I, 1 1'. R A R ^' 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ! I I I NOIS 
 
 * .
 
 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND
 
 NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. 
 
 CORINTHIA MARAZION. By Cecil Griffith. 3 vols. 
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 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE : Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. 
 
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 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, 214, Piccadilly, W.
 
 THE 
 
 DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 Jl '^lovcl 
 
 GRANT ALLEN 
 
 author of 
 
 in all shades,' 'this mortar. coil,' ' the tents of sheim,' 
 
 ' dumaresq's daughter,' etc. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 ilontion 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1892
 
 V. I 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. HIS FIRST BRIEF - - - - 1 
 
 V II. THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION - - 21 
 
 III. TETE-A-TETE - - - - - 42 
 
 IV. CROSS-PURPOSES - - - - 56 
 V. AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE - - - 76 
 
 VI. THE AVAY OF THE WORLD - - - 95 
 
 ,_ VIL SHARP PRACTICE - - - - 113 
 
 •^ VIIL DRASIATIC INTELLIGENCE =■ - - 134 
 i 
 
 IX. IN DUCAL CIRCLES - - - - 148 
 
 \J X. A THUNDERBOLT FALLS - - - 164 
 
 ■- XI, TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION - - - 185 
 
 ■^ XIL THE DUKE PLUNGES - - - 209 
 
 XIIL DISILLUSIONED - - . . 232 
 
 XIV. MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED - - 247 
 
 ■4^
 
 THE 
 
 DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF. 
 
 Basil Maclaine, Esquire, of the Board of 
 Trade, laid down the World with the air of a 
 man who has refreshed his soul with the 
 pleasures of good company. And, indeed, 
 he had been revelling, at the cheap rate of 
 sixpence, in the very highest society this 
 realm affords. ' Great dance at the Simp- 
 sons' last night, I see,' he said, taking up his 
 coffee-cup in his other hand ; ' and Bertie 
 Montgomery's lost a cool thousand again over 
 that good-for-nothing two-year-old he entered 
 for Ascot.' 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 2 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 'Who art' the Simpsons?' his companion 
 asked, by way of reply, helping himself as he 
 spoke to a third large shce of toast, and look- 
 ing up with an innocently frigid smile at 
 Basil's handsome countenance. 
 
 Basil twisted his black moustache gingerly 
 between finger and thumb in a preoccupied 
 way as he answered offhand, with the easy, 
 knowing air of the young man about town, 
 * Why, Lady Simpson's, of course. There's 
 only one Ladj' Simpson in London, isn't 
 there ? Sir Theodore's wife, you know — the 
 great gout and gravel doctor.' 
 
 * Oh, ah!' his companion replied, shutting 
 his mouth very firmly. * I don't know them.' 
 Then, after a short pause, pointedly, ' Do j^ou, 
 Maclaine ?' 
 
 The young man about town, thus seized at 
 a disadvantage, took a large piece of kidney 
 and a crisp bite of toast, both which esculents 
 he thoroughly chewed with slow deliberate- 
 ness (in a way that would have satisfied even 
 Sir Theodore himself, that rigid advocate of
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 3 
 
 complete mastication), before lie answered, 
 somewhat crestfallen, and with a forced smile, 
 ' Well, I don't precisely Tcnoiv them, you know ; 
 not quite exactly what you may call know 
 them ; though I see them about sometimes, 
 Harrison, at "At Homes," and so forth. But 
 one likes to hear what's going on in the world, 
 any way, of course, doesn't one ?' 
 
 ' Of course,' Douglas Harrison answered, 
 with prompt acquiescence, glancing at his 
 own hastily-read morning paper on the easy- 
 chair close by. ' One likes to keep count of 
 how the world wags. Seen that remarkable 
 compromise in the tailors' strike yesterday, 
 by the way ? The men seem to have be- 
 haved extremely well, and they've got the 
 extra half-hour they were fighting for at last 
 out of those wretched sweaters.' 
 
 ' Oh, indeed, have they ?' Basil Maclaiue 
 echoed, half stifling a yawn. ' How very 
 interesting!' It was his turn to shut his 
 mouth tight with a snap now, and look pro- 
 foundly unmoved. For you may take it as a .
 
 4 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 general principle in life that whenever a man 
 says to you, * How very interesting !' he wishes 
 to give you to understand, in the politest 
 possible way, that the subject on which you 
 are speaking bores him ineffably. 
 
 ' Yes, they've got the half-hour at last,' 
 his friend went on, musing. ' And Bertie 
 Montgomery's thousand would have got it for 
 them a week ago, and saved these poor souls, 
 ^vith their wives and children, seven long 
 days and nights of suspense and misery. 
 Bertie Montgomery's thousand ! Gone on a 
 racehorse! By the way,' he continued sud- 
 denlj^ pulling himself up short against a 
 new-laid egg, ' who is Bertie Montgomery, 
 now I come to think of it ?' 
 
 The young man about town winced visibly. 
 • Why, Lord Adalbert Montgomery, don't you 
 know,' he answered, with a testy little snort. 
 ' Of course you've heard of him — the Duke of 
 Powysland's younger brother.' 
 
 ' And do you know him, too ?' Harrison 
 went on, smiling.
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 5 
 
 'No, I don't,' Basil Maclaine replied, 
 cornered once more. ' What a fellow you 
 are to nail a man down ! I've only met him.' 
 
 ' Where ?' 
 
 The lover of good company paused and 
 hesitated. ' At Goodwood,' he answered at 
 last, after a short mental struggle. 
 
 * Then why the dickens do you call him 
 Bertie ?' his friend asked mercilessly. For 
 Basil was quite right. If ever there was a 
 man for getting you down and sitting firmly 
 on top of your vanquished head, that man 
 was certainly Douglas Harrison. 
 
 ' Well, everybody calls him Bertie,' the 
 young man about town remarked, on the 
 defensive now. ' He's universally known as 
 Bertie in Society.' 
 
 'But I'm not in Society,' Harrison inter- 
 posed, with bland persistence. 
 
 ' Well, then, hang it all ! I'm sure I'm 
 not,' Basil Maclaine answered, half nettled at 
 his friend's quiet rebuffs. ' But I talk of 
 people as I hear them talked of.'
 
 6 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 * I don't think it's good form to talk of 
 people one doesn't know by their Christian 
 names — above all, in an abbreviated shape, 
 especially when they happen to belong to the 
 great and the mighty,' Harrison remarked 
 decisively. 
 
 ' You think it snobbish ?' 
 
 ' Well, I wouldn't have put such a hard 
 name as that to it exactly, myself ; but if you 
 choose to suggest it, I think it might possibly 
 be mistaken for snobbishness by a casual 
 observer. It leads people to think you're 
 pretending to an acquaintance that, as Kant 
 would say, has no objective reality answering 
 to it anywhere.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine went on chewing away at 
 his kidney with most meritorious vigour. Sir 
 Theodore would have voted him a gold Glad- 
 stone medal in open competition for the prize 
 masticator. But he said nothing. The fact 
 was, he had a profound respect for Douglas 
 Harrison's opinion on all matters affecting 
 the etiquette of the world ; for, to Basil
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 7 
 
 Maclaine, human life envisaged itself as a 
 sort of organized quadrille, which you must 
 walk through decorously according to a fixed 
 measure ; and, being himself a well-to-do 
 Birmingham tradesman's son, of very remote 
 Scotch descent, he felt he was less acquainted 
 with the steps in that polite gavotte than his 
 friend Harrison, who was a gentleman born, 
 the produce of an established country rectory. 
 He had no great opinion of Harrison's views 
 on subjects generally, to be sure, for Harrison 
 was what he called eccentric. Basil thought 
 him a trifle too sentimental and ' soft in the 
 head,' as he himself would have phrased it, 
 in his ideas at large ; but in all matters per- 
 taining to the established quadrille of human 
 life he recognised at once that Harrison, so 
 to speak, knew the figures. Was he not a 
 scion of the beneficed clergy, nursed at 
 Rugby, polished at Christ Church, and learned 
 in all the learning of the Inner Temple ? 
 On any other question, therefore, the young 
 man about town would have fought it out to
 
 S THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 the bitter eud ; but on a question of manners 
 he knocked under on the nail, and solaced 
 himself for his defeat by taking another 
 stewed kidney. 
 
 * They're very well cooked,' he observed, 
 with a critical air, ladling out a mushroom or 
 two on to his plate at the same time. * But 
 then she always does cook well. She's a 
 perfect treasure of a housekeeper, in her way, 
 that girl is.' 
 
 ' You don't mean to say you think she 
 cooks them herself, though, do you ?' Douglas 
 Harrison exclaimed, with a face aghast at the 
 bare thought of such desecration. 
 
 * Who ? The girl ?' 
 
 ' What girl ? Not Miss Figgins ?' 
 Basil Maclaine laughed outright at his 
 neighbour's outraged look. ' Well, I suppose 
 she does,' he said, twirling his moustache 
 once more, this time complacentlj^ ' I've 
 always taken it for granted. Anyhow, they're 
 devilish well cooked, I know that much. If 
 she doesn't stew them herself, she most
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 9 
 
 efficiently superintends the subordinate who 
 does them.' 
 
 ' The stipendiary ?' 
 
 * Yes, the stipendiary. Though I should 
 think that creature far too stupid to do any- 
 thing right, even under the most efficient 
 supervision on earth — say Miss Figgins's.' 
 
 The two young men were breakfasting 
 together, as was their wont, in their own 
 hired house (or rather chambers), situated in 
 that commodious and central thoroughfare 
 known as Clandon Street, Bloomsbury. Their 
 sitting-room, which they shared together, was 
 neither large nor luxurious ; but it was grace- 
 fully and tastefully furnished throughout, and 
 daintily papered, in a way very rare indeed 
 in London lodging - houses. When casual 
 visitors observed to Basil Maclaine, with an 
 approving smile, ' How awfully pretty your 
 rooms are !' the young man about town used 
 to draw himself up consciously, cast about 
 him a careless eye, and drawl out in answer, 
 ' Well, yes, they are pretty. One can do so
 
 lo THE DUCHESS OF POU'YSLAND 
 
 much nowadays, you see, with very little 
 money or even trouble if one only has a spark 
 of native taste in the w^ay of decorating.' 
 But when they made the same remark to 
 Douglas Harrison, that too candid young 
 counsel learned in the law would answer en- 
 thusiastically, with a glance towards the door, 
 * Oh yes ; aren't they just nice ! Our land- 
 lady's such a clever, deft -handed body. 
 She's a lady by nature, you know,- with real 
 instinctive artistic feeling, and she makes 
 everything she touches look so bright and 
 beautiful !' 
 
 Whence it may be inferred by a wise reader 
 that in the struggle for existence, where the 
 fittest survive, Mr. Basil Maclaine had been 
 far better endowed with natural gifts for the 
 fray by his progenitors and predecessors than 
 that poor simple-minded young off-set of the 
 beneficed clergy, Mr. Douglas Harrison, who 
 gave others their due with such quixotic 
 generosity. 
 
 After finishing his kidneys Maclaine rose
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF ii 
 
 and looked at his watch — a bran-new gold 
 hunter. * Ha, a quarter past nine !' he said, 
 with a put-upon air ; 'I must be off at once. 
 It's a terrific bore having to be down at the 
 office at ten every morning. I wish to good- 
 ness I was a man of leisure like you, my dear 
 fellow — nobody's beck and call to attend to 
 but your own ! That's the way for a man to 
 live ! Why on earth didn't Providence make 
 me into a barrister, I wonder !' 
 
 Douglas Harrison smiled. ' Because it 
 preferred to pitchfork you straight into a jolly 
 good appointment at the Board of Trade,' he 
 answered lightly. ' I only wish I had half 
 your complaint and half your salary. The 
 Board of Trade's a very good place indeed 
 for a man to find himself in.' 
 
 ' Well, it's gentlemanly, anyway,' Maclaine 
 observed, with philosophic resignation, going 
 over to the mantelpiece in search of a match. 
 * There's no denying that. It's gentlemanly, 
 any way. It gives one so many points of 
 contact, you see, with the Very Best People.'
 
 12 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 By which phrase Mr. Basil Maclaine 
 always consistently designated the members 
 of our aristocratic and official hierarchy. 
 
 * And, my dear fellow, it's a certainty ; 
 that's the great point about it,' Harrison 
 answered with warmth. ' You've got your 
 work in life cut out, and you've got your 
 bread and cheese always safely provided for 
 you. Whereas here am I, after all the money 
 my poor governor's spent on me, still one of 
 the great house of Briefless, hanging on by 
 the skin of my teeth ineffectually from day to 
 day, in the vain hope that the attorneys — on 
 whose knees, like Greek gods, all promotion 
 lies — will be graciously pleased one morning 
 to wake up, of their goodness, and generously 
 recognise my humble existence. Oh, it's 
 sickening work, this waiting, and waiting, 
 and waiting, and waiting, with nothing to 
 come of it. It makes a man feel like a log 
 in the world — of no use to himself and of no 
 good to humanity. What am I, after all ? 
 A mere idle mouth at the feast of life — a
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 13 
 
 drone in the hive — a purposeless exist- 
 ence.' 
 
 Maclaine lighted his cigar at the match he 
 had struck, and puffed away contentedly. 
 * Rank socialism,' he retorted, blowing out a 
 long column of thick white smoke with an 
 epicure's enjoyment. ' Rank socialism, my 
 dear fellow, every blessed word of it. I call 
 you a jolly lucky dog myself : plenty of time 
 to look about you and reflect ; a good allow- 
 ance from the dear old archdeacon meanwhile ; 
 the entree of ever so many first-class houses ; 
 and in the end, some day, you'll get a 
 splendid big case, and wake up next morning 
 to find yourself famous. All you want's a 
 fair start in life, a chance of being heard ; 
 that's where it is, Harrison. Once rise erect 
 on your hind-legs in court and put them 
 through their paces, and you'll astonish the 
 judges, I'll bet you a sovereign.' 
 
 ' I shall astonish myself a good deal more, 
 then, I'm sure,' Harrison answered, laughing. 
 ' I don't believe I've got the cheek to make a
 
 14 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 speech, if it came to the push. My law's all 
 right, I admit, but it's my legs that are 
 shaky. I should hum and haw, I know, 
 with my knees trembling under me. Was 
 that a knock at the door? Come in, Miss 
 Figgins.' 
 
 The door opened, and Miss Figgins came in. 
 
 A casual observer would have noted first, 
 as she glided into the room, that Miss Figgins 
 was tall, dark, and extremely graceful. In 
 another moment that hypothetical person 
 would also have remarked that Miss Figgins's 
 face belied her name, for instead of being in 
 the democratic or tip-tilted stjde of beauty, 
 it was clear-cut and regular, and verj' dis- 
 tinguished-looking. Not, to be sure, pre- 
 cisely'' what is called an aristocratic face ; it 
 had too much originality and boldness of out- 
 line about it for that ; the pronouncf'd chin 
 and the calm, large eyes didn't mark so much 
 the caste of Vere de Vere as the best outcome 
 of the capable artisan type in our modern 
 community. And, indeed, at a third glance,
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 15, 
 
 the casual observer in point would probably 
 have concluded that capability was Miss 
 Figgins's most characteristic attribute. She 
 looked, in short, like a thoroughly competent 
 person— competent to rule a household well 
 or to deliberate seriously on the affairs of a 
 nation. 
 
 Both young men assumed instinctively a 
 more deferential attitude as Miss Figgins 
 entered. Maclaine was leaning his elbow on 
 the mantelshelf, in the act of departing, when 
 the knock was heard. He let the elbow 
 drop, and took his cigar from his mouth as 
 Miss Figgins, with quiet dignitj^, answered 
 the barrister's summons. Douglas Harrison, 
 on the other hand, was seated, and he rose 
 from his chair hurriedly, with a look as if half 
 of shame that Miss Figgins should have to 
 submit at all to such commonplace drudgery. 
 But the girl herself, all unconscious of their 
 action, walked up in a frank but stately way 
 to the table whence he had just risen, and 
 handed a packet and a note to the blushing
 
 1 6 THE DUCHESS OF POU'YSLAND 
 
 barrister. * A letter for you, Mr. Harrison,' 
 she said, with a quiet smile playing on that 
 still strong face of hers. ' The boy who 
 brought it is waiting for an answer.' 
 
 Douglas Harrison turned it over with a 
 look of blank astonishment. ' This is wonder- 
 ful!' he exclaimed, thunderstruck; 'extra- 
 ordinary ! miraculous !' 
 
 ' "What is it ?' Maclaine asked, putting his 
 head on one side and looking past Miss 
 Figgins. 
 
 HaiTison gasped for breath. ' Why, it's a 
 brief!' he cried faintly. 'A real live brief, 
 legibly marked, in a good legal hand, " Mr. 
 Douglas Harrison." ' 
 
 'A brief!' Maclaine and the girl both 
 echoed at once. And Miss Figgins, looking 
 across at her lodger with those large brown 
 eyes of hers, exclaimed quite naturally, ' Oh 
 dear, Mr. Harrison, I am so glad of it !' 
 
 For a minute Harrison was too busy 
 examining the impressive document to say 
 anything more about it. Then he added,
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 17 
 
 with a sigh of intense relief, ' Yes, it's really 
 for me ! Not a doubt of that. It's a criminal 
 case — a burglar, Morton and Maule say in 
 their private note ; or, rather, a client accused 
 of burglary. And they do remark he's one 
 of the men the police have long been most 
 anxious to catch, for he's considered almost 
 the most expert thief in all London.' 
 
 * Then of course you won't defend him ?* 
 Miss Figgins put in promptly. 
 
 * Of course he will,' the civil servant re- 
 joined with equal readiness. ' That's just 
 what a barrister's for — to give every man, 
 however bad, his even chance of equal 
 justice.' 
 
 ' And they want me to call upon him at 
 his present address,' Harrison continued, 
 reading, ' at his own request, as a particular 
 favour.' 
 
 ' It isn't usual, is it ?' Basil Maclaine inter- 
 posed, somewhat scandalized, what was usual 
 being to him the supreme law of existence. 
 
 ' No, it isn't exactly usual,' with a depre- 
 
 VOL. I. ^ 2
 
 1 8 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 eating cough — ' not the rule of the profession,' 
 the barrister answered. * But still, as a 
 particular favour, you know, I don't see that 
 there's any good reason against it. He's 
 committed without bail, they say, and he 
 specially desired that I, by name, should be 
 retained to defend him.' 
 
 ' Why this unaccountable popularity among 
 expert burglars ?' Maclaine put in, much 
 amused. ' By Jove ! I've got it ! He must 
 have heard you spouting those rank socialistic 
 ideas of yours somewhere, Harrison, and he 
 thought you'd be just the fellow to defend a 
 man and a brother unjustly accused of w'hat 
 you may call practical or applied com- 
 munism.' 
 
 ' A burglar,' Harrison went on, rolling the 
 words on his tongue. ' I suppose I must 
 accept the brief as a matter of business, and 
 go to see him. But I could have wished, I 
 must confess, my first client had been some- 
 thing a little bit more respectable.' 
 
 * You ought to be the last man on earth to
 
 HIS FIRST BRIEF 19 
 
 admit that he isn't,' Maclaine went on, laugh- 
 ing. * The perfect advocate believes im- 
 plicitly in the bland and child-like innocence 
 of his client — till he's proved to be guilty. 
 But I can fancy the style of innocent you'll 
 be called upon to defend. I see his portrait 
 in my mind's eye — a square-headed gentle- 
 man with close-cropped hair, a rat-trap jaw, a 
 broken nose rather wide at the wings, a pair 
 of most expansive and expansible nostrils, a 
 black eye, somewhat recently relieved by the 
 application of raw beefsteak, and an engaging 
 expression about his face of general leering 
 blackguardism. If you pull him through, my 
 dear fellow, your fortune's made. The mere 
 look of the gentleman, probably, '11 be enough 
 to condemn him in the minds of twelve in- 
 telligent and impartial fellow-countrymen.' 
 
 ' Well, I must go at once,' Harrison cried, 
 undeterred by this fancy sketch, and rushing 
 off for his hat. ' They say their client 
 desires an immediate interview.' 
 
 * I'm sorry it's a burglar,' Miss Figgins
 
 20 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 said, with a little sigh, as the barrister, no 
 longer briefless, left the room. ' I wish his 
 first case had been anything but a burglary.' 
 
 Maclaine shut the door gently behind his 
 retreating friend. 'Why so, Linda?' he 
 asked, looking at her with a more inquiring 
 glance. 
 
 The girl moved round to the other side of 
 the table, and began taking up the breakfast 
 things with perfect dignity. ' Because it's so 
 unworthy of him,' she said quietly, after a 
 short pause. But a little red spot burnt 
 bright in the middle of her cheek — a little 
 red spot not wholly of anger — as alwaj^s 
 happened, indeed, wdien Maclaine, left alone 
 with her for a moment, dropped the Miss, 
 and addressed her by her Christian name as 
 Linda.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION. 
 
 It took Douglas Harrison only twenty minutes 
 to call on the solicitors who had sent him the 
 brief (where he aroused the amused attention 
 of the clerks in the office by his deferential 
 nervousness), and then to go round in a cab 
 to Holloway Gaol, where, under present cir- 
 cumstances, his prospective client was most 
 unfortunately detained on a magistrate's 
 warrant. When he presented himself at the 
 gates, however, breathless and excited, he 
 asked so timidly whether he could see * a 
 man of the name of Arthur Eoper^ on legal 
 business connected with his defence, and 
 otherwise showed himself so obviously un- 
 accustomed to similar errands of a professional
 
 22 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 character, that the authority in charge at the 
 lodge — a portly gentleman with a braided 
 coat and a powerful voice of considerable 
 asperity — had evident doubts in his own 
 mind for several seconds at a stretch as to 
 whether in fact Arthur Roper's counsel was 
 really and truly the person he represented 
 himself to be. But in the end, after some 
 demur and some exhibition of credentials in 
 the shape of that priceless brief, the young 
 barrister was permitted to pass the large iron 
 portal without further parley ; and, being 
 handed over to the custody of a second gaol 
 official, with a big bunch of stern-looking 
 keys at his side, was quickly conducted 
 through a long blank stone corridor to the 
 man Arthur Roper's existing place of tem- 
 porary residence. 
 
 At the cell door Harrison knocked tenta- 
 tively. A voice from the other side answered, 
 * Come in !' — not in gruff and harsh tones, as 
 counsel had imagined beforehand would almost 
 certainly be the case, but with a gentlemanly
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 23 
 
 and not altogether ungenial accent. Douglas 
 Harrison waited while the official, smiling 
 broadly at the needless knock, undid a 
 ponderous bolt ; then he entered, somewhat 
 nervously, the narrow stone chamber where 
 his first employer was lounging in enforced 
 idleness. 
 
 Douglas was prepared to see a very des- 
 perate-looking and evil-faced person indeed, 
 for Mr. Roper's solicitors had described Mr. 
 Roper to him during their brief interview as 
 probably the most cunning and daring burglar 
 then at large in any part of London. He 
 had pictured to himself his first client much 
 as Maclaine had facetiously described him — 
 the living image of that typical Bill Sikes, 
 with whose supposed lineaments Mr. Punch's 
 cartoons have made us all so familiar — a flat- 
 nosed, brutal-jawed, low-browed ruffian. But 
 when he saw instead a tall, slim, well-dressed, 
 and almost gentlemanly person seated on the 
 bed, who rose up politely and gracefully 
 enough and bowed his welcome as counsel
 
 24 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 entered, Douglas Harrison drew back with 
 unaffected surprise, and hardly touched the 
 small white hand his client held out to him 
 with engaging frankness. 
 
 ' I — eh — I beg your pardon,' he stammered 
 out apologetically. ' I think there must be 
 some mistake somewhere. ... I wished to 
 see a person of the name of Arthur Roper.' 
 
 The tall, slim man bowed once more in 
 gentlemanly acquiescence. ' My name !' he 
 answered proudly, producing a card from a 
 little russia leather case in his pocket as he 
 spoke. ' Mr. Arthur Roper.' 
 
 *Ye — es; Mr. Arthur Roper,' the barrister 
 echoed, glancing at it, and automatically cor- 
 recting himself. ' But — eh — I hope you'll 
 excuse me. The names and briefs must 
 have got unaccountably mixed up at wash 
 somehow. I was told . . . my client . . . 
 Mr. Roper . . . was committed here — you'll 
 forgive my saying it, but it's in my brief — on 
 a charge of burglary.' 
 
 The tall, sHm man bowed a third time with
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 25 
 
 marked politeness, and a smile distorted his 
 pallid countenance. ' Well, yes,' he answered, 
 evidently much amused ; ' you've put the 
 right name to it. That's just precisely what 
 I'm run in this time for.' 
 
 ' But you're not a burglar ?' Douglas 
 Harrison cried, starting back in surprise. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Roper drew himself up to his 
 full height of five feet eleven inches as he 
 answered, with conscious pride, ' Well, don't 
 let's give ugly names to any gentleman's call- 
 ing ; but I'm generally considered to stand, 
 in my ov/n line, at the head of the pro- 
 fession.' 
 
 ' What profession ?' the barrister asked, 
 more astonished than amused at the man's 
 cynical shamelessness. 
 
 * Cracking cribs,' his client replied, with 
 an easy smile, and nodded his head sideways 
 knowingly. 
 
 Douglas Harrison had time to notice now 
 that Mr. Eoper, though gentlemanly-looking 
 and good-natured enough, as far as features
 
 a6 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 went, had a sinister expression lurking iu his 
 small green eyes, and an ugly smile playing 
 about the comer of his thick sensuous lips 
 that seemed the perfect incarnation of un- 
 blushing cjTiicism. He remarked also, that 
 though Mr. Roper's costume was not wholly 
 lacking in neatness or fashionable cut, his 
 collar and cuffs were a trifle grubby, and his 
 general appearance didn't seem to betoken 
 any besotted devotion to the matutinal tub. 
 In fact, he looked like a shabby - genteel 
 broken-down gentleman who has seen better 
 days, and has thro-vvn away his cleanliness 
 and his honesty together. 
 
 * But you're not guilty of the charge on 
 which you're now committed, of course ?* 
 Douglas Harrison put in hastily, feeling that 
 as a matter of the dignity of the profession he 
 must at least deceive himself into a feeble 
 behef in his client's innocence on this occa- 
 sion, at anj^ rate. 
 
 ' Of course not,' Mr. Koper echoed with a 
 cunning smile, accompanied by a faint or
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 27 
 
 almost imperceptible vibration of the left eye- 
 lid. ' It's a point of etiquette in the pro- 
 fession, you know, that this time, always, 
 one's unjustly suspected.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' Douglas Harrison inteijected, 
 hardly knowing what else he was called upon 
 to say. 
 
 ' Oh dear yes, it's a point of etiquette in 
 the profession !' Mr. Eoper went on, seating 
 himself on the bed once more, with dangling 
 legs, and motioning his legal adviser into the 
 solitary rush-bottomed chair his apartment 
 afforded ; ' and as the head of the profession, 
 I need hardly say, I'm naturally jealous of its 
 etiquette, much as the Lord Chancellor might 
 be, of course, in 3-our own line of business. 
 Still, it can't be denied that habitual criminals, 
 as a cold world chooses to call us, often are 
 wi-ongly suspected. Take my own luck, for 
 instance. That's the case with me at present. 
 They've run me in, don't you see, on a 
 trumped-up charge. Though, to be sure,' 
 and he paused rhetorically for a second, 'it
 
 28 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 was a most unfortunate circumstance, I must 
 admit, that I happened to be found in the top 
 attic, and with a sectional jemmy up my right 
 sleeve.' Saying which, with another faint 
 tremor of his left eyelid, Mr. Arthur Roper 
 laughed again melodiously. 
 
 * A what ?' the barrister inquired with a 
 puzzled look. 
 
 'A sectional jemmy,' Mr. Roper responded 
 cheerfully. * A jemmy that takes to pieces, 
 you know, like a telescope, and then fits 
 together again. They're common objects of 
 the country, of course, to people who live by 
 relieving other people of superfluous pro- 
 perty.' 
 
 ' But how do you account for j^our being 
 there, then, at all ?' Douglas Harrison asked, 
 drawing back a little uneasily from the man's 
 hilarious merriment. 
 
 * How do I account for my being there ?' 
 Mr. Roper repeated. ' Why, how on earth 
 should I know? That's counsel's business, 
 to suggest something that accounts for that.
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 29 
 
 isn't it ?' He nursed his smooth-shaven chin 
 with one hand reflectively. . . . ' Well, I 
 suppose,' he went on, after a pause, ' I must 
 have been actuated in my conduct by a mis- 
 guided attachment for the under-housemaid, 
 who slept in the next attic' And Mr. Roper 
 once more smiled audibly. 
 
 * Oh, indeed !' the barrister echoed a second 
 time, more puzzled than ever. 
 
 'Well, no,' Mr. Roper corrected himself, 
 growing suddenly more serious. ' You're 
 new to this work, and I mustn't mislead you. 
 I wouldn't really like it to be put down to 
 that. Not for worlds would I seem to do 
 anything to demean my character as a gentle- 
 man, and the head of my profession. If I 
 was trying on the Don Juan trick at all, I 
 hope I'd fly a step or two higher than a 
 common kitchen wench. Or rather a step or 
 two lower, since the under-housemaid occupies 
 a room, no doubt, at the top of the stairs, 
 while the daughter and heiress has her own 
 fair bower in less airj^ heights on the second
 
 30 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 story. However, you know, this is not 
 business. I'd better begin and tell you all I 
 have to tell, first, from my own point of view — 
 omitting incriminating facts, of course — and 
 then you can decide what sort of a defence you 
 think you'd better set up to cover it.' 
 
 ' I don't want you to tell me anything — 
 anything that would hamper me in my plead- 
 ing on your case,' Harrison put in hastily, in 
 a shamefaced way, for his conscience pricked 
 him. * Of course I can't defend you unless, 
 as regards this particular charge at least, I 
 have some reasonable ground for thinking you 
 are or may be possibly innocent.' 
 
 * Oh, that's all right, my dear sir !' Mr. 
 Eoper replied, leaning back easily, and hug- 
 ging one knee in his hand, laid across the 
 other, while he eyed his counsel with a close 
 and searching scrutiny. ' I wasn't born 
 yesterday. I understand perfectly the ways 
 of you lawyer fellows. Why, bless you, I 
 was a solicitor's clerk myself before I took to 
 the crib-cracking line ; and I had a narrow
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 31 
 
 squeak of going up to Oxford, too, and being 
 called to the bar — missed it by a fluke in a 
 scholarship examination ; detected copying 
 off the fellow next me. Oh yes, you may 
 well look surprised, but I'm a gentleman 
 born ; and whatever other mistakes I may 
 have made in my life, I hope I've done some- 
 thing at least in my time to raise the gentle- 
 manly tone of the crib-cracking profession !' 
 
 'You don't mean to say so,' Harrison 
 replied, hardly able to resist expressing his 
 contempt and disgust at the fellow's hatefully 
 brutal openness. 
 
 'Yes,' Mr. Roper went on, surveying the 
 bare wall with a stony stare of sDsthetic dis- 
 approbation, ' and I'll tell you how I came to 
 think of asking Morton and Maule to give you 
 this brief — an unknown man like you that 
 nobody's ever heard of — when I might have 
 taken the case to Montagu Williams, who's 
 got me more than once out of incredible diffi- 
 culties. But the fact is, I happened to drop 
 in at the Forum the other evening.'
 
 32 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 ' You don't mean to say,' Douglas Harrison 
 cried, ' that you attend our weekly debates at 
 the Forum ?' 
 
 * Oh, indeed I do !' the habitual criminal 
 retorted cheerfully. ' I hope I shall never 
 allow close attention to the duties of my pro- 
 fession entirely to kill out all intellectual in- 
 terests — all lingering regard for the things of 
 the mind — within me. . . . Besides,' he 
 added, after a telling pause, ' I did a little 
 business there, too, in a humble way. I 
 found a few stray articles of precious metal 
 lying about loose in gentlemen's pockets, and 
 I endeavoured to give them a lesson in care- 
 fulness by — eh— but, there, no matter.' 
 
 * I'm afraid,' Harrison said, holding himself 
 still farther aloof, and feeling that cherished 
 first brief slipping faster and faster each 
 moment from his grasp, * if you persist in 
 telling me so many unnecessary and un- 
 pleasant details I shall find it quite impossible 
 to undertake this case for you.' 
 
 Mr. Koper smiled compassionately once
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 33 
 
 more. *A11 right, governor,' he answered, 
 with a tolerant wave of the hand. ' Now 
 don't cut up rusty, just when a fellow's trying 
 to do you a good turn. The fact is, I'm 
 engaged in observing whether or not you're 
 the man to conduct this case. Well, as I 
 was telling you, I dropped in at the Forum 
 one evening this week, and heard you make 
 such a capital all-round, slap-up speech on 
 the emancipation of women question, that I 
 said to a friend of mine — a lady herself — 
 when I went home that evening, " Bess,'* 
 said I, " you mark my words — next time I'm 
 run in, hanged if I don't employ that young 
 fellow I heard talking at the Forum to-night 
 to pull me through with it !" ' 
 
 ' I didn't know I was speaking before a 
 possible client,' Harrison answered abashed, 
 but endeaf^ouring still to clutch hard at that 
 brief that so trembled to elude him. 
 
 'Well, that's just what I said,' Mr. Koper 
 went on encouragingly. * I said it, and I 
 meant it ; and now I've done it. I'm a good- 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 natured, kind-hearted sort of vagabond in my 
 way, don't you see ; and when I heard how 
 much you had to say in favour of that ridicu- 
 lous nonsense you were put up to defend, I 
 thought to myself, " That's a clever young 
 chap, by George ! and a well-spoken young 
 chap, who can make a good case out of the 
 most blooming rubbish ; and if only the 
 attorneys would give him his chance, he'd be 
 another Montagu Williams in his time, j^ou 
 bet, blow me tight if he wouldn't !" ' 
 
 * I didn't think it ridiculous nonsense,' the 
 young barrister put in honestly. * I believed 
 and meant every word I said about it.' 
 
 ' Then the more fool j^ou !' Mr. Roper 
 retorted, with unflinching candour. ' How- 
 ever, that's neither here nor there as regards 
 our present interview. We haven't met to- 
 day to discuss the woman question, or the 
 liquor question, or any other question that's 
 agitating society. What we've got to do 
 now is to prepare this defence against the 
 charge of burglary. I asked to see you
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 35 
 
 personally, instead of allowing my solicitors 
 to state the case to you, though I know it's 
 unprofessional, because the man who under- 
 takes my defence has got to have his head 
 screwed on the right way, and no mistake ; 
 and I wanted to make sure, by a personal 
 interview, of the point of view you took about 
 it. Whip out your brief then, Mr. Harrison, 
 and we'll turn to business.' 
 
 Thus recalled to the actual task in hand, 
 Douglas Harrison, with a sinking heart, laid 
 out the paper as desired, and began to discuss 
 the heads of the possible defence, and the 
 witnesses set down in the brief whom he 
 might call to prove innocence of intention. 
 Mr. Koper listened with a languid interest. 
 
 * It'll be seven years, of course,' he said once, 
 
 * if the police can prove it ; but it's worth 
 going out of your way a little bit to advise 
 these witnesses — to instruct them as to their 
 evidence ; for the fellows in the profession 
 will consider my case is a gone coon, and if 
 you were to get me a verdict, why, your
 
 36 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 fortune 'ud be made ; you'd be the most 
 popular criminal lawyer in all England the 
 day after.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' Douglas Harrison said, shrink- 
 ing back once more, ' if you insist upon giving 
 me such unpleasant hints I can't avoid the 
 inference that you wish me to suggest to the 
 witnesses what lies they must tell. Were 
 you really concealed about the premises, or 
 were you not — at 47, Brook Street — on the 
 evening in question ?' 
 
 ' Well, there's that awkward fact about my 
 hat,' Mr. Roper answered obliquely, going on 
 with the case where he last let ofif. ' That'll 
 have to be met and considered, of course. 
 To anybody who didn't know my character 
 well, now, the appearance of that hat might be 
 open to misconstruction. I confess the arrange- 
 ment of the interior was devilish awkward.' 
 
 * What arrangement of the interior ?' 
 Douglas Harrison asked with a long-dra^vn 
 sigh, for he felt this case was really getting 
 beyond his swallowing capacities.
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 37 
 
 'Well, you see,' the client responded with 
 an easy smile, ' I'd cut the lining of my hat 
 into a sort of mask with a pair of eye-holes, 
 to turn down over the face, in case I should 
 happen to be observed and followed, as I was 
 out that evening on private business. The 
 police have most unfortunately got the hat, 
 and they'll put it in, of course, in evidence 
 against me.' 
 
 * That's bad,' his counsel murmured, having 
 nothing else to say on the subject. 
 
 ' Yes, that's bad,' Mr. Roper assented care- 
 lessly, like one who recounts some petty esca- 
 pade. ' But that's not the worst of it. 
 There's another awkward fact we've got to 
 face. I happened, as bad luck would have 
 it, to be carrying in my hand a light wooden 
 cane, or at least what looked like one ; but 
 when the police arrested me it turned out, to 
 my immense surprise, to be solid steel, with 
 a knob on the handle that would fell a man 
 at a blow as easy as look at him.' 
 
 ' But you must have known that by
 
 38 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 the weight, surely!' Harrison exclaimed, 
 appalled. 
 
 * Ah yes, one would have said so ! But it 
 was painted like wood, you know ; exactly 
 resembling a common thornstick. A most 
 ingenious imitation ! And what puts the 
 police particularly upon their guard about the 
 stick's this peculiar fact — that it's precisely 
 similar to another steel stick with which that 
 poor fellow, Sergeant Holmes — you remember 
 the case ; they gave him a public funeral — 
 was nobbled at Finsbury.' 
 
 For some time past, Douglas Harrison's 
 soul had been seething within him. But at 
 those fateful words he rose and moved hastily 
 to the door. He could contain himself no 
 longer. The wretched creature's vile mur- 
 derous hints were too much for his equa- 
 nimity. He could never defend this ofifensive 
 reptile. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Roper rose up, responsive, as 
 he did, and confi-onted him in surprise. 
 
 * Where are you going ?' he asked, as
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 39 
 
 Douglas Harrison stood with his hand on the 
 door-knob, waiting for the warder, at the pre- 
 concerted signal, to come back and open it. 
 
 ' I'm going to return my brief to Morton 
 and Maule,' the barrister said resolutely. 
 
 Mr. Koper drew back as if overwhelmed 
 with astonishment. ' Going to return your 
 brief!' he cried. ' The very first brief you've 
 ever had ! Why, what in goodness's name 
 are you going to do that for ?' 
 
 Douglas Harrison looked at him with pro- 
 found loathing. ' Because I won't make my- 
 self an instrument,' he said, ' to aid and abet 
 in any way the turning loose once more upon 
 outraged humanity of such a dangerous brute 
 and cur as you are.' 
 
 Mr. Roper's face was a study to behold. 
 ' Do you know,' he gasped out, half choking, 
 * that if you return this brief, after receiving 
 instructions, and interviewing the client, and 
 worming yourself into my confidence, no re- 
 spectable solicitor in England will ever again 
 employ you ? Do you know that I'm the
 
 40 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 head of the profession in London, and could 
 have brought you clients, if you managed my 
 case well, every assize time regularly ? Do 
 you know that I'd as good as have made a 
 millionaire of you ? You're simply ruining 
 your professional prospects. I meant to do 
 you a good turn, and I was feeling my way 
 to see what you were worth ; but you're one 
 of those absurd quixotic fools that won't be 
 befriended. No solicitor in England will 
 ever again send a guinea brief to you.' 
 
 Douglas Harrison jammed his hat firmly 
 on his head, and stood with his hand on the 
 door as the warder opened it. ' I don't care 
 a pin for that,' he answered warmly. ' I 
 could never sleep in peace another night in 
 my bed if I persuaded a jury to turn such a 
 man as you loose upon the world once more 
 to rob and murder.' 
 
 * Then all I've got to say to you, sir,' Mr. 
 Roper remarked, taking a parting shot at the 
 foe as the cell door closed tight with a bang 
 behind him, * is, that you're no gentleman.
 
 THE HEAD OF THE PROFESSION 41 
 
 To worm yourself into a professional man's 
 confidence, and then round upon him like 
 that ! Preposterous ! Disgusting ! You may- 
 take it from me, sir, that you're no gentle- 
 man.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 T1&TE-A.-TETE. 
 
 When Douglas Harrison left the rooms in 
 Clandon Street that morning, he left Basil 
 Maclaine in possession, with his elbow on the 
 mantelpiece, in the very act of setting out for 
 the office. 
 
 But as soon as Basil found himself alone 
 there with Linda, he certainly displayed no 
 remarkable alacrity in preparing to sally 
 forth, as in duty bound, to the service of his 
 country. On the contrary, he stood still, 
 with his cigar pointing downward and his 
 eyes follo^ving Linda all round the room in 
 mute obsei*vance, as though annatto and jute 
 and the Board of Trade had never existed at 
 all in this United Kingdom. Imports and
 
 TETE-A-TETE 43 
 
 exports moved him not to budge. Since 
 Linda entered, his zeal for red tape had 
 diminished visibly. 
 
 As for Linda herself, she went on clearing 
 away the breakfast things in spite of him in a 
 most business-like manner, absolutely free 
 from all trace of self-consciousness, and there- 
 fore from any silly coquettish airs and graces 
 of the lodging - house order. She knew, 
 indeed, that Basil Maclaine was eyeing her 
 hard ; but for the first two minutes or so she 
 took no notice of his rapid glances. Then 
 she looked up suddenly, and said in the most 
 matter-of-fact tone possible, ' You'll be late 
 for the office, Mr. Maclaine. You told 
 Mr. Harrison you were going off three 
 minutes ago.' 
 
 Basil took out his watch once more — that 
 bran - new gold watch, with crest and 
 monogram neatly engraved upon it : ivhose 
 crest, heaven knows — as he answered quietly, 
 ' I've got twenty-five more minutes to wait, 
 Linda. Oh no, you needn't stare. That's
 
 44 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 a positive fact. I meant to walk it ; now I'll 
 take a cab. A cab rattles you down in 
 twenty minutes, easy.' 
 
 ' Why have you changed your mind, then ?' 
 the girl asked, all trembling within, but out- 
 wardly calm, and turning her great brown 
 eyes in full flood upon him. 
 
 * Because I don't often get such a chance 
 as this, you know, my child,' the young man 
 answered in a very soft voice, advancing a 
 step towards her. Linda made no effort to 
 retreat archly round the table, as most ill- 
 bred young women would have done in her 
 place, but stood her ground like a sentiy, and 
 looked him back in the face with perfect 
 frankness. Anj^body could see at half a 
 glance that whatever her artificial position in 
 life might be, well-grounded self-respect was 
 Linda Figgins's leading characteristic. 
 
 ' I've asked you before not to call me " my 
 child," ' she said with quiet reserve. ' It 
 surprises me very much you should go on 
 doing it when I've told you it annoys me.'
 
 TETE-A-TETE 45 
 
 ' Linda,' the young man said, dropping at 
 once his flippant manner, ' you know your 
 will's law to me. I'll try never to say those 
 words again if you don't like them. But 
 they come up to my tongue all of themselves, 
 somehow, whenever I'm not thinking.' 
 
 * I'd rather you did think, then,' the girl 
 answered, moving away with a certain confi- 
 dent ease, and continuing her work. ' You'd 
 please me far better by avoiding what I dis- 
 like, and by doing what I ask of you, than 
 by saying such silly things as that my will's 
 law to you.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine paused, and glanced at her 
 admiringly. She was a confounded handsome 
 girl, Linda; there was no denying it. And 
 she had such a quiet knack of keeping her 
 place and yet preserving her dignity. He 
 didn't know how it was, but if she'd been 
 a lady born, he could hardly have been more 
 afraid of her, after all this time, than he was 
 now with that London lodging-house young 
 woman. Not that she repelled his advances
 
 46 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 exactly ; on the contrary, he knew she rather 
 liked them ; but she insisted he should make 
 them exactly as he would have made them — 
 well, to one of his own equals. ' One of his 
 own equals,' he thought grandiosely to him- 
 self; for Basil Maclaine, Esquire, of the 
 Board of Trade, though neither particularly 
 high-born nor particularly well-bred, had a 
 very good opinion, after all, in a certain sort 
 of way, in his own inmost soul, of his own 
 importance. 
 
 ' Harrison's here alone with you, often 
 enough, half the day,' he went on after a 
 pause, by way of saying something to hide 
 his sheepishness ; * but I can hardly ever get 
 you for five minutes to myself without his 
 poking in his nose to hear what I'm talkiug 
 about. This is jolly good news about this 
 brief of his, though ; if he gets work at the 
 Bar, that'll take him out more in the day, 
 thank goodness!' 
 
 The girl swept off the crumbs from the 
 tablecloth with her brush as she answered,
 
 TETE-A-TETE 47 
 
 somewhat dubiously, ' Well, I'm not quite so 
 sure of that myself. It's not exactly the 
 sort of work I'd like to see Mr. Harrison 
 doing. He's too good for such business. I 
 don't want him to be mixed up with thieves 
 and burglars.' 
 
 ' Linda,' the civil servant exclaimed with a 
 reproachful intonation, ' why on earth do 
 you always talk to me so much about 
 Harrison ?' 
 
 * Because I like him so much,' Linda 
 answered, looking up. ' He's so kind and 
 good. I like him and admire him.' 
 
 Maclaine came round her side of the table 
 once more. ' I believe,' he said, half piqued, 
 ' you like him better than you do me!' 
 
 *In some ways I do,' the girl assented 
 frankly. 
 
 ' But not in others ?' 
 
 Linda let her eyelids drop slightly with a 
 natural movement. * But not in others,' she 
 repeated rather lower. 
 
 ' How do you like him best, Linda ?' the
 
 48 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 young man asked, dropping his own voice in 
 concert, and pressing his advantage. 
 
 Linda stood irresolute, with the crumb- 
 brush poised idly and lightly in her hand. 
 ' Well, it's hard to describe,' she said, looking 
 up at the gas-lamp now. ' I admire and 
 respect him for his simplicity and sturdiness 
 and goodness, I fancy.' 
 
 ' And you don't respect irie ?' 
 
 * No,' the girl answered decisively. ' I 
 don't respect you at all, Mr. Maclaine. 
 There's not so much to respect and admire in 
 you, you know, as in Mr. Harrison.' 
 
 ' But you love me, Linda ?' 
 
 The girl drew back a pace, and her lips 
 quivered. ' I never said so, Mr. Maclaine,' 
 she answered, palpitating. ' But it isn't 
 always the best men one loves most 
 easily.' 
 
 ' Why Mr. Maclaine ?' the young man 
 persisted, taking her hand in his, half un- 
 resisted. ' Why not Basil ?' 
 
 Linda let that deft and capable hand of
 
 TETE-A-TETE 49 
 
 hers lie unmoved for a second or two in his 
 without reproof. Then she withdrew it 
 hurriedly, and motioned him back with an 
 imperious wave. ' You mustn't touch me, ' 
 she said quickly, in a tone of command. 
 ' How often shall I have to tell you, Mr. 
 Maclaine, that you mustn't touch me ?' 
 
 ' And how often shall I have to tell you, 
 Linda,' the young man retorted, smiling, 
 * that you mustn't call me Mr. Maclaine, but 
 must call me Basil?' 
 
 ' That's quite a different matter,' the girl 
 answered, drawing a deep sigh, and going on 
 with her work once more in a most business- 
 like manner, as one who sternly stifles a 
 foolish fancy. ' I have a right to ask you 
 not to touch me. My hand's my own. 
 You have no right at all to ask me to call 
 you Basil. You've no right, indeed, even 
 to call me Linda — though I've spoken to 
 you about that so often that I'm tired of 
 speaking.' 
 
 ' But you let Harrison call you Linda when 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 you're alone with him,' the young man 
 pleaded. 
 
 * How do you know that ?' the capable 
 woman asked, looking up sharply. 
 
 * I didn't know it. I guessed it. But 
 I know it now, anyhow. And if lie calls you 
 so, why shouldn't I, I'd like to know, if you 
 please. Miss Figgins ?' 
 
 * That's quite another matter,' Linda 
 answered, folding up the tablecloth, the 
 opposite end of which Maclaine, darting for- 
 ward, instinctively held for her. ' He calls 
 me so as a friend. You try to put it on a 
 dififerent footing.' 
 
 * Harrison's very fond of you, too,' the 
 young man objected. 
 
 * I think he likes me,' Linda admitted, 
 replacing the tablecloth in its accustomed 
 drawer. 
 
 * Likes you !' Maclaine repeated. * Why, 
 Linda, what nonsense ! Of course he likes 
 you. He worships you. He adores you. 
 How the dickens could he help it ? Who on
 
 TETE-A-TETE 51 
 
 earth could live in the house with you for 
 a week at a time and not fall over head 
 and ears in love at once with you ? You 
 know yourself it's simply impossible. He 
 likes you every bit as well as I do, and you 
 know he does, perfectly. In other words, 
 he's just simply mad for you.' And he tried 
 once more, in spite of previous warnings, 
 to take that smooth brown hand of hers 
 in his by a rapid flank movement. It 
 was one of those olive-brown hands more 
 attractive by far than any mere dead white 
 one. 
 
 ' If you persist in doing what I ask you 
 not to do,' Linda said severely, ' I shall have 
 to go away and send up the stipendiary to 
 wait upon you in future. I only come up 
 now as a concession to friendship. If you 
 won't allow me to do as I wish, I must with- 
 draw altogether.' 
 
 Maclaine fell back yet again. ' Well, but, 
 Linda,' he said, pleading, ' if Harrison's so 
 fond of you, and you let him call you Linda, 
 
 'i:^'Ssu.oMamo>^
 
 52 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 and he calls you so as a friend, why on 
 earth should you put me on a different 
 footing ?' 
 
 Linda lifted the tray and stood hesitating 
 by the door for half a moment. ' You know 
 very well why,' she answered at last, all 
 tremulous. 
 
 * No, I don't,' Maclaine retorted. ' Do 
 tell me, Linda.' 
 
 The girl faltered a second, with the tray 
 just dexterously poised on one strong hand 
 and wrist. * Because ... I don't love him^' 
 she answered slowly. 
 
 * And you do love me ?' the young man 
 cried in eager accents, his face lighting up 
 as he spoke with genuine pleasure. 
 
 ' I never said that,' the girl answered still 
 lower. But her heart beat loud against the 
 steels in her bodice as she uttered those 
 words, and the tray trembled insecurely on 
 its dexterously-adjusted balance. 
 
 What might have happened next, or what 
 use of his vantage Basil Maclaine might have
 
 TETE-A-TETE 53 
 
 made, if a sudden chance hadn't intervened 
 to checkmate him, heaven only knows. For 
 as the young man and maiden stood there 
 irresolute, facing one another with a bashful 
 countenance, as is the way of those who 
 have just arrived at an understanding on such 
 subtle points, a man's voice from below broke 
 the perfect stillness, through which they could 
 almost hear their own hearts beat, with a 
 repeated cry of ' Linda, Linda !' 
 
 The girl started, and moved quickly, but 
 not as if flurried or surprised, to the sitting- 
 room door. ' My brother's calling me,' she 
 said. ' All right, Cecil. I'm coming in a 
 moment. I'm only just clearing up the 
 breakfast in the drawing-rooms.' 
 
 ' Good - morning, Linda,' Basil Maclaine 
 murmured in a low voice, picking up his 
 hat and glancing carelessly at his cigar, 
 which had gone dead out meanwhile. Then 
 he looked across at her with a meaning look 
 once more, and murmured a second time, in 
 still softer accents, ' Good-morning, Linda/
 
 54 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 with a long-drawn intonation on that forbidden 
 Christian name. 
 
 ' Good- morning — Mr. — Maclaine,' the girl 
 answered slowly. And Basil Maclaine knew 
 from the faint catch in her voice as she spoke 
 those words that she had almost jaelded for 
 the first time in her life and called him Basil. 
 Then she walked away from the room with 
 the same erect carriage and firm step as ever 
 to go down to her brother. As soon as she 
 was gone, Basil Maclaine, consulting his 
 watch languidly for the third time, and re- 
 lighting his cigar, observed to himself as he 
 strolled away towards the landing, ' She's a 
 confounded fine girl, upon my soul ! Linda is ; 
 and I really do believe, if it hadn't been for 
 that nuisance of her brother's interrupting us, 
 I should actually at last have got a kiss out 
 of her this time.' 
 
 With which consolatory and self-flattering 
 reflection of an end almost achieved, he drove 
 ofif in an exceptionally^ good humour to the 
 Board of Trade, admiring the twirl of his
 
 TETE-A-TETE 55 
 
 own moustache as he went in the little strip 
 of mirror at the side of the handsome which 
 the acute commercial instinct of the carriage- 
 builder has conceded of late as a peace- 
 ofifering to the genius of human vanity.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES. 
 
 Basil Maclaine and Douglas Harrison oc- 
 cupied the first-floor suite of rooms — techni- 
 cally known as ' the drawing-rooms ' — in 
 Miss Figgins's Furnished Apartments for 
 Gentlemen in Clandon Street, Bloomsbury. 
 The suite below — technically described as 
 ' the parlours ' — were filled by Linda herself 
 and her brother Cecil. It was nothing short 
 of grotesque, Douglas Harrison always felt, 
 to address that queenly creature in her 
 statuesque beauty by such a ridiculously 
 plebeian name as Miss Figgins ; but since 
 Providence and her progenitors had so willed 
 it, he consoled himself with the thought that 
 in all probability before many years were out
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 57 
 
 she would see cause to exchange it for another 
 and more euphonious one. Meanwhile, he 
 minimized the evil as far as possible by 
 employing to her in private life her Christian 
 name of Linda. He had first adventured 
 such familiarity in fear and trembling as a 
 tribute to friendship ; but Linda's gracious 
 permission to use the shorter mode of address 
 was so frankly and readily conceded that he 
 used it now, in spite of his native shyness, 
 with perfect freedom. 
 
 ' What were you doing so long upstairs, 
 Linda ?' her brother asked, when she went 
 down to ' the parlours,' tray in hand, after 
 clearing the breakfast-table. 
 
 Any other girl in her place would most 
 likely have answered : ' Taking away the tea- 
 things, Cecil.' But Linda's ways were not 
 as other girls' ways — she was infinitely more 
 independent and more transparent. ' Talk- 
 ing to Mr. Maclaine,' she replied truth- 
 fully. 
 
 ' You talk a great deal too much to Mr.
 
 58 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 Maclaine, in my opinion,' her brother said, 
 half displeased. 
 
 * That's entirely a matter for my own con- 
 sideration,' Linda answered, not haughtily, 
 but with a quiet self-respect. ' My talking 
 can only hurt myself; and we're nothing here, 
 surely, if not individualist. What have you 
 come back for so early, Cecil ? Are you look- 
 ing for anything ?' For her brother had 
 returned from the tube works in his working 
 clothes, at a most unaccustomed hour, and, 
 standing on a chair, was rummaging ineffec- 
 tually among the tacks and screws of the tool- 
 box in the corner cupboard. 
 
 ' I can't find that magnesium wire,' the 
 journeyman engineer replied curtly, without 
 noticing his snub. ' There's a job on at the 
 works just now I'm showing the foreman how 
 to do, and I want an end of wire to light up 
 the inside with a little. It's a ticklish piece of 
 machinery for these rough fellows to attempt ; 
 it needs a quick, trained hand and plenty of 
 light to do it.'
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 59 
 
 * The magnesium wire's precisely where 
 you left it last, my dear boy,' his sister 
 answered with provoking coolness, producing 
 it, ' here in that coil you were working at 
 yesterday. You're a first-rate mechanician, 
 Cecil, you know, and a wonderful fellow for 
 electric apparatus ; but you must admit your- 
 self you're not strong on tidiness. If you 
 hadn't got me to clear up things behind you, 
 I don't know how you'd ever get along with 
 your models, anyhow.' 
 
 The engineer looked down with fraternal 
 admiration into her great brown eyes. ' I 
 don't want to flatter you up, Linda,' he said 
 in a tone of profound conviction, taking the 
 little roll of wire from her hands gingerly 
 with his black, begrimed fingers ; ' but I cer- 
 tainly don't know how I'd ever get along 
 without you at all, in that or in anything. 
 You're just the very helpfullest and most 
 methodical woman I ever did come across.' 
 
 * *' It was the best butter," said the March 
 hare,' Linda quoted, laughing. ' Now, after
 
 6o THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 all that, sir, what do you want me to do next 
 for you ?' 
 
 Her brother smiled. ' Not such a bad 
 shot,' he answered good-humouredly. ' Do 
 copy that drawing of the crank attachment 
 out on a clean sheet before I come home, 
 there's a dear, good girl. Are you busy this 
 morning ?' 
 
 * Not very,* Linda replied, glancing aside 
 at the type-writer that stood idle in the 
 corner. ' I've just got to help the stipendiary'' , 
 as Mr. Harrison calls her, to make the beds 
 and dust the rooms ; and then I've got to 
 see about the pudding for dinner ; and then 
 I shall finish type-writing that manuscript of 
 Mr. Hubert's — it's got to go into the printer's 
 to-night, you know, for Saturday's AthencEum 
 — and after that, why, I shall be quite at 
 leisure. I'll have time to copy out the crank 
 before they're back in the evening, if nothing 
 unforeseen interferes to prevent me. Any- 
 how, I'll do it for you to-night at latest.' 
 
 ' That's right,' her brother exclaimed with a
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 6r 
 
 grateful nod (for he wouldn't touch and stain 
 her clean hands for worlds with his own 
 labour-soiled fingers). ' You are a brick, 
 Linda, and no mistake ! You're worth any 
 man a clear hundred a year. He'll be a 
 lucky fellow, whoever gets you. Though 
 what '11 become of the models and things 
 when you're married and done for. Heaven 
 only knows. But there, my best comfort is, 
 that the nicest girls never by any chance 
 manage to get married.' And with that 
 concise epitome of the philosophy of matri- 
 mony as his parting gift for his sister's 
 consolation, the brisk young engineer dashed 
 hastily through the hall, down the front-steps, 
 and round the corner to the neighbouring 
 tube works. 
 
 But Linda stepped briskly upstairs, all 
 outward calm, to make the beds with Emma, 
 the lodging-house factotum, whom they called 
 the stipendiary, while within, her heart was 
 full of Basil Maclaine and the easy, meaning- 
 less, captivating things he had said to her
 
 62 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLASD 
 
 just before in the privacy of the drawing- 
 rooms. 
 
 An hour or so later Douglas Harrison re- 
 turned, somewhat dispirited, from his visit to 
 the gaol. As soon as his footsteps fell dull 
 on the stairs, Linda ran up, all inquiry, from 
 the kitchen, where she was engaged in the 
 manufacture of that pudding for dinner — her 
 famous Mrs. Thorpe — and caught a glimpse 
 of his back as he disappeared slowly and 
 heavily towards the drawing - rooms. The 
 very look of that back told her quick 
 feminine eye at once all was not well, and 
 she tried to slink away unperceived into the 
 kitchen again. But Douglas had caught her 
 light footfall upon the landing as she slunk 
 off, and called over eagerly, ' Is that you. 
 Miss Figgins ?' 
 
 It was always ' Miss Figgins,' officially of 
 course, within earshot of the stipendiary or 
 his fellow-lodger. 
 
 ' Yes, Mr. Harrison,' Linda answered, 
 half returning and waiting on the step. ' I
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 63 
 
 heard you come in, and I thought perhaps 
 you might be in want of something.' 
 
 ' I am in want of something — in fact, of 
 sympathy,' the barrister said in a very low 
 voice, catching Linda's bright eye over the 
 edge of the banister. ' Are you very busy 
 just now ? Coukl you manage to spare me a 
 tiny ten minutes ?' 
 
 ' Not very busy,' Linda answered, unfasten- 
 ing her kitchen apron and tripping upstairs 
 yet again with untiring energy. ' You're 
 disappointed, Mr. Harrison ? The brief 
 hasn't come off? You've found there's some 
 hitch or other about defending the burglar ?' 
 
 Douglas Harrison sank down into the easy- 
 chair with the boneless collapse of a 
 dispirited man, and told her in brief the 
 strange story of his interview with the head 
 of the profession. Linda, all sympathetic, 
 stood with an official duster ostentatiously 
 displayed in her pretty brown fingers, leaning 
 against the mantelpiece in one of those 
 graceful attitudes which came to her naturally.
 
 64 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 As soon as Douglas had finished, she stepped 
 over and took his hand quite unaffectedly in 
 hers, as a sister might have taken it. ' It's 
 a disappointment, of course, Mr. Harrison,' 
 she said in a sweetly soothing voice, ' but I 
 confess I'm not altogether sorry for it. It 
 may have been foolish of me — I don't know 
 the ways of lawyers — but I couldn't bear 
 to think you should take up such a case. If 
 you'd really taken it up, I should never quite 
 have been reconciled to the desecration of 
 your talents.' 
 
 ' Then you think I did right, Linda ?' the 
 barrister asked anxiously, as one who attached 
 great importance to her favourable opiaion. 
 * You think it wasn't silly of me ?' 
 
 * Of course you did right,' Linda answered 
 with conviction. * You did just as I should 
 have expected of you. If you hadn't done 
 so, I should have been quite disappointed in 
 you.' 
 
 * No, you don't really mean that!' the 
 young man cried, beaming.
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 65 
 
 * Yes I do,' Linda answered with grave 
 seriousness. ' I expect a great deal from 
 you, you know, and I always find my expecta- 
 tions fulfilled. You're a person one can 
 depend upon.' 
 
 * Well, that is good of you, Linda !' the 
 barrister answered, still holding her hand, un- 
 reproved, in his own, for Linda never at- 
 tempted for one moment to withdraw it from 
 Douglas Harrison. ' If you think I did right, 
 that's more than enough for me. I attach so 
 much importance always to your judgment, 
 Linda.' 
 
 * Thank you,' the girl said simply ; ' you're 
 always very kind and good, Mr. Harrison.' 
 
 The young man paused, and stared for a 
 moment at the empty grate. ' And yet,' he 
 went on, in a dreamy sort of way that Linda 
 knew well, ' it ivas a disappointment ; I won't 
 deny it. I almost hoped that if only I could 
 once see my way clear in life there might be 
 some chance, perhaps . . . that some day 
 . . . hereafter ' He broke off suddenly, 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLASD 
 
 and looked with a timidly-inquiring glance 
 into those great earnest eyes of hers. 
 
 Linda shook her head with unalterable 
 decision. ' No, no, Mr. Harrison,' she said 
 firmly. ' No more of that, you know. I 
 thought we'd agreed that subject was never 
 again to be re-opened betw^een us. If you're 
 going to talk so, I must run down to my 
 work. And, indeed, I must run down to it 
 now, in any case. I've such lots to do — the 
 pudding to make for dinner, and Mr. Hubert's 
 manuscript to copy for press, and a drawing 
 to finish for to-night for my brother.' 
 
 Douglas Harrison jumped up, full of 
 penitence, at once. ' And I've kept you here 
 talking so long about this wretched brief,' he 
 said, ' when you were wanted elsewhere ! 
 You, the prop of the house ! the main corner- 
 stone of the establishment ! How dreadfully 
 selfish of me ! Can't I make up for it now 
 by helping you in any way ? Can't I — oh — 
 can't I manage that manuscript of Hubert's, 
 for -example ?'
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 67 
 
 Linda shook her head with a capable smile. 
 ' Oh dear no !' she answered with true 
 feminine contempt for the clumsy male fingers, 
 ' that would never do. You can't work the 
 type-writer half well enough for press yet. 
 Your brother'd never give me another article 
 to copy if I were to send it in all full of 
 blunders. Besides, I shall have time if I go 
 off at once.' And, with a nod and a smile, 
 full of sisterly recognition, she ran off doAvn- 
 stairs, leaving the drawing-rooms irradiated 
 with a halo of glory by the bare memory of 
 her presence for the once more briefless 
 barrister. 
 
 ' She's a jewel of a girl,' Douglas Harrison 
 thought to himself as she retreated through 
 the door. ' It does make me so happy when 
 I've earned her approbation. But I wish she 
 would only feel to me as she does to 
 Maclaine. I don't know how it is, nothing 
 that I can do ever seems to make her regard 
 me as anything but a brother.' 
 
 It's often so with a certain sort of man.
 
 68 THE DUCHESS OF POU'YSLAXD 
 
 They're so thoroughly good, aud girls like 
 them so much, that they never for one 
 moment dream of falling in love with them. 
 
 That evening, when Basil Maclaine re- 
 turned from the Board of Trade, he came in 
 with an air of very conscious importance. 
 Something that had happened to him during 
 the day was evidently swelling his shirt-front 
 to even more than its usual expansive dimen- 
 sions. He was full of his grandeur. His 
 waistcoat hardly held him. It was with 
 difficulty he Hstened politely to Douglas 
 Harrison's account of the burglar fiasco. 
 
 ' The more fool you,' was the only com- 
 ment he made when Douglas had finished his 
 tale of discomfiture. Of course, you know 
 what you've done for yourself now. You've 
 knocked the bottom out of your owti profes- 
 sional chances.' And as he spoke he pro- 
 duced quite carelessly from his pocket a very 
 large envelope, which, nevertheless, bore 
 some obvious and distinct relation to the high 
 barometric condition of his personal spirits.
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 69 
 
 ' What's that ?' Douglas asked, with 
 languid interest, as Basil pretended to lay it 
 down like some unconsidered trifle. 
 
 'Oh, only an invitation,' Basil Maclaine 
 replied, ostentatiously displaying the card at 
 an illegible distance. * Garden-party next 
 Saturday. Very smart family, too, in their 
 way. I angled for it hard, I can tell you ; 
 but Charlie Simmons pulled it off at last for 
 me. I believe I'm getting into the swim, 
 after all. I'm beginning to know some of 
 the Yery Best People.' 
 
 ' Rich people, you mean. Well, I'm glad 
 of that — as it seems to give you so much 
 pleasure.' 
 
 ' It's going to be an awfully swell affair,' 
 Maclaine went on, ruminating. ' No end of 
 titles.' 
 
 ' Hubert and I are going out next Satur- 
 day as well,' Douglas Harrison murmured 
 casually, as Basil fixed the pasteboard into 
 the margin of the looking-glass in the little 
 overmantel, with an affectionate glance at
 
 ^o THE DUCHESS OF POU'YSLAXD 
 
 its printed inscription. ' Down Leatherhead 
 way. A garden-party also.* 
 
 *Not at the Venables', of Hurst Croft?' 
 the civil servant asked, with open eyes of 
 wonder. 
 
 * Yes, at the Venables', of Hurst Croft. Is 
 that 3'our place, too ? ' What a curious 
 coincidence ! Why, if I'd known you wanted 
 to go there, Hubert would have got you an 
 invitation at once without any angling. Miss 
 Venables said they were rather hard up for 
 men, I remember, and she asked if Hubert 
 could hunt up some recruits for her from the 
 Government offices.' 
 
 * You never mentioned it before,' Basil 
 cried, rather crestfallen. 
 
 ' Well, it didn't interest me,' his friend 
 replied, looking wholly unconcerned. ' It's 
 a bore having to run down all the w^ay to 
 Leatherhead just to put in an appearance at 
 somebody else's garden -part J^' 
 
 The civil servant stared at him mutely for a 
 minute in blank astonishment. How strange
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 71 
 
 a man should think so Httle of his splendid 
 opportunities for associating himself with the 
 Best People ! ' Well, Miss Venables is an 
 heiress, anyhow,' he went on, in a more 
 subdued voice, for he felt himself sat upon. 
 * They tell me she's one of the very richest 
 girls come out this season. She's a magnificent 
 match. There can't be much harm, at any 
 rate, in taking a pot-shot at her.' 
 
 ' In taking what ?' Douglas Harrison ex- 
 claimed aghast, for the whole point of view 
 was one thoroughly alien to his honest 
 nature. 
 
 ' Taking a pot-shot at her,' Basil repeated, 
 unabashed, pulling up his shirt-collar. ' Of 
 course I know I haven't much chance of 
 bringing down the game to my own gun, or 
 even, if it comes to that, of winging her. 
 Too many big swells with handles to their 
 names are sure to be aiming at her from a 
 point of vantage, and it isn't likely a 
 commoner will pot the first prize of the 
 season in the matrimonial handicap. Still, if
 
 72 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 there's anything good going in the market, 
 one would like to feel, as a matter of justice 
 to one's self, one was standing one's even 
 chance to win it.' 
 
 ' Maclaine !' his friend exclaimed in a tone, 
 of genuine disgust, ' I'm positively ashamed 
 of you !' 
 
 * Why so, my dear fellow ? All the Best 
 People marry money nowadays. Look at the 
 way our aristocracy are all going off to hunt 
 for rich wives among the unspoilt preserves in 
 America.' 
 
 ' I didn't mean that only,' Douglas 
 Harrison answered in a very grave tone, 
 * though that's bad enough in itself. But 
 how can you talk of any other woman on 
 earth when I know the way you've gone 
 about to make poor Lin — Miss Figgins un- 
 happy ?' 
 
 * Miss Figgins !' the civil servant cried out, 
 starting back in surprise. It was his turn to 
 be virtuously indignant now. * You don't 
 mean to say, Harrison, you really think it
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 73 
 
 possible I could ever in my wildest moment 
 dream of marrying Miss Figgins !' 
 
 ' I think she'd take you,' Harrison answered 
 with a carefully-suppressed sigh, ' if you were 
 to ask her properly. At any rate, it's not 
 right of you, while you're going on so with 
 her, to talk about taking pot-shots at any 
 other woman.' 
 
 ' If I were to ask properly !' Maclaine 
 repeated with a profoundly scornful ring. 
 ' If I were to give her the chance ! If I 
 were to cut my own nose off ! Of course 
 she'd take me. Of course she'd jump at it. 
 But am I likely to ask her ? He flung him- 
 self with an air of patient resignation into 
 the long basketwork chair. ' Just like your 
 aristocratic insolence !' he muttered to himself 
 half angrily. 
 
 * My aristocratic insolence !' Douglas 
 Harrison echoed with a puzzled expression of 
 face. * Why, what on earth do you mean by 
 that, Basil ?' 
 
 ' Well, that's always the way with you
 
 74 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 fellows who've got a cousin a baronet and an 
 uncle a general,' Basil replied with warmth. 
 * You think there are no distinctions of rank 
 at all outside }'X)ur own particular class or 
 caste. You think all the rest of us who 
 don't happen to be born in your exalted 
 sphere are at one universal dead - level of 
 hopeless vulgarity. You think because my 
 father's in business, while yours is in the 
 Church, I can marry a common London 
 lodging - house girl, whose parents were 
 labourers, I suppose, and whose brother's 
 a workman at the foundry round the corner. 
 As if education and position and a gentle- 
 manly employment were to count for nothing ! 
 Pure aristocratic insolence, that's just what I 
 call it.' 
 
 Douglas Harrison looked across at him 
 with a sort of pitying wonderment. ' I don't 
 understand you,' he answered slowly. ' Do 
 you mean to tell me, Maclaine, you don't 
 think she's fit for you ?' 
 
 * Don't think she's fit for me!' Maclaine
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES 75 
 
 answered hotly. ' Do you want to insult 
 me ? Put it to yourself, my dear sir — I ask 
 you, put it to yourself, and see how you'd like 
 it ! She's all very well to flirt with in a mild 
 sort of way, but do you mean to say you'd 
 marnj Miss Figgins ?' 
 
 Douglas Harrison rose and looked very 
 solemnly into his friend's eyes. ' Marry her ! ' 
 he echoed. 'Of course I'd marry her — if 
 only she'd let me, and I could aff'ord to keep 
 her as she ought to be kept, like a cultivated 
 lady. Marry her, Maclaine ! Of course I'd 
 marry her. Not fit for you, my dear fellow I 
 Why, have you eyes in your head ? She's 
 fit for anything. She's fit to be a duchess.' 
 
 'Well, all I can say is,' Basil Maclaine 
 retorted with a superior smile, ' I ain't a 
 duke ; but if I was, I could answer for one 
 thing — I wouldn't agree with you.'
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE. 
 
 When Saturday came — that much-hoped-for 
 Saturday — Basil Maclaine rose all undismayed 
 to the height of the occasion. He prepared 
 himself elaborately for mingling in Good 
 Society. No critical eye ever beheld a more 
 gorgeous expanse of spotless white linen than 
 Basil Maclaine's well -glazed shirt-front, a 
 more faultless costume than Basil Maclaine's 
 artistic suit of Scotch homespun dittos, a 
 cleaner shave than Basil Maclaine's immacu- 
 late chin, a tighter fit than the pointed toes 
 of Basil Maclaine's neat Oxford walking 
 shoes. If Sabine Venables, that coveted 
 heiress, had only known the desperate pre- 
 parations Basil Maclaine indulged in before-
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE . 77 
 
 hand for taking a pot-shot at her heart (and 
 accompanying fortune), she would, at least, 
 have felt flattered by the obvious importance 
 which the handsome young civil servant evi- 
 dently attached to the merest casual glance 
 from those beady black eyes of hers. But, 
 then, Sabine Venables was so thoroughly 
 accustomed to being paid much court to by 
 young men generally — for was she not the 
 greatest catch in that corner of Surrey ? — 
 that one extra young man, more or less, to 
 the tale of her conquests really made very 
 little difl'erence to her. 
 
 At Waterloo Station the two fellow-lodgers 
 in Miss Figgins's furnished apartments for 
 gentlemen met by appointment Douglas 
 Harrison's journalistic brother, Hubert, the 
 editor of that satirical print, the Boomerang. 
 
 ' Charlie Simmons, of the War Office, is 
 coming, too,' Maclaine ventured to observe as 
 they took their seats in the train. ' Suppose 
 we look out for him ?' 
 
 ' Oh no, don't let's,' Hubert Harrison
 
 78 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 answered, making an ugly face. ' He's such 
 awfully bad form. He's the sort of man, 
 don't you know, who always sticks his invita- 
 tion-cards in his looking-glass frame, by way 
 of advertising his social importance.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine withdrew his head from the 
 window at once, and made no answer. He 
 had always looked upon Charlie Simmons him- 
 self as very ' good form ' till that precise 
 moment ; but he registered a mental note 
 now to avoid in future the social solecism — 
 if such it were — which had brought a neatly- 
 dressed and fair- spoken fellow- citizen under 
 the ban of a censor who formed opinion in 
 the public prints of his country. For Basil 
 Maclaine was one of those numerous people 
 who live entirely for the appearances of life, 
 and have never, for even one solitary second, 
 penetrated the fact that it has any solid 
 realities at all behind them. 
 
 Charlie Simmons didn't happen to reach 
 their apartment — in point of fact, he was 
 travelling first ; while Basil, who had taken a
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 79 
 
 ticket for the same exalted mode of con- 
 veyance, had been hurried and bustled by his 
 companions, unawares, into a third - class 
 carriage — so they went down by themselves 
 in that inferior vehicle all the way to Leather- 
 head. There, they walked up a long ridge, 
 and past a handsome lodge, Hubert Harrison 
 seeming to know the way particularly well, 
 till, turning a corner in a leafy avenue, they 
 came full in sight of a big house on a hilltop. 
 It was a ruddy Queen Anne mansion of the 
 very latest pattern, plumped down among 
 immemorial elms and beeches. 
 
 ' You've been here before, I see,' Basil 
 Maclaine observed, as he stooped to brush 
 the dust of the road off those neat Oxford 
 walking shoes with his second-best handker- 
 chief — the one he kept immured in his right 
 coat-tail for such menial purposes, while the 
 clean society rag resided habitually in his 
 left breast-pocket. 
 
 ' Dozens of times,' Hubert Harrison 
 answered laconicall}'.
 
 8o THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 ' Then you know the people well ?' 
 
 * Intimately,' the journalist responded, and 
 lapsed into silence. 
 
 * It's a splendid place,' Basil Maclaine 
 remarked, glancing round him in admiration. 
 And indeed it was. He had never seen a 
 nobler. The lawn of fine turf sloped gently 
 down towards the Mickleham Valley, and 
 being gracefully planted -svith well-ordered 
 clumps of horse-chestnut, beech, and lime at 
 irregular intervals, opened up delightful 
 vistas down the wooded glen and across 
 intervening ridges to the tower-topped height 
 of Leith Hill in the distance. The sward 
 in between lay smooth and close and velvety 
 as a carpet. Great parterres of blossom 
 diversified the foreground. Just at that 
 moment, in the first full glory of summer 
 foliage, the broad shady trees of Hurst Croft, 
 against a fleecy blue and white sky, were a 
 sight to rejoice the eye of any lover of 
 nature. But it wasn't the picturesque beauty 
 of the scene that struck Basil Maclaine with
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 8i 
 
 instant admiration and delight ; it was the 
 amplitude of the grounds, the spacious 
 expanse of the lawn, the neatness of the 
 roads and paths and flower-beds, the many 
 outward and visible signs of extreme wealth 
 and social importance. He saw in it, most 
 of all, not a lovely stretch of hill country, but 
 ' a magnificent place,' the external symbol of 
 livery servants, horses, carriages, silver plate, 
 diamonds, game preserves, dances, dinner- 
 parties, and all the other vulgar gewgaws and 
 festivities that his soul would have revelled 
 in. He valued it at once as so much money's 
 worth, and so much consideration in the eyes 
 of society. 
 
 ' Yes, there's a beautiful view,' Hubert 
 Harrison answered, gazing vaguely away from 
 the lawn and the foreground towards the 
 varied outline of blue hills in the distance, 
 rising one behind the other in long perspec- 
 tive. ' But Venables pere is just a typical 
 British Philistine of the first water. He 
 doesn't deserve to live in such a lovely bit of 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 S2 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 wild country as this. He doesn't regard 
 those trees of his as trees at all ; he regards 
 them as a magnificent lot of first-class 
 timber.' 
 
 And poor Basil Maclaine had that moment 
 been reflecting to himself that if only he had 
 money to ' keep it up,' such a lovely bit of 
 finely-timbered land as that would suit him 
 down to the ground. For he, too, in his 
 callow waj^ was an unfledged Philistine. 
 
 On the terrace in front of the windows 
 half a dozen guests were already assembled, 
 chatting in a group around Miss Venables and 
 her father. 
 
 ' Your friend Beiiie Montgomerj^'s here 
 this afternoon, I see,' Douglas Harrison re- 
 marked, a little maliciously, to Basil, as they 
 approached the group. 
 
 ' Why do you call him Bertie ?' the civil 
 servant retorted, staring hard at all the guests 
 in turn to see if he could possibly distinguish 
 the scion of nobility from the common herd 
 around him.
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 83 
 
 * I do it only in inverted commas,' Douglas 
 Harrison answered, laughing. 
 
 ' Which is he ?' Basil asked at last, after 
 a careful scrutiny. * I thought you didn't 
 know him. I ... I was only pointed him 
 out just once at Goodwood myself, and I 
 don't remember him now very vividly.* 
 
 ' The noisy young man in the noisy check 
 suit,' Douglas Harrison replied, smiling. ' I 
 hardly know him myself, though I meet him 
 out sometimes ; but Hubert and he have a nod- 
 ding acquaintance. Come up, and let me intro- 
 duce you to Miss Venables and her father.' 
 
 Basil hurried forward with his best com- 
 pany smile, and raised his hat politely with 
 his first-class bow, as performed before ladies 
 of the highest distinction only. He was a 
 gentlemanly young man, in his way, as well 
 as handsome ; and if he could but for a 
 moment have forgotten his profound respect 
 for the externals of life, and considered some- 
 what its actualities, he might, perhaps, have 
 turned out a very decent good fellow. As he
 
 84 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAXD 
 
 raised his hat, responsive to Douglas's men- 
 tion of her name, Sabine Yenables made a 
 gentle inclination of her head, and beamed 
 softly upon him in her part as hostess. 
 Basil Maclaine was vaguely aware of a tall, 
 lithe figure, and a beautiful, graceful face, 
 haughty and clear-cut, but intensely pictur- 
 esque in its warm Southern beauty. She 
 looked like the paintings he had seen — by 
 Burgess, he fancied — of higli-born Spanish 
 ladies ; the same proud curl of the lip, the 
 same quick flash of the eyes, even the same 
 faint suspicion of a dark, silky fringe around 
 the delicate corners of that sensitive small 
 mouth. Altogether, a young lady by no 
 means to be trifled with. Miss Sabine Venables. 
 Basil Maclaine, as he met her, came, saw, and 
 was conquered. 
 
 A buzz of voices rang indefinitely on 
 his ears. He murmured the usual common- 
 places of first introduction about this lovely 
 garden — such a charming day — the best 
 month of the year to see England in —
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 85 
 
 delightful to get away from London dust and 
 London mud to the clear blue skies and fresh 
 air of the country. Then he fell back, 
 inarticulate, into the second row, to catch 
 and treasure up on the tablets of his soul 
 what stray scraps might fall his way of the 
 Best People's improving conversation. 
 
 ' And where's your brother at present ?' 
 Charlie Simmons was asking in a familiar 
 fashion of Lord Adalbert Montgomery. 
 Charlie had followed them up close behind 
 from the station, and greeted the descendant 
 of antique Welsh princes with cordial 
 affability, as indeed did also, to Basil's great 
 surprise, both the Harrisons, for he had no 
 idea they knew such very Good People. 
 
 'What, the Duke?' Lord Adalbert 
 answered, stroking the ends of his almost 
 imperceptible moustache with the attentive 
 affection of early youth. ' Oh, he's all 
 right; he's still at Homburg. Fluctuates 
 pretty equally between there and Monte 
 Carlo with great regularity, poor dear Powys-
 
 86 THE DUCHESS OF POIVY BLAND 
 
 land ! Never by any chance goes near 
 Llanfyllin Castle. A confirmed absentee, as 
 Harrison says in the papers. Homburg in 
 summer, Monte Carlo in winter, with flying 
 visits to England just for the Oaks and 
 Cesarewitch. Gambling himself to death at 
 all of them, as usual.' 
 
 At this Lord Adalbert smiled sweetty, and 
 Basil perceived that when he smiled he 
 showed an even row of the whitest and 
 pearliest teeth in all England. He was a 
 good-looking young fellow enough, this Bertie 
 Montgomery, and pleasant into the bargain, 
 with that nameless incommunicable charm of 
 manner which sometimes belongs as a heredi- 
 tary gift to the youngest branches of our 
 great old families. 
 
 * I should love to go to Monte Carlo so/ 
 Sabine Venables put in ; and as she spoke, 
 all the young men, Lord Adalbert included, 
 leant forward to listen ; ' but papa won't take 
 me. He's such a dreadful man about those 
 things. He says it isn't proper.'
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 87 
 
 * My dear/ the typical British Philistine 
 replied, with a deprecating cough, stroking 
 his smooth-shaven chin, ' not at your present 
 age, at least. The atmosphere's unsuited for 
 you. In four or five years' time, perhaps ; 
 but not just at present.' 
 
 ' In four or five years' time, perhaps,' Lord 
 Adalbert said, smiling, ' Miss Venables may 
 possibly have passed from your parental safe- 
 keeping.' 
 
 'Very possibly,' Mr. Venables responded 
 with a pleased and conscious air, rubbing 
 his hands softly. ' Very possibly. Ve-ry 
 possibly.' 
 
 ' In that case,' Sabine said, looking around 
 her like a queen upon her assembled court, 
 and catching Hubert Harrison's eye as she 
 spoke, ' I shall make whoever succeeds to the 
 duty take me to Monte Carlo.' 
 
 ' No doubt he'd be charmed,' Lord Adalbert 
 answered, showing his teeth once more. 
 ' I can imagine nothing more delightful 
 than '
 
 88 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 * Mr. Maclaine,' Sabine put in, darting 
 suddenly round upon him, and hauling him 
 off in triumph to where she saw a lady of a 
 certain age seated alone upon a garden bench, 
 without anyone to talk to her, ' let me intro- 
 duce you to Mrs. Bouverie-Barton — you've 
 heard of Mrs. Bouverie-Barton, of course — 
 ah ! yes ; I thought so.' Then, in a confi- 
 dential undertone, ' You'll find her a most 
 delightful and piquant talker, I'm sure. Very 
 much spread about in society, you know. 
 One of the most brilliant women in literary 
 London.' 
 
 Thus withdrawn perforce from the circle 
 round the throne and the inspiriting presence 
 of Lord Adalbert Montgomery, Basil did his 
 best to make himself agreeable, under depress- 
 ing circumstances, to Mrs. Bouverie-Barton. 
 Not that that clever lady, indeed, needed 
 much entertaining. On the contrary, she 
 included in herself, like a well-known journal. 
 a perpetual fund of original entertainment. 
 As Basil afterwards remarked to his friends.
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 89 
 
 the Harrisons, the literary lady could talk like 
 one o'clock. 
 
 ' Yes, she's a beautiful girl, Sabine,' Mrs. 
 Bouverie-Barton burst forth in answer to 
 Basil's ingenuous outbreak of admiration for 
 their charming young hostess. ' But it's a 
 pity, for her own sake, she hasn't a mother 
 to keep her in order. She's a desperate flirt 
 — proud, but desperate. She coquettes 
 eternally. And how absurdly she goes on 
 with — oh dear no, I don't mean with him ; 
 she doesn't care twopence for poor Bertie, 
 dear boy, though her father 'd give his eyes 
 for her to marry a Duke's brother — and a 
 childless Duke, too, who's killing himself as 
 hard as he can on the Continent. But I 
 didn't mean with him. That's the merest 
 flirtation — just love of power, the display of 
 her fascination — but with a much more 
 dangerous person — Hubert Harrison.' 
 
 ' Hubert Harrison !' Basil exclaimed, look- 
 ing up in surprise. ' You don't mean to 
 say '
 
 90 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 But Mrs. Bouverie- Barton didn't even 
 permit him to get a word in edgeways. ' Oh 
 yes, I do mean to say,' she ran on, interrupt- 
 ing him ; ' and it's true, every word of it. 
 Just look at her now ! Don't j^ou see she's 
 ostensibly talking to Lord Adalbert, and 
 gazing at Lord Adalbert, and answering 
 Lord Adalbert, but at every second word 
 she says, for all that, she peeps out of 
 the corners of her eyes, sideways, to see what 
 Hubert Harrison thinks of what she's saying 
 to him. I was a girl once myself — a long 
 time ago — and I know the waj^s of them. 
 She's leading Master Hubert a prettj^ dance, 
 if anybody ever led him one. He's a clever 
 boy, and a good-looking boy, and a nice boj' ; 
 and if she doesn't ruin him, he has a great 
 future before him still, for he's the smartest 
 leader-writer in London this moment. But, 
 take my word for it, she means to grind that 
 boy to powder, like Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 before she's done with him.' 
 
 ' What ! do you think she's in love with
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 91 
 
 him ?' Basil Maclaine asked breathlessly. 
 This odour of gossip about the Best People — 
 and at first hand, too — was as incense in his 
 nostrils. 
 
 * Love, my dear Mr. Maclaine — your 
 name's Maclaine, isn't it ? I thought that 
 was how I caught it. Why, what century do 
 you live in, and what on earth are you think- 
 ing of? You're talking archaeology. Our 
 young people nowadays know nothing of 
 love — the fierce, unreasoning, inexplicable 
 passion which moved the world when men 
 and things were more natural. What they 
 covet now is not hearts and darts, mutual 
 flames, and so forth, but horses, jewellery, 
 a title, an establishment. Young girls are 
 taught the value of these things when 
 they're the merest children, and they know 
 the one way for them to earn them is by a 
 good marriage. They're put in training for 
 a match, and they know they're in training. 
 Hair, figure, skin, voice, dancing, music, 
 French accent, culture — all are of importance
 
 92 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 to them onlj' as so many points to play in the 
 marriage-market. The girl's brought out at 
 last like a horse upon the course — as much 
 uncovered as possible — and every step she 
 takes, everj^ triumph she makes, every 
 costume, every conquest, every ball, every 
 drawing-room, is blazoned abroad in all the 
 vulgar publicity of the society papers. And 
 when at last she catches her rich man, and 
 nails him to her ear, they congratulate her 
 publicly on having made very good running.' 
 
 Mrs. Bouverie-Barton paused, for want of 
 breath, not Avant of words, and Basil Maclaine 
 managed to interpose a hasty sentence. ' But 
 Miss Venables has all these things already,' 
 he said. ' She doesn't need them.' 
 
 By this time Mrs. Bouverie-Barton had re- 
 covered her breath, and began again excitedly. 
 'Of course not,' she flowed on in full flood. 
 * But young Harrison needs them, and he 
 won't get them. Poor young fellows, of 
 course, never stand a chance of winning these 
 great matrimonial lottery prizes. If the
 
 AMONG THE BEST PEOPLE 95 
 
 beauty's penniless, she's bought in by wealth ; 
 if the beauty's rich, she's bought in by title. 
 Nothing for nothing's the rule of the bazaar. 
 That's the first act ; then comes the second. 
 After marriage, these young people, hitherto 
 only intent on selling themselves in the 
 dearest market, suddenly discover, to their 
 immense surprise, there's such a reality in the 
 world as love — the love they despised — an 
 irresistible energy — a force that sweeps down 
 everything before it — money, position, honour, 
 reputation. And what's the end of it all ? 
 The Divorce Court, disgrace, shame, misery, 
 suicide !' 
 
 * What a Cassandra you are !' Basil 
 Maclaine interposed with a visible effort to 
 break the current. ' But you don't think, 
 then, she'll marry Hubert Harrison ?' 
 
 ' Marry him ?' Mrs. Bouverie-Barton cried 
 with a scornful air. ' No. The idea's 
 preposterous. Old Affability — they call the 
 papa Old Affability, you know, for his smug 
 manners — he'd never for a moment allow such
 
 94 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 a match, though she likes Hubert best. But 
 she'll do as they all do. She'll marry Lord 
 Adalbert first, and then, at the end of six 
 months, she'll run away with Hubert. " My 
 dear Bertie " will do for either, that's one 
 comfort. She won't have the trouble of 
 learning a new name when she runs away 
 from her husband with the man she ought in 
 the first instance to have married.' 
 ' Then it's a usual case, you think ?' 
 ' Usual ? Why, I've offered Lord Adalbert 
 to bet him two to one in dozens of gloves 
 that whoever he marries won't live a year 
 with him. That was in confidence, of 
 course ; but he only smiled, and declined to 
 take me. He's as jealous as a toad, you 
 know ; and he smiled, but he didn't at all 
 like it.'
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Later in the afternoon, in another part of 
 the grounds, Hubert Harrison met Sabine 
 Venables face to face for a moment, behind a 
 clump of low-feathering spruce firs, whose 
 branches swept the ground, on the way to 
 the refreshment-tent, in the far corner by the 
 summer-house. Sabine smiled provokingly, 
 and tried to trip on past him in her imperial, 
 coquettish way. But the vigorous journalist 
 was not so to be baulked. ' You mustn't go 
 away so fast now, Sabine,' he said in a very 
 low voice, planting himself right in front 
 of her, and barring the path. ' I haven't 
 had ten words yet the whole afternoon with 
 you.'
 
 y6 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 ' You've had more than ten looks, then,' 
 the proud, handsome girl replied, with a little 
 incipient curtsey. ' But what right have you 
 got, I'd Hke to know, to say I majTi't go as 
 fast and as far as I choose, sir ?' 
 
 'No right,' the young man answered with 
 mannish decision, ' except that I don't mean 
 to let you, Sabine.' 
 
 ' Oh my, how fine we are ! How hoity- 
 toity ! Have I done anything, then, to ofifend 
 your majesty ?' 
 
 Hubert Harrison looked back at her, a half- 
 jealous, half-admiring look. ' You've been 
 talking all the time, without stopping, to that 
 Bertie Montgomer}^ man,' he answered, a 
 little surlily. 
 
 ' Well, and isn't it a hostess's duty to make 
 herself agreeable to all her guests — even a 
 Bertie Montgomery man ?' Sabine replied, 
 with just the suspicion of a toss of the head. 
 * Would you have me leave the entire remainder 
 of my party uncared for, to wander about alone 
 behind the trees with you, Mr. Harrison ?'
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 97 
 
 'Mr. Whatr 
 ' Mr. Harrison.' 
 ' Try again.' 
 'I won't.' 
 
 * Yes, you shall.' 
 
 ' But I don't want to.' 
 
 * I don't care what you want. I'm a man, 
 and must be obeyed.' 
 
 ' Then with you, Hubert.' 
 
 She said it so prettily, with such a delicate 
 inflexion of her lowered voice, and such a 
 graceful modest droop of her long dark eye- 
 lashes, that Hubert Harrison would have 
 been more than human if he'd even pretended 
 any longer to be seriously angry with her. 
 Besides, being a man, and having bent her to 
 his will, he was amply satisfied. ' That's 
 right, Sabine,' he answered, standing a little 
 way off and admiring her with his eyes. 
 * Now you're really nice. And how sweetly 
 pretty you do look, to be sure, in that big 
 Eembrandt-looking hat of yours !' 
 
 The proud girl relaxed once more, like any 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 THE DUCHESS OF POUYSLAND 
 
 village maiden. These proud girls always 
 will to the one man who knows the exact 
 right chord to touch upon. ' Do you think 
 so ?' she asked, glancing down at her dress 
 with a quick eye of commendation. ' Do you 
 think it suits me ?' 
 
 ' Suits you ? Down to the ground,' the 
 young man responded, measuring her with 
 his gaze from head to foot. * I never before 
 saw you look so much as if you'd stepped 
 straight out of a canvas of Velasquez.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' the girl answered, with a 
 little spot of colour rising unbidden to her 
 cheek. * I don't know why, Hubeii, but 
 whenever you pay me the least httle bit of a 
 compliment I think ten thousand times more 
 of it than when ' 
 
 ' Perhaps you like me a little bit better 
 than any of them ?' the young man suggested, 
 interrupting her boldly. 
 
 ' I never told you so, sir.' 
 
 ' No, you never told me, I admit ; but still, 
 somehow '
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 99 
 
 * Yes, beautifully blue, indeed, but not so 
 fine as yesterday,' Sabine interposed of a 
 sudden, with a warning look, as another 
 couple passed by on the further side of the 
 spruce firs. ' Now, my dear boj^ how dread- 
 fully imprudent and careless you are ! You 
 men have no gumption. Suppose that had 
 been papa, or Mrs. Walker, my companion, and 
 they'd overheard what you were talking about, 
 what on earth would you have said to them ?' 
 
 ' I don't know, I'm sure, Sabine — except 
 that I'm in love with you,' Hubert answered 
 penitently, ' and I'm not ashamed of it. 
 Now, don't go away yet, I'm not a quarter 
 done. I haven't said half what I wanted to 
 say to yoa.' 
 
 'I must,' Sabine interrupted. 'If I don't, 
 it'll be noticed. Besides, you've said a great 
 deal too much already.' 
 
 ' Oh, nonsense, my dear child ! You don't 
 mean to tell me you've brought me all the 
 way down from town to Leatherhead ' 
 
 ' Oh well, if it's such a trouble to you to
 
 loo THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 come ' Sabine began, half pouting, and 
 
 then broke off suddenly. 
 
 ' But you're not going to put me off with 
 just these few words. You'll give me an 
 opportunity — Sabine — Sabine !' — he ran after 
 her as she went — * there's something I want 
 so much to say to you !' 
 
 * I know what it is,' the pretty coquette 
 answered pettishly ; ' and I'm not going to 
 answer you. How can I, indeed, when you 
 
 know dear papa has strictly ordered me 
 
 And then there's Lord Adalbert ! And your 
 handsome friend with the black moustaches. 
 He's so awfully good-looking. I'm neglect- 
 ing my duty to all my guests, upon my word 
 I am ! I mustn't stop one minute more. I 
 must really go — do let me. I must run back 
 at once to them.' 
 
 ' But, Sabine — one word ! Miss Venables ! 
 Miss Venables !' 
 
 * Not one word more, Mr. Harrison. Take 
 me back, will you, please, over yonder, by 
 Mrs. Bouverie-Barton ?'
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD loi 
 
 For the rest of that afternooD, whether it 
 was only to pique Hubert Harrison or not, 
 Sabine Venables divided the greater share of 
 her attention between Lord Adalbert Mont- 
 gomery and Mr. Basil Maclaine of the Board 
 of Trade. It's an ill wind that blows nobody 
 good. Mr. Basil was delighted — in the 
 seventh heaven. The Very Best People 
 were taking him up. The heiress, indeed — 
 most important of all — was making herself 
 specially agreeable to him. She walked 
 about with him through the grounds as she 
 had refused to do with Hubert Harrison ; and 
 showed him the conservatories ; and Basil 
 took the privilege as a high compliment. 
 Alas ! how little he knew the by-ways and 
 anfractuosities of the female heart ! Had he 
 been better skilled in the intricate windings 
 of that interminable maze, he might have 
 been well aware that with a girl of Sabine 
 Venables' type the distinction b}^ no means 
 implied a special preference. Your true 
 proud coquette gives little encouragement to
 
 I02 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLASD 
 
 the man she really likes : she's affable and 
 natural only to those men wliom she regards 
 in her own soul as hopelessly and entirely 
 outside the running. 
 
 But as Basil Maclaine's philosophy didn't 
 embrace that psychologic principle, he hugged 
 himself all the afternoon on the flattering 
 discovery that Miss Venables was in fact very 
 much taken with him. 
 
 And indeed, he said to himself, if a sharp- 
 eyed woman of the world, like Mrs. Bouverie- 
 Barton, thought Sabine Venables displayed a 
 distinct preference for a penniless journaUst 
 like Hubert Harrison, why on earth should it 
 be so absurd to think she might also display 
 a similar preference — which, of course, could 
 conceivably ripen with time into a more com- 
 mercially valuable feeling — for himself, Basil 
 Maclaine of the Board of Trade, every bit as 
 good a fellow any day as Hubert, and a long 
 sight handsomer into the bargain ? Why 
 should one take it for granted that these great 
 tufts, like Bertie Montgomery, had all the
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 103 
 
 hearts of the game in their aristocratic hands 
 as well as all the diamonds ? For his own 
 part, Basil Maclaine detested and despised 
 these petty class distinctions — ^when they told 
 against him. He didn't see why a girl like 
 Sabine Venables — even if she did happen to 
 be rich and to be brought up in a big house 
 and in good society (among the Best People), 
 and all that kind of thing — need necessarily 
 prefer a courtesy lord, with no brains to brag 
 about and an incipient moustache, to a clever 
 and sensible and well-educated young man, 
 say, for example, in one of her Majesty's 
 Government offices. For whenever it came 
 to the classes above him, Basil Maclaine was 
 a leveller of the deepest dye ; though when 
 he had to deal, per contra, with the classes 
 below, he never could understand how any- 
 body on earth could possibly be so rude and 
 so wanting in discrimination as to confound 
 him for one moment with such a scrubby lot 
 of cads and greengrocers. 
 
 This is a common trait in the highly strati-
 
 104 THE DUCHESS OF POn-YSLASD 
 
 fied FpgliRh mind. It ignores the existence* 
 of stnta above, except when it wants to get 
 into them, but it recognises the existence of 
 strata below as Tastly beneath it. 
 
 Once, indeed, in the course of the after- 
 noon, BasQ came np a second time with Mrs. 
 Bonreiie > Barton, who was imparting her 
 views on the present crisis in the marriage 
 maikei to his fellow-lodger, Douglas Harri- 
 son, mndi as she had imparted them, in a 
 foil-flowing liver of speech, to his own atten- 
 tive eais somewhat eaiiier in the day's enter- 
 tainment. 'For my part,' she was saying, 
 as Basil joined their colloquy, * IVe always 
 maintained it was an error for any person, 
 either man or woman, to marry for money. 
 Why, the Bible even teUs us how Bebekah, 
 daog^iter of Laban — or was it his sister ? I 
 really forg^ which ; these things go from one 
 so unless one teaches in a Sunday-school — 
 was tempted by jewels of gold and fine 
 laiment to marry a man she'd nev^ seen and 
 ^^nldn't possibly love ; and what was the
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 105 
 
 eosasequsDee 7 She became a tricky, deeeit- 
 &il, TafadoBS wife, ai&d bronglit zniseiy into 
 his bouse unto flie fldid and lonrtli genera- 
 ikm. Wbxl I nj is, a man and a iraaiaEn 
 ongM to laaoy to fjease tteaadv^es. They 
 ou^ht to take iSm pwiwH iii njio ynH make fbtem. 
 happy.' 
 
 ' Yes,' Basil iiLteip(»ed laisklj, taaming 
 tiie GosrwasatMm in the diieeiian rf Ibs ovb 
 tiMNi^itB. 'BJofw absmd lliat a wokkkb. 
 shoiild be taught to look down i^on a mam 
 who is really aad trnty her efnal in cwe^- 
 tbing, just on llie gamad. oC sane fisofidb 
 diSssKSKe in the aeeidenials of positim.' 
 
 * Qnite so,' Bonglas TTMrJanM aBSWuedU 
 Teering towards bim ^lar^y wtth a lodk. faU 
 of snggestioii. ' And how absurd ihak a mam 
 should Tieotin'e t<o look down upon a wamam. 
 isimeaBBnU^ his snperior in every Tsiaahip 
 quality, just beeaose he thinks her iflafinar 
 baTe something or other to do wUh sane 
 decent trade or some honest hsndJcraft iddeh 
 he eonsidere beaeath him.*
 
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 flMw8s.v« 
 
 lie
 
 io8 THE DUCHESS OE POUYSLAND 
 
 and sundry of ' Bertie Montgomery ' without 
 the Hability to be stumped any more by that 
 awkward and disconcerting httle question, 
 ' Do you know him ?' ' Know him ? Of 
 course I do !' he could retort ghblj^ in future, 
 with the joyous exuberance of his kind. 
 * Met him down at mj'' friends, the Venables', 
 at Hurst Croft, near Leatherhead, at a garden - 
 party ; and he asked me to look in upon him 
 some evening at the Die and Hazard.' 
 
 Only once in the course of their homeward 
 walk (for Hubert was to dine with them) did 
 either of the Harrisons allude in any w&j to 
 their distinguished acquaintance, and even 
 then they didn't overtly mention him by 
 name. It was at the end of a long and deep 
 pause, during which each man pursued his 
 own train of thought uninterruptedly. Then 
 Douglas broke the silence with an abrupt 
 sentence, whose personal pronouns bore no 
 obvious relation to any known antecedent. 
 ' I don't believe she'd take him,' he said. 
 ' even if he asked her.'
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 109 
 
 ' Don't know, I'm sure,' Hubert answered 
 gloomily. ' She's such an enigma. Her 
 father'd do his best, of course, to make her 
 accept him.' 
 
 *I don't think he asked her to-day,' 
 Douglas went on reflectively. 
 
 ' I don't think he did. He can't quite 
 make up his mind to take the plunge. That's 
 the worst of these fellows. They feel so 
 beastly sure they can throw their handker- 
 chief at whoever they like, that they keep 
 watching and waiting till they're certain 
 they've got the pick of all possible chances. 
 Confound their impudence V 
 
 * She doesn't care a pin for him,' Douglas 
 went on decisively. 
 
 * Oh no, she doesn't care a pin for him, of 
 course ! but she's so very uncertain. There 
 are such a lot of sides to the question to be 
 considered. I'm never quite sure she won't 
 do in the end exactly as her father tells her.' 
 
 That same evening, at Hurst Croft, when
 
 MO THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 dinner was finished and the servants had 
 withdrawn, and Mrs. Walker had retired to 
 her own room, the typical British Philistine, 
 sitting bolt upright at the head of his table, 
 with his clean-shaven face and mutton-chop 
 whiskers, looking the pink of respectability, 
 raised his eyes suddenly and met his daughter's. 
 ' Well, Sabine ?' he murmured with an in- 
 quiring gaze. 
 ' Well, papa *?' 
 
 * Did anything happen ?' 
 
 ' Why, lots of things happened, of course, 
 didn't they ?' 
 
 * Oh yes ; but did he ask you ?' 
 
 * Did who ask me ?' 
 ' Lord Adalbert.' 
 
 ' Ask me what ?' 
 
 The tj^pical British Philistine stroked his 
 chin softly. ' Ask you anything, Sabine,' he 
 said in an evasive way. He had too much 
 respect for the conventionalities of his Philis- 
 tine creed to commit himself right out even 
 before his own daughter.
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD iir 
 
 * No, papa ; he asked me nothing ' — this 
 almost snappishly. 
 
 ' He was very attentive,' her father inter- 
 posed. 
 
 ' They're all attentive, always,' Sahine 
 muttered, uneoncerned. 
 
 The typical British Philistine stroked his 
 chin once more. ' If he were to ask you 
 
 anything ' he began in an inquiring 
 
 voice. 
 
 But Sabine cut him short at once with an 
 angry flash of those fierce Southern eyes of 
 hers. ' If he were to ask me anything, how 
 on earth can I tell you,' she said, 'what 
 answer I'd give him until I've heard his 
 question ? How on earth do I know what 
 he's likely to ask ? Why on earth should I 
 bother about him ? The young man doesn't 
 interest me. That's all I know about it.' 
 
 The typical British Philistine stroked his 
 chin, somewhat dismayed at her vehemence, 
 for the third time. ' It's very annoying,' he 
 said once more in an aggrieved tone, ' that
 
 112 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 this matter doesn't come to a head one way 
 or the other. I've reasons of my own — very 
 important reasons — for wishing to get tlie 
 matter settled offhand before I go on to . . . 
 eh ... to other business arrangements.*
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SHARP PRACTICE. 
 
 * I've never been inside a court before,' 
 Linda said to her brother on the morning 
 appointed for Mr. Arthur Roper's trial ; ' but 
 I really think I must spare time to go, just for 
 once, to-day. Mr. Harrison tells me he can 
 pass me in ; and I want to see what any 
 other barrister can possibly find to say in the 
 burglar's defence — it seems so hopeless.' 
 
 Cecil Figgins looked up from the wheels 
 and cranks of his model at the table by the 
 window, and wiped his greasy hands on the 
 duster at his side as he answered slowly, 
 ' Well, do as you like, Linda. In fact, now 
 I come to think of it, you usually do do as 
 you like, whether I ask you to or not. But 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 mind you don't forget to call on the way for 
 that cyanide of potassium. I can't do with- 
 out it much longer. I'm getting the thing 
 splendidly into working order this morning. 
 It almost runs now. Another sleepless night 
 or two'll set the wheels going all round like 
 wildfire.' 
 
 ' I wish you didn't depend quite so much 
 on sleepless nights, Cecil,' Linda put in with 
 a faint sigh. ' I know it's the time your best 
 ideas always come to you, but I think, in the 
 end, you must certainly pay for it. Mr. 
 Harrison says the physiological cost's too 
 great in the long-run. You've got to make 
 up for it, sooner or later, one way or the 
 other.' 
 
 ' Bother the physiological cost !' Cecil 
 responded frankly. ' The machine's the 
 thing ; and the machine's progressing like a 
 high-pressure steam-engine. It's the high- 
 pressure that does it ; and it's a hundred 
 times better than a steam-engine, too. It's 
 the motor of the future, I can tell you that.
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 115 
 
 There's nothing like it. It's going to lick 
 creation.' 
 
 So in clue time Linda set off alone for the 
 Central Criminal Court, as the newspapers 
 call it, at the door of which Douglas Harrison, 
 in wig and gown, was waiting to receive her 
 and pass her in to a place reserved for her. 
 She looked so neat and trim in her plain 
 jacket and hat — all home - made, but all 
 fitting like tailor work — that Douglas 
 wondered how even Basil Maclaine, with his 
 conventional measures, could fail to take her 
 for the lady she really was. But it was no 
 time just then for him to indulge in senti- 
 mentalities ; for Mr. Arthur Eoper's case was 
 on, as he himself phrased it, and Mr. Arthur 
 Eoper, in propria persona, resplendent in new 
 clothes, a perfect triumph of the sartorial art, 
 stood smiling in the dock with easy assurance, 
 and quizzed the witness through his single 
 eye-glass like one who took but a distant 
 interest in the legal proceedings. 
 
 It was wonderful how different Mr. Roper
 
 ii6 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 appeared, now that he stood there on his 
 best behaviour, with innocence on liis front 
 and a rose in his buttonhole, from the 
 cynical criminal who had disgusted Douglas 
 Harrison in that bare cell at Holloway Gaol 
 by his undisguised wickedness. He was, to 
 all outward appearance, a most unblemished 
 gentleman of scholastic taste, neatly arrayed 
 in a black morning suit, and with linen as 
 spotless as Basil Maclaine's own ; for Mr. 
 Pioper was a person who thoroughly under- 
 stood the value of the contrast between his 
 own external appearance (at its best) and the 
 nature of the profession he so gaily exercised. 
 He looked that moment the exact embodi- 
 ment of British respectability. He was 
 posing, in fact, as the victim of misapprehen- 
 sion. Douglas Harrison saw at a glance that 
 the defence to be set up would evidently be 
 one of mistaken identity. So much, indeed, 
 the brief he received had already' informed 
 him. 
 
 But how was a plea of mistaken identity
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 117 
 
 possible after Mr. Koper's own frank — not to 
 say brutal — admissions as to the details of 
 his costume at the moment of bis capture ? 
 A man who walks about the streets of London 
 with the instrument playfully described as ' a 
 sectional jemmy ' concealed upon his person, 
 and who is taken red-handed in hiding in an 
 attic in somebody else's house, at an advanced 
 hour of the evening, must surely be ipso facto 
 proclaimed a burglar ! Douglas Harrison 
 waited with professional interest to see what 
 some less puritanical counsel than himself 
 could manage to do in the way of gratify- 
 ing Mr. Eoper's aspirations after continued 
 freedom. 
 
 A brilliant young barrister, Erskine by 
 name, and Scotch by ancestry, with an 
 inquiring face, thick sensuous lips, and a wig 
 pushed back somewhat from his freckled fore- 
 head, had stepped into the brief Douglas 
 Harrison had vacated. Linda, gazing hard 
 at his shifty gray eyes and dubious mouth, 
 came at once to the conclusion that the
 
 ii8 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 brilliant young barrister, for all his jaunti- 
 ness, was well equipped for the battle of life 
 by possession of the invaluable quality of 
 unscrupulousness. While the police witnesses 
 and the servants at the house were giving 
 their evidence in chief, the brilliant young 
 barrister, leaning back in his seat with his 
 hands in his pockets and his lips pursed 
 up into a critical sneer, regarded them keenly, 
 yet with a well-assumed air of complete 
 indifference. But as soon as it came to his 
 turn to cross-examine, he rose in his place 
 exulting, and pounced down upon them at 
 once, like a hawk upon its quarry. Those 
 helpless, floundering, blundering policemen, 
 with their hazy ideas and their easy identifica- 
 tions, were as rats in the terrier's mouth to 
 the acute and well-trained intelligence of the 
 brilliant young barrister. He muddled their 
 thick brains by his subtle distinctions ; he 
 shook them till they were too terrified to 
 answer yes or no ; he reduced them at once 
 by his ingenious questions and ingenuous
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 119 
 
 suggestions to a complete pulp of general 
 vague scepticism as to everybody's individuality 
 and everybody's identity. 
 
 ' Did they arrest his client then and there 
 in the attic ?' 
 
 ' No, not just at first ; he gave them a run 
 for it.' 
 
 ' Oh ! he gave them a run for it, did he ? 
 Who ? the man in the attic ?' 
 
 ' Yes, the prisoner.' 
 
 The brilliant young barrister, throwing 
 back his head and adjusting his pince-nez with 
 an infinite air of forensic cunning, would be 
 obliged if they would carefully answer his 
 question — yes or no. ' Which gave them a 
 run for it — the man in the attic, or that 
 gentleman in the dock there ?' 
 
 Witnesses, one after another, each scratch- 
 ing his head^ or fumbling with his buttons, 
 and regarding the prisoner askance with very 
 doubtful eyes, repeated vaguely, ' The man in 
 the attic' 
 
 Then the brilliant young barrister folloAved
 
 I20 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 them up briskly. ' He gave them a run lor 
 it, did he, this man in the attic ? Well, 
 which waj' did he run ? Was he in sight all 
 the time ? How far did they follow him ?' 
 
 * Oh, they followed him, as it might be, a 
 little way round the corner, and there they 
 caught him at last, running uid against a 
 lady.' 
 
 * Ah, yes, exactly so ; we knew all that. 
 But did they ever lose sight of him ?' 
 
 Witnesses faltered and prevaricated feebly. 
 Some of them did, some of them didn't. 
 Then the brilliant young barrister, leaning 
 forward inquisitively, like a weasel on the 
 trail, pursued them once -more with doubts 
 and suggestions. ' They saw a man running 
 away ; yes, that was clear ; but what man 
 exactly ? There were several people in the 
 street at the time, weren't there ?' 
 
 ' Well, a good few, certainly.' 
 
 * Oh, a good few ! He thought so. And 
 the man in the attic lost his hat as he ran 
 out into the street, didn't he ?'
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 121 
 
 ' Yes, he lost his hat.' 
 
 ' And round the corner they caught a man, 
 his cHent, this gentleman in the dock here, 
 who was also hatless ?' 
 
 ' Yes, that was so.' 
 
 ' And the reason they identified the man in 
 the attic with that gentleman in the dock 
 there, at a moment's sight, on a dark night, 
 under the glare of the lamps, in a street with 
 a good few people in it, was simply and solely 
 because he'd lost his hat, wasn't it ?' 
 
 Witnesses faltered, and could hardly be 
 certain. They thought he was the same man. 
 He looked like him, and was dressed like him 
 then. But now he was dressed differently. 
 
 'Oh, he looked like him, and was dressed 
 like him ! Well, now we are getting to it. 
 But the man in the attic was wearing a hat 
 with the lining turned down so as to form a 
 mask, the hat that Constable B 38 had 
 produced — yes, I see it, thank you — so that 
 witnesses never saw his face at all. They 
 must have judged, therefore, entirely by his
 
 122 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 clothes and his figure. Now, would they 
 please be very careful ; they were on their 
 oaths, remember. What sort of clothes was 
 the man in the attic wearing when they saw 
 him?' 
 
 And there, of course, the brilliant young 
 barrister got all the usual contradictions and 
 cross- statements with which frequenters of 
 courts are only too familiar, half the witnesses 
 being a great deal too vague, and the other 
 half a great deal too definite. 
 
 At last the brilliant young barrister played 
 his trump card, as far as cross-examination 
 went. ' Would the police kindly hand him 
 that hat — the hat they picked up in the road 
 immediately after the arrest — the hat with 
 the lining cut into a mask — the hat that 
 had undoubtedly belonged to the man in 
 the attic ?' 
 
 The constable, with some reluctance and 
 many misgivings, handed over the crucial 
 incriminating object. 
 
 Then counsel turned, very apologetically,
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 123 
 
 to the gentleman in the dock there. ' Will 
 you excuse me, sir,' he said, in his politest 
 and blandest voice, as one who ventures upon 
 asking a very great favour. ' I know it must 
 be most unpleasant to you to have to try on 
 another man's hat — and that man a common 
 burglar, too — but under the circumstances, 
 you know, to further the ends of justice. . . . 
 Oh, thank you, so much, thank you. Of 
 course, it may just happen to fit you, or, again, 
 it may not ; it's a mere idea of mine — but, 
 still, as a matter of experiment — no, not that 
 way please ; turn cloivn the lining ; the 
 burglar was wearing it over his face as a 
 mask, you know, and that's what I want to 
 see, whether it would fit you or not that 
 way.' 
 
 Mr. Roper took the hat gingerly, between 
 finger and thumb, and, holding it so at arm's 
 length for a moment, examined it with an air 
 of profound disgust. Then, like a man who 
 makes up his mind to perform a disagreeable 
 duty in the cause of truth and justice, at no
 
 124 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 matter what cost to his personal feelings, he 
 placed it on his head, with an evident effort, 
 and let it fall down naturally, as it would, 
 about him. 
 
 There was a sensation in court. 
 
 It simply extinguished him ! 
 
 The burglar's hat w^as three sizes too large 
 for the gentleman in the dock ; and the 
 brilliant young barrister turned round, 
 demonstrative, wdth a silent but triumphant 
 smile to the jury. 
 
 When it came to the defence, Mr. Erskine 
 and his client had things all their own way. 
 * So remarkable a case of police blundering,' 
 the brilliant young barrister said, ' had seldom 
 or never come under his notice. The con- 
 stables meant well, no doubt, but they were 
 clumsy and incompetent. His client, a 
 respectable gentleman of education and some 
 small means, in the musical profession, in 
 fact, and recently engaged at a well-known 
 theatre, had been out that evening, as the 
 evidence would show, walking with a lady of
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 125 
 
 his acquaintance ; a lady, to be quite definite 
 (he was sorry to be obliged to refer to matters 
 which ought to be private, but he had no 
 choice in the case), to whom he had for some 
 time being paying marked attentions, with a 
 view to matrimony. He believed he was 
 right in saying his client and the young lady 
 were engaged to one another. The hour was 
 late, it was true ; but the lady, whom he 
 would produce, was employed as a nursery- 
 governess during the day, and could only 
 meet her fiance accordingly at an advanced 
 period of the evening. Mr. Roper, his 
 witnesses would prove to them, had just 
 parted from the lady at the corner of the 
 street, when he heard a loud shouting and a 
 noise in front as of a sudden riot. Fearing 
 that the Socialists or the Red Indians at 
 Olympia had broken loose, or that the Salva- 
 tion Army was performing midnight drill, or 
 that some other danger to life and limb 
 menaced society in general and the lady in 
 particular, he turned back at once to protect
 
 126 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 her, as any one of you would have done 
 under similar circumstances, gentlemen, and 
 ran hastily in that direction ; when, to his 
 surprise, he found himself pursued and 
 hustled by a howling mob of policemen, 
 servants, bystanders, and loafers, including, 
 no doubt, the actual burglar himself, who 
 was perhaps, indeed, the very man that 
 knocked off his client's hat, as he passed, into 
 the mud of the roadway. Alarmed and 
 astonished, his client ran a little way, hatless, 
 till he came up with the lady, when, to his 
 profound astonishment, he found himself 
 bullied, seized, and arrested before her very 
 eyes on a charge of burglary — a crime of 
 which the jury had only to look at the 
 educated gentleman in the dock for a moment 
 to see that he was, and must be, wholly 
 and entirely incapable. He would call 
 first ' — here a deep hush — ' Miss Elizabeth 
 Pomeroy.' 
 
 There was a stir in court as Miss Eliza- 
 beth Pomeroy, a delicate and modest-looking
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 127 
 
 girl, in a plain dark dress, and a very quiet, 
 almost Quakerish, bonnet, stepped into the 
 witness-box. Miss Elizabeth Pomeroj'- was 
 slight but pretty ; her hair was plaited at the 
 back in a neat coil that alone betokened the 
 utmost respectability, and her accent was that 
 of an educated lady. She gave her evidence 
 with a graceful, shrinking timidity, which 
 produced at once an immediate effect upon 
 the susceptible hearts of the gentlemen of the 
 jury. The story she told was short and 
 simple. She had just left her friend, Mr. 
 Roper, at the street comer when the tumult 
 (as she called it) occurred, and she saw him 
 a minute afterwards returning towards her, 
 breathless, in great agitation. Another man, 
 running past him at full speed, bare-headed 
 himself, knocked off Mr. Roper's hat into the 
 road, and then disappeared, like lightning, 
 round another corner. The next thing she 
 knew, the police were upon them like a herd 
 of wild beasts, and they shook Mr. Roper, 
 and behaved most shamefully to him, ' though
 
 128 THE DUCHESS OF POU'YSLAND 
 
 I explained it all to them,' the witness said 
 simply; 'but they icoiddn't listen to me, and 
 they would arrest him.' Here was Mr. 
 Roper's hat which she picked up afterwards 
 from the gutter, all muddy as she found it. 
 But the police had insisted upon giving him 
 another hat which they picked up round the 
 comer, thrown away, with a queer -looking 
 instrument they called a jemmy and the 
 bull's-eye lamp that had been produced 
 already by the police witnesses. 
 
 Cross-examination didn't do much to shake 
 Miss Pomeroy's credit ; and, indeed, the jury 
 took it rather ill that so pretty and modest a 
 young girl should be so roughly handled by 
 the counsel for the prosecution. The other 
 witnesses were of the familiar sort who didn't 
 see anything themselves to speak of, and who 
 were of opinion that nobody else saw any- 
 thing either. 
 
 The judge, a sceptical -looking gentleman 
 with sandy whiskers, summed up, as was his 
 wont, with luminous indecision. This was a
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 129 
 
 case of disputed identity. The police took 
 the prisoner in the dock for a well-known 
 expert thief, and believed he was the man 
 they found in the attic when the alarm was 
 raised by the servants of the family. If the 
 jury agreed with them, then, and in that case, 
 they must find him guilty. The prisoner's 
 counsel had offered them an alternative ex- 
 planation — a most ingenious explanation — 
 and had brought up a witness — he must say a 
 very straightforward witness — to prove his 
 theory. If they believed that witness, whose 
 evidence was partially corroborated by the 
 facts about the hat, they must acquit the 
 prisoner as the victim of an unfortunate error 
 of judgment. If, on the contrary, they dis- 
 beUeved the witness, but failed to see that 
 the prosecution had proved the identity of 
 the man in the attic with the prisoner before 
 them, then they must give the prisoner the 
 benefit of the doubt. x\nd the jury, thus 
 admonished, after a very short retirement, 
 returned to court to announce that, on serious 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAKD 
 
 consideration, they couldn't feel sure the 
 police were not mistaken. 
 
 ' Then you find a verdict of not guilty T 
 the judge said sharply. 
 
 ' Yes, my lord,' the foreman answered. 
 
 * The prisoner is discharged,' the judge 
 obserA'ed loudly, with a cynical smile. Then, 
 in a theatrical aside : * And he may thank his 
 lucky stars for having got off so easily.' 
 
 Mr. Arthur Roper smiled in return, bowed 
 politely to the judge with the sandy whiskers, 
 stroked his moustache, and sauntered from the 
 dock with easj^ nonchalance. The brilliant 
 young barrister, by fair means or foul, had 
 turned him loose once more, a free man, for 
 another campaign against the society of his 
 fellows. 
 
 At the bar he turned, and gazed blandly at 
 the judge. ' I beg your pardon, my lord,' he 
 said with charming effrontery, ' but — may I 
 have my hat ?' and he pointed towards the 
 one he had tried on just before with such 
 well- assumed disgust.
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 131 
 
 The court laughed aloud, and the judge, 
 with a smile, said : * Policeman, give it up 
 to him.' 
 
 As Linda and Douglas Harrison walked 
 home together, both intent on their own 
 thoughts, the girl broke the silence at last by 
 saying abruptly, ' I'm more glad than ever now 
 you didn't accept that brief, Mr. Harrison.' 
 
 * So'm I, Linda,' Douglas answered. 
 * While I listened to that fellow's cross- 
 examination it made me ashamed of my 
 profession. The man's a rogue to act so. 
 He knew it was all lies. He knew that 
 woman Pomeroy was just going through 'a 
 clever piece of amateur acting. When I 
 think how much harm a fellow like him may 
 do the world by throwing dust in the eyes of 
 an ignorant jury, I almost regret I was ever 
 called to the bar.' 
 
 * And yet,' Linda said thoughtfully, ' there's 
 another side to it, too. How much good a 
 man may do in helping to save some innocent 
 person against all appearances to the contrary !
 
 132 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 Some day, perhaps, you'll get such a chance ; 
 and if ever you do, you'll be glad you're a 
 barrister.' 
 
 * Perhaps I shall,' Douglas answered care- 
 lessly. He thought little of the words then ; 
 but years after he remembered them on due 
 occasion with a thrill of pleasure. 
 
 Meanwhile, at a bar near the court they 
 had just quitted, Mr. Arthur Roper, his own 
 master once more, was celebrating his release 
 from temporary detention over a bottle of 
 champagne with Miss Elizabeth Pomeroy. 
 
 * Well, that was a near shave this time, 
 Bess !' the head of the profession said, holding 
 his glass to hers and clinking it merrily. 
 ' You're a brick, and no mistake ! If it hadn't 
 been for you, my dear, blow me if I wouldn't 
 have been in Queer Street by this time.' 
 
 ' But he's a clever young chap, too, that 
 lawyer fellow,' Miss Pomeroy answered, 
 raising the glass to her lips and meeting his 
 eyes with hers. * He pulled it through 
 splendid. We must give him a lift with the
 
 SHARP PRACTICE 133 
 
 trade. Here's his very good health. Mr. 
 Erskine ! Mr. Erskme ! The other one was 
 a muff; he'd never have done the job. But 
 what licks me quite, Arthur, is why on earth 
 your own hat that you dropped in the street 
 didn't fit you.' 
 
 Mr. Roper exploded in a short paroxysm 
 of internal merriment. Then he lowered his 
 voice confidentially. ' My own idea !' he 
 murmured. ' A capital invention. Steel 
 spring inside the cork that lines the billycock. 
 It keeps the cork pressed out while you wear 
 it tight against the head. When I threw 
 away the hat, I jerked out the spring, and 
 nobody noticed it. First-rate dodge for once. 
 But if one tried it twice, the police'd find out. 
 Altogether, I never did a better or narrower 
 escape in all my life ; for if you hadn't been 
 waiting about outside in your neat get-up to 
 help me with the swag it'd have been all up 
 with me. Here's my love to you, Bess, with 
 your neat back hair ; and may you live long, 
 and keep out of the stone jug for ever!'
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 A FEW days later Basil Maclaine was thrown 
 into a perfect fever of excitement by receiving 
 a note, very cordially worded, from Sabine 
 Venables. This was more than he had hoped 
 almost ! He was getting into the very thick 
 of Good Society now, and no mistake. He 
 was beginning to be recognised. Last Wed- 
 nesday he had been introduced to no end of 
 the Best People at Mrs. Bouverie-Barton's 
 * little gathering ' of two hundred souls ; and 
 to-day, here was what the heiress of Hurst 
 Croft herself wrote to him — and on a tiny 
 pink sheet of notepaper, too, with her crest 
 and monogram in gold and colours :
 
 dramatic intelligence 135 
 
 ' Dear Mr. Maclaine, 
 
 ' I've only just learned from Mr. 
 Hubert Harrison, who is good enough to 
 assist me in my little project, that you're 
 quite a great swell at amateur theatricals ; 
 and as we are going to get up a Pastoral Play 
 in the grounds at Hurst Croft, I venture 
 to ask you whether we might count upon 
 your kind aid in arranging the piece, and, 
 if possible, also in taking a part for us. The 
 performance will take place about July 20, 
 and the play we have chosen is "As You Like 
 It." As far as yet arranged, the cast will 
 include Lord Adalbert Montgomery as 
 Orlando, Mr. Harrison as Jaques, Miss 
 Weatherley as Celia, and myself as Eosalind. 
 We wonder whether it would suit you to under- 
 take the part of Touchstone — which Mr. 
 Harrison says you would render admirably. If 
 you could do us the favour of answering at an 
 early date, you would greatly oblige 
 * Yours very sincerely, 
 
 ' Sabine Estelle Venables.'
 
 136 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 Basil Maclaine leant back in his chair 
 as he read that note in a delicious ecstasy 
 of self-congratulation. To be sure, there 
 were drawbacks and difficulties in the way ; 
 he didn't for one moment disguise them from 
 himself. 
 
 Bertie Montgomery was to have the part 
 of Orlando — the part that allowed him 
 to play most tenderly upon the Rosalind's 
 feelings ; the part that anybody with a spark 
 of regard for the heiress's heart (and Basil 
 Maclaine had fallen really in love with her, 
 in his own way) would most have chosen for 
 himself, and most have regretted to see falling 
 to the share of his more fortunate rival. But 
 there was no help for that. No doubt Old 
 Affability, the typical British Philistine, her 
 papa (who seemed to Basil Maclaine a perfect 
 model of all that an elderly English gentleman 
 of the banking persuasion ought to be), had 
 settled that if ' As You Like It ' was to come off 
 at all in his grounds, nobody but Lord Adal- 
 bert should play Orlando to his daughter's
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE 137 
 
 Rosalind. And quite right, too — from the 
 papa's point of view, Basil thought to himself 
 frankly ; for he was candid enough to admit, 
 after all, that if he were a papa, and banking 
 were his profession, he would like his daughters 
 to marry among the very Highest and Noblest 
 in the land — the Best and Greatest. It must 
 be such a consolation to one's declining years, 
 you know, to feel one's self the father-in-law 
 of a Duke's brother ! 
 
 But then Touchstone ! He could have 
 wished, indeed, it had been any other part in 
 the play but Touchstone. To be sure, the 
 make-up was most becoming to him, with his 
 dark complexion and black moustache ; but 
 the part itself was certainly not a dignified 
 one. He hated comedy — though he succeeded 
 best in it. Hubert Harrison was to be the 
 Jaques. He'd have liked Jaques well enough; 
 there was sentiment in that, and philosophy, 
 too ; and melancholy is so gentlemanly ! 
 But the Fool of the play ! It was really most 
 unkind of her to put him off, black moustache
 
 138 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 and all, with making love in by-play to that 
 ridiculous Audrey ! 
 
 Still, it's something to be asked to take 
 pai't in a Pastoral Play at all — pastoral plays 
 were just then very fashionable — and it's 
 something to have your name mixed up with 
 a lord's and to be reported in Truth, and to 
 feel that if you're only playing the fool, you're 
 playing it, at least, in the very Best Society. 
 Basil Maclaine was by no means unsusceptible 
 to these varied charms ; and when he wrote 
 back, as he meant to do, ' I shall be only too 
 delighted,' the phrase would contain a degree 
 of truth that is very unusual with it. 
 
 Linda came in to clear away breakfast 
 as he was still gazing with admiration at the 
 crest and monogram." In the simplicity of 
 his heart (for, like most of his kind, Basil 
 was, after all, a simple-hearted young man, 
 who expected the whole world to feel about 
 everything exactly as he did), he handed her 
 the letter. Linda read it through with care- 
 ful scrutiny. ' You won't be able to get
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE 139 
 
 away from the office for the rehearsals, will 
 you ?' was her first practical comment. 
 
 Basil, who had expected hushed awe and 
 congratulation at so magnificent a programme, 
 gazed back at her, almost speechless. ' Oh 
 yes,' he answered, after a pause. * For an 
 affair like this, I can manage to make arrange- 
 ments. It's the sort of thing one doesn't get 
 asked to every day, Linda.' 
 
 * They might have invited you to take a 
 better part than Touchstone,' the girl went on, 
 her pride for her lover a little piqued by the 
 selection. ' But I suppose it's all right. 
 Whatever part you're cast for you always act 
 so admirably.' 
 
 ' And then, look at the company !' Basil 
 answered with pride. ' Lord Adalbert Mont- 
 gomery !' 
 
 ' So I see,' Linda said, without a tinge of 
 admiration in her voice, exactly as if the 
 man were a mere Tom, Dick, or Harry. 
 * And Miss Venables is to be Rosalind. I . . . 
 I'm glad you're not her Orlando. It's such a
 
 I40 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 ridiculous position for a man to have to 
 assume — all that sighing and love -song 
 making about a woman you don't really care 
 a pin for.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine stared hard at her with a 
 sudden twinge of his accusing conscience. 
 Could the girl actually think he was in love 
 with her in the sort of way that would inter- 
 fere with his making love in real earnest to 
 Sabine Venables ? He took Linda's hand, 
 unresisted this time, in his. * She's a very 
 pretty girl, Linda,' he said, gently pressing it. 
 
 ' So I hear,' Linda answered, looking him 
 back in the face fearlessly ; for it never even 
 occurred to her honest heart what Basil was 
 driving at. 
 
 * And very rich,' Basil went on, imagining 
 he was disillusioning her. 
 
 ' Very rich,' Linda replied, with a certain 
 proud intonation in her clear, deep voice. 
 * And the sort of girl any man might be glad 
 to sell himself for.' 
 
 She looked beautiful as she said it, in that
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE 141 
 
 native pride of her womanhood that was per- 
 fectly natural to her. It was a shot fired at 
 random, but it took effect. Basil was hold- 
 ing her hand in his own. All men are human 
 — especially, I have observed, when a beauti- 
 ful woman's hand is clasped tight in theirs. 
 Basil faltered, and was lost. ' But not half 
 so pretty or half so good as you, Linda,' he 
 murmured, much lower. 
 
 * Thank you,' Linda answered, and pressed 
 his hand back. Then she felt this had gone 
 quite far enough for the present ; and in her 
 matter-of-fact way she lifted the tray, and 
 glided from the room. Basil glanced after 
 her with an approving look. ' Viewed merely 
 as a woman,' he said to himself frankly, with 
 unwonted candour, ' upon my word, she's 
 worth a round dozen of the other one ! If 
 she were only in one's own position in life, 
 now. But there ! one mustn't be a fool. 
 Hang it all ! one must marry a woman, at 
 least, whose relations one wouldn't be ashamed 
 of before one's own children.'
 
 142 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 And the things of which Basil Maclaiue 
 would have been ashamed were not petty 
 meannesses or vulgarities of ingrained nature, 
 but the crime of poverty or the misdemeanour 
 of living outside Society. Noblesse oblige ; 
 and he felt that much was now demanded of 
 a Government servant who had begun to mix 
 with the Best People. 
 
 For the next week or two, however, in the 
 intervals which the daily service of his country 
 allowed him, Basil Maclaiue was perpetually 
 down at Hurst Croft, arranging and rehears- 
 ing for ' As You Like It.' The evenings were 
 long just then ; and by taking the first train 
 after office hours he was able to get three 
 hours of daylight in the country still, and to 
 rehearse to his heart's content with the rest 
 of the company. 
 
 These meetings on the lawn at Hurst Croft 
 did him two good turns. In the first place, 
 they allowed him to see a great deal of Sabine 
 Venables, who was courtesy itself to him. 
 And, in the second place, they enabled him,
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE 143 
 
 by dexterous railway arrangements, to im- 
 prove his acquaintance with Bertie Mont- 
 gomery. He was quite in the swim of things 
 now, he said to himself each day gaily. 
 
 But as there is a thorn to every rose, it 
 must be added in justice that Basil would 
 have enjoyed the rehearsals a vast deal more 
 if it had not been for the constant presence of 
 Hubert Harrison, who discussed minor points 
 of detail in private far more often than was 
 necessary with Sabine Venables, and of his 
 brother Douglas, who cast a glance of dis- 
 approval upon Basil himself whenever he 
 ventured to bask too freely in the sunshine of 
 the heiress's fickle favour. Nor did he care 
 for the frequent paternal supervision of Old 
 Affability himself, whose bland City smile — 
 too much like a superior banking version of 
 the draper's assistant's for Basil's own austere 
 fancy — asserted itself for ever in the fore- 
 ground, with all the pertinacity of a Cheshire 
 cat, when Sabine ventured for a moment to 
 talk to anybody on earth except the favoured
 
 144 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 scion of a ducal house. Indeed, in more than 
 one particular, Basil found Old Affability very 
 much in the way. Especially as regarded 
 that pale little creature who was cast for 
 Celia, and in whom the master of Hurst 
 Croft appeared to feel a fatherly interest out 
 of all proportion, Basil thought, to her face or 
 fortune. 
 
 This feeble little girl was named Woodbine 
 Weatherley ; she had been at school with 
 Sabine, and, being ' intellectual,' as they call 
 it, had afterwards gone to Girton, where her 
 mind, such as it was, had wholly got the 
 better of her frail small body. She was 
 Woodbine by name, and Woodbine by nature. 
 She seemed specially intended by Providence 
 to cling for support to somebody or some- 
 thing ; but, unhappily, so far as Basil could 
 perceive. Providence had unkindly neglected 
 to provide her with anybody or anything in 
 particular to cling to. Mr. Venables insisted 
 she should take the part of Celia ; and she 
 was well cast for it — if she was to be cast at
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE 145 
 
 all — for there was no other character in the 
 whole play she could possibly have been en- 
 trusted with. Basil accepted her aid politely, 
 though with a very bad grace, and did his 
 best to mould her by continued training into 
 a passable Celia. She would have preferred 
 a Greek play herself, she said ; she thought 
 she could act Antigone ; but, failing that, she 
 really did her level best for Shakespeare. 
 
 All through the rehearsals, however, no 
 matter what else went right or wrong. Old 
 Affability, regardless for the moment of the 
 thrilling fact that Consols had closed at 
 ninety-four and seven-eights for the account, 
 appeared to concern himself about two things 
 alone — whether Lord Adalbert and Sabine 
 were conferring together enough over their 
 respective parts, and whether Woodbine 
 Weatherley was having full justice done to 
 her talent by stage-manager and fellow- actors 
 or actresses. 
 
 ' Papa's so kind to her,' Sabine said, when 
 Basil made some laughing remark to the 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 heiress one day about his obvious solicitude 
 that Miss Weatherley should receive her due 
 share of applause. ' He's very good, you 
 know, in his way, to poor people, papa is. 
 He likes to befriend them. Woodbine's an 
 orphan, I suppose you've heard, and she 
 wants to be a high school teacher, or some- 
 thing of the sort — all the girls nowadays are 
 mad to be high school teachers or else 
 hospital nurses ; it's the craze of the moment. 
 They call it a mission. But papa thinks 
 she's not quite strong enough for missions, 
 and he'd like to find her some easier work. 
 Poor little thing, she has a hard life of it, 
 I'm afraid! There's not enough of her for 
 any man ever to fall in love with, of course ; 
 so she's not likely to marry : and she isn't 
 strong enough to earn her own living, I 
 think ; so I dare say in the end we shall 
 have to keep her. She won't cost much to 
 keep, that's one good thing. It's positively 
 dreadful to see her at dinner. She takes a 
 tiny little slice off a chicken's breast, and
 
 DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE 147 
 
 then leaves the best part of it, and never 
 digests the remainder. She's a sort of 
 chameleon, I believe, or is it a salamander ? 
 She lives off air, flavoured with notes on the 
 Greek tragedians.' 
 
 ' Is she so learned, then ?' Basil asked, 
 with a superior smile. 
 
 ' Learned !' Sabine rejoined. ' Why, I 
 should rather think so. She's nothing else. 
 She's got the classics on the brain, and all 
 she thinks about on earth is iEschylus and 
 the practice of the Christian virtues. As if 
 those were the kind of things men ever care 
 for !' 
 
 An heiress is always much franker in 
 admissions of this sort than any other un- 
 married woman. She's so accustomed to 
 being openly hunted herself as fair game that 
 she accepts marriage with bland acquiescence 
 as the obvious end of all feminine pursuits 
 and all feminine existence.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES. 
 
 No true woman will ever believe that a man 
 can be in love with two of her sex at once ; 
 she judges him by herself, for a woman's love 
 is always truly monogamic. So Linda, being 
 quite certain in her own heart that Basil 
 Maclaine admired and liked her very much 
 indeed, had few qualms, if any, when he 
 came home night after night and told her, in 
 the simplicity of his British Philistine soul, 
 how well he got on with Bertie Montgomery 
 and the rich Miss Venables. She regarded 
 them both, in fact, as standing for him in the 
 same line ; it was one of Basil's little weak- 
 nesses. She knew he liked to be mixed up 
 with that sort of people. Linda would laugh
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 149 
 
 at it all to herself in her own dignified way, 
 but she loved Basil too well ever seriously to 
 doubt him for one moment, for all that. 
 
 So she took no heed of his frequent visits 
 to Hurst Croft, or of his openly-expressed 
 admiration for the heiress's beauty. 
 
 As to Bertie Montgomery, Basil Maclaine 
 and he were quite sworn friends now. It was 
 easy enough for any man to scrape acquaint- 
 ance with Bertie Montgomery if he cared to 
 do it. Basil went to see him frequently at 
 the Die and Hazard, and on one such occasion, 
 when a well-known plunger oflfered to cut the 
 Duke's brother at cards three times running 
 for a tenner a cut, Bertie Montgomery, not 
 having that sum about him at the moment (as 
 he airily explained), condescended to borrow 
 three ten-pound notes in succession with easy 
 nonchalance from his new friend, each of 
 which he lost straight off on the turn of a 
 card to his valorous opponent. Basil was 
 somewhat disconcerted a few minutes later, 
 however, after Bertie had left the room for a
 
 I50 THE DUCHESS OF PO IVY BLAND 
 
 game of billiards, when the plunger, smiling 
 broadly, remarked to him in a very confi- 
 dential tone, ' I say, I didn't like to hint at it 
 before Montgomeiy just now, though I tried 
 to give you a friendly tip with my eye, but 
 you oughtn't to have lent him thirty quid like 
 that, you know. You'll never see the colour 
 of your money again. He's not a bad sort of 
 chap, Bertie ain't, if you take him in the 
 right way ; but he's got a beastty short 
 memory where coin's concerned. As sure as 
 eggs is eggs, he'll forget all about it.' 
 
 * You don't mean to say so !' Basil answered, 
 taken aback. 
 
 ' Oh yes, I do, though,' the plunger 
 replied, with a sagacious nod. ' Runs in the 
 family, don't you know. It's the blood that 
 does it. Duke's just the same. Always see 
 the money posted when you bet with Powj^s- 
 land. That's why he has to play nothing but 
 roulette now. No private person cares to put 
 his own good hard gold against Powysland's 
 word or Powysland's paper. At a public
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 151 
 
 table, it's all money down ; and that's wlij' 
 he can only get any fun as things stand at 
 present in the Casino at Monte Carlo or the 
 Cercles at Homburg.' 
 
 Even so, however, Basil Maclaine didn't 
 wholly grudge those thirty pounds. It was 
 something to have bound one's self by ties of 
 unexhausted pecuniary gratitude to the heir- 
 presumptive of a dukedom, like Bertie Mont- 
 gomery. For the present Duke, though 
 married, was childless, as Basil had discovered 
 by reference to the peerage on the evening of 
 his first meeting with the next successor to 
 the strawberry leaves ; and Basil was not the 
 man to grudge even thirty pounds, well spent 
 in cementing a desirable friendship with the 
 Very Best People. 
 
 Time flies, and the day of the pastoral play 
 arrived at last. Basil got leave of absence 
 for that afternoon from the head of the office. 
 A mighty gathering of the dwellers in great 
 houses among the Surrey hills assembled 
 on the lawn at Hurst Croft, and money to
 
 152 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 the extent of several millions was repre- 
 sented, as Hubert Harrison ironically re- 
 marked, among the j'oung ladies who sat 
 on the front benches to witness the perform- 
 ance. Happily, the meteorological office 
 favoured the event. According to Mr. Robert 
 Scott, an anti-cyclone brooded over North- 
 western Europe. ' Variable airs and calms : 
 fair, warm, brighter,' ran the official forecast 
 with its accustomed laconic brevity ; and fair 
 and warm and bright it was, indeed, that 
 afternoon on the velvety slope of the downs 
 near Leatherhead. 
 
 Everything went off as well as it could go. 
 The open-air theatre had put on its very 
 best scenery and properties for the grand 
 occasion. The shade of the great spreading 
 beeches and the dark gloom of the yews 
 made the poet's ideal x4.rden live again visibly 
 before the eyes of the spectators. Thrushes 
 and linnets sang emulous from the elms to 
 drown the noise of their human rivals. 
 Sabine Venables, as Rosalind, looked a picture
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 153 
 
 to behold ; and Hubert Harrison, as the 
 philosophic Jaques, seemed as poetically 
 melancholy as the part demanded of him. 
 Basil Maclaine's fantastic Touchstone had wit 
 and lightness beyond what anybody ex- 
 pected ; he had caught the very * false gallop 
 of verse,' and made all his points with 
 practised skill and ease, being perhaps more 
 applauded than anybody else in the whole 
 entertainment. When all was over, and 
 Sabine, coming up in her page's dress, con- 
 gratulated him on his success and praised 
 his elocution, he felt that at last he was 
 really scoring. He said a pretty thing or 
 two in reply, with distinguished readiness, 
 and Sabine, accustomed to sitting at the 
 receipt of pretty things as her natural due, 
 accepted them so graciously that he began 
 to think Bertie Montgomery was nowhere 
 now, and that he himself was in the front 
 running for the great heiress's hand and heart 
 and fortune. 
 
 If there was a hitch in the proceedings
 
 154 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 anywhere, it arose from the fact that the 
 CeHa was almost too frightened to speak her 
 part ; but as nobocty was particularly interested 
 in Celia, Basil said to himself, except Mr. 
 Venables, that really was a point of very 
 small importance. 
 
 The peculiarity of private theatricals is 
 that they take six weeks at least to prepare 
 for, and are over at last in two short hours. 
 They leave, as a rule, an aching void behind 
 them. 
 
 After the play was done, indeed, the com- 
 pany dispersed itself aimlessly about among 
 the trees, and formed little groups beneath the 
 shade of the imagined Arden, to discuss the 
 actors, who mingled among them incongru- 
 ously enough in the dresses they had worn in 
 the course of the performance. One such 
 group gathered round Old Affability himself, 
 who, standing near the Italian terrace, with 
 his hands behind his back, was loud in his 
 praise of Woodbine Weatherley's Celia. * The 
 prettiest bit of acting in all the piece,' he
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 155 
 
 observed warmly, ' and, in my opinion, the 
 most thoroughly artistic.' 
 
 ' Except Miss Venables',' Basil put in with 
 a quiet smile. ' Her Eosulind was — what 
 shall I say ? — well, just Shakespeare's.' 
 
 ' Yes, my daughter was good,' the typical 
 British Philistine admitted candidly ; ' she 
 played her part well : she'd been admirably 
 coached ; but for native soul and reflective- 
 ness, I must confess I prefer Miss Weather - 
 ley.' 
 
 As Mrs. Bouverie-Barton showed a dis- 
 position to contest this point at her accus- 
 tomed length — she had ' views ' on the drama 
 — Basil Maclaine slipped off carelessly to a 
 second group, who were talking near the tent 
 about some case of suicide reported as the 
 passing ' mystery ' in that morning's papers. 
 Bertie Montgomery stood here, and so did 
 the two Harrisons. ' For my part,' Hubert 
 was saying, as the civil servant sauntered up 
 to join the group, ' I think the man behaved 
 most abominably. If he wanted to kill him-
 
 156 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 self, he might at least have taken the trouble 
 to leave a note behind and tell us why he did 
 it, so as to exculpate others. For a fellow to 
 commit suicide, and leave it in doubt whether 
 he wasn't murdered, is a gross injustice to 
 many innocent people.' 
 
 'Oh, hang it all, Harrison!' Bertie Mont- 
 gomery interposed, lighting a cigarette as he 
 spoke, ' you're too down upon him altogether, 
 poor old broken-down wretch ! Whj' should 
 he go and try to bring disgrace on his family ? 
 For my part, I think he acted quite right ; 
 and when I commit suicide, as I shall do 
 some day, I suppose, like all the rest of us, 
 when luck goes against me too hard, I'm not 
 going to leave a scrap of paper behind me to 
 incriminate myself and satisfy other people's 
 curiosity. I'll let 'em guess who did it, as 
 much as they like ; and if thej- can't find out, 
 why, then they may whistle for it. . . . 
 Talking of whistles, I don't mind if I wet 
 mine after all this thirsty Orlando business. 
 Precious dry work, spouting in the open air.
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 157 
 
 Strains the voice so terribly. I'm as hoarse 
 as a bull-frog. Any of you fellows come 
 along to the tent and have a brandy split 
 with me ?' 
 
 Basil Maclaine was just going to volunteer 
 for the honour of sharing the sub-ducal soda- 
 water, when Charlie Simmons, by a rapid 
 flank movement, got in before him, and 
 walked off arm-in-arm towards the tent with 
 Lord Adalbert. So Basil remained behind 
 perforce to hear the rest of the colloquy, 
 which degenerated forthwith into half a 
 whisper as the two others disappeared under 
 the big marquee. ' That was an unfortunate 
 subject for Charlie to introduce just then,' 
 Hubert Harrison said, in an undertone, as he 
 looked askance after the two retreating young 
 men, ' considering that Montgomery's father 
 committed suicide himself, and never left a 
 word or a line behind to say why he did 
 it.' 
 
 * No, you don't mean that !' Basil ex- 
 claimed in surprise ; ' I never heard of it.'
 
 158 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 * Oh, it's well known to everybody!' 
 Hubert went on, more openly. ' The way 
 of the tribe. It's a family habit. Gambling 
 and suicide are hereditary with the Mont- 
 gomeries. Didn't you hear Lord Adalbert 
 say himself, " Like all the rest of us ?" They 
 run through their money, and then they cut 
 their throats. That's the regular routine. 
 As soon as one's do^\^l the next man in 
 succession marries an heiress again, gambles 
 and drinks, and begins da capo. The minute 
 her money's all gone, or he's tired of her or 
 jealous of her — the same old game again, cut 
 throat and exit.' 
 
 As he spoke he was interrupted by a late 
 guest, just down from town to dine at Hurst 
 Croft, with the very freshest news, hot from 
 press, in his pocket. 
 
 * Seen this, Harrison ?* the new - comer 
 asked, holding out an evening paper in his 
 hand as he spoke. ' Latest thing out this 
 evening. Surprised to see Montgomery's 
 here, all the same. He can't have heard it.
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 159 
 
 Somebody or other '11 have to break the news 
 to him.' 
 
 All the bystanders crowded round and 
 stared hard at the sheet over one another's 
 shoulders. There it was, to be sure, in the 
 very biggest and darkest of leaded type : 
 
 ' Fourth Edition. — Suicide of a Nobleman. 
 Unhappy End of the Duke of Powysland.' 
 
 Hubert Harrison read it out aloud for the 
 benefit of the party : — ' Homburg, July 20th, 
 11 a.m. — The Duke of Powysland was found 
 dead in his bed here this morning, with his 
 throat cut and the jugular vein severed. 
 Nothing exact is known with regard to the 
 circumstances as yet, but as the Duke's affairs 
 were in a very embarrassed and encumbered 
 state, it is generally believed he must have 
 committed suicide. No papers or writing of 
 any sort have been found in his room, but a 
 hasty medical examination suggests the idea 
 that the deceased nobleman must have in- 
 flicted the wound himself by means of a 
 razor.'
 
 i6o THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLASD 
 
 * Later. — It is now almost certain that the 
 Duke of Powysland deliberately took his own 
 life, as the police find on inquirj^ he pur- 
 chased the razor in person late last night 
 at a well-known cutler's in the town of Hom- 
 burg.' 
 
 There was silence for a moment, then a 
 babel of voices. Everybody pressed forward 
 to discuss the unseasonable news. In the 
 midst of it all, Lord Adalbert and his satel- 
 lite, refreshed from the tent, strolled up once 
 more to know the cause of this sudden com- 
 motion. At the same moment, Old Affability 
 himself, attracted hy the obvious marks of 
 profound interest, came down to join them. 
 One or two of the guests made a hasty move- 
 ment, as if to hide for the moment the dis- 
 concerting paper. But Lord Adalbert saw 
 through their flims}' attempt at once. ' What 
 is it ?' he cried, flinging himself upon the 
 group with some excitement, and holding out 
 his hand for the print thej' were trying to 
 conceal from him. ' Anything ^vrong at
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES i6i 
 
 Homburg ? Eh ? Powysland been making 
 a stupid fool of himself?' 
 
 Hubert Harrison held out the paper in 
 reply with a significant gesture. ' There is 
 something very wrong indeed at Homburg,' 
 he answered in a warning voice. ' The 
 Duke has been hurt, seriously hurt ; you 
 can look for yourself if you like and see 
 it.' 
 
 Lord Adalbert took the sheet with a very 
 pale face. As he read, his cheeks grew 
 whiter and even whiter. At last he handed 
 it back with trembling fingers. ' I thought 
 so,' he said, in a profoundly sobered voice. 
 
 * At last he's done it.' 
 
 Mr. Venables, in his turn, received the 
 paper from his guest's hands. As soon as he 
 had hastily glanced over the telegram, he 
 turned round to the young man with an 
 irreproachable face of conventional condolence. 
 
 * Your grace would like to retire awhile,' he 
 said deferentially. ' This news has been too 
 much for you. Will you come into the house 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 for the present, till the shock is over, and 
 you've had time to realize it ?' 
 
 * No, thank yon,' the young man answered, 
 steadying himself for support against one of 
 the garden seats. ' This is very sudden. 
 Veiy sudden indeed. But not, for all that, 
 wholly unexpected. I think perhaps I'd 
 better go back to town at once. I've not my- 
 self alone to think of. I must break it to my 
 mother.' 
 
 He spoke with genuine feeling, and tears 
 stood in his eyes. That was only natural. 
 Blood, with all of us, is thicker than water. 
 Mr. Venables looked at him with profound 
 interest. ' Thomas,' he cried, turning sharply 
 round to one of the servants, ' run to the 
 stables, quick. Tell Bridges to bring up the 
 landau at once, to take the Duke of Powj^s- 
 land down to the station.' 
 
 At the sound of that title, so lately his 
 brother's, now for the first time his own, the 
 new Duke looked up with a start of surprise. 
 ' No, thank you,' he said once more. ' It's
 
 IN DUCAL CIRCLES 163 
 
 very kind of you, but I'd rather walk. 
 Don't any of you fellows bother to come with 
 me, please. I prefer to be alone. I mean 
 what I say, Maclaine. I shall be obliged if 
 you'll allow me to go by myself. It's taken 
 my breath away for the moment, and Pd like 
 to have time to collect my thoughts before I 
 see my mother.' 
 
 He walked slowly across the lawn towards 
 the winding carriage-drive that led down the 
 hill. He was profoundly moved. But Old 
 Affability, glancing after him with an admiring 
 gaze as he went, murmured softly to himself, 
 like one who gloats over a delicious morsel, 
 * It's made a Duke of him ! What a singular 
 coincidence ! To think I should have been 
 the first man in England ever to address him 
 by his proper title as Duke of Powysland !'
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS. 
 
 One by one the guests dispersed rapidly, this 
 gloomy termination to the day's entertain- 
 ment afifording them a natural excuse for 
 somewhat hasty leave-taking ; and before 
 long the Hurst Croft house-party were left 
 almost by themselves, with the special excep- 
 tion of the one late guest, and of Hubert 
 Harrison, both of whom had a long-standing 
 engagement to stop to dinner. Bertie Mont- 
 gomer}' was also to have been of the party, of 
 course ; but, under existing circumstances, 
 his place must needs remain vacant. 
 
 Hubert strolled up with Sabine to the 
 house. Mr. Venables followed at a little 
 distance behind with Woodbine Weatherley.
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 165 
 
 The remainiug guest took charge of Mrs. 
 Walker. ' Papa's always so kind,' Sabme 
 said, glancing back at her little friend with 
 a patronizing air. ' Woodbine ought to have 
 gone away from us to-night by rights — she 
 was asked down for a fortnight — but papa 
 wouldn't hear of letting her go so soon. 
 He's so wonderfully considerate for girls in 
 her position. He said she'd be tired out after 
 the performance, and it would be sheer cruelty 
 to send her back to that governesses' home 
 place where she stops in London ; she'd find 
 it so dreary after the daj^'s excitement.' 
 
 'He's very thoughtful, I know,' Hubert 
 responded with a sigh. 
 
 * And it isn't as if she was pretty or attrac- 
 tive, either,' Sabine went on, musing. ' A 
 poor, feeble little atomy of a girl like that ! 
 It's just pure goodness of heart. He's 
 always been kind to Woodbine ever since she 
 and I were at school together. She was 
 a pale, frail little creature then, with no looks 
 to boast of; and she'll be a frail, pale little
 
 i66 THE DUCHESS OE POWYSLAND 
 
 creature as long as she lives, till they work 
 her to death at some high school somewhere. 
 She reads Herbert Spencer, and talks like a 
 book about survival of the fittest ; but she 
 isn't fit to battle with the world herself ; 
 that's the long and short of it. Natural 
 selection would select her outright to go to 
 the wall. I wish to goodness some nice rich 
 man would take a fancy to her instead, 
 and marry her offhand. But that's not 
 likely.' 
 
 'Offer her to the Duke,' Hubert suggested, 
 with a sudden happy thought. 
 
 But Sabine shook her head. ' The Duke 
 wants money,' she answered, with the pre- 
 cocious wisdom of the rather ripe girl brought 
 up in the thick of society. * He'll sell his 
 title dear — dearer than ever now. He must 
 have thousands and thousands to pay off old 
 scores, and keep him going on the turf and 
 at the Die and Hazard. And he'll get them, 
 too, after this — get them as soon as he 
 chooses to ask for them.'
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 167 
 
 ' Where ?' Hubert Harrison interposed 
 pointedly. 
 
 Sabine Venables stared him back in the 
 face with a stony stare. ' How should I know !' 
 she answered in her most provoking style. 
 ' I'm sure I can't say. Wherever he likes, I 
 should think, Mr. Harrison.' 
 
 ' Sabine ! You mean it ?' 
 
 His face turned deadly white. His heart 
 stood still. Had the budding strawberry- 
 leaves produced such an effect upon her 
 already ? 
 
 Sabine Venables started too, the change in 
 his colour was so marked and so instantaneous. 
 It pained her to see him. She was ashamed 
 of her own coquettish caprice. ' Hubert,' 
 she said faintly, in a very low voice, ' how 
 can you ever ask me ? You might know . . . 
 I love you.' 
 
 ' You admit it ?' he cried, overjoyed. * Oh, 
 Sabine, you admit it ?' 
 
 * Take care, silly boy !' Sabine answered, 
 repenting once more her unwonted relentment.
 
 168 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 ' Papa's just behind. If you stare at me like 
 that, he'll guess what we're talking about.' 
 
 * But you can't unsay it,' Hubert ex- 
 claimed, all tremulous with delight. * You 
 can never unsay it. With your own lips 
 you've told me plainly you love me. When 
 a woman once tells you that, she tells you 
 all. As long as I live, I shall have it always 
 to remember.' 
 
 ' Well, don't put it in the Boomer amj, anj-- 
 how,' Sabine retorted provokingly. ' That's 
 the worst of telling anj'thing to one of you 
 writing people, you know : one's sure to see 
 it staring one in the face in print before one 
 knows it almost.' 
 
 ' But, Sabine, I shall put something some 
 daj' in the Boomcramj, now you've told me 
 you love me,' the j^oung man said, exulting. 
 * I shall put it before very long, too, if I 
 have my own way. " We understand that a 
 marriage has been arranged between " ' 
 
 Sabine cut him short with an imperious 
 gesture. ' What do you mean ?' she cried
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 169 
 
 proudlj^ her eyes blazing fire at his bare 
 suggestion. ' I never gave you any ground to 
 suppose that, did I ? I said I loved you. 
 That was a foolish confession — just to keep 
 you quiet. But I never said I'd marry you. 
 Do you think because a woman loves a man 
 she's bound to chuck away all her chances, 
 offhand, of becoming a Duchess ?' 
 
 ' Sabine,' the young man put in, glancing 
 back at her with admiration, ' you do yourself 
 an injustice. In your heart I know you 
 never seriously thought such a thought as 
 that. You saj^ it only just to tease me and 
 make me uncomfortable.' 
 
 Sabine's proud lips relented once more. 
 She was a strange compound. * Hubert,' 
 she answered, looking up at him in return 
 with a certain confiding womanly pride, 
 * you're the only man on earth who ever 
 understands me. I believe that's the reason 
 I — er — like you so much. You can read 
 what I mean. The other men never know 
 one little bit what I'm driving at.'
 
 I70 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 ' Then you mean to consent to- 
 
 Sabine shook her head decisively. * I 
 mean nothing of the sort,' she repHed with 
 quiet reserve. ' I only mean I'm in a sort of 
 a kind of a way rather fond of you. I'm not 
 going to make up my mind just yet. I shall 
 play with my mouse a bit longer, I can tell 
 you, before I decide whether or not I shall 
 kill it or let it go.' And she looked up at 
 him once more with a teasing smile, like an 
 Egyptian Pasht, in her wayward spoilt 
 fashion. ' Or, rather,' she added, after a tell- 
 ing pause, ' with both my mice — one of them 
 a Duke, and the other a commoner.' 
 
 And that was all Hubert Harrison, for all 
 his cleverness, could manage to get out of 
 her. 
 
 At dinner, the conversation not unnaturally 
 turned for the most part upon the new Duke 
 and his unexpected elevation to the honours 
 and glories of the British peerage. 
 
 ' He'll marry before long, I should think,' 
 Old Affability remarked, in the course of
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 171 
 
 dessert, turning a beaming countenance suc- 
 cessively round on all the members of the com- 
 pany. ' A man in his position is pretty sure to 
 marry. And quite right, too. He ought to, 
 I say. Keep up the family line — pity to see 
 a good old name die out. His brother, the 
 late Duke, was married also — but without 
 issue, of course, as I see from Hebrett. 
 Without issue.' 
 
 ' Who did he marry ?' Sabine asked lan- 
 guidly. She was much too unaffected to say 
 primly ' whom,' as some purists would have 
 wished her to do. 
 
 ' An heiress, of course,' Hubert put in 
 with a meaning smile. ' A Miss Foster, of 
 Dublin, last of a long line of wealthy whisky- 
 distillers.' 
 
 Sabine shuddered with her pretty bare 
 shoulders in her evening dress. ' What 
 people these peers will get in with !' she cried 
 with a little pout. ' Anything on earth for 
 money ! I declare it disgusts one.' 
 
 ' My dear !' her father exclaimed, with a
 
 172 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 faintly disapproving frown. ' Distilling's an 
 exceedingly gentlemanly business. Almost 
 as much so, in fact, as banking or brewing.' 
 Being a banker himself, the typical British 
 Philistine had a nice appreciation of the 
 relative social values of mercantile enterprise. 
 
 ' And the distiller's daughter had no 
 children ?' Sabine asked, to turn the thread 
 of the talk, which she felt showed symptoms 
 of almost growing personal. 
 
 ' No children!' Hubert echoed with an affir- 
 mative nod. ' Else Lord Adalbert wouldn't 
 this moment be Duke of Powysland.' 
 
 ' Heiresses very seldom do have children/ 
 Woodbine Weatherley ventured to interpose 
 innocently, in a frightened way. ' People 
 should never marry them. Mr. Galton says 
 in his book on heredity it's because they're 
 the last surviving members of a decadent 
 stock which has exhausted its energies in the 
 constant effort of money-making. " I suppose 
 he's right. He has a lot of cases in his 
 book to prove it, I remember.'
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 173 
 
 Sabine laughed outright at the malapropos 
 remark. And certainly, as Hubert Harrison 
 glanced from one girl to the other, he felt there 
 was nothing that looked very ostentatiously 
 decadent about Sabiue Venables. But Old 
 Aflfability, to his immense surprise, didn't 
 resent the unintentional imputation upon the 
 money-making type. Hubert took it as one 
 more proof of the unobtrusive goodness 
 about which Sabine had spoken. Indeed, the 
 typical British Philistine showed surprising 
 tact in rescuing his little guest from her un- 
 happy position. * For my part,' he said 
 genially, ' if I were a young man looking out 
 for a wife, peer or no peer, what would take 
 me most would be neither face nor figure, but 
 the Intellectual Graces. That's what seems 
 to me most important in a woman — the 
 Intellectual Graces. Beauty fades, and 
 prettiness palls on one, and youth passes 
 away like — er — like the flower on the grass ; 
 but the Intellectual Graces continue for ever. 
 They never wear out. They improve with
 
 174 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 age. What I should go in for decidedly is 
 the Intellectual Graces.' And after this 
 unwonted flight into the Higher Regions of 
 Thought, Old Affability raised his glass of 
 claret between his finger and thumb, and 
 looked through it fixedly for some seconds at 
 the electric light that glowed and flickered 
 above the orchid-decked dinner-table. 
 
 * Fiddlesticks !' Sabine responded, crushing 
 him at once, though Woodbine Weatherley 
 gazed at her in hushed amazement. ' Dukes 
 don't want intellectual graces, I'm sure. 
 What theij want is money — money, money, 
 money, money — and plenty of it.' 
 
 Her father's glance came down at a rush to 
 earth from heaven. ' I — I wasn't thinking of 
 Dukes, my dear,' he replied shortlj^ gazing 
 across at her with fatherly affection and 
 pride. ' A Duke, I suppose, if in straightened 
 circumstances for one of his rank, should 
 ally himself to a person who can enable him 
 properly to keep up his position in the 
 country. I've not a word to say against
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 175 
 
 that. I — er — I concur in it, and approve of 
 it. I was thinking rather of men in the 
 middle ranks of life. I believe a person, in 
 such a case, even if conscious of not being 
 particularly brilliant or particularly intel- 
 lectual himself, often admires brilliancy and 
 intellect in others. And where that is so, 
 he should marry where he finds it. If the 
 possessor will overlook his shortcomings and 
 take him, he should marry where he finds 
 it.' 
 
 ' Woodbine dear,' Sabine remarked coldly, 
 catching her friend's eye, ' shall we leave 
 papa and Mr. Harrison to discuss this very 
 interesting and instructive question together '?' 
 And with a curl of her lip and a faint glance 
 at Hubert she swept out of the room, her 
 train a yard behind, driving poor meek little 
 Woodbine like a lamb before her. 
 
 That evening, when all the rest had gone, 
 the typical English Philistine stood nervously 
 for a moment with his hand on the drawing- 
 room mantelpiece, and stared hard at Sabine,
 
 176 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 in a curiously preoccupied and hesitating 
 manner, as was often his wont when Argen- 
 tines were declining. 
 
 ' Well ?' Sabine asked at last, seeing he 
 had apparently something unpleasant to com- 
 municate. ' What is it, papa ? Great fall 
 in Turks ? Credit Foncier o^oino: down ? 
 What do you stand staring at me like that 
 for, I wonder ?' 
 
 Her father started, and glanced around 
 him uneasih\ ' Oh, nothing !' he answered, 
 in an apologetic voice. * Nothing at all. 
 xsothing. Nothing. Nothing. Market's firm 
 as a rock. But, Sabine, I just wanted to 
 ask you — I have a particular reason — did 
 Lord Adalbert — the Duke, I mean — did he 
 — er — say amihing particular to you this 
 afternoon when the play was ended ?' 
 
 ' He said he thought everything had gone 
 off better than he expected,' Sabine answered 
 with a smile. ' He didn't expect it to go 
 off as well as he expected, which may have 
 been his notion of saying something funny ;
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 177 
 
 yet there's a deal of truth in it, too, if you 
 have the trick to understand it.' 
 
 * Well, but besides that ?' her father urged, 
 eyeing her hard. ' You know what I mean, 
 Sabine. Did he say anything of a sort 
 that might lead you to suppose ' 
 
 Sabine shook her head decisively. ' He 
 never said a word of a sort to lead me to 
 suppose anything on earth — good, bad, or 
 indifferent,' she replied in a hasty voice. ' I 
 know what you mean, of course, however 
 you blink it, and I don't mind answering 
 you point blank, if it comes to that. He 
 didn't propose to me.' 
 
 ' Sabine, my dear child !' the typical 
 British Philistine ejaculated in pained sur- 
 prise, almost shocked at such unmaidenly 
 plainness of speech and directness of purpose. 
 ' How can you talk so ?' 
 
 ' Nary propose !' Sabine went on mali- 
 ciously, the wicked pleasure of shocking her 
 father taking po'ssession of her, body and 
 soul, as that particular devil will take posses- 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 1-8 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 sion of ns all under similar conditions. ' And 
 what's more, I don't believe he ever means 
 to. Buyers are shy, as yon say on the 
 Stock Exchange. He won't come np to the 
 scratch, that's what's the matter with him. 
 He dawdles and nibbles around, and looks 
 at the bait from every side, but he can't 
 be induced to take a good sohd bite at it, 
 so that one could hook him and land him 
 outright if one really wanted to.' 
 
 Mr. Yenables was too profoundly distressed 
 in soul at such recklessness to answer for a 
 moment. Then he said slowly, ' This is 
 very unfortunate. I thought he'd be sure 
 to speak to you to-day. He would have 
 spoken, too, if it hadn't been for that most ill- 
 timed interruption of the telegram about his 
 brother. I — I wish, Sabine, he hadn't heard 
 of it — his accession to the title, I mean — till 
 after he'd had a chance of speaking to you 
 alone on the subject. Now that he's a Duke, 
 
 you see, perhaps hell think ' 
 
 'Sir!'
 
 A THUSDERBOLT FALLS 17c 
 
 Mr. Venables retreated into his shell at 
 once, like a snail whose horns have been 
 touched with a sharp prickle. Sabine stood 
 glaring at him across the mantelpiece in 
 angry pride. Did he mean to insinuate — 
 did he dare to insinuate — that a Duke or any 
 other Hving creature on earth could for a 
 moment consider himself too highly placed 
 a match for Sabine Tenables "? If so, she 
 could never permit such a slight to her pride, 
 even from her own father. 
 
 There was a moment's pause. Then Mr. 
 Yenables intervened once more with tentative 
 hesitation. ' I had a special reason for 
 wishing him to . . . er . . . to make any 
 propositions on the subject he might have t^» 
 suggest . . . before taking a certain step 
 mvself to which I attach a certain amount 
 of importance in this respect. To tell you 
 the truth, Sabine, Ive been delaying the 
 step in question too long, very much against 
 my will, in order to give him time to come 
 to the point ; and I've done so at a con-
 
 igo THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLASD 
 
 siderable cost of personal incouveiiience. 
 Bnt matters now have taken a different turn.' 
 Mr. Venables drew himself up very stiff, 
 glanced sharply at his daughter, and then 
 regarded his own clean-shaven face and spot- 
 less white choker in the mirror-panel of the 
 overmantel. ' They took a different turn 
 this afternoon,' he went on with obvious 
 embarrassment. ' And therefore, now the 
 young man's a Duke, I shall give him just 
 another fortnight to make up his mind in — 
 after which time, if he hasn't — er — placed 
 things upon a satisfactory basis for all parties 
 concerned, I shall — well, I shall proceed at 
 once to take my own course in the matter 
 without waiting any longer for him to declare 
 himself.' 
 
 Sabine gazed back at her father in speech- 
 less amazement. A vague, blank terror 
 seized upon her mind. What on earth could 
 he mean by this enigmatical pronouncement ? 
 * I don't understand you,' she gasped out 
 feebly, sinking back into a chair. ' You
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS i8i 
 
 don't mean to say you'll — you'll actually 
 offer me as a present to any man !' 
 
 It was Mr. Venables' turn to look sur- 
 prised now. ' God bless the child !' he ex- 
 claimed with a bewildered stare, ' what on 
 earth is she talking about ? Goodness 
 gracious me ! I wasn't speaking about you at 
 all, Sabine. I was speaking about myself. 
 Under all the circumstances, unless the Duke 
 proposes within a fortnight, I won't any 
 longer delay the public announcement of my 
 own intentions.' 
 
 ' JVhat intentions ?' Sabine gasped out 
 once more, growing faint with the horror of 
 that unknown presentiment. 
 
 ' My intentions as to my future,' Mr. 
 Venables went on, still gazing abstractedly 
 into the glass, and pulling up his shirt collar 
 with an approving air. ' I was anxious 
 to put off announcing them to the world 
 as long as possible, in order not to interfere 
 with your prospects of settlement in life ; 
 but after what has taken place to-day, I
 
 l82 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAXD 
 
 reall}' don't sec how I can put it ofl' any 
 longer.' 
 
 Sabine ai'ose once more and staggered 
 towards him wildly. The words stuck in 
 her throat. She could hardly get them out. 
 * Oh, father ! father !' she cried, holding both 
 hands to her head as if to keep it from split- 
 ting, ' you don't mean that ! You can't 
 mean that ! You can never mean to tell me 
 you're going to get married !' 
 
 She said it in a fierce outburst of utter 
 despair. She couldn't believe it was possible. 
 It was too, too terrible. It rose up before 
 her only as a mad, incredible nightmare. 
 He could never, never, never mean that. 
 Whatever his strange, problematical v^^ords 
 might portend, it could never be any- 
 thing quite so horrible, so crushing, so 
 annihilating ! 
 
 Mr. Venables gazed in the glass once 
 more, and stroked his smooth chin, as who 
 should say, ' Whj^ not, indeed ? Am I not 
 as young and good-looking as any man of
 
 A THUNDERBOLT FALLS 183 
 
 sixty can reasonably expect to be ?' Then 
 he answered slowly, and with some delibera- 
 tion as to the choice of his words, ' Well, I 
 certainly have of late contemplated that 
 course ; and this afternoon I took a step 
 which renders it now partially inevitable. I 
 was betrayed by my feelings of admiration 
 into saying, quite impromptu — on the spur 
 of the moment — a few words I had meant, 
 if possible, to postpone till later.' 
 
 ' To whom ?' Sabine cried faintly, clutch- 
 ing at a chair. ' Not Mrs. Bouverie- 
 Barton ?' 
 
 Mr. Venables glanced back at her in 
 profound astonishment* ' I'm surprised you 
 should ask me such a question,' he answered, 
 raising his eyebrows by slow degrees as he 
 took in the full implications of his daughter's 
 ignorance. ' And you a girl, too, with all 
 their talk about woman's intuitions ! Why, 
 who on earth could it be of our acquaintance, 
 except one peerless person ? Who on earth 
 else has those Intellectual Graces which one
 
 i84 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 looks for so incontestably in the woman one 
 loves ? Who on earth could you think of 
 naming in the same day with her, I wonder ? 
 Surely I need hardly tell you it's — Woodbine 
 Weatherley.'
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION. 
 
 Sabine Venables never closed her eyes that 
 whole night long. She lay awake in her 
 bed, hour after hour, in silent misery, think- 
 ing over all that this terrible avowal enclosed 
 of humiliation and shame for her. She was 
 a proud-natured girl, and her father's an- 
 nouncement had burst upon her with such a 
 sudden blinding force of dismay and horror 
 that she hardly knew as yet how she could 
 ever outlive it. 
 
 And, indeed, she had reason, for she could 
 scarcely realize at the first blush herself what 
 a total change it meant in her position and 
 prospects. 
 
 In the first place, there was the mere
 
 1 86 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAS'D 
 
 l)rimary fact of the stepmother. Sabine 
 Venables shared that common feminine pre- 
 judice. It's very unreasonable, to be sure, 
 that girls should object to their fathers doing 
 the very thing they themselves spend their 
 entire time in endeavouring to compass ; but 
 such is nevertheless the usual instinct of 
 female humanity ; a girl feels it almost a 
 personal slight and insult to herself that her 
 father should dream of taking a new head for 
 his household. And Woodbine, too, of all 
 girls in the world ! That poor shrinking 
 little atomy she had so pitied and patronized ; 
 to think that Woodbine, enthroned in state, 
 in her stead, was to pose henceforth as 
 mistress of Hurst Croft, and that she herself, 
 Sabine Yenables, the admired, the petted, 
 would have to play second fiddle in future to 
 a pallid, hollow-cheeked, consumptive -looking 
 little nursery governess — to walk after her 
 in to dinner, to stand at her beck and call in 
 the paternal drawing-room, to sit on the front 
 seat, with her back to the horses, when they
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 187 
 
 drove out together with her father in the 
 park, to nestle under her protecting wing as 
 the obedient stepdaughter at dances and 
 parties ! it was too, too degrading. 
 
 But that was not all. Worse depths yet 
 loomed behind. Dimly and unconsciously at 
 first, more definitely afterwards, as she re- 
 covered strength to face that blinding blow, 
 Sabine saw that Woodbine's elevation to the 
 first post at Hurst Croft meant nothing less 
 than her own definitive though gradual de- 
 position from her throne as heiress. She was 
 almost too proud to acknowledge in her own 
 mind the full degradation involved for her in 
 that painful come-down in life. It hit her 
 hard on her tenderest susceptibilities. She 
 knew she was beautiful ; she knew she was 
 attractive ; she knew she was rich ; she knew 
 she was made much of wherever she went ; 
 but she had never had any reason till that 
 moment to try in her own mind the difficult 
 task of separating herself from her father's 
 money-bags, of deciding liow much of the
 
 1 88 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 admiration and adulation lavished upon her 
 was due to her own wit, sprightliness, or 
 beauty, and how much to the inheritance of 
 the famous Yenables' banking interest in the 
 City. Now she would be put to the humi- 
 hating necessity of facing that problem in 
 practical life. She would find out before 
 long, by her admirers' behaviour under these 
 altered circumstances, what proportion of their 
 homage was due to Sabine Venables herself, 
 viewed as a human being, and what propor- 
 tion was due to the prospective heiress of Hurst 
 Croft estate with its correlative thousands. 
 
 To so proud a soul the bare idea that the 
 change could make any difference in her posi- 
 tion at all was painful to recognise. Even to 
 herself, it humiliated her to acknowledge it. 
 She would have liked to think all this atten- 
 tion bestowed upon her was her guerdon as a 
 woman ; she hated the necessity for having 
 her eyes opened to the probable fact that a 
 very large part of it was due merely to the 
 reflex of her father's balance.
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 189 
 
 And yet, from the very first moment she 
 fully appreciated — in a way — the immensity 
 of the downfall, and the potentialities of the 
 situation. If Woodbine gave her father (now 
 ten years a widower) an heir for Hurst Croft, 
 her humiliation would be complete. She 
 would sink at once to be only the rich man's 
 residuary legatee. Instead of being sought 
 after as the best match of the season, she 
 would drop into the position of a mere target 
 for younger sons whose modest expectations 
 of catches were easily satisfied. Where pro- 
 spective Dukes and Marquises had been wont 
 to pay assiduous court to the fantastic 
 heiress, an occasional honourable (probably 
 the youngest scion of an Irish peerage in 
 the Encumbered Estates Court) would hint 
 henceforth the possibility of his accepting 
 her, if approved, with a sufficient dowry to 
 support him in unassuming idleness. To 
 come down to that would be hateful to Sabine 
 Venables' haughty spirit. Slie didn't wish 
 to be taken as a modest competence. She
 
 I90 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 must be wooed like a qiieeu, if thej^ wanted 
 at all to woo her. 
 
 Not that Sabine really and truly cared 
 twopence, in her heart of hearts, for all these 
 upholsteries and gewgaws of life that Old 
 Affability esteemed at so high a valuation. 
 If Bertie Montgomery had proposed to her 
 the day before, she would have kept him 
 dangling about for half an hour, playing with 
 him (in her own words) as a cat plays with a 
 mouse, and then would have told him in very 
 plain terms that, much as she thanked him. for 
 the honour he had done her in singling her 
 out to assist in the repair of the dilapidated 
 Powysland fortunes, and the refurbishment of 
 the shabby Powysland mansions, she regretted 
 she didn't like him one quarter enough ever 
 to dream of marrying him. What she would 
 miss in life now would be — the chance of 
 saying as much to other men in future. 
 Even if you don't want to kill anybody, says 
 the Roman moralist in a famous line, it's a 
 pleasure to feel you have it in your power to
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 191 
 
 kill him. And even if Sabine Venables didn't 
 want to marry a Duke, it was a pleasure to 
 her, at least, to feel in her heart she had it 
 in her power, if she willed, to refuse him. 
 
 She had grown so accustomed to that 
 atmosphere, indeed, that she hardly knew 
 how she could breathe any other. Nay, it 
 was partly for that reason (though she was 
 scarcely conscious of it to herself) that she 
 kept Hubert Harrison so long at bay, tor- 
 turing him with doubts, and teasing him with 
 petty concessions, while she dangled the 
 grapes temptingly all the time before his 
 eyes, and withdrew them in a coquettish pet 
 whenever he thought he was just going at 
 last to really grasp them. She loved Hubert; 
 till that moment, she had never told herself 
 unreservedly how much she loved him ; but 
 she had delayed letting him know the fact too 
 plainly, because she couldn't bear to tear 
 herself away all at once from her admiring 
 coterie of courtesy lords and actual baronets. 
 She didn't want to burn her boats behind
 
 192 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 her ; she didn't want to abdicate and renounce 
 her kingdom. If she had manied Hubert, 
 as she always figured to herself she meant to 
 do, in her own heart, at the end of the 
 chapter, why, that chapter at least would be 
 ended, ended for ever, and with it all the ex- 
 citement and extorted homage of a coquette's 
 free period of unrestricted flirtation. As Mrs. 
 Hubert Harrison she would still have filled 
 an important place in society, of course, and 
 would have made Hubert rich and happy, and 
 got him into Parliament, and all that sort of 
 thing, and settled down to be a happy mother 
 of children ; but she would no longer be able 
 to sway her little court of obedient suitors 
 with the same absolute, not to say unreason- 
 ing, rule, as when she flitted before tlieir 
 eyes a potential and possible Duchess of 
 Powysland. 
 
 And now, in the dead hours of the night, 
 as she lay there with burning cheeks and 
 tearless eyes — for she couldn't cry, poor 
 child ! her pride wouldn't let her — she felt
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 193 
 
 that all these bubbles had burst for ever, and 
 that she might sink before long to be as 
 nobody in the house before the face of Wood- 
 bine Weatherley's prospective infant. How 
 she hated, in her heart, that hypothetical atom 
 of non-existent humanity ! If she married 
 Hubert at all, she must marry him now, 
 as comparatively poor ; for supposing a boy 
 were borne — and to that stroke of fate Sabine 
 resigned her soul in patience immediately — 
 papa, of course, would leave him everything, 
 or almost everything — people of papa's sort 
 always do leave things so ; their great idea in 
 life is to become the founder of a family 
 (what gross injustice !), and then all the world 
 would say, in chorus, she'd taken Hubert 
 at last as a p/s aller, because she found she 
 couldn't catch the Duke of Powysland. That 
 abyss was too profound — from a Duke to a 
 penny-a-liner ! Yet that was what all the 
 world would say, she felt sure ; and, recognis- 
 ing it, she hardly knew how she could ever 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 iHE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 bring herself, much as she loved him, to 
 marry Hubert. 
 
 Ah, how differently things had turned out, 
 in the blind caprice of fate, from what she 
 dreamt and intended ! Her own idea had 
 been that, after refusing Bertie Montgomery 
 and half a dozen other equally brilliant offers, 
 she would turn round, before the face of the 
 world, and poor scandalized papa — how she 
 loved to shock him ! — and say boldly, ' No, 
 thank you, none of your coronets for me ! I 
 prefer to take the man after my own heart. 
 I might have been a Duchess ; I choose, 
 rather, to marry Hubert Harrison !' That 
 would have been immense ! That would 
 have been delicious ! That would have been 
 noble ! That would have been beautiful ! 
 That would have combined romance in real 
 life with the sense of social triumph dear 
 to the female heart, especially when built on 
 Sabine Venables' pattern. And now — she 
 could hardly bear to think of it, it was so 
 lame a conclusion. To marry Hubert Harri-
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 195 
 
 son, as tilings stood at present, would almost in 
 a sense look like seeming to put up with him. 
 
 To put up with Hubert ! That king of 
 men ! And she so loved and admired 
 him ! He. was so kind and so clever ; he 
 understood her so perfectly. She loved to 
 listen to him as he talked after dinner with 
 the poor creatures around him ; she loved to 
 hear what people said about those brilliant 
 things of his in the morning papers, which 
 must lead him one day straight into the 
 House of Commons. For Hubert's sake, she 
 would readily have given up a whole round 
 dozen of Bertie Montgomerys. It would 
 have made her feel so proud to say to Hubert, 
 ' My darling, my darling ! they may ask me till 
 all's blue ; but I love you ten thousand times 
 better than all the Dukes in Christendom.' 
 And as things stood to-night, she could never, 
 never, never say it. 
 
 It was an endless night ; but, like all 
 things endless, at last it ended. 
 
 When she got up in the morning, her head
 
 196 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 ached. At breakfast, she was coldlj^ polite to 
 Woodbine. Whatever else people said, they 
 should never say she forgot her dignitj' in her 
 endeavours to secure some portion of the new 
 favourite's countenance or of h^r father's 
 fortune. If she fell, she would fall, like 
 Clarendon, with honour. Nobody should 
 ever be able to accuse her of having truckled 
 to the governess girl her father selected. To 
 her. Woodbine should always be merely 
 'Mrs. Venables.' 
 
 After breakfast, Sabine went off into the 
 library alone. It was hateful to her to face 
 that deceitful, designing creature. She was 
 angry with Woodbine. During the night she 
 had harboured many hard thoughts against 
 her. That this feeble little image, a mere 
 Girton adventuress, should have wormed her 
 way into the house, and into papa's affections, 
 by plajing upon the absurd vanity and conceit 
 of a man old enough to be her own father, in 
 order to get his money and cheat herself, 
 Sabine, out of her natural inheritance — oh !
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 197 
 
 no words were too bad for it. She was a 
 wretch, a criminal ! If it had been any other 
 man on earth, Sabine could almost have for- 
 given her ; but Thorndj^ke Venables ! oh, really 
 too ridiculous ! Papa v/as a very nice man in 
 his way, of course, viewed as a father ; but, 
 that at his present age, and with his paternal 
 habits, after ten years of celibate life, any 
 woman under fifty should ever dream of 
 marrying him, or, rather, of selling herself to 
 him (for it could be nothing but that) — pah ! 
 the verj'- thought of it shocked and disgusted 
 her. Woodbine had sunk below zero in her 
 estimation. She could hardly manage through 
 breakfast to be frigidly polite to her. 
 
 She seated herself in an arm-chair, and 
 pretended to begin reading the Morning Post, 
 The words swam before her eyes illegibly, of 
 course, but that didn't matter. It gave her 
 some ostensible reason for sitting there alone. 
 Presently there came a timid little knock 
 at the door. The sound annoyed Sabine 
 beyond expression. Such infamous vulgarity!
 
 198 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 What did the person who made it mean by 
 knocking ? So exceedingly ill-bred ! Didn't 
 she know that in a gentleman's house nobody 
 ever knocks at the door of any reception- 
 room ? If that was the new under-hoiise- 
 maid's idea of her duty, Sabine said to 
 herself savagely, she'd speak to her upon the 
 subject. Or, rather, she added to herself 
 with a bitter little smile, she'd ask the future 
 Mrs. Venables, in anticipation of her coming 
 reign, to offer a few appropriate words of 
 advice to her. 
 
 * Come in !' she answered, as one answers 
 a servant, and sat pretending still to be 
 absorbed in that interesting cause celebre. 
 
 ' Sabine !' a little voice said piteously and 
 pleadingly by her side. It was a very small 
 voice, and its tones were enough to disarm a 
 tiger. 
 
 ' Oh, it's you, is it ?' Sabine answered, 
 looking up unconcernedly. * I thought it was 
 Julia, and I was going to ask you (as it's 
 more j^our place than mine) to tell her that
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 199 
 
 nobody ever knocks at all at a downstairs 
 door — any door but a bedroom, I mean 
 — in anything better than a tradesman's 
 family. 
 
 Woodbine turned her eyes towards her 
 imperious friend with an imploring look. 
 ' Forgive me, Sabine dear,' she cried, flinging 
 herself passionately upon the tall girl's neck, 
 and taking both hands in hers as she kissed 
 them a dozen times over. ' I saw by your 
 manner at breakfast that Mr. Venables had 
 told you all ; and I couldn't help observing 
 that you were very, very angry with me. 
 And just now I asked him, and he said he 
 had, and he was afraid it had hurt you, and 
 it had made him so wretched. And, oh ! 
 Sabine, I know exactly how you feel ; I 
 sympathize with you so much ; but when he 
 asked me last night — my dear, my dear, what 
 on earth could I answer ?' 
 
 A great red spot burnt in Sabine's cheek as 
 she drew herself up and replied slowly, 
 ' You could have said that no money on
 
 200 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 earth would ever tempt you to do anything so 
 mean, so heartless, or so wicked.' 
 
 Woodbine fell upon her friend's lap and 
 sobbed in an agony of misery. * Oh, 
 Sabine !' she cried, ' I haven't slept a wink 
 all night, wondering how you'd feel and what 
 you'd say to it ; and I was horribly afraid of 
 the effect it might produce upon you. But 
 anything as bad as this, oh ! I never dreamt 
 of it.' 
 
 * You've brought it upon yourself,' Sabine 
 answered, unmoved, with the stern virtue of 
 retributive justice. ' If you'd had a spark of 
 womanly pride, or honesty, or shame in your 
 nature, you could never have accepted him. 
 I didn't mean to say it to you ; I meant to 
 leave you to your own conscience ; but when 
 you come here asking me for my forgiveness 
 and my sympathy almost — me, whom you've 
 insulted, and disgraced, and supplanted — I 
 can't help speaking out. Woodbine. I can't 
 help it. I can't help it.' 
 
 ' Sabine !' Woodbine cried once more,
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 201 
 
 raising up her face in her agony, and con- 
 fronting even those terrible angry black eyes 
 of hers ; ' I thought of you before I answered 
 him ; I thought more than once of you ; for 
 weeks before, ever since it first occurred to 
 me he might perhaps be going to ask me — 
 ever since I began to notice how gentle and 
 kind he was — I said to myself over and over 
 again fervently, " Even if he asks me, for 
 Sabine's sake it's my duty to refuse him." 
 I meant to refuse him all along, even yester- 
 day afternoon, when the play was over.' She 
 paused and hesitated. * It was as you and 
 Mr. Harrison were walking up from the 
 ground,' she went on ; ' Mr. Venables lingered 
 behind with me, and congratulated me on my 
 acting, and was so very, very sweet and good 
 to me. And he took me quite by surprise. 
 When he asked me, I faltered. I wanted to 
 say No — I thought I ought to say No — but 
 somehow I couldn't, couldn't frame my lips 
 to say it. Sabine, Sabine, my own heart 
 wouldn't let me. I thought of you ; but he
 
 202 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 pleaded so hard. And even then I didn't. 
 I held my lips tight, though my heart went 
 fast ; but he saw what I thought, dear. And 
 he slipped this on my finger before I could 
 make up my mind to falter out No. And 
 then he smiled and said I had accepted him.' 
 * Well, there's still time to undeceive him, 
 before he becomes the laughing-stock of the 
 county,' Sabine answered coldly. ' Sooner 
 than I'd marry a man for his money — and 
 a man twice one's own age, too — I'd cut off 
 my right hand, or I'd starve in the gutter. 
 Money or title, I'd despise them both, unless 
 love went with them. Do you think I'd 
 marry that wretched Montgomery man, for 
 example, just because he's a Duke ? Why, 
 sooner than take him, I'd die an old maid ; 
 I'd work my fingers to the bone, and take in 
 washing. T know you're poor, and too weak 
 to work, and unable to earn your own living, 
 and all that, and I'd make every allowance 
 for you ; but sooner than marry a man for 
 board and lodging and a roof over my head,
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 203 
 
 I'd — I'd sell flowers at a crossing, and die of 
 consumption at last in a hospital. If you 
 wanted help or befriending, you know I'd 
 have given it you ; but that you should come 
 into my own house — you, such an innocent- 
 looking girl as you are, that one would think 
 butter wouldn't melt in your mouth — and 
 then set yourself to work to steal my father's 
 heart away from me, and marry him for a 
 home — oh ! I call it despicable. I call it 
 despicable, despicable, despicable !' 
 
 Woodbine rose, and confronted her, all 
 tearful, with a puzzled look of wonderment 
 and of childish innocence. * But, Sabine,' 
 she cried pitifully, in a very earnest voice, 
 ' 1 do so love him !' 
 
 Sabine drew back almost as if she had 
 been stung. She could forgive Woodbine 
 almost anything else save that ; but not 
 hypocrisy. * Love him !' she repeated 
 incredulously, with a scornful intonation. 
 ' Love papa ! Love him in that sort of way ! 
 Oh, Miss Weatherley, how ridiculous !'
 
 204 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 Woodbine gazed hard into her face once 
 more, with eyes more puzzled and surprised 
 than ever. ' But I do love him, Sabine,' she 
 cried. ' I love him with all my heart and 
 soul. From the very first moment I ever saw 
 him, almost, I loved him, oh — I loved him, I 
 loved him, inexpressibly !' 
 
 Her voice had the genuine ring of truth in 
 it, but what she said was too utterly 
 incredible for Sabine to believe. The proud 
 girl gazed, and wondered whether that poor 
 feeble little atomy's head was going wrong 
 somehow. Love poor papa with all her heart 
 and soul ! Such a man as papa ! Oh, it 
 was too, too comical. 
 
 ' Why, Woodbine,' she said slowly, in a 
 very cold voice, ' you must be joking.' 
 
 Woodbine flung herself upon the ground at 
 Sabine's feet once more. ' No, no, dear,' 
 she cried, laying her head in her friend's lap 
 and hugging her knees nervously ; ' I'm in 
 earnest. I mean it. How could I ever help 
 loving him ? He's so good and so gentle.
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 205 
 
 Nobody else ever spoke to me on this earth as 
 he's done. Nobody else ever understood me. 
 Nobody else ever sympathized with me. 
 He's talked to me till he's wormed his way 
 deep into my heart, and I can't bear to leave 
 him, I can't bear to go away from him. It 
 made me so sad yesterday to think I must go. 
 When he asked me last night, I had a hard 
 struggle with myself. I said to myself, 
 " For Sabine's sake I ought to say No to 
 him." And then it flashed across me 
 suddenly, like a great fierce pain, that if I 
 said No, I should have to go away, and 
 perhaps stay away for ever and ever from 
 him. And I couldn't have borne that. It 
 would have killed me outright. Oh, Sabine 
 darling, I could never now live anywhere 
 without him.' 
 
 Sabine looked down upon her with the 
 wondering pity one bestows in an asylum 
 upon some pathetic mania. The girl really 
 meant it — she couldn't doubt that any longer. 
 Woodbine, who acted so ill, could never in
 
 2o6 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 her life have acted Hke this ! But, oh, how 
 insane of her ! Sabine couldn't see (for, like 
 so many girls, though quick in passing intui- 
 tion, she was lacking in any real depth of 
 psychological insight into the minds of others 
 very unlike herself) how natural it was that 
 this feeble little stray should have fallen in 
 love at first sight with the only living being 
 who, in all her poor short life, had ever paid 
 attention to her, sympathized with her, flat- 
 tered her. She didn't see how natural it 
 was that Woodbine should make much of 
 such a man as Mr. Venables when he laid, 
 as it were, all his honours and riches, a 
 willing gift, at the feet of the poor little 
 despised governess. She didn't see how 
 natural it was for a shrinking, sensitive, 
 affectionate soul to repose its confidence freely 
 in the very first person who had ever shown 
 the faintest desire to obtain it. ' Nobody 
 else ever understood me,' she said. Why, 
 that was just what Sabine herself thought 
 about Hubert Harrison. The coincidence
 
 TWO SIDES TO A QUESTION 207 
 
 struck her. But, oh, what a difference ! 
 She wasn't psychologist enough to know 
 herself that every woman who ever fell in 
 love on this earth thinks just so about her 
 own soul and the man who loves her. 
 
 Sabine gazed at her fixedly, and answered 
 in a very chilly voice, ' It must be so, I 
 suppose. You seem to be really capable of 
 loving him — that way ?' 
 
 The poor small thing raised her head once 
 more with a pleading gesture. ' And I can 
 never be happy,* she said, with her eyes dim 
 with tears, ' till you've called me Woodbine 
 again, and thrown your dear arms around 
 me, and kissed me on my lips, and told me 
 you've forgiven me. Oh, Sabine, I'll try 
 never to stand in your way at all. But you 
 must just kiss me and tell me you forgive me.' 
 
 Sabine looked down at those wistful eyes 
 and that pale small face, and her resolution 
 melted. ' You don't know how hard a trial 
 you've put me to, my dear,' she answered 
 slowly, ' but — there — I forgive you. Wood-
 
 2o8 THE DUCHESS OF POVVYSLAND 
 
 bine/ And bending down with an effort, 
 she gave w^ay and kissed her. 
 
 Woodbine flung herself upon her friend's 
 neck, and burst into floods of passionate 
 tears. ' Oh, thank you, dear !' she cried. 
 ' Ten thousand times thank you. I shall 
 be happy now !' And she sobbed as if her 
 poor little heart would break for many 
 minutes.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES. 
 
 Before the fortnight was over — the fortnight 
 Mr. Venables had allowed in his own mind 
 for Sabine to settle herself in — the new-made 
 Duke found his way once more down to Hurst 
 Croft. He had his reasons for coming. 
 Poor Powysland's affairs had now been 
 ' cleared up,' as the lawyers phrase it — the 
 dry light of legal day had at last been let in 
 upon that endless complication of bills, and 
 notes of hand, and mortgages, and gambling 
 debts ; but the result of the clearing was one 
 which showed the balance of the estate so 
 very much on the wrong side of the ledger 
 that the new Duke made up his mind at once 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 nothing was left for him now but to many 
 immediately. 
 
 To many was, indeed, an imperative 
 necessity. His lawyers were talking about 
 ' equity of redemption.' Llanfyllin Castle 
 itself was at stake this time ; while Powys- 
 land House, in London, the last remnant 
 of the old ducal splendour, had fallen into 
 such a state of comparative decay that the 
 Duke w^as really ashamed to meet the re- 
 proachful gaze of the family portraits. Never- 
 theless, as far as his own inclinations were 
 concerned, the sacrifice was a painful one. 
 Adalbert Montgomery was one of those 
 butterfly bachelors who, in their own hateful 
 and anti-social phrase, ' prefer their liberty.' 
 He wanted to be free to do as he liked, for 
 good or for evil — and especially for evil. 
 Not that he was what people generally call a 
 bad man ; he was merely the average product 
 of a bad system ; he held that the world 
 existed, so far as he was concerned, mainly 
 for the purpose of giving him pleasure ; and
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 211 
 
 provided he got it, by hook or by crook, 
 flitting from flower to flower, he cared very 
 little what expense or trouble it entailed upon 
 those mere outsiders, the insignificant class 
 of other people. If he could have consulted 
 his own feelings alone, therefore, and had 
 possessed the necessary balance in the 
 Venables' books in the City to enable him 
 so to follow them, he would have remained 
 single all the days of his life, and allowed 
 the title and estates (if any) to descend after 
 his day to his remote second cousin, Owen 
 Llanfyllin Montgomery, of the Inland 
 Kevenue. 
 
 But there were two cogent reasons which 
 drove the Duke now, while the sod was still 
 fresh on his brother's grave, to run down to 
 Hurst Croft on a strictly business-like errand. 
 In the first place, his credit demanded that 
 he should supply himself at once with ready 
 money, or its equivalent in expectations of a 
 negotiable character. In the second place, 
 his mother, the Dowager, had strongly im-
 
 212 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 pressed upon him the absolute necessity of 
 saving what remained of the family property 
 by a judicious matrimonial sacrifice, and of 
 raising up a direct heir of the senior branch 
 to the Dukedom of Powysland. 
 
 * Let me see,' the Duchess had said, wiping 
 her red eyes with a dainty cambric, and 
 playing calmly meanwhile with her tortoise- 
 shell quizzing glasses. ' Who is there you 
 could fix upon ? There's the daughter of 
 that man who was Lord Mayor last year, of 
 course. She has lots of money, they say, 
 and she's perfectly presentable. She isn't as 
 young as she was, to be sure, but she lights 
 up well, and has good shoulders. She'd cut 
 a very decent figure at a drawing-room still, 
 anj day.' 
 
 * I dislike her, ' the son answered with the 
 undisguised frankness of private life. * I dis- 
 tinctly object to her. I don't want to pre- 
 tend to high sentiment and all that sort of 
 thing ; but I'd rather not marry a woman 
 who lights up well, and whom I distinctly
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES. 213 
 
 object to. . . . Unless, of course, it was a 
 matter of absolute necessity." 
 
 The Duchess twirled her glasses slowly 
 round once more in deliberative fingers. 
 ' Then there's that brewer girl. Miss Massy- 
 Smith,' she went on reflectively. * Old 
 Massy- Smith would pay down handsomely, I 
 haven't the least doubt, to make his daughter 
 a Duchess.' 
 
 *What! That red-haired creature!' the 
 Duke ejaculated, with some obvious annoy- 
 ance. ' Why, I wouldn't take her at any 
 price, mother. I should be ashamed to be 
 seen at Monte Carlo, or anywhere smart, 
 with a woman like that. Besides, she's so 
 fat ; they'd say she represented the family 
 stout, and was sent about the country as a 
 sort of living advertisement, don't you know : 
 Before using — and After.' 
 
 The Duchess drew herself up, and reflected 
 once more. Her own hair had been 
 generously described as bright auburn in 
 youth, and the seventh Duke had married
 
 214 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 her from a family not remotely connected 
 with the beer-producing interest ; so that her 
 sod's remark almost verged on the personal — 
 especially as her own maturer charms dis- 
 tinctly took the direction of a certain 
 chastened massiveness. 
 
 ' Well, how abont that Venables girl ?' she 
 asked again. ' She's a fine-built creature, 
 handsome and well made, and clever into 
 the bargain ; and Venables pere must have 
 nothing on earth to do with his money, 
 dear, stupid old man, except just simply to 
 roll in it !' 
 
 The Duke hesitated. 'Well, I like her,' 
 he said. ' I've thought about her more than 
 once. In fact, in a way, she decidedly 
 attracts me. She's a devilish fine girl — 
 there's no denying that. And I admit she 
 amuses me. But do you know, mumsie,' 
 and he hesitated for a second — a Montgomery 
 could hardly make such an avowal without 
 some tinge of hesitation — ' I'm not quite sure 
 whether she'd have me if I asked her.'
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 215 
 
 His mother's face broke into a scornful 
 smile. ' Nonsense, Bertie,' she answered. 
 ' What an absurd idea ! The girl would 
 just jump at you. Take my word for that.' 
 For it was her grace's habit to measure all 
 other women by her own individual standard 
 of reference ; and she remembered well how 
 hard she and all her family had angled in 
 their day to catch Leopold Augustus, seventh 
 Duke of Powysland. 
 
 ' Well, but, mother, I've been going there 
 a great deal all through the summer, and 
 half a dozen times over I've been on the very 
 point of proposing to her 
 
 ' Not proposing, my dear boy. A man in 
 your position never proposes. Offering her 
 your hand — which, of course, she'd snap 
 at.' 
 
 ' And I've been so discouraged each time 
 by her queer behaviour that I've put it off 
 over and over again ; for there's one thing 
 on earth I could never endure, and that 
 would be that a woman should be in the
 
 2i6 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 position to say I'd asked her and she'd re- 
 fused me.' 
 
 ' No woman aHve dare say it !' his mother 
 answered with warmth. ' Besides, no woman's 
 likely to be such a precious fool either.' 
 
 'Well, you never know,' the Duke pro-- 
 ceeded thoughtfully. * This is such a queer, 
 proud girl. She behaves so oddly to one. 
 She often seems intentionally to make a man 
 feel she thinks no more of him than of the 
 merest broomstick of a country curate. Why, 
 she's almost positively rude to me some- 
 times.' 
 
 The Duchess smiled. ' That's her way of 
 drawing you on, my dear,' she answered. ' I 
 know the type. And I know the tactics. 
 Not bad tactics, either, for a certain sort of 
 girl, with a certain sort of man. They hold 
 you off with one hand, while they draw you 
 on with the other. But they always mean 
 in the end to take you.' 
 
 ' She doesn't seem to mean it,' Bertie 
 mused to himself, in a serious mood.
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 217 
 
 * You were only Lord Adalbert Mont- 
 gomery then,' his mother answered, with a 
 conventional sigh and a faint upward tendency 
 of her dainty pocket-handkerchief, symbolical 
 of maternal desire to check ere it came the 
 rising tear. ' Poor Algernon's death has 
 made a great difference, of course. Not that 
 I think she'd ever have refused you even as 
 Lord Adalbert, and heir-presumptive to the 
 title. But, still, nobody could have expected 
 poor Algernon's life would be cut short like 
 that' — and here the tears actually coursed 
 down the Duchess's cheek unchecked — ' so 
 that of course an heir might have been born 
 at anj^ time ; and that would have put you in 
 quite a different position. As things stand 
 now, all that's so changed. Take my word 
 for it, Bertie ; I know the world I live in, 
 and I know a girl like Sabine Venables — her 
 name's Sabine, isn't it ? — would never be 
 such a fool as to throw away for ever one 
 chance in life of making herself a Duchess.' 
 
 Bertie hesitated still. ' The fact is,' he
 
 2i8 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 said ajDologeticallj^ * I believe she's got a 
 fancy for a man called Harrison, a soi*t of a 
 penny- a -lining fellow, who writes in the 
 papers. She doesn't talk much to him in 
 public — which is all the more dangerous — 
 but Mrs. Bouverie -Barton says she's awfully 
 gone upon him.' 
 
 ' Mashed ?' the Duchess suggested, with a 
 condescending smile. ' Well, my dear boy, 
 you must surely know that doesn't matter 
 twopence. She may be in love with the 
 penny- a -lining fellow who writes for the 
 papers — I dare say she is very much in love 
 indeed with him ; but love's not everything. 
 If you were to ask her, I'd lay a hundred to 
 one in ponies, as soon as look at it, against 
 the penny-a-lining fellow who writes for the 
 papers, and I don't think I'd get any sensible 
 person in England to take me either.' For 
 the Duchess had lived all her life in sporting 
 circles, and this fractional method of calculating 
 chances on a debated event came as naturally to 
 her lips as moral plntitudes to Old Affability's.
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 219 
 
 So, fortified by the Dowager's maternal 
 encouragements, the ninth Duke of Powys- 
 land went down to Hurst Croft only ten days 
 after his brother's death and his own accession 
 to the title, to lay his heart, his hand, and 
 his newly - acquired strawberry - leaves at 
 Sabine Venab ' feet, with very little doubt 
 indeed in his own mind that Sabine would 
 gladly accept the lot at owner's valuation. 
 
 The typical English Philistine was at 
 home that afternoon ; but he wisely proposed 
 a stroll and tea on the lawn as the best means 
 of leaving the young people alone together. 
 Nature was so beautiful, he observed, and 
 the skylarks were singing. So as they walked 
 through the grounds, Mr. Venables and the 
 companion discreetly in front, intent upon the 
 skylarks, the Duke and Sabine loitering ac- 
 cidentally behind beneath the alley of rose- 
 bushes, the young man found an opportunity 
 in some clumsily sporting way to suggest 
 his errand to the not wholly unprepared ears 
 of the lady of his selection.
 
 220 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 Sabine listened to him, as he floundered 
 through his awkward proposal, without 
 moving a muscle of that haughty face of 
 hers. Once or twice, indeed, when the Duke 
 paused and appealed to her mutely to take the 
 rest of a sentence for granted as an assistance 
 to his rhetoric, she smiled internally as she 
 contrasted his clumsiness to herself with 
 Hubert Harrison's ready command of phrase 
 and compliment ; but externally, not a curl 
 of the lip, not a flash of the eye, betrayed 
 for one moment her hidden meaning. Cruel 
 in her coquetry, as was her wont by nature, 
 she made the unfortunate young man formu- 
 late his ideas in full to the uttermost syllable, 
 without one glance to cut short a hard 
 declaration or to interpret an unfinished and 
 halting sentence. The Duke gazed at her 
 pleadingly, but her face was as enigmatical 
 as a sphinx's and as unmoved as a statue's. 
 Once or twice he paused for breath, and 
 halted nervously. But Sabine just waited 
 till he was ready to go on again, and
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 221 
 
 answered nothing. She would hear it all 
 out in the plainest terms from his own lips, 
 that he offered unreservedly to make her a 
 Duchess. 
 
 There should be no mistake or doubt about 
 the absoluteness of the offer. In so many 
 words, he should ask her definitelj^ to marry 
 him. He should have no loophole of retreat 
 left whereby he might pretend he had only 
 put out a casual feeler. It should be a fair 
 and square proposal to make her his wife out- 
 right, in sound English phrase, without doubt 
 or condition. 
 
 At last, the unhappy young man, his 
 patience exhausted with looking out for some 
 reply, some word of encouragement, some 
 glance of recognition, burst out with a visible 
 effort, ' In short, Miss Venables, I've come 
 down this afternoon to ask you if you'll 
 marry me.' 
 
 * Of course,' Sabine answered with a very 
 quiet, matter-of-fact air. i 
 
 The Duke started. He was prepared for
 
 222 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 acquiescence ; he expected her, in fact, to 
 jump at him, as his mother had said ; but, 
 still, he had hardly looked forward in his 
 wildest moments to such unconventional 
 frankness of acceptance as this. It fairly 
 took his breath away. 
 
 ' Then you mean to say you answer Yes V 
 he put in, quite tremulously. She was a 
 splendid girl after all, and even Dukes 
 (though the fact is not generally known in 
 England) are really human. 
 
 Sabine drew herself up with an astonished 
 air. ' I mean nothing of the sort,' she 
 answered curtly. ' You quite misunderstand 
 me. I said, of course you'd come down this 
 afternoon on purpose to ask me. Anybody 
 could see that the moment you arrived. It 
 was quite evident at once. I was waiting for 
 you to speak and to finish what you had 
 to say before I thought what answer I should 
 give your question. It's alwa^'s better to 
 hear what the question is, don't you know, 
 before trying to answer it.'
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 223 
 
 The Duke looked at her with a curious 
 glance, compounded of frank admiration and 
 frank suspicion. ' You're so awfully hard to 
 understand, Miss Venables !' he cried, with a 
 tremor in his throat. ' Perhaps that's one of 
 the things that makes me like you so much. 
 You give one such lots to think about. But 
 you needn't keep a fellow in suspense like 
 this. Kemember, your answer means a great 
 deal to me.' 
 
 ' Not quite so much as you think, perhaps,' 
 Sabine replied with quiet emphasis. ' Before 
 I answer you, Lord Adalbert — I beg your 
 pardon ; it's so hard to remember you're a 
 Duke now — but before I answer you, any- 
 how, I want to tell you something that may 
 perhaps make a considerable difference to you. 
 I mention it in confidence, as it was men- 
 tioned to me. . . . My father's going to 
 marry again before long. He's going to 
 marry Woodbine Weatherley.' 
 
 ' The dickens he is !' the Duke murmured 
 to himself. ' That certainly alters things.'
 
 224 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 But he was enough of a gentleman to answer 
 aloud in his chivalrous manner, in spite of 
 this thunderbolt, ' I don't see what difference 
 that can possibly make in my attitude towards 
 you, Sabine.' 
 
 He called her Sabine with a little thrill in 
 his voice, and with the pleasant consciousness 
 of performing a very generous action. Con- 
 tiguitj^ to a beautiful woman counts for much. 
 His heart beat high. At that moment he 
 loved her. He loved her so well, and he 
 thought it so honourable of her to tell him 
 the whole truth before giving him her answer 
 — so as to let him withdraw his offer in time 
 if he were so disposed under these altered 
 circumstances — that he made up his mind at 
 once to a desperate course of quixotic 
 fanaticism. Yes, in spite of everything, he 
 would plunge, and be hanged to it. He 
 determined then and there, as he tried to 
 catch Sabine's hand in his, under cover of the 
 rose-bushes, that, fortune or no fortune, he'd 
 marry that splendid creature, and make
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 225 
 
 a Duchess of her. Besides, who could tell 
 whether Old Affability would ever have a son 
 and heir, after all, or not ; and if not, then 
 the young man felt he would have turned out 
 a brick and acted nobly, at no ultimate 
 pecuniaiy loss to himself in any way. 
 
 One must have been brought up in an 
 atmosphere of entail and settlements, and 
 equity of redemption, where to sell one's 
 virility for money seems both natural and 
 praiseworthy, in order to enter fully into the 
 feelings of a man who thinks it rather a 
 magnanimous thing than otherwise to neglect 
 a chance of getting the highest market price 
 for his manhood. So the Duke stood there 
 in all sober seriousness, patting himself on 
 the back mentally for his chivalrous determi- 
 nation not to let a beautiful girl see that the 
 disappearance or eclipse of her prospective 
 fortune had the slightest effect upon his 
 appreciation of her womanly charms; and 
 repeating meanwhile in a very sentimental 
 voice, ' I don't really see what difference that 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 can possibly make in my attitude towards 
 you.' 
 
 ' But I see what dififereuce it can make in 
 mine,' Sabine answered quietly, her fingers 
 eluding his grasp as she spoke. ' I think in 
 saying that you're acting like a gentleman. 
 You don't want me to feel it was my money 
 you proposed for, not myself. And I dare 
 say you proposed to some extent for myself 
 into the bargain. But I won't let you spoil 
 your prospects like that. I know how you 
 people who move in the big world look at these 
 things ; and I won't let snaj man marry me 
 out of a pure momentary access of courtesy. 
 You'd regret it to-morrow, you know. You'd 
 be sorry you spoke to me. Besides,' she 
 added after a pause, with an unexpected out- 
 burst of most unflattering frankness, ' to tell 
 you the truth, even before this happened, I'd 
 made up my mind irrevocably to refuse you.' 
 
 * To refuse me!' the Duke blurted out, 
 gazing at her and gasping. 
 
 'Yes,' Sabine answered, 'to refuse you;
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 227 
 
 and for a very good reason, too — because I 
 don't care for you.' 
 
 ' But, my dear Miss Venables ' 
 
 ' Don't let's say any more, Duke. This 
 is more than enough. I oughtn't to have 
 let you say so much. But I wanted to know, 
 don't you know ; I couldn't help waiting till 
 I'd heard you out to the end, to see whether 
 or not you really meant it. Well, I mean 
 what I say. In no case would I marry you. 
 So that's settled once for all. But we may 
 go on in future just as if this little episode 
 had never occurred. My father will ask me 
 what you wanted to say ; and I shall tell 
 my father, in strict confidence ; but I shall 
 never whisper a word of it to anyone else 
 on earth. Nor will he, either. For that, 
 you have my solemn promise and word of 
 honour. I'm sorry now I allowed you to 
 say so much ; but I wouldn't have allowed 
 you if I meant to go away and tell anybody 
 else I'd refused the Duke of Powysland.' 
 The Duke bowed stiffly. He was quite
 
 228 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 taken aback. ' You're very kind,' he faltered 
 out, feeling dimly that he hadn't been quite 
 so magnanimous as he at first imagined. ' I 
 suppose this chapter's really closed between 
 us. But j'ou'll speak of it to nobody then — 
 not even to . . . eh . . . Hai-rison ?' And 
 he glanced at her meaningh\ 
 
 A red spot burnt in Sabine's cheek once 
 more, but she merely answered, ' I have 
 promised you already. I shall speak of it 
 to nobody. And then do you know what all 
 the world will say '? All the world has been 
 watching us two for the last six months, and 
 talking- about us, and quizzing us, and wonder- 
 ing what it would come to. I knew they 
 were. It's my own fault for trying to play 
 a cruel game. I shall have my punishment. 
 I let it go on too long. I wanted the honour 
 and glory of it. And now all the world will 
 say : She wouldn't have the courtesy lord 
 when she might, and when she'd like the 
 Duke, he doesn't care to take her.' 
 
 Adalbert Montgomery felt a pang of pity
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 229 
 
 for her humbled pride — thus openly confessed 
 — thrill through and through him. ' Sooner 
 than they should say that,' he cried, in 
 another sudden little outburst of chivabous 
 enthusiasm, this time more genuine, ' I'll 
 have it put about myself at all the clubs 
 that I proposed to you and you rejected me.' 
 
 Sabine's eyes had a little dim moisture in 
 them. She didn't care for the young man, 
 yet she was not insensible to the pleasure 
 of holding a Duke thus in leash for a moment. 
 It was the woman now, she knew, and not 
 the heiress. ' No, no,' she answered, trem- 
 bling. ' I deserve it all. I've told you this 
 because I know I deserve it, and I ought to 
 be punished. I should be ashamed not to 
 take my punishment standing, when it comes, 
 and to submit to it willingly. I ought never 
 to have led you on as I did. I only meant 
 to coquette with you. I coquetted too long. 
 And now this has turned up, and I feel the 
 difference it must make to you and to every- 
 body, and I know I was wrong. Will you
 
 zyo THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 think it tcij strange of me ? I want yon 
 to foigive me. You do ? Yes, then, tliank 
 yon. And now I think we must go up to 
 the house again to papa. That was really 
 kind. Im very much obliged to you.' 
 
 • Well. He spoke to you at last, Sabine,' 
 the typical British Philistine obseired an 
 hour or two later, rubbing his hands in his 
 glee. ' I'm not so blind but I could make 
 that much out for myself. And what did he 
 say to you ?' 
 
 ' He asked me to be his wife, papa/ 
 Sabine responded coldly. 
 
 * My darling !' Mr. Yeuables cried, rushing 
 oTer and IrisaiTig her efiusiTely on both her 
 cheeks. * I congratulate you ! I congratulate 
 you ! To think of such an honour ! But 
 you're worthy of it, Sabine. Though I say 
 it myself, you're worthy of it. As you stand 
 there this minute, you look every inch a 
 Duchess.' 
 
 Sabine disentangled herself calmly from
 
 THE DUKE PLUNGES 231 
 
 her father's embrace. ' And I told him,' 
 she went on in a very Mgid voice, as if 
 merely continuing her interrupted narrative, 
 * you were going to marry Woodbine 
 Weatherley, and that under those circum- 
 stances it would be impossible for me to 
 dream of accepting his offer.' 
 
 ' Sabine !' 
 
 The wounded Philistine said it in a sudden 
 horror of increduhty and feai-. Was the 
 girl going mad ? Had she really and truly 
 refused in cold blood the ineffable honour 
 of being made a Duchess ? 
 
 ' Well, papa ?' 
 
 ' You didn't ! you couldn't ! you can't 
 mean to tell me you actuall}' refnsed him !' 
 
 ' Yes, I did, papa. I refused him point- 
 blank. Irrevocably, unconditionally. So 
 that's the whole truth. I couldn't let him 
 marry me on spec, for a fortime. And, 
 besides, what's more, I cotildn't possibly love 
 him.'
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DISILLUSIONED. 
 
 Basil Maclaine sat jauntily in his chambers 
 in Clandon Street once more, journal in hand, 
 discussing the affairs of the universe with 
 Douglas Harrison. Breakfast was over, and 
 it was a departmental holiday at the Board of 
 Trade. A man may take his ease at his inn ; 
 and Basil Maclaine took his, by dangling his 
 legs over the arm of his chair, and puflBng out 
 successive rings of scented tobacco-smoke. 
 
 ' Well, it's my belief,' he said with flippant 
 familiarity, ' Powysland's luffed off that tack 
 altogether now ; and the coast's left clear 
 accordingly for a commoner to tackle her.' 
 
 'It's my belief,' Douglas Harrison inter- 
 posed, ' that the Duke, on the contrary, has
 
 DISILLUSIONED 233 
 
 offered himself and been refused. But as it's 
 no business of ours, we're fortunately not 
 called upon to produce any evidence either 
 way in defence of our opinions.' 
 
 ' I'm not so sure of that,' Basil Maclaine 
 replied, his eye still resting obliquely upon 
 the paragraph in Truth which had aroused the 
 discussion. ' I mean I don't know that it's 
 no business of ours. I don't for a moment 
 believe that she's refused Powysland — not 
 likely she would : girls, even when they're 
 rich, don't often get a chance of refusing a 
 coronet. But I think Powysland must have 
 made it clear to them at Hurst Croft he didn't 
 mean to propose, now he's a Duke — he can do 
 better elsewhere — or else they wouldn't have 
 announced this ridiculous engagement of Old 
 Affability's with that shadowy little Weather- 
 ley girl.' 
 
 ' You think not ?' Douglas asked, with a 
 faint smile. 
 
 ' Oh, ^I'm sure they wouldn't, my dear 
 fellow ! It stands to reason. I was watch-
 
 234 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 ing that little comedy all through the re- 
 hearsals, and I spotted it at once, and so did 
 Mrs. Bouverie -Barton. My only wonder was 
 Miss Yenables didn't spot it herself as soon as 
 we did. The old man was gone just silly 
 over dear Woodbine's acting. He hardly ever 
 spoke to me about anything else, except 
 whether Miss Weatherley's dress was the 
 absolutely con-ectest thing out for the part of 
 Celia ; whether Miss Weatherley's points were 
 all properly made ; whether every other 
 character in the whole piece was devoting 
 himself or herself with a single mind to the 
 one solitary task of playing up direct to Miss 
 Weatherley as a centre. Depend upon it, it 
 was all arranged between them weeks ago ; 
 but they deferred the announcement till Bertie 
 Montgomery, as he was then, had made up 
 his mind to propose or not propose to Sabine 
 Venables.' 
 
 ' Oh, that's what you make of it, then, is 
 it ?' Douglas interjected languidly, for to 
 him this gossip of the boudoirs was by no
 
 DISILLUSIONED 235 
 
 means so enthralling as to the devoted imitator 
 of the very best models. 
 
 ' Of course that's it,' Basil went on, de- 
 lighted with the profundity of his own critical 
 insight. ' You can see the whole thing with 
 half an eye, if you only look close enough. 
 But when Bertie Montgomery found himself 
 suddenly transformed into a real live Duke, he 
 thought better of his intention. Till then, 
 he'd half made up his mind to propose to the 
 girl outright. But the dukedom put him off 
 that tack at once. He luffed and went over. 
 You see, he could sell himself higher in a 
 better market. America's the place now. 
 It's my belief he meant to propose that very 
 afternoon of the pastoral play ; but Morton 
 came down with the telegram of his brother's 
 death and spoiled it all. The girl's had a 
 narrow squeak of being made a Duchess, I can 
 tell you, and missed it by exactly twenty 
 minutes.' 
 
 It gave Basil Maclaine infinite pleasure 
 thus to feel himself brought into close contact
 
 236 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAXD 
 
 with the high places of the world, and able to 
 criticise such distinguished conduct from a 
 platform of equality. He stood a good half- 
 inch taller now, since he had begun to speak 
 familiarly of a noble Duke as plain Powys- 
 land. 
 
 * But what did you mean by saying, a 
 minute ago, you didn't know it was no 
 business of ours ?' Douglas asked with some 
 curiosity, for he wondered whether Basil was 
 thinking of his brother Hubert. (Life is one 
 long game of these personal cross-purposes.) 
 
 Basil Maclaine glanced down approvingly 
 at his own neat walking shoes, as he answered 
 with some magnificence of manner, ' Well, 
 you see, the Duke's clear out of the way, 
 now, that's quite certain. He won't marry 
 her on the ofif chance of the second Mrs. 
 Venables never happening to present Old 
 Affability with a son and heir. You never 
 can count upon an heiress for certain till her 
 father's ninety, or comfortably settled in 
 Kensal Green Cemetery. So, of course.
 
 DISILLUSIONED 237 
 
 there's a decent chance going at present for 
 any other enterprising young man who'd be 
 content to take a son for granted, and to put 
 up with a modest daughter's share of the 
 Venables milhons.' 
 
 ' But I don't want to marry Sabine 
 Venables,' Douglas responded, somewhat 
 bewildered, for he supposed Basil must still 
 be referring obliquely to his brother Hubert. 
 
 ' I didn't for one moment suppose you did,' 
 Basil retorted, drawing himself up with one 
 of his superior, glances. ' But I may. 
 There's your aristocratic insolence coming out 
 again, Harrison. Why shouldn't I have as 
 good a right to have a shot at Miss Venables, 
 and as good a chance of hitting the mark, 
 as any other fellow '?' 
 
 ' Oh, of course,' Douglas answered, with a 
 certain uneasy air of arriere pensee. 
 
 ' Why this mental reservation ?' the civil 
 servant put in searchingly. 
 
 ' Well, it's not my place to speak about it 
 again,' Douglas went on, with some hesita-
 
 23S THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 tion ; ' but do you know, Maclaine, I think, if 
 you mean to marry anybody else, you — excuse 
 my recurring to it — but you oughtn't to go on 
 as 5^ou do with Miss Figgins.' 
 
 * Miss Figgins!' Basil repeated, with infinite 
 scorn in his voice. ' There you're at it again ! 
 What a fellow you are ! You seem to think 
 because a man's people are in trade he can't 
 have a particle of self-respect in his composi- 
 tion in any way. That's what comes of 
 having a father engaged in performing 
 archidiaconal functions. Bless your heart, 
 archdeacons and their families are not the only 
 people in the world with any proper pride in 
 them. Kow, do you think it likely a man in 
 my position would ruin himself for life by 
 marrying Miss Figgins ?' 
 
 Douglas Harrison gazed across at him with 
 a curious look of hesitation. ' I can hardly 
 understand you, Maclaine,' he answered 
 after a short pause. ' Long as we've 
 lived together, I can hardly understand 
 you.'
 
 DISILLUSIONED 239 
 
 ' Well now, look here, my dear fellow,' the 
 civil servant answered, rising, and leaning 
 his arm argumentatively on the mantelpiece. 
 ' What sort of fuss do you think my father 
 and my friends would kick up if I went down 
 to Birmingham and told them I was going to 
 marry — not Sabine Venables, or somebody 
 else in my own position in life — but the girl 
 who waited at table in my chambers in 
 Clandon Street ? Just imagine me going 
 back to the paternal roof in the Hagley 
 Eoad, Edgbaston, and telling the governor I 
 was bringing him home a daughter-in-law to 
 introduce to his friends — from a London 
 lodging-house. Why, my father isn't exactly 
 what you call a passionate man, but hang me 
 if I don't think he'd kick me out of the 
 house the moment I ventured even to suggest 
 or hint the bare possibility of such an 
 alliance.' 
 
 ' You speak a foreign language to me,' 
 Douglas Harrison answered, closing his eyes 
 dreamily in the vain attempt to realize the
 
 240 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 frame of mind that could so regard his in- 
 comparable Linda. 
 
 ' Besides,' Basil went on, looking down 
 upon him contemptuously, ' there are my 
 prospects in life ; I've got them to think 
 about. ControUership of com returns : there's 
 a post that'd suit me down to the ground, 
 when I've worked my way up to it. Twelve 
 hundred a year and pickings. But even 
 supposing I was fool enough in other ways to 
 wish to marry the girl — which I'm far from 
 being — I have my own prospects in life to 
 consider, of course. She s a very nice girl to 
 flirt with and to pull about 
 
 Douglas Hai'rison rose in virtuous indigna- 
 tion. 'You never pulled her about,' he cried 
 angrily. ' You daren't, xlnd you know it. 
 Your words are shameful. Xo man shall use 
 such language about Miss Figgins in my 
 presence. I won't allow it.' 
 
 Basil waved his hand with a gentle depre- 
 catory air. ' WeU, you needn't get so warm 
 about it, anyhow,' he answered, smiling.
 
 DISILLUSIOXED 241 
 
 * She isn't wax. Fingers don't leave marks 
 upon her. Besides, I never said I did. I 
 said she was a nice enough girl for the 
 purpose you decline to let me mention ; but 
 as to mariying her, why, the idea's ridiculous. 
 Even supposing, as I say, I chose to make a 
 fool of myself as far as affection is concerned 
 — though, for my part, I'm much more likely 
 to fall in love with a girl in a good position 
 in life than with a London lodging-house 
 keeper — still, it isn't likely I'd want to many 
 anybody at present, unless she had enough 
 money to keep both of us decently. It'll 
 take me ten years at least to carve out my 
 place in the world in the way I've designed 
 it. When I've done that, I may think of 
 setthng dowD. and marrying a penniless girl, 
 if I happen to fancy her ; but till then — 
 impossible !' 
 
 'A foreign language still!' Douglas 
 answered, shutting his eyes once more. * So 
 utterly alien to everj^thing I hope, and feel, 
 and think, and believe, that I can't even put 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 myself in your place and realize it. I know 
 it's .what the poHtical economists call pru- 
 dence ; but for my part, I call it a much 
 harsher name, and I confess I don't care 
 for it.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine lighted another cigar with a 
 spill, and strolled to the door. * Well, that 
 subject's closed,' he said resolutely. ' We 
 won't discuss it again. I hate these bicker- 
 ings. The fact is, you can't talk about that 
 girl without losing your temper. But one 
 thing's certain. I've made up my mind to so 
 much. I never dreamt in my life of marry- 
 ing Miss Figgins, and whatever comes, I 
 never will marry her.' 
 
 ' I think you ought to tell her so, then,' 
 Douglas interposed warmly. 
 
 ' I don't. You can, if you like. But I 
 should think she'd be very much surprised 
 indeed to find you thought it necessary to 
 assure her of a fact which must already be 
 obvious to the meanest understanding.' 
 
 ' It's no use my telling her, Maclaine.
 
 DISILLUSIONED 243 
 
 She wouldn't believe me. She ought to hear 
 it from your own lips.' 
 
 ' Well, she won't, then. That's flat. Why 
 should I spoil my own sport for nothing ? 
 She's a very nice young woman to flutter 
 about when one has nothing better on hand 
 to do. But marry her ! Nonsense ! Why 
 should I tell her I don't mean to propose 
 what in her wildest moments of excitement 
 she could never have expected of me ?' 
 
 ' Maclaine, you're breaking that girl's 
 heart !' 
 
 Basil stuck his hat on his head with a very 
 decisive air, and pulled his necktie straight. 
 It rather flattered his soul than otherwise to 
 be treated as a lady-killer, though even 
 on so humble a plane of life. ' Then it's all 
 her own fault,' he answered. ' But she can't 
 be quite such a fool as all that comes to, 
 either. She can never have imagined for 
 half a moment a man in imj position meant 
 anything serious.' 
 
 And he strolled casually to the door, puffing
 
 244 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 away at his cigar with an elaborate air of 
 profound decision. 
 
 As soon as he was gone, Douglas passed 
 through the folding doors into his own bed- 
 room, which opened out of their joint sitting- 
 room. 
 
 The doors were ajar, for the floor was 
 arranged in the common London lodging- 
 house fashion — drawing-room in front, bed- 
 room behind, folding doors between, and a 
 separate door for each room on to the 
 landing. 
 
 He entered the bedroom noiselessly, gliding 
 through the open space, not intentionally, 
 but of pure accident, because his movements 
 were always naturally gentle. As he did so, 
 an unexpected sight met his eye. 
 
 Linda stood there, transfixed, by the 
 bottom of the bed, leaning on the brass rail 
 of the bedstead for support, deadly pale, and 
 very ghastly to look upon. 
 
 'Linda!' the young man cried, his own 
 lips trembling with sympathetic horror.
 
 DISILLUSIONED 245 
 
 ' You heard what he said, then ? Oh, Linda, 
 you heard him !' 
 
 Linda put her hand to her side, as if breath 
 failed her. ' I didn't mean to, Mr. Harrison,' 
 she answered. * I wasn't trying to listen. 
 I'd only just come in to tidy up the room, 
 and caught the tag end of your conversation. 
 When I heard you were talking of me, I tried 
 to slip away without either of you noticing it. 
 But if I'd slipped away, I must have passed 
 the door, and Mr. Maclaine would have seen 
 me in the glass, for he was looking in the 
 glass, and I couldn't have endured that he 
 should know I'd heard what he said of me. 
 It was bad enough he should say it, and that 
 I should overhear him ; but that he should 
 know I'd heard, I could never have sur- 
 vived it.' 
 
 Douglas Harrison gazed at her fixedly for 
 a moment. ' Linda,' he said, in a very 
 pained voice, ' this is a terrible blow for you ; 
 but as he thinks and feels like that, for your 
 own sake, not mine, I'm not sorry you
 
 246 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 sliould have found it out at last. I'm not 
 sorry you should know he never meant any- 
 thing.' 
 
 Linda lifted up her face, now scarlet with 
 shame. ' It's all over,' she answered, in 
 heart-broken accents. * He shall never have 
 the chance of speaking so again. Mr. 
 Harrison, you've always been a dear, kind 
 friend to me. I wish I could have loved you 
 as I have loved that man. But it's all over 
 now. He shall never again be able to say 
 such things of me.' 
 
 And, with her head erect and proud once 
 more, but her heart standing still, she walked 
 lirmly to the door, which Douglas Harrison 
 held open for her, with a deferential air, as 
 he would have held it open for any other 
 lady.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED. 
 
 That evening Cecil Figgins came home from 
 the tube- works elastic as usual, full of mani- 
 fold resolutions for the future. He had made 
 up his mind, in fact, to several important 
 steps. And some of them he intended to 
 carry out, for once in his life, without even 
 so much as consulting Linda. 
 
 Douglas Harrison was dining out that night 
 in the West-End, and Basil Maclaine sat 
 alone accordingly, with that blushing journa- 
 listic nymph, the Globe, to keep him company, 
 in the sacred shades of the drawing-rooms 
 at Clandon Street. Linda had gone to bed 
 betimes ; she complained of headache, and 
 seemed sadly out of sorts ; but her early
 
 248 THE DUCHESS OF POIVYSLAND 
 
 disappearance from the scene exactly suited 
 her brother's convenience ; for he wanted to 
 talk with Basil Maclaine alone, and this was 
 precisely the opportunity he had long been 
 looking for. So he washed off the tell-tale 
 grime of the works with as great care and 
 attention as if it had been Sunday morning, 
 and, arraying himself in a clean white shirt 
 and neat black coat, like a capable, self-re- 
 specting, superior mechanic that he was, 
 knocked, about half-past eight, with some- 
 what marked assurance, at the door of the 
 drawing-rooms. 
 
 * Come in !' Basil Maclaine called out in 
 his second-best manner — the manner he 
 specially reserved for social inferiors of the 
 better grade ; for the bell hadn't rung, and 
 he knew, therefore, it was one of the house- 
 hold, not an outside visitor. So he said 
 ' Come in !' with a certain brisk air of gentle 
 command, and Cecil Figgins entered. 
 
 ' Oh — ah . . . it's you, then, Mr. Figgins,' 
 Basil murmured, looking up somewhat sur-
 
 MR. M ACL A IN E INTERVIEWED 249 
 
 prised at this sudden apparition of a clean 
 white shirt, but still keeping both his seat 
 and his hold upon the newspaper. ' Do you 
 want anything this evening ?' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' Cecil answered, walking boldly 
 across the room and standing by the mantel- 
 piece. * I wanted a few minutes' conversa- 
 tion with you, if you can spare me the time. 
 There's a subject that closely interests us 
 both on which I have something important 
 to say to you.' 
 
 ' Indeed !' Basil replied, laying down the 
 paper in surprise, and staring hard at his 
 unexpected visitor, but without even a wave 
 of the hand to motion him into a seat. 
 ' What can that be, I wonder ?' It was a 
 profound belief of Basil that Linda's brother 
 ' wanted taking down a peg,' and by that 
 precise altitude, accordingly, he desired always 
 to reduce him. 
 
 Cecil Figgins, however, was not the sort 
 of man to remain standing in any other man's 
 rooms, no matter whom he might be talking
 
 2SO THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 with ; SO, to Basil's immense astonishment 
 (' Such coolness, don't you know ! A mere 
 journeyman mechanic !' as Basil remarked to 
 a friend some days afterwards), he drew him- 
 self forward a chair and seated himself 
 confidently full in front of his magnificent 
 lodger. 
 
 * Well, I'm thinking of taking some im- 
 portant steps in life,' the engineer began, with 
 the easy fi-ankness of a man who knows and 
 feels sure of his own position (which Basil, 
 for all his fine talk, never really did) ; ' and 
 before I do so, as they will necessitate my 
 absence from London for a long time, I 
 thought it best to speak to you with regard 
 to my sister.' 
 
 ' With regard to Miss Figgins ! ' Basil re- 
 peated with an open stare, wondering what 
 this preamble could possibly be leading 
 up to. 
 
 * Well, yes ; I shall have to leave her 
 alone in the house,' Cecil Figgins went on, 
 without a shade of embarrassment ; ' and as
 
 MR. M ACL A IN E INTERVIEWED 251 
 
 that is SO, of course, I'd like to know before 
 I leave what her position and prospects will 
 be for the future.' 
 
 Basil looked up with his most patronizing 
 air. The man was taking his right cue 
 now ; he was touting for his lodgers. ' Oh, 
 Harrison and I are extremely comfortable 
 here,' he said in an affable tone of voice — 
 * extremely comfortable. We couldn't possibly 
 be more so. I understand from Miss Figgins 
 you've a long lease of the house still to run ; 
 but you may rely upon it we're neither of us 
 likely to move out, or to want to move out — 
 unless, of course, anything unexpected turns 
 up to unsettle us — as long as Miss Figgins 
 continues to do as well in the future as she 
 has always done in the past for us.' 
 
 Cecil smiled in spite of himself, a quiet, 
 self-contained little smile, the very counter- 
 part of Linda's. ' Oh, I didn't mean that,' 
 he said, with an amused air. ' I've no doubt 
 Linda can always let her rooms if she wants 
 to go on letting them. But what I meant
 
 252 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 was, I should like to know, before leaving 
 London, how Linda's future in life was likely 
 to shape itself, as on that consideration would 
 largely depend the nature of the arrange- 
 ments I might make as to the lease — and as 
 to my sister herself, in fact.' 
 
 ' I — ah — I don't quite understand you !' 
 Basil exclaimed, somewhat bewildered by this 
 curious speech. Why on earth should this 
 man Figgins desire to make a confidant of 
 him, of all men, about his arrangements as to 
 his sister and his sister's lodging-house ! 
 
 ' Well, of course, it hasn't escaped my 
 notice,' Cecil went on, growing warm, ' that 
 you've been paying my sister a great deal of 
 attention.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine let the silver pencil-case on 
 his watch-chain drop from the hand that was 
 idly toying with it, and raised his eyebrows 
 as he repeated slowly, ' Paying — Miss Figgins 
 — a great deal of attention !' 
 
 ' Yes,' Cecil remarked once more, rather 
 redder in the face than at first. ' That's
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED 253 
 
 exactly what I said. A great deal of atten- 
 tion.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine stared at him very hard. 
 
 * I think/ he replied, with slow deliberation, 
 petrifying him with his glance, ' there must 
 surely be some mistake somewhere.' 
 
 ' I think so, too,' the engineer retorted, 
 with a quiet smile that resisted petrifaction. 
 
 * A very serious mistake, indeed. But it's 
 not too late to rectify it. I say once more, 
 you've been paying a great deal of attention 
 of late to my sister Linda. Now, what do 
 you mean by it ?' 
 
 * Nothing,' Basil answered, playing 
 nervously with his top coat-button. ' Nothing 
 at all, I assure you. Absolutely nothing.' 
 
 Cecil Figgins measured him from head to 
 foot with his eye in undisguised surprise. 
 
 * And you dare to tell me so, sir, without one 
 word of apology ?' he cried, in a tremulous 
 tone of suppressed anger. 
 
 The civil servant shifted one leg from the 
 other uneasily. ' This is so sudden, Mr.
 
 2^4 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 Figgins,' he said with an evident effort — ' so 
 totally unexpected.' 
 
 * How so ?' Cecil answered, his righteous 
 indignation rising higher each moment. 
 
 * If you pay a lady obvious attentions, it's 
 natural you should expect her friends and 
 relations to be interested in your meaning, 
 isn't it ?' 
 
 ' But surely, my good sir,' Basil cried, 
 brought to bay at last, and taking refuge in 
 his one unanswerable argument, ' you couldn't 
 seriously suppose a man in my position meant 
 to — ah — to actually inarry your sister ! ' 
 
 The engineer gazed back at him in frank 
 bewilderment. ' Why not ?' he asked simply. 
 
 • You admit, practically, j-ou have paid her 
 attentions. With what other object on earth 
 could you possibly have paid her them ? 
 Have the goodness to explain to me.' 
 
 Basil Maclaine hesitated. ' Well, we two 
 were thrown together here in the rooms, you 
 see,' he said, looking down and inspecting 
 his shoes witli less complacency than usual,
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED 255 
 
 * and your sister's a person of engaging 
 manners, and an intelligence, I — I must say 
 — well, very much removed above her position 
 in life ; and it was natural, under the circum- 
 stances, we should talk with one another 
 occasionally on — on various topics ; and I 
 may perhaps, at times, have let slip an un- 
 guarded word or two more than I intended. 
 But I assure you it never even once, for a 
 moment, crossed my mind that either she or 
 
 you ' 
 
 He broke off short, for Cecil Figgins had 
 risen and was facing him angrily. 'An 
 intelligence very much above her position in 
 life !' the engineer repeated scornfully. ' Why, 
 do you mean to tell me, Mr. Maclaine, you 
 ever considered yourself, or consider yourself 
 now, a person fitted by nature to form a 
 judgment at all upon my sister's intelligence ? 
 If you did, I can only tell you you immensely 
 overrate your own critical powers. I should 
 have been sorry indeed if my sister, with 
 her bright, clear mind, were to throw herself
 
 256 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 away upon such an extremely ordinary young 
 man as you are ; though, if it had been her 
 own marked wish, I could, of course, say 
 nothing in opposition to her. But that you 
 should dare to treat her, who is your natural 
 superior, as in any way anything less than at 
 least your equal — such a girl as Linda — why, 
 it's an idea that never so much as one 
 moment occurred to me as lying within the 
 bounds of human possibility.' 
 
 Basil reflected for a second ; then he asked 
 with a somewhat crestfallen air, ' To what do 
 I owe the honour of this visit ? Did Miss 
 Figgins request you to come up and speak 
 to me ?' 
 
 'Miss Figgins did not,' the engineer 
 answered, in a very decided voice. * My 
 sister doesn't even know I've come. If she 
 had known what I meant to do, she would 
 certainly not have allowed me to ask you. 
 But at a moment when I had it in my mind 
 to absent myself from home for a very long 
 time, I chose on my own account to take this
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED 257 
 
 means of finding out what was most likely to 
 be my sister's future. I'm glad I did. It 
 confirms my purpose. Linda shall no longer 
 be exposed to your insulting advances. I 
 shall take care she knows what sort of man 
 you are who have dared so to treat her. 
 Though I doubt she will ever believe you 
 could be capable of thinking as unworthily as 
 you do think of her.' 
 
 * Well, but, Figgins,' Basil began, assuming 
 the defensive once morQ for a moment, 'just 
 look at it plainly yourself, and consider the 
 attitude. Put yourself in my place, for 
 example. How could you ever suppose a 
 man in my position — in a Government office, 
 and mixing with the Very Best People — 
 would go and ruin his prospects in life by 
 engaging himself to a girl who keeps a 
 lodging-house !' 
 
 Cecil Figgins looked him through and 
 through, with unspeakable contempt in 
 his honest dark eyes. ' I should have 
 thought,' he said proudly, stepping back a 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 pace or two, and examining Basil as one 
 examines some singular wild animal, ' that 
 anybody who was privileged to live under the 
 same roof with my sister would have learnt 
 before this to judge her by some higher 
 standard than that purely artificial one. Not 
 what she does, but what she is, marks mj* 
 sister's position. Mr. Harrison understands 
 that, and treats her as such a woman ought 
 to be treated. But, then — Mr. Harrison is a 
 gentleman. I always knew you didn't 
 understand it, but I never till now suspected 
 how complete was j^our misunderstanding. 
 The fact is, you and I are placed so far apart 
 in the scale of being, that it's hard for a man 
 like me to realize even your point of view. 
 To me, the realities of life really count for 
 everything ; to you, the conventionalities. 
 You've blinded your eyes so long and so per- 
 sistently to everything really worth noting in 
 the world, that even when you're privileged 
 to live in the same house with such a woman 
 as my sister, you fail to appreciate the im-
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED 259 
 
 portance and rarity of the privilege. No, 
 sir, dou't answer me any more. You've said 
 more than enough ah-eady. When you talked 
 of my sister as a girl that keeps a lodging- 
 house, you gave me a clue by which to judge 
 your relative standards of worth, and you may 
 be sure I will never again allow her to be 
 insulted by receiving such unworthy advances 
 as yours are. You're too far beneath her.' 
 
 And flinging the words full in Basil's face, 
 like so many bullets, he walked out of the 
 room, fiery hot from his colloquy. 
 
 At the head of the stairs Linda called out 
 to him. He hurried up to her bedroom-door. 
 She hadn't begun to undress yet, but was 
 sitting on the bed, with her hands on her 
 knees, looking worn and pale, but very resolute. 
 
 ' I know what you've been doing, Cecil,' 
 she said, raising her eyes to his. ' I could 
 tell by the tones of your two voices. But I 
 wish you had never gone — I knew it all 
 already, dear.' 
 
 ' You knew it already, Linda ?'
 
 26o THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 * Yes, Cecil, I knew it.' 
 
 ' But wlij' didn't you tell me, then ? How 
 on earth could you let him go on treating 
 you as he did, if you knew it ?' 
 
 ' It was only since this morning,' Linda 
 answered, without flinching or faltering. 
 She was too brave to cr5\ ' I overheard 
 him by accident talking to Mr. Harrison 
 ■while I was doing the bedroom. I can't tell 
 you what he said, the words would choke 
 me — but it was enough to make me feel I 
 couldn't stop here any longer. Cecil, I'll go 
 with you. Let us never part. It would 
 degrade me in mj^ own eyes if after this I 
 remained in London.' 
 
 Her brother took her hand gentlj^ in his, 
 and soothed it like a woman. ' That's right,' 
 he answered, calming down. ' I'm glad 
 you'll come. I knew it would be worse than 
 useless for you to stay. Though I'm really 
 grieved for poor Mr. Harrison.' 
 
 ' He'll be sorry to lose me,' Linda put in 
 simply.
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED 261 
 
 * He will,' her brother assented with equal 
 frankness. ' Linda, I wish it could have 
 been him instead of the other one.' 
 
 ' So do I, Cecil. But these things come 
 uj) their own way in one's heart, and you 
 can neither help them on nor prevent them. 
 They seem almost as irresponsible as the 
 wind that bloweth where it listeth. You 
 can't force them down, my dear, and you 
 can't control them.' 
 
 Her brother looked across at her long 
 and sympathetically. But he said nothing. 
 Linda wasn't a girl with whom any man, 
 however near or dear, could venture to 
 condole on such a subject. He drew a long 
 breath. ' He'll miss you terribly,' he said 
 after a pause. 
 
 ' Who ? Mr. Harrison ?' Linda asked, 
 looking up and stifling her emotion. 
 
 * Yes, Mr. Harrison. For his sake, Linda, 
 I almost wish you were going to stop 
 here.' 
 
 * It is for his sake partly,' Linda answered
 
 262 THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND 
 
 with a quiet sigh, * that I think of going 
 away.' 
 
 ' How so ?' her brother asked with some 
 Httle surprise. ' I don't quite understand 
 you.' 
 
 Linda gazed back at him with her frank, 
 fearless face. ' Wliy, if I stopped here,' she 
 said simply, ' he'd want me to marry him, 
 and I can never love any other man as I've 
 loved this one. Still, I couldn't bear that 
 dear Mr. Harrison should try just, as it were, 
 to make up to me for the loss of the man I 
 love best, but who I always knew wasn't 
 half as good as him. If I lived here long 
 enough, I'd take Mr. Harrison in the end 
 out of pure pity ; and I never could bear that 
 such a dear good soul as he should know I 
 only accepted him at last, because a man I 
 loved a thousand times better had never cared 
 for me enough to marry me.' 
 
 She said it deliberately, calmly, critically. 
 From any other woman such an avowal as 
 that at such a moment would have sounded
 
 MR. MACLAINE INTERVIEWED 263 
 
 strangely hard and curiously calculating. 
 But between those two it was perfectly 
 natural. Brother and sister, cast in the 
 same mould, understood one another without 
 even the necessity for explanation. Cecil 
 knew that Linda esteemed and respected 
 Douglas Harrison so much that some care 
 for his feelings, even in such a crisis as she 
 was then passing through, was perfectly 
 natural to her. For a good woman can like 
 and respect a man to a very high degree 
 without feeling the least little bit in the 
 world that she really loves him. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLINC. AND SON'S, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
 
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