 Chapter 7. The Idle of Tripulpin No, we can't have Diana, the President said, when Lord Silverdale reported the matter. That is, not if the Moon Man breaks off the engagement. According to the rules, the candidate must have herself discarded an advantageous marriage, and that Miss Diana will give up Mr. Wilkins is extremely questionable. Like everything connected with the Moon Man's bride, however, my aerial expedition has not been fruitless. If I have not brought you a member from the clouds, at least we know how right I was to pluck Clarinda Bell. Yes, and how right I was to appoint you Honorary Trier! said Lily. I have several more candidates for you, chosen from my last batch of applications. While you were in the clouds, I was working. I have already interviewed them. They fulfill all the conditions. It only remains for you to do your part. Have they given good reasons for their refusal to marry their lovers? Excellent reasons. Reasons so strange as to bear the stamp of truth. Here is the first reduced to writing. It is compounded of what Miss Ella Lyne Rand said to me, and of what she left unsaid. Read it while I put another of these love stories into shape. I am so glad I founded the Old Maids Club. It has enlarged my experience incalculably. Lord Silverdale took the manuscript and read. When John Beverage went to nurse his missanthropy in the obscure fishing village of Tripulpen, he had not bargained for the presence of Ella Lyne Rand. And yet there she was, living in a queer little cottage at the very top of the steep hill which constituted Tripulpen, and sloped down to a pebbly beach where the dark nets dried and the trowel boats were drawn up. The people she was staying with were children of the soil and the sea. The man, a rugged old fish-dealer who had been a smuggler in his time. The woman, a chirpy grandame whose eyes were still good enough to allow her to weave lace by lamp-light. The season was early June, and the glittering smile on the broad face of the Atlantic made the roar of the breakers sound like Stentorian laughter. There was always a whiff of fish, a blend of mackerel and crabs and mullet, striking up from the beach, but the salt in the air kept the odiferous atoms fairly fresh. Everything in Tripulpen was delightfully archaic, and even the faraway suggestions of antiquity about the prevailing pissine flavor seemed in poetic keeping with the spirit of the primitive little spot. In a village of one street it is impossible not to live in it, unless you are a coastguard, and then you don't live in the village. This was why John Beverage was a neighbor of Ella Lines. He lived much lower down where the laugh of the Atlantic was louder and the scent of the fish was stronger, and before he knew of Ella Lines' existence he used to go downhill, which is easy, smoke his pipe and chat with the trawlers, and lie on his back in the sun. After they had met he grew less lazy and used to take exercise by walking up to the top of the hill. Probably by this time the sea breezes had given him strength. Sometimes he met Ella Lines coming down, which was accident, then he would turn and walk down with her, which was design. The manner of their first meeting was novel, but in such a place it could not be long delayed. Beverage had obeyed a call from the boatmen to come and help them drag in the seign. He was struggling with all his might at the section of the netting, for the fishers seemed to be in luck and the fish unfortunate. Suddenly he heard the pit-pad of light feet running down the hill, and the next moment two little white hands peeping out of white cuffs were gripping the net at the side of his own fleshy brown ones. For some thirty seconds he was content to divine the apparition from the hands. There was a flutter of sweet expectation about his heart, a stirring of the sense of romance. The day was divine, the sky was a brooding blue, the sea was a rippling play of light on which the seign boat danced lightly. One little brown sail was visible far out in the bay, the seagulls hovering about it. It seemed to beverage that the seign had only been waiting for those gentle little hands whose assistance in the apparition of landing the spoil was such a delicious farce. They could be no native lasses, these soft fingers with their pink little nails like pretty sea-pearls. They were fingers that spoke in their mute digital dialect of the crayon and the violin bow rather than of the local harmonium. There was something, too, about the coquettish cuffs irresistibly at variance with the village Wesleyanism. Gradually, as the net came in, beverage let his eyes steal towards her face. The pre-vision of romance became a certain tea. It was a charming little face, as symmetrically proportioned to the hands as the face of a watch is. The nose was ray-troussé and frequent, but the eyes contradicted it, being demure and dreamy. There was a little cupid's bow of a mouth, and between the half-parted rosy lips a gleam of white teeth clenched with the exertion of hauling on the seign. A simple sailor's hat crowned a fluff of flaxen hair, and her dress was of airy muslin. She was so absorbed in the glee of hauling in the fish that it was some moments before she seemed to notice that her neighbor's eyes were fixed upon her, and that they were not set in the rugged tan of the local masculine face. A little blush leapt into the rather pale cheeks and went out again like a tiny spurt of rosy flame. Then she strained more desperately than ever at the net. It was soon ashore, with its wild and whirling mixture of mackerel, soles, dabs, squids, turbot. John Beverage was not certain but what his heart was already among the things fluttering there in the net at her feet. While the trawlers were sorting out the fish, spreading some on the beach and packing the mackerel in baskets, Ella-Line looked on, patiently interested in everything but her fellow amateur. After all, despite his shaggy coat and the clay pipe in his mouth, he was of the town, towny. Some solicitor, artist, stockbroker, doctor, on a holiday. Perhaps, considering the time of year, only a clerk. What she had come to tripulpin for was something more primitive. And he, surely he had seen and loved pretty women enough not to stir an inch nearer this dainty vision. For what but to forget the wiles and treacheries of women of the town, had he buried himself here? And yet, was it the unexpectedness, was it that while bringing back the atmosphere of great cities, she yet seemed a creature of the woods and waters, he felt himself drawn to her? He wanted to talk to her, to learn who she was and what she was doing here, but he did not know how to begin, though he had the gift of many tongues. Not that he deemed an introduction necessary, in Tripulpin, where not to give everybody you met good morning, was to court a reputation for surliness. And it would have been easy enough to open on the weather or the marine harvest they had both helped to gather in. But somehow John Beverage learned embarrassment in the presence of this muslin mermaiden, who seemed half of the world and half of the sea. And so, amid the bustle of the beach, the minutes slipped away, and Beverage spoke no word but leaned against the cliff, content to drowse in the sunlight of the sun and Ello Line. The dealers came down to the beach, men and women, among them a hail grisly old fellow who clasped Ello Line's hand in his huge gnarled fist. The auction began. John Beverage joined the crowd at a point behind the strangely assorted couple. Of a sudden Ello Line turned to him, with her great limpid eyes looking candidly into his, and said, Some of those poor mackerel are not quite dead yet. I wonder if they suffer. John Beverage was taken aback. The last vestiges of his won'ted assurance were swept away before her sweet simplicity. I—I really—I don't know. I've never thought about it, he stammered. Men never do, said Ello Line, with a gentle reproachful look. They think only of their own pain. I do hope fish have no feelings. They are cold-blooded, he reminded her, beginning to recover himself. Ah! she said musingly. But what right have we to take away their lives? They must be, oh, so happy, in the beautiful wide ocean. I am sorry I had a hand in destroying them. I shall never do it again. You have very little to reproach yourself with, he said, smiling. Ah! now you are laughing at me. I know I'm not big and strong, and that my muscles could have been dispensed with. But the will was there, the intention was there, she said, with her serious air. Oh! of course, you are a piss-a-side in intention, he admitted, but you will enjoy the mackerel all the same. No, I won't, she said, with a charming little shake of the head. I won't eat any. What! you will never more eat fish? Never, she said emphatically. I love fish, but I won't eat them. Only tinned things like sardines. Oh! what a little stupid I am! Don't laugh at me again, please. I forgot the sardines must be cod-first before they are tinned, mustn't they? Not necessarily, he said. It often suffices if sprouts are cod. She laughed. Her laugh was a low musical ripple like one of the little sunlit waves translated into sound. Twenty-two shillings, cried the owner of a lot. I'll give ye eleven, said Ella Lyne's companion, and the girl turned her head to listen to the violent chaffering that ensued, and when she went away she only gave John Beverage a nod and a smile. But he followed her with his eyes as she toiled up the hill, growing ever smaller and daintier against the horizon. The second time he met her was at the Cove, a little way from the village, where great foliage-crowned cliffs came crescent-wise round a space of shining sand, girdled at its outer margin by tumbling green foam-crested surges. Huge mammoth-like boulders stood about, bathing their feet in the incoming tide, the cormorants perching cautiously down the precipitous half-worn path that led to the sands. There was a point at which the landward margin of the shore beneath first revealed itself to the descending pedestrian, and it was a point so slippery that it was thoughtless of fate to have included Ella Lyne in the area of vision. She was lying, sheltered by a blue sunshade, on the golden sand, with her head on the base of the cliff, abstractedly tearing along serpentine weed to dark green ribbons, and gazing out dreamily into the throbbing depths of sea and sky. There was an open book before her, but she did not seem to be staying. John Beveridge saved himself by grasping a stinging bush, and he stole down gently towards her, forgetting to swear. He came to her with footsteps muffled by the soft sand, and stood looking down at her, admiring the beauty of the delicate flushed young face and the flaxen hair against the sober background of the aged cliff with its mellow, subtly fused tints. Thinking of the little fishes or of the gods, he said at last in a loud, pleasant voice. Ella Lyne gave a little shriek. Oh, where did you spring from? she said, half-raising herself. Not from the clouds, he said. Of course not. I was not thinking of the gods, said Ella Lyne. He laughed. I am not even a perseus, he said. For the tide, though coming in, is not yet dangerous enough to be likened to the sea monster, though you might very well pass for Andromeda. Ella Lyne blushed and rose to her feet, adjusting a wrap round her shoulders. I do not know, she said with dignity, what I have done to encourage such a comparison. John Beveridge saw he had slipped. This time there was not even a stinging bush to cling to. You are beautiful, that is all I meant, he said apologetically. Is it worthwhile saying such commonplace things? she said a little mollified. It was an ambiguous remark. From her it could only mean that he had been guilty of compliment. I am very sorry, a thousand pardons. But pray do not let me drive you away. You seemed so happy here, I will go back. He made a half turn. Yes, I was happy, she said simply. In my foolish little way I thought I had discovered this spot, as if anything so beautiful could have escaped the attention of those who have been so near it all their lives. Her words caused him a sudden pang of anxious jealousy. Must they not be true of herself? And you, too, seemed to have discovered it, she went on. Doubtless you know all the coast well, for you were here before me. Do you know?" she said, looking up at his face with her candid gray eyes. This is the first time in my life I have seen the sea, so you must not laugh if I seem ignorant. But, oh, how I love to lie and hear it roar, tossing its mane like some great wild animal that I have tamed and will not harm me. There are other wild animals that you may tame here by the sea, he said. She considered for a moment gravely. It is rather pretty, she announced. I shall re-remember that, but please do not tell me again I am beautiful. She sat down on the sand with her back to the cliff, readjusting her parasol. Very well, I sit reproved, he replied, taking up his position by her side. What book is that you are reading? She handed him the little paper covered, airily printed volume, suggesting summer in every leaf. Ah, it is the cherub that sits up aloft, he said, with a shade of superciliousness blent with amusement. Yes, have you read it? she asked. No, he said, I have heard of it. It's by that new woman who came out last year and calls herself Andrew Dibbden, isn't it? Yes, said Ella Lyne. It's made an enormous hit, don't you know? Oh yes, I know, he said, laughing. It's a lot of sentimental rot, isn't it? Do you like it? I think it is sweetly pretty, she said, a teardrop of vexation gathering on her eyelid. If you haven't read it, why should you abuse it? Oh, one can't read everything, he said. But one gets to pick up enough about a book to know whether he cares to read it. Of course, I am aware it is about a little baby on board a ship that makes charming inarticulate orations and is worshipped by everybody from the captain to the little stowaway and is regarded by the sailors as the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, etc., and that there is a sensational description of a storm at sea, which is Clark Russell and water, or rather Clark Russell and more water. Ah, I see you are a cynic, said Ella Lyne. I don't like cynics. No indeed I am not, he pleaded. It is false, not true, sentiment I object to. And how do you know this is false sentiment? She asked in honest indignation, When you haven't read it! What does it matter, he murmured, overwhelmed by her sense of duty. She was evidently unaccustomed to the light flippancies of elegant conversation. Oh, nothing! To some people nothing matters. Will you promise to read the book if I lend it you? Of course I will, he said, delighted at the establishment of so permanent a link. Only I don't want to deprive you of it. I can wait till you have finished with it. I have finished! I have read it over and over again. Take it! She handed it to him, their fingertips met. I recant already, he said, it must have something pure and good in it to take captive a soul like yours. And indeed the glamour of Ella Lyne was over every page of it. As he read, he found tears of tenderness in his eyes when otherwise they might have sprung from laughter. He adored the little cherub who sat up aloft on the officer's table and softened these crusty sea-dogs whose hearts were become as ship's biscuits. He could not tell what had come over himself when his own seer heart should be so quick again to the beauties of homely virtue and duty, to the engaging simplicity and pathos of childhood, to the purity of womanhood. Was it that Ella Lyne was all these things incarnate? He avowed his error and his conversion, and gradually they came to meet often in the solitary creek, as was but right for the only two intellectual people in Tripolpin. Sometimes, too, they wandered further afield amid the ferny lanes, but the cove was their favourite tristing place, and there lying with his head in her lap he would talk to her of books and men and one woman. He found her tastes were not limited to the cherub that sits up aloft, for she liked Meredith. Really, he said, if you had not been yourself I should have doubted whether your admiration was genuine. Yes, his women are so real, but I do not pretend to care for the style. Style, he said, I call it a five-barred fence. To me, style is everything. Style alone is literature, whether it be the man or not. Oh, then, are you of the school of adipar? Ah, have you heard of that? I am. I admire adipar and agree with him. Form is everything. Literature is only a matter of form, and a book is only a form of matter. I see, she said, smiling, but I adore adipar myself, though I regret the future seems likely to be his. I have read all he has written. Every line is so lucid. The form is exquisite, but as for the matter. No matter, summed up John Beverage laughing heartily. I am so glad you agree with me sometimes, said Ella Lyne, because it shows you don't think I am so very stupid after all. Of course I don't, except when you get so enthusiastic about literary people and rave about dibdin' and adipar and blackwin' and the rest. If you mixed with them, my little girl, as I have done, you would soon lose your rosy illusions, although perhaps you are better with them. Ah, then you're not a novelist yourself? She said anxiously. No, I am not. What makes you ask? Nothing, only sometimes from your conversation I suspected you might be. Thank you, Ella Lyne, he said, for a very dubious compliment. No, I am afraid I must forgo that claim upon your admiration, unless I tell a lie and become a novelist by doing so. But then wouldn't it be the truth? Are you, then, a painter or a musician? He shook his head. No, I do not get my living by art. Not of any kind? Not of any kind. How do you get it? She asked simply, a candid light shining in the great gray eyes. My father was a successful saddle-maker, he is dead. Oh, she said. Leather has made me from childhood up. It has chastised, supported, educated me, and given me the entree everywhere. So, you see, I cannot hold a candle to your demigods. Ah, but there is nothing like leather, said Ella Lyne, and stroked the head in her lap reassuringly. The assurance permeated John Beverage's frame like a pleasant cordial. All that was hard and leathery in him seemed to be soaked soft. Here at least was a woman who loved him for himself, an innocent trusting woman in whose weakness a man might find strength. Her pure lips were like the wayside well at which the wearied wanderer from great stony cities might drink and be refreshed. And yet, delightful as her love would be in his drowdy life, he felt that his could not prove less delightful to her. That he, John Beverage, with the roses thrusting themselves into his eyes, should stoop to pick the simple little daisy at his feet, could not fail to fill her with an admiring gratitude that would add the last charm of her passion for him. But it was not till a week afterwards that the formal proposal, so long impending, broke. They were resting in a lane and discussing everything they didn't want to discuss, the unspoken playing with subtle sweetness about the spoken. Have you read Mr. Gladstone's latest? She asked at last. No, he said. Has Mr. Gladstone ever a latest? Oh yes, take him day by day, like an evening paper. I'm referring to his article on Ancient Beliefs in a Future State. What's that, the belief of old maids that they'll get married? Now you are blasphemous, she cried with a pretty pout. How, are old maids a sacred subject? Everything old should be sacred to us, she said simply, but you know that is not what I mean. Then why do you say it, he asked? Oh, what a tease you are, she cried. I shan't be sorry to be quit of you. Your flippancy is quite dreadful. Why, do you believe in a future state, he said? Of course I do, if we had only one life it would not be worth living. But nine times one life would be worth living. Is that the logic? If so, happy cats. I wonder, he added irrelevantly, why the number nine always goes with cats, nine lives, nine tales, nine muses. Ella Lyne made a moo and shrank petulantly away from him. I will not discuss our future state unless you are prepared to do it seriously, she said. I am, he replied with sudden determination. Let us enter it together. I am tired of the life I've been leading, and I love you. What! she said in a little horrified whisper. You want us to commit suicide together? No, no, matrimony. I cannot do it alone. I have never had the courage to do it at all. With you by my side, I should go forward, facing the hereafter cheerfully, with faith and trust. I, I am afraid, I, she stammered. Why should you be afraid, he interrupted? Have you no faith and trust in me? Oh yes, she said with a frank smile. If I had not confidence in you, I should not be here with you. You angel, he said, his eyes growing wet under her clear, limpid gaze. But you love me a little too? I do not, she said, shaking her head demurely. John Beverage groaned. After so decisive an avowal from the essence of candor, what remained to be said? Nothing but to bid her and his hopes farewell. The latter at once, the former as soon as she was escorted back to Tripolpen. His affection had grown so ripe, he could not exchange it for the green fruit of friendship. And yet, was this to be the end of all that sweet idyllic interlude, a jarring note and then silence for evermore? But could you never learn to love me? She laughed her girlish, ringing laugh. I am not so backward as all that, she said. I mastered it in a dozen lessons. He stared at her, a wild hope kindling in his eyes. Did I hear a right? he asked in a hoarse tone. She nodded, still smiling. Then I did not hear a right before. Oh yes, you did. I said I did not love you a little. I love you a great deal. There were tears in the gray eyes now, but they smiled on. He caught her in his arms, and the Devonshire lane was transformed to Eden. How exquisite this angelic frankness, when the words pleased. How delicious the frankness of her caress, when the words were detrope. But at last she spoke again. And now that I know you love me for myself, I will tell you a secret. The little hands that had first clasped his attention were laid on his shoulders. The dreamy face looked up tenderly and proudly into his. They say a woman cannot keep a secret, she said. But you will never believe that again when I tell you mine? I never believed it, he said earnestly. Consider how every woman keeps the great secret of her age. Ah, that is not what I'm going to tell you, she said archly. It is another of the great secrets of my age. You remember that book you liked so much, the cherub that sits up aloft? Yes, he said wonderingly. Well, I wrote it. You, he exclaimed, startled. His image of her seemed a pillar of sand upon which the Simum had burst. This fresh, simple maiden, a complex literary being, a slave of the midnight lamp. Yes, I, I am Andrew Dibdon, the authoress who drew tears from your eyes. You, Andrew Dibdon, he repeated mechanically. She nodded her head with a proud and happy smile. I knew you would be pleased, but I wanted you to love me, not my book. I love both, he exclaimed. The new conceptions had fitted themselves into the old. He saw now what the charm of the little novel was. The book was elalined between covers. He wondered he had not seen it before. The grace, the purity, the pathos, the sweet candor, the recollections of a childhood spent on the great waters in the company of kindly mariners, all had flowed out at the point of her pen. She had put herself into her work. He felt a subtle jealousy of the people who bought her on the bookstalls for a shilling, or even for ninepence at the booksellers. He wanted to have her all to himself. He experienced a mad desire to buy up the edition. But there would be a new one. He realized the feelings of Othello. Oh, if he could but arrest her circulation! If you know how happy it made me to hear you say you love my book, she replied, at first I hated you because you sneered at it. All my friends love my books, and I wanted you to be a friend of mine. And I am more than that, he said exultantly. And I want to love all your books. What else have you written? Only two others, she said apologetically. You see, I have only been in literature six months, and I only write straight from the heart. Yes, indeed, he said, you wear your heart upon your leaves. Jealous as he was of her readers, he felt that there was Balmin Gilead. She was not a hack writer, turning out books for the market of malice aforethought. Not the complex being he had figured in the first moment of consternation, the literary quack with finger on the pulse of the public. She did but write as the birds caroled. Not the slave, but the genius of the midnight lamp. But I must not wear my heart out, she replied laughingly. So I came down here for a month to get fresh material. I am writing a novel of Cornish peasant life. I want to photograph the people with all their lights and shades, all their faiths and superstitions, all their ways of speech and thought, the first thorough study ever made of a fast-fading phase of old English life. You see, I didn't know what to do. I feared the public would be tired of my sailor stories, and I thought I'd locate my next story on land. Accident determined its environment. I learned by chance that we had some poor relatives in Tripulpin, whom my people had dropped, and so I thought I'd pick them up again and turn them into copy, and I welcomed the opportunity of making at the same time the acquaintance of the sea, which, as I think I told you, I had never seen before. You see, I was poor myself till the cherub that sits up aloft showered down the gold, and, being a cockney, had never been able to afford a trip to the seaside. My poor Alaline! he said, kissing her candid lips. She was such an inveterate truth-teller that he could only respect and admire and adore, though she fell from heaven. Her candor infected him. He felt an overwhelming paroxysm of veracity. The mask could be dropped now. Did she not love John Beverage? Now I see why you rave so over literary people. He said, you are dipped in ink yourself. Yes, she said with a happy smile. There is nobody I admire so much as our great writers. But you would not love me more if I were a great writer? He said anxiously. No, certainly not. I couldn't! she said decisively. He stooped and kissed her gratefully. Thank you for that, my sweet Alaline. And now I think I can safely confess that I am Adapur. She gave a little shriek. Her face turned white. Adapur! she breathed. Yes, dearest, it is my nom de guerre. I am Adapur, the writer you admire so much, the man with whose school you are pleased to say the future lies. Adapur! she said again. Impossible! Why you said you did not get your living by art of any kind. Of course I don't, he said. Books like mine, all style, no sentiment, morals, or theology, never pay. Fortunately I am able to publish them at my own expense. I write only for writers. That is why you like me. Successful writers are those who write for readers, just as popular painters are those who paint for spectators. The poor little face was ashen gray now. The surprise was too much for the fragile little beauty. Then you really are Adapur! she said in low, slow tones. Yes, dearest, he said not without a touch of pride. I am Adapur, and in you love I have found a fresh fount of inspiration. You shall be the guiding star of my work, my rare eloline, my pearl, my barrel. This is a great turning point in my life. Today I enter into my third manner. This is not one of your teasing jokes. She said appealingly, her piteous eyes looking up into his. No, my eloline, do you think I would hoax you thus to dash you to earth again? Then, she said slowly and painfully, then I can never marry you. We must say good-bye. Her lover gazed at her in dazed silence. The butterflies floated in the summer air, a bee buzzed about a wayside flower. From afar came the tinkle of a brook. A deep peace was on all things, only in the hearts of the two literatures was pain and consternation. You can never marry me, repeated John Beverage at last, and why not? I have told you, because you are Adapur. But that is no reason. Is it not? she said. I thought Adapur would have a subtler apprehension. But what is it you object to in me? To your genius, of course. To my genius? Yes, no mock modesty. Between augurs it won't do. Every author must know very well he stands apart from the world, or he would not set himself to paint it. I know quite well I am not as other women. What is the use of pultering with one's consciousness? Still the same delicious candor shone in the gray eyes. John Beverage, not at all grasping his dismissal, felt an unreasoning impulse to kiss them. Well, supposing I am a genius, he said instead. Where's the harm? No harm, till you propose to yoke me with it. I will never marry a genius. Oh, don't be so absurd, Ella-Line, he said. You've been reading the foolish nonsense about the geniuses necessarily making bad husbands. No doubt in some prominent instances geniuses have not been working models of the domestic virtues. But on the other hand there are scores of instances to the contrary, and blockheads make quite as bad husbands as your shellies and your byrens. Besides it was only in the past that geniuses were blaggards. Today it is the correct thing to be correct. Respectability nowadays adds chastity to the studies from the nude. Marital fidelity enhances the force of poems of passion, and philanthropy adds the last touch to tragic acting. So why should I suffer for the sins of my predecessors? If I may judge myself by my present sensations, what I am gifted with is a genius for domesticity. Do not sacrifice me, dearest, to an unproved and unscientific generalization. It is not of that I am thinking, Ella-Line replied, shaking her head sadly. In my opinion the woman who refused Shakespeare, merely on the ground that he wrote Shakespeare's works, should be sent to Coventry as a coward. No, do not fancy I am that. I may not be strong, but I have courage enough to marry you, if that were all. It is not because I am afraid you would make me unhappy. Ah, there is something else you are hiding from me! He said anxiously, impressed by the gravity and sincerity of her tones. No, there is nothing. I cannot marry you because you are a genius. He saw what she meant now. She had been reading the modern works on genius and insanity. Ah, you think me mad, he cried. Mad when you love me? she said with a melancholy smile. You know what I mean, to think that great wits to madness nearly are allied. That sane as I appear, there is in me a hidden vein of madness. And yet, if anything, the generalization connecting genius with insanity is more unsound than that connecting it with domestic infelicity. It would require a genius to really prove such a connection. And as he would, on his own theory, be a lunatic, what becomes of his theory? Your argument involves a fallacy, replied Elaline quietly. It does not follow that if a man is a lunatic everything he says or does has the taint of madness. A genius who held that genius meant insanity might be sane just on this one point. Or insane just on the one point. Seriously, Elaline? said John Beverage, beginning to lose his temper. You don't mean to say that you believe that genius is really a psychical neurosis of the epileptoid order. If you do, you must be mad yourself, that's all I can say. Of course, I should have to admit I am mad myself if I held the theory that genius meant insanity, but I don't. You don't, he said, staring blankly at her. You don't believe I'm insane, and you don't believe I'll make a bad husband. I should be insane if I did, my sweet little Elaline. And you still wish to cry off? I must. Then you no longer love me. Oh, I beg of you, do not say that. You do not know how hard it is for me to give you up. Do not make our parting harder. Elaline, for heaven's name, vex me no further. What is this terrible mystery? Why can you no longer think of me? If you only thought of me a little, you would guess. But men are so selfish. If it were only that you had genius, the thing would be simple. But you forget that I, too. She paused. A little modest blush completed the sentence. Yes, I know you are a genius, my rare Elaline, but what then? He cried. I only love you the more for it. Yes, but if we marry, said Elaline, we, too, geniuses, look what will happen. He stared at her afresh. She met his gaze unflinchingly. What new scientific bogey have you been conjuring up? He murmured. Oh, I wish you would drive science out of your head! She said pettishly. What have I to do with science? Really, if you go on so stupidly, I shall believe you're not a genius after all. And then you will marry me? He said eagerly. Don't be so stupid. To speak plainly, for you seem as dull as a clot-hopper today. I cannot afford to marry a genius and a recognized genius to boot. I am only a struggling young authoress, with a considerable following it is true, but still without an unquestioned position. The high-class organs that review you all to yourself still make me as one of a batch and are not always as complimentary as they might be. The moment I marry you and my rush-light is hidden in your bushel, out it goes. I become absorbed simply in you, a little satellite circling round your planetary glory. I shall have no independent existence. The fame I have toiled and struggled for will be eclipsed in yours. Mrs. Adipur, the wife of the celebrated writer, scribbles a little herself, don't you know? Wonder what he could see in her. That's how people will talk of me. When I go into a room we shall be announced, Mr. and Mrs. Adipur, and everybody will rush round you and hang on your words, and I shall be talked to only by the way of getting you at second hand, as a medium through which your personality is partially radiated, and parties will be given to meet Mr. Adipur, and I shall accompany you for the same reason that your dress coat will, because it is the etiquette. But, Ella-line, he protested, let me finish, I could not even afford to marry you if my literary position were equal to yours. Such a union would do nothing to enhance my reputation. No woman of genius should marry a man of genius. Were she even the greater of the two, she would become merged in him, even as she would take his name. The man I must marry, the man I have been waiting to fall in love with and be loved by, is a plain honest gentleman, unknown to fame and innocent of all aspiration but that of making me happy. He must devote his life to mine, sink himself in me, sacrifice himself on the altar of my fame, live only for the enhancement of my reputation. Such a man I thought I had found in you, but you deceived me. I thought here is a man who loves me only for myself, but whose love will increase tenfold when he learns that I stand on a pedestal of glory, and who will rejoice at the privilege of passing the rest of his days uplifting that pedestal to the gaze of the world. A man who will say of me what I can hardly say of myself, who will drive the bargains with my publishers, wrap me up against the knowledge of malicious criticisms, conduct my correspondence, receive inconvenient collars, arrange my interviews, and send incessant paragraphs to the papers about me, commencing Mrs. John Beverage, Andrew Dibdon, varied by Andrew Dibdon, Mrs. John Beverage. Here is a man who will be a living gratuitous advertisement, inserted daily in the great sheets of the Times, a steadfast column of eulogy, a pillar of praise. Here is a man who will be as much a halo as a husband. When I enter a drawing-room with him, so ran my innocent maid and dream, there will be a thrill of excitement, everybody will cluster around me, he will efface himself or be effaced, and, even if he finds anybody to talk to, it is about me he will talk. Inventions to our own at-homes will be eagerly sought for, not for his sake but for mine. All that is famous in literature and art will crowd our salon, not for his sake but for mine. And while I shall be the sign-assure of every eye, it will be his to note down the names of the illustrious gazers in society paragraphs, beginning Mrs. John Beverage, Andrew Dibdon, alternating with Andrew Dibdon, Mrs. John Beverage. And am I to give up all this merely because I love you? Yes, why not? he said passionately. What is fame reputation weighed against love? What is it to be on the world's lips if the lips we love are to be taken away? How pretty! she said with simple admiration. If you will not claim the phrase, I should like to give it to my next heroine. Claim it, he said bitterly. I do not want any phrases, I want you. Do you not see it is impossible? If you could become obscure again it might be. You say fame is nothing weighed against love. Come now, would you give up your genius, your reputation, just to marry me? He was silent. Come, she repeated, I have been frank with you, have I not? You have, he admitted with a melancholy grimace. Well, be equally frank with me. Would you sacrifice these things to your love for me? I could not if I would. But would you, if you could? He did not answer. Of course you wouldn't, she said. I know you as I know myself. What is the use of thinking of what can never be? he said impatiently. Just so, that is what I say. I can never give you my hand, so give me yours and we'll turn homewards. He gave her his hand as she jumped lightly to her feet. Then he got up and shook himself and looked still in a sort of daze at the gentle face and the dainty figure. He seized her passionately by the arms. And must this be the end? he cried hoarsely. Finise, she said decisively, though the renewed pallor of her face showed what it cost her to complete the ittle. An unhappy ending, he said in hopeless interrogation. It is not my style, she said simply, but after all this is only real life. He burst forth in a torrent of half-reproachful regrets. He, adipur, the chaste, the severe, the self-contained. And you, the sweet innocent girl who won the heart I no longer hoped to feel living, you would coldly abandon the love for whose existence you are responsible. You, who were to be so fresh and pure in influence on my work, are content to deprive literature of those masterpieces our union would have called into being. Oh, but you cannot unshackle yourself thus from my life. For good or evil, your meeting with me determined my third manner. Hitherto I thought it was for good. Now I fear it will be for evil. You seem to have forgotten all your manners, she said, annoyed. And if our meeting was for evil, at least our parting shall be for good. John Beveridge and Ella Lyne Rand spake no more, but walked home in silence through the country lanes on which the sunlight seemed to lie cold. The past was but a dream. Not for these, too, the simple emotions which cross with joy or sorrow the web of common life. At the cottage near the top of the hill, where the sounds and sense of the sea were faintest, they parted. The ittle of Tripulpin was ended. And John Beveridge went downhill. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Of the Old Maids Club by Israel Zanguel The Sliberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8 More About the Cherub The trial interview between Lord Silverdale and Ella Lyne Rand took place in the rooms of the Old Maids Club in the presence of the President. Lily, encouraged by the rush of candidates, occupied herself in embroidering another epigrammatic antimicassar. It is man who is vain of woman's dress. She had deliberately placed herself out of earshot. To Miss Rand, Lord Silverdale was a casual visitor with whom she had drifted into conversation, yet she behaved as prettily as if she knew she was undergoing the viva voce portion of the examination for entrance ship. There are two classes of flirts, those who love to flirt and those who flirt to love. There is little to be said against the latter, for they are merely experimenting. They intend to fall in love, but they can hardly compass it without preliminary acquaintance, and by giving themselves a wide and varied selection are more likely to discover the fitting object of affection. It is easy to confound both classes of flirts together and heartbroken lovers generally do so when they do not use a stronger expression. But so far as Lord Silverdale could tell, there was nothing in Miss Rand's behaviour to justify him in relegating her to either class or to make him doubt the genuineness of the anti-hymenial feelings provoked by her disappointment in Tripolpen. Her manner was simple and artless. She gushed indeed, but charmingly, like a daintily-sculptured figure on a marble fountain in a fair plaissance. You could be as little offended by her gush as by her candid confessions of her own talents. The Lord had given her a good conceit of herself and given it to her so gracefully that it was one of her chiefest charms. She spoke with his lordship of Shakespeare and others of her profession, and mentioned that she was about to establish a paper called the Cherub, after her popular story the Cherub that sits up aloft. I want to get into closer touch with my readers, she explained, helping herself charmingly to the chocolate creams. In a book you cannot get into direct rapport with your public. Your characters are your rivals and distracted tension from the personality of the author. In a journal I shall be able to chat with them freely, open my heart to them, and gather them to it. There is a legitimate curiosity to learn all about me, the same curiosity that I feel about other authors. Why should I allow myself to be viewed in the refracting medium of alien ink? Let me sketch myself to my readers, tell them what I eat and drink, and how I write and when, what clothes I wear and how much I pay for them, what I think of this or that book of mine, of this or that character of my creation, what my friends think of me and what I think of my friends. All the features of the paper will combine to make my face. I shall occupy all the stories, and every column will have me at the top. In this way I hope not only to gratify my yearnings for sympathy, but to stimulate the circulation of my books. Name more, with the eye of my admirers, thus encouragingly upon me, I shall work more zealously. You see, Lord Silverdale, we authors are a race apart. Without the public hanging upon our words, we are like butterflies in a London fog, or actors playing to an empty auditorium. I have noticed that, said Lord Silverdale dryly. Before authors succeed, it takes them a year to write a book. After they succeed it takes them only a month. You see, I am right, said Ella Lyne eagerly. That's what the son of public sympathy does. It ripens work quickly. Yes, and when the sun is very burning, it sometimes takes the authors no time at all. Ah, now you are laughing at me. You are speaking of ghosts. Yes, ghost stories are published all the year round, not merely at Christmas. Don't think I'm finding fault. I look upon an author who keeps his ghost, as I do upon a tradesman who keeps his carriage. It is a sign he has succeeded. Oh, but it's very wicked giving the public underweight like that, said Ella Lyne in her sweet, serious way. How can anybody write as well as yourself? But why I mentioned about the cherub is because it has just struck me the paper might become the organ of the old maid's club, for I should make a point of speaking freely of my aims and aspirations in joining it. I presume you know all about Miss Dalsimer's scheme. Oh, yes, but I don't think it feasible. You don't, she said, with a little tremor of astonishment in her voice. And why not? She looked anxiously into his eyes for the reply. The candidates are too charming to remain single, he explained, smiling. She smiled back a little at him, those sweet gray eyes still looking into his. You are not a literary man, she said irrelevantly. I am afraid I must plead guilty to trying to be, he said. The evidence is down in black and white. The smile died away, and for an instant Ella Lyne's brow went into black for it. She accepted an ice from Terpel the Magnificent, but took her leave shortly afterwards, Lily promising to write to her. Well, said the President when she was left alone with the honorary trier. That functionary looked dubious. Up until the very last she seemed single-hearted in her zeal. Then she asked whether I was a literary man. You know her story, what do you conclude? I can hardly come to a conclusion. Do you think there is still danger of her marrying to get someone to advertise her? I think it depends on the cherub. If the cherub is born and lives, it will be a more effectual advertising medium than even a husband, and may replace him. A paper of your own can puff you rather better than a husband of your own. It has a larger circulation and more opportunities. An authoress, edetress, her worth is far above rubies. Her correspondence praise her in the gates, and her staff shall rise up and call her blessed. It may well be that she will arrive at that stage at which a husband is an incubus and marriage a manacle. In that day the honour of the club will be safe in her hands. What do you suggest, then? said Lily anxiously. That you wait until she is delivered of the cherub before deciding. Very well, she replied, resignedly. Only I hope we shall be able to admit her. Her conception of the use of man is so sublime. Lord Silverdale smiled. Ah, if the truth were known, he said, I daresay it would be that pretty women regard man merely as a beast of draft and burden, a creature to draw their checks and carry their cloaks. Lily answered, and men look on pretty women either as home pets or as drying-room decorations. Silverdale said further, I do not look on you as either. To which Lily, why do you say such obvious things? It is unworthy of you. Have you anything worthy of you in your pocket today? Nothing of your hearing, just a little poem about another cherub. An ancient passion. Mine is no passion of today, up blazing like a rocket, tomorrow doomed to die away and leave you out of pocket. Nor is she one who snared my love by just the woman's graces. I loved her when, a sucking dove, she cooed and made grimaces. And when the pretty darling cried, I often stooped and kissed her, though cold and faint her lips replied as though she were my sister. I loved her long but loved her still when she discarded long clothes, yet here if she had had her will with this romantic song-clothes. For, though we wandered hand in hand, companions close and chronic, she always made me understand her motives were platonic. She said me nay with merry mean, not weeping like the Cayman, when she was Mab, the fairy queen, and I, Tom King, highwaymen. Twas at a children's fancy ball, I'd got that first rejection. It did not kill my love at all, but heightened its complexion. My love to tell, when she grew up, necessitates italics. Her hair was like the buttercup, corolla, not the callix. Her form was slim, her eye was bright, her mouth a jewel casket, her hand it was so soft and white, I often used to ask it. And so from year to year I would, my passion growing fiercer, though she in modest maiden mood addressed me as my dear sir. At twenty she was still as coy, her heart was like Diana's. The future held for me no joy, save smoking choice Havana's. At last my perseverance woke, a sweet responsive passion, and of her love for me she spoke in woman's wordless fashion. I told her, when her speech was done, the task would be above her to make a happy man of one who long had ceased to love her. Lily put on an innocently analytical frown. I think you behaved very badly, she exclaimed. You might have waited a little longer. Do you think so? Then I will go and leave you to your labors, said Lord Silverdale, with his won'ted irrelevancy. Lily sat for a long time with pen and hand, thinking without writing. As a change from writing without thinking, this was perhaps a relief. A penny for your thoughts, said the millionaire, stealing in upon her reflections. Lily started. I am not Ella-Line Rand, she said, smiling. Wait until the cherub comes out and you will get hers at that price. Was Ella-Line the girl who has just gone? Did you see her? I thought you were gardening. So I was, but I happened to go into the dining-room for a moment and saw her from the window. I suppose she will be here often. I suppose so, said Lily dubiously. The millionaire rubbed his hands. Miss Eustacea Pallas, announced Turple the Magnificent. A new candidate, probably, said the President. Father, you must go and play in the garden. The millionaire left the room meekly. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Of the Old Maids Club by Israel Zanguel This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 9 Of Wives and Their Mistresses No, no, said Miss Eustacea Pallas. You misapprehend me. It is not because it would be necessary to have a husband and a home of one's own that I object to marriage, but because it would be impossible to do without servants. While a girl lives at home she can cultivate her soul while her mother attends to the menage. But after marriage the higher life is impossible. You must have servants. You cannot do your own dirty work, not merely because it is dirty, but because it is the thief of time. You can hardly get literature, music, and religion adequately into your life, even with the whole day at your disposal. But if you had to make your own bed, too, I am afraid you wouldn't find time to lie on it. Then why object to servants, inquired Lily? Because servants are the asphyxiators of the soul, but for them I should long since have married. I do not quite follow you. Surely if you had servants to relieve you of all the grosser duties the spiritual could then claim your individual attention. Ah, that is a pretty theory. It sounds very plausible. In practice, alas, it does not work, like the servants. I have kept my eyes open almost from the first day of my life. I have observed my mother's household and other peoples. I speak of the great middle classes mainly. And my unalterable conviction is that every faithful wife who aspires to be housekeeper, too, becomes the servant of her servants. They rule not only her but all her thoughts. Her life circles round them. She can talk of nothing else. Whether she visits or is visited, servants are the staple of her conversation. Their curious habits and customs, their love affairs, their latches, their impertenences, these gradually become the whole food of thought, ousting every higher-aimened idea. I have watched a girl, my bosom friend at Gertin, deteriorate from a maiden to a wife, from a wife to a bondswoman. First she talked Shelley, then Charlie, then Mary Ann. Gradually her soul shrank. She lost her character. She became a mere parasite on the servant's kitchen, a slave to the cook's drink and the housemaid's followers. Those who knew my mother before she was married speak of her as a bright, bonny girl, all enthusiasm and energy, interesting herself in all the life of her day and even taking a side in politics. But when I knew her she was haggard and narrow. She never read nor sang nor played, nor went to the academy. The greatest historical occurrences left her sympathies untouched. She did not even care whether Australia or England conquered at Cricket or whether Browning lived or died. You could not get her to discuss Whistler or the relations of Greek drama to Gayety Berlesque or any other subject that interests ordinary human beings. She did not want a vote. She did not want any alteration in the divorce laws. She did not want Russia to be a free country or the empire to be federated. She did not want darkest England to be supplied with lamps. She did not want the working classes to lead better and nobler lives. She did not want to preserve the commons or to abolish the House of Lords. She did not want to do good or even to be happy. All she wanted was a cook or a housemaid or a coachman, as the case might be, and she was perpetually asking all her acquaintance if they knew of a good one or had heard of the outrageous behavior of the last. In her early married days my father's income was not a twentieth of what it is today, and so she was fairly happy, with only one servant to tyrannize over her. But she always had hard mistresses, even in those comparatively easy years. Poor mother, one scene remains vividly stamped upon my mind. We had a girl named Selena who would not get up in the morning. We had nothing to complain of in the time of her going to bed. I think she went about nine. But the earliest she ever rose was eight, and my father always had to catch the eight-twenty train to the city, so you may imagine how much breakfast he got. My mother spoke to Selena about it nearly every day, and Selena admitted the indictment. She said she could not help it. She seemed to dream such long dreams and never wake up in the middle. My mother had had such difficulty in getting Selena that she hesitated to send her away and start hunting for a new Selena, but the case seemed hopeless. The winter came on, and we took to sending Selena to bed at six o'clock, that my father might be sure of a hot cup of coffee before leaving home in the morning. But she said the mornings were so cold and dark it was impossible to get out of bed, though she tried very hard and did her best. I think she spent only nine hours out of bed on the average. My father gave up the hope of breakfast. He used to leave by an earlier train and get something at a restaurant. This grieved my mother very much. She calculated it cost her a bonnet a month. She became determined to convert Selena from the error of her ways. She told me she was going to appeal to Selena's higher nature. Reprimand had failed, but the soul that cannot be coerced can be touched. That was in the days when my mother still read poetry and was semi-independent. One bleak bitter dawn my mother rose shivering, dressed herself and went down into the kitchen, to the entire disconcerting of the chronology of the black beetles. She made the fire and put the kettle on to boil and swept the kitchen. She also swept the breakfast room and lighted the fire and laid the breakfast. Then she sat down, put on a saintly expression, and waited for Selena. An hour went by, but Selena did not make her appearance. The first half hour passed quickly because my mother was busy thinking out the exact phrases in which to touch her higher nature. It required tact, a single clumsy turn of language, and she might offend Selena instead of elevating her. It was really quite a literary effort, the adequate expression of my mother's conception of the dignity and pathos of the situation. In fact it was that most difficult branch of literature, the dramatic, for my mother constructed the entire dialogue speaking for Selena as well as for herself. Like all leading ladies, especially when they write their own plays, my mother allotted herself the tag, and the last words of the dialogue were, There there my good girl, dry your eyes, the past shall be forgotten. From tomorrow a new life shall begin. Come, Selena, drink that nice hot cup of tea. Don't cry and let it get cold, that's right. The second half hour was rather slower. My mother listening eagerly for Selena's footsteps and pricking up her ears at every sound. The mice ran about the wainscotting. The kettle sang blithely. The little flames leaped in the grate. The kitchen and the breakfast room were cheerful and cosy and redolent of the goodly savers of breakfast. A pile of hot toast lay upon a plate. Only Selena was wanting. All at once my mother heard the hall door bang, and running to the window she saw a figure going out into the gray freezing fog. It was my father hurrying to catch his train. In the excitement of the experiment my mother had forgotten to tell him that for this morning at least breakfast could be had at home. He might have had such beautiful tea and coffee, such lovely toast, such exquisite eggs, and there he was hastening along in the raw air on an empty stomach. My mother wrapped on the paints with her knuckles, but my father was late and did not hear. Her own soul a little ruffled. My mother sat down again in the kitchen and waited for Selena. Gradually she forgot her chagrin. After all it was the last time my father would ever have to depart breakfast list. She went over the dialogue again, polishing it up and adding little touches. I think it was past nine when Selena left her bedroom, unwashed and rubbing her eyes. By that time my mother had thrice resisted the temptation to go up and shake her, and it was coming on a fourth time when she heard Selena's massive footstep on the stair. Instantly my mother's irritation ceased. She resumed her look of sublime martyrdom. She had spread a nice white cloth on the kitchen table and Selena's breakfast stood appetizingly upon it. Tears came into her eyes as she thought of how Selena would be shaken to her depths at the site. Selena threw up in the kitchen door with a peevish push, for she disliked having to get up early in these cold, dark winter mornings, and vented her irritation even upon insensitive woodwork. But when she saw the deep red glow of the fire, instead of the dusky chilliness of the normal morning kitchen, she uttered a cry of joy and rushing forwards warmed her hands eagerly at the flame. Oh, thank you, Mrs., she said with genuine gratitude. Selena did not seem at all surprised, but my mother did. She became confused and nervous. She forgot her words as if from an attack of stage fright. There was no prompter, and so for a moment my mother remained speechless. Selena, having warmed her hands sufficiently, drew her chair to the table and lifted the cozy from the teapot. Why, you've let it get cold, she said reproachfully, feeling the side of the pot. This was more than my mother could stand. It's you that have let it get cold, she cried hotly. Now this was impromptu gag, and my mother would have done better to confine herself to the rehearsed dialogue. Oh, Mrs., cried Selena, how can you say that? Why, this is the first moment I've come down. Yes, said my mother, gladly seizing the opportunity of slipping back into the text. Somebody had to do the work, Selena. In this world no work can go undone. If those whose duty it is do not do it, it must fall on the shoulders of other people. That is why I got up at seven this morning, instead of you, and have tidied up the place and made the master's breakfast. That was real good of you, exclaimed Selena, with impulsive admiration. My mother began to feel that the elaborate set-piece was going off in a damp sort of way, but she kept up her courage and her saintly expression and continued. It was freezing when I got out of my warm bed, and before I could get the fire alight here I almost perished with cold. I shouldn't be surprised if I laid the seeds of consumption. Ah, said Selena with satisfaction, now you see what I have had to put up with. She took another piece of toast. Selena's failure to give the cues extremely disconcerted my mother. Instead of being able to make the high moral remarks she had intended, she was forced to invent repartets on the spur of the moment. The ethical quality of these improvisations was distinctly inferior. But you are paid for it, I'm not, she retorted sharply. I know that is why I say it is so good of you, replied Selena, with inextinguishable admiration. But you'll reap the benefit of it. Now that I've had my breakfast without any trouble, I shall be able to go about my work a deal better. It's such a struggle to get up, I assure you, Mrs. It tires me out for the day. Might I have another egg? My mother savagely pushed her another egg. I'm thinking it would be a good plan, said Selena, meditatively opening the egg with her fingers, if you would get up instead of me every morning. But perhaps that was what you were thinking of. Oh, you would like me too, would you? said my mother. I should be very grateful, I should indeed, said Selena earnestly. And I'm sure the work would be better done. There don't seem to be a speck of dust anywhere. She rubbed her dirty thumb admirably along the dresser. And I'm sure the tea and toast are lots nicer than any I've ever made. My mother waved her hand deprecatingly, but Selena continued. Oh, yes, you know they are. You've often told me I was no use at all in the kitchen. I don't need to be told of my shortcomings, Mrs. All you say of me is quite true. You would be ever so much more satisfied if you cooked everything yourself. I'm sure you would. And what would you do under this beautiful scheme? Inquired my mother with withering sarcasm. I hadn't thought of that yet, said Selena simply. But no doubt if I looked around carefully I should find something to occupy me. I couldn't be long out of work, I feel sure. Well, that was how my mother's attempt to elevate Selena by moral means came to be a fiasco. The next time she tried to elevate her it was by physical means. My mother left the suburb and moved to a London flat very near the sky. She had given up hopes of improving Selena's metutinal habits and made the breakfast hour later through my father having now no train to catch. But she thought she would cure her of followers. Selena's flirtations were not confined to our tradespeople and the local constabulary. She would exchange remarks about the weather with the most casual pedestrian in trousers. My mother thought she would remove her from danger by raising her high above all earthly temptations. We made the tradesmen send up their goods by lift, and the only person she could flirt with was the old lift attendant. My father grumbled a good deal in the early days because the lift was always at the other extreme when he wanted it. But Selena's moral welfare came before all other considerations. By and by they began to renovate the exterior of the adjoining mansion. They put up a scaffolding which grew higher and higher as the work advanced, and men swarmed upon it. At first my mother contemplated them with equanimity because they were British working men and we were nearest heaven. But as the months went by they began to get nearer and nearer. There came a time when Selena's smile was distinctly visible to the man engaged on the section of the scaffolding immediately below. That smile encouraged him. It seemed to say excelsior. He was a veritable Don Juan that laborer. At every flat he flirted with the maiden possession. By counting the stories in our mansion you could calculate the number of his amours. With every rise he left a love passage behind him. He was a typical man, always looking higher, and when he had raised himself to a more elevated position, spurting yesterday's love from beneath his feet, he seemed to mount on broken hearts. And now he was aspiring to the highest of all, Selena. Oh it is cruel! My mother had secluded Selena like a virgin princess in an enchanted inaccessible tower. And yet here was the prince calmly scaling the tower without any possibility of interference. Long before he had reached the top the consumption of bass in our flat went up by leaps and bounds. Selena, my mother ultimately discovered, used to lower the beer by strings. It appeared, moreover, that she had two strings to her bow. For a swan in a slouch hat had been likewise climbing the height at an insidious angle which had screened him from my mother's observation hitherto. Neither of these men did much work, but it made them very thirsty. That destroyed the last vestige of my mother's faith in Selena's soul. Like all disappointed women she became crabbed and cynical. When my father's rising fortunes brought her more and more under the dominion of servants the exposure and outmaneuvering of her taskmasters came to be the only pleasure of her life. She spent a great deal of time in the police courts. The constant prosecution she suffered from curtailed the last relics of her leisure. Everybody has heard of the law's delay, but few know how much time prosecutors have to lose. Hanging about the court waiting for their case to be called. When a servant robbed her my mother rarely got off with less than seven days. The moment she had engaged a servant she became morbidly suspicious of him or her. Often when she had dressed for dinner it would suddenly strike her that if she ransacked a certain cupboard something or other would be discovered. And off she would go to spoil her spotless silks. She had a mania for spring cleanings once a month so as to keep the drones busy. Often I would bring a friend home only to find the dining room in the hall and the drying room on the landing. And yet to the end she retained a certain guileless girlish simplicity. A fresh fund of hope which was not without a charm and pathos of its own. To the very last she believed that faultless, flawless servants existed somewhere and she didn't intend to be happy till she got them. So that it was said of her by my sister's intended that she passed her life on the doorstep either receiving an angel or expelling a fiend. It showed what a fine, trustful nature had been turned to guile. She is at rest now, poor mother. Her life's long slavery ended by the soft touch of all merciful death. Let us hope she has opened her sorrow-strickened eyes on a brighter land where earthly distinctions are annulled and the poor heavy laden mistress may mix unequal terms with the radiant parlor maid and the buxom cook. The tears were in Lily's eyes as Miss Eustasia Pallas concluded her affecting recital. But don't you think, said the President conquering her emotion, that was such an awful example in your memory you could never yourself sink to such a surpage even if you married? I dare not trust myself, said Eustasia. I have seen the fall of too many other women. Why should I expect immunity from the general fate? I think myself strong, but who can fathom her own weakness? Why, I have actually been talking servants to you all the time. Think how continuous is the temptation! How subtle! Were it not better to possess my soul in peace, and to cultivate it nobly and wisely, and become a shining light of the higher spinster hood? Eustasia passed the preliminary examination, and also the viva voce, and Lily was again in high feather. But before the election was formally confirmed, she was chagrined to receive the following letter. My dear Miss Dalsamer, I have good news for you. Knowing your anxiety to find for me a way out of my matrimonial dilemma, I am pleased to be able to inform you that it has been found by my friend and literary advisor, Percy Swinshell Spatt, the well-known philosopher and idealist. I met him writing down his thoughts in Bond Street. In the course of a dialogue upon the beautiful, I put my puzzle to him, and he solved it in a moment. Why must you keep a servant? he asked, for it is his habit to question every statement he does not make. Why not rather keep a mistress? Become a servant yourself, and all your difficulties vanish. It was like a flash of lightning. Yes, I said, when I had recovered from the dazzle. But that would mean separation from my husband. Why? he replied with his usual habit. In many houses they prefer to take married couples. Ah, but where should I find a man of like mind? A man to whom leisure for the cultivation of his soul was the one great necessity of life. It is a curious coincidence, Eustasia, he replied, that I was just myself contemplating keeping a master and retiring into a hermitage below stairs to devote myself to philosophical contemplation. As a butler or a footman in a really aristocratic establishment, my duties would be nominal, and the other servants and my employers would attend to all my wants. Abstract speculation would naturally endue me with the grave silence and dignity which seemed to be the chief duties of these superior creatures. It is possible, Eustasia, that I am not the first to perceive the advantages of this way of living, and that plush is but the disguise of the philosopher. As for you, Eustasia, you could become a parlor maid. Thus we should live together peacefully with no sordid housekeeping cares, no squalid interests in rates or taxes, devoted heart and soul to the higher life. You light up for me perspectives of paradise, I cried enthusiastically. Then let us get the key of the garden at once, he replied rapturously, and turning over a new leaf of his philosophical notebook, he set to work then and there to draw up the advertisement, wanted by a young married couple, etc. Of course we had to be a little previous, because I could not consent to marry him unless we had a situation to go to. We were only putting what the Greek grammars call a propolytic construction upon the situation. Well, it seems good servants are so scarce, we got a place at once, the exact thing we were looking for. We are concealing our real names, lest the profession be over run by jealous friends from Noonham and Gerton and Oxford and Cambridge, so that I was able to give Percy a character and Percy to give me a character. We are going into our place next Monday afternoon, so, to avoid obtaining the situation by false pretences, we shall have to go before the registrar on the Monday morning. Our honeymoon will be spent in the delightful and unexploited retreat of the back kitchen. Yours in the Higher Sisterhood, Eustacea Palace. Chapter 10 The Good Young Men Who Lived It is indeed a happy solution, said Lord Silverdale enviously, to spend your life in the service of other men, yet to save it for yourself. It reconciles all ideals. Well, you can very easily try it, said Lily. I have just heard from the Princess of Portman Square. She is reorganizing her household in view of her nuptials. Shall I write you a recommendation? No, but I will read you an address to an Egyptian tip-cat, replied his lordship, with the irrelevancy which was growing upon him. You know the recent excavations have shown that the little Egyptians used to play pussycat five thousand years ago. Address to an Egyptian tip-cat And thou hast flown about, how strange a story, full five and forty centuries ago, a year faillume, fired with military glory, received from Gouraud with perpourial sho, the seaborn captives of the spear and bow, and thou hast blacked perhaps the very finest eye that sparkled in the twelfth Egyptian dynasty. The sight of thee brings visions panoramic of manlier games as pharaoh pyramids. What hands, now tinked with substances balsamic, have set thee leaping like the sport of kids? What time the passers-by did close their lids? Did the stern priesthood strive thy cult to smother, or was thou worshiped like thy purring brother? Where is the youth by whom thou wast created, and tipped profusely, doth he frisk in glee, in achlu, or lives he transmigrated, the lower life-osiris did decree, of fowl, or fly, or fish, or fox, or flea? Or, fallen deeper, is he politician, stumping the land, his country's quack physician? Thou sphinx in wood, unchanged, serene, immortal, how many states and temples have decayed, and generations past the mystic portal, whilst thou, still young, hast gone on being played? Say, when thy popularity shall fade? And art thou, here's my last, if not my stiffest, as good a bouncer as the hieroglyphist? Why, did the hieroglyphists used to brag? said Lily. Shamefully, you can no more believe in their statements than in epitaphs. There seems something peculiarly mendacious about stone as a recording medium. Only it must be admitted on behalf of the hieroglyphists, that it may be the Egyptologists who are the braggers. There never was an ancient inscription which is not capable of being taken in a dozen different ways, like a party leader's speech. Every word has six possible meanings, and half a dozen probable ones. The savants only pretend to understand the stones. So, saying, Lord Silverdale took his departure. On the doorstep he met a young lady carrying a brown paper parcel. She smiled so sweetly at him that he raised his hat and wondered where he had met her. But it was only another candidate. She faced Terpel the Magnificent and smiled on, on odd. Terpel ended by relaxing his muscles awit, then ashamed of himself he announced gruffly, Miss Mary Frisco. After the preliminary formalities, and after having duly assured herself that there was no male ear within earshot, Miss Frisco delivered herself of the following candid confession. I am a pretty girl, as you can see. I wear sweet frocks and smiles, and my eyes are of heaven's own blue. Men are fond of gazing into them. Men are so artistic. They admire the beautiful, and tell her so. Women are so different. I have overheard my girlfriends call me that silly little flirt. I hold that any woman can twist any man round her little finger, or his arm round her waist. Therefore I consider it no conceit to say I have attracted considerable attention. If I had accepted all the offers I received, my marriages could easily have filled a column of the times. I know there are women who think that men are coarse unsentimental creatures, given over to slang, tobacco, billiards, bedding, brandies and sodas, smoking-room stories, flirtations with barmaids, dress and general depravity. But the women who say or write that are soured creatures who have never been loved, have never fathomed the depth and purity of men's souls. I have been loved. I have been loved much and often, and I speak as one who knows. Man is the most maligned animal in creation. He is the least gross and carnal of creatures, the most exquisitely pure and refined in thought indeed, the most capable of disinterested devotion, self-sacrifice, chivalry, tenderness. Every man is his own Bayard. If men had their desserts, we women, heartless, frivolous, venal creatures that we are, would go down on our knees to them and beg them to marry us. I am a woman, and again I speak as one who knows, for I am not a bad specimen of my sex. Even my best friends admit I am only silly. I am really a very generous and kind-hearted little thing. I never keep my tailer waiting longer than a year. I have made quite a number of penwipers for the poor, and I have never told an unnecessary lie in my life. I give a great deal of affection to my mother and even a little assistance in the household. I do not smoke scented cigarettes. I read travels and biographies as well as novels. Play the guitar rather well, attend a drying-class, rise long before noon, and good-tempered, where my ball dresses more than once, turn winter dresses into spring frocks by stripping off the fur and putting on galon, and diversify my gowns by changing the sleeves. In short I am a superior, thoroughly domesticated girl, and yet I have never met a man who has not had the advantage of me in all the virtues. There was George Holly. I regret I cannot mention my lovers in chronological order, but my memories are so vague they all seem to fuse into one another. Perhaps it is because there is a lack of distinctiveness about men, a monotonous goodness which has its charm but is extremely confusing. One thing I do remember, though, about George—at least I think it was George—his mustache was rather bristly, and the little curled tips used to tickle one's nose comically. I was very disappointed in George. I had heard such a lot of talk about him, but when I got to really know him I found he was not a bit like it. How I came to really know him was like this. Mary, he said, as we sat on the stairs, high up, so as not to be in the way of the waiters. Won't you say yes and make me the happiest man alive? Never man loved as I love now. Answer me. Do not torture me with surprise. I was silent, speechless with happiness to think that I had won this true manly heart. I looked down at my fan. My lips were forming the affirmative monosyllable when George continued passionately. Ah, Mary, speak! Mary, the only woman I ever loved. I turned pale with emotion. Tears came into my eyes. Is this true, I articulated. Am I really the only woman you ever loved? By my hopes of a hereafter, yes. George was a bit slangy in his general conversation. The shallow world never knew the poetry he could rise to. This is the first time I have known what it is to love Mary, my sweet, sweet own. No, not your own. I interrupted coldly, for my heart was like ice within me. I belong to myself, and I intend to. Will you give me your arm into the ballroom? Mr. Daythorpe must be looking for me everywhere. It sounds very wicked to say it, I know, but I cannot delay my confession longer. I love, I adore, I dot on wicked men. Men who love not wisely, but too well. When I learned history at school, I could always answer questions about the reign of Charles II. It was such a deliciously wicked period. I love Burns, Lord Byron, De Moussé, Lovelace. All the nice, naughty men of history or fiction. I love Oida's guardsmen, whose love is a tornado, and Charlotte Bronte's Rochester, and Byron's Don Juan. I hate I detest milk-sobs. And a good man always seems to me a milk-sob. It is a flaw, a terrible flaw in my composition, I know. But I cannot help it. It makes me miserable. But what can I do? Nature will out. That was how I came to find George out, to discover he was not the terrible Cavalier, the abandoned square of Dames the world said he was. His reputation was purely bogus. The gossips might buzz, but I had it on the highest authority. I was the first woman he had ever loved. What pleasure is there in such a conquest? It grieved me to break his heart, but I had no option. Daethorpe was another fellow who taught me the same lesson of the purity and high emotions of his cruelly libeled sex. He, too, when driven into a corner, far from the madding crowd, confessed that I was the only woman he had ever loved. I have tried them all, poets and musicians, barristers, and businessmen. They all had suffered from the same incapacity for affection till they met me. It was quite pathetic to discover how truly all men were brothers. The only difference was that while some added I was the only woman they ever could love, others insisted that never man had loved before as they did now. The latter lovers always reminded me of advertisers offering a superior article to anything in the trade. Nowhere could I meet the man I longed for, the man who had lived and loved. Once I felt stirrings towards a handsome young widower, but he went out of his way to assure me he had never cared for his first wife. After that, of course, he had no chance. Unable to discover any but good young men, I resigned myself perforce to spinsterhood. I resolved to cultivate only platonic relations. I told young men to come to me and tell me their troubles. I encouraged them to sit at my feet and confide in me while I held their hands to give them courage. But even so they would never confess anything worth hearing, and if they did love anybody it invariably turned out to be me and me only. Yes, I grieved to say these platonic young men were just as good as the others, leaving out the audacity of their proposing to me when I had given them no encouragement. Here again I found men distressingly alike. They are constitutionally unable to be girls' chums. They are always hankering to convert the friendship into love. Time after time anticipations of a genuine comradeship were rudely dispelled by fatuous flandering. Yet I never ceased to be surprised and I never lost hope. Such, I suppose, is the simple trustfulness of a girl's nature. In time I got to know when the explosion was coming, and this deadened the shock. I found it was usually preceded by suicidal remarks of a retrospective character. My comrades would tell me of their past lives, of the days when the world's oyster was yet unopened by them. In those dark days, tears of self-pity came into their eyes as they spoke of them. They were on the point of suicide, to a man. Only one little thing always came to save them, their first brief, the acceptance of their first article, poem or song, the opportune death of ants, the chance hearing of an organ note rolling through the portal of a village church on a Sunday afternoon, a letter from an old schoolmaster. The obvious survival of the narrators rather spoiled the sensational thrill for me, but they themselves were always keenly touched by the story, and from suicide in the past to suicide in the future was an easy transition. Alas, I was the connecting link. They loved me, and unless I returned their love, that early suicide would prove to have been merely postponed. In the course of conversation it transpired that I was the first woman they had ever loved. I remember once rejecting on this account two such platonic failures within ten minutes of each other. One was a well-known caricaturist, and the other was the editor of a lady's paper. Each left me declaring his heart was broken, that I had led him on shamelessly, that I was a heartless jilt, and that he would go and kill himself. My brother Tom accidentally told me he saw them together about an hour afterwards at a bar in the Strand, asking each other what was their poison. So I learnt they had spoken the truth. I had driven them to drink. And according to Tom, the drink at this particular bar is superior to Strick Nine. He says men always take it in preference. And have you then finally decided to abandon platonics? Asked Lily when the flow of words came to an end. Finally. And you have decided to enroll in our ranks? Miss Mary Frisco hesitated. Well, about that part I'm not quite so certain. To tell the truth, there is one young man of my acquaintance who has never yet proposed. When I started for here in disgust at the goodness of mankind, I forgot him. But in talking he has come back to my mind. I have a strong suspicion he is quite wicked. He is always painting actresses. Don't you think it would be unfair to him to take my vows without giving him a chance? Well, yes, said Lily musingly. Perhaps it would. You would feel easier afterwards, otherwise you might always reproach yourself with the thought that you had perhaps turned away from a bad man's love. You might feel the world was not so good as you had imagined in your girlish cynicism, and then you might regret having joined us. Quite so, said Miss Frisco eagerly. But he shall be the very last man I will listen to. When do you propose to be proposed to by him? The sooner the better. This very day if you like. I am going straight from here to my drawing class. Very well, then you will come to-morrow and tell me of your final decision? Tomorrow. Miss Mary Frisco arrived at the drawing class late. Her fellow students of both sexes were already at their easels, and her entry distracted everybody. It was a motley gathering, working in motley media, charcoal, chalk, pencil, oil, watercolor. One girl was modeling in clay, and one young gentleman, opera glass in hand, was making enlarged colored copies of photographs. It was this young gentleman that Mary came out for to see. His name was Bertie Smythe. He was rich, but he would always be a poor artist. His ambition was to paint the nude. There were lilies of the valley in the bosom of Mary's art gown, and when she arrived she unfolded the brown paper parcel she carried, and took there from a cardboard box containing a snow white collar and spotless cuffs, which she proceeded to adjust upon her person. She then went to the drawing board rack and stood helpless, unable to reach down her board, which was quite two inches above her head. There was a rush of embryo R.A.'s. Those who failed to hand her the board got down the cast and dusted it for her, and fixed it up according to her minute and detailed directions, and adjusted her easel and brought her a trestle, and lent her lead pencils, and cut them for her, and gave her chunks of stale bread, all for which services she rewarded them with bewitching smiles, and profuse thanks, and a thousand apologies. It took her a long time getting to work on the charcoal cluster of plums which had occupied her ever since the commencement of the term, because she never ventured to commence without holding long confabulations with her fellow students as to whether the light was falling in exactly the same way as last time. She got them to cock their heads on one side and survey the sketch, to retreat and look at it knowingly, to measure the visual angle with a stick of charcoal, or even to manipulate delicately the great work itself. Meantime she fluttered about it, chattering, alternately enraptured and dissatisfied, and when at last she started, it was by rubbing everything out. The best position for drawing happened to be next to Bertie's smith. That artist was now engaged in copying the portrait of an actress. Oh, Mr. smith! said Mary suddenly in a confidential whisper, I've got such a beautiful face for you to paint. I know you have! flashed Bertie in the same intimate tone. What a tease you are twisting my words like that! said Mary, wrapping him playfully on the knuckles with her mall stick. You know what I mean quite well, it's a cousin of mine in the country. I see it runs in the family, said Bertie. What runs in the family? asked Mary. Beautiful faces, of course. Oh, that's too bad of you, said Mary, pouting. You know I don't like compliments. She rubbed a pellet of bread fretfully into her drawing. I don't pay compliments, I tell the truth. Said Bertie, meeting her gaze unflinchingly. Oh, look at that funny little curl Miss Roberts is wearing tonight. Bother Miss Roberts, when are you going to let me have your face to paint? My cousins you mean, said Mary, rubbing away harder than ever. No I don't, I mean yours. I never give away photographs to gentlemen. Well, sit to me, then. Sit to you? Where? in my studio. Good gracious, what are you talking about? You. Oh, you are too tiresome. I shall never get this finished. Grumbled Mary, concentrating herself so vigorously on the drawing that she absentmindedly erased the last vestiges of it. She took up her plum line and held it in front of her cast and became absorbed in contemplating it. You haven't answered my question, Miss Frisco. Whispered Bertie pertinaciously. What question? When are you going to lend me your face? Look, there's Mr. Biscuit going home already. Hang, Mr. Biscuit. I say, Mary. He began passionately. How are you getting on, Mr. Smythe? Came the creaking voice of Potts, the drawing master behind him. Pretty well, thank you. How's yourself? Mechanically replied Bertie, greatly flustered by his inopportune arrival. Potts stared and Mary burst into a ringing laugh. Look at my drawing, Mr. Potts. She said, it will come so funny. Why, there's nothing there, said Potts. Dear me, no more there is, said Mary. I—I was entirely dissatisfied with it. You might just sketch it in for me. Potts was accustomed to doing the work of most of the lady's students. They used to let him do a little bit on each of his rounds, till the thing was completed. He set to work on Mary's drawing, leaving her to finish being proposed to. And you really love me, Mary was saying, while Potts was sketching the second plum. Can you doubt it? Bertie whispered tremulously. Yes, I do doubt it. You have loved so many girls, you know. Oh, I have heard all about your conquests. She thought it was best to take the bull by the horns, and her breath came thick and fast, as she waited for the reply that would make or mar her life. Bertie's face lit up with pleasure. Oh, but—he began. Ah, yes, I know. She interrupted triumphantly. What about that actress you are painting now? Oh, well, said Bertie, if you say yes, I promise never to speak to her again. And you will give up your bad habits? She continued joyfully. Every one, even my cigarettes, if you say the word, my whole life shall be devoted to making you happy. You shall never hear a cross word from my lips. Mary's face fell, her lip twitched. What was the use of marrying a milk-soap like that? Where would be the fun of a union without mutual recriminations and sweet reconciliations? She even began to doubt whether he was wicked after all. Did you ever really love that actress? She whispered anxiously. No, of course I didn't, said Bertie soothingly. To tell you the truth, I have never spoken to her in my life. I bought her photo in the Burlington Arcade, and I only talked with the fellows about ballet girls in order not to be behind the times. I never knew what love was until I met you. You are the only— Crash, bang! went his three-legged easel, upset by Mary's irrepressible movement of peak. The eyes of the class were on them in a moment, but only Mary knew that in that crash her last hope of happiness had fallen too. I do trust Miss Frisco's last chance will not prove a blank again, said Lord Silverdale when Lily had told him of the poor girl's disappointments. Why? asked the President. Because I shrink from the Viva Voce examination. Why? asked the President. I am afraid I should be so dangerous. Why? asked the President. Because I have loved before. I shall be desperately in love with another woman all through the interview. Oh, I am so sorry, but you are inadmissible, said Lily, when Miss Frisco came to announce her willingness to join the club. Why? asked the candidate. Because you belong to an art class. It is forbidden by our bylaws. How stupid of me not to think of it yesterday! But I am ready to give it up. Oh, I couldn't dream of allowing that on any account, said the President. I hear you draw so well. So Mary never went before the honorary trier.