Dolly Dialogues, by Anthony Hope

She pointed to a young man who had just passed where we sat. He was dressed very smartly, and was walking with a lady attired in the height of the fashion.

“I made that man,” said Dolly, “and now he cuts me dead before the whole of the Row! It’s atrocious. Why, but for me, do you suppose he’d be at this moment engaged to three thousand a year and—and the plainest girl in London?”

“I met him,” said Miss Dolly, “three years ago. At that time he was—oh, quite unpresentable. He was everything he shouldn’t be. He was a teetotaler, you know, and he didn’t smoke, and he was always going to concerts. Oh, and he wore his hair long, and his trousers short, and his hat on the back of his head. And his umbrella—”

“He carried that, Mr. Carter. Don’t be silly! Carried it unrolled, you know, and generally a paper parcel in the other hand; and he had spectacles too.”

“Yes, I know; well, I did that. I took him in hand, and I just taught him, and now—!”

“Yes, I know that. But how did you teach him? Give him Saturday evening lectures, or what?”

“Oh, every-evening lectures, and most-morning walks. And I taught him to dance, and broke his wretched fiddle with my own hands!”

“I don’t know that you mean. I do like a man to be smart, anyhow. Don’t you, Mr. Carter? You’re not so smart as you might be. Now, shall I take you in hand?” And she smiled upon me.

“To Phil Meadows? Oh, nothing. I just slipped in a remark here and there, whenever he talked nonsense. I used to speak just at the right time, you know.”

“Oh, well, you know, Mr. Carter, I made it a condition that he should do just what I wanted in little things like that. Did he think I was going to walk about with a man carrying a brown paper parcel—as if we had been to the shop for a pound of tea?”

“Well you got out of that rather neatly—for you. No, he doesn’t now. You see, he misunderstood my motive. He thought—well, I do believe he thought I cared for him, you know. Of course I didn’t.”

“Just as a friend—and a pupil, you know. And when he’d had his hair cut and bought a frock coat (fancy he’d never had one!), he looked quite nice. He has nice eyes. Did you notice them.”

I looked very unhappy. There is an understanding that I am very unhappy since Miss Foster’s engagement to the Earl of Mickleham was announced.

“What was I saying before—before you—you know—oh, about Phil Meadows, of course. I did like him very much, you know, or I shouldn’t have taken all that trouble. Why, his own mother thanked me!”

“Why, after I sent him away. Didn’t I tell you? Oh, we had the most awful scene. He raved, Mr. Carter. He called me the most horrid names, and—”

“It wasn’t long enough to get hold of,” she tittered. “But don’t laugh. It was really dreadful. And so unjust! And then, next day, when I thought it was comfortably over, you know, he came back, and—and apologized, and called himself the most awful names, and—well, that was really worse.”

“Oh, he said I’d destroyed his faith in women, you know, and that I’d led him on, and that I was—well, he was very rude indeed. And he went on writing me letters like that for a whole year? It made me quite uncomfortable.”

“But he didn’t go back to short trousers and a fiddle, did he?” I asked anxiously.

“Oh, no. But he forgot all he owed me, and he told me that his heart was dead, and that he should never love any one again.”

“Oh, he doesn’t care about her,” said Miss Dolly reassuringly. “It’s the money, you know. He hadn’t a farthing of his own. Now he’ll be set up for life.”

“I don’t call her such a bad-looking girl, though.” (I hadn’t seen her face.)

“It is the height of ingratitude. Why, to love you was a liberal education!”

“Yes, wasn’t it? How nicely you put that. A liberal education!’ I shall tell Archie.” (Archie is Lord Mickleham.)

“But why not tell Mickleham about Phil Meadows?” I urged. “It’s all to your credit, you know.”

“Oh, how are you, Mickleham, old man? Take this seat; I’m just off—just off. Yes, I was, upon my honor—got to meet a man at the club. Goodbye, Miss Foster. Jove! I’m late!”

And as I went I heard Miss Dolly say, “I thought you were never coming, Archie, dear!” Well, she didn’t think he was coming just then. No more did I.

CORDIAL RELATIONS

The other day I paid a call on Miss Dolly Foster for the purpose of presenting to her my small offering on the occasion of her marriage to Lord Mickleham. It was a pretty little bit of jewelry—a pearl heart, broken (rubies played the part of blood) and held together by a gold pin, set with diamonds, the whole surmounted by an earl’s coronet. I had taken some trouble about it, and was grateful when Miss Dolly asked me to explain the symbolism.

Here Miss Dolly interrupted; to tell the truth I was not sorry, for I was fairly graveled for the meaning of the pin.

“What nonsense, Mr. Carter!” she said; “but it’s awfully pretty. Thanks so very very much. Aren’t relations funny people?”

“If you wish to change the subject, pray do,” said I. “I’ll change anything except my affections.”

“Look here,” she pursued, holding out a bundle of letters. “Here are the congratulatory epistles from relations. Shall I read you a few?”

“This is from Aunt Georgiana—she’s a widow—lives at Cheltenham. ‘My dearest Dorothea—‘”

“‘My dearest Dorothea, I have heard the news of your engagement to Lord Mickleham with deep thankfulness. To obtain the love of an honest man is a great prize. I hope you will prove worthy of it. Marriage is a trial and an opportunity—‘”

“Be quiet, Mr. Carter. ‘A trial and an opportunity. It searches the heart and affords a sphere of usefulness which—’ So she goes on, you know. I don’t see why I need be lectured just because I’m going to be married, do you, Mr. Carter?”

“Oh, that’s Georgy Vane. She’s awful fun. ‘Dear old Dolly,—So you’ve brought it off. Hearty congrats. I thought you were going to be silly and throw away—’ There’s nothing else there, Mr. Carter. Look here. Listen to this. It’s from Uncle William. He’s a clergyman, you know. ‘My dear Niece,—I have heard with great gratification of your engagement. Your aunt and I unite in all good wishes. I recollect Lord Mickleham’s father when I had a curacy near Worcester. He was a regular attendant at church and a supporter of all good works in the diocese. If only his son takes after him (fancy Archie!) You have secured a prize. I hope you have a proper sense of the responsibilities you are undertaking. Marriage affords no small opportunities, it also entails certain trials—‘”

“Well, here’s Cousin Susan’s. She’s an old maid, you know. It’s very long. Here’s a bit: ‘Woman has it in her power to exercise a sacred influence. I have not the pleasure of knowing Lord Mickleham, but I hope, my dear, that you will use your power over him for good. It is useless for me to deny that when you stayed with me, I thought you were addicted to frivolity. Doubtless marriage will sober you. Try to make a good use of its lessons I am sending you a biscuit tin’—and so on.”

“Yes. ‘My dear Dorothea,—I have heard your news. I do hope it will turn out happily. I believe that any woman who conscientiously does her duty can find happiness in married life. Her husband and children occupy all her time and all her thoughts, and if she can look for few of the lighter pleasures of life, she has at least the knowledge that she is of use in the world. Please accept the accompanying volumes (it’s Browning) as a small—’ I say, Mr. Carter, do you think it’s really like that?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Here, this is my brother Tom’s. ‘Dear Dol,—I thought Mickleham rather an ass when I met him, but I dare say you know best. What’s his place like? Does he take a moor? I thought I read that he kept a yacht. Does he? Give him my love and a kiss. Good luck, old girl. Tom. P.S.—I’m glad it’s not me, you know.’”

“Not at all,” said Miss Dolly, dimpling. “It’s just like dear old Tom. Listen to grandpapa’s. ‘My dear Granddaughter,—The alliance’ (I rather like it’s being called an alliance, Mr. Carter. It sounds like the Royal Family, doesn’t it?) ‘you are about to contract is in all respects a suitable one. I send you my blessing and a small check to help towards your trousseau.—Yours affectionately, Jno. Wm. Foster.’”

“Archie’s mother’s, you know. ‘My dear Dorothea (as I suppose I must call you now)—Archibald has informed us of his engagement, and I and the girls (there are five girls, Mr. Carter) hasten to welcome his bride. I am sure Archie will make his wife very happy. He is rather particular (like his dear father), but he has a good heart, and is not fidgety about his meals. Of course we shall be delighted to move out of The Towers at once. I hope we shall see a great deal of you soon. Archie is full of your praises, and we thoroughly trust his taste. Archie—’ It’s all about Archie, you see.”

“Well, I don’t know. I suppose I count a little, too. Oh, look here. Here’s Cousin Fred’s, but he’s always so silly. I shan’t read you his.”

“Well, here’s one bit. ‘I suppose I can’t murder him, so I must wish him joy. All I can say is, Dolly, that he’s the luckiest (something I can’t read—either fellow or—devil) I ever heard of. I wonder if you’ve forgotten that evening—‘”

“But he sends me a love of a bracelet. He can’t possibly pay for it, poor boy.”

“Then comes a lot from girls. Oh, there’s one from Maud Tottenham—she’s a second cousin, you know—it’s rather amusing. ‘I used to know your FIANCE slightly. He seemed very nice, but it’s a long while ago, and I never saw much of him. I hope he is really fond of you, and that it is not a mere fancy. Since you love him so much, it would be a pity if he did not care deeply for you.’”

“Oh, if you don’t mind, I don’t,” said she, laughing, and she hunted out the pink note and spread it before her.

“Let me see. Where was I? Oh, here. ‘I thought you were going to be silly and throw away your chances on some of the men who used to flirt with you. Archie Mickleham may not be a genius, but he’s a good fellow and a swell and rich; and he’s not a pauper, like Phil Meadows, or a snob like Charlie Dawson, or—’ shall I go on, Mr. Carter? No, I won’t. I didn’t see what it was.”

“O, no, I can’t,” and she folded up the letter. “Then I will,” and I’m ashamed to say I snatched the letter. Miss Dolly jumped to her feet. I fled behind the table. She ran round. I dodged.

“‘Or a young spendthrift like that man—I forget his name—who you used to go on with at such a pace at Monte Carlo last winter.’”

So then I stopped. I folded the letter and handed it back to her. Her cheeks flushed red as she took it.

RETRIBUTION

In future I am going to be careful what I do. I am also—and this is by no means less important—going to be very careful what Miss Dolly Foster does. Everybody knows (if I may quote her particular friend Nellie Phaeton) that dear Dolly means no harm, but she is “just a little harumscarum.” I thanked Miss Phaeton for the expression.

The fact is that “old lady M.” (Here I quote Miss Dolly) sent for me the other day. I have not the honor of knowing the Countess, and I went in some trepidation. When I was ushered in, Lady Mickleham put up her “starers.” (You know those abominations! Pince-nez with long torture—I mean tortoise—shell handles.)

Upon this five young ladies who had been sitting in five straight-backed chairs, doing five pieces of embroidery, rose, bowed, and filed out of the room. I felt very nervous.

A pause followed. Then the Countess observed—and it seemed at first rather irrelevant—

“In these days of French influence,” I began apologetically (not that I write such stories, or any stories, but Lady Mickleham invites an apologetic attitude), and my eye wandered to the table. I saw nothing worse (or better) than the morning paper there.

“Contained in a friend’s letter,” she continued, focusing the “starers” full on my face.

“It must have been as painful for her to write as for me to read,” Lady Mickleham went on. “And that is saying much. Be seated, pray.”

I bowed, and sat down in one of the straight-back chairs. I also began, in my fright, to play with one of the pieces of embroidery.

“Is Lady Jane’s work in your way?” (Lady Jane is named after Jane, the famous Countess, Lady-in-Waiting to Caroline of Anspach.)

“My son, Mr. Carter, is of a simple and trusting disposition. Perhaps I had better come to the point. I am informed by this letter that, in conversation with the writer the other day, Archibald mentioned, quite incidentally, some very startling facts. Those facts concern you, Mr. Carter.”

“I do not think that is necessary,” said she. “She is a lady in whom I have the utmost confidence.”

“It appears, Mr. Carter—and you will excuse me if I speak plainly—(I set my teeth) that you have, in the first place, given to my son’s bride a wedding present, which I can only describe as—”

“A pearl heart,” she corrected; “er—fractured, and that you explained that this absurd article represented your heart.”

“In fact, most offensive. But that is not the worst. From my son’s further statements it appears that on one occasion, at least, he found you and Miss Foster engaged in what I can only call—”

“A thing not only atrociously vulgar at all times, but under the circumstances—need I say more? Mr. Carter, you were engaged in chasing my son’s future bride round a table!”

“Pardon me, Lady Mickleham. Your son’s future bride was engaged in chasing me round a table.”

“As it happened, however, my son entered in the middle of this disgraceful—”

Upon this—and I have really never been so pleased at anything in all my life—the Countess, the violence of her emotions penetrating to her very fingers, gripped the handle of her “starers” with such force that she broke it in two! She was a woman of the world, and in a moment she looked as if nothing had happened. With me it was different; and that I am not now on Lady Mickleham’s visiting list is due to (inter alia et enormia) the fact that I laughed! It was out before I could help it. In a second I was as grave as a mute. The mischief was done. The Countess rose. I imitated her example.

“You are amused?” said she, and her tones banished the last of my mirth. I stumbled on my hat and it rolled to her feet.

“It is not probable,” she observed, “that after Miss Foster’s marriage you will meet her often. You will move in—er—somewhat different circles.”

“I may catch a glimpse of her in her carriage from the top of my ‘bus,” said I.

Lady Mickleham rang the bell. I stooped for my hat. To tell the truth, I was rather afraid to expose myself in such a defenseless attitude, but the Countess preserved her self control. The butler opened the door. I bowed, and left the Countess regarding me through the maimed “starers.” Then I found the butler smiling. He probably knew the signs of the weather. I wouldn’t be Lady Mickleham’s butler if you made me a duke.

As I walked home through the Park, I met Miss Dolly and Mickleham. They stopped.

“I’ve seen your mother,” said I. “I wish, Mickleham, that when you do happen to intrude as you did the other day, you wouldn’t repeat what you see.”

“Lord!” he cried. “She’s not heard of that. I only told Aunt Cynthia.”

“On reflection,” said I, “I don’t know that I did—much.” (I hadn’t, you know.)

“That’s all very well for you,” said Dolly. “But do you happen to remember that we dine there tonight?” Archie grew grave.

“I hope you’ll enjoy yourselves,” said I. “I always cling to the belief that the wicked are punished.” And I looked at Miss Dolly.

“Never you mind, little woman,” said Archie, drawing Miss Dolly’s arm through his, “I’ll see you through. After all, everybody knows that old Carter’s an ass.”

That piece of universal knowledge may help matters, but I do not quite see how. I walked on, for Miss Dolly had quite forgotten me, and was looking up at Archie Mickleham like—well, hang it, in the way they do, you know. So I just walked on.

I believe Miss Dolly has got a husband who is (let us say) good enough for her. And, for one reason and another, I am glad of it. And I also believe that she knows it. And I am—I suppose—glad of that, too. Oh, yes, of course, I am. Of course.

THE PERVERSENESS OF IT

“I tell you what, Mr. Carter,” said Miss Nellie Phaeton, touching up Rhino with her whip, “love in a cottage is—”

We were spanking round the Park behind Ready and Rhino. Miss Phaeton’s horses are very large; her groom is very small, and her courage is indomitable. I am no great hand at driving myself, and I am not always quite comfortable. Moreover, the stricter part of my acquaintance consider, I believe, that Miss Phaeton’s attentions to me are somewhat pronounced, and that I ought not to drive with her in the Park.

“You’re right,” she went on. “What a girl wants is a good house and lots of cash, and some ridin’ and a little huntin’ and—”

“A few g’s!’” I cried in shuddering entreaty. “If you love me, a g’ or two.”

“Well, I suppose so,” said she. “You can’t go ridin’ without gees, can you?”

“It’s only in stories that people are in love when they marry,” observed Miss Phaeton reflectively.

“Oh, if you count that!” said she, hitting Ready rather viciously. We bounded forward, and I heard the little groom bumping on the back seat. I am always glad not to be a groom—it’s a cup-and-ball sort of life, which must be very wearying.

“Were you ever in love?” she asked, just avoiding a brougham which contained the Duchess of Dexminster. (If, by the way, I have to run into anyone, I like it to be a Duchess; you get a much handsomer paragraph.)

“That it shall be quite out of the question, you know. It’s not at all difficult. I only have to avoid persons of moderate means.”

“Exactly. That’s why. So I choose either a pauper—when it’s impossible—or an heiress—when it’s preposterous. See?”

“Stuff!” said she. “You know you told Dolly Foster that I should make an excellent wife for a trainer.”

“I don’t care a pin for your opinion, you know,” she continued (I had never supposed that she did); “but what did you mean by it?”

“Would—would other people think so?” she asked, with a highly surprising touch of timidity.

“Nobody would,” I said. “Only a snarling old wretch would say so, just because he thought it smart.”

A pause ensued. We passed the Duchess again, and scratched the nose of her poodle, which was looking out of the carriage window. Miss Phaeton flicked Rhino, and the groom behind went plop-plop on the seat.

“He’s awfully clever, you know,” she continued; “but he wouldn’t always talk. Sometimes he just sat and said nothin’, or read a book.”

As she spoke she pulled up Ready and Rhino. The little groom jumped down and stood under (not at) their heads. I leant back and surveyed the crowd sitting and walking. Miss Phaeton flicked a fly off Rhino’s ear, put her whip in the socket, and leant back also.

At this moment, looking along the walk, I saw a man coming toward us. He was a handsome fellow, with just a touch of “softness” in his face. He was dressed in correct fashion, save that his hair was a trifle longer, his coat a trifle fuller, his hat a trifle larger, his tie a trifle looser than they were worn by most. He caught my attention, and I went on looking at him for a little while, till a light movement of my companion’s made me turn my head.

Miss Phaeton was sitting bolt upright; she fidgeted with the reins; she took her whip out of the socket and put it back again; and, to my amazement, her cheeks were very red.

Presently the man came opposite the carriage. Miss Phaeton bowed. He lifted his hat, smiled, and made as if to pass on. Miss Phaeton held out her hand. I could see a momentary gleam of surprise in his eyes, as though he thought her cordiality more than he might have looked for—possibly even more than he cared about. But he stopped and shook hands.

“Still with your inseparables!” he said gayly, with a wave of his hand towards the horses. “I hope, Miss Phaeton, that in the next world your faithful steeds will be allowed to bear you company, or what will you do?”

“O, you think I care for nothin’ but horses?” said she petulantly, but she leant towards him, and gave me her shoulder.

“O, no,” he laughed. “Dogs, also, and, I’m afraid, one day it was ferrets, wasn’t it?”

“How conscientious of you to inquire!” he exclaimed, his eyes twinkling. “O, yes, a hundred things. Have you—killed—anything lately?”

I caught sight of his face behind her back and I thought I saw a trace of puzzle—nothing more. He held out his hand.

“Well, so glad to have seen you, Miss Phaeton,” said he, “but I must run on. Goodbye.”

And, lifting his hat again, smiling again gayly, he was gone. For a moment or two I said nothing. Then I remarked:

“Yes, that’s him,” said she, and, as she spoke, she sank back in her seat for a moment. I did not look at her face. Then she sat up straight again and took the whip.

She nodded at me, but said nothing. A second later the carriage was tearing down the road, and the little groom hanging on for dear life.

Of course, it’s all nonsense. She’s not the least suited to him; she’d make him miserable, and then be miserable herself. But it seems a little perverse, doesn’t it? In fact, twice at least between the courses at dinner I caught myself being sorry for her. It is, when you think of it, so remarkably perverse.

A MATTER OF DUTY

Lady Mickleham is back from her honeymoon. I mean young Lady Mickleham—Dolly Foster (well, of course I do. Fancy the Dowager on a honeymoon!) She signified the fact to me by ordering me to call on her at teatime; she had, she said, something which she wished to consult me about confidentially. I went.

“Oh, we’ve been back a fortnight, but we went down to The Towers. They were all there, Mr. Carter.”

“All Archie’s people. The dowager said we must get really to know one another as soon as possible. I’m not sure I like really knowing people. It means that they say whatever they like to you, and don’t get up out of your favorite chair when you come in.”

“And told me what Archie particularly liked, and how bad it was for him, poor boy.”

“What should we do without our mothers? I do not, however, see how I can help in all this, Lady Mickleham.”

I smiled. That is Dolly’s way. As Miss Phaeton says, she means no harm, and it is admirably conducive to the pleasure of a tete-a-tete.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to ask you about,” she continued, after she had indulged in a pensive sigh (with a dutifully bright smile and a glance at Archie’s photograph to follow. Her behavior always reminds me of a varied and well assorted menu). “It was about something much more difficult. You won’t tell Archie, will you?”

“You know, Mr. Carter, that before I was married—oh, how long ago it seems!”

“Don’t interrupt. That before I was married I had several—that is to say, several—well, several—”

“Oh, if you won’t be sensible!—Well, you see, many of them are Archie’s friends as well as mine; and, of course, they’ve been to call.”

“What I want to ask you is this—and I believe you’re not silly, really, you know, except when you choose to be.”

“Walk in the Row any afternoon,” said I, “and you won’t find ten wiser men.”

“Of course,” pursued Lady Mickleham, opening her fan, “it’s in some ways more comfortable that he shouldn’t know.”

“Yes—and to me. Because if he came to know from anybody else, he might exaggerate the things, you know.”

“She can’t have any,” said Lady Mickleham decisively. “I believe in her husband, because I must. But nobody else! You’re not giving me your opinion.”

“I’ve thought it all over very carefully,” said she; “both as it would affect me and as it would affect Archie.”

Lady Mickleham put down her cup of tea. “What a very curious idea!” she exclaimed.

“Give it time to sink in,” said I, helping myself to another piece of toast. She sat silent for a few moments—presumably to allow of the permeation I suggested. I finished my tea and leant back comfortably. Then I said:

I was not surprised. But I could not permit Lady Mickleham to laugh at me in the unconscionable manner in which she proceeded to laugh. I spread out my hands and observed blandly:

“Why not be guided—as to the others, I mean—by your husband’s example?”

“Oh, I see he hasn’t. Nor, I suppose, about Sylvia Fenton, or that little Delancy girl, or handsome Miss—what was her name?”

“Lady Mickleham,” said I gravely, “if your husband has not thought fit to mention these ladies—and others whom I could name—to you, how could I presume—?”

“It seems to me,” I observed, “that what is sauce—that, I should say, husband and wife ought to stand on an equal footing in these matters. Since he has—no doubt for good reasons—not mentioned to you—”

“She came last,” said I. “Just before you, you know. However, as I was saying—”

“Oh, he couldn’t have known you long then. As I was saying, I should, if I were you, treat him as he has treated you. In my case it seems to be too late.”

“One never knows,” said I, with an apologetic smile. “I don’t suppose he thinks it of you.”

“I won’t tell him a single word. He may find out if he likes. Who was the last girl you mentioned?”

“Is it any use trying to remember all their names?” I asked in a soothing tone. “No doubt he’s forgotten them by now—just as you’ve forgotten the others.”

“Certainly I am. It might annoy Archie to find me here when he wants to talk to you.”

I left the room. On the stairs I met Archie. I shook hands sympathetically. I was sorry for Archie. But in great causes the individual cannot be considered. I had done my duty to my sex.

MY LAST CHANCE

“Now mind,” said Mrs. Hilary Musgrave, impressively, “this is the last time I shall take any trouble about you. She’s a very nice girl, quite pretty, and she’ll have a lot of money. You can be very pleasant when you like—”

“Which isn’t often—and if you don’t do it this time I wash my hands of you. Why, how old are you?”

“Come along,” said Mrs. Hilary, and she added over her shoulder, “she has a slight north-country accent.”

Mrs. Hilary, seeing that I was determined to look on the bright side, smiled graciously on me and introduced me to the young lady. She was decidedly good-looking, fresh and sincere of aspect, with large inquiring eyes—eyes which I felt would demand a little too much of me at breakfast—but then a large tea-urn puts that all right.

Well, we tried the theaters first; but as she had only been to the Lyceum and I had only been to the Gaioety, we soon got to the end of that. Then we tried Art: she asked me what I thought of Degas: I evaded the question by criticizing a drawing of a horse in last week’s Punch—which she hadn’t seen. Upon this she started literature. She said “Some Qualms and a Shiver” was the book of the season. I put my money on “The Queen of the Quorn.” Dead stop again! And I saw Mrs. Hilary’s eye upon me; there was wrath in her face. Something must be done. A brilliant idea seized me. I had read that four-fifths of the culture of England were Conservative. I also was a Conservative. It was four to one on! I started politics. I could have whooped for joy when I elicited something particularly incisive about the ignorance of the masses.

“I do hope you agree with me,” said Miss Milton. “The more one reads and thinks, the more one sees how fatally false a theory it is that the ignorant masses—people such as I have described—can ever rule a great Empire.”

“The Empire wants gentlemen; that’s what it wants,” said I, nodding my head and glancing triumphantly at Mrs. Hilary.

“Men and women,” said she, “who are acquainted with the best that has been said and thought on all important subjects.”

At the time I believed this observation to be original, but I have since been told that it was borrowed. I was delighted with it.

“Yes,” said I, “and have got a stake in the country, you know, and know how to behave emselves in the House, don’t you know?”

“What we have to do,” pursued Miss Milton, “is to guide the voters. These poor rustics need to be informed—”

“Get their marching orders,” I cried, in rapture. It was exactly what I always did on my small property.

“Oh, well, neither did I—quite,” I responded adroitly. What was wrong with the girl now?

“O, yes,” said she. “I think it’s a duty. I worked very hard at the last election. I spent days distributing packages of—”

“But it’s ticklish work now, eh? Six months’ ‘hard’ wouldn’t be pleasant, would it?”

Now I suppose that “pamphlets” and “blankets don’t really sound much alike, but I was agitated.

“Quite right,” said I. “Poor old things! They can’t afford proper fuel.”

“Neither was I,” I declared in humble apology. “Didn’t you say blankets?’”

There was a long pause. I glanced at Mrs. Hilary. Things had not fallen out as happily as they might, but I did not mean to give up yet.

“I see you’re right,” I said, still humbly. “To descend to such means as I had in my mind is—”

“To throw away our true weapons,” said she earnestly. (She sat down again—good sign.)

“Let them put away their horse racing, their betting, their luxurious living, their—”

“I’m sure we do,” cried I; and I winked with my “off” eye at Mrs. Hilary as I sat down beside Miss Milton.

“Now I heard of a man the other day,” said she, “who’s nearly 40. He’s got an estate in the country. He never goes there, except for a few days’ shooting. He lives in town. He spends too much. He passes an absolutely vacant existence in a round of empty gaiety. He has by no means a good reputation. He dangles about, wasting his time and his money. Is that the sort of example—?”

“If you want him, you must look on a race course, or at a tailor’s, or in some fashionable woman’s boudoir. And his estate looks after itself. He’s too selfish to marry, too idle to work, too silly to think.”

“I wonder if I’ve met him,” said I. “I’m occasionally in town, when I can get time to run up. What’s his name?”

“I don’t think I heard—or I’ve forgotten. But he’s got the place next to a friend of mine in the country, and she told me all about him. She’s exactly the opposite sort of person—or she wouldn’t be my friend.”

“Oh, I should like to meet that man, and tell him what I think of him!” said she. “Such men as he do more harm than a dozen agitators. So contemptible, too!”

“I’m so glad you—” began Miss Milton, quite confidentially; I pulled my chair a trifle closer, and cast an apparently careless glance towards Mrs. Hilary. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me.

“Eh, what? Upon my honor it is! Why, Carter, my boy, how are you? Eh, what? Miss Milton, too, I declare! Well, now, what a pity Annie didn’t come!”

I disagreed. I hate Annie. But I was very glad to see my friend and neighbor, Robert Dinnerly. He’s a sensible man—his wife’s a little prig.

“Oh, Mr. Dinnerly,” cried Miss Milton, “how funny that you should come just now? I was just trying to remember the name of a man Mrs. Dinnerly told me about. I was telling Mr. Carter about him. You know him.”

“I don’t believe Annie ever told me his name, but she was talking about him at our house yesterday.”

“No,” said Miss Milton, “but he’s got the next place to yours in the country.”

“Why, good gracious, Carter himself, you mean?” cried Dinnerly, laughing. “Well, that is a good un—ha-ha-ha!”

I would have denied it if Dinnerly had not been there. As it was, I blew my nose.

“Miss Milton,” said I, “by a happy chance you have enjoyed a luxury. You have told the man what you think of him.”

Pleasant, wasn’t it? Yet Mrs. Hilary says it was my fault. That’s a woman all over!

THE LITTLE WRETCH

Seeing that little Johnny Tompkins was safely out of the country, under injunctions to make a new man of himself, and to keep that new man, when made, at the Antipodes, I could not see anything indiscreet in touching on the matter in the course of conversation with Mrs. Hilary Musgrave. In point of fact, I was curious to find out what she knew, and supposing she knew, what she thought. So I mentioned little Johnny Tompkins.

“Oh, the little wretch!” cried Mrs. Hilary. “You know he came here two or three times? Anybody can impose on Hilary.”

“Hard on a thousand,” said I. “For a time, you know, he was quite a man of fashion.”

“I wasn’t deceived,” said Mrs. Hilary, an admirable flush appearing on her cheeks.

“In the first place, he had that inestimable advantage in a career of dishonesty—respectable relations.”

“Doubtless she was; but I mean a good card. However, there was another reason.”

“Oh, but why in the world—?” she began; then she paused, and went on again: “It was nothing to do with Hilary.”

“Hilary went with me to see him, you know, while they had him under lock and key at the firm’s offices.”

“Never saw a man less penitent,” I interrupted. “He gloried in his crime; if I remember his exact expression, it was that the jam was jolly well worth the powder, and if they liked to send him to chokee they could and be—and suffer accordingly, you know.”

“Oh, anybody can impose on Hilary, you know. Hilary only asked what the jam was.”

“It’s a horrid expression, but I suppose it meant acting the part of a gentleman, didn’t it?”

“Why must she?” I asked. “According to what he told Hilary, she didn’t.”

“Come,” I expostulated, “how would you like it if your young man had taken to theft and—”

“Johnny told Hilary that just to see her and talk to her and sit by her side was ‘worth all the money’—but then, to be sure, it was somebody else’s money—and that he’d do it again to get what he had got over again. Then, I’m sorry to say, he swore.”

“I shall be angry in a minute, Mr. Carter. Oh, I’ll have this out of Hilary!”

“According to what he told Hilary, she was the most fascinating woman in the world, Hilary thought so, too.”

“Well, I thought you ought to know,” said I. “Hilary’s just as mad about her as Johnny—in fact, he said he’d be hanged if he wouldn’t have done the same himself.”

I have once seen Madame Ristori play Lady Macbeth. Her performance was recalled to me by the tones in which Mrs. Hilary asked:

“Johnny had his code,” said I. “And in some ways it was better than some people’s—in some, alas! worse.”

“Really you know better than I do whether I’ve told the truth about Hilary.”

A pause ensued. Then Mrs. Hilary made three short remarks, which I give in their order:

(1) “The little wretch!” (2) “Dear old Hilary!” (3) “Poor little man!”

I took my hat. I knew that Hilary was due from the city in a few minutes. Mrs. Hilary sat down by the fire.

“How dare you torment me so?” she asked, but not in the least like Lady Macbeth.

“What an audacious little creature!” said Mrs. Hilary. “Fancy his daring!—Aren’t you astounded?”

“I’ve a good mind not to shake hands with you,” said she. “Wasn’t it absurd of Hilary?”

“That poor old mother of his,” reflected Mrs. Hilary. “Where did you say she lived?”

I turned toward the door and had laid my hand on the knob, when Mrs. Hilary called softly:

She jumped up and ran towards me. Her purse was in one hand, and a bit of paper fluttered in the other.

“Send him that—don’t tell him,” she whispered, and her voice had a little catch in it. “Poor little wretch!” said she.

As for me, I smiled cynically—quite cynically, you know; for it was very absurd.

AN EXPENSIVE PRIVILEGE

A rather uncomfortable thing happened the other day which threatened a schism in my acquaintance and put me in a decidedly awkward position. It was no other than this: Mrs. Hilary Musgrave had definitely informed me that she did not approve of Lady Mickleham. The attitude is, no doubt, a conceivable one, but I was surprised that a woman of Mrs. Hilary’s large sympathies should adopt it. Besides, Mrs. Hilary is quite good-looking herself.

The history of the affair is much as follows: I called on Mrs. Hilary to see whether I could do anything, and she told me all about it. It appears that Mrs. Hilary had a bad cold and a cousin up from the country about the same time (she was justly aggrieved at the double event), and being unable to go to the Duchess of Dexminster’s “squash,” she asked Dolly Mickleham to chaperon little Miss Phyllis. Little Miss Phyllis, of course, knew no one there—the Duchess least of all—(but then very few of us—yes, I was there—knew the Duchess, and the Duchess didn’t know any of us; I saw her shake hands with a waiter myself, just to be on the safe side), and an hour after the party began she was discovered wandering about in a most desolate condition. Dolly had told her that she would be in a certain place; and when Miss Phyllis came, Dolly was not there. The poor little lady wandered about for another hour, looking so lost that one was inclined to send for a policeman; and then she sat down on a seat by the wall, and, in desperation, asked her next-door neighbor if he knew Lady Mickleham by sight, and had he seen her lately? The next-door neighbor, by way of reply, called out to a quiet elderly gentleman who was sidling unobtrusively about, “Duke, are there any particularly snug corners in your house?” The Duke stopped, searched his memory, and said that at the end of the Red Corridor there was a passage, and that a few yards down the passage, if you turned very suddenly to the right, you would come on a little nook under the stairs. The little nook just held a settee, and the settee (the Duke thought) might just hold two people. The next-door neighbor thanked the Duke, and observed to Miss Phyllis—

“It will give me great pleasure to take you to Lady Mickleham.” So they went, it being then, according to Miss Phyllis’ sworn statement precisely two hours and five minutes since Dolly had disappeared; and, pursuing the route indicated by the Duke, they found Lady Mickleham. And Lady Mickleham exclaimed, “Good gracious, my dear, I’d quite forgotten you! Have you had an ice? Do take her to have an ice, Sir John.” (Sir John Berry was the next-door neighbor.) And with that Lady Mickleham is said to have resumed her conversation.

“Did you ever hear anything more atrocious?” concluded Mrs. Hilary. “I really cannot think what Lord Mickleham is doing.”

“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Hilary, with extraordinary decision. “Anything might have happened to that poor child!”

“But it’s not that so much as the thing itself. She’s the most disgraceful flirt in London.”

“It is a very hasty conclusion,” I persisted. “Sometimes I stay talking with you for an hour or more. Are you, therefore, flirting with me?”

“Absurd as the supposition is,” I remarked, “it yet serves to point the argument. Lady Mickleham might have been talking with a friend, just in the quiet rational way in which we are talking now.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” said Mrs. Hilary; and—well, I do not like to say that she sniffed—it would convey too strong an idea, but she did make an odd little sound something like a much etherealized sniff.

I smiled again, and more broadly. I was enjoying beforehand the little victory which I was to enjoy over Mrs. Hilary. “Yet it happens to be true,” said I.

“Lord Mickleham told you so, I suppose?” she asked. “And I suppose Lady Mickleham told him—poor man!”

“Certainly not. The fact is, Mrs. Hilary—and really, you must excuse me for having kept you in the dark a little—it amused me so much to hear your suspicions.”

I laughed, as I answered: “Why, I was the man with Lady Mickleham when your friend and Berry inter—when they arrived, you know.”

Well, I should have thought—I should still think—that she would have been pleased—relieved, you know, to find her uncharitable opinion erroneous, and pleased to have it altered on the best authority. I’m sure that is how I should have felt. It was not, however, how Mrs. Hilary felt.

“I am deeply pained,” she observed after a long pause; and then she held out her hand.

“I was sure you’d forgive my little deception,” said I, grasping it. I thought still that she meant to bury all unkindness.

“I didn’t know your friend was there at all,” I pleaded; for by now I was alarmed.

She continued to stand, and I rose to my feet. Mrs. Hilary held out her hand again.

“I hope we shall see you again some day,” said Mrs. Hilary; the tone suggested that she was looking forward to some future existence, when my earthly sins should have been sufficiently purged. It reminded me for the moment of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.

“But I protest,” I began, “that my only object in telling you was to show you how absurd—”

“Is it any good talking about it now?” asked Mrs. Hilary. A discussion might possibly be fruitful in the dim futurity before mentioned—but not now—that was what she seemed to say.

“Lady Mickleham and I, on the occasion in question—” I began with dignity.

“I will take my leave,” said I—and I did, leaving Mrs. Hilary in a tragic attitude in the middle of the room. Never again shall I go out of my way to lull Mrs. Hilary’s suspicions.

A day or two after this very trying interview, Lady Mickleham’s victoria happened to stop opposite where I was seated in the park. I went to pay my respects.

“Do you mean to leave me nothing in the world,” I asked, just by way of introducing the subject of Mrs. Hilary. “One of my best friends has turned me out of her house on your account.”

So I told her; I made the story as long as I could for reasons connected with the dimples.

“What fun!” exclaimed Dolly. “I told you at the time that a young unmarried person like you ought to be more careful.”

“Of course,” I explained; “if I dropped you, Mrs. Hilary would let me come again.”

“How charming that would be!” cried Dolly. “You would enjoy her nice serious conversation—all about Hilary!”

“She is apt,” I conceded, “to touch on Hilary. But she is very picturesque.”

The sun was shining brightly; it shone on Dolly; she had raised her parasol, but she blinked a little beneath it. She was smiling slightly still, and the dimple stuck to its post—like a sentinel, ready to rouse the rest from their brief repose. Dolly lay back in the victoria, nestling luxuriously against the soft cushions. She turned her eyes for a moment on me.

“Then,” said Dolly, smiling indulgently, “you must have it—a little oftener. Home, Roberts, please.”

A VERY DULL AFFAIR

“To hear you talk,” remarked Mrs. Hilary Musgrave—and, if any one is surprised to find me at her house, I can only say that Hilary, when he asked me to take a pot-luck, was quite ignorant of any ground of difference between his wife and myself, and that Mrs. Hilary could not very well eject me on my arrival in evening dress at ten minutes to eight—“to hear you talk one would think that there was no such thing as real love.”

“Now,” she continued, turning a fine, but scornful eye upon me, “I have never cared for any man in the world except my husband.”

I smiled again. Poor Hilary looked very uncomfortable. With an apologetic air he began to stammer something about Parish Councils. I was not to be diverted by any such maneuver. It was impossible that he could really wish to talk on that subject.

“Would a person who had never eaten anything but beef make a boast of it?” I asked.

Hilary grinned covertly. Mrs. Hilary pulled the lamp nearer, and took up her embroidery.

Hilary kicked me gently. Mrs. Hilary made no direct reply, but presently she began to talk.

“I was just about Phyllis’s age—(by the way, little Miss Phyllis was there)—when I first saw Hilary. You remember, Hilary? At Bournemouth?”

“I was on the pier,” pursued Mrs. Hilary. “I had a red frock on, I remember, and one of those big hats they wore that year. Hilary wore—”

“Yes, blue serge,” said she fondly. “He had been yachting, and he was beautifully burnt. I was horribly burnt—wasn’t I, Hilary?”

“Well, we were both always on the pier,” she explained. “And—and somehow Hilary got to know father, and—and father introduced him to me.”

“I’m glad it was no worse,” said I. I was considering Miss Phyllis, who sat listening, open-eyed.

“And then you know, father wasn’t always there; and once or twice we met on the cliff. Do you remember that morning, Hilary?”

“Why, the morning I had my white serge on. I’d been bathing, and my hair was down to dry, and you said I looked like a mermaid.”

“Do mermaids wear white serge?” I asked; but nobody took the least notice of me—quite properly.

“And you told me such a lot about yourself; and then we found we were late for lunch.”

“Yes,” said Hilary, suddenly forgetting the dog, “and your mother gave me an awful glance.”

“Yes, and then you told me that you were very poor, but that you couldn’t help it; and you said you supposed I couldn’t possibly—”

“And I said you were a silly old thing; and then—” Mrs. Hilary stopped abruptly.

“And do you remember,” pursued Mrs. Hilary, laying down her embroidery and clasping her hands on her knees, “the morning you went to see father?”

“And what an awful week it was after that! I was never so miserable in all my life. I cried till my eyes were quite red, and then I bathed them for an hour, and then I went to the pier, and you were there—and I mightn’t speak to you!”

“And then, Hilary, father sent for me and told me it was no use; and I said I’d never marry any one else. And father said, ‘There, there, don’t cry. We’ll see what mother says.’”

“And that night they never told me anything about it, and I didn’t even change my frock, but came down, looking horrible, just as I was, in an old black rag—no, Hilary, don’t say it was pretty!”

“And when I walked into the drawing room there was nobody there but just you; and we neither of us said anything for ever so long. And then father and mother came in and—do you remember after dinner, Hilary?”

There was a long pause. Mrs. Hilary was looking into the fire; little Miss Phyllis’s eyes were fixed, in rapt gaze, on the ceiling; Hilary was looking at his wife—I, thinking it safest, was regarding my own boots.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Hilary, reflectively. “And we were married three months afterwards.”

“And we had the most charming little rooms in the world! Do you remember those first rooms, dear? So tiny!”

“Well, I mean, did nothing else happen? Weren’t there any complications? Weren’t there any more troubles, or any more opposition, or any misunderstandings, or anything?”

“Hilary’s people made themselves nasty, perhaps?” I suggested, with a ray of hope.

“But for my part, I can only say that I never heard of such a dull affair in all my life.”

“It was,” said I severely, “without a spark of interest from beginning to end. Such things happen by thousands. It’s commonplaceness itself. I had some hopes when you father assumed a firm attitude, but—”

“Just so. She gave away the whole situation. Then I did trust that Hilary would lose his place, or develop an old flame, or do something just a little interesting.”

“The only possible excuse for an engagement like that,” I observed, “is to be found in intense post-nuptial unhappiness.”

“Yes, it is,” he persisted; and he picked it up and gave it to her. Miss Phyllis smiled delightedly. Hilary had squeezed his wife’s hand.

“It’s nearly eleven. We’ve spent half-an-hour on the thing,” said I peevishly, holding out my hand to my hostess.

“I hope you won’t think all love affairs are like that,” I said; but I saw her lips begin to shape into “lovely,” and I hastily left the room.

Hilary came to help me on with my coat. He looked extremely apologetic, and very much ashamed of himself.

“Awfully sorry, old chap,” said he, “that we bored you with our reminiscences. I know, of course, that they can’t be very interesting to other people. Women are so confoundedly romantic.”

“Don’t try that on me,” said I, much disgusted. “You were just as bad yourself.”

“Because, if you were, you know, you’d understand how a fellow remembers every—”

“Good night,” said I. “At least I suppose you’re not coming to the club?”

“Well, I think not,” said Hilary. “Ta-ta, old fellow. Sorry we bored you. Of course, if a man has never—”

“No,” said I. “It’s just that that makes stories like yours so infernally—”

STRANGE, BUT TRUE

The other day my young cousin George lunched with me. He is a cheery youth, and a member of the University of Oxford. He refreshes me very much, and I believe that I have the pleasure of affording him some matter for thought. On this occasion, however, he was extremely silent and depressed. I said little, but made an extremely good luncheon. Afterwards we proceeded to take a stroll in the Park.

“Sam, old boy,” said George suddenly, “I’m the most miserable devil alive.”

“I don’t know what else you expect at your age,” I observed, lighting a cigar. He walked on in silence for a few moments.

“I say, Sam, old boy, when you were young, were you ever—?” he paused, arranged his neckcloth (it was more like a bed-quilt—oh, the fashion, of course, I know that), and blushed a fine crimson.

“I say, though, Sam, it’s awfully funny you shouldn’t have—don’t you know what it’s like, then?”

“It’s precious hard to explain it to you if you’ve never felt it,” said George, in rather an injured tone. “But what I say is quite true.”

“I shouldn’t think of contradicting you, my dear fellow,” I hastened to say.

“Let’s sit down,” said he, “and watch the people driving. We may see somebody—somebody we know, you know, Sam.”

“A fellow,” pursued George, with knitted brows, “is all turned upside down, don’t you know?”

“One moment he’s the happiest dog in the world, and the next—well, the next, it’s the deuce.”

“It may,” I remarked, “affect you in this extraordinary way, but surely it is not so with most people?”

“I didn’t mean you, old chap,” said George, with a penitence which showed that he had meant me.

“But when a man’s really far gone there’s nothing else in the world but it.”

“Healthy? Oh, you old idiot, Sam! Who’s talking of health? Now, only last night I met her at a dance. I had five dances with her—talked to her half the evening, in fact. Well, you’d think that would last some time, wouldn’t you?”

“So it would with most chaps, I dare say, but with me—confound it, I feel as if I hadn’t seen her for six months!”

“But, my dear George, that’s surely rather absurd? As you tell me, you spent a long while with the young person—”

“You’re sure,” said I soothingly, “to meet her somewhere in the course of the next few weeks.”

“It’s pretty evident you’ve never had it. You’re as bad as those chaps who write books.”

“Well, but surely they often describe with sufficient warmth and—er—color—”

“Oh, I dare say; but it’s all wrong. At least, it’s not what I feel. Then look at the girls in books! All beasts!”

“Then you’ll see,” continued George. “But it’s not only her looks, you know, she’s the most—”

He stopped. Looking round to see why, I observed that his face was red; he clutched his walking stick tightly in his left hand; his right hand was trembling, as if it wanted to jump up to his hat. “Here she comes! Look, look!” he whispered.

Directing my eyes towards the lines of carriages which rolled past us, I observed a girl in a victoria; by her side sat a portly lady of middle age. The girl was decidedly like the lady; a description of the lady would not, I imagine, be interesting. The girl blushed slightly and bowed. George and I lifted our hats. The victoria and its occupants were gone. George leant back with a sigh. After a moment, he said:

“There isn’t,” said George, “a girl in London to touch her. Sam, old boy, I believe—I believe she likes me a bit.”

“I sounded him. Oh, you may be sure he didn’t see what I was up to. I put it quite generally. He talked rot about getting on in the world. Who wants to get on?”

“Who, indeed?” said I. “It is only changing what you are for something no better.”

“And about waiting till I know my own mind. Isn’t it enough to look at her?”

“They’ve gone to a party, they won’t come round again,” said he. “We may as well go, mayn’t we?”

“I’m sure I don’t.” said I hastily, as I rose from my armchair, which was at once snapped up.

We were about to return to the club, when I observed Lady Mickleham’s barouche standing under the trees. I invited George to come and be introduced.

“By Jove! Yes, I may as well,” said George. “Glad you had the sense to think of that, old man.”

So I took him up to Dolly and presented him. Dolly was very gracious; George is an evidently presentable boy. We fell into conversation.

“About a subject on which you can assist him more than I can, inasmuch as you are married. He is in love.”

“I mean, how awfully interesting,” said Dolly, suddenly transforming her expression.

“And he wanted to be introduced to you because you might ask her and him to—”

“Oh, I don’t believe him,” said Dolly kindly; “he always makes people uncomfortable if he can. What were you telling him, Mr. George?”

“Is she very—?” asked Dolly, fixing doubtfully grave eyes on my young cousin.

Dolly leant over to my cousin, and whispered, “Tell me her name.” And he whispered something back to Dolly.

“I am a kind old thing,” said Dolly, all over dimples. “I can easily get to know them.”

We were left along. George wore a meditative smile. Presently he roused himself to say:

“She’s really a very kind woman. She’s so sympathetic. She’s not like you. I expect she felt it once herself, you know.”

“Not altogether bad-looking, either, is she?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Oh, you needn’t smile in that infernally patronizing way,” he cried angrily.

THE VERY LATEST THING

“It’s the very latest thing,” said Lady Mickleham, standing by the table in the smoking room, and holding an album in her hand.

“You promise, on your honor, to be absolutely sincere, you know, and then you write what you think of me. See what a lot of opinions I’ve got already,” and she held up the thick album.

“Oh! but they’re quite confidential,” said Dolly. “That’s part of the fun.”

“Well, I’ll show you a little bit of the Dowager’s. Look here: Our dear Dorothea is still perhaps just a thought wanting in seriousness, but the sense of her position is having a sobering effect.’”

“Not a bit,” said Dolly. “Archie’s is—is rather foolish, Mr. Carter.”

“Perhaps it won’t be ‘above all’ when you’ve written yours, Mr. Carter.”

The reply seemed satisfactory; of course, Archie had only to ask. I took a clean quill and prepared to write.

I leant back in my chair, and looked at Dolly. She looked at me. She smiled. I may have smiled.

“You mustn’t say what isn’t true, but you needn’t say everything that is—that might be—true,” explained Dolly.

This, again, seemed satisfactory. I began to write, Dolly sitting opposite me with her elbows on the table, and watching me.

After ten minutes’ steady work, which included several pauses for reflection, I threw down the pen, leant back in my chair, and lit a cigarette.

“Lady Mickleham,” I read, “is usually accounted a person of considerable attractions. She is widely popular, and more than one woman has been known to like her.”

“It is surely simple,” said I; and I read on without delay. “She is kind even to her husband, and takes the utmost pains to conceal from her mother-in-law anything calculated to distress that lady.”

“Of course,” I answered; and I proceeded: “She never gives pain to any one, except with the object of giving pleasure to somebody else, and her kindness is no less widely diffused than it is hearty and sincere.”

“Thank you,” said I, smiling also. “She is very charitable; she takes a pleasure in encouraging the shy and bashful—”

“While,” I pursued, “suffering without impatience a considerable amount of self-assurance.”

“You can’t know whether I’m patient or not,” remarked Dolly. “I’m polite.”

“She thinks,” I read on, “no evil of the most attractive of women, and has a smile for the most unattractive of men.”

“The former may constantly be seen in her house—and the latter at least as often as many people would think desirable.” (Here for some reason Dolly laughed.) “Her intellectual powers are not despicable.”

“She can say what she means on the occasions on which she wishes to do so, and she is, at other times, equally capable of meaning much more than she would be likely to say.”

“It explains itself,” said I, and I proceeded: “The fact of her receiving a remark with disapprobation does not necessarily mean that it causes her displeasure, nor must it be assumed that she did not expect a visitor merely on the ground that she greets him with surprise.”

“I don’t think that’s quite nice of you, Mr. Carter,” she said pathetically.

“Lady Mickleham is, in short,” I went on, coming to my peroration, “equally deserving of esteem and affection—”

“And those who have been admitted to the enjoyment of her friendship are unanimous in discouraging all others from seeking a similar privilege.”

“Are unanimous,” I repeated, slowly and distinctly, “in discouraging all others from seeking a similar privilege.”

Dolly looked at me, with her brow slightly puckered. I leant back, puffing at my cigarette. Presently—for there was quite a long pause—Dolly’s lips curved.

“N-no,” said Dolly, “not exactly wrong. In fact, I rather think I like that last bit best. Still, don’t you think—?”

She rose, came round the table, took up the pen, and put it back in my hand. “What’s this for?” I asked.

“‘Are unanimous,’” she read, “in encouraging all others to seek a similar privilege.’ Yes, you meant that, you know, Mr. Carter.”

I walked towards the door. Dolly stood by the table fingering the album. I had almost reached the door; then I happened to look round.

“Well, you know, Mr. Carter, I—I shall try to forget that mistake of yours.”

“But,” said Dolly with a troubled smile, “I—I’m quite afraid I shan’t succeed, Mr. Carter.”

AN UNCOUNTED HOUR

We were standing, Lady Mickleham and I, at a door which led from the morning room to the terrace at The Towers. I was on a visit to the historic pile (by Vanbrugh—out of the money accumulated by the third Earl—Paymaster to the Forces—temp. Queen Anne). The morning room is a large room. Archie was somewhere in it. Lady Mickleham held a jar containing pate de foie gras; from time to time she dug a piece out with a fork and flung the morsel to a big retriever which was sitting on the terrace. The morning was fine, but cloudy. Lady Mickleham wore blue. The dog swallowed the pate with greediness.

“Do you know,” pursued Lady Mickleham, “that the Dowager says I’m extravagant. She thinks dogs ought not to be fed on pate de foie gras.”

“Your extravagance,” I observed, “is probably due to your having been brought up on a moderate income. I have felt the effect myself.”

“Economy,” I remarked, putting my hands in my pockets, “is going without something you do want in case you should, some day, want something which you probably won’t want.”

“Oh, dear, no,” I answered reassuringly. “Anybody can do that—if they care to try, you know.”

She dug out the last bit of pate, flung it to the dog, and handed the empty pot to me.

“Don’t be so allegorical,” I implored. “Besides, it’s really not just to Archie. No doubt the dog is a nice one, but—”

“Oh, yes, let’s,” said Dolly, stepping out, and putting on a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat, which she caught up from a chair hard by. “It isn’t Mrs. Hilary?” she added, sitting down on a garden seat.

“It is simple,” said I, “and serious. It is not, therefore, like you, Lady Mickleham.”

“No; because it isn’t pleasant. By the way, you are jealous of Mrs. Hilary?”

Dolly said nothing at all. She took off her hat, roughened her hair a little, and assumed an effective pose. Still, it is a fact (for what it is worth) that she doesn’t care much about Mrs. Hilary.

“You will become,” I pursued, idly drawing patterns with my finger on the sundial, “wrinkled, rough, fat—and, perhaps, good.”

There were two; I will not say they contradicted one another, but they looked at life from different points of view.

I translated literally. Dolly clapped her hands, and her face gleamed with smiles.

“By Jove!” remarked Archie, coming up behind us, pipe in mouth, “there was a lot of rain last night. I’ve just measured it in the gauge.”

“Some people measure everything,” said I, with a displeased air. “It is a detestable habit.”

“Eh? Oh, I see. Well, I say, Carter!—Oh, well, you know, I suppose it means you’ve got to pay for your fun, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, is that all? I was afraid it was something horrid. Why did you frighten me, Mr. Carter?”

Now when I heard this ancient and respectable legend thus cavalierly challenged, I fell to studying it again, and presently I exclaimed:

“Yes, you’re right! If it said that, it wouldn’t be true; but Archie translated it wrong.”

“The oysters are eaten and put down in the bill,” said I. “And you will observe, Archie, that it does not say in whose bill.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Archie. “I suppose the chap that has the fun—”

“Well, then the individual,” amended Archie. “I suppose he’d have to pay.”

“It doesn’t say so,” I remarked mildly. “And according to my small experience—”

“I’m quite sure your meaning is right, Mr. Carter,” said Dolly in an authoritative tone.

“As for the other motto, Archie,” said I, “it merely means that a woman considers all hours wasted which she does not spend in the society of her husband.”

“Oh, come, you don’t gammon me,” said Archie. “It means that the sun don’t shine unless it’s fine, you know.”

Archie delivered this remarkable discovery in a tone of great self satisfaction.

There was a pause. Archie kissed his wife (I am not complaining; he has, of course, a perfect right to kiss his wife) and strolled away toward the hothouses.

She was right. There was another—carelessly scratched on the old battered column—nearly effaced, for the characters had been but lightly marked—and yet not, as I conceived from the tenor of the words, very old.

“What is it?” asked Dolly, peering over my shoulder, as I bent down to read the letters, and shading her eyes with her hand. (Why didn’t she put on her hat? We touch the Incomprehensible.)

“It is,” said I, “a singularly poor, shallow, feeble, and undesirable little verse.”

Life is Love, the poets tell us, In the little books they sell us; But pray, ma’am—what’s of Life the Use, If Life be Love? For Love’s the Deuce.

“I wonder,” she said, “whether they used to come and sit by this old dial just as we did this morning!”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said I. “And another point occurs to me, Lady Mickleham.”

A REMINISCENCE

“I know exactly what your mother wants, Phyllis,” observed Mrs. Hilary.

“What all girls are taught, of course, Mr. Carter,” said Mrs. Hilary. “I’ll write about it at once.” And she looked at me as if she thought that I might be about to go.

“It is a comprehensive curriculum,” I remarked, crossing my legs, “if one may judge from the results. How old are your younger sisters, Miss Phyllis?”

“It is a pity,” said I, “that this didn’t happen a little while back. I knew a governess who would have suited the place to a t.’”

“The governess and myself, to be sure,” said I, “under the old apple tree in the garden at the back of the house.”

Mrs. Hilary rose, cast one glance at me, and turned to the writing table. Her pen began to scratch almost immediately.

“And under the apple tree,” I pursued, “we had many pleasant conversations.”

“One thing and another,” I returned. “The schoolroom windows looked out that way—a circumstance which made matters more comfortable for everybody.”

“I should have thought—” began Miss Phyllis, smiling slightly, but keeping an apprehensive eye on Mrs. Hilary’s back.

“Not at all,” I interrupted. “My sisters saw us, you see. Well, of course they entertained an increased respect for me, which was all right, and a decreased respect for the governess, which was also all right. We met in the hour allotted to French lessons—by an undesigned but appropriate coincidence.”

“I shall say about thirty-five, Phyllis,” called Mrs. Hilary from the writing table.

“Yes, Cousin Mary,” called Miss Phyllis. “Did you meet often, Mr. Carter?”

“She’ll have got over any nonsense by then,” called Mrs. Hilary. “They are often full of it.”

“She had remarkably pretty hair,” I continued; “very soft it was. Dear me! I was just twenty.”

“One’s first love,” said I, “is never any age. Everything went very well. Happiness was impossible. I was heartbroken, and the governess was far from happy. Ah, happy, happy times!”

“My mother came in during the French hour. I don’t know whether you have observed, Miss Phyllis, how easy it is to slip into the habit of entering rooms when you had better remain outside. Now, even my friend Arch—However, that’s neither here nor there. My mother, as I say, came in.”

“The sect makes no difference,” I observed. “Well, my sisters, like good girls, began to repeat the irregular verbs. But it was no use. We were discovered. That night, Miss Phyllis, I nearly drowned myself.”

“That is to say, I thought how effective it would be if I drowned myself. Ah, well, it couldn’t last!”

There was a pause. Miss Phyllis looked sad and thoughtful; I smiled pensively and beat my cane against my leg.

“Well, I declare,” said she, “I must be growing stupid. Here have I been writing to the Agency, when I know of the very thing myself! The Polwheedles’ governess is just leaving them; she’s been there over fifteen years. Lady Polwheedle told me she was a treasure. I wonder if she’d go!”

“My dear, you’ll be most lucky to get her. I’ll write at once and ask her to come to lunch tomorrow. I met her there. She’s an admirable person.”

“You may as well post this for me,” said she. “Oh, and would you like to come to lunch tomorrow?”

“No. She’ll be there, of course; but you see it’s Saturday, and Hilary will be here; and I thought you might take him off somewhere and leave Phyllis and me to have a quiet talk with her.”

That sort of thing never surprises me. I looked at the letter and read “Miss M. E. Bannerman.” “M. E.” stood for “Maud Elizabeth.” I put my hat back on the table.

“Oh, a spare, upright woman—hair a little gray, and—I don’t know how to describe it—her face looks a little weather-beaten. She wears glasses.”

“When you’ve done your nonsense—” began Mrs. Hilary; but I laid a hand on her arm.

“Oh, no; not fat,” said Mrs. Hilary, with a smile, which she strove to render reassuring.

I took my hat and remarked: “A man has a right to think of himself, but I am not thinking mainly of myself. I shall not come to lunch.”

I poised the letter in my hand, reading again “Miss M(aud) E(lizabeth) Bannerman.” Miss Phyllis looked at me curiously, Mrs. Hilary impatiently.

“Who knows,” said I, “that I may not be a Romance—a Vanished Dream—a Green Memory—an Oasis? A person who has the fortune to be an Oasis, Miss Phyllis, should be very careful. I will not come to lunch.”

“Do you mean that you used to know Miss Bannerman?” asked Mrs. Hilary in her pleasant prosaic way.

It was a sin seventeen years old; it would hardly count against the blameless Miss Bannerman now. “You may tell her when I’m gone,” said I to Miss Phyllis.

“I dare say her hair’s just as soft as ever. Still—I’ll lunch some other day.”

A VERY FINE DAY

“I see nothing whatever to laugh at,” said Mrs. Hilary coldly, when I had finished.

“I did not ask you to laugh,” I observed mildly. “I mentioned it merely as a typical case.”

“It’s not typical,” she said, and took up her embroidery. But a moment later she added:

“I’m not surprised either,” I remarked. “It is, however, extremely deplorable.”

“A book,” I observed, “might be written on the Injustice of the Just. How could I suppose that he would—?”

By the way, I might as well state what he—that is, my young cousin George—had done. Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible.

Well, he was in love; and with a view of providing him with another house at which he might be likely to meet the adored object, I presented him to my friend Lady Mickleham. That was on a Tuesday. A fortnight later, as I was sitting in Hyde Park (as I sometimes do), George came up and took the chair next to me. I gave him a cigarette, but made no remark. George beat his cane restlessly against the leg of his trousers.

I am not easily surprised, but I confess I turned to George with an expression of wonder.

“Don’t be an ass, Sam,” said George, rather sharply. “She’s not a bad girl, but—” He broke off and began to whistle. There was a long pause. I lit a cigar, and looked at the people.

“I lunched at the Micklehams’ today,” said George, drawing a figure on the gravel with his cane. “Mickleham’s not a bad fellow.”

“I wonder why she married him, though,” mused George; and he added, with apparent irrelevance, “It’s a dashed bore, going up.” And then a smile spread over his face; a blush accompanied it, and proclaimed George’s sense of delicious wickedness. I turned on him.

Upon this I groaned—and I still consider that I had good reason for my action. It was the groan of a moralist.

“They’ve asked me to stay at The Towers next vac.,” said George, glancing at me out of the corner of an immoral eye. Perhaps he thought it too immoral, for he added, “It’s all right, Sam.” I believe that I have as much self control as most people, but at this point I chuckled.

“You never told me what a—what she was like, Sam. Wanted to keep it to yourself, you old dog.”

“All is well,” said I, crossing my legs. “There is more virtue in two months than in Ten Commandments.”

“You’re an awful ass sometimes,” he observed critically, and he rose from his seat.

“Yes—got a lot of things to do. Look here, Sam, don’t go and talk about—”

“Anything, you old idiot,” said George, with a pleased smile, and he dug me in the ribs with his cane, and departed.

I sat on, admiring the simple elements which constitute the happiness of the young. Alas! With advancing years, Wrong loses half its flavor! To be improper ceases, by itself, to satisfy.

Immersed in these reflections, I failed to notice that a barouche had stopped opposite to me; and suddenly I found a footman addressing me.

“But very short,” said I. Martin is respectful, and said nothing—to me, at least. What he said to the coachman, I don’t know.

“The joint is injured,” said I, getting into the barouche. And I added severely, “I suppose I’d better sit with my back to the horses?”

“Oh, no, you’re not my husband,” said Dolly. “Sit here;” and she made room by her, as she continued, “I rather like Mr. George.”

“Considering, I say, his age, your conduct is scandalous. I shall never introduce any nice boys to you again.”

“You give them roses,” said I, accusingly. “You make them false to their earliest loves—”

I frowned. Dolly, by an accident, allowed the tip of her finger to touch my arm for an instant.

“If you mean to be disagreeable!” said she turning away. “I beg your pardon for touching you, Mr. Carter.”

“He’s such fun,” said Dolly, with a sudden smile. “He told Archie that I was the most charming woman in London! You’ve never done that!”

“If,” observed Dolly, “he is so silly, now, what will he be at your age?”

Now when Dolly bubbles—an operation which includes a sudden turn towards me, a dancing of eyes, a dart of a small hand, a hurried rush of words, checked and confused by a speedier gust of gurgling sound—I am in the habit of ceasing to argue the question. Bubbling is not to be met by arguing. I could only say:

“I won’t stop the carriage,” said Dolly. “I’m going to take you home with me.”

“One must have something,” said Dolly. “How is your nose now, Mr. Carter?”

And that is absolutely the whole story. And what in the world Mrs. Hilary found to disapprove of I don’t know—especially as I didn’t tell her half of it! But she did disapprove. However, she looks very well when she disapproves.

THE HOUSE OPPOSITE

We were talking over the sad case of young Algy Groom; I was explaining to Mrs. Hilary exactly what had happened.

“His father gave him,” said I, “a hundred pounds, to keep him for three months in Paris while he learnt French.”

“It depends where you dine,” said I. “However, that question did not arise, for Algy went to the Grand Prix the day after he arrived—”

“Certainly the competitors are horses,” I rejoined. “And there he, most unfortunately, lost the whole sum, without learning any French to speak of.”

“How disgusting!” exclaimed Mrs. Hilary, and little Miss Phyllis gasped in horror.

“Oh, well,” said Hilary, with much bravery (as it struck me), “his father’s very well off.”

“There’s no mortal sin in a little betting, my dear. Boys will be boys—”

“And even that,” I interposed, “wouldn’t matter if we could only prevent girls from being girls.”

Mrs. Hilary, taking no notice whatever of me, pronounced sentence. “He grossly deceived his father,” she said, and took up her embroidery.

“Most of us have grossly deceived our parents before now,” said I. “We should all have to confess to something of the sort.”

“Not more than yours,” said I. “You used to meet Hilary on the pier when your father wasn’t there—you told me so.”

“Now,” I pursued carelessly, “even Miss Phyllis here has been known to deceive her parents.”

I expected an indignant denial. So did Mrs. Hilary, for she remarked with a sympathetic air:

Miss Phyllis grew very red. Fearing that I was causing her pain, I was about to observe on the prospects of a Dissolution when a shy smile spread over Miss Phyllis’s face.

“Yes, once,” said she with a timid glance at Mrs. Hilary, who immediately laid down her embroidery.

“Out with it,” I cried, triumphantly. “Come along, Miss Phyllis. We won’t tell, honor bright!”

“Well, Phyllis, dear,” said she, “after all this time I shouldn’t think it my duty—”

“My window looked out towards the street. You’re sure you won’t tell? Well, there was a house opposite—”

“Well, there was, anyhow,” said Miss Phyllis. “And I and two other girls went to a course of lectures at the Town Hall on literature or something of that kind. We used to have a shilling given us for our tickets.”

“No, a shilling,” corrected Miss Phyllis. “A hundred pounds! How absurd, Mr. Carter! Well, one day I—I—”

“I don’t mind going on,” said Miss Phyllis, smiling. “One day I—I lost the other girls.”

“Blessings on it!” I cried; for little Miss Phyllis’s demure but roguish expression delighted me.

“Come to the door, Mr. Carter,” said Miss Phyllis, with obvious wariness. “Oh, and it was such fun!”

“No, I mean when we were examined in the lectures. I bought the local paper, you know, and read it up, and I got top marks easily, and Miss Green wrote to mother to say how well I had done.”

I rose and stood with my back to the fire. Little Miss Phyllis took up her sock again, but a smile still played about the corners of her mouth.

“I wonder,” said I, looking up at the ceiling, “what happened at the door.” Then, as no one spoke, I added:

“You can’t do it,” said I in easy confidence. I had no fear of little Miss Phyllis being done out of her recreations. “Meanwhile,” I pursued, “the important thing is this: my parallel is obvious and complete.”

“As a hundred pounds are to a shilling, so is the Grand Prix to the young man opposite,” I observed, taking my hat, and holding out my hand to Mrs. Hilary.

“I am very angry with you,” she said. “You’ve made the child think there was nothing wrong in it.”

“O, divine House Opposite!” I cried. “Charming House Opposite! If only I might dwell forever in the House Opposite!”

“I haven’t the least notion of what you mean,” remarked Mrs. Hilary, stiffly. “I suppose it’s something silly—or worse.”

Mrs. Hilary looked at me. Her eyes ceased to be absolutely blank. She put her arm through Hilary’s and answered gently—

“Ah,” said I, giving my hat a brush, “but maybe you remember the House—when it was Opposite?”

Mrs. Hilary, one arm still in Hilary’s, gave me her hand. She blushed and smiled.

As for me, I went downstairs, and, in absence of mind, bade my cabman drive to the House Opposite. But I have never got there.

A QUICK CHANGE

“Why not go with Archie?” I asked, spreading out my hands.

“It will be dull enough, anyhow,” said Dolly, fretfully. “Besides, it’s awfully bourgeois to go to the theater with one’s husband.”

“Bourgeois,” I observed, “is an epithet which the riffraff apply to what is respectable, and the aristocracy to what is decent.”

“But it’s not a nice thing to be, all the same,” said Dolly, who is impervious to the most penetrating remark.

“How should you describe me, then?” she asked, leaning forward, with a smile.

“I should describe you, Lady Mickleham,” I replied discreetly, “as being a little lower than the angels.”

“I seemed to remember once: do you recollect being in very low spirits one evening at Monte?”

“There was an election in our division that year,” I remarked, “and I remitted 30 percent of my rents.”

“You did—to M. Blanc,” said Dolly. “Oh, and you were very dreary! You said you’d wasted your life and your time and your opportunities.”

“Oh, you mustn’t suppose I never have any proper feelings,” said I complacently.

“I’m sometimes afraid you don’t do me justice, Mr. Carter,” remarked Dolly with some pathos.

I did not care to enter upon that discussion, and a pause followed. Then Dolly, in a timid manner, asked me—

“Besides, I didn’t know anything about him then. He had only arrived that day, you see.”

“He shouldn’t have worn such clothes,” she said, as though in self defense. “Anybody would have looked absurd in them.”

“It was all the clothes,” I agreed. “Besides, when a man doesn’t know a place, he always moons about and looks—”

“Well, you’ll take me to the theater?” asked Dolly, with something which, if I were so disposed, I might consider a sigh.

“I don’t mind if I do come with you,” said I. “What becomes of Archie?”

“I have much to be thankful for. Have you ever observed a small boy eat a penny ice?”

Dolly stood opposite me, smiling. At this moment Archie entered. He had been working at his lathe. He is very fond of making things which he doesn’t want, and then giving them to people who have no use for them.

“How are you, old chap?” he began. “I’ve just finished an uncommon pretty—”

Archie, who is very docile, withdrew. A guilty silence reigned for some moments. Then Dolly opened her eyes. “It was the suit,” she said, with a shudder. “Oh, how it all came back to me!”

“I could wish,” I observed, taking my hat, “that it would all come back to me.”

A SLIGHT MISTAKE

“I don’t ask you for more than a guinea,” said Mrs. Hilary, with a parade of forbearance.

“It would be the same,” I replied politely, “if you asked me for a thousand;” with which I handed her half-a-crown. She held it in her open hand, regarding it scornfully.

“Are you a poor substitute for personal service. May not I accompany you to the ceremony?”

“I was in a mad mood today,” I answered apologetically. “What are they taught at the school?”

“Above all, to be good girls,” said Mrs. Hilary earnestly. “What are you sneering at, Mr. Carter?”

“Nothing,” said I hastily, and I added with a sigh, “I suppose it’s all right.”

“I should like,” said Mrs. Hilary meditatively, “if I had not other duties, to dedicate my life to the service of girls.”

“By the way, Mr. Carter, I don’t know if I’ve ever spoken unkindly of Lady Mickleham. I hope not.”

“If I have, I’m very sorry. She’s been most kind in undertaking to give away the prizes today. There must be some good in her.”

“That settles it,” I exclaimed. “I may not be an earl, but I have a perfect right to be useful. I’ll go too.”

So I went, and it proved a most agreeable expedition. There were 200 girls in blue frocks and white aprons (the girl three from the end of the fifth row was decidedly pretty)—a nice lot of prize books—the Micklehams (Dolly in demure black), ourselves, and the matron. All went well. Dolly gave away the prizes; Mrs. Hilary and Archie made little speeches. Then the matron came to me. I was sitting modestly at the back of the platform, a little distance behind the others.

“Mr. Musgrave,” said the matron to me, “we’re so glad to see you here at last. Won’t you say a few words?”

“It would be a privilege,” I responded cordially, “but unhappily I have a sore throat.”

The matron (who was a most respectable woman) said, “Dear, dear!” but did not press the point. Evidently, however, she liked me, for when we went to have a cup of tea, she got me in a corner and began to tell me all about the work. It was extremely interesting. Then the matron observed:

“Oh, you mustn’t depreciate her—you, of all men!” cried the matron, with a somewhat ponderous archness. “Really I envy you her constant society.”

“I only go to the house about once a fortnight—Oh, it’s not my fault. She won’t have me there oftener.”

“What do you mean? I beg your pardon. Perhaps I’ve touched on a painful—?”

“Not at all, not at all,” said I suavely. “It is very natural. I am neither young nor handsome, Mrs. Wiggins. I am not complaining.”

“Only seeing her here,” I pursued, “you have no idea of what she is at home. She has chosen to forbid me to come to her house—”

“It happens to be more hers than mine,” I explained. “To forbid me, I say, more than once to come to her house. No doubt she had her reasons.”

“Nothing could justify it,” said the matron, directing a wondering glance at Mrs. Hilary.

“Do not let us blame her,” said I. “It is just an unfortunate accident. She is not as fond of me as I could wish, Mrs. Wiggins; and she is a great deal fonder than I could wish of—”

I broke off. Mrs. Hilary was walking toward us. I think she was pleased to see me getting on so well with the matron, for she was smiling pleasantly. The matron wore a bewildered expression.

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Hilary, “that you’ll drive back with the Micklehams?”

“I’m so busy next week—come the week after,” said she, giving me her hand.

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Hilary, and she added, “Mind you let me know when you’re coming.”

“I won’t surprise you,” I assured her, with a covert glance at the matron.

The excellent woman was quite red in the face, and could gasp out nothing but “Goodbye,” as Mrs. Hilary affectionately pressed her hand.

“He’s run away; he’s got to meet somebody. I knew you’d see me home. Mrs. Hilary didn’t want you, of course?”

“Besides, you’d rather come with me, wouldn’t you?” pursued Dolly, and she added, pleasantly to the matron, “Mrs. Hilary’s so down on him, you know.”

“We’ll have a cozy drive all to ourselves,” said Dolly, “without husbands or wives or anything horrid. Isn’t it nice to get rid of one’s husband sometimes, Mrs. Wiggins?”

Dolly’s eyes rested upon her with an interesting expression. I knew that she was about to ask Mrs. Wiggins whether she liked the condition of life, and I interposed hastily, with a sigh:

“You are right,” said I. “Even in the face of unkindness we should strive—”

“What your poor wife would do if she cared a button for you, I don’t know,” observed Dolly.

“If I had a wife who cared for me, I should be a better man,” said I solemnly.

“But you’d probably be very dull,” said Dolly. “And you wouldn’t be allowed to drive with me.”

“Perhaps it’s all for the best,” said I, brightening up. “Goodbye, Mrs. Wiggins.”

“Young man,” said she sternly, “are you sure it’s not your own fault?”

“I’m not at all sure, Mrs. Wiggins,” said I. “But don’t be distressed about it. It’s of no consequence. I don’t let it make me unhappy. Goodbye; so many thanks. Charming girls you have here—especially that one in the fifth—I mean, charming, all of them. Goodbye.”

I hastened to the carriage. Mrs. Wiggins stood and watched. I got in and sat down by Dolly.

“Oh, Mrs. Wiggins,” said Dolly, dimpling, “don’t tell Mrs. Hilary that Archie wasn’t with us, or we shall get into trouble.” And she added to me, “Are you all right?”

“Rather!” said I appreciatively; and we drove off, leaving Mrs. Wiggins on her doorstep.

A fortnight later I went to call on Mrs. Hilary. After some conversation she remarked:

“That’s just like you!” she said severely. “You never do any real good because you never stick to anything.”

THE OTHER LADY

“By the merest chance,” I observed meditatively, “I attended a reception last night.”

“I went to three,” said Lady Mickleham, selecting a sardine sandwich with care.

“I can’t see what difference it would have made if you hadn’t,” said she.

Lady Mickleham placed her feet on the fender—it was a chilly afternoon—and turned her face to me, shielding it from the fire with her handkerchief.

“Men of your age,” she remarked, “have no business to be thinking of such things.”

“I was not thinking of it,” said I. “I was thinking of going home. Then I was introduced to her.”

“I stayed two hours—or two minutes,—I forget which—“; and, I added, nodding my head at Lady Mickleham, “There was something irresistible about me last night.”

“You seem very pleased with yourself,” she said, reaching for a fan to replace the handkerchief.

“Yes, take care of your complexion,” said I approvingly. “She has a lovely complexion.”

“I am very pleased with myself,” I continued. “She was delighted with me.”

“I have not the least idea what I talked to her. It was quite immaterial. The language of the eyes—”

There was a long silence. Dolly looked at me; I looked at the fire. I did not, however, see the fire. I saw something quite different.

“She liked me very much,” I observed, stretching my hands out toward the blaze.

“Why, of course; the prettiest picture I ever—but that goes without saying.”

“It would have gone better without saying,” remarked Dolly. “Considering—”

“I should think I was,” said I indignantly. “Not to be serious in such a matter is to waste it utterly.”

“It’s very curious,” remarked Dolly with a compassionate air, “that you always manage to admire people whom somebody else has married.”

“It would be very curious,” I rejoined, “if somebody had not married the people whom I admire. Last night, though, I made nothing of his sudden removal; my fancy rioted in accidental deaths for him.”

“I hate that sort of superstition,” said I irritably. “He’s just as likely to die as any other man is.”

“Well, I know he won’t. Do let it alone,” said I, much exasperated. It was probably only kindness, but Dolly suddenly turned her eyes away from me and fixed them on the fire; she took the fan up again and twirled it in her hand; a queer little smile bent her lips.

“If he had died last night!” I cried longingly. Then, with a regretful shrug of my shoulders, I added, “Let him live now to the crack of doom!”

Somehow this restored my good humor. I rose and stood with my back to the fire, stretching myself and sighing luxuriously. Dolly leant back in her chair and laughed at me.

“I’m extremely glad you weren’t, Lady Mickleham. As it was I forgot all my troubles.”

Dolly is not resentful; she did not mind the implied description. She leant back, smiling still. I sighed again, smiled at Dolly, and took my hat. Then I turned to the mirror over the mantelpiece, arranged my necktie, and gave my hair a touch.

“No one,” I observed, “can afford to neglect the niceties of the toilet. Those dainty little curls on the forehead—”

“Well, Archie’s going to be at the House, and I thought you might take me to the Phaetons’ party. It’s quite a long drive, a horrible long drive, Mr. Carter.”

“Why, Archie suggested it! You’re making an excuse. You know you are!” and Lady Mickleham looked very indignant. “As if,” she added scornfully, “you cared about what was proper!”

I dropped into a chair, and said, in a confidential tone, “I don’t care a pin. It was a mere excuse. I don’t want to come.”

I bent forward, holding my hat in my left hand and sawing the air with my right forefinger.

“You fail to allow,” said I impressively, “for the rejuvenescence which recent events have produced in me. If I came with you this evening, I should be quite capable—” I paused.

“That,” said Dolly with equal gravity, “would be very regrettable. It would be unjust to me—and very insulting to her, Mr. Carter.”

“I shall go through the evening,” said I, “in the best way I can.” And I smiled contentedly.

“It’s not quite fair,” she observed. “Do you know what I’m thinking about, Mr. Carter?”

“Certainly I do, Lady Mickleham. You are thinking that you would like to meet me for the first time.”

“Not at all. I was thinking that it would be amusing if you met me for the first time.”

I said nothing. Dolly rose and walked to the window. She swung the tassel of the blind and it bumped against the window. The failing sun caught her ruddy brown hair. There were curls on her forehead, too.

“It’s a grand world,” said I. “And, after all, one can grow old very gradually.”

“You’re not really old,” said Dolly, with the fleetest glance at me. A glance should not be over-long.

“I am going to another party tonight,” said I, nodding my head significantly.

“And I shall again,” I pursued, “spend my time with the prettiest woman in the room.”

“I am a very fortunate fellow,” I observed. “And as for Mrs. Hilary, she may say what she likes.”

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Unfortunately it was Sunday; therefore the gardeners could not be ordered to shift the long row of flower pots from the side of the terrace next the house, where Dolly had ordered them to be put, to the side remote from the house, where Dolly now wished them to stand. Yet Dolly could not think of living with the pots where they were till Monday. It would kill her, she said. So Archie left the cool shade of the great trees, where Dolly sat doing nothing, and Nellie Phaeton sat splicing the gig whip, and I lay in a deck chair with something iced beside me. Outside the sun was broiling hot and poor Archie mopped his brow at every weary journey across the broad terrace.

“It’s a burning’ shame, Dolly,” said Miss Phaeton. “I wouldn’t do it if I were him.”

“Oh, yes, you would, dear,” said Dolly. “The pots looked atrocious on that side.”

Dolly’s lazy lids half lifted. Miss Phaeton mumbled (Her mouth was full of twine):

“Nemo—everybody,” I translated, “sapit—has been in love—omnibus—once—horis—at least.”

“Oh, and you mean she wouldn’t have you?” asked Nellie, with blunt directness.

“THEY,” I pursued, “regretfully recognized my impossibility. Hence I am not carrying pots across a broad terrace under a hot sun.”

“Why did they think you impossible?” asked Miss Phaeton, who takes much interest in this sort of question.

“A variety of reasons: for one, I was too clever, for another, too stupid; for others, too good—or too bad; too serious—or too frivolous; too poor or—”

“Mr. Gay,” said Nellie, introducing the name with some timidity, “you know who I mean?—the poet—once said to me that man was essentially imperfect until he was married.”

“I don’t think he meant it quite in that sense,” said Nellie, rather puzzled.

“I don’t think he meant it in any sense,” murmured Dolly, a little unkindly.

We might have gone on talking in this way for ever so long had not Archie at this point dropped a large flower pot and smashed it to bits. He stood looking at the bits for a moment, and then came towards us and sank into a chair.

A sudden impulse seized me. I got up, put on my straw hat, took off my coat, walked out into the sun, and began to move flower pots across the broad terrace. I heard a laugh from Archie, a little cry from Dolly, and from Nellie Phaeton, “Goodness, what’s he doing that for?” I was not turned from my purpose. The luncheon bell rang. Miss Phaeton, whip and twine in hand, walked into the house. Archie followed her, saying as he passed that he hoped I shouldn’t find it warm. I went on shifting the flower pots. They were very heavy. I broke two, but I went on. Presently Dolly put up her parasol and came out from the shade to watch me. She stood there for a moment or two. Then, she said:

Another ten minutes saw the end of my task. Panting and hot I sought the shade, and flung myself onto my deck chair again. I also lit a cigarette.

“I think they looked better on the other side, after all,” said Dolly meditatively.

“It was,” said I, “in its way a pleasant enough illusion.” And I shrugged my shoulders, and blew a ring of smoke.

To my very considerable gratification, Dolly’s tone manifested some annoyance as she asked:

“Because, in spite of the momentary pleasure I gained from feeling myself a married man, I could not banish the idea that we should not permanently suit one another.”

“But the fact is that I can’t exist in too high altitudes. The rarefaction of the moral atmosphere—”

“Well, then, to put it plainly,” said I, with a pleasant smile, “I felt all the time that Mrs. Hilary would be too good for me.”

It is not very often that it falls to my humble lot to startle Lady Mickleham out of her composure. But at this point she sat up quite straight in her chair; her cheek flushed, and her eyelids ceased to droop in indolent insouciance.

“I really thought you understood,” said I, “the object of my experiment.”

Dolly glanced at me. I believe that my expression was absolutely innocent—and I am, of course sure that hers expressed mere surprise.

“I thought,” she said, after a pause, “that you were thinking of Nellie Phaeton.”

“And I’m sure she’d be quite annoyed if she thought you were thinking of Mrs. Hilary.”

“As a matter of fact,” I observed, “she didn’t understand what I was doing at all.”

Dolly leant back. The relics of a frown still dwelt on her brow; presently, however, she began to swing her hat on her forefinger, and she threw a look at me. I immediately looked up toward the branches above my head.

We went out into the sunshine, and came where the pots were. Suddenly Dolly said:

“Do as I tell you,” said Dolly, stamping her foot; whereat, much intimidated, I went back, and stretched myself once more on the deck chair.

Dolly approached a flower pot. She stooped down, exerting her strength, lifted it, and carried it, not without effort, across the terrace.

Again she did the like. I sat smoking and watching. She lifted a third pot, but dropped it half way. Then, dusting her hands against one another, she came back slowly into the shade and sat down. I made no remark.

“Till you tell the truth,” said Dolly, and she suddenly burst into a little laugh.

“I’m going to carry the pots,” said Dolly. “It’s awfully hot, Mr. Carter—and look at my poor hands!”

“Ask them to keep some for me,” said Dolly, and she turned up the sleeves of her gown, till her wrists were free.

I watched her strain to lift it. She had chosen the largest and heaviest; she sighed delicately and delicately she panted. She also looked at her hands, and held them up for me to see the lines of brown on the pink. I put my hands in my pockets and said most sulkily, as I turned away towards the house:

“Mr. Carter,” she cried, “would stop for those wretched pots. He’s moved all except two, but he’s broken three. Isn’t he stupid?”

ONE WAY IN

I had a very curious dream the other night. In fact, I dreamt that I was dead. I passed through a green baize door and found myself in a small square room. Opposite me was another door inscribed “Elysian Fields,” and in front of it, at a large table with a raised ledge, sat Rhadamanthus. As I entered I saw a graceful figure vanish through the door opposite.

“It’s no use trying to deceive me,” I observed. “That was Mrs. Hilary, I think; if you don’t mind, I’ll join her.”

“I’m afraid I must trouble you to take a seat for a few moments, Mr. Carter,” said Rhadamanthus, “while I run over your little account.”

“Yes. For goodness sake don’t confuse me with Vincent Carter. He only paid five shillings in the pound.”

“Your case presents some peculiar features, Mr. Carter,” said Rhadamanthus. “I hope I am not censorious, but—well, that fine at Bowstreet?”

“I was a mere boy,” said I, with some warmth, “and my solicitor grossly mismanaged the case..”

“Well, well!” said he soothingly. “But haven’t you spent a great deal of time at Monte Carlo?”

“I suppose you would,” he conceded. “But what of this caveat lodged by the Dowager Lady Mickleham? That’s rather serious, you know; isn’t it now—joking apart?”

“I am disappointed,” I remarked, “to find a man of your experience paying any attention to such an ill-natured old woman.”

“We have our rules,” he replied, “and I’m afraid, Mr. Carter, that until that caveat is removed—”

“Although I can’t oblige you with an order of admission,” said Rhadamanthus, very civilly, “perhaps it would amuse you to listen to a case or two. There’s no hurry, you know. You’ve got lots of time before you.”

“It will be an extremely interesting experience,” said I, sitting down again.

The door opened, and, as I expected (I don’t know why, but it happens like that in dreams), Dolly Mickleham came in. She did not seem to see me. She bowed to Rhadamanthus, smiled, and took a chair immediately opposite the table.

“The account runs on,” he explained, and began to consult his big book. Dolly leant back in her chair, slowly peeling off her gloves. Rhadamanthus shut the book with a bang.

“It’s not the least use,” he said decisively. “It wouldn’t be kind to pretend that it was, Lady Mickleham.”

“Have they, really?” cried Dolly, to all appearance rather delighted. “What do they say, Mr. Rhadamanthus? Is it in that book? Let me look.” And she held out her hand.

“I’ll come round,” said Dolly. So she went round and leant over his shoulder and read the book.

“Bouquet du diable,” said she. (I had never heard of the perfume before.) “Isn’t it sweet?”

“Poor old thing,” said Dolly. “I’m not going to read all this, you know.” And, with a somewhat contemptuous smile, she walked back to her chair. “They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” she added, as she sat down. “It’s just because I’m not a fright.”

“I must go in, you know,” said Dolly, smiling at Rhadamanthus. “My husband has gone in!”

“I shouldn’t have thought you’d consider that conclusive,” said he, with a touch of satire in his tone.

“This is a very painful duty,” said he, at last. “I have sat here for a great many years, and I have seldom had a more painful duty.”

Dolly rose. She leant her arms on the raised ledge which ran along the table, and she leant her chin on her hands.

A sudden change came over Dolly’s face. Her dimples vanished; her eyes grew pathetic and began to shine rather than to sparkle; her lip quivered just a little.

“You’re very unkind,” she said in an extremely low tone. “I had no idea you would be so unkind.”

“Don’t do that,” he said, quite sharply, fidgeting with the blotting paper.

Dolly began to move slowly round the table. Rhadamanthus sat still. When she was standing close by him, she put her hand lightly on his arm and said:

Dolly’s eyes shone still, but the faintest little smile began to play about her mouth.

“Some day,” she said (with total inappropriateness, now I come to think of it, though it did not strike me so at the time), “you’ll be glad to remember having done a kind thing. When you’re old—because you are not really old now—you will say, ‘I’m glad I didn’t send poor Dolly Mickleham away crying.’”

Rhadamanthus uttered an inarticulate sound—half impatience, half, I fancy, something else.

“That’s why you’re so hard-hearted,” said Dolly. “A man who’s got a wife is never hard on other women.”

There was another pause. Then Rhadamanthus, looking straight at the blotting paper, said:

“Oh, well, don’t bother me. Be off with you;” and as he spoke, the door behind him opened.

“Oh, you old dear!” she cried; and, stooping swiftly, she kissed Rhadamanthus. “You’re horribly bristly!” she laughed; and then, before he could move, she ran through the door.

I rose from my seat, taking my hat and stick in my hand. I felt, as you may suppose, that I had been there long enough. When I moved Rhadamanthus looked up, and with an attempt at unconsciousness observed:

I looked him full in the face. Rhadamanthus blushed. I pursued my way towards the door.

“Stop!” he said, in a blustering tone. “You can’t go there, you know.”

“Isn’t it rather too late for that sort of thing?” I asked. “You seem to forget that I have been here for the last quarter of an hour.”

“Oh, of course,” said I, “that will be your story. Mine, however, I shall tell in my own way.”

Rhadamanthus blushed again. Evidently he felt that he was in a delicate position. We were standing thus, facing one another, when the door began to open again, and Dolly put her head out.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she said. “I thought I heard your voice. Come along and help me to find Archie.”

“Oh, what nonsense! Now, you really mustn’t be silly, Mr. Rhadamanthus—or I shall have to—Mr. Carter, you weren’t there, were you?”

“That’s sensible,” said Dolly. “Because you know, there really isn’t any harm in poor Mr. Carter.”

“I suppose everything will be very different here,” said Dolly, and I think she sighed.

Whether it were or not I don’t know, for just then I awoke, and found myself saying aloud, in answer to the dream voice and the dream face (which had not gone altogether with the dream).

“Not everything”—a speech that, I agree, I ought not to have made, even though it were only in a dream.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dolly Dialogues

DOLLY DIALOGUES

by Anthony Hope

A LIBERAL EDUCATION