“My dear sir, these are outcomes of the black humour; you are not yourself. Mrs. Clarendon will be very glad indeed to see you; so she assured me. I pray you, fight against this tendency to melancholia.”

It was difficult to reach the gates without having previously collected considerably more mud than one cares to convey into a lady’s drawing-room. Kingcote endeavoured to remove some of this superfluous earth as he walked up the drive by rubbing his boots in the wet grass; the result was not inspiriting.

“Pooh!” he exclaimed impatiently. “If she really cares to see me, she won’t regard the state of my boots; any one who accepts such as I am, must take mud and all.”

The thought appeared to amuse him, he walked on with a laugh.

As he entered the garden, he met the trap just driving away from the house. A gentleman was seated in it. He had rather the look of a man of business, and was reading a letter. He scanned Kingcote, then resumed his reading.

Disturbed with the thought that there might be other visitors in the house, Kingcote hesitated, doubted whether to go on. He made up his mind to do so, however, not without sundry fresh communings with himself of a bitter kind. On inquiry he found that Mrs. Clarendon was at home, and, after a moment in the hall, he was led to the dining-room. Mrs. Clarendon was writing letters at a table by the window; as she rose, he thought he detected annoyance on her face.

“I fear I disturb you,” he said coldly.

“You don’t at all; or rather, you will not, if you’ll let me treat you as a friend. I have just one letter I am obliged to write; I asked the servant to bring you here, thinking you might like to look at the pictures till I have done. One or two are thought good, I believe—that Veronese, and that Ruysdael, and the Greuze yonder. May I?”

It was hard not to smile in reply to her voice and look as she spoke the last two little words, the more so that it was clear she had something just now to trouble her quite other than the inopportune arrival of a visitor. Kingcote walked to the picture she had indicated as a Veronese, and, affecting to view it, let his eyes wander to Isabel at the writing-table. She was thinking, previous to commencing her letter. Her left arm rested on the desk, and the thumb and middle finger of the hand pressed her forehead; with the end of the penholder she tapped her chin. He noticed how beautiful was the outline of her head, relieved against the bright window; noticed, too, the grace of her neck when she bent forward to write. The scratching of her pen—she wrote very rapidly—was the only sound in the room.

Kingcote went from picture to picture, his mind not quite tuned to judge and enjoy their merits. One, however, held him. When lunching here, he had sat with his back to the wall of which this canvas was the central ornament, so had not observed it. It was a portrait of Mrs. Clarendon, painted probably at the time of her marriage, an excellent picture. As he gazed at it, Isabel came forward.

“Do you recognise it?” she asked, tapping on one hand with the letter she held in the other.

“Without doubt.”

“And moralise? But,” she added quickly, “I want you to look at this child’s head. Isn’t it exquisitely sweet?”

His eyes wandered back to the portrait, and, on their way to the door, he again paused before it.

“Did I show you my ferns the last time you were here?” Isabel asked. “Will you walk so far?”

She led to the rear of the hall, thence, by a glass door, into a short glass-roofed passage, the door at the end of which opened into the conservatory. The first section was a small rotunda, twenty feet in diameter and twelve feet high. The floor was of unglazed tiles, the ceiling of ornamental stucco; round the wall was a broad cushioned seat, above which, commencing at a height of some four feet from the ground, were windows of richly coloured glass, pictured with leaves and flowers and fruit. A stand for plants occupied the centre, but at present the shelves were almost bare.

Mrs. Clarendon threw back one of the windows.

“There is a good view from here,” she said. “A tree used to intercept it, but we had it cut down in the spring to clear a piece of ground for tennis.”

From the hill, on which the house was built, a broad stretch of green park led the eye to a considerable distance in the direction of Salcot. The roof of the cottage at Wood End was just visible. Kingcote drew attention to it.

“I don’t see any smoke from the chimney,” Mrs. Clarendon remarked, with a pleasant glance. “It is to be hoped you keep good fires this damp weather. Is the place rainproof? These last two days will have tested it.”

“It seems to be sound.”

“And you still find it your ideal?”

“The cottage? I did not choose it as an ideal abode.”

“But the quietness, the retirement, I mean. In that, at all events, you have not been disappointed.”

“Certainly not.”

Isabel shuddered.

“How you live there I can’t understand. But I suppose you find it best for your studies.”

“I don’t study,” returned Kingcote, rather vacantly, looking at the pictured glass of the window.

Isabel closed the window and passed to the next door.

“I am so sorry Miss Warren is not at home,” she said. “I quite thought she would be, but at the last moment she decided to go to London to see something in the South Kensington Museum—oh, Schliemann’s discoveries!”

“Does Miss Warren read Greek and Latin?”

“Latin she does, and is just beginning Greek. She’s a wonderfully clever girl, but it’s difficult to get her to talk. I am sure you will find her interesting when you have had opportunities of talking with her.”

They were now in an ordinary hot-house. Isabel pointed out the plants which interested her.

“I have just had a visit from my lawyer,” she said, as she plucked away some dead leaves. “What tedious people lawyers are, and so dreadfully indispensable.”

“I suppose I passed him on the drive.”

“No doubt. But I mustn’t speak ill of the good man; he came all the way from London to save me a journey.”

They moved about for a few moments in silence.

“There’s nothing here to look at, really,” Mrs. Clarendon said. “If I could afford it I should have the place kept in good order; but I can’t.”

She did not appear to notice the look of surprise which Kingcote was for a moment unable to suppress. Leading the way back to the rotunda, she placed a loose cushion and seated herself. The warmth here was temperate, not more than the season required for comfort.

“So you don’t study?” she began, with friendly abruptness, when she had pointed to a place for her companion. “What, then, do you do? I am rude, you see, but—I wish to know.”

“I wish I could satisfactorily account for my days. I read a little, walk a good deal, see the Vissians now and then–”

“And cultivate ennui—-isn’t it so? A most unprofitable kind of gardening. I believe you are thoroughly miserable; in fact, you are not at much pains to hide it.”

“Scarcely as much as courtesy requires, you would say. I wish I could be more amusing, Mrs. Clarendon.”

“I don’t ask you to be amusing—only to show yourself a little amused at my impertinent curiosity. Why should you have so forgotten the habit of cheerfulness?”

“The habit?”

“Certainly. Is it not a habit, as long as we are in health?”

“In people happily endowed, I suppose. Temperament and circumstances may enable one to keep a bright view of life.”

“Rather, a reasonable effort of the will, I should say. I am often tempted to be dreary, but I refuse to give way.”

Kingcote smiled, almost laughed.

“You think I have nothing to be dreary about?” she asked, gazing at him as if trying to read his thoughts. “That is a mistake; I don’t speak idly. It would be excusable enough if I lost my cheerfulness. But with me it is a habit. Under any circumstances there’s a great deal of entertainment to be got out of life. Of course, if one puts oneself under the most unfavourable conditions—goes to live in a remote hermitage, shuts oneself from social comforts, reads doleful books about funeral urns–”

She caught his eye, and broke off with bright laughter.

“You don’t care for Sir Thomas Browne?” he asked.

“I shouldn’t be honest if I said I did. I am afraid that kind of reading is beyond me. Ada—Miss Warren—enjoys it; but she is intellectual, and I cannot pretend to be.”

“What do you read, Mrs. Clarendon?”

“The newspapers, and now and then a novel—voilà tout!”

“There are better things than books,” observed Kingcote.

A footstep was heard in the inner house.

“Is that you, Reuben?” the lady called, causing the gardener to put his head through the door with the admission, “It be me, ma’am.”

She exchanged words with him, then proposed to Kingcote that they should go to the drawing-room for tea. On their way she paused in the hall, with talk about the panelling. Pointing to a fox’s head:

“A trophy of last season. We killed, that day, a couple of fields behind Wood End.”

Tea appeared in a few minutes. As Isabel poured out two cups, her guest made a feint of closely examining a framed photograph of Knightswell, which stood on the table. He was less at his ease than on the tiled floor of the conservatory; the dried mud upon his boots showed brutally against the dark carpet, disposing him to savage humorousness. He became aware that the beverage was silently held out to him. Her own cup in hand, Mrs. Clarendon reclined in her chair, and gradually her eyes fixed themselves upon him. He was conscious of the look before he returned it, and, speaking at length, did so as if in reply to a question, though himself interrogative.

“Did you ever visit a London hospital?” Isabel manifested no surprise; her face had even a quiet smile of satisfaction.

“Yes,” she answered. “I once went to see a servant in St. Thomas’s.”

“Ah, I was studying there—let me see, six years ago. My father was a medical man, and determined that I should be the same. At his death I gave it up; I hadn’t finished my course.”

“It was not to your taste?”

“I loathed it. My bad dreams are still of hospital wards and dissecting-rooms. I cannot bear to see the word ‘hospital’ in print. The experience of those years has poisoned my life, as thoroughly as a slip of the lancet would have poisoned my blood.”

“Had you that dislike from the commencement?” Isabel asked, after putting down her empty cup, and crossing her hands on her lap with an air of attention.

“No, not in the same degree. I thought this profession would do as well as another. I believe I even had philanthropic glows now and then, and perhaps even a period of scientific interest. The latter did not survive the steps from theory to practice; the former–”

He made a motion with his hand, and smiled.

“The very last thing I should ever have associated with you,” remarked Isabel, with puzzled thoughtfulness.

“A philanthropic zeal?”

“I didn’t mean that, but I am not sure that I mayn’t include it. Please go on.”

Kingcote was resting his forehead on his palm; he resumed without raising his eyes.

“My father practised at Norwich—by-the-bye, our friend, Sir Thomas Browne’s city. When he died, I went to live with my mother for a while; my sister had just married and gone to London, and a sister of my fathers shared our house. I thought of all sorts of things—law, literature (of course), even commerce. For I had a small capital—some shares in a joint-stock bank; they gave me a sufficient income, and I could realise when I needed. For a year I made plans; then of a sudden I found myself in Paris. You know the Continent?”

“I was in the Riviera for a month, some years ago,” Isabel answered, without interest. “I can’t afford to go abroad now.”

It was the second time she had used this phrase. Kingcote watched her countenance.

“What took you to Paris?” she inquired, ignoring the diversion.

“Nothing. I was turning over an old Bradshaw, and details of the journey caught my eye. Next morning I left Norwich. I was abroad two years.”

“In France all the time?”

“No. France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. Perhaps I saw the countries all the better for the necessity I was under of travelling very cheaply—so cheaply, indeed, I wonder how I did it. I walked oftener than rode, and dispensed with hotel dinners whenever possible. I have a diary of the two years’ travel.”

“You will let me read that?” Isabel asked quietly.

He hesitated; his eyes fixed absently on the windows.

“Yes, I will let you read it. It is foolish, boyish; I dare not read it myself.”

“For what reason?”

“Because there is nothing I hold more in horror than the ghost of my former self. I deny identity,” he added with sudden bitterness. “How can one be held responsible for the thoughts and acts of the being who bore his name years ago? The past is no part of our existing self; we are free of it, it is buried. That release is the pay Time owes us for doing his work.”

Isabel regarded him earnestly; her cheek gathered a warmer hue for a moment.

“You may read it if you care to,” he resumed, falling back to calmness. “There is no one else to whom I would show it.”

Isabel waited for him to continue. He sat, bent forward, his hands about one knee.

“And you returned to England with plans?” she asked at length, finding him persevere in silence.

“No, only with experience. I came back because I had news of my mothers illness. She was dead and buried before I got home.”

“It strikes me as curious,” he resumed rapidly, “that my childhood, boyhood in fact, has utterly gone from my memory. I suppose that is why I have such slight sympathy with children. I have often tried desperately to recover the consciousness of my young days: it has gone. My father, my mother, I cannot, recall their relations to me, nor mine to them. Nay, facts even have left my memory. I know scarcely anything before the beginning of my student years, and even those are vanishing, I find. I live only in the present.”

“But the future?”

“No, from looking forward I shrink as much as from looking back.”

There was another silence.

“But since you returned to England?” Isabel inquired, “have you never thought of another profession?”

Kingcote laughed.

“I had crazy projects for studying art. Gabriel put that into my head. But my zeal did not last. It is the same in everything; I lack persistence.”

“And you have–”

“Done nothing, you would say,” Kingcote supplied in the pause she made. “Literally nothing; wasted my time, lost my best years. The necessary consequence of being made up of wants, without the powers which could satisfy them. At present I am engaged in the first work I have done for years.”

“At last, then!” Isabel exclaimed.

“Yes, the work of resigning myself to being nothing, of casting off the last foolish flattery of self-conceit, of resolutely bidding myself understand that fate will bear any amount of idle fuming and remain unchanged. It is a task which has its difficulties; rather harder, on the whole, than the realisation of death. Did you ever force yourself to realise death, not to admit it in idle words, but to–”

Isabel motioned him to silence; her face was darkened with a look of pain, of fear.

“Forgive me,” he said in a lower voice; “to me it is such a familiar thought. I talk so seldom that I forget the difference between reflection and conversation.”

She spent a moment in clearing her mind of the disturbing thought—it seemed strangely disturbing, and at length banished it with the laugh occasioned by a new idea.

“I wonder,” she said, changing her attitude, “what you–”

“You were going to say–?”

“You spoke of having thought of commerce. Suppose you had become a man of business, and had made your fortune, what would your views of life be?”

“Who can say? To begin with, I should only have ruined myself; no fortune would ever have come in that way. Conceiving that it had, why I should not be the same person that I am. Circumstances are the mould which give shape to such metal as we happen to be made of. The metal is the same always, but it may be cast for mean or for noble uses.”

“I do not think,” Isabel said with gentle reassurance, “that Fate uses the nobler metals, for mean service; it has abundance of the poorer stuff at hand.”

“That is very well said; if I dared apply it to myself I might yet live awhile in the old fools paradise. But there is one gain which saves my past years from utter vanity—I have learnt to know myself.”

“Have you?”

Kingcote smiled.

“You say that sadly. Yes, you are quite right. Self-knowledge, in my case, is equivalent to disillusion, loss of hope.”

“I meant nothing of the kind,” she rejoined, after reflecting a moment on the intention of his words, which she had not at first quite caught. “I doubt whether you do know yourself. If you did, you would have more confidence.”

“That is the kindness natural to you. But,” he added, softening the words by his tone, “you do not know me.”

“No—not yet. It is not easy to know you. I cannot judge you by other people.” Kingcote rose and walked to the fireplace; Mrs. Clarendon watched him, but kept her seat.

“You know many people,” he said, speaking with his peculiar abruptness, which was quite different from the tone of mere familiarity, seemed indeed rather to accentuate the distance between them.

“Many,” Isabel returned, “in a way.”

“It must be strange to have so many acquaintances. It gives you the sense of belonging to the world; you do not stand on the outside and look on.”

“In a theatre—watching from an uncomfortable back seat? The stage is open to you.”

“And the parts? Even if I were cast, think of my poor memory. The words are so hard, so artificial. At most I could play the walking gentleman, and in truth I have no mind for that.”

Isabel smiled, as if involuntarily, and, after glancing round the room, quitted her seat.

“A friend is coming in a day or two to stay with me,” she said; “not a mere acquaintance, but really a friend. I should like you to meet her: you won’t refuse?”

He looked at her and hesitated.

“You can’t help liking Mrs. Stratton. She has been my nearest friend for years.”

“I may be gone,” Kingcote said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Gone? But you have no intention of leaving?”

“Yes, a half-intention.”

“To return to London?”

“I suppose so.”

She kept silence, and he added:

“My sister’s husband is ill. Circumstances might compel me to return.”

“But you are not summoned? You won’t leave your cottage unless there is a necessity?”

“Perhaps not; yet I can’t be sure. I act very much on impulse.”

“That phrase reminds me of some one—a very foolish young man, whom you don’t at all resemble.”

“Some one you know?”

“One of the many; never mind him. But you will not be gone before next Wednesday; that we may take for granted; unless, of course, you have bad news. You will come and lunch with us on Wednesday?”

“With yourself and Mrs. Stratton?”

“And Miss Warren. I want you to know her better.”

“Yes, I will come, if I am still at Wood End.”

He held his hand to take leave. Isabel retained it as she spoke.

“In any case you will not go without coming to say good-bye?”

“I could not easily do that, Mrs. Clarendon.” She went with him into the hall, and, when he had left the house, watched him from the drawing-room windows till the trees intervened.

CHAPTER XI

To Mr. Vincent Lacour, issuing from the precincts of the South Kensington Museum, and about to walk towards the railway station, came the vision of a face that he knew, borne past him in a hansom cab, which in a moment stopped. It was raining slightly. Lacour used his umbrella for self-concealment, and, at the same time, contrived to watch his acquaintance descending from the vehicle. She (it was a lady) handed up her fare and passed into the Museum.

The young man invoked aloud the divinity of Jingo.

“A minute later,” he continued to himself, “and we should have come face to face with her. A chance meeting, of course; why shouldn’t people have met by chance? But I’m glad she didn’t see us together.”

A miserable, drizzly day; the sky and earth a uniform mud colour. Lacour watched his boots degenerating. He consulted his watch; it was half an hour past noon. An engagement to lunch with a friend at one stood before him; he disregarded it, and went in pursuit of the lady.

“Come to see Hecuba’s kitchen-pots, no doubt,” he mused. “Yes, there she is! She has a good figure, seen from behind, and she always dresses well. I wonder what countenance she will show me; there’s no foreseeing.”

Ada Warren happened to raise her eyes, and beheld Lacour approaching, a smile of frank surprise on his handsome face. She was startled, and could not help showing it. Lacour, on the other hand, was very much at his ease, talked in a lightly facetious way of the antiquities in the case before them, now and then putting in a personal question.

“You are in town?” he asked by parenthesis.

“I am, for one day.”

“I hope Mrs. Clarendon is well? Turning her thoughts, no doubt, to fox-hunting. You don’t hunt, I believe? No more do I. Fortunate I haven’t the taste, isn’t it?”

Ada made no reply, continuing her inspection of the contents of the case, or appearing to do so. He moved a little away, as if to examine other cases, but was presently at her side again. Her curiosity seemed to be satisfied, and she let her eyes wander rather vaguely.

“Do you often come here?” she asked, as they passed from a little group of people to an uninvaded spot a few yards away. She spoke as though against her will, merely to escape from embarrassment.

“No, indeed; I am here by the merest chance, but a most happy one. I haven’t much time as a rule. The weather drove me out to-day. Are you sensitive to the weather? A sky like this weighs upon me; I haven’t a thought; I can’t follow an argument through three successive lines. You know I’m reading law?”

“I rather thought you had left England.” He looked at her, raised his eyebrows slightly, and shook his head.

“You don’t mean that you wish I had?”

“Why should I wish it?”

“I am used to that feeling in my acquaintances; they exhaust their powers of indirect emphasis in conveying to me the fact that I am de trop. It is refreshing to find one exception, and the one I should have desired.”

Whilst speaking he took out a pocket-book, which contained loose papers; one of these he removed; but only to return it to his pocket together with the book.

“Do I bore you?” he asked, bending his head down to her with graceful expectation of her reply; “or will you let me walk on with you?”

“Is there anything you wish particularly to see?” Ada returned, still in the same mechanical way.

“Yes; I should like you to come upstairs to the pictures. You really understand art; you can help me to appreciate the right things.”

She walked on without hesitation, and they spent nearly an hour in the galleries. It was as though, in consenting to accompany him, Ada had overcome an inward restraint, and was now expanding in a sense of freedom. Her face cleared, her eyes grew bright, her tongue was loosened; she talked of the pictures in a natural, easy, and sensible way, quite without self-consciousness. Lacour was, as always, frankly egoistic; everything became to him a text for effusive utterance on his subjective experiences. As on a previous occasion, he spoke of the artistic instincts which made the basis of his nature, and went on to sketch a plan of aesthetic education, such as he hoped some day to carry into effect. The unction of his self-flattery was irresistible; to listen was to become insensibly as interested in him as he was in himself. The mere quality of his voice was insinuating, seductive and delicately sensual, and the necessity of speaking low when strangers were at hand gave him the advantage of intimate notes and cadences. His faculty for making himself and his circumstances a source of pathetic suggestion did in fact almost amount to artistic genius; there was at times a fall in his voice which caressed the ear like certain happiest phrases in sad simple music, and his eyes would fix themselves on a beautiful picture with an apprehension of melancholy so remote, so subtle, that to perceive its reflection was to feel a thrill on the finest chords of sympathy. Then a lighter mood would succeed, comment would take a humorous turn, not without hints of interpretation generally reserved for masculine colloquy, ambiguities which might or might not be intentional, a glancing in directions whence it is usual to avert the mental eye. At the end of the hour Ada was laughing and talking in a way quite new to her, doing her best to say clever things which yet had no point of sarcasm, even speaking a little of herself, though this was a subject upon which Lacour could not get her to dwell.

“It’s a quarter to two,” he exclaimed at length. “Are you not hungry?”

“I meant to lunch here; perhaps it is time.”

“In that case we’ll lunch together—if you permit it?”

They did so in complete good-fellowship, the only difficulty arising when Lacour desired to pay for both. Ada opposed this, and in a manner which proved her in earnest.

“You return to-night?” he asked, leaning towards her on the table when the waiter’s demands had been severally met.

“To-morrow morning. I stay with friends.”

“At the Meres’?” he asked quickly.

“Yes.”

He fingered a bottle in the cruet-stand, his lips slightly drawn together.

“You do not know them intimately?” Ada asked, observing him.

He shook his head.

“No; they would not be interested in hearing that it was I who spoilt your purposes of study.”

Ada did not reply to this, save by a slight change of countenance. Before he spoke again she saw him take an envelope from the inner pocket of his coat.

“I have something here which belongs to you,” he said, “though it is not addressed. It was written a week ago, but for one or two reasons I delayed putting it in the post. Will you let me be my own postman?”

Ada had just drawn on her second glove, and was preparing to rise. She set her face in hard outlines and remained motionless, her hands on her lap.

“Won’t you save me a penny?” Lacour pleaded with gravity. “Economy is essential with me; I have not concealed the fact.”

Ada’s lips quivered to a smile; she took the letter from where it lay on the table, and moved away without facing him. There was colour on her cheeks.

“Are you going straight to your friends?” Lacour inquired, with some difficulty coming up to her side.

“No; I have some purchases to make. I shall take a cab.”

“I will get you one.”

With every politeness of manner he led her from the door to the vehicle, saw her comfortably seated, gave the driver his orders, and took a silent leave. The envelope was crushed in her hand as she drove away.

Not many days later Mrs. Stratton arrived at Knights well, bringing her youngest boy, a ten-year-old, whose absence from school was explained by recent measles. This lady was the wife of an officer at present with his regiment in Africa; her regret at the colonel’s remoteness, and her anxiety on his behalf in a time of savage warfare, were tempered by that spirit of pride in things military which so strongly infuses a certain type of the British matron, destined to bring forth barbarians and heroes. At the age of forty Mrs. Stratton had four children, all boys; the two eldest were already at Woolwich and Sandhurst respectively, the third at Harrow, extracting such strategic science as Thucydides could supply, boastful of a name traceable in army lists three generations back. These four lads were offspring whereof no British matron could feel ashamed: perfect in physical development, striking straight from the shoulder, with skulls to resist a tomahawk, red-cheeked and hammer-fisted. In the nursery they had fought each other to the tapping of noses; at school they fought all and sundry up through every grade of pugilistic championship. From infancy they handled the fowling-piece, and killed with the coolness of hereditary talent. Side by side they walked in quick step, as to the beating of a drum; eyes direct, as looking along a barrel; ears pricked for the millionth echo of an offensive remark.

At cricket they drove cannon-balls; milder games were the target of their scorn. Admirable British youths!

“How can they make such a milk-sop of that child!” Mrs. Stratton exclaimed when she had renewed her acquaintance with Percy Vissian, summoned to “play with” Master Edgar Strangeways Stratton, and showing no great appreciation of the privilege.

“Percy’s tastes are very quiet,” Mrs. Clarendon explained. “He likes reading more than anything else.”

“What does he read? I’ll examine him. Come here, Percy?” she called; the two ladies were on the lawn, and the boys at a little distance.

Percy looked round and prepared to walk towards Mrs. Stratton, but the other boy suddenly caught his two arms, pinned them behind his back, and ran him violently over the grass.

“Gently, Edgar, gently,” said his mother, smiling reproof. Little Percy stood red and flustered, ashamed at a personal indignity, as children with brains are wont to be.

“Percy,” interrogated Mrs. Stratton, “when was the battle of Inkerman fought?”

The lad shook his head, regarding Mrs. Clarendon appealingly.

“Don’t be ashamed, Percy,” said the latter, holding to him her hand. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“You couldn’t? Ah-yah!” shrieked Edgar Stratton, flinging up his cap and leaping to catch it. He was a fat, bullet-headed boy, generally red as a boiled lobster, supple as an eel.

“Well, you tell us,” ventured Percy, emboldened by the grasp of Isabel’s hand.

“Think I can’t, you silly?—Fifth of November, 1854; began at seven o’clock in the morning. For three hours eight thousand British infantry supported the attack of forty thousand muffs of Russians. Wish I’d been there, don’t I just! Four English generals were killed and four wounded.”

“He knows all the battles like that,” remarked his mother with pride.

She was a short, dark woman, growing rather stout, and with no very graceful walk; her face was attractive, and constantly wore a smile; she dressed with extreme elegance. In converse she displayed a heartiness and independence which were a little too masculine; her hand-clasp was a direct invitation to free companionship, and her manner suggested a rejection of soft treatment on the score of her sex. The military gentlemen with whom she associated spoke of her “pluck”; she was capable, they said, of leading a charge of cavalry; and indeed to see her in the hunting-field was to realise in a measure the possibility. Fearlessness is generally equivalent to lack of imagination, and in Mrs. Stratton’s case the connection was clearly established, but on this very account she was admirable in the discharge of many distinctly feminine duties. In an accident, a sudden calamity, her steadiness of nerve was only matched by the gentleness and efficiency of her ministering zeal. In her nature the maternal element was all-absorbing; to produce and rear fine animals of her species, to defend them if need be with the courage of a tigress, to extend her motherly protection and pride to those she deemed worthy, these were her offices. No man approached her with thoughts of gallantry for all her comeliness, and certainly she thought of no man more warmly than as a jolly good fellow and a boon companion, her husband being at the head of such. The latter’s absence was no harder to bear than that of any valued friend; had she not her boys? These youngsters she would treat with the demonstrative affectionateness which is a proof of incapacity for deeper emotions. She was all instinct, and as intolerant of alien forms of thought and feeling as even an Englishwoman can attain to be. Fortunately the sphere of her indifference was immense; with wider knowledge her lack of charity would have been far more unpleasantly obvious. As it was, she never made a statement which fell short of finality; argued with, pressed to reconsider, she would put the matter aside with a smile and pass on to a new subject—the maternal does not reason.