"I wish you would not make suggestions of that sort, Sholto. You make
me uncomfortable. Something _might_ happen to Ned. I wish he were home.
He is very late."

"Happy man. You can be serious when you think about him. I envy him."

"What! Sholto Douglas stoop to envy any mortal! Prodigious!"

"Yes: it has come to that with me. Why should I not envy him? His career
has been upward throughout. He has been a successful worker in the
world, where I have had nothing real to do. When the good things I had
been dreaming of and longing for all my life came in his path, he had
them for the mere asking. I valued them so highly that when I fancied I
possessed them, I was the proudest of men. I am humble enough now that I
am beggared."

"You are really talking the greatest nonsense."

"No doubt I am. Still in love, Marian, you see. There is no harm in
telling you so now."

"On the contrary, it is now that there is harm. For shame, Sholto!"

"I am not ashamed. I tell you of my love because now you can listen to
me without uneasiness, knowing that it is no longer associated with
hope, or desire, or anything but regret. You see that I do not affect
the romantic lover. I eat very well; I play chess; I go into society;
and you reproach me for growing fat."

Marian bent over the chessboard for a moment to hide her face. Then she
said in a lower voice, "I have thoroughly convinced myself that there is
no such thing as love in the world."

"That means that you have never experienced it."

"I have told you already that I have never been in love, and that I
dont believe a bit in it. I mean romantic love, of course."

"I verily believe that you have not. The future has one more pang in
store for me; for you will surely love some day."

"I am getting too old for that, I fear. At what age, pray, did you
receive the arrow in your heart?"

"When I was a boy, I loved a vision. The happiest hours of my life were
those in which I was slowly, tremulously daring to believe that I had
found my vision at last in you. And then the dreams that followed! What
a career was to have been mine! I remember how you used to reproach me
because I was austere with women and proud with men. How could I have
been otherwise? I contrasted the gifts of all other women with those of
my elect, and the lot of all other men with my own. Can you wonder that,
doing so, I carried my head among the clouds? You must remember how
unfamiliar failure was to me. At school, at Oxford, in society, I had
sought distinction without misgiving, and attained it without
difficulty. My one dearest object I deemed secure long before I opened
my lips and asked expressly for it. I think I walked through life at
that time like a somnambulist; for I have since seen that I must have
been piling mistake upon mistake until out of a chaos of meaningless
words and smiles I had woven a Paphian love temple. At the first menace
of disappointment--a thing as new and horrible to me as death--I fled
the country. I came back with only the ruins of the doomed temple. You
were not content to destroy a ruin: the feat was too easy to be
glorious. So you rebuilt it in one hour to the very dome, and lighted
its altars with more than their former radiance. Then, as though it
were but a house of cards--as indeed it was nothing else--you gave it
one delicate touch and razed it to its foundations. Yet I am afraid
those altar lamps were not wholly extinguished. They smoulder beneath
the ruins still."

"I wonder why they made you the Newdigate poet at Oxford, Sholto: you
mix your metaphors most dreadfully. Dont be angry with me: I understand
what you mean; and I am very sorry. I say flippant things because I
must. How _can_ one meet seriousness in modern society except by chaff?"

"I am not angry. I had rather you did not understand. The more flippant
you are, the more you harden my heart; and I want it to be as hard as
the nether millstone. Your pity would soften me; and I dread that."

"I believe it does every man good to be softened. If you ever really
felt what you describe, you greatly over-estimated me. What can you lose
by a little more softness? I often think that men--particularly good
men--make their way through the world too much as if it were a solid
mass of iron through which they must cut--as if they dared not relax
their hardest edge and finest temper for a moment. Surely, that is not
the way to enjoy life."

"Perhaps not. Still, it is the way to conquer in life. It may be
pleasant to have a soft heart; but then someone is sure to break it."

"I do not believe much in broken hearts. Besides, I do not mean that men
should be too soft. For instance, sentimental young men of about twenty
are odious. But for a man to get into a fighting attitude at the barest
suggestion of sentiment; to believe in nature as something inexorable,
and to aim at being as inexorable as nature: is not that almost as bad?"

"Do you know any such man? You must not attribute that sort of hardness
to me."

"Oh no; I was not thinking of you. I was not thinking of anyone in fact.
I only put a case. I sometimes have disputes with Ned on the subject.
One of his cardinal principles is that there is no use in crying for
spilt milk. I always argue that as irremediable disasters are the only
ones that deserve or obtain sympathy, he might as well say that there is
no use in crying for anything. Then he slips out of the difficulty by
saying that that was just what he meant, and that there is actually no
place for regret in a well-regulated scheme of life. In debating with
women, men brazen out all the ridiculous conclusions of which they are
convicted; and then they say that there is no use in arguing with a
woman. Neither is there, because the woman is always right."

"Yes; because she suffers her heart to direct her."

"You are just as bad as the rest of your sex, I see. Where you cannot
withold credit from a woman, you give it to her heart and deny it to her
head."

"There! I wont play any more," said Miss McQuinch, suddenly, at the
other end of the room. "Have you finished your chess, Marian?"

"We are nearly done. Ring for the lamps, please, Nelly. Let us finish,
Sholto."

"Whose turn is it to move? I beg your pardon for my inattention."

"Mine--no, yours. Stop! it must be mine. I really dont know."

"Nor do I. I have forgotten my game."

"Then let us put up the board. We can finish some other night."

It had become dark by this time; and the lamps were brought in whilst
Douglas was replacing the chessmen in their box.

"Now," said Marian, "let us have some music. Marmaduke: will you sing
Uncle Ned for us? We have not heard you sing for ages."

"I believe it is more than three years since that abominable concert at
Wandsworth; and I have not heard you sing since," said Elinor.

"I forget all my songs--havnt sung one of them for months. However, here
goes! Have you a banjo in the house?"

"No," said Marian. "I will play an accompaniment for you."

"All right. See here: you need only play these three chords. When one
sounds wrong, play another. Youll learn it in a moment."

Marmaduke's voice was not so fresh, nor his fun so spontaneous, as at
Wandsworth; but they were not critical enough to appreciate the
difference: they laughed like children at him. Elinor was asked to play;
but she would not: she had renounced that folly, she said. Then, at
Douglas's request, Marian sang, in memory of Wandsworth, "Rose, softly
blooming." When she had finished, Elinor asked for some old melodies,
knowing that Marian liked these best. So she began gaily with The Oak
and the Ash and Robin Adair. After that, finding both herself and the
others in a more pathetic vein, she sang them The Bailiff's Daughter of
Islington, and The Banks of Allan Water, at the end of which Marmaduke's
eyes were full of tears, and the rest sat quite still. She paused for a
minute, and then broke the silence with Auld Robin Gray, which affected
even Douglas, who had no ear. As she sang the last strain, the click of
a latchkey was heard from without. Instantly she rose; closed the
pianoforte softly; and sat down at some distance from it. Her action was
reflected by a change in their behavior. They remembered that they were
not at home, and became more or less uneasily self-conscious. Elinor was
the least disturbed. Conolly's first glance on entering was at the
piano: his next went in search of his wife.

"Ah!" he said, surprised. "I thought somebody was singing."

"Oh dear no!" said Elinor drily. "You must have been mistaken."

"Perhaps so," said he, smiling. "But I have been listening carefully at
the window for ten minutes; and I certainly dreamt that I heard Auld
Robin Gray."

Marian blushed. Conolly did not seem to have been moved by the song. He
was alert and loquacious: before he had finished his greeting and
apology to Douglas, they all felt as little sentimental as they had ever
done in their lives. Marian, after asking whether he had dined, became
silent, and dropped the pretty airs of command which, as hostess, she
had worn before.

"Have you any news?" said Marmaduke at last. "Douglas knows the whole
business. We are all friends here."

"Only what we expected," said Conolly. "Affairs are exactly as they
were. I called to-day at her address--"

"How did you get it?" said Marmaduke.

"I wrote for it to her at the theatre."

"And did she send it?"

"Of course. But she did not give me any encouragement to call on her,
and, in fact, evidently did not want to see me. Her appearance has
altered very much for the worse. She is a confirmed dipsomaniac; and she
knows it. I advised her to abstain in future. She asked me, in her
sarcastic, sisterly way, whether I had any other advice to give her. I
told her that if she meant to go on, her proper course was to purchase a
hogshead of brandy; keep it by her side; and condense the process of
killing herself, which may at present take some years, into a few days."

"Oh, Ned, you did not really say that to her!" said Marian.

"I did indeed. The shocking part of the affair is not, as you seem to
think, my giving the advice, but that it should be the very best advice
I could have given."

"I do not think I would have said so."

"Most likely not," said Conolly, with a smile. "You would have said
something much prettier. But dipsomania is not one of the pretty things
of life; nor can it by any stretch of benevolent hypocrisy be made to
pass as one. When Susanna and I get talking, we do not waste time in
trying to spare one another's feelings. If we did, we should both see
through the attempt and be very impatient of it."

"Did she tell you what she intends to do?" said Marmaduke.

"She has accepted an American engagement. When that draws to a close, it
will, she says, be time enough for her to consider her next step. But
she has no intention of leaving the stage until she is compelled."

"Has she any intention of reforming her habits?" said Elinor, bluntly.

"I should say every intention, but no prospect of doing so.
Dipsomaniacs are always intending to reform; but they rarely succeed.
Has Lucy been put to bed?"

"Lucy is in disgrace," said Elinor. Marian looked at her apprehensively.

"In disgrace!" said Conolly, more seriously. "How so?"

Elinor described what had taken place in the garden. When she told how
the child had disregarded Marian's appeal, Conolly laughed.

"Lucy has no sense of how pretty she would have looked toddling in
obediently because her aunt asked her to," he said. "She is, like all
children, very practical, and will not assist in getting up amiable
little scenes without good reason rendered."

Elinor glanced at Marian, and saw that though Douglas was speaking to
her in a low voice, she was listening nervously to her husband. So she
said sharply, "It is a pity you were not here to tell us what to do."

"Apparently it is," said Conolly, complacently.

"What would you have done?" said Marian suddenly, interrupting Douglas.

"I suppose," said Conolly, looking round at her in surprise, "I should
have answered her question--told her what she was wanted for. If I asked
you to do anything, and you enquired why, you would be extremely annoyed
if I answered, 'because I ask you.'"

"I would not ask why," said Marian. "I would do it."

"That would be very nice of you," said Conolly; "but you cannot: expect
such a selfish, mistrustful, and curious animal as a little child to be
equally kind and confiding. Lucy is too acute not to have learned long
since that grown people systematically impose on the credulity and
helplessness of children."

"Thats true," said Elinor, reluctantly. Marian turned away and quietly
resumed her conversation with Douglas. After a minute she strolled with
him into the garden, whither Marmaduke had already retired to smoke.

"Has the evening been a pleasant one, Miss McQuinch?" said Conolly, left
alone with her.

"Yes: we have had a very pleasant evening indeed. We played chess and
_Г©cartГ©_; and we all agreed to make old times of it. Marmaduke sang for
us; and Marian had us nearly in tears with those old ballads of hers."

"And then I came in and spoiled it all. Eh?"

"Certainly not. Why do you say that?"

"Merely a mischievous impulse to say something true: jealousy, perhaps,
because I missed being here earlier. You think, then, that if I had been
here, the evening would have been equally pleasant, and Marian equally
happy in her singing?"

"Dont you like Marian's singing?"

"Could you not have refrained from that most indiscreet question?"

"I ought to have. It came out unawares. Do not answer it."

"That would make matters worse. And there is no reason whatever why the
plain truth should not be told. When I was a child I heard every day
better performances than Marian's. She believes there is something
pretty and good in music, and patronizes it accordingly to the best of
her ability. I do not like to hear music patronized; and when Marian,
lovely as she is, gives her pretty renderings of songs which I have
heard a hundred times from singers who knew what they were about, then,
though I admire her as I must always, my admiration is rather increased
than otherwise when she stops; because then I am no longer conscious of
a deficiency which even my unfortunate sister could supply."

"Your criticism of her singing sounds more sincere than your admiration
of her loveliness. I am not musician enough to judge. All I know is that
her singing is good enough for me."

"I know you are displeased because it is not good enough for me; but how
can I help myself? Poor Marian----"

"Do hush!" said Elinor. "Here she is."

"You need not be in such a hurry, Duke," said Marian. "What can it
matter to you how late you get back?"

"No," said Marmaduke. "I've got to write home. The governor is ill; and
my mammy will send me a five-sheet sermon if I neglect writing to-night.
You will keep Lucy for another week, wont you? Box her ears if she gives
you any cheek. She wants it: she's been spoiled."

"If we find we can do no better than that with her, we shall hand her
back to you," said Conolly. Then the visitors took their leave. Marian
gently pressed Douglas's hand and looked into his eyes as he bade her
farewell. Elinor, seeing this, glanced uneasily at Conolly, and
unexpectedly met his eye. There was a gleam of cynical intelligence in
it that did not reassure her. A few minutes later she went to bed,
leaving the couple alone together. Conolly looked at his wife for a
moment with an amused expression; but she closed her lips
irresponsively, and went to the table for a book which she wanted to
bring upstairs. She would have gone without a word had he not spoken to
her.

"Marian: Douglas is in love with you."

She blushed; thought a moment; and said quietly, "Very well. I shall not
ask him to come again."

"Why?"

She colored more vividly and suddenly, and said, "I thought you cared. I
beg your pardon."

"My dear," he replied, amiably: "if you exclude everybody who falls in
love with you, we shall have no one in the house but blind men."

"And do you like men to be in love with me?"

"Yes. It makes the house pleasant for them; it makes them attentive to
you; and it gives you great power for good. When I was a romantic boy,
any good woman could have made a saint of me. Let them fall in love with
you as much as they please. Afterwards they will seek wives according to
a higher standard than if they had never known you. But do not return
the compliment, or your influence will become an evil one."

"Ned: I had not intended to tell you this; but now I will. Sholto
Douglas not only loves me, but he told me so to-day."

"Of course. A man always does tell it, sooner or later."

Marian sat down on the sofa and looked at him for some time gravely and
a little wistfully. "I think," she said, "I should feel very angry if
any woman made such a confession to you."

"A Christian British lady does not readily forgive a breach of
convention; nor a woman an invasion of her privileges, even when they
have become a burden to her."

"What do you mean by that?" she said, rising.

"Marian," he said, looking straight at her: "are you dissatisfied?"

"What reason have I to--"

"Never mind the reasons. Are you?"

"No," said she, steadfastly.

He smiled indulgently; pressed her hand for a moment against his cheek;
and went out for the short walk he was accustomed to take before
retiring.




CHAPTER XV


In October Marian was at Sark, holiday making at the house of Hardy
McQuinch's brother, who had recently returned to England with a fortune
made in Australia. Conolly, having the house at Holland Park to himself,
fitted a spare room as a laboratory, and worked there every night. One
evening, returning home alone a little before five o'clock, he shut
himself into this laboratory, and had just set to work when Armande, the
housemaid, interrupted him.

"Mrs. Leith Fairfax, sir."

Conolly had had little intercourse with Mrs. Fairfax since before his
marriage, when he had once shewn her the working of his invention at
Queen Victoria Street; and as Marian had since resented her share of
Douglas's second proposal by avoiding her society as far as possible
without actually discontinuing her acquaintance, this visit was a
surprise. Conolly looked darkly at Armande, and went to the drawing-room
without a word.

"_How_ do you do, Mr. Conolly?" said Mrs. Fairfax, as he entered. "I
need not ask: you are looking so well. Have I disturbed you?"

"You have--most agreeably. Pray sit down."

"I know your time is priceless. I should never have ventured to come,
but that I felt sure you would like to hear all the news from Sark. I
have been there for the last fortnight. Marian told me to call on you
the moment I returned."

"Yes," said Conolly, convinced that this was not true. "She promised to
do so in her last letter."

Mrs. Fairfax, on the point of publishing a few supplementary fictions,
checked herself, and looked suspiciously at him.

"The air of Sark has evidently benefited you," he said, as she paused.
"You are looking very well--I had almost said charming."

Mrs. Fairfax glanced archly at him, and said, "Nonsense! but, indeed,
the trip was absolutely necessary for me. I should hardly have been
alive had I remained at work; and poor Willie McQuinch was bent on
having me."

"He has been described to me as an inveterate lion hunter."

"It is not at all pleasant, I assure you, to be persecuted with
invitations from people who wish to see a real live novelist. But
William McQuinch's place at Sark is really palatial. He is called
Sarcophagus on account of his wealth. A great many people whom he knew
were staying in the island, besides those in the house with us. Marian
was the beauty of the place. How every one admires her! Why do you not
go down, Mr. Conolly?"

"I am too busy. Besides, it will do Marian good to be rid of me for a
while."

"Absurd, Mr. Conolly! You should not leave her there by herself."

"By herself! Why, is not the place full?"

"Yes; but I do not mean that. There is nobody belonging to her there."

"You forget. Miss McQuinch is her bosom friend. There is Marmaduke, her
cousin; and his mother, her Aunt Dora. Then, is there not Mr. Sholto
Douglas, one of her oldest and most attached friends?"

"Oh! Is Mr. Douglas in charge of her?"

"No doubt he will take charge of her, if she is overtaken by her second
childhood whilst he is there. Meanwhile, she is in charge of herself, is
she not? And there is hardly any danger of her feeling lonely."

"No. Sholto Douglas will provide against that."

"Your opinion confirms the accounts I have had from other sources. It
appears that Mr. Douglas is very attentive to my wife."

"Very, indeed, Mr. Conolly. You must not think that I am afraid of
anything--anything--"

"Anything?"

"Well--Oh, you know what I mean. Anything wrong. At least, not exactly
wrong, but--"

"Anything undomestic."

"Yes. You see, Marian's position is a very difficult one. She is so
young and so good looking that she is very much observed; and it seems
so strange her being without her husband."

"Pretty ladies whose husbands are never seen, often get talked about in
the world, do they not?"

"That is just what I mean. How cleverly you get everything out of me,
Mr. Conolly! I called here without the faintest idea of alluding to
Marian's situation; and now you have made me say all sorts of things.
What a fortune you would have made at the bar!"

"I must apologize, I did not mean to cross-examine you. Naturally, of
course, you would not like to make me uneasy about Marian."

"It is the very last thing I should desire. But now that it has slipped
out, I really think you ought to go to Sark."

"Indeed! I rather infer that I should be very much in the way."

"The more reason for you to go, Mr. Conolly."

"Not at all, Mrs. Leith Fairfax. The attentions of a husband are stale,
unsuited to holiday time. Picture to yourself my arrival at Sark with
the tender assurance in my mouth, 'Marian, I love you.' She would reply,
'So you ought. Am I not your wife?' The same advance from another--Mr.
Douglas, for instance--would affect her quite differently, and much more
pleasantly."

"Mr. Conolly; is this indifference, or supreme confidence?"

"Neither of these conjugal claptraps. I merely desire that Marian should
enjoy herself as much as possible; and the more a woman is admired, the
happier she is. Perhaps you think that, in deference to the general
feeling in such matters, I should become jealous."

Mrs. Fairfax again looked doubtfully at him. "I cannot make you out at
all, Mr. Conolly," she said submissively. "I hope I have not offended
you."

"Not in the least. I take it that having observed certain circumstances
which seemed to threaten the welfare of one very dear to you (as, I am
aware, Marian is), the trouble they caused you found unpremeditated
expression in the course of a conversation with me." Conolly beamed at
her, as if he thought this rather neatly turned.

"Exactly so. But I do not wish you to think that I have observed
anything particular."

"Certainly not. Still, you think there would be no harm in my writing
to Marian to say that her behavior has attracted your notice, and----"

"Good heavens, Mr. Conolly, you must not mention _me_ in the matter! You
are so innocent--at least so frank, so workmanlike, if I may say so, in
your way of dealing with things! I would not have Marian know what I
have said--I really did not notice anything--for worlds. You had better
not write at all, but just go down as if you went merely to enjoy
yourself; and dont on any account let Marian suspect that you have heard
anything. Goodness knows what mischief you might make, in your--your
ingenuousness!"

"But I should have thought that the opinion of an old and valued friend
like yourself would have special weight with her."

"You know nothing about it. Clever engineer as you are, you do not
understand the little wheels by which our great machine of society is
worked."

"True, Mrs. Leith Fairfax," he rejoined, echoing the cadence of her
sentence. "Educated as a mere mechanic, I am still a stranger to the
elegancies of life. I usually depend on Marian for direction; but since
you think that it would be injudicious to appeal to her in the present
instance----"

"Out of the question, Mr. Conolly."

"--I must trust to your guidance in the matter. What do you suggest?"

Mrs. Fairfax was about to reply, when the expression which she
habitually wore like a mask in society, wavered and broke. Her lip
trembled: her eyes filled with tears: she rose with a sniff that was
half a sob. When she spoke, her voice was sincere for the first time,
and at the sound of it Conolly's steely, hard manner melted, and his
inhuman self-possession vanished.

"You think," she said, "that I came here to make mischief. I did not.
Marian is nothing to me: she does not even like me; but I dont want to
see her ruin herself merely because she is too inexperienced to know
when she is well off. I have had to fight my way in London: and I know
what it is, and what the world is. She is not fit to take charge of
herself. Good-bye, Mr. Conolly: you are a great deal too young yourself
to know the danger, for all your cleverness. You may tell her that I
came here and gossipped against her, if you like. She will never speak
to me again; but if it saves her, I dont care. Good-bye."

"My dear Mrs. Fairfax," he said, with entire frankness, "I am now deeply
and sincerely obliged to you." And in proof that he was touched, he
kissed her hand with the ease and grace of a man who had been carefully
taught how to do it. Mrs. Fairfax recovered herself and almost blushed
as he went with her to the door, chatting easily about the weather and
the Addison Road trains.

She was not the last visitor that evening. She had hardly been fifteen
minutes gone when the Rev. George presented himself, and was conducted
to the laboratory, where he found Conolly, with his coat off, surrounded
by apparatus. The glowing fire, comfortable chairs, and preparations for
an evening meal, gladdened him more than the presence of his
brother-in-law, with whom he never felt quite at ease.

"You wont mind my fiddling with these machines while I talk," said
Conolly.

"Not at all, not at all. I shall witness your operations with great
interest. You must not think that the wonders of science are indifferent
to me."

"So you are going on to Sark, you say?"

"Yes. May I ask whether you will be persuaded to come?"

"No, for certain. I have other fish to fry here."

"I think it would renovate your health to come for a few days."

"My health is always right as long as I have work. Did you meet Mrs.
Fairfax outside?"

"A--yes. I passed her."

"You spoke to her, I suppose?"

"A few words. Yes."

"Do you know what she came here for?"

"No. But stay. I am wrong. She mentioned that she came for a book she
lent you."

"She mentioned what was not true. What did she say to you about Marian?"

"Well, she--She was just saying that it is perhaps as well that I should
go down to Sark at once, as Marian is quite alone."

The clergyman looked so guilty as he said this that Conolly laughed
outright at him. "You mean," he said, "that Marian is _not_ quite alone.
Well, very likely Douglas occupies himself a good deal with her. If so,
there may be some busybody or another down there fool enough to tell her
that people are talking about her. That would spoil her holiday; so it
is lucky that you are going down. No one will take it upon themselves to
speak to her when you are there; and if they say anything to you, you
can let it in at one ear and out at the other."

"That is, of course, unless I should see her really acting
indiscreetly."

"I had better tell you beforehand what you will see if you keep your
eyes open. You will see very plainly that Douglas is in love with her.
Also that she knows that he is in love with her. In fact, she told me
so. And you will see she rather likes it. Every married woman requires a
holiday from her husband occasionally, even when he suits her
perfectly."

The Rev. George stared. "If I follow you aright--I am not sure that I
do--you impute to Marian the sin of entertaining feelings which it is
her duty to repress."

"I impute no sin to her. You might as well tell a beggar that he has no
right to be hungry, as a woman that it is her duty to feel this and not
to feel that."

"But Marian has been educated to feel only in accordance with her duty."

"So have you. How does it work? However," continued Conolly, without
waiting for an answer, "I dont deny that Marian shews the effects of her
education. They are deplorably evident in all her conscientious
actions."

"You surprise and distress me. This is the first intimation I have
received of your having any cause to complain of Marian."

"Nonsense! I dont complain of her. But what you call her education, as
far as I can make it out, appears to have consisted of stuffing her with
lies, and making it a point of honor with her to believe them in spite
of sense and reason. The sense of duty that rises on that sort of
foundation is more mischievous than downright want of principle. I dont
dispute your right, you who constitute polite society, to skin over all
the ugly facts of life. But to make your daughters believe that the
skin covers healthy flesh is a crime. Poor Marian thinks that a room is
clean when all the dust is swept out of sight under the furniture; and
if honest people rake it out to bring it under the notice of those whose
duty it is to remove it, she is disgusted with them, and ten to one
accuses them of having made it themselves. She doesnt know what sort of
world she is in, thanks to the misrepresentations of those who should
have taught her. She will deceive her children in just the same way, if
she ever has any. If she had been taught the truth in her own childhood,
she would know how to face it, and would be a strong woman as well as an
amiable one. But it is too late now. The truth seems natural to a child;
but to a grown woman or man, it is a bitter lesson in the learning,
though it may be invigorating when it is well mastered. And you know how
seldom a hard task forced on an unwilling pupil _is_ well mastered."

"What is truth?" said the clergyman, sententiously.

"All that we know, Master Pilate," retorted Conolly with a laugh. "And
we know a good deal. It may seem small in comparison with what we dont
know; but it is more than any one of us can hold, for all that. We know,
for instance, that the world was not planned by a sentimental landscape
gardener. If Marian ever learns that--which she may, although I am
neither able nor willing to teach it to her--she will not thank those
who gave her so much falsehood to unlearn. Until then, she will, I am
afraid, do little else than lay up a store of regrets for herself."

"This is very strange. We always looked upon Marian as an exceptionally
amiable girl."

"So she is, unfortunately. There is no institution so villainous but
she will defend it; no tyranny so oppressive but she will make a virtue
of submitting to it; no social cancer so venomous but she will shrink
from cutting it out, and plead that it is a comfortable thing, and much
better as it is. She knows that she disobeyed her father, and that he
deserved to be disobeyed; yet she condemns other women who are
disobedient, and stands out against Nelly McQuinch in defence of the
unselfishness of parental love. She knows that the increased freedom of
movement allowed to her as a married woman has been healthy for her; yet
she looks coldly at other young women who assert their right to freedom,
and are not afraid to walk through the streets without a sheepdog, human
or otherwise, at their heels. She knows that marriage is not what she
expected it to be, and that it gives me many unfair advantages over her;
and she knows also that ours is a happier marriage than most.
Nevertheless she will encourage other girls to marry; she will maintain
that the chain which galls her own wrists so often is a string of
honeysuckles; and if a woman identifies herself with any public movement
for the lightening of that chain, she wont allow that that woman is fit
to be admitted into decent society. There is not one of these shams to
which she clings that I would not like to take by the throat and shake
the life out of; and she knows it. Even in that she has not the
consistency to believe me wrong, because it is undutiful and out of
keeping with the honeysuckles to lack faith in her husband. In order to
blind herself to her inconsistencies, she has to live in a rose-colored
fog; and what with me constantly, in spite of myself, blowing this fog
away on the one side, and the naked facts of her everyday experience as
constantly letting in the daylight on the other, she must spend half
the time wondering whether she is mad or sane. Between her desire to do
right and her discoveries that it generally leads her to do wrong, she
passes her life in a wistful melancholy which I cant dispel. I can only
pity her. I suppose I could pet her; but I hate treating a woman like a
child: it means giving up all hope of her becoming rational. She may
turn for relief any day either to love or religion; and for her own sake
I hope she will choose the first. Of the two evils, it is the least
permanent." And Conolly, having disburdened himself, resumed his work
without any pretence of waiting for the clergyman's comments.

"Well," said the Rev. George, cautiously, "I do not think I have quite
followed your opinions, which seem to me to be exactly upside down, as
if they were projected upon the retina of your mind's eye--to use
Shakspear's happy phrase--just as they would be upon your--your real
eye, you know. But I can assure you that your view of Marian is an
entirely mistaken one. You seem to think that she does not give in her
entire adherence to the doctrines of the Establishment. This is a matter
which I venture to say you do not understand."

"Admitted," interposed Conolly, hastily. "Here is my workman's tea. Are
you fond of scones?"

"I hardly know. Anything--the simplest fare, will satisfy me."

"So it does me, when I can get nothing better. Help yourself, pray."

Conolly did not sit down to the meal, but worked whilst the clergyman
ate. Presently the Rev. George, warmed by the fire and cheered by the
repast, returned to the subject of his host's domestic affairs.

"Come," he said, "I am sure that a few judicious words would lead to an
explanation between you and Marian."

"I also think that a few words might do so. But they would not be
judicious words."

"Why not? Can it be injudicious to restore harmony in a household?"

"No; but that would not be the effect of an explanation, because the
truth is not likely to reconcile us. If I were to explain the difficulty
to a man, he would argue. But Marian would just infer that I despised
her, and nothing else."

"Oh no! Oh dear no! A few kind words; an appeal to her good sense; a
little concession on both sides----"

"All excellent for a pair estranged by a flash of temper, or a
mother-in-law, or a trifle of jealousy, or too many evenings spent at
the club on the man's part, or too many dances with a gallant on the
woman's; but no good for us. We have never exchanged unkind words: there
are no concessions to be made: her good sense is not at fault. Besides,
these few kind words that are supposed to be such a sovereign remedy for
all sorts of domestic understandings are generally a few kind fibs. If I
told them, Marian wouldnt believe them. Fibs dont make lasting truces
either. No: the situation is graver than you think. Just suppose, for
instance, that you undertake to restore harmony, as you call it! what
will you say to her?"

"Well, it would depend on circumstances."

"But you know the circumstances on which it depends. How would you
begin?"

"There are little ways of approaching delicate subjects with women. For
instance, I might say, casually, that it was a pity that a pair so
happily situated as you two should not agree perfectly."

"You would get no further; for Marian would never admit that we do not
agree. She does not know what her complaint is, and therefore feels
bound in honor to maintain that she has nothing to complain of. She is
not the woman to cast reproach on me for a discontent she cannot
explain. Or, if she could explain it, how much wiser should you be? _I_
have explained; and you confess you cannot understand me. The difference
between us is neither her fault nor mine; and all the explanations in
the world will not remove it."

"If you would allow me to appeal to her religious duty----"

"Religion! She doesnt believe in it."

"What!" exclaimed the clergyman, unaffectedly shocked. "Surely,
surely----"

"Listen. To me, believing in a doctrine doesnt mean holding up your hand
and saying, 'Credo.' It means habitually acting on the assumption that
the doctrine is true. Marian thinks it wrong not to go to church; and
she will hold up her hand and cry 'Credo' to the immortality of her
soul, or to any verse in the New Testament. The shareholders of our
concern in the city will do the same. But do they or she ever act on the
assumption that they are immortal, or that riches are dross, or that
class prejudice is damnable? Never. They dont believe it. You will find
that Marian has been thoroughly trained to separate her practice from
her religious professions; and if you allude to the inconsistency she
will instinctively feel that you are offending against good taste. In
short, her 'Credo' doesnt mean faith: it means church-going, which is
practised because it is respectable, and is respectable because it is a
habit of the upper caste. But church-going is church-going; and business
is business, as Marian will soon let you know if you meddle with _her_
business. However, we need not argue about that: we know one another's
views and can agree to differ."

"I should be false to my duty as a Christian priest if I made any such
agreement."

"Perhaps so; but, at any rate, we cant spend all our lives over the same
argument. No, as I was saying, take my advice, and let Marian alone."

"But what do you intend to do, then?"

"What _can_ I do but wait? Experience must wear out some of her
illusions. She will at least find out that she is no worse off than
other women, and better off than some of them. Since the job cannot be
undone, we must try how making the best of it will work. I am pretty
hopeful myself. How are affairs getting on at your chapel? I am told
that the sermons of your _locum tenens_ send the congregation asleep."

"He is not at his best in the pulpit. A good fellow! a most loving man
but not able to grapple with a large congregation. After all, I am
obliged to confess that very few of our cloth are. The power of
preaching is quite an exceptional one; and it is a gift as well as a
trust. I humbly believe that the power of the tongue comes of a higher
ordination than the bishop's."

Nothing further was said about Marian. The clergyman's object in
visiting Conolly was, it presently appeared, to borrow a portmanteau.
When he was gone, Conolly returned to the laboratory, and wrote the
following letter:

  "My dear Marian

  "I have just had two unexpected visits, one from Mrs. Fairfax, and
  one from George. Mrs. L.F. said you asked her to call and give me
  the news. When I told her, without blushing, that you had written
  to prepare me for her visit, she was rather put out, justly
  thinking me to mean that I did not believe her. As this is fully
  the thirty-sixth falsehood in which you have detected good Mrs. F.,
  I fear you will be compelled, in spite of your principle of
  believing the best of everybody, to regard her in future as a not
  invariably accurate woman. She came with the object of making me go
  down to Sark. You were so young and so much admired: Mr. Douglas
  was so attentive: you should not be left entirely alone, and so
  forth. You will be angry with her; but she thinks Douglas so
  irresistible that she is genuinely anxious about you: I believe she
  really meant well this time. As to our reverend brother, his
  portmanteau burst in the train coming from Edinburgh; so he came to
  borrow mine, having apparently resolved to wear out those of all
  his friends before buying a new one. Unfortunately, he met Mrs. F.
  down the road; and she urged him to go down to Sark just as she had
  urged me. Now as George is incapable of holding his tongue when he
  ought, I feel sure that unless I tell you what Mrs. F. said, he
  will anticipate me. Otherwise I should not have mentioned it until
  your return, for fear of annoying you and spoiling your visit. So
  if his reverence hints or lectures, you will know what he means and
  not heed him. Mrs. F's confidences have probably not been confined
  to me; but were I in your place, I should not make the slightest
  change in my conduct in consequence. At all events, if you feel
  constrained to display any sudden accession of reserve toward
  Douglas, tell him the reason; because if you dont, he will ascribe
  the change to coquetry.

  "I have turned the spare room on the first floor into a laboratory,
  and am sitting in it now. I'm thinking of fitting it up like a
  studio, and having private views of my inventions, as Scott has of
  his pictures. Parson's man came with some flowers the other day,
  and informed me that three balls, to the first of which he was
  invited, took place in the house while I was away. One or two
  trifling dilapidations, and the fact that somebody has been
  tampering with the locks of the organ and piano, dispose me to
  believe this tale. Parson's man declares that he was too virtuous
  to come to the two last entertainments after finding out that the
  first was a clandestine one; but I believe he made himself
  disagreeable, and was not invited. Probably he quarrelled with some
  military follower of Armande's; for he was particularly bitter on
  the subject of a common soldier making free in a gentleman's house.
  I have not said anything to the two culprits; but I have contrived
  to make them suspect that I know all; and they now do their duty
  with trembling diligence. Some man sat on the little walnut table
  and broke it; but no other damage worth mentioning has been done.
  The table was absurdly repaired with a piece of twine, and pushed
  into the recess between the organ and the front window, whence I
  sometimes amuse myself by the experiment of pulling it into broad
  daylight. It is always pushed back again before I return in the
  evening.

  "How are you off for money? I have plenty of loose cash just now.
  Madame called last Monday, and asked Matilda, who opened the door,
  when you would be back. Thereupon I interviewed her. I must say she
  is loyal to her clients; for I had great difficulty in extracting
  her bill, which was, of course, what she called about. She
  evidently recognizes the necessity of keeping husbands in the dark
  in such matters. One of the items was for the lace on your
  maccaroni-colored body, which, as I chanced to remember, you
  supplied yourself. After a brief struggle she deducted it; so I
  paid her the balance: only 35ВЈ 13s. 9d.

  "When are you coming back to me? After Sark I
  fear you will find home a little dull. Nevertheless, I
  should like to see you again. Come back before Christmas,
  at any rate.

                     "Yours, dear Marian, in solitude,
                                                   "NED."

The answer came two days later than return of post, and ran thus:

                                         "Melbourne House, Sark,
                                                 "Sunday.
  "My dear Ned

  "How very provoking about the servants! I do not mind Matilda so
  much; but I do think it hard that we could not depend on Armande,
  considering all the kindness we have shewn her. I can scarcely
  believe that she would have acted so badly unless she were led away
  by Matilda, whom I will pack off the moment I return. As to
  Armande, I will give her another chance; but she shall have a sharp
  talking to. I am quite sure that a great deal more mischief has
  been done than you noticed. If the carpet was danced on for three
  nights by men in heavy boots, it must be in ribbons. It is really
  too bad. I do not want any money. Indeed the twenty pounds you sent
  me last was quite unnecessary, as I have nearly sixteen left. What
  a rogue Madame is to try and make you pay for my lace! I am sorry
  you paid the bill. She had no business to call for her money: she
  is _never_ paid so soon by _anybody_. We have had great fun down
  here. It has been one continual garden party all through; and the
  weather is still lovely. Mr. McQuinch is very colonial: but I think
  his ways make the house pleasanter than if he were still English.
  Carbury is quite stupid in comparison to this place. I have danced
  more than I ever did in my life before; and now we are so tired of
  frivolity that if any one ventures to strum a waltz or propose a
  game, we all protest. We tried to get up some choral music; but it
  was a failure. On Friday, George, who is looked on as a great man
  here, was asked to give us a Shakespeare reading. He was only too
  glad to be asked; for he had heard Simonton, the actor, read at a
  bazaar in Scotland, and was full of Richard the Third in
  consequence. He was not very bad; but his imitation of Simonton was
  so obvious and so queerly mixed with his own churchy style that he
  seemed rather monotonous and affected. At least I thought so. I was
  dreadfully uncomfortable during the reading because of Marmaduke,
  who behaved scandalously. There were some schoolboys present; and
  he not only encouraged them to misbehave themselves, but was worse
  than any of them himself. At last he pretended to be overcome by
  the heat, and went out of the room, to my great relief; but when
  the passage about the early village cock came, he crew outside the
  door, where he had been waiting expressly to do it. Nobody could
  help laughing; and the boys screamed so that Mr. McQuinch took two
  of them out by the collar. I believe he was glad of the excuse to
  go out and laugh himself. George was very angry, and no wonder! He
  will hardly speak to Marmaduke, who, of course, denies all
  knowledge of the interruption; but George knows better. All the
  Hardy McQuinches are down here. Uncle Hardy is rather stooped from
  rheumatism. Nelly is now the chief personage in the family: Lydia
  and Jane are nowhere beside her. They are good-humored, bouncing
  girls; but they are certainly not brilliant. I hope it is not Aunt
  Dora's walnut table that is broken. Was it not mean of Parson's man
  to tell on Armande? I think, since you have plenty of loose cash,
  we might venture on a set of those curtains we saw at Protheroe's,
  for the drawing-room. I can easily use the ones that are there now
  for _portiГЁres_.

  "You must not think that I have written this all at once. I shall
  be able to finish to-day, as it is Sunday, and I have made an
  excuse to stay away from church. George is to preach; and somehow I
  never feel toward the service as I ought when he officiates. I know
  you will laugh at this.

  "The first part of your letter must have a paragraph
  all to itself. I hardly know what to say. I could not
  have believed that Mrs. Leith Fairfax would have behaved
  as she has done. I was so angry at first that for
  fully an hour I felt ill; and I spoke quite wickedly to
  George the day after he arrived, because he said that
  Sholto had better not take me down to dinner, although
  his doing so was quite accidental. I know you will believe
  me when I tell you that I was quite unconscious
  that he had been unusually attentive to me; and I was
  about to write you an indignant denial, only I shewed
  Nelly your letter, and she crushed me by telling me she
  had noticed it too. We nearly had a quarrel about it;
  but she counted up the number of times I had danced
  with him and sat beside him at dinner; and I suppose an
  evil-minded woman looking on might think what Mrs.
  Leith Fairfax thought. But there is no excuse for her.
  She knows that Sholto and I have been intimate since
  we were children; and there is something odious in her,
  of all people, pretending to misunderstand us. What is
  worse, she was particularly friendly and confidential with
  me while she was here; and although I tried to keep
  away from her at first, she persisted in conciliating me,
  and persuaded me that Douglas had entirely mistaken
  what she said that other time. Who could have expected
  her to turn round and calumniate me the moment my
  back was turned! How can people do such things! I
  hope we shall not meet her again; for I will never speak
  to her. I have not said anything to Douglas. How
  could I? It would only make mischief. I feel that the
  right course is to come home as soon as I can, and in the
  meantime to avoid him as much as possible. So you
  may expect me on Saturday next. Mr. McQuinch is
  quite dismayed at my departure, which he says will be
  the signal for a general breaking up; but this I cannot
  help. I shall be glad to go home, of course. Still, I
  am sorry to leave this place, where we have all been so
  jolly. I will write and let you know what train I shall
  come by; but you need not trouble to meet me, unless
  you like: I can get home quite well by myself. After
  all, it is just as well that I am getting away. It _was_
  pleasant enough; but now I feel utterly disgusted with
  everything and everybody. I find I must stop. They
  have just come in from church; and I must go down.

                            "Your affectionate
                                        "MARIAN."




CHAPTER XVI


One Saturday afternoon in December Marian and Elinor sat drinking tea in
the drawing-room at Holland Park. Elinor was present as an afternoon
caller: she no longer resided with the Conollys. Marian had been lamely
excusing herself for not having read Elinor's last book.