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Boyesen. 35. MISTRESS BEATRICE COPE; or, Passages in the Life of a Jacobite’s Daughter. By M. E. Le Clerc. 36. KNIGHT-ERRANT. By Edna Lyall. (A new cheap edition.) 37. IN THE GOLDEN DAYS. By Edna Lyall. 38. GIRALDI ; or, The Curse of Love. Bv Ross George Dering. 39. A HARDY NORSEMAN. P,y Edna Lyall. 40. THE ROMANCE OE JENNY HARLOWE, and Sketches of Maritime Life. By W. Clark Russell, author of “ The Mystery of the ‘ Ocean Star,’ ” etc. l-2mo, paper cover, price 50 cents each. (With a few exceptions the volumes are also in neat uniform cloth binding, price 75 cents each.) D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3. & 5 Bond St.. New York. “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE A ROMANCE OF SOCIETY AND POLITICS By justin McCarthy, m. p. AND MRS. CAMPBELL-PRAED NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1889 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY CHESTNUT HILL, MASS, PR ft S' A uthorized Edition. The Authors of this book have made their experiment in what they believe to be a genuine way. “ The Eight Honourable ” is in the strictest sense the work of a man and a woman. Every character, incident, scene, and page is joint work, and was thought out and written out in com- bination. Whatever the book is, it is not patchwork. The Authors only wish to add that the politics and the personages of the story are purely fanciful. Their aim was to surround figures that do not exist and political parties hitherto unformed with conditions of reality which might make them seem as if they too were real. CONTENTS jHAprsra I. The Little Queen ... ... ... II. Outlined against the Grey Sky III. Lady Betty Morse IV. “After Long Years 1 ’ ... Y. Husband and Wife • *» **• ••• • YI. Wife and Husband VII. Red Cap and White Cockade VIII. Koorali and her Reeds IX. “What do you call London Society?” X. “And so— Hallo!” XI. The Family Dinner XII. The “Languorous Tropic Flower” XIII. The Terrace ... ... ... ... XIY. “Shall I go to see her?” XY. Kenway acts the Hero XYI. “Coo-ee!” ... ... ... ... , 5 , XVII. “One Touch lights up two Lamps” XVIII. The Priory-on-the-Water XIX. “Too early seen unknown, and known tco late” XX. Mr. Dobito admonishes Nations XXL “And may this World go well with you” XXII. The Last Appeal ... ... ... ... XXIII. “ Thou SHALT RENOUNCE ” ... XXIY. “Pursuing a Phantom” XXV. Pink Snow XXVI. The Progressive Club... ... ... ... PAGB 1 9 18 27 32 39 49 63 70 78 87 100 108 316 122 129 140 148 158 162 166 174 180 190 198 203 CONTENTS \ mi CONTENTS . CHAPTER PAGE XXVII. “But my Children?” ... »«» 216 XXVIII. The Winter Session 227 XXIX. “The Inseparable Sigh for her” • •• 238 . XXX. Masterson at Home 242 XXXI. “The First Day of Liberty” ... • •l 251 XXXII. “One who can prove” 263 XXXIII. “A Scene in the House” • •• 266 XXXIV. Crichton’s Revenge 279 XXXV. “No Way but this!” ... ... ... • •• 286 XXXVI. Koorali’s Letter ... ... 295 xxxvn. “I will order my Heart to bear it” ... IM 304 XXXVIII. Zen comes ... ... ... ... ... 309 XXXIX. In the Australian Sunset ... ... IU 318 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHAPTER L THE LITTLE QUEEN. A grey morning off the coast of Australia; a wide grey upheaving sea; a grey sky which melted into the waves; clouds, and foamy splashes blending together on the horizon line, except where the dawn was breaking. There, in the east, a faint pink glow, which seemed to widen the vast lonely Pacific and to make it even wider, vaster, and more desolate. Westward lay the grey shore, lonely and desolate too, and hazy with mist; only a promontory that jutted out into the sea almost in a line with the rising sun, showing clearly — a bold bleak headland, below it long stretches of sand dotted with bristling black rocks, and on the highest point, a lighthouse, a flagstaff, two or three rough cottages, and clusters of wind-beaten bread-fruit trees. A steamer bound southward had slackened speed. The Captain was standing on deck with his telescope pointed towards the Cape ; and three or four men near him were watching through their glasses the launching of a pilot-boat which had been drawn up on the sand below the cliffs. One of these cried out with eager interest — “ There’s a woman being put off. They are carrying her on board the boat.” “No, it’s a child,” said another of the passengers ; “a little girl.” “ Sure, it’s Koorali,” exclaimed a third. The speaker was the Attorney-General of the colony — South Britain — and was usually known as Judge O’Beirne. He was old; he was ' coarse ; his face was reddened by overmuch whiskey, perhaps ; but there was a note of tenderness in his voice as he added, half to himself, “ Isn’t it me own little Queen Koorali coming out to see the world ! ” Just as the boat put off from shore and became a speck upon the sea, a man stepped up from below and advanced towards the group on deck. He asked two questions rapidly, yet with a sort of deliberation and a pause between the two. “What are we stopping for? Who is Koorali?” His keen glance shot from the men before him to the Cape — to the 2 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? boat. There was an air of something like command in his walk, in his look, in the tone of his voice, the way in which he waited for an answer. This man was Mr. Sandham Morse. He was an Englishman. He was about thirty-five years of age, tall, strongly built, and with a curiously Napoleonic outline of face. He had even that sallow, olive complexion which we see in the portraits of the Bonaparte family, and which, though common enough in the climate from which the Napo- leons came, is rare indeed among Englishmen. His features, being Napoleonic, were naturally statuesque. His lips, firmly set together, had an expression of power in them which still further carried out the Napoleonic likeness. When the eyelids were lowered, the face had a look of gravity or of melancholy which sometimes even darkened for a moment into a semblance of sullenness ; but when the deep grey soft and bright eyes were seen, then the look changed into something peculiarly warm, winning, and, if the word might be used, welcoming. Sandham Morse had been Premier of South Britain. A few months ago he had resigned the leadership of the House, and he was now on his way home to England. South Britain was aggrieved at his desertion. It was, however, generally understood that Sandham Morse aimed at higher political distinction than can be achieved in a crude Australian colony. His career so far, considering his limited opportunities, had been decidedly brilliant, if somewhat eccentric. He was of good English family, an only son, left quite alone in the world, with a small independent fortune. He had a passion for seeing the world and mixing in the affairs of men. When the American civil war was going on and Englishmen of the better class, as it is oddly called, were enthusiastic for the South, Morse, then not quite of age and fresh from the univer- sity, went out and became a volunteer in the service of the North- He sought service not under some great commander, and in some distinguished regiment, but with Wentworth Higginson in his experi- mental battalion of negroes ; and he did well there. When the war was over, he threw himself into American politics so eagerly that every one thought he was going to settle in the States. He became the friend of Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips, and Horace Greeley. He made many a speech in Cooper Institute, New York, and in Fancuil Hall, Boston. After having studied American affairs enough to satisfy his inclination, he set off for China and Japan and returned to England. He did not remain at home long ; for he began to be anxious to learn something about our colonial systems, and an opportunity came in his way. A friend of his dead father was appointed Governor of South Britain, and Morse went out in the new Governor’s train. He entered the colonial Parliament, speedily gained a reputation for eloquence and statesmanship, led, curiously enough, the democratic party, and held office for several years. He entertained pronounced political opinions, and had strong secret ambitions. Perhaps only he himself knew what these were and why the Australian stage did not content him any more than the American 3 THE LITTLE QUEEN. had done. His determination to quit Australia had been suddenly announced. He had taken no one into his confidence. It was said that he had come into a fortune. It was rumoured that a certain English lady of rank was answerable in the first instance for his exile, and in the second for his return. It was whispered that he had strange, almost revolutionary, views about English government and English social systems, and that he meant to fight for a cause. Anyhow, while professing the deepest interest in the great Australian questions, Morse clearly gave out that his farewell would be final. The colonists foretold great success for him in England, “ He’ll get on,” they said ; “ like Bob Lowe — like Childers.” The Captain putting down his telescope, replied to the first clause of Morse’s inquiry. “ What are we stopping for, Mr. Morse ? Why, they’ve signalled us from the Cape. Middlemist’s run lies back there, and some of his people are wanting to be put off. They always hail a steamer from the Cape. It’s shorter than travelling round to the township.” Morse’s dark face lighted. “ Middlemist ! ” he said. “ The Premier?” “ The same that is wearing your cast-off shoes,” put in Judge O’Bei. ne ; “ and my Little Queen is his daughter.” Mom took up the telescope and surveyed the Cape, the flagstaff, the lighthouse, finally the boat, which was coming close to the steamer, and in the stern of which a rough-bearded squatter and a very slender very young girl were seated. Four men in pilots’ caps rowed the boat, and the bow was heaped up with saddle-bags and curious-looking parcels of luggage. Morse felt interested. Middlemist was head of the squatting party and of the Ministry which had suc- ceeded his own. He had heard that his opponent owned a station on the coast, but had never known its exact whereabouts. Seaboard stations are not considered worth talking about in Australia, and Middlemist lived chiefly in town, and depended rather upon what his grateful country bestowed upon him than upon his private resources. He was a big, burly, self-made man ; not the kind of person whose daughter would be called “ the Little Queen,” or, indeed, who would be likely to have a daughter who could be so styled, except in derision, and there was no derisive tone in O’Beirne’s voice. The whole connection of ideas seemed incongruous to Morse, and the very incongruity interested him. “ I didn’t know Middlemist had a daughter. And what makes you call her ‘ the Little Queen ’ V ” Judge O’Beirne laughed — his mellow county Kerry laugh. “ Faith, I can’t tell you. It’s just a nickname she has come by from the half- dozen or so of us that have stopped at Muttabarra and watched her growing up. I think it is because of a way the child has of looking you straight in the face with her big eyes, and of seeming to expect that the world is to be just as she likes it, so that there isn’t a boy that ’ud have the heart to contradict her. Isn’t that the way, Captain ? ” \ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: “I can’t answer you there, Judge,” said the Captain, “for I have never sighted the young lady till this morning, and she is not close enough yet for me to make out what her eyes are like.” Judge O’Beirne laughed again, but this time rather in a perfunctory way, like one who is reflecting. “ Yes, she has got a way with her — that’s it. And I’d bet my silver-topped waddy that not a soul has ever spoken a cross word to her in her life. Middlemist has always Kept her at Muttabarra, and he has had the best governesses for her that could be got in Sydney — South Britain articles wouldn’t do for her ; and gave her aunt, Mrs. Campbell — it’s Jack Campbell, Middle- mist’s brother-in-law, that is superintendent at Muttabarra — he gave Mrs. Campbell strict orders that she wasn’t to mix up with the station hands or the township people. There’s something queer about the notion,” continued the Judge after a short pause, “for Middlemist never branded more than two hundred calves in the year, and we all know that doesn’t run to champagne and swell governesses ; and his son in the Lands’ Office is about as hulking a fellow as you could see out of the Never-Never country.” “ What is the secret of it, then ? ” asked Morse, stepping back from the bulwarks, and leaning with arms folded against the hatchway. “Well, you know Middlemist began as a sheep-shearer, and he married Poll Watkins, who was barmaid at the Royal when I first came to the colony,” said the Judge. “But Poll went off the hooks, and Middlemist went in for tin-mining and made a fortune, and then got smashed up. Before his smash came, though, he married a little English governess, who was a real lady if ever there was one. She died too, and Middlemist started on politics and gave Jack Campbell, her brother, a billet to superintend Muttabarra. So Campbell’s wife looked after Koorali; and the Little Queen has had her Sydney governesses, and has learned French and the piano, and has had a horse kept stabled for her summer and winter, and never a bad woid spoken in her presence. And now she is seventeen, and Middlemist has come into his kingdom and is at the head of the colony, and likely to stop there till you come back again, Morse. So our little queen is coming out of her enchanted forest into the world, to dance at the Governor’s balls, and attend the opening of Parliament, and be shown to her place, just below the da'is, by the Usher of the Black Rod, and learn to flirt, and be made love to, and get married, and all the rest of it.” There was something quaint and pathetic in the picture. “Poor Little Queen!” Morse murmured involuntarily. “I don’t know why you should say that,” exclaimed the Judge. “ Every one will make a fuss about her. She will be a pet among us ; a sort of child of the Executive — a daughter of the regiment. There isn’t another grown-up daughter in the Ministry ; and I’ve already got my eye on a husband for her.” “ Who is he ? ” asked Morse carelessly. “I’ll give a guess,” cried an outsider, who had been listening atten- tive! y to the conversation. “Crichton Ken way, of course. The THE LITTLE QUEEN, . 5 Admirable Crichton ! Postmaster-General ; chief of red-tapists ! Good- looking chap! An immaculate young maul Don’t you think so, Morse ? ” “No,” returned Morse shortly. “I shouldn’t call him an immacu- late young man.” As if unwilling to carry on the discussion, he moved to the other side of the deck, where he stood silently watching the rising sun, till the regular dip of oars and sound of voices on the water told him that the pilot-boat was approaching. Even then he held back from the excited group which gathered at the bulwarks, looking down as the companion-ladder was lowered ; and he heard with no show of curiosity the interchange of greetings, the Judge’s rough kindly voice, and the clear girlish tones that floated up in reply from below. “Well, my Little Queen, and it is you that are dropping down upon ns in the middle of the sea ! A bareheaded waif, indeed ! A queen without a crown, faith ! ” “ Yes ; I’ve lost my hat, Judge. Barril knocked it off with his oar, and we couldn’t stop to pick it up. Bat that’s no matter, is it? I’ll ask the stewardess to lend me one. And — oh, do tell me — Parliament hasn’t met yet? Shall I be in time ? We have been waiting at the pilot station four days for a steamer to go by.” “ Oh, you’re in time, Queen ; in time to mount your throne, in time to break hearts, in time lor everything.” “ Passengers first, then luggage,” called out the Captain, as the pilots began to pitch the saddlebags on deck. “Are } r ou coming down with us, Mr. Campbell ? ” he asked the unkempt-looking squatter in a cabbage- tree hat, who appeared at the gangway and saluted the Judge. “No, Captain. I don’t take my spree in town till the session is over. I shall put Miss Middlemist in your charge, and in yours, Judge. You don’t go up the river to the company’s wharf, do you, Captain ? ” “ I’m bound straight for Sydney, Mr. Campbell, to catch the English mail.” “ Then I’ll telegraph to the chief to arrange about picking up Miss Middlemist in the Bay,” said the squatter. “No need for that, Mr. Campbell. Here’s our ex-premier aboard — on his way home, more’s the pity, — and all the Ministers will be coming down in the Government steam tug as far as the river bar to see him off and wish him good luck.” Morse came forward at this reference to himself, and a kind of greet- ing passed between him and the new-comer. “The new king attending the funeral of his predecessor. That’s about it, I suppose,” he said, with a smile w T hich, while it lasted, made his face so winning. But his remark was hardly noticed, and that in itself was a curious experience to Sandham Morse. Everybody was occupied with the boat, where Koorali, with one foot on the com- panion-ladder, was saying her farewells to the pilots. And in her manner there was a certain gracious ease and friendly dignity which 6 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, amused Morse as lie listened. He could almost fancy that she held out her little hand to he kissed respectfully by her vassals. Her uncle, swinging himself down, called out, “ Come, Koorkli, the Captain wants to get up steam again.” And the Captain said apolo- getically, “ 1 have got to think of the tide, and of crossing the Mary River bar, miss, or I wouldn’t hurry you.” “ Good-bye, Barril,” said the girl’s sweet clear voice. “ Good-bye, Dick and Nealy. Good-bye, all of you. And I’ll send you a telegram every now and then, Barril, just to tell you how I like everything. And when I have got the pearl you gave me set, I’ll wear it always. And good-bye, good-bye.” A moment more, and she stood upon the little platform by the steamer's side, supporting herself with one hand upon the rope railing, as the vessel made a movement — a childlike figure in a soft, clinging woollen frock of grey, which the wind blew close to her form, bare- headed, clearly outlined against the grey sky and the grey sea, and with the tender light of the dawning sun shining full upon her face. It was thus that Morse first saw her ; and it was this picture of her which for long afterwards came to him unconsciously whenever his mind dwelt on things lovely and sweet and unstained. He thought of her as of something belonging to the day-dawn, as symbolic of the hope, the poetry, the ideal joy which overhangs but never quite touches actual life ; and perhaps it was because of this vague sugges- tion of unfulfilled promise and of yearning not to be realized, that the picture always brought with it a feeling of exquisite sadness. Koorali was a slender, wild-falcon creature, at once shy and queenly, with a sweet, small, pale face, and red, quiver-shaped, sensitive lips; with a small, erectly-set head, and a broad brow shadowed by dark brown hair that did not lie heavy, but grew thick and soft and close, and with dark deep eyes, dreamy yet fearless, which gazed straight afar, as it were, beyond sea and sky, and had a light in them like the light of dawn. f J he girl stepped on deck, taking the Captain’s outstretched hand for a moment, then greeting Judge O’Beirne, and sending swift, shy, searching glances towards the men whom she did not know. Her eyes met those of Morse. Instinctively, he raised his hat and made her a salutation. Koorali returned it with a gesture full of unstudied grace, and turning impulsively to the Judge, seemed about to ask a question. But the last saddlebag had been flung on deck, and there was a little commotion in the boat as the pilots dipped their oars. She hung over the bulwarks to say some parting words to her uncle ; the companion-ladder was raised ; the screw revolved ; very soon the boat had again become a black speck upon the water, and the steamer was speeding southward. The sun was now well above the horizon, and the shore’s misty out- lines were growing into distinctness. A keen breeze swept over the waves and tossed up foam. The air was fresh and exhilarating. Never had fuller promise been given of a glorious day. And, indeed, THE LITTLE QUEEN . 7 nothing more beautiful in its way could be imagined than the wild, strange scene — the lonely coast, with its weird-looking clumps of bread-fruit trees, its sandy bays, its rocky points, and tiers of blue- green gum foliage stretching back to a distant range of mountains, the wide expanse of ocean, rose-flushed, with that white line afar to the east, showing where the Great Barrier Beef keeps guard against the Pacific. Koorali seated herself upon a bench, the Judge beside her; and now she asked the question which had been on her lips a little while before. “ Who is that on the other side of the deck ? lie looks like the pictures of Napoleon as he stands with his arms folded. Is it Mr, Morse ? ” “What made you guess right, Koorhli? Yes, it’s Morse.” “ I have heard you describe him,” answered the girl. “ You never said, though, that he was like Napoleon. He puts me in mind of a picture in my French history at home, where Napoleon is standing thinking — just so. He is thinking of his future, perhaps; of his battles, of his victories, of France, and of the people he loved so well ; and I think he has a foreboding, too, of defeat and exile and loneliness, for his eyes are sad. Mr. Morse is like that, somehow.” Koorali’s tone had in it a touch of enthusiasm. The Judge laughed more softly than was usual with him. “ Faith, then, there is something of the Napoleon about Sandham Morse. He makes people believe in him. The sort of man, with his queer democratic notions, that would suit our navvies and free selectors for a republican president, if we were come to that in Australia.” “Oh, I wish we could,” said Koorali. “I should like Australia to be a republic. I should like my country to be free — really free ! ” “ There’s a traitor for you! ” exclaimed the Judge. “ Listen to her, just! And her father a constitutional minister! Come over here, Morse. You should be introduced all in proper form to Middlemist’s daughter — a red republican, like yourself.” # Morse, who had indeed heard part of the conversation, came forward, and the introduction was made. Koorali gave him her hand. !She did not think him so like a tragic hero now when he smiled. But to him, in spite of her youth, her brightness and almost childish air of inconsequence, she still brought a suggestion of pathos as she lifted her eyes to his without speaking. The joke about red republicanism dropped, and none of the usual commonplaces occurred to him, so he was silent. The Judge went on — “ And how about the Motherland — the Old Country, and the Queen you rebel ? And the divine right of kings, and all the rest of it?” Koorali gave her bare head a serious little shake. “We are new. They are old,” she said. “And you don’t care about what is old?” asked Morse, with a tone of regret. “Care!” Koor&li’s eyes gave out a soft gleam. “Oh yes. It’s 8 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: everything. It’s history, poetry, tradition. But we are going to make all that. The people always make it. We will choose our own Napoleon.” She coloured a little, remembering the comparison she had drawn. The Judge laughed. “You can’t choose this one. He’s a deserter. He won’t fight under the flag of his adopted country. The New World doesn’t suit him. He has tried America. He has had a go at Australia, and now he is turning back after all to his own old crumbling traditions.” A clatter in the saloon caught the Judge’s attention. He peered down the skylight. The steward was serving out coffee. “ You thief of the world ! ” cried the Judge, addressing one of the juniors who had looked up from the table with something brandished in his hand. “ Let go my eggs, will you ? and don’t interfere with my own brew. I take my coffee with a stick in it,” added he, turning to Koorali, “ that’s the yolk of an egg and the least drop of whisky. And if they can put me off with a stale egg they just will, the young devils. My Little Queen, now — and ye don’t deserve to be called it — come and try my coffee and my stick” But Koorali declined, and so also did Morse. Almost everybody else went down below. The cabin was filled with talk and laughter. Only those two remained on deck. They talked of the scenery, of the chances of smooth weather — common] daces. “ 1 am goimr to find you a more comfortable seat,” said Morse, after a while. u And then I shall order some coffee up here.” He led the w r ay towards the stern of*the vessel where, near the helm, there was ^little space ^covered over with a rou?h awning and built in on one side with huge coils of rope. He drew forward a chair for her, and then left her for a few minutes. When he came back he was followed by a steward carrying coffee and rolls. She was gazing 'dreamily at the vanishing lighthouse, and started when he spoke to her. “ Oh, thank you.” She drank some coffee, but presently put down the cup and did not touch the roll. “ Aren’t you hungry ? ” asked Morse. “ You must have got up very early. Or did the pilots give you breakfast before they brought you on board ? ” “I was awake at four,” she answered. “Barril, the head pilot, knocked at my door to tell me that there was a steamer off the Cape. He got breakfast ready, and we all had it together. It was quite a sad meal.” “ The pilots were sorry to lose you, I suppose ? ” “ Yes, very sorry,” she replied gravely ; “ and I was sorry, too.” u You have known them a long time ? ” “ I have grown up among them, and they have always done every- thing they could to please me,” she said, with her little unconscious air of dignity. “ They used to bring me jam and apples and oranges, OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY . 9 whenever a ship passed from New South Wales or Tasmania; and I have a necklace made from the mother-of-pearl in the nautilus shells they got for me, and such a beautiful real pearl which Barril found himself, and which I shall wear always. It was Barril who carried me on shore when the steamer first dropped us at Muttabarra — I was only three years old then. And I have never gone away since, till to-day.” “ And to-day they have had to bid good-bye to their Little Queen. I don’t wonder that they were sad. But you must feel that you are going to take possession of a kingdom instead of leaving one. Isn’t this the case ? ” “ It was your kingdom a little while ago,” said Koorali, looking at him with a sort of innocent wonder in her eyes. He could not help smiling. To the child this was quite a serious matter. That was evident. Her father was, she knew, chief minister of the country. He had taken Morse’s place. She believed him to be more powerful than the Governor. She wondered that any one could have resigned so splendid a position. As for herself, she was going down to reign by this monarch’s side. Perhaps she fancied that she might help to sway the destinies of Australia. It was very childlike and yet very natural, and only a more brilliant continuation of what had gone before. Probably she had always had a voice in everything — in affairs at the lighthouse as well as on her father’s station. The pilots had worshipped her, of course, and every one had bowed down before her ; and perhaps she fancied that the heads of departments, and the Government officials, and the members of Parliament, and all the rest, would also acknowledge her supremacy. Poor Little Queen 1 CHAPTER II. OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. Falling in with the fancy, Morse said, “ I shall think of you when I am far away, and be glad that you are in my place.” A curious thought came into his mind : “ After all, why am I leaving the place?” Aloud he only said, “I hope you will like your crown. But crowns in our day are not crowns of roses.” Then he thought he was talking sentimentality, not to say nonsense. “ If I were really a queen,” Koorali said quite seriously and earnestly, “ I shouldn’t care about a crown. I should only care for my people. My kingdom should be in their hearts. But that can’t be, I suppose, in this prosaic world, or the time for it is past.” Morse did not answer at once. He was gazing thoughtfully out to sea. “I am afraid the spirit is dead; but the form remains,” he said dreamily, “like one of your ‘ringed’ gum-trees. Perhaps monarchy is one of the ringed gum-trees already,” he added, turning to her with his bright smile, in which there was something enigmatical 2 IO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! t( So I don’t think I would have any more crowns,” continued Koorali. “ That was what I was thinking of when I said that I should like to see Australia a republic. There are not any real heart-kings and queens now, are there? And strong young countries ought not to care about names and forms.” Her childlike earnestness and eagerness amused and also touched him. Heart-king! Heart-queen! He echoed the fanciful phrase. It clung to him. “ You are longing to get to your kingdom — or republic ? ” he asked. “ Oh yes,” she replied gravely. “1 am longing to see the world, and the great struggles of ambition and public life.” The world — the great struggles of ambition and public life — in a second-class Australian colony which he was leaving because he found it insufferably narrow, because it was stifling him with its narrowness ! He was curiously touched. “Why are you going away?” she suddenly asked in a tone of wonder and pity, as if in leaving that place he must be leaving all. “ I am going to see my world, and to begin my great struggle of ambition and my public life — in London.” “ Is London your only world ? ” “ I think so.” She did not speak. She appeared to be reflecting. Evidently his words had opened out dim vistas. Just then a bell clanged. It was disturbing, and Morse knew that another — the signal for breakfast — would soon ring also. People had begun to come upon deck. Among them were several ladies. These eyed Koorali with frank curiosity. She suddenly became conscious of their interest, and seemed to remember the loss of her hat, for she involuntarily raised her hand to her bare head, then got up, and, with her air of easy self-possession, brought the little tete-a-tete to a close. “ 1 think I had better go down and try to find something to put on. I don’t see Judge O’Beirne. Would you please ask the Captain to have my pack taken to the ladies’ cabin ? ” She made her peremptory little demand with great sweetness. Morse conducted her to the hatchway, and then gave instructions about the curious-looking canvas bags which he supposed contained the young lady’s wardrobe. He smiled to himself as he watched a sailor remove them from the deck. He was a little, sorry the conver- sation had ended so abruptly, and wondered if it would be renewed during the twenty-four hours they were to pass together on board the steamer. He had ascertained that they would reach Moreton Bay early on the following morning. There, according to the official programme, the Ministers would come on board from the Government steamboat ; there would be a breakfast, and his (Morse’s) health would be drunk in bumpers of champagne. There would be as much speechifying as the tide and the state of the river bar would permit. Then the fare- wells would be said. Koorali, under her father’s escort, would be transferred to the little steamer. She would find her world some forty OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 11 miles up the river in the petty colonial capital he had left for ever ; while he would speed on his way to that other world — the world of politics, of wealth, of fashion, of poverty, misery, ruin ; the world of contrasts, the world of London; and the bright vision which had come to him with the morning’s dawn would be only but as the remembrance of a dream. It seemed that at present little in the shape of harmonious conver- sation was to come of the keynote which had been struck. Nothing is easier on a crowded steamer than for two people to be for hours within a few yards of each other and yet have no opportunity for the interchange of ideas. Morse saw Koorali on the opposite side of the long breakfast-table, but he was not near enough to hear her speak. Her pretty pathetic face was framed in the wide black brim of a severely simple bonnet, which he imagined must belong to a grim stewardess, whom he had seen hanging about the entrance to the ladies’ cabin. The bonnet, in spite of its plainness and its black border, had a quaint appearance, and suited the young girl’s delicate expressive features, pale clear skin, and deep wistful eyes. Morse mentally applied to her adjectives which give the impression of some- thing plaintive and sad ; yet he could not be blind to a certain childish freshness and innocent confidence in her look which were at times especially noticeable and charming. It seemed to him that this extreme youthfulness and brightness of hope only deepened the suggestion of tragedy that struck him more than anything else about her. It was by this tragic touch that she seized his interest. Underlying much that was cold and practical in Morse’s nature, there was a keen poetic faculty. He took life seriously, and, though he had a shrewd and ready perception of the humorous, his bent was rather to its melancholy phases. All the morning Koorali flitted hither and thither, inspecting the various parts of the steamer, chattering to the Captain, and asking Judge O’Beirne questions about the people she was to know and the things she was to do. However pensive her face might be, her dis- position was as gay, apparently, as that of a child, and she seemed to enjoy life as heartily. She was a pretty figure as she stood on the bridge, and looked at the coast through the Captain’s telescope. Morse’s eyes often wandered towards her as he sat on the lower deck, but he did not go near or try to monopolize her. He left her to the Judge and to the young barristers all the afternoon also. He had letters of importance to write — parting letters to political friends and colleagues — to political foes as well ; and he had his own future to think about, and certain vague ambitious schemes to mature — schemes which, now that he had cut himself adrift from Australian life, seemed to loom more definite and distinct. He had only now begun to realize — and he had done so with a sense of shock — how vast was his ambition, how intense his determination to carve his own career after the fashion that conformed with his character and with principles and theories that were powerful enough to be motive springs. 12 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? As he sat writing and thinking, Judge O’Beirne’s Irish tones and Koorali’s voice and laugh floated down to him through the half-open skylight. He could not hear what they were saying, but the image and thought of the girl blended with his more serious reflections, and gave him a strange feeling of double existence. He could not get rid of the fancy that he was standing on the verge of two lives, and that the hour of choice and crisis had come. For the first time he questioned, in a fugitive way, the wisdom of beginning what he had called his great struggle of ambition, and of plunging, as he meant to do, into the very current of life. He wondered vaguely within him- self whether after all it would not have been better to remain in Australia — to give his energies and talents to the fostering of a new, strong, yet unfledged country, and to leave ruined institutions and corrupt social systems to dwindle into decay. He was alone at the upper end of the saloon, and his mood suffered no interruption from the other passengers, who, seeing him occupied with documents and correspondence, respected his statesmanlike attitude. He shook him- self free at last of the dreamy consciousness of Koorali’s influence, and his pen dashed off vigorously, never resting till dinner time. It was not for some time after that meal, and when the claims of whist and hot toddy called the Judge below, that he again found himself near Koorali. She was left by Judge O’Beirne tucked up under a rug in a deck chair placed in that sheltered corner to which Morse had brought her in the morning. She had taken off her bonnet, and a white woollen shawl was wrapped round her shoulders, and partially covered her head. She looked very soft and sweet, and there was a radiance on her face not of the dawn now, but of the setting sun. She was not talking to any one — there was no one near, but her thoughts seemed almost as animated as her conversation, for she was smiling to herself, and her features were lighted up with bright interest and a sort of eager anticipation. He guessed what she was thinking. The steamer was speeding smoothly along. A few more hours and life would have become dramatic. It seemed quite natural for him to come near and remark, smiling as he spoke, “You haven’t much longer to wait now. You will soon be seeing the world.” “Oh!” She gave a little start, and looked at him questioningly, as though she were not quite sure if he meant to be serious. But she did not put her doubt into words, as for an instant he feared, and he f felt a swift pang at the notion of having damped her girlish enthusiasm. “Only till to-morrow,” she replied simply. “I have been thinking how lovely it will all be. I think it is so delightful to look forward and picture things. Don’t you ? ” He seated himself. “I don’t want to be depressing; but I suppose most people would tell you that picturing things beforehand is the best part of it.” “ Not to me. Everything turns out to be better than I fancy it. I iud everything that I want to happen comes to pass.” OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY . 13 “ You are a fortunate girl,” said Morse. “ Perhaps, however, it is because your wishes are not very extravagant.” Koorali laughed softly. “ A few of my wishes are very extravagant. They belong to a fairy tale, and are such a loner way off that I only dream of their being fulfilled some time. Like going to heaven or my ideal republic. Seeing London is one of them.” “ You will go there some day. Every one goes to London.” “Ah, some day ! ” she repeated, with a pretty movement of her hands. "I shall be there within six weeks; and I shall expect to meet you there some time within six years. At the most, that is not such a long way off. Then I shall remind you of our little voyage together, and 1 shall ask you if all your wishes, even the most extravagant ones, have been so literally fulfilled.” “Yes; and I shall ask you ” she began impulsively, and paused. “What shall you ask me? I promise to answer your questions, whatever they may be.” She shrank a little as if in shyness, but did not lower her eyes, which met his. “I think you want to do something great. You have a look on 3 T our face — like that — as if you had a star to follow, or there were an Austerlitz before you. I should like to ask you when we meet in London if you had done what you wanted.” “Ah! ” he exclaimed, “ I will answer that beforehand. No. Who among ordinary men does anything great? Who succeeds? Or if success comes to the exceptional man for a time, how long does it last ? If there is an Austerlitz, doesn’t there come a Waterloo at the end? But perhaps it is worth trying even for defeat. And, as you say very prettily, one must follow his star.” There was a short silence. Presently Koorali said, “ I shouldn’t like to feel like that. I couldn’t look forward to disappointment. I don’t believe in disappointment, or in not being happy. I have always been happy. I mean always to be happy, and to make people glad.” “ I think you will do that last thing,” he answered, “ though you may not be able to help causing unhappiness, too. But,” he added, seeing that she turned quickly, and looked a little surprised, “it is quite evident that your views of life are justified by experience, since everything you ever wished to happen has come to pass.” Koorali turned to him again with a little eager uplifting of her chin. “ I did so want to leave the Bush when I was grown up. I wanted to be at the heart of things — to know what the people who lived in cities did and felt and thought. It was my dream. And now, you see how soon it has all come to me.” “It would have come in the natural order of things, wouldn’t it?” he asked. “ Oh ! a long time hence. You see, father wouldn’t have been rich enough to take a house in the town, and give me all the things I wanted unless he had got an appointment. And he would not have accepted, nor should I have liked him to have, any but the first place. “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 1 4 You had the first place,” she added simply, “ and no one could have supposed that you would give it up of your free will.” “ So,” he said, “ you owe to me the realization of one of your dreams at least. It’s a little hard that I shouldn’t see you enjoying it. Tell me,” he said abruptly, after a moment’s pause, “how did you come by your wild, strange name? — Koorali,” he lingered softly on the syllables. “ I never heard it before.” “ It’s a native name. Kooral is the blacks’ word for snakes. I was called after a place on the station where I was born — not Muttabarra — a station further south, among the mountains. The reason is a sad little story. Shall I tell it to you?” “ Oh yes ! ” exclaimed Morse. “There’s a deep ravine down there,” said Koorali. “It’s called the Kooral Gully, because of the snakes, Aunt Janet says. I don’t suppose there were really more snakes there than anywhere else. Anyhow, my mother and father had to camp in it once, with my little brother — my own, only brother, and his nurse let him get bitten by a death adder. He just lived an hour or two. My mother drove home with him in her arms dead. Soon afterwards I was born, and my mother died. When they asked her what she wished my name to be, she said Koorali.” Morse uttered an exclamation of interest and pity. It seemed to him fitting, somehow, that there should be this tragic association with her name. He was deeply touched. Koorali’s voice had taken a more plaintive intonation as she told the little tale. “ So you never knew your mother ? ” he said. “ And you lived among the mountains, a poor little lonely child ? ” “Oh no!” she answered. “I was not lonely. Aunt Janet took care of me. Everybody has always been good to me. We went away. Father could not bear the old station. He didn’t like the Bush any longer. He has never been much at Muttabarra.” Morse would have liked to know something of the mental relation- ship between the father and daughter. He could not connect the idea of sentiment, refinement of feeling, or intellectual sympathy with his impression of the shrewd, somewhat coarse, self-interested, rather Jewish-looking man who was now at the head of affairs. He could not imagine Mr. Middlemist the guide and friend of such a girl as Koorali. But he asked no directly leading question. After all, what did it matter to him? So he only said — “Your story is very sad and very interesting. I don’t know why I should think of you as having had an isolated childhood, or, if it were the case, why I should pity you. It is a good preparation for the inevitable loneliness of life.” She looked at him straightly, with almost mournful interest. “ Are you lonely ? ” she asked. “I am quite alone,” he answered. “That is, I have no one in the world near enough and dear enough to talk to quite freely.” “Perhaps,” she said slowly, “when you are in England you will meet with some one whom you can trust.’ OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 15 “Yus,” lie said — slowly, too. “It is quite likely that I may meet with such a one — in England. Some one to trust,” he went on, dreamily, “ some one to share one’s soul with ; some one whose sympathy would bring a sense of measureless content.” He recalled himself with a slight gesture and a little laugh. In truth, he suddenly found himself wondering how he, who was usually so reticent, could speak thus to a girl whom he had met but a few hours before. “ Odd fancies ! w he said, “ but a man has them ; and women, too, I suppose, for that matter. They’ll come to you some day, Little Queen. For- give me. You see I have caught Judge O’Beirne’s phrase.” Koorali had withdrawn her eyes lingeringly from his face while he spoke. She did not seem to notice his apology. “I don’t think one is ever quite alone,” she said in a thoughtful way. “ W e are not alone in dreams ; and sometimes it seems to me that life is like a dream, and that there is a world quite close to us full of beautiful, bodiless things — fancies, and music, and poetry, and lovely visions, that would become real if only we could strain a little further, or see a little clearer, or hear a little more distinctly. I feel like that — all strange and so near, so near to fuller life, when I am all by myself in the Bush. I feel like that often ” “ And yet you want to know the life of cities, where these things are not?” “ Oh ! ” she said, shrinking, “ I shouldn’t like to think that I would lose my beautiful fancies. Don’t tell me that.” “No; I will not prophesy sadness. I will only ask you when — or if — we meet in the glare and noise of a London drawing-room, whether the beautiful fancies are with you still; and if you have kept them I shall be very glad.” “ Tell me something about London,” she said, and began to ask him questions in her quick, impulsive way. The night had closed in, and the wide waste of waters gleamed with phosphorescent patches. Their talk glided on from one subject to another in pleasant fitful fashion. Nothing remarkable was said, yet all seemed tinged by the witchery of the hour. To Morse there was something strangely fresh and sympathetic in Koorali’s simple remarks. He liked their poetic flavour. As a matter of fact, the companiom^hip of very young women was not usually agreeable to him. He was a man who affected — in all pure intent — the company of married women, and he held a theory that it would be impossible for him to fall in love with any except a woman of society — highly trained, sweet of nature, noble, and true, but, all the same, one versed in the refinements and subtleties of modern civilization. Nevertheless, he liked this girl ; her talk charmed him. He was touched by her crude optimism. She was so undeveloped, and at the same time, he thought, so full of capabilities. In spite of his theories, he liked her air of other-world- liness. He liked the quick way in which she seized an idea, her ready sympathy and almost tender interest. She set him thinking ; and, as he paced the deck, long after she had gone below, his mind dwelt upon i6 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: her. He could fancy how she would throw herself heart and soul into the honourable ambitions of a husband she loved ; how she would make his ideas her own ; how complete and soothing, and yet how stimulating, would be her companionship. What a relief it would be to turn to her from the fret and struggle of public aflairs — to turn from life’s prose to its poetry. Morning saw the mail boat anchored in the bay, and soon the Government tender, all decorated with flags, steamed gaily to her side. The Ministers came on board, and, after a little of that pre- liminary fuss and ceremonial in which the baby colony delights, the farewell banquet to Morse began. Mr. Middlemist, foremost of the Government deputation, seemed more engrossed by his official duties than by the meeting with his daughter. It was not till after he had made a florid little address to Morse that he kissed Koorali, bidding her welcome, and formally introducing her to his colleagues. Morse, watching her, saw a slightly pained bewildered look cross her face ; but it did not stay there long. Soon she was at ease, and had apparently settled in her mind that the exigencies of a political function required that there should be as little show as possible of family affection. Two or three of the Ministers’ wives were of the party, and Koorali took the place among them that her father evidently intended should be ceded to her. The little by-play amused Morse. He observed that the Premier glanced with dissatisfaction at the stewardess’s bonnet, and that at the banquet Koorali sat bareheaded on the right of the new Postmaster-General, Mr. Crichton Ken way. Mr. Ken way was a young man evidently not of colonial origin. Indeed, Morse had already incidentally heard that he belonged to an impoverished English family which had once owned ancestral acres in a midland county that he himself knew. Crichton Kenway w r as of a type very different from that of his colleague, the Premier. Mr. Middlemist was beyond middle age, short, dark, and plebeian. He was stout, with stubby iron-grey whiskers and clean-shaven upper lip and chin. He looked like a man who took life from an eminently practical point of view, and was not free from its grosser influences. Studying his face and manner now, Morse could not reconcile them with Koorali’s sad little story of the break-up of his home, and with the idea of devoted constancy to a dead wife’s memory. Crichton Ken way, on the other hand, seemed fairly fitted to be a hero of romance of the conventional order. He was tall, upright, good-looking, well dressed, and had an air of breeding. His head could not be called intellectual, but his fair hair, parted down the middle, grew back from the temples, and his forehead thus appeared higher than it really w ? a.s. lie had a look of alertness also, and a rather anxiously pleasant manner, as if he wished to produce a good impression and was keenly alive to his own advantage. He had bright, rather hard blue eyes, straight features, and a fine drooping blonde moustache which, perhaps fortunately, fell over his mouth. OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 17 His chin, however, was decisively cut, somewhat pointed, and he had a long, lean throat that suggested distinction, though it sometimes gave him a sort of rapacious look, like that of a fine young bird of prey. He was young, not more than thirty, if so much, and it was a proof of ability that he should hold even a subordinate place in the new Cabinet. The position of Postmaster-General, it should perhaps be said, was not quite on a par with that of the other Ministers. Till Middlemist’s accession to power the Postmaster- General had been merely the head of a department, hut when the office had been conferred upon Crichton Ken way it had become minis- terial, and its holder represented the Government in the upper house. To Morse there was something dreamlike about the banquet. He could hardly realize that this was his farewell to Australia, even when, in an impressive and heartfelt speech, he returned thanks for the Premier’s valedictory encomium of his policy and his personal qualities and for the enthusiastic manner in which his health had been drunk. He had an odd feeling that he was a grown-up youth leaving the school in which he had been trained, in order to begin his fight with the world. The ceremonial, the fine speeches, the bombast, the reci- procal compliments, all struck him with a dash of humour and even of scorn with which blended as well a melancholy sentiment and a tender regret. Or, he fancied, he might be an actor called from a provincial company with which he had played happily for a time, to some great London theatre. He felt himself fitted for some higher destiny; he despised the mimic sovereigns of tragedy and comedy, the stage strut, the tinsel, the petty jealousy, the self-sufficiency ; the dense self-interest which smothered higher aims and abstract motives. Already he was far away from all this, and yet he was sad to leave the old life, sad to think of the Little Queen who was so contented with her sphere, and who would perhaps marry the jeune premier and go on playing leading lady to a provincial audience, never dreaming that she had in her the capacity of a Rachel or a Sarah Bernhardt. At last it was over — the orations, the champagne drinking, the compliments. The Captain had made his little speech, in which he reminded the company that he was due in Sydney at a certain hour to catch the English mail boat, and that time and tide would not wait even for an ex-premier and his successor. So they all left the saloon, which somehow remained impressed upon Morse’s memory — the stuffy atmosphere, the gilding, the long table heaped with tropical fruits, the scent of bananas and pineapples, the soft-footed Chinese waiters, the puffy, vulgar-looking man at the head of the table, the quaint poetic face of the young girl, and the good-looking, self-satisfied man by her side. They were on deck again, and both steamers were making ready to start — the little steamer, her flags flying, puffing spasmodi- cally, and the big one with its screw slowly heaving. There was much hand-shaking, and there were many cheers given. The Ministers and their wives and. the passengers for the capital had gone on board the tender. Koorali, her father, and Crichton Kenway wero the last. i8 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, ; The four stood together. Morse took Koorali’s hand in his. “Good- bye,” he said, and smiled that winning smile which lit up his dark Napoleonic face. “ Good-bye, Little Queen,” he added in a lower voice. “ 1 hope that you may be happy in your kingdom.” He did not add a wish that they might meet again. At that moment the thought uppermost in his mind was that he preferred to , keep unspoiled in his recollection that picture of her as she stood out- lined against the grey sky with the light of dawn upon her face. CHAPTER III. LADY BETTY MORSE. About ten years had passed away since the parting vessels separated Morse and Koorali. We are in London. There was a great party at the house of a London lady of high social distinction — a sort of queen of society. It was still somewhat early in the season — a season that had been specially brilliant thus far. It was a very interesting season; because soon after its opening there came the sudden collapse of a Ministry believed to be remarkably strong in the affections of the country. It would be utterly superfluous to tell the intelligent reader of the unending amount of talk which such an event supplies in circles where everybody knows somebody whose career has for the moment been blighted by the event, and some one else whose hopes have been set burning brightly. The lady at whose house this party is taking place was in the very heart of London political society ; and she was the wife of one of the fallen Ministry. Moreover, she was the wife of a Minister who was generally credited with having tried to bring about the collapse. He had been riding for a fall, people said. He was supposed to have found the Cabinet not strong enough in its radicalism for his tastes; to have considered it was weak-kneed, and not fulfilling its promises to the country; and he stood apart somehow; seemed to sulk rather; and his attitude encouraged the enemies of the Govern- ment, it was argued; and these enemies were spirited on to bold and persistent endeavours. At last they succeeded in forming a temporary combination of genuine opposition and casual malcontent, and they “ went for ” the Ministry at a moment of peculiar crisis and carried a vote against the Government, and the Government came to an end — collapsed like a house of cards. Lady Betty Morse was the hostess whose guests choked with their carriages and hansom cabs that part of Lark Lane in which she lived. Lady Betty was the daughter of the Marquis of Germilion. She was rich ; she was singularly pretty ; she was still well under thirty years old, and she was the wife of Sandham Morse — “The Right Honourable Sandham Morse, M.P.,” who had but lately been one of her Majesty's Secretaries of State. It was a love match altogether, society said ; for Morse's politics were directly opposed to those of Lord Ger- LADY BETTY MORSE . 19 milion. Lady Betty and Morse had been drawn together by feelings, not politics. And when it was clear that she loved him, Lord Ger- milion was far too fond of his pretty daughter, his only child, to think of crossing her in her love. He accepted Morse, the Radical from the colonies, with remarkably good grace ; and congratulated himself that his son-in-law was a rising man, a man of acknowledged ability ; and that “he has the inestimable advantage of being a gentleman, which, by Jove, sir, can’t be said for every Cabinet Minister nowa- days.” Lord Germilion had been heard to express his regret that, since he had no son, the succession to the title could not be settled on his son-in-law instead of his nephew. Nothing could be prettier than Lady Betty. Her head was small and shapely, and was set with exquisite grace on her slender neck; her dark brown eyes, with a glance in them like that of a stag or a gazelle, went with kindly penetration straight to the heart of every one ; her conversation sparkled as well as her eyes. She did not really say very brilliant things, but she always conveyed the idea of cleverness ; and, indeed, she was decidedly clever, although not perhaps very intellectual. She and her husband were, after several years of matrimony, still very much attached to one another, though not in the Darby and Joan fashion ; their position put that out of the question. Lady Betty liked society, and was made for it. She went out incessantly ; and Morse’s political duties naturally took up a great part of his time. Yet they saw ench other at some hour in every day, and were considered a devoted couple. They had no children. Sometimes a pair are drawn more closely together because they have no children ; the affections concentrate themselves. For all that has been said in the way of dogma on the subject, it is still perhaps possible to believe that a poet may be made, although he has not been born. But the most disputatious person will not venture to gainsay the assertion that a hostess must be born, and cannot be made. No training can make a woman into a hostess. Nature must have sent her into the world preordained and specially constructed for the high position. She must be a sort of living paradox. She must be selfish enough to have a constant look-out for her own advantages and her own success; she must be unselfish enough to feel a real interest in every one who comes within the authority of her circle. She must be brimming over with ready sympathy ; but the sympathy must not be too deep. She must never be distracted by the real distress of one person from the utterly unreal distresses of another. She must make her presence felt by everybody. The ordinary woman of the world, who stands at her drawing-room door and merely goes through the ceremonial of formal welcome to her guests, bears about the same relationship to a real hostess that a pump does to a foun- tain. A woman without a generous, kindly heart could not be a hostess ; she would be always merely the unlighted lamp. But your really great women — the Sapphos, the Aspasias, the George Sands, women devoured by craving for experience, eager to drink life to the 20 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE J dregs — are not fit for the commonplace part of hostess. They are too preoccupied; they would be thrown away on such a position. They are too strong, and yet not strong enough, for the place. They could not help showing that their natures needed a more powerful stimu- lant ; and that they wanted to soar higher and to go deeper to the very heart of things. Lady Betty Morse was a model hostess. She stood just outside the principal reception-room, facing the crowd of arrivals who thronged the stairs and landing. A curtain of heavy, faded-looking arras draping the doorway made a charming background to her slender form — very richly clad, as seemed to befit her position and the occasion, in bro- caded stuff of dull Venetian red, with magnificent jewels upon the ruffled bodice and sparkling on her neck and in her dark hair. It was a fancy of Lady Betty’s to dress after a somewhat matronly fashion, and in all the winning charm of her manner there was not the faintest trace of coquetry. Adulation, great people, the throbbing interest of public affairs, the life at high pressure of drawing-rooms, the ceaseless round and routine of society, came as naturally to her as to breathe. Any one could see at a glance that she liked the work of entertain- ing ; that she enjoyed it ; delighted in it. Her beautiful dark eyes sparkled with gratification as her guests grouped around her. She was wonderfully quick; she had a charming little welcome for every one. Each man got a sentence, or at least a phrase, all to himself ; quite peculiar; sometimes spoken with a winning little air of confidence, as if it were something altogether between him and her with which the outer world had no concern. Men who were but new acquaintances were surprised and charmed to hear a whispered reference thus made to something they had said when they first were introduced to her, and which they assumed she had forgotten long ago. Then she liked women as well as men ; and women liked her. She never flirted ; but to the men whom she really liked and valued, there was a certain tenderness in her manner and her tones which they found unspeakably delightful. Her ways and her looks seemed to say to each of these, “ Oh yes ; I do like you very much ; and you know it, of course.” And she did like them in the sincerest way, and she was not in the slightest degree a hypocrite. She was a true friend to those whom she liked; and, indeed, would ha,ve proved herself a true friend to any ono who stood in need of friendship and had any claim on her, who had even the mere claim on her friendship that is constituted by the need of a friend. A little group of men had ranged themselves just within the door- way at her beck ; but their homage was of a somewhat abstract kind. They did not look like men who went in for the business of flirtation — they were politicians, diplomatists, men who looked at her with fra- ternal admiration — not one after the pattern of reigning adorer to a fashionable beauty ; not one whose manner suggested deep personal inteiest, unless indeed one might except a handsome youth of seven- teen or thereabouts, with long curly hair and dreamy eyes, who held LADY BETTY MORSE . 21 her fan, took her commands, and seemed to delight in playing the part of page. “ My pretty page ” was indeed Lady Betty’s pet name for the boy. Lenny, who was her latest whim, and who hung about her picturesquely. It was a very charming scene. Lady Betty’s house, like everything else about her, was perfect in its own way, though nothing in it seemed to flaunt merit. It was not gorgeous, nor eccentric, nor even artistic, in the accepted sense of the word. Lady Betty had no sym- pathy with the aesthetic movement. She did not affect the early English, the Oriental, the Japanese, the Renaissance style, or any other of the prevailing fads of fashion in the matter of furniture or decoration. There were no tawny stuffs from Liberty’s ; no grotesque porcelain monsters ; no strange patterns of frieze or dado. But Lady Betty liked spacious rooms and an harmonious background. There was a great hall in the centre of the house, its ceiling reaching to the roof, galleries ranging its sides, and a broad oak staircase that might have been brought from some manorial eastle. There was much tapestry, and there were deep-hued hangings, and a wonderful medley of rare and beautiful things, not one of which clashed with the other. All, in studio jargon, composed well; no single article was obtrusive, even in worth. Priceless china tried to hide itself in recesses, in quaint cabinets, and above carved ledges. There were pictures, not too many, and mostly landscapes, all gems. There were mirrors, reflecting back lights and people, but set so cunningly that it was difficult to believe they were mirrors. The lights were electric, soft, and clear; the frames were old Florentine. The portraits, what there were, the Ger- milion ancestry not insisted upon, were mellow in tone, poetic, sugg s- tive. And yet, was Lady Betty quite poetic? Can a woman of the world distil poetry ? Every one who attended Lady Betty Morse’s receptions was, to a student of men and manners, worthy of note. A representative of almost all grades of aristocratic Philistia and upper Bohemia might be found there this evening. Prospective monarchy, giving evidence of the trumpeted Guelph memory for faces in affable recognitions to right and left, and a lovely princess, who claims flowery metaphors, graceful as the lily and sweet as the heliotrope, the colours of which she was wearing to-night. Lower in the scale, the irreproachable queen of the stage whom fashion had set up in place of deposed sovereigns — more magnetic perhaps, but soul-vibrating electricity was for the moment out of date ; a great statesman, crested eagle among hawks ; a great soldier, many soldiers ; the last thing in foreign serenities, and the newest innovation in the shape of bejewelled Maharajahs ; the tra- gedians of Society ; its licensed jesters ; and the generals of the army of Art. All such, and many more, greater or lesser, upright on their feet, some on the outer fringo turning wistful glances towards vacant chairs. There had been a dinner party, of course, at Lady Betty’s before the e\ ening party. The dinner was given in honour of a royal prince and 22 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. 1 princess. Lady Betty had once been a maid of honour or something of that kind ; and Royalty put up with her husband’s eccentric politics for her sake. The dinner party was a little slow. For one reason, not a word was said about politics ; and just at that moment every- body was interested in politics. The new Administration had not been quite formed ; and people were dying to know who was to have this place and who was to have that. But Lady Betty went in resolutely for bringing all sorts of politicians together ; and this principle necessi- tated neutrality of conversation at least at dinner. There were several bitter opponents of her husband’s principles present; and besides, it was understood that Royalty, just then, would rather not hear any- thing about politics. Enough could be said on the subject when the company went upstairs and the guests had come to the evening party, and the rooms were filled, and talking was done in groups or tete-a-tete. One of the guests at the dinner-table, the new American Minister, stood now well within the circle, and made his keen and slightly humorous observations on living London. There had been some trouble that day, as there often was before a London dinner party, in settling the order of precedence where the American Minister was concerned. More than one perplexed hostess had found herself compelled late on the afternoon of her dinner party to send in breathless haste to consult high official authority as to the place which ought to be assigned to the American Minister in a pro- cession which included not only royal personages — their position is fixed as fate — and archbishops, and a cardinal, and a duke or two, but also the jealous ambassadors of great European powers, and several peers of yesterday’s creation, sensitive to the quick about all honour due to their fire-new titles. Mr. Paulton was a very handsome and stately man; so tall and commanding that he threw everybody, Koyalty included, into a sort of insignificance. He had been a great political orator in his day. He was now falling into years — had left sixty a good way behind ; but yet stood with the erectness of a tower, and could endure fatigue, even the fatigue of social pleasure, like a boy. Mr. Paulton was new to the host and hostess and to the whole affair. That is, when we say he was new to the host, he had never spoken to Morse before, but he had heard of him, and was greatly interested in him. He w 7 as also greatly interested and puzzled by the manner in which everybody addressed the illustrious princess as “ ma’am.” “ One might have thought we we -were all talking to a New England school-marm,” he said to him- self. He was discreet', and said nothing on the subject to any one else, and after a while found himself replying to some gracious inquiry of Royalty 7 with the word “ma’am” on his lips. It amused him. “1 am getting on in court w r ays,” he thought. “ I shall presently be denounced in some of our papers at home as a minion of Royalty and a court sycophant.” Mr. Paulton was intelligently inquisxtive, like many of his country- men, and he was very anxious to ask a few questions about men and LADY BETTY MORSE . 23 paities. He was glad when the dinner was over and the company had all gone upstairs and the rooms were thoroughly well filled. After he had had to submit to many formal introductions, he found himself happily near a good-looking, pale, slender young man, whose face he had observed with liking at the dinner-table, and with whom he had exchanged some agreeable words. He got into conversation with this young man, and asked him some questions, which were answered with great frankness and courtesy. “ Our host doesn’t seem to be much put out by the fall of the Administration he belonged to,” the American Minister ventured to say. And he glanced towards where Morse was standing. Morse looked very stately and dignified as he entertained his guests. He had grown somewhat stouter and stronger-looking than when we saw him last ; but his face was still as handsome in its peculiar way, as striking and as Napoleonic. “ I should think he is delighted,” was the answer. “ They say he wanted to get out of it long ago. He is an ambitious man, and he had not much of a chance there, I fancy.” “I am interested in him particularly,” the American Minister said. “ You know he was in the States for a while, and was making a mark there when he suddenly went back right away to England. Well, I suppose he liked his own country best.” “ He didn’t stay there, all the same. He went out to one of the Australian colonies, and got to be at the head of an Administration there ; and then he threw up the whole affair and came back again to England. I was out in the Fiji Islands myself afterwards, and I used to hear about him.” Mr. Paulton looked keenly at his companion. “Out in the Fiji Islands ! ” he repeated, as if wondering what this well-appointed person had been doing in so barbarous a place. “ Then you are some- thing of an outsider in this sort of thing, like myself. I shouldn’t have guessed it.” The young man smiled. His smile was pleasant, but it had in it something abstract — vaguely cynical. He did not reply at once. His eyes ranged the scene, taking in everything — from the central group, the starry nucleus, to the somewhat belated hangers-on, eagerly strain- ing. “I suppose any one who thinks must be an outsider at ‘this sort of thing,’ though he needn’t be so in the ordinary sense,” was his reply. “ It interests me to look on at this whirl of London society, and see the poor birds rising up and beating their wings, knocking all the feathers off, some of them, and coming down very much the worse for their pains.” The American laughed. “ That’s so. Climbers, eh ! But I should have thought most of them here to-night belonged naturally to the top.” “ Oh ! social distinction, place, power ! It all comes to the same,” returned the young man. “ If people would only work the whole 24 THE RIGHT HONOUR ABLET thing out like an algebraical problem, the man who bothered himself to find x would learn that be bad better have occupied himself with A and B, w T hich were close at band.” “ I guess if Morse is a climber he’ll stay in England this time,” the American Minister said, with a peculiar gesture. “ Quite the rising man, is be not ? ” “ Kisen man, I should almost say. He must be leader of a party. It only waits for him to form a party out of the wreck and welter of things here. He seems to have got everything. He is** rich, through his wife, of course, and she adores him. She is a queen of society, and every one adores her. We tell her so, and she doesn’t mind ; it doesn’t seem to spoil her one little hit.” “ He ought to he a happy man — yet he don’t look like it.” “ Think not ? Oh yes ; he is very happy. He delights in the great political game he is playing ; and his wife plays the social game for him just as well, or better.” “ I have got a way of looking at faces,” said the American, “ and I study the line of the forehead just above the eyes when a man’s face is in repose ; and I find it tells you a good deal. Now, there is some- thing depressed and melancholy about this man.” The young man looked again at his host. Evidently this view of Morse’s character had not occurred to him before. “ I don’t know why he should be melancholy. He has got about all he wants, I should think. He says very clever and amusing things in his speeches sometimes. No ; I shouldn’t think he was melancholy ; a man like him hasn’t time to be.” “ Do you think he is a sincere man?” the American asked, in his direct way. “ A sincere man, or an ambitious man merely ? A statesman, or a politician — if you understand how we Americans use the word politician and the sort of distinction we make.” “ In that sense I should say a sincere man, certainty ; I am sure he believes all he says. But I think he is ambitious, too. I really don’t know him very well ; we don’t seem to hit it off quite. I don’t think he is serious enough in his views of things.” The young man was a little embarrassed now, and spoke with a winning sort of diffidence. “ No ? Not serious enough, with that face ? ” “ No ; not in my way. I think a man with his influence over the people — the people adore him, you know — could do better than form political combinations. I think he ought to go for social reform, and for trying to make our people sober and good and believers in all that is good. What England wants is moral reformation — more, much more, than political reform. Morse does not see this. I think that is one reason why we don’t suit each other. I dare say it is my fault ; I don’t do him justice, perhaps. Every man must have his own way,” the young man added modestly. There was a moment’s pause in the conversation. “ What kind of a party would Morse be likely to form, do you think ? ” Mr. Paulton asked. LADY BETTY MORSE. 25 “ Something very radical ; democratic, in onr English sense of the word. 1 am much mistaken if Morse has not set his heart on laying the foundations of a regular republican party in the House of Com- mons ” “ Do you mean that he would undermine the throne ? ” The young man laughed. “ They’ve begun to do that already, haven’t they? They’re undermining the House of Lords.” Together and involuntarily both the speakers glanced in the direction where Royalty was standing in the midst of its little imme- diate circle. This was a large party ; many of the company had not been brought so closely within the influence of Royalty before, and the influence was just at the moment a little chilling. That was not Royalty’s fault ; Royalty was very gracious, and knew how to show its graciousness. Still, to those who are not quite used to such a presence and influence, it is trying. We are delighted to be there, of course. Are we not free Britons ? Do we not rule the waves ? — go to ; and do we not exult in being brought near to great personages ? But the joy has a certain uneasiness in it. It is a fearful joy. We may not be doing quite the right thing ; Royalty may look at us at the wrong time ; may catch us in something awkward ; may smile at us. All this has to be considered. Ladies were being presented to Royalty every now and then, and were ducking down to the carpet in becoming reverence. Morse was standing quite near Royalty just at the moment when the American Minister looked round. “ I don’t suppose things are quite ripe for that with you,” he said in a low tone. “ It is hard for a stranger to understand your affairs ; but I shouldn’t have thought there was the least chance for such a party as that — if it really means to knock down dummies. I re- member very well the saying of General Prim, after he had turned the Bourbons out of Spain, and people thought he was going to set up a republic — I knew General Prim — ‘ You can’t have a republic without republicans,’ he said. Is not that saying applicable to England ? ” “ Seems a little odd, our discussing the question just here under the very eyes of H.R.H. himself. You had better talk to Morse about it privately some time ; he will explain his views much better than I could. I have never spoken to him about it. I dine here often, but he doesn’t talk much to me. I come here because of Lady Betty. She is a cousin of mine, and I’m very fond of her. I wish she hadn’t married him. I have said so to her, and a pretty snubbing I got, I can tell you.” The speaker was evidently anxious to turn away the talk from politics ; and the American Minister and he drifted apart soon after. Mr. Paulton was curious to know the name of the very agreeable person with wrhom he had been talking so freely. He asked some one who happened to come near him and whom he knew slightly. “ That man ? Oh, that’s Arden — Lord Arden, son of the Earl of Forrest.” 46 Is he a remarkable man ? 3 26 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE . “Lord Arden? Well, yes; he represents a sort of new-fashioned school in society and politics. He is a medigeval Tory, a stained-glass- attitude reactionary, who goes in for virtue, temperance, and the working man.” Lord Arden was an enthusiast. He was one of the young apostles of a new school of purity. He believed in the possibility of so elevating the standard of morality in modern life as to make it the duty of man to he as pure as the duty of woman is always declared to be. It was understood that he made his own life confonn strictly to this principle ; and there was a certain unaffected nobleness of manner about him which prevented even men of the world from laughing or sneering at him. He was the idol of a great many women ; matrons of a devo- tional turn, or serious girls with exalted views of life. He was the son of a shy, eccentric nobleman — a curious figure in modern society, for he seemed to belong to a far past time, and was indeed the devotee, the last perhaps. of the lost Jacobite cause. Lord Arden had some of his father’s shyness, but very little of his eccentricity. He was hand- some and graceful ; he dressed well ; he had a sweet, clear voice ; he had a great deal of quiet humour. In the House of Commons, he was considered one of the best speakers among the younger men there ; and he was already a recognized authority on many social questions, such as the condition of the artisan population, and the housing of the poor. He was sincerely devoted to the various beneficent causes which he had taken up. He positively spent more time and energy in doing good than most other young men of his class spend in doing harm. Lord Forrest was intensely fond of his son ; and proud of him in i half-melancholy sort of way. In his brighter moods it pleased him to think of his own wasted career being fulfilled in the career of his son. Arden had never quite liked Morse. For one reason, perhaps, although Arden was not quite conscious of being now influenced by it, he had rather resented Morse’s becoming the husband of Lady Betty. Lord Arden was, as he had told Mr. Paulton, a cousin of Lady Betty, and was very much attached to her ; not at all in a lover-like way, but with a very sincere affection. He had a good many caste prejudices, though he would not have owned to them. He thought Morse was not good enough for her; was not the sort of man she ought to have for a husband. Probably he would have held the same opinion about any other man who ventured to ask Lady Betty to marry him. But he made a handle against Morse of his radical politics and his all but revolutionary theories as they appeared to Arden. Morse was in fact a man of too strong a fibre to be much to Lord Arden’s taste ; and then Morse had no belief in the possibility of much permanent or long- abiding good being done by philanthropic organizations or by com- mittees for the promotion of virtue. Morse believed in regenerating society by making men independent, by giving them education, and striving to open a clear way for all by the abolition of class distinctions. “ Loose him, and let him go ” was the principle Morse applied to man. He had, in spite of himself, a sort of contempt for Lord Arden's white- “AFTER LONG YEARS: 27 ribbon brotherhoods, and did not believe they would in the end do anything whatever towards the purification of the world. Lord Arden, on the other hand, was all for men concerning themselves about their duties rather than about their rights. Lady Betty went of course openly and avowedly with her husband, and took his views of the matter, as she felt bound to do; but in her heart she had much sym- pathy with Arden’s philanthropy, and with his dreams of manhood made pure through the influence of a social organization, a league, and a ribbon. CHAPTER IV. “ AFTER LONG YEARS.” Lady Betty, still standing near the doorway, signalled her husband and whispered to him behind her fan, which was a screen of dull red ostrich plumes fastened into a jewelled handle, “ Sandham, love, I do want your help. There’s a colonial agent-general here — 1 forget his name — Sir Yesey Plympton sent him to me with such a letter of introduction — and he has such a lovely shy little beauty of a wife. They have just come, and they don’t know anybody, and she can’t talk to dull people — and our people to-ni?ht are so very dull ! I want you to come and talk to him, and say nice things — very nice things, mind ! — to her. Look ! she is there, cluse to old Lady Fotheringham. Good gracious, what a contrast ! ” And looking in the direction indicated by his wife’s words Sandham Morse saw Koorali. Changed, indeed, but still the Koorali he had seen and bad kept in his mind — more or less, less perhaps rather than more — outlined against the grey sky, with the light of an Australian dawn upon her face. How did she look now ? Far more beautiful, more developed; her face even more expressive; a child of nature turned into a contemplative woman — a woman who had lived, who had had a life, who had been forced by fate to taste of the tree of knowledge. “ Isn’t she pretty ? ” Lady Betty asked. “ Do you know, I think she has a look of me.” Yes ; there was a faint resemblance. It struck him now, struck him curiously, like a breath of icy wind, like a ghost passing. The height, the figure, the form of each stag-like head, the colour of the eyes. But there it ended. Lady Betty’s quick, sparkling glances had not that dreamy far-seeing kind of repose. A ghost ! Of what ? Of a past that had been only a shadow. Of an ideal that had never had any substance ; that had not indeed presented itself definitely to his imagination, but had only glided by, thrilling vague suggestions into thoughts for a little while, and then fading in to less than a memory. It was strange, this flash of vivid sensibility, and out of keeping with his surroundings and with his mood of a few moments before. “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE J 28 He had been watching his wife, admiring her beauty, tact, and self- possession, and enjoying the sight of her popularity. He had paid tho conventional dues with almost a sense of satisfaction. He had too proper an appreciation of drama — of any kind — not to perform even the conventional part of host to the best of his ability. On the whole he had been very happy, in his way, all the evening. The course of recent events had pleased and contented him. He had been sick of his restricted career as a member of a so-called progressive government which was not progressing in anything, and it was an immense relief to him when an odd combination of chances had come in to throw it over. He had not worked against it in any conscious way, he had not really ridden for a fall, he had been strictly loyal to his chief and his colleagues ; but he was sincerely rejoiced when the end came, regarding it as the end of a sham, long endurance of which would be for him an impossibility. He had a keen sense of humour, and had been amused at the idea of a man of his principles entertaining Royalty under his roof — for his ideas and principles were unfavourable to Royalty as an abiding institution. But he was not a pedant even to his own principles, and while Royalty lasted he was quite wulling that it should last and have all appropriate honours paid to it. Still, it w^as curious how, the moment he saw Koorali — of whom, to say sooth, he had not been thinking much of recent years — he remembered her childish talk about sovereignties and republics. The whole scene was before Morse again ; and his mind went back in an instant to all the memories of that morning, to many trivial circumstances and details — little bits of conversation and sympathetic looks — forgotten ever since then, and now suddenly brought back to fresh and living reality by the mere sight of a woman in the corner of a room. Does one, indeed, ever really forget anything? Does not the most evanescent, or seemingly evanescent, emotion make its indelible impression on the heart and on the memory, w T hich it needs only the touch ol the right influence to bring into vivid outlines once again? Morse remembered in a moment Koorali’s own name ; but he had forgotten the name of her husband, whose face he recognized. He had also a dim recollection, now burnished up by the same process of association, a recollection of having heard that Middlemist had married his daughter to a young member of the Government, a man not politically prominent in his own time, but whom he had known slightly, and who bad left an un'avourable impression on him — the very man, indeed, whom be remembered having seen near her on board the steamer that day. The two were together now. Crichton Ken way was speaking to Koorali, and he had the look which a husband sometimes wears when he is obliged to talk to his wife in a large assembly because no one else seems to desire his conversation. Evidently he was commenting upon the people present, and she was listening in a preoccupied way, as though he had not said anything particularly entertaining. He did not lcok the sort of man who would take the trouble to be original “ AFTER LONG YEARS: for his wife’s benefit, though there was a tinge of West End cynicism in his appearance. Morse observed Koor&li’s husband with an interest strong enough to make him quite aware of a feeling of disappointment, even before he remembered who the man was. Why, he could not have said, had be taken the trouble to analyze, unless it were that his fancy encircled Koorali, the bright wild -falcon woman, with a poetic halo ; and there seemed something incongruous in this mating of her with a good-looking, well-mannered man of the conventional type — straight features, sleek close-cropped head, blonde moustache, and fault- less clothes, all complete — who presumably had no more poetry in his constitution than nine out of any ten husbands entering a London drawing-room in the wake of a handsome wife. Morse was obliged to admit, however, that if Kenway was conven- tional, he could not be called commonplace. His long lean neck saved him from the stigma. That very neck, craning now, took Crichton’s gaze full upon an Australian magnate — Lady Betty’s Sir Vesey Plymp- ton — who sheared his sheep in tens of thousands, fattened on the traditions of a lately-acquired historic residence, employed paragraphists to chronicle his doings in society, and patronized, from a sense of a duty, such colonial small fry as agents-general. Crichton moved away to speak to him, and at that moment Morse came forward and caught Koorali’s eye. A look of relief, welcome, and unfeigned delight came into her face. She made a graceful, shy movement, with both hands extended for an instant, then, as if checking the impulse, let one fall, and gave him the other in a formal greeting. It was no surprise to her to see him. She had known to whose house they were coming. She had only wondered if he would remember her, not expecting that he would, yet feeling a little pang when she found that he did not notice her. She had been dazzled by Lady Betty, in whom she felt a peculiar interest, and she had watched Morse as he paid his homage to the Royalties, and did the honours of his house, realizing what an important person he was, noting the look of dignity and of conscious power which had deepened in him, and marvelling that she still felt the thrill of sympathy which had seemed so natural — though it was so wonderful now — when she had sat by his side on the steamer deck, and chattered to him of her puny world. The thoughts of both travelled swiftly and met like the clasped hands. “ Koorali. Little Queen ! ” he said. He could not tell why the words came to his lips. He could not think of any others. He could not see her as a married woman, as the wife of Mr. Anybody. He could only see the bareheaded girl of the Australian morning, whom Judge O’Beirne had called “ The Little Queen.” It was as if a ghost had passed by her, too. An indefinable change came into her face, lasting a second only, but touching him to the quick. He had struck a plaintive chord. The keynote of her life was a sad one. He knew it by a divining instinct that darted straight from him to her, and wer t 3 ° “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE} down to the very root of things. It bewildered him an instant. He said, confusedly, “ I forgot. Time seems so short. A meeting on the other side of the ocean may he like yesterday; and yet a whole ocean of experience lying between.” “Judge O’Beirne is dead,” she said simply. “He died not long after — after my father became Premier. And then,” she added, with rather a pathetic smile, “ people soon forgot to call me by that foolish pretty name.” “ Even the pilots ? ” asked Morse. “ Surely they were faithful to their allegiance.” “ Oh,” she answered, “ I didn’t go back to Muttabarra till I had been married a long time.” “ You married V ” Her straight look forbade polite evasions. “ 1 married Mr. Kenway — Crichton Kenway. He was Postmaster- General in my father’s Ministry — twice. Now they have made him Agent-General for South Britain.” “ I think I heard — I ought to have kept pace better with colonial affairs — but the truth is that the times have been marching fast in England ; and so I suppose that I have lost touch a little of Australia.” “ Ah ! 99 said Kooraii. “ I understand why South Britain seemed such a little place to you, though I thought it so big — then. You are a great man now in the great world.” She looked at him intentty as she spoke quickly but in a low tone. She was thinking of the part he played in that England which was now the greatest conceivable world to her. She was not awe-stricken by him ; but only deeply interested. She was not wondering what memory he had of her, but only absorbed in her memory of him and of herself. Of the two, the Australian girl had the better of it. Kooraii was not in the least embarrassed or conscious ; Morse was like one who is labouring to speak of common things while his mind is in reality trying to find the track of some long-forgotten or half-forgotten idea. There was a rift in the crowd. Crichton Kenway had left, or had been dropped by, Sir Yesey Plympton, and was seen approaching his wife. Morse’s eye fell upon him. “I think that I had the honour of knowing your husband in Australia,” he said, and held out a hand of formal welcome to Kenway. “I am very glad to renew our acquaintance, Mr. Kenway. I con- gratulate you on your important position; and still more, ever so much more, on your marriage.” Kenway, while he acknowledged the greeting, gave a sudden furtive Look at Morse. He was wondering whether Morse meant sincere con- gratulation, and whether he really was taken with Kooraii and thought her attractive and presentable. Kenway was one of those men who only admire through the admiration of some one else. The price he set on anything was the price somebody else would have paid for it. He was curious to know whether Morse, the successful English states- man, the man to whom all eyes in England were turned just now in “ AFTER LONG YEARS * 31 expectancy and curiosity, Morse, the husband of Lady Betty, could really have seen something to admire in Koorali. “ Your wife — I mean Lady Betty Morse ” — he said, in his clear, shrillish voice, “ has been kind enough to offer to call on Mrs. Kenway. May I hope that you will also kindly honour her with a call — some time ? ” Koorali had not the least idea whether it was or was not the custom of English society for statesmen to waste their time in calling on women ; but she felt as if Kenway ought not to have made such a request of Morse. She said quietly — “ Dear Crichton, men like Mr. Morse don’t make calls of that kind, I am sure. I don’t expect it. You haven’t time, Mr Morse, to make calls on everybody.” “ I don’t make calls on everybody,” Morse said ; “ hut you are not everybody. If you will allow me, I shall certainly make an early call on you. I want to talk to you of all sorts of things. I want to ask you about my old friends in South Britain ; I want to hear from you, Mr. Kenway, about all your movements out there.” Ken way had some cut-and-dried remarks to make upon the political aspect of South Britain. Morse listened in silent attention, but his «yes strayed. Presently Lord Arden came up to his host. “ Lady Betty sent me to you, Mr. Morse. I believe the Prince and Princess are going.” Morse introduced Lord Arden to Koorali. “ I shall find you again, Mrs. Ken way,” he said, as he moved away. “ I think I know some relations of yours, Mrs. Kenway,” began the young man, in his easy abrupt way. “ I met them just lately abroad. They’re going to live in our county — Lady Betty’s county, I should say. Hasn’t your husband a place in it ? ” “ Ah ! My little hunting-box, the Grey Manor,” said Kenway in an off-hand manner which did not somehow strike true. “ Bur you are thinking of the Priory-by-the- Water, the place my people lived in for generations. Unfortunately, however, the place passed away from my family before I became its representative. My younger brother has lately bought it back. It was probably that brother — Eustace — and his wife whom you met abroad.” “ Exactly,” returned Lord Arden. “ Your brother I met for the first time. I knew Mrs. Eustace Kenway very slightly last year, when she was Miss Gilchrist, and I was surprised to come across her as a bride. Your brother is to be congratulated; and you also, Mrs. Kenway.” “We have only been a short time in England,” said Koorkli. “I am almost a stranger. I do not know my sister-in-law yet.” “You will take to her. Unlike most — ” Arden’s slight pause was perceptible — “ most women who have a lot of money, she is perfectly downright original and unaffected. I hear that she has set about restoring the Priory-by-the- Water in magnificent style. We shall have one cause of complaint against her, however. I am told that in 3 - “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: her ardour for reform she has begun by scraping the outside of the fine old house — our dear time-worn stone of the Midlands. Mrs. Ken way, you should stop it. You don’t look like a person who could calmly see barbarities perpetrated.” Kenway laughed a little uneasily. He seemed glad of the diversion occasioned by the departure of the Royalties. The conversation dropped, and presently they lost Lord Arden. The crowd seemed to thicken as people moved about more freely. The oppression of great- ness had been heavy. It was now as if a burden had been lifted, a strain relaxed. Tired dowagers could at last sit down and take their rest. The party broke up very soon. Lady Betty’s parties on off- nights at the House were always early. Morse had not returned to the drawing-room. Kenway, roving curiously round, saw him in one of the inner rooms in close conversation with a young diplomatist, an envoy from a great foreign State, sent specially over to settle — some said to unsettle — a serious question in dispute with England. He had be^n pointed out to Kenway ; he was one of the lions of the season. He was quite a young man, handsome, with small, full, silky brown beard, and a sweet smile. He was bamboozling the English Gfovernment., people said. Ken way wondered why Morse should be so deep in conversation with the Special Envoy. “Gan he be putting him up to dodges to worry the fellows now in office?” he thought. Ken way wa9 very carious, and believed himself very observant. He was very observant ; but one may be quick to observe and draw wrong conclusions. The monkey might, with the catspaw of observation, draw out sometimes a cinder instead of a chestnut. Koorali attracted no further attention, and Ken way, dissatisfied and a little peevish, took her away. The Americans still held the position, he ruefully reflected. Clearly, Australian beauty had not yet risen in the market. CHAPTER V. HUSBAND AND WIFE. It was a picturesque and a pretty sight. Lady Betty was sitting in a low chair near the hearth. On the hearthrug, quite close to her, young Lenny had flung himself down. He was at her feet; and, with his head partly turned round, he was looking up into her face with eyes full of admiration and devotion. Her hand was resting tenderly on the boy’s hair, which she was touching with a sort of caress. She was very fond of Lenny, her “ pretty page.” He was devoted to her. Per- haps with her tender feeling for him there was mingled the sense of regret that she was childless ; that no boy of her own would ever stretch himself at her feet and look up to her with love and reverence. It was a pretty sight. So Morse thought as, returning after taking HUSBAND AND WIFE . 33 leave of his last guest, the young Special Envoy, he stopped for a moment on the threshold of the drawing-room and looked on at the two — the young childless wife and the boy. A deep feeling of sadness, perhaps rather of dissatisfaction, came into his mind, however; and if men were really in the habit of sighing, as they do in bocks, Morse would have sighed. Partly he felt for the childless wife; partly, too, his feeling was for himself — not a selfish feeling, but yet a feeling for himself. No thought of jealousy, in the common sense of the word, could have come into his mind. Even if Lenny had not been so young, a mere boy in fact, he could have had no possible feeling of that kind. The sweet purity of Lady Betty’s nature would not have allowed a very Leontes of a husband to admit such a suspicion. But Morse found it brought home to his inmost consciousness that he was not all in all to his wife. A certain tender frivolity in her tempera- ment seemed to make an atmosphere around her in which he could nut breathe. She loved to be amused, and to he amused with novelties ; and Lenny’s open devotion was as a new toy to her. Morae remained on the threshold only for a moment, then he came into the room. Lady Betty looked up to him with welcoming eyes. She still kept her hand on Lenny’s hair, and Lenny remained in his attitude of affection and devotion. “ Come, Sandham, dear,” she said, “ sit down somewhere, and let us talk for a moment before this boy goes home. What will your mother say to me, Lenny, for letting you stay here so long?” “ Oh, she won’t mind,” Lenny said. “ And I like to stay for a bit when everybody else has gone. I say, Mr. Morse, 1 wish you would take me for your private secretary. Won’t you prevail on him, Lady Betty ? He’ll do anything you ask him.” “ Will he, indeed?” Lady Betty asked, with a smile. “ Well, yes; I really believe he would; anything reasonable, Lenny — as long as I don’t interfere with his pet theories — and I don’t mind them. But yon are not quite old enough, dear boy, to be a great public man’s secretary just yet ; now are you ? ” “ Well, but when I am grown up ? ” “ When you are grown up, Lenny,” Morse said, with the peculiarly winning smile which had such a charm in it, “ I promise you I will take you for my private secretary — if you ask me then” There was a melancholy tone in his words which neither Lady Betty nor Lenny noticed. The boy leaped up from his position of prostrate devotion and clasped Morse’s hand in delight and gratitude. “ Come, now, I say,” he exclaimed, “ you are such a good one. Isn’t he good, Lady Betty ? ” “ I think him ever so good,” Lady Betty declared, and she turned to her husband a quick look of beaming affection. She got up, too, and stood upon the hearth in front of the great bank of exotics that filled the air with perfume. She unfurled her fan as if she were thinking, and she looked not unlike some rich exotic flower herself in her robes of Vein tian red. 54 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: What was passing through Morse’s mind at that moment whieh made him shrink from this tribute to his goodness ? Did he not fairly deserve it ? Alas, the truer of heart, the more profoundly conscien- tious, the more honourable of purpose and pure of soul a man is, the more likely is he to feel every now and then some strange pang of awakened conscience. In Morse there was a spirit of self-analysis which is never in itself altogether healthy. Not many of the outer public, not many even among his own associates and acquaintances, would have suspected that there was in the nature of that strong, commanding man, who seemed always to walk straightway his own road, a sensitiveness too delicate, too easily touched and hurt, to allow him ever to be entirely happy. Lenny went home after a few minutes more of talk. “ That child gets fonder of me every day,” said Lady Betty. “ Some one suggested that I should decorate him with a badge. I don’t see why the teetotallers should have the monopoly of ribbons,” she went on, in her pretty inconsequent manner. “ Every one might announce dieir particular line in that way — white for the virtuous, pink for the worldlings, red for the vicious, and so on.” “ The white ribbons would soon get soiled, Betty.” “ Except Lord Arden’s ! I think, however, he might wear a dash of pink too. I’ll institute an order for my friends. Talking of orders, Sandham, it’s funny, isn’t it, that the most prudish country in the world should call her two principal ones the Bath and the Garter ? ” she added, with a laugh. “ What capital spirits you have, Betty. You don’t seem a bit tired.” She made a little gesture. “ I can’t return the compliment. My good spirits are reaction after the strain of the evening. I was in an agony lest Masterson, your Socialist, should make his appearance, and take the opportunity of hurling the gauntlet at Royalty.” “You needn’t have been afraid. This is about the last sort of gathering Masterson would attend.” “I don’t know. One expects something melodramatic from a Socialist. He came once to my ‘ Thursday afternoon.’ I must say, though, that he didn’t know I received on that day. Did I tell you ? Two Cabinet Ministers and Mr. Masterson were announced almost together. I am not very nervous, you know, and I like a sensation — but, after Masterson’s speech about revolution and hanging a la lan - feme ! My dear, the triangular conversation was too funny. For- tunately, Lenny came in, and threw himself into one of his picturesque attitudes at my feet. That turned off the explosion. We jumped backwards into the Middle Ages. Isn’t he a sweet boy, Sandham?” “ Who ? Lenny ? Yes. It seems almost a pity he should ever Morse stopped. “ Ever what, dear ? ” “ Ever grow up to be a man.” “ You gloomy creature ! I wish that we were in the Middle Ages— the real thing, not the sesthetic sham. I hate triptyches, and I can’t HUSBAND AND WIFE . 35 adore Botticelli. Fd make Lenny my page. I think he would be the very ideal of a lady’s page ; don’t you, Sandham ? ” “ I think he would ; and I think you would be the very ideal of a charming chatelaine , Betty.” Morse looked at her with a sudden thrill of affectionate tenderness. Lady Betty’s eyes sparkled with even more than their usual brightness ; and she almost blushed. Morse seldom paid a compliment or said a pretty thing. “ Come,” she said, “ it is nice to hear you say that. You don’t often pay compliments to your wife, Sandham.” “ Still less often to anybody else, Betty.” “Yes; I know,” she went on gravely. “Sometimes I don’t think it would be any the worse if you were just a little more of a lady’s man, Sandham; it looks nice, I think, especially in a grave sort of statesman like you. I shouldn’t be one bit jealous, you know. That reminds me — I hope you will be ever so attentive to my sweet shy Australian beauty. Isn’t she a little beauty — with her sort of wild melancholy, a kind of shrinking look in her eyes — like a wild animal, I think. She will be a success ; she will take London society, you’ll find.” “ I don’t think so, Betty.” “My dear, what do you know about it? Fancy your finding time to notice what goes on in the kind of silly crowd, the ship of fools, that we women call society. Yes; she will be greatly admired. I am going to do all I can to make things nice for her.” “ I am glad of that,” said Morse, with a faint hesitation. “ I should like you to be kind to her, Betty ; and you will find her interesting.” “ I would be kind to any one you asked me to notice,” said Lady Betty sweetly. “ But she will be taken up. Her very strangeness and shyness will be an attraction. What society would despise in a mere provincial, it admires in an American or colonial.” “ Quite true, Betty. You understand your public well. I only hope you and your society won’t spoil her among you.” After a pause, Morse said, with something like an effort, “ She and I are old acquaintances, Betty.” “ Yes, so I hear ; some one told me. Was it you, or she ? ” “We were together on board the same steamer for four and twenty hours. That was the only time I ever saw her. Of course, she was little more than a child then,” Morse added hastily. “ Yes ; of course. Oh, Sandham, by the way — the Prince and Princess were very nice to every one to-night, don’t you think ? ” “ They always are, Betty. They were very gracious to me ; but they don’t much like me, all the same,” he added, with a smile. “Well, dearest, they don’t much like your political goings-on, I suppose. How could they? The Prince rather chaffed me about you this evening. He wanted to know when you were going to start your red republican party, and try to set aside the succession. Of course, he wasn’t serious. But I think it is very nice of them to be so very friendly under all the circumstances.” “ Friendly to you and me, Betty ? ” 36 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE . 5 “ Yes, dear.” “ I fancy they put up with me for the sake of you,” Morse said. And he took her hand in his. “ I dare say there is something of that ; they have always been very kind to me. But, besides, I don’t believe they think you mean any- thing very dreadful, you know.” “ Dreadful ? How dreadful ? ” “ Well, anything very serious.” “ I am very serious, Betty.” “ Indeed, dearest, you are awfully serious ; I mean you appear so to the outer world. I find it hard to make people believe that you are so pleasant and boyish with me — sometimes.” “ And what do you think — you yourself, Betty — of my political goings-on, as you call them ? ” “ Oh, well, Sandham, I don’t mind them, of course. I should like anything you did, and think it all right, in a way. Besides, it is ever so much more picturesque, and interesting, and all that, to be a man with new and odd ideas — a distinct, peculiar figure, don’t you know, than just to be the ordinary commonplace Liberal or Tory. I shouldn’t care one bit to be the wife of a commonplace Liberal or Tory. Oh no ; it is very charming and delightful as it is. I told the Prince so to-night. I told him I would not allow you to be a commonplace sort of politician. And, of course, I told him you meant no harm to anybody or anything; but that a man of ideas must have his ideas, don’t you know ? I couldn’t endure a man who hadn’t ideas. One might as well be married to a woman.” They were still standing on the hearthrug, about to leave the room. Morse took her hand again in his, and said gravely — “ Betty, suppose my ideas and my political goings-on were to end in making me detested by society ; and even making you not so much of a favourite as you are — how would that be ? ” “ But, dear, how could that be ? Of course it couldn’t be. You wouldn’t have anything to do with any goings-on that were not all right; and fancy your doing anything that could make people not like me! It’s absurd!” “There are some terrible evils in society, all round us, Betty. You see them yourself.” “ Do I not ? Do I not always say so ? ” Lady Betty’s eyes became earnest. “ The dreadful poverty, and sin, and crime ? Don’t I always say, Sandham, that we, the rich, are not doing one half, one quarter, what we might do to make the poor around us more happy ? I try to do all I can ” “ Indeed, you do. Ho woman in London does more, and more faith- fully and generously, Betty, in that kind of way. But you know, dear, I don’t believe much is to be done in that wav. Even your own incessant benevolence and charity — well, I fancy it does more good to your own sweet nature and your own soul, my dear, than it does always for those who feel its material benefit.” HUSBAND AND WIFE. 37 Lady Betty, truth to say, was sometimes liable to giving her kind- nesses away to the wrong p rson. “ Yes ; I know I make mistakes now and then/’ she said, with a winsome smile and a still more winsome blush. “ One can’t help making a mistake sometimes.. But 1 mean to become ever so much more wise and circumspect. 'And if I do encourage undeserving poverty sometimes — well, anyhow, I don’t think I fulfil my steward- ship as badly as those wise magistrates who imprison with hard labour the men who go bawling about the streets, ‘Drink is the curse of man, the Lord deliver us from drink,’ and inflict a small fine on the landlord who grinds a living out of the disease and degradation of his fellow- creatures. There 1 A crib out of one of your own speeches, Sandham. Don’t say I never read them.” A change, very slight, but still to be noticed, came over Morse’s face. The eyes seemed to deepen, and the features to become more impassive. There was a tone in his voice as he answered like that in which he might address a child. “Never mind, Betty; don’t try, then, to be wise and circumspect. Go on with your work in your own way ; it can’t fail to do some good to somebody. But I want to try to get bad systems put to rights ; I fancy that is my work in this world, if I have any work at all to do.” “ You think there ought to be a new organization of all our charitable institutions?” Lady Betty asked, with eager eyes. “I do, too. I quite agree with Lady Meloraine on that. Then, you are with us ? That is just what we want. How I wish I had known ; I could have told the Princess to-night.” “ I want a new organization of ever so many institutions, Betty, as well as of your charities ; and I don’t think your explanation would have quite satisfied the Princess. Never mind, dear ; we must only do the best we can, each of us.” “ But if you would only help us,” Lady Betty said earnestly, her mind still occupied only with the idea of the reorganization of certain charitable institutions which Lady Meloraine and she were advocating, “ Lady Meloraine would be so delighted; and the Princess, of course. But we thought you never had time to give any thought to things of that kind.” “I shall always find or make time to give you the best advice I can on anything that interests you, Betty.” He thought it of no use to make any further development of his political ideas just then, and was glad to put away the subject, into which he had gone somewhat impulsively. “ How very sweet of you, dear. But you are always so good to me, Sandham.” “ I shall be so good to you now, child, as to send you off to your bed. I have a few things to look up yet; and some memoranda to make.” “I wish you would take more sleep; I wish you would take more care of yourself. Well, I confess, I am sleepy ; and I am to be up rather early to-morrow.” 33 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? She kissed him and went upstairs. Morse went into his study, where a light was burning. The study was on the ground floor, and opening out of it was a bedroom which he usually occupied during the sitting of Parliament, and at any othei time when he was likely to be late and desired at once to be inde- pendent and not to disturb anybody. It was a comfortable room, though not especially luxurious, and Lady Betty had begged in vain to be allowed to transport to it some of her rare china and art treasures. Books lined three sides of it to within a few feet of the ceiling, and above the oak cases were trophies — American and Australian — calumets, mocassins, buffalo-horns, boomerangs, nulla-nullas, and other native weapons. A solemn grey bird, a stuffed native “ companion,” perched as uncannily as Poe’s raven above its owner’s particular chair. The low deep sofa was covered with an opossum rug. Above the mantel-piece hung an oil painting of a winter scene upon which the sun had gone down — a long flat stretch of landscape, snow-covered, with a straight road reaching to the horizon, and a clump of gnarled willows in the foreground. The sky was grey and cloudy, except for the gleam which the sun had left ; it was cold, dreary, desolate, yet curiously weird and suggestive. The only other pictures in the room were some rough sketches of bold Australian coast scenery, and these hung over the writing-table. Morse tried to settle himself down to a little work in the way of reading letters and memoranda. His habit was to read over a number of letters each night in this way, and make short notes on each of the sort of answer to be given to it. These he left for his secretary, who came early in the morning and disposed of them without further troubling Morse. Correspondence of a more important and momentous character Morse kept for fuller consideration. There were many letters which he always replied to himself, and which did not come under the eyes of his secretary. There were letters, too, of a more purely social order, which he always handed over to Lady Betty, who disposed of them along with her own vast mass of miscellaneous correspondence, To-night Morse did not feel much in the humour for reading letters. His mind, somehow, would not fix itself on their details. Many things had happened that night to set him thinking. Suppose his projects should fail, how would the failure affect his wife, with her sweet bright nature, her beneficence, her delight in society, her unaffected devotion to the great personages whom she loved, her desire for everything to go so nicely and every one to be happy ? Suppose even the projects to succeed, how, still, would it be with her ? Would it have been better if he had, after all, remained — in Australia ? When he got to this thought, he jumped up and would have no more of that. “ I have done right; I am doing right,” he said to him- self. “ I have a duty to do to this country which I love; I can do something for her people ; I am not wrong.” Then he went resolutely at his letters again. Two especially interested him, now that he had put away all thoughts of other things. WIFE AND HUSBAND. 39 The seal of one bore the coronet of an earl; the other had a resolutely democratic brotherhood of man and social equality about it, with its thick aggressive blue paper and the clear hand he well knew. He opened this one first. “ Dear Morse,” it said, “you told me I might see you soon at any time. I will take my chance, and come at eleven to-morrow. I must speak to you. The time is fast coming, and I claim you as the man ; you must be with us.” The letter was signed, “ Stephen Masterson.” “ Poor fellow ! ” Morse said. The other letter was : “ Lord Forrest presents his compliments to Mr. Morse, and will be happy to accord to Mr. Morse at noon to- morrow the interview which Mr. Morse has honoured him by request ing.” “Come, that is something at least,” Morse said. “Not much will come of it, but he will see me, and we shall have left no stone unturned.** The two letters lay side by side, and the fact struck Morse as curious. He had much humour in him, and could stop now and then to be amused by the mere oddities of life. “ Side by side,” he thought, “ these two letters on the same subject — from the extremest demagogue and the last Jacobite peer; the two irreeoncilables ; the one just as hopeless, as unmanageable, as single-minded, as pure of purpose, as the other.” CHAPTEK VL WIFE AND HUSBAND. Crichton Kenway and his wife drove home almost in silence from Lady Betty Morse’s party. They had not very far to go. Sandbam Morse lived at the lower end of Park Lane, and the house which Kenway had taken and furnished was in one of the small streets that lie upon the outskirts of the Belgravian region. It was too much on the outskirts to please Crichton Kenway, who was a person with a clearly-defined social ambition, but it had the advantage of being within easy reach of Victoria Street and the row of buildings devoted principally to the offices of agent s-general for the colonies, and the perhaps greater advantage of being not too outrageously beyond his means. Crichton Ken way found great difficulty in living within his means, not so much because he was given to thoughtless and lavish outlay, as because he had an exaggerated idea of the importance of money and the site of one’s house as a means of social distinction. He was in some ways almost parsimonious, and was annoyed if he did not get to the full his money’s worth. He would grumble at the needless expenditure of a shilling, though to serve an object he would launch into a style of living utterly disproportionate to his income. If, how- ever, he did not gain his object he felt himself defrauded, and was far 40 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE » from taking the loss philosophically. He disliked to be thought poor, and to cut a less imposing figure than his neighbours. He was fond of his personal comfort, and could never practise small economies w T hen that was in question. Thus it happened that his impulses were often at war. He suffered from the horror and inconvenience of debt as keenly as the most prudent of economists, while at the same time he was forced to live face to face with it, and had none of the capacity for reckless enjoyment of the day without regard to the morrow which characterizes the born Bohemian or the well- trained Rawdon Crawley. He was not in an amiable mood this evening. He had been very proud of having compassed an invitation to Lady Betty Morse’s recep- tion, for he understood that she was a leader of society, and that she was married to a prominent member of the late Government ; but, after all, he had not found himself far advanced up the social ladder, for he knew hardly any of the smart people who were there. Nobody paid any attention to him, and though there was a satisfaction in being within a few yards of Royalty, he did not see that practically the fact could be of much service to him. There was a faint consola- tion in the reflection that Morse had talked for some time to Koorkli, but it was evident, that neither Morse nor Lady Betty had thought her worth making a fuss about. They had not introduced to her any of the be-ribboned men, or brought her to the notice of the great ladies ; and KoorMi had not shown to advantage in the brilliant assemblage. She had looked pale, odd, a little scared, he thought. Her dress was not right. She had not that indescribable air of fashion which belongs to the typical London woman. Even her jewels — which had lately come to her by the will of a maiden aunt of Ken- wav’s, from whom he had had but poorly realized expectations, and which had afforded to the husband and wife some innocent gratifica- tion — looked poor beside the magnificent necklaces and tiaras that abounded in the room. She had shown no animation, no ease, no power of self-assertion. She would certainly not take the world by storm. He had believed in her reputation for beauty and originality. There was no doubt that in the colonics she had been thought a great deal of, and every one had prophesied her success in England. He had expected that she would make a sensation when she appeared among the right people. Ken way knew that to achieve social succ( ss it is absolutely necessary to have the entree to a particular set, and Lady Betty Morse had opened the sacred door. He had dreamed of KoorMi elevated to the first rank of professional beauties. He had dreamed of the approving glances of great personages. And lo! KoorMi had made her appearance, and no great personage had re- marked her; no one, indeed, except Morse, who associated her with Australia, had taken any special notice of her. Crichton was disap- pointed and vexed. He felt as a merchant might feel who has bought a diamond supposing it to be unique in size and brilliance, and who finds upon comparing it with other stones that it is only a very commonplace specimen. He looked at her furtively as she leaned WIFE AND HUSBAND. 41 back in the brougham. There was that dreamy expression which always irritated him, for it made him feel that her thoughts were far beyond the circle in which his own revolved, and that he could not follow them. It gave him a vague sense of inferiority, and this he always resented. A right-minded wife would see her husband’s superiority and bow to it. He said nothing, however, but pulled out his cigarette case and began to smoke. Presently the carriage drew up at their own door. The night had come on wet, and Kenway as he got out observed that the coachman had forgotten his waterproof coverings and that his livery was likely to suffer in consequence. Koorali was awakened from a dream of her girlhood — a dream in which Sand ham Morse, Judge O’Beirne, and the Little Queen going forth to see the world stood out with startling vividness — by her husband’s angry tones, as he scolded the servant for his negligence. Kenway usually spoke imperiously to those in his employment, though he had always the conventional English squire’s “Thankye,” and pleasant smile ready on demand for the servants of his country hosts, or even for the inde- pendent bumpkin on the roadside or at the gate. Koorali got down alone, and stood under the portico while Kenway finished his scolding and gave some directions about the horse, before the brougham drove off. “Why didn’t you wait till I had got the door open?” he said, fumbling for his latch-key. “That’s how you get your dress spoiled, and your shoes — a night like this. You are as bad as Drake. These brutes never care how much I have to spend on keeping them decent.” Ken way went in first, and inspected the letters lying on the hall table before he lighted the bedroom candles. He looked over his wife's shoulder while she opened her letters. One contained a card of invitation to a reception at one of the embassies, and it restored Kenway’s good humour. Koorali took up her candle, and was moving towards the staircase. “ Aren’t you coming into the smoking-room ? ” said Kenway, “ I have got a lot to talk to you about. I want to hear what you thought of the evening.” Koorali hesitated a moment, then followed him to his own den at the back of the house. It was a comfortable den, and had a good many things in it that bespoke luxurious tastes on the part of its occupant. In fact, it was in a way symptomatic of its owner. The writing-table looked business-like, the papers were arranged and docketed with great neatness. Some pamphlets and reports lay about, and several publications relating to Australia and to current politics; among them the number of a review to which Crichton had contri- buted an article upon the annexation of New Guinea. He had not written it himself, but he had supplied the facts and got the credit for it. Crichton made a great point of the big Australian- Imperial Question. He cultivated views upon it, and hoped they might bring him into notice. There were not many other books or indications of 4 42 "THE RIGHT HONOURABLE } study. Crichton only read what he thought might be of service to him in his career. His career was a very important object to him, though as yet it was not very clearly laid out. He kept his eye on the future, and at present the summit of his ambition was a colonial governorship. He wanted to be a great man somewhere, and had sense enough to know that he could not, without exceptional advan- tages, be a great man in England. He wanted to make England a stepping-stone, and to utilise his opportunities while he was Agent- General in order to ingratiate himself with the powers at home ; for he knew that his appointment was precarious, and that Colonial Cabinets succeed each other very rapidly. At any time he might lose his post and the income it brought him. There were some guns in a rack over the mantel-piece, a set of sporting prints, and a hunting crop or two. Crichton quite realized the expediency of being — while in the country — imbued with a manly and British love of sport, and of gaining what interest he could in that direction. He had already laid his plans for getting a footing in the particular county to which his ancestors had belonged, and in which was the ancestral dwelling that before his time passed into other hands, as he phrased it. He could not afford to rent a country place, but he had taken an old-fashioned farmhouse, which had in bygone time been a manor house, and had now a certain quaintness and picturesqueness quite in keeping with a modest establishment and affectation of rusticity. Ken way could in imagination hear himself talking of “ my little hunting-box which is nothing to keep up ; but in my old county, don’t you know.” Koorali had got to learn that Kenway did not know the county at all, for his people had left it before his generation, and he had been brought up after a rather humble fashion in quite another part of England. But that was a mere matter of detail. The room, lighted only by a feeble gas-jet and the two little bed- room candles which Crichton and his wife held, had a lonely, dreary appearance, and that peculiar oppressive atmosph-re which belongs to some rooms that have been closed for several hours, and are entered late at night. It is as though all the influences at work during the day had been pent up, and, as if unsympathetic to the incomer, were making themselves aggressively felt. On the other hand, who does not know the indescribable, half-soothing, half-stimulating effect on the nerves produced by the air of a room closed and darkened and lately occupied by some one loved? After the big drawing-rooms in Park Lane, Kenway’s study seemed mean and small, and there was something about it which gave Koorali the fancy that she was enter- ing a prison. She unconsciously drew a deep breath, and loosened her feather-trimmed wrap, which fell away from her bare neck and slim form. Crichton turned up the gas, drew forward the smallest of two leather chairs which flanked the fireplace, and placed himself in the other. “ Sit down,” he said. “ What was Morse talking to you about ? You seemed to be having a long, conversation together.” WIFE AND HUSBAND. 43 Koor&li put down her candle and sat down as he hade her. ‘ We were talking of old times,” she answered. “ Old times!” repeated Kenway. His tone was not meant to chill. It was often meant to be genial, yet to Koorkli’s sensitive ear it almost always had an inflexion of sarcasm. He pulled to him a tray on which stood glasses and spirit decanters, and poured some brandy into a tumbler which he filled from a syphon. “ There couldn’t have been so many of them to talk over,” he said. “ I thought you only met Morse once, when he was on his way home from Australia. I shouldn’t have thought that you remembered much about him.” “] was with Mr. Morse for twenty-four hours on board the steamer,” replied Koorali. “ I remember it very well. I have never forgotten him. He interested me. I thought him like Napoleon.” “He has a look of Plon-Plon, especially now that he has got stouter,” remarked Ken way, in that tone of vague depreciation which always irritated Koorali, though now she was instantly vexed with herself for feeling irritated. “ The meeting there — our talk — I don’t know what — impressed me,” continued K< oiali. “It all came back very vividly this evening. I think it made me a little bit melancholy.” She spoke rather sadly; and she looked at her husband with soft eyes, that seemed to ask his sympathy. “Now I should like to know exactly why,” asked Ken way. “ You are so often melancholy, that it would be a satisfaction for once to get at the reason.” He lit another cigarette, and then removed it from his lips to drink a little of his brandy and soda-water. “ I was such a child. I felt so eager to see life, and I fancied that everything good v^as going to happen to me.” “And haven’t lots of good things happened to you?” exclaimed Kenway, with energy. “ Here you are in England, doing your season in London, and going to all the best houses. It’s more than old Middlemist’s daughter had any riaht to expect.” He laughed to him- self, as if amused at the incongruity. Koorali sat quite still, but her eyes grew brighter and harder. “ Yes, I know. You fancied yourself a sort of princess,” continued Kenway. “ Oh, I remember very well, and that first year of the Middlemist Ministry. Girls in Australia, if they are pretty, get utterly exaggerated notions of their own importance. It’s all a flash- in-the-pan out there — power, good looks, and the rest of it. There’s nothing solid like money or rank. Sandham Morse did well to come to England and try for the real thing, and, by Jove, he has got it.” Ken way leaned back in his chair, and with an expressive gesture shook off the burnt-out end of his cigarette. Koo>ali remained silent. “ You have no reason to be dissatisfied,” said Kenw r ay, his thoughts going back upon themselves. “ It isn’t as though you had had money. If I hadn’t fallen in love with you, you’d have played second fiddle to your stepmother, and you’d have ended by marrying some beggarly official or rough squatter. This is a good deal better than vegetating 44 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. on a cattle station. No, no, my dear, you have done very well foi yourself.” Kenway laughed again. Koorali’s face had chang d. It did not look so childlike. She spoke now with an evident effort at brightness. “Admitted — in a grateful spirit. But, however brilliant one’s lot, Crichton, I suppose one may feel a little regret over youth that is gone V ” “ Nonsense ! ” exclaimed Kenwav. “ I’d lay long odds that you are not as old as lady Betty Morse.” He looked at his wife critically, and seemed to be drawing a mental comparison. “It’s curious what a difference style and manner make in a woman ! ” he added reflectively. “ You and Lady Betty are not unlike. I wonder I didn’t notice it before. You have the same-shaped head and face, and the same sort of complexion and figure ” He paused abruptly, then said, “Why don’t you go to one of the dressmakers or man-milliners who turn out fashionable London women, and get decently set up ? You look pro- vincial — or colonial, which is worse.” “Do you want me to be a fashionable London woman, Crichton?” asked Koorali slowly. “ I think it might be a little difficult to get some one to teach me ; but I can trv.” “ I wa'-t you to make the best of yourself, to hold your own, to say the agreeable thing. I am afraid there is not much use in wanting you 10 be admired and sought after — like Lady Betty,” replied Kenway. “That would be a linle unreasonable, perhaps,” said Koora ! i, her eyes, with their straight clear look, meetim those of her hu>band. “ l have not had the advantages of Lady Betty Morse. I have neither money nor rank. I have not been trained to the groat world. I don’t understand its ways. And ” she paused a second — “I don’t sup- pose that Lady Betty could be persuaded to take me as a pupil. You might ask her, Crichton, if you think that you can prevail upon her, and if you are very much afraid that I shall bring discredit upon you. You should have weighed all this, dear, before you asked a South Britain girl to marry you.” Koorali spoke with a suppressed bitterness, though her voice quavered a little. Cnchton turned sharply upon her. “ You needn’t be so infernally nasty over whnt I say to you for your good. I sup] vise you’ve seen enough of the world to know that South Britain isn’t exactly a school for deportment.” “ Oh yes, Crichton ; or, at all events, 1 ought to have learned it from you. But I am a little bewildered, you know; and I don’t think you quite give me credit for trying to conquer my savage instincts. On the whole I think I deserve some praise for not having danced a cor- roboree 1 efore the Prince this evening. Perhaps it might have amused hun if I had. Anyhow, it would have made him notice me, and you would have liked that.” Ken way did not understand his wife in this mood. He did not quite know how to take her. He got up on the pretext that the gas was flaring, turned it down, and then spoke to her in a different tone. WIFE AND HUSBAND . 45 “ I dare say that you'd pick up things quickly enough, if you took a little trouble,” he said, seating himself again. “ It is not so much a question of trouble, do you think, Crichton, as of time,” said Koorali in the same quiet manne , with its touch oi sarcasm. “ 1 am afraid I am too old to go to a school of deportment in London, though 1 can get taught to make my curtsy to the Queen ; hut I will do my best to take advantage of such opportunities as to-nhht, for instance.” Crichton eyed her from beneath lowered lashes for a few moments ; but she sat looking straight before her into the empty fireplace. “ The fault I have to find with you,” he said presently, with his air of man-of-the-world philosophy and his look carelessly bent in another direction, “is that you don’t hold your own, especially among the family. Every one is liable to slips, but one needn’t have them chronicled. It’s a mistake to play into people’s hands, and my rela- tions are too ready to patronize you and make you seem cheap. I don’t object to patronage, when it’s from my superiors, but I can’t stand it from cousins by marriage.” Crichton paused, glancing again at his wife. The disdainful droop of KoorYIi’s lips seemed to contradict a pathetic, slightly-puzzled look in her eyes. “ You mean your cousin, Mrs. Kevile-Beauchamp. I do not think it matters much whether she patronizes me or not.” The clock on the mantel-piece struck two. She half rose with a gesture of weariness. “ Don't go yet. It does matter ; it affects your position in the family. There’s always a lot of jealousy among relations. That’s the world. They’d sneer away everything that they haven’t got them- selves. The only things that can’t be sneered away are money and social position. Eustace has been clever enough to pick up a Sheffield heiress, and so has got the one. Twenty thousand a year is solid. A man can feel his feet on it. You and I have got to take our stand on different ground, since we have been sold over the old aunt’s legacy. But it is not necessary to proclaim the fact that our inheritance con - sists of some bits of china and a few diamonds. Do you understand, Koorali ? ” “ I think I do. I am sorry to have been indiscreet, and to have enlightened your cousin.” “Oh!” Ken way lifted his chin and drooped his eyelids in a manner equivalent to a shrug of the shoulders. “ The family would have found that out anyhow; but the family isn’t Society, though it would like one to think so. You are not the sort of person a statesman would come to for advice, my dear, or a general either. You don’t know how to keep a position when I have gained it for you by a little strati gv or swagger. Don’t look so scorniul. A wise man knows how to use his tools. Swagger as a tool is not to be underrated. It suits some people. It suits Kitty Nevile-Beauchamp. But I saw at dinner this evening that you had not taken her measure. You were stupid. You annoyed me.” “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' 46 “Is that possible?” asked Koor&li, with ever so slight a tone of contempt in her voice. “ In what way ? ” “ You made me appear ridiculous. When I spoke of the Morses, and said that we were going on there, you did not observe the change in Kitty’s face and take your cue. Kitty Nevile-Beauchamp knows to her cost that to get into that set is an achievement. You rose fifty degrees in her estimation. Why did you not let well alone? Were you obliged to explain that we did not know Lady Betty, and that we had bem asked through the Plymptons? A fool tells the unnecessary truth ot to-day, which may be the lie of to-morrow. A woman of the world holds her tongue. That’s part of the lesson of London life which you have to learn.” Koorali smiled a peculiar sort of smile, and slightly lifted her eyebrows. “The unnecessary truth of to-day may he the lie of to-morrow? Yes; 1 see. I wonder whether the unnecessary lie of to-day might turn out to he the truth of to-morrow? If that were so, don’t you think some men would find themselves becoming unexpectedly tellers of the truth ?” Ken way looked curiously at her; a sort of sinister look it was. Koorali’s dreamy eves had a disconcerting way of seeming to see to the very heart of things sometimes. He kept his composure, however. “Well, Koora i” he said, “a fellow who tells unnecessary lies deserves anything, I think.” “ Deserves even to have his lies of to-day come true to-morrow ? Yes; but in some cases that wouldn’t be a punishment exactly. And that seems a little unjust.” Ken way did not like this sort of thing. “ Anyhow, Koorali, the point is this. You ought to learn the lesson I have 1 een trying to teach you, and not blurt out before people things which it is neither necessary nor desirable they should know. Do you understand ? You are quick enough to understand things when you like.” “Yes,” she said slowly; “I think I understand — I think I quite understand. I am sorry for my mistake of to-night. I ought to have learned my lesson better by this time.” She rose and took her candle, and prepared to go upstairs. She stood for a moment, holding her light with one hand and keeping back her draperies with the other, and she looked at her husband, awaiting his formal caress. The tone of her voice had struck uncomfortably on Kenway. There was, he thought, something uncomfortable in her expression also. It was at va'iame somehow with the giilish softness of her face, with the small, s’ender form in its lace robe that would not puff out here and cling in to her shape there, or assume the folds that fashion ordained, lie lo< khe thought of Morse, playing his part too. No wonder the Australian stage had seemed to him petty. And yet She had a fancy that it was not always reality to him, and that there were moments w hen he felt himself out of place ; as if an experiment had not quite succeeded. Once, when by chance she looked into his eyes straight, she seemed to see Australia gleaming there. Just one of her odd fancies. 48 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: Ken way s step sounded in the hall below, and the bolts grated as he shot them for the night. Koorali started from her dream. She un- clasped her necklace, and smiled a little as she laid it down. She was sorry for Crichton that even his aunt’s diamonds had turned out le^s well than he expected. She took up her candle again, and, without waiting to unfasten her dress, mounted the other flight of stairs to the children’s nursery. Her two boys, Lance and Miles, lay in their cribs. Lance, the eldest, sturdy and unimaginative, with freckled face and his father’s features, was fast asleep, the bedclothes tossed off his robust little form. Koorali only paused to cover him again, and then, shading the candle, knelt by the bedside of the youngest. Miles, who was fragile and precocious, and like a girl with his silky curls and delicate features. He was a strange, thoughtful child, and was often ailing. He stirred as his mother watched him, and the light came on his face. He opened a pair of dreamy eyes, like hers ; and put up his little hand to her neck, looking at her in a half-a wakened way. “Mother, you’re like an angel— I thought it was.” “ I’ve been to a party, darling. Now go to sleep a era in.” But Miles raised himself, and gazed at her wi h troubled child -eyes, under which there were traces of a child’s stormy weeping, lie had gone to bed in disgrace. The brothers had quarrelled. Miles’s temper was fretful and uncertain. He was a little jealous of Lance, who was his lather’s favourite, and whose rough and ready patronage he resented. This evening Crichton had been angry with him, and the boy was sensitive. A sob shook him now. “ Mother, do you forgive me V I want you to forgive me. I can’t bear you not to love me.” Koorali gathered him to her. “I love you always, my little one.” She kissed and soothed him. “ Lance hasn’t forgiven me,” Miles went whispering on. “ I wanted to wake him. I wanted to give him my nine-pins — to make it up ; but he wouldn’t wake.” “ You shall ask him to forgive you to-morrow,” said Koorali. And she lay down beside the boy. In a minute or two the tiny voice whispered again, “Mother, I wish Adam hadn’t been naughty.” “ What put that into your head, dear ? ” “ I don’t know. It’s all because of him. I’m so sad when I’ve been naughty. I don’t like it.” “That’s just the good,” said Koorali; “for if we weren’t sad we should lose being able to care; and there’s nothing — nothing so dreadful as not to care when we are naughty.” “ Do you care very much, mother, when you are naughty and father scolds you ?” asked the boy. “ I try to ; yes, I try to,” said KoorMi, with a throb in her voice. “ I dreamed about the Resurrection,” Miles went on. “ Don’t you wish it was coming ? I wish I was in heaven. I can’t go to sleep for RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 49 thinking of heaven. Mother, don’t you wish we could go there together now — you and me?” Koorali kissed the b >y very gently. She restrained the impulse to press him passionately to her. There was an ache at her heart. This was all it came to! To the tired child, and to the tired young mother, life seemed nothing better than a pageant, and to turn from it a relief. CHAPTER VII. RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. England had fallen upon gloomy days just now, most people said Indeed, it looked like that. Trade was depressed in an ominous way; agriculture was in what seemed uttermost distress ; farms were lying unoccupied and idle all over the country ; there was sullen discontent among the rural labourers; there was bitter, angry, loud-voiced discon- tent among the artisans in the towns. Now, to make matters wor.-e, the shadow of a great war appeared to be forecast over the land. There had been a series of irritating, wasting, little wars with semi-savage desert races here and there ; now everybody said a great war was coming with one of the most powerful of continent d states. The fact was, that for some time many Englishmen had been longing for a big war with somebody — anybody. They were sick of li earing on all sides that England’s fighting days were over ; that she could never again stand up to any enemy more formidable than an Egyptian Arab or a South African Cadre; and they were filled with a wild desire to show that their country had fight enough in her yet. No mood could be more dangerous or less reasonable. One reason why Morse was glad that the Administration he belonged to was broken up was because he saw th it if things went on longer in the same way most of his colleagues would go in for popularity and a war. Morse detested the policy which would provoke a war with such a motive. Pie did not believe that in this particular case there was any just ground of war; he did not believe the State was prepared for war. Finally, if war had to come, he did not believe his party could manage it as well as the other ; and he did not wish them to have its fearful responsibility, suspecting that they were not sincerely convinced of the richt in the policy he feared they would take up. General elections were pending, and Morse hoped to be able before they came on to rouse a strong agitation among the working classes all over the country against war. In the meantime, however, he had good reason to believe that the new Ministers were determined to go in for war at once, and let the elections be taken after the first cannon had thundered. Evidently, the hope of the men now in office was that the constituencies would never change a Ministry while England was in a death-grapple with a strong enemy. Therefore he determined to act at once. He conferred with some influential Radicals, and got “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE} SO their authority to strike a stroke for them. The Court circle was believed to be all in favour of war, but the more reasonable among the aristocracy were understood to have little sympathy with such a policy; and Morse was sure the working classes could be brought everywhere into a determ md opposition to it. If he were to make the first move, relying on the working classes, the chances were that all the aristocra'ic sections and their dependents would hold back from a movement led by a Radical, a supposed republican. But if some great peer could be got to speak out against the war policy, then Morse could lend some effective help from the other quarter. His belief was that the aristocracy and the working classes combined could save the country yet, if only they could be brought to combine. It was with that feeling strong within him that he wrote to Lord Forrest asking for an interview. The day after Lady Betty’s party Morse was to receive Masterson, then to visit Lord Forrest, and after that it was his intention to call, for the fir st time, on Koorali. Morse and Stephen Masterson had been friends at school and at the university. Masterson had started with greater advantages and far greater promise. He had succeeded young to a considerable fortune, and he showed great abilities. At the debating society he was one of the foremost speakers. Morse and he were friendly rivals. Young members generally preferred Masterson ; he had more imagination, they thought. Morse was very clever in caustic analysis and sarcastic reply ; but Masterson had ideas, Masterson had a future before him, Masterson would be a leader of men. Time had gone by, and Masterson now believed himself a leader of men. He considered himself to be at the head of the English social revolution. He stood as a candidate for various constituencies and failed. It might have been better for him if he could have got into the bonds of a parliamentary life. He had married a young woman of humble birth, whom he dearly and passionately loved, and she died before they had many years of happiness ; then their only child died, and Masterson was left alone. Pei haps it was the lack of her sweet controlling influence which allowed him to get all astray; for he had got all astray, society said. He had gone in for all manner of wild continental schemes of democracy, and had tried with all the fervour and passion of fanaticism to make exotic political passion-flowers flourish on English soil. It was he who had the happy thought of effecting a combination between Irish Nationalists and cosmopolitan Red Republicans. The combination did not hold. That, indeed, is jmtting the failure rather mildly. The attempt at combination led to a hopeless quarrel, and Masterson left the Irish Nationalists to go their darkling way. After this he confined his efforts chiefly to Eng- land and Englishmen, and he endeavoured to form a revolutionary party among English working men. He spent his money freely in his propaganda ; but he was not able to make it quite clear to English working men in general what his revolution was to be. It was to pull RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. V down the dynasty, the aristocracy, and all the moneyed classes , £>ut it was not part of the programme, apparently, to show what was to he set up when all these had been pulled down. Men called him vain; some mad, as the eloquent Claude Melnotte says of himself, and, like Claude Melnotte, whom otherwise he did not greatly resemble, he heeded them not. The old friendship between him and Morse had never faded or even flickered, although Morse had been such a brilliant success and poor Masterson such a ghastly failure. It was characteristic of the two men that Masterson did not hate Morse for his success, nor Morse despise Masterson for his failure. Somebody once sa d in Ma'terson’s hearing, “I never could quite make out Morse;” and Masteison instantly said, “Make out Morse — you? why of course you couldn’t. Who ever supposed that you could make out Morse? ” Some one said to Morse, “ Is your friend Masterson a mere madman ? ” “A mere madman,” was the cool reply. “ He has spent a fortune in what he believes to be the cause of the people. You and I, my dear fellow, are not such fools as to do that sort of thing, are we? ” “ I am at home to Mr. Masterson,” Morse said to his servant that morning. “ I am always at home to Mr. Masterson ; but he is coming by special appointment at eleven to-day.” At the fixed hour Masterson made his appearance. He was a tall thin man, who bad once been handsome. He was about the same age as Morse, perhaps a shade younger, but he looked full sixty. His once dark beard was nearly all grey; his face was seamed and lined all over; his eyes were keen, wild, and restless. His long lean hands trembled He was very poorly, or perhaps carelessly, dressed. Yet he was unmis- takably a gentleman — a ruined gentleman. “ Good morning, my dear Morse.” He talked in a voluble, nervous way, and did not often, when he could, give anybody else a chance. “ 1 am so delighted to see you, my dear fellow. How is dear Lady Betty? I haven’t seen her for some time ” “Your fault, old man, not hers,” Morse contrived to strike in while Masterson, who had been walking fast, was taking breath and preparing for a long delivery. “ 1 know, I know; just what I say. Kindness itself, Lady Betty ; I always say so,” he exclaimed, still pacing restlessly up and down. “But I am one of the people — a democrat, a rebel, they say. It wouldn’t do for me to intrude upon Court gatherings or informal Cabinet councils. Every one knows that Lady Betty’s drawing-room is a political meeting-ground; all the better for the purpose, because no one could accuse her of being a female diplomatist, and because you are — what you are. Oh, what might you not be, now that you have cut yourself loose from the mob of aristocrats and capitalists?” The demagogue paused for a moment, and, lifting his thin hands, eyed Morse with tragic earnestness. “ Sandham, Sandham, if you had chosen a wife as I would have had you choose ” THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' “A woman’s rights’ oratress or a shrieking female philosopher, instead of a member of our effete and corrupt aristocracy,” said Morse with a laugh. “Never mind, Masterson; we won’t discuss Lady Betty from that point of view, anyhow. Sit down, and let us talk in earnest.” He seated himself in one of the big leather armchairs, but Masterson did not at once take another. “Look here!” he exclaimed, still pacing restlessly up and down, “ I want just to say a few words to you. You are a busy man ; so am I.” Poor Masterson delighted in believing that some tremendous transactions were always awaiting his coming for their satisfactory settlement. “ I have another engagement almost immediately, down at the East End — I should say seven miles from here. But yours is the more important, that I will say — the more important.” “ I haven't any other engagement for nearly an hour,” Morse said. “ I am always glad to see you ; always glad to hear your views and projects.” “ They will soon be something more than projects. They will be great historical facts,” exclaimed Masterson excitedly. “You haven’t believed in me; you have said to yourself that I’m all gas and denunciation. But you shall believe in me, and what is more, Sandham, you shall help me to save England.” He drew up a chair to the writing-table, and went on in his former tone. His manner was a curious combination of fussiness and rather melodramatic declamation; and the two styles seemed to alternate with each other. “ 1 should like to help yon in that” Morse said. “Thanks!” he said. “Yes, I know you mean it, dear old boy; ever so good of you. But you were always like that. Well, I shan’t keep you a quarter of an hour — this time, at least. What I want tc ask you is this, Morse. You have broken away from your old moorings — God be thanked and God bless you for it ! — Will you come with us?” He laid his hand on Morse’s shoulder and gazed into his face with an expression of painful anxiety and entreaty in his glittering dark eyes. There was a moment’s silence. The ticking of the little clock on the chimney-piece was heard distinctly. Morse was looking at Master- son ; but their eyes hardly met. Morse was thinking to himself ; he was asking himself, “Is there anything in this? How, if he should net be the mere fanatic, and craze, and crank all men ot the world say ho is ? Plow, if he should have got hold of a true idea, and should come in the end to have a people behind him? He would not be for this war.” “Look here, dear old friend,” Morse said at last, “you know what I think of you, and I needn’t say anything on that score; but 1 don’t really know much about your cause or your objects or your following. I am not a thinking man; I want to be a practical man. 1 honour the thinking men; 1 respect even the dreamers. I am sure we should have but a poor and pitiful world of it if it were not for the dreamers. Their dreams of the morning become our realities of the afternoon. ] RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 53 know all that ; but I haven’t time, and I suppose I haven’t patience. Anyhow, 1 feel that that isn’t my line. I am good lor nothing off the firm ground of practical, commonplace politics. Now, what I want to know is this: Are you and your people on the firm ground of practical politics? Is your ideal attainable — in our time? Is it within possible reach in this next generation or so? I don’t stop now to ask, is it a true ideal ? — I take it on your word that it is. But, what are its chances at the present? What is your following? What numbers are behind you? What force of intelligence is with you?” Masterson’s bright eyes dilated. His nervous fingers interlaced as he listened. “ Morse, you talk like a statesman and like a man. I could not have asked for better, and yet I might well have expected as much from you. All we want is to have our cause and our capabilities tried and tested. All l want of you is that you should judge for yourself. Come and study us; see if we have not the English people behind us. Come and see.” “ How can one come and see? ” “Will you talk with some of our representative men? That will not put you in any false position.” “ My dear Masterson, 1 don’t care one straw what position I am put into, false or true, so long as I have a chance of informing myself as to the real strength of any movement which I am told is popular and important. I am staking a good deal as it is; I am not afraid to risk a little more— if there is any risk. How can I see your representative people, and when?” Masterson leaned his head upon his hand and thought for a little; then said, with a certain hesitation — “Well, the best time to see some of our best men would be on a Sunday evening. Would you mind? Sunday is their free day. You see, Morse, our best men are not swells or smart people.” “ My dear Masterson, I know perfectly well that you don’t now cast in your lot with swells and smart people. I know that you have deliberately come out from among the swells and smart people; and I don’t look much to them for the regeneration of England. I want to see your men.” Masterson’s eyes lighted vith joy. “ The sooner the better ! ” he exclaimed. “The sooner the better, certaiuly.” “ Next Sunday evening?” “Next Sunday?” Morse said, thinking it out. “Next Sunday; let me see. Lady Bettv keeps count of my social engagements for me; but, oh ye>, I remember. Next Sunday, Paul ton, the new American Minister, dines with us, and I take him on to the Universe Club after- wards. That won’t be very late, however. I could go with you then. Do your people mind sittii g up late?” “They would sit up a week for the chance of a conference with you,” said Masterson, enthusiastically. 54 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: “ Well, now, look here ; suppose you dine with us on Sunday. We’ll go with Paulton to the Universe after; and then you shall bring me i } meet pour friends.” Masterson seized at the proposal. “ 1 should like that of all ihings. I should be delighted to have a lalk with Paulton. I did meet him once, in the Senate House at Washington, years ago. He could tell me a lot of things that I pa'ticularly want to know. But ” and he seemed to demur. “ But, then, some of your people won’t care to meet me, Morse, any more.” “We have only Paulton and a very few others — people you would like to meet and who would like to meet you — on Sundiy; it isn’t reallv a dinner-party. Even if it were, what would that matter?” “ Well, one thinks that it might perhaps embarrass Lady Betty. I am so unpopular, Morse, in what is called society, you haven’t an idea; people of that kind do so hate me ! ” “My dear fellow, when, do you think, did Lady Be f ty ever turn a cold shoulder to a man because he was unpopular?” Morse answered, a little impatiently. “We don’t go in only for smart people.” Master-on threw a queer little glance at his friend. “ Lady Betty looks upon us all as so many play-actors,” he said. “She composes her social circle as Dore might one of his big pictures. She doesn’t care what we think so long as we make up a picturesque background and don’t crowd her principal figures. But I wonder what she’d say if she knew that we were going to pull down her pretty institutions— if she thought that we were really going to depose her dear Prince and Princess? 1 fancy she might turn the cold shoulder on us all then.” Morse’s face darkened. He looked annoyed, and Masterson was not too full of one idea to see that he had gone too far. He went on quickly — “ At any rate, Morse, I’ll he here on Sunday, and Pm much obliged to you for asking me. Then you will come and talk with my people. Morse, I am no prophet, but 1 can see that this may be a great day for England. ” He rose from his sent, his eyes aflame with enthusiasm. Morse shook his head. “Don’t be too sanguine; don’t expect anything from me. You know that you have accused me of having lately become horridly practical, and unenthusiasdc, and calculating. I don’t believe I shall be able to go with you; but it shan’t be said of me that I refused to hear what >ou have got to say.” “Thanks, thanks; a thousand thanks! That, is all we could ask of you just yet. Come and see and hear. The revolution is readv. It waits only for the man and the signal. You are the man — not I. It is mine to agitate — not to lead. It shall be yours to give the signal.” He wrung Morse’s hand in gratitude, and there were tears in his eyes. Then he abruptly bade Morse good-bye. Morse had thought it more prudent not to say anything to Master- RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 55 Bon about the prospect of war. It would be much better, he felt sure, to find out for himself in the first instance what the strength and what the spirit and purpose of Masterson’s puty might be, it, in fa t, it n-ally was a political party at all, or only a knot of ignorant enthusiasts in a back room. Masterson went off in full delight. It was always his way t<> think anything gained which he desired to see gained; and imw his mind was filled with the conviction that he had only bring Morse face to face with his party in order to satisfy Morse that the people of England w< j re with them, and that Morse’s place was at their head, lie was utterly without selfish ambition ; and having spent his fortune on his ideas, it would be the crown of his life if he might now say to his followers, “Behold, I have brought you your leader; your heaven-sent leader, whose place it was my duty for a time to fill. I have brought you Sandham Morse, and now I fall into the ranks.” Morse could see all this well enough. Lie was thinking of it as he went towards Lord Forrest’s house; he was turning it over and meditating on it in his peculiar way. Morse was sincere when he spoke well of the dreamers. For ail his practical training he wa> a good deal of a dreamer himself. The moment the practical part of his mind went off guard, if we may put it in that way, Sandham Morse instantly relapsed into a dreamer. Tie had observed this him sell, and was amused by it sometimes. Lord Forrest lived in a great gaunt old house in a great gaunt old square. The house looked somehow as if it ought to be empty; like- wise as if it ought to be occasionally visited by a ghost. One expected to see a hatchment upon it, and by a curious association of ideas it brought Balzac and Thackeray at once to one’s mind. Lord Forrest never entertained, never had company of any kind When his son had friends to dine with him — for Lord Arden was encouraged to amuse himself in any way he pleased — his father hardly ever made one of the company. When the friends were very intimate indeed, Lord Forrest sometimes came in after dinner and smoked a cigarette. Yet he was not by any means an ungenial man, and when in the mood for talking he was a very good talker. He liked some women very much; Lady Betty, perhaps, most of all. He would never go to her house when there was any stranger there ; but he was of ;en well pleased to go and have luncheon with her tete-a-tete , or for her to come to his house and have luncheon with him. Of Morse he knew little more than the fact that he was Lady Betty’s husband, and was a very sincere and honourable man, but an extreme politician who was the idol and hope of parliamentary democracy. Lord Forrest was looked up to by everybody as a man of great ability, and, apart from his own peculiar views, principles, and pre- judices, a man of great judgment and force of character. His territorial influence was vast; his political influence might have been vast if he had chosen to keep it in any manner of exercise. But he took no part m political life now ; he had altogether given up attending the House THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 56 of Lords. He had only once spoken in that House, and that was when 6ome sudden and unexpected debate brought up a question concerning the Conservative party, its historical position, and its foreign policy; then he rose and spoke for more than half an hour, astonishing every one who heard him by the singular power and eloquence which he dis- played, and by his scorn alike for the modem Tory and the modern Whig. There was a cold clearness about his argument which reminded older members of Lyndhurst, until towards the end he warmed into a sort of half-poetic impassioned style in denunciation of the foreign policy of both parties, which recalled some of the bold and thrilling bights of Lord Ellenborough. When he sat down, every peer felt convinced that a new and a great career was opening. Lord Arden, much younger then, and just returned from wandering in the South Seas, happened to come in front of the throne where privy councillors and the sons of peers are privileged to stand. He was at once struck with the argument, the eloquence, the style of the speaker. But the place was crowded, he could not see well, and did not know until the speech was done that it was spoken by his father. It was Morse who told him ; Morse was standing in front of him. Since that unexpected display Lord Forrest had never spoken, and only once appeared in the House of Lords. Lord Forrest did not, however, discourage his son when Lord Arden desired to become a member of the House of Commons. He gave him, indeed, all the help and encouragement he needed; but he did not afterwards talk much with him about politics and his parliamentary career. Nobody knew why Lord Forrest kept himself thus apart from active life. People talked of some great disappointment which had come on him ; but nobody seemed to know what it was or to have any particular reason for believing that anything of the kind had really happened. Every one knew that he detested both the great political parties, and that he denied the right of the reigning family to sit on the English throne. He was still a devoted adherent of the Stuart cause. Lord Forrest, be it understood, was not merely a sane man, but a man of sound sense and clear understanding. He was well aware of the fact that he was living in the nineteenth century, and that the lineal descendant of the last Stuart king no longer looked on the earth. He had neither hope nor purpose of dethronii g the reigning family. But he denied that because he lived in the nineteenth century he was bound to accept all the nineteenth century’s ways; and he refused to see that because a certain dynasty was firmly established on the throne he was coj demned to allow it to become established also in his con- science. Therefore he refused to join in any acknowledgment of a revolution which he believed to have been impious, or of a throne which he believed to be set up in opposition to divine precept. A wrong he insisted was a wrong always. There w^as no statute of limitation to give it legal sanction. A tolerant man as regarded others, he was rigid in ruling himself; and he would not conform to the ways of the time. So he lived his own life apart. He travelled, he read, RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE, 57 he enjoyed scenery and skies, and sunrises and sunsets ; he loved art and antiquities and curios ; he was singularly well acquainted with history and with literature; he was a linguist and even a scholar, reading new books as well as old, and not scorning even to read the daily papers ; but for the rest living his own life almost as completely as though he were a hermit in the Thebaid. As Morse came up to Lord Forrest’s heavy stone portico and was about to ring, the door opened, and Lord Arden came out. The young man, who, notwithstanding his occasional diatribes against social shams, was shy like his father, slightly coloured on seeing Morse. They exchanged a word or two of formal civility. “I know my father is expecting you,” Arden said ; “ he is in his study. You don’t know the way, perhaps. Let me show it to you.” He showed Morse the way and then left him. “That young man doesn’t like me,” Morse said to himself. “I know it.” He would rather, somehow, that Lord Arden had not seen him there, and had not known anything of his coming. “Of course he will tell Betty he saw me here, and she will wonder why I came here, and what I could want of old Forrest — who is fond of her, but never made the smallest approach to me ; and I couldn’t make it all clear to her. She wouldn’t understand me.” All this crossed his mind in the few seconds which passed while he was entering Lord Forrest’s study. He had never been there before, and just now his mind was too full of anxious thought for him to observe the indications the room gave of the virtuoso and man of letters. Lord Forrest’s study suggested a combination of the Hotel Cluny and the library of some old Italian palace, It was full of curiosities, rare hooks, old miniatures, and bric-a-brac arranged with the loving care of a connoisseur, if not the taste of a woman. The furniture was all beautiful and quaint, some of it inlaid, none of a later date than the Regency. On the mantelpiece was a clock by Bouehier, unique of its kind. Here was a wrought iron frame with a medallion likeness in repousse silver of Marie Antoinette; there a Catherine II. gold snuff-box, with enamel paintings by Van Blarenberghe, which had been bought out of a celebrated collection. Lord Forrest was standing before a plaque of Gubbio ware painted v\ith a Madonna, gor- geous in colour, full of gold lustre and the inimitable ruby red, the undoubted work of Maestro Georgio, as seemed conveyed by the delicate satisfaction with which its owner contemplates it. Lord Forrest turned as his visitor entered. He w r as a tall, stooping, but stately old man, with a small white beard, peaked in a fashion that suggested the wearing of an Elizabethan ruff. His hands were very small and white, and somewhat shrivelled. His eyes were a deep dark, contrasting curiously with his white hair and beard and eyebrows. The eyes did not seem those of a man born to be a recluse and a dreamer, although the shy, reserved, almost shrinking manner would have given evidence to any keen observer of the sort of life which had for years been contracting round that wasted face and figure. Lord * THE RIGHT HONOURABLE} 58 Forrest came forward with dignified cordiality, and addressed some welcoming phrases to his guest — at first with a perceptible hesitation, which he conquered and banished by an equally perceptible effort. Then he spoke with great deliberation and distinctness, every syllable falling on the ear like the sound of a drop of water. “I am much honoured by a visit from Mr. Morse. I do not say this merely, Mr. Morse; I feel it. I feel, too, that I ought to have put myself more often in the way of seeing the husband of a very dear young friend. But I am a strange and lonely man, Mr. Morse, and my odd habits grow on me.” Morse’s answering smile seemed peculiarly sweet, because when he was approaching the old peer there was something commanding in his air, and the expression of his face was more than usually resolute. “ I am much obliged to you, Lord Forrest,” he said. “ I know of your ways from my wife; and if I didn’t, I should feel rather more courage than I do with regard to the object of my visit.” Lord Forrest bowed and seated himself, motioning Morse to a chair and waiting for him to go on. “May I ask, Lord Forrest, that you will consider as strictly private what I may say to you — in the event of your not seeing your way to agree to what I propose?” Lord Forrest’s impassive look changed for a moment to one of alert interest. Then he became coldly dignified again. “I readily give that promise. No one who has heard anything of Mr. Morse can suppose he is a man to seek out or to offer unnecessary confidences.” Morse paused a moment, and looked steadily at his companion. “ Thanks, very much. I shall come straight to the point. You are not fond of much talking any more than I am. Look here, Lord Forrest, you do not mix much in the active world, but you love your country, her people, her honour, and her interest?” “Very dearly; you do me no more than justice.” Lord Forrest did not express the slightest impatience in look, gesture, or word. He did not seem as if he wi lied to ask, “ What is all this coming to?” “Very well. You are not content with the present condition of things in England?” “Far from it. Who that loved England could watch her decay with content?” “ You see, of course, that we are drifting into a great war, and that we are in the wrong? ” “ I cannot help seeing it.” Lord Forrest bent a little forward, his voice took a sharper tone. “I see it with pain. I must say also, Mr. Morse, your people were drifting into a war just as much as these men now in office.” “ I know it ; I admit it to the full. That is the curse of the present system. Our fellows wanted to be popular. These fellows in now want to go one better. They will provoke a war, I firmly believe* before the elections, if th< y can, in order to keep in office.” RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 59 “Yes; I dare say. It is a shame and a scandal. But I have no doubt your forecast of the situation is perfectly just.” “ You know,” continued Morse, “ how easily a war spirit can be got into force. Some snub to our ambassador, some scrimmage on a frontier, a few leading articles about the flag of England, and there you are ! We shall have the man in the streets shrieking about the honour of England, and the bald clerk on the top of the Islington omnibus insist- ing that the Ministry must declare war or resign.” Lord Forrest smiled a faint smile. “ Mr. Morse, for a Radical, doesn’t seem quite a believer in the super- human intelligence of the lower middle class ” he said. “I don’t believe in the superhuman intelligence of any class. But in this instance 1 am sure the working men are all right, and I fancy the best of your class, L< >rd Forrest, are right enough also. '1 he ques- tion is, can we act together ? ” Lord Forrest stroked his pointed beard with one thin nervous hand. “ I am sure I should have no objection. I hope, Mr. Morse, you don’t think I have any paltry prejudice against the working class, or any disinclination to go heart and. hand with them ? I mean, of course, if there were anything I could do, which there is not, I am afraid.” “Yes; there is something you can do,” Morse said bluntly. “ What is that, pray ? ” “ Go down to the House of Lords, make a speech— moving for papers or asking a question, or anything of the kind. Denounce the policy which is now conspiring to make a war in order to keep in office. You will find the best men in the army and navy with you, for they know — who could know so well? — that we are not prepared for war. We will support you— my Radical working men. I will strike the same note in the House of Commons, and it shall be echoed from a hundred platforms. Between us we shall kill that war, and perhaps the sort of policy which engenders it.” Lord Forrest was silent for a moment. “ Have you considered, Mr. Morse, what responsibility they would take on themselves — when the general elections were over, 1 mean — who had killed that war policy ? ” “ I have ; of course, 1 have. I should never have come to see you if I had not. If we fight the elections on this platform, and if we win, then we must take the responsibility. You must form an Administra- tion, utterly independent of party. I will support you — I will join you, if you like.” The two men looked straight into each other’s eyes. Lord Forrest was startled. Yet he evidently did not wish to show how strongly the proposition had affected him. His face would have been a curious study. He did not speak. One elbow was resting upon a table beside his chair. He made a movement and a little silver patch-box on tho table rolled to the ground. He picked it up before he answered. “Ia Prime Minister ! ” he said at last. “ I think,” he added slowly “that at this crisis England needs a stronger bulwark*” 6o THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: Morse rose from his chair and stood by the hearth. “ Are we not,* he began with energy, not heeding Lord Forrest’s protest — “ are we not despised abroad, and miserable at home? Have we not drifted into a policy of petty, paltry, never-ending wars with wretched half- civilized races, whom we massacre, no one knows why ? Are not our people at home cruelly taxed and miserably poor ? Isn’t trade pining? is not agriculture ruined? Is there not a social revolution seething around us and beneath us ? Have we not a horde of the poor in every quarter and every street, who, if they could only find a common watch- wor.l and make a common cause, would sweep off the face of the earth the wretched sham we call our civilization? Are not these things true ? Do I exaggerate ? ” “These things are true— too true; and you do not exaggerate, not in the least. But what do you propose to do ? whom do you blame?” “ Lord Forrest, I blame you, and I blame myself, and I blame every man who has any influence in this sinking country and does not exert his influence to put a stop to the wretched system of party govern- ment which m>kes the fate of a whole people only a stepping-stone to office. The mass of the people must be brought into touch with the Government before anything can be done for the prosperity or the honour of this country. Well, l have, of course, ideas of my own which I couldn’t expect you or any man of your class to share. I have lived and been an active politician in the United States and in some of our colonies; and I have got to understand the value of government by the people. I am a republican in principle, Lord Forrest ; but I haven’t come to talk to you about that. I have come with quite a afferent idea — just to fight against this criminal scheme of war. 1 am pretty strong, I think, with what we may call ‘ the people* for want of any better description. It sounds too like a phrase from a Radical stump-orator or a Radical Sunday paper; but it con- veys a distinct meaning. I am very strong with the people, and after the next elections shall be much stronger. Very well ! You are very strong with the aristocracy, or could be, if you liked. I pat aside my own ideas for the present, and I ask you, Will you join with me and help me to secure peace for England, and with peace the inestimable blessing of a Government which shall have nothing to do with party, and will at least govern the country for the people until the time comes when it can be safely governed by the people ? ” Morse said all this in a low, deep tone, with no gesture of any kind ; the intensity of his earnestness only showing itself in his eyes and in a certain quivering of the veins in his strong hands. He had stood up when he was beginning to speak, but it suddenly seemed to him as if to talk standing up had too much of a theatrical aspect, and, after a minute, he quietly resumed his seat and went on with what he had to say. Again Lord Forrest stroked his beard as if in deep thought, and his white brows bent over his dark eyes, which gazed fixedly at the Gubbio RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 61 Madonna, their lustre encouraging Morse to hope that he had inspired the recluse with thoughts of action. “Are you really serious, Mr. Morse? Do you really ask me — me, of all men in the world — to go into public life and to take part in a Government ? ” “ Precisely, Lord Forrest ; that is what I do ask you to do. In all your class you are the only man who could do what I want done. You were never a professional politician ; all who know you or any- thing of you Avould trust you to the full. The people, as I call them, think highly of you, the poor all adore your son ; your great ability is known everywhere, and it is all the better that it hasn’t been shredded away in a life of political struggle.” Lord Forrest made a gesture of deprecation. Morse went on, “ Only tell me to-day that you are willing to take the lead of an Administra- tion which is to have no concern with party, and I will tell all those over whom I have any influence that they are best serving their country when they insist on putting you at the head of affairs. All the strength I have shall be yours. If you desire it, and will accept my services, I will serve under you. Come, Lord Forrest, think it over, at least. The peoj le of this country do not wholly hate and despise their own aristocracy — yet. Let them come together; give them a chance. You are the only man who can do it.” Lord Forrest rose abruptly, and made a few paces forward and back again. Morse remained waiting the effect of his words. “Mr. Morse, 1 am, I might almost say, bewildered. You are a leading man in politics, a practical man, a man of great ability and influence. What you say must, therefore, have something in it worth the attention of any one; and yet I cannot undei stand all this. Remember that I have never taken any part in politics. 1 know nothing of the management of public business.” “ That is exactly why we wane you.” “ We ? Are there others ? ” “ Yes. I have not ventured to make this appeal to you on my own part merely. I did not think it right to sj eak to you until I could be certain that I spoke lor others as well, and that 1 could give you all the strength and support I am now able to offer. I can offer to you, Lord Forrest— to you, who are, I believe, in principle, a strong reactionary— the supi ort of the great mass of the democratic party in this country. They look to you, not as a reactionary, but as a high- minded man ; as a man of commanding abilities and influence; a man of authority. We are sick of party government. We believe it has degraded us and weakened us; kept our poor poor, and our ignorant ignorant. We ask you to try a better system, and we say that, reactionary though you be, we, the tree democrats, will trust in you and give you our most cordial support, and call for you from every platform in the country.” “ And you, Mr. Morse,” Lord Forrest said, with a grave and gracious smile, “you declare yourself willing to take office with me 62 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? in an Administration; yon, who people say have only to wait for the general elections to become the Radical Prime Minister ? ” “ I am willing to take office with you, under you, to take any office, and to postpone my Radical purposes until we shall first have saved the State.” “ 1 wonder how many of my friends would believe this if they were to hear of it on any authority but that of you or me? Now, Mr. Morse, I will answer you. Well, I cannot but feel greatly compli- mented and gre itly honoured bv what you have said of me, and by the confidence which you are willing to place in me. But you have over- lated ai together my abilities and my influence. I am quite unequal to a part such as that which you are kind enough to think I still might play. Twenty years ago; ten years ago ; perhaps even five years ago I might have had the mental and bodily strength ; I might even have had some of the inclination, Mr. Morse ; but then, as now, there would have been one insuperable difficulty.” “ I have heard something of that,” Morse said; “but surely, Lord Forrest, a mere scruple, a sort of punctilio, of that kind, is hardly serious enough to prevent a patriotic Englishman from doing a duty to his country ?” “ It is not a scruple or a punctilio with me, Mr. Morse ; it is a set and fixed principle. I can hold no office under a dynasty made by a revolution. I respect the reigning sovereign for her personal virtue and her great good-will to her people ; I respect all her family because of my respect for her : but I cannot in my conscience do any act of homage or recognition to the House of Hanover. It is impossible, Mr. Morse. I am not an opportunist.” “Nor I,” Morse said almost roughly; “hut surely we must take realities as we find them. Here is the House of Hanover ; we have nothing to put in its place.” “No? 1 had always understood that Mr. Morse would, if he could, put something in its place ? ” “A republic? Ye*, Lord Forrest, certainly, with all my heart ; I would if I could. But I don’t see much chance just at the moment, and in the meantime I think we must do the b.st we can for the country with the means at our hand.” “ Your case is different, mine admits of no argument. You are young, you are strong; you have your place and your work in politics; you are a distinct power and an influence. Even in my hermit life I find some sound of your career borne in upon my ea s every now and then, as a lonely man in a study or an invalid in his bed might h^ar the sounds of a military hand marching past. You may well think you are bound to make the best of things as they are. But I have no call to politics; I have given np all place in political life. I do not feel that I have any “mission,” if I may use that rather grandiloquent word. I do not believe I have any longer the capacity to do any real service to the country. 1 don’t believe I, or you and I together, could prevent this war ; and I may safely indulge my scruples, even if KOORALI AND HER REEDS . 63 they were no more than scruples. No, Mr. Morse; it cannot be. Deeply as I feel the honour you have done me, I must refuse.” “1 am sorr>,” Morse said bluntly, and he got up. “But you are not sorry that you have c<>me to see me, I hope? You are disappointed, no doubt; but not sorry that we have had this talk together?” “Certainly not, Lord Forrest; and I don’t know that T am even disappointed; f»r 1 did not really expect that I should be able to pre- vail on you. But I thought i would do my best, and at least leave no stone unturned.” “ I am very glad we have met,” Lord Forrest said, rising ; “ we understand each other — for the first time. I have heard you spoken of as an ambitious and self-seeking man. I now see that you are a patri- otic Englishman; 1 respect you; and I shall always believe in you, whatever tongues may speak against you.” They parted without many more words. Morse went away much impressed by the futile chivalry, the heroic scruples, the inflexible, hopeless purpose of the old man ; the last surviving champion of the Jacobite lost cause ; the man who was faithful to its memory when nothing but a memory of the vaguest kind was left. It had been an effort to him to make up his mind to go to Lord Forrest, whom he only knew through Lady Betty, and of whom he knew that Lord Forrest would not have him Lady Betty’s husband if he could. Truth to say, Morse felt sometimes a little “sat upon ” by his wife's royal friends and noble relatives; and a little inclined to let the spirit of republican democracy rise up within him in aggressive self-assertion. But he stifled his objections, and he sought an interview with Lord Forrest in the honest belief that it would be well for the country if a Ministry on a new principle could be formed under such a man, and would speak bravely out for peace. “Well, I have done my best,” he thought; “and now I am free again to walk my own way. I must see whether there is anything to come of Masterson and his democrats. I doubt if they have any stiengtb behind them; but let us see. I wish to Heaven it could be made to appear th«t Masterson is not the crazy fanatic eve>y one says he is. But even if everybody is right, 1 shall have done no harm by giving my old friend a chance of proving that everybody was wrong.” CHAPTEE VIII. KOORALI AND HER REEDS. Morse then turned in the direction of Koorah’s house. He was going to make his first call on her. Even if* he had been likely to forget his engagement it could not have gone out of his mind, f«>r that morning, as "he was leaving the house, Lady Betty herself asked him to call at Mrs. Ken way’s, and ask her to come to dinner in a friendly way, and "THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 64 then go with Lady Betty to one of Mr. Whistler’s ten o’clock lectures. But Morse would not have forgotten in any case. He was much interested in Koorali ; more perhaps than he really knew ; more at least than he actually thought of. To certain men a woman is sometimes like a strain »>f music, accompanying without consciousness on their part all the movements of their minds. One sits at his desk and is writing, and all the time some sweet soft notes of distant music breathe into his ear and his soul, and poeticize his commonplace prosaic work in a way of which he is hardly conscious or not conscious at all. So it was with Morse just now. The Koorali music-note was with him while he was arguing with Lord Forre>t and when listening to Master- son. It was with him as he walked through the hurrying noisy streets, and thought of the approaching political struggle and the part he might have to play. Morse was in many ways a lonely sort of man. Perhaps he was too busy to have time to be anything but lonely ; for he was capable of close companionship and warm affection. T \ he truth was he did not stop to think much about companionships ; and he felt that he had from his wife all the affection that a man of the world is entitled to, or could want, or could know what to do with. To-day somehow he felt younger and not quite lonely. Koorali was alone. He was shown into the drawing-room. The windows, back and front, stood open, and, though it was London, there was a gentle sighing breeze, and summer’s breath still filled the place. The light was soft, however, shaded by outside blinds. He could not associate her with broad hard noonday. She was too tender, too sweetly serious, too poetic. This fancy glanced through his mind as his eye fell uj on her standing by a basket of reeds and bulrushes — rough, country, sedgy things — and a mass of ox-eyed daisies. She wore a white dress that clung about her as her draperies had a way of clinging; and the sleeves fell back from her little white arms raised to adjust the bulrushes in a vase almost as tall as herself. She looked very small, because of her slenderness, and her face might have been that of a thoughtful child. Imagination draws rapid sketches and de ights in contrasts. A vivid mental picture seemed to alternate with the actual one — curiously unlike, and vet like. Perhaps it was the flowers that suggested that great mass of exotics before which Lady Betty had stood the night before, and Lady Betty herself, also slender and small of head, in her red brocade, with her pretty frivolity and girlish laugh, sweetest flower in the hot-house of society. Koorali left her reeds and daisies as he entered. She gave him her hand. The conventional phiases followed. It w T as kind of him to come — so soon. She w 7 as glad to be at home. Her husband was in the house somewhere. And she made a movement tow a ds the bell. But he interposed with little ceremony. The conventional phrases jarred. “ Don’t let Mr. Ken way be disturbed — at all events not just yet And please go on arranging your flowers. I should like to watch you. It will do me good.” KOORALI AND HER REEDS. 65 “ Why ?” she asked seriously, and went back to her reeds. He put down his hat, and came near to her, leaning over the end of the grand piano, which served her as a table. “Why?” he repeated, with his grave sweet smile, and a gesture that seemed to indicate freedom to take breath. “Because it’s Australian, and fresh and natural. Because I’m a little tired, 1 think, of the glare and noise of life in London; the political situation — I have been facing it this morning ; and the baying of the war-whelps and clashing of cymbals in drawing-rooms. It’s a relief arid a pleasure to I see that there are such things as bulrushes and daisies — they ought to be wattle-bloom and scrub-jasmine for you. You see, Mrs. Kenway, that I really haven’t come to pay a duty call, and to talk ‘ the fine weather,’ as last night you seemed half afraid I meant to do.” His words chimed with her fancy about him on the previous even- ing. This was one of the moments when he stood back from the footlights. A thrill of pleasure shot through her that in her presence he should be different from the statesman Morse, whom the world knew ; the strong-willed, daring, patient, iconoclastic leader of a new democracy. “ I knew you would not talk ‘ the fine weather,’ ” she said. “We didn’t do so even the first — the only time in Australia that we met ; and I suppose it is just that which makes me want to get off the conventional track now,” he said. “I came really to talk about you yourself, Mrs. Ken way, and about South Britain. You haven’t made it a repub. ic yet! ” “ Nor have you made Great Britain a republic, Mr. Morse.” “ The one may come to mean the other,” he returned. There was some talk about a measure for enabling the Australian colonies to form a federation with England. “I don't like it,” Morse sail abruptly. “I think I ought to oppose that bill. Of course it's only permissive, and the colonies may fairly be allowed to do as they like. But 1 don’t see why they should go into a federation with the old country.” “Nor I,” Koorali said hastily, and then stopped, as if she ought not to have expressed an opinion. “ I would rather have small States if one could,” Morse went on. “ I think human character comes out better. But we can’t help the agglomeration of States I suppose; it’s the fashion now. Only I don’t see what your Australian colonies are likely to get from a federation but some of the taults of the old State. Look at that war the other day that we were engaged in. Nine out of every ten Englishmen here at home said in private that it was a blunder and a crime ; said it and believed it. Your Australian colonists send us men to carry on the war; free colonists lending their helping hand to murder poor Arabs for defending their country against an inexcusable invasion. That’s what you will get by federation.” “I am so glad to hear you say so,” Koorali exclaimed, with kind- ling eyes. “ I was bitterly grieved to hear that any of our colonists 66 "THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' could lend a hand in such a cruel and shameful war, hut every one was against me.” She was thinking especially of lier husband’s wild exultation over the warlike ardour of the colonists. ‘‘And of course I didn't know much about it; and I was almost afraid to open my mouth.” “ Yuur instincts led you the right way,” Morse said. “I should have known how you felt if you hidn’t told me.” Koorali could not help remembering her husband's utter amazement when he found that she did not share his opinions and his enthusiasm. “ I .should like to hear what you say in the House of Commons,” she said timidly, “about the bill.” “If I should speak,” Morse answered, “I will let you know in good time; and I will get you a place in the ladies’ gallery. But it may not come on at all this session perhaps.” Then they let that subject drop. “ Tell me,” he said. “ You were going to your kingdom when I met you that time. Was it a happy reign? Don’t you remember, you wished to be a ‘heart-queen?’ Weil— were you? Was the crown one of roses ? ” The phrase she had used and which had struck his fancy occurred to him at the moment. He had a half-wish to convey a delicate compliment by its repetition. But the compliment passed unnoticed. Koorali answered with gentle gravity. “ The reign did not last long.” “ How was that ? ” he asked. “ Your father remained in office.” “ Yes, for some time. But he married.” “ And his wife took your place 1 Your stepmother. Ah ! — yes, I see.” There was involuntarily a tragic note in Morse’s exclamation. He seemed to understand it all now. His heart was filled with pity for the young ignorant creature, deposed by an unwelcome stepmother, slighted perhaps, and to whom a husband had represented liberty and a refuge. He longed to ask her some questions about her marriage, hut restrained the impulse. “ 1 have a very tender memory of South Britain,” he said. “At this moment it seems but yesterday that 1 watched the little steamer puffing up the river while I went out to sea.” “ And yet,” she said, “ everything lias happened since then.” “ Everything ? To you ? ” She coloured a little. “ I have married. I have got to know the world. My children have come to me.” “ You have children? ” he asked. He looked at her with a sort of wistful interest — the interest that a man may sometimes feel in a young mother when the passing thought strikes him that his own wife has never had a child. “ I have two,” answered Koorali. “ And indeed, Mr. Morse,” she added brightly, “it makes one feel that girlhood is a long way off KOORALI AND HER REEDS. 67 when, as was my case this morning, one has to think of sending a boy to school.” He smiled rather sadly. “ I can’t imagine you fitting out a boy for school. I can only think of you as Koorali, ‘ the Little Qu- en.’” Again that shade of melancholy came over her nice. She did not answer. “ Do you remember,” he said, “ my prophecy that before six years had passed we should meet in London ? ” “ Yes,” she replied. “ But it is more than siK years.” “And do you remember,” he asked again, “how you told me of a fuller life — a world filled with lovely bodiless things, which seemed so near to you when you wandered alone in the bush V ” “ Oh ! ” she uttered a childlike cry, and paused for a moment, looking at him with eyes lighted up and parted lips. “ You haven’t forgotten the foolish things 1 said to you on that day — so many years ago ?” “ I have forgotten nothing about that day,” he answered. “ It remains vividly in my memory; it’s like some incomplete poem, or like some picture one gets a glimpse of once and once only, as he hurries through some foreign gallery, and which gets in a moment engraved lastingly on the mind. I am always in a hurry, and I have had that sort of experience.” “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “There are pictures like that, I suppose ; and I know there are scenes that stay with one always.” “ I told you,” he continued, “ that when we met in some London drawing-room, I would ask you if you had kept the fancies and the dreams you spoke of then. I thought of that last night; but I did not ask you.” Koorali let her hands fall, and with them a cluster of daisies that she had been putting together. Her lip trembled. She bent straight upon him eyes full of pathos and questioning and then turned them slowly away again without replying. They were both silent for a minute or two. She gathered up her daisies once more. The breeze had risen slightly, and came in through the open windows, rustling the bulrushes. It was not like London somehow. “ Do you hear the wind ? ” he asked abruptly, yet in a dreamy tone. “ It seems to come from a long, long way off.” She smiled answeringly. Their eyes met — his had never left her face. They exchanged silent sympathy and trust. The looks seemed both to say, “ You and I gaze backward across an ocean.” She turn d again to her reeds and flowers, and put the finishing touch to her work. The vase was filled now. “ Where do you get your rushes ?” he said, in the same abrupt way, as though he were talking to cover some slight pun or confusion. It was he who was embarrassed and unlike himself. That silent passing- byof his remark struck him as pathetically significant, and, he thought, characteristic of her. It was in keeping with a simple directness she had — to him at least — in which he foimd her greatest charm. 63 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. M They came from a tiny place which my husband has taken in Lyndshire. A river flows by the house.” “ Perhaps it is our river,” said Morse. “ We, too, have a place in Lyndshire, and a river also. We shall probably go there this autumn. It used to be my wife’s old home, and her father gave it up to her when we married. She is fond of Brotnswold. How strange, Mrs. Kenway, if we should both belong to the same county ! I wonder if you will like the country in England?” “I don’t know much about that county, or about any English country,” said Koorali. “ I have only been once to the Grey Manor for a few days. Crichton took it because of the hunting, I believe, and because it is near where his people used to live.” They talked some generalities, and Morse delivered Lady Betty’s invitation, and explained somewhat the nature of Mr. Whistler’s “ ten o’clock.” The sudden sharp creaking of a pair of boots disturbed the conversa- tion. Crichton Ken way came in. Ken way was always a well-dressed and a graceful man, but somehow or other his boots invariably creaked. As he was coming in, Koorali stood right in his line of vision, and he did not see that Morse was in the room. He spoke sharply to his wife. “ Of course, Koorali, I needn’t ask ; you never thought of sending about that coachman? I knew you would forget it.” “ Oh no,” Koorali answered quietly. “ I have sent.” Then Ken way saw Morse corning forward, and he became suddenly embarrassed. Morse must have heard his words to his wife and noticed his mnnner. He welcomed Morse cordially enough, however, and they talked “ the fine weather.” Koorali fell into the background a little for a moment or two. Kenway had seen her cheek redden slightly as he spoke to her on his coming in, and he knew that she felt humiliated. He thought he saw Morse’s eye resting with an ex- pression of commiseration on her. Kenway was a thorough man of the world, in the smoking-room sense of the words. He was a firm believer in the “fire and tow” principle as regards man and woman. Here is the fire, there is the inflammable matter; bring these two together and shall there not be a blaze? The inflammable matter in this instance be identified with the man. If the woman was the fire it was a cold fire — a fire like that of Vesta. He had not the slightest fear about Koorali. But an idea came into his mind about Morse, and it filled him with complacency. “Your people are coming in after the elections, every one tells me,” he said. “It is hard to sav,” Morse answered rather coldly; “things are uncertain and mixed. So far as I can conjecture— it isn’t much better than conjecture — I should say we are likely to be strong.” “Then you are sure to be Prime Minister.” Kenway rather affected a kind of not ungraceful bluntness, a coming- to-the-point manner. It gave an appearance of frankness and sincerity. There was a joyous and congratulatory sound in his voice as he said koorAli AND HER REEDS. 69 these words, the tone of one who is so sincerely delighted at the prospect of a friend’s success that he cares not even though the friend should know it. He was thinking at the same time what a splendid thing it might he for him if Koorali could get some influence over the coming Prime Minister. “If I come up to the fence I must take the jump, I suppose,” Morse paid. “ But it is not quite certain that I shall tide. If I am to be Prime Minister there must be no war.” Ken way did not quite follow the train of thought, and in any case would have attached little importance to what seemed to him Morse’s conventional disclaimer of ambitious purpose. “ Oh, if your people — our people, I mean — come in, there is no one hut you who could carry on a Government. Every one is clear about that. At all events, ninety-nine men out of a hundred say you are the coming Prime Minister.” Morse smiled, and glanced at Koorali. “The hundredth man sometimes knows better,” he said. “I wonder what the hundredth man says in this case?” Koorali admired and was impressed by his quiet tranqud way; the composure with which he showed himself equal to either fortune. She was accustomed to fussy ways, even about the merest trifles, and Morse’s manner was new and charming to her. “Shan’t you be proud to know the Prime Minister of England, Koorali?” Kenway asked, suddenly turning to her. “I am proud to know Mr. Morse,” she said with an enthusiasm which she did not take any pains to repress. Morse looked at her gratefully. He understood her meaning thoroughly. After a while Morse took his leave. Kenway watched with close attention the parting of Morse and Koorali. Their eyes did not meet; there was no glance or half-glance significantly interchanged. “Nut yet,” Kenway said to himself. “ I like him ever so much,” Kenwav exclaimed to Koorali, as they found themselves ah me. “ D«>n’t you like him, Koorali ? ” “Very much. He impresses me. I think he is so sincere and strong.” “ Quite so. I say, Koorali, I hope he will come here very often, don’t you ? He is a man to know.” “ Do you think he is a man easy for every one to know ? ” KoorMi asked quietly. “ Oh, yes : I don’t mean that. He is a man one ought to know. He will have tremendous influence before long. They say he will be Prime Minister. He seemed to like you, I thought. But for that matter every one does now.” Ken way thought more of his wife when people liked her. 70 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! CHAPTER IX. “WIIAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY?” The Sunday dinner-party at Lady Betty’s was, as Morse had told Masterson, small. As at first planned it was to be hardly a dinner- party at all, in the ordinary sense of the word; only a Sunday dinner- party — one of tin se little gatherings now growing common in London society in which the smallness of the number is supposed, in seme sort of way, to mitigate the conventional objection to festivities on the “ day of rest.” Lady Betty came of a somewhat strict family on both sides ; but she liked a izood deal of freedom for herself, while yet she was unwilling to shock the regulated ideas of the set from amongst which she came. So she had very soon fallen into the way of having small, quiet, unpre- tentious, deprecatory little dinners on the Sunday. This particular day she intended to have, besides Mr. Paulton, only Lady Deveril, who had written novels about society' and fashion, and affected the air of a literary hack, talked of “copy,” and inveighed against publishers; Mr. Piercv, a scientific man, considered even by his own scientific set as somewhat too bigoted m his atheism; and the Rev. Father St. Maurice, a young man of good family, who had been a clergyman of the Church of England and a popular preacher, had then become a free-thinker and started a service and a Sunday hall of his own, and finally had gone over to the Catholic Church. He was a favourite in society through all his changes; every one believed in his sincerity. Morse had, however, added on Masterson since then; and Lady Betty had bethought her of the Ken ways, and of Arden, whom she thought Koorali would like to meet. Lady Betty was especially friendly and warm to Masterson. She went towards him holding out both her hands when he entered, and she reproached him with gentle earnestness for not coming to see her more often. The Fenway's were a little late. The company, with the exception of Lord Arden, was all gathered in the drawing-room before Crichton and Koorali made their appearance. This was just as well ; for Lady Betty was enabled to sound the praises of Koorali in advance to every one of her other guests. When Mr. and Mrs. Crichton Kenway were announced — Kenway would never give his name without the “ Crichton ” — Lady Betty tripped up to Koorali and kissed her. The curious likeness and unlike- ness at once apparent between the two women was again noticed by the husband of each one. Lady Betty’s simple white dress had been put on with the slightly malicious design that it should serve as a counterfoil to the elaborate artistic costumes, presumably to be seen at Mr. Whistlers reception. Koorali also was in white; and there was a little more colour than usual in her cheeks, which made her eyes look “WHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY /» 7f darker and larger. She was slightly confused for a moment by Lady Betty’s kiss, and deeply touched by this mark of cordiality— for Koorali’s heart was one of those which unfolds to kindness as a flower expands in sunshine. She returned it with a look of shy gratitude not devoid of dignity that was very pretty, and that prepossessed every one present in her favour. Crichton’s profound bow was a triumph of dramatic art. It suggested somehow the thought of a man originally familiar to courts, but for some time an exile from their grace and splendour, and who in the satisfaction of his return to his rightful sphere marks his restoration by an especial floridness of courtesy. All the time, however, he contrived to send searching glances round the room, anxious to know at once who was there, and whom it would be well for him to fasten on and whom to avoid. He was a little dis- appointed ; there was no one particularly interesting in his sense, he thought, except Lady Betty herself, who was of course a great person- age everywhere. They did not wait for Arden, who had the privileges of kinship here, and w T as not treated with formality. Morse took down Lady Deveril; Mr. Paulton had charge of the hostess; Lady Betty introduced Mr. St. Maurice to Koorali; he would suit her better she thought than any of the other men. The dinner table was round ; the guests were not too mnny for general conversa- tion. Lady Betty detested what she called table Thole dinners, where every one talked only to his next neighbour. Crichton Ken way’s eyes sparkled with gratification as he surveyed the appointments of "the table. He enjoyed nothing in the world so thoroughly as a good dinner well served. Lady Deveril was a round-faced woman, with twinkling grey eyes, still young, with a mass of short-cropped hair standing out everywhere round her head. Father St. Maurice was tall, courtly, handsome, with meek grave manners which sometimes concealed a shaft of satire, as the ivy of Harmodious concealed the blade of his sword. Mr. Piercy was robust, with a bold square for head. These two had been well- acquainted before St. Maurice became a free-thinker, and while Piercy still made it a practice to go to church on Sunday. They were near each other at table. “ Well, and how do you like your new superstition, Maurice ?” wa 3 Piercy 's genial greeting. “ Much better than our old hypocrisy,” was St. Maurice’s bland reply. Koorali could not help smiling; her smile pleased St. Maurice. At that moment Arden entered, and after making his apologies to Lady Betty, slipped into the vacant place, which was next Lady Deveril and opposite Koorali. “I don’t want much dinner, Lady Betty,” he said. “I have been dining already, I am ashamed to say. You should have been with us, St. Maurice. I couldn’t ask you, for we are so poor that we are not allowed to have any guests ; but we do a lot of good, or at least, we try to. It’s for the widows of seamen, don’t you know ? ” 72 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: There set in a talk about the condition of things in England. Mr. Paulton was very anxious to get an accurate view of everything, and thought he could not have come to a better place for the purpose. He asked various questions about politics and social life. Somehow he found that the greater number of days he lived in England, the less knowledge of any accurate kind he seemed to possess. Up to this time he had found himself mainly engaged in the process of getting rid of convictions which he had brought with him in advance con- cerning everything in England; and he did not seem to be taking in many new and true ideas in the place of those he had to throw over- board. “What I want,” Mr. Paulton said, “is to get information. I am here in what would be called, I presume, a representative company, in the very heart of your London society — in your West End ; and I have the rare good fortune to find a company which, though small, appears to me to include representatives of very different shades of public opinion. Now, I want to know something about English life of this present day. Can you tell me ? ” “ What do you want to be told about, Mr. Paulton ?” Lady Betty asked. “Do you want to hear about the social revolution? Mr. Masterson can tell you all that. Do you want to hear West End scat 'dal ? If so, I fancy I can instruct you as well as another. Radicalism? Why, you are quite near my husband. Literature? Lady Deveril has written three novels — is it three, Susie ? — yes, three novels — and they have all been favourably reviewed in the papers.” Lady Deveril gave a little shudder, which seemed to tell of an over- taxed brain. “ Pray don’t speak of my work. It’s a relief to escape from it. 1 have been correcting proofs all the morning.” “Is that worse than collecting ‘copy’?” asked Lord Arden, innocently. Koorali glanced at the authoress with amused interest. “Mrs. Kenway is wondering whether you mean to turn her into ‘copy,’” continued Arden. “Oh,” said Lady Deveril, with serene patronage, “ Mrs. Kenway doesn’t understand our literary jargon yet.” “ Proofs should be read by an illiterate person, to whom the laws of punctuation are a novelty,” sententiously observed Mr. Piercy. “ Correcting proofs is the most maddening occupation in all the vorld,” said Lady Betty, feelingly. “ By the way, Lady Betty,” asked Father St. Maurice, “ how is your article on Venetian ironwork getting on? .Have 30U hunted up any more authorities ? ” “ I hate Venice ! I hate iron ! ” exclaimed Lady Betty. “ I believe tn occupation for women, Mr. Kenway,” she added, turning her beaming smile on Crichton; “and I tiied to set a good example by writing things, don’t you know ? I exhausted ferns and Flemish lace ; and now I’m done to death by iron. I’ll never write anything again, i can’t round my periods.” “ WHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY f n 73 “ Oh, but we don’t try to round our periods nowadays, do we, Lady Deveril ? ” said Arden. There was a laugh. “ Well, Mr. Paulton,” said Lady Betty, “ anyhow, you see literature is pretty well represented. Lord Arden is an authority on the Salvation Army and the White Ribbon movement.” Loid Arden put in a gentle protest. Lady Betty went on. “ As for the condition of England in regard to religion ; well, here is Mr. St. Maurice. He ought to know all about that, his experience has been varied.” “ Is England improving or decaying ? ” Mr. Paulton asked. “ Improving,” Mr. St. Maurice said, with a look of ineffable convic- tion. “ Improving, surely. On the verge, I should say, of a complete renovation.” “ Sinking, decaying, tumbling into utter ruin and perdition,” Master- son exclaimed. “But it must fall into utter ruin before it can be regenerated. Everything has got to come down before anything can be put up again. We have to pass through a terrible ordeal ; then will come out purified, disenthralled, and regenerated, the true England — the England of the future.” “What England wants,” Piercy declared, “is true scientific way of thinking. We want to get rid of superstitions ; we want to shake off the grasp of the dead hand in our literature and our social life as well as in our charitable organizations. Let us have facts and face them. Above all things, gentlemen, no dreams, as the Emperor Alexander of Russia said to the Polish deputation.” “What England wants,” Lady Deveril gently sighed, “is the capacity to dream.” “ What England wants,” Father St. Maurice murmured, “is the all- pervading, all-quickening sense of religion.” “ What England wants,” said Morse, “ is the sympathy of class with class.” “ Yes,” Koorali spoke out with courage, “ little as I have seen of England, I have seen that .” “ What England wants,” Masterson declared, “ is a social revolution. She must clear out her aristocracy and her capitalists before she can even breathe.” “ Oh, but surely,” Kenway said, looking to Lady Betty, “you would not have an England without gentlemen ? ” “Seems to me,” Mr. Paulton observed, “that England wants pretty well everything ; or that she wants nothing at all. But I guess there’s something in what Mr. Morse says about the want of sympathy between class and class. And I think there’s something in what this gentleman says, too,” and he turned to Mr. St. Maurice. “You do seem to me to want a new and fresh breath of religious thought. Your atmosphere is a little stagnant in that way, so far as I can see.” “We hope to quicken it,” Mr. St. Maurice said with the smile of 6 74 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! quiet radiance which becomes and bespeaks the convinced enthusiast. “ Our time is near at hand, Mr. Paulton.” “And that time, sir, is ?” “ The time of the Church,” St. Maurice said in a low and measured tone. “ May I ask, sir, wdiat Church ? ” “There is only one Church,” St. Maurice replied. “ Rot ! ” Mr. Piercy grumbled below his breath. Then he said aloud, “I hope we are near the end of superstition in England. This un- fortunate country has been groaning for centuries enough under the nightmare of superstition ; it is time that the dawn came and allowed her to wake and get up and do something.” “ Does science to-day call faith superstition ? ” Koorali asked pluckily. Morse thought it prudent to intervene here, and save her from the man of science. “ I have often,” he said, “ wondered whether it is really possible for people to get to know the true and special character- istics of the age and the society in which they live. What is the leading characteristic of London society at the present hour ? ” “What do you call London society ? ” Masterson asked. “ Exactly,” Mr. Piercy struck in. “ What do you call it ? Is its centre in Marlborough House ; or the Houses of Parliament ; or the British Museum ; or the Hall of Science at the East End? ” “ Or the South Kensington Museum ; or the Grosvenor Gallery ? ” Lady Deveril suggested. “ Or the Eleusis Club ? ” Lady Betty said with a smile. “I give no opinion,” Masterson said. “1 have nothing to do with London society. If you want to know anything about the real life and manhood and womanhood of England, I might put you on the right track. I know what are the classes who will shape the destiny of a better England than ours — a true England. But what you call society is not worth five minutes 5 serious study to any man who has anything real to do in life.” “ I don’t think I seem to advance much in my mastery of the English social problem,” Mr. Paulton observed, with a quiet smile. “You don’t seem to be able to agree among yourselves even as to what London society is.” “ What do you call London society, dear Lady Betty?” It was Lady Deveril who asked the question. She asked it really in the spirit of one who desires information. Now, to Mr. Paulton, for example, or any other stranger, it would probably seem as if a Lady Deveril ought to be as much of an authority upon the constituent elements of London society as a Lady Betty Morse. But it was not so. Lady Deveril was the daughter of an English country gentleman. She had married a banker, who sat for years in the House of Commons, subsciibed liberally to his party, found many eligible candidates and much election expenses for them, and was made a peer for his patriotic labours and sacrifices. In Lady Betty Morse’s family, on the side of WHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY?” 75 her mother as well as of her father, peerages began to set in rather before the days of Hengist and Horsa. Ken way looked towards his hostess with deferential interest. Arden glanced at Koorali. There was an odd smile on his face. “ Oh, well,” Lady Betty said, with a certain pretty mixture of diffidence and conviction, “ I suppose society means the people that one meets and knows, don’t you think ? ” Even Mr. Piercy was amused at the blended simplicity and scientific accuracy of this definition. Lady Betty was perfectly correct. Society, in the conventional sense of the word, meant just what she had said — the people Lady Betty was in the habit of meeting, and knowing as well as meeting. Poor Masterson audibly groaned. Morse felt it too, although in a different way. “ I sometimes think,” Morse said, “ that we want a great national misfortune in this country to shake us out of our sleek contented indolence, and to shake us into a common feeling of concern for each other ; to make us English men and women, and not people of different classes and sets. We have been too prosperous — I mean all of us who are toleiably well off; and we can’t be got to believe that the vast majority of the English people are poor and ignorant and un- happy.” “Oh, Mr. Morse, you are right,” Koorali said, clasping her hands. “ Better any common calamity than such stagnation of the country’s heart ! ” “You want something like our great civil war,” Mr. Paulton said. “That did us in the North a wonderful amount of good, for the time anyhow. It made us fellow-countrymen and patriots.” “ But we are going to have a war now, are we not ? ” Lady Deveril asked. “ Every one says we are going to war.” “The Jingoes are trying to have it their own way,” Masterson exclaimed. “ But they will have to reckon with the people of England first — let them make up their minds to that.” “ I only hope so,” Morse said. “ I hope the English people will insist on being heard before it is too late.” “ I am glad to hear you talk like that, Morse,” Masterson said, with lighting eyes. “ I am glad to hear you talk like that, Masterson,” was the quiet reply of Morse. “ 1 am glad to hear you both,” Koorali said. Her husband looked robukingly at her. “ Is it true that your Court is for this war ? ” Paulton asked. “ I fear it is true,” Morse said. “ Of course it is true ! ” Masterson exclaimed. “ When was there any devilry of the kind going on that our Court circles were not in favour of it ? ” “ Oh, come now, Mr. Masterson,” Lady Betty said earnestly, “ I do think that so very unfair of you. Our Court has never been much in favour of war, you do know that ; and never in favour of an unjust “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE." 76 war, never ! I know that myself ; but of course they are too patriotic to like to see the country trampled on.” “You have heard what your husband thinks of such a war,” Masterson said grimly. “ My husband ! oh yes, that’s another thing, we don’t mind him. Of course he goes in for being a republican and all that. I like him to have his way, it becomes him. It looks nice, and picturesque in him, and I won’t hear a word said against him; but still, you know, the Court must have some opinion of its own.” “ You must ask people to-night at the Universe Club,” Morse said. “ Why there?” Paulton asked. “The Universe is our political palace of truth. We keep our con- ventional statements — I shouldn’t like to call them our lies — for Par- liament ; but when we meet in the Universe we say exactly what we think. We have one conscience and one code of truth for Parliament, and another— the scriptural code — lor the Universe Club.” Arden laughed a little sadly. “ But I thought you Englishmen always prided yourselves on your blunt truthfulness?” said Paulton. “ Not in Parliament,” replied Morse. “ No ; it wouldn’t do there. There we go with our party. You make a speech and do your best with it in support of some particular act of policy ; you walk home with one of your colleagues that night, and you and he agree in denouncing it.” Kenway turned to his host. There was something a little puzzled in his expression. He had not talked much, he had been observing; and with considerable suppleness his mind was trying to adjust itself to the characteristics of the people he was with. He did not feel quite sure how to take Morse. A bit of conventional satire rose to his lips, as the correct remark to make, but Lady Betty’s voice checked it. “ Sandham, my dear ! ” she remonstrated. “ Mr. Paulton, I hope you won’t take my husband’s fanciful exaggeration as a stern reality. I don't think he would say — well, the thing that is not, to save the empire — or the life of his wife.” “It is true, all the same,” Morse maintained. “There is one con- science for a man’s private life, and another lor the House of Commons. It used to shock me a good deal at first, but now I am getting used to it.” “ I hope and believe all men are truthful — all gentlemen, I mean,” Lady Deveril said plaintively. “Women are not, I know; but then that’s different — no one expects them to be.” “Weil, we are wandering away from the condition of society in London,” Paulton said. “ What now, Lady Betty, would you say was the main characteristic of the London society of to-day?” “ Dullness I should say — decidedly, dullness ; but I don’t know that it is worse than it ever was.” “ I am sure you do your best to brighten it,” Lady Deveril inter- posed. “ I don’t know how any society could be dull where you were.’ “ WHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY ?” 77 “ And what should you say, Lady Deveril ? ” the American Minister asked. He was evidently anxious for information, and did not wish the conversation to stray. “ 1 have been writing a novel,” said Lady Deveril demurely, “in which .1 endeavour to show that the leading characteristic of the social life of our day is the altered position and functions of woman.” “Didn’t know they had altered,” growled the man of science. “ Ah, now,” said Arden, “ we come to my subject. I shall have a great deal to say about that some day. “ Say it now,” said Lady Betty. “ Don’t you think,” he returned, “ that our talk has been a little too philosophical already — not to say dry?” Mr. Paul ton objected. Kenway, who would have preferred a little social froth, put in, “ Have you heard Dr. Maria Lakeswell Tubbs, the American lady doctor, Lady Betty ? She is giving discourses to her own sex on the functions of women. I am told that she carries about a skeleton, and dangles it before her audience, while she exposes all their secrets.” “ But I must know Dr. Maria Lakeswell Tubbs,” exclaimed Lady Betty. “Give a party, Lady Betty,” suggested Arden. “Ask Dr. Maria Lakeswell Tubbs to bring her skeleton. She’ll make a sensation.” “ She is at home on Mondays. Come with me next Monday,” said Lady Deveril. “ I have a mothers’ meeting,” sighed Lady Betty. “ Take your mothers,” growled Mr. Piercy. “ It’s most important they should be made acquainted with their internal economy — quite worth a dozen two-guinea fees.” “A two-guinea feel That’s altogether a different matter,” cried Lady Deveril. “I’ll back out. In these days of agricultural depres- sion, and when the Primrose League is so expensive, and publishers cut down prices, one hasn’t two guineas to spare. “ The principal characteristic of society to-day — I assume that by characteristic you mean weakness or fault?” — it was Father St. Maurice spoke this, “is too much self-analysis, inducing and nourish- ing scepticism.” “The great defect of society,” Piercy declared, “is the lack of courage to carry analysis of self and all else deep enough.” “ The characteristic of society in England to-day,” Morse said, “ is self-consciousness.” “ The characteristic of modern English society,” Masterson affirmed, “is luxury, effeminacy, debauchery. Society is corruption ; aristocracy is erfetencss; religious profession is cant.” “ I give it up,” the American Minister said. “ I shall not get to know what is the characteristic of London society ; my mind is made up. I will not write a book on England.” “ Wait until you have been at the Universe,” Morse suggested. “ Come to one of our democratic meetings any Sunday in Hydu Park or Eattersea Park,” Masterson advised. 73 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? “ I wish you would attend one of our services,” Father St. Maurioa gently urged. “ Have you nothing to advise, Mr. Piercy ? ” the Minister asked. “ I ? Oh dear, no ; nothing. I have to do with science ; I don’t advise anything about society.” “ There, you see!” Lady Betty exclaimed in a sprightly tone; “ there is only one man of real scientific knowledge in this little com- pany, and he refuses to give us any help from his enlightenment. I think it is of no use our trying to seek out the truth any further.” She was glad to find an excuse for not prolonging the conversation. She made her mystic sign to Lady Deveril, and the three ladies left the room. The others followed almost immediately. It was not a house where the men lingered over their wine. This was somewhat to Kenway’s regret, for the claret was ’74 Mouton. Morse went straight to Koorali, and Kenway watched them while they were talking. He had seldom of late seen his wife so bl ight and animated. She seemed altogether more human. Mr. Piercy and Lord Arden had joined the two. Once or twice, to Crichton’s surprise, he heard Koorali give a ready reply to some remark of the man of science, who had also a vein of humour. Ken way kept his eyes and ears well open, though he was assiduous in making himself agreeable to Lady Betty. The lirtle party broke up very soon. Morse was taking Mr. Paulton and Crichton to the Universe Club. Masterson, who was a member of the club, was to go with them. Piercy was returning home to study for a paper on the dissection of the water-cress leaf; and Lady Betty was taking Lady Deveril and Koorali to the house of a fashionable woman to hear one of Mr. Whistler’s “ ten o’clock ” lectures. CHAPTEP X. “ AND SO — HALLO ! ” The rooms ot the Universe Club, in one of the streets close to Berkeley Square, were specially well filled this Sunday night. One of the members of the club was going to take his position as head of the embassy at the capital of the foreign State with which, according to all appearance, England was about to go to war. The former ambassador -from the Court of Queen Victoria had expressed a wish to change to some other place. He was in favour of a peace policy, it was said; and the new man was understood to be all for a policy of defiance. So there was some interest felt in his departure, and there was much speculation as to the speed of his coming back to London again. The whole thing was discuss d in rather a light and chaffing tone ; and beta were freely ottered that the new ambassador would not even be allowed the chance of sleeping one night in the capital to which he was bound. “ Wouldn’t unpack my tilings, if I were you, Wolmington,” a youthful member of the House of Lords said to him ; “won’t be worth "A AD SO — HALLO I* 79 your while, bet you anything you like. Stay, I say ; here’s Morse ; he’ll tell us something. If he can keep you there he will. Let’s ask him what he and his merry men, the Radicals, think they can do to prevent a fight now.” Morse had come into the room with Crichton Ken way, and had been introducing Kenway to men here and there. Ken way was just now in an ecstacy of delight. Every name he heard named was that ot some distinguished or prominent man; more than once he heard a really famous name. Every name he heard was already familiar to him. He had known all about the names and their owners in his far a wav South Britain, and it was a wonderful experience to him now to find himself in company and in converse with the living men themselves. It con- firmed him in the sudden idea which had come into his mind that evening, that he w T ould scheme for an appointment in England. He now felt that he never could, under any conditions, endure a return to South Britain ; that he never could leave London ; that he never could exist any more without society such as that in which he had lately been moving. Men of all parties and sections, and men of no party at all, belonged to this club. Every foreigner of any distinction who came to London was sure to be brought to the club by some of its members. Kenway had been a little doubtful in coming along to the club rooms whether Morse was really the best man to stick on to. But in the club he soon made up his mind. There was a great deal of talk about the coming elections, and every one seemed to assume that there would be a Liberal majority, with a strong Radical section in it and at its front, and that Morse must have his chance of being Prime Minister. Amid all the levity, and jesting, and chaff, this earnest conviction made its existence felt ; and Ken way resolved to hold on to Morse. Masterson had been in the club, too ; but he did not stay long. He was inclined to grow fierce now and then; he could not stand the chaff. He knew he rather bored people with his one idea; and he could not put his one idea aside even for a moment. He felt this him- self, and was gradually withdrawing from all society. So he went away abruptly, after having spoken a few words to Morse apart. Corks were popping, soda was fizzing, cigars were thickening the air, matches were sputtering all over tne place. The drinking was very modest; only a whiskey and soda, or something of the kind. There were few pictures or curiosities of any sort to look at. The Universe did not go in for that sort of thing. It went in for celebrities and con- versation. Morse had called it not inaptly a Palace of Truth. So far as Kenway could understand, every one there said exactly what he thought. He was amazed to find how many men who sat on the Liberal benches and voted blind with the Liberal chiefs were rank Conservatives in their hearts and in the Universe Club. He was surprised to find some leading members of the Carlton declaring that the time had gone by for the absurd old notions which might nave suited the days of Lord Eldon, and that Lord Randolph w^as quite right when he went boldly in for a Tory Democracy. It bewdldered him to So “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? discover that almost everybody on both sides of the political field was of opinion that some sort of Home Rule ought to be given to Ireland. It amazed him still more to hear the terms in which bishops, arch- bishops, princes even, were talked of, now in this part of the room and now T in that. “ Is loyalty, then, only known in the colonies ? ” he asked of Morse, as they were going d<#wu the stairs. “Old-fashioned loyalty, personal loyalty, is, I suppose,” Morse replied. “ Some of us really like the institution of royalty, and believe in what Paulton calls ‘ dressed-up dummyism ’ as best suited for the country ; others don’t object to it ; others again don’t think it would he worth the trouble to try to make any change. But I don’t believe there is anybody who is really enthusiastic and lyrical about it; except, perhaps, in the colonies. You see, you are so far off there. The thing looks all brightness and poetry to you — like a star.” The comparison came into his mind as they passed into the quite street, and he looked up at the stars. Morse stopped at the door, and bade Ken way good night. “ I am not going home just yet,” he said ; “ i have to go to a place.” The night was line, and Morse walked for a while. He had a light coat thrown o*er his dr< ss coat. His tall figure and commanding presence made him conspicuous. Once or twice, as Kenway followed him at a little distance through Berkeley Square and into Dover Street and Piccadilly, some one recognized Morse, and looked after him and mentioned his name. As Ken way followed him? Yes; Kenway was a man who dearly loved to find out things about people. He had a fixed idea that there was something to be found out about every man, if one only gave him- self to the task of detection. He was very curious to know where a man like Morse could be going at that late hour of the Sunday night. It might be a good thing, he thought, in any case to make some dis- covery, if there were any to be made. No one could say when such knowledge might not come in usefully ; at all events, it would be well to know. Kenway smiled; almost chuckled — a somewhat malign chuckle. A good many conflicting feelings were at work within him that evening. He had been obliged once or twice to readjust his mental attitude. Several things bad surprised him. It had surprised him that his wife should appear at ease, should even shine, in the society of Morse and his friends. He himself had felt a little out of it all. Though he swelled with exultation at the thought of having been taken up and introduced at the Universe by Morse, he was neverthe- less galled by a consciousness of inferiority. He was glad to see that Morse admired Koorali. He meant to turn the fact to his own advan- tage ; yet, it irritated him too, and Koorali’s evident admiration of Morse made him jealous in a vague, pettish way. It w 7 as he himself, her husband, who should be KourMi’s hero — not any other man. He would like to show her that Morse was not so far above the peccadilloes t)f ordinary men. Morse, he thought, always postured as such a "AND SO— HALLO! 81 stately and serious sort of person. It would be good fun if he could find out something about Morse which would astonish Koorali. The chance of doing this gave a fresh impulse to Kenway ’s sleuth-hound instincts. The suspicion in his mind was that Morse’s midnight mission would prove to be of a distincly non-political character. Kenway was highly amused already; he enjoyed the discovery in anticipation. He always gloated over hints of scandal in high places. What he could not understand was, why Morse should walk. Why did he not get into a cab? Surely he must know that there was at least a chance of people recognizing him. But that is just the way with men, Kenway said to himself philosophically; they are always most incautious when the condition of things especially calls for caution. The reason why Morse walked was because the night was fine and Morse loved walking, especially at night. He was hardly ever seen in a carriage; he rode or he walked. He did not ride much in the Row; he went out to Hampstead Heath or to one of the commons on the south side and hid a hard gallop there; and he took long walks when he could. He loved a walk through the streets at night; he loved to study the changed aspect of the great city, and to see familiar hits of London made unfamiliar and poetic by moonlight or starlight, or by mist and darkness. To him there was a fascination in the vistas of lights ; in the dim outlines of the buildings ; in the moving crowd — eyes flashing into his for an instant, suggesting perhaps the tragedy of a life; forms hurrying by and then lost in the dimness. He was moved in a strange way by the contrasts in this “ under- world,” as it seemed — of wealth and squalor, of vice and innocence, of gloom and brightness, mysterious alleys, dark and sad as hell, leading from some gay resoit, over which shone silvery electric light that might have been the radiance of heaven. He paused now for a second in an almost deserted street, struck by the effect of a short avenue of red gas lamps, converging to a point from which an indistinct shape and two brilliant staring eyes — the lamps of a hansom cab— flew towards him. As he walked along he was not thinking of the fencing of diplomatists, of squabbles about a frontier, of the chances of a Liberal majority, of the probability that he would be called upon to lead a Radical ministry. He liked to be lifted out of the prosaic world of politics for a while, and he distinctly held the position that the night, even among streets, is always poetic. That vein in Morse’s nature which had poetry and mysticism in it seemed to fill and flow under the influence of night. So they came, Morse and his follower, to Leicester Square. Leices- ter Square on Sunday evening had a very different look from that which it wore on a week night. Three sides of it were in shadow. Only the north end, where there were several restaurants and a chemist’s shop, with big red and green lamps, gave any suggestion of its usual flaring illumination. The theatres seemed strangely forlorn, and the Alhambra, with its dome-like roof, its long dark windows, its pale front and fantastic decorations, had a sad and ghostly appearance. 82 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE* There were but few people about ; a hansom now and then clattered up to the door of one of the restaurants, where the homeless stranger could have a Sunday dinner. Kenway followed Morse to the opening of a dim and narrow street leading northward out of the square. The street began in light and went on into mere darkness. At the near coiner was a brilliantly lighted French restaurant, one glass side open- ing on the square. Opposite it, the houses were dark, and further on, at the same side as the restaurant, they were dark too. Except for two dim gas lamps nearly at the top of the street, all the light seemed concentrated here, and any one passing the illuminated windows could be seen as clearly as in daylight. Morse paused a moment, glanced quickly up the street, then crossed over to the side in shadow. He walked a little way along the pave- ment, turned, and crossed again. Between the restaurant and the adjoining block was a small flagged courtyard, enclosed by buildings except where it was fenced off from the road by an iron railing. It was feebly lighted by two round lamps facing each other, hung over doors, above one of which was painted “ Concierge.” The hotel itself stood far back, a grey sunken house, with an abutting sort of colonnade, and a mean entrance door. The upper windows were dark, except one, and that was curtained by a thick white blind. The house was lower than its neighbours, and between the chimney-pots patches of grey sky showed, and a thin moon was just rising. It all looked dim, mys- terious, and suggestive of intrigue. Innumerable memories of French novels floated into Ken way’s mind. Morse entered the courtyard, and went into the hotel. Ken way had been watching from a vantage point a little way up the street on the opposite side. When Morse had gone in, Kenway came down and had a look at the place. The courtyard was deserted again. A French chambermaid in a white cap with gauffred frills and streamers ran across, her sabots clacking, and disappeared into the concierge’s office. Kenway skulked into the courtyard. He thought he heard voices in the lighted room upstairs. Once or twice he saw the shadow of a man cross tlm blind. He could almost have sworn that he caught a glimpse of Morse’s Napoleonic profile. After a while there were no more shadows. Kenway peered round. The place had an odd foreign look, strange in the heart of London. Sickly shrubs in green boxes stood about. There was an old gun carriage in the centre of the court, with a beam of timber painted a dull Laden blue, doing duty as cannon, but with a pile of genuine balls formidably arranged below. “Just like England’s defences,” Kenway snarled and chuckled to himself. “ If we have the guns, we haven’t the bullets; if we have the buliets, we haven’t the guns. Things won’t be much better under a Peace Society Prime Minister, I fancy.” It relieved him to say this, although only to him- self ; and he crossed the street again and kept pacing up and down on the look-out. It was slow work waiting there that Sunday night; but Kenway waited. Ilis sleuth-hound instincts were aided in their work by a *AND SO— HALLO/ 83 patience as untiring as that of the forest Indian watching his prey, or that of a heron perched on some jammed-up log in a river bank, and waiting for a fish to give him a chance of a dinner. Occasionally some woman tried to get into talk with Kenway as he paced slowly up and down ; he answered her with a word or tw T o of good-humoured jest, and civilly shook her off. Now and then a policeman eyed him curiously, but soon, with a policeman’s instinct, saw that Kenway was what is called a gentleman, and that there was nothing in his case to have interest for the “worthy magistrate” on Monday morning. More than once a half-drunken wayfarer staggered up and accosted him with “ Give us a light, governor, won’t you ? ” and Kenway, always with the most perfect good humour and politeness, took out his silver matchbox with its ingeniously-contorted monogram, and gave the requested fire. It was not always to much account, for more than one wayfarer found his legs too unsteady and his pipe too capricious to be able to benefit by the kindness of the “ governor.” Kenway was quite in his element, and liked the whole thing immensely. He was con- vinced that he was about to find something out. At last he saw two men come out of the door of the hotel. The men passed across the courtyard, and their figures were clearly out- lined against the light in the lower windows. Morse was one. There was no mistaking that figure and that walk. But who was the other ? The two went down the street, on the side opposite to that where Ken way stood in shadow ; they did not look in his direction, but he could see them distinctly. He could hear their voices, although he could not make out what they were saying. Now the light of a lamp fell straight and full on them, and Kenway saw, to his disappointment at first, that the other man was Masterson. No creature could be got to associate the name of Masterson with any manner of amorous adv< nture or any gambling-house transaction. His presence alone would make scandal of that kind an impossibility. Had Kenway thrown all his time, his sleuth-hound instinct, his patience, utterly away ? No; another idea suddenly flashed upon him. Why, this is better still ; the best that could be ! That house is the head-quarters of some socialist and democratic conspiracy, and Morse has been induced to take some part in it. Morse, the man who hopes to be Prime Minister of England, comes down so low as to mix himself up with the mid- night councils of a gang of socialist and cosmopolitan revolutionists. It must be so, it cannot be anything else. Why, this is more interest- ing than all the gaming transactions from Monaco to the Mississippi. Kenway went nearer to the house. There must be others there; they r would come out; he would see what manner of men they were. His patience was soon rewarded; the men began to come out in little knots of two and three. Most of them we*e of the class of the regular London socialist; most were London working men. Even with Ken way’s limited knowledge of such London life, he could read their class and their political creed in their earnest, eager, wistful faces. “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE} 84 But there were others, too; there were foreign democrats, talking rapidly, some in French, some in German, some in Italian. Two or three, who came out together, conversed in a soft-sounding tongue wnich was unfamiliar to Kenway. He did not understand German or Italian; but he knew that this was German and that Italian when he heard it spoken. This language was entirely strange to him. He felt a special interest in the men who spoke it, and he went their way. He kept up with them, he walking on the other side of the street. They were going eastward; he might as well go eastward too, fora little way. A new thought struck him. Why not contrive to interchange a word or two with them ? He took out his cigar-case, and acted on the hint given him by his “ governor” acquaintances. He crossed the street, and asked if any of the gentlemen could give him a light. They all stopped very civilly, and one of them tendered to him a box of fusees. A few courteous words were naturally exchanged ; two of the men at least spoke fluent and perfect English, with only a faint foreign accent ; the third man said nothing; perhaps he could not speak English. They were dressed in a way which suggested a cross between struggling artist and continental working-man ; between the Latin Quarter and the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Ken way had a keen eye, and it seemed to him that the garb wars a get-up, that they were not wearing their own clothes, that they were socially of a better class than their out- ward appearance was meant to suggest. The quiet, courteous, self- assured way in which they all stopped the moment he spoke to them satisfied him that they were, in Society’s language, “ gentlemen.” “I rather fancy I know a gentleman when I see him,” Kenway said to himself. Kenway was always assuring himself and conveying to others that he was a constituted authority on all questions relating to the composition, origin, and ways of a gentleman. Now, then, here is the problem. A secret meeting long after mid- night in an out-of-the-way quarter — for Morse; the meeting attended by Masterson, the wild re volui ionary socialist, who was always threat- ening that he and his men would descend into the streets ; by several foreign democrats, for such they evidently were ; and by three men, dressed as artisans, who were clearly not aitisans, and who spoke a language Kenway had never heard before, while two of them could also speak fluent and cultured English. What was the language the three spoke? Ken way was not long in jumping to a conclusion. Why, what should it be but the language of the country with which England was likely to go to war? And at the secret midnight council in which these men took part, in which Masterson took part, in which foreign revolutionaries took part, the iuture Prime Minister of England was also taking part! Come, that was something to know, at all events. There might, no doubt, be some highly satisfactory explana- tion ; but the thing was curious. It was well to have found out what Kenway had found out. He* went home well phased — more than pleased, highly delighted, with his night’s work. Now, what were Morse and Masterson saying as they passed near to “AND SO— HALLO!” 85 where Crichton Konway wns standing in the shadow, watching them and trying to make oat their words ? “lam afraid it is of no use,” Morse said in a low tone; “I don’t see my way. I am with your objects to a certain extent; you know that. I am a republican on principle. I don’t despair of seeing a republic established here, even in my time. I think our people could work a republic better than any other people in the world. I hope to found a republican party, open and avowed, if only as a training school. But you can’t force the thing in England.” “ That is the way of ail you so-called practical men,” Masterson said angrily. “You see nothing; you foresee nothing. The revolu- tion is at your gates— hammering at your gates, and you are deaf; and you hlieve that to-morrow must be just the same as to-day.” “ I don’t. 1 want to prepare for a to-morrow. An accident might bring the whole thing to a smash. A big defeat in some war ” — Morse spoke now with measured emphasis — “which was believed to be favoured by the Court, one big defeat, might upset the dynasty. The English people have not been tried in that sort of furnace yet. Perhaps they would be found not a whit more patient than the French. We may see that tested ; perhaps. After all, I am the best friend of the dynasty, I think,” he added, with a smile, “for I am doing my very best to prevent the test from being applied.” “Will you even join with us to stop the succession at the end of this reign? We have our plans and our resources. The country will have had enough of royalty by that time ; sane men won’t be inclined to give it a fresh lease under worse conditions.” Morse shook his head. They wvre now walking along the darker side of Piccadilly, and had got to the railings of the Green Park and the deep shadow of the trees. “ To speak openly, Masterson, T doubt the plans, and I don’t believe in the resources. But I don’t mind telling you that if I were alive at the end of the present reign, and I saw any genuine and wide-spread desire on the part of the English people not to start a new reign, I should — well ” “ Give the subject your best consideration, I dare fay,” Masterson interposed scornfully. “ That is your ministerial way of putting things in Parliament, isn’t it?” “No,” said Morse, composedly; “ I should go with that desire, and do my best to carry it out, let the end land me where it would. That’s all I have to say.” “Well,” Masterson said, after a long pause, “that is better than nothing; especially from you who mean all you say, and more. But you do not go with us, in the meantime?” “ No ; positively not. You are all in the clouds, and I am only able to walk the firm earth.” “ Then what do you think of our general purposes ; our broader and more comprehensive purposes ; our purposes for all humanity : not for England alone ? ” 86 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE} Morse turned to Masterson with a look of somethr g like compassion. Theri he said — “ Your cosmopolitanism ? I don’t like the thing at all. And I tell you frankly, Masterson, I couldn’t have anything to do with it. I don't believe one bit in mixing up our affairs with those of your continental democrats. Their aims are not ours; their ways are not ours. We want reform, and they understand nothing but revolution, and social revolution, too ” “ So do I,” Masterson broke in. “I want social revolution ; in other words, I want the salvation of England. Nothing but social revolution can save her.” “Yes; but your social revolution is not their social revolution, don’t you see? You can't long work together. Besides, look here, I don’t l;ke these three gentlemanlike fellows at all. I do not trust them. For God’s sake; Masterson, don’t you trust in them ! Do you really believe that these men, who belong to the -country which five out of every six Englishmen declare to be our unrelenting enemy, can have the interest of England at heart ? ” “ Not the interest of Engl md,’’ Masterson said sharply. “ You don’t underst nd, Morse; you won’t understand. They have the interest of humanity at heart; the interest of the brotherhood of both countiies, and of all countries. Good heavens! is it possible you don’t see that there is some stronger and not ler bond than the mere chance bond of nationality? It is strange that a man like you should so cruelly mis- understand men like them.” “ Will you bear to be told what I think of them ? ” Morse asked, and he stopped short and put his hand gently on Masterson’s shoulder. “ Dear old friend, will you be offended with me if I tell you what I suspect — for y«>ur own sake ? ” “ Say anything you like, Morse ; I can stand it from you.” “ Well, then, 1 strongly suspect that these men are the secret agents of that Government which they profess to detest; the Government of their own country.” “ oh !” Masterson drew away with a cry and a look of utter disgust. “ I am horrified, Morse ! Such a suspicion, so unworthy of you ! These true-hearted, devoted men! You must see more of them. You must learn to know them.” “ No, old man ; I don’t want to see them again. I only wish I could get you not to see them again.” Masterson shook his head impatiently. “ Well, I know it hn’fc easy to turn you from any opinion or any purpose; and I can only say I am sorry I couldn’t have anything to do with the business, Masterson. Nothing good will come of it ; nothing but harm. I would save my dear old friend from it if I could, but I can’t; and so— hallo!” “So what?” Masterson asked in wonder, at what seemed to him unmeaning levity. “ I beg your pardon,” Morse said, with a smile. “ It’s a tries I got from Richter, Jean Paul, you know— a way he has of putting an end THE FAMILY DINNER, n to some argument that can’t come to anything. My wife and I have fallen into the way of using it, and have dismissed many an unmanage- able subject with ‘and so — hallo!’ Well, I can’t convince y«»u, Masterson, and you can’t convince me; but we are good friends still, and ever shall be to the end of the chapter, I trust; and so— hallo! ” Masterson was not much of a humourist, but a sort of faint percep- tion stole upon him that this, indeed, was about as good a way a* any of getting out of a hopeless controversy. He made a brave effort to n’se for once to the level of a j ke, and as they were ah >ut to part in Picca- dilly he fell back a little, then came towards Morse, grasped his hand with a grip of strength — to which Morse replied by a grip still stronger — and exclaimed — “ And so — hallo ! ” Then they went literally and figuratively their different ways. CHAPTER XL THE FAMILY DINNER. ** The Family,” to use Crichton Kenway’s expression, represented in Koorali’s imagination an awful and indefinite quantity, the length, breadth, and depth of which she felt hopeless of gauging. For some time after her arrival in England she was bewildered by the fact that the family were not Ken ways at all. The only Ken ways besides themselves appeared to be a younger brother of her husband — between whom and Crichton there had been an ill-feeling which now seemed to retard their affectionate meeting — and his wife, a Sheffield heiress, whom he had lately married, and concerning whose manners and parentage dark hints and ominous presages circulated. 'Ihese apparently were not included in the family. To be sure, there was Mrs. Kenway, Crichton’s mother, who lived with a companion in a street near Bryanston Square ; but she was an old lady with a chronic malady, which had slightly impared her wits. Her limp personality was not held in much account even by her son ; and this seemed a little hard, considering that but for her the family, in relation to the Kenways, would have had no existence. For Mrs. Ken way had been a Miss Nevile-Beauchamp, 'who it was understood had lowered herself ever so much by marrying a man of no county status or connection with the aristocracy. The Kenways, it may be set forth as a matter of fact, had not owned the Grey Manor from time immemorial, as Crichton Ken way would have liked every one to believe. The Grey Manor had in reality belonged to a family extinct half a century ago, and one Kenway, a London merchant, had bought both manor and ancestry, but had unfortunately only been able to keep the latter. The elder branch of the Nevile-Beauchamps, on the other hand, claimed kindred with an historic marquisate. The present marquis 8 $ “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! was a long off from the yonnger branches. There were a good many gradations of lords by courtesy, and honourables, before he could be got at. Still, there he was, an undoubted fact. He was a Catholic; and this section of the Nevile-Beauchamps in which the Ken ways were merged had in it a strong Catholic element. Mrs. Kenway, senior, had been one of many brothers and sisters. The women, it was curious to observe, were more essentially Nevile-Beauchamps than the men. These had married and brought in collateral relations, so that it was no wonder if Koorali did not at once get to the bottom of the family. Some of them had married Protestants, with country estates and fat livings, and had made a compromise in the matter of religion ; but they had nevertheless kept some of the exclusiveness and narrow culture which belongs to the English Catholic by birth. No member was supposed to take any important step in life except for general family interests and with the full concurrence of the family. This having been obtained, the case admitted of no further question. The Nevile-Beauchamps had a constitution of their own, and new laws could be passed, or old ones amended, by a majority. To make an undignified comparison, “We and the World” might have been chosen as their motto, as in the case of a certain hen in one of Hans Andersen’s stories. No phalanx could have been more compact, no circle rounder. Koorali had not yet been made a part of the phalanx or admitted into the circle. The Nevile-Beauchamps discouraged alliances outside the county families. They thought that Crichton would have done well to wait, and choose a wife in England. He might become a rising man when he ceased to be Agent-General. The colonies they considered rather vulgar. They discovered that Koorali had been married without settlements. A woman with a father who had not insisted upon settlements must certainly be incapable of appreciating the serious responsibilities of life. It was within the bounds of possibility that she and her boys might fall a burden on the family. The family, therefore, had better be wary in its advances. A woman who had a way of sitting absolutely silent when Conservative politics were being discussed must be an idiot. The Nevile-Beauchamps were Tories of the rabidly personal kind. They had no scruples in declaring that Mr. Gladstone ought to be hanged, that Mr. Chamberlain deserved quartering as well, and that nothing short of burning at the stake was adequate punishment for the Home Rulers. Koorali sometimes in her dreamy way fancied that there might be a case on the other side. But that was her odd fashion ; she saw two sides to every question. A woman who never looked into the Almanack de Gotha or the Peerage, who did not warm into enthusiasm over the domestic virtues of the sovereign, who had no notion of working in crewels or painting on china, who cared nothing about the class distinction between upper and lower servants, between townsfolk and county people ; to whom church preferment, tenants’ rights, kettledrums, game laws, social precedence, and Debrett, were all dark mysteries ; such a woman must THE FAMILY DINNER. 89 surely hide beneath a gentle exterior something dangerous and antago- nistic to all that was most holy and orthodox. Thus it was that at first Koorali had been welcomed rather tenta- tively ; and it was not till the bride, Mrs. Eustace Ken way, appeared on the scene that a serifs of dinner-parties were organized. At the second of these — Mrs. Eustace characteristically refused the first — the two sisters-in-law met. This happened on the night of that very day on which Morse had called at the Crichton Ken way s’. Koorali was dreaming. She seemed to wake up with a curious, shy smile, when any one spoke to her. She scarcely knew most of the people preseut, and shrank from the gaze of twenty pairs of clear British eyes. She felt a nervous dread of saying the wrong thing. She had been tutored, and forgot her lesson. At last she look refuge in abstractedness. Yet she had an under- consciousness that Crichton was watching her, and was vexed because she did not make a more startling impression. KooriUi wished a little bitterly that she had been born large and im- posing, that she had great blue eyes, massive shouldes, and withes of fair hair, like the biggest of the lady cousins present. The Nevile- Beauchamps were most y large. Even those with little flesh had height, and nothing about tlum suggestive of the aerial or the imagi- native. There were four aunts, three of them freshly arrived from country estates, to whom, while the guests were assembling, Koorali was solemnly introduced. They were all well preserved, well dressed, their lace Flemish of fine quality doing duty for fashion of cut in sleeve and bodice ; they all had bright, hard, observant eyes, thin practical lips, and mellow dogmatic voices. One knows the type. It is provincial, even when it has a town house and is mated with a baronet and a rent-roll. Lady Canteloupe owned a bucolic-looking husband, from whom — it was her glory to declare — she had never, since their union, been separated lor a single night. This had been the boast of her two predecessors. It was a family tradition. Miss Nevile-Ber.uchamp when she married took it upon her shoulders. Lady Canteloupe had once had congestion of the lungs, and a physician had advised a winter in the South. Could Sir John be torn from his shorthorns? No. The Canteloupes never went abroad. The Cante- loupe ladies died at home. Lady Canteloupe was true to her adupted traditions; but she got better. Aunt Eccleswortli was more buxom, but not less severe. There was a faint suggestion of the fox-hunting element about her. Perhaps she had caught it from her husband, who was an M.F.H., and her two daughters good cross-country riders, healthy, vigorous damsels, with no nonsense about them. Aunt Le Marchant was great apparently at agriculture, and was dis- cussing siloes with a benevolent elderly Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp when Koorali made her little obeisance. ‘‘Mrs. Crichton Ken way! IPs Mrs. Eustace who has the money, and you are the Australian. Yes ; I went to see poor Louisa this afternoon, and she explained it to me as well as she could, poor dear. “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.” 90 I have come to town expressly to be near her, and look after her a little. I hope you like England, Mrs. Crichton. Do } ou have agricul- tural depression in Australia “ We have a good deal 'of depression,” answered Koorali simply. “It’s generally among sheep and cattle.” “ Exactly,” said Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp, who spoke with a drawl, and always preface d his remarks with an ejaculation. He turned a close-shaven face, with the bland imperturbable look of a Japanese doll, on Koorali. “Here it’s generally among landlords and glebe-owners.” Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp, who was the host, and had made the introduction, laughed softly, and drew Koorali on. Mrs. Le Marchant was now in a position to state that the new niece-in-law might be pretty, but was certainly very odd-looking, and had fearfully colonial manners. Her husband is a Squarson,” said Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp, as though he were explaining everything. Koorali only vaguely wondered what a Squarson might be. She was not familiar with the witticisms of Sydney Smith. Just then a Miss Nevile-Beauchamp acc- 'Sted her — another aunt, who, however, was unmarried, and liked to be called by her Christian name — appropriately Diana —without a prefix. She had already made Koorali’s acquaintance. “ I was going to call on you to-day,” she said ; “ but I have had so much to do shopping, and the Le Marchants staying; and though it is a great pleasure to have any of the relations with us — we are such a united family — still, taking them up and setting them down, and pictures, and their boys to be entertained, and special services and German Reeds and Maskelyne and Cooke — it all makes so much for the carriage. We went to a lecture at the British Museum, this after- noon,” continued Miss Diana. “ It was on Egyptian antiquities and inscriptions, by a lady. She had got it all up out of books, and all the ancient customs, and the hieroglyphics, and the Pyramids, don’t you know. But as she had never been in the country, I thought we might have read it all up for ourselves. And then these dynamitards are going to blow up the British Museum next; and I didn’t really think it was worth risking our lives — now, do you ? ” Koorali assented. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp approached. She was the hostess — the Kitty of whom Crichton had spoken, who had social ambition, and W'ould like to know Lady Betty Morse. She was a little woman, with a purring voice and cat-like feminine ways. Her face was soft and rather pretty. She dressed trimly in perfect taste, and knew just the right amount of rouge to put on, and just how far her eyebrows and eyelashes might be accentuated. She had a little air of feline dignity and rectitude, and of admirable self-confidence. She went in rather for fads in decoration, pretty devices in lamp shades, a hotch-potch of effects — bulrushes and blue china. She had gained quite a reputation among the Nevile-Beauchamps for originality and the brilliance of her entertainments. If she had not been accepted without reservations THE FAMILY DINNER. 9i the family might have felt a little scandalized sometimes at the highly respectable samples of the literary, artistic, and theatrical professions to be seen occasionally at her parties. As it was, Kitty was indulged and admired as being “ quite unlike anybody else;” and when she gave her dress a little pat, preened her small head, and observed in her staccato manner, with her little emphases here and there, “ I do not say that I am an authority, but I think it right just to contribute m3 tiny suggestion,” that always settled a mooted point. “ I have a letter for you, dear Diana. I do maintain that I take no responsibility, though I know what it is about — a bazaar in which I am interested. It was sent to me to be posted, and now I can give it to you and get it off my mind.” “A bazaar!” exclaimed Miss Nevile-Beauchamp. “Oh, I hope no one has asked me to do anything. I really cannot. I am far too busy. If it had been for some charity in London — but a coffee-house in the country ! Put it in the waste-paper basket, dear — or stay, I may as well keep the unused stamp.” Miss Nevile-Beauchamn carefully detached the stamp, and just then, as Mrs. Kitty was remarking, “It really is too bad of people to keep every one else waiting,” Mr. and Mrs. Eustace Ivenway were announced. The heiress got her clothes in Paris, that was evident. Only Worth could have produced so startling an arrangement. The marvellous satin petticoat embroidered in wreaths of gold and silver, cunningly interspersed with humming-birds’ plumage ; the gorgeous velvet train, the twinkling diamonds, the high-heeled buckled shoes, the humming- bird fan of Palais Pvoyal design, the long gold-embroidered gloves, all these details quite distracted attention for a moment from the face and figure of Mrs. Eustace Kenway herself. “ Oh, what bad style ; what very bad style ! ” murmured Lady Canteloupe. “ Money in the funds — not land,” briefly commented the wife of the Squarson. “ Puts one in mind of ‘ New Men and Old Acres,’ or something of that sort,” whispered Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp to KoorMi. But the face, with its clear skin — a little too russet in tint — its open, brown, dog-like eyes, its somewhat blunt features and crop of short dark hair curled closely to the head, was frank, fresh, and taking ; and the figure, though it was square and robust, with much roughness of movement and gesture, had a certain British, milkmaid comeliness of its own— the sort of face and figure suited to a linen blouse or flannel boating-dress, which would have seemed at home in a hay field, on a tennis ground, romping with dogs, or wielding a pair <»f sculls ; but which was singularly out of keeping with Parisian fripperies. Mrs. Eustace, coming forward with firmly planted feet and squared elbows, like a school-girl in a hurry, made her apol \gies. “ I am afraid we are b-beastly late,” she began. JSlie had the slightest hesitation in her speech, and fought a little with her school- boy slang. “ It was all Eustace’s fault, though. He won’t hurry. I can’t make 92 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! him hurry. I like to go through life quick — d-double trot. He don’t* I’m always ready before him. Ain’t I, Jo?” She appealed, as she shook hands with her hostess, to a dark pretty girl following behind, dressed very quietly in black, who answered meekly — “ Yes, Zen ; you are always ready.” The brothers said, “ How do you do ? ” as unemotionally as though they had only been parted a dozen hours. Eustace did not look as though he could be emotional. He was rather after Crichton’s pattern, only not so tall, and without his long neck. He was more withered up and neutral-looking. He wore an eye-glass. His clothes, or some- thing about him, gave one the impression that he had lived a good deal in Paris. By the time he had made his new sister’s acquaintance the move to dinner began. Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp led the way with Koorali, and, as a compromise, Eustace Kenway brought up the rear with Mrs. Kitty. “ I met a friend of yours the other night, at Lady Betty Morse’s party, Mrs. Eustace,” said Crichton Ken way across the table to his sister-in-law. “ Lord Arden, I mean.” Mrs. Eustace had just answered the Master of Foxhounds’ question whether she liked hunting with the declaration “It’s the only b-blooming thing I can do.” She paused a moment, and there was an odd little change in her voice, as she said, “ I don’t know Lord Arden well. I shouldn’t say he was a friend of mine. I met him in Home, ever so long ago. My mother took me to Rome. She said it would improve my mind. I did my Peter’s and my Vati- can, but it didn’t improve me, not one little bit.” “Now, really!” drawled Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp, who was always a little behind the conversation. “ Hunting the only thing you can do ! But there is something else, Mrs. Eustace ? You know how to talk slang.” “ Yes,” returned Mrs. Eustace imperturbably — “and I know how to slang the people I don’t like. I picked it up from the boys. There was an old man living next us, with six boys and not a woman in the house. I learned a great deal from them. Ask Jo.” “ Who is Jo?” asked Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp, who was rather enjoying himself between the two Mrs. Kenways. He found Koorali interesting, and Mrs. Eustace decidedly amusing. “ She is the young lady I brought with me. Her name is Josephine. You\l call her Miss Garling, though she is a relation of }murs. I found her in & pension. She’s an orphan, don’t you know. Her mother was a Nevile-Beauchamp. You’d ail like to suppress her — oh yes, I know, don’t tell me! You’d like to suppress me — but you can’t. Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp — not much! Isn’t there any way of shortening your name ? It’s a name and a-haif now.” “ You might call me Abraham. That’s what I was christened. I don’t know that it’s much better. I don’t want to suppress you, Mrs. Eustace. On the contrary, I’ll give you every opportunity to dart up like a Jack-in-the-box, and astonish us all. We are a dull set* THE FAMILY DINNER. 93 “Well — I should think you were— just a little,” returned Mrs. Eustace, impartially surveying the table, “ some of you. I expect I shall astonish you. My mother says I astonish every one. She says my manners are dreadful. I tell her it’s her fault. She should have blown me up. And she didn’t. Nobody ever did.” “ It isn’t likely that any one will begin to reprimand you now, Mrs. Eustace,” gallantly put in old Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp. “ Well, it’s nice of you to say that,” returned Mrs. Eustace. “You were better up to time then. And now I’m going to talk to you a bit. Do you like dogs? If you do, you must come and stay with me, and I’ll show you my street of kennels. I’ve got twenty-eight at the Priory-by-the-W ater.” Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp turned to Koorali. “ So you’ve met Arden. He’s coming in to-night. He’s a queer fellow, but not so queer as his father, Lord Forrest. Aiden gets things on the brain. He has temperance and virtue on the brain just now. I knew him in the South Seas, when I was commodore out there. He had Pacific-lsleomania then. Do you know what that is, Mrs. Crichton ? ” “ Yes,” said KoonUi. “ In Australia my sitting-room was hung with tapa, and my boys had a Kanaka for a nurse.” “ It’s fatal while it lasts, Pacific-lsleomania. If you want any more tapa , I’ll give you some to set a new fashion, or to wear at a fancy ball. I found Arden blossomed into a representative of her Majesty — what would that old Jacobite his father have said? — with a seal as big as this plate, and power to make treaties with native princes, which the Government here at home was bound to ratify.” “ Did he depose any reigning sovereigns or annex any territory ? ” asked Koorali. “No; happily for Lord Derby. He rummaged about the islands, trying to convert the white reprobates to morality. There’s a white man on every island, Mrs. Crichton. I don’t know how they got there, but there they are — and the scum of the earth into the bargain. First, the scum of Lngland goes to Botany Bay. Excuse me, if I hurt your feelings. The scum of Botany Bay goes to Fiji. The scum of Fiji goes to Samoa; and from Samoa floats to the islands. It’s a long process.” “ I’ll tell you what’s a long process ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Eustace, “ and that is dinner on a fast day. I’m a Catholic, Mrs. Crichton, and I was at a party last night, and forgot to eat my supper before twelve o’clock. 1 hopo you’ll give us some supper after twelve to-night, Admiral. I like good things to eat.” The sign was given, and the ladies departed. It was Mrs. Nevile- Beauchamp’s reception night, and the rooms soon began to fill, so that Koorali and Zenobia were not long left to the tender mercies of the women of the family. Though the party was supposed to be small and early, it was in reality very crowded, and Koorali was allowed to sit comparatively unnoticed. This would have annoyed Ciichton, had he 94 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE* been aware of it, but lie did not at first perceive her, and was studying the company on his own account. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp’s parties were amusing, and if her celebrities were for the most part of the second and third rate order, some of them at all events were in the theatrical and artistic set. Politicians and diplomatists did not c'>me to Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp’s house, nor was it the resort of the frivolous “ smart ” set. The court flavour was distinctly wanting. Some actors and actresses, however, w T ho were in society, might be found there; some poets and painters of the Bossetti school ; composers and drawing-room singers and reciters, who gave their performances gratis, and were not herded like goats among sheep, but chattered in broken French and Italian, and gave a sort of life to the entertainment. Crichton Kenway, not yet very well versed in the intricacies of London society, wandered about making observations. Comparing this assemblage with that at Lady Betty Morse’s house, he came to the conclusion that though it was his fixed intention to shine in the highest sphere, this one was on the whole more enjoyable, and not to be despised, seeing that it offered facilities for gaining the ear of society journalists, for securing admission to studios and private views, and perhaps getting a glimpse at an artist’s pretty model now and then ; perhaps receiving an invitation for Koorali to sit for her portrait to a Ptoyal Academician. He had learned that there was one present. Miss Jo had communicated the fact. He found that, in spite of her demure look and recent residence in a foreign pension , to say nothing of her being one of the family, she was a very well-informed young lady as to the ins and outs of London life. She knew who every one was, and commented upon each in a quiet little voice. “They are nearly all Bohemians here,” she said; but they are all awfully proper Bohemians. They are very particular. Some of them get married twice over, to make sure. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp wouldn’t have any that weren’t strictly proper. I think some of the improper ones are more interesting, don’t you?” Ken way assented with a man-of-the-world air ; but he thought to himself that he would set Lady Canteloupe on Jo, for she was hardly a credit to the family. “Like the people in ‘Claire,’” continued the young lady, naming a novel which was not considered food for babes and sucklings. “ There’s the man who wrote ‘ Claire.’ He’s like his books, there’s a bad taste about him, but I think he’s perfectly splendid. He’s mashed on Mrs. Melville, the actress — who makes you laugh so in ‘ Barefaced ’ — don’t you know ? She doesn’t make you laugh much off the stage ; she is rather stupid. A great many of them are. Now we must stop, I suppose, because Gallup is going to fool for a bit.” When Mr. Gallup, the comic singer, had “ fooled for a bit,” as Miss Jo and her patroness Zen expressed it, another comedian stood up, and, after making a few faces, made a speech. “ Ladies arid gentlemen,” he said, “ I am accustomed to sing on the stage, and retreat by the wings to this sort of sound,” and he feebly THE FAMILY DINNER. 95 clapped his hands. “I don’t see any wings, and I don’t hear any clapping, so I shall sit down again.” Every one applauded this as being extremely witty. Afterwards, an aesthetic young lady, in a red gown with a sacque, played the zither. People began to move about more ; and Crichton lost Miss Jo. f lhcre was nothing for him to do but. listen to the scraps of conversation, which were principally of the artistic shop kind. Crichton felt rather out of it, but decided that he was quite superior to this kind of company. He heard a wild-looking lady remarking plaintively, “ Oh, I’m never at home on Saturday afternoons, I’m always hunting after engagements at matinees.” A little further on, a young man who looked hardly equal to the exertion of carrying his opera hat, was delivering himself of the statements, “ Well, Zola is out of fashion now; he is quite Philistine and behind the time. Our school is infinitely more realistic than Zola. We would show life as it is, if only we could get our works published.” While another young man remarked mournfully, “ Publishers want suppressing.” “ And managers,” put in a third gentleman, whom Crichton inferred to be a writer of plays. Mrs. Eustace meanwhile had sought her sister-in-law, to whom she had in her impulsive way taken a fancy. “I mean to come and have lunch with you one day,” she said abruptly. “ I shall be very glad,” answered Koorali shyly. “ What day will you come V ” She took courage, and spoke more eagerly. “ I wonder if you’ll tumble to me,” continued Mrs. Eustace reflec- tively. There was something wilful in her eyes as she looked into Koorali’s face. She began drawing on one of her long French gloves. “ Oh, I hate putting my fat pads into coverings ! ’* she exclaimed inter- jectionally. “I don’t expect you’ll like me; Eustace’s people don't. Eustace thinks I have very bad manners, only he is too polite to say so. Is your husband polite? ” “ I suppose so,” faltered KoorMi, startled by the abruptness of the question. “ I never saw him before to-night, you know. I don’t know whether I want to see him again to-morrow. I want to see you though. He has an appointment, hasn’t he ? ” “ He is Agent-General for South Britain,” replied Koorali. “ It takes a lot of cleverness to get an appointment like that, don’t it ? He looks as if he knew that. I say ! — he doesn’t want to let one know that he thinks no end of himself, but he does, all the same. He’s got his eye on us now. 1 should just say he was weighing us in a pair of scales, shouldn’t you ? You’ve got the b-beauty, you know, and the — the rest of it — manners, and all that — and I’ve got the shekels.” “Oh! ” exclaimed Koorali, drawn from her reserve by this childlike frankness, “ I wish it were so. I don’t always know what to say. Pm so shy. It’s all strange. I don’t know what is expected of one.” 96 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. “Well, I dare say that'll wear off,’ observed Mrs. Eustace, com- placently unfurling her fan. “My mother thinks Fm horrid,” she pursued; “but I don’t much mind that, for she is horrid herself.” “ Your mother I ” repeated Koorali, in wonder. “ She is not my real mother, she is my stepmother. I don’t mind telling you that she is awfully bad form, very v-vulgar. Lord bless you, even / can see that. She always let me do any blessed thing I pleased, and have, just whatever I howled for, and that was the only good thing about her. Not that it was so very good either. My jolly old guardians said she had a beastly bad effect upon me. My guardians wanted to get me away from her. My guardians wanted to get rid of the responsibility, and so they bothered me into marrying. I didn’t want to marry. I wanted to have some fun out of life first. I think its awfully slow to be married.” “ My dear Mrs. Eustace, what terrible sentiments for a bride,” said Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp, perching herself gracefully upon an early- English settee beside the sistei s-in-law. “You must forgive me for admiring the embroidery on your dress. It is quite magnificent.” “Yes, I like it. I think it’s pretty smart,” said the bride, in her odd blunt way, stroking the gorgeous wreaths with a most simple satisfac- tion. “ A Frenchman designed it for me. He died just afterwards. I sent him a wreath tor his coffin.” Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp moved off to receive some entering guests. “ I don’t like Kitty — much,” announced Mrs. Eustace. “ She asked me to call her Kitty. May I call you by your name? It’s a funny one, ain’t it ? ” “ Ivoorali.” “Koorali!” she repeated. “And mine’s Zenobia. I don’t know why they gave it me. What does it mean ? It’s too showy for my style, ain’t it? But most people call me Zen. It’s shorter.” “ 1 t in sure that we shall be good friends, Zen,” said KoorMi. “ Well, anyhow, we can stand up together against the old bounders — I mean the family,” said Zen, with an odd little twist of her head that set all her diamonds twinkling. “ But you don’t know anything about me yet.” “Yes, i do,” replied Koorali. “Lord Arden told me something about you; and he said that 1 should like you very much.” Zenobia let her fan fall, and turned her eves full upon Koorali. “ Tell me exactly what he said,” she commanded. “ He said that you were frank and unaffected, and that you had not been spoiled.” “ He’d better not ask the jolly old guardians, or Eustace. Anything else?” “ No — at least, nothing very particular.” “Come, there was! There was something else. Tell it me — quick.” Koorali smiled, and said reluctantly, “ Only that you had scraped the Priory.” THE FAMILY DINNER. 97 Mrs. Eustace stared. “Well; it wanted cleaning. I don’t like to see a hou~e covered wi'h green mould, and grass growing on the tops of the wails. Clean, clean ; T want every thing clean, don’t you know. And perhaps you’ll not mind my being imperious. Eustace says I’m imperious ; — it’s his word. I don’t see how 1 could help it. Of course I mean to have my own way. What’s the good of living at all if one don’t get one’s own way ? ” There flashed through Koorali’s mind something Morse had said to her. She remembered when she had been young, like Zen, and had expected to have everything her own way. She met suddenly Zen’s wistful glance, which was somehow in contradiction with all the rest of her. In spite of her off-hand manner, Zen had a watchful observant look, as though she were feeling her way. “I wish you’d tell me what you are thinking,” she said; and went on without waiting for a reply. “ I always like to turn people inside out. When I’m talking fastest, I am always thinking most.” Zenobia’s eyes were at that moment fixed upon the door. Lord Arden had entered, and was shaking hands with his hostess. “ Mrs. Nevile- Beauchamp is a c-cat,” continued Zenobia. “ She wants to manage me. I’d like to see her do it ! I don’t go in for being managed. She is very clever. She is so clever that one is obliged to notice it. The cleverest people are the ones who make you believe they are stupid. Ain’t that so, Lord Arden?” she added abruptly, addressing Lord Arden, who had at once made his way to them. Zenobia held out her hand, her face beaming. It was evident that she was glad to see him. Lord Arden talked to Zenobia for a few minutes, and then some chance tarn in the conversation drew Koorali into it. Something or other brought up the subject of colonial populations and subject races, whereon Lord Arden was strong, being filled with the principles of the Aborigines’ Protection Society and Mr. F. W. Chesson. Lord Arden began givimr out his vie vs in a deprecatory sort of way; and only lx cause Koorali asked for them. He expect d probably to find in Mrs. Kenway, the daughter of a colonial prime minister, a shrill feminine representative of the views of the old-fashioned colonist, who held that the soil of the colonies was given to him by providential decree to hold for him and his heirs for ever, and that the aborigines were put into his hands by divine design, in order that through his energetic agency they might be improved off the face of all creation when they had ceased to be of any further use to him. Lord Arden was much surprised to find that Koorali went far indeed with his ideas, and was full of sympathy with the natives and of anger against the utter selfishness of some of the colonists. From one topic they passed on to another, until Koorali found herself talking with eager- ness, animation, and even volubility. The young philanthropist was fairly charmed with her; and before half an hour it came to this, that Lord Arden was gravely consulting Kooraii on some question con- 93 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE .’ nected with the South Sea Islands; was eagerly interposing, “hut then, Mrs. Kenway, is it your opinion?” or “what I was particularly anxious to have your ideas about, Mrs. Ken way, was this;” until Zenobia’s breath was fairly taken away. “ My goodness,” she said at last, when a pause came in the conver- sation — a pause which she knew would most certainly be filled up at once if she did not strike in — “ you are a pair to talk ! Why, Koorali, you do take me off my feet. To think of your knowing all about these things, and being so clever ! Who would have thought it of a dedcate little shrinking thing like you? Why, I didn’t suppose you could say boh to a goose! ” “ You were wrong, you see ; she can say boh to me,” Lord Arden said, with a smile. “ She has s dd boh to some of my choicest theories very effectively, I can assure you.” “Has she really? ” Zenobia asked innocently. “Well, my dear, it strikes me that, though there are only two of us, the family won’t get much change out of us two. I say, shan’t we just give them fits, you and me? I suppose it’s ‘you and I,’ Lord Arden ain’t it? But I never could quite make out, and it sounds funny, don’t it — that ‘ I ’ standing all alone at the end of a sentence?” “ Like the criminal in the dock,” Arden said gravely, “ when the judge has finished the words of doom.” “ Yes; that’s it, now,” Zenobia said simply. But to think of you two taking so much interest in the ai'fairsof other folks, and foreigners, and niggers, and all that lot! Why, I was never taught to take the least little bit of interest in any mortal thing but my own concerns. Yes; I have been jolly badly brought up,” Zenobia went on reflec- tively, looking straight before her with the wistful yet alert expression in her brown eyes; “that gets more and more clear to me as I go on and meet people. Kooiali, my dear thing, won’t you teach me to think about niggers and people as well as myself? Lord Arden, will you — like ever such a good chap, I wish you would — show me how I am to think about my fellow-man sometimes ? After I have done up the Priory,” she added. “I haven’t time just now. It takes a lot of thinking when you’re lining your rooms with plush; and you want it dyed to suit your complexion.” “I hope you will think about me sometimes, as one fellow-man, 55 Lord Arden said gallantly. “ Oh, that I shall ! ” Zenobia replied, with a certain innocent fervour in her tone. It was beginning to be faintly borne in upon her that there were other objects of interest to human beings in this world than gowns embroidered with humming-birds, and the furniture and trap- pings of a rich woman’s house. Just then Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp brought up a Grosvenor Gallery painter, aod introduced him to Mrs. Eustace Ken way — to the annoyance of Crichton, who had been watching the little group. Zenobia accepted the painter’s arm and his invitation to go downstairs. He being of the Burne Jones school, cast a startled glance at her THE FAMILY DINNER . 99 gorgeous draperies as she rose, but Zen straightened her feather- trimmed train with childlike satisfaction. “ Mrs. Kenway,” said Lord Arden, “ won’t you come and have some tea or something ? ” Kooiali rose. There was a little block just in front of them. A young actress, to whom Crichton had a moment before been intro- duced, was making play with her large bistre-shaded eyes, and trying to keep two or three admirers in tow at once. Koorali watched her with a wondering look, and Lord Arden w itched Koorali. The actress was very pretty and taking, after her type, but it was a type which bewildered Koorali a little. She had gold-powdered hair meeting her brows, with big black eyes, and a melodramatic manner which she, was exercising now on Crichton. “Mr. Kenway, here is Signor Charqui tragically imploring me to take him down, because he has to go home and write an opera, and his doctor says he will die unless he has plenty of stimulants. And here is Mr. Foxwell declaring that he also is dying to get me some jelly, and that the completion of his Academy picture is in question. What am l to do? Mr. Foxwell expiring for me, and Signor Charqui for want of stimulants ! I must leave them to die together,” and she put her hand within Crichton’s arm. Lord Arden and Koorali moved on. “It is a little perplexing for you,” said he, with a laugh, “to see people you only know' across the footlights dressed like the rest of the world.” “ I suppose they are like the rest of the world,” said Koorali. “ Anyhow, they mean you to think so,” he replied. “ When you are introduced to the fair Miss Mauleverer, Mrs. Ken way, you must avoid anything remotely professional. You must ask her if she was in the Park this morning, and if she went to Lady So-and-So’s party last night, though you know that according to physical laws she must have been at the Burlington Theatre.” As they came out of the supper-room, Ken way made his way to his wife. He had given Miss Mauleverer up to Mr. Gallup, the comedian, and those two, with the lady who hunted at matinees and the young man who was more realistic than Zola, formed a little knot at the bottom of the stairs. “The social status of the actor,” Mr. Gallup was saying — “the social status of the actor may be summed up in one word — Houp ! ” and he executed an acrobatic bound and a series of funny grimaces. “ Come along,” said Ken way, touching Koorali — she had got sepjv rated for a moment from Ar ten — “ we will get away from all this infernal rot.” Then, seeing Lord Arden, he made an elaborate little speech about his wife’s delicate health and the bore of having to go to two or three places in an evening. “Good night,” said Arden. “I shall see you soon again, Mrs. Ken way, at Lady Betty Morse’s. She has promised to ask me to meet you at another Sunday dinner.” ICO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: Ken way was pleased that the bystanders should know that he dined at the Morses'. He hade Arden good night with cordiality. “That man is a cad,” thought Arden to himself, as they moved cff; “ and 1 shouldn’t think she liked it, poor little thing 1 ” CHAPTEK XII. THE “LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWER.” Crichton Kenway had passed through three several stages of feeling with regard to his wife’s position in London society. When they were on the way to England, and for the first few daj^s of their stay, he felt convinced that he was the happy possessor of a wife who was destined to become a star of the London season and of many seasons. Alter the party at Lady Betty’s, which was really their first appearance in what could be called society, he fell into a condition of profound disappointment. He was convinced that Koorali was a dead failure, a hopeless failure ; and he was wroth with her and almost hated her. She became transfigured in his eyes. Her very face, her very figure, did not seem the same to him. Up to that time, in his Sultan-like fashion, he had been delighted to feast his eyes On the beauty of her face and her form. Even when she annoyed him, he regarded her much in the light of a horse, a dog, a picture, some chattel which belonged to him, and might be either scolded, admired, or simply ignored as the mood took him. After that he began to wonder where he could have seen charm of feature, or figure, or movement in her. She was so shy, he thought; she looked so awkward ; she did not dress well; she did not we;>r her clothes well; smart dresses would not seem smart if put on by her. Then came the third stage. Kenway did not quite understand soiety in London; Lady Betty did. Lady Betty had said that Koorali would be a great success, and Lady Betty was light ; for she knew her world and her people. She knew that the very novelty of Koorali’s shy ways, her little bursts of a sort of intellectual aggressiveness, which was only shyness taking another form, her half- dreamy poetic sympathies and fancies, which Lady Betty perceived from the outside though she did not understand them, her originality, her utter lack of affectation — Lady Betty had seen at once that peculiarities such as these, when combined with a graceful figure and a singularly pretty and picturesque face, would tell on London society. And in truth, they did tell. Before Koorali had been many weeks going about in society, there were found pretty languishing girls who tried to walk, and stand, and lean, and use their eyes, and move their hands after what they conceived to be the pattern of the young Australian married woman that all the world was talking of. This was Kenway ’s third experience. He was not yet over his anger and disappointment at her social failure, when he had to change his ideas all round once more, and to wonder and delight over her social success. THE “ LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWER.' ioi Yeo; there was no mistake about it. The renlity could not be ignored merely because it was a pleasant and unexpected reality ; he was tho lawful owner of the successful beauty of the London season. Kenway was especially interested in observing the manner in which Sandham Morse took to Koorali. He was pleased to see how much Morse evidently liked her. Crichton Ken way was not a martyr to fits of jealousy. He had a placid faith in his wife. He did not believe she had one drop of passionate emotion in her ; he felt sure that no temptation in the world could induce her to do wrong. He did not particularly admire her for this ; she wanted blood, he thought. She had not “ go ” enough in her to care for love-making and that sort of thing. In some ways it was very lucky for him that she was cast in such a mould ; at any rate, it relieved him from all apprehension. He could trust her where other men could not trust their wives; that is to say, he could make use of her where other men could not make use of their wives. It was clear to him that Morse was the rising man in English politics; and he meant to rise with Morse. It was clear to him that a time was coming, was close at hand, would come alter the next general election, when the democratic party must get a chauce ; and with that time would come Morse, as Prime Minister, or, at the very least, as leader of the House of Commons, with some noble figure-head in the House of Lords to be set up for the nominal part of Premier. Then Kenway wanted to get some permanent appointment. His recent London experiences made him now rather scorn the colonial governorship which had at first been the object of his desires. He had not the means to go into Parliament, although he had some ambition of that kind. He wanted a secure place, with so many thousands a year, and the admission into good society. He wanted to be certain of a handsome income ; to live well ; to have no more debts ; to dine out every evening in the season at good houses ; to make a round of visits at castles and country seats during the recess; to know every one in society ; to be consulted by every one ; to be in the thick of everything, and to snub the Family and make them wild with envy. Now, all this could be assured to him by a permanent appointment in the Colonial Office, and this he intended that Morse should get for him. He began to think that Koorali might be of inestimable service to him, provided she did not indignantly revolt at this sort of intrigue ; and he therefore saw with peculiar gratification that Morse seemed to like her more and more every day. Kenway never could talk to her much now; they had hardly anything in common. When she and Morse sat together they seemed never to want for subjects of conver- sation. Secretly, this incensed him, and at times lie almost hated Morse — not from jealousy, but from a sense of inferiority. Then he reflected that even a statesman, when he wishes to gain the favour of a pretty woman, must unbend and make her believe she is his intel- lectual equal. A husband's position naturally releases him from the necessity for such affectations. 102 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' He was, of course, far too clever and too knowing to consent to figure in society merely as “beauty’s husband.” Such a position accepted by him would not serve his purpose at all. He meant to make a distinct mark upon society for himself ; and he succeeded. He could do a great many things remarkably well, and he had the art of making the most of his accomplishments. He rode splendidly; he knew that when the autumn came on he would be able to show himself a good shot ; he was almost a brilliant talker ; he knew many countries well, and had a courier-life gift of polyglot conversation. He could give advice on almost any subject; and there was no question on which he could not come to a decision in a moment. Nothing im- presses the majority of men more than the capacity to give a judgment on the instant. Solomon himself, if he asked for time to consider a point, would not be half so impressive, so necessary to his friend, so comforting to mankind in general, as some one who gave a wrong opinion, but gave it at once, and with an air of decision. What if the opinion be wrong? Nobody cares after the thing is over; unless, perhaps, the one man who has acted upon the opinion, and he does not always remember whether he did act upon it or on some judgment or impulse of his own. The rest of the world forget all about the matter, and only remember that Crichton Ken way, by Jove, sir, is a man who can tell you off-hand exactly what you ought to do under any given cir- cumstances, by Jove! An uncommonly clever fellow, everybody said. Yes ; Koorali was a social success. She came upon London society towards the close of a season when there was a sort of reaction against the professional beauty, and people had raved themselves into weariness over the favourite actress. Koorali’s shrinking wild-flower looks and ways — or what Lady Betty called her wild-falcon ways — had a sudden attraction lor all who just then were yearning for novelty. Lady Betty had fallen straightway in love with her eyes, her figure, her style generally ; and she had set various other great ladies also in admiration of them. A royal prince begged to be enabled to make acquaintance with the Australian visitor ; and highly commended, not only her appearance, but her manners and her odd, pretty name. And then, Kooiali’s very mode of dressing, so unlike that of regulated and conventional social life, had its charm also. She first made a sensation at Mr. Whistler’s “ ten o’clock.” Lady Betty shepherded her assiduously, and took care that just the right word should be said about her to just the right people. It w r as one of Lady Betty’s little whims to take up occasionally and make the reputa- tion of some pretty, witty, or charming woman. She did not care for beauties who “ ran ” as such, and on patriotic grounds she disapproved of the craze for American loveliness. She had thought for some time that the colonials should have a chance, and had tiied a little while ago to start the daughter oi that great shearer of sheep, Sir Vesey Plympton, and the wife of a possessor of many gold claims, who, how- ever, had been a dead failure. Lady Betty had submitted to a little good-natured chaff on the subject of her “ Australian with the nuggets,” THE 11 LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWER." 103 who smelt of Ballarat, and whose startling Worth toilettes had occa- sioned as much talk as Mrs. Langtry’s famous costumes at the Prince’s Theatre. Now, Lady Betty was pleased to make it evident that an Australian woman could be charming and original without over- dressing, under-dressing, talking strange Antipodean slang, and aggres- sively suggesting nuggets. She laid some stress upon the fact of Crichton Ken way’s modest circumstances, while at the same time she alluded vaguely to his political prestige and his views upon the “annexation of New Guinea, and Lord Derby and federation — a sort of model for the Irish nationalists, don’t you know.” Lady Betty, in her pretty inconsequent way, addressed a champion of Home Rule, who was too distinctly and nationally humorous to be excluded from a circle which craves amusement, “With our dear princess’s husband at the Castle ; as he is a German there could not be any ill feeling.” Lady Betty was quite taken with the idea, and presented the Home Ruler to Koorali forthwith. It is not quite certain, however, whether Crichton Ken way would have relished her description of him, could he at the Universe Club have heard it given. Lady Betty caught the attention of the art clique first, as in duty bound to her entertainer; and after Mr. Whistler’s lecture, of which in truth our young bar- barian understood but little, Koorali found herself the centre of a group of striking and Mephisfophelian figures, and in the novel position of a kind of lightning-conductor diverting the shaits of the leaders of rival schools, of which one might be said to find “Le beau dans rhorrible,” and of the other “L’horrible dans le beau.” Koorali felt the whole thing a little bewildering. It was a very curious and repre- sentative gathering — rank, fashion, politics, art, literature, medicinej and the stage, hobnobbing joyfully. The house at which the party took place had got the name of Noah’s Ark, from the variety of species which were wont to congregate in it. No fitter scene could have been chosen lor Koorali’s first success. Lady Betty was interested on her own account as well. She realized her ambition to make the acquaintance of Doctor Maria Lakes web Tubbs, and Koorali was included in the arrangement which ensured the dangling of the skeleton before a select feminine company in Pari Lane. Lady Betty began to meditate a physiological crusade, and t-hc t nlightenment of her own sex upon the dangers attending tight lacing She did not allow the artists and the Home Ruler, however, tf monopolize her charge too long. Lady Betty knew how to manage things. A ducht ss, whose eldest son was talked of as the coming governor of a great Australian colony, was sweetly propitiated. Othei great ladies were taken in hand in turn. Then an elderly peer, whe was also a poet, a storv-teller, and an admirer of beauty, asked for an introduction to Koorali. He told her his latest good thing, laughing a fat chuckle at his own wit. He asked her three times where she lived, and the next day sent a card for an “at home.” After him came another literary man, an aged masher, with tiny shrivelled form, thin silvery hair, trembling hands and bleared blue eyes — but a power io4 '* THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. in his sphere, a critic whose verdict made or marred a book or a beauty. He was a living volume of scandalous chronicle, dating back to Byron in his prime ; descending from the Guiccioli to luxuriant matrons preseut, at whom he glanced, shaking with impish merriment. “ They are so proper now,” he murmured, “ with their daughters beside them 1 But the tales I could tell ! ” And the tales he did tell ! Horror ! Koorali shrank like a wounded fawn. She turned a pale indignant face, to meet Lord Arden’s eyes. He had dropped in late. He gave her his arm and took her down to supper. He felt like some knight protecting an innocent maiden. “I know what Adrian Maybank’s conversation is to men,” he said; “ I can imagine what it might be to women. When he was younger, he became a sort of star in the drawin j -rooms ; and it was the fashion to smile behind fans at Mr. Maybank’s spicy anecdotes. I will tell you what a great woman, who is dead now, once said of him. It will show you that there are queens of womanhood who know how to defend their royalty.” There was a repressed enthusiasm about Lord Arden’s way of talking, even when he was inclined to be a little cynical, which made him serna an odd blending of knight-errantry and nineteenth-centuryism. “ This woman had been a singer. She was a genius. The blood of the tragedians flowed in her veins. She was a muse herself. I wish I could describe her to you. She was diamond-eyed ; and when roused, she could break into flashing speech. I mean Adelaide Kemble ; and I get Carlylesque when she is my subject. I saw her one evening a few years back — she was past her prime, but magnificent still — in a room full of people, clever and fashionable, when Adrian Maybank, his talent, his wit, his social charm were under discussion. She was silent, with her elbow resting upon a table, her chin upon her hand, her eyebrows bent ominously, till appealed to by her hostess. ‘ And you, Mrs. Sartoris, what is your opinion?’ I tell you, it was some- thing beautiful to see the dramatic gesture, the flame from those dark eyes, the Kemble head thrown back; to hear the clear, thrilling voice which spoke slowly and deliberately — ‘ When Adrian Maybank enters a room in which I am, there is but one thing I would say, “ Women and boys, leave the court.” ’ That was all, Mrs. Kenway. She went back to her former attitude, but no one seemed very ready then to carry on the praise of Adrian Maybank.” The episode of this introduction did not end here. The next morn- 1 ing Koorali received from Mr. Maybank a tiny presentation volume of poems which celebrated, in language of old-fashioned free gallantry, the charms of various well-known ladies, to whose initials the poet had, for the stranger’s enlightenment, appended in his crabbed hand- writing the other letters of their names. Enclosed with the volume was a copy of sparkling vers de society addressed to the fair Australian. They were the last Adrian Maybank ever wrote ; for he died suddenly the following day. He had, however, distributed the little poem widely. THE “LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWER? 105 Thus was Koor&li made famous ; to Morse’s vague regret ; to Lady Betty’s childlike satisfaction; to the envy of Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp ; and to the astonishment and alarm of the Family generally, who were convinced that such sudden notoriety could not be consistent with good morals. Some paragraph in a social weekly, and a few indis- criminate rumours penetrating the sacred circle, finally brought about a family conclave, in the course of which Lady Canteloupe gave out the resolution that it was desirable Mrs. Crichton should be snubbed ; for Lady Canteloupe was one of those strictly proper ladies who hold the theory that virtue is a tender plant which can only flourish in the domestic forcing-house. Zenobia was not included in the family con- clave. She had quite made up her mind that she and Koorali were pledged to an offensive and defensive alliance against the Family. “Well!” she said abruptly to Koorali, when according to her announcement she came to luncheon, “ do you feel a little less cheap than when I saw you first — now that you are being turning into a professional beauty ? You see, I was right. If I have the money, you have what is higher in the market.” Zenobia often came to call on Koorali. Crichton shuddered faintly at the sight of her carriage, which he used to notice standing at his door; and he always hoped, on these occasions, that none of his fashionable friends would call at the same time. It was a very mag- nificent turn-out, with as much gold plating and ornamental chain- work as could be attached to the harness. “ I wonder you don’t persuade your wife to drop that style of Lord Mayor’s coach,” Crichton said once to his brother Eustace. “ Ah ! ” Eustace had a quiet irritating way of putting his eyeglass in his eye, and languidly answering a question or remark which an- noyed him. “ It’s her money, you know. I suppose she has a right to buy a Lord Mayor’s coach if she likes it.” Crichton said no more. He was clever enough to see that Eustace t» exaggerated tolerance of his wife’s eccentricities concealed a gall. It was very evident that Eustace had married without love, and was ashamed of having done so. KoorMi did not, as Zenobia herself would have phrased it, “ tumble to ” her sister-in-law. She was oppressed by Zenobia’s exuberant vitality, by her frankness which seemed a want of delicacy, and by her slang and boyish manners. There was almost nothing in common between them except a certain sincerity and love of truth, character- istic of both. KoorMi thought, at first, that Zenobia was vulgar. After a while, she began to feel that the over-dressing and apparent ostentation of wealth were not vulgarity, but were due to the fact that the poor little Sheffield heiress had had no experience of anything else. It all . came as naturally to her as the dignity of simplicity comes to others. Then KoorMi saw that Zenobia was making discoveries, that she was not happy, and that she found it hard to adapt her crude, hoydenish, material views of life to the more complex condition of things which her marriage had brought about. There was something 8 io6 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: in her attitude which touched KooiMi. She seemed to he always observing and drawing conclusions. Zenobia observed particularly Koorali’s relations with her husband, and Ken way’s way of treating his wife. Crichton, though never abso- lutely rude or rough, had a rasping, overbearing manner at home, in marked contrast with his manners when abroad — a way of harking upon mean detail, of fault-finding, and of attributing the lowest motiv e to every action, which often caused Kooiali to wince, destroying her spontaneity and self-confidence, and making her timid and reserved, and less and less a thing of tiesh and blood. Once, when Kenway had left the room, after some irritating dis- cussion on household affairs, Zenobia said, with a touch of bitterness — “ There ought to be a training-school for girls who mean to marry. They should tell us beforehand that we are going to become items — pieces of furniture. If one of us happens to be rich, she is rosewood, gilded ; that’s all the difference. I sometimes wish I were plain deal, and then, perhaps, Eustace might permit himself to storm at me.” “ Should you like to be stormed at, Zen ?” asked Koorali listlessly. “No, dear, it would be b-beastly. But I should like it better than nagging or being let alone. Not that Eustace nags — he leaves that to Crichton. He is too polite. He only lets me alone. It’s a little crushing to find one’s lover asleep when one has been making tender speeches to him. Eustace went to sleep regularly in the train on our honeymoon. He tried to keep awake, but he couldn’t. He was too polite to begin reading all at once; now he doesn’t make any b-bones about that. He buys French novels; and then I want to box. his ears and say, d-a-m-n — so there! ” “ Oh ! ” exclaimed Koorali suddenly, with a passion that surprised herself. “ To be let alone is just the one good thing in life one may not have.” At that moment Lance, the child, came running in with his hat in his hand. “ Aunt Zen, Uncle Eustace is waiting in the carriage, and he says he wants you.” “ Tell Uncle Eustace I’m not a spaniel,” said Zenobia ; but she said good-bye to Koorali and went. Zenobia sometimes met Lord Arden at Koorali’s house ; and she threw herself with enthusiasm into his schemes of philanthropic reform. He was at this time much interested in a plan for providing homes and places of recreation for young workwomen. Zenobia lis- tened to him one day, and the next sent him a cheque for a large sum which she begged might be used at his discretion. Her impulsive generosity somewhat embarrassed Lord Arden, and also her eagerly expressed wish to have an active share in the work. Mrs. Eustace Ken way, in her French dresses, with her gorgeous carriage and pow- dered footmen, seemed incongruous among the workwomen. But he had taken a liking to the good-natured, spoilt child; and he, too, dis- cerned something of that pathetic element below the surface which THE « LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWER? 107 touched Koorali. Zenobia was always less brusque, somehow, when he was present. It was at one of his benevolent entertainments that Zenobia first met Lady Betty Morse. She came to be known in Lady Betty’s set, as “ that dreadful sister-in-law of pretty Mrs. Crichton Ken way ; ” which was a little hard on poor Zen, though it was but too natural th*t she should set Lady Betty’s teeth on edge. Lady Betty was in some sort a revelation to Mrs. Eustace, who began to have faint glimmerings on the subjects of over-dressing and gold- plated harness. But the glimmerings were very faint, and did not yet broaden to the Priory, for which Zenobia was just now buying the most magnificent modern furniture that Tottenham Court Road could produce. Koorali was herself one of the very last to find out her own success; and when she did at last find it out she was much amused, and went into the part as she might into an evening of private theatricals. She did not care in the least about the success, except that it amused her and helped her to escape from thinking of other things. Moreover, it oiled the wheels of domestic life ; for Crichton was pleased, and appre- ciated her in proportion as she was made much of. A French diplomatist of rank, who sat next to her at dinner one day, paid her many compliments in his own tongue. Koorali was not listening very attentively, and perhaps had not that perfect mastery of the language which is apparently the natural possession of every heroine of fiction. She heard the diplomatist talking a great deal about a certain “ languorous tropic flower ; ” and she thought he was giving her a description of some new discovery in botany. It was only when she compelled herself to pay a little more attention to his talk, that she found out that she was the languorous tropic flower, and that her neighbour was paying her an elaborate compliment. “ But you know,” she quietly said, in as good French as she could command, “ Australia is not in the tropics.” “Still, the place you come from is all but tropical. Oh yes, I know,” he insisted. She told him its degree of latitude. The compliment withered under this mode of treatment, even as the tropical flower itself might have fared under a shower of sleet. The diplomatist afterwards gave out that Madame Ken way was witty, but a little, just a little malign, which did not harm Madame Kenway much in sociery. Koorali’s success, intensely gratifying to her husband, seemed to him his success, too. In fact it was so. They had three times more invitations to dinner than they could possibly accept; and Kenway positively insisted on their accepting all they could. Koorali did not mind much ; she was as willing to do one thing as another. Perhaps she would rather go out anywhere now, than remain at, home a whole evening with her husband. Only two men had much interest for her in all the crowd she used to meet. One was Lord Arden — and she frankly admitted to herself her interest in him ; the other, of course, was Morse ; and about him she did not admit herself to anything like self-examination — as yet. ioS “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' CHAPTER XIII. THE TERRACE. They met very often — Lady Betty’s charming patronage of KooiMi and pretty way of “making things nice for her,” brought this about most naturally — at Morse’s house. Koorali became quite a feature oi the little luncheon parties for which Lady Betty was celebrated, and at which Lady Deveril gathered plentiful “copy.” But apart from such occasions, she saw him frequently in her own home. Perhaps Lady Betty was hardly aware of the frequency of these visits, but had she been so, she would have thought nothing of it. It never occurred to Morse either to suppress the fact of his friendship with Koorali, or to make much of it. He had glided quite naturally into the intimacy, quite naturally into a habit of dropping in at Mrs. Kenway’s on his way to the House in the afternoons, and of talking to her, at first vaguely, of his political opinions, his hopes and fears for England, all the “views” which Lady Betty had a fashion of dismissing as being merely picturesque and the proper thing for a Radical statesman. But Koorali took them seriously, and had a grave way of listening and of looking at him as he talked, and of putting in every now and then a word or two of intelligent sympathy that had a strangely soothing effect upon him. Exciting questions were coming up. The elections were talked of and the chances of war, which rumbled like thunder in the distance, or like the slow upheaving that heralds an earthquake. In the lull before the storm, the Government was affecting to busy itself with Australian affairs, a safe subject to handle; and the first reading of the Federation Bill, of which Morse had spoken to Koorali, was to come on. The first note which she ever received from Morse was written from the House of Commons, and in reference to this debate. It gave her a curious thrill of pleasure. No one had ever before written to her from that place. It seemed to revive crude girlish dreams, when she had visions of being a power in unwritten Austra- lian history, and of swaying the councils of public men. She began to feel within her breast a rising up of her old self, her real self, which her marriage had crushed. She seemed to know suddenly that she had resources of intellect and emotion never yet brought out. It was an odd sort of fancy; it frightened her a little. Morse’s note was short, scarcely telling her more than that he would speak the next evening. One little passage at its close, however, touched her, for it seemed to speak of weariness and dejection. “I am writing to you from one of the lobbies ‘upstairs,’ as our phrase is here. The debate going on below drags and drones, and I would that I were a travelling tinker, and might wander away through green fields and down by the river with the bulrushes, which somehow I associate with Australia and vou.” THE TERRACE. 109 It had been at first settled that Lndy Betty should take KoorMi to the House of Commons, but when the time came, it happened that the debate clashed with a grand fete at, the Inventories — almost the last event of the season — a sort of Floral Fair, at which Royalty had graciously consented to hold a stall, and at which Lady B^tty Morse was to assist Royalty, attended by the boy Lennie dressed in mediaeval page’s costume. All the professional beauties, and many beauties who were not professional, would as a matter of course be at the fete. Lady Betty insisted that Koorali must take her stand amongst them. Ken way was at first very much annoyed when after luncheon that day she declared her intention of going to the House of Commons instead. She did not at the moment say that Morse was to speak. It was one of Koor&li’s faults perhaps, at any rate one of the reasons why she and Kenway did not “ get on,” that she could never even in a trivial discussion meet him frankly with mind bared, as such a woman would naturally have done had she been sure of sympathetic comprehension. She had a nervous, almost physical dread of being misinterpreted, and shrank from an abrupt word as a timid woman might shrink from an expected blow. This attitude irritated Ken way inexpressibly ; and Koorali felt and owned to herself that he some- times had reason on his side. “ What an infernal fool you are,” he said wrathfully, “ You have opportunities made for you which don’t fall to the chance of one woman in a million, and you don’t know how to take advantage of them. Last night you wouldn’t go to the Coulmonts, because you had a headache, or some such rot, and my lord was as gruff as could be. You might remember that this season is a sort of speculation to me. Do you suppose that I should go in for it if I didn’t mean to make money out of it ? You might consider my interests.” “ I don’t know how I should be serving your interests by going to the Inventories this evening,” said Koorali. “ I should certainly not make any money, and that is what we most need just now.” Crichton got up and stood with his back against the mantelpiece, the picture of angry discontent. “ I am glad you are beginning to realize that,” he said in his grating, cynical voice. “ As a rule, you take things as coolly as if you had. been born a millionaire, instead of — what you were. The fact is, that unless my speculation succeeds, you will not be likely in future to see much of the people you may meet to-night. Every day we are getting deeper into debt. That would not matter much if I had any way of raising money, but I have next to none now. I am sure to lose my appointment before long. In the Australian telegrams to-day, the South Britain Ministry is described as shaky. What shall you do then? How should you like to go back to Australia, or to vegetate down at the Grey Manor ? ” Koorali got up from her seat too. “ Crichton,” she said earnestly, “ I have told you over and over again that I am willing, anxious, to live in a smaller house and give “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE . J 1 10 up the carriage and all that, or to go to the Grey Manor. You might have rooms near your office; I shouldn’t mind, I should like that. But while we are living in this way — so far beyond our means, and making no effort to retrench, the only thing is to try and forget the falseness and hollowness of it all. And so I take things coolly, as you say.” “It would he more to the purpose if you helped me, by making yourself agreeable to Lord Commont and people of influence. But you let men drop in the most tactless way — fellows who might be of ser- vice to me. You offend them, and do more harm than good.” “ You should rather say,” answered Koorali with sarcastic emphasis, “ that they offend me.” “ My dear, what woman was it, that boasted she had never lost a lover without turning him into a friend? I am afraid you haven’t learned that art. All men of the world make love to a pretty woman. You are old enough to take care of yourself. I don’t see how it can hurt you if Coulmont, for instance, who will be at the Inventories to- night and on the look-out for you, should make you a few pretty speeches. The man is pleasant — and may be — useful.” Koorali said not a*word. She moved to the writing-table. “ What are you doing ? ” asked Kenway. “ 1 am writing a note to Lady Betty Morse to say that I can’t be at her stall this evening.” Crichton strode forward. “ I must beg that you will change youi mind,” he said, his tone suggesting intense anger bottled up. He paused suddenly, and added abruptly, “ Why are you so anxious to go to the House ? ” “ Because,” replied Koorali, turning to him with clear eyes, “ Mr. Morse is going to speak on the Federation Bill, and he has sent me a note to say that he has got a seat for me in the Ladies’ Gallery.” She saw the expression of her husband’s face change completely. At the same moment, a rush of crimson dyed her own cheeks, and some- thing seemed to catch her breath and almost to choke her — a swiftly darting thought, sensation, she hardly knew what it was. She turned away her eyes. The china figures on a bracket near were outlined with odd distinctness. It was as though she had never noticed them before. She could not look at Ken way with that consciousness between them. She could not go on with her note. The words “ Dear Lady Betty,” which she had written, seemed to stand out like letters of lire. It was only for a few seconds. There came a quick revulsion. Self- wonderment and scorn, and the sense of loyalty to her friend thrust away the suggestion that stung her, and she seemed to be standing at arms, not in her own defence, but in defence of others. She hardly heard her husband’s words. “Yon are quite right, Koorali. You ought to go and hear Morse, especially as he wishes it, and it’s an Australian subject. I’ll square things with Coulmont. He won’t think any the worse of you, or of me, because Sandham Morse values your opinion.” THE TERRACE in KoorMi uttered a little cry, almost of pain. “ Crichton ! ” she exclaimed, and there was an imploring note in hei voice, “you talk in a strange, hard way sometimes, as if you thought nothing mattered about me, or about anything, so long as we get money and are sought after by great people. But you don’t mean it ? You wouldn’t like me to be spoken lightly of, or — or to lose my own self-respect? You can’t like this hollowness and mockery, and the jarring there is between us whenever we talk about real things. Oh, Crichton ! if you had only been more gentle with me — if you had. only understood me better, we shouldn’t be such poor companions to each other now ! ” “ I don’t find you a poor companion, Koorali,” said Crichton, half amused, half touched. “ You have improved very much since you have been going into society, and have learned how to dress and how to talk. You see now that South Britain isn’t the world, and that it’s the way of doing things which makes all the difference. As for wish- ing you to be ‘ lightly spoken of,’ you must surely be aware that I am the last man to allow my name to be dragged in the mire.” Koorali had stretched out her hands involuntary to him. She drew them back now, and let them fall by her sides. “ As for understanding you,” continued Ken way, with a little laugh, “you seem to fancy yourself a sort of Chinese puzzle, that has to be taken to pieces and put together again. That’s not my idea of a woman or of marriage. If so, there is something decidedly rotten about the whole thing.” “ I quite agree with you, my dear Crichton,” said Koorali, with some spirit, sitting down again and beginning to dash off her note. “There is something decidedly rotten, as you express it, about the whole thing. I fancy that view would commend itself to most men and women who ever think at all about marriage in the abstract.” “Come,” said Kenway, going up to her and putting his hand on her shoulder — he did not notice that she winced ever so slightly under his touch — “you need not get savage or go into a forty-eight hours’ sulk about nothing. Wish me luck at the bank, rather. I’m going to try and screw an advance out of the manager, and shall have to mnke up some cock-and-bull excuse for wanting it which won’t damage my credit. I think I had better lay it on you, and say we have been send- ing money out to Australia to your brother. They know he has been nearly cleaned out with the drought, and has had a row with Middle- mist. But no, that story won’t do; they might try and verily it.” The bank with which Crichton Ken way had dealings was the London branch of an Australian firm. The principal knew Kenway well enough to grant him an overd.aft now and then ; and hitherto, bv some lucky chance, things had always been p it straight again. Bur these accom- modations and the friendly footing they were on entitled him, as it were, to ask free questions as to the uses to which the money was to be applied, and the ins and outs generally of Kenway’s private affairs, with a view of course to the security of the loan. It was a little difh- 112 THE RIGH'l HONOURABLE, cult always to wriggle safely out of these inquiries; but Kenway's speciousness served him on such occasions in good stead. He had the rare knack of making out a good case, and of inspiring confidence in his integrity, which had tided him over many a serious crisis. But this was a much more serious crisis than any he had yet had to encounter. “I shall ask Bonhote to dinner,” continued Ken wav, taking out his engagement book and looking over it. Bonhote was the manager of the Bank. “ I see we are free on Sunday. One can get so much more out of a man over a bottle of Leoville. Remember, if he comes, that you don’t say the wrong thing. You have an unhappy knack of doing that, dear, when a little finesse is required.” u Oh, do not let us tell lies,” cried Koorkli. “ I can’t bear it. Some- times, when I hear you making up a plausible tale, I shudder. You would lie even to me, if it served your purpose.” “ I wish you wouldn’t take things like that,” returned Ken way, a little discomposed. “ I am only doing my best for you as well as for myself. We are in a hole, and we must get out of it. If I can’t per- suade the bank to give me another leg-up, I must go to the Jews. Well, good-bye. Go to the House. You’ll take the carriage. And get Morse to give you some coffee. Go with him for a walk on the terrace, and make the running with him — in politics, my dear — as for flirtation, I suppose you are both above that — but keep an eye to my interests, and don't shirk being introduced to any fellows worth knowing.” lie was leaving the room. At the door Kocrali’s voice stopped him. “ Crichton.” “Well?” “Will you go with me this evening?” “ To the House ? No. Why should I ? Morse will look after you. I don’t care a straw about federation, though, of course, I mustn’t let people think so. And then I want to make it all right with Coulmont. it won’t do for a Cabinet Minister to fancy you mean to drop him, be- cause he has been foolish enough to admire you.” Kenway laughed again that rasping laugh, which grated so on his wife’s nerves. He did not give her time to make any remonstrance, but left the room ; and presently she heard the hall door closing with a bang behind him. Kooikli did not at this time know much about the House of Com- mons; but she expected somehow that Morse would be waiting to receive her, and that he would put everything right for her. She drove to the door of the Ladies’ Gallery in the inner courtyard, and there she did find Morse waiting. He was a little surprised at seeing her alone ; but he did not say anything of that to her. She evidently had not thought about the matter, or did not know that ladies do not usually come alone to the House of Commons. He could get Lady Betty to give her a hint some time, he said to himself ; and it really did not matter much in any case. So he took KooiYli to her place in the gallery, and in due course of time there came on the motion for the THE TERRACE . 113 debate an the second reading of the Australian Federation Bill, and Morse made his speech. It was not a long speech ; it did not oppose the measure ; it merely warned the young colonies against the respon- sibilities, political and moral, of a ciose fellowship and partnership with the old empire. There was a democratic and almost a republican dash about tbe speech which delighted the little republican from South Britain. Koorali felt her old enthusiasm revive. Morse’s voice was strong, sweet, and penetrating, with a metallic ring in its scornful tone. It thrilled her as no other voice had ever done. Koorali recalled afterwards to her memory, with a certain shamefacedness, that she found herself trembling with excitement when Morse began to speak. After his speech, he came to the galhry for Koorali, and brought her downstairs. He had asked her to come and see the library; but she refused. She had not many minutes left, she said; she wished to get home before it became late. Now, when the excitement was over, she felt shy and strange. She had a painful consciousness of some hidden meaning in Crichton’s words that afternoon, a meaning she might have discovered readily enough had Lord Coulmont or any other man been in question, but whicn she could not, would not, apply to Morse. She declined his offer of coffee ; and she shrank from introductions to any of his Iriends. She grew hot as she remembered the change in her husband’s manner, and his reference to influential people ; hot to think that he had recommended her to “ make the running,” even in politics, with Morse. When Morse begged her at least to take one turn on the terrace, she hesitated and looked troubled. “Mrs. Keuway,” he said, “why are you in such a hurry to leave us? You are not going anywhere this evening, I know; and your husband is at the Inventories enjoying the Royalties — as mucli perhaps as Lady Betty,” he added with a little laugh. “ Lady Betty ” Koorali began, and. stopped awkwardly. The thought struck her suddenly, how strange it was, that while the hus- band was almost denouncing monarchy in the House of Commons, the wife should be in devoted attendance upon its future representatives. It seemed to tell of a divergence of aims and interests ; it seemed an incongruity. It was sad, she thought, and it deepened in her mind the impression — always there, though sometimes argued against as foolish — of Morse’s loneliness. Lady Betty enjoys everything,” she added ; but the words were obviously not those she had been on the point of uttering. “ And you too ? ” he said. “ Yes, I think you do. Do you know that, in spite of the wear and tear of fashionable life, you lot k stronger and brighter now than you did when I first saw you in England — at my own house?” “ Yes,” she answered simply, “I am happier now.” To him there was something infinitely pathetic in her reply. She was too truthful to hide from him that she had not been happy, that she was not now quite happy. It touched him strangely that she H4 * THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! should not make any flimsy pretence to him. Her sincerity was in harmony with the nature of their relationship to each other. It was an unconscious tribute — not to his vanity, for he was not vain — but to his manliness. And yet she had never knowingly given him the least insight into her married life. Koorali was so loyal, that not even to her closest friend would she utter one word in disparagement of her husband. Morse had beard her, under stress of social necessity, put on the conventional wifely air, say pretty things implying accord between herself and her husband, and respond outwardly to Crichton’s “devoted ” manner. All the time he had known it was acting, and had felt intuitively that she knew he saw through such sad, wifelv, pious hypocrisy. He had always an impulse to protect her in some fashion, as though she were a child not understood by its parents, and bewildered at being forced into an attitude foreign to its nature. He wanted to take the little thing’s hand, as it were, and lead her away, and let her be her own sweet, truthful self. He felt thus at this moment. He could not hold his voice in restraint, though his words were calm. “No, it doesn’t satisfy you,” he said. “ You don’t care for the sort of thing people call ‘getting on in society ’” “Oh,” she interrupted impulsively, “the falseness, the seeming to be what we are not — that is what I cannot bear.” Then, as if regret- ting her outburst, she faltered, “ I — I mean, Mr. Morse, that we are not like you and Lady Betty — it suits you; it is your right place, but with us — it all seems a mistake somehow.” He looked down upon her. They were on the terrace now. There was no moon, but streams of amber light poured out from the windows of the library. The river, hemmed in there by the Westminster and Lambeth Bridges, looked like a narrow lake edged by brilliant points of fire. These, reflected in the water, gave curious straight bars of light, alternating with broad and dark lines, crossed here and there by the black outline of some heavy barge. A solitary lamp upon the low mast sent out its reflection like a lengthened flambeau till the shining trail was lost in the leaden stillness of the central stream. Further back, on the south side, all seemed dusky in contrast, the great block of St. Thomas’s Hospital looked an ill-defined mass dotted with rush- lights, and the grey keep of Lambeth Palace showed solemnly among the shadows when a ripple on the water put out the reflected lights in the river and allowed the objects on the shore a better chance of being seen. “ You have no need to seem anything but what you are,” he said very gravely; “for no one who knows you could misunderstand you. But you are right, Mrs. Kenway ; it doesn’t suit you — this merry-go- round sort of existence. I of en think, when I watch you at parties and places, that though you are talking and smiling, and quite in the world, you don’t really belong to it; and that you would be better pleased to be with your children, and” — he paused for a moment, and his voice deepened ever so slightly — “ with your — I mean in your own home. Bhe laughed a little jarringly, and her voice trembled too. “ I don’t THE TERRACE . “5 know, Mr. Morse. You mustn’t think that I am so domestic as that. I don’t think I like staying at home very much.” There was a silence which lasted several paces till they turned again in their walk. Morse had mechanically returned the salutation of a passing member, and exchanged a word or two about his speech that evening. The member glanced at Koorali and raised his hat. lie seemed to wish to prolong the conversation so that an introduction might be effected; but Morse moved on. “I know what you were thinking a minute or two aso,” he said abruptly. “It struck you that Lady Betty would not have approved of my speech to-night.” “Lady Betty does not think that you are in earnest,” Koorali answered. “ But you know that I am very much in earnest,” he said gravely. There was a little silence. “I wish your words could pierce to the very heart of all our colonies,” Koorali said with emotion. This was her first direct com- ment on his speech. “ You liked what I said?” he asked her quite seriously and gravely, as if he were talking with a man. “ Oh yes. I felt every word of it ; I agreed in every word. That is our danger; I have long thought it. We shall become- corrupted with this false glory of war. We shall think we are sharers of England’s strength and fame when we are only becoming conspirators against justice and mercy. But is it not hard for you to be so im- partial, being an Englishman ? ” She spoke brightly and without shyness. It was a relief and yet a half-admitted disappointment that they had gone off the more personal ground. To discuss any general subject with Morse was always a great pleasure to her; for even the shortest conversation seemed to reveal new meeting-points, new harmonies. But to know that he took a deep individual interest in her gave her a curious thrill, half of pain, half of delight. She did not analyze the feeling. She shrank from acknowledging it, but she was conscious of it all the same. She w T as glad when their intercourse was of a bright happy kind, and this was often ; for then it was a com pan onship of mind and temperament such as she had never known before in her life. “They tell me I am anti-English — the paoers do,” Morse said, with a smile. “ My own fear is that I am rather too much inclined to make an idol of England. I want her to do righ t.” “Some da}'' you will speak with the voice of England,” Koorali said, her own voice swelling with enthusiasm. “ j wonder if I shall be here then; or if we shall have gone back to South Britain, and I shall only read in the papers of all that is going on in England? Weil, 1 shall read with all the more interest because of what I have seen and heard to-night. I shall not lorget this.” “ 1 hope you will be here,” Morse said, “ whatever happens to the political fortunes of us and our parties.” r 16 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE . J “Yes; I should like to stay in England for a little yet, and see what happens.” Then she almost caught up her own words, and hurriedly said, “ It is very kind of you, Mr. Morse, to take so much trouble ; and 1 am delighted ; and I shall always remember the debate and your speech ; and I think I must go now.” “Yes; 1 suppose you must go,” Morse said. “I am so glad we agree on the>.e questions, Mrs. Ken way, and I hope we shall meet again before long. You will allow me to come and see you again some day soon V ” “Oh yes,” she answered impulsively; “the sooner the better.” She turned her soft dark eyes with a look of almost childlike con- fidence up to him — she did seem very childlike in face, form, and expression even still — and then he conducted her through stony courts and draughty passages to her carriage, and she drove away. CHAPTER XIY. “SHALL I GO TO SEE HER?” It must not be supposed that Koorali, on discovering herself to be uncongenially mated, had sunk at once into the atritude of femme incomprle. A bright imaginative girl, accustomed to supremacy, with ideals and aspirations fed by a course of romantic reading, but with no practical knowledge of life or human nature, even of the most limited kind, she had married under stress of girlish sorrow and disappoint- ment, just as a child whom its guardians had deserted might trustingly put its hand into that of some kindly speaking stranger w T ho had offered to take it home. Koorali had never seriously reflected that she might be making a grave mistake. She was a very ignorant and a very pure-minded, girl, and she did not think much about the obliga- tions of marriage, or of marriage itself, except as being, she supposed, the ultimate destiny of all women. Crichton Ken way, good-looking and well-mannered, with a certain political repute, an assured position that seemed to offer a prop in her loneliness, and an unlimited self-confidence which impressed Koorali with a sense of security, attracted her fancy, as was natural enough; and he, being very much in love with the Premier’s pretty daughter, and making a frank display of apparently good-humoured if somewhat unheroic devotion, would have satisfied a girl less ignorant than Koorali and with not so strong a craving for sympathy and affection. They were engaged only for a mouth or two. !5he had very little time for self-analysis. Occasionally she felt a faint qualm of doubt as to whether this were the all-absorbing love, the perfect kinship of heart, soul, and spirit, of which in poetic moments she had dreamed ; but when she spoke of this to Crichton, he always soothed her with the hackneyed assurance that love in its fullest sense is to a woman au impossibility before marriage. Even at that time Koorali had SHALL I GO TO SEE HER ? 117 glimmerings of the fact that there was not a great deal of soul in Crichton Kenway. It was not, however, till after she had married him, and hourly familiarity had rubbed away all illusions, that indeed she found out how little he possessed, how shifty was his standard of the right, or even of the becoming, how self-interested were his motives, how material his views of life. Underneath Kenway’s veneer of refinement there was, in fact, a certain grossness, all the more repelling to a sensitive, sincere woman, because in ordinary intercourse he did not allow it to become apparent. He was not vicious, but he was innately coarse. All delicacy of manner and expression, all pretty euphemisms, all poetic veils, he considered as so much of the em- broidery of social relationship, so many affectations, very nice in their way, and necessary to the probationary condition; but after the marriage ceremony, superfluous and a sign of weakness in sensible persons. Crichton roughly plucked his flower, and was surprised and angry that it withered. Or, to use another metaphor, the girl, all tender and sensitive, full of capacities which he might have developed and passionate instincts that he might have turned in whatever direction he pleased, was like a stream frozen at its source. At first Koorali was almost too bewildered to realize the position completely. She only knew that marriage shocked and oppressed her. She struggled against the feeling, and fancied that it must come from something unnatural in her own temperament; and she fought very bravely against the nervous horror, the craving to be alone, to belong once more to herself, which made life terrible to her. Often at nights she would lie awake and cry silently, and wonder why she cried — for she could not at first bring herself to admit that her husband’s com- panionship was repugnant to her; she only said to herself that she disliked marriage. She suffered in health, she grew pale, and was inclined to be hysterical. This annoyed Crichton. He lost his temper. He was able to swear without raising his voice, and to say crude, hard things in a way that hurt like a blow. He frightened her ; she was not strong physically. She felt sometimes like a slave who is full of passionate rebellion and dares not strike. She could not swear. She could only keep cold silence, or, as a woman does, say bitter words. Then began the warring over petty matters which is the curse of ill-assorted unions, which is weariness to body and spirit. Koorali was ignorant. She had never been taught housekeeping. She knew almost nothing of the intricacies of table-serving and such-like matters. Her own people were not what is called “ particular.” Mr. Middlemist did not much concern himself that his claret should be at exactly the right temperature, or that pate de foie gras , Bombay ducks, and such foreign additions to a purely Australian bill of fare should be provided for him. Crichton Kenway did greatly care about these and other things; and in his estimation, Koorali, as a wife, fell short in a thousand ways. She did not understand that in an English establish- n8 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: rjent things were ordered thus, and thus only, and that to transgress ';he gastronomic code was crime far more heinous than to tell a lie or t<> commit a mean action. Her pride revolted against Ken way's sarcasms, which seemed intended to remind her of the inferiority of her or:gin. When she had brought herself into a condition of quiet endurance, or even contempt, which is in some sort a satisfaction, the sense of contest was boring. She felt this fashion of intercourse to be slow siaivation of heart and spirit. She learned to please him as a hoosekieper, but this did not much mend matters. Kenway in a state of serene content after a dinner which he had enjoyed was to Kooiali no more of a companion than Ken way in a state of wrath. He was one of the husbands who, conscious of having but a limited stock of interest in intellectual subjects, economically keeps whatever store of knowledge he may possess for use outside his domestic circle. He did not like to see his wile read. He liked her to be at his beck and call. He did not care to talk about books, or even about politics, except from the personal point of view. A national question was of no vital interest to him in itself, though in the legislative chamber or at a Government House dinner-pjarty he c>uld enlarge very glibly on the glory and honour of South Britain. He could always be intensely patriotic when that was to his own advantage. But a question as to the possibility of serving himself by means of “back-stairs” influence he telt to be of real importance, and Kooralrs first thrill of repugnance, firsr bewildered realization of the gulf between them, was caused by her husband’s revelation of himself under this aspect. Koorali’s short married life had been a succession of painful shocks and struggles — vain efforts to reconcile the inward with the outward, the ideal and the real, ending at last in a sort of dazed acquiescence. Sho had been ill lor a long time after the birth of her second boy, and body and mind reacted upon one another. She got into a way of taking life as it came, and of not reasoning about it. She began to believe that she was really stupid and wanting in common sense, as Crichton so often told her, and that he had reasonable cause for complaint. She had almost lost her girlish enthusiasm, her girlish capacity for enjoyment. It often .-eemed to her that the “ Little Queen,” the romantic child who htd had such firm faith in nobilit\ r , goodness, and happiness, had died before her own wedding day. It was all a mistake. Life was cold and colourless. Purity of motive, high aims, love — except the love bi tween mother and child— were all illusions. There were no thrilling emotions, save such as thrilled with pain; and that pain so unheroic, having its springs in what was so poor and mean and petty! Thus things were, when Kenvvay, alter a short period of comparative impecuniosiiy and of fighting on the Opposition benches, received the appointment of Agent-General, kiiddlemist’s party came into power, and Middlemist was able to gratify his son-in-law’s ambition to visit England, at ihe expense of South Britain. But Middlemist was tottering, and Kenway knew, when he accepted the Agent-Generalship, that his" own tenure of office might be a short one. Any telegraphic “ SHALL I GO TO SEE HER t despatch might contain the news of his downfall. He knew already who would be his successor. In that case, failing Morse’s p tronage and the lucrative English appointment on which he n w depenneo, it was open to him to dragon existence in London or the country as I est he mi ht on the smal income arising from Australian im estmt nt* that he could not realize, as he would have liked to no, or to go back a ai . to ^outh Britain, and once more iorce I imse!f into place, lie had caloula ed risks, and was prepared to play a bold game. So they had “come home/ 1 as the saying is. Only such an entire change of scene and of the circumstances of her 1 fe as this was could have aroused Koorali from the numbed condition into which she had fallen. And the springs had begun to move. She who had fancied that everything was over for her found that her real nature was only coming into play. Koorali watched with the closest attention all that she saw passing around her. The England which she was looking on was so like, and so unlike, ihe England of her dreams, that she hardly knew whether she was pleased or disappointed. In some ways it was disappointing. It seemed to her like a tapestry of which the colours had f uled. There was a want, of freshness. The society Hie ming'ed with appeared to be gracefully outworn. There was a lack of energy, of intere.-t, of sympathy. She felt at first not merely that she was alone in the midst of it, but that every one else seemed al- ne also. She grew to like Lady Betty. She felt tenderly grateful to her; but she could not open her heart, she thought, to Lady Betty. It appeared to her some- how that if she had anything to say which was long in the tilling, Lady Betty would not be able quite to keep up her interest in it. Lady Betty was evidently of a sympathetic nature, but the sympathy had nothing very particular in it; she was able to put herself at once into general sympathy with every one ; but it did not get much deeper with one than with another. Of the men of her circle Koorali liked Lord Arden perhaps be^t. She felt already as if she had known him for years. He evidently liked her too, and came to see her whenever he pleased. Morse she did not class quite with other men. He seemed to belong to her old life — to her dreamy girlhood, in regard to him, it was not a mere question of liking ; the sense of companionship with him was too strong. She felt for him the warmest admiration. He had not disappointed her. He was exactly what she would have wished him to be. He was strong, he was brave, he was independent, lie K«d evidently a heart full of generous human feeling. He seemed to Kooiali’s enthusiasm a man to lead a state ; to lead a nut on. She admired his complete self-possession ; his undisturbed calmness. The old Napoleonic idea about him came back to her mind now and then ; but she did not now think him like Napoleon. He seemed tar too unselfish; too much of a patriot. She was in truth quite ready to make a hero of Morse; all the more so as his sweet composed manner towards herself, always friendly and sympathetic, was never demons tra- 120 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE .’ tivo, and though occasionally he showed her that he in his turn con- sidered her as removed from the crowd, he left her free to think anything she liked about him. She might have been afraid to allow herself to idealize other men ; hut for Morse it did not matter. She would not let herself think it mattered. He seemed to stand high above women, and apart from them somehow — such at least were Koorali’s ideas — it was nothing more than a sort of duty that a woman should look up to him with admiration. She understood him so well, she thought. He liked her; that was clear. It was a sort of tacit understanding between them that she was to him a link with the past- -a past of unfulfilled dreams, perhaps, like her own ; and she was gratified by the knowledge. She had been so long misprized in a certain sense, that it was the lifting up of her self-respect again out of the worldly mire when a man like Sandham Morse showed that he felt respect for her. On the whole Koorali was now almost happy. She enjoyed the pageant, even when it sometimes disappointed her ; though she was galled now and then by the sense of a false position, and this most when in Crichton’s company. It was, nevertheless, delightful to her to mix with all these bright clever men and women, and to be accepted as an equal, even regarded as a favourite among them. She had not been so happy before since her marriage. Her husband and she were getting on much better now than had been their way for long before. He left her more alune, though, while she was unaware of it, he watched her closely. He felt that he had struck a wrong chord in their conversation upon the day of the Federation debate ; and for the present threw out no more insinuations in regard to Lord Coulmont or other influential admirers. He saw that he had shocked her. This would under ordinary circumstances have given him no uneasiness ; but he was careful not to do so further, lest his plans about Morse might receive a check. So things were going smoothly on the whole ; and he was less irritable. His debts did not press so heavily upon him. The bank had refused to advance the sum he required, and he had been obliged to have recourse to a money-lender. He had tried to get a loan out of Eustace, who had remained languidly impervious to hints. Zenobia, however, having got an inkling of his embarrass- ment, sent him in the prettiest manner a cheque for several hundreds. Zenobia said not a word of this to Koorali, or any one else, nor did Crichton. His manner to his sister-in-law changed very much. He treated her to a style of exuberant friendliness; but the little trans- action made no difference in the contempt he expressed for her when his remarks were not likely to reach her ears. Koorali thought he was greatly improving ; she even began to ask herself generously whether she had not been most in fault ali through. Yes; she was almost happy. Morse’s feelings towards Koorrili were curiously compounded. Her intuition concerning them was a true one. They were perfumed by a memory of youth ; they had in them the recollection of the “ divine SHALL 1 GO TO SEE HER f 121 feelings that die in youth’s brief morn,” as Shelley says. KocrMi’s was a living form from a bright time when life was still in its opening for him. Besides this he admired her much. He was in a strange, half-unconscious way in sympathy with her; he was pleased with her frank outspoken confidence in him and admiration for him; and he knew well that she was not happy. Morse was a man of the world, and would have understood, of course, if he had put the question to himself, that it would not do for him to admire this beautiful young Australian woman too much, or to be with her except in the most ordinary and commonplace sort of way. But he had not the least inclination to pay her any marked attention of the kind that society comments upon. He was sincerely anxious to make her time in London as pleasant as possible fur her, and he was glad for her sake to court the c< mpanionship of her husband. He had a strong idea that they did not get on very well together, and it seemed to him that a woman’s respect for her husband is often increased by the respect which others show to him. So Morse was very attentive to Crichton Kenway, whom all the while he did not greatly like. But Kenway had impressed him with a sense of capacity and fitness, and Morse often thought that if ever he got a chance of making such an appoint- ment, Ken way would be a remarkably good man for some permanent place in connection with the colonies. Is a prudent, well-meaning man, who is no longer young, bound to avoid the company of a married woman the moment he begins to feel any special interest in her, the moment that she seems to take an especial interest in him ? Can there be no friendship between a woman and a man ? Is it all the “ fire and tow ” principle in which Crichton Ken way faithfully believed? Morse certainly was not a man to believe naturally in this ignoble doctrine. He had no feeling towards KoorMi, as yet, which might not have been laid bare to Lady Betty, and have had Lady Betty’s cordial approval and sympathy. Still, after the evening on the terrace, he had some little doubt now and then as to whether he ought to go and see Koorali at her house so frequently, even when sometimes Lady Betty sugges’ed the visit. But the chief reason for his doubt was not because he was afiaid of falling in love with Koorali, or of her falling in love with him. About this latter possibility he never thought at all ; only he asked himself whether it would be well to get into a habit of calling on Koorali and to encourage his interest in her, seeing that she might go back to the colonies again, and then he should miss her, and should have put on himself a needless pain. Of course, if her husband could get a permanent appointment, he and she would stay in London. But, then, would it be well to admit that idea into his mind ? Would it be well to allow himself to think that a permanent place for Mrs. Kenway’s husband w’ould keep Mrs. Kenway in London, and enable him to call and have a talk with her every now and then? “ Shall I go to see her ; shall I not go ? ” Morse was one day asking of himself. Why should he not go ? he thought; was it not almost an 9 122 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE offence to her even to hesitate, to raise any question on the subject ? She was a dear friend ; why allow such profanation to the sincerity and sacredness of their friendship as was implied even in the momen- tary doubt whether he would not do belter by keeping away from her? And yet; and yet While he was thinking, something oddly decided for him. Lady Betty brought a young and enthusiastic girl of eighteen, a friend of hers, just come out, to see Morse. Morse had not met her before since she was a child. He had grown to be a great man in her estimation, and w^as indeed her especial political hero. When they had talked for some time, and she was going, he held out his hand, and the pretty young enthusiast suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, Lady Betty — please — mav I kiss him ? ” “ My dear child, kiss him by all means,” Lady Betty replied, much, amused and delighted. So the girl kissed him, blushing crimson at her own audacious impulse. Now, what had this pleasant little incident to do with Koorali? Just this much. “Come,” Morse said to himself, “that settles it. I am no longer anything but an elderly man. He whom pretty girls offer to kiss is beyond the time of scandal. I am growing old. Nothing could make this more clear to my mind than that volunteer kiss. I may go and see any woman ; it does not matter now.” CHAPTER XV. KENWAY ACTS THE HERO. One morning, a few days before Goodwood, Crichton Ken way came into his wife’s room while she was dressing. She had risen rather late after a ball. He v r as pale wdth anger and anxiety. He held a news- paper in his hand, and without preface or comment, except a low muttered oath, read aloud a telegram from Australia. It was to the effect that the legislative chamber of South Britain had passed a vote of w'ant of confidence in the Min diem ist Government, that Mr. Middlemist ha 1 resigned, and that Sir James Burgess, chief of the Opposition and of the anti-squatting party, had formed a Ministry. Crichton’s calmness did not last long. Koorali had presently to listen to a low torrent of irrational abuse directed against her lather, who “might have held on a little longer;” against Australian corrupt practices, against corrupt English practices, against democracy abroad and conservatism at home, against the tardy elections, jingoism, Morse. Koorali’s face whitened. It has been said that Crichton Kenway could sw r ear so as to hit hard without lifting his voice. “What has Mr. Morse to do with it?” she asked, her spirit rising. “Just this, as you know very well, only it suits you to play the ‘defile me not* part. He has promised me an appointment if he comes into power ; and my future— and yours — depends upon how he KEN WAY ACTS THE HERO. 123 swims with the tide — upon whether he becomes Prime Minister or not.” “ He will not swim with the tide,” Koorali answered, her eyes giving out a proud little flash. “ He will breast it.” “You think so?” exclaimed Crichton in a different tone. “He talks to you of his prospects — of what is going on behind the scenes. I know that he often writes to you from the House. You can give a guess as to his chances of coming in? He believes himself safe, then?” Koorali looked at her husband with the faintest expression of con- tempt on her face. It was mingled with vague alarm. “ I don’t understand you, Crichton. It pains me to hear you speak in that way, for you cannot really mean it. I am very sorry that you are so distressed and angry. I know that it is a serious matter for us ; but for a long time we have had to face the thought of it ; we knew that it was coming.” “ It has come at a confoundedly inconvenient time,” returned Ken- way. “ Three months hence it would have mattered less. How are we to carry on now ? I can tell you that your London life has come to an end.” “ We might live at the Grey Manor,” said Koorali. “ It could not cost so much there, and we have still our own money* — from Australia.” “ Which will go a long way — in paying interest to the Jews— in. keeping up a staff of servants, hunters, and all that. You don’t sup- pose that I am going to live like a beggarly parson, within two miles of my younger brother and — the family estate — driving a one-horse trap, with a parlour-maid to wait, and a groom taken out of the cabbage garden ? ” Koorali was silent. “Well,” said Kenway, “you haven’t answered mv question. I have a strong notion that you know something of Morse’s plans. Does he consider himself safe ? ” “ Safe? ” Koorali echoed. “ I don’t know what you are aiming at, Crichton. I don’t think I want to know. Mr. Morse must always be safe, for he will never act against his convictions of what is right and best for England, I am sure of that. As for his chance of being Prime Minister, how should I know what he thinks? He does talk tome sometimes of politics — I am proud that he does not think me too stupid to sympathize with his aims — but not in that sort of personal way. What does office matter to him ? And if he did tell me the secrets of his party, should I be likely to betray them, even to my husband?” There was an amount of scorn in Koorali’s tone. “Mr. Morse will not join the war party because we wish to stay in England, or because he has promised you an appointment if he gets into power. But 1 can’t quite think that is so.” Her eyes met Kenway’s steadily. “ Has he promised you an appointment, Crichton ? ” “ It is an understanding,” replied Crichton sullenly. “ You are a fool to suppose that public men ever commit themselves. A word or two conveys a great deal. Such things are generally understood.” 124 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE . J KoorMi did not answer. She got up from where she had been seated before the toilet table. She had dismissed her maid upon Crichton’s entrance, and had gone on herself with the coiling of her hair round her sleek little head. It suddenly struck Crichton that his wife looked particularly well in the soft white cashmere robe she wore, with its delicate frills and trimming of lace. There came into his face a look which she had seen there more than once lately, and which gave her a feeling of repulsion, she knew not why, for she would not let herself try to trace the workings of his mind. She saw the look now, reflected in the glass before her. “ What do you call that thing you’ve got on? ” he said. “ A kind of tea-grown, isn’t it? Anyhow, it’s very becoming. You should wear something like it next time Morse comes to see you. What have I said to shock your sensitive nerves ? Ladies wear tea-gowns, don’t they ? ” Her large dark eyes, full of trouble and indignant appeal, which were turned quickly upon him, startled him. Her lips were quivering, and he saw that she was trembling. A horrible sensation of insecurity, of utter loneliness, of revolt had come over her. She could not coin- mand herself. “ Koorali, what is the matter ? ” he exclaimed. She had flung herself upon the sofa at the foot of the bed, and with her arms thrown over the back of the sofa, and her face buried in them, was shaking with suppressed sobs. She did not reply, and the trembling grew more violent. Crichton was a little alarmed. It was not like Koorali to lose self-control completely. He went to her and tried to soothe her, showing some genuine anxiety. “ Come, don’t give way like this. I didn’t mean to frighten you about things. Ii’s a bad look-out for us just now, but we shall pull through all right. The season is over, luckily, and we should go down to the Grey Manor anyhow. And I can’t be kicked out till the other man comes. Perhaps by that time Morse will be in, a nd I shall be a deuced sight better off than if I were hanging at the heels of a colonial Government. Don’t cry. I hate it. Haven’t you got more pluck ? ” His remonstrances brought no answer in words, but her trembling abated a little. “ I know what it is,” continued Crichton. “ You are hysterical and overdone with all the going out. If you keep quiet for a bit you will be better. Lie down, and let me put a shawl over you.” He awkwardly tried to alter her position. She made a motion of entreaty that he would leave her. He w'ent away with an angry protest. When he came back a little later she w r as sitting up, and was tolerably composed. She got up as he entered. “ Thank you,” she said. “ I am better now, I am sorry to have made a scene. It isn’t my way, is it ? But you are right ; I am overdone with too much going out. I shall be myself again presently.” S^e made no allusion to their conversation or to the misfortune KENWAY ACTS THE HERO. 125 which had befallen them, nor did he. After a few moments he left her again. She heard him calling to Lance, who was his favourite, to come down and amuse him whilst he breakfasted. Lance was to his father something between a poodle and a court jester. And little Miles stole in “ to see beautiful mamma dressed.” He knew his father did not want him. When Morse came to see Koorali that afternoon, he saw that she was anxious and that something had occurred to trouble her. He guessed what it was, for he had read the telegram from South Britain that morning. He did not say anything about it to Koorali; he did not know whether she would care to talk about it. He had an instinctive impression that the best way to get a sensitive woman out of a feeling of her own troubles is to tell her of the troubles of others, and he therefore started off at once in a half-jest whole-earnest dissertation on the difficulties that were coming over and clouding his own path in politics. The country was about to be swept away by the war-passion, he told her. No influence, he feared, could stand up against it ; but he was going to try his best. He would rather give up public life alto- gether, he declared, than have anything to do with countenancing or sanctioning this war. But he meant to make a good fight of it before he gave up public life. “ Perhaps if you stay in England some little time longer, Mrs. Ken- way, you may see me the most unpopular man in the country.” “But you won’t mind that?” she said, with lighting eyes, and for getting for the moment all about South Britain. “I shan’t like it,” Morse replied. “We none of us like to be unpopular ; but I shall go on all the same.” “Yes, I know,” Koorali said. “You would go on all the same.” Morse smiled. “ I)o you know,” he said, “ that there are people who know me, and pretty well too, and who say that I shall not go on all the same ? I have been a very popular man, and I enjoy popularity and power, and I shall perhaps have a great chance soon put in my way ” “ After the elections ? ” “Yts; after the elections. I see you are beginning to understand all about our affairs. Quite so ; after the elections. Then they say that I will accept my great chances and forget my theories about the war. Some people who know me pretty well say that of me.” She looked at him straightly. “To know one pretty well is just not to know one at all. I know you won’t change.” They were standing near each other. He had risen to go. Impul- sively Koorali put out her hand. He took it in his for a moment. “ Thank you,” he said quietly. Something in his tone made her eyes fall, and she withdrew her hand. She began to fear she had said too much about him, had claimed too much for herself. Just at that moment, however, her husband came in. 126 u THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! Kenway as he entered sent a keen glance at Morse and at her. Then he advanced with elastic step and a sort of cheery defiance in his bright, ever-moving eyes. “Chucked again!” he said. “You’ve heard the news, of course? We’re out on the world again, Koorali and 1.” “ Yes, i have heard the news,” Morse said. “ I didn’t like to speak to Mrs. Ken way about it. I thought perhaps she would rather I didn’t. So I have been telling her of my own troubles.” “Oh, Koorali is a plucky little woman ; she won’t mind, /don’t mind. We’ve been through worse things before, haven’t we, girl? I know I have plenty of capacity and courage and all that, and I shall make a way for myself here or there — here, I think. We shall be all right. It’s a facer for the moment; but one comes up smiling and ready for another round. People talk of ruin staring them in the face. I have always found that if you only stare boldly back you can put ruin out of countenance. I have done it before, and I mean to do it again. So that’s all about that ! ” Ken way put down on the table a little packet of papers with a determined, business-like air. He placed himself against the chimney- piece, and stood, his long neck upreared, looking at Morse as if ready for any fate. He played his part well, and Morse was impressed. Koorali looked up at him with a certain wonder. After all, was there not something brave, manly, admirable about him ? She had surely not done him full justice. She found her eyes growing moist at the thought, in the hope that she really could admire him. What did it matter if they lost everything, so long as the very loss itself brought out what was best in him? Was not that to gain and not to lose? “ The moment Mr. Morse goes,” she said to herself, “ I’ll kiss him ! ” “ You take it pluckily,” Morse said, with a smile. “ But you are really quite right ; you have nothing to fear. You have talents, and you have friends. I can speak for one friend, if he should ever have anything in his power.” Koorali cast a grateful glance at Morse, and then felt a little abashed somehow, and feared she might be misunderstood. Her gratefulness was for Morse’s appreciation of her husband’s courage- and capacity, and not at ail for his promise to befriend them. She would rather, some- how, that they fought their battle for themselves, or with the help of some of those on whose friendship Ken way had older and stronger and other claims. And then it struck her that when she had doubted her husband’s account of Morse’s implied intention to get him an appoint- ment, she had wronged Crichton a little, and she felt still further remorseful. When Morse was gone, Koorali was true to her purpose. She went up to Ken way, put her arms round his neck, called him tenderly, “my husband,” and kissed him. If at that touching and tender moment in her history Crichton Kenway could only have understood the true meaning of that kiss ; of the little it asked for, the much it promised ; the meaning of the words that called him her husband, and thus KENWAY ACTS THE HERO . 127 offered a new and an abiding union of heart and faith and life ; if lie could have understood what that new offer of a wife’s devotion meant ; and if he could have appreciated all and accepted all — there would be but little to tell about the rest of these two lives which could interest the reader of fiction. But Kenway looked surprised, incredulous; then returned her kiss with interest, piled up lavishly in numbers and in warmth, until Koorali actually felt compelled to disengage herself from his arms, and he said — “ Why, Koorali, I do declare you are a good pirl after all, and T do believe you care about me. I do believe we shall get on well together. I declare I feel quite in love with you ! ” “Oh, let us get on well together/’ she said fervently. “I hope and pray that we may; I think we shall, now. I am glad you take all this so well, Crichton.” “ Yes ; I think I did that well, Koorali,” he said in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he may be confidential. “ I think I’ve got Morse ; I am sure of it. There was a stroke of genius in that,” “ A stroke of genius in what, Crichton ? ” “ Well, you know, I saw at once that Morse is just the sort of fellow who is greatly taken by pluck and energy and a stout stand-up against fortune and odds and so forth; and I put myself in position accord- ingly. It took him at once, didn’t it ? ” he asked triumphantly ; “ and I know I can count on him now. He’ll stand by me. He would have cared nothing about me if I had let him see that I was down in the mouth. We shall be all right, Kooiali ; you’ll see; you’ll find.” “ I hope so,” Koorali said in a melancholy, faltering tone. The note of distrust was sounded again. “I hope we shall be all right.” He looked at her inquiringly. “In our lives, I mean; you and I. In our ways to each other; in our feelings,” Koorali explained. “ Oh yes ; we shall be all right enough,” he said carelessly. Koorali’s spirits sank ; her mind misgave her. ******* The season was drawing to a close. Yet a little, and the light on the pinnacle of the Clock Tower would cease to shine of nights over London. Perhaps there may have been some cynical persons who held that the lantern of the light so soon to be put out was a symbol of the Parliament so soon also to be put out ; being showy, far-shining, and empty. London itself might then be compared, by some fanciful person, to the Cyclops in Virgil — “Monstrum informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” “A monster, shapeless, huge, whose light had been put out.” The last Sandowm meeting had taken place, and the summer toilettes, their first freshness gone, and the tired look on the faces of their wearers, had somehow given to the crowded slope the appearance of a garden in which the flowers were overblown and drooping. Good- wood was over, too. There w T as a suggestion of satiety about London 128 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.” — satiety of pleasure and excitement. Even a nine days’ wonder, in the shape of a great fashionable political scandal which was flashed over Europe, failed here to stimulate jaded appetites to any remarkable activity. London — indeed, England — seemed to have drawn a long, deep breath ; to be waiting for greater excitement still. All who could leave town had already gone. Some of the great theatres were closed; others were still kept open for apparently no other purpose than to enable aspiring Hamlets from the country and ambitious Juliets from amateur theatricals at the West End to exhibit themselves to select circles of invited friends in the ghastly light of an afternoon perfor- mance. Editors of papers were taking their holidays, and carrying, as Emerson says, their giants along with them ; in other words, having their newspapers always on their minds, longing to see the newspapers everywhere first thing, and yet dreading to look at the journals because of the possible blunders made in their absence. Fashionable lady novelists, Lady Deveril among them, were seeking fresh breath of inspiration at Cowes and Hyde. Fashionable preachers had gone to preach to select British audiences in foreign cities. Fashionable doctors were off to recruit their jaded and delicate nerves and to talk scandal in the Engadine. The painters were scattering everywhere, from the Crinan Canal to the land of the midnight sun. Later on, those who deal in Oriental subjects, and whose dusky Eastern beauties and Egyptian sunsets, with the picturesque Arab and the lean camel in the foreground, are institutions as fixed as the Royal Academy itself, will be found in lazy dahabeahs on the Nile, or by the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem. Later on, everything will have changed again. The wheel will be turned and the kaleidoscope will have had another shake. But now the interval was one of expectancy and transition. The last sands of the season were running out. London began to remind one oddly of an old-fashioned illumination iu its expiring hour, most of the lamps gone out, and those that still burned flickering faintly into decay. “ Ah, surely,” says Byron, “ nothing dies but something mourns,” and no doubt there were hearts that mourned over the dying season. Girls, whose first season it was, mourned over it because they loved the excitement of the balls and parties, and were sorry that the fun was at an end. Girls who had seen many seasons mourned still more bitterly because of the pro- posals which had not been made, and the sad inexorable lapse of time, and the inward conviction that their friends w~ere counting their years and wondering whether they would never get married, or worse still, wondering whether they would ever get married. Many a member of Parliament lamented the decay of the season, because its close must be followed by the general election, and he knew only too well that an unappreciative constituency would put some other man in his place. Tender sentimental regrets were thrown back on the season by other men and women for other causes, as one throws kindly flowers on a grave. Truly every season is a grave of deep hopes and ambitions, of affections that pined and withered, and of ruined chances; but it is “ COO-EE /” 129 also green with fresh grass springing up, and gives the piomise of new flowers. Morse was still in town, waiting till Parliament should be dissolved. Lady Betty was not with him — would not be with him for some weeks to com' 1 . She was in attendance upon her father, who had been ordered to Iiomburg, and Lord Germilion’s health was perhaps a happy plea for Lady Betty. Homburg was very gay that season. Some of her favourite Royalties were there, and there were to be races of exceptional interest, and, later on, a roy al wedding in one of the German capitals. Crichton Ken way and Koorali were at the Grey Manor — or rather Koorali was there, with her children, for Crichton had accepted an invitation to shoot with some bachelor friends in Scotland. CHAPTER XYI. “ COO-EE ! ” The Grey Manor was a quaint old house, part of which had been built in the Tudors’ time, and part in that of the Georges. Like most of the old houses in the Midlands, it w r as built with stone of a wan sort of grey, which had brown veins streaking through it, and patches of reddish lichen clinging here and there, and the oldest part was almost covered with ivy, which spread tendrils across the small mullioned windows — picturesque in themselves, with their queer little panes of thick glass sunk in lead and curious iron hasps and fastenings — and over the tiled weather-stained roof and twisted chimneys. This oldest part consisted mainly of a long low hall, with massive oak doors facing each other, and a row of bedrooms above. When both doors were open, one looked straight through the house from back to front. The Georgian bit was an addition of four lofty rooms, with the tall windows that belonged to that style of architecture, stuck on at right angles to the narrow gabled building and irregular roof-top. The house was quite small, and could hardly pretend to the title of Manor. It had been a manor-house once, but for years and years had been tenanted by generations of farmers, who had cultivated the fields all round it. Now it had been bought by some speculative person in a neighbouring county. A bailiff occupied a cottage near the farm buildings, and the Grey Manor, not sufficiently commodious or well- situated to be rented by a family of means, was usually let as a hunt- ing-box, and as such had been taken by Crichton Kenway. It stood at the end of a sloping avenue of gnarled and half-dead beeches, on a raised terrace which overlooked a flat stretch of meadows, banked by rising ground. These uplands were laid out in grass and corn, and joined the horizon line, except where it was broken by the tall chimney of an iron foundry and two straight rows of poplars flanking a distant farmhouse. The river Lynde ran flush with its THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? 1 30 sedgy banks down the valley — a narrow stream, forking a little higher up, where it was spanned by a huge rail way- bridge, and curving and twisting, so that in every part of the meadows some gleam of it might be seen. The view would have seeemed commonplace to an ordinary observer. There was nothing picturesque in the foundry, or the rail- way bridge wi U its iron girders, or in the shoemaking town showing along the valley less than a mile off. Yet the landscape had a wild- ness about it and a vaiiety of aspect which appealed strongly to the poetic mind. I11 the summer daytime, it was a peaceful Englbh scene, all green grass and waving corn and rippling water, which neverthe- less reminded Koorali of the paddock of an Australian head station, with the farm cattle and sheep browsing close to the house, and the apparent absence of boundaries. But the wind sweeping down the valley in stormy weather had beaten the pollarded willows, dotted in rows here and there, into fantastic shapes. In such weather now they looked like olive trees, with the silvery side of the leaves upward under a wrathful sky. In winter they seemed to resemble a procession of gaunt old crones, with bent and witchlike forms, beseeching alms. The sun set over the town, and then the ugly buildings and smoky chimneys were transfigured by purple and golden light. There were red stnaks on the river; the outlines blended in a poetic haze, and a traveller might have fancied he was looking across one of the plains of Argos or Thessaly. Later on, the furnace reddened the sky. Some- times there was a mist, and then the tops of the willows showed as islands in a white lake, and a passing express flashed above it like a comet leaving its trail of fire. There were no gardens or shrubbery about the Grey Manor. A stone wall, on which seedlings grew plentifully, closed in on two sides the little square lawn. There was nothing else but the exposed terrace walk, with a natural arbour of yew trees, hundreds of years old, at each end, and a steep grassy bank in which were cut two curious holes that might have been loopholes for meuiasval warfare, but were in reality intended to give light to some rambling cellars beneath. There was, indeed, the tradition of a subterranean passage connecting a winter camp of the Romans, upon which the neighbouring village of Lyndchester stood, with their summer camp beside the river Lynde, on the site of which the Grey Manor was built and the cornfields of the farm flourished. Traces of the Roman encampment still remained, in the shape of a pair of rough-hewn stone coffins standing at the end of the lawn, in which some clumps of sunflowers had either been planted or had sown themselves. The whole place was old-world, and full of impressions and associations. It affected Koorali most strangely. It deepened her dreamy moods. It was all in harmony with her fancies and yearnings. Sometimes, as she wandered alone by the river, she could almost imagine that she was once more roaming in the Australian bush. She had a curious sense of irresponsibility, as if she knew her- self to be a mere straw in the current — a plaything in the hands of destiny. And she had another odd feeling about the place — a sort of COO -EE!” 131 prophetic instinct that it was hound up with her own fate; that a great joy or a great sorrow — she dared not guess which — would befall her there ; so that everything about the grey house, every phase of the landscape, the terrace walk, the solemn yews, the shadows and the mists in the valley, the leaping fires of the furnace which she often watched late into the night, seemed to her to have some special significance and to be identified with her own mood of tender melancholy. Yet her melancholy was not painful. The gentle depression which comes after strain or nervous excitement is sometimes almost plea- surable. Koorali told herself that this was what she was feeling. IShe was tired, she said ; she had been seeing too many people, taking in too many new impressions. She was tired, of dressing up and laughing and talking “the fine weather.” Why did the tears come into her eyes as she remembered Morse’s phrase? She had found the great world of little account to her; and her own home had seemed no less barren than formerly, in contrast with the glare and glitter of London life. She was glad to be here, among the grey stones and the grim yews and the relics of the dead and gone Romans; glad to be without her husband, and with only her boys for companions ; glad of the repose and the loneliness. For she was very lonely. It came upon her with a shock sometimes that she had never in her life felt so lonely. She used to wake up at night and hear the train rushing by over the river, and the thought would overwhelm her suddenly, as such thoughts do, that among the myriads of sympathetic souls in the world, there was not one to which hers could turn with certainty of being understood. In the deeper sense of the relationship, she had neither father, mother, brother, friend, nor busba* d ; and she felt an alien among strange people in a atrange land. She was restless, and she hardly understood why. She occupied herself in arranging the knick-knacks she had brought from London, in hanging draperies, and decorating the white-panelled walls. She walked a great deal, strolling for miles in aimless fashion along the river bank, where there was a towing-path, while the boys ran hither and thither, picking blackberries from the hedges, and reeds and marsh forget-me-nots. She did not show herself in the road or the town, and avoided acquaintanceship with the neighbours. That would come soon enough, she thought, when Crichton came back and insisted on dragging her into evidence, and when Zen, settled at the Priory-on-the- Water, should begin the series of garden parties and entertainments she had been planning. One afternoon in late August she was walking alone by the river. The children were not with her. They had been taken by their nurse to a fancy fair at Lyndchester, and she had come out, carrying a little hooked implement, to gather bulrushes with which to decorate her drawing-room afresh before Ken way’s return. Sue had gone some distance. Her depression seemed to have left her, and she felt alto- 132 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? gether more light-hearted, more capable of pure physical enjoyment than she had been for a long time before. As she filled her hands with the reeds and with trails of the nightshade, in this month red with berries, her pleasure in the occupation was almost childish. Every now and then she would pause and look over the meadow, and watch the cattle and sheep, and sniff the new-mown corn. The reapers had been at work, and the air was sweet with the breath of harvest. It was all unfamiliar to Koorali — the flat landscape, the green grass, the yellow corn. “England is beautiful, too,” she said to herself. She liked the crisp feel of the stubble underfoot as she strayed away from the towing-path. There was a fascination about the slate-coloured stream between its sedgy margins. In some places the current ran swiftly, in others there were still leaden pools, with patches of velvety siime and little islets of tufted rushes. Where the water was clear, the reflections showed distinct as in a looking-glass. The sky was dull, with white woolly clouds banked up on the southern horizon Away to the west lay the town, and the valley seemed to stretch very far. Koorali had reached a spot where there was an old grey stone bridge, vandyked as the bridges are in this county. Close to it, the river divided again, and made a tongue of land, on which stood a red brick water-mill. A delicious walled-in garden belonged to the mill — a garden filled with currant, gooseberry, and raspberry bushes, and with borders of fat hollyhocks, sunflowers, honesty, and Canterbury bells, and all the blossoms in the children’s picture-books. Koorali could smell the lavender and the late carnations across the stream. She thought of Miles’s pet rhyme — “Mary, Mary, quite contrary ; how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and ” She could not remember the rest, and was amused at her own childish longing to go into the garden. But these little commonplace things had the charm of novelty for the Australian girl, and her nature was a sweet and simple one that did not need artificial excitement to make its happiness. She liked the whole scene. There was to her some- thing poetic in the little promontory and the gnarled pollarded willows growing close to the edge, in the cold still water, and in the solitary white swan which sailed about intensifying the impression of loneliness and tender sentiment. Koorali’s course was interrupted by a dam that served the mill. She turned, crossed the bridge, getting on to the towing-path again, and walked along homeward, still looking back regretfully at the old- fashioned flower border across the stream. There was a bull grazing far away on the path in front of her. Koor&li eyed the animal nervously, ashamed of her timidity, yet afraid to go on — for even her Australian training had not enabled her to overcome a constitutional terror of cattle. It tossed its head — aggressively she thought — advanced a step or two, then stood still. It moved when Koorali moved, but it came forward while she retreated. She coo-eed half involuntarily. A “ COO-EE /” 133 shock-headed youth slouched out of the mill yard. lie did not seem to notice her, and she coo-eed again, louder. “Hoi,” he drawled. And then in answer to Kuorali’s question whether the beast was quiet, drawled again in strong Lyndfordshire accents, “ Yeow wun’t get no harm, Oi thoink.” “ He thinks” murmuYed Koorali tragically. She was enjoying the small adventure. “ Whom does the hull belong to ? ” she asked. “ Is it a bull ? Can’t you drive it away ? ” “It be Muster Dobito’s; and it he a bull,” rejoined the youth, “Oi thoink. Yeow go straight by. He win’t stur, Oi thoink.” Koorali fairly laughed aloud. The laugh made a pretty tinkling sound over the water, and she herself, standing with the tall reeds in her arms and the amusement and perplexity brightening her eyes, was a very charming object. Just at that moment, and to her utter surprise, her Australian “coo-ee” — the peculiar cry, long, clear, and vibrating, with a sort of plaintive tone, the cry by which wanderers in the bush call for help and companionship — was answered by another coo-ee, as genuinely Australian as her own. The cry was in a man’s voice ; and it might have come from the very heart of the Australian bush. Some one stepping out of the mill parlour thought instantly of a picture he had seen years ago — a girl, slender of form and with a dreamy joyous face, outlined against a grey sky. Koorali’s coo-ee was an echo from the past. It had startled Morse as he was taking leave of the miller after a chat on Dissent, politics, and the sentiments of the agricultural labourer, that unknown quantity which might decide the future destinies of England. He had hardly known at first whether it was a real coo-ee, and then he came out and gave, haif-unconsciously, his answering call, and saw the little creature standing there, separated from him by the cold grey line of water, with her pathetic face as childlike and as unconscious as when first it began to haunt him. Not the Koorali of London drawing-rooms, but that Koorali of the Australian dawn, which seemed to stand apart from his everyday life, and to have enshrined itself in the most poetic recesses of his nature. They looked at each other across the narrow river. Koorali uttered a low exclamation. To Morse, the cry of surprise and joy sounded inexpressibly sweet. But all was sweet aud dear — the scene, the fading afternoon, the unexpected sight of her — too sweet and too dear to Lady Betty’s husband, to the party leader, the man of the world, the Right Honourable Sandham Morse. Koorali bent forward, with arms outstretched involuntarily. Her lips were parted. Her face, a little upturned, was more eloquent than she knew. It was such a strange little face, Morse had often thought. It could look so frozen up at times, so grave and sad. But, then, when a smile of true feeling broke over it, and with a natural gesture, the throat curved backward, showing the chin foreshortened, the nostrils 1 34 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. dilated, and the quiver-shaped lips trembling, there came into it an expression of intense sensibility, and the suggestion it gave of capacity lor passionate emotion might well stir the heart of such a man as Morse, and take away his self-command for a moment. But he recovered himself immediately. “ Mrs. Kenway ! How refreshing to hear an Australian coo-ee ! I did not know that the Grey Manor was near enough for you to walk almost as far as Bromswold. 1 ? 11 be over with you in a moment, and I’ll drive away the bull and carry your reeds for you.” Before she could answer he was walking along the bank, and presently he had crossed the bridge, sent the bull to the other side of the meadow, and was beside her. “ For your future comfort, Mrs. Kenway, I’ll tell you that legislation provides against the letting loose of dangerous animals in a field where there is a towing-path. The bull was a very peaceable animal ; quite a benign old bull.” Koorali looked very bright now, and laughed at her own discom- fiture. “ I wasn’t realty frightened, Mr. Morse. I wanted to imagine myself into a dramatic situation ; that was all. But, tell me, where is Bromswold? And have you become a travelling tinker, as you said you wished, that you are wandering by my river?” Koorali held out her hand, and Morse took it in his own, his eyes resting on her with tender interest. “No, Mrs. Ken way, I haven’t turned travelling tinker yet, though it is true that I sometimes wish I were one, and out of the turmoil of politics and the great world. And I don’t mean to let you claim an entire right to the river. It belongs to Bromswold too, which I find now can only be a short distance from the Grey Manor across the meadows. It is six or seven miles bv road.” “ You are there now ? ” asked Koorali, using the pronoun collectively. “ I am there — taking advantage of being alone to get up my speeches for the election, and to review the political situation, as the newspapeis put it. No; as a matter of fact, I have what a public man should never own to — private business to look after — farms unlet, and that sort of thing. But Lady Betty is not here. She is still at Homburg with her father.” Koorali had noticed that, unreserved as he was to her in regard to political matters and even his feelings and opinions, he did not often talk to her about his wife, and he always mentioned Lady Betty formally. She adved if Lord Germilion was better. They seemed to be in the conventional atmosphere once more. “ Arden and two or three other fellows are coming down, I believe, next week,” Morse went on rather hurriedly; “and I must confess to abetting a slaughter you won’t approve of, Mrs. Ken way. One of the men is great at pigeon shooting, and wants to get his hand in for the Monte Carlo matches ; so I have been interviewing my friend the miller on the subject of pigeons.” “ COO-EE /” 135 There was a little silence. They had begun to walk slowly along the river bank. “Tell me,” he said abruptly. “This place suits you, doesn’t it? There is something wild and picturesque about the long stretch of meadows, and the willows, and the sunset reddening the water? It’s the sort of place to roam about and dream in. It isn’t English, except the mill there, which might have come out of one of George Eliot’s novels.” “I have been thinking of Miles’s story-books,” said Koorali. “And I have been longing to go into the garden and listen if the flowers wouldn’t each tell its own story, like the flowers in the old witch’s garden when Hans Andersen’s little Gerda went out into the wide world.” “ Come, then,” said Morse, with an eagerness foreign to his usual manner. “ It is a garden in a story-book. Let us be like children for once, and I will ask the miller to let me gather you a bunch of lavender, and the flowers you fancy. They will tell you a story, perhaps, though they won’t have any for me.” The two had crossed the bridge, and he opened a gate in the red brick wall, and took Koorali into ihe garden. The house door at which he tapped led straight into the little parlour ; and here, over a tea- service and a large plate of buttered toast, sat a purple-faced old man, with a Bible open beside his plate, an elderly woman in rusty black and a purple “ crossover,” sourly sanctimonious in expression, and a younger woman, lugubrious-looking also, and in deep weeds. Morse explained that the old gentleman was Mr. Popkiss, the miller’s father, the elderly woman his daughter, and the younger one a lodger. He introduced Koorali, and accepted for her and for himself the cup of tea which was oflered. His manner was delightful, Koorali thought ; it was so frank and easy. She did not wonder at his popularity among the poorer classes. “ I want you to let Mrs. Kenway pick a bunch of flowers for herself, Mr. Popkiss. I don't think she has ever seen an old-fashioned garden, with real English flowers in it, quite like yours. Mrs. Kenway is an Australian, and only came over to this country a very short time ago.” The information seemed to impress Mr. Popkiss somewhat. He was delighted at Koorali’ s admiration of the garden ; and then he asked a good many questions about Australia. He thought it was “ a pity there weren’t a many more young men making for Australia, instead of starving in counting-houses.” “ Why, sir,” he said, turning to Morse, “ there are boys in the big cities that don’t earn enough fur bread and cheese — no, nor bread by itself. I’ve got a nephew out in Australia as makes as much in one day at the plough, as his brother does m a week in a tea merchant’s office in London. He’d set his heart on that, because he thought it a tiner sort of thing. Twenty-hve pounds a year, and expected to dress like a gentleman in a topper and a cloth coatl Why, I wouldn’t stand that, ma’am; I’d first just kick the crown 136 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE , ” out of the shiny hat, and then I’d off to Australia. Bless me, if I wouldn’t ! ” “ No, you ain’t a-going to tell me that, Popkiss. You’d stick to the old country, even though she’s going down,” said a big burly man who came in at that moment. He stopped short in the middle of the room, while Morse got lip, and held out his hand with a cordial “ Ah! how are you, Mr. Dobito? I heard of you out cubbing this morning. How’s the mare?” “ Oh, I’m topping well, and she don’t want no nussing, Mr. Morse. She’s a wonderful good ’oss, if you don’t overpace her. Not a pleasant ’oss, not an easy mouth ; but there ain’t a stiff fence or a trappy ditch that she can’t find her way over. She’s as clever as a cat, she i3. There weren’t ever a fence she couldn’t get through. She run sound — she do.” Mr. Dobito sat down after delivering this emphatic encomium on the mare, and went straight to his business, which appeared to be with Mrs. Prowse, and concerned a pig which he had bought at her request at Lyndchester market. When it was done with, he got up again, but did not seem inclined to go away. He was a curious-looking man, a perfect type of the old Midland farmer, tall, square-built, with a weather-beaten face, and a bald head fringed with iron-grey. He had another fringe of more stubbly growth round his chin. His eyes were black, beady, and humorous, his eyebrows and lashes thick and over- hanging. His upper lip was long, his teeth were long also, and his mouth seemed the same width at the corners as at the middle. “ You weren’t at the Liberal meeting at Lyndchester the other night, Dobito?” said Morse, anxious to draw him into conversation. “ I’m no Liberal, nor yet Conservative, nor Radical, Mr. Morse. Where’s the good? I’m for the farmers, I am, and which of ’em all will listen to what the farmers have got to say, and call ’em aught but a grumbling lot ? Why, God bless my soul, it’s not because it’s the nature of farmers to grumble; it’s because of the extray burdens and the working man ! I’m quite tired of that there working man. The Radicals and the noospapers have made an idol of him— they have.” “ But they tell me wheat is going to rise, Mr. Dobito,” said Morse. “ It’ll rise when we’ve done growing it,” said Mr. Dobito, with a dark and ominous frown. “Mark ye, Mr. Morse, England’s going down. I don’t say that she won’t p;ck up; hut there’s too many cheap things sold. That’s where the mischief lies. The work ain’t well done. There’s the shoes now.” Mrs. Prowse and the widow nodded in tragic assent. “ You ain’t a-going to tell me ,” continued Mr, Dobito, “ that the Russians, or the Belgians, or the Japanese, or any other ese is a-going to stand shoes with paper soles, and to send their leather over here when they can turn it into shoes at home. These manufactors all about here ain’t got a conscience. They all stood ahind the door when consciences were given out. They make articles that ain’t no articles “COO-EE /” *37 at all. But mark ye, ma’am,” and Mr. Dobito fixed Koorali with his glittering eye, “ when the great Maker of all things has His word to say, why I reckon He’ll make it hot for ’em !” “Mrs. Kenway hasn’t heard about the paper soles yet, Dobito,” explained Morse. “ She has only been at the Grey Manor for a few weeks. We must enlighten her about county affairs — you and I.” “ Not Mrs. Kenway at the Priory ?” said Mr. Dobito, looking doubt- fully at Koorali. “Quite another sort, begging your pardon, ma’am. That’s Mrs. Eustace.” “ My sister-in-law,” said Koorkli. “ She’s no mean galloper, she ain’t,” exclaimed Mr. Dobito enthusi- astically. “ I’ve seen her giving her ’oss a stretch. She do love dogs — why, she has a street of ’em, and she wants me to give her my opinion about a foxhound terrier she’s got, and she’s a-going to bring him over to my ricks. I don’t think so much of her husband. He don’t care about hunting ; a coach and pair, that’s about his form. Looks as though he wanted roast beef and port wine. I reckon he lives on kick- shaws and your new-fangled soda water, or Apollinaris, with a dash of whiskey in ’em, that makes it worse. I don’t hold to that rubbish. It’s my way to go on straight with the port.” “ Really, Mr. Dobito, I think you’re a little unjust to my brother- in-law,” said Koorali, laughing. “ I assure you Fve seen him go on straight with the port too.” “ Maybe,” returned the farmer. “ I did hear of him the other day buying two hunters — I didn’t see him, mind — I didn’t see him ; but I thought to myself 'That looks better.’ Well, good day to you, Mrs. Prowse, I’ll see about the pig coming. Good-bye, ma’am, I hope I’ll see you again, with Mrs. Eustace. Good-bye, Mr. Morse.” Old Popkiss, in his capacity of host, hobbled to the door, and watched Mr. Dobito mount. When he came back, he seemed determined to have his innings, for Mr. Dobito had monopolized the conversation. Mr. Popkiss talked volubly and discursively. He addressed Morse principally. Koorali was a little shy, but she tried to make conversation with the women. Presently, however, the younger one in black got up with a somewhat tragic air and withdrew. “ She’s a widow that we have here with us, ma’am,” remarked Mr. Popkiss confidentially. “ She’s the widow of the doctor’s assistant at Lyndchester. She’s in deep sorrow.” “ Oh, I hope that she didn’t mind our coming in,” exclaimed Koorali sympathetically. “It comes hard upon her,” continued Mr. Popkiss; “for she has been used to high life — to high life,” he repeated impressively. “A horse and shay and a pound a day. Not that she ain’t comfortable now; but for them as has been used to high life, it’s hard to come down to that which is low. But I says to her, 1 The Lord must ha’ set great store on you, Mrs. Bird, or He wouldn’t have taken your husband from you.’ ” 10 1 33 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: “ Some of us might think that view of Providence rather a harsh one,” said Morse. " There’s my daughter, Mrs. Prowse,” Mr. Popkiss went on, taking no notice of the remonstrance, “ a widow likewise; and her husband was a sore trial — as must be a consolation to Mrs. Bird ; for it’s com- forting to the afflicted to be with them that have passed through the deep waters.” Koorali looked sympathetically at Mrs. Prowse, who cast down her eyes, conscious apparently of having been unjustly buffered by Fate, and heaved a deep sigh. “It were an awful trial,” she murmured. “No one knows what it is but them as has to endure it. I wouldn’t wish my enemy worse luck nor a husband as ha’ got a liver.” Morse laughed pleasantly as he rose. “ We’ve all got livers in these days, Mrs. Prowse — we men ; and tempers, too. I am afraid that both Mrs. Kenway and my wife have to suffer from them sometimes. Now, we’ll go and gather our liowers, if we may, and I shan’t let you come out with us, Mrs. Prows *, for the mists are rising, as I know that you are apt to take a chill and are not as strong as you might be.” They said good-bye, shaking hands with the old people, and left the parlour. As Koorali stooped over the lavender bush und rnea th the open w ndow she heard Mrs. Prowse remark in a tone of gratification — u There be a difference in the hearts of men, to be sure. Now, Mr. Morse, he do show a heart for sickness. There’s parson at Lyndchest j r — he don’t understand a poor body’s complaints. I met him the other day, and I’d just put my foot out, to pick up a few sticks. ‘ Why, Mrs. Prowse,’ says he, ‘ I’m pleased to see you so well, and taking a walk. 5 And he might ha’ knowed,” added Mrs. Prowse, with sorrowful resentment, “that I were but weakly in my health, and couldn’t get as far as the bridge to save my life, nor have done it this many years.” Koor&li laughed softly, and looked up at Morse, who adde 1 clove pinks and sweet-smelling stocks to her lavender, and soon they had a goodly bunch. He watched her as one might watch a happy child. In truth she was very happy. She enjoyed the little experience. There was in it something idyllic, and, simple as it all was, unlike any other experience. He too seemed to have unbent, and to be more of the schoolboy than the statesman. As they walked along the river bank towards the Grey Manor they talked in an inconsequent fashion, which was, for that reason perhaps, very sweet. It was the easy interchange of passing thoughts between two dear companions, who are living just in the hour and in the certainty of each other’s sympathy, and underlying the light flow there was the faint consciousness of emotion, at once exciting and soothing. She knew, though he did not tell her, that he had been thinking much of her during their separation. Nothing definite was said about the loss of her husband’s appointment and the political crisis at hand. Yet she felt vaguely that both had been in his mind in connection with her wishes for the future. H.- COO-EE! asked her, “Did she like the Grey Manor? Did she regret London? Would she mind living in the country for a time, or would she prefer to go back to Australia?” And from her simple replies, and the chance revelations she made of her occupations, her interests, her train of thought, he learned with a curious pleasure that she was beginning to be fond of England, that she could be very happy with her children in the quiet natural life she led. It was monotonous, perhaps, she said; but nothing jarred here. And she thought she liked being dull, and sometimes even melancholy was pleasant — “ like sad poetry.” She liked to be left alone, and she liked “ the peace of it all.” And then it came out that all this time her husband had been away. Morse asked when Kenway was expected back. “ To-morrow, or the next day, I think,” she answered ; “ but Crichton is always uncertain, and it depends upon whether he has good shooting and is amused.” “ I hope he will be here on the 1st,” said Morse, “ and that he will tramp a few turnip-fields with me. I can't tell what sort of a bag we are likely to get otf Bromswold; but, anyhow, we shall have a few birds.” They had come to the bend of the river below the railway bridge. The sun was gone down, and there was only a faint radiance in the west. It did not seem to reach them. Here the water was leaden, and the images in it of the trees and the arches of the bridge looked black and sharp. A man fishing at the sedgy border of the bend stood reflected — two figures, as it were, joined at the feet — a strange lonely object against the sky. There was a thin vaporous moon shining above the Grey Manor, which rose on the opposite bank. Morse was struck by the aspect of the place — the raised terrace, with its odd loopholes, and the grey house, ivy-grown and set between the clumps of solemn yews. He, too, at that instant felt something of Koorali’s prophetic instinct. He went with her to a wicket gate at one end of the terrace beneath the yews, and opened it for her to pass through. Then he held out his hand. “ You won’t come in ? ” she said, with timid questioning. “ I want you to see the house and some Australian things I have put up.” “ Not this evening. I shall have to walk fast to get home in time for an appointment. But may I come to-morrow afternoon and see you — and the Australian things ? ” “ Oh yes, I shall be so glad.” A bright look of pleasure flashed over the sensitive little face. She gathered up her reeds and her flowers, holding them close to her so that the bulrushes framed her head. He seemed to linger. “ Yes,” he said, at once musingly and abruptly, “ I like this background for you better than the London one. It seems somehow to bring you back as you first appeared to me. Do you remember, when we met in London, how your name — Koorali — came to my lips at once ? 1 feel the same sort of impulse here.” “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 1 40 KoorMi turned her large soft eyes straight upon him in that silent way she had. No words she could have uttered then would have conveyed t » him what that look told. It was so childlike, and yet so full of diunity, of pathos, of trust. lie took her hand in his. His eyes were no less earnest, no less unH inching in their gaze. “ Good-by e,*’ he said, “ Koorali, my little qlleen.’ , “ Uool-bye,” she answered, in a strange, subdued voice, and they parted. As he walked homeward and from the river bank looked up at the terrace, he saw her standing there still, with her children by her side. She was watching him ; but her children were by her side. CHAPTER XVII. “one touch lights up two lamps.” The next morning’s post-bag, which came when Koorali was break- fasting, brought no news of Crichton. Koorali had half expected to hear that he would return that day. Now she knew that he was not coming. As she put down the last of the pile of unopened letters, at which she had glanced one by one, and was certain that there was none from him, she was almost frightened at the wild bound her heart gave. Another day of peace and irresponsibility — of freedom, of happiness. What bad come to her? Why the soft glow at her heart, the secret hugging of moments, which owed their charm to pleasurable anticipation ? To what did she look forward ? She had been lonely ; she had been vaguely sad. Now she was no longer lonely and sad. Her spirits bad regained their elasticity. The world was beautiful, the sky was bright, and the air sweet. She wanted to wander out in the sunshine, to breathe the scent of flowers and corn and meadow-sweet, to have her pulses stirred by the rustle of the wind, the singing of the birds, the murmur of the bees. Why should she not yield to this luxurious sense of delight, which was in itself so pure and so natural? She shook herself free of the chill terror which for an instant seized and bewildered her. She caught up her letters again, and took little Miles’s hand in hers. The child had been watching her wistfully, “Come, my little boys,” she said, “we shall have such a happy morning, and while I read my letters, you shall go and get your rakes, and we will make the lawn tidy, because we are going to have a visitor to-day.” “Who?” cried. Lance. And Miles asked eagerly, “ Is it Mr. Morse ? ” “ Yes ; it is Mr. Morse,” answered KoorMi. “ They were talking about Mr. Morse at Lyndchester fair yesterday,” said Lance, “ and one man said he was a coward, because he wanted “ONE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAM PS I 141 the English to knock under and not fight. Fight who, mamma ? And another man — I think it was Mr. Dobito — was very angry, and he said he wished they’d make Mr. Morse Prime Minister, because he’d take taxes off the people.” Koora i listened with interest. “And what else did they say, Lance ? ” “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lance. “I didn’t care. I want to go back to Australia; it’s all jolly humbug here. Oh yes, I remember. They were talking about Prime Ministers, and Mr. Dobito said there was old Gladstone would stand up with a long glib tongue and talk a lot of bosh, but that Mr. Morse was the man for the farmers, for lie wanted to make Englishmen comfortable, and didn’t care to go about the world killing savages. What does that mean, mamma? Who is killing savages ? ” Koorali read her letters under the yew trees. One from Zenobia, in a great square envelope, fantastically ribbed and mottled and emblazoned with the Ken way arms, told her that her time of seclusion was almost over. Zen wrote a big round hand, like the hand of a schoolboy of nine. Her epistolary style was discursive, like her conversation, and sometimes amusing. She wrote from the Canteloupes’ place in York- shire, where she and Eustace were staying on their way back from Scotland. “Dearest KoorAli, “ We are going to be at the Priory on the 2nd. You and Crichton are to come over and stop a week with me, and admire the house now it’s done up. I think you’ll say I know how to make myself comfortable. Having done that, I shall get you and Lord Arden to show me how I can make the village comfortable. It’s all beastly new — I mean the furniture. The village is as old as the Knights Templar. I notice that in most houses the furniture isn’t new, and that it looks dirty. I like things clean — spick-and-span; floors you could eat your dinner off. Anyhow, I’m new, so it will suit me, if it doesn’t suit Eustace. I think I’m too new for him, only he is too polite to say so. The Family hasn’t snuffed me out yet. There are sixteen of them here. It’s family sauce with everything. Some of them are Catholics and some are Protestants ; that’s the only variety. I notice there’s an awful lot of ceremony in the way Protestants approach their Creator. Sunday is the State function. It must be something real serious before they’ll venture on a confidential week-day com- munication. Old Canteloupe, in his own house, looks about as com- fortable and as much at home as a cat in a cold bath. Her ladyship snaps him up pretty sharp. She’s a beast, with a long nose and short petticoats — ‘ suitable for country wear, my dear ’ — and she looks at my velvet frock with an evil eye. I do love velvet, but it seems to get the mange when she looks at it. I feel a patchwork of brutality and blasphemy when she empties out Solomon’s precepts over me. Tell Crichton there’s a man here with his eye on a spaniel exactly 142 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: answering to the description he gave me of what he wanted. She is black, without a white hair ; nine months old, tender-mouthed, used rabbits, but isn’t acquainted wirh partridges. Her mother took second prize at Birmingham, and she costs four pounds. If Crichton won’t have her, she shall go into my dog-street. I am afraid, my dear, the horizon of your prospects is beastly clouded. The Family is a widow’s cruise of dark prognostics. ‘ Sweet are the uses of adversity.’ Rot ! A splendid plaster to another person's gash, but hot iron to your own. However, if Morse comes in it will be all right for you, and, see-saw, down with the aristocracy and up with Hodge and liis cow. I’m new, so it won’t do for me to be a democrat. I belong to the Primrose League, and I am ordering a primrose skirt. Shan’t I look lovely ? “ Good-bye. Mind, you are to come on the 2nd. “ Your affectionate sister-in-law, “Zenobia Kenway.” Koorali smiled softly as she read Zen’s letter, but her face became grave when she finished it. She did not like the suggestion that Morse would provide for them if he should come into power. She would rather that their friendship should be without taint of time- serving or self-interest. It pained her to have it brought home to her that when Zen spoke out many others must be thinking. When Morse arrived, the children were having tea in an odd excrescence leading off the hall, a queer little room of no particular shape, with a deep mullioned window, over which the ivy crept, and a panelled mantel-board that lifted up and showed dark cavities once used for keeping tinder in, the delight of the boys, a store to them of fathomless mystery and inexhaustible possibilities of concealment. Lance jumped up, crying, “Mr. Morse.” He had caught sight of Morse’s tall form passing the window. It was Koorali herself who appeared in the open doorway just as he stepped within to reach the ancient iron knocker. “We are very primitive, you see,” she said, smiling. “We don’t indulge in the luxury of bells, and we let our door stand open because it is so heavy, and the latch is so huge and clumsy that the children could not draw it if they tried.” Morse admired the thick oak beams studded with immense nails, and the rusty iron bars and gigantic key standing in the lock. He admired also the low hall, with its oak panelling notched and defaced * in many places, its dingy ceiling crossed with beams, its massive doors opening in all directions, and its stone-flagged floor, on which Koorali had thrown opossum rugs and kangaroo skins. Though simple even to bareness, it was all very picturesque, and it seemed to him in keeping with Koorali herself. “ It puts me in mind of Australia,” she said, “except for the grey stone and the oak and the Romans. I must show you the coffins pre- sently. The kitchen is next this, so we haven’t far to go for anything u OXE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAMPS .” 143 we want. And oh, Mr. Morse, there is quite a manorial fireplace in it, and a real ingle-nook ! ” He had the same feeling as yesterday, that life was altogether more natural and joyous, and that the restraints of conventionality might he cast aside. She looked so simple and childlike with her children. She brought him into the little room and gave him tea with them. She did not summon a servant, but with Miles waited upon him. Lance was sent for a fresh cup and plate, she herself went for some wonderful strawberry jam, for which the boys had pleaded in honour of the guest. They were very merry, with just an undertone of emotion running through the merriment. Morse had a pleasant way with children. He laughed heartily when Lance gravely asked him whether he was really afraid to let the English fight, and if the Queen would make him Prime Minister, and repeated Mr. Dobito’s remarks. When tea was over Koor&li sent the children away to their play, and took him into her sitting-room, which was one of the Georgian rooms, and had lofty white-panelled walls, and tall straight windows, with window-seats. She had managed to make this like herself too, with the bits of drapery flung about, and the Australian weapons and skins and pieces of tapa contrasting oddly with the knick-knacks she had brought from London and some specimens of Pioman pottery ranged on the high mantel-shelf. Their talk rippled on much as it had done the day before. “ I don’t think people get half enough out of life,” Morse said, “ half as much as they might.” “ But you surely have got a good deal out of life?” Koor&li said, looking at him with a kind of wonder. He had seen so much, done so much, lived so much. “ Yes, I have got a good deal out of it. I have tried to warm both hands before the fire of life.” “ That is a good way of putting it. I like that,” Koorali said quickly. “ It’s not mine ; it’s Savage Landor’s. The fire is apt to scorch sometimes.” “ With most people to turn into embers and ashes, I think,” Koorali said, and then wished she had said something else, or said nothing. “ Ah ! ” he exclaimed ; ** you haven’t much confidence in the theory that every one is meant to be happy.” She smiled a little sadly. “ I haven’t much confidence in anything. I think it all left me when I ” She was going to say, “ when I married,” but she did not. She said, “ when I grew to be a woman.” “ Why, then ? ” he asked. “ I don’t know. Perhaps I had too much confidence before, and expected more out of life than I’d any right to.” “ One has a right to expect a good deal out of life. There ought to be material enough in life for each of us to have his heart’s desire, sooner or later. The worst is, that we most of us make it a ‘ too soon ’ or a ‘ too late.’ ” 144 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE J “ Ah, yes,” Koorali said quickly. “The pieces are all there,” Morse went on, “ but we shake them up impatiently, and the right ones can’t by any reasonable possibility be got together, and the wrong ones are wedged fast ; and it ends in a stalemate rather than a checkmate, for the most part.” There was a short pause. Her breath came a little faster. It was strange to hear the successful man talk thus, with his melancholy metaphor about life’s stalemate. Koorali was seated before a little table, on which she leaned with her hands clasped upon it. All the time they had been speaking his eyes had been turned away from hers. Once or twice he had moved as if he were going to say good-bye, and had only remained because of some question or remark from her. Suddenly he changed his place, and took a chair opposite her. As he did this he bent forward, and by some chance his hand for a second touched her clasped hands. His hand was withdrawn in an instant; the gesture was merely accidental and unconscious, but the feeling which it brought was like that of an electric shock. For an instant he held his breath, as a man might do who fears he has unconsciously let out a secret. But with this, too, was a personal sense of surprise and dismay ; he had revealed to himself his own secret. That could be hidden no longer — from him at least. When his hand touched hers, Koorali looked up at first a little sur- prised. Of course she knew that the touch was unconscious, inadver- tent, accidental, and yet she felt her forehead grow hot, and she bent her head as if she w ould hide some sudden expression of feeling. She drew herself back behind a line of mental reserve, and there was a moment’s awkward silence. Each felt, each feared that the other knew and felt also. Then there was a plunge into talk again, each rushing at the opening of a conversation, each apparently trying to get the first word. Morse had, however, quite pulled himself together by this time. He had come there with the intention of speaking to Koorali on what might be called in very strictness a matter of busi- ness. Under the fresh charm of the situation and their talk, he had put off and off the difficulty he found in approaching it. Now, how- ever, he was determined that the question must be raised at once. His own feelings of a moment ago warned him that he must come to the business he had in his mind. It would have bad to come, in any case. He had thought it out for some time, but the warning his heart had just given him was only another reason to show that he had thought it out to good purpose. So he stopped her rather abruptly in a little speech she was beginning on some subject in which she had no manner of interest. As lie interrupted her he got up and stood with his hat in his hand ready to go. The moment he rose Koorali rose also. She did not know why ; it looked as if she wanted him to go — almost seemed ungracious, she thought. “Mrs. Kenway,” he said, “there’s something I wanted to say to you. Our talk yesterday set me thinking about you and your future. I don’t know why, unless it was because you seemed so contented and “ONE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAMPS ” 14$ like you!* real self in this place. I don’t think the life of London would ever quite suit you. I fancy that I’ve told you that before, haven’t I ? I think you might be happier, and that it might be better for you and yours, if your husband got an appointment which would take you away from London.” He watched her anxiously as he spoke. He saw that she did not realize the full import of this tentative suggestion which he had pre- pared so carefully. Her face took the blank chill look that comes over the face of a child at the first hint that its holiday must end. “ Away ? ” she repeated. “ Out of London ? I don’t know that I should care for that, Mr. Morse, though I am very happy here. I am afraid that when Crichton comes back, this simple, dull sort of life, and my satisfaction with it, will come to an end,” she added, with a rather sad little laugh. “There will be so much more needed to make us happy — so much that we haven’t got. But if Crichton is fortunate enough to get an English appointment, it must be in London.” Morse felt a pang of pity and tenderness at her half-unconscious revelation. “ I suppose,” he said, “ that an appointment out of London would mean one out of England. Should you mind that very much ? ” She looked up in a startled way, and met his eyes. She saw the anxiety in his face, though he spoke in quite unemotional tones. “ I — 1 don’t know,” she said falteringly. “ I haven’t thought about it lately. I am afraid that I lake life too much as it comes, and don’t trouble sufficiently about the morrow.” “ I wish that I could keep you from any need to trouble about the morrow,” he exclaimed. Then he went on with insistent emphasis. “Just think over this idea of a colonial appointment, Mrs. Ken way — that is what I rnennt — and tell me what your wishes really are. Oddly enough, when I got home last night, I found a letter which showed me a chance of serving you in that way.” He still watched her intently. A faint flush came over KoorMi’s face. She did not answer at once. Then she said in a chilled voice — “ Mr. Morse, you are very good to us, but I don’t feel as though we had any right to be considered. Crichton has no claim ” “Oh yes, Mrs. Kenwav, your husband has a claim, and he has interest, which comes to the same thing. He has gained a reputation, and deservedly, for tact and knowledge in colonial affairs. He will confer a benefit on his country by his services. That is the way to put it. He has more or less identified himself, however, with me and 1 my party, and I begin to doubt more and more whether I shall be able to accept the position which — which, you know, people think I am sure to have, and my friends, who expect to see me in such a position, might be disappointed. And I think, if your husband would take this offer, it would be better in every way. I don’t know if you quite understand ? ” Oh yes ; she quite understood, and she felt ashamed. Morse knew that her husband was merely looking to him for an appointment. Morse was warning him through her that after the elections he might “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? 146 not be able to do all that Kenway expected. Morse knew'aho that Ivenway’s tastes and habits made it better for him to be removed from the temptations and ambitions and social competitions and moral dangers of a London life. “ Yes, I understand/’ she said sadly. After he had gone, Koorali went into the house. The children came to her before her dinner. Lance was making a boat, and did not care to talk or ask questions, but little Miles crept up to her and begged that she would read him a story. She did not know what it was that made her voice quaver so as she read. Perhaps it was be- cause the story was a sad one. When she had finished and had put the book down, Miles said to her, with his big clear eyes lifted to her face — “ Mother, I want you to do something for me.” “ What is it, dear ? ” “I want you to tell me about your life. A great many mothers in books write the stories of their lives and different things to amuse their little children.” “ What sort of things ? What do you want to know?” “ Oh, everything! What you did when you were a little girl, and why you married father, and if he asked you or you asked him.” “ You foolish child — women never ask men if they’ll marry them.” “ Yes they do — in leap year — Amelia says so. And I want to know if you were happy when you married father, and if you have any great secret that you have kept all your life.” Koorali bent her head, and laid her cheek upon the boy’s curls. “ What great secret could I have, Miles ?” “ Oh, there’s lots — in books. There was one in * The Mysterious House in Chelsea.’ The lady was in love with another man, and she was afraid her husband would come to know it. But Amelia took it away from me before I had got half through it. Mother! what’s the matter ? ” A great drop had fallen on the child’s cheek. Lance broke in — “ Miles is always getting hold of Amelia’s books — marrying and love and jolly rot. I wouldn’t read such stuff. When I’m a man and want to get married, I’ll do as father says — go straight to the girl, and say, ‘Now, what about the coin?”’ “ Was that what father said to you, mother? ” said Miles, still in- quisitive, KoorMi roused herself. She laughed — a laugh with the sound of tears in it. “Lance is quite right. Amelia’s books are not boy’s books, and boys should think of cricket and boats, and not of things that only older people have to do with. Good night, my children.” She ate h go in for farming, or at any rate, knowing all about it, garden parties, county balls, county politics, sport, and anything that occurred to her as being suitable to the situation. She set about her task with a good deal of enthusiasm, and in a generous spirit. There seemed to her something fine and heroic in restoring the Kenways to their ancestral home and in refounding the family, so to speak, with her fortune. This was her theory. In practice, comfort was her first consideration. She intended to make Eustace and herself thoroughly comfortable. She thought of Eustace quite as much as of herself. It was a great disappointment to find that an old leather arm-chair, an oak bureau THE PRIOR Y- ON- THE - WA TER . 149 that n light have been in a cottage, and an unlimited supply of cigars and French novels, were all that Eustace seemed to require to make him happy. She had begun by lining the walls of his study with stamped leather of new and fashionable design — a wonderful combina- tion of old gold, browns, and reds; had hung up 'portieres of imitation Gobelin tapestry, and had ordered from Tottenham Court Road the most sombrely gorgeous and most complicated modern suite which the art of upholsterer could produce for the delectation of amateur country gentlemen. Eustace, however, rebelled against the chairs which concealed, in their capacious arms and under their stuffing, cigarette caskets and ash receptacles, reading-desks, trays and tumblers, and other conveniences. He declined the magnificent writing-table, with its appliances for reducing literary labour to a minimum, and ordered in the old arm-chair and the bureau which Zenobia had sent to the lumber-room. “ My dear child,” he said to her in his elaborate manner, “ pray consult your own taste as regards the rest of the house, and play about among the relics as much as you please, but do me the inesti- mable favour to respect my notions of comfort, which are elementary, I admit. I can’t smoke and go to sleep and enjoy ‘ Richard Omun- roy * when I’m leaning against new Russian leather that makes me smell all the day like a freshly bound Christmas gift-book.” Eustace Kenway did not take kindly to the part of country gentle- man. He had not his brother’s power of adaptability or his brother’s ambition. He could not shoot well, and he thought hunting a great deal of trouble for nothing. School boards and petty sessions were beyond him, and he did not. feel any interest in crops or in short- horns, and hated young lambs, except with the accompaniments of green peas and mint sauce. He was very colourless. If he had any special tendency, it was in the direction of art, but he had always been too poor or too lazy to cultivate it. He winced a little at Zenobia’s robust and vigorous attacks on life, in which she got all she couid out of it. It seemed to him like seeing a boxing match. She jarred a good deal upon his nerves. He sometimes suggested that there was a want of repose in her manners. Her energy appeared to him like that of a flail ; but it was a point of honour with him not to interfere in her way of amusing herself. He did not suppose that the country craze would last long, and then, he concluded, they would go to Paris or London, where he could always find enjoyment. So Zenobia, left to her own devices, did play about among the relics. She ordered down an army of workmen and upholsterers, and very soon effected not a mere change, but rather a radical revolution in the appearance of the Priory-on- the- Water. Crichton Ken wav and his wife did not come on the 2nd, as Zenobia bad suggested. Morse’s shooting party took phce on the 1st, and Crichton was not willing to miss it. He was particularly anxious to appear on good terms with the coming man, as Morse was considered, and then the bachelor party was very pleasant for him. Lord Arden 150 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! was in it, and the two or three fellows of whom Morse h&d spoken turned out to be young politicians of distinction ; men to talk with ab'»ut the coming elections. Crichton did not look forward either with very great pleasure to visiting his brother in the refurbished ancestral home, though he created quite a pretty part for himself as a sort of deposed sovereign, joked about the primitive simplicity of the Grey Manor, and never let any one forget that he was the eldest son, and should by right be reigning at the Priory. No one took any trouble to inquire hack into the Kenway genealogy, and, on the whole, Crichton made an excellent impression in the county as a capital shot, a likely man in the hunting field, and a clever, affable fellow, quite in the first rank of society. Altogether it was felt to be a great pity that he had not secured the heiress. No one thought much of Eustace, who seemed too lazy even to fall off a horse. Crichton was asked to dine and sleep at Bromswold, and to shoot on the following day. Lady Betty had not yet returned, though she was expected the next week, and therefore Koorali was not included in the invitation. She had not seen Morse since that night of self- revelation. She sometimes wondered within herself how it would be possible for her to talk to him ever again in the old, free, unembar- ra sed manner, and w T as glad to think that she was going away for a little while, and would meet him, if she must meet him, in the Priory atmosphere, and not amid the melancholy, poetic surroundings of the Grey Manor. Zenobia drove over on the afternoon of the 2nd to see her sister-in- law. She looked an odd, incongruous figure in her startling French costume, as she stood in the bare hall and gazed round her, and then at Koorali, with an expression of sympathetic dismay. So thought Arden, who had slipped away from the shooters and had. found his way along ti e river to call on Koontli. “Well! I don’t wonder that you like London best,” said Zenobia abruptly, after having drawn a deep breath. “But 1 don’t think I do like London best,” replied KoorMi, with her gentle smile. “ We are very happy here, the boj^s and I.” Zenobia’s high-heeled French shoes clacked on the stone floor as she walked round and inspected the dilapidated oak panelling. “ I should want a lot of things done to make me comfortable in this place,” she said frankly; and one could not help thinking that she was on the point of saying, “ beastly place.” “ What sort of things, Mrs. Eustace Kenway?” asked Lord Arden, coming forward. “I should like very much to kuow what would make you happy.” “Why, Persian carpets and big screens to keep out the draughts, and divans and blue china, and pots and pans, don’t you know? and palm-trees, and a man in armour dotted about here and there.” “ Two or three ancient liomans dug out of the encampment ? ” suggested Arden. “ Have you got any for the Priory, Mrs. Eustace ? ” “I’ve ordered three Crusaders,” replied Zen promptly. “I suppose THE PRIOR Y-ON-THE-IVA TER. i$i they can be got somewhere — at Whiteley’s, perhaps, don’t yoti think? Mv goodness, KoonUi, you do look thin and pale ! Have you been ill?” The blood rushed to Koor&li’s face, making it white no longer. The change in her whs indeed noticeable. It had struck Arden ti e instant be saw her, and he had been full of pain and wonder, certain that some secret trouble weighed upon her. She whs wan, and her features seemed sharper, while her eyes had the strained, smarting look which betokens tears kept resolutely back. She had suffered much during the past few days. Every word and look of Crichton’s had probed her wound. He had come home in the mood for endearments, which he commanded, rather than entreated, and Koorali’s repulsion to kisses, accepted by her hitherto as a fact in her life to be patiently submitted to, had now become keen agony and humiliation. Seeing her embarrassment at Zenobia’s abrupt exclamation, Arden said, “ I have been telling Mrs. Ken way that I don’t think the river mists agree with her.” “ She must have a change right away,” said Zenobia with energy, and, turning to Koorali, added, “ What day have you and Crichton fixed upon? I am very angry with you for putting me off. He could have shot at Bromswold just as well from us, couldn’t he now, Lord Arden ? ” “ We are coming on Monday,” said KoorMi. “ And you, Lord Arden ? ” continued Zenobia, “ you and Mr. Morse ? You are going to shoot and stop for dinner. The Admiral Nevile- Beauchamp is to be with us, and a London masher for Jo. It will be a queer kind of party — a little of all sorts. London swells and Steve Dobito, yeoman.” “ I have heard a great deal about Steve Dobito,” said Lord Arden. “ I particularly want to meet him. He is a man with views.” “He is very anxious to improve Mr. Morse’s mind,” said Zenobia, “and so I thought I’d just give him a chance. Eustace and Mrs. Nevile said that dinner parties wouldn’t be in his line,” pursued Zen reflectively. “I shouldn’t think they were much: but if he wants bis pudding before his meat, why, he shall have it.” “I don’t know that there is any eternal principle involved in the eating one’s meat before one’s pudding,” Arden sa;d reflectively. “I think puddings beastly anyhow and anywhere,’ Zen affirmed, with all the warmth of evident sincerity. “ But you know, Lord Arden, it wasn’t that I meant. I only meant that I wanted the poor man to have his way. I wasn’t thinking about puddings.” “ Dear Zen, I am sure Lord Arden quite understood that you wero speaking the language of metaphor,” Koorali said, with a compassionate smile, poor Zen seemed so eager to vindicate herself. “ One don’t want to be thought to be always talking nonsense and vulgarity,” Zen pleaded apologetically. “ You always talk very good sense,” Lord Arden said gravely, and with a determined effort to break tkroTigh his habitual shyness, stud r;2 “ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE* say exactly what he felt and what he wanted to say, “ and ^here never could be vulgarity where there Ls no affectation.” “ Come, now, ain’t that nice ? ” Zen said, and a dash of colour came into her face. In truth, Lord Arden saw as clearly as Koorali did the truthfulness, the womanliness, underneath that Parisian bodice; the shrewd honest good sense in that little black cropped head, and which all Zen’s own ivory brushes, and all the ivory brushes “brandished” by Disraeli’s duchesses, could not scrub out of it. Koorali felt a little vague enthusiasm as they approached the Priory on the appointed day. She glanced at her husband as they drove up the village street, to see if the place awakened old memories. She could have felt much sympathy with him in such a mood. But he was leaning back in the carriage looking sullen and perplexed. She seemed to know by a sort of flashing instinct that he was weighing the for and against Morse’s accession to power, and speculating with an absolutely concentrated regard to his own interest whether it might not be wiser to accept the proverbial “bird in the hand,” than to wait for the problematical “ two in the bush.” To her surprise he did not seem to know how to direct the coachman when the latter appealed to him, and they were obliged to ask the way to the Priory of an old man by the roadside. “ I suppose that you were very young when you went away from the place?” slie said, wondering a little, for she had often heard him speak of his “ old home.” “ My father left it before I was born,” he answered shortly. There was silence again, and she had no remark to make on the quaint arched gateway 'with a grey stone pigeon-cote on either side. The house was an imposing structure, a massive pile, with two wings forming stables and offices, connected with the maiu building by high battlemented walls. These were curved, so that the whole block was in the shape of a semicircle with a gigantic yew hedge, cut into pyramids and turrets, at its base. The pride of the Priory lay in its yew hedges and in the terraced garden at the back. This could be seen easily as the carriage wound up a gentle slope, for here the Lynde valley narrowed, and on one side the ground rose higher than is usual in that flat county. Three broad terraces built up with stone led down to the river. The massive walls were buttressed, each buttress surmounted by a weather-beaten statue. In the embrasures, great trees of myrtle and magnolia flourished, and there were quaint borders like the border at the miil, and scarred steps and balustrades, and a rose garden where the rose bushes were not stiff straight standards, but wandered at their sweet will. Upon none of these things had Zenobia yet had time to lay the desolating hands of reform. The drive swept to the front of the house within the yew hedge, and round a smooth stretch of lawn that had once been a bowling-green. An ancient sun-dial stood opposite the hall door. The building was of the famous grey stone, but disfigured as far as tho natural veining and pallid hue would permit, for Zen, in her ardour for cleanliness, THE PRIOR Y-ON- THE- IV A TER. 'S3 had scraped off the reddish brown lichen, had pruned away the ivy and clematis, and had ruthlessly uprooted the seedlings which the birds had sown in the crannies and on the tops of the old walls. Two powdered footmen threw open the doors. There was a sound of voices and laughter as they were led into the large inner hall, which looked comfortable indeed, and picturesque, notwithstanding its odd jumble of the traditional and the essentially modern — of the Palais Royal and Plessis-les-Tours, and though the saucy little tables, the downy chairs, the gorgeous divans in Persian tapestry, the glowing carpets of velvet pile, the tambourines painted after Van Beers, and the porcelain monkeys hanging on to the screens, seemed at variance with the groined ceiling, the Gothic arches of the oak staircase, and the carved mantel with its coat of arms, which Zen firmly believed to be the rightful trophy of the Kenways. The gentlemen had come in from shooting. Morse, looking very stately aud handsome and somehow unlike himself in hi-s rough gear, stood by the fireplace talking to Eustace, who was twirling a cigarette between his delicate fingers. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp, in a Redfern costume, which subtty combined the aesthetic and the rural, and the most exquisite leather boots crossed in an attitude that revealed a modest isthmus of scarlet silk stocking, lounged on one of the divans Miss Jo, very demure and sleek, made tea, with the Admiral and the well-got-up and extremely talkative ‘‘masher" in attendance. Zen herself, was seated upon a plush pouf, which was a triumph of Parisian art. It was intended to represent a large toadstool in the natural sickly yellow, and had green satin frogs clustering round the stem. She herself looked as incongruous as the toadstool, her healthy brown British face, her curly black crop, her square shoulders and substantial limbs being very much out of keeping with her French tea-gown ot old gold plush, elaborately adorned with cascades of lace — a garment that Sarah Bernhardt might have appropriately worn in “Frou-Frou," and with her high-heeled embroidered shoes and old gold stockings. There was a flutter among the group as Ivoorali and her husband entered. Eustace languidly greeted his brother, and Zen embraced her sister-in-law with effusion. Morse did not at once come forward, but Kooiali had seen him the instant her glance swept the room. As he looked at the little face framed by a black hat with drooping feathers, he fancied that the slender form round which her soft dark draperies hung, it seemed to him like the draperies of no other woman, was even slenderer and more fragile than when he had last seen it not many days ago. Some women, though they may be insignificant of stature, unasser- tive and absolutely unconscious of any wish to make an effect, are given, in recompense, a certain magnetic power of arresting and absorb- ing attention. As Koorali stood and untwisted the lace scarf from her throat, she was, for the moment, the one object of interest to every eye in the room. It was as though the chief actress in the drama had appeared suddenly on the sceua There was about Koor&li that sug- 11 154 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE » gestion of tragic story, lived through or yet to come, that mark of Destiny’s cross, which one sees now and again in the face and form of man or woman, which is so unmistakable and so hard to explain or describe. Morse shook hands gravely, almost silently, with Koor&U, and then drew back. Arden pushed forward a chair. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp made her proper little speech, and the “ masher,” Mr. Erie, changed the tap of his conversation from lawn tennis to Lord and Lady Beau- mont’s place in the Highlands, where he had expected to meet Koorali. He had once taken her down to dinner at their house in London. Mr. Erie was a young man rich in conversational resources. He was in diplomacy, and was making fair progress, chiefly by virtue of his resolve always to talk on the right subject to the right person. He had just come from Copenhagen, and had ambitious hope of Washing- ton. Koorali was not long in observing that he had the proper tap of conversation always ready to turn on. He had chaff for Zen ; he talked politics with a subdued deferential air when he was speaking to Morse ; the air of one who says, “ I know my future master ; I may offer my meek suggestions, but of course I await his commands ; ” he conversed of hunting and old county families to Crichton, and thereby secured at once the good opinion of that scion of ancient line. He angled about a good deal with Koorali, not being quite certain where to have her. He tried high life, because he understood that she was a friend of Lady Betty Morse; and then he tried Bohemia; and neither was successful, as he could see at a glance. Then he ventured on views of life itself ; and after a while was lucky enough to have the conversation interrupted. “ You see we are refreshing ourselves,” said Zenobia, in her abrupt voice. “ Will you have some tea, or some sherry and bitters ? ” Koorali shook her head at the sherry and bitters, and asked for tea, which Morse brought her, and a few commonplaces were exchanged about the chive and the relative distance of Bromswold and the Grey Manor. Koorali’s voice was constrained. “ I beg to state that I am not drinking sherry and bitters because I like such stuff,” continued Zen, “ but because I’ve had neuralgia all day. It’s nerves. Eustace thinks I haven’t any right to have nerves. I’ve bought them from Jo — haven't I Jo ? She’s a Nevile-Beauchamp, and can spare them.” Eustace looked annoyed, and Crichton put in with a cheerful laugh — u By Jove, if you want to make that sort of investment, my wife is the person to apply to.” “ We’ve been in a muddle,” said Zen. “ Haven’t we, Jo ? The fur- niture people hav'fc only just gone away. I’m going to show you my diggings presently ; I think they’ll do. I have been having a battle with Mr. Morse,” she went on in her discursive fashion, “ because I’m a Conservative, and I’ve joined the Primrose League. Are you a Liberal or a Conservative, Koorali? Will you give me your name? If 1 can get thirteen names, I can have the Priory made into a * habi- THE PRIOR V-ON-THE- WATER. 155 tation,’ and then I shall got asked to such a lot of lovely functions. Mr. Morse, if you’d have a Republican League, and Lady Betty would start a pretty costume for it — say crowns and sceptre? upside down, done in gold embroidery on an eaii de Nil ground — something newer and more decided than primroses, I think I’d join your party and become a Radical.” There was a general laugh. Every one knew Lady Betty’s royalist devotion. Morse laughed too; he never lost his sense of humour. Zenobia distinguished herself by some more remarks in the same strain. “ Come, Mrs. Kenway, is that your notion of political morality?” said Lord Arden, turning to her with a serio-comic expression. “ There is no doubt that the tailor who invented the primrose skirt will be an influence in deciding the elections. The Admiral is grieved. He spent some time, while we were waiting at Dingle Corner for the Irish stew to arrive, in trying to persuade me that women were worthy of a vote, and you contradict all his arguments by insisting on being frivolous.” “ No ! Really ! ” exclaimed bland Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp — he of the drawl; Zen called him the “ Interjectional Inquirer,” because he never opened his mouth except to utter an ejaculation or to ask a question. “ Ought women to have a vote?” “ I tell you what converted me,” said the Admiral, a short man with a snarling voice and goggle eyes like those of a pug. “ I was once stay- ing in a country house where there were five men and seven ladies. The Channel tunnel question came under our quarter. The men, with the exception of myself, were for it. The ladies voted with me against it. Now, women are always sick.” “What ? ” asked the Inquirer, bending forward. He was a little deaf. “ Sick — sea-sick, don’t you know,” said the Admiral shortly. “ The only argument I can see in favour of the tunnel is that it saves the crossing for people who get sick. Now, I said to myself, if women, who are always sea-sick, can be so disinterested in this one question, they are capable of having a voice in others ; and that’s how they got me round.” Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp purred her contribution to the conversation in her thin staccato voice, with her chin poked forward. The Admiral was quite in the wrong. He knew nothing at all about it. She was quite sure that no one nice could ever want women to have votes. She had been staying with a certain “ Balloch ” and " Lady Harriet.” Lady Harriet was quite, quite crazy on “woman’s rights.” She won- dered how any one could make a friend of Lady Harriet, who was certainly “ very smart,” but quite the ugliest woman and so strong- minded ! “ I don’t want to put women into Parliament,” said Zen. “ I think there are lots of things more interesting than that. In fact, I think the primrose people beastly slow, nearly as bad as my guardians. I should like to make something happen to me. Nothing has ever happened to me in my life, except getting married. I’ve got no line of fate. If you look at ray hand, you’ll see.” THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 156 There was something comically wistful in her expression as she held out her square palm. Mr. Erie took it in his, and turned on the tap of chiromancy. Eustace rose. Zen looked at him. “ What are you beckoning to the Admiral for?” she asked. “ Where are you going to take him and Mr. Morse?” “ We are going to play billiards. Come, Crichton.” The Admiral and Crichton followed him, also Mr. Nevile-Beau- champ. Morse remained. Zen’s face flushed a little, and she heaved a petulant sigh as the door closed behind them. “ That’s Eustace’s polite way of letting me know that my conversation bores him. Well, we’ve got rid of the husbands, any way, that’s one comfort. The e must be a reaction, you know ; flesh and blood can’t stand it. You can’t always keep your loins girt and your lamps burning.” Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp took up her crewel work in a protesting manner. Lord Arden laughed. “ Your views on matrimony are not any more encouraging than your political opinions, Mrs. Eustace.” “Well,” returned Zen, frankly, “I don’t know why girls are such blessed fools as to marry ; do you, Koorali ? Some of them do it for a trousseau and to be independent of their guardians, and they’re given very small change for their money. Thai’s all I can say. The man gets everything, and the woman gets nothing except snubbing — unless she’s a c — cat,” and Zen stole a side glance at the Admiral’s wife. “ The man gets everything?” repeated Lord Arden. “Let us con- sider the question. It’s a very interesting one — to me, as a bachelor, at any rate. Let us see — what does the average man gain by marriage in comparison with the average woman ? ” “ A home,” sententiously observed Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp. “ From which he is supposed to absent himself between breakfast a..d dinner,” Lord Arden said. “There’s no place like home,” said Zen sentimenfally ; and then lecovering added, “So the husband seems to think, and that’s why he likes any other place better.” “But come — what does the average man get by marriage?” Lord Arden persisted. “The right to flirt without danger of an action for breach of promise,” said Mr. Erie. “ But with the danger of a jolly good wigging from his wife,” said Zen. “I have heard it declared,” Morse observed, “ that he gets, if he is lucky, illusion converted into delusion. But that isn’t my definition.” “ Can’t we have Lord Arden’s own views? ” Koorali asked. “The man falls into bondage,” said Lord Arden. “The woman emancipates herself. Here’s a case. Take a girl — one of three or four sisters — who has been out several seasons. Other sisters are coming on. Dressing up has got to be a bore. She is tired of standing in the market Sbe marries. There is no further necessity to dress up, for THE PRIOR Y- ON - THE- WA TER. 157 a practical end. She has got her promotion. She has got her liberty. She can go to the theatre with a pleasant little party of men and women, and sup at the Orleans, without her husband. She has got pin-money, settlements, new dresses, and a house of her own. We needn’t mention love. I suppose that passes.” “My! ain’t we cynical!” Zen exclaimed. “What wisdom to be sure! Haven’t we studied the question, to be sure? Bachelors’ wives and maids’ children are well managed, we all know ! ” “Women are narrow,” pursued Arden composedly. “They only care for their own occupations. They don’t take the trouble to grasp their husband's interests. The husband goes home. What does he find? A stupid wife who can’t or won’t talk to him on his subjects. Ten to one she is dying to go out and show off a new dress. She ain’t contented to go out alone. She wants her husband — not for the pleasure of his society, but because she wants him to bring her home again. And supposing that they go in for a domestic evening, two armchairs by the fire and so forth. He sits down in one. Then, as I said, what is there lo talk about? There soon comes this sort of feeling,” and he comically drew his hand across his throat. “ I don’t know anything about it,” said Morse with an air of forced gaiety. “Betty and I never get a chance of an evening to ourselves. Never shall, I suppose. I don’t know what you are talking about.” “ There’s something in what Arden says,” exclaimed Mr. Erie, who seemed impressed by the view of the question. “ Why do we marry ? Because we are fools. Mrs. Eustace Ken way is right. It’s like duck shooting. See what one goes through for the sake of one duck — and when you’ve got him! It’s the same thing. I fall in love. I propose. Why? She is wearing a colour I admire, or we’ve been dancing together to a waltz I like, or I’ve got a hi tie too much champagne on board ! ” “ We haven’t heard a word of Mrs. Crichton Kenway’s views on the great matrimonial question, and the relative gains and losses of man and woman,” Arden suggested. Morse w T as drawing out of the conversation, but he checked himself now, and he looked at Koorali, who started a little and saw that ah eyes were on her. “ Oh, please leave me out,” she pleaded, quite earnestly. “ I don’t even speak the language.” “My dear, what nonsense!” Zenobia cried. “Whatever do you mean ? ” “1 don’t understand,” Arden said* “ I do,” said Morse. “ Quite.” 158 “THE EIGHT HONOURABLE? CHAPTER XIX. “TOO EAKLY SEEN UNKNOWN, AND KNOWN TOO LATE. Yes, he understood her, quite. He knew exactly all the meaning of her words; and he thought the simple words expressed her meaning with precision and fulness. She did not speak the language of London society, on that serious, sad question of man and woman's association. She was made to he happy and to give out happiness ; and Morse knew too well that she was not happy. She was made to be the fond, devoted wife of a true-hearted husband, to whom she could turn with eyes of love, to whom she could look up with generous admiration. The marriage question could hardly seem to her all jocular. Morse began to find, that he was all unconsciously growing to understand her but too well. He began to find that he was getting into the way of turning his eyes on her and waiting with deep interest for what she was to say. This had been going on with him for some time indeed, but he was now beginning to grow conscious of it. He found himself watching over her life, if one might put it in that way. She began to occupy a large spreading space in his thoughts. This troubled him, although there was a sweetness in it too for the over-busy much pre- occupied statesman. Kooraii’s protestation of her inability to speak the language and Morse’s declaration that he understood what she meant, put a stop to the discussion on the relative advantages of matrimony to man and man’s mate. The tea-drinking was over ; the little group was at liberty to disperse. The open air was tempting to most of the guests. Mr. Erie went with Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp into the conservatory to get some stephanotis; Morse and Koorali found themselves alone on the lower terrace. They walked up and down slowly. It was very still and peaceful here, and the air was full of the fragrance of myrtle and late roses. A dream-like sense of content stole over Koorali. “ I will be happy,” she seemed to be whispering to herself, and her heart went on speaking while, they paced almost the length of the terrace in silence. “ Why should I not be glad that I am near him? Why should I be afraid ? A woman has not any need to be afraid when she has to deal with a man like him. I am not afraid or ashamed, now. There would be shame if he were not the most loyal man who lives. He is the truest and the most loyal. I know him and I honour him. I could look into his eyes as he might look into mine, without a shadow of shame, for our souls would understand each other.” Thinking of this, she did turn her dark, melancholy eyes towards him. His were downcast. She had never before seen him so grave. There was a curious expression on his face — a look stern, pure, and resolute, yet unutterably sad. Before she could turn her eyes away K TOO EARLY SEEN UNKNOWN .” 159 lie looked suddenly round, as if he had become conscious of her gaze and of her thoughts. Their eyes met. His look seemed foi one moment to cling to hers, as if he were dumbly beseeching her pardon, dumbly assuring her that she might rely on him to be silent and loyal. In that instant their souls faced each other fairly. They were no longer groping in darkness. Then they both looked away. The sense of nearness to him which she felt was a rush of joy. Of course he would never tell her what was in his heart. This she knew, as she knew her own heart. He would never tell her that he loved her. He would never a-k her if she loved him. A naked sword was placed between them, like that which the youth Aladdin in the Arabian tale set with his own hand between him and the princess he adored. Koorali knew that in word and deed they would be no more to each than the merest acquaintances — less than friends. It might indeed be that this was their farewell. But no matter. They knew. At the moment there was one and the same picture before the mind and memory of each — that parting scene in Australian waters and the Australian dawn, long ago. Koorali’s lips parted in a long sigh. For a moment or two she hardly knew where she was, or what had happened to her. She was back in the Australian dawn. Presently Morse spoke in a deep moved voice. “ We understand each other ; there is nothing more to say ; now or at any other time, it’s a great misfortune. We have got to bear it.” “Yes,” she answered simply; and then the woman in her spoke. “ Still, I am glad to know,” she said; and there was silence again. “ Kcorali,” Morse said abruptly. The sound of her Christian name, which he so seldom uttered, thrilled her with a sense of delight — all the more perhaps because the emotion in it was held so deter- minedly in check. “ There is something else I do want to talk about. I asked you to think over the idea of a colonial appointment for your husband. I had oue in view, and yesterday I heard again from Lord Coulmont, in whose gift it is. Your husband may have the offer of a governorship in Farnesia, one of the newly annexed islands. It is the governorship of all the islands, in fact. Coulmont authorizes me to speak to him. I could not do so till I had spoken to you again ; but I ought to write to him to-morrow. We are political enemies, but we are personal friends, and he has promised me.” Koorali was silent, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes down- cast, in deep thought. He could see that her face, under the shadow of her black feathers, had got very white. “The climate is fairly good,” Morse continued in the same level tones, “ more healthy than that of South Britain. I once spent a few weeks there. The society is fairly good also ; and there is capital shooting and a summer residence in the hi] Is. There would be plenty to do of a pleasant kind. I think }mur husband would like it. And for you ” — his voice changed suddenly — “ it would, perhaps, be better.” THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? 160 Still Koorali did not turn towards him or speak. She was afraid to speak. She felt that if she tried to raise her voice she must break down. " There is the alternative of trusting to what I can do for you in England,” Morse said. “ You won’t mind my speaking so frankly? I know that Mr. Kenway depended more or less on the South Britain Government, and that he has no great private fortune.” Kooraii shook her head. She seemed to wish to speak, but the words did not come. Pie saw that she was suffering. “ There is one thing I implore you to take into your mind and your heart,” he said earnestly. “ In any way that I can serve you, I have a right to do so. Don’t you know there are bonds, relationships, in which that is the only right which can be claimed, and which ought not to he denied ? ” He waited a moment, and then went on. “ Alter the elections, it may be in my power to help my friends, but there is no certainty about it. The political situation may be such that with my convictions I may be unable to accept responsibility even if it is thrust upon me. If war takes place, I should be practically powerless — for a time. If, on the other hand, the war party is in the minority — well, I must come into office. But I don’t think that likely, in the least. I am bound in justice to put this view of the case betore your hu*band. His own judgment will guide him, and perhaps your influence.” Koorali spoke out now, and answered steadily. “ I will ask him — I will beg him to accept the appointment and take me out of England.” The strained look on Morse’s face relaxed. Her decision was evidently a relief to him. “Tell me that I am right,*’ Koorkli said, and there was a passionate trembling in her voice. “Tell me that you think it will be better for me to go away. Tell me that you’d rather ” She stopped suddenly, stirred by the expression of his face to a feel- ing of the keenest self-abasement. How could she dare to make duty moie difficult to him and to herself? His face told her what he was suffering. It might have been cut out of iron but for the eyes ; and the intense pity, the struggling tenderness, the deep anguish in them, were almost more than she could bear. Neither spoke for some moments. She knew that in this forced self-repression lay his only strength. She stopped abruptly in her walk. “No,” she exclaimed, “1 won’t ask you — anything — except to help me to go away. I’m glad to think you can he ip me to do that. You will speak to Crichton to-night? You will urge him, for his own sake, to take what Loid Couhnont offers you. Oh yes, I know — I know how good you are — how true. If he refuses, then I will beg him to take it — for my sake.” Then she moved away. He joined her, and they mounted the stone steps without a word. When they had reached the upper terrace, she stood for a minute leaning against the time-worn balustrade, as if tc take breath or to nerve herself before going into the world again. She TOO EARLY SEEN UNKNOWN; 161 leaned over the ivy-grown railing, a fragile little black figure, her head turned away from him, her chin upraised. The sun had set, but her face was outlined against the red glow that shone across the river, lie saw the muscles in the slender throat quivering, and the great dark eyes grow larger and fuller, as though tears were welling in them. All at once, she made a sudden movement, and faced him with bright, dilated eyes, and lips hardened into a conventional smile. Her little laugh rang out clearly. She had taken up her part again, and the thought translated itself into words. “I don’t think that I’m a person who goes in for theatrical effect,” she said lightly; “but what strikes me most about England, in con- trast to Australia, is that it’s dramatic. People group themselves well, and the background is nearly always appropriate to the varied situa- tions of civilized life.” “Are you thinking that Mrs. Eustace has managed some effective grouping?” he asked, falling into her mood with an effort. “It’s always the same,” she said. “I have been haunted, almost ever since I came to England, by an odd fancy that the curtain would fall directly. This is like a scene in a play — one might imagine the footlights down there,” and she pointed towards the river — “a play we saw this season; do you remember? There was a terraced garden, in the second act, and there was just the right alternation of pretty drawing-room comedy and of emotional interest. It was very pretty, and it was very like real life — the afternoon tea, and the dresses, like Zen’s; and the smart things that were said, and the tragedy which had the stage all to itself when the right time came. But no one ever forgot to say clever things, and the women always took care that their draperies fell becomingly.” She paused, but Morse did not laugh or make any jesting remark. She drew herself away from the balustrade. “ I wonder if you could reach one or two of those roses,” she said, pointing to a cluster of Marechal Niel, which hung from the wall close to where they stood. “ 1 should like to wear them to-night, if you will gather them for me.” He did as she asked, and gave the roses to her. As she held out her hands, he saw that they were trembling. She clasped the flowers tightly. “Thank you,” she said. “You see, I am like the people in the play. There’s always the dressing up to be thought of. And the curtain will fall on me — on this sort of life, at any rate, if Crichton goes to the islands — what are they called ? I must make the most of what opportunities are left me to be brilliant and worldly.” Her laugh, in which there was a false uncertain note, smote him to the very soul. He felt- at that moment as one might feel who saw his best-beloved child suffering from a blow he had unknowingly dealt. She wasjso like a child still. She went into the house with her roses, and he loitered on the terrace for a few minutes. Then the dressing* gong summoned him also within. 132 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE P CHAPTER XX. MR. DOBITO ADMONISHES NATIONS. Koorali came down to dinner in a dress which had been designed foi her by a royal academician, and which had created quite a sensation at the great London party where she had first worn it. It was a wonderful arrangement of rich, clinging Eastern stuff, of a pale yellow, and heavy gold embroidery ; and it was fashioned in a manner quite different from that of any modern garment. The draperies hung with that grace for which the Australian beauty was much celebrated. No stiffened bodice disfigured her form, but an embroidered scarf was cunningly twisted round and round her bust, the white neck and slender throat clasped by a band of gold rising above its folds, the arms showing bare to the shoulders. She wore Morse’s roses at her waist. There was something striking and original about the dress. It had been very much admired and quoted, and it harmonized with her clear paleness, her delicate features, and deep dark eyes. There was no particular reason why she should wear it upon this occasion, except that it seemed somehow to suit her mood and to sigualize the closing of a chapter in her life. Perhaps she had never been less herself than upon this evening. She was not given to saying hard, brilliant things, or indeed to talking much in general company. To-night, however, she talked a great deal, and laughed and made keen little speeches, which hurt Morse like the thrusts of a knife. He understood so well what she intended that he should understand ; and more. It was a poor, pitiful piece of bravery. Crichton was pleased in his malign, self-glorifying way. He was anxious that the impression she bad made upon Morse should be deepened during Lady Betty’s absence. He had a nervous dread of Lady Betty’s interference. He watched Morse with the ey«s of a tracker, and saw that he was preoccupied, and that he constantly looked at Koorali. Crichton interpreted these looks by smoking- room theories. He himself only knew one manner of admiring a pretty woman. He was not displeased. He meant to work Morse’s admiration to his own advantage. He also admired Koorali in that dress and in that mood. Zen was very gorgeous. She twinkled with diamonds and silver embroidery. Her train was of brocade, with fleurs-de-lis upon it, outlined in silver thread. Her shoes glistened like Cinderella’s glass slippers, only they were much larger. She awed and delighted Mr. Dobito, who duly made his appearance, clad in checked trousers, a long blue coat with brass buttons, and a high collar and neckcloth in good old style. Mrs. Nevile- Beauchamp thought that he looked singularly out of place in Zen’s magnificent pale yellow drawing-room. She thought the fox terrier out of place too, when it was brought to be MR. DOBITO ADMONISHES NATIONS. i6j exhibited. But soon she saw that a great county lady, who was Zen’s neighbour and a guest this evenin'!, delighted in the fox terrier, asking many questions as to its bre r 0 £ 1 | 1 | f(\ cp ^ & V 1 ) & t? ■& 1 r ^ =’ if I ne-ver more see you, you, you. rfkb—. sH* — h" — F &; — N ^ te Nnr ■ 1 fft rr J ^ ^ T3 . ^ W ' & 1 & & r .V- \J . f* & . cJ “#■ I’ll hang my harp on a weep-ing wil - low tree, And ■H— 1 &— may this world go well with you, you, — 0 — you. Nothing could be more sweet, simple, and pathetic than the air. The last word “ you ” was repeated wiih a sinking sad sound “ you — you — you!” — a plaintiveness like that of an evening breeze. There was something inexpressibly touching in this tender, fond little parting prayer. So Koorali thought at least. She found the tears coming into her eyes; she did not well know why. She found herself repeat- ing, in lowest tone, the words “ and may this world go well with you — you — you !” As she listened she saw that Morse was listening too, and was apparently absorbed in the song. When it was done he came to Zenobia. “Now, where did you get that song? * he asked. “ Do you know tnat it is a genuine plantation song — a real nigger melody; not a thing got up for a London or even a New York music hall? I have not heard it for years and years. We used to hear it down south during the American war. The fugitive slaves used to come into our camps and take refuge there, and they used to get round a fire and sing that song. ‘Rado©* is the plantation attempt at ‘adieu/ I do wish you would sing it again.” Zenobia positively blushed with delight and pride at the success of her song. 172 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: “I learnt it from a Southern States woman in the 'pension where I found Jo. Didn’t I, Jo? She said the niggers sang it on the planta- tion at sundown.” Zen sang it again. Koorali and Morse listened. “T hat’s all,” said Zen. She got up, and Lord Arden took the banjo from her, and presently followed her to another part of the room. “ I like your song,” he said; “and you have a very pretty voice, and should always sing simple things like that. It suits you.” Zen looked at him in her straight wistful way. “ Do you think it would be better if I were simpler all round ? Not so much of this kind of thing ? ” And she touched the fringe of beads which made a sort of jingling girdle round her waist. “ Come, honour bright! ” Arden laughed. “Honour bright!” he repeated. “I don’t object to that sort of thing. It provides employment for poor work-girls ; but I shouldn’t mind if a little of it were converted into amusement for them.” “ Oh, I know,” said Zen. “ Cheap homes and reading-rooms, and entertainments and all that. I’m going to start an entertainment room here, and I want you to help me. I don’t mean the banjo sand- wiched between prayers. I’d keep them separate. I’ve no patience with the people who think they have only got to put on their Sunday faces to fly straight up to heaven like a paper kite. That wasn’t what I meant, Lord Arden. I was thinking of myself.” Lord Arden was at that moment thinking of Koorali, towards whom his eyes had turned. She was sitting some little distance off, quite still, but with an anxious look on her face. She was, in truth, absorbed in a low-toned conversation carried on between Morse and her husband, a word of which she caught now and then. It was on the political situation ; the question of the appointment had not as 3 et, she fancied, been broached. “ Koorali is not simple. She is very complicated,” said Zen quickly. “Your sister-in-law is not a happy woman,” returned Lord Arden unguardedly. Zen drew a long audible breath. “ Ah, you have found that out ? ” she said. “I have let myself slip into an indiscretion,” replied Arden. “I have no reason to suppose anything of the kind.” “Oh yes, you have,” exclaimed Zen ; “just the same reason that I have for knowing it, and that is only her face and her way this even- ing.” After a short pause, Zen went on with apparent irrelevance. “ Were you quite in earnest about what you said in the hall this afternoon, Lord Arden? Don’t you believe there can be such a thing as a happy marriage ? Because I want to know,” she went on impetu- ously. “ If it’s an impossibility, you see, there isn’t much use in bothering about being found fault with, for that is simply the thing J can't bear — to be found fault with.” “MA y THIS WORLD GO WELL WITH YOU." 173 tf I suppose nobody likes it, but we all have to put up with it,” replied Arden, uncertain how to take her, and still thinking of Kooraii. “Oh, hut it’s differtnt with me. All my life I have been allowed to say and do what I pleased, and nobody tound fault, or, if they did,” added Zen artlessly, “ I didn’t care. I don’t mean that I’ve had a happy life, for I haven’t. Nobody ever cared for me ; but I ve always d^ne and said what I liked.” Lord Arden was touched. “ My dear Mrs. Eustace ” he began. And then lie saw that Zen’s lips were quivering. She pulled herself up with a sort of jerk and an uncertain laugh. “ I’m talking to you just as I began to talk to Kooraii a little while ago, and it isn’t my way. I don’t really mean it. Never mind ! We are all in the dumps, this evening, aren’t we now ? There’s some- thing in the air. Look at Mr. Morse — he hasn’t been like himself either. You wouldn’t think, judging from his face, that he was a successful man and had made a happy marriage. If ever there ought to be a happy marriage, I suppose that’s it, for Lady Betty is just perfect. Yet I can’t get over the fancy, Lord Arden, that a woman who didn’t belong quite altogether to the great world would have suited him better, don’t you know — some one altogether more romantic — more like — yes, more like Kooraii.” Arden and Zen both glanced involuntarily towards Kootali first, and then at Morse. They saw that Crichton had moved away, and that Morse’s eyes were on Kooraii. They saw that she turned her head as if drawn by a magnetic current, and that a look was inter- changed between the two. It was unconscious; it was very brief; both pairs of eyes were instantly averted, but much was revealed. The same thought flashed across the minds ot Zen and Arden. She shot towards him a glance of terrified understanding. His eyes, meeting hers, had something of the same expression. Just then Eustace lounged up, and said in his well-bred drawl, “ My dear Zenobia, your negro melodies are very original, and charming, no doubt; but Lady Clarence is an excellent musician, in a different style — don’t you thing you might ask her to play?” Zenobia flushed up, and with an abrupt gesture went to do her duty as hostess. The evening wore away — to Kooraii it had seemed interminable. At last she was alone in her room. Just as they were going u| stairs, she heard Morse propose a cigarette on the terrace to her husband. The sound of their voices and steps reached her now through the open window. She had taken off her dress, and was wrapped in a loose white cash- mere robe. Her hair was unbound and plaited for the night ime a child’s, in two long plaits that fell on her shoulders. She had occupied herself with it during some time. She paced the room restlessly for a little while, then sat down very quiet and pale in an arm-chair by the fireplace. She could not go to bed. She lelt that she must wait up and hear Crichton’s decision. 174 “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' CHAPTER XXII. THE LAST APPEAL. An hour or more passed slowly. 'The steps had died away, and KoorMi supposed that her husband and Morse had gone within, perhaps to carry on their conversation in more serious strain. At last there was the sound of opening and closing doors, and of “ Goud nights” inter- changed, and then Koorali heard the Landle of her own door turned, and Crichton entered. He had a look of suppressed excitement. He held his head erect, and his long, lean neck seemed longer and leaner, more than ever like that of one of those hungry hawks which Koorali remembered hanging round the stock-yard fence in Australia. He shut the door behind him and waited, as if for her to speak. But though she was cold with nervous expectation, it would have been impossible for her at that moment to frame a direct question. “ You are late,” she said in a mechanical way. “ I d>dn’t expect to find you waiting up for me,” he returned in that sarcastic tone which always chilled Koorali’s utterances. “ Why is this? You don’t often favour me with an opportunity for a conjugal t te-a-tcte. You are generally tired, or you have a headache, when I want to talk over things with you.” There was a litile pause. “ Have you not something you want to talk over with me to-night?” she asked. “ No,” he answered, coming opposite to her, and eyeing her with a curious expression on his lace ; “ I’ve said all that was necessary already — to Morse.” There was another silence. KoorMi got up from her chair, and moved towards him a step or two. Then she stopped short, and looked at him with anxious eyes. “ (’richton,” she said. “ Well ? ” “You know what I want to speak about?” “ Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t,” he said, giving a harsh little laugh. “ You remember the man in Moliere, Koorali ? The doctor asks him if he knows Latin, and he answers ‘Of course I do, but speak to me as if I didn’t.’ " He crossed to the fireplace, and stood with his back against the high mantel-piece and his eyes on the ground. “ About Mr. Morse,” Koorali went on in a firm voice as cold as his own. “ He has spoken to me. He wants you to accept a permanent appointment — he can get it for you, out of England — in one of the colonies.” Kenway looked up and stared fiercely at her for a moment or two before he spoke a word. “ Does he take me for a fool ? ” he said at THE LAST APPEAL. 175 last. “Do you take me for a fool, KoorMi ? Do you think I haven’t had enough of the colonies in my time? Do you think I’m going to bury myself in some trumpery colonial place, away from London and from everything that makes life worth living to a man of sense — to bury myself out there— with you ? Not I, my dear. And so I gave your friend Morse to understand. And so you may tell him, too. I prefer to take my chance with the other men who are waiting for him to come into power. Get him to try again, Koorkli. I dare say you can prevail upon him to mend his hand.” At another time Koorali would have resented the insinuation which lay only half-hidden under his tone and words. Now she took it patiently. Did she not deserve it ? No thought of wrong had ever come into her mind. No feeling unworthy of a woman had ever for a moment made her heart sound to a false note; and yet the conscious- ness of a secret forbade her now to be angry at her husband’s taunting words. A woman less resolute than Koorali to do right would not, perhaps, have been so keenly sensitive. She moved a little and rested her hand on the back of a couch near which she stood. “ Crichton,” she said, very gently and soothingly, “you will let me advise >ou about this before you make up your mind, won’t you? Don’t let us speak bitterly to one another. I will try to please you all I can. We will be good friends. Our interests are the same, and we have our children — they ought to make us tender to each other. You will try to love me, and I will try to love you. I will, indeed ; we are bound together in life or death, we two ” Crichton interrupted her with an impatient gesture. “That’s all very true, and very nice, and very pretty, Koorali; but I don’t quite see what it has to do with the question of a colonial appointment. Come to the point, my dear, and don’t be too sentimental, please.” “ I would rather you took Mr. Morse’s offer, Crichton.” “ Truly, but I would rather not, dear ; and that makes all the difference, don’t you see ? ” “ But it I were to ask you, Crichton ? If I were to say that I felt sure it would be better for you and better for me?” Koorali stooped forward and bent her pleading face towards him, but he kept his turned from her. “We are not fit for this sort of London life — I am not, at least ; and — oh, Crichton, it is right that you should consider me a little.” “ You are always giving me to understand that I consider you a very little,” he replied; and he smiled complacently at his own humour. “Oh, I do want to leave this place,” KooiYli exclaimed passionately. “ I want to be out of it, away from it for ever. Crichton, do listen to me ! I want to begin a new life in some other place. I want to forget our quarrels and want of sympathy, and to start afresh. I do indeed. I believe that you and I can yet be happy together. At least, we can tiy. Let us try to be a good and loving husband and wife, and live “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.' 1/6 for each other and for our children, and love them and love each other in them. That is all my ambition now — all, all my ambition. And I will do all I can; I will be a good, true wife to you, and we will begin this new life, shall we not, together?” •She spoke in little broken sentences, nervously pressing her hands upon each other. Crichton looked at her now with something of a more serious inquiry in his eyes, which he again averted.” *• I don't understand all this, Kooraii. I don’t complain of yon. 1 don’t see what you have to complain of. Many a woman would be glad enough to stand in your shoes. As for there being a want of sympathy between us, I suppose we agree in looking alter our interests ; what more do you want? In the name of common sense, do you expect me to pay you compliments and attention as if I weren’t your husband ? There are plenty of other men to do that for you. You like to be sentimental, and to imagine that you are neglected and unhappy.” “In good truth, Crichton,” she answered, with a plaintive smile, “I am often very lonely and very unhappy, and I think that you too must often feel we are not all to each other that we might be.” “ I never said so,” he replied, in a less rasping tone. “ I never said that you didn’t make a good wife to me. The fact is, I supp se, that you are too good — in all that sort of way — for a man like me. I dare say that I should have got on l etter with a woman of coarser fibre. I think I get annoyed sometimes by the thought that you are of too fine a grit for me, and that you know it. And then you exceedingly good little women have an irritating way of looking down on us poor sinful men of the world. Well, anyhow, I don’t find fault with you, Kooraii, and I think we rub along quite well enough, as married people go, and so there is no necessity to seek out some summer isle of Eden to begin a new existence in. That isn’t my form, dear ; I prefer London life. Here I am, and here I mean to stay.” “ Have you no thought for me ? ” she pleaded. “ Have you never thought that it may not be good for me — this kind of life, the life we lead in London ? ” “ What do you mean by ‘ not good for you ’? Late hours and that ? My dear, you can stay at home if you like. Of course, it would please me better that you should go out and be seen everywhere, but never mind about that. Whether I am pleased or not, it is of no particular consequence, I suppose.” “Crichton, you will not understand me. I must speak plainly. I wouldn’t if I could help it. Do you think that a woman has no feel- ings and no weakness? You want me to go into society, to make friends for you who will be useful. You want me to be admired. Have you never thought that I might — that I might come to like admiration too much ? ” “ No,” he answered coolly; “ and I don’t see what it would matter if you did. I suppose you could have enough if you tried for it.” “ Oh! ” she cried in something like a burst of despair, “ can’t you THE LAST APPEAL. 177 understand that I might get to think too much of one man’s admira- tion — and of him ? ” She looked at her husband straight, with an eager questioning gaze, as if she longed, yet feared, to read his soul. He did not at once answer, and he seemed determined not to meet her eyes. “ Nothing would come of that — I know,” he said at last with icy deliberation. “ No, except suffering to me ; and you don’t care about that — you don’t care about that, I know. But I was not thinking about myself only, Crichton,” she went on in a tone of forced quietness, “I was thinking about you. This life does not suit you. It never could. You would grow worse and worse in it. I mean that you could never be rich enough for the people you care to live among ; and you would try and strain to keep up with them and be like them, and it would be all a miserable mistake, with ruin at the end. See liovv we have been going to ruin here — in this short time. What appointment could you get in England which would give you half, or quarter, the money you want to scend? Oh, I have thought it all out; and I could bear my own troubles, whatever they might be.” She stiffened herself up with a feeling of womanly pride. “And nothing, as you say, would come of that. But I see only ruin for you and disgrace for our children in the life we are sure to lead. I see us drifting farther and farther apart, till I tremble to think of what may come of it. I can answer for my- self, but you cannot answer for yourself, and you know it. My husband, forgive me. I want to take care of you, and I want you, Heaver, knows, to take care of me.” Crichton made a few impatient steps, and came back to his former position. “Look here, Koor&li,” be said, “ I think we have had about enough of this. You need not trouble about me. I would much rather be ruined, as you call it, in London, than lead a stupid humdrum existence on a small salary as the governor of some pitiful hole of a colony. I don’t care about fine climate ; I have had fine climate enough already. Pall Mall and Piccadilly are good enough for me. I want to be at the centre of things. I want to live in the world, and I mean to do it too ; so that’s settled. As for you — well, my mind is quite at ease about you . I know the sort of woman you are. You’re cold enough and proud enough to be able to help me without doing any harm to yourself. Come, 1 don’t mean anything tragic.” For she had siarted, and her eyes flashed on him. “Why will you always take things and me from the point of view of the virtuous heroine of the Surrey Theatre? It’s stupid. It’s provincial. It isn’t life — at any rate, it isn’t my idea of life, and I think I’m a fair sample of the man of the world. We have got to live in the world, and to deal with worldly men and women ; not with a set of saints and prigs, or melo- dramatic demons either.” “ I want to understand yon,” she said very quietly. “ Your way of looking at things is not my way. I want to follow you if I can — I “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE . 1 17 3 mean in what you say about my being able to help you. Tell me what it is you wish me to do. Tell me in plain words.” “ Sit down, then,” said Ken way. “You look so deucedly uncom- fortable and superior standing up there. It’s very simple. I only want you to make my interests yours — and, by Jove, you can’t separate them — and to enjoy life.” He threw himself into an arm-chair as he spoke, and Koorali, obeying him, sat down upon the sofa by which she had been standing. She waited for him to speak. “ You are a very pretty woman,” said Kenway at last, “ and a very clever one, in your way ; a very good woman too. I have the fullest trust in you. I have a higher opinion of you than you seem to have of yourself, Koorali.” Her lips tightened a little ; she did not answer. “The world is our oyster,” continued Kenway, “and we have got to open it — you and I. It should not be a hard task. I flatter myself that I am something more than merely beauty’s husband. Morse has obligingly told me this evening that I have claims and capabilities. A great deal depends on you. You are quite right. We are husband and wiie — bound to each other — and we must stand or fall together. I only ask from you what any clever man has a right to expect from a clever wife.” Kenway waited again for a moment ; but Koorali was still silent. “You did not make the use which you might have made of your opportunities this season,” he said. “ By an extraordinary piece of luck we managed to get into the thick of the political set. With a little tact, and by driving the nail home at the right moment, you might have made enormous interest in different quarters. As it is, you forced me to put all my eggs into one basket.” “ I don’t know what you mean,” she said slowly. “ How forced you ? ” “ Come, hang it, Koorali ! You know that Morse’s attentions to you were pretty well talked over at the clubs and in the drawing-rooms. Do you suppose that people didn’t remark how often he came to see you, how he singled you out at places, and the keen interest you took in his political views ? I’m not hinting anything derogatory to you or him, or to myself. I fancy that I know how to take care of my wife ; but the other men who might have pushed me forward dropped away. It was your fault.” “ Crichton,” said Koorali passionately, “ you know very well why that was. Oh, I have learned a great deal during these months. I could not enoure some of those men. I don’t know how you could endure them.” “You choked off Coulmont, who will be a power if the war party carries the day. He is a man who never forgets or forgives being made to feel small, and you made him feel small. It was stupid, dear. As long as I didn’t mind a little silly sentiment, you might safely have amused yourself with it. Another woman would have managed the situation, and would have kept his friendship.” THE LAST APPEAL. 179 “ I believed that I had kept his friendship — or, at least, his respect.'’ “ Oh, that’s rot ! ” said Ken way with his incisive drawl. “ It doesn’t go down with a man like Coulmont. I can see through his offer of this appointment. What I can’t see through is why Morse wants me to accept it — unless Lady Betty is at the bottom of the whole thing.” KoorMi’s chest heaved. She was suffering as only a proud woman can suffer. “ No ; I don’t understand it,” Kenway went on reflectively. “ A man doesn't generally do his best to put a woman whose society pleases him out of reach — not such a man as Morse — Coulmont is quite another sort. Of course you did the right thing from the ‘lofty morality’ point of view, in turning the cold shoulder on him; but women of the world have ways of gliding over the quicksands without loss of dignity. You managed badly, dear. You should try a little finesse . It’s an accomplishment, however, not to be learned in South Britain. Well, never mind, you lost Coulmont, and you lost Inglish and Barry ; and next season you will be a little out of date, and the crisis will be over. If Morse hasn’t come in, my chance will have slipped by.” “Mr. Morse may not come into power,” said Koorali, still in that quiet, repressed way. “He has told me that it is likely he will not take the chance even if it is offered him. Wouldn’t it be better, Crichton, seeing that I have, as you say, mismanaged opportunities, to secure this one ?” “ Morse will go in,” said Crichton. “ I don’t believe in the con- scientious scruple which holds a man back from being Prime Minister of England. Hasn’t he been working up to this for years? His party wouldn’t let him draw back. By G-od, if he does ” Kenway got up excitedly from his seat. He made a few hurried paces, then stopped at the mantel-piece in his old attitude. “Listen, Koorkli,” he said. “ Morse will be in power, and he will get me a good appointment if you play your cards properly. I’m not blind. I’m not a fool. Drop the part of stage heroine, and be a woman of the world. You like Morse’s society. He likes yours. You like the London life, though you’ve imagined yourself into an hysterical dread of unreal evils — the glittering throng, the modern Babylon, and so on. If you want us to get on happily together, and to be a united husband and wife — if you want to further your boys’ interests, this is how you can do it. Keep good friends with Lady Betty, and be Morse’s political Egeria — if you both like it. Why should he want to pack you off to a distant colony ? Why should you wish to go ? ” Koorali rose, almost blindly. “ Because — because Oh, Crichton, have you no mercy ?” She stretched out her arms helplessly. It was indeed as if she were clutching at some spar out of the sea, and the hand which ought to have helped her to safety had only seized her wrist to detach it from its hold and fling her out again upon the dark tossing waters. Her voice broke in a passionate sob ; but she com- manded it after a moment. “ I will never ask Mr. Morse to give you i So “THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: an appointment in England,” she cried. “Let us get deeper and deeper into debt — let us starve first. This is our last word on this subject. I thought, Crichton, that if you had ever loved me, you would help me, and be gentle and good to me, not cold and sneering and cruel, when I came to you like this, when I asked you for my sake, when I wanted so to begin afresh, and to be a good and true wife to you. But it can’t be. It’s no use. You don’t love me. You can, never have loved me — and I — Heaven help me ! — I can’t love you. Crichton, and I can’t respect you. And so we must go our ways, and it may be ruin and misery ; or, it may be, that you will get what you want now, and the worst ruin and misery will come later. I don’t think there can be any worse ruin, Crichton, or any worse misery than such a marriage as ours.” She passed him swiftly, and almost before he could realize that she was leaving the room, had closed behind her a heavy oak door at one side of the fireplace. It led into a tiny boudoir — one of the curious nooks in that part of the house which Zen had fitted up. Koorali shot the holt ; and then she flung herself upon a cushioned settee beneath the high mullioned window, and all her passion and her difficult effort spent itself in a storm of sobs. Kenway made several attempts to open the door; but it did not yield. He called her — at first angrily, then soothingly — but she made no answer; indeed, she hardly heard his voice. By-and-by he desisted, and all was silent. There was no light in the room, except the un- certain glimmer from without. All the rest of the night Kooiali sat there. After the first burst of sobbing, she cried no more. Her heart seemed frozen. The pale grey dawn crept in through the window and found her still sitting there all cold and white and lonely. CHAPTER XXIII. “THOU SHALT RENOUNCE.” But in those grey hours, brain, heart, and soul were working; and the Kooiali who watched the dawn creep in and the sun rise on that morning — a turning-point indeed in her life — was not the Koorali of yesterday — the struggling, bewildered creature, feeble and uncertain, not daring to trust in her own strength, but beating helplessly this way and that, and in her despair clutching at a reed for support. The reed had pierced her hand. As she sat there, with her head pressed back against the stone frame of the window, and her arms clasping her knees in that childlike attitude of hers, it came more and more in upon her that she had known from the very first how it would be, and yet had never told herself. She seemed to have read her husband’s character from their marriage day, and yet to have struggled on, wilfully blinding herself. She felt a great scorn and a great pity over the futile efforts she so well remembered having made. She had THOU SHALT RENOUNCE .’ 181 tried so hard to believe that he was not base, that his selfishness, his bad temper and constant reach for the lowest motives, were only faults on the surface ami not rooted in his nature. Her very acceptance of him as he was, her dulness and indifference had been a sort of self- deception, evident to her had she allowed herself to analyze. But she had been living too keenly during the past months for indifference to be any longer possible. She knew her husband as he was — as he had always been— cold-hearted, mean, cruel; one who would sell his wife — in the spirit, if not in the letter ; trade upon her “ temperament ; ” traffic wdth her smiles ; train her to be as cold and selfish and base as himself. “ It is wrong. It cannot be ; ” a voice within her spoke passionately. “ God never joined two souls for baseness. I am not his wife. He is not my husband. I despise him — I shrink from him. I — oh, God help me! — I hate him. What right has he over mo — or over my children, to make them as bad as he is? ” She did not feel weak now, or uncertain. An icy self-reliance sus- tained her. She thought the matter out. Her very forlornness and her desperation gave her strength and courage to face the position — to face it with a strange mingling of romantic exaltation and worldly wisdom. She knew the part she must play; the life she must at least appear to lead. She and Crichton were divided in mind and feeling as completely as though they were strangers. Had themselves alone been in question, her reason and her instinct of right would have declared that they had better live apart, and she would have gone — - whither she cared not, so that she were away from him and alone. But her children were chains which held her fast; would hold hei for ever. Her sense of duty to them must override her wild longing for freedom, her sense of duty to herself. She must remain by her husband’s side, by the side of the father of her children. She must show a semblance of union to the world, must shut eyes, ears, heart, and live blind, deaf, and starved of love, for her children’s s^ke. But she would lend herself to no ignoble schemes. Her children should be taught to honour disinterestedness. Ruin might come— and, in truth, might it not be best ; for, when Crichton found her a burden, might he not give her liberty and the children? She would not steal her liberty ; but oh, how gladly would she take it if Crichton released her, and allowed her and her boys to go ! This w’as the part she laid down for herself. There should be ~