LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 900KSTACKS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/dancerinyellow01norr The Dancer in Yellow popular 06. iRovels. A Victim of Good Luck. By W. E. Norris. The Countess Radna. By W. E. Norris. The Manxman. By Hall Caine. The Bondman. By Hall Caine. The Scapegoat. By Hall Caine. The Ebh-Tide. By R. L. Stevenson and Llovd Osbourne. The Heavenly Twins. By Sarah Grand. Ideala. A Study from Life. By Sarah Grand. Our Manifold Nature. By Sarah Grand. The Master. By I. Zangwill. The King of Schnorrers. By I. Zangwill. Illustrated. Children of the Ghetto. By I. Zangwill. The Premier and the Painter. By I. Zangwill and Louis COWEN. A Drama in Dutch. By ' Z. Z.' Corruption. By Percy White. Stories for Ninon. By Emile Zola. A Comedy of Sentiment. By Max Nordau. Herbert Vanlennert. By C. F. Keary. In Haste and at Leisure. By E. Lynn Linton. The Potter's Thumb. By Flora Annie Steel. From the Five Rivers. By Flora Annie Steel. The Last Sentence. By Maxwell Gray. The Tower of Taddeo. By Ouida. Illustrated. The Naulahka. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott Balestier. The O'Connors of Ballinahinch. By Mrs. Hungerford. A Superfluous Woman. By E. F. Brooke. Transition. By the Author of ' A Superfluous Woman.' At the Gate of Samaria. By W. J. Locke. Elder Coaklin, and other Stories. By Frank Harris. Terminations. By Henry James. Sentimental Studies. By H. Crackanthorpe. Chimsera. By F. Mabel Robinson. An Imaginative Man. By R. S. Hichens. Out of Due Season. Bv Adeline Sergeant. The Years that the Locust hath Eaten. By Annie E. HOLDSWORTH. The Eleventh Commandment. By Halliwell Sutcliffe. A Self-Denying Ordinance. By M. Hamilton. London : WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford St., W.C. The Dancer in Yellow By W. E. Norris Author of The Countess Radna,' ' A Victim of Good Luck, etc., etc. In Two Volumes Vol. I. THIRD EDITION London William Heinemann 1896 All rigJUs reserved. i- SA5 i <^ CONTENTS OF VOL. L s Chapter I. A Nautical Honeymoon Page I II. A Letter fro7n Home . 17 III. FranJ^s Relations 28 IV. Gerard's Doo?n 42 V. Clever Mrs. Trafford . . 54 VI. ' Othello Junior' . 66 VIL A Lively Supper-Party 80 VIII. Daisy gives Reasons . 91 IX. Last Days . 107 X. An Unsolicited Confidence 120 XL Othello Redux . n^:> XIL Man and Wife . 148 XIII. Curzon Street 160 XIV. Daisy is Explicit . 173 XV. Happy Gerard . 187 XVI. Mrs. Trafford s Head aches 202 THE DANCER IN YELLOW CHAPTER I. A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON. When the stormy winds do blow, when the crested billows are chasing one another up or down the gray English Channel, and when many a saddened yachtsman is driven to doubt whether, after all, it is such very good fun to play at being a sailor, there is no more snug and comfortable haven round these coasts to run for than Dartmouth. Sheltered on all sides by those abrupt, wooded hills between which the Dart flows placidly, with depth enough of water to float an ironclad, yachtsmen and others may drop anchor, may smile at the gales roaring out seawards overhead, and may await better times, while appreciating the tranquil beauty of immediate surroundings. VOL. I. I 2 THE DANCER IN YELLOW As a rule, better times soon come ; for, although the climate of the far West is apt to be ill spoken of by those who have but a slight acquaintance with it, any fisherman plying his trade between Portland and Penzance will tell you that a hard blow of twenty-four hours is pretty sure to be succeeded by a much longer spell of fair weather. Summer gales, at all events, are brief affairs, and that tiny yawl the Mongoose, which had brought up off Kingswear at nightfall, after a somewhat trying beat down Channel, might very well have resumed her voyage on the following brilliantly sunny day, had her occupants been minded to give the requisite instructions to the skipper. But as they were in no hurry, they thought they would allow the sea time to go down, and in the meanwhile they had themselves pulled across in the dinghy to the opposite shore, whence they started for a stroll along the shady foot- path which leads from Dartmouth to the entrance of the harbour and the quaint old church of St. Petrox. Being but two in number, being male and female, and being rendered attractive to the eye by youth, come- liness and very nice clothes, they were made A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON 3 the subjects of Interested and sympathetic admiration by the few loiterers who turned to look at them — and who, It may be, would have been more interested and a trifie less sympa- thetic if the Identity of one of the couple had been revealed. For even In remote Devon- shire everybody had heard of Daisy Villiers. Everybody, too, must at one time or another have seen her photograph ; but since nobody could have expected to encounter her in the character of a modest bride, she escaped re- cognition here, as she had escaped it else- where during the course of the foregoing week. The curious thing was that this renowned queen of burlesque was actually a bride — duly and legally united in holy matrimony to Frank Coplestone, the tall, soldierly-looking youth in the blue serge suit and white yachting-cap who sauntered by her side ; although, to be sure, the skipper of the Mongoose, if Interrogated, would have said that the lady and gendeman who had hired his little vessel for a month were Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. There had been reasons for the adoption of the above meaning- less pseudonym — reasons of a nature similar to 4 THE DANCER IN YELLOW those which had deprived the relatives of the bride and bridegroom of the honour of an Invitation to attend the marriage ceremony. Frank Coplestone, however, had correctly signed the register, and if the lady's name was not really Daisy Villlers, that made no differ- ence ; for, as she explained at the time, she had acquired every right to use it by means of advertisements in the daily papers. ' And who but a born fool would choose to be known as Matilda Black when she can call herself Daisy Villiers by paying thirty bob or so for the privilege ?' she had pertinently added. Miss Daisy Villiers — to speak of her by the style and title which she had assumed, and had no Intention of abrogating — was not generally considered to be a born fool, although she often amused herself by doing foolish things ; but perhaps a subaltern In the British army who espouses an Impossible actress, without a penny In the world to support her beyond his pay and the annual allowance made him by a rather strait-laced old father, may deserve to be stigmatized as such. Frank Coplestone pre- sently Increased all the claims which he already A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON 5 possessed upon that unenviable designation by ejaculating : * Oh, Daisy, how heavenly it would be if this could last for ever ! I should like to go on sailing about with you, and never seeing any- body else, to the end of my days.' The pair had seated themselves upon the warm, dry grass on a promontory overlooking the sea, and the young man's arm was round his companion's waist. If she was aware — as no doubt she was — that he was talking arrant nonsense, she was probably also aware that, under certain circumstances, the very best thing to do is to talk nonsense ; for she only laughed, and answered : * Dear old boy !' After a moment of silence, it occurred to her to snatch off his white cap, and place it, a little on one side, upon her own curly brown locks, from which she had removed the straw sailor- hat that she had been wearing. * How do I look like that ?' she asked. He gazed at her, and replied, with fervent conviction : 'You look adorable, Daisy! But then you never do, or could, look anything else. It's a 6 THE DANCER IN YELLOW most extraordinary thing, and I never should have believed It if I hadn't seen it, but you positively look charming even when you are being sea-sick. I wonder whether there is a single other woman in existence who could contrive to do that.' * Probably not one,' answered the recipient of this strange compliment composedly. * I wonder whether it could be adapted to the stage ! — nautical song, with dance and repre- sentations of nausea in its severest form as a sort of refrain, you know. The idea would be absolutely original, and it might take. Indeed, I should think it certainly ought to take. I'll consider it.' A cloud passed over the young man's face, and he sighed. * You never forget the stage for very long, Daisy,' he remarked, in slightly reproachful accents. * It would be a bad job for me if I did,' she returned, laughing. ' Once forget your patrons, and your patrons will precious soon forget you. There are plenty of girls ready and eager to cut me out, I can tell you, and the only way I can keep ahead of them is by taking care to be A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON 7 a bit more up to date than they are. Not that there Is a girl in England, or out of it, who will ever beat me at dancing ; only It won't do to let them beat me at anything, and some of them have fresh ideas, you see. That's why I have to be perpetually on the look-out for fresher ones.' The speaker's husband made no immediate rejoinder. He was plucking up tufts of grass and sweet-smelling thyme, which he crushed between his fingers and flung away. At length he began, 'I wish ' but got no farther. His back was turned towards his wife, who bent forward, placed her little hand under his chin, and forced his head round until their eyes met. * At it again !' said she, raising the forefinger of her other hand warningly. *No, I didn't,' he protested; 'I stopped myself. Of course, I don't like it — you can't expect me to like It — but I suppose It's Inevit- able.' * Now, look here, dear boy,' said Mrs. Coplestone, quite good-humouredly, ' if you are going to spoil the whole fun of the thing by looking like a martyr, there'll be a row. A 8 THE DANCER IN YELLOW bargain is a bargain, and you know very well who would have gone to the wall if I had had to choose between you and the stage. I have done for you what I wouldn't have done for any other man upon the face of the earth ; you'll admit that, I presume ?' * Oh yes ; indeed I do, Daisy,' he answered ; *and I shall never cease to be amazed at my good fortune. Still, all those staring idiots in the stalls, and the things that they say, and the cads in the pit and gallery, and — well, all right, I won't go on. It's what I bargained for, and I know there's no help for it. But sometimes I look forward, you know.' * Ah ! that's a great mistake to make. What do you see when you look forward ? Bald heads, gray hairs, wrinkles, death — all sorts of horrors, which the future is bound to bring, but which have nothing to do with the present, thank goodness ! I am having a first-mte time at present, and I mean to make the most of it. Why can't you ?' He was not unwilling to make the most of it, nor did he doubt the wisdom of so doing ; for, as he was very well aware, it could not last long, and was likely to be followed by a con- A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON 9 siderable period of tribulation and separation. Nevertheless, he did not always find it easy to shake off misgivings which apparently gave Daisy no anxiety at all. This youthful but rather grave-looking subaltern, who had been invalided home after a sharp bout of fever in the sweltering heat of Burmah, had, amongst other troublesome possessions, a conscience ; and his conscience persisted in assuring him that no man ought either to be, or to appear to be, ashamed of his wife. Yet it was not he who had made it a sine qua 7ion that his pre- posterous marriage should remain a profound secret ; it was his wife who was answerable for a stipulation to which he had gladly assented — as, indeed, he would have assented to any con- dition which she might have seen fit to impose upon him. And, of course, what she had urged was reasonable enough. He was depen- dent upon his father, whose indignation upon being requested to acknowledge a lady of Miss Daisy Villiers' notoriety as his daughter-in-law would probably have displayed Itself in a most inconvenient shape. Daisy, on her side, was dependent upon the favour of the public, and she affirmed, truly, that the public does not like lo THE DANCER IN YELLOW its favourites to be married women. In any case, he had no choice but to comply with her behests, being far too madly in love with her to resist them. Many men had been, and still were, madly In love with Daisy Villlers ; but Frank Coplestone was the only one who had ever succeeded in moving her light heart to a corresponding emotion. That, at least, was what he hoped, and what she had given him the best of reasons to believe that he was justified in hoping. She was not, perhaps, a striking and undeniable beauty, although she was certainly pretty, with her impudent little round face, her^ dancing blue eyes, and a fresh complexion which, alas ! compulsory pigments must inevitably ruin ere long. As for her figure, it was as near perfec- tion as any female human figure can be, while her dancing was an unwritten poem. An actress she could scarcely be called, nor was her singing voice of second or even third quality ; but she had a way with her which had been found absolutely irresistible by frequenters of music-halls and theatres where burlesque reigns supreme. A year or two before, when the doors of the A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON ii Temple of Fame had not yet been flung widely open to welcome her, a celebrated artist had taken it into his head to paint her portrait, and, with some dim reminiscence of nursery rhymes, suggested by the costume that she wore, had dubbed his picture 'The Dancer in Yellow.' The name had clung to her, and she had clung to the colour, wearing some shade of it thence- forth in all her public appearances. The British public, essentially conservative, for all its occasional and ostensible radicalism, loves old friends, old jokes, old stories, old tunes — everything which makes no demand for a fresh mental effort. Doubtless Daisy, who was a very clever little woman in her way, had realized that, and knew that when she skipped upon the stage in the hue of the primrose, the buttercup, or the daffodil, the mere fact of her being thus arrayed would suffice to secure her an enthusiastic reception. Frank Coplestone was taken to admire her by a band of juvenile companions, who felt it incumbent upon them to show him all that London had to show after his eighteen months' absence on foreign service, and he fell a victim to her charms at first sight. Tommy Fellowes, 12 THE DANCER IN YELLOW who knew everybody, as well as everybody else, introduced him to her, and from that moment his course was one of astonishing smoothness and rapidity. Astonishing it certainly was that Miss Daisy, in the zenith of her renown, should have con- sented to espouse the younger son of a not too wealthy baronet. She had spurned far more brilliant offers; and she declared that she herself could not account for her behaviour in this instance. Possibly she was touched by the young fellow's simplicity and honesty ; possibly — probably, indeed — she loved him for his good looks. * I adore black hair and gray eyes and long eyelashes/ she told him candidly the very first time that he had the honour of an interview with her. Be that as it may, she married him at the close of the season, stipulating only, as afore- said, that nobody should be told a word about it ; and here they were, embarked upon their honeymoon, which one of them regarded as a most amusing holiday, while the other tried not to think more seriously of the consequences than he could help. A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON 13 They sat for a while upon that sunny pro- montory, and then, having satisfied themselves that it was no longer rough outside, decided to return on board the little yacht and get under way for Plymouth, which was to be their next port of call. They had no definite plans, nor did they know for certain how long this cruise of theirs would last ; the one thing which had to be regarded as inevitable was that Frank, who was now supposed to be at sea in solitude for the benefit of his health, must ere long pay a filial visit to Kent, where his father resided. And when he did so, what was to become of Daisy ? This was a question to which he had several times attempted to obtain some reply ; but she had hitherto always responded by throwing a cushion at him and telling him to shut up. ' Do you suppose I don't know how to take care of myself after all the experience that I have had ?' she was wont to inquire. ' I shall be all right, bless you ! We'll make arrange- ments as soon as it is necessary to make them. Meanwhile, let's do one thing at a time, please, and just now we are honeymooning.' She decreed that the subject, together with 14 THE DANCER IN YELLOW sundry other more or less disagreeable subjects, should be forbidden ; and he was fain to obey her, being in truth by no means reluctant to be dictated to, for the time being, with reference to such matters. But that evening, when they were lying becalmed off the Start, under a cloudless, starry sky, and when he had stretched himself out on the deck at her feet, he felt impelled to break through rules once more. ' I expect I shall find letters at Plymouth,' he remarked, with a sigh, ' and it's quite upon the cards that the governor may want me to name some day for going home.' * Tell him you have married a wife, and therefore you cannot come,' replied Daisy care- lessly. ' You wouldn't like me to do that, would you ?' * No, of course not ; but you needn't answer his letter, I suppose. I want to keep up this game until we are tired of it.' * But that would be for ever.' * Not quite so long, I think ; it might come on to rain any day, and then one would begin to pine for a change. Don't look so reproach- ful ; I know you are looking reproachful, though A NAUTICAL HONEYMOON 15 I can't see your dear, solemn old face. Well, what do you want me to say ? I'm perfectly happy, Frank, and I love you ! Will that do ?' He gave her to understand that, delightful as those assurances were, they would not alto- gether do. He might, no doubt, disregard a summons from his father for another week or ten days, or even longer ; but eventually he would have to leave her, and he was most anxious to be informed of what her intentions were, and when he might look forward to meeting her again. As her only answer was to blow clouds of cigarette-smoke into his face until she made him cough, he was beginning to urge that a husband, after all, has some right to counsel and direct his wife, when she stopped him by clapping her hand upon his mouth and holding it there. ' What a good thing it Is for you,' she ex- claimed, ' that my temper is that of an angel ! The idea of your daring to talk to me already as if I didn't enjoy the most absolute freedom ! What were the conditions upon which I agreed to marry you, young man ? Well, never mind ! You can't answer while your mouth is shut, and you can't have forgotten them. They were i6 THE DANCER IN YELLOW uncommonly sensible conditions, anyhow, and they're going to be insisted upon. Now get me my banjo, and I'll soothe you with a song. Not that you deserve it, for you haven't been behaving well to-day.' Daisy, as has already been mentioned, had not much of a voice ; but her method of utilizing what she had was bewitching — or, at any rate, Frank Coplestone found it so. Rocked upon the slow, gentle swell and listening to the siren notes which floated away across the calm waters, drawing up presently three red-capped heads from the forecastle, he forgot or postponed all harassing thoughts, and abandoned himself to the enjoyment of the hour. Truth to tell, the songstress's repertoire was a limited one, and was not culled from the works of the best composers ; but then her audience was neither cultured nor critical. Her performance amply satisfied their simple souls, and what more was required of it ? CHAPTER II. A LETTER FROM HOME. For obvious reasons, the hirers of the yacht Mongoose did not send ashore for letters on the following day, but walked up to the Ply- mouth post-office themselves to claim any that might be awaiting them there. A large supply of these was handed over to Miss Daisy Villiers, while Frank Coplestone, Esq., received about half a dozen, and they strolled off to the Hoe together, where, seating themselves upon a bench, they proceeded to examine their corre- spondence. ' Bills ?' asked Daisy sympathetically, after she had torn open the envelopes addressed to her, and had bestowed a careless glance upon their contents. * If they are, don't let them worry you, dear boy ; I'm simply overflowing with coin just now, and I can let you have a VOL. I. 2 1 8 THE DANCER IN YELLOW hundred, or more if you want it, as easily as sixpence.' Frank, who was gazing abstractedly out to sea, turned round with a start and a smile. * Oh no,' he answered, * I don't owe anything to speak of. Besides, it was a compact between us, if you remember, that you were never, under any circumstances, to offer me money.' * Can't say I do remember ; but never mind ! When you want it it will be there for you, so long as I keep my own head above water. What are you looking so doleful about, then }' * Was I looking doleful ? It's only that the governor writes, as I thought he would, begging me to go home as soon as I can, and I feel that I haven't treated him too well, poor old fellow ! I was only with him for a couple of nights before I went up to London, and since then — well, you know what has happened since then !' ' There would be weeping and gnashing of teeth if he knew, I suppose,' observed Daisy, laughing. ' What sort of a heavy father is he ? Old style — family pride, gray hairs, likely to be brought with sorrow to the grave by agricultural depression and the thought of his Benjamin's misalliance — that sort of thing ?' A LETTER FROM HOME 19 ' What I feel,' Frank went on, disregarding these irreverent queries, ' is that it does look a little bit heartless. He has been awfully good to me, first and last, and he doesn't complain now ; only I can see by the way he writes that he is hurt. He says he quite understands that health must be the first consideration, but that the air of Mailing is generally considered to be bracing, and that, as he can't expect to be here much longer, he hopes that I shall let him see as much of me as possible before I go off on foreign service again.' ' Does that mean that you want to be off to- morrow morning ?' Frank truthfully declared that he did not want to be off at all ; that if he could consult his own wishes he would remain with his bride until the sad day should dawn when it would be his duty to re-embark for India. But he knew — and of course she must know, too — that it was out of the question for him to consult his own wishes, and that a temporary separation was inevitable. They might allow themselves one more week, perhaps ; more than that he was afraid they ought not to take. * All right ; make it a week,' said Daisy 20 THE DANCER IN YELLOW cheerfully. * We'll run down to Fowey and Falmouth — weren't those the two next places that we spotted on the map ? — and we'll have a good time while it lasts. Then the ship's com- pany may be paid off and disperse. When must you rejoin your regiment ?' * In about three months,' answered the young man ruefully, * unless I can get an extension of leave — which doesn't seem likely, now that I am getting fitter every day.' * You can manage to be in London towards the end of October, I suppose ? The St. Stephen's reopens then with a brand-new burlesque, in which I hope to make the patrons of the drama sit up.' * Of course I can,' answered Frank. * But do you mean that I am not to see you again before the end of October, Daisy ?' She laughed. ' Well, I'm afraid your dear papa won't ask me to stay with him, and I'm afraid I couldn't accept the invitation If he did. But you'll find me at my own bijou residence in the Regent's Park by the 1 5th of October, or thereabouts, I expect.' ' And in the meantime ?' A LETTER FROM HOME 21 *And In the meantime I propose to treat myself to a trip abroad. Would you believe that I have never been farther away from London than Paris in all my born days ? But now I've made a pot of money, and I'm going to Switzerland to meet some friends of whom you needn't be jealous, because they are old and ugly — though still larky, in a middle-aged way. I dare say it won't be bad fun.' She broke Into a snatch of a burlesque ditty which used be popular a good many years ago : " The Continong, the Continong, oh, I am for the Contlnong !" And a good job too ! If I were to stay In England, you would be running off to meet me somewhere or other every ten days or so, and the cat would very likely be let out of the bag. You are a darling, Frank ! but dis- cretion isn't your strong point.' Frank meditatively pulled his moustache. It was as yet but a very small moustache, and the upraised finger and thumb were apt to miss it altogether unless careful aim were taken. ' It's a horrid long time to October,' he re- marked, in melancholy accents ; ^ and even then there will be only a few weeks, and after that ' 22 THE DANCER IN YELLOW ' After that you will depart for the gorgeous East, I presume,' said Daisy briskly. * Yes, that's inevitable. And I must leave my wife behind me, without ever acknowledg- ing that she is my wife ! Daisy — after all — are you sure it is right T ' I'm sure it's what you are going to do, any- how,' Mrs. Frank Coplestone replied decisively. * I don't pretend to be much of an authority upon what's right and what's wrong ; but I do know the difference between common-sense and downright idiocy, and I know that for some time to come it won't suit my book, or yours either, to announce to the world at large what a couple of simpletons we have been. Besides, there isn't the slightest necessity for it.' He hesitated a moment, and positively blushed, before he made up his mind to say what he had been wanting to say ever since their marriage-day. * The necessity may arise, Daisy.' ' Oh, we'll hope not,' she answered, without embarrassment, and with much apparent amuse- ment. * Even if an unlucky incident should occur, it could easily be kept dark, and even if it weren't kept dark, what would be the odds ? A LETTER FROM HOME 23 Do you really imagine that ''the Dancer in Yellow " has any character left to lose ? We're as bad as we can be, the whole lot of us. Why, there isn't a male creature in London, from a duke to a pot-boy, who wouldn't be knowing enough to wink his eye and assure you of that.' By the end of her speech her voice had acquired a slight bitterness of intonation which had not been perceptible in it when she began ; but this was lost upon Frank, whose straight brows were drawn together, and whose ingenu- ous blush had been replaced by the pallor of wrath. * Don't talk like that !' he exclaimed sharply. * I don't like to hear you say such things even in joke.' Daisy laid her hand upon his shoulder and looked into his angry young face. She would have kissed him if the scene had not been too public a one to admit of such demonstrations. ' Poor, dear boy !' she murmured gently ; ' I am afraid you will have to hear me say a good many things that you won't like — perhaps to see me do some that you won't like, into the bargain. What can a man expect, if he will insist upon marrying beneath him ? All the 24 THE DANCER IN YELLOW same, there are worse people in the world than your humble servant, and some fine day we'll go in for rigid respectability. We have made a very fair sort of beginning as it is, I think. In sober earnest, you wouldn't wish me to accompany you to the paternal mansion and ask for the paternal blessing, would you ?' He was obliged to confess that, to the best of his belief, there would be little use in asking for that. What made him feel uneasy and ashamed was that he had married a woman who was pecuniarily independent of him, over whose actions and mode of life he could exercise no control, and whom he might not improbably be accused, in the sequel, of having deserted. Events might occur, he said, which would render it incumbent upon him, as an honour- able man, to come forward and take his proper place at her side. ' I never did meet such a hand as you are at prying into the future and discovering troubles there !' cried Daisy. ' You put me in mind of my pious parents, who have been prophesying all manner of evil for me ever since I left them to go upon the stage. They pretend to be thankful that I haven't fulfilled their prophecies A LETTER FROM HOME 2$ as yet, but I expect they are a little disappointed in their hearts. It's rather bad luck, after you have been praying hard for a person morning and night, to find that she can get along quite comfortably, not to say decently, without your prayers.* ' How little we know about one another !' Frank exclaimed involuntarily. * It never even occurred to me until this moment that you had any parents living, Daisy.' ' Well, it's only fair to them to admit that they don't obtrude themselves. For more than a year we didn't speak ; but now that I am well-to-do they let me visit them occasionally on Sunday afternoons and groan over me. Perhaps you would like to be introduced to them ? Father is a highly esteemed Noncon- formist linendraper, whose private residence is in a small street leading out of the Marylebone Road, and mother is a healthy sort of Invalid, who lies on the sofa all day and swallows a good deal of weak brandy-and-water. I should think you would hit it off with them almost as well as I might hope to do with Sir Harry Cople- stone.' ' Any brothers and sisters ?' asked Frank, 26 THE DANCER IN YELLOW repressing the shudder for which he instinc- tively felt that she was looking out. ' Oh yes — lots. All trying to earn their own living, and none of them too proud to accept a surreptitious fiver every now and then from an erring sister who has more fivers nowadays than she knows what to do with. I needn't tell you that these little tips have to be surrep- titious ; of course, they are very anxious to repudiate any connection with the notorious Daisy Villiers.' ' They have no reason to be ashamed of the connection,' said Frank rather fiercely. 'Thanks, awfully — though I don't see how you can be so sure of that. Now, don't put on that sulky look : it doesn't become you, and it's out of place. You are Frank, and I am Daisy, and we're man and wife. Isn't that enough ? It must be enough, anyhow ; so we won't say another word about the matter. Come on board again, like a good boy, and let's get away from Plymouth as fast as we can. Garrison towns aren't the safest places in the world for people like me, who are modestly desirous of escaping recognition.' He did as he was bid ; and if he remained A LETTER FROM HOME 27 somewhat silent and abstracted for awhile, he was young enough to have dismissed his cares by the time that the Mongoose had resumed her westward voyage. Daisy was, no doubt, a more practical philosopher than he was. At all events, she knew so well how to give practical effect to her system of philosophy that long before sunset she had a happy man stretched on deck at her feet. Happiness, as we all know, consists chiefly, if not entirely, in forecast and retrospect, and Frank Coplestone was destined to look back frequently upon that breezy run down Channel, with a firm conviction that some of the very best hours of his life had passed away from him during the course of it. CHAPTER III. Frank's relations. Sir Harry Coplestone, of Mailing Park, in the county of Kent, was, as most country- gentlemen are in these days, the embarrassed occupant of a position which, through no fault of his own, it had become well-nigh impossible for him to maintain. Conservative by tempera- ment, inheritance and what he conceived to be duty, he could not without daily pangs of com- punction and humiliation resign himself to a reduced style of living. He was determined to hand on the estate to his successor as he had received it, unencumbered ; but it went to his heart to give up, one by one, the various forms of hospitality, ostentation and munificence which had been practised by his father and his grand- father. He ought, no doubt, as his sister was never weary of impressing upon him, to have FRANK'S RELATIONS 29 married again after he had been left a widower, and to have married a woman with money; but he had been devotedly attached to his wife, he had not at first been able to bear the idea of replacing her, and now he was too old to think of such a thing. If the family finances were to be restored to a satisfactory footing by an alliance with an heiress, that task must be undertaken by Gerard, who, to be sure, was such a cold-blooded, material sort of fellow, that he would probably raise no objection. That was what Sir Harry was saying, one morning, across the breakfast-table to his sister. Miss Coplestone, who did not live with him (because they were unable always to hit it off together), but who spent a good deal of her time at Mailing Park, and was invariably sum- moned thither when company was expected. She was a tall, thin woman, with iron-gray hair, an aquiline nose, and well-marked black eye- brows. In the early sixties she had been hand- some, and had received many good offers ; perhaps she now regretted having declined them. Residing in a small house in Belgravia, she still kept up her hold upon a kind of society 30 THE DANCER IN YELLOW which her brother had long since ceased to frequent. * I suppose you mean Mrs. Trafford/ she remarked. ' Well, why not, Lucy ? Of course, I don't mean at once ; that would be downright indecent, with poor Trafford hardly cold in his grave yet. But there it is ; she is young, and good-looking, and charming, and everything has been left to her, I understand. Gerard could not possibly do better for himself. And then, as I say ' ' Oh, you needn't say it again ; one knows what your opinion of Gerard is. It seems to be a rule without an exception that everybody should hate his heir ; otherwise I should be surprised at your finding anything to complain of in an eldest son who has managed to live all these years in the Guards, and to go about like other people, and yet avoid running into debt. But cheer up ; perhaps he won't take a fancy to Mrs. Trafford, who, I must confess, seems to me to be a tiresome, priggish sort of woman, and then you will have a genuine grievance against him. By the way, why shouldn't you bestow her upon your beloved Frank ? Then the younger brother would be in a position to FRANK'S RELATIONS 31 overshadow the elder — which ought to delight you.' * She doesn't belong to me ; I can't bestow her upon anybody,' answered Sir Harry curtly. The truth was that his heir, whom he did not hate, and to whom he had always striven to be just, was by no means so inexpensive a person as Miss Coplestone was pleased to assume ; but Sir Harry never talked about the calls that were made upon him, save in general terms, nor did he ever wrangle with his sister if he could help it. He used to say to himself at times when she was more than usually exasperating that she was soured, poor thing ! and that one couldn't wonder. His own temper, which was a hasty but not a bad one, was in some danger of becoming soured, and he felt that it behoved him to make allowances. So, instead of saying, as inclination prompted him to do, that Frank wasn't the sort of boy to run after rich widows, he merely remarked, in a tone of satisfaction : ' Well, we shall have 'em both here this afternoon, thank God ! Frank writes from London to say that the sea has done wonders for him, and that the doctors assure him he will be as right as ever again after a few more 32 THE DANCER IN YELLOW months of rest. He proposes to come down by the mid-day train. Gerard won't arrive before dinner-time, I suppose.' * I'll take charge of him, if he does,' Miss Coplestone answered, smiling slightly. She, too, may be credited with some meri- torious self-repression ; for she knew what her brother was thinking of, and it was upon the tip of her tongue to observe that his anxiety to have Frank all to himself did not seem to be reciprocated by that young man, who had been in England since the early spring, yet had hitherto bestowed remarkably little of his leisure time upon his fond parent. But even Miss Coplestone, who was not tender-hearted, sometimes shrank from distressing Sir Harry. It was easy enough to distress him, as his white hair — white before his time — and the deep lines upon his thin face testified. No one could look at him without seeing that he had taken life hard, and, indeed, life had in many ways been made hard for him. Once upon a time he had been fine-looking, athletic, sufficiently rich, fond of society, and popular ; now he was old, poor, solitary, and such of his friends as were not dead had ceased to see FRANK'S RELATIONS 33 anything of him. By his neighbours he was respected and, in a certain sense, Hked ; but he was thought to be — as in truth he was — proud and prejudiced. His eldest son Gerard re- sembled him in many respects, and was for that reason not much in sympathy with him. If he was understood by anybody (but probably ^ 'he was not quite understood by anybody, and did not expect to be), it was by his younger son, who duly appeared shortly after luncheon, and who knew very well how welcome he was, although Sir Harry only said : * How are you, Frank ? Can you get your- self something to eat and be ready to stroll down to the home farm with me in half an hour ? I can't wait longer.' Sir Harry was deeply interested in farming, and was under the impression that it might be made to pay. Sometimes he even endeavoured to prove that it did pay ; but he had ceased to adopt that line of argument with Gerard, who combined ignorance of the price of stock and cereals with a disagreeably clear head for figures. Frank, on the other hand, hated arithmetic, and knew something about the pur- suits which his father loved — which made him VOL. I. 3 34 THE DANCER IN YELLOW a pleasant companion to wander about with on that hot summer afternoon. He wanted to be a pleasant companion, and he realized only too well with what ease he might convert himself Into a dreadfully un- pleasant one. Suppose he were to blurt out the truth all of a sudden ? Suppose he were to say, ' I have married a woman who Is notorious all over London and the provinces as a music-hall star of the first magnitude, and sooner or later my marriage will have to be openly acknow- ledged ?' Of course, he took very good care to say nothing of the sort ; nor was he free from remorse when he glanced at the eager, high-bred, careworn face which was so often turned up towards his (Sir Harry was under the medium height), and heard how nothing but the most extraordinary bad luck had caused his father to drop three hundred, Instead of making nearly a thousand, over agricultural operations during the past year. Daisy was undoubtedly right, and reticence was Indispensable, and worse luck — very much worse luck — than the total failure of the hop-harvest had befallen the old man who w^as so entirely without suspicion of his misfortunes. A thought came into FRANK'S RELATIONS 35 Frank's mind which he was ashamed of enter- taining, but could not drive away. ' Perhaps he will die before there is any necessity to enlighten him.' Sir Harry, leaning over a gate and gazing out at the pleasant English landscape of fields and woods which owned him as a temporary lord, began at that same moment to speak quite cheerfully of his approaching demise. ' You won't find me here the next time that you come home, Frank,' said he. ' We are a short-lived stock, you know ; and as for me, I've had my day. It hasn't been a bad day, taking the rough with the smooth, and I don't complain ; only I wish I could do a little more in the way of making provision for you than will be possible. It would make a difference, to be sure, if, by some happy chance, Gerard were to marry a woman with money ; but one mustn't count upon that. I forget whether I ever mentioned Mrs. Trafford to you.' ' You told me in one of your letters that old Trafford had taken a young wife to himself,' answered Frank. ' He must have died almost immediately afterwards, didn't he ?' * Died within the year, and left her all he 36 THE DANCER IN YELLOW possessed, I believe. Well, there she Is, a charming woman with a large income, and one can't Imagine that she can be Inconsolable. She Is coming to dine here quite quietly in a day or two, and, between ourselves, I have asked Gerard to run down on purpose to give him an opportunity of meeting her. Don't say any- thing to him about It ; It's early days yet, and I dare say he may not take to her, nor she to him. Still, If the match could be brought about, a great load would be taken off my mind. In that case I could lie down and die without feeling that I was leaving you a pauper, my boy. A day must come, of course, when you yourself will want to marry, and I don't think you will ever care to marry for money.' ' I think It's rather a degrading sort of thing to do,' said Frank. * So do I ; but that Isn't the general opinion, and Gerard's opinions are the general opinions — for which, after all, there Is something to be said. Well, well ! what can't be cured must be endured. How about present necessities ? I have a little money in hand, though It Isn't much. I know you have always told me everything, Frank, so I can trust you to speak FRANK'S RELATIONS 37 out if there are any bills of yours which ought to be paid.' Frank, sorrowfully conscious of not having told, and not meaning to tell, his father every- thing, hastened to declare that he had no debts. Perhaps it was by way of making partial and inadequate atonement that he added : ' And I shan't have any more expenses, either, up to the expiration of my leave, for I intend to quarter myself upon you now until the autumn.' Sir Harry's face showed what good hearing this was to him ; but all he said was : 'You'll find it slow work, I'm afraid. There will be a few partridges to be shot in September, if you will condescend to come out with me in an old-fashioned way ; but Gerard would tell you that I have no shooting to offer to my friends nowadays.' ' That depends upon what you call shooting,' said a quiet voice from the background. 'Some people like one thing, some like another ; it's a question of taste.' Both Sir Harry and Frank started round, and both simultaneously ejaculated, ' Hullo !' The tall and singularly handsome young man 38 THE DANCER IN YELLOW who extended a hand to each of them resembled neither at the first glance, although closer scrutiny showed that he personified the family type in Its highest form of physical expression. Gerard Coplestone had Inherited the black hair and long, curved eyelashes which had been transmitted also to his younger brother; but he possessed what Frank did not — eyes of so dark blue a shade as to be almost violet, an admirable profile, and a mouth shaped like a Cupid's bow. If any exception could be taken to a face which was practically unexception- able, lack of expression might have been urged against it ; but even that deficiency has a pos- sible charm, since it may be due, as In his case it was, to absolute self-control. It was notorious amongst his acquaintances, of whom he had a very large number, that there was no chance of shaking his nerve or causing him to lose his temper. He was always cool, always imper- turbably polite, and always inscrutable. This, no doubt, accounted for the fact that he had more acquaintances than friends, and no enemies at all. His father, as has been hinted, was not passionately attached to him ; but his brother knew him to be an excellent fellow, though un- FRANK'S RELATIONS 39 demonstrative, and was glad to hold him by the hand once more. * I thought I should find you here,' he re- marked. ' Aunt Lucy has gone off in the carriage to pay duty calls, I believe, and as it wasn't time to dress for dinner, I took the liberty of coming out in search of you.' * No liberty at all, my dear boy,' answered Sir Harry promptly. ' We didn't expect you by so early a train, or I would have left a message for you.' The above interchange of commonplace greetings would have sufficed to convince a quick-witted bystander that Gerard was not welcome, and that he was conscious of not being welcome ; but the conversation which ensued was entirely amicable, if a trifle strained. Very soon Sir Harry excused himself, upon the plea that he had a word or two to say to the bailiff, and left the two young men together, whereupon the elder asked, in a matter-of- course tone : ' Had enough of yachting and Daisy Villiers ?' ' I don't know what you mean,' answered Frank, reddening under the other's calm gaze, in spite of all his efforts to avoid self-betrayal. 40 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Gerard smiled. ' No business of mine,' he remarked. ' Perhaps public report is a liar, as public report generally is, and the Dancer in Yellow wasn't with you on your cruise. I hope she wasn't, because — that sort of game is apt to prove an expensive one, Frank.' ' If you will kindly favour me with the name of your informant/ said Frank, * it will give me very great pleasure to tell him that he Is a liar, and — and ' * To break his bones, eh ?' returned Gerard, laughing. ^ No, I certainly can't oblige you in that way — especially as my informants were numerous. You shouldn't have made yourself so conspicuous with that woman, and then dis- appeared at the very same moment as she did.' * I object to your calling Miss Villiers ** that woman," ' said Frank rather angrily ; * she Isn't at all what you take her for. As for me, I didn't disappear ; I told Tommy Fellowes and the others that I was going down West for a few weeks to get a little fresh air. And, I say, Gerard, I wish, when people say that sort of thing, you would be good enough to contradict them.' ^ FRANK'S RELATIOXS 41 * All right,' answered the other ; 'I'll contra- dict them upon the best authority, if you like. Not that it's worth while to contradict them, so long as what they say isn't true. Miss Daisy Villiers may be a paragon of virtue, for anything that I knovv^ to the contrary ; only I wouldn't see too much of her if I were you. You are uncommonly young, Frank, and she is — well, shall we say experienced ? Are you going to make the governor happy by putting in the rest of your leave down here ?' Frank willingly accepted the change of sub- ject ; but he knew very well that he had not deceived his brother, and he was not quite clear in his own mind as to whether he did not owe it to Daisy to explain the true nature of their relations. To set against that apparent duty, however, there was the circumstance that he was under a solemn promise to Daisy to do nothing of the sort. Upon the whole, he deemed it best to hold his tongue, and to rely, as it was always safe to do, upon Gerard's reticence and discretion. CHAPTER IV. Gerard's doom. Gerard, having said what he wanted to say, and thinking that he had discovered as much as there was any need for him to discover, made no further allusion to the Dancer in Yellow. It certainly never occurred to him to suppose for one moment that Frank could have disgraced himself and the family by actually marrying a person of the class of Daisy Villlers, nor did the escapade of which he had heard rumours seem to him worth troubling about, now that it was apparently a thing of the past. He was as fond of his brother as he was of anybody, and did not wish the boy to do anything outrageously silly — especially as there really was not money enough to defray the expense of certain forms of silliness — but he was neither inquisitive nor very much interested in other people's business. GERARD'S DOOM 43 Was he as much interested as he ought to have been in his own ? This was what Sir Harry, irritated by the young Guardsman's impassibility and by the hopelessness of attempting to pick a friendly quarrel with him, was inclined to doubt. For surely it was, or must shortly become, Gerard's business to consider by what means Mailing was to be kept up, and the social position of its owner main- tained in accordance with bygone usage. Something, of course, was said about Mrs. Trafford ; but Gerard could only be brought to display a very languid curiosity respecting that lady, who was now sole mistress of the adjoin- ing Trant Abbey estate, and whose revenues far exceeded those of her nearest neighbour. ' Married old Trafford as soon as she had satisfied herself that he had a mortal disease, didn't she ?' he inquired of his aunt, one morn- ing, after Sir Harry, who had been eulogizing the youthful widow with rather more zeal than discretion, had left the room. ' I remember hearing her story at the time ; but I have forgotten all about it. Cynical sort of young woman, I should imagine.' * I can't say that I share your father's pro- 44 THE DANCER IN YELLOW found admiration for her/ answered Miss Coplestone ; ' but, to do her justice, I don't think she married the old man for the sake of his money. He had been asking her for years, I believe, and she wouldn't look at him, though she was an orphan and desperately poor — just able to support herself by writing children's stories, and painting washy water-colours, and that sort of thing. He had been a friend of her father's, and he would have been willing to adopt her, they say, if she would have con- sented to that ; but nothing would do, until at length she was touched, as women of her variety are apt to be, by his solitude and his sufferings. So she married him, and nursed him devotedly through his last illness. I should have thought myself that she might have nursed him without marrying him ; but no doubt there would have been difficulties. Anyhow, Harry and others pronounce her to be an angel ; and so will you, I dare say, after you have seen her. She has been persuaded to dine here in her weeds and in strict privacy to-morrow night.' * I don't believe in human angels,' remarked Gerard, ' and I hate the sight of widows' weeds. GERARD'S DOOM 45 People who feel bound to wear them ought not to exhibit themselves to their friends in such a hideous and unbecoming costume.' Presumably Mrs. Trafford did not feel bound to wear them, for she was not thus arrayed when she was shown into the drawino:-room at Mailing Park on the following evening at eight o'clock. Frank stepped forward to receive this tall, graceful, fair-haired lady, who wore a very simple, but very perfectly cut black dress, and had a few sparkling diamonds distributed about her person. ' My father and my aunt ought to be ashamed of themselves,' said he. ' I'm afraid we are awfully unpunctual people. But they will be down presently to make their apologies.' ' It will be my duty to apologize to them for being over-punctual,' answered Mrs. Trafford, smiling. ^ I have lived all my life in London, and I had an idea that in the country eight o'clock meant eight, not half-past. My prompt arrival isn't due to greediness, I assure you — only to a nervous anxiety to do the right thing.' She had a pleasantly modulated, well-bred voice ; the pose into which she had fallen, with one hand resting lightly upon the back of 46 THE DANCER IN YELLOW a chair, was an easy and graceful one. She certainly did not strike the casual beholder as being either nervous or anxious. If she was not exactly pretty, she was very nearly so, and her somewhat irregular features were alive with intelligence. * You are the invalid, I suppose, are you not ?' she asked presently. Frank explained that he had been an invalid until lately, but that a recovery only too speedy and complete deprived him of any hope that his leave would be extended ; after which he was easily led on to talk about his profession and about campaigning in Burmah, until Sir Harry and his sister entered the room simultaneously, and began to make excuses for themselves. They were full twenty minutes late, during which interval Frank had time to become quite well acquainted with Mrs. Trafford, and even to say to himself that she was one of the nicest women whom he had ever met. He had not met a great many women in his life — at all events, he had not met a great many nice ones — so that the above encomium can only be taken for what it is worth. But, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Trafford was GERARD'S DOOM 47 one of those persons of whom it Is always said that * they can be charming when they like.' That usually means that, being honest, they are unable to conceal their likes and dislikes. Probably she did not like Miss Coplestone, who did not like her, for the two ladies had very little to say to one another. At a later period Frank discovered that Mrs. Trafford always preferred men to women, although her worst enemy could not have accused her of being a flirt. At the dinner-table Sir Harry made himself extremely agreeable to her, and endeavoured — a little too obviously, perhaps — to ascertain, by means of indirect questions, what her plans were with regard to the immediate future. She responded readily and openly, but did not give him a great deal of information, having, in truth, no definite information to impart. * They tell me it will be my duty to spend most of my time at the Abbey,' she said ; ' but all my ties and interests are in London, and I am in hopes that I may get at least three months out of every year there. Of course the situation is altogether novel to me — I hardly know what to make of it yet.' 48 THE DANCER IN YELLOW 'One soon grows accustomed to any situa- tion,' remarked Gerard, who was seated upon the speaker's right hand. She glanced at him for a moment, and answered : ' Oh yes, I suppose so, if it is not too diffi- cult. At present I feel ratHer like a fish out of water ; but in a year's time, no doubt, I shall almost have forgotten what the sensation of being desperately poor was. The one great consolation of life is the ease with which one forgets.' Miss Coplestone could not repress a dis- approving grunt. That Mrs. Trafford had found it easy enough to forget the aged invalid whose name she bore, and to whom she was indebted for her wealth, was evident and scarcely surprising ; but better taste would have been shown by less candid language. ' You have many friends in London, I dare say,' observed Sir Harry tentatively. * No, only a few ; but most likely I shall make more now that I can afford to ask people to dinner. Even in my worst days I met with a great deal of kindness from those who had known my father ; but naturally it was impos- GERARD'S DOOM 49 sible for me to see much of them. For one thing, I was too busy ; and for another thing, I had no decent clothes to wear/ She spoke in so matter-of-course and un- affected a way that her male hearers did not inwardly accuse her of the bad taste which shocked Miss Coplestone. However, she seemed to think that she had said enough about herself, and changed the conversation. She was very well informed upon the political, literary and artistic topics of the day, and she had the gift — an increasingly rare one — of inducing her neighbours to say what they thought, without any apparent effort to do so. But of social gossip she knew nothing at all ; so that Miss Coplestone and Gerard, both of whom lived in, and to some extent for, the fashionable world, were fain to accept the part of listeners. The latter, nevertheless, gladdened his father's heart by taking a chair at Mrs. Trafford's elbow in the drawing-room afterwards, and devoting his whole attention to her for the remainder of the evening. Miss Coplestone executed a succession of brilliant and noisy compositions upon the piano ; Frank, as in duty bound, VOL. I. 4 50 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Stationed himself behind her and turned over the leaves of her music-book, while Sir Harry dropped off to sleep. It was not precisely a merry or a sociable gathering ; but, as far as could be seen, it fulfilled the purpose which it had been designed to fulfil. When Mrs. Trafford had taken her leave, her hostess remarked : * The total abolition of the widow's cap is a new departure. Not a hint of crape, either ! At this rate we shall soon have the bereaved ones celebrating their late hus- bands' obsequies by a small and early dance, I presume.' * I don't know that it is fair to gauge the depth of a woman's grief by the clothes that she wears/ returned Sir Harry ; although the truth was that he also had been slightly scandalized by Mrs. Trafford's disregard of conventionality. * Besides, it's impossible that the poor old man's death can have left her broken-hearted.' ' Quite, I should think,' agreed his sister dryly ; ' still, there is no absolute necessity for her to advertise her joy.' ' For my part,' said Frank, * I like her all the better for not pretending to feel what she GERARD'S DOOM 51 doesn't and what she can't. Where's the merit of humbug ?' Gerard stretched out his legs before him, contemplated his very pretty little silk- stockinged feet with pensive affection, and said nothing. But in the subsequent privacy of the smoking-room he volunteered a statement to his brother which Sir Harry, had he been pre- sent, would have deemed eminently satisfactory. ' The man who marries Mrs. Trafford/ said he — ' and it stands to reason that somebody will marry her soon — will get a prize out of the lucky bag. She seems to me to know her own value, without insisting too much upon it, and she isn't conceited, or a fool, or likely to do anything that will make him wish he had died before he saw her. Which is as much as to say that she isn't a bit like the general run of girls and young widows whom one meets nowadays.' *Go in and win, then,' answered Frank, laughing. ' You think I could, do you ?' ' I can't see any reason in the world why you shouldn't. Any woman who didn't fall in love with you would be rather hard to please, I LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS 52 THE DANCER IN YELLOW should say ; and even If you yourself don't fall in love very easily, you ought to be pretty well satisfied with Mrs. Trafford. Besides, there's the money, you know.' * Oh, there's the money ; that's it, of course. I quite understand what the governor wishes, and I shouldn't mind obliging him If he wasn't in a hurry. But, between you and me, Frank, there's nothing in the world that I hate quite so much as this idea of marrying. I'm comfortable as I am. I love hunting, and I like racing, and I don't mind a bit of soldiering and a little bit of society ; what would bore me to death would be to be tied by the leg down here and to be reminded at every turn of dull routine work which I couldn't escape. It's true that there is no possible escape for me, and that I shall have to settle down to a country gentleman's life some day ; but I want a few more years of liberty, and I wish with all my heart that Heaven had granted Mr. Trafford a few more years of existence. The trouble is that I can never hope to get such another chance as this. I suppose, if I did my duty, I should jump at it' It was not often that Gerard spoke with so GERARD'S DOOM 53 much candour about himself and his tastes. He was in evident perplexity, and Frank, half amused, half sympathetic, could only console him by saying : ' I should think that, with a little manage- ment, you might postpone the evil day. After all, you can't begin at once to make love to a woman whose late husband's monument isn't erected yet. Did she seem to expect it ?' ' Oh no, not in the least ; that was one of the things that I liked about her. She talked very much as another woman might have talked, and we got on together uncommonly well. Perhaps, as you say, I may contrive to lie low for a bit ; but it's borne in upon me, somehow, that I am doomed. Oh dear ! w^hy wasn't I sent into the world as a younger son ? Take my advice, Frank, and don't you marry until you are forty. Above all, don't be such a mad- man as to marry for love ; I've watched the results of that sort of game, and they're enough to make your blood run cold !' With this sage counsel, which, unfortunately, came a little too late to be of practical utility, Gerard rose, yawned, stretched himself, and went off to bed. CHAPTER V. CLEVER MRS. TRAFFORD. A MAN whose view of life and its responsibilities and complications permits him to await events, without making any decided effort to shape them, is, perhaps, a very contemptible creature. If so, the world must be inhabited by a race of which the vast majority merit contempt ; and that this is the case we are frequently and authoritatively assured. We are not, however, forbidden, even by those who profess a religion of which the keynote is understood to be charity, to sympathize with erring fellow- mortals : possibly, therefore, some readers will not be in too great a hurry to despise poor Frank Coplestone, who, it must be owned, had contrived to land himself in a singularly un- dignified and untenable position, yet who could see no immediate way out of it. Given the CLEVER MRS. TRAFFORD 55 actual conditions — given that he had behaved like a lunatic, not to say (as his father would doubtless have said) like a criminal lunatic, in making the marriage that he had made — what ought he to have done ? To have avowed the truth ; to have distressed and mortally offended his family ; to have claimed a husband's control over the future career of his liberty-loving wife ? But to do that would have been to grieve and estrange his family quite uselessly, to break his word to Daisy, and to assert an authority which he was absolutely without power to exercise. Thus, as the result of much troubled reflection, he decided to remain silent, to hope for the best (though he would have been rather puzzled to explain exactly what it was that he hoped for), and to act, if he refrained from actually telling, a lie. But he did not like it, and strict moralists will be glad to hear that he was by no means happy during the summer which he so dutifully spent with his father in his old home. Gerard's stay was brief. His battalion was at that time quartered in Dublin, and the exi- gencies of military duty afforded him an excellent excuse for placing St. George's Channel between 56 THE DANCER IN YELLOW him and ultimate destiny before he had com- mitted himself to anything more than a proper display of respectful admiration for his widowed neighbour. Miss Coplestone also soon returned to London, whence she departed on a succession of visits to her numerous friends, leaving Sir Harry and Frank to practise economy and to endure the tedium of a solitary country life together as best they could. One of them had no difficulty in enduring a solitude which was, of course, much less complete than that to which he was accustomed, while the other had never found life in the country tedious, even when neither shooting, hunting nor fishing was attainable. There was no need for his father to apologize to him daily ; he would much rather, he declared, be where he was than anywhere else — with a mental reservation in favour of Switzerland, where he could not possibly be. From St. Moritz, Pontresina, Ouchy, and other places, Daisy wrote with tolerable fre- quency to say that she was having ' a rare good time.' Apparently, she had met with many acquaintances, and incidental allusions seemed to show that their tastes were of a jovial char- acter ; but she did not go much into details, CLEVER MRS. TRAFFORD 57 although she was constantly begged to do so. As she had a large, bold handwriting, her letters filled many sheets of thick paper ; they were couched in a style to which purists might have taken exception ; they were punctuated upon a most improbable system, and contained some eccentric specimens of spelling. Still, such as they were, they gave satisfaction to their re- cipient, for they abounded in expressions of the warmest affection. * I long for you a dozen times a day, dear old boy,' she gladdened his heart by asserting. ' I'm sure you can't miss me half as much as I miss you, for all your lamentations. But cheer up ! I'm due in the little village earlier than usual this year, and we'll have some good days before you sail. It makes me roar with laughter sometimes to think that I am a married woman, and that my name is Coplestone !' Notwithstanding her change of name, she did not make use of it as a signature, nor did Frank find her hilarity with regard to that particular subject contagious. But, then, his was a some- what serious nature to start with, and he had been aged and sobered by a form of fever which leaves no man precisely where it found him. 58 THE DANCER IN YELLOW More than once in the course of the summer Frank was prostrated for a few days by a slight recurrence of that depressing malady ; and thus it came to pass that the liking which he had con- ceived for Mrs. Trafford at first sight developed into a strong and grateful friendship. Meeting Sir Harry shortly after one of these attacks had declared itself, and touched by his plaintive avowal that he did not know how to deal with an invalid who was trying to be patient but could not help being occasionally fretful, Mrs. Trafford drove over to Mailing Park, and very soon put matters upon a more satisfactory footing. Mf I have no other merit,' she remarked, * I can at least claim to be a good nurse.' And certainly she proved herself to be so. She seemed to know intuitively what was wanted ; she did what had to be done in such a prompt, matter-of-course way that nobody thought of protesting against her taking so much trouble, and, as preliminaries are easily dispensed with in a sick-room, it did not take Frank long to feel as if he had been intimate with her all his life. Young though she was in years, she was not very young in her ways ; CLEVER MRS. TRAFFORD 59 she adopted a maternal manner with him which he liked ; and if, at the end of a week, she did not know quite all that there was to know about him, she knew a good deal more than his father did. ' It is a good thing that you are not going back to Burmah, and a very good thing that you will soon have to go back to India/ she said one afternoon, when he had reached the convalescent stage, and when she was sitting beside his long wicker chair in a sunny, shel- tered nook of the garden. * Why do you say that ?' asked Frank, rather surprised. ' Only because you are in a state to do some- thing foolish just now, and because, if you were to remain in England, you might do it. By the time that your regiment comes home you will probably have forgotten all about her — whoever she may be.' Frank straightened himself up in his chair, and stared at his neighbour with wide-open eyes of alarm. * What do you mean ?' he gasped. ' Have I been delirious ? — have I said anything ?' ' You have said all sorts of things in moments 6o THE DANCER IN YELLOW of perfect sanity/ replied Mrs. Trafford, smiling. * But don't be frightened. All I have guessed is that there is somebody, and that she isn't — well, perhaps " suitable " will do as well as any other word. I am not asking for your con- fidence, and you may be sure that I shall not betray you ; only allow me to be glad that cir- cumstances are likely to save you from yourself. One wants — almost everybody wants in early life — to do things which are contrary to reason and common-sense ; one makes one's self utterly miserable because they can't be done, and then a day comes when one realizes that nothing lasts long. First love, at all events, is a very transient emotion.' * That is the sort of thing that Gerard might say,' remarked Frank. ' I shouldn't have ex- pected to hear such sentiments from you.' She raised her eyebrows. ' Wouldn't you ?' she returned. * Most people would.' There was a suspicion of bitterness in her voice which caused him to feel that he had paid her a somewhat clumsy and inappropriate com- pliment ; but she did not pursue the subject, nor was she at any time given to speaking CLEVER MRS. TR AFFORD 6i much about herself or her past history. She answered questions unhesitatingly when they were put to her. On the first evening, as has been related, she had expressed herself with more candour than was absolutely necessary respecting her position and her plans, and sometimes, if the occasion appeared to call for it, she alluded without embarrassment to her late husband ; but she was not spontaneously communicative. What Frank knew, and re- joiced to know, was that she was very kindly and genuinely interested in him. He conjec- tured that her own destiny did not, for the time being, interest her profoundly. Possibly she regarded that as a tale which had already been told, and which admitted of no sequel worth talking about. Sir Harry, for his part, would have liked very well to talk occasionally, in veiled and discreet terms, about possible sequels ; but he was advised by his younger son not to do that. ' She often asks me about Gerard,' Frank said ; ' and she told me once that she thought him the handsomest man she had ever seen in her life ; but I'm sure she isn't dreaming of a second marriage yet. We should do more 62 THE DANCER IN YELLOW harm than good if we let her see that we are.' It did not occur to this sapient young man that a lady who had already shown herself so apt at drawing unexpected inferences as Mrs. Trafford had done might have surmised without assistance what the hopes of the Coplestone family were ; but the astonishing discovery which she had made (and to which she did not again refer) caused him to be a little more guarded in his subsequent utterances when conversing with her. Gerard found it impossible, or wrote that he found it impossible, to revisit Mailing during his brother's stay. Perhaps he was not very greatly missed by Sir Harry, who was never free from an uncomfortable feeling that his heir looked down upon the reduced establishment at home, and who was reassured by Frank's expressed conviction that in due season the fallen fortunes of the house would be repaired after the fashion desired. And so the days slipped away swiftly, as uneventful days always do, until the woods turned red and brown and yellow, and summer was a memory. It was in October that Frank CLEVER MRS. TRAFFORD 63 at length received a letter from Daisy which rendered it at once a duty and a joy to him to announce his impending departure for London. ' The St. Stephen's Theatre is to re-open on the 26th,' she wrote from Paris, 'with a piece called '* Othello Junior," in which I am expected to electrify the town. Come up for the first night, like a dear boy, and give us a hand. But don't come before ; because I shall be driven mad with rehearsals, and ready to bite the head off anybody who dares to approach me. You may ask me to supper at the Savoy on the evening of the 26th if you like, and I'll get some of the others to join us. Mind you don't look as if you had seen or heard anything of me since I left London.' Well, this was not quite the way in which he would have chosen to meet his wife again after their prolonged separation ; but he was so glad to have the prospect of meeting her again upon any terms that his first feeling of annoy- ance and resentment soon passed off. He even saw that, admitting the desirability of their marriage being kept a secret, it was just as well that the suspicions of ^ the others ' should be allayed by some such entertainment as she 64 THE DANCER IN YELLOW suggested. Sir Harry, happily, had no sus- picions, and, although he sighed on being told that Frank must run up to town to make preparations for rejoining his regiment, offered no opposition. * You have been very good in keeping me company all this long time, my dear fellow,' he said, * and I should be a churl to grumble at your wanting a few days of livelier society now. Come down for a couple of nights before you sail, that's all ; I should like to see the last of you.' Mrs. Trafford, on the other hand, was by no means without suspicions ; but she only hinted at them, remarking : ' A month or six weeks seems a rather longer time than can be required for the purchase of sun-helmets and flannels. I wish I were going to be in London, to keep a watchful eye upon your proceedings ; but it appears that I can't get into my new house there until after Christmas.' * How could you manage to keep an eye upon me if you were there ?' Frank inquired. ' I flatter myself that I have acquired a certain influence over you. Probably that is a fond CLEVER MRS. TRAFFORD 65 Illusion, though, and you would deceive me as soon as look at me. Men must play and women must weep as long as the world lasts. All I can say is that I hope you won't bring more tears than you can help into the eyes of your old nurse until you disappear altogether from the field of her vision.' Frank laughed, and replied that he was going to be good. He was touched, and not at all offended, by this kind woman's solicitude ; but at the same time he was rather glad to think that she would be safely down in Kent while he was spending his days where he hoped to spend most of them, at Daisy's little house at Regent's Park. He had begun to realize that Mrs. Trafford was a lady whom it was more pleasant to look at than easy to deceive. VOL. L CHAPTER VI. 'OTHELLO JUNIOR.' The busy, prosaic, and utilitarian age in which we live feels, as all previous ages have felt, the need for occasional lapses into gaiety, and supplies that need for the most part after a somewhat crude fashion. The art of brilliant conversation, like the epistolary art, has fallen out of cultivation because it has ceased to pay ; a wit is only another name for a bore ; nobody in these days would be pleased or amused by the elaborate jeux d esprit which our forefathers delighted to quote. Practical joking, on the other hand, makes no troublesome demand on the appreciative intellect ; its effects are prompt, visible, satisfying ; and this, no doubt, explains the immense popularity of such gilded youths as Tommy Fellowes. Tommy, to do him justice, was extremely * OTHELLO J UNIOR ' 67 funny both in word and In deed. His round, smooth-shaven face wore an expression of comic gravity which seldom or never varied, and which had been of the greatest assistance to him in carrying out the pranks whereby he had earned an honourable reputation ; his friends were wont to say of him admiringly that you never knew what Tommy would do next, and if this aptitude of his for achieving unexpected successes rendered him a rather trying companion to nervous people, it was a source of endless merriment to those upon whose comfort or dignity he had no immediate designs. Unbounded impudence, unfailing sang-froid, and a certain childlike innocence of demeanour, had brought him safely through enterprises in which less-gifted mortals must inevitably have broken down. Everybody remembers how, just after a General Election, he contrived to make his way into the House of Commons, signed the roll, shook hands with the Speaker, and seated himself placidly upon the Treasury Bench, and how, when detection and expulsion followed, he declared that the whole thing had been a very natural mistake — that although he had inadvertently appropriated 68 THE DANCER IN YELLOW the name of a member, this was only because he had fully intended to stand for the con- stituency represented by that member, and had clean forgotten the detail of his having omitted to do so. Everybody knew who it was that called together a mass meeting in Hyde Park to demand the abolition of the House of Lords, addressed the populace in incendiary language for twenty minutes, and then abruptly and mysteriously vanished. Everybody could name the hand which, on a celebrated occasion, in- troduced a cunningly devised emetic into the meat or drink of that very exclusive confra- ternity, the members of the Gastronomic Club. These things and many others were known to everybody, because everybody (including the police, who loved him not) knew Tommy Fellowes. Possessed of sufficient means, free from family encumbrances, well connected, and ever ready to make fresh acquaintances. Tommy enjoyed a social position which he was now in no danger of forfeiting, his multitudinous offences being more than covered by his one great virtue of being always amusing. For more reasons than one, Frank Coplestone, who had the privilege of being numbered among * OTHELLO JUNIOR ' 69 Mr. Fellowes' Intimates, would have preferred to dine with anybody else on the eveninc^ appointed for the first performance of ' Othello Junior'; but he was given to understand by notes from Daisy and from his intended host that his presence at the latter's club at seven o'clock sharp that evening formed part of a pre- arranged programme, and he hardly saw his way to disobey the order. Tommy was, and had been from the commencement of her career, a stanch friend and supporter of the Dancer in Yellow ; she was accustomed to assert that she owed a great deal to his patron- age — to offend him would very likely have been to offend her — added to which it had been necessary to Invite him to supper at the Savoy, and an hour or two more or less of his company could not make much difference one way or the other. Only Frank hoped that lie would abstain from putting embarrassing queries. In this respect Tommy, who probably had his own surmises, but who was really a good- natured little man, showed more discretion than his anxious guest had ventured to count upon. He met Frank in the hall, hurried him into the dining-room, where three other young men 70 THE DANCER IN YELLOW were already seated, and began at once to relate how he had seen Daisy Villlers that morning, and to quote the account that she had given him of her adventures in foreign lands. He seemed to take it for granted that none of his hearers could know what Daisy had been about during the holiday season, and he wound up by adding : ' I was to tell you, Coplestone, that she Is looking forward to seeing you to-night, and that she would have seen you before now if she hadn't been too busy with rehearsals to see any- body/ * Except you, it seems,' observed Frank, just a trifle jealous, notwithstanding his relief at being spared the inquiries which he had anticipated and dreaded. 'Oh, I'm nobody; I don't count, bless you! If I were to begin making love to Miss Daisy, she'd simply roar with laughing in my face — just as these fellows are doing now. Not that there's anything to laugh at.' There certainly was no ostensible cause for laughter ; but that did not prevent Mr. Fel- lowes' guests from being convulsed every time that he opened his lips. Penalties attach to all 'OTHELLO JUNIOR' 71 forms of greatness, and perhaps an inveterate wag may feel it to be a little distressing that he cannot (at any rate, in this country) make the most commonplace remark without having some waggish arriere pensie imputed to him. For the rest, it had probably become a second nature to Tommy to play the fool, and during the progress of a somewhat hurried repast he contrived, without apparent exertion, to be as entertaining as he was expected to be. Solemn and humorous requests were addressed to the club waiters, who shook from head to foot with suppressed hilarity ; one of the young gentle- men was seduced into tossing off a glass of raw brandy in mistake for sherry ; another was caused to subside upon the floor with a resounding crash, his chair having been dexterously whisked away while he was lean- ing across the table, at his host's request, to examine the last photograph of Daisy Villiers ; it was all rather better fun than it sounds, and Frank, at least, was thankful that these choice spirits were too much engaged with themselves and one another to think of asking questions about the yachting cruise in which he was known to have spent a part of his holiday. 72 THE DANCER IN YELLOW But when Tommy and he were seated side by side in a hansom, and when the former had with great difficulty been dissuaded from dropping a flaming fusee upon the horse's quarters, an observation was made to him which he did not like at all. * I suppose you have heard,' said his com- panion, ' that our little friend in yellow has made a brand - new captive. The Most Honourable the Marquis of Wednesbury, if you please, no less ! Let us hope that his inten- tions are most honourable — and take odds the other way, if any amiable juggins offers them to us. She picked him up somewhere abroad, I believe, and he is reported to be in an abject condition, poor devil !' Frank's attempts to steady his voice were altogether futile, as he answered : ' I don't know who Lord Wednesbury is, and I don't care ; but I do know that nobody has ever yet ventured to insinuate that Daisy Villiers is anything but an honest girl, and I think that, since you pretend to be a friend of hers, you might be better employed than in blackening her character behind her back.' 'Only wanted to get a rise out of you,' ' OTHELLO J UNI OR ' 73 returned the other placidly. ' I haven't blackened Daisy's character ; she's all right, and so, for anything I know to the contrary, is Wednesbury ; though it's true that he is awfully gone on her. It's no fault of hers that she met him and that her charms were too much for him ; she has met other people who have found her charms irresistible, I believe. But when you say that nobody has ever dared to breathe insinuations against her, you go a bit too far, my boy, and if you mean to fly into a towering passion with every man who breathes insinuations of that kind in your hearing, you'll be locked up for the night before you know where you are. Now, I'm tolerably familiar with the London beak, and if I get into a row — a thing which may happen to the most innocent person — I know pretty well how to get out of it again ; but I doubt whether you or your people would enjoy a first appearance of yours in a police-court, and for that reason I should recommend you to cultivate philosophy. See what I mean ?' It was easy to see what he meant, and im- possible to dispute either the wisdom of his advice or the kindly feeling that had prompted 74 THE DANCER IN YELLOW it Slanderous whispers cannot be stifled, nor is there any known means of protecting women who dance upon the public stage from slander. Frank, who had all along been aware that he must of necessity submit to much which would be almost unendurable to him, was vexed with himself for having so readily fallen into a trap not ill-naturedly laid ; yet it was all that he could do to refrain from pursuing the subject. What did Tommy Fellowes know, or guess ? How much truth was there in that very un- welcome story about Lord Wednesbury ? — and was his lordship to form one of the supper- party after the performance ? These questions, which Frank had just self- control enough to refrain from putting into words, prevented him from getting any amuse- ment whatsoever out of the opening scenes of * Othello Junior,' although his reverence for Shakespeare was not so great as to interfere with the enjoyment which he might otherwise have derived from seeing the personages of a noble tragedy ludicrously travestied. That the piece was going to be a great success was manifest from the outset ; but whether it had been good or bad of its class, the vociferous 'OTHELLO JUNIOR' 75 applause which greeted Daisy's entrance upon the scene would doubtless have been the same. She wore, as a matter of course, a costume of the colour with which her name and fame were inseparably associated ; diamonds sparkled in her hair and about her neck ; she was look- ing charmingly young, fresh and pretty ; she acknowledged the prolonged plaudits of the spectators with a succession of those smiling little nods which they had learned to expect of her ; after which, meeting Frank's eyes for a second, she favoured him with a barely per- ceptible sign of recognition, which set his foolish heart beating. He was at least certain that she had not done as much as that for anybody else in the house. Then, having spoken a few sentences in a careless, self- possessed fashion (for she was no actress, and scarcely troubled herself to learn her part), she began to dance. There are people who profess to despise the terpsichorean art, and even to deny it that place amongst the arts which it has con- trived to hold, through good and evil report, in times ancient and modern ; but these super- cilious persons, it may be, never had the 76 THE DANCER IN YELLOW privilege of gazing upon Daisy Villiers in the zenith of her renown. She must have possessed something more than marvellous gracefulness, perfectly trained skill, and an absolutely correct sense of time. Many of her predecessors, possibly even a few of her contemporaries, might have boasted of a similar equipment ; but it is doubtful whether anybody else has ever contrived to rouse a large, mixed assem- blage to quite such a pitch of self- forgetful enthusiasm as Daisy habitually did. It would be just as impossible to describe the indivi- duality with which her performance was im- pregnated as to explain the special charm which is universally felt to belong to certain poets. Analysis in these cases only serves to obscure the issue, and we are driven to sum up feebly by saying that So-and-so was a genius — which scarcely helps to make matters more clear to those who have not seen or read So-and-so. In all probability Daisy herself was unconscious of her own secret, knew no more than that technical proficiency must be kept up by constant practice, and danced like that, as the nightingales sing, because it was her nature to do so. ' OTHELLO JUNIOR ' 77 Be that as it may, she fairly surpassed her- self on the occasion with which we are now concerned. An ovation such as is very seldom witnessed within the walls of an English theatre rewarded her when she paused, breathing a little quickly, behind the footlights; a shower of bouquets fell at her feet, and if, amongst the smiles which she distributed on all sides, in acknowledgment of this display of public favour, a somewhat marked one was addressed to a dark young man in the stalls, it was but right that he should be thus distinguished ; for, Indeed, Frank had never loved her more passionately or felt more proud of her than he did at that moment. He did not so much as hear the slang phrases by means of which Tommy Fellowes gave expression to his ap- proval ; he forgot the existence of Lord Wed- nesbury, whom he had hitherto been furtively seeking to identify in the closely- packed audience ; he was only aware of a triumphant conviction that there was nobody in the world like Daisy, and that Daisy belonged to him. Unhappily, this ecstatic mental condition could not and did not last long. The piece, though clever and bright of its kind, was, of 78 THE DANCER IN YELLOW^ course, vulgar, and those who took part in it had to be a little vulgar too. It is only fair to the so-called Desdemona to say that she was not, as a rule, addicted to the abandon which the taste of the present day is supposed to demand ; still, she was made to say some rather risky things, and to execute a few evolutions upon which her husband could not look without an involuntary frown. By the time that the cur'tain fell upon the final tableau, he caught himself in the act of wishing, as he had so often and so unreasonably wished already, that Daisy could be removed at once and for ever from surroundings which hardly befitted Mrs. Frank Coplestone. But he had the forbearance and the common- sense to keep these absurd aspirations to him- self when he went behind with the others, and when Daisy accosted him in the only manner in which it was possible for her to accost him. A surreptitious squeeze of the hand he obtained ; more he could not hope for or expect. Then he was introduced to Lord Wednesbury, a tall, thin, bald-headed man, no longer in his first youth, who had joined the group. * Weddy is coming to supper with us,' Daisy ♦ OTHELLO J UNIOR ' 79 explained, with easy familiarity ; * I hope that little wretch Tommy didn't forget to tell you.' ' I was told that we were to be eight/ an- swered Frank ; * no doubt it will be all right.' He tried to feel, no doubt, that everything was all right ; he would have been ashamed to admit that the presence of this rather elderly nobleman caused him the slightest disquietude ; and yet he could not for the life of him help re- senting it as an impertinence that intimacy with his wife should be a thing so lightly claimed and granted. Presently Daisy went off to change her dress, while Frank, after hesitating a moment as to whether he should wait upon the chance of securing a few words with her in private, was led away towards the Savoy by Tommy Fel- lowes and his satellites. CHAPTER VII. A LIVELY SUPPER- PARTY. A MAN who deliberately places himself in a false position is doubtless a fool ; but it is open to him to make his folly even more conspicuous, if he be so minded, by quarrelling with it. Frank Coplestone fully recognised this, and sensibly resolved that he would not interfere with the merriment of a particularly merry party by showing any outward signs of dis- quietude or sulkiness. Nevertheless, while champagne-corks were flying, and his guests were chattering and laughing at the top of their voices, and he himself was doing his best to look like what he ostensibly was — a gay young subaltern, with money enough in his pocket to offer a supper to a popular actress and her friends — the falsity of his position was dread- fully apparent to him. He had given; or A LIVELY SUPPER-PARTY 8i attended, many previous supper-parties similar to this one, and, being young as well as, in a limited sense, gay, had thoroughly enjoyed them ; but, then, he had not on those bygone occasions been married to the lady who was the life and soul of the gathering — which made a difference. Strange indeed would be have been, and very unlike the rest of mankind, if he had thoroughly enjoyed participating in Daisy's notice of Lord Wednesbury, who re- ceived the lion's share of that privilege, and who, although perfectly civil, treated his host rather too openly as a quantity ndgligeable. His lordship, it was easy to perceive, had accepted hospitality merely as a means towards an end. What that end was might be uncertain, but that the means neither troubled nor in- terested him was disagreeably evident. 'Awfully nice of you to wear that little brooch of mine to-night,' Frank heard him say in a low voice to his neighbour ; ' I was quite touched when I saw It — I was really !' ' Brooch of yours !' returned Daisy, in scornful accents, which partially allayed the rising Indig- nation of her husband ; * I like that ! If a brooch doesn't become my property after I have won VOL. 1. 6 82 THE DANCER IN YELLOW it in a fair wager, all I can say is, you had better go to one of the bookies who make a living out of you and tell him how awfully nice you think it of him to spend your money. Don't you flatter yourself that I ever thought about where it came from when I put it on,' ' Have you been making successful bets in foreign parts, then ?' asked Frank, striking nervously into the conversation, with a rather forced smile. * One or two,' answered Daisy. * Weddy said I wouldn't drive a pair of donkeys tandem from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe ; but I very soon showed him that I would, if it was made worth my while. Weddy is a little dull ; you can't get him to believe anything until he sees it — and not always then.* Lord Wednesbury stroked his moustache, laughed quietly, and looked as if a compliment had been paid to him. It seemed quite probable that he might be a little dull. Perhaps it would not have been altogether unjust to bring the same accusation against three-fourths of those who were feasting at Frank's expense, including the giver of the feast ; it is, at all events, certain that they A LIVELY SUPPER-PARTY 83 would have had remarkably little to say to one another had Daisy Villiers and Tommy Fellowes remained silent. But these two between them kept the conversational ball rolling with such vigour that Tommy's three friends and Daisy's faithful companion, Miss Cripps, were not called upon to rack their brains for original ideas. Frank had always liked fat old Miss Cripps, whose good qualities nobody else, except Daisy, seemed to appreciate. She was a plain-featured, middle-aged woman, who wore her grizzled hair in sausage curls, after the fashion of Heaven knows how many years ago ; at some remote epoch she had been a member of the corps de ballet at Covent Garden, but had failed to realize a sufficient sum at that trade to provide for the necessities of her old age ; so that it must have been a glad day for her when Daisy, moved by compassion, rescued her from penury to preside over the little Regent's Park estab- lishment, where she was now the terror of lazy servants. Taciturn, blunt of speech, when she did open her lips, and inflexibly honest, she was a sort of embodiment and guarantee of respectability. Possibly that may have been one reason why Frank liked her, and why other 84 THE DANCER IN YELLOW people sometimes forgot themselves so far as audibly to wish her at the deuce. Daisy either had, or affected to have, a high esteem for her judgment in theatrical matters, and presently she appealed to it from the compliments which were being showered upon her personally, and the congratulations upon the success of the piece, for which an endless run was confidently predicted. ' Oh, you would all of you say that, whatever the truth was,' she declared. ' Cripps don't talk, but she knows ten times more than the whole lot of you put together. Speak up, Cripps ! — was I pretty good ? Was the thing a genuine success ?' ' I didn't think much of the piece myself,' answered the candid critic interrogated ; ' but I dare say it will go down when they put a little more gag into it. Yes, you were good, my dear, though I've known you better. There's no woman living can hold a candle to you ; you may depend upon that. Dancing isn't what it was in the days of Taglioni and The Sylphide, which I dare say the old gentleman on your right may remember.* This was rather hard upon poor Lord A LIVELY SUPPER-PARTY 85 Wednesbury, who could hardly have been born at the period alluded to ; but if he was not quite so old as he was accused of being, he was old enough to keep his countenance and to take no notice of the burst of laughter which rewarded Miss Cripps's sally. Very likely he was aware that Miss Cripps did not regard him with any special favour. * Never mind, Weddy,' said Daisy con- solingly. ' A man's as young as he feels, you know, and nobody who had seen you in Paris could doubt that you feel as young as a kitten. He changed all the boots outside the doors at the hotel,' she added, turning to Frank, * and he pretended not to know which his own room was ' ' Oh, come !' interrupted Lord Wednesbury, lifting an admonishing forefinger ; ' you musn't tell tales out of school.' ' But he did,' persisted Daisy. ' And we painted his face, and got a red wig for him, so that he shouldn't be recognised ' Lord Wednesbury 's finger was advanced yet a little farther, and laid upon the betrayer's lips. It was, no doubt, a great liberty to take, and the question for a moment was whether Frank 86 THE DANCER IN YELLOW would be able to put up with it. Daisy may have realized that ; for she retorted with great promptitude by pouring a glass of champagne over the bald head of her mature adorer; whereupon a somewhat riotous scene ensued, which was quite to the taste of Tommy Fellowes, who took an active part in it. By the time that order was restored, and that Miss Cripps, without moving a muscle, had risen from her seat to box Tommy's ears soundly, Frank had to some extent recovered his equanimity. After all, Daisy was not behaving so badly; her behaviour, at all events, could not be called bad, if judged from her probable point of view. She was, of course, necessarily playing a part ; she was only doing what she had done a hundred times before ; it might have struck her friends as odd if she had departed from her well-known habits, and there is nothing wrong in horse-play. As for Lord Wednesbury, it would have been both un- generous and ridiculous to be jealous of that elderly nobleman — who, moreover, it had to be remembered, was not consciously making love to a married woman. The thing to be done was to exercise a little patience for the time A LIVELY SUPPER-PARTY .87 being, and to take an early opportunity of reminding Daisy, very gently and kindly, that married women who choose to retain the title of spinsterhood expose themselves to risks which their husbands can scarcely contemplate with satisfaction. While Frank was thus sagely admonishing himself, Tommy Fellowes had jumped to his feet, and had begun to make a speech. * Ladies and gentlemen,' he shouted, ' I feel sure that I am expressing your sentiments and convictions, as well as my own, when I say that we ought not to separate without drinking the health of one whose geniality, amiability, and other virtues have endeared him to us all. It would be a pleasing task to me to dwell upon these at greater length ; but I remember that the night is already far advanced, and that some of the younger members of our party, being not yet wholly emancipated from paternal control, cannot remain out of bed in the pursuit of knowledge after a certain hour without laying themselves open to annoyances w^hich I should deplore. For my own part, I will only say that the subject of this toast is a man whom I love, admire, and esteem ; I may add without 88 THE DANCER IN YELLOW exaggeration that I have no better friend in the world, and I am confident that you will join me enthusiastically in wishing him many years of health, prosperity, and public respect. I need scarcely tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I allude to — myself.' After this there was another bear-fight, in the midst of which Daisy got up, kissed her finger-tips to the combatants, and made for the door, closely followed by Miss Cripps, Lord Wed- nesbury and Frank. The latter could not manage to get a word with her until she had obligingly dismissed her other attendants in search of a fan, which she professed to have mislaid in the cloak-room. Then he exclaimed eagerly : ' At last, Daisy ! I was beginning to think that this time would never come.' She laughed, glanced cautiously over her shoulder, and then, placing her hands lightly upon each of his, kissed him on both cheeks. However, she jumped back at once to avoid the corresponding and less circumspect demonstra- tion with which she was threatened. ' Mind what you are about,' she whispered ; * they will be back directly. Oh yes, the time has come at last, and I shouldn't wonder if I A LIVELY SUPPER-PARTY 89 had been longing for it as much as you have, Frank. But it isn't going to last more than a minute, worse luck !' ' Mayn't I see you home ?' he pleaded dis- consolately. ' Bless the boy, no ! What would Weddy and the others think ? — not to mention Cripps.' * You haven't told her, then ? I always hoped that you would at least tell her. It would make things so very much easier !' ' H'm ! I don't know about that. Cripps is an angel ; but when a third person is let into a secret, you know — well, perhaps she shall be told some day ; not yet. Anyhow, she won't object to your coming to lunch with me to- morrow, and then we'll have a happy afternoon together somewhere or other. As it's Sunday, there'll be no beastly rehearsal to attend.' This hurried interview, which was put a stop to by the return of Lord Wednesbury, empty- handed and apologetic, gave Frank some little comfort. He had fully intended, in any case, to visit his wife on the morrow ; but he was pleased (having scarcely ventured to anticipate so much) that she had likewise planned to receive him, and he tried not to be vexed while 90 THE DANCER IN YELLOW she descended the stairs in front of him, jocu- larly abusing Lord Wednesbury, who was full of lamentations over his failure to discover the missing fan, but who promised to buy her another and a much nicer one in its place. It was not agreeable to listen to such an offer and to wait in vain for the refusal with which it ought to have been promptly met; but, then, the whole situation was not, and could not be, agreeable. Daisy's smart little brougham stood at the door. Miss Cripps bundled her into it, followed her, and pulled up the glass, without even wish- ing the giver of the feast good-night ; then the light vehicle was whirled away into the dark- ness, leaving the two men standing side by side upon the pavement. Lord Wednesbury, more polite than Miss Cripps, shook hands with his late entertainer, murmured something perfunctory, and not very intelligible, and signalled to his own brougham, which was waiting a few yards off. As for Frank, he knew by previous experi- ence that Tommy Fellowes was not a desirable companion, during the small hours of the morn- ing, for those who wish to steer clear of exciting episodes, so he slipped down a side-street and escaped. CHAPTER VIII. DAISY GIVES REASONS. ' This Is rather rough on poor old Cripps/ re- marked Daisy, looking out of the drawing-room window at the steady, persistent rain and the mist which blurred the outlines of the trees in Regent's Park. ' She didn't at all want to go and see her distant relatives at Twickenham, but she said she could stand them, at a pinch, out of doors. Now she will have to do the best she can with them under cover.' * Well, I am sorry for her,' answered Frank. * I should have been a great deal more sorry for myself, though, if she hadn't gone, and I'm most sincerely grateful to you, Daisy, for having sent her.' He was smoking, and so was his wife, who had the best cigarettes in London, and refused to tell anybody where she got them. They had 92 THE DANCER IN YELLOW partaken of an excellently cooked little luncheon together, and she had made herself so charming in every way that he had not yet had the heart to read her the lecture of which he had carefully prepared the heads on his road to her house. Even now, in this placid hour of digestion, he felt extremely disinclined to tackle unpleasant subjects, saying to himself that they had still the whole afternoon before them. ' I wish it wasn't raining, all the same,' he resumed presently, just by way of making a remark which could not give rise to any painful difference of opinion ; * we might have gone to the Zoo, or somewhere. You aren't very fond of sitting indoors and doing nothing, are you, little woman ?' Daisy threw herself down into a low and capacious armchair and blew a cloud of smoke into the air luxuriously. 'Ain't I, though!' she returned. 'Shows how much you know about me ! Most days of the week I'm bound to be out, rain or shine ; but I can assure you, Frank, the happiest moments of my life are when I can sit in this room and look round at everything and say to myself, ''There, my dear! all that you see DAISY GIVES REASONS 93 belongs to you absolutely, and there isn't a stick or a stitch of it that you haven't earned by the work of your own hands — or, rather, feet." I don't suppose you understand the sensation, because you have never known what it is to go hungry and see ruin staring you in the face. I have.' In a measure he did understand, and could sympathize with her pardonable self-congratula- tion. That his wife should be so entirely in- dependent of him was perhaps scarcely a matter for personal self-congratulation. But that was neither here nor there. The labourer is worthy of his or her hire, and Daisy had just as good a right to be proud as if she had been a victorious General or a Cabinet Minister. For the rest, the outward and visible signs of her victories were not quite what he would have chosen, had he been consulted when she furnished and decorated the room round which her eyes roamed so lovingly. Daisy's taste, it has to be confessed, w^as (save in the matter of apparel, where she made no mistakes) somewhat crude and florid. Her lot had been cast in a generation which despises 94 THE DANCER IN YELLOW gilding, otherwise she would, no doubt, have been extensively gilded. As it was, she had gone in for pseudo-high art in its most appalling manifestations, and the mixture of periods aped and caricatured within the narrow limits of those four walls had something of the effect of a nightmare. Japan, of course — poor, modern, debased Japan — was largely represented ; so was the age of Queen Anne, and likewise those of Louis XVI. and of the first Napoleon. Still, her little salon would not have been so very much worse than the salons of many people who pretend to a far more exalted level of culture, had she been able to restrain her too exuberant fancy in respect of colour. It was the terrible, insistent, jarring hues of his wife's abode that made Frank long to pull all the blinds down the first time that he was privileged to behold them. However, he had grown accustomed to them now, and to many other things besides. It was a pity that some things remained to which it was out of his power to accustom himself One of these he had made up his mind that he must mention that day, and after a time Daisy rendered it easier for him to do so by asking : DAISY GIVES REASONS 95 * Well, what did you think of Weddy ? Not a bad sort of old duffer, is he ?' * Since you ask me/ answered Frank, * I thought he was a great deal too familiar.' * Oh, but not with you, dear boy !' protested Daisy, her eyes twinkling. ' I'm sure he didn't forget himself so far as to be familiar with you.' * He certainly didn't honour me so far,' re- turned Frank unsmilingl3^ * All I meant to say was that I should have been better pleased if he hadn't honoured my wife so far.' * Ah !' sighed Daisy ; ' now you are going to be a perfect pig ! I expected it, and I must put up with it, I suppose. Only please don't scold longer than you can help, because it's such a horrid waste of time. If you don't understand that familiarity and contempt and all the rest of it belong to my position in life just as much as respect and respectability do to yours, I'm afraid I can't make you. Weddy don't mean any harm by talking like that. And there isn't any harm, either,' she added, a trifle defiantly. * Of course I know that there isn't any harm,' Frank hastened to reply. ' I'm not so sure 96 THE DANCER IN YELLOW about his meaning none. You yourself say that the position you are in encourages men to be familiar, and — and so forth, conse- quently ' ' Consequently, it behoves me to be very circumspect, eh ? And, little as you might suppose it, I really do know how to take care of myself by this time. Anything more ?' Frank looked rather worried. He would have liked to ask for a good deal more, but it was not easy to give expression to his wishes without at the same time giving legitimate cause for offence. At length he made up his mind to say : ' I can't help feeling that we ought to announce our marriage, instead of concealing it. There are drawbacks either way, I know, but at least, if we spoke out, we should be doing the straight thing.' ' Then we must do the crooked thing, and put up with a few drawbacks, that's all,' returned Daisy decisively. ' You promised me that you would do as I wished about this, and I mean to hold you to your word. As far as that goes, you ought to be quite as much interested as I am in keeping our marriage dark. You have DAISY GIVES REASONS 97 got to go out to India. It stands to reason that you can't take me with you, and by the time that you come back again all sorts of things may have happened.' ' My father may be dead, you mean ?' ' Well, there's that ; and also there's the possibility that the public may have grown tired of me, which would make me a good deal more inclined for a humdrum, domestic life than I am now. Can't you understand me, Frank ? Poor fellow ! I dare say you can't, though it isn't for want of being told. I love my liberty ; I love excitement ; I love to be admired and applauded ; I love to know that, as old Cripps said last night, there isn't another woman living who can hold a candle to me in my own line.' ' In short, you love all these things better than you do me.' ' No, not nearly as much, or I should never have married you. Only I want to enjoy my little hour of triumph while it lasts, and I know very well that it can't last long. You wouldn't grudge it to me if you knew how hard I have worked for it and what difficulties have been put in my way !' ' I grudge you nothing, Daisy !' Frank VOL. I. 7 98 THE DANCER IN YELLOW declared, touched by the sight of the tears which had suddenly risen to her eyes. * I am proud of your success, and I couldn't think of asking you to give it all up for me. But why should there be any question of your giving it up ? Plenty of celebrated dancers have been married women, and I can't see what difference it can make to the public whether you are married or single.' Daisy shook her head. * It wouldn't be at all the same thing,' she answered. * Besides, as I said before, I'm consulting your interests quite as much as my own. What would your Colonel say to you — what would your brother officers say to you — if you returned with the news of what you have done ? As for your father, I should think it was upon the cards that he would cut you out of his will rather than forgive you for having espoused the Dancer in Yellow.' * He would be distressed and rather angry, no doubt,' Frank was forced to admit. ' Very well, then ; we won't run the risk of injuring his health by distressing him and making him angry. My parents won't show much anger or distress, I promise you, when I DAISY GIVES REASONS 99 tell them — if I ever do tell them — that their disreputable daughter is no less a person than Mrs. Frank Coplestone. On the contrary, they will begin to respect me for the first time in their lives, and I shouldn't wonder if they were to discover how much they had always loved me. What a treat it will be for you to make their acquaintance !' ' I want very much to make their acquaint- ance ; I only wish I could !' Frank had the hardihood to affirm. This was not exactly the truth ; yet it was not altogether false. Daisy's relatives, he felt only too sure, must be rather terrible people ; but he was resolved that, be they what they might, he would never behave as though he were ashamed of them, and he had a natural enough wish to know the worst. If she had offered to introduce him to them forthwith, he would have assented unhesitatingly. Never- theless, he was a good deal taken aback when she abruptly proposed to do that very thing. * Do you ?' said she, with a mischievous light in her eyes, from which the tears had already been winked away. ' Well, you have only to say the word, and your wish shall be gratified. loo THE DANCER IN YELLOW Father and mother always sit at home reading good books on Sunday afternoons, and it isn't often that I let a Sabbath pass without looking them up, when I'm in London. The rain has almost stopped now ; shall we go round there together ?' ' Yes, with pleasure, if you are speaking seriously,' Frank made haste to answer. ' Only • — shall I not be rather difficult to account for?' 'Not a bit ; you are a friend of mine who has kindly offered to escort me. In our rank of life that isn't considered at all an out-of-the-way thing to do. Added to which, I long ago exhausted all possible means of shocking my family. They wouldn't groan much more deeply if I skipped into their parlour attended by half a dozen young men.' Half an hour later, Frank was enabled to hear for himself with what hollow and uncom- plimentary groans Mr. and Mrs. Black were wont to welcome their daughter. The gloomy and hideous apartment (rendered hideous by deliberate intention, he could not help thinking) in which the old couple were seated struck a chill to his heart. Small wonder was it that DAISY GIVES REASONS loi Daisy had found it out of her power to exist amid such surroundings ! But although the glaring coloured prints upon the walls, repre- senting scenes from the Old Testament, the horsehair furniture, the wax-flowers under glass shades, and the large family Bible which lay upon the centre of the table, supported by a couple of photograph-albums, impressed him as dreadfully significant, they scarcely prepared him for the reception that awaited his wife. Mr. Black, a gaunt, solemn personage, clad from head to foot in an ill-fitting sable suit, and wearing long gray whiskers which met under his chin, made no offer to return the salute which Daisy bestowed upon his bald head. He pushed his chair back, sighed profoundly, and said : ' It is many weeks since we last met, Matilda. You will not expect me, as a Christian and truthful man, to tell you that I am made 'appy by your return to London and your sinful course of life.' ' Oh, that's all right, father !' returned Daisy. ' Goodness knows I don't want you to say you're happy ! I should think you were going to die if you said such a thing as that !' 102 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Mr. Black, in sepulchral accents, gave it to be understood that he was one of those to whom to die is gain ; but Daisy had already turned away from him, and was bending over the little old woman who was extended upon the horsehair sofa, and who looked as if that statement might be more applicable to her, so comfortless did her posture appear on the hard, straight-backed couch provided for her. * Well, mother,' said she, * how are all the diseases getting on ? I forget what it was last time. Something with a precious long name, I know !' * I am heavily afflicted/ Mrs. Black replied. * Suffering from such complications as I do, it ain't always easy for me myself to remember all that's wrong with me — let alone them as don't reckonise no Scriptural command to honour their parents.' She was an unprepossessing old woman, in a rusty black gown and a dirty cap. Possibly the bottle which stood at her elbow, and of which the contents were obviously not medicine, may have been partially accountable for the rich hue of her nose. ' No need to inquire after you, Matilda,' she DAISY GIVES REASONS 103 added. * Flourishing like the green bay-tree in slippery places, as is easy to be seen.' * That's it, mother ; you couldn't put the case more truly,' Daisy replied, with unruffled amia- bility. All this time not the slightest notice had been taken of Frank, who was beginning to feel a little awkward ; but now Daisy duly pre- sented him. * This is Mr. Coplestone — one of the uncon- verted — who comes to see me kicking up my heels on the stage, and likes it. I thought it would do him good to get a glimpse of a really pious family for once, so I brought him with me.' Deep disapproval was expressed in Mr. Black's voice, as he said : ' Please to take a chair, sir.' Mrs. Black only grunted, and after that con- versation was resumed without any reference to the presence of the stranger. Once or twice only during the succeeding half-hour was Frank appealed to to say whether man or woman had ever before been called upon to put up with such children as Daisy's brothers and sisters, whose conduct appeared I04 THE DANCER IN YELLOW to have been as black as their name, although he did not very clearly gather what they had been doing. He responded by the sympathetic murmur which was, he supposed, expected of him — finding it, indeed, easy enough to sym- pathize with the complainants' victims. As for Daisy, she went on laughing light-heartedly through the whole dismal recital. It was pointed out to her in unambiguous language that if Tom now refused to attend chapel, if Dick had taken up with godless companions, if Jane squandered time and money upon the adornment of her vile body, and so forth, and so forth, all these backslidings could be more or less directly traced to the fatal example of a scandalous sister. But she neither retorted nor defended herself Evidently she was accus- tomed to these amenities ; evidently she looked for nothing else ; there was something pathetic as well as admirable in the practical answer that she made to her parents' accusations. Possibly her answer was wont to take a form more practical than that of a weekly filial visit ; for when she got up to say good-bye, Frank noticed that she deposited an envelope on the table. The contents of that envelope might DAISY GIVES REASONS 105 have been guessed at, even if Mr. Black's swift, furtive, greedy glance had not stimulated con- jecture. ' And how do you feel by this time ?' was the half-jocular, half-compassionate question which Daisy addressed to her husband as soon as they had effected their escape. * I feel a very great longing to kick an old gentleman who shall be nameless,' he replied, * and a still greater longing to kiss a young lady who honours my name by bearing it — though she won't honour it so far as to bear it publicly.' Daisy dropped a curtsey far more rapid and graceful than is commonly achieved in circles where curtse}'s are cie rigueur. * Very pretty and very flattering : but it wasn't to hear you say that sort of thing that I inflicted half an hour of acute suffering upon you, dear boy. If you aren't convinced now that there are more reasons than one for my retaining the name of Daisy Villiers, I've had my trouble for nothing, that's all. But I know you must be convinced in your heart that I'm right. A day will come when things which would matter a good deal now won't matter io6 THE DANCER IN YELLOW nearly so much. Certain people are old, whereas you and I are still young, and can very well afford to wait a few years.' * That might have been a reason for defer- ring our marriage,' observed Frank ; * it isn't a reason ' * Yes, it is,' interrupted Daisy. * More than that, it's a good reason. More than that, it's the last reason I mean to give you. Now let's go and dine somewhere.' CHAPTER IX. LAST DAYS. It had been hardly necessary, perhaps, to adopt so drastic a method of convincing Frank Coplestone that an immediate proclamation of his marriage would be in the last degree in- expedient. Of that he was already aware, and that, amongst other considerations, was why his conscience had told him that he ought to proclaim it. Nevertheless, it must be owned that, after having seen Daisy's parents, he felt a good deal more reconciled to silence than he had previously done. For such people ever to be acknowledged as connections by Sir Harry or by Gerard was evidently out of the question, and although he had known from the first that Daisy herself was very unlikely to be received in that capacity by these fastidious gentlemen, he had been sustained (when he had thought io8 THE DANCER IN YELLOW about it at all) by a vague hope that her manifold attractions would prove victorious over prejudice. His own prejudice against clan- destine dealings remained unaltered ; but, since he could not make Daisy see things as he saw them, some solace was to be derived from realizing that there was also a good deal to be said in favour of her view. He was, in a word, young ; and it may be hoped that there are not many young people, male or female, who, when the present appears a little unsatisfactory, are unable to look forward with much misplaced confidence to the future. Our hero, therefore, had, upon the whole, a happy time of it during those rough, rainy autumn weeks which concluded the period of his sick-leave. If by the expiration of that period he did not know every word of * Othello Junior' by heart, his ignorance can only be attributable to the fact that the piece, so far as he was concerned, contained but one personage, who, to be sure, took a very small share in its jocose dialogue. Not once did he fail to parti- cipate in Daisy's nightly triumph, nor were there many evenings on which he did not subsequently sup joyously with her and some LAST DAYS 109 of her numerous friends. As for those friends, he had to make the best of them and their occasional familiarities ; after all, it was not such a very hard matter to do that, supported as he was by private assurances, the sincerity of which it was impossible to question. Daisy was very good to him ; she gladly gave up to him every moment that she had to spare ; they managed to spend more than one delightful, uninterrupted afternoon together, and if only Lord Wednes- bury could have been brought to see the futility of his assiduous pursuit, there would not have been much to complain of * Couldn't you make him understand that his room would be more welcome than his company ?' Frank ventured to suggest, after a more than usually severe trial of patience. 'Of course I could,' Daisy replied; 'it's the easiest thing in the world to make enemies. On the other hand, one never knows how soon one may want a friend, and dear old Weddy, with his money and his title and his influence, might turn out to be a powerful sort of friend.' * In what way ?' Frank wanted to know. * Oh, in a thousand ways! He is part-pro- prietor of several theatres, for one thing. no THE DANCER IN YELLOW Besides, I like him ; he's a good sort — and he's awfully fond of me.' * That's just why I wish you wouldn't make a friend of him. Friendship is all very well, and the more real friends you have the better I shall be pleased, now that I must go away and leave you ; but when you say he is '^ awfully fond " of you, you really mean that ' Daisy resorted to a time-honoured and always effectual device for closing the lips of the re- monstrant. ' Oh, you great silly!' she exclaimed ; * don't you know enough yet to know why I have any friends at all ? How many of them would remain, do you suppose, after I had had a bad attack of small-pox and had lost the use of my limbs ? Weddy is just the same as everybody else — except that he's more long- suffering than most men — and by this time next year he'll be as fond of some other girl as he is of me now. But that's no reason for sending the poor chap off with a flea in his ear. Unless I offend him, he will always have a kindly feeling for me, and, as I say, he may come in useful some fine day.' ' Well, but ' * There aren't any buts. I'm not going to LAST DAYS in shout out from the housetops that I love you, Frank, and that I don't care a row of pins for anybody else ; but you know it, and that ought to be enough for you.' In any case it had to be enough. There was, no doubt, a great deal of truth in what she said, and perhaps it was, in some ways, as well that she should discern the truth so clearly. Only the truth was not particularly agreeable to con- template — would probably become a good deal less agreeable when contemplated on sultry Asiatic plains, far beyond reach of such constant consolatory reminders as were now to be had for the asking. Crossing Pall Mall one afternoon, with his mental powers more concentrated upon dreary possibilities than upon immediate surroundings, he was suddenly gripped above the elbow, while an agonized voice in his ear shrieked, ' Take care, sir ! take care !' Naturally he started aside, stepped into an adjacent puddle, splashed himself up to the eyes, and, perceiving that there was no vehicle near, perceived also who had played this stupid trick upon him. * Confound you, Tommy !' he exclaimed. 112 THE DANCER IN YELLOW * I've a great mind to roll you over In the mud. What did you want to make me jump out of my skin like that for ?' * Dear me !' said Tommy Fellowes, with an air of innocent concern, ' I had no idea that your nerves were in such a shattered state. I only advised you to take care, which, in my humble opinion, was sound advice. It's about time for you to begin taking care when Daisy Villiers quarrels with Wednesbury — a man who can do her a lot of harm if he likes, mind you — just because he ventures to speak disrespect- fully of your honour's worship. Now, Daisy ain't half a bad little girl in her way ; but ' * Has she quarrelled with Wednesbury T interrupted Frank eagerly. ' Yes ; had no end of a row with him this morning — gave it him right and left, till at last he turned rusty, which I suppose was what she meant him to do. I'm bound to say that, con- sidering what it was all about, that looks to me deuced significant ; so I thought I would take the liberty of putting you upon your guard, old man.' The brief but very plain-spoken homily which followed gave no offence to Frank, who knew LAST DAYS 113 that It was kindly meant, and who deemed It a sufficient answer to say that he was upon the point of leaving England for two years or more. What was of far greater Importance to him than his friend's solicitude on his behalf (which of course could not, under the circumstances, be of any importance at all) was the news of Daisy's rupture with Lord Wednesbury, and he lost no time in applying to her for confirmation of this welcome Intelligence. ' Quite correct/ she told him, laughing, that same evening. ' Poor old Weddy has gone down to the country In dignified displeasure — not angry, you understand, only hurt — and there are to be no more larks. When we meet again, we shall be *' Miss Vllllers " and " Lord Wednesbury," If you please. Now are you pleased with me ?' ' I must confess that I'm glad you are rid of him,' Frank answered. * What was it about ? Was he — er — impertinent ?' ' Well, I told him he was ; but it was rather too bad of me, because he has heard much more Impertinent things than that said to me scores of times. He began chaffing me about you, if you want to know, and as I had made up my VOL. I. 8 114 THE DANCER IN YELLOW mind to pick a quarrel with him, that excuse did as well as another.' * Made up your mind to pick a quarrel with him !' repeated Frank wonderingly. ' But I thought that was just what you had made up your mind not to do.' * So did I ; but one doesn't always know one's own mind. Shall I tell you the whole truth ? I wanted to see you looking happy and con- tented before you went away. So now look happy and contented, like a good boy !' That was not a very difficult request to comply with. He was all the more touched by the concession that she had made for his sake because he could scarcely have demanded it, and because he knew very well that it had been made against her better judgment. He had fancied that Lord Wednesbury was dangerous — if not in reality, at least in inten- tion — and such was his inexperience, that he actually believed the removal of one such danger from his wife's path to be an achieve- ment worth accomplishing. Well was it, no doubt, for his peace of mind that he was bound for distant India! Meanwhile, the most had to be made of last LAST DAYS 115 days ; and Daisy was resolved that these should not be wasted in vain repinings over the inevit- able. ' Gaudeamus igitur P said she — for some- body had once taught her the sad, cynical student -song, which had taken her fancy, according as it did so completely with her own little theories of philosophy. * There's no time like the present, and my pocket may not always be as full of money as it is now ; so we'll do ourselves handsomely while we can/ She was as good as her word ; she insisted upon paying for the rather uproarious banquets in which she delighted, and which were more largely attended than Frank, perhaps, could have wished ; what with such festivities and what with her professional engagements, not much margin was left for private colloquies with her husband. Yet a few private colloquies were contrived, and she listened, patiently enough, to the words of entreaty and caution which Frank thought it right to address to her. Very grateful was he to her for bearing with him in this respect — very grateful also to Miss Cripps, who bore the character of a vigilant dragon, but who placed no obstacle in the way ii6 THE DANCER IN YELLOW of interviews which she might easily have pre- vented. He really felt as if he ought to thank Cripps, and if he could have thought of any method of doing so without betraying himself, he would have taken advantage of it when she suddenly swooped down upon him in the hall of the little Regent's Park house on the eve of his departure. But before he could say a word, she had caught him by the arm and had pushed him into a tiny room which, it appeared, was her own special sanctum. * Now, young man,' she began, ' I know what you would like. You would like me to write you a line every now and then, while you're away on foreign service, and tell you about things that your wife may not think it worth while to mention, eh ?' * You know, then ?' exclaimed Frank in amaze- ment. * Bless the man ! Do you suppose you would have been allowed to carry on with Daisy as you've been doing if I hadn't known ? I knew all about it before your wedding-day, and, to tell you the truth, I think Daisy might have taken her best friend into her confidence. However, that has nothing to do with you, and LAST DAYS 117 I can make her tell me as soon as I choose. About that correspondence question — am I to write to you ?' ' Of course I shall be only too thankful if you will,' answered Frank ; ' it is most kind of you to have thought of it.' He added diffidently (for Miss Cripps's countenance was somewhat stern) : ' Do you approve of it all ?' ' No, I don't,' that uncompromising lady replied. ' Take it all round, I think it's a bad business ; but I didn't find out about it in time to stop it, and maybe 1 couldn't have stopped it if I had. All I can do now is to take care of her during your absence, and to keep your secret, since it is to be a secret. Oh, there are reasons for secrecy — Daisy has a head upon her shoulders, she knows what she is about — I don't say that, under all the circumstances, it would have been a wise plan for you to announce yourselves in the first column of the Times. Only I give you fair warning, that if an announcement of another kind has to be made in that column the whole truth must come out.' * Certainly it must,' Frank agreed ; ' that is what I have always stipulated for.' ii8 THE DANCER IN YELLOW ' Glad to hear it ; but I should have acted upon my own responsibility, whatever your stipulations had been. Well, what more is there to be said ? I'm going to write to you sometimes, because I think it's better I should, and because I don't mind doing you a good turn ; but you won't expect me to say I'm very fond of you. You're a selfish fellow, in my opinion.' Frank meekly accepted this censure. It certainly had not occurred to him before that his conduct had been of a selfish character. But when Miss Cripps scornfully inquired of him whether he thought that he or his wife would be the one to suffer most from the long period of separation which lay before them, he had not the audacity to reply as his convictions would have prompted him to do. ' Two years !' she exclaimed. ' Well, to me two years means a couple of summers and winters, twenty-four months — neither more nor less. But at your age — why, it's an eternity !' * Oh, I know that,' said Frank sorrowfully. ' I know very well — though I try not to think about it more than I can help — what two years of a life like hers must be, and what LAST DAYS I19 almost inevitable temptations she will have to face/ Miss Cripps broke into a harsh laugh. * I suppose young officers don't have any temptations,' she remarked; 'or, if they do, of course they resist 'em. You live in a glass house, Mr. Coplestone, and so does Daisy. Don't you take it into your head to shy stones at her, and I'll answer for it that she'll shy none at you. Now be off, and thank your stars that you're leaving a crusty old Cripps in charge of what oughtn't to belong to you.' Cripps was trusty as well as crusty, he could not doubt that, although she had expressed herself after a fashion which was scarcely to his taste. But then, unfortunately, there were so many things connected with his marriage which were scarcely to his taste. CHAPTER X. AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE. The worst that can happen to us poor mortals — and most of us know by sad experience that some very bad things can happen — is apt to prove a good deal less terrible than we antici- pate. Frank Coplestone, as he seated himself in a smoking-carriage at the Victoria Station, on his way down to Mailing, felt, and was not a little ashamed of himself for feeling, almost cheerful. The farewell scene which he had been dreading for weeks past had taken place. For the next two years, or possibly more, he would have to get on as best he might without a glimpse of his wife's face or an echo of her voice. They had exchanged their last words, their last kisses, and perhaps it was only human and natural that his un- AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE 121 Uttered ejaculation should be, ' Thank God, that's over !' Daisy, it is true, had done everything in her power to render a trying experience as easy for him as it could be made. A few tears she had not been able to help shedding, but they had been speedily followed by laughter. She had absolutely declined to treat this necessary separation as a tragic event. She had promised faithfully to write every week, and had made many other promises into the bargain — all that he had required of her, in fact ; for how could she grudge the poor fellow anything that he asked for at that supreme moment ? If sundry mental reservations were unavoidable, what did that matter, since he would never know of their existence or results ? What may in some measure have helped Frank to put a good face upon present sorrow was the recollection that he was not out of the wood yet. He had still to take leave of his father, and Sir Harry, for some reason or other, had made up his mind that this parting was to be a final one. He would not, Frank knew, say much ; but he would be very miserable, and the ugliest part of the whole 122 THE DANCER IN YELLOW business was that his son, who loved him, could not but see how far better it would be for the poor old man to die before what he would almost certainly regard as a crushing disgrace fell upon him. With such thoughts as these to bear him company, it will be readily believed that our young man did not look forward with any anticipation of pleasure to the two days which he had promised to spend at home. Sir Harry, however, was very good. Frank found him living all by himself in a corner of his big house, and apparently resolved to accept all his troubles, actual and potential, as bravely as usual. He displayed no inconvenient curiosity (though surely he must have felt some) as to what his younger son had been about in London ; he did not grumble at the brevity of Frank's present visit, and was pathetically apologetic over the dismanded state of the establishment. ' You see, it's no use to keep fires going in a lot of rooms that one never enters,' he ex- plained; *and as your Aunt Lucy couldn't come down to see the last of you, I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind just taking me as you find me.' Frank answered that what was good enough AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE 123 for his father was good enough for him, and that additional fires would certainly not have consoled him for the presence of Aunt Lucy. * We don't want any third persons, you and I,' he said. ' Oh, well, Lucy would have been glad to wish you God-speed by word of mouth, and so would Gerard, I'm sure; but they're full of engagements, both of them, it seems. We might shoot the long wood to-morrow morn- ing, if you like ; I've been keeping it for you. In the afternoon I shall have to leave you for a few hours, I'm afraid, because there is a political meeting at Canterbury, which I'm told I ought to attend ; but I dare say you may wish to say good-bye to some of the neighbours. You can have the dogcart after it has taken me to the station.' Frank more than suspected that that political engagement was only pleaded because Sir Harry was afraid of being a bore, and he had half a mind to suggest that an excellent excuse for shirking it existed ; but he bethought him that common gratitude rendered a visit of farewell to Mrs. Trafford imperative, so he acquiesced in the proposed arrangement. 124 THE DANCER IN YELLOW His father and he had fairly good sport on the following morning — not, perhaps, what Gerard would have called good sport ; yet better than might have been expected, con- sidering the impossibility of keeping things up to the level of years gone by. As, moreover, they both shot well — why do we all distinguish ourselves most when we are least eager to do so, and when our hearts are not really in our work ? — they were able to part at the luncheon- hour with mutual satisfaction and congratula- tion. Frank mentioned that he thought of calling at Trant Abbey ; to which Sir Harry re- plied : * Do, my dear fellow ; I'm sure you'll be welcome. I don't see much of our fair neigh- bour; she lives a very retired life, they tell me. Well, that's quite as it should be. By this time next year, perhaps, we may make some attempt to draw her out of her seclusion, eh ? If you should find an opportunity, you might just introduce Gerard's name, and notice whether she appears to be interested in the subject, you know.' But as matters fell out, Frank clean forgot AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE 125 the diplomatic commission with which he was thus incidentally charged. There were so many- other things to be talked about when he reached Mrs. Trafford's enviable abode, and was shown into her charmingly decorated boudoir, that he not unnaturally lost sight of other people's castles in the air while the interview lasted. Her first words, indeed, were of a nature to render the advisability of attending to his own business, rather than that of others, con- spicuous. * I was hoping that you would look in upon me this afternoon,' she said, 'and that you would bring a good report of yourself. As far as health goes, your face speaks for itself. You haven't wanted any nursing, I see ; and I am glad of that, because it occurred to me after you left that an undesirable nurse might pos- sibly be summoned to your bedside. But you have no bad news to give me, have you ?' * None at all ; I don't know why you should have expected any,' answered Frank, seating himself beside the blazing wood fire in the chair towards which he was motioned, and looking his questioner full in the face, with a half-amused, half-provoked conviction that his 126 THE DANCER IN YELLOW air of innocent candour did not take her in for a moment. 'You know so well/ she returned com- posedly, * that if you had committed any act of irreparable folly, you wouldn't have been able to help avowing it. You would have wanted me to break the intelligence to your father, for one thing. I wonder whether she turned her back upon you, or whether the inherent selfish- ness of man preserved you from giving her the chance ! Don't say that she is a mere figment of my disordered imagination ; you admitted her existence almost in so many words when you used to talk to me about unequal marriages, and when you tried so hard to make me agree with you that a wife necessarily takes her husband's social position. However, you shall not be teased. So long as there has been no marriage and no engagement, I am content.' * Upon my word and honour,' said Frank, * I have neither married anybody nor engaged myself to marry anybody since I saw you last. Will that do ?' ' ' That will do perfectly,' answered Mrs. Trafford ; 'and now I don't mind apologizing for my impertinence. My only excuse is that I AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE 127 couldn't have talked to you comfortably while I was in a state of subdued alarm, and I always think that when one is determined to get the truth out of one s friends, the best plan is to ask them for it.' ' Oh yes, I dare say it is/ agreed Frank, painfully conscious of having told the truth after an altogether untruthful fashion ; * only perhaps it's hardly fair to ask one's friends questions which they can't possibly answer.' * Fair or unfair,' returned Mrs. Trafford, laughing, ' the plan generally succeeds, and I have got a categorical answer out of you, you see. What amends can I make ? Would you like to cross-question me, in your turn ? Any question that you choose to put shall meet with an honest and straightforward reply, I promise you.' ' That's a promise which you can make without much risk,' observed Frank, smiling. * As if anything that you can possibly wish to conceal could have happened to you during my absence !' ' I didn't mean to limit your right of inquiry to any particular time or place ; but of course it's quite conceivable that you may not be as 128 THE DANCER IN YELLOW anxious to hear my rather ugly and common- place little history now as you used to be in the summer.' * How do you know that I was anxious to hear your history then ?' Frank asked. * Your wishes and thoughts are never very obscure. You were continually saying to your- self, " I rather like this woman ; she seems to me to be a good sort of woman in some ways. Yet there is no getting over the fact that she married a rich man who was old enough to be her grandfather, and that she only married him when he had one foot in the grave. She must have some defence to offer for herself." In reality, I had no defence to offer, and perhaps that was why I held my tongue. But I always feel that unless my friends know exactly what I am, I am claiming their friendship upon false pretences ; so I would rather tell you what there is to be told about me before you go. It won't take long. I was left dreadfully poor when my father died — much poorer than I had ever supposed that I should be ; so that it was necessary for me to earn my living somehow or other, and I did manage to earn just enough to keep life in me by selling my water-colours, for AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE i2g which I think I got about as much as they were worth, and by writing short stories for cheap magazines, which might perhaps have com- manded a higher price. At least, I can't help flattering myself to that extent when I read the contributions of eminent authors to other magazines and hear what their rate of re- muneration is. Of course, it was a continual and most humiliating struggle, and I had never been accustomed to that sort of thing, and I hated it ! All the time old Mr. Trafford, who was as kind to me as I could allow him to be, was imploring me to marry him ; but I resisted as long as it seemed worth while to resist. Yes, I know what you suspect, and you are quite right : there was somebody else. I won't mention his name ; but as you are not at all likely ever to meet him, I may say that he was a man who was fast making a name for himself in literature, and who is now, I believe, in a fair way to become a prominent politician. Although he could not afford to marry then, I thought his prospects justified us in waiting for one another ; but that was not his opinion, and one day he came to tell me that he felt it his duty to release me. I certainly did not feel it VOL. I. 9 130 THE DANCER IN YELLOW my duty to marry Mr. Trafford ; but I was tired of misery and anxiety and degradation. It is not true that I knew he was dying when I married him. I knew, of course, that he was in bad health ; but I thought he had many years of life still before him, and so did he. I don't say this to excuse myself — quite the reverse. With my eyes open I became the wife of a man whom I neither loved nor par- ticularly liked, and the only boast I am entitled to make is that I never attempted to deceive him as to my motives.' After waiting some moments in vain for Mrs. Trafford to continue, Frank could think of no more apposite comment to make upon her nar- rative than — * Well — that's all over now.' * In one sense, it is over — and so is my life. In another sense, both my history and I live on. For the reason that 1 told you of just now, I wanted you to hear my history. Besides, it may help you to understand why I find other people's lives, past, present, and future, so much more attractive to study than my own.' ' It is nonsense to talk of your life being over,' Frank declared. AN UNSOLICITED CONFIDENCE 131 * No ; it is sense and truth. Youth and — well, happiness, I suppose, may be prolonged up to almost any age ; but they never can be renewed after they have once been knocked on the head, and I deliberately knocked mine on the head. I am glad to think that you are not yet in a like case, and I want you to say, if you can say so with honesty, that you do not utterly despise me.' Of course, he hastened to give her the assur- ance that she asked for, and he made so bold as to add that, in his opinion, she was well rid of the fair-weather lover who had abandoned her in the time of her need ; but he was a little puzzled, and, although he remained with her for another quarter of an hour, he could not feel altogether at his ease, being conscious that her unsolicited confidence had not been re- warded by any corresponding proof of friendship on his part. It must be admitted, too, that during the summer he had accounted to himself for her marriage by imputing to her somewhat nobler incentives than those to which she had just pleaded guilty. It would be most unjust, he thought, to blame any woman for acting as she had done ; still, she had to be gently re- 132 THE DANCER IN YELLOW moved from the imaginary pedestal upon which he had placed her. ' And how did you find Mrs. Trafford ?' Sir Harry asked him, on his return home. * Pretty cheerful ? — beginning to contemplate the possi- bility of fresh departures ?' * Well, no,' answered Frank ; ' I don't think she is contemplating fresh departures. She said her life was over.' Sir Harry laughed. ' Young people are fond of saying that,' he remarked ; ' old people don't say it quite so often, because in their case the statement isn't open to contradiction. I should like to see Gerard married to that dear woman before I die, and I should like to see you once more, my boy, if there were any chance of your returning to the old country in time. But there isn't ; so we won't talk about it.' CHAPTER XI. OTHELLO REDUX. It was on a gray, gusty morning of early winter that Frank Coplestone, standing upon the deck of an outward-bound troopship, gazed back at the blurred and rapidly-receding coastline of his native land ; it was on an equally gray and gusty morning of early spring that, more than two years later, he was able to distinguish from a similar standpoint cliffs and headlands which had not changed during his absence. But if the scene was, at least apparently, unaltered, as much could not be said for the spectator. In the planet which for a brief space we inhabit everything moves — in an upward or downward, forward or backward direction ; even the solid earth beneath our feet has its slow, unceasing process of growth and decay ; the times change, and we change with them. 134 ^^^ DANCER IN YELLOW No reflection could be more stale or more trite ; yet, like many other admitted facts (such as, for instance, the rotundity of the globe, which, as a learned and pious man remarked long ago, is an absurd theory upon the face of it, since, if the world were really round, some- body must be walking somewhere with his head downwards), the inexorable law of change strikes us occasionally in the light of a sudden and most painful discovery. Leaning over the taffrail, with his hands clasped, while the big trooper rolled heavily before a south-westerly wind, Frank tried to recall the sensations of twenty-seven months — only a beggarly twenty- seven months ! — before, and found that the task was beyond him. He was not his former self, and could not so much as clearly under- stand his former self; and he had to realize, as we all must sometimes, that free-will is an illu- sion ; that the control which we exercise over events is but partial ; that some force — blind or benevolent, good or evil — shapes the course of our destinies, and makes us what we are. Very often it makes us what we have not the slightest wish to be, and such was the case of this moody and vaguely contrite cogitator. OTHELLO REDUX 135 Yet in strict justice it could hardly be said that he had any cause for self-reproach because the sight of old England, which gladdened the hearts of his brother-warriors, moved him to feelings of apprehension rather than exultation. If he dreaded meeting his wife once more ; if he would fain have exchanged into another regiment, and gone through another prolonged period of exile to avoid meeting her ; if he had now reached the point of acknowledging to himself that he regretted a hasty and foolish marriage, the fault was surely not his ! He would have remained true to Daisy — at least, he was almost sure that he would — if she had remained true to him. He thought over the story of their gradual estrangement : of the weeks and weeks which had elapsed without bringing any answer to his long letters ; of his remonstrances, his sorrow, his anger, his final resignation and indifference, and it did seem to him that no impartial person could hold him to blame for what had happened. Not that any- thing definite or decisive had happened ; his wife and he had ceased to correspond — that was all. The last letter, dated nearly a year earlier, had, it was true, come from Daisy ; but 136 THE DANCER IN YELLOW it had been so long delayed, and was so insult- ing in its cool brevity, that he had not cared to write again at once. Thus he had allowed mail after mail to go out, waiting at first for her to take some step towards reconciliation, and making up his mind — not so very reluctantly — at last to the obvious fact that no reconciliation was desired by her. They had not quarrelled ; they had simply dropped one another — an easy yet virtually impossible thing for married people to do. Matters would doubtless never have been suffered to drift into so deplorable a condition if Miss Cripps had been spared to watch over the fate of a couple whose constancy she scarcely trusted ; but influenza and pneumonia had claimed amongst the first of their many victims a most excellent and useful woman — irreplaceable, it was to be feared ; assuredly unreplaced. * A horrible misfortune has hap- pened to me/ Daisy wrote at the time, in a missive all smudged and smeared with tears. ' My dear, good Cripps is dead ! She used to say that I should go to the devil without her, and I feel as if I should ! Wherever I go now it must be without her, and never will I have OTHELLO REDUX 137 anyone else to live with me and use her rooms. I have lost my only friend !' Had the prediction or the threat conveyed in these despairing words been fulfilled ? It was impossible to say ; not impossible, alas ! to surmise. The coolness, the gradual cessation of correspondence above alluded to, had not set in immediately after poor Miss Cripps's death. There had been vehement entreaties on Frank's part that his wife would come out and join him in India; there had been sharp and impatient postal injunctions to him not to talk like a born fool ; then had come the period of unanswered appeals and disregarded re- proaches. Could any husband, situated as Frank was, and absolutely precluded from returning to England, have done more than he had done ? Some people, no doubt, would reply to the question in one way, some in another ; the subject of it had as yet succeeded in making no reply that entirely satisfied him. On the other hand. Fate was not so cruel to him but that he had a few grounds for genuine satisfaction as he was borne nearer and nearer to Portsmouth, where his regiment was to dis- 138 THE DANCER IN YELLOW embark. To begin with, his father — all gloomy forecasts to the contrary notwithstand- ing — was still alive and well. Then, too, there was the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Trafford to look forward to — Mrs. Trafford, who had not yet married Gerard, but was still expected to do so. Sir Harry having expressed himself very hopefully upon that subject in his latest com- munications. Two years is a long or a short time, accord- ing to circumstances. It is perhaps rather a long time to wear mourning for a husband whose demise has not been regretted ; yet the demands of conventionality cannot be satisfied with any less interval between widowhood and re-marriage. Such, at least, had been, it appeared, the plea for delay put forward by Gerard, and allowed, not without hesitation and regret, by his father. But, although the hope of the family had shown himself so dilatory and so over-scrupulous, he had fully recognised what his duty was, and had declared that he was prepared to do it at his own time. 'Meanwhile,' wrote Sir Harry, * everything seems to promise well. They are great friends ; as far as I know, Gerard has no rival, and I OTHELLO REDUX 139 hope that soon after you come home the en- gagement may be announced. It is pretty generally anticipated, I hear.' It might be so ; but Frank, for his part, could not help feeling some doubt as to whether it was anticipated by Mrs. Trafford herself. Of Mrs. Trafford's anticipations, wishes, and other sentiments, he was entitled to believe that he knew something, having heard from her at tolerably regular intervals during his absence. This correspondence. Initiated by him in a moment of deep depression and craving for friendly sympathy, he had found a source of great consolation. Of course, he had not told the lady who might some day perhaps become his sister-in-law why he was in such low spirits, or why he longed for a rather larger supply of letters than the mails usually brought him ; but she had gladly responded to his humble en- treaty, and, as hers was the pen of a ready writer, she had earned the gratitude of a dejected man on many weary, sultry days of enforced idleness. Frank was probably a good deal better acquainted with her and her mode of life than his father was. She had sent him I40 THE DANCER IN YELLOW a full description of her house in Curzon Street, and had brought before him in a few clear, vivid touches the more or less interesting people whom she was wont to assemble round her there — people of whom the majority had distinguished themselves in one way or another, and whose characters and histories their shrewd hostess seemed to find her chief pleasure in unravelling. From certain incidental allusions, Frank gathered that no inconsiderable share of her time and money was devoted to the support and management of charitable institutions ; but she did not dwell upon such topics, nor had she much to say about her periodical sojourns at Trant Abbey. Evidently her heart was in London, and, almost as evidently, her heart was in the possession of no one particular individual. Every now and then she mentioned Gerard, praising his good looks, for which she professed the greatest admiration, and his manners, which she called ' the absolute per- fection of that class of manners' ; but she certainly never gave it to be understood that she contemplated what she was supposed to be contemplating. To Frank the charm of her letters (apart from their being amusing, OTHELLO REDUX 141 descriptive, and often witty) had consisted in their simpHcity, their candour, and a certain unspoken sympathy and comprehension which it was impossible to define. Therefore it was that he felt happily sure of having at least one real friend in the world ; therefore, also, it was that he had inwardly de- termined to betake himself to London as soon as leave should be granted him, instead of pro- ceeding straight to Mailing. His duty to his wife — or possibly to himself — would, in any case, have rendered that course indispensable ; but he preferred to think that he was adopting it on less painful grounds. As his father and brother came down to Portsmouth to welcome him, and as some three or four weeks elapsed before he could be re- leased from regimental duty, he w^as enabled to carry out his intention without seeming too neglectful of filial obligations. Sir Harry and Gerard remained with him for a few days — ■ pleasant days, during which there was no lack of questions to be asked and answered. Then the latter departed for Shorncliffe, where he was then, to his sorrow and disgust, quartered ; while the former, remarking that he was too 142 THE DANCER IN YELLOW old to put up with the miseries of hotel life, returned home. * We shall all meet again soon, please God !* were Sir Harry's last words, as he stepped into the railway-carriage. * Gerard is a near neigh- bour now, you know, which is fortunate in every way. Mind you look up our friend Mrs. Trafford in Curzon Street, and tell her from me that, if she don't come down to the Abbey at Easter, I shall have a- crow to pluck with her. But I shouldn't wonder if that was arranged already. I know Gerard went to see her the other day.' Long before he left Portsmouth the daily papers had furnished Frank with information upon a subject as to which he felt some not un- natural curiosity. * The revival of '' Othello Junior" at the St. Stephen's Theatre,' he learnt from one com- petent critic, * has been attended by a success which it would be absurd to attribute to the intrinsic merits of the piece. A vulgar and rather tedious extravaganza which, if we re- member rightly, ran for some two hundred nights a year or two ago, would hardly have borne such speedy resuscitation, even with the OTHELLO REDUX 143 aid of the "up-to-date" songs and allusions, which have, of course, been inserted into it, had one name — c/arum et venerabile ! — been omitted from the cast. But the truth seems to be that any piece, good, bad or indifferent, in which Miss Daisy Villiers can be persuaded to appear, is sure of attracting crowded and de- lighted audiences for an indefinite length of time.' Then followed a panegyric upon Daisy, such as Frank would once have rejoiced to see in print. In her own special line she was, it seemed, an incomparable artist. No one like her had been seen upon the London boards within living memory, nor was there any ap- parent prospect of her being ousted from the proud position which she had won. The critic thought it a pity that her exquisite gracefulness should be marred by occasional vulgarities of movement and gesture, but admitted (with a visible shrug of the shoulders) that we live in a vulgar age, and that Miss Villiers had probably taken the measure of her public. * Large audiences, it may be assumed, get what they wish and deserve to get. The Athenians of 400 B.C. had the plays of Aristophanes ; the 144 'J^HE DANCER IN YELLOW cultured Londoners of the expiring nineteenth century a.d. have — the Dancer in Yellow.' Huge coloured posters, displayed at every station where the express which carried Frank towards the Metropolis stopped, seemed to show that cultured London was at least not ashamed of its saltatory queen. The husband of that celebrated personage, gazing moodily at repre- sentations which did not strike him as being life-like, was perhaps a little more inclined than he ought to have been to be ashamed of his wife. Yet he very well remembered telling her, one day long ago, that her family had no reason to be ashamed of her, and he had spoken with a good deal of honest indignation at the time. Alas ! we all change our opinions as we grow older ; there is no help for it, nor can any man or woman step back into the past. Shame on that score is permissible — possibly even be- coming — but it is altogether useless. Moreover, if Frank did not relish his position as the husband of the renowned Dancer in Yellow, he could tell himself that he never had relished or pretended to relish it, while he had always been willing to acknowledge her. As matters now stood, it would be necessary for him to OTHELLO REDUX 145 make certain inquiries in order to ascertain whether Daisy either desired to be or could be introduced to his friends as Mrs. Frank Cople- stone. The prospect was not an agreeable one, and as the smoky curtain of London spread itself over him, he heartily wished himself back beneath those burning blue skies of India which he had so often execrated. Now, it is needless to say that Frank had no intention of spending his first evening in London at the St. Stephen's Theatre. To revisit that once familiar scene, and to listen, under the changed and sorrowful circumstances, to that too well-known dialogue would, he felt, be like voluntarily subjecting himself to some hideous nightmare. He had not as yet decided how, when, and where it would be best for him to see Daisy again, but at any rate it should not be in a place swarming with painful memories and associations for him. Nevertheless, readers will scarcely be surprised to hear that he did what he had made up his mind not to do. He had to go somewhere ; he did not care to go to his club, not wishing to be recognised and hailed by lively friends ; he was in no mood to seek mere amusement — in short, many plausible VOL. I. 10 146 THE DANCER IN YELLOW excuses might have been made for his some- what hurried and shamefaced entry into the stalls a few minutes before the curtain rose upon the first scene of 'Othello Junior.' It was only by a lucky chance, he was assured, that a stall could be offered to him ; for seats were being booked weeks in advance. He had no sooner pushed his way past a stout lady, who glared indignantly at him, than he began to repent of having yielded to a foolish impulse. How terribly the same it all was ! — the heat, the noisy orchestra, the diamonds, the white waistcoats, the smiling, vacuous faces ! The reality and the unreality of it seemed alike to be urging upon him with pitiless irony what a very small factor he was in the intoxicating life of the woman whom he had married. He had been afraid that she might catch sight of him ; but surely there was no need for alarm on that score. Supposing she did catch sight of him, would her equanimity be upset for a moment by the presence of so insignificant an acquaintance ? Presently he overheard his fat neighbour talking about her to the swarthy, Semitic-looking gentleman by whom she was accompanied. OTHELLO REDUX 147 * Oh, I wouldn't be bothered to come here for the sake of the play ; I only come to look at the great Daisy — and her pearls. Have you seen her pearls ? Do you believe they are real ?' A reply, of which Frank only caught the first words, was made in a thick, Hebraic voice. ' Bless your soul, yes ! She wouldn't accept Palais Royal jewellery — no fear !' Then came whispers and chuckles, and the fat lady's fan went up. ' You don't say so ! Well, I heard it for a fact ; but one can't believe all one hears. What is the world coming to !' The world, so far as a dispassionate observ^er can judge, is pretty much where it always has been, and varies surprisingly little either for better or for worse. The most improbable occurrences — such as murders, for example — take place almost every day upon its surface, and are mostly brought about by quite insuffi- cient causes. However, the curtain rose in time to preserve Frank from laying violent hands upon a total stranger, who was innocent of any intention to offend him. CHAPTER XII. MAN AND WIFE. How well Frank knew every note of the rather feeble and trivial music which greeted his ears, as the play opened with a chorus, presumably intended to provoke mirth ! He had never seen anything particularly funny in ' Othello Junior/ and the humours of the piece were not very likely to appeal to him now ; yet those familiar strains and the jocular dialogue that followed affected him after a fashion which he had scarcely anticipated, reminding him that he still had a heart, and that it was still quite capable of aching. ' Vare, Vare, redde legiones f the grief-stricken Roman Emperor is said to have exclaimed to a man who, being happily dead, could return no answer to so un- reasonable a request. * Absurd, grimacing mountebanks and preposterous nymphs, give MAN AND WIFE 149 me back my youth !' poor Frank was tempted to cry ; but he kept the ejaculation to himself, and waited patiently for the tempest of applause which he knew would break out in the course of a few minutes. When it did break out, and when Daisy tripped up to the footlights in her old non- chalant way, distributing familiar little nods to her patrons, just as of yore, he perceived that, for her at all events, youth had not dropped into the past tense. She looked like a mere child, and behaved like one, too, for the matter of that. As in days gone by, her dancing struck the beholder as perfectly easy and spon- taneous. She seemed to be doing these really wonderful and excessively difficult things simply because she liked to do them — because they gave her no trouble, and because Nature was her instructress. Her costume, of course, was of the accustomed hue, and to Frank's un- learned eye it appeared to be identical with that which she had worn on the distant and for- gotten occasion when ^Othello Junior' had first been introduced to an appreciative public, though it had really, no doubt, been modified in many important respects to accord with the I50 THE DANCER IN YELLOW prevailing fashion. No sparkle of diamonds was visible in her hair now (even in old times he had often longed to ask her where those diamonds came from). But round her neck were five rows of pearls so large and so even in size that an empress might have coveted them. ' They are real !' exclaimed Frank's neigh- bour, who had brought a huge pair of opera- glasses to bear upon these jewels ; ' there can't be a doubt of it. I can see the knots between them.* ' Oh, that don't prove anything,' her neigh- bour rejoined, with an oily, snuffling laugh. * Everybody knows that little dodge. The proof of their being genuine is that Miss Daisy would see her friends jolly well ruined before she'd allow 'em to offer her anything that hadn't cost a good many thousands.' It was to this sort of thing that Daisy's law- ful husband was compelled to listen for the best part of two hours. The experience was not precisely a novel one. Often before his blood had been made to boil by assertions which had reached his ears, which he had much ado to restrain himself from openly resenting, MAN AND WIFE 151 and which he had known to be false. Was it because he no longer possessed that absolute certitude that he experienced no return of his first insane longing to clutch a middle-aged Israelite by the throat ? That may have had something to do with it. But a far more powerful sedative was applied to his nerves and temper by Daisy's own demeanour. She was so exactly as she had always been. That her words and gestures should jar upon him every now and then was inevitable — they had never failed to do so ; but underlying an abandon so easily misinterpreted was a suggestion of innocence, mirth, high spirits, which appealed to him only a little less forcibly than it had done in his unfledged period, and made him ask himself whether, after all, she might not have some explanation to offer him. Not, of course, an explanation which would explain everything ; yet one which, by a stretch of patience and charity, might bring an amicable agreement as to future rela- tions within his reach and hers. It was, at all events, in no irreconcilable frame of mind that he went behind the scenes after the curtain had fallen, and the mainstay 152 THE DANCER IN YELLOW of the piece had received her nightly ovation. He knew his way well enough, and could have found Daisy's dressing-room, had he been so inclined ; but he thought it better not to do that. He contented himself with getting some- body to take her his card, upon which, after an instant of hesitation, he decided to inscribe nothing. The sight of his name would doubt- less be sufficiently startling ; for he was sure that she had not detected him during the per- formance. In a few minutes his messenger returned, and handed him a note, folded in the form of a cocked hat, which he opened with fingers that trembled a little. ' So glad you are back !' were the hastily- scrawled words which met his eye. ' Can't pos- sibly see you to-night — I shan't be alone for a moment. Look me up to-morrow afternoon about five o'clock, if you have nothing better to do. The old address. — Yours, D. V. (Sounds pious, don't it ?)' Frank had to make what he could of that missive until the hour appointed by Mrs. Cople- stone for his reception, and not very much could he make of it. She was not offended. MAN AND WIFE 153 apparently she was not alarmed, she stated that she was glad. Did she mean him to understand that he was nothing to her — or had her only object been to gain time and to escape the risk of an awkward scene in the presence of witnesses ? One thing only seemed quite clear : such a message could not have expressed her actual feelings. And yet it did ! With amazement and be- wilderment, he was forced to acknowledge that it did before he was a day older. Sitting in the well-remembered, gaudy little drawing- room, with Daisy opposite to him — Daisy, who certainly did look two years older by daylight, and the bloom upon whose cheeks was un- happily no longer independent of artistic aid — he could not but give her credit for sincerity. He had been warmly welcomed — embraced even ; a volley of questions and comments upon his personal appearance had been fired off at him before he had had time to open his lips ; he had just been bidden to give a full, true, and particular account of himself, although Daisy's loquacity showed no signs of granting him an opportunity to comply with her wish. * I can't understand you !' he gasped at 154 THE DANCER IN YELLOW length. * Is it possible that you have for- gotten ?' ' Of course I haven't,' she returned, laughing. * I never forget people ; my memory is an ex- ceptionally good one.' ' I didn't mean to ask whether you had for- gotten my existence ; but do you remember — other things ? Dartmouth and Plymouth and Fowey, for instance ?' ' Oh, yes — indistinctly. Weren't those the places that you took me to in a yacht ever so long ago ?' * Your memory is indeed remarkable. I wonder whether it extends to a certain cere- mony which took place before we set out on that cruise.' Daisy shrugged her shoulders and made a grimace. * Do you know, dear boy,' she answered, ' it strikes me that we shouldn't go through that ceremony again nowadays, you and I.' * You speak for yourself, no doubt,' he re- turned, rather bitterly. Daisy, with perfect good humour, confessed that she did. ' I was crazily in love with you when I MAN AND WIFE 155 married you ; but time does make a difference, and the people who pretend it don't know very well that they aren't speaking the truth. Come now, Frank ! — time has made a little bit of difference to you, too, hasn't it ?' ' I don't know exactly what you mean by time,' he answered. ' The experiences that I have been through during the last two years, thanks to you, have naturally made some difference.' ' Well, if it comes to that, I have to thank you for some rather disagreeable experiences. When one gets scolding and lecturing letters by every mail, one begins to think that that sort of thing is hardly good enough. All the same, it was you, not I, who stopped writing.' ' I gave up writing to you because you made it so obvious to me that my letters were not welcome. As for what you call scolding and lecturing, all I ever did was to point out to you that you were not treating me very fairly or very kindly. But mutual recriminations won't help us much, I suppose.' ' Not a bit,' agreed Daisy cheerfully ; * let's drop them.' He gazed at her in despair. That she no 156 THE DANCER IN YELLOW longer loved him was plain, and he assured himself that he was not quite such a fool as to be still in love with this heartless and probably unprincipled woman, who was, nevertheless, his wife. What was to be said next ? After a rather long pause, he resumed : * Admitting that we made a mistake when we married, Daisy, the fact remains that we are man and wife, and it seems to me that the time has come when that fact ought to be made public' ' All right ; publish it, then. Believe me or not, as you like, it was always for your sake more than for my own that I wanted it kept dark. I knew my father and mother would give you no end of trouble; but they're both dead now — died within a week of one another, poor old souls ! — and Cripps is dead, too ; so I don't particularly care. As for me, I have never been a burden upon you, and am never likely to be. For choice, I would rather go on as a nominal spinster ; but publication of our marriage won't hurt me half as much as it will hurt you.' That was painfully true ; and in spite of the injured attitude which he was striving to main- MAN AND WIFE 157 tain, Frank could not help being touched by what she implied, rather than by what she said. * Is it quite impossible for us to make a fresh start, Daisy ?' he asked hesitatingly, at length. ' What ? — in double harness ? Oh, yes, that's about as great an impossibility as there is. I like you very much as an old friend ; but I couldn't live in the house with you, and what's more, you couldn't live in the house with me. If you ask me, I should say the best thing we can do is to draw a veil over the past, and go on in our respective walks of life as if nothing had happened.' * I cannot consent to such an arrangement as that,' Frank declared, speaking all the more firmly because he was conscious of an unworthy wish to consent to it. ' You need not be afraid of my forcing you to live with me against your will ; but I am your husband, and I have a right, at least, to demand of you that you shall not bring discredit upon me.' Daisy's face changed ; her brows drew together and her lips became more closely set. ' What do you mean by that, please ?' she asked. 158 THE DANCER IN YELLOW It was neither very easy nor very pleasant to state In so many words what he meant ; but it was incumbent upon him to try. He murmured something about calumnious reports, repeated a part of the conversation which he had chanced to overhear on the previous evening, and ended by inquiring point-blank whether those magnifi- cent pearls had been purchased out of her pro- fessional savings. The result was prompt and somewhat startling. ' Oh, that's your game, is it ?' cried Daisy, her cheeks aflame beneath her pearl-powder. ' You have an eye on Mr. Justice Butt, have you ? Well, Tm not going to tell you where I got my necklace or who paid for it. More than that, I'm not going to be insulted in my own house by you or anybody else ; so perhaps you'll be good enough to go now.' He rose, without a word, and made for the door : he could do no less. But ere he reached the threshold the sound of a choking sob behind him made him look back, and he saw that Daisy, with her hands pressed to her eyes, was crying like a baby. It was a queer sort of reconciliation* that followed. There were tears, there were em- MAN AND WIFE 159 braces, there were entreaties for pardon on his side and assurances on hers that she had never done anything to merit his cruel insinuations ; yet it was only as friends that they parted, and she began to laugh again the moment that he hinted at a possible renewal of former and closer relations. * Talk about women being humbugs !' she exclaimed, pushing him away ; ' why, we can't hold a candle to men ! Don't be ridiculous, dear old boy, and don't ever put me into another rage like this. Now be off! I've got to dance at a couple of music-halls to-night, besides the theatre, and I haven't another moment to spare.' Frank walked away not much happier, and certainly not much wiser than he had come. The situation remained unchanged. What ought he to do ? What ought he to believe ? Surely not that some respectable old lady had given those pearls to his wife as a Christmas present, or that she had bought them for herself. CHAPTER XIII. CURZON STREET. Frank's first waking thought on the following morning was, * Things can't go on like this ;' but by the time that he had shaved himself and had had his bath, he had more than once wondered whether, after all, things might not be allowed to drift — at any rate, for a little longer. He had told Daisy, somewhat per- emptorily, that, in his opinion, the time had come for him to acknowledge his wife, and be acknowledged by her ; her reply, rather to his surprise, had taken the form of a release from the promise of secrecy which she had formerly exacted of him, and he was, therefore, free to please himself in the matter. But if the ques- tion was to be one of personal pleasure and convenience, not of duty, why should he not hold his tongue ? Other men have been CURZON STREET i6i secretly married, and have remained silent to the day of their death. He knew of several such cases. Moreover, since his wife declined to live with him, or to be in any way subject to his authority, since she neither claimed the position which, of course, she would have had a right to claim, nor coveted it, it was not very easy to see what he would gain by breaking his father's heart and making a general laughing- stock of himself. Yet there seemed to be something rather cowardly, rather unworthy of a gentleman, in taking her at her word. No doubt, if she had had a child, that would have made all the difference, and his duty would have been clear ; but even as it was, he felt that he was her natural protector, and that he ought to give her the protection of his name, whether she wished for it or not. Perhaps there could have been no more decisive proof of his having ceased to love her than that, instead of being angry with her, his heart had become softened towards this poor, gaily painted, universally admired butterfly, who had lost her parents and her only faithful friend, whose day of sunshine must needs be brief, and to whom the spectre of long, solitary years VOL. I. I 1 l62 THE DANCER IN YELLOW could not always be invisible. As to her solitude, present and prospective, he would not allow himself to doubt about it. Somebody had given her a pearl necklace — well, somebody had given her diamonds in years gone by, he supposed. She was imprudent ; she had never been anything else ; but he wanted to believe, and almost did believe, that she had never been anything worse. Her indignation at a hint of which he was already half ashamed had, at all events, been genuine enough. Thus Frank wavered and hesitated, and, as a necessary result of such wavering, concluded to take no immediate step. He would see Daisy again in a day or two ; perhaps she would write and ask him to repeat his visit. Meanwhile, he thought it would be both polite and agreeable to call on Mrs. Trafford, at whose door in Curzon Street he accordingly rang rather late that afternoon. Mrs. Trafford was at home, he was told, and he was at once ushered into a very modern and very artistic drawing-room of irregular shape, where several other visitors were already assembled round a tea-table. The tall, slender lady, dressed in pale gray, who rose and, separating herself from them, CURZON STREET 163 came forward to meet him with a bright smile of welcome, was not quite the Mrs. Trafford of two years ago, although it would have been difficult to say at a glance in what the change consisted. It was perhaps rather a develop- ment than a change. * I was wondering whether you would come,' she said, while she held his hand. * Of course, I heard of your arrival at Portsmouth, and your brother told me that you would probably be in London about this time. Why didn't you write to me ?' Frank made a rather incoherent reply. As a matter of fact, he had not written because he had felt so uncertain as to what might await him in London, and as to whether it would be possible for him to call upon his friends or not. He was, besides, a little shy and abashed, scarcely yet recognising his familiar correspon- dent in this fine lady, with her luxurious surroundings and her slightly supercilious- looking companions. She saw his eyes wandering towards the group, and said in a low voice : ' Please sit these people out ; I want to have a good long talk with you.' i64 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Then she introduced him to an old lady, whose name he did not catch, and to two men, the mention of whose names answered the pur- pose of a biographical sketch, so well known to fame were they. One was an alert, white- haired General, still youthful in figure and bearing, notwithstanding his snowy locks ; the other was a statesman of something under middle age, at that time out of office, but certain of holding a very high place in the next Administration. They were not at all super- cilious, and probably had not really looked so ; they at once included the new-comer in the conversation which his entrance had interrupted, and their talk was of a crisp, sparkling character, pleasant enough to listen to. But what was not quite so pleasant was an abrupt change of subject brought about by the old lady who was eating muffins, and who said : ' Didn't I see you at the theatre last night, Mr. Coplestone ? If it wasn't you, it was some- body just like you ; but all young men are as alike as a box of pins nowadays. I went,' she continued explanatorily, for the benefit of the rest of the company, ' to see that woman whom they call the Dancer in Yellow, and I must CURZON STREET 165 confess that I was delighted. She is a vulgar little wretch, but she has a way with her which is downright irresistible.' * A good many people have found it so, by all accounts,' remarked the General dryly. ' I am not sure that many of them belong to your sex, though.' ' My husband celebrated his seventy-fourth birthday last week,' returned the old lady, with a laugh. * I can bestow my admiration where I please now, without painful misgivings. I dare say I shouldn't have taken him to see Miss Daisy Villiers half a century ago.' Something was said about advanced years being no such certain safeguard ; some veiled allusions, unintelligible to Frank, were made, and then the politician observed : * Lady Wednesbury puts the St. Stephen's Theatre on her black list, I am told.' It was evident that these people entertained no very respectful opinion of poor Daisy's character. But it was reserved for Mrs. Trafford to render Frank's humiliation com- plete. ' No, I haven't seen her,' she said, in answer to her military friend's question ; * I hate exhi- i66 THE DANCER IN YELLOW bitlons of that kind. It makes you angry, doesn't it, to meet men who wear their hair long and have white hands, and pride them- selves upon being effeminate ? You feel that such creatures bring disgrace upon your whole sex, and you would like to knock them on the head, once for all. Well, that is just the feeling that I have about shameless women. They must exist, I suppose, since you find them so fascinating ; but I don't care to look at their capers.' This was a most sweeping and unjust sentence to pronounce upon an entire class, and so Mrs. Trafford was at once assured ; but Frank did not join in the general chorus of protest. What would have been the use ? He himself was of opinion that some of Daisy's capers were shameless ; he himself had preju- dices which he had vainly striven to conquer. If he had had some half-defined idea of taking Mrs. Trafford into his confidence, he saw now that such a proceeding was out of the question. He could imagine the shudder of disgust with which she would learn that he was actually the husband of the danseuse whose very exist- ence was an offence to her. CURZON STREET 167 Consequently, he was a little less inclined to be expansive than she was, after her visitors had taken their departure, and it took him some time to recover from the blow which she had unconsciously inflicted upon his self-esteem. By degrees, however, he began to enjoy hear- ing her talk, just as he had enjoyed reading her letters during his years of exile. She had the voice of a well-bred woman, which is in itself a very soothing and pleasant thing. There was a sense of repose and refinement about her and all around her most welcome to one whose recent experiences had been of an altogether different order ; moreover, the description which she gave of herself and her mode of life was interesting to listen to. Although she declared that she was not in the least smart or fashion- able, she seemed to know everybody who was worth knowing, and to have immensely en- larged her mental and social horizon since the days when she had been a slightly bewildered young widow. She was evidently at no loss for occupations, and Frank gathered that her little dinners (one of which she made him promise to attend) had earned for her a certain measure of celebrity. i68 THE DANCER IN YELLOW ' And you are happy ?' he took the liberty of inquiring, after a time. ' Oh yes !' she answered — ' as happy as one expects to be, and a good deal happier than one deserves to be. I really think I am of some little use in London — anyhow, I manage to persuade myself that I am. At Trant Abbey, I must confess that I still feel rather like a fish out of water. Managing an estate is hardly a woman's work.' ' Most likely there are many men who would be only too happy to assist you in managing it,' Frank observed. ' Quite a large number,' she agreed, laugh- ing ; * but up to the present time I have been able to resist their seductive offers, you see. By the way, shall I find you in Kent when I go down at Easter ?' * I believe so,' Frank replied ; ' but I thought there was some doubt as to whether I should find you in your Abbey. My father charged me with a message to the effect that you and he would quarrel if you shirked your duty to the county at that season.' ' I never shirk my duties to the county, such as they are. But this time it is my duty to the CURZON STREET 169 Guards and I forget what cavalry regiment, which is stationed at Canterbury, that will take me home. At least, your brother tells me it is my duty to be present at a point-to-point race between these horse-soldiers and his battalion. I don't think I told you in any of my letters that I have been seeing a great deal of your brother lately, and the more I see of him the better I like him. He is a thoroughly manly and rather simple fellow when once one gets beneath that somewhat hard polished surface.' * You won't meet many better,' said Frank. He was very glad — perhaps a trifle surprised — to hear her speak in that way, and wondered whether she meant to prepare him for an even more welcome announcement. That Gerard was willing to marry her he had very little doubt ; but it had never seemed to him prob- able that she would be found willing to marry Gerard. Her tastes and his were so little akin. He was about to pronounce a very sincere eulogy upon his brother's many sterling qualities, when Mrs. Trafford gave another turn to the conversation by asking suddenly : 170 THE DANCER IN YELLOW ' What about your old flame ? Quite burnt out, I hope ?' ' Quite,' answered Frank, without flinching. * I have seen her since I came back, and I must acknowledge that — two years have made a difference.' He was a little ashamed of borrowing Daisy's phrase for such casuistic purposes ; but he excused himself upon the plea that it was absolutely necessary to throw dust in Mrs. Trafford's eyes. * That is well,' she said. ' There were moments before you went away when I trembled for you, and there were even passages in your letters which I did not quite like; but I thought I might safely trust to the healing and destroy- ing hand of Time. Women often forget ; but men always do.' * I should have thought it was about six of one and half a dozen of the other,' said Frank. * You can't accuse me of having forgotten one of my friends, at all events.' 'No, I don't accuse you on that score,' she answered, smiling ; ' nor can you bring an accusation against me. You will remain faithful to me, I hope, because I am not too CURZON STREET 171 well provided with friends. Except yourself, indeed, I doubt whether I have a single friend left' ' You spoke just now as if you had any number.' * Did I ? Well, I know a great many people, some of whom I like, and some of whom like me, I believe ; but if I were to be reduced to penury to-morrow, the workhouse door would hardly be besieged by visitors, I am afraid. Besides, I look younger than I am, and a great deal younger than I feel, which, as I dare say you can understand, makes the nature of certain friendships painfully un- certain. With you I can feel perfectly secure and comfortable. You may grow tired of me, but at least you will never propose to marry me.' She was protected by better reasons than she knew of against any such risk ; but Frank con- tented himself wath remarking: * After that, I must stifle any extravagant hopes that may come into my head, of course. All the same, I tell you plainly that I shall hate the sight of the fortunate man who does marry you.' 172 THE DANCER IN YELLOW * I was just thinking that I should rather hate the sight of the more or less fortunate woman whom you will marry one of these days/ Mrs. Trafford rejoined, with a laugh. * She is in- evitable, I know ; and I mean to be nice to her, if I can ; only, please don't let her be a garrison beauty, or some utterly impossible person of that kind.' Mournfully aware of having already married an utterly impossible person, Frank soon took his leave. Mrs. Trafford was charming, and she was pleased to call herself his friend ; but it was very evident that there was one test which her friendship would not stand, and one subject which could never be entered upon between them ; so that the sense of isolation by which he had been oppressed before entering her house was scarcely lessened when he quitted it. He must bear his own burden, he sup- posed; to be sure, Daisy seemed to be disposed to make it as light a one for him as circum- stances would permit. CHAPTER XIV. DAISY IS EXPLICIT. It had begun to rain when Frank walked somewhat sadly away from Mrs. Trafford's house ; but he did not call a hansom, not having very far to go, and being, besides, in one of those dejected moods which render small addi- tional discomforts almost welcome. London on a wet day provides as many luxuries of that doubtful kind as the most misanthropic pedes- trian can desire, and Frank plodded on through the driving rain and the greasy mud with a sense of misery and ill-usage which was all but complete. What added the finishing touch to it was to be prodded violently in the stomach, at the top of St. James's Street, by the open umbrella of a gentleman, whose head was con- cealed thereby, and who was advancing against 174 THE DANCER IN YELLOW the wind, without any regard to the recognised rules of foot-traffic. * Confound you, sir !' called out Frank angrily; * why don't you look where you are going ?' * Same to you !' returned a gruff voice from behind the umbrella. ' Now then ! — right or left, please, which you choose.' Frank jumped first to the one side, then to the other, and of course the opposing umbrella made similar and simultaneous movements, to the undisguised amusement of a policeman in a shiny cape who was looking on. * Hi, constable!' shrieked the invisible one; ' remove this obstruction, will you ; it's trying to run over me !' * No fear of that, Mr. Fellowes,' returned the guardian of public order, with a chuckle ; ' youVe run over more people since you took to drivin' four-in-'and than's ever likely to 'urt you.' * This comes of being known to the police,' observed the gentleman addressed, lowering his umbrella; * there's no calumny so outrageous that they won't cheerfully swear to it about you! Well, Coplestone, now that I have suc- ceeded in attracting your attention, perhaps DAISY IS EXPLICIT 175 you'll condescend to shake hands with an old friend/ ' What an ass you are, Tommy !' exclaimed Frank, laughing. But he was glad to see the little man again, and not unwilling to be led into the latter's club, where he learnt that the news of his return had already been promulgated by Daisy amongst their common friends. Through the death of a relative, Tommy had recently come into more money, and had, it seemed, set up a drag, amongst other appurtenances of wealth. * Not that I can drive,' he observed calmly. ' The horses do just exactly what they like with me, and the only safe position for a nervous person to take on my coach is the back-step, so as to be ready for prompt disembarkation. But that adds the necessary touch of excitement to what would otherwise be a tedious form of amusement. Come down to Richmond or some- where with me on Sunday, and we'll dine soberly at the Star and Garter, if we don't turn over on the way. No ; not next Sunday as ever is — I've got something else on then — but the Sunday after. I'll get Miss Daisy, who enjoys a bit of excitement, to occupy the box- 176 THE DANCER IN YELLOW seat, and we'll fill up with odds and ends of people. Now that I think of it, this was Daisy's own suggestion. She said you struck her as being in need of a little cheering-up.' Frank booked the engagement, although he hoped — or at least intended — to see his wife again before then. He tried, by means of careless queries, to elicit some information respecting her from this intimate friend of hers ; but Tommy was either ignorant or discreet, and would tell him nothing, except that she was said to be making mountains of money. Yes, he had seen her pearl necklace, and thought it highly probable that somebody had presented her with that expensive token of regard. There were so many born fools knock- ing about. Lord Wednesbury ? oh dear no ! Wednesbury was a married man now, and had other uses for his spare cash. He really couldn't say whether Daisy had any special friend who was likely to supply her with articles of personal adornment — never made inquiries about such matters, and never believed a word that he heard. ' The older I grow, my dear Coplestone — and I'm very nearly grown up no^w, I'm sorry DAISY IS EXPLICIT 177 to say — the more alive I become to the beauty and holiness of minding my own business.' The hint was not to be disregarded, nor could Frank persist without implying that what was not Tommy's business might, nevertheless, be his. Subsequently he heard rumours from other sources, in which his wife's name was coupled with that of more than one well-known personage ; but these were mere rumours, neither better nor worse attested than state- ments to which he had had to listen silently in days when he had been absolutely convinced of their falsity. It would be hard to say why he allowed day after day to pass without either going or writing to Daisy's house. Perhaps he shrank from a scene which he foresaw was inevitable ; perhaps he really thought, as he tried to think, that it w^as for her to make the next move ; perhaps (but this, we may be sure, he never admitted to himself) he dreaded a reconciliation almost as much as a permanent estrangement. One evening he saw her at a music-hall, where he had heard that she was to appear for ten minutes ; but the experience was not so agreeable that he cared to repeat it. ' A vulgar VOL. 1. 12 178 THE DANCER IN YELLOW little wretch,' that old lady had called her. Well, he had never been used to think of her as that ; on the contrary, one of the great charms of her dancing in former times had been its freedom from what is commonly under- stood by vulgarity. But she had changed — or he had changed — or the audience of a music- hall demands something different from what pleases the audience of a theatre. However that may have been, Daisy's husband retired from the promenade gallery, whence he had viewed her performance, with an uncomfortable sensation of heat about the cheeks and ears. Frank Coplestone, in his early youth, had been very much like other young officers and gentlemen — perhaps a shade more particular than the average young officer and gentleman ; but he had by this time reached an age at which individual character, whether inherited or formed by circumstances, hardens into un- alterable shape ; and if it had ever been within his power to live happily with a wife of Daisy's description, it certainly was so no longer. It might become his duty to live with her ; it might, and probably would in the long-run, become his duty to acknowledge her ; but he DAISY IS EXPLICIT 179 was by no means sure that death would not be preferable . He sought oblivion, and sometimes found it, in the company of Mrs. Trafford, whose en- treaties that he would come to Curzon Street whenever he felt Inclined, without waiting to be formally asked, were so evidently sincere that he did not hesitate to comply with them. Twice he dined with her, and on each occasion he was able to forget his sorrows for a few hours. She had an admirable cook ; her servants were well trained ; the flowers on the table, the softened light, the sense of ease and quietness and refinement, which extended even to the conversation of her guests — It does not extend quite so far in the dining-rooms of some wealthy and highly-placed modern ladles — all these things combined to soothe him, to make him feel happy and at home. How could he help contrasting them with the noise, the glare and the empty laughter so dear to Daisy and her associates ? * How Gerard must enjoy dining with you !' he exclaimed to his hostess. * He so thoroughly appreciates luxury, tempered by perfect taste.' * Thank you,' she answered, laughing. ' Yes, l8o THE DANCER IN YELLOW I believe he does ; but in reality he is not half such a sybarite as you are. For some time past he has been denying himself all good things, in order to get his weight down and acquit himself creditably in this race. I have an idea that your brother has it in him to make a good soldier, if only he could get the chance.' ' And you think I haven't got it in me ?' * Oh, I don't say that ; but ever since I nursed you while you were ill, I have known that there are weak points about you, mental and physical. You will have to beware of them.' He was, at any rate, aware of their existence — if that was any good. Nothing could have been more evident to him than that his present conduct was characterized by extreme weakness, unless it were that the strongest-minded man in the world would have been unable to hit upon any satisfactory solution of the dilemma in which he was placed. No doubt, however, a strong-minded man would state his terms and take his own line, one way or the other ; and this Frank resolved to do. On the Sunday afternoon appointed for the Richmond excursion, Tommy Fellowes, accom- DAISY IS EXPLICIT i8i panied by numerous light-hearted and gally- attlred friends of both sexes, called for him and whirled him off to Regent's Park to pick up the lady for whom the box-seat had been reserved. The streets being tolerably empty, no collision occurred on the way, nor were the grooms called upon to jump down more than three or four times before Daisy's residence was reached. She was waiting on the doorstep, a neat, spruce little figure, arrayed in the palest shade of her favourite colour, except as to her hat, which was trimmed with daffodils. Frank descended to offer her his assistance, and was greeted with a playful slap on the shoulder. • Why haven't you been to see me all this long time?' he was asked. 'Well, I'm glad you have been persuaded to take part in our mild spree, anyhow. I should have thought you would have wanted to go to evening church.' With much agility she climbed up to her perilous perch, and he obtained no further speech of her during a drive which was diversified by many hair- breadth escapes. Tommy, of course, played the fool the whole way down, shaving ditches, running his near i82 THE DANCER IN YELLOW wheels up banks and affecting extreme dismay, to a continued accompaniment of shrieks and laughter, contributed by all his passengers, save the grooms and Frank. The latter was not to be moved from his attitude of silent resignation, and his neighbour, who, like the other ladles of the party, was a prominent member of Daisy's profession, gave up clutch- ing him frantically by the arm when she found that she might as well have grasped an insentient umbrella. If she and her friends set him down as a dull dog, they were amply justified In doing so. The fact was that he was barely conscious of their existence, and only realized them as noisy and offensive adjuncts of an expedition every Incident of which was more or less offensive to him. The days had gone by when such society and con- versation as theirs could afford him the faintest amusement ; he was going down to Richmond for a certain purpose, and he bided his time patiently. After dinner he would surely be able to find, or make, some opportunity of saying what he had to say. As It turned out, the opportunity was pro- vided for him in the most direct fashion by DAISY IS EXPLICIT 183 Daisy herself, who, on the termination of a prolonged and jovial repast, marched down upon him from the other end of the table, tapped him smartly on the back and said : * Come over into the Park with me, and we'll smoke the cigarette of peace together. Go and play In the garden, all of you,' she added in a louder voice ; ' Mr. Coplestone and I are about to start In search of a Salvation Army gathering. He wants to sing a hymn to them while I dance.' But her manner changed altogether when they had crossed the dusty road in the twilight of a somewhat chilly spring evening, and her voice sounded hard and harsh as she began : ' Now, look here, Frank, this won't do at all. Everybody notices that you are sulking, and I don't see the sense of It. Perhaps you'll have the goodness just to say what you want.' ' I thought I had told you what I wanted,' he answered. 'You'll have to tell me again then, for I'm quite in the dark about } our wishes. I think I can make a pretty shrewd guess at what you don't want, and as I don't want It either, we ought to be able to come to an understanding. 1 84 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Only there really isn't any occasion to look so black about it.' * I am sorry if I look black,' said Frank, ' but I am afraid I can't treat the subject in quite such a light and cheerful spirit as you do. To me a separation is a serious thing, and I suppose it must come to that. There is no alternative that I can discover.' * Do you mean a legal separation ?' asked Daisy. 'Just as you please; but I doubt whether they'll grant you one, and it will hurt you a good deal more than it will me to make a public scandal. A divorce I can answer for it that you won't get ; so you had better not try. Why can't you let things be as they are ? I don't cost you anything ; I don't interfere with your liberty ; what more would you have ?' 'Are you so sure that I could not get a divorce, Daisy ?' Frank asked, in a low tone. He felt rather a brute for putting such a question ; yet it was one which he was fairly entitled to put. She stamped her foot, and for a moment he thought that she was going to fly into a passion ; but she ended by laughing and replying : * You won't make me lose my temper again. DAISY IS EXPLICIT 185 I knew we were going to have this talk, and I said to myself before I started that I wouldn't lose my temper. Yes, I am quite sure that you couldn't get evidence enough against me to go into the Divorce Court with ; but that's all I shall say about the matter. As for a separa- tion, the law can't do any more for us than we can do for ourselves. We both want to be free, don't we ? Very well ; we are free to do anything we like, except marry. If you want to marry somebody else, I'm sorry for it ; but I'm afraid I can't help you.' ' I don't want to marry anybody else ; I want to do my duty, that's all,' Frank declared. ' I am ready to acknowledge you as my wife to- morrow, and to give you a home ' * What sort of a home ?' Daisy interrupted, with a laugh. * Rather a humble one, of course ; because, as I was going to say, I can only do this upon the condition that you at once leave the stage. I have thought it all over, and I have come to the conclusion that I must insist upon that.' * Ah ! that was exactly where I was waiting for you. I dare say you weren't in any great fear that your kind offer would be accepted. It 1 86 THE DANCER IN YELLOW is declined with many thanks, dear boy, and you can now go your way, feeling that you have obeyed the dictates of conscience. Now, there's no use in pretending that either of us has a grievance against the other. Let us meet sometimes as friends ; why shouldn't we? For I really am very fond of you, Frank, though I don't think you are very fond of me in these days.' He could not assert that he was ; nor, perhaps, could he assert rights which he was not in his heart very eager to claim. * You are far more fond of your liberty than you are of me,' was the only rejoinder that suggested itself to him. ' Most certainly I am. I am fonder of my liberty than I am of anything or anybody else in the wide world, and I hope to retain it to my dying day. Come, there's enough said. You are going to be reasonable, I see, only you don't quite like to confess it. Isn't that the voice of Tommy yelling for us in the distance ? It is time to be off. Shake hands, Frank, and don't bite the heads off innocent folks on the way home.* CHAPTER XV. HAPPY GERARD. Obedient to the Injunctions which he had received, Frank refrained from biting off any- body's head on the return journey, and even took some trouble to make himself agreeable to his fellow-revellers. He was, to tell the truth, in a much better humour than before dinner ; he was not only resigned, but relieved — a little ashamed of being relieved, no doubt ; yet able to think that he was so by reason of certain not very definite assurances which had fallen from Daisy's lips. She had given him to understand that her conduct had never been of a nature to call for the services of the President of the Divorce Court. Her language, at any rate, had been capable of bearing that interpretation; and why should he not give her the benefit of such doubt as might exist upon the point ? i88 THE DANCER IN YELLOW That she should stipulate for freedom was only- natural, not to say excusable ; he himself would wish to be as free as he could be, consistently with duty and honour ; upon the whole, it did not seem as if anybody could be injured by the continuance of a state of things which apparently satisfied her. Her husband, therefore, no longer found it out of the question to exchange plea- santries with the lively young woman who was seated beside him, nor did the eccentricities of Tommy Fellowes strike him as being utterly devoid of humour. Despite many narrow shaves, he reached Piccadilly with a whole skin, and, on being dropped there, included Daisy in a general and genial * good-night,' addressed to the whole party. He did not think it necessary or advisable to call again at the little house in Regent's Park before going down to Kent, where he was now due within a few days. Daisy had asked that they might meet occasionally as friends ; she had not expressed a wish for private inter- views, and, incomprehensible as she was in many respects, it was difficult to imagine that she could desire anything of the sort. * If she should ever want me,' Frank said to HAPPY GERARD 189 himself, * I presume that she will send for me.' Meanwhile, Mrs. Trafford paid him the compliment of wanting him, and writing to say so. * Do you make a point of always travelling in a smoking-carriage ?' she asked, when he entered her drawing-room in prompt response to the summons conveyed to him. * I do when I am alone,' he answered ; ' I shouldn't if you were in the train, and if you were charitable enough to put up with my company.' * Writers of begging-letters assure me that my charity knows no bounds, and probably I am going to be in the train. That is, if you start for Mailing on Wednesday next, as I hear that you are expected to do. It occurred to me that we might as well trip down hand-in- hand.' Frank, of course, replied that nothing would give him greater pleasure. He wondered a little who had supplied her with such accurate information as to his movements ; but she did not volunteer to gratify legitimate curiosity upon that point. Presently, however, she began of 190 THE DANCER IN YELLOW her own accord to speak of Gerard in terms which sounded hopeful and significant. * I do trust the Guards will win this race !' she said. * Not that I am personally interested in Guardsmen more than in any other variety of British warriors, or that I can distinguish between a hunter and a thoroughbred when I see them together ; but your brother has set his heart upon success, and I don't want to have to condole with him, instead of con- gratulating him. He is one of the people who feel failure profoundly, and accept it with an unruffled countenance. One never dares to suggest consolations to that class of mortals.' ' Gerard doesn't often set his heart upon a thing,' Frank remarked ; * but, as you say, when he does, he is thoroughly in earnest about it. I hope he will get what he wants in more important matters than a point-to-point race.' * Oh, I think he will. Most people get what they are quite determined to get — especially if they deserve to get it. I sometimes take the liberty of wishing that you had a little more of your brother's quiet determination.' Frank made a deprecating gesture. HAPPY GERARD 191 ' I am what I am,' he answered. ' I don't know that there Is anything I particularly want at present, except my company, and that will come to me In the ordinary course of promotion, I suppose.' * There ought to be something.' * But I'm afraid there isn't. Anyhow, I should be the last to dispute that Gerard Is a much better fellow than I am. You think so, don't you ?' ' I won't be drawn Into making invidious comparisons ; but I do think your brother a very good fellow. Perhaps I like him because he likes me, and because he doesn't honour a great many ladles with his friendship. One isn't above being reached by delicate flattery of that kind, even when one has finally parted from the vanities and ambitions of young womanhood.' ' I don't know about vanities and ambitions,' said Frank ; 'but why should you have parted from anything that belongs to young woman- hood ?' * I remember telling you why a long time ago ; but very likely you don't remember having been told, and the subject isn't at all pleasant or 192 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Interesting. I would rather go on talking about your brother, who is both.* Frank had by no means forgotten the brief outline of her history with which Mrs. Trafford had favoured him prior to his departure for India. Indeed, he had often thought of it, wondering what had become of the selfish and cold-blooded lover who might have been ex- pected to seek her out again in the days of her wealthy widowhood. But the chances were that that prudent person had hastened to espouse somebody else, and it seemed reason- able to hope that a not less prudent but far more honourable man had stepped into his vacant shoes. What was rather unreasonable, as well as rather ungenerous, was to grudge Gerard his good fortune. Yet who, after all, has magnan- imity enough to congratulate from his heart the man who marries his best friend ? It was as his best friend that Frank had learned to regard Mrs. Trafford ; and, indeed, he was not far wrong in so regarding her. It would have been a relief to make a clean breast of his troubles to so trustworthy a friend ; but that was not to be thought of, and he went away HAPPY GERARD 193 without having given any explanation of a certain apathy and indifference which evidently puzzled her. As had been arranged, they subsequently travelled down together, in bright weather, to that pleasant, homely county, which has been called the Garden of England, and which looks rather less like a garden when the east winds of April are in full blast than at any other season of the year. From the railway-carriage window they looked out upon a parti-coloured, undulating landscape, and compared agricul- tural notes, Mrs. Trafford surprising her com- panion by the knowledge which she displayed of her subject. ' Oh, I'm learning,' she said. * I have tenants, and I have land upon my own hands. It's indispensable that I should know what weather is wanted for this crop or that, and why no sort of weather that ever was can be satisfactory all round. But I shall always be a square peg in a round hole, I'm afraid ; I don't suppose I see half the things that you do. Why are you looking so solemnly at those grass fields now, for instance ? Ought we to be having rain ?* VOL. I. 13 194 THE DANCER IN YELLOW * Not for the hay, perhaps — there's time enough yet,' answered Frank ; ' but I was thinking that if this wind holds, the ground will be as hard as iron for that race.' * But the ground will be the same for every- body, won't it ? If it is hard for the Guards, it will be equally hard for the Lancers or Hussars, or whatever they are.' * Yes ; but one remembers the horses' legs, not to mention the riders, some of whom are pretty sure to come to grief.' ' I dare say they are all quite willing to take their chance. I remember your brother telling me that his notion of an ideal death was to break his neck out hunting, and that when he felt inclined to shirk a fence, he put fresh courage into himself by reflecting that, if the worst came to the worst, he would be spared the horrors of dying in his bed.' * Racing isn't quite the same thing as hunt- ing,' remarked Frank ; ' but if Gerard said that to you, it was only his way of talking. I never saw him shirk anything in my life, and I'm quite sure he never stood in need of more courage than he has got. Whatever Gerard's defects may be, want of pluck isn't one of them.' HAPPY GERARD 195 A slight tinge of pink mounted into Mrs. Trafford's cheeks, and her eyes grew bright. * I hke to hear you speak of your brother in that way !' she exclaimed ; ' and what you say is true, too. But there isn't really any danger of his breaking his neck, is there ? If there were, I would rather break my own neck (not that that is saying much) than be present as a spectator the day after to-morrow.' That sounded tolerably conclusive. Happy Gerard ! — perhaps, also, happy Mrs. Trafford ! Frank may have felt one of those momentary pangs which we are all apt to experience when the inequality with which earthly rewards and penalties are dealt out is brought home to us ; but his predominant sensation was one of pleasure, and he hastened to reply : ' Oh, he'll be all right ! I don't know any- thing about his mount ; but he has ridden in plenty of steeplechases before now, and he understands how to fall. You needn't be in the least uneasy.' When he had helped his travelling-companion into the smart victoria which was awaiting her arrival at the station, and had taken his own place In the somewhat shabby dogcart which 196 THE DANCER IN YELLOW had been sent to meet him, he said to himself : * I must tell old Gerard how she looked as soon as it occurred to her that he might be going to risk his life. I wonder what sort of a grimace Daisy would make if she were to see in the newspapers, some fine day, that her husband had been killed steeplechasing. The Dancer in Yellow wouldn't disappoint the public by failing to appear in ''Othello Junior" that same night, I suspect.' One cannot expect to get more than one is prepared to give, and Frank was fain to acknow- ledge with shame, the next moment, that it would not break his heart were he to learn suddenly that he had become a widower. It was a melancholy pass to have arrived at ; but there was no use in brooding over it, nor, in truth, was he so very miserable after he had reached the old home and had been heartily welcomed by his father and by his aunt. Even the latter, who was always inclined to adopt an antagonistic attitude towards him, as being Sir Harry's favourite without ever having done anything to merit that distinction, was amiable enough now, and had been graciously pleased to express her approval of what every- HAPPY GERARD 197 body seemed to regard as a foregone conclu- sion. ' I am not very much in love with Mrs. Trafford myself.' she told Frank ; ' but strange to say, I really believe Gerard is, and of course her money would cover a far greater multitude of sins than she can ever have committed. To do the woman justice, she has the sort of qualities that go to make an excellent wife and mother, and so long as she doesn't bore him, her being rather a bore to other people won't matter. I only hope you may do half as well for yourself as Gerard is doing.' ' The deed isn't actually done yet,' remarked Frank, slightly nettled by this absurd descrip- tion of a lady who seemed to him to be in every respect her critic's superior. ' It is just possible, I suppose, that Mrs. Trafford may decline to throw herself into Gerard's arms.' But Miss Coplestone seemed to think that that contingency might very well be left out of reckoning ; as, indeed, did Sir Harry, who was already counting unhatched chickens. ' Of course Gerard will have to send in his papers ; but that will be no great hardship. It isn't as if he were at all a keen soldier. 198 THE DANCER IN YELLOW Such a fuss as he has been making about his battalion being sent down to Shorncliffe ! They have been in disgrace, as I dare say you know, and this was meant as a punishment — which don't sound over and above complimentary to the other fellows who are quartered there. Well, we must hope that our fine gentleman won't think it too severe a punishment to be condemned to live in such a place as Trant Abbey. Dear me ! What wouldn't my poor old father have given to see the two properties united! It would have been worth a peerage in those days, and I don't know but what it may be even now. Well, well ! I'm satisfied ; and this will make a difference in your prospects too, my dear fellow. I shall alter my will as soon as things are formally settled.' That things were as yet far from being formally settled was, however, the decided opinion of Gerard, who arrived shortly before the dinner-hour, and who took his younger brother for a walk round the garden and a con- fidential chat. He said at once that he had quite made up his mind to ask Mrs. Trafford to marry him, but that he felt by no means certain of her reply. HAPPY GERARD 199 ' She is clever enough to have discovered long ago what we all want/ he remarked ; ' but whether she isn't a great deal too clever to make a one-sided bargain remains to be seen. Why on earth should she ? She has absolutely nothing to gain by taking me for her husband, and most people would tell her that she risks losing a lot.' * She will never dream of looking at it from that point of view,' Frank declared ; * the only question is from what point of view you look at it. If you mean to propose to her simply because you think it your duty to make a good match, you won't deserve success, and perhaps you won't succeed ; but if you care for her for her own sake, I'm ready to back your chances.' Gerard smiled and looked down. ' It sounds almost ridiculous to say so/ he answered ; ' one is hardly ever believed when one speaks the truth ; but I don't mind telling you, Frank, that I do care for her for her own sake. I didn't begin in that way ; I looked upon her as my inevitable destiny, and my one wish was to postpone the fatal day as long as I could. But it must be more than a year now since I discovered that she was the only woman in 200 THE DANCER IN YELLOW the world for me — and I suppose a discovery of that sort opens one's eyes. Anyhow, all the conceit has been taken out of me by this time, and if I haven't asked her yet, it has only been because I didn't want to be deprived of my last shred of hope.' ' I don't think there is any need for you to be so diffident as all that,' said Frank, laughing. ' If you had seen her face when I was talking to her about you this morning, you might have felt a little conceited, and nobody could have blamed you. By the way, what sort of an animal are you going to ride the day after to-morrow ? If he is at all likely to put you down, I must warn Mrs. Trafford to stay away ; for she said she would rather break her own neck than see you place yours in jeopardy.' * Did she say that ?' asked Gerard eagerly. * Oh no, the old bay will stand up all right, though he's such a hot-headed old fool that I'm afraid he'll take it out of himself before we have done half the distance. You really think, then, Frank, that that ' * Yes, I really think so,' answered Frank, not a little amused by this unwonted display of modesty and timidity on the part of his self- HAPPY GERARD 201 possessed senior. Presently he clapped Gerard on the shoulder, and added, ' I wish I were you !' No wish was ever more sincerely uttered, nor in truth can there have been many men living at that moment more enviable than Gerard Coplestone. To be in love with a woman who is going to accept you, and who, in addition, is a woman whom your family have the best of reasons for welcoming enthusiastically — what more can any human being desire ? Sadly different is the position of one who has married an impossible person, who no longer loves her or is loved by her, and whom nothing save death can relieve from the consequences of his own folly ! CHAPTER XVI. MRS. TRAFFORD's HEAD ACHES. Envy and jealousy are, of course, not synony- mous terms : one may wish with all one's heart that one were Prime Minister of Great Britain or Archbishop of Canterbury without in the least grudging the reward of perseverance and good conduct to the eminent persons who hold those offices. It must, however, be owned that the two emotions specified are somewhat closely akin, and that it does not take a very great deal to convert the one into the other. That was why Frank, while dressing on the following morning, had to repeat to himself over and over again that Gerard was one of the best fellows that ever stepped, and that Mrs. Traf- ford might consider herself fortunate. What if Gerard was just a trifle limited in his ideas ? — what if the intellectual superiority of his destined MRS. TRAFFORD'S HEAD ACHES 203 wife was obvious, and the necessity of her suiting herself to him, if she wanted to be happy with him, could not be doubted ? She would assuredly take care to suit herself to him, and people whose wives did not happen to be constructed of equally pliable material were not thereby justified in assuming that she would throw herself away. So Frank went down to breakfast with a smiling countenance, and with sentiments as cheerful as he could muster, to be greeted by Sir Harry with : * Now, what are you two fellows going to do with yourselves to-day ? Gerard says he is bound to walk eight or nine miles, or he won't be fit to-morrow ; and if I were you, I would put in a part of the work by marching over to Trant Abbey after luncheon. Then, if you could persuade the fair Abbess to come and join in a family dinner, you would do us all a good turn.' Frank, after glancing at Gerard, whose countenance remained as inscrutable as usual, remarked that there did not seem to be any particular need for him to take part in the pro- posed mission ; but he was subsequently assured by the person whom he desired to rid of an 204 THE DANCER IN YELLOW encumbrance that his company would be far from unwelcome. It was not until some hours later that Gerard, who tramped off for a con- stitutional all by himself as soon as breakfast was over, confided to his younger brother that for choice, he would rather not see Mrs. Trafford alone that day. ' I must keep my nerves steady and my head cool for the race, you see,' he explained, ' and I tell you candidly that, feeling as I do now, I couldn't quite trust myself to spend half an hour with her, unless somebody else was in the room. I should begin saying things that I don't want to say, and then very likely the whole murder would be out before I knew where I was.' * Would that be such an awful misfortune ?' asked Frank. ' I should have said you would ride all the better for being relieved from anxiety.' ' Ah, you are like the governor and Aunt Lucy ; you think I have only to speak the word. The fact is that I know her a good deal better than any of you, and I know very well that the chances are against me. Another thing I know is that I shall be no use at all for AfRS. TRAFFORD'S HEAD ACHES 205 at least a month after I have been refused, and I don't want to spoil other people's sport by making a public exhibition of myself. I do want to have a few words with her, I confess ; but I made up my mind some time ago that I wouldn't ask her to be my wife until after the race. So come with me and see me through, like a good fellow.' In the course of the afternoon, therefore, the two brothers arrived on foot at Trant Abbey, where they met with a very cordial and friendly reception. * How odd it seems to see you both together !' Mrs. Trafford exclaimed. ' I can never quite think of you as belonging to one another, somehow ; although there is a decided family likeness when one looks at you side by side.' ' From my childhood up,' remarked Frank, * it has been dinned into my ears that I am a faint and feeble reproduction of the best- looking member of the family. Don't make him blush by repeating before his face what everybody thinks.' Gerard did not blush, being constitutionally exempt from that distressing weakness. He 2o6 THE DANCER IN YELLOW smiled slightly, without looking up, and said nothing — conscious, it may be, of Mrs. Traf- ford's scrutiny, and unwilling to meet her eyes. * Neither of you has much to complain of in the matter of looks/ she resumed ; * you are far more alike In looks than you are in character.' ' Ah, you think one of us has a good deal to complain of on that score,' observed Frank. * Not to complain of ; our characters are what we choose to make them or let them be. At least, I shall continue to think so. In spite of latter-day theories to the contrary. However, in common gratitude, I must allow you both credit for amiability, and since you have proved it by coming to see me, please tell me all about this steeplechase. Where ought I to go? Shall I be able to watch It all from my carriage ? And will somebody be good enough to let me know the result after it Is over ? Because I understand that there is some complicated system of scoring, and that the one who comes In first doesn't necessarily gain the victory for his side.' It was now Gerard's turn to speak, and he gave Mrs. Trafford all the information that she MRS. TEA F FORD'S HEAD ACHES 207 asked for. She would be able to see the greater part of the course from her carriage, but she would obtain a rather better view if she did not mind climbing up to the top of the drag ; it was hoped she would lunch in the Guards' tent ; and then there was another, and a more personal hope, which was put forward with perceptible, but not unbecoming, hesita- tion. * I was wondering,' Gerard said, producing a small parcel, wrapped in silver paper, from his pocket, ' whether you would do me the honour to wear my colours. It's only a necktie — almost all the ladies will wear ties of one colour or the other, you know, and ' ' Oh, I am afraid I couldn't do that,' interrupted Mrs. Trafford. ' I always dress in black or gray, as you must have noticed, and I suppose I always shall to the day of my death.' ' But just for this once !' pleaded Gerard, as he continued to hold out his modest offering. He raised those long-lashed eyes of his, which for an instant encountered hers ; whereupon she shrank back, as if involuntarily, colouring slowly up to the roots of her hair. All this Frank saw, and drew conclusions 2o8 THE DANCER IN YELLOW which no on-looker could have helped drawing. He was surprised, although he had expected nothing else — surprised in the sense that all of us are when we realize that an estimable but rather commonplace fellow-creature has become a demigod in the estimation of another fellow- creature. However, it was a good thing, not to say a superlatively good thing, that Mrs. Trafford should be able to so regard Gerard — and, to be sure, he was wonderfully handsome. Musings of a somewhat complex nature were dispelled by the sound of her voice, which betrayed no embarrassment. * Oh, very well !' she was saying ; ' if other people are going to do it, I had better not be peculiar. The point is hardly worth arguing, anyhow.' She took the strip of scarlet and blue silk, glanced at it for a moment, and then laid it down beside her. * Of course,' she added, ' I should wish for your success, whatever I had round my neck. Considering that I never, to my knowledge, set eyes upon a single one of your opponents, I should naturally hope that you might win.' ' That,' remarked Gerard, in his customary MRS. TRAFFORD'S HEAD ACHES 209 quiet level accents, * is rather a lukewarm way of backing your friends.' * Would it be more satisfactory if I backed you to the extent of five pounds or ten pounds ? Unfortunately, I have no acquaintance with bookmakers, and I don't know how these transactions are effected ; but I dare say you or your brother would kindly undertake it for me. Shall I give you the money ?' She was trying to talk naturally, but she was not succeeding very well. It was evident to her visitors that she was not quite at her ease — evident to the elder that she was displeased, evident also to the younger that she would not be sorry when they went away, although he detected no symptom of displeasure in the unusual and feverish loquacity which she pro- ceeded to display. After a great deal had been said about steeplechasing, and after Mrs. Traf- ford had repeatedly proved that her interest in the subject was upon a level with her know- ledge of it, Frank took upon himself to remark : ' We ought not to inflict any more horse- flesh talk upon you now, especially as we are hoping to see you again in an hour or two. My father sent us here to beg that you would come VOL. I. 14 2IO THE DANCER IN YELLOW and dine with us to-night, if you have no other engagement.' * Oh, not to-night, please !' she answered quickly. * No ; I have no other engagement, unless a headache can be called an engage- ment ; but I am like all robust people, I can't bear the slightest pain without making a pro- digious fuss. So, if you will kindly make my excuses to Sir Harry and Miss Coplestone, I think I would rather stay at home and nurse myself. Then I shall feel quite sure of being well and lively again to-morrow.' It seemed to Frank that she looked rather appealingly at Gerard, who, however, made no response, verbal or other. Gerard had a re- markable gift of silence. As both the young men had risen, and as she did not attempt to detain them, they could but express their sorrow at her indisposition, and depart. * I don't like this at all,' Gerard said, shaking his head despondently, as soon as they had left the house. ' I don't think it looks by any means hopeful for me,..,and if I hadn't been a thundering ass I shouldn't have come here to be^ snubbed.' til Frank burst out laughing. MRS. TRAFFORD'S HEAD ACHES 211 ' A thundering old ass you most undoubtedly are,' he agreed, ' if you think that she had the slightest intention of snubbing you. What an extraordinary thing it is that the coolest and shrewdest man loses his wits the moment he falls in love ! Why, my good fellow, she has to all intents and purposes accepted you already ! Do you mean to tell me that you are so dense as not to have understood why she got so red in the face when you asked her to wear your colours ? — or, for the matter of that, why she is suffering from a headache at the present moment ?' Gerard sighed, and glanced out of the corner of his eye at his junior in a queer, shamefaced way. ' I hope it may be as you say,' he answered ; * but I don't know — perhaps I am no judge. It struck me that she had discovered all of a sudden what I was after, that she didn't like it, that she was more or less sorry for us all, but that she hoped I would take a hint in time, and spare her the discomfoxt of refusing me. I don't expect her to be on the ground to- morrow ; her headache will be worse, you'll see.' 212 THE DANCER IN YELLOW These pessimistic anticipations were laughed to scorn by Frank, who said : * Tm ready to lay you any odds you like about her being on the ground to-morrow ; if that's all you want to put heart into you, you may count upon getting it. But the truth is, that you are clean out of your senses. You won't see what is as plain as a pikestaff, and you see all sorts of things that don't exist.' * Do I ?' asked Gerard pensively. ' Well, I must confess that I am not myself, and haven't been since I found that I was in love for the very first time in my life. I suppose one is rather apt to take up mistaken ideas when one is in that condition. There's one idea,' he went on after a short pause, * which has been bother- ing me a good deal, and which I sincerely trust is mistaken. I know you and she are tremendous friends, and you have been corre- sponding regularly, and all that. I wonder whether I should put you into an infernal rage if I suggested that there might be rather a warmer feeling than friendship — on your side, I mean ?' * Suggest anything you like, old man,' answered Frank, laughing ; ' you won't put me MRS. TRAFFORD'S HEAD ACHES 213 into a rage. All the same, that particular sug- gestion is a little comic' ' I don't see why. In many ways she is better suited to you than she is to me, and I notice that you always seem to understand one another.' * Because we are friends and nothing more, I suppose. If, by an impossibility, we were lovers, misunderstandings would soon crop up. No ; I think you're an uncommonly lucky fellow, Gerard, and, as I told you before, I only wish I were in your shoes ; but I wouldn't be your rival if I could, and I couldn't if I would.' 'Well,' said Gerard quietly, 'it's a relief to hear that.' He walked on for some distance before he resumed : ' I can't believe that I'm as lucky a fellow as you call me, Frank ; yet in a sort of way it's luck to feel as I do. I saw from the first that I should have to propose to Mrs. Trafiford, whether I liked her or not ; but I little thought that I should ever care for her, or for any other woman, in this way. One has to do one's duty ; but one hardly expects it to jump with one's inclinations.' ' And you consider it your positive duty to 214 THE DANCER IN YELLOW marry a rich woman ?' asked Frank, momentarily amused by the seriousness with which this definition of duty was implied. * Well, yes — for the governor's sake. I have cost him a good deal of money, first and last — I didn't see my way to avoid it — and he hasn't grumbled. You have been a much better son to him than I have, and it's only natural that he should care more for your little finger than he does for my whole body.' * Nonsense !' returned Frank, with a pang of conscience which gave some sharpness to his voice ; ' he knows perfectly well that it isn't possible to live in the Guards upon a small allowance. And, at least, you have never done anything disgraceful — nothing that you would have had to conceal from him, or that would have made him ashamed of you if it had come to his ears.' *Oh, of course not,' answered Gerard tran- quilly. ' Nor have you.' After that, it seemed about time to change the subject. END OF VOL. I. BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.