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Title: Moll Davis: a comedy

Author: Bernard Capes

Release date: January 6, 2023 [eBook #69720]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLL DAVIS: A COMEDY ***

MOLL DAVIS

A COMEDY

By BERNARD CAPES

AUTHOR OF

“THE LAKE OF WINE,” “A JAY OF ITALY,” ETC., ETC.

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.

RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET W.C.

[COPYRIGHT]

First published in 1916

(All rights reserved)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

MOLL DAVIS

CHAPTER I

SOMEWHERE about the western angle now formed by the junction of Oxford Street and the Charing Cross Road, there stood in the year 1661 “The Mischief” Inn. It was a substantial building, consisting of two gabled sections, divided by a third and wider having a pent-roof, and forming with the others a deep recess, in whose ground quarters was plentiful accommodation for the stabling of horses. At the level of the first story ran a railed wooden balcony, common to all the bedrooms behind; and in the yard below were rough benches and trestle-tables disposed about, where customers might forgather to discuss, over their pipes and purl, such topics as went seasonably with them—it might be his popular Majesty’s latest roguery, or “Old Mob’s,” almost as great a thief and favourite.

“The Mischief,” standing as it did on the great highway running east and west, formed a convenient terminus for travellers journeying from the contiguous wilds of Berkshire and Wiltshire, the majority of whom, for reasons of economy, came by “waggon.” This was a vast road craft, with a tilt, and tyres to its wheels a foot wide, whose consistent record of progress never exceeded three miles to the hour. It was drawn commonly by six sturdy roadsters in double harness, and bearing yokes with swinging bells at the hames of their collars; and time was never of the essence of its contract. But it was safe, if slow, being well prepared and armed against surprises, which were by no means of infrequent occurrence by the days-long way, especially as London was approached.

Oxford Street itself, indeed, bore a villainous reputation. It stretched somewhat on the borders of the town, with wild and wooded country going northwards from it, and was handy therefore to the gentry whose profession it was to cut purses from the skirts of civilization. Latterly, its heterogeneous domiciles had shown a tendency to increase and multiply, and, by adding to their number on either side the way, to extend the boundaries of the comparative security which obtained about the central regions of Westminster and Whitehall. But it was still a perilous district, the very expression and moral of which appeared epitomized in the sign which swung on a high gallows, beside a wooden water-trough, before the front of our inn, and which depicted a poor unhappy citizen bearing upon his suffering shoulders a drunken scold. In the neighbourhood of the building clustered, like disreputable relations, a knot of tenements, which included a pawnbroker’s and a gin-shop; and southwards from it zigzagged a muddy bridle-way—known appropriately as Hog Lane—which, traversing a motley course, half town, half rookery, debouched finally upon the village of Charing, where in an open place stood the monument with its gilt cross.

So, approximately, appeared this particle of our London in the year following that of the King’s Grace’s restoration, A.D. 1661. It is easier to explain a frog of to-day out of a Pliocene leviathan than it is to trace the growth of a huge metropolis from such paltry beginnings. The tendency of Nature is to reduce from the unwieldy to the workable, while that of man is to magnify his productions out of all proportion with the simple necessities they are wanted to supply. That is why towns increase while animals grow smaller.

The yard of “The Mischief” Inn was fairly crowded on that particular June morning which witnessed the encounter between its landlord and Mrs. Moll Davis. This young lady had come to town out of Wiltshire, by waggon, some fortnight or more earlier, and, putting up at the inn, had succeeded already in outstaying a welcome which was wont to be continued to such angels only as came franked with a sufficiency of their golden namesakes. In short, Mrs. Davis could not, or would not, pay her score; and, since she failed to quit the landlord, and he declined to release her without settlement, a state of deadlock had arisen between them, which seemed to promise no conclusion but through the better ability of one or the other to “throw” its adversary in a wrestle of wit—a contest in which the lady, at least, need expect no “law.” And it was at this juncture that Mr. George Hamilton appeared upon the scene.

He was a very agreeable young gentleman, of cavalier rank, debonair and smart to foppery, which as yet, however, stopped short of the extravagance which later came to characterize it. He wore his own long chestnut hair, and a lingering tone of sobriety marked his dress. The times, in fact, had not quite pulled free their damasked wings from the Puritan case which had enclosed them, though certain foreshadowed iridescences gave promise of the splendour to come; and, moreover, the gentleman had ridden in that morning from the country, and had been in no mind to stake his sweetest trappings against the habitual quagmires of Oxford Street. He dismounted at “The Mischief” for his morning draught, and, giving his horse to hold to his servant, sat down at a table in the yard, and hammered for the drawer.

George was a bold youth of his inches—which were sufficient—but quite immoral and unscrupulous. He fitted amiably into his age, which expected nothing better of a man than good company. That he supplied, and could have supplied in purer brand if good-fellowship had been its inevitable corollary. But there he lacked. Generally he wished no man good but where he saw his own profit of the sentiment; and he could be an inhuman friend. He had regular, rather full features, and a rolling brown eye which took in much that had been kindlier left unobserved; and, like most of his order, he was infernally pugnacious. While his ale was bringing, he sat, one arm akimbo, the other crossed on his knee, conning, as if they were cattle, the group about him, and humming an abstracted tune. There was no one who interested him much, or who touched a note of originality in all the commonplace crowd which surrounded him. Grooms, carters, local traders; a seedy rakehell or two; a lowering Anabaptist, sipping his ale with a toast in it, and furtively conscious the while of the scrutiny of a yellow trained-band Captain lolling by the tap door; a prowling pitcher-bawd, lean, red-eyed, and hugging his famine as he ogled about for custom—one and all they conformed to type, and presented nothing beyond it worth considering. George felt quarrelsome over the matter, as if he had been defrauded of a legitimate expectation. True, mankind in its ordinary habits and conversation could hardly be looked to at the best for more than diluted epigram; yet there should be a limit to the insipidity of things, and he felt it almost his duty to insist upon the fact. Possibly his brain was a little fevered from last night’s debauch.

The seedy Mohawks were his nearest neighbours. Said one to his fellow, in the words of Banquo’s murderer: “It will be rain to-night.”

Hamilton turned on him.

“Who says so, clout?”

“Sir!” exclaimed the young man, startled aback.

“I say, who says so?”

“I say so.”

“Then a pox on your profanity! Are you to arrogate to yourself the Almighty’s prerogatives? It shall rain or not as the Lord decrees.”

“Hallelujah, young sir!” boomed the Anabaptist.

“Do you say it will not rain?” demanded George, addressing him.

“Nay,” answered the Fifth-Monarchist; “but I trust it will not.”

“Then you are as bad as the other,” said George, “since you are as ready to lament the Almighty’s dispensations.” He snapped again on the luckless first speaker. “I am a man of submission, for my part, and content to accept whatever comes—even if it be a fool to spit himself on my rapier-point. I’ll take you on that question of your damned divinity.”

The landlord came up at the moment, bringing his drink, and simultaneously there appeared, on the balcony above, the figure of a young girl. A certain hush had fallen on the crowd, expectant of a fracas.

“Zoons!” said Boniface sourly; “we’ll have no talk of swords, by your leave. No swords, my lord, none. This is no hedge-tavern; we want no fire-eaters here! We’ve a reputation to maintain.”

He was a gross, club-fisted man, with a sooty underlip. It needed such to keep a grip on the sort of company he dealt with.

“A reputation for mischief, by the token,” said Hamilton derisively, “or you fly false colours.”

The landlord grumbled violently. “No steel, by God! I say. I’m master here.” He was already out of temper, and, glancing up, found a timely butt for his wrath in the figure on the balcony. With an exclamation of fury, he heaved his shoulders through the mob until he came under.

“Here, you!” he roared. “Who let your ladyship out of duress?”

She nodded and smiled down.

“A hairpin,” she said. “I managed to pick the lock with it.”

She was young—almost a child, with blue eyes laughing in a saucy face. From under a black whimple, set coquettishly on her head and garnished with a sprig of rosemary, filched from the kitchen, hung thick brown curls over dolly-pink cheeks. A deep-falling collar, quite plain, was set about her slender throat, and loosely knotted into it was a tasselled cord. An underskirt of stone blue, and an upper one of brown, bunched at the tail into a little pannier, completed a very attractive picture. Hamilton, his attention drawn to it, sat up, interested and mollified at once.

“Then,” cried the landlord, with an oath or two, “you’ll e’en return whence you came, or I’ll bring the law on you for house-breaking! Bing-awast! Back you go to your chamber, bobtail!”

The lady nodded again, pursing cherry lips; and prompt the answer came from them—

“I’ll see you damned first!”

The crowd bawled with laughter; but the landlord, purple in the face, turned to storm the heights by way of a flight of steps which gave access to the balcony from the yard corner. Before he had well started, however, Hamilton’s voice stayed him—

“Hold, vintner! Steel or no steel, I take up this quarrel!”

He had risen, and now advanced to the scene of action, the press giving way to him. His air, his obvious rank, no less than his hint of a dangerous temper, were his sufficient passports, not only with the company but to the landlord’s better consideration. The man scowled and muttered; but he stood halted. Hamilton blew a kiss to the rosy nymph before he turned on her persecutor.

“Duress! House-breaking!” quoth he. “What terms are these to hold an angel fast? Tell us her crime, bluffer!”

“Angel!” responded the landlord deeply. “Aye, a pretty angel, to cully a poor innkeeper out of his dues! Look you here, master—you that are so righteous—will you pay your angel her shot?”

“She owes you board and lodging?”

“Aye, she does; seven days and more.”

George looked up at the balcony.

“Is that true, child?”

The girl had already produced a little handkerchief, which she now dabbed to her eyes, her breath catching very touchingly.

“Sure I would find the money if I could,” she said. “He might give me credit for my good intentions.”

“I’ll give you credit for nothing!” roared the landlord. “God A’mighty! She’ll be asking for a cash advance on her good intentions next!”

George hushed him down.

“Whence do you hail, child,” he said, “and whither make?”

She whimpered. “I’m but a poor maid, out of Wiltshire, kind sir, and ’tis a husband I seek.”

“A husband!” quoth he. “Alack that I’m none myself, to accommodate your need. But if a bachelor might serve——”

The crowd hooted again.

“Pay her shot, Captain, and hold her hostage for it.”

“Shall I?” said Hamilton. He addressed the childish countenance above, observing for the first time the tiniest of patches placed under the corner of its baby mouth. That gave him some sniggering thought. It seemed to suggest the footlight Chloe rather than the genuine article. Moreover the baggage appeared, for all her seeming innocence, quite self-possessed. He wondered. “What do you say, child?” he demanded.

She had fallen back a little, using her handkerchief. Now she started, as if conscious of some question, and leaned forward again.

“Was it the gentleman with the plum-pudding eye that spoke?” she said.

A clap of new laughter greeted the seeming artless sally. George cachinnated with the rest, but in a mortified fashion.

“Yes,” says he; “and a very sweet simile, my dear.” He turned to the landlord. “What is she, vintner?”

“God knows,” answered the man morosely. “A strolling play-actress, like as not. She’s no good, whatever she is.”

“No good is a better woman than you, you radish!” cried the girl.

“That’s certain,” said Hamilton. “You are answered, bluffer.”

“Answered?” said the man. “Aye, I know her. Trust her young tongue to answer, though you provoked it in the middle of a song.”

“Song? Does she sing?”

“Does she not—like the wicked young syrup she is. Sings like a kettle.”

The lady laughed.

“And best when in hot water. Shall I sing to you now?”

“Sing for your supper, like Master Tom Tucker,” said the Cavalier. “Yes, sing, by all means; only come down to do it. I’ll go bail for her,” he assured the landlord.

The man grumbled, but submitted, and George beckoned the nymph.

“Descend,” said he, “and give us of your quality. You shall not lose by it.”

She nodded, disappeared for a moment, and returning with a lute, ran to the stairs, descended to the yard, and stood among the company, confident and unabashed. And straight and readily she touched the strings, with slender fingers seeming oddly native to that tuneful contact, and sang the little song which afterwards came to be the most associated with her naughty name.

My lodging is on the cold ground,

And hard, very hard, is my fare,

But that which grieves me more

Is the coldness of my dear.

Oh, turn, love, I prythee, love, turn

to me,

For thou art the only one, love,

that art ador’d by me.

I’ll twine thee a garland of straw, love,

I’ll marry thee with a rush ring,

My frozen hopes will thaw, love,

And merrily we will sing.

Then turn to me, my own love;

I prythee, love, turn to me,

For thou art the only one, love,

that art ador’d by me.

There was silence as she ended, for indeed the child’s voice was of the sweetest, as full and natural as a bird’s; and then came a round of applause. Hamilton hushed it, rather angrily. “Would ye slam down the lid of the virginal while the last notes still ring in it?” he said. “Unfeeling dolts!”

Sweet music touched him; perhaps it was the only gentleness that could. It wrought a glamour which willy-nilly fooled his better reason. It did so now, conscious as he was of his own enthralment. Here was no longer a child adventuress, but a plaintive innocent, melodiously sorrowing in Nature’s very voice. He was never a giver in the disinterested sense; now the song decided a point on which he had hitherto wavered. He turned impulsively to the landlord.

“What is her debt?” said he. “I discharge it.”

“Thirty shillings and a groat,” answered the other promptly.

“Knock off the groat,” said Hamilton, “for your contribution. What, man, who calls the tune must pay the piper.”

He would hear no remonstrances, but waved the innkeeper away. “Come aside with me,” he said to the girl; and, very willingly it seemed, she obeyed. He led her to a table apart, where he sat her down, himself facing her, and there was none of the company rash enough to question by so much as a snigger that implied claim to privacy in a public place. Most dispersed about their business, while the few who remained gave the couple a respectfully wide berth.

“Now,” said Hamilton, “who are you, pretty one?”

“A poor deserted wife, kind sir,” she answered, “as ever wedded a villain.”

“A wife—you baby!”

“Please, I was married in long clothes,” said she.

“And who taught you that song?”

“Grief,” she said—“and Mr. Bedding.”

“Your husband?”

“O, no!” says she. “There was no bedding with him.”

He conned her shrewdly. He was already beginning to recover himself, and to suspect a hussy under this rose.

“Why not?” he said.

“He was that jealous,” she answered, “if the moon looked in at the window, he would accuse me of making eyes at the man in her.”

“That was in Wiltshire?”

“Where our home was, sure.”

“And so you left him?”

“Mr. Bedding came by, and took me to sing for him. But a strolling company was never to my taste.”

“So you left it and came to town?”

“I went home again.”

“To your husband?”

“No, he was gone.”

“Gone?”

“He had taken umbrage, as they call it—he was always one to mind a little thing—and off’d with it to Jericho, leaving me nothing but his curse—not so much as a sixpence beside.”

“And so you followed him—to Jericho?”

“Not I. I followed my own inclinations, and they brought me here.”

“Well, inclinations spend more than they hoard, as a rule. Haven’t you found it so?”

“Sure, I’ve no need to hoard, when kind gentlemen pay my bills for me.”

“That’s as it may be, Mrs. —— By the by, what is your name?”

“Mary Davis, by your leave, kind sir; but my intimates call me Moll. Please, what is yours?”

“George Hamilton, Moll.”

“That’s a good name, George. Are you of the King’s Court?”

“I’ve been there.”

“I do so long to see the King—a dear, kind gentleman. They call him in our parts the father of his people. Is he?”

“Well,—of quite a number of them. Why do you want to see the King?”

“Only—O, just to see him!”

George wagged a finger at the artless young baggage.

“O-ho! Mrs. Mollinda,” says he. “Does the wind lie that way? You have begun early, true enough; and you’ll not fail for lack of confidence in your pretty wits. But it’s a long climb from the cradle to the four-poster.” He laughed. “Upon my word—the baby’s assurance! and by way of such obstacles!”

She turned pained, troubled eyes on the scoffer, making as if to rise.

“What have I said in my innocence?”

“Nothing at all,” says he. “Your innocence never spoke a word. But, by God! your looks are voluble. I’ faith, you’re the sweetest darling, Mrs. Moll, and for that I’ll be your friend, if you will, as a decent young gentleman should. What would you have me do? Find your husband for you?”

“Alack! Is that to be my friend?”

“The best, maybe—but by and by. Who knows? He may come to serve us with royalty yet. Do you trust me, Moll?”

“Sure a poor girl like me must live on trust.”

“So she must, and live very well too. Did that rogue of a landlord really keep you fast?”

“On my honour he did.”

“Don’t swear by false idols.”

“What have I said now?”

“That he put you on your honour.”

“No, that he did not. My honour’s not for such as him.”

“No, indeed. It flies at higher game. Well, he must keep you still, for a while.”

“Not he!”

“He must, I say. You must bide here till I can arrange of your fortunes. I’m but by the road, and will come again anon. Never fear; I’ll see you well provided. But you must lie close for the moment, if you would have my help.”

“In what?”

“To see the King, of course.”

She clapped her little hands in artless glee.

“Shall I see the King?”

“See him and sing to him, perhaps. In the meantime you’re mine to dispose of. Is it a bargain?” He rose, and she with him, her expression downcast and demure. “That’s well,” said he. “Give me a buss, Mrs. Moll, in token of our understanding.”

He bent over the table, pulled her to him, and set his lips under the dangling curls. Then, being released, she ran with a face of fire to the steps, and, ascending them, to the accompaniment of an irrepressible guffaw or so from the spectators, paused a moment on the balcony above, hearing a jackass bray in the stables.

“What an echo there is in this place,” says she to the heads below, “when you gentlemen all laugh together!” and whisked into her room.

Hamilton, in the meantime, going to arrange terms with the landlord, grinned agreeably to his own thoughts. The chit had neither imposed on him nor, comely limb though she was, disorganized his emotions. Indeed, being deeply engaged at the moment to an intrigue which absorbed his most passionate energies, he had no appetite for supplementary complications. Still, beauty was beauty, and to invest in it, with whatever view to ultimate profit of one sort or the other, was never a bad principle. He had no conception at present of any use to which to put these covetable goods which good fortune had committed to his hands; but that he could find a use for them, and one that should be personally gainful, he never had a doubt. The only necessity was promptitude. He had seen enough to know that his hold on the skit was to be measured by just the length and elasticity of the tether by which he might strive to keep her under his nominal control. And that tether must be provided shortly, or she would scamper free of her own accord. But he was a man of distinguished resourcefulness in such matters, and he never questioned his own ability to convert this capture somehow to a profitable end. And in the meanwhile the girl was well disposed where no prowling town-bull might come by her to steal a march on him. Indeed, to make assurance double sure, he hinted to the landlord of a favour contingent on his holding himself responsible, as heretofore, for the safe custody of his guest, with a suggestion that locks which yielded themselves to the insidious manipulations of hairpins were better supplemented by stouter defences. And, having satisfied himself as to that, he departed.

CHAPTER II

IN a fine panelled room which gave, through two large windows, upon the privy gardens of Whitehall Palace, a lady and a gentleman were seated as far apart as the limits of the chamber would permit. She, in her place, worked at a sampler, or affected to work; and he, in his, read in a book, or affected to read.

The room was such as, with the best will in the world, we cannot, lacking its appropriate human furniture, preserve, or reproduce, in these days without vital loss to its character. We may possess the sombre panels, the rich-hued pictures with their gilded frames sufficiently illuminating the austerity, the Venetian glass girandoles, reflecting in the polished floor below, as in water, their starry opalescences; we may have, or acquire, the brass-studded, or the stamped leather, or the screw-railed chairs, the elaborately carved or the gate-legged tables, the priceless Persian rugs—which, by the by, are but an early fashion resumed—the gilt caskets and the silvered mirrors: we can not, unless to bring great ridicule upon ourselves, wear the long lovelocks down our cheeks, or the silk favours at our shoulders, or the jewelled cravats and beribboned hose and breeches, without which all the rest must figure but as an anachronism, a discordance, an Elgin marble ravished from its Parthenon, and lined up for show in a glass-roofed museum. That we do try to reconcile the irreconcilable in these matters, using Early English cradles as receptacles for our faggots, and hanging up our silk hats in antique ambries, is due to the fact that we have lost the art, or the instinct, for decorative appropriateness. In those remote but less “original” days the same mind that conceived the idol adorned its shrine.

But if fashions in dress change and change, there was never in all history but one fashion in human moods and tempers. Those, whether figured in love, hate, desire, or jealousy, have been worn since the Fall to the single unchangeable pattern which wrought and accompanied it. One could not, in fact, from the fashion of their minds, have distinguished these two seated apart from any ill-assorted married couple of to-day.

And yet they had been wedded Earl and Countess not so many months but that their differences might have less divorced them. That those amounted to what they did was entirely the fault of the husband, who had chosen deliberately to provoke an estrangement in perverse spite of a certain felt premonition that his villainy was about to recoil on his own head. He really was a villain, this Lord Chesterfield; if only in one essential a greater than most of the young fire-eating profligates of his time. That he had fought several duels, and killed his man in one at least of them, was nothing out of the common; that he had formed a number of loose attachments with petticoats of sorts was only to be expected of a gentleman of his rank and fortune; but that he had wedded with his young Countess on such terms of opportunism and self-interest as were a disgrace to himself and an outrage to her—there was the unpardonable sin. He had wantonly insulted her jealousy; to be rent and mangled by the yellow demon in his turn would serve him excellently right.

The long and the short of the situation is explained in a few words. A certain Mrs. Palmer, who had secured the King’s favour to that extent that letters patent to the Earldom of Castlemaine were already in process of being prepared for her husband, had not failed to qualify herself before her exaltation, it was said, for the sort of business which had procured it; and prominent among her admirers had been named his lordship of Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope. This mature young gentleman—some twenty-eight years of age at the time of which we write—had in consequence found himself a person somewhat “suspect” and ill-considered in the royal regard, and being very willing, in his own interests, to propitiate his master by disavowing the least thought of rivalry with him in the matter of the lady’s favour, had, as the surest proof of his sincerity, paid forthwith his ardent devoirs to a daughter of the Duke of Ormonde, a young lady, conventually bred, of the sweetest looks and innocence. In brief, his suit had sped so well with this darling that their union had not been long in following the days of fervid courtship; when, having secured his object, the perfidious creature dropped his mask, and gave his young wife indirectly but very plainly to understand that his passion for her had been a pretence, that a former idol was by no means dethroned in his heart, and that he had no longer personal use for the affection which he had been at the pains to excite for no other purpose than to throw dust in the eyes of a certain distinguished individual. He had not, of course, said this in so many words; but he had let his manner, his neglect, his indifference imply what amounted to a confession of it in a fashion which was unmistakable, and which no woman, however unsophisticated, could misread, and not one in ten thousand fail to resent.

The young Countess resented it, naturally. She resented it, I am not going so far as to say, as one in her situation might resent it at this day; but she resented it conformably to the different standard of morals which prevailed in her own, and which did not leave even a delicately bred ingénue in complete illusionment as to the conduct of men in general and husbands in particular. She had lived for a year, moreover, within echo of the scandals at Whitehall—where her father, as Lord High Steward, held a prominent position—and enough may have filtered through to her ears therefrom to correct any extravagant notions she might once have formed as to the ideality of the married state. Still, and when all is said, the fine depths of her nature found themselves grievously outraged in this application of a common rule to her particular case; while, being a girl of spirit as well as sense, the desire to retaliate in form on such perfidy awoke in her bosom a passion dangerous to its young security. It was not enough, she felt, to retort on coldness with coldness; she must teach this scorner of her affections the estimate placed by others on a possession of which he did not appear to realize the value, and by opening his eyes through a sense of loss, make him suffer, helplessly and in excess, those very pangs of jealousy with which he had wantonly inflicted her.

A perilous policy; but one actuated, at least in its inception, by the most righteous of motives. The bee that stings deep, however, too often destroys itself in the loss of its own weapon; and so it may be with offended chastity. This young Countess, seeking about for an instrument with which to achieve her purpose, came near to her downfall in the choice which opportunity, not to speak of kinship, imposed on her. Mr. George Hamilton, her cousin-german, was its name.

Now see her as she sits affecting to work, with an occasional glance askance, half derisive, half wistful, at her husband’s pretended preoccupation, and admit that she is proposing to herself a very risky course in thus feigning to lease her charms to a tenant so unscrupulous as Master George. The young wit of her, the natural delicacy warring with passion, the emotions engendered of such a combat; and all housed in a form as pretty as that of a Dresden shepherdess, as pink and white, as endearing in its childish bloom—what could these all be but so many provocations to a man of Hamilton’s antecedents to play, by diverting to his own advantage the sensibilities so fondly entrusted to his sympathy, the part of Machiavellian seducer? He never hesitated, as a fact, but started at once to sort the hand which Fortune had so gratuitously thrust upon him. It was his good luck at the outset that his cousinship, aided and abetted by his close intimacy with the Earl, gave him the entrée at all times into those quarters at Whitehall which Chesterfield enjoyed in right of his position as Groom of the Stole to her Majesty; but, like the practised intrigant that he was, he used his privilege with discretion. He was really, to do him justice, very enamoured of the lady; and, according to his code, free of all moral responsibility in seeking to make a cuckold of a man who, though he was his personal friend and confidant, had chosen deliberately to invite such reprisals on the part of a faith he had grossly abused. At the same time, he did not under-estimate the delicacy of his task, or the strength of the instinctive prejudices he had to overcome; though sure enough such obstacles but added a zest to the pursuit. What as yet he did not guess was that his own eyes were not alone, nor even the most compelling, in having discovered and marked down for capture a tender prey which circumstances seemed to have made quite peculiarly attainable. In short, his Majesty’s brother, the Duke of York, was already suspected of a leaning in the same direction.

Poor little, abused Countess! But perhaps it would be better not to pity her prematurely.

She threw down her work, on a sudden uncontrollable impulse, and rising to her feet, looked across at the insensible bear opposite. Some emotion of love and forbearance was working, it seemed, in her; she hesitated an instant, gazing with full eyes, the knuckles of her little right hand held to her lips, then hurried across the room, and addressed her husband.

“Cannot we be friends, Philip, before it is—too late?”

He did not even stir, but just raised his lids indolently and offensively. He was, to do him justice, a personable man as to his upper half, with a fine head of mouse-coloured hair and a ready brain under it; but irresolution spoke in his legs, which were weedy, and so, inasmuch as the strength of a rope is its weakest part, affected the stability of the entire structure, physical and moral. He was, in fact, a waverer and unreliable, overbearing to others because uncertain of himself, much subject to moods and passions, and always, as is the case with those whose vanity is up in arms at the least suspicion of criticism, more disposed to force his way by rudeness than to win it by consideration. But he was skilled with his sword, and that, in a quarrelsome age, procured him a better title to respect than a hundred courtesies would have done.

“Too late for what?” he drawled languidly.

She made a little gesture of helplessness, then rallied to her task.

“Is this,” she said, “the natural fruit of the love you expressed for me, before—before I became your wife?”

“When you talk of Nature, madam,” he answered, stirring and yawning, then relapsing into his apathetic attitude, “you forget that with her a single season covers the whole contract of matrimony.”

“Then is our season ended?”

“You are Lady Chesterfield,” he said. “Is not that sufficient answer?”

“I want no wifehood without love, Philip. Has so little of me proved so much?”

He shrugged in a way which might have meant anything or nothing. She went on—

“Or did you woo me under false pretences from the first, making me, as I more than suspect, merely your unconscious stalking-horse to the King’s favour?”

He laughed, but a little uneasily.

“You get these fancies into your head,” he said.

“I do,” she answered; “but they come, I think, to stay. They are not like your fancies—for this woman or the other—that can be put off or on to suit your worldly convenience. The King has claimed one of your fancies, has he not, my lord—a wedded woman, too, Barbara Palmer by name? That was a shameful thing for both of you; but most shameful for the man who could deceive an innocent maid to curry favour with his sovereign. Did you not marry me to show him your heart was wholly divorced from that earlier idol?”

He drew in his breath, with an oath.

“By God, madam, this is too much!”

“It is too much, indeed,” she said. And then suddenly she held out entreating hands, her eyes brimming.

“Philip, I could forgive you that—even that—it was before you knew me—if only you would be to me again what you seemed. Will you, Philip? If any suspicion of my learning and resenting the truth has caused this coldness in you, keeping you aloof in your pride, O, forget it! I am not exacting; I know what men must be. Say only that you hold me in your true heart above that—that woman, and I will pardon you everything. Philip, before it is too late!”

He started furiously to his feet, flinging the book in his hand away from him.

“Pardon! Too late! That threat again! Zounds, madam, you presume. I neither guess nor heed your meaning. I cherish an image, do I? Very well, I cherish it. As to yourself, you are distasteful to me. For what reason? Simply because you are you—no other in the world, I assure you. And, if that is not enough——”

He stopped, checked in the midst of his wrath by the look in the eyes before him. It was not submission or fright; it was the spark of a new amazed dawn. That he had said the thing he could never recall occurred to him suddenly with an odd sick qualm. He tried to recover the thread of his discourse, but only to have it tail off into inarticulate stammerings.

“Enough?” she said in a low voice. “O, truly—and to spare. Distasteful! Am I that to you? Why, so are all sweets to the carrion-loving dog. Well, I am well content to have your loathing, sir. Will you please be gone: there is nothing noisome here to tempt your palate. Distasteful!” She took a step forward, a single one, and his eyes flickered. He thought, perhaps, she was going to strike him. “Now, listen to this,” she said. “I will never, before God, utter word to you again till you have gone down on your knees to me and asked my pardon for that insult.”

She turned her shoulder on him and walked apart. He watched her, lowering, and forced a laugh he meant for one of mockery.

“Silence between us!” he said. “Be assured I make a second, madam, in that welcome compact.”

He sat down again, and, picking up his book, affected to become absorbed in it. But all the time his pulses were thumping and his eyes furtively conning the rebel over the leaf edges. A spot of bright colour was on her cheek; she trilled a little air, as she seated herself in her former position, as naturally and light-heartedly as if she had never a trouble in the world. “Damn her!” he thought. “To take the upper hand of me like that!” His fury heaved and fermented in him like yeast in a dough-pan. He sneered at her pretence of cheerful abstraction. “She is thinking of me,” he reflected, “as I am of her.”

He tried to escape her image, to get genuinely interested in his book; but his indignation—and something else, that qualmish something—would always come between. To be faced and flouted by this bantling, adjudged and sentenced of her furious young disdain! It was intolerable—not to be endured. A dozen times he twitched, on the verge of an explosion, and a dozen times, with an ever-diminishing heat, restrained himself. It was true enough, he thought, as his fume evaporated, that he had not condescended to tact in his repulse of her. Diplomatically, at least, he should have been more tender of her feelings, have attained his end more surely without brutality. She had some reason for her resentment; and he must admit she had looked well in expressing it. A clear conscience burned with a clear fire, and there was something cleanly piquant in the warmth it emitted. It gave his arid veins a new sensation. Comparing those immature lines with the fuller which had hitherto besotted his fancy, he found a curious interest in studying them. It was like extracting a fresh, slender, white kernel from its grosser husk—a sweet and rather tasty discovery. Had his eyes been at fault, and his palate? Infatuation, perhaps, had blinded the one and cloyed the other. Well, he might come yet to humour this situation—even to atone in some measure for the unkindness of which he had been guilty. But not at once! She must be taught her little lesson before he could afford to unbend. She was really a pretty child, when all was said and done—a brunette, with large blue eyes appealing and alluring, and a complexion like china roses. The rest, did he choose to will it, should come to ripen in the sun of love, like a peach hung on a wall. There was a thrill in the sense of that power possessed and withheld. With a sigh that was half a new rapture, he turned resolutely to his reading.

And at that moment Mr. George Hamilton was announced. He entered gaily, looking the pink of health and comeliness, and, nodding a cheery greeting to my lord his friend, went to the lady, like one full confident of his privileged position.

“Good-morrow, cousin,” quoth he.

She dropped her hands, with her work, into her lap, and, leaning forward, looked up into his face with a smile.

“You are welcome, cousin,” she answered. “I was bored, i’ faith.”

He just glanced at the husband, and laughed.

“In such company, Kate?”

She raised innocent brows. “What company? My own, do you mean? There is none other here but sticks and stocks.”

“Well, say I meant your own. Can that bore you?”

“O, faith, it can!”

“O, faith, then, you’re hard to please!”

“’Tis proof I’m not, for your saying so pleases me. Lord, what a novelty to hear a compliment!”

He conned her with a puzzled air, then took the piece of work from her hands and stood quizzing it.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A sampler,” she answered. “Have you never seen one before?”

“Not in your hands.”

“It has been in my hands, nevertheless, for—O God, I don’t know! Fifty years, belike. I began it when I was a little girl, and time goes slowly in these days.” She jumped to her feet, and stood at his shoulder, pointing out the figures of the design. “Do you see? Here’s what I noted most, put down as in a commonplace book—people and texts, and even animals, including a number of my friends. Am I not a Lely in portraiture, cousin? Here’s my dear nurse, and here my governess to the life.”

“To the knife, she looks rather. Who’s this—your father?”

“Of course, stupid.”

“Do you put in none but those you favour?”

“O no! Here and there is one distasteful.”

“Was this a favourite cat?”

She pouted.

“No, sir, a dog.”

“And here’s your husband?”

“No, another dog.”

“H’m! You can get a likeness, indeed.”

My lord, slamming down his book somewhat violently, got to his feet with a haste which seemed to belie the leisureliness of the stretch and yawn which followed.

“Am I not to have my place among the favoured?” says Hamilton.

“Would you like it?” questioned the artful rogue. “I should be hard put to’t to portray so perfect a gentleman. They have not come my way of late. What hath happened to your brooch, cousin? Stay while I refasten it for you.”

He lifted his chin obediently, while she manipulated, with deft, slender fingers, the jewel at his cravat. My lord, with a quick, loud clearing of his throat, started and came across the room.

“What, George!” said he. “I vow I was so lost in what I read I hardly noted you. What’s wrong with your cravat?”

Hamilton, his head still tilted, responded brusquely but nosily—“It’s chokid be, that’s all.”

Her little ladyship laughed.

“I’ll be done in a moment, poor man.”

“Zounds!” blustered her husband. “Here, let me fasten it!”

She ignored him altogether.

“How sweet you smell, cousin!” she said. “Is it kissing-comfits?”

“That’s for sweet lips to answer,” gurgled Hamilton.

My lord, in a vicious spasm, gripped the little wrist and wrenched it from its task. Hamilton cried “Damnation!” and my lady, putting the wounded limb to her mouth, looked up at him with wide appealing eyes.

“Some beast has hurt me,” she said. “Take care of yourself, cousin, while I go and bathe it.”

Half crying, she turned away and ran from the room. The moment she was gone the two men bristled upon one another, my lord opening with a snarl—

“There are limits, sir, to my forbearance.”

“The first I’ve known of them,” was the sharp response.

“What’s that?”

“Why, what I say.”

“My wife——”

“Is she your wife? One would never guess it from the way you treat her.”

“My wife, I say——”

“We’ll take her word for’t—not yours.”

“Do you quarrel with me, George?”

“I’ faith, I’m her kinsman, Phil.”

“You take the privileges of one.”

“Better I than another, for your sins.”

My lord gulped, as if he were taking a pill; then forced a propitiatory smile.

“Why, I confess I have sinned, George; and you mean me well, no doubt. But I’ll be damned if I’ll be lessoned, even by a cousin.”

“Then learn from a less scrupulous quarter. There’ll be plenty to gather the fruit you let hang over the wall.”

He was going, but the other stopped him; hurriedly.

“What’s that? No, tarry awhile, George. Zounds, man, can’t you see my state?”

He was so suddenly solicitous, so eager in his entreaty, that Hamilton paused in wonder, and turned to face him.

“Why,” said he, “let me look at you. I believe—anno mirabile!—I do believe you’re jealous. Philip Stanhope jealous, and of his wife!”

Chesterfield chuckled foolishly.

“What are the symptoms?”

“Yellow, sir, yellow—a very jaundice of the eye. Why, what hath happened between yesterday and to-day?”

“Nothing, I tell you—or perhaps everything. Is she so much admired?”

“Is Kate? Can you ask, who have eyes and senses?”

“I think I’ve been at fault.”

“Tell her so, then.”

“Why, that’s the devil o’t. We’re not on speaking terms.”

Hamilton sneered.

“So, it’s come to a head with her? And who but a blind dullard would ever have failed to foresee that end? Yet, with one so gracious, it must have needed a foul provocation to drive her to such extremes. What, may I ask, was the deciding insult?”

“I’ll be frank. I told her she was distasteful to me.”

Hamilton threw up his hands.

“Ye gods! And he can talk of speaking terms! Be thankful if she ever looks at you again.”

His lordship winced.

“Not? She hath sweet eyes, too. I own I spoke in temper, and said a silly thing.”

“Silly! Have you never heard of a woman scorned? You’ve lost her before you’ve found her.”

“No, no. I trust you, George: damn it, man, I trust you! I know you are my friend. Tell me—what shall I do?”

“To reconcile you?”

“Aye.”

“Too sudden an exodus this! Turn tail, I advise, and get back to your flesh-pots.”

“Carrion, she called it, and me a dog. The savour sticks somehow; I can’t go back to carrion. Let the King enjoy his own for me: I’m content with mine.”

“She your own? Any man’s, rather, after that.”

“Don’t say so! George——” He put a twitching hand on Hamilton’s sleeve. He seemed quite transformed in these few minutes; smitten out of the blue, and, under that rankling wound, lusting for what he had despised. There are those who, tyrannous to love’s submission, fall slaves to love’s disdain. Here was one who, expelled from Paradise, found himself, as it were, naked and ashamed. “I’d concede something,” he said, “to be on terms with her again—not all her condition, curse it, but something substantial.”

“What was her condition?”

“She swore she’d never speak word to me again till I’d gone on my knees to her to ask her pardon.”

“That was before you’d hurt her, physically. She’ll want more now.”

“What more?”

“Likely a separation.”

“I’ll not grant it.”

“She’ll take it her own way, never fear.”

“What way?”

“Why, the way of all provoked wives. You should know.”

Chesterfield broke from him, and, taking half a dozen agitated steps, wheeled and returned to the charge.

“Let her, then, and be damned to her! And yet, that ‘carrion’! George, there’s something in purity.”

“How do you know?”

“I wouldn’t be the cause of her committing herself. That would be a foul return for her trust.”

“You’re very virtuous and considerate of a sudden.”

“I must go some lengths to save her.”

“Go on your knees, do you mean?”

“Would she forgive me, if I did?”

“She might pretend to—just to quiet your suspicions.”

“Curse you for a comfortless friend!” He went off again, and again wheeled and flung back. “Zounds, man, can’t you see what is the case with me?”

“A case of love at first sight, it seems to me.”

“I believe, on my honour, you’re right.”

“You do? So you’ve never looked at your wife till now?”

“Not with these eyes.”

“Well, on my word, I’m sorry for you.”

“Why? Why are you sorry?”

“Late comers to the feast, you know, must be content with bones.”

He laughed provokingly. My lord’s jaw seemed to drop.

“You’ve no reason to suspect her?” he demanded.

“None whatever.”

“Then, why——?”

“Hark ye, Phil; I know my young cousin—and I know women. She’s bound, in self-respect, to refute your outrageous calumny by offering herself to be tasted elsewhere.”

“A pox on my peevish tongue! Don’t say I’ve gone too far for hope, George.”

“We’ll say, at least, for simple remedies.”

“What desperate ones, then, in God’s name?”

Hamilton considered, frowning heavily, while the other hung feverishly on his verdict. The young man was, in truth, in a quandary. Everything hitherto had been favouring his purposed intrigue—the husband’s indifference, the wife’s grievance, and her natural affection for him, her cousin. That, under the circumstances, had been easily manœuvred into a warmer feeling. He had his sympathy with her neglected state for a leading asset; he had calculated upon Chesterfield’s consistent callousness and blindness. Now, this sudden and unexpected revulsion of feeling on the nobleman’s part had upset all his designs. A reconciliation between the couple was the last thing in the world he desired to bring about; his interests lay, rather, in widening the breach. To effect the latter while appearing to assist the former must be from this time his insidious policy. He cudgelled his brains for inspiration, and suddenly he looked up.

“There’s only one remedy I can think of,” he said. “No other amends you could make would be adequate to the offence. You might go down on your knees to her, and she would forgive and despise you; you might kiss and be friends, and she would smile, and turn away to wipe her lips. No self-abasement could atone for such an insult; but it would rather wake in her disgust for one so poor in spirit that he dared not back his own slander. Yet what she would never yield, despite pretence, to recantation and apology, she might to jealousy.”

“Jealousy?”

“Distasteful, Phil—think of that!—you called her distasteful! And so to see you dally with some fruit more to your liking! What a madness, then, would be hers, to oust the interloper, to seize her place, to convince you of the lovelier flavour of that you had insulted and rejected. Be bold and dare it. Force her into taking the initiative in this game of passion, and you’ll win her yet, whole and unsullied.”

So spake the wily serpent, his eyes furtive, looking to confirm the breach while feigning a way to close it. My lord stared before him, glum and unconvinced.

“’Tis a cursed risk,” he said. “What if it should fail?”

“Then everything would fail. The gods themselves are subject to Fate; and Fate is jealousy. If jealousy cannot work the oracle, then nothing can.”

“It would be simpler to enforce her.”

“Much; and to drive her straightway upon other consolation. But do as you will. It is your concern, and if we differ as to the means——”

“No, no. Keep your temper, George! Damn it, man, keep your temper! I believe you may be right, after all.” He stood glowering, and biting his nails. “What fruit to dally with? What pretty gull?” he said. “You don’t say, and it would have to be before her face, I presume?”

A laugh, timely converted into a cough, gurgled in Hamilton’s throat. Here was the way opened to the working of a certain dare-devil scheme, which had already flashed upon him in outline while he meditated. With hardly a thought he jumped to it.

“As to that,” he said soberly, “by the happiest of chances the means are offered you, and immediately, by Kate herself. She has a young friend about to visit her, as she tells me—a Mrs. Moll Davis—some pretty tomrig from the country; and what could better serve your purpose than she? Kate’s own friend—why, ’tis a very providence!”

Chesterfield grinned sourly.

“I must see her first.”

A lackey entered at the moment, bringing a summons from the Queen. My lord was wanted by her Majesty, and he might curse and “pish,” but he had to obey. He sniggered round, as he made for the door.

“More of this anon. Don’t go till I return. Jealousy it is, George.”

“Jealousy, Phil.”

Hamilton waved his hand, and turned, as the door shut on the departing figure. Then, with his fingers at his chin and a grin on his face, he stood to consider the game to which he had committed himself.

CHAPTER III

MEN of pleasure, and of roguery to boot, were not, in King Charles’s time, much concerned as a rule over the logical consequences of their pranks. They took the day improvidently, like the grasshopper—“nicked the glad moments as they passed”—and gave little thought to the reckonings of the morrow. The “unities,” in any comedy they enacted, were of less moment to them than the general spirit of frolic, and so long as the situations afforded entertainment, they bestowed small thought on the dénouement. In the making or the marring of an intrigue the fun was in the process, and they seldom looked beyond to count the costs. So, when Hamilton conceived his plot, he had not, one must understand, foreseen any definite conclusion for it. It was enough that what he was proposing to himself served the immediate purpose of his amiable villainy.

As to that, his business was to make absolute the estrangement between these two; whence his crafty counsel to the Earl, who had not failed to rise to that insidious bait. He knew very well that, in spite of all that had happened, any genuinely contrite advances on the husband’s part would be sure to be met halfway by the wife, who was really a reasonable and forgiving little creature; wherefore it was necessary for him to convince her, timely and by ocular demonstration, of the vanity of any lingering hopes she might be entertaining of remorse and repentance on the part of a delinquent spouse. It was never to be supposed for a moment that she would answer to that test of jealousy in the manner he had professed to predict; it would be certain, on the contrary, to alienate the last of her consideration from one who could so wantonly and callously abuse it. She would turn from the heartless creature in a final disgust—to seek, according to all the rules of intrigue, consolation of the nearest sympathy; whereon it would remain only for him, her cousin and confidant, to reap the fruits of the emotional situation he had so cunningly engineered.

That was his hope and belief; but his plan yet lacked completeness. The deception he had contrived was but half a deception so long as it missed its counterpart. How to provide that must be his next consideration.

As he pondered, he heard a light step behind him, and turned to see the lady herself. She had come in very softly, and now stood before him, a rather piteous expression on her face. Her right arm, ostensibly the maltreated one, rested in a sling—black, that there might be no mistake about it—and, as long as she remembered, she winced when it was touched.

“Cousin,” she said, “I am very unhappy. What have I done to be so abused?”

“I’ faith, I know not,” said he, smiling; “unless it was you spoke before his face of a kissing in which he had no share.”

“I spoke but in play. I am an honest wife.”

“Don’t cry your goods too loud, Kate, or men may question them. The soundest wares need the least recommendation.”

“I am, I say; and if I were not, how should it affect him that hates me so?”

“Nay, you go too far.”

“Indeed, he said as much—that I was distasteful to him.”

“Did he say that?”

She set her teeth.

“And shall unsay it; or I will never speak word to him again?”

“So? I’m sorry, on my word, cousin.”

“Did you not quarrel with him?”

“For what he did to you?”

“Yes. You could not know what he’d said.”

“We had words, I confess.”

“About what? Is he jealous of you?”

“What if he were, Kate?”

She clenched her little left fist in wrathful glee.

“Is he? I could love to believe it.”

“Why?” He looked at her eagerly.

“To make him suffer for me what I’ve suffered for him.”

“Jealousy?”

“He would not hate me then.”

The face of the arch-plotter fell.

“I see you love him through all,” he said sourly.

“Why should I not love him?” she answered. “He is my husband.”

Hamilton pulled himself together. “This faith,” he thought, with an acid thrill, “is worth converting.”

“Why indeed?” said he. “Well, I don’t know if he’s jealous of me or not; but if that’s your recipe for curing him, we two might make a plausible conspiracy of it. Shall we rehearse the business now, Kate?”

He put a persuasive hand on her arm. She bethought herself, and squeaked out.

“You hurt me, cousin”—and she backed a little. “A play like ours is only make-believe.”

“But sure,” said he, “the best actors are those who, even in rehearsal, try to realize their parts to the life.”

He approached her again, offering to put his arm about her, and at that she, forgetting her injury, whipped her little fist out of its sling, and delivered him a sound box of the ear with it.

“There!” she said.

“Emphatically there,” he answered, holding his palm to the suffering auricle. “You cat!”

She bridled like one, her eyes glittering. He pointed a derisive finger at the dangling sling.

“Hadn’t you better put off that pretence?”

“O!” she said, and thrust her hand again into the loop.

“Now,” said he, “you may find another instrument for your purpose. I’m done with you.”

Her brow puckered, and her lip went down.

“You’re never going to abandon me in my trouble?” she said.

She looked so bewitching so forlorn, his heart could not help softening to her.

“If I do not,” he said, “it must be on softer terms than yet.”

“Was my hand so hard?” she pleaded penitently.

“’Tis for the lips, not the ear to decide,” said he. “Give it me, if you would hear kinder news of it.”

She hung back a little, then reluctantly acquiesced. He mouthed the flushed palm, till she snatched it away.

“Be good, please,” she said.

“It blushes for its naughty deed,” he declared. “But it is forgiven.”

“Now,” she said, “will you not be serious and give me good advice?”

“That is not always palatable, you know.”

“It is the way with healing drugs.”

“Ah! If it might only heal!”

He sighed, and shook his head, with a look of commiseration.

“What do you mean?” she asked, alarmed—“that there is no cure possible?”

“I’m sorry for you, in truth I am,” he said despondently, “if you still love him as you admit, and I wish I could think that your policy of silence, or your policy of jealousy, or your policy of anything in the world would bring Philip Stanhope to his senses. But, alack, my dear! I fear ’tis all thrown away upon him, and that his inconstancy is irreclaimable. Why, at this very moment, while you are calculating a means to his reformation, he is, to my knowledge, scheming to have to his house here a country fancy of his, one Molly Davis, whom he calls his cousin.”

She heard and stiffened.

“A country fancy!”

“O! I breathe no wrong of her,” he said; “and she may be his cousin—left-handed—for all I know. A sprightly wench, at least, that somehow met and tickled his humour; and he’ll have her to stay with him on that plea of kinship. But it’s for you to question him, if you will.”

“I!” The white scorn of her! the lifted lip, and wrinkle in the little nose! “Did you not hear me say I had sworn never to speak to him again?”

“Conditionally, that was.”

“No longer. Never, and never, and never. In this house! Before my very face. O, it cannot be true!”

“Well, perhaps he only jested.”

She moved, and, forgetting her sling again, put a fierce young hand on his sleeve. “You called her his fancy.”

“A man may fancy in a woman more or less than she desires. It may be her wit, when she’d give the world it were her face.”

“Is she witty, then?”

“No doubt he thinks so.”

“And ugly?”

“Betwixt and between.”

“You have seen her?”

“More or less.”

“I only asked of her face.”

“It was a bad light. She lies at an inn in the town called ‘The Mischief.’”

“She lies well. Well, thank you, cousin.”

Her features relaxed in a wonderful way. One might have thought her suddenly convinced and at ease. With a sigh that seemed to dissipate all her scruples, she chassé’d a retreating step or two, and twirled, and dropped a little mocking curtsey to the gentleman.

“I must go now,” she said. “You have been very entertaining, Signor George, and—and there is no cure for blindness like——”

“Like what?”

“Like seeing, you know.”

His brows went up, perplexed. “Have I been so whimsical?”

“Infinitely, I assure you—the drollest, most diverting cousin—tra-la-la!”

“But sympathetic, I hope, Kate?”

“O, believe me, that isn’t the word for it—tra-la-la!”

“You know you can always depend upon me for help and advice?”

“O, most disinterestedly!”

His jaw seemed to stick as he opened it to answer. She laughed, as she turned her back on him.

“Ah!” he breathed out. “I see you’ll make it up with Philip yet.”

With a stamp of her foot, she flared round on him in a final spasm of anger.

“You dare to say so! I tell you, once and for all, that from this moment it is eternal silence between us.”

He watched her, from under lowered lids, and with a furtive smile on his lips, sweep from the room, then twitched up his shoulders to a noiseless laugh. To make certain of her fixed resolution—that was why he had provoked her to that last retort. Now at length it should be safe for him to act. If only that dubious manner of hers had left him with more conviction as to his own ultimate profit in the matter! But like enough it had been mere coquetry.

He left Whitehall shortly, and made his way to “The Mischief” Inn, where he found Mrs. Davis bored to death over her confinement to her room, and in a very fractious mood.

“Have you come to take me away?” she said. “You called yourself my friend.”

“Why, so I am,” he answered. “What have I done to disprove it?”

“You’ve done nothing, sure; and that’s what.”

“Didn’t I pay your reckoning?”

“O! it’s true you opened the trap door; but you must go and tie me by the tail first.”

He laughed.

“’Twas to keep my country mouse from the gib-cats. No reflection on her.”

“So to keep her from the cats you set a dog on her. A nice one I owe you for that beast of a landlord.”

“Well, he’s called off, and here am I to redeem my word. Will you come with me?”

“Where to?”

“To the tailor and the haberdasher first of all. Will that suit you?”

“Very well—if another pays.”

“So? That’s settled, then. We must have you dressed to the part.”

“What part?” She affected, perhaps felt, a passing perturbation, but it served for no more than to add a thrill to her voice. And then, suddenly, her eyes brightened. “Have you got me a London engagement, George?” she said—“perhaps in the King’s theatre!”—and she clasped her hands rapturously.

“Why,” said he, “an engagement, true enough; but ’tis on the human stage.”

Her lip fell dolefully.

“O, curse that!”

“Mrs. Moll,” he said, “I shall be obliged if you will study to express your feelings less epigrammatically.”

“What’s that?” she said.

“Why, in your case, ’tis another word for cursing.”

“I only know of one other,” said she; “but I’ll damn it with all my heart, if that likes you better.”

“I like neither one nor t’other: ’tis to turn to ‘bitter-sweets’ those cherry-seeming lips of yours, and make poison of their nectar.”

She was sitting at the table, her elbows propped on it, her chin on her fists, and, so disposed, she put out her tongue at him.

“Gingumbobs!” she said; and that was all.

“And, in short,” said he, rising—for he too was seated—“I think I’ll say good day to you.”

Sobered at once, she jumped to her feet, and intercepted him. “What have I said, sure? Don’t never mind a silly wench. I’ll do what you want of me—there!”

He stood arrested, but as if unwillingly.

“I doubt your capacity, child; or your art to curb your tongue. A fig for that when Moll is Moll; but once she shapes herself to my designs, good speech must go with good looks.”

She seemed as if she would cry.

“George, I’ll curb it. I did but jest with you. Haven’t I learned my speaking parts, and said them to the letter, too, without one extra oath?” She was stroking his arms up and down; her fingers wandered to his hands, and gave themselves softly to that refuge; her lifted eyes were full of azure pain. “Tell me what you desire of me,” she said with pretty wooing.

“Why, discretion first and last,” he answered. “Have you got it?”

“Haven’t I! Why, look how particular I can be in the choice of my friends.”

“You’ll have to play a double part.”

“Twice tenpence is two and sixpence, George. It ought to pay me.”

“It ought and shall, if you’re clever. Help me to bring about a thing I much desire, and your fortunes, as I promised, shall be made my care.”

He questioned the young uplifted face. Her hands were still held in his.

“Was the thing born a girl?” she said. He laughed, but did not answer, and she seemed to muse, her lids lowered. “What a pretty gentleman you are, George!” she said absently, by and by. “I never guessed at first, when you came that unhandsome off the road, what fine clothes could make of you. Why are you going to take me to the haberdasher’s?”

“To prink you out for great company, child.”

She looked up breathlessly.

“Not the King’s!”

“All in good time,” he said—“if you please me.”

“Well,” she said, looking down again, “I’ll do my best—saving my honour. Will that please you?”

“Faith,” says the gentleman coolly, “if you save it at the expense of another’s.”

She drew back a little.

“Not a woman’s?”

“Never fear, Mrs. Moll. ’Tis your pretty rogue’s face and your ready impudence I wish for a bait, and they’d catch no woman, believe me. Come, are you prepared to engage them in my service?”

She primmed her lips, holding up a finger.

“Discretion,” she said. “I’ll answer when I’m told.”

He nodded, and, leading her apart from betraying keyholes, seated himself and pulled her to a chair beside him.

“Now,” said he, “give me your little lovely ear, while I whisper in it.”

She sat at attention like a mouse, while he spoke his low-voiced scheme to her. Mischief, intelligence, secret laughter waited on her lips and eyes as she leaned to listen, sometimes shaking her curls, sometimes whispering the softest little “yes” or “no.” And when at last it was all said, she jumped to her feet with a laugh that was like glass bells, and clapped her hands merrily, while her companion sat, one arm akimbo, regarding her with a pleasant waiting expression.

“Well,” he said; “you’ll do it?”

She strutted, assuming the grand air, and swept a curtsey.

“I am my lord Chesterfield’s most obliged,” she said throatily.

Hamilton rose with a grin.

“You will, I can see,” said he. “It’s really simple if you will only bear in mind this main assurance—they are not on speaking terms, and each will think the other has invited you.”

CHAPTER IV

RUNNING north from Storey’s Gate, the backs of its western houses abutting on the network of conduits which fed what is now in St. James’s Park called the Ornamental Water, but which was then “The Canal,” was a short road, or row, named Duke Street, in which was situated the building—subsequently the town home of Jeffreys, the filthy Fouquier Tinville of an earlier revolution—known as the Admiralty House. This mansion—or part of it, for the whole of it was of considerable dimensions—was, in fact, the headquarters of the recently reorganized Navy, and as such is mentioned here as being associated, however indirectly, with our narrative, inasmuch as it was to a member of its staff (a Mr. Samuel Pepys, not then long nominated to a clerkship of the acts) that Jack Bannister, the famous harpist, and a figure with whom we have hereafter to reckon, owed his “discovery,” in the exclusive as apart from the popular sense.

This man, sprung into evidence no one knew whence or when, had for months been perambulating the town as an itinerant musician, earning a precarious livelihood by playing before tavern doors, at street corners, and in marketplaces, and rich only in the soulful tribute of the many-headed, to whom he had come to be known by the appellation of “Sad Jack.” For sad, indeed, he appeared, both in face and habit; a lean, stoop-shouldered fellow, grimly austere, and always clothed in grey—grey hose, grey breeches, grey doublet, and grey hat, from the shadow of whose limp wide brim his eyes shone white, like pebbles gleaming through dark water. His figure was familiar to the streets as, his instrument strapped to his back, a folding-stool hung over his arm, and his soul patiently subdued to the philosophy which could find in unrecognition the surest proof of worth, he plodded his fortuitous way, with eye grown selective in the matter of “pitches,” and at his heels, perhaps, a string of ragamuffins, who, for the merest dole of his magnificence’s quality, would be ready to walk in his shadow to the town’s end. For sweet music hath through all the ages the “force” we wot of to “tame the furious beast,” and there was never a Pied Piper of genius but could count on his audience of rats to follow him over half the world if he pleased.

And this man had genius, for all it went unrecognized; but that was accident, and no moral whatever attaches to the fact. He communicated it from his finger-tips to the strings, hypostatically as it were, bestowing on them that gift of tongues which, speaking one language, speaks all. To his own ears it might appear that he was uttering no more than his native accents; to all others, gentile and barbarian, it seemed that he spoke in theirs. And that it is to command genius, the universal appeal, the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Yet outside this solitary faculty or inspiration there was nothing noteworthy about the creature but his gloom; and even that might have been no more than the shadow cast by the brighter half of his dual personality on the other. Born musicians are not as a rule remarkable for their intellectual brilliancy, and Sad Jack was, I am afraid, no exception to the rule. He was a dull fellow, in truth, in all that did not appertain to his exquisite art.

Now, it so happened that Fortune one bright spring morning directed the wandering harpist’s footsteps towards that quarter of the town which has already been mentioned, when, attracted perhaps by the sunny quiet of the spot, or by some suggestion in it of acoustic possibilities, he turned into Duke Street, and, choosing a convenient place, unslung his harp and stool, and stood for some moments glassily appraising the constitution of the little throng which had followed him into that retreat. He was inured by now to open-air criticism, and easily master of its moods. He could afford to tantalize expectation, sure of his ability to win the heart out of any crowd at the first touch of those long, nervous fingers of his which for the moment caressed his chin reflective, and with no more apparent sensibility in them than the fingers of a farmer calculating the profits on a flock of sheep. And, indeed, these were sheep, in their curiosity, in their shyness of the challenging human eye, in the way in which each refused to be thrust forward of his fellows, lest his prominent position should argue his readiness to be fleeced. But they all gaped and hung aloof, while the musician, anticipating their sure subjection, leisurely keyed up his strings to the concordant pitch; when at last, satisfied and in the humour, he began to play.

Then it was curious to note the hush which instantly fell upon the throng. Sure, of all the instruments of the senses—ear, eye, palate, nose, and finger—there is none so subtle in its mechanism as the first, nor so defiant of analysis in the way it transmits its message to the soul. The nature to which taste and vision and smell and touch may never prove holier than carnal provocations will yet find its divinity in music. Sound, perhaps, built the universe, as Amphion with his lyre built the walls of Thebes. Children of light, we may be children of sound also, if only we knew.

Now the kennel-sweeper leaned upon his broom, and dreamed of starry tracks where no rain ever fell; the cadger hated himself no longer; the little climbing-boy sat on the rim of the tallest chimney in all the world; the pretty sempstress hid with a little hand the furtive patch upon her chin, and flushed to know it there; the hackney coachman pulled on his rein and sat to listen, a piece of straw stuck motionless between his teeth. One and all they dwelt like spirits intoxicated, hearing of a new message and drunk with some wonderful joy of release. And then the sweet strains ended and they came to earth.

“It was like heaven,” said the sempstress, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with her apron.

“Was it, indeed?” said a full-bodied, good-humoured-looking gentleman, who had paused on his way to his official duties to listen, and who now pushed himself forward with an easy condescension. This was Mr. Pepys himself, no less, who, brought to a stop between sense and sensibility, had discovered no choice but to fall slave to those transports with which emotional music always filled him. Yet, astounded as he was by the performance, his eye—a pretty shrewd and noticing one—had been no less observant than his ear. He wrinkled it quizzically at the little beauty. “Was it?” says he. “Well, faith, pretty angel, you ought to know.”

He was very handsomely dressed in a blue jackanapes coat, then come into fashion, with silver buttons, a pair of fine white stockings, and a white plume in his hat; and he appeared if anything a little conscious of his finery. But whether it was from his assurance, which seemed unjustified of any exceptional good looks, or the thickness of his calves, which were stupendous, he failed to impress the sempstress, who, heaving a petulant shoulder at him, with a “La, sir, I know I am no angel!” tripped about and away, her nose in the air.

Mr. Pepys chuckled into his chin (though no more than twenty-eight, he possessed already an affluently double one), and, looking a moment after the retreating figure, turned to the musician, who all this while had been gazing into vacancy, his hat, placed crown downwards on the stones, his sole petitioner. But, before any could respond to that mute invitation, the new-comer had stooped to snatch up the dishonoured headgear, which he presented with a great bow to its owner.

“’Tis the privilege of kings, sir,” said he, “to go bonneted before their subjects. Prithee put this to a nobler use than a beggar’s bowl. ’Tis we that should doff to the prince of harpists,” and he suited the action to the word, standing bareheaded before the musician.

He, for his part, sat staring, doubtful whether he was honoured or derided.

“Sir,” he stammered, “have I not played to your liking?”

“So much so,” answered Pepys, “that my liking is you play no more on the streets. Will you be sensible, sir, and discuss this business? I can introduce you where your talent will receive justice; and I ask no other reward for my pains, which is indeed a duty. Sir, I confess your playing ravished me beyond anything I have heard. Rise, if you will, and walk with me.”

Looking dumbfoundered, the musician obeyed. He appeared on closer acquaintance a much younger man than the other had suspected, which was all in his favour as a prodigy. The offer, nevertheless, had been a quite disinterested one—a point to the fine gentleman’s credit; for in truth he was not above expecting commissions on occasion. But in the question of music he was always at his most altruistic. Now he conducted his discovery into the court of the Admiralty House, the better to shake off the throng which followed, and there put to him the few inquiries which came uppermost in his mind—as to the stranger’s genesis, to wit, his social standing, his calling, the circumstances which had thrown him, thus gifted and unpatronized, upon London streets, and so on. But he learned little to satisfy his curiosity. The man was reticent, awkward of speech, proud perhaps; and, beyond the facts that he was self-taught, had been a pedagogue in a country school, and had voluntarily abandoned an uncongenial task for one more to his fancy and potential well-being, the listener was able to glean little. But one thing stood out clear, and that was the genius which proclaimed this oddity as exalted a natural musician as any that had ever captured the heart of the world, and on that assurance Mr. Pepys proceeded. The upshot of this interview was that he came to introduce him, having a pretty wide acquaintance in professional quarters, among the right influential people, with the result that “Sad Jack,” from being a wandering street performer, became presently one of the most fashionable soloists in the town, with the command of a salary in proportion, and engagements covering the most popular resorts from Spring Gardens to the new Spa at Islington.

And with that we will leave him for the time being; while as to Mr. Pepys, having served his purpose, he must walk here and now out of the picture.

CHAPTER V

THE Earl of Chesterfield, entering his apartments one afternoon, was informed by the porter that a young person, lately arrived, waited on his convenience in the audience-room, to which she had been shown—not ushered. Thus Mrs. Moll, to the menial instinct, be it observed, was still subtly, and in spite of all her fine new trappings, the unclassified “young person.” She might impose on the master, but never on the man.

His lordship demanded tartly why his lady had not been informed. He was told that she was out. The stranger, it appeared, had entered with an assured air, stating that she was expected on a visit. Expected by whom? She had bridled, but in a manner twinkling-like, to the question. By whom did he, the porter, suppose? By one of the servants, curse his impudence? And so he had admitted her, with her smart baggage, assuming that, if she was the invited guest of either his master or mistress, it must be of the former. Why? O! for only the reason that she looked most like a gentleman’s lady.

“A gentleman’s lady”! My lord grinned, then looked serious.

“Did she give no name?”

“The name of Davis, please your lordship. Mrs. Moll Davis she called herself.”

Chesterfield’s brow went up; he whistled. Of course, now, he remembered, this must be Kate’s young country friend of whom he had been advised, and her manners, no doubt, were to be accounted to mere rustic gaucherie. He had better see her at once in his wife’s absence, and judge of her suitability, from his point of view, for the part for which Hamilton had cast her. She might prove, after all, an impossible instrument to play on. And yet the rogue had seemed confident.

He turned on the porter harshly. “Why did you not say so before? Mrs. Davis is her ladyship’s friend and guest, and as such is to be lodged fitly. See to it, fellow, and that you keep that free tongue of yours out of your cheek.”

He went on, and at the door of the audience chamber was received by a couple of lackeys, who, throwing wide the oak, announced him in form—

“My lord Chesterfield, for Mrs. Davis!”

She had been peering into costly nooks and corners, and was taken by surprise. But that did not matter. The blush with which she whisked about from contemplating herself in a remote stand-glass became her mightily, and seemed offered to his lordship like a flower gathered from the mirror to propitiate him for the liberty she had been caught taking. He accepted and pinned it over his heart, so to speak. If this was rusticity, he was quite willing, it appeared to him, to become a country Strephon on the spot. The danger, he foresaw at once, was of falling in love with his own pretence.

And, indeed, Mrs. Davis, with her pert young face and forget-me-not eyes, made an alluring figure, and one seeming admirably efficient to the part she was dressed to play. As to that, Hamilton had advised with taste and discretion; so that, in her plain bodice and pannier, with her slim arms bared to the elbow and tied above with favours of ribbon, and the curls shaken over her bright cheeks from under a coquettish hat-brim, she might have passed for the very sweet moral of a provincial nymph, conceived in the happiest vein between homeliness and fashion. She curtsied, as she had been taught to curtsey on the stage—latterly, for her sex had only quite recently won its way to the footlights—and boldly, with a little musical laugh, accepted the situation.

“Sure,” she said, “if you hadn’t caught me at it, my cheeks ’ud betray me. I was looking in the glass—so there!”

It put him at his ease at once. With no rustic coyness to conquer, he was already half way to the end. It mattered little, he felt confident, what he might venture to say; and so he gave his tongue full rein.

“So there!” said he; “and faith, Mistress Davis, if I were you, I could look till my eyes went blind.”

“Could you?” she said. “Then you’d be a blind donkey for your pains.” She came up and stood before him, her chin raised, her hands clasped behind her back. “So you’re Lord Chesterfield,” she said. “How do you like it?”

“How do you?” he asked, grinning.

“H’m!” she said critically, bringing one hand forward to fondle her baby chin. “’Tis early days to say. But, on the face of you, you look very much like any other man. But perhaps you’re different underneath—made of gold, like the boys in the folk-tale.”

“O! I’m not made of gold, I can assure you.”

“Aren’t you, now? I’ve heard of some that are said to be.”

“I’m made just like anybody else.”

“There, now! What a disappointment! And you call yourself a lord!”

“Why, how would you have me?”

“I wouldn’t have you at all. What a question from a married man!”

He was a little vexed; he made that sound of impatience between tongue and palate which cannot be rendered in spelling.

“I see you’re a literal soul,” said he. “I must be careful how I put things.”

“You’d better,” she said. “Now I come to look at you, you’ve got a sinful eye.”

“And now I come to look at you, I don’t wonder at it.”

“Don’t you? Well, for all you’re like to get, you may put it in there and see none the worse.”

He laughed, a little astounded. “Troth!” thought he; “this is a strange acquaintance for Kate to have made!”

“Why,” he said, “what have I asked or expected but the right of every man to see and admire?”

“O! you may admire as much as you like,” quoth she. “I wouldn’t deprive you of that gratification.”

“Or yourself, perhaps?”

“No!” she said, with indifference; “you needn’t consider me. I’ve more than I can do with already.”

“What!” he said, “but not of the town quality? ’Tis only sheep’s-eyes they make at you in the country.”

“All’s fish, for that, that comes to a woman’s net. ’Tis a question with her more of quantity than quality.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you love the country?”

“Sure,” she said. “I love the pigs and the cows and the horses, and the ducks and the geese; but, after all, there’s no goose like a lord.”

He laughed, but a little uneasily. He was not quite so confident as he had been of the simple nature of his task. He would just like, for an experiment, to eschew badinage, and insinuate a thought more feeling into the conversation.

“I think I agree with you,” he said. “A lord is a goose.”

“Unless he’s a gander,” said she.

“You called him a goose,” he answered with asperity; “and a goose he shall be.”

“Well, don’t quarrel about it,” she protested. “Goose and gander and gosling, they say, are three sounds but one thing. Why is a lord—whichever he is?”

“Well, what was your reason for calling him a goose?”

“I never did. I said there was no goose like him.”

“That was to flatter the goose, I think.”

“Was it, now? And I meant it to flatter the lord.”

He raised appealing hands. “No, I prithee! Flattery—the very mess of pottage for which he sold his birthright as a man! A lord, Mrs. Davis, from the very moment he becomes one, hath parted with sincerity.”

“No, sure?”

“Yes, indeed; and for it exchanged the eternal adulation of the hypocrite, paid not to his merits but his title. The base thenceforth surround him; the worthy keep their distance, lest old friendships, once frankly mutual, be suspected of self-interest. He knows no truth but such as he may read in its withholding; he knows no love but such as loves his rank before himself. Was he not a goose to be a lord—to part with truth and love—to give himself to be devoured by parasites in a hundred forms?”

He smiled, appealing and a little melancholy. The lady lifted her brows.

“Lud!” she said. “And to think we in the country only know but two—the one that hops and the one that doesn’t!”

His lordship gave a slight start and cough.

“Exactly,” he said: “yes, exactly.” He stiffened, clearing his throat, then smiled again, but painfully. “So flatter me not,” he said. “Be your sweet, candid self, to earn my gratitude. You cannot know what it would mean to me to win at last a woman’s unaffected sympathy. Will you not extend to me the friendship which is already, I understand, my wife’s?”

Her eyes twinkled, her mouth twitched, as she stood before him.

“What is the matter?” he asked, in mild surprise.

“You—you do look so droll,” she said, and burst into a fit of laughter.

He was inclined to be very incensed, but with good sense made a moral vault of it, and landed lightly the other side of his own temper. Once there, he could afford to echo the hussy’s merriment.

“You are a bad girl,” he said, grinning, and shaking a finger; “but I can see we are going to be great friends. Hist, though!”

He looked about him cautiously, and then approached her.

“Stand and deliver,” said she, and backed a little.

“No, no,” he said; “on my honour, I only wish a word in confidence.”

“O, I know that word!” she said. “I’m not so young but I’ve learned to crack nuts with my own teeth.”

“Here it is, then,” he said, coming no farther. “There’s this difficulty in the way of our good understanding—that it can owe no encouragement to my lady, your friend.”

“Why not, now?”

“Why, the truth is, we’re—we’re not on speaking terms.”

“Lord-a-mussy! What’s the matter?”

“O, these little domestic differences; they will occur! Unsuited, I suppose. It was her suggestion; but it makes things somewhat awkward for the moment.” He heaved a profound sigh. “Alone—always alone, you see! What a goose to be a lord!”

She eyed him roguishly.

“She’s been finding out things about you: don’t tell me!”

He sighed again. “What a goose, what a goose!” and then started, as if remembering something. “O! and there’s another secret.”

“Another?” said she, thrilled; and irresistibly she leaned her ear towards him.

“Listen!” he said, and, with a single step, had dived and snatched a kiss.

“You devil!” she cried, starting away. “If I don’t pay you for that——”

The word died on her lips. They were both simultaneously aware that the young Countess had come unnoticed into the room, and was standing regarding them with stony eyes.

My lord, coughing and feeling at his cravat, tried to hum a little nonchalant air, failed conspicuously, and, hesitating a moment, yielded incontinent to the better part of valour, and swaggered out by the door, with a little run at the last as if he felt behind him the invisible persuasion of a boot. Some minutes of pregnant silence succeeded his departure. Mrs. Davis was the first to break it.

“I’m—I’m glad to see your ladyship looking so bonny.”

As if it had needed but the sound of this voice to galvanize her into life, to assure her of the incarnate reality of the insult with which she had been threatened, the young wife started, and, advancing a few hurried paces, paused, recollected herself, and went on deliberately to a table, on which she proceeded to deposit the gloves which she stripped leisurely from her hands. She was just come in from riding, and, in her dove-grey habit, with the soft-plumed hat on her head—steeple-crowned, but coaxed into that picturesque shapelessness which only a woman can contrive—looked a figure sweet enough to set Mrs. Davis wondering over the criminal blindness of husbands. Mr. George Hamilton, you see, had let her into only so much of the truth; a half-knowledge which his lordship’s behaviour had certainly done nothing to rectify.

My lady, whose fingers had gripped a silvered riding-switch, put down that weapon, as if reluctantly, and drew off her gloves. If this woman was what she supposed, there could be no course for her to adopt more contemptuous than that of overlooking her as if she did not exist for her.

“Sure, it must have been a surprise for you,” said Moll, after waiting vainly for some response, “to find me come, unbeknown to you, on a visit to my kinsman. But la! we never know what’s going to happen next—now, do we?” (No answer.) “‘Look in any time you’re in the neighbourhood,’ he says to me, ‘and there’s always bed and board for you at Whitehall.’” (No answer.) “You’ve a pretty place here, my lady. We’ve got none such in the country, saving it’s the Manor House where Squire Bucksey lives; and him but half a gentleman, having lost a leg and an arm at Worcester fight.” (My lady takes up a book, which she affects to read in.) “Well,” said Moll, “if you’ve nothing to say, I think I’d better be following his lordship.”

She moved as if to go. The book slapped down. My lady turned upon her peremptorily, with crimson cheeks.

“Stay! Too intolerable an insolence! This affectation of rustic artlessness! I had thought to be silent, but it transcends my endurance. I had been warned of your coming, and I know who you are. Your name is Davis; deny it not.”

Impudence was not offended; but her sauce was up. She turned to counter, and the two faced one another.

“Deny it? Not I,” she said. “What if it is?”

“What? How dare you speak to me? Is not your presence here offence enough?”

“What have I done now?”

“Done? No wonder your right cheek flushes for its shame.”

“He kissed it—not I. Another moment, if you hadn’t come in, and I’d have clouted his ears for him.”

“What made him kiss you?”

“That’s for him to say. You can ask him if you like.”

“I!”

“Old acquaintance’ sake, he’ll tell you, perhaps.”

“Ah!”

“What are you ‘ahing’ about? Did it look like a habit between us? Take my word, if you care, that he’s never kissed me in his life before.”

“Care? Not I.”

“I thought you looked as if you didn’t.”

“His kisses and his fancies are subjects of supreme indifference to me.”

“What’s the matter, then?”

“My self-respect is the matter—a thing beyond your comprehension. To have to sit and suffer such a guest—in silence—as though I seemed to countenance her presence! That is the matter.”

Mrs. Davis, half-whimpering, put her knuckles to her eyes.

“Why don’t you speak to him, then,” she said, “and have me turned out? O, dear, O, dear! A nice way this to treat a harmless visitor!”

Harmless! For the first time a wonder seized her little ladyship. Was she really maligning in her heart a rustic simpleton? No, there was something here adroite, practised, something indescribable, which precluded the idea. And yet the thought had come to puzzle and disturb her. Though she could not believe, her tone was less uncompromising when she spoke again.

“I speak to him? It is not for such as you to understand. To answer to an insult is to flatter it. Let him answer for his own, so it be one, to himself and you. Never fear that I shall complain.” She turned away and back again. “I ask no questions about you,” she said. “I desire to hear and know nothing. Your conduct, if you speak truth, need be your only voucher.”

She took up her gloves, preparing to leave the room, then stopped, as if on a resistless impulse, and looked into the slut’s eyes.

“You have a pretty face, child,” she said. “I know not whence it comes, or what designs; but I would fain think no evil of it.”

And she gathered up her things and went, without another word.

It had been a brief interview, but a stupefying. For some moments after she was left alone Moll stood motionless, as if afraid to stir. Then, gradually, expression came back to her face, and she gave a soft whistle.

“Lud! the first is over,” she murmured; “and I would I could think the worst. I stand to have my eyes scratched out, seemeth to me. But, never mind. George must be accommodated, and the fool lord caught in the snare of his own laying. We’ve not, for that matter, begun so badly.”

She rubbed her cheek viciously, then, executing a little noiseless pas-seul, shivered to a stop, and looked about her inquiringly. She was as light on her feet as a kitten, as graceful and as pretty.

“What next?” She tittered. “Will nobody fetch me or tell me? And O!”—she pressed a hand to the seat of suffering—“when do great folks dine!”

She stiffened on the word, like a soldier to “attention.” A liveried gentleman who had come into the room stood bent and bowing before her—and kicking a furtive heel to another, who stood sniggering in the shadow of the door.

“Will your ladyship,” said the first, speaking from the root of his nose, “condescend to be pleased to be shown your ladyship’s chamber?”

Moll whisked about, her cheek on fire. “Yes, she will, turnip-head, when you’ve got over that stomach-ache of yours.”

CHAPTER VI

IT must be explained at this point that the comedy with which we are especially concerned formed only one of innumerable kindred sideshows in the endless junketing fair at Whitehall Palace, where, ever since the first days of the Restoration, the high revel which that reaction from Cimmerian glooms had come to inaugurate had been steadily degenerating into a Saturnalia as unblushing as it was universal. It represents, in fact, but one among many such performances, and, though isolated by us for purely dramatic purposes, is none the less to be understood as constituting part of the general entertainment. Thus, you can picture our little company, if you will, as joining, in the intervals between the acts, in the common hilarity, as forming part of the glittering personnel which daily, in that idle, pleasure-loving Court, laughs and fribbles away the hours. The young Countess is there, ingénue, childish, but already a mark for predatory eyes, and not, alas! in her proud revolt, wholly, or wholly innocently, unconscious of the fact. My lord her husband, secretly watchful of the change, conceals, under an affectation of insouciance, the jealousy which is beginning to set him speculating as to any reason which may exist for it. Hamilton, who holds in his hand, or imagines that he holds, the strings of all the puppets implicated in this play of cross-purposes, pervades the entire scene, a figure of wit and grace, handsome, urbane, and popular wherever he chooses to distribute his favours. Of the Court and its demoralizing atmosphere are all these lives, is all this complication of unscrupulous intrigue; and, if we leave that Court out of our account, it is not to imply thereby that the aforesaid lives are not nine-tenths subject to its baneful influences, but simply because to mix any such complex ingredients with a plain tale were hopelessly to confuse the issues thereof. Wherefore we will continue to confine our mise en scène, if you please, to that district of the huge, rambling palace in which my lord of Chesterfield has his quarters. It is there that the sole business with which we are concerned develops itself.

Now, it comes to include, this business, in the process of its unfolding, a certain illustrious figure, with whose name we have dealt hitherto but in parenthesis. His Royal Highness the Duke of York was at this date a young man of twenty-seven, and somewhat notable, in a reckless community, for the comparative propriety of his conduct. At least, he kept his lapses within reasonable, if infrequent, bounds, and, in erring, showed some occasional capacity for shamefacedness. He had virtues—courage, truth to his word, fidelity, and application; vices—parsimony, excessive hauteur, and an implacable enmity for his foes. Yet, commonly master of himself, he possessed one cardinal weakness, and that showed itself in a remarkable susceptibility to feminine allurements—showed itself, I say, for he seemed unable to conceal it; he was, according to Grammont, the most completely unguarded ogler of his time.

Fresh, unspoiled, and possessed of the double recommendation of having a husband, and notoriously an indifferent one, the little Countess with the rose-leaf face was not long, you may be sure, in attracting the rather prominent inquisition of those wandering orbs, and not altogether, be it said, without some flattered consciousness, on her part, of their interested scrutiny. The Duke, though austere to severity, was not an uncomely Stuart; he was tall, well formed, and the sallow melancholy of his look, when tempered to a soft occasion, could be sufficiently moving. Satisfied as to first impressions, he began to consider his further policy; and in the meantime he ogled.

His ogling, it seemed, was not, in spite of its temerity, suspected by Hamilton. Perhaps Cousin George’s confidence in his own most-favoured position was too absolute to cherish a thought of any rival influence outside it. But, whatever the case, it is certain that, even if he observed, he gave himself no concern whatever about an ocular blandishment which was generally at the service of any beaux yeux of a pattern finer than the common.

But, if he remained indifferent, it was far otherwise with the husband, whose vision in a night had changed its blindness for the thousand-lensed optic of spiderous jealousy. Realizing, too late, his own infatuated folly, reduced to a vain coveting of what was by all legal right his own possession, forced into an attitude of apparent insensibility to the promiscuous gallantries offered to his lady on the strength of their estrangement, and prevented, both by policy and pride, from confessing to his altered sentiments, the unhappy man was, in these days, suffering all the pangs the most vindictive wife could have wished. And yet she would have forgiven him, even now, could he have brought that obstinate devil in him to submit to the one condition she had dictated, and have owned to his iniquity and asked absolution for it. But to that extreme he could not go; it was still a point of honour with him to force her into being the first to break the silence; and so he continued to ground what hopes he had on the nature of the compromise suggested by Hamilton. To that absurd faith he clung, soon wearying of the little malapert instrument lent, though he never guessed it, to his purpose, but desperately continuing to play her for the success he looked to achieve. And, in the meanwhile, if his part in private was a difficult one, in public it was an endless anguish. It was not only that, cursed to that compact of silence, he must be perpetually manœuvring to avoid its discovery by others—and always on the edge of a fear lest what he so carefully concealed should be mockingly made known, in a spasm of feminine perversity, by the capricious partner thereto—but that he was wholly debarred by it from uttering a word of warning or menace to that same partner on the subject of the perils, to which her own wilfulness was subjecting her, from oglings, princely or otherwise. He himself was so acutely sensitive to the danger that he found a suggestive meaning in every appreciative glance, every small natural homage paid to a beauty which could not be seen but to be admired. The attractions which should have been his pride had become his torment, while his mind revolted from the memory of a dead infatuation as from something noisome: and in so much the Nemesis of deserved retribution had swiftly overtaken him. From his jealous misery he could find no relief at last but in confiding its fancied justifications to his friend Hamilton. Him, for some inexplicable reason, he never suspected.

“Curse it, George!” he would say. “I am so driven and harassed, curse it! A little more and I shall pack her off to the Peak!”

He spoke of the Peak in Derbyshire, near which his country seat, Bretby Hall, was situated. The phrase at Court came to pass into a jocular proverb; so that to rid oneself of a tiresome wife was to send her to the Peak. But the threat a little alarmed Hamilton. It was true that, if carried into effect, it might prove itself the short cut to his own desired goal, since friends come doubly welcomed into killing solitudes; still, that welcome, gained at the sacrifice, perhaps, of a month in town, was a prospect altogether too wry to be entertained with composure. No, he must certainly counter the suggestion with all his wits.

“Why?” he said. “What is poor Kate’s new offence?”

“Did I speak of any?” snarled Chesterfield. “The old is wide enough and long enough to serve the purpose of a score.”

“How do you mean?”

“How, says he! Why, does she not take advantage of my tongue-tied state to flaunt her coquetries in my very face?”

“Speak to her, then.”

“You know I cannot.”

“O, you can, indeed!”

“I’ll see her damned first!”

“Why, there you are. You’ll see her damned first, and so you will.”

“So I will? What do you imply by that?”

“Did you not say you would? Your word on it, then, you will.”

“Curse you! You mean the Duke.”

“Curse you! What Duke?”

“Don’t you know very well?”

“O, a pox on these conundrums! What Duke, I say?”

“York, then.”

“What! Is he the villain?”

“I’ve watched them exchange glances.”

“Why, so have I, and so have hundreds.”

“You own it?”

“With perfect equanimity. Such frank barter of the eyes is your surest proof of innocence. Give me your stolen look for mischief.”

“You think he means none, then?”

Hamilton laughed, and clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“O, Phil!” said he, “thou art surely possessed. The Duke hath other fish to fry; his net is full. Believe me, on my sincerity” (and he meant it), “your jealousy corrupts your judgment. And more—it dishonours your wife. Come, tell me—how goes it with the little country skit, Kate’s friend?”

Chesterfield, but half convinced, shook his head and growled.

“She wearies me. A tasteless business.”

“What!” said the other, again perturbed: “you are not crying off?”

“No”—he shrugged—“O, faith, no! But, ’tis uphill work.”

“The looser rein to give yourself. A plague on distaste! That is to put on the brake uphill.”

“A common creature, nevertheless, to appear my more natural choice—and when she is by. I think Kate must hold me despicable.”

“Is the skit so common?”

“Troth, you’d think it: though, to do her justice, she makes one laugh.”

“Still, though against your inclinations, you play the part?”

“O! I play it.”

“And with what effect so far?”

“None that you promised—unless rank mutiny lay in your scheme. She seems determined to show me that, of all men she encounters, I stand least in her regard.”

“So you are signalled out for her slights. What could you wish more? I’d rather be the one scorned by a woman than the fifty favoured. ’Tis to stand alone in her estimation, and be thought of always for yourself. She’s jealous, take my word. These coquetries you speak of are but retorts on you in kind. Be thankful that she thinks you worth them. It works, Phil—believe me, it works.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Come, visit us this night, and make sureness surer.”

Hamilton feigned to reflect.

“To-night? Why, the truth is——”

Chesterfield, breaking into a chuckle, nudged him roguishly.

“Hey-hey! I see: an assignation. Well, another night.”

“Nay; to prove you’re wrong, I’ll come.”

It so happened that, passing along a corridor that afternoon, Hamilton encountered the Duke of York, who took his arm and held him in friendly talk as he paced the matting with him up and down. His Royal Highness was in a suit of plain black, which became his sombre visage very well, and wore no ornament but the “George” suspended from his neck by a blue ribbon.

“I know your love for music, Geordie,” says he. “What is this new saraband that all seem suddenly crazed about?”

Hamilton told him. It was by the Signor Francesco Corbetti, that famous master of the guitar, who had lately come from Paris to Whitehall, and with such good result for himself that the King, who loved his art, had actually appointed him a groom of the Queen’s privy chamber, with a princely salary, in order that he might attach him permanently to the Court.

“’Tis nothing else, both morning and noon,” said the young man, with a groan: “till, for my very love of music, I could throttle these mutilators of it with their own guitar strings. Not a doting coxcomb or lang’rous amourette but murders the ‘jealous-pated swain’ six times a day. I wish he were rotten. Is it not strange how vanity will never learn that to sing the nightingale’s song is not necessarily to sing the nightingale!”

The Duke smiled tolerantly.

“Are they all such bunglers?” said he. “I have heard of some reputed to handle their instruments well.”

“Arran is one,” said Hamilton, “and there is another accomplished performer among them—your Royal Highness’s self. But, for the rest, it is not that I object to their twanging to their hearts’ content; it is that they must all do it to the same tune. This saraband is indeed a ravishing air—as Corbetti plays it; but watered nectar was never to my taste. God forbid I should quarrel with a vogue his Majesty started, or curse to hear this discordant plucking of strings come wailing eternally like the wind through a hundred keyholes; all I ask is an occasional change in the theme.”

“You think, nevertheless, the air itself beautiful?”

“O! it is. Your Royal Highness should hear it.”

“What did you remark of Lord Arran, Geordie?”

“Why, he knows and plays it, after Corbetti, the best of all.”

This Earl of Arran, Kate Chesterfield’s younger brother, was a little callow perfumed exquisite, a little lisping buck, who could play many parts prettily, but none to such effect as that of minstrel, for which, like Moore, and Leigh Hunt, and other twitterers of a later date, he had a small natural aptitude. So, when the Italian, by the King’s grace, brought guitars into that fashion that no lady’s toilet table was thought complete without it included a beribboned instrument among its rouge and powder-puffs, this curled darling found his opportunity, and earned through it a more devoted attention than any of his puppyish charms had hitherto been able to procure him.

“He must play it to me,” said the Duke. “The boy has a fine touch, though something due, no doubt, to the quality of his instrument. They say ’tis the best in all England.”

“No, that it is not,” said Hamilton unguardedly. “His sister owns the best.”

The Duke affected an air of momentary abstraction before he answered—

“What did you say? O, my lady Chesterfield! She plays too?”

“Faith! that is the word for it,” answered the other. “She plays, as they all do—at playing.”

“And she has a finer guitar than her brother, was it? She should lease it to him.”

“Doubtless she would, if asked.”

Again his answer seemed to pass unnoticed. Then the Duke started, as if recollecting himself.

“Eh?” he said: “we were discussing—what or whom? I’ve forgot. But let it pass. There was something of interest—what was it?—that I had in my mind to mention to you.”

CHAPTER VII

“THE same: three days later.” So, in theatrical parlance, we lift the curtain on a scene the replica of that introduced in the second chapter of this Comedy of Errors. It was all as before, even to the parted figures—only with this difference: somewhat equidistant between the two sat Mrs. Davis.

That, though an addition seeming insignificant, had all the latent force in it of a barrel of gunpowder with an unlighted fuse attached. The moment might come when, the match being applied, the whole of that artificial stuff of obmutescence would be blown in a flash to the winds.

Mrs. Moll was perhaps herself a little conscious of the volcano on which she was perched. Yet it would be doing her an injustice to hint that she either felt or showed any perturbation. While fully realizing that her position was in the last degree precarious, the thrill of the thing, the exercise of the mental agility needed to prevent, or at least postpone, that final catastrophe, was compensation enough, while it lasted, to reconcile her to her utmost danger. And in the meanwhile she was having, in the slang of to-day, the time of her life. Lapt in a perfumed luxury, which was as foreign as it was agreeable to her nature, and enjoying it none the less because it was stolen fruit, soon to be consumed; like a born actress living in her part, but like an astute woman keeping an unsleeping eye to the business side of her engagement, she gave herself wholly to the situation, and endeavoured to extract from it the best that mischief and ingenuity could devise. Morally, she was in her own eyes merely the naughty little tertium quid needed in a drama of love and jealousy to effect a certain purpose of separation.

And, incidentally, she regarded the feelings of no one. The play was the thing, and nothing outside it mattered. She was not, personally, taken with his lordship, while, professionally, she coquetted with, and, as she supposed, captivated him. If, in the course of those antics, he should be so obsessed as to propose to make her his mistress in actual fact, she might possibly, for reasons of self-interest, be induced to accept. But she was quite contented without. The entertainment to her lay in the successful management of the double deception which was to end by procuring Hamilton the fruit of his elaborate intrigue. She was not jealous of him, though he was the man, handsome and daring, for her fancy. They were small souls akin, and she would like to please him, if only to hear his praise.

My lord read, my lady worked, and Mrs. Davis sat with her hands on her lap and yawned. When she addressed either, it had to be with a careful view to maintaining with each the fiction that she was the other’s friend—a task not to be under-estimated for its difficulty, and, indeed, only rendered possible by the stubborn avoidance by the two, in replying to her, of any reference to her position in the house as the guest of one of them. But their mutual pride was in that her safety. For any self-betrayal they invited, designedly or undesignedly, she might actually have been their known and accepted visitor. They spoke not so much to her as through her—shafts designed by each to gall the other. It was for her usefulness in that respect that my lady had condescended to condone her presence, and even to the extent of some verbal interchanges. As a medium, transmitting the bitter intercourse of soul with soul, she had her negative virtues.

It was evening, and the girandoles were all a sparkling haze of light. There was no company but these three; for his lordship had of late shown a peevish avoidance of his friends, and his implied intimation of a desire for solitude had been generally respected—infinitely to the disgust of his young Countess, who, never wedded to domestic dullness, found in this infliction of it, under the circumstances, an intolerably aggravated grievance. She sat like a figure of fate, distilling frost.

Moll, leaning back in her chair, linked her hands behind her head, stretched deliciously, gave a prodigious yawn, and rattling her little heels on the floor, came erect again, and looked in a collapsed way at her ladyship.

“Sure, you’d find stitching easier, wouldn’t you,” she said, “if you took off that black sling of a thing.” (The injured wife still advertised her hurt on occasion.)

“No,” answered the lady shortly, pursing her lips. “I shouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t you, now?” said the slut, and settled herself down for a tease. She was a born chatterer, as glib at retort as she was garrulous, and the bump of reverence had been wholly denied her. She looked very pretty, nevertheless, in her evening frock of flowered lutestring, with her bright hair tumbling over her bright cheeks, and dressed at each temple with a knot of pink ribbon. “Well, there’s no accounting for tastes. If I’d hurt my arm, I should either forget the bruise or forget my work. They don’t pull together.”

“I haven’t hurt my arm.”

“Not?”

“It was bitten by a dog.”

“Sakes, now! What made him do it?”

“What makes any dog bite? An evil disposition, I suppose.”

“You weren’t taking his bone away from him, by chance?”

“Not I. He’s welcome to a whole skeleton of bones for me.”

“All except the spare-rib, maybe.”

His lordship, from his place apart, went “Ha-ha!”—and immediately looked furiously solemn. My lady, beyond a slight flushing of the cheek, showed no consciousness of the interruption. Moll turned in her chair, leaning her arms on the back and her chin on her crossed hands.

“That’s you,” she said. “Is your book so funny?”

“Killing,” answered Chesterfield. “’Tis—’tis a tract on drainage.”

“Lord, now—how humoursome! No wonder it makes you roar. But, sure, there’s no laughter in your face. You look as cross as a Good Friday bun.”

“Zounds! I’m amused, I tell you,” he said; “as amused as a dog when a cat arches her back at him.”

“I’ve seen more amused things than that. Come, prithee, leave your book and let us talk. What do you want to read for when a guest is by?”

“O! just to occupy my mind.”

“Put something into nothing, do you mean? Well, ’tis better empty than filled with drainage.”

He laughed, without hilarity, but laid aside his reading.

“Well,” said he; “I am at your service.”

“That’s right,” she said. “And so we’ll make a merry company, we three—the best in the middle and the bread on each side, like a duck sandwich.”

“Little merriment in a sandwich, to my thinking.”

“Why, so there isn’t. ’Tis a poor substitute for the stomach.”

“A very poor substitute. A man might better own a bread-basket.”

But that was too much for Mrs. Davis. She bridled, instantly offended.

“You vulgar beast! I’ll have you know I’m not to be spoken to like that, curse you!”

There is nothing more incommensurable, to be sure, than the particular standards of decorum which obtain with people of Mrs. Moll’s station—now as then.

Chesterfield’s eyebrows went up; he shook with a little inward laughter.

“Why,” says he, “I’m all amazement! ’Twas but a façon de parler; or, as we call it, a figure of speech.”

“Well, you can keep that part of speech’s figure to yourself.”

“I will; though I’ve got enough of my own. Come—forgive my offence. What were we discussing? Sandwiches?”

“Well, I say they’re a poor manner of food. The man that invented them meant well, but he went the wrong way about with it. They should be a slice of bread between two slices of meat, to my taste. He must ha’ been like Kit’s friend, who always did the right thing and did it wrong.”

She was constantly referring to this “Kit.” Neither of her hearers had a notion as to who was the individual alluded to, though each supposed it to be some one familiar to the other’s knowledge. The lady, of course, thought it a woman, the gentleman a man. The name, you see, as applicable to a member of either sex, was one very well chosen for abstract purposes. It enabled her to keep up an assumption of understood references, while avoiding the danger of specific instances. “Kit” was made the mouthpiece of quite a number of imaginary characters. He—or she—might or might not have had some existence in fact—even to a certain association with that mythical personage her husband (in whom, by the by, Hamilton had scant belief); but for oracular purposes it mattered nothing whether “Kit” were a derivation or a creation. The enigma, however, had this whimsical effect—both husband and wife became presently consumed with such an insatiable curiosity to penetrate the secret of “Kit’s” identity, that they felt like to burst under the weight of silence which the irony of circumstance had imposed on them.

“What friend of Kit’s was that?” inquired his lordship.

“He was a plumber,” answered Moll—and turned on her hostess. “Have you ever had a friend a plumber?”

It was as though she had suddenly shot a jet of iced water over the daughter of the Duke of Ormonde. Kate started, quivered, and sat rigid.

“Never!” she gasped out.

“Well,” said Moll, “I don’t blame you. They’ve a smell about them of putty and warm tallow that isn’t appetizing. But this friend of Kit’s was worse than most. He never mended a broken pipe but what he shut up some of his tools in it first, or stopped one leak without opening two. Aren’t you feeling well?”

“Never mind my feelings,”—the response came Arctic. “I’m not accustomed to having them considered”—“by the friends of plumbers,” was implied.

“What a shame, now! If ’tis your arm that’s hurting you, don’t stand on ceremony, but get to bed. We can manage alone somehow.”

The Earl raised his eyebrows, positively petrified. How dared the baggage mock the other thus, however much her friend? It could be nothing but her obsession about himself and his fatal attraction which emboldened her so to range herself, as it were, under the protection of his guns.

Lady Chesterfield, her cheek aglow, rose to her feet.

“This is becoming insufferable,” she began; and stopped, biting her lip.

“You’ve forgotten your sling,” said Moll.

“You’ve forgotten yourself,” said Kate disdainfully; and, with a shrug, resumed her seat. “But perhaps that is an advantage.”

Mrs. Davis jumped up, with a ringing laugh.

“What a company of crosspatches!” she cried. “The sandwich doesn’t seem to be a success. You come in the middle, Phil, and be the duck.”

He grinned, but in a half-scared way. She had never yet ventured so far as to call him by his Christian name. He was feeling suddenly rather helpless—taken off his feet by the excess of the storm he had himself invited. When she ran to him and pulled at his coat, he resisted feebly.

“Come and be the duck.” She chirped with laughter. “What a face to grin through a horse collar! O! look intelligent!” She shook him. “What shall we do—play games? Hot cockles, say, or——” she released him, and stood with deliberating finger on lip. “No, that would never do. Dumb-crambo—what do you say to that?” She glanced with comical plaintiveness from one mute figure to the other. “But you don’t look very playful, either of you. I wish Kit was here. You’d never be able to resist Kit, whatever you do me.”

Chesterfield cleared his throat, fingering the cravat at it.

“Is Kit such a wag?” said he.

“Just,” was the answer.

“And good at games?”

“There was never such a one for make-believe.”

“A happy disposition. But then, as to happiness—Kit isn’t married, of course.”

Her ladyship, in an uncontrollable spasm, whisked about.

“Kit, Mrs. Davis, has never suffered that most cruel of disillusionments.”

And then they went at it alternately, each pointedly addressing not the other, and tossing the hypothetical Kit between them, as if that epicene individual were the most familiar of shuttlecocks.

“Kit is to be congratulated, Mrs. Davis,” said his lordship.

“Kit has chosen the better course, Mrs. Davis,” said her ladyship.

“Matrimony is the shadow of felicity, Mrs. Davis, for which men, like the dog in the fable, drop the substance.”

“Men, you see, are beasts, Mrs. Davis; and not only beasts, but silly beasts.”

“They don’t know when they are well off, Mrs. Davis.”

“But women do, Mrs. Davis, when men insist on remaining single.”

“A pity for them, then, Mrs. Davis, that they don’t insist on remaining single too.”

“A great pity, Mrs. Davis; but women are in everything self-sacrificing.”

“They know how to take consolation for their injuries, Mrs. Davis.”

“The one lesson for which they are thankfully indebted to men, Mrs. Davis.”

“Take care what you’re confessing to, Mrs. Davis!”

“Or what calumnies you are making poor Kit responsible for, Mrs. Davis,” said her ladyship, with a little contemptuous laugh.

“O, Kit is the devil!” shouted the Earl, his wrath, till then steadily crescendo, exploding in a clap.

Moll, with a shriek of laughter, put her little hands to her ears.

“Lud!” she cried. “I’ve never confessed to so much before without knowing it! And to think Kit is come to be the devil after all!”

She lowered her hands to clap them; and at that moment the doors were flung open and Mr. Hamilton was announced. He came in from attending the Court, a brilliant figure all silk and velvet, with bows to his shoes a foot wide, and deep ruffles of lace falling from his knees over his calves. His teeth showed in a little tentative smile, their whiteness emphasized by the thread of moustache, no thicker than an eyebrow, which adorned his upper lip; while his glance, swift and comprehensive, took in the essentials of the situation on which he had alighted. His young kinswoman sprang to greet him with a cry of gladness.

“Oh, bien rencontré, mon beau cousin! You are welcome as health after sickness!”

She positively seemed to fawn on him, while Chesterfield, black and splenetic, scowled from his place across the room.

Hamilton was hugely gratified; but prudence necessitated his discounting this demonstration in the kindest way possible. He laughed, and very gently putting aside the caressing hands, answered, sufficiently audibly—

“Troth, Kate, if this is your malady, it appears in a more attractive form than most.” And then, lowering his voice, he spoke her aside: “Who is this stranger?”

“You should know,” she replied, hardly deigning to respond in kind. “Was it not you that warned me of her coming?”

“Ah!” he said, seeming enlightened, and just perceptibly shrugged his shoulders. “Is that so? Well, make us known to one another, child; for there’s no situation possible here without.”

“You said you had seen her.”

“Never to be remembered by her. I prithee, Kate.”

She could not; it stuck in her throat; but she conceded this much—she waved him with her hand towards the other two, where they stood together. Hamilton made the best of it.

“Will you, Phil?” says he, skipping up before, with a killing smile for the lady.

Chesterfield had no choice but to respond.

“Mrs. Davis,” he said, in a voice that seemed to carry an oath behind it; “this is my friend, Mr. George Hamilton.”

Moll curtsied, “a wicked little winkle” in her eye; and the gentleman, left hand on chest, right extended, and right toe advanced and pointed, swept a bow the very exaggeration of courtly.

“Charmed,” said he.

“Sure,” said Moll.

“You were speaking,” said he, “when it was my misfortune to interrupt you.”

“Was I?” said she. “Now I remember—it was about Kit.”

“Was it, faith? And who’s Kit?”

“Kit’s the devil.”

“The devil he is!”

“I never said he, now.”

“She, then.”

“Nor she. Kit’s Kit.”

“Zounds! Neither man nor woman?”

“Zounds! Why not? Doesn’t something come between man and woman?”

“What comes?”

“Why, the devil, sure.”

“Ah! Then Kit is the devil.”

“Indeed, Kit is not. Kit is what the devil comes between.”

“Wait, now. I scent a quibble. Kit stands for Christopher, and Kit stands for Katherine—both man and woman. They go arm in arm.”

“Not they. Why, Chris could never look at a woman without blushing.”

“And how about Kate?”

“O, she! She’d go arm in arm with a pair of breeches.”

My lord laughed, half vexedly: “She never could, you know.”

Moll turned on him.

“’Twas you, not me, called Kit the devil. Why don’t you answer for your own?” and, with a manner of playful fretfulness, she began to tease and rally him sotto voce.

Hamilton looked, with a grin, at his cousin, then moved to rejoin her. She stood with set lips and a disdainful frown on her brow.

“How can you encourage such intolerable stuff?” she said, in an undertone, as he approached.

“Come with me into the window,” he answered low; and, rebelling a moment, she succumbed. It was a large room, and the movement secured them a relative privacy.

“Stuff it may be,” said he; “but ’tis the sort of ready flippancy which leads your Philip Stanhopes by the nose. Is there any truth in this Kit?”

“How should I know or care? Some former flame of his, belike, with whom they play to perplex and insult me. It is no concern of mine. I am done with him.”

“Is that true, cousin?” He looked at her very earnestly. “Nay, I can see you are not speaking the truth.”

“Can you see? What true masculine eyes! I tell you that, having formed my resolve, I am quite unconcerned and happy!”

“Ah! Women think themselves what they want to be. That is why they never understand when they are accused of being what they are.”

“Indeed! And pray what am I that I do not think myself?”

“Jealous.”

“Never!”

“Jealous, I say—or you were not still so obsessed that you could fail to play the game I set you.”

“What game?”

“O! ‘What game?’ says she. Why, his game—or fatuity. Make him jealous; hoist him with his own petard, and see this common jade deposed.”

Affecting, while he spoke, the simplest conversational manner, he had an acute eye all the time for the two across the room. He observed the little attention the Earl was paying to the wiles besieging him, his disturbed glances his way, the morose suspicion of his expression; and he knew that the man was still too corroded with jealousy to play adequately the part assigned him. And in so far the decoy had failed, it seemed, to justify her uses. It was evident that, as Chesterfield had stated, she had begun to weary him—a perilous situation, which must be stopped from developing itself at whatever cost. But this mischief had reserves of fascination not yet brought into action. Kate’s own guitar—the famous instrument—lay on a table hard by. The sight of it brought one of these reserves most opportunely into his mind. If he dared—but he must dare.

Kate looked at her beguiler queerly. “I had forgotten,” she said. “Thank you, cousin. Is your advice very disinterested?”

“To that extreme,” said he, “that I offer myself, if you will, the fond instrument to this provocation. Purely to serve you, believe me. Why, watch him now, and judge if, for all his misbehaviour, he would relish that sort of retort on his infidelity.”

“I will not watch him,” she said, “or even look at him. You are very kind to me, cousin. I will think on what you say.”

He was so elated that he decided on the venture. Lifting the guitar, he ran his fingers over the strings.

“This, Mrs. Davis,” said he, advancing a few steps, “is thought, as no doubt you have been informed, the finest instrument of its kind in London. Do you play?”

The girl’s eyes sparkled. If she had a soul, it was to be evoked, small and indefinite, through music. Hamilton had calculated on that effect.

“I play,” she said. “Give it me.”

Her ladyship exclaimed angrily—

“No! Put it away, cousin. I will not have it so misused.”

He laughed.

“O, Kate! Never so churlish. Those fingers, I’ll go bail, were not made for hurt or discord. I prithee, sweet Kate.”

“Give it me,” said Moll entreatingly. “I’ll use it so I’ll make you all love me.”

Too indignant and too proud to protest further, the young Countess contented herself by flinging into a chair, where she sat with her back turned obstinately on the performer.

And Moll played, her fingers fluttering over the strings like butterflies, and drawing honey wheresoever they alighted. It was not great music, accomplished, soul-stirring; but it was very natural and very moving, quite true, quite simple, welling from the little spring that was her one pure sincerity. And presently—just as, sympathetically, when notes and chords are struck you may see a caged bird’s throat swell and throb, until the responsive rapture comes irresistibly bubbling forth and overflowing—her voice melted into, or took up, the melodious refrain her hands were shaping; and in a moment she was singing a little song, as sweet as a thrush upon a tree—

When my love comes, O, I will not upbraid him!

He meant but for kindness the gift that he gave.

Is he to blame for the Heaven that made him

A heart full of tenderness meet to enslave?

When my love comes I will promise him roses,

Gift for the gift that he laid in my breast.

O, for that promise his kindness discloses,

Will he not kiss me and make me his blest?

There’s a cry in the air of the cuckoo, sweet comer;

The daffodils blow and there’s green on the tree;

There’s a nest in the roof that is empty since summer—

When my love comes will he warm it for me?

It took her hearers by surprise, Hamilton not least. He was so moved, indeed, for the moment, that he failed to observe its effect on Chesterfield. They all dwelt silent for a little, while the girl, conscious of the impression she had made, looked down, still softly touching the strings. And then in a twinkle her mood changed. She shook her curls, laughed, touched out a lively air, and began to dance.

Her dancing was like her playing, her singing—native, unaffected, captivating, a rhythm of lightness, seeming to mock gravitation. It was to help to make her famous by and by—in days when the susceptible Mr. Pepys was to go into raptures over seeing “little Miss Davis” jigging at the play-end; and, indeed, it was very pretty, so elf-like, so unforced. It roused the enthusiasm of at least two of her company. When, laughing and rosy, she ceased, Chesterfield came to her all in a glow.

“It was prettier than the frisking of your own lambs,” said he. “Did you learn it of a shepherd’s piping, and your song of the nightingale? I vow I envy the country its possession of such a Corisande.”

My lady rose from her chair, and, without turning her head, walked erect from the room. Hamilton, watching the Earl with a furtive smile, heard her go, and breathed a silent benediction on his own success.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. PEPYS—to mention him once again—kept, as we know, a commonplace book, in which he was accustomed to jot down (in shorthand, let us hope) the good stories, post-prandial and otherwise, which came his way. It must have been a rich if unseemly collection, and is ill lost in these days to a world which, whatever its mental capital, has never more than enough of refreshing anecdotes to go round. Included in it, one may be sure, were those gems of information (as related in the Diary) proffered at my lord Crewe’s table by one Templer on the habits of the viper and the tarantula. This Mr. Templer, we note, was a clergyman, and by virtue of his cloth should be exonerated from the suspicion, otherwise irresistible, that he was pulling our Samuel’s fat leg. But it is worth quoting the passage in extenso that the reader may judge for himself—

“He told us some [i.e. serpents] in the waste places of Lancashire do grow to a great bigness, and do feed upon larkes which they take thus: They observe, when the lark is soared to the highest, and do crawl till they come to be just underneath them; and there they place themselves with their mouth uppermost, and there, as is conceived, they do eject poyson upon the bird; for the bird do suddenly come down again in its course of a circle, and falls directly into the mouth of the serpent; which is very strange.”

It is very strange; and that lark at his highest, be it observed—how many hundred feet up?—and the stupendous accuracy of the aim! But Mr. Templer was “a great traveller”—and, of course, therefore, not at all a great liar—and necessarily, on the other hand, too shrewd a man to be himself taken in by the gammoning of local naturalists. Of the tarantula he goes on to say that “All the harvest long” (in Italy presumably) “there are fiddlers go up and down the fields everywhere, in expectation of being hired by those that are stung.” Bless him! and bless his admirable chronicler, who never recorded a more ingenious tale—save that, perhaps, which relates of his friend, Batalier, the jovial but conscienceless, cheapening a butt of Bordeaux wine of some merchant, on the score that it was soured by a thunderstorm, the said storm having been just produced by an artful rogue hired to counterfeit the noise of one, with rain and hail, “upon a deale board”—an incident which reminds one of Peter Simple and Captain Kearney.

But, for Mr. Pepys’s book of tales; no part of it survives, so far as I know, to supplement the Diary, or very possibly there might be found in it some mention of the adventure of Jack Bannister with the cly-faker. This adventure had befallen our musician some time before his encounter with the Clerk of the Acts, which had turned out so signally to his advantage, and one may be certain that the grateful protégé, in the course of unburdening his heart to that generous patron, would not have omitted to mention an incident so poignantly associated with his recent hard experiences. The story, however, may be given in our own words.

In the days precedent to that lucky contretemps in Duke Street, Sad Jack had once possessed a donkey. Acquiring the beast, by a stroke of good fortune, through a raffle conducted in an inn yard over the effects of a deceased tinker, he had used her to bear the burden of the instrument which, in his ploddings abroad, made so heavy physical an addition to the weight of melancholy which oppressed him. Thenceforth patient Griselda acted the part of minstrel-boy to the wandering harpist, bearing on her sturdy little back the dumb intervals between performance and performance, and standing apathetic by while the pence for her night’s board and lodging and her master’s were being charmed from a reluctant public. She was a docile little ass and intelligent, and between her and her owner was quickly established a comradeship which made their too soon severance a source of poignant grief to at least the human one of them. It happened in this way—

They came chancing together one day into the broad thoroughfare of Cornhill, where, about the neighbourhood of the great conduit, near the east end, they halted and prepared for their parts. Here, hard by, stood the “tun,” or lock-up, a square detached building used for the temporary impounding of night offenders; and it may have been their contiguity to that place of ill savour which procured them the company which was responsible for their separation. Rogues gravitate of instinct towards the gallows, and your thief is never to be found hovering so certainly as about the buildings where Justice inhabits.

However that might be, and whether it were owing to the insolvency or the insensibility of his audience I cannot say; but the net result to the musician showed itself in such a beggarly taking, that he was driven to bring his performance to a short end, with a view to shifting his ground and endeavouring to discover a more profitable pitch. He loaded up Griselda and moved off, his expression, perhaps, reflecting the nature of his inward disappointment.

But he had not trudged fifty paces when his dismal preoccupation became conscious of a voice that pursued and arrested him.

“Hillo, my troll-away!”

He turned about, to see a figure approaching. It was that of a common young fellow, white-faced, dirty, but with a world of shifty cunning in his diminutive optics. His dress—some refuse of finery cheapened from the hangman—overhung his puny limbs, he had packthread in his shoes, and he wore his hat with a jack-a-dandy cock that did nothing but emphasize its extreme age and greasiness No one less unworldly than our musician would have stopped to parley with a creature so obviously questionable. But in truth Jack was, in the slang of the canting tribe, a born “buzzard,” or pigeon.

“What now?” demanded he.

“Heard ye,” said the stranger, coming up with a rather panting grin, “harping it yonder, over against lob’s pound; and, thinks I to myself, ‘Here be the very man for my master.’”

“What master?”

The stranger jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Salvator they call him—a great learned doctor.”

“Well, what about him?”

“A needs a merry-Andrew, so to speak.”

“I fail to smoke you, friend.”

“One to play outside his door and attract custom.”

“Ah!”

He thought he understood. It was being suggested that he should devote his gift to the services of an empiric, by drawing, siren-like, chance patients to his lure.

Well, why not? There was no moral degradation implied in the business. This Salvator might be a perfectly honest practitioner; and in any case his own art would be used for no purpose baser than its wont—to procure him, that was to say, a profitable audience. And with that his responsibility would cease. The issue, for Salvator, would be his own affair. He thought of the comparative rest implied, of his empty pockets.

“What sayest thou, Grisel?” said he.

The little she ass grunted—a small purr of affection.

“Would he make it worth my while?” asked Jack of the pallid rogue.

“Take my word for’t,” says he, “and demand your own terms.”

The musician hesitated a moment longer, then succumbed. After all, he was committing himself to no more than an interview. “Lead on,” he said, and, the rascal going before, he followed, with the beast, in his tracks.

They were here in a wide place of gabled houses, all having stalls below, with a common pent-roof over, and signs of trades innumerable hung, like flags, from its eaves. Out of this spacious thoroughfare they turned sharply into an alley, sunless like a ravine from the overtopping of its tenements, but full of life and bustle. This was Birchin Lane, much inhabited of dealers in second-hand frippery and upholstery, yet with spaces of quiet between, where in the shadows lurked here and there a doorway enclosing some business less officious in its character. And before one of these doors the stranger stopped. A modest sign hung over it, showing the inscription, “Salvator, Physician,” with a tiny pestle and mortar depicted in the top outer corner, and its base was sunk a single step below the street level.

“Wait you here,” said the fellow, “the whiles I go before to acquaint my master.”

He rapped on the door with the iron knocker, shaped like a sphinx, that hung there, and in a little it was opened to him by a strong, hard-faced woman, who inquired his business. That fact again should have warned our harpist; but the man was a dreamer and simpleton. He noted only that his escort was admitted, and thereafter was content to await his reappearance with patience.

Salvator sat alone in an upper room when the rogue was shown in to him. The physician was of a piece with his chamber, moth-blown and fusty. He wore a long black robe with a fur tippet, and a fur cap was on his head, from which his locks hung down, the colour of dry ginger. He looked spoiled and stained, from much handling of medicaments, and his jaw seemed to goggle with his eyes. The room, beyond a table, an astral globe, a bookcase stuffed with treatises, and a chair or two, possessed little furniture, and no sign whatever of the usual mummified paraphernalia of a dealer in the healing arts. He turned, from his occupation of filling a test-tube from a glass phial, to face, somewhat impatiently, the visitor.

“Well, friend, and what is thy need?”

The rogue fumbled his doffed hat.

“None of my own, master, but my brother’s. A waits in the street below, unwitting of my purpose.”

“What need? What purpose? State, state, and be done with it.”

“The purpose to have his wits cured, if so be I can entice him into your honour’s presence.”

“What, then, hath befallen his wits?”

“What not, great sir? A thinks every one he meets doth owe him money, and importunes the same for payment.”

“A kleptomaniacal symptom; from mental possession to material. You did well to approach me timely. Since when—— But I can judge nothing without I see him. Send him up to me.”

“Mayhap he’ll be persuaded so he come alone. But he’ll ask you payment.”

“That were to put the cart before the horse; to fee the patient—husteron proteron. But dispatch, dispatch.”

The rogue descended to the street, and took Griselda’s bridle from her master.

“Go, make your own terms,” said he, as if well pleased, “while I hold this. A waits you up above.”

Soberly, and without suspicion, the musician mounted the stairs. At the top Salvator met him, and, conducting him into his room, shut the door.

“A moment,” said he, “while I examine your eyes.”

He took a lens to the astonished man, and effected a minute scrutiny, muttering the while—

“A visible wildness; dilation of the pupil and congestion. You have never slept in the moonlight, now?”

“Never, sir.”

“H’m! Nor been disappointed of a fortune, nor suffered a blow on the head, nor brooded on the covetous infidelity of a loved mistress?”

“Will you tell me plainly, sir, what are the terms you offer for my services?”

“We’ll come to that. Though ’tis true a physician usually asks a fee, not gives it. My services are to you, good man.”

“Then, sir, I decline at once. What? pay you for bringing you custom!”

“You bring me none, I assure you, if not yourself.”

“I’ll bring you none, indeed, nor prostitute my art to such a bargain. Why, do you think I lead the life I do for pleasure?”

“What life, now?”

“The life of a beggar, sir; the life of one who harps about the streets for alms.”

“Harps?”

“Do not you know? Else why was I brought here?”

“Why, indeed? Your brother must explain.”

“Brother! What brother?”

“Him that came first.”

“A stranger, sir, who accosted me in the streets not half an hour gone, and brought me, on plea of an engagement, to you his master.”

“His master? Not I. I’d never set eyes on the man before.”

One blank minute the musician stood staring at the speaker, then turned and, pounding down the stairs, half crying, half sobbing, as he went, “A thief, a thief, a rogue! Stop him! He’s robbed me!” burst from the door and into the street. The stranger had disappeared, the beast, the instrument—beloved pet and the means to a livelihood all vanished at a stroke.

Aimless, distracted, with skirts flying, Bannister flew hither and thither seeking and questioning. Some scoffed at him, some sympathized; not one had any clue to offer. Amid that labyrinth of lanes and byways, stretching its network to the very waterside, it had been easy for the scamp to make good his escape. Exhausted and broken, the musician had to desist at last from his efforts.

To do him justice, the poor fellow lamented more for his Griselda than for his instrument, though the loss of the latter presented the more desperate problem to him. He could not afford from his scanty savings enough to buy him a new harp, and without one how was he to procure himself a living? In a last hope that he might find his conclusions premature, and the truants back where he had left them, he was returning dejectedly to the scene of his bereavement, when he caught sight of the figure of Salvator peering from his own doorway.

“What fortune?” quoth the medicus, with anxiety, and the other, his lips grimly pursed, only shook his head.

“Come in, good man, and explain,” said the physician kindly, “since I perceive there is more here than meets the eye, and that I have been in some manner I wot not of the unconscious instrument of your undoing. Nay, by your favour. I, who have been giving good advice all my years of discretion, may yet find enough to help a fellow-creature’s necessity.”

It was such a revelation of human charity that Sad Jack was moved to comply. He followed that Good Samaritan to his sanctum, and there, with some heartfelt lamenting for his ravished pet, frankly confided to sympathetic ears his circumstances and the nature of the trick which had victimized him. He had no reason to repent his candour. A practised, if a generous, reader of humankind, Salvator was soon enough convinced of the innate honesty and simplicity of soul which underlay the frozen surface of this nature. He saw a man here to be commiserated and trusted, and, in the end—to cut the story short—agreed to advance him the price of a new instrument, on the mere undertaking that he should repay the loan in such instalments as his success might justify. And to that arrangement, very delicately suggested, Bannister was persuaded to subscribe.

It was indeed an oasis to have discovered in this desert of a great city; and when, in the course of months, fame and fortune, at the instigation of an appreciative patron, leaped upon the humble street player, he did not forget to whom his success had been primarily due, but he sought out Salvator in his abode, and insisted on renting from him at a princely figure a suite of upper rooms in the house in Birchin Lane. And there he made his lodging, greatly to the satisfaction of his landlord, who, for all he was in no need of having patients harped to his door, was yet by far too upright a man ever to be counted a rich one.

“Phlebotomy, the conduct of a clyster, the sane mixing of a potion, the spreading of an adequate plaster—what more,” he would say to his tenant, “is needed to fulfil the functions of an honest practitioner? There be some, plain quacksalvers, who, seeking to supplement the legitimate by abstruse suggestion, adorn their chambers with the dried bodies of toads, crocadilloes, venomous asps contained in spirit, and other such monstra horrenda of a cheating fancy; whereby, indeed, if they show their improbity, they exhibit a true knowledge of the uses of the imagination, which will for ever pay to mystery the treble of what reason would pay to knowledge. But not of such suggestio falsi is my dealing: and, though I suffer by it, I would rather suffer in the company of Galen than prosper in that of Cornelius Tilbury.”

“Yet,” says Bannister, pointing to the astral globe, “you are not, it seems, for limiting your prescriptions to the terrestrial?”

“Why,” answered Salvator (whose real unprofessional name, by the way, was Shovel), “am I so dense and blind to the sources of light and life as to claim an independence for our planet? The herb is as much of heaven as the star, and the sign-manual of our origin is printed on man and flower alike. So must we consult man for heaven and heaven for man, his lines, his indications, whether derived from this celestial House or the other. For which reason I believe in astrology as in chiromancy, since both guide me to the association of a particular humour in a patient’s blood with its corresponding cause and remedy, they all being contained in his nativity, or horoscope, that is to say—man and season and herb alike. Without subscribing to the fantastical conceits of Gaule and Indagine, who profess to find in the palm of the hand a country of seven hills, each, as it were, a watershed laced with innumerable descending rivulets of tendency, I confess that I see no reason why what life hath marked on a man the Source of life had not in the first instance predestined there. Light is what I seek, and that comes not from the earth.”

So was this worthy doctor, sane, humane and religious in one—a very practical Samaritan. Yet, as it came to appear, not all his honest theories were able to serve him in the single direction where most he pined to see them vindicated. He was a widower, and possessed of an only child, a hopelessly crippled boy of fifteen.

Bannister had been an inmate of the house for a full week before he learned of the existence of this pathetic incubus. The building was well-sized, its upper part, until he came to occupy it, delivered to gloom and emptiness, and, to reach his rooms, he had to pass by a door on the first landing which, in his early notice of it, was invariably closed. But one night, as he went by, he observed the door ajar, and saw a light and heard a voice within. The voice was not that of his landlord, nor of the hard-faced woman who acted as his sole servant and housekeeper. It was a weak voice and a querulous, and it seemed to be expostulating over the meagreness of some concession grudgingly vouchsafed. The musician paused in some astonishment, resting momentarily the foot of the harp he shouldered on a stair-tread. He never parted from his loved instrument, though in these days he used a good packhorse to convey it to and from the places where he performed.

It was near midnight, and the house, but for the voice, was dead silent. The woman, after admitting him, had preceded him up the flight and vanished. It had never occurred to him that the place contained other than the two with whom he was familiar. He stood, petrified for the moment, and, as the sound of his footstep ceased, so did that of the low and feeble complaint. And then suddenly the woman came to the door and appeared before him.

Bannister had always rather mentally recoiled from this person—her bony sallowness, her silence, the gloom of seeming tragedy in her eyes. He never learned from first to last what was her history; and yet, if tragedy there were connected with it, it had likely proved a tragedy no more heroic than that of lovelessness, and drudgery, and the hard resignation to that lot of unfulfilment which, foredoomed of personal ill-favour, is perhaps, to a woman, the bitterest tragedy of all. She served him, and waited on him well; she did everything efficiently save smile. Yet, for all her unemotional presence, he thought he perceived now, in the guttering light of the landing lamp, a sign of perturbation on her face.

“I was surprised,” he said; “and stopped—no witting eavesdropper. I thought I heard a voice I did not recognize.”

“’Twas Colin’s,” she said.

“Anan?” He used, being country bred, the country expression.

“Colin’s,” she repeated—“the master’s child.”

“I never knew he had one.”

“One.” She responded like an echo.

“And ill?”

“He’s always ill.”

“Poor boy! Does this vigil signify——?”

She answered the unfinished question.

“He wanted the door left ajar that he might see you pass with your harp.”

“See me pass?”

“Aye, since he cannot hear you play.”

He looked at her in silence; then, in a quick, unaccountable impulse, placed a firm hand on her arm. “Let me go in;” and, almost to his wonder, she acquiesced, and moved aside to admit him.

It was a fair-sized room, and quite handsomely appointed. What luxuries the house could command seemed mostly accumulated here. There were soft mats on the floor; jewels of stained glass let into the diamond-paned casements; a silver lamp glowing among books and illuminated manuscripts strewed over a table. And, in the midst, in vivid contrast with the dark panelling, on a white bed lay a white boy. His face, which, for its structure, might have been a pretty one, was wasted to the bone; his eyes were prominent and of an unearthly blue; though fifteen, he looked in weight and size less than a child of nine. Sad, sad is it to see young life in any sickness—its pathetic patience, its uncomplaining acceptance of its cruel, uncomprehended heritage; but sadder is the sight of one doomed from his cradle to pain and helplessness. To be born, like this, to death, not life, to the visible processes of dissolution from the very threshold of existence; to be fated never to know but by report the meaning of health, as the blind must shape in their imaginations the world they can never see—truly that is to suffer the worst loss of possession, which is never to have possessed, while reading in the happiness of others the measure of one’s own eternal deprivation. Here was some constitutional atrophy, already, fifteen years ago, disputing with its unborn victim the world to come, and proving, on release, stronger than the life it clung to. The boy had been an invalid from his birth—a lamp guttering before it was well lighted—a nativity most fondly lending itself, one would have thought, to the triumphant vindication of its parent doctrines. But that vindication never came; the father could not cure his child, and there was the anguish. The life he loved most on earth was the life that most baffled his efforts to mend and prolong it. His arts could not even win it surcease from the mortal languor and weariness which accompanied its dissolution. He felt himself a hypocrite, an impostor, in the eyes that, turning to him for relief, found only helplessness and impotence. He who to all others was so glib in professional assurance had nothing here to offer but empty commiseration and an agony of devotion. It was very pitiful.

Bannister, pausing a moment on the threshold, stepped softly in, with wonder and compassion at his heart. The boy, propped up on his pillows, regarded his entrance with shy, fascinated eyes. But the grave face of the new-comer, its simplicity, its kindly melancholy, were nothing but reassuring adjuncts to the midnight quiet of the room. The musician shifted the harp from his shoulder.

“Would you like to hear me play,” he said: “here and now, in the silence of the house?” The instant rapture called to the emaciated features was his sufficient answer. He smiled. “Cannot you sleep?” he said. “It is late to lie awake.”

The boy shook his head.

“What is time to me, sir?”

He said it without affectation. It had seemed less touching otherwise.

“Well,” said Bannister, “it must be a Lydian measure, lest those more concerned with sleep than we resent it. Lie still, child, while I drug thy tired brain.”

He knew his own power in that way which is the last from vainglory. True genius has no self-consciousness. It was his soul that played, his fingers obeying; and what conceit can there be in immortality? Seated, he touched the strings, and his soul spoke—spoke all the pity and soft sympathy which were its burden. It was tender music, sighing, sweetly subdued to the occasion. And as he proceeded he lost himself in it, lost all but the sense of that divine compassion which was moving and inspiring him. Still, the sure instinct of the artist came presently to decree a period; and ending, short of surfeit, on a dying note, he came to earth.

The child was lying with closed lids, heavy tears trickling from them upon the pillow; the woman stood in the shadows, one hand placed over her eyes. What faint, angelic melodies must have stricken, half fearfully, half joyfully, the ears of dark watchers in the streets that night! Stepping very gently, the musician bent above the boy.

“Good-night, Colin,” he whispered. “And shall I come again anon?”

With a convulsive movement, two thin arms were flung about his neck.

“O, come, come again and play to me!”

“I will come. But now, my child, I am very weary. See, I will leave my harp to stand with you all night in earnest of my promise.”

As he opened the door a gaunt and ghastly apparition faced him. It was the father himself, awakened, and brought from his bed in doubt and trembling. He closed the latch, and, turning on the musician, seized him by the arms in a fierce and strenuous grip.

“I was listening, I was watching!” he whispered hoarsely. “Shall I curse you or love you!” And then he fell upon his knees, pawing and mumbling the sensitive hands. “No, no,” he gasped in a broken voice; “be you his true physician—not like this empty charlatan, who, for all his pretended knowledge, hath never learned the magic that one touch of thy hands can dispense.”

CHAPTER IX

AND so the musician and the dying boy were made friends—a quaint, brief intimacy which the former could never recall in after-years without a pang, half pitiful, half humorous, for its oddity. Its relation here is purely in the nature of an interlude, and may be wholly skipped, without hurt to the main narrative, by those who have an unconquerable repugnance of sentiment. But for those others—whether the majority or not I do not know—who like to warm their hearts now and then at the little fire of compassion, the episode, as constituting an odd chapter in the life of a famous executant, may possess a transitory charm. It is for them it is narrated.

From that poignant midnight, Bannister, both by day and evening, was often in the sick boy’s room. By nature tender-hearted, how, indeed, could he deny to suffering that wonderful new emollient discovered in his art? His music succeeded where all dietetics, therapeutics, pharmaceutics, lenitives, palliatives, analeptics, galenics, and other such “ics” and “ives” as appertain to orthodox leechcraft, had failed, however fondly applied, to give relief. It was an anodyne under which peace and resignation came gradually to be substituted for the weary fretfulness which long, fruitless devotion had only helped to aggravate. The father saw, and sighed, and was sadly grateful. Often he would come and listen to the throbbing strains, sitting quite quietly apart, and watching, with a furtive wistfulness, the rapt face, on which all his ministering love had never been able to draw such lines of restful content. And the slackness of his jaw on these occasions seemed somehow to add a curious pathos to the moral. He had meant so well and done so little.

But it was not alone on the subject of music that the stranger and child drew together. One could not, for that matter, always be harping; and in the intervals, at odd times, they conversed much, and familiarly, and generally on recondite themes. They were both, in their different ages and degrees, mystics—the older from temperament, the younger from his spiritual isolation. Lying there through the age-long seasons, what commune was possible to him but with fancies and unrealities? The world was a shadow to him; only his dreams were actual. For them his fruitfullest pastures lay in the spars and splinters of jewelled light which glowed from the stained glass in the casement. Thence he gathered, or thereinto read, the strange phantasies which haunted his brain—thoughts and visions which were like things glimpsed from beyond the veil. This glass was old work, acquired piecemeal from many sources, and let into the upper halves of the windows, without correlation in its parts and with no regard but for effect—a disarrangement infinitely more suggestive than any formal pattern. A few leaves, a golden apple, a section of trellis, a hand grasping a sword-hilt, here and there a head of saint or warrior—such, interspersed with spaces of plain glass, crimson, or deep blue, or sunny yellow, formed the embroidered patchwork for a thousand fancies to play about. One had to remember, hearing the child’s strange brooding rhapsodies thereon, the years which his shrunken appearance belied. Moreover, the intellectual light in him, as is frequently the case with cripples, was precocious, abnormally brilliant. And though he confessed his dreams to a lesser intellect, it was to a corresponding sympathy. The simple of heart are often the purest of vision. Bright wits must whet themselves on the concrete; they cannot sharpen on abstractions. It is for the unworldly to know what they cannot speak. And so it was with this harpist.

There was one fragment which, more than any other, fascinated the boy. It was in colour a splendid azure, mysteriously liquid, and on it hung from nowhere a little white hand, minutely finished to the nails. Whose had it been—what queen’s or angel’s?

“Sometimes,” he would say, “when the lamp is low and there is moonlight in the street, I see it move; and then a shadow grows above, and out of it a face, too dim to distinguish; but if I shut my eyes, I know it has come down and is bending over me.”

“The Lady Mother, belike, Colin.”

“Think you so, dear Jack? It were sweet to have a mother in my room. Do you ever see faces, framed in little blots of light, when you close your lids hard?”

“Surely I do!”

“What are they? Whence do they come? I have no memories of such in all my life. They are strangers to me, yet as clear and actual as yours I look on now. Human—the faces of men and women—some good, some evil; but, if I try to hold and fix ’em, they slide and melt, this one laughing, that wickedly deriding.”

“I know them, evanescent phantoms, that poise, like the shining dragonfly, one instant on wing, and, so you make a movement to look closer, are gone—darted to extinction. Well, may they not be the faces of those we saw through former eyes of ours, in lives before this life?”

The boy lay staring at him, pondering his words as if half tranced.

“I think you say truth,” he answered presently. “What odd surprises come floating sometimes into one’s head, like glimpses of a great secret—bright bubbles that break just as you seem on the point of remembering what the lovely little pictures in them are reflections of. That is a bubble of yours I have often tried to catch.”

“What does it seem to tell you, child?”

“It seems to tell me how I that am I must have been since the beginning of things; how I must have lain in the life that was the first life as surely as I lay in the life that was my mother. Think back, and you will find it must be. All through the countless ages I have been passed on from prison to prison, waiting the release which is to come to me at length in Death—is to come to me through this last phase of conscious existence, which is indeed my trial and sentence. And then the scaffold, Jack; we all have to mount the scaffold; and at last the opened door—the escape—the rapture—and I shall remember why it all was!” He clasped his thin hands; his face seemed lit up with an inward glow, like a porcelain lamp enclosing a dim flame. “Is not that what you mean?” he said.

“I think it is, Colin. Yet what could that imperishable seed have known, until this last phase of realities? For it the faces could not have existed.”

“Why not, since they existed for the lives of which it was?”

“That is true. Life is not contained in this or that of me, but is the sum of all.”

The casement formed a shallow recess of five lights. It stood opposite the bed, looking out on the street. Dimly, seen through its latticed lower half, the houses across the lane towered like dark phantoms. With their faces to the north, they were never but plunged in gloom; but when the south sun was high, and struck upon the stained glass, the contrastive glow, to tranced eyes, made them appear impalpable things. That was how the boy liked to regard them—silvery abodes of mystery, where any strange things might be happening, and appearing framed between the floor and that upper frieze of glowing transparencies. Then the lower windows looked mere cobwebs, in which sparks and glints of light hung caught like fireflies. It was all a dream of mist and sparkle, in which the sense of close confinement seemed dissolving.

But it was not so for the most part. He hated the houses in their common, hard aspect of nearness and oppression. Only when the rain fell thickly, spouting from their eaves and gutters, and half hiding them behind a veil of dropping water, or when the snow, clinging to their sills and window-frames, seemed to cut them into sugared sections, could he endure to look on them without impatience. They were the jealous barriers which imprisoned him from the infinite. Some boys, so conditioned, would have found their main pathetic interest in such sights and sounds of outer life as might penetrate to them in their isolation. It was not so with him. His spirit, like an entombed flower, yearned always towards the light, stretching pallidly in a vain passion to attain the blue heaven of health and freedom.

Perhaps, strange little soul, he was happiest in those long moonlit nights when, the curtains being drawn about the lower casement, he and his jewelled book of stories in the window were left alone together. Then he would lie for hours, quite motionless, as if hypnotized, his eyes fixed on the dimly luminous scroll, dreaming what unearthly dreams only the painted heads themselves might tell. He liked to hear the watchman crying out the hours, hollow and mysterious, in the streets below; he loved to see by day the not unrare vision of a pigeon pecking and preening on his window-sill, or the shadow of a hopping sparrow cross the panes. Those were his events, until the harp came. And then all at once he was transformed. Some long-dumb chord in his soul leaped and vibrated to the rapture with a force that shook the life out of him. I think that was the truth. He died to all intents of joy. The frail frame could not stand the exquisite tension of the bliss evoked in it.

Now, in the days of that brief friendship, scarce one day passed but found the boy and man at some time together. There was no more midnight playing; but Bannister would look in as occasion offered, and mostly with his instrument accompanying. Then there would be sweet music a spell, and talk a spell, and perhaps unutterable silences to link them. Somehow it suggested the soul affinity, formal but transcendent, between a dying saint and his confessor. There was a subtle thrill in the atmosphere, of which all were conscious—Bannister himself, the father, the woman with the hard, pathetic face, whose eyes were always hidden by her hand when she was privileged to listen to the music. They felt it like an unseen presence—a sense of warning, of change, as when one feels spring moving in the grass under one’s feet. And not one would own to itself that it knew. Yet they all knew.

Always to the last it was the little white hand in the blue pane which most fascinated the boy. His wandering fancy would lose itself among the cluster of leaves, as in an antique forest; would find in the glowing fruit a very garden of Hesperus, sweet with nightingales and the warm scent of flowers; would endow with a hundred characters the faces peering from that arras of bright hues: but it was to the hand he for ever returned, its beauty, its severed mystery. “I should dearly like to learn to whom it belonged,” he would say. “But this I know very well—if I could only reach it, it would help me up and away. It is the boy Christ’s, I think.”

It was on a dark midsummer morning, chill and stormy, that the end came. There had been signs, and in their hearts they were prepared. The father sat by his child’s pillow, holding one of the frail hands in his, the woman, dry-eyed and silent, busied herself noiselessly among the shadows; near the foot of the bed sat the musician, his harp before him, touching little more than a melodious murmur from its strings. He faced the casement, which, because of the wind, had been close shut.

Perhaps it was the drugged stillness of the room, the spell wrought upon his brain by the soft “woven paces” of the chords his fingers trod; perhaps he really dreamt; but this is what seemed to happen before his eyes. He was gazing, unconscious that he was gazing, on the window, when he saw the shadow of a dove moving on the sill outside. It dipped and strutted, curtseying back and forth, as if restless or impatient; and as it hurried, now this way now that, of a sudden the noise of the wind ceased utterly, and a flood of sunlight broke upon the window. And in that same moment the player noticed a little white hand at the latch, and the casement swung noiselessly open. There was a sigh as of wings—within, without—and his fingers stopped on a broken chord. And as he stared, dazzled, incredulous, he heard a quick rustle behind him, and a startled cry: “My God! He’s gone!”

He rose, he turned, half stupefied, and saw the father on his feet, bending with an agonized expression over the face on the pillow. It was quite still; a ray of sunlight touched it; a smile of the most rapturous peace was on its lips. In a spasm of emotion he caught the poor man’s hand in one of his, and with the other pointed mutely to the open window. The physician, giving vent to his tears, leaned himself upon his shoulder.

“’Twas thy music,” he said, “broke his prison and freed his soul.”

“’Twas thy unselfish love,” said Bannister, “freed the music.”

The woman, her stern face all softened and agitated, went to close the casement.

“Nay, dame,” said the father—“let be; he cannot take cold now. To think he is seeing the blue sky and the white clouds for the first time!”

And at that she cast herself upon the floor and hid her face. Only the convulsive heaving of her body witnessed to the breaking of the storm which had been so long pent up within her. Alas! what unsuspected woman was revealed here, what passion undercrushed, and what desolation!

It was remarked that night in Spring Garden that never yet had the famous harpist so divinely justified his reputation. He played like one transported, lost to earth. Many of his ravished audience were in tears, while the very pigeons, petted and fearless, seemed to gather about his feet. Nay, there was one, it was said, a tender white dove, that flew to his shoulder and settled there for a while, making love at his ear. But that may pass for a legend.

CHAPTER X

IT may appear to some people that Hamilton was taking a prodigious amount of trouble to reach by a roundabout way a conclusion at least as presumptively attainable by direct means as by sinuous; and, in this connection, Montrose’s quatrain may possibly occur to them—

He either fears his fate too much,

Or his desert is small,

Who dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.

Without, however, stopping to defend or disallow the moral applicability of these lines to our case in point, it may be offered to such objectors that, generally speaking, the rewards most hardly won are the rewards most highly prized by men, that five-sixths of the satisfaction of success lie in the difficulties surmounted to achieve it (the thing may be be-adaged to infinity), and that if there was a scamp in this world alive to that truism, it was your Restoration scamp, with his plethora of experience in the ways of facile conquest. Who, indeed, could for ever take joy or credit of shooting the sitting pheasant, of hunting the fox or the hare if his quarry, the moment it were pursued, squatted down to be trodden on? Rather, would it be his object to scare away, with a view to stalking and circumventing, the affrighted game, than, by coming to straight conclusions with it, to miss all the excitement of the chase.

Now, I do not say that, in this particular scoundrelism he was bent on, Hamilton went deliberately about it to complicate an issue he ardently desired; only, intrigue in such matters being the recognized process, it never occurred to him, perhaps, that satisfactory conclusions could be reached without. It was a superstition of his time that beef to be tender must be first baited; and certainly the sport added a zest of its own to the subsequent feast. Moreover, the relish in the sport itself owed much of its savour, as always with sport, to the fact that the winner’s gains involved the loser’s losses. To the account of his triumph, if triumph it should be, must be put, not only the corruption of the wife but the fooling of the husband. The humour of that result were enough to vindicate in itself the most tortuous of courses; and the fact that the husband happened to be his connection and confidential friend only added in his eyes a touch of exquisite drollery to the situation. In the process of engineering that situation he tasted all the thrilling delectation of the spy, who, conscious of his sole possession of momentous secrets, plays the apparent tool to this side and the other, himself the master of both and the real arbiter of their destinies.

He was walking one afternoon near the Ring in Hyde Park, watching the solemn circumambulation of the coaches about that damned and dusty arena, when a voice hailed him, and he saw Chesterfield’s glum visage protruded from the window of a chariot which had drawn up hard by.

“Prithee come in, coz,” said the Earl, “and help a poor foundered wretch to forget himself in livelier company than that of his own thoughts.”

Hamilton, with a laugh, acceded, and the two rolled on together.

“Is your mood so lugubrious?” asked the rogue. “Why, what a weathercock it is, now pointing hot, now chill, without a devil of a reason that I can see in this temperate climate! But the last time I met you you were all for sultry, and now, to mark your face! I’ve seen a gargoyle, with an icicle hung to its nose, look less dismally frosty.”

“Pish!” exclaimed the other testily. “If ’tis to the Corisande you allude, my fire that night was but a flash-in-the-pan.”

“A touch of the real sulphur in it, nevertheless, I believe.”

“A touch-and-go it was, then. The skit can dance and sing to make a man’s pulses leap—I admit it; but herself soon serves to kill that transitory glamour. She’s her own corrective.”

“Well, I say the more the pity.”

“Why do you say it? I don’t understand.”

He glanced at his companion, a sudden wrath of suspicion in his eyes.

“What don’t you understand?” asked Hamilton, bridling, though with an appearance of extreme urbanity, to the other’s tone.

“That you should deplore my not burning my fingers in the fire I play with. Did you design that I should when you recommended that hussy to me?”

“H’m! In a measure—yes,” drawled Hamilton.

“For what reason? Curse it, I say, for what reason?”

“For what reason?”

“Do you repeat me to gain time, groping for an excuse? Do you, I say?”

“You are full of questions. Will you have me answer them in one, or one by one? Zounds, man, behave less like a pea dancing on a drum.”

“Now, by God, George——!” He set his teeth, hissed in his breath, shook his fists at nothing at all, and fell suddenly calm. “I’ll be reasonable,” he said, apostrophizing space—“quite temperate and reasonable. Is it reasonable to suppose that one, a family connection and my friend, in my close confidence, could make such an admission without some motive designed to serve me—unless, indeed, it pointed to a treachery on his part so black as to constitute a devilry unthinkable?”

Hamilton’s brow corrugated. By a curious psychological perversity he felt as much incensed over the insinuation as if there had actually been no warrant for it. Such is often the case with your wrongdoer; he will justify himself to himself, while remaining perfectly firm on the question of abstract morality.

“You are a master of reason, Phil, we know,” said he, with a sneer; “the which, if I doubted, would not your proviso convince me? So, I have openly confessed my hand—to beguile you to an infatuation that should leave the coast clear for me—me—to play the villain?”

“I never said so.”

“O! did you not?”

“I said specifically the thing was unthinkable.”

“Showing you had thought of it.”

“George, don’t torture me. You said, you know, it was a pity I was not more really touched.”

“I say it again.”

“Why, in God’s name?”

“So your attitude would be more convincing. As it is, the hollow pretence of it would not deceive a child.”

“Is that all you meant? Forgive my words to you—I am so torn and harassed—and you are my only friend, I think. I’ll try to be more natural with the wretch; more—more convincing, damn her! Yet I drove it home with Kate the other night; you saw how she left the room?”

“There you are! because for the moment you were really what you had pretended to be—under the spell. Could you ask a better proof?”

“No, that’s true. But it’s hard to feign the fire you do not feel.”

Hamilton laughed indulgently.

“You take things too seriously. Convince yourself you do not care whatever happens, and Fortune will be kind to you. It is the jade’s way, being a woman. Indifference to her is the only thing she cannot resist. And it isn’t as if the fruit you were asked to handle were rotten medlers. Here’s a sweet country nectarine for which a very epicure might envy you.”

“A country crab, I think, as biting as she’s little. Well?”

“Well, is this to forget yourself in livelier company? Marry, Phil, if you can laugh at nothing else, laugh at yourself—always the best fool in a man’s household. But, come, I’ll give you distraction. Here’s a story just on the town of two rogue apothecaries, partners, which might point the moral of an Æsop’s fable. Have you heard it?”

Chesterfield, his eyes perfectly lacklustre, muttered some incoherent response. The other proceeded, undaunted—

“Nixon and Carter were they called, and both attended, among others, on a certain ailing miserly old widow, waiving their fees in hope of some rich bequest half promised to them for their devotion. The day before she died she sent them two old shabby worn-out cloaks, one cloth, one velvet, in reward of their long services to her, and of these garments, Nixon, as the elder, was to choose which he would, the other going to his partner. They were well mad, I can promise you, but, making the best of it, Nixon chose the cloth, as being the more serviceable, and after, in derision, offered to part with it to Carter for a shilling. Which, promptly agreeing to, and securing his bargain, Carter, the more astute knave, discovered each of its twelve buttons to be a gold Carolus hidden under cloth. And so they were at it, Nixon demanding back his goods and Carter resisting, till from quarrelling they came to blows and Nixon killed Carter, for which Nixon is to be hanged. And now comes in the lovely moral; for it seems they were both Fifth Monarchist men, owing their lives to the Act of Indemnity, yet who would have cut off their right hands rather than help the King to a tester of his own coin. And the end is these twelve gold pounds are forfeit to the Crown. What think you of that for a rare combination of law and justice?”

Receiving no answer, he looked at his companion, and perceived him patently oblivious to every word he was saying. He exclaimed, and laid his hand on the door.

“What now?” said Chesterfield, waking up.

The other cursed him fairly. “A pox on your insensibility! Here have I been pouring my precious wine of eloquence into thy cracked measure of a head that hath retained not one drop. I’ll up and begone.”

“No, don’t. Have you been talking in truth?”

“O, listen to him! Have I been talking! No, sir; I’ve been thinking aloud; and if my thoughts ran on jackasses in their relation to the creature called a mute, you have only to speak without braying to prove yourself not half the donkey you seem.”

“Don’t be offensive, George. Why do you apply such a word to me?”

“Are you not a donkey, to go brooding on thistles when I offer you grapes?”

“I cannot help but brood. Have patience with me, coz. There’s a thought in my mind I cannot rid it of.”

“A thought? What thought?”

“This cursed Kit.”

“Kit?”

“The Kit her friend is for ever alluding to.”

“O! that.”

“There’s some purposed innuendo, I’m convinced, in the hussy’s mockery—perhaps to some former flame of my wife’s known to both. I believe, before God, it is that. You should have heard my lady before you came that night. On my soul, she had almost confessed bare-faced that she used this Kit to console herself for my neglect.”

“The devil she did!”

It was a new and surprising suggestion for Hamilton himself. It seemed to open out a wholly unexpected vista of mortifying possibilities. Could there be anything in it? Little signs—an odd look, a queer inflection of the voice, unsuspected of any significance at the time—occurred to him now in the connection of his cousin’s confidences. Was she really playing a double game with all of them, this little artless-seeming Thais? No! she was altogether too unsophisticated; he could not believe it. Besides, of course, he was actually forgetting that she and Mrs. Moll were but recent acquaintances. They could not have a knowledge of that name in common, unless——

“Did she specifically say ‘him’?” he asked Chesterfield.

“What do you mean?” demanded the Earl.

“You know Mrs. Davis would not admit Kit’s sex when I rallied her.”

Chesterfield shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“Pooh! The merest subterfuge, to mislead and torment me. The dog’s a male dog; there’s no question whatever about it.”

Hamilton sat frowning a while. It was true that that fact of the women’s unacquaintance counted for little. Moll, the prying and mischievous, might easily have made a discovery; or, again, granted the alternative of Kate’s double-dealing, the two might be in a naughty confederacy to punish the master of the house. Truly, if it were no worse than that, he could forgive them, though their understanding meant a certain treachery to himself. But at least it would ease his mind of a qualm which had suddenly overtaken it.

He meditated, on the whole ill at ease. He must find some opportunity, of that he was decided, to question Mrs. Moll more particularly about this Kit, and, though he foresaw well enough an evasive response, he believed he would be able to extract from her some indication of the truth sufficiently illuminating to guide him in his further actions. He turned to his companion with the suggestion—

“Leave the matter to me, Phil, for the moment. I’ll question the slut, and, like the persuasive, artful dog I am, worm the truth out of her.”

“Will you, George? Zounds, if my suspicions should be verified, and there’s secret meetings between them! Though he be a Kit of nine lives, I’ll skewer them every one on my rapier like slivers of dog’s meat. When will you come?”

“When is it safe?”

“My lady rides abroad each day at noon.”

“To-morrow, then.” He put an impressive warning hand on the other’s sleeve. “This must not affect your behaviour to the visitor. Never, whatever you do, relax your attentions there, but rather emphasize them.”

“O! why?”

“Why—why?” He spoke with some impatient irritability. “Are you really so dense? Why, because—if you must be instructed—any slackness on your part might rouse your wife’s suspicions. We want, if it’s to be a question of taking her off her guard, to lull her into a sense of false security; and the more infatuated you appear, the more careless of precaution will she become. Strange that I should have to teach you sexual strategy.”

He would not dismiss the whole suggestion at once, you see, as incredible and preposterous; he was too well versed in the thousand duplicities of which woman is capable ever to accept her innocence at more than its face value. Nor is mere youth a guarantee with her of harmlessness. The little two-inch viper can bite to poisonous effect the moment it is hatched from the egg. No, it was judicious, for the sake of all concerned, to attempt to establish the identity of this hermaphroditic individual. And he thought he could do it.

He went to essay the experiment the next day. A little to his confusion he learned that his cousin, whom he had calculated upon finding out, was not yet departed, but was strolling, pending her horse’s arrival, in the garden. After a moment’s hesitation, he went to seek her there, and encountered her loitering about the paths which led down, among ordered parterres and hedged alleys, to the river-side. She looked very pretty in her scarlet riding habit à la mode, with the long-skirted coat, fashioned after a man’s, which was just then come into vogue, and the little plumed hat tilted over one ear; and the picture she made went straight down through his eyes to his heart. Her eyes opened a shade as she turned to recognize him.

“Are you coming to offer to ride with me?” she said. “Because, if you are——”

“Yes?” he asked.

She tossed her head suddenly, with a little shrug.

“O! no matter. What the world can see the world will not suspect. Come, if you wish it.”

“Meaning by the world, I suppose, your husband. Then you have thought better of my suggestion?”

“What suggestion?”

“That you should use me to stimulate his jealousy.”

“I have thought of you as my kinsman and his friend.”

“Is that a reproof, Kate Chesterfield?”

She ruffled a box border with her little pointed toe, looking down the while.

“Why should you think it so, cousin? You are a man of honour, are you not? And I have your own word for it your offer was a quite disinterested one.”

“That may be; but to turn it to no better account than riding innocently in company is not the way to make it effective.”

She did not reply for a moment, then looked him straight in the eyes.

“What would you have us do?”

“I could answer for one thing,” he said. His gaze was on a knot of rosebuds fastened in her bosom. “These walls are argus-eyed. Grant me a token from that sweet nest.”

“And earn,” she said, “a credit I do not deserve. Why should I go out of my way so to damn myself?”

“He’ll hear of it.”

“The only one of all that would not care.” A sudden flush came to her face. She leaned forward a little, and spoke three words: “Who is Kit?”

It fairly took him aback. He was so startled that for a moment he could not answer.

“Kit!” he stammered then.

“You are my husband’s friend,” she said—“in his confidence; you know and have shared, no doubt, the secrets of his past. Was it not enough to force upon me the daily insult of this Davis creature’s presence, but he must make a jest through her lips of other infamies in which it seems they were both implicated? Who is this Kit, I say?”

Now, one thing, in his astonishment, was made clear to Hamilton. Kate was as innocent of Kit as Kit of Kate. That reassurance was consoling, though it left him more confounded than ever as to the identity of the strange being.

“On my honour, cousin,” he said, “I have no idea.”

“You have not?”

“Not a shadow of one. But, whoever she is, if she she is, what reason have you to connect Phil with her?”

She made a sound of scorn.

“What reason? Am I deaf and blind to all hints and innuendoes—to their conspiracy to mock me with veiled references to the part she has played in his life? O, reason, indeed!”

“I think, on my soul, you are letting your imagination master you. Has he ever really confessed to this Kit?”

“You did not hear him? No, it was before you came. He did as much, referring to her as the substance of happiness for which he had exchanged its shadow—the shadow—the wife—O, I am in truth a shadow of a wife!”

“Then, I say, if that be so, he deserves no mercy.”

“I intend to show him none.”

“Give me the rose, then.”

“Why do you want it? In reward of your disinterestedness?”

“Just that.”

She gazed at him a moment—a fathomless look; then—O, woman, microcosm of all incomprehensibilities!—detached a bud from the group and held it out to him. He received it in rapture, and dared to put it to his lips. But at that she flushed pink, and turned from him.

“I will ride alone,” she murmured. “Nay, do not press me further.”

He forbore to. It suited his plans to remain behind, and he let her go without protest. And the moment he was sure of her departure he went to seek Mrs. Davis. His veins were hot; there was a glaze over his eyes. “She hath put foot within the magic circle,” he thought, “and I have her.”

He went to find a servant, and to dispatch him in quest of Mrs. Moll. The baggage came down to him presently into the great room, and, when they were left alone together, danced gleefully up to him and dropped a curtsey.

“Is not that to the manner?” she said. “Or is it the bong tong to offer you my cheek?”

“Come,” he said, with a shadow of impatience. “I want to have a serious talk with you.”

“Lud! What mischief have I been up to?”

“Not mischief enough—that is my complaint.”

“Well, that’s easy remedied.”

“Is it? I’m beginning to doubt.”

“Ah! You don’t know me.”

“You are enjoying yourself here, are you not?”

“Passably. ’Tis dull sometimes—too much confinement, and not enough fresh air.”

“You’d like to be released, perhaps, from your duties?”

“Should I? What makes you think so?”

“It has occurred to me. Supposing I were to tell you you might go?”

“Supposing? Well, I shouldn’t go, that’s all.”

“You wouldn’t? Do you mean to say you’d defy me?”

“Yes, I do mean to say it.” She came close before him, put her little fists behind her back, and tilted her chin at him. “What’s all this about? Aren’t I wanted any more, or have you changed your mind? That ’ud be a pity, because I’m not the sort, you know, to be taken or left just as it suits a man’s convenience.” She laughed—not pleasantly. “Has it never occurred to you, George, that you happen to be just a little bit in my power?”

“The devil I am!”

“So am I—on occasion. You might find that out if you provoked me.”

“Why, what could you do?”

“I could blab, couldn’t I—make havoc of your little plot?”

He was a trifle staggered. Here was something overlooked in his calculations. He had only designed, in fact, to stimulate her efforts; this threatened rebellion revealed some mistake in his methods.

“And lose for ever your chance of promotion,” said he. “Well, if you wish to make me your enemy——”

She nodded her head once or twice.

“I don’t. But I’d lose twenty kings sooner than sit quiet under a dirty trick like that.”

“Do you propose staying on, then, till this imposture is discovered, as every day makes more probable? As well betray me at once.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that. But I like the fun and I like the life, and I see no more risk of discovery now than when I came. Why do you want me to go?”

“I never said I did. I don’t, as a matter of fact, if you will only not like these things so well as half to forget your purpose in them.”

“My purpose? That’s to make the lord creature in love with me. Well, haven’t I?”

“I miss the conclusive evidence—the proof of the pudding that’s in the eating.”

“That wasn’t in the bargain. Be fair, George. I’m doing all that was asked of me, and doing it faithful.”

She was, in fact; yet he had actually hoped for more. She was so excessively alluring that he could not believe Chesterfield capable, in spite of his apparent insensibility, of ultimately resisting her charms, were she fully resolved he should not.

“And is that,” he said, “suggesting the little piece too much? You’ve grown very fastidious of a sudden. I told you I was beginning to doubt.”

She looked at him queerly a moment.

“Isn’t it going as well with you as you expected?” she asked.

“Your finishing him could do my cause no harm, at least,” said he, and bit his lip.

“Well, I vow I’m sometimes a’most sorry for her,” she said. “She’s but my own age, and—and the man’s in love with her all the time, and at a word she’d be with him. Don’t I know that? What a brace of blackguards we are, George!”

“Speak for yourself, Mrs. Moll,” said Hamilton, a little hotly. “Love absolves all sinners. It knows no villainy but incompetence.”

“Sure, you must be a saint, then. But betwixt this and that, and your doubt’s despite, it wasn’t in the bargain and I won’t do it.”

“Then that settles it, and we must manage without.”

“As you like.” She brought her hands to the front, and, linking them in the most decorous of love-knots, stiffened her neck and tossed her head backwards and a little askew. “Besides,” she said, “you seem to forget that I’ve got a husband myself.”

He burst into a laugh, vexed but uncontrollable, and immediately checked himself.

“I had forgot—I confess it,” he said. “Kit, is it not?”

“Kit!” she ejaculated, in deep scorn. And then she, too, laughed derisively.

“Not Kit?” said he.

“If you knew Kit you wouldn’t ask such a silly question,” she answered.

“Well, why shouldn’t I know Kit? He seems an attractive person.”

“O! Kit’s attractive.”

“I see, I see. Pardon my stupidity.”

“What do you see?”

“Kit’s a—hem!—friend of yours.”

“Indeed, Kit is—the best, a’hem, friend of mine that ever hemmed a hem.”

“What! a woman?”

“Either that or a tailor.”

“Damn it! Not a tailor?”

“Damn it, why not? Though it takes nine tailors to make a man, one woman can make a tailor.”

“Come, Moll, thou art goosing me.”

“A tailor’s goose, maybe.”

“Tell me, who is this friend of yours?”

“I wonder.”

“Frankly, is it man or woman?”

“Frankly, I’ve never asked.”

“Ah! you won’t tell me. Are we not good comrades now, and as such should have no secrets from one another?”

“What do you want to know?”

“What is Kit?”

“Sometimes this, sometimes that. We all have our moods.”

“I believe he has no existence but in your imagination. Who is he? Tell me.”

“Will you kiss me, George, if I tell?”

“That I will.”

He suited the action to the word, putting his lips to hers, while she submitted quietly.

“Now,” said he.

“But I haven’t told,” she protested.

He could have boxed her pink ear; and he did fling from her with some roughness.

“P’sha!” he said. “I am wasting time.”

“And that is not all,” said she.

He saw a warning flush in her cheek, and forced his vexation under.

“Well,” he said, with a propitiatory laugh, “if you tell me nothing, I’ve got the kiss for nothing; and so mine is the best of the bargain. But I count you a little unkind, Mollinda.”

“I don’t mean to be that, George,” she answered, somewhat penitent. “But I shouldn’t tell secrets not my own; now should I?”

That only served to restimulate his doubts and perplexity; but he said no more on the subject, feeling it wiser to desist.

“Never mind,” he said. “You have your own good reasons for silence, of course, and it’s no business of mine to press them. What is more to the point is this question of your scruples regarding his lordship. So you won’t go to extremes? Then, what is to be the course? With all deference, Mrs. Moll, you can’t surely be planning to stay on here indefinitely.”

“Well, I’ll work up to any conclusion you like, short of that.”

“You will?”

“Sure.”

“Even if it were to an appearance—of that?”

“Why not? ’Twould be enough for me to know my own innocence, since I’m the only one that ever believes in it.”

He pondered, musing on her. “I’ll think it out, faith. We’ll arrange some trick between us—some coup de grâce for her ladyship. Shall we?”

“O, go to grass yourself!” she said. “Speak English.”

CHAPTER XI

TO the Duke of York’s chambers in Whitehall came a mincing exquisite, with a guitar slung from his neck by a broad silver ribbon. He was dressed in silvered white from chin to toe, and he strutted exactly like a white leghorn cock surveying his seraglio. His long, straw-coloured hair was elaborately curled over his temples; the lashes to his eyes were like pale spun glass; a tiny cherished moustachio, pointed upwards at the tips, stood either side his round nose like a couple of thorns to a gooseberry. He hummed as he walked, flourishing a beringed and scented hand to such palace minions as met and saluted him by the way, and reaching the Duke’s quarters, acknowledged, with a charming condescension, the respectful greetings of M. Prosper, gentleman of the Chamber to his Highness, who accosted him at the door of the anteroom.

“Ha, my good Prothper! I thee you well, j’ethpère bien?”

“Vair well—most—milord of Arran. You are to come this way, sair. His Royal ’Ighness ’e expectorate you.”

Bowing and waving his arms, as if he were “shooing” on a fowl, M. Prosper conducted the visitor by a private passage to the Duke’s closet, where, committing him to the hands of a page, he bobbed and ducked himself away. And the next moment the Earl found himself in the presence of the Lord High Admiral.

James Stuart was seated at a table liberally strewn with documents, writing, and mathematical implements. There were no gimcracks visible on it, unless a little bronze ship, which served for a paper-weight, deserved the title. The aspect of the room, like his own, inornate, businesslike, severe, was in odd contrast with the silken frippery which came to invade it. One would have guessed some particular purpose to lie behind the permitted violation of those austere privacies. His Highness was minutely examining a chart when the lordling entered. Standing over him and occasionally dabbing a forefinger, like a discoloured banana, on some specified shoal or anchorage, was a huge individual, in a full-skirted blue coat, trimmed with the coarse lace called trolly-lolly, whose bearing spoke unmistakably of the sea. This was Captain Stone, of the Naseby frigate, in fact—a practical sailorman, much in favour with his royal master. He was a rough-and-ready specimen of his class, with manners as blunt as his features. He turned to stare at the sugary apparition as it sailed into view, and a grin of derision, which he made no effort to conceal, widened his already ample features.

“Ha, my lord!” said the Duke; “you are welcome. Be seated, sir, be seated. I shall be disengaged in one moment. Stone, oblige me by removing your hat from that chair, that my lord of Arran may come to anchor.”

The bulky sea-captain, with a most offensive affectation of alacrity, skipped to obey. He swept the chair with his hat; more, he produced from somewhere an enormous blue handkerchief like a small ensign, and elaborately polished the seat with it.

“Now,” says he, “if your lordship’s breeches will deign to reconsecrate the altar my top-gear hath profaned.”

The Duke, his elbow leaned on the table, shaded his face with his palm, and laughed noiselessly. As for the sweet puppy himself, self-esteem had thickened his moral cuticle beyond penetration by anything less than a pickaxe of ridicule. He closed his lids, and, with an ineffable smile and wave of the hand, dropped languidly into the proffered place. Duke and Captain continued for a while their investigation of the chart. Then the former put it away, and, leaning back in his chair, addressed a question to the latter.

“What is this I hear, Captain, of decent folk impressed illegally in the City by order of my Lord Mayor?”

The burly seaman shrugged his shoulders.

“He’s an ass, sir, that Bludworth, yet an ass in some sort deserving commendation.”

“In what way?”

“Why, in the way that leads by short-cuts to disputed ends. He gets there, while your wise man talks.”

“Aye, but he tramples rights to do it.”

“He may. We must have men.”

“They were given no press money, I understand.”

“He had none to give them. Still, we must have men.”

“The thing should be in order. There were those among them, I hear, of quite respectable estate.”

“Aye, but we must have men, I say. Your fool, on occasion, can have his uses.”

The Duke, as if involuntarily, shot a swift glance towards the seated figure.

“Could they, under the circumstances,” he said, “be broke for desertion?”

“I leave that,” answered the seaman dryly, “to your Highness.”

“’Tis not the way, at least, to make the King’s service popular.”

“Well, I could venture a better way.”

He meant, of course, the settlement of long arrears of pay—a chronic scandal in the Navy. But the obvious was not palatable. The Duke, just raising his eyebrows at the speaker, bent them in a frown, and sat drumming for some moments with his fingers on the table. Suddenly he turned to Arran.

“What would you suggest, my lord,” said he, “to make the Navy popular? The lay opinion, given an intelligence such as yours, is often valuable in these matters.”

His lordship, exquisitely flattered, sat up.

“I should offer a handthome bounty, Thir,” said he—with perhaps some vivid recollection of personal sufferings endured in the Channel—“to the man who should devith or invent a thertain cure for thea-thickneth.”

Captain Stone, regardless of his company, burst into a roar of laughter.

“By Gog, your Highness!” cried he, “here’s the pressman for our money. To make the Navy popular, quotha—give them stomach for it! Aye, why not? And lace our sails with silver twist, and hang a silken tassel at the main, and pipe to quarters on a hurdy-gurdy! O, we’ll have our Captain’s monkey yet with lovelocks to his head and white ribbons to his shoon!”

His lordship, on whom this pickaxe had wrought at last, flushed up to the eyes with anger and resentment. He rose to his feet.

“Thith monthtruth inthult,” he began; “I crave your Highnetheth grath——” and stuck for lack of words.

The Duke, whose cue was nothing if not propitiation, turned in some genuine wrath on the seaman.

“You forget yourself, sir,” he said sternly. “You will favour me by retiring. Waiving the question of respect for his lordship’s opinions, you fail in it to me, who invited them. Nor need you be so cocksure in your own. Who knows what inclinations might have served us but for dread of that malady! You must go.”

The Captain, not venturing to remonstrate, but seeing, as he thought, through the other’s motive, obeyed, and so much without rancour that he could not forbear some subdued sputtering laughter as he left the room—an ebullition which, in fact, found its secret response in the Duke’s own bosom. He addressed himself, the man gone, with a rather twinkling blandishment to his remaining guest.

“A rough, untutored fellow, my lord; but reliable, according to his lights. They are not penetrating, perhaps; yet clear as regards the surface of things. You must forgive him. That was an original suggestion of yours. He would not grasp its inner significance, naturally. To cure sea-sickness, now. There is something in it.”

“I am happy,” minced the bantling, “in your Highnetheth commendation. That mal-de-mer is a very dithtrething thing. It maketh a man look a fool; and a man dothn’t like to look a fool.”

The Duke considered.

“But for the character of the remedy? What do you say to music? Music will not, according to Master George Herbert, cure the toothache: but is sea-sickness the toothache, my lord?”

“Not the toothache; no, Thir.”

“Is it not rather, by all reports, a surging or vertigo of the brain, induced by that reversal of the laws of equilibrium which transposes the offices, as it were, of matter animate and matter inanimate?”

“I—I take your Highnetheth word for it.”

“Why, it is clear. We are designed and organized, are we not, to be voluntary agents on a plane of stability?”

“Yeth, yeth, O yeth!”

“Very well. So we lie down or rise at will, the solid earth abetting. But supposing the parts reversed, ourselves the willingly quiescent, the earth the one to rise or fall? Would not our brain, devised on the opposite principle, be naturally upset, carrying with it the stomach, its most intimate relation?”

“I’m thure it would; quite thure to be thure.”

“Take my word for it. When we go to sea we are transposing the functional processes of mind and matter. How, then, to render that exchange nugatory? The sense of it is conveyed through what? The eyes, is it not?”

“O yeth, indeed! You thee the heaving before you heave yourthelf.”

“Exactly—a sympathetic emotion, or motion. Our vision, then, is the direct cause of sea-sickness. Why? Because in pursuing an unstable thing it becomes itself unstable. And there I see light. The eyes are at right angles to the ears, are they not? And we are agreed that the sense of instability is conveyed through the eyes?”

“Through the eyeth.”

“Well, supposing now we introduce a second appeal to the senses through the ears; that second appeal would traverse the first appeal, would it not, at right angles, the two forming together a sort of sensory cross-hatch, or truss, which would immediately produce the stability necessary to keep the otherwise unsupported sight from accommodating itself to the action of the waves? You follow me?”

“I think—— O yeth!”

“Your suggestion was a really very able one, my lord, and it speaks loudly against the folly of scorning all ex-official criticism in these matters. But, to follow our theorizing to a practical end. We are at one, then, in believing it possible that the sense of sight could be trussed and stiffened by the introduction of the sense of sound. To make an effective business of it, however, that sense of sound would have to be compelling enough to arrest and neutralize the visual tendency; it would have to be, that is to say, exceedingly strong and exceedingly sweet. It might be possible to introduce on each of our ships a professional harpist, or lutist, to supply with their music a prophylactic against sea-sickness; but one has to remember that not all musicians are sailors, and that it might prove disastrous to the moral should one fail in his own sea-legs at the very moment he was trying to provide another with his.”

“Yeth; that ith very true.”

“Then, again, as to the force of the appeal. Not all performers have that convincing mastery of their instruments, my lord, which according to what I hear, is peculiarly your own.”

“O, truth, your Highneth flatterth me!”

“You shall prove it.” He smiled very pleasantly. “But, believe me, my lord, I am infinitely your debtor for a suggestion which may go far to revolutionize the whole question of impressment and the popularity of the Navy. Now, will you not give me a taste of the quality which has come to enter so aptly into the context of our discussion? You know I play a little on the guitar myself, but not so well as to refuse a hint or two from a master of the instrument. There was a question of a saraband. I would fain take a lesson in its presentation.”

“Corbetti’th, your Highneth meanth.” The puppy—strange scion of a house distinguished, in the persons of its head and firstborn, for both courage and nobility—glowed with gratified vanity. He really believed at last that ’twas he himself had originated that exquisite specific against the curse of the ocean, and that the Duke was his admiring debtor for it. He struck an attitude, slung his guitar into position, and, receiving a nod from his auditor, forthwith touched out the measure of Signor Francesco’s saraband. It was a quite graceful composition, and he played it well.

The Duke was enraptured.

“It is in truth a most sweet and moving piece,” he said, “and masterly rendered. I have never known to be displayed a more perfect accord between composer, performer, and instrument. Yet, if they were to be considered in order of merit, I should put, without hesitation, the executant in the first place and the guitar in the least.”

“Yet it’th a good guitar, Thir,” ventured the glowing youth. He lifted and eyed with beatific patronage that faithful recorder of his genius.

“Good,” answered the Duke; “yet good is not good enough to be the servant of the best. But where, indeed, could one look for an instrument worthy of an Orpheus?”

“O, I bluth, your Highneth! Yet I will not thay but what I might give a better account of mythelf on an inthtrument pothethed by my thithter, my lady Chethterfield. It ith a wonder, that. Corbetti himthelf hath declared it.”

“Indeed?” James spoke abstractedly, seeming hardly to attend. “Now, will you make me your debtor, my lord, for a hint or two. It would flatter my poor skill to expend it on so rare a melody.”

He was so full of compliment and ingratiation, that the first diffidence of the sweet Earl was soon exchanged for a vanity approaching condescension. He took his royal pupil in hand, and conducted him over the opening bars of the composition. But the Duke, strange to say, proved himself a most sad bungler. He could not, for some reason, master the air, and finally, with a shrug of impatience, he desisted, and begged his instructor to repeat to him his own version of certain ingenious passages.

“I will murder the innocents no longer,” quoth he, handing back the instrument. “Render them again in living phrase, and so take the taste of my own villainy out of my mouth.”

“It is thith way,” said his lordship, and went on thrumming most mellifluously.

“Ah!” said the Duke. “If one could take the way of genius only by having it pointed out to one! Yet, did not that last note ring a little false?”

“No, by my fay, Thir.”

“You may be right. Yet methinks I have a very hair-splitting ear. It will quarrel on so little as a fraction of a tone. Not the player, but the string, maybe, was to blame. Even your best of instruments will lack perfection, betraying weak places in their constitution, like broken letters in a printed type. Sound it again. ... Ah! it is not quite true, indeed.”

“Your Highneth, thith ith a very ordinary fair guitar; but, ath I thay, I know a better.”

“True; my lady Shrewsbury’s.”

“No.”

“Not? I thought you mentioned hers?”

“Not herth. My lady Chetherfield’th.”

“O! Your sister’s. So, she is the possessor of that masterpiece. Is it indeed so excellent?”

“None better, I dare to venture, in all the world.”

“My lord, you must let me hear you on it. So near the perfect achievement, and yet to fall short of it by a hair! ’Twas not to be endured. We must visit your sister, you and I together, and beg this favour of her kindness.”

Now, even the Court of the Restoration had its codes of etiquette—more particular, in some odd ways, than to-day’s—and among them was none which permitted a prince of the blood royal to condescend to social intercourse with a young married woman without danger to her reputation. Arran, to be sure, knew this well enough, shallow dandiprat as he was, and the slight qualm he felt over the proposition was evidence of a certain suspicion awakened in him for the first time. But it was faint, and no proof against his vanity. He was not so base as to design any deliberate treachery to his own flesh and blood; but his conscience was an indeterminate quantity, easily at the mercy of any plausible rascal. He considered, and decided that the inclusion of himself in the Duke’s suggestion was the surest proof that there could be no arrière pensée behind it. An intrigant, bent on some nefarious conquest, would not propose a brother to assist him in his purpose. He gave a little embarrassed laugh, nevertheless, and hung his foolish head.

“If your Highneth thinkth it worth your Highnetheth while,” he said.

“Worth, my lord, worth?” said the Duke warmly. “What is this genius of yours worth, if not the most perfect of mediums through which to give itself expression?”

“You are very good.”

“I am very impatient, and shall continue so, until we have given effect to this arrangement.”

CHAPTER XII

LITTLE Lady Chesterfield sat in her private boudoir, looking out on a glowing section of the palace gardens. Thirty feet away a marble basin, shaped like a tazza, bubbled with a tiny jet of water; and on the rim of the basin, as if posed for a picture, sat a single peacock. Great white clouds loitered in a sapphire sky, a thousand flowers starred the beds, the box borders were lush with growth, and all between went a maze of little paths, frilled with green sweetness. It was an endearing prospect, spacious and peaceful, hardly ruffled by the murmurs of the great life in whose midmost it was cloistered; yet small consciousness of its tranquillity was apparent in the blue eyes whose introspective vision reflected only the mists and turbulence of a troubled heart.

Now, as regards physical infection, one may be susceptible to the predaceous germ on one occasion and not on another: it is a question of bodily condition. So, there is a moral microbe whose insidious approaches may find us pregnable or not according to our spiritual temper of the time. The healthiest constitutions enjoy no absolute immunity in this respect, and those which do escape harm often owe their reputation for incorruptibility to no better than the accident which found them free from attack at the weak moments. Evil disposition makes no more sinners than the lack of it does saints. It is mostly a question of coincidence between the alighting seed-down and the soil suitable to its germination.

Well, there are soils and soils, and as one seed which sickens on a rich loam will wax bursting fat in an arid crevice, so sand will not produce roses. Yet, I should say, if one sought a common denominator in this matter of proneness to moral infections, one could not instance a state more typically susceptive to all than that of idleness and boredom.

And to that perilous condition had poor Kate succeeded. She was ennuyée, sick of soul, tired of everything and everybody. Her matrimonial barque, she felt, had been flung on a shoal, where it lay as divorced from wreck as from rescue. There appeared no alternative but to abandon it; and yet all her instincts of faith and decency still fought against that seeming treachery to her vows. She had really at one time believed in the poor creature her husband—even though necessarily at the modified valuation imposed upon wives of her date and condition: she had not utterly abandoned her hope in him yet. But little of it remained, and that little so tempered with scorn and disgust as to seem hardly worth the retaining. Still, the wifely instinct clung by a thread, and was so far her resource and safety. Yet not much was needed to snap that last strand, and she knew it, and felt it, and was wrought thereby to a state of nervous irritability which halted, in its sense of sick isolation, between fidelity and revolt. She was susceptible, in fact, when the germ made its appearance.

It was a flattering germ, garbed royally, with a melting eye and an insinuative manner. She may have been already conscious in herself of premonitory symptoms betokening its approach, as the wind of the avalanche heralds the fall thereof; I will certainly not commit myself to any statement to the contrary. But even were that the case, it is not to say that her hold on the thread continued less fond and desperate. It is likely, indeed, that it acquired a more urgent grip, as foreseeing a particular strain upon its resources. Royalty could pull so hard with so little effort of its own. However that may be, it is worthy of note that she displayed at least the courage of her sex in facing the possibility of infection instead of flying from it.

Now, as she sat, gazing out on the quiet scene with unregarding eyes, and obsessed with the sole thought that she was the most aggrieved and weary-spirited woman in the world, she heard a sound in the room behind her, and turned to see her second brother, young Arran. He minced forward, the darling, and saluted her with the most unimaginable grace, though there was certainly a little tell-tale flush on his callow cheek.

“Thithter Kit,” quoth he, “I have taken the privilege of a brother to introduth a vithitor to your private apartment.”

“A visitor!” She rose, uncertain, to her feet, and was aware, with a little shock of the blood, of the figure of the Duke of York standing in the doorway. His Royal Highness, with a grave smile, in which there was nevertheless a touch of anxiety, advanced into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Uninvited, but not too greatly daring, I hope,” said he. “Formality, ceremonial, were all incompatible with the boon we designed to ask of your ladyship.”

A vivid flush would rise to her cheek; she could not help it, nor control, with all her will to, the self-conscious instinct betrayed in her drooped lashes. For a moment, in the embarrassment of her youth, she stood dumb before this realized liberty.

“A privilege, your brother called it,” continued the Duke. “Then, if for him, how much more for me! Of its extent, believe me, I am so fully sensible, that, accepting your silence for condonation of my presumption, I hesitate to abuse a favour so freely vouchsafed by taking advantage of it to beg another.”

She raised her lids, and again dropped them. The shadow of a smile twitched the corners of her mouth. And then her breath caught, suddenly and irresistibly, in a little half-hysterical laugh. The pomposity of this prelude was after all too much for her.

“O, my lord Duke,” she said, “if I were to assume the nature of this favour from the solemnity of its introduction, I should have no alternative but to refuse it offhand, as implying something grave and weighty beyond my years. I pray you bear my youth in mind.”

He smiled, relieved and at ease.

“Most tenderly, madam. For all that resounding symphony, you shall find the piece, when we come to play it, a very pastorale in lightness. Will you not be seated?”

“By your favour, your Highness—when you have set me the example.”

She sought to take refuge from her fluttering apprehensions behind that shy insistence on punctilio. The Duke bowed, and accepting a chair from his lordship of Arran, signified his entreaty that the lady should occupy another contiguous. Kate had no choice but to obey. She was not yet mistress of her blushes, and she blushed as she seated herself. But there was a strange excitement in her heart, nevertheless.

“Now,” said his Highness, “I am in the position of a litigant, who hath engaged an advocate to plead his cause for him. So, like a sensible client, I leave the first word to him.”

He waited, in a serene confidence. Lady Chesterfield looked at her brother.

“What is it, Richard?”

His lordship giggled, “hem’d,” pulled at his cravat, and spoke.

“Nothing in the world, thithter Kit.”

“O!” she said, “nothing is easily granted. I give you the case, your Highness.”

“He rates his own genius too lightly,” cried the Duke. “I see that, for the sake of his modesty, I must reverse the parts. Take me for advocate, then, and hear my plea. It is that, saving one factor, your brother is the most accomplished guitarist at Court.”

“O, fie, your Highneth!” said Arran, squirming in every limb. “Think of Corbetti.”

“A master, I grant,” said the Duke, “but with the faults incident to professionalism. A perfect executant, art hath yet despoiled him of nature. For pure sympathy, give me your born musician before your trained.”

Again Arran squirmed. “O, your Highneth, your Highneth!”

The Duke turned to Kate.

“Do you not love your brother’s playing?”

“Indeed,” answered the girl, perplexed, “Richard plays well.”

“Well?” he echoed, protesting. “Have you heard him in the new saraband?” She shook her head. “Ah!” he said: “not Corbetti himself could so interpret the loveliness of his own composition. I speak as one who knows. My lord’s performance, to eschew superlatives, was divine. Yet there was a flaw. The perfect master lacked the perfect instrument. To attain the latter, or at least more nearly approximate it, only one resource offered. Your ladyship, as he informed me, was owner of the finest guitar in all England. To hear him on that guitar became then a necessity with me—a fever, a passion. It was to entreat that opportunity that I ventured this descent upon your ladyship’s privacy.”

She heard; she opened her eyes in ingenuous wonder. Before she could consider the words, they were on her lips.

“Is that all?”

“Nay, not all,” he answered softly—“not all. But that you might hear and feel.”

Involuntarily she shrank away a little.

“Richard knew,” she said, “that he could always have my guitar for the asking.”

“Is that so?” said his Highness. “But he did not tell me—perchance because he would have his sister learn the estimate in which he is held by others, to show his power to move me in your presence. Ah!” he waved a playful hand—a very white and shapely one: “relations are notoriously grudging critics of their own.”

Still she struggled faintly.

“This is a poor room for resonance, my lord Duke. The audience-chamber would have been better chosen.”

“Nay,” he said; “are we not private here?”

“Private, Sir?”

“Is not privacy the very essence of all sweet sounds and thoughts? To risk interruption is to risk the jarring of their lovely sequence. No, we are happiest where we are, apart and secluded. The loneliest bower is that where the bird sings his song to an end.”

She rose hastily, and with an effort to control her agitation.

“I will go and fetch it,” she said. “It is not here.”

He sought to detain her.

“Does not your brother know the place?”

Arran interposed. Some vague uneasiness, perhaps, was making itself felt in the shallow brain of the nincompoop.

“No, by my thoul, your Highneth,” he said, “nor underthtand if she told me.”

Kate hurried to the door. As she did so, a feminine form outside whisked into the near shelter of some hangings. Then, foreseeing certain detection if she remained where she was, waited until the issuing figure had vanished down a passage, when she herself slipped away incontinent in another direction.

The Duke in the meanwhile sat frowning and silent, half suspecting a ruse on the lady’s part to escape him. But in that he did the Countess too much or too little justice. For whatever reason—of honour or perversity; you may take your choice—Kate acquitted herself faithfully of her errand, and came back with the guitar; whereat the royal brow cleared wonderfully.

And Arran played the saraband—this time to perfection, exclaimed his Highness. Sweet melody, sweet touch, and sweetest atmosphere—it had been all a banquet of delight, served, as it were, amidst the tenderest surroundings, in a self-contained corner of Eden, by the most paradisical of chefs. The Duke was transported; he was really transported, though it is true some ecstasies stop short of heaven. There are sirens in Campania to see to that.

And Kate was also moved; she could not well help but be. Her heart was in too emotional a state to be safe proof against such soft besieging. When the Duke leaned towards her, she did not stir, but sat with eyes downcast, her bosom plainly turbulent.

“Was I not right,” he said, “and could any gain in resonance have improved on this faultless unison of parts? Perfection must know bounds, even like a framed picture, or the soul cannot compass it. To have enlarged these but in one direction would have been to sacrifice the proportions of the whole—the harmonious concord of place, and sound, and tenderest feeling. Give me this bower, lady, for your rounded madrigal, wherein sweetest music lends itself with love and beauty to weave a finished pattern of delight. My lord, grant me the instrument a moment.”

He took the guitar, somewhat peremptorily, from the Earl’s hesitating hands; but he was in no mood, at this pass, to temporize or finesse. And, having received it, he went plucking softly among the strings, gathering up sweet chords and sobbing accidentals, as it were flowers, to present in a nosegay to the heart of his moved hearer. There was a knowledge, a sure emotionalism, in his touch which went far to discount his earlier pretence of inadequacy; and Arran in his weak brain may have felt somehow conscious of the fact, and of a suspicion that he had been subtly beguiled into lending his own vanity for a catspaw to the other’s schemes. But he had no wit to mend the situation he had encouraged; and so he only stood silent, with his mouth open—sowing gape-seed, as they say in Sussex.

The Duke, ending presently on a “dying fall,” sighed and looked up.

“Lady,” he said, “there is a test of the interpretative power of music (which some deny), to render the very spirit of a flower in sound, so that one listening, with closed eyes, will say, ‘That be jonquils,’ or ‘That be rosemary,’ or lavender, or what you will. Only the player must have that same blossom he would explain nigh to him, that his soul may be permeated by its essence while he improvises. What say you, shall we put it to the proof? Poor artist as I am, if my skill prove but twin-brother to my wish I will interpret you my blossoms so that you shall cry, ‘That’s for the one in flower language called Remembrance,’ or ‘That’s for gentle Friendship,’ or ‘That’s for Love.’ Will you be so entertained? Only—for the means.”

He looked to the Earl. This was no more than a ruse, devised on the moment to rid himself of that simple incubus.

“My lord,” said he, with an ingratiatory smile, “will you favour me so far as to go gather me a posy from the garden?”

But before the sappy youth could fall into that palpable trap, Kate had risen hurriedly to her feet.

“Nay, brother,” she said, “stay you here. I know better than you where to find the blooms most meet to his Highness’s purpose”—and she was going, half scared and yet half diverted.

But scarce had she taken a step or two, when a sudden voice singing outside the window brought her to an instant standstill—

“Oh, turn, love, I prythee, love, turn to me,

For thou art the only one, love, that art ador’d by me”;

so sweet and unexpected, they all whisked about in surprise to mark the singer. She loitered, in seeming unconsciousness of their neighbourhood, among the beds, a slender girl figure, on whose face, as she stooped and rose, the sunlight went and came as if it fought her for a kiss. She looked a very stillroom fairy of the gardens, herself expressed from all their daintiest scents and colours.

And so, no doubt, the men thought; but, for my lady Chesterfield, the apparition wrought in her a revulsion of feeling which was as instant as it was startling. Her wrongs, the empty vanity of her scruples, all rushed upon her in a moment, and she stood stock still. And then she gave a chill little laugh, a woman of ice in a moment, and said she, small and quiet—

“But it were ill manners for a hostess to desert her guest; and after all, Dick, thou art the musician to feel a musician’s needs.”

My lord looked suddenly gratified.

“Ath you will, thithter Kit,” said he; “unless your friend outthide would prefer your company.”

“Friend!” cried her ladyship; “she is no friend of mine.”

“Of whoth, then?”

“You may ask her if you will. Nay, I see that you are all excitement to put his Highness’s pleasant fancy to the test. Go, then—leave your sister, and gather flowers.”

He answered with a little foolish shamefaced snigger; then turned and stole away a-tiptoe, as if he feared to be detected, while she watched his departure with a twitch of scorn upon her lips. The Duke, with an amused smile on his, regarded her furtively, her rigid attitude, the flushed curve of her cheek, which alone of her face was visible as she stood with her back to him. But much expression can be conveyed in a curve.

“No friend of yours, my lady?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said, and, lowering her head, began plucking at her handkerchief without turning to him.

“Of your husband’s, perhaps?” he asked, in the same tone.

“Of any man’s,” she answered.

“O!” He rose and, just glancing through the window at the pretty figure, now joined in company with that of the young nobleman, took a step or two which brought him within close range of the averted face. “Is that so?” he said. “And she lies in this house?”

She did not answer; and, venturing quite gently to capture her reluctant fingers, he led her by them to the window. The couple outside were already, it appeared, on friendly terms. They laughed and chatted together, making a sport of the flower-choosing, in which, with all pretty coquetries, the lady would defer to her companion, plucking this bloom and that, and holding it to his button nose, and throwing the thing away in a pretended pet if he shook his head to it. The Duke stood some moments regarding the scene.

“Why, young, but practised,” he said presently. “He has met her before?”

“Never, to my knowledge.”

She spoke low, trembling a little now—perhaps from that sudden chill.

“Not?” he said, and drew in a quick breath, as if scandalized. “I see, I see. And how is she known?”

“Her name is Mary Davis.”

“Ah! Some wanton fancy of your——”

“Your Highness, I beg you to let me go.”

She broke from his too sympathetic hold, and went back from him, until a space separated them.

“Believe me,” said he gravely: “I had no wish to surprise this unhappy secret out of you.”

“I know,” she said hurriedly—“I know. But, learning it, you will be considerate—considerate and compassionate.”

“On my royal faith,” he answered. “It shall be an inviolable confidence between us. Have I not myself too good reason to sympathize with the ill-mated?”

He did not say whether on his own account or on his wife’s. Perhaps, if on hers, that ill-starred woman would have preferred his fidelity to all the sympathy in the world. But, as in such matters the feminine prejudice is always in favour of the man, so Kate, in no ways an exception to her sex, was quite prepared to accept the sentiment at its obvious significance. A faint sigh lifted her innocent bosom.

“I may not speak of that,” she said. “Is—is marriage always so unhappy?”

He sighed too.

“Always? I know not. It may chance to include that natural correlation of sympathies, that perfect soul affinity, which was no doubt in the original scheme of things before the Fall. Blest, immeasurably blest the nuptials in that case; yet how rare a coincidence! A man and woman, both virgin, both unspoiled, may here and there find, as predestined, their rapturous conjunction, and so achieve themselves in flawless unity. But, for the most part, we must be resigned to forgo that heavenly encounter until, caught fast in alien bonds, we meet and recognize for the first time our elective affinities. Too late, then? I cannot say. Only is it possible that Heaven could blame us for consummating its own ideal at the expense of the social conventions made by man? Ah! if we could only, in the first instance, be safe to meet with her, the heartfelt, the unmistakable, the lovely ordained perfecter of our imperfect beings! What happiness would be added to the world and what sin avoided!” His very voice was like a wooing confidence. He bent to gaze into her face. “Ill-mated! Alike in that, at least,” he said, and sought her hand again. “Come, sweet soul, be seated, and let me play to you once more.”

Kate started, as if to an electric shock.

“No, your Highness.”

“You will not?”

“I must not. Let me call my brother.”

He intercepted her. “Say at least I may visit you again—see you—speak to you.” He spoke low and vehemently.

“No, no,” she said, almost weeping—“not now. O, let me go, Sir! I was wrong to complain—wrong to encourage you.”

She made past him, and hurried to the open window. “Richard!” she cried. “Richard! How long you are! His Highness waits the flowers with impatience.”

Arran had no choice but to obey. She saw his companion, with a pert laugh and toss of the head, thrust the nosegay into his hand, and watch him, with a mocking lip, as he retreated from her. And the next moment he was in the room.

But, for the Duke, he was quite content with his progress. She had put her confidence in his keeping, and, for a sound beginning, that meant much.

CHAPTER XIII

THE Earl of Chesterfield entered his drawing-room in a very morose frame of mind, which was scarcely improved by his discovery of a young lady already seated there before him. She was yawning over an illuminated missal; but, at sight of the intruder, she clapped the volume down with a bang, stretched, put her arms behind her head, and smiled with an air of relieved welcome. Any male to Moll was better than none.

“Come along,” she said. “Don’t be shy of me.”

He was pacing forward, his hands behind his back, and stopped to regard her sourly, his head askew.

“Yes? You remarked——?” he said.

Mrs. Davis went into a noiseless shake of laughter.

“Don’t do that,” she cried, “or you’ll give yourself a stiff neck. What a face, sure! Has my lady been putting bitter aloes on your nails, naughty boy, to stop your biting ’em?”

“Mrs. Davis,” said my lord, not moving, and with an air of acid civility, “I am really constrained to impress upon you that it is possible to presume on one’s privileges as Lady Chesterfield’s friend and guest.”

“Is it?” was the serene answer. “And I’m really constrained to impress upon you that it’s possible to presume upon one’s position as the husband of that guest’s hostess.”

“Presume, madam, presume—in my own house!”

She jumped up, and came at him with such a whisk of skirts that involuntarily he retreated a step before her.

“You dare!” she said: “when the very first time we met you had the brazen impudence to kiss me. Presume, indeed—and in your own house! A nice house, this, to pretend to any airs of propriety.”

“There are distinctions to be made, madam, which perhaps you can hardly be expected to appreciate.”

“Between me and another? Why, deuce take you!” cried the lady. “Are you telling me I’m not respectable?”

She quivered on the verge of an explosion. He was a little alarmed. It had been foolish of him to lay aside, just because his wife was not by, the part he was affecting to play. He had forgotten, in his peevishness, that it was as necessary to mislead the visitor as to his sentiments as it was her ladyship. Yet he could not command his temper all in a moment.

“Are you telling me,” he said, “that my house is not?”

Her eyes sparkled at him.

“I can’t appreciate distinctions, you know,” she said, “or I might understand why my lady may do just what I do, and be respected for it, while I for my part have to suffer all manner of sauce and impudence. One of these days I shall be taking two of those precious grooms of yours and knocking their heads together.”

He frowned, setting his lips.

“I am sorry if you have reason to complain of the conduct of my household. I was not aware of this, and will take immediate measures for the punishment of any servant you may point out as having shown you discourtesy.”

“O, all’s one for that!” cried Moll, with a toss. “I can look after myself. Only don’t talk about my presumption in treating you with the familiarity that you treat me, or be so sure of the holy propriety of your house in everything where I’m not concerned.”

He looked at her with a gloomy perplexity, but did not answer.

“Liberties!” cried Mrs. Moll, snapping her fingers. “But where the master sets the example, the mistress can’t be blamed for following him, I suppose.”

“Do you allude to her ladyship?” he demanded.

“Yes, I do,” she answered, with a saucy laugh.

“To what ‘liberties’ do you refer—as applied to yourself, perhaps?”

“Myself be damned!” cried the lady. “I talk of her being closeted alone, in her private apartments, with gentlemen visitors.”

His lordship started and stiffened, as suddenly rigid as a frog popped into boiling water.

“What visitors?” he said, in a suffocated voice.

Moll laughed again.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, crosspatch?”

He took a furious step forward, and checked himself.

“Her brothers, belike. And so much for your mischief-making, Mrs. Davis.”

He said it with a sneer; but his eyes glowed.

“Then that’s all right and settled,” replied the girl. “And so now you can be at peace.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“You say so.”

“What do you say?”

“O! I mustn’t mention Kit, I suppose.”

“Kit!” He uttered a blazing oath under his breath. “So my suspicions are confirmed about that reptile! By God, if you and my lady are a pair and in collusion, after all!”

“Fiddle-de-dee!” she said, putting out the tip of her tongue at him. “What do you mean by collusion? That I’m abetting her in carrying on with my own particular friend? Not likely!”

He stamped in impotent exasperation.

“Why do you tell me, then? But I see what it is. She has robbed you of this creature, and you want to be revenged on her for it. And by God you shall! Tell me, when was this?”

“This very afternoon.”

“And how long was he with her?”

“Who?”

“O, you know!”

“I thought you might mean the other.”

“The other? There was another, then?” He positively squeaked in his fury. “Who was it? Curse it, I will know!”

“Sure, you’re so hot, I’m afraid to tell you,” she said.

He broke away, positively dancing, took a rageful turn or two, and came back relatively reasonable.

“Now, Mrs. Davis,” he said; “will you be so good as to acquaint me all—all about this visit? Come, let us kiss and be friends.”

He advanced towards her, with hands extended and a twisted smile, meant to be ingratiatory, on his lips; but she backed before him.

“No, sure,” she said. “That would be friendship at too high a price. What does it matter to you who visited her? Aren’t you ready to throw her over, stock and block, for me?”

“Yes, yes. Only—h’m!—’tis a question of justification, don’t you see—of proof—damn it!—of her guilt.”

“You won’t want to kiss me, now?”

“No; on my word.”

“And you won’t call the gentlemen out to answer for their misbehaviour?”

“Curse me, no!”

“Then, I’ll tell you. It was—— You are sure you won’t kiss me?”

“Not for a thousand pound.”

“What, not for a thousand? Was ever woman so insulted!”

“Then I’ll kiss you for nothing.”

“You will? So, then, my mouth’s shut.”

“O!” He threw up his hands and eyes, giving vent to the remarkable utterance, “The foul fiend grant me virtue!” Then he waxed dangerous. “Mrs. Moll, if it’s to be kissing after all, I’ll pay you, and with interest, here and now.”

She gave a little scream.

“O, mussey! I’ll tell you. It was the Duke.”

He stood looking at her, grinning like a dog.

“The Duke? What Duke?”

“How should I know?”

“You saw him?”

“Sure.”

“How?”

“O, I just looked through the keyhole.”

Still he stared, the grin, or snarl, fixed on his face.

“And what did you see?”

“Only the two gentlemen and my lady.”

“What! They were there together?”

“Why not?”

“Why not, why not! Now, what does it all mean? And which was the favoured one with her?”

“It was his Highness stayed longest.”

“His Highness!”

“So they called him. He looked a very nice tall gentleman, though over grave for my taste.”

“Yes.” Chesterfield’s manner had suddenly fallen ominously quiet. “I think I know whom you mean. And so he, the Duke, stayed longest, did he? And what became of the other?”

“O! he came out to me in the garden, whither I’d run after peeping.”

She saw it rising in him, and likened it in her own mind to a saucepan of milk coming to the boil. There was a flickering under the surface, and then a heave and rise, and the next moment it was overflowing with a tumultuous ebullition there was no stopping. Yet his voice maintained its intense suppression, only doubly envenomed.

“He came out to you, did he? I understand. Your particular friend, your particular pander to dishonourable royalty, came out to you, having effected his purpose of infamous procuration—to congratulate you and himself, I suppose, on the success of your joint villainy. So this is the solution of the mystery, and this your return for the hospitality you have received? Indeed my lady chooses her intimates cleverly.”

Now, Moll was a mischief-making naughtiness, and knew it; but no woman, however self-consciously guilty, can take abuse without recrimination.

“You suppose so? Do you, indeed?” she said. “And I say if you apply those names to me and Kit you’re a liar and a beast. A nice character you, upon my word, to call shame upon your lady for doing in all innocence what you are doing out of the wickedness of your soul every day of your life. She mustn’t entertain a great gentleman, mustn’t she; but you may practise your dissembling arts on her own friend, and think none the worse of yourself for it. Pander, forsooth! I throw the word back in your ugly teeth, as I throw your dirty attentions. I don’t want them, and I don’t want you!”

“My teeth may be ugly,” says my lord, with a savage grin; “but they can bite, as this friend of yours will find to his cost when once I track him down—as I shall do.”

“Poor Kit!” cried Mrs. Moll, with a mocking laugh.

“And as to my attentions to you,” said the other, “you may count them for what you like, only don’t include any inclination of mine in the bill. I paid them because it suited me, and not because you did—for anything but a catspaw. And now that I know your true character, why, you may take yourself off for any attraction I find in you, and the sooner the better for all parties concerned. I do not consider you a fit companion for my lady.”

“That’s plain,” said Moll, a little cowed in spite of herself.

“I wish to make it so,” answered his lordship frigidly. “For what purpose my lady invited you here I know not, nor in what degree that purpose tallied with your command of a confederate, the hired instrument, as I take it, of a more exalted infamy. It is enough that you have used your position here to consolidate the discord and misunderstanding you found already unhappily existing——”

“And what have you done, I should like to know?” cried Mrs. Moll.

“And with an object,” went on the gentleman, not deigning to answer her, “which is only perfectly apparent to me at a late hour. But that recognition, now it has come, imposes a duty on me, and on you the perhaps unwelcome realization that I am the master of this house. I neither ask nor expect you to betray to me this creature of yours and of my lord Duke: I shall identify him in good time, and then he will not have reason to congratulate himself on his amiable participation in your designs. But, as to yourself, I have merely to intimate that I shall esteem it a favour, and to avoid unpleasantness, if you will put an early period to your visit here.”

He bowed with such an immense and killing stateliness, that the young lady was quite overawed, and for the moment had not a word to answer; and so, walking deliberately, with his head high, he left the room.

Mrs. Davis sat for some minutes after he was gone, her face a lively play of emotions.

“Why, deuce take it!” she thought, her lids wide, “if he doesn’t believe as I’ve used Kit for go-between with Madam and the Duke creature. Mussey-me!”

Her eyes half closed, her little nose wrinkled, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, she went into a scream of laughter. But her mood soon changed. Panting, she rose to her feet and struck one little fist into the palm of the other.

“So I’m to go, am I!” she said. “Not before I’ve paid you for that insult, my lad. I don’t quite know how, yet, but somehow, the last word’s got to be with me.”

CHAPTER XIV

THE tormented nobleman, craving for advice and sympathy, lost little time before he sought out his friend and kinsman, Mr. George Hamilton. He found that gentleman, who had just returned from a game of pell-mell with his Majesty, refreshing himself with a pot and sop in his own chambers, before committing himself and his mid-day toilet to the hands of his valet. Chesterfield drove out the man incontinent, and closed the door on him.

“I want a word with you, George,” said he, breathless and agitated—too disturbed and full of his subject to apologize or finesse. “It’s all out; I’ve discovered the truth; and, curse me, if ’twere the King himself, I’d bury my sword in his treacherous heart. As it is——”

Hamilton, his face half hidden by the quart pot, put up an expostulatory hand, and bubbled amphorically.

“As it is, let me finish my ale.”

“O, you can jest,” cried the other; “but I tell you ’tis no jesting matter. So he hath wronged me, I’ll have his life, were he twenty James Stuarts rolled into one.”

George set down the tankard, drained. His eyes gaped a little.

“The Duke of York?”

“Damn him!” cried the Earl. “I always said it was he, but you would never believe me. And now he hath been to visit her, on what false pretext I know not, and they have been closeted alone, together—alone, in her private apartments.”

“When was this?” asked Hamilton, astonished and disturbed enough, for his part.

“Yesterday afternoon,” replied the other; and he hissed between his clenched teeth. “And I’ll not forgive the dishonour done to my house, or spare him though he wore the crown.”

“Nay, coz,” said Hamilton. “Command yourself. How got you this information?”

“How? Why, from that little cursed, prying, eavesdropping skit, her friend. And that is not all. ’Twas through ‘Kit’ the meeting came about—a common pitcher-bawd, who shall pay for it with every bone in his body broke.”

“Through Kit?”

“Aye; she confessed to him at last. He brought the Duke—was the tool arranged between them, no doubt. O, what measure can gauge the perfidy of woman!”

“Who do you say confessed to him?”

“O, a curse on your dullness! Who but Mrs. Davis.”

“What, and to Kate’s collusion in the plot?”

“Of course.”

“Then she lied; and if she lied in one thing, the truth of all is to question.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, unless you can conceive my cousin as the most double-faced, artful little villain in the world, Mrs. Davis was lying to you in pretending that Kate could be a party to this employment of the creature Kit.”

“Why?”

“Because she knows so little about Kit, that ’twas only the other day she was charging Kit to you as some probable light of your fancy before you married her. She thought Kit a woman.”

“Well, she knows better now.”

“But, don’t you see——?”

“I see nothing and know nothing but that my lady has granted the Duke a secret interview, and that I’ll call them both to account for it.”

“Now, Phil, be reasonable. Even if that’s the case—and I question it—there can be harmless interviews.”

“Between a Stuart and a beautiful woman? P’sha! And what grounds have you for questioning it?”

“I’ve told you one. Take it from me—and I had the confession from Kate’s own lips—she’s as jealous of you and Kit as ever you can be of Kit and her.”

The shaft went somewhat home. Chesterfield stood glowering and gnawing his finger.

“Then who the devil is Kit?” he said suddenly.

“Ah!” replied Hamilton. “Who? We are all the gulls, I sometimes think, of that little scheming hussy, your wife’s friend. But do you mean to say she actually went so far as to assert that the Duke’s visit was due to Kit?”

Chesterfield reflected, still devouring his finger.

“Well, now I come to think on’t, she didn’t explicitly, in so many words, say as much.”

“Perhaps she didn’t mention Kit at all?”

“O, yes, she did! But——”

“But what?”

“Curse it, George!” he burst out in helpless distraction, “she has a non-committal way, I admit it, of forcing upon one conclusions which she might say she never meant to suggest. She may have been mocking me, to lead me astray. I wish she had never come; I wish I had never consented to the part you laid on me. What hath it all ended in, but disaster? Whatever the truth of the other charge, there is no blinking the fact of the Duke’s visit.”

“How do you know? The whole thing may have been a fable to torment you. From all accounts, you haven’t played a very wooing part with her.”

“No, I can’t believe it. But anyhow ’tis easy proved. And, though Kit may prove a legend, I’ll never doubt but that she herself was somehow instrumental in bringing about this meeting.”

“And yet, you say, she reported on it to you.”

“Aye, a keyhole report.”

“Why, look there. In that case she must be a very arch-traitor—false to both sides.”

“’Tis like enough. But I’ll have no more of her. I told her in so many words she must go.”

“You did?”

“Why not? Why not? What have you to say against it?”

“I’m not sure I’ve anything. I think perhaps you did right.”

“O! I’m vastly obliged to you for your condescension.”

“You deserve no consideration, Phil, upon my soul. If you choose to adopt that tone with me, I’ve done with the matter.”

He was vexed and bothered enough for himself, truth to tell. The visit of the Duke—if, as he hardly doubted, it had actually taken place—was a subject for confounding thought. He cared nothing for Kit’s part in the business, real or pretended; his little cousin’s attitude towards it was what concerned him. Did that point to artlessness or design? He had believed, or chosen to believe, that, in a certain eventuality, he himself had a prescriptive title to “the most favoured treatment.” He had always, in full confidence, proceeded upon that supposition; and now, if he had been deceiving himself throughout? All his elaborate hoax would prove itself waste trouble, and he might just as well have spared himself the complication. He had been already, as it was, beginning to question the practical wisdom of the imposture to which he had subscribed, and to wonder if more direct means might not have served his purpose better. The reflection, occurring to him now with aggravated force, inclined him to regard this difficult and exasperating husband as the source of all his worry. He was moved to throw prudence to the winds, and take his unswerving course for the object he had in view. And Chesterfield’s own temper lent itself immediately to that provocation.

“Consideration! Matter!” said the nobleman, with the loftiest acidity. “I’ll ask you to bear in mind, George, that the part I requested of you was sympathy, and not dictation.”

Hamilton had remained seated all this time; he rose now, in a white fume of anger.

“O, was that it?” he said in answer. “Well, I’ll tell you that I have never yet felt sympathy with a cuckold, or counted the man who couldn’t command his wife’s fidelity as deserving less than he got. ’Tis just a question of resourcefulness, in more ways than one; and the woman who has reason to like her bonds doesn’t strain at them. Now you may go hang for me; and, as to your damned Duke——”

“Temper, temper!” interrupted the other, quite pale and furious. “Upon my soul, your manner might almost proclaim you his disappointed rival.”

The two stood glaring at one another.

“Do you say that deliberately?” asked Hamilton at length.

“What if I do?” retorted the other.

“Then, by God, you’ll provoke me to disprove it.”

“On your kinswoman?”

“I’ll not be insulted for nothing.”

“You shall not be. I’ll see to it. Forewarned is to have my answer ready to the occasion.”

He smacked his hand to his sword-hilt, and, turning very haughtily, stalked out of the room. Hamilton, breathing hard, watched his departure, and presently dropped back into his chair, with a sneering laugh.

“The sword is the only resource of a fool,” thought he. “The Duke, and now me—’tis his one solution for everything. But he’ll think better of it—never give away his cuckoldom so openly. His——” He frowned heavily, as he pondered. “Has it come to that, and was Mrs. Moll instrumental in arranging this meeting? And is she making us all her dupes—me included? I’d give something to look into her mind. But she’s to receive her congé; and ’tis as well, I think—especially as it saves me the necessity of settling with her. Yet, as to her reputed traffic with the Duke—and this Kit’s part in it? O, mercy on us all! I must see her somehow, and set my wits to hers—fin contre fin, or, if need be, fort contre fin. O, what a plaguey difficult and fascinating world this is! If a man can’t hate without wrong and can’t love without wrong, where is the ethical mean to justify his creation? I’ll go be an oyster.”

He didn’t do that; but, hearing of the Earl being on duty that evening with her Majesty, and assuming the Countess’s coincident attendance at Court, he slipped over to the Chesterfields’ quarters, in the hope and expectation of finding Mrs. Davis yawning away the hours there with only herself for company.

But, to his surprise, and irresistible gratification, he found, not Moll, but her little ladyship herself in solitary possession of the great chamber; at which discovery his eyes glowed and his pulses thrilled.

“What, Kate!” says he, glibly lying. “I never hoped to find you alone.”

She had received him with no sign of fervour corresponding to his own, and now looked up from her work a little chill and unresponsive.

“Why should you have hoped it, cousin?” she said. “Why should you show pleasure now that it is so?”

“Why, are we not near and dear kinsfolk?” said he.

“Not near enough for the forbidden degrees,” she answered, “and therefore not near enough to be alone together.”

His brows went up.

“You were not wont to speak to me like this. What have I done to change you?”

“O! nothing.”

“That is quite true. Well, my feelings have not changed.”

“I was sure they had not.”

“Were you?” He looked at her curiously, but her impassive face gave him no clue to her thoughts.

“Did you expect to find my lord?” she said, again quietly busy at her work. “Or was it, perhaps, Mrs. Davis you sought?”

“If I sought one I sought the other,” he answered. “They are not long to be caught apart.”

“Thank you for the reminder,” she answered, and he bit his lip with vexation. “Well, he hath taken her to attend on her Majesty, I presume, since that is where his duties detain him. You had better seek them there.”

A thrill shot through his veins in the sudden thought that she was jealous.

“Not I,” he said. “I know where I am well off, if Phil does not.”

A faintest increase of colour flushed her cheek, but she worked on steadily.

“Still,” she said, “in spite of their inseparability, as you consider it, I do not doubt but that she is in the house at this moment. Shall I send her a message that you are here?”

“What are you implying, if you please, cousin?” he said.

“Why,” she answered quietly, “you knew very well that my lord was elsewhere, and concluded my absence from his. Who other than Mrs. Davis, then, could have been the object of this clandestine visit?”

He heard; he smiled to himself; he drew his chair a little closer.

“Kate,” he said, “are you in very truth jealous?”

She cast one startled glance at him, but, though her bosom betrayed its own disquiet, maintained her self-possession.

“Jealous?” she said. “Of Mrs. Davis and my husband?”

“No,” he answered, “but of Mrs. Davis?” He sought to convey a world of meaning into his look, his tone. “Shall I confess the truth?” he said. “It was Mrs. Davis I expected to find alone here.”

“I will send her to you.” She rose.

“No, no!” He begged her, with a gesture, to be seated again; but she refused to respond. “Be your kind and reasonable self. You misconceive me—indeed you do. I had come to a resolution—it was to see this young woman, and urge upon her, by every motive of decency and consideration, to leave this house, and cease to take advantage of a grotesque situation to persecute and humiliate you.”

She stood looking down at him, still impassive, still inscrutable.

“I should be grateful to you, cousin,” she said; “but I am humiliated in nothing but your thinking me so.”

“At least you are unhappy.”

“O no, indeed!”

“Not? Well, it is true that freedom has its compensations, sweeter by contrast than any rich possession. And morally you are free, cousin.”

“I know I am.”

“Free to choose.”

“I choose freedom.”

“Ah! but with love!”

He caught lightly at her skirt; but she withdrew it sharply from him.

“There is no need to act,” she said, “when there is no audience.”

“Indeed, I am not acting,” he answered.

“I am glad of it,” she said, “because it is a bad play. I prefer you in your part, cousin, of the disinterested friend.”

Then he was stung to a foolish retort.

“Like the Duke of York.”

She started, ever so slightly.

“What about him?”

“Was that the character he came to play when he visited you yesterday in your private apartments?”

To his surprise she answered him with perfect apparent serenity.

“Of course. He merely came to borrow my guitar of me.”

Was she really innocent or dissembling? He believed the latter, and looked at her with some genuine admiration for her subtlety.

“O!” he said, “was that all? And, being in Julia’s chamber, to melt ‘melodious words to lutes of amber,’ I suppose?”

“He played,” she answered. “Indeed, they both played.”

“Both?” He laughed. “So his Highness came accompanied?”

“O yes!” she said. “He would never have come alone.”

“And who was his friend?”

“One of mine.”

“Ah! You will not tell me.”

“Are you not interesting yourself a little too much in my personal affairs?” she said. She held out her hand coldly. “Good-night.”

“Am I to go, then?”

“No, I am. I am really dropping with sleep. Good-night, cousin.”

He got up in a pet.

“I am sorry my company has proved so fatiguing. There was a time when you could endure it with a better grace. But that was before your days of freedom and happiness.” And he strode out of the room, resisting a violent temptation to bang the door.

But her ladyship stood looking after him rather piteously, and with tears sprung suddenly to her eyes.

“I was so sorry, cousin,” she murmured, with a grievous sigh; “but I am afraid you are a bad man.”

And outside, on the gravel under the moonlight, Master George, hurrying away, stopped to grind his vicious teeth.

“Has he stolen a march on me? And who was the other?”

For, you see, that problem of Kit was again disturbing his mind.

CHAPTER XV

HAMILTON, making moodily for his quarters, took a somewhat deserted by-way, which led him shortly under a long covered passage connected with the stables. He had but entered this unlighted tunnel, when, aware of a couple of figures approaching its further end, he backed instinctively into the shadows, prepared, with the amiable humour of his kind, to detect an intrigue or surprise a secret. Therefrom peering, himself unseen, he saw the two, man and woman, stop in the moonlight at the mouth of the archway, where he could very clearly distinguish the identity of one of them, and almost as certainly guess that of the other. His ears pricked to catch their whispered confidences, but he was too far off to distinguish more than an inarticulate giggling murmur.

And then there appeared to occur a little scuffle between the pair, and to the sound of a distinct smack the lady broke away and entered the passage alone. Obviously an attention of her cavalier’s having been promptly acknowledged by her, any further escort on his part had been peremptorily declined. He did not attempt, indeed, to follow, but standing alone in the moonlight a moment, holding his hand to his cheek, suddenly turned tail and vanished.

The hooded lady came on, all unconscious of the watcher, and was nearing the point of emergence when Hamilton stepped across her path and barred her way. She gave a small, irrepressible squeak, and stood stock still.

“Come,” he said; “let us see what little Tib is after her Tom this amorous night.”

She recognized his voice, and let him lead her impassively to near the mouth of the passage, just so as the entering light might fall upon her face. And then he turned back the shrouding wimple, and saw a very rosebud.

“The blush must be hot,” said he, “that shows by moonlight. And now, Mrs. Moll, what have you got to say for yourself?”

She laughed, quite recovered, and backed a step from him.

“Gentlemen first,” said she. “How did you find my lady? Alone, for a guess.”

“I came to find you.”

“Sure?”

“And by God I’ve found you—out!”

“Yes, I’m found out. You wouldn’t have me spend all my time stifling within?”

“You favour moonlit walks, it seems?”

“Why, for precaution’s sake, and to oblige you.”

“I’m doubtful about my obligation to you of late, Mrs. Moll. Who were you walking with?”

“I never asked him his name. I didn’t suppose it would be camel fo.”

“It was my lord Arran, was it not?”

“Was it, now? What an eye you’ve got!”

“And you had met him, I suppose, by appointment?”

“No, it was by the yew-tree.”

“Come, my lady, you’re playing some game of your own in all this, and I want to know what it is. I brought you here for a specific purpose, and I’ve more than an idea that you’re converting the opportunity to a purpose of your own. What is it?”

“What’s what? I was only taking a stroll.”

“How did you make the acquaintance of my lord Arran?”

“O! Is that his name?”

“You know it is.”

“Well, to be sure, many more people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows.”

“Doesn’t he know you?”

“He does now, I’m thinking. His cheek will keep him in mind of me for the next hour.”

Had the limb been no more than the victim of a chance gallantry? Hamilton looked at her perplexed. A saintly innocence spoke from her eyes. But, with a vexed laugh, he dismissed the absurdity. And then his brows lifted to a sudden inspiration. He had recalled on the instant some seeming casual words of the Duke of York addressed to himself. They had related to a saraband, and to a certain superlative guitar possessed by Arran’s sister. Now he actually blinked in the dazzling illumination of an idea. Kate, and the guitar, and the royal strummer, and Arran—lured by Moll at the Duke’s instigation—the unconscious procurer of that meeting! There, however ordered, was the connection, the explanation of the visit. He felt as sure of it as if he had himself planned out the process. Why, in the name of intrigue, had he never hit on the trail before? But, now it was found, it led to certain conclusions. With a dog’s smile showing his teeth, he clapped his two hands on the girl’s shoulders, and held her grippingly before him.

“I’ve been thinking,” said he. “You told Lord Chesterfield, and he told me, that you’d been witness of the Duke of York’s visit to his wife. Isn’t that so?”

“Sure,” said Moll, her heart going a little in spite of herself. “I looked and listened through the keyhole.” She confessed it, quite unabashed; nor did Hamilton regard the act as anything but “cricket,” in the modern meaning. Honour, with gentlemen of his kidney, was just a phrase to toss on swordpoints.

“How,” he said, “did you know it was the Duke of York?”

“I heard them say so.”

“You are lying. You pretended to Lord Chesterfield that you did not know who the visitor was, and so you give yourself away.”

“Do I? And a very pretty gift, too, though I say it.”

“Ah! You are quite shameless, I see.”

“Now, what cause have I for shame? Tell me that.”

“What cause? You can ask that!”

“O, I can ask anything.”

“Enough of this equivocating. What did you mean by stating you heard them say it was the Duke?”

“Why, I meant it.”

“Who were they?”

“Just my lady and the other.”

“O, the other! Who was the other?”

“Why, the one that wasn’t my lady, of course.”

“Was it Kit?”

“I never said so, you know.”

“What do you say now?”

“I say what I said before.”

“Come; was it man or woman?”

“How should I know? I’m ashamed of you, George.”

His strong fingers quivered with an almost irresistible desire to shake the life out of her. Possibly—for she had a liking for him—he might have won the truth from her even now by a show of tenderness; but his temper, exacerbated by a recent disappointment, had got the better of him, and any further finessing was at the moment beyond his power.

“Very well, my lady,” said he, drawing a deep breath. “I shall know how to deal with a traitor whom I had thought a confederate. I have done my part fairly by you——”

“Wait there,” said the girl, stopping him. She had abundance of spirit, and carried the sharpest little set of claws at the ends of her velvet fingers. “You promised to let the King see me.”

“I promised to let you see the King.”

“O, well! isn’t that the same thing—if he’s got eyes? Anyhow, you haven’t done it.”

“It was to have been the reward of your service to me; and in that, by God! you’ve failed, and I believe failed of purpose. I don’t reward traitors.”

“How have I been a traitor?”

“Don’t you know very well? But perhaps you’ve come to the conclusion that, saving the King, the Duke of York might suit you for second best.”

“George!”

“Don’t ‘George’ me, madam!”

“You’ll make me dangerous.”

“O, I know what you mean! But who’ll believe such a little rogue and liar! And who do you think will get the best of a contest of wits between us? But tell his lordship if you will. I’m at that reckless stage I should welcome a sharp decision with him. For you, you’ve proved yourself a worse than useless partner in the business—earning the man’s aversion instead of his love, and by your hints and antics bringing the pair nearer, through a mutual jealousy, than you found them. But I understood now why it was, and just the value of the scruples you were so nice in expressing. They waited on the highest bidder, didn’t they? and I wish you luck of him now you’ve got him. Upon my soul, Mrs. Davis, you have my sincere respect as one of the artfullest little timeservers that ever knew how to take a profit of circumstance.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“O! of course not. Innocence in a wimple, like a very pansy of the fields.”

“You want me to go, I suppose?”

“Why, your talents, I confess, seem wasted in this dull corner of the palace. There are livelier quarters for their exercise—the Duke of York’s, for instance.”

He took his hands from her shoulders; but their grip might still have imprisoned her, so rigid remained her attitude.

“You won’t let me see the King?” she said.

“Hey-day!” jeered he. “Not short of the very highest will content this country chip. But nothing for nothing, say I.”

She stood quite motionless, conning him—stood for a full minute, without a word. And then she shook her shoulders, and laughed, and held out her hand to him.

“Well, then, good-bye, George,” she said. “I think you’re hard on me; but I bear no malice, and we’ll part friends, won’t we?”

“Advice isn’t dismissal,” said Hamilton; “and you’re not my guest.”

“No, I know,” she answered. “But, truth is, his lordship was equally emphatic about my wanting a change—or perhaps it was himself wanted it; I’m not sure. Well, I’ll take a day to consider of it. You wouldn’t think better of me, I suppose, if in the meantime I were able to put you right about a certain question you’ve been puzzling yourself over?”

“What question, fubbs?” He felt quite kindly to her again, since she had yielded so submissively to his suggestion. The little rogue’s face of her, drawn in silver-point and just touched with pink, looked a sweet spiritual flower in the moonlight.

“O, I mustn’t tell,” she said, “or it would spoil everything.”

“Then how can I answer for my better thoughts?” he protested.

“No, you can’t, of course,” she said. “Only I don’t want us to part enemies.”

“Come,” he said; “kisses are more proof than words.”

But, at that, with a light laugh, she sprang past him, and ran. At twenty yards she turned, blew him a mocking salute, and again turning, disappeared round a corner.

“In truth, a fascinating little devil,” thought Hamilton, with a grim smile, as he continued his way. “It goes to my heart to lose her. But, if anything were needed to prove the justice of my surmises regarding her double-dealing, the equanimity with which she accepted her dismissal should supply it. And yet she loves me well enough to wish to coax my good opinion at the end. How? What is this mystery of mysteries? Poor Moll!”

“Poor Moll” herself had got home meanwhile, and, crouching catlike by an unlatched window, with her eyes peering above the sill to see if the coast were clear, had presently re-entered the house by the way she had emerged from it. Once in, she stood up, shaking her cloak from her shoulders, touched her hair into order with rapid fingers, and exhaled a tragic sigh.

“So,” she whispered, with the tiniest of giggles; “one and one makes two, and two and one makes three. If she asks me to go, I shall begin to think I’m not wanted here any more. Will it come, I wonder?”

It came, in fact, quite punctually, and entirely to her surprise. As, stealing noiselessly across the room, she pushed open the unclosed door, it made her jump to find the Countess herself standing awaiting her spectrally on the threshold. She stopped, fairly staggered, and for the moment had not a word to say.

Her ladyship advancing, Moll fell back before her, and the two stood facing one another in the empty chamber. It was remote and unused, and bare of everything save the entering moonbeams, which gave it an aspect as of its windows being shored up by ghostly buttresses.

“I congratulate you, Mrs. Davis,” said Kate, in the most curiously inward of little voices. “It is apart, and well chosen, and only the merest accident led to my discovery of your use of it. But, having seen you slip out, I could not but watch and wait to welcome you home again.”

Moll rallied her wits for the inevitable combat.

“Sure,” she said, “hasn’t your ladyship ever felt the delight of climbing in by the window when you might enter by the open door?”

“I prefer direct ways to underhand,” was the chilling response.

“Try a stolen kiss before you answer for that,” said Moll.

“Thank you. I leave that sort of thing to you.”

“What do you mean, now, by ‘that sort of thing’? Does a Royal Duke count in it? because ’tis not every time he’s to be found coming in by the open door.”

“Your knowledge of the customs of princes,” said Kate icily, but with a curious little tremble in her voice, “is, of course, very profound; so you will be aware that they can claim privileges denied to others.”

“Is that so, now? Then what call had my lord your husband to get into such a tantrum about it, when I told him that the Duke of York had been paying you a visit?”

Seismographically, as it were, she was conscious of the shock her words produced. Kate shivered, and seemed to stiffen.

“I am not answerable for his lordship’s tantrums, as you call them,” she said in a stifled way, “any more than for his tastes and predilections. If any malicious wretch has chosen to carry slanderous tales to him, and he to listen to them——”

“That was me,” said Moll, “and I’m not going to be abused for just peeping through a keyhole and telling him what I saw behind it. How should I know, in my innocence, that it wasn’t all quite right and proper, and the last thing to make him explode over?”

Her little ladyship seemed to catch her breath over the mere audacity of this self-vindication; and then she answered in volume, though always careful to subdue her voice to the occasion—

“Innocent—you—without heart or conscience! monster of guile and ingratitude! viper on the hearth that has warmed you! Spy and informer that you are, to dare that brazen confession, and in the same breath to pretend to an artless innocence of the fire your vile calumny was intended to blow into a blaze! You innocent! You anything but the shameless wanton your every act proclaims you!”

She paused, panting. “Go on,” said Moll, unruffled. “Get it all out and over.”

“It does not move you,” said Kate. “Why should it?—deaf to every appeal of honour and decency. Shame on your woman’s nature, that can so wrong and vilify one of your own sex, whose only fault has been too great a tolerance of the insult and humiliation imposed upon her by your presence.”

Again she stopped, and Mrs. Moll took up the tale, very pink and cool.

“Gingumbobs!” she said. “If I’m so wicked, aren’t you a little giving away your own innocency? If all was so in order in the great gentleman’s visit, why are you so warm about my peeping and telling of it?”

“Because, by making a secret of it you designedly make it appear the very scandal it was not.”

“I made no secret of it, bless you! Why, I’ll go tell everybody about it this very moment, if you like. There now; ain’t I forgiving?”

“Forgiving!” Poor Kate put back a stray curl from her damp forehead. “You dare to throw the burden of compunction upon me! What have I not to forgive, since the day of your arrival—in this room—now?” Desperately she grasped to recover the moral lead, and to elude the charge to which the other wickedly sought to pin her. “Why are you here, I say?” she went on hurriedly. “What is the meaning of these secret exits and entrances? But no need to ask; your insolence betrays you. Did you meet your lover? Did he slip out from the Queen’s presence just to kiss and dally a wanton moment with the fond, inseparable object of his fancy? Could neither of you wait the hour of reunion in the house you insult and pollute by your presence? Poor, severed, unhappy couple, rent apart by the only brief interval which my lord is forced against his will to devote to duty and decency!”

She stopped of her very passion.

“I wouldn’t be sarcastic, if I were you,” said Moll. “It fits you about as well as the Lancashire giant’s breeches would. And ’tis all thrown away; because, if you mean his lordship, I wouldn’t trouble to walk out of one room into another to meet him, much less climb through a window.”

Kate, her bosom still stormy, looked her scornful incredulity. She pointed to the casement.

“Why that way, then?” she said.

“For no reason,” answered the visitor, “except that when a body’s watched and pounced on for her every movement she has to take her own measures to steal a little freedom. The air isn’t so fresh or the company so lively here that one isn’t driven once in a while to play truant. Aye, you may sneer and doubt, madam”—she was waxing a little warm—“but ’tis true, nevertheless, that if I were to spy your precious husband in my walks, I’d go a mile out of my way to avoid him. Love him, indeed! I tell you that he fair sickens me. I tell you that if I drew him in a lottery, I’d tear the ticket up under his very nose.”

Indeed, she snapped her fingers viciously, as if rehearsing the act, and then stood with her arms akimbo, breathing defiance.

“Then why,” said her ladyship, with an extremely wrathful hauteur, yet with an instinctive wincing from the pugnacious little claws, “do you persist in this daily offence of imposing your company where it is least admired or desired?”

The naughty girl broke into a laugh, and clapped her hands.

“It’s come,” she cried, “it’s come, as I knew it would!” and her face fell twinklingly grave “So you want me to go?” she said.

“I should have thought,” responded Kate, “it could have been small gratification to you to stay on to contemplate the failure of your designs on a virtue on which you would meanly seek to revenge yourself by pretending to scorn what you have been powerless to corrupt.”

Moll fairly whistled.

“Mercy on us!” she exclaimed. “Virtue! Do you mean his? And is that your way of putting it? So it’s sour grapes on my part, is it? But I never said, you know, that I had that effect on him that he has on me.”

“Who would expect you to say it, vain and heartless creature? But, whatever the truth—and I look to only distortion of it from your lips—these clandestine flittings, be their object what or whom they may, can no longer be suffered to impair the reputation of this house. They must either cease or you must go.”

Moll, her lip lifted, brought up her right hand with a slow flourish, and once, twice, thrice, snapped thumb and second finger together with great deliberation.

“Very well, my lady,” said she. “I will go, and leave the reputation of this house in your keeping. I have done my little best to purify it during my brief time here; but I am afraid the disease is too deep-seated for anything but a chirurgical operation. When you have been removed, perhaps, by his royal physicianship of York, the place may have a chance of recovery.”

And she dropped a little insolent curtsy, and without a tremor, her nose exalted, brushed by my lady and stalked out of the room.

At which Kate, having no word to say, nor courage to say it, fell against the wall, with a white face, and had a hard to-do to fight away an inclination to tears.

CHAPTER XVI

MRS. DAVIS, conscious that her position was no longer a tenable one, and driven to naughty extremities by the three-sided investment which left her no alternative but to retreat—fighting—retired to her chamber to consider the course by which she could best inflict a Parthian stroke on the three enemies who, each from a different motive, were responsible for her coming ejectment. She contemplated nothing very terrible, it is true—only some exaggerated form of mischief in keeping with her little lawless, whimsical nature. She was not a tragic vengeance, and she nursed no very grievous resentment over a treatment which, she was perfectly aware, she had done much to deserve and little to be entitled to deprecate. She had taken advantage of a temptation to play, especially of late, a game of her own rather than that of Hamilton, her employer and confederate; and she had wasted her opportunities rather on personal enjoyment than in pursuance of any consistent effort to serve that gentleman’s designs. She knew all this, admitted her own shortcomings; and yet, though she had a physical liking for the rascal, she was not going to let him escape scot-free, without any endeavour to retaliate on him for his cool repudiation of her at the eleventh hour. She wished and intended him no great harm; only she felt it a moral obligation on herself to speak the last word in this comedy of misunderstandings. It was worth while to show him that his supposed easy command of women was subject to some little accidents of discomfiture and humiliation where he chose to presume too much in his dealings with the sharp-witted among them. After which she would be quite willing to call quits with him.

Now, Hamilton, for his part, in leaping to a certain conclusion as regarded Moll’s connection with the guitar incident, had shrewdly approximated, but only approximated, the truth. Mrs. Davis, as we know, had had nothing to do with the Duke’s visit; nevertheless the Duke’s visit came to have something to do with Mrs. Davis. His Highness—a singularly close observer, though with a congenital incapacity for profitable reflection—had not failed to take stock of the attractive little figure in the garden, nor to consider to what possible uses he might convert the fact of its offence in the eyes of the lady of whom he was enamoured. He might, for instance, by privately threatening that offence with punishment for its wrong-doing, terrify it into lending itself as an instrument to his own designs. It should be worth trying; only it was necessary first to secure an interview with the person of the offence. There was no difficulty to be foreseen in that, save the one difficulty of eluding scandal in the process; and, indeed, from the lady’s point of view, there was no difficulty at all. For in very truth, from the moment when, listening and peeping at the keyhole, Moll had realized the rank of the Countess’s visitor, that amazing young person had been actually busying her brain with speculations as to her own possible eligibility as a royal favourite, though in the regard of the “second best” only. It had been under the spur of that inspiration, indeed, that, deterred by no false modesty as to her personal qualifications in the way of looks and witcheries, she had appeared, singing, at the window, with the view that questions might be asked about her—a piece of effrontery which, seeing that it was ventured in the very face of the high-born rival to be supplanted, might fairly be considered unsurpassable. But diffidence was never one of Moll’s weaknesses.

So far, then, Master George’s native acumen had led him to within sight of the facts; he had been wrong only in assuming the meeting to be already a fait accompli. It was not, so far, and the reason was this. The Duke could not afford to bid directly for the services of a great nobleman’s presumed chère amie: but he could employ an agent; and for this purpose he had selected Arran—as much through his imbecility as through his relationship with the family a convenient instrument—for the task of enticing the quarry into his preserves.

It was easily done, and after all at a minimum expense in tactics. Arran, acting as his Highness’s decoy, and with no thought but to accommodate his master in the sort of jest approved and applauded by the gallants of his day, found no difficulty in getting into communication with Mrs. Davis, or in arranging an accidental meeting with her. Of course, at that, Moll refused utterly to be beguiled offhand into committing herself to the mysterious interview entreated of her; she was pettish, wilful, distracting; she showed a complete obtuseness in realizing the nature of the rank which stood behind the summons; she was wholly childish and adorable, and she ended by chastising the impertinence which her innocent flirtations had seemed meant to provoke.

And all the while she was calculating how best she could invite those second approaches to which she was resolved in her mind to succumb. The issue of that night decided her. The next day she sent a little private note of penitence to Arran, and that same evening saw her closeted with the Duke of York.

There was none other present but the young Earl, retained, possibly, by his Royal Highness for the part of chaperon—a precaution not ill-advised, the Prince may have been disposed to think, when he came to re-view the visible attractions of his visitor. They were such, indeed, that he felt he would have to keep a definite guard on his susceptibilities if he were to come out of the interview unscathed. He would have had no objection in the world to take this sugared bonbon by the way, as a man might crunch a salted almond to add a zest to his wine; only the stake at issue was too instant. The bottle might pass while he was enjoying the appetizer. Wherefore he assumed from the first an air of coldness and restraint. He bowed to the lady, and assigned her a seat with a gesture.

“My lord has informed you,” he said, “of my reason for desiring this meeting?”

Mrs. Davis shook her pretty head. “Not he!”

“O!” said the Duke. “It is explained in a few words. During a recent visit of ceremony I was paying to—how shall I name her—your unofficial hostess, I chanced to hear you singing outside the window of the room in which I was seated.”

“La!” said Moll, with a shrug of her white shoulders; “to think of it! And I never guessed but I was alone.”

She was not in the least overawed by the sacrosanctity of her company; she would have “answered back” to the Pope himself in his own coin of excommunication, or anything else, and certainly not less to a lay son of his, however illustrious. She had no bump of reverence whatever on her little noddle.

“You have a rare voice, Mrs. Davis,” said the Prince. “It is a pity—is it not?—that it should be wasted on discord, when it might be so much more profitably employed in winning you a way to legitimate and decent fame.”

Moll opened her eyes. This, for a beginning, was not at all the sort of thing she had expected.

“What discord, if you please?” said she.

“Tut-tut!” answered his Highness, hardly smiling. “Is not that a very unnecessary question? We have not got eyes for nothing, ears for nothing, intelligence for nothing. If the form of discord need not be specified, it need none the less be understood. I will speak plainly, however, and to this effect. Your position in a certain quarter of Whitehall Palace is not, by whomsoever franked, a desirable one. It constitutes, in short, a scandal to the place, and an insult to one who is forced, against her will, to condone it.”

Moll rose to her feet, her eyes sparkling.

“Why?” she said.

“There is no need, nor desire on my part,” said the Duke coldly, “to go into particulars. It is enough that the situation I have hinted at must terminate.”

And this was all—this the sole reason for which she had been trapped and beguiled into this interview with the great person? It appeared so, and Mrs. Davis had nothing for it but to bear her disappointment and chagrin with what philosophy she could.

And on the whole she bore them amiably. After all, Moll’s philosophy fished in large waters, and if she failed in a catch, she was always ready without complaint to rebait her hook and try again. There is a sort of self-complacency in certain beauties which is too serenely un-selfconscious to be called vanity. It is largely founded, I think, on the flawless digestion which generally goes with physical perfection.

“I suppose she has been putting you up to this,” she said, quite coolly. “I call it mean of her, when she knows perfectly well that she is the scandal, and not me. But, I see what it is; she wants to rid herself of a witness she’s done nothing to make a friendly one; and so, being afraid to tell me downright I must go, she hands over the business to the one——”

His Highness put up his hand with such a grim, authoritative expression that the young lady stopped, though with a rebellious gulp.

“My lord,” said the Duke, very smoothly addressing the Earl, “I think perhaps this interview will not suffer by being confined to the two most interested in it.”

He smiled and nodded. Arran, with an answering grimace, expressive at least of as much mental vacuity as understanding, bowed low and withdrew.

The moment they were alone, the Duke turned in his chair, and, crossing his knees and leaning on one arm, bent his melancholy brows on Moll in deliberate scrutiny.

“By she, madam,” he said, “you allude to——?”

Moll laughed shortly.

“O! don’t you know very well?”

“Don’t you know,” he said, “that the young gentleman just left is her brother?”

“Of course I do,” answered Moll, “and that that was why you wanted to shut my mouth.”

He sat regarding her some moments longer, and then a little sombre smile dawned on his face.

“You have a quick understanding, I perceive, Mrs. Davis,” he said. “That may be a profitable or a perilous possession, according as it is employed. I wonder it has never yet led you to realize the supreme asset you have in your voice.”

“O! I see well enough you too want me out of the way,” said Moll, perking a scornful nose. “What is the good of going round about it like this? I’m dangerous where I am, I suppose. Very well, then I must be got rid of.”

He laughed.

“Too impulsive, too impulsive, my little lady. Dangerous you could be, that’s patent, to any man’s peace of mind. But, as to the sense in which you mean it——”

She broke in with a little imperious stamp.

“As to that, I’m not to be misjudged by you or any one. When I said the scandal wasn’t in my position, I meant it. If you think I’m there as my lord’s doxy, you’re precious well mistaken. I hate the beast—and if it’s a question of scandal, ’tis her ladyship ought to go. There, she ought; and you know why.”

“I don’t, on my honour.”

“Then, you’d like to.”

“Ah! that, maybe, is quite another matter.”

He looked at her, she looked at him.

“Come, Mrs. Davis,” he said, after a minute of silence: “I’m sure we are on the way to understand one another.”

“O! are we?” said Moll, with a sniff.

“Scandals,” he said, “have nothing to do with facts. An apparition might cause one. You may be as innocent as a babe, but appearances are against you. Therefore you must suffer for appearances. Now, about this voice of yours.”

“Well, what about it?”

“With that and your face for fortune, you might, under proper auspices, prove an incalculable success.”

“What do you mean by auspices?”

He leaned forward, lightly touching his breast with his fingers.

“Patronage: a Royal Duke’s. And in the meantime, pending developments, we might consent to condone this offence, leaving you undisturbed in your present position.”

“I see,” said the girl, after a pause, her eyes rather glowing—“I see. And that, you mean, is to be your reward to me by and by for consenting, if I do consent, to act now as your creature and decoy to help you to your fancy. You’ve no objection to letting me remain on the spot, in spite of my polluting it, if only I’ll act my best for you as an informer and go-between.”

“Such intelligence,” said the Duke, “combined with gifts so sweet, should ensure you, properly directed, a prosperous future.”

“Well,” said Moll, “it’s a bargain if you like. Only wait while I think.”

A sense of mischief was already alive in her. Defrauded in her higher expectations, she cared nothing for that conditional promise of patronage, except that it humiliated even her to be thought worthy of it. She had the wit and the gifts, if she chose to exercise them, to prevail in that direction without any help from outsiders. Feeling rather at bay, in the midst of this group of self-interested plotters, she was driven at last to abandon her position in a revel of retaliation on them all. Only how could she manage it—how? Let her think.

“You’re a great gentleman, I know,” she said suddenly; “but, where love’s concerned, even princes have to take their place among the ranks. Have you never fear of a rival?”

He gazed at her sombrely some moments, without speaking.

“Do you know of any?” he asked at length.

“I know of a coming meeting,” she said.

“With whom?”

“Kit’s his name. I’ve learnt no more.”

“How did you learn that?”

“Never mind how. I’ve not been in her company these weeks for nothing.”

“And when and where is this meeting to take place?”

“At half past eight o’clock to-morrow evening, in the—in the Mulberry Garden”—she chose the place and time at haphazard.

“What!” cried his Highness, biting his lip: “so public!”

“O!” said Moll; “there’s nothing so private, for that matter, as a vizard. And—and he’s to wear a green scarf in his hat to be known by her, and she a green bow in her bosom to be known by him. If you doubt, you’d better go and see for yourself.”

My lord Duke’s countenance had fallen very glum. A shadow seemed to overspread his face.

“It is a good thought,” he said. “Kit, did you say?”

“Kit, sure.”

“Supposing I were to be Kit?”

Moll clapped her hands in delight.

“And pretending it,” she cried, “find out all about the other!”

“H’m!”

His Highness was plainly disturbed. He sat awhile pondering, a gloomy frown knotting his forehead. Presently he looked up, with a deep sigh.

“Well,” said he, “you have already proved your title to my favour. I will consider of this matter; and, in the meantime, keep, you, as silent as the grave.” He rose, put a finger to his lips: “Not a word to any one,” he said. “You shall hear from me again.” And he led her to the door, smiled on her, hesitated, laughed away the temptation, and bade her go.

And then he returned to his seat, and sat gnawing at his nails for the next half-hour.

CHAPTER XVII

ON the morning succeeding the conversation last recorded the following anonymous communication was received by three of the individuals most concerned in this history—

An assignation (vizards) with Kit is arranged for 8.30 this evening in the Mulberry Garden. The parties to it will be distinguished by, in the gentleman’s case, a green scarf about the hat, in the lady’s, a green bow at the bosom.

A WELL-WISHER.

This note, in facsimile and in a palpably feigned hand, was delivered by the twopenny post—through its recent establishment in Cloak Lane near Dowgate Hill—to his lordship the Earl of Chesterfield, to my lady Countess his wife, and to Mr. George Hamilton, my lady’s kinsman. Each, in its private turn, pooh-pooh’d over it, each concluded that it was without question the work of Mrs. Davis, and therefore not worth consideration in any shape, and each decided, after long and irritable reflection, that it would lose nothing by going to verify the falsehood or accuracy of the report. And to each, in conclusion, succeeded the same inspiration (was it possible that perspicacious Mrs. Moll had clearly foreseen that contingency?), which was to adorn itself with the fateful badge, with a view to surprising such secrets as might reveal themselves to that verdant enigma.

His lordship considered: “This may be nothing but the hussy’s retaliation on me for my rejection of her advances. And yet—curse it!—how can she afford to be so definite in her facts without some ground to go upon? ’Tis my lady that’s meant—that’s sure. There must be something in some way in it; and, if so, how to surprise and expose them? Ah! by God, I know.”

My lady thought: “Is she really by chance telling the truth? And is this her way of revenging herself on me for my reflections on her character? Yet, if it is all an imposition? A barren vengeance that would be, defeating its own object. No, there must be something at the bottom of it, some mischief, some wickedness. ’Tis my lord that’s meant, without question, and in that case I have a right, a duty, to perform in being present. But how to penetrate such perfidy, supposing it to exist? O, I know what I will do! If only I can be there first, and lead him to betray himself!”

Mr. Hamilton reflected: “What is this, my Mollinda?—for Mollinda’s work you are. Kit, and an assignation—with whom? Is it man or woman, you little devil? And so is the enigma to be resolved at last? I don’t believe a word of it. It is some pretty trick of yours to requite me for my late unkindness to you. Well, I’ll defeat it. Find me, with a green scarf to my hat, at the rendezvous, and kiss me for Kit whoever you may be. Who would have thought of that, now, George, but your own ingenious self?”

But, in spite of their pretended confidence, they were all three properly puzzled and nervous, bless you. And one after the other, in an inconsequent sort of way, they put themselves into positions where they might hope to run across Mrs. Davis by accident, and question her casually as to her plans for the evening. But, exasperatingly enough, Moll was never once in evidence the whole day long, and no one knew what had become of her. She had vanished from all human ken like the “baseless fabric of a vision.”

CHAPTER XVIII

WHERE the grounds of Buckingham Palace now extend, there stood in the seventeenth century the old flowery pleasaunce known as Mulberry Garden, a place long appropriated, like its Spring prototype at Whitehall, to al fresco entertainment. Ex-mural and mural as things then went, there was to the ordinary cit a soupçon of adventure suggested in a visit to this remoter fairyland; and, as a little enterprising beyond the confines of the orthodox adds a zest to the soberest merry-making, Mulberry Garden possessed an attraction for the town, which was certainly due as much to its comparative removedness as to any diversions it might offer in the way of dancing and junketing. There was a mild thrill in achieving it, its wild and tangled acres, only gathered into cores of brilliancy at certain definite centres, where, after dark, the scattered threads of lamps, like gossamer hung with dew-drops, constellated thickly about groups of arbours, set in open spaces among the trees, where glittering forms circulated, and laughter rang, and cheese-cakes were eaten and lips kissed under fragrant ambushes of boughs woven into a thousand pretty devices of green garters and lovers’ knots. There was here none of the structural artifices which later came to vulgarize, and, alas! popularize, the more ordered vistas of Vauxhall across the water—cascades, and sham ruins, and side shows, and so forth; but Nature was allowed for the most part her own sweet, untrammelled way; and, where the wildernesses were converted, it was to no more than an artless religion of green swards and bowers, whereon and wherein the tripping frolic of foot and heart might adapt itself, if it would, to “the music of the moon” and the song of the innocent nightingale.

Not that to those chaste warblers of the night was entrusted the whole provision of music for the company. Skies might be moonless, and birds silent or out of season; wherefore there was generally to be found engaged to the service of romantic hearts and ears some performer, skilled on lute or harp, whose melodious utterances, thrilling through grove and clearing, were calculated to awaken such emotions as were compatible with the sweet understanding of sylvan solitudes.

Now, that is a true picture, though very certainly a one-sided. For where innocence goes sin is sure to follow; and the atmosphere of Mulberry Garden was by no means all of harmless frolic compact. Being relatively remote, and consisting, moreover, for three-fourths of its space of unredeemed wilderness, it formed a tempting rendezvous for spirits kept better apart; and too often, it must be confessed, a meeting among its waste thickets was tantamount to an intrigue. Still, in its popular centres the whole may be said to have leavened the parts, and it was to those, nominally, that the town gravitated, and in them found its entertainment.

Mulberry Garden was aristocratic, and remained so until its vogue came to abate—which it was already threatening to do—through the growing reputation of that “Jardin Printemps” at Lambeth, to the entrance of which a trip across the water made such a pleasant prelude. Never popularly patronized, there were times when—robuster novelties attracting—the exclusive might enjoy its green walks and hospitalities with the sense almost of being a privileged company invited to a fête champêtre. It had, of course, its central restaurant—without which it could not have existed aristocratically—in the building known as Mulberry Garden House, where quite recherché little dinners could be eaten; and, indeed, it was there that Mr. Pepys (to mention him but once again) discussed that “Spanish Olio,” chartered by one Shere, and mentioned in the Diary, which he found so richly delectable—“a very noble dish such as I never saw better or more of.” In this room Fashion would dine—and often too liberally wine, too—before emerging to tickle its pseudo-pastoral sentiment with pretence of neo-Arcadian groves and flowery shepherdesses; and it was from this room that, vizard on brow, Mr. George Hamilton issued at about a quarter past eight o’clock on a certain soft and windless June night.

He looked sharply about him, as he descended the steps into the open, searching among the company within his range for a particular token. It was one of those exceptional occasions when the visitors were relatively few, and as such widely scattered among the walks and trees. All the space before him was strung with tiny lamps, festooned from branch to branch, or ambushed in cloudy green like glow-worms. They cast a diffused light, enough to distinguish people by, but clothing one and all in a romantic glamour very soft and mystic. Many, most, in fact, of the company wore vizards. Women, indeed, on view in public places, seldom appeared unmasked, not from blushing modesty, but to hide their inability to blush at all where a blush was called for. That was understood, and derided; yet, while wit and address might effect what they could in the way of persuasion, it was an article of the strictest punctilio that no vizor should be removed by force—a rule so respected that any abuse of it was like enough, in those hot times, to lead to bloody reprisals on the offender.

Now, not distinguishing what he sought—and, indeed, the hour was yet early for an expected trysting—Master George sauntered away, with the purpose to seek some retired spot, where he might pin about his hat the green emblem of identification which he had brought with him in his pocket. On his way, reaching an open space where much company was congregated, he stopped to ascertain the cause of the assembling, and perceived, seated upon a green knoll in the midst, the long, grey-clad figure of a harpist, who was in the act of tuning up his instrument before performing.

“Quel qu’il soit?” he asked of a scented exquisite who stood near him.

“What!” exclaimed the gallant, turning in a fainting affectation on his interlocutor. “Not know him? Not know our divine Orpheus, the rare, the inspired, the man to whose finger-tips the bees come a-sipping for honey, the man the tweak of whose thumb will ravish a heart from its bosom as clean as a periwinkle from its shell!”

“I asked for a name,” said Hamilton caustically, “and you have given me a catalogue, of which the least desired part was the note of exclamation at the end.”

“Well, ’tis Jack Bannister,” said the stranger, much misliking the other’s tone, but recognizing a potential something in it which kept him civil. But, having furnished the information, he first edged and then swaggered away.

Hamilton had heard speak of the prodigy, but had never yet chanced to alight on him. He lingered now, to endorse or not the extravagant eulogies lavished on this eighth wonder of his age. And, having listened, he admitted to himself that the verdict was justified. There was something in this man’s performance which surpassed anything he had hitherto experienced. It illustrated in the extremest degree what is called genius, but which is really soul—that spiritual utterance, born with a few men like an unknown language, which would be transcendental were it not for the medium—paint, or ink, or chord, or marble—through which it must materialize in order to reach the senses. “Ah!” he thought: “if he could only say all that without the harp; if Shakespeare could only have conveyed his mind to us without pen or paper, what a divine and cleansing understanding would be ours! But the senses are cloudy interpreters.”

He was moved, but he would not applaud. “As well cry ‘Brava!’” he thought, “to the divine Speaker of the Sermon on the Mount. I will not so degrade him to exalt myself.”

But there were others who lacked his understanding, and the clapping of hands was general. It offended this paradoxical being, and he strode away, the perfection of his impression sullied. As he dived into a dusk, unfrequented walk, a new strain of music pursued him; but he would not stop to listen to it. That applause had spelt the surfeit which had spoilt the feast.

Presently a little stealing figure in front of him barred his way. There was but an occasional lamp here, and the path was dim. But he could make out that it was a woman, and young, and alone. It was easy to overtake her, and a matter of course to stop and accost, because she was masked and unaccompanied, which was in itself a challenge. As he stood, a sudden thought seizing him, he looked down at her bosom; but no green emblem was there to inform him, only a rather tell-tale tawdriness of ornament and material; and he laughed, and put his hand on the truant’s arm.

“He is under the gooseberry-bushes beyond,” he said. “Shall we go stoop and seek him there?”

She started from him, wincing up her shoulders in alarm, while she clutched a handkerchief between her palms; and then he heard her breath catch, and saw that she had been crying.

“O! don’t touch me!” she said, with a gulp. “Please to let me go past, good gentleman.”

The address, her intonation, betrayed her plainly enough for what she was—some little town skit, sempstress or servant-maid, broken loose, and now frightened over her own temerity.

“Why,” said he. “If you are in distress, I am a rare comforter. Come, let me remove this before it dissolves.”

She could offer no resistance to so beautiful a gentleman, and he slipped the vizard from her face. It was a blowzed and plain one so revealed, its only recommendation youth.

“Let honesty spare to deny itself,” said Hamilton. “There was no need to cover this away, child. What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” said the girl, distraught and sobbing. “I didn’t ought to have come. O, let me go!”

“What made you come, then?”

“’Twas my young man, there! He called me a name; and I thought—I thought, if I was to be called that——”

“You’d not be called it for nothing? Now, you know, that was foolish, because to answer wrong with wrong is like patching a worn-out gown with a piece cut from itself.”

“Yes, sir; so it is.”

“Mend bad with good, child, and”—he positively seemed to expand—“forgive injuries. Tell me, what wrought this change of feeling in you, this sense of an error realized and repented?”

She began to sob again, but quietly, and hanging her head.

“’Twas—’twas him there, I think, a-playing so beautiful; and—and, I seemed overtook, all of a sudden, with my wickedness. I want to get out, to escape, from—from——”

“Why, from yourself, child; and so you shall. But whither? To him?”

“O no, no! To mother.”

“Come, then; I will see you on your road.”

“O, don’t, sir!”

“Pish! I am sincere. What is thy name?”

“Betty, sir.”

“Harkee, Betsinda! I also heard the harpist, and was ‘overtook,’ and repented me of my sins—for the time being. Now for the nonce I am to be trusted; but you must hurry. This virtue will certainly last to the gate, where I will see you safe bestowed. Go home, then, and be a good girl, and never think to sin this way again.”

She still hesitated, tearful and in doubt, but quickly surrendered to his insistence, and went beside him submissively. He led her by a circuitous route to the great wicket of the place, where it stood in a blaze of flambeaux facing the dining-hall; and there outside waited a throng of chairs and vehicles, the most having brought visitors, but among them several hackney coaches, driven over, as they might be to-day, on the chance of a fare. And into one of these Hamilton bundled his charge, having first settled with the coachman; and he sent her off with his blessing, smiling on her timid benedictions. And then he turned his back on the gate, and smacked his chest with ineffable unction, and threw a glance at the sky, as if to observe if the recording angel were there making a note.

Yet, what if the girl had been pretty?—but he shall have the benefit of the doubt.

He strolled back the length of the lighted building, savouring by the way his own laudableness; and, coming presently to the starry, tree-haunted sward beyond, was aware in one instant of a lady, with an emerald bow in her bosom, standing fanning herself apart near a rhododendron thicket, and of a cavalier, whose hat was adorned with an apple-green scarf, striding across the grass to join her. He was so near the two that he was able, unobserved, to slip, though with a little jump of the heart, behind a tree-trunk, within earshot of the coming colloquy.

The gentleman walked up to the lady, and bowed, and stood silent. She responded with the minutest toss of her head, and remained as mute. She fanned herself, he whistled. “Hem!” said he. “Hem!” said she. Hamilton chuckled, though in an exasperated way.

“By the lord,” he thought, “if ’tis not my cousin Kate and Phil! And I perceive what is their game, which is for each to make the other speak first.”

He watched like a cat. “Hem!” coughed the lady again, and “Hem!” coughed the gentleman, only more aggressively. At that moment a second lady, having a green bow at her bosom, came rapidly from the direction of the gate, and, passing across the observer’s near field of vision, went on and vanished among the trees. She was seen both by him and by the stationary lady, who started ever so slightly; Chesterfield, having his back to the flitting figure, stood unmoved.

“I think,” said the lady, in an odd, repressed little voice, and seeming to make up her mind of a sudden, “that you have made a mistake.”

Chesterfield uttered a sort of triumphant snarl.

“No, by God!” said he. “I have made no mistake. And now acknowledge, madam, that you have been the first to break the silence between us.”

“What, then?” she protested. “You have made a mistake, I say. Whoever you may think me, I am not she.”

Now Hamilton, struck with an idea, had been privily, during these few moments, pinning his own scarf about his hat. And at these words he came from his ambush.

“No guet-apens, but the grass, sir,” said he, “must explain my soft approach. This lady speaks truth. You are mistaken in her.”

Chesterfield’s eyes glared red through his vizard holes. He sneered horribly.

“If I were mistaken before, sir,” said he, “judge what I may be now.” Then he turned with a whirl on the other. “Is this the way you hope to convince me against your shameless perfidy? But you are betrayed, madam, as much in your purposed visit here as in the object of your wanton escapade. Will you still pretend you do not know your husband?”

“Indeed,” she said, “I know him very well.”

He uttered an oath.

“Then you know his way with villains”—and, white with passion, he whipped out his sword.

They were all standing apart, screened by shrubs from the general view. For the first time the lady showed some trepidation. She moved hurriedly to interpose herself.

“For shame! Put it up,” she said. “I tell you again you are mistaken.”

“And you may say it a hundred times,” he cried, “and I shall not believe you.”

“Sir,” said Hamilton frigidly, “I too wear a sword, though I have not drawn it.”

“You shall not lack the need,” cried the other. But he left him for the moment, and, addressing the lady, stamped with fury.

“You dare to face me with that lie, and the very witness to it standing here to refute you! But there’s a way to settle it. Take off your vizard.”

“I’ll not.”

“Ah! Take it off, I say.”

“Never, while I live!”

“Then, by God, I’ll do it for you!”

He actually meant it; she retreated before him. “Kit!” she cried, “will you see me so insulted?”

Now, at that, my lord stopped dead, mowing and grinning like an ape.

“So convict out of your own mouth,” he cried, “will you dare to deny longer?” And then he turned his fury on the other. “Liar and betrayer, whatever your cursed identity, this point shall penetrate it. Look to yourself!”

Hamilton was ready, the swords tinkled, the lady screamed.

“There she goes again—the green favour! Look! Is it for her you have mistaken me? Wretch, hold your wicked hand!”

As by one consent, the two belligerents lowered their points. The figure, which had once before revealed itself hurrying past, was again come into view, walking this time with a gentleman, about whose hat was wound a scarf of green sarcenet.

Hamilton gaped, a surprised grin on his face. Already somewhat confounded by his cousin’s appeal to him, this suggestion of a further entanglement seemed fairly to take his breath away. Was the coincidence accidental or deliberate? And, if the latter, what the mischief was at the bottom of it all? He might have thought “who,” rather, but that was superfluous. There could be only one. Anyhow, being in for it, he would make the best he could of circumstance. For the rest, he was rather tickled with the hussy’s impudent daring, and curious to see how her plot worked out. Where was she herself? he wondered. Somewhere watching the game, no doubt.

But, as for my lord, he stared like one petrified. All his assurance was knocked out of him. He looked—goggle-eyed and gasping like a landed fish—from his adversary to the lady, and from the lady to Hamilton, and again from them both to the rapidly receding couple. It seemed minutes before he could find his voice.

“But—but——” he said, and stuck again.

“Very well, sir,” said Hamilton. “Take your guard.”

But the other, with a muttered oath, slipped his blade into its scabbard.

“I’m damned if I do!” he said, and looked stupidly at the lady. “You called him Kit, you know,” he muttered.

“And why not?” she said. “Is he to be killed for being christened?”

“You may realize by now, sir,” said Hamilton, “that you have made an error. If I may suggest, the way to rectify it is by not imposing yourself longer on our company.”

The glare came again into Chesterfield’s eyes; and then doubt, confusion, indecision. Was this, in truth, his errant wife? He had never questioned it before; but now—was there not something seeming more familiar in the pose, the walk of the other? And yet——

He bent, bewildered, to search the secret of the impenetrable mask. Certainly the dim light, the artificial atmosphere, were trickish things; they confused the visual sense, no less than that of voice and hearing. Was he mistaken after all? And what was his folly, in that case, in bandying words with these while the actual delinquents escaped!

One moment longer he hesitated; then, with a curse, turned on his heel and hurried off in pursuit.

The two remaining watched his retreat in silence; and then Hamilton, resheathing his sword with a snap, gave a low laugh.

“Nothing, my Phil,” muttered he, “will make thee a gentleman”; and he turned on his companion. She stood quite still, observing him. “What made you call me Kit?” said he.

“Why, are you not Kit?” she asked.

He peered at her, inquisitive. Surely she could not have failed to recognize him? No! that was incredible. And he, her? There could be no doubt about it. Her voice, her figure, her manner of dressing her hair; even the trick of her speech, moulded on soft wilful lips; even the fashion of her gown, which he seemed vaguely to recall—they were all Kate, indubitably Kate. No, he must seek another reason for her caprice. And could it be this—that all the time in “Kit” had been meant himself? that all the time she had been taking this playful symbolic means to avow her love for one she dared not admit by name? It was a revealing, a rapturous thought; it might explain much which had seemed inexplicable. And yet, if it were true, what had decided the crisis? Was it possible that it was she herself who had written that anonymous letter, confident in her bait to allure him hither? But, in that case, how had her husband got wind of the ruse? And who were those others, all, apparently, in the emblematic secret? Well, at least she had claimed him, and that was sufficient for his present satisfaction. If some eavesdropping mischief, possessed of knowledge, was manœuvring to complicate the issue, they must set their own wits to outwit hers. For the moment it was only his obvious policy to answer that question in kind.

“Yes, I am Kit,” he said. “I understand at last—your very Kit, sweet cousin. And now, let us away to covert where we can talk.”

“Which way?” she said. Her voice seemed to suggest some tiny inward struggle.

“The shady way,” he answered, with a laugh; and she went compliantly with him. “You made sure of my coming?” he asked tenderly.

“O yes,” she answered—“sure.”

He sighed. “I have waited long, trying to dissemble, but trust a woman to know. Come this way, little cousin. There are labyrinths of wild darknesses beyond, where none may hope to track and find us. Is not the night sweet? So Phil hath sinned at last beyond forgiveness? Come—why do you linger?” For she had stopped.

“I hear music,” she said.

“It is only some harping fellow. Come!”

“Where is he?”

“Yonder in the grove.”

She stood as if spellbound, took a hurried step or two, paused, and caught her hands to her bosom.

“Let us go listen,” she said; her breath came quick. “Where is he? I will go, I tell you,” and in a moment she was running. He followed, calling to her: “Cousin, wait! What hath taken you? Stop for me at least!” But she paid no heed to him, and sped on. Her feet twinkled on the grass, in and out between the hanging lamps; he found her, lost her, found her again among the thickening throng; and in another moment, hard pressing on her tracks, he had pursued her into the ring which stood about the player—through it, to the very front, where she stopped, breathless and panting.

And now let us follow the footsteps of that other green-bowed lady, the seeming double or replica of this, whom we can leave for the time being. She was Kate herself, in fact, the little outraged wife, intent on her design to personate the object of her faithless spouse’s pursuit, and, by figuring to him under false colours, to draw him into an unconscious confession of his guilt.

She had driven over in her coach, and—though some accident had delayed her by the way—in time, she still hoped, to enable her to forestall the other. Alighting, she had hurriedly traversed the distance between the gates and the open sward beyond, where the company were most wont to congregate; but, though she used her eyes for all the inquisition they were worth, without result. Eager and flurried, then, she was turning to retrace her steps, when she saw him making towards her from the shadow of a clump of trees, whence, obviously, he had been watching. She stopped instantly, and let out a shaking breath to ease the turmoil of her heart.

It was he, her husband; it never occurred to her to doubt it; the height, the figure, were sufficient, not to speak of the damning token in his hat. And, once assured, she hardly looked his way, I think. And yet, so susceptible is jealousy to false witness, it was not my lord at all, but the Duke of York.

He came up to her where she stood, and, gazing intently through his mask, waited silently a while. And then he sighed, with extreme audibility. Still, she vouchsafed him no recognition or encouragement, but stood as cold and motionless as one of the white lilies in the bed beyond. He was forced at last into taking the initiative.

“Not one word, madam,” said he, “to him that wears your favour? Will you not reassure my anxiety?”

He was aware of the faintest odd response to this appeal; it might have been a whispered note of exultation.

“For whom, sir,” she said, still white, still inflexible, “do you take me?”

“Ah!” he said, “is not that bow in your bosom sufficient answer?”

With a quick, fierce action, she pulled the vizard from her face, looked him in the eyes one moment, and, replacing it, half turned her back on him.

“Now,” she said, “are you satisfied of your error?”

“Satisfied,” said he, “but not of my error, for indeed there is none.” And, indeed, there was none, from his point of view.

She turned on him irresistibly, unable to control her indignation—

“You can dare to say it, trapped and detected in the very act? There is no error—none?—and I am she, I suppose, whom you expected to find revealed under this token? O! shameless! But your dissembling does not deceive me—instant and ready as it proves itself. Go seek her, sir, the vile party to your iniquity—she is doubtless somewhere in the garden; and bear with you the scorn and detestation of the insulted wife you thought vainly to overreach, and who now denounces and repudiates you for evermore.”

She made as if to leave him, but again turned, a quivering smile on her lips—

“And bear with you, Philip Stanhope, this reflection, which I know will gall you above any sense of guilt expressed: it was you broke the long silence between us, and it was I that trapped you into doing so. If you can feel any humiliation greater than your own discovered wickedness, it will lie in that, I know.”

“Stop!” cried his Highness, as she was going. The truth had dawned upon him through that torrent of invective. Not Kit was he, in her assumption, but her own recreant husband. The discovery was illuminating—and, indirectly, gratifying, inasmuch as it seemed to dispose, so far as she was concerned, of that hypothetical intriguer. And yet was it possible she was only manœuvring to justify her own frailty through her husband’s example? “Where are you going?” he said.

She answered in one straitened monosyllable: “Home.”

And that reassured and decided him. It was a cruel ruse, perhaps; but he saw no other hope, in her excited state, of detaining and reasoning with her. Doubtless, when the inevitable discovery ensued, the emotional reaction consequent on it would prove his forgiver and abetter.

He had to hurry to keep pace with her. “Nay,” he whispered in her ear, “believe me when I say there was no error. Could I have failed, think you, to recognize my Kate, though in a subtler disguise than this? Trust a husband’s eyes and senses, sweetheart. Come, be reasonable; we cannot talk here. Turn with me, and let us seek a spot more private to our confidences in the solitudes beyond.”

Indeed, as they advanced, it was to make themselves more and more “the cynosure of neighbouring eyes.” But the wife was not to be moved. She was deaf and blind now with a passion she could not surmount. As he persisted in accompanying her, she stopped suddenly, and stamped her little foot on the grass.

“Will you cease to importune me,” she said, “and go?”

“Only turn and come away,” he entreated, “and I will explain everything.”

“Never!” she exclaimed vehemently. “I do not believe you—not one word. It is all over between us. Leave me, and go and seek your paramour.”

“I will not,” he persisted doggedly. “There is none but yourself for me.”

“I am going home, I say.”

“Then I will go with you.”

She hurried a few steps farther; then, as he kept beside her, turned with a flounce, and went off in the opposite direction. He wheeled to follow—and so suddenly, that he ran into the very arms of a masked gentleman who, the moment before, had been advancing upon him from the rear. He snapped out a half-angry apology, and was for speeding on; but, to his astonishment, the other gripped and held him like a vice.

“Unhand me, sir!” cried the Duke. “What! do you dare?”

For the moment he was beside himself with fury, seeing his light quarry, who had taken advantage of the check, in the act of making her escape. But his struggles availed him nothing.

“Aye, I dare,” said the stranger viciously; and he turned his face, in a white fume, to regard the flight of the fugitive. “Go your way,” said he between his teeth, as if addressing the receding figure. “You are marked down at last, my lady, and will be called on in due time to pay the reckoning. And as for you, you villain”—he whisked like a devil on his prisoner—“you have got to answer for this here and now.”

He had to, somehow. His Highness, with that acute perception of his, saw the necessity, and ceased to strive. He was fairly trapped, and very certainly by the injured husband himself. He had nothing for it but to bring all his finesse to the solution of so embarrassing a problem.

“Sir,” said he, with a good deal of haughtiness, “will you please to quit this rude grasp on me? You need not fear. I am a man of honour.”

“O, of honour!” said Chesterfield, with a sneer. But he released his hold. “You surprise me, on my word. But, being so, perhaps you will inform me, man of honour, where you would like to come with me to have your throat cut.”

“We will discuss the necessity of that,” said the Duke civilly, “when I know your name.”

“So particular?” mocked the other. “But will it not inform you sufficiently to be told that I am the husband of the lady you have just parted with?”

“Indeed, it informs me nothing,” replied the Duke most suavely.

“What! you dare to pretend to me that you know her not?”

“Sir,” said the Duke, “I would disdain to answer to your insolence were it not that there must be something in appearances which, it seems, justifies it in you. I cannot presume your name from that of the lady who has just vanished, because I do not know her.”

“You are lying to me, I know.”

“You deserve no explanation; which I vouchsafe, nevertheless, solely for her good credit’s sake. I admit I accosted the lady in question; but it was under a misapprehension, being misled by a certain token she wore in her dress, and for which I had been directed to look. My importunities are explained by my reluctance to believe that a coincidence so remarkable as the wearing of that same token by another was even conceivable.”

Truly a plausible defence; but there is a craft, as well as a credulity, in jealousy, and Chesterfield showed it.

“Well, sir,” said he, “I will take your word for’t on a condition; and that is that you return me your name for my own. I am the Earl of Chesterfield.”

“And I,” said the Duke, “prefer to be known to you for the moment as ‘Kit’—simply ‘Kit,’ at your service.”

It was no sooner spoken than he realized his blunder. It would be this very anonymity, the presumptive second party to the liaison, whom the husband, being here, would be in search of. Chesterfield, in fact, showed his instant sense of the admission. He let out a laugh that was wholly diabolical.

“Ha-ha!” cried he. “Damned and condemned, thou dog, out of thine own mouth!”

Conscious that all this time they were objects of some curious attention on the part of the nearest company, he thought it well now to subdue his voice, and affect a nonchalant manner.

“Mr. Kit,” said he, in an undertone, “you will hardly continue, in face of that confession, your pretence of innocence, nor, by denying me the satisfaction I demand here and now, force me to the necessity of whipping you, like the hound you are, in public. There are level spaces in the wildernesses beyond, and something of a rising moon, sufficient for the business we have in hand. Will you walk with me, sir—or——”

“Without admitting anything,” said his Highness, very haughty and wroth, “or condescending to further remonstrance, I answer to your effrontery as it deserves. It must be chastised, at whatever cost to the truth. Follow me, sir,” and he stalked off in high choler.

He was horribly perplexed, nevertheless, though for the moment so offended as half to mean the bellicosity he threatened. But reflection soon cooled him of that temper, and he recognized that, if nothing else intervened, there would be no alternative for him but to make himself known, at the critical pass, to his adversary.

The two gentlemen disappeared in the direction of the thickets.

And so, leaving them, we will return to Hamilton and his green bow.

The harper harped his sweetest, and the lady stood and listened entranced. She seemed as one fascinated, half hypnotized, oblivious of the soft reproaches her companion kept whispering in her ear. She paid no heed whatever to his babble, but always her gaze was fixed on the long swaying form of the musician and the melancholy-wrapt eyes of him, lost, like her own, to all outer influences and impressions, and wholly absorbed in the visions conjured up of his unconscious soul. And when at length he ended on a triumphant chord, she sighed, and seemed to come awake, and, first joining in the applause with her little hands, plucked off her vizard, being quite carried away by her feelings, and, waving it in the air, cried “Brava!” in a manner to make the people about her laugh.

Hamilton, momentarily pressed back by the thrusting forward of the crowd, saw that ebullition, and frowned and wondered a little over such a grossièreté in his cousin; but she had the thing on again before he could reach her to remonstrate; and, indeed, he never had the chance to. For all of a sudden he found himself witness of an odd scene. Attracted, it seemed, by the little acclaiming voice, the performer, who was seated not ten yards away, got suddenly to his feet, and, after standing staring a minute, came striding across the grass towards the spot whence the demonstration had issued. Those about the lady may have thought that he was bent on some graceful acknowledgment to her of an approval so spontaneous and so unusual; but, whatever the attention he designed, she did not wait to receive it. As if seized with a sudden panic over the publicity she had called down upon herself, she whipped round, and, taking advantage of an opening in the crowd, slipped through it, to a roar of laughter, and was gone in an instant. So quick had she been, that Hamilton, taken by surprise, and hemmed in as he was, could not extricate himself from his position in time to mark the direction of her flight; but, once clear of the press, he stood completely baffled and cursing his evil luck.

And in the meantime green-bow was making good her escape; she ran as if some spectre were at her heels. Across the thronged grass, in and out between the trees, heedless of the attention she attracted, making instinctively for the outer glooms, onward she sped, and never paused until the covert of green shadows coming thickly about her gave her comfort and reassurance of an asylum reached at last. And then she stopped, panting and dishevelled, but with a little inclination, nevertheless, to some hysterical giggling.

“O, mussey me!” she whispered, as she fought for breath: “O, mussey me!” And then she looked hurriedly about her. She was still so near the fringe of the thickets as to have a clear view of the lighted swards she had left. Not safe from detection yet, she must penetrate deeper into the wilderness, if she hoped to baffle pursuit. Away from her ran a little glow-worm track, dim but discernible, and threaded with lamps, always attenuating, until they seemed to cease altogether in the leafy depths. She followed it, and found it to conduct her deep into an open space among the trees, about which was hung a slender coronal of lamps, and in whose midmost stood a rustic arbour, “for whispering lovers made,” but at the moment, it seemed, unoccupied. And here she stopped, to recover her breath and her self-possession, and, with a laugh, began to preen her tumbled plumes like a bird escaped from the fowler.

“I never did—there, never!” she said aloud, and instantly looked up with a start. A masked lady, with a green bow at her bosom, had come silently, it seemed, from the direction of the bower, and was standing regarding her with stony eyes. This was poor Kate, indeed, whom accident had precipitated upon the same refuge.

Moll, after that first little shock, continued her preening unperturbed.

“You fair took my breath away,” she said, “coming on me that fashion like a ghost.”

Kate’s head was bent forward; her dove-like eyes glared.

“Who are you?” she said, scarce audibly. “How dare you thrust yourself upon me like this?”

“Highty-tighty!” said Moll, still comfortably busy. “I might ask that of you.”

“Of me!” cried Kate desperately. “I think I hardly know myself”—for indeed the other had taken pains to duplicate her in many particulars, both dress and voice. “What are you doing here? But I understand the cunning infamy of it all at last. It was to throw dust in the eyes of scandal by feigning ’twas his own wife he came to meet.”

“He? Who?” said Moll, readjusting her breast knot.

“Do not you well know, false creature? But you are betrayed through that very token in your bosom you used to further your wicked designs.”

“What!” says saucebox: “mayn’t I wear a green bow if it suits my complexion?”

“Lies and duplicity,” cries the other, “are your complexion. It suits them very well.”

“Green stands for ‘forsaken,’” says the vixen. “Is that why you wear one yourself?”

It was a stab that made the poor lady wince. Her face went from pink to white.

“Cruel and inhuman!” she gasped.

“Come, call fair, my lady,” said Moll, in some heat. “If he’s been and mistaken you for me, whoever he is—and I take it that’s the truth—you’ve only got what you asked for. Look through the keyhole, you know, and you’ll get a sore eye.”

Her white teeth showed a moment under the hem of her vizard. With a dart, her ladyship was upon her.

“I will see it—that face”—she could hardly articulate in her passion—“abandoned wretch that you are—masquerading under a false name. I will know this ‘Kit’ of his for whom she is. Take it off, I say.”

But the facile jade easily repulsed and eluded her.

“Give over,” she said. “You’re no match for me.”

And indeed it was obvious to the poor girl that she was not. So she desisted in a moment, and resolved upon the better part of dignity, which is contempt.

“Keep your secret,” she said, panting. “After all, its shame is better hidden out of sight. Do you know who I am?”

“I can guess,” said Moll.

“Go to him, then. You will find him seeking for you, yonder in the open. Tell him that he is welcome to his goods for me; that I have seen them and understand their attraction to one so sunk in base corruption as himself.”

“Come, now,” said Moll. “Keep a civil tongue in your head.”

Did Kate suspect? She glanced anyhow, in a startled, puzzled way, at the dim face menacing her, before she turned on her heel, and, with her head held erect, swept away. She made for the narrow track, leaving the other standing where she was, and had passed but half-way down it, when she met Hamilton face to face. The scarf in his hat was plainly distinguishable; she took him for her husband, and stood rigidly aside to let him pass.

“Ah, little wicked truant!” said he; “but I have run you to earth at last. What made you scamper from the great musician in that panic fashion?”

His voice insensibly perplexed her; but her emotions were in too prejudiced a state to serve her for trusty interpreters.

“Are you, then, the great musician?” she said, hard scorn in her tone, “since it was you alone I sought to escape from, and—and for ever.”

“From me?”—a grieved amazement marked his voice—“after what hath passed between us?”

She stood back, peremptorily signing him on with her hand.

“Passed? Are you again in error? Proceed, sir—’tis but a little distance—and find her, the brazen partner of your guilt, for whom you have already once mistaken me.”

He cried out: “You are mad! How could I ever mistake you? Were we not listening together but now to the harpist, when you turned and ran?”

“I ran? I have heard no harpist. It was from your lying importunities I escaped.”

“My lying—before God I spoke my very heart. And you were kind, cousin.”

“Cousin!”

“Am I not your cousin, though your lover?”

“George Hamilton!”

“Do you not know me, cousin?”

She sighed, seemed to sway a little, then to stiffen.

“O!” she said. “I know you now, indeed.”

He laughed, relieved.

“Why, what misled you, Kate?”

“Never mind.” She was a serpent all at once, subtle, wooing, alluring. “Let us go back this way. There is something I want to show you. Will you come?”

Come? He would have followed her to the pit. Yet what surprise had she in store for him, what unknown witness to her own mistake, what solution of this mystery of her denial about the music? She had appeared strangely affected by that performance; was it possible it had wrought upon her to forgetfulness? Well, he would know in a moment.

She meant that he should—meant to face him with the proof of his own misconception and his intended betrayal of herself. It was somehow that woman wretch’s doing, of that she felt certain, though she was bewildered with the complication of it all. But at least her course here was clear: it was to expose and denounce the would-be seducer in the presence of the wanton who had entrapped him.

Mrs. Moll, however, was not to be caught so easily. She had, in fact, having followed stealthily in Kate’s footsteps, and whisked behind a tree at the psychologic moment, overheard the gist of this colloquy, and it imbued her with no desire to return and face the music. She just waited until the couple had passed out of sight, then slipped into the track with a view to making her escape by it.

But, alas for “the best-laid plans of mice”—and monkeys! This little monkey was nabbed before she had well set foot on the path. For there suddenly appeared advancing towards her along the narrow way the figures of a couple of gentlemen—and each had a green scarf adorning his hat.

“Well, I’m damned!” she whispered, and stood stock still.

His Highness, coming first, saw her at once, and paused—as he thought recognizing her—in some amazement. It was an embarrassing moment, and he was standing in frank indecision, when Chesterfield, coming up, pushed by him, and in his turn jerked to a stop.

“What, by God!” said he. “So we have tracked you to your lair, my lady.”

He ran at her, with a scowl, and seized her by the wrist, so roughly that she cried out.

“Aye, howl!” said he. “You will have full reason for your lamentation before I have done with you and this fancy beau of yours. Come, my pretty faithful Kate, and watch us fight. You shall stand by, and clap your husband victor, while I cut him into ribbons for love-knots to your gown. Come, stir—there is a green hard by where he shall caper for you, dancing to very prick-song. Will you not come?”

She could not help herself, indeed. His grip was iron; he dragged her with him, so that he half pulled her arm out. “O, lud!” she thought. “I’m in for it now!”

A few steps farther, and they broke into the clearing. My lady and Hamilton were just before them; it was plain they had both overheard. They stood as if petrified, Kate with white face and bewildered eyes, her companion with the grin of a dog at bay lifting his lip.

“Curse it!” said Chesterfield. “What’s this?”

Involuntarily he released his hold; on which Moll, with a naughty laugh, sprang from him and stood apart, nursing her angry wrist. And so they remained a full minute, Chesterfield and my lord Duke facing the other two, the girl covertly watching.

The Earl looked from one woman to the other, and more than once; but always his eyes returned to his true wife, on whom they finally rested.

“If this,” said he, in a gripping voice, and pulling off his mask, “is to make me the victim of some foul conspiracy, it fails with you, my lady. I know you. You need pretend no longer.”

She plucked off her vizard, and, throwing it with a gesture of scorn on the grass, stood proudly up before him.

“Well guessed, sir,” she said. “But you were not so happy in your choice a moment ago. Was it the green bow deceived you?”

“Yes, by God, it was, madam, though you may sneer. I looked for it on none but you.”

“On me?” Her eyes opened, amazed. “And why, please?”

“Because I was privily informed you were to wear it.”

“Indeed? And for whose benefit?”

“Will you ask it”—he stepped aside, flinging out his arm towards his Highness, who stood silent, gnawing his forefinger—“and this Kit, this damning witness to your guilt, to answer for it to your face? Did I not find you with him but now? For shame, madam! But he shall pay for his temerity with his life.”

“You are mad,” she said, in a voice of wonder. “I never saw you. I thought him you, and that he had accosted me, taking me for Kit.”

“You Kit? Why, in God’s name? Kit’s a man.”

“No, a woman.”

“A man, I say. He’s here.”

“And so is she here.”

“She? I tell you, no! What cursed coil is this? And you thought him me, you say? Why—answer that.”

“He wore the scarf in his hat the secret letter spoke of.”

“The secret letter? What! you have received one too?”

“I have received one.” In a sudden thought she whipped round on Hamilton. “And you, also, cousin, judging by your token.”

“Cousin!” roared Chesterfield. “What, you too, George!” For, seeing further disguise useless, that gentleman had also discovered himself. “Damme! am I to fight you all?” He stamped with fury. “Who and what is at the bottom of this juggling?”

“Why, Kit,” said Hamilton coolly—he guessed pretty well the truth, and was only mad with himself for having walked so tamely into the trap—“whoever Kit may be. I had the letter, sure enough, and acted on it. ’Twas the green bow, nothing else, for which I went. How could I know your wife behind it?”

“Why, not at all,” quoth my lady, “by what you said to her. I think, cousin, you were the most mistaken of us all.”

He felt the cold, sarcastic sting in her tone, and knew himself revealed and dismissed from that moment.

Chesterfield clinched and convulsed his fists in impotent desperation. “But—but——” he shouted, and turned on his wife again. “Kit was to wear a scarf, I tell you.”

“No, a bow,” said she.

“And nothing else, madam?” he cried.

“There would be no disputing Kit’s sex in that case,” said Hamilton pleasantly. And then he laughed. “But there are still two potential Kits in the field—and both unmasked. Why not ask them?”

Obviously it was the simple course. Chesterfield pounced on the Duke—

“You hear? Kit or the devil, man—whichever you are, confess yourself.”

His Highness hesitated—it was an awkward moment for him—and succumbed, finally, to the tyranny of circumstance.

“I could claim my privilege, and refuse, sir,” said he, “were it not that by persisting in this disguise the fair fame of an innocent lady might appear to lack its vindication. I took her, if not for another, at least not for herself,” and he pulled off his vizard in his turn.

“The Duke of York!” muttered the Earl, falling back a little, with a stupefied look; while Kate, on her part, her face flushing crimson, bent her eyes on the ground.

But in a moment she looked up, and, clasping her hands, took a passionate step forward.

“My lord Duke,” she said, urgently and pitifully, “tell him—you owe it to me—that I knew nothing of your presence here, that I guessed you as little as he did himself. My behaviour proves it.”

“Surely, madam,” said his Highness, rather grimly. “It should be self-evident to any reasonable man. But to put the matter beyond dispute, I confess myself a victim to the same mischievous agency which, it seems, has been working this havoc amongst us. From private information received, I understood that here, on this night, a green scarf was to rally to a green bow, the pass-word ‘Kit,’ and ’twas in a mere spirit of frolic that I undertook to be present in order to confuse the issue. If I had guessed for a moment——”

“But you did not guess, Sir,” said Chesterfield dryly, and only half convinced.

“I did not guess,” said the Duke, mildly and piously. “And now comes in the question, who is the one responsible for all this misunderstanding?”

“Kit!” cried Moll. She was standing a little apart on a rising mound. “Kit!” she cried, with a ringing laugh. “Here’s Kit!” And she took from her pocket a little impish, sexless doll, a mere thing of cloth and wire, which she flourished in the air. “My darling,” she said, hugging and kissing the fetish. “Look at them! Look at it, good people! It’s always been with me, everywhere, from the time I was a baby; and sometimes it’s a girl, and sometimes a boy; and I never can tell from one minute to another what it will be up to next. O, you dear!” and she held the rubbish to her young breast, swaying it as if it were an infant.

They had all turned on her, like a pack baying a little speared otter. Stupefaction marked their faces; a dead silence ensued.

And suddenly, in the midst of it, awoke a sound—music—the plucking of fingers on harp strings; and with one impulse they turned.

It came from the darkness of the trees—sweet, wild, unearthly; it rose on the starry night like incense, like a drug, like a spell, taking their brains captive. And in a moment it had slipped into a symphony, preluding some wonder—and the girl, as if irresistibly compelled, was singing—

“My lodging is on the cold ground,

And hard, very hard, is my fare,

But that which grieves me more

Is the coldness of my dear.

Oh, turn, love, I prythee, love,

turn to me,

For thou art the only one, love,

that art ador’d by me.

I’ll twine thee a garland of straw, love,

I’ll marry thee with a rush ring,

My frozen hopes will thaw, love,

And merrily we will sing.

Then turn to me, my own love;

I prythee, love, turn to me,

For thou art the only one, love,

that art adored by me.”

The voice ceased, and the music. A sort of universal sigh seemed to breathe from the hearts of the listeners. It was like a sigh of waking. The girl wiped her eyes, and sniffed, and laughed.

“Well, what next?” she said defiantly.

Chesterfield, the least impressible of the group, took a furious step forward.

“That mask,” he said hoarsely, “that mask!” and without the least demur she whipped it from her face, and stood saucily before them. He turned on his wife.

“You see, madam? Your friend!”

“No friend of mine!” cried her ladyship. “How dare you so insult me?”

He stared bewildered.

“No friend of yours? Did you not invite her to our house?”

“Never! You know you did yourself.”

“I? Before God, no! I thought she was your guest.”

“What is this, my lord? And I thought her yours.”

“Mine? I had never seen her in my life before. That hussy!”

Again that amazed inquisition of the delinquent.

“Hussy yourself!” cried Moll. And then she screamed with laughter. “O! don’t look so perplexed, good people! It’s all right. Neither of you invited me. I invited myself.”

“Yourself?” cried my lady, dumbfounded.

“Why, you see, my dear,” said Moll, “as you weren’t on speaking terms, I thought I might risk it, as each of you would suppose the other had asked me. And so I did; and so it turned out; and I’ve had a good time, a killing time, and I thank you both for it. And I’m glad to see your little difference is made up at last, and to know that I’m after all the one you’ve got to thank for it.”

“You?” cried her ladyship, with infinite scorn.

“Yes, me, my dear,” said Moll. “Now don’t be nasty about it. ’Twas I, you know, wrote all those letters and arranged this little mixture, by which you’ve come to profit.”

“You infamous creature!” said Kate. “Who suggested this trick to you?”

Hamilton, if he did not look, felt, supremely uncomfortable. But he need not have feared his confederate’s loyalty. “Honour amongst thieves” was a good enough motto for her.

“Kit,” said Mrs. Moll. “’Tis a rare little impy when it chooses.”

He breathed again. As for his Highness, he had already, realizing that he had been well fooled, and unwilling to risk any further compromising revelations, slipped quietly and unostentatiously away.

Kate breathed her disdain.

“I will know,” she began, and paused. Perhaps, after all, she did know—or guess. Her indignant eyes sought her cousin.

“Be wise,” said Hamilton, with a laugh, “and leave it at that. When all’s said, you know, ’tis very truth that she’s to thank, however she chose to work it, for this—this tender reconciliation.”

She turned her shoulder on him and his sneering, and again addressed Moll—

“Was it not enough to impose yourself on us, as you did, without setting your wicked wits to work to spite us in this fashion? Why did you do it?”

“O!” said Mrs. Davis nonchalantly, “I was tired of you all and your tragic ways; and I wanted some fun; and there was none to be got out of that jealous grumps of a husband of yours; and—and so I played for a general post. What then, and what cause have you, of all people, to blame me for it?”

Now, at that, Chesterfield, uttering an oath, made a run for the saucy creature, as if he were minded to strike her.

“No, damn it, Phil!” cried Hamilton, moving to interpose—“hold your hand. What cause have you either, for that matter!”

“Cause!” cried the nobleman, glaring round. “What the devil do you do defending her? Are you in her confidence? Cause, by God! I’ll have her by the heels for a common rogue and impostor—I’ll——” and he was making for the girl again.

She struck out at him, with a little shriek.

“Jack Davis,” she cried, “are you going to see your wife ill-treated before your eyes?”

There was a rustle in the shadows, and a long form came bounding out, and seemed to tumble towards the mound.

“Zounds!” ejaculated Hamilton, “his wife! If it isn’t the harping prodigy!” He whistled. “’Tis all plain now.”

“Hold, sir!” cried the musician. “This is indeed my wife.”

He ascended the mound, and stood shoulder to shoulder beside that injured lady. Chesterfield fell back, snorting, while Kate ran to him and clutched his arm. That touch, so desired, so unfamiliar, seemed to fall like balm on his passion.

Moll looked up, with a twinkle of dismal resignation, at the sad, adoring face above her.

“So you’ve found me at last, Jack,” she said, “and all my fun’s over, I suppose, for the present. Well-a-day!” and she heaved a great sigh. “How did you know me?”

“Know you!” he exclaimed; and O, the aching tragedy, to him, implied in those two words! “Was not your voice enough, child, when you cried ‘Brava!’ There is none other like it in all the world. I followed it—when I could, and some instinct led me hither. And then and then—O, I wondered if you could be moved in the old way; and—and——”

“And I was moved, Jack; I had to sing when you made me. Lud, if you could only be always the angel your playing makes you! But”—she heaved her shoulders pettishly—“well, I must come back to be your wife again, I suppose.”

“Will you, Molly?” Poor wretch—the rapture and the marvel!

“O yes!” she said indifferently. “Well, what have you been doing with yourself all this while?”

“Playing for bread,” he answered. “I took another name—Bannister—my mother’s; and I think it blessed me. I have been making a reputation and a fortune, Molly.”

“A fortune!” cried the lady, opening her eyes. “Then I’ll come with you, sure. La, now! what must all these folks think of us, making love in public?”

She led him down from the mound, up to the listening group, astonished spectators of this domestic reunion. She was quite cool and impudent.

“These are some of my friends, Jack,” says she—“or were, till a moment ago. You don’t ask me what I’ve been doing since we quarrelled and parted. Well, they’ll tell you, if you are curious, only don’t you believe all they say.” And then she addressed the company: “My lord—hem!—ladies and gentlemen. I’ve found, though quite unexpected, the husband I came to London to seek, not the one I meant but an old one I had thought used up. Never mind for that; and I daresay both my lady and me know what it is to wear a turned gown; but the point is that, if you ever doubted of my respectability—and some of you may; not all, perhaps, recognizing the thing when they see it—here’s the proof of it to answer you, and so shall remain, until we quarrel again and go our ways as before.”

“No, no!” said the radiant creature, with a patient smile.

“No, no!” croaked Hamilton, with a laugh.

“To spite you,” cried Moll, blazing on him, “I’d live with him for ever—at least, for part of it!”

“Poor man! what a vengeance!” said her ladyship, and turned with cold disdain on the mocker (she still held her husband’s arm). “I trust you appreciate your punishment, cousin,” she said, “and will submit to it without resorting to the bad counsel of jealousy.” And so she faced the lady. “I congratulate you, Mrs. Davis, on your—your proof. We had not learned, I confess, to associate you with angels in any form, and the very opportune arrival of this one—whether in the conspiracy or not—must serve you, I suppose, for a means to escape the chastisement you have so richly deserved at our hands. Under what circumstances and at whose instigation you were moved to venture on this audacity it is idle to inquire—we should never extract the truth. Nor, the air being cleared of you, need we now wish to. When one has thrown off a sickness, one likes to dismiss its unpleasantness from one’s thoughts. Your boxes, with their green bows, and vulgarities, and thrice-turned gowns, and whatever other stage ‘properties’ or ‘perquisites’ they may contain, shall be sent to your direction. Come, my lord”—and she turned very stately, and, entering the track with her husband, disappeared along it.

“There’s gratitude!” cried Moll; and, positively snivelling, threw herself upon Sad Jack’s sober bosom.

Hamilton, looking on, with a grin wrinkling his nose, shrugged his shoulders, began to whistle, and sauntered off in another direction.

My lord and lady, in the meantime, walked like reconciled lovers.

“Do you know,” she said, with an arch smile, “that ’twas you first broke the silence between us?”

“No, no,” said he, stopping.

“Ah! but it was.”

“It was not, I say.”

“And I say it was.”

They had edged apart. For the moment it seemed as if it was all to begin over again.

“Curse it!” muttered my lord.

“Why, do not you remember,” said she, rallying to sweetness, “that you declared you knew me?”

He bit his lip, scowled, and brightened.

“That’s true, my lady. But I have not gone down on my knees to you.”

And on the very word, advancing a pace, he tripped over a stump and went down on his knees.

She checked an impulse to laugh, and did the tactful thing. As he got to his feet, she gazed at him with dear dove’s eyes, and said she—

“And now I will ask the pardon. O, I would ask anything, do anything for you, my lord, since learning—since learning——”

He tucked her arm within his, and they went on together.

And on the green, in the light of the fading lamps, Moll snivelled.

“What does this all mean? What mischief hast thou been up to, thou incorrigible one?” asked the fond fellow, her husband, as he held her.

“Not I, but Kit,” said the girl, and, with a tearful laugh, she produced the fetish, and held it up to his face.

“What!” said he, smiling. “Dost thou still carry that absurd imp about with thee?”

“Always, and wherever I go,” she answered solemnly. And then, with a sigh: “I think he is the only one my heart hath ever really loved—the first, as he shall be the last. There, don’t gloom, Jack, but kiss him—kiss him!”

[The End]

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. mussey-me/mussey me, whimple/wimple, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Add TOC.

[Chapter II]

Change “was already susspected of a leaning in” to suspected.

[Chapter XVIII]

(would be ours! But the senses are cloudy interpreters”) add missing period.

[End of text]

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Table of Contents

MOLL DAVIS

[COPYRIGHT]

CONTENTS

MOLL DAVIS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE