The Londoners

THE LONDONERS

AN ABSURDITY

BY

ROBERT HICHENS

AUTHOR OF

"THE GARDEN OF ALLAH," "THE FRUITFUL VINE," ETC.

COPYRIGHT EDITION

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1912

CONTENTS.

THE LONDONERS.

[CHAPTER I.]

"NOT ELLIMAN."

Mrs. Verulam came into her drawing-room slowly and rather wearily. It was a sultry afternoon in May—indeed, the papers were quite in a ferment about the exceptional heat-wave that was passing over London; and a premature old General, anxious apparently to be up to time, had just died of tropical apoplexy in Park Lane. Possibly it was the weather that had painted the pallor on Mrs. Verulam's exceedingly pretty face. Beneath her mist of yellow hair her dark-grey eyes looked out pathetically, with the sort of pathos that means nothing in particular—the grace of an indefinite sorrow. She was clad in a pale-pink tea-gown, elaborately embroidered in dull green and gold, and she was followed by her maid, the faithful Marriner, whose hands were full of bright-coloured cushions. The windows of the drawing-room, which faced Park Lane, and commanded a distant view of the Parade on Sunday mornings, stood open, and striped awnings defied the sunbeams above them. London hummed gently in the heat; and an Admiral in the next house but one might almost be heard ordering his valet, with many terrible expressions of the sea, to get out his ducks, and be quick about it.

"Oh, Marriner!" said Mrs. Verulam, in the voice which all self-respecting men worshipped and compared with Sarah Bernhardt's—"oh, Marriner, how terribly hot it is!"

"The heat is severe, ma'am, for the season of the year," replied Marriner.

Mrs. Verulam sat down on an immense sofa near the window, and Marriner proceeded to bank her up with cushions. She glanced into a tiny hand-mirror which hung by a silver chain at her side.

"I am as pale as a Pierrot," she murmured.

"I beg pardon, ma'am."

"Pierrot, Marriner, is the legendary emblem of—but it is too hot for history."

Marriner, who was ever athirst for information, looked disappointed. She had been on the eve of improving her mind, but the heat precluded the sweet processes of further education, so the poor soul was downcast. She bit her lip, secretly imitating a well-known actor whom she worshipped, and wondered why life is so full of misery. Mrs. Verulam lay back on the cushions and glanced wearily around. Her eyes fell upon an oval table that stood near by. Various notes and cards lay on it, and an immense bouquet of dull-red roses.

"What is all that?" she asked, with a fatigued gesture towards the table.

Marriner wheeled it forward till it stood beside the sofa, then she lifted the bouquet and turned it in her hands.

"From Mr. Hyacinth Rodney, ma'am," she said.

A thin smile curved Mrs. Verulam's lips. She took the flowers, glanced at their dusky beauty, touched their velvet petals with her fingers, then laid them down carelessly.

"They are remarkably fine specimens, ma'am," said Marriner. "I often think——" she checked herself.

"Yes, Marriner; what do you think?"

"That we are like the flowers, ma'am: we fade and die so soon."

"Dear me, Marriner, what original thoughts you have!"

"I can't help them coming, ma'am. They seem to take me like a storm, ma'am."

"Oh! more cards: General and Mrs. Le Mesurier, Lord Simeon, the Prince and Princess of Galilee—what curious names people are born with!—Mr. Marchington. Why will so many people call?"

"I think they wish to see you, ma'am."

"I know. But that's just it, Marriner; that is the problem."

"I like problems, ma'am."

"Then resolve me this one. Why do people with immortal souls spend their lives in leaving tiny oblongs of pasteboard on other people with immortal souls whom they scarcely know and don't care a straw about? Why do they do it, Marriner?"

"Might I speak, ma'am?"

"I ask you to."

"I don't feel convinced that their souls are immortal, ma'am. I have my doubts, ma'am."

"Then you are in the fashion. But that makes it all the more strange. If we have only one life, Marriner, why should we waste it in leaving cards?"

"Very true, ma'am."

A certain excitement had crept into Mrs. Verulam's grey eyes. She raised herself on her cushions dramatically.

"Marriner, we are fools!" she cried; "that is why we do it. That is why we do a thousand things that bore us—a thousand things that bore other people. Give me all those notes."

Marriner collected the envelopes which lay upon the table and handed them respectfully to her mistress. Mrs. Verulam tore them open one by one.

"'To have the honour to meet the Prince and Princess of——' 'Lady Emily Crane at home; conjuring and acrobats. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mr. Pettingham at home; the Unattached Club. Views of the Holy Land and a lecture. Supper, midnight.' 'Lady Clondart at home. Dancing. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mrs. Vigors at home. Sartorius will exhibit his performing panthers. Ten o'clock.' 'Sir Algernon Smith at home. The Grafton Galleries. Madame Melba will sing. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mrs.——' Oh! I can't open any more. Heavens! are we human, Marriner? Are we thinking, sentient beings that we live this life of absurdity? Acrobats, conjurors, the Holy Land, panthers, Melba. Thus do we deliberately complicate our existence, already so complicated, whether we will or no. Ah, it is intolerable! The season is a disease. London is a vast lunatic asylum."

"Oh, ma'am!"

"And we, who call ourselves the smart world, are the incurable patients. Give me something to read. Let me try to forget where I am and what I am."

She lay back trembling. Marriner handed to her the World. She opened it, and her eyes fell upon these words: "I really think that Mrs. Verulam is the smartest woman in town. Her mother, Lady Sophia Tree, is famous for her knowledge of the art of dress, but Mrs. Verulam surpasses even Lady Sophia in her understanding of what to wear and how to wear it. I met her driving in the Park on Friday in an exquisite creation of cinnamon canvas with touches of blue, that suited her dark-grey eyes and her exquisite golden-brown hair to——"

"Marriner, why do you give me this to read?"

"I thought you had not seen it, ma'am."

Mrs. Verulam threw the paper down.

"Leave me, Marriner," she said in a low voice.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wait. Is Mrs. Van Adam's room quite ready for her?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Take Mr. Rodney's roses, unfasten them, and put them in vases about the room."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now spray me, Marriner."

Marriner took up a silver bottle, pressed a minute bladder, and scattered a shower of tiny scented drops over the pretty face as pale as a Pierrot; then, carrying the burden of dull-red roses, she withdrew from the room as softly as a cat.

Mrs. Verulam lay back on the coloured cushions, and closed her eyes so tightly that her forehead was wrinkled in a frown. The Admiral who lived in the next house but one was just setting bravely forth in his ducks, on which the sun shone approvingly. At the doors of many houses stood carriages, and many pretty women were stepping into them dressed for dining, concerts, or drums. The Row was fairly full of crawlers, whose dull eyes—glazed with much staring—glanced eternally around in search of food for gossip. Flowers flamed along the Park railings from the Corner to the Marble Arch, and a few unfashionable people, who were fond of plants, examined the odorous pageant in botanical attitudes that seemed strangely out of place in London. And the concert of the town continued. Its music came faintly to the ears of Mrs. Verulam, as it had come now for so many seasons. For she was twenty-nine, and had not missed a London summer since she was eighteen, except that one, eight years ago, which followed the sudden death of a husband with whom she had never been really in love.

Lying there alone, Mrs. Verulam said to herself that she was utterly sick of this concert, which each succeeding year persistently encored. She heard the distant wheels, and thought of the parties to which they were rolling. She heard the very remote music of a band; and that reminded her of the quantities of cotillons she had led, and of the innumerable faces of men that she had wiped out of mirrors with her lace handkerchief. How curiously they flashed and faded on the calm surface of the imperturbable glass, their eyes full of gay or of languid enquiry, their mouths gleaming in set society smiles!

Was it a property of cotillon mirrors, she wondered, to make all men look alike, neat, vacuous, self-satisfied? Half unconsciously she fluttered her tiny handkerchief as if she passed it across an invisible mirror. And now the surface was clean and clear, empty of masks for a moment. Then there was borne on it a big and bearded countenance. It seemed too large almost to be called a face. Hair flourished upon that countenance as prickles upon the porcupine. Large and ox-like eyes of a reddish-brown hue stared heavily out beneath brows that seemed like thatched eaves. Mrs. Verulam, in fancy, gazed upon this apparition in the mirror and laid her handkerchief aside. She would not wipe the red-brown eyes, the thick lips, the intrusive hair away. And then, suddenly, she laughed to herself, thinking of the dancing sequel to her deed of the cotillon, and of what it would be like in reality.

"Poor fellow!" she thought. "He would die in a valse. That is why I will not, dare not, wipe him out of the mirror from which I long to eliminate for ever the other faces."

And she thought of a far-off cabbage-garden somewhere on the outskirts of Berkshire, where life was surely peaceful, contemplative, and more worthy than in London. Fruits ripened there. Pears hung upon the tree and cherries slept in the sun. And the bearded face was often bent wrathfully above the hapless snail or erring maggot. At least, so Mrs. Verulam supposed. For she had never yet visited this sweet Eden of vegetables and manly labours. Some day, perhaps, she would go there. Some day! Some day! She opened her eyes and glanced up. They fell upon a pet of hers, a ruddy squirrel with a bushy tail, which scrambled in a revolving cage such as squirrels are supposed to love. Persistently the squirrel scrambled and the golden cage went round. Mrs. Verulam watched it, and her mind sprang to the obvious comparison. She saw London, the cage, herself the squirrel turning in it and longing to be free. And how she pitied the squirrel! What woman has not bowels of mercy for herself? She had revolved through so many seasons. Would she revolve through many more? Suddenly an expression of stern resolve came into the pretty Pierrot face clouded by bright hair. Mrs. Verulam thrilled with a great determination. Her manner was almost Napoleonic as she sat upright and clasped her hands together in a gesture of negation. She swept the cards on the table into a heap. She flung the notes of invitation aside. She sprang up and went over to the squirrel. He peered at her with his bright and beady little eyes.

"Tommy," she said, "listen to me. Do you know that you are like me? Do you know that I, too, am in a cage—that I, too, am turning and turning in a prison that is monotonous as a circus, in which everyone and everything must go round and round and round? I am so tired of it, Tommy; so tired of my cage. And yet, do you know, half the world is trying to get into it—and can't! Isn't that absurd? To try to get into society! Oh, Tommy——"

"Mrs. Van Adam!" said the footman at the door.

Mrs. Verulam turned as a tall, slim, boyish-looking creature in a red gown and a red-and-black hat came upon her with a sweet rush and took her in strong arms of affection.

"Dearest Daisy!"

"Darling Chloe!"

The footman looked pleased beneath his powder. Perhaps it was his agreeable smile which drew Mrs. Verulam's attention to him.

"Francis, say 'not at home' this afternoon," she murmured, with a gesture of dismissal.

"Yes, ma'am."

And Francis took his smile below-stairs, leaving the two friends alone. They stood for a moment by the squirrel's cage, watching each other with kind eyes that were yet alight with sparks of criticism. For all sweet women are critics, just as all sweet babies are like their fathers. The laws of nature are so strangely immutable. Then Mrs. Van Adam said, in a low contralto voice that was almost manly:

"I believe you are sweeter here than you were in Paris. How do you manage it? America would love you."

"I am not a Duke."

"That's true, but you would come right next."

"And you! Oh, Chloe, in that hat! But why is your hair cut short?"

Mrs. Van Adam laughed, and took off the scarlet and black hat.

"It was so hot on our plantation in Florida that I wanted to have as little about me as possible," she said.

"It makes you look just like a boy!"

"I'll grow it again here."

"Have you brought a maid?"

"No. I want to engage a London woman."

"Come and sit down. It is so strange for us to be together again. How many years is it since we were schoolgirls in Paris, getting education instead of gowns? And now——"

"You're a little widow, and the darling of London!"

"And you——By the way, how is Mr. Van Adam?"

"I am told he is quite well."

Mrs. Verulam raised her eyebrows.

"You are told, Chloe!" she said. "You are told!"

But Mrs. Van Adam was looking about the room with eager dark eyes.

"Your house is delicious!" she exclaimed. "I shall love to be here. Florida is lonely, and New York is—well, it has no aristocracy. And a capital without an aristocracy is like a town man without a silk hat. The toilet is incomplete. It was cool of me to cable you that I was coming. But you don't mind?"

"I am delighted. I have been wanting you to come for so long."

"And the season is just beginning?"

The weariness that had died in Mrs. Verulam's eyes sprang up in them again.

"Yes," she said; "it is just beginning."

Mrs. Van Adam made an ecstatic gesture. There was in her manner something of the vivacity of a colt: a frolicsome readiness for bodily movement, a quickness of limb that goes with gaiety, and a sweeping appreciation of the luxury of joy. Her eyes danced and brimmed over with light, and expectation of pleasure turned her appearance almost to that of a child who sees a vision of sugar-plums.

"That's lucky!" she cried. "Daisy, you don't know how I feel about your society; I have never been in it, but I have heard of it ever since I was a girl in Paris. You told me a little then."

"I knew very little then."

"Well, you told me just all you knew, and it sounded perfect."

"Chloe, when I was in Paris I was a little fool." But Mrs. Van Adam did not seem to hear the remark; she was bent upon speaking, and she went on: "Since then I've heard the travellers' tales of the Holy Land."

"The Holy Land!"

"London, dear. Some of our travellers abuse the old town, it's true; but they want to go back to it when April comes round, all the same. I think it gets into their blood, as the East gets into the blood of lovers of the picturesque; anyhow, it's got into mine. Daisy, you think I'm pretty still, don't you?"

"Pretty—yes; lovely with that short hair."

"And I'm immensely rich, of course; and I'm an American. Give me London to play with."

"But, my dear Chloe——"

"Yes. Now do. You can give it me. I know that. Our papers are full of your triumphs. You are the pet of society."

"Nonsense, Chloe!"

"But you are; you go everywhere."

"Yes; that is why I am so tired—that is why——"

"Let me go with you. Oh, Daisy, if you only knew how I long to get into London society!"

"Oh, Chloe, if you only knew how I long to get out of it!"

Mrs. Van Adam looked quite petrified by this exclamation. She drew her black brows together, screwed up her eyes, and scrutinised Mrs. Verulam with a merciless curiosity, such as a child displays before a strange and ineffable monster. Her scrutiny was silent, exhaustive, and apparently conclusive, since she closed it with the remark:

"You little joker, you haven't altered a bit since Paris!" Then, without giving Mrs. Verulam time to assert the truth of her announced feeling, Chloe turned to the table that stood beside the sofa: "Cards!" she said. "What a heap! All yesterday's?"

"Or to-day's."

"And notes—invitations?"

Mrs. Verulam nodded.

"May I look at them?"

"If you like. They're stupid things."

"Stupid! They beat diamonds." She took one up with reverent fingers. "'To have the honour to meet the Prince and Princess of——'"

Mrs. Van Adam read the words aloud in a voice that shook with emotion. Her eyes glowed behind a veil of moisture as they gazed upon the sacred pasteboard. It seemed for a moment as if she would bend her pretty head and touch it with her pretty lips; but she was a woman of strong character, and she refrained. What that silent struggle cost her the world will never know. After a period of profound silence she laid the card down gently, as one lays down a blessed relic. Then she sprang upon Mrs. Verulam and passionately embraced her.

"Oh, you darling!" she cried.

Before Mrs. Verulam could either acquiesce or protest Mrs. Van Adam had fallen upon the other invitations, as the drowning man falls upon the straw. She rifled the big envelopes of their contents. She tore Lady Emily Crane from her modest concealment, brought Sir Algernon Smith into the sunlight in the twinkling of an eye, laid Lady Clondart upon the table like a Patience, and put Mrs. Vigors on end against a flower-vase. The acrobats, the conjuror, the Holy Land, Madame Melba, the panthers of Sartorius—she faced them all, and drew a deep breath that was like a sob. Heaven opened out before her, and she lay back against a cushion prostrated and overwhelmed. In great moments such as these the human creature feels its smallness, and hears the mighty inexorable pulse beating in the huge and mysterious heart of life. These two women were pale and silent while you could have counted a hundred, the one laid low by ennui, occasioned by the same cause that laid the other low by ecstasy. Thus do even the closest friends differ. At last Mrs. Van Adam lifted herself up, and spoke in a low voice as of an Anglican in Westminster Abbey:

"Take me with you, Daisy—oh, do—do take me with you!"

"Where?"

"To Lady Emily Crane's, to Mr. Pettingham's, to Lady Clondart's, Mrs. Vigors', Sir Algernon Smith's, and—oh, Daisy!—to have the honour to meet the—you know, I can't say it. Let me see the panthers, and the Holy Land, and the Prince and Princess."

"They are not in the least good-looking."

"The panthers, Daisy?"

"No; the royalties. Those I mean—they are foreign and plain."

"That doesn't matter. It is so unnecessary for them to take the trouble to be handsome; for us it's quite—quite different."

Mrs. Verulam smiled; but the smile flitted, and the bored expression returned.

"If I did take you, Chloe, you would find it all terribly dull, especially Mr. Pettingham's."

"Doesn't he know good people—not religious, you know, but good?"

"Oh yes—everybody in London; but his parties are dreadful. You sit in the pitch dark while he describes to you how he discovered Venice or Vienna, and shows you the Lido or Lowndes Square, upside down as often as not. His coloured slides are really agonising."

"But his guests?"

"Oh! they're all right, of course, so far as any—any smart people are all right."

Mrs. Van Adam was about to utter a fervent protest, but Mrs. Verulam displayed sudden energy. She sat straight up, planted her little feet firmly on a tiny satin footstool, clasped her soft hands, and said:

"No; hear me, Chloe. You don't understand things. It is my duty to tell you what this London society is. It is a cage, like the cage of my squirrel Tommy, and those who are in it are captives—yes, yes, wretched captives—for I speak of us, of the women. The men are not so bound. They can escape from a ball directly after supper without being thought greedy; they can leave invitations unanswered, and be considered well-bred; they can forget a dinner-party, and retain respect; they can commit a thousand outrages, and yet remain gentlemen. How it is so nobody knows, but everybody knows that it is so; but we—we women! What is London society to us?"

"Heaven."

"Purgatory. We have to look pretty when we should like to rest and be quietly plain; we have to talk when we have nothing to say to men who talk and have nothing to say to us; we have to take exercise—in the way of smiling—that would knock up an athlete; we have to be made love to——"

"Charming! Exquisite!"

"When we long to be left alone with our neuralgia, and to listen to music when all our nervous system is quivering for silence. We have to flirt through 'Tristan' and laugh through 'Lohengrin.' We have to eat when we are not hungry, watch polo when we are longing for sleep, go to Ranelagh instead of to bed, and stand like sheep in a pen for hours at a stretch."

"Yes, but the other sheep!"

"All baa in the same way and on the same note; all jump over the same imaginary fence, because one has jumped over a real one; are all branded with the same mark, washed in the same pool and shorn with the same scissors."

"Mercy, darling! Are you a farmer?"

A tender smile dawned in Mrs. Verulam's eyes.

"No," she murmured softly. "It was James Bush who taught me all about sheep."

"James Bush!"

"Yes. If you want to stop a ewe from coughing——"

"Daisy!"

Mrs. Verulam flushed a lovely rose colour.

"His knowledge is wonderful," she cooed. "He cured a calf which had the staggers with a preparation of his own—not Elliman."

"Who is he?"

"Some day I'll tell you; but it was not Elliman, and it was more effective."

And she fell into a beautiful reverie—one of those strange and mysterious trains of thought so apt to be suggested by an embrocation.

[CHAPTER II.]

BOSWELL AS CHAPERON.

But Mrs. Van Adam cared nothing for such high matters. Though a charming, she was perhaps not strictly an intellectual woman. And, besides, at the moment she was full of purpose.

"Daisy—Daisy dear!" she cried, gently and persuasively shaking her dreaming friend. "Is Mr. Bush in society?"

Mrs. Verulam turned pale.

"He—never!" she exclaimed.

"Oh," said Mrs. Van Adam, losing all interest in him, "then don't let us talk about him any more. But, Daisy, you will—you will take me out, won't you? You can, I know."

"Yes, I can. People will like you. But——"

"Then it's settled. Oh, how happy I am!"

She sprang up and almost danced round the room.

"But, Chloe, only for the next two months, or indeed less. For you must know that I have come to a great resolution."

Chloe choked a pirouette, which left her posed on tiptoe, with the skirt of her red gown swinging like a poppy in a wind.

"What is it?"

"Simply that this season is my last. Wait!" She held up one hand to check her friend's exclamation. "And," she added, "that I shall leave town at least by the first of July, if not sooner."

Chloe's face fell for a moment. But then she recovered from the shock.

"The first of July. Oh, by that time I shall know everybody, and——"

"Be as weary of everybody as I am."

"Be able to manage for myself. Besides, you darling, society won't let you leave it."

At these words Mrs. Verulam's face became almost as deplorable in expression as that of an undertaker who is obliged by cruel circumstance to attend to business on a Bank Holiday.

"That is what I fear," she said. "That is the terror which pursues me night and day. But it must, Chloe—it shall! And yet nobody knows—except those who have tried it—how terribly, how appallingly difficult it is to get out of society. To get into it is nothing. There are a thousand ways of doing that. Be a German Jew or a brewer, and you are there. I knew a man who got into it by merely going out to South Africa and coming back at once in the disguise of a millionaire. And he only spent a couple of hours at Cape Town. But once you are in society and popular, the cage-door is shut. And then what can the squirrel do?"

Tears flooded her dark grey eyes. Chloe pressed her friend's hand with forced sympathy for a misfortune which she found it difficult to understand. Mrs. Verulam cleared her throat and continued:

"I have made many attempts, but each one seems to give me a more secure footing in the great world. Once I lost all my money."

"What?"

"Gave out that I had, you know."

"And what happened?"

"Oh, it was so dreadful. My acquaintances rallied round me. Have you ever been rallied round?"

"I don't know that I have."

"It is most fatiguing. It is worse than the Derby, although, of course, you avoid the coaches. Another time I tried to become unfashionable—did my hair on the nape of my neck, wore a pelerine and elastic-sided boots."

"Surely they let you go then?"

"No. On the contrary, the Park was full of pelerines, and you met elastic-sided boots everywhere, even at Marlborough House."

"Marlborough House! You visit there?"

"Oh, naturally! Then, as a last resource, I took a really desperate step."

"What was that?"

"I went to live in St John's Wood."

Mrs. Verulam gazed firmly at Mrs. Van Adam, as if expectant of a fit on her friend's part. But Mrs. Van Adam merely repeated:

"St. John's Wood! Where is that?"

"Well, where it oughtn't to be, you understand."

"Oh!"

The word expressed mystification. Chloe was evidently at sea. Mrs. Verulam did not shed light through the clouds, but continued rapidly:

"The only effect of that was that I founded a colony."

"I thought only Mr. Chamberlain did that sort of thing."

"You don't understand. I mean that others followed me there, instead of leaving me there. Lady Crichton came to Selina Place. Lord Bray and his girl settled in Upsilon Road, and the old Duchess of Worcester sat down just round the corner in Maud Crescent. Oh, it was monstrous!"

Chloe's eyes shone.

"What would I give to be you?" she cried. "A Duchess sitting down just round the corner for one! How glorious!"

She spoke as Wagnerians of "Parsifal," and at that moment she worshipped her friend. But Mrs. Verulam made a petulant moue and said, almost with acrimony:

"I really believe there is only one way in which I could do what I wish; that is, without going to live in some other country, which I don't care to do."

"What way is that?"

"If I were to compromise myself seriously. Now, if I were married, I should have a weapon against the assaults of society."

"I don't quite see how."

"Dear Chloe, really you are not quite clever. I could be divorced, don't you see?"

A shadow came suddenly into Mrs. Van Adam's dark and boyish face.

"Divorced," she faltered. "Would—would that help you much?"

"Help me? It would save me. Nothing further would be needed. I should be out of everything at once, and in the most perfect peace and quiet."

The shadow deepened perceptibly, and Mrs. Van Adam moved rather uneasily on her sofa. However, she made no further remark, and Mrs. Verulam continued:

"Circumstances render that route to what I long for one which I can't take. And besides, in any case, I doubt if I should have been equal to it. For I was born respectable, and I shall certainly remain so. Yet, do you know, Chloe, if there were any way—if only I could compromise myself in the eyes of the world without compromising myself in my own eyes, I would do it. I would do anything to get out of my cage."

"As I would do anything to get into it."

Mrs. Verulam sighed deeply, put her handkerchief to her eyes, took it down, and then seemed with an effort of will to recover herself and to dismiss the problem that perplexed her. For she sat in a more flexible attitude, and, turning to Chloe, said ingenuously:

"And now, dear, about Mr. Van Adam."

Chloe jumped, and Mrs. Verulam, observing this, continued:

"Tell me all about him, when he will follow you, how happy you are together, and why he did not accompany you."

"Well, you see," Mrs. Van Adam said rather faintly, "his oranges."

"Oranges?"

"Yes. You know he grows them on a gigantic scale."

"Well?"

"And—and they can't always be left."

"Chloe, remember I was at school with you in Paris."

The words were very simple, but Mrs. Verulam uttered them without simplicity, and Chloe flushed quickly.

"I know," she said. "But it is—it is true. Oranges require a great deal of looking after."

"Oh, dear, if you prefer to keep me in the dark, of course I sha'n't say another word. Now I am sure you would like to see your room, so I shall ring for Marriner."

Mrs. Verulam leaned forward to touch the bell, but Chloe suddenly sprang up, sat down close beside her, and took her hand.

"You are right, Daisy. It's not the oranges."

"Of course not."

"No. It—I—Mr. Van Adam——"

"Yes?"

"Mr. Van Adam and I have parted."

"Parted!"

"We are separated."

"Legally?"

"Yes. We are—divorced."

Mrs. Verulam kissed Chloe pitifully.

"Oh, my poor Chloe! And so soon! How dreadful to have to divorce one's husband almost before the honeymoon was over."

Chloe's cheeks flushed more darkly.

"How rapidly you jump to conclusions, Daisy!" she said, almost irritably. "I remember now you used to do the same thing in Paris."

"Jump! But——"

"I did not say I divorced Mr. Van Adam. Now did I? Did I? Oh, I do dislike these imputations!"

Mrs. Verulam opened her pretty mouth to gasp, shut it without gasping, and then remarked, severely: "I hope he divorced you for something American, Chloe."

"Now, what do you mean?"

"For one of those American actions that are considered culpable in married people in your country: wearing your hair the wrong colour, or talking without an American accent, or disliking clams or Thanksgiving Day, or something of that kind."

"No, it was not clams. Besides, I like them rather. No, Daisy, it was an—an English action I was divorced for."

Mrs. Verulam began to look exceedingly grave.

"English! Then it must have been something bad!"

"No, it wasn't! It was all a mistake. Mr. Van Adam was terribly jealous. You have never seen him, Daisy. But he is one of those men with a temperament. Never marry a man with a temperament—that's to say, if he loves you. And Huskinson did love me."

She drooped pensively. But Mrs. Verulam's severity of expression increased.

"A temperament!" she said. "Now, Chloe, please don't abuse a man for not being deformed. I'm afraid you've done something dreadful."

"I haven't. I've done nothing. But I wouldn't defend the case. I was too proud. Huskinson——"

"Why is your husband's name Huskinson?"

"Ah! that's one of the things I've often and often wondered. It does seem so unnecessary. I feel that, too."

She checked the natural tendency to muse created by this strange problem, and went on:

"At first we were only pleasantly unhappy together. I liked his fury, and when he was good-tempered I bitterly resented it, and tried to check it by every means in my power. I generally succeeded in doing so. We women can do these things, you know, Daisy; and that's something."

"Yes."

"But as time went on, Huskinson——"

"I wonder why that's his name," Mrs. Verulam murmured uncontrollably.

"Got so accustomed to being angry that it became very monotonous. There was no variety in him at all. And one does look for variety in a man."

"Not if he's a London man."

"Huskinson isn't."

"Oh, with his name—no! Go on, darling."

"We were in New York at first, you know. And while we were there it was all right. I like a man angry in the street very well, or in a hotel. It shows people he's really fond of you. But then we went to the oranges—Florida, you see. And it was understood between us that we were to live an idyllic life there. The climate was suited to that sort of thing, and Huskinson's——"

"I do wonder——"

"Bungalow was specially constructed for peace, with verandas and rocking-chairs and a pet monkey, all complete. It was pretty."

She sighed.

"I never saw a pretty monkey yet," said Mrs. Verulam meditatively.

"Boswell was."

"Who on earth was Boswell?"

"Huskinson's monkey. It fed out of his hand."

"How greedy!"

"He didn't think so. Well, I meant Huskinson to become good-tempered now. He had been angry for two months or more, and it was right there should be a little change. Besides, we were to be quite alone, we and Boswell, so that I didn't require him to be jealous, as I had in New York City. But Huskinson is the sort of man who can't stop when once he has got into the way of a thing. He must go right on with it, wherever he is. That isn't artistic. Now, is it, Daisy dear?"

"I suppose not—no."

"Well, in Florida he was just as he was in New York. That man would sit in a rocking-chair with Boswell on his knee or in his hair, and be as furiously jealous as Othello. Even that monkey couldn't soothe him. It was too monotonous. I told him so. But he didn't seem to see it. I said being abused and watching oranges grow was all right for a certain time, but if it continued for eternity I should wish I hadn't married."

"That was rather cruel."

"That was what he said. He beat Boswell with a cane, and cried, and told the men on the plantation that if I said such a thing again he should cut down their wages. That set them against me. And Boswell took a hatred for me, too. I was beginning to grow quite weary of it all when Bream Rockmetteller came."

"Bream Rockmetteller!"

"Huskinson's dearest chum, Bream Rock——"

"I do wonder——"

"——Metteller was to sympathise with Huskinson; that was why he was invited. He travelled nearly two thousand miles to do it, but as soon as he was in the bungalow Huskinson became furiously jealous of him. You see, Bream didn't think me ugly; that was his first mistake. Oh, how that man did blunder! He admired the way I put my clothes on too, and thought it suited me quite well to wear my hair short. In fact, he went from one crime to another—so Huskinson considered."

"Then, was Bream the——"

"Yes. Oh, Daisy, a little man with one of those beards you see in a nonsense book, and a voice that shook him when he spoke, it was so much too large for him, and feet as small as yours, and stocks and shares in all his pockets, and even up his sleeves. How could anyone suppose that I——"

"Then, why didn't you defend it?"

Chloe put her lips together. When she did that she looked like a very determined boy.

"Because I was in the right."