not measure it. He smoked imperturbably and enjoyed his cigar. He sipped the old brandy. Dorothea had the strange and reprehensible conviction that this indicated heartlessness. Had Harry tossed off three glasses of brandy in swift succession she would have felt more sorry for him. Presently George went to his own room. 'Business?' said Harry, with uplifted brows.

'Business,' replied his sister, coldly.

He knew that I wanted to talk to you.'

'He would have gone anyway.'

Harry said nothing. He had acquired the invaluable habit of shunting disagreeable reflections and conclusions. He was awfully fond of Doll, and it was quite intolerable to think that she had made a mess of her marriage. She must have known what George was like before she married him a good, steady, plodding fellow, with a heart of solid gold, not to mention a dessert service. But Doll had come back from her honeymoon looking as blue as the sodolite from Canada; and had settled down in Park Lane with an amazing indifference to her position, which provoked from Lady Matilda the word 'ungrateful.'

'Have you seen Esther?' said Dorothea.

'Good Lord! What a question!'

'Do you care for her more than you care for anybody else in the whole world?'

'If you put it in that way, of course I do. Why, Doll, what's

up? ›

He saw that her cheeks were red and her eyes sparkling. How pretty she was. All the Ryes were good-looking-except those confounded twins, who had taken after their confounded mother.

6

'If you care for her,' said Dorothea, vehemently, this is the opportunity of your life. It's not easy for a woman to know whether she is wanted for herself, or for her beauty, or her money, or her position, but you can prove to Esther that you want her. Are you going to do it? I suppose mother has been at you? 'We are in a very complicated position.'

Really, Doll, if I hadn't seen you drink water at dinner, I should say that the Dagonet had been too much for you. mad?'

Are you

I am, at last, hopelessly and incurably sane.'

'I don't pretend to understand women. The more they have, the more they seem to want. At any rate, out of regard for the Mater, to whom you'll admit I owe something, and in common decency-Mr. Yorke won't be buried till the day after to-morrowI'm going to mark time.'

'Poor Esther!"

'Suppose she has nothing. George says it's quite possible. Do you think she could be happy on seven hundred a year?' 'Yes.'

'You are quite cracked.'

Dorothea made the last attempt.

If you spoke to Uncle Camber he might-I believe he would -increase your allowance.'

Harry stiffened immediately.

'When I marry I'm not going to pass round the hat. I told Esther that money was not everything, and it isn't to me,' he added with slight emphasis. One can't talk about such things; you know I could have had that little millionairess from Michigan; but first and last I've been faithful to Esther. I'm thinking of her, not of myself.'

Dorothea yawned and opened a book. It was not polite, but it inspired the reflection in Harry's mind that whenever a woman begins by being grossly unfair to a fellow, she generally ends by being rude into the bargain. Shortly afterwards, the young man took his leave and returned to Pont Street, walking home, as the night was fine. He strolled down Park Lane, beholding the motives which inspired marking time by the light of the moon, shall we say, rather than the sun. Had he, after all, done the real right thing? Dorothea indicated a high adventure, a romantic opportunity. Long ago, upon the occasion of his famous century against Harrow, made at a moment when experts in the Pavilion were beginning to fear that a 'rot' was setting in, one of the many gentlemen who write with ease rather than elegance upon British pastimes had described him as lion-hearted.' Our Harry had tried to live up to this transcendent adjective. And, afterwards, in greater matches, when he had valiantly faced the most deadly bowlers in the kingdom, other epithets had been showered upon his embayed head. He was a 'tryer,' he was the famous Old Etonian,' he was 'fearless-dauntless'-' a thruster!' In a rosy-hued paper, where some licence is allowed, he was acclaimed enthusiastically

as possessing-let us turn the monstrous monosyllable into Latinviscera! Many cricketers, apparently, lack these organs. Would Bertrand du Guesclin have turned his broad back upon a dowerless Tiphaine?

Our paladin felt uncomfortably warm when he put these questions to himself. And then, very insidiously, Dorothea's subtle suggestion of an increased allowance from his uncle percolated to the core of his being.

Perhaps George Treherne would do something!

CHAPTER II.

THE PALADIN'S LITTLE MATER.

LADY MATILDA glanced with satisfaction at her pretty drawingroom in Pont Street. To this smiling, good-natured, self-complacent lady possession was not nine-tenths of the law, but the law itself and all the prophets. She loved everything that belonged to her; and she beheld her possessions (we include the children) magnified and embellished beyond compare. Many of the objects upon which her eye lingered with special affection had been bought, at a price considerably below their value, in country curiosity shops and cottages. Lady Matilda invariably offered a sum less than that asked, and, as invariably, she indicated blemishes. But, the articles paid for, blemishes vanished. Her treasures became perfect specimens because they belonged to her. Very seldom indeed did she admire what belonged to others. Even the snuff-boxes at Hertford House left her perfectly calm, although she would rave for a quarter of an hour over a ducky' little Lowestoft teapot which I got, my dear, for a song from a funny old woman in Somerset ; it came to her from her grandmother.'

The world liked Lady Matilda because she was plucky and cheery. Only Lord Camber knew how she managed to pay her bills, but paid they were on the first of every month. Her servants, four in number, did the work of six, not because they received high wages, but because, instead, the kind word in season was never lacking. Lady Matilda kept very careful accounts, but it is doubtful whether she computed the value of the kind word.

She had been the best or the worst of mothers according to your point of view. The least we can do is to believe that she acted according to her lights. No one questioned her devotion.

When it became certain that Esther Yorke was dowerless, Lady Matilda sought and found solace in the contemplation of her furniture, bought before Chippendale and Sheraton became the rage. Each inanimate object represented the triumph of good over evil, accepting as good,' without any perplexing reference to the New Testament, Lady Matilda's own comfortable code of ethics. The Chippendale cabinet, for instance, had been bought at a moment when poor dear Reginald was obliged to give up hunting owing to a weak heart-a condition caused by excessive smoking of cigarettes. The money which hunting represented was spent by Captain Rye upon himself; but in recognition of his wife's devotion as nurse he allowed her to buy the cabinet.

Staring at the cabinet, and faintly smiling, Lady Matilda came to a decision. It was alien to her principles to hit anyone who happened to be down. When down herself, people had been kind to her. Nevertheless it would be mistaken kindness to allow Esther to linger any longer in a fool's paradise. She was fortified in this decision by the strange and unfilial conduct of her Harry, who, for the first time in his life, was withholding his confidence. When she mentioned this to Dorothea, the daughter said coldly: 'I may be to blame. I advised him to marry Esther, money or no money!'

'What!'

'She is a girl in ten thousand.'

'Would George support them?'

If I asked him, George might do something; so might Uncle.' 'I thought my daughter had some pride.'

'Disillusion yourself, mother. I hav'n't a scrap left. Let me add this for your comfort: I don't think Harry will take my advice. He thinks me mad.'

'So do I,' said Lady Matilda, with much asperity for so sweettempered a woman.

Of course she knew in her heart that Harry was quite likely to take any advice happening to chime with his inclinations, which at the present moment must be ringing a wedding peal. And if, as was more than probable, Dorothea had indicated the heroic opportunity, the high adventure, Harry might do something rash, because he was Reginald Rye's son, with his father's seductive blue eyes and, latent within him, that father's recklessness and contempt of consequence. Years of patient training might be obliterated in one ill-inconsidered moment.

Instinct told her that moment was at hand. Thanks to her, the first and second and third interviews between the young people had produced nothing more fervent than protestations of sympathy and friendship. Harry was marking time. But now the worst was known. Esther had nothing but her frocks and her trinkets. Harry could mark time no longer, and that odious friend of his in the Foreign Office was a sentimentalist, a love-and-a-cottage simpleton !

Lady Matilda took a last look at the cabinet, and went upstairs. She arrayed herself carefully in black and lavender, and, on her way to Palace Gardens, stopped at a florist's to buy a large bunch of Parma violets. These, with an affectionate kiss, she presented to Esther, who had wit enough to scent the Danaan nature of the gift.

'I suppose Harry has told you everything?' began Esther.

'Yes,' said Lady Matilda with bland assurance. If Harry had deliberately hidden anything of importance, this full-throated 'yes' might bring it to light.

'I hav'n't a halfpenny,' said Esther. To be accurate' she added, there is a small sum which will keep me alive till I get work.'

'Work? What work, dear?'

'I'm thinking of the stage. Why not?'

The interrogation had an uplifting note of defiance. Some of Esther's friends had answered the question in a spirit of indignation and finality. Esther, it was pointed out, had no affiliations with the stage; she had exhibited no special aptitudes for such a profession; the competition was heart-breaking and everlasting; and the associations with persons regarded, until quite lately, as rogues and vagabonds must be stigmatised as lowering and undesirable. One friend, Mrs. Rockingham Trigg, had offered Esther the situation of companion to an aged and infirm aunt, who lived in Eaton Place, and was willing to pay thirty pounds a year, with board and lodging, to an amiable, ladylike young person. Esther replied that Eaton Place was too far from the Thames. When her astonished visitor demanded an interpretation, Esther laughed, pleasantly enough, and said: 'You see I could never drown myself in cold blood. The walk from Eaton Place to Westminster Bridge would take all the starch out of me.' The good Samaritan went away shaking her head. She remarked to her aunt: Not even Providence can help those who refuse to help