"I can wait as long as you please, of course. But it seems such an
absurd abuse of your good nature that I cannot help protest!"

"Oh, let it wait!" exclaimed Jane. "Such a ridiculous fuss to make about
asking Agatha to write a letter, just because you happen to want her
to play you your duets! I am certain she is heartily sick and tired of
them."

Agatha, to escape the altercation, went to the library and wrote the
letter. When she returned to the drawing-room, she found no one there;
but Sir Charles came in presently.

"I am so sorry, Miss Wylie," he said, as he opened the piano for her,
"that you should be incommoded because my wife is silly enough to be
jealous."

"Jealous!"

"Of course. Idiocy!"

"Oh, you are mistaken," said Agatha, incredulously. "How could she
possibly be jealous of me?"

"She is jealous of everybody and everything," he replied bitterly, "and
she cares for nobody and for nothing. You do not know what I have to
endure sometimes from her."

Agatha thought her most discreet course was to sit down immediately and
begin "I would that my love." Whilst she played and sang, she thought
over what Sir Charles had just let slip. She had found him a pleasant
companion, light-hearted, fond of music and fun, polite and considerate,
appreciative of her talents, quick-witted without being oppressively
clever, and, as a married man, disinterested in his attentions. But it
now occurred to her that perhaps they had been a good deal together of
late.

Sir Charles had by this time wandered from his part into hers; and he
now recalled her to the music by stopping to ask whether he was right.
Knowing by experience what his difficulty was likely to be, she gave him
his note and went on. They had not been singing long when Jane came
back and sat down, expressing a hope that her presence would not disturb
them. It did disturb them. Agatha suspected that she had come there to
watch them, and Sir Charles knew it. Besides, Lady Brandon, even when
her mind was tranquil, was habitually restless. She could not speak
because of the music, and, though she held an open book in her hand, she
could not read and watch simultaneously. She gaped, and leaned to one
end of the sofa until, on the point of overbalancing' she recovered
herself with a prodigious bounce. The floor vibrated at her every
movement. At last she could keep silence no longer.

"Oh, dear!" she said, yawning audibly. "It must be five o'clock at the
very earliest."

Agatha turned round upon the piano-stool, feeling that music and Lady
Brandon were incompatible. Sir Charles, for his guest's sake, tried hard
to restrain his exasperation.

"Probably your watch will tell you," he said.

"Thank you for nothing," said Jane. "Agatha, where is Gertrude?"

"How can Miss Wylie possibly tell you where she is, Jane? I think you
have gone mad to-day."

"She is most likely playing billiards with Mr. Erskine," said Agatha,
interposing quickly to forestall a retort from Jane, with its usual
sequel of a domestic squabble.

"I think it is very strange of Gertrude to pass the whole day with
Chester in the billiard room," said Jane discontentedly.

"There is not the slightest impropriety in her doing so," said
Sir Charles. "If our hospitality does not place Miss Lindsay above
suspicion, the more shame for us. How would you feel if anyone else made
such a remark?"

"Oh, stuff!" said Jane peevishly. "You are always preaching long
rigmaroles about nothing at all. I did not say there was any impropriety
about Gertrude. She is too proper to be pleasant, in my opinion."

Sir Charles, unable to trust himself further, frowned and left the room,
Jane speeding him with a contemptuous laugh.

"Don't ever be such a fool as to get married," she said, when he was
gone. She looked up as she spoke, and was alarmed to see Agatha seated
on the pianoforte, with her ankles swinging in the old school fashion.

"Jane," she said, surveying her hostess coolly, "do you know what I
would do if I were Sir Charles?"

Jane did not know.

"I would get a big stick, beat you black and blue, and then lock you up
on bread and water for a week."

Jane half rose, red and angry. "Wh--why?" she said, relapsing upon the
sofa.

"If I were a man, I would not, for mere chivalry's sake, let a woman
treat me like a troublesome dog. You want a sound thrashing."

"I'd like to see anybody thrash me," said Jane, rising again and
displaying her formidable person erect. Then she burst into tears, and
said, "I won't have such things said to me in my own house. How dare
you?"

"You deserve it for being jealous of me," said Agatha.

Jane's eyes dilated angrily. "I!--I!--jealous of you!" She looked round,
as if for a missile. Not finding one, she sat down again, and said in a
voice stifled with tears, "J--Jealous of YOU, indeed!"

"You have good reason to be, for he is fonder of me than of you."

Jane opened her mouth and eyes convulsively, but only uttered a gasp,
and Agatha proceeded calmly, "I am polite to him, which you never
are. When he speaks to me I allow him to finish his sentence without
expressing, as you do, a foregone conclusion that it is not worth
attending to. I do not yawn and talk whilst he is singing. When he
converses with me on art or literature, about which he knows twice as
much as I do, and at least ten times as much as you." (Jane gasped again)
"I do not make a silly answer and turn to my neighbor at the other side
with a remark about the tables or the weather. When he is willing to be
pleased, as he always is, I am willing to be pleasant. And that is why
he likes me."

"He does NOT like you. He is the same to everyone."

"Except his wife. He likes me so much that you, like a great goose as
you are, came up here to watch us at our duets, and made yourself as
disagreeable as you possibly could whilst I was making myself charming.
The poor man was ashamed of you."

"He wasn't," said Jane, sobbing. "I didn't do anything. I didn't say
anything. I won't bear it. I will get a divorce. I will--"

"You will mend your ways if you have any sense left," said Agatha
remorselessly. "Do not make such a noise, or someone will come to see
what is the matter, and I shall have to get down from the piano, where I
am very comfortable."

"It is you who are jealous."

"Oh, is it, Jane? I have not allowed Sir Charles to fall in love with me
yet, but I can do so very easily. What will you wager that he will not
kiss me before to-morrow evening?"

"It will be very mean and nasty of you if he does. You seem to think
that I can be treated like a child."

"So you are a child," said Agatha, descending from her perch and
preparing to go. "An occasional slapping does you good."

"It is nothing to you whether I agree with my husband or not," said Jane
with sudden fierceness.

"Not if you quarrel with him in private, as wellbred couples do. But
when it occurs in my presence it makes me uncomfortable, and I object to
being made uncomfortable."

"You would not be here at all if I had not asked you."

"Just think how dull the house would be without me, Jane!"

"Indeed! It was not dull before you came. Gertrude always behaved like a
lady, at least."

"I am sorry that her example was so utterly lost on you."

"I won't bear it," said Jane with a sob and a plunge upon the sofa that
made the lustres of the chandeliers rattle. "I wouldn't have asked you
if I had thought you could be so hateful. I will never ask you again."

"I will make Sir Charles divorce you for incompatibility of temper and
marry me. Then I shall have the place to myself."

"He can't divorce me for that, thank goodness. You don't know what
you're talking about."

Agatha laughed. "Come," she said good-humoredly, "don't be an old ass,
Jane. Wash your face before anyone sees it, and remember what I have
told you about Sir Charles."

"It is very hard to be called an ass in one's own house."

"It is harder to be treated as one, like your husband. I am going to
look for him in the billiard room."

Jane ran after her, and caught her by the sleeve.

"Agatha," she pleaded, "promise me that you won't be mean. Say that you
won't make love to him."

"I will consider about it," replied Agatha gravely.

Jane uttered a groan and sank into a chair, which creaked at the
shock. Agatha turned on the threshold, and seeing her shaking her head,
pressing her eyes, and tapping with her heel in a restrained frenzy,
said quickly,

"Here are the Waltons, and the Fitzgeorges, and Mr. Trefusis coming
upstairs. How do you do, Mrs. Walton? Lady Brandon will be SO glad to
see you. Good-evening, Mr. Fitzgeorge."

Jane sprang up, wiped her eyes, and, with her hands on her hair,
smoothing it, rushed to a mirror. No visitors appearing, she perceived
that she was, for perhaps the hundredth time in her life, the victim
of an imposture devised by Agatha. She, gratified by the success of her
attempt to regain her old ascendancy over Jane--she had made it with
misgiving, notwithstanding her apparent confidence--went downstairs to
the library, where she found Sir Charles gloomily trying to drown his
domestic troubles in art criticism.

"I thought you were in the billiard room," said Agatha.

"I only peeped in," he replied; "but as I saw something particular going
on, I thought it best to slip away, and I have been alone ever since."

The something particular which Sir Charles had not wished to interrupt
was only a game of billiards.

It was the first opportunity Erskine had ever enjoyed of speaking to
Gertrude at leisure and alone. Yet their conversation had never been
so commonplace. She, liking the game, played very well and chatted
indifferently; he played badly, and broached trivial topics in spite of
himself. After an hour-and-a-half's play, Gertrude had announced that
this game must be their last. He thought desperately that if he were to
miss many more strokes the game must presently end, and an opportunity
which might never recur pass beyond recall. He determined to tell
her without preface that he adored her, but when he opened his lips a
question came forth of its own accord relating to the Persian way of
playing billiards. Gertrude had never been in Persia, but had seen
some Eastern billiard cues in the India museum. Were not the Hindoos
wonderful people for filigree work, and carpets, and such things? Did
he not think the crookedness of their carpet patterns a blemish? Some
people pretended to admire them, but was not that all nonsense? Was not
the modern polished floor, with a rug in the middle, much superior to
the old carpet fitted into the corners of the room? Yes. Enormously
superior. Immensely--

"Why, what are you thinking of to-day, Mr. Erskine? You have played with
my ball."

"I am thinking of you."

"What did you say?" said Gertrude, not catching the serious turn he had
given to the conversation, and poising her cue for a stroke. "Oh! I am
as bad as you; that was the worst stroke I ever made, I think. I beg
your pardon; you said something just now."

"I forget. Nothing of any consequence." And he groaned at his own
cowardice.

"Suppose we stop," she said. "There is no use in finishing the game if
our hands are out. I am rather tired of it."

"Certainly--if you wish it."

"I will finish if you like."

"Not at all. What pleases you, pleases me."

Gertrude made him a little bow, and idly knocked the balls about with
her cue. Erskine's eyes wandered, and his lip moved irresolutely. He had
settled with himself that his declaration should be a frank one--heart
to heart. He had pictured himself in the act of taking her hand
delicately, and saying, "Gertrude, I love you. May I tell you so again?"
But this scheme did not now seem practicable.

"Miss Lindsay."

Gertrude, bending over the table, looked up in alarm.

"The present is as good an opportunity as I will--as I shall--as I
will."

"Shall," said Gertrude.

"I beg your pardon?"

"SHALL," repeated Gertrude. "Did you ever study the doctrine of
necessity?"

"The doctrine of necessity?" he said, bewildered.

Gertrude went to the other side of the table in pursuit of a ball. She
now guessed what was coming, and was willing that it should come; not
because she intended to accept, but because, like other young ladies
experienced in such scenes, she counted the proposals of marriage she
received as a Red Indian counts the scalps he takes.

"We have had a very pleasant time of it here," he said, giving up as
inexplicable the relevance of the doctrine of necessity. "At least, I
have."

"Well," said Gertrude, quick to resent a fancied allusion to her private
discontent, "so have I."

"I am glad of that--more so than I can convey by words."

"Is it any business of yours?" she said, following the disagreeable vein
he had unconsciously struck upon, and suspecting pity in his efforts to
be sympathetic.

"I wish I dared hope so. The happiness of my visit has been due to you
entirely."

"Indeed," said Gertrude, wincing as all the hard things Trefusis
had told her of herself came into her mind at the heels of Erskine's
unfortunate allusion to her power of enjoying herself.

"I hope I am not paining you," he said earnestly.

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said, standing erect with
sudden impatience. "You seem to think that it is very easy to pain me."

"No," he said timidly, puzzled by the effect he had produced. "I fear
you misunderstand me. I am very awkward. Perhaps I had better say no
more."  Gertrude, by turning away to put up her cue, signified that that
was a point for him to consider; she not intending to trouble herself
about it. When she faced him again, he was motionless and dejected, with
a wistful expression like that of a dog that has proffered a caress and
received a kick. Remorse, and a vague sense that there was something
base in her attitude towards him, overcame her. She looked at him for an
instant and left the room.

The look excited him. He did not understand it, nor attempt to
understand it; but it was a look that he had never before seen in
her face or in that of any other woman. It struck him as a momentary
revelation of what he had written of in "The Patriot Martyrs" as

"The glorious mystery of a woman's heart,"

and it made him feel unfit for ordinary social intercourse. He hastened
from the house, walked swiftly down the avenue to the lodge, where he
kept his bicycle, left word there that he was going for an excursion and
should probably not return in time for dinner, mounted, and sped away
recklessly along the Riverside Road. In less than two minutes he passed
the gate of Sallust's House, where he nearly ran over an old woman laden
with a basket of coals, who put down her burthen to scream curses after
him. Warned by this that his headlong pace was dangerous, he slackened
it a little, and presently saw Trefusis lying prone on the river bank,
with his cheeks propped on his elbows, reading intently. Erskine,
who had presented him, a few days before, with a copy of "The Patriot
Martyrs and other Poems," tried to catch a glimpse of the book over
which Trefusis was so serious. It was a Blue Book, full of figures.
Erskine rode on in disgust, consoling himself with the recollection of
Gertrude's face.

The highway now swerved inland from the river, and rose to a steep
acclivity, at the brow of which he turned and looked back. The light
was growing ruddy, and the shadows were lengthening. Trefusis was still
prostrate in the meadow, and the old woman was in a field, gathering
hemlock.

Erskine raced down the hill at full speed, and did not look behind him
again until he found himself at nightfall on the skirts of a town,
where he purchased some beer and a sandwich, which he ate with little
appetite. Gertrude had set up a disturbance within him which made him
impatient of eating.

It was now dark. He was many miles from Brandon Beeches, and not sure
of the way back. Suddenly he resolved to complete his unfinished
declaration that evening. He now could not ride back fast enough to
satisfy his impatience. He tried a short cut, lost himself, spent nearly
an hour seeking the highroad, and at last came upon a railway station
just in time to catch a train that brought him within a mile of his
destination.

When he rose from the cushions of the railway carriage he found
himself somewhat fatigued, and he mounted the bicycle stiffly. But his
resolution was as ardent as ever, and his heart beat strongly as, after
leaving his bicycle at the lodge, he walked up the avenue through the
deep gloom beneath the beeches. Near the house, the first notes of
"Grudel perche finora" reached him, and he stepped softly on to the turf
lest his footsteps on the gravel should rouse the dogs and make them
mar the harmony by barking. A rustle made him stop and listen. Then
Gertrude's voice whispered through the darkness:

"What did you mean by what you said to me within?"

An extraordinary sensation shook Erskine; confused ideas of fairyland
ran through his imagination. A bitter disappointment, like that of
waking from a happy dream, followed as Trefusis's voice, more finely
tuned than he had ever heard it before, answered,

"Merely that the expanse of stars above us is not more illimitable than
my contempt for Miss Lindsay, nor brighter than my hopes of Gertrude."

"Miss Lindsay always to you, if you please, Mr. Trefusis."

"Miss Lindsay never to me, but only to those who cannot see through
her to the soul within, which is Gertrude. There are a thousand Miss
Lindsays in the world, formal and false. There is but one Gertrude."

"I am an unprotected girl, Mr. Trefusis, and you can call me what you
please."

It occurred to Erskine that this was a fit occasion to rush forward and
give Trefusis, whose figure he could now dimly discern, a black eye. But
he hesitated, and the opportunity passed.

"Unprotected!" said Trefusis. "Why, you are fenced round and barred in
with conventions, laws, and lies that would frighten the truth from the
lips of any man whose faith in Gertrude was less strong than mine. Go
to Sir Charles and tell him what I have said to Miss Lindsay, and within
ten minutes I shall have passed these gates with a warning never to
approach them again. I am in your power, and were I in Miss Lindsay's
power alone, my shrift would be short. Happily, Gertrude, though she
sees as yet but darkly, feels that Miss Lindsay is her bitterest foe."

"It is ridiculous. I am not two persons; I am only one. What does it
matter to me if your contempt for me is as illimitable as the stars?"

"Ah, you remember that, do you? Whenever you hear a man talking about
the stars you may conclude that he is either an astronomer or a fool.
But you and a fine starry night would make a fool of any man."

"I don't understand you. I try to, but I cannot; or, if I guess, I
cannot tell whether you are in earnest or not."

"I am very much in earnest. Abandon at once and for ever all misgivings
that I am trifling with you, or passing an idle hour as men do when they
find themselves in the company of beautiful women. I mean what I say
literally, and in the deepest sense. You doubt me; we have brought
society to such a state that we all suspect one another. But whatever is
true will command belief sooner or later from those who have wit enough
to comprehend truth. Now let me recall Miss Lindsay to consciousness by
remarking that we have been out for ten minutes, and that our hostess is
not the woman to allow our absence to pass without comment."

"Let us go in. Thank you for reminding me."

"Thank you for forgetting."

Erskine heard their footsteps retreating, and presently saw the two
enter the glow of light that shone from the open window of the billiard
room, through which they went indoors. Trefusis, a man whom he had seen
that day in a beautiful landscape, blind to everything except a row of
figures in a Blue Book, was his successful rival, although it was
plain from the very sound of his voice that he did not--could not--love
Gertrude. Only a poet could do that. Trefusis was no poet, but a sordid
brute unlikely to inspire interest in anything more human than a public
meeting, much less in a woman, much less again in a woman so ethereal
as Gertrude. She was proud too, yet she had allowed the fellow to insult
her--had forgiven him for the sake of a few broad compliments. Erskine
grew angry and cynical. The situation did not suit his poetry. Instead
of being stricken to the heart with a solemn sorrow, as a Patriot
Martyr would have been under similar circumstances, he felt slighted and
ridiculous. He was hardly convinced of what had seemed at first the most
obvious feature of the case, Trefusis's inferiority to himself.

He stood under the trees until Trefusis reappeared on his way home,
making, Erskine thought, as much noise with his heels on the gravel as a
regiment of delicately bred men would have done. He stopped for a moment
to make inquiry at the lodge as he went out; then his footsteps died
away in the distance.

Erskine, chilled, stiff, and with a sensation of a bad cold coming on,
went into the house, and was relieved to find that Gertrude had retired,
and that Lady Brandon, though she had been sure that he had ridden into
the river in the dark, had nevertheless provided a warm supper for him.



CHAPTER XV

Erskine soon found plenty of themes for his newly begotten cynicism.
Gertrude's manner towards him softened so much that he, believing her
heart given to his rival, concluded that she was tempting him to make a
proposal which she had no intention of accepting. Sir Charles, to whom
he told what he had overheard in the avenue, professed sympathy, but
was evidently pleased to learn that there was nothing serious in the
attentions Trefusis paid to Agatha. Erskine wrote three bitter sonnets
on hollow friendship and showed them to Sir Charles, who, failing to
apply them to himself, praised them highly and showed them to Trefusis
without asking the author's permission. Trefusis remarked that in a
corrupt society expressions of dissatisfaction were always creditable to
a writer's sensibility; but he did not say much in praise of the verse.

"Why has he taken to writing in this vein?" he said. "Has he been
disappointed in any way of late? Has he proposed to Miss Lindsay and
been rejected?"

"No," said Sir Charles surprised by this blunt reference to a subject
they had never before discussed. "He does not intend to propose to Miss
Lindsay."

"But he did intend to."

"He certainly did, but he has given up the idea."

"Why?" said Trefusis, apparently disapproving strongly of the
renunciation.

Sir Charles shrugged his shoulders and did not reply.

"I am sorry to hear it. I wish you could induce him to change his mind.
He is a nice fellow, with enough to live on comfortably, whilst he
is yet what is called a poor man, so that she could feel perfectly
disinterested in marrying him. It will do her good to marry without
making a pecuniary profit by it; she will respect herself the more
afterwards, and will neither want bread and butter nor be ashamed of
her husband's origin, in spite of having married for love alone. Make
a match of it if you can. I take an interest in the girl; she has good
instincts."

Sir Charles's suspicion that Trefusis was really paying court to Agatha
returned after this conversation, which he repeated to Erskine, who,
much annoyed because his poems had been shown to a reader of Blue Books,
thought it only a blind for Trefusis's design upon Gertrude. Sir Charles
pooh-poohed this view, and the two friends were sharp with one another
in discussing it. After dinner, when the ladies had left them, Sir
Charles, repentant and cordial, urged Erskine to speak to Gertrude
without troubling himself as to the sincerity of Trefusis. But Erskine,
knowing himself ill able to brook a refusal, was loth to expose himself.

"If you had heard the tone of her voice when she asked him whether
he was in earnest, you would not talk to me like this," he said
despondently. "I wish he had never come here."

"Well, that, at least, was no fault of mine, my dear fellow," said Sir
Charles. "He came among us against my will. And now that he appears to
have been in the right--legally--about the field, it would look like
spite if I cut him. Besides, he really isn't a bad man if he would only
let the women alone."

"If he trifles with Miss Lindsay, I shall ask him to cross the Channel,
and have a shot at him."

"I don't think he'd go," said Sir Charles dubiously. "If I were you, I
would try my luck with Gertrude at once. In spite of what you heard, I
don't believe she would marry a man of his origin. His money gives
him an advantage, certainly, but Gertrude has sent richer men to the
rightabout."

"Let the fellow have fair play," said Erskine. "I may be wrong, of
course; all men are liable to err in judging themselves, but I think I
could make her happier than he can."

Sir Charles was not so sure of that, but he cheerfully responded,
"Certainly. He is not the man for her at all, and you are. He knows it,
too."

"Hmf!" muttered Erskine, rising dejectedly. "Let's go upstairs."

"By-the-bye, we are to call on him to-morrow, to go through his house,
and his collection of photographs. Photographs! Ha, ha! Damn his house!"
said Erskine.

Next day they went together to Sallust's House. It stood in the midst of
an acre of land, waste except a little kitchen garden at the rear. The
lodge at the entrance was uninhabited, and the gates stood open, with
dust and fallen leaves heaped up against them. Free ingress had thus
been afforded to two stray ponies, a goat, and a tramp, who lay asleep
in the grass. His wife sat near, watching him.

"I have a mind to turn back," said Sir Charles, looking about him in
disgust. "The place is scandalously neglected. Look at that rascal
asleep within full view of the windows."

"I admire his cheek," said Erskine. "Nice pair of ponies, too."

Sallust's House was square and painted cinnamon color. Beneath the
cornice was a yellow frieze with figures of dancing children, imitated
from the works of Donatello, and very unskilfully executed. There was
a meagre portico of four columns, painted red, and a plain pediment,
painted yellow. The colors, meant to match those of the walls,
contrasted disagreeably with them, having been applied more recently,
apparently by a color-blind artist. The door beneath the portico stood
open. Sir Charles rang the bell, and an elderly woman answered it; but
before they could address her, Trefusis appeared, clad in a painter's
jacket of white jean. Following him in, they found that the house was a
hollow square, enclosing a courtyard with a bath sunk in the middle, and
a fountain in the centre of the bath. The courtyard, formerly open to
the sky, was now roofed in with dusty glass; the nymph that had once
poured out the water of the fountain was barren and mutilated; and
the bath was partly covered in with loose boards, the exposed part
accommodating a heap of coals in one corner, a heap of potatoes in
another, a beer barrel, some old carpets, a tarpaulin, and a broken
canoe. The marble pavement extended to the outer walls of the house, and
was roofed in at the sides by the upper stories which were supported by
fluted stone columns, much stained and chipped. The staircase, towards
which Trefusis led his visitors, was a broad one at the end opposite the
door, and gave access to a gallery leading to the upper rooms.

"This house was built in 11780 by an ancestor of my mother," said
Trefusis. "He passed for a man of exquisite taste. He wished the place
to be maintained forever--he actually used that expression in his
will--as the family seat, and he collected a fine library here, which
I found useful, as all the books came into my hands in good condition,
most of them with the leaves uncut. Some people prize uncut copies of
old editions; a dealer gave me three hundred and fifty pounds for a
lot of them. I came into possession of a number of family
fetishes--heirlooms, as they are called. There was a sword that one of
my forbears wore at Edgehill and other battles in Charles the First's
time. We fought on the wrong side, of course, but the sword fetched
thirty-five shillings nevertheless. You will hardly believe that I
was offered one hundred and fifty pounds for a gold cup worth about
twenty-five, merely because Queen Elizabeth once drank from it. This is
my study. It was designed for a banqueting hall."

They entered a room as long as the wall of the house, pierced on one
side by four tall windows, between which square pillars, with Corinthian
capitals supporting the cornice, were half sunk in the wall. There
were similar pillars on the opposite side, but between them, instead of
windows, were arched niches in which stood life-size plaster statues,
chipped, broken, and defaced in an extraordinary fashion. The flooring,
of diagonally set narrow boards, was uncarpeted and unpolished. The
ceiling was adorned with frescoes, which at once excited Sir Charles's
interest, and he noted with indignation that a large portion of the
painting at the northern end had been destroyed and some glass roofing
inserted. In another place bolts had been driven in to support the ropes
of a trapeze and a few other pieces of gymnastic apparatus. The walls
were whitewashed, and at about four feet from the ground a dark band
appeared, produced by pencil memoranda and little sketches scribbled on
the whitewash. One end of the apartment was unfurnished, except by the
gymnastic apparatus, a photographer's camera, a ladder in the corner,
and a common deal table with oil cans and paint pots upon it. At the
other end a comparatively luxurious show was made by a large bookcase,
an elaborate combination of bureau and writing desk, a rack with a
rifle, a set of foils, and an umbrella in it, several folio albums on a
table, some comfortable chairs and sofas, and a thick carpet under foot.
Close by, and seeming much out of place, was a carpenter's bench with
the usual implements and a number of boards of various thicknesses.

"This is a sort of comfort beyond the reach of any but a rich man," said
Trefusis, turning and surprising his visitors in the act of exchanging
glances of astonishment at his taste. "I keep a drawing-room of the
usual kind for receiving strangers with whom it is necessary to be
conventional, but I never enter it except on such occasions. What do you
think of this for a study?"

"On my soul, Trefusis, I think you are mad," said Sir Charles. "The
place looks as if it had stood a siege. How did you manage to break the
statues and chip the walls so outrageously?"

Trefusis took a newspaper from the table and said, "Listen to this:
'In spite of the unfavorable nature of the weather, the sport of the
Emperor and his guests in Styria has been successful. In three days 52
chamois and 79 stags and deer fell to 19 single-barrelled rifles, the
Emperor allowing no more on this occasion.'

"I share the Emperor's delight in shooting, but I am no butcher, and do
not need the royal relish of blood to my sport. And I do not share my
ancestors' taste in statuary. Hence--" Here Trefusis opened a drawer,
took out a pistol, and fired at the Hebe in the farthest niche.

"Well done!" said Erskine coolly, as the last fragment of Hebe's head
crumbled at the touch of the bullet.

"Very fruitlessly done," said Trefusis. "I am a good shot, but of what
use is it to me? None. I once met a gamekeeper who was a Methodist. He
was a most eloquent speaker, but a bad shot. If he could have swapped
talents with me I would have given him ten thousand pounds to boot
willingly, although he would have profited as much as I by the exchange
alone. I have no more desire or need to be a good shot than to be
king of England, or owner of a Derby winner, or anything else equally
ridiculous, and yet I never missed my aim in my life--thank blind
fortune for nothing!"

"King of England!" said Erskine, with a scornful laugh, to show Trefusis
that other people were as liberty-loving as he. "Is it not absurd to
hear a nation boasting of its freedom and tolerating a king?"

"Oh, hang your republicanism, Chester!" said Sir Charles, who privately
held a low opinion of the political side of the Patriot Martyrs.

"I won't be put down on that point," said Erskine. "I admire a man that
kills a king. You will agree with me there, Trefusis, won't you?"

"Certainly not," said Trefusis. "A king nowadays is only a dummy put up
to draw your fire off the real oppressors of society, and the fraction
of his salary that he can spend as he likes is usually far too small for
his risk, his trouble, and the condition of personal slavery to which
he is reduced. What private man in England is worse off than the
constitutional monarch? We deny him all privacy; he may not marry whom
he chooses, consort with whom he prefers, dress according to his taste,
or live where he pleases. I don't believe he may even eat or drink what
he likes best; a taste for tripe and onions on his part would provoke
a remonstrance from the Privy Council. We dictate everything except his
thoughts and dreams, and even these he must keep to himself if they are
not suitable, in our opinion, to his condition. The work we impose on
him has all the hardship of mere task work; it is unfruitful, incessant,
monotonous, and has to be transacted for the most part with nervous
bores. We make his kingdom a treadmill to him, and drive him to and fro
on the face of it. Finally, having taken everything else that men prize
from him, we fall upon his character, and that of every person to whom
he ventures to show favor. We impose enormous expenses on him,
stint him, and then rail at his parsimony. We use him as I use those
statues--stick him up in the place of honor for our greater convenience
in disfiguring and abusing him. We send him forth through our crowded
cities, proclaiming that he is the source of all good and evil in the
nation, and he, knowing that many people believe it, knowing that it is
a lie, and that he is powerless to shorten the working day by one hour,
raise wages one penny, or annul the smallest criminal sentence, however
unjust it may seem to him; knowing that every miner in the kingdom can
manufacture dynamite, and that revolvers are sold for seven and sixpence
apiece; knowing that he is not bullet proof, and that every king in
Europe has been shot at in the streets; he must smile and bow and
maintain an expression of gracious enjoyment whilst the mayor and
corporation inflict upon him the twaddling address he has heard a
thousand times before. I do not ask you to be loyal, Erskine; but I
expect you, in common humanity, to sympathize with the chief figure
in the pageant, who is no more accountable for the manifold evils and
abominations that exist in his realm than the Lord Mayor is accountable
for the thefts of the pickpockets who follow his show on the ninth of
November."

Sir Charles laughed at the trouble Trefusis took to prove his case, and
said soothingly, "My dear fellow, kings are used to it, and expect it,
and like it."

"And probably do not see themselves as I see them, any more than common
people do," assented Trefusis.

"What an exquisite face!" exclaimed Erskine suddenly, catching sight of
a photograph in a rich gold and coral frame on a miniature easel draped
with ruby velvet. Trefusis turned quickly, so evidently gratified that
Sir Charles hastened to say, "Charming!" Then, looking at the portrait,
he added, as if a little startled, "It certainly is an extraordinarily
attractive face."

"Years ago," said Trefusis, "when I saw that face for the first time, I
felt as you feel now."

Silence ensued, the two visitors looking at the portrait, Trefusis
looking at them.

"Curious style of beauty," said Sir Charles at last, not quite so
assuredly as before.

Trefusis laughed unpleasantly. "Do you recognize the artist--the
enthusiastic amateur--in her?" he said, opening another drawer and
taking out a bundle of drawings, which he handed to be examined.

"Very clever. Very clever indeed," said Sir Charles. "I should like to
meet the lady."

"I have often been on the point of burning them," said Trefusis; "but
there they are, and there they are likely to remain. The portrait has
been much admired."

"Can you give us an introduction to the original, old fellow?" said
Erskine.

"No, happily. She is dead."

Disagreeably shocked, they looked at him for a moment with aversion.
Then Erskine, turning with pity and disappointment to the picture, said,
"Poor girl! Was she married?"

"Yes. To me."

"Mrs. Trefusis!" exclaimed Sir Charles. "Ah! Dear me!"

Erskine, with proof before him that it was possible for a beautiful girl
to accept Trefusis, said nothing.

"I keep her portrait constantly before me to correct my natural
amativeness. I fell in love with her and married her. I have fallen in
love once or twice since but a glance at my lost Hetty has cured me of
the slightest inclination to marry."

Sir Charles did not reply. It occurred to him that Lady Brandon's
portrait, if nothing else were left of her, might be useful in the same
way.

"Come, you will marry again one of these days," said Erskine, in a
forced tone of encouragement.

"It is possible. Men should marry, especially rich men. But I assure you
I have no present intention of doing so."

Erskine's color deepened, and he moved away to the table where the
albums lay.

"This is the collection of photographs I spoke of," said Trefusis,
following him and opening one of the books. "I took many of them myself
under great difficulties with regard to light--the only difficulty that
money could not always remove. This is a view of my father's house--or
rather one of his houses. It cost seventy-five thousand pounds."

"Very handsome indeed," said Sir Charles, secretly disgusted at being
invited to admire a photograph, such as house agents exhibit, of a
vulgarly designed country house, merely because it had cost seventy-five
thousand pounds. The figures were actually written beneath the picture.

"This is the drawing-room, and this one of the best bedrooms. In the
right-hand corner of the mount you will see a note of the cost of
the furniture, fittings, napery, and so forth. They were of the most
luxurious description."

"Very interesting," said Sir Charles, hardly disguising the irony of the
comment.

"Here is a view--this is the first of my own attempts--of the apartment
of one of the under servants. It is comfortable and spacious, and
solidly furnished."

"So I perceive."

"These are the stables. Are they not handsome?"

"Palatial. Quite palatial."

"There is every luxury that a horse could desire, including plenty of
valets to wait on him. You are noting the figures, I hope. There is the
cost of the building and the expenditure per horse per annum."

"I see."

"Here is the exterior of a house. What do you think of it?"

"It is rather picturesque in its dilapidation."

"Picturesque! Would you like to live in it?"

"No," said Erskine. "I don't see anything very picturesque about it.
What induced you to photograph such a wretched old rookery?"

"Here is a view of the best room in it. Photography gives you a fair
idea of the broken flooring and patched windows, but you must imagine
the dirt and the odor of the place. Some of the stains are weather
stains, others came from smoke and filth. The landlord of the house
holds it from a peer and lets it out in tenements. Three families
occupied that room when I photographed it. You will see by the figures
in the corner that it is more profitable to the landlord than an average
house in Mayfair. Here is the cellar, let to a family for one and
sixpence a week, and considered a bargain. The sun never shines there,
of course. I took it by artificial light. You may add to the rent the
cost of enough bad beer to make the tenant insensible to the filth of
the place. Beer is the chloroform that enables the laborer to endure the
severe operation of living; that is why we can always assure one another
over our wine that the rascal's misery is due to his habit of drinking.
We are down on him for it, because, if he could bear his life without
beer, we should save his beer-money--get him for lower wages. In short,
we should be richer and he soberer. Here is the yard; the arrangements
are indescribable. Seven of the inhabitants of that house had worked for
years in my father's mill. That is, they had created a considerable part
of the vast sums of money for drawing your attention to which you were
disgusted with me just now."

"Not at all," said Sir Charles faintly.

"You can see how their condition contrasts with that of my father's
horses. The seven men to whom I have alluded, with three hundred others,
were thrown destitute upon the streets by this." (Here he turned over a
leaf and displayed a photograph of an elaborate machine.) "It enabled my
father to dispense with their services, and to replace them by a handful
of women and children. He had bought the patent of the machine for fifty
pounds from the inventor, who was almost ruined by the expenses of his
ingenuity, and would have sacrificed anything for a handful of ready
money. Here is a portrait of my father in his masonic insignia. He
believed that freemasons generally get on in the world, and as the main
object of his life was to get on, he joined them, and wanted me to do
the same. But I object to pretended secret societies and hocus pocus,
and would not. You see what he was--a portly, pushing, egotistical
tradesman. Mark the successful man, the merchant prince with argosies
on every sea, the employer of thousands of hands, the munificent
contributor to public charities, the churchwarden, the member
of parliament, and the generous patron of his relatives his
self-approbation struggling with the instinctive sense of baseness
in the money-hunter, the ignorant and greedy filcher of the labor
of others, the seller of his own mind and manhood for luxuries and
delicacies that he was too lowlived to enjoy, and for the society of
people who made him feel his inferiority at every turn."

"And the man to whom you owe everything you possess," said Erskine
boldly.

"I possess very little. Everything he left me, except a few pictures, I
spent long ago, and even that was made by his slaves and not by him. My
wealth comes day by day fresh from the labor of the wretches who live in
the dens I have just shown you, or of a few aristocrats of labor who are
within ten shillings a week of being worse off. However, there is some
excuse for my father. Once, at an election riot, I got into a free
fight. I am a peaceful man, but as I had either to fight or be knocked
down and trampled upon, I exchanged blows with men who were perhaps as
peacefully disposed as I. My father, launched into a free competition
(free in the sense that the fight is free: that is, lawless)--my father
had to choose between being a slave himself and enslaving others.
He chose the latter, and as he was applauded and made much of for
succeeding, who dare blame him? Not I. Besides, he did something to
destroy the anarchy that enabled him to plunder society with impunity.
He furnished me, its enemy, with the powerful weapon of a large fortune.
Thus our system of organizing industry sometimes hatches the eggs from
which its destroyers break. Does Lady Brandon wear much lace?"

"I--No; that is--How the deuce do I know, Trefusis? What an
extraordinary question!"

"This is a photograph of a lace school. It was a filthy room, twelve
feet square. It was paved with brick, and the children were not allowed
to wear their boots, lest the lace should get muddy. However, as
there were twenty of them working there for fifteen hours a day--all
girls--they did not suffer much from cold. They were pretty tightly
packed--may be still, for aught I know. They brought three or four
shillings a week sometimes to their fond parents; and they were very
quick-fingered little creatures, and stuck intensely to their work, as
the overseer always hit them when they looked up or--"

"Trefusis," said Sir Charles, turning away from the table, "I beg your
pardon, but I have no appetite for horrors. You really must not ask me
to go through your collection. It is no doubt very interesting, but I
can't stand it. Have you nothing pleasant to entertain me with?"

"Pooh! you are squeamish. However, as you are a novice, let us put off
the rest until you are seasoned. The pictures are not all horrible. Each
book refers to a different country. That one contains illustrations of
modern civilization in Germany, for instance. That one is France; that,
British India. Here you have the United States of America, home of
liberty, theatre of manhood suffrage, kingless and lordless land of
Protection, Republicanism, and the realized Radical Programme, where all
the black chattel slaves were turned into wage-slaves (like my father's
white fellows) at a cost of 800,000 lives and wealth incalculable.
You and I are paupers in comparison with the great capitalists of that
country, where the laborers fight for bones with the Chinamen, like
dogs. Some of these great men presented me with photographs of their
yachts and palaces, not anticipating the use to which I would put them.
Here are some portraits that will not harrow your feelings. This is my
mother, a woman of good family, every inch a lady. Here is a Lancashire
lass, the daughter of a common pitman. She has exactly the same physical
characteristics as my well-born mother--the same small head, delicate
features, and so forth; they might be sisters. This villainous-looking
pair might be twin brothers, except that there is a trace of good humor
about the one to the right. The good-humored one is a bargee on the
Lyvern Canal. The other is one of the senior noblemen of the British
Peerage. They illustrate the fact that Nature, even when perverted by
generations of famine fever, ignores the distinctions we set up
between men. This group of men and women, all tolerably intelligent
and thoughtful looking, are so-called enemies of society--Nihilists,
Anarchists, Communards, members of the International, and so on. These
other poor devils, worried, stiff, strumous, awkward, vapid, and rather
coarse, with here and there a passably pretty woman, are European kings,
queens, grand-dukes, and the like. Here are ship-captains, criminals,
poets, men of science, peers, peasants, political economists, and
representatives of dozens of degrees. The object of the collection is
to illustrate the natural inequality of man, and the failure of our
artificial inequality to correspond with it."

"It seems to me a sort of infernal collection for the upsetting of
people's ideas," said Erskine. "You ought to label it 'A Portfolio of
Paradoxes.'"

"In a rational state of society they would be paradoxes; but now
the time gives them proof--like Hamlet's paradox. It is, however, a
collection of facts; and I will give no fanciful name to it. You dislike
figures, don't you?"

"Unless they are by Phidias, yes."

"Here are a few, not by Phidias. This is the balance sheet of an
attempt I made some years ago to carry out the idea of an International
Association of Laborers--commonly known as THE International--or union
of all workmen throughout the world in defence of the interests of
labor. You see the result. Expenditure, four thousand five hundred
pounds. Subscriptions received from working-men, twenty-two pounds seven
and ten pence halfpenny. The British workmen showed their sense of my
efforts to emancipate them by accusing me of making a good thing out of
the Association for my own pocket, and by mobbing and stoning me twice.
I now help them only when they show some disposition to help themselves.
I occupy myself partly in working out a scheme for the reorganization of
industry, and partly in attacking my own class, women and all, as I am
attacking you."

"There is little use in attacking us, I fear," said Sir Charles.

"Great use," said Trefusis confidently. "You have a very different
opinion of our boasted civilization now from that which you held when I
broke your wall down and invited those Land Nationalization zealots to
march across your pleasure ground. You have seen in my album something
you had not seen an hour ago, and you are consequently not quite the
same man you were an hour ago. My pictures stick in the mind longer than
your scratchy etchings, or the leaden things in which you fancy you see
tender harmonies in gray. Erskine's next drama may be about liberty,
but its Patriot Martyrs will have something better to do than spout
balderdash against figure-head kings who in all their lives never
secretly plotted as much dastardly meanness, greed, cruelty, and
tyranny as is openly voted for in London by every half-yearly meeting
of dividend-consuming vermin whose miserable wage-slaves drudge sixteen
hours out of the twenty-four."

"What is going to be the end of it all?" said Sir Charles, a little
dazed.

"Socialism or Smash. Socialism if the race has at last evolved the
faculty of coordinating the functions of a society too crowded and
complex to be worked any longer on the old haphazard private-property
system. Unless we reorganize our society socialistically--humanly a most
arduous and magnificent enterprise, economically a most simple and sound
one--Free Trade by itself will ruin England, and I will tell you exactly
how. When my father made his fortune we had the start of all other
nations in the organization of our industry and in our access to iron
and coal. Other nations bought our products for less than they must have
spent to raise them at home, and yet for so much more than they cost
us, that profits rolled in Atlantic waves upon our capitalists. When
the workers, by their trades-unions, demanded a share of the luck in
the form of advanced wages, it paid better to give them the little they
dared to ask than to stop gold-gathering to fight and crush them. But
now our customers have set up in their own countries improved copies of
our industrial organization, and have discovered places where iron
and coal are even handier than they are by this time in England. They
produce for themselves, or buy elsewhere, what they formerly bought
from us. Our profits are vanishing, our machinery is standing idle,
our workmen are locked out. It pays now to stop the mills and fight
and crush the unions when the men strike, no longer for an advance, but
against a reduction. Now that these unions are beaten, helpless, and
drifting to bankruptcy as the proportion of unemployed men in their
ranks becomes greater, they are being petted and made much of by our
class; an infallible sign that they are making no further progress in
their duty of destroying us. The small capitalists are left stranded by
the ebb; the big ones will follow the tide across the water, and
rebuild their factories where steam power, water power, labor power,
and transport are now cheaper than in England, where they used to be
cheapest. The workers will emigrate in pursuit of the factory, but they
will multiply faster than they emigrate, and be told that their own
exorbitant demand for wages is driving capital abroad, and must continue
to do so whilst there is a Chinaman or a Hindoo unemployed to underbid
them. As the British factories are shut up, they will be replaced by
villas; the manufacturing districts will become fashionable resorts for
capitalists living on the interest of foreign investments; the farms and
sheep runs will be cleared for deer forests. All products that can
in the nature of things be manufactured elsewhere than where they are
consumed will be imported in payment of deer-forest rents from foreign
sportsmen, or of dividends due to shareholders resident in England, but
holding shares in companies abroad, and these imports will not be paid
for by ex ports, because rent and interest are not paid for at all--a
fact which the Free Traders do not yet see, or at any rate do not
mention, although it is the key to the whole mystery of their opponents.
The cry for Protection will become wild, but no one will dare resort to
a demonstrably absurd measure that must raise prices before it raises
wages, and that has everywhere failed to benefit the worker. There will
be no employment for anyone except in doing things that must be done on
the spot, such as unpacking and distributing the imports, ministering to
the proprietors as domestic servants, or by acting, preaching, paving,
lighting, housebuilding, and the rest; and some of these, as the
capitalist comes to regard ostentation as vulgar, and to enjoy a simpler
life, will employ fewer and fewer people. A vast proletariat, beginning
with a nucleus of those formerly employed in export trades, with their
multiplying progeny, will be out of employment permanently. They will
demand access to the land and machinery to produce for themselves. They
will be refused. They will break a few windows and be dispersed with
a warning to their leaders. They will burn a few houses and murder a
policeman or two, and then an example will be made of the warned. They
will revolt, and be shot down with machine-guns--emigrated--exterminated
anyhow and everyhow; for the proprietary classes have no idea of any
other means of dealing with the full claims of labor. You yourself,
though you would give fifty pounds to Jansenius's emigration fund
readily enough, would call for the police, the military, and the Riot
Act, if the people came to Brandon Beeches and bade you turn out and
work for your living with the rest. Well, the superfluous proletariat
destroyed, there will remain a population of capitalists living on
gratuitous imports and served by a disaffected retinue. One day the
gratuitous imports will stop in consequence of the occurrence abroad of
revolution and repudiation, fall in the rate of interest, purchase of
industries by governments for lump sums, not reinvestable, or what
not. Our capitalist community is then thrown on the remains of the last
dividend, which it consumes long before it can rehabilitate its extinct
machinery of production in order to support itself with its own hands.
Horses, dogs, cats, rats, blackberries, mushrooms, and cannibalism only
postpone--"