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 Ring In the new. 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 357001 9 
 
RING IN THE NEW 
 
\ 
 
 RING IN THE NEW 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD WHITEING 
 
 Author of "The Island," " No. 5 John Street," 
 "The Yellow Van" 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. 
 NEW YORK : 1906 
 
 D 
 
 UK' IV in;;.; II Y 
 
 I IliUA UY 
 
RING IN THE NEW 
 
RING IN THE NEW 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRUDENCE MERYON— Prue, for short— stood a 
 beggar in the world at twenty years of age, with 
 little more than as many pounds sterling between her 
 and the deeps. 
 
 The news of it came to her, as it were, between sleep- 
 ing and waking, or, at any rate, between sitting down 
 to breakfast and opening a letter. 
 
 The letter was from her uncle, a solicitor, who had 
 the liquidation of her dead mother's affairs in hand; 
 and it came to tell her that, as a result of a long investi- 
 gation, in the leisurely way peculiar to the law, she 
 had but this sum left to her credit. To be exact, it 
 was £30 17s. 4d., saved from the wreck of the estate, 
 and shortly to be handed to her in due form. When 
 that was spent, she would be without a penny. 
 
 Her father, one of a prosperous family, whose mem- 
 bers had quietly cast him off as unlucky, had died 
 in her infancy. Her mother, who had but lately fol- 
 lowed him to the grave, had brought her up on slender 
 means. This brave woman had, however, achieved the 
 High School for her only child amid many discourage- 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ments. But just when she was about to meditate an 
 appeal to her husband's people with a view to Girton, 
 she had been taken off. A small store of miscellaneous 
 literature, a few articles of furniture saved from a sale, 
 were the scant additions to the inheritance on which 
 the girl had to begin life. 
 
 She was staying at the house of a cousin, when the 
 letter came to hand. The reading of it aloud produced 
 no particular commotion at the breakfast-table. The 
 cousin— twice removed— had too many daughters of 
 her own to have much sorrow to spare for the woes of 
 the clan at large. 
 
 Prue, for her part, failed to realise all that it meant. 
 The Bohemian father had been reputed a man of means ; 
 the mother had kept her own counsel for fear of break- 
 ing the spirit of the child. 
 
 In her sojourn with the cousin since the mother's 
 sudden death, Prue had lived in the substantial comfort 
 and honour of the paying guest. Having started fairly 
 with these things, she had taken them as matters of 
 course. It was the nonchalance of the kitten, who, 
 save in the way of kindness, has never yet felt the 
 weight of a human hand. 
 
 So they were all like a famous character, in being 
 unaware that they had a story to tell. They had one, 
 for all that. Their men had failed them — more than 
 once in that family; and as the sufferers were the 
 weakest link in the long chain of dependence, they had 
 the most to bear. In this way, women are the charac- 
 teristic figures of the unrest of the time; and any one 
 of them placed in its most trying circumstances — say 
 
 4 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 a little work-girl trying to earn her bread— might 
 typify the whole struggle for life in our age. On 
 the other hand, they wiU probably be the first to 
 find a remedy, in the jumpy synthetic fashion of their 
 sex. They may be expected to start illogically, yet 
 to get there, while the men are only thinking about 
 it. Without them, our perhaps too ponderous democracy 
 will find it impossible to ring in the new for the regen- 
 eration of mankind. 
 
 Prue's equanimity was now shown in her manner. 
 She had the cock-suredness of the high school girl, a 
 peculiar product of our time, the curtness of the young 
 woman of parts who wants to make short work of all 
 the twaddle of the world. She was afraid of nothing, 
 not even of her professor ; and she had caricatured him 
 on her blotting-book not only as a fogey, but as a man 
 whose reign of intellectual supremacy was over. It 
 was the form of foolishness natural to her age. 
 
 She had even a little discreet slang, not at all because 
 she liked it, or even quite understood it, but because 
 the high school for girls thought itself just as good as 
 the high school for boys. It would have been pure 
 drivel if you had heard it from behind a curtain; but 
 when you saw the fresh, healthy-minded face, and the 
 wistful eyes, still busy as with the memories of another 
 planet, it had the charm of the tall talk of babes. 
 
 "How am I to get my togs for Girton, with a sum 
 like that?" 
 
 "How are you to get to Girton at all?" asked her 
 cousin. 
 
 "It looks as if you would have to take your coat off, 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 and get a job at a pound a week," said one of the 
 daughters. 
 
 "Stumped at the start," said Prue; and the tears 
 came. As the true proprieties of the situation, they 
 gave the face its natural beauty in putting away from 
 it all non-childish things. 
 
 "Why don't you go and see Aunt Edom?" said the 
 wife, dashing a drop or two from her own lids. 
 
 ' ' I have not come down to that, ' ' said Prue petulantly. 
 And, as might have been expected, she went to see her 
 aunt next day. 
 
 Aunt Edom was the head of the family. She was 
 of that higher middle-class from which it had declined, 
 or to which it was aspiring, as you like. She lived in 
 a great house in a leafy suburb, but drove in Hyde 
 Park every day. Her back premises were fortified 
 with the announcement: "Beware of the Dog" — "No 
 Bottles." Rightly understood, this signified that the 
 servants, like their mistress, sought the peace of the 
 sheltered life. She was that peace personified. She 
 was of the old school when the issues were simple— 
 ladylike and young ladylike bringing-up, a fortune in 
 prospect, a suitable mate in due course. Dignified wid- 
 owhood might follow in season, and with it there 
 would be sure to come, as it came in her case, the right 
 mourning, the right respect for the memory of a life- 
 long partner, the right respect for herself in a cheerful- 
 ness which was submission to the providential decree. 
 A kindly patronage of less fortunate relations was in- 
 cluded in her list of duties, and the sole condition 
 attached to it was acquiescence when she laid down the 
 
 6 ' 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 law. Her ideal was a sort of Nirvana on this side of 
 the grave, in the intimate sense of her union as a 
 private person with the principle of pure being, as rep- 
 resented by a Conservative Government in power not 
 averse to reforms. Nothing could have saved her from 
 being the mother of the Gracchi if she had lived at the 
 proper time. She had not the faintest suspicion th.at 
 this agreeable state of things would require ringing out 
 before the Judgment Day. 
 
 "And what are you going to do now, child?" she said, 
 as Prue sat before her in the big drawing-room. 
 
 "I 'd like to go to Girton, Aunt Edom, please." 
 
 "Girton!" said the old lady gently. "Don't you 
 think it is rather an American sort of place?" 
 
 "Don't know much about that," said the girl hastily; 
 "but it is a ripping good shop, if you want to get on." 
 
 It was most unfortunate, and the worst of it was 
 it would have been so easy not to say it, if she had 
 only given it a thought. 
 
 The pause was dreadful, and it seemed only to be 
 prolonged when the old lady repeated, syllable by 
 syllable: "rip— ping— good— shop." 
 
 The pendulum of the clock did not spare either of 
 them a single pang. 
 
 ' ' That is just why I never liked the high school, though 
 of course your poor mother would have her way. Just 
 why I don't like Girton, if you must know." 
 
 "Aunt Edom, I am so sorry." 
 
 "Oh, never mind me, it is yourself I am thinking 
 of. Did you never hear of a book called 'The Etymo- 
 logical Dictionary'?" 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Yes, Aunt Edom." 
 
 "I have a great mind to give you a copy to show 
 you where you stand, on the brink of— so to speak. 
 You want to say, I suppose, that residence at Girton 
 is conducive to proficiency in studies. Why don't you 
 say so? What is 'ripping,' if you please? 'To tear 
 violently with a sharp instrument,' though I have not 
 the definition at hand. Rather vulgar at the best of 
 times, I should say; very coarse in this instance. 'Rip- 
 ping!" Prue dear, as if you were a Whitechapel mur- 
 derer. And 'shop'; why can't you say academy or 
 establishment?" She shook a front of curls that, but 
 for her respect for antiquity, might never have been 
 in commotion since the time of Queen Adelaide. 
 
 "I forgot. Aunt Edom. I was thinking of our play- 
 ground, you know." 
 
 "Oh, leave that to the playground for the ragged 
 school. Do you know what my gardener's child, a mere 
 mite of ten, said the other day, and to me, if you 
 please — I asked him why he was wearing a bandage 
 over his forehead. He said someone— a school-fellow, 
 I presume— had given him 'a shove in the eye.' Can 
 you guess what he meant?" 
 
 "I thiak I can. Aunt Edom." 
 
 "I 'm sorry you can't. Shocking! shocking! What 
 are we coming to? A nice boy otherwise. All that 
 money spent on the rates, and this little innocent sent 
 out to face life with— wjith— a 'shove in the eye.' Never 
 mind about being an M.A., Prue; let us see if we 
 can make you a young lady first." 
 
 It was the first skirmish between the old and the new 
 
 8 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 — it must be admitted, with honours for the old. The 
 result of it all was that Girton lost its chance, 
 through no fault of its own, and that Prue went to 
 live with Aunt Edom as reader and companion. So she 
 made her start in life. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 1ADY companionship is one of the vanishing indus- 
 J tries. Yet it was that, or nursery tuition, or paint- 
 ing in water-colours, or destitution, for women who had 
 to earn their own living when Aunt Edom was young. 
 
 They all meant pretty much the same thing— absolute 
 dependence, absolute limitation of opportunity. 
 
 It was Prue's business and her duty to study the 
 moods of her patron, to be strong and firm and gentle 
 when the other was sometimes rather the reverse, to 
 have superhuman self-command, to know of no sinking 
 of the heart on rainy days, to fill in with fancy needle- 
 work the blanks of cheerful assent, or of discreet nega- 
 tion, tempered with a deprecatory cough. 
 
 Aunt Edom liked to have the needlework done on 
 a frame, so as to ease the process of transition from 
 the tapestry of her youth. 
 
 She was so good, and so deadly quiet, and so lapped 
 to the chin in all the proprieties of opinion and of 
 utterance. It was the moderate and the becoming 
 pushed to the verge of exasperation. In the land of 
 her choice it was always afternoon — afternoon of tea- 
 cake or muffin, of soft carpets, of the pet dog, and the 
 British poets— none of them later than Southey— all 
 in a row. 
 
 lO 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Prue had sometimes to read from these merry men, 
 or from the divines of their epochs. The last were for 
 Sunday— usually Mr. Robertson of Brighton, turn by 
 turn with Mr. Blair. 
 
 Mr. Blair was commended to the girl's notice as a 
 model of style. Oh, the blank, unutterable dullness of 
 his turns when they happened to coincide with a rainy 
 day! 
 
 "The sun that rolls oyer our heads, the food that 
 we receive, and the rest that we enjoy daily admonish 
 us of a superior and a beneficent Being." 
 
 Or this, which might goad the mildest of Hindoo 
 converts to the excesses of a Malay. 
 
 "An elevated genius employed in little things ap- 
 pears like the sun in his evening declination. He remits 
 his splendour, but retains his magnitude, and pleases 
 more, though he dazzles less." 
 
 Aunt Edom knew it by heart. She had wrought it in 
 Berlin wool in her youth. She had heard it a hundred 
 times since, without ever getting a surfeit. It was fixed 
 in her brain by a process of iteration that was hardly 
 to be called pressure-. It was seared into Prue's. 
 
 Bath, Bournemouth or Harrogate were her variants 
 of London. The same sort of apartments and sub- 
 servient landladies were in each; the same southern 
 aspects and cosy corners; the same doctors who never 
 mentioned over-feeding to ears polite; the same apothe- 
 caries; the same warming-pans at the close of the ex- 
 emplary day. 
 
 It was even the same round of walks or drives, for 
 carriages, horses, and coachman travelled with them 
 
 I I 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 from place to place. With what longing the girl looked 
 on the motor cars, and echoed anathema with her lips, 
 but not with her heart! 
 
 The horses pulled up without a touch of the rein 
 at the same shops, while the grey-haired coachman 
 dozed. The same dreary show of life was seen from the 
 same elevation of the weU-upholstered seats. It was 
 one of dignified use and wont, of prosperity, of the 
 exclusion of all that was disagreeable from the field 
 of vision. 
 
 There was but one flaw in her defences — the dear 
 old lady dearly loved a lord after the manner of her 
 race. Not many came her way, but one postulant 
 member of the order managed to engineer an introduc- 
 tion during her stay at Harrogate. 
 
 He was a ridiculous creature who haunted the spas 
 on the lookout for widows. He had seen that there 
 might be pickings in Aunt Bdom— to do him justice, 
 not for marriage. He had begun by thinking that Prue 
 might be her daughter. When he found that she was 
 only the companion, he slackened in his approaches. 
 Then, learning that she was still a relative, he advanced 
 again. The girl loathed him from beginning to end. 
 
 She was wrong. He was not a bad fellow, only a 
 sheer adventurer, and some of that tribe are the most 
 amusing creatures in the world. He lived on the repu- 
 tation of having a claim to an ancient title which had 
 lapsed through the supposed default of an heir. On 
 this, which might ennoble him and his any day, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, he had married money, and hoped 
 to marry it again. 
 
 12 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 As a thing of real life, he had the simple tastes of 
 his obscure Cockney origin, and the acquired ones of 
 a really decent education. His good old mother, who 
 had kept a lodging-house in May Pair, and had died 
 before he invented his fantastic claim to the peerage, 
 had done her best for him in every way. With what 
 she left him he set up as a fine gentleman on his travels 
 — always on the lookout for an opportunity. He was 
 shapely — thanks to nature and his tailor. He could 
 whisper soft nothings in three European tongues, for he 
 never missed a chance of taking a lesson from the wait- 
 ers. His first venture in marriage had given him an 
 endowment for life. His motto — apart from the more 
 formal one of the blazon on his note-paper — was "live 
 and let live." He had treated his first wife kindly, 
 and she loved him and believed in him to the last- 
 thanking him on her death-bed for never having once 
 reminded her of her want of blue blood. 
 
 He now began to look for higher things. "When he 
 descended on a watering-place his first care was to get 
 himself advertised in a local paper. In the smaller 
 resorts this operation cost but a five-pound note, but on 
 occasion he had been known to go as far as seven pound 
 ten. The article on his career was all ready, and indeed 
 in print in his valise, and it displayed him as an equally 
 good hand at a sonnet or at a duel to the death. So 
 too was a review of his book of poems each dedicated 
 to a different beauty in a different capital— to Inez, 
 to Coeline, to Chloe, to Elmire. The suggestion was 
 that angry dons, or what not, according to the local 
 colouring, enraged by his audacity, had challenged him 
 
 13 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 to mortal combat, always with the same distressing 
 result to themselves. These preliminary arrangements 
 settled, he appeared in full fig in the public promenades, 
 took a turn at the gaming-tables, or at whatever else 
 was most in vogue at the place. He rode and drove 
 in Hyde Park, lost or won a trifle at Baden or at Monte 
 Carlo, prosecuted inquiries about suitable catches all the 
 mornings, made love all the afternoons, showed himself 
 at play or opera at night. 
 
 Then, wearied out with the labours of a well-spent 
 day, he reverted to the primitive tastes of his youth, 
 and, if it was anywhere to be had, sought the compan- 
 ionship of some fellow-Bohemian who loved his pipe 
 and glass, and could talk boxing, ratting, or the odds 
 till the small hours. 
 
 This relief was imperative to enable him to rise like 
 a giant refreshed for business in the morning. Of all 
 human pursuits, courtship as a vocation is probably 
 the most fatiguing. We talk of the toils of the working 
 class ; but what are these to the exertions, of a nobleman 
 who has to sigh, ogle, squeeze hands, turn compliments, 
 work off impromptus in albums, look daggers at rivals, 
 train a lovelook, and keep that and his padding in 
 place, even in the crises of passion, for five mortal 
 hours a day? What wonder that, when this was over, 
 he would sink into a chair in the smoking-room of his 
 hotel, and yield to the repose of state by caUing the 
 waiter "Bill!" 
 
 Prue had snubbed him so remorselessly that he had 
 finally ceased his visits to her aunt's house. She might 
 
 14 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 have been less severe, if he had been less than twice 
 her age. 
 
 He took the check as Napoleon took Trafalgar, break- 
 ing up his camp at once, and swinging his entire force 
 to a foreign strand, where an easier conquest seemed 
 to await his arms. 
 
 The old lady was not pleased. She had lost an agree- 
 able acquaintance, of whose real character she had not 
 the faintest suspicion. 
 
 It was the first decisive chill in the relations between 
 aunt and niece, and each felt that a touch might serve 
 to part them now. 
 
 The touch soon came when they feU back to the old 
 life in town without break or change. The girl had 
 been left in the carriage one day while her aunt got 
 down to give an order. She was found laughing on 
 the dowager's return, and was sharply rebuked for un- 
 ladylike behaviour. This time she answered back, 
 though temperately, and was forbidden, with needless 
 asperity, to say another word. 
 
 She could bear it no longer; and after a burst of 
 tears, an untasted dinner, and a sleepless night, she 
 announced her determination to take her fate in her 
 own hands. 
 
 Her balance at the bank was small, but so was her 
 experience of its limitations; and her confidence in her 
 own powers made up for every deficiency. She was 
 tired of the stagnation of dependence, and she longed 
 for the freedom of adventurous toil. 
 
 The old lady, who had expected an apology, could 
 
 15 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 go no further in concession than to say that she would 
 wait for it till the close of the next day. It did not 
 come, in spite of the good offices of the cousin of the 
 opening scene. 
 
 "It 's no use," said Prue, to the many-daughtered 
 matron of that family. "It 's a new time for women, 
 and I 'm going to do 'something on my own.' " The 
 momentary reversion to slang was significant as a cry 
 of her spirit in revolt. 
 
 "The 'monstrous regiment of women'!" cried one 
 of the daughters, who was also of the high school. 
 
 "It '11 come to that one day," said her mother, who 
 had not had her advantages. "Why not go into the 
 Army at once?" 
 
 The daughter laughed, and nestled up to her. 
 
 "Oh, mummy, you 're a bit off this time! Don't 
 you remember John Knox snacking Mary Stuart, and 
 finding afterwards he had to reckon with Queen Bess?" 
 
 "I don't care," said her parent, mollified, but not 
 enlightened. " 'Regiment of women'! women on the 
 war-path for a job; that 's what I call you all, with 
 your new ideas. Prue 's a silly little fool ! ' ' 
 
 So in less than a week Prudence— perhaps not quite 
 happily named — had left the sheltering house with 
 many expressions of gratitude and affection, coldly re- 
 ceived by her aunt, and with a determination never 
 to trouble her, or indeed the family, again. 
 
 i6 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SHE went into lodgings, with her own furniture, 
 and made her arrangements for living with what 
 she thought was the simplicity of a stoic. It was rather 
 alarming to find herself quite alone, but there was still 
 the sustaining sense of adventure and of her confidence 
 in herself. 
 
 Her first care was to call at the "Genteel Employ- 
 ment Bureau," an excellent institution which had en- 
 joyed an occasional donation from her aunt. 
 
 She walked upstairs; and, as she entered the office, 
 the eyes of the women and girls in waiting seemed to 
 say, "One more!" Some said it scoffingly in this in- 
 articulate way, others only with an air of honest doubt. 
 None had the requisite detachment of mind for pity. 
 The sceptics were mostly of the shabby-genteel order, 
 and were not above the suspicion of borrowed plumes. 
 A few suggested heights of fashion, being accompanied 
 by ladies whose carriages were outside. 
 
 They have a way in foreign parts, when you enter 
 a public office, of taking particulars of your present 
 and past states of being, in needless detail, before pro- 
 ceeding to business. "Your name? Your age? Your 
 domicile? Your nationality? Married or single? The 
 names of your parents ? "—and so on. And when at 
 length they suffer you to unfold the purpose of your 
 
 17 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 visit, it is generally to inform you, with the utmost 
 suavity, that you have come to the wrong pigeon-hole. 
 
 It was not quite so bad here. Still, there were for- 
 malities which the girl thought tedious. At length, how- 
 ever, she found herself in presence of the secretary, 
 a shrewd-looking woman, with keen eyes, tempered in 
 their effect by a kindly smile. 
 
 "What can you do?" 
 
 Terrible question for any human being, when you 
 come to think of it. What, indeed, that some other 
 cannot do ever so much better? 
 
 The catechist seemed to feel that. "Let me put it 
 in another way. What do you want to do?" 
 
 "Clerical work," murmured the girl. 
 
 "Ah, don't say that. It means anything, and there- 
 fore nothing. Half the business of the world is clerical 
 work, from writing a despatch to copying an invoice. 
 Particularise. ' ' 
 
 "Assisting literary men—' 
 
 "Can you write shorthand?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Or use the typewriter?" 
 
 "I 'm afraid not." 
 
 "You are too young to know your way through the 
 library of the British Museum." 
 
 "I could find it. I 've never been there." 
 
 "Anything else in any other line?" 
 
 "I used to be very fond of embroidery." 
 
 "Fond of buying it, or fond of doing it?" 
 
 "I did that," said Prue, with a blush of pride, and 
 producing a neatly folded pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 i8 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the other soothingly, as she glanced 
 at the little floreated initial, much as if it had been 
 something from the trousseau of a doll. 
 
 "What 's the matter with it?" said Prue; but only 
 with her eyes. 
 
 "Well, you see, the paying work is more important- 
 robes of office, curtains of state, military uniforms, backs 
 of prayerbooks— there is a beauty worked from the 
 pattern of the one the Martyr King carried to the scaf- 
 fold with him. Could you do anything of that kind?" 
 
 The poor little amateur shook her head, and in the 
 very nick of time. The gesture was contrived a double 
 debt to pay, for it checked a tear that was on the edge 
 of the precipice. What a hard, not to say a devilish, 
 sort of world it seemed, where the people would n't 
 play when you wanted to be nice. 
 
 The secretary worked on the theory that, in difficult 
 conjunctures, her sex wants "bracing." Many women 
 doctors notoriously act on the same principle, and try 
 to snub their patients into health. There will never be 
 an end to petitions for reprieve for female malefactors, 
 until the judges on the Bench wear real petticoats. No 
 man can expect a woman to believe him when he says 
 there is no ho^e. 
 
 For the moment, the secretary seemed as odious as 
 any spectacled intelligence in Mars, with no anatomy 
 to speak of, and especially without a heart. 
 
 She was aware of it. 
 
 "I 'm not saying this to discourage you. All I want 
 you to understand is that, before you come here to find 
 work to do, you must have been somewhere else to learn 
 
 19 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 how to do it. There 's not the slightest reason why 
 you should not learn, if you have the time, and I 'm 
 afraid I must add, the money, for the lessons." 
 
 Poor Prue was going to proffer— "My music!" but 
 the words died on her lips. 
 
 ' ' Think of something you want to do, and I '11 advise 
 you how to learn it, ' ' said the other, with a kindly shake 
 of the hand. "Come to me when you have learned it, 
 and I '11 do my best to find you work. Meantime, don 't 
 hate me more than you can help." 
 
 The tears welled over as the girl went out: the two 
 had met, after a fashion, at last. 
 
 She at once joined the great shorthand school, and 
 took her first lessons there in script and typewriting, 
 before she slept that night. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SHARP on the stroke of eight came a knock at her 
 door next morning. It was the servant. She 
 ought to have dispensed with that luxury, but she did 
 not know it, and she clung to the proprieties of her 
 
 And after all, Sarah Ruskill was not the fuU and 
 complete offence, being but a domestic in fractions. She 
 let herself out by the day to a number of persons who 
 could afford to pay a little to escape the worst drudgery, 
 and were content to do the rest themselves. 
 
 Prue was dozing when the first knock came, and she 
 had not responded to it with alacrity. On a second and 
 a sharper summons, she slipped on a dressing-gown, 
 drew the bolt, and Sarah came in. 
 
 She was tall, and not yet in middle life. The lines 
 of her face were hard as a bust of Nelson carved by a 
 bo 'sun of the Victory from the timbers of the ship. But 
 that name is misleading, after all: it was rather the 
 mask of a female Wellington. The same high build of 
 Roman determination, Roman pride, the same firm 
 mouth to close with a snap on a resolve ; with only some- 
 thing soft and kindly in the eye to bring it back to 
 womanhood. 
 
 "Sorry," said Prue, as she followed her into the 
 sitting-room. 
 
 21 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Sarah usually tidied up that room while her employer 
 dressed, and then took the bedroom. She was silent, 
 though apparently not from ill-feeling. It was but an 
 effort of concentration on the business of getting from 
 place to place in different parts of London to earn some- 
 thing less than a pound a week. All her energies seemed 
 to go into her work, and she had become the most taci- 
 turn of mortals. She usually spoke in a kind of short- 
 hand, in which leading words did duty for the whole 
 sentence. In another point of view, she was sometimes 
 as puzzling to the commentator as a hieroglyph or a 
 fragment of the Sapphic muse. 
 
 She moved briskly about the sitting-room, and piled 
 the lighter articles of furniture on the table ready for 
 the sweeping. Then, while raking out the fire, with a 
 handkerchief over her head, she muttered, in a momen- 
 tary interval of quiet: 
 
 "Got to fit you all in." 
 
 It was not enough to put the hearer in possession of 
 her train of thought without assistance. Such assist- 
 ance the reader, at any rate, has a right to claim. 
 
 It signified that Sarah, on finishing her two hours 
 of covenanted service with Prue, was due at a small 
 flat in the Gray's Inn Road. And characteristically, 
 it took no account of the fact that she had first walked 
 all the way from her own lodgings in Kentish Town, 
 to mark her habit of thrift and her sense of the futility 
 of the early trams. 
 
 "Three-quarters for two shillin's, five times a week." 
 
 This fragment should present but little difiBculty to 
 the scholiast in its manifest reference to the terms of 
 another engagement. 
 
 22 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "It is not much," said Prue. 
 
 "Every little 'elps," said Sarah. 
 
 Her employer lingered, as though in hope of further 
 confidences. 
 
 She had to wait, Sarah was on her knees, dust-pan 
 in hand, before she said anything more. It was not 
 much when it came. 
 
 "Temperance hotel odd times— flat near Pitzroy 
 Square— vegetables. ' ' 
 
 Research might have filled in these blanks as follows : 
 An hour or two's work on certain other days, at the 
 places named, or at the premises of a Vegetarian Society. 
 Prue smiled to herself. She was trying to imagine 
 a feUow-creature with such a vocabulary, in love. It 
 begged the question. Sarah had never been in that state, 
 and would have regarded a man, trying to persuade 
 her to enter it, as hardly less objectionable than an in- 
 ebriate. 
 
 "Eight if you 're lucky, an' more like twelve; wuss 
 •on Saturdays." 
 
 But a murmur at best, this was apparently addressed 
 in confidence to a hole in the carpet. 
 
 It might have thrashed out on interpretation in this 
 way, though the reading is offered conjecturally, and 
 with diffidence: Sarah never reached home before eight 
 at night, and she was sometimes later, particularly at 
 the end of the week. It completely baflfled Prue how- 
 ever ; and her feeble remark : ' ' Then you 've your meals 
 to think of," was not much more than a confession of 
 failure. 
 
 "On tramp," said Sarah. 
 
 We must once more come to the assistance of the 
 
 23 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 student. This probably signified that Sarah took her 
 meals just as she could get them, and mostly as she 
 walked from one scene of toil to the other, on her almost 
 ceaseless round. 
 
 Accepting so much, for purposes of argument, it must 
 be owned that Sarah had the benefit of her exertions 
 in more ways than one. She stood up now, and Prue 
 thought she had never seen a finer creature in mere 
 physical form. Her movements had the elasticity of a 
 perfectly healthy animal. Her breadth was in due pro- 
 portion to her height. She was straight as a dart. 
 
 She had never been so communicative before ; and her 
 employer had to be thankful for small mercies. There 
 was still a good deal more to learn. Sarah was the 
 passion for independence almost running into disease. 
 Ordinary domestic service was intolerable to her. She 
 wanted to know when her day's work was done; and 
 she went out to service in this ingenious way, as other 
 girls go out to work in factories. It gave her the pre- 
 cious sense of self-ownership, when she sat, if only on* 
 the stroke of midnight, in the solitude of her own 'ome. 
 She had toiled like a slave in this great venture of star1> 
 ing on her own account. She held herself even better 
 off than a work-girl. She had customers like a shop- 
 keeper; and, like a shopkeeper, no one master whose 
 fiat might mean "the sack," and destitution. 
 
 Her time was kept to the minute; and, with a gruff 
 "Good morning," she vanished, leaving everything 
 ready for breakfast, and the rooms in perfect order. 
 
 24 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THREE months later: a clear autumn night and a 
 girl scudding along Holborn like a smack before 
 the wind. It is a girl out of temper, to judge by her 
 angry call to her dog. 
 
 "Spag! Spag! Spag! Will you come here, or will 
 you not?" 
 
 It was the third time of asking, and he seemed to 
 think he had better get it over. He came, took the ex- 
 pected cuff, and then went on loitering worse than ever. 
 
 Prue was taking a walk, and had just left her lodg- 
 ings in Featherstone Buildings, Holborn. The dead and 
 gone generations that lodged there before her may some- 
 times look down on the Jacobean interiors, and think 
 it might have been worse. 
 
 The girl thought differently just now. She was still 
 out of work, friendless, solitary, and poorer than ever. 
 The solitude was the most trying. Not a word in sym- 
 pathy or in kindness all the week: only the yea and 
 nay of business intercourse with supercilious clerks of 
 offices at which she applied for something to do. It was 
 usually "nay" in less than a syllable, "nay" in a shake 
 of the head, "nay" in a titter, "nay" in a sniff. The 
 sexes are at war in the labour market now ; and well they 
 know how to make each other feel it in business hours. 
 The want of chatter, what a want it is! Overmuch 
 
 25 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 mere "yea and nay" is as dry in the mouth as a meal 
 of phosphates, and perhaps no better for the health. 
 
 Yet there was the dog, after all; and the everlasting 
 compensations which are to be found in every situation, 
 if one knows how to look for them, came in there. He 
 might not say much, but she could talk for both at need, 
 and prompt his share of the dialogue without troubling 
 the wings. He waa so used to her prattle of sweet fool- 
 ishness, that he was wont to glance inquiry when he 
 missed her voice for a quarter of an hour. 
 
 She had bought him at the beginning of her troubles 
 from an old jobber named Spagley, to whom he was in- 
 debted for his name. By this person he was regarded 
 as a failure, owing to an unfortunate course in his 
 blood, which made him too lazy for distinction in the 
 rat-pit. 
 
 In his personal appearance, as he now returned to his 
 own devices, there was nothing to distinguish this 
 quadruped as a being apart. He was a mere fox-terrier 
 with faults. He had long ears, suggestive of the gentle 
 life, and large, soulful eyes— a mistake, no doubt, in his 
 breed. 
 
 "A good head," the girl had remarked, when she 
 was negotiating the purchase. 
 
 "Yes," said the odd jobber; "and a good body: only 
 they 've no business to be together. Wuth pounds in- 
 stead o' shillings, lidy, if they was a match." 
 
 "Will he bite?" 
 
 "Would n't 'urt a biby— wish 'e would." 
 
 In other respects, Spagley seemed to have every pos- 
 sible fault of man or beast. In their totality these 
 
 26 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 almost made up the full catalogue of the shortcomings 
 which were attributed to the working classes in the days 
 before reform. It might have been possible to denounce 
 him as ignorant, drunken, venal, and violent. If not 
 drunken, he certainly haunted public-houses, a tendency 
 which his mistress could never wholly check. Venal he 
 was, for he would do anything for a mouthful; violent 
 in his mortal hatred of strangers, tempered only by fear 
 of reprisals. In infancy he had once been disturbed at 
 a meal : ever after that he circled round his plate while 
 eating, and growled into vacancy though none was nigh 
 to threaten his morsel. He had a hatred of company, 
 of children, of unwonted noises, of innocent laughter — 
 in short, though still but in middle life, he was a perfect 
 fogey. In this way he lived upon the reputation of 
 being capable of whole holocausts of slaughter. When 
 spoken to with kindness he snarled — with severity, he 
 turned over on his back. To put it offensively, he was 
 the hoarse, sanguine coward and bed-presser of his 
 time. 
 
 Yet she loved him with something of that perversity 
 of regard that her sex so often shows for the monsters 
 which the world shuns or abhors. And after all, he was 
 still good company. She bore his part as well as her 
 own in question and answer, observation and rejoinder, 
 at times when, but for the exercise of her fancy, both 
 would have seemed the denizens of a dumb world. They 
 had talks to which he contributed even less than a growl. 
 
 "Who 's afraid, Spag?" she said, looking down at 
 him. "But you might say something to mis 'ess, all 
 the same." 
 
 27 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 He made no reply, but simply took the bone that lay 
 nearest to him and trudged on. 
 
 But she was determined to make him talk. 
 
 "Mis 'ess can't see the way ahead to her little dawg's 
 Christmas dinner." 
 
 Their dialogues were always couched as nearly as 
 possible in the vernacular of his place of origin, Seven 
 Dials. 
 
 "Keep your pecker up," said the dog, very much 
 as he might have done at a spiritualistic seance, with her- 
 self as medium. 
 
 Their way lay through Lincoln's Inn Fields and by 
 the Temple to the Embankment. It is a strip of that 
 garden of the three Inns of Court, running like a wedge 
 of verdure from Gray's Inn to the river which is not 
 to be surpassed in any capital in the world. The begin- 
 ning of a garden city for London, it may one day be. 
 
 At the lower end of it came the Thames in the perfect 
 beauty of an autumn evening. On one side — the side 
 of the palaces — the casuals were already taking their 
 seats on the benches for the night's sleep in the open air. 
 On the other, there were the wharves, the chimneys, and 
 the river shipping softened into perfect harmony by 
 the atmospheric haze. Over both, the richly-painted 
 sky at dusk was seen from a suitable standpoint as the 
 girl passed over Blackfriars Bridge. 
 
 The Bridge was alive with wayfarers, most of them 
 hurrying one way to the Surrey side. The huge, two- 
 decker trams, glowing with light like steamers in the 
 darkness, were waiting for a freight at the far end. 
 They filled fast as hulks under a corn-shoot, as passen- 
 
 28 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 gers poured in to get their chance of rapid transit to sub- 
 urbs, which to some of them represented the ends of the 
 earth. The files stood patiently in long sheds, the 
 exact width of the car, until it came to their turn. 
 
 The girl did not join in the press. As one who knew 
 her way about London, she turned towards the borough, 
 and presently reached Chaucer's country, and Gower's 
 before him, as the spire of St. Saviour's came in view. 
 The old, old church is always a cheering sight. It 
 seems to promise that you have only to wait long enough 
 to make sure of the essential comforts of home at last. 
 How snugly tucked up in his last bed, in one of its 
 aisles, lies old Gower now! 
 
 Then, again crossing the river by London Bridge, 
 she looked down on the pool, and on the ocean shipping 
 with its lights, and on the two castellated masses in the 
 distance, the Tower and its Bridge, to bound the view. 
 
 She turned from the parapet, found herself in a 
 rushing crowd — hardly noticed till now in the gathering 
 gloom, and drew aside under a gas-lamp to keep her- 
 self out of harm's way. 
 
 It was mighty London in one of its heartbeats. 
 
 The people were nearly all pouring from the City 
 side, where they had earned their bread, to their homes 
 in the remotest suburbs. "Tic, toe! tic, toe!" the 
 patter of the high heels was only less insistent than the 
 click of the grim clog-dance that marks the movement 
 of the Lancashire folk to their work at dawn. The low 
 heels made so much less noise that the men, though in 
 the composition, quite lost the benefit of the advertise- 
 ment. 
 
 29 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The women were of all varieties— trim clerks or shop- 
 girls, slim-waisted as some insects, and often slimmer 
 in the chest. Others, of much the same build, but less 
 smart, might have come from the tailoring shops. A 
 few of quite another make evidently did men's work 
 in the great packing-houses. Their shabby jackets, 
 wanting many a stitch, seemed bursting under the pres- 
 sure of muscle. Dainty creatures, with books under 
 their arms, and with the pince-nez that was only half 
 use, and the other pose, were perhaps from the public 
 departments. Their management of their skirts showed 
 Brahminical scorn of contact with inferiors, quite as 
 much as anxiety to escape the mud. The average of 
 personal beauty was high, it being an English crowd. 
 
 The one thing common to all— women and men — was 
 hurry. Even the footsore, who could afford to confess 
 their infirmity out of business hours, were still making 
 the best of their way towards the haven of home. 
 
 The lamp threw its circle of light in the darkness, 
 and the figures seemed to rush into this, at one 
 side, and out of it at the other, like a broken army 
 worried by cavalry. 
 
 The girl laughed at first, and settled herself under 
 the gleam to enjoy it all. Then she began to feel a vague 
 misgiving, without in the least knowing its cause. And 
 gradually her mood changed, and the brightness went 
 out of her eyes, all of it, at least, that came from within. 
 
 When it was there she had an infinite charm of ex- 
 pression. "When it was not— well the hunted hare at 
 close quarters is not a pretty sight. The brows were 
 puckered ; the mouth lost all suavity of line. 
 
 30 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 There was something quite wrong, and it was this, 
 though still she could not have given it a name. The 
 scene was like some effect of the kinematograph in which 
 moving figures dart of of the nothingness, across a disc 
 of light, to dash themselves into nothingness again at 
 the far edge. It is the more appalling because so many 
 are smiling and talking at the moment of the catas- 
 trophe. And only the Cinematograph, being as it usu- 
 ally is in a hurry to get through the programme, could 
 give such a sense of pace. 
 
 Swift and imsought came to her in the subconscious- 
 ness, a fancy in which she could herself have joined in 
 the scamper, in sheer terror of the sight. It seemed 
 to suggest the foUy of all endeavour. This was not only 
 the way of London Bridge at eventide, it was the way 
 of the world from birth to death. Midge-like millions, 
 one instant idly busy in a ray, the next, back to the void 
 from which they came as from the womb of night. 
 
 "Mis 'ess wants to cry," she said to the dog. 
 
 He wanted to yell, and did it, as a stray foot threat- 
 ened his peace. 
 
 It was the foot of a young man who had caught her 
 exclamation to the dog, and her scared look. 
 
 He walked on discreetly, and then turned back to 
 look at her again without attracting attention. 
 
 Then he waited at a distance, as though to follow her 
 when she moved — still with discretion, and evidently 
 not by any means as an intruder, but only as one who 
 wanted to know. 
 
 She, on her side, was quite unaware of him. Another 
 ghastly fancy had come to deepen the impression of 
 
 31 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 the scene before her. Mites scampering across a frag- 
 ment of cheese under the microscope idly busy— with 
 the maw of Gargantua for their futile end and aim ! 
 
 And then again a sense of hopelessness more im- 
 mediate. It was the age of the work-girl, and she was 
 one. These countless thousands driven from their homes 
 to earn their bread were her competitors, and they stood 
 between her and her crust. The thought was so dispir- 
 iting that it had at once to be laughed away. She 
 roused herself, caught the dog in her arms, and stemmed 
 the torrent to the City side on her way home. 
 
 "London Bridge does n't seem to take much stock 
 in us two, Spag." 
 
 He trotted on still downcast. "Spag, you 're a cow- 
 ard!" 
 
 "And how about you, mis 'ess? Who was worryin' 
 about Christmas dinners just now?" 
 
 "Mis 'ess has something to worry about. She 's no 
 business to have a little dog if she can't keep him." 
 
 "Stow your naggin', or I '11 stay out all night." 
 
 And so home by the Bank and the Mansion-house, 
 both just about as disdainful of the pair as London 
 Bridge. Then finally through the more peopled streets 
 again, to where other girls turned out for the industries 
 of the night, or a drunken cab-tout, on his way to the 
 lock-up, sang his war-song of bestial jubilation until 
 the policeman choked him into better behaviour, some 
 eyes looking pity, while many figures drew aside to 
 avoid the stain of his touch. 
 
 The fire was still burning in her little garret suite, 
 the lamp was soon lit, and the supper laid. The old 
 
 32 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 house, all its offices hermetically closed, lay in perfect 
 peace. Then came the old book. 
 
 What a really interesting invention! A score or so 
 of letters in an alphabet, and, with the permutations 
 and combinations thereof, Socrates still hailing you 
 across the gulfs of Time, and Montaigne at your elbow 
 ready for a chat. 
 
 "Might be wuss, mis 'ess, if you ask me," the dog 
 was understood to say, as he curled himself up at her 
 feet. 
 
 She bent down and kissed the white line of his brow. 
 
 33 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SHE was eager to earn now, and ready to try. She 
 had stuck to her work at the shorthand school, and 
 she felt perfectly convinced of her ability to take down 
 winged words with a pinion as swift as themselves, 
 whenever she had a mind. In fact, she had already 
 announced this fact with becoming reserve to the uni- 
 verse, and was now awaiting an answer to an advertise- 
 ment in the paper which Sarah brought to her bedside 
 a few days later. 
 
 It is always hard to be among the unemployed, no 
 doubt, but, until you are penniless, you are only in the 
 ornamental stage. 
 
 For the other, take a grey-headed failure, who has 
 never been a success, setting out to persuade five millions 
 of competitive fellow-citizens to want the one insignifi- 
 cant thing that he brings to the market of the world. 
 What wonder that it so often ends in oxalic acid on 
 Hampstead Heath! 
 
 Unspeakable blackness of despair, while the sunlight 
 shines on the morning pageant of the Mall, and the drags 
 start for the races with their dainty loads. Unspeakable 
 mystery ! 
 
 She set out for the school, taking the dog with her, 
 prattling cheerfully to him as they trudged along. She 
 
 34 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 had been less confident at the close of yesterday's walk; 
 but that was only the difference in the time of day. 
 Most of our moods are purely atmospheric. With the 
 sun in the right quarter, and a pound in your pocket— 
 who 's afraid? In the morning she was still the high 
 school girl, cheery, confident, and with the easy belief 
 that the world 's an oyster to be opened with a paper- 
 knife. 
 
 The dog was not altogether in the same frame of 
 mind. At any rate, he steered sideways, and with his 
 head down, probably because he was only a dog. At 
 any other time, this proceeding might have struck her as 
 an omen, but just now she was as breezily indifferent 
 to it as the free-thinking general of antiquity to the 
 chicken that was off its feed. When they reached the 
 door of the school, she ordered him to wait for her, 
 and he seated himself on the threshold without a word. 
 
 She resented his silence. 
 
 "You need n't look so proud of yourself," she said, 
 "anybody could squat outside a door." 
 
 He stiU sulked. 
 
 "I know what you are thinking: 'Well, I get my 
 livin' by it, mis 'ess, anyhow!' You don't. You get 
 your livin', as you call it, just because I choose to keep 
 you ; please remember that. I happen to like your little 
 ways. ' ' 
 
 "Well, ain't I an expert in that kind o' thing, 
 mis 'ess?" 
 
 "Don't argue. I happen to like you. Will that do?" 
 
 He seemed to think it would do very well, as he 
 settled himself on the door-step to await her return. 
 
 35 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She entered the huge hive. It was the scene of yester- 
 day once more. The bread-hunters were still pouring 
 in from all parts, for the go-as-you-please plan of teach- 
 ing gave all the certainty of finding a lesson at their 
 need. They were of both sexes, and of any age, up to 
 the fatal forty, though the young formed the vast major- 
 ity. They trooped off by their sex division, right and 
 left,, on passing the door. 
 
 They were of all classes. One of Prue's flock was 
 known, and honoured accordingly, as the youngest 
 daughter of the youngest daughter of a peer. Many 
 were the daughters of servants of servants, fired with 
 new ambitions at the Board school, and trying to break 
 their caste in the hope of higher destinies. There were 
 all the accents in their hurried speech, as they came 
 clattering in— from the drawl of smartness to the Cock- 
 ney twang ; all the varieties of finery in the same range, 
 down to the dreariest make-believes that deceived none 
 but their wearers, and hardly them. 
 
 She greeted a few select souls who had qualified them- 
 selves for her intimacy by the right management of 
 their h's, and then passed on to the speed rooms. In 
 these, the professorial chairs were tenanted by melan- 
 choly men, who seemed somehow to have missed brighter 
 vocations in life, and who had trained themselves in the 
 art of reading at so many words to the minute in vary- 
 ing degrees of celerity. The one of Prue's choice, in his 
 monotone, and the even beat of his utterance, might 
 have passed for the Scripture-reader in a mosque. A 
 crowd of girls, most of them feverishly intent on their 
 work, followed him with pen and pencil, on the principle 
 
 36 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of catch as catch can. To be able to take down the 
 quickest reader, and render him afterwards in long 
 hand, was to be fit for the reporters* gallery in the 
 House of Commons— the blue riband of the profession. 
 In regard to that height of attainment, of course, the 
 girl-students could only regard and adore. They were 
 as effectually shut out from the joys of possession, as 
 if they had been victors of an honours list. 
 
 A letter was handed to her as she left the school. It 
 was an answer to her advertisement. 
 
 It was in a neat, restrained, scholarly hand, and it 
 informed her that the writer, a man of letters, would 
 be glad to see her that very evening, with a view to an 
 experiment in dictation, which, he was careful to say, 
 might not turn out well. She sent the dog home to 
 wait for her on his own door-step, and hurried off to 
 the rendezvous. 
 
 He was a studious-looking person, grey and bent, and 
 with a manner which betokened much wear and tear 
 in the toil of his trade. His nerves were shattered by 
 life-long labours of composition, and by the hunt for 
 the phrase. He could never let himself go, but he still 
 hoped that one might learn to stop on the mount of 
 prophecy to tie a shoe-string, and yet finish the ascent 
 in ecstasy. 
 
 His brain was weary; his hand was on strike with 
 writers' cramp. He had resolved to dispense with the 
 one, and flog the other into activity by engaging a 
 
 37 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 shorthand writer. His old age was in a hurry, and he 
 yearned to get the pot of literature quicker on the boil. 
 
 She took her pen, a new one in a new holder, opened 
 her note-book, and then sat quietly waiting for him, in 
 a way that he secretly resented at the start, as the man- 
 ner of a cat after a mouse. He knew it was going to 
 put him out— to judge by his deep and long-drawn sigh. 
 
 The subject was a leader for a weekly paper. 
 
 After a glance at his amanuensis, and a faint "Are 
 you ready?" which was rank cowardice, though he 
 hoped it would pass for something else, he began: 
 
 " 'The situation of parties at the end of the session 
 is one that must inspire all well-wishers of—' " and 
 here he came to a most distressing pause. 
 
 "Have you got that down?" he groaned. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Strike it out, if you please." 
 
 Then he tried again on a new tack: " 'When Grey 
 seemed on the brink of failure with his great historic 
 measure, he'— er! Kepeat that, if you please." 
 
 She did so. 
 
 "Strike it out" — ^fiiercely this time — "and read, 'In 
 the second administration of Lord Derby — ' Have you 
 got that down?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Thank you. What was it I said? I am extremely 
 sorry to trouble you." 
 
 " 'In the second administration of Lord Derby,* sir." 
 
 "I am obliged to you. Would you mind stopping 
 for a moment ? ' ' 
 
 And he wrenched his vast, bony bulk out of the chair, 
 
 38 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 and reached to the topmost shelf of a well-furnished 
 library for a book. 
 
 On this he concentrated his attention for full five 
 minutes, while no sound was heard but the turning of 
 the leaves and an occasional dry cough. The girl looked 
 round the room, took stock of the furniture, still more 
 attentive stock of her strange employer, thought her 
 thoughts, and then sat in the attitude of attention biting 
 the end of her pen. 
 
 "You are sure I said 'second' administration?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Would you be kind enough to say 'first'?" 
 
 He tried again, but no sound came save a repetition 
 of the cough. 
 
 It was not lung trouble, nor even tonsils, but just 
 sheer panic in the premonitory stage. 
 
 Then in a desperate rush for fluency, he went off like 
 a thirty-pound salmon with the hook in his gills. 
 
 The girl's note-book at once became a farrago of dots 
 and dashes, which had no definite relation to any known 
 script, and were but heartrending appeals for a rescue. 
 
 Slowing down from sheer exhaustion, he mopped the 
 telltale drops from his brow, and surrendered again to 
 the long-drawn agonies of his muse. 
 
 He was beaten, and he knew it; but he watched her 
 savagely out of the corner of his eye, to see if she knew 
 it too. Being so much in the same plight, she passed 
 with triumph through the ordeal, her gaze fixed on the 
 vacancy of her own scrawl, her thoughts on the awful 
 moment of reckoning when she would have to render it 
 into intelligible copy. 
 
 39 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Then he came to an end with a sort of snap, which 
 he fondly hoped might pass for a peroration, but which 
 was not much better than the stroke of a cleaver cutting 
 a sentence in half. 
 
 "That will do, thank you. "Will you be so good as 
 to write it out?" 
 
 She began with the opening sentences, which were 
 fairly intelligible by reason of her having taken them 
 down in longhand while he hunted up the reference. 
 Beyond them lay a wreckage of the Pitman system, 
 dancing, as in the mad tumult of a whirlpool, to her 
 distracted gaze. 
 
 But there was an unexpected rescue. His exertions 
 had made him fretful as a child on a hot night; and 
 she had hardly written a dozen words before he pulled 
 her up. 
 
 ' ' Do not make that noise, if you please ! ' ' 
 
 "What noise, sir?" 
 
 ' ' The pen : it scratches the paper so. Would you mind 
 writing it out at home and sending it to me by to-mor- 
 row's post?" 
 
 She hurried home, and sat till far in the night over 
 her task, only to feel that the shame of confessed failure 
 awaited her in the morning. But the first post brought 
 her an envelope in his handwriting, with a cheque for 
 a guinea, and this note: 
 
 "Dear Madam, — I am afraid I have to apologise to 
 you for some expressions of impatience, due entirely 
 to my own fault. You will kindly excuse them, and set 
 them down, not to any want of skill on your part, to 
 
 40 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 which, upon occasion, I shall he happy to testify, 
 but simply to the nature of the beast. I am unable to 
 dictate, and I must not therefore trouble you again." 
 
 Saved ! Yes from the worst ; but not from the know- 
 ledge that she must find some other way of earning her 
 living, and that her shorthand was, at present, no better 
 than a child's toy. 
 
 There was this to be said on the other side. She had 
 begun to earn, though only by a fluke. That first guinea 
 for one 's first job : it is a turning-point in life. She at 
 once laid her plans for investing it in a new hat — ^just 
 to treat her luck. 
 
 How very deplorable ! I know, I know ; perhaps she '11 
 catch it by-and-by. 
 
 41 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SARAH had handed her the letter with a certain 
 air of mystery. She carried the day's paper, as 
 usual, under her arm; and drawing another from her 
 pocket : 
 
 "You can 'ave this for nothink," she said. 
 
 "What is it— a circular?" 
 
 "No; a paper— only for nothink. I 'm a-tellin' you, 
 miss. ' ' 
 
 "Telling me what?" 
 
 "Got out by a customer o' mine. Givin' it away at 
 the start." 
 
 Prue hardly noticed it at the time, hut when Sarah 
 was gone it caught her eye. 
 
 " 'THE BRANDING IRON' 
 
 "A Journal of the Back Streets 
 
 "(Edited by George Leonard.) 
 
 ' ' Price : Love— or a ha 'penny. Only once a week. ' ' 
 
 "What stuff," she said— and then she took it up. 
 
 It was the oddest-looking little thing, the very proto- 
 plasm of the press. Put two sheets of foolscap, one within 
 the other, and you have its size and its number of pages. 
 
 42 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Fill these pages with handwriting duplicated by one 
 of the copying processes, and you have the method of 
 production. 
 
 The headings were in round hand; the first was an 
 "Address to our Readers." 
 
 "Our Idea: The Branding Iron is a new journal of 
 society — in the back streets. Our contemporaries, who 
 work mainly by the backstairs, in the other interest, are 
 not to be surpassed. They retail its small talk, 'biograph' 
 its celebrities, tell its queer stories, report its amusements, 
 and generally fix it up in a way that defies competition 
 in their own line, and leaves us no resource but the choice 
 of fresh fields and pastures new. 
 
 "We propose, therefore, to do for the back streets 
 exactly what our rivals do for the other parts of the 
 planet. 
 
 "We give our journal away, at the staxt, as the sprat to 
 catch the herring of the ha'penny subscription, which we 
 are fully determined to get later on. 
 
 "We shall give it away without distinction of persons, 
 according to the limit of our means. It will be sent, not 
 only to the humblest, but to both Houses of Parliament, 
 especially the Bench of Bishops, and to the King on his 
 Throne. 
 
 "When they are tired of receiving it for nothing— or 
 ashamed, which will do just as well— they may forward 
 the ha'penny for the issues to come; and, as a superfluity 
 of niceness, for those already received. 
 
 "Our idea is to take one mean neighbourhood in this, 
 or, for that matter, any other great town, a neighbour- 
 hood you might cover with your hat, and give a faithful 
 
 43 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 record of its proceedings from week to week. Subscribers 
 have only to multiply this by all the mean neighbour- 
 hoods of our native land to learn how huge masses 
 of our brother-Komans live, love, eat, drink, fight, 
 and generally go to the devil, or the other place, in their 
 own way, with nothing less than the skies of England for 
 their canopy. 
 
 " It is the age of cheap journalism and of the personal 
 note. Almost everybody has his paper now, and why not 
 the man in the back street ? 
 
 "our machinery 
 
 ' ' We are produced at present on a fifteen-shilling dup- 
 licator worked by hand. We are never going to stop tiU 
 countless printing-presses reel oflf our innumerable edi- 
 tions to the uttermost ends of the earth. Our early copies 
 will one day sell for more than their weight in bank-notes. 
 Oh, be in time ! 
 
 "our impudence 
 
 "We promise to tell the truth— but not the whole of it 
 —to be decent, honest, cheeky, as cheerful as possible; 
 and even quite simple, rational, and unaffected, as often 
 as our readers will give us a chance. But enough as to 
 all that — 'leave thy damnable faces, and begin.' " 
 
 She frowned and pouted; tried to busy herself with 
 other things ; tossed them aside ; come back to it. It was 
 impossible to resist the appeal of a string of paragraphs 
 
 44 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 headed "Unfashionable Intelligence"— and some of them 
 signed "G. L." 
 
 "Mr. and Mrs. Foodie have been out of town for the 
 hop-picking. The children were left in the care of a big 
 brother of eleven, and one fell in the fire and is now in 
 the hospital. 
 
 "The usual weekly receptions at Mrs. Maloney's on 
 Saturday night, resulted in the maiming of two police- 
 men, and in three hospital cases among the members of 
 the family and their friends. The proceedings were fin- 
 ally toned down by boiling water poured from an upper 
 floor. 
 
 "There was no music at the last 'At Home' at the 
 Foake's, two well-behaved youths who usually attend 
 with jew's-harp and concertina having been put away for 
 a purse-snatching case. 
 
 "Mr. Jelks, whose name is a household word in the 
 quarter in which we publish, has just returned from 
 Holloway. He has not yet succeeded in carrying out his 
 threat of vengeance against his wife for sending him 
 there, but he has made two attempts on the door. She is 
 safely locked in, and does all her marketing by lowering a 
 string from an upper window. The police say they are 
 loath to interfere between man and wife. 
 
 "The body in the back kitchen at Paradise Row has 
 been unburied for eight days, owing to some hitch in the 
 raffle to defray the expenses of the funeral." 
 
 She shuddered, threw the paper down, kicked it away 
 from her. 
 
 45 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She was in a new world. All that it meant she could 
 not understand, but much that it might mean as a hor- 
 rible survival of primitive barbarism came to her, by a 
 sort of intuition of the past of the race in its passage 
 through the slime. It smote her with a sense of age, of 
 retrogression, of the night of things. It even brought 
 back her childish horror of propinquity and of contact 
 with the monstrosities of insect life. So these disgusting 
 items were also in the inventory of human attribute, as 
 well as fair speech, gentle manners, the dignity of use 
 and wont, to which her experience had hitherto been con- 
 fined. And now, perhaps, in the state to which she was 
 drifting, they were soon to live quite intimately to her 
 sight and touch. 
 
 Then she picked the paper up again and read on: 
 
 "coaching 
 
 "The Jolly Dogs' Club met on Sunday morning for the 
 usual trip to Epping Forest in a van. They were treated 
 with scant courtesy by the proprietor of a weU-known 
 hostelry on the road who thought fit to decline to enter- 
 tain them as travellers. They were not, however, unpro- 
 vided with the needful, having taken the precaution to lay 
 in a stock of it from their own bar. They reached home 
 much 'refreshed' by the trip, some half-a-dozen of them 
 at the bottom of the vehicle. The revels were kept up to 
 an early hour of Monday morning. The police notor- 
 iously bear no good-will to the institution, but in view 
 of its strictly private character, they were of course 
 powerless to interfere. 
 
 46 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 FICTION 
 
 "We call attention this week to the opening chapter of 
 our thrilling romance— 'The Decoy Duck.' Our readers 
 may accept our assurance that the leading characters are 
 drawn from the life, and that the incident of the drugged 
 sailor, with which the instalment closes, is founded on 
 fact. The locality of the cellar scene will be recognized 
 by everyone who knows the neighbourhood. 
 
 "the pulpit 
 
 "Atheism at Mile End Waste. Barney Benson, the 
 well-known practitioner in this line, still holds his own 
 against all comers, in opposition to the authenticity of the 
 Gospels and the obligations of the (so-called) moral law. 
 He will bring his present season to a close next Sunday 
 week at the Marble Arch, after a tour which has fur- 
 nished lively debates at the St. Pancras Arches, and other 
 stations of the mission in the metropolis. It is fortunate 
 that he knows all his Scripture references pretty well by 
 heart. His sight suffers from the results of a recent 
 difference of opinion with an ill-conditioned defender of 
 the Pentateuch, at the Fountain in the Regent's Park. 
 
 "a bit of allright 
 
 "What do you think? Fighting Nancy of the Rope 
 Walk has joined the Girls' Club of the district, and when 
 last seen was on her way to a singing competition in the 
 
 47 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Guild Hall. She was clothed in white muslin with pink 
 favours, and quite in her right mind, softly cooing to her- 
 self for dress rehearsal something about 'Distant Bells.' 
 It recalled with a difference those other beautiful lines : 
 
 " ' O I 've seen a girl or two in my time, 
 Yet I never saw such a vixen; 
 She 's light-blue eyes and bonny brown 'air, 
 And they call her the Slasher of Brixton. ' 
 
 "money article 
 
 "The tally-man in the second floor back at Moscrop 
 Place is doing a thriving business at about ninety per 
 cent, by taking in urgency pledges after the closing of 
 the pawn-shops. He now picks and chooses, refusing 
 straw mattresses, chairs, tables, and all similar articles in 
 bulk. On the other hand, he makes no inquiries, and 
 owing to the strictly confidential character of his transac- 
 tions, he escapes service of the usual notices by the police. 
 Threatened competition on the part of a Yiddish rival, 
 who does business at the cutting prices prevalent in the 
 continental trade, has lately induced him to lower his 
 rate of accommodation from a penny to a farthing, upon 
 all articles of personal apparel brought clean from the 
 wash ; his customers, of course, have benefited greatly by 
 the change." 
 
 The girl was throwing it down, after passing unread 
 a section, "Parliament— The House: by the Mouse under 
 the Speaker's Chair," when her eye fell on a paragraph 
 
 48 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 headed "The Labour Market," the engrossing subject of 
 her thoughts. 
 
 "Has anybody in search of a sensation ever thought of 
 spotting the look of some of the out-o '-works on London 
 Bridge at closing time? I once saw a cyclist who had 
 lost control, flying full-speed downhill, with a flint wall 
 at the bottom. There was death in the face— and he 
 found it. There 's death, I swear, in some of these faces. 
 0, my God! 
 
 "(Signed) George Leonabd. 
 
 "Too many 'nobody wants me's* still about, in sjiite of 
 the slight improvement in trade. The other night I over- 
 heard a little one of the order, on the Bridge — ^rather too 
 smart to be convincing at first sight ; but she '11 soon get 
 over that. She was apologising to her dog for a bad time 
 coming when she might not be able to keep even him. 
 Note the female unemployed never get a show in the pro- 
 cessions, and theirs is the worse case. The poor little dot 
 wound up with a 'mis 'ess wants to cry,' as she looked 
 down at the tyke. 
 
 "G.L." 
 
 She grew crimson with shame and wrath. Had she 
 been watched in her walk ? Her miniature in such a por- 
 trait gallery— the insolence of it! "George Leonard" — 
 oh, for a cowhide and a strong arm. 
 
 She was going to thrust the rag into the fire and make 
 an end of it, when something made her hold her hand. 
 Perhaps the writer was not all a mocking fool. Had the 
 
 49 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 poor mummer but torn off the mask for a moment to wipe 
 a troubled face ? She remembered the barber in the play 
 who makes haste to laugh only for fear he should be 
 obliged to weep. 
 
 So she folded The Branding Iron and put it by, mean- 
 ing to give Sarah sixpence for a month's subscription 
 next day. 
 
 This operation led her to her account-book. She was 
 horribly startled : there was less than nine pounds in the 
 bank! 
 
 SO 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT was a cruel shock. Over twenty pounds spent in 
 three months ! How the money had run through her 
 fingers! The French label one variety of hopeless per- 
 son as the triple fool. If Prue had known of it, that is 
 what she would have called herself. The discovery put 
 an end to work for the day, and left her in a state of aim- 
 less despondency, of futile scheming in the void. She 
 audited every item of her petty account, trying to con- 
 demn half of it as wanton waste, yet still not without a 
 sense of exculpation. 
 
 She rose from the task comforted, but as she did so, her 
 eyes fell on the new hat which she had bought with the 
 proceeds of her first earnings. Then she took in a cargo 
 of repentance, heavy enough to sink a ship, let alone a 
 single swimmer. What could set her right with herself ? 
 Only some decisive act of penance and of sacrifice. She 
 took the offending thing, dropped it into the paper-bag 
 in which she had brought it into the house, and rushed 
 into the street. 
 
 The old woman who swept the crossing and to whom 
 she occasionally gave a penny was at her post. Prue 
 thrust the hat into her hand with a recommendation to 
 sell it and buy herself a pair of shoes, and hurried back 
 to her room. She was happier now. She could not help 
 
 51 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 feeling that she had done something rather heroic, and 
 cleared off part of her load of guilt. 
 
 She spent the afternoon in making good resolutions, 
 and after tea, much refreshed in mind and body, thought 
 of setting out for a walk. 
 
 She stretched forth her hand mechanically for her hat. 
 Alas ! it was not there. The pang was intolerable ; and 
 she hurried out again with five shillings in her hand to 
 buy back her gift. Too late : the wretched recipient was 
 wearing it, with a smirk of coquetry that was positively 
 maddening in its suggestion of the vanity of human 
 wishes. 
 
 Prue went to bed. 
 
 She got but little further next morning. It was still how 
 to find work. 
 
 Sarah's knock came as a happy thought, and she ran 
 to open. Why not ask her? She knew so many people. 
 If only she could be induced to talk about them. 
 
 There were no letters— only a solitary post-card, with 
 a picture on it, which Sarah eyed for a moment before she 
 laid it down. 
 
 By sheer good luck, Sarah gave her a sort of opening 
 with a " 'Ow did you like the piper?" pointing to The 
 Branding Iron stiU lying where it had been left the night 
 before. 
 
 "I hated it," said Prue, with energy. It was not a 
 very happy response. Sarah made no remark. 
 
 "You said you knew the writer, I think? He must be a 
 —strange sort of man." 
 
 52 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She was going to say "detestable"; but the second 
 thought prevailed. 
 
 "Customer o' mine." 
 
 She saw her mistake : it was not for Sarah to belittle 
 her employers. 
 
 Sarah seemed to think that she had hardly said enough. 
 
 "That piper 's only 'is blarney. "When he likes, he kin 
 talk jest 's good 's you or me. He 's up to somethin'. 
 Lives in a model, but he ain't there more 'n half the time. 
 He 's up to somethin' : don't teU me ! " 
 
 Prue tried again : "What a lot of strange people— dif- 
 ferent characters you must meet." 
 
 Sarah seemed to scent danger. Had she gone too far ? 
 She shut her lips tight, and began dusting a chair with 
 even more concentrated fury than usual. 
 
 Prue had the good sense to let her go on. 
 
 ' ' Characters ! ' ' said Sarah ; and then she checked her- 
 self again. 
 
 "They ain't all odds and ends for all that," she said, 
 after a pause. "Some on 'em quite nice sort o' people, 
 jest 's good 's you are." 
 
 The girl laughed. 
 
 "Manner o' speakin', I mean!" 
 
 Prue seemed quite absorbed in trying to thread a 
 needle. 
 
 "Save money; keep theirselves to theirselves; no 
 hangin' about after chaps. "What do you think?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "There 's one 's a doctor's daughter— if he 'ad n't cut 
 finger at an inquest and died o' mortification." 
 
 "How sad!" 
 
 53 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Well, she got into the Post Office; and now she 's the 
 champion there." 
 
 "Champion of what?" 
 
 It was indiscreet : Sarah thought she was being drawn. 
 
 "You '11 soon want some more curtain stuff, I fancy," 
 she said, by way of returning to business. "Them 's 
 wore out." 
 
 She shook the curtains, pulled them straight, and 
 bustled about with one eye on her task and the other on 
 her employer, as though trying to assure herself she was 
 not being followed. 
 
 "Beat the record— you know what I mean: take the 
 cake," she resumed. "Five-an '-twenty years never 
 missed once. Up at six, breakfast at seven, bus at eight, 
 and in the "buildin' at nine. Never a day's illness. Take 
 her pension soon." 
 
 It was her ever-recurring note — independence: the 
 woman sufficient to herself. 
 
 And this came as a sort of soliloquy : 
 
 "They don't want no fellers to keep 'em — them sort. 
 Why, there 's another one o' my lot, she 's good for three 
 pound a week any day, sometimes four. ' ' 
 
 "What a fortune!" 
 
 "Well, I 'm tellin' yer. Miss Belton 's her name— 
 Laura Belton— what they call a jim engraver." 
 
 "Gem perhaps." 
 
 "Whatdidlsye?" 
 
 Prue restrained her curiosity. 
 
 "She 's half American— jest as fly as they make 'em." 
 
 Prue still kept busy with the needle. 
 
 54 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "There 's others. P'raps you '11 see some on 'em 
 some day, ' ' said Sarah oracularly. 
 
 Prue had not made much headway as yet, and she was 
 beginning to grow disheartened. She put down the 
 needle ; took up the post-card ; glanced at it abstractedly ; 
 laid that down too. 
 
 Then the luck turned. Sarah eyed the card curiously, 
 not to say covetously. 
 
 "You might let me 'ave that, miss, when you done 
 with it, if it ain't got no privit in it." 
 
 "Certainly! But what for, if there 's no 'private' in 
 that?" 
 
 Sarah was in a difiSeulty. She had to explain herself ; 
 an explanation could only be given in words ; and words 
 were as embarrassing as ever. It was a sort of three-cor- 
 nered trap, with a sharp edge at every corner. 
 
 She had to speak. 
 
 "Ten-pound prize for coUectin' the greatest number 
 of post-cards sent out by one firm. ■ Beg 'm from my 
 customers. Don't you fancy I — " 
 
 The girl looked puzzled. 
 
 "It 's for the advertisement." Prue, who was begin- 
 ning to know her Sarah, made no answer. 
 
 "They want to make people start buyin' of 'em." 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 It was so vague and iU-informed that it compelled fur- 
 ther speech. 
 
 ' ' There 's money in post-cards, miss, you take my tip. 
 Wish I was an artist like you. ' ' 
 
 "Like me!" 
 
 55 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Sarah glanced at a water-colour on the wall. "You did 
 that, didn'tyer?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, you might make yer fortune." 
 
 She pricked up her ears, in spite of herself. 
 
 "You would n't see much more of me, if I took fust 
 prize," said Sarah, as she piled the chairs on the table, 
 and took up her dust-pan— a sure sign that she wished 
 to be alone. 
 
 "But where do I come in?" 
 
 Sarah's hand was forced. She had to go on talking 
 from sheer good feeling. She had awakened hopes. 
 
 "In the colourin', that 's where you come in. Art- 
 workers, they call 'em. I 've got a customer, she can 
 earn her thirty shillin's a week at it, if she gives her Sun- 
 days in. She heard of it quite by chance," resumed 
 Sarah, giving way to a perfect flood of loquacity that 
 suggested the bursting of a dam. "She wanted a job, I 
 can tell yer. Owed me a fortnight, an' been on short 
 rations." 
 
 "Short rations?" She was listening now with all her 
 might. 
 
 " 'Ope you '11 never know what it is. Her week's food 
 worked out at fourpence a dye. I know what I 'm talk- 
 ing about. I 've 'ad some in my time too. Lunch bis- 
 cuits, two pound, fippence ; coffee, no milk or sugar, six- 
 pence. Four 'errin's thrippence; reduction on takin' 
 a quantity. Four eggs— yah! sometimes, I do assure 
 you — fourpence more. Seven penn'orth o' bread; thrip- 
 pence more for vegetables and a mossel o' fruit; an' 
 there y' are— Sundays and week dyes, fourpence a dye. 
 
 56 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Ah, an' you could see the dyelight through her, at week- 
 ends, make no mistake." 
 
 "Stop," said the girl fiercely. "I 'd rather do it than 
 hear about it. ' ' 
 
 She had a horror of pain so intensely morbid that her 
 first impulse was always one of repulsion for the sufferer. 
 It outraged her sense of the logic of life. 
 
 "I 'm only tellin'yer!" 
 
 "—And die than do it." 
 
 "You see she was—" 
 
 ' ' I hate people that talk about it— there ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, as I was sayin', she got the job. An* then I lent 
 'er five shiUia's to set up with, and pay 'er fines." 
 
 "What fines?" 
 
 "You oughter see her now." 
 
 "But what fines?" 
 
 "It 's the beginnin' that 's a bit 'ard. What you spoil 
 you pay for; that 's only fair." 
 
 The beginning was hard, for Prue tried it rather than 
 leave any stone unturned. The pay was something infin- 
 itesimal per hundred, hardly exceeding the retail price 
 per card. They were charming little hunting scenes and 
 the like, and the artists had to paint the red coats of the 
 huntsmen, the brown spots on the dogs, and the green on 
 the trees. Of course the girl provided her own paint and 
 brushes, and equally, of course, at the outset, her failures 
 strewed the floor. These she had to make good. The cards 
 were delivered to her in packets at the factory, and she 
 
 57 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 had to account for all of them, spoiled or perfect, when 
 she took them back. 
 
 Alas ! the lean kine of the failures ate up all the fat of 
 the successes, and still left a deficit chargeable to capital. 
 She was a couple of shillings to the bad at the week 's end. 
 
 The next week she began to "earn," and she went 
 down to take her money. The balance of accounts on pay 
 day showed an actual wage, clear of all deductions, of a 
 net farthing an hour, or one shilling and three ha'pence 
 for fifty-four hours' work. 
 
 The dog ran towards her when she came in, but she 
 brushed him aside. "Mis 'ess has had a fright," she 
 said, and she lifted him into a chair from which he com- 
 monly observed the humours of the street, find herself 
 sank into another and buried her face in her hands. It 
 was all very well to say that the essay was only experi- 
 mental, and that she had still a shot in the locker of her 
 Savings' Bank. This was what was going to happen 
 when she closed the account. 
 
 And, above all, this was work. This was henceforth to 
 he her lot in life. As the sense of it came upon her with 
 a rush, she pitched cards and paints into the fire and 
 threw herself on the floor in an agony of fright too 
 intense for tears. 
 
 Never before had she known what it was to have to earn. 
 She had taken money pretty much as a matter of course. 
 It was always there, if not in abundance, still with enough 
 to serve. It was a sort of elemental first condition, like 
 the air and the light. These might be better or worse in 
 quality, but still there they were every day. But think 
 of having to win by toil every breath and every beam. 
 
 58 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 with darkness or death as the penalty of failure. The 
 idea was a new revelation of the sense of pain, and it 
 gave her a pang as of nausea. 
 
 Especially she sickened at the thought of the drudgery 
 that work involved. These smudged fingers, these split- 
 ting headaches over a hopeless task ! Her glass had given 
 her glimpses of odious havoc where the daubed hand had 
 gone upwards to sweep the hair from her brow. Yes; 
 this was work — ^work which in the school days was only a 
 mere dignified indulgence of high spirits, with nothing 
 more serious at stake than a certificate. It- came upon 
 her as another revelation of the infinite possibilities of 
 suffering, and showed the world as one great torture 
 chamber, with endless perspectives of misery. 
 
 The dog, seeing that something had come to pass, left 
 his perch to make inquiries. She was too wretched to 
 talk for him, but she drew him to her heart in a passion 
 of tears. 
 
 59 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A WRETCHED night and a girl very badly scared. 
 , The glorious sunshine of the September morn- 
 ing. With this, and with the tea and toast that fortifies 
 the very malefactor for the scaffold, the courage to set 
 out and look for a job, and to resolve that it must be 
 found to-day. 
 
 Which way to turn ? Well, to the old scene of enchant- 
 ment and terror— the City. The people there will be all 
 going to work at this hour. By following them, rubbing 
 shoulders with them, looking at them, something may 
 turn up. 
 
 "She made straight for St. Paul's as a sort of central 
 point, and flattening her slender figure against the base 
 of the Peel Statue, stood agape at the scene. 
 
 The City was busy, though it had yet to take off its 
 coat. This time it was the centripetal rush from the 
 suburbs. The still countless hordes of bread-winners 
 were going out for the bread. They were of both sexes, 
 though naturally she had no eye for any but the women 
 and girls ; and of every age short of infancy and senility. 
 Extremes of either sort were rare: youth had the pas. 
 Here and there the morning light betrayed the now futile 
 attempts of hair-dye to conceal the ravages of time — 
 futile because so often exposed. Some fringes were 
 almost pathetic in their suggestion of coming discom- 
 fiture. 
 
 60 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She had the pity all to herself. None seemed to take 
 notice of his fellow-man — for one reason, perhaps, because 
 aU were trotting the same way. To have turned a head, 
 even for a glance at his fellow-woman, would have been 
 to lose a minute ; and time was money there. 
 
 But some girls stopped short at the cathedral; and 
 bustling into the old graveyard garden, as though they 
 had important business among the tombs, plunged into 
 seats. Then, drawing from their pockets the serial of 
 their choice, they began to read in the devil-driven and 
 purposeful way in which people do most things in this 
 part of the world. And, as the great clock struck the 
 quarters, they hurried out of the garden in contingents, 
 and took to their heels. 
 
 Why ? It was all so new to this observer. 
 
 There is notoriously but one resource in difiSculties of 
 this sort — the policeman. She chose him with care. 
 There were two at hand, but one seemed ineligible by 
 excess of waist. The belt of his overcoat recalled the 
 memory of the girdle that went round about the earth. 
 An artist's feelings are his feelings; and every woman 
 is an artist in things of this sort. 
 
 His brother-officer was young, and shapely in a manly 
 sort of way. Prue applied to him. 
 
 "Poorer sort, miss, come up by the early trains, sake 
 o' the cheap fare" ,(i" Wo there !" to a wayward bus try- 
 ing to break the line) . ' ' Got to wait about till the work- 
 shops open. That 's all it means." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 He veered round for a moment to get a better look at 
 her. But his peremptory "steady" showed that the 
 
 6i 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 driver of a van had taken a mean advantage of him. His 
 eye wandered no more ; but his voice reached down to her 
 again. 
 
 "Some of 'em wait in a church — Allhallows in the 
 Wall, if you 'd like to see it. It 's been done in the 
 papers. Rather a curious sight. ' ' 
 
 For an idea of the human tide at its highest, the spot 
 was certainly well chosen, though that was sheer luck. 
 She was at the point of juncture of the main channels. 
 One mighty outflow of petticoated humanity — she had 
 still no eyes for the other — in solid flood almost without 
 a ripple, strikes from Battersea, Clapham, Lewisham, 
 Greenwich, and far beyond. Another pours southwards 
 from Islington, Hackney, Hornsey, Tottenham, Waltham- 
 stow. The eastward rush is by Beckton, Canning Town, 
 Whitechapel. The waters leave huge deposits on their 
 way at the Cannon Street warehouses, the factories of 
 Golden Lane, and even as far as at the retail shops of the 
 West End. One immense wave carries hundreds into the 
 telegraph building at St. Martin's le Grand. 
 
 Then came a recurrence of the old ghastly terror of the 
 bridge— the dire and dreadful sense of not knowing how 
 to begin to face life, the feeling sure that it will be too 
 much for you. These girls were all her competitors ; and, 
 in their close ranks, moving at the double, there were cer- 
 tainly many who could have beaten her in the finest 
 points of the game. 
 
 This makes the awesomeness of crowds, and is at the 
 root of the mystery of stage fright. Whoever you be, 
 somewhere, in this multitude before you, you expect to 
 find your equal or master in strength or wit. 
 
 62 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She bought a paper, on the chance of finding something 
 in the advertisements. It was trying in its technicalities 
 of the export trade : ' ' Wanted at once, Best Legging 
 Machinists for Block-work. Ostrich Feathers, good Boa 
 and Stole-finisher ; also Layers. Girls for Brace Boxing. 
 Girl accustomed to cutting up." 
 
 The chilling sense of personal insignificance grew more 
 intense. It was stiU too early to ask for work. The 
 bosses who had it to give were yet in train or brougham 
 puffing the early cigarette. So she made for Allhallows, 
 partly from curiosity, partly to wait with the rest. 
 
 The old church stood almost buttressed against a frag- 
 ment of that older city wall which has been manned in 
 its time by Roman and Dane, with many another stren- 
 uous person of history now in fine dust. It was nearly 
 full of work-girls. A happy thought of the vicar had 
 proved that, where there is a sincere desire to be useful, 
 even City churches need not despair. Another once 
 empty temple in the same quarter has been filled again 
 by revivalist services, as hot in their gospeUing as any 
 tabernacle of the slums, and as coarse in their appeal as 
 any picture puff of the hoardings. This one may, or may 
 not, "meet a want," but there can be no question of the 
 success of Allhallows in the WaU in that direction. 
 
 The girls drew out their sewing; stitched to sacred 
 music; and, if they liked, joined in a short service that 
 followed. The strange congregation of wayfarers prayed 
 and sang, rose or sat tight, just as it pleased them ; and, 
 when it was over, read books of general interest which 
 they found in the pews. A hall adjoining the church 
 offered much the same accommodation to the men. 
 
 63 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She followed one of the congregation mechanically — a 
 girl of about her own age. Work might lie that way ; at 
 any rate, there was the vague sense of adventure. The 
 girl hurried off with the panic haste of an insect trying 
 to escape from a sheet of paper, until a chance meeting 
 with a friend brought her to a momentary pause. It was 
 a dapper little boy-man of the clerkly species, with down 
 on his upper-lip, which was evidently the object of 
 repeated and most assiduous cultures. 
 
 The pair gesticulated surprise and delight, and then 
 went on in company, laughing, chattering, both at once. 
 Prue followed their bliss as a forlorn player follows a 
 neighbour's luck at roulette. It was hard to keep pace 
 with them, for though the route march was but by the 
 hard pavement, they seemed to have the benefit of spring- 
 ing turf dotted with flowers beneath their tread. 
 
 At Fore Street they parted with a cloud on their faces, 
 she leftward, he the other way. 
 
 Sometimes a river comes up with a sudden rush that 
 carries all things in its wake. How fatuous seems the 
 expectation that any two pebbles, torn from their bed into 
 momentary contact, will come together once more for the 
 ebb. It is all the chance of the tide. With no better 
 chance, these two insignificant creatures seemed to have 
 found and lost each other again. For really, if you 
 think what tides are, or if you think what life is, who 
 can tell ? 
 
 The girl finally disappeared in a warehouse in Jewin 
 Crescent. It was as though Prue had suddenly been 
 dumped down into Ethiopia, for the strangeness of the 
 scene. Jewin Crescent seemed to glare business from 
 
 64 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 every plate-glass window, from every subterranean chok- 
 ing with goods. It looked ready to meet the world in 
 arms in this line. It was greedy for "hands." The 
 cards in the windows asked for them, now and then in 
 terms that might have belonged to an African tongue. It 
 was as baffling as the advertisements, and gave poor Prue 
 the same disheartening sense of being out in the cold. 
 
 But it is difficult to be dull in the City. You have only 
 to wander about to find for yourself snacks of spiritual 
 refreshment — here a garden, there a monument — 
 unequalled in the world. It is wisely done. The terrible 
 stress of it would otherwise be too murderous. 
 
 Right in the midst of one tumult of vans and tramp- 
 ling feet, she found old St. Giles's, Cripplegate, with 
 another fragment of the waU as staunch as when it 
 was put up. Amid a hurly-burly of the same description, 
 bounding a small churchyard, she came on a monument 
 to Heminge and CondeU, printers of the first folio, with- 
 out whom there would have been no Shakespeare for pos- 
 terity. It rested under a spreading tree, whose leaves 
 still darkened the ledgers. She thanked God for both 
 trees and monument, in her heart. 
 
 65 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SHE was hungry now and so were others. The poorer 
 girls were beginning to turn out for their midday 
 meal. Many of them showed the way at full speed to a 
 shop where the menu, with a promise of ' ' Three Courses 
 for Threepence, ' ' lifted its head and lied, as shamelessly 
 as the Monument hard by. 
 
 And great, growing girls many of them : what wonder 
 that the Cockney breed begins to fail us in our battle- 
 line! 
 
 Yet still were they dainty feeders, according to their 
 sex law. However much they stinted themselves in 
 meat, most of them could spare a halfpenny for a dessert 
 of "sweet-stuff." This they enjoyed — regardless of the 
 omen— in one of the old graveyards ever at hand in this 
 part of town. 
 
 And while they ate, they gossiped and giggled over silly 
 things— invincible idealists as they all are, ever prefer- 
 ring to the rude substance of utility, its shadow of 
 romance. Their dinner-hour was not for mere rest and 
 provender ; but for the holiday of the nimble spirit in the 
 chaff of the passer-by. 
 
 The smarter specimens, the girls of porcelain, as dis- 
 tinct from the common clay, were not without resource. 
 Prue tracked one of them in the hope of luckier chances, 
 and saw her dive into a basement which promised better 
 
 66 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 things. Alas ! it was a club. She was turning away with 
 a sense of disappointment, when a hansom drove up to 
 the door, and out of it stepped an old acquaintance— Ger- 
 trude Holl. 
 
 Prue remembered her at the high school, a great gawk 
 of a girl, with still a promise of beauty and shape, now 
 fully realised, and of academic distinction, realised too. 
 in a high bracket in the Tripos list — a nine days ' wonder 
 of the newspapers. A rich man's daughter, so shy, so 
 quiet, so easily beating them all when she put forth her 
 strength, except in small-talk. / 
 
 In her deficiency in that art she might have met Sarah 
 Ruskill as a mate, from the starting-point of the other 
 pole of being. Sarah was taciturn because she knew noth- 
 ing beyond her work and her narrow purpose of indepen- 
 dence. Gertrude was so because she knew too much, and 
 was bewildered with the sense of opportunity. Unlike 
 Sarah — but this was her secret — she yearned to be a girl 
 with girls. 
 
 She was shyer than ever now that she noticed Prue's 
 well-meant effort to avoid her, and mistook its cause. 
 All that Prue had in her mind was becoming veneration 
 for a being beyond her intellectual sphere. 
 
 But Gertrude was not to be put off She ran up to 
 her and took her hand — "You here?" — yet timidly let it 
 fall again without the expected pressure. What if 
 "little Meryon" might not care to have it squeezed? 
 
 "And where have you been, I wonder, and what have 
 you been doing all this time? Won't you come in to 
 luncheon ? ' ' 
 
 "I can't, I 'm not a member." 
 
 67 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "But I am, I fancy," laughed Gertrude, and in truth 
 her name stood on the list of a managing committee im- 
 porting interest and solicitude in the highest quarters. 
 
 "What 's it all about?" asked Prue, in some alarm, as 
 they went downstairs. 
 
 "Oh, just a place to give some of our work-girls a 
 chance of getting decent food amid decent surroundings, 
 at a price within their means. ' ' 
 
 It was restful, after the hurly-burly without. Prue 
 found an ample subterranean, neatly furnished; and 
 quite a crowd of clerkly and secretarial workers at a sub- 
 stantial meal served at an exceedingly low price. 
 
 ' ' Who 'd have thought you knew anything about things 
 of this sort ? ' ' she said. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 It was the old Gertrude, even to the sudden flush 
 of confusion. Her whole personality seemed to come 
 back to memory as her schoolmate looked at her and 
 heard her voice— her shyness of being shy, her yearning 
 for comradeship, instead of the respect which they were 
 all so ready to offer in acknowledgment of her remark- 
 able powers. They used to stand so very much in awe 
 of her, Prue with the rest. 
 
 "Oh, of course. Everything is very nice, I 'm sure." 
 
 "It 's the best we can do at present," returned the 
 other deprecatingly ; "and I hope it 's better than noth- 
 ing. I may do something better bye and bye, but what 's 
 the good of talking about it now? Only think of our 
 meeting after all these years. Now let us have a good 
 talk." 
 
 It was easier said than done. Gertrude had toiled for 
 
 68 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 fluency in airy nothings, but her proficiency in the exact 
 sciences was against her. Most .conversational problems 
 seemed settled by the mere statement of the case. It was 
 so self-evident that there was really nothing to say. Her 
 silence among her mates was sometimes appalling, even 
 to herself. Prue remembered with shame that the smaller 
 fry, with ' ' little Meryon ' ' at their head, used to call her 
 the deaf mute for her scant notice of their impudence. 
 
 "And what are you doing, Meryon?" 
 
 "Oh, I 'm— looking round." 
 
 "I see: going to write about us perhaps. I always 
 thought that would be your line. ' ' 
 
 It was a new idea. Why not live up to Gertrude's 
 assumption, and try to do something in that way ? 
 
 And there was this besides— the wish to save her face 
 before her old schoolmate, and not to seem ' ' done. " It is 
 a constant preoccupation of the hard-up. The pride, 
 which is their only asset, is in their way. Millionaires 
 and lords are about the only persons who can afford to be 
 without it. The poor wretch with only three ha'pence in 
 his pocket has constantly to keep himself in heart, and 
 others in awe with " 't ain't good enough for me." 
 
 There was a pause, and Prue took the opportunity of 
 stealing a glance at the ring finger. Gertrude was not 
 married. Clearly the other sex were still not much in her 
 line. She had been reared in the dogma of man's superi- 
 ority, and was most anxious to believe in it, as in all 
 things she held to be true. Yet sometimes she found this 
 no easy matter, in regard to a creature so cheery in get- 
 ting itself floored, in the struggle of mind with mind on 
 the way down to dinner. 
 
 69 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Well, if I can be of any use, you know," added Ger- 
 trude timidly. 
 
 ' ' There seems to be a good deal doing for girls now, ' ' 
 said her friend— "girls that have to earn their own liv- 
 ing." 
 
 "It 's about time, I think." 
 
 Before they left the table, they had the place nearly 
 all to themselves. Members had no time to loiter at this 
 hour of the day. 
 
 "Come round and take a look at it," said Gertrude, 
 with a smile that seemed really to say, "Come and like 
 me a little bit." 
 
 "Musical afternoons," read Prue, from the notice- 
 board: "Whist drives," "Shakespeare readings," 
 ' ' Cycle runs. ' ' It was hard to check the impulse to punc- 
 tuate with notes of admiration. Certain references to 
 select boarding-houses and apartments made her glad she 
 had not given herself away. This might mean super- 
 vision; and she was still a Bohemian at heart— the pas- 
 sion strong within her for the freedom of the wild. 
 
 Yet it was appetising, say what you liked — "holiday 
 parties" too; and the chance of brushing up her French, 
 for some of them, in conversation classes. 
 
 And this was being "in the City" ! 
 
 ' ' What sort of girls do you have here ? ' ' 
 
 "Clerks, secretaries. Post Office girls, you know." 
 
 The afternoon had slipped away, and they had to sep- 
 arate. 
 
 " I 'm going to have a few women journalists to lunch- 
 eon at another club, the 'Ineffable' West End this time," 
 said Gertrude, returning to the idea of Prue's literary 
 
 70 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ambitions. "Won't you come too, Meryon?" and she 
 left it there with a stammer and a blush. 
 
 "Meryon" accepted. 
 
 She walked away elate. Something had come of it 
 after all. 
 
 It was a perfect evening, and she went on, hardly caring 
 which way she turned. The City was at its best. This 
 jurisdiction will have to go, no doubt, with all its inci- 
 dental glimpses of the old urbane life of commerce that 
 soothed the fever of the struggle. It ought to go, 
 exploited as it is by a greedy minority who have no 
 sense of its meaning. Yet what a thing to lose, with all 
 its faults ! It is the garden city in being, in its scrapes of 
 greensward, and immemorial trees shading the old 
 graves; in its ancient churches with a careworn man 
 dropping in, now and then, for a moment's silent prayer 
 between two bouts of brokerage, or two corners in qui- 
 nine. 
 
 Here, surely, is the faith that moves mountains — to be 
 able to pray in such a place, and to know what 's going on 
 outside. 
 
 By the mere accident of a turning, the girl was now in 
 Charterhouse Square— going, going, indeed like all else 
 in that region, but far from quite gone. A warehouse 
 here and there, but stiU also many a house with the quiet 
 of old burgher ideals brooding over it, and a suggestion 
 of the giving and taking of kindly services, as part of the 
 exchange transactions of the day. 
 
 71 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 An old-time garden was in the middle of the square, 
 and beyond it lay the walls of the older foundation, with 
 its gables and its patches of verdure visible through the 
 gates. All glowed in the soft light of the sunset. The 
 garden was bright with bordering flowers, and with 
 patches of colour in the costumes of lawn tennis parties ; 
 and musical with laughter and the cries of the game. 
 
 The players were in the employ of a great City firm; 
 and they had their boarding-houses here — one for the 
 young women, another for the men. The firm had done 
 the thing handsomely, reserving the garden for recrea- 
 tion, and keeping the old buildings unspoiled. Here and 
 there a girl who had finished her game, or who did not 
 care to begin it, sat at an open window reading, writing, 
 or looking on. 
 
 In two other idlers peering through the railings Prue 
 recognised the callow pair she had seen on leaving All- 
 hallows. 
 
 They seemed still more foolishly happy than they had 
 been in the morning, perhaps in the thought that, though 
 not without assistance, the outgoing tide had brought 
 two of its pebbles together again. 
 
 72 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE hope of work was about the only thing that gave 
 Prue her courage for the luncheon at the Ineffable. 
 She was half -afraid of all writers (perhaps because she 
 had never seen one in the flesh), and half -scornful of one 
 variety. The two moods are generally found in com- 
 pany: it is notorious that cowards whistle loudest in 
 churchyards. 
 
 She had an idea that the members of aU clubs were dis- 
 tinctly stand-offish. Clubs were associated with fashion- 
 able quarters, in her mind, and this one was no exception. 
 She forgot that every newsboy, every crossing-sweeper, 
 every work-girl— as she saw the other day — has a club 
 now. But the girls in jam or pickles or flowers have just 
 the same misgivings when they first join. They generally 
 bonnet the caretaker on the evening of their first essay 
 in rational enjoyment, and pour their tea from the win- 
 dows on the head of the passer-by. It is their struggle 
 for self possession— nothing more. 
 
 It was of course quite different from what she had 
 expected. The Ineffable was almost pure being. It was 
 composite and quintessential. It aimed at combining 
 every good thing going in every club. It admitted both 
 sexes. It was ethical ; there were improving mottoes on 
 the walls. The ripe wisdom of the ages and of the 
 
 73 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 sages is all very well, but rather obstructive to the 
 exchange of confidences at afternoon tea. It was Bohem- 
 ian : there was a smoking room, wherein, while some 
 ladies puflfed for pleasure, others only puffed with a pur- 
 pose. Good women, high up in all sorts of movements 
 for the benefit of their sex, lit the cigarette of emancipa- 
 tion. Now it is one thing to indulge in this habit because 
 you like it ; quite another to do so only in defiance of your 
 husband's mother's prejudice against it as a pollution of 
 his home. This is but social obloquy sought on the 
 house-tops in a sacred cause. These martyrs to duty 
 were generally to be recognised by their practice of sit- 
 ting in solitude, and punctuating the enjoyment with 
 occasional paroxysms of suffocation. Their distress was 
 often the more touching because of the extreme tenuity 
 of its cause. 
 
 The hall porter, a man in livery, was rather unnecessar- 
 ily disquieting as he took Prue's name. He was so placid, 
 so self-contained, so remote, so transcendental, so 
 "bother him !" in a word. She meekly took a seat at his 
 bidding and prepared to watch him in his hutch. He had 
 the grand manner of all West End servants. They catch 
 it from their masters who hold their own only by the 
 imperturbable calm which keeps an ill-bred world in awe. 
 It is the more perfectly developed in the lacqueys, since 
 in their case a single lapse into temper would leave them 
 unfrocked. 
 
 Soon, however, she began to feel sorry for the man. 
 He flew about swiftly, silently, unhastingly, all in one, 
 from speaking-tube to telephone that kept him in touch 
 with all parts of the building. In the intervals of their 
 
 74 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 alarums, he received and pigeon-holed letters, or weighed 
 them, answered questions of members, signed the books 
 of the messenger boys, and piled their parcels with an 
 instinctive mastery of the science of strain that always 
 contrived to leave the more fragile articles on the super- 
 structure of the edifice. 
 
 She thought the members were fussy and self-impor- 
 tant, as they bounced in or out. They were not; it was 
 only an effect of the everlasting banging of the door. 
 She muttered : ' ' Give your orders, gents ! " as they paused 
 to communicate with the porter. It was uncalled for, it 
 was almost unkind. 
 
 Gertrude came down, welcomed her effusively — for 
 Gertrude — and took her into the morning room. 
 
 There were men about, as well as women. Prue was 
 determined to see that all these male creatures had an 
 air of being led with a leash, though in any other setting 
 some of them might have passed for lions. 
 
 Perhaps her second thoughts on the subject led her to 
 stick close to Gertrude, as the latter presented her to two 
 or three ladies of the luncheon party already assembled. 
 She heard vaguely Miss A., Mrs. B., Miss G., as the 
 sounds of earth are heard by one who dives from the 
 shore. 
 
 There was the editor of a great ladies' paper, quiet, 
 composed, and with all sorts of possibilities of mischief 
 in the steel-grey eye behind the pince-nez. There was 
 her Paris correspondent over for a holiday— a woman of 
 middle age, with a coquetry of silver hair that suggested 
 a Pompadour in masquerade. Her dark eyebrows equally 
 natural, and sparkling eyes beneath were quite in keep- 
 
 75 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ing. The figure alone, in its rotundity, told of the rav- 
 ages of time, and of good dinners. As the lady editor 
 was presumptively clever, this one was unquestionably 
 so. She was a walking encyclopaedia of all the queer 
 stories of all the aristocracies of Europe. Sometimes 
 these were pointed with a laugh that shook her whole 
 frame, and made her very shoulders look wicked, not to 
 speak of the massive head that rested on them without 
 any visible intervention of a neck. Her repertory was 
 her living. She could sit down at a moment's notice, and 
 reel off the most side-splitting things about the social 
 celebrities of the day. Who can hope to be a hero to the 
 compiler of a column of social chat? She was capable of 
 more solid and more reasoned judgments, but they did 
 not pay ; and she was not without the excuse for half the 
 enormities of the world— a young family to push on in 
 life, and a dependent mate. 
 
 He was present, an aged man, mild, colourless, 
 effaced, whom she called "Bitty." 
 
 "Bitty dear, just go and make sure that I did n't leave 
 the dog biscuits in the cab. ' ' 
 
 Bitty went. 
 
 "The new type," whispered Gertrude to Prue; "the 
 husband of the woman of letters. ' ' 
 
 "I see— lady's-maid to the pythoness." 
 
 "Well, you know, he 's just kind, fills her pen, lays 
 out the fancy ink and fancy paper, brings her oysters 
 and chablis at twelve with his own hand. ' ' 
 
 "Is it a man?" 
 
 "Don't be so— so— you know. Wait till you begin to 
 scribble yourself. She is the bread-winner, anyhow." 
 
 The bread-winner! How that phrase seemed ever to 
 
 76 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ring in the girl's ear, or to rise in her thoughts. They 
 were all bread-winners, for others or only for themselves. 
 It was the woman at work, even here. 
 
 "The lady fashion-editor of the— " 
 
 She too, it seemed, had made a post for herself under 
 the imperious law which now drives her sex into the mar- 
 ket-place. She wrote her daily column of point-lace and 
 furbelow, and, when it was done, mounted to garret 
 regions of her stately house in South Kensington to super- 
 intend a whole workshop full of girls who cut out paper 
 patterns of latest Paris fashions for "the trade" of two 
 continents. 
 
 "And the quiet-looking woman over in the corner?" 
 
 "The one pouring over 'The Times'?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' ' Speculator on the money market. ' ' 
 
 "What 's that, I wonder?" 
 
 "Well, to tell you the truth, I can't exactly say — mak- 
 ing money, you know." 
 
 Oh, if only she could know ! 
 
 "I believe it 's something like this," added Gertrude 
 —"buys things that are steadily going up, and as soon 
 as they 've gone high enough to give her the tiniest mar- 
 gin of profit, sell's and begins again. It 's a succession of 
 operations in small change— our woman's way. We all 
 make up to her for tips. See! she 's just slipping out 
 into the hall to look at the tape." 
 
 "The tape?" queried the girl faintly. The whirl of 
 new experiences was bewildering. 
 
 "Don't be afraid ; you won't have to work up the sub- 
 ject. She and 'Fashions' are not in our party to-day." 
 
 Another of Gertrude's guests was the great lecturer a 
 
 77 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 la mode, a foreigner, who had become the rage in London 
 by bringing German culture to the University Extension 
 Lecture-rooms, and Plato to Claridge's. Prue had read 
 about him in the papers. 
 
 There had been nothing like it, they said, since the fair 
 crowd of "Carolines" flocked to the Sorbonne to hear 
 M. Caro, the eminent professor, after whom they were 
 named. They, too, took down words of gold in note- 
 books edged with that precious metal, and with pencils 
 of the same. It was a passing craze, but it left an endur- 
 ing record. M. Pailleron, the dramatist, was jealous of 
 M. Caro; he wrote "Le Monde ou I'on s'ennuie, " for the 
 Frangais ; and all Paris went to laugh. The philosopher 
 was equal to the occasion. He sat in a stage-box, well 
 forward, laughed with the rest, and applauded with the 
 self-same hands with which he had gesticulated truths 
 divine from his university chair. 
 
 These foreign fashions reach us late. We are in our 
 Carolinian period ; but we are going one more on our 
 model. M. Caro lectured but in one place; the distin- 
 guished Hungarian professor— for he was of that nation- 
 ality—lectured in half-a-dozen. To-day you heard him 
 at the Ineffable ; to-morrow at South Kensington, where 
 the young men of the University of London were as 
 eager about him as the young women. Politian at Flor- 
 ence could hardly have had better houses. 
 
 His highest score for the record was some three lectures 
 a day. lie had lectured at Oxford; and opened there 
 with an apology to the dons for his fluency. They were 
 not to think worse of him than they could help, because 
 he happened to be able to say what was in him without a 
 stammer, or the punctuating "er" ! It was the incurable 
 
 78 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 habit of his temperament. They smiled, if only as men 
 in torture; and he gave them an hour's talk without a 
 break. 
 
 And such a talk it was ! — good racy idiomatic English, 
 with hardly a trace of accent. And on such subjects !— 
 the encyclopaedic range. Plato here ; the schoolmen there ; 
 music ; history. He would hardly have turned tail on the 
 pragmatic sanction itself. 
 
 And with all this, articles in the great reviews, and 
 volume after volume of solid German scholarship— not 
 flawless, according to carping criticism, yet still of such 
 quality that most of his detractors would have been glad 
 to have the half of his complaint. A wonderful man ! 
 
 A professor of the old school, a don, who rather de- 
 spised culture for ladies, had been asked to meet him, and 
 had come. Prue was obliged to admit that he was not 
 exactly promising for a festival of this description. He 
 was lop-sided with much learning, owing to his habit of 
 carrying his daily purchases at the second-hand book- 
 shops in a pocket of his overcoat. They were always 
 thrust into one pocket; and their weight had, in the 
 course of years, dragged down the shoulder on that side 
 in a way that excited commiseration. 
 
 "We 're all here now, I think," said Gertrude— "all 
 but Mary Lane. She '11 come in by the quarter-past — 
 punctual as usual, because always consistently behind 
 time. I 'm going to put you next to her. ' ' 
 
 "I think I shall like her," said Prue. It was only 
 another way of saying "poor me." She was cowed by 
 all this suggestion of faculty. Oh, for a "dear old stu- 
 pid, ' ' and a mate ! 
 
 "You will like her, I think, though I 'm afraid she 's 
 
 79 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 rather too bright and good for this world. She 's trying 
 to make a living out of dreamland. She sets Mr. Yeat's 
 songs to music, and sings them in a way that makes your 
 flesh creep. She used to play the music at a 'higher 
 thought centre* for twelve shillings a week, and live on 
 that and a few shillings more in most blessed content- 
 ment, in a parlour under the sky. She 's now, I believe, 
 on tour in the country with an old-fashioned interlude 
 play, which is to redeem the villagers from the dullness of 
 their lives." 
 
 "I do like her," cried Prue emphatically; "and there 
 she is at the door. ' ' 
 
 "Not a bad shot," said Gertrude, as she rose to meet 
 a girl very little older than Prue, who looked like a figure 
 out of a canvas of Prancia. 
 
 It was a beautiful face, not so much by its lines, as by 
 its air of sweet unreasonableness that was exceedingly 
 winning, by its suggestion of perfect peace, and absolute 
 indifference to consequences in the pursuit of ideals. 
 
 ' ' She looks as though she had never felt afraid, ' ' said 
 Prue. 
 
 "I think you 've hit it." 
 
 They were moving into the dining-room when Bitty 
 was missed ; and it must be confessed that he had been an 
 inordinately long time looking for the dog biscuits. 
 
 The page-boy who was sent to recover him found him 
 in the hall, watching the porter with a sort of fascination, 
 and evidently longing to approach him as a friend. The 
 porter was in one of those crises of a professional prob- 
 lem in which a man is seen at his best, or worst, accord- 
 
 80 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ing to the issue. He was at the telephone ; and the instru- 
 ment was advising him from a place in Hertfordshire to 
 the following effect: 
 
 A. To ascertain the number of a Bond Street jeweller, 
 and ask him why a brooch left for repair had not arrived, 
 as promised, by that morning's post. 
 
 B. To book-stalls for two for that evening— if possible 
 in the middle of the middle row. 
 
 C. To look out for a lady who might be expected at the 
 luncheon hour, and say that her hostess had unfortun- 
 ately missed the train; to try to transfer that lady for 
 purposes of hospitality to a common friend who might, 
 or might not, be at the club. 
 
 The porter was pondering these things with the blank 
 stare of mental concentration, when a piercing cry of 
 urgency from the speaking-tube compelled him to pass to 
 that instrument. 
 
 It was but a trifle, a request to find the domestic who 
 had been ordered to mend the fire in one of the upper 
 rooms, and to ascertain why he had neglected his task. 
 
 The porter was not beaten ; he was not even confused. 
 Had he been of those who are daunted by the difiSculty of 
 serving two masters, he would never have been in that 
 club. But unfortunately, while he was thus engaged, 
 with an instrument in either hand, the telephone began 
 to ask, in manifestly indignant protest: "Are you 
 there?" 
 
 The porter paled, and his lips opened as in the act of 
 articulation, but no sound came forth. He thought of 
 where his rude hut by the Board school lay, of his^oung 
 
 8i 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 barbarians all at play in the gutter outside ; and, so think- 
 ing, he swallowed the oath, which he meant to send by 
 another route. 
 
 Still it was not in human nature to hide every sign of 
 agitation. A cold bead slowly gathered on his brow. It 
 was only one, but it was a bead of agony. He was evi- 
 dently engaged in mental prayer for a third hand to 
 enable him to fumble for his handkerchief. 
 
 These situations confound all distinctions of class. 
 Bitty was about to say, ' ' Warm work ! ' ' when the page- 
 boy advanced with his message: "Please, sir, they 're 
 goin ' in to lunch. ' ' 
 
 The porter was left to his fate. 
 
 Their covers were laid in a recess that gave them 
 almost a room to themselves. The owner of Bitty was of 
 course the life of the gathering, keeping her end of the 
 table in a titter with stories that gave high politics the 
 interest of small-talk, and made even Renter readable. 
 It was a cheerful meal. The foreign professor capped 
 paradoxes with her, and laughed heartily at her stories. 
 The don threw their gaiety into relief with a persistent 
 scowl. 
 
 When they moved into another room for coffee, Ger- 
 trude offered Prue an introduction to the lady editor, 
 but the girl shrank back. 
 
 It was impossible, though that was the very thing for 
 which she had come. The rattling cleverness of it all 
 quite o'ercrowed her spirit. So this was a writer for the 
 press! How enter the lists against such a champion as 
 the Paris correspondent, or even in her train? Prue 
 thougfit of her poor little school-girl essays, with the 
 
 82 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 laboured bits from the books of reference about the 
 Greeks and Romans, as against the careless ease of this 
 outflow from the very fount of life, as it is lived by the 
 men and women of to-day. 
 
 It was one more glimpse of the real condition of the 
 struggle; and it gave her the same sickening sensation 
 of her own inadequacy as she had felt in the City. ' ' Some 
 other time," was all she had the courage to say. 
 
 Gertrude understood her but too well. It was her own 
 complaint. 
 
 "As you please; but mind I sha' n't let you off. You 
 are not going to be let off now. The great man lectures 
 here to-day. Would n't you like to hear him? I can't 
 go, because I 've these good people to see off the premises, 
 and a committee meeting upstairs after that. Wait for 
 me till I get that over. Mary Lane is going to the lec- 
 ture, and she '11 take care of you till I come down. Make 
 haste with your coffee; there 's no time to lose." 
 
 83 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE whole audience was at attention ; the note-books 
 were out; the pencils sharpened to a pin's point. 
 The lecture was for half-past two. It was now five-and- 
 twenty minutes to three— four-and-twenty! "He cometh 
 not, ' ' she said. She was premature : he had entered the 
 room. 
 
 No ladies' man to look at. Middle aged, solidly built, 
 solidly browed, square headed, clean shaven but for the 
 wisp of dark moustache. A conceivable Teutonic bursch 
 who had taken his turn verein prizes, fought his duel, 
 and clinked his cannakin with the best, in the intervals 
 of labours by the midnight oil that might burn the eye- 
 sight out of a man at twenty-five. He had evidently sur- 
 vived that danger by a score of years. 
 
 Not a moment was wasted in preliminaries; or only 
 one, what time he laid his watch on the desk. It was sug- 
 gestive. Other audiences no doubt awaited him in other 
 parts. The way we live now ! 
 
 The Carolines settled down to attention; the light 
 dying out of their faces, lest so much as a smile should 
 break the thread of his high argument. And then a solid 
 hour of it — for he gave good measure— with Plato for a 
 text, and, for illustrations, anything apposite that hap- 
 pened to-day, yesterday, two thousand years ago. 
 
 On a passage of the Republic treating of government 
 
 84 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 by sages (the fewer the better), he quoted a Disraelian 
 novel to show that, with all our conceit of popular insti- 
 tutions, England has ever been at the heel of a few great 
 families when she thought she was walking at her own 
 sweet will. Chatham built up her empire ; Pitt held tight 
 to what was left, while the Parliament with its bauble 
 and babble, was but his rattle for the crowd. The magic 
 of it, for these particular hearers, was that of a fantasia 
 on to-day, yesterday, and to-morrow into which anything 
 might come, even his antipathies — or especially. These 
 were strong : Huxley, Spencer, Wagner, were but a few 
 of them. 
 
 The Americans were but one more : their whole corpor- 
 ate life, as it stood in the estimate, but a colossal game of 
 bluff! An overrated people, only waiting to be 
 found out in a cataclysm! The hunt was up, 
 whenever a Gibson girl or a Gibson man crossed 
 his path of thought. Some ladies of this nation- 
 ality were among the audience. They took it all 
 in good part. They had been known to whisper that he 
 must have been badly treated by their mothers in his 
 salad days. People should be more careful ; think of the 
 fearful power of reprisal when the victim happens to rise 
 to a professorial chair ! 
 
 And, after all, who cares whether it was exactly so or 
 not? It was first-class sport. He professed no great 
 regard for lecturing as a teaching process. It was but 
 a stimulant, an appetiser— it might have annoyed him to 
 say a cocktail— for the solids of the feast. 
 
 He knew the sex, and ruled them on the Byronic 
 method— "first pique, then soothe by turns." If they 
 
 85 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 expected mere dry erudition, or flowery compliment, they 
 had come to the wrong shop. 
 
 Yet latent rebellion put forth a flash at question-time. 
 When the lecture was over, his hearers were at liberty to 
 ask for further particulars on knotty points. Some were 
 not above the temptation to floor their revered teacher 
 by the Socratic method. It may be enough to say that, 
 with all their suppleness, he was not usually the one 
 floored. A few had evidently hoped to put up a fight, 
 by urging the don to the lists, but he declined with a 
 growl. 
 
 The lecturer had no time for the insolence of triumph, 
 the cab — why not a motor — awaited him at the door for 
 another lecture, another article for the reviews, another 
 chapter of another book. It was the professor a la mode, 
 chatty, discursive, emotional, paradoxical— everything 
 but dull. So, while men are shaping women, women 
 shape men. 
 
 Prue was dazed and dispirited. There was nothing 
 here for her. What place in any sort of life of letters 
 could she hope to find, among all these craftsmen of the 
 pen and of the spoken word? She was a strange com- 
 pound of the terror of facing life, and a certain readiness 
 to take a beating which, without her knowing it, might 
 yet save her in the last resort. Hitherto she had done lit- 
 tle but come up for punishment— and that worst of all— 
 the punishment of her own fears. But there was always 
 the hope that the luck might change. 
 
 Even her talk with Mary Lane at luncheon had not 
 come to much. Mary had picked her own way through 
 
 86 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 the meal, with an air of extreme detachment of mind 
 from the viands when they came to her elbow. She 
 feasted, like the heroes of the Iliad, only to put away 
 from her a desire of meat and drink, which, to her, at 
 least, was something of an impertinence. 
 
 She had listened with great intentness to every word 
 of the lecture — not, however, without an occasional shrug 
 of the shoulders. But when it was over, and they went 
 into the drawing-room to wait for their hostess, she 
 seemed to warm into her real self. 
 
 In this light she took Prue's fancy as a sort of holy 
 woman of Scripture, lost in our century, and in our 
 world. She was evidently one of that rare but real band 
 who are wholly devoted to the things of the spirit, and 
 who regard them as the only realities — delightfully un- 
 practical persons, most refreshing in a society which is 
 so perfectly well aware of what it is about. 
 
 With all this — and that was the charm of it— she evi- 
 dently regarded herself as the most business-like person 
 in the world. It came out that she had once kept a kind of 
 shop in a poor neighbourhood, for the commerce of fine 
 thoughts and fine emotions, in the firm persuasion that 
 nothing would be easier than to live by it, in the measure 
 of her simple wants. She had taught the children how 
 to romp with the sense of art and taste, and transform 
 to their imagination the dismal asphalt of the models into 
 playing fields. She had held them spellbound with stories 
 in class, told to music where the music happened to be 
 better than words. She was quite proud of having made 
 them or their mothers pay for her services— a halfpenny 
 
 87 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 a week; a farthing on taking a quantity; and only for 
 nothing when she was quite sure there was nothing to 
 spare. 
 
 "I want you to understand I was doing it for a living, 
 not for charity. I had enough of that when I used to 
 unpack the old second-hand coats that came to my dear 
 old father, the curate, from a public fund. I went forth 
 to try to help him; what else could I do? But I was 
 lucky in being able to try only by doing beautiful things. 
 Life is not all chandler 's shop. ' ' 
 
 "But how did it pay, after all?" 
 
 "Splendidly till I caught the fever. I 'm going to 
 begin again this winter ; but I 've been so busy with my 
 interlude play." 
 
 "Tell me about that." 
 
 "Well, you know, I 'm taking it through the villages, 
 and in a van for cheapness. It is so much sweeter than 
 the railways ; and we can always get lodgings in the cot- 
 tages. I love my villagers— what country parson's 
 daughter does not ? I 've three girls to help me. Emma 
 Marsh— 'the Pearl,' the name of the title part ; May Hol- 
 royd— the 'Peasant Father' (not a heavy one, I hope) ; 
 Mary Francis-' Chorus Angel.' Your humble servant 
 is stage-manager, orchestra, and maid-of-all-work. 
 That 's our stock company. May has had to go home to 
 look after her mother, and I 've come up to find someone 
 to take her place. ' ' 
 
 "Au-thor!" laughed Prue, as though joining in a call. 
 
 "I 'm author," said Mary, with modest pride. "No, 
 no, I 'm not, though ; I 'm only adapter. I found what 
 I wanted in an odd volume of the Early English Text 
 
 88 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Society, a story poem, written nigh five hundred years ago 
 by a great unknown who died without leaving so much 
 as a card for posterity with his name. It was so lovely 
 that I just rigged it up into scenes. ' ' 
 
 There was something quite hypnotising in her quiet 
 self-confidence. 
 
 "It 's going to be a great success, ' ' cried Prue enthu- 
 siastically. ' ' I know it is, I feel it. ' ' 
 
 "It is a success. Sometimes I make thirty shillings a 
 week, and can send something home. That leaves plenty 
 to keep body and soul together. ' ' 
 
 "What 's the charge at the doors?" 
 
 She laughed outright. 
 
 "Half the time there are no doors. On clear summer 
 nights we stage it in the open. No, no ; the play 's the 
 thing. I want the village people to see it, and how are 
 they ever to see anything of that sort, if they wait for the 
 touring companies ? The leavings of the agent in advance 
 are good enough for me." 
 
 "Playing in the open," murmured Prue, "like a 
 rehearsal of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' A dream 
 of a dream. Oh, how perfect ! Don't say anything more 
 just yet." 
 
 "Not even about the charge at the doors?" 
 
 "Be quiet, please!" 
 
 "Yes; but pray don't imagine I forget things of that 
 sort. I 'm the last in the world, I assure you. We always 
 send the hat round ; " and she pointed to a pouch at her 
 girdle. "They give what they like. I 've cut down 
 expenses as low as I can, so they don't have to give much. 
 Sometimes it is an offering in kind; as often as not, a 
 
 89 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 dish of apples, a basket of eggs. Then, when we 've paid 
 all outgoings, we share and share alike, I and my three 
 girls. That 's ' treasury. ' Hurrah for the road ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' Yes ; but when you must take a hall ? ' ' 
 
 It was so captivating that Prue thought she had better 
 put off the hour of full surrender by still looking for a 
 flaw. 
 
 "A barn you mean, or a schoolroom. We can always 
 get that on loan. You can't think what a lot of lending 
 goes on when you start in the right sort of way. The 
 villagers do all the supers' parts for nothing, and are 
 happy to do them — here and there a speaking part too, 
 when we 've time to coach them a bit. ' ' 
 
 "You 've forgotten the dresses." 
 
 "I don't think so. You should see our wardrobe. We 
 work at it when we 're on the road." 
 
 "Thespis and his cart?" 
 
 "No; only old Ober Ammergau in its age of inno- 
 cence. ' ' 
 
 "The scenery? You said yourself it was n't all out- 
 doors. ' ' 
 
 "A screen to hide the actors who are off duty from the 
 actors who are on. " 
 
 " I 'm thinking of the audience— the illusion. ' ' 
 
 "So am I. The less in that line they have done for 
 them, the more they do for themselves. ' Thus with imag- 
 ined wing our swift scene flies'— why this abject reli- 
 ance on the stage carpenters ? Look at the child with its 
 doll. A bundle of rags and a stick will beat all the waxen 
 and flaxen felicities of the toy-shops. As a matter of fact, 
 Macbeth was never so flourishing as when he appeared in 
 
 90 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 knee-breeches. To this day the Comedie FranQaise finds 
 an arm-chair and a couple of pillows enough for one of 
 the greatest scenes in Moliere. ' ' 
 
 Prue was silent; so was Mary for a while. It was "a 
 penny for your thoughts" with either of them. Both 
 had the precious gift of reverie. Mary sat as one looking 
 at some far-off things. Then she murmured : 
 
 "If you must have realism, why not try nature? At 
 Sherwood we gave the whole scene of the Nativity in a 
 glade of the forest, with the Magi of the village choir 
 picking their way by the light of the moon in a cloudless 
 heaven, and of a bright, particular star that happened 
 to be on service for the night. Oh, the beauty of it— the 
 beauty! The words came like whispers of the purest 
 poetry from the very heart of things. ' ' 
 
 Prue's pulse beat fast. Could this be the thing she was 
 looking for — a way of living that was also a path of art, 
 with all the delicious excitements of life on the road ? At 
 any rate, there was room for a great hope. Amid all 
 these people so coldly clever, so repellently sure of them- 
 selves, had she not found a friend? 
 
 Gertrude came in and broke the spell. 
 
 "You poor things, you must be famished. Come and 
 have a cup of tea. ' ' 
 
 She led the way to a large room which was not as other 
 rooms of other clubs. The waiters — all men here — had 
 the air of courtiers; the muffin and tea-cakes were rites 
 in their pomp of service. There was an orchestra — most 
 
 91 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of its members mighty pretty fellows, and well aware of 
 it. Soft airs floated on a breeze perfumed by the pocket- 
 handkerchiefs, no footfall on the heavy carpet contend- 
 ing with them for the mastery. So, according to the best 
 authorities, things are done in Paradise. It was many 
 stages nearer the stars than the fogeydom of Pall Mall. 
 If there was anything left to desire (yet who could want 
 it, in such a place and with such a programme?), it was 
 but a corner for a nap. 
 
 Prue was ready for any desperate venture, under the 
 sense of isolation and nothingness in which she had been 
 left by the earlier experiences of the day. She kissed 
 Mary Lane at parting, and whispered: "May I fill Miss 
 Holroyd's place?" 
 
 She hurried home to tell the dog about it. He did not 
 take it in good part. 
 
 "I 'm disgusted with you. I shall have to find a billet 
 in a Punch and Judy show, before you 've done. ' ' 
 
 She was prepared for the objection, and appeased him 
 with rock cakes bought on the way. 
 
 92 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE village schoolroom was crowded with men, wo- 
 men, and children, except where at three-parts of 
 its length a red cord drawn from side to side marked the 
 mystery-land of the stage. Beyond this was the school 
 piano. The curtain hung from one of the rafters, and 
 stretched three-parts of the way across. A couple of 
 screens — one borrowed from the schoolmaster, the other 
 from the parsonage — sealed the gaps to public curiosity. 
 
 The arrangement of the audience was not so much by 
 wealth and social importance as by inches of altitude. 
 The children sat in front, on the lowest forms; the 
 mothers who looked after them, in the next rows ; the big- 
 ger boys, and the men capable of cuffing them at need, 
 in the rear. The paraffin lamps shed a cheerful glow 
 until Mary Lane came in as an old man, and obscured, 
 without extinguishing them, by means of a kind of tin 
 cosy made for the purpose. Then the talk sank to a mur- 
 mur, and the murmur to a hush, when Mary, re-entering 
 as orchestra, took her place at the piano for the overture. 
 
 It was the divine score of Gliick in the Orf eo, the finest 
 expression of the emotions of love and yearning, meeting 
 and parting, in the whole range of musical literature, the 
 sublimation of the purest passion of sorrow and of joy. 
 It is impossible to go beyond this. To listen to it is to 
 
 93 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 feel that music is the only one of our arts that conde- 
 scends to earth, instead of merely aspiring to the skies. 
 
 The strain ceased; a bell tinkled in the perfect still- 
 ness; the curtain rose. 
 
 "Oh!" from various parts of the house, particularly 
 from the stalls. The rest was silence, in obedience to a 
 second summons of the bell. 
 
 The house was dark, but the stage was illuminated by 
 three lamps for footlights, and as many others hanging 
 from the roof. Other wings, in the shape of other 
 screens, came in view. At the back all was closed in by 
 the large map of the world, and by the lithographs of 
 birds, beasts and fishes, with their faces turned to the 
 wall. 
 
 Scene : a mound of turf in the foreground, with a rus- 
 tic in mediaeval garb stretched thereon as in sleep — Prue, 
 her first appearance on any stage, masquerading as a man 
 of the period of doublet and hose. Only the shape was 
 to be seen, the face being shrouded by the hood of a long 
 cloak. For the rest of the scenery, no more than a broad 
 band of cloth of silver drawn obliquely across the stage. 
 
 Enter a winged Angel, as Chorus, Mary Francis, a 
 youthful figure that might have walked straight out of 
 Botticell i 's " Assumption, ' ' by kind permission of the Direc- 
 tor of the National Gallery— a harmony as to costume 
 and hair, in pale blue and gold, with a star on the breast, 
 and a mere suggestion of plumes of black and crimson at 
 the shoulders, as she stands facing the audience. 
 
 She takes her place at a spot near the footlights, with 
 her feet drawn close together, and displays a scrap of 
 embroidery inscribed ' ' The Pearl. ' ' 
 
 94 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The Angel speaks — in recitative— 
 
 "Good people, our play is the play of a father's grief 
 at the loss of his little daughter. It was first written as a 
 piece of poetry, in the "West Midland speech of our 
 fathers, about five hundred years ago. The writer did his 
 work, and went his way, leaving his very name unknown. 
 The poem was on the same road to oblivion, till a scholar, 
 one Richard Morris, saved it for all the millions of Eng- 
 lish-speaking people for all time. Mary Lane has now 
 made a kind of play of it, in the hope of giving pleasure 
 to our English village-folk. 
 
 "In. the high season of August the father visits the 
 grave of his 'precious pearl without price,' wrings his 
 hands for sorrow, and falls asleep upon its bed of flowers. 
 Now to see how it fared with him in his dreams." 
 
 The curtain falls. 
 
 It rises again on the same scene, but with the stage in 
 half light, and with the mourner, or, at any rate, the 
 cloak that does duty for him, still lying by the grave. 
 Then there enters a sort of other self of him (Prue appar- 
 elled in misty grey), which represents his action in the 
 dream. 
 
 The Angel speaks— 
 
 "His body lies upon the grave, his ghost is gone in 
 God-es grace to a strange land. 
 
 "Where the rocks and cliffs gleam glorious. 
 The hill-sides are of crystal. 
 
 95 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The leaves of the trees are as burnished silver. 
 
 The gravel is of orient pearl. 
 
 The birds are of all hues of beauty. 
 
 He hears their sweet melody. 
 
 What tongue shall tell the beauty of their forest 
 
 home? 
 All shines like gold. 
 He is at the bank of a river. 
 It gives forth sweet sounds. 
 Its stones glitter like stars on a winter night. 
 He follows the stream. 
 Sure Paradise lies beyond. ' ' 
 
 The figure advances slowly, as in blissful trance. Then 
 it pauses at the streak of cloth of silver — a thing of 
 earthy texture no longer, for any of us, but a glittering 
 stream in the open, as the end of the schoolroom is a land- 
 scape of Paradise. The poet is his own scene-painter; 
 and it serves. 
 
 But he may not pass the river. He tries it with his staff 
 in all directions. There is no ford. 
 
 The curtain falls. 
 
 It rises on a darkened stage, with a "crystal cliff" at 
 the far end (a cloth draped over a couple of chairs), at 
 the foot of which sits a maiden — Emma Marsh, a harmony 
 of white and rose, white and pearl— the last as to the cos- 
 tume. This is our nearest approach to the "Royal 
 array "of the poem — a robe of muslin all glistening under 
 the beam of a strong light from the wing, which is the 
 modest secret of the management. 
 
 The music sounds again. This time it is the Balletti of 
 
 96 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 tke same celestial score, where Eurydice appears, a vision 
 of glory in Elysium. Who shall render, in any terms but 
 its own, its soaring raptures, the intensity of significance 
 in its message of the higher destinies of the soul? 
 
 It is enough for all of us, it is almost too much; 
 hearken only to the sighs of wonder and measureless con- 
 tent. 
 
 The Angel speaks — 
 
 ' ' He knows that he has seen her before. 
 He would call her, but is afraid. 
 She lifts up her face, 'white as ivory.' 
 He stands still, 'like a well-trained hawk.' 
 He fears lest she escape ere he speak with her. 
 She moves along the stream towards him. 
 Her kirtle is decked with precious stones. 
 She wears a crown of the same. 
 Her hair hangs down about her : it shines as gold. 
 A wonderful pearl is set in her breast. 
 She salutes him. 
 'No man from here to Greece is so glad.' " 
 
 The Father speafcs— turning to the vision, all trembling 
 lest he lose it by breaking the silence— 
 "Oh, Pearl adorned with pearls, art thou my Pearl 
 that I have plained? What fate hath brought my jewel 
 hither, and wrought my woe, for since we two were 
 parted, joyless have I been. ' ' 
 
 The Maiden— 
 
 "Thy Pearl is not lost. It is in that gracious garden 
 where no sin cometh." 
 
 97 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The Father— 
 
 ' ' I thank the Lord that hath brought me near my blisse. 
 Now will I pass the river. ' ' 
 
 The Maiden— 
 
 "Thou errest in thinking I can be with thee. Death 
 alone can bring thee over this water." 
 
 The Father— 
 
 "Dost thou doom me to sorrow again? If I lose thee, 
 I care not what befall. ' ' 
 
 The Maiden— 
 
 "Suffer patiently. Cease to strive. Abide God-es 
 doom. All lieth in his hand. ' ' 
 
 The Father— 
 
 ' ' Rebuke me never with fell words. Lend me thy com- 
 fort." 
 
 A sob from one of the women. A whisper among the 
 audience : " Et 's Mrs. Truby now ; see if it ain 't ! " A 
 nudge from a man with downcast head, sitting by the 
 woman. Silence again. 
 
 The Maiden— 
 
 " 'A blissful life thou says I lead. 
 Thou wouldest know thereof the stage 
 My Lord, the Lamb, through his Godhede 
 He took myself to his mariage.' " 
 
 98 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The Father— 
 
 ' ' Thou wert so young. What couldest thou have done 
 to please God?" 
 
 The Maiden — 
 
 " It is God-es goodness ; no merit of mine. The lord of 
 the vineyard hired workmen for a penny a day. At noon 
 he hired other men in the market-place. At one hour 
 before the sun went down, he saw more men standing idle. 
 When the sun went down, the reeve was told to pay the 
 workmen. To give each a penny. One began to complain 
 as having travailed more. The lord said he had according 
 to his due and his need. What more would he have ? ' ' 
 
 The Father— 
 
 "Methink thy tale unreasonable." 
 
 The Maiden— 
 
 "In heaven each is paid alike. God is no niggard. 
 None can have less bliss than another." 
 
 The Father— 
 
 "I am but dust and ashes. Bring me to that blissful 
 bower, thy dwelling-place." 
 
 The curtain falls. 
 
 There was an interval; and the audience began to 
 prattle. The women came to console Mrs. Truby, and she 
 accepted consolation. Her mate sat quite grim and silent, 
 
 99 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 his head bowed a little lower than before, under the sense 
 of his nothingness. He had the sickening air of suifer- 
 anee, of some animal cornered, and bearing blows. 
 
 The doctrine of the parable was evidently a trouble to 
 most of them— the penny paid to all the labourers, the 
 new-comers as well as to those who had borne the burden 
 of the day. The village cobbler was for making it a 
 demonstration in political economy, but he was afraid to 
 raise his voice. It is a hard saying, no doubt, ' ' from each 
 according to his powers ; to each according to his needs ' ' ; 
 but one day it will appear in fire in the skies, and then 
 our old society will dissolve to a new birth of faith and 
 love. Meanwhile it is but the pons asinorum of the higher 
 truth, a modest function indeed compared with its glories 
 to come. 
 
 The curtain rises— the Angel speaks — 
 
 The father enters again. He presses forward eagerly 
 till he is stopped by the silver thread of the stream. 
 "Yet may he see what lies beyond. 
 As St. John saw it, so seeth he, 
 The city is of burnished gold. 
 Pitched upon gems— jasper, sapphire, chalced- 
 ony, emerald, sardonix, ruby, chrysolite, 
 beryl, topaz, chrysophrase, jacinth, amethyst." 
 
 There was a great stir in the audience. Their Sunday 
 reading had taught them to revel in the effects of this 
 Hatton Garden heaven. It was, no doubt, but the anthro- 
 pomorphiat there is in all of us doing his best in the terms 
 of his experience. His limitations were none the less 
 
 lOO 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 regrettable. As the catalogue rolled off the angel's 
 tongue, a few began to try to realize its glories by think- 
 ing of the great ball-room at the hall, with company 
 assembled to meet the Lord-Lieutenant of the county. 
 
 Luckily, the music came to the rescue. A procession 
 of girls (three marking the extreme limit of the resources 
 of the management, and of these one borrowed from the 
 village), passed across the stage, "singing a holy song." 
 And as that song rose, high and clear, the mere ball-room 
 heaven dissolved into the New Jerusalem, with the whole 
 white-robed choir innumerable entering its gates, and 
 raising their canticles of rapture to its throne. 
 
 The Angel speaks — 
 
 "The beholder of this fair city stands 'still as a dazed 
 quail, ' in the moonlight. 
 
 "Alder men (older men) fall prostrate." (Alas! we 
 have none in the cast.) 
 
 The father, seeing his little queen, stretches forth his 
 arms in longing, and once more essays the stream. He 
 may not cross ; and he sinks upon the grave. 
 
 Then Mary, with her head thrown back, and her eyes 
 closed, for she knew the whole composition without book, 
 played one of the sublime choruses of shepherds and 
 nymphs, in which the anguish of parting is transmuted 
 into the joy of all generous and exalted emotion by the 
 magical insight of art. 
 
 The Angel speaks — 
 "The dreamer has learnt his lesson. 
 lOI 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Men desire more than they have any right to expect. 
 God give us grace to be his servants. ' ' 
 
 The curtain falls. 
 
 And so home, much as their fathers may have gone 
 before them, five hundred years ago, with talk and to 
 spare for present needs, and store of it for the winter fire. 
 
 The point is that this handful of girls, with the sim- 
 plest of "dresses and appointments," with only such 
 music as may be brought to every village in the land, have 
 held an audience of English rustics spell-bound by means 
 of mere nature working in a medium of the perfect sim- 
 plicity of great art. Beside their mechanical resources, 
 the lowest music hall, the commonest gaff in the land, is 
 as great a wonder of scenic contrivance as it is of the 
 brutalisation of English taste. 
 
 I02 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "lyyTESTER" Truby came in next morning bearing gifts, 
 Jj/A. as from his wife— a small basket of flowers packed 
 under a cool leaf. He laid it in Prue 's hands as those of 
 the father in the cast, smiling as he looked at her, and 
 complimenting her on having grown in the night. It 
 was his way of saying that she seemed bigger as a woman 
 than as a man. He took his leave with the few simple 
 words that were necessary, and without any allusion to 
 his deeper interest in the performance. He had lately 
 lost an only child, a girl, of about the same age as the one 
 in the play. 
 
 The little caravan was soon on the road again for town. 
 In October Mary Lane's season would come to an end. 
 She was to put up for a time at a Tolstoi settlement in the 
 south of England, where a handful of ladies, one or two 
 of them the spoiled children of fashion, were, in despera- 
 tion, trying to realize the simple life by doing their own 
 house work and taking care of waifs from the slums. The 
 route march was for that point. The players gave per- 
 formances on the way to crowded houses — sometimes with 
 Spagley as shepherd's dog in the interlude. He had been 
 sent for, by special request, in the middle of the tour, and 
 had generally conducted himself to the satisfaction of his 
 owner and employer. On one occasion, however, he made 
 an unauthorized appearance on the stage, with a stray 
 stocking in his mouth, in the midst of a moving scene. 
 
 103 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 So it was broad England generally from north to south 
 as they sped along, with some new aspect of nature every 
 day. It was beauty of dreamland everywhere for the 
 town-bred girl— beauty of old highways, old villages, here 
 and there of old towns, and with it peace. The country 
 was lovely still in the orderly succession of its sights and 
 sounds. The wrens sang and the birds began to make 
 friends with man betimes by friendly visits to the garden 
 patches. The swallows vanished, but the woodlark, the 
 blackbird and thrush were in full cry, and the young 
 birds generally in full practice, still under tuition, though 
 one might hardly guess it from their self-sufficient air. 
 The mid-spaces of earth and sky were flecked with the 
 flocking lark, the roads with the tramp — one just as 
 much a piece of the natural history of the country as the 
 other. The larks were all that they professed to be; so 
 was one of the tramps in being a real "unemployed." He 
 was a carpenter from one of the great towns, on his way 
 to the capital to look for a job. He wore his apron round 
 his waist for warmth ; carried his tools at his back ; and 
 stepped out bravely, in his desperation, to join the four- 
 teen thousand men of his trade out of work in London, by 
 reason of the substitution of iron for wood in his branch 
 of the building trade. 
 
 And on their way Mary called at the last lavender farm 
 left in England, to renew her stock of the dried flower 
 and the distilled water for winter use. It was all home- 
 made by a gentlewoman in whose family the industry had 
 been for generations, and who was the last of her line. 
 
 It was October in Prue's heart, when she entered the 
 solitary home ini London in the waning light, with Spag 
 at her heels. The place was as neat as when she left it, 
 
 104 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 for Sarah had looked in from time to time, and, duly noti- 
 fied in advance, had been there in the early morning. But 
 perhaps all that only made matters worse. The sense of 
 desolation was accentuated by the gloom and the autumn 
 chill, by the little pile of rubbish in handbills and circu- 
 lars which had not been worth forwarding, and, above all, 
 by reaction from the state of exalted feeling in which she 
 had lately lived. It was a sordid world again, common 
 and low, with never a seraph in sight. 
 
 She was going to seek a sort of outdoor relief of the 
 spirit in cuflSng her companion, kissing him for pardon, 
 and then having a good cry, when her eye fell on a letter 
 suspended from the mantel-piece by a thread, evidently 
 to attract immediate attention. Its fancy notepaper bore 
 a stamped address that Prue had never heard of before, 
 and it ran in this way : 
 
 "Miss Ruskill will be glad to have the pleasure of Miss 
 Meryon's company at tea at above this evenin' at 'arf 
 after five. No answer requered, but please come. Fare 
 tuppence by the yellow tram from Grazin' Road, stop- 
 ping at the Bull and Gate, and then two minet's walk. 
 Company. 
 
 "P. fi'.— Also the dawg, if in town." 
 
 It explained many a dark hint of Sarah as to a coming 
 event of importance; and Prue, with her running foot- 
 man in attendance at the tail of the car, was soon on her 
 way. 
 
 Sabah's tea party was not so much an entertainment as 
 an act of dedication. During all her years of hard work, 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 she had been secretly building a temple. It was finished 
 at last, and now she wanted her little world to come and 
 see. 
 
 Sarah lived in one room in a slum, but she devoted all 
 her spare money, and all her spare time, to the decoration 
 of a supplementary lodging in a better quarter. This 
 was reserved for future use as the 'ome of her dreams, 
 and was the scene of the present rite. Every penny she 
 could save was given to the furnishing of it. The carpets 
 were of the brightest known to the hire and purchase-sys- 
 tem ; antimacassars were not wanting ; the pictures were 
 framed in inevitable plush. It was an expensive luxury. 
 One room had gradually grown to two under the tempta- 
 tion of a cottage piano and of a new and irresistible suite 
 in saddle-bags. And now there it was at last, perfect, a 
 palace and a shrine, a place of rest to be happy in, at 
 every moment that could be spared for the inward con- 
 templation of the joy of being. 
 
 Sarah had no sense of sex grievance, absolutely none of 
 political grievance : all she wanted was personal indepen- 
 dence, and this 'ome was the expression of it. She had 
 never broken bread in it, or closed an eye. When she had 
 realized the sense of possession to the full, in long, dreamy 
 hours, she locked the door, and went away— to fly back 
 again on the first opportunity, as a lover to his mistress, 
 a mother to her babe— "Mine !" 
 
 For this, she had toiled for six solid years, saving as 
 the coral insect builds, and paying off, amid many dis- 
 couragements, and some narrow escapes of ruin. The 
 more or less fanciful campaigns in the literature of self- 
 help are really nothing beside the realities of heroic self- 
 denial in some unrecorded lives. 
 
 io6 
 
Ring" in the New 
 
 She welcomed her guest warmly, though with constraint. 
 The part of hostess was evidently one that gave her con- 
 siderable difficulty, and it could hardly be said to have 
 received an exhaustive interpretation by her persistent 
 refusal to sit down. The gathering was a sort of review of 
 her customers present or past. Prue recognised most of 
 them from well-remembered verbal sketches. A little old 
 lady seated on the sofa was— the girl thought, perhaps 
 the most perfect achievement of neatness ever seen. This 
 was indubitably the "champion" employee from the Post 
 Office who had never missed a day's attendance for a 
 quarter of a century. She seemed to have been saving up 
 her ailments and to be looking forward to a long and com- 
 fortable illness, to begin on the very day of her retirement 
 from the service. 
 
 Sarah clearly felt that there was something incomplete 
 in her own mere refusal to take a chair, but she was still 
 at a loss. Her sense of the duties of hospitality fitfully 
 dictated other courses. As each guest entered the room, 
 she pointed to a plate of oranges, and said simply : ' ' 'Ave 
 one!" When this was declined, she turned to the open 
 piano, glistening with cleanliness, and urged each to 
 "play a tune." She had a quantity of music at hand 
 which had really been taken over from a customer in lieu 
 of wages, one stray sheet of it bearing the title, "Rosy 
 Cheeks Mazurka, ' ' a fair sample of the rest. 
 
 Nobody, of course, would display musical gifts at such 
 exceedingly short range of invitation, as nobody would 
 eat fruit. Poor Sarah looked disconcerted, and Prue, see- 
 ing it, sat down, and began one of Chopin's nocturnes. 
 When it was over, Sarah murmured with difficulty: 
 ' ' Ancore. Give us another, miss, ' ' and laid on the instru- 
 
 107 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ment a piece from her own collection called, "My Bright- 
 eyed Sweet Elaine." 
 
 She was happier now. The piano was in use, the music 
 was in use, with the carpet and the saddle-bag suite, while 
 one of her guests looked at an engraving representing the 
 signing of Magna Charta, and another toyed with a work 
 of fiction entitled ' ' Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia, ' ' 
 bound in red-and-gold. It was the sanctification of usage : 
 the 'ome was real at last. 
 
 Prue turned from the piano to find the company 
 assembled. She took a chair beside the young person who 
 had been looking at the book ; only to feel sorry, a moment 
 after, that for once she had taken the course that lay near- 
 est to her. The young person was not exactly reassuring. 
 Her entire costume was a gaud rather than a thing for 
 use. It seemed to have been composed from a close study 
 of the gospels of fashion in the popular press, with a lib- 
 eral exercise of the right of private judgment, in regard 
 to bargains at the suburban sales. Her hat was rather an 
 awning than a covering for the head. You could have 
 sheltered chickens under it from the rain. Its shade was 
 luminous, and robbed the vermilion of her cheek of 
 barely half a tint. Her eyebrows were things of purpose. 
 She was not ill-looking, but she seemed to want perspec- 
 tive for her proper effect. ■ 
 
 Sarah introduced her — with needless emphasis on a 
 vowel— as "Miss Eva St. Galmier, a purf essional. " 
 
 Prue recognised her from previous descriptions. She 
 was a singer at one of those minor music halls of the 
 workingmen's clubs utterly unknown to the general 
 
 io8 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 public, and a world within the world of stupendous 
 London. 
 
 Her foreign name was quite delusive in its suggestion 
 of ignorance of our tongue. She spoke this with a rat- 
 tling metallic fluency, as of coins pouring from a banker 's 
 shovel; and every utterance seemed an exercise in the 
 "patter" of her craft. In this medium, she contrived, in 
 the course of the first five minutes to inform her new 
 acquaintance that "pa was such a gentleman," and that 
 her brother (neither of them present) was a young man 
 about town — presumptively the Kentish quarter of that 
 extensive region. 
 
 "Glad to meet you, miss, and your dear old dog. 
 Seems like meeting old friends." 
 
 Prue winced, and glanced rather angrily at her hostess. 
 Evidently the system of the fractional maid-of-all-work 
 was no unmixed blessing. There might be leakage even in 
 Sarah's taciturnity. 
 
 She muttered her acknowledgments, and took up 
 another book — this time in blue-and-gold. 
 
 But Miss St. Galmier was not to be put off so. She was 
 distinctly clinging. Young persons with that build of 
 headgear, and that shade of vermilion, are apt to be so 
 when they find one of their own sex who may give them 
 countenance in difficult conjunctures. The most frivolous 
 woman is rarely without a dean's wife in reserve. These 
 things are to scale; and Miss St. Galmier, who was a 
 tactician in her way, was ruled by the law of the case. 
 
 ' ' You should see my brother Reginald 's dog, ' ' resumed 
 Miss St. Galmier. "My pa used to say—" 
 
 109 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 But here Prue managed to give her the slip, as Sarah 
 advanced with another young woman immediately recog- 
 nisable as Sarah's customer from America. 
 
 It was not wholly by the dress. Laura Belton had 
 lived long enough in England to make occasional default 
 of the national note. The heels of her shoes— or, to put it 
 more genteelly, of her footwear — were fast losing the 
 sense of aspiration. Yet, here and there, Prue's quick 
 eye caught points that were not of this hemisphere. The 
 faultless gloves, the lawn about her shoulders thrown, or 
 its equivalent in feather 'stole, the few bits of ornament — 
 merely parts of a composition without any pretence to an 
 independent life of their own — were all of this order. So 
 was the manner— at once alert and reposeful, and with a 
 self-assurance that was but good sense taking itself for 
 better or for worse. The charm of mere line and contour 
 was well enough, but the real appeal lay in the expression 
 of a mind at ease, and quite seriously bracing in its 
 effect on the beholder. 
 
 Only another work-girl, no doubt— but lucky the people 
 with the patent rights of that type if also alas ! of the 
 other of "The Long Day." 
 
 "It 's the jim engraver what I told yer about," said 
 Sarah; and she left it there, and the pair alone. 
 
 "She won't part with her 'jim,' " said Laura, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "No; I 'm afraid it 's a hopeless case." 
 
 ' ' She 's a pearl, for all that. What I owe her in peace 
 of mind ! But there : it would only spoil her ; she must 
 never know." 
 
 "A pearl with a good many owners," said Prue. 
 
 I lO 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The other way on, I fancy ; a tyrant with a good many 
 slaves. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Yes ; she '11 do anything, if you '11 only mind what 
 she tells you. ' ' 
 
 "Beg pardon, but ought n't it to be what she 's 'a-tell- 
 in' of yer'?" said Laura, with a twinkle of her eye. 
 
 ' ' The better reading, certainly. ' ' 
 
 "I never resist; and live in clover. Her virtues of 
 omission are just as conspicuous as the others. She even 
 allows me to clean my own tools. ' ' 
 
 "What beautiful, delicate little things they must be," 
 said Prue, in the hope of getting her to talk about her- 
 self and her art. 
 
 She might have succeeded ; but just then Sarah ush- 
 ered in a new guest — a man. 
 
 ' ' Who 's he, I wonder ? ' ' said Prue. ' ' I thought it was 
 to be a— a—" 
 
 ' ' Caucus of women ? ' ' suggested the other. 
 
 "Well, yes?" 
 
 " Can 't you guess ? The editor oiThe Branding Iron. ' ' 
 
 III 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 IMPOSSIBLE," said Prue. 
 "Why?" 
 
 "He looks such a— 'nother sort of person." 
 
 "Is n't that constantly happening? Now to me, he 
 seems exactly like that sort of person. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I don 't quite understand. ' ' 
 
 "Well the sort that wants something in life, and won't 
 take no for an answer." 
 
 He was not a day older than five-and-twenty, and had 
 the average good looks of his age. The French call them 
 the beauty of the devil, meaning that most of us have a 
 chance of perdition once in our lives. 
 
 They were the looks of health and faculty, Prue had to 
 own as much to herself, in spite of her prepossession 
 against him on account of his journalistic style. He was 
 of middle height, had dark hair that curled with its own 
 wiry strength, was clean shaven, and very neatly dressed. 
 But this was nothing out of the way, except as a correc- 
 tive of her first impression. The main point was the air 
 of purpose that brought the whole personality together 
 in one dominant note. 
 
 '' I 've never met him before, ' ' she said, more in solilo- 
 quy than in answer to Laura. 
 
 "Nor I ; but I 've read The Branding Iron." 
 
 112 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Too much slum and slang to my taste. Who wants 
 to know about— ? ' ' 
 
 "I think he '11 get there," said Laura briefly, and she 
 moved away as Sarah brought the new-comer up to Prue. 
 
 "This 'ere 's the young lidy that sent yer the six- 
 pence," were the introductory words. 
 
 ' ' My first subscriber, ' ' he said, with a smile and bow. 
 
 Prue thought of his catch-penny, "Oh, be in time!" 
 and wished him, or herself, at Jericho. But it was impos- 
 sible to rally back to the mood of aversion. His accent 
 and manner confirmed the impression formed on his 
 entering the room. It was Oxford certainly ; but there 
 was nothing of the drawl due to the passage of speech 
 through tubes insufficiently protected by a clerical tie. 
 
 She had to say something civil. "Your paper is very 
 — original." 
 
 "Wait," he returned quietly, and more to himself 
 than to her. 
 
 Was he going to be disagreeable, after all— just when 
 she was ready to give him another chance? 
 
 "Well," he continued, "one must cry from the house- 
 tops sometimes, to get a hearing. But, you know, I 'm 
 under a solemn promise to be occasionally simple, 
 rational, and unaifected between whiles." 
 
 "A paper all written by one man: it must be hard 
 work. ' ' 
 
 ' ' That 's easy enough ; but think of the trials of Sarah 
 my business manager. How should I get my subscrip- 
 tions without her ? ' ' 
 
 "By the way, who attends to the bridges?" she asked, 
 with a touch of severity. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "I do" was the bland reply. 
 
 The shaft had missed. He had evidently forgotten the 
 incident and failed to recognise her. She was mortified, 
 and tried a barb with a finer point. 
 
 "It is very good of you to give us so much of your 
 time." 
 
 "Unfortunate for me that I can only give so little. 
 But I have other things to attend to in other quarters, 
 worse luck." 
 
 What were the other things? It was annoying that 
 she did not know him well enough to ask a simple ques- 
 tion. 
 
 The talk fell for a few minutes, while she mused, and 
 he observed the company. He was a disappointment 
 and a consolation at the same time. Everything she had 
 expected in the editor of The Branding Iron was want- 
 ing — a pert manner, even a loud and self-assertive voice. 
 The tones were low and without emphasis. He was as 
 simple and unconsciously himself as a sage of genius, or 
 an animal— say, as Whitman, a horse, or a dog. With 
 a change of clothing, he might have taken his place in a 
 camp of miners, or in a navvies' gang. None need have 
 suspected his disguise: he would have been a clean 
 navvy, a clean miner, that is all. 
 
 "A newspaper is a very costly venture, I believe." 
 
 "Yes. I 've known what it is to drop five-pound-ten 
 a week. ' ' 
 
 It was not pleasant to be laughed at; and she made 
 some slight change in her manner to show it. 
 
 The rebuke escaped him, perhaps because he did n't 
 deserve it. 
 
 114 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "But that 's only my ignorance. What I hope to 
 prove is that you can start a paper just as cheaply as you 
 start a chandler's shop." 
 
 "Is not the other way shorter?" 
 
 "What other way, please?" 
 
 "Well — to find someone with capital." 
 
 "I think not. We must look out, or the capitalist will 
 dominate literature, as well as journalism by-and-by. 
 The very poems will be settled at a board meeting, and 
 written in factories, with one department for the elegies, 
 and another for the odes, each under a responsible mana- 
 ger." 
 
 "But the machinery, the— what do you call it — 
 'plant,' the writers even — I mean the clever ones — how 
 arp you going> to get all that ? ' ' 
 
 It was another shaft, but he still refused to wince. 
 
 "Suppose the clever writers, as you call them, had a 
 little more sense of their opportunity. A quill, a bottle 
 of ink, a sheet of paper, and a mere human being, for 
 the driving power— and what more do you want? All 
 oratory in its essentials means the stump of a tree, all 
 drama the tail of a cart." 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said impusively. "Oh, I wish you 
 knew Mary Lane. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I know of her, if that will do. Nothing in the world 
 can really stand between the one who wants to say some- 
 thing, and the other who wants to have it said. Get that 
 right, and the capital will make itself as you go on." 
 
 "Remember you have n't got into print yet with The 
 Branding Iron." 
 
 "Please don't forget that I have n't tried. I 've writ- 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ten my paper with my own hand ; that will do away 
 with the printing presses, until I can afford to buy them. 
 And I am circulating it through the ha'penny post, and 
 our incomparable Sarah ; and that will do away with the 
 publisher till he comes to us hat in hand. My editorial 
 office, publishing office, and all the rest of it, is a back 
 parlour, with a deal table in one corner, and a few reams 
 of paper, in another, piled on the floor. I began with one 
 subscriber" (and he bowed again) ; "I 've three hun- 
 dred and fifty-seven now. I lost over a hundred shillings 
 the first week : I lose scarcely as many threepenny-bits 
 now; and I can afford to go on till it all comes right. 
 Why not a one-man paper, and a poor man at that? A 
 thought can get itself uttered just as easily now as ever 
 it could in the age of the broadsheet and the age of the 
 pamphleteer. ' ' 
 
 Sarah served tea. 
 
 She was distracted between the wish to be silent, and 
 the sense of her duty as hostess. Her working compro- 
 mise was to urge her guests to produce themselves for 
 the benefit of one another. 
 
 "Tell 'em that funny story about your old dawg and 
 the parrot, miss," she said to Prue. 
 
 It would have been far easier to die; and Prue gave 
 her, to understand as much by signs. 
 
 Sarah was more successful with another of the party, 
 to whom she appealed for ' ' that bit about the old bache- 
 lor." 
 
 The bachelor, it seemed, had applied to a ladies' 
 employment agency for someone to call on him and decor- 
 ate his rooms. Elderly as he was, his eyes gleamed in a 
 way that was not altogether reassuring to the manage- 
 
 ii6 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ment. Yet they could hardly refuse to entertain his pro- 
 position, for one of their advertised services was the 
 embellishment of the home. They accordingly selected 
 the most matronly person on the staff, and sent her to 
 his chambers, in spectacles and a cap, to take his orders. 
 He gave them faintly. The matron asked him for ten 
 pounds to go on with, and promised to render a faithful 
 account of her disbursements in due course. He drew a 
 cheque for the amount, still as one in low spirits. She then 
 took information as to his hours of absence, and, during 
 these hours, called to show her skill in the decorative 
 arts. It was a plush drapery for the bookcase, on one 
 day; on another, a window-sill blossoming in flowers. 
 The elderly bachelor still pined, and, at the end of the 
 week, the matron — cap, spectacles, and all, sought him 
 oat and asked for a further installment. The elderly 
 bachelor shook his head, muttered something about a 
 swindle and showed her out. 'Fine— ten pounds and 
 costs. ' 
 
 Spag was now implored by Sarah to ' ' bang the door, ' ' 
 an accomplishment which he had originally acquired by 
 his attempts to bring down an appetising morsel artfully 
 placed on the top. But he now refused to show off, and 
 retired, with a low growl, beneath his owner's chair. 
 
 The party broke up, the remorseless Sarah pressing 
 her oranges on them to the last. When they were all 
 gone, she sat in her 'ome in an ecstasy of contemplation, 
 and, as the twilight deepened, felt that she had not lived 
 and laboured in vain. Then, rousing herself, she 
 "tidied" the place in a rapture of energy, locked it up, 
 and returned to her garret abode. 
 
 117 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LAURA and Prue found their way out together— 
 perhaps not without contrivance on one side. 
 Prue's return to town in the October gloom had given 
 her an oppressive sense of loneliness. She wanted a mate. 
 
 She wanted guidance most of all. She was ready to 
 pay her court to this queen of work-girls, who, according 
 to Sarah, might earn as much as four pounds a week. 
 She longed to know how it was done. 
 
 The Fates were kind. 
 
 "Won't you come and see my den?" were about 
 Laura's first words, as they turned into the street. "I 
 can't come up to Sarah in hospitality; but perhaps a 
 tiny cup of black coffee might tempt you, at the end of 
 our walk." 
 
 The den was in a street in middle-aged Bloomsbury, 
 and by a church which had sheltered generations of wor- 
 shippers. Laura let herself in with her latchkey, and 
 seemed to have the place all to herself. Landing after 
 landing echoed to their tread, as they mounted the stair- 
 case, and read by the dim gaslight the names of the soli- 
 citors, land agents, and company promoters, who had 
 long since locked up and gone away for the night. A 
 small brass plate on the garret floor bore the inscription, 
 "Belton, Gem Engraver." 
 
 ii8 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The subdued roar of a neighbouring thoroughfare kept 
 up a sort of orchestral base that never stopped, and that 
 now served only as a sort of background for the silence. 
 It was the monster city in one of its peculiar notes — a 
 retreat of perfect peace and seclusion, but still within 
 sound of the sea of human life. 
 
 Laura lit her lamp, and, inviting her guest to follow, 
 did the honours of the flat. On one side of the passage 
 was a tiny bedroom, and next to this a tinier kitchen. 
 On the other there was a room still on the Lilliputian 
 scale, furnished simply, but with taste. 
 
 "Sitting-room and work-room in one," said the hos- 
 tess, and she pointed to a seat. 
 
 "I wonder where you put the work-room." 
 
 "Look again"; and she pointed to a recess under the 
 window where something stood shrouded in black calico. 
 
 She stripped off the muffler, and a sort of gawky sew- 
 ing-machine stood revealed, with treadle and wheels. 
 
 Prue touched it as respectfully as a savage fingering 
 some wonder of civilisation. Then Laura lit another 
 lamp that threw an intense ray through a bull's-eye, 
 removed another coverlet and displayed rows of tiny 
 tools standing upright in their cases. 
 
 "It looks like the dentist's," said Prue. 
 
 "No it 's only the machinery of one of the oldest crafts 
 in the world." 
 
 "Please tell me all about; and, to begin with, what do 
 you exactly mean by a gem ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I can't talk shop to that extent. You 've seen 
 a signet ring set with a precious stone; well I 'm an 
 engraver of the signet. ' ' 
 
 119 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Show me how it 's done just for one fraction of a 
 second— please ! " 
 
 Laura took up a cornelian that lay on the table embed- 
 ded in pitch, and fixed one of the small tools of metal in 
 the instrument. Then, after laying some liquid mixture 
 on the point, with the end of a match, she applied a tube- 
 like glass to her eye, and, as the tool began to revolve 
 with the motion of the treadle, held the gem against it 
 with the utmost delicacy and firmness of touch. 
 
 "There! that 's the whole art and mystery," and she 
 wiped the stone with a soft rag, and handed it to Prue. 
 
 ' ' I don 't see much. ' ' 
 
 "Take the glass." 
 
 "All I can make out is something like the film of a 
 spider's web." 
 
 "It is n't quite so obvious as a chip in a paving-stone, I 
 must admit. But if I held it there half a minute longer, 
 you 'd have an incision that you could just flick with the 
 edge of your nail. Now you want the receipt for the 
 mixture. Well, it 's diamond dust and oil. You know 
 the saying, 'diamond cut diamond': nothing else will cut 
 any precious stone. The tools are tiny discs of different 
 sizes ; and, as they revolve with their coating of diamond 
 dust, they grind out the design of the intaglio, and there 
 you are. Here endeth the first lesson"; and she covered 
 up the machine again, and led the awe-struck Prue back 
 to her seat. 
 
 ' ' One of the oldest arts in the world, ' ' murmured Prue. 
 
 "Yes, though I believe the wheel 's an innovation that 
 has n't yet reached its thousandth year. Before that, 
 they worried it out somehow by hand, giving, I should say 
 
 I 20 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 a respectable fraction of a lifetime to each gem. We 're 
 in such a hurry nowadays. But the fun of it is that the 
 finest things ever done were done in the old way. Here 
 are a few impressions of them ; but, if you want the full 
 glory of it, spend an hour some day in the British 
 Museum. ' ' 
 
 She opened one of a small cabinet of tray-like drawers, 
 and there, in their order, were ranged casts from the 
 gems of antiquity great in their art as any masterpiece 
 of Phidias on the colossal scale, but in actual measure- 
 ment, few beyond the sifee of a shilling, and many smaller 
 than a sixpence. And there, in that narrow round, nymphs 
 and fauns and satyrs danced, heroes led the way to battle, 
 Alexander showed the face of a god beneath his helmet, 
 and Hera the charm of her perfect profile while Olym- 
 pian Zeus himself seemed to shake ambrosial locks at 
 her before giving in. It was fascinating— story, fable, 
 religion, myth, all embodied in the divinest forms. The 
 world seemed to open out before the beholder both in 
 space and time. For, behind the gems, were the women 
 who had worn them as pledges of love, the men as gages 
 of treaty between state and state. And, behind these 
 again, the artists who had carved them with such rever- 
 ence and such patient care that each impression was a 
 nameless monument of some forgotten genius of the 
 greatest ages of man. 
 
 ' ' Does it take long to learn ? ' ' asked Prue wistfully. 
 
 "Five years, with art school and atelier; and then 
 you 're only at the beginning of it, in its higher reaches, 
 as I stand now. To do the great work I should have to 
 put in twenty years of incessant study. I could never 
 
 12 1 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 come up to that. It 's too 'slow and steady'— too 'for- 
 ever and forever ' for me. I 'm an American in up-bring- 
 ing, though 1 was born in the old country ; and there 's 
 something in me now that makes me want to do it by 
 steam machinery. My dear old master, a Frenchman, in 
 New York, could fix his very soul for days and weeks on 
 a grain of onyx. The years glided peacefully by with 
 him, with nothing but a cabinet and two or three trays 
 of impressions to show for the toil of a lifetime. The 
 cloister is nothing to it. He had a daughter who lured 
 me into it, poor soul ; and the two worked together, grew 
 old together, till I broke away from them to come here 
 for the sake of better chances. These endless perspec- 
 tives of before and after sometimes get on my nerves, 
 and I feel rather lonesome sometimes when I turn my 
 head and look down a vista of five thousand years. ' ' 
 
 On her way home Prue met a ghostly procession wind- 
 ing through the streets in the dusk — the "unemployed" 
 returning to their lairs after the daily round. The scene 
 was dismally suggestive of a gang going down to "Plu- 
 tonian shores" — figures diinmed by the fast falling 
 night, by a want of definite outline, in their shabbiness, 
 and even, in some curious way, by their shuffling gait. 
 The long line was under guard of mounted and cloaked 
 police, front, flank and rear. No word was spoken : there 
 was only a dismal sound, now and then, as the coins, shak- 
 en in the collecting boxes, gave step for the march in their 
 even beat, not exactly as with drum taps, but as with a 
 rattle of bones. It was the more terrible because it was 
 all so decorous, so entirely free from the very show of 
 disorder. For this imparted to it a certain inevitable- 
 
 122 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ness, as of a situation without hope. The great glaring 
 opulent streets, now lighting up, flashed untold wealth 
 and luxury from shop windows gorged with the tribute 
 of the world. Ah, what a picture of a civilization : — the 
 draggletailed banners, still sodden from an untimely 
 shower, so futile in the ineptitude, of their mottoes of 
 defiance; the doomed men, and here and there a strag- 
 gling woman on the outskirts of the crowd, one and all 
 of the colour of the mud-stained earth into which they 
 were so soon to fade. 
 
 On entering her lodging, sick at heart with a vague 
 fear, she had touched something in the passage — "The 
 Branding Iron" which had been thrust under the door. 
 She lit a candle, sat down and began to read. 
 
 "Riches, Comfort and Poverty— How we stand now. 
 
 ' ' Incomes of £700 per annum, and over — only one and a 
 quarter millions of persons, holders and families all told. 
 
 ' ' Incomes between £160 and £700 — only three and three 
 quarter millions of persons, holders and families all told. 
 
 "Incomes of less than £160 down to the vanishing 
 point — thirty-eight millions of persons, earners and fam- 
 ilies all told. Diffuse or perish. Ring in the New ! 
 
 "Society — our own in particular — might be classified 
 according to the extent to which its members can see 
 ahead in the first necessaries of life. A minority can see 
 but one meal and one night's lodging. Those who dare 
 extend their gaze to the week-end are in easy circum- 
 stances. A view that embraces the whole year marks 
 the fortunate few. To have no dread of a life's end 
 
 123 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 remote enough to involve the misadventure of Methu- 
 saleh brings the extremes into a kind of brotherhood of 
 the defiance of Fate. In these fiercely competitive days, 
 the "multi-millionaire" and the casual are the only two 
 that don't care a damn; and, as classes, they are both 
 extremely select. We are nearing a time when a man of 
 sixty, who is able to show by certificate that he has man- 
 aged to provide himself with three meals a day and shel- 
 ter, since his coming of age, will be rewarded with a 
 medal. It should be done solemnly and publicly, and 
 not without the accompaniment of garlands, and a pro- 
 fessional fanfare. The principle— with the reservation 
 of a tall roof and good meals— seems already to govern 
 the distribution of the Birthday Honours. With an 
 ever-increasing rarity of civic virtue in a medium of 
 mere oatmeal and potatoes, successful candidates will 
 soon be deserving of the Order of Merit itself." 
 
 She was dropping the paper when something else 
 claimed her attention— the rent book, lying on her table 
 in the modest unassuming yet exasperating way of an 
 unpaid account. 
 
 Then she felt in a flash that she would have to sit down 
 to a long deferred audit of ways and means which would 
 be an audit of despair. 
 
 All the time she had been in the country she had put it 
 off, for fear she should be compelled to take some resolu- 
 tion that would mar the beautiful life of the road. She had 
 earned something as a member of the company, but earn- 
 ings and expenditure not too well regulated, had hardly 
 balanced one another. The difference was on the wrong 
 
 I 24 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 side ; and, in the weeks of absence, she had paid but one 
 installment of her rent. 
 
 She sat down with a sigh, looked through her bank- 
 book, turned out her pockets, scrawled a few calculations 
 on a sheet of paper, then glared down at them, like the 
 mountain-climber who turns a corner, and meets the 
 abyss. 
 
 The last time she had come to a reckoning of this sort 
 there was less than nine pounds in the bank. Now, with 
 all claims satisfied, it would be less than as many shil- 
 lings. And no trade as yet at her finger-ends, and no 
 other hope anywhere. 
 
 She threw herself on the sofa and remained there 
 motionless— how long she hardly knew. Then she slowly 
 rose, bathed her face in cold water, scribbled a line to 
 Sarah telling her to call no more till further orders, took 
 it to the post, hurried home to the sofa once more— to 
 face the music. 
 
 The night that followed was awful. Long spells of 
 wakeful terror of what was to come, unavailing sorrow 
 for what was past— surely the essence of the torments of 
 hell. All this in darkness, differing for the worse from the 
 darkness of death in being darkness with consciousness, 
 darkness with pangs. One hour of it worse than a whole 
 lifetime of soft deans preaching the vanity of life amid 
 the solaces of Mayfair. 
 
 Drugs no remedy. The all-controlling mind no 
 remedy. The torment in full dance in the distracted 
 brain. 
 
 Sleep at intervals; and the sleep worse. Huge pere- 
 
 125 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 grinations of nightmare through scenes of woe, and the 
 senses and the will all powerless to control them to issues 
 of hope. Dire struggle with shapes, forces, not always 
 of this world. These, ever in the last resort, getting the 
 best of it, till a loud cry, audible to herself as a crack of 
 doom, brought her to wakefulness again, sweating on the 
 brow, the music tuning up once more. 
 
 I 26 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THERE was but one thing to do— stick to the short- 
 hand, until she had mastered it, and could go to 
 market with something to sell. All she wanted was time, 
 and not much of that. Her fitful apprenticeship had 
 counted for something: a spell of good, steady work 
 would soon do the rest. 
 
 But meanwhile she had to live. It was the everlasting 
 problem — how to boil the pot, while waiting for the beati- 
 tudes of aspiration. 
 
 A little time ! 
 
 She sought out the landlord next morning, or rather 
 the landlord's agent, a womanly abstraction in felt slip- 
 pers, who lived somewhere below stairs. It was not a 
 comforting interview. Prue picked her way up to the 
 light again, with the words : " I want my 'a 'pence, ' ' ring- 
 ing in her ears. 
 
 A hat of power, and an exceedingly smart skirt were 
 on her landing. Certain human attributes usually asso- 
 ciated with these things were not wanting in their due 
 subordination of interest— a voice trained to music-hall 
 patter, an eye trained to twinkle at command— Miss Eva 
 St. Galmier, in a word. The young lady was apparently 
 
 127 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 in the process of a sort of third time of asking at the door- 
 bell. 
 
 ' ' Good morning, my dear ! ' ' Prue thought the endear- 
 ment might have been spared, until further acquaint- 
 ance. But Miss St. Galmier was breezy or nothing. ' ' Per- 
 haps you might like to take a ticket for my benefit. So 
 proud. To-night at eight; the Fandango Club, in the 
 Whitechapel Road. I know I ought to offer it compli- 
 mentary to a sister professional; but you 'II excuse me, 
 I 'm sure." 
 
 "Sister professional"— it stung like the stroke of a 
 whip. 
 
 "I 'm afraid I 've no right to any privilege of that 
 sort," said Prue, drawing out her purse. 
 
 Nine little shillings between a little work-girl and des- 
 titution ; and then there were eight ! 
 
 ' ' Why, surely, I thought we were all in the same boat. 
 Have n 't you just been on tour in the provinces ? ' ' 
 
 And so the line was drawn between Mary Lane and 
 her villages, and this young woman and Whitechapel. 
 Prue had never thought of that before. 
 
 "Oh, well; at any rate, I 'm out of an engagement 
 now," she said, with a gruesome smile. 
 
 "Don't cry it from the house-tops, my dear. It gives 
 you away. It 's not your business to let people know you 
 are in want of a job. Give 'em something saucy, you 
 know. Look here ! ' ' 
 
 And she drew from a recess of her purse a frayed 
 newspaper cutting, and read: 
 
 " ' 'Eavenly Evie St. Galmier, the only funny woman 
 in the world. Dances— Skirt, Sand, Eccentric: Songs 
 
 128 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 — Serio, Sentimental, Patriotic, Patter, Coon. Not out 
 of work, but resting. "0 mother, put me in my little 
 bed. ' ' Imitation the sincerest form of flattery, with com- 
 pliments to the lady at Liverpool. 'E. St. G.' " 
 
 Poor Prue made no answer, but she had her thoughts. 
 Was she coming down to this ? 
 
 "There 's lots of work going just now in our line," 
 continued the 'Eavenly one. "It 's late for the panto- 
 mimes, but there 's always a chance for a smart girl. 
 Somebody 's dropping out at rehearsal, or getting the 
 sack. Do you do anything on the light fantastic? I 
 could teach you 'sand.' " 
 
 Prue wanted to fell her with a glance; but with her 
 growing sense of helplessness, and with the cry of "my 
 'a 'pence" ringing in her ears, it seemed easier to let her 
 talk on. 
 
 "You 're not tall enough," resumed her patron 
 thoughtfully, "for one of the long sixes— you know: the 
 great big gals in the ballet that take the front rows. 
 But they would n't say no to you, if there was an open- 
 ing for a light weight ; mark my words. ' ' 
 
 "I should hate it, thank you." 
 
 "So should I now, but, you see, I 'm a star." 
 
 "I mean the stage." 
 
 "Oh, I see. "Well, many do; but there 's worse jobs 
 than that. I 've known what it is to be a window-pane 
 before now. It 's a very genteel line, I assure you, but it 
 does n't lead to much. Once a window-pane, always a 
 window-pane till you are turned thirty, and then you 're 
 done." 
 
 "A window-pane?" It was inevitable. 
 
 I 2g 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Yes; I 've gone through that— figuratively, of 
 course, ' ' she added, with a certain meditative stress on the 
 polysyllables that hardly bespoke a mind at ease. ' ' You 
 might n 't think it, but I 've been in the window with the 
 other goods eight hours a day, at the fancy shop nearly 
 opposite your street." 
 
 The other still looked puzzled. 
 
 "You sit there — see! and work some new invention- 
 Palace of Truth or the Lady in the Glass House ; that 's 
 the idea. But there 's no hiding anything, from top to 
 toe— fine points and patent leather, and do your hair 
 three times a day." 
 
 Prue gave a little shudder ; recovered herself, reflected ; 
 seemed to hear as from some pit of doom the cry for the 
 " 'a 'pence"; shuddered again. 
 
 ' ' The young person that took my berth is leaving Sat- 
 urday to get married. Saw him the first time through 
 the plate glass, and felt it was her fate." 
 
 It was Miss St. Galmier still. But the game lan- 
 guished for want of a second player, and soon after she 
 took her leave. 
 
 Then Prue stole out stealthily to the fancy shop, got the 
 place, and, with a lighter heart, hurried to the short- 
 hand school, and did her tale of work for the day. 
 
 Miss St. Galmier 's setting in theatrical life was some- 
 thing of a contrast to Mary Lane's. She belonged to a 
 world with the world of the music halls, a lower deep of 
 taste still opening out of the lowest known to the general 
 public. Some of the popular clubs in our far east scorn 
 the yoke of the university settlement, and experiment 
 
 130 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 boldly in the joy of living. They have their own concert- 
 rooms as they have their bars, dining-rooms, and sing 
 songs; and the "professionals" who minister at these 
 shrines of the Muse form a class apart. They are lions 
 comiques in embryo, mimes, mountebanks, and what 
 not in a state of aspiration towards the West End and 
 the "regular 'alls." 
 
 Prue went to the benefit, and found herself in a perfect 
 hive of festive pleasure. It was swarming activity. 
 The son of toil means business when he starts his own 
 club, with his own money, and under his own rules. His 
 revelry shakes his building; and but for the roof, his 
 "chihiking" of members, popular or unpopular, might 
 smite the sky. The hall was a scene of rude plenty in 
 drinking and even in eating; the fumes of tobacco rose 
 in a haze between the audience and the stage. 
 
 It was quite brutish, but alive, alive— Caliban in his 
 hours of ease. The songs, as Prue heard them, or read them 
 from a broad-sheet miscellany bought for a penny at the 
 door, sounded an alarm of national peril, since nations 
 may perish of mere grossness as well as of vice. What 
 are we to do about them? Will the Archbishop try a 
 form of prayer? 
 
 This was one of the collection: 
 
 ' ' In Zanzibar 's great cocoa-nut castle, 
 Hail to the Czar each monkey vassal. 
 Great King Gazoo, my great ancestor. 
 Sang to his bride, as he caress 'd her. 
 With chin-bone chattering, his Pansie flattering. 
 
 131 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Chorus : 
 
 ' ' My little Chimpanzee, you 're all the world to me ; 
 A branch 1 '11 find for thee in my own family tree. 
 No monkey shine for me, a wedding fine there '11 be, 
 In high society in Zanzibar. 
 My little bar." 
 
 In others it was the poetry of the swill tub, the poetry 
 of getting drunk, the poetry of blacking people's eyes. 
 The titles exhaled vulgarity. "The Sage and the 
 Onion"; "Pom Tiddly Om Pom"; "The New Per jama 
 Hat." 
 
 Merciful Author of our being ! if one may be excused, 
 in view of the urgency of the occasion, for putting it in 
 that way. It is as big a danger as the German fleet off 
 Dover. The German fleet hailing from the tops a sure 
 conquest of neglected nations. "Yahoo ahoy!" 
 
 Miss St. Galmier came on to a round of applause, 
 chiefly composed of the beating of pots on tables. This 
 last was an example of the process known as killing two 
 birds with one stone. It served to signify both artistic 
 approbation and empty measures. 
 
 She sang something about "The Man of my Choice," 
 designed to give the impression that a guardsman with- 
 out a penny, and an aged millionaire were contending 
 for the honour of her hand, and that she hardly knew 
 what to do. She asked the audience for advice, and they 
 gave it as freely as the friends of the old man with the 
 ass, in the fable. One who suggested "chuck the pair, 
 and go and do a day's washing" was considered to have 
 
 132 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 gone too far. There was a movement for his ejection 
 among some of her adorers, but it died out at the sight 
 of him. He earned his bread in the hell-hole of a liner, 
 and his eyes now glowed with a fiercer heat than that of 
 the tropic seas. 
 
 The laugh was against her, but she was equal to the 
 occasion. She danced herself back into popularity with 
 an energy which showed that the beauties of her attire 
 were not merely skin-deep. 
 
 There were other futilities, among them the pelting of 
 the beneficiaire with bouquets, which in size and make-up 
 looked like French legs of mutton. The largest was 
 thrown by a young man who had appropriated one of 
 the buds for his button-hole. His own appearance sug- 
 gested a sheep in man's clothing— second-hand. 
 
 Miss St. Galmier had seen Prue, and wafted a kiss to 
 her, and when her turn was over she ran around to the 
 girl's side. 
 
 The poor child sat in her corner, palpitant, and 
 crimsoned with burning shame. She had never seen any- 
 thing of the kind before. It struck her as a transaction, 
 however petty, in the greatest sin known to the code of 
 her sex, the sale of the body. 
 
 "How did it go?" said Miss St. Galmier. 
 
 The whole profession, high and low, gentle and simple, 
 have a way of putting you on the rack of this searching 
 question, when you happen to meet them in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the footlights. "How did it go, dear?" 
 
 •And Prue told the harmful, necessary, inevitable lie, 
 though it almost choked her in the utterance. 
 
 "So sweet of you," said Miss St. Galmier, kissing her 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 again ; and at the same time, classing her in her heart as 
 an envious little cat. If such lies were of any use, there 
 might be some excuse for them. 
 
 She was accompanied by the young man who had 
 thrown the largest leg of mutton — "my brother — Mr. 
 Reginald St. Galmier, author and composer, and the 
 writer of the song." 
 
 The young man showed great delicacy. His first im- 
 pulse was to ask Prue if she would take a glass of — ' ' any- 
 think," but, in the very moment of utterance, he substi- 
 tuted for the last word — lemonade. 
 
 Prue could only shake her head. 
 
 After a few common-places, chiefly in celebration of her 
 brother's talents, Miss St. Galmier left them to them- 
 selves not without intent. This, however, escaped Prue's 
 notice, as a lump of sugar might escape the notice of a 
 bird in a room on fire. 
 
 She was soon relieved. The young man was at least 
 tolerable in being respectful, and she began to think that 
 he was simply unfortunate in his sister. If she had 
 known more, she would have extended her commisera- 
 tion to the entire breed. 
 
 Both were unfortunate in their papa, as he, too, was 
 unfortunate in his progenitors. He had never had a 
 chance until the kindly earth took him, in a last 
 endeavour to make him useful in his grave. It is asserted 
 and plausibly, that even these by-products have a cer- 
 tain value as manure. 
 
 Many generations of failure who had aped their bet- 
 ters in everything they had of worse had gone into the 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 making of "Pa." The imitation was always flattering 
 in its intent, though it was sometimes touching in its 
 remoteness. When the second Charles reigned, and kept 
 his bevy, the Plipp of the period (the name St. Galmier 
 was an afterthought borrowed from an advertisement) 
 flaunted his trull. When the Mohock dandies scoured the 
 town, the contemporary Plipp would beat an old woman 
 in a back-yard. In our day of smaller things, " Pa " could 
 only be a gent. His interpretation of the part was that 
 he should never pay a milk-score, and never do a day's 
 work. His only industry was living on his wits, and in 
 this he was, as it were, congenitally handicapped by the 
 want of capital. 
 
 Yet his children were grateful to him in a way; and 
 the words, "Pa was a gentleman, ' ' were ever on their lips. 
 They meant that he always talked aristocratic reaction, 
 and left them, as sole heritage, an education hardly 
 reaching the limit of the three E's, and a hearty con- 
 tempt for the "wukkin* class." The men of that stock 
 had ever failed their womankind, and Miss Eva was the 
 result. Differently circumstanced, she might have 
 mended the stockings of the family, and risen to higher 
 things. And still she was the mainstay of the poor crea- 
 ture that was left. 
 
 Reginald meant so well, but what was he to do ? His 
 mind had been limited to the literature of sport and of 
 puzzle prizes. His vernacular was newspaperese. 
 
 "Excuse me, miss, but you 're in rather close proxim- 
 ity to the draught of that door. You 're not afraid of 
 -of?" 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She waited for him. A man might have seen through 
 him at once; the sexes are always disposed to give each 
 other the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 He was going to say ' ' catching cold, ' ' but he changed 
 it to "contracting an indisposition." 
 
 He was distinctly cheering now that she had taken his 
 measure. "No, I 'm all right." 
 
 "You are still obdurit about my offer of ref reshmint. " 
 
 ' ' I don 't want anything, thank you. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Perhaps you '11 partake of a sandwidge ? ' ' 
 
 "Partake" was one of Reggy's big guns. He some- 
 times talked of eating his dinner, especially when he 
 was hungry, but the present was not a common occasion. 
 He had picked up "partake" from the reports of execu- 
 tions, wherein persons going to be hanged always take 
 their last breakfast with the help of this verb. 
 
 "No, thank you!" 
 
 "You 're like me, I dessay, in — " 
 
 "I really don't think so." 
 
 " — In that respeck: I mean, in a manner of speakin'. 
 Sometimes I can never touch a mossel, 'specially if I 'm 
 writin' anythink." 
 
 ' ' I think I '11 go now, if you please. ' ' 
 
 "May I have the pleasure of escorting — " 
 
 "So much obliged; I know my 'bus." 
 
 It was impossible to let her go like that. His author's 
 heart hungered for a word of admiration. With all his 
 faults, he was of the tribe of writers of verse. Between 
 the publishers and the public they often forego their 
 meals without a pang. But their word of praise ! 
 
 136 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "I knocked off 'The Man of my Choice' at a sittin'," 
 he said, by way of starting the hare. "Not a line of it 
 was written before twelve o'clock last night. Midnight 
 oil, and no mistake." 
 
 "Midnight beer," was on the tip of the young woman's 
 tongue. She was beginning to feel quite bold, now that 
 she knew he could not possibly bite. But she 
 restrained herself. "Please excuse me to your sister," 
 was all she said; and before he could recover himself 
 she was gone. 
 
 He walked thoughtfully to the bar, joined an acquain- 
 tance who had been watching him, tossed a coin in the 
 air with indescribable dexterity, and covered it with two 
 fingers almost before it fell. 
 
 "Suddin death." 
 
 " 'Ead." 
 
 The fingers were lifted, and the friend had to pay. 
 Reginald rarely took stimulant without going through 
 this ceremony. It was his idea of being "classy," and 
 he was firmly persuaded that it was borrowed from the 
 practice of West End clubs. 
 
 "Nice little bit o' muslin," said the friend, looking 
 after Prue. 
 
 "No, thanks, I 've 'ad some," said Reginald. It was 
 the smart expression of his weariness of female charms. 
 
 This change to another dialect was inevitable, for the 
 friend spoke nothing but slang. He thought in it : it was 
 so much a part of himself. Mr. St. Galmier could, of 
 course, meet him on that ground, though he would have 
 preferred newspaperese. Neither of them would have 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 been capable of mere English in the very hour of death. 
 
 "Your sister looked toppin' to-night." 
 
 "Well, she had got 'em on, I must say," returned her 
 brother, in grateful acknowledgment of the compliment 
 to her attire. 
 
 138 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 HEK work began next day. She had to sit in a 
 shop front, cleared so as to exhibit herself, and 
 nothing but herself. In that crystal cell, she manipu- 
 lated in endless repetition — a Sisyphus of the era of ad- 
 vertisement — a minor invention before the passing 
 crowd. This contrivance, as she learned from a copy of 
 testimonials hanging in the window, was the very one 
 with which Leonard produced The Branding Iron. 
 
 The operator, as she was called, lived in a glare of 
 publicity beside which that of an actor, or the occupant 
 of a throne, was monastic seclusion. The loitering 
 onlookers could, and certainly would, have touched her, 
 but for the window-pane. They were quite close enough 
 to look straight into her eyes, whenever she gave a 
 moment's rest to the drooping lids. It was a crowd that 
 changed every moment, yet was still the same, in being 
 vacuously agape in varying degrees of intensity. Every 
 motion was watched, as she rose, sat down again, or 
 raised a hand. Sometimes the heads were m pairs; and 
 by the movement of the lips, or the laugh, she knew 
 that her whole personality was under discussion. Now 
 and then some bold, merciless glance looked derision, or 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 an insolent sense of the absolute ownership of a chattel 
 of public curiosity, which was still harder to bear. 
 
 At first this ever-present espionage, without intermis- 
 sion and without remorse, induced a self-consciousness 
 that was maddening. She was always in misery about 
 her hair or her dress, and she showed it by innumerable 
 touches, that, she hoped, were furtive, but that often 
 found retribution in a guffaw or a sneer. This went on, 
 without a moment's break, for all the hours of her work- 
 ing day. 
 
 It was "the crowd" in its most forbidding aspect, in 
 the dirty faces, in the still dirtier hands, that pawed the 
 barrier of plate glass. Majestic persons who have to 
 earn their living by driving in procession through popu- 
 lations afoot for business of public welcome, find this 
 the hardest trial of their trade. They have been known 
 to say that nothing is more terrible than the vast acreage 
 of open mouth displayed in culminating moments of the 
 delirium of loyalty— a blackness, ominous with its port- 
 cullis of fangs, and with a redness, as of moist blood, 
 stirring in its depths. That must be bad enough; but 
 how much worse the still closer view of certain distor- 
 tions of laughter, or of certain leers. The stinging 
 blushes could not always be kept down, though the pen- 
 alty of that revelation came swift and sure in modes of 
 notice still more odiously personal. And, when these in 
 their turn left the cheek for a tell-tale white, there was 
 more to bear. 
 
 This was the first day. The girl thought she could 
 never go through another like it, and she missed her 
 
 140 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 evening lesson at the shorthand school through sheer ter- 
 ror of her kind. She hurried home with the same feel- 
 ing of shame that she had first known at the sight of Miss 
 St. Galmier on the stage— the feeling that she, too, was 
 showing her body for a crust. 
 
 The second day found her steeled in a sort of com- 
 promise, and in a determination never to raise her eyes. 
 Other days brought a greater mastery of the trick of 
 indiflference, and at last something like a full recovery of 
 the courage of her glance. With this came assuage- 
 ments—once, a sight of Mr. St. Galmier in a fine theatri- 
 cal start of surprise, followed by a ridiculous struggle 
 with the yielding brim of his hat; then, of the faithful 
 Spagley. The dog signalised- the success of his search for 
 her by a delirious bark, and by an attempt to enter the 
 shop as a customer. Being given to understand by 
 motions that this would never do, he afterwards came 
 round, at almost regular intervals, merely to wait and 
 gaze. He insisted on taking her to her work every morn- 
 ing ; reappeared about midday to squat demurely on the 
 kerbstone, and to look comfort, yearning, and love; and 
 finally called at night to conduct her to the school. 
 
 Gradually she learned to regard the moving spectacle 
 as a sort of panorama of human fatuity— principally 
 male. She felt herself in the full tide of the modem 
 movement, which, in one of its aspects, is a movement for 
 the abolition of privacy. What with fashionable flats, 
 overlooked in their most secret chambers from the slimy 
 well of the courtyard, personal paragraphs, family din- 
 ners in public hotels, and all the rest of it, the peasants 
 
 141 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of the painter Israel's art, with nothing in the way of 
 supervision between them and the sky, may soon become 
 a memory of the past. 
 
 The evening school hours began at six, and there was 
 no time for more than a cup of tea and a biscuit on the 
 way. They went on for three hours without a break; 
 and the girl sometimes reeled with headache as she left 
 her desk. The dog never failed to be in attendance at 
 nine, with stiffened tail, and head and ears pointing down 
 the basement staircase, all on the strain for the first sound 
 of her step in the scramble of alien feet. Then they 
 went home to supper; and, after the meal, set forth 
 again for the ramble that helped to keep her alive. 
 Their walks and talks, often lasting till midnight, 
 brought them very close together. He received many a 
 hug by the way in quiet places, and responded, or at 
 least submitted, with a patience which showed his sense 
 of a situation out of the common. ' ' Cuddling ain 't much 
 in my line, mis 'ess; but go on, if it does you good," he 
 was once understood to say. But for him, she might 
 never have found strength for the trial. 
 
 Poverty made strange companionships at the school, as 
 in other places. Prue insensibly began to mingle with the 
 others of her "station." Her new chums were the girls 
 who spent but twopence or fourpence on meals, and 
 whose successful struggles to keep up appearances were 
 largely due to donations of cast-off finery. Few took the 
 omnibus or tram all the way to and from their distant 
 suburbs. They simply reserved themselves for a lift 
 in the good penn'orths, tabulated in their gossip to the 
 minutest fraction of distance and of cost. A sickly student 
 who was guilty of the extravagance of "a ride both 
 
 142 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ways" found it necessary to set herself right with public 
 opinion. She was too tired ; but she had found out how 
 to make it up on the meals. One of her strokes of good 
 fortune was the discovery of a couple of empty stout 
 bottles, which, being returned in exchange for the sum 
 left in deposit, yielded a fare. Another, student was the 
 fourteenth child of a clergyman nor yet the last in his 
 quiver. He was a person of delicate feeling; and, 
 whenever he came to tea with his daughter, he brought 
 the materials for the repast in his pocket. She — per- 
 haps for want of other nutriment — devoured the Pitman 
 system as an express train devours space; and was gen- 
 erally understood to be in the running for the gold medal. 
 Their talk ran on such things as how many times a 
 dress could be turned, and otherwise worried out of its 
 life before it subsided into pulp. One of them earned 
 the money for her fees by serving her own sisters as a 
 housemaid. The sisters exacted full measure— "Dolly, 
 my boots!" "Dolly, where 's my hot water? ".was the 
 morning cry to the Cinderella below. A little grey- 
 haired lady of sixty lived in one of those homes for young 
 women that are advertised in the waiting-rooms of rail- 
 way stations at ten shillings a week all told. They slept 
 in cubicles shut off from one another by curtains. Each 
 strip belonged jointly to the occupants of the two beds 
 between which it ran, and there were ructions as to the 
 right moment at which it should be drawn. This one 
 greatly enjoyed the school life and companionship : it 
 made her feel a girl with the rest. They sometimes 
 amused themselves by offering precious suggestions to an 
 imaginary committee of the County Council "catering" 
 for the hard up. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The grim, stoic heroism of it all would have been its 
 redeeming point for the cultured onlooker. But that 
 opportunity of distinction was quite thrown away upon 
 them. They held out in mere dourness, without knowing 
 that it was beautiful to endure; and they were quite 
 remote from the conception of the higher life as a sort 
 of transcendental process of outgrowing the top of your 
 own head. The pinch of poverty was their lot, as it is the 
 lot of more of us than are known to the philosophy of Mr. 
 Charles Booth. Few of those that make the varied 
 pageant of the street are easy in their circumstances. 
 They are on the verge of a kind of bankruptcy, just as, 
 in the theological sense, they are on the brink of the 
 grave. Anything may happen to them at any moment. 
 A strip of orange peel on the pavement, a too close shave 
 of the wheel of the god in his motor car, may throw 
 their lives, or what is of far more importance, their 
 modest budgets, quite out of gear. 
 
 In the midst of it all came another stroke of ill-luck 
 for Prue. The new invention, which it was her business 
 to exhibit, had failed to please an exacting public. Cus- 
 tomers were few and far between. Even candid 
 inquirers, in spite of the bribe of abundant "literature" 
 which might afterwards serve for pipe-lights, gradually 
 fell off. The anxious proprietor in the background fre- 
 quently had to pass his hand over a heated brow. He 
 was honest enough to own that his assistant was not to 
 blame. And he knew, for he often watched her at her 
 work, sometimes openly from the near kerbstone, some- 
 times in hiding behind a lamp-post over the way. If 
 now and then he wished that she had a trifle more dash, 
 and blamed himself for not having engaged an ex-bar- 
 
 144 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 maid, he generously dismissed the thought. There came 
 a time when he had to tell her that her next Saturday 
 night would be her last in his cage. 
 
 There were moments of weakness, moments when she 
 thought of writing to Gertrude Holl, and then inconsis- 
 tently dismissed the idea just because she knew that it 
 would bring what she most wanted. Gertrude was the old 
 schoolfellow, and Prue had all the pride of the play- 
 ground — the pride that made them eager to show one 
 another that they came of decent people, and were going 
 to do well in the world. 
 
 Mary Lane, who kept constantly in touch with her 
 through the post, wrote in total ignorance of her 
 plight. Mary's visit of a few days to the distant Tol- 
 stoi settlement had ended in her becoming a member. 
 She was all enthusiasm about the place and the life. 
 
 ' ' An old farmhouse— what a place to hibernate in ! 
 Chimney-corners all real, not a single 'property' any- 
 where, low ceilings, white-washed walls, quaint little 
 staircases at every turn, little white beds for the chil- 
 dren, a copy of the simple rules and observances in every 
 room. 
 
 " 'Members must wear a short-simple dress, the sleeves 
 of which can be turned up at the elbow. 
 
 " 'Members are asked not to grumble to one another, 
 but to take all complaints to the Sister-in-Charge or else 
 to bring them forward at chapter. 
 
 " 'One hour each day must be spent in silence, either 
 in meditation or in the study of certain selected books. 
 
 " 'We will labour for our daily bread according to our 
 strength and opportunity. 
 
 " 'We promise deliberate resistance to the tidal waves 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of fashion, to the panics of the public mind, and to all 
 forms of weakness and of fear. 
 
 " 'We will not cause to be killed or hurt, nor will we 
 kill or hurt, any living creature needlessly. We will 
 strive to preserve all gentle and beautiful things. 
 
 " 'We desire to oppose all luxury and extravagance 
 and the anti-social multiplication of our daily wants. 
 We feel called by the bond of brotherhood to share the 
 life of the people.' 
 
 "Prue, won't you come? Why, it is worth the jour- 
 ney just to see the room of the Sister-in-Charge. On the 
 walls quotations in her beautiful writing from the big 
 books— the Bhagavad, St. Francis, the New Testament. 
 A large photograph of the picture of the marriage of 
 St. Francis with the Lady Poverty, over her writing- 
 desk. And the children ! One is at hand now from the 
 dreariest slum in London, as merry as a lark, her little 
 white apron trimmed with embroidery, a red ribbon in 
 her hair. And the meals, if you please ! the clearing of 
 the table (all done by those who have sat there, not a ser- 
 vant in the place) ! the washing of the dishes! the gar- 
 den afterwards ! — Eden even in this wintry time. One 
 of the children is going blind, and I 'm to take her next 
 week to see the sea, so that she may have that image in 
 her soul before they close for ever." 
 
 Alack ! Alack ! 
 
 The faithful Sarah found her out, saw exactly how 
 matters stood, and pressed something into her hand. 
 
 It was a sovereign. 
 
 "Oh, it 's very good of you, Sarah," said Prue, look- 
 ing down at it, in her outstretched palm. 
 
 146 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "What 's the matter with it?" said Sarah fiercely. 
 
 " I 'm afraid, I might not— ' ' 
 
 "I see you don 't tumble miss. It ain 't nothin ' o ' that 
 sort." 
 
 "What is it then?" 
 
 "I want you to borrow it of me, if you can do with it 
 —see, six per cent, per annim. I don't get enough inter- 
 est on my money in this 'ere Savings Bank. ' ' 
 
 She took it in her need ; and, determined not to pre- 
 tend ignorance of Sarah's generous intent in the trans- 
 action, gave her a kiss. But it was not destined to fruc- 
 tify in her hands. Writhing in remorse at the thought 
 that she might never be able to repay it, she returned it 
 integrally an hour after, in the napkin of a postal order, 
 with a note to say that her prospects had suddenly 
 improved. 
 
 Perhaps the man in the parable, who had the talent, 
 was simply one of the great misunderstood. 
 
 147 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IT was not all a white lie : in her desperation she had 
 fallen back on the wild-cat schemes advertised in 
 the newspapers. There is a sort of agony column quite 
 otherwise tragic than the mock heroics of the one so 
 called. Rogues make quite a decent income from last 
 shillings offered in exchange for sure and certain guides 
 to affluence. These used to consist mainly of the recom- 
 mendation to buy a potato-baking apparatus, and, if pos- 
 sible, sell out several times a day. We have improved 
 on that. 
 
 Prue now began to sit up at night over the puzzle 
 prizes of the catchpenny papers. And, one dire and 
 dreadful day, she read of a whole thousand pounds to be 
 earned without any mental exertion whatever. It was 
 simply going begging in New York to anyone who would 
 part with a live ear to replace an organ of that descrip- 
 tion lost by an American millionaire ! There was nothing 
 to do but submit to the operation of grafting. It drove 
 her wild with longing— not for the operation, but for 
 the fee. For a moment, forgetful of all but her want of 
 a thousandth part of the bribe, she began to experiment 
 before the looking-glass with a new kind of coiffure that 
 might hide a meditative disfigurement. But she was 
 
 148 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 stopped by the bitter reflection of the bar of sex, and by 
 her dread that the ears could hardly make a match of it, 
 as the one in search of a mate would probably be as long 
 and hairy as that of the jackass breed. 
 
 Then shame fell on her to think that it was the traffic 
 in the body once more, and that she should have lent even 
 half an ear to the sordid appeal. Still she turned eagerly to 
 the precious sheet, every day. The editor knew his busi- 
 ness. Whole populations of the needy, in two hemispheres, 
 were kept agog by the accounts of offers to sell that poured 
 in from all parts of the country on both sides of the ocean. 
 They were evidently genuine, for there was no need of 
 lies. A bankrupt was ready to come to terms in the hope 
 of getting a new start. A widow, doubtless of the Spar- 
 tan breed, offered an ear, "male or female," to help her 
 sons in the struggle for life. One candidate sought to 
 make reservations as to the drum of the sacrificial organ, 
 for which he had "a personal use." Old Newgate could 
 hardly have matched it in the days when wretches, under 
 sentence of death, sold their carcasses in advance to the 
 surgeons for the price of a night's carouse. 
 The Branding Iron fell upon it tooth and nail : 
 "It is a new form of one of the oldest infamies in the 
 record— the infamy of selling chatter about good things 
 to those who have none. Talk of wealth to the indigent, 
 and you will get it, whatever happens to them. Would 
 you wheedle poor devils out of their last coin, learn how to 
 make them see sights — the scullion, in plates of the fash- 
 ions ; the gutter folk, in pictures of pomp ; the starving, 
 in accounts of banquets of state. It gives them mirages. 
 Watch four hundred casuals waiting for their chance to 
 
 149 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 fight for two hundred places in a doss-house— they are all 
 reading some ha'porth of modern revelations of riches 
 and power, as fast as it can be handed round. It is the 
 art of making the empty lick their chops. And who can 
 doubt that, when it has exhausted all possible circula- 
 tions on the planet, it will find a new one by talking 
 about water to people in hell?" 
 
 The sordidness of it all was the worst trial, the worst 
 temptation. It tore her this way and that. She envied 
 the prosperous; she almost hated them. She repented 
 of these feelings and made new resolutions of endurance 
 and of self-control. She forgot the resolutions in bitter 
 outbursts of anger and despair. She fell back on the mem- 
 ory of the teachings at her mother's knee, trying to live 
 by the beatitudes, only to find them break in her hands. 
 The sense of the sex grievance tinctured her feelings 
 with a deeper despair. She was so miserably helpless 
 in face of life. There were moments when she was in 
 the mood of Job's wife. She could have asked her Maker 
 what he meant by striking a woman, and then bowed her 
 head to his final blow. 
 
 She had a strong sense of the joy of life, a still stronger 
 sense of the pain and torment of it. She turned to the 
 joy as a flower to the light : it touched all her being into 
 beauty, gave a glow to the eyes that was almost volup- 
 tuous, lenity to the lines of feature. Under the pain, or 
 far more the terror of the pain, the change was as the 
 ch^inge in landscape under rain and wintry skies. It 
 ran through all her being to the inmost recesses of the 
 soul. The world was a wretched world of accident and 
 mischance, with blind forces hurtling in a chaos where 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 anything might happen, except a law to live by, good or 
 bad. At best it was but a scrap fight between angels and 
 devils, with the odds on the black. It was the religion 
 of her wretchedness; and, like most of us nowadays, 
 she simply made her religion from her luck, as she 
 went on. 
 
 As the luck grew more debasing, it became a deeper 
 night. The pawn-shop was the next stage, the pawn- 
 shop, where every customer enjoyed a delusive privacy, 
 in a sort of hutch that fitted him as close as a pair of 
 monstrous blinkers greasy with animal contact. A judge 
 stood beyond a counter as high as an Old Bailey dock, 
 weighing every precious trinket as though it were a sin, 
 and seeming to rate its value in degrees of cold contempt. 
 It was impossible to chaffer with him, for to speak was 
 to run the risk of betraying your identity to some 
 unknown creature stirring stealthily, like ground game 
 in a hole, in the hutch next door. 
 
 On her first venture, she nearly fainted under the 
 ordeal of a gruff demand for her name for the ticket. 
 She stood speechless, until a second and a gruffer sum- 
 mons prompted the expedient of writing the name on a 
 sUp of paper picked up from the floor. And all this with 
 the door ever on the creak, or on the bang, behind her, 
 as the rusty spring yielded to the shoulder of another 
 customer, or swung when he fled in disgust to try his luck 
 elsewhere. At the first alarm of this sort, she tried 
 instinctively to look at the intruder, and saw a face that 
 made her turn again at a bound. Thereafter, no 
 matter what happened, she tried to keep her back to the 
 enemy. But on one awful holiday morning, when busi- 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ness was brisk, she knew by the sickly warmth of Ureath 
 behind her that she was not alone, and rushed in terror 
 from the place. 
 
 The trinkets disappeared one by one, like things 
 thrown from a sledge to the wolves. And now there 
 seemed no resource and no hope. She was mistaken: 
 there were still the unexpected possibilities of the lowest 
 deep; and stirring in that were other mocking devils of 
 editors working up largest circulations for their respec- 
 tive sheets. This time the dodge was a hunt for buried 
 treasure. The papers announced that, week by week, 
 their confidence men would bury counters 'giving the 
 right to certain sums of money (usually fifty pounds) 
 hidden in the public thoroughfares in such a way that 
 those who knew how to seek might surely find. They 
 would bury them secretly, like the booty of any other 
 crime ; and then put readers on the track of the discovery 
 by cryptic yet significant hints. 
 
 The levy on greed and destitution was successful 
 beyond expectation. The whole country, wherever there 
 was a town large enough to repay the cost of the appeal, 
 joined in the "Hunt for Hidden Treasure." Thou- 
 sands besieged the publishing ofiSces from the earliest 
 dawn for first copies of successful issues, each artfully 
 peppered with hints. The circulation went up by thou- 
 sands, under the disgusting temptation of the hope of a 
 prize. The whole of that restless proletariat which lives 
 on its dreams of Providential "coin" went forth to the 
 hunt, each trying to keep his secret from his neighbour. 
 The craftsmen took their tools; crawling age and 
 infancy joined in with anything that came to hand — 
 knives, scissors, forks broken like the teeth of their 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 owners— a hairpin, a hatpin, a rusty corkscrew, rather 
 than nothing at all. Syndicates of poor devils, mistrust- 
 ing their individual powers, brought their best into a 
 common stock of inference and deduction for the inter- 
 pretation of the obscurities of the oracle. It was the 
 prayer to lighten our darkness with a practical import 
 at last, the craving to see, to handle, fifty pounds in bulk 
 before they died. 
 
 They searched by day and by night under the irresis- 
 tible stimulus of the records of success published in 
 every edition. The police had to be reinforced in quar- 
 ters that were hot with the quest. On Woolwich Common 
 the hunters were dispersed by soldiers in line. They were 
 found creeping in the sewers. They scaled the railings 
 of the parks, after hours. They did damage to property, 
 ever digging, scraping, burrowing, peering with bulging 
 eyes. It brought together the desperadoes of all parts. 
 Tramp met tramp on the public roads and "passed the 
 time of day" with the latest news of the chase. As a 
 rule, all refrained from breaking the peace. They were 
 stilled into good behaviour by a greater issue, a greater 
 interest, like wild beasts suspending their natural ran- 
 cours in a time of flood. 
 
 It was too maddening : Prue had to join them at last. 
 One lurid night she stole forth to try her luck. The 
 piteous crowd! the piteous, piteous crowd! Pasty-faced 
 fathers of families, with rickety-looking children carry- 
 ing bags and tools. Stragglers from the warehouses who 
 had suspended their march home by the bridges to try 
 their luck. Women, old and young, usually in pairs, 
 and sometimes in whole gangs for comfort and support. 
 Engaged couples, who saw a short cut to marriage and 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 housekeeping— the piteous crowd ! Even Prue was not 
 quite alone : there was the dog for emergencies, the only 
 one, perhaps, with a free soul in all the throng. 
 
 To-night's unhappy hunting ground was Pentonville 
 — in the disused graveyard on the hill where Joey 
 Grimaldi is believed to lie in his last sleep, not uneheered, 
 now and forever surely, with a practical joke for his 
 dreams. The graveyard was closed, but its borders were 
 accessible from the street. The railings, rotting in the 
 low wall, were touched, for the occasion, with the mys- 
 tery of certain portals in the "Arabian Nights." 
 Between any two of them might be the cavern that was 
 the hiding-place of the hoard. 
 
 It was the graveyard or nothing, so much was clear. 
 All made straight for it, and prowled round and round, 
 easting furtive glances at one another, and each wishing 
 his neighbour in the bottomless pit. Some knelt and began 
 digging, ghoulish in the uncertain light, with clawed fin- 
 gers for picks. Others used jemmies, for the very 
 thieves were in the hunt. 
 
 Prue prowled with the rest, but at first did nothing 
 more, partly for want of an implement— she had nothing 
 but her umbrella— partly because she was smitten with 
 fear. At length she paused in her round, and finding her- 
 self at a quiet corner of the enclosure, made a feeble 
 thrust through the railings into the yielding soil, loosened 
 by a recent shower. Her point went in easily some six 
 inches or so, until the silk was fouled with the mire, and 
 then it stopped dead. She was terrified by both results. 
 W'as the yielding softness flesh? Was the hardness a 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 fragment of its grisly kinship in human bone? Her heart 
 seemed suddenly to stop, and then went on again with 
 great, audible beats. 
 
 To dig was impossible, seeing what might turn up, but 
 presently she found courage to probe again. 
 
 She had to find it— the treasure seemed the only issue 
 to all her afflictions, including a harridan's cry for her 
 'a 'pence, the sharpest of all. Without it her world would 
 be reduced to the state of a planet without an atmos- 
 phere. Nothing to breathe, in all the finest things we 
 live by: decency, dignity, self-respect, all withering in 
 the void. 
 
 The point rang true once more as to an obstacle, tic ! 
 tic ! tic ! 
 
 Again, tic ! tic ! tic ! 
 
 "Halves, young 'un, and I '11 get it out for yer!" 
 
 She turned and met a terrible face, drawn with hun- 
 ger or worry (perhaps with both : they generally hunt in 
 pairs), eyes blazing as with the delirium of fever. 
 
 "You kin never git it by yerself. You ain't got the 
 purchase with a tool like that. Is it halves, I say?" 
 
 Her glance lit up with much the same fire as his own. 
 It was the fever of the chase, of first blood in a first 
 battle. All the acquired and all the inherited restraints 
 melt in the blaze of it. Man is the primitive brute again, 
 with nothing before him but the clear issue of a lust and 
 its object. 
 
 Fifty pound ! Fifty pound ! 
 
 "Yes," said Prue. 
 
 He stretched himself at full length on the pavement. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 made a long arm, like a swimmer in the action of the 
 side-stroke, and clawed down to it, with outstretched 
 hand. 
 
 The earth flew in a cascade to right and left, till he 
 touched something, gripped it at last, snorting, for the 
 final pull. 
 
 A big, round stone : only that and nothing more— a 
 big, round stone ! 
 
 "Cuss you!" he said. "I 've a damn good mind— 
 Out o' work for nine weeks an' this is your idee of a job. 
 Cuss you agin!" 
 
 He held the stone at arm 's-length, as though threaten- 
 ing her with it. She was very much afraid. 
 
 A shadowy figure darted across the road to where they 
 stood, and, without word or gesture, placed itself 
 between them. 
 
 It was George Leonard, but he had no eyes for her: 
 he was looking steadfastly at the man. She pulled down 
 her veil with a convulsive gesture, as the poor wretch 
 made off, with a final oath. 
 
 "Go home and go to bed. What is a child like you 
 doing here?" 
 
 It gave her a great start. Leonard had recognised her, 
 then, and her silly venture would soon be the common 
 talk. 
 
 The shame of it! Sarah judging her; Laura — per- 
 haps Leonard himself. Why this should be a greater 
 shame than the rest she hardly knew, and she was much 
 too troubled to inquire. 
 
 He looked at her curiously, though the veil was still 
 there. But the scrutiny seemed to satisfy him. 
 
 156 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "I don't ask who you are, or where you live. But 
 won't you let me take you so far on your way home as to 
 get you oujb of this ? ' ' 
 
 She breathed freely again. He did not know her after 
 all. "I shall be very much obliged." 
 
 They trudged on together, Spagley sniffing curiously 
 at his heels. It was a second risk of betrayal, but she 
 had to take her chance. 
 
 "You are not without protection after all," he said, 
 smiling down at the dog. "Still I hope you won't think 
 I 'm one too many in this ruck. I assure you some of 
 these poor people are dangerous when they have to go 
 away empty-handed." 
 
 "More dangerous still, I think, when their hands are 
 full of stones." 
 
 "Who can wonder?" 
 
 "Wretches?" 
 
 "Yes; poor wretches, with all my heart." 
 
 "Stone-throwers?" 
 
 " — If only they threw them at the right people." 
 
 "Why throw them at anybody?" 
 
 "Well, then, at the right windows." 
 
 "Whose, I wonder?" 
 
 "The windows of the other wretches who sent them 
 here, on what, for all but one in a hundred thousand, 
 was meant to be a fool 's errand. ' ' 
 
 "Why should n't we have our chance?" 
 
 "Why, indeed?— your chance of being treated as some- 
 thing better than a pawn in a huckster's game." 
 
 The talk flagged. She was almost prostrate with weak- 
 ness of body and soul— the dreadful adventure of the 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 night, the more dreadful prospect of the morrow, with 
 its sharper pinch of poverty and attendant degradation. 
 Was that degradation to be intensified by exposure ? She 
 had dismissed the fear of recognition from her mind, 
 but now, in her dejection, it came back in full force. Did 
 he know her, after all? And, if he did not, how might 
 he mistake her real character, meeting her at this hour 
 and in these surroundings? The alternatives were 
 equally hateful. 
 
 She was ready to be angry with him in either case, if 
 only for the accident of his share in the situation. 
 
 ' ' ' Hucksters ' ! Well, at least they fling the coins for 
 the scramble. How few of our fine friends will do so 
 much as that!" 
 
 It was her new mood of envy and despair succeeding 
 the earlier one of the belief in her sacred right to a good 
 time. She was made for happiness and sunshine. Why 
 were they withheld? It was a devil's world, a world of 
 misery for the weak. Why was n't she made wicked 
 enough to be strong? She wanted to wound one of the 
 dominant faction— that was all she knew. 
 
 "There 's something in that, perhaps," he said. 
 
 It was not what she had expected ; his equanimity had 
 turned the point of the dart. But this only gave a new 
 offence— who was he, to be so odiously reasonable ? 
 
 ' ' You are overwrought. Who can wonder at it ? I 'm 
 afraid you must have found life an awful struggle, 
 young as you are." 
 
 There was no answer this time. She might have broken 
 down in a sob. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She stopped at the corner of a street, which was but 
 one turning from her own. 
 
 "Good-night, and thank you a thousand times, and— 
 if you think of me again— please don't mind." 
 
 In another minute she had groped her way upstairs in 
 a darkness that seemed the image of her lot. 
 
 Had he recognised her? — had he not? It was the 
 swing of a pendulum of uncertainties whose ticking sent 
 her into a troubled sleep. 
 
 159 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE wintry dawn eame at last, and breakf astless she 
 hurried round to see Laura Belton, why she hardly 
 knew. It was the want of something to cling to. 
 
 Laura was in her morning mood— one rather too much 
 braced perhaps with tubbing and good resolutions, hap- 
 pily subject to decline with the sun. 
 
 Prue's looks still threatened to betray the secret of the 
 night's adventure. She knew it, and felt that she had 
 to account for appearances without going into detail. 
 
 "I 'm miserable," she said, as she dropped into a 
 chair. 
 
 "Guess you ain't well." 
 
 Prue's eyes flashed resentment; and she was for mak- 
 ing off again. But Laura barred the way, with the cold 
 comfort of " 'Fallen cherub, to be weak is to be miser- 
 able.'" 
 
 "Oh, don't pelt me with poets, please." 
 
 Laura knew what she was about. The experienced 
 second in the prize ring never coddles a fainting cham- 
 pion : he simply bites his ear. 
 
 "Don't let 's talk about anything but getting well. 
 Meanwhile have something to eat and drink— coffee, if 
 
 i6o 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 you like : it won't take a minute ; but here 's the tea hot 
 and hot." 
 
 "I don't want to eat," said the other, still in high 
 dudgeon, but holding out a hand for the tea. 
 
 "I wonder if Sarah has opened the tin of kippers. 
 They 're very nice." 
 
 "I told you I—" 
 
 Laura looked at her with a more searching attention, 
 but still with the provoking bedside manner of a doctor 
 treating a case of incipient hysteria. 
 
 "My poor, little Prue— let me call you Prue, if you 
 don 't mind ; it wiU help us both. ' ' 
 
 "Thank you, Laura." 
 
 "I think I 've got it. I guess that you guess you are 
 sick. ' ' It was a second bite of the ear, well intended, no 
 doubt, but painful all the same. 
 
 "I don't guess anything—," snapped Prue, with a 
 stress on the word, in sharp rebuke of the American- 
 isms. 
 
 "You 're getting better every moment. You '11 eat 
 me out of house and home, at this rate. But you are 
 sick all the same." 
 
 "What 's the matter with me?" said Prue indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 "Sick, I tell you. Don't tell me what it 's aU about, 
 unless you want to. I '11 tell you, if you like, while 
 you 're eating your breakfast. You 're just sick of fear. 
 You 've had a scare. ' ' 
 
 Prue began to eat her breakfast. 
 
 "You '11 get it all the same, if you mean to have it," 
 said the hostess, after a short silence. 
 
 i6i 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Get what?" said the guest, at first taking it as an 
 inhospitable allusion to her first failure with a morsel 
 of rusk. 
 
 "All you want." 
 
 ' ' I want so much, you see, so much more than anybody 
 ought to dare to want nowadays." 
 
 "Well, never mind, own up." 
 
 "I want to earn my living. Did you ever hear of 
 such cheek?" There were tears in the voice. 
 
 "Take care, or I shall have to comfort you. Make up 
 your mind about what you want, and it will come to you, 
 sure enough." 
 
 "Have n't I asked everybody— God and man?" 
 
 "Have you asked them like that, I wonder?" 
 
 "I 've asked one on my knees, and the other—" "with 
 deeper abasement," was the thought on her mind. 
 
 "That 's just it. Don't worry your Maker, or, for that 
 matter, your fellow-creatures either. Ask quietly, and 
 you '11 get there in time. ' ' 
 
 "Never. I know what it 's going to be, it 's going to 
 be just my luck." 
 
 "If you think so, so it is going to be." 
 
 "That 's cheering, I must say." 
 
 "It 's true though. You 've been thinking ill luck 
 for weeks. I know it: I can see it in your face. How 
 can you expect to get anything else?" 
 
 "Oh, how can I think anything else— how can I think 
 anything else?" cried Prue, fairly breaking down. 
 
 The other walked over to her; and soothed her as if 
 she had been a petulant child. 
 
 162 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Have you ever tried thinking good luck, dear?" 
 
 "What 's the use of thinking a lie? 'Oh, who can 
 hold a fire in his hand?' I can pelt with the poets, too, 
 if it comes to that." 
 
 " 'Nothing is, but thinking makes it so.' I can go on 
 pelting back, you see. ' ' 
 
 "There 's hundreds of thousands of us in stony Lon- 
 don—the helpless ones, who can't do the trick of earn- 
 ing their bread in this poor make-believe of a way of life. 
 Some only because they are 'poor stupids' — Who made 
 them stupids: have n't they the right to live?— just as 
 many because they 're too proud or too honest to stoop to 
 the dodges. Who gave the clever fellows the right to 
 trample 'em under foot? Go and see the processions, 
 any day in the streets, and then you '11 know. It is n't 
 so much the unemplojonent — that 's bad enough — it 's 
 the horrid indifference of the others, who 've go); on top, 
 to their want of faculty, their want of a lift. As if it 
 were a sin not to know how to get your victuals, when 
 it 's just as piteous as cancer, and ought to bring all the 
 luckier devils in humble ministration to your feet ! Hun- 
 dreds of thousands of us I tell you here and in every 
 other centre of civilisation, 'on the planet !' " 
 
 "Never mind the others. You won 't do them any good, 
 nor they you. Just mind your own business, and think 
 good luck, first and last and all the time. There 's the 
 prescription : do try to swallow it. You make take it on 
 a full meal: have another slice of toast." 
 
 Prue shook her head. 
 
 "i)o try it: here it is in two words. Go home, sit in 
 
 163 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 the cosiest corner of your room, the one that catches the 
 sun. If he 's shy about looking in, go and hunt him up 
 from the top of a 'bus. I daresay you 'II find him in 
 Kensington Gardens anyhow. Sit under the trees, just 
 empty your mind of all your trouble— you can do it if 
 you try — and when you 've done it, read something, a 
 novel if you like, and then come and see the doctor 
 again. ' ' 
 
 "Novels!— all about the aristocracy by one who never 
 was there." 
 
 "Oh, pitch into them: it always brings down the 
 house." 
 
 "What do they care about human nature, till it has 
 ten thousand a year ? I 'm sick of them ; will that do ? " 
 
 "Who 's talking American now?" 
 
 "I 've quite enough foolishness in stock," murmured 
 Prue. 
 
 "Well, then, try a little wisdom, if you can get it 
 down. ' ' And Laura ran into her bedroom and came back 
 with a book. 
 
 It was a strange-looking volume, its cover embossed 
 with a cross of gold on a pyramid of sealing-wax red. 
 Both were incongruous. The cross was but one of the 
 civilities of dedication— there was neither sacrifice nor 
 atonement in the creed within. The pyramid, in the 
 crudity of its colour scheme, was all too suggestive of 
 an advertisement of bottled beer. 
 
 "Now be off, unless you like to stay and see Sarah. 
 She '11 be here soon. I wish I could go with you, but 
 I 've a crest and a coat-of-arms to finish by midday for 
 a signet ring." 
 
 164 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The mention of Sarah would have been enough, with- 
 out another word. 
 
 Prxje turned and fled, with the volume tucked 
 under her arm, and never stopping till she reached 
 home. Kensington Gardens was out of the question: it 
 would have broken into her last shilling. 
 
 And never stopping again for hours, when once she 
 had begun to read. It was one of the new religions, 
 slowly winning whole provinces of thought from the old, 
 and— almost as a matter of course— American. That 
 astonishing people has gone into this line with all its 
 inventive energy, and it makes most of the fashionable 
 patterns now. Some have their active principle in the 
 negation of matter (When is a door not a door?— 
 Always). Most of them in the negation of all unpleas- 
 antness, including sin, sickness, poverty, and death, as 
 but the foolish fancies of the race. 
 
 It was the whole American spirit in its deification of 
 the human will, to the end of having a good time in all 
 the worlds. Everything was derived from that— the out- 
 look of a race which had never known defeat, and which 
 had adopted ' ' 'tis my pleasure ' ' as its law of life. Its 
 supreme power was no imperial Jehovah thundering 
 wrath and judgments, but only a president of a bustling 
 democracy of the spirit shaping its own destinies, and 
 perfectly confident that all was going to turn out for the 
 best. In the light of this new declaration of independ- 
 ence, the whole company of the suppliants, with their 
 sanctities of poverty, meekness, and obedience, seemed 
 
 165 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 but a spadeful of writhing worms. Your relations with 
 your Maker were perfectly sociable. He was the chief 
 executive officer for the distribution of all good things, 
 wisdom and happiness, money, lands, and luxuries. He 
 helped you in your "business," as well as in the most 
 delicate intuitions of the mystery of the universe. He 
 was money as well as love. This newest version of His 
 gospel was sold at the very highest prices obtainable, and 
 every chapter bore a significant intimation of the penal- 
 ties attending, not so much the mutilations of the text, 
 as the infringement of copyright. The great unpaid 
 of the priesthood— say Molinos as contrasted with Dr. 
 Parker— were no more. The new hierarchy expected to 
 make money, and were ready to impart the secret to their 
 devotees. They remembered that, quite early, the suc- 
 cessors of the apostles were taking large fees for the cast- 
 ing out of devils. 
 
 The very devil, in this instance, was fear. It was to 
 give place to "a mental condition always serene, calm, 
 decided, self-composed, and bent on some purpose of 
 lasting good, first to yourself, next to others." Fear 
 was the worst of all follies. There was nothing to be 
 afraid of anywhere in the heaven above, in the earth 
 below, or in the waters under the earth. Whatever you 
 thought with sufficient intensity and determination, that 
 thing you made ! Everything desirable came to you by 
 calm repetition of the demand for it. Everything unde- 
 sirable might be put away by an equally calm denial of 
 its existence. 
 
 It repelled her at first, yet still she had to read on. It 
 
 i66 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 was irresistible, if only as a study of race types. Here 
 was the American still working in the medium of his own 
 characteristic inventions, the man who first thought of 
 firing at the skies for rain, instead of praying at them, 
 and who was now ready to bluff them for all the blessings 
 of life. 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IT was fascinating, as a sort of essay in the sovereignty 
 of mind— the omnipotent will of man creating a world 
 of its own, bending all things to its own needs. You were 
 wretched: it was but one of your fancies. There was 
 nothing the matter with you, or with your circumstances, 
 with Fate, or with God. 
 
 Here was the saddest little woman in all London— so 
 she thought — for her experience knew of none in a worse 
 plight— and she was offered the chance of making herself 
 insensible to all woe, in one stage of the cure, and posi- 
 tively and beamingly joyful in the next. And this with- 
 out priest or promises, without offers or invocations, but 
 just by constant repetition of the shibboleths so dear to 
 all of us, "I will" and "I won't." 
 
 There was a perfect discipline for it. You had trances 
 of meditation in which you brought yourself into oneness 
 with a sort of cheery soul of things that had never known 
 a pang. The thinking made it so, whatever the mere illu- 
 sions of suifering that seemed to give it the lie. 
 
 It was a colossal trial, but her strength rose to the occa- 
 sion. She began to glory in her difficulties as merely the 
 raw material of her triumphs. Her sordid troubles were 
 now touched into beauty by the noblest uses. The last 
 
 i68 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 shilling served for food as long as it could possibly be 
 made to last ; and she sat down to her meagre ration with 
 no sense of privation. What was the barren pride of self- 
 denial to this new ecstacy of delight? With but a crust 
 of bread and cheese on the table, she ate as neatly in the 
 matter of service, and with as much relish, as at a feast 
 of state. She prattled courage and hope between the 
 mouthfuls, affected to serve herself with dainty pieces, 
 sipped her sugarless tea with a relish, as of choice wine, 
 putting away from her all sense of hardship and of the 
 possibilities of mischance. 
 
 "I am not half-starving. I am not going to be turned 
 out of house and home at the end of the week." It was 
 the formula of denial. And this was the formula of 
 affirmation: "I am faring as kings would fare, if they 
 knew what was good for them. I am going to stay on 
 here— here in my dear, old lodging, the only place that 
 was ever mine. I am going to have work and plenty of 
 it. Amen ! ' ' 
 
 When the last penny of the last shilling in hand had 
 yielded the last loaf, she was still equal to the occasion. 
 It was but an attempt to frighten her ; and she was not 
 going to be afraid any more. The luck lingered on the 
 way— that was all. Meantime there might still be a 
 remaining trinket to pawn. The instinctive dread of 
 that operation made her pull a wry face, which she 
 instantly took to the glass with her, and ruled down with 
 a smile. 
 
 Hysteria, if you like, but a hysteria of happiness, posi- 
 tive, radiant, the delight of battle. Life with all its con- 
 trarieties of circumstance was now but a play played 
 
 169 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 before the angels, a pageant of great opportunity. The 
 greater the trial, the greater the rapture of victory. The 
 burden of the day was but the raw material of its shin- 
 ing garment of triumph and glory. The more of it the 
 merrier, for a certain stately merriment is the note of the 
 heroic mood. Poor Aunt Edom, crouching behind her 
 rampart of the three per cents. ! Prue could have con- 
 doled with her on her securities— odious misnomer— and 
 have offered her a worry as a gift of life. 
 
 Everywhere she roamed the field for champions to van- 
 quish, for chances of safety to avoid. She kept away 
 from Laura, in spite of frequent letters asking her to call, 
 and of a card that betokened a fruitless visit, left under 
 the door. She feared that a meeting just now might tar- 
 nish her glory of winning on the merits of the case. 
 Instead of creeping by the stairhead lest her footfall 
 should disturb the applicant for '"a 'pence," she sought 
 that person in her den, on frivolous pretexts, until she 
 actually cowed her into the suppression of her plaint. 
 She looked her pawnbroker straight in the eyes— they had 
 been green, it seemed, all the while — and with such effect 
 that, for the first time in her troubles, she found herself 
 addressed as "Miss." Prom these encounters she 
 returned to trances of meditation on the insignificance of 
 the insignificant. She enjoyed them in a quiet corner of 
 her room fitted up for introspection with the trappings 
 of a domestic oratory, every object in it suggestive of the 
 exclusion of all that was not satisfaction and peace. 
 
 This was the new discipline, as she had picked and 
 chosen it from the tangle of systems for her own use. The 
 other parts of these, with most of their authors, were all 
 
 170 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 but leather and prunella in her eyes. She could not afford 
 to buy much of the literature, at the monstrous prices 
 fixed by prophets in a hurry to make their fortune. But 
 she caught glimpses of it at the free libraries and book- 
 shops of the movement ; and here, through long, delicious 
 days, she browsed at will. 
 
 It was another new world called into being to redress 
 the balance of the old, and still characteristically Ameri- 
 can in its indebtedness to the past. Its ideas were almost 
 without exception borrowed from the ancient systems, 
 some of them but a wreck of heresies of the ancient 
 churches long since catalogued and condemned. To 
 change the figure, it was a sort of new American pick-me- 
 up, with the American sense of the boom as the base of 
 the compound. Every good thing was in it from every- 
 where, mostly without acknowledgment, to make a mix- 
 ture that would go down,— the dogged endurance of the 
 stoic, the mystic's contemplative trance, the proud humil- 
 ity of A Kempis, the raptures of Theresa, with here and 
 there a little flower of St. Francis floating on the surface, 
 less for flavor than for the delight of the eye. 
 
 "With the limitations of her reading, Prue knew noth- 
 ing of its sources, and it came to her as a brand-new thing. 
 It was especially alluring to her as an achievement of her 
 own sex. Sibyls ministered at its altars, and in its eaves, 
 while man was content with the menial function of guard- 
 ing the approaches. They took conclusions at the running 
 jump, and consistently sought the law of the theory in 
 the fluke of the facts. If you died after all, in spite of 
 the promises, you still died cured of the fear of death. 
 The ieharm was in the offer of absolutes in happiness, cor- 
 
 171 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 responding to the insatiate craving for them in the human 
 soul. The daughter of Eve was still as ready as her far- 
 off mother to believe that one day we might walk as gods. 
 It was optimism at its extremest point of tension. Evil 
 was abolished, here as well as hereafter, in all its forms : 
 with sin and sorrow and suffering, it simply ' ' was not. ' ' 
 The promise was formal ; and Prue was too inexperienced 
 in the subtleties of dialectic to see where the fallacy lay. 
 Pear, the thing that had most oppressed her woman's 
 soul, went the same way. You merely drew your sword 
 and mocked its terrors, like Eneas in the nether world— a 
 sibyl still at hand, even there, to tell him they were all 
 shadows of a shade. 
 
 Strong meat of faith— whatever else it was not ! The 
 religion in which the girl had been brought up, religion 
 as Aunt Edom understood it, was at best not much more 
 than a ceremonial remembrance of an age of heroism that 
 had long since passed away. It was fast sinking to a mere 
 ethic of good taste. Things were done, or not done, not 
 because of Moses or his Maker, but because of Mrs. 
 Grundy as usurper of the Mount. Prue craved for some- 
 thing more sustaining in the tremendous strain of her 
 trial. In that crisis even the sweet trustfulness of Mary 
 Lane seemed to want "bite." 
 
 Often the girl laughed, in spite of herself, at certain 
 appeals pushed by the methods of a puff for corn-cure to 
 the same ends of making a fortune for a quack. Yet still 
 she read on, quieting, for the moment, her own misgiv- 
 ings by a disposition to make allowance for the spirit of 
 the time. After all, what she most wanted — the courage 
 
 172 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 to stand up to life, was there in full measure. It was a 
 literature of power, worthy of the people that had put 
 Niagara to work. Its art of willing was sometimes 
 strangely associated with a placid trust in the issue. It 
 was not an active, a contentious, or a combative force, 
 but rather a certain continuity of desire which realised 
 its objects by the mere equality of the pressure. It did 
 not preclude, it rather enjoined, the cessation of all effort 
 of the combative kind. She settled down, at last, into an 
 absolute acquiescence in what was to come that was really 
 fatalism. On the brink of destitution and the disgrace 
 of destitution, she was as calm as any burgess of them all 
 looking forward to dividend day. She willed submission 
 and quiet expectancy rather than their fruits, and never 
 allowed herself to question that all would come right in 
 the end. 
 
 And one day there fell, as it were, out of the blue, so 
 free was it from aught of her contriving, a note in these 
 terms. To be fair, however, the post was still the 
 medium : 
 
 "Derrington Manor, shire. 
 
 "The Hon. Mrs. Babyngton Dart wishes to have the 
 assistance of a shorthand writer and general amanuensis 
 capable of performing secretarial duties. The name of 
 Miss Meryon has been mentioned to her as one qualified 
 for the post, by a person whose recommendation would be 
 quite sufficient, and who desires to remain anonymous. 
 Should Miss Meryon be disengaged, will she be so good 
 as to call on Mrs. Dart between ten and eleven to-morrow 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 morning at— No. Charles Street, Berkeley Square, 
 
 or to write to that address by return, in case she cannot 
 keep the appointment. ' ' 
 
 The paper dropped from her hands, the tension had 
 been too great. The room swam before her. There was 
 a lapse of consciousness marked by no sensational inci- 
 dent, but registered by the hands of the clock. It had 
 been on the strike, as she remembered afterwards, when 
 she had torn the letter open, sitting in her arm-chair. It 
 had advanced twenty minutes beyond the hour when she 
 opened her eyes again and found the letter at her feet. 
 
 The rest of the day was spent in futile guesses as to 
 the identity of her anonjonous benefactor, in which the 
 names of Gertrude HoU and Laura Belton took their 
 turn as claimants for her gratitude without leaving her 
 able to decern the prize. 
 
 T74- 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 PRUE went to Berkeley Square next morning on the 
 very stroke of the half-hour. When she had waited 
 some time, a grave-looking woman came to scout as to 
 her appearance and probable business. 
 
 "Are you the young person who sent up the name just 
 now?" 
 
 "Yes, I 'm the young— person. " 
 
 "Mrs. Dart wrote to you?" 
 
 ' ' Otherwise I should not have been here, ' ' Prue would 
 have said a month ago; but a good deal had happened 
 since then. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Mrs. Dart is not up. Is it about— ?" 
 
 "A situation," said Prue. The lady's-maid had com- 
 pelled her to put herself on the level of a fellow-servant ; 
 and "score" was plainly written in her looks. 
 
 ' ' Oh, the typewriter. Will you come this way ? ' ' 
 
 The room on the second floor, facing the square, was a 
 place to lounge in and while away happy hours. One 
 might even play at being at work there, Prue thought, as 
 she surveyed the large table in the middle, fitted with 
 practical tools. But certain mere exquisite nothings, in 
 the plant of fancy pencraft, redeemed the place to finer 
 uses. A gold pen, studded with tiny turquoises, could 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 hardly have come out with dignity from a struggle with 
 a copy-book text. 
 
 The maid went into another room beyond, and returned 
 almost immediately with a rather more respectful air. 
 
 "Mrs. Dart will see you presently, if you don't mind 
 waiting. We missed a train last night and got in late. 
 We are in rather a muddle still." 
 
 She waved her hand towards two or three great trunks 
 standing on end with their lids open, and exhibiting 
 skirts hanging as it were by the neck from the ceilings of 
 their narrow cells. In this situation they were not free 
 from a certain air of alienated majesty, common to all 
 wearing apparel which has momentarily lost touch with 
 its wearer. 
 
 "Perhaps you would like to see the paper?" and she 
 took a broadsheet from a chair where it was drying itself 
 before the fire. Then, closing an open dressing-bag with 
 a snap, she disappeared with it into the next room. 
 
 The paper was The Morning Post, august as ever in 
 every association but one— the announcement of its reduc- 
 tion of price to a penny. Prue turned it over aimlessly, 
 awed in spite of herself. The news of the hurly-burly 
 of that mere "rest of the world" beyond the borders of 
 this postal district struck her as presumptuous in regard 
 to its context. Battle, murder, and sudden death here! 
 meetings of the unemployed there ! Where was the 
 policeman ? 
 
 She glanced round the room. It was noticeable for 
 its numerous portraits of the same person. A water- 
 colour by Shannon of a beautiful and still youthful face, 
 peeping forth from a cloud of diaphanous tulle, hung 
 
 176 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 over the mantel-piece. A photographic study of the 
 same features from life reclined on a tiny silver easel. A 
 sculptor had tried his hand on the subject in a marble 
 bust that stood on a pedestal in the corner. This was not 
 all. A hand in alabaster, life size, lay on the table and 
 pretended to be nothing but a paper-weight, though it 
 was manifestly but another likeness, as far as it went. 
 The girl felt that she had already made acquaintance, 
 after a fashion, with the lady of the house. There was 
 but one other portrait — a cleric— who looked high orders 
 and a miad at ease. 
 
 The room evidently served as a kind of ante-chamber 
 for all the callers in personal attendance. Prue was pres- 
 ently joined by a florist's assistant, a young woman bear- 
 ing a basket of hot-house blooms which she at once began 
 to arrange in the vases. 
 
 A third arrival was a dressmaker's shop-girl, or 
 nothing. 
 
 Prue sat still as a mouse, quietly thinking her thoughts. 
 She had never seen anything of the kind before. Aunt 
 Edom, for all her state, was decidedly suburban, not to 
 say provincial, and never touched these heights. Here 
 was the thing as it was done by those spoiled children of 
 Fortune who are born in the doll's house, and abide in it 
 to the end of their days. 
 
 The atmosphere was that of a certain ease and comfort 
 of body and mind, not to be properly enjoyed until all 
 remembrance of racial labour in the attainment had 
 passed away. Merely successful toilers are still in the 
 prison-house of the heroic virtues, and only those who 
 come after them may hope to attain to this Nirvana of 
 
 177 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 effortless luxury. The first are yet in the grip of the 
 heresy that nothing comes without the winning, whereas 
 true inward peace depends on precisely the opposite con- 
 clusion. 
 
 The dressmaker now began to hold a kind of inquest 
 on the skirts, scrawling the evidence on a sheet of paper. 
 
 "I can only make out fourteen," she murmured. 
 "Where 's the other, I wonder? fifteen was the count." 
 
 "Fifteen new dresses for one visit!" cried the florist. 
 SaidPrue, "Oh!" 
 
 "Why not?" said the other, "and before she goes to 
 Tadeaster next week, she 11 have to shuffle the pack. 
 It 'd never do to play exactly the same hand over again..' ' 
 
 "She must be dressing and undressing all day." 
 
 "What else should she be doing?" said the maker of 
 dresses. ' ' People have got to live. ' ' 
 
 The dressmaker began to warm to her subject. It was 
 like talking to an intelligent savage who had learned to 
 marvel at the wonders of civilisation. 
 
 "What about your dinner-gown — and your tea-gown 
 before that?" she continued. "And before that again, 
 you '11 want a tailor-made of some sort, if only for the 
 golf." 
 
 "That 's only three." 
 
 "Beg your pardon, four — perhaps there 's boating or 
 a drive. And what about a little dance in the evening, 
 or, for that matter, a big ball ? And if it 's fancy ? Oh, 
 my!" 
 
 "Five," assented the other, as though she had won her 
 case. 
 
 "That 's one day," said the dressmaker. "She was 
 
 178 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 there three." Prue could not choose but hear, though 
 much against her will. In her effort not to listen, a 
 dainty paper-knife, with which she toyed with nervous 
 tension, broke in her hand. 
 
 "You 've done it now," said the dressmaker, noticing 
 her for the first time. "But never mind, she '11 never 
 miss it. ' ' 
 
 Prue turned her back on both of them, and plunged 
 into The Morning Post. 
 
 A moment more, and the maid beckoned to her from 
 the half -opened door : ' ' Mrs. Dart will see you now. ' ' 
 
 It was the portrait, with touches of colour that no 
 palette could give. This chiefly in the intensive depths 
 of the pink and creamy white of the complexion, as 
 though these belonged to the very texture of the flesh 
 itself. There was nothing to save the face from excess 
 of softness but the glint, as of fine steel, in the eyes. She 
 reclined in an easy-chair, and gave the original of the ala- 
 baster hand to a young woman who was busy with the 
 tools of the manicure. 
 
 Prue was struck with a kind of awe. Never before had 
 she seen or dreamt of a creation of art, a human flower 
 the product of innumerable cultures, so absolutely com- 
 plete. And with this, and the costly apparatus for it 
 strewn all about, came the thought of those combs of 
 Egypt and depilatories of fine gold, under glass in the 
 museums, their anonymous wearers now little better than 
 so much brown snuff in the adjoining cases. With this 
 came a touch of pity. Given proper chances, such eyes 
 might have been capable of doing justice to themselves in 
 a shipwreck. And now — 
 
 179 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ' ' Good morning, Miss Meryon. I hope you will be able 
 to help me with my correspondence and things. I 've had 
 a pain: I wonder if it 's writers* cramp," and she 
 glanced with tender concern at the hand that might still 
 want other professional cares. 
 
 But the suggestion seemed too preposterous even for 
 her. She laughed it oflE in a succession of subdued gasps, 
 punctuated with pauses, as though to avoid the fatigue 
 of a continuous shock. 
 
 Prue smiled too. 
 
 "I hear you are quite clever at the typewriter and 
 all that." 
 
 "May I ask who has been so kind as to speak for me?" 
 
 "Oh, a good friend of yours, I can assure you; but I 
 had to promise not to mention the name." 
 
 Gertrude Holl, Aunt Edom, Mary Lane, came rapidly 
 into the girl's mind, only to be instantly dismissed. The 
 first knew nothing of her want of work. The next was 
 wholly out of this sphere. Mary would have been sure to 
 write first to her. Why not ? 
 
 "Will you tell the— person that I am very much 
 obliged. So much, in any case, and more, if I may hope 
 to be able to suit." 
 
 "I have no doubt of that." 
 
 The girl dared not trust herself to answer. All her 
 cultivated heroism rolled away from her now that the 
 tension had passed and left her weak as a child. It still 
 tried to vindicate itself to her as fulfilled prophecy, but 
 there was no time for that in this moment of collapse. 
 She could have cried her heart out then and there. The 
 change was too sudden. This too sharp swing round into 
 
 i8o 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 harbour out of a storm of death ! The poor beaten and 
 baffled creature needed the smooth water, if the other 
 needed the wreck. Work— that is to say, peace ineffable 
 now : and yesterday — nay, but an hour ago ! 
 
 "What shall we say about t&rms, Miss Meryon?" 
 
 "Nothing at present, please. Anything you choose to 
 name after you have tried me. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, but I insist— a pound a week?" 
 
 It served Prue right. She might easily have had 
 thirty shillings, if she had put a better face on the mat- 
 ter. Persons like Mrs. Dart have, in all innocence, quite 
 romantic notions of the little on which others can live. 
 
 "Thank you; that will do very nicely." 
 
 "You 've no idea of what a lot there is to do, and what 
 hard work it will be. I shall want you to cut all my books 
 for me, and to write my letters — some with your own 
 hand. Then you must look through the papers, and mark 
 things with a blue pencil. There 's too much in them: 
 they give one headaches— books, too, sometimes. Do you 
 know anything about questions?" 
 
 "Questions?" 
 
 "Things clever people talk about at dinner-time, you 
 know." 
 
 " I 'm sure I could learn. ' ' 
 
 " I 'm sure you could. But there 's ever so much more. 
 I made a memorandum of it — Where did I put it, Par- 
 ker ? Oh, she 's gone. So stupid of me ! " 
 
 The maid reappeared : 
 
 "The Archdeacon, madam,— will not detain you a 
 moment, — in the drawing-room." 
 
 "The dear Archdeacon! Certainly! To-morrow at ten, 
 
 i8i 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 please, Miss Meryon"; and in another moment the girl 
 was in the fresh air. 
 
 She took the park on her way home. Country cousins 
 and what not were waiting to catch a glimpse of their bet- 
 ters in drive or row. They looked as happy as any 
 foreign crowd kneeling to let the priests pass with their 
 precious burden in the open street. They seemed so 
 entirely convinced that they had found something quite 
 good, in this uplifting view of opulent and powerful fel- 
 low-creatures who barely vouchsafed their worshippers 
 a disdainful glance. When the sentiment of reverence 
 is in perfect accord with the duty, you have the very 
 poetry of adoration. Hard faces, quite dignified in their 
 lines of toil, seemed to soften at the sight of this some- 
 thing not themselves, that was better than themselves, 
 and to feel that all was going well with the world. 
 
 With what she had just passed through, it was a new 
 insight for the high school girl into the fantastic con- 
 ceptions of the Pagan heaven, which had puzzled her so 
 much as a child. What, after all, if, in the land beyond 
 nowhere, there were diviner beings who had no need of the 
 bread-and-butter virtues that control the course of 
 creeping lives? Better than all the literature of power, 
 perhaps, to get oneself born in the right way ! 
 
 182 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 YES ; right out of the storm into the smooth water and 
 a sunburst as soon as she got into port. All the 
 good luck seemed to come at once. Mrs. Dart's work was 
 light and easy, and it left abundant leisure .for other em- 
 ployment of the kind which Prue found through a 
 friendly recommendation at the shorthand school. 
 
 Laura was hugely interested in the news, especially in 
 that part of it which bore on the personality of Mrs. Dart. 
 
 "I want to know all about that woman, right here. 
 What 's the colour of her eyes ? ' ' 
 
 Prue had to go minutely through the inventory of per- 
 sonal charm, material surroundings, and even character; 
 and when it was over, Laura gave an approving nod. 
 
 "I like her style. She seems to go for everything she 
 wants, and to get it. 
 
 "She 's all right," said Prue, "but most of. her set are 
 no doubt insane with the jumps— gadding about. The 
 motor car has fixed it as the disease of the day. They 
 never can stand still. They 're all over the place on the 
 lookout for the untried. That little study where she sits 
 in the morning is a sort of Clapham Junction that leads 
 to every place in the universe — a mere from and to. ' ' 
 
 183 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "How sweet!" 
 
 "And the cost of it! Oh, Laura, the wicked, wicked 
 cost!" 
 
 ' ' What 's that to do with it 1 Is she nice ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' They 're all nice. I sometimes fancy they '11 wriggle 
 through with their manners at the Judgment Day." 
 
 "Don't stop till I tell you." 
 
 "She can manage three parties a night, and all sons 
 of things all the daytime without turning a hair. Mas- 
 seuse waiting for her sometimes for the wind-up — to 
 knead her to sleep after a medicated bath. ' ' 
 
 "Husband?" 
 
 "India; home next spring." 
 
 "You see I was right. She gets just everything she 
 wants because she knows how to go for it. Now I know 
 what you people mean by a ruling caste. That 's the 
 way kings manage. Their — what do you call 'em- 
 responsible ministers before the footlights are as nothing 
 to the others behind the scenes. They 're crammed by 
 experts for their daily miracle of the right word in the 
 right place. Don't call yourself a typewriter, Prue; 
 you 're a chamberlain at the. very least. ' ' 
 
 "I don't want to call myself anything." 
 
 "You 'd better see about it, though— what you think, 
 you do ; what you say, you are." 
 
 "What stuff!" 
 
 ' ' What impudence ! ' ' 
 
 "Laura, I 'm happier now." 
 
 "And you 've come to thank your little philosopher 
 and friend. Well, I thought you wanted tuning up." 
 
 184 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ' ' I did then, certainly. ' ' 
 
 "And why not now too?" 
 
 "No, no; I can't live in that state. I just want to be 
 quiet for a time. ' ' 
 
 "Anybody can be quiet. I 'm going to have a good 
 time— like the Honourable Babyngton. I want to see 
 how it feels. I sha'n't be much happier, I daresay, but I 
 should like to know, you know. We 're an inquisitive 
 sex." 
 
 "Why not let well alone? Are n't you happy enough 
 as you are ? I am : work and liberty— what do you want 
 more ? ' ' 
 
 "I 'm rather tired of calling the shopmen sir, just to 
 get orders for the Honourable Babyngton 's signet rings. 
 I should like to know how it feels to be called 'ma'am.' 
 Is n't that a sign of respect here?" 
 
 "Among housemaids and— courtiers." 
 
 "Well, courtiers for choice. Don't be angry; perhaps 
 it is only my imclassified half. But if ever the Honour- 
 able Babyngton wants an understudy, perhaps you '11 
 mention me. I think I could do it better— there ! ' ' 
 
 "Don't be wicked, Laura." 
 
 "Don't be silly, Prue. Oh, you do want shaking up 
 over here." 
 
 "I 've had shaking enough, I fancy. I 'm not tak- 
 ing any just now." 
 
 "Good little gal! Blessed are the meek." 
 
 ' ' That 's not fair, Laura ! ' ' 
 
 "That 's my religion, anyhow. Good as the best of 
 'em, if I get my chance. ' ' 
 
 185 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "A religion of getting on!" 
 
 "What 's the matter with it?" 
 
 ' ' Oh, nothing ; but it does seem rather different f rom— 
 from— ' ' 
 
 "Doing your duty in that state of life— you mean. 
 Do you think I don't know all about that?" said Laura, 
 quite changing her manner, and fixing her with a stern 
 glance. "We 're only playing at being work-girls you 
 and I, and they 'd tear us to pieces, if they got a chance : 
 go and see the others in the factories, the ropemakers, for 
 choice. They fight one another with the knuckles and 
 when the'drink 's in 'em will scare a man. I saw it once 
 —never again. We 're the aristocracy of their order. 
 You must look one way or the other; and, the way you 
 look, you '11 go. I 'm afraid to look down. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, I 'm tired of looking either way, ' ' said the other 
 wearily, "I wish someone would do it for me." 
 
 "Your Prince Charming will evidently be the Ameri- 
 can man. But don't forget: he did n't begin with this 
 passion for the emancipation of women. He was much 
 too busy in making his fortune. In fact he was exceed- 
 ingly glad to get the nice little things out of the way, like 
 the other children, and to offer them all the distractions 
 of the Dbll's House. He looked into the nursery one 
 day,* and was astonished to find what clever games 
 they played. But he saw that he 'd have to alter the 
 system— they were getting into mischief, too. Then he 
 built them colleges. Some of them are only playing 
 there now." 
 
 Prue was at fault for a reply. The mood of heroic 
 endurance was, perhaps, still latent in her, but now 
 all she wanted for the moment was to bask in the sun. 
 
 i86 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Look here, Laura ! When I came to you that day my 
 trouble was breaking my heart; not so much because it 
 was trouble, but because I thought someone was taking 
 cock-shies at me in the dark. Why did all the hits seem 
 to come my way ? Was he a marksman after all ? That 
 did n't make it much better: I was as wretched as a cor- 
 nered mouse. Anyhow, I could do nothing but put up 
 with it. Now I know it is n't quite so bad as that— 
 thanks to you. You gave me the freedom of your trea- 
 sure-heap, and I picked out this — 'Difficulties are things 
 which show what men are. Remember that God, like a 
 gymnastic trainer, has pitted you against a rough antag- 
 onist. For what end? That you may be an Olympic 
 conqueror.' " 
 
 ' ' Dear old Eppy ! is n 't he just lovely ? Why could n 't 
 he tell you that troubles are all moonshine, the sly old 
 thing ? But he 's quite last year 's fashions : they 're not 
 showing him much— even at the sales. You know better 
 now. But let 's make sure of it ; just repeat after me, ' I 
 mean to have a good time, Laura ; I mean to have a good 
 time.' " 
 
 " 'I hope to have a good time, Laura.' " 
 
 " 'Mean,' please, you must be letter perfect in this 
 part." 
 
 " ' I mean to have a good time, Laura ; I mean to have 
 a good time.' Will that do?" 
 
 "Pretty bird! Here 's your lump of sugar. Now 
 you know the secret ; and, if your books of magic did n 't 
 happen to be my books too, you might throw them into 
 the sea." 
 
 "It 's Saturday afternoon, and I 'm going for a spin 
 in Richmond Park. Will you come ? ' ' 
 
 187 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Laura put out a dainty shoe from under the hem of her 
 garment, peeped at it, drew it in again. 
 
 "Long walks, long feet. I 'm afraid there 's no way 
 out of that. Mind what you are doing. Come and tell 
 me all about it afterwards: that '11 do just as well." 
 
 i88 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE park was glorious as ever in grateful acknowl- 
 edgment of the landscape gardener's forbearance 
 in leaving it alone. The girl went in by the Star and 
 Garter, and, after a long ramble, out by Sheen Gates, 
 and then by Barnes Common and Ranelagh on the home- 
 ward stretch. The night was falling as she reached Ham- 
 mersmith Bridge. She was tired and hungry, and that 
 of course is also to be happy when there is the prospect 
 of a meal. She would have been happier for a com- 
 panion : even Spagley was not in attendence to-day. He 
 had been invited in the early morning, and was under- 
 stood to have signified his acceptance ; but had taken him- 
 self off, in the meanwhile, in the hope of catching the 
 dog of a Punch and Judy show at a disadvantage under 
 the encumbrance of his ruff. 
 
 To tell the truth about it, she wanted a human mate. 
 Gertrude and Mary Lane seemed to have gone out of her 
 life. Gertrude had left London; Mary had never come 
 back to it, which was much the same thing. The St. 
 Galmiers were out of the question: she shrank instinct- 
 ively from the woman, and she despised the man. But 
 for Laura, she would have been utterly alone, as in the 
 days before her luck turned— days to which she could 
 never look back without a shudder. 
 
 189 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She crossed the bridge, and then turned the corner by 
 Biffin's to scout for the chance of a moment's rest. The 
 little wayworn alley was for the moment all her own, and 
 she leaned over the parapet to take a last look at the river 
 before going back to town. The wintry sun was near the 
 setting, the bridge, now towering above her at no great 
 distance, stood out tremendous in its mass, fateful 
 against the coppery sky. The water reflected the rising 
 mist, and but little of the ever-diminishing brightness 
 beyond. It had no transparency; it might have been 
 some river of the underworld in molten lead. The few 
 pleasure craft that keep the stream summer and winter, 
 had long since come in, all save a boat just rounding the 
 point. It stood out black against the bars of sunlight 
 and the great expanse of sullen blue below. It was no 
 doubt going at a good pace, though it seemed to float in 
 mere metal in a state of fusion. But it drew nearer very 
 soon, and then the girl made out an eight pulling 
 strongly across the bows of a belated County Council 
 steamer towards the place where she stood, now, with 
 one or two others, who had come out of a boat-house 
 behind to lend a hand in landing the party. Its nearer 
 approach defined a female figure pulling stroke for the 
 rest of a crew of men, and in quite business-like style. 
 As they landed, they caught the wash of the steamer, 
 broadside on, and all got a ducking— all but a bent male 
 figure in the bow, who had jumped out before they were 
 overhauled. 
 
 "The Doctor 's all right," shouted one of the men 
 who had gone down to meet them; and soon the whole 
 party reached the boat-house, the woman shaking her 
 
 iqo 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 drenched skirts, and just as workman-like as the rest in 
 her unconcern. 
 
 "Sarah!" cried Prue. 
 
 "Who 'd ha' thought it, miss?" 
 
 But it was impossible to leave it there, in bare justice 
 to the exigencies of the situation. 
 
 "My club— change in a moment — "Will you come in 
 and have some tea ? ' ' 
 
 Sarah's club. There was no getting level with Sarah. 
 She always had something up her sleeve. Prue thought 
 all this in a flash, but she took care not to say it. 
 
 "This 'ere 's the pressydent," said Sarah, arresting 
 for a moment the bent figure, now running nimbly in- 
 doors with articles from the boat. "Doctor— friend 
 o' mine." 
 
 "How do?" nodded the Doctor, without stopping. 
 * ' Certainly ; do please come and have some tea. ' ' 
 
 "Tell me all about it, Sarah, or else I shall give you 
 away. You might n 't like people to know you were sly. ' ' 
 
 "Not me; what is there to be sly about? The Doctor 
 takes us out every week-end, workin' gals and chaps- 
 benefit o' your health. Pull to Richmond, then walk 
 across somewheres to lunch — ah, and want it too. Pull 
 back in the afternoon, and here we are. ' ' 
 
 Prue was handed over to a young man who was in- 
 structed to take care of her while the others changed. He 
 led the way into the warm club-house where thirty or 
 forty young people of both sexes stood waiting for the 
 party in a room set out for tea. 
 
 She was welcomed by a handsome young woman wear- 
 ing a silver belt of office as captain of the club, and was 
 
 191 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 then turned over to an elderly man whose daughter stood 
 by his side. Their being together, father and daughter, 
 seemed only the accident of their joint-membership. 
 There was no chaperonage, and none was needed; the 
 girls seemed quite able to take care of themselves. The 
 young men, as the visitor judged by their talk, were 
 mostly members of some teaching institution. 
 
 Prue was still looking round, when the door opened 
 and George Leonard stalked in — the first of the eight to 
 come upstairs. 
 
 He greeted her warmly, yet with deference. 
 
 "I 'm afraid you will hardly remember me. But 
 Sarah will soon be at hand to speak for me. I should 
 have no excuse for forgetting my first subscriber." 
 
 She had better reason to recognise him, if only he 
 knew. The memory of their meeting at Pentonville 
 rushed over her spirit, and brought a sense of confusion. 
 Did he know after all? 
 
 "And may I ask after the health of The Branding 
 Iron?" 
 
 "Thank you; we 're going strong, income and ex- 
 penditure nearly balanced, and at any moment we may 
 be paying our way. You will be sure to hear of it: we 
 shall brag, as a matter of course. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I never expected— Even Sarah was a surprise. All 
 a matter of chance. I was just Isoking at the river ; and 
 then—" 
 
 "Oh, I came to lend the Doctor a hand." 
 
 "What a strange kind of club. I wonder what it 's 
 about. ' ' 
 
 192 
 
Ring in tke New 
 
 "It 's the Doctor's idea. You know the Doctor? 
 Everybody knows him." 
 
 "I 'm afraid I 'm not everybody." 
 
 ' ' Nothing in Harley Street, you know, and yet, in one 
 way of looking at it, as good as all Harley Street put 
 together. He certainly helps to keep people alive. It 's 
 the title of his University Degree." 
 
 She bit her lip. "I know now; the great philologist 
 who—" 
 
 "The very man, editor of this, founder of that, but 
 ^iggest, and I hope, proudest of all, as founder of this 
 rowing club for working girls." 
 
 ' ' And where do the men come in ? " 
 
 "Oh, we have our modest uses— partners when the 
 girls want to dance, bear a hand in the eight, and all 
 that. I can tell you, we have our work cut out when 
 Sarah is stroke. I 'm proud of Sarah ; I brought her in. 
 And they are not all like Sarah; they condescend to 
 sweethearts sometimes. Most of our young fellows are 
 select specimens from the Doctor's class at the Working 
 Man's College. 
 
 "The club is his hobby. He 's a great breaker-down 
 of barriers in places of this sort; to say 'snob' in his 
 hearing is to say 'rats' to a terrier. Look at these young 
 men and young women all thrown together with mere 
 honour and self-respect for their safeguard, and Mrs. 
 Grundy's occupation 's gone, I verily believe, on my 
 word and soul. He solves his life-problems walking, 
 usually with his hat in his hand. He rows at eighty- 
 and-one years as others row at eighteen. He eats like a 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 hermit. His art of happiness is just as simple ; he loves 
 and lets others love him— the old rule." 
 
 "I 'm in love with him already." 
 
 "You won't be without rivals ; his girls and young men 
 adore him— and one another, whenever they have a mind. 
 Of course, such a club ought to break down in dreary 
 scandal and misunderstanding. It does n't— that 's all. 
 He sits among them patriarch and sage, and rules by 
 his smile. He has brought them all to the water-side. 
 Before he set to work, the little shop-girl was still in the 
 fourfold bondage of her factory, her lodgings, her sham 
 proprieties, and her stays. He has shaped her. and put 
 the roses into her cheek. ' ' 
 
 He paused. 
 
 "Stop me, please, when you 've had enough of it; but 
 really I do like talking about the dear old chap. ' ' 
 
 "So do I." 
 
 "I verily believe he knows of no distinction of per- 
 sons, or indeed of living things, except as against people 
 who put on airs. To catch him at his best you should 
 see him with a swarm of brats fresh from the slums, 
 holding on to him by hands or coat-tails, as he leads them 
 through Kew Gardens and talks about the flowers. They 
 call him 'master,' 'father' — anything that means love 
 and trust. They fight for their right to be nearest to 
 him ; and that 's the moment to get a sitting for his in- 
 comparable smile. When all the children are at school, 
 and all the big girls at work, he puts in spare time with 
 the pigeons at the British Museum in the intervals of his 
 toil in the library. But here he is to speak for himself. ' ' 
 
 He appeared at the head of his crew from the dress- 
 ing-room, tubbed, famished, and radiant with health 
 
 194 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 and good spirits. His cheek was grained with colour 
 like an apple. His eyes, bright with shrewdness and 
 benignity, lit up the whole face. 
 
 The girls clustered about him ; he had almost to brush 
 them off to reach his seat. No one ventured to offer him 
 service as from youth to age: he was but an older boy. 
 When he had shouldered his way to his place, this gen- 
 uine love-feast began to the music of clattering crockery, 
 chattering girls and men. The mighty tea-pots were as 
 urns of a river-god of sculpture. His glance missed 
 nothing; he had everybody's history at his finger-ends; 
 and he gave it to Prue, who, as a new-comer, had a seat 
 by his side. 
 
 He had heard somehow of her share in Mary Lane's 
 setting of "The Pearl," and he talked to her about the 
 poem in a way that made her mouth water for knowl- 
 edge like his own. 
 
 Sarah was on the other side of him, and even she 
 glowed in his ray. He evidently knew her well ; for he 
 played her to the bank of sociable give-and-take, like 
 an angler landing his fish. He praised her as one of his 
 champion scullers, and directed her gaze to a silver cup 
 set in a place of honour, as to something she had yet 
 to win. 
 
 When tea was over, they cleared the room for a dance. 
 Between the dances they rested in a song. Then came 
 the early hour for leavetaking and home, though some- 
 times, in the case of assorted couples, the good-byes were 
 for the other end of the journey. 
 
 Sarah saw these departing with no sympathy in her 
 gaze. 
 
 "I come for the rowin'," she said to Prue; "I don't 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 take no stock in any o' this lot"— by which she was 
 understood to mean her fellow-clubmen. "Skipjacks, I 
 call 'em— shavin' to get whiskers, not to get 'em off. 
 Who 's to see you safe 'ome. Wonder how you come to 
 be out so far by yourself. Had you got lost ? ' ' 
 
 "Thank you, Sarah— thank you very much. Mr. 
 Leonard has offered to take me to the train." 
 
 ' ' Humph ! ' ' said Sarah ; and she stalked away— Diana 
 huffed by the defection of a nymph. 
 
 196 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 PRUB walked silent, troubled, not knowing what to 
 do to convince him that she was perfectly at her 
 ease. 
 
 She was still under the obsession of that memory of 
 his earlier offer of escort. She plucked nervously at her 
 boa, losing a feather every time: — "he knew me; he 
 knew me not." 
 
 Then she said, on the impulse of one moment: "I have 
 found work;" and, on the impulse of the next, wished 
 herself at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 What could he know about it? What could he care, 
 if he did know 1 
 
 "I 'm glad, of course, though I was going to say that 
 looks like worse luck for me. I hope it won't prevent 
 you from coming over to help me now and then in my 
 quarter. ' ' 
 
 "I should Be pleased: I have a good deal of spare 
 time. I am with a lady who pays me very well for the 
 little I have to do for her. ' ' 
 
 "She might not like the idea of your connivance in 
 The Branding Iron." 
 
 ' ' That would be my lookout. ' ' 
 
 "I want someone to take my people about, and give 
 
 197 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 them an idea of all the beautiful things to be seen for 
 nothing. ' ' 
 
 "There are not many beautiful things, I 'm afraid," 
 she said, reverting to the experience of her solitary life. 
 "Do you happen to know how some work girls have to 
 live?" 
 
 "I hope so." 
 
 "How hideous it all is!" 
 
 ' ' That depends on the way you look at it, I fancy! ' ' 
 
 "Is there any way but one? Miles of dull and dirty 
 streets: week days— organs, 'all the winners'; Sunday- 
 bells, muffin and other. Oh, the ugliness of it all! 
 Guide people to the beautiful things! "Where 's the 
 beauty? Who 's to guide the guides?" 
 
 "I don't know, but it 's fairyland to me as it stands. 
 It 's the seriousness of it all, I think— the sincerity — as 
 soon as you can get away from the quarters where they 
 are merely playing at being alive." 
 
 "I wish I could see it like that." 
 
 "Well, try one of the great Saturday night markets 
 — miles and miles of coarse grub — that 's the word for 
 it— tempered with mountebanks, ballad singers, lit with 
 the roaring naphtha lamps." 
 
 "I don't see much fun in marketing on Saturday 
 nights." 
 
 "Maybe not, but it 's sport of a kind, all the same. 
 So serious, so very serious; one single Saturday night's 
 intermission, at the pay-table, and half of them would 
 be without a meal. The people so satisfied with the 
 squalid luck of the moment, the one good dinner of the 
 week only one day ahead ! Jocund as mountaineers some 
 
 198 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of them, and for the same reason that they live within 
 a step of the abyss. It is n't all dejection; devil-may- 
 care 's a good dog too." 
 
 "I thought we were talking of beauty." 
 "Will this do then— in Clerkenwell, hard by the 
 smoking chasm of the Metropolitan at Farringdon, 'I 
 know a bank' — I assure you I do — a place with a 
 dovecote, and winding walks, and all the rest of it, and 
 workers in the dinner hour. I came on it by chance the 
 other day: the entry lay between two warehouses, and I 
 thought I was trespassing at first. And all the people, 
 in aU the gardens, backing in the sunshine of the moment 
 between the thunder-clouds of their lot." 
 
 "It 's all so grey, so squalid, so common outside. How 
 much garden, how much more smoky Metropolitan and 
 all the rest of it beyond. What about the warehouses ? ' ' 
 "Good Heavens! that 's where the interest comes in. 
 What are you going to do about it ? You must do some- 
 thing, or die. Hold on to the bit of garden, hold on 
 tight : we 're going to get it all like that one day. ' ' 
 "I don't want to know it, place or people — ^there." 
 Indignation makes verses— and other things. She was 
 in revolt. In spite of all she had felt for the unem- 
 ployed in their squalid march, perhaps rather because of 
 it, she. loathed the very touch of poverty and squalor. 
 Her angry pity, her joy in suffering for the sake of vic- 
 tory, were still perfectly compatible with the idea of a 
 separation from the herd. They were, in fact, part of 
 the idea. Her old sense of her right to the ' ' good time, ' ' 
 revived under Laura's influence, had but taken the new 
 form of an aspiration for selectness. And she was more 
 
 199 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 than ever disposed to regard all that was disagreeable 
 as but a sordid accident of the human lot. The maxim, 
 "all is good, there is no evil," naturally suggested a 
 drawing-room, suitably furnished with upholstery and 
 human beings, as the threshold of the perfect way. 
 
 "But you have to know it whether you like it or not. 
 Please don't think me too dictatorial, it 's only one of 
 my faults. You '11 find plenty of others by-and-by. 
 Hold up your finger when you think I want pulling in. ' ' 
 
 "I 've seen enough of that sort of thing. I want a 
 change. ' ' 
 
 "What sort of change?" 
 
 ' ' Clear skies, clean streets, clean people. ' ' 
 
 "Eastbourne?" 
 
 "There are worse places," she said. 
 
 ' ' I daresay ; but think only of the church parade, and 
 of all the prosperity on the trot to and fro in its narrow 
 prison, like a collie in a cage." 
 
 "What 's wrong, I wonder, with Beaehy Head?" 
 
 "The people at the top. Well, no, I don't exactly 
 mean that. But sometimes you know one can 't resist the 
 paltry temptation of hitting the nail. Still they are 
 rather trying, on their snug summits — say what you 
 wiU." 
 
 "I was thinking of the view." 
 
 "I prefer the roof of a model in the Isle of Dogs. It 's 
 a play-ground of sorts — and it looks down on the river, 
 and the masts with their austere message from the fur- 
 thest points of the earth, and the speck of a landing-stage 
 where Frobisher lived, and Raleigh started on his last 
 voyage— not that I care overmuch for either of 'em 
 
 200 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 except as parts of the vista— and on miles of two-story 
 houses with their swarm. Ah, there the caring comes in ! 
 All the insect figures so earnest and purposeful, whatever 
 else they are not, even if they 're only going to the deuce 
 in their own way." 
 
 "Too many are going the way of the corner puhlic 
 house, for my taste. ' ' 
 
 "Not half so many as you think. But I own they all 
 have to keep their eye on the turnings. There 's a bit of 
 the beauty of it. Everything is to be done with them 
 and for them. The rest don't count so much, at either 
 end of the scale. We talk too often of the horrors. We 
 miss the possibilities. You might do anything with this 
 lot, too poor for foolishness, not needy enough for degrad- 
 ation — the backbone of the country, if things were in their 
 right place. Wealth is a mere craving, like gin and 
 tobacco : we want a wealth cure. We 're rotting of pros- 
 perity ill-diffused; the aristocracy has long since gone 
 out of the reckoning, the middle class was almost the first 
 to go. Our entire hope is to start with this, as yet uncor- 
 rupted, mass as the beginnings of a new English people. 
 Key them up to socialised wealth, purer light. ' ' 
 
 "And the others?" 
 
 ' ' Save them from themselves, for all our sakes, in their 
 silly waste and folly and pride. Teach them to feel the 
 need of wise and prudent measures for irrigating the 
 whole surface of society with the boundless riches that 
 should be the heritage of the whole people. And don't 
 let them ride off with a cry of 'confiscation' : the business 
 is much too serious for that— the thing, or the cry. Let 
 us all try to set it right, shoulder to shoulder, and rich 
 
 20I 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 and poor, as we should to the cry of 'the country in 
 danger. ' It is a thing against nature : it can 't last as it 
 is." He stopped and broke into a cheery laugh. "I 'm 
 afraid I 've been a bit after-dinnery. But really, you 
 know, there 's a speech in every man, and most conver- 
 sation is only the struggle to find an opening for it. This 
 may be used in evidence against me, I am well aware, 
 but be as merciful as you can." 
 
 They had reached the station. His hand was on the 
 handle of the carriage door. 
 
 "I am sure you could help me if you tried. Won't you 
 come with me for a ramble round some of the public gal- 
 leries next Saturday?" 
 
 "If you think I could learn to be useful." 
 
 "I am sure of it, and, at any rate, it will do you good 
 to see your pictures again. ' ' 
 
 "My pictures— a chromo, from a Christmas number!" 
 
 "Oh, that 's only the private cabinet. I mean the 
 others in Trafalgar Square." 
 
 "What 's everybody's is nobody's." 
 
 "Are you quite sure that in things of this sort it is n't 
 especially yours, if you like to make it so ? At any rate, 
 come to mine." 
 
 She might have stood more on terms, but the train 
 shook itself for the start, just as he was saying, "Satur- 
 day at two — vestibule of the National Gallery." 
 
 It had to be "yes" or "no," for there was but just 
 time for the word. "No" would have been shorter by a 
 letter, yet she said "yes ! ' ' What can you do with people 
 like that? 
 
 As the train moved off, two belated travellers came run- 
 
 202 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ning up, and in spite of official protests, succeeded in 
 entering a compartment. It was Sarah and — a man. He 
 was conditioned in every desirable way from Sarah's 
 point of view, in being middle-aged and demure, but still 
 there he was, to all appearance one of the sex she had 
 forsworn. Mysterious Sarah. She did not see Prue. 
 Prue took care not to see her at the other end of the jour- 
 ney. 
 
 203 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 HER heart beat fast. It was her first male escort in 
 anything more considerable than an Eton jacket 
 He was waiting for her at the rendezvous, and appar- 
 ently in another frame of mind. This time he seemed as 
 serious as one of his own heroes of the Isle of Dogs. It 
 deepened her interest in him: he might have as many 
 moods as the sea. 
 
 ' ' I have to come here every month or so, ' ' he said, ' ' just 
 to clear my eyesight for the beauty of the world." 
 
 Prue thought what a splendid thing it would be to have 
 such a gallery in one's own house, yet somehow she 
 shrank from saying so. The next moment she did say it 
 —just because she shrank from thinking she was afraid. 
 
 ' ' Half the time you 'd never look at it, for that 's what 
 it comes to. And besides, most of the great private col- 
 lections are mere side shows, now that the Wallace has 
 fulfilled its natural destiny." 
 
 "Tes; but to feel that they were your very own." 
 
 "How much ownership do you want? Won't this do? 
 Last week I was looking over a 'very own' belonging to 
 a friend of mine in the country. He asked me to bring 
 down some of my men. I took them more for his sake 
 than for theirs; he was laudably anxious, I understand, 
 to promote the union of classes. It was a sore sight in 
 
 204 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 second best, as most of such things are bound to be. 
 What can you expect in pictures for £150,000? This 
 makes amends.-' 
 
 As they went in, he made her stop on the staircase. 
 
 "Excuse me for doing the honours of my own place, 
 but this is worth a glance. Yet, after all, it is the mere 
 casket and we want to get at the gems. Do you like pic- 
 tures of children ? Come and see one of Francia 's. Then 
 we might look at Titian's little dancing rogue of a baby 
 satyr, on tiptoe with the very joy of life. We can take 
 them in their order later on. And the next time you 
 come this way by yourself, don't forget the exquisite ur- 
 chin in fuU pelt with the roses— Bronzino's — Three such 
 things in one gallery— beat them, if you can in the whole 
 world." 
 
 She stopped, and took a seat in the first large room. 
 
 "Let us begin with all the pictures at once," she said, 
 "don't you think that 's the best way?" 
 
 It was the whole scheme of colour at a glance. Her 
 gaze travelled swiftly round the room without taking 
 detailed note of a single canvas. They were in a colour 
 universe, glowing, brilliant, yet tempered to softness by 
 the matted light — a suffusion of animated harmonies 
 without a jarring note. 
 
 He watched her dreamy, half -veiled eyes, her parted 
 lips. 
 
 "Now," she said, after a while, "the things in the 
 frames whenever you like." 
 
 "We hardly want them. They 've already given us 
 their meaning in one word, why trouble them for a thou- 
 sand? What a happy thought. All the other arts have 
 
 205 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 only the same word to say, though of course in their own 
 ways— music, great architecture (great nature for that 
 matter) , peace, peace, perturbed spirit ! Thank you for 
 the idea." 
 
 ' ' Thank you for telling me what I meant. ' ' 
 
 They rambled on from room to room taking the mere 
 topical interest at no more than its real worth. Subject 
 in art is as secondary as action in life. The spirit of the 
 conception is the thing that counts. 
 
 "The golden hours on angel wings"— the greatest has 
 told us how they fly. All life was redeemed to the sense 
 of beauty. Now, for the first time, she felt what it might 
 be to be alive. 
 
 All too soon they were under the portico again, and 
 looking down on Trafalgar Square, bright in the wintry 
 sun, and the scene beyond— a turmoil no longer, but only 
 the harmony of a beatific vision. 
 
 "What would become of us sometimes," he said, "with- 
 out this temple on the edge of the slope, just to focus 
 things a bit ? And there 's another not far off, not quite 
 so happily placed, but still exactly where it 's wanted. 
 The day 's our own. You have seen my gallery, come and 
 see my bookshelves and my little stock of curios — mine 
 and yours. But perhaps we might take a turn first, what 
 do you say?" 
 
 They crossed the Square to Charing Cross, pushed on as 
 far as the corner of the Haymarket, and then returned to 
 their starting-point. She walked as in a dream, with the 
 roar of the trafBc for a lullaby. She was dimly, and at 
 the same time, keenly aware — in the appeal to a sort of 
 inner sense— of the great steamship offices with the tables 
 
 206 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of their sailings to every part of the planet, of models of 
 great ocean liners— their drawing-rooms, boudoirs, din- 
 ing-rooms, lounges, the very riot of modern luxury pic- 
 tured as all afloat, with nothing but a plate of sheet-iron 
 between them and the ocean depths. Other officers showed 
 where you might pass in cushioned ease over and under 
 Alpine heights in cars as comfortably lit and upholstered 
 as the glowing chariot of that mad King of Bavaria who 
 tore through the mountain solitudes at dead of night to 
 ease his pain. 
 
 The big hotels filled for the luncheon-hour, the emi- 
 gration offices had their contrasting crowds feasting on 
 the sight of the "produce" in cereals and monster fruits, 
 exhibited as bait for the settler. The huge maps in other 
 windows carried out the same suggestion of limitless 
 space, limitless opportunity, all radiating out from her, 
 as a sort of insignificant centre of things, her horizon 
 bounded by a London parish, yet yearning for her share 
 in all that lay beyond. 
 
 He caught the look of wistfulness in her face, and per- 
 haps guessing that he had missed his mark, led the way 
 briskly towards the British Museum, steering her through 
 the traffic where still all passed as a thing seen in trance. 
 In New Oxford Street, however, he felt or feigned hun- 
 ger, and she was still only coming out of a trance, when 
 they sat in a corner of a well-known restaurant. 
 
 The delight of it— the Arabian Nights in smoky Lon- 
 don ! What an affair — a cup of coffee in a bun-shop ! 
 Well, don 't laugh at her too much. It was her first cafe 
 as well as her first escort. The highly sophisticated per- 
 son who gave himself that forty-guinea a head dinner at 
 
 207 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 the Savoy might still have envied her the novelty of the 
 sensation. The people bustling in and out, many of them 
 studious women from the neighbouring Reading-Room, 
 the smart waiters, all ministered to the sense of adven- 
 ture, as though the little London girl had suddenly been 
 whirled away on a wishing carpet to some far-off land! 
 The very aroma of the coffee was enough. It was reverie, 
 vision, the East in the setting of a London fog. 
 
 And soon there came a touch of incident, which, in its 
 small way, was adventure of a more positive kind. Sub- 
 dued sounds of altercation in another compartment of the 
 shop reached the pair at their table, but hardly went 
 beyond. 
 
 It was but a Briton of sorts asserting his inalienable 
 right to bully the foreign waiter as a dependent, but it 
 was most exciting to Prue, as one witnessing a national 
 sport for the first time. 
 
 "You- did n't pull it off that time, old chap," said the 
 Briton. ' ' Better luck next. ' ' 
 
 The Briton was not visible from the place where Prue 
 sat, but she could just see the waiter in profile, erect, 
 immobile, perfectly self-possessed. He was a fine young 
 fellow of his inches, with the look of being somebody, in 
 spite of his ridiculous evening wear in the broad daylight. 
 He held forth a penny which seemed to have slipped out 
 of the reckoning as he tendered change. 
 
 "Very sorry, sor: on the floor fallen." 
 
 "How many pennies do you sneak that way in a 
 week?" said the Briton genially. 
 
 The waiter flushed crimson, but never moved a muscle, 
 and spoke, if possible, lower than before. 
 
 208 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Very sorry, sor; it was an accident." 
 
 "Now you may keep it for yourself," said the Briton. 
 "And there 's a penny more to add to it. That 's what 
 we call a tip in this little country." 
 
 The waiter evidently hesitated between the desire to 
 choke him, and the wish to avoid a scene. The wiser 
 course prevailed. 
 
 "Dank you, sor." 
 
 "Now I '11 give you another tip— what we call the 
 straight one. Next time, don't go collectin' on your 
 own hook for the accident fund. We don't like it in 
 this country." 
 
 The waiter answered never a word. 
 
 It was impossible to go on quarrelling with such a 
 creature. The Briton was evidently mollified— in part, 
 no doubt, by the felicity of his own humour. 
 
 "You don't make tuppence every time you serve a 
 gentleman and lady— I mean a lady and gentleman— 
 with a snack, in your (what do you call it — 'Vaiter- 
 land'?) 'Land of waiters,' as you might say— eh, mate, 
 ha! ha!" 
 
 "He! he!" came in a softer titter, apparently from 
 the lady in question. 
 
 The waiter smiled, and filled in his pause in the con- 
 versation by dusting the crumbs from the table. 
 
 "How do you like John Bull— eh?" said the customer, 
 quite in good spirits now. 
 
 "I am not long in the gountry," said the waiter 
 evasively. 
 
 " Well, go and have a squint at it, ' ' said the customer, 
 "whenever you get a day off, and don't forget Ports- 
 
 209 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 mouth. Plenty o' ships. When 's this 'ere German fleet 
 comin' to give us a look in, in a friendly sort o' way? 
 Plenty o' room too at Portsmouth. Let 'em all come, 
 friend or foe, waiter ; that 's the idea. ' ' 
 
 "And while you 're about it," said the lady, "just 
 take a peep at the soldiers at the Horse Guards. They 
 won't hurt you, if you keep a civil tongue in your head." 
 
 Prue gave a great start, and craned her head a little 
 so as to catch a reflection in a mirror— Miss St. Galmier 
 and her brother Reginald ! 
 
 She had just time to veil her face with a newspaper 
 when they passed out, while the waiter still impeccably 
 correct went off to attend to another customer, as one 
 retiring in the company of his own thoughts. 
 
 "Empire and Impudence," said Leonard, "that 's the 
 way I 'm afraid it touches the crowd. And, if you knew 
 all, you might find that this waiter belonged to one of 
 the great hotel dynasties of Bale or Berne, and would 
 hardly employ that wastrel to black his boots. Their 
 youngsters often don the uniform of service, in this 
 way, to pick up languages, manners, and customs. When 
 shall we learn—" 
 
 "You forget that 'pa was a gentleman,' " said Prue. 
 
 2 lO 
 
CHAPTER XXVH 
 
 THEY found the Museum gate blocked by a group 
 of ragged children, standing abashed before the 
 policeman on duty. 
 
 "More infants," said Leonard, "though late English 
 instead of early Italian— worse luck ! Let us have a look 
 at 'em: they 're always fun." 
 
 "Wait a bit," said the man of law cheerily — to a boy 
 who had the king of Lilliput's qualification for leader- 
 ship, in being taller than the rest by about the thickness 
 of a thumb-nail—" 'Ow many of yer this journey?" 
 
 "Me an' my little brother, an' this 'ere boy, an' — " 
 
 ' ' Stop a bit : what about them three little gals ? ' ' 
 
 "They ain't my lot." 
 
 ' ' Glad to 'ear it : stand out gals. Now, then, what do 
 you and your lot want to go in for ? ' ' 
 
 "To see the picters." 
 
 "There ain't no picters; you 've come to the wrong 
 shop. Now shall I tell yer what yer want to go in for? 
 You 're the parties as went skylarkin' among the mum- 
 mies last week. That 's what you are, if you ask me." 
 
 "No, we ain't," said the delinquent faintly, and hang- 
 ing his head as though wondering how one small helmet 
 could cover all that policeman knew. 
 
 211 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Well, the gals can pass. As for you, I should take 
 a walk round the park if I was in your place: it 
 ain't far." 
 
 It was a case of identification without finger-marks. 
 They turned off without a murmur yelling defiance, and 
 taking to their heels as soon as they got out of arm's 
 length. 
 
 "The London small boy," said Leonard, "best of raw 
 material if you catch him in time, and know what to 
 do with him— mere gutter snipe and first cousin to the 
 London sparrow, without the sparrow's chances, as it is. 
 The waste of it all ! But let us follow the girls on the 
 chance of sport." 
 
 They passed an old gentleman feeding the pigeons in 
 the quadrangle — "the Doctor" — and nodded a salute. 
 The children stood helpless and demure in the great hall, 
 and then, turning to the right as to the line of least 
 resistance, entM-ed the manuscript room. The little big 
 sister taking a show-case haphazard puckered her brows 
 over a missal in monkish script — and Latin at that— 
 and passed on. 
 
 "Me too," whimpered one of the still smaller fry, 
 plucking at her skirt. 
 
 She turned back, took them one by one^ tilted them, 
 heels in the air, heads down, noses almost touching the 
 glass. Then, rapidly restoring them to the perpendic- 
 ular, led them away perfectly satisfied. 
 
 "That 's about as much as most of us see of life," 
 said Leonard, "yet we would n't miss it for the world." 
 
 Again the hours flew. It was Egypt, Greece, Assyria, 
 
 212 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 all as they might be seen from the empyrean, in a har- 
 mony of warring purposes and troubled lives. 
 
 Leonard was in great form now. 
 
 "Now you know why I felt so sorry for the man who 
 had wasted a fortune on a private collection. He had 
 his money's worth, no doubt, but what a paltry affair 
 was his gallery at £150,000 beside mine. How can you 
 do anything worth talking of in pictures at a sum like 
 that? My gallery has run into at least a million and a 
 half, and I seem to want something to finish it off every 
 time I take a turn in the place. What are his little 
 snippets of private treasure to these I own as a citizen 
 of no mean states? I would n't swap my "Bacchus and 
 Ariadne ' ' against his whole show. The root idea of owner- 
 ship is finally use. All these things are mine as fully, as 
 absolutely as if I had won them by gambling for a for- 
 tune with other people's savings, or inherited them from 
 an Elizabethan buccaneer." He paused and looked at 
 her. "I 've got lots more to say, but how am I to say it 
 if you won't give me a lift?" 
 
 "What am I to do?" 
 
 "Move an amendment, or something of that sort. All 
 the fight seems to have gone out of you." 
 
 "Fight! I wonder if— " 
 
 He watched her curiously during the long pause. 
 When she spoke again, it was to take up his own fancy:' 
 
 "My pictures then as well as yours." 
 
 "Ours, if you please — ours." 
 
 "Why not? In these things, I suppose, as in the skies 
 and meadows, the eyes are the real title-deed." 
 
 213 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "The private collector, the poor creature we felt so 
 sorry for just now has no Van Byck at all : we have the 
 Jan Amolfini. Why won't somebody write the fifteen 
 decisive pictures of the world ! How many thousands a 
 year our patrimony takes to keep up, with all its ma- 
 chinery of directors, secretaries, and what not, down to 
 the very charwoman at the other end of the scale I really 
 don't know." 
 
 "And I don't care," she said. 
 
 "That 's the right frame of mind. Is n't it enough 
 to know that we own the frieze of Scopas, a horse's head 
 of Phidias, the Hypnos of Praxiteles, the majolica of 
 Pesaro?" 
 
 "Spare^me!" 
 
 ' ' Very well then. I was about to include the Portland 
 Vase, but swagger is a thing I hate. As for intaglios — " 
 
 "A friend of mine," said Prue eagerly, "lives by 
 doing that kind of work. Surely you must know her 
 too. Laura Belton — you remember her— Sarah's tea 
 party. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, yes. I never had the honour of exchanging a 
 word with her, but I 've had her history in monosyllables 
 from Sarah, as you may suppose." 
 
 "She 's so clever in all sorts of ways." 
 
 "I don't know that I 'm so very keen on clever 
 people. ' ' 
 
 "You could n't help admiring her," said Prue stoutly. 
 
 "I daresay; but now you 've thrown me out of my 
 stride. Where was I? Oh, I know— All 'mine,' these 
 unmatchable things for every poor devil in town. Why 
 
 214 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 not patent the great invention in affluence of throwing 
 everything into the conunon domain. My poor private 
 collector with his trumpery sets in British authors, and 
 classics of modern and mediaeval lore!" 
 
 She mused : ' ' How many books I wonder in our big 
 room under the dome?" 
 
 ' ' Oh, I can 't count in millions. ' ' 
 
 "Well, how many in that big head under the hat, in 
 the middle of the maze 1 ' ' 
 
 "Really, you know that 's his business," said Leonard, 
 "we can't go into details. Don't forget he is only one of 
 our upper servants, put there to hook us out of the 
 slough of reference whenever we get into a fix." 
 
 "I hope we pay him well." 
 
 "I don't know. Our Secretary of the Treasury looks 
 after that. And he 's only one: think of the other big 
 hats brooding over our manuscripts, tablets, and learned 
 bricks. ' ' 
 
 "I fancy we 've been rather extravagant there." 
 
 "Perhaps so; but it would be hard to part with that 
 choice thing in cuneiform chipped, I regret to say, about 
 2,500 years ago." 
 
 "Those housemaids!" 
 
 "Or with that obelisk of Shalmaneser with the pic- 
 torial inventory of Jehu's tribute, or with the Rosetta 
 stone. My most miserable, most melancholy private col- 
 lector made much of a Babylonian toothpick which he 
 hoped was Assurbanipal 's. I laughed and invited him 
 to come and see that king and his wife at dinner, on the 
 slab from Kouyunjik. It might serve for a kind of 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 puzzle prize. 'Find the head of the King of Elam, 
 which was cut off on the battle-field.' It hangs on the 
 second tree from the left glaring down on the Royal 
 dinner-table in impotent longing — just to whet the ap- 
 petite of the conqueror for his twentieth course. 
 
 "Whenever I walk in such places I tell myself sad 
 stories of the death of kings who tried to keep their 
 booty all to themselves. One day they '11 come and im- 
 plore us to relieve them of the whole weary load of parks 
 and palaces, and all the rest of the rotting gear of per- 
 sonal use." 
 
 A heavenly day for little Prue, her first glimpse of the 
 new Bohemia, of the new democracy of London town. 
 Choice spirits, men and women, free as the bird; as 
 nimble and pushing for a crust, and as soaring when 
 they have brought that indispensable thing into the nest. 
 Bohemia of the new time, with the old gin-shop and 
 coloured cutty variety sunk comfortably into the slime 
 of things. Bohemia of Nature, art, liberty, great 
 thoughts, valiant deeds. How many are striving for it 
 now who have to pass the indispensable balance of their 
 lives, and pass it contentedly, at the draper 's counter, or 
 at the workman's bench ! Everyone added to their ranks 
 of God's own militia is a fighter for the new time — Ger- 
 trude with her passion for the right use of riches, Mary 
 Lane with her disdain of them and her saintly poverty. 
 A day of illumination for the little work girl in giving 
 her a first conception of the grandeur of new ideals. The 
 smug proprieties of class distinction in which she had 
 been reared, seemed to wither in the searching light. 
 
 2x6 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 And it had brought more intimate consolations. In this 
 strange comrade, in this strong man— for such she felt 
 him to be— had she found a friend on her lonely path, 
 and a true spiritual helper at last ? 
 
 Yes, from start to finish, with the bun-shop in mid- 
 course, a heavenly day. 
 
 2 17 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 LEONARD had vanished, in one of the mysterious 
 I absences in which he left no trace of himself but 
 The Branding Iron in its weekly issue. That midge of 
 journalism was more audacious than ever; and its ad- 
 herence to its purpose of focussing the life of one social 
 plague spot had begun to make it a power in the land. 
 It circulated by thousands, was quoted in Parliament, 
 press, and pulpit, and sometimes sent its echoes to the 
 other side of the world. 
 
 The little work girl was again very much alone, but 
 she had begun to live at least, if living is to be measured 
 by the intensity of sensations. She was entering into the 
 great inheritance of the Londoner who has a shilling to 
 spend, or only half of it at a pinch ; nay, in the last 
 resort, nothing but the "love" of the penniless. She 
 hurried wildly to Polytechnic classes. County Council 
 lectures, with the University "Extensions" as the prom- 
 ised crown of her course. The tic-toe of the high heels 
 was as insistent in the passages of the great human hive 
 in Regent Street as it had been on London Bridge, but 
 this time it was the tattoo of ardour and hope. 
 
 Amazing portent of our time these universities of the 
 
 2l8 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 poor scholar trying to win his way to the light. The 
 students are all aglow with the new desire to be some- 
 thing, to do something, in rebuke of a spite of Fortune 
 that has brought them to the banquet of life without the 
 silver spoon, and with the hope of picking up a new 
 learning of Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, which is part 
 of the old, old story of the world. It is their chance ; and 
 they are ready to tramp for miles to the classes, after 
 their day's work. Their generous curiosity for knowl- 
 edge is born of the derided ' ' rags, ' ' ha 'penny and other. 
 The newspaper, with all its faults, has made them athirst. 
 The endless chatter about things, places, people, present 
 and past, in the popular issues is, say what you will, a 
 first stage. It is the little learning that ever leads to 
 the wish for more, with the finer sort. The County 
 Council lecture is an approach to the Pierian spring. 
 
 A strange and a suggestive sight one of these lecture- 
 rooms with the faces, eager and questioning, the strained 
 and deep-set eyes that have just begun to peer into the 
 peopled gloom of history still appreciably limitless in 
 time and space, and stirring with the majestic figures of 
 the past. Many walk miles to the classes on a cup of tea 
 and a biscuit, or, on the mere hope of it, when they have 
 tramped miles back to their squalid homes. "What a joy 
 to have the shaping of them ! What a national asset, if 
 nations but knew ! Well, there they are as they stand, 
 to brighten one side of our balance-sheet as an off -set to 
 the hooligans and the St. Galmiers so miserably entered 
 as waste. 
 
 It had not escaped the notice of The Branding Iron. 
 
 "The popular institute is the English working class 
 
 219 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 in training, not men for arts and crafts, but for 
 life. 
 
 "We may look out for a Great Surprise one day, and 
 that day quite soon at hand, a surprise for the English 
 nation, and for the whole world. 
 
 "This is a prophecy; and smaller things have been 
 made the subject of the puzzle prizes in the columns of 
 our contemporaries. 
 
 ' ' What is it going to be, ' The Great Surprise ' in prep- 
 aration for the whole British race within a few weeks 
 of the present time ? 
 
 "We do not offer an insurance coupon or a perambu- 
 lator, but we are willing to receive guesses. 
 
 "We may say at once that 'The Surprise' is in the 
 nature of a great beneficent 'Conspiracy': the rest our 
 readers must find out for themselves. 
 
 "The British worlanan has gone to school, and some- 
 thing is going to happen ? But really we must hold our 
 hand, or we shall give the whole thing away in advance. ' ' 
 
 Some of these people were to be met on one night of the 
 week at a little cenacle of Socialism fondly known to 
 initiates as "The Society." It was the same eagerness, 
 tempered a little in its intensity by the conceit of the 
 superior mind. Prue went regularly for the fun— the 
 debates were so good— and one day she had Laura by 
 her side— the latter with her coquettish band-box air, her 
 toilette, like her manner, of perfect adequateness to the 
 occasion. These adornments attracted a certain critical 
 attention among the members. "The Society" has its 
 typical girl ; and a blouse is a conspicuous article of her 
 
 220 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 uniform. It was once bright red: it is now fading to 
 pink, some say, in the wash; others, as a result of a 
 subtle change in the intensity of opinions. 
 
 It was to bring this blouse back to red again that the 
 meeting was held. A member, representing the youth 
 of the party, was to arraign its policy of slow and care- 
 ful training of democracy for its day of power. Laura 
 had come to see the encounter, with her insatiable cu- 
 riosity that pastured over the whole surface of life. Prue 
 could hardly keep pace with her questions. It ought not 
 to have mattered in the least to either that the meeting- 
 place was an old hall in a decayed inn of court, with a 
 suggestion of long perspectives of time, and of a richly 
 varied life of good and ill, in its panelled chambers all 
 now sanctified by the great peace. It did matter: that 
 was all : to both, especially to Prue, with her hatred of 
 realism — by which term, like most immature persons, she 
 simply meant disagreeable things — her craving for ideal- 
 ism and romance. 
 
 The little company of adepts and of devotees, men and 
 women, was gathered from workshops and newspaper 
 offices, from bar and pulpit, from mere domestic fire- 
 sides. The old gang of founders sat, by a sort of pre- 
 scriptive right, in the high places in front of the lecture 
 stand; the others, ia the degree of their stages of novi- 
 tiate, on the remoter benches where finally they blocked 
 the door. A few men came, Nicodemus-like, from the 
 Government bureaux, where their right hands, which 
 signed the ofiicial minute in the daytime, were to know 
 nothing of what their left hands were going to do at 
 night in turning the leaves of a Socialist manifesto. 
 
 221 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The lecturer was now on his feet. He pleaded for a 
 new departure in English Socialism, for a deeper pur- 
 pose, for a more vitalising method, for the trumpet-call 
 that might bring down walled cities of prejudice, for a 
 recovery of touch with the masses of the English people. 
 
 "You have left the old propaganda of passion and 
 feeling," he said, "for mere economics. Your whole 
 being has become but a note of interrogation ; your psalm 
 of life but a blue-book. You are for gas and water and 
 sanitation, excellent things in their way, yet but remotely 
 tending to salvation. You have been seen in a scrimmage 
 for the prize of an aldermanic gown. The cry for help 
 that never ceases to rise day and night from the pit of 
 our social system is apt to pass clean over your heads 
 as you burrow in a mocjel sewer. Come forth and stand 
 by us in the old spirit, in the old way. Recover the old 
 fire and the impulse of your earlier and greater day." 
 
 There was applause when he sat down, and it was led 
 by the women. He was one eminently fitted to plead 
 with them, not only by what he said, but by his way of 
 saying it. He had youth on his side, a sort of dispas- 
 sionate earnestness, a suggestion of high studies in other 
 fields of thought. 
 
 Then came the questions from the audience. They 
 darted as from serpent tongues from different parts of 
 the room. It was a veritable heckling. The soul of a 
 man was being tried as in the process of the Book of 
 the Dead. 
 
 ' ' Do I understand the opener to say— V " The opener 
 has said—" "How does he reconcile this with—?" 
 
 222 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Will he tell us exactly what he means by the term— ?" 
 It was death or victory: he could not afford to fail. 
 
 The two girls enjoyed it hugely. All their sympathy 
 was for the man at bay. He generally gave a good ac- 
 count of his assailants, and, where he lapsed for a 
 moment into temper, it was but a charm the more. It 
 was an intellectual combat in which a truism was an 
 opening for the scorner, and a common-place was ruin. 
 
 After this new-fashioned torture of the question, came 
 the speeches. They were limited in time : they had to be 
 straight to the point. The old gang, the founders, were 
 not going to abdicate without a struggle, and they gave 
 this new candidate for the box seat of the chariot of 
 the sun a hard time. 
 
 Prue in her excitement rose to shield him, but her 
 nerve was not equal to the enterprise. Her tongue clave 
 to the roof of her mouth. She balanced herself for a 
 moment before the upturned faces of the crowd— a bench 
 of judges, just, if you like, but pitiless— then sat down 
 in time to save herself from collapse. She felt a touch, 
 in the mist that was beginning to swim before her eyes. 
 Someone thrust a smelling-bottle into her hand. 
 
 When the mist cleared she noticed that her benefactor 
 was another woman, who had risen to speak, and had lost 
 her turn by doing a good action. 
 
 ' ' Thank you, ' ' said Prue. ' ' I hope I did n 't make an 
 exhibition of myself. ' ' 
 
 "Mere stage fright; you will soon get over that." 
 
 In another moment, the good Samaritan found her 
 chance, and she rose, to a sign from the chairman. She 
 
 223 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 evidently had the habit of the platform. Her speech 
 flowed in logic as in the womanly music of the in- 
 tonation: not a thought was out of place. Is it not al- 
 ways the way with them? Everlasting are their sur- 
 prises in all sorts of aptitude for those who judge them 
 on their merits. The syllogism is ever in their miads; 
 but sometimes they omit one of the propositions in com- 
 pliment to hearers who are credited with the power to 
 divine. This one made no such omission; and the ap- 
 plause was a graceful recognition of her avoidance of 
 the excess of flattery. 
 
 "What is the secret of it?" asked Prue, when her 
 comforter was again by her side. 
 
 "The woman's secret, self-possession — keeping your 
 face. Are n't we all trained in that from the moment of 
 our birth— to be ready to sink with terror, diflSdence, 
 mortification, to seethe with wrath, yet never to give 
 a sign ? ' ' 
 
 "But the men don't seem to be up to that!" 
 
 "They are such blushing, shy things; what can you 
 expect ? ' ' 
 
 The next to rise was a reinforcement for the party in 
 power, a sort of aquiline person, in the cut of him, say 
 an old Roman with an eyeglass and a frock-coat, instead 
 of the trappings of his period. He was a noted re- 
 viewer, for his living; a noted lecturer for the society, 
 for his hobby. He had laid himself out for the vivi- 
 section of the lecturer, when a strange interruption drove 
 him back to his place. 
 
 A white-bearded patriarch, verging on eighty, rose 
 to deliver a monologue on his own account, regardless of 
 the fact that another had possession of the meeting. 
 
 224 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The Roman stopped short, looked for help to the chair, 
 sat down petulantly. 
 
 "You must wait, please," said the chairman to the 
 intruder. "You will be heard in your turn." 
 
 "I was out on Kennington Common," said the phan- 
 tom, without paying the slightest heed to either of them, 
 or, for that matter, to the meeting. If it was anything 
 more than a soliloquy, it was all between him and the 
 recesses of his own beard. 
 
 It was verily as one from the dead, but the words were 
 a clue to his history — an old Chartist of the '48 revisit- 
 ing a world of new doctrines, new measures, new men. 
 
 "I am in your hands, sir," said the Roman to the 
 chair, glaring a more intense scintillation of disgust 
 through his monocle. 
 
 "I carried a banner, I did," said the phantom, "got 
 a whack from the end of the broken staff at the foot 
 o' Wesmister Bridge. There 's the scar, if you think 
 I 'm telling a lie — " and he pointed a skinny finger to 
 a whiteness that was visible amid the silver of his hair. 
 "Them was the times for Socialism. What are ye all 
 at now?" 
 
 The Roman gave a snort and folded his arms. 
 
 "But, mind yer, it was the empty belly as floored me, 
 not the peeler. I could ha' done 'im in fair fight, any 
 time. Not a bite or sup the whole day. ' ' 
 
 "Speak up," said the meeting— they wanted to hear 
 him now. The chairman smiled in anguish, but he ceased 
 to interrupt. 
 
 "Whatever else was the matter with us, we was men. 
 We 'ungered and we thusted for Socialism. Them was 
 the days. Our delligits went up an' down the land, 
 
 225 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 an' no expenses paid. When we got a bed, it was only 
 a shakedown on the floor of a weaver's cottage, with a 
 mate on each side instead o' blankits. Them was the 
 days. Is Socialism any better, now that 's it 's got into 
 the drorin rooms ? I 've shook 'ands with Mister Robert 
 Owin in my time. He was a gentleman, he was." 
 
 The chairman made a last despairing effort: "May I 
 remind the speaker that the question is—" 
 
 "I don't care about no question," said the phantom 
 stoutly. The meeting cried : ' ' Let him go on. ' ' 
 
 "You 're all right, mates," he said, addressing the 
 front bench. "You 've got the learnin', you 'ave. You 
 can read books in French, I 'm told; aye, and talk like 
 books on your own account. You 've got the starch in 
 yer; an' the way you carry your upper lip is a sight to 
 see. But 'ow about your entrils ? Are you ready to fight 
 for it ? Lots of us was carried to the orspital. I 've got 
 the Times newspaper, to this day, what give the list of 
 the wounded:— 'Jones, Samuel, coppersmith, broken 
 collar-bone; Butler, James, labourer, compound fracter 
 o' the thigh,' jest like the day after a battle; 'Sturt, 
 Job, cobbler, severe concussion o' the brain, not expected 
 to recover. ' That was me. ' ' 
 
 "The question," murmured the chairman, with an 
 agonised glance at the clock. 
 
 " I 'm coming to it. Do you know why you 're able to 
 sit here and talk in peace an ' quietness to-night ? Bekos 
 o' Kennington Common. We was beaten, an' we won 
 the viet'ry; can you make that out, mates? The old 
 Dook beat us— 'im as did for Boney at Waterloo. Can- 
 non on all the bridges; sojers behind; an' all the Gov- 
 
 226 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 er'ment ofiSces filled with gentleman specials shakin' in 
 their shoes." 
 
 "An' why did we do it? Bekos Socialism was not— 
 what d' ye call it now? — a doctrin: it was a religion, if 
 it was n't always made on the same last as what they 've 
 got in the churches now. There was a good deal of ' Our 
 Father' in it, though it was set to the tune o' the Mar- 
 silase. It was a thing to pray for, if prayin' was your 
 line; to feel for all the time. Liberty, equality, frater- 
 nity, an' 'and to 'and for the rights o' man. You must 
 get back to that with all your cliverness — if you want 
 to make Socialism the master of the world." 
 
 He stopped, and without staying further question, 
 filed out, phantomwise still, with the serried ranks part- 
 ing before him, as though to smooth his pathway to the 
 shades. The last heard of him was a choking cough as 
 the fog caught him by the throat. 
 
 227 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 "XUCIAN! Lucian!" was the cry from all parts of 
 
 M A the room. 
 
 A new figure rose from the Government bench, tall 
 and spare, and shaking himself as for a clear course in 
 the open. Nature seemed to have wrought him after a 
 picture of Velasquez, in the pale complexion, the colour 
 scheme of hair and eyes. He was a thing in cool greys, 
 as one might guess, right down to the very recesses of 
 his soul. 
 
 He was evidently as one coming with good tidings— 
 the good tidings of himself. They laughed when he 
 stood up, and before he began to speak. They laughed 
 as soon as he opened his mouth. Their flesh quivered on 
 their bones as they sat in the very ecstasy of expectation 
 of his good things. 
 
 They were not disappointed. He played lambent 
 lightnings on the whole surface of the debate. It was 
 the humour of irony, the humour of doubt, critical, de- 
 structive, but delightful at that. He seemed to take one 
 opponent after another, and to lay him on the flat of his 
 back by a sort of intellectual jiu-jitsu. There was no 
 violence in the operation; just a turn of the wrist, and 
 there you were, staring up at him, helpless, unable to 
 
 228 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 stir hand or foot. He was tender of the old Socialist, 
 in his absence, but he laughed him gently into a sort of 
 long sleep. ' ' A religion ' ' he asked—' ' what religion ? "— 
 "An enthusiasm — what enthusiasm?" It was the ghost 
 of the dead and double dead romanticism and idealism 
 revisiting us from the other side of the moon. Romance 
 —the great heresy to be swept for ever from art and life ! 
 
 Prue shuddered at him at first. Everything she had 
 taught herself to cherish as the balm of life came under 
 the spell of his mockery. Gallantry and chivalry! — 
 things "treasonable to women and stultifying to men." 
 Idealism! but a flattering name: mere "genuinely scien- 
 tific natural history" the whole basis of the relations 
 between human souls. She could have sobbed over it. 
 It thrust her back into the cold and desolate region 
 which she hoped she had escaped for ever. It seemed 
 to be a theory of human relations formed by someone 
 wanting in a sense, as though a man without a palate 
 should talk of fine eating, a man without a nose should 
 essay a poem of the garden, exalting the roots above the 
 flowers. 
 
 Leonard's talk with her at the Museum had given new 
 thoughts, new hopes — the individual taking his chance 
 with the race, in disdain of the disgusting struggle for 
 even the intellectual salvation of his own wretched soul. 
 And here they were, all shattered, by a dialectician out 
 for a lark. There was cruelty in his eye— the subtler 
 vivisectional kind, not to men or women, but to ideals. 
 What else had she to live by— after what she had gone 
 through, after what was still before her in the hard 
 struggle for a crust? 
 
 22Q 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Then gradually the tremendous cleverness of it all 
 began to dominate her spirit. What matter whether it 
 was true or false when it was so amusing. She laughed 
 and chuckled with the rest: surely it was a sort of gift 
 of the gods to be able to bring that assuagement to a 
 weary world. And, in the intervals of the explosions, 
 she wished someone would put him to death. 
 
 They were going out, when they found Leonard wait- 
 ing for them at the door. 
 
 Laura remembered him; and it was clear that he had 
 not forgotten her, though the recognition was evidently 
 stronger on her side. He shook hands warmly with Prue. 
 
 "I 've had you both under observation all the time," 
 he said, "though you never turned your heads my way. 
 I hoped on until I heard the calls for Lucian. Then I 
 gave myself up for lost." 
 
 "We could have made room for you," said Prue. 
 
 ' ' I could n 't have fought my way to your side. There 
 were too many of us to the acre, or, at any rate, to the 
 square yard." 
 
 "I began to fear you had taken a holiday in space," 
 said Prue. 
 
 "No; I have n't left the cab radius, though that is 
 sometimes as good as the other side of the planet." 
 
 "Is n't he just lovely?" said Laura. 
 
 "I am too wary to appropriate the compliment to 
 myself. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I hoped you would ; and then I should have told you 
 I meant Mr. Lucian. Do tell us what you think of 
 him." 
 
 "Ladies first." 
 
 230 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Not if they know it, in a matter of this sort. But 
 meantime, as a working compromise, listen to our fellow- 
 travellers in the mist." 
 
 "A good idea." 
 
 The outpouring crowd was naturally full of the sub- 
 ject, there were voices in the air as in an enchanted 
 wood, for often they were voices and nothing beside. 
 
 "Had to miss the train or miss Lueian. Glad it was 
 only the train." 
 
 "Yes; that old josser with the beard made me feel 
 quite uncomfortable, till Lueian clowned it all away." 
 
 "Lueian 's always on the snigger now. I can't stand 
 him sometimes." 
 
 "For 'stand' read 'understand.' Is that all you 
 mean? It 's the new school." 
 
 "Just so— the Zebra or Wild Ass variety. Buck- 
 jumping reason, sobriety, common-sense off its back 
 every time they try a mount— with the sparks of para- 
 dox flashing from its heels. The very stripes are part 
 of the advertisement." 
 
 "Don't you think he might save on that department, 
 now that he has established the business ? ' ' 
 
 "You never can teU." 
 
 "A man of his time: it 's a puffing age. Not enough 
 to have something to say : got, to get people to listen. Oh, 
 that long ear of the public, how hard it is to reach! 
 
 231 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Think of the great dead who have gone unread to 
 Hades." 
 
 " 'Lest we 're forgotten'; that 's the great preoccu- 
 pation now. Why, the Church itself will soon be one 
 huge advertisement from St. Mary-at-Hill to Lambeth, 
 with the Archbishop just home from his starring tour 
 in America in the millionaire's car." 
 
 "Lucian 's a little too domineering to my taste. Re- 
 minds me of the King of Korea, who, in a time of stress, 
 ordered the ' immediate abolition of the national vices. ' ' ' 
 
 "It 's a good fault. Some who are without it are like 
 some preserves— the sugar kills all the flavour of the 
 fruit." 
 
 "Why can't he leave Shakespeare alone?" 
 "Because Shakespeare won't leave him: the provoca- 
 tion is intense." 
 
 The voices died away. "So much for the public," 
 said Leonard; "now let us talk it over between our- 
 selves. ' ' 
 
 "You open the ball, Prue," said Laura. "Let me 
 see: where did the fog leave off? 'It 's a pufiBng age' 
 was the last thing that reached me." 
 
 "What else is it?" said Prue, taking courage— "the 
 modem system applied to the voice-production of a man 
 of talent, and applied by himself." 
 
 232 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Worse luck!" said Leonard. "Once I was afraid it 
 was going to spoil a gospel of genius in Lucian's case. 
 I fancy we 're pretty clear of that danger now. Peace 
 to his ashes: he was a good democrat." 
 
 "A democrat done to death by the drawing-rooms," 
 said Prue. 
 
 "The wicked puffery," said Laura, with a sly glance 
 at Leonard. 
 
 "The long public ear," pleaded Leonard. "What are 
 you to do?" 
 
 ' ' The sheer cheek of it all, ' ' murmured Prue. 
 
 "That 's the mere note of the race," said Leonard — 
 "the Keltic method. Deep calls to deep of airy insolence 
 to bring them together in spirit all over the world. It 's 
 the French crdnerie— good old Henri Quatre laying his 
 whip on the table, casual-like, when he went to meet his 
 Parliament — a journeyman tailor trailing his coat along 
 the pavement in Rupert Street on a Saturday night: 
 'Take it out o' that now, bedad!'— Lucian going for 
 Shakespeare: 'Did ye see, boys, how I blackgyarded the 
 big pote? How d' ye like me now?' All one and the 
 same thing— the Kelt and a law of his being." 
 
 ' ' Shure, now ! ' ' laughed Laura, ' ' I begin to believe the 
 Kelt 's the unclassified half of meself . Thank yer Hon- 
 our for the compliment, an' bravo !" 
 
 Leonard rejoiced heartily at this sally, and seemed 
 eager to hear what she was going to say next. 
 
 Prue thought that he was "killingly funny," the 
 wretch, about the idealist lecturer. 
 
 "Faith! and the creature wanted his beating," said 
 Laura. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Leonard— Idealist! Romantic! Good Lord! I defy you 
 to put pen to paper in literature unless you 're one or 
 t' other. What 's he but an idealist of his own method? 
 
 Laura— Do you suppose he does n't know that? But 
 as long as people call for it, why should he stop ? It 's 
 hardly in human nature. 
 
 Leonard— That 's very true; we 're all in the same 
 boat. A bit of a mountebank, if you like, but his oint- 
 ment really will cure chapped hands. 
 
 Prue— So will the chemist's at the corner. 
 
 Leonard— Yes; but nobody goes there. Old Mangin 
 in Paris, who made a fortune by rigging himself up in 
 helm and feather, and peddling lead pencils from the 
 tailboard of a chariot and four, used to tell his customers 
 to their faces that they left him to starve with exactly the 
 same wares, till he took to playing the fool. Lucian has 
 struck many a good stroke for the democracy, with all 
 his faults. 
 
 Laura— Don't you think the shortest cut to genius, or, 
 at any rate, to its most startling effects, is just simply to 
 say what you think ? 
 
 Leonard— Yes; but it must be what you think, not 
 merely what you want other people to think you think. 
 No one whispers with his own soul in epigrams. "The 
 big fellows are talking to one Another, ' ' said Millet, when 
 the wind stirred the trees. ' ' I don 't know what they are 
 saying, but I am sure they are not making puns." 
 
 Laura— Lucian has cleared himself of that charge. 
 
 Leonard— What charge? 
 
 Laura— The punning. 
 
 Leonard— I never made it. But you are right to stand 
 up for him ; he 's your creation. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Laura— Mine ? 
 
 Leonard— Yes ; as one of ' ' the sex. " It is the age of 
 women. Their demand governs the supply in all the arts. 
 They are the chief customers of poet, painter, seer. The 
 archdeacon at St. John's is a woman's preacher; Lucian 
 a woman 's political economist ; the Platonist of Mayf air, 
 a woman's philosopher; the Kaiser, a woman's emperor. 
 
 Laura— Perhaps only a mere change of parts— the 
 men growing more like women, the women like men. 
 
 Leonard — I 've reversed the order of my climax, 
 though, for the Kaiser is not the culminating point. 
 Have you heard the latest from Berlin? His presump- 
 tion, they say, is passing all bounds. The other day he 
 jumped out of bed, and stuck to it for three mortal hours 
 that he was as good as Lucian— about the only British 
 jester, by the way, allowed to perform in Germany. 
 
 Prue — Wherei 's Lucian 's filial piety?— the last of 
 the great Shakespearian fools rending the author of his 
 being. 
 
 "Here we are at the corner of my street," said Laura, 
 holding out her hand to Leonard. "Some other time, I 
 hope, — good-night ! ' ' 
 
 In another moment the girls were hurrying off together. 
 
 "It 's better than 'forfeits' or 'puss in the corner,' 
 anyhow," Laura said, in parting from Prue; "we 've 
 been alive. I like him." 
 
 "Which one?" 
 
 "Both." 
 
 235 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 "T AM in town, my dear Prue, and you are to come and 
 J. see me, please, to-night, just to show that there 's no 
 ill-feeling for all my long neglect of your letters. You 
 must come in common fairness, to give me a chance of 
 clearing my character. I hear you 've a dog : bring him 
 along to see fair play. 
 
 "And, if you can, give me whatever fraction may be 
 available of that wonderful woman-servant who used to 
 be with you. I have a treasure of a ' general, * as it is, who 
 cooks the dinner, valets me, and does lots of other things, 
 and who, of course— sorry as I am to say it — is a for- 
 eigner. 
 
 "P.S.—The wonderful woman might turn up in the 
 course of the evening, and have the benefit of your intro- 
 duction.— Yours contritely, 
 
 ' ' Geetrude. ' ' 
 
 The letter was dated from Gray's Inn. It was no 
 sooner read than Prue penned another to Sarah urging 
 her to appear, and make sure of the new place. 
 
 It was like something out of a past and half-forgotten 
 life. The two old schoolmates had drifted together again, 
 when they met in the City, but only to drift apart once 
 
 236 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 more. When Prue returned to town, after her adventure 
 as a strolling player, Gertrude had leit—The Branding 
 Iron dropping dark hints of some great social experiment. 
 Prue wrote, and one or two letters were exchanged. Then 
 she was caught up in the whirl of her life and death 
 struggle, and her pride kept her silent. She hated to have 
 to report herself as a failure. She resumed the corre- 
 spondence, with the turn of her luck ; but now Gertrude, 
 engaged in some adventure of her own, was the laggard. 
 The letter apparently was to make amends. 
 
 Gertrude had changed. Much of the old shyness had 
 vanished; she had more of the repose of a person accus- 
 tomed to face the world. And one rare, though by no 
 means singular note of it, was that she had made some 
 conquest of her incapacity for small talk. Her beauty 
 had matured— the gawk of the school play-ground had 
 become more completely than ever the graceful and love- 
 able woman. And the tenderness of yearning for affec- 
 tion was still in her eyes, though it was still also, in some 
 curious way, impersonal in its appeal. 
 
 Prue was at the rendezvous a full quarter of an hour 
 before her time. She wandered through the beautiful 
 old inn, and caught moonlight glimpses of the stately gar- 
 den, where Bacon walked, and no doubt successfully 
 wrestled with the temptation to write the "Midsummer 
 Night's Dream." 
 
 Her knock was answered by the "treasure," acting, 
 for the moment, as hall porter, but manifestly anxious to 
 revert to her duties as cook. She found time, however, 
 to smile a welcome, and even to distinguish herself as a 
 lady's-maid by helping the visitor with her wraps. It 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 would have taken a whole establishment to achieve as 
 much on the British system, and then, perhaps, the smile 
 might have been left out. 
 
 Gertrude advanced with open arms : 
 
 "Why not acquit me at once, and then we can skip the 
 trial." 
 
 "And the charge too, if you don't mind. And this is 
 living in chambers. What a perfectly lovely place ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, you know, I still owe you two letters. I was 
 so-" 
 
 ' ' Dear Gertrude ; you always were so clever ; but how- 
 ever did you manage it?" 
 
 "What have I done this time?" 
 
 "Invading a real inn of court!" 
 
 "The rooms were to let, and I took 'em— that 's all." 
 
 "Well, but you 're a woman." 
 
 ' ' I hope so ; but that 's no bar nowadays. References, 
 you know, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 "So their chambers are going the same way as their 
 clubs ? Gertrude, how we are coming on ! " 
 
 They went through the tiny suite of bedrooms for mis- 
 tress and maid, sitting-room, kitchen, and finally settled 
 down in the dining-room to a delicious little dinner, 
 cooked to a turn. It was served by the feminine chef her- 
 self, in a new incarnation of which the principal attri- 
 butes were the smartest of aprons and the prettiest of 
 caps. The dog had been sent into the kitchen, where he 
 refused an offer of risotto as un-English, and he soon 
 sneaked into the dining-room in search of more hospit- 
 able fare. After their two cups of black coffee, as dainty 
 as everything else on the table, the young women were in 
 
 238 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 the mood for a good talk on old times. It was the hour 
 for confidences ; and Prue thought she saw her opportun- 
 ity of clearing up the mystery of the friendly interven- 
 tion in her favour with Mrs. Dart. 
 
 "Own up, Gertrude, that you helped me there." 
 
 "I wish I could. As a matter of fact, I never 
 exchanged a word with her in my life. ' ' 
 
 "But she knows you." 
 
 "We know of each other; that 's about all, I think. 
 You see, what should we have to say ? I should only make 
 her laugh, as she sometimes makes me wonder. It woiild 
 be a poor sort of opening for afternoon tea." 
 
 "Then it m;os"— but she paused before filling in the 
 name — "pretty sly of him, I think." 
 
 She tingled with the old suffusion of shame at the 
 thought that Leonard must have recognised her at Clerk- 
 enwell ; and then, again, in a deeper shade of it, when she 
 feared that Gertrude had noticed the first. 
 
 "Won't you put me out of my misery, Prue? Who 
 is Mr. Blank?" 
 
 "George Leonard, the editor of The Branding Iron. 
 Gertrude, such a— paper, and such a lot in it about you 
 and your work ! ' ' 
 
 "I know all about the paper, and want to know all 
 about the man, for we 've never met. He 's interested 
 in my small doings, and he dogs me all about the coun- 
 try with post-cards, the dear old thing. ' ' 
 
 "He 'snot a bit old." 
 
 "Well, then, suppose we leave it at 'dear'?" 
 
 Prue missed fire with the response. 
 
 "So my Leonard is also a Leonard of yours?" Ger- 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 trude continued; that 's the only bit of news. Stay, 
 there 's another : Mary Lane is coming up soon, and then 
 we shall all be together again." 
 
 ' ' Tell me a lot about yourself, Gertrude. ' ' 
 
 "Your turn first, I think." 
 
 "Oh, no; I 'm not making history just now. But 
 I 've met a wonderful girl— Laura Belton. Did you 
 ever hear the name?" 
 
 "I 've heard so many names lately." 
 
 "Leonard thinks her the cleverest creature he ever 
 met, but he won 't say so. ' ' 
 
 "I hope she returns the compliment." 
 
 "She can't help it." 
 
 The other looked at her curiously, and Prue's eyes 
 fell beneath the gaze. "I want to hear your news, Ger- 
 trude," she said. 
 
 "I 've been making a great experiment," said Ger- 
 trude, and it has come out all right. It began long 
 before I ran up against you in the City. But I could n 't 
 say much about it to anybody, until I had tried it for 
 myself. ' ' 
 
 "It just thought of itself; I mean, it became in- 
 evitable. Look here, little one! By a strange will, my 
 father left me a controlling voice in the management of 
 a huge factory. Everything was done for me by my 
 constitutional advisers. Still, I was queen when I chose 
 to assert my prerogative. It was in the grimiest part of 
 grimy London, with a whole population of 'hands' 
 making money for me faster than I could ever get rid 
 of it. What was I to do?" 
 
 "I 've never had the complaint. ' ' 
 
 "It was really serious, though it seems such a joke. 
 
 240 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 I could do nothing worth doing with the money. Gam- 
 bling, horse-racing, smart living generally, are not to 
 my taste, and I 've neither faith nor hope in charity. 
 Yet the hoard grew and grew, though we did our best to 
 find investments to keep it down. 
 
 "Then I went one day, in an amateurish sort of way, 
 to look at my factory and my hands— for the first 
 time in all my life; and that only made the situation 
 more hopelessly absurd. The hands were miserable-look- 
 ing creatures, more incurably so, perhaps, because one 
 saw them at the Christmas season, when we 're all under 
 orders from the illustrated papers to look our best. 
 Their faces had a curious shine as of tightened skin, 
 their finery only advertised their want of clothes. And, 
 if there was nothing else to give them away, it would 
 have been their flesh— mere paste— and 'seconds' flour 
 at that. I tell you, it was heart-rending, Prue." 
 
 "I know." 
 
 ' ' I felt sick and sorry about it ; and I asked the man- 
 ager questions. I looked into the homes ; and that made 
 me feel worse. Then I began to inquire about the wages ; 
 and it all came out. These people had not enough to 
 live upon as life should be lived. I felt good— for I had 
 just been making speeches — and I told the manager he 
 had better give them more." 
 
 He smirked, said they were paid at the current rate, 
 and that, if they did n't like it, there were hundreds 
 eager for the job. 
 
 "I took that home with me, and went to bed with it; 
 and I assure you it was not exactly an opiate. After a 
 night or two spent in that way, I interviewed the family 
 solicitor. He 's an old dear, who can say anything he 
 
 241 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 likes to me— I used to climb his knee as a child— and he 
 offered me a set of posers at once: 
 
 " 'It will eat up the working capital.' 
 
 " 'Not one bit— that remains intact.' 
 
 " 'What about the reserve fund, upkeep, wear and 
 tear, and all the rest of it?' 
 
 " 'Just as they were.' 
 
 " 'Where do you get the money, then?' 
 
 ' ' ' Out of my profits. * 
 
 " ' Do you know what that means 1 You '11 have hun- 
 dreds to live on where you 've thousands now.' 
 
 " 'Why notr 
 
 " 'My dear young lady— Oh, it 's too childish even 
 to talk about. Tou must want more exercise. Why 
 don't you join a golf club?' 
 
 " 'But do tell me why?' 
 
 " 'Why, why! Bless my soul, you could n't do it— 
 that 's all. Have you ever tried to live on even a thou- 
 sand a year ? ' 
 
 " 'I live on less than that now, and have about twice 
 as much as I want.' 
 
 ' ' ' That 's nothing to the point. ' 
 
 " 'What is the point?' 
 
 " 'The point is that you must have the current rate 
 of interest on the capital invested in your business.' 
 
 " 'So I do; I take it, every penny, only I want to 
 spend it in my own way.' 
 
 " 'But you must n't spend it like that.' 
 
 " 'Surely that 's only a matter of taste. They don't 
 try you at the Old Bailey, just for keeping no more than 
 you happen to want.' 
 
 242 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 " 'Don't you understand, Miss Gerty? It 's a sort 
 of fixed thing. Everybody else gets it; how are you to 
 take less?' 
 
 " 'I see; whatever else I do with it— Monte Carlo, 
 bridge, monster dinners, rivers of pearls, I must never 
 give a penny of it back to those who have earned it all. ' 
 
 " 'I wish your dear father had — Women are so un- 
 business-like. ' 
 
 ' ' ' That 's why they may yet save the world. ' 
 
 " 'Do try the golf.' 
 
 . " 'You see if I only took as much as I wanted, I could 
 give the others the rest for what they wanted. Then we 
 might be happy all round.' 
 
 " 'I utterly refuse to be a party — ' 
 
 "He bounced out, still meaning well. 
 
 ' ' Oh, how I worried about it. It was clear as daylight 
 to me, but I was so awfuUy afraid to begin. Have n't 
 we all felt that 'must do as the others do' — the pull of 
 habit, custom, the sham proprieties, the feeling that after 
 all it may only be a case for a sea voyage 1 
 
 "Then one day I read about an American — 'Golden 
 Rule Jones' — who had been in the same wretched plight 
 and who had got out of it by doing just what I wanted 
 to do — taking less to give the others more. And a first- 
 rate man of business, not a 'silly, sentimental girl.' 
 
 "That was enough for me. I cleared out of hall and 
 mansion, went into a flat, and here I am to turn a dream 
 into a reality, or to know the reason why. 
 
 ' ' There 's my part of the story, Prue ; The Branding 
 Iron will tell you the rest. 
 
 "Now you know why I let you drop out of sight so 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 long. I was caught up rapt, intent, pitiless as a poet 
 polishing a lay. 'You are requested not to speak to the 
 man at the wheel. ' But please come and like me now, if 
 you can. 
 
 "Instead of rearing pheasants I am just trying to 
 rear women and men. The other 's easier no doubt, but 
 I shall pull through. 
 
 ' ' I have now been at it long enough to feel quite sure 
 I 'm on firm ground. I 'm building a new factory out 
 in the country where, of course, I can make a fairer 
 start. But I 'm very keen on keeping up the one in 
 town. There 's more of the joy of victory in conquering 
 here. 
 
 "Oh, the change already; and in the same people. I 
 lay out as little as I can for them, give them as much as 
 I can to lay out for themselves, without any interference 
 from me. 
 
 "Joy to watch huge layers of despondency lifting 
 from their lives, and the little bits of comfort, of their 
 own choice, coming in — the clean shirt, the harmonium, 
 on the hire system, even the saddle-bag suite. I 'm not 
 accounting for taste, but it 's better in its way than the 
 opening of a flower. 
 
 "I 've no patent rights in the matter : I 'm only doing 
 the best I can to get the welter right. Restitution is the 
 motto ; and never a word of charity. 
 
 "My plan is answering very well, with few exceptions. 
 "Where it does n't, and the inefficiency is due to gin or 
 idleness, out they go. 
 
 "The one thing I see, in the half blindness that lies 
 on us all, is this : give the workers more in hard cash as 
 
 244 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 their right, especially the humblest, and yourself, as 
 'capitalist,' less — for their sakes and for your own. 
 
 "The best of it is, that it can be done by anybody 
 without waiting for the State. The State is not ready : 
 think of dropping such an idea into the bear pit of 
 Westminster ! 
 
 "But the State will be ready one day, and then we 
 shall see new heavens and a new earth. The old are 
 ready for superannuation — both of them. 
 
 "It is the dear old formula in a new setting. More 
 equality of fortune; the rich have too much, the poor 
 too little. It 's a danger for all. More brotherhood. We 
 are too far apart: the skies must one day rain fire on 
 the way we live now. 
 
 "We must make a better distribution of the wealth, 
 or perish of surfeit and want. 
 
 "Why, even in boundless America, with all its op- 
 portunities, they 've contrived in one century to start a 
 pauper breed! It 's all done by the wretched turn of 
 the hand, as cheap a thing as a conjuror's trick, that 
 enables a few smart fellows to fob the riches of the 
 world. 
 
 ' ' The occasional dole to the victim only makes it worse. 
 There was nothing very edifying in the Norman baron 
 on his death-bed swapping testamentary monasteries 
 against devastated towns. 
 
 ' ' How strange it must be to pass into the beyond, and 
 see the folly and the madness of some lives in the awful 
 clairvoyance of the grave. Think of a disembodied com- 
 pany-promoter bursting with the desire of utterance; a 
 stock-jobbing shade of the shadier sort positively split- 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ting for the relief of a scream that may carry as far as 
 its old haunts; a votary of May Fair struggling to get 
 back and take up a wiser parable! Perhaps this may 
 explain the disordered state of some coffins, and the up- 
 roar of some spiritualistic seances. They are struggling 
 to get out, and turn king's evidence against their own 
 past." 
 
 246 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THEY had got so far when a single sledge-hammer 
 knock at the outer door made them both jump. 
 
 "The ghost of the village blaeksrnith, " laughed Ger- 
 trude. 
 
 It was only Sarah, announcing herself in her own 
 way. The contrast between her, and the light-built, 
 foreign maid who ushered her in was sufficiently strik- 
 ing; and, to judge by a certain aloofness of disdain in 
 Sarah's regard, one of them seemed aware of it. 
 
 "Good evenin'. Miss Prue. Sorry I could n't get 
 here before." 
 
 "How do you do, Sarah? This is Miss Holl, who 
 wants you to come and help her, just as you used to 
 help me." 
 
 "How do ye do, mum? Very sorry, miss, I can't; 
 but much obliged, all the same." 
 
 "Oh, well, Sarah, I warned my friend against a dis- 
 appointment; I know how busy you are." 
 
 "Ain't so busy now; that 's all over." 
 
 "WeU, it 's like this here— I 'm married." 
 "! ! !" 
 
 247 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 They were but strokes on the sensory nerve at first: 
 the words would not come. 
 
 "Married, Sarah?" said Prue faintly, at last. 
 
 "Married, miss." 
 
 "You, Sarah?" 
 
 "Why not, miss?" 
 
 "Oh, of course, I did n't mean that." 
 
 She stopped, but her thoughts were busy. Diana in 
 bonds: a male creature in the shrine of Sarah's 'ome: it 
 seemed like a betrayal of the whole sex. 
 
 "He 's a steady man," said Sarah; "he '11 be forty 
 in two years' time." 
 
 "I 'm sure I hope — " 
 
 "One of these 'ere travellers on commission." 
 
 "Naturally," gasped Prue. 
 
 Glittering as it was, even this seemed a poor outfit for 
 the conquest of Sarah's scorn of "chaps." 
 
 "He ain't doing much now, but he 'II start on 'is 
 rounds with a new patent pipe-cleaner, soon as they 
 finish the works at Bow." 
 
 "I 'm sure he must be everything we could all desire 
 —everything." 
 
 "Teetot'ler," said Sarah. 
 
 "Just what I should have expected." 
 
 "Name of Barker." 
 
 "Just what I should have expected." 
 
 Babble no doubt: but think of the shock. 
 
 "Proud to see you round to tea next Sunday, miss — " 
 
 "Delighted." 
 
 "Well, I must be goin' now. He won't like to 'ave 'is 
 supper if I ain't there." 
 
 248 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Of course he won't," said Prue, as if she had known 
 him from infancy 
 
 "If you '11 excuse me— Good-night!" 
 
 She was gone. 
 
 "Sarah married!" said Prue, as she hurried on with 
 her own things. "I must go home and think it over, 
 my dear: I 'm not fit for anything more to-night." 
 
 The subject, however, did not keep that commanding 
 position in her mind. The talk with Gertrude threat- 
 ened to give the finishing touch to the changes of thought 
 and feeling which she owed to the influence of Leonard. 
 This passion for social justice was a new thing coming 
 into the world, and it had already come into her own 
 life. Perhaps Lucian knew what he was about in gibing 
 at ideals. There were ideals, and ideals— some of them 
 no better than those which the girl herself was now 
 giving up, because they simply withered in the light of 
 a brighter day. 
 
 The Branding Iron entered Sarah's marriage among 
 the local announcements, and gave a sympathetic sketch 
 of her career under the heading "Wedding Bells": "A 
 valued friend of our enterprise is to be known as Sarah 
 Ruskill no longer, Mr. William Barker having induced 
 her to change her name. To her, its first news '-agent, 
 as to another, its first subscriber, this journal owes a 
 debt of gratitude which it can never repay. What she 
 was to it, in its day of small things, can hardly be told. 
 She canvassed for it among her customers, distributed 
 
 249 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 it with her own hand, and never wrapped up a parcel in 
 any other sheet. 
 
 "It was our wish to give our readers a view of her 
 shrine, the little home, apart from her place of actual 
 residence, which she had furnished entirely from the 
 proceeds of her own labour, through years of toil. We 
 had indeed hoped to supplement it with an interview. 
 We regret to say, however, that our representatives (a 
 youthful artist who means one day to he President of the 
 Royal Academy, and another young gentleman, whose 
 name will .assuredly be coupled with the toast of 'litera- 
 ture' at that high officer's festive board) were both 
 driven from her door— not without the perhaps uncalled- 
 for violence of a missile which, happily, fell short." 
 
 Prue, as a "constant reader," browsed from column 
 to column, picking bits here and there, laughing or 
 frowning, but never once throwing it down as of yore. 
 One paragraph ran in this way: 
 
 "Brag.— We must once more call attention to our im- 
 proved appearance. It will be observed that we are 
 now much enlarged, and machine-printed, like a paper 
 in its right mind. We intend to do better still. Mean- 
 while, the old manuscript copies are at a heavy premium 
 and are rapidly finding their way into museums and 
 private collections. We thought of printing the first 
 number in f ac-simile, and giving it away as a Christmas 
 supplement, but as will be seen below, we have a still 
 better idea for the festive season. ' ' 
 
 Most of the old divisions were there, but they had 
 250 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 been very much enlarged— the ghastly ' ' Fashionable In- 
 telligence" in particular. There was evidently a rudi- 
 mentary staff. The "Money Article" was a more faith- 
 ful record than ever of the shifts and dodges of the desti- 
 tute. The ' ' Bit of Allright ' ' heading of the first number 
 had become "Bits," and filled a whole column. It gave 
 an impartial account of all the good done in the district 
 and beyond, from London to Bournville and Port Sun- 
 light, notably of the Women's Clubs, with the great par- 
 ent institution in Soho and the splendid and self-deny- 
 ing labours of its founder. 
 
 The obituary column, on the last page, contained an 
 entry to the following effect: 
 
 "On the 10th, at HoUoway, of strangulation, 'The 
 Bloke,' well known in this district. He died as he had 
 lived, game. No flowers." 
 
 And following this: "Oxxb Christmas Number." 
 "The many friends of the Bloke, and others who may 
 wish for a fuller notice of him, in the public interest, 
 will do well to give their orders at once for our special 
 Christmas number. The supplement will be devoted ex- 
 clusively to a study of the Bloke's life and times, and 
 it will appeal, not only to his many friends in the neigh- 
 bourhood, but as we hope, to a wider circle, extending 
 to the uttermost ends of the civilised world. It will be 
 offered gratuitously to purchasers of The Branding 
 Iron, and will, we hope, make excellent reading for all 
 admirers of the good old times, and of their survival in 
 the life of our day." 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Small Change.— "A New Way to Pay Old Debts. The 
 old plan is to make your money by screwing down your 
 workpeople and then to found libraries or what not on 
 what ought to have been their pocket money. I 've heard 
 of one benefactor who keeps an unruly family in order by 
 this device. Whenever they get too troublesome he fines 
 them in another foundation stone, which means twenty 
 thousand or so out of the inheritance. 
 
 "Not For Ever and For Ever. America won't go on 
 for ever with her Baal worship of the multi-millionaire. 
 There are happier portents already in her skies. We 
 looked up to her once, and shall live to look up to her 
 again. ' ' 
 
 252 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THIS notice of Sarah almost inevitably drifted into 
 the conversation, when Prue went to tea with "Mr. 
 and Mrs. Barker." She found it lying on the table, 
 face upwards, as though it had been hastily dropped at 
 the sound of her knock. She was ushered into the best 
 room of Sarah's shrine. Sarah's marriage portion had 
 thus been far beyond the wont of her class. The bride- 
 groom now took his ease amid her hard-won treasures 
 of domestic comfort; and they had already lost some of 
 that almost awful beauty of arrangement which had 
 characterised them when they were not in use. Yet they 
 were still the hire and purchase system in the glory of 
 an achieved result. 
 
 There was everything delectable, except perhaps re- 
 pose. The carpet seemed to rise at the visitor with the 
 effulgence of its pattern, the antimacassars, glaring like 
 the driven snow, took up the dominant idea of danger to 
 the beholder. "Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia," 
 still glowed in red and gold from a side-table. The piano 
 was a mirror which caught fantastic reflections of the 
 fire. But for a few additions, nothing was changed: 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 wry-faced as ever, King John still signed Magna Charta 
 on the wall. 
 
 Prue saw it all at a glance : of these additions, Sarah 's 
 husband was really little more than the most conspic- 
 uous. He, too, might have come from the Hampstead 
 Road, and might have been in course of settlement by 
 instalments. His sleekness of manner seemed but fur- 
 niture-polish in a new use. This was evidently his most 
 striking attraction in Sarah's eyes. She had married 
 to satisfy her sense of decorative efEect; and in this, 
 Prue thought, lay the full significance of her plea that 
 Mr. Barker was middle-aged. She had been tamed, not 
 by her feelings, but by her judgment. He had won her 
 respect as something solid and reputable in human 
 beings, no "skipjack" — as Prue remembered— like the 
 youths who had incurred her measureless scorn at the 
 club. His slight baldness was but another suggestion 
 of a gravity of nature that was his chief recommenda- 
 tion. While completing the home, he formed a new 
 guarantee of its stability ; and his mere presence enabled 
 her, in a manner, to look up to herself. 
 
 The very introduction was as something in east-iron. 
 "Miss Prue, Mr. Barker; Mr. Barker, Miss Prue." "The 
 young lady what I told yer of, ' ' was all that Sarah vouch- 
 safed, as a relief to the tedium of indispensable forms. 
 
 "May I offer you a little refreshment, miss?" said 
 Mr. Barker, indicating a decanter conceivably of sherry, 
 three glasses standing on their heads, and a neat pyramid 
 of cake, a model of constructive skill arranged in the 
 very centre of the table. 
 
 Declined with thanks. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Don't know why we 've got the table littered with 
 newspapers, I 'm sure," said the housewife, removing 
 The Branding Iron. It might have been a protest. Prue 
 took it as a hint for the choice of a topic. 
 
 "You are quite famous now, Sarah. I can't tell you 
 how pleased we all are. ' ' 
 
 " 'Mrs. B.'," said her lord, with a slight emphasis, 
 not without meaning for the visitor, "don't take much 
 stock in things of that sort. People that get their name 
 in the newspapers are not quite the sort we care to 
 know. ' ' 
 
 It was not so very wide of the mark, his experience 
 being mainly confined to the sheets that summarised the 
 crimes and horrors of the week. ^ 
 
 "Don't you think they 're of all sorts, good and bad?" 
 said Prue. 
 
 "Mebbe; but you don't hear much, even of the good 
 ones, unless they happen to ought to be ashamed of 
 themselves once in a way." 
 
 "That 's not exactly complimentary to our public 
 men," said Prue. 
 
 He looked at her curiously, as at one given to round- 
 about forms of speech that no plain dealer could be ex- 
 pected to understand. 
 
 "All that I mean," he muttered, "is, I don't take a 
 liberty with anybody, and I don't want anybody to take 
 a liberty with me. What business has anyone to put 
 people's names in print without their leave?" 
 
 "We ain't got no reason to be ashamed of ourn, so 
 what do we care?" said his wife. "Anyhow, it was 
 kindly meant." 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Mebbe; but we don't want any puffing and blowing 
 about our little home." 
 
 "Oh, as to that — " returned Sarah, hesitating between 
 the conflicting interests involved in the discussion. 
 
 "It 's a funny sort of paper," said Barker, "if you 
 come to think of it. I don't know that I should call it 
 a newspaper at all. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Perhaps that ought to take the sting out of the notice 
 —from your point of view," hazarded Prue. 
 
 Barker eyed her again in the same mystified way as 
 before, and held his peace. There was a pause in the con- 
 versation, which seemed to occasion some anxiety to the 
 hostess ; and she made a gallajit attempt to fill the void. 
 
 ' ' S 'pose you don 't see much of Miss Flipp now ? ' ' she 
 said to Prue. 
 
 ' ' I don 't remember the name. ' ' 
 
 "Miss St. Garmy in the purfession," Sarah explained. 
 
 She was going to leave it there, in her reluctance to 
 speak ill of an old customer, but she felt that it was not 
 quite enough. 
 
 "I should n't, if I was in your place. People as 
 lives by step-dancin' ain't no class for the quieter sort. 
 Always on the go. So 's 'er brother, come to that. You 
 know what I mean— restless people ; the ground seems to 
 burn their feet when they stand still, an' their feet, the 
 ground, when they move. ' ' 
 
 Prue laughed. "Funny Sarah! I 'm certainly not 
 going to join either of them in a jig, if you mean that. ' ' 
 
 Sarah paused. 
 
 " I 'm sure— ' ' she said at length, by way of closing the 
 incident, and as though to give a general assent to every- 
 
 256 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 thing that had fallen from everybody. She was in no 
 mood for strife. She looked round on the consummation 
 of a great hope, the reward of all her sacrifices and of all 
 her years of toil. 
 
 "I don't know that I care much about the title," 
 said Barker, reverting to The Branding Iron, "too much 
 like something in the cattle trade, if you ask me. ' ' 
 
 " 'A. D. 1905'— What does that mean?" said Sarah. 
 
 " 'After Death,' returned Barker, as though diffusing 
 light. "Dessay he does n't know, himself." 
 
 He was perhaps running to a certain excess in his dom- 
 inant virtue. Sarah was not ptepared to hear anything 
 against Leonard, even in the interest of her cult. 
 
 "This one would n't say it, if he did n't know, lay 
 your life; he ain't built that way." 
 
 ' ' As for that, ' ' returned Barker, drawing in his horns, 
 "I never perused the publication in my life." 
 
 "Nor me neither, not much," said his spouse, "no 
 time. But I 've 'ad the readin' of 'im for months, like 
 print, an' that 's enough for me. You won't find 'is 
 match every day. Such a gentleman, though 'is clothes 
 is sometimes the worse for wear. He 's the sort that 
 would n't mind walkin' on their uppers to give a new 
 pair to a tramp. ' ' 
 
 "I never encourage tramps," said Barker. 
 
 "He 's got a good coat to 'is back, whenever he likes to 
 wear it, lay your life," said Sarah. 
 
 Prue could not but listen. It was an allusion to a cer- 
 tain mystery in Leonard's life which had struck her more 
 than once. But she tried to turn the conversation, just 
 because she did not care to get her information in that 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Mrs. B., however, was in the mood to insist, as though 
 she owed it to him as a vindication. 
 
 ' ' He comes and goes, and, when he ain 't here, you bet, 
 he 's a long way off. They was only lodgin's where I 
 done for 'im and shut up half the week." 
 
 Tea was served by this time, to Prue's intense relief. 
 The topic was becoming inexpressibly distasteful to her, 
 and, to prevent any resumption of it, she took up another 
 publication which had been removed to make way for 
 the tray, and aimlessly turned the leaves. 
 
 "Now, that 's what I call a respectable sort of maga- 
 zine, ' ' said her host. " I 've done business in the house 
 of the gentleman that owns it — Lavender Hill, thousands 
 a year— seven in family — one of the sons gone into the 
 business, one into the law. And only a penny a week." 
 
 Mrs. B. looked undisguised admiration of this masterly 
 sketch of an ambition and of a career. It was so. The peri- 
 odical in question was one of hundreds never seen, as the 
 term is generally understood, never quoted, and yet win- 
 ning a fortune for their owners. It supplied improving 
 stories, with a dash of romance in them, for young per- 
 sons who sought a union of all the forces of aspiration. 
 These appeals had to be as artfully compounded for 
 popularity as certain teas. The blend, in this instance, 
 was evangelical piety and the Paris fashions. The great 
 crises of emotion were dealt with somewhat in this way : 
 
 "Pressing the scented missive to her heart, after a 
 vain attempt to read it a second time through her blind- 
 ing tears of joy, she hurried to her room; and hastily 
 exchanging her walking costume for a dressing-gown of 
 turquoise blue poplin, lined with swansdown, she threw 
 herself on her knees by the bedside, with its dainty cover- 
 
 258 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 let in hand-embroidered linen, and poured forth her soul 
 in gratitude to the Giver of all good." 
 
 Prue was not sorry when it was time to take her leave. 
 Mr. Barker had evidently won Sarah by his steadiness, 
 and that was as Sarah liked. But the visitor could not 
 get rid of the idea that he was too consciously living up to 
 his reputation. Every act and utterance seemed to be 
 regulated with a view to this impression. Steadiness 
 emanated from him, as its higher attribute of eternal 
 calm from a Buddha. And, just for that reason, the girl 
 felt some misgiving, emphasis being mostly the mere trad- 
 ing advertisement of truth, rather than the thing itself. 
 
 It frightened her as a sort of caricature of the mar- 
 riage of prudence. Sarah had found no master, certainly, 
 but had she found a mate? She had renounced matri- 
 mony, until it came her way without thought or contriv- 
 ance on her part. It looked as though she had simply 
 said "Yes," when she no longer saw any reason for say- 
 ing "No." "Was this the price of independence of soul 
 and body? It seemed to reduce love to about the same 
 level as painting in water colours. The girl was sick at 
 heart. 
 
 259 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE threatened Christmas supplement made its 
 appearance at the end of the week. It was called 
 "The Natural History of a Crime." 
 
 "As announced in our last issue, the Bloke was duly 
 hanged, on the day appointed for that purpose, for the 
 murder committed some short time ago within a stone 's- 
 throw of our office. He was the youngest oflEender of his 
 season, being stiU in his twentieth year. 
 
 "We knew him well by sight; and, though he was not 
 a subscriber, we were not without hope of getting him in 
 time. They can't be too bad or too good for our taste; 
 our motto is : 'Let 'em all come. ' He used to stand at our 
 street corner, with other legal infants, each as fierce and 
 bloody-minded as an Italian bravo of the Renascence, and 
 decorate the pavement in unpremeditated patterns while 
 waiting for the dawn of a brighter day. 
 
 ' ' True to our purpose of covering the life and times of 
 the district, we have devoted all possible attention to his 
 case. We therefore offer our readers the following mem- 
 oir and character sketch of him as a bit of natural history 
 — the natural history of a crime. It may be found to 
 have the interest of a complete and inevitable transaction. 
 
 260 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 They (meaning the authorities, society, or what you 
 will) were bound to string him up. He was bound to get 
 strung up ; all was in order : 
 
 THE BLOKE— AS CELEBRITY AT HOME 
 
 ' ' The Bloke was born of poor, but foolish parents, ineffi- 
 cients, who had not known how to make themselves count 
 for something in the hustle of the world. The father had 
 a vague indeterminate calling of which we have not been 
 able to find particulars ; but his earnings were so wretched 
 that the wolf was ever at the door. The mother was a 
 helpless slattern addicted to star-gazing through the end 
 of a tumbler, the only glimpse she ever caught of the sky. 
 The pair had been most carefully educated at the public 
 expense for their several parts in life. 
 
 "The Bloke, their eldest son, and heir to all the condi- 
 tions, came at a quite early age to the conclusion that 
 work was a fool's game. He began to suspect this one 
 night as he lay hungry in bed, and in his comer of the 
 human pigstye in which they all lived. No coin worth 
 speaking of came their way. No one of them was worth 
 anybody's money. The Bloke himself learned nothing in 
 art or craft. He spelt cat with a k, and had a hazy idea 
 that Christ was born in China. The first peculiarity 
 effectually prevented him from obtaining profitable 
 employment. 
 
 ' ' He tried it for a while, however, at first as errand boy 
 at an oUshop ('up early, down late; and had to give all 
 the 'apence to muwer— yah!') then, as a boy in charge 
 of the tailboard of a railway van. This was a little more 
 
 261 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 exciting. There was the pageant of the streets ; and now 
 and then they ran over something four-footed, greatly to 
 the amusement of the Bloke. 
 
 "He grew apace ; and within a year, after entering his 
 teens, he fought his father on the question of the sub- 
 sidies, and beat him— three rounds under Queensbury 
 rules. The parent was a heavier weight; but, by sheer 
 luck his head struck the kerb in a fall. He never seemed 
 the same man after — but this, by the way. 
 
 AS GALLANT 
 
 ' ' He was now able to have a gal, a person of surround- 
 ings exactly the same as his own. He 'treated her up to 
 dick, ' with penny ices and cheap Saffron Hill confection- 
 ery, 'prime'! She was, if possible, more advanced in 
 moral decomposition than himself. He came home one 
 night, and found another Don Juan cuddling her in the 
 gloom of the paternal doorway. This time he had the 
 worst of the fight. But he waited for his Ehnira after- 
 wards, and gave her a warning stab with the 'big bleeder, ' 
 which he and his class invariably carry, and on which 
 they always keep a good edge and point. Strangely 
 enough, this paved the way to a temporary reconciliation. 
 She admired his spirit, and was faithful even in thought 
 for at least a fortnight. They had just turned fourteen 
 years old at this stage. 
 
 "Then he lost his place through cheeking his superior 
 officer. It had been rapidly tending to that all along. 
 Work was irksome. ' Yah ! ' again ; and finally, ' Not me ! ' 
 
 262 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 AS FREE LANCE 
 
 "Now he determined to live by his wits. This was 
 heroic, with such a skull. If only he could have known 
 the dire import of its elevations and depressions — all in 
 the wrong place! From some of the former— for he 
 came of an old, old stock — centuries of shifts and short 
 commons looked down on a hopeless case. 
 
 "With this determination he seemed to reach maturity 
 at a bound. StiU a boy in years, he became a man in the 
 fuU growth of his appetites and his passions. His 
 upbringing — to speak of it with due civility — had begot 
 in him a terrible callousness and indifference to every- 
 thing that stood in the way of his bulldog will. It was the 
 morality of the midnight coffee-stall, his only school of 
 manners. He knew of but two motive powers, appetite 
 and revenge, and he would not be said nay. 
 
 "He now joined a band of lads of his own age, regu- 
 larly constituted for every species of crime, open, stealthy, 
 gross, or infamous, with meeting-places, rules, obedience 
 to constituted authority of their own choosing — a gang 
 perfectly well known to every policeman that cracked 
 his walnut at the corner of the street, and enjoying his 
 large-hearted tolerance. 
 
 AS SPORTSMAN 
 
 "His new industry was betting tempered by theft — 
 at this stage mere sneak-thieving of articles exposed for 
 
 263 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 sale at shop doors. His betting was the outcome of his 
 assiduous study of the evening papers. Thousands were 
 spent in keeping him well informed on the results of 
 every race, and ill-informed as to its prospects. Men lay 
 out all night in ditches to report the morning gallops to 
 him. Betting agents haunted the 'pubs' and the street 
 corners of his habitat to book his transactions. Nothing 
 could exceed their assiduity, their punctuality, their at- 
 tention to business. If they had been toiling for virtue, 
 they might have converted a nation of cannibals to a 
 vegetable diet in less than a month. The very policeman, 
 whose duty it was to watch them, often 'did a bit on his 
 own' with them, to supplement his inadequate earnings. 
 "They waited for the workmen at the dinner-hour, in 
 the neighbourhood of the big jobs. Their perfect net- 
 work of supply and demand was never less than intact 
 and all-sufficient at any moment, or at any place. They 
 published private sheets to supplement the deliverances 
 of the public prophets. Their 'Lightning Tipster' was 
 supplied on the principle of the Penny-in-the-Slot on 
 every race morning. They had a mid-day special which 
 gave 'three naps,' and could always be obtained at the 
 low price of threepence. For a remittance of half-a- 
 crown, they sent a private wire, about an hour before the 
 race. For the sum of seven-and-sixpence, their Guar- 
 antee Department undertook to pour in tips until the 
 investor received a winner. The customers were prom- 
 ised an average profit on this arrangement alone of 
 about £200 per annum. The periodical 'balance-sheets' 
 issued in the interest of patrons were irresistible in their 
 demonstration of inevitable gains. 
 
 264 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 AS DANBT 
 
 ' ' Sometimes he won a trifle — let us be fair to a great 
 public industry. And, when this happened, he spent it 
 like a man, on his 'donah,' or, still, like some men, on 
 himself. He was quite a 'torf now; and many a little 
 factory girl fell a victim to his allurements, and to the 
 notorious preference of this sex for the aristocracies of 
 their order. His washing was done at the shirt-collar 
 dressers, at any rate, such parts of it as the dickeys and 
 false cuffs, which had to bear the ordeal of the public 
 eye. He was shaved as clean as a calf's head. He 
 turned up the bottoms of his shabby trousers. His boots, 
 if they were often patched, were always polished. His 
 slouch cap — usually tilted at the back of his head to ex- 
 hibit a tonsured design in flattened love-locks which 
 looked as though it had been wrought in Spanish liquor- 
 ice — was occasionally drawn low over his brow, as though 
 in rehearsal of a final scene. He had his club in a betting 
 den that was periodically raided by the police. As a 
 person found on the premises, he was merely bound-over, 
 when he might more profitably have been tied up at 
 the cart-tail. 
 
 HIS HABITAT 
 
 "Animals are known by their haunts, as well as by 
 their hides, and he was no exception. His hunting- 
 grounds for prey were the busy thoroughfares in the 
 neighbourhood of the great railway stations, or of the 
 
 265 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 terminal taverns of the omnibus routes. When the 
 thoroughfares happened to radiate from a central point 
 in half a dozen directions, they were all the better for his 
 purpose. The stations disgorged the travellers who were 
 to be robbed, hoaxed, hustled, or lured with a view to 
 that operation. The star points ofifered a choice of 
 means of escape in the event of pursuit. The rays al- 
 most invariably started from a public-house, and led, in 
 their course, to beer-shops in the meaner streets. The 
 first were the open and public rendezvous, where the 
 gangs celebrated their successes ; the last, the dens, where 
 in perfect seclusion they concocted their schemes. In 
 one or other of them, at the proper season, the Bloke 
 never failed to find a pal. It is impossible to exaggerate 
 the terror, the dejection of soul inspired by the view of 
 these places to the unwonted beholder— slatternly women 
 of nameless industries, or of that of betting as the only 
 one that would bear avowal; thieves of every variety 
 from the unobtrusive pick-pocket to the militant knifing 
 and bludgeoning man; fierce factory girls on the spree, 
 and ready for a fight with the knuckles in their wrath. 
 Hell surely, at its hour of high change, can have nothing 
 to surpass it in its way. 
 
 "In every part of London, and not only at the car- 
 dinal points, there is a quarter like this — a quarter in 
 which blokes are born, bred, maddened in the boozing 
 dens, supplied with victims, kept, as in sanctuary, after 
 their work. King's Cross, with its star points of the 
 Euston, Pentonville, York, and Gray's Inn roads, is one 
 such quarter, with its perfect equipment of bullies and 
 female decoys, thieves '-kitchens, 'fences,' and all the 
 
 266 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 other plant and personnel of this enormous industry. 
 Judd Street, with its ramifications in Hunter Street, 
 Leigh Street, Cromer Street, Compton Street, is another 
 —a sort of point within a point, serving the North West- 
 ern and the Midland Stations for every ahomination of 
 Bahylon, as the other serves the Great Northern. It 
 would be a weary round to perambulate the entire neigh- 
 bourhood; and to do the same painstaking justice to all 
 London would be like an attempt to map the Pacific 
 Isles. The main thing is that there is no failure at any 
 part of the vast circumference of full and perfect pro- 
 vision for all the industries of crime. Here the Bloke 
 was born, as a lion into deserts, a lark into the air ; here 
 he graduated; here he preyed on his kind, with all the 
 constituted authorities, administrative and religious, 
 perfectly well aware of the fact, and practically power- 
 less to say him nay. 
 
 "Given these conditions, and anything may happen 
 at any moment. Their origin, as they stand in their 
 present perfection, is to be sought deep down in time, in 
 the long secular neglect of the masses as human beings, 
 in the bestial ideals as to the meaning and purpose of 
 life, that have ever prevailed among high and low. A 
 statement of them is the natural history of a crime. 
 
 "The immediate cause of crime is often as trivial as 
 the fall of a feather. In the Bloke's case it was a mere 
 fit of temper. He had just served a month in prison for 
 a savage assault, and, on his release, had heard that the 
 mother of his 'fancy' of the moment had said that she 
 wished he might never come out. Then he made up his 
 mind to murder both the mother and father, and to make 
 
 267 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 a clean job of the business by cutting his own throat. 
 On the physiological side, it was the badly balanced 
 criminal brain that, once excited by opposition, is ready 
 to curse the sun, and kill, kill, kill all round. Beside 
 such natures, the monsters of drama seem very milk-and- 
 watery beings indeed. The Bloke had been 'upset,' and 
 those who had done it must die. He could not see any 
 other way out of it. He bore the letters, 'I. L. S. J.'— 
 'I love Sarah Jones'— tattooed on his person. The cross 
 to his affections on the part of his' prospective mother- 
 in-law was a sort of Use majeste only to be expiated in 
 blood. 
 
 "He made the most elaborate arrangements for this 
 act of retribution, first drawing out money from the 
 Savings Bank to pay current expenses, and then making 
 his will ! 
 
 ' ' Thus it ran : ' Carefully read this. One job ; I hereby 
 leave £5 to Mrs. Jenkins, and the rest of my property 
 to my dear mother. Determined to swing. My watch 
 and chain I leave to James Penny, my pal. My medal 
 — he had been in the war — to Mrs. Jenkins if I succeed 
 in murdering Mrs. Jones. God bless those who have 
 done good to me ! ' 
 
 "On Saturday he was ready for the murder. He 
 called on Mrs. Jones, invited her, in a friendly way, to 
 come and drink with him— sure, of course, of the perfect 
 efficacy of the, lure. They drank and chatted, but she 
 was an unconscionable time in getting ripe. Then he 
 proposed that they should go to her lodgings for a cup 
 of tea. 
 
 ' ' They went, she stooped , down to kindle the fire, 
 
 268 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 looked up, saw soinething in his eye, shrieked. The rest 
 was silence for ever, under a swift rain of blows with 
 the poker, 'enough to kill a bullock,' as he afterwards 
 complacently said. He had a razor in reserve, and used 
 it, though not on himself. He meant to stay for the 
 home-coming of the husband to kill him too, but the 
 neighbours had taken the alarm and he fled, his hands 
 (and even his face) *a sorry sight.' He was soon caught. 
 
 "He sang music-hall songs in his cell all night, in a 
 perfect passion of the gaiety of sated revenge. 
 
 "The law destroyed him, just as the gamekeeper de- 
 stroys a rat or a mole. He was vermin. The act of 
 destruction in each case is an incident of natural history. 
 He was one of those strangely illogical animal products 
 born only to be put out of the world. 
 
 "These murders and these expiations are going on 
 constantly, and none but the gutter press pays much 
 attention to them. It is a mark of gentility in the better 
 sheets to pass them over in a paragraph of small print. 
 In truth, they ought to have all the honours of the 
 biggest type, just to show where we stand. The only 
 inconvenience might be their crowding out the debates 
 in Parliament and the fashionable receptions. 
 
 "The grinding economic conditions that produce them 
 are everywhere — the demoralising poverty, the still more 
 demoralising luxury, the wickedly won, and still more 
 wickedly distributed wealth, ever making honest toil 
 more and more of a fool's game for the mass of mankind. 
 
 "The horrid social conditions are everywhere — the 
 great cesspool cities, ill-swept, ill-washed, wanting in 
 simple pleasures, their coarse pageantry of fashion of- 
 
 269 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 fered to ignorance and discontent as an ideal of life, 
 their elaborate provision of gin at every street corner to 
 give the smug dividend-hunter the wherewithal to endow 
 his church. The rich were never more indifferent about 
 the poor than they are at this moment, when they have 
 got them off their minds by liberal doses of the opiate of 
 charitable and religious ministration. 
 
 "Tears, idle tears; why this wringing of the hands? 
 All has happened just as might have been expected, just 
 as it has happened before, as it will certainly happen 
 again. 
 
 "The same causes, the same effects. How will they 
 work out at last? A Colonial paper has made a shot at 
 it, somewhat wide of the mark, no doubt, by reason of 
 the extreme length of range, but a fair try aU the same. 
 'Without any effective native-born army, without an 
 agricultural population, its social life dominated by for- 
 eign plutocrats, its aristocracy largely devoting itself 
 to satin waistcoats, skirt dancing, and bridge, England 
 begins to present all the conditions which presaged the 
 fall of the Roman Empire.' 
 
 "'Why include the army?' 'Why not?' For the 
 peoples that do not consider, the hour of battle may also 
 be an hour of a day of judgment. Ring out the old ! ' ' 
 
 270 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 MARY LANE came up to town for the Christmas 
 holidays and stayed with Prue. It was Prue's 
 first house-party, and she was in a becoming state of 
 excitement. If she had known her guest better, she 
 would have felt no anxiety. Mary's clothes '-box proved 
 to be no bigger than the one in which the Queen of 
 Sheba, in Claude's picture, embarks her finery for the 
 visit to Solomon. 
 
 Mary would have called on a king with no more prepar- 
 ation. She stepped out of the railway carriage the same 
 radiant and saintly little creature as ever, embraced her 
 friend on the platform, again in the cab, and seemed per- 
 fectly indifferent to anything that Fate might have in 
 store. She was neatness carried to the point of fine art, 
 from the spotless cuffs and collar that stood out against 
 the dark background of her dress, to the demure bands of 
 her hair, trailing down each cheek in the style of the last 
 century. She looked as old-fashioned as a Madonna of 
 an objet de piete, yet a madonna still. "Detestable taste 
 in anybody else ; adorable in her, ' ' thought Prue. ' ' But 
 there the right sort of woman can never wear the wrong 
 thing: the wrong sort, never the right." 
 
 " I do hope you will be comfortable : I can only hope so 
 
 271 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 now Sarah is gone— married. I '11 tell you about that 
 later on, and about the poor old thing that helps me now ! 
 Well, you must take the will for the deed. ' ' 
 
 "We all serve one another at the settlement," said 
 Mary; "it 's capital exercise. Why not pay your old 
 woman her week's wages and let her have a holiday too? 
 I can take her place." 
 
 ' ' She positively does n 't know how to take a holiday : 
 she was never taught to play. It 's heart-rending. I 
 tried her once ; and all she did was to go up to Hampstead 
 to look at the pond where her son drowned himself when 
 he was out of work. No, leave her to me. I 'm going to 
 start her with an old age pension as soon as I can per- 
 suade her to give in. It '11 do me lots of good. ' ' 
 
 There was another difficulty. How was she to amuse 
 her guest? She had submitted it to Laura Belton for 
 hints. Laura was not helpful. She had a lofty scorn of 
 Cockney treats, and hardly cared to discuss anything 
 short of the Italian lakes, with a week in Paris on the way 
 home. She saved up for these superb ventures, went in 
 style, lived at good boarding-houses, and, for a glorious 
 fortnight, glowed in the thought that she had put heir- 
 esses to shame. But then her infant footsteps had trod a 
 sacred soil, and she held the motto of its race : ' ' The best 
 is good enough for me. " 
 
 Mary solved the problem as soon as she heard of it: 
 "Why not go and see all the cheap sights : they are gener- 
 ally the best?" 
 
 She took the matter in hand at once. She had come up 
 on Saturday afternoon ; and a call on Gertrude brought 
 her to the end of that day. On Sunday they went to St. 
 
 272 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Paul's in the morning, to Westminster Abbey in the 
 afternoon. Then Mary led the way home through White- 
 hall and St. James's Park, past Marlborough House and 
 St. James's Palace, prattling religion, history, archae- 
 ology, landscape-gardening, birds, beasts, and fishes— 
 everything but scandal, all the while. Their actual out- 
 lay was less than eighteenpence in omnibus fares for the 
 pair. 
 
 The second day was just the same, simple pleasures 
 restored to their natural sweetness by the absence of all 
 false shame — a gallery or two, the Zoo, Regent's Park, 
 and London from the top of Primrose Hill ! 
 
 "Beat it, if you can," Mary said, as the luck of the 
 weather gave them the whole wonderful panorama in the 
 clear sunset of a winter's afternoon. "Rome from the 
 Pincian is only a second-best, at any rate, for thoughts. ' ' 
 
 "What ought one to do, Mary— shed tears, or thank 
 God?" 
 
 "Whichever you please, my little dear, since I 'm show- 
 man for the day. The Zoo and a bun, she chuckled, as 
 they trotted off. "Is n't it like a school treat? Never 
 mind: the other thing debauches both rich and poor. 
 There is n't a pin's-point to choose between them. I tell 
 you this gin palace is just as awful, in its way, as a din- 
 ner at ten guineas a head." 
 
 They got home, tired, hungry, happy. Mary lent a hand 
 in laying the table and in washing-up, and had "medita- 
 tion" in her room when the work was done. She came 
 back, with a smile, to take her place by the trim fire and 
 the glowing lamp, and to read Blake to the rapt listener, 
 for whom, till now, he had been nothing but a name. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 " 'Every night and every morn 
 Some to misery are born; 
 Every morn and every night 
 Some are born to sweet delight ; 
 Some are born to endless night. 
 Joy and woe are woven fine, 
 A clothing for the soul divine; 
 Under every grief and pine 
 Runs a joy with silken twine. 
 It is right it should be so; 
 Man was made for joy and woe; 
 And when this we rightly know, 
 Safely through the world we go.' " 
 
 Before going to bed she made up her accounts : ' ' Fares, 
 6d. ; Zoo, 6d. ; Snacks, a shilling— I don't remember any- 
 thing else. It 's rather riotous, you know, but we are out 
 on the spree. By the way, I must give you ' Tiger, tiger, 
 burning bright !' before we turn in, just in honour of the 
 Zoo." 
 
 ' ' Don 't you think Nature might have spared us the hip- 
 popotamus?" said Prue. 
 
 ' ' Positively could n 't do without him : he 's on his way 
 to be a gazelle. You '11 be wanting to do without some of 
 the people in the crowd next. I tell you it 's all divine. ' ' 
 
 On Tuesday it was the South Kensington Museum, 
 Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Rotten Row, at the 
 same modest rates. 
 
 "It positively can't last, you know," said Mary; "but 
 there is fun in making the money fly." 
 
 They found a letter in the box from Leonard. "Would 
 Prue do him the honour to join him next day at a little 
 
 274 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 dinner in Soho— just to have a peep at the foreign life, 
 the real thing, as distinct from the make-believe of the 
 smart restaurants? Miss Belton had already promised. 
 The rendezvous would be at the door of a certain French 
 house, where they would find him waiting to receive them. 
 But his ambition went even beyond that. He had heard 
 of Miss Lane 's coming to town ; and he hoped she would 
 honour him with her company. Perhaps she might gra- 
 ciously bear in mind that they had already met, after a 
 fashion, in the columns of The Branding Iron. There 
 was still another favour to ask. Would Prue use her 
 good offices with Miss HoU and bring her too? Both 
 these ladies were among his patronesses, and he would 
 not willingly let slip the opportunity of making their 
 acquaintance. 
 
 "We must go," said Mary; "I would n't miss it for 
 the world. Just think of all the grand things he is doing, 
 and then of all the nice things he has said about my pas- 
 toral play — if you won't take the other motive on trust. 
 I warn you it will be love at first sight, after the 'Natural 
 History of a Crime. ' " 
 
 "All right for us two, then," said her friend; "but 
 how about Gertrude? I must go and see what I can do. 
 She has got over a good deal of her shyness, but this seems 
 rather a large order, at short notice, for her." 
 
 ' ' I want to meet him : I mean to go, ' ' Gertrude said, 
 when Prue sought her out; "but oh, how the creatures 
 terrify me!" 
 
 "Why? His foreigners won't be exactly alien immi- 
 grants, after all. " 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The other laughed. 
 
 "I don't mean foreigners, goosey: I mean men, what- 
 ever their label. And this one 's such a splendid fellow, 
 and I do so long to know him. All the same, I wish — 
 And then again, you know, I would n't miss it for the 
 world." 
 
 ' ' Why, with your goodness, Gertrude, and your talents 
 and your beauty— please note the fine crescendo of attrac- 
 tions for the male— what have you to fear from any of 
 them?" 
 
 "It is n't that." 
 
 ' ' Such hectoring, masterful creatures ? ' ' suggested the 
 other, by way of helping her out. "But don't you think 
 they are of all sorts, just as we are ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' When they 've got you, they 've got you, ' ' said Ger- 
 trude mysteriously. "But it 's not that, either. Don't 
 think I 'm such a conceited little fool as to fancy they 
 can't help falling in love with me ; say you know it 's not 
 that." 
 
 "I know it 's not that," repeated the other, with 
 mock solemnity. 
 
 "But you need n't attack it like a response in a cate- 
 chism. I can get on with girls ; I always could get on with 
 them. At any rate, I wanted to. You remember how I 
 used to pin some of you little 'uns into tight corners, and 
 insist on your being chummy at once. But the men 
 things; they are so terribly 'manny.' They can't help it, 
 I know, but there it is. I like some of them— this one in 
 particular— and I admire— but — ^but — 
 
 "It 's my little secret, and you 're the first to hear. 
 
 276 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 But I 'm not the only one with such a secret to tell. That 
 kind of terror is a sort of vocation with some of us, and 
 not the worst sort always— helieve that. But there: 
 what 's the use of playing ho-peep about it ? I 'm going, 
 Prue, you know, and I want to go." 
 
 277 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THEY found him waiting for them at the door. ' ' No 
 toilettes, please," had been his final message, and 
 they had taken him at his word. They stepped out of 
 the grimy side-street into a bit of the foreign fairyland, 
 for fairyland it is when these people, who happen to be 
 above the degree of the poorest, sit down to meat. 
 
 The head- waiter in his jacket and apron (so distinctly 
 simple and reassuring after the greasy evening wear of 
 our British variety) led them to their table, glowing in 
 whitey-brown napery, coarse but clean, and touched with 
 a ray of crimson from the lamp. It was nothing out of 
 the way in that line, but it had its suffusion of the com- 
 fort that was spread over the whole place — a cheery 
 bivouac of the battlefield of life. 
 
 Their entry made a slight stir, for, with one apparent 
 exception, they were the only English in the place. The 
 others were unmistakably foreign, if only by the way in 
 which they treated their napkins as wearing apparel. All 
 were in the note of restful enjoyment and ease. 
 
 "It is Bohemia," said Leonard, while they were dis- 
 cussing their hors d'auvre — , "only 'new style' and I 
 thought you would like to see that. ' ' 
 
 They were all trying for something, passing on to some- 
 
 278 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 thing, if only execution at the foot of a barricade. Mean- 
 while they came here to find their like, and to feed accord- 
 ing to their funds. You could go as high as five shillings 
 for a dinner, if you had it in your pocket ; sometimes, if 
 you had it not, but eighteenpence marked the aspirant 
 stage. Much or little, they were all alike at the sacred 
 hour — affable, human, talkative. Hark to the shock of 
 ideas ! 
 
 "Some of them," Leonard said, "are going to be great 
 players, great singers, great ministers— once upon a time 
 to come. While waiting for promotion, they take classes 
 in Clapham boarding-schools, at two shillings an hour, 
 with the walk thrown in to give them an appetite for 
 their only meal." 
 
 "The one who has just come in," asked Laura, iinder 
 her breath, "with the fuzzy hair, and the dreamy eyes, 
 and the paper parcel sticking out of his pocket?" 
 
 ' ' Have n 't you answered your own question, mademoi- 
 selle? — the great composer of the day after to-morrow. 
 His paper parcel, if you please, is the score of an opera — 
 that and nothing less. Meanwhile he teaches the piano ; 
 and, for I don 't know how little a lesson, imparts a secret 
 of touch that might entitle him to paraphrase the pill- 
 maker's 'worth a guinea a box' for every note. 
 
 "The one he is talking to, the young fellow cuddling 
 the portfolio, is a rapin of the Beaux Arts. Nothing 
 much, I 'm told, now or hereafter, by reason of an 
 untimely decline into the illustrated papers, to keep a 
 wife and four children alive. A good rapin all the same. 
 The portfolio is full of sketches which he has been hawk- 
 ing about all day among City men qualifying for a taste 
 
 279 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 in the fine arts. Ten shillings a sketch, if he can get it ; 
 but no reasonable offer refused, not even five at the clos- 
 ing hour that brings the scent of dinner from afar. 
 
 "The tall man. Miss Prue— I see the question in your 
 eyes— the one with a stoop, and the extreme refinement 
 of manner, is a lecturer on Patagonian literature. 
 Nobody really wants Patagonian literature, so he dines 
 only every other day. He had a momentary boom when 
 his king drove through the City to lunch with the Lord 
 Mayor. His audience at one of the literary institutes 
 rose to five-and-twenty ; but it was too good to last. ' ' 
 
 ' ' The young woman that he raised his hat to ? " queried 
 Mary Lane. "Don't look that way, please." 
 
 "The one in olive brown, as to the complexion, and 
 smoking the cigarette — a hopeless passion, I 'm afraid. 
 Even she does n't care much about Patagonian literature, 
 but they are exceedingly good friends. She 's Eussian, 
 a sort of king's messenger for the revolutionary party, 
 carries orders, manifestoes, money even, as often as not, 
 between Zurich, London— any other city of refuge— and 
 Petersburg. She has just escaped from the fortress of 
 Peter and Paul, with the help of her eyes and of a soft- 
 hearted jailer; and here she is. The eyes are most use- 
 ful ; she gets her living by them as an artist 's model for 
 the soft brooding motherhood of Holy Families." 
 
 ' ' The other features hardly make a happy family of it 
 by themselves," said Laura. 
 
 "That is the mere accident of her mixed parentage — 
 half Italian, half Little-Russian." 
 
 "I wish it were n't quite so big," sighed Mary. 
 
 "The mouth? Oh, that, I fancy, is the dash of Tar- 
 
 280 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 tar which sometimes plays such havoc with the purity of 
 the Russian type." 
 
 "I only meant the world," said Mary. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "That comes of personalities, and it serves me right. 
 And yet I must still venture on one more, Miss Lane, to 
 tell you with what immense interest I have followed your 
 work in the villages." 
 
 "You 've shown that already in your wonderful little 
 paper. How did you find out about me ? " 
 
 ' ' I find out everything, ' ' he said, ' ' and I do so hunt for 
 the good things to balance my weekly budget of misery 
 and wrong. I think you have begun a great work." 
 
 "Begun! No; I 've only taken it up. Others are at 
 work on the same lines all over the country. The little 
 interlude played is as old as the hills ; all I have done is 
 to go back to first principles, and put it on wheels. The 
 English people are only to be saved by themselves from 
 that triple-crowned tyranny of the music hall, the musi- 
 cal play, and the 'revival.' They have the stuff in them 
 for the finest drama in the world. They 've proved it. 
 Have you ever seen a 'first night' of the poor?— I mean 
 pit and gallery, not boxes and stalls — hours and hours 
 of waiting at the doors, sometimes in rain or cold, with- 
 out turning a hair. There 's one coming off next week, 
 and Prue promised to take me ; but worse luck, I have to 
 go home. Go and see it, if you can. In any case, please 
 don't forget my new piece next spring. First night on 
 a village green in Hertfordshire ; you must come. ' ' 
 
 "No ; I want you to come to us." 
 
 "London! I 'm afraid you are a little too— sophis- 
 
 281 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ticated. I don 't quite see our little Thespian cart on the 
 scene of your 'Natural History of a Crime.' " 
 
 ' ' I would guarantee you a house, and good order ; and 
 invite all the critics of the great dailies to come and see. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, it haunts me ; it haunts me, that Christmas num- 
 ber. And it 's all true ; only the reality is so much worse. 
 What have they all been about — law, government, reli- 
 gion, all these centuries, to leave us in a reek like that? 
 It 's the wretched boy-labour for a living. What busi- 
 ness had they to send that fledgeling to dance his devil 's 
 tattoo on the tail-board of a van ? ' ' 
 
 Laura chimed in from the other side of the table: 
 "Can't you send 'em to your colonies? room to dance 
 there." 
 
 It was the first meeting of the two girls. Prue looked 
 from one to the other, from both to Leonard, as a chap- 
 eron responsible for the introduction. There was some- 
 thing that was not exactly warmth of regard in Mary's 
 face ; and it was easy to see that Laura had her thoughts. 
 It was impossible to have a greater contrast in style — 
 Mary so sweetly old-fashioned, Laura with her taste in 
 finery, her beaming good looks, her quiet self-assurance, 
 her perfect ease. Leonard seemed to delight in both of 
 them like a connoisseur glorying in his catholicity of 
 taste. 
 
 "I don't want them to dance anywhere," said Mary. 
 
 "Then let them sell pea-nuts," said Laura. "They 
 can't begin too early, if they want to be presidents." 
 
 "Presidents!" echoed Mary. "The demand, I 'm 
 afraid can hardly keep pace with the supply ; and mean- 
 time— " 
 
 282 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "They '11 still find a market for their talents," said 
 Laura. 
 
 "If it 's only the kerbstone or the gallows." 
 
 Laura turned to Leonard. 
 
 "Did you know Cecil Rhodes ? There was a man ! He 
 would have settled all your problems for you. ' ' 
 
 "Not quite all, I 'm afraid." 
 
 "He made a good beginning, anyhow." 
 
 "At the wrong end, as some of us think. I don't know 
 that our first concern is to send everybody to Oxford." 
 
 ' ' I thought you had been there. ' ' 
 
 "That 's hardly conclusive perhaps." 
 
 "He enlarged your lordship of the earth." 
 
 "Oh, as to that— but I 'm sure you 've read 'The 
 White Man's Burden,' or, at any rate, heard his whine." 
 
 "But you are working for the same thing, at your end, 
 wherever you begin." 
 
 "Now you pique my curiosity. What end, if you 
 please ? ' ' 
 
 "Power — the way to shape yourself, first to your 
 own will, and then to shape others too. Is there any- 
 thing else worth living for?" 
 
 ' ' There are other things, I fancy. ' ' 
 
 "But not in your ken, I 'm sure. Leave me one illu- 
 sion of heroic purpose, now that the other has gone." 
 
 "You do me too much honour; but human nature 
 being what it is, how can I have the heroism to set you 
 right." 
 
 In spite of her self-command, a flush betrayed her 
 pleasure in the compliment. She looked beautiful in the 
 soft light. Leonard's face wore an expression, whether 
 
 283 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of interest or of amusement, which showed that he was 
 not insensible to her charm. 
 
 "She 's a pagan," whispered Mary to Prue. 
 
 Prue looked inquiringly at Gertrude, who had hardly 
 spoken a word. 
 
 "I can't tell," Gertrude said. 
 
 "I mean Leonard," said Prue. 
 
 "Still less; to judge by appearances, he may be one 
 of the few who don't want to be your master." 
 
 "That 's just it!" 
 
 "How extremely demoralising! It might be enough 
 to make one want to be his slave." 
 
 She would have turned silent again, but their host 
 now took the matter into his own hands. With the 
 freedom of movement suited to the place and the hour 
 of dessert, he took a chair by her side, Prue watching 
 the incident with a look of anxiety that was not com- 
 pletely allayed by the composure of her friend's smile. 
 
 "This has been one of the greatest pleasures of my 
 life, Mr. Leonard," said Gertrude. 
 
 Only she knew what it cost her to get through so much, 
 or so little, with credit, for her old shyness was eomiag 
 back upon her with a rush. 
 
 "It 's very good of you to say so. I ventured to think 
 that I might make it easier for my guests, and for me, 
 to ask them to come here. They have understood. ' ' 
 
 "What makes it so very delightful, I wonder?" she 
 said. 
 
 ' ' The low ritual in dining, I think. We are beginning 
 to tire of the high, even at the clubs. The rubric is al- 
 
 284 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ways the letter that killeth, in the long run, even in 
 eating and drinking." 
 
 "The butler being the letter," she said, "and the 
 liveried serving-men ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, they are going fast under the new dispensation 
 of the waiting-maid. The men linger here because they 
 are human in having shed their tails." 
 
 Her laugh put her more at her ease. 
 
 "And the guests of the old dispensation?" she con- 
 tinued. "Don't forget them." 
 
 "Can one ever do that? The latest financier and the 
 latest poet who have arrived would be bad enough, but 
 the old gang of distinguished nobodies, mostly without 
 a thought to bless themselves with, often with not so 
 much as a word!" 
 
 ' ' Please don 't be too hard on the silent, Mr. Leonard. ' ' 
 
 ' ' How can we help it ? They are so hard on us. Their 
 muteness is a perpetual suggestion to the garrulous of 
 a contempt that lies too deep for words." 
 
 "It may sometimes be a silence of despair over the 
 idle talk of the menu. 'Liquid air,' I understand, is 
 now entered for consumption at some of the fashionable 
 repasts." 
 
 "No doubt, at a guinea a gasp. It would be pathetic 
 enough if it were only once in a way; but now that, or 
 something like it, is the folly of every day in the year." 
 
 "The madness too," she said gravely, "as we shall 
 see in time. The little ceremony at the desk of 'The 
 Lancaster' is only one reckoning; there 's another to 
 come outside." 
 
 285 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Yes, that world-renowned establishment is immeas- 
 urably more demoralising than 'The Pig and Whistle' 
 of the slums. Dining is still under the domination of 
 the hungry fellows coming in from the hunting-field, or 
 from the trenches before Troy. When shall we have a 
 new Temperance movement, for the platter as well as 
 for the cup ? ' ' 
 
 "Never, I 'm afraid," said Gertrude, "until we get 
 rid of the notion that a man may do what he likes with 
 his own — even his own digestion." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Beware how you tamper with the institutions of the 
 country. The Lancaster, with all its faults, is a way of 
 making the money fly; and the choice seems to lie be- 
 tween choking with the wealth, or choking with the prov- 
 ender. Hallo ! wihat 's going on now ? ' ' 
 
 There was a stir at the other end of the room. The 
 fat old host, still in his jacket and cap as chef, stood 
 beaming, in the midst of a group of customers, as though 
 receiving their congratulations, with the Russian lady 
 in advance offering him a bouquet. His delighted spouse 
 — a match for him at all points, including the smile of 
 happiness — and two or three grinning scullions closed 
 in the scene at the kitchen door. 
 
 "It is his birthday, monsieur," said a waiter, in an- 
 swer to Leonard's inquiring glance. 
 
 "That 's the way we do things here," said Leonard; 
 "we are a mere family party on the slightest excuse." 
 
 "Hush!" said Laura, "Fuzzy 's going to play in 
 honour of the occasion." 
 
 The composer, under the gentle compulsion of his 
 
 286 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 friends, went over to a piano in the corner, half hidden 
 under a litter of newspapers. His protesting cry for aid 
 brought to his side another customer, who carried a 
 violin case, and who looked as though he might be due 
 later at some public orchestra. 
 
 When this one, after glancing at his watch, took out 
 the instrument, the whole babble of the restaurant 
 ceased. It was the hour of coffee; the cigarette smoke 
 curled in thin films to the roof; everyone looked happy 
 as in a world where the main business was music, poetry, 
 sweet thoughts. The very waiters paused in the act of 
 reckoning, and cocked an ear. 
 
 In another moment all were free, equal, humane, under 
 the divine ministration of art. The piano throbbed 
 mighty chords as of a storm charged with a message of 
 the grandeur of life. The violin took up the theme, in 
 its own good time, and developed it into the most sooth- 
 ing insinuations of love and beauty which reached the 
 innermost recesses of the soul. Oh, art of arts, art of 
 the poor, the down-trodden— the only promise in this 
 golden age of bullion of that other age of gold to come ! 
 Then, as the bow won its way to the ascendency that is 
 ever its due, the other punctuated the gentler deliverance 
 with deep rhythmic throbs of the lower keys, until the 
 close in a magnificent combined movement which seemed 
 to shatter the low ceiling, and to show heaven and the 
 quiet stars beyond. 
 
 All were transformed. It was as a draught of some 
 elixir that gave to everyone the vision of his own most 
 generous ideals. To some, the masters of bow and ham- 
 mer directing the course of the sound storm were trans- 
 
 287 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 formed into Hebrew seers, announcing, as from a mount 
 of prophecy, the glorious destinies of the race. The poor 
 rapin, coiled up on a tattered sofa, and hugging his 
 knee, saw fame, honour, and the unworn shoe-sole, in 
 an ecstasy of concentration. The Russian girl, with the 
 parted lips and the stare of trance, beheld herself as 
 the deliverer carrying light and hope into the dungeons 
 of Peter and Paul that sweated river mud from every 
 pore of their masonry. The waiters, now quite demoral- 
 ised, sat down side by side with the rest, as though in 
 the equality of the Ark or of the Judgment Day. The 
 women of Leonard's party were under the same spell — 
 Laura and Gertrude rigid as statues, Mary, rapt like the 
 Russian, and holding with a grasp of nervous tension, 
 a hand of Prue. 
 
 In one moment more it was all over. The musicians 
 jumped up, hurried into their coats, and decamped, 
 while a waiter, drying an eye with the corner of his 
 apron, feebly bleated an order to the counter for a 
 "bock." The earth and its passing hour of petty cares, 
 petty oppressions, had them again, but not until one or 
 two had made good for all their lives the promise of its 
 brighter day, as the inheritance of the whole race 
 of man. 
 
 288 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 IT was Sunday again, and Mary's holiday was coming 
 to an end. On the Monday she had to return to the 
 settlement to complete her preparations for her spring 
 campaign with the new play. It was still like a holiday 
 of school-girls — the Tower, the Monument, and the 
 whispering gallery, the museums and picture galleries. 
 Mary had been greatly disappointed in having to miss 
 the new play. To her the theatre and the temple were 
 but two faces of the same thing. 
 
 They were now finishing up by the great churches at 
 service-time. Mary never could have too much of them, 
 and for the moment they had the charm of novelty for 
 Prue. For reasons she could hardly explain, the girl had 
 remitted her church-going for some time. To-day they 
 went to the Southwark Cathedral in the morning, and, 
 in the afternoon, made a circuit of the City, to enable 
 Prue to illustrate the story of her lonely walks in Lon- 
 don when first she was thrown on her own resources. On 
 such a day, of course, it was but a walk through the soli- 
 tudes, if not through the ruins that await the New Zea- 
 lander. The sense of contrast, however, made it just as 
 impressive as the week-day scene. How still Lombard 
 Street, Eastcheap, Tower Street, and the devious ways 
 
 289 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 between! Here and there great new banks backed on 
 old mansions still left from the Georgian or an earliei* 
 time. In one gloomy alley they passed the house in 
 which Wren had lived during the rebuilding of St. 
 Paul 's. On their way home, through a more thickly 
 populated quarter, they found another church, rapidly 
 filling for the service. The temptation was irresistible 
 for Mary, and they went in. 
 
 It was the beautiful evening service of the Church of 
 England. The congregation lifted its voice in supplica- 
 tion for pardon for sin, received promise of absolution 
 and remission, through "the power and commandment" 
 given to ministers, richer promise of that assize of right- 
 eousness in which the people should be judged with 
 equity— an imminent deliverance, amid the rejoicings of 
 all nature, animate and inanimate, jubilant hosts sing- 
 ing to harp and trumpet, the very seas lashed into a 
 fury of joy, the floods clapping their hands. Then the 
 priest's voice was raised, in a prayer for the peace 
 which the world cannot give that seemed to bring its 
 own immediate fulfilment in the intense stillness of the 
 congregation. Finally, came the pressing supplication 
 recalling the gloom and the danger of mediaeval cities — 
 for light in the darkness, for defence against all perils 
 of "this night." 
 
 The girls hurried away without exchanging a word— 
 Mary as though still absorbed in the very ecstasy of 
 devotion. The meal, the light, the warmth of lamp and 
 fire, did something to restore their spirits; yet, for a 
 long while, they exchanged common-places only, or toyed 
 with the books which they were unable to read. 
 
 290 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ' ' It was a splendid service, Prue, ' ' murmured Mary at 
 length. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And a full church." 
 
 "Yes, indeed, Mary." 
 
 Prue answered absently, as one waiting to be left to 
 her own thoughts. There was a magnificent Spanish cas- 
 tle in the fire, and a breath might shatter its battlements 
 for ever. 
 
 "What a good choir!" 
 
 "Yes— yes, Mary." 
 
 ' ' How finely the little soloist took that high note in the 
 first hymn — like a cherub coming down straight from 
 Paradise for the service, and going back there to be put 
 to bed." 
 
 The castle had gone to pieces in a sort of cosmic disas- 
 ter. Prue's mind was freer now. 
 
 "And what a dear old man the rector! Did n't you 
 just love him, especially when he stood up for the bless- 
 ing?" 
 
 ' ' It was all perfect, Mary, from first to last. ' ' 
 
 "Well, then— what was wrong with it, Prue?" was 
 the next question — rather startling this time. 
 
 "Who said there was anything wrong with it? Diear 
 Mary, how funny you are to-night ! ' ' 
 
 "Shall I tell you?" 
 
 "Of course, Mary." 
 
 "You have been so busy with that old fire that you 
 won't help me out. This is what is wrong with it: there 
 were no poor people, or so few that they were hardly 
 worth counting. Everybody looked so— I hate to put it 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 in that way— so distinctly middle class, so well dressed, 
 prosperous, happy in their prosperity, and just as sure of 
 it as they were sure of heaven. You never noticed that ? ' ' 
 
 "No, not in one way; I 'm so used to it." 
 
 Again both were silent for a while, and then Prue: 
 "You can't have everything, Mary." 
 
 "We must have everything in that place. How can 
 we be satisfied with less ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' I think you '11 have to be, all the same, if you press 
 me about it. I 'm beginning to know a little about the 
 poor people now. It 's only natural ; I 've so long been 
 one of them myself. And then, I 've been working for 
 Leonard in his quarter— quite a long time." 
 
 "Well, what is all that coming to, dear?" 
 
 "Only this: I think that all the poor muddled souls 
 who can't hit it off with this clever world have given up 
 the hope of finding in the churches anything that suits 
 their complaint. In their idea it is only a place of gen- 
 teel resort for them 'as have got the means.' " 
 
 "You must go on, Prue. You can't leave it there. 
 What are they looking for in the Christian churches? 
 What do they fail to find?" 
 
 "The Founder." 
 
 ' ' Surely, surely He is there in every symbol, in every 
 ceremony, almost in every word. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, in them, and them only, I 'm afraid. The ser- 
 vices are like the plays— running into mere dresses and 
 appointments, spoiled by excess of 'mounting.' It is 
 very hard to have it both ways." 
 
 "He is there, Prue, I tell you." 
 
 "Only as a sort of metaphysical abstraction — not as a 
 
 292 
 
Ring in tlie New 
 
 living man— and that 's the only view of Him the poor 
 are able to understand. Their idea of Him— you must n't 
 be shocked, Mary— is the good comrade, who is, at the 
 same time, the champion, the helper, the poor man's 
 friend, a hero of popular legend, a sort of Robin Hood 
 in the highest, who always strikes for the under dog. 
 Don't look so scared, Mary, or I won't go on." 
 
 "But go on, go on; never mind me." 
 
 "You 'd be astonished to know — and yet, after all, 
 why should n't you know better than I do? "Why 
 should n't you?" 
 
 "Perhaps I do." 
 
 " — How little they rise to the conception of Him as 
 the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, even 
 the Man of Sorrows— all that the Church holds most 
 dear. He is just the great comrade who tried to get 
 lowly and foolish and baffled people righted, and died 
 for it — worse luck! This one they don't find. The other, 
 the composite personality, leaves them quite mystified, 
 and I must say it, quite cold." 
 
 "I often talk to one of them, a subscriber to The 
 Branding Iron, who preaches at Mile End Waste, and 
 preaches religion, too, in his way. One day I ventured to 
 call him a Christian Socialist, by way of a compliment, 
 but he flew into a great rage. 'Nothing of that sort, 
 young woman, if you please— a Socialist Christian, at 
 the best. Don't put the cart before the horse.' " 
 
 "What did he mean by that, I wonder?" 
 
 ' ' He meant that the Socialism was the touchstone, not 
 the Christianity, as they understand it in the churches 
 now. You could n't be a Socialist without being a 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Christian, whether you knew it or no. You might easily 
 think yourself a Christian without being the other thing ; 
 and the Socialism was the root of the matter." 
 "Good Heavens! the Atonement — " 
 "Never a word, never a thought of that." 
 ' ' The Mediator, the cleanser from all sin ! " 
 "Never a word— the first Socialist, just that and noth- 
 ing more — the one who came to bring more happiness in 
 this world, to poor men and women beaten in the struggle 
 —material happiness. Don't be in any doubt about that 
 —a more equal distribution of right down pounds, shil- 
 lings, and pence— the second loaf in the cupboard, good 
 shoes and stockings for all the children, and the Sunday 
 suit for all." 
 
 ' ' What they think — what they say, when they are able 
 to say it, is that the rich people and the theologians 
 between them, often working hand-in-hand, have 'nob- 
 bled' the churches and made their symbolic cup a mere 
 opiate for hard luck, instead of the healing draught. 
 The parsons are paid to keep people quiet — that is the 
 ruling idea. They can't get their money to go on with 
 without the rich, and, so getting it, they, of course, 
 preach the rich man's creed." 
 
 "But the Church! the Church! What does it matter 
 where the money comes from?" 
 
 "This, I think, Mary: those who pay the piper will 
 call the tune. But there, you know so much more about 
 them than I do : I 'm only trying to tell you what they 
 say. And you began it, dear, did n't you, now? Who 
 am I, to talk to you about religions, when I can't find 
 one for myself ? I wish I could. ' ' 
 
 294 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "But the sacred poverty," said Mary; "I 've known 
 that as much as anybody. I glory in it; I love it: I 
 would n 't be without it for the world. ' ' 
 
 "Mary, you are a saint and a poet, and God knows 
 what else that 's beautiful and fine. I 'm talking of the 
 common run of men and women." 
 
 "The dear Church preaches that, practises it." 
 
 "Oh, Mary: only as a sort of grace of deportment. 
 Believe me, people in West Ham look on your ecclesias- 
 tical anchorites as mere 'ammytures,' in the artistry of 
 privation, with the sacred institution ever behind them 
 as an ark of refuge to save them from the worst. Be out 
 of work for six weeks, and out of earnings that never 
 rise to more than the docker's tanner, and see what you '11 
 think of St. Francis and his flirtation with the lady of 
 poverty then. I had a taste of that, Mary, until I worked 
 myself up into a sort of hysteria of self-conscious endur- 
 ance, with the help of Laura's religion of the will— I 
 have n't shaken off the reaction against that 'revival' to 
 this day." 
 
 "Laura's religion!" ejaculated Mary; "a gospel of 
 mere getting on : let us keep to serious things. The dear 
 Church, the dear, dear Church, with its feasts and fasts, 
 one as holy as the other, its beautiful, seemly services of 
 praise and prayer, ever mounting without intermission 
 day and night, to the Throne of God ! ' ' 
 
 "Ah, Mary, if you did but know how a poor, dim crea- 
 ture, born into everlasting short commons, without voli- 
 tion or vocation, stands apart from all that, and sees 
 nothing in it but embroidered garments, and futile 
 excitements about Quinquagesima Sunday and other 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 functions with long names, that touch him no more than 
 a birthday at Court ! ' ' 
 
 "The means of grace," cried Mary, wringing her 
 hands, "the road to pardon, the road to heaven." 
 
 "Mary, they are not thinking about heaven. They 
 are Second Coming people. They can't wait another 
 twenty centuries ; they want their great Socialist here and 
 now, and with his whip for the backs of the money- 
 changers in Park Lane. The poor man has a perfect ter- 
 ror of those people as clever fellows who know how to 
 'best' him 'every time.' " 
 
 "They circulate wealth, they make trade, don't they?" 
 said Mary, rather helplessly. ' ' I don 't know. I despise 
 them because they lead such foolish lives with their guz- 
 zling and junketing; but don't they do even something 
 of that sort?" 
 
 "Whatever happens in science, invention, general 
 progress, nothing but 'the irreducible minimum' ever 
 comes the poor man's way." 
 
 "Come now, Prue; he does get some benefit from in- 
 ventions. Surely such things as the sewing-machine, the 
 typewriter, have done good for all." 
 
 "Look here, Mary! When the sewing-machine was 
 invented everybody said there never could be another 
 song of the shirt. Did the shirt-makers get the benefit of 
 it? Never a bit. They only had to make more shirts a 
 day for the same money, or less. It was actually worse 
 for them. Before, they only pricked their fingers while 
 they starved ; the action of the treadle gives them cancer 
 now. Has the typewriter made life easier for the copy- 
 ists? Parliament made a law for employer's liabil- 
 
 296 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 ity to stop the awful waste of life in the work-shops. I 
 know of a bright genius in the building trade who 
 insures his men all round for £400 a piece. When one is 
 smashed, he offers £300 to the widow— 'have it, or leave 
 it'— and pockets the balance. It is cheaper than fenc- 
 ing machinery. Do you think the poor churches— poor 
 in every sense, don't wince under that? But they 've 
 lost the power of rebuke. All improvements lead to 
 sweating prices and the sweating dens. The clever fel- 
 lows see to that. Listen to the yell of protest when some 
 little thing is done to give a lift to the poor man— a 
 cheaper tramway fare, a better chance in education, a 
 school meal for his hungry child. Whatever happens, 
 they always come out on top." 
 
 "Always means eternity, Prue; time is but a speck on 
 its face." 
 
 "Mary, the poor man has an uneasy feeling that the 
 clever fellows will somehow do him in the next world. 
 No, no, 'Here and now.' That is how the Church began 
 — I think I've read so surely; but you know so much 
 more about these things than I do. The clever fellows 
 got hold of it as a going concern, ' imperialised ' it, and 
 so began to make it pretty much what it is to-day. Char- 
 ity is still its abortive message : justice is what the others 
 want. But how can it ever preach the true renunciation, 
 ' Give up, give up ; unload ; stop the awful wickedness 
 that gives the few what was meant for all ' ? The clever 
 fellows have now appropriated both church and founder. 
 When he appeared in altar pieces with the crown of 
 jewels on his head, instead of the crown of thorns, the 
 poor man felt that he had lost his friend. While we are 
 
 297 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 still seeking for him, let us try to recover the old driving 
 force at the beginning of the line. Where shall we start? 
 
 " ' Fire, firp, burn stick ! 
 Stick won't beat dog. 
 Dog won't kill rat 
 That ate the malt. 
 That lay in the house 
 That Jack built.'" 
 
 "Prue, where are you going to? We are both looking 
 for something— perhaps for the same thing — but we shall 
 never find it on this side of to-morrow morning. Had n't 
 we better go to bed?" 
 
 298 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 PRUE had planned a first night at the play for the 
 wind-up of the holiday. A favourite actor and a 
 favourite author were to hring out a new piece which 
 had enjoyed the full benefit of the puff preliminary for 
 weeks. 
 
 The girl had been an assiduous first-nighter in the days 
 when she was quite alone. She had kept memoranda of 
 hours of waiting for a seat in the front row, and of 
 number of calls — it touched her sordid outlook with 
 gleams of romance, especially the play on a first night. 
 This was like the bibliophile 's passion for early editions ; 
 there is no reasoning about such things. The passion 
 had weakened under the stress of newer interests and a 
 larger life, but it was there still. The sense of loneliness 
 after Mary's departure revived it in its full force. There 
 was no resisting it ; she had to go. 
 
 It was impossible to go without a companion : solitary 
 pleasures had lost their charm. Laura was appealed to. 
 The promise of a sensation overcame her horror of a 
 second-best. Prue had had the temerity to propose the 
 gallery. The other naturally yearned for the boxes; 
 but that being impossible, she made a stout fight for the 
 pit, and had her way. 
 
 299 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Prue, an old stager, took charge of the preparations. 
 To secure the blue riband of the occasion — best row and 
 best seat— the girls had to be prepared to wait all day 
 at the door. They started accordingly at half-past ten 
 on a winter's morning, provisioned and equipped. They 
 carried wraps, folding camp-stools, which looked like 
 walking-sticks, books and papers, sandwiches, fruit, a 
 flask of wine and water. Half-an-hour 's brisk walking 
 brought them to the house— only to find that they had 
 lost the ppening event— "first at the doors." 
 
 "How annoying!" said Prue. 
 
 The winners of this particular distinction were two 
 ladies of rather diminutive stature. They were doubly 
 veiled, white over black, and more effectually than any 
 woman of the East. Prue exchanged nods with them 
 as old acquaintance of the play-house door, but the in- 
 timacy went no further on either side. 
 
 "And who are our conquerors?" said Laura. 
 
 "No one knows. It 's hardly the thing to know— 
 certainly not the thing to inquire. You nod on first 
 nights ; you hardly ever meet in between whiles, even by 
 chance. London 's a big place." 
 
 "What enthusiasts! Are there many of you taken 
 that way?" 
 
 "You '11 see by-and-by." 
 
 "Then why don't the managers give you better plays 
 —a national theatre?" 
 
 "Only because they are like Carlyle's mankind at 
 large, I suppose." 
 
 "Perhaps stalls and boxes pay best," said Laura. 
 
 "What does that matter? The others would pay quite 
 
 TOO 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 well enough, if we gave them good stuff, and would en- 
 joy ever so much better." 
 
 "We have still our chance of 'first in,' I fancy," said 
 Laura. "We ought to be able to outrun that little 
 pair. ' ' 
 
 "Yes; but look at the other pair looming in the 
 distance. ' ' 
 
 The two new arrivals were apparently a brother and 
 sister, who, in their turn, saluted Prue without a word. 
 They had plenty of talk for one another, but it was 
 wholly confined to the "shop" of their favourite pur- 
 suit. They seemed to estimate all things by their value 
 in pit seats. 
 
 "Ten shillings," said the youth, in answer. to some 
 observation of his sister. "No, thank you, that would 
 be four first nights." 
 
 "Have you got our five bob all safe?" asked the 
 young lady, who was of a more practical turn. 
 
 It was now twelve o'clock, and the first hour of the 
 long "wait" had passed. . . . The shivering units 
 had become a line, long enough to promise an exciting 
 contest for the blue riband, but still leaving the first row 
 a certainty for all. Prue looked round for new-comers, 
 and, to her terror, beheld Miss Evie St. Galmier. 
 
 She turned to escape: it was too late. Eva had seen 
 her, and perhaps her movements of avoidance. In such 
 a space there was nothing for it, but the cut direct or 
 "How d' ye do?" Cups of this sort are usually served 
 brimming full. Eva placed her camp-stool just behind 
 Prue's. 
 
 Her salutations were effusive and prolonged, but there 
 
 301 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 is an end to everything. Prue became absorbed in her 
 papers, and Laura quietly assumed that they had never 
 met. The sluggish hours crawled on, and he whose 
 watch was fastest seemed the friend of his kind. The 
 crowd increased, and a policeman took up his station to 
 watch the line. It was now luncheon-time. The old 
 hands exchanged dainties, and sometimes offered bite 
 or sup to new-comers, as though in sign of welcome to 
 the brotherhood. A few who lacked the vocation sneaked 
 off to the box-office to see if there were any returned 
 upper circles. They were jeered off the scene. 
 
 Endurance was one of the tests of the call— endurance 
 and the merry heart of the devotee of a taste. They dis- 
 cussed popular favourites, including, of course, the hero 
 of the hour, and everyone was allowed to have his say, 
 if he knew how to get it said. Some of it was quite 
 good, as to insight, and now and then as to expression 
 too. It was the true criticism born of the wish to praise. 
 Their presence in that crowd was a sign that they had 
 come in the hope of being nobly pleased. Most of them 
 were lovers of the mighty line, suffering, by the spite of 
 Fortune, from over-much "City" for a living, and 
 Kentish Town for a place of abode. The play took them 
 out of themselves into the golden land. They knew the 
 players, as it were, by heart, their history and the msm- 
 ner of their lives. They discussed by the real names of 
 the cast, rather than by the names of the characters. A 
 grey-beard maintained that there never had been any- 
 thing finer than "old Phelps's" first meeting with "old 
 Marston" on the battlements at Elsinore. It was con- 
 
 302 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 sidered unprofessional to fill in with the title of the 
 piece. They quoted old play-bills as sporting prophets 
 quote the racing calendar— without book. 
 
 One o'clock by the chime, and nearly half of their 
 watch done. They settled down to silence and the 
 magazines; some took a nap. Prue had dropped her 
 paper and seemed absorbed in a piece of fancy-work. 
 But it was poor make-believe, for she was really trying 
 to look behind her to see how Miss St. Galmier was en- 
 gaged. Eva was evidently rousing herself for a long 
 talk. 
 
 "Who would have thought it? You here!" 
 
 ' ' I was going to put it the other way. ' ' 
 
 "And you might. I 'm not in the profession now." 
 
 Prue was silent, in the hope of checking confidences. 
 
 "Well, it 's a long story I—" 
 
 "Some other time, perhaps." 
 
 "You remember the little cat that I snaeked in my 
 advertisement. ' ' 
 
 "Lower, please." 
 
 To be cornered in any circumstances is bad enough; 
 to be cornered in a crowd, where everyone may be a 
 listener, is the extremity of anguish. 
 
 Miss St. Galmier sank her voice to a whisper, which, 
 however, by force of habit, was still a whisper of the 
 stage. 
 
 " 'Imitation the sineerest form of flattery, with com- 
 pliments to the lady at Liverpool. E. St. G.' Well, she 
 was jealous of one of my boys, and she worked me out 
 with the manager." 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Oh, please!" 
 
 ' ' Play light, Miss Meryon, play light, ' ' said Eva, with 
 the flame of displeasure in her eyes. 
 
 "I beg your pardon; I 'm sure I did n't mean — " 
 
 Eva was mollified, and her more merciful undertone 
 was a compromise that Prue was but too glad to accept. 
 
 "Oh, she was as artful as a wagon-load of monkeys, 
 and he was a fool. He offered to make it up, and to fuss 
 me for lead in another circus. No expense spared, pic- 
 tures as large as life, and ' 'Eavenly Evie St. Galmier, 
 the only funny woman in the world' as a standing ad- 
 vertisement in all the theatrical papers. It would n't 
 do. Do you know what I said to him?" 
 
 Poor Prue was in abject submission now. "Something 
 clever, I 'm quite sure." 
 
 " 'Not arf,' I said— just that, and I gave him a look." 
 
 "Well, I was out of work — puts you back ten holes, 
 does n't it, anything of that sort? Especially with an- 
 other to help. But that 's Reggie all over. Rather 
 starve than be seen at a bar with anybody that ain't no 
 class. Our old aristocracy — that 's good enough for 
 Reggie. It 's in the blood. Pa was a gentleman. If 
 only he 'd brought us up to — I 'm not blaming him, 
 mind; don't you think that." 
 
 It was piteous in its loyalty to her wretched ideals, 
 and for the moment it quite turned the current of Prue's 
 thoughts. She could have cried over it. 
 
 ' ' I had a try as a clairvoyante, but it 's no good unless 
 you can work it at the West End. But that 's where 
 the capital comes in. The half-crown touches in our 
 part of the world won't keep body and soul together. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 If I could have got to Bond Street, with Reggie as foot- 
 man to open the door, I 'd have made a do. Why, a 
 friend of mine there won't look at 'em under a thick 'un 
 for every consultation— sometimes two. Do you know 
 what I 'm up to now? You '11 never guess." 
 
 "Then I won't try." 
 
 "Female detective, my dear. Got to keep an eye on a 
 pair here to-night. Don't take any notice of me." 
 
 Prue jumped up with flashing eyes: "Come along, 
 Laura, let us take a turn ; it 's rather stifling here. ' ' 
 
 They passed out, and Eva assumed an air of leonine 
 watchfulness over their places. It was quite unneces- 
 sary. A respect for seats once properly secured was the 
 unwritten rule. In another moment they were in the 
 open thoroughfare and looking at the shops. 
 
 "She 's impossible," said Laura. "Let me snub her 
 to death for you when we get back." 
 
 "Poor creature, she has never had a chance!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "The wretched father, the wretched brother! She 's 
 like so many of us: her men have failed her." 
 
 "Why did n't she shake them off?" 
 
 "Perhaps she could n't: she 's the woman still. Can't 
 you see her spinning down, down, to her doom in the 
 gutter? She 's in wild catland now; anything for a 
 crust. Lots of us have to live like that. Did you see 
 that case in the paper the other day? A cabby was 
 taken to the hospital after an accident; and then they 
 found it was a case for the women's ward. For ten 
 years she had masqueraded as a man on the box— cape, 
 comforter, badge, and, I daresay, language and all. She 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 had been left a widow with three children to keep. 
 There 's a woman bookmaker at the corner of my street ; 
 and we 've all seen the girl who draws pictures on the 
 pavement. One half of the world don't care how the 
 other half lives— there 's the mischief; not that they 
 don 't know. ' ' 
 
 "The men are luckier," said Laura; "there 's more 
 scope for them in wild dogland." 
 
 "Oh, it 's much the same for both, I think, in this 
 case. She and her precious Reggie — brought up on 
 shabby-genteel shams and lies, never taught to look life 
 straight in the face. A rich snob is bad enough, but a 
 poor one! — and we seem to turn them out by millions 
 now. I wonder what does it— the pomp, the glitter of 
 the people above them, the rotten ideals ? God help us all, 
 when we happen to be born foolish on nothing a year." 
 
 There was a diversion on their return, and it became un- 
 necessary to snub Eva to death. The manager had sent 
 
 out tea to his patrons and a cry of "Good old " rang 
 
 all along the line when the rattle of the cups was heard. 
 Prom that time forth there was no break or pause of inci- 
 dent until the opening of the doors. As they settled 
 down, refreshed, to their last spell of endurance, they 
 had to bear the chaff of the passers-by, the stare of aston- 
 ishment as at creatures hopelessly insane. Nigger min- 
 strels played and sang to them; imitators of popular 
 characters reaped a rich harvest ; the weary messenger- 
 boys keeping places at so much an hour to their intense 
 disgust, were relieved from duty, and joined the mock- 
 ing crowd. At length came a noise as of thunder at the 
 doors, the bolts were drawn, the maddened creatures 
 
 306 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 poured in to the pay table— Prue and her friend first, 
 Miss St. Galmier an easy second, the two old ladies tying 
 for a bad third. In this order they entered the empty 
 and silent house. Laura, without looking to right or left, 
 ran straight to the middle of the first row, and drew out 
 of her pocket a strip of blue ribbon, which, in another 
 moment, with a hat-pin for a flagstaff, proudly floated in 
 the breeze from the top of the barrier. Then sinking 
 back, she steadied herself, while the whole scene swam 
 before her eyes. In a moment more, she was roused by 
 louder thunders from above, as the other crowd of first 
 nighters poured into the gallery, and hurled themselves 
 from its heights in their stampede for the best seats. The 
 long sitting was over, and the thing that they thought 
 most worth having had come to those who knew how to 
 wait. Eva had taken no part in the struggle for the 
 prize. She sneaked off to the end of the first row, as 
 though to watch the opposite side of the house. 
 
 307 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 PRUE began to do the honours of the house, but 
 found her companion's interest in it quite languid, 
 while the stalls and boxes were as yet but a void. 
 
 "The gallery is the best place, you know, Laura. The 
 blue riband there sees everything." 
 
 "Who holds it tonight?" said Laura, turning to look 
 at her colleague in honours. 
 
 "One of the best critics of the Gallery Club." 
 
 "What 's that, if you please?" 
 
 "Just a few who mean to have their money's worth- 
 either out of the performance or out of the hissing. 
 They 've more to do with the fate of pieces than all the 
 critics put together. ' ' 
 
 "Thanks, dear: I think the pit 's quite bad enough for 
 me." 
 
 Stalls and boxes now began to fill, and the orchestra 
 set up those discords which are often sweeter than the 
 pieces that follow, since they promise pleasure to come. 
 The girls picked out celebrities by their published por- 
 traits, and Prue named the critics of renown. The house 
 was now a brilliant sight — the best of every kind, good 
 and bad, politics, art, science, beauty, rank, and the sheer 
 wealth that dominates them all. Not to be there on such 
 
 308 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 an occasion was to be judged and found wanting. It is 
 with first nights as with certain orders of chivalry : many 
 who don't care for them as a pleasure still covet them as 
 a badge. 
 
 Laura glowed at the sight. It was a house full of the 
 people who had arrived. She felt that she was in a cur- 
 rent of power. Even those in the cheap seats were some- 
 bodies, if only the stoutest hustlers of their class. This 
 reflection led her glance once more to the gallery, where 
 they were not all critics or all philosophers by a long way. 
 Some of the faces, with their eyes set on the glittering 
 scene below, reminded her of caged animals glaring fury 
 •through their bars. 
 
 Presently she started and nudged Prue:— "Sarah in 
 the front row of the gallery — Sarah talking to a man." 
 
 "Mrs. Barker talking to Mr. Barker, if you please." 
 
 "Why, he looks old enough to be her father." 
 
 "The fatherliness is an item of his inventory. She 
 has married for that. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Barker was peeling the inevitable orange for his 
 wife; and he still contrived to show solicitude by his 
 manner of throwing the pips into the pit. 
 
 "Oh, dear," said Laura, "she 's falling to on the first 
 half, and waving signals to us. What must we do?" 
 
 "Wave back for your life, or she '11 ask Mr. Barker 
 to whistle. Hush : curtain ! ' ' 
 
 There was a burst of applause— without prejudice— 
 and then the house was stilled to attention, friendly no 
 doubt, but still ominous in being distinctly judicial. The 
 actors seemed like the culprit of anecdote, who prayed, 
 not for an upright judge, but for one that would lean a 
 little. Attempts to give applause, on the part of well- 
 
 309 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 meaning friends in the audience, were sternly checked. 
 There was an outburst again, merely complimentary, 
 when the great actor appeared— just as nervous as the 
 rest. Applause is catching; and it was now given with 
 less stint— at first to happy lines, at length to the situa- 
 tion on which the curtain fell. Pit and gallery had 
 signed for the first act; and their decision had put the 
 rest of the house in its place. The great actor, pale 
 through his paint, came forth to bow his acknowledg- 
 ments, carefully directing most of them to his masters 
 above and below. 
 
 The girls now made a second search for celebrities 
 that might have escaped the first muster. 
 
 "The boxes are easy enough," said Laura, "but the 
 stalls are exasperating. Look at that pair at the end of 
 the second row to the left: they won't get their heads 
 turned. ' ' 
 
 "Leonard!" cried both in a breath, as one of the per- 
 sons in question rose to look at the house. 
 
 Yes, Leonard, and by his side a lady to whom he 
 chatted as he used his opera-glass — Mrs. Dart ! 
 
 "Hide me, hide me," said Prue, almost ducking her 
 head behind the barrier. 
 
 ' ' Why, ' ' returned the other grimly ; " he '11 spot us in 
 a minute, whatever we do ; face it out. ' ' 
 
 "I did n't mean that," said Prue. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 ' ' That I was ashamed of my place. ' ' 
 
 "I did," said Laura; and she hauled down her blue 
 riband. "What did you mean, then?" 
 
 ' ' Nothing ; only the surprise, you know. ' ' 
 
 310 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 They were saved, however, by sheer accident. His 
 glass was directed to stalls and boxes, and he exchanged 
 nods and smiles. Theh it took a more acute angle ; and 
 the gallery came under review. A smile on one side, the 
 waving of a handkerchief on the other, showed that 
 Sarah stood revealed. When he sat down, he and his 
 companion began chatting again, with their profiles 
 turned to the house. 
 
 "What a gentleman he looks in evening dress," said 
 Laura. 
 
 ' ' Has he ever looked anything else ? ' ' 
 
 "Rather frayed sometimes at the extremities, I fancy." 
 
 "What does that matter?" 
 
 "Not a bit, in heaven, I 'm sure," said Laura. 
 
 Prue was silent. So the little mystery of her life was 
 cleared up. Leonard, and none but Leonard, was the 
 anonymous benefactor who had found her work at Mrs. 
 Dart's, in her great need. And none but Leonard had 
 rescued her when she went on her fool's errand to Pen- 
 tonville. That was well enough as it stood, but it implied 
 his knowledge of the errand; and this was humiliating. 
 What must he have thought of her? She remembered 
 their talk— how she had railed at the destitute wretch in 
 the same plight as herself, and how Leonard had tried 
 to give her indignation a better mark in the money- 
 grubber who had tempted both to the quest. He must 
 have recognised her in spite of the darkness and the 
 drawn veil — perhaps by her voice, perhaps by the dog, 
 for Spagley's growl was an element of the adventure. 
 
 Yet, after all, he could not have thought so badly of 
 her, else why had he recommended her to Mrs. Dart; 
 
 ^11 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 why had he always been so generous and so kind ? There 
 was no shame in the situation, and the mere embarrass- 
 ment was all the easier to bear; since, without it, she 
 might never have known anything of his delicacy of 
 feeling. Could anything have been more considerate 
 than his persistent silence, and the way in which he had 
 prevailed on Mrs. Dart to keep his name out of the 
 transaction ? 
 
 So the end of it was that she thought better of him 
 than ever, and not so badly of herself as she had feared 
 before it all came out. 
 
 Yet there remained one matter of even more pressing 
 interest: Who was he, what was he after all? The 
 editorship of The Branding Iron was but one of his 
 parts. Sarah had dropped many a hint of his double 
 life, clearly without having any clue to the mystery. 
 "He comes and he goes," she had once said, in her 
 oracular way. But where did he go when he was not at 
 work on the scene of his "Natural History of a Crime"? 
 He was a friend of Mrs. Dart, whose intimacy was a 
 sort of certificate of social position, and his greetings 
 to right and left in the play-house showed that he was 
 quite at home in her set. 
 
 "Is n't she just lovely?" 
 
 It was Laura, of course— Laura with her gaze fixed on 
 Mrs. Dart. 
 
 "I thought I told you so." 
 
 "You tried to; but you are not good at description. 
 Half of it is dress, no doubt; but take the work as it 
 stands. ' ' 
 
 Laura was happy, and therefore tolerant and urbane. 
 
 312 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 She purred contentment. Her enraptured glance wan- 
 dered from stalls to boxes— quite rarely to anything 
 beyond them— and she felt good. 
 
 "It 's a brave sight, Prue." 
 
 "She 's perfect in a way— I did tell you, whatever 
 you may say." 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean hec alone, I mean the whole flower- 
 bed — women and men." 
 
 "Don't you think there are some exceptions— that 
 creature who looks as if she had all her savings round 
 her neck?" 
 
 "No, no, youth and age, good taste and bad taste, 
 they 're all in it together. They have the secret." 
 
 "What is it, I wonder?" 
 
 "Power, power, sillikin! Have a good time, my little 
 dear — if you want it in one word." 
 
 "Getting on as the law of life, and snobbery as the 
 means to the end." 
 
 "Why not?" said the other, quite calmly; "you may 
 give it any name you like : all I care about is the thing. ' ' 
 
 "It can't be right, name or thing; there 's something 
 better than that." 
 
 "It 's the way of the gods, at any rate. ' ' 
 
 "The heathen variety, perhaps." 
 
 "Has the world ever been different— ever once for a 
 quarter of an hour?" 
 
 "Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes ! " 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean when it was in short frocks." 
 
 "When it was nearer to the heaven it came from— 
 there!" 
 
 "Have a candy, dear, and don't trouble to speak up. 
 
 3*3 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 The world may be still cooling on its discharge from the 
 other place. These people have got the secret, I tell you. 
 What do you want more 1 The gallery clubbites may be 
 nearer the skies, are they any better off?" 
 "We were meant for something better." 
 "How do you know what we were meant for? These 
 are the practical people, and this is how they 've worked 
 it out. Their happiness is a going concern." 
 
 ' ' Half of them are beasts of prey, I tell you ; look at 
 their faces." 
 
 "Don't call names. Perhaps they are meant to be 
 just exactly what they are." 
 
 ' ' Oh, Laura, what 's the use of being alive ! ' ' 
 "Ask the Gallery club if they would mind changing 
 places. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Ask the tigers in the Zoo ! What does that matter ? ' ' 
 ' ' With all my heart : they are four-footers, we are two 
 — perhaps that 's all the difference. Be nice to the dam 
 and the cubs— do any of us get much beyond that ? Why 
 worry to get yourself twice bom? The new religions 
 know a trick worth two of that— never say die. This 
 world 's good enough for me. Try another candy, dear, 
 and have a good time." 
 
 The orchestra came to a dead stop— almost in the 
 middle of a bar— the curtain rose. The piece dragged a 
 little. The club sat in ominous silence, even the favour- 
 ite was not acclaimed, though he was allowed to come 
 and go without any sign of displeasure. But, as soon as 
 he had left the stage, a cry of ' ' Hand up them scissors ' ' 
 came in sharp, decisive accents from above, and was 
 answered by ' ' Scene painters to the front ! ' ' from the 
 
 3'4 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 pit. The fate of the act trembled in the balance. It was 
 saved by a love scene of great tenderness and beauty 
 between the twin stars of the cast. 
 
 But somehow the scene before the curtain had now 
 become the play within the play for both the girls. The 
 house quite outdid the stage in realism and in interest, 
 with Mrs. Dart seen "in the flesh" of a magnificent 
 toilet, and above all, with Leonard by her side. 
 
 "I knew it, I felt sure of it," cried Laura. "The 
 Branding Iron is only his plaything. What is he, I 
 wonder, when he is really himself?" 
 
 The same question was in Prue's mind, but she took 
 care to let it go no farther. 
 
 Laura really needed no answer; a listener was quite 
 enough. 
 
 "He 's going to do great things, that man. He 's 
 going into Parliament at the general election. Perhaps 
 he 's there already. Do we really know his name?" 
 
 The "we" stung Prue into a shiver of irritation, but 
 she held her peace. Laura was taking possession of him ; 
 and what Laura wanted she would surely win. 
 
 "Wait for that general election and you '11 all see 
 sights. I could help him there." 
 
 The first person plural had now become the first per- 
 son singular; it was intolerable. 
 
 "The paper may be good enough for him, Laura. It 
 is first in his thoughts, that I know." 
 
 This at least seemed to enter another person singular 
 as a party to the case. Yet, after all, what was it but 
 the odious plural in another form? 
 
 "A little one-horse thing like that," said Laura, 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "never! He 's up to something— what can it be?— per- 
 haps a place in the coming Ministry? He 'd better go 
 straight for it, and not fuss about too long in the slums, 
 and miss his chance. How I could help that man ! ' ' 
 
 The second act passed in dumb show for the pair. 
 Prue was in torment, Laura in the bliss of the great pos- 
 sibilities suggested by the sight of Leonard in his proper 
 character. She was quite imconscious of the other's 
 pain. It seemed natural for her to bid for the first 
 place as soon as it seemed worth having. Hitherto 
 Leonard had been but an agreeable and, possibly, im- 
 pecunious young man with a fad — clever, amusing, and 
 all that, but not to be taken too seriously. It was dif- 
 ferent now; and she put in her claim of interest in his 
 career with a sense of fitness that precluded all idea of 
 cruelty or of usurpation. 
 
 "That ball of swansdown is never the woman for 
 him!" 
 
 It was the third entr 'aete, with Laura in a change of 
 mood about Mrs. Dart, and still thinking aloud before 
 the wretched Prue. The piece was now a dead thing for 
 both of them: the play within the play was the all in 
 all. Prue was the sparrow declining on a tired wing, 
 Laura the hawk in chase, not of an enemy but of a din- 
 ner, and each following the law of its being. But the 
 last cry of the pursuer brought a new torment for the 
 pursued. Mrs. Dart! Leonard — ^was there still another 
 in the hunt? If this was the significance of Leonard's 
 intimacy with Mrs. Dart, the proffered kindness of his 
 recommendation was really the keenest of all humilia- 
 tions. It left Prue as a thing of no account, between a 
 
 316 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 patron and a patron's friend. All Leonard's attention 
 to her, his comradeship, appeared in a new and an odious 
 light; and she sank to the level of another "subject" 
 in natural history. 
 
 The play within the play now became a grim comedy, 
 with herself as a mere supernumerary of a stately cast 
 in which Leonard and Laura and Mrs. Dart bore the 
 principal parts. And, with these, Eva herself seemed to 
 come in as a fourth character, with a whisper of such 
 dire import that Prue could have died outright under 
 its message of suspicion and of shame. Eva was there 
 to watch "a pair"— What pair? Prue involuntarily 
 turned to seek her in her place of ambush, and found 
 her gaze fixed on Leonard and his companion. In an- 
 other moment the eyes of the two girls met, with a nod 
 and a smile on the part of the female detective of the 
 plot. 
 
 Thenceforth all that passed behind the footlights, or 
 before, was but the buzzing confusion of the sounds and 
 sights of earth, at the moment of the lapse into insensi- 
 bility under the influence of a drug. The applause at 
 the final fall of the curtain which, to those with free 
 souls, meant the salvation of the piece, was nothing to 
 the wretched Prue but a murmur on the boundary line 
 of two worlds — the world she was leaving, the world 
 she was going to meet. The bowing figures before the 
 curtain were but beings of a sinister dreamland. The 
 girl followed the crowd on its way to the street, with all 
 sense of its personality crushed out of her by the op- 
 pression of a weight of doom. She was faintly aware 
 
 3^7 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 of Eva's rushing by her, and thrusting a piece of paper 
 into her hand, but she lost all remembrance of it a 
 moment after. And, leaving Laura quite unnoticed, she 
 hurried home alone. 
 
 318 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THE play within the play was not yet at an end. 
 There was an afterpiece. The girl lay awake next 
 morning wondering whether it was worth while to get 
 up and face the sun, when she was roused by an urgent 
 request from Sarah's landlady: "Mr. Barker not home 
 all night; Mrs. Barker rather upset and gone away. 
 Please come round." 
 
 She was soon at the house. 
 
 What did it mean? At first nobody knew. All they 
 could tell her was that Sarah had come home by her- 
 self; had walked to and fro all night with much con- 
 fusion to slumbering lodgers below; and had left quite 
 early in the morning, without taking leave of anybody. 
 The landlady had sent to Prue as the only friend of the 
 Barkers whose address she knew. 
 
 This was the state of affairs when Prue arrived — a 
 mystified matron, female lodgers sitting under her chair- 
 manship in committee of the whole house. 
 
 There was at first little to guide their deliberations. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Barker had set out for the theatre the 
 best of friends. He was always most attentive; and he 
 had actually returned to the house a minute after leaving 
 it to fetch a warmer boa for Mrs. B. An hour or so 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 after this, a little girl had called to inquire for him, 
 "rather pressing," and had been directed to the theatre. 
 
 The first thing to do was to find Mr. Barker 's place of 
 business. Could Prue give any information on that point ? 
 
 She could not. It was understood that Mr. Barker 
 was waiting to start on a great venture in the commis- 
 sion line, on the completion of new offices, but that was 
 not enough. It would have been enough, but for this 
 crisis in his affairs. He had paid his rent with regu- 
 larity; and the rest was nobody's business but his own. 
 
 The committee of the whole house was still at a loss 
 when a knock was heard from without, and the landlady 
 went to the door. She returned in a moment ushering in 
 a young woman who had called for news, but had really 
 brought all that was required. 
 
 This person, a stranger to all the parties, had found 
 Sarah in a state of great distress the night before, and 
 had brought her home in a cab. 
 
 This was her story. She had been at the play-house 
 with the others, and had left the gallery immediately 
 in the wake of Mr. and Mrs. Barker. The pair attracted 
 her notice by Mr. Barker's great attention to his wife. 
 He helped her to adjust her boa before they reached the 
 street, and took other precautions against the midnight 
 air. 
 
 They were walking away arm-in-arm, and in high 
 good humour, when — here the witness was taken with a 
 seizure described as a spasm, and she had to be revived 
 by a draught of the refreshment already provided for 
 the use of the committee. 
 
 As they walked away, another woman, fierce and for- 
 
 120 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 lorn to look at, and holding a dejected child by the hand, 
 planted herself right in their path, and brought them to 
 a stand. At the sight of her, Mr. Barker mechanically 
 dropped the arm of Sarah, and, turning ashy pale in the 
 glare of the lamp-light, stood stock still. 
 
 Sarah, thinking he had gone out of his way merely to 
 let the woman pass, made way for her, though not with- 
 out the protest of a toss of the head. The woman, with- 
 out paying the slightest heed to this, turned towards Mr. 
 Barker, slapped his face, and said: "Robert Barker, 
 when are you coming 'ome to support your lawful wife 
 and child?" 
 
 Mr. Barker's placid acceptance of this outrage gave 
 it the sickening effect of the impact of a blow on dead 
 meat. He merely took out his handkerchief, as though 
 to wipe off the stroke, but he said never a word. 
 
 "He 's a-going home with his wife, if you please," 
 said Sarah with an inflection of high disdain. "And 
 who are you? before I call a policeman." 
 
 "I 'm Mrs. Robert Barker, Miss," said the spectre, 
 ' ' and them 's my marriage lines, if you know how to read 
 them. So who are you? before it 's policeman for two. 
 Eighteen months' desertion in Sunderland, and looking 
 for him all over the country, till I see his name in print, 
 and that brought me 'ere." 
 
 She dropped a newspaper in her agitation ; the young 
 woman picked it up ; and she now laid it before the com- 
 mittee. It was the copy of The Branding Iron in which 
 Leonard had written his complimentary notice of. 
 Sarah's change of name. 
 
 Sarah now paled to a deadlier hue than her mate ; and, 
 
 321 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 with an eye that outblazed the intruder's in fire, turned 
 to him, only to read a full confession in his state of utter 
 collapse. 
 
 Never a word had he spoken from first to last, and 
 now he simply walked away into the night, pursued by 
 the jeers of the crowd. The woman and child followed 
 him. Sarah stood quite still for a moment, and then 
 reeled into the young woman's arms. 
 
 A policeman now appeared, with the formula which 
 bespeaks a law-abiding people: "Pass along, please." A 
 few words from the crowd, a searching glance at Sarah 
 gasping for breath in the woman's arms, showed him 
 that it was not enough for this emergency. He at once 
 became quite tender, helpful, and considerate in his own 
 way, drew out his note-book, and giving his own support 
 to the sufferer, called a cab for the pair. 
 
 "Hospital, if you '11 take my advice," he said, as he 
 closed the door. 
 
 Sarah shook her head. 
 
 "Home, then?" 
 
 She shook her head again — this time with a shudder. 
 
 ' ' Come, come ; be reasonable, ' ' said the policeman ; 
 ' ' one or t ' other it must be. ' ' 
 
 Sarah now broke silence for the first time and simply 
 gave her address. 
 
 "Is that yer 'ome, dear?" said the young woman. 
 
 Sarah shuddered once more, and repeated the address. 
 
 She lapsed into absolute silence after that, refusing 
 all further aid, sitting in rigid lines in the vehicle, like 
 a figure carved in stone, and with an eye set on vacancy. 
 On reaching the house, she paid the cabman without a 
 
 322 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 word, and with a liberality that seemed meant to strike 
 him dumb. Then pressing the woman's hand, and leav- 
 ing two shillings in the palm, she let herself in with her 
 latchkey, and disappeared. 
 
 The story was now taken up by the landlady. Her 
 lodger must have passed an awful night. Her sharpest 
 trial was yet before her. She had gone back to the shrine 
 which represented the grave of her happiness, if only to 
 leave it again, and for ever, with the morning light. 
 
 Her first care had evidently been to weed out of her 
 garden of dream everything that belonged to Mr. 
 Barker, even by the mere implication of joint ownership. 
 All of his wearing apparel, his smoking gear — including 
 an old razor with which he cut up his tobacco — down to 
 a penny bottle of blue ink, which he had used in prefer- 
 ence to the black, and a pen of his particular brand, was 
 carefully collected, and made into one huge parcel, bear- 
 ing the initials "R. B." and, in lieu of address, the words 
 "For the Pleeceman." His presents to her, mostly little 
 nothings from the fancy bazaars, were first torn or 
 broken to pieces, and then, with their finest particles of 
 destruction, consigned to another parcel inscribed "Dust- 
 hole" — that and no more. His portrait was in this 
 heap, together with a large envelope full of torn letters, 
 and labelled "Lies." 
 
 Another package consisted of a small amount in silver 
 and coppers which, though it must have formed part of 
 her own savings, had now suffered contamination by his 
 proprietary touch. The bank-book that represented the 
 residue of all her earnings was in this collection. There 
 was a considerable sum to the common credit, but it 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 naturally now stood in the hateful name to which she had 
 no longer a right. She had thus reduced herself to abso- 
 lute beggary — perhaps in real uncertainty as to her 
 rights under the marriage law, yet more probably 
 because she scorned to dispute with her betrayer the 
 wages of his sin. A letter to the landlady completed her 
 preparations for flight. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. , — Enclosed one and sixpence, all I 
 
 got left. Keep it towards week 's rent, sell the sticks, and 
 pass balince to a 'orspital if accordin' to lor. Shall never 
 want same again. " S. " 
 
 There remained but one more duty, a sort of commem- 
 orative service of her invincible neatness, over the sepul- 
 chre of the once 'appy 'ome. Everything was left in 
 exquisite order, the carpet without a speck, the remains 
 of their last fire, carefully collected in an ashpail, the 
 very grate blacked in a sort of superfluity of the niceties 
 of domestic ritual for this funeral rite of despair. Thus 
 had Sarah chosen to expiate the misfortune of her undo- 
 ing which, in her eyes no doubt, was also the crime of 
 her credulity in listening to ' ' chaps. ' ' And thus had she 
 stolen out in the silence of dawn to her purgatory of pov- 
 erty and of solitude. 
 
 Where had she gone? Prue undertook to find out. 
 She had been cowed for the moment into a complete for- 
 getfulness of her own sorrow, appalled by the thought 
 of the overmastering horrors of that night. 
 
 Two days were passed in a fruitless search, visits to 
 the police stations, advertisements in the papers, private 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 detectives — all the apparatus of public search. On the 
 third, Prue had an illuminating thought, not her own 
 exactly, but a remembrance of something she had read. 
 Most fugitive creatures still make for their old haunts, 
 even criminals who have everything to fear from discov- 
 ery. She went straight to the garret in the slum which 
 Sarah used to inhabit while furnishing her home in fairy- 
 land. Sarah was there lying half dead with grief, sleep- 
 lessness, and want of food. 
 
 Even now she was hardly to be won into speech by 
 kindness, or weakened into it by the misery of the sit- 
 uation. Prue, entering without knocking, found her 
 lying on the bed and glaring up at the London sky. 
 
 "Who 's there— 'Ow dare—" 
 
 "It 's me, Sarah— Prue." 
 
 "You no call 'ere, miss^ without nobody ask you to 
 come. ' ' 
 
 "Sarah!" 
 
 The sullen pride of her was still unbroken ; she turned 
 her face to the wall. It was her mode of doing penance 
 for the accursed lapse into tenderness, which had been 
 the cause of all her woe. 
 
 Prue divined: "You need n't say a single word, but 
 cry, dear, if you can." 
 
 "Not me!" 
 
 "Not a single word, Sarah; I know everything." 
 
 "'Ave they caught him?" 
 
 "I think so, dear, but who cares about that. I 'm 
 going to make you comfortable. 
 
 "Shut the door; shut 'er out." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "That woman— the street— she kills, kills." 
 
 Prue stole softly to the door, turned the key, but only 
 to put it in her pocket so that it could not be used against 
 her, ran downstairs, gave the necessary orders, and was 
 back in a trice. 
 
 She was only just in time. Sarah had risen to lock 
 everybody out, even her benefactress ; but, tottering with 
 the weakness of her long fast, had slipped, and lay prone 
 on the bare floor in a passion of tears. Her proud spirit 
 was broken, but her reason was saved. 
 
 The rest was easy. Soon the doctor had come and 
 gone, and his patient was fast asleep under the combined 
 effects of food and an opiate. There was a cheerful fire 
 in the grate, and Prue sat by it to watch through the 
 night. 
 
 To watch, and to take up the burden of her own grief, 
 now that she had given first aid to the other in greater 
 need. The tremendous shock of Sarah's sorrow had mer- 
 cifully diverted the girl from all thoughts of herself, 
 perhaps saved her from collapse. But now her own 
 trouble surged back on her again, with all the added fury 
 of reaction. 
 
 What was wrong with her life, oh, what was wrong 
 with it! Was it this, that she had nothing to live by, 
 was rooted in nothing? It was no question of this creed 
 or that, but just only of something to hold on by, to work 
 for, to keep as the pole-star of her voyage. The poor 
 plutocrats had that in their dismal way: it was a 
 wretched creed, but it was better than none. Laura had 
 hers too, and it served after the same fashion. Happy 
 plutocrats! happy Laura! Unhappy Prue, disdaining 
 these, yet still with no true foundation in higher things 
 —houseless while waiting for a better house. 
 
 326 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 What was wrong with Sarah 's life ? Want of a worthy 
 object, want of something worth living for. She had 
 lived for independence, as if anybody could live for a 
 negation of that sort. Independence of what? Who 
 hath it? "He that died o' Wednesday." A fine thing 
 that. 
 
 Suppose it was put the other way. Sarah had sought 
 independence, to win prosperity. Still you had to carry 
 it further. Prosperity, and to what end? Happiness 
 perhaps. Well, look at Sarah now ! 
 
 The object then had to be larger, worthier. Try the 
 old-fashioned doing right, the still older-fashioned right- 
 eousness of the Hebrew. That seemed nearer. 
 
 "But what do you mean by righteousness— question 
 begging term." This from an intrusive small voice 
 that seemed to have been briefed by the Devil. 
 
 She took no heed of the interruption.' Strive for right- 
 eousness then, and it will bring all else worth having, 
 even prosperity as the greater the less. 
 
 Yet this would not do; she remembered her book of 
 Job with Froude's luminous commentary — Proude, no 
 doubt, with old Carlyle at his back. Prosperity is no 
 hall mark for righteousness, has nothing to do with it, 
 as effect and cause. The whole meaning of the poem is 
 that the comforters were on the wrong scent with their 
 wretched moral, that the misery was the punishment of 
 faults. He threw it back in their teeth, would not admit 
 the wickedness, admitted only the sores. 
 
 "And the sores as the fruit of righteousness — a fine 
 thing!" 
 
 No, no, there was other fruit, and blessedness was its 
 name — the state of feeling that you are in the right 
 stream of tendency, that what you are doing is going to 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 come out all right in the end, if not for you, then for the 
 race. Mary Lane— that saint, had got blessedness, and, 
 having it, felt that she had all. What cared she for 
 rewards, if only she could kindle the light of happiness 
 in another's eyes. 
 
 "How are you to know it, how are you to feel it?" 
 
 "Fool, look in thine heart and — live. Your finest, 
 deepest intuitions are enough. ' ' 
 
 "No — not enough"— the intrusive voice again, clam- 
 ouring for a definition. 
 
 "Well, do good to others, think last of your blessed 
 self. What has saved me in this welter of my own soul 
 but the accident of Sarah's prior claim. But for that I 
 might have gone mad. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Can you be sure then ? ' ' — the voice once more. ' ' How 
 many a man, still more many a woman, has to say: "I 
 have done right as I am able to see it, in self-denial, devo- 
 tion, yet have I ever caught most of the buffets going in 
 the strife. While this other dines to the music of lutes, 
 and is going to make a good end: think of Laura.' " 
 "No, no : never of her again ! Whatever else is true, the 
 cult of the good time must be a lie." 
 
 ' ' Yes, I can be sure, if only I make a right choice of 
 what I put first. For Mary Lane, humanity is enough, 
 for me perhaps, only one of its items must serve. Love 
 something, your race or a fellow, with or without return, 
 and let others love you in the same way. Love is sacri- 
 fice willingly borne, sacrifice is blessedness — bliss." 
 
 Left sighing. Ah! If! Yet she had found her reli- 
 gion after all. 
 
 328 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 PRUE had evidently missed a career in not going 
 into diplomacy ; in less than a week she had brought 
 Sarah back to the abandoned 'onie. 
 
 How it was done can hardly be told. It is easier to 
 say how it was not. Neither scolding nor argument, 
 the two persuasives that leave most troubles just where 
 they were before, had any share in the process. It may 
 be enough to say that Sarah was induced to come in as 
 caretaker of her own property while waiting for the 
 expiatory sale which, as Prue hoped, never was to be. 
 
 This served to set her to work again, for, to look at the 
 treasures was to begin to fondle them with the polishing 
 cloth. And with work, she soon began to mend, though 
 she was still wretchedly weak. 
 
 Mr. Barker's association with the place was the first 
 difficulty to surmount. Prue met it by carefully remov- 
 ing every article that might serve as a memorial of his 
 personality. 
 
 He had been arrested ; and this, it was thought, Sarah 
 ought to know. She was acquainted with it through the 
 good offices of the landlady. On the night of his exposure 
 the wife had held on to him like a second shadow, and 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 policeman considered unprofessional on the part of even 
 a married man. Beyond this, there was no further 
 allusion to the matter on either side. This suited Prue 
 as well as Sarah. For both, he was a part of a fatal 
 night, which was all horror in the retrospect. 
 
 One evening, however, the tabooed topic was nearly 
 revived by accident. Prue, who spent all her spare time 
 with Sarah, was diving into her pocket for some trifle 
 she had bought on the way, when she came upon the play- 
 bill of the performance. She smuggled it out of sight 
 before Sarah caught sight of it, and then, wondering 
 how it had found its way there, remembered that the 
 dress happened to be the one which she had worn on the 
 night of the play. A further search in the pocket resulted 
 in the discovery of another document. Concealing this 
 in her grasp, she found an opportunity of mastering its 
 contents, while Sarah was busy with the manufacture of 
 a flannel petticoat for Mr. Barker's child. 
 
 It was the scrap of writing which Eva had thrust into 
 her hand as they left the play-house, forgotten at the 
 moment, and never opened till now. And thus it ran in 
 a pencilled scrawl: 
 
 "0. P. box my little lot. Must make tracks after 
 them at once. Sorry can't stay to say good-bye. See 
 you again soon. 
 
 "E. St. G." 
 
 She nearly betrayed herself by a cry, as the full im- 
 port of it flashed on her mind. 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "My little lot" — evidently the wretched pair that 
 Eva was watching. "0. P. box" — ^Leonard and his 
 companion were in the stalls on that side. Yet why had 
 Eva laughed and nodded in their direction? Merely 
 to draw Prue's attention to their presence in the house, 
 and without the slightest idea of connecting them with 
 her odious office. 
 
 Oh, the happiness of it now, and, with this, the sense 
 of humiliation ! To say that she had believed the worst 
 was not true. In her distraction of mind at the time she 
 was not to be charged with anything that bore the 
 responsibility of conviction. She had simply been mad- 
 dened by the torture of Laura's talk, and this had come 
 to her but as a new and more exquisite pang. 
 
 Yet the shame of it was not to be put away from her 
 so easily. It involved an unworthy suspicion of two 
 persons both of whom she ought to have held danger- 
 proof, in common loyalty— Mrs. Dart always kindly and 
 considerate ; Leonard, friend of friends, and comrade too. 
 
 She was returning to her seat when there came a 
 knock at the sitting-room door. 
 
 Leonard ! 
 
 He seemed intensely excited, and could hardly control 
 himself for the ordinary greetings. He came in flourish- 
 ing a sheaf of telegrams, and with the word "victory" 
 on his lips. 
 
 They had not actually met since the night of the din- 
 ner at the restaurant. He had never looked better. The 
 purposeful cast of the face had been softened to a 
 greater lenity of expression. The pallor of his face, the 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 strong and regular features, with the dark curling hair, 
 had their appropriate setting in the evening light. 
 
 "My dear Sarah, I never hoped to find you up and 
 about. Miss Prue: it seems a long time since— I only 
 came to ask for your news, and to bring you some of 
 mine. ' ' 
 
 "Yours fust," said Sarah. 
 
 "No, no," he said, looking from Prue to Sarah, from 
 Sarah back again to Prue; "how thoughtless, how selfish 
 of me. Forgive me, both of you, and watch me, each in 
 the other's interest— Miss Meryon when I 'm rattling 
 on beyond Sarah's power of endurance, Sarah when I 've 
 too little mercy on her friend." 
 
 "There 's nothing the matter with me," said Prue, 
 "except happiness, I think — to find Sarah so much 
 better." 
 
 ' ' I felt I must have news of both of you to-night, and 
 I left another sheaf of these unopened on my desk, just 
 to run round. Another time — " and he was making 
 for the door. 
 
 It was impossible to let him go like that. Prue looked 
 from him to Sarah, from Sarah to the telegrams twisted 
 now like a thunderbolt of Jove in his grasp. 
 
 Then, with a sudden illumination, she saw it all at a 
 glance, and found the compelling word. 
 
 "I know," she said, with gleaming eyes, and clapping 
 her hands; "first news of the General Election, and of 
 the Great Surprise. Labour 's come to stay." 
 
 "Yes," he said, grasping her hand, "you 're first, 
 now as ever — first subscriber, first to guess. It is the 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 General Election, and with it the fulfilment of the 
 prophecies. Labour triumphant — that and nothing else 
 —at last." 
 
 So it was. It was the first day of the great upheaval 
 which was to change the face of English history in our 
 time. 
 
 A new flower of life and light haH come — as yet with- 
 out a label — as an old one had passed away with the 
 Victorian age. The time between had not been lost by 
 the seed lying in the earth. Such deaths and such births 
 are always marked by intervals of no moment to any 
 but the husbandman. 
 
 Almost the very earliest results were decisive, for the 
 whole land was aflame. The great cities had gone for 
 labour and its allied interests; the country had followed 
 suit. The twin-brethren of the hoe and the hammer had 
 established their natural kinship of equality with the 
 wealth and power of the realm. England had come into 
 line with the world movement in its most advanced 
 stage, and with such a swing of purpose and of energy 
 that the next stride might give her the leadership for 
 humanity at large. 
 
 "Me," said Sarah, holding out her hand for the 
 telegrams. 
 
 They were evidently but the blessed word, Meso- 
 potamia to her, but theyi brought joy to the only two 
 friends she had in the world, and that was enough. 
 
 '"What a time we 're 'avin', to be sure!" she said. 
 
 "See," said Leonard, "if she is n't 'getting well 
 wisibly' — with apologies to an eminent master of fiction. 
 
 333 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Never tell me that good news is no medicine;" and he 
 gave her a kiss. 
 
 She grew deadly pale, and with a sort of instinctive 
 action wiped off the salute with the hack of her rough 
 hand. Then again she looked beseechingly up at him, 
 as though for pardon, and said, ' ' One more ! ' ' 
 
 He gave it with a will. 
 
 "It 's good to see you both so gladsome; but it 's a 
 bit too much for me all the same. If you don't mind, 
 I '11 go into the next room and lay down. Miss Prue, 
 won't you make Mr. Leonard a cup of tea?" 
 
 The duties of hospitality are imperative. Prue had 
 to stay, though she would have given the world for 
 Sarah's relief of solitude, just then and there. She still 
 felt humiliated in his presence. Sarah had the right to 
 rejoice in everything that made him happy, for she had 
 ever been his champion through thick and thin. But as 
 for her— who was she to look him in the face? She had 
 yielded to the treason of doubt, the unforgiveable sin. 
 
 "And still I am not happy in spite of Sarah," he 
 said, after leading the invalid to the door. "It is the 
 way of destiny, the way of life." 
 
 "And why not?" 
 
 "Because the news that is going to cure Sarah brings 
 something akin to sorrow to you. You are troubled: I 
 see it in your manner." 
 
 "You are quite wrong." 
 
 "In your eyes, then. They always have told tales 
 against you, and they are my unsalaried spies." 
 
 "Spies!" Unhappy choice of a word! She shivered 
 
 334 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 a little, and— served the tea. "Tell me how it was 
 done, ' ' she said, by way of helping them both out of the 
 difBculty. 
 
 "It was done, Miss Meryon," he said, resuming, not 
 without an effort, his lighter vein, "by means of the 
 Great Conspiracy!" 
 
 335 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 SHE laughed, and he laughed with her: the pleas- 
 antry had answered its end. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "the Great Conspiracy, one of those 
 conspiracies formed in broad daylight, and for everyone 
 to see and hear. These are the deadliest, and they 've 
 done most of the big things in the world. 
 
 "It was simply all the— I want a word for it — all the 
 men who had felt the pinch of the shoe, all over the 
 country, laying their heads together to do the trick for 
 themselves, and waiting for nobody's leave. You re- 
 member Vivian Grey's 'nothing is permitted: everything 
 is done.' 
 
 "They were of all the callings where the shoe pinches 
 most — factory lads, pit-boys and miners, navvies, car- 
 penters, shop hands, cobblers who had stuck to their last 
 till they were sick of the sorry return it made them in 
 bread and butter. And what they wanted was to have 
 a say, as experts, in the making of the laws they were 
 called on to obey. 
 
 "To find the best was the job. They were years at 
 that with their lanterns, not only in every market-place, 
 but in the polytechnics, institutes, lecture-rooms, and 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 •what not, v/here their fellows were training themselves 
 for their new part. You 've seen something of that, 
 Miss Prue, I remember your telling me so. You 've 
 seen them making overtime in the classes at the end of a 
 day's work that would take the pluck out of a horse. 
 Toiling for knowledge, hungering and thirsting for it- 
 it 's no bad way. It makes you hold on tight to your 
 morsel. 
 
 ' ' So, after a while, still plot, plot, plotting, in the dead- 
 liest publicity, they had their band of picked men— in 
 bricklayers with quite a turn for the mathematics of 
 Mr. Karl Marx; counter jumpers, deep in Jevons and 
 Mill; dustmen, if you like, who knew their 'Decline and 
 Fall' far otherwise than Mr. Silas Wegg; certainly 
 bargees whose English was as pure as Addison's in both 
 senses of the word." 
 
 "I know half the men whose names are in those 
 telegrams," said Prue, "I 've met them in the classes." 
 
 "Well, there they were ready to go anywhere and do 
 anything as soon as the hour of the election struck. And, 
 with this, the constituencies mapped out for invasion, 
 as England is said to be mapped out in the archives of 
 the German staff — weighed, counted, tabulated, from top 
 to bottom, from side to side. The Primrose League work 
 a mere parlour game! For this was business: hardly a 
 man of them but had known what it was to tighten his 
 belt on an empty stomach, as part of his lot in life." 
 
 "I 've been hungry too," said Prue to herself. "It 's 
 just capital exercise, but I fancy you may carry it 
 too far." 
 
 "All this was mainly the work of two men, the Apostle 
 
 337 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 and the Organiser of Victory. The first had long been 
 at his post, the movement being a thing in the providence 
 of God. He was a pitman of the hardy North — 'Scot- 
 land for ever* is still a good cry— who had thought it 
 all out ; felt it, which is better, in the darkness and soli- 
 tude of the mine. Meditations are much more purpose- 
 ful there than among the tombs. He had risen from the 
 pit to Parliament, but it was at first only a change of 
 solitudes, for, through long years, he was little more 
 than a party of one. He was a Socialist, with the 
 doctrine like a burning fire within him, a fire that 
 seemed to blaze through him whenever you looked into 
 his eyes. They were the eyes of a dreamer for all that, 
 but of such dreams— poverty, misery, vice no longer the 
 almost inevitable lot of countless millions of women and 
 men. He put them in that order for, without being 
 exactly a courtier, ' ladies first, ' in all ameliorative effort, 
 is his rule of life." 
 
 "I 've heard him speak scores of times," she said, 
 "and I love him. Socrates must have been like that — 
 so gentle, so quiet, and strong." 
 
 "Hardly, as to the fun, I should say. This one is as 
 incurably serious as if he had come back from the dead. 
 Perhaps it 's the pit. I believe they won't tell half the 
 things they see and hear down there, not even to Royal 
 Commissioners. 
 
 "The Organiser of Victory was at hand in a brother 
 Scot, a Highlander by race doubled with a Lowlander in 
 the outlook on life — the most formidable combination I 
 know. He was of peasant stock; he had been schooled 
 by the dominie of his village; and had perhaps ran 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 barefoot to his lessons. I know that his children run 
 barefoot for health in their London home, and have their 
 reward for it in looking the stoutest little cherubs ever 
 caught out of bounds. His next stage was 'Glasgie' 
 for the humanities, London for press work; finally a 
 happy marriage with one of the most refined and charm- 
 ing women of her time— Socialist as you all are, or may 
 be made to be by pity and love. 
 
 "He fashioned the band of conscripts into an army 
 for the polls, drilled them, brigaded them for the field, 
 financed them too by treaties of mutual help with all 
 the other popular parties, who, from first to last, worked 
 hand in hand for the triumph of the common cause. 
 What a labour! What endless journeys by day and by 
 night to all points of the compass, and the remotest in 
 our isles — sometimes further afield in special missions. 
 Speaking here, treaty-making there, and finally when 
 the hour came for the shock of battle, feeling that he 
 could await the issue with a mind at ease. The rest you 
 know, or will know in all the glory of an achieved re- 
 sult, before the week is out." 
 
 "Why, you '11 swamp the House!" she said. 
 
 He laughed : 
 
 ' ' We 've no such ambition — shall I say no such fear. 
 A victory may easily be too complete. All we want is 
 a look in proportion to our importance in the country, 
 and that we '11 get." 
 
 ' ' Not quite for the first time, ' ' she said. ' ' There were 
 brave men before Agamemnon : have n 't I read of labour 
 leaders who served in Parliament years before you were 
 born." 
 
 339 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Only as individuals, never as a party." 
 
 "Party! I sometimes dread the word from what I 
 see of its meaning. Why a workman's party any more 
 than a brewer's party? Won't the nation do?" 
 
 "Let the others begin; we are only following suit. 
 We must work with the weapons of our time." 
 
 "And what are you going to fight for?" she said— 
 "the sacred right to get as rich as the others— if you 
 can?" 
 
 "And to remain as poor as most, for that 's what the 
 juggle comes to for the bulk of the race. No." 
 
 "You are forgetting your share of the work in The 
 Branding Iron." 
 
 "I am constitutionally incapable of doing so. At 
 least, it is the line of the entire movement, in showing 
 the efficacy of small beginnings. Small beginnings are 
 the only hope of suffering causes. If we had waited till 
 we were capitalised from above, or patronised, there 
 would have been no Labour Party, and, in the same way 
 — if you '11 excuse the anti-climax — no Branding Iron. 
 What I 've proved, I hope, is that any man with faith 
 and energy, and something to say, can start a paper for 
 himself in a back parlour — if it happens to be the paper 
 that people want. If it does not, where 's the use of it 
 anyway ? The usual plan, I know, is to go round with a 
 sample of your principles, and try to persuade a syn- 
 dicate to lend you a quarter of a million of money. The 
 syndicate cuts out half the principles, and offers half 
 the money; and that 's considered a deal. There 's an- 
 other way." 
 
 She tried to make her escape, feeling that what she 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 most wanted to hear about, most wanted to say, must 
 still be left unsaid— the mystery of his double life, his 
 intimacies in quarters which she could not hope to reach, 
 she, nor even Laura, which was still some assuagement 
 of the pang. Yet, as to that pushful person, after all, 
 who could say? 
 
 "This is a mere incident in your life," she said. 
 "You '11 leave us for greater successes, higher things. 
 The little Branding Iron will one day be a memory, and 
 with it all your friends— Sarah, Mary Lane, Laura—" 
 
 "Go on with the reckoning, if you please." 
 
 She left it there. 
 
 "If you thiyik that," he said — "especially as to the 
 name you have left out — it would be about the only dis- 
 appointing thing I have ever heard from your lips. Why 
 should I forget? In the past few months I have lived 
 in the greatest fulness of being I have ever known." 
 
 "Yes, but other triumphs, a larger career." 
 
 "Please don't talk to me, or of me, as if I were a 
 caliph in masquerade. I 'm with my own folk at last: 
 and I 'm never going to leave them again." 
 
 "I saw you at the play the other night." 
 
 "With Mrs. Dart, the most amiable and kindly of 
 women, whatever her class, and, I hope^ always my good 
 friend. I wish I had seen you." 
 
 "I took care you did not." 
 
 "Oh, that 's all right, so long as only the misfortune 
 was mine, and not the fault." 
 
 "Were n't you with your people, then?" 
 
 ' ' Quite out of my sphere, I assure you ; but you know 
 things of that sort are not always matters of choice. I 've 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 got my work to do— that 's the main point; and I do it 
 in all sorts of places and all sorts of ways. ' ' 
 
 "Sometimes among all the 'celebrities of the day.' " 
 
 "Take care, or you will drive me into autobiography. 
 In fact, here goes for it, and without further apology, 
 for you 've brought it on yourself. 
 
 "I 'ma poor man's son, especially a poor woman's — 
 a Board School boy at the start, will that do ? The dear 
 old Board School gave me what the State, with a big S, 
 ought to give to every boy and girl, a chance of the best 
 education in the land — what the State does give, as a 
 matter of course, and without thinking twice about it, 
 in all the countries that mean to hold their own in the 
 struggle for life. England gives this in the pitiful halt- 
 ing fashion to which she is bound by the snobbery of 
 her class system, and by the fiendish device of penalising 
 national duties by throwing them on overburdened 
 rates. However, it was not for me to look the 
 gift-horse in) the mouth. By hook or by crook, I won 
 my way to Oxford — only to find that Oxford has quite 
 as much to learn from the poor scholars as it has to 
 teach. 
 
 "When I came away from there, not quite at the tail- 
 end of the list, I had to live, and I went into journalism. 
 It was not exactly the journalism of The Branding Iron, 
 but of the great dailies, the great reviews, every one of 
 them like a department of state. I had the luck of my 
 opportunities, and I got on. I 'm the 'George Malby' 
 of the reviews, if you care to know it, and I hope you 
 do, for you once did me an honour I have never for- 
 gotten in praising an article of his to my face. Malby 
 was the name I brought into the world with me ; George 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 Leonard was added to it by my godfathers and god- 
 mothers. I was 'George Malby' then in my work for a 
 living, 'George Leonard' when I came down here, to 
 start The Branding Iron for love. There 's my small 
 mystery, and the only one, for what it is worth. I had 
 to keep the issues clear, as between my public in one 
 part of the world, and my public in the other. It was 
 awkward, though, to have the editor of one of the re- 
 views asking me to make The Branding Iron the text 
 of a slashing article on 'the gutter press.' 
 
 "I might have gone on as 'George Malby' for ever, 
 but I felt that, at best, it could only baulk me of all that 
 I held highest in life. I might have had a great review 
 of my own — the chances were not wanting — but, with all 
 its implications, this must have taken me further and 
 further away from my own people. What I longed to 
 do when I left the University was to report myself for 
 service to my class, the class from which I sprang. There 
 were plenty to serve the others— the classes with which 
 I came in touch in the ordinary course of my career. 
 Loyalty to your 'fellow-subjects' of the whole universe 
 —ah, the unimaginable felicity of the phrase— is not 
 that more beautiful than the loyalty to all the Charlies 
 over the water that ever had to cut and run to save 
 themselves from a righteous doom?" 
 
 He stopped short, troubled by something in the wist- 
 fulness, the pain of her look. 
 
 "What has become of all our old comradeship?" he 
 said. "You used to be so frank; you are keeping some- 
 thing back. Is it anything about Sarah? There will 
 have to be a trial: he 's held for full-fledged bigamy 
 now. But we '11 see her through all that, until she goes 
 
 343 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 back to hopeless drudgery— wondering why God took the 
 trouble to make the world. ' ' 
 
 "No," she said, almost vehemently; "Sarah is all 
 right : she can go back to solitude, and that 's better than 
 the tribal home. Dear old Aunt Edom ! I wrote to her 
 for Christmas; she made me a suitable reply; and now 
 I 'm ready to accept my final destiny at any moment. 
 
 She looked charming in her excitement now, in spite 
 of the tinge of displeasure, which was usually something 
 of a disfigurement. The face was never without ex- 
 pression: it was of endless interest and beauty in that 
 way. 
 
 "Then it is about you," he said. "Come, secret for 
 secret— I have told you mine." 
 
 "No secret," she said, "only a truth. It 's harvest- 
 time, and I not among the husbandmen, not even among 
 the gleaners. I can feel it all, just as strongly as you, 
 yet here I am without a part. Oh, why was n't I born 
 a man?" 
 
 "Thank God you were not." 
 
 "You 've done so much for me. But there 's no more 
 to do. You 've carried me as far as I can go— how far, 
 for all that, I alone know." 
 
 "Secret for secret. Do you suppose I gave yoii mine 
 for nothing? Won't you understand?" 
 
 "What can I have to tell you that you care to hear 
 now?" 
 
 "Won't you understand? From the day of our first 
 real meeting, at the boathouse, you were first in my 
 thoughts. ' ' 
 
 "As a scholar perhaps, as a chum for a ramble." 
 
 344 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "Believe me, I am not quite such a young man from 
 the country as perhaps I look. Do you think I had not 
 my own purposes, my own hopes, my own little con- 
 spiracy, if it was only a conspiracy of one?" 
 
 "Look here," she cried passionately, "I began my 
 wretched little life with no other idea in it than my inde- 
 feasible right to have a good time. I loathed poverty, I 
 almost loathed poor people. I dreaded pain, as we all 
 do— that 's nature — but I never saw any other way out 
 of it than to grab at all the pleasure that was going, and 
 leave the others to take care of themselves. I doubted 
 all this in the heart of me, for all that. Then came 
 Laura with her gospel to teach me that it was the siun 
 of things. 
 
 "Then came you — I must say it— to give me the sense 
 of pity for that huge mass of mankind who are left out 
 of the reckoning, to make me feel that the only thing 
 that counts is to take one's chance with the race. 
 
 "Your pity for yourself," he said, "was only a perver- 
 sion of your pity for the race. ' ' 
 
 She went on: "I can't rise to these things as abstract 
 principles : they have to be said to me in my own fashion. 
 They were when you spoke. You did not know what 
 you were doing : I tell you, you were teaching me a re- 
 ligion. We women won't have your precious 'principles' 
 in any other way. 
 
 "Do you remember that phantom at the lecture, and 
 his bitter heart-breaking plea for a religion of Social- 
 ism ? It haunted me : remember what some one had said 
 before him: 'Democracy will have to be a religion, or 
 nothing, with its doctrine, its form, its ritual, its cere- 
 
 345 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 monies, its government as a Church— above all, its 
 organised sacrifice of the altar, the sacrifice of self. This 
 is the deepest craving of human nature. All attempts 
 to reconcile man's heroism to his interests have ever 
 failed. His goodness must make him smart.' " 
 
 "I know it by heart now, why should n't I: I 've 
 read it a hundred times? And here 's a bit more" — 
 
 " 'So is there no escape from the Iron Law of brother- 
 hood. All solutions but this have had their trial, and all 
 have failed. Never was their failure more awfully con- 
 spicuous than it is to-day, when nine-tenths of mankind 
 still live as brutes in regard to all that makes life worth 
 living, while the other rots in character with the in- 
 firmities of plethora and excess. Ring out the old, ring 
 in the new ! ' 
 
 "And now it 's all over; and it is n't to be that; it 's 
 only another party in Parliament — perhaps another class 
 interest— and all the rest of it, and poor little me, I 'm 
 left out in the cold with my poor little religion all to 
 myself. ' ' 
 
 "A religion of two, at any rate," he said very gently. 
 "Here 's a disciple on the spot. A religion of demo- 
 cracy, as well as a doctrine; what a tremendous idea! 
 You said just now I had given you something : see what 
 you have given me in return. I want that religion for 
 The Branding Iron.— And, you for myself," he added, 
 drawing her towards him, and looking into her eyes. 
 
 "No, no," she said struggling for her freedom. "I 
 won't come in like that, as a female counterpart of the 
 messenger boy?" 
 
 34-6 
 
Ring in the New 
 
 "And you for yourself, then," he said, still refusing 
 to let her go. "How am I to live, or work, or even 
 understand, without you?" 
 
 "Just as the others do. They have left out the 
 women; and think of their triumph to-day!" 
 
 "And of their failure to-morrow if they don't bring 
 you in, without your finer intuitions of pity and of 
 love?" 
 
 "And Laura?" she said archly. 
 
 "She 's the cleverest little girl I know, and she 's 
 sure to do well. Won't you go in and give Sarah the 
 good news ? ' ' 
 
 THE END 
 
 347