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  • 1895
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the end stalls.

She lifted a finger and Courtland went to her side. The difficulties of the jungle along the banks of the Fly River were trifling compared with the obstacles he had to overcome in obeying her.

“I had no idea that you would be here,” she said.

“Where else should I be?” he said, in so low a tone as to be heard only by her.

“We are so glad,” said Mrs. Linton. “I want to present you to my dearest friend, Phyllis Ayrton.”

“A woman!” said he.

“Not yet. She has never met a man. She will to-night,” said Ella. Then she turned to Phyllis, who was walking beside Lord Earlscourt. “Come here, Phyllis,” she said; “you are the only person in London who doesn’t yet know Mr. Herbert Courtland. This is Mr. Courtland.”

Thus it was that Phyllis went upon the stage of the Parthenon by the side of Herbert Courtland instead of by the side of George Holland; and the little laugh that Mrs. Linton gave was due to her careful observation of the latter’s face when he perceived, as he did in spite of the engrossing nature of his conversation with his friend in the end stall, how his designs had been defeated by her tactics. She would not have minded having Herbert Courtland with her for the hour they might remain at the theater, but she had made up her mind that it was not to Phyllis’ advantage that Mr. Holland should continue by her side in public after she had given him his dismissal.

She also perceived, with even greater gratification, that Herbert Courtland was looking nearly as dissatisfied with the result of her tactics as George Holland. If he had looked pleased at being by the side of Phyllis when he expected to be with her–Ella–what would life be worth to her?

But if he was dissatisfied at being with Phyllis instead of Mrs. Linton, he did not consider that any reason for neglecting the former. He wondered if she had any choice in sandwiches–of course she had in champagne. His curiosity was satisfied, and Phyllis was amply provided for.

“You are Mrs. Linton’s dearest friend,” he remarked casually, as they leaned up against the profile of the Church scene in “Cagliostro,” for they were standing in the “wings”–to be exact–on the O. P. side.

“She is my dearest friend, at any rate,” said Phyllis.

“You were not at school together. She is four or five years older than you.”

“Only three. When she got married she seemed to me to be almost venerable. Three years seemed a long time then.”

“But now you fancy that you have formed a right idea of what is meant by three years?”

“Well, a better idea, at any rate.”

“You are still a good way off it. But if you have formed a right estimate of a woman’s friendship—-“

“That’s still something, you mean to say? But why did you stop short, Mr. Courtland?”

Phyllis was looking up to his face with a smile of inquiry.

“I was afraid that you might think I was on the way to preach a sermon on the text of woman’s friendship. I pulled myself up just in time. I’m glad that I didn’t frighten you.”

“Oh, no; you didn’t frighten me, Mr. Courtland. I was only wondering how you would go on–whether you would treat the topic sentimentally or cynically.”

“And what conclusion did you come to on the subject?”

“I know that you are a brave man–perhaps the bravest man alive. You would, I think, have treated the question seriously–feelingly.”

He laughed.

“The adoption of that course implies courage certainly. All the men of sentimentality–which is something quite different from sentiment, mind you–have taken to writing melodrama and penny novelettes. You didn’t hear much sentimentality on this stage to-night, or any other night, for that matter.”

“No; it would have sounded unreal. A Parthenon audience would resent what they believed to be a false note in art; and a Parthenon audience is supposed to be the concentration of the spirit of the period in thought and art; isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I’m half a savage. But I like to think the best of a Parthenon audience; you and I formed part of that concentration to-night–yes, I like to think the best of it. I suppose we know–we, the Parthenon audience, I mean–what our feelings are on the art of acting–the art of play-writing.”

“I shouldn’t like to have to define my feelings at a moment’s notice.”

“One must make a beginning, and then work up gradually to the definition.”

“For instance—-“

“Well, for instance, there’s something that people call realism nowadays.”

“My father has his ideas on what’s called realism,” Phyllis laughed. ” ‘Realism in painting is the ideal with a smudge.’ “

“I should like to hear what you think of it?”

He also laughed sympathetically.

“Oh, I only venture to think that realism is the opposite to reality.”

“And, so far as I can gather, your definition is not wanting in breadth–no, nor in accuracy. Sentimentality is the opposite to sentiment.”

“That is a point on which we agreed a moment ago. My father says that sentiment is a strong man’s concealment of what he feels, while sentimentality is a weak man’s expression of what he doesn’t feel.”

“And the Parthenon audience–you and I–laugh at the latter–that is, because we have practiced some form of athletics. The bicycle has given its /coup de grace/ to sentimentality. That man over there with the head and face like a lion’s, and that woman whose face is nature illuminated, have long ago recognized the shallowness of sentimentality–the depths of sentiment. We could not imagine either of them striking a false note. They have been the teachers of this generation–the generation to which you belong. Great Heavens! to think that for so many years human passion should be banished from art, though every line of Shakspere is tremulous with passion! Why, the word was absolutely banished; it was regarded as impure.”

“I know that–I was at a boarding school. The preceptresses regarded as impure everything that is human.”

“Whereas, just the opposite is the case?”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Courtland.”

“You could scarcely say it. I am only beginning to think it, and I have lived among savages for years. That man with the lion’s face has not feared to deal with passion. All actors who have lived since Garrick have never gone further than to illustrate passion in the hands of a man; but that lion-man, whose stage we are now standing on, shows us not the passion in the hands of a man, but the man in the hands of the passion. The man who tears the passion to tatters is the robustious periwig-pated fellow; the actor, who shows us the man torn in tatters by the passion, is the supreme artist. I am no authority on modern literature; but I must confess that I was astonished at the change that a few years have brought about. I was in a proper position for noticing it, having been practically without books for two years.”

“Is it a change for the better, do you think, Mr. Courtland?”

“I feel certain that it is for the better. I refer, of course, only to the books of those real investigators–real artists. I refer to the fountain-heads, not to the hydrants laid down by the water companies at the end of about ten miles of foul piping. I don’t like the product of the hydrants. I like the springs, and, however natural they may be, I don’t find anything impure in them. Why I love the Bible is because it is so very modern.”

“You don’t think, then, that it is yet obsolete, Mr. Courtland?”

“No book that deals so truly with men and women can ever be obsolete, the fact being that men and women are the same to-day as they were ten thousand years ago, perhaps ten million years ago, though I’m not quite so sure of that. The Bible, and Shakspere, and Rofudingding, a New Guinea poet, who ate men for his dinner when he had a chance, and, when he had finished, sang lyrics that stir the hearts of all his fellow-islanders to this day,–he lived a hundred years ago,–dealt with men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they were when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men and women, and it is becoming understood, nowadays, that the truth about men and women can never be contemptible.”

“Ah, but how do we know that it is the truth?”

“Therein the metaphysician must minister to himself. I cannot suggest to you any test of the truth, if you have none with you. Everyone capable of pronouncing a judgment on any matter must feel how truthfully the personages in the Bible have been drawn.”

“Yes; the Bible is the Word of God.”

“I believe that it is, most certainly. That profound wisdom; that toleration of the weaknesses of men; that sympathy with men, who cannot fathom the mysteries of life, and the struggle for life of all things that love life; that spirit I call God, and I don’t think that a better name has been found for it.”

“It–for /it/? You think of God as merely a force of nature?”

“Just the contrary. God is the spirit that lives in warfare with nature. Great Heavens! isn’t that the truth of which the whole Bible is the allegory? Nature and nature’s laws constitute the Devil. God is the opposing Force. It is a law of nature to kill off the weak, to crush that which has fallen in the struggle. It is God who helps the weak–who helps the feeble.”

“But merely a force?”

“Oh, I have no private opinion on that part of the question. I am not like that modern philosopher who fancied he had solved the whole problem by spelling God with a small g. But don’t you think that we have gone quite far enough in our exchange of confidence for a first meeting? You are what the Italians call /simpatica/–that is, more than merely sympathetic. You look at one, and lead one on to confide in you as one does not confide in most girls. You are a thoroughly dangerous young woman, Miss Ayrton, though you are Mrs. Linton’s dearest friend. By the way, can you make her confide in you?”

There seemed to be a measure of curiosity, not to say anxiety, in the tone of this inquiry.

“Well, she makes me confide in her. I wonder if that is just the same thing,” said Phyllis.

“It’s not exactly the same thing,” said he. “But it’s the proper course for dearest friends to adopt toward each other. For the maintenance of a firm friendship between any two persons, only one should confide; the other should be strictly the confidante. By the way, I wonder what is the average duration of the dearest friendship between two women.”

“Why should it have any limits?” said Phyllis gravely. “What is the duration of the friendship between two men?”

“It mostly depends on when the woman makes her appearance,” said he, with a laugh.

“Ah! So that—- Ah, never mind. Ella was my dearest friend before Mr. Linton put in an appearance.”

“And he was mine before she put in an appearance,” said he.

“I didn’t know that,” said Phyllis.

“There, you see, is my contention borne out,” said he. “You are the one who confides; she is the one who receives the confidences, and respects them, I’m sure. I hope that you will do the same, Miss Ayrton. Don’t let anyone know that I confided in you all that I think on the subject of the old Adam and the new Eve.”

“No one except Ella Linton, and you know that I can keep nothing from her if we are to remain dearest friends. Perhaps she knows already the limits of your belief, Mr. Courtland.”

“She does–she does.”

At that moment Ella Linton came up with Lord Earlscourt.

“Has Mr. Courtland been telling you all about the bird of paradise?” she asked of Phyllis, while she waved the tail feathers of the loveliest of the birds of paradise before her face.

“The bird?–not the /bird/,” laughed Phyllis.

“But the topic was paradise?” Ella joined in the laugh–yes, to some extent.

“I talked of Adam–the old one of that name,” said Mr. Courtland.

“And Eve–the new one of that name,” said Phyllis.

“Theology is in the air!” cried Ella. “Even the stage of a theater is not free from the taint. It must be the case of Mr. Holland. Where is Mr. Holland, by the way, Lord Earlscourt?”

“I haven’t seen him for some time. He must have gone away. I’m not Mr. Holland’s keeper, thank Heaven!” said Lord Earlscourt, with heartfelt devoutness.

“Now you know that everyone holds you accountable for what he has done!” said Ella.

“Then that’s just where everyone makes a mistake,” said he. “Great Lord! is it your idea of British justice to persecute the wrong man? Why doesn’t the bishop do his duty? What do we pay him for?”

“We won’t abandon our charity at the call of theology,” said Ella.

“Theology–represented by Lord Earlscourt,” said Mr. Courtland.

“You don’t know how I’ve been abused during the past fortnight, indeed you don’t,” moaned Lord Earlscourt. “Why, there’s my own wife, she abused me like a cab-driver because George Holland had been with us on the platform when the Chinese teetotalers came here to protest against the public houses in England; she says that his backsliding will put back the cause a quarter of a century. Then there are the other churchwardens; they look on me as if I had been making a suggestion to raffle the sacred plate. George Holland has a run for his money, but I’ve had no fun out of it.”

“It does seem hard,” said Courtland. “But it’s plain that the case calls for persecution, and why not persecute you? Someone must be persecuted, you’ll admit.”

“Then why the–“

“I thought that your good old Bunyip would look in on us before long,” said Courtland. “There’s no possibility of discussing delicate points in theology without him.”

“I think we had better go home,” said Ella.

“We must have some consideration for our host,” said Courtland. “We didn’t all play the part of /Cagliostro/ to-night.”

During the movement of her circle and the adjustment of wraps, preparatory to the delivery of a valedictory word of congratulation to the great actor, Ella said in a low tone to Herbert Courtland:

“Cagliostro? No; we didn’t all play the part; but–well, Cagliostro was a weaver of spells.”

There was a pause before he said:

“Yes, but the art did not die with him. He had a daughter to whom he taught his art.”

“Not that I ever heard of,” said she. “What do you think of Phyllis Ayrton?”

“I think that she is the dearest friend of my dearest friend,” he replied.

“And I should like her to become the dearest friend of my dearest friend.”

“That would be impossible,” he said.

Then the felicitous valedictory word was said to the great actor and actress, and Mrs. Linton’s carriage received Phyllis. Lord Earlscourt took a seat in Mr. Courtland’s hansom.

“What do you think about Mr. Courtland?” inquired Ella of her dearest friend, as they lay back with their heads very close together.

There was a long pause before Phyllis replied:

“I really don’t know what I think about him. He is, I suppose, the bravest man alive at present.”

“What? Is that the result of your half hour’s chat with him?”

“Oh, dear, no! but all the same, it’s pleasant for a girl to feel that she has been talking to a brave man. It gives one a sense of–of–is it of being quite safe?”

“Good gracious, no! just the opposite–that is—- Oh, you don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Never mind. Tell me what he talked about?”

“Oh, everything! God.”

“I know that it was in the air. He has ideas, I believe. He never talked on that topic to me. I hope you found him to be quite sound, theologically.”

“But it seems rather funny, doesn’t it?” said Phyllis; “but I really don’t think that when I was listening to him I considered for a moment whether he was sound or the opposite in his views.”

“Funny? It would have been rather funny if you had done that,” laughed Ella. “The question that a healthy girl–and you are a healthy girl, Phyllis–asks herself after talking to such a man as Herbert Courtland is not, Is his theology sound? What healthy girl cares the fraction of a farthing about the theology of a man with a face like Herbert Courtland’s and arms like Herbert Courtland’s? You talked with him for half an hour, and then come to me and say that you suppose he is the bravest man alive in the world. That was right–quite right. That is just what every healthy girl should say. We understand a man’s thews and sinews; we likewise understand what bravery in a man is, but what do we know, or, for that matter, care about his theology, whether it is sound or the opposite? Nothing. We don’t even care whether he has any theology or not.”

“Good gracious, Ella! one would fancy that you thought—-“

“Thought what?”

“I don’t quite know. You see I met Mr. Courtland quite casually, just as I met a dozen men at various places during the week. Why should you question me more closely about him than about the dozen other men? He only talked a little more widely, and perhaps wildly. His bravery is no more to me than his theology.”

“Of course it isn’t, Phyllis. But there was the case of George Holland–“

“That is very different, Ella. I had engaged myself to marry George Holland. It would be impossible for me to marry any man who had shown his contempt for–for everything that I regard as sacred.”

“I believe it would, if you didn’t love that man. But if you loved the man—- Oh, when you come to know what it means to love you will understand all. A woman before she loves is–what is she, an egg before it is hatched? That sounds ridiculous. Better say a green chrysalis before it breaks into a butterfly; for the transition comes at once. Theology! Oh, my Phyllis, haven’t you read in history, true history–novels written by men who know us and how we were created, and why–haven’t you read what women do when they truly love a man? How they fling every consideration to the winds: heaven–home–husband –God–Mrs. Grundy? Theology! Ah, you are a healthy girl. You never cared a scrap for George Holland. You were glad when the excuse presented itself in order to throw him over.”

“Yes; I believe that is quite true.”

Ella’s cry of surprise, and her laugh that followed, shocked her companion, and feeling that this was the case, the one who laughed hastened to make her apologies.

“Don’t be annoyed with me, dear,” she cried. “But I really couldn’t help that laugh when I thought of your earnestness the week before last. Then, you will remember, you were in great pain because of the heterodoxy of George Holland. Didn’t I tell you at that time that you had never loved him? You were ready to assure me that you had, and that you were making a great sacrifice to your principles?”

“I remember very well,” said Phyllis, with a sound that was not far removed from a sob.

“Ah, you are a puzzle to yourself, you poor little chrysalis,” said Ella, putting the meteoric feathers playfully down upon the serious face of Phyllis–its seriousness was apparent beneath the light of the carriage lamp. “No, don’t make the attempt to explain anything to me. Don’t try to reconcile your frankness now with your pretense then, because you’ll certainly make a muddle of it, and because no such attempt is necessary to be made to me. I know something of the girl and her moods–not a great deal, perhaps, but enough to prevent my doing you an injustice. You are perfectly consistent, my Phyllis.”

“Oh, consistent?”

“Perfectly consistent with your nature as a girl. It is the nature of a girl to change with every wind that blows. It is only the female prig who acts consistently under all circumstances. In a world the leading of which is its men, inconsistency is the best nature of a healthy girl made to be loved by men. One doesn’t sneer at the weathercock because one hour it points to the north and the next to the east. ‘Tis its nature to. ‘Tis our nature to change with every breeze of man that bears down on us. That’s why they love us and detest the prigs. Here we are at your house. I hope you don’t keep your maid up for you. I would scorn to keep a girl out of her bed for the sake of brushing my hair. Good-night, dear, and dream of the paradise that awaits you–a paradise in which there are birds to be shot, birds of paradise to make feather fans for women who hold them to their bosoms one minute, and the next dispose of them to Mr. and Mme. Abednego with last season’s opera wrap. There’s a parable for you to sleep upon.”

“And you–you?” cried Phyllis.

“Oh, as for me, I’ll, I’ll–well, I think I’ll put my meteor fan on the pillow beside my own to-night. I’m still newfangled with my toy and–well, I’m a woman.”

At this instant the carriage pulled up to Mr. Ayrton’s hall door and the footman jumped down from the box to run up the steps and ring the bell.

“Good-night,” said Phyllis. “I enjoyed my evening greatly, and the drive home best of all.”

Ella Linton’s laugh was smothered among the delicate floss of the feathers which she held up to her face.

CHAPTER X.

IT IS THE PRICE OF BLOOD.

Phyllis had a good deal to think of after she had sat for half an hour with her father in the room where they worked together for the discomfiture of the opposite party, and had given him some account of the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back from the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own powers of description, and began to act the bits that had impressed her–bits the force of which could only be understood when described with gestures and pretty posturing.

Her father thought he had never seen anything so pretty in his life. (What a girl she was, to be sure, to have so easily recovered from the effects of that terrible ordeal through which she had passed–having to dismiss at a moment’s notice the man whom she had promised to marry!) He had certainly never seen anything so fascinating as her pretty posturing, with the electric lights gleaming over her white neck with its gracious curves, and her firm white arms from which her gloves had been stripped.

It had been his intention to describe to her a scene which had taken place in the House of Commons that night–a scene of Celt and Saxon mingling in wild turmoil over a question of neglected duty on the part of a Government official: not the one who was subsequently decorated by the sovereign a few days after his neglect of duty had placed the country in jeopardy, and had precipitated the downfall of the ministry and the annihilation of his party as a political factor; not this man, but another, who had referred to Trafalgar Square as the private thoroughfare of the crown. The scene had been an animated one, and Mr. Ayrton had hoped to derive a good deal of pleasure from describing it to his daughter; but when he had listened to her, and watched her for a few minutes, he came to the conclusion that it would be absurd for him to make an effort to compete with her. What was his wretched little story of Parliamentary squalor compared with these psychological subtleties which had interested his daughter all the evening?

He listened to and watched that lovely thing, overflowing with the animation that comes from a quick intelligence–a keen appreciation of the intelligence of the great artists who had interpreted a story which thrilled the imagination of generation after generation, and he felt that Parliament was a paltry thing. Parliament–what was Parliament? The wrangle of political parties over a paltry issue. It had no real life in it; it had nothing of the fullness and breadth of the matters that interested such people as had minds–imagination.

“You are tired,” she cried at last. “It is thoughtless of me to keep you out of your bed. You have had a weary night, I am sure. Was it the Irish again, or the horrid teetotalers?”

“It was both, my dear,” said he. “Phyllis,” he added solemnly, “an Irish teetotaler is a fearful thing.”

“You shall forget all the intemperate teetotalers in a beautiful sleep,” said she, putting her arms around his neck. “Good-night, papa! It was so thoughtless of me to keep you up. It is one o’clock.”

“It appears to me that you are the one who should be ready to succumb,” said her father. “I had nothing to stimulate my imagination. Practical politics has not yet discovered a good working reply to the man who calls his fellow-man a liar, so the political outlook is not very cheering.”

“That is what is greatly needed: a satisfactory retort–verbal, of course–to that every-day assertion.”

“It has become the most potent influence in the House of Commons, during the past year or two; and the worst of the matter is that the statement is nearly always correct.”

“Then there is all the greater need for a /modus vivendi/”–she had an ample acquaintance with the jargon of diplomacy. “I don’t despair of Parliament being able to suggest an efficient retort.”

“Parliament: two ragamuffins quarreling up an entry over a rotten orange. Good-night, my child!”

She was at last in her own room: an apartment of gracious-tinted fabrics and pink satin panels; of tapestried sofas made by French artists before the lovely daughter of Maria Teresa went to her death. She switched on the lights in the candle sconces, and threw herself down upon one of the sofas. Her theater wrap and fan she had laid over a chair.

It was not to the drama which she had seen superbly acted at the Parthenon that her thoughts went out; but to the words which her dearest friend had spoken when driving back from the theater.

What words were they?

She could not recollect them now; but she was still conscious of the impression which they had produced upon her while they were being spoken. That impression was that up to that instant all the issues of her life had been unworthy of a moment’s consideration. She had taken what she believed to be a deep interest in many matters during the five years that she had been the head of her father’s house. She had, she knew, been of the greatest help to her father in his political life, not merely turning her memory to good account in discovering the incautious phrases in the speeches of the men who were foolish enough to be his opponents, but actually advising him, when he asked her, on many matters about which the newspapers had been full. Then she had taken an active part in more than one of those “movements” which became the topic of a London season until compelled by an invisible but all-powerful authority to move on and make way for the next new thing. She had moved with every movement, and had proved her capacity to control herself when the movement became uncontrollable. And then she had thought how worthy a position in life would be that of the wife of the rector of a church like St. Chad’s.

That idea had remained with her, as had already been said, for some months, until, to be exact in regard to the date, the other young women, whom she had been watching with interest, had bought their brilliant blouses with the newest and, consequently, most abnormal sleeves, casting aside the sober-hued bodices which they had worn in hope.

How paltry were all these aspirations, these undertakings!

That was what was dinning in her ears all the time Ella had been talking in the carriage.

But why, why, why should all her previous interests, including the consideration of the questions of orthodoxy and the other thing, seem so ridiculously small while Ella was speaking?

That was the question which puzzled her. Had Ella shown her a way to something better, something higher, something better worthy of the aspiration of a woman? She could not say that that had been the drift of her large discourse. What she had said had actually been puzzling in its vagueness, its daring images–all images are vague; its allegories–all allegories are indefinite.

And yet–and yet–and yet—-

With a motion of impatience Phyllis sprang to her feet. After a pause she went to a little satin-wood cabinet which she had turned into a bookshelf, and took out her Bible. She had never slept a night for years without reading a chapter; and in order to avert the possibility of her own feelings or fancies of the moment making any invidious distinction between the various component parts of a book which is profitable in every line, she had accustomed herself to read the chapters in consecutive order from The Genesis to The Revelation. Sometimes, when she found herself face to face of a night with a purely genealogical chapter, Phyllis of Philistia had difficulty in crushing down her unworthy desire to turn to some chapter that seemed to her frail judgment to contain words of wider comfort to the children of men than a genealogical tree of the Children of Israel; but she had never yielded to so unworthy an impulse. Who was she that she should suggest that one part of the Sacred Book was calculated to be more profitable than another? Was it not all the Bible?

She had plowed her way through the slough of Hebrew names upon these occasions, and the blessing of the words had been borne to her in the form of a sweet sleep.

Her chapter for this night was that which describes the campaign of David, during which he and his hosts were besieged in their earthworks, and how the three mighty men had made a sortie through the camp of the enemy in order to obtain for their leader a cup of water.

She continued the chapter to the end, but all through it those words were ringing in her ears:

“It is the price of blood; it is the price of blood.”

And as she knelt down beside her bed, her bare white feet peeping out from beneath the drapery of her white night-dress, in a posture that would have made the most human atheist believe in the beauty of devotion, those words were still in her ears: “The price of blood; the price of blood.”

Good Heavens! How could she carry that feather fan? How could Ella Linton hold it up to her face–hold her face down to it, flutter its fairy fluff upon her cheeks? It was the price of blood. Herbert Courtland had run a greater risk to obtain those feathers than David’s mighty men had run to draw the water from the well. She had heard all about the insatiable savagery of the natives of New Guinea. Paradise? Who had named those birds the birds of paradise? She recollected how the feathers which Ella had whirled about had held in the very center of every wonderful disc of rich purple, edged with unequal radiating lines of gold, a single spot of brilliant crimson, with a tiny star of silver in the center. The effect of the sunlight glinting over this combination on the thousand feathers that swept after the bird had caused Herbert Courtland, the first white man who had seen this glory of glories, to call it the meteor-bird. But those crimson drops: were they not the blood of the men who had perished miserably while endeavoring to wrest its marvels from the tropical forests of that great island?

Paradise?

And Ella could treat those feathers as though they had been plucked from a tame pheasant? And now she was lying in her bed with the fan on the pillow beside her!

How could she do it? That was what the girl asked herself while she lay awake on her own bed. Would Ella not see, on the white pillow beside her head, the crimson stains of the feathers that had been snatched out of the dripping red hand of death, but the man who had not feared to grapple with death itself in that hell which people called a paradise?

But the man, the man who had gripped death by the throat and had torn the feathers from his grisly, fleshless fingers,–her imagination was very vivid at night, especially after reading a thrilling chapter of Hebrew massacre,–that man had talked with her upon such trifles as books and plays, strange pageants enacted among paper and canvas unrealities of life. She had actually been leaning against some of these painted scenes while the man who had fought his way into the depths of that forest which no white man but himself had yet penetrated,–the man whose life had, day by day and night by night, been dependent upon the accuracy of his rifle aim,–had talked with her.

That was really the sum of all her thoughts. She did not try to recall the words that he had spoken; it was simply the figure of the man who had been before her that now remained on her mind. She did not stop to think whether or not he had spoken as a man with intellect would speak; whether he had spoken as a man whose orthodoxy was beyond suspicion would speak. The question of his orthodoxy, of his intellect (which may be just the opposite), did not occur to her. All she felt was that she had been talking face to face with a man.

So that the result of her evening’s entertainment, after she had read her inspiring chapter in the Bible and said her bedside prayer, she might have defined in precisely the same words as she had spoken to her friend Ella when Ella had asked her, immediately on entering the carriage, what she thought of Herbert Courtland.

“He is the bravest man in the world at present.”

She did not fall asleep for a considerable time.

CHAPTER XI.

I’M AFRAID THAT I MUST HAVE PRINCIPLE ON MY SIDE.

“It is quite ridiculous, besides being untrue,” said Phyllis, when she had read the article in the newspaper to which her father called her attention one morning, a week after the criticism on “Cagliostro” had appeared. The article was headed:

“DYNAMITE VERSUS EVANGELIZATION,”

and it came out in a weekly paper devoted to the interests of Nonconformists.

“It is with the deepest regret that we have to call the attention of our readers and the public [the article ran] to the series of charges brought by the Revs. Joseph Capper and Evans Jones, the eminent pioneers of the Nonconformist Eastern Mission, against a gentleman to whom a considerable amount of honor is just now being given by the Royal Geographical Society, the Ethnological Institute, the Ornithological Association, and other secular organizations, on account of his exploration in the Island of New Guinea. It is scarcely necessary to say that we allude to Mr. Herbert Courtland. The position which has been occupied for several years by the two distinguished ministers whose self sacrifice in endeavoring to spread the Light through the dark places of the tropical forests of a savage land is well known to the subscribers to the N. E. M., precludes the possibility of a mistake being made in this matter, and yet they declare in a letter which we publish this morning that the manner in which Mr. Courtland pursued his so-called explorations in the forests which line the banks of the Fly River has practically made impossible all attempts at mission work in that region. In several directions it is not denied that Mr. Courtland entered into friendly relations with some native tribes; but instead of endeavoring to make the poor benighted creatures acquainted with the Truth, he actually purchased as slaves over a hundred of them to aid him in penetrating the Kallolu forest, where, it will be remembered, he succeeded in shooting the much illustrated meteor-bird, as well as several other specimens which will delight the members of the Ornithological Association rather than professing Christians. Our distinguished correspondents state, and we have no room to doubt their word, that Mr. Courtland purchased his slaves by a promise to assist the head man of their tribe against his enemies belonging to another tribe–a promise which he only too amply fulfilled, the result being an indiscriminate slaughter of savages who, though avowed cannibals, might eventually have embraced the truths of Nonconformity. The elephant rifles of the explorer did their deadly work only too efficiently; but we trust that, for his own sake, Mr. Courtland will be able to bring forward trustworthy evidence to rebut the suspicion of his having upon at least one occasion induced even the friendly natives to believe that he possessed the power of the Deity to perform miracles, and upon another occasion of having used dynamite against them by which hundreds were destroyed in cold blood. It is the evil influences of such irresponsible men as Mr. Courtland, whose ill-directed enterprise we cannot in justice to him refrain from acknowledging, that retard the efforts of those noble pioneers of Nonconformity who have already made such sacrifices for the cause, and who rejoice at the difficulties with which they find themselves beset. We understand that a question will be put to the Minister for the Annexation Department in the House of Commons toward the latter end of the week, on the subject of the alleged excesses of the most recent explorer (so-called) of New Guinea–excesses which if committed in Bulgaria or Armenia, or even Ireland, would have called for an expression of the horror of Christian Europe; and we may mention that subscriptions on behalf of the Revs. Joseph Capper and Evans Jones will be received at the office of this paper to enable them to substantiate the truth of their statements.”

“It is quite ridiculous, besides being untrue, papa,” cried Phyllis; “and I hope that you will not fail to take his part and show the falsehood of such accusations. Could anything be more absurd than that about the slaves? Slaves! Dynamite!”

“Leading up to subscriptions–don’t forget that,” said her father. “If subscriptions are to be forthcoming, they must be got up. Traffic in human flesh, insults to aborigines, Siberia, the conversion of the Jews–all these appeal directly to the pockets of the Great English People. Any one of them will constitute an excellent peg on which to hang an appeal to the pocket. Those two distinguished pioneers of– well, shall we say civilization or Nonconformity?–understand their business, my dear.”

“It is no part of their business to try and hold a brave man up to the execration of everyone.”

“I’m not so sure of that. The technicalities of the mission field are not so apparent all at once. The Vineyard–well, the system of vine- culture of some of the organizations is a trifle obscure.”

Phyllis became impatient.

“The House of Commons–a question is to be asked in the House. Then you must ask another, papa, showing the nonsense of the first.”

“Heavens above! Why should I be dragged into the quarrel, if it is a quarrel, of Herbert Courtland on the one hand and the Reverends Joseph Capper and what’s the other, Smith–no, Jones–Evans Jones? I shouldn’t wonder if he is of Welsh extraction.”

“You will surely not stand passively by and hear a brave man slandered. That would be unlike you, papa. No; you are bound to protest against the falsehood.”

“Am I indeed? Why? Because the slandered man, if he is slandered, is the friend of my daughter’s friend?”

“Exactly–that’s quite sufficient for you to go upon–that and the falsehood.”

“If it is a falsehood.”

“If–oh, papa–if?”

“If I have your personal guarantee that the statements are unsubstantiated—-“

“Now, you are beginning to jest. I cannot jest on so serious an issue. Think of it–slaves–dynamite!”

“Both excellent words for missionaries to send home to England–almost equal to opium and idols from the standpoint of the mission-box.”

Phyllis was solemn for a moment; then she burst into a merry laugh that only wanted a note of merriment to be delightful. Her father did not miss that note. He was thinking of another phrase.

“Now, why shouldn’t you say that or something like that, my father?” cried the girl. “Something to set the House laughing before the Minister of the Annexation Department has had time to reply? You can do it, you know.”

“I believe I could,” said Mr. Ayrton thoughtfully. “But why, my child; why?”

“Why! Why! Oh, if one only said good things when there was a reason for saying them, how dull we should all be! Any stick for a dog–any jest is good enough for the House of Commons.”

“Yes; but suppose it is inferred that I am not on the side of the missionaries? What about Hazelborough?”

Hazelborough was the constituency which Mr. Ayrton represented in the House of Commons.

“My dear father, where would you be if you couldn’t steer through the Hazelborough prejudices now and again? You can always say something so good as to make people not care which way it cuts.”

“What? Oh, Phyllis! I am ashamed of you. Besides, the people of Hazelborough have got to be extremely sensitive. They have caught the Nonconformist Conscience. The bacillus of the Nonconformist Conscience was rampant a short time ago, and it has not yet been stamped out. I’m afraid that I must have principle on my side–some show of principle, at any rate–not so wide as a church door or so deep as a well, but still—-“

“And you will, too, papa. I’ll see Ella and get her to find out from Mr. Courtland what is the truth.”

“Well, perhaps it mightn’t be wise to rush into extremes all at once! I wouldn’t insist on the truth, if I were you. What’s the House of Commons that it should be cockered up with the truth? All that is needed is enough to go on with. An electro-plating of veracity is in keeping with the economic tendencies of the age.”

“I am not afraid of the truth,” cried Phyllis, without giving the cynicism of her father the tribute of a smile. “Mr. Courtland would, I know, be incapable of doing anything unworthy of–of—-“

“Let us say an explorer,” suggested her father. He knew that the word which was in her mind was /Englishman/. She only checked herself when her imagination caused her to perceive the average silk-hatted man with his tongue in his cheek at the utterance of the phrase. “Let us say ‘unworthy of an explorer,’ ” repeated her father; “that is an elastic phrase.”

Phyllis was irritated.

“I have talked with him,” she said a trifle coldly.

“Yes,” said her father, “once.”

“I should have said that I know Ella.”

“And yet Ella is a woman!”

“Oh, the charges are too ridiculous! Slaves! What nonsense! We all know what slavery is. Well, where are his slaves now? If he only hired the natives for a month or two they were only servants, not slaves. The thing is manifestly ridiculous.”

“Then why should we trouble ourselves with the attempt to rebut it?”

“Because so many people are idiots nowadays,” cried Phyllis warmly. “Because, no matter how ridiculous a charge which is brought against a distinguished person may be, some people will be found ready to believe in its truth. Never mind; I’ll find out the truth; I’ll go to Ella.”

“The fountain-head indeed,” said Mr. Ayrton. “When in search of the truth, go to a woman.”

“I will, at any rate,” said Phyllis.

And she went thither.

CHAPTER XII.

DYNAMITE–SLAVE-DEALING–MASSACRES–ARMENIA!

Phyllis, of course, knew when to go to Ella with the certainty of finding her at home. At the luncheon hour Mrs. Linton was always visible to the three friends whom she had within the confines of Mayfair. She considered herself blessed among women in the numerical strength of her friendships; and so perhaps she was; she had three.

She was in one of her drawing rooms–the one that was decorated with water colors set in fluted panels of yellow silk–not the one with the pink blinds so beloved by those of her visitors who had reached an age to regard a pink light as a woman’s best friend. She was wearing a new gown which Phyllis, in spite of her enthusiasm on behalf of a brave man maligned, found admirable both as regards fabric, fit, and fashion.

Then followed a word or two of commendation of the artists who had been concerned in its production. They had not been absurd about the sleeves, and they had not vetoed the sweep of lace–it was about half a yard wide–which the person who occupied so insignificant a position as is usually allocated to the mere wearer of the gown had suggested for the bodice. The gown was an unequivocal success, and had Ella seen the disgraceful article which had appeared in the /Spiritual Aneroid/ on the subject of Mr. Courtland’s explorations?

Ella smiled a slow smile, as the question joined the congratulation without the lapse of a breath.

“The /Spiritual Aneroid/? Who is the /Spiritual Aneroid/? What is the /Spiritual Aneroid/?” she asked. “Oh, a newspaper. What could a newspaper with such a funny name have to say about Mr. Courtland?”

“I have brought it with me,” said Phyllis. “It is quite disgraceful. I’m sure you’ll agree with me.”

“I’m certain of it.”

Ella accepted the proffered paper and glanced down the article pointed out to her by Phyllis. Phyllis’ eyes were gleaming as she placed her finger on the words, “Dynamite /versus/ Evangelization,” but Ella’s eyes did not gleam while she was reading all the words printed beneath the heading. She folded the paper and glanced carelessly at the name at the top of the outside page and said, “Well?”

“Was there ever anything so disgraceful?” cried the girl. “Was there every anything so false?”

“Is it false?” asked Ella.

“How can you doubt it? Do you fancy that Mr. Courtland would be a slave-dealer?”

“I wonder how he’d look in the broad flat hat which appears in all the pictures of the slave-dealers? Rather well, I fancy,” said Mrs. Linton.

“Oh, how can you talk of his looking well or ill when you read such an attack upon him?” said Phyllis, jumping up with a charmingly rosy face. “Surely it is something to you when so distinguished a man–your friend as well–is attacked!”

“If we were traveling with him across the desert in a caravan, should we mind much if the whole caravan were attacked by Bedouins or missionaries or people of that stamp, my dear? Of course we shouldn’t. We should feel that he would be equal to the defense of all of us, and himself as well.”

“Oh, of course; but this is quite another thing, isn’t it?”

“Where is the difference? If anybody minds the nonsense printed in that thing, Herbert Courtland will certainly be able to defend himself when called on to do so.”

Phyllis seated herself once again.

“But a question is to be asked in Parliament about him?” she suggested.

“And can you, the daughter of a member of that Parliament, honestly tell me that you fancy that any human being minds how many questions are asked about him in the Questionable House?”

“But the least breath of suspicion–dynamite–slave-dealing–massacres –Armenia. Oh, the article is certain to be copied into dozens of other papers–the public do so like to get hold of some scandal against a man who has done something great.”

“They do indeed. Would you suggest organizing a committee of ladies for the protection of Mr. Courtland?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Ella. I though that you were his friend, and that you would be as indignant as I was at that disgraceful attack upon his reputation.”

“I don’t think that it will place his reputation in jeopardy, unless with the readers of that paper, and they are not worth taking into account, are they?”

“Papa says the thing has a large circulation among a certain class. I want him to ridicule the question which is threatened in that article; he knows how to do that kind of thing very well.”

“Is it come to that, my Phyllis? Were you really so greatly interested in the one conversation you had with him as to constitute yourself his champion?”

Above all things Phyllis was truthful. She had never had an experience of love–that passion which can change the most truthful of womankind into the least scrupulous. There was no pause between Ella’s question and Phyllis’ answer.

“Certainly the one conversation that I had with him interested me–I told you so returning in the carriage. Has he never succeeded in interesting you, Ella? He told me that you were his friend–I believe he said his dearest friend.”

“And I believe that he told you the truth,” said Ella. “But, being his best friend and a woman, I refrain from constituting myself his champion. You see we live in Philistia, my Phyllis, and the champions that Philistia sends forth usually come to grief; there was the case of one Goliath of Gath, for example. I have no desire to have stones slung at me by the chosen people.”

“I’m not quite sure that I understand you,” said Phyllis, with a very pretty pucker on her forehead. “You don’t mean to say that a woman should not do her best for a man whom she knows to be maligned? You don’t suggest that she should stand silently to one side while people are saying what’s false about him?”

“I say that it’s unwise in Philistia; though I admit that it is of the greatest advantage to the man, for people at once cease maligning him and take to maligning her.”

“If she is any sort of a woman she will not mind that, however unjust it may be. In this case, however, I don’t think there is much risk: even the most unscrupulous person could hardly say that–that—-“

“That we were becoming Herbert Courtland’s champions, because we were in love with him?”

“Well, I don’t know. Wasn’t that what you meant to suggest people would say of a woman who became a man’s champion?”

“Something in that way. How straightforwardly you speak out what’s on your mind!”

“Oh, I’m a girl of to-day. I have got over all those absurd affectations of childishness which used to be thought feminine long ago. The gambols of the kitten were once thought the most attractive thing on earth, and they are very interesting: but for the full-grown cat to pretend that it is perfectly happy with a ball of worsted, when all the time it has its heart set on a real mouse, is nonsense.”

“That is an allegory, a subtle parable, Phyllis. But I fancy I can interpret it. You are quite right. Men know that we, the full-grown cats, take no interest in the ravelings of wool as mediums of diversion–that we have our hearts set on mice. Oh, yes! it is much better to be straightforward in our speech–it is even sometimes better to be quite straight in our ways as well. It usually prevents misunderstanding. There is scarcely a subject that women may not talk about to men in the most direct way, nowadays. But about the question of championship—-“

Here the door of the room was thrown open and Mr. Herbert Courtland was announced.

“I quite forgot to mention that Mr. Courtland was lunching with us to-day, Phyllis,” said Ella, while shaking hands with her visitor. “Now you will have a chance of getting the slave-dealer’s account of the whole business. Are you a slave-dealer, Bertie? If so, why don’t you wear the usual broad-leaved hat of your order?”

“It is I who am the enslaved one,” said Mr. Courtland, laying his hand to the left of the buttons of his white waistcoat and bowing the bow of the early years of the century, with a glance at each lady.

“What a pretty reminiscence of the age of artificiality!” said Ella; “and what an apt commentary upon the subject we were talking about, Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid–all sandals and simper–of forty years ago. Why should men and women have ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, Phyllis. Mr. Courtland will tell us all about his dreadful goings on, his slave- dealings, his dynamitings. Have you seen that article in the–what’s the name of the paper, Phyllis?”

“The /Spiritual Aneroid/,” said Phyllis.

“I haven’t been so fortunate,” said he.

“Then we shall take the paper into the dining room with us, and place it before you. If you were guilty of the doings that the article details, you would do well to–to–well, to adopt the picturesque costume incidental to ruffianism–the linen jacket of the slave- trader, the mangy fur collar of the dynamity man of war. Have you ever trafficked in human beings, Mr. Courtland?”

“Well, yes,” said he. “I have done a little in that way, I admit.”

“And dynamite–have you ever massacred people with dynamite?” Ella continued.

“Well, when my dynamite exploded, the people who were in the immediate neighborhood were never just the same afterward,” said he.

“Finally, did you allow yourself to be worshiped as God?” she asked.

“Yes, I got them to do that,” he replied. “I have experienced all human sensations, including those of a god in working order.”

“Then I hope you will make a good lunch. We begin with white-bait.”

“I am quite satisfied to begin with white-bait,” said he.

CHAPTER XIII.

EVEN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DOESN’T MATTER MUCH.

“I did not intend to stay for lunch,” said Phyllis, “but your overpowering will swept me along with it, Ella. But I hope you will let me say that I don’t think you should jest about what is–what some people at any rate think very serious.”

“Phyllis is of Philistia,” said Ella, “and Philistia was always given to ordeal by champions. She thinks the attack made upon you by two missionaries in their newspaper organ quite disgraceful. It doesn’t seem so disgraceful after all.”

“I haven’t seen the attack,” said he. “But I feel it to be very good of Miss Ayrton to think it disgraceful.”

“Of course I thought it disgraceful,” said Phyllis, “and I came to Ella to talk it all over. The article accuses you of atrocities, and said that a question would shortly be put to the Minister of the Annexation Department in the House of Commons. Now, I know that there is nothing my father enjoys more than snubbing those detestable men who endeavor to get up a reputation for philanthropy, and temperance, and bimetallism, and other virtues, by putting questions on the paper; and he could, I think, ask some counter question in this particular case that would ridicule the original busybody.”

“It was very good of you to think so, Miss Ayrton,” said he. “I can’t say that, personally, I mind all the attacks that all the missionaries who earn precarious salaries in South Seas may make upon me; but I must confess that I have a weakness for seeing busybodies put to shame.”

“You may depend upon Mr. Ayrton’s satire,” said Ella. “It never misses the point in the harness. The barb of the dart is, I believe, Mr. Ayrton’s, the feather at the other end is Phyllis’.”

“Only once that happened,” said Phyllis. “Oh, no! papa manufactures his own darts, from feather to tip.”

“But supposing that the charges brought against me are true?” suggested Mr. Courtland.

“Why, then, can’t you see there is all the greater need for ingenuity in your defense?” said Ella.

“It is impossible to think of the charges as true,” said Phyllis stoutly.

“For example?” said he.

“Well, the article said that you had made slaves of some of the natives of New Guinea, purchasing them by a promise to help a native chief against his enemies.”

“There wasn’t much harm in that: I did it,” said he.

“And then it went on to say that you kept your promise,” said Phyllis.

“What! They accused me of keeping my promise?” said he. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t deny that charge either.”

“Did you really slaughter the natives?” cried Phyllis.

The interest which she felt appeared in her eyes.

“I did my best for the savages who had purchased my services,” he replied. “The campaign was not a protracted one. Two days after the outbreak of hostilities brought things to a climax. We fought our decisive battle–the Sedan of King Mubamayo. You see, I had a trustworthy Winchester. I believe that about seventy of the enemy bit the dust.”

“Only seventy? That was unworthy of you, Mr. Courtland,” cried Ella. “Nothing short of thousands counts as a civilized battle. Seventy! Oh, I’m afraid you don’t do yourself justice.”

“Of course a battle is a battle,” said Phyllis stoutly. “If you hadn’t killed them they would have killed you. You were in the right, I’m sure.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said he, shaking his head. “To tell you the truth, the elements of the crisis of Headman Glowabyola were somewhat involved. The original dispute was difficult for a foreigner to understand–it was, in fact, the Schleswig-Holstein question of Kafalonga.”

“You settled it, anyway,” suggested Ella. “You were the Bismarck of what’s-its-name?”

“I doubled the parts of Bismarck and Von Moltke,” said he.

“And that’s why they worshiped you as their god? I don’t wonder at the heathen in his blindness doing that. Any man who was the same as Bismarck and Von Moltke would certainly shoulder a deity out of his way,” laughed Ella.

“It so happened, however, that my deification was due neither to my recognition as a diplomatist nor as a military strategist,” said the explorer. “No, they wanted something beyond the mere fighting man to worship, and my knowledge of that fact combined with their paeans of victory–to the /obbligato/ of a solid iron-wood drum beaten with the thigh bones of the conquered–to keep me awake at night. But one morning the headman came upon me when I was about to boil my kettle to make myself a cup of tea. I had a small lamp that burned spirits, and he stood by while I filled it up from the bottle that I carried with me. He took it for granted that the spirit was water, and he was greatly impressed when he saw it flare up as I applied a lighted match to it. He asked me if I possessed the power to set water in a blaze, and I assured him that that was something for which I had long been celebrated; adding that when I had had my breakfast I meant to while away an hour or two by setting fire to the ocean itself. He implored of me to reconsider my decision, and when I had poured a little spirit into the hollow of my hand and lighted it in the presence of his most eminent scientists, they said that they also desired to associate themselves with the headman’s petition. I was, however, inexorable; I walked down to the beach and had just struck a match on the brink of the ocean when the whole tribe prostrated themselves around me, promising to continue worshiping me if I would only stay my hand. Well, what could I do? I weakly yielded and spared the multitudinous sea from being the medium of what would in all likelihood have been the greatest conflagration on record. From that moment, I’m happy to say, they worshiped me as their supreme deity, and I’m bound to say that I behaved as such; I was certainly the most superior class of god they had ever had, and they gave me a testimonial to this effect in case I might ever be looking out for a new situation.”

“That was how you managed to get such a collection of birds, including my meteor-bird,” said Ella. “But Phyllis of Philistia is shocked at the bare recital of such a tale of idolatry. Are you not, Phyllis?”

“I think I am a little shocked,” said Phyllis. She did not say that her first thought just then was that the feather fan was not, after all, the price of blood: it was something much worse. “It was an encouragement of idolatry, was it not, Mr. Courtland?”

“Scarcely,” said he. “On the contrary, it was an honest attempt to lead them from their idols to something higher and better.”

“You are something higher and better,” suggested Ella.

“Quite so; I am a little lower than the angels, but a good deal higher than the awful image which they worshiped before I turned up,” said he. “The whole tribe admitted in the most honorable manner that I was by far the best god they had ever had; they had not an unlucky day so long as they worshiped me, and I retained my Winchester and a full supply of cartridges.”

“The testimony was flattering,” said Ella. “But still Phyllis is shocked.”

“I am,” said Phyllis. “I believe in God. Mr. Courtland believes in a Principle.”

“Anyhow, I led some thousands of savages from idolatry and cannibalism to something higher, and that’s a better record than most gods of my acquaintance can show. Everything must be done gradually to be done permanently. Nothing could be more absurd than the /modus operandi/ of your missionary. Most of them have got rid of their Christianity to make way for their theology. They endeavor to inculcate upon the natives the most subtle points of their theological system, immediately after they have preached against the wickedness of economy in the matter of clothing.”

“A large missionary work might be done among husbands at home,” said Ella. “But what about the dynamite, that is the charge which still hands over you–a charge of dynamite?”

“That was my worst hour,” said Courtland. “I had gone up the Fly River in my steam launch to a point never previously reached by a European. I was fortunate enough to get some specimens that had never been seen before, and I was returning to the coast. My engineer and I were captured when ashore one night getting fuel for our furnace. They took us into the forest a long way, binding our hands with the fiber of one of the creepers, and I had no trouble whatever gathering that it was their intention to make a feast of us–a sort of high tea, it was to be, for they began brewing the herbs which I knew they used only when they were cannibalizing. We were courteously permitted to watch these preparations, for it was rightly assumed that they would be in some degree interesting to us. We were, indeed, greatly interested in all we saw, but much more so when, toward evening, a number of the natives arrived on the scene carrying with them some of the stores which they had found aboard the steam launch. They broke open with a stone hatchet some tins of preserved meat, and seemed to enjoy the contents greatly. The biscuits they didn’t care for much, and the cakes of soap which they began to eat could not honestly be said to be an entire success as comestibles. But while we watched them at these /hors d’oeuvres/ to the banquet at which we were expected to take a prominent part, a straggler came up with some reserve supplies; I saw them; tins of dynamite–we carried dynamite for blowing up the snags that obstructed the narrower reaches of the river. We watched the thieves crowd around the bearer of the tins, and we saw that the general impression that prevailed in regard to them was that they had come upon some of the most highly concentrated beef they had ever had in their hands. When they laid the tins among the hot ashes of their fires and began to break them open with their stone hatchets, my engineer thought with me that all the interest there would be in the subsequent proceedings could not possibly compensate us for the waste of precious time which would be entailed by our remaining. We bolted in spite of our fettered hands, but before we had got more than a couple of hundred yards from the camp, there took place the severest earthquake, coincidental with a thunderstorm and the salute of a battery of a thousand heavy guns. We were whirled into the air like feathers in a breeze, but managed to cling–our bonds being broken–to some of the boughs among which we found ourselves. Shortly afterward, a quarter of an hour or so, there came on the heaviest shower I had ever experienced. Such a downpour of branches of trees, gnarled roots, broken fruits, birds’ feathers, mutilated apes of many species, and– well, anatomical specimens! It went on and on until the boughs around us were made into splinters and we were beaten to the ground with the force of those missiles, all the dense forest around us echoing to the shrieks of the lories and parrots, the monkeys and the wildcats.”

“And now the missionaries,” said Ella, after a pause.

“And what happened after that?” whispered Phyllis.

He shook his head.

“After that we came away,” he said. “We couldn’t see that there was any need for us to stay loafing about the forest when we had our business to mind in another direction. It took us two days, however, finding our launch.”

“And that is what the missionaries call your dynamite outrage against the natives?” said Ella.

“So it would seem,” said he. “I suppose they managed to get some account of the business; one can’t hush up a dynamite outrage even in the interior of New Guinea.”

“But what a gross misrepresentation of facts it was to say that you had massacred the natives,” cried Phyllis indignantly.

He laughed with a shrug.

“Oh, we must all live,” he said.

“Unless those who treat tins of dynamite as though they were tins of brawn,” said Ella. Then turning to Phyllis she smiled.

Phyllis had no difficulty interpreting the smile.

“Yes,” she said, “your opinion was quite correct: Mr. Courtland doesn’t care what people say, and it doesn’t matter in the least what they do say, or what falsehoods are spread abroad.”

“Not in the smallest degree,” said Ella. “Herbert Courtland is still Herbert Courtland.”

“But so far as I can gather,” said Mr. Courtland, “all that the missionaries said of me was substantially correct.”

“Read the paper and you will see how detestably false all the charges are,” cried Phyllis, rising,–the servants had now left the room,–and picking up the /Spiritual Aneroid/ from where Ella had laid it on a chair.

Herbert Courtland had not yet opened it. He took it from her, saying:

“Thank you, Miss Ayrton. But I really don’t see that it concerns me very much whether or not the charges brought against me are true or false. The matter is certainly one for the–the–ah–/Spiritual Aneroid/ and its special /clientele/.”

“But a question is to be asked about it in the House of Commons. I said so just now,” cried Phyllis.

“And even the House of Commons doesn’t matter much,” said Ella.

“That is what papa thought,” said Phyllis meekly. “Only I know that if Mr. Courtland thought it worth noticing, papa would be quite pleased to put a counter question. That is why I came here to-day.”

“It was so good of you,” said the man.

“My Phyllis is all that is good. Let us return to the drawing room,” said Ella, rising.

They returned to the drawing room; but when they had been in the apartment for perhaps four minutes, certainly not five, Phyllis said it was necessary for her to hurry home in order that the afternoon letters should be sent to her father at the House.

With another word of appreciation of her kindness, Mr. Courtland held her hand a second longer than was absolutely necessary to maintain a character for civility.

“She is the most charming girl in the world,” remarked Ella to the visitor, who remained when Phyllis had left.

“Is she?” said he.

“I know it. Don’t you?” asked she.

“How do I know?” he said. “I have thought nothing about it. If you say she is charming, I am pleased to hear it. It matters no more to me that the world is full of charming girls than that the kraken is still at the bottom of the sea. One woman fills all my thoughts. My heart is full of her.”

“And you want her to risk the salvation of her soul for you?”

“Yes; that is just what I want.”

He remained with her for another hour.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HONORABLE MEMBER IS CLEARLY OUT OF ORDER.

Mr. Ayrton met his daughter the next morning with the good news that he had found among his specimen cases of phrases, one that would effectually silence the member from Wales who had been nominated by the Nonconformist Eastern Missionary Society to put that question to the minister of the Annexation Department on the subject of Mr. Courtland, the explorer. Mr. Ayrton was the better pleased at his discovery, because of the inoffensive nature of the phrase which he had taken out of its case, so to speak. As a rule, he did not mind being offensive if only his phrase was apt. Only people who had no artistic appreciation found fault with the tone of some of his most notable phrases. He did not mind whether they were just or unjust, they said. As if a man can be both honest and witty at the same time!

It so happened, however, that the party to which Mr. Ayrton belonged had become greatly concerned in respect of an element that had just come to the surface to still further complicate the course of politics. This was the Nonconformist Conscience–hitherto a /quantite negligeable/ in the calculations of the leaders, but now one that it appeared absolutely necessary to take into account as a factor. To be sure, there were a good many people who put their tongues in their cheeks when any mention was made of the Nonconformist Conscience: they said it was no more to be taken seriously than the Spector on the Brocken or the Athanasian Creed. It was only the trick of an electioneering agent desirous of escaping from an untenable position.

There were other persons, however (mostly Nonconformists), who were found ready to declare that the Nonconformist Conscience was a Great and Living Truth. The only point upon which statesmen of all parties were agreed was that it was worth purchasing. The Nonconformists themselves, upon whom the Great and Living Truth was sprung, had no notion at first that it could be turned into a negotiable security occupying as high a place in the market as, say, Argentine bonds. But it did not take them very long to find out that even an abstraction such as this could be turned to good account by discreet maneuvering. Truth sometimes is heard on an election platform, and yet truth is but an abstract quality. Why, then should not a Great and Living Truth become a regular gold mine to its inventor? It was as great an invention as the art of electroplating, which it closely resembled, and a quite as nice thing could be made out of it by a little dexterous manipulation. If the conscience is silver, the Nonconformist Conscience is at least electroplate of a first-class quality, it was argued; and a political manifesto, which was practically a financial prospectus, was issued with a view of floating the Nonconformist Conscience Company, Limited.

English politics cannot by any possibility be regarded as an exact science; and thus it was that all political parties were at this time making bids for shares in the enterprise. The leaders of one party, in fact, expressed themselves ready to buy up the whole concern, and they actually tendered bills payable at twelve months for all the vendors’ interest, and it was only when these bills became due and were returned dishonored that the shadowy character of the transaction was made plain, and the country was convulsed at the disclosure of the fact that the vendors had disposed of a perfectly worthless invention, and that the purchasers had paid for it by promises that were equally worthless.

All this happened later, however; when the fuss was made about the atrocities by an explorer in New Guinea, and Mr. Ayrton was contemplating a counter question that should cast ridicule upon the missionaries and their champion, he was given to understand by the leaders of his party, who, it was believed, had a small parcel of baronetcies done up in official twine, with blank spaces for the name and address in each, awaiting distribution at the first change of Government, that he must take no step that might jeopardize the relations of the party with the vendors of the Nonconformists Conscience. The /Spiritual Aneroid/ was the leading Nonconformist organ, and it would not do to sneer at the missionaries whom it supported. It would be better that all the explorers who had ever risked their lives on behalf of civilization should go by the board than that a single vote should be lost to the party, he was assured by the Senior Whip.

This was rather irritating to the artist in phrases; because it stood to reason that the majority of his phrases were calculated to be hurtful to his opponents. He was thus quite elated when he came upon something which would, he felt sure, call comment in the press at the expense of the member from Wales without casting any slight upon Nonconformist Missionary enterprise.

He read out the thing to his daughter, and he was surprised to find that she was not appreciative of its unique charm. This was rather too bad, he felt, considering that it was she who had enlisted his services in this particular matter.

“I don’t think Mr. Courtland wants anybody to take his part in Parliament or out of it,” said she. “And that’s why I think it would be better to let that Mr. Apthomas ask his question without interruption. What can the Minister of Annexation say except that he has no information on the subject, and that if he had he could not interfere, as he had no jurisdiction on the Fly River?”

“That is what he will reply as a matter of course,” said her father. “But that will not prevent the newspapers that are on the side of Wales and the missionaries from saying what they please in the way of comment on the atrocities in New Guinea.”

“Mr. Courtland will not mind whatever they may say,” cried Phyllis.

“That was the view I took of the matter in regard to Mr. Courtland’s attitude when you mentioned it to me at first,” said he. “I didn’t suppose that he was the man to be broken down because some foolish paper attacks him; but you were emphatic in your denunciation of the injustice that would be liable to be done if–“

“Oh, I had only spoken for about half an hour to Mr. Courtland then,” said Phyllis. “I think I know him better now.”

“Yes, you have spoken with him for another half hour; you therefore know him twice as well as you did,” remarked her father. “I wonder if he admitted to you having done all that he was accused of doing.”

He saw in a moment from the little uneasy movement of her eyes that he had made an excellent guess at the general result of the conversation at Mrs. Linton’s little lunch. He had not yet succeeded in obtaining any details from his daughter regarding her visit to Ella. She had merely told him that Ella had kept her to lunch, and that Mr. Courtland had been there also.

“Yes. I do believe that he admitted everything,” he continued, with a laugh as he thought how clever he was. (He had frequent reasons for laughing that laugh.)

“No,” said Phyllis doubtfully; “he did not admit everything.”

“There was some reservation? Perhaps it was melinite that he employed for the massacre of the innocents of New Guinea, not dynamite.”

“No; it was dynamite. But the natives had stolen it from his steam launch and they exploded it themselves.”

Mr. Ayrton lay back in his chair convulsed with laughter.

“And that is the true story of the dynamite massacre?” he cried. “That is how it comes that, in the words of the /Aneroid/, the works of evangelization on Nonconformist principles is likely to be retarded for some time? The missionaries are quite right too. And what about his miracles–they suggested a miracle, didn’t they?”

“Oh, that was some foolishness about setting spirits of wine on fire,” said Phyllis. “The natives thought that it was water, you know.”

Mr. Ayrton laughed more heartily than before.

“That is the crowning infamy,” he cried. “My dear Phyllis, it would be quite impossible to allow so delicious a series of missionary muddles to pass unnoticed. I think I see my way clearly in the matter.”

She knew that he did. She knew that he regarded most incidents in the political world merely as feeders to his phrase-making capacity. She knew that it would be impossible to repress him now in the matter of Courtland and the missionaries; she fully realized the feelings of Frankenstein.

Only the weakest protest did she make against her father’s intended action; and thus when the day came for Mr. Apthomas’ question, that gentleman from Wales inquired, “If Her Majesty’s Minister for Annexations could give the House any information regarding the so- called explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland in the island of New Guinea, particularly in respect of a massacre of natives by dynamite in the region of the Fly River; and if it was true that the gentleman just named had permitted himself to be worshiped as a god by the aborigines of another region; and if Her Majesty’s Minister for Domestic Affairs was prepared to say that it was legal for one of Her Majesty’s subjects to assume the privileges and functions of a god, and if the First Lord of the Treasury was prepared to communicate to the House what course, if any, Her Majesty’s government meant to adopt with a view to the prevention of similar outrages in the same region in the future?”

Mr. Ayrton rose before the Minister of the Annexation Department had quite concluded his yawn, and said he trusted that he was in order (cries of “Yes, yes,” from those members who knew that the honorable member had an enlivening phrase which he wanted to get rid of) in inquiring, in connection with the same subject, if the right honorable gentleman could inform the House if there was any truth in the report current in financial and other circles that the object of the explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland was the discovery of a small mammal of the porcine tribe, and if one of the Law Officers of the Crown was prepared to assure the House that it would be contrary to the provisions of the Companies Act, and the Companies Act Amendment Act, to permit this New Guinea pig to assume the functions of the director of Limited Liability Companies, whose directorate was largely composed of members of both Houses of Parliament (great laughter from honorable gentlemen who were aware that the Mr. Apthomas had no income beyond the remuneration he received as a director of companies); and if Her Majesty’s Minister for Agriculture was prepared to state that it was the intention of Her Majesty’s Government to prohibit the introduction of, at any rate the males of the mammals just referred to, considering the rapid increase in representative assemblies of the English or Welsh bore—- (Great laughter, which prevented the concluding words of the sentence being audible in the gallery.)

THE SPEAKER: Order! order! The honorable member for Hazelborough must confine himself strictly to the issued raised by the honorable gentleman from Wales. The honorable member for Hazelborough is only permitted to follow the honorable gentleman from Wales by the indulgence of the House.

MR. AYRTON: Sir, I bow to the ruling of the chair, and will continue by inquiring if Her Majesty’s Minister for the Public Worship Department can state to the House if it is true that a newspaper published within the Principality of Wales recently made the announcement that the honorable member who had just made inquiries regarding the exploration of Mr. Herbert Courtland, was the idol of his constituents [Laughter, and cries of “Order!”], and if the right honorable gentleman is prepared to state that the provisions of the Idolatry Act are–

THE SPEAKER: The honorable member is clearly out of order. The question of idolatry in Wales is not at present before the House.

MR. AYRTON: Sir, I give notice that next session I shall move a resolution regarding idolatry in the Principality of Wales [Laughter and cheers.]

The minister for Annexation was about to rise when

MR. MUDLARKY (Ballynamuck) asked if the introduction of the guinea pigs would be prejudicial to the interests of the higher and nobler Irish animal who, he would remind the Minister for Public Worship, was not to be confounded with the herd whose example was clearly emulated by the present government in seeking self-destruction by running down a steep place into the sea. (Cries of “Order, order!”) If there was any doubt before, the honorable member continued, as to the influence which was at work in that Gadarene herd, which assumed the functions of Her Majesty’s government, the sounds that now came from the Treasury Benches would convince even the most skeptical that sacred history is sometimes repeated by profane, but he could not compliment the devils, who had the bad taste to–(Several honorable members here rose amid the cheers of the Irish Members, and a scene of confusion took place.)

THE SPEAKER [sternly]: Order, Order! The honorable member from Ballynamuck must resume his seat. He is out of order. The question before the House is not the good taste of demoniac visitants. I call upon the right honorable gentleman, the Minister for the Department of Annexation.

MR. McCULLUM (Blairpukey Burghs): Mr. Speaker, one moment. To save time, will the right honorable gentleman say if the Highland Crofters, whose land was stolen from them in order that the members of the Upper House–

THE SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for the Department of Annexation.

MR. BLISTER (Battersea, Mid): Mr. Speaker, though I don’t do any work myself, I’m the representative of labor, only those contemptible skunks, the workingmen, don’t see that they have a man for a leader–a man, that’s me–that’s Joe Blister. And as the Upper House has been introduced, I’ll run, eat, or swear with the best of that lot of tap- room loafers; I’ll do anything but fight them–except, of course, on a labor platform, and if–

THE SPEAKER: The honorable member is out of order. The Minister for the Department of Annexations.

THE MINISTER FOR ANNEXATIONS: No, sir; I have no information [Cheers and laughter.]

The House then went into Committee of Supply.

CHAPTER XV.

BUT MR. COURTLAND—- AH, NEVER MIND!

Mr. Ayrton entertained his daughter with a description of the scene in the House incidental to the annihilation of Mr. Apthomas. He rather thought himself that his counter-question had been neat. He had been congratulated on it by quite a number of his friends in the tea room, and six messages had been delivered to him by representatives of the press to the effect that if he could provide them with the exact text of his counter-question they would be greatly obliged.

“They mean to report it in full?” said Phyllis. She had an ample experience of the decimation of his questions as well as speeches by the members of the press gallery. They had reduced it to a science.

“I am much mistaken if they don’t comment on it as well,” said her father. “Poor Apthomas! he alone sat glum and mute while everyone around him was convulsed.”

“I hope that Mr. Courtland will not feel hurt at what has occurred,” said Phyllis doubtfully.

“Mr. Courtland? Who is Mr. Courtland? What has Mr. Courtland to say to the matter? What business is it of his, I should like to know.”

“Well, considering that he was the original subject of the questions, though I must confess that he didn’t remain long so, I don’t think it altogether unreasonable to wonder what he will think about the whole episode,” remarked Phyllis.

“Ah, you always do take an original view of such incidents,” said her father indulgently. “It is so like a woman to try and drag poor Courtland into the business. You ought to know better than to fancy that any interest attaches to the original subject of a question in the House. You’ll be suggesting next that some credit should be given to the youths who pass brilliant examinations in things, and that all should not be absorbed by their grinders.”

“I’m not so silly as that, papa,” said she. “No; but Mr. Courtland—- Ah, never mind.”

He did not mind.

It so happened, however, that several of the newspapers which commented on the questions and counter-questions the next day introduced the name of Mr. Herbert Courtland and his explorations; though, of course, most attention was directed to what Mr. Ayrton’s party called the brilliant, and the other party the flippant, methods of Mr. Ayrton. His reference to the New Guinea pig some thought a trifle too personal to be in good taste, but if politicians refrained from personalities and were punctilious in matters of taste, what chance would they have of “scoring,” and where would the caricaturists be? The reputation of a politician is steadily built up nowadays, not by consistency, certainly; not by brilliant rhetoric; not even by the unscrupulous exercise of a faculty for organizing impromptu “scenes,” but by the wearing of a necktie, or a boot, or a waistcoat that is susceptible of caricature. A very ordinary young man has before now been lifted into fame by the twists of his mustache, and another of less than mediocre ability has been prevented from sinking in the flood of forgetfulness by the kindly efforts of a caricaturist who supported him by a simple lock on his scalp. Thus it was that Mr. Apthomas found himself famous before a week had passed, through the circumstance of being represented in the leading journal of caricature as a guinea pig, flying, with the spoil of bubble boards of directors under his arm, from the attack of a number of quaint-looking mammals wearing collars inscribed “ACCURACY,” “CORRECT BALANCE SHEETS,” “LEGITIMATE SPECULATIONS,” and other phrases that suggested the need for the old guinea pig to give way to a new breed. Underneath the picture was printed a portion of the counter-question of Mr. Ayrton, and opposite to it were some verses with a jingling refrain that everyone could remember, and which everyone quoted during the next few days.

The firm of publishers who had been fortunate enough to secure the issue of Mr. Courtland’s new book were delighted. If Mr. Ayrton could only have seen his way to introduce their names and their address in his counter-question, their cup of happiness would have been complete, they said. They managed, however, to induce the proprietors of a young lady who was reputed to be the vulgarest and most fascinating of all music-hall artistes, to introduce Mr. Courtland’s name into one of the movable stanzas of her most popular lyric: those stanzas which are changed from week to week, so as to touch upon the topics which are uppermost in the minds–well, not exactly the minds–of the public. It is scarcely necessary to say that this form of advertisement is worth columns of the daily papers; and if Mr. Courtland had only shown himself appreciative of his best interests and had changed the title of his book to “The Land of the New Guinea Pig,” instead of “The Quest of the Meteor-Bird,” they would have gone to press with an extra thousand copies.

But even as it was they knew that between the member of Parliament and the music-hall young lady the sale of the book was a certainty. Their calculations were not at fault. The publishers sent a liberal subscription to the Nonconformist Eastern Mission, whose agents had stimulated public curiosity in Mr. Courtland’s new book by suggesting that he had carried out, single-handed, one of the most atrocious massacres of recent years; and a diamond brooch to the music-hall young lady who had so kindly worked in the reference to the book after dancing one of her most daring hornpipes in the uniform of a midshipman; they doubled the lines of their announcements in the advertising columns of the paper that had issued the cartoon of the New Guinea Pig, and, finally, they sent a presentation copy of “The Quest of the Meteor-Bird,” to Mr. Ayrton.

Then, as everyone was humming the lines of the music-hall young lady:

“From the land of far New Guinea
Came a little pig-a-ninny,”

the daily papers were bound to give two-column reviews to the book on the day of its publication; and as the rod which Moses cast down before Pharaoh swallowed up the wriggling rods of the magicians, the interest attaching to Mr. Courtland’s book absorbed that which attached to all the other books of the season, including “Revised Versions,” though the publishers of the latter moved heaven and earth (that is to say, the bishop and the people’s churchwarden) to get the Rev. George Holland prosecuted. If either had been susceptible to reason, and had got up a case against their author, the publishers declared that Mr. Courtland’s book would not have had a chance with “Revised Versions.” To be sure they admitted that the report that Mr. Holland had been thrown over by the lady who had promised to marry him had given a jerk forward to the sales; but when Mr. George Holland had been so idiotically blind to his best interests and (incidentally) the best interests of his publishers, as to contradict this suggestion of incipient martyrdom, and thus an excellent advertisement had been lost, and everyone was, in a week or two, talking about “The Quest of the Meteor-Bird,” while only a few continued shaking their heads over “Revised Versions.”

Meantime, however, Mr. Courtland thought it well to call upon Mr. Ayrton in order to thank him for his kindness in replying in the House of Commons so effectively to the questions put to the various ministers by Mr. Apthomas; and Mr. Ayrton had asked Mr. Courtland to dinner, and Mr. Courtland had accepted the invitation, Miss Ayrton begging Mrs. Linton to be of the party, and Mrs. Linton yielding to her petition without demur.

CHAPTER XVI.

WOULD IT BE WELL WITH MY HUSBAND?

It was on their way back from this little dinner-party that Mr. Courtland confessed to Ella Linton that he had come to think of her dearest friend as a most charming and original girl; she had never once referred to his achievements in New Guinea, nor had she asked him to write his name in her birthday book. Yes, she was not as other girls.

“I’m so delighted to hear you say so much,” said Ella. “Oh, Bertie! why not make yourself happy with a sweet girl such as she, and give no more thought to such absurdities as you have been indulging in? Believe me, you don’t know so well as I do in what direction your happiness lies.”

“I don’t know anything about happiness,” said he. “I don’t seem to care much, either. When I made up my mind to find the meteor-bird, don’t you suppose that there were many people who told me that, even if it was found, it was quite unlikely that it would be more succulent eating than a Dorking chicken? I’m sure they were right. You see, I didn’t go to New Guinea in search of a barndoor fowl. I don’t want domestic happiness, I don’t want anything but you–you are my meteor- bird. I found, after my first visit to New Guinea, that it was impossible for me to rest until I had found the meteor-bird. I have found that it is impossible for me to live without you, my beloved.”

“You will have to learn to live without me,” said she, laying her hand upon his. They had now reached her house, so that no immediate reply was possible. He did not attempt to make a reply until they had gone into a small drawing room, and she had flung off her wrap. They were alone.

Then he knelt on the rug before her and took both her hands in his own –a hand in each of his hands–as they lay on her dress. His face was close to hers: she was in a low chair. Each could hear the sound of the other’s breathing–the sound of the other’s heart-beats. That duet went on for some minutes–the most perfect music in life–the music which is life itself–the music by which man becomes immortal.

“Do not hold me any longer, Bertie,” said she. “Kiss me and go away– away. Oh, why should you ever come back? I believe that, if you loved me, you would go away and never come back. Oh, what is this farce that is being played between us? It is unworthy of either of us!”

“A farce? A tragedy!” said he. “I want you, Ella. I told you that I could not live without you.”

“You want me? You want me, Bertie?” said she. Tears were in her eyes and in her voice, for there was to her a passion of pathos in those words of his. “You want me, and you know that it is only my soul that shall be lost if I give myself to you. God has decreed that only the soul of the woman pays the penalty of the man’s longing for her.”

“You soul shall be saved, not lost,” said he. “At present it is your soul that is in peril, when you give your sweetness to the man whom you have ceased to love–ah! whom you never loved. You will save your soul with me.”

“I shall lose it for all eternity,” said she. “Do you think that I complain? Do you fancy for a moment that I grumble at the decree of God, or that I rail against it as unjust?”

“You are a woman.”

“I am a woman, and therefore you know I will one day be ready to lose my soul for you, Bertie, my love. Oh, my dear, dear love, you say you want me?”

“Oh, my God!”

He had sprung to his feet and was pacing the room before her.

“You say that you want me. Oh, my love, my love, do you fancy for a moment that your longing for me is anything to be compared to my longing for you?”

“My beloved, my beloved!”

His arms were about her. His lips were upon hers. She kissed him as he kissed her.

Then she turned her head away so that his kisses fell upon her cheek instead of her mouth. She turned it still farther and they fell upon her neck–it was exquisite in its shape–and lay there like red rose- leaves clinging to a carved marble pillar.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait; let me talk to you.”

She untwined his arms from about her–the tears were still in her eyes as she tried to face him.

“Why should you still have tears?” said he. “If anything stood between us and love, there might be room for tears, but nothing stands between us now. I am yours, you are mine.”

“That is the boast of a man who sees only the beginning of a love; mine are the tears of a woman who sees its end, and knows that it is not far off.”

“How can you say that? The end? the end of love such as ours? Oh, Ella!”

“Oh, listen to me, my love! I am ashamed of the part I have played during the past six months–since we were together on the Arno, and you are ashamed, too.”

“I am not ashamed. I have no reason to be ashamed.”

“No; you are not ashamed of the part you have played; but you are ashamed of me, Bertie.”

“Oh you? I–ashamed of you? Oh, my darling, if you talk longer in that strain I will be ashamed of you.”

“You are ashamed of me–I have sometimes felt it. A man with a heart such as I know yours to be, cannot but be ashamed of a woman, who, though the wife of another man, allows him to kiss her–yes, and who gives him kiss for kiss. Oh, go away–go away! I have had enough of your love–enough of your kisses, enough shame! Go away! I never wish to see you again–to kiss you again.”

She had walked to the other end of the room, and stood under a Venetian mirror–it shone like a monstrous jewel above her head– looking at him, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing through the tears that had not yet fallen.

He had had no experience of women and their moods, and he was