/...-::.:;.-:r:yiilSiiiimv^ - •iii QlorncU Iniuccsitg ffiihrary atljata, Sfew ^ark Cornell University Library PR 6025.E72M2 1920 The man who understood women, and other 3 1924 013 650 597 The original of tliis book is in 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/cu31924013650597 The Works of Leonard Merrick THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN AND OTHER STORIES The Works c^ LEONARDMERRICK CONRAD IN QUEST OP HIS YOUTH. TTith an Introduction by Sm J. M. Baebu:. WHEN LOVE PLIES OUT O' THE WINDOW. With an Introduction by Sib WillUlM Robebiv BON NiCOLL. THE QUAINT COMPANIONS. With an Intro- duction by H. G. Wells. THE POSITION OP PEGGY HARPER. With an Introduction by Sib Aethxib Pineeo. THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN and other Stories. With an Introduction by W. J. Locke. THE WORLDLINGS. With an Introduction by Neil Munbo. THE ACTOR-MANAGER. With an Introduction by W. D. HowELLs. CYNTHIA. With an Introduction by Maubicb Hewlett. ONE MAN'S VIEW. With an Introduction by Gbaijviixe Babkeb. THE MAN WHO WAS GOOD. With an Intro- duction by J. K. Pbotheho. A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD. With an Introduction by A. Neil Lyons. THE HOUSE OF LYNCH. With an Introduc tion by G. K. Chestebton. WHILE PARIS LAUGHED: Being Pbanks and Passions of the Poet Tbicotein. NEW YORK E, P. DUTTON & COMPANY THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN AND OTHER STORIES ¥ By LEONARD MERRICK ¥ WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. J. LOCKE NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE COPTRIGHT, 1911, BY MITCHELL KENNEBLBT COPTBIGHT, 1919, BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY AU Rights Reserved The Fiist American Definitive Edition, with Introduction hj W, J. Locke, limited to 1550 copies (of which only 1,600 were for sale) Published September, 1919 Second American Edition, October, 1919 Third October, 1919 Fourth October, 1919 Fifth October, 1919 Sixth October, 1919 Seventh October, 1919 Eighth Ninth Tenth October, 1919 August, 1920 1920 PHnted in the United States of America CONTENTS ^ PASS THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 1 II A VERT GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 18 ni THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 35 IV TEANKENSTEIN II 50 V THE TALE THAT WOTJLDn't DO 68 Vt THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 81 VII THE CHILD IN THE GARDEN 160 VIII A LETTER TO THE DUCHESS 180 tx THE PRINCE IN THE FAIRT TALE 200 X WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 224 y vi CONTENTS XI FAoa DEAD VIOLETS 239 xn THE FAVOTIHITE PLOT 259 XIII TIME, THE HUMORIST 277 XIV THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 293 XV THE LADY OP LYONs' 313 XVI THE THIRD M 326 XVII THE bishop's comedy 344 xvin A REVERIE 364 XIX THE RECONCILIATION XX THE CALL FROM THE PAST . . [jj . • •, i •. INTRODUCTION One of our most delightful novelists has re- cently written a preface to a collection of his short stories in which he apologises for disinter- ring them from magazines and resuscitating them in book form. I think he oiight not to have done it. If a preface were needed, it should have been written rather as an appeal, than as a warning. It should have been in the nature of a bugle- blast. It jhould have said, in effect: "Here, my faithful and gentle readers who, owing to the limitations of time and space and the worries of the world, have missed much of my best and most cherished work — ^here is an opportunity of an unexpected feast." 1 confess, that such an ap- peal would not have been modest — and the au- thor in question is the most modest of our con- fraternity — but the assertion would have been true. Now, with the agreeable task before me of writing a preface to another man's collection, I am not bound by any such sense of modesty, and I should like to make clear once more certain issues which my friend above referred to has, to a certain extent, conftised. viii INTRODUCTION In the first place, it must be understood that the novel and the short story are two entirely distinct artistic expressions, as different as the I great oil-painting and the miniature. And as rarely as the accomplished landscape-painter and the accomplished miniaturist are incarnate in one and the same individual, so rarely are the ac- complished novelist and the accomplished short story writer thus incarnate. The most fervent admirers of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, among whom I am proud to count myself, will not claim for his novels, though possessing the incalculable and indefinable personal touch, the magical genius of expression which is to be found in all his work — even in TTie Absent-minded Beggar j the per- fection of statement and the flawless technique of Plain Tales from the Hills and Life's Handicap. In the same way we would not measure Guy de Maupassant's greatness by Une Vie or Mont Oriol; and though the late Henry Harland is best known by that study in simshine. The Car- dinal's SnAiff-box, his real lovers turn to the in- imitable short stories in Grey Roses and Come- dies and Errors. Conversely, some of the greatest novelists have but little value as short story writers. The so- called short stories of Dickens — The Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes, A Christmas Carol — INTRODUCTION fe are between thirty and forty thousand words in length. Among Thackeray's many sketches may be found a few which we understand as short sto- ries, but they do not rank with Henry Esmond and The Newcomes. The essential novelist accustomed to his broad canvas, to the multiplicity of human destinies with which he is concerned and their inter-rela- tion, to his varied backgrounds, to the free space which his art allows him both for minute analysis of character and for his own philosophical re- flections on life, is apt to find himself absurdly cramped within the narrow confines of the short story. His short stories have a way of becoming condensed novels. They contain more stuff than they ought to hold, at a sacrifice of balance, di- rectness and clearness of exposition. Now, with- out dogmatising in the conventional fashion, or indeed in any fashion, over what a short story ought or ought not to be, or asserting definite laws of technique, I think it is obvious that if a story told in ten thousand words would have been a better, clearer, more fully developed story told in a hundred thousand, it is not a perfectly told story. For, though there is a modem tendency to revolt against an older school of criticism which set technique over subject, and to scoff at form, yet we cannot get away from the fact that X INTRODUCTION the told story, whether long or short, is a work of art, and is subject to the eternal canons where- by every art is governed. No matter what a man has to say, if he does not strive to express it per- fectly, he is offending. The "condensed novel," being imperfect, is an offence. On the other hand, the essential short story writer engaged upon a novel, is apt to be dis- mayed by the vastness of the canvas he has to cover. His habit of mind — ^minute, delicate and swift — wars against a conception of the archi- tectonics of a novel. In consequence, his novel may appear thin, episodical and laboured, with scenes spun out beyond their value, thus missing their dramatic effect and spoiling the balance of the work. If, therefore, a story of a hundred thousand words could have been told more effec- tively in ten thousand, it is, like the "condensed novel," not a perfectly told story. Briefly, the tendency of the essential novelist in writing a short story is to make literary con- densed milk, while that of the essential short story writer working in the medium of a novel is to make milk and water. Occasionally, of course, among the great writ- ers of fiction we meet with the combination of the two faculties, Balzac the short story writer is as great as Balzac the novelist. The C antes Dro- INTRODUCTION xi latiques alone would have brought him fame. Stevenson was master of both crafts. Who shall say whether The Sire de Maletroifs Door or The Ebb Tide is the more perfect work of art? Now among contemporary writers, Mr. Leon- ard Merrick is eminently one who, like Balzac and Stevenson, is gifted with the double faculty. His reputation as a novelist rests on a sure foun- dation, and his novels in this edition of his works wiU be dealt with by other hands. But, owing to the fact of the novel being in the commercial world "more important" than the short story, his claim to the distinct reputation of a short story writer has more or less been overlooked. Again, it is popularly supposed that a writer of fiction regards the short story as either a relaxation from more arduous toil or as a means of adding a few extra pounds to his income. In his acqui- escence in this disastrous superstition lies my quarrel with my distinguished preface-writing friend. Now, although I do not say that we are all such high-minded folk that none of us has ever stooped to "pot-boihng," yet I assert that every conscientious artist approaches a short story with the same earnestness as he does a nov- el. Further, that in proportion to its length he devotes to it more concentration, more loving and scrupulous care. There are days during the rii INTRODUCTION writing of a novel when that combination of fierce desire to work and sense of power which one loosely talks about as "inspiration," is at ebb, and others when it is at flow. Homer nods some- times. No man can bestow equal essence of him- self on every page of a long novel. But a short story is generally written at full-tide. By its na- ture it can be finished before the impulse is over. There is time to weigh every word of it, attend to the rhythm of every sentence, adjust the del- icate balance of the various parts, and there is the thrilling consciousness of unity. Instead of the climax being months off, there it is at hand to be reached in a few glad hours. So, far from being an unconsidered trifle, the short story is a work of intense consideration, and as far as our poor words can matter, of profound importance. It may be said that anything in the nature of a plea for the short story as a work of art is hope- lessly belated — I am quite aware that the wise and gifted made it long ago, and I remember the preaching of the apostles of the early 'nine- ties — ^but its repetition is none the less useful. Every item in the welter of short stories with which the innumerable magazines both here and in America flood the reading public is not a mas- terpiece. Every item is not perfect work. Many are exceedingly bad — bad in conception, style INTRODUCTION xiii and form. There is always the danger of the good being hidden, of bad and good being con- fused together in the public mind, and of the term "magazine story" becoming one of con- temptuous and unthinking reproach, as was the term "yellow-back" a generation ago. Accord- ingly it is weU that now and again a word should be said in deprecation of an attitude which a tired and fiction-worn world is hable to adopt; and it is well to remind it that in the aforesaid welter there are many beautiful works of art, and to beseech it to exercise discrimination. The writer of an introduction to the work of a literary comrade labours under certain difficul- ties. He ought not to usurp the functions of the critic into whose hands the volume, when pub- lished, will come, and he is anxious, for the sake of prudence, not to use the language of hyper- bole, though he has it in his heart to do so. But, at least, I can claim for these short stories of Mr. Leonard Merrick, that each, by its perfection of form and the sincerity of its making, takes rank as a work of art. In none is there a word too little or a word too much. Everywhere one sees evidence of the pain through which the soul of the artist has passed on its way to the joy of cre- ation. Everywhere is seen the firmness of out- line which only comes by conviction of truth, and jdv INTRODUCTION the light and shade which is only attained by a man who loves his craft. The field covered by Mr. Merrick in this col- lection is one which he has made peculiarly his own. Mainly it is the world of the artist, the poet, the journalist, in the years when hopes are high and funds are low, when the soul is full and the stomach empty. It is neither the Bohemia of yesterday's romance nor the Bohemia of drunken degradation, but the sober, clean-living, struggling Bohemia of to-day. It is a sedate, hard-up world of omnibuses, lodgings, second- rate tea shops and restaurants. Yet he does not belong to the static school who set down the mere greyness of their conditions. He is a poet, mak- ing— "The violet of a legend blow Among' the chops and steaks," as in The Lady of Lyons'. To Rosie McLeod, hving "up ninety-eight stairs of a dingy house in a dilapidated court" in Montparnasse, comes the prince in the Fairy Tale. There is true poetry in The Laurels and the Lady with its amazing end. And yet his method is simple, direct, un- romantic. He writes of things as they really are, but his vision pierces to their significance. He can be relentless in his presentation of a poig- nant situation, as in A Very Good Thing for the INTRODUCTION xv Girl, a realist of the realists if you like; but here, as everywhere in bis work, are profound pity, tenderness and sympathetic knowledge of the hu- man heart. He writes not only of things seen, but of things felt. Whatever qualities his work may have, it has the great quality essential to all artistic endeavour — sincerity. WiiiUAM J. Locke. THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN AND OTHER STORIES THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN "Our bitterest remorse is not for our sins, but for oar stupidities." — Excerpt from Wendover's new novel. Nothing had delighted Wendover so much when his first book appeared as some reviewer's reference to "the author's knowledge of women." He was then six or seven and twenty, and the compliment uplifted him the more because he had long regretted violently that he knew even less of women than do most young men. The thought of women fascinated him. He yearned to capti- vate them, to pass lightly from one love-affair to another, to have the right to call himself "blase." Alas! a few dances in the small provin- cial town that he had left when he was eighteen comprised nearly all his sentimental experiences ; during his years of struggle in London he had been so abominably hard up that lodging-house keepers and barmaids were almost the only wom- en he addressed, and as his beverage was "a glass of bitter," the barmaids had been strictly com- mercial. To be told that he understood women enrap- 1 2 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN turedhim. "Instinct!" he said to himself. "Now and then a man is born who knows the feminine mind intuitively." And in his next book there was an abundance of his fanciful psychology. Denied companionship with women, he revelled in writing about them, and drew from the pages in which he posed as their delineator something of the exultation that he would have derived from being their lover. There were even pages after which he felt sated with conquest. At these times nothing accorded with his mood so well as to pa- rade the Park and pretend to himself that the sight of the most attractive of the women bored him. But as loneliness really cried within him pa- thetically, he had an adventure, culminating in marriage, with a shop assistant who glanced at him one evening in Oxford Street. After mar- riage they found as little of an agreeable nature to say to each other as might have been expected, so a couple of years later they separated, and the ex-shop hand went to reside with a widowed sis- ter, who "made up ladies' own. materials" at Crouch End, Gradually he came to be accepted at his own valuation, to be pronounced one of the few gifted men from whom the feminine soul held no se- crets. Then when he was close on forty, a novel THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN S that he produced hit the popular taste, and he began to make a very respectable income. Now, for the first time, he had opportunities for meeting the class of women that he had been writing about, and he found, to his consternation, that they failed to recognise him as an affinity after all. They were very amiable, but, like the farmer with the claret, he "never got any forrad- er." He perceived that his profundities were thought tedious, and that his attentions were thought raw. It was a sickening admission for an authority on women to have to make, but when he tried to flirt he felt shy. At last he decided that all the women whom he knew were too frivolous to appeal to a man of intellect, and that their company wearied him unutterably. But, though he had reached middle-age, he had never as yet been really in love. In the autuom of his forty-second year — few people judged him to be so much — ^he removed to Paris. Some months afterwards, in the inter- ests of a novel that he had begun, he deserted his hotel in the rue d'Antin for a pension de f amille on the left bank. This estabhshment, which was supported chiefly by Enghsh and American girls studying art, supplied the "colour" that he need- 4 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN ed for his earlier chapters; and it was here that he made the acquaintance of Miss Searle, Miss Searle was about six-and-twenty, bohe- mian and ambitious beyond her talents. Such pensions de f amille abound in girls who are more or less bohemian, and ambitious beyond their tal- ents, but Rhoda Searle was noteworthy — ^her face stirred the imagination, she had realised that she would never paint, and the free-and-easy in- tercourse of the Latin quarter had wholly un- fitted her for the prim provincialism to which she must return in England. "My father was a parson," she told Wendover once, as they smoked cigarettes together after dinner. "I had hard work to convince him that English art schools weren't the apex, but he gave in at last and let me come here. It was Para- dise! My home was in Beckenhampton. Do you know it? It's one of the dreariest holes in the kingdom. I used to go over to stay with him twice a year. I was very fond of my father, but I can't tell you how terrible those visits became to me, how I had to suppress myself, and how the drab women and stupid young men used to stare at me — as if I were a strange animal, or something improper; in places hke Beckenhamp- ton they say 'Paris' in the same kind of voice that they say 'Hell.' I suppose I'm a bohemian by THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 6 instinct, for even now that I know I should never make an artist, my horror isn't so much the loss of my hopes as the loss of my freedom, my — my identity; I am never to be natural any more. After I leave here I am to go on suppressing myself till the day I die! Sometimes I shall be able to shut myself up and howl — ^that's all I've got to look forward to." "What are you going to do?" asked Wendo- ver, looking sympathetic, and thinking pleasur- ably that he had found a good character to put into his book. "I am going back," she said, "a shining ex- ample of the folly of being discontented with district-visiting and Church bazaars! I go back a failure for Beckenhampton to moralise over. My old schoolmistress has asked me to stay with her while I 'look round' — ^you see, I've spent all my money, ^nd I must find a situation. If the Beckenhampton parents don't regard me as too immoral, it is just possible she may employ me in the school to 'teach drawing' — unless I try to teach it. Then I suppose I shall be called a 'rev- olutionary' and be dismissed." She contemplated the shabby little salon thoughtfully, and lit another cigarette. "From the Boul' Mich' to a boarding school! It'll be a change. I wonder 6 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN if it will be safe to smoke there if I keep my bed- room window open wide?" Yes, it would be as great a change as was con- ceivable, and Rhoda Searle was the most inter- esting figure in the house to Wendover. She was going to England in a month's time — ^thete was no reason why she should not go at once, save that she had enough money to postpone the evil day — and during this valedictory month, she and he talked of their "friendship." In the tortuous streets off the boulevard, she introduced him to humble restaurants, where the dinners were sometimes amazingly good at ridiculously low prices. Together they made little excursions, and pretended to scribble or sketch in the woods — ^looking at each other, however, most of the time ; and then at evening there was an inn to be sought, and the moon would rise sooner than the "friends"; and in the moonlight, when they re- turned to Paris and the pension de famille, senti- ment would constrain their tones. It was all quite innocent, but to the last degree unwise. The ex-shop assistant still throve decor- ously at Crouch End on his allowance, and Wen- dover should have seen that he was acting unfair- ly towards Miss Searle, To do him justice, he didn't see it — ^he had confided the story of his marriage to her, and it did not enter into his THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN T thoughts that she might care for him seriously notwithstanding; his experiences had given him no cause to esteem himself dangerous, and the lover who has never received favours is, in prac- tice, always modest, though in aspirations he may be Juanesque. The suitor of quick perceptions has been made by other women, as everybody but the least sophisticated of debutantes knows. But if he did not dream that he might trouble the peace of Miss Searle, he was perpetually con- scious that Miss Searle had disturbed his own. A month's daily companionship with a tempera- ment, plus a fascinating face, would be danger- ous to any man — to Wendover it was fatal. His thoughts turned no longer to liaisons with duch- esses; his work, itself, was secondary to Rhoda Searle. Silly fellow as he appears, the emotions Vakened in him were no less genuine than if he had combined all the noble quahties with which he invested the heroes of his books. Besides, most people would appear silly in a description which dealt only with their weaknesses. Wendo- ver loved, and he cursed the tie that prevented his asking the girl to be his wife. How happy he might have been! He had feared that the last evening would be a melancholy one. But it was gay — ^the greater part of it was gay, at any rate. As soon as the JS THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 3oor slammed behind them he saw that, she had resolved to keep the thought of the morrow's journey in the background, to help him to turn the farewell into a fete. Her laughing caution was unnecessary; her voice, her eyes had given him the cue — ^her journey was to be undertaken in the distant future, life was delicious, and they were out to enjoy themselves! He had proposed dining at Armenonville — it wasn't the Paris that she had known, but champagne and fashion seemed the right thing to-night; and no fiacre had ever before sped so blithely, never had the Bois been so enchanting, and never had another girl been such joyous company. After dinner, the Ambassadeurs ! The programme? They didn't listen to much of it, they were chattering all the time. It was only when the lamps died out that he heard a sigh; it was only when the lamps died out that the morning train, and the parting, and the blank beginning of the after- wards, seemed to him so horribly near. The little salon was half dark when they reached the pension de famille, everybody else had gone to bed. Wendover turned up the light, and, though she said it was too late to sit down, they stood talking by the mantelpiece. "You've given me a heavenly memory for the end," she THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 9 told him; "thanks so much! I shall be thinking of it at this time to-morrow." "So shall I," said Wendover. She took off her hat, and pulled her hair right before the mirror. "Shall you?" "Will you write to me?" "Yes, if you'd like me to." "I'd more than like it — I shall look forward to your letters tremendously." "There won't be much to say in them." "They'll be from you. ... I wish you weren't going." She raised her eyes to him. "Why?" she asked. Wendover kept silent a moment — it was the hardest thing that he had doncin his life. If he answered, "Because I love you," he felt that he would be a cad. Besides, she must know very well that he loved her — ^what good would it do to tell her so? — doubtless she had repented her question in the moment of putting it! Yes, he would be a cad to confess to her — she would think less of him for it. He would choose the beau role — and she would always remember that, when he might have spoilt their last scene together and pained her, he had been strong, heroic! "We've been such pals," he said. That she mightn't underrate the heroism, he turned aside. 10 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN as the noble fellow in books does when he is struggling. After a pause, she murmured blankly, "It's time I said 'good-night.' " She went to him and gave him her hand. Her clasp was fervent — it was encouraging to feel that she was grateful! Her gaze held him, and her eyes were wide, dark, troubled; he was sure that she was sorry for him. "Good-night, my dear," said Wendover, still as brave as the fellow in the books. And when he had watched her go up the stairs — when she had turned again, with that look in her eyes, and turned away — ^he went back to the salon and was wretched beyond words to teU, for a fool may love as deeply as the wisest. This was really their "good-bye" — in the morning the claims on her were many, and he was not the only one who drove to the station with her. When she had been gone between two and three weeks, he received the promised letter. It told him little but that she was "the new drawing mistress"; of her thoughts, her attitude towards her new hf e, it said nothing. He replied prompt- ly, questioning her; but she wrote no more, and not the least of his regrets was the thought that she had dismissed him from her mind so easily. THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 11 He did not remain much longer in the board- ing-house, its associations hurt him too much. A sandy-haired girl, with no eyelashes and red ears, occupied the seat that had been Rhoda's at the table, and the newcomer's unconcerned posses- sion of it stabbed him at every meal. Having taken precautions against letters for him going astray, he returned to the hotel, and there month after month he plodded at his book, and tried to forget. Nearly a year had gone by when he stood again on the deck of a Channel boat. He had not spared himself, and the novel was finished, and he was satisfied with it; but he was as much in love as he had been on the morning when he watched a train steam from the gare St. Lazare. As he paced the deck he thought of Rhoda all the time ; it excited him that he was going to Eng- land, he might chance to see her — he might even run down to Beckenhampton for a day or two? It would make the situation harder to bear after- wards, of course, but He looked up "Beckenhampton" in the Rail- way Guide often during the next few days. The distance between them was marvellously short— the knowledge that an hour and a half's journey could yield her face to him again had a touch of the magical in it. An hour and a half from 12 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN Hades to Olympus! The longing fevered him. He threw some things into a bag pellmell one morning, and caught the 10.15. "The George Hotel!"— and from the hotel he directed the driver to the school. The little town was grey and drear; he pitied her acutely as he gazed about him from the fly. He understood how her spirit must beat itself against the bars, he realised what her arrival must have meant to her; behind one of the windows of this prison she had sat looking back upon her yesterday! How the year must have changed her ! he wondered if she still smiled. The fly jolted into the narrow High Street — and he saw her coming out of the post-office. Yes, she still smiled — ^the smile that irradiated her face and made him forget everything else! They stood outside the post-office together, clasp- ing hands once more. "You! what are you doing here?" she cried. "I was just going to see you, I've just come from the station. How are you? You look very weU." "I'm all right. Are you back for good?" "Yes, I left Paris a few days ago." "Did you stay on at the pension?" "Oh no, I gave that up soon after you went." THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN IS "You've finished your book, eh?" "How did you know?" "I saw something about it in a paper. And how's Paris? I dream I'm back sometimes." "Paris is just the same." "I suppose you never saw anything of the oth- ers afterwards — Kitty Owen, or the MacAllister girl?" "No, I never came across any of them — I was working very hard. Well? Tell me things; what's the news? You're still at the school then?" "No." "No? Aren't you? I was on my way there. What are you doing?" "I'm married." The blood sank from his cheeks. "Married?" "I've been married four months." A woman came between them to post a letter, and he was grateful for the interruption. "Let me congratulate you." "Thanks. My husband's a solicitor here. . . . You'll come and see us?" "I'm afraid ... I should have been delighted, of course, but I have to be in town again this evening." "We'd better move — we've in everybody's 14 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN way," she said. "Will you walk on with me? When does the book come out?" "In a few weeks' time — I'll send a copy to you." "Really? It would be very good of you. I've often looked at the book columns to see if it was pubhshed." "Have you? I was afraid you'd forgotten all about me. . . . You — ^you might have written again; you promised to write!" "I know." "Why didn't you?" "What was the good?" "It would have made me happier. I missed you frightfully. I — I think that was why I left the pension, I couldn't stand it when you'd gone. . . . Well, are you happy?" "Oh, I suppose so." "I'm glad." "So you won't come and see us?" "It's impossible, I'm sorry to say. . . . As a matter of fact, I didn't mean to see you again at all." "That's a pretty compliment 1" "Ah, you know what I mean — ^it seemed bet- ter that I shouldn't. But ... I think I'm glad I did; I don't know! I've wondered sometimes THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 15 whether you understood. . . . We shan't meet any more, and I should like you to know " "Don't," she exclaimed thickly. "For heav- en's sake!" "I must," said Wendover — "I loved you dearly 1" They had walked some yards before she an- swered; her voice was a whisper: "What's the use of saying that to me now?" The bitterness of suffering was in the words — they flared the truth on him, the annihilating truth. "My God!" he faltered, "would it have been any use then?" Her face was colourless. She didn't speak. "Rhoda, did you care? If — ^if I had asked you to stay with me, would you have stayed?" "I don't know." "TeU me." "Yes, then, I 'would have stayed!" she said hoarsely. "Whom should I have hurt? I was alone, I had no one to study but myself. I want- ed you to ask me. Stayed? I'd have thanked God if you had spoken! You were blind, you •wouldn't see. And now, when it's too late, you come and say it!" "I wanted to be straight to you," he groaned. "I sacrificed my happiness to be straight to you — ^it was damnably hard to do." 16 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN "I know. But I didn't want sacrifices — I wanted love. . . . Oh, it's no good our talking about itl" She stopped, and sighed. "We shall both get over it, I suppose." "Is it too late?" pleaded Wendover brokenly. "Quite. Things aren't the same; last year I was free to do as I liked. I have no conventions, but I have a conscience — there's my husband to consider now, and — and more, too. I shouldn't be contented like that to-day — I should have injured others. You and I let our chance slide, and we shall never get it back. . . . Smile, and say something about nothing — there are people who know me coming along." And he did not sleep at the George after all; in the next train that left for Euston, a grey- faced man sat with wide eyes, cursing his own obtuseness. And he has not met her since. There is, of course, a brighter side to the history — al- though Rhoda is unhappy, she is happier than she would have remained with Wendover when the gilt was off the gingerbread; and though Wendover will never forget her, he cherishes her memory with more tenderness than he would have continued to cherish the girl. But neither she nor he recognises this, and in Wendover's latest work, one may see the line THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN IT that has been quoted : "Our bitterest remorse is not for our sins, but for our stupidities." The reception of the novel was most flattering, and as usual the author's "insight into the mind of Woman" has been pronounced "remarkable." A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL Bagot told us this tale in the Stage Door Club one night. We were sitting round the fire, talk- ing of perfect love, and somebody asked him. if he had ever thought of marrying. "Once," said the comedian cheerfully. "Couldn't you afford it?" His talent and the remains of his good looks were worth fifty pounds a week to him then, but there had been days — ^well, listen to Bagot! "It wasn't that I couldn't afford it," he said with a laugh; "actors never wait till they can -afford it. I escaped in a curious way. What saved me was being such an artist. Fact! I was really smitten. If I hadn't been an artist in spite of myself I should be shivering in the last train home to Bedford Park now, instead of talking to you dear boys in an arm-chair, with a glass at my side. What? Oh, I'll tell you about it with pleasure! "Of course, you know I made my name as the 'Rev. Simon Tibbits' in poor Pulteney's Touch ■and Go. Some things a man doesn't forget, and I remember how I felt when I settled for the part 18 A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 1& better than I remember yesterday. You see it was my first London engagement, and I had been trying to get one in London for sixteen years. Sixteen years I had been on the road — and seen the amateurs with money sauntering on to the West End stage from their Varsity Club ! "My agent had told me to try my luck at the office over the theatre, one morning in July, and when I went in, there was nobody there but a young man who I guessed must be Pulteney. He was sitting at the table with a pencil in his hand, fiddling with a model of one of the scenes, and looking as worried as if he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer. " 'Have I the honour of speaking to Mr. Ptd- teney?' said I. In those days I imagined authors were important persons. "He flushed, and smiled — ^rather on the wrong side of his mouth, I thought. 'That's my name.' " 'I was sent round to see you about the part of the clergyman in your farcical comedy, Mr, Pulteney,' I said. I had really been sent to see the stage-manager, but soft soap is never wasted, and I was always a bit of a diplomatist. "He asked me to sit down, and we talked. He was smoking a cigarette, and I thought for a moment he was going to offer me one. I suppose it occurred to him that it wouldn't be the right ^0 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN thing to ask an actor to smoke in the manager's room, for he threw his own cigarette away. He was a gentleman, poor Pulteney, though he was a deuced bad dramatist. "The manager came bustling back soon, and began to himi and haw, but Pulteney put in a word that made it all right, I was told it was a capital part, and a big chance for me, and I skipped downstairs and out into the street, feel- ing as puffed-up as if I owned the Strand. As a matter of fact, the salary wasn't much — I had had better money in the provinces — ^but the thought of making a hit in the West End so excited me that I was nearly popping with pride. "Great Cumberland Place! wasn't I sold when the part came. You've no idea how duffing it really was. I don't mind saying that a good many jolly fine comedians would never have got a laugh in it. When I read the jokes I could have cried. It wasn't funny as the author wrote it, dear boys, believe me. I don't want to brag of what I've done — I'm not the man to gas about myself — but it was the character I put into it that made Pulteney's piece ! "Well, the rehearsals weren't beginning for three weeks, and I kept hoping I'd see how to do something with it before the first call. I spoke the lines one way, and I spoke the lines another A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 21 way, and the more I studied the glummer I felt. I had my dimier at Exeter Hall several times and listened to the people giving their orders ; it was cheap, and I thought I might hear the sort of tone I was trying to get hold of. But I didn't. On the Sunday I went to three churches and sat through three sermons. Honest Injun! And that was no use. Talk about an R.A.'s difficulty in finding the right model? I spent eight dusty days scouring London for a model for the 'Rev. Simon Tihbits'! "Then one afternoon I had come out of Pross- ers' Avenue. As it happened I wasn't thinking shop; I wasn't thinking about anything in par- ticular; and all of a sudden I heard a voice. A voice? I heard the voice. I heard the voice I needed for the part! "I jumped. My heart was in my throat. There, smiling up at a six-foot constable, was a little parson asking the way to Baker Street. He looked like an elderly cherub, with his pink cheeks, and his innocent, inquiring eyes. I held my breath in the hope he would go on talking, but the policeman had answered him, and he tripped along with merely a 'Thank you.' He <;ripped along with the oddest walk I have ever ieen; and I dodged after him, never taking my 22 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN gaze off his legs and studying them all the way to Charing Cross. "As I expected, he was going by bus. There was one just moving. Up went his umbrella; and the next moment I was on the step, too, in- tending to lure him into conversation as soon as I could, and master his voice as nicely as I was mastering his legs. " 'Full inside,' said the conductor, putting his dirty hand before my face. I was so annoyed I could have punched his headl "Well, there was nothing for it but to go on top and wait for someone to get out. Hang it, nobody did get out; and I saw no more of my little model till we reached Baker Street. I meant to let him walk a few yards, and then ask him to direct me to Lord's, but there was a sur- prise for me ; he tripped across the road into the station. 'Oho,' I said to myself, 'training it? So much the better! We're going to have a com- fortable chat together, after all, you and I !' "I kept as close to him when he took his ticket as if I'd designs on his watch, and I heard him say, 'Third class to Rickmansworth, if you please.' This was rather awkward— I didn't want to pay a long fare, and I didn't know the line well; I had to book as far as Rickmansworth, too. When we got round to the platform the A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 23 train was there, and he hovered up and down for five minutes or more, looking for a seat to suit him; I began to think we'd both be left behind. Then just as they were slamming the doors, he made up his mind. In he went, and I after him, and — ^what do you think? We were both on the same side of the compartment, with a fat woman and a soldier between "us ! "Two passengers between us, I give you my word, and no room opposite. Not only I couldn't talk to him — I couldn't even see him. Every time we drew into a station I prayed the com- partment would thin a bit; I sat tense, watching the faces. Not a sign on them! You've heard of the American rustic who got so exasperated standing up in a crowded car, that at last he shouted, 'Say! ain't none o' you people got homes?' That was how I felt." Bagot's imitation of the rustic was very good, and we signified our appreciation in the usual way. When the laugh was over someone told the waiter we were thirsty, and the story-teller filled his pipe. "Well," he resumed, puffing, "to cut a long journey short, we reached Rickmansworth with- out my having had a glimpse of my gentleman. I was about desperate now. He hadn't taken a dozen steps when I overtook him, and asked if M THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN he would be kind enough to inform me whether any decent apartments were to be had in the vil- lage. It didn't seem worth while to have had all this bother just to hear him speak again for ten seconds, and I was wishing myself back in my apartments in Kennington. I said the first thing that came into my head. "It turned out to be the best question I could have put. "I am a visitor myself," he said, beaming at me, "but I beheve there are rooms to be had in Cornstalk Terrace. Yes, I am almost positive I noticed a card in a window as I passed through the street this morning." "I stood simply lapping his voice up. " 'Is it difficult for a stranger to find?' I asked. " 'No, indeed,' he said, 'it is quite near. But I am going there; if you care to accompany me ' " 'Oh, you're too good!' I exclaimed, and upon my word I could have hugged him! "The road was a great deal nearer than I wanted it to be, for he was chirruping to me beautifully, and I hated to part from him. When we arrived I effervesced with gratitude, and he hoped I'd find comfortable quarters; and then I went straight back to the station — and heard that I had just missed a train! Pleasant? Rick- A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GHIL 25 mansworth isn't the sprightliest place I've ever waited in either, I had some nourishment in the bar of the hotel across the way, and I examined the High Street. It wasn't extensive. The bar- maid had told me there was a park close by, so I started to discover it. I wasn't keen on the park, you understand, but I thought it would be a nice quiet spot to rehearse in and see if I had caught the little cleric's voice. As I was going along, past a row of villas, blest if I didn't come across him again, standing at his gate! "He supposed I had been hunting for lodgings all the time, so, of course, I had to keep the game up. He was a friendly old chap and, honour bright, I felt sorry to think I was going to turn him into ridicule on the stage. Still he would never know, and actors can't be choosers. He went inside to ask his landlady if she could rec- ommend any diggings to me ; and a minute after- wards, out he fluttered to say he had quite for- gotten there would be a couple of rooms vacant in that very house next day. Christopher Colum- bus! I had had no more idea of taking rooms than I had of taking the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. But it was too gigantic a chance to miss. I fixed the matter with the old woman there and then— and the next morning my model and I were living under the same roof! . . . Pass the 26 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN matches, one of you fellows, my pipe's out. . . . "At the back of the house there were some let- tuces and a clothes-prop that were called a 'gar- den.' My parlour was at the back, too ; and after dinner I saw the rector airing himself. By now I had learnt he was a rector. I lost no time in joining him, you may be sure — I wasn't paying two rents to go to sleep on the sofa — and we dis- cussed politics and public libraries. It was a bit heavy for me, but I didn't worry much what he talked about so long as I could hear his dulcet tones. I ought to have said there was a bench against the clothes-prop ; so far as her means per- mitted, the old woman did things handsomely. "There was a bench, and we sat down on it; and while we were sitting there, the door opened — and out into the sunshine there came a young and beautiful girl. She wore a white cotton frock, and there was no paint or powder on her face, and she had the kind of eyes that make you want to say your prayers and be good. I'm not going to gush — I'm holding myself in — but on my honour she was just the saintliest picture of English maidenhood ever seen in a poet's dream! " 'My daughter,' said my model, "I was so staggered that I bowed like a super at a bob a night. "Yes, the old woman did things handsomely — A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 27 there was room for three on the bench. She sat by me, turning a backyard into paradise — I mean the girl, not the old woman — and I forgot to study her father for half an hour. I heard where his living was, and why they were taking a holiday, and I stanmaered that I was an actor, and was afraid thejj^'d be shocked. I was stupid to own it, though it was all right and they didn't mind ; but there was something in that girl's eyes that forced the truth from you in spite of your- self. I had been going to say I was in the City, but the lie stuck. "There's some fine country round Rickmans- worth — 'Ricky,' the natives call it — and we used to explore, the three of us. We'd go to Chorley Wood, and to Chenies — ^what a good back cloth Chenies would make! By the end of the week we were together nearly all the day. They invit- ed me into their room to supper, and after supper Marion would sing at a decrepit piano. The meals were quite plain, you know — sometimes we'd pick the green stuff in the garden ourselves — but, boys, the peace of that little village room in the lamplight! The minister and his child — the simple. God-fearing man and that girl with her deep, grave eyes, and earnest voice. Their devotion to each other, the homeliness of it all! To me, a touring player, it was sweet, it was 28 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN wonderful, to be welcomed in an atmosphere of home. "If the comedy had been put into rehearsal on the date arranged it would have been better for me. But it wasn't — the rehearsals were post- poned — and soon I was thinking much more of Marion than of my part. I used to talk to her of — well, of things I had never talked of to any- one except my mother when I was a kid. Some- how I didn't feel ashamed to talk of them to that girl. She took me out of myself. She raised me up. The footlights were forgotten. "Oh, I had no right to think of her in the way I did, of course! What could I hope for? There was a world between us, and I saw it. I told myself that I had done all I came to do, and that I ought to go back to town at once I I told myself I was mad to stay there. But I knew I loved her. I loved her as I have never loved a woman since — and there were moments when I thought that sJie was fond of me" Bagot, it was rapidly becoming evident to' us, had forgotten that he had prefaced the story by congratulating himself on not having married the girl. His voice trembled. We saw that, car- ried away by his own intensity as a narrator, he was beginning to believe he was a blighted being. A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 29 But we looked sympathetic, and let him work it up. "One day she owned she cared for me," he continued, with a far-away air. "It was the day before they were going home, and we were talk- ing of our 'friendship.' Somehow I — I lost my head, and she was crying in my arms. "I asked her to marry me. I swore she should never repent it. She sat hstening to me with her hands limp in her lap, and a look on her face that I shall see till I die. She was afraid — ^not of me, but that her father wouldn't consent. They had no violent prejudice against the theatre, but she had never been to one in her life; for her to marry an actor seemed an impossible thing. "I went to him right off. I told him I wor- shipped her; I implored him to trust her to me. It was an awful shock to him; I don't beUeve he had had a suspicion of the state of affairs — ^he re- proached himself for letting it come about. But he was very gentle. He said he had hoped for a far different future for her, still that all he want- ed was for his child to be happy; he said he couldn't stand in her way if he knew she was really sure of herself. In the end he promised she should marry me if she wanted to in three years' time. "When I parted from her we considered we so THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN were engaged; and in the evening, after they left, I went to town. "I went to town, and there was a call for the first rehearsal of Touch and Go. I had forgot- ten business, I had forgotten everything but Ma- rion. That call paralysed me. I saw what I had done, I reahsed the situation. The girl I was to marry reverenced her father — and I meant to burlesque him on the stage! "I couldn't do it, I wouldn't! How could I think of it now? It wasn't that I feared their finding it out — as I tell you, they weren't play- goers, and their home was a good way off besides — ^it was the heartlessness of the thing that fright- ened me. To make myself up as her father? To speak the bland, hypocritical lines of the part in her father's voice, to mimic him, to turn him into ridicule to amuse a crowd. I say how could I doit? "All the same it was precious diflScult to avoid, for I had studied him so long. But I went to the show box the first day and rehearsed as I had expected to rehearse before I met him. Perhaps not so well; it was a strain not to be like him after all my study, and it made me pretty rotten. I rehearsed so the first day, and for three or f our days, and presently I began to notice that the Management was a bit unhappy, and that Pul- A yERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 31 teney nearly twisted his moustache out during my scenes. If an author has written a bad part, trust him to blame the actor! He button-holed me at last, and begged me 'to put a little more character into it.' And I tried to. But I knew it was a failure, for I could only see one charac- ter all the time — and that one I wouldn't touch. "When I was in the stalls once, he and the manager sat down and put their heads together. It was dark in front, and they hadn't seen me as they came round. I heard them say something about 'a pity they hadn't a West End actor for the part.' I knew they were talking of my part, and it got my dander up ; I knew I could act any of that West End hoity-toity company oflf the stage; I knew I had only to let myself go. "When I went on again I determined I'd show 'em what I could do ; I determined I'd show 'em they had a better comedian than any forty-pound -a-weeker. I sent them into fits. 'Hallo!' they said. The women in the wings stopped talking about their dresses to watch me. The highly connected amateurs from Oxford and Cambridge began to give at the knees, and I could hear the leading man's heart drop on to the boards; the actor from the provinces was wiping them outl That rehearsal was the sweetest triumph of my life. 32 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN "She'd never know — she'd never know! I kept telling myself she couldn't hear of it. By the time the wig that I ordered was tried on I felt as sure of success as I was of my lines! I was soaked in the part. I wasn't acting the little rector — ^by George, I was the little rector, trip, face and chirrup. And the first night came, and I was to play in London at last! "They told me the house was crammed. All the swell critics were there, all the fashionable first-nighters. I was so nervous that the wig- paste shook in my hands when I made up, but I was ready much too soon. "I went downstairs and waited. The door-, keeper gave me a note. Of all the ! It was from Marion. A friend had brought(her up to see me, and she was in the theatre. I was stunned, I thought I was going to fall. You know — every man in this room knows — that for an actor to remodel his performance at the last minute would be a miracle. I couldn't do it, it wasn't in my power ; but even then I thought I'd try. I said I must try, though it would ruin me! And I heard my cue. "My first hnes went for nothing. I floun- dered — the audience were ice; I saw the people on the stage looking at me aghast. Then sudden- ly I got a laugh: a gesture, an intonation, some- 'A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL 89 thing I had been trying to hold back, had es^ caped me. The laugh went to my head — I made them laugh again! I said I'd explain to Marion — that she'd understand, that she'd forgive me — and even v?hile I said it, my other self, the 'self that wasn't acting, knew it was a lie and I was losing her. i "I couldn't help it — ^the laughter made me drunk; I did it aUI I knew the disgust she must be feeling, but the audience were roaring at me now; I felt the shame that she was suffering with my own heart, but the artist in me swept me on. The manager panted at me in the wings : 'You're great — ^you're immense. Gad! you're making the hit of the piece!' The stalls were in convul- sions, the gaUery had got my name. 'Bagotf they were shouting — after each act, 'Bagot!* Pulteney rushed to me with blessings at the end. The house thundered for me. It was London! I knew that I was 'made' ! But across the flare of grinning faces, I seemed to see the Angel 1 had lost and the horror in her eyes." Bagot bowed his head; his pipe had fallen, tears dripped down his cheeks. By this time he was quite sure he had been mourning for her ever since beside a lonely hearth. "She wrote to me next day, breaking it off," 84 A VERY GOOD THING FOR THE GIRL he groaned. "She wouldn't listen to reason; she said it 'might be art, but it wasn't love.' " "Did you ever see her afterwards?" we asked. "Once," he said, "years later. She married some County chap, with an estate and all that. I saw her driving with her little boy. She looked very happy I thought. Women soon forget." After a pause he added bitterly: "If one of you fellows" — ^he glanced at the only author in the group — "cares to write the true tragedy of a man's life, there it is. You might call it 'The Price of Success.' " But we aU thought a more appropriate title would be the one that I have used. THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE My meeting with Mr. Peters was so momen- tous that I can't resist mentioning it was due to someone I had never seen — to a trifle ; I can't re- sist referring to my own affairs for a moment. I was supposed to be at work on a novel, and I had a mind as infertile as mashed potato. One day in August I tumbled a receipt out of a desk, and saw that the lady to whom I sent my stories to be typewritten had had nothing from me to type- write for two months. The discovery dismayed me. I was ashamed to realise how slowly I was getting on, and resolved to try a. change of sur- roundings. My trip altered the course of lives — and I shouldn't have made it but for the reproach of a stranger's receipt. I decided upon Ostend, by way of Antwerp, where I wanted to see the pictures ; also I meant to visit Brussels, vhere I wanted to see my pret- tiest cousin. And in Antwerp — behold Mr. Pe- ters! As I was wandering through the gallery, an American asked me if I could tell him in which of the rooms he would find "The Last Commun- ion of St. Francis of Assisi." Having just been 35 36 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN directed to it myself — ^just been startled by the faultless fluency of an official's English — I had the information pat, and the American and I proceeded to the room together. I remember feeling it incumbent on me to be pained by the first words he spoke in front of the picture. "I am told," he remarked, "that Rubens sold this work for sixty pounds, English money, and that forty thousand pounds were subsequently paid for it. Rough on Rubens!" I affected the tone of the Superior Person. "You would see it better if you stood further away," I said; "what do you think of the paint- ing?" "Of the painting," he answered, "I am no judge, but the way the value of that property has risen just astonishes me." I did not think I should like him, but I began to like him surprisingly soon. He was a sad- faced, middle-aged man, with a simple manner that was wonderfully winning. In less than five minvites I was humiliated that I had sneered at him in front of "St. Francis of Assisi." By what right, how much did I understand of it myself? My attitude had been nine-tenths pose. This man was genuine ; he spoke of what he found in- teresting. And he proved anything but a fool. THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE ST We went down the steps of the Musee des Beaux Arts side by side, and strolled through the hot streets, among the swarm of ragged Flemish children — there are more ragged children to the square yard in Antwerp than in Westbourne Park — to the quarter of the hotels. It turned out that we were staying at the same one, he on the first floor and I on the fifth, and after dinner we drifted together to the place Verte, and talked there under the trees while the band played. He told me that he had not been to Europe be- fore, and I discerned that he was a lonely man persevering with the effort to enjoy himself. "The fact is," he said, handing me his cigar- case, "I ought to have made the trip some years ago. — ^Won't you tiy a cigar, sir? — There's noth- ing the matter with Europe, but I guess I'm not quite so keen on sight-seeing as I was. When I was a lad I was dead-stuck on coming over, but I hadn't the dollars then. I promised myself to have a good time when I was thirty, and I hustled. When I was thirty I had made a few dollars, but I saw no chance of the good time — I was still hustling. One afternoon it occurred to me that I was forty. It displeased me some; seemed to me that good time was never coming. At the start I had aimed to be the boss of a busi- ness, but now the business had got so big it was S8 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN bossing me. 'Well,' I said, 'you have made your pile, and you have nobody to spend it on but yourself; next year you shall quit, and have that good time you have been working for so long.' But it didn't come off. The business went on swelling, and I went on saying, 'Next year.' And before I knew where I was I was fifty, and" — ^his voice dropped a little — "and I have never had the good time yet." He was leaving for Ostend the next morning, and, when we parted, I was sorry he wasn't to remain in Antwerp tiU the end of the week like myself. However, at Ostend I expected we should meet again, for I did not mean to stay long in Brussels, It is a beautiful city, and many of us would admire it much more if it did not set us yearning for Paris. The resemblance is, strik- ing, but the fascination is absent. To go to Brus- sels is like calling on the sister of the woman one is in love with. Brussels is Paris provincialised; one realises it before one has sat outside a cafe for an hour and watched the types go by. Liter- ally it is provincialised in August, when most of the theatres are closed, and the streets are peo- pled by excursionists. I had intended to stay three of four days at most, but duty to my rela- tives kept me with them for ten or twelve, and at THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 39 last when I did reach Ostend I had ahnost for- gotten Mr. Peters. The thought of him recurred to me as I made my way towards the Kursaal on the first evening, and I wondered if he was still here. It was eight o'clock, and now that the glare of sun upon the blistered Digue had faded, and the radiance of electricity had risen in its stead, the town was looking its best. Ostend was still dining. The long continuous line of hotel windows fronting the sea was brilKant. Window after window, wide, curtainless, and open to the view. A front- age of gleaming tables and coloured candle- shades — a dazzling frontage of flowers, and faces, and women's jewelled necks and arms. In the Kursaal the orchestra was playing "L'Amico Fritz." I had listened to the music for perhaps half an hour when I saw Mr. Peters. He was with a friend, and he passed without ob- serving me. They sat down a short distance off and I noticed that he was talking with much an- imation to her, with much more animation than he had shown with me. Indeed, I think that was what I noticed first of all — the unexpected ani- mation of Mr. Peters. But the next instant I was engrossed by his companion. She was not youthful ; I didn't con- sider her pretty; her dress, rich as it was, ap- 40 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN peared to me a dowdy sort of thing among the elaborate toilettes around us. Then what en- grossed me? Well, it was the expression that she wore. I am trying to find the word. "Pleas- ure," of course — but that says nothing. As near- ly as I can explain, it was the wonder in her look. The "wonder," that is it I There were crow's-feet about her eyes, and her gaze shone with a young girl's wonder. Evidently the interest in the conversation was mutual, and I assumed that they had known each other in the States. Then a second time they passed me, and I heard her speak, and she had no trace of the American accent. It began to seem to me that Mr. Peters had been losing no time at Ostend. I saw him with Jier again on the morrow, and on the next day, but two or three days went by before I saw him alone. When we did have a chat, I couldn't withstand the temptation to al- lude to her. "You're in better spirits," I said; "have you come across anybody from the 'other side' to cheer you up?" A suspicion of a smile flickered across his thin, shrewd lips. "No," he drawled; "no, I have met no ac- quaintances in Europe yet, but " He hand- THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 41 ed his cigar-case to me : "Won't you try a cigar, sir? — but I am getting along." I used to wish he would present nie to her, but he never did. Constantly those two figures sat together in the Kursaal. In the concert-room, or on the terrace, if I found the Httle woman I found Mr. Peters. Never to my knowledge did she speak to anybody else. And always the girl- ishness of her gaze held and mystified me — al- ways, that is to say, until the end was approach- ing. Of course, I didn't know that it threatened the end then, but I couldn't fail to perceive the differ- encp. The curiosity she had inspired in me was so strong, I had watched her so intently for near- ly a fortnight — oh, it may sound vulgar ; I don't defend myself — ^that the first time I glanced across at her face and saw trouble there I was sensible of a distinct shock. And in the next few days I said it was heavy trouble. It was as if the blaze within her were dwindling, as if it were dying out, and leaving her cold and grey. I said — it is a great word, but once I said the look on her face was "terror." I did not attach any importance to the fact that Mr. Peters was sitting alone on the terrace when I went to the Kursaal one evening, because I supposed that he was waiting there for her to 42 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN come in; it was when I found him alone in the same place much later that I was surprised. You know how you understand sometimes, without a gesture, that a man wants you to sit down by him, but doesn't want you to speak; I knew that Mr. Peters wanted me to sit down by him, and didn't want me to speak. I think we must have sat looking at the track of moonlight on the sea for a quarter of an hour before either of us said a word. Then he remarked drily, "My friend has gone." "You must miss her," I responded. He mused again, and handed his cigar-case ta< me with his usual question. I said I would havb a cigarette. "You found me dumfounded," he resumed, puffing his cigar deliberately, "by the most singu- lar occurrence I have heard of in my life; I am beginning to get my breath back. You may have noticed the lady?" I said that I had. "I guess that you assume her to be a wealthy woman?" I said that I did. "Well, sir, she is about as poor as they make them. I have lived too long to be extravagant with emotions, but that little lady's history has THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 43 just broken me up. As a writer you may find it worth your attention. It was because she had always been solitary; that was what started the trouble — ^her loneliness. It's an awful thing to conjecture how many poor little women in Lon- don are breaking their hearts with loneliness. Never a companion she had, never a pleasure. Mornings she walked to her employment; even- ings she walked back to where she lodged. She was a girl of eighteen then, and she walked cheer- fully. And she was cheerful when she was twen- ty, and twenty-five, and thirty — always keeping her pluck up with the thought of something brighter ahead, you know; always hoping, hke me, for that 'good time.' " "Go on," I said. "When she had been clerking years, and doing home work in her leisure, she had put a small sum by. But she was frightened to touch it — there was the growing fear of the lonely woman that one day she might take sick and need that money. And the 'good time' didn't come. And her youth went out of her, and lines began to creep about her eyes and mouth — she looked in the glass and saw them — and she didn't walk to and fro quite so bravely now. Twenty years odd she had had of drudgery, and the hopefulness was dying in her. She was just faint with longing, sir. She 44 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN wanted to put on pretty things before she was old — she was starving for a taste of the sweets that she was meant for." He blew a circlet of smoke into the air, and watched it. "That stage passed. Seemed to the woman, as time dragged on, that she hadn't the energy left to long for anything. She was tired. When she lay down to sleep she wasn't particularly keen on waking up any more. As I see the mat- ter, it was by no means the work that had done the damage — ^it was the dullness. It was the emptiness of her life, the forlornness of it. By- and-by she had to go to a doctor, and he talked about 'depression' and 'melancholia.' He said what she ought to do was to live with friends — • she was about as friendless as Robinson Crusoe before Friday turned up — ^he recommended hep to seek 'gay society'! She said she was 'much obliged,' and went back to her lodging, and sat staring from the window at the strangers passing in the twilight. I don't know whether you have struck a case of melancholia? A man I was fond of was taken that way in Buffalo. Out of busi- ness he would sit brooding by the hour, with his eyes wide, and never saying a word. I stayed talking to him once half the night, persuading him to put a change of hnen in his grip and start THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 45 for Europe in the morning; I told him it would do fiim good to hustle round the stores, buying most things he needed to put on, after he arrived. I guess my arguments weren't so excellent as my intentions — ^when I went down town after break- fast I heard he had shot himself. Melancholia's likely to be serious. . . . No, the doctor's advice wasn't much use to the little woman. Her walk to the office lay across some bridge. One even- ing, as she was crossing it, the thought came that it would be sweet if she were lying in the river and heard the water singing in her ears. Then she tore herself away because she had turned giddy. Every morning and evening she had to cross that bridge, you understand me. Every morning and evening that thought pulled at her, and she stopped by the parapet and looked down." In the pause he made, the music from the con- cert-room was painfully distinct. They were playing the "Invitation to the Valse." "Well, just as with the friend I lost in Buf- falo," he went on quietly, "while she did her work like a machine all day, she was proposing to die. She had grown so woeful tired that it was a re- lief to her to think of dying. . . . You will smile at what I am going to say. One afternoon she saw an ordinary picture advertisement stuck on 46 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN a wall — a picture of a Continental resort, with fashionable ladies parading on the Digue. She told me that — ^with the thought of death great in her mind — she stood right there in the London street, looking at it ; and, sir, her regret was that she was going out of the world without once hav- ing worn a pretty frock, or bought a handful of roses in December! You may laugh at the idea of a commonplace poster influencing a woman at such a time?" "I am not laughing," I said. "She harped on that grievance of hers till some of the interests of her girlhood stirred in her again. The enthusiasm had gone, but she was wistful. And she'd sit thinking. She'd sit look- ing at her savings-book — all she had to show for her life. She figured out that she might break away from her employment and have luxury for a month. When the month was up she'd be des- titute, but that didn't matter because, you see, she was quite prepared to go to sleep in the Thames. That little drudge, in that little stuffy lodging, took a notion to escape for once into the sunshine; she asked herself why she shouldn't live for a month — ^before she died! . . . . "She was timid when she went to buy the showy frocks; she touched the daintiest of them lovingly, but she was shy to choose them for her- THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 47 self. She felt that she had entered the store too late to wear the things she had hankered for so long. She came here the day after I arrived. She appeared a sad little body, sitting next to me at table ; perhaps that was why I took to her so; but now it just amazes me to think of the way she livened up when we had grown friends. I have heard her laugh, sir! I have heard her laugh quite happily, though her cash was melting like an ice-cream in an oven; though she had come to tremble each time she changed a gold piece; though she had come to shudder at each sunset that brought her nearer to the End. It was only this afternoon that she told me the cir- cmnstances ! I had seen she had anxiety, and I — asked questions. I looked to meet her again this evening, but I got a letter instead to say I should never meet her any more. When they handed me her letter she had — ^gone." "You don't mean she — she's dead?" I whis- pered. "Not yet," he said. "She wrote that our friend- ship had helped her some; she wrote that she was going back to her old lodging, and would strug- gle on. But she resigned her position, and she has changed her last bank-note — ^how long do you surmise that she will have the heart to struggle?" ^8 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN He lit another cigar; and among the jewelled, exotic crowd we stared absently over the rail at the humble flock of weary trippers who lacked the shillings to come in. One may do worse than cross to Ostend merely to stand by that slender rail and watch the two worlds that it divides. At last I said: "She must have liked you very Bauch: her feelings for you made her want to live ■■ — and then, to remain here with you, she squan- dered the money that she needed to keep her alive!" "It makes me feel good to hear you say so," he returned. "It is not encouraging that she has disappeared, knowing that she had never men- tioned even the quarter where she lodged; but it would be the proudest moment of my life if that little lady would consent to marry me. When we get up we shall say 'Good-bye' — I am starting for London right away." "Without a clue to her address?" "Yes, sir, without a notion. I don't know where she lodged, and I don't know where she worked, and London's a mighty big city; but I estimate there are about two sovereigns between that woman and the river, and I have to find her before they're gone." In his glance I saw the grit that had built his fortune. I tried to be hopeful. THE WOMAN WHO WISHED TO DIE 49 "If she's hunting for a situation she'll look at the newspapers," I said. "She will look at the columns that interest her," he answered, "but I mayn't advertise on every page." "You can pay for inquiries." "You may bet I'll pay; all that worries me is that inquiries go slow." "I suppose you don't know which bridge it is she crosses every day?" { "We can build no hopes on the bridge," he replied; "I did not interrogate her — I did not suspect it was to be our last meeting." "She may struggle longer than you think; she may be brave." "You mean it kindly," he said, "but you have heard her history! I opine that I've got to dis- cover that address within a week — I am racing against time. There's just this in my favour, she has a name to be noticed. She's called 'Joanna Faed,' and I guess there can't be many women called that, even in a city the size of London." "What an extraordinary thing!" I faltered. "I can give you 'Joanna Faed's' address on half a hundred receipts. Why, she must be the lady who typewrites my stories for me!" FRANKENSTEIN II I WAS at the Throne Theatre to see Orlando Lightfoot's comedy. Entering the buffet, in the first interval, I met Orlando Lightfoot. "Hallo, old man!" I said. "Congratulations in large quantities." "Thanks," said the new dramatist. "Have you seen it before?" "No; but I saw in the papers that it was an 'emphatic success.' How beautiful Elsie Millar is in the part!" We induced one of the personages behind the bar to notice that we were present, and removed our glasses to a table. Orlando sighed heavily. "What's your trouble?" I inquired. "My 'emphatic success,' " he said. "But it's too long a tale to tell you now — I suppose you want to see the second act?" The vindictiveness with which he pronounced the last two words was startling. I stared at him. "My dear Orlando " I began, but he cut me short. "Call me 'Frankenstein' !" he groaned. "Like Frankenstein, I've constructed a monster that's 50 FRANKENSTEIN II SI Hestroying me. Before I created this accursed comedy I was a happy man." "It must have been a very long while before," I said. "When I had the misfortune to share your rooms, you used to remark casually at breakfast that you wished you were dead." "Anyone is liable to express dissatisfaction in moments; but on the whole I was cheerful and buoyant, especially when you were out," he in- sisted. "I frequently had as much as five pounds at the time. I'm not boasting; you know it's true. Five pormds at the time is prosperity, if a fellow hasn't got a monster to support. Since I wrote the comedy, a five-pound note has been as ephemeral as a postage stamp. I pinched and pawned to start the monster in life. What it cost me in typewriting alone would have kept me for a month. It has gorged gold. It has de- voured my All. And now, by a culminating stroke of diabolical malice, it's breaking my heart." "There's nearly a quarter of an hour before the act," I said. "Give me a cigarette and the story — I want one badly; an appreciative editor is eager to send a cheque." "Halves?" asked the author of the "emphatic success." "Halves," I agreed. S2 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN "Well," said Orlando, "the devil tempted me in the pit of the Vaudeville one night. Elsie Millar was in the cast ; she had very little to do, but, as usual, she did it exquisitely. I had al- ways admired her, wished I knew her, and that night I thought, 'By Jove, wouldn't I like to write a big part for her! Wouldn't she make a hit if she only got the chance !' I came out after the performance imagining her in the sort of part she's playing in the monster. A plot was beginning to put its head round the corner, and I wandered out of the Strand on to the Embank- ment trying to get hold of it. The Embank- ment was deserted, and the river " "Yes," I said. "Cut that kind of thing— I can put it in when I do the writing. I don't want to miss any of the second act." "Well, I went to bed about three o'clock with a plot that enraptured me. When I woke up and saw it in the daylight, it didn't look quite so fetch- ing — as is the way of plots et cetera; still, it had good f eatiu-es, if it wasn't a Venus, and I curled its hair, and titivated it generally, till it was fas- cinating again. The dialogue was the most in- teresting work — especially the love scene; I en- joyed that. It was like making love to a nice girl myself, and saying the right things at the time instead of thinking of 'em afterwards. I FRANKENSTEIN II 63 ought to have been turning out stuff for the pa- pers, but I let them slide, and at last the play was finished. It sounds as rapid as filling your pipe, told like this ; when you do the story you should stress the alternate ups and downs of the busi- ness : the nights when I wrote epigrams and felt like Pinero, and the mornings when I read 'em and felt like cutting my throat. Don't forget that. It's real." "I'll remember," I said. "I'U have a para- graph on it." "Well, I had two copies of the thing type- written at Miss Beck's, in Rupert Street; and pretty they were, tied up with pink bows — till I put in all the improvements I had thought of after I posted to her. The improvements I had thought of after I posted to her made such a mess of the copies that I had to have two more typewritten. However, I couldn't pretend she was dear, and I paid and looked pleasant. Guile- lessly, I imagined my expenses were over. "Sonny, they were just beginning! Miss Beck's bill was only the preface. A man who knew the ropes told me I should be a fool to have the scrip hawked about before it had been copy- righted. 'How do you do it?' I said. 'Oh,' he said, 'it's very easy. You give a private perform- ance of the piece in a building licensed for public 54 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN entertainments. There are a few details to be observed.' When I grasped the details I knew I had committed a reckless extravagance in writing a play. I examined my belongings, and doubted if they would run to luxuries like this. Still I had constructed the monster, and it had its claims. I did my duty by it. "I hired a hall in Walthamstow for an after- noon. I invented two columns of Fashions for Men to pay for the hall in Walthamstow. Whip- ping a tired brain, I invented them — and then they fetched eighteenpence short of the rent. I posted one of the nice, clean copies of the mon- ster to the Lord Chamberlain to read. I didn't want him to read it — especially since I had learnt the compliment was to cost me guineas — but that was one of the 'details to be observed.' I had to pawn my watch for the Lord Chamberlain. And he didn't even send the nice clean copy back — he buried it in archives. More typewriting ex- penses ! After that I had to have the parts type- written. My dress clothes paid for the parts. Then I had to advertise for artists to read them. I got my 'artists' cheap — a half-crown a head, but my watch-chain went after my watch, and the monster began to attack my library. 'Any more "details"?' I asked. 'One or two,' said the man ; 'you must have a couple of playbills print- FRANKENSTEIN II 59