I mean there can be no difference of position between sisters—one is just as good as the other; and Frances was so fond of coming here.”

“Do you think Constance gives herself airs? Oh no, dear Tasie,” said Mrs Gaunt, “she is really not at all—when you come to know her. I am most fond of Frances myself. Frances has grown up among us, and we know all about her; that is what makes the difference. And Constance—is a little shy.”

At this there was a cry from the family. “I don’t think she is shy,” said the old clergyman, whom Constance had insulted by walking out of church before the sermon.

“Shy!” exclaimed Mrs Durant, “about as shy as——” But no simile occurred to her which was bold enough to meet the case.

“It is better she should not be shy,” said Tasie. “You remember how she drove those people from the hotel to church. They have come ever since. They are quite afraid of her. Oh, there are some good things in her, some very good things.”

“We are the more hard to please, after knowing Frances,” repeated Mrs Gaunt. “But when a girl has been like that, used to the best society—— By the way, Mr Durant, you who know everything, are sure to know—Is she the Honourable? For my part I can’t quite make it out.”

Mr Durant put on his spectacles to look at her, as if such a question passed the bounds of the permissible. He was very imposing when he looked at any one through those spectacles with an air of mingled astonishment and superiority. “Why should she be an Honourable?” he said.

Mrs Gaunt felt as if she would like to sink into the abysses of the earth—that is, through the floor of the loggia, whatever might be the dreadful depths underneath. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said meekly. “I—I only thought—her mother being a—a titled person, a—a viscountess in her own right——”

“But my dear lady,” said Mr Durant, with a satisfaction in his superior knowledge which was almost unspeakable, “Lady Markham is not a viscountess in her own right. Dear, no! She is not a viscountess at all. She is plain Mrs Waring, and nothing else, if right was right. Society only winks good-naturedly at her retaining the title, which she certainly, if there is any meaning in the peerage at all, forfeits by marrying a commoner.”

Mrs Durant and Tasie both looked with great admiration at their head and instructor as he thus spoke. “You may be sure Mr Durant says nothing that he is not quite sure of,” said the wife, crushing any possible scepticism on the part of the inquirer; and “Papa knows such a lot,” added Tasie, awed, yet smiling, on her side.

“Oh, is that all?” said Mrs Gaunt, greatly subdued. “But then, Lord Markham—calls her his sister, you know.”

“The nobility,” said Mr Durant, “are always very scrupulous about relationships; and she is his step-sister. He couldn’t qualify the relationship by calling her so. A common person might do so, but not a man of high breeding, like Lord Markham—that is all.”

“I suppose you must be right,” said Mrs Gaunt. “The General said so too. But it does seem very strange to me that of the same woman’s children, and she a lady of title, one should be a lord, and the other have no sort of distinction at all.” They all smiled upon her blandly, every one ready with a new piece of information, and much sympathy for her ignorance, which Mrs Gaunt, seeing that it was she that was likely to be related to Lord Markham, and not any of the Durants, felt that she could not bear; so she jumped up hastily and declared that she must be going, that the General would be waiting for her. “I hope you will come over some evening, and I will ask the Warings, and Tasie must bring her music. I am sure you would like to hear George’s violin. He is getting on so well, with Constance to play his accompaniments;” and before any one could reply to her, Mrs Gaunt had hurried away.

It is painful not to have time to get out your retort; and these excellent people turned instinctively upon each other to discharge the unflown arrows. “It is so very easy, with a little trouble, to understand the titles, complimentary and otherwise, of our own nobility,” said Mr Durant, shaking his head.

“And such a sign of want of breeding not to understand them,” said his wife.

“The Honourable Constance would sound very pretty,” cried Tasie; “it is such a pity.”

“Especially, our friend thinks, if it was the Honourable Constance Gaunt.”

“That she could never be, my dear,” said the old clergyman mildly. “She might be the Honourable Mrs Gaunt; but Constance, no—not in any case.”

“I should like to know why,” Mrs Durant said.

Perhaps here the excellent chaplain’s knowledge failed him; or he had become weary of the subject; for he rose and said, “I have really no more time for a matter which does not concern us,” and trotted away.

The mother and daughter left alone together, naturally turned to a point more interesting than the claims of Constance to rank. “Do you really think, mamma,” said Tasie—“do you really, really think,—it is silly to be always discussing these sort of questions—but do you believe that Constance Waring actually—means anything?”

“You should say does George Gaunt mean anything? The girl never comes first in such a question,” said Mrs Durant, with that ingrained contempt for girls which often appears in elderly women. Tasie was so (traditionally) young, besides having a heart of sixteen in her bosom, that her sympathies were all with the girl.

“I don’t think in this case, mamma,” she said. “Constance is so much more a person of the world than any of us. I don’t mean to say she is worldly. Oh no! but having been in society, and so much out.”

“I should like to know in what kind of society she has been,” said Mrs Durant, who took gloomy views. “I don’t want to say a word against Lady Markham; but society, Tasie, the kind of society to which your father and I have been accustomed, looks rather coldly upon a wife living apart from her husband. Oh, I don’t mean to say Lady Markham was to blame. Probably she is a most excellent person; but the presumption is that at least, you know, there were—faults on both sides.”

“I am sure I can’t give an opinion,” cried Tasie, “for, of course, I don’t know anything about it. But George Gaunt has nothing but his pay; and Constance couldn’t be in love with him, could she? Oh no! I don’t know anything about it; but I can’t think a girl like Constance——”

“A girl in a false position,” said the chaplain’s wife, “is often glad to marry any one, just for a settled place in the world.”

“Oh, but not Constance, mamma! I am sure she is just amusing herself.”

“Tasie! you speak as if she were the man,” exclaimed Mrs Durant, in a tone of reproof.

CHAPTER XX.

The subjects of these consultations were at the moment in the full course of a sonata, and oblivious of everything else in the world but themselves, their music, and their concerns generally. A fortnight had passed of continual intercourse, of much music, of that propinquity which is said to originate more matches than any higher influence. Nothing can be more curious than the pleasure which young persons, and even persons who are no longer young, find perennially in this condition of suppressed love-making, this preoccupation of all thoughts and plans in the series of continually recurring meetings, the confidences, the divinations, the endless talk which is never exhausted, and in which the most artificial beings in the world probably reveal more of themselves than they themselves know—when the edge of emotion is always being touched, and very often, by one of the pair at least overpassed, in either a comic or a tragic way. It is not necessary that there should be any real charm in either party, and what is still more extraordinary, it is possible enough that one may be a person of genius, and the other not far removed from a fool; that one may be simple as a rustic, and the other a man or woman of the world. No rule, in short, holds in those extraordinary yet most common and everyday conjunctions. There is an amount of amusement, excitement, variety, to be found in them which is in no other kind of diversion. This is the great reason, no doubt, why flirtation never fails. It is dangerous, which helps the effect. For those sinners who go into it voluntarily for the sake of amusement, it has all the attractions of romance and the drama combined. If they are intellectual, it is a study of human character; in all cases, it is an interest which quickens the colour and the current of life: who can tell why or how? It is not the disastrous love-makings that end in misery and sin, of which we speak. It is those which are practised in society every day, which sometimes end in a heart-break indeed, but often in nothing at all.

Constance was not unacquainted with the amusement, though she was so young; and it is to be feared that she resorted to it deliberately for the amusement of her otherwise dull life at the Palazzo, in the first shock of her loneliness, when she felt herself abandoned. It was, of course, the victim himself who had first put the suggestion and the means of carrying it out into her hands. And she did not take it up in pure wantonness, but actually gave a thought to him, and the effect it might produce upon him, even in the very act of entering upon her diversion. She said to herself that Captain Gaunt, too, was very dull; that he would want something more than the society of his father and mother; that it would be a kindness to the old people to make his life amusing to him, since in that case he would stay, and in the other, not. And as for himself, if the worst came to the worst, and he fell seriously in love—as, indeed, seemed rather likely, judging from the fervour of the beginning—even that, Constance calculated, would do him no permanent harm. “Men have died,” she said to herself, “but not for love.” And then there is that famous phrase about a liberal education. What was it? To love her was a liberal education? Something of that sort. Then it could only be an advantage to him; for Constance was aware that she herself was cleverer, more cultivated, and generally far more “up to” everything than young Gaunt. If he had to pay for it by a disappointment, really everybody had to pay for their education in one way or another; and if he were disappointed, it would be his own fault; for he must know very well, everybody must know, that it was quite out of the question she should marry him in any circumstances—entirely out of the question; unless he was an absolute simpleton, or the most presumptuous young coxcomb in the world, he must see that; and if he were one or the other, the discovery would do him all the good in the world. Thus Constance made it out fully, and to her own satisfaction, that in any case the experience could do him nothing but good.

Things had gone very far during this fortnight—so far, that she sometimes had a doubt whether they had not gone far enough. For one thing, it had cost her a great deal in the way of music. She was a very accomplished musician for her age, and poor George Gaunt was one of the greatest bunglers that ever began to study the violin. It may be supposed what an amusement this intercourse was to Constance, when it is said that she bore with his violin like an angel, laughed and scolded and encouraged and pulled him along till he believed that he could play the waltzes of Chopin and many other things which were as far above him as the empyrean is above earth. When he paused, bewildered, imploring her to go on, assuring her that he could catch her up, Constance betrayed no horror, but only laughed till the tears came. She would turn round upon her music-stool sometimes and rally him with a free use of a superior kind of slang, which was unutterably solemn, and quite unknown to the young soldier, who laboured conscientiously with his fiddle in the evenings and mornings, till General Gaunt’s life became a burden to him—in a vain effort to elevate himself to a standard with which she might be satisfied. He went to practise in the morning; he went in the afternoon to ask if she thought of making any expedition? to suggest that his mother wished very much to take him to see this or that, and had sent him to ask would Miss Waring come? Constance was generally quite willing to come, and not at all afraid to walk to the bungalow with him, where, perhaps, old Luca’s carriage would be standing to drive them along the dusty road to the opening of some valley, where Mrs Gaunt, not a good climber, she allowed, would sit and wait for them till they had explored the dell, or inspected the little town seated at its head. Captain Gaunt was more punctilious about his mother’s presence as chaperon than Constance was, who felt quite at her ease roaming with him among the terraces of the olive woods. It was altogether so idyllic, so innocent, that there was no occasion for any conventional safeguards: and there was nobody to see them or remark upon the prolonged tête-à-tête. Constance came to know the young fellow far better than his mother did, better than he himself did, in these walks and talks.

“Miss Waring, don’t laugh at a fellow. I know I deserve it.—Oh yes, do, if you like. I had rather you laughed than closed the piano. I had a good long grind at it this morning; but somehow these triplets are more than I can fathom. Let us have that movement again, will you? Oh, not if you are tired. As long as you’ll let me sit and talk. I love music with all my heart, but I love——”

“Chatter,” said Constance. “I know you do. It is not a dignified word to apply to a gentleman; but you know, Captain Gaunt, you do love to chatter.”

“Anything to please you,” said the young man. “That wasn’t how I intended to end my sentence. I love to—chatter, if you like, as long as you will listen—or play, or do anything; as long as——”

“You must allow,” said Constance, “that I listen admirably. I am thoroughly well up in all your subjects. I know the station as well as if I lived there.”

“Don’t say that,” he cried; “it makes a man beside himself. Oh, if there was any chance that you might ever——! I think—I’m almost sure—you would like the society in India—it’s so easy; everybody’s so kind. A—a young couple, you know, as long as the lady is—delightful.”

“But I am not a young couple,” said Constance, with a smile. “You sometimes confuse your plurals in the funniest way. Is that Indian too? Now come, Captain Gaunt, let us get on. Begin at the andante. One, two—three! Now, let’s get on.”

And then a few bars would be played, and then she would turn sharp round upon the music-stool and take the violin out of his astonished hands.

“Oh, what a shriek! It goes through and through one’s head. Don’t you think an instrument has feelings? That was a cry of the poor ill-used fiddle, that could bear no more. Give it to me.” She took the bow in her hands, and leaned the instrument tenderly against her shoulder. “It should be played like this,” she said.

“Miss Waring, you can play the violin too?”

“A little,” she said, leaning down her soft cheek against it, as if she loved it, and drawing a charmingly sympathetic harmony from the ill-used strings.

“I will never play again,” cried the young man. “Yes, I will—to touch it where you have touched it. Oh, I think you can do everything, and make everything perfect you look at.”

“No,” said Constance, shaking her head as she ran the bow softly, so softly over the strings; “for you are not perfect at all, though I have looked at you a great deal. Look! this is the way to do it. I am not going to accompany you any more. I am going to give you lessons. Take it now, and let me see you play that passage. Louder, softer—louder. Come, that was better. I think I shall make something of you after all.”

“You can make anything of me,” said the poor young soldier, with his lips on the place her cheek had touched—“whatever you please.”

“A first-rate violin-player, then,” said Constance. “But I don’t think my power goes so high as that. Poor General, what does he say when you grind, as you call it, all the morning?”

“Oh, mother smooths him down—that is the use of a mother.”

“Is it?” said Constance, with an air of impartial inquiry. “I didn’t know. Come, Captain Gaunt, we are losing our time.”

And then tant bien que mal, the sonata was got through.

“I am glad Beethoven is dead,” said Constance, as she closed the piano. “He is safe from that at least: he can never hear us play. When you go home, Captain Gaunt, I advise you to take lodgings in some quite out-of-the-way place, about Russell Square, or Islington, or somewhere, and grind, as you call it, till you are had up as a nuisance; or else——”

“Or else—what, Miss Waring? Anything to please you.”

“Or else—give it up altogether,” Constance said.

His face grew very long; he was very fond of his violin. “If you think it is so hopeless as that—if you wish me to give it up altogether——”

“Oh, not I. It amuses me. I like to hear you break down. It would be quite a pity if you were to give up, you take my scolding so delightfully. Don’t give it up as long as you are here, Captain Gaunt. After that, it doesn’t matter what happens—to me.”

“No,” he said, almost with a groan, “it doesn’t matter what happens after that—to me. It’s the Deluge, you know,” said the poor young fellow. “I wish the world would come to an end first”—thus unconsciously echoing the poet. “But, Miss Waring,” he added anxiously, coming a little closer, “I may come back? Though I must go to London, it is not necessary I should stay there. I may come back?”

“Oh, I hope so, Captain Gaunt. What would your mother do, if you did not come back? But I suppose she will be going away for the summer. Everybody leaves Bordighera in the summer, I hear.”

“I had not thought of that,” cried the young soldier. “And you will be going too?’

“I suppose so,” said Constance. “Papa, I hope, is not so lost to every sense of duty as to let me spoil my complexion for ever by staying here.”

“That would be impossible,” he said, with eyes full of admiration.

“You intend that for a compliment, Captain Gaunt; but it is no compliment. It means either that I have no complexion to lose, or that I am one of those thick-skinned people who take no harm—neither of which is complimentary, nor true. I shall have to teach you how to pay compliments as well as how to play the violin.”

“Ah, if you only would!” he cried. “Teach me how to make myself what you like—how to speak, how to look, how——”

“Oh, that is a great deal too much,” she said. “I cannot undertake all your education. Do you know it is close upon noon? Unless you are going to stay to breakfast——”

“Oh, thanks, Miss Waring. They will expect me at home. But you will give me a message to take back to my mother. I may come to fetch you to drive with her to-day?”

“It must be dreadfully dull work for her sitting waiting while we explore.”

“Oh, not at all. She is never dull when she knows I am enjoying myself—that’s the mother’s way.”

“Is it?” said Constance, with once more that air of acquiring information. “I am not acquainted with that kind of mother. But do you think, Captain Gaunt, it is right to enjoy yourself, as you call it, at your mother’s cost?”

He gave her a look of great doubt and trouble. “Oh, Miss Waring, I don’t think you should put it so. My mother finds her pleasure in that—indeed she does. Ask herself. Of course I would not impose upon her, not for the world; but she likes it, I assure you she likes it.”

“It is very extraordinary that any one should like sitting in that carriage for hours with nothing to do. I will come with pleasure, Captain Gaunt. I will sit with your mother while you go and take your walk. That will be more cheerful for all parties,” Constance said.

Young Gaunt’s face grew half a mile long. He began to expostulate and explain; but Waring’s step was heard stirring in the next room, approaching the door, and the young man had no desire to see the master of the house with his watch in his hand, demanding to know why Domenico was so late. Captain Gaunt knew very well why Domenico was so late. He knew a way of conciliating the servants, though he had not yet succeeded with the young mistress. He said hurriedly, “I will come for you at three,” and rushed away. Waring came in at one door as Gaunt disappeared at the other. The delay of the breakfast was a practical matter, of which, without any reproach of medievalism, he had a right to complain.

“If you must have this young fellow every morning, he may at least go away in proper time,” he said, with his watch in his hand, as young Gaunt had divined.

“Oh, papa, twelve is striking loud enough. You need not produce your watch at the same time.”

“Then why have I to wait?” he said. There was something awful in his tone. But Domenico was equal to the occasion, worthy at once of the lover’s and of the father’s trust. At that moment, Captain Gaunt having been got away while the great bell of Bordighera was still sounding, the faithful Domenico threw open, perhaps with a little more sound than was necessary, an ostentation of readiness, the dining-room door.

The meal was a somewhat silent one. Perhaps Constance was pondering the looks which she had not been able to ignore, the words which she had managed to quench like so many fiery arrows before they could set fire to anything, of her eager lover, and was pale and a little preoccupied in spite of herself, feeling that things were going further than she intended; and perhaps her father, feeling the situation too serious, and remonstrance inevitable, was silenced by the thought of what he had to say. It is so difficult in such circumstances for two people, with no relief from any third party, without even that wholesome regard for the servant in attendance, which keeps the peace during many a family crisis—for with Domenico, who knew no English, they were as safe as when they were alone—it is very difficult to find subjects for conversation, that will not lead direct to the very heart of the matter which is being postponed. Constance could not talk of her music, for Gaunt was associated with it. She could not speak of her walk, for he was her invariable companion. She could ask no questions about the neighbourhood, for was it not to make her acquainted with the neighbourhood that all those expeditions were being made? The great bouquet of anemones which blazed in the centre of the table came from Mrs Gaunt’s garden. She began to think that she was buying her amusement too dearly. As for Waring, his mind was not so full of these references, but he was occupied by the thought of what he had to say to this headstrong girl, and by a strong sense that he was an ill-used man, in having such responsibilities thrust upon him against his will. Frances would not have led him into such difficulties. To Frances, young Gaunt would have been no more interesting than his father; or so at least this man, whose experience had taught him so little, was ready to believe.

“I want to say something to you, Constance,” he began at length, after Domenico had left the room. “You must not stop my mouth by remarks about middle-age parents. I am a middle-age parent, so there is an end of it. Are you going to marry George Gaunt?”

“I—going to marry George Gaunt! Papa!”

“You had better, I think,” said her father. “It will save us all a great deal of embarrassment. I should not have recommended it, had I been consulted at the beginning. But you like to be independent and have your own way; and the best thing you can do is to marry. I don’t know how your mother will take it; but so far as I am concerned, I think it would save everybody a great deal of trouble. You will be able to turn him round your finger; that will suit you, though the want of money may be in your way.”

“I think you must mean to insult me, papa,” said Constance, who had grown crimson.

“That is all nonsense, my dear. I am suggesting what seems the best thing in the circumstances, to set us all at our ease.”

“To get rid of me, you mean,” she cried.

“I have not taken any steps to get rid of you. I did not invite you, in the first place, you will remember; you came of your own will. But I was very willing to make the best of it. I let Frances go, who suited me—whom I had brought up—for your sake. All the rest has been your doing. Young Gaunt was never invited by me. I have had no hand in those rambles of yours. But since you find so much pleasure in his society——”

“Papa, you know I don’t find pleasure in his society; you know——”

“Then why do you seek it?” said Waring, with that logic which is so cruel.

Constance, on the other side of the table, was as red as the anemones, and far more brilliant in the glow of passion. “I have not sought it,” she cried. “I have let him come—that is all. I have gone when Mrs Gaunt asked me. Must a girl marry every man that chooses to be silly? Can I help it, if he is so vain? It is only vanity,” she said, springing up from her chair, “that makes men think a girl is always ready to marry. What should I marry for? If I had wanted to marry—— Papa, I don’t wish to be disagreeable, but it is vulgar, if you force me to say it—it is common to talk to me so.”

“I might retort,” said Waring.

“Oh yes, I know you might retort. It is common to amuse one’s self. So is it common to breathe and move about, and like a little fun when you are young. I have no fun here. There is nobody to talk to, not a thing to do. How do you suppose I am to get on? How can I live without something to fill up my time?”

“Then you must take the consequences,” he said.

In spite of herself, Constance felt a shiver of alarm. She began to speak, then stopped suddenly, looked at him with a look of mingled defiance and terror, and—what was so unlike her, so common, so weak, as she felt—began to cry, notwithstanding all she could do to restrain herself. To hide this unaccountable weakness, she hastened off and hid herself in her room, making as if she had gone off in resentment. Better that, than that he should see her crying like any silly girl. All this had got on her nerves, she explained to herself afterwards. The consequences! Constance held her breath as they became dimly apparent to her in an atmosphere of horror. George Gaunt no longer an eager lover, whom it was amusing, even exciting to draw on, to see just on the eve of a self-committal, which it was the greatest fun in the world to stop, before it went too far—but the master of her destinies, her constant and inseparable companion, from whom she could never get free, by whom she must not even say that she was bored to death—gracious powers! and with so many other attendant horrors. To go to India with him, to fall into the life of the station, to march with the regiment. Constance’s lively imagination pictured a baggage-waggon, with herself on the top, which made her laugh. But the reality was not laughable; it was horrible. The consequences! No; she would not take the consequences. She would sit with Mrs Gaunt in the carriage, and let him take his walk by himself. She would begin to show him the extent of his mistake from that very day. To take any stronger step, to refuse to go out with him at all, she thought, on consideration, not necessary. The gentler measures first, which perhaps he might be wise enough to accept.

But if he did not accept them, what was Constance to do? She had run away from an impending catastrophe, to take refuge with her father. But with whom could she take refuge, if he continued to hold his present strain of argument? And unless he would go away of himself, how was she to shake off this young soldier? She did not want to shake him off; he was all the amusement she had. What was she to do?

There glanced across her mind for a moment a sort of desperate gleam of reflection from her father’s words: “You like to be independent; the best thing you can do is to marry.” There was a kind of truth in it, a sort of distorted truth, such as was likely enough to come through the medium of a mind so wholly at variance with all established forms. Independent—there was something in that; and India was full of novelty, amusing, a sort of world she had no experience of. A tremor of excitement got into her nerves as she heard the bell ring, and knew that he had come for her. He! the only individual who was at all interesting for the moment, whom she held in her hands, to do what she pleased with. She could turn him round her little finger, as her father said: and independence! Was it a Mephistopheles that was tempting her, or a good angel leading her the right way?

CHAPTER XXI.

Frances remembered little of the journey after it was over, though she was keenly conscious of everything at the time, if there can be any keen consciousness of a thing which is all vague, which conveys no clear idea. Through the darkness of the night, which came on before she had left the coast she knew, with all those familiar towns gleaming out as she passed—Mentone, Monaco on its headland, the sheltering bays which keep so warm and bright those cities of sickness, of idleness, and pleasure—the palms, the olives, the oranges, the aloe hedges, the roses and heliotropes—there was a confused and breathless sweep of distance, half in the dark, half in the light, the monotonous plains, the lines of poplars, the straight highroads of France. Paris, where they stayed for a night, was only like a bigger, noisier, vast railway station, to Frances. She had no time, in the hurry of her journey, in the still greater hurry of her thoughts, to realise that here was the scene of that dread Revolution of which she had read with shuddering excitement—that she was driven past the spot where the guillotine was first set up, and through the streets where the tumbrels had rolled, carrying to that dread death the many tender victims, who were all she knew of that great convulsion of history. Markham, who was so good to her, put his head out of the carriage and pointed to a series of great windows flashing with light. “What a pity there’s no time!” he said. She asked “For what?” with the most complete want of comprehension. “For shopping, of course,” he said, with a laugh. For shopping! She seemed to be unacquainted with the meaning of the words. In the midst of this strange wave of the unknown which was carrying her away, carrying her to a world more unknown still, to suppose that she could pause and think of shopping! The inappropriateness of the suggestion bewildered Frances. Markham, indeed, altogether bewildered her. He was very good to her, attending to her comfort, watchful over her needs in a way which she could not have imagined possible. Her father had never been unkind; but it did not occur to him to take care of her. It was she who took care of him. If there was anything forgotten, it was she who got the blame; and when he wanted a book, or his writing-desk, or a rug to put over his knees, he called to his little girl to hand it to him, without the faintest conception that there was anything incongruous in it. And there was nothing incongruous in it. If there is any one in the world whom it is natural to send on your errands, to get you what you want, surely your child is that person. Waring did not think on the subject, but simply did so by instinct, by nature; and equally by instinct Frances obeyed, without a doubt that it was her simplest duty. If Markham had said, “Get me my book, Frances; dear child, just open that bag—hand me so-and-so,” she would have considered it the most natural thing in the world. What he did do surprised her much more. He tripped in and out of his seat at her smallest suggestion. He pulled up and down the window at her pleasure, never appearing to think that it mattered whether he liked it or not. He took her out carefully on his arm, and made her dine, not asking what she would have, as her father might perhaps have done, but bringing her the best that was to be had, choosing what she should eat, serving her as if she had been the Queen! It contributed to the dizzying effect of the rapid journey that she should thus have been placed in a position so different from any that she had ever known.

And then there came the last stage, the strange leaden-grey stormy sea, which was so unlike those blue ripples that came up just so far—no farther, on the beach at Bordighera. She began to understand what is said in the Bible about the waves that mount up like mountains, when she saw the roll of the Channel. She had always a little wondered what that meant. To be sure, there were storms now and then along the Riviera, when the blue edge to the sea-mantle disappeared, and all became a deep purple, solemn enough for a king’s pall, as it has been the pall of so many a brave man; but even that was never like the dangerous threatening lash of the waves along those rocks, and the way in which they raised their awful heads. And was that England, white with a faint line of green, so sodden and damp as it looked, rising out of the sea? The heart of Frances sank: it was not like her anticipations. She had thought there would be something triumphant, grand, about the aspect of England—something proud, like a monarch of the sea; and it was only a damp, greyish-white line, rising not very far out of those sullen waves. An east wind was blowing with that blighting greyness which here, in the uttermost parts of the earth, we are so well used to: and it was cold. A gleam of pale sun indeed shot out of the clouds from time to time; but there was no real warmth in it, and the effect of everything was depressing. The green fields and hedgerows cheered her a little; but it was all damp, and the sky was grey. And then came London, with a roar and noise as if they had fallen into a den of wild beasts, and throngs, multitudes of people at every little station which the quick train flashed past, and on the platform, where at last she arrived dizzy and faint with fatigue and wonderment. But Markham always was more kind than words could say. He sympathised with her, seeing her forlorn looks at everything. He did not ask her how she liked it, what she thought of her native country. When they arrived at last, he found out miraculously, among the crowd of carriages, a quiet, little, dark-coloured brougham, and put her into it. “We’ll trundle off home,” he said, “you and I, Fan, and let John look after the things; you are so tired you can scarcely speak.”

“Not so much tired,” said Frances, and tried to smile, but could not say any more.

“I understand.” He took her hand into his with the kindest caressing touch. “You mustn’t be frightened, my dear. There’s nothing to be frightened about. You’ll like my mother. Perhaps it was silly of me to say that, and make you cry. Don’t cry, Fan, or I shall cry too. I am the foolishest little beggar, you know, and always do what my companions do. Don’t make a fool of your old brother, my dear. There, look out and see what a beastly place old London is, Fan.”

“Don’t call me Fan,” she cried, this slight irritation affording her an excuse for disburdening herself of some of the nervous excitement in her. “Call me Frances, Markham.”

“Life’s too short for a name in two syllables. I’ve got two syllables myself, that’s true; but many fellows call me Mark, and you are welcome to, if you like. No; I shall call you Fan; you must make up your mind to it. Did you ever see such murky heavy air? It isn’t air at all—it’s smoke, and animalculæ, and everything that’s dreadful. It’s not like that blue stuff on the Riviera, is it?”

“Oh no!” cried Frances, with fervour. “But I suppose London is better for some things,” she added with a doubtful voice.

“Better! It’s better than any other place on the face of the earth; it’s the only place to live in,” said Markham. “Why, child, it is paradise,”—he paused a moment, and then added, “with pandemonium next door.”

“Markham!” the girl cried.

“I was wrong to mention such a place in your hearing. I know I was. Never mind, Fan; you shall see the one, and you shall know nothing about the other. Why, here we are in Eaton Square.”

The door flashed open as soon as the carriage stopped, letting out a flood of light and warmth. Markham almost lifted the trembling girl out. She had got her veil entangled about her head, her arms in the cloak which she had half thrown off. She was not prepared for this abrupt arrival. She seemed to see nothing but the light, to know nothing until she found herself suddenly in some one’s arms; then the light seemed to go out of her eyes. Sight had nothing to do with the sensation, the warmth, the softness, the faint rustle, the faint perfume, with which she was suddenly encircled; and for a few moments she knew nothing more.

“Dear, dear, Markham, I hope she is not delicate—I hope she is not given to fainting,” she heard in a disturbed but pleasant voice, before she felt able to open her eyes.

“Not a bit,” said Markham’s familiar tones. “She’s overdone, and awfully anxious about meeting you.”

“My poor dear! Why should she be anxious about meeting me?” said the other voice, a voice round and soft, with a plaintive tone in it; and then there came the touch of a pair of lips, soft and caressing like the voice, upon the girl’s cheek. She did not yet open her eyes, half because she could not, half because she would not, but whispered in a faint little tentative utterance, “Mother!” wondering vaguely whether the atmosphere round her, the kiss, the voice, was all the mother she was to know.

“My poor little baby, my little girl! open your eyes. Markham, I want to see the colour of her eyes.”

“As if I could open her eyes for you!” cried Markham with a strange outburst of sound, which, if he had been a woman, might have meant crying, but must have been some sort of a laugh, since he was a man. He seemed to walk away, and then came back again. “Come, Fan, that’s enough. Open your eyes, and look at us. I told you there was nothing to be frightened for.”

And then Frances raised herself; for, to her astonishment, she was lying down upon a sofa, and looked round her, bewildered. Beside her stood a little lady, about her own height, with smooth brown hair like hers, with her hands clasped, just as Frances was aware she had herself a custom of clasping her hands. It began to dawn upon her that Constance had said she was very like mamma. This new-comer was beautifully dressed in soft black satin, that did not rustle—that was far, far too harsh a word—but swept softly about her with the faintest pleasant sound; and round her breathed that atmosphere which Frances felt would mean mother to her for ever and ever,—an air that was infinitely soft, with a touch in it of some sweetness. Oh, not scent! She rejected the word with disdain—something, nothing, the atmosphere of a mother. In the curious ecstasy in which she was, made up of fatigue, wonder, and the excitement of this astounding plunge into the unknown, that was how she felt.

“Let me look at you, my child. I can’t think of her as a grown girl, Markham. Don’t you know she is my baby. She has never grown up, like the rest of you, to me. Oh, did you never wish for me, little Frances? Did you never want your mother, my darling? Often, often, I have lain awake in the night and cried for you.”

“Oh mamma!” cried Frances, forgetting her shyness, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. The temptation to tell her that she had never known anything about her mother, to excuse herself at her father’s expense, was strong. But she kept back the words that were at her lips. “I have always wanted this all my life,” she cried, with a sudden impulse, and laid her head upon her mother’s breast, feeling in all the commotion and melting of her heart a consciousness of the accessories, the rich softness of the satin, the delicate perfume, all the details of the new personality by which her own was surrounded on every side.

“Now I see,” cried the new-found mother, “it was no use parting this child and me, Markham. It is all the same between us—isn’t it, my darling?—as if we had always been together—all the same in a moment. Come up-stairs now, if you feel able, dear one. Do you think, Markham, she is able to walk up-stairs?”

“Oh, quite able; oh, quite, quite well. It was only for a moment. I was—frightened, I think.”

“But you will never be frightened any more,” said Lady Markham, drawing the girl’s arm through her own, leading her away. Frances was giddy still, and stumbled as she went, though she had pledged herself never to be frightened again. She went in a dream up the softly carpeted stairs. She knew what handsome rooms were, the lofty bare grandeur of an Italian palazzo; but all this carpeting and cushioning, the softness, the warmth, the clothed and comfortable look, bewildered her. She could scarcely find her way through the drawing-room, crowded with costly furniture, to the blazing fire, by the side of which stood the tea-table, like, and yet how unlike, that anxious copy of English ways which Frances had set up in the loggia. She was conscious, with a momentary gleam of complacency, that her cups and saucers were better, though! not belonging to an ordinary modern set, like these; but, alas, in everything else how far short! Then she was taken up-stairs, through—as she thought—the sumptuous arrangements of her mother’s room, to another smaller, which opened from it, and in which there was the same wealth of carpets, curtains, easy-chairs, and writing-tables, in addition to the necessary details of a sleeping-room. Frances looked round it admiringly. She knew nothing about the modern-artistic, though something, a very little, about old art. The painted ceilings and old gilding of the Palazzo—which she began secretly and obstinately to call home from this moment forth—were intelligible to her; but she was quite unacquainted with Mr Morris’s papers and the art fabrics from Liberty’s. She looked at them with admiration, but doubt. She thought the walls “killed” the pictures that were hung round, which were not like her own little gallery at home, which she had left with a little pang to her sister. “Is this Constance’s room?” she asked timidly, called back to a recollection of Constance, and wondering whether the transfer was to be complete.

“No, my love; it is Frances’ room,” said Lady Markham. “It has always been ready for you. I expected you to come some time. I have always hoped that; but I never thought that Con would desert me.” Her voice faltered a little, which instantly touched Frances’ heart.

“I asked,” she said, “not just out of curiosity, but because, when she came to us, I gave her my room. Our rooms are not like these; they have very few things in them. There are no carpets; it is warmer there, you know; but I thought she would find the blue room so bare, I gave her mine.”

Lady Markham smiled upon her, and said, but with a faint, the very faintest indication of being less interested than Frances was, “You have not many visitors, I suppose?”

“Oh, none!” cried Frances. “I suppose we are—rather poor. We are not—like this.”

“My darling, you don’t know how to speak to me, your own mother! What do you mean, dear, by we? You must learn to mean something else by we. Your father, if he had chosen, might have had—all that you see, and more. And Constance—— But we will say nothing more to-night on that subject. This is Con’s room, see, on the other side of mine. It was always my fancy, my hope, some time to have my two girls, one on each side.”

Frances followed her mother to the room on the other side with great interest. It was still more luxurious than the one appropriated to herself—more comfortable, as a room which has been occupied, which shows traces of its tenant’s tastes and likings, must naturally be; and it was brighter, occupying the front of the house, while that of Frances’ looked to the side. She glanced round at all the fittings and decorations, which, to her unaccustomed eyes, were so splendid. “Poor Constance!” she said under her breath.

“Why do you say poor Constance?” said Lady Markham, with something sharp and sudden in her tone. And then she, too, said regretfully, “Poor Con! You think it will be disappointing to her, this other life which she has chosen. Was it—dreary for you, my poor child?”

Then there rose up in the tranquil mind of Frances a kind of tempest-blast of opposition and resentment. “It is the only life I know—it was—everything I liked best,” she cried. The first part of the sentence was very firmly, almost aggressively said. In the second, she wavered, hesitated, changed the tense—it was. She did not quite know herself what the change meant.

Lady Markham looked at her with a penetrating gaze. “It was—everything you knew, my little Frances. I understand you, my dear. You will not be disloyal to the past. But to Constance, who does not know it, who knows something else—— Poor Con! I understand. But she will have to pay for her experience, like all the rest.”

Frances had been profoundly agitated, but in the way of happiness. She did not feel happy now. She felt disposed to cry, not because of the relief of tears, but because she did not know how else to express the sense of contrariety, of disturbance that had got into her mind. Was it that already a wrong note had sounded between herself and this unknown mother, whom it had been a rapture to see and touch? Or was it only that she was tired? Lady Markham saw the condition into which her nerves and temper were strained. She took her back tenderly into her room. “My dear,” she said, “if you would rather not, don’t change your dress. Do just as you please to-night. I would stay and help you, or I would send Josephine, my maid, to help you; but I think you will prefer to be left alone and quiet.”

“Oh yes,” cried Frances with fervour; then she added hastily, “If you do not think me disagreeable to say so.”

“I am not prepared to think anything in you disagreeable, my dear,” said her mother, kissing her—but with a sigh. This sigh Frances echoed in a burst of tears when the door closed and she found herself alone—alone, quite alone, more so than she had ever been in her life, she whispered to herself, in the shock of the unreasonable and altogether fantastic disappointment which had followed her ecstasy of pleasure. Most likely it meant nothing at all but the reaction from that too highly raised level of feeling.

“No; I am not disappointed,” Lady Markham was saying down-stairs. She was standing before the genial blaze of the fire, looking into it with her head bent and a serious expression on her face. “Perhaps I was too much delighted for a moment; but she, poor child, now that she has looked at me a second time, she is a little, just a little disappointed in me. That’s rather hard for a mother, you know; or I suppose you don’t know.”

“I never was a mother,” said Markham. “I should think it’s very natural. The little thing has been forming the most romantic ideas. If you had been an angel from heaven——”

“Which I am not,” she said with a smile, still looking into the fire.

“Heaven be praised,” said Markham. “In that case, you would not have suited me—which you do, mammy, you know, down to the ground.”

She gave a half glance at him, a half smile, but did not disturb the chain of her reflections. “That’s something, Markham,” she said.

“Yes; it’s something. On my side, it is a great deal. Don’t go too fast with little Fan. She has a deal in her. Have a little patience, and let her settle down her own way.”

“I don’t feel sure that she has not got her father’s temper; I saw something like it in her eyes.”

“That is nonsense, begging your pardon. She has got nothing of her father in her eyes. Her eyes are like yours, and so is everything about her. My dear mother, Con’s like Waring, if you like. This one is of our side of the house.”

“Do you really think so?” Lady Markham looked up now and laid her hand affectionately upon his shoulder, and laughed. “But, my dear boy, you are as like the Markhams as you can look. On my side of the house, there is nobody at all, unless, as you say——”

“Frances,” said the little man. “I told you—the best of the lot. I took to her in a moment by that very token. Therefore, don’t go too fast with her, mother. She has her own notions. She is as stanch as a little—Turk,” said Markham, using the first word that offered. When he met his mother’s eye, he retired a little, with the air of a man who does not mean to be questioned; which naturally stimulated curiosity in her mind.

“How have you found out that she is stanch, Markham?”

“Oh, in half-a-dozen ways,” he answered, carelessly. “And she will stick to her father through thick and thin, so mind what you say.”

Then Lady Markham began to bemoan herself a little gently, before the fire, in the most luxurious of easy-chairs.

“Was ever woman in such a position,” she said, “to be making acquaintance, for the first time, at eighteen, with my own daughter—and to have to pick my words and to be careful what I say?”

“Well, mammy,” said Markham, “it might have been worse. Let us make the best of it. He has always kept his word, which is something, and has never annoyed you. And it is quite a nice thing for Con to have him to go to, to find out how dull it is, and know her own mind. And now we’ve got the other one too.”

Lady Markham still rocked herself a little in her chair, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. “For all that, it is very hard, both on her and me,” she said.

CHAPTER XXII.

Lady Markham’s story was one which was very well known to Society—to which everything is known—though it had remained so long a secret, and was still a mystery to one of her children. Waring had been able to lose himself in distance, and keep his position concealed from every one; but it was clear that his wife could not do so, remaining as she did in the world which was fully acquainted with her, and which required an explanation of everything that happened. Perhaps it is more essential to a woman than to a man that her position should be fully explained, though it is one of the drawbacks of an established place and sphere, which is seldom spoken of, yet is very real, and one of the greatest embarrassments of life. So long as existence is without complications, this matters little; but when these arise, those difficulties which so often distract the career of a family, the inevitable explanations that have to be made to the little interested ring of spectators, is often the worst part of domestic trouble. Waring, whose temperament was what is called sensitive—that is, impatient, self-willed, and unenduring—would not submit to such a necessity. But a woman cannot fly; she must stand in her place, if she has any regard for that place, and for the reputation which it is common to say is more delicate and easily injured than is that of a man—and make her excuse to the world. Perhaps, as, sooner or later, excuses and explanations must be afforded, it is the wiser plan to get over them publicly and at once; for even Waring, as has been seen, though he escaped, and had a dozen years of tranquillity, had at the last to submit himself to the questions of Mr Durant. All that was over for these dozen years with Lady Markham. Everybody knew exactly what her position was. Scandal had never breathed upon her, either at the moment of the separation or afterwards. It had been a foolish, romantic love-marriage between a woman of Society and a man who was half rustic, half scholar. They had found after a time that they could not endure each other—as anybody with a head on his shoulders could have told them from the beginning, Society said. And then he had taken the really sensible though wild and romantic step of banishing himself and leaving her free. There were some who had supposed this a piece of bizarre generosity, peculiar to the man, and some who thought it only a natural return to the kind of life that suited him best.

Lady Markham had, of course, been censured for this, her second marriage; and equally, of course, was censured for the breach of it—for the separation, which, indeed, was none of her doing; for retaining her own place when her husband left her; and, in short, for every step she had taken in the matter from first to last. But that was twelve years ago, which is a long time in all circumstances, and which counts for about a century in Society: and nobody thought of blaming her any longer, or of remarking at all upon the matter. The present lords and ladies of fashionable life had always known her as she was, and there was no further question about her history. When, in the previous season, Miss Waring had made her début in Society, and achieved the success which had been so remarkable, there was indeed a little languid question as to who was her father among those who remembered that Waring was not the name of the Markham family; but this was not interesting enough to cause any excitement. And Frances, still thrilling with the discovery of the other life, of which she had never suspected the existence, and ignorant even now of everything except the mere fact of it, suddenly found herself embraced and swallowed up in a perfectly understood and arranged routine in which there was no mystery at all.

“The first thing you must do is to make acquaintance with your relations,” said Lady Markham next morning at breakfast. “Fortunately, we have this quiet time before Easter to get over all these preliminaries. Your aunt Clarendon will expect to see you at once.”

Frances was greatly disturbed by this new discovery. She gave a covert glance at Markham, who, though it was not his habit to appear so early, had actually produced himself at breakfast to see how the little one was getting on. Markham looked back again, elevating his eyebrows, and not understanding at first what the question meant.

“And there are all the cousins,” said the mother, with that plaintive tone in her voice. “My dear, I hope you are not in the way of forming friendships, for there are so many of them! I think the best thing will be to get over all these duty introductions at once. I must ask the Clarendons—don’t you think, Markham?—to dinner, and perhaps the Peytons,—quite a family party.”

“Certainly, by all means,” said Markham; “but first of all, don’t you think she wants to be dressed?”

Lady Markham looked at Frances critically from her smooth little head to her neat little shoes. The girl was standing by the fire, with her head reclined against the mantelpiece of carved oak, which, as a “reproduction,” was very much thought of in Eaton Square. Frances felt that the blush with which she met her mother’s look must be seen, though she turned her head away, through the criticised clothes.

“Her dress is very simple; but there is nothing in bad taste. Don’t you think I might take her anywhere as she is? I did not notice her hat,” said Lady Markham, with gravity; “but if that is right—— Simplicity is quite the right thing at eighteen——”

“And in Lent,” said Markham.

“It is quite true; in Lent, it is better than the right thing—it is the best thing. My dear, you must have had a very good maid. Foreign women have certainly better taste than the class we get our servants from. What a pity you did not bring her with you! One can always find room for a clever maid.”

“I don’t believe she had any maid; it is all out of her own little head,” said Markham. “I told you not to let yourself be taken in. She has a deal in her, that little thing.”

Lady Markham smiled, and gave Frances a kiss, enfolding her once more in that soft atmosphere which had been such a revelation to her last night. “I am sure she is a dear little girl, and is going to be a great comfort to me. You will want to write your letters this morning, my love, which you must do before lunch. And after lunch, we will go and see your aunt. You know that is a matter of—what shall we call it, Markham?—conscience with me.”

“Pride,” Markham said, coming and standing by them in front of the fire.

“Perhaps a little,” she answered with a smile; “but conscience too. I would not have her say that I had kept the child from her for a single day.”

“That is how conscience speaks, Fan,” said Markham. “You will know next time you hear it. And after the Clarendons?”

“Well—of course, there must be a hundred things the child wants. We must look at your evening dresses together, darling. Tell Josephine to lay them out and let me see them. We are going to have some people at the Priory for Easter; and when we come back, there will be no time. Yes, I think on our way home from Portland Place we must just look into—a shop or two.”

“Now my mind is relieved,” Markham said. “I thought you were going to change the course of nature, Fan.”

“The child is quite bewildered by your nonsense, Markham,” the mother said.

And this was quite true. Frances had never been on such terms with her father as would have entitled her to venture to laugh at him. She was confused with this new phase, as well as with her many other discoveries: and it appeared to her that Markham looked just as old as his mother. Lady Markham was fresh and fair, her complexion as clear as a girl’s, and her hair still brown and glossy. If art in any way added to this perfection, Frances had no suspicion of such a possibility. And when she looked from her mother’s round and soft contour to the wrinkles of Markham, and his no-colour and indefinite age, and heard him address her with that half-caressing, half-bantering equality, the girl’s mind grew more and more hopelessly confused. She withdrew, as was expected of her, to write her letters, though without knowing how to fulfil that duty. She could write (of course) to her father. It was of course, and so was what she told him. “We arrived about six o’clock. I was dreadfully confused with the noise and the crowds of people. Mamma was very kind. She bids me send you her love. The house is very fine, and full of furniture, and fires in all the rooms; but one wants that, for it is much colder here. We are going out after luncheon to call on my aunt Clarendon. I wish very much I knew who she was, or who my other relations are; but I suppose I shall find out in time.” This was the scope of Frances’ letter. And she did not feel warranted, somehow, in writing to Constance. She knew so little of Constance: and was she not in some respects a supplanter, taking Constance’s place? When she had finished her short letter to her father, which was all fact, with very few reflections, Frances paused and looked round her, and felt no further inspiration. Should she write to Mariuccia? But that would require time—there was so much to be said to Mariuccia. Facts were not what she would want—at least, the facts would have to be of a different kind; and Frances felt that daylight and all the arrangements of the new life, the necessity to be ready for luncheon and to go out after, were not conditions under which she could begin to pour out her heart to her old nurse, the attendant of her childhood. She must put off till the evening, when she should be alone and undisturbed, with time and leisure to collect all her thoughts and first impressions. She put down her pen, which was not, indeed, an instrument she was much accustomed to wield, and began to think instead; but all her thinking would not tell her who the relatives were to whom she was about to be presented; and she reflected with horror that her ignorance must betray the secret which she had so carefully kept, and expose her father to further and further criticism.

There was only one way of avoiding this danger, and that was through Markham, who alone could help her, who was the only individual in whom she could feel a confidence that he would give her what information he could, and understand why she asked. If she could but find Markham! She went down-stairs, timidly flitting along the wide staircase through the great drawing-room, which was vacant, and found no trace of him. She lingered, peeping out from between the curtains of the windows upon the leafless gardens outside in the spring sunshine, the passing carriages which she could see through their bare boughs, the broad pavement close at hand with so few passengers, the clatter now and then of a hansom, which amused her even in the midst of her perplexity, or the drawing up of a brougham at some neighbouring door. After a minute’s distraction thus, she returned again to make further investigations from the drawing-room door, and peep over the balusters to watch for her brother. At last she had the good luck to perceive him coming out of one of the rooms on the lower floor. She darted down as swift as a bird, and touched him on the sleeve. He had his hat in his hand, as if preparing to go out. “Oh,” she said in a breathless whisper, “I want to speak to you; I want to ask you something,”—holding up her hand with a warning hush.

“What is it?” returned Markham, chiefly with his eyebrows, with a comic affectation of silence and secrecy which tempted her to laugh in spite of herself. Then he nodded his head, took her hand in his, and led her up-stairs to the drawing-room again. “What is it you want to ask me? Is it a state secret? The palace is full of spies, and the walls of ears,” said Markham with mock solemnity, “and I may risk my head by following you. Fair conspirator, what do you want to ask?”

“Oh, Markham, don’t laugh at me—it is serious. Please, who is my aunt Clarendon?”