"She would not presume--"

"Nonsense, my dear Gertrude. She thinks that we are a couple of fools
who have mismanaged our own business, and that she, having managed so
well for herself, can settle us in a jiffy. Come, did she not say to
you, before I came, that it was time for me to be getting married?"

"Well, she did. But--"

"She said exactly the same thing to me about you when she invited me."

"I would leave her house this moment," said Gertrude, "if I thought she
dared meddle in my affairs. What is it to her whether I am married or
not?"

"Where have you been living all these years, if you do not know that the
very first thing a woman wants to do when she has made a good match is
to make ones for all her spinster friends. Jane does not mean any harm.
She does it out of pure benevolence."

"I do not need Jane's benevolence."

"Neither do I; but it doesn't do any harm, and she is welcome to amuse
herself by trotting out her male acquaintances for my approval. Hush!
Here she comes."

Gertrude subsided. She could not quarrel with Lady Brandon without
leaving the house, and she could not leave the house without returning
to her home. But she privately resolved to discourage the attentions
of Erskine, suspecting that instead of being in love with her as he
pretended, he had merely been recommended by Jane to marry her.

Chichester Erskine had made sketches in Palestine with Sir Charles, and
had tramped with him through many European picture galleries. He was a
young man of gentle birth, and had inherited fifteen hundred a year from
his mother, the bulk of the family property being his elder brother's.
Having no profession, and being fond of books and pictures, he had
devoted himself to fine art, a pursuit which offered him on the cheapest
terms a high opinion of the beauty and capacity of his own nature. He
had published a tragedy entitled, "The Patriot Martyrs," with an etched
frontispiece by Sir Charles, and an edition of it had been speedily
disposed of in presentations to the friends of the artist and poet,
and to the reviews and newspapers. Sir Charles had asked an eminent
tragedian of his acquaintance to place the work on the stage and to
enact one of the patriot martyrs. But the tragedian had objected that
the other patriot martyrs had parts of equal importance to that proposed
for him. Erskine had indignantly refused to cut these parts down or out,
and so the project had fallen through.

Since then Erskine had been bent on writing another drama, without
regard to the exigencies of the stage, but he had not yet begun it, in
consequence of his inspiration coming upon him at inconvenient hours,
chiefly late at night, when he had been drinking, and had leisure for
sonnets only. The morning air and bicycle riding were fatal to the
vein in which poetry struck him as being worth writing. In spite of the
bicycle, however, the drama, which was to be entitled "Hypatia," was
now in a fair way to be written, for the poet had met and fallen in love
with Gertrude Lindsay, whose almost Grecian features, and some knowledge
of the different calculua which she had acquired at Alton, helped him to
believe that she was a fit model for his heroine.

When the ladies came downstairs they found their host and Erskine in the
picture gallery, famous in the neighborhood for the sum it had cost Sir
Charles. There was a new etching to be admired, and they were called on
to observe what the baronet called its tones, and what Agatha would have
called its degrees of smudginess. Sir Charles's attention often wandered
from this work of art. He looked at his watch twice, and said to his
wife:

"I have ordered them to be punctual with the luncheon."

"Oh, yes; it's all right," said Lady Brandon, who had given orders that
luncheon was not to be served until the arrival of another gentleman.
"Show Agatha the picture of the man in the--"

"Mr. Trefusis," said a servant.

Mr. Trefusis, still in snuff color, entered; coat unbuttoned and
attention unconstrained; exasperatingly unconscious of any occasion for
ceremony.

"Here you are at last," said Lady Brandon. "You know everybody, don't
you?"

"How do you do?" said Sir Charles, offering his hand as a severe
expression of his duty to his wife's guest, who took it cordially,
nodded to Erskine, looked without recognition at Gertrude, whose frosty
stillness repudiated Lady Brandon's implication that the stranger was
acquainted with her, and turned to Agatha, to whom he bowed. She made no
sign; she was paralyzed. Lady Brandon reddened with anger. Sir Charles
noted his guest's reception with secret satisfaction, but shared the
embarrassment which oppressed all present except Trefusis, who seemed
quite indifferent and assured, and unconsciously produced an impression
that the others had not been equal to the occasion, as indeed they had
not.

"We were looking at some etchings when you came in," said Sir Charles,
hastening to break the silence. "Do you care for such things?" And he
handed him a proof.

Trefusis looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing before and
did not quite know what to make of it. "All these scratches seem to me
to have no meaning," he said dubiously.

Sir Charles stole a contemptuous smile and significant glance at
Erskine. He, seized already with an instinctive antipathy to Trefusis,
said emphatically:

"There is not one of those scratches that has not a meaning."

"That one, for instance, like the limb of a daddy-long-legs. What does
that mean?"

Erskine hesitated a moment; recovered himself; and said: "Obviously
enough--to me at least--it indicates the marking of the roadway."

"Not a bit of it," said Trefusis. "There never was such a mark as that
on a road. It may be a very bad attempt at a briar, but briars don't
straggle into the middle of roads frequented as that one seems to
be--judging by those overdone ruts." He put the etching away, showing no
disposition to look further into the portfolio, and remarked, "The only
art that interests me is photography."

Erskine and Sir Charles again exchanged glances, and the former said:

"Photography is not an art in the sense in which I understand the term.
It is a process."

"And a much less troublesome and more perfect process than that," said
Trefusis, pointing to the etching. "The artists are sticking to the old
barbarous, difficult, and imperfect processes of etching and portrait
painting merely to keep up the value of their monopoly of the required
skill. They have left the new, more complexly organized, and more
perfect, yet simple and beautiful method of photography in the hands
of tradesmen, sneering at it publicly and resorting to its aid
surreptitiously. The result is that the tradesmen are becoming better
artists than they, and naturally so; for where, as in photography,
the drawing counts for nothing, the thought and judgment count for
everything; whereas in the etching and daubing processes, where great
manual skill is needed to produce anything that the eye can endure, the
execution counts for more than the thought, and if a fellow only fit
to carry bricks up a ladder or the like has ambition and perseverance
enough to train his hand and push into the van, you cannot afford to put
him back into his proper place, because thoroughly trained hands are
so scarce. Consider the proof of this that you have in literature. Our
books are manually the work of printers and papermakers; you may cut
an author's hand off and he is as good an author as before. What is the
result? There is more imagination in any number of a penny journal than
in half-a-dozen of the Royal Academy rooms in the season. No author
can live by his work and be as empty-headed as an average successful
painter. Again, consider our implements of music--our pianofortes, for
example. Nobody but an acrobat will voluntarily spend years at such a
difficult mechanical puzzle as the keyboard, and so we have to take our
impressions of Beethoven's sonatas from acrobats who vie with each other
in the rapidity of their prestos, or the staying power of their
left wrists. Thoughtful men will not spend their lives acquiring
sleight-of-hand. Invent a piano which will respond as delicately to
the turning of a handle as our present ones do to the pressure of the
fingers, and the acrobats will be driven back to their carpets and
trapezes, because the sole faculty necessary to the executant musician
will be the musical faculty, and no other will enable him to obtain a
hearing."

The company were somewhat overcome by this unexpected lecture. Sir
Charles, feeling that such views bore adversely on him, and were somehow
iconoclastic and low-lived, was about to make a peevish retort, when
Erskine forestalled him by asking Trefusis what idea he had formed of
the future of the arts. He replied promptly. "Photography perfected
in its recently discovered power of reproducing color as well as form!
Historical pictures replaced by photographs of tableaux vivants formed
and arranged by trained actors and artists, and used chiefly for the
instruction of children. Nine-tenths of painting as we understand it at
present extinguished by the competition of these photographs, and
the remaining tenth only holding its own against them by dint of
extraordinary excellence! Our mistuned and unplayable organs and
pianofortes replaced by harmonious instruments, as manageable as
barrel organs! Works of fiction superseded by interesting company
and conversation, and made obsolete by the human mind outgrowing the
childishness that delights in the tales told by grownup children such as
novelists and their like! An end to the silly confusion, under the one
name of Art, of the tomfoolery and make-believe of our play-hours with
the higher methods of teaching men to know themselves! Every artist an
amateur, and a consequent return to the healthy old disposition to look
on every man who makes art a means of money-getting as a vagabond not to
be entertained as an equal by honest men!"

"In which case artists will starve, and there will be no more art."

"Sir," said Trefusis, excited by the word, "I, as a Socialist, can tell
you that starvation is now impossible, except where, as in England,
masterless men are forcibly prevented from producing the food they
need. And you, as an artist, can tell me that at present great artists
invariably do starve, except when they are kept alive by charity,
private fortune, or some drudgery which hinders them in the pursuit of
their vocation."

"Oh!" said Erskine. "Then Socialists have some little sympathy with
artists after all."

"I fear," said Trefusis, repressing himself and speaking quietly again,
"that when a Socialist hears of a hundred pounds paid for a drawing
which Andrea del Sarto was glad to sell for tenpence, his heart is not
wrung with pity for the artist's imaginary loss as that of a modern
capitalist is. Yet that is the only way nowadays of enlisting sympathy
for the old masters. Frightful disability, to be out of the reach of
the dearest market when you want to sell your drawings! But," he added,
giving himself a shake, and turning round gaily, "I did not come here
to talk shop. So--pending the deluge--let us enjoy ourselves after our
manner."

"No," said Jane. "Please go on about Art. It's such a relief to hear
anyone talking sensibly about it. I hate etching. It makes your eyes
sore--at least the acid gets into Sir Charles's, and the difference
between the first and second states is nothing but imagination, except
that the last state is worse than the--here's luncheon!"

They went downstairs then. Trefusis sat between Agatha and Lady Brandon,
to whom he addressed all his conversation. They chatted without much
interruption from the business of the table; for Jane, despite her
amplitude, had a small appetite, and was fearful of growing fat; whilst
Trefusis was systematically abstemious. Sir Charles was unusually
silent. He was afraid to talk about art, lest he should be contradicted
by Trefusis, who, he already felt, cared less and perhaps knew more
about it than he. Having previously commented to Agatha on the beauty of
the ripening spring, and inquired whether her journey had fatigued her,
he had said as much as he could think of at a first meeting. For her
part, she was intent on Trefusis, who, though he must know, she thought,
that they were all hostile to him except Jane, seemed as confident now
as when he had befooled her long ago. That thought set her teeth on
edge. She did not doubt the sincerity of her antipathy to him even when
she detected herself in the act of protesting inwardly that she was not
glad to meet him again, and that she would not speak to him. Gertrude,
meanwhile, was giving short answers to Erskine and listening to
Trefusis. She had gathered from the domestic squabbles of the last
few days that Lady Brandon, against her husband's will, had invited a
notorious demagogue, the rich son of a successful cotton-spinner, to
visit the Beeches. She had made up her mind to snub any such man. But on
recognizing the long-forgotten Smilash, she had been astonished, and
had not known what to do. So, to avoid doing anything improper, she had
stood stilly silent and done nothing, as the custom of English ladies in
such cases is. Subsequently, his unconscious self-assertion had wrought
with her as with the others, and her intention of snubbing him had faded
into the limbo of projects abandoned without trial. Erskine alone was
free from the influence of the intruder. He wished himself elsewhere;
but beside Gertrude the presence or absence of any other person troubled
him very little.

"How are the Janseniuses?" said Trefusis, suddenly turning to Agatha.

"They are quite well, thank you," she said in measured tones.

"I met John Jansenius in the city lately. You know Jansenius?" he added
parenthetically to Sir Charles. "Cotman's bank--the last Cotman died
out of the firm before we were born. The Chairman of the Transcanadian
Railway Company."

"I know the name. I am seldom in the city."

"Naturally," assented Trefusis; "for who would sadden himself by pushing
his way through a crowd of such slaves, if he could help it? I mean
slaves of Mammon, of course. To run the gauntlet of their faces in
Cornhill is enough to discourage a thoughtful man for hours. Well,
Jansenius, being high in the court of Mammon, is looking out for a good
post in the household for his son. Jansenius, by-the-bye is Miss Wylie's
guardian and the father of my late wife."

Agatha felt inclined to deny this; but, as it was true, she had to
forbear. Resolved to show that the relations between her family and
Trefusis were not cordial ones, she asked deliberately, "Did Mr.
Jansenius speak to you?"

Gertrude looked up, as if she thought this scarcely ladylike.

"Yes," said Trefusis. "We are the best friends in the world--as good as
possible, at any rate. He wanted me to subscribe to a fund for relieving
the poor at the east end of London by assisting them to emigrate."

"I presume you subscribed liberally," said Erskine. "It was an
opportunity of doing some practical good."

"I did not," said Trefusis, grinning at the sarcasm. "This Transcanadian
Railway Company, having got a great deal of spare land from the Canadian
government for nothing, thought it would be a good idea to settle
British workmen on it and screw rent out of them. Plenty of British
workmen, supplanted in their employment by machinery, or cheap foreign
labor, or one thing or another, were quite willing to go; but as they
couldn't afford to pay their passages to Canada, the Company appealed
to the benevolent to pay for them by subscription, as the change would
improve their miserable condition. I did not see why I should pay to
provide a rich company with tenant farmers, and I told Jansenius so.
He remarked that when money and not talk was required, the workmen of
England soon found out who were their real friends."

"I know nothing about these questions," said Sir Charles, with an air
of conclusiveness; "but I see no objection to emigration." "The fact
is," said Trefusis, "the idea of emigration is a dangerous one for us.
Familiarize the workman with it, and some day he may come to see what a
capital thing it would be to pack off me, and you, with the peerage,
and the whole tribe of unprofitable proprietors such as we are, to St.
Helena; making us a handsome present of the island by way of indemnity!
We are such a restless, unhappy lot, that I doubt whether it would not
prove a good thing for us too. The workmen would lose nothing but the
contemplation of our elegant persons, exquisite manners, and refined
tastes. They might provide against that loss by picking out a few of
us to keep for ornament's sake. No nation with a sense of beauty would
banish Lady Brandon, or Miss Lindsay, or Miss Wylie."

"Such nonsense!" said Jane.

"You would hardly believe how much I have spent in sending workmen out
of the country against my own view of the country's interest," continued
Trefusis, addressing Erskine. "When I make a convert among the working
classes, the first thing he does is to make a speech somewhere declaring
his new convictions. His employer immediately discharges him--'gives
him the sack' is the technical phrase. The sack is the sword of the
capitalist, and hunger keeps it sharp for him. His shield is the law,
made for the purpose by his own class. Thus equipped, he gives the worst
of it to my poor convert, who comes ruined to me for assistance. As I
cannot afford to pension him for life, I get rid of him by assisting him
to emigrate. Sometimes he prospers and repays me; sometimes I hear no
more of him; sometimes he comes back with his habits unsettled. One
man whom I sent to America made his fortune, but he was not a social
democrat; he was a clerk who had embezzled, and who applied to me for
assistance under the impression that I considered it rather meritorious
to rob the till of a capitalist."

"He was a practical Socialist, in fact," said Erskine.

"On the contrary, he was a somewhat too grasping Individualist. Howbeit,
I enabled him to make good his defalcation--in the city they consider a
defalcation made good when the money is replaced--and to go to New York.
I recommended him not to go there; but he knew better than I, for
he made a fortune by speculating with money that existed only in the
imagination of those with whom he dealt. He never repaid me; he is
probably far too good a man of business to pay money that cannot be
extracted from him by an appeal to the law or to his commercial credit.
Mr. Erskine," added Trefusis, lowering his voice, and turning to the
poet, "you are wrong to take part with hucksters and money-hunters
against your own nature, even though the attack upon them is led by a
man who prefers photography to etching."

"But I assure you--You quite mistake me," said Erskine, taken aback.
"I--"

He stopped, looked to Sir Charles for support, and then said airily:
"I don't doubt that you are quite right. I hate business and men of
business; and as to social questions, I have only one article of belief,
which is, that the sole refiner of human nature is fine art."

"Whereas I believe that the sole refiner of art is human nature. Art
rises when men rise, and grovels when men grovel. What is your opinion?"

"I agree with you in many ways," replied Sir Charles nervously; for a
lack of interest in his fellow-creatures, and an excess of interest in
himself, had prevented him from obtaining that power of dealing with
social questions which, he felt, a baronet ought to possess, and he
was consequently afraid to differ from anyone who alluded to them with
confidence. "If you take an interest in art, I believe I can show you a
few things worth seeing."

"Thank you. In return I will some day show you a remarkable collection
of photographs I possess; many of them taken by me. I venture to think
they will teach you something."

"No doubt," said Sir Charles. "Shall we return to the gallery? I have a
few treasures there that photography is not likely to surpass for some
time yet."

"Let's go through the conservatory," said Jane. "Don't you like flowers,
Mr. Smi--I never can remember your proper name."

"Extremely," said Trefusis.

They rose and went out into a long hothouse. Here Lady Brandon, finding
Erskine at her side, and Sir Charles before her with Gertrude,
looked round for Trefusis, with whom she intended to enjoy a trifling
flirtation under cover of showing him the flowers. He was out of sight;
but she heard his footsteps in the passage on the opposite side of the
greenhouse. Agatha was also invisible. Jane, not daring to rearrange
their procession lest her design should become obvious, had to walk on
with Erskine.

Agatha had turned unintentionally into the opposite alley to that which
the others had chosen. When she saw what she had done, and found herself
virtually alone with Trefusis, who had followed her, she blamed him for
it, and was about to retrace her steps when he said coolly:

"Were you shocked when you heard of Henrietta's sudden death?"

Agatha struggled with herself for a moment, and then said in a
suppressed voice: "How dare you speak to me?"

"Why not?" said he, astonished.

"I am not going to enter into a discussion with you. You know what I
mean very well."

"You mean that you are offended with me; that is plain enough. But when
I part with a young lady on good terms, and after a lapse of years,
during which we neither meet nor correspond, she asks me how I dare
speak to her, I am naturally startled."

"We did not part on good terms."

Trefusis stretched his eyebrows, as if to stretch his memory. "If not,"
he said, "I have forgotten it, on my honor. When did we part, and
what happened? It cannot have been anything very serious, or I should
remember it."

His forgetfulness wounded Agatha. "No doubt you are well accustomed
to--" She checked herself, and made a successful snatch at her normal
manner with gentlemen. "I scarcely remember what it was, now that I
begin to think. Some trifle, I suppose. Do you like orchids?"

"They have nothing to do with our affairs at present. You are not in
earnest about the orchids, and you are trying to run away from a mistake
instead of clearing it up. That is a short-sighted policy, always."

Agatha grew alarmed, for she felt his old influence over her returning.
"I do not wish to speak of it," she said firmly.

Her firmness was lost on him. "I do not even know what it means yet," he
said, "and I want to know, for I believe there is some misunderstanding
between us, and it is the trick of your sex to perpetuate
misunderstandings by forbidding all allusions to them. Perhaps, leaving
Lyvern so hastily, I forgot to fulfil some promise, or to say farewell,
or something of that sort. But do you know how suddenly I was called
away? I got a telegram to say that Henrietta was dying, and I had only
time to change my clothes--you remember my disguise--and catch the
express. And, after all, she was dead when I arrived."

"I know that," said Agatha uneasily. "Please say no more about it."

"Not if it distresses you. Just let me hope that you did not suppose I
blamed you for your share in the matter or that I told the Janseniuses
of it. I did not. Yes, I like orchids. A plant that can subsist on a
scrap of board is an instance of natural econ--"

"YOU blame ME!" cried Agatha. "_I_ never told the Janseniuses. What
would they have thought of you if I had?"

"Far worse of you than of me, however unjustly. You were the immediate
cause of the tragedy; I only the remote one. Jansenius is not far-seeing
when his feelings are touched. Few men are."

"I don't understand you in the least. What tragedy do you mean?"

"Henrietta's death. I call it a tragedy conventionally. Seriously, of
course, it was commonplace enough."

Agatha stopped and faced him. "What do you mean by what you said just
now? You said that I was the immediate cause of the tragedy, and you say
that you were talking of Henrietta's--of Henrietta. I had nothing to do
with her illness."

Trefusis looked at her as if considering whether he would go any
further. Then, watching her with the curiosity of a vivisector, he said:
"Strange to say, Agatha," (she shrank proudly at the word), "Henrietta
might have been alive now but for you. I am very glad she is not; so you
need not reproach yourself on my account. She died of a journey she
made to Lyvern in great excitement and distress, and in intensely cold
weather. You caused her to make that journey by writing her a letter
which made her jealous."

"Do you mean to accuse me--"

"No; stop!" he said hastily, the vivisecting spirit in him exorcised
by her shaking voice; "I accuse you of nothing. Why do you not speak
honestly to me when you are at your ease? If you confess your real
thoughts only under torture, who can resist the temptation to torture
you? One must charge you with homicide to make you speak of anything but
orchids."

But Agatha had drawn the new inference from the old facts, and would not
be talked out of repudiating it. "It was not my fault," she said. "It
was yours--altogether yours."

"Altogether," he assented, relieved to find her indignant instead of
remorseful.

She was not to be soothed by a verbal acquiescence. "Your behavior
was most unmanly, and I told you so, and you could not deny it. You
pretended that you--You pretended to have feelings--You tried to make
me believe that Oh, I am a fool to talk to you; you know perfectly well
what I mean."

"Perfectly. I tried to make you believe that I was in love with you. How
do you know I was not?"

She disdained to answer; but as he waited calmly she said, "You had no
right to be."

"That does not prove that I was not. Come, Agatha, you pretended to like
me when you did not care two straws about me. You confessed as much in
that fatal letter, which I have somewhere at home. It has a great rent
right across it, and the mark of her heel; she must have stamped on it
in her rage, poor girl! So that I can show your own hand for the very
deception you accused me--without proof--of having practiced on you."

"You are clever, and can twist things. What pleasure does it give you to
make me miserable?"

"Ha!" he exclaimed, in an abrupt, sardonic laugh. "I don't know; you
bewitch me, I think."

Agatha made no reply, but walked on quickly to the end of the
conservatory, where the others were waiting for them.

"Where have you been, and what have you been doing all this time?" said
Jane, as Trefusis came up, hurrying after Agatha. "I don't know what you
call it, but I call it perfectly disgraceful!"

Sir Charles reddened at his wife's bad taste, and Trefusis replied
gravely: "We have been admiring the orchids, and talking about them.
Miss Wylie takes an interest in them."



CHAPTER XIII

One morning Gertrude got a letter from her father:

"My Dear Gerty: I have just received a bill for L110 from Madame Smith
for your dresses. May I ask you how long this sort of thing is to go
on? I need not tell you that I have not the means to support you in such
extravagance. I am, as you know, always anxious that you should go about
in a style worthy of your position, but unless you can manage without
calling on me to pay away hundreds of pounds every season to Madame
Smith, you had better give up society and stay at home. I positively
cannot afford it. As far as I can see, going into society has not done
you much good. I had to raise L500 last month on Franklands; and it is
too bad if I must raise more to pay your dressmaker. You might at least
employ some civil person, or one whose charges are moderate. Madame
Smith tells me that she will not wait any longer, and charges L50 for a
single dress. I hope you fully understand that there must be an end to
this.

"I hear from your mother that young Erskine is with you at Brandon's. I
do not think much of him. He is not well off, nor likely to get on, as
he has taken to poetry and so forth. I am told also that a man named
Trefusis visits at the Beeches a good deal now. He must be a fool, for
he contested the last Birmingham election, and came out at the foot of
the poll with thirty-two votes through calling himself a Social Democrat
or some such foreign rubbish, instead of saying out like a man that he
was a Radical. I suppose the name stuck in his throat, for his mother
was one of the Howards of Breconcastle; so he has good blood in him,
though his father was nobody. I wish he had your bills to pay; he could
buy and sell me ten times over, after all my twenty-five years' service.

"As I am thinking of getting something done to the house, I had rather
you did not come back this month, if you can possibly hold on at
Brandon's. Remember me to him, and give our kind regards to his wife. I
should be obliged if you would gather some hemlock leaves and send them
to me. I want them for my ointment; the stuff the chemists sell is no
good. Your mother's eyes are bad again; and your brother Berkeley has
been gambling, and seems to think I ought to pay his debts for him. I
am greatly worried over it all, and I hope that, until you have settled
yourself, you will be more reasonable, and not run these everlasting
bills upon me. You are enjoying yourself out of reach of all the
unpleasantness; but it bears hardly upon

"Your affectionate father,

"C.B. LINDSAY."


A faint sketch of the lines Time intended to engrave on Gertrude's brow
appeared there as she read the letter; but she hastened to give the
admiral's kind regards to her host and hostess, and discussed her
mother's health feelingly with them. After breakfast she went to the
library, and wrote her reply:


"BRANDON BEECHES,

"Tuesday.

"Dear Papa: Considering that it is more than three years since you
paid Madame Smith last, and that then her bill, which included my court
dress, was only L150, I cannot see how I could possibly have been more
economical, unless you expect me to go in rags. I am sorry that Madame
Smith has asked for the money at such an inconvenient time, but when I
begged you to pay her something in March last year you told me to keep
her quiet by giving her a good order. I am not surprised at her not
being very civil, as she has plenty of tradesmen's daughters among her
customers who pay her more than L300 a year for their dresses. I am
wearing a skirt at present which I got two years ago.

"Sir Charles is going to town on Thursday; he will bring you the
hemlock. Tell mamma that there is an old woman here who knows some
wonderful cure for sore eyes. She will not tell what the ingredients
are, but it cures everyone, and there is no use in giving an oculist two
guineas for telling us that reading in bed is bad for the eyes, when
we know perfectly well that mamma will not give up doing it. If you pay
Berkeley's debts, do not forget that he owes me L3.

"Another schoolfellow of mine is staying here now, and I think that Mr.
Trefusis will have the pleasure of paying her bills some day. He is a
great pet of Lady Brandon's. Sir Charles was angry at first because she
invited him here, and we were all surprised at it. The man has a bad
reputation, and headed a mob that threw down the walls of the park; and
we hardly thought he would be cool enough to come after that. But he
does not seem to care whether we want him or not; and he comes when he
likes. As he talks cleverly, we find him a godsend in this dull place.
It is really not such a paradise as you seem to think, but you need not
be afraid of my returning any sooner than I can help.

"Your affectionate daughter,

"Gertrude Lindsay."


When Gertrude had closed this letter, and torn up her father's, she
thought little more about either. They might have made her unhappy had
they found her happy, but as hopeless discontent was her normal state,
and enjoyment but a rare accident, recriminatory passages with
her father only put her into a bad humor, and did not in the least
disappoint or humiliate her.

For the sake of exercise, she resolved to carry her letter to the
village post office and return along the Riverside Road, whereby she had
seen hemlock growing. She took care to go out unobserved, lest Agatha
should volunteer to walk with her, or Jane declare her intention of
driving to the post office in the afternoon, and sulk for the rest of
the day unless the trip to the village were postponed until then. She
took with her, as a protection against tramps, a big St. Bernard dog
named Max. This animal, which was young and enthusiastic, had taken a
strong fancy to her, and had expressed it frankly and boisterously; and
she, whose affections had been starved in her home and in society, had
encouraged him with more kindness than she had ever shown to any human
being.

In the village, having posted her letter, she turned towards a lane that
led to the Riverside Road. Max, unaware of her reason for choosing the
longest way home, remonstrated by halting in the middle of the lane,
wagging his tail rapidly, and uttering gruff barks.

"Don't be stupid, sir," said Gertrude impatiently. "I am going this
way."

Max, apparently understanding, rushed after her, passed her, and
disappeared in a cloud of dust raised by his effort to check himself
when he had left her far enough behind. When he came back she kissed
his nose, and ran a race with him until she too was panting, and had
to stand still to recover her breath, whilst he bounded about, barking
ferociously. She had not for many years enjoyed such a frolic, and the
thought of this presently brought tears to her eyes. Rather peevishly
she bade Max be quiet, walked slowly to cool herself, and put up her
sunshade to avert freckles.

The sun was now at the meridian. On a slope to Gertrude's right hand,
Sallust's House, with its cinnamon-colored walls and yellow frieze, gave
a foreign air to the otherwise very English landscape. She passed by
without remembering who lived there. Further down, on some waste land
separated from the road by a dry ditch and a low mud wall, a cluster of
hemlocks, nearly six feet high, poisoned the air with their odor. She
crossed the ditch, took a pair of gardening gloves from her plaited
straw hand-basket, and busied herself with the hemlock leaves, pulling
the tender ones, separating them from the stalk, and filling the basket
with the web. She forgot Max until an impression of dead silence, as
if the earth had stopped, caused her to look round in vague dread.
Trefusis, with his hand abandoned to the dog, who was trying how much of
it he could cram into his mouth, was standing within a few yards of her,
watching her intently. Gertrude turned pale, and came out hastily from
among the bushes. Then she had a strange sensation as if something
had happened high above her head. There was a threatening growl, a
commanding exclamation, and an unaccountable pause, at the expiration
of which she found herself supine on the sward, with her parasol between
her eyes and the sun. A sudden scoop of Max's wet warm tongue in her
right ear startled her into activity. She sat up, and saw Trefusis
on his knees at her side holding the parasol with an unconcerned
expression, whilst Max was snuffing at her in restless anxiety opposite.

"I must go home," she said. "I must go home instantly."

"Not at all," said Trefusis, soothingly. "They have just sent word to
say that everything is settled satisfactorily and that you need not
come."

"Have they?" she said faintly. Then she lay down again, and it seemed to
her that a very long time elapsed. Suddenly recollecting that Trefusis
had supported her gently with his hand to prevent her falling back too
rudely, she rose again, and this time got upon her feet with his help.

"I must go home," she said again. "It is a matter of life or death."

"No, no," he said softly. "It is all right. You may depend on me."

She looked at him earnestly. He had taken her hand to steady her, for
she was swaying a little. "Are you sure," she said, grasping his arm.
"Are you quite sure?"

"Absolutely certain. You know I am always right, do you not?"

"Yes, oh, yes; you have always been true to me. You--" Here her senses
came back with a rush. Dropping his hand as if it had become red hot,
she said sharply, "What are you talking about?"

"I don't know," he said, resuming his indifferent manner with a laugh.
"Are you better? Let me drive you to the Beeches. My stable is within a
stone's throw; I can get a trap out in ten minutes."

"No, thank you," said Gertrude haughtily. "I do not wish to drive." She
paused, and added in some bewilderment, "What has happened?"

"You fainted, and--"

"I did not faint," said Gertrude indignantly. "I never fainted in my
life."

"Yes, you did."

"Pardon me, Mr. Trefusis. I did not."

"You shall judge for yourself. I was coming through this field when
I saw you gathering hemlock. Hemlock is interesting on account of
Socrates, and you were interesting as a young lady gathering poison. So
I stopped to look on. Presently you came out from among the bushes as if
you had seen a snake there. Then you fell into my arms--which led me
to suppose that you had fainted--and Max, concluding that it was all my
fault, nearly sprang at my throat. You were overpowered by the scent of
the water-hemlock, which you must have been inhaling for ten minutes or
more."

"I did not know that there was any danger," said Gertrude, crestfallen.
"I felt very tired when I came to. That was why I lay so long the second
time. I really could not help it."

"You did not lie very long."

"Not when I first fell; that was only a few seconds, I know. But I must
have lain there nearly ten minutes after I recovered."

"You were nearly a minute insensible when you first fell, and when you
recovered you only rested for about one second. After that you raved,
and I invented suitable answers until you suddenly asked me what I was
talking about."

Gertrude reddened a little as the possibility of her having raved
indiscreetly occurred to her. "It was very silly of me to faint," she
said.

"You could not help it; you are only human. I shall walk with you to the
Beeches."

"Thank you; I will not trouble you," she said quickly.

He shook his head. "I do not know how long the effect of that abominable
water-weed may last," he said, "and I dare not leave you to walk alone.
If you prefer it I can send you in a trap with my gardener, but I had
rather accompany you myself."

"You are giving yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. I will
walk. I am quite well again and need no assistance."

They started without another word. Gertrude had to concentrate all her
energy to conceal from him that she was giddy. Numbness and lassitude
crept upon her, and she was beginning to hope that she was only dreaming
it all when he roused her by saying,

"Take my arm."

"No, thank you."

"Do not be so senselessly obstinate. You will have to lean on the
hedge for support if you refuse my help. I am sorry I did not insist on
getting the trap."

Gertrude had not been spoken to in this tone since her childhood. "I am
perfectly well," she said sharply. "You are really very officious."

"You are not perfectly well, and you know it. However, if you make
a brave struggle, you will probably be able to walk home without my
assistance, and the effort may do you good."

"You are very rude," she said peremptorily.

"I know it," he replied calmly. "You will find three classes of men
polite to you--slaves, men who think much of their manners and nothing
of you, and your lovers. I am none of these, and therefore give you back
your ill manners with interest. Why do you resist your good angel by
suppressing those natural and sincere impulses which come to you often
enough, and sometimes bring a look into your face that might tame a
bear--a look which you hasten to extinguish as a thief darkens his
lantern at the sound of a footstep."

"Mr. Trefusis, I am not accustomed to be lectured."

"That is why I lecture you. I felt curious to see how your good
breeding, by which I think you set some store, would serve you in
entirely novel circumstances--those of a man speaking his mind to you,
for instance. What is the result of my experiment? Instead of rebuking
me with the sweetness and dignity which I could not, in spite of my past
observation, help expecting from you, you churlishly repel my offer of
the assistance you need, tell me that I am very rude, very officious,
and, in short, do what you can to make my position disagreeable and
humiliating."

She looked at him haughtily, but his expression was void of offence or
fear, and he continued, unanswered.

"I would bear all this from a working woman without remonstrance, for
she would owe me no graces of manner or morals. But you are a lady.
That means that many have starved and drudged in uncleanly discomfort
in order that you may have white and unbroken hands, fine garments, and
exquisite manners--that you may be a living fountain of those influences
that soften our natures and lives. When such a costly thing as a lady
breaks down at the first touch of a firm hand, I feel justified in
complaining."

Gertrude walked on quickly, and said between her teeth, "I don't want to
hear any of your absurd views, Mr. Trefusis."

He laughed. "My unfortunate views!" he said. "Whenever I make an
inconvenient remark it is always set aside as an expression of certain
dangerous crazes with which I am supposed to be afflicted. When I point
out to Sir Charles that one of his favorite artists has not accurately
observed something before attempting to draw it, he replies, 'You know
our views differ on these things, Trefusis.' When I told Miss Wylie's
guardian that his emigration scheme was little better than a fraud, he
said, 'You must excuse me, but I cannot enter into your peculiar views.'
One of my views at present is that Miss Lindsay is more amiable under
the influence of hemlock than under that of the social system which has
made her so unhappy."

"Well!" exclaimed Gertrude, outraged. Then, after a pause, "I was under
the impression that I had accepted the escort of a gentleman." Then,
after another pause, Trefusis being quite undisturbed, "How do you know
that I am unhappy?"

"By a certain defect in your countenance, which lacks the crowning
beauty of happiness; and a certain defect in your voice which will never
disappear until you learn to love or pity those to whom you speak."

"You are wrong," said Gertrude, with calm disdain. "You do not
understand me in the least. I am particularly attached to my friends."

"Then I have never seen you in their company."

"You are still wrong."

"Then how can you speak as you do, look as you do, act as you do?"

"What do you mean? HOW do I look and act?"

"Like one of the railings of Belgrave Square, cursed with consciousness
of itself, fears of the judgment of the other railings, and doubts
of their fitness to stand in the same row with it. You are cold,
mistrustful, cruel to nervous or clumsy people, and more afraid of
the criticisms of those with whom you dance and dine than of your
conscience. All of which prevents you from looking like an angel."

"Thank you. Do you consider paying compliments the perfection of
gentlemanly behavior?"

"Have I been paying you many? That last remark of mine was not meant
as one. On my honor, the angels will not disappoint me if they are no
lovelier than you should be if you had that look in your face and that
tone in your voice I spoke of just now. It can hardly displease you to
hear that. If I were particularly handsome myself, I should like to be
told so."

"I am sorry I cannot tell you so."

"Oh! Ha! ha! What a retort, Miss Lindsay! You are not sorry either; you
are rather glad."

Gertrude knew it, and was angry with herself, not because her retort
was false, but because she thought it unladylike. "You have no right to
annoy me," she exclaimed, in spite of herself.

"None whatever," he said, humbly. "If I have done so, forgive me before
we part. I will go no further with you; Max will give the alarm if you
faint in the avenue, which I don't think you are likely to do, as you
have forgotten all about the hemlock."

"Oh, how maddening!" she cried. "I have left my basket behind."

"Never mind; I will find it and have it filled and sent to you."

"Thank you. I am sorry to trouble you."

"Not at all. I hope you do not want the hemlock to help you to get rid
of the burden of life."

"Nonsense. I want it for my father, who uses it for medicine."

"I will bring it myself to-morrow. Is that soon enough?"

"Quite. I am in no hurry. Thank you, Mr. Trefusis. Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, and even smiled a little, and then hurried away.
He stood watching her as she passed along the avenue under the beeches.
Once, when she came into a band of sunlight at a gap in the trees, she
made so pretty a figure in her spring dress of violet and white that
his eyes kindled as he gazed. He took out his note-book, and entered her
name and the date, with a brief memorandum.

"I have thawed her," he said to himself as he put up his book. "She
shall learn a lesson or two to hand on to her children before I have
done with her. A trifle underbred, too, or she would not insist so much
on her breeding. Henrietta used to wear a dress like that. I am glad to
see that there is no danger of her taking to me personally."

He turned away, and saw a crone passing, bending beneath a bundle of
sticks. He eyed it curiously; and she scowled at him and hurried on.

"Hallo," he said.

She continued for a few steps, but her courage failed her and she
stopped.

"You are Mrs. Hickling, I think?"

"Yes, please your worship."

"You are the woman who carried away an old wooden gate that lay on Sir
Charles Brandon's land last winter and used it for firewood. You were
imprisoned for seven days for it."

"You may send me there again if you like," she retorted, in a cracked
voice, as she turned at bay. "But the Lord will make me even with you
some day. Cursed be them that oppress the poor and needy; it is one of
the seven deadly sins."

"Those green laths on your back are the remainder of my garden gate,"
he said. "You took the first half last Saturday. Next time you want fuel
come to the house and ask for coals, and let my gates alone. I suppose
you can enjoy a fire without stealing the combustibles. Stow pay me for
my gate by telling me something I want to know."

"And a kind gentleman too, sir; blessings."

"What is the hemlock good for?"

"The hemlock, kind gentleman? For the evil, sir, to be sure."

"Scrofulous ulcers!" he exclaimed, recoiling. "The father of that
beautiful girl!" He turned homeward, and trudged along with his
head bent, muttering, "All rotten to the bone. Oh, civilization!
civilization! civilization!"



CHAPTER XIV

"What has come over Gertrude?" said Agatha one day to Lady Brandon.

"Why? Is anything the matter with her?"

"I don't know; she has not been the same since she poisoned herself.
And why did she not tell about it? But for Trefusis we should never have
known."

"Gertrude always made secrets of things."

"She was in a vile temper for two days after; and now she is quite
changed. She falls into long reveries, and does not hear a word of
what is going on around. Then she starts into life again, and begs your
pardon with the greatest sweetness for not catching what you have said."

"I hate her when she is polite; it is not natural to her. As to her
going to sleep, that is the effect of the hemlock. We know a man who
took a spoonful of strychnine in a bath, and he never was the same
afterwards."

"I think she is making up her mind to encourage Erskine," said Agatha.
"When I came here he hardly dared speak to her--at least, she always
snubbed him. Now she lets him talk as much as he likes, and actually
sends him on messages and allows him to carry things for her."

"Yes. I never saw anybody like Gertrude in my life. In London, if men
were attentive to her, she sat on them for being officious; and if they
let her alone she was angry at being neglected. Erskine is quite good
enough for her, I think."

Here Erskine appeared at the door and looked round the room.

"She's not here," said Jane.

"I am seeking Sir Charles," he said, withdrawing somewhat stiffly.

"What a lie!" said Jane, discomfited by his reception of her jest. "He
was talking to Sir Charles ten minutes ago in the billiard room. Men are
such conceited fools!"

Agatha had strolled to the window, and was looking discontentedly at the
prospect, as she had often done at school when alone, and sometimes did
now in society. The door opened again, and Sir Charles appeared. He,
too, looked round, but when his roving glance reached Agatha, it cast
anchor; and he came in.

"Are you busy just now, Miss Wylie?" he asked.

"Yes," said Jane hastily. "She is going to write a letter for me."

"Really, Jane," he said, "I think you are old enough to write your
letters without troubling Miss Wylie."

"When I do write my own letters you always find fault with them," she
retorted.

"I thought perhaps you might have leisure to try over a duet with me,"
he said, turning to Agatha.

"Certainly," she replied, hoping to smooth matters by humoring him. "The
letter will do any time before post hour."

Jane reddened, and said shortly, "I will write it myself, if you will
not."

Sir Charles quite lost his temper. "How can you be so damnably rude?"
he said, turning upon his wife. "What objection have you to my singing
duets with Miss Wylie?"

"Nice language that!" said Jane. "I never said I objected; and you have
no right to drag her away to the piano just when she is going to write a
letter for me."

"I do not wish Miss Wylie to do anything except what pleases her best.
It seems to me that writing letters to your tradespeople cannot be a
very pleasant occupation."

"Pray don't mind me," said Agatha. "It is not the least trouble to me. I
used to write all Jane's letters for her at school. Suppose I write the
letter first, and then we can have the duet. You will not mind waiting
five minutes?"