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 PR 6025.A779C6 Tmo" ""''^ 
 ...J'.'js Clintons, and others. 
 
 3 1924 013 653 328 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013653328 
 
THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
NEW NOVELS 
 
 THE 
 
 SWORD OF LOVE 
 
 
 MORAY DALTON 
 
 THE 
 
 DARK RIV&R 
 
 
 SARAH .GERTRUDE MILLIN 
 
 THE 
 
 FOOLISH LOVERS 
 
 
 ST. JOHN ERVINE 
 
 MARY-GIRL 
 
 
 HOPE MERRICK 
 
 THE 
 
 CHEATS 
 
 
 MARJORIE BOWEN 
 
 THE 
 
 BANNER 
 
 
 HUGH SPENDER 
 
THE CLINTONS 
 
 AND OTHERS 
 
 hy 
 ARCHIBALD MARSIf ALL 
 
 Author of ' The Graftons,' Etci 
 
 LONDON: 48 PALL MALL 
 
 W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD. 
 
 GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND 
 
/\^"g^1 
 
 20 
 
 CopyrigM 
 First Impression, February, 1920 
 Second ., February, 19M 
 
TO 
 
 E. C. BENTLEY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 KENCOTE 
 
 "IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 
 
 THE BUILDER 
 
 AUDACIOUS ANN 
 
 THE BOOKKEEPER 
 
 THE SQUIRE AND THE WAK 
 
 MSB 
 
 I 
 
 33 
 
 88 
 105 
 208 
 229 
 
KENCOTE 
 
 The narrow streets of the City resounded with the 
 clangour of church bells. It was a sunny morning in 
 late September, and such of the citizens of London as 
 still resided within the botmdaries were making their 
 way, with their wives and families, to their respective 
 parish churches, which were sometimes so close together 
 that a stone thrown from one tower or steeple could 
 have hit another. 
 
 The beUs of the City still ring out on Sunday mornings 
 and evenings, but they call few parishioners to church. 
 The streets, so thronged on week days, are a desert; 
 for the citizens of London now live elsewhere, and those 
 that are left of the fine old dwelling-houses are let out 
 into offices, and may deliver up the children of an 
 occasional caretaker to the ministrations of religion, 
 but never a well-to-do City family out of all those 
 that used to inhabit them. 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth centvuy, the 
 exodus had already begun. City magnates lived in 
 Bloomsbury or Holbom, or in the nearer suburbs, or 
 had migrated to the pleasant villages of Dulwich or 
 Hampstead, where they could enjoy complete rurality 
 within a few miles of their offices and warehouses. 
 
 But there were some who clung to the old ways of 
 living; and most of the tradespeople within the City 
 boundaries still lived over their shops. So that on this 
 fine Sunday morning the streets were quite respectably 
 
2 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 filled with churchgoers, dressed in their sober best, 
 most of whom were inclined to congratulate themselves 
 on the retiuTi of the day which closed all the shops and 
 offices and opened all the churches. For our great- 
 grandparents were more regular in their habits than 
 we are, besides being greater sermon-fanciers; and the 
 weekly change of habit stood for a good deal to them 
 for which nowadays we go farther afield. 
 
 Making for the fine church of St Stephen's, WaU- 
 brook, hard by the Mansion House, was a family more 
 typical of the City in appearance than it was in actuality. 
 The head of it, John Chnton, a prosperous merchant 
 in the silk trade, looked the part, indeed, to the life. 
 He was not much past fifty, but with his portly presence 
 and deliberate well-satisfied air he appeared to be a 
 man of substance who was quite content with the 
 position in which he found himself, and would feel out 
 of place in any other. His wife, too, in her rich silks, 
 which were yet not quite in the mode, would have 
 been taken anywhere for a city dame; and her 
 parentage was purely mercantile, not to say aldermanic. 
 But John Clinton belonged by birth to the landed 
 gentry, and came of a very old and honourable family. 
 He had been apprenticed to trade in his youth, as was 
 sometimes done in those days in the case of yovmger 
 sons, and had prospered as a merchant by his own 
 capacity and diligence. He loved the City, and still 
 lived there; but whenever his eldest brother, who was 
 unmarried and something of a rake, should die, he 
 would succeed to the family estates, when he had 
 every intention of transforming himself into as capable 
 a country gentleman as he had been a City merchant. 
 
 The family with which this fortunate pair had been 
 blessed, and which now accompanied them in their 
 deliberate, arm-in-arm progress, consisted of three sons 
 and one daughter. 
 
KENCOTE 3 
 
 The eldest son, a lean, hard-bodied young man in a 
 military surtout, had just been invalided home from 
 India, where he had been fighting and marching for 
 four years under General Arthur Wellesley. The 
 second had a look of freshness which seemed to bespeak 
 a country rather than a town upbringing. He had 
 been educated at the Merchant Tailors' School, and 
 was shortly going on to St John's College at Oxford, 
 with a view to Holy Orders and the family living. He 
 was a good scholar, but his passion was for the sports 
 of the field, which he had had more opportimities of 
 enjoying than usually falls to the lot of city-bred youth; 
 for he had spent many of his holidays with his uncle, 
 the present rector of Kencote, in Meadshire, where lay 
 the Clinton estates. 
 
 Neither of these two young men had any of the air 
 of the City abobt them, but the third, who was still 
 at Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, where, 
 being rather delicate, he had been sent on accoimt of 
 the good air, seemed cut out to succeed his father in 
 business, as it was intended that he should do. He 
 had a clever, rather sharp, but by no means cimning 
 face, and much preferred spending his holidays within 
 sound of Bow Bells than among the fields and woods 
 that surrounded Kencote. 
 
 The little girl of seven, who held her mother's hand, 
 and tripped it sedately, in her long high-waisted frock 
 and boimet trimmed with swansdown, was the prettiest 
 fairy imaginable, and might be expected to turn the 
 heads of whatever male society she should find herself 
 in by-and-by, whether it was that of the city or the 
 country. 
 
 The churches gradually filled, the clocks chimed the 
 hour, and the beUs ceased their clamour, which was 
 taken up on a more subdued note by the drone of organs 
 and the singing of choirs and congregations. The 
 
4 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 autumn sun shone on the shutters and barred doors 
 of the shops, and on streets nearly empty of human 
 life, the few foot passengers hurrying along somewhat 
 shamefacedly, as if aware that absence from church 
 at that hour threw doubts at least upon their respecta- 
 bility, if not upon their orthodoxy. 
 
 This consideration did not appear to affect the 
 occupant of a smart-looking cabriolet which drove 
 down Cheapside an hour or two later, just as the first 
 efBux from the churches was begiiming. He was a 
 man at first sight young, at second middle-aged, if not 
 elderly. He was foppishly dressed, and wore his hair 
 in the new style, curled and pomatumed but not 
 powdered. Probably it was his only by purchase, for 
 its light brown tinge belied the crowsfeet that showed 
 on his face, although it was in accord with his slim 
 laced-up figure. 
 
 The high-stepping horse was drawn up with a flourish 
 before the door of John CUnton's handsome porticoed 
 house in Bucklersbury, the diminutive groom hopped 
 from his perch to ring the bell, and, when it was 
 answered, took his place at the horse's head, while 
 his master entered the house, not without elderly 
 bendings and adjustments of legs and back. 
 
 He was shown into a severely furnished parlour, and 
 by his expression, which was one of boredom and some 
 contempt, did not appear to find himself in congenial 
 surroundings. Not to keep so important a personage 
 any longer unintroduced — ^he was John Clinton's eldest 
 brother, owner of Kencote and all its wide lands, but 
 a resident there as Utile as possible and a landlord who 
 considered his duty towards his tenants accomplished 
 when he had taken as much from them as he could, 
 and given as Httle as possible in return. 
 
 He Wcis known as Beau Clinton, had been a dashing 
 man about town for the past thirty years and more, 
 
KENCOTE 5 
 
 and a crony of that pattern of royal grace and virtue, 
 the Prince of Wales, for longer than most of his kidney 
 managed to retain the somewhat precarious position. 
 He had run through a fine fortune years before, had 
 .piled up mortgages on Kencote as long as any one 
 could be found to advance money on it, and was getting 
 deeper into debt every day. But he had always kept 
 the highest company and lived in the most fashionable 
 part of the town, and could hardly be expected to wait 
 in a citizen's parlour without showing ^ome signs of 
 disgust, even though that citizen was his own brother, 
 of blood Eis good as his, who had been steadily amassing 
 a fortune while he had been dissipating one. 
 
 He was at the window when his brother and his family 
 returned from church, and saw the disapproval on the 
 Merchant's face as he looked at the smart equipage 
 standing before his door. 
 
 But John Clinton came into the room, followed by 
 his family, with no trace of that disapproval visible. 
 The Merchant did not approve of the Beau, but he 
 was his eldest brother and the head of his house, and 
 would always be given a welcome whenever he honoured 
 him with a visit. 
 
 He was now cordially pressed to stay and dine, but 
 while he poUtely concealed his disgust at the idea of a 
 man of his fashion eating his dinner at such a time of 
 the day, and within an hour of his having taken his 
 morning chocolate, his refusal was firm. He had come 
 to see his brother on a little matter of business, and 
 must then be getting back to the other end of the town. 
 But he was not in such a hurry as to refrain from a 
 few compliments to his sister-in-law, a word or two to 
 each of his nephews, and the graceful presentation of 
 a box of French sweetmeats to his little niece. Then 
 the family filed but of the room, and the brothers were 
 left alone together. 
 
6 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'I do not like transacting business on the Lord's 
 Day, Richard,' said the Merchant, as he closed the 
 door, 'and if yours has an}d;hing to do with raising 
 money, as seems probable, I must tell you at once 
 that your visit will be wasted.' 
 
 The good man was ruffled at the refusal of his 
 hospitality, and his patience with his brother's financial 
 habits had long since worn thin. 
 
 'La; my dear Jack!' replied the Beau, 'how you 
 take one up ! It is a very small matter I have come to 
 you about, and I have something to tell you at which 
 you will be as pleased as I. You have always twitted 
 me with neglecting Kencote, and perhaps with some 
 reason. But I have secured an honour for our house 
 which has not come to us before. His Royal Highness 
 intends making a tour through the country to visit the 
 mansions of some of his friends among the high nobility, 
 and he has done me the honour of including Kencote. 
 None of his other' hosts will be under the rank of an 
 earl, and I am naturally pleased with this mark of 
 royal condescension.' 
 
 That the Merchant was not particularly pleased with 
 it might have been gathered from his face. But he 
 would not say a word against one who must very shortly 
 become his sovereign. 
 
 'Well, and what then?' he asked. 
 
 'What then? Why the house must be done up, and 
 some of the rooms refurnished, and the Prince must 
 be entertained in a way that will not compare unfavour- 
 ably with that of the other houses he will visit. He 
 will only be at Kencote one night, and I can do all 
 that is necessary for a thousand pounds, but not less. 
 But for the damnable luck I have had lately I should 
 not trouble you about so small a matter; but ' 
 
 'A thousand pounds!' interrupted the Merchant. 
 "A thousand pounds for one night's lodging, and I am 
 
KENCOTE 7 
 
 to provide it, Richard, after all I have done for you, 
 and for Kencote ! Why not ask for a hundred thousand 
 at once? The proposal is absurd, and you must have 
 known that I should refuse it, as of course I do.' 
 
 The Beau slightly closed his eyes, as if in pain. ' My 
 dear brother,' he said, 'you are so loud and rough. 
 I protest that there is no need for it. Listen to me. 
 The bulk of the money will go to restoring the house, 
 which is in a devilish bad state of repair, and to 
 refurnishing the apartments which the Prince will use. 
 After my death — ^which it should desolate you to think 
 of, but to which, no doubt, you are eagerly looking 
 forward — Kencote will be yours, and you will get the 
 benefit of this expenditure.' 
 
 'That is so,' said the Merchant, 'but you are quite 
 wrong in thinking that I am looking forward to your 
 death, and it is a wrong thing to say, Richajd. It 
 may be years ^bef ore I succeed^ and I hope it will be. 
 I am very well content as I am for the present, and 
 it is quite possible that I may die before you. But in 
 the meantime I shall not spend money in doing up 
 Kencote for your benefit, nor even that of His Royal 
 Highness, if he proposes to stay there no more than 
 one night; and you may take that as settled.' 
 
 The Beau closed his eyes again, with the gesture that 
 so irritated his brother. 'There is another considera- 
 tion,' he said. 'I have had no promises; no promises 
 could be given. But our family is a devilish old one 
 — a good deal \older than that of most of the noble 
 lords on whom our Prinny is to shed the Ught of his 
 august countenance. When he comes to the throne, 
 which must be very soon now, there vnH be honours to 
 be bestowed on those who are worthy of them. I dare 
 say you take me.' 
 
 The Merchant looked puzzled for a moment. Then 
 his frown deepened. 'If it is a title you are aiigling 
 
8 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 for, Richard,' he said, 'I think you should take shame 
 on yourself for such an idea. We Clintons have been 
 at Kencote for over five hundred years, and want no 
 titles to gild our gentility; least of all titles that are 
 bought. Besides, a title conierred on you would die 
 with you. Why should it tempt me to give you money? 
 I will not do so; and if you have nothing more to say 
 to me I will now go to my dinner.' 
 
 The Beau knew enough of his brother to avoid wasting 
 his time in persuasion, when he had expressed himself 
 in this way. He rose from his chair with a languid, 
 fine-gentleman air. 'I was about to say that it is not 
 unknown for honours to be conferred with succession 
 to brothers and nephews,' he said. 'But it is useless 
 to talk to you when you are in your business mood. It 
 is one, I do not understand, and cannot cope with. I 
 will wish you farewell. Brother Jack, and beg you to 
 consider that I am not yet past the marriageable age, 
 and ' 
 
 'You have held that threat over me before,' said the 
 Merchant, now thoroughly angry. 'In God's name 
 marry if you wish to, and settle down into a more worthy 
 head of our family than you have yet shown yourself.' 
 
 'I will also say,' added the Beau, unmoved by this 
 outburst, 'that there are ways of raising the pitiful 
 sum you have refused me which will probably suit you 
 less than lending it to me would have done. His Royal 
 Highness will come to Kencote, and will be suitably 
 entertained there. Good-morning, Brother Jack.' 
 
 II 
 
 Somewhat restored to his equanimity by a good dinner, 
 
 the Merchant sat over his wine with his two elder sons. 
 
 The Beau had succeeded in offending all three of 
 
KENCOTE 9 
 
 them. Young Thomas had fought with distinction at 
 Assaye, and been wounded at Argaum, rather seriously. 
 His imcle had had Uttle to say about that, but had 
 asked after various young lordlings- campaigning with 
 the Guards, or on the staff of General WeUesley, whom 
 he, as ensign in a regiment of the line, had not been 
 likely to meet. 
 
 Young Giles had taken a scholarship from the 
 Merchant Tailors' School to St John's College, and 
 the Beau had expressed regret that he had not been 
 sent to Eton and to Trinity College at Cambridge, at 
 which aristocratic foundations he himself had laid the 
 foundations of his spendthrift career. 
 
 Their father had once more been outraged at being 
 treated with disdain as a mere 'cit,' by a brother who, 
 if he had worthily fulfilled his responsibUities, would 
 have been a richer man than he was, and who had 
 allowed the fine house in which they had been brought 
 up together to sink from, its honourable state into one 
 of almost entire desertion. It was this contemptuous 
 treatment that always aroused his gorge. If his brother 
 had come to him in a proper way, he might have let 
 him have the money that he wanted; for it was true 
 that he would eventually have the benefit of its main 
 expenditure, and he would not have been averse to 
 seeing Kencote honoured by a visit from his future 
 sovereign, although his personal opinion of him was 
 not of the highest. 
 
 Now, however, he was actively incensed against the 
 idea, and stUl more so against his brother; so much so 
 that he was ready to discuss him with his sons in a 
 more open manner than would usually have been con- 
 sidered becoming in those days. 
 
 'I think nothing of his threat to marry,' he said. 
 'He would not marry except for money, and he has 
 little to offer in exchange for that now, whatever may 
 
 T.C. B 
 
10 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 have been the case twenty or thirty years ago. It is 
 his threat to raise money in a way that I shall object 
 to that I fear. What will he do? He cannot raise 
 another penny on mortgage.' 
 
 'He can sell timber, sir,' said Thomas. 
 
 'That has been considered before,' said the Merchant, 
 'and I have been able to stop it.' 
 
 'It is being considered again now,' said Giles, who 
 had returned from Kencote Rectory only the day 
 before, 'A man has been staying at Bathgate and 
 has constantly been through the woods at Kencote, 
 measuring and valuing. Uncle Edward and I got it 
 out of him what he was there for.' 
 
 The Merchant's face darkened. 'It is a disgraceful 
 thing,' he said. ' He knows well enough that he cannot 
 touch a stick of timber without my permission.' 
 
 'My uncle said that it would need a legal process, 
 sir, to stop the timber being cut, and that the mischief 
 might be done in the meantime.' 
 
 This was true, and the Merchant's face darkened 
 still more. He would no doubt have legal redress if 
 his brother exceeded his rights as tenant for life, but 
 what was that worth against a man who was practically 
 bankrupt. 
 
 'It would be a wicked thing to do,' he said. ' Kencote 
 has been let down past all belief since my father's tinie, 
 and if the timber were felled it would be beyond bringing 
 round for another two generations.' 
 
 ' I think there is Uttle doubt, sir,' said Thomas, ' that 
 it was timber-felling that he referred to when he 
 threatened you. I had better hasten my visit to Kencote, 
 and keep an eye on what is going on. I promise you, 
 at least, that nothing shall be done without your 
 hearing of it.' 
 
 After considerable discussion, this course was agreed 
 upon. The young ofi&cer, too weak as yet to take the 
 
KENCOTE II 
 
 journey on horseback, travelled down into Meadshire 
 by the stage-coach. He reached the old market town 
 of Bathgate on the second day, and his uncle, the 
 Rector, met him with a chaise and drove him five miles 
 along the miry roads to Kencote^ 
 
 The Reverend Edward Clinton, unlike the majority 
 of his- family, was a considerable scholar. He wasi a 
 fellow of King's College, Cambridge, had never married, 
 but spent a happy life in his snug rectory with his fine 
 library of books and his fine cellar of port. He had 
 been something of a sportsman in his youth, but had 
 grown indolent. Like all the Clintons, with the unfor- 
 tunate exception of the reigning head of the family, he 
 loved Kencote. The only bitter drop in" his cup was 
 the present sta!te of the house and estate. The cottagers 
 among his parishioners were in a bad plight, with roofs 
 letting in the rain everywhere, and doors and windows 
 letting in the wind. This concerned him chiefly because 
 cottages were property, and it was part of the general 
 state of affairs that those in the village of Kencote 
 were being badly let down, with all the rest. In his 
 youth, he and the large family of which he was the 
 third son, had lived in the great house, and there had 
 been merry times there, ,with coming and going of 
 country neighbours, much lavish hospitality, and at 
 least an outward air of prosperity among the peasantry, 
 who had been souped and coaled and blanketed into 
 some oblivion of low wages and inconvenient, though 
 picturesque, dwellings. Now it was as if a bUght had 
 descended upon the pleasant countryside. The great 
 house, which ought to have played a leading part 
 among the other great houses of the neighbourhood, 
 was shut up from year's end to year's end. Not a 
 tenant but what was grumbling, not a wall or a roof 
 or a gate or a fence but needed repair; and worst of 
 all, not a whist table within reach, without taking out 
 
12 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 a horse and braving the dreadful roads, which in -those 
 days were almost impassable in winter. 
 
 The Rector of Kencote was too much of a philosopher 
 to allow these incidental drawbacks to weigh upon 
 him. The roof of his own house was sound enough, 
 and he had beneath it all the materials for the kind 
 of life that suited him. But he had quarrelled fiercely 
 with his brother, the Beau, on account of his treat- 
 ment of Kencote, and felt considerable satisfaction in 
 acting as watchdog over the place, so that its owner 
 should get as much annoyance as might be over the 
 neglect of his duties, and be restrained from depleting 
 its revenues further than he was entitled to do. 
 
 'We've stopped my gentleman from poking his nose 
 into the woods,' he chuckled to his nephew, as they 
 bumped together over the rutty roads. 
 
 'How did you do it, sir?' asked Thomas. 
 
 ' Oh, don't ask me, my boy. I'd nothing to do with 
 it. Some of the villagers seem to have taken a dislike 
 to him. I don't fancy they did him much harm. If 
 he did get his head broken, they'll patch it up for him 
 in London. That's where he's gone back to. Laid 
 an information before me as a magistrate before he 
 went; but it was a dark night — ^he'd lost his horse and 
 cart, I don't know how — cart was found in a ditch 
 next day — and he was walking back to Bathgate. I 
 told him I'd do what I could, but unless he could 
 identify the men who had set on him, I didn't think I 
 could do much. Lots of bad characters about, I said. 
 Wouldn't hear of its being any of my people. They 
 wouldn't do such a thing — ^much too well taught.' 
 
 The Rector went off into a series of chucldes, and his 
 nephew laughed heartily. Then he told his uncle about 
 the prospective honour that was to be conferred upon 
 Kencote. 
 
 'Now there are some men in my position,' said the 
 
KENCOTE 13 
 
 Rector, when he had digested the infonnation, 'who 
 would see a great stroke to be performed for them- 
 selves there. They woiild come bowing and scraping 
 to his Royal Highness, and expect a bishopric to come 
 of it, or at least a deanery. If the Prince comes here, 
 I shall not go near him, Tom.' 
 'My father says he should be treated with respect.' 
 'I shall take myself off. I shall have an urgent call 
 to go to Cambridge. The Beau will expect the village 
 to collect and huzza, with me at the head of it. The 
 village may do what it pleases, but it wiU get no help 
 from me. My brother has played a bad part at Kencote 
 for many years. It is not to be smoothed over, and 
 everything to be made to look happy and prosperous 
 for the occasion. Let him explain my absence to the 
 Prince, if he can.' 
 
 Young Thomas heartily approved of this attitude. 
 Kencote was as the breath of his nostrils to him. 
 When he had lain out on the field of battle, during that 
 long night, he had thought in his fever that he was 
 wandering about its woods and meadows; and after- 
 wards, a factor in his recovery had been the strong 
 determination that he would not die and lose the 
 happy lot that would one day be his, of living in the 
 old house, and taking his pleasure over the broad acres 
 that went with it. 
 
 He was not strong enough for much exercise yet, but 
 he went out the next morning with a dog and a gun, 
 along the village street, and into the park, through- 
 the principal lodge gates. 
 
 The house came immediately into view — a massive 
 pile of red brick, flanked and fronted by high-walled 
 "formal gardens, of a date much older. The stately 
 mansion which had been built at the same time as they 
 had been laid out, had been burnt down about a hundred 
 years before, and this one had been built in its place. 
 
14 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 It was a fine, soKd house, with great high square rooms, 
 and many of them, but it did not suit the taste of 
 that age, which had come to despise red brick, and 
 often disguised it with the newly invented stucco. Nor 
 were the Elizabethan gardens, with their wonderful 
 clipped yews, bowling alleys, fish-ponds, and fountains, 
 any longer admired. Taste had moved on to an 
 artificial aping of nature, and many a beautiful pleasaunce 
 of this sort had been swept away at the hands of 
 'Capability Brown' and his pupils, to make room for 
 vast lawns, and carefully disposed groups of trees and 
 shrubs. 
 
 But young Thomas saw little to complain of in house 
 and garden as they were, if only they had been in 
 decent repair. The gardens were a wilderness. The 
 peacocks and pyramids and arcadings of yew were 
 running wild, the paths were moss-grown, the knots 
 and parterres full of weeds, the fountains choked. He 
 stood by a broken sundial and looked up at the house, 
 the brickwork of which wanted pointing, the woodwork 
 repainting. All the windows were shuttered; no smoke 
 went up from the chimneys. It was a dead husk of a 
 house, forsaken and despised. And yet there were 
 those who loved it, and looked upon it as their chief 
 glory. 
 
 He turned away with a muttered expression of anger, 
 and looked round on the weU-treed park and the thick 
 woods of the surrounding country. The foolish spend- 
 thrift who could leave all this beauty and dignity to 
 rot and decay, while he took his pleasure in the narrow 
 streets of a town, should not bring further ruin upon 
 it, for the sake of an empty honour. The fleeting 
 patronage of royalty was not what Kencote wanted, 
 but the homage of those who would restore it to what 
 it had once been — ^a home,, second to none, in their 
 eyes, in all the broad lands of England. 
 
KENCOTE 15 
 
 III 
 
 The work began. Where had the money come from? 
 
 It was good to see the house aroused from its 
 inglorious sleep. A host of workmen were busy about 
 the structure; others were indoors, painting, papering, 
 cleaning, restoring; others trimming up the neglected 
 gardens, and re-making the road through the park, 
 along which the royal visitor would drive, once when 
 he came, once when he went away. 
 
 Young Thomas watched it all, established relations 
 with the contractors, and acquired information. Although 
 what work was being done was being well done, as 
 all such work was in those days, the restoration was 
 none the less being scamped — ^by order. Nothing was 
 being done to the great expanse of roof, which needed 
 a great deal doing to it; nothing was being done any- 
 where that would not make a show. All this money 
 was being spent so that the house should look as if it 
 were in perfect repair — ^for one day and one night. 
 What should happen to it after that wouldn't matter. 
 
 It was an indignity. Kencote was being turned into 
 a sham and a fraud. 
 
 Money was being paid regularly; the work would 
 not have been undertaken otherwise. They knew the 
 Beau, at Bathgate, where the workmen came from. 
 That was made plain to young Thomas, who hid his 
 chagrin, but vowed that they should come to know him 
 under a very different aspect when he should stand where 
 the Beau stood now. 
 
 The woods were untouched. Nothing more had been 
 seen or heard of the valuer, who had not completed 
 half his work when he had been driven out, in the way 
 that had so puzzled the Rector. Neither he nor young 
 Thomas believed that any deal in standing timber could 
 
i6 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 have been put through; and the merchant's lawyers 
 had been busy. The woods were safe. 
 
 But the Beau had got money somehow, and was once 
 more spending in London on his old scale. That he 
 was in funds, for however short a time, meant mischief 
 of some sort to Kencote, since Kencote was all he had 
 on which to raise it; and those who came after him 
 would have to foot the bill, sooner or later. 
 
 The Merchant was inclined to regret that he had not 
 footed it proinptly. The necessary work could have 
 been done under his own eyes, and in such a way that 
 it would not have to be done all over again by-and-by; 
 and the Beau would not have been gaming at White's and 
 Brooks's, as rumour reported him once more to be doing. 
 
 The Merchant chafed more and more as the days 
 went by, the date of the royal visit drew nearer, and 
 the post brought no news from Kencote to clear up 
 the mystery. 
 
 IV 
 
 The days went by. The Prince had set out upon his 
 tour, accompanied by various of his friends, among 
 whom was Beau Clinton. He was due at Kencote on 
 a Friday evening, but the date of none of his visits was 
 quite certain, ks he was likely to linger in a house that 
 suited him, and might cut out one here and there 
 entirely. He was going as a private gentleman, and 
 was not to be hampered by arrangements cut and dried. 
 On Wednesday evening the Merchant had been 
 drinking tea in his wife's parlour. Giles was away at 
 Oxford, John at school. Only little Betty was with her 
 parents, sitting on a stool by her father's chair, reading 
 in a book. He liked to have her by him, though he 
 often sat silent for a long time together, busy with his 
 thoughts, which his wife and daughter had both been 
 
KENCOTE t^ 
 
 taught not to interrupt by intemperate chatter. He 
 sat silent now, gazing into the fire, his hand some- 
 times caressing the child's fair head. Mrs CUnton plied 
 a busy needle, and sometimes looked up fondly at 
 her little daughter, and then questioningly at her 
 husband's grave face. She knew what was ' now 
 incessantly on his mind, but she could not help him in it. 
 She could only keep quiet and wait for what was to come. 
 
 Upon this peacefiil scene broke in Thomas. He was 
 splashed with mud from head to foot, but looked 
 splendidly strong and virile, as he stood before his 
 parents, with all trace of his illness gone from him. 
 
 'The Prince arrives at Kencote this evening,' he 
 said. 'His visit has been put forward two days. It 
 was only known this morning that he was coming so soon. 
 
 Thomas had ridden all the way from Kencote to 
 London, a hundred and thirty miles, with only two 
 changes of horses, and no rest. His mother would have 
 him eat and drink, and went out of the room with the 
 child whUe he told his father the news, still standing. 
 
 'I know now,' he said, 'where the money has come 
 from. The valuation of timber was a blind to put us 
 off the scent. He has sold everjrthing in the house for 
 three thousand pounds. It is to be stripped directly 
 the Prince has paid his visit, and left it. 
 
 The Merchant sprang from his seat, his eyes flashing. 
 ' He would never commit such an outrage ! ' he cried, 
 but knew as he said it that it was true. 
 
 Most of what the old house had contained in the way 
 of heirlooms had been destroyed in the fire, but the 
 Clinton who had rebuilt it had been a rich man, and 
 had furnished it richly. Family pictures, and other 
 treasures, had been added during the last hundred 
 years, which were of value and interest to the Clintons 
 who should inherit it, but of small value to anybody 
 else. Three thousand pounds was a preposterous price 
 
i8 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 in any case for the contents of such a house, but it did 
 not represent a quarter of their value to a member of 
 the family. 
 
 Why had this outrage not been guarded against? 
 And why had no suspicion crossed the minds of any of 
 them that this was the source from which the Beau's 
 funds had come? Partly because their minds had been 
 running on the Kencote timber, directed thereto by the 
 trickery of the Beau himself; but chiefly because, 
 cynically selfish as he was, he was yet a Clinton, and 
 it would have seemed incredible that he should deal 
 such a blow to the honour of his house. 
 
 But he had done it. The Merchant very quickly 
 recovered his outraged astonishment. The situation 
 must be faced; and perhaps there was yet time to 
 recover the final loss. 'He cannot sell the heirlooms,' 
 he said shortly. 'The rest is his, but it would be 
 difiicult to disengage it. We may be able to upset the 
 sale. How did you know of it ? ' 
 
 'All that will keep, sir,' said Thomas. 'There is no 
 doubt about the facts. My advice to you is to set 
 out for Kencote now, at once.' 
 
 He had remained standing. He spoke quickly, but 
 with great determination. His father, active although 
 deliberate in mind, was yet declining to the bodily 
 inertness of middle age, which was enhanced by the 
 sedentary life he had led for many years. But he 
 responded now to the young man's quickening. 'What 
 to do?' he asked. 
 
 'Why, to confront my uncle before the Prince him- 
 self, if necessary. You will catch him at a disadvantage. 
 Besides, the matter is very pressing. The moment the 
 Prince goes out of the house the people who have 
 bought the contents of it have a right to step in and 
 carry them off. I would have you start at once, sir, 
 within the hour. You can post, and be at Kencote 
 
KENCOTE 19 
 
 before the Prince leaves for Kemsale. If he has already 
 left, you can follow him there. My uncle goes with 
 him to my Lord Meadshire's. I will come with you, 
 if you give your leave.' 
 
 'I will go, Thomas,' said his father, after a moment's 
 hesitation. 'But you cannot do the journey again 
 within an hour of your having ridden here.' 
 
 The young man laughed. 'I would go twice as far 
 for the chance of saving our house,' he said. 'A little 
 meat and wine while you ^prepare yourself, and I shall 
 be ready when you are.' 
 
 An hour later father and son were in a post-chaise, 
 on the road to Bathgate ; 
 
 The travellers reached Bathgate at seven o'clock in 
 the evening of the following day, and on horseback. 
 They had escaped the perils of highwajmien, but those 
 were about the only vicissitudes contingent to such a 
 journey that they had escaped. Much rain had fallen, 
 and once off the great trunk roads the going was 
 execrable. Here and there they had difficulties in 
 getting relays of horses, and time was wasted. One of 
 the postboys was drunk, and took. them off the road in 
 the darkness. Thomas, when he found it out, pushed 
 him off the saddle and left him by the side of the road, 
 while he made his own way back. Two hours were 
 lost over this. When day dawned they had not gone 
 much more than forty miles, and there were ninety 
 more to go. But their troubles were not ended. A 
 wheel came off as they were crossing the high lonely 
 downs which border the county of Meadshire, and they 
 were landed in a ditch, both horses being lamed in 
 the ensuing m&ee. The travellers had to walk six 
 
20 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 miles to the next posting-house, and there they took 
 horse and rode the rest of the way. 
 
 The Merchant was tired out when they reached 
 Bathgate, but his strong spirit upheld him. Thomas 
 seemed as fresh as when he had started, and was very 
 tender to his father, sparing him all that he could, but 
 always pressing on. The Merchant could not have done 
 the journey without him. They rode up to the inn at 
 seven o'clock, and ordered a chaise to take them to 
 Kencote. They could not hear whether the Prince and 
 his party had proceeded to Kemsale, which lay on the 
 other side of Kencote. They ate and drank hurriedly 
 while the chaise was being prepared. ' If they have left 
 Kencote by the time we get there,' said Thomas, looking 
 at his father, ' we must rest, and foUow them to-morrow.' 
 
 The Merchant was already refreshed. 'They must 
 have left,' he said. 'But we wiU follow them to-night.' 
 
 The five miles that lay between Bathgate and Kencote 
 were soon covered. Thomas slept soundly until they 
 reached the village. His father sat thinking. He must 
 keep his wits about him for what was to come. 
 
 There were lights in doors and windows of the cottages, 
 and a group of villagers hanging about the entrance 
 gates. Then the Prince had not left yet. The chaise 
 was stopped and the question asked. He was to have 
 gone two hours before, but no signs of departure had 
 yet become apparent. 
 
 They drove through the gates, along the newly made 
 road through the park, and into the great stable-yard. 
 It was full of bustle — carriages standing there, some 
 of them already horsed, men running to and fro with 
 lanterns and lights everywhere. A groom told them 
 that no orders for departiure had come out yet, though 
 they were expecting them at any time. 
 
 They entered the house by a door at the back. The 
 Merchant meant to walk straight into whatever room 
 
KENCOTE 2t 
 
 his brother was in, and no doubt his royal guest with 
 him. He and Thomas were plastered with mud, their 
 clothes and hair in disorder, their faces unwashed and 
 unshaven — hardly figures to appear before Royalty. 
 But as they strode along the echoing stone corridors, 
 ihere was a dignity and authority about them that 
 prevented any of the servants whom they met from stop- 
 ping them. The back regions of the house seemed tobefuU 
 of servants; they stared, hesitated, and let them pass. 
 
 They came through a door into the great square hall 
 of the house. The black and white marble pavement 
 was partly covered with a fine new Turkey carpet; the 
 carvings and panels of the woodwork had been repainted, 
 the frames of the pictures regilded. This work, at least, 
 was good, and permanent, but it had already served its 
 turn. To-morrow, only the bare walls were to be left, 
 if the Beau had his way. 
 
 All round the hall were tall pedimented doorways, 
 framing solid mahogany doors. The Merchant strode 
 towards the one that opened into the dining-room, his 
 son following him. A lackey in a laced coat came 
 running up to stop him, but he pushed him aside, and 
 both of them went into the room, shutting the door 
 in his face. 
 
 VI 
 
 Althouth the room was very large, and was lit only 
 by wax tapers, there were so many of them that the 
 effect was at first dazzling. A group of men sat and 
 stood at the farther end of the table, on which was a 
 great show of silver plate, with piled-up fruits, decanters 
 of wine, and branched candlesticks, whose lights were 
 reflected in the dark poHshed mahogany. 
 
 The Prince sat in the place of honour, a stout, 
 bewigged figure in black, his neck tightly swathed in 
 
22 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 voluminous folds of cambric, his rotind face swelling 
 up out of it like a great over-blown flower. The Beau 
 sat at the head of the table, half -facing him. ■ These 
 two were the cfentre of the group. The Beau was 
 shaking a dice-box, and looked up to see his brother 
 and nephew standing there as the dice feU on the table. 
 
 In the confusion that followed — ^the Beau expressing 
 outraged horror, some of the others moving to prevent 
 the disordered, mud-splashed figures from approaching 
 the august presence, the Prince staring in surprise, not 
 unmixed with alarm — ^the Merchant's thoughts cleared, 
 and he knew what he wanted to do. 
 
 He advanced a few paces into the room, and made a 
 low bow. 'Your Royal Highness,' he said in a clear 
 voice. ' I and my son have ridden from London to ask 
 justice of you against my brother, Richard Clinton, 
 who has served me a vile trick under the shelter of your 
 Royal Highness's name.' 
 
 The Beau was in a fuiy. He spluttered his anger at 
 his brother's daring to enter the royal presence in such 
 a state, and made towards the bell, to summon servants 
 to turn him out of the room, and out of the house. 
 
 The Merchant stood 'his ground. 'With the utmost 
 respect,' he said, 'I ask your Royal Highness to hear 
 me, and judge between my brother and me.' 
 
 The Prince had recovered his equanimity. It tickled 
 his vanity to be appealed to in this way. He stirred 
 his large body in lus chair, and held up a plump hand 
 covered with rings to the Beau, who had reached the 
 bell-pull by the mantelpiece. 
 
 "Wait a while,' he said. 'Let us hear what your 
 good brother has against you, Dick. I have always 
 knovm you were a proper rascal, and I should like the 
 opinion of a member of your family upon the subject. 
 Your name and cpndition, sir, as a preliminary to the tale.' 
 
 'My name is John Clinton, sir. I am a merchant in 
 
KENCOTE 23 
 
 the City of London, but I am also descended of the 
 family that has been seated on this Manor of Kencote 
 for five hmidred years, and heir presumptive to its 
 estates. They were granted by your Royal Highness's 
 great ancestor, Edward I. The founder of our house 
 was knighted by the King on the field of Falkirk, and 
 Kencote has descended in the direct Une ever since.' 
 
 'A very respectable pedigree,' said the Prince, 
 probably not ill-pleased to be reminded of his own some- 
 what zigzag descent from the great Kings of England. ' A 
 better one than yours by some centuries, I think, George.' 
 
 He turned towards a young man, not much older than 
 Thomas, who stood by his elbow, dressed very soberly 
 but very exquisitely, with a supercilious look on his 
 face. He showed no sign of confusion at being addressed 
 in this way, or at the laughter of his companions. 
 'The name of Brummell is what I have made it,' he 
 said. ' I owe nothing to my ancestors, or to anybody else.' 
 
 Considering that the Prince's favour had launched 
 him on his career of fashion, this was pretty pointed; 
 but he and his royal patron had already begun to fall 
 out, and this was actually the last time that he was to 
 appear in his most intimate circle. 
 
 The Prince took no notice of his speech. ' Your long 
 descent has already been brought to my notice, Mr 
 Clinton,' he said, 'and when you came in we were at 
 the point of discussing whether it would not be fittingly 
 graced with some mark of honour.' 
 
 The Merchant's eye fell upon the dice lying on the 
 table at his elbow. The Beau, who still held the dice- 
 box in his hand, intervened. 'I can assure you, sir,' 
 he said, 'that the little matter of dispute between my 
 brother and myself is not worthy of your attention. 
 Let us continue our — discussion.' 
 
 There was a general laugh at this. 'He is within 
 three throws of his Earldom,' said a handsome 
 
24 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 dissipated-looking man on the Prince's right. ' I suggest 
 that if he wins it, his patent shall be made out to include 
 his brother, the citizen, who looks far more capable 
 of continuing his honourable line than he does himself.' 
 
 The company began to talk and laugh among them- 
 selves at this, but the~ Prince seemed anxious to preserve 
 the air of dignity with which he had begun. 'We will 
 first hear what the worthy citizen has to say against the 
 unworthy Beau,' he said. 'Before you unfold yovir 
 tale, Mr Clinton, you will be better for a glass of wine 
 — you and your son too. Please drink it sitting.' 
 
 He motioned him towards a chair, and a fair-haired 
 young man, with a pleasant expression of face, hastened 
 to pour out two glasses of wine for them. 
 
 The Merchant, deeply angered at what had been 
 going on when he entered the room, but hiding his 
 anger, stood his ground. ' I am deeply sensible of your 
 Royal Highness 's condescension,' he said. 'But I 
 come here as a plain man to plead my cause, not to 
 intrude myself into the company of my betters. What- 
 ever rank we Clintons may have held in the past, we 
 have lived for some generations as quiet country gentle- 
 men, not as men and women of fashion. We have done 
 our best for our tenantry, and we have loved our home. 
 My brother has done neither, and now, as a last injury 
 to his family, he has taken upon himself to sell every- 
 thing that tfiis house contains. The very chair upon 
 which your Royal Highness is sitting, the bed upon 
 which you have slept, the glass from which you drink, 
 with everything else, have been turned into money to 
 jingle in his pockets.' 
 
 There was a shout of laughter. 'So that's where you 
 get your funds, Dick ! ' said the man on the Prince's 
 right. 'His goods and chattels against an Ccirldom 
 that he'll have nothing to support 1 ' said another. 
 ' What a roystering blade it is ! ' 
 
KENCOTE 25 
 
 The Prince laughed with the rest. The Beau threw 
 himself into a chair, and plunged his hands into his 
 breeches pockets. "Tis true,' hfe said, with an air of 
 indifference, 'and 'tis nothing. I would have bartered 
 my barrack of a house itself for a visit from his Royal 
 Highness. If shames me not at all. What does shame 
 me is that this pettifogging tradesman who calls him- 
 self my brother, should ha\?e obtruded himself into his 
 Royal Highness's presence to flourish the bill in his 
 face. He can think of nothing but the biU; but it is 
 not for his paying, and it is an outrage that he should 
 mention it in this company.' 
 
 The Prince looked uncomfortable. He must have 
 known that his friend, the Beau, could not afford to 
 entertain him at aU, arid it could not have been pleasant 
 to him to have the cost of his entertainment brought 
 before him. It was a shrewd stroke on the Beau's part. 
 
 The handsome young man who had poured out the 
 wine leaned forward and looked from one brother to 
 the other, as if to lose nothing of the duel that was 
 being fought between them. Thomas, who had stood 
 as if on parade slightly behind his father, had had his 
 eye on this young man ever since he had been in the 
 room. With his look of health and activity he did not 
 seem to belong to this company, which, with the 
 exception of the posturing Brummell, was made up of 
 men of middle age, nearly all of them of dissipated 
 appearance, and some of them not as sober as they 
 might have been. 
 
 'Begging your pardon,' said the Merchant, 'the bUl 
 will be footed by me sooner or later, as you very well 
 know. And I do not grudge it. It was not for that 
 purpose that I ' 
 
 'You did grudge it,' interrupted th^ Beau, without 
 looking at him. 'You are a rich man, and I came to 
 you for a loan of the wretched sum that was necessary 
 
 T.C. C 
 
26 THE CLINTOKS AM) OTHEHS 
 
 to make my poor house fit for the honour that was to 
 be conferred on it. You thought nothing about the 
 honour, and refused me. If you have come all the way 
 from London to teU his Royal Highness that, I think 
 you had better have stuck to your office stool. What I 
 have sold is mine to sell, and has nothing to do with you.' 
 
 The Prince's bilious looking eyes were fixed upon 
 the Merchant with no great favour. 'If this is true, 
 Mr Clinton,' he said, 'my incHnations are somewhat 
 towards my friend who has entertained me so hand- 
 somely, and made no bother on it, rather than towards 
 one who thought a visit from me of small account.' 
 
 'He has stuck to his desk and made money,' added 
 the Beau, pursuing his advantage. ' I have spent mine 
 in the best of company, and I don't grudge a farthing 
 of it. Tell him to go back to his shop, sir, and worry 
 us no longer.' 
 
 ' What is it that you want of me, Mr Clinton ? ' asked 
 the Prince. 
 
 The Merchant glanced round upon the company. 
 The faces of most of them showed amusement at the 
 awkward position in which he stood, and some showed 
 contempt. Only the handsome young man looked at 
 him with sympathy. 
 
 'I wiU not deny that I Vefused,' he said boldly. 
 'For five-and-twenty years this house of Kencote has 
 been neglected, apd the land that goes with it staved. 
 Five-and-twenty years ago it was a house that a Royal 
 Prince might well have taken a pleasure in visiting. 
 It is so no longer, a;nd I would not support my brother 
 in giving it a false air, for a few hours only.' 
 
 'A careful man, this,' observed Brummell, looking 
 at him and Thomas through his quizzing-glass. 'And 
 he's brought his grooni with him to protect his money 
 bags on the journey. But why should the groom be 
 introduced into this company?' 
 
KENCOTE 27 
 
 It was perhaps Thomas's cold glances of contempt 
 that had aroused him to this wanton and fooHsh attack. 
 For Thomas had also been making comparisons. 
 Brummell and the fair young man were the only 
 members of the company of about his own age. The 
 one he admired for his fresh and open expression and 
 his look of health and activity. The other, of whom 
 he had heard something, and liked nothing that he 
 had heard, seemed to him, who had already done some- 
 thing in the world, to be nothing but an idle conceited 
 fop and hckspittle, aping a superiority to which neither 
 birth nor acliievement entitled him. 
 
 ' I am not a groom,' he said quietly, looking Brummell 
 straight in the face, 'though 'tis true that I can stick 
 on a horse.' 
 
 As Brummell was known to have fallen off one, during 
 his short career as a cavalry of&cer, and broken his nose 
 by it, this stroke was well received by the company, 
 and especially by the Prince. But the Merchant turned 
 to his son and told him to be silent, and the Prince 
 frowned again. ' What is it you want of me ? ' he asked, 
 shortly. 'You have admitted that you did not want 
 my presence here. We need have no more of that.' 
 
 The Merchant paused a moment. 'A hundred years 
 ago,' he said, 'the house that stands where this house 
 now stands was burnt down, and the Clintons suffered 
 the loss of nearly all that it contained. The house was 
 rebuilt and refurnished; for four generations we have 
 enjoyed it. Now comes my brother — a scourge as 
 destructive as the fire — to despoil us again. A word 
 from your Royal Highness would stop the wicked 
 deed. It is not too late. There must be irregularities; 
 there are things here that he has no right to sell. I 
 will repay the money that has already been handed 
 over. I will relieve him of the responsibilities that he 
 makes so light of. I will pay him an annuity as long as 
 
28 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 he lives. Tell him, sir, to make Kencote over to me, 
 and cease from troubling it further.' 
 
 'That I will not do,' put in the Beau. 'It has been 
 suggested to me before. As long as I live I wiU be 
 Clinton of Kencote.' 
 
 'Or Earl of Kencote,' put in the man on the Prince's 
 right. 'Throw the Merchant and his son into the 
 succession, sir, and let him settle for his goods and 
 chattels afterwards.' 
 
 The Prince laughed and bestirred himself. 'It is 
 your throw,' he said to ^he Beau. 'We will finish our 
 own business and then turn to your brother's. Mr 
 Clinton, you are concerned in this little affair. I accept 
 the suggestion made to me on your behalf, and of 
 your son, who can ride a horse.' 
 
 The Beau aroused himself and shook the dice-box. 
 The Merchant took a step forward; his face was red 
 and his eyes flashed. 'It is a disgraceful compact,' 
 he said loudly. 'I will pubUsh it to the world — our 
 good King beset by England's enemies, and his son 
 shaking dice, for money against honour ! ' 
 
 The company sprang to their feet, aU except the 
 Prince, who stared at the Merchant's angry face — ^his 
 own also angered, scandalised, and alarmed. 
 
 'As for you,' said the Merchant, through the hubbub, 
 to his brother, 'I shall appeal to the law. I have 
 reason to believe that you have overstepped it.^ 
 
 He turned on his heel and left the room, showing a 
 full broad back to his future sovereign. Thomas 
 followed him, after a glance at his enemy, who had kept 
 a lofty air of indifference throughout the foregoing scene. 
 
 A group of servants had gathered in the hall; one of 
 them, who had probably had his eye or ear to the 
 keyhole, was nearly knocked over by the Merchant as 
 he came out of the room. He pushed them angrily 
 aside, and strode across the hall, his spurs clanking. 
 
KENCOTE 29 
 
 Before he had reached the door by which he had 
 entered it, the fair-haired young man, who had followed 
 them out of the room, laid his hand on his shoulder. 
 
 'Mr Chnton,' he said. 'I am Humphrey Kemsale, 
 and very much at your service. Let us see this business 
 through together.' 
 
 The Merchant, who had exclaimed angrily at the 
 hand on his shoulder, stood still and looked at him, his 
 fac^e clearing a httle as his eyes met the frank, friendly 
 look of the young man. Lord Kemsale was the eldest 
 son of the Marquis of Meadshire, and the two houses of 
 Kemsale and Kencote had been allies for generations, 
 though of late one had stood high and the other had 
 deteriorated in dignity. 
 
 'I was sent by my father to convoy the Prince to 
 Kemsale,' said the young man, 'where they wiU have 
 been awaiting him these two hours past. It was Lord 
 Beechmont who suggested this throwing of dice after 
 dinner. I think it may serve your turn, if you will 
 wait awhile.' 
 
 The Merchant's face grew dark again. 'So that was 
 my Lord Beechmont ! ' he exclaimed, ' whose family 
 is also allied to mine, but who could do nothing but 
 sneer at my condition of citizen. As for serving my 
 turn, my lord, I promise you that it shall serve the 
 turn neither of the Prince nor my brother. When they 
 get back to London they shall find the town ringing 
 with_the story.' 
 
 'They wiU dread that,' said the young man, with a 
 clear laugh. ' Do you wait in this room, Mr Chnton, and 
 let me go back and deal with the matter on your behalf.' 
 
 He was full of life and energy, and seemed to enjoy 
 the idea of having his finger in the pie. He opened the 
 door of a room brightly lit up, but unoccupied, and 
 with a quick friendly glance and smile at Thomas, 
 went back to the dining-room. 
 
30 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 The room which they entered was that which the 
 Merchant's mother had chiefly used, in the happy days 
 of his childhood. It was full of little things that 
 reminded him of her — ^the spinet open which she had 
 played for her children to sing to, her embroidery 
 frame, her books and materials for writing, the chair 
 and the sofa upon which she had sat. On the walls 
 were many drawings and miniatures of her family, 
 besides older pictures of greater value. All these 
 things his brother — a portrait of whom as a child hung 
 in a place of honour — ^had sold. 
 
 He could hardly hold himself in patience, and came 
 near to choking as his eye fell first upon one thing and' 
 then upon another that brought back memories. 'He 
 shall not do it,' he cried, with his hands clenched. 
 
 'I think he will not do it,' said Thomas. 'I have 
 great faith in Lord Kemsale.' 
 
 'He is kin to us,' said his father, 'though he may 
 not know it. We have come low in the world, and never 
 lower than now, when the head of our house thinks 
 himself so highly distinguished.' He swore a roimd 
 oath at the Beau. 'Why did I come before the Prince 
 as a suitor?' he said angrily. 'His word might have 
 been given to stop this robbery, and he has not given 
 it. He has shown offence instead.' 
 
 'We need care little enough for that,' said Thomas. 
 'Neither you nor I would care to take the road that 
 leads to his favour.' 
 
 'I do not care for it,' said the Merchant. 'Much 
 more offence will be shown when I publish my story. 
 And I care not for that either.' 
 
 In a short time Lord Kemsale came back. He looked 
 both triumphant and amused. 'It has gone our way,' 
 he said. 'Come, Mr Clinton. If I might advise,' he 
 added, turning to Thomas, 'you had better stay here. 
 We shall see each other again, I hope — often.' 
 
KENCOTE 31 
 
 The Merchant followed him into the dming-room. 
 The company was seated, and had something of the 
 air of a judicial assembly, with the Prince at its head. 
 There were no signs of the dice-box. The Beau sat in 
 the same careless attitude as before, but he looked sulky. 
 He did not turn his head as his brother cameinto theroom. 
 
 'Mr Clinton,' said the Prince, leaning forward a 
 little, "you seem to have entirely misunderstood the 
 little pleasantry in which we were engaged when you 
 came upon us. It is now at an end, and in considera- 
 tion of the distiurbance of mind you were undergoing, 
 I overlook the somewhat unusual manner in which you 
 behaved in my presence.' 
 
 The Merchant's anger had not cooledduririghis wait, but 
 he controlled himself sufficiently to bow and say nothing. 
 
 'Your brother,' said the Prince with a smile, 'is one 
 of my oldest and most intimate friends; but I am not 
 altogether bUnd to his little failing^. It would distress 
 me to feel that the hospitality he has offered me has 
 been purchased at the expense of his family, in the 
 way you have brought to my notice. He has consented, 
 at my solicitation, to accede to the request that I 
 understand you have already made of him, and he 
 has so far refused to consider. He will make over his 
 property here to you; the details you can settle between 
 you. But when we leave this house, as we must do now, 
 immediately, we will leave you in undisputed possession. 
 May you live long to enjoy it, and be a better Squire of 
 Kencote than your brother, who is something of a 
 town-lover, has ever been ! ' 
 
 The Merchant's angry thoughts were shot through 
 with a pure streak of joy. That he would have to pay 
 heavily for succeeding before his time, was nothing. 
 He would willingly do that. 
 
 The Prince had turned towards the Beau, and was 
 laughing at him. The Beau rose slowly to his feet. 
 
32 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 ,'I think it is time we were setting forth,' he said 
 languidly. 'This house is distasteful to me, and I 
 want to get away from it as quickly as possible.' 
 
 There was a gener^ laugh, as the Prince also rose 
 to his feet, and the rest of the company with him. 
 
 The Merchant stood aside. The Prince bowed to 
 him as he went out of the room, with a somewhat distant 
 air. Although he had brought about the most desirable 
 solution of the difficulties of so many years, and had 
 played his part handsomely at the end, the Merchant 
 understood that, as the new Clinton of Kencote, he must 
 be content to remain outside the circle of the royal 
 favour. He smiled inwardly at the thought. 
 
 Some of the Prince's followers bowed ironically to 
 him, his .brother passed him without a look or a word. 
 Young Lord Kemsale went last out of the room. He 
 took the Merchant's hand and shook it warmly. 'I 
 frightened them,' he said, with a laugh. 'But you 
 might have been Earl of Kencote by-and-by, Mr CHnton.' 
 
 The Merchant slept that night in a room in his 
 brother's rectory. Before he went to bed, he leaned out 
 of the window and drew into his nostrils the mUd autumn 
 air, sweet with blowing over the woods and fields of 
 the peaceful country. After the rattle of the town, to 
 which he had been used for so many years, the stillness 
 was almost palpable. But he was blissfully in tune 
 with it. His city life dropped from him. He had 
 thrown himself into it and enjoyed it for forty years, 
 and more, but he knew now that it had been nothing 
 but a leading up to this. He was sprung from genera- 
 tions who had lived in this quiet happy comer of the 
 country, and loved it from the bottom of their hearts. 
 What did he want with an earldom ? He had Kencote now, 
 whichhe loved no less than anyof them, andmoney enough 
 to restore it to himself. The bad days for Kencote were 
 over. He was no longer the Merchant; he was the Squire. 
 
^N THAT STATE OF LIFE' 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 Lord Kimmeridge came through the garden door, 
 and looked about him. 
 
 It was twelve o'clock on a fine June morning, and 
 at twelve o'clock on any morning, fine or not, he was 
 generally at work in his laboratory. He wished him- 
 self there now; he was engaged in experiments of 
 absorbing interest, and counted all time wasted that 
 was not devoted to them. Scientific investigation was 
 ' Lord Kimraeridge's passion, and considering his age, 
 which was no more than thirty, he had won for him- 
 self considerable fame, as the owner of an original and 
 daring mind, and a man who was likely to go far. 
 
 Peering with short-sighted eyes over such of the 
 beautiful garden of Steynes Park as was visible from 
 where he stood, and not finding what he was looking 
 for, he took the path that ran along by the house, and 
 gave only one small sigh at the thought of what lay 
 before him. ; 
 
 He made his way through a gateway in an old brick 
 wall, and found himself in another garden; but what 
 he was looking for was not there either, so he went on, 
 between the espaliered apple-trees and the borders of 
 irises, to another archway in yet another brick wall. 
 
 It Wcis not often that he was called upon to sacrifice 
 any of the valuable morning hours to duties that lay 
 outside his chosen work. His mother took nearly all 
 such duties off his hands — she and Mr Brydon, the 
 
 33 
 
34 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 agent, and Mr Clark, the Rector. He had been allowed 
 to go his own way since very early days. 
 
 He had succeeded to his title at the age of fourteen, 
 during his first year at Eton, where he had already 
 begun to strike out a line of his own. He had been an 
 unmitigated 'scug' at school. He had thought about 
 nothing but work, and had not been made 'quite so 
 happy as he might have been as a lower boy. But he 
 had ended by being very well liked. Character tells, 
 even in a society so exacting of orthodox tastes and 
 pursuits as that of a public school; and because he 
 had never faltered in a single one of the tastes and 
 pursuits that he followed on his own account, he had 
 at last been left in peace, as a harmless but amiable 
 crank with something up his sleeve for the future. 
 
 AH his forbears who had gone on to a university had 
 been at Oxford. He expressed a wish to go to Man- 
 chester, or to a German university, but compromised 
 on Cambridge, where he found himself happy, took all 
 the honours available in his branches of study, and 
 began to make his reputation in the scientific world. 
 After that, he made the best of his peculiar circum- 
 stances, fitted himself up a laboratory, at Steynes Park, 
 and, except for occasional journeys to various seats of 
 learning at home and abroad, had remained there ever 
 since. 
 
 He had no brothers or sisters; but a little girl who 
 had lost her mother — a cousin of Lady Kimmeridge's 
 — spent much of her time at Stejmes Park. Her name 
 was Angela Luttrell, and she was about nine years 
 younger than Kimmeridge. 
 
 It was she whom he was looking for now. His mother 
 had told him that she was somewhere in the garden. 
 She had also suggested that he should ask her to marry 
 him; and he was going to do so. 
 
 In a comer of the second brick-walled garden was 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 35 
 
 a glass-house in which he was carrying out certain 
 plant-fertilising experiments. As Angela was not 
 anywhere in sight, he went into this house just for one 
 peep, and remained there for about a quarter of an 
 hour, deeply interested. At the end of that time he 
 came out again, and continued his search. He was 
 extremely conscientious, and when a duty had to be 
 done he lost as little time as possible in getting it over. 
 
 He found her at last sitting by the lily pool, with a 
 book. If he had ever thought about such things at 
 all, he would have thought now what a very pretty 
 picture she would have made, in her soft white frock and 
 her big hat. And when he got nearer to her, in spite 
 of his short sight, he might, without any disloyalty to 
 whatever goddess watches over the investigations of an 
 ardent biologist, have admired unreservedly a face and 
 figure of which no goddess imagined by man in the 
 springtime of the world need have been ashamed. But 
 he only saw a girl whom he liked as well as any girl — 
 if he could be said to like any girls at all — a distant 
 cousin, whose distance he was ready, if she should wish 
 it, to reduce by all the degrees that lay between them. 
 
 She looked up and smiled at him. ' Henry ! ' she 
 exclaimed, 'Whatever are you doing out of doors at 
 this time of the morning?' 
 
 He sat down on the seat on which she was sitting 
 — ^at the other end of it — crossed his knees, and put 
 his hand on the back of the bench, but not with any 
 idea of reaching her with it. 
 
 'My dear Angela,' he said, 'I have come to find you. 
 I have a proposal to make to you.' 
 
 She looked away suddenly, and the pink of her cheek 
 deepened to rose. Then she looked up at him, and 
 smiled again. 
 
 'Yes?' she said. 
 
 He took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them on 
 
36 THE CLINTONS AND. OTHERS 
 
 again. '. My mother thinks it is time I thought of being 
 married,' he said; 'and I quite agree with her that if 
 it is to be done at all it had better be done at once.' 
 
 'Yes, Henry? ' she said again. 
 
 He paused for a moment. He was very conscientious. 
 He wanted to do the thing well, but he had so little 
 experience to go upon. 
 
 'Well, wiU you?' he asked. 
 
 'WiU I what, Henry?' 
 
 'WiU you marry me, Angela?' 
 
 'Thank you very much, Henry; but I think not.' 
 
 'Oh!' 
 
 There was another short pause. What did one do 
 at this point? 
 
 'My mother quite thought you would,' he said. 'At 
 least, she gave me that irtipression. I quite understood 
 from her that she thought^ou would.' 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 'You say no, definitely, Angela^i' 
 
 'I say no, definitely, Henry.' 
 
 •Oh!' 
 
 He seemed a little surprised — not disturbed at all 
 — a little puzzled as to what to say next. 
 
 She came to his rescue. She looked into his plain 
 but not unattractive face, with its firm mouth and high 
 white forehead, from which the hair was beginning to 
 recede, and smiled again. 
 
 'You don't want to marry me very much, do you, 
 Henry?' she asked. 
 
 'My dear Angela,' he said, 'it is not a question of 
 what I want. My mother has pointed out to me that 
 in my position, as the head of a respectable family, and 
 the owner of landed property, with no one to succeed 
 me, it is my duty to marry; and I am quite ready to 
 do my duty.' 
 
 'Is that all, Henry? It is only a matter of duty?' 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 37 
 
 'A pleasant duty,' he said courteously, looking at her 
 with a smile that made his face almost handsome. 
 'Most of the duties connected with my position as a 
 landowner are not so pleasant. I wish I could get rid 
 of them altogether. Still, there they are; and they must 
 be taken into account.' 
 
 He discoursed for some little time on the distractions 
 to scientific work brought about by the pecuUar position 
 in which he was situated, and gave her to understand 
 that if she could see her way to reconsidering her decision 
 he should feel much relieved, and could afterwards 
 take up his work with the prospect of continuing it 
 uninterrupted for the rest 8f his Ufe. He also told her 
 handsomely that he had grown so used to her presence 
 at Ste57nes Park that whenever she was away he missed 
 her, and that his mother felt the same, perhaps even 
 more strongly. This was th^nearest he got to a declara- 
 tion of personal interest. in her. 
 
 She listened to hinj^without interruption, always with 
 the snule on her fa'ce, affectionate and mocking at the 
 same time. When he had quite finished, she said, 
 'Well, thank you very much indeed, Henry; but I am 
 afraid I cannot marry you.' 
 
 She said it with an air of decision that put an end 
 to his very slight pressure of her. He gave a httle 
 sigh, and said, 'Well, I should have liked it if it had 
 been possible.' Then he looked at his watch, and said, 
 ' If you have quite made up your mind, I won't take up 
 any more of your time, Angela. I will get back to 
 my work. There is a clear hour before luncheon.' 
 
 He rose and stood before her. She looked up at him, 
 and said, 'You don't mind my saying 'no' very much, 
 do you, Henry?' 
 
 'Not very much, my dear,' he said, with that regard 
 for strict truth that characterised him. 'Still, I would 
 rather you had said 'yes.' 
 
38 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 With that he left her, and she looked after him as 
 he walked quickly away across the grass, with the 
 student's stoop already fixed in his bearing. Her snyle 
 still lingered, but it had lost its mocking quality, and 
 now only held affection, and perhaps a little regret. 
 
 II 
 
 The three of them met at the luncheon table. 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge was there first. She never waited 
 for her son, and she never feent to remind him that a 
 meal was ready. It would be difficult to rate too highly 
 this almost daily act of self -suppression; for she hated 
 unpunctuality and disorder of all kinds. 
 
 Angela was almost as invariably punctual as she was; 
 and because she was late to-day Lady Kimmeridge quite 
 thought that she was with her son. They came in 
 together, having met by chance in the hall, and they 
 were talking so unconstrainedly that, after one searching 
 glance at them, she allowed herself to believe that what 
 she had so long desired had at last come to pass, and 
 showed her pleasure so plainly — ^to Angela — ^that the 
 girl ran away directly luncheon was over. 
 
 Kimmeridge sat on for a few minutes, smoking a 
 cigarette, and talking about the work on which he 
 was engaged. Lady Kimmeridge always encouraged 
 him to talk about his work. She had no temperamental 
 leanings towards science, but she was a clever woman, 
 and quite capable, after ten years or so of practice, of 
 saying the things necessary to indicate that she was 
 interested in his pursuits. 
 
 But now, as he talked on, oblivious of her state of 
 expectation, she eyed him impatiently. Angela's 
 running away directly the servants had left the room 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 39 
 
 had struck at her confidence. What could have 
 happened? She could wait to know no longer. 
 
 'Henry,' she said, interrupting him. 'I hope you 
 took my advice.' 
 
 He looked at her blankly. She had to say plainly, 
 'Did you speak to Angela?' before he called to mind 
 the occimrence of the morning. 
 
 Even then he looked puzzlejd for a moment, as if he 
 could not quite remember what the conversation had 
 been about. 'Oh, you mean about her marrying me, 
 mother. Yes, I did. Yes, certainly I did. She refused 
 me. I regret to say that she refused me.' 
 
 Poor Lady Kimmeridge looked sadly crestfallen. She 
 saw at once how it had been, and once again she put 
 strong control over herself. 
 
 She had had to do it so often. She knew so well 
 what it was to take every possible pains to lead him up 
 to a point, and to spare him aU trouble in the first 
 difficult steps, and then, when it rested with him to 
 take the one little one that she could not take for him, 
 to have all her carefully laid plans brought to naught. 
 
 Well, he was like that. Nothing she could do or say 
 would alter him. So she did and said nothing on such 
 occasions, but began all her work over again. She was 
 a woman whose wisdom and self-control amounted 
 almost to inspiration. 
 
 She let him go now without a word of reproach. AH 
 she said was, ' I am sorry, Henry. We must think out 
 a plan.' 
 
 'Oh, yes, mother,' he said, rising from the table. 
 ' I quite agree with you; now you have opened my eyes 
 to my responsibilities, I quite agree with you that I 
 ought to get married. We will think out a plan, as 
 you say.' 
 
 Then he left her, and forgot all about it by the time 
 he had reached the other side of the door. 
 
40 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Angda left Stejmes Park a few days later. Now 
 that she was grown up, she sometimes joined her father 
 in his incessant wanderings. She was his only child, 
 and a considerable heiress. Lady Kimmeridge never 
 said good-bye to her without an uncomfortable pre- 
 monition of disaster. It was not within reason that a 
 girl so charming, and so matrimonially desirable, should 
 remain single much longer. This time, as she fondly 
 kissed her farewell, she felt as if she must surely be 
 losing her altogether. 
 
 And yet, there was a glimpse of hope. Angela had 
 said nothing to her of what had happened that morning 
 in the garden, but she could not divest her mind of a 
 suspicion that their ultimate desires were the same. 
 Otherwise, why should Angela have gone away at all? 
 She had come with the idea of staying through the 
 summer. No doubt she felt that the situation was 
 awkward for her; but Kimmeridge did nothing to make 
 it awkward. He had apparently forgotten all about 
 the proposal, and was the same as always towards 
 Angela, evidently liking to have her there when he 
 emerged from his scientific absorption, and exhibiting 
 not the smallest sign of diffidence before her. Lady 
 Kimmeridge felt that if Angela had taken the affair 
 as lightly as he had, she would have stayed on. 
 
 But she had fled. Therefore she did not take it 
 lightly. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge was used to entertaining scientists 
 at Stejmes Park. She had played hostess to all sorts, 
 old and young, famous or obscure. Sometimes they 
 stayed for one night, sometimes for weeks together; 
 sometimes they came singly, sometimes in batches. 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 41 
 
 Some were easy to entertain, some were difficult, some 
 were impossible. 
 
 But among aU the varieties of scientists of whom she 
 had had experience, it so happened that she had never 
 hitherto been asked to receive one of her own sex, 
 although she knew that such existed. 
 
 Kimmeridge told her one morning that Dr Margaret 
 Platter was coming to stay for a week or two, to help 
 him with certain experiments. In answer to her 
 inquiries, he said that he had corresponded with her 
 frequently, and met her once. She had an extra- 
 ordinary grasp — for a woman. He supposed she was 
 what might be called young. Yes; now he was asked 
 the question, she certainly was not old. A lady? Oh, 
 yes, certainly a lady. He did not suppose she would 
 want much looking after, when they were not at work 
 together. They had experiments to make that would 
 keep them pretty well occupied. If he were his mother 
 he should not worry about her at all — just leave her 
 to go her own way. 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter came, and Lady Kimmeridge 
 felt a sense of relief on the first sight of her. She was 
 not at all impossible ! She was a large, rather hand- 
 some young woman, with a grave, sensible face, quiet- 
 mannend, quietly dressed, self-assured, but not eager 
 to push into intimacy. Her well-developed brain was 
 more in evidence than her well-developed body, and the 
 scientific studies with which it seemed to be chiefly 
 occupied did not engross it to the exclusion of other 
 nterests. She and Kimmeridge talked together during 
 the dinner that followed her arrival, and of course about 
 science. But she also talked +0 Lady Kimmeridge upon 
 other subjects, and showed herself a woman of wide 
 reading, who had ideas about literature, and about 
 art, and, indeed, about most things that were going on 
 in the world. 
 
 T.c. D 
 
42 THiS CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge enjoyed her conversation more than 
 she usually enjoyed that of her son's fellow-workers. 
 But she did not like Dr Margaret Platter. 
 
 She could hardly have told why. It was not because 
 she spoke with a very slight Cockney accent, and was 
 not quite of the class that Lady Kimmeridge had had 
 in her mind when she had asked if she were a lady. 
 She would not have quarrelled with any one who had 
 chosen to call her so; class had nothing to do with it. 
 She would always have preferred the society of an 
 intelligent woman with no claims to birth to that of one 
 of her own rank with few claims to intelligence; and 
 in any case, no objection could have been brought either 
 against Dr Margaret Platter's manners or her appear- 
 ance. 
 
 In another respect also, she was beyond reproach. 
 She never once showed herself unpleasantly conscious 
 of the rank of her host and hostess, and this had not 
 always been the case with men of learning invited to 
 Steynes Park. She was there for a definite purpose, 
 and she never seemed to forget what that purpose was. 
 
 In fact, Lady Kimmeridge could find no fault with 
 her at all; and yet she did not like her. 
 
 But Kimmeridge did. He judged her, of course, 
 entirely by her brain, which was the only thing he ever 
 judged anybody by; and about the quality of her brain 
 there could be no two opinions. His work progressed, 
 with her to help him, as it had never progressed before, 
 and on the afternoon of the third day of their labours 
 together his appreciation of her brought him to the 
 point of a proposal of marriage. 
 
 It was done quite on the spur of the moment. They 
 had been absorbed in their work for hours, and were 
 standing at one of the windows of the laboratory, dis- 
 cussing what they had done, and making plans for the 
 morrow. Kimmeridge was in a pleasurable state of 
 
'IN THAt STATE OF LIFE' 43 
 
 excitement, and Dr Margaret Platter was pleased too, 
 although she expressed her pleasure less freely. It 
 struck him that nothing ought to stand in the way of 
 their working together continuously; and, as his brain 
 always moved at lightning speed, it struck him the 
 next moment that marriage would provide the desirable 
 tie, and that his mother wanted him to get married. 
 
 So he said at Once : ' Miss Platter, no man and 
 woman have ever had so much in common as you and 
 I. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?' 
 
 Naturally, she was startled. She lost colour and 
 gained colour, and had for the moment nothing to say. 
 
 'It strikes me,' said Kimmeridge, warming to the 
 idea, now that it had once found entrance into his 
 brain, 'that it would be an admirable arrangement. 
 If you agreed, I should propose that we should get 
 married immediately, with as little fuss as possible, 
 and settle down to carry out those experiments of which 
 we have been talking. They wiU keep us busy for 
 months, perhaps for years; and we should enjoy our- 
 selves immensely. How does it strike you?' 
 
 She was already mistress of herself again. Kimmer- 
 idge had been looldng into her face all the time he had 
 been speaking, but he had seen nothing of her momen- 
 tary confusion. He felt none himself, Angela had 
 shown none when he had put the question to her, and 
 he expected none from a woman so eminently sensible 
 as Dr Margaret Platter. 
 
 So when she answered him in a level voice : ' Thank 
 you. Lord Kimmeridge, I will think it over,' he felt 
 that matters were progiessing favourably. Of course, 
 she must have time to think it over. That was only 
 reasonable. But the proposal was so evidently a 
 suitable one that it was unhkely she would see it in 
 any other light. 
 
 'There's no hurry,' lie said kindly; 'no hurry at all. 
 
44 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Perhaps you would lOce to talk it over with my mother. 
 She will be delighted at the idea, and these things are 
 perhaps more for women to settle between themselves 
 than for men. 
 
 There was the hint of a smile about the corners of 
 Dr Margaret Platter's firm mouth. She was not likely 
 to make the mistake of thinking that Lady Kimmeridge 
 would be delighted with the idea. She said : ' I think 
 I would rather you did not say anj^hing to her, or to 
 anybody, until I have given you my answer.' 
 
 'Oh, certainly,' he said. 'I will do exactly what 
 you wish in the matter. And don't let it worry you at 
 all. If you would rather not, teU me so frankly, and I 
 wiU not bother you any further. We will just go on 
 with our work, and think no more about it. But I 
 can't help hoping that you will consent. It would be 
 such a splendid arrangement all round.' 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter went straight to her room to 
 dress for dinner; but there was plenty of time, and she 
 did not begin her toilet operations at once. She looked 
 round the large comfortable room, which contained 
 furniture that had been in the house for perhaps a 
 hundred years, and whose walls were himg with draw- 
 ings and prints of some value. Everything in it spoke 
 of an old-established opulence which was far from 
 being connected in any way with the work to which 
 she had devoted herself, and to which the owner of 
 this room and the other handsome rooms of this fine 
 house also devoted himself. Then she went to the 
 window, and looked out over the beautiful gardens and 
 the park beyond them. 
 
 There was a new expression on her face. The 
 scientific investigations of which her mind had been 
 so full when she had first been introduced to this room 
 were probably as far from it at that moment as they 
 very well coidd be. Her face was thoughtful, and if 
 
^IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 45 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge had seen it at that moment she 
 would have Uked it less than ever, although its expres- 
 sion might have meant no more than that she had 
 awoke to a realisation of what most young women of 
 a marriageable age and considerable personal attrac- 
 tions might have had in their minds from the first. 
 
 She dressed herself with more than usual care, and 
 went down to dinner. 
 
 IV 
 
 When Dr Margaret Platter went into the laboratory 
 the next morning, Lord Kimmeridge greeted her with 
 an eager smile. 
 
 'Always punctual !' he said, rubbing his hands with 
 pleasure at the prospect of the fascinating work before 
 them. 'No\V let's begin.' 
 
 She stood before him on the bare floor, calm and 
 stately. 'Lord Kimmeridge,' she said, 'I accept the 
 offer you made to me yesterday evening.' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon ? ' he said. ' Oh ! That ! Yes ! 
 WeU, I needn't say how pleased I am. I hoped you 
 would. I quite hoped you would. It is very satis- 
 factory. We'll talk it over later — ^when we're not so 
 busy, eh?' Another smUe at her. 'Now we'll begin, 
 shall we?' 
 
 They began; and went on for three hours without 
 intermission. It is quite certain that during thaf time 
 Kimmeridge never gave it a thought that he had pro- 
 posed marriage to his assistant, and that she had 
 accepted him. It is also certain that Dr Margaret 
 Platter gave it a great many thoughts. She had unusual 
 powers of concentration, and used them now doggedly. 
 But the fine edge of her scientific enthusiasm was 
 blunted, and when the gong warned for the hour of 
 
46 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 luncheon, and they began to prepare to leave their 
 work for a time, Kimmeridge was conscious of a sense 
 of disappointment at the way things had gone. 
 
 He looked at her with a hint of reproach. ' You are 
 not quite so keen as you were?' he suggested. 'But I 
 think we are on the right lines.' 
 
 A flicker of the eyelids, too quick for him to discern, 
 indicated a temper under that calm exterior. ' I am as 
 keen as ever I was,' she said; and I am sure we are 
 on the right lines.' 
 
 ' Oh, well, I dare say it will go better this afternoon,' 
 he said indulgently. 'But if you are tired, perhaps 
 you would like an afternoon off.' 
 
 'I am not tired,' she said, and waited for him to 
 say more. 
 
 Then he remembered; and it could not have been 
 pleasant for her to see a shadow come over his face. 
 But she understood it very well. Something would 
 have to be done which would interrupt what he wished 
 to give all his attention to. 
 
 'We will tell my mother what we have settled,' he 
 said, smiling at her once more. 'She will be very 
 pleased.' 
 
 He told her when the servants had brought in the 
 coffee, and left them to themselves; and she was not 
 at all pleased. She was startled out of all her hard- 
 won equanimity at the statement thrown at her across 
 the table. 
 
 'Mother, this clever young person has consented to 
 marry me. We are going to work together for the rest 
 of our lives.' 
 
 The eyes of the two women clashed like swords for 
 an instant, and then disengaged. But Lady Kimmeridge 
 said as plainly as if she had spoken : 'You've entrapped 
 him;' and Dr Margaret Platter told her as plainly 
 that she was going to fight for what she had won. 
 
•IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 47 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge said, in a voice that trembled a 
 little : 'That is a serious step to take, Henry, on such 
 a very short acquaintance;' and when she had spoken' 
 had recovered her self-control. 
 
 ' We feel as if we had known each other for a hundred 
 years, don't we?' said Kimmeridge to his fiancee. 
 
 She replied gravely : ' We are both of an age to 
 know what we want. Our interests in life are the same; 
 we ought to gain as much happiness as most people.' 
 
 No doubt she knew what she wanted, was Lady 
 Kimmeridge's unspoken comment on this straight- 
 forward speech; and there began to grow up in her 
 mind a determination that she should not have what 
 she wanted, if it could possibly be prevented. 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter did not shirk the discussion 
 that was bound to come. She invited it, by following 
 Lady Kimmeridge into her morning-room. 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge turned towards her when the door 
 had been closed. There was trouble in her eyes, as 
 well as some indignation. 
 
 'Do you love my son?' she asked. 
 
 "As much as he loves me,' was the uncompromising 
 reply, delivered in a firm voice, and with a calm, 
 critical gaze. 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge turned away and took a chair, 
 leaving her opponsnt to do the same if she pleased. 
 
 She did please, but she did not speak. 
 
 'Do you think it is right for a woman to marry a 
 man she does not love?' 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter had no surface vulgarities, or 
 she might have treated the second question as a variant 
 of the first, and met it by another still. 'I think,' 
 she said, ' that it is right for every woman to take what 
 chances are offered her, whether in marriage or any- 
 thing else. I have thought very little of marriage. I 
 have been too busy, and my work has been enough for 
 
48 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 me. But I have always expected to marry some day, 
 and I could hardly have hoped for a better lot than to 
 be offered marriage by a man whose tastes and ambitions 
 are exactly the same as mine.' 
 
 'Even when that man is acting on an impulse that 
 makes an offer of marriage almost an affront?' 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter's eye dropped for an instant, 
 but she answered composedly : ' I cannot see it in that 
 light. Lady Kimmeridge.' 
 
 'I think you can. Miss Platter. I think any woman 
 could.' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge had won the first round. Her 
 opponent now took up an attitude which enabled her 
 to win the second. 
 
 'What is it you object to in me as a wife for your 
 son?' she asked. 
 
 'To what you show of yourself to me, by accepting 
 at once an offer so Ughtly made.' 
 
 It was not the answer she had expected, and she 
 replied to it hurriedly : ' I did not accept at once. 
 Lord Kimmeridge asked me yesterday, and I did not 
 give him his answer until this morning.' 
 
 'You thought it over. Will you tell me what 
 decided you?' 
 
 ' I have already told you. Lady Kimmeridge.' 
 
 'Have you told me everything?' 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter had the mental honesty and 
 directness of the scientist. 'You would not believe 
 me,' she said, 'if I told you that I was not influenced 
 by Lord Kimmeridge's position, which, I suppose, is 
 what you want me to admit. But whether you believe 
 me or not, his character and his pursuits weighed with 
 me more heavily than that.' 
 
 'Are you sure that is so? Have you had no offers 
 of marriage from men whose character you knew better 
 than you do his, and whose pursuits are the same?' 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 40 
 
 If Dr Margaret Platter had been able to answer no, 
 she would have won that round. But her eyes unwillingly 
 fell once more, and she made no reply. 
 
 'I think you are deceiving yourself,' said Lady 
 Kimmeridge quietly. 
 
 Then Dr Margaret Platter made a mistake. She 
 raised her clear eyes, and asked : 'Are you not showing, 
 when you press that point, that your real objection 
 to me is that my position in the world is not equal 
 to yours.' 
 
 'And if that were my objection, what then?' 
 
 ' You think that that should count against community 
 of interests, and against the fact — you will excuse very 
 plain speech — ^that I am not conspicuously lacking in 
 appearance, or youth, or manners, I hope, or intelli- 
 gence?' 
 
 'It would count far less with me than you might 
 think; it would not count with my son at all. How 
 much does it count with you? ' 
 
 Again the eyes dropped. 
 
 'For what reason,' pursued Lady Kimmeridge, 'did 
 you accept a sudden offer — I know my son, and I 
 know it must have been sudden, and must haVe taken 
 you by surprise — after knowing him for less than three 
 days? If you ask yourself that question you will find 
 the answer to the one you asked me; why do I object 
 to you as a wife for my son? ' 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter rose deliberately from her chair. 
 'I am sorry that you do not like me,' she said. 'I 
 shall hope to be able to remove your prejudice in 
 time.' 
 
 It was a confession, and at the same time a denial, 
 of defeat. The years of self-control that Lady Kimmer- 
 idge had practised stood her now in good stead. 'Am 
 I to take it that you cling to your capture? ' she asked, 
 in a voice as quiet as before. 
 
50 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter also had self-control. With 
 only k catch of the breath, and cheeks brighter than 
 their wont, she looked down at Lady Kimmeridge, and 
 said calmly: 'I told you. Lady Kimmeridge, , that I 
 had taken the night to consider the question. I have 
 given my word, and I shall keep that.' 
 
 'Mother, where is Angela? I thought she was going 
 to be here most of the summer.' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge did not immediately reply to this 
 question, for fear that the keen delight with which she 
 heard it should affect her voice. She drank some 
 coffee before she said : ' She is in London. They were 
 going abroad a fortnight ago, but Colonel Luttrell has 
 altered his plans.' 
 
 'Couldn't you get her down here?' He turned 
 towards Dr Margaret Platter, with his ever-courteous 
 smile. 'Angela Luttrell is my cousin — a very distant 
 cousin,' he said. 'She has lived with us a great deal 
 ever since she was a child. I should like you to know 
 her. She would be a companion for you during your 
 off hours. I am afraid you must sometimes be duU.' 
 
 'I am never dull,' she said. 'But, of course, I should 
 like to know Miss LuttreU.' 
 
 After breakfast, Kimmeridge sought out his mother, 
 to press her to send for Angela. It was two days after 
 his suit had been accepted. Lady Kimmeridge had 
 said nothing to him upon the subject, and he had said 
 nothing fiurther to her. He had not noticed any differ- 
 ence in her attitude towards their guest, when the 
 three of them were together, but he had noticed that 
 during the hours spent away from work, if he did not 
 keep his fiancee company nobody did. 
 
•m THAT STATE OF LIFE' 5r 
 
 'You seem to be so busy in these days, mother. If 
 Angela were here, she and — and Margaret' — ^he never 
 used her name without hesitation — 'could amuse one 
 another.' 
 
 'You are engaged to marry Margaret, Henry,' she 
 said, using the name with no sign of hesitation. 'You 
 should not want a third person to amuse her.' 
 
 His face clouded. 'We work together most of the 
 day,' he said. ' It does us good to be apart for a time. 
 When we are together we naturally talk about our 
 work when we ought to be resting oin: brains.' 
 
 'When you are married, Henry, you will always be 
 together.' 
 
 'Yes, but . Well, you will be here, mother.' 
 
 'No, Henry. When you are married I shall leave 
 Steynes.' 
 
 ' What ! ' This was quite a new idea to him. 
 
 'Margaret will take my place,' she said. 'I shall live 
 in London, I hope with Angela. When are you thinking 
 of getting married, Henry?' 
 
 'But, mother, surely you are not going to desert 
 me ! What would Steynes do without you? ' 
 
 'Margaret must take rny place. She is your choice, 
 Henry. You cannot have her and me, too.' 
 
 It came to his mind, as a dim idea, possibly to be 
 examined later, that his mother did not like Margaret. 
 He frowned again. 'Margaret and I will be very busy 
 working together,' he said. 
 
 'I hope the work is going satisfactorily, Henry.' 
 
 'Well, no, it isn't,' he said. 'I wish we could get 
 this marriage over and settle down to it. It gets in the 
 way. It comes to my thoughts frequently, when I 
 ought to be giving my whole attention to the work; 
 and I expect it is the same with her, although she says 
 it isn't so. And we began so extraordinarily well 
 together. Mother, I don't like to think of you leaving 
 
52 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Steynes. I should like you and Angela to live here 
 always. You seem to belong to the place. How would 
 it be if I— if we— were to live in London, and you were 
 to stay here?' 
 
 'Have you suggested that to Margaret?' 
 
 'No; but I could. I think she would be pleased. 
 We could come here sometimes. You wouldn't mind 
 that?' 
 
 'Oh, no, Henry.' 
 
 ' I like Steynes, you know — especially in the summer. 
 I am sometimes glad to think it is mine. But it would 
 be good for our work to live in London, especially now, 
 at this stage.' 
 
 'I would do whichever you wished. You had better 
 talk it over with Margaret.' 
 
 He did so. She said, with that droop of the eyes 
 which he never noticed, but Lady Kimmeridge always 
 did, that she would be willing to live in London. 
 
 'I think we ought to get married soon,' he said. 
 'Until we do, I'm afraid we shall never really be able 
 to settle down to our work.' 
 
 Again the droop of the eyes. She had tried with all 
 her powers to keep herself up to her work. 'I have 
 nothing to wait for,' she said. 
 
 'Then you would not mind being married at once — 
 very quietly — ^let us say in a week from now. We 
 could take up our work again immediately afterwards, 
 and then, I am quite sure, with nothing to disturb our 
 thoughts, we shall get on splendidly with it.' 
 
 He used his kind smile on her, the smile which, of 
 all that she had to meet in these difficult days, brought 
 her compimction. She could not return it. 'I wiU 
 think it over,' she said. 
 
 He put the matter to his mother. He had made the 
 plunge; let them get it over as soon as possible, and as 
 quietiy as possible. Let them walk out of the house 
 
•IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 53 
 
 one morning, and come back to go on with their work 
 — ^they two, with her and Angela. He should like 
 Angela to be there; she sfeemed to belong to Steynes. 
 
 'My dear Henry,' she said, 'have you realised that 
 Margaret has parents of her own — ^is one of a large 
 family?' 
 
 'No, she has never mentioned it to me,' he said. 
 
 She could not forbear a laugh. 'Really, my dear 
 boy,' she said, 'your entire detachment from all the 
 actualities of life makes me wonder whether I have 
 done right in sparing you so much. It cannot be the 
 part of a wise man to exercise one side of his brain so 
 much to the exclusion of every other.' 
 
 It was the nearest she had ever gone to criticism of 
 him since his boyhood. ' Why, mother ! What do you 
 mean? ' he asked in surprise. 
 
 'In this instance,' she said, more gravely, 'I mean 
 that you appear to care so Uttle for the woman you 
 want to make your wife within a few days that you have 
 not put a single question to her about herself.' 
 
 'Well,' he said, a little disconcerted, 'after all, it 
 wHL be she and I; and our tastes are more closely allied 
 than can possibly be the case with the great majority 
 of married people. Her family will not matter to us.' 
 
 'I should think it is likely to matter to her. You, 
 certainly, cannot judge of that, as you know nothing 
 whatever about her outside your laboratory. At any 
 rate, her parents matter to this extent, that you must 
 be married from their house, and not from your own. 
 You ought, of course, to go and see them.' 
 
 This disconcerted him more than ever. 'Do you 
 really think so, mother?' he asked. 'She has never 
 suggested it.' 
 
 'Don't you think she would expect the suggestion 
 to come from you? ' 
 
 'Would she? I know so little of these things. I 
 
54 THE CLINTONS AND OTHEHS 
 
 shouldn't like to fail in courtesy. I wiU do it, if it 
 has to be done. But dear me, what a deal of fuss there 
 seems to be about such a simple thing as a marriage 
 between two sensible people. It is annoying too, at the 
 present moment. I do not want to have to break off 
 to go to London now.' 
 
 She paused before asking : ' Would you like Mr and 
 Mrs Platter asked to come here instead?' 
 
 He jumped eagerly at the idea. 
 
 VI 
 
 It was assuredly no matter for shame that a young 
 woman who, in personal appearance, manners and 
 deportment, needed to fear no comparison with the 
 well-bom, and in intelligence and achievement stood 
 vastly higher than the average, should have raised 
 herself to such an eminence entirely by her own 
 exertions. And yet Dr Margaret Platter would gladly 
 have exchanged a good few of her attainments for an 
 origin some degrees higher in the social scale, when the 
 visit of her parents to Steynes Park was mooted to her. 
 Her father was an assistant in the shop of a second- 
 hand furniture dealer, a wiry man of necessarily grubby 
 exterior, but with an eager delight in such knowledge 
 as a busy life and a meagre equipment of education 
 had permitted him to acquire. Her mother was what 
 is known as a comfortable woman. She had no thirst 
 for knowledge, but liked to see everybody happy around 
 her. Her other outstanding quality was a capacity 
 for economical management that had resulted in every 
 one of her numerous family bettering the position in 
 which she had brought them up. The eldest son was 
 an electrical engineer, the second a solicitor's clerk. 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 55 
 
 the third a mining engineer, now in America, the fourth 
 a schoolmaster. Of her daughters, one was married to 
 a manager of motor-works, another to a Nonconformist 
 minister, the third was a hospital nurse, engaged to 
 a doctor, and the fourth was a doctor herself, the most 
 brilliant of the whole keenly competent family. They 
 were all very proud of Margaret, as well they might 
 be; and she had always told herself that, however high 
 she might rise in the world — and she meant to rise 
 very high indeed — she would never be anything but 
 proud of them in her turn. 
 
 But the sudden dizzjdng Uft to a state not, perhaps, 
 in comparison higher than ahy which she had thought 
 of as within her reach, but certainly to a peak outside 
 the range on which she had set her steadfast gaze, 
 overthrew the adjustments she had constantly made 
 between personal ambition and family loyalty. She 
 could not keep back a blush, as well as the tell-tale 
 droop of the eyes, when Lady Kimmeridge told her 
 over the luncheon-table that she wished to invite Mr 
 and Mrs Platter to Steynes Park. 
 
 It may surely be accounted to her for righteousness 
 that she instantly raised her eyes, and said : ' My 
 father and mother are not used to visiting at such 
 houses as this. I do not think they would wish to come, 
 or would be comfortable here.' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge was as capable of admiring 
 courage as any woman, and but for her contempt for 
 the unscrupulous designs of this young person, and her 
 carefuUy concealed but none the less consuming anger 
 against her, would have regretted putting her to such 
 a test in the presence of the servants. Her regret, 
 however, only embraced the impossibility of following 
 up the revelation made by her enemy at that moment. 
 When the time came, Dr Margaret Platter would be 
 invited to expand her disclaimer on behalf of her parents 
 
56 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 into one on behalf of herself, and she would probably 
 not like doing so. 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge said nothing, but that socially 
 unsophisticated scientist, her son, said at once, with his 
 agreeable smile : ' Oh, but we shall do our best to make 
 them feel at home. You must try to persuade them.' 
 
 Her large placidity enabled her to ignore this speech 
 and go on with her limcheon until the servants had left 
 the room, when she said : ' My father is in a very 
 humble position. He and my mother have acted 
 splendidly towards my brothers and sisters and myself, 
 and have helped us all to make use of every possible 
 educational advantage. But they would not be at 
 home here, and it would be putting them in an invidious 
 position to ask them. I am much obliged for your kind- 
 ness all the same.' 
 
 The last sentence was addressed to Lady Kimmeridge, 
 and accompanied by a clear look which said : ' I know 
 what you are up to, and I will meet your guile by 
 concealing nothing.' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge understood the look perfectly, and 
 accepted the challenge. 'Then do you propose to drop 
 your parents out of your life entirely?' she asked. 
 
 'No,' said Dr Margaret Platter. 'But I do not 
 propose to bring them into Henry's life.' 
 
 It was the first time that she had called him by his 
 Christian name, and he looked rather surprised, as if 
 it were one that was strange to him. 
 
 'I shall always be pleased to see them,' he said 
 rather lamely. He did not in the least realise what 
 was indicated by the phrase 'a very humble position,' 
 and thought that Margaret perhaps, did not 'get on' 
 with her parents. Nor had Lady Kimmeridge gauged 
 the social gulf which this remarkable young woman had 
 already bridged for herself. It did not even now occur 
 to her that she had sprung from the ranks of 
 
•IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 57 
 
 those who work with their hands and not with their 
 brains. 
 
 For the moment she was at a disadvantage with her 
 adversary, who had faced the complication from the 
 iirst and laid down the lines upon which she would 
 meet it. It was what had chiefly occupied her during the 
 hours she had asked for reflection, and the decision had 
 not been so much of a foregone conclusion as Lady 
 Kimmeridge had supposed. 
 
 She turned her clear eyes upon Kimmeridge. 'I 
 have already made up my mind about my family,' she 
 said. 'I shall hope to go and see them sometimes; and 
 those of them who have lifted themselves out of the 
 position in which they were bom, as I have myself, 
 can come to see me sometimes, if you do not object. 
 Neither I nor they will wish for more than that.' 
 
 This was all that was said at the moment. Kimmer- 
 idge, of course, accepted her decision, but without 
 attempting to understand it. It added to the discom- 
 fort which seemed to be gathering all about him, over 
 an arrangement which he had thought would finally 
 relieve him of all discomfort concerning mundane 
 affairs. His mother saw the cloud gathering, and held 
 her peace. 
 
 VII 
 
 With whatever feelings Angela Luttrell had received 
 the news of her cousin's engagement, she allowed none 
 of them to appear when she arrived at Ste5Ties Park 
 a few days later. ' Dear Henry, I hope you will be 
 very happy,' was all she said in reply to his welcoming 
 speech, which had included the announcement : ' You 
 have come just in time to see me married, Angela. I 
 expect mother has told you about it.' 
 If she had come just in time to see him married, it 
 T.C. E 
 
58 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 was none the less a fact that nothing further had been 
 said as to when and where and how the marriage 
 ceremony was to take place. Perhaps, as he had always 
 been relieved of the burden of affairs having to do with 
 the mechanism of life, he may have supposed that this 
 affair was being arranged for him, and he would be 
 given his part all in good time. Margaret Platter had 
 waited some days for a further word from him, and was 
 only now beginning to realise that the word would 
 probably not come until she did or said something to 
 invite it. Truly her path was one of thorns, and it 
 was not made easier by the arrival of Angela Luttrell, 
 concerning whom there were some mental adjustments 
 to be made. 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge had never given her so much as 
 a hint that she desired a marriage between Angela and 
 her son, but she knew it as surely as if it had been 
 cried aloud to her. And she knew as surely that Angela 
 had been sent for as a reinforcement against her. Her 
 difficult task was to discover how the reinforcement 
 was intended to be used, and how far the girl herself 
 would actively abet the designs of the enemy. 
 
 After a couple of days she had to confess herself 
 baffled. Angela behaved exactly as a daughter of the 
 house, and, while her intercourse with her cousin was 
 entirely frank, £ihd even affectionate, when all four of 
 them were together, so far from seeking his society, 
 she seemed to avoid it. Nor, beyond withholding all 
 intimacy, did she show any feeling against Dr Margaret 
 Platter herself. At meal-times, and on other occasions 
 of their meeting, she seemed to exert herself to ease the 
 wheels of intercourse; and she succeeded. If she had 
 been brought to the house to diminish the constraint 
 that Margaret Platter could not help feehng in the 
 presence of her hostess, she could not have served her 
 better. But she did not suppose that she had been 
 
♦IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 59 
 
 brought to the house with that purpose; nor did it 
 seem likely that Lady Kimmeridge could have hoped 
 anything from merely exhibiting her charm before her 
 son, since he had had it before him for the greater part 
 of his life. ' 
 
 Besides, there was no attempt to mark comparisons. 
 Margaret Platter had at least expected that. She was 
 clear-sighted about herself. She reUed upon her 
 intellect, her handsome presence, and her quiet trained 
 manners; but she was well aware that there was some- 
 thing beyond, which this girl had and she had not, 
 that would have brought her embarrassment, or at 
 least reduced her to silence, if it had \been insisted 
 upon. It would have been quite possible for Lady 
 Kimmeridge, without failing in any courtesy towards 
 herself — or in none that she would have had a right 
 to demand under the circumstances — to put her outside 
 the circle, and to show her son that in the intimacy of 
 his own relations her place must necessarily be outside 
 it. But she had apparently rejected that weapon. 
 Margaret Platter felt an increased respect for her on 
 account of it; she fought cleanly. 
 
 But she fought. Why had she brought Angela to 
 Steynes? 
 
 Her bewilderment would have been greater still if 
 she had known that her name was never mentioned 
 between Lady Kimmeridge and Angela. Each of them 
 was wondering what the other was thinking, but neither 
 would ask. Angela herself was in uncertainty as to 
 why she had been so insistently begged to come to 
 Steynes, without delay. 
 
 She may have had a glimmering of the reason when 
 she did, at last, have a conversation alone with her 
 cousin. It was true that she had taken some pains to 
 avoid this ordeal. She knew him so well, and made 
 such large allowances for his eccentricities, that she 
 
6o THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 was able to treat him with no diminution of cousinly 
 goodwill when she met him supported by third and 
 fourth parties. She also saw as clearly as it was possible 
 for her to see how he stood with regard to Dr Margaret 
 Platter. But she would hardly have been human, or 
 feminine, if she had not felt some resentment against 
 him for what he had done; and she would have pre- 
 ferred to spare herself the annoyance of hearing him 
 talk about it. She could not avoid it, however, when 
 he came towards her as she was sitting on the same 
 garden seat on which he had made his proposal to her 
 earlier in the summer; she could only string herself up 
 to a determination not to lose the command over herself 
 which enabled her to maintain her hitherto admirable 
 attitude towards him. 
 
 He was not apparently troubled by any remembrance 
 of what had already passed between them on the seat 
 by the hly pond, but sat down in the same place and 
 in the same way, with his arm stretched along the back 
 of the bench, and said: 'I'm glad I've found you 
 here, Angela. I've been so busy that I've seen very 
 little of you since you came back. I want you to help 
 me, if you will. I'm rather bothered about something.' 
 
 'I'm always ready to help you if I can, Henry,' she 
 said quietly. 
 
 'Well, it's about this marriage of mine. I should 
 naturally have spoken to mother; but for some reason 
 or other she does not seem as pleased as I expected she 
 would be about it, and I am not at aU sure that she 
 would help me if I did ask her.' 
 
 Angela had nothing to say to this remarkable speech, 
 and he went on, after a short pause : ' I want to get 
 it over as soon as possible. Until — er — ^Margaret 
 and I are married, we cannot settle down properly to 
 our work. I said about a week ago that I should like 
 to be married soon, and with as little fuss as possible; 
 
•IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 6i 
 
 but as far as I can make out nothing has been done 
 about it, and — and — ^well, I don't quite know what to do.' 
 
 It was fortunate for him that Angela had a sense of 
 humour, or the interview might have been cut short at 
 this point. She could not forbear laughing at him, 
 but she did so in such a way that he smiled too, rather 
 ruefully, and said : — 
 
 'What I should like would be a quiet wedding here 
 — ^just we four, and — er — I suppose, Clarke.' Mr 
 Clarke was the Rector of Steynes. 'Mother did say 
 that we ought to be married from Margaret's home; 
 but apparently she does not desire that. She has some 
 reason for not wishing me to meet the members of her 
 family.' 
 
 Angela's interest in this statement removed for the 
 moment the prgapure of other feelings. 'Why doesn't 
 she wish it ? ' she asked. 
 
 'I have been trjring to remember what she said. 
 She gave a reason. I don't think they have quarrelled 
 exactly. It had something to do with their position in 
 life. But of course that wouldn't affect me in any way. ' 
 
 She considered this thoughtfully. 'Well, how can 
 I help you, Henry? ' she asked. 
 
 'Well, you see, dear, I have been rather spoilt in 
 having all annoj^nces of this sort taken off my 
 shoulders. Mother has been so good about that, and 
 leaving me to give myself to my work undisturbed. But 
 I am pretty certain that she is not taking any steps to 
 bring about this — ^this business, and I should not like 
 to distress her in any way by asking her questions, or 
 
 pressing her to move. So I thought Well, you 
 
 know, Angela, you have been just as kind and good 
 about saving me worries, and I wondered whether — 
 whether you couldn't do something.* 
 
 She laughed again, as gently and agreeably as before. 
 'What does Miss Platter say about it?' she asked. 
 
62 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'Oh, I haven't said anj^hing to her. I have felt that 
 any suggestion ought to come first from our side.' 
 
 'And she has said nothing either?' 
 
 'Oh, no. She wouldn't, I suppose. It is all extra- 
 ordinarily tiresome and worrying, Angela. We began 
 so splendidly — ^with our investigations, I mean. Every- 
 thing seemed to go exactly right; and it occurred to 
 me that if we were always together, we might do some 
 remarkable work, and both of us gain great satisfaction 
 from it. So we should, I think, if we were once married. 
 But it hangs on and hangs on, and the work is getting 
 spoilt. I feel that; and I believe she feels it too, 
 though she says she doesn't. Poor girl, I don't blame 
 her. She has an extraordinary capacity, but I'm 
 afraid it is not of much use to us just now. In fact, 
 she seems to have lost it for the present — ^though I 
 wouldn't hint at that to her.' 
 
 Angela was beginning to see a httle daylight now. 
 Henry was not the only person who wanted help from 
 her, though no word had been said about help except 
 by him. 
 
 'Well, I'm afraid if Cousin Helen doesn't see her 
 way to take these troubles off your shoulders, Henry, 
 I can't. But, surely, neither of us is any longer the 
 person to expect that of.' 
 
 'You mean ' 
 
 'I mean that if you have chosen a woman for your 
 wife, you ought to expect help of that sort from her.' 
 
 The statement seemed to affect him disagreeably. 
 He sat for some time silent, and then said ingenuously : 
 'I hadn't thought of requiring of Margaret that she 
 should do the things that mother, and you, do so well, 
 and I can't do.' 
 
 She let this pass. 
 
 'I suppose I must take this upon my shoulders,' he 
 said, after another pause. 'It seems to me that we 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 63 
 
 shall have to drop our work altogether until these tire- 
 some affairs are settled. We are doing no good with it.' 
 
 They sat silent again for a time. The bees hummed 
 in the hot, still air, the splash of a little fountain came 
 gratefully to the ear. The sweet peaceful place made 
 itself felt, even to him. 
 
 'We used to be so happy here at Stejmes,' he said 
 regretfully. 'I shall be sorry, after all, to leave it, 
 though there will be compensations in London. I shall 
 like to think of you and mother here, Angela. I wish 
 we could all have stayed here together; but she says 
 that is impossible. I don't know why; except that I'm 
 afraid she doesn't care for Margaret. Well, I suppose 
 I must talk to Margaret, and get something settled. 
 Would you mind very much, Angela, if she were to 
 discuss it with you, after I have spoken to her?' 
 
 'With me, Henry?' 
 
 'Yes. If mother doesn't care for her, it would be 
 awkward for both of them, wouldn't it? You like 
 her, don't you, Angela? You seem to get on well 
 together. She likes you, I know.' 
 
 'Does she, Henry?' 
 
 'Yes. I told her how fond I was of you — ^how you 
 had alwaj^ lived here, and that the place wouldn't 
 seem like itself without you. She said something — I 
 forget what — which showed that she understood — and 
 appreciated you.' 
 
 The girl laughed again — a full clear laugh, and then 
 rose from her seat. Dr Margaret Platter was coming 
 through the archway from the next garden. 
 
 VIII 
 
 KiMMERiDGE Tose too, when he saw her. 'We have 
 just been having a most serious talk,' he said, with his 
 
64 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 benevolent smile; "and now I want you two to have a 
 talk.' A bright idea struck him. 'I'll leave you 
 together,' he said. 'You will do it all much better 
 without me.' 
 
 His hurried departure was so obviously a nervous 
 flight, that Angela, in spite of herself, laughed again. 
 But she restuned her seat. She would go through with 
 it, for the sake of her dear friend, who seemed to expect 
 sometliing of her, though she had said nothing. And 
 it would be rather interesting to herself, too, though 
 not altogether free from hazard. 
 
 Margaret Platter, with a glance at her disappearing 
 fiance, took the seat that he had vacated, and said, in 
 her slow, self-possessed way : ' I shall be glad to listen 
 to anything you may have to say to me.' 
 
 'Henry is worried,' said Angela, after a short pause. 
 'He has been so used to having all his arrangements 
 made for him by Cousin Helen, that he has almost lost 
 the power of making any for himself.' 
 
 'Is he worried about the arrangements for our 
 marriage?' asked Margaret Platter, coming at once to 
 the point, as her way was. 
 
 'Yes. He has grasped the fact that in the ordinary 
 way you would be married from your own home; but 
 he says that you object to that, although he cannot 
 remember why.' i 
 
 This looked like mere "cattiness.' Margaret Platter's 
 face hardened as she said : ' You, at least, must know 
 why. If he has forgotten what I said, Lady Kimmeridge 
 hasn't.' 
 
 'But I am not Lady Kimmeridge, you see,' said the 
 girl. 
 
 'Do you mean that Lady Kimmeridge has not told 
 you what I said to her about my parentage ? ' 
 
 'She has never mentioned your name to me, except 
 as that of some one staying in the house.' 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 65 
 
 This was a complete surprise, but it brought no 
 rehef. Silence seemed a strange weapon to fight with; 
 but contemptuous silence, as this was, had power to 
 wound. 
 
 'I am not ashamed of my parentage,' Dr Margaret 
 Platter said, speaking more hurriedly than was her 
 wont; 'but it is because of it that it is impossible for 
 me to be married from my own home. What I told 
 Lady Kimmeridge, and Henry, was that I had raised 
 myself from a very humble position. My brothers and 
 sisters have raised themselves too, but my parents 
 remain what they were. I am very fond of them, but 
 just as it has been impossible that they should share 
 in the life I have lived for some years past, so it is 
 impossible that they should share in the Ufe I am going 
 to live. They would admit it themselves. It is a 
 matter between me and them.' 
 
 Angela's brain had been busy during this speech. 
 She was trying to find a point on which to support her- 
 self. She knew that if Henry were to be brought out 
 of this entanglement, it must be on the initiative of the 
 woman who, in her view, had brought him into it. His 
 mother must have seen that, already, and her wonderful 
 silence must mean that she expected Angela to see it, 
 and trusted her to act, in her own way, when the 
 opportunity should come to her. It had come now; she 
 would do what she could with it. 
 
 'Henry could hsirdly be expected to understand a 
 feeling of that sort,' she said. 
 
 The words stung, though they had been spoken with 
 no inflection of contempt. From one who had less 
 command of herself than Margaret Platter they would 
 have drawn something that would have provided an 
 opening; but all she said was : . ' I am not concerned to 
 defend it. You, probably, would hot understand me 
 if I did. That sort of complication does not come into 
 
66 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 your life. You are what you were bom; I am what 
 I have made myself.' 
 
 'It is a complication that has to be met, I suppose. 
 As Henry wants me to discuss it with you, and you have 
 said that you would be pleased to do so, I needn't 
 apologise for saying that.' 
 
 'I didn't know what it was that he wanted you to 
 discuss with me. It seems to me very extraordinary 
 that you and I should be talking about these matters 
 at all.' 
 
 'Why?' asked Angela, with an inward smile. Her 
 father who had a military bee in his bonnet, and pressed 
 it upon all who were willing to listen to him, and many 
 who were not, had told her that one of the most effective 
 weapons in argument was the judicious use of the 
 questions 'Why?' or Why not?" But she had not 
 thought that there would some day be profit to herself 
 in the lesson. 
 
 Margaret Platter met the questions with another. 
 'Whatever arrangements have to be made about our 
 marriage would hardly be made by you, would they?' 
 
 Angela resisted the temptation to ask, 'Why not?' 
 and asked instead : ' Would you expect them to be 
 made by Lady Kimmeridge? I told you that she had 
 said nothing to me; but of course I know that she 
 does not want Henry to marry you.' 
 
 'How do you know that. Miss Luttrell, if she has 
 said nothing to you?' 
 
 ' Is it really necessary for me to answer that question ? ' 
 
 Again the words were said quietly, and again they 
 stung. Margaret Platter spoke quietly in return, but 
 with a slight flush on her cheeks. 'Do you think that 
 I am such an impossible wife for your cousin?' she 
 asked. 'We have the same tastes; he said himself — 
 and it is true — ^tbat there will be more in common 
 between us than between most married people. He 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 67 
 
 thinks little of his birth and rank, compared with other 
 things, and in those other things I am more his equal 
 than almost any other woman you could find. Is it 
 his happiness that Lady Kimmeridge wants, and you 
 want — or what is it ? ' 
 
 'His happiness is all that either of us wants.' The 
 opening had been taken. Angela only had to wait now 
 for her opportunity. It came at once. 
 
 'Then how would you propose to secure his happiness, 
 if he had asked you to marry him, instead of me? I 
 ask without meaning offence. I want to know.' 
 
 'He did ask me to marry him.' 
 
 There was complete silence. Angela sat with her 
 chin resting on her hand, looking out over the smooth 
 lawn and the still water. Margaret Platter threw one 
 look at her, and looked on the ground. 
 
 'He asked me two months ago,' said Angela, 'in 
 this very place. I think he has forgotten it now.' 
 
 'You refused him, I suppose.' The words came 
 awkwardly, as if something had to be said — ^it did not 
 much matter what. 
 
 'The fact that he has forgotten it shows that I was 
 right to refuse him. Also the fact that he asked you 
 so soon afterwards. ... I hope he won't forget that 
 too.' 
 
 The last sentence, tacked on, apparently as an after- 
 thought, was not in her plan; she was not of an age to 
 use the strong self-control of Lady Kimmeridge. But 
 it was a very effective sentence. Margaret Platter 
 could only swallow the damaging indictment which it 
 implied, but she did so with an anger that, however 
 successfvdly she might hide it, reduced her powers as 
 an antagonist. 
 
 'I think we are getting away from the point,' she 
 said; and her voice was not quite steady. ' If you have 
 a greater interest in Henry than I thought you had, I 
 
68 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 shall be all the more ready to listen to you, if you will 
 tell me what it is you want to say to me on his behalf.' 
 
 ' You see, Cousin Helen and I have alwa}^ done what 
 we could to spare him all distractions from outside. 
 He has been able to devote himself to his work, and 
 enjoy his hfe away from it — a good deal more, I think, 
 than he has had any real idea of. He loves Steynes — 
 the house and the garden and the country round, and 
 the people he has known all his life. He takes it all 
 very quietly, but I don't believe he would be happy 
 without it; and it is all a real recreation to him, as he 
 is spared all the trouble in connection with such a 
 place as this. Of course, it is odd, as you said just now, 
 that he should come to me about the particular bother 
 that is spoiling his contentment now; at least, it must 
 seem odd to any one who knows him so little as you 
 do. But he has always been used to come to me about 
 little things, and about some bigger ones that he didn't 
 want to go to Cousin Helen for; so I said I would help 
 him if I could.' 
 
 ' I think you are tr3dng to put me in a false position, 
 Miss Luttrell.' She was very angry now, and less 
 mistress of herself than she had thought it possible she 
 could be, under any circumstances. 'I won't be so 
 vulgar as to say that you dislike me because yoiu: 
 cousin has asked me to marry him so soon after he 
 asked you. That may have something to do with it; 
 but your real reason for disliking the idea of our 
 marriage is that you don't think I am his social equal. 
 Under all the circumstances, that seems to me a view 
 that is only contemptible. He is far too big a man to 
 feel it himself, and the cause of offence against me seems 
 to be chiefly that I am wiUing to face it in order to keep 
 away from him any difficulties that it might bring.' 
 
 This somewhat contradictory speech enshrined the 
 same mistake as had given Lady Kirameridge her 
 
•IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 69 
 
 advantage. Angela was not less ready to take 
 hers. 
 
 'I don't think social inequality would matter in the 
 least,' she said, 'between two people who reaUy loved 
 one another.' 
 
 Margaret Platter bit her lip. She had delivered herself 
 into her adversary's hands. 
 
 Angela pressed her advantage relentlessly. 'Whether 
 the reason you have given for my disliking you is 
 true or not, I shouldn't think of denying that I am 
 very fond of my cousin; and one can hardly be blamed 
 for not liking some one who looks upon him as a person 
 to' use for a climb-up.' 
 
 ' Oh, but this is too much ! ' Dr Margaret Platter 
 rose to her full height, and glared down upon the girl, 
 who stUl sat with her chin in her hand, looking out 
 over the lawn and the water. ' How dare you say such 
 a thing to me?' 
 
 Angela sat back in her seat aiid looked up at her. 
 'I'm not afraid of being vulgar,' she said. 
 
 IX 
 
 Whatever this uncomfortable interview may have 
 effected, it had done nothing to settle the point that 
 Kimmeridge had wanted to have settled by it. It had, 
 moreover, made it^ plain to Dr Margaret Platter that 
 the point would have to be settled by her, if it were 
 to be settled at all. 
 
 When she had walked away from the seat by the 
 lily pond, with as much dignity as she could muster 
 under the disagreeable consciousness of Angela's eyes 
 following her, it had been in her mind that she would 
 settle it by giving up the game. The qualities which had 
 brought her so far upon her upward road had included 
 
70 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 a strong belief in her own integrity of purpose, and the 
 fact that she had not been able to defend herself against 
 the contempt that Angela had shown for the purpose she 
 was embracing now very nearly opened her eyes to its 
 virtual indefensibility. 
 
 But not quite. If it would be an impossible task to 
 convince Angela, or Lady Kimmeridge, that it was not 
 for his wealth and rank that she was going to marry 
 Lord Kimmeridge, she was still able to convince herself. 
 She would not deny that the wealth and rank counted, 
 but what counted more was the large opportunities 
 she would be given by such a marriage. Supposing 
 Kimmeridge had gained his honours for the work he 
 had done as a scientist, no one would have thought it 
 anything but an admirable arrangement that he should 
 marry one so closely allied to all his interests. Where 
 was the difference? As for that question of love, 
 which she had not been able to answer to Angela's 
 satisfaction, it was not a matter to be discussed with 
 a sentimental girl. She would bring quite as much in 
 that respect as the other party to the contract, and 
 both of them were satisfied with what would be brought. 
 
 On these points she could argue in her own favour, 
 and had to do so if she were to keep her self-respect. 
 On the other point — of her attitude towards her own 
 family — she had no need to argue. She felt herself 
 to be right, and was hot against those who would put 
 her in the wrong. A man who had raised himself in the 
 same way as she had, and wished to marry a woman of 
 the status to which he had attained, would act in the 
 same way, and nobody would blame him. Why should 
 a woman be blamed? Her parents would not grudge 
 the sacrifice on her behalf. They had already made 
 similar sacrifices on a smaller scale, and even taken a 
 pride in them. It was a matter between her and them, 
 and it was not on their behalf that the hypocritical 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 71 
 
 censure had been offered. If any one would be pained 
 by the necessity of keeping them aloof, it would be she; 
 but she would do it as a concession to her husband's 
 rank, partly even as a concession to the very relations 
 who pretended to find something so shocking in it. 
 Perhaps it was not easy for them to understand how 
 little such adjustments were resented by people in the 
 position of her parents, to whom payment in this 
 coinage for the eagerly desired advancement of their 
 children was foreseen and allowed for from the first. 
 But they did not want to understand it; they wanted 
 a weapon agsdnst her. 
 
 There was also in her mind the feminine disinclina- 
 tion to give up a capture to a rival. This girl had 
 refused the offer made to her; but it was plain that she 
 would accept it if it were renewed in a way that suited 
 her. That side of the question, however, would not 
 bear too close an examination. The implication that 
 she herself had jumped at an offer which the girl had 
 not been able to accept without loss of self-respect 
 rankled more deeply than anything. It made her blush 
 hotly to think of the way in which she had invited the 
 statement, and the way in which it had been made. 
 
 The result of the passage at arms was that she was 
 shaken, but not yet dislodged, from her purpose; but 
 that was not its only result. She saw now that she 
 ought to have acted on Kimmeridge's expressed wish 
 for a prompt, and almost a secret, wedding. It was 
 exactly what she wanted herself, and all her immediate 
 difficulties would be solved by it in a w:ay she could 
 hardly have hoped for. It was true that she would 
 have had to make aU the arrangements for the wedding 
 herself, since he was apparently incapable of bestirring 
 himself even upon such a matter as that. It would 
 have been somewhat humiliating, but hardly more so 
 than to have waited on under the. present circumstances 
 
72 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 for somebody else to act, when there was nobody who 
 would do so. And if she had taken the step they might 
 have been man and wife by this time. She had no fears 
 of what should come after; it was only this wretched 
 little obstacle of the mere mechanism of marriage that 
 stood in the way of what would be her triumph. 
 
 It was natural that her feelings towards the man 
 whom she wished to marry should be tinged with irrita- 
 tion. She did full justice to his remarkable powers in 
 a line in which she was as capable of estimating ability 
 as anybody. She had the same sort of powers herself, 
 but would have been ashamed if they had left her 
 without any capacity to deal with affairs apart from 
 those involved in scientific work. She could not believe 
 that he v/as so helpless as he appeared to be. His 
 womenfolk had spoilt him; it was like her father, who 
 had always said that he was incapable of carving a 
 joint, but carved it very well when her mother was not 
 there to do it. She thought that at least he might be 
 wound up to take the few steps that had to be taken, 
 if she found out and told him what they were. 
 
 The prospect, however, of doing any thing at all 
 seemed to cause him the deepest dismay, when she told 
 him that she thought the simplest way would be for 
 them to be married in London, at a Registry Office, and 
 if he approved of that she would find out what for- 
 malities had to be gone through and let him know 
 exactly what he would have to do to meet them. 
 
 'But that means all sorts of bothers,' he said, 
 plaintively; 'and most likely I should have to go up 
 to London beforehand, and I shouldn't know what to 
 do when I got there.' 
 
 'I could find out for you exactly what would have 
 to be done,' she said, fighting down her annoyance. 
 'It would not be so very difficult, especially for a man 
 of your capacity.' 
 
*IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' 73 
 
 'Ah, my dear Margaret, my capacity is a very one- 
 sided affair, as I am afraid you will find out. I don't 
 quite like the idea of a Registry Office. Surely that 
 isn't necessary, is it?' 
 
 'You would prefer to be married in a church?' 
 She had hardly expected this weakness from an 
 enlightened scientist. 
 
 ' I think it would be more fitting. One has to consider 
 one's position to a certain extent.' 
 
 It was the first time she had ever heard him refer to 
 it, and did not .understand that he was only repeating 
 a leamt lesson. ' I think my mother would say that we 
 ought to be married in a church,' he said. 
 
 ' She doesn't seem to care about anj^hing to do with 
 it,' she repUed, with a bitterness of feeling that was 
 not entirely absent from her voice. 
 
 'I'm afraid not,' he said gravely. 'I wish it were 
 
 otherwise. It was partly because ' He broke off. 
 
 Even he saw that it would not gratify her to be told 
 that it was partly to please his mother that he had 
 asked her to marry him. 'She will not move in the 
 matter, and I am so used, I'm afraid, to relying upon 
 
 her, and Angela, for By the bye, you were to talk 
 
 it over with Angela, weren't you? You haven't told 
 me yet what passed between you. It wasn't her idea, 
 was it — surely not — ^the registry office?' 
 
 How blundering and irritating he was, with all his 
 kindness! She was stung into sa37ing: 'Naturally, 
 we didn't talk over such questions. I was surprised 
 to learn that you had expected such a thing, when you 
 ran away from us.' 
 
 He looked distressed. 'I'm afraid I'm a clumsy sort 
 of person,' he said. 'But I've been so used to relying 
 upon dear Angela, as well as upon my mother. I'm 
 sorry if I offended you in any way. Of course I had 
 no such intention. What did you talk about, then?' 
 T.C. F 
 
74 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 The "dear Angela' tried her hard. 'I think you 
 nrnst leam to rely upon me, and not upon Miss Luttrell,' 
 she said. 
 
 'Oh, yes; of course; but not quite in the same way. 
 We shall be hard at work together. It is chieily what 
 we are marrying for, isn't it ? You won't have the time 
 to devote to all the thousand and one little questions that 
 arise when one is burdened with a large house and estate.' 
 
 ' But surely you are not proposing ! I mean, 
 
 Miss Luttrell isn't going to live with us.' 
 
 He had been sitting reading by one of the widows of 
 the laboratory, which was at the top of the house, and 
 commanded a lovely view, of the gardens, park, and 
 weU-wooded country beyond, which rose and fell in 
 soft undulations until it reached the sea, five miles 
 away. He looked out over the fair sqene, and his face 
 fell. 'I had forgotten for the moment,' he said. 'We 
 are going to leave Stejmes, aren't we? After all, I 
 shall be sorry. I would gladly have exchanged this for 
 London six or seven years ago; but now I have got 
 used to it. And it has been Angela's home ever since 
 she was a httle girl. She seems to belong to it all.' 
 
 'Is that why you asked her to marry you, a few 
 weeks ago?' 
 
 She would have recalled the words directly they were 
 spoken. He looked up in surprise, and she said 
 hurriedly, with a laugh : 'Oh, she told me about it; 
 and that you weren't in earnest.' 
 
 He said nothing, but turned away his gaze, and 
 allowed it to rest on the woods and the distant sea. 
 
 'I shall do everything I can,' she said, still speaking 
 hurriedly, 'to relieve you of the bothers that your 
 mother has taken on her shoulders. I am quite capable 
 of doing it. If you prefer to live here, I am quite 
 willing; and, from what you said, she expected that, 
 until you suggested London yourself.' 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 75 
 
 He brought his eyes back to her. For the first time 
 they held criticism. 'I hadn't thought of you in that 
 connection at all,' he said. 'I doubt if you could do 
 what my mother does, even if you had no other work to 
 do. I'm quite sure you couldn't do both. No, I'm 
 afraid we must make up our minds to leave Steynes 
 to her. I had hoped that we might all have lived here 
 together, but ' 
 
 'I wouldn't Uve here with Miss Luttrell,' she said. 
 She was fast ceasing to care what effect her words might 
 have upon his view of the situation. She had been 
 prepared to stifle her inward revolts, but not to play an 
 obsequious part to make secure the honour he had 
 conferred upon her. 
 
 'You do not like Angela,' he said slowly. 'I am 
 afraid you do not like my mother.' He looked up at 
 her suddenly, and asked, with a whimsical smile : 'Are 
 you sure you like me?' 
 
 Did she like him — enough to go through with it? 
 That was what she asked herself when she was alone. 
 She had made some non-serious reply to his discon- 
 certing question, and, the dressing-bell ringing at that 
 moment, they had parted, with nothing further settled 
 between them. 
 
 Upon the meeting-ground of their common task, she 
 liked him as well as any man she knew. It was an 
 inspiration to work with him, and He gave such ungrudg- 
 ing praise to her as a fellow-worker that the prospect 
 of a lifelong partnership in scientific discovery had been 
 nothing but a delight. She also recognised that his 
 unfailing courtesy and gentleness had their roots in a 
 fine nature, that would never fail her. They had 
 
76 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 warmed her feelings towards him, and if he had shown 
 any signs of regarding her with interest as a woman, 
 and not merely as a fellow-scientist, it might not have 
 been long before the weakest point in her position, so 
 imfailingly marked by Lady Kimmeridge and Angela, 
 would have been the strongest. She might easily have 
 come to love him, and then nothing else that now 
 mattered so much would have mattered at all. She 
 would have loved even his helplessness, as the two 
 other women loved it, and she would gladly have 
 sacrificed some of the honours that might be expected 
 to come to her, for the sake of sparing him the dis- 
 tractions that his condition in life brought upon him. 
 
 But already the glamour was beginning to fade. As 
 for the work they were to do together, it was plain that 
 the edge of her own capacity was blunted by the divided 
 attention which was all she could bring to it. She 
 knew well enough that she was not helping him now 
 in the work that they had in hand, but hindering him. 
 For his capacity was dulled too, and never could be 
 at its brightest unless he coijld give his whole mind to 
 his work, as hitherto the protecting care of his mother 
 had enabled him to do. Whether love was in question 
 or not, she would have to take his mother's place sooner 
 or later, if his career was not to be spoilt, as well as 
 her own. Was it good enough? 
 
 What would she gain? As she dressed for dinner 
 in the large comfortable room which had struck so 
 pleasantly on her senses when she had first come to 
 Steynes Park, she was conscious no longer of satis- 
 faction in her surroundings. She had become used to 
 them. The very dressing for dinner was one of those 
 observances, wasteful of time and energy, which she 
 was fastening on herself for her whole Ufe. Even the 
 dinner itself, that would follow, . comparatively simple 
 as all domestic arrangements were for so great a house 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 77 
 
 would be irksomdy long and elaborate to her, brought 
 up as she had been. And the long evening afterwards, 
 passed in desultory talk, or at best with some music 
 from Angela to lighten the boredom ! It was true that, 
 with the armed truce that existed between her and the 
 two ladies, the evenings as they were spent now were 
 worse than anything she would have to look forward 
 to later. The playing of a part, which had become 
 almost intolerably wearisome to her, would not last 
 for ever. But Kimmeridge showed that he liked this 
 complete absence of effort of every sort, as a relief from 
 his strenuous hours. He liked to linger over the table 
 at meal-times; he liked to sit in an easy-chair and listen 
 to Angela's music, or outside on the terrace, chatting 
 idly, about nothing at all, or about nothing that held 
 any interest for her. In the early days of her visit, 
 before he had proposed to her, he and she had done 
 an hovir or two's work late in the evening, but Lady 
 Kimmeridge had begged her to discourage this. If 
 his brain was excited, he didn't sleep well. It had 
 happened before that he had broken down under the 
 strain of night as well as day work. Lately he had not 
 wanted to do it, and had even shortened their hours of 
 work in the dajrtime. 
 
 She thought of the merry evenings she had spent in 
 her own poor confined home, with talk and argument 
 upon every subject under the sun — all at their ease, 
 all pleased with one another, nobody standing on any 
 ceremony, if they wanted to go away and do something 
 else. That had been real refreshment; and the 
 absorbing important life-work had been behind it, 
 for all of them to go back to, braced and exhilarated. 
 
 But to spend these long evenings with him alone ! 
 It would hardly be better than to spend them with 
 him and his mother and cousin. He had no intellectual 
 interests outside his immediate scientific pursuits; even 
 
78 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 his social interests were meagre; he would not care to 
 be constantly meeting other people. He liked to be 
 talked to by his womenfolk, to make little jokes with 
 them, to bask in the quiet atmosphere of their affection 
 for him. That was the 'job' she would have to take 
 on — ^to keep him mildly amused in his hours of recrea- 
 tion — she whose active mind wanted constant stimulus, 
 and who had a hundred interests outside that of her 
 chosen work. 
 
 What would she gain as the wife of Lord Kimmeridge, 
 to balance all that she would lose, in freedom of action, 
 zest for daily life, and the career that would be spoilt 
 by the new and strange duties that would be heaped 
 upon her shoulders? A title; wealth; a beautiful house; 
 a high and assured position. Of what use would any 
 of them be to her under the conditions in which she 
 would have them? 
 
 If she asked herself these questions, it was without 
 searching diligently for a reply. She went downstairs 
 to meet the women who despised her, and the man 
 whom she was beginning a little to despise, determined 
 to hold to her conquest. 
 
 XI 
 
 Dr Margaret Platter afterwards remembered that 
 evening as the most irksome she had ever spent in her 
 life. Sometimes, in the charming restful room they 
 usually occupied, when Angela had been playing, she 
 had been able to lighten her weariness by a half- 
 surreptitious glance through a book or a magazine, 
 while Kimmeridge sat and smoked interminable 
 cigarettes, and his mother occupied herself with needle- 
 work. She always manoeuvred for a seat near a table, 
 so that she might take up whatever printed matter 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LIFE' n 
 
 there was upon it whenever the chance came. But this 
 evening they sat on the terrace just outside the morning- 
 room, and when Angela did go in to play, she still had 
 to sit on, doing nothing, which was purgatory to her. 
 
 Kimmeridge was more than usually silent. He 
 smoked one cigarette after another, scarcely speaking 
 a word, for over an hour. Then he seemed to rouse 
 himself. It was when Angela had shut the piano, 
 and came and stood just outside the long open window 
 — ^a graceful figure in her white dress, leaning against 
 the window-frame. 'Thank you, Angela,' he said, 
 looking up at her. 'You played just the right things. 
 Could one want an57thing better than to sit out of 
 doors on this lovely night, and listen to quiet beautiful 
 music — ^perhaps a shade sad, like those Nocturnes?' 
 
 He had half-turned towards Margaret Platter, 
 specially inviting her acquiescence in his enjoyment. 
 With ail his curious deficiencies in understanduig, he 
 never failed to show those little cotirtesies which would 
 make her feel that she was part of the circle. 
 
 She had an impulse of impatient revolt. She was 
 entirely without ear for music, and had hardly been 
 able to support the intense boredom of the long hour 
 that had just passed. Nor had the beauty of the summer 
 night and the mysterious moonlit loveliness of the 
 garden moved her. How willingly would she have 
 exchanged it for the crowded gaslit streets of Camden 
 Town, where h°r parents lived ! She had no particular 
 love for Camden Town as a residential locality, but at 
 any rate there was life there, instead of these long terrible 
 hours of stagnation. 
 
 And this was what he Uked ! 
 
 He began to talk now, gently and reminiscently. He 
 talked of Steynes — of his boyhood, of all sorts of little 
 foolish episodes that had taken place here and there, 
 in this or that room of the house, or spot in the garden. 
 
8o THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 or in the woods or by the sea; mentioning many people 
 by name — old servants, old friends in cottages and 
 farmhouses. Lady Kimmeridge and Angela took their 
 part in the conversation, all three of them giving them- 
 selves up to the gentle flow of reminiscence— drivel, 
 Margaret Platter thought it— that gave a tender 
 human meaning to the fair and spacious house and 
 all about it that they loved so well. 
 
 When ten o'clock struck from the clock on the stable 
 turret, she could bear it no longer. She pleaded a 
 slight headache, and said good-night. Her bedroom, 
 in which she could read, or write if she wanted to, was 
 a haven from this intolerable dullness. When she 
 reached it she made movements of anger and disgust. 
 It would have relieved her to smash something. She 
 made a strong resolve that when she was once married 
 she would fight against this desolating stagnation. She 
 would do her duty by her husband but she would 
 refuse to waste long valuable hours sitting with her 
 hands, in her lap, talking about nothing. 
 ' Angela slipped off not long afterwards and Kimmer- 
 idge and his mother were left alone together. Their 
 usual hour for retiring was between ten and half-past, 
 but if he showed any incUnation to sit on, she usually 
 bore him company. Her brain was as active as 
 Margaret Platter's; the life she now lived was as 
 different as possible from what it had been during the 
 lifetime of her husband, or even when her son had been 
 a boy, and there had been many guests at Steynes. But 
 she was conscious of no weariness in adapting herself 
 to his needs. That was because she loved him. She 
 took a great pride in his scientific achievements, and 
 looked to see him rise to the summit of fame. And she 
 knew so well the conditions under which alone he could 
 do full justice to himself. His brain, so fiercely active 
 during bis hours of work, wanted nothing but rest 
 
•m THAT STATE OF LIFE' 8i 
 
 outside thein; and his bodily strength was only equal 
 to the demands which his concentration made upon it 
 if it was carefully conserved and watched over. She 
 gave herself gladly to the task, and had her reward in 
 the rather pathetic dependence he showed towards her. 
 It always touched her — ^that he should be so contented 
 with her compamonship, in his hours of recreation — 
 hers and Angela's; for she thought that Angela loved 
 him too, and would be glad to give herself to him in 
 the same way. 
 
 He threw away his cigarette, and took another out 
 of his case. 'I want to say something to you, dear 
 mother,' he said. 
 
 A spurt of hope lit up the blank fear and dejection 
 of her mind. Her quiet : 'Yes, Henry.' was said on 
 an involuntary intake of breath. 
 
 'I am afraid I have made a mistake.' 
 
 She could have wept for the relief and joy of it. But 
 his next words brought her to herself. 'It's too late 
 to alter it now.' 
 
 Was it too late? Did his not-imderstanding word, 
 so lightly, so foolishly given, commit him to a lifelong 
 repentance of his error? She could not think so; but 
 must wait until she knew what was in his mind before 
 she could do battle for him. 
 
 His next words were quite unexpected. She had 
 thought that he would tell her how he had come to see 
 that he had made a mistake; but he put all that on 
 one side, and said : ' I want to ask you if you can't 
 reconsider your decision about living here — ^with us.' 
 
 It was a bitter disappointment to her. With the 
 terms she had imposed upon herself in her dealings with 
 him, she could not directly question his decision; she 
 could only lie in wait for an opportunity of expressing 
 her own doubts. But she knew his nice sense of honour 
 too well to have much hope that he would draw back. 
 
82 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'Oh, my dear boy,' she said, with pain in her voice, 
 'I would do much more than that for you. If you 
 want me with you, I will stay— if it is possible.' 
 
 'I do want you, mother; and I think I want to stay 
 here, at Steynes. For one thing, I am not siure that I 
 ought to leave it. I don't amount to much as a land- 
 lord, I'm afraid; but the people all know me, and I 
 think I am of some use to them, although you are of so 
 much more.' 
 
 'There is nothing that you need reproach yourself 
 with in that way, dear Henry. It is only the details, 
 the business part, that you are spared. In every other 
 way you are just what you ought to be towards your 
 people. And of course they would miss you.' 
 
 'I am glad you think that, mother. If it is so, I 
 have been very fortunate in being able to combine my 
 work and my other duties, and to enjoy them both. 
 Oh, I know how much I have to thank you for making 
 that possible. I think I ought to go on living here; 
 but I can see now that nothing would go right, unless 
 you were here, too. Why did you say you would stay 
 if it were possible? Why shouldn't it be possible? ' 
 
 She did not reply immediately. She was trying to 
 find words that would do more than merely answer his 
 question. 'I have done what I have as mistress of 
 Steynes,' she said. 'When you are married, I shall 
 no longer be mistress of Steynes. And it wouldn't only 
 be for you to ask me to go on living here.' 
 
 He answered at once. ' I have thought over all that. 
 I have said that I have made a mistake. I wouldn't say 
 that to anybody but you, and I shall never say it again, 
 after to-night. The mistake I have made woiildn't only 
 affect me, if one didn't do one's best to mend it. What 
 I offered to Margaret was an equal partnership in my 
 work. I think she has come to see that that will be 
 impossible, if she has to make up for my deficiencies. 
 
'IN THAT STATE OF LiFIi* 83 
 
 as you have so wonderfully done hitherto. I believe 
 she is willing to make the sacrifice, but I ought not to 
 ask it of her. She has as much right to the chance of 
 developing her powers as I have. They are remarkable 
 powers, and the world would be the poorer without 
 them. It will be aU to her advantage to have you with 
 us here, mother, and she is so clever and clear-sighted 
 that she can hardly be bUnd to it. I must do iny best 
 to make her happy, as she has trusted her happiness to 
 me. And I know you will do your best to help me in 
 that, as you have helped me in everything else.' 
 
 The tears were in her eyes. 'Yes, dear boy,' she 
 said. 'We will make the best of it, both of us together.' 
 
 She could say nothing of all that was in her mind. 
 She saw that his eyes had been opened, but she did not 
 know how much. If he still retained his faith in the 
 woman who had taken advantage of his previous 
 blindness, she must say nothing to destroy it. She 
 must make the best of her, both for him' and for herself. 
 She must take up the burden of a new life, and by all 
 means hide from him how heavy it was. 
 
 XII 
 
 When Margaret Platter went up to her room, she 
 prepared herself in her slow deliberate way for a 
 comfortable hour with a book. She took a seat by the 
 open window about the time that Angela said good- 
 night. Her room was on the second floor, immediately 
 above where they were sitting on the terrace. The 
 voices came up to her quite clearly in the still night, 
 but she paid little heed to them until after the silence 
 that followed Angela's departure. Then she heard 
 Kimmeridge's speech : 'I have made a mistake'; and 
 laid down her book with a startled look in her eyes. 
 
34 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 She heard the conversation right tlirough; and long 
 after it was over, and the servants had come to take 
 in the chairs and to shut up down below,- she sat on, 
 looking out into the night. 
 
 When at last she arose and prepared herself for bed, 
 she was wondering how she could have come to put 
 herself into such a false position. She was bitterly 
 ashamed of herself. She had doggedly set herself to 
 listen to a confidential conversation, hardening her 
 heart to the mortifying things that would surely be 
 said of her after such an opening, and she had heard 
 from first to last only what brought home to her the 
 baseness of her own attitude towards such people-as these. 
 
 She had been considering whether it was 'good 
 enough' — for herself. No thought had entered her 
 mind of whether it was good enough for the man who 
 had offered her his hand. If she had come to the con- 
 clusion that she did not want what she had accepted 
 from him, she would have taken her freedom. He had 
 been considering too, and had found out that he had 
 made a mistake. But it had not apparently occurred 
 to him even to ask her for his freedom, although he 
 had become aware that she was dissatisfied, and might 
 at least have hoped that she would be ready to give it 
 to him. No; he was thinking of what he owed to her, 
 on accoimt of his too hasty offer. 
 
 And his mother, who had known all along that he 
 had made a mistake, and whose hopes for him had been 
 deeply disappointed — she had not said a word of all 
 that she might have said to dissuade him from fulfilling 
 his promise. She was ready to make the best of it for 
 him, and help him to make the best of it for the woman 
 whom she disliked, and despised. 
 
 What was left after that, of all the arguments with 
 which she had defended herself against herself for 
 carrying through her purpose? Nothing much but 
 
'IN THAT STATE Of LIFE* 85 
 
 Angela's charge that she was proposing to use this 
 childlike, kind, generous man for a 'climb up.' 
 
 She came down late for breakfast the next morning. 
 She had Ifiin awake until the sun had streamed into 
 her windows, and then, having got rid of all the rubbish 
 that had been filling her mind for weeks past, she fell 
 asleep, and slept again after she had been called. 
 
 Her face had a look of serenity that had been absent 
 from it since she had first come to Steynes. Angela 
 saw a different woman in her, and the difference puzzled 
 her, and distressed her too, for she thought it could 
 only mean that she now saw her way clear; and yet it 
 did not look quite like that either. Lady Kimmeridge, 
 whose eye§*and face were tired after a sleepless night, 
 also saw the difference, but it did not distress her. She 
 had made up her mind to accept this woman, and to 
 like her, if she could possibly compass that difficult 
 feat; and she saw her now dimly with the qualities that 
 might make it possible to like her in the ascendant. 
 Kimmeridge saw nothing. He was rather graver than 
 usual, but not uncheerful. 
 
 They met in the laboratory at their usual time, and 
 worked steadily through the morning. When the 
 time came for thein to leave off, he said with his kind 
 smUe : 'You've been splendid this morning. What a 
 lot we shall do together by-and-by ! ' 
 
 Her eyes were just a little moist and her cheeks a 
 little flushed as she said : ' Perhaps we shall work 
 together again by-and-by, but I have come to the 
 conclusion that we shall both do our work better if 
 we forget what we have said about being married. I 
 am grateful to you for the honour you did me in asking 
 me to be your wife, but I — I don't want to marry.' 
 
 Even now he thought of her first. The sudden look 
 of relief, to which she had nerved herself, did not 
 appear on his face. It was concerned, as he looked at 
 
86 iTHE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 her and said : 'I am not very clever apart from — ^this.' 
 He motioned with his hand towards the material of 
 their investigations. 'Have I done anything, or left 
 undone anything, that has disturbed you?' 
 
 'No,' she said. 'You have shown yourself all that 
 you ought to be. I mean it when I say that I am 
 grateful to you. But we are not suited to one another. 
 Let us be friends, and forget that we ever thought of 
 being more.' 
 
 Still he was too scrupulous to take his release straight 
 away. He had seen, very dimly, because such thoughts 
 were foreign to him, that he had offered her great 
 ' worldly advantage, and it seemed to him that there 
 ought to be some way. of compensating her for giving 
 up everything. But he had no idea in what way she 
 could be compensated, and his mind turned towards his 
 invariable refuge from material difficulties. He smiled 
 at her and said : ' Let me talk to my mother, first, 
 before we decide anything. Perhaps ' 
 
 She returned his smile, and hers was now as pleasant 
 to see as his was. '/ will talk to her,' she said. 'But 
 I have made up my mind already. That is why we 
 worked together so well this morning.' 
 
 It was after luncheon that she talked to Lady 
 Kimmeridge, in the room in which they had at first 
 clashed swords. 
 
 'I have already told Henry,' she said, "and I told 
 him I would tell you. I don't want to marry him.' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge looked utterly bewildered. For 
 the moment she was unable to take in the statement, 
 and all that it meant to her, and to her son. 
 
 ' I think we have both made a mistake,' said Margaret. 
 'I am glad I have seen mine before it was too late.' 
 
 The words struck a chord in Lady Kimmeridge's 
 memory. Her expression changed. 'Did you hear 
 what we said on the terrace last night?' she asked. 
 
*IN THAT STATE OF LIFE* 87 
 
 The question was unexpected. Margaret looked 
 down in confusion, but recovered herself quickly. 
 'Yes, I did,' she said boldly. 'I hadn't meant to say 
 so, but if yoii know ^hat, then you will know why I 
 give him up. What I heard brought me to my senses. 
 Perhaps I shouldn't have listened at all if I hadn't 
 lost them for a time.' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge went rapidly over as much as she 
 could recall of what had been said, still rather shocked 
 in spite of the frank avowal, that it should have been 
 overheard. 'Is it because he said that he wanted me 
 to live with you here? ' she asked. 
 
 'It's because I ought never to have accepted him. 
 I don't love him, though I might, perhaps, if he loved 
 me. Certainly, he is worth a woman's love. You 
 won't ask me to say more than that. It is all that 
 reaUy matters, isn't it?' 
 
 Lady Kimmeridge looked at her earnestly, and her 
 face bore a strong resemblance at that moment to her 
 son's. Then she kissed her gently, and said : ' My 
 dear, I think you must have come to love him a little, 
 or you wouldn't give him up.* 
 
THE BUILDER 
 
 His father was a bricklayer, not drunken enough to 
 lose the chance of work, and not sober enough to keep 
 himself and his family above the border line of poverty. 
 He lived in an old group of cottages on the outskirts of 
 the town, which were much adnyred by visitors and had 
 been more than once condemned by sanitary inspectors. 
 
 During his childhood, building in and about the 
 ancient town had sunk to a very low ebb. Years before 
 it had scornfully rejected the railway, which, in revenge, 
 had filched its prosperity and made a thriving place of 
 its once despised neighbour four miles away. Building 
 had gone on busily in the new town, and drawn most 
 of those engaged in the trade away from the old. But 
 there was enough to keep the few that remained behind 
 in employment. His father was a good workman, when 
 he was sober, and had his share in whatever was going on. 
 
 The child loved nothing better than to go where 
 there was building being done. There was no competi- 
 tion between him and his brothers to escape from the 
 duty — ^the somewhat heavy duty — of carrying their 
 father's dinner beer. He would have fought for the 
 privilege if there had been any one to fight. For, 
 having temporarily assuaged his father's thirst, he 
 would be permitted to see what was doing. 
 
 The mortar in its bed of lime, the stacks of new 
 bricks, the tiles and slates and laths, the timbers and 
 boarding, the cleverly roped scaffolding, the ladders, 
 
 88 
 
THE BUILDER 8g 
 
 the pipes and chimnejTS, the door and window frames, 
 the work of joiners, glaziers, plumbers, painters, and 
 decorators, all had an irresistible fascination for him. 
 He loved all the materials of building and grew to know 
 all about them, as his brothers knew all about the nests 
 and eggs of birds, and the life of the country around them. 
 
 The builder's yard, with its stored up collection of 
 lumber, was a paradise to him, and because it was a 
 usually forbidden paradise, he loved it the more 
 ardently. He could tell the qugJity of a brick at a 
 glance; he could tell whether work was well and truly 
 done or whether it was scamped; he had an eye for 
 points of construction. A weU-laid course of brick- 
 work, neatly pointed, was a thing to gloat over; he 
 would climb surreptitiously on to the scaffolding, away 
 from that side of the house where his father and his 
 mates were eating their dinners, and admire the pitch 
 of the roof timbers, passing his hand lo^dngly over the 
 carpenters' work, and sometimes shaking his small 
 head over it. He came to know something of values, 
 and when he was let free of school, and, for a small 
 wage, mixed mortar and carried half loads of bricks in 
 a hod up ladders, or did any other job that could be 
 put on to a boy of twelve, he would have been quite 
 capable of taking a place in the builder's office, for he 
 was quick at figures, and the materials over which 
 reckonings were made were as familiar to him as the 
 food he ate — ^what there was of it. 
 
 But the way to that success in his trade which he 
 afterwards acquired did not lie through the training of 
 the counting house. He worked with the materials of 
 building themselves, toiling under the open sky, liking 
 his work, and taking a pride in every detail of it, not 
 anxious, like the rest of his fellows, to lay down his 
 tools at the exact moment of release, or taking them up 
 tardily when the time came to do so. He was even a 
 T.C. G 
 
90 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 little suspicious of the trade union which he presently 
 joined, and which did not encourage an over zealousness 
 in labour. And, later on, the trade unions did not 
 love him. i 
 
 Of all his qualities, which included an extraordinary 
 and perhaps inherited aptitude for manipulation, a 
 certainly not inherited love of hard work, a power of 
 going without, and so saving money, a quickness of 
 brain, and a faculty for getting a great deal out of other 
 people, perhaps the one that most affected his career 
 was an obstinate and disagreeable self-sufficiency, 
 which caused him to rely upon himself, and himself 
 alone. It aifected him adversely at the beginning, for 
 he would certainly have been taken into partnership 
 with his old master if it had been at all possible to get 
 on with him. As it was, he was driven into indepen- 
 dence and opposition before he was quite ready, and 
 lost most of his savings by attempting to do too much 
 or too little. 
 
 But he rallied from that blow, and with what was 
 left, picking up a httle job here and a slightly bigger/ 
 >ne there, he made his way slowly, and living hard and 
 working hard, scraped together capital to embark upon 
 the schemes he had had in his mind from the first. 
 
 The town was growing now. Its fame as a picturesque 
 place in the midst of lovely country, wonderfully little 
 spoilt, considering everything, was attracting residents. 
 There were new houses to be built for people who could 
 not get old ones, there were old houses to be adapted. 
 On the western side of the town, between it and the 
 new golf links, a pleasant suburb grew up, of good houses 
 with large gardens. And smaller houses were wanted 
 too, houses for the revivified tradespeople, active or 
 retired, cottages for the workpeople, both those who 
 aiinistered to the wants of the growing population and 
 those who were making ready for its increase. 
 
THE BUILDER ^t 
 
 It was the cottage property on which the sage builder 
 had his eye.. There was nothing like it. You snapped 
 up a piece of land with a frontage — building land was 
 rising in value now, and was difficult to get — and you 
 ran up a row of brick boxes with slate lids, as many as 
 you could cram into the spa,ce, and they were off ybur 
 hands, with a good profit to each, before you had cleaned 
 the round patch of whitewash off the window panes. 
 
 It was not necessary to employ an architect to design 
 thejn for you. You could do that very weU for yovur- 
 self; and architects, besides being expensive, were apt 
 to have faddy ideas which ate away your profits. As 
 many cottages as possible on a given piece of ground, 
 quick but sound work — ^for no architect could have 
 hated jerry-buUding more than this man who loved his 
 trade — and quick and fair profits — that was the way 
 to do business. The slow erection of the bigger houses, 
 where you were hampered all the time by the whims of 
 people who did not know their own minds two weeks 
 running, could be left for the present to the older 
 established men, who worked in the approved old- 
 fashioned style. 
 
 A good architect would prepare a good plan and would 
 overlook its leisurely carrying out, altering it frequently 
 in detail as the work progressed. And about two 
 months or more after the house had been timed to be 
 finished, the old fashioned builder wotdd withdraw his 
 men and pronounce it ready for occupation. There 
 were good profits to be made out of that class of 
 building when you had a large and regular staff, and 
 a suf&cient capital. But it could wait for the 
 present. 
 
 So ran the thoughts of the small man, busy with liis 
 little jobs, and gathering together liis difficult coins, 
 disregarded in his insignificance, but intending to be 
 disregcirded not for very long. 
 
§2 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 II 
 
 He bought the row of cottages in which he had been 
 brought up for a small sum, when nobody, so to speak, 
 was looking, evicted the tenants, his father who now 
 worked for him among them, pulled down the irregular 
 picturesque insanitary dwellings, and built fifteen 
 hideously plain and regular ones in their place. 
 
 If that sort of thing went on, said the indignant 
 residents, when they woke up to what was happening, 
 the place would very soon be ruined. But he did not 
 care in the least for that sort of protest. He hardly 
 heard it, for he only emerged from the dimly seen 
 underworld of labour with that transaction, and what 
 the superior residents thought or said filtered through 
 to him only as a faint and unconsidered echo. Besides, 
 he had made three hundred pounds clear profit. 
 
 Late on the night after he had disposed of his last 
 cottage, the whole transaction now being closed and 
 the good money lodged in the bank, he walked th6 
 streets of the town in a sort of grim ecstasy, too restless 
 to go home to his bed, and unwilling that any one should 
 see him stripped, however so little, of his plating of 
 hard reserve. 
 
 The streets were empty and his boots rang on the 
 worn stones and made echoes among the old buildings. 
 The yellow lights of the street lamps showed glimpses 
 of moulded brickwork, solid timber, broad eaves, 
 small-paned windows; and a new moon peeping out 
 fitfully from behind scudding clouds shone on the high 
 mellow-tiled gabled roofs and twisted chimney stacks. 
 Whatever of change had crept in amongst all this 
 ancient contented placidity was softened by the dim 
 light into agreement with the rest. Take away the new 
 shop-fronts in the Market Square, and the pretentious 
 
THE BUILDER 93 
 
 modem Bank, which had usurped the place of an 
 Elizabethan timbered house, and an inhabitant of a 
 hundred years back would have found nothing strange 
 or unfamiliar if he had stood in the shadow of the church 
 and looked about him. The visitors and the superior 
 residents were right. This was a town that by good 
 fortune was singularly Httle spoilt; a grateful survival 
 of a less hurried, more beautiful age. And here was the 
 man, prowling its streets at midnight, ambitious, 
 determined, and alas ! unconsidered, who was going 
 to change all that. 
 
 He stood in the shadow of the church and, in the 
 winter silence of midnight, considered it. Some 
 emanation from the spirit of the place wrought upon 
 him, quieted, for a time, his eagerness, and on his 
 unimpressionable mind stamped faintly an unfamUiar 
 impression. Beauty of form, of atmosphere, he was 
 blind to. But he had an ingrained appreciation of the 
 materials of his trade, their substance, texture, use, and 
 circumstance. He had known that the work of these 
 old builders was good work, but now something from 
 outside seemed to tell him that it was better than he 
 had known. It was as if, having got him alone, they 
 were crowding round him and imploring him to save 
 what their hands had made. 
 
 The influences about him had this effect that he 
 thought for a time, standing motionless by a great 
 buttress that jutted on to the pavement, of the work 
 that had been put into those old buildings. He would 
 have liked to build like that, himself, sometimes — ^with 
 somebody else's money — ^to put in the best materials 
 and the best craftsmanship, both where they would 
 show and where they would be hidden. It was a pity 
 that modem improvement made it necessary to destroy 
 such soimd work, and modem conditions made it 
 impossible to put work as sound in its place. 
 
94 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 He got no further than that. He was firmly con- 
 vinced that the building of houses had made enormous 
 strides for the better since the days in wliich these old 
 houses had been put up. It had learnt economy of 
 space for one thing; it had adapted itself to new con- 
 ditions of life, so thjat servants were no longer penned 
 into underground cellars; it had learnt sanitation, and 
 heating, and all sorts of other things. 
 
 And the range of material to hand was double as 
 wide. The best machine-made bricks were as durable 
 as hand-made ones, and their larger size made them 
 cheaper in the laying; slates kept out the weather better 
 than tiles, and looked neater; walls well plastered and 
 prettily papered were preferable to the old extravagant 
 wainscoting; steel girders could be used instead of oak 
 beams; you could make cement look like stone by 
 scoring lines on it. 
 
 In his rare mood of receptivity he weighed a little 
 the criticism that had been passed and come through to 
 him, and dangerously saw beyond it. What was all 
 tliis talk about things being old? These buildings were 
 not good because they were old. They had been just 
 as good when they were new. Their builders, with the 
 means at their command, had satisfied the needs of 
 their age, and hp, with wider means, was going to 
 satisfy the needs of his. Other conditions had stepped 
 in. Land and labour were dearer, time was less, popula- 
 tion much greater; And the changed conditions were 
 as much a part of his business as the construction of 
 walls and roofs and floors. You built to meet the 
 current demands of life. The activity of the speculative 
 builder, anticipating a demand and providing for it, 
 was a more living and useful activity than that of the 
 cultured architect who a;dministered to the exotic 
 claims of the few. 
 
 In his own way he thought out these things, and his 
 
THE BUILDER 95 
 
 slight uneasiness vanished. It was as if the spirits of 
 the old builders, pleading with him, had departed in 
 despair of teaching him those other lessons of beauty 
 allied to fitness, and springing out of it, which they 
 had also learnt in their vanished time. 
 
 He walked home through the silent streets, hugging 
 once more his dreams of the future, and never knew as 
 he went straight to his poor habitation that he had 
 taken a wrong turning, having gone nearer than he 
 ever afterwards came to taking the right one. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The development of that small building speculation 
 followed Tyith almost startling rapidity. He was 
 fortimate in the early stages, made money and spent 
 none, got money, as the phrase goes, behind him, and 
 long before he had hoped for it bought out his old 
 master and was running up two streets of houses on the 
 outskirts of the town, on land which had been previbusly 
 occupied by a fine old house with four or five acres of 
 garden and orchard. 
 
 It was at this time that the outcry from the superior 
 residents, echoed from outside, began directly to reach 
 him. But it troubled him little. Let them cry out ! 
 His orderly rows of neat brick villas were on the 
 opposite side of the town to their houses and the golf 
 links, and would do them no harm. Besides, they were 
 there now and nobody, could shift them. 
 
 And, after all, nobody had been willing to pay the 
 price to keep the old house. If it had been worth 
 more to them to keep than to him to destroy why hadn't 
 they put down their money. He had offered at one 
 time, when the little storm had looked likely to become a 
 big one, to let the property go at only a small profit on 
 
96 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 what he had paid for it. But the objectors had not put 
 down their money, and the old wistaria-covered white 
 house with its beautiful gardens was put down instead, 
 and the red brick villas, of which all the plans had been 
 prepared in his office, were put up. 
 
 At about the time he was starting on this big and 
 lucrative underteiking he found time to attend to the 
 affairs of his soul, and joined the Methodists. He was 
 a regular member of the congregation, paid his share 
 with the rest, for whatever was wanted, and when the 
 long-cherished scheme of replacing the old meeting- 
 house with a new and elaborate 'church' was at last 
 put into execution, largely through his encouragement, 
 he got the contract, as a matter of course. 
 
 His share towards the expense was the saving of 
 architect's fees. He must be paid for his work as a 
 builder, of course; the labourer was worthy of his hire. 
 But he would prepare the plans, and see to their 
 carrying out for nothing. 
 
 His offer was considered a most generous one. They 
 could hardly hope to vie with the splendours of the 
 great abbey church, but they would have by far the 
 largest Nonconformist place of worship in the town, 
 and if a little extra money could be got together to 
 add a Gothic spire, of which 'our brother,' without any 
 additional charge, had already prepared a most tasteful 
 design, they flattered themselves that the new church, 
 with the advantage of a fine site, would be almost as 
 conspicuous an object as the old. 
 
 It was, in truth, almost more conspicuous, when it 
 came to be built, and the mean and ridiculous spire was 
 added in due time. For the old church had a low square 
 tower, and the spire overtopped it by at least ten feet. 
 And the old, low, mellow red-brick chapel, with its 
 paved garden-square and the minister's house adjoining 
 it, was a thing of the past. 
 
THE BUILDER 97 
 
 Most of the old shops in the Market Square were by 
 this time also things of the past. Some had been pulled 
 down and rebuilt entirely, some had been refaced and 
 carried a story higher; plate glass windows were every- 
 where, only two or three of the smaller bow-windowed 
 smaU-paned fronts having been left. 
 
 The outcry had gathered voice now, but it was stiU 
 surprisingly incompetent to arouse action. The builder 
 who had struck the first serious blow was responsible 
 for a good deal of the change, and he was one of the 
 most thriving men in the place. He was also, by this 
 time, thoroughly awcire of the opposition he had 
 aroused, but was moved by it no more than before. 
 ' Spoiling the town 1 ' he would exclaim. ' I'm making 
 the town. Is it more prosperous than it was, or isn't it ? ' 
 
 Unfortunately, there was no denying that it was 
 vastly more prosperous. For one thing, the new main 
 line had come, and it was now within an hour's direct 
 joumpy of London. It had got the name of a first- 
 class residential place, and nothing that was done 
 seemed to affect the influx of new people. The pleasant 
 suburb between the town and the golf links spread 
 farther and farther. 'I'm not fool enough to buy land 
 and put up cottages there' the builder would say. 'It 
 would depredate the property. Why can't they be 
 content with what they have got ? ' 
 
 They kad to be content, with that and the great 
 church and the Market Square, and the famous town 
 hall, and tjie old shops and houses that still remained; 
 for much of the rest had gone, and aU round the old 
 town, except on their side, was a waste of new streets, 
 and almost a new town altogether. They had not put 
 their hands in their pockets at the time when they 
 m^ht have saved it, and it is doubtful whether their 
 pockets would have been deep enough in any case, for 
 what can stand against the irresistible pr^sure of modem 
 
98 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 life, and who really cares enough for the past to save 
 more than a fragment of it here and there? 
 
 IV 
 
 It was Paradine, the famous architect, who brought 
 some of his sins home to him, but even he did not succeed 
 in making him repentant. Nobody could have done that. 
 
 He was a rich man now, a good deal richer than 
 many of those who occupied the best houses in the new 
 suburb, now quite a respectably old suburb; and he made 
 up his mind that he would bidld himself a house there. 
 
 He bought half an acre of land at a price bigger than 
 he had yet paid for any land. It was part of three 
 acres that had gone to the garden of one of the first of 
 the new good houses, and its owner addressed him thus 
 before they came to terms : — 
 
 'The land is no good to me, and it is quite planted 
 put by this time. I shall be glad to sell it for building 
 at the price I ask, and I have no objection to you as a 
 neighbour. But I do make this proviso, that the house 
 you build shall be designed by a good architect. We 
 rather pride ourselves on doing things well here, and 
 it would be unneighbourly of me to allow a house to be 
 put up that would spoil the look of the place.' 
 
 The builder frowned. 'There's been a lot of talk 
 about spoiling the place,' he said. 'All the spoiling 
 that I can see is that I am obliged to pay as much for 
 half an acre now as you paid, sir, for three.' 
 
 'Our views on that matter are not likely to agree,' 
 said the seUer. ' If you can't accept my terms I won't 
 part with the land.' 
 
 ' Well, I'm going to have a house that suits me,' said 
 the builder, 'and I'm not going to spare expense in 
 building it. It will be a good house. I've got a plan 
 
THE BUILDER 99 
 
 sketched out, and I don't think anybody could find 
 anything to object to in it. It's Gothic — oh, a fine place it 
 will be. I've no objection to showing you the elevation.' 
 
 'I'm afraid that won't do. I don't know anjrthing 
 about architecture, but I have promised my friends I 
 will stipulate for a first-class architect.' 
 
 'Isn't it rather hard to prevent a man building the 
 sort of house he wants for himself? ' 
 
 'You may build it, and welcome, but unless you get 
 a good architect to design it for you, you won't build 
 it here.' They were standing in the paddock, with its 
 himdred yards of frontage, masked by limes and poplars 
 from the houses on either side, v 
 
 ' This isn't the only piece of land I could buy, Coldnel, 
 if I liked to pay the price.' 
 
 'No; and I'm not asking you to buy it. It's as you 
 please. I have named my terms.' 
 
 'And I've agreed to them.' 
 
 'Not to the most important.' 
 
 The builder looked round him. He had set his heart 
 on this site. 
 
 'Would Paradine do?' he asked, after a pause. 
 'There's a lot of talk about Mr Paradine. I dare say 
 it would pay me to give him a job; he might return 
 the compliment.' 
 
 'Paradine would do very well.' 
 
 ' Well, I'll think about it and let you know to-morrow. 
 I dare say me and Mr Paradine could work together. 
 I'll show him my plans, if I decide to employ him, and 
 I dare say he can improve upon them in a way that 
 will pleeise you and please me.' 
 
 'If Mr Paradine hkes to work in that way I shall 
 be satisfied. Very well, then, we'll leave it at that for 
 the present.' 
 
 So the big man came down, and the builder drove him 
 from the station to inspect the site. He was a thin 
 
too THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 nervous man, with delicate hands and a stoop of the 
 shoulders, and spoke in a soft, rather querulous voice. 
 'I have not been here since I was a boy,' he said. 'My 
 uncle was the Rector, and I used to stay with him.' 
 
 'Well, you will see very great improvements, sir,' 
 said the builder; 'and I may say, without blowing my 
 own trumpet, that I have been more responsible for 
 them than any one else.' 
 
 A shudder passed through the architect's frame as 
 they drove along one side of the Market Square, but he 
 said nothing, and the builder expatiated on the changes 
 he had brought about, drawing particular attention to the 
 Methodist chapel, which he claimed as his magnus opus.' 
 
 'You built that!' exclaimed the architect, fixing a 
 horrified gaze on the pitiable Cockney spire, which, like 
 a short-lived weed, seemed to have exhausted all its 
 strength in overtopping the massive solidity of the 
 neighbouring tower. 
 
 'Designed and built it,' said the builder proudly, for 
 he had lost all diffidence in face of his companion's mild, 
 nervous manner. 'We builders know a thing or two. 
 Now I've got some drawings in my office' — ^he had not 
 intended to mention this — 'which I thought of carrying 
 out in the new house; something in the same style as 
 the church, with a bit x)f a spire too, and some traceried 
 windows — I don't grudge the expense; I want to have 
 everything good. I thought between us we might work 
 up something tasty out of them. When you have seen 
 the site, we ' 
 
 'Wait a minute,' said the architect, extending a lean 
 hand toward the driver, and turning on the builder a 
 pained, inquiring face. ' Do I understand you that you 
 have already prepared plans for your new house?' 
 
 'Well, only provisional, you understand. If you 
 think well of my ideas, as I'm sure you will, what I 
 thought was that between us ' 
 
THE BUILDER tot 
 
 But Mr Paradine interrapted him. 'I think there 
 has been some mistake,' he said. 'I will get back to 
 the station. I would not have left London if I had 
 known. My time is valuable.' And he put out his 
 hand again, to stop the driver.' 
 
 'Oh, wait a minute, sir,' said the builder, agheist. 
 'I'm sure I didn't mean — just a suggestion, you know. 
 If you would just cast your eye over the drawings.' 
 
 'I won't look at yoiu' pestUent drawings,' said the 
 architect violently, changed in the twinkling of an eye 
 from a meek person who could be instructed, almost 
 patronised, into a man of pxuple wrath and unbridled 
 expression. 
 
 'Eh! What!' exclaimed the \builder helplessly, his 
 eyes 'staring. 
 
 ' What do you mean, sir, by asking me to come down 
 here and talking to me of your filthy scribblings? Do 
 you know who I am, by any chance ? ' 
 
 'Oh, come, sir,' said the builder apologetically; 
 ■ nobody knows better than me what a reputation you've 
 got. I'm sure it never so much as entered my head 
 to • 
 
 'Do you want me to build you a house?' snapped 
 the architect. 
 
 'Yes, sir, of course. I want the best house I can 
 get for the money, and there's nobody who wiU make out 
 a better plan than you. I know that well enough. 
 That's why I took the liberty of asking you ' 
 
 ' It was a liberty, a great liberty. I don't know why 
 I came here. But now I am here, I will build you a 
 house. You will tell me the number of rooms you want, 
 and the money you are prepared to spend. Any details 
 as to the arrangement of the house for the -way you 
 wish to live in it I will Usten to. But you won't have 
 a word to say as to the style of architectm-e, or the 
 decoration, or anything else, and you will carry out the 
 
to2 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 plan with the very best materials, under my directions. 
 Do you tmderstand that?' 
 
 'I am to take it or leave it.' 
 
 'You are to take it in its entirety, or you are, as you 
 say, to leave it. I don't care which you do. And if 
 you ever speak to me again about the vile exhibitions 
 of vulgarity and ignorance with which you have 
 brought ruin on this beautiful old town, I'll — I'll — ^well, 
 I don't know what I shall do; but, upon my word, when 
 I think of what this place used to be and what it is 
 now, I feel inclined to go and cut my throat. What is 
 the good of me and men like me learning an^ thinking 
 and working all our lives, and trying to make headway 
 against the gross wicked blindness of the time, when 
 people like you can destroy in a month more than we 
 can do in a lifetime? It makes me despair.' 
 
 He ended on a note of gentle melancholy, and the 
 builder plucked up courage, surprised and a little 
 alarmed as he was at the outburst, to say, 'Oh, Well, 
 sir, there's two sides to that question; but I'm sure I 
 shall be flattered to live ia a house of your designing, 
 and so will the wife; and as for the work put into it, 
 you'll have no reason to complain about that.' 
 
 The architect sank back against the cushions of the 
 fly, his explosion over, and hardly spoke again until 
 the builder left him at the station an hour or so 
 later. 
 
 'He's a rum 'un, and no mistake,' said the man of 
 bricks and mortar to his wife, to whom he had given 
 an account of the episode. 'I don't know why I gave 
 way to him, I'm sure. But there's no doubt he's a 
 first-class man. A house by him will keep their tongues 
 from wagging. He gave me something, he did. Vulgarity 
 and ignorance, eh? Well, he knows his job and I know 
 mine, and we've both done pretty well out of 
 them.' 
 
THE BUILDER 103 
 
 'Well, there's your house,' said Paradine, the great 
 architect, a year or so later. 'You won't know how 
 to live in it, but that's not my affair. It is one of the 
 best of its size I have ever built.' 
 
 'It's a beautiful 'ouse, sir, a beautiful 'duse,' said 
 the builder enthusiastically. 
 
 They were standing in the paved courtyard in front 
 of it. The work was finished, and all the untidy traces 
 of the workmen's laboiurs had been removed. The 
 house, of warm red brick, with tiled broad-eaved roofs, 
 fluted chimney stacks, well-proportioned windows, 
 boldly decorated doorway, was ready to receive its 
 occupants, and help them to whatever domestic pleasures 
 they desired in life. It really was a beautiful house, 
 beautiful in its fine simplicity, as well as in its sparse 
 decoration, and beautiful in the way it enshrined the 
 idea of a home : and the builder, who had contributed 
 to it the best of material and workmanship, and had 
 learnt something during its erection, was sincere in his 
 admiration. • 
 
 'Yes; and I should like to know what sort of a 
 beastly dog-kennel you woul.d have put up here if you 
 had had your own way,' said the architect, turning a 
 whimsical eye on him. He had had his way in every 
 detail; he had kept the man whose money he had been 
 spending under a firmly placed thumb, and he had come 
 to like him. 
 
 The builder grinned, and scratched his head. 'It 
 has cost just double the money I meant to spend,' he said. 
 
 'Well, it's worth it, eh?' 
 
 'Yes, sir, it's worth it. I wouldn't have it altered. 
 I've taken a pride in it.' 
 
 'And that is what you have never done before, my 
 
104 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 friend, in any of the abominations of desolation you are 
 responsible for.' 
 
 'Oh, come, sir, that isn't fair. I've alwaj^ been 
 proud of putting in good materials and good work.' 
 
 'To do you justice, I believe you have. Andldon'tknow 
 that it doesn't make your offence worse. You are like a 
 dressmaker who would cut up silks and laces and sew them 
 together well, and yet not care in the least what the dress 
 she made of them looked like, or whether it fitted or not. ' 
 
 'Ah, but it does fit. What I've done, and what you're 
 so down on, does fit. It supplies a want. When the 
 want really changes I'll be ready to meet it. You 
 don't think I wouldn't rather build a house like this than 
 the sort of house I'm accustomed to build, do you? 
 This is my home, and I'm ready to spend my money 
 on it and have it good. Others haven't got so much 
 money, and they must do with something cheaper.' 
 
 The architect sighed and turned away. 'I'm afraid 
 it is so,' he said. 'And cheapness means ugliness, 
 nowadays. It needn't, you know. It used not to. 
 Come, now, haven't you learnt that lesson while we 
 have been working together?' 
 
 The builder hesitated again. 'Well, I can see in a 
 sort of > way,' he said, 'that our ornament's all wrong.' 
 
 ' Oh, ornament ! ' exclaimed the other,, with a shrug. 
 
 'Yes, I know,' the builder hastened to say. 'Much 
 better do without it altogether. And I'm going to, for- 
 the future.' He grinned. 'It'll come cheaper, any- 
 way. But I suppose you can see this, sir — ^if I had 
 spent what it has cost to make this house what it is, 
 over and above what I require, on the other houses I've 
 built here, it's quite certain that it woiild never have 
 been built at all. I shouldn't have made my money.' 
 
 The architect turned again towards the new walls. 
 'It has cost,' he said, 'the beauty of a whole town to 
 build this one house.' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 
 I 
 
 It all began with Mary Polegate's illuminated chart 
 of the kings of Juda and Israel. This work of art had 
 its inception before Ann came to the school, and would 
 have been finished and presented to Miss Sutor in time 
 to prevent the trouble that came of it, but for a grave 
 disaster that had befallen the first attempt. Misled 
 by the resemblance of names between King Jehoiakim 
 and his son. King Jehoiachin, Mary Polegate had given 
 the latter an 'm' instead of an 'n,' and her efforts to 
 correct the mistake had spoilt the fine perfection of the 
 work, by this time, together with the Christmas term, 
 - nearing its completion. So she had resigned herself to 
 beginning all over again, supported by the gratifying 
 sympathy of the whole school, and not altogether 
 displeased, after she had got over her first disappoint- 
 ment, at having something to do in her spare hours 
 that would arouse general interest for a whole term 
 longer than she had anticipated. 
 
 Mary Polegate was a very good girl. She had never 
 been known to be late for anything during the five 
 years she had been at Miss Sutor's school, and as for 
 reading play books in prep., or tearing out pages of her 
 rough notebook to write letters on, she would have been 
 incapable of such deeds, even before she was a monitor. 
 She was not among Miss Sutor's brightest pupils, and 
 while that lady treated her with invariable patience and 
 consideration. Miss Henderson, the second mistress, 
 T.C. i°3 H 
 
io6 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 was apt to be sarcastic at her expense. But Mary 
 Polegate. received her sarcasms with a bland and 
 beautiful meekness, which arose partly from her 
 equability of temper, partly from her inability to 
 understand the shafts aimed at her. Other ^Is who 
 did understand them expressed their indignation with 
 Miss Henderson among themselves, and made up for 
 her unkindness by being specially nice to Mary Polegate. 
 
 There were between forty and fifty girls at 'The 
 Cedars,' Miss Sutor's school. Until Ann's arrival 
 there had been only one day-pupil, Hilda Lang, the 
 daughter of the doctor who attended the school. Dr 
 Lang also attended Lady Sinclair, who lived in a large 
 house on the sea-front, and when Ann came to live 
 with her grandmother it was arranged that she too 
 should be a day-pupil at Miss Sutor's school. This 
 was a fortnight or so after the be'ginning of the Easter 
 term, when Mary Pqlegate's illuminated chart had 
 reached Jehosaphat, and she was nearing the end of 
 her first shell of gold. 
 
 Ann was received at 'The Cedars' with a degree of 
 attention that would have turned the heads of most 
 girls of thirteen. Her grandmother was a well-known 
 resident of the town, and her handsome equipage 
 brought her every Sunday to the church attended by 
 Miss (Sutor's school. She was known to be rich aiid 
 generous, and to like 'young things.' HUda Lang had 
 been to tea at her house, to be introduced to Ann, and 
 her account of the entertainment was enthusiastic. 
 Lady Sinclair had told Ann in her hearing that when 
 she got to know her new schoolfellows she might ask 
 some of them to tea every Saturday. Furthermore, 
 Ann had her own sitting-room on the top floor of the 
 big house overlooking the sea, and her bedroom next 
 to it. Th,ey had been beautifully furnished for her, and 
 she was allowed to do what she liked with them in the 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 107 
 
 way of decoration. She had a little maid, the niece of 
 Lady Sinclair's own maid, with whom she was also 
 apparently allowed to do much as she liked, or, at any 
 rate, did it, whether allowed or not. She had a most 
 extensive wardrobe for a child of her age, and, indeed, 
 her first appearance in church, in a beautifully tailored 
 coat and skirt of pastel blue cloth, with a cap and fur 
 of silver fox, had aroused admiring comment, before 
 she had been known. She had half a crown a week 
 pocket money, besides occasional golden windfalls 
 from visiting uncles with high-sounding names. In 
 fact, she was in process of being spoUt all round, and 
 the tendency among the girls at Miss Sutor's was to 
 help on the process when she first came among them. ' 
 
 Ann was a young person of unusual attractions. She 
 had large gray eyes and a straight little nose, the 
 bridge of which was adorned with faint freckles, and a 
 short upper lip that showed a row of beautiful teeth 
 whenever she smiled or laughed, which was frequently. 
 She had the most delicate skin, through which the colour 
 that came and went so readily with her showed more 
 than she could have wished, as it made her feelings of 
 the moment too apparent. Her hair was a warm brown, 
 and fell into natural waves and curls. It stood out 
 round her head lilce a nimbus, and had not been allowed 
 to grow long. She was straight and thin, with a figure 
 rather like a boy's, and looked younger than her years 
 on that account, and because of the clothes she wore. 
 Her mother had been French, and she had lived the 
 greater part of her life in France, where girls of her 
 age are dressed more childishly than in England. Her 
 frocks still stopped short at the knees, and she was very 
 lacy and frilly on occasions when it was suitable to be so. 
 
 Both her parents were dead, and she had been brought 
 up with a large family of cousins, partly in Paris; 
 partly in a chateau in Touraine, with long visits to 
 
loS THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 English relations interspersed. French was her natural 
 tongue, but she spoke English with a perfect accent, 
 except for the faintest little trill of the 'r's, which her 
 fine musical ear told her was wrong, but which she 
 could never quite overcome. Her English vocabulary, 
 however, was not equal to her requirements, and she 
 eked it out with a liberal use of French words, or with 
 literal translations of French phrases. She tried to get 
 the better of this, although it was considered an added 
 attraction by her admirers, and she made fast progress 
 when -she came to live in England. But in moments of 
 excitement she would relapse, and it amused her to 
 make use of many expressions not usual on the lips of 
 young girls, though otherwise harmless, which she had 
 picked up from her male cousins. 
 
 She had other accomplishments. She played the 
 violin — she had a perfect little model of a Nicola 
 Gagliano — ^with great purity of tone. She also played 
 hockey, with a complete absence of fear, and, when she 
 began to know something about the game, with ever 
 increasing skill. She could make people laugh, and 
 laughed herself, with such entire appreciation of her 
 own jokes, and looked so 'sweet' when she did so, that 
 some of the older girls were always wanting to embrace 
 her. But she presented such an angular frame to the 
 attempt, and was so sparing of her own endearments, 
 that the phase gradually wore off, and by the time she 
 had been at the school for a week she was accepted as 
 a person of independent character who refused to be 
 taken up by anybody. 
 
 Her chief friend was Hilda Lang, who was a year 
 older than herself, but soon settled down to follow her 
 leadership. The girls she asked to tea at her grand- 
 mother's house were those in her own class. She 
 attached herself to no 'big girl,' but treated them all 
 as if she were at least their equal. 
 
AtDACIOtS ANN 109 
 
 TI 
 
 After a time, Ann's audacity in this respect began to 
 weigh upon her elders. It was not what the school was 
 accustomed to. She played pranks. She changed the 
 gjon shoes of the elder girls, hanging up in holland 
 bags in the cloak-room, and did not even change them 
 in pairs, which would have led to less confusion and 
 waste of time. Margaret Parbury, the head girl, told 
 her to report herself to Miss Sutor, and when Ann had 
 satisfied herself that the order was according to law 
 she obeyed it, with an engaging smile upon her face, 
 as if she quite expected Miss Sutor to appreciate the 
 joke as much as she and Hilda Lang had done. She 
 received her 'talking to' with bright amiabiUty, and 
 readily promised not to offend in this way agciin. 
 
 But the very next week she brought a jumping 
 wooden frog to school, and having carefully practised 
 its range, caused it to alight upon Mabel Finney's 
 Corneille, as she was reading aloud with a heavy British 
 accent during the course of a French lesson. Mabel 
 Finney was short-sighted, and happened to have been 
 born with a strong distaste for frogs, of which she 
 thought she saw a live specimen before her. She 
 shrieked, and dropped her spectacles, and there was a 
 general scandalised commotion, which Ann appeared 
 to enjoy excessively. Mademoiselle was very angry with 
 her, and said she should certainly tell Miss Sutor; but 
 she was young and rather homesick, and Ann presently 
 read a passage in a way that so deliciously soothed her 
 much-tried ears that she let her off. 
 
 But the class, as a whole, was incensed against her. 
 It was the First French Class, and Ann, who was by 
 far the youngest girl in it, should have comported 
 herself with modesty on that account. This was 
 
tio THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 explained to her, and she only laughed, which incensed 
 her critics still further. Margaret Parbury told her that 
 she was turning the discipline of the whole school 
 upside down. They were not going to have younger 
 girls behaving impertinently to big girls, and especially 
 to monitors. If she offended in that way again she would 
 be sent to Coventry.' 
 
 ' Merci pour la langouste ! ' said Ann. ' What happens 
 there ? ' 
 
 It was explained to her that the monitors were 
 allowed to decree that the whole school should refuse 
 to speak to or hold any communication with a girl 
 who had misbehaved herself, in certain ways that did 
 not actually necessitate reporting her to Miss Sutor. 
 They might carry on this punishment for a week, and 
 if the culprit did not express contrition and a promise 
 of amendment within that time the case then had to be 
 reported to Miss Sutor, who dealt with it. 
 
 'But it has never been necessary to send a girl to 
 Coventry for longer than three days,' said Margaret. 
 ' So I should advise yoji not to force us to do it to you, 
 Ann, for I warn you that you won't like it at all.' 
 
 'Oh, I would detest it,' said Ann. 'But ecouiez, if 
 I told a girl that a spider was mounting to her neck, 
 couldn't she say " Thank you? " ' ' 
 
 'You may make fun of it if you like,' said Mabel 
 Finney, who was still indignant at the landing of the 
 frog on her book, 'but you won't make fun of it if we 
 decide to send you to Coventry. I think you ought to 
 be sent there for what you did this morning. A good 
 many people would have been frightened into con- 
 vulsions by it.' 
 
 'Ta bouche, bebe!' said Ann. 'Wouldn't Hilda 
 Lang be permitted to speak to me when we walked 
 home together? How would you know whether she 
 did it or not?' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN in 
 
 This was a point that had not yet arisen in practical 
 politics, and Margaret Parbury, to whom the question 
 had been put, with an air of detached interest, hesitated. 
 But Mabel Finney said: 'Any girl who breaks the 
 rules of Coventry is sent to Coventry herself. We all 
 know that you egg on Hilda Lang to follow your bad 
 example and be rude to the elder girls. She behaved i 
 very well before you came, and now she's nearly as bad 
 as you are. She had better be careful too, for we are 
 not going to stand any more of it, from either of you.' 
 
 'Perhaps I had better go and tell her,' said Ann. 
 •Thank you very much for explicating things. You 
 will find that I shall make niuch progress.' 
 
 Hilda Lang was not inclined to make light of the 
 punishment of being sent to Coventry, which she had 
 already seen in operation. 'We did it last term to 
 Bertha Mainwaring,' she said. 'We were all pretty 
 sure that she got translations of her Latin from a book 
 m Miss Henderson's room. She was always going there 
 on some excuse, when Miss Henderson was out. She 
 wouldn't confess, and we didn't like to teU Miss 
 Henderson, so we told the monitors, and they sent her 
 to Coventry. She cried all the time, and confessed on 
 the second day.' 
 
 'They couldn't make me cry,' said Ann. 'Nobody 
 in this school shall ever see me upset some tears.' 
 
 'Oh, indeed. Miss Ann,' put in Lizzie, Ann's maid, 
 under whose escort the two girk went to and from 
 school. 'You needn't make yourself out braver than 
 you are. You cried when you came home from hockey 
 the other afternoon, with that big bruise on your leg.' 
 
 Ann turned a scarlet, wrathful face on her. 'How 
 dare you report tales? ' she cried. 'I didn't let anybody 
 know I'd been hurt, and I didn't even waJk crooked 
 till the school couldn't see me, though it hurt very 
 much.' 
 
112 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'Well, I must say it was a dreadful great bruise,' 
 said Lizzie, 'and it wasn't much you cried. Still, cry 
 you did, and it's no use pretending you didn't.' 
 
 'I didn't say I never cried,' said Ann; 'but I 
 shouldn't cry at school, and if I like to cry at home 
 sometimes, that's my affair, and it isn't for you to say 
 anything about it. You can walk behind us. We don't 
 want you mixing yourself in our conversation.' 
 
 ' Being sent to Coventry is pretty beastly,' said Hilda. 
 'Still, it might be rather fun if you or I were, because 
 they couldn't do anything to stop us doing or saying 
 what we liked, except when we were actually at school.' 
 
 'I don't think I want to taste of it,' said Ann. 'I 
 like them all, truly, except Mabel Finney, who is 
 vindicative. Fancy making all that fuss about a 
 wooden frog 1 ' 
 
 HI 
 
 The further details that Hilda Lang gave her on the 
 quick reduction to penitence of Bertha Mainwaring, 
 who had left the term before, persuaded Ann that it 
 was worth while to take some trouble to avoid the 
 path that led to Coventry, and she comported herself 
 for the next few weeks in such a way as to give no 
 excuse for despatching her on the journey. She treated 
 the older girls with no particular veneration, but refrained 
 from any serious offence against their dignity; and with 
 her own contemporaries she became highly popular. 
 
 It was a much coveted privilege to be invited to tea 
 with Aim. She entertained three or four friends in 
 this way every week, and she was very fair about it, 
 leaving nobody in her class out altogether, although 
 she did not like them all equally. 
 
 The girls were first of all introduced to Lady Sinclair, 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN tti 
 
 who was usually to be found after her afternoon drive 
 knitting in a chair by the drawing-room fire. She was 
 a handsome, precise old lady, but always had some- 
 thing to say to Ann's guests that put them at their 
 ease with her. She was evidently extremely fond of her 
 little granddaughter, and it was pretty -to see her 
 holding the child's slim figure to her as she talked, or 
 stroking her curly head with her thin old hand, and 
 always taking the opportunity to kiss her as she dis- 
 missed them to their entertainnient upstairs. 
 
 It was generally agreed that Ann behaved beautifully 
 to her. Although she was known to object to pro- 
 miscuous kissing, she was full of little endearments to 
 her grandmother, and always very careful to see that 
 she was exactly suited in the matter of cushions and 
 footstool before she left her. She never played hockey 
 on Saturday afternoons, because her grandmother liked 
 her to go for a drive with her. The schpol, walking 
 two and two to the hockey field, would sometimes be 
 passed, but not very quickly, by Lady Sinclair's carriage, 
 in which, seated in state, were the very old lady and 
 the very young one, both beautifully dressed in their 
 respective fashions, and neither of them looking as if 
 she would much prefer to be playing hockey to driving 
 along the sea front at a steady six or seven miles an 
 hour. Ann would turn a bright face towards the serge- 
 coated and skirted line, and wave her neatly gloved 
 hand; and if she wore rather a wistful look when the 
 plump roan horses slowly outdistanced the procession, 
 it did not last long, and her conversation was as gay 
 and as congenial as possible to the old lady, who 
 enjoyed her Saturday afternoon drives more than those 
 of other da}^ in the week. 
 
 The only indirect criticism that Ann was ever known 
 to pass upon her grandmother was when she was asked 
 by Gertrude Pilcher, whose favourite form of recreation 
 
114 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 was to design fashion-plates, to exhibit some of her 
 clothes. 'Oh, bother clothes I' said Ann. 'I am quite 
 enough occupied by them. If you want to see them, 
 Lizzie can show you.' 
 
 Gertrude Pilcher, and some others, thought that Ann 
 showed a surprising lack of appreciation of the beautiful 
 things that her grandmother liked to buy for her. 
 They thought that if they had as many new clothes 
 as Ann was always appearing in, and such fine and 
 expensive ones, they would be placed in a continual 
 state of happiness, especially if they showed them off 
 as well as she did. But Ann admitted to Hilda Lang 
 that, although she liked to look nice, the continual 
 trjTings on and dressings up were the bane of her exist- 
 ence. If she were only allowed to run about sometimes 
 in old clothes, she could support it better to be so often 
 made to appear endimanchie. But she did a good deal 
 of running $.bout none the less, in clothes that if not 
 old were convenient to the purpose, and admitted that 
 perhaps it wasn't very nice of her to grumble, when it 
 pleased Granny so much to buy pretty things for her. 
 
 Ann's tea-parties were always prolific of surprise 
 in the way of edibles, although her grandmother's 
 spoiling of her did not reach ito the extent of allowing 
 her anything but the plainest food in the ordinary 
 way. All the servants adored Ann, and the cook sur- 
 passed herself on these occasions in providing her and 
 her guests with cakes and sweets that were as attractive 
 to the eye as they were to the palate. Ann would go 
 downstciirs when the girls had left, to thank her — ^to 
 those comfortable sacred lower regions to which a visit 
 from above by anybody but Ann would have been 
 considered an unwarrantable intrusion. 
 
 'Well, now, honey,' the fat cook would say, 'it's a 
 pleasure to do anjrthing for you, you do thank one 
 so pretty, bless your sweet face ! If you liked your tea. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN "5 
 
 just go and ask her ladyship if you may give us a tune 
 on that there little fiddle of yours.' 
 
 So Ann, having obtained leave, would bring down her 
 precious GagUano, and play to as appreciative an 
 audience as she was ever likely to get anywhere. 
 Besides the cook, there would be the old butler, two 
 middle-aged housemaids, and a young footman of a 
 mere thirty-five or so, who was stiU considered some- 
 thing of an upstart in this established society. Lady 
 Sinclair's maid would form part of the audience if her 
 duties permitted, and the doors would be left open for 
 the benefit of the kitchen-maid, busy with the first 
 stages of preparing for the ritual of dinner, who, having 
 only about fifteen years service to her credit, had to 
 be kept in her place. Lizzie, as an infant of seventeen, 
 was not encouraged to present herself among her elders 
 except officially, and as she was apt to be severely 
 cross-examined by them when she did so, as to the way 
 she was fulfilling her duties towards her young mistress, 
 she was not anxious to appear when there was no neces- 
 sity. 
 
 To all these middle-aged men and women, whose lives 
 were so comfortable and easy that they were in danger 
 of being stifled by them, the advent of Ann had brought 
 a waft of sweet fresh air, which had the effect of revivi- 
 fying them, and arousing their atrophied interests in 
 youth and innocence. They were all jealous of Lizzie, 
 who absorbed the bulk of the service necessary to 
 Ann's existence, and they would all put themselves out 
 to do some little thing for her if occasion could be 
 found. The old butler liked to serve her breakfast 
 himself, though he had to get up an hour earUer to do 
 so on the days when she went to school. The footman 
 never made any complaint about carrying up coals to 
 her schoolroom, or suggested that Lizzie should do it 
 herself, and took as much pains with her boots and 
 
ti6 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 shoes as- if they were her ladyship's own. Neither of 
 the housemaids would allow Lizzie to 'dcf' her rooms 
 entirely. 
 
 Ann was merry and friendly with them, but a little 
 stately too, because her grandmother did not like her 
 'being too much with the servants.' She was very 
 considerate of their feelings, careful of the dignity of 
 their age and long service, and not only never played 
 any of her pranks upon them, but never teased them in 
 a way that might wound their staid vanities. It is true 
 that she made up for this by leading Lizzie 'a regular 
 dance' in the privacy of her own apartments, and that 
 somewhat pert handmaid would say that it beat her 
 altogether how any one who could behave like such a 
 perfect little lady downstairs, to them as did next to 
 nothing for her, should so far demean herself as to 
 do and say the things she did to one who worked her 
 hands to the bone for her from morning till night. 
 
 But it will be seen that, with this one regrettable 
 exception, Ann was as good as gold in her grandmother's 
 house, and deserved aU the love and attention that was 
 lavished on her. It is only right to point this out, as 
 her behaviour at school was often so much the reverse 
 of exemplary. 
 
 IV 
 
 As Ann has been shown moving in such a gracious and 
 placid atmosphere at home, it will not throw the picture 
 of her out of balance to recount one or two of her 
 escapades at school, before we return to the episode of 
 Mary Polegate's iUuminated chart of the Kings of 
 Juda and Israel, and tell what came of it. 
 
 The class-room in which Ann's lessons were mostly 
 done was on the ground floor, and its windows opened 
 
AtrDAciotrs ANN 117 
 
 into the garden. One wami spring morning, during 
 the eleven o'clock interval, Hilda Lang dared her to 
 get in at the window instead of through the door, when 
 the beU rang. Ann accepted the challenge. The 
 window was too high to be negotiated easily. Ann did 
 it, at the expanse of a clean washing frock, but not 
 quickly enough to escape the notice of Miss Henderson, 
 who walked in at the door just as Ann was scrambling 
 through the window, in a series of jjostures not the most 
 reticent. 
 
 Miss Henderson stood still, and waited until Ann 
 had reached the floor. 'Well, upon my word!' she 
 said coldly. 'That is pretty behaviour for a girl who 
 is supposed to be a lady.' (Miss Henderson was alwa37S 
 very strong upon girls being ladies.) ' But it is an exhi- 
 bition that I regret to say, much as it may surprise 
 you, Aim, I do not appreciate. Perhaps Miss Sutor 
 may regard it in another light. You wUl go to her 
 at once, just as you are, and see what she sajre about 
 it. Gertrude PUcher, you will go with her, and see 
 that she does not do anything on the way to make her- 
 self more presentable than she thinks it necessary to 
 appear before me.' 
 
 When the two girls were in the passage, Gertrude 
 PUcher, more harassed in her mind over the damage 
 done to Aim's pretty frock than mindful of the call of 
 honour, said : ' I must just get off the worst, Ann. 
 We can get a brush in the cloak-room. You needn't 
 wash your hands.' 
 
 Ann marched straight ahead with her nose in the 
 air and a deep blush overspreading her face. Her 
 indignation upheld her under Miss Sutor's stem rebuke, 
 to which she listened in silence. When it Wcis ovei, 
 and she was told to go back and apologise to Miss- 
 Henderson, she said: 'Miss Henderson told me to 
 come directly to you, just as I was, and then told 
 
Ii8 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Gertrude Pilcher to come witji me to see that I didn't 
 arrange myself first.' 
 
 Miss Sutor looked at her, not very amiably, for she 
 had been disturbed in a very private hour, and thought 
 that Miss Henderson might have sent Ann to her after 
 school. 'I think it would have been more respectful 
 if you had tidied yourself before you came to me,' she 
 said. 'Go and do so before you go back, and then 
 apologise to Miss Henderson as I told, you.' 
 
 Ann made her curtsey and marched out of the room 
 again, very stiff and offended. She told Gertrude 
 Pilcher that she could brush herself and wash her 
 hands without her assistance, and insisted upon her 
 going back to the classroom. When she was alone in 
 the cloak-room she shed a few angry tears, but dried 
 them immediately for fear of their traces showing. She 
 was misunderstood, her sense of honour repudiated and 
 scorned. Miss Sutoi: was as bad as Miss Henderson. 
 She would be coldly polite to her in the future, but 
 would show her plainly that she did not consider her a 
 fit person to associate with except on official terms. 
 
 But Miss Sutor had already realised that she had 
 made a mistake, and came into the cloak-room to put 
 it right. 'I didn't mean to say just now that you 
 ought to have done what Miss Henderson told you not 
 to, Ann,' she said, 'though I'm afraid that is exactly 
 what I did say. As for sending somebody with you, 
 I don't think she thought at all that you would be 
 likely to do anjrthing dishonourable; but you a-e so 
 often disobedient, you know, that she might very well 
 think you wouldn't do exactly as you were told. You 
 are not to make a grievance of that, and don't let me 
 have you reporting yourself for misbehaviour any more. 
 It has happened four times already this term, and I have 
 had to talk to you more than to any other girl, though 
 you have been here a shorter time than any of them.' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 119 
 
 This put matters a little more right, though not 
 entirely so. Ann did feel that a slur had been cast upon 
 her honour by Miss Henderson, though her child's clean 
 sense of justice allowed its weight to Miss Sutor's way 
 of looking at it. But she did not consider that it need 
 prevent her adding to her apology : ' I would have 
 gone directly to Miss Sutor if you hadn't sent Gertrude 
 Pilcher with me.' 
 
 Miss Henderson did better than Miss Sutor, by 
 replying: 'Very well, Ann; another time I shaJl not 
 send any one with you. But I sincerely hope there 
 will not be another time.' 
 
 But unfortunately there was — ^no later than the 
 following week, and it was again Miss Henderson who 
 sent her to report herself. 
 
 The mistresses' table was on a dais, and Ann's desk 
 was in the first row. As Ann was busy with all the rest 
 doing sums, and a deep silence brooded over the room, 
 Hilda Lang, whose desk was ^ext to hers, nudged her 
 and directed her attention to Miss Henderson's feet. 
 
 They were rather large, and her shoes were roomy 
 but not elegant. She would have gained no admiration 
 from the mid-Victorian novelists, who went into 
 raptures about a neat little ankle; and what coxild be 
 seen of her stockings was slightly rucked. But it was 
 not these deficiencies to which Hilda had called atten- 
 tion. Miss Henderson's feet were turned in at an 
 angle of about thirty degrees, with the toes at the apex, 
 and the contrast between what could be seen under the 
 table with the stiff figure and severe face above it was 
 too much for Ann's equanimity. She shook with 
 laughter, which soon became audible. Hilda also 
 laughed, but with more self-control, and when Miss 
 Henderson, roused by the sounds, laid down her book 
 and looked severely to where the laughter was coming 
 from, Hilda's face was quite solemn, while all that 
 
120 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 could be seen of Ann was a shock of brown hair bent 
 over the desk, and a pair of thin, shciking shoulders. 
 
 'You seem to be highly amused at something, Ann,' 
 said Miss Henderson. 'It seems a pity to keep it to 
 yourself. Please stand up and tell us the joke.' 
 
 Ann lifted her head. Miss Henderson had shifted 
 the position of her feet; so she was enabled to reply, 
 with a fairly successful effort at gravity : 'I'm very 
 sorry, Miss Henderson. I won't laugh again.' 
 
 But unfortunately, as she dropped her eyes, there 
 was a slight movement of Miss Henderson's feet. They 
 did not return to their former ludicrous position, but 
 the possibility of their doing so was enough to shake 
 Ann with another chuckle. 
 
 'I think you had better go and stand in that 
 unoccupied comer until you have collected yourself 
 sufficiently to tell us what it is all about,' said Miss 
 Henderson. 
 
 Ann went at once to the comer. It was a position 
 of extreme disgrace, but she was relieved at not being 
 made to disclose the cause of her merriment then and 
 there. Her feelings were too nice to allow of her gaining 
 satisfaction from bringing confusion to Miss Henderson, 
 and she was intent on finding a way out of the difficulty 
 without a sacrifice of truth. 
 
 But, presently, the humiliation of being put to stand 
 in a comer, like a baby, began to work on her. She 
 would not actually face the comer, and the girls who 
 threw surreptitious glances at her saw her face gradually 
 darken, whUe the blush that showed so readily on Her 
 fair skin dyed it from temples to neck. 
 
 If Miss Henderson could put this gross indignity 
 upon her, there seemed no reason to spare her. It was 
 not long before Ann walked back to her desk and said : 
 'I am ready to tell you what I was laughing at, Miss 
 Henderson.' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 121 
 
 'I didn't tell you to leave the corner,' said Miss 
 Henderson. 'Golback there and tell us the joke. I 
 have no doubt it will amuse us all immensely.' 
 
 Ann did not mind the comer as long as she was not 
 expected to face it. 'I was laughing at your feet under 
 the table,' she said, with an expression which indisated 
 that whatever amusement she had gained from the 
 exhibition had by this time evaporated. 
 
 Miss Henderson's blushes did not come as readily as 
 Ann's, but she blushed now. ' You are a very rude and 
 impertinent girl,' she said. 'Sit down and go on with 
 your work, and go and report yourself to Miss Sutor 
 immediately after lesson.' 
 
 Hilda Lang broke the pause of consternation. ' Please, 
 Miss Henderson, it was I who made her laugh,' she said. 
 
 Miss Henderson did not want any further attention 
 drawn to the origin of Ann's laughter, and said : ' She 
 has already told us why she laughed. Go on with your 
 work.' 
 
 When calm was restored, Ann pressed Hilda's hand 
 under the desk. It was a great thing to have a friend 
 so ready to stand by you. She would dd the same by 
 Hilda, if occasion should ever offer. The thought that 
 she had begun to grow ever so little tired of having 
 Hilda as her chief friend brought her compunction, and 
 distracted her mind from the ordeal before her. 
 
 The ordeal was rather a serious one. Ann recoimted 
 the episode with conscientious thoroughness, only 
 leaving out the fact that it was Hilda Lang who had 
 initiated it. 'I couldn't help laughing,' she said, 
 'because it looked so funny; but I didn't want Miss 
 Henderson to know why I was laughing, and if she 
 hadn't made me stand up in the comer I should have 
 tried not to tell her.' 
 
 'That means that you lost your temper and were 
 rude,' said Miss Sutor, ' — and rude in a way that I 
 T.C. I 
 
122 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 will not permit girls to be in my school. I'm afraid 
 that you are becoming a thoroughly troublesome child, 
 
 nn. I talked to you only a few days ago, and yet 
 here you are again ! Now I am going to say this to, 
 ^ou : I have never cared to have day-pupils here, and 
 J. have made very few exceptions to that rule. I took 
 you because I have known your grandmother for many 
 years and have the highest respect for her. But if you 
 are going to misbehave yourself constantly, and upset 
 the whole school in the way you do, I shall have to ask 
 her to send you somewhere else, and tell her very 
 plainly why.' 
 
 This was much worse than anjrthing that Ann had 
 anticipated. She turned a white face upon Miss Sutor, 
 and said : ' Oh, please don't tell Granny. I will promise 
 faithfully to be good if you won't.' 
 
 Miss Sutor was rather disconcerted by her sudden 
 pallor, which came as readily to her face as the blushes, 
 and a little touched by her cry of distress. Ann was 
 such a child in some ways, though advanced in others. 
 But she took advantage of the impression she had 
 created. 'I shall not do so unless I am obliged,' she 
 said, 'but if you are told to report yourself to me any 
 more I shall certainly speak to Lady Sinclair about 
 you. It will rest entirely with yourself; so you had 
 better make up your mind to behave properly for the 
 rest of the term. This is the last time I shall speak to 
 you without taking further steps. You will apologise 
 to Miss Henderson for your rudeness. There is no 
 regular system of punishment here : I pride myself 
 upon having girls who do not need it. But I cannot 
 overlook your continual naughtiness. I shall not allow 
 any one to come to tea with you next Saturday.' 
 
 Ann hung her head. If she did not have any one 
 to tea with her. Granny would have to know it, and she 
 would ask why. She was just about to put in a plea for 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 123 
 
 another form of punishment, when she remembered that 
 she was probably to be taken up to London on the next 
 Saturday, and so Granny need know nothing about it. 
 
 The thqught brought immense relief, but only for a 
 moment. Her code forbade her to take advantage of 
 the accident. 
 
 ' Now go,' said Miss Sutor. 
 
 ' I wasn't going to ask anybody to tea next Saturday.' 
 said Ann. ' I think I am going on a visit to London.' 
 
 Miss Sutor threw a glance at her. Her face had 
 recovered its normal hue, but she looked very unhappy. 
 'Well, as you have told me that,' she said, 'and I 
 don't want your grandmother to know about my having 
 to punish you, I will let you off this time. Now go to 
 Miss Henderson.' 
 
 Ann was very subdued as she went back to the class- 
 room, where Miss Henderson was correcting exercises. 
 She felt that she had had a narrow escape, and must 
 really be considerably naughtier by nature than she 
 had any conscious inclination to be, since her naughti- 
 ness might bring her into such dreadful disgrace if it 
 were not amended. She made up her mind that it 
 should be. She could have heaps of fun at school without 
 playing silly pranks, and if she felt over-inclined to 
 break the bounds of careful behaviour she could always 
 do so at home with Lizzie, who would threaten to tell 
 Granny, but would never do so. 
 
 Her apology to Miss Henderson was so evidently 
 sincere that that lady had no difficulty in accepting it. 
 ' I'm afraid I did lose my temper at being put into the 
 comer,' said Ann, 'and I am very sorry for that. I 
 know I have a hasty temper. I tridy do try to control 
 it. Miss Henderson, but it is very difficult, and I don't 
 always arrive. This time, it made me say something 
 I didn't want to say at all. You understand, it wasn't 
 truly you I was laughing at.' 
 
124 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'I thought you said it was,' said Miss Henderson 
 dryly. 
 
 'No. I wish you would let me show you what it 
 looks hke from my desk to see somebody sitting at your 
 table turning their toes — er — ^rather inside. I think 
 you would see at once that one might laugh without 
 even thinking whose toes they were.' 
 
 Miss Henderson was not without a sense of humour, 
 and had a considerably warmer liking for Ann than 
 Ann had any idea of. ' Very well,' she said. ' You shall 
 give me an exliibition of what I looked like.' 
 
 She took her seat at Ann's desk, and Ann hers at the 
 table. 'Of course I shan't be trying to imitate you 
 in particular,' Ann explained, somewhat anxiously. 
 'I shouldn't like you to think that of me. As I made 
 you remark, it might be anybody.' 
 
 'Very well,' said Miss Henderson. 
 
 'I am forced to take up a book, just to show that 
 looking serious on the top makes a difference.' 
 
 'Very weU.' 
 
 Ann sat very stiff and upright in Miss Henderson's 
 chair and arranged her feet at an angle not too extrava- 
 gantly obtuse, out, of consideration for Miss Henderson's 
 feelings. Her slim black-stockinged legs and her neat 
 little house-shoes bore no remarkable resemblance to 
 anything that Miss Henderson had unwittingly dis- 
 played, but there was something very funny about the 
 severe air with which she regarded the book in front 
 of her, while she managed to convey into her attitude 
 a sort of apology for anything in it that might appear 
 to be a caricature of Miss Henderson. 
 
 Miss Henderson, sitting at Ann's desk, laughed 
 spontaneously. 'Yes, I quite see now,' she said. 'As 
 you say, anybody might sit like that, but / ought not 
 to, as I am always telling girls to hold themselves 
 properly' — Miss Henderson was gym mistress — ^"and 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 125 
 
 now that IjJiave seen what it looks like I shall endeavour 
 not to do u again. I should not have told you to stand 
 in the comer, Ann, if I had known what excuse there 
 was for you.' 
 
 So Ann got over that little trouble, and made up her 
 mind that the rest of the term should find her 
 blameless. 
 
 The term neared its end; so did Mary Polegate's 
 illuminated hst of the Kings of Juda and Israel, to 
 which we shall come in a moment. Miss Sutor's birth- 
 day would fall in the last week but one, and it was 
 always made a great occasion of. Besides, the offering 
 the girls would subscribe for and present to her in the 
 morning, there was to be a concert in the evening, with 
 a supper afterwards. The girls were to provide the 
 supper, and Miss Sutor was to be their guest. The 
 arrangements gave them a great deal to talk about 
 during the latter part of the term, and Ann was as 
 interested as anybody. 
 
 Ann was to play two pieces in the concert. Other 
 girls played the violin, but none of them as well as she 
 did. The old French chef d'orchestre, who was spending 
 the evening of his life with his English-married daughter, 
 and taught at Miss Sutor's school chiefly to give him- 
 self some occupation, had opened his eyes when he 
 had first heard Ann play. But he had been more severe 
 with her than with his other more ordinary pupils, 
 and had hardly ever given her any praise. Ann thought 
 him a horrid old creature, but worked hard to satisfy 
 him, and there were times when she played to him in 
 such a way that he had hard work to hold himself back 
 from showing his pleasure by an ecstatic embrace, 
 
136 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 which would have surprised Ann intensely ^d offended 
 her not a httle. 
 
 As this was to be a very special concert, it was agreed 
 by the girls that the respective music masters and 
 mistresses should nominate the performers; then no 
 one could be offended at being left out. M. Lanson 
 put down Edith Mackenzie, a competent performer, for 
 one piece, and Ann for two, leaving the others out 
 altogether. As three of the rejected were 'big girls,' 
 there was some little feeling about this; but it had been 
 agreed that there was to be no jealousy over the decisions, 
 and Ann was really so very nice about it, even to the 
 extent of braving the autocrat's wrath and suggesting 
 that one of her pieces should be replaced by another 
 performer's, that, although her proposal was rejected with 
 sarcastic ignominy, no blame could attach to her for being 
 singled out in a way that no other girl in the school was. 
 
 Things were going extremely well for Ann. She was 
 behaving herself with such perfect propriety during 
 school hours that the shadow of her former mis- 
 demeanours was fast lifting from her, and Miss Sutor 
 had once or twice shown her, in some indefinable way 
 she had at command, that she was pleased with her. 
 Ann had never liked Miss Sutor very much. She 
 thought she had been a little unfair to her in both her 
 recent 'talkings to.' Miss Henderson, whom it was 
 not the fashion to like as much as Miss Sutpr, had 
 really understood her better on both occasions, although 
 she had been the offended party. But now she felt 
 that any slight coldness there might have been between 
 Miss Sutor and herself had entirely melted away. She 
 was caught in the fervour of appreciation that Miss 
 Sutor's approaiching birthday had aroused towards her, 
 and was as anxious as cinybody to show it, by helping 
 to arrange the series of pleasant surprises that filled 
 the minds of the whole school. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN m 
 
 But although Ann's behaviour in school removed 
 , her far from the possibihty of official rebuke, she 
 showed a slight tendency to revert to her early habit 
 of 'cheeking' the older girls. It was no more than 
 kittenish playfulness, induced by the high spirits which 
 her unspotted conscience encouraged in her, and in 
 most schools would have been considered quite harm- 
 less, if not rather agreeable from a child of such gaiety 
 and humour as Ann, who, in her most audacious moods, 
 never did or said anything that could hurt any one's 
 feelings. But the tradition of patronage on the one 
 side and dependence on the other, existed in Miss 
 Sutor's school, and Ann's fault was that she did not 
 observe it. 
 
 Mary Polegate had arrived, by unremitting pains and 
 a considerable expenditm-e of the best illuminating 
 colours, at King Pekahiah. The border round the 
 chart was already finished, and she only had to add the 
 names of the remaining kings before the whole work 
 of art would be ready as a supplementary birthday 
 present to Miss Sutor, from one of her most exemplary 
 pupils. The performance, it must be admitted, was not 
 up to the desire of the performer, but Mary Polegate 
 had no idea of any deficiencies in it, and would 
 frequently put her head on one side to regard her handi- 
 work with a look of such bland satisfaction that nobody 
 would have had the heart to undeceive her. 
 
 Ann would certainly have been the last to do so, 
 but she fell into the way of teasing her as the work 
 neared its completion, and urging her to be extremely 
 careful that no mistakes crept into it at the last 
 moment. 
 
 ' What should you do if you found you had illuminated 
 Manasseh with two n's instead of one?' 'What should 
 you do if you had employed all your gold, and had no 
 money to buy any more? ' 'Why didn't you finish the 
 
128 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 names before you began the border? I'm afraid these 
 names began to tap upon your system, and to say 
 true they do look rather silly. Fancy christening a 
 baby Pekahiah ! I suppose he had to be a baby once.' 
 
 These were a few of Ann's irritating remarks, which 
 Mary Polegate received patiently enough, except when 
 they seemed to be bordering on the profane, like the 
 last one, when she would rebuke Ann, and remind her 
 gently that what she was doing was taken from the 
 Bible. She only expressed herself more strongly when 
 Ann asked her: 'What should you do if I were to 
 upset a drop of ink in the midcie of it?' Then she 
 said warmly : ' If you were to do a thing like that, 
 Ann, I should think you were not only troublesome but 
 really wicked. I wish you would go away and leave 
 me alone. It is no pleasure to me to have you looking 
 on, as you can only make siUy remarks.' 
 
 The next day, Ann was taken aside by Hilda 
 Strangways, who told her that she knew she didn't 
 mean to be unkind and it was only in fun, but she was 
 spoiling some of Mary's pleasure in the work that she 
 had taken so long to do, and it would be kinder if she 
 were not to tease her any more. 
 
 Hilda Strangways was a bright pretty girl of seventeen, 
 for whom Ann had come to cherish a 'secret pash,' 
 although she had not even admitted it to the other 
 Hilda, of whom once more she was getting rather tired 
 as a chief friend. Hilda Lang was merry and volatile; 
 Hilda Strangways was merry in a way that seemed to 
 Ann much more admirable, for she could be sensible 
 too, and could laugh and joke with younger girls than 
 herself, without the patronage that usually went along 
 with such unbending. Ann would have given a good 
 deal to ask her to tea, but she knew that if she did so 
 she would be accused of making up to her, and her 
 reputation for independence would be gone. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 129 
 
 Ann was secretly enchanted at being appealed to in 
 this way, and was quite prepared to give up from that 
 moment all teasing of Mary Polegate. But the terms 
 she had laid down for herself for her intercourse with 
 Hilda Strangways were such tha,t she must discuss the 
 matter with her as an equal, and not appear, even with 
 her, to be giving obedience. This was Ann's pride, and 
 she had reason to regret it afterwards, especially as it 
 would have been grateful to her feelings to give 
 in at once to Hilda, who had spoken to her so 
 nicely. 
 
 'It's all so silly,' she said. 'As if Miss Sutor wanted 
 a thing like that I I think it does her good to be 
 teased about it.' 
 
 'Perhaps it is rather siUy,' said the older girl. 'But 
 we don't want Mary to know that anybody thinks so, 
 do we? Of course I know you' wouldn't really spill 
 ink over it, or do anj^hing to spoil it, but I think she's 
 rather afraid that you might, after what you. said 
 yesterday. So just promise me that you won't, and I'll 
 teU her.' 
 
 It must have been some perversity that caused Ann 
 to reply : ' I can't promise that, because I might want 
 to'; for she was ready to agree to an3^hing, now that 
 she had exercised her complete independence of 
 attitude. 
 
 She would have laughed and given the promise in the 
 next breath, but Hilda said : ' I don't think it's much 
 for one friend to ask of another, Ann, but if you won't, 
 you won't. I'm sorry I said an3d:hing to you about it.' 
 Then she left her. 
 
 Ann was inclined to call after her with a complete 
 capitulation, but partly her pride prevented her, and 
 partly it caused her a half sweet half painful thrill to 
 have a misunderstanding with Hilda that could be 
 cleared up at any moment she wished. 
 
130 THE CXINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Her nature was too direct to allow her to take 
 pleasure in such a feeling for long, and she made tenta- 
 tive advances to Hilda with a view of putting things 
 , right. But Hilda was offended with her, and when the 
 advances were received coldly she did not persist in 
 them. A spirit of perversity seized her again, and she 
 teased Mary Polegate about her illmninated chart of 
 the Kings of Juda and Israel persistently, and in 
 Hilda's hearing. After that, of comrse, Hilda would 
 take no more notice of her, and Ann felt very 
 miserable, but went on with the teasing the next 
 morning. 
 
 When she and the other Hilda walked home from 
 morning school — this was on Friday — she covered Mary 
 Polegate's efforts with still further ridicule, and the 
 other Hilda followed her lead and said that she wished 
 Ann would drop some ink on the silly old chart, and 
 put an end to it once for all. Ann said she had a good 
 mind to do so, if only to show Hilda Strangways that 
 she was not going to be ordered about by the older 
 girls. She felt a sharp pang as she said this. If Hilda 
 Strangwa}^ had been walking with her at that moment 
 instead of Hilda Lang, she would have recanted the 
 speech instantly and all that led up to it. But Hilda 
 Strangways was not there, and so strange are the ways 
 of humankind that, although Ann refrained that after- 
 noon from goading the meek Mary Polegate any further, 
 she would not take the definite steps that would have 
 ended the affair altogether. 
 
 There were opportunities for doing so, for she and 
 Hilda Lang stayed to tea at the school, and there were 
 leisure times, as well as work to be done. She did just 
 once put herself in Hilda Strangway's path, and gave 
 her a look that meant : 'I'm sorry.' But Hilda seemed 
 not to notice it, and the opportunity for reconciliation 
 passed. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 131 
 
 VI 
 
 When Ann and Hilda Lang left the school, Hilda was 
 bubbling over with foolish excitement, and made a 
 mystery of the catise. Ann was far too unhappy to 
 fall in with this mood, and said testily: 'Oh, do say 
 what you are giggling about, and don't go on like 
 that.' 
 
 'Oh, my dear,' said Hilda, 'it's such fun! You 
 know Mary Polegate hasn't quite finished the names 
 of her kings. Well, when you were all sewing I got 
 hold of her old chart, and put WiUiam the Conqueror 
 and William Rufus in two of the places she had left.' 
 
 Ann stopped short on the pavement. Her face was 
 quite white. ' You didn't ! ' she exclaimed. 
 
 Hilda was slightly sobered by her look. 'Only in 
 pencil,' she said. ' She can rub it out again.' 
 
 'Then I think you're ihe biggest beast I ever saw,' 
 said Ann, with angry vehemence. 'How dare you do 
 a thing lilce that ? ' 
 
 There followed a considerable commotion. They had 
 come out from the quiet road in which 'The Cedars' 
 was situated, and there were people within sight and 
 hearing of them. Lizzie was scandalised at the idea of 
 a disturbance in so public a place, and adjured Ann 
 by threats of telling her ladyship for goodness' sake to 
 be'ave herself. ' 
 
 Ann took no notice of her, but stood where she was, 
 and abused Hilda in no measured terms, using French 
 in the higher flights, but making very good practice 
 with English too. Hilda, greatly upset by this turning 
 on her on the part, of her best friend, defended herself 
 almost as vehemently. At last, when a boy with a 
 basket stopped to listen and to laugh at them, Ann was 
 brought to her senses, and walked on, the others with her. 
 
132 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 ' Reely ! ' exclaimed the outraged Lizzie. ' I shaU 
 tell her ladyship this time. Miss Ann, and you won't 
 persuade me not to. Such disgraceful be'aviour on the 
 part of a young lady I never ' 
 
 ' Fiche moi la paix ! ' Ann snapped at her. ' I'll 
 occupy myself with you afterwards. Walk behind us.' 
 
 Lizzie, strong in her position of right, refused to do 
 this, but subsided into scandalised silence, broken by 
 occasional expostulations, of which Ann took no further 
 notice. 
 
 'It isn't half as bad as spilling ink on her chart,' 
 complained Hilda, 'and you said only this morning 
 that you would do that.' 
 
 'B^casse!' said Ann. 'Of course I didn't mean it. 
 Only a fool would have thought I did. I think her 
 chart is silly, and she's silly, and fatiguing about it. 
 But it's a shame to spoil it, when she's so proud of it 
 and has worked at it for so long. I say it's a beastly 
 thing to do.' (Expostulations from Lizzie.) 'I'm 
 ashamed for you, Hilda Lang, and you ought to be 
 ashamed for yourself.' 
 
 'You're just as bad as I am,' said Hilda. 'I don't 
 believe you wouldn't have done something to it if I 
 hadn't. It's all very well to talk now as if you were 
 a saint on earth.' 
 
 The quarrel raged hotly again. Lizzie said that if 
 they didn't stop it instantly she should tell her ladyship 
 the very moment they got home. 
 
 Presently they became quieter. 'The girls will send 
 you to Coventry when they find it out,' said Ann. 
 
 Hilda blenched. She now wished very much that she 
 had not been so thoughtless, although she had hotly 
 repudiated all Ann's charges. 'She can quite easily 
 rub it out,' she said. 'And I shall say I'm sorry.' 
 
 ' So you ought to be,' said Ann. 
 
 SUght recrudescence of recrimination, and statement 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i33 
 
 from Lizzie that she had made up her mind, and tell 
 her ladyship this time she should. 
 
 'If they do send me to Coventry,' said Hilda, who, 
 while putting up a stout fight, had gradually been 
 brought under, 'I suppose you wouldn't speak to me 
 either.' 
 
 'As we have been friends,' said Ann, with emphasis, 
 'I should naturally go to Coventry with you. But all 
 the same I should blame you just as much as the others.' 
 
 'At any rate, I should never have done it except for 
 what you said.' 
 
 Ann felt this to be true. 'Perhaps I should merit it 
 as much as you,' she said, 'especially as you're so 
 feeble that if I were to put any silliness into your head 
 you would go and do it, and I ought to have known that.' 
 
 Expiring flickers of the quarrel, and final statement 
 from Lizzie that Miss Ann had brought it on herself 
 now, and told her ladyship should be. 
 
 But by this time consequences were beginning to 
 weigh too heavily on both girls to admit of any satis- 
 faction from, mere recrimination. It may be allowed to 
 speak well for Ann that hitherto she had felt nothing 
 but indignation for the baseness of Hilda's deed. She 
 felt as sorry for Mary Polegate as if she were one of 
 that meek character's warmest admirers and had never 
 teased her on her own account. But now the conse- 
 quences as they would affect herself began to obtrude 
 themselves upon her notice, and they were seen to be 
 as serious as possible. 
 
 It was not, however, until she had taken a very 
 strained leave of Hilda, and had turned her attention 
 to Lizzie, so feir as to relieve herself of the embarrass- 
 ment of having anything said to her grandmother about 
 the late occurrences, that her mind was at liberty to 
 take in all the probabilities of the situation. 
 
 Hilda would confess and express contrition, but not 
 
134 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 until Monday morning, and from the moment her 
 unwarranted addition to the chart was discovered — 
 it was ahnost certainly known to the whole school 
 already — ^Aim would be under conviction of at least 
 S3mipathising, if not of aiding and abetting her. 
 
 As she was dressing to go down to dessert with her 
 grandmother — Lizzie, who was helping her, having 
 been ordered to keep silence, so that she might occupy 
 herself with her thoughts — a still more awful con- 
 sideration occurred to her, and sent the blood rushing 
 from her face, so that she became first as red as Mary 
 Polegate's vermilion, and then as white as the paper 
 to which it was applied. 
 
 Until Hilda confessed on Monday morning, it would 
 be thought that Ann had done the deed herself. 
 
 VII 
 
 There could be no doubt about this. Ann wondered 
 that it had not occurred to her before. Hilda had taken 
 a very small part in teasing Mary Polegate compared 
 with hers, and the few things she had said had been so 
 imitative of Ann, whom she had always followed, that 
 it would occvir to nobody that she had for once initiated 
 something of her own. 
 
 It would not have been so bad if there were going 
 to be the usual tea party on Saturday afternoon. Hilda 
 would have come to it, and the other girls who would 
 also have come would have taken back to school the 
 true account of what had happened. But a party of 
 relations was coming down to see Granny on Saturday 
 morning, and were going to stay until Sunday after- 
 noon. Ann's guests had been put off until the following 
 Saturday, which would also be the occasion of Miss 
 Sutor's birthday concert and supper. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 135 
 
 Ann thought of going to see Hilda the next morning, 
 and asking her to put matters i:ight before going back 
 to school on Monday. But the terms on which they 
 had parted made her unwilling to ask an3d;hing of 
 her, and besides, on thinking it over, her pride rose 
 against saying or doing anything that would look like 
 sheltering herself behind Hilda. It would be worse for 
 Hilda than it would be for her when the truth came to 
 be known, and she must take what was being said 
 about her as a punishment for her part in the affair, 
 which she was quite ready to admit was not small. 
 
 But it was hard to bear. Her heart failed her when 
 she thought of what Hilda Strangways must be thinking 
 of her, and must continue to think for more than two 
 whole days longer. She had gained some consolation 
 during the afternoon, hoping that Hilda would notice 
 that she had left off teasing Mary Polegate, and might 
 even divine that she was sorry for what had gone 
 before. But now, of course, she could only think that 
 Ann had gone to all lengths to spite her; and how she 
 must despise a girl who could do a thing like that, and 
 for such a purpose, when she had only given her the 
 advice of a friend ! 'It's not much for one friend to 
 ask of another, Ann,' she had said. It was doubtful 
 whether she would ever look upon Ann as a friend again, 
 even when she should come to know that she was not 
 quite so bad as she now seemed to be. 
 
 The next morning a bevy of aunts and uncles and 
 cousins came down in time for limcheon. Lady 
 Sinclair liked to fill her large house with guests on 
 occasions, when she felt well enough to enjoy their 
 society, and to live very quietly for the rest of the time. 
 
 How Ann would have enjoyed that Saturday and 
 Sunday, if they had only come the week before ! She 
 was made an immense deal of. She was the only child 
 of her generation among a large number of Sinclair 
 
136 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 relations. All these kind, merry uncles and aunts and 
 cousins lavished aifection and admiration upon her. 
 The presents they had brought down for her would 
 have been handsome for a birthday and Christmas 
 combined. The girl cousins vied for private possession 
 of her at all times of their visit; the uncles and aunts 
 affected to quarrel among themselves as to who should 
 have her to sit by them at meal-times; they amused 
 themselves in no way without reference to her; and even 
 the uncles went to church on Sunday morning for the 
 pleasure of walking there and back with Ann between 
 them, who, in a frock of vieux rose taffeta, with a hat 
 tied under her chin with narrow black velvet, and her 
 thin legs encased in the finest of silk stockings, was a 
 figure whom the smartest of men might have been 
 proud to escort. She dined downstairs on Saturday 
 night and played to them afterwards, and when she 
 went to bed they talked about her until they went to 
 bed themselves. 
 
 It was not in the nature of things that Ann should 
 not often forget her troubles in the excitement and 
 pleasures of those two days. It was only when she was 
 left alone in bed, after both the aunts and all the 
 cousins had stolen in for a last look at her, and been 
 surprised to find her still awake, that the contrast 
 between what they thought of her and what they were 
 thinking of her at the school came to her so mournfully. 
 
 She had flashes of apparently the most light-hearted 
 gaiety, which enchanted her admiring relations, but for 
 the most part she was quieter than her wont, and more 
 clinging in her affection than they were accustomed to 
 find her. Her pretty girl cousins had always thought 
 her rather too cool in her reception of their petting, 
 even when she had been much smaller; but now she 
 seemed to like to sit on their knees, although she was 
 thirteen, and snuggle up to them, without talking much, 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 137 
 
 and they found her all the more entrancing, as these 
 quiet moods alternated with her laughter and her 
 audacious sallies'. But Ann, who had alwajra disdained 
 petting, found it comforting now, and was glad for 
 once that people always wanted to treat her as if she 
 were much younger than she was. 
 
 It would not be petting that would be offered to her 
 when she went back to school on Monday morning. 
 
 Lady Sinclair's seat in church was rather in advance 
 of those occupied by Miss Sutor's girls, on the other 
 side of the aisle. If Ann and her grandmother arrived 
 first in church, there was always a sense of greeting as 
 they passed the school pews, although no eyes met and 
 no smiles passed. But this morning, as Ann and her 
 uncles walked up the aisle, it was made evident that, 
 although the whole school was intensely aware of her 
 arrival, the current of sympathy was entirely cut off. 
 
 There was no room for them in Lady Sinclair's pew, 
 nor in the one of which she sometimes made use behind 
 it, and they came back to one immediately in front of 
 the school. As Ann passed into it she was aware of all 
 the eyes that were fixed upon her, but only sought those 
 of Hilda Strangways, who was in the front row. Her 
 own were ready with a plea for forgiveness and a sus- 
 pension of judgment, which she thought Hilda must 
 understand somehow, though by words she could tell 
 her nothing. - But Hilda, out of all the rows of girls, 
 seemed to be taking no interest in Ann's advent, nor 
 even in that of her two handsome elderly uncles. She 
 sat looking straight in front of her, and her face was 
 quite cold. 
 
 Ann's uncles occupied themselves with her during the 
 service in a way that was somewhat embarrassing. 
 One of them, who was a distinguished general, offered 
 to find the places in her prayer-book for her, and the 
 other, who was known for the vitriolic quality of his 
 T.C. K 
 
138 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 speeches in the House of Lords, asked her if she would 
 like to have her hat off, and go to sleep on his shoulder 
 during the sermon. Both of them looked down at her 
 frequently as she stood or sat between them, and bent 
 towards her to whisper Uttle remarks. She wished they 
 wouldn't, but it was some comfort too, with the never- 
 absent consciousness of all that mass of disapproval 
 behind her, to have it made so plain that there were 
 those who appreciated her, even if they did seem to 
 think that she was an infant in arms. 
 
 She hung upon the necks of her relations as she bade 
 them good-bye at the station, to which she had been 
 allowed to go so that they might have her with them 
 to the very end. She knew that the moment they had 
 departed black thoughts would settle on her, and the 
 thoughts, were very black when she had waved them 
 all off, and was driving back home, seated alone in state 
 in the carriage. 
 
 But they were light compared with those that seized 
 upon her when she reached home, and was told the 
 news brought by Dr Lang, who had been paying Lady 
 Sinclair a visit in the interval. 
 
 Hilda had contracted tonsilitis the day before, and 
 would not be able to go back to school for at least a 
 week. 
 
 vni 
 
 Ann had to be at school at least a quarter of an hour 
 before lessons began on Monday mornings. When she 
 arrived, she lingered at the door, to turn herself round 
 and ask Lizzie if she looked all right; and when Lizzie, 
 somewhat surprised at the question, gave her skirt a 
 twitch and answered in the affirmative, she still lingered, 
 and said : ' Well, don't be late in coming to fetch me. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 139 
 
 It's rather agreeable to have a little walk by ourselves 
 sometimes, isn't it?' 
 
 Lizzie went away, saying to herself that really Miss 
 Ann could be very sweet when she liked, and no wonder 
 everybody took to her; while Ann, -with a look at her 
 walking back to the serenity of home, went into the 
 cloak-room. 
 
 There was a small girl waiting for her there, who 
 said, as if she were repeating a lesson : 'Ann Sinclair, 
 you are to go to the monitors in Room B directly you 
 have taken your things off.' 
 
 'Qu'est ce que je vais prendre poiu: mon rhume?' 
 said Ann, who had discovered that it flustered small 
 girls to be addressed in French, which they were supposed 
 to understand, and usually didn't. 
 
 But this one was an exception. 'It isn't about your 
 cold that they want to see you,' she said, and stood 
 ready to be asked further questions. 
 
 ' A la gaje, k la gare ! ' said Ann, and the small girl 
 marched off with her nose in the air. 
 
 Ann, after making a somewhat more careful toilet 
 than was usual, or even necessary, followed her. She 
 looked in the glass, and found herself paler than she 
 could have wished. So she rubbed her cheeks smartly, 
 and then went upstairs to Room B on the first floor. 
 
 All the girls in the school seemed to be in the passages 
 or on the stairs, or at the doors of the class-rooms. In 
 spite of the rubbing, Ann's colour came and went as 
 she passed them, but she greeted them with smiling 
 affability, and did not appear to notice that none of her 
 greetings were returned. She caught her breath once 
 as she came to the door, but opened it and went in 
 without hesitation, and was smiling sweetly when she 
 shut it on the other side, and said : ' Bonjour, 
 Mesdemoiselles ! ' 
 
 The six monitors were seated round the table in the 
 
140 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 middle of the room, and there was a vacant chair at 
 the bottom of it. 
 
 'Please sit down there,' said Margciret Parbury. 
 
 'Thank you. How polite you are I ' said Ann, rather 
 glad to take the chair, as her knees were trembling a 
 little, quite against her will. 
 
 ' I suppose you know what we have sent for you for/ 
 said Margaret Parbury. 
 
 'I can't think,' said Ann brightly, "unless it is to 
 tell me how chic you thought my new costume yesterday. 
 One of my parents sent it over from Paris. Didn't 
 you find that it was un peu Id ? ' 
 
 Margaret Parbury flushed. ' You have played a very 
 mean, imkind trick,' she said. 'We thought perhaps 
 you had done it thoughtlessly and would be sorry for 
 it, as you have had more than two days to think it 
 over. But it seems you can only be impertinent.' 
 
 ' WiUiam the Conqueror, ten sixty six, William Rufus, 
 ten eighty seven/ said Ann, and laughed with great 
 enjo3mient, but on a note that seemed to her own fine 
 ear a shade flat. 
 
 'I should send her to Coventry at once, and not 
 waste any more time over her,' said Mabel Finney. 
 'She has no nice feelings and no sense of shame.' 
 
 ' La barbe ! ' said Ann, lightly brushing her cheek 
 with the back of her hand. 
 
 'Listen,' said Margaret. 'You know as well as we 
 do how cruel you have been. Mary Polegate has been 
 working hard at her illumination for two whole terms, 
 and had nearly finished it; and you wantonly spoilt it 
 for her. Don't you thuik that's something to be 
 ashamed of, even if you didn't think of what you 
 were doing?' 
 
 'Que de chi-chi pour des prunes I' said Ann, with a 
 trifle of impatience, as if she had only just woke up 
 to the fact that the matter was being tcdcen seriously. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 141 
 
 'You call me here to make me a sermon, and yet you 
 all laughed, d gorge deployee, when you saw the Enghsh 
 names.' 
 
 'I dare say it's very clever to use French words 
 when Enghsh will do,' said Susan Norris. 'But there's 
 no need to be affected as well as impudent.' 
 
 ' It would be affected it you were to use French words,' 
 said Ann, 'and I don't suppose you'd say them justly. 
 But I'm half French, and it is natural to me.' 
 
 Margaret leaned forward again. 'Ann Sinclair,' 
 she began. 
 
 'My name is Marie Germaine Felicite Ann-spelt-in- 
 the-Enghsh-fashion Sinclair, if you must have it all.' 
 
 'We are going to give you one more chance. It was 
 Mary, whom you have treated so badly who begged us 
 to. I think that ought to make you sorry for what you 
 have done. If you say you are sorry, and beg her 
 pardon, she will forgive you.' 
 
 Ann reflected over this. There would be no difficulty 
 in saying she was sorry the deed was done, if she could 
 avoid sajdng that she had done it. She had not thought 
 of this before, or she might have met the opening of the 
 proceedings in a different spirit. 
 
 But this small hope of a happy issue out of all her 
 afflictions was immediately reft from her. 
 
 'We are willing to give you till eleven o'clock to 
 think it over,' said Margaret, who had noticed her 
 hesitation. 'Then, if you have come to your senses, 
 you must sign this paper, and we shall show it to all 
 the girls in the school.' 
 
 Ann took the paper, and read it through. It was 
 very stiff and formal, and fixed the deed upon her 
 without any chance of misunderstanding. 'Why would 
 you make me sign this?' she asked. , 
 
 'Because the whole school knows what you have 
 done, and the whole school must know that you are 
 
142 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 sorry for it, if you are sorry, as I hope you will be when 
 you have thought it over.' 
 
 ' Mais c'est humiliant pour moi ! ' said Ann, seeking 
 to gain a little time. 
 
 'You ought to be humiliated,' said Rosamund 
 Felstead, who was gratified at having understood the 
 expression, so many of Ann's speeches not squaring 
 with Ollendorf, nor even with Larousse. 'You have 
 done a very wicked thing. We all think it is wonder- 
 fully kind and forgiving of Mary not to want you to be 
 punished for it. ' 
 
 'I would forgive her readily if she would only say 
 she was sorry,' said good Mary Polegate. 
 
 'Will you be content if I say I am sorry her illumina- 
 tion is spoilt? ' asked Ann. 
 
 There had been some discussion as to the paper, 
 and if Mary Polegate, with whom the decision seemed 
 to rest, had said that she Wcis willing to accept the 
 apology suggested, the signing would probably not have 
 been insisted upon. There was something appealing 
 about Ann as she made the suggestion, that seemed to 
 contradict her audacious speech and attitude, and to 
 show that she really was sorry, although she found it 
 difi&cult to say so. 
 
 But Mary Polegate sat there looking meek and 
 forgiving, and said nothing. After a little pause, 
 Margaret Parbury said : 'We haVe decided you must 
 sign the paper. And we will give you till eleven o'clock 
 to think it over.' 
 
 Ann shrugged her shoulders. There was no way out. 
 'Must I ask Miss Henderson if I can think it over, 
 when I ought to be doing lessons?' she asked. 'She 
 might not like it.' 
 
 Ther% was no doing anything with a girl like this. 
 Matters must take their course. 'Are you going to 
 sign the paper or not ? ' asked Margaret. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 143 
 
 'I thought you said you would give me till eleven 
 o'clock to think it over.' 
 
 'Oh, it's no good talking to her any more,' said 
 Mabel Finney. 'She can only be abominably rude. 
 She has no sense of shame whatever.' 
 
 ' It is nearly school time. Send her to Coventry, and 
 see how she likes that,' said Rosamund Felstead. 
 
 There was a murmur of acquiescence. Ann rose. 
 'I'm afraid I must leave you,' she said politely. 
 'Arrange all that between yourselves. I'm not going 
 to sign your silly old paper, which otherwise has 
 enormous faults of grammar. I know the pencil marks 
 are rubbed out already, and the chart isn't spoilt at 
 all. You wish to take some airs over me, et fa prends 
 pas. Au r'voir, Mesdemoiselles 1 ' 
 
 IX 
 
 The decree of Coventry was to have been pronounced 
 with due weight, and its full effects once more explained 
 to Ann. But her unceremonious departure had spoilt 
 the solenmity. ^ The monitors, left sitting at the table, 
 looked at one another. Nora O'Brien, who had not yet 
 spoken, laughed. 
 
 'It's no laughing matter,' said Mabel Finney. 'I 
 never thought she would be as bad as that, and Miss 
 Sutor doesn't like us td send girls to Coventry unless 
 there's a very good reason for it.' 
 
 'Oh, there's a good enough reason,' said Nora. 'I 
 only laughed because she was rather funny.' 
 
 Time was getting on, and a decision had to be made 
 at once. Ann's last impertinence showed that it was 
 of no use putting it off, for another attempt to work 
 on her feelings. A monitor went to each room, and 
 announced that Ann Sinclair had been sent to Coventry. 
 
144 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 In the meantime, Ann had nm downstairs and burst 
 into the room where all the girls of her class were 
 collected. She was in for it now, and for the moment 
 she felt rather exhilarated. During that dreadful 
 Sunday evening, when she had sat in the drawing-room 
 with a book on her knee, and Granny, tired with her 
 exertions, had dozed in her chair, she had thought it 
 all out. 
 
 The best of what she had imagined had not happened, 
 but neither had the worst. The best would have been 
 that Hilda Lang would realise, as she herself had done, 
 that if Ann went back to school alone on Monday 
 morning, she would be bound to be blamed for what 
 HUda had done. She might have sent a message, 
 taking the chief blame on her own shoulders. Ann had 
 known that she would do that if she thought of it, but 
 there had not been much hope that she would think 
 ,of it; her deficiencies were too apparent. 
 
 The worst would have been that Miss Sutor would 
 be told, instead of the supposed culprit being sent to 
 Coventry. In that case, the fearful threat of telling 
 Granny of all her misdemeanours, and asking her to 
 send Ann to another school, would be carried out. She 
 could not make up her mind what she should do in 
 that event; but at least she would not say : 'I didn't 
 do it; Hilda Lang did,' until the worst should happen. 
 And, of course, only to say : ' I didn't do it,' woiild be 
 the same thing, as the blame would instantly be fastened 
 upon Hilda, and by her. 
 
 The only way would be to goad the monitors into 
 sending her to Coventry, in which case Miss Sutor would 
 know nothing until the week was up. She thought she 
 could support that until Hilda Lang returned to school, 
 especially as all the girls would be sorry that they had 
 done it when the truth came out, arid would make up 
 to her for any inconveniences to which they had 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 145 
 
 subjected her. And she would then put it to them, 
 that as she had taken a handsome punishment for 
 Hilda's fault, and Hilda was already sorry for what she 
 had done, the affair might be considered at an end. 
 
 What weighed on her chiefly was that she must so 
 act as to make them all think that she had done the 
 thing which she had excoriated Hilda Lang for doing, 
 and especially that Hilda Strangways would believe 
 that she had done it. She was very glad that Hilda 
 Strangways was not a monitor. In that case it would 
 have been very dif&cult to keep it up. But it would 
 be bad enough in any case, with Hilda. 
 
 Ann went into the class-room laughing. She had 
 established a considerable ascendancy over her imme- 
 diate companions, and some of them had seemed ready 
 to follow her lead in breaking loose from the subjection 
 in which the younger girls of the school were expected 
 to live with regard to the elder. 'I've had such fun 
 with them,' she said, 'and I came away from them 
 before they had finished.' 
 
 There was a pause. 'Didn't you say you were 
 sorry?' asked some one. 
 
 'I said I would say that I was sorry that her old 
 chart was spoilt, if it truly is. But I don't believe it 
 is, because she sat there, comme un chien de faience, and 
 didn't look as if she would have to begin it all over 
 again. I wouldn't sign their silly old paper.' 
 
 'The chart is spoilt,' said Helen Webster, who, until 
 Ann's arrival, had been the leading spirit of the class. 
 'It was too bad to do it in red and blue pencil, which 
 can't be rubbed out so as not to show.' 
 
 Ann's heart sank. This was worse than she had 
 thought, and probably worse than foqhsh Hilda had 
 thought either. 'It had to be made to look like the 
 rest,' she said. 
 
 They didn't know what to say. They had come to 
 
146 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 think that it was altogether too bad of Ann to have 
 done what they thought she had, and there was some 
 excitement in the idea of her being sent to Coventry. 
 They wanted to see what she would do. On the other 
 hand, they were indebted to her for many benefits, 
 and while they sympathised with Mary Polegate in the 
 spoiling of her precious chart, they knew that a less 
 serious view would have been taken of the offence if it 
 had not been committ^ against a monitor. Part of 
 Ann's punishment would be put to that account, in 
 which their sympathies need not be entirely agjiinst her. 
 
 'Didn't they send you to Coventry, then?' asked 
 Helen Webster. 
 
 ' Oh, / don't know. There was such a lot of brouhaha 
 about it that I didn't stop to find out. I said good-bye, 
 and left them planted there.' 
 
 Mabel Firmey came into the room. "Ann Sinclair 
 is sent to Coventry,' she said. 'Nobody is to speak to 
 her, or have anything to do with her, except when it 
 is absolutely necessary in lesson times, until she is 
 ready to apologise humbly for what she did to Mary 
 Polegate, and for being rude to the monitors.' 
 
 'Humbly' was her own amendment to the formal 
 message, but she had never forgotten the wooden frog. 
 
 She turned to leave the room, amidst complete silence. 
 'Your safety pin's showing under your belt,' said Ann, 
 and her exit was somewhat spoilt by the motion she 
 made to correct the lapse thus pointed out. 
 
 Perhaps if Ann had had a few minutes in which to 
 make her impression, the girls of her class might have 
 rebelled against the decision announced to them. But 
 Miss Henderson coming in at that moment, they had 
 to hurry to their seats. Ann's was at the end of a row, 
 and Hilda Lang's next to it was empty, which created 
 an effect of isolation in itself. There was no one bold 
 enough to take the definite step of showing that she 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 147 
 
 intended to disregard the decree, and so giving a lead 
 to the rest. During the two hours of varied work, 
 there were opportunities of withholding intercourse from 
 Ann, and they were taken. Tradition was too strong 
 to be broken, and by the time the eleven o'clock interval 
 came, it was well understood throughout the class that 
 Ann was already in Coventry. 
 
 Ann talked brightly to every one with whom she 
 came in contact as all the girls of the school trooped 
 into the cloak-room, where glasses of hot and cold milk 
 and buns and biscuits were set out, but they all fell 
 away from her or turned their backs, and she had to 
 give that up, and pretend that she hadn't noticed, 
 while they fell into groups, and discussed her in low 
 voices. 
 
 The cloak-room opened into the garden, and Ann 
 planted herself in the doorway, with her glass of milk 
 and her bun, her legs weU stuck out so that everybody 
 who passed in and out had to step carefuUy over her 
 feet or as carefuUy avoid them. She apologised pro- 
 fusely for the inconvenience she was causing, whenever 
 it was brought to her notice, and as she always 
 happened to be looking out into the garden if any one 
 wanted to go out, and into the room if they wanted 
 to come in, she was apologising nearly aU the time. 
 But it was a one-sided joke, and when she saw Hilda 
 Strangways approaching from the garden, towards the 
 end of the interval, she gave it up, and moved away 
 from the door. 
 
 Hilda was talking to Margaret Parbury, about Ann's 
 wickedness, of course. Nobody was talking about 
 anything else. Ann would have liked to hear what she 
 was sajTing. As she came into the room, where Ann 
 was now standing against the wall, she looked at her. 
 Her look was grave enough, but it was not cold, as it 
 had been when she had looked past her in church. The 
 
148 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 ready blush flooded Ann's face' as she met it. Hilda 
 looked away, as if she could not understand her. 
 
 By the end of the morning Ann felt that she had 
 had enough of fighting the whole school for the time 
 being. 'Now don't ask me to talk to you, girls,' she 
 said, as the mistress who had taken the last lesson left 
 the room. 'You are all so stupid this morning that I 
 prefer not to waste my conversation. Don't interrupt 
 me while I'm occupied.' 
 
 This allowed her to do what she had to do in a 
 silence that had the effect of being of her own making, 
 until she could go down and join Lizzie in the cloak- 
 room. 
 
 X 
 
 Ann's first engagement in the afternoon was a violin 
 lesson. She could be as dull as she liked there, and 
 she was very dull, so that M. Lanson stormed at her, 
 and told her that she was a disgrace to his teaching. 
 His annoyance was rather a relief. She spoke to him 
 in English, which he hated, from her. At the end of 
 the lesson, he relented, and said: 'Tu n'es pas bien, 
 ma p'tite. Tu peux bien me laisser de te dire ces choses, 
 moi ton vieux maitre. La prochaine fois 5a va mieux.' 
 
 The second engagement was hockey, for the whole 
 school. They walked to the field two and two. Ann 
 hurriedly asked as many girls as possible to walk with 
 her, one after the other. 'Oh, you can't? I'm sorry,' 
 she would say, and go on to the next one. She had 
 worked through a considerable proportion of the school 
 when Margaret Parbury told her she was to walk with 
 Ida Barrett. 
 
 Ida Barrett was a shy, nervous girl of about fifteen, 
 and Ann began an animated conversation with her the 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 149 
 
 moment they set out. As she knew she would get no 
 replies, she sustained both parts of the duologue herself, 
 imitating Ida Barrett's voice and manner when it was 
 her turn to speak. 
 
 'Beautiful weather for the time of year, is it not, 
 Miss Barrett? We ought to have an agreeable game 
 of hockey, I think.' 
 
 Then in a hurried, shrinking tone: 'You know I 
 mustn't speak to you, Ann. I wish you'd be quiet.' 
 
 The imitation was so good that one or two girls 
 looked back to see if it was really Ida Barrett who was 
 talking, whicih gave Ann the opportunity of rebuking 
 them. 'You are very naughty girls,' she said severely, 
 'to take any notice of me. I shall report you to Miss 
 Parbury, who will send you to Coventry.' 
 
 Then, with a resumption of her previous polite air 
 of conversation : ' May I ask. Miss Barrett, if you have 
 ever familiarised yourself with the town of Coventry? 
 Ah, no? You should. I know of a young girl — I 
 assure you a charming yotmg girl — ^whom you would 
 like very much. She is making a short sejour there. 
 Her name is Marie Germaine FeUcite Aijn-spelt-in-the 
 Eijglish-fashion Sinclair.' 
 
 Imitation of Ida Barrett, getting still more nervous 
 and flustered : 'I wish you'd be quiet, Ann. The 
 monitors told me not to speak to you, and they will 
 be very angry with me if I do.' 
 
 'I wish to tell you about this charming young girl. 
 She is descended from William the Conqueror, through 
 WilUam Rufus, you understand, and I think, from 
 Pekahiah, but I am not quite certain about that.' 
 Change of tone : 'Nora O'Brien, three rows in advance, 
 I can see you laughing. I shall certainly report you to 
 Miss Parbury — or to Miss Finney, whose shoe has come 
 unlaced.' Resumption of polite tone: 'Excuse me. 
 Miss Barrett ! I have to keep these troublesome girls 
 
150 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 in order, especially Miss Finney, who is untidy in her 
 dress, and has no sense of shame.' 
 
 Representation of Ida Barrett, in a state of almost 
 tearful remonstrance. 'I do wish you'd be quiet, Ann. 
 You will get me into such trouble with the monitors, 
 and I do love them all so.' 
 
 ' Qu'est ce que c'est que ces moniteurs, Miss Barrett ? 
 The charming young girl of whom I spoke to you had 
 some friends called moniteurs, but she found them rather 
 collet monte — how do you say it ? stuck up. There was 
 one called Mam'selle Parbuni, who counselled her to 
 inhabit Coventry, and another called Mam'selle Finni, 
 who was untidy in her dress, and had no sense of 
 shame.' 
 
 Word was sent down the line that everybody was to 
 talk, and not listen to Ann Sinclair's impertinences. 
 As a counterstroke it was not brilliantly conceived, but 
 seemed to be the only one available for the moment. 
 Ann passed it on herself, in an ofi&cial voice, and in the 
 amended form : ' Everybody is to talk to Ann Sinclair, 
 and not listen to Margaret Parbury's impertinences'; 
 but as Ida Barrett also passed it on, correctly, Apn was 
 relieved of the necessity of keeping it up any longer, 
 and her unfortunate companion was left in peace. 
 
 Ann was in First Game, and had risen to a position 
 in which she was usually chosen in a pick-up about half 
 way down. She played half-back on the left wing, was 
 very neat and quick on her thin legs, and quite fearless 
 of having them, damaged. This afternoon she was the 
 last to be picked, but was given her usual place in the 
 field, and prepared herself to take an active part in the 
 game. 
 
 She was here, there, and everywhere, but, through an 
 apparent excess of zeal, not often where she was wanted. 
 When the first penalty comer stroke was played she 
 was over the line just before the ball was hit, and the 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 151 
 
 line had to be formed up again and the stroke repeated, 
 for which she apologised; but the same thing happened 
 at the second hit, and once or twice later on. She was 
 so anxious that goals should be scored for her side that 
 she constantly tried to make them herself, from some 
 distance off, instead of passing to her forwards, but 
 never once succeeded in getting the ball between the 
 posts. At the end of the game the other side had won 
 by five goals to one, and Ann told Ida Barrett on the 
 way back that she had enjoyed it enormously and 
 looked forward to the next one. 
 
 XI 
 
 So far, Ann had had very much the best of it. But 
 feeling was beginning to rise against her. For one 
 thing, she had spoilt the game of twenty^one other 
 girls; for another, she had reduced the monitors to a 
 feeling of impotence which they were burning to redress. 
 On the rare occasions within memory on which girls 
 had been sent to Coventry, they had gone about looking 
 miserable, and penitently accepted their release the 
 moment it had been offered to them. It was the last 
 awful, dreaded punishment. But Ann had taken it as 
 a release from all bonds of respectful behaviour. During 
 the walk to the hockey field, she had been abominably 
 cheeky to the monitors before the whole school, and 
 might be more cheeky still, and what could they do? 
 They had shot their bolt. It would be acknowledging 
 defeat at her hands to complain to Miss Sutor, and 
 besides, the understanding with the headmistress was 
 that if they took it upon themselves to send a girl to 
 Coventry, they must carry the punishment through 
 themselves. It was what it had been allowed them for 
 — ^the last prop and stay of their authority. If, as had 
 
152 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 never yet happened, the culprit was recalcitrant up to 
 the fuU time allowed, they could appeal to Miss Sutor; 
 but at the rate at which she was going Ann would have 
 upset all authority long before the week was up; and 
 that must be stopped somehow. 
 
 After all, it was one girl of thirteen, the last comer 
 to the school — ^this was an added offence — against all 
 the rest, and she had done a thing that, however she 
 might brazen it out, they were justified in punishing 
 her for. She could be brought to a sense of her con- 
 dition, but it would have to be by taking the offensive 
 agciinst her, and ways had to be concerted for doing 
 that. 
 
 There was a cubicle set aside for Ann and Hilda Lang 
 to change in, in the dormitory of which Mabel Finney 
 was the monitor. Some light skirmishing had gone on ' 
 during the few minutes taken to change into hockey 
 dress, in which Ann had held her own. The others had 
 talked among themselves, and taken no notice of the 
 occasional remarks she had called out. But in the 
 longer process of dressing after hockey, there was a 
 change of policy. Ann was discussed, as if she were 
 not there, except that, of course, everything that was 
 said about her was intended for her ears. She threw 
 in her occasional remarks, which were variations on : 
 'I'm here, you know; I can hear everything you say,' 
 and sometimes scored by a sharp interpolation. But 
 she could not make headway against five girls deter- 
 mined to ignore her, and had to listen to a good deal 
 that reflected itself on her face in a very different way 
 from that indicated by the voice in which she answered 
 them. 
 
 The personal remarks caused her no partictilar 
 distress. They were what might be called 'flappery,' 
 with a good many 'of courses' and 'my dears' thro\m 
 in, and were obviously made up for the occasion. But 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i53 
 
 even in them she caught echoes of jealousies that she 
 had not known to exist, which hurt her, although she 
 scarcely understood them. 
 
 Her hair was like a fuzz-bush. She would grow up 
 like a maypole. She was the most overdressed girl in 
 the school, and alternatively she was dressed like a 
 baby, and the wonder was she didn't come to school in 
 a perambulator. She thought a great deal of herself 
 because her people were rich, and had titles. This was 
 from Helen Webster, who had been to tea with her, 
 and she blushed hotly at it, more for the speaker's sake 
 than her own. 
 
 Mabel Finney took no part in these opening remarks, 
 and after the last speech, turned the conversation on to 
 Ann's impertinence to Margaret Parbmy, who' was a 
 full nineteen, and universally liked and respected. 
 
 ' I should expect her to make fun of me' said Mabel 
 Finney. ' I'm not pretty, and I have to wear spectacles, 
 and my people can't afford to give me the sort of 
 clothes she wears.' ('How funny you'd look in them !' 
 from Ann.) 'Those are jnst the tilings that a girl 
 like that would, make fun of. But when it comes to a 
 girl like Margaret, it's different. Everybody knows 
 how nice she is, and if you'd only seen the way in 
 which she treated her this morning, not taking any 
 notice of her rudeness — and trjdng to make her ashamed 
 of what she had done ! ' 
 
 'She was awfully sweet to poor Mary about it too,' 
 said another voice. 'She did her best to get out the 
 marks, and when they saw it was no good, and Mary 
 said she didn't feel as if she could go on with it any 
 more, after it's being spoilt the second time, she almost 
 cried herself, she was so sorry for her.' 
 
 'Everybody was sorry for her.' 
 
 'Except the one who did it.' 
 
 'All she could do was to call her names, even after 
 
 T.C. L 
 
154 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 she said she would forgive her if she would only say 
 she was sorry.' 
 
 'What did she call her?' 
 
 'It was when she came into the class-room, very 
 proud of herself for being rude upstairs, and thinking 
 we should all be on her side. She said Mcuy Polegate 
 had sat there looking like a china dog.' 
 
 ' Did she really say that ? ' 
 
 'Yes; in French. She uses the most horrible expres- 
 sions in French — goodness knows where she picked 
 them up — ^and thinks nobody will understand them. I 
 asked Mademoiselle, and she said no lady would think 
 of using such an expression in France. It's worse than 
 it sounds in EngKsh.' 
 
 'It would be bad enough in English, after what she 
 had done. To call her any name would.' 
 
 How Ann wished she had known that foolish Hilda 
 Lang had made her addition in a way that could not 
 be rubbed out ! She had taken a dreadful deed on her 
 shoulders, and treated it in a dreadful way. But she 
 must go on with it now. 
 
 Mabel Finney took it up. 'It just shows what she 
 really is,' she said, 'underneath all her pretence. But 
 I was going to tell you — ^the other monitors said I 
 could — ^that in the first meeting we had, Margaret said 
 that she couldn't beHeve she had really done it.'- Ann 
 listened hard here. 'I won't say who we thought it 
 might have been, because that wouldn't be fair.' 
 
 'Oh, don't be silly. Of course you mean Hilda Lang.' 
 
 'Well, I ought not to have said it in a way to make 
 you think that. Nobody mentioned her name, and I 
 hope it won't be said, when she comes back, that any- 
 body suspected her.' 
 
 ' I shall tell her that you did,' called out Ann. 
 
 'I mean by anybody whose word you could believe,' 
 continued Mabel Finney. 'What Margaret said was 
 
A.tJt)AClOUS ANN tS5 
 
 that she might have worked upon somebody so that 
 she would think it was clever to do what she wouldn't 
 do herself.' 
 
 'That would be awfully mean.' 
 
 'And just like her.' 
 
 'Yes. But Margaret didn't mean it in that way. 
 She said she didn't think we ought even to say that she 
 had done it, until she had an opportunity of defending 
 herself. She said that she was naughty and trouble- 
 some sometimes, but she had never thought she would 
 do anything really unkind.' 
 
 'She knows better now.' 
 
 'Yes, of course. But I tell you that just to show 
 you how she stood up for her. And that's the girl — years 
 older than herself — ^that she can only be vulgarly rude to. 
 
 'It's a good thing they found the pencil in her desk. 
 If they hadn't, Hilda Lang might have been suspected, 
 and as she's away ill she couldn't defend herself.' 
 
 'That would just have suited her. She's quite mean 
 enough to have let her bear the blame.' 
 
 'No, she isn't,' Ann called out. She had to say 
 something, but hoped the quiver in her voice had not 
 been noticed. She saw it all now. She had bought 
 herself a pencil with red at one end and blue at the 
 other. Hilda Lang had taken it for her fell purpose. 
 There was no offence in that, as they had agreed to 
 share all such things; but she wished she had told her. 
 
 Ann's dressing did not take so long as that of the 
 boarders. When she could command her voice, she 
 called out : 'I can't stay any longer, girls. I'm going 
 down to bag one of the arm-chairs.' 
 
 There was a short interval before tea-time, which the 
 girls who had finished dressing spent in the big hall. 
 This was their general sitting-room. There were some 
 arm-chairs in it, which it was understood that the 
 monitors occupied, if they were there. 
 
156 THE CLINTONS ANt) OTHERS 
 
 Ann was the first down, but she did not appropriate 
 an ann-chair. She thought it would be easier to sit at 
 a table and immerse herself in a book. There was 
 another ordeal immediately before her. 
 
 XII 
 
 Tea was an informal meal, at which no mistresses were 
 present. Cakes and other extras were allowed, pro- 
 vided by the girls themselves. They were very plentiful 
 at the beginning of term, but apt to run short towards 
 the close. Ann had been a godsend in coaxing 9II 
 sorts of things out of the cook at home, in the latter 
 lean days, and had promised for this evening a great 
 cake, fresh from the oven, which Lizzie was under orders 
 to bring lip just before tea-time. She had not counter- 
 manded it in the morning, not having been altogether 
 without hope, and with a « vague idea of propitiation in 
 her mind, and had forgotten it in the afternoon. But 
 the devoted cook had not. Ann stole into the dining- 
 room on her way to the hall, and there was the huge 
 cake, hot and spicy, at the bottom of the table, where 
 it was the custom for the dispenser of hospitality to 
 .* sit, with the head girl at the other end opposite to her. 
 
 The girls gradually filled the chairs down the long 
 table. In the ordinary way, those on either side of 
 Ann would have been taken at least as readily as the 
 others; but now they were left for the last comers. 
 
 Ann got her cup of tea from the side-table, and took 
 it to her place. Then she stood up with the cake knife 
 in her hand, and carefully counted the heads round 
 the table. Everybody affected to take no notice of 
 her, but the buzz of talk did not sound quite natur^. 
 
 Ann began to cut the cake. She looked at each girl, 
 beginning with Margaret Parbury, as she cut her 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 157 
 
 appointed slice, and went over the count once or twice 
 as she worked down the table. 
 
 She came to Gertrude Knight, who had been one of 
 her late tormentors in the dormitory. Gertrude Knight 
 was a fat girl of sixteen, who was known to have once 
 kept a large box of chocolates in her desk and eaten 
 them aJl herself, and had sufiEered from a reputation for 
 greediness ever since. Aiin considered her with her 
 head on one side, and then cut a sUce rather more than 
 twice the size of the rest. 
 
 There were subdued titters./ Gertrude Knight threw 
 a glance down the table, and there were more titters. 
 But Ann was seriously considering the next person. 
 
 When she had cut up half the cake, she said : ' That's 
 enough to begin with.' (Hilda Strangways was on the 
 other side of the table, and she did not want to include 
 her in the comedy.) She started off to the top of the 
 table carrjdng the cake, which was almost too heavy 
 for her. 
 
 'No, thank you,' said Margaret Parbury. 'No, thank 
 you,' said Rosamtmd Felstead, who was sitting next 
 to her. Ann went conscientiously down the line xmtil 
 she came to Gertrude Knight, who said : 'No, thank 
 you,' like all the rest. Ann rested the heavy plate on 
 the table by her side, where the savoury reek could 
 greet her nostrils. 'Oh, do have a Uttle morsel,' she 
 said. 'It is very light. It won't do you any harm.' 
 
 Gertrude Knight said, 'No, thank you,' again, but 
 was unable to forbear a fleeting side-glance at the 
 delicacy. Whereupon the titters broke out again here 
 and there. 
 
 'Go and sit down,' said Margaret Parbury, in a 
 clear voice. 'Nobody wants any cake.' 
 
 Ann obeyed her. It was the first time she had 
 acknowledged the voice of authority. When she reached 
 her own seat, she offered herself a piece of cake, and 
 
158 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 refused it in a haughty voice, but pressed it upon 
 herself solicitously, and finally took it. Afterwards she 
 wished she hadn't, for although she tried very hard to 
 finish it, she had to leave some of it on her plate, which 
 she did with the remark that it wasn't quite as good 
 as usual, and she should bring another one the next 
 day. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Ann turned up at school the next morning looking 
 very neat and fresh, and not at all as if she had cried 
 herself to sleep the night before. She had prepared one 
 or two small surprises of attack, under the more hopeful 
 light of morning, but the enemy was also in the mood 
 for attack now, and got in their strokes first. 
 
 She was summoned to Margaret PcU'bury who asked 
 her shortly if she had come to her senses yet, and when 
 she replied that she had always had them, wasted no 
 time on her, but said : ' Here's the money you subscribed 
 for Miss Sutor's present. We are not going to let a 
 girl who behaves as you do have an5^hing to do with 
 the things that we arrange among ourselves. And of 
 course we are not going to accept the things that you 
 offered for the supper.' 
 
 Ann flushed deeply. 'Miss Sutor will think I didn't 
 want to subscribe, if my name isn't on the list with the 
 others,' she said. 
 
 'We can't help that,' said Margaret. 'If you do 
 what we have told you to before Friday, when we shall 
 write the list, your name will be in it. It's entirely for 
 you to have it there or not.' 
 
 'It's very unfair,' cried Ann. 'You can't make me 
 do what you want by sending me to Coventry, so you 
 try to embrouille me with Miss Sutor, by spite.' 
 
 Margaret Parbury and Nora O'Brien had not wished 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 159 
 
 to take this step, but the other four monitors, including 
 good Mary Polegate, had voted for it, and Margaret 
 had to carry out the decision. She was just, but she 
 was a Uttle hard. And her authority, which she had 
 alwaj^ exercised with care and moderation, had been 
 impudently ilouted by Ann. 
 
 ' It is evident that Coventry is not much punishment 
 to you,' she said. 'For one thing, you live at home, 
 and when you go away from here you are able to 
 forget it altogether. But we are not doing this for an 
 extra punishment. We are simply not going to recognise 
 you as being one of us at all, more than we are obUged.' 
 
 'Am I to play at the concert?' asked Ann. 
 
 She had touched a weak spot. Margaret met it 
 with the full truth. ' We would much rather you didn't,' 
 she said. 'But M. Lanson would make a great fuss, 
 and he might upset everything.' 
 
 'Perhaps I shan't play,' said Ann. 'If you don't 
 want a fuss made you had better let me subscribe to 
 Miss Sutor's present. It's very unfair not"^to. I didn't 
 like Miss Sutor very much at first, but I do Uke her 
 now, and she will think I don't.' 
 
 'If you don't play, you will have to make your own 
 excuses, and we shall be glad to have it settled like 
 that. We are not going to let you subscribe to Miss 
 Sutor's present.' 
 
 ' You're a set of beasts,' Ann broke out passionately, 
 and was proceeding to the expression of further injuries; 
 but Margaret took her by the shoulders and put her 
 out of the room. 
 
 She went downstairs in a flaming temper, and flung 
 into the class-room, where t^e girls were waiting for 
 her. As she sat herself down at her desk, she saw a 
 piece of paper in front of her. On it was written : ' The 
 girls asked to tea with Ann Sinclair on Saturday are 
 not coming.^' 
 
i6o THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Ann tore the paper in half and threw it on the floor. 
 ' Sales bStes ! ' she said. 
 
 The battle was fully joined now. It was one against 
 many, but Ann's attacks were widely distributed, and 
 could only be met by counter-attacks, and in combina- 
 tion. For that morning at least she was unable to get 
 back to her attitude of not caring, and although she 
 made valiant efforts to resume it afterwards, her sallies 
 no longer met with their previous success, and she was 
 often dislodged from her entrenchments and driven into 
 angry recriminations. This gave the enemy invariable 
 advantage, which they were not slow t(? maJte use of. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the whole school took 
 active part in the fray. More than half the girls simply 
 stood aside, and there were others whose mild pricks 
 were ineffective. There were even some who felt 
 uncomfortable, quite apart from the general discomfort 
 of the situation, at the way Ann was being treated. 
 But if this feeUng found expression, it was alwajrs 
 added that she had only herself to thank for it. She 
 was behaving outrageously. If she would keep quiet, 
 she would be let alone. And, of course, no compromise 
 could be made with her as long as she remained tmrepen- 
 tant of her first offence, which, however, was gradually 
 being lost sight of in the turmoil and irritation of the 
 conflict. 
 
 Girls are not so cruel as boys, but they have their 
 share of spite, and Ann roused it wherever it existed. 
 It was unfortunate for her that it should have fovmd 
 fertile ground in Mabel Finney's dormitory. If the 
 girls inclined to be sorry for Ann had known how she 
 was treated there, objection would certainly have been 
 taken. Mabel Finney's lack of physical attraction 
 extended to her character. As monitor, she set some 
 bounds to her own wounding speeches, but exercised 
 small control over the tongues of the rest. Gertrude 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN t6i 
 
 Knight had received an injury from Ann which she 
 repaid with as much rancour as her slow mind was 
 capable of. Helen Webster's essential vulgarity of 
 disposition and her jealousy of Ann found utterance 
 through her sharp tongue. The other two girls were 
 sometimes ashamed of the things that were said, but 
 followed the lead of the rest. Ann woijld escape from 
 the dormitory quivering in every sensitive nerve, but 
 she never let them know how much they hurt her, and 
 still threw an occasional sharp dart of speech at them 
 across the tops of the cubicles. 
 
 She had, in fact, made a miscalculation at the outset. 
 She had thought that if she never showed distress, and 
 made herself as amusing as possible, she would have 
 her own contemporaries at least laughing with her, 
 though officially they would have to ignore her. She 
 would thus be able to reject the disgrace of Coventry, 
 and only have to sustain its inconveniences. But she 
 had a little overdone the humour, and had not reckoned 
 on any effective body of dislike. How could she have 
 done, when she had always had the world at her feet, 
 and had never known unkindness in her life? 
 
 She knew it now. 
 
 XIV 
 
 On Wednesday afternoon, all the girls ha.d changed 
 for hockey as usual, but a sudden sharp downpour, 
 which developed into steady rain, kept them indoors. 
 Presently they changed back again, and Ann was too 
 dispirited during the second process to make the usual 
 retorts. If she had known it was going to rain she 
 need not have come back to school at aU until after 
 tea, and might have been sitting at peace with a book, 
 with dear Granny, or in her own pretty room at home. 
 
1 62 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Now she had a dreary afternoon in front of her in the 
 hall, where everybody else would be amusing themselves 
 happily, and she, at the best, would be left to her own 
 company. 
 
 If only she had brought her violin with her ! She 
 might have got away by herself to practise. But it was 
 not her afternoon for a lesson, and she thought it was 
 of no use trying to borrow one. 
 
 But to her surprise, Margaret Parbury came up to 
 her, where she was sitting shunned and alone, and 
 said : ' If you would like to practise for the concert, 
 Mildred Worsley will lend you her violin, and you can 
 go up to your cubicle.' 
 
 Ann accepted, with a grateful glance which Margaret 
 did not meet. Mildred Worsley's violin was not the 
 companion that her own beloved GagUano would have 
 been, but she much preferred it to any other com- 
 panionship that was available for the moment, and 
 even the now-dreaded cubicle changed its aspect, as 
 she practised her phrases over and over again by heart, 
 and varied them by an occasional excursion into other 
 fields of memory. 
 
 She had been plajdng for half an hour, when the door 
 of the dormitory opened. She paled, and left off 
 playing. Surely they could not be coming up to get 
 ready for tea yet ! The colour flooded her face again 
 as the door of her cubicle opened and Hilda Strangways 
 came in. 
 
 ' Margaret said I might talk to you, Ann, if you'd let 
 me,' she said. 
 
 It was an added pang that her own treatment of 
 Hilda should have made it doubtful whether she would 
 let her talk to her. 'I'm only too pleased,' she said, 
 with a faint attempt at a smile. 
 
 'Well, put the violin down, then.' 
 
 Ann did as she was told. Hilda sat down on the 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 163 
 
 bed. 'Ann, dear, don't you think you've had enough 
 now?' she said. 'Can't you say you're sorry?' 
 
 Ann looked down. 'I'm very sorry I behaved so 
 badly to you,' she said. 'I was, directly I'd done it.' 
 
 HUda put her arm round her and drew her towards 
 her. Her slender body, which quivered a little, and 
 the look in her face, made her seem very childish and 
 pathetic to the older girl. 'Oh, well, perhaps I under- 
 stand that better than you'd think,' she said. 'It 
 used to take me like that sometimes when I was 
 younger. Something inside you makes you do the 
 opposite to what you want to do. I thought afterwards 
 that if I hadn't shown I was offended with you, you'd 
 have done what I wanted. Would you ? ' 
 
 'Oh, yes, I would. I felt horrible inside of me when 
 I was teasing Mary Polegate, and you heard me.' 
 
 'Yes, I thought so. It was sLQy of you to behave 
 like that, but you know you ara rather a baby some- 
 times, Ann. It makes it difficult for older girls who 
 want to be friends with you.' 
 
 'I don't suppose you want to be friends with me 
 now,' said Ann, forlornly. 
 
 'Yes, I do. I've been feeling dreadfully sorry for 
 you.' 
 
 The light frame relaxed against her, and an arm stole 
 round her neck. Ann's own music had made her feel 
 mournful, and she wanted to cry. But she knew she 
 mustn't do that, until she got home; for if she once 
 began, she would not be able to leave off, and it would 
 be all over with her powers of resistance. 
 
 Hilda gave her a httle hug, and put her cheek against 
 hers. She knew that Ann must be wanting to cry, and 
 thought she might have an easier task with her if she 
 did. For she had only so far cleared the way for what 
 Margaret, without consulting the other monitors, had 
 told her she might break Ann's Coventry for. 
 
i64 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 There was a pause, while the comfort of the arm 
 around her, and the cheek against hers, stole into Ann's 
 hungry being. Then Hilda said : 'Ann, don't set 
 everybody against you any more. It's dreadful to 
 have to look on at it; and I can't get away from it, 
 you know, like you can. It goes on after you have 
 gone home.' 
 
 Ann felt to the full this generous way of putting it. 
 Hilda was going to make it very hard for her to hold 
 out. 
 
 'Are they very awful?' she' asked, in a lighter tone. 
 'You have no idea how awful they are up here. But 
 I say things they don't like to swallow, too.' ' 
 
 She felt Hilda's arm relax ever so little, and pressed 
 all the closer to her. 'Do you think I am very wicked 
 to answer them back?' she asked. 'But I don't wish 
 that they shall march on my feet.' 
 
 Hilda drew her cheek away, and Ann stood ,up 
 straighter, but still kept her arm rather tight round 
 Hilda's neck. She was under the hard necessity of 
 disappointing this friend, but she would cling to her 
 as long as she could. 'I can support the consequences 
 till the end of the week,' she said; ' especially if you 
 are going to be friends with me when it is all over.' 
 
 'What I can't imderstand,' said Hilda, 'is your 
 doing it at all. I saw you had left off teasing Mary, 
 and I simply couldn't believe it, when I saw what you 
 had done.' 
 
 So she had noticed — on that unhappy afternoon 1 
 Ann put her cheek to hers again, but said nothing. 
 
 Hilda did not draw away this time. 'Ann dear, 
 why did you? Was it because I wouldn't take any 
 notice of you, when I thought you were sorry? If so, 
 it was partly my fault.' 
 
 'Oh, no,' sighed Ann. 'It's all a dreadful muddle. 
 Please don't ask me about it any more.' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 165 
 
 Hilda thought hard. 'It wasn't like you, Ann,' she 
 said. 
 
 Ann felt that this was getting dangerous. Perhaps, 
 if Hilda had come to her in this way before, she might 
 have confided to her how matters stood, and bound her 
 to secrecy. It would not have been so bad if there had 
 been some one who understood her. But now she had 
 gone so far, she could not bear to say, even to her : 
 'Hilda Lang did it.' The words wovdd have stuck in 
 her throat. She stood up again. 'I thought it would 
 have rubbed out,' she said. 
 
 Hilda was stjll thinking. 'You had two whole days 
 to think it over,' she said. ' You must have known you 
 had done something very unkind, and I could see on 
 Monday morning, and on Sunday in church too, that 
 you weren't against me any more. Why did you come 
 to school in the mood you did?' 
 
 'I said I would say I was sorry the illumination was 
 spoilt. I only wouldn't sign the paper.' 
 
 'But you weren't ^ sorry at aU. You couldn't have 
 been. Not really sorry — ^the way you behaved to the 
 monitors. Margaret sa5rs you began to be cheeky to 
 them before they said anything to you at all. You 
 must have made that aU up before you came, Ann.' 
 
 'Perhaps I did — some of it,' said Ann. 'I knew 
 that everybody would be very angry with me, and I 
 have not the habitude to support that. Besides, I did 
 not know until afterwards that it had truly been spoilt, 
 or I wouldn't have behaved exactly as I did. I thought 
 it had been done with pencil that would rub out.' 
 
 Hilda looked at her. What did the last sentence 
 mean? It might only have been Ann's slightly 
 un-English way of saying that she had thought hex 
 own red and blue marks would rub out; or 
 
 'Was it you who did it, Ann?' 
 
 Ann looked away, and her colour came and went. 
 
t66 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 She drew her arm from Hilda's neck. 'Oh, why do 
 you emhete me?' she said impatiently. 'I won't talk 
 about it any more. You know ever3rthing, and it is 
 very tiresome to me to say it over again.' 
 
 Hilda took no notice of her petulance. She would 
 not have spoken to her like that if 
 
 'Ann, look at me straight, and tell me whether you 
 did it — yes or no.' 
 
 Ann's eyes came round to hers, unwillingly, and half- 
 frightened. Hilda read the truth in them before Ann 
 could speak. 
 
 She caught her to her. 'Oh, my poor little Ann !' 
 she cried. 
 
 Ann wrenched herself free. 'You are not to say 
 that I didn't do it,' she said vehemently. 'You are 
 not to tell that to Margaret Parbury, or any of the 
 others. I do not say that I didn't do it.' 
 
 'You are letting them think that you did it until ' 
 
 Ann put her hand over her mouth before she could 
 finish. 'You are not to say anything,' she said. 'If 
 you say that you think I didn't do it, they will know 
 that it came from me, and I won't have them say that.' 
 
 Hilda disengaged her hand and held.it, and Ann too. 
 'Ann, darling,' she said. 'If I tell Margaret, and ' 
 
 'No, no,' cried Ann. 'You are not to tell anybody. 
 If you do, I will not speak to you again. You won't 
 be my friend. You must give me your promise that 
 you won't.' 
 
 She was so vehement, and the determination in her 
 was so strong, that Hilda allowed herself to be overborne. 
 She wanted to say that she would tell Margaret, under 
 a promise of secrecy. But Ann would not let her say 
 anything. She would not let her put her discovery 
 into words, even for herself. 
 
 When she had given the promise, much against her 
 will, Ann became quieter, all of a sudden. She hid her 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 167 
 
 face on Hilda's shoulder, and breathed a deep sigh. 
 'You will talk to me sometimes, won't you?' she said 
 — 'when the others are not there? It is so miserable 
 to be always alone, and to feel that they all hate me.' 
 
 Hilda was crying a little, if Ann wasn't. 'Oh, why 
 
 couldn't that silly girl ' she began. But Ann had 
 
 her hand over her mouth again. 
 
 Hilda kissed her, though she knew that Arm did not 
 care about kissing among girls, and it was not what 
 Ann would have called a habitude of Hilda's either. 
 But Ann returned the kiss, and said that she could 
 'support the consequences' better now. 
 
 XV 
 
 Presently Hilda left Ann, and went back to Margaret. 
 Margaret looked at her sharply, for the traces of 
 emotion were still apparent on her face. 
 
 'She won't sign the paper,' she said. 
 
 Margaret looked disappointed. 'I did hope you'd 
 have been able to persuade her,' she said. 'Was she 
 cheeky to you?' 
 
 'Oh, no. Margaret, I'm awfuUy sorry for the poor 
 little thing. She won't give in, but she's feeling it 
 dreadfully.' 
 
 'Well, she deserves to feel it. It's all very well, 
 Hilda, but it's either her giving in or our giving in. 
 We were quite right to punish her for doing what she 
 did, and we simply can't allow her to get the better 
 of us.' 
 
 'But lots of the girls are so awfully unkind to her, 
 especially ' 
 
 'My dear, that's entirely her fault. If she would 
 keep quiet everybody would just leave her alone.' 
 
 'Thiey are really cruel to her up in the dormitory, 
 
t68, THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 and Mabel doesn't do anjd:hing to stop them. She 
 wouldn't tell me the things they said; but some of 
 them must have been pretty horrible. She dreads 
 going up there.' 
 
 Margaret looked serious. 'I'll say something to 
 Mabel,' she said. 'But I can't say much, because I'm 
 not supposed to know. But I do know that it's bringing 
 out all the worst there is in some girls — ^those who 
 only want an excuse to be spiteful. I can see that for 
 myself. Oh, I'm sick of the whole business. It's spoiling 
 everything. But it's all that tiresome child's fault. 
 She is badly iri the wrong. You know that as well as 
 I do, Hilda. Of course she is attractive, and has heaps 
 of good points; but you ought not to let that weigh 
 with you against what she did, and all the harm she's 
 doing to the school now. I was half afraid you would, 
 when I let you go and talk to her. You see you come 
 back sympathising with her, and yet you haven't done 
 anything to move her.' 
 
 'I did my best,' said Hilda, rather weakly. She was 
 in a very difi&cult position. She blamed herself for 
 having promised Ann that she would keep the truth 
 absolutely to herself, but did not know that she had 
 had very little to do with it, as Ann, in spite of her 
 youth, could at any time have imposed her will upon 
 her, if she were determined to do so. 
 
 But Margaret was disturbed by her own difficulties. 
 'She simply sits there and defies us all,' she said. 'If 
 she holds out till the end of the week, as I suppose she 
 wiU now, I shall have to go to Miss Sutor, and admit 
 that none of us can do an5?thing with her. Of course 
 she'll be punished again for what she did, but that 
 won't do us any good. I know what Miss Sutor will 
 say. If we can't make our authority felt, even by 
 sending a girl to Coventry for a week, there must be 
 something wrong in the way we exercise it.' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 169 
 
 'There wouldn't be with you,' said Hilda, 'but there 
 would be with Mabel Finney, and some of the others, 
 if they just take a pleasure in tormenting her.' 
 
 ' They ought not to do that. But / haven't done it, 
 and I can't do anything with her. She's fond of you, 
 but you can't either. She seems just to have got over 
 you. Bother the little imp ! I've a good mind to go 
 straight to Miss Sutor and tell her now.' 
 
 'Oh, you mustn't do that, Margaret. Miss Sutor 
 told her that if she were reported to her again, she 
 would tell Lady Sinclair, and ask her to take her away. 
 She told me that before.' 
 
 'I wish she would take her away. No, I don't mean 
 that. She's all right when she is all right.' 
 
 'Margaret, I beUeve she was afraid that Miss Sutor 
 would be told, and that's why she was so cheeky to all 
 of you.' Ann had told her as much as that. 
 
 'What do you mean?' 
 
 ' She wanted you to send her to Coventry instead.' 
 
 'But we shouldn't have done anything, if she'd 
 behaved properly. Fancy doing a thing like that and 
 not being sorry for it ! Her naughtiness isn't all high 
 spirits and cleverness, you know, Hilda. I call that 
 really bad in a child. And the way she behaved to 
 Mary ! Didn't you point all that out to her?' 
 
 'Oh, yes,' said HDda, hastily. 'But it was the paper 
 she had to sign.' 
 
 Margaret looked vexed. 'That was Susan,' she said. 
 'Her father is a K.C., and she must have everything 
 legal. I was against it, and so was Nora. Supposing 
 we were to give up the paper ! But no, we can't do 
 that. It would be acknowledging that she had beaten 
 us. There was nothing unkind in it. It would have 
 been easier for her than to teU everybody she was 
 sorry. Besides, she wasn't sorry, whatever she may 
 be now. Why doesn't she go to Mary and apologise? 
 
 T.C. * M 
 
170 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 It would make some difference. Didn't you ask her 
 that? I told you to.' 
 
 Hilda had forgotten this commission, but Mary 
 Polegate'S name had been mentioned between her and 
 Ann. 'She says she doesn't think Mary is as good as 
 she looks,' she said. 
 
 Margaret frowned, and then laughed vexedly. ' I 
 wish her chart had been at the bottom of the sea,' she 
 said. 'But she was nice enough about it, when she 
 had once got over her disappointment.' 
 
 'She was just not nice enough. And she's quite 
 satisfied' that Ann's life should be made a burden to 
 her now. Last night, when Gertrude Knight and Helen 
 Webster were laughing about some of the spiteful things 
 they had been saying about Ann upstairs, Mary sat 
 and Ustened, looking like a holy Cheshire cat, and 
 didn't say a word. I suppose she's only stupid, but 
 stupid people can be just as unkind as clever ones.' 
 
 Margaret passed this by. She had her own opinion 
 of good Mary Polegate, but there was loyalty to be 
 observed. 
 
 'You know, Miss Sutor will have to be told at the 
 end of the week,' she said. 'I think she's getting 
 restive about it now. Of course she knows everything 
 that's going on. She always does.' 
 
 'Do you think she knows about the chart being 
 spoilt?' 
 
 'Oh, yes. Miss Hastings will have told her, and 
 about the "Coventry too. She'll let it go on till the end 
 of the week, but I shall have to tell her on Sunday. I 
 shan't on Saturday, because of her birthday.' 
 
 'The week won't be over till Monday morning, when 
 the Coventry began.' 
 
 Hilda Lang would be back on Monday morning. 
 Her father, who had been to the school, had said so. 
 
 'As Ann is a day-pupil, it wiU be over for her on 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 171 
 
 Saturday evening, when she goes home, ~ after the 
 concert. 
 
 'Miss Sutor is going to tea with Lady Sinclair on 
 Sunday. Ann told me so. Don't tell her till Monday, 
 Margaret.' 
 
 'Very well. It doesn't make much difference. 
 
 Hilda knew that it would make a good deal. The 
 bell rang for tea, and they went in together. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Ann was summoned to Margaret Parbury again the 
 next morning. Upheld by the knowledge of Hilda's 
 sympathy, she had come bright and fresh to the day's 
 campaign. Her wounds were deep, but she could, hide 
 them better now. It was Hilda who had met her in 
 the cloak-room and told her to go to Margaret. She 
 was feeUng almost happy for the moment. 
 
 Margaret looked at her in baffled surprise, as she 
 came in smiling. Wasn't it possible to touch this 
 child's conscience? She had a suspicion that Hilda had 
 allowed her to 'get over' her again. 
 
 'Did Hilda tell you what I wanted you for?' she 
 asked. 
 
 'No,' said Ann. 
 
 'We have decided to take your subscription for Miss 
 Sutor's present. Our objections to it are just the same 
 as they were, but it would look afterwards as if we had 
 tried to piuiish you by not letting you join, and we 
 don't want that.' 
 
 Margaret was always very direct. She had worked 
 hard for this, and that was the reason she had given 
 to the other monitors; so she gave it to Ann. 
 
 'Oh, thank you,' said Ann gratefully. 'I'm very 
 glad of that. It was a trouble to me that she wouldn't 
 
172 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 see my name in the list.' It crossed her quick mind to 
 ask whether Mary Polegate was going to illuminate the 
 list, but she rejected the temptation ajid asked instead : 
 'Is it permitted to me to see the present?' 
 
 Was this veiled impertinence? One never knew, 
 with Ann's somewhat peculiar English. The present 
 had been bought two days before, and had naturally 
 not been shown to Ann. But as she was to share in it, 
 she had, of course, a right to see it. 
 
 Margaret showed her the present — a chased silver 
 rose bowl. Ann looked at it with her head on one side. 
 'It is epatant,' she said, 'and exactly what I should 
 have chosen myself. Thank you, Margaret.' 
 
 Margaret still had her suspicions; but Ann had 
 spoken nicely. She would soon know if she meant to 
 be cheeky. 'I want to speak to you once more,' she 
 said. 'You have had three days of Coventry now. I 
 should think you must be getting rather tired of it, 
 aren't you?' 
 
 'Yes, I am very tired of it,' said Ann, with a sigh. 
 'I shall be very glad when the week is past.' 
 
 'Why should it go on for a week? You won't get 
 out of it, you know, when the week is past. Miss 
 Sutor will have to be told, and I'm quite siu'e she won't 
 overlook it altogether, even though you have been to 
 Coventry. If you say you are sorry now, it will be 
 all over. Surely, you must be a little sorry, aren't you ? ' 
 
 'Yes, I am very sorry. But I can't sign the paper, 
 Margaret. Please don't ask me to. As you are gentle 
 to me, and have shown me the present, I don't want to 
 displease you. But I have made a promise to myself 
 not to sign the paper.' 
 
 Margaret had also worked hard to get the tiresome 
 paper out of the way, as she wanted it all ended now, 
 even at the cost of giving way to Ann a little. But she 
 had not been successful. Suscin Norris had wavered. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 173 
 
 but good Mary Polegate' had said that, although she 
 bore no malice towards Ann for what she had' done, 
 she thought she ought to be made to sign the paper as 
 an example. 
 
 Margaret saw that Ann would be inflexible on this 
 point, and wasted no further time on it. But she 
 thought (that if she could be persuaded to apologise 
 to Mary Polegate there might be found a way out. 
 'If you are sorry, as you say you are now,' she said, 
 'will you go and tell Mary so?' 
 
 Ann considered. ' I don't want to do that,' she said. 
 ' It would be a little hypocritic now. I am not so sorry 
 for her as I was at first. I think she finds my being in 
 Coventry, for what was done to her chart, more amusing 
 than if it had not been done at aU.' 
 
 This searching piece of psychology so illuminated 
 Margaret's own impatient feeling towards good Mary 
 Polegate, that she was unable to press the suggestion. 
 Still, it was Ann who was to be thanked for having 
 brought out this and some other unhandsome traits 
 of character which had hitherto slumbered. 'You 
 won't do that, and you won't do anjrthing,' she said 
 impatiently. 'It's no good trying to help you.' 
 
 'I didn't say I wouldn't do it,' said Ann. 'I will, if 
 you tell me to. I was only tr3ring to explicate to you 
 what I felt about it.' 
 
 It was a new turn in Ann's baffling character to be 
 wiUing to do as she was told. 'It's a pity you didn't 
 behave like this at first,' said Margaret. 'If you had, 
 you needn't have been sent to Coventry at all, and 
 perhaps you needn't have signed the paper, as you 
 seem to object to it so much. You were — very rude, 
 and of course it has been difiicult to forget it.' 
 
 'I was sorry for that too, afterwards,' said Ann. 
 ' Mabel Finney told the other girls up in the dormitory, 
 and she spoke so loud that I couldn't help hearing her. 
 
174 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 \ 
 
 that you were very gentle about me, \yhen you found 
 it all out. If I had known that, I shouldn't have been 
 rude to you. At least, not so rude,' she added, remem- 
 bering that a certain amoxmt of rudeness had been 
 necessary for her purpose, and having a strict regard 
 for truth. 
 
 ' There's no reason why you should suppose I shouldn't 
 be gentle, as you call it,' said Margaret, rather touched, 
 in spite of herself. 'You didn't give me a chance— or 
 anybody else.' 
 
 She was at her wits' end. She knew that Ann would 
 not sign the paper, and it was of no use to send her to 
 Mary iPolegate with a half apology. In the present 
 state of feeling against her, it would be insisted on 
 that she should go through with her Coventry, and that 
 Miss Sutor should be told afterwards. There were 
 those who were already looking forward to Miss Sutor's 
 being told. 
 
 'I shan't be rude to you any more,' said Ann. 'I 
 respect you too much now, Margaret.' 
 
 Margaret's mouth relaxed. 'Well, I'm glad of that, 
 at any rate,' she said. ' Will you apologise to the other 
 monitors, as you have to me ? That might do something. ' 
 
 Ann considered again. 'Do you mean all of them 
 together?' she asked. 
 
 This would be no good. Margaret couldn't get them 
 together to be sweetly apologised to for the smaller 
 offence, while the greater would in no way be purged. 
 ' No, I mean to all of them separately,' she said, ' as 
 you have done to me. I am quite willing to accept 
 your apology.' 
 
 'Thank you, Margaret. I would apologise to Nora 
 O'Brien, but I was only a Kttle rude to her, and she 
 laughed. And I would to Rosamund Felstead, though 
 she was rather rude to me, and wanted to send me 
 to Coventry. I told Susan Norris that she wouldn't be 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i75 
 
 likely to use French words justly; but perhaps she 
 would, if she searched for them in a dictionary.' 
 
 ' I don't want you to pretend to apologise, and make 
 it an excuse for being impertinent again. We have 
 had quite enough of that sort of thing.' 
 
 "Well, yes, I would apologise to Susan, properly. I 
 would to Mary Polegate too, as she has been injured, 
 and I said she was like a chien de faience, which I 
 certainly ought not to have done.' 
 
 'You didn't say that to her.' 
 
 'No. I am not quite as bad as that.' 
 
 'Then there'd be no need to repeat it.' 
 
 'Very well. I should be glad not to, for I am, to 
 say true, rather ashamed of it. I would apologise to 
 Mary Polegate for being rude, also for her chart being 
 spoilt. I will not apologise to Mabel Finney for any- 
 thing, whatever it may be; and when I come away from 
 Coventry, if I am allowed to rest at this school, I will 
 never speak to her again if I can help it.' 
 
 She said this firmly, with her eyes on Margaret's, and 
 Margaret's dropped before them. It was extraordinary 
 how this troublesome child, who had done an inexcusable 
 thing, and was imder just punishment for it, could 
 abash one. 
 
 But was the punishment she was under in all respects 
 just? 'If you have any complaint' to make against 
 any girl,' Margaret said, 'you can bring it to me, or 
 of course to the mistresses, if you Uke; and if it is of a 
 monitor, I can bring it before the other monitors.' 
 
 'No,' said Ann. 'I would rather defend myself.' 
 
 'But you defend yourself by attacking others; and 
 that makes it worse.' 
 
 'I am not going to do that any more. I have 
 promised myself not to, after what Hilda said to me 
 yesterday. Perhaps I shall make a pleasantry some- 
 times, if I think of something amusing, but not with 
 
176 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Mabel Finney, and others who resemble her. I have 
 my feelings, Margaret, and they have hurt them very 
 much. Whatever it may be that they say now, I 
 shall make no response.' 
 
 Margaret had spoken to Mabel Finney the evening 
 before about the girls who were going too far, in their 
 tormenting of Ann, and had foimd her irresponsive, and 
 also inclined to be offended at being implicitly charged 
 with the same offence. As head girl, Margaret had 
 no more authority than the other monitors, and none 
 at all over the monitors themselves. She was only 
 their mouthpiece. 
 
 'Would you like to change in my room instead of in 
 the cubicle?' she asked. She was quite prepared to 
 show her disapproval of Mabel Finney s departure 
 from the monitor's code by taking Ann under her 
 special protection, now that Ann herself had given her 
 the information. 'For the present,' she added. She 
 did not want her cherished privacy permanently invaded. 
 
 'Thank you very much indeed, Margaret,' said Ann 
 gratefully. 'Of course I should like it. But I had 
 better rest in the cubicle. I won't let them say that 
 they have chased me out. It is only for two days 
 longer, and I can support the consequences until then,' 
 
 The bell rang. 'Well, you must go now,' said 
 Margaret. 'What a lot of trouble you are giving us, 
 Ann ! Why did you play that sUly trick? ' 
 
 Ann passed this by. 'Am I to apologise to the other 
 monitors?' she asked. 
 
 'No,' said Margaret shortly. 'Go along quickly, 
 or you'll be late.' 
 
 XVII 
 
 As Margaret went down to her own class, it occurred 
 to her with vexed amusement that Ann had done to her 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i77 
 
 exactly what she had complained that Hilda had let 
 her do. She had 'got over' her. 
 
 In the course of the highly reasonable conversation 
 that had passed between them, which Ann had supported 
 with a dignity at least as great as her own, Ann had 
 actually announced her intention of continuing to ignore 
 the sentence of Coventry, if it suited her, and she had 
 not even thought at the moment of rebuking her. At 
 the end, Margaret had been more anxious to save Ann 
 from the consequences of her pimishment than to 
 bring that punishment home; and she had asked her 
 why she- had 'played that silly trick,' as if her fault 
 had been no more than a piece of childish mischief. 
 
 It seemed, indeed, little more than that to her now. 
 They had all been hypnotised, for two whole terms, by 
 Mary Polegate, with her illuminated charj of the Kings 
 of Juda and Israel — a silly piece of work enough, and 
 not even semi-sacred, as she had given it the air of 
 being. Of course, it was a shame to spoil it, and it had 
 been right to sympathise with Mary's distress. But 
 it seemed plain now that Ann had not meant to spoil 
 it, and although she had gone much too far in tampering 
 with it at all, she had pricked a bubble that had turned 
 out to be even more deceptive than bubbles usually 
 are. 
 
 , As for her impertinence, there seemed to have been 
 a reason for that, if it was true what Hilda had said — 
 that she was afraid of their telling Miss Sutor. It 
 threw rather a different Ught on the picture, if one 
 thought of the six big girls in authority pluckily faced 
 by the single small one, who was all the time frightened 
 of what might be done to her. There was no doubt 
 about Ann's pluck, and as for her impertinence, it had 
 not been used to hurt feelings, but only dignity. 
 
 Margaret suspected, as she thought it aU over during 
 a dull lesson, that there was after all something wrong 
 
178 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 in the quality of the dignity that was being fought for 
 now. She had always hated the sentimentality that 
 led to big girls spoiling little ones, and had aimed at 
 creating a tradition which would make the big girls 
 keep more to themselves. But it had not turned out 
 quite as §he had wished. It would have been far better 
 to have done what Hilda Strangways would probably 
 do when she came to take her place, and encourage a 
 less artificial intercourse between girls of all ages, 
 while setting her face just as strongly against senti- 
 mentality. But she had not had the art to do that. 
 She much preferred the society of girls of about her 
 own age, and was without Hilda's sympathetic imder- 
 standing of younger ones. The lack of it had led her 
 to miscalculate this situation entirely. Hilda had 
 found out at once that there were considerations behind 
 Ann's naughtiness that ought to have been taken into 
 account before passing sentence on her, while she 
 herself had seen nothing that was not apparent on the 
 surface. 
 
 And how were the monitors supporting the dignity 
 which it was Ann's chief fault to have assailed? 
 
 She was their mouthpiece, but had been led to 
 express more than one decision that she had not agreed 
 with. Mabel Finney, who had never been a friend of 
 hers, was behaving in a way that would get her turned 
 out of her monitorship if Miss Sutor knew of it. The 
 sentence of Coventry was not meant to be used as an 
 instrument of torment, as she was allowing the girls in 
 her dormitory to use it, and apparently using it herself. 
 Mary Polegate had always been considered to have a 
 good influence in the school, but she was now showing 
 herself only smug and complacent; and if it was true 
 that she had sat by and Ustened to what Hilda had 
 said she had, without protesting, then Ann's criticism 
 of her — ^that she was not as good as she looked — ^would 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 179 
 
 seem to be justified. Nora O'Brien was too careless 
 and light-hearted to carry much weight, except by 
 her frank and genial nature. She had been willing 
 to follow Margaret's lead throughout this affair, but 
 the only expression of opinion she had advanced of her 
 own had been that 'a child as amusing as that ought 
 not to be squashed,' which had not helped matters. 
 If Ann had apologised separately to her, she would 
 probably have egged her on to say something funny, 
 and then laughed. Susan Norris was prim and well- 
 meaning, but she had allowed herself to be affected 
 by Ann's gibe at her French, which, however, she had 
 brought on herself. 
 
 Rosamund Felstead was Margaret's particular friend. 
 They were neighbours at home, and had many tastes 
 in common; but their characters were very different. 
 Rosamund was as sentimental as Margaret was the 
 reverse. Margaret knew very weU, and hated to know 
 it, that the reason why they were just now more than 
 usually polite to one another, and Rosamund had not 
 backed her up in this affair, was that upon Ann's first 
 arrival at the school she had taken a violent fancy to 
 her, to which Ann had refused to respond. She had 
 wanted to see her punished, but if Ann had gone to her 
 with an- apology, she would have enjoyed the luxury of 
 a possibly tearful scene with her, and tried to coddle 
 her into penitence. 
 
 Margaret thought that even if Ann had done wrong, 
 she was not showing up badly beside those who were 
 imposing their displeasure on her. Her independence, 
 though she was apt to carry it rather far, was exaptly 
 the quality that made headway against the sentimen- 
 tality that Margaret hated. There had never been a 
 girl come to the school who had had such a dead set 
 made at her as Ann. Because of the different position 
 she was in from the rest, bringing the rich glamour of 
 
i8o THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 her home to bear upon the school life, because of her 
 charming person and gay audacity, because of her 
 funny ways of speech, and her appearance of being 
 much younger than she was, she might have been the 
 spoilt darling of the whole school. But she had shaken 
 all the unwholesome adulation from off her thin shoulders 
 and had quickly taken her place as leader among girls 
 of her own standing. And she had been the right sort 
 of leader, except in her tendency to encourage mild 
 insubordination. The girls of her class were a much 
 brighter, healthier lot than when they had been led 
 by Helen Webster. 
 
 Well, the Coventry would have to go through, but 
 Margaret would do all she could to see that it was 
 kept in spirit as well as in letter, and when she told 
 Miss Sutor about it she would teU her everj^hing. She 
 was rather surprised at the feeling of dismay which 
 came to her when she thought of the possibihty of Ann 
 being taken away from the school. She had not thought 
 that she had it in her to care whether any girl much 
 younger than herself was there or not. Oh, decidedly, 
 Ann had got over her. Bother the little imp ! 
 
 xvin 
 
 It was no part of Ann's new code of behaviour to show 
 herself meek and subdued before the whole school. The 
 'pleasantries' which she had warned Margaret might 
 demand expression came more readily to her mind now 
 that her burden was lighter, and she led them a dance, 
 just as she led Lizzie a dance at home, but without 
 allowing herself to be hustled in return into losing her 
 temper, as had happened during the second and third 
 days of her Coventry. 
 As it was now pretty evident that she wou^d not give 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i8i 
 
 in before the week was up, she might be said to have 
 won the first round of the contest ahready, and the 
 majority were looking forward with anticipations that 
 were either eager or fearful, according to their natures, 
 to the second round, in which Miss Sutor would enter 
 the arena. If Ann had not been goaded during those 
 two days into sundry attacks that had embittered 
 feeling against her, she would have had more than half 
 the school on her side already; and when she reverted 
 to providing amusement for them instead of offence 
 the feehng began to subside once more. 
 
 But forces had been set in motion that were not easily 
 brought to rest. In her own class, Helen Webster 
 had stepped into her former position vice Ann deposed, 
 and it wovdd take some time to undo the effect of those 
 two stormy days, in which Ann had run amok among 
 all her former friends, and reduced many of them to 
 the necessity of declaring indignantly that whether she 
 were in Coventry or not, they would never speak to 
 her again. 
 
 She took the bull by the horns during the change from 
 first lesson to second, taken by a different mistress. 
 'Well, girls,' she said brightly, 'I have thought it 
 over, and I have decided to pardon you. You were 
 in bad humornr yesterday, but perhaps it was also a 
 little my fault, as I am too prompt to call people sales 
 betes, and there are not many among you who truly 
 deserve that title.' 
 
 Mademoiselle came in at this moment to take a lesson 
 in Geography. But she could always be diverted into 
 bypaths, if handled expertly, and Ann had frequently 
 succeeded in having the greater part of the half-hour 
 devoted to polite conversation which had nothing 
 whatever to do with the configuration of the earth. 
 
 Ann was not by way of harassing mistresses just now, 
 having enough on her hands already. Bixt when 
 
i82 ■ THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Mademoiselle had taken her seat, with a brisk air of 
 expecting a concentrated attention on the matter in 
 hand, which was justified by no previous experience, 
 Helen Webster said : ' Mademoiselle, I wanted to ask 
 you before you begin, whether it is the custom in 
 France for nice people — ^ladies and gentlemen, I mean 
 — ^to call each other dirty beasts.' 
 
 Mademoiselle was horrified at such an idea, and 
 broke into voluble disclaimers of any impoliteness 
 whatever among nice people in France. 
 
 'Then a girl who was continually saying "sales 
 bites " to other girls couldn't belong to really nice 
 people, I suppose.' 
 
 Mademoiselle was imderstood to say that such 
 language might possibly be picked up from urchins 
 in the gutter, but that otherwise no* girl of good 
 parentage would have ever so much as heard such an 
 expression, which was very shocking, and if she used 
 it in the hearing of her parents would be severely 
 punished. She trusted that no girl in this school would 
 ever permit it to be heard from her. 
 
 Here she looked at Ann, who might have been 
 expected to have taken a bright part in the conversa- 
 tion long before this. But Ann was reading her 
 geography book, in which she appeared to be deeply 
 interested. 
 
 'Thank you,' said Helen Webster. 'I thought it 
 must be like that; but we have heard such a Iqt of 
 extraordinary French expressions lately that it is 
 difficult to know ^vhat you may say and what you 
 mayn't.' 
 
 It was not quite cricket to seek to embroil Ann with 
 a mistress, and although Mademoiselle was hardly like 
 other mistresses, Marie Baxter, who knew French 
 better than the rest, said : 'Saying sale bite isn't quite 
 the same as sa37ing " dirty beast," is it. Mademoiselle?' 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 183 
 
 Mademoiselle saw very little difference, which might 
 have been accounted for by her having been only six 
 months in England. 'Sale bete' was a horrible expres- 
 sion, and quite unallowable to well-nurtured girls. 
 'Ann Sinclair, you, who have been well brought up, 
 would never use such words, I am sure,' she said. 
 
 Ann looked up. ' Plait -il. Mademoiselle? I was 
 reading in my geography.' 
 
 'Didn't you hear what Helen Webster has been 
 saying?' 
 
 'I don't occupy myself with anything that Helen 
 Webster sajre,' said Ann; and added, as she returned 
 to her book : ' C'est une sale bSte.' 
 
 She was apparently obUvious of the storm that 
 raged above her head, and turned a page in the middle 
 of it with keen interest in what was on the other side. 
 She had not quite kept to her determination to treat 
 those who had put themselves beyond the pale of her 
 forgiveness as if they didn't exist. But she could always 
 take it up again. She took it up now, as Helen Webster 
 supplied fuel to Mademoiselle's- denunciations, and 
 tried to get as many of the girls as possible to share 
 in her indignation. Helen said things that would have 
 'drawn' her for a certainty the day before — ^things 
 that Mademoiselle could hardly have imderstood, or 
 they would have shocked her as much as Ann's speech 
 had done. Ann blushed at them — she could never help 
 that — but maintained a calm composure, and when 
 Matiemoiselle's horror had subsided to safety point 
 looked up and asked with a shade of weariness : ' Can't 
 we do a Uttle geography, Mademoiselle? I have been 
 reading about the town of Coventry; but I have 
 finished now, and am ready to leam something new.' 
 
 Ann's absence of real offence against most of the 
 girls in her class told gradually in her favour, and 
 Helen Webster, to whom she never referred again, began 
 
i84 THE CIJNTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 to show herself to them in her true colours. Her spite 
 always had the effect of closing Ann's mouth, and her 
 sallies were thus lost to the community, which had 
 begun rather to enjoy them again, and was looking 
 forward, now with some apprehension, to what would 
 happen with Ann and her tea-parties after amicable 
 relations should be renewed. Ann gained ground and 
 Helen lost it, but there was little time for developments, 
 and there were aU sorts in the class. Helen was. clever 
 enough, or she would not have been their accepted 
 leader before. She was able to keep up a good deal of 
 irritation, and by the time Saturday came round Ann 
 had not quite made up the ground that she had lost 
 during the first day. 
 
 XIX 
 
 In the dormitory, Helen Webster had Gertrude Knight 
 to back her up, and Mabel Finney to encourage her, 
 while pretending to keep her in check. 
 
 Mabel Finney had had a row royal with Margaret 
 Parbury after morning school. She was going to leave 
 at the end of the term, and allowed her disagreeable 
 nature and her jealousy of Margaret to have full play. 
 
 She knew her duty as a monitor, she said, anti would 
 do it, thanking Margaret not to interfere. Margaret 
 was taking a great deal too much on herself. She knew 
 she had allowed Hilda Strangways to break Ann's 
 Coventry the day before, which she had no right to 
 do whatever, without consulting the other- monitors, 
 and it was an extra piece of assumption to send her 
 up to her dormitory. If she wanted to know what was 
 happening there, she could ask the head of it, and not 
 set spies upon her; with a good deal more that caused 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 185 
 
 Margaret to turn from her in disgust, with the intima- 
 tion that she should call a monitors' meeting about it. 
 
 The meeting was called after dinner, and did very 
 little good. It was unfortunate that Hilda's unofficial 
 embassy had been discovered. Legal Susan Norris felt 
 obliged to take this point, and it interfered with her 
 grasp of the case as a whole. She submitted that Hilda 
 should be called as a witness, and this was done. 
 
 Hilda, who was feeling unstrung and emotional, was 
 in a white heat of indignation over Ann's wrongs, and 
 did not sufficiently distinguish between those which 
 she alone knew of and those which the meeting had 
 been called to discuss. Even Margaret thought she 
 went too far in her advocacy, and Rosamund Felstead 
 roundly accused her of 'slopping over' about Ann 
 because she was pretty. She vehemently attacked 
 Mabel Finney for what was going on in her dormitory, 
 and then turned upon Mary Polegate, and included her 
 in the denunciation. Good Mary Polegate was naturally 
 scandalised at having any slur cast upon her blameless 
 career, and rebutted the accusation, even going to the 
 length of offering a weak defence of the speeches she 
 had overheard, when Hilda repeated them. 
 
 Nora O'Brien looked at her, as if she saw her for the 
 first time, and said : ' If that sort of thing is going 
 on, and isn't being stopped, I vote we bring the Coventry 
 to an end.' 
 
 Margaret would willingly have done this, as she could 
 have told Miss Sutor, and got the hateful business over 
 before the festivities of Saturday. But there was no 
 majority for it, and the meeting ended in what was 
 almost a wrangle, one side wanting the younger girls 
 to be warned against attacks upon Ann, under the guise 
 of talking about her, the other contending that she 
 invited them herself. 
 
 Susan Norris came out rather strongly on the side 
 
 T.C. « 
 
i86 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 of the plaintiff here, advancing the plea that to talk 
 at a girl in Coventry was the same thing as talking to 
 her, and broke the letter as well as the spirit of the 
 punishment. She argued it with forensic ability, but 
 it was met by the counterplea that Ann broke all the 
 rules of Coventry herself, and could not be allowed 
 complete immunity of attack. 
 
 The decision arrived at was that spiteful attacks 
 were to be discouraged; but it was very unsatisfactory, 
 as no one had admitted to having encouraged such 
 attacks, and Hilda had further upset the court by 
 announcing, before she left the witness box, that there 
 was no justice to be expected from it, and she should 
 go to Coventry with Ann herself. It was not supposed 
 that she had really meant this, but without the threat 
 there would probably have been no decision at all. 
 
 But Hilda did mean it, and was glad enough to have 
 the excuse for doing what she would have done the 
 day before if the way had been clear. 
 
 Ann was at her violin lesson. There was no time to 
 talk to her before they went up to change, and Hilda 
 did not want to let her know of what she was going to 
 do before she could explain to her how it had come 
 about, and that no confidences had been broken. This 
 she would have no opportunity of doing until just before 
 tea-time, so Ann had to go through two further periods 
 of purgatory in the dormitory before the rehef was 
 brought to her. 
 
 It need only be said of what went on, under the 
 thinnest pretence of keeping to the monitors' decision 
 from Mabel Finney, that one of the younger girls pro- 
 tested, and the other kept silence. Ann's own silence 
 goaded her tormentors, and she went downstairs as 
 white as a sheet. 
 
 But there she found Hilda waiting for her, and the 
 very worst of her troubles were over. It was agreed 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 187 
 
 between them that she should stay at home the next 
 afternoon until lesson time, which her pride would not 
 have permitted her to do on her own initiative. With 
 Hilda to support her, she was enabled to recover from 
 the late attacks, which had almost broken her down, 
 and had the triumph of making Nora O'Brien laugh at 
 tea by assuming the airs of an invalid, pressing upon 
 herself with anxious and tender solicitude spoonfuls 
 of tea and very small pieces of bread and butter, and 
 protesting at every mouthful that indeed she could not 
 swallow another morsel. This comedy had the additional 
 advantage of relieving her of making a meal, which 
 she found difficult at this time. 
 
 Hilda's defiance of the decree of Coventry created a 
 considerable impression, which was not entirely in Ann's 
 favour. The spitefulness, against which her protest 
 was supposed entirely to be made, was confined to a 
 few, and to have HUda openly on her side was con- 
 sidered by the flouted majority to balance what would 
 otherwise have gained sympathy for her. 
 
 The much harassed Margaret, now faced with a 
 complete rupture among the monitors, which reflected 
 itself in the whole school, was indignant with Hflda 
 for taking advantage of the well-intentioned breach of 
 legality which they had secretly concerted between 
 them. 
 
 'I can't help it, Margaret,' Hilda repUed. 'I know 
 I'm letting you down, and if everything were as it 
 looked, you'd have a good right to complain. Perhaps 
 you have as it is, but you know I wouldn't go against 
 you without a very good reason, and when everything 
 comes out you'll say I've been right. So don't be too 
 angry with me, my dear. You won't be, when you 
 know why I'm doing it.' 
 
 This was steering rather close, to the danger point, 
 but the original cause of all the trouble had receded 
 
1 88 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 so far into the background that it was not to be 
 expected that Margaret should guess the truth at this 
 stage. 
 
 'What is there I don't know?' she asked. 'I don't 
 think you ought to do this, Hilda, without telling me 
 everything.' 
 
 ' I can't tell you everjrthing till it's all over. I wish 
 I could, but I've promised Ann that I wouldn't. Poor 
 lamb, I'm going to see her through the rest of it. I 
 wish I had at the beginning.' 
 
 Margaret thought that there was some truth in what 
 Rosamimd had said — ^that Hilda was in danger of 
 'slopping over' about Ann, and turned from her rather 
 impatiently. It was another trouble, added to the 
 many she was imdergoing; but it would be all over in 
 two da3^ now. 
 
 No official decree of Coventry was passed liagainst 
 Hilda. Those who would have liked to see it done were 
 not in a strong enough position to withstand Margaret's 
 angry statement that she had had enough of sending 
 girls to Coventry, and that neither she nor Nora would 
 observe it against Hilda. And Hilda was much too 
 popular in the school to have made it possible, without 
 re-opening the whole question in an aggravated form, 
 when it was nearing the stage of settlhig itself. She 
 kept very quiet during Friday and Saturday, and 
 nobody heed talk to her unless they wished to. 
 
 With these currents and cross-currents disturbing 
 the school, they came to the night of the concert, and 
 Ann's last ordeal. 
 
 XX 
 
 The hall, on the night of the concert, bore an appearance 
 of chaste festivity, which formed a fitting background 
 for the assembled school, dressed in its best sUks and 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 189 
 
 laces and muslins and ribbons, fluttering and tiptoeing 
 with enjojraaent. 
 
 Flowers were banked about the platform, but only 
 at the end of the room was there any appearance of 
 formality. There were no rows of seats, but the bigger 
 tables had been cleared out, and enough chairs, arranged 
 in groups, had been provided for the audience, which 
 was to include no one not intimately connected with 
 the school, with the exception of a friend of Miss Sutor's, 
 on whose behalf she had asked for an invitation. 
 
 The invitation had, of course, been given, but it had 
 a little thrown out one of the projected arrangements. 
 Miss Sutor was to have had a chair of state in the 
 middle of the hall, round which other chairs were to 
 have radiated, and the older girls and the few guests 
 were to have kept her company, changing places 
 occasionally, and keeping up the idea of a musical 
 party rather than that of a concert. 
 
 But it had only been necessary to change the chair of 
 state for a sofa, upon which Miss Sutor and her friend 
 could sit together. There was a small round table in 
 front of it — ^the idea taken from pictures of entertain- 
 ments at Windsor Castle — on which was a vase of 
 flowers, and two programmes of the concert, with 
 borders illuminated by Mary Polegate. She had 
 offered to 'do' them herself, and when the offer had 
 been warmly accepted, had said with a pious smile 
 that she 'hoped nothing would happen to them this 
 time.' 
 
 It was not known until Saturday morning that Mrs 
 Angel, Miss Sutor's friend, was really Madame Angeli, 
 the famous vioHnist, and the excitement of some girls 
 who were expected to make their mark, and the nervous- 
 ness of others who had admitted to a fear of breaking 
 down, were greatly enhanced. 
 
 Edith Mackenzie, who was going on to the Royal 
 
1 90 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 College of Music, expressed the liveliest terror, as she 
 was the only violinist besides Ann; but she fully 
 expected to be encored — ^had indeed pulled a few hidden 
 strings so that she should be — and had visions of the 
 distinguished lady asking indignantly why she should 
 only have been put down for one piece, while an inferior 
 performer and a much younger girl should have been 
 put down for two. She really thought that she played 
 better than Ann, and attributed the slight put upon 
 her to favouritism. But M. Lanson had expressed 
 himself in despair about Ann's playing during the past 
 week, and she thought it would serve him quite right 
 to be shown from a quarter which he could not ignore 
 that he had made a bad mistake. 
 
 Ann, fortunately for her, did not know who the 
 handsome, gray-haired woman sitting with Miss Sutor 
 was, for in the state to which her nerves had been 
 reduced, she expected to do no more than acquit herself 
 creditably, and would have been unequal to the extra 
 strain of trying to satisfy so great a musician as Madame 
 Angeli. 
 
 Ann had eaten next to nothing for a week, and the 
 varied emotions she had gone through, and the neces- 
 sity she had considered herself under of maintaining a 
 lively spirit before the school, and at least a calm one 
 at home, had brought her very near to the end of her 
 tether. She had awoke with a headache, but had been 
 made to lie down in the afternoon, and was feeling 
 rather better, although glad enough to sit quietly in a 
 chair against the wall, with Hilda beside her. 
 
 Hilda's company was an inestimable comfort to her. 
 She took her hand sometimes, when music was going on 
 and nobody was looking, and gave it a squeeze. She 
 couldn't think what she should have done if she had 
 b^en condemned to sit by herself all the evening, while 
 all the others were in friendly groups. The servants 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 191 
 
 were at the back of the hall, and Lizzie was with them. 
 It would have gone hard with her pride if Lizzie had 
 seen her shunned by all the girls of the school. And 
 the people from outside must have noticed too, and 
 wondered why she had no friends. 
 
 The Vicar's wife came and talked to her, and Hilda 
 made the situation look natural, and also took the 
 chief burden of the conversation on her shoulders. This 
 was a great reUef, as the Vicar's wife was shy and could 
 only begin a conversation, and Ann would hardly have 
 felt equal to the task of canying it on when the Vicar's 
 wife should reach the stage of wondering what she 
 should say next. It was better when Miss Henderson 
 came and sat with them. Of course she knew; but she 
 talked quite naturally to Ann, and was kind to her, 
 and Ann felt very grateful. 
 
 The time came for Ann to play her j5rst piece. She 
 looked more childish than ever as she went up on to 
 the platform and tuned her violin to the note of M. 
 Lanson, who was to accompany her. She wore a white 
 muslin frock, the short skirt of which was much spread 
 out, with pale blue sash and hair-ribbons, and bronze 
 silk stockings and heelless shoes. Her neck and arms 
 were bare. They were thin but beautifully modelled. 
 She looked an extraordinary pretty child, but nothing 
 more than a child, as she stood up before them to play. 
 
 The intervals between the songs and other pieces were 
 longer than is usual at a set concert, to allow of con- 
 versation and moving about. This, and other details, 
 had been very carefully thought out. Ann had gone 
 up to the platform in a buzz of talk, which had con- 
 cealed the fact that nobody had clapped her. But other 
 girls had been applauded, as they had, gone up to do 
 their best, even when it was known that their best 
 would not amount to much. She felt very much alone 
 as she stood up before them all, heard the talk gradually 
 
192 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 die away, and saw all the cold expectant eyes fixed 
 upon her. She did not feel frightened, and knew that 
 she would not break down in any way, but her head had 
 suddenly begun to ache again, and there was a kind of 
 numbness upon her, which made her feel as if it were 
 somebody else who was plaj^ing, and as if she were 
 unable to infuse any warmth into the performer. 
 
 Probably she had never played more correctly. The 
 piece was Wieniawski's Mazourka, which she had 
 practised over and over again, bar by bar, plirase by 
 phrase, page by^ page. She felt that the person who 
 was playing it could not possibly go wrong, or play 
 at all out of tune, which interested her a little, as she 
 knew it was not easy never to play any note the least 
 little bit sharp or the least little bit flat. But though 
 the tone was pure, it did not seem to be the voice of her 
 Nicola Gagliano that was speaking. It was not so rich, 
 and was much more monotonous. There was no life 
 in it. 
 
 After a time, Ann felt so sure that the person who 
 was playing the Mazourka could be trusted not to hurt 
 her ears with doubtful notes or imcertain bowing, 
 although she was evidently incapable of playing it as 
 she had sometimes played it herself, that she allowed 
 herself to look at the audience. 
 
 The eyes were still cold, and some of them were 
 wandering; there was even a Httle murmur of talk 
 beginning to be heard. She met the look of the gray- 
 haired lady sitting on the sofa with Miss Sutor. It was 
 interested, but a trifle impatient. A message seemed to 
 come to her from it that she was to prick lip the person 
 who was playing to be more alive. She tried to do so, 
 but seemed unable to convey the message, and there 
 was no response. The piece ended in the same clear 
 but dead way in which it had been played throughout. 
 
 Ann seemed to wake up as the last notes of the piano 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i93 
 
 sounded, and knew that M. Lanson was furious with 
 her. 'You didn't try,' he said, with an angry frown, as 
 he handed her the music to put away. 'If you don't 
 play better next time, I will not teach you any more.' 
 Only one other person in the hall knew how well she 
 really had played, but he was the only person who 
 knew how much better she could play. 
 
 Ann was too glad to have got the first piece over 
 to care much what he said. Her head was aching' 
 badly, and she wanted to go and sit quietly by Hilda, 
 but had to put her violin and bow back in their case, 
 which seemed to her an intolerable piece of drudgery. 
 
 The applause which had followed her performance 
 had been purely perfunctory from the majority of the 
 audience. As she went down from the platform, and 
 back to her seat by Hilda, the talk had begun again, 
 and she was already forgotten. Sensitive as she was 
 to impressions, she knew that there was no affectation 
 in this ignoring of her. The interests and excitements 
 of the day had driven her from the minds which she 
 had occupied for more than a week. She would occupy 
 thein again shortly, but for the present she was nothing 
 to them. 
 
 Her isolation struck her more painfully than almost 
 any episode of the punishment she had taken upon 
 herself. In ordinary circumstances, she, would have 
 been deep in all that had gone on in preparation for 
 the great event, and would have afforded, perhaps, 
 more help than anybody. She had made herself a 
 personage, and could have offered more than the rest. 
 But it had all been done without her. Nobody had 
 wanted her help, and nobody had wanted her interest. 
 This was the true Coventry, and she felt it more than 
 she had felt all but the worst of the unkindness to 
 which she had been subjected. It seemed to her that it 
 must go on after the truth came to be known. None 
 
194 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 of the girls whose companionship she had so enjoyed 
 really cared for her, or would care for her any more. 
 
 Except one. As she took her seat again by the side 
 of Hilda, she felt to the full what it was to have a 
 friend. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Edith Mackenzie was loudly applauded as she went 
 on to the platform. She bowed and smiled with great 
 assurance, and tuned her violin loudly. Its tone was 
 rough, and htirt Ann's delicate ear, so that she shut 
 her eyes in pain, and was observed to shut them by 
 some who were watching her. 
 
 The piece was Raff's Cavatina, and Edith Mackenzie 
 played it well for a young amatetir. But she seemed 
 to Ann to be tearing whatever feeling there was in it 
 to tatters. Her ear, sublimated by the nervous tension 
 she was undergoing, and the pain in her head, was 
 jarred by every falsity and every roughness, and when 
 it came to the double stopping, where the player put 
 forth all her powers, it was almost torture to her. She 
 closed her eyes again and leant her head back with a 
 look pf suffering. This also was observed, and was 
 considered to be a piece of acting. Ann had acted so 
 much during the past week. 
 
 But whatever Ann felt about the performance, it 
 delighted the school, who applauded it rapturously, 
 and insisted upon an encore. M. Lanson scowled, and 
 tried to prevent it, but this was put down to jealousy 
 on behalf of his favourite pupU, and the applause 
 increased until he had to give way. Madame Angeli 
 had evidently been impressed. The girls had all watched 
 her, and she had been seen to smile kindly, in a way 
 she had not done to Ann; and she had certainly clapped 
 Edith for longer than she had clapped Arm. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i95 
 
 As Edith Mackenzie was preparing for her repeat 
 performance, Mabel Finney came over to Ann, and 
 said: 'You are to behave yourself properly. We are 
 all sick of you and your airs.' 
 
 'What do you mean? What are you talking sbout?' 
 demanded Hilda, firing up, while Ann flushed, but 
 looked bewildered. 
 
 'All the time Edith has been playing, she has been 
 pretending to be disgusted. Edith clapped her, and 
 that's what she does in return, the Uttle cat ! ' She 
 returned to her seat with indignation. 
 
 'I wasn't pretending anything. My head hurts,' 
 said Ann, as Edith Mackenzie began to play again. 
 
 It was a simpler piece, and she played it more quietly. 
 Aim was enabled to listen without distress, and join in 
 the applause at the end, but it was not only her head 
 that was hurting her. She would hardly have thought 
 it possible that anything that Mabel Finney could 
 have said would have given her that kind of pain. 
 But the group she had rejoined was eyeing her in 
 watchful disfavour. It contained one or two girls who 
 had taken no part in the attacks upon her, but they 
 must have thought that she was capable of doing that, 
 just as Mabel Finney did, and disliked her for it. Some 
 of them were whispering to other groups, and more of 
 them were watchmg her, with the same disfavour. 
 They would put it all about the room that she had 
 acted disgust at Edith's playing— out of jealousy, of 
 course; and no one would beUeve that she would have 
 been incapable of such a thing. None of them had 
 wanted her during the day, and she had been completely 
 forgotten. Now she was being brought to their notice 
 again, and all the feeUng they had for her was one of 
 censure and dislike. 
 
 An interval came during which lemonade was handed 
 round. A small girl, very proud of her curled and 
 
196 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 flounced perfection, carried a tray to the quarter in 
 which Ann and Hilda were sitting. Ann wanted a 
 drink badly, but she had announced her intehtion of 
 touching nothing that had been provided for the 
 entertainment. She had even brought her own supper 
 — a few cakes with which she might make play at the 
 table. She had announced this intention too, giving as 
 part reason that she was afraid they might want to 
 poison her food. She was far from such audacities now. 
 They had done her very httle good after all, as the 
 girls disliked her just the same. 
 
 She plucked up spirit to say: 'No, thank you,' as 
 the small girl showed that she was going to pass her. 
 
 'I wasn't going to ask you,' said the small girl, with 
 a look of high disdain; and this also hurt her. She 
 had always been 'nice' to the small girls, giving them 
 their share of the sweets she brought to school, pulling 
 their hair in a friendly way if it happened to be ready 
 to her hand, swinging them in the garden, to an extent 
 that few would take the trouble to do, and never trying 
 to exclude them from garden games. They had run 
 after her, for this and other purposes, and her popularity 
 among them had been as great as among her own 
 companions. But that was all forgotten now. They 
 disliked her as much as the rest. 
 
 She told Hilda she thought she would go and get a 
 glass of water, but Hilda said she was to sit still, and 
 went out to get it for her. Rosamund Felstead came 
 up to her and said, with rather a shamefaced air : 'It's 
 nothing to do with your being in Coventry, but the 
 girls think that Edith ought to play again instead of 
 you. Madame Angeli liked her playing, and must 
 think it odd that you should play twice and she only 
 once.' 
 
 Edith had already played twice, but Ann was only 
 too pleased that she should play a third time, or even 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i97 
 
 a fourth, if she could arouse enough enthusiasm. 'I 
 don't mind at all,' she said. 
 
 'Well, will you ask M. Lanson?' 
 
 Ann didn't want to get up, or to draw any attention 
 to herself by moving about the room, but she said : ' I 
 will, if you'U teU them I didn't pretend not to like 
 Edith's playing. I shut my eyes because of my head, 
 which hurts. 
 
 There were dark shadows under her eyes. 'Yes, I 
 saw that,' said Rosamund, relenting in a gush of 
 tenderness towards her. 'Poor darUng, it will be all 
 over for you to-night.' 
 
 Ann had no use for her belated tenderness, and made 
 her way to M. Lanson, who had just changed his 
 position, and was talking vivaciously to Madame Angeli. 
 
 M. Lanson seemed to have forgotten his late annoy- 
 ance with her, for when he saw her standing by him he 
 said : 'Ah, this is my little pupil who has the beautiful 
 Nicola Gagliano,, and plajTs it so well when she is in 
 the mood.' He took her hand and drew her towards 
 Madame Angeli. 
 
 It was Madame Angeli who kissed a fellow-artist, in 
 the sight of Edith Mackenzie, who had not yet been 
 presented to her, and the whole school; but it was Mrs 
 Angel, with children of her own, who said: 'Why, 
 what a pale face and dark eyes ! Don't you feel well, 
 dear?' 
 
 ' My head hurts a Uttle,' said Ann. ' Monsieur Lanson, 
 auriez-vous la bonte de faire jouer Edith Mackenzie a 
 ma place la prochaine fois? ' 
 
 M. Lanson laughed — ^he still had hold of Ann's hand. 
 'You didn't like what I said to you,' he said. 'She 
 is a proud child this, Madame, and I scolded her for 
 not trying. But she is going to try the next time, and 
 you shall hear what you shaU hear in that quite little 
 piece.' 
 
1 98 THE CLINTONS AND .OTHERS 
 
 Madame Angeli said : ' Edith Mackenzie plays very 
 nicely, but I want to hear you again'; and Mrs Angel 
 added : ' Just that one little piece, dear, and we won't 
 bother you to play again if you don't feel up to 
 it.' 
 
 Ann reported the failure of her mission to Rosamund 
 Felstead, who received it without a word, offended 
 once more over the rejection of her kindness, and carried 
 it to the rest, who were also offended. M. Lanson had 
 been seen to laugh when Ann put her question, and he 
 had held her hand, and presented her to Madame 
 Angeli. It was sickening to see an old man, who ought to 
 know what good plapng was, so blinded by favouritism. 
 He -must have been lauding Ann up to the skies, or 
 Madame Angeli woTildn't have kissed her. It had 
 looked as if he had asked Madame Angeli which she 
 would rather hear; and what could she have said? 
 But of course it was just like Ann to ask him in front 
 of her, instead of waiting till he had left her. 
 
 It was not in the least like Ann, who still had no 
 idea that the kind, gray-haired woman was the famous 
 Madame Angeli, although Rosamund had mentioned 
 her name; but she was made to feel duiing the next 
 half-hour that hostility against her had increased. 
 
 Well, she wouldn't give in to it any more. She 
 had done what they had asked her, and they could 
 only show that they hated her all the more. She didn't 
 care now if they hated her or not, and she would show 
 them that she didn't by the way she would play. ' There 
 would be opportunities for expressing defiance in 
 d'Ambrosio's Canzonetta, which was to be her second 
 piece. And she must try to please M. Lanson, who was 
 a tiresome old creature, but had taken a lot of trouble 
 to teach her, and who trusted her to do so; also the 
 kind gray-haired lady, who was evidently fond of 
 music. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN i99 
 
 XXII 
 
 When her time came, she went on to the platform with 
 her head held high. The piano part which she put 
 before M. Lanson shook as she set it on the rack, and 
 he saw it, but thought he must have been mistaken 
 when she tuned her violin with a firm bow, and got 
 more tone out of it than she had done anjrwhere in the 
 piece she had already played. 
 
 Her face was quite white as she stood up before them 
 all, in the graceful attitude of the bom violin player, of 
 whom the instrument seems almost part of the body, 
 so beautiful and natural are the curves which it demands 
 from arm and wrist and fingers, while the bow is held 
 lightly poised, ready to bring out aU the strange sweet- 
 ness hoarded up in it. Her eyes seemed enormous. 
 She was no longer only a pretty child. Perhaps she 
 was not pretty at all at that moment. She was a soul 
 in revolt and pain. The talk which had accompanied 
 her preparation, rather louder than usual, as if it were 
 intended to continue, died away completely. They aU 
 looked at her. It was Ann agciinst the school now, 
 and something must come of this. Either they would 
 conquer her, or she them. 
 
 A few bars from the piano, and she struck into the 
 half gay, half plaintive opening motif, and pursued it 
 boldly through its flow and returns, which were now 
 challenging, now almpst impudent, now relenting, and 
 now challenging again. Madame Angeli leaned forward, 
 and her eyes were alight. This was very different from 
 the playing of the Mazourka. The bowing and fingering 
 were just as sure, but the tone was twice as great; it 
 was extraordinary that such life and fire should be 
 produced from that small light figure. 
 
 To the girls in the hall, who had so applauded Edith 
 
200 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Mackenzie's calculated raptures, Ann also had some- 
 thing to say. She was not asking for their applause. 
 She was telling them that she didn't want it, and 
 wanted them as little as they wanted her. Not all of 
 thfem understood it, but a good many did, and all of 
 them listened to her as if fascinated. Edith Mackenzie, 
 having something of the artist in her, suddenly grew 
 ashamed of her own late performance, and wohdered 
 what Madame Angeli must be thinking of her now; 
 then, as it seemed improbable that she was thinking 
 of her at all, what she was thinking of Ann; and made 
 up her mind that she would lead the applause at the 
 end of the piece, Coventry or no Coventry. 
 
 Ann came to the charming short second motif, which 
 was played a little slower than the first. The double 
 notes rang out clear and sweet and true, and M. Lanson, 
 sitting at the piano, turned his head and looked at 
 Madame Angeli, with a wide grin of pure pleasure, and 
 a shake of his white locks. What did she think of 
 thatl He had told her how well Ann could play — 'if 
 she liked.' But it seemed she never had liked before, 
 and he had known nothing about it. 
 
 Madame Angeli did not respond to him. Her eyes 
 were fixed upon Ann. She would not have missed this 
 for anything, but she did not understand what was 
 producing it, nor the change that was coming over 
 Ann's face as she played the mournful ending of the 
 second motif. 
 
 It was as white and set as ever, but something was 
 happening to the eyes, which Idoked so dark in it. As 
 Ann returned with as much dash as before to the first 
 matif, a tear dropped from one of them on to the violin, 
 which was immediately followed by a tear from the 
 other. A crimson flush crept up over the pallor, and 
 more tears came dropping, dropping. But there was 
 no change in tjhe expression of her face, nor in the 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 201 
 
 mastery with which she played. She had once boasted 
 that nobody in the school should ever see her 'upset 
 some tears.' But now she was crying before them all. 
 They had broken through all her defences at last, 
 helped by her own music, which had betrayed her. The 
 tears came against her will. She could not help them 
 falling, but they did not mean that she was giving in, 
 though she was now defenceless. She would defy 
 them till the last. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 'Brava! brava!' cried M. Lanson, hardly waiting 
 till he had played the last note of the accompaniment, 
 and sprang up as if he would embrace Ann before 
 them all. The applause of Madame Angeli, and of the 
 whole school, which knew that Ann had played magnifi- 
 cently, and was stricken with compunction at the strange 
 sight of her tears, was mingled with this incipient 
 comedy. 
 
 But Ann had already escaped. She did not bow to 
 the audience, but turned away the moment the last 
 long harmonic, which she carried to the end, was 
 finished, leaving out the two pizzicato notes, and putting 
 her violin down anywhere went out through the door 
 on the platform. / 
 
 Hilda, who had been almost unbearably moved by 
 the sight of Ann's tears, and all that she alone knew 
 that they meant, sUpped out of a door that was near 
 her and ran to find Ann. She found her half -sitting, 
 half-lying on a bench in the cloak-room in a paroxysm 
 of sobbing. She was nothing but a hurt child again 
 now, who had come quite to the end of her resources. 
 
 As Hilda knelt beside her and tried to raise her head, 
 where it lay on her outstretched arm, Lizzie burst into 
 the room, in a strong heat of sympathy and indignation. 
 T.C. O 
 
202 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'There, Miss Ann, dear,' she said, 'don't cry any more. 
 I know all about it, and I say it's disgraceful the way 
 you've been treated. I shall tell her ladyship the 
 moment we get home.' 
 
 Ann's sobs Were increasing in violence. She would 
 not let Hilda raise her, and was too far gone to turn 
 upon the faithful Lizzie, who adjured her again to leave 
 off crying, and said it was a shame. 'I've heard all 
 about it. Miss,' she said to Hilda. 'I don't know 
 whether jyoM know the rights of it or not. They say you're 
 the only one who's been kind to the poor chUd, but ' 
 
 'Oh, yes, I do,' said Hilda; and Ann recovered 
 herself enough, at hearing . herself called a child ,by 
 Lizzie, to sob out : "^Be quiet, and go away.' 
 
 Margaret Parbury came in. She looked very con- 
 cerned when she saw the group of them. Hilda had 
 lifted Ann up by force, and was sitting by her on the 
 bench, holding her. But Ann was still sobbing violently. 
 'Miss Sutor has sent me to fetch her,' Margaret said. 
 
 Lizzie turned upon her. 'She's not in a fit state to 
 be fetched, as you can plainly see. Miss/ she said. 
 'And now you do see, I hope you're proud of what 
 you and the rest have brought her to. I know she's 
 cried herself to sleep every night for a week, and she's 
 ate next to nothing; but she wouldn't tell me nothing 
 of what it was all about, and wotildn't let me tell her 
 ladyship neither. But now I know she's been treated 
 downright crool, and I wish I'd ' 
 
 'I want to go home,' wailed Ann. 'Stop talking 
 and fetch the carriage.' 
 
 'Listen, Ann,' said Margaret. 'It's all over now. 
 I was sitting next to Miss Sutor, and I told her, and 
 she said she shouldn't ask anjrthing more. So stop 
 crying and come back with me. Madame Angeli wants 
 to thank you for playing so well.' 
 
 'I want to go home,' sobbed Ann. 'Lizzie, why 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 203 
 
 can't you f-fetch the carriage, instead of standing there 
 Hke a st-uck p-ig?' 
 
 The fact that she should use an English image seemed 
 to indicate that she was coming to herself. She was 
 allowing Hilda to dry her eyes now, but her sobs con- 
 tinued almost as violently as before. 
 
 'She never done it at all,' said Lizzie to Margaret. 
 'It was Miss riilda as did it, as well I know myself, 
 for they quarrelled about it in the public street, and 
 would have come to blows if I hadn't up and said I'd 
 tell her ladyship, and stopped them.' 
 
 'Be quiet, I teU you,' cried Ann; but Hilda said: 
 'Ann dear, it's all over now, and Lizzie has told the 
 maids; there's no reason to keep it to yourself any 
 longer. Hilda Lang did it, Margaret, and Ann knew 
 that if she said she didn't, it would be the same as 
 telling of Hilda. I found it out, but she wouldn't let 
 me tell you.' 
 
 'Which I call noble of Miss Ann,' said Lizzie, 'and 
 what's she's had to go through for it nobody will ever 
 know but me, be they who they may.' 
 
 'Will you be quiet and go and fetch the carriage?' 
 cried Ann. 'I haven't minded at all since Hilda knew 
 — except a little; and I cried because my head hurt 
 me, and if they think I cried because of them, I didn't.' 
 
 The tears of which Ann spoke in the past tense were 
 still very muqh of the present, but they were quieter now, 
 and she leant against Hilda without trying to get away. 
 
 Margaret's face had changed during the process of 
 enlightenment. 'Oh, why didn't I think of that?' she 
 said, in distress. 'I did think at first that Hilda Lang 
 must have done it. I'm so sorry, Ann, if I was unkind 
 to you. So will everybody be.' 
 
 'You weren't unkind,' sobbed Ann. 'You were very 
 gentle to me, and so was Nora yesterday. I like you 
 both best after Hilda.' 
 
204 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 She clung to Hilda now, and her storm of crying 
 subsided, as if she was beginning to feel the relief that 
 had been brought to her. 
 
 'She was that angry with Miss Hilda, when she 
 heard what she done,' pursued Lizzie, still loyal and 
 indignant, 'that it was as much as I could do to make 
 her be'ave herself. As if she'd do a thing like that, 
 indeed ! You ought to have known better. Miss, and 
 all the young ladies. ■ Why; the names she called Miss 
 Hilda was something awful I All right. Miss Ann, dear, 
 ru run straight down and fetch the carriage and take 
 you 'ome. I'm sure Mr Robins will put the horses in 
 at once — for you — even if he's having his supper. 
 We.'te only servants,' added Lizzie, with high pride, as 
 she prepared to go, 'but none of us wouldn't believe 
 that Miss Ann could ever do anything nasty.' 
 
 Ann refused to go back into the hall, and Hilda 
 would not press her. But Margaret said: 'I'm going 
 to tell everybody how it was, Ann. You know how 
 sorry they'll be. Couldn't you just come in for a Uttle, 
 to show them that you haven't gone away angry?' 
 
 'You can tell them I don't inquiet myself any more,' 
 said Ann. 'I don't want to go in there before every- 
 body.' 
 
 Margaret had brought cold water, and Hilda was 
 bathing Ann's eyes and forehead, which made her feel 
 better every moment, though her head still ached badly. 
 
 'You shan't if you don't want to,' said Margaret. 
 'I'll tell Miss Sutor and Madame Angeli that you're 
 not well enough.' 
 
 'Is that the true Madame Angeli?' asked Aim, 
 enlightenment coming to her from the collection of 
 pictures she had seen. ' Why didn't you tell me, Hilda ? ' 
 
 'I thought it would upset you if you knew you had 
 to play before her.' 
 
 'I wish I'd known,' said Ann. 'I would have trie4 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 205 
 
 to play better. I was thinking all the time about being 
 at Coventry.' 
 
 'You won't think about that any more, will you?' said 
 Margaret. 'We shall all try to make it up to you. We shall 
 be horribly sorry when we remember all that happened.' 
 
 'I don't want you to be too sorry, Margaret,' said 
 Ann, 'or I shan't be able to make any more pleasantries 
 about it.' The first faint smile appeared on her face. 
 'I made some rather good ones, didn't I?' 
 
 Margaret felt more like crying than laughing, but 
 she sriuled too. 'I'm afraid I didn't appreciate them 
 quite enough at the time,' she said. "Can't you make 
 up a little pleasantry now, Ann, for me to tell the girls ? ' 
 
 'I'm afraid I'm too tired now,' said Ann. 'But 
 perhaps I will go back till the carriage comes. I should 
 like to say some words to Madame AngeU. I suppose 
 she will see that I've been crying, but I told her that 
 my head hurt, and if she thinks I'm a baby for crying 
 about that I must support the consequences.' 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The truth had already spread among the girls in the 
 hall. A maid who had heard Lizzie's story had told 
 one of them. It went from group to group, and little 
 attention was paid to the subsequent performers. So 
 quick was the revulsion of feeling, that Mabel Finney 
 and Helen Webster, and a few others were feeling 
 themselves outcasts well before the concert was over, 
 Susan Norris was digesting a lesson in the small value 
 to be placed on circumstantial evidence, and good Mary 
 Polegatehad already said three times that she was thankful 
 now that she had never borne any malice towards Ann. 
 Miss Henderson heard the story, and told it shortly 
 to Miss Sutor, who breathed a deep sigh of relief as 
 the burden she had felt increasingly during the last few 
 
2o6 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 days was rolled off her shoiilders. Her school would not 
 have been the same without that naughty, fascinating 
 Ann bringing her bright face and impudent ways to it 
 every morning. She had been wondering how she could 
 get out of her threat to teU Lady Sinclair of Ann's 
 last escapade, and had let the Coventry go on for the 
 full week more to give her an excuse to say that Ann 
 had been punished enough than because she was blind 
 to the serious disturbance it was creating. 
 
 But part of her burden had been in beUeving, as she 
 had been bound to believe, that Ann had done an vmkind 
 as well as a mischievous trick. Miss Henderson, who 
 had always been unaccountably blind to Mary Polegate's 
 virtues, had made light of it, and laid stress on the 
 fact that Ann had not meant to spoil the chart altogether. 
 But when all had been said in her favour that could 
 be said, there still remained something about the whole 
 affair which showed Ann in a light that Miss Sutor had 
 not seen her in before, and she had shrunk from 
 examining her in that light. It touched her deeply 
 now, to leam that the poor child had run such a gauntlet 
 to protect the real culprit. She had seen for herself 
 how deceptive her brave airs of not caring had been. 
 That was the real Ann — quixotic and courageous; she 
 had- felt all along that there was something about the 
 other one which did not fit in. 
 
 Ann came into the hall with Margaret and Hilda as the 
 concert was nearing its end. Hilda joined a group of her 
 friends, and Margaret went with Ann to the seat of state. 
 
 Nora O'Brien had just sung an Irish song, and the 
 applause which had begun to die away renewed itself 
 as the three girls came in, whether for them or her was 
 not apparent. But Miss Sutor asked for another song 
 from her, and by the time she had got back on to the 
 platform Ann was ensconced in the middle of the sofa, 
 safe from any possible demonstration. 
 
AUDACIOUS ANN 207 
 
 Her violent fit of weeping, and by now atrocious 
 headache, had given her such an appearance that kind 
 Mrs Angel forgot all about everjrthing except the 
 necessity of saving her from further stress. She put 
 her arm round her, and said : ' I have a girl just as 
 old as you. When she has a headache she snuggles up 
 to her old mother and tries to go to sleep. So I think 
 you had better see whether that will cure yours. Miss 
 Sutor is going to take me to see your grandmother 
 to-morrow, and I shall bring my violin and play to you. 
 But I shan't play any better than you did, Ann.' 
 
 Ann closed her eyes with a delicious sensation of 
 happiness and relief, in spite of her pain, and fell asleep 
 instantly. She slept the sleep of utter exhaustion 
 throughout Nora's song, the applause which followed 
 it, the two final events of the programme, and the 
 National Anthem. She would have slept through any- 
 thing, and could not be wakened when Lizzie, ever 
 faithful, and stiU bridling with indignation, announced 
 the arrival of the carriage to take her home. 
 
 Miss Henderson carried her down to it — ^as gym 
 mistress, of course, with a notorious muscular develop- 
 ment. It was said afterwards, when the effect of Miss 
 Sutor's birthday was wearing off, and the Ught of 
 humour was beginning to play around her again, that 
 she and Miss Henderson had quarrelled as to which of 
 them should do it. But this was not true, and as Ann 
 disKked references to her having been carried at aU — 
 like a baby — ^the story was dropped. 
 
 The morning after the concert, Gertrude Knight 
 found a parcel just above her pigeon-hole in the cloak- 
 room. It contained the cakes which Ann had brought 
 for her supper. She was already ashamed of her part 
 in the late affair, and thought it would be kinder to 
 Ann to remove all impleasant reminders of it. So she 
 ate them. 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 
 
 In that maze of narrow streets that used to lie to the 
 north of the Strand, before the modem improvements 
 swept most of them away, was a grocer's shop, on the 
 name-board of which was painted 'Joseph Cummins.' 
 It was rather a mean httle shop, smelling of soap and 
 tallow, but it provided a decent living for its tenant 
 and his wife and child. 
 
 Joseph Ciunmins was a man of poor education but 
 large views, and a passion for expressing them. They 
 ranged loosely over all social and political questions 
 that were alive at that time, but a few years after the 
 birth of his son concentrated themselves on a sort of 
 enraged secularism, and a corresponding hatred for 
 all manifestations of religion. The real difficulties of 
 Christianity hardly affected him, but he was dilgent 
 in searching out small discrepancies in the B ble, which 
 he studied with fierce ardour to that end. He was one 
 of the most regular of the Hyde Park orators, and was 
 sometimes mobbed by outraged supporters of revealed 
 truth for the outspoken contempt with which he treated 
 their beliefs. When this happened he felt pride in 
 suffering for righteousness' sake, and his hatred of 
 Christianity grew and grew. 
 
 His wife, who indulged in a mild but obstina e 
 observance of reUgion, never combated his views, but 
 insisted that the child should not be nurtured in them. 
 The Catholic revival was then beginning to infect the 
 
 208 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 209 
 
 Church of England, and near the quarter where they 
 lived was a large church in the forefront of the move- 
 ment. She attended this church, and, without being 
 deeply affected by the doctrines taught, enjoyed the 
 ritual, and sent her child to take part in whatever was 
 done there for the training or education of children. 
 He was a quiet, well-braved little boy, and a favourite 
 with the clergy. When he was old enough he was made 
 an acolyte, which caused great content to his mother, 
 and an outburst of bitter scorn from his father. 
 
 He was sent to a cheap commercial school, where he 
 learnt nothing except to read and write, and to deal in 
 an elementary way with figures, for which he showed 
 considerable aptitude. At the age of thirteen he was 
 taken away from school, and, through the interest of 
 one of the clergy at St Barnabas, obtained a place as 
 office boy in a shipping firm in the city. The grocery 
 business had already begun to decline, owing to his 
 father's increasing immersion in more serious affairs, 
 and part of his small earnings he had to contribute from 
 the first to the expenses of the home. 
 
 He was conscientious and obliging, and after a year 
 or two was promoted to a jimior clerkship. His 
 education had not helped him to the initiative that he 
 lacked by nature, but his accuracy and diligence made 
 him a good clerk. He learnt bookkeeping in the 
 evenings, and presently rose to be bookkeeper to the 
 firm, at a respectable salary. 
 
 In the meantime his father's business continued to 
 dwindle, and after the death of his mother, which 
 happened when he was twenty-two, was sold for a small 
 sum. Thenceforward he kept his father, who now 
 devoted himself entirely to his crusade against the 
 Christian reUgion. 
 
 His own religion he followed in the same spirit of 
 careful duty which he brought to bear upon his work. 
 
210 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 The church stood to him for all the social life he knew; 
 for the calls on his purse did not permit of his joining 
 in the pursuits of his fellow-clerks, among whom he 
 was something of a butt, on account of his simplicity 
 of mind and speech, and his unswerving self-restraint. 
 But they Uked him none the less; and he remained a 
 favourite with the clergy of St Barnabas, and especially 
 with the Vicar, a man of great force of character. He 
 undertook everything in connection with the church 
 that he was asked to undertake, but proved to be of 
 no use in teaching children, or in controlling the rough 
 youths who were gathered in to the clubs and classes. 
 So they employed him about the church itself, and 
 Sunday was a happy day for him, from the first service 
 in the darkness of the early morning, or after dawn, 
 until the lights were put out at night. 
 
 His conscience troubled him when his father, leaving 
 off all pretente of working for a living, devoted himself 
 entirely to his anti-religious propaganda. Was it 
 right that he should give him the opportunity of doing 
 so by his support of him? 
 
 He took his difiiciilty to the Vicar, who calmed his 
 fears, but made an opportunity of speaking to the 
 windy atheist. He got little but abuse for his pains, 
 but was able to satisfy the son that the Christian Faith 
 would not suffer from such attacks as the father could 
 only make upon it. 
 
 When he was twenty-six, he fell in love with a girl 
 in the tea-shop he frequented in the city. She was a 
 mild, gentle creature, and he thought her very beautiful. 
 He admired her for a year before they became closer 
 friends. She was the third daughter of a theatrical 
 family, the father of which was a stage-carpenter, the 
 mother a dresser, and the two elder daughters ladies 
 of the ballet. Tjhey were hard-working, respectable 
 people, and she only had not followed in the 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 211 
 
 footsteps of her sisters because of her slighter 
 physique. 
 
 They became engaged, but although, his income was 
 now large enough for him to have been able to marry, 
 there was his father to be considered. So they waited 
 patiently, without any thought of shaking off that 
 encumbrance. 
 
 She had not been brought up to church-going, but 
 she went with him to St Barnabas, and was proud of 
 her lover as, in scarlet cassock and lace-edged cotta, 
 his simple face unusually grave, he held up the great 
 processional cross, and paced with slow steps round 
 the church at the head of the singing boys and men. 
 
 His father fell ill, and it was a great comfort to him 
 that he consented to see his friend, the Vicar, and, 
 falling into great fear of death and what should come 
 afterwards, was reconciled to the Church, and made a 
 good end. He felt no shadow of doubt that all his 
 father's sins had been washed away, and the harm that 
 he had done in his Ufe completely wiped out. 
 
 A year later, when he had paid off his father's debts, 
 he was married. They found a Uttle house not far 
 from the church, but soon afterwards the Vicar made 
 his submission to the Church of Rome, and they began 
 to think of moving to a less crowded quarter. Londoners 
 bom, as both of them were, they hankered after the 
 country joys of which they had tasted during their 
 short honejmioon, and on hoUday excursions to Kew, 
 Richmond, and Hampstead. , 
 
 The Vicar's 'going over' had disturbed him; he 
 had thoughts of 'going over' too, and for a time was 
 unhappy. The controversy that seethed around him 
 hardly affected him; he knew very little of what other 
 churches and other reUgious bodies taught and beUeved, 
 and had never speculated on matters of doctrine. He 
 had been happy in practising such religious duties as 
 
212 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 were enjoined upon him, and if those about him had 
 talked bitterly and contemptuously of other forms of 
 belief he had sat silent, and felt only discomfort. 
 
 He looked up to the Vicar as a very holy, learned 
 man, but shrank from plunging into new and untried 
 waters. His mind had been at peace for a long time, 
 and he was sure that the happiness he now enjoyed — 
 the satisfaction he found in his daily work, the love 
 and companionship of his home, the freedom from 
 anxiety over money, which had come about since his 
 father's death, and the interest and colour he gained 
 from his association with St Barnabas — all sprang from 
 a divine source; and he came to feel that he would be 
 showing ingratitude if he turned his back upon the 
 means through which his blessings had come to 
 him. 
 
 So he said good-bye to the Vicar, sad at losing a 
 friend, but without any expression of a desire to see 
 him again, and once more regained his serenity. 
 
 A few months later, he and his wife set up their 
 home in a little villa in the new suburb of 
 Greenleys. 
 
 II 
 
 A FEW years before, Greenle}^ had been a place of 
 large comfortable red-brick or white-painted houses, 
 hugging their seclusion behind high walls or thick 
 shrubberies. There were green fields, where you could 
 find primroses in the spring, and where hay was cut 
 in the sununer. The few shops were on either side of 
 a strip of green, at the end of which was an inn, with 
 a painted sign standing out boldly on the edge of the 
 roadway, and a wooden trough beneath it. Here the 
 horses drawing the early market carts from the gardens 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 213 
 
 beyond used to drink, while their drivers regaled 
 themselves inside, or in sunny weather on benches 
 under the latticed windows. 
 
 But the nearer London suburbs were already doomed, 
 and Greenleys was one of the first to be nibbled at by 
 the speculative builder. A London banker died, and 
 his large house, with its twenty or thirty acres of 
 garden and orchard and meadow, came into the market. 
 If another rich man had bought it, the devastation 
 might have been averted for a few years longer. But 
 the ground was too valuable; there was a great army 
 of smaU people demanding to be housed within reach 
 of their daily work in the great city; and it is profitable 
 to house such people, who are content with so little 
 in the way of space, and pay so much more for it in 
 proportion than the rich man. So streets of little 
 villas, each with its patch of garden in front and its 
 fenced-in space behind, sprang up where the cedars 
 and velvety lawns, and the apple-trees and deep 
 meadows had been; and no sooner was the paint dry 
 on their woodwork than some London clerk, or small 
 business man, eager to live 'a little way out' took 
 possession of them. 
 
 The bookkeeper and his wife thought themselves 
 fortunate in securing one of a row of houses so small 
 and so cheap that at that time there was nothing to 
 equal them near London within touch of fields and 
 hedgerows. It was in Cedar Lane, so called because in 
 one of the little back gardens was a fine tree saved 
 from the wreck of the rich man's grounds. At the 
 bottom of their own garden was a group of lilacs, which 
 flowered profusely in early summer, and of which they 
 were immensely proud. AU the houses in Cedar Lane 
 were snapped up before they were finished, and within 
 a month of the final rolling down of the roadway, the 
 lane had the air of a, long-established street, where 
 
214 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 life was regular and ordered, and certain things 
 happened at certain hours of the day. 
 
 Early in the morning the great exodus began, and 
 went on for an hour or more. Men dressed in black 
 coats and taU hats — every self-respecting clerk wore 
 a tall hat in those days — would come out of the Uttle 
 houses, clang to the front gates, and sometimes with a 
 farewell wave to the wives who stood at the door, 
 sometimes with a glance back at the windows, or at 
 the wallflowers or pansies in the Uttle strips behind the 
 iron raihngs, woiUd hurry off to their day's work. 
 Mixed with the black-coated men were the children 
 going to school, who sometimes accompanied them to 
 the end of the lane; and sometimes the wives, if they 
 were newly, married, walked with them. The lane, 
 between eight and nine, was full of hurrying figures, 
 coming from its own houses, or passing through it 
 from those beyond; and the clang of the iron gates 
 sounded continuously, Uke musket fire in the battle 
 which all these men were waging — ^the battle for food 
 and shelter, for themselves and those dependent on 
 them, and perhaps for something more in the future. 
 
 Soon after nine o'clock the exodus would cease. 
 There were no more males to be seen in Cedar Lane, 
 except the boys with the butchers' trays and the 
 bakers' and grocers' baskets, but only women and little 
 nursemaids and babies' perambulators. And for the 
 rest of the dajf the sun would shine upon a place almost 
 as quiet as it had been when the bees had hummed 
 about the flower-beds, and the thrushes had carolled 
 in the blossoming lilacs that had been where the houses 
 now were. 
 
 In the evening the breadwinners would return, and 
 the garden gates go on opening and shutting until 
 every one was gathered in, with one more day's work 
 finished, and a few hours of home-life won from the 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 215 
 
 never-ceasing struggle. And where only the night 
 wind had breathed over the lawns and trees and flowers, 
 there were a thousand living influences — love, care, 
 joy, sorrow, fear, innocence, hope, youth looking 
 forward, age looking back — and in every little house a 
 human story as interesting as ally that the big house, 
 now gone, had contained. 
 
 Every morning, shortly before nine o'clock, the 
 bookkeeper, who was now about five-and-thirty, and 
 his wife, who was some eight or nine years younger, 
 would come out of a house in the middle of the row, to 
 which she would return by herself a quarter of an hour 
 later. Every evening at about six o'clock she would 
 come out again and return with him. On summer 
 evenings they might come out again a little later and 
 walk in the fields, which were rapidly being swallowed 
 up by streets and streets of such houses as had been 
 buUt in Cedar Lane, or by houses a little bigger. On 
 winter evenings the door would shut on them, not to 
 be opened again until the next morning. 
 
 Every Sunday they went twice to the Parish Church. 
 During the first years of their residence, before the 
 small houses had taken the place of most of the big 
 ones, it was fashionably attended, and more important 
 men than the bookkeeper filled its few offices. The 
 Rector did not visit except among the older residents. 
 He was a fluent preacher, and the two humble members 
 of his congregation who were always in their seats in 
 the gallery on Sunday mornings and evenings, and at 
 the week-night service, were among his most apprecia- 
 tive hearers, although they had never spoken to him. 
 
 There were no early communion services at this 
 church, and one of the curates at St Barnabas, who 
 visited them soon after they had settled at Greenleys, 
 professed himself shocked at their being content with 
 such churchgoing as they now practised. They ought. 
 
2i6 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 he said, at least to make a point of going to early mass, 
 even if they preferred to attend their parish church 
 later in the day. So they went in to St Barnabas every 
 Sunday morning very early, as long as the summer 
 lasted, walking a mile and then taking a tram, and not 
 breakfasting until they reached home again. Then 
 they gave it up, because the wife was getting near 
 her confinement and the long journey without food 
 was too much for her. They became attached to the 
 Parish Church, for the music was good, and they thought 
 the preaching was; and they liked to go out of their 
 house and join a stream of churchgoers, most of whom 
 they knew at least by sight, and to feel that they were 
 one of a large family. 
 
 The child was bom some hours before it was expected. 
 He received a telegram at his office, and with some mis- 
 giving asked for leave of absence, which was at once 
 granted to him, as in all the twenty years of his service 
 he had never been away from his work for an hour, 
 except at the appointed times of holiday. 
 
 He hurried home as fast as he could, with a feeling 
 of terror and dreariness at his heart. Surely he would 
 not have been sent for if there had not been serious danger! 
 
 But when he reached the house he was told that a 
 daughter had been bom to him, and his wife had come 
 through her confinement well. He burst into tears, 
 at which he was much ashamed, and not a little sur- 
 prised, for his sensations were only those of great 
 happiness. 
 
 When he had calmed himself, he was allowed to 
 go up and see his wife, who smiled at him, and showed 
 him the little dark head in the hollow of her shoulder. 
 
 He was greatly moved, and felt Uke weeping again, 
 but controlled himself, and when he was alone again 
 knelt down and thanked God for His wonderful good- 
 ness, and promised to bring up the child as His servant. 
 
THii fiOOiCKEEtEft it^ 
 
 III 
 
 They called the child Mary. His wife's mother and 
 sisters came to the christening, and brought gifts. The 
 two former dancers were now married, and had left, 
 the stage, but their talk was all of theatrical matters. 
 They admired the baby, and prophesied a glorious 
 career for her behind the footlights. It was their 
 highest idea of success in hfe, and they mec^nt to be 
 nothing but compliipentary and encouraging. But 
 to him, feeding on 'visions of his child brought up in a 
 garden enclosed, untouched by any spot of worldliness, 
 their anticipations seemed unclean and degrading. He 
 was glad when they went away and left him alone with 
 his wife and child. 
 
 It would be impossible to imagine any one happier 
 than he was now. There was nothing in life he could 
 have desired that he had not. He came home from 
 his work every evening with the brightest anticipations 
 of pleasure. He loved the tiny infant so much that the 
 place in which she was seemed irradiated. On Sundays, 
 when he awoke and realised that he would not have 
 to leave her for a whole day, he had an access of the 
 keenest joy. And yet his work was done better, if that 
 were possible, that it had ever been. His whole being 
 expanded with happiness. His brain was keener, his 
 bodily health more assured. The attitude of his feUow- 
 clerks, who had always liked him in a half -contemptuous 
 way, insensibly changed towards him. His simplicity 
 was touched with a spiritual light, and it would have 
 seemed almost irreverence to beUttle it. 
 
 As the years went on, the halo of brightness only 
 seemed to surround him more brightly. The chUd 
 grew into a lovely, gentle, smiling little creature, whose 
 
 T.C. P 
 
2i8 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 life knew no shadows, so devotedly was she cared for 
 by father and mother alike. 
 
 They kept her a great deal to themselves. The 
 children of the few neighbours whom they knew seemed 
 to them rough and dirty, unworthy to be associated 
 with the wlute purity of their cherished little one. 
 Other mothers became jealous of her, and said she was 
 being brought up above her station. And, indeed, 
 they spent more on her dainty clothes than on their 
 own, and more, but for the bare simplicity of their 
 lives, than they could have afforded. 
 
 She returned them all the love they lavished on her. 
 She would sit on her father's knee, snuggUng up to 
 him, in that comer of the little garden where the 
 blossoming lilac made a retired bower, and he would 
 tell her Bible stories — about Adam and Eve walking 
 in a garden, full of bright, sweet-scented flowers, a 
 garden from which no houses could be seen, and where 
 God Himself walked with them in the cool of the 
 evening; about Joseph and his bright coat, and his 
 dreams, and the jealousy of his brothers; about the 
 infant Samuel, and how God called him in the night, 
 and he answered; about David, the young shepherd, 
 who played beautifully upon the harp, and killed the 
 giant with a stone from his sling; about the poor little 
 Mephibosheth, who was lame of both his feet, and 
 from being very poor and in hiding came to be treated 
 as the King's son that he was; about Ruth in the 
 cornfields, and Esther in the King's palace; and about 
 the child Jesus, and the love that his mother bore him, 
 and of I^ loving little children afterwards. But he 
 told her none of the stories of fighting and murder 
 and passion, for although he accepted all these as part 
 of God's way with man, and as handed down for our 
 instruction, he held them unfit as yet for those tender ears. 
 
 When she was old enough her mother began to teach 
 
mE BOOiKKEEPEft ii$ 
 
 her little lessons; but the children of humble folk are 
 not allowed to be so taught, and after the visit of a 
 school inspector it became necessary to send her to 
 school. Most of the neighbours' children went to the 
 elementary Church school, but they shrank from 
 sending her there to mix with the rest, and perhaps 
 to learn bad words and bad habits. So they sent her 
 to a lady who had been a governess, and taught half 
 a dozen Uttle girls in her own house. The education 
 was not nearly so good as at the elementary school, 
 and it cost them money besides, though not very 
 much. The mother always accompanied her to and 
 fro, and of the few children who were her schoolfellows 
 a careful selection was made of two whom she might 
 sometimes play with. 
 
 When she was eleven years old, it became impossible 
 to keep her any longer at this poor little school. At 
 Handbury, a nule nearer to London, there was a High 
 School, and with some searchings of heart her parents 
 decided to send her there. Many of the inhabitants of 
 Greenle}^, better off than they were, sent their girls to 
 this school, and it was not possible now to keep her 
 from making her own friends. But she made none 
 whom her parents could well object to. She learnt 
 quickly, and made special progress in music and dancing. 
 She was alwajra well-dressed, she was very pretty, and 
 had quiet, rather shy maimers. No one would have 
 taken her for the daughter of a poor clerk; and her 
 grandmother and aunts, on the rare occasions on which 
 they saw her, repeated their protestations at the wicked- 
 ness of keeping so fair a flower out of her rightful 
 inheritance of admiration. It would be a sin, they 
 said, not to let her go on the stage, when she was old 
 enough. She must take all hearts, and bring a glory 
 to the family name, which, in spite of strenuous efforts, 
 it had never yet attained to. 
 
220 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Her father grew accustomed to these speeches, 
 although he never heard them without an inward 
 shudder. The girl, in spite of her successes, and the 
 friends she now had among the families of her school- 
 fellows who were in a better position than she was, 
 remained soft and loving towards him. She went to 
 church with him and her mother twice every Sunday, 
 and in summer time for walks in the now fast-disappear- 
 ing fields. She was his daughter still, and the constant 
 pride of his heart. For fifteen years he had led a life 
 as completely happy as falls to the lot of any man, 
 and she, as a fcaby, a Kttle child, and a growing girl, 
 had brought the greater part of it, although his gentle 
 wife, his work, his freedom from the cares that were 
 so frequent aU around him', and his simple, unclouded 
 faith, had all played their part. 
 
 His life passed in such absolute sameness that, 
 beyond, their yearly fortnight at the seaside, the 
 holidays at home at Christmas and Easter, and the 
 changes of the seasons, there had been nothing to mark 
 it except the growth of the child, and the episodes of 
 her schooldays. 
 
 One evening he came home in deep dejection, which 
 he could not keep from his wife and daughter; but it 
 was some time before he could bring hunself to tell 
 them what had happened. When he did tell them they 
 were nearly as troubled as he was. 
 , He had made a blqt on the fair page of the great 
 ledger, which was full of his exquisitely neat even 
 writing, and was one of a long line of such books, in 
 none of which had such a thing happened before. It 
 was his great pride that never yet had he had to make 
 an erasure. He. did not suppose that there was a book- 
 keeper in the city of London who could say the same, 
 or a firm whose books might all so well be shown as a 
 model to aspiring youth. 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 221 
 
 Of course the blot could be, and had been, taken 
 out, so that none but a very careful observer could tell 
 that it had ever been there. But that did not console 
 him. He had half a mind to buy a new ledger and copy 
 out all the entries he had made through many months; 
 but even that would not do away with the memory of 
 his carelessness. He had made the blot, and nothing 
 could do away with it. It was like what the Bishop 
 had said, when he preached in Greenleys Church. A 
 sin would be forgiven you if you repented of it, but its 
 effects remained. Nothing could ever be as it was 
 before the sin was committed. 
 
 So he made a parable of his error, and resigned 
 himself by degrees to the loss of the fine perfection of 
 his record. 
 
 When his daughter was fifteen she Ivas confirmed. 
 This was the culminating point of his pride in her. 
 She was so good 'and so beautiful that as she went up 
 to the altar rails and knelt there all in maiden white, 
 he thought that God, to whom he had dedicated her 
 at her birth, must be pleased at the gift of so pure a 
 soul; and, when the hands of the Bishop were laid on 
 the fair, comely head, that He was finally accepting 
 his offering, and would pour gifts above the ordinary 
 on His child. 
 
 IV 
 
 During all the years of his marriage none but two 
 had passed without his putting by some money. There 
 had been no illness to drain his little store, and only 
 when they had moved out from London, and in the 
 year following, when his child had been bom, had he 
 spent the whole of his income. A provision for his old 
 age, when he should be past work, was now well on 
 the road to accomplishment, and he could even face 
 
222 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 with some equanimity the idea of death coming to 
 himself before he should have finished his work, for 
 he would not leave his wife and child quite unprovided 
 for. 
 
 But he had not saved enough, and could not save 
 enough, to make it right that his daughter should live 
 at home like the daughters of more fortunate men, 
 without doing something to earn a living for herself. 
 As long as he was there, and able to provide for them, 
 all would be well; but if he died, and they were left 
 to their own resources, she would have to work, and 
 it might then be more difficult to place her as she 
 ought to be placed. 
 
 When she was sixteen, after careful consideration and 
 inquiry, they apprenticed her to a milliner at Hand- 
 bury. They had rejected every occupation in which 
 she would have to work in pubhc, or in semi-public, 
 and they were averse to her taking the daily joiuney 
 to and from London. Where she was, she was in 
 responsible care, and spent little time in going to and 
 from her work. She left home at the same time as 
 her father, and returned before him, so that he did 
 not miss her at any time from his home. 
 
 She showed qmck aptitude for her work and was 
 contented with it. Life flowed on smoothly, as before, 
 and she never expressed a wish for any recreation or 
 excitement outside her quiet home. Sometimes she 
 went to the houses of one or other of her old school- 
 fellows, but for the most part had only the companion- 
 ship of her father and mother. 
 
 When she had been at work for rather more than a 
 year, her mother began to complain of pain in her 
 breast. It came out that she had borne it for a long 
 time, but it was getting worse; she could no longer do 
 the work of the house, and she thought she ought to 
 see a doctor. 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 223 
 
 The dreadful verdict was 'cancer' — an advanced 
 case. She died about the time that her daughter had 
 finished her apprenticeship. She had been most 
 tenderly nursed at home, and had undergone two 
 operations to prolong her Ufe by a few months. This 
 had brought great expense, and had reduced the 
 savings of years by half. 
 
 Father and daughter lived on in the little home, 
 now greatly saddened. She went on with her work in 
 the same shop, at a small salary. They had a servant, 
 but she did not sleep in the house, and they were alone 
 together in the evenings, and for most of Sundays. 
 
 Not many months after his wife's death, he began 
 to be greatly troubled with rhexmiatism, which chiefly 
 affected his wrists. This meant more doctors, and 
 treatment which also cost money, but did nothing to 
 improve his condition. A year later he wrote with 
 difficulty, and was beyond the capacity to lift the heavy 
 ledgers with which he had to deal during his daily 
 work. The firm which had employed hinl parted with 
 him with regret, and gave him a gratuity of a hundred 
 pounds. 
 
 He got a post as bookkeeper in one of the big stores 
 that had taken the place of the old-fashioned shops in 
 Greenleys, but was unable to keep it long, as he could 
 now scarcely hold a pen in his crippled fingers. 
 
 They moved from the little villa where they had 
 been so happy into three tiny rooms in an old cottage. 
 It was in a quiet back lane near the Park, which had 
 once been the garden and paddocks of a large house, 
 and they counted themselves fortunate in finding so 
 pleasant a refuge, still in the place to which they dung. 
 But their money dwindled. There was not enough left 
 to keep them for more than a year or two. 
 
 His daughter, who was now nineteen, told him, 
 lovingly, but with tears, that she had had an offer. 
 
224 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 through one of her aunts, to dance and sing in the 
 chorus of a London theatre, and had accepted it. She 
 could not expect to earn enough in her present situation, 
 to keep them both, for years to come. 
 
 He accepted her decision uncomplainingly, but with 
 anguish at his heart. Greenleys was not then in such 
 communication with London-as to permit of her coming 
 home every night after the play was ended, and she 
 lodged with one of her aunts. But she spent every 
 Simday and most of Monday with him, and they went 
 to church together, and walked in the Park, and some- 
 times went farther afield. These were days of joy to 
 him; the rest of the week he spent mostly in patient 
 idleness, thinking of the happiness of his past life, 
 reading in his Bible — ^he did not care for other books — 
 and keeping an eye on the children of the overworked 
 women who were his neighbours, and treated him with 
 great respect. He could. do Httle for himself, but was 
 well in health, although now much crippled. 
 
 He never went to see his daughter on the stage, and 
 she did not ask him to go, nor ever talked about her 
 experiences of the theatre. She was the same sweet, 
 quiet, loving child to him that she had always been, 
 and her refinement of speech and manner, which had 
 always been far above her station, seemed to have 
 increased, if anything. 
 
 By-and-by, seeing her always as he would have her, 
 he grew reconciled to her occupation, and, but that he 
 thought of her continually while she Wcis away from 
 him, would almost have forgotten it. He never saw 
 her more than simply dressed, and only when his sister- 
 in-law came to see him, and told him that she had been 
 promoted from the ranks, and was already beginning 
 to 'catch on,' did he accept without remonstrance the 
 extra delicacies and comforts that she loved to bring 
 him. 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 225 
 
 'You couldn't have brought her up better for the 
 purpose,' said the ex-dancer. 'It's because she's so 
 innocent and quiet, and pretty and clever with it all, 
 that she's different from the rest. If her voice was a 
 bit stronger she'd be leading lady, and earning her 
 hundred pounds a week, or more, to-morrow.' 
 
 Then it was for this' that he had cherished and 
 sheltered her childhood and youth ! God's ways with 
 man were difficult to understand; but he gained some 
 comfort from the idea that her influence would purify 
 the lives of those about her. 
 
 They often talked together of her mother, not sadly 
 now, but as if she were near them, and knew what 
 they were doing. But one Sunday, when he mentioned 
 her name, the girl cried, and said she missed her more 
 than ever. 
 
 He was troubled all the week by the memory of her 
 tears, which were unlike her, but the next Sunday she 
 was happy again, and even gay; her sadness did not 
 return, and she seemed to become more tender and 
 loving towards him as the months rolled by, and he 
 became more and more helpless. 
 
 The old Rector whose preaching he and his wife 
 had so much admired was long since in his grave, and 
 more than one had succeeded him. The church had 
 completely changed, both in appearance and method, 
 and was now nearer in ritual to what he remembered of 
 St Barnabas than to what it had formerly been. 
 
 Once more he made a practice of attending the 
 earliest services. He could just manage to kneel at 
 the altar-rails, and receive the consecrated bread in 
 his distorted hands: the chalice was held to his lips. 
 
226 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 He gained great consolation from these services, and 
 fed on them in spirit until the time when iis daughter 
 should come to him later in the morning. 
 
 The Rector visited him regularly. He was an austere, 
 unsmiling man, and asked him many questions. 
 
 One afternoon he came to him as he was sitting in the 
 tiny garden of the cottage, where there was a lilac- 
 tree that reminded him of the one in his old garden. 
 He asked him about his daughter, but cut short his 
 answers by telling him that it had come to his ears that 
 she had left the theatre some time before, and was 
 living as the mistress of a rich man well known in 
 society, who was already married. He told him that 
 it was his duty to reclaim her. Better a life of the 
 direst poverty than a life of sin. 
 
 When the Rector had gone, he sat on under the 
 blossoming lilac with no power of thought left him, but 
 only a feeling of sad desolation. It did not occur to 
 him to doubt the truth of the statement, but his love 
 for his daughter was stronger than before. 
 
 When she came to him the next Sunday, she saw at 
 once that he knew. She threw herself on his breast, 
 and wept, and asked him to forgive her for the sorrow 
 she had caused him. 
 
 But she would not promise to leave the man she 
 loved. He had a wife with whom he had hved wretchedly. 
 He was good to her, and had taken her from the stage, 
 which she now told her father she had always hated. 
 She could not bear to go back to it. They were happy 
 together, and she loved him dearly. She had not given 
 in to him until after he had been kind to her for a 
 long time. 
 
 He was cut to the heart. When she had left him, 
 and he thought of the white purity of her childhood, 
 and the reverence he had paid to it as the gift of God, 
 to whom he had dedicated her from her birth, the 
 
THE BOOKKEEPER 227 
 
 slow tears ^11 one by one down hi^ cheeks. He felt 
 himself forsaken, his offering rejected. The days when 
 he had so loved her as a little child seemed to belong 
 to another world, and the rare brightness of the one 
 in which he was now living to have gone out of it 
 altogether. 
 
 She continued to come to him every Sunday. She 
 was very tender and loving with him. She talked to 
 him of her lover, and the quiet life she led, both when 
 she was alone and when he was with her; and he 
 listened, but said nothing. 
 
 But he refused any longer to take gifts from her, or 
 to allow her to share in the rent of the three little 
 rooms they had occupied together. She pleaded with 
 him, but to no purpose. He could not prevent her 
 keeping on her bedroom, and what had been their 
 joint sitting-room, and made no attempt to do so. 
 When she was there — and she came sometimes in the 
 week now, as well as on Sundays — he occupied it with 
 her; but when he was alone he kept to his bedroom, 
 and took his meals with the woman of the house. When 
 his money should be used up, he would be able to live 
 there no longer. But he did not look forward. 
 
 The Rector, who had been away for a holiday, came 
 and asked him what he had done. When he heard that 
 he had done nothing, and that his daughter still visited 
 him, he rebuked him sternly for his weakness, and ended 
 by saying that if he did not repudiate her he was 
 sharing in her sin, and could no longer be received at 
 the altar. 
 
 He never told her this, and she did not know that 
 he hungered for the spiritual food denied him, nor that 
 the tender and serene affection he showed her hid a 
 dark emptiness of soul that only became deeper as the 
 days went by. 
 
 He took to his bed, and never rose from it again. He 
 
228 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 was crushed by the weight of his punishment, but 
 suffered in patience, because he was sure that he was 
 a sinner above other men, perhaps even in this earthly 
 affection to which he still clung. But he would not 
 deny her. She was his dearly loved daughter; if she 
 perished, he would perish with her. 
 
 He lay where he could see the lilac in the garden. 
 The only times of freedom from distress that he knew 
 were when, in long hours of silence, he could almost 
 think that he was once more back in the years when 
 she had been his little child. He thought often of his 
 dead wife, and his thoughts came to centre round the 
 years of their early married life, and the after-years 
 when she had been in pain faded from his mfemory. 
 When he became weaker he regained something like 
 contentment at times, but the sorrow of his later life 
 lurked always in the background, and he still felt that 
 he was forsaken of God. 
 
 But when his daughter was with him he forgot his 
 sorrow. 
 
 He was quite alone when he died. His wandering 
 thoughts had gone back to the day on which, in the 
 midst of his constant happiness, he had made the blot 
 in his ledger; and he muttered to himself regrets at 
 that staining of his page. 
 
 But, after a long silence, his face_ changed, and took 
 on an expression of wonderment. -He half-raised 
 himself on his pillows, and looked out into and beyond 
 the Uttle room in which he was lying, as if he saw 
 something glorious and comforting beyond belief. 
 
 He stretched out his disfigured hands towards it. 
 "The book! The book!' he whispered. 'Clean and 
 white ! The blot wiped out ! ' 
 
 Then, with a smile, he laid himself meekly down to 
 rest. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 
 
 'Well,' said the Squire, 'if this is French f6od, give 
 me English.' 
 
 He and his daughter, Nancy, sat at their lunch in 
 a hotel at Havre. In all the seventy-four years of his 
 life, during most of which he had had the money and 
 the leisure to go aliywhere he pleased, this was the 
 first time he had been out of England. And it would 
 certainly be the last time. 
 
 Nancy smiled at him. He had eaten a hearty lunch, 
 in spite of his frequent exclamations. 'They will give 
 us good coffee, at any rate,' she said. 'Shall we have 
 it outside?' 
 
 'Anything to get out of this dog's hole,' said the 
 Squire, rising from the table. 
 
 They went slowly through the room, for the Squire 
 had what he called a touch of rheumatism, which 
 meant walking rather painfully with a stick. Many 
 eyes were turned upon them, for there was that about 
 both of them which aroused interest and sympathy — 
 and perhaps some admiration. 
 
 Nobody who knew an5^hing of English types could 
 have mistaken Edward Clinton for anything but a 
 country gentleman, of importance in his own comer 
 of the world, if of none in particular outside it. Just 
 that sense of dignity and assuredness that radiated 
 from him could only have come from landed possessions. 
 He might have had importance besides, in larger affairs 
 — as a matter of fact he had none — ^but it would not 
 
 229 
 
230 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 have given him that air. He was a tall, largely-built 
 man, with good features and a red health-tinted skin, 
 bushy white eyebrows and a thick, square-cut beard. 
 There were no signs of mourning in his dress, although 
 he had already lost two sons in the war, and with the 
 elder of them^ad gone out much of the light that had 
 illumined his latter days. 
 
 Nancy Spence was of the fair-haired, blue-eyed, 
 English t3^e, tall and straight, with delicate colouring, 
 and a look of race in form and feature. She might 
 have had all that, and still been without beauty. But 
 she had beauty too; the looks that followed her told 
 that. She was quietly, though very becomingly, dressed, 
 mostly in black. Her husband's brother had been 
 killed as well as two of her own. Her husband had 
 been wounded in the early days of the war, and taken 
 prisoner. After eighteen months in Germany he had 
 been released, and interned in Switzerland. She and 
 her father were on their way to him there. 
 
 They sat down at a little table immediately outside 
 the hotel, drank their coffee, and watched the tmfcuniliar 
 show of the plage. The Squire was interested, in spite 
 of himself. Havre was full of English soldiers. A 
 purely French crowd might have been too much for 
 him, though his old-fashioned British prejudice against 
 the French had undergone some modifications since 
 they and the English had fought shoulder to shoulder. 
 
 Nancy talked brightly to him, pleased to see him free 
 for a moment from his brooding thoughts, which had 
 accompanied him so far on their journey, though her 
 own heart was all the time singing within her with 
 happiness and expectation. 
 
 He had taken the war very hard, from the beginning. 
 He had turned his great house of Kencote over to the 
 Red Cross for a private hospital, and gone with his 
 wife to live at the Dower House hard by, where he had 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 231 
 
 occupied himself with all sorts of war-work set in hand 
 by the county in which, by reason of his wide possessions 
 and ancient name, he was a leading figure. But he 
 had no head for affairs larger than those of estate 
 management, and even in those he had come of late 
 years to depend much upon his eldest son, who had 
 retired from the army some years before, to live on 
 the estate that would one day be his own. Dick had 
 rejoined at the beginning of the war, and gone out 
 almost immediately. How his father had missed his 
 cool head and capable way in all the duties he had 
 taken on his shoulders ! Things went wrong continually. 
 The Squire fussed and fumed, and longed for Dick a 
 dozen times a day. He was beginning to make himself 
 a burden to those who worked with him, and one 
 committee, of which he was chairman, asked him to 
 resign. He felt the slight aU the more for an uneasy 
 suspicion that the request was justified; but he had 
 no word of complaint to make about the hurt to his 
 own dignity, and did not retire from the committee 
 itself, as he would certainly have done in Uke circum- 
 stances before the war. 
 
 Then Dick had been killed. What that meant to 
 him nobody knew but his quiet, gentle wife, in that 
 secret community of sorrow from which the world was 
 shut out. Outside, he only seemed rather more fussy 
 and irritable than before. 
 
 John Spence, Nancy's husband, who had rejoined his 
 old regiment of Guards with Dick, had been wounded 
 and taken prisoner in the same battle. And young 
 Lord Inverell, the husband of Nancy's twin-sister, Joan, 
 had also been seriously wounded. That was in the first 
 months of the war. The Clinton family had already 
 paid a heavy toll. 
 
 There were others of them to think about, and their 
 names to watch for, as the dread lists came out day 
 
232 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 after day — sons, and another son-in-law, besides 
 innumerable relations and connections. But the chief 
 blows had already been struck. Sorrow came not so 
 near Kencote again until Humphrey, the second son, 
 who had come over with the Australian forces, weis 
 killed in the landing at Gallipoli. He had been abroad 
 for some years, and his death was not the sharp sorrow 
 that Dick's had been. But he Wcis the heir, after Dick. 
 The foundations of the house were being nibbled away. 
 When would this awful slaughter end, and would there 
 be any of the next generation left when it was all over? 
 The Squire could not take large views. The whole 
 burden of it seemed to be on his own shoulders. What 
 he should do himself seemed of the utmost importance; 
 he worried and wore himself over the failure of others 
 to come up to his standards. 
 
 John Spence's internment was a godsend. > Nancy 
 would have rushed off to him by herself, the moment 
 the road was clear for her, and perhaps preferred to do 
 so; but the Squire was persuaded that he was the only 
 man available to take her. He hummed and ha'd, 
 and doubted whether he could be spared, while his 
 womenfolk dealt subtly with his hesitations, and his 
 co-workers assured him that they could get on without 
 him. 
 
 At last he decided to go, to everybody's great relief. 
 The change would do him good; his mind would be 
 taken off. Those who felt for him in his troubles 
 breathed again; there would be a little respite for 
 them, as well as for him. 
 
 II 
 
 Inveeell was attached to the British Embassy in 
 Paris. His right ankle had been smeished to pulp, and 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 233 
 
 his foot had had to be amputated. The mending had ' 
 taken a year, and then he had wanted to go back, but 
 had been dissuaded. He and Joan had installed them- 
 selves in a flat in Paris, with their two babies. The 
 Squire and Nancy were going to them for the night, 
 and would leave for Switzeriand the next night. 
 
 They arrived at last, two hours late. Joan and 
 Inverell were at the station to meet them. The young 
 man hobbled, with a stick. Otherwise he looked the 
 picture of youthful health and vigour, and his and 
 Joan's high spirits rather jarred on the Squire when the 
 meeting took place, though Nancy was thrilled through 
 and through with happiness. She was a stage nearer 
 to her beloved man, and she and Joan had hardly 
 been separated up to the time of her own marriage. 
 She had had to conceal most of her joy during the last 
 day or two, for unadulterated pleasure would have 
 seemed almost indecent to the Squire. But she knew 
 that she could give it rein with Joan, in that long talk 
 they would have together presently. Joan would 
 understand everything. She had been through her 
 time of sorrow, tiiough it had not been so long drawn 
 out as Nancy's, and she had got her man back. 
 
 'Haven't you brought a maid, darling?' 
 
 The Squire, dealing most incompetently with hand 
 luggage, heard the question. 'We don't want to drag 
 servants about in war time,' he said. 'We've learnt 
 to do things for ourselves.' 
 
 He seemed relieved, however, to resign his cares to 
 the servant in attendance on Inverell, though he had 
 his Uttle grumble about that. 'Didn't know you'd 
 bring a. footman,' he said. 'We've got rid of all ours.' 
 
 'Passed out of the Army,' said Inverell. 'He's 
 done his bit. He'U bring everything along in a taxi. 
 Come along, Mr CUnton, we can get off.' 
 
 They rolled smoothly along in Inverell' s big car. 
 T.C. 
 
234 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 The streets were darkened, and nearly empty, though 
 it Wcis not so late but that they would have been full 
 of life and light in normal times. The Squire approved. 
 He said it was disgraceful the way the people behaved 
 sometimes in London. One would have thought that 
 they had never heard of the war. 
 
 They crossed the Place de la Concorde and the river. 
 The sky was lit .by innumerable shining stars. The 
 city was only half asleep in the sunraier night, and more 
 beautiful by far than if it had been keeping its gay 
 revel. They stopped for a moment on the bridge to 
 look down the river. The reflections of the few lights 
 that marked the Unes on the Quais and the bridges 
 trembled in the flowing water. The silhouettes of the 
 trees in the Tuileries gardens, the Louvre, Notre-Dame 
 in the distance, the Institute, and other buildings on 
 the right bank, were dark against the spangled velvet 
 sky. The soft melancholy of the night had its way 
 with the dreaming city, unchallenged by the glare of 
 lights. Paris had never been seen in that veil of beauty 
 before the war, nor would be after; but the Squire 
 did not know that. 
 
 'Paris is a lovely place to live in,' said Joan; 'far 
 more beautiful than London.' 
 
 The Squire had no particular opinion of London, 
 and what opinion he had was not concerned with its 
 beauty. But he did not like to hear it compared 
 unfavourably with Paris. 'You'll be glad enough to 
 get out of it, I expect,' he said. 
 
 'Oh, I don't know,' said Inverell. 'We're Uking 
 ourselves here, aren't we, Joan? If you have to stick 
 and work somewhere, it might just as well be in Paris 
 as anywhere.' 
 
 'Oh, yes; nothing matters as long as the war lasts/ 
 said the Squire. 
 
 He had a vision of Inverell's great castle in Scotland, 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 235 
 
 with the miles of country that went with it, and his 
 other fine place in an EngUsh county, both of them 
 lacking the occupation which gave them their Ufe and 
 meaning in his view. The war had played havoc with 
 all the amenities of country life, which were to him 
 the only amenities worth having. No, it wouldn't 
 matter where one lived as long as the war lasted, if 
 there was work to do. 
 
 The Inverells occupied a sumptuous flat near the 
 Invalides. The Squire opened his eyes when he saw its 
 furnishings. He was the least observant of men in such 
 matters, but its richness and beauty imposed them- 
 selves. And surely 1 
 
 'Yes, I had a few pictures and things sent over,' 
 said Inverell, meeting his look of inquiry. 'Thought 
 we might as well have the benefit of some of them, as 
 we're Hkely to be here for some time.' 
 
 The Squire turned away from the exquisite Correggio 
 which was the glory of Inverell's collection, and had 
 impressed itself even upon his memory. 'I hope you'll 
 get it back to England safely,' was all he said. 
 
 He went soon to his room. He took no further 
 notice of the beautiful things with which it, as well as 
 the rest of the flat, was filled, but undressed slowly, and 
 then knelt by his bedside, a sad, tired, almost broken 
 old man, but one who still had his work to do, and 
 must find strength to do it. 
 
 Joan took Nancy to her room,, after a visit to the 
 sleeping babies, and they talked long together. 
 
 After a while the talk came round to their father. 
 ' He looks awiully sad and old, poor darling ! ' said 
 Joan. 
 
 'He has never got over Dick's death,' said Nancy, 
 "and I don't suppose he ever will.' 
 
 ' Oh, poor Dick ! It does seem as if something had 
 gone from Kencote that alters everything. And he 
 
236 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 was such a dear. Very much like father, he was getting, 
 but with more hold over himself. Do you remember 
 how sweet he was to us when we were little?' \^ 
 
 'Oh, yes. We weren't of much account, because 
 we were girls; but all the boys were proud of us, all 
 the same, especially Dick. I'd give anything to hear 
 him say : " Well, Twankies, how are things going with 
 you? " when he came home.' 
 
 ' Oh, don't, Nancy ! When I heard he was killed 
 all sorts of little things kept on coming back to me, 
 and running through my head. I remember once when 
 we were about fifteen, and heard that he had come 
 home, and we went and knocked at his door as he was 
 finishing dressing for dinner; and we went ii^ and he 
 said just what you said just now — as if he didn't care 
 much; and he was tying his tie and didn't lum round; 
 but I saw his dear face in the glass, and it was quite 
 pleased.' 
 
 Nancy wiped the tears from her eyes. 'That's the 
 sort of thing to remember — ^to keep him alive,' she 
 said. 'I miss him stiU. There's a blank, whenever I 
 think of Kencotp.' 
 
 'We were happy there, Nancy, weren't we? We 
 had to behave ourselves, of course; but that didn't 
 do us any harm.' 
 
 'I sometimes think it's easier being made to behave 
 than to make yourself. My darling old John thinks 
 that everything I do is right, so I have to be extra 
 careful. Bless him ! I can hardly beUeve I'm going 
 to see him again so soon. Yes, Dick was growing very 
 much like father. If he had had a family he would have 
 ruled them with a rod of iron — and all for their good.' 
 
 'He didn't rule Virginia with a rod of iron. She 
 adored him. I know she's heartbroken, though she 
 pretends to be so brave. I can tell it from her 
 letters.' 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 237 
 
 'I don't believe she will ever get over it. She'll just 
 live her life on the outside, but it will be quite empty. 
 Dick was everything to her, and now he's dead there'll 
 be nothing left. He did rule her, you know; but she 
 liked it. That's where the blank is. But she's most 
 awfully sweet — sweet and gentle — to mother and 
 everybody. She has had more to do with keeping 
 father quiet than anybody.' 
 
 'I suppose he ' 
 
 'Oh, well; you remember what he used to be when 
 anything went wrong. He is wonderfully changed 
 about little things. That's what makes it so pathetic. 
 You can imagine what it all means to him — ^Dick and 
 Humphrey both dead, and Walter the heir now. He 
 would have thought and talked about nothing else — 
 before.' 
 
 'I think he would rather that Walter sfiould succeed 
 than poor Hmnphrey. But doesn't he talk about it 
 at aU?' 
 
 'No. It's all the war; nothing else. Oh, he's 
 changed, and it isn't only Dick's death that has changed 
 him. We all wish he wouldn't take it so Seriously, 
 though Heaven knows it's serious enough. Still, he 
 can't do anything. That is what one comes to feel 
 when one is feoing through it oneself. At first when 
 John was taken, after I knew he was alive, but not how 
 badly he might be wounded, I felt as if I must go and 
 break throughl and get at him somehow. I couldn't 
 bear just to go on Uving comfortably at home, doing 
 nothing. It took me a long time to bring myself just 
 to wait.' 
 
 'Oh, I know, darhng. It was worse for you than 
 for me. I got my Ronald back almost at once, and 
 could do something for him, though it was dreadful to 
 think of him maimed for the rest of his life. Well, 
 you have waited, and the bad time is over, as mine is. 
 
238 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 And now you're going to him. Nancy, darling, it must 
 be heavenly for you.' 
 
 They both cried a little — ^tears of happiness and of 
 sympathy. 
 
 'We are both very fortunate,' Nancy said. 'Think 
 what it must mean for Virginia, and elU the others whose 
 husbands have been kiUed. It's all over for them, and 
 they have nothing left to hope for.' 
 
 ' Poor Virginia ! I don't think I could have gone 
 on if it had happened to me like that — ^with no 
 children.', 
 
 'I had to face that when I thought that John might 
 have been kUled, or died of his wounds. I could just 
 have gone on, with the children; and afterwards there 
 
 might have been something. But Virginia ! . And 
 
 yet she's sweet and kind and smiling.. You'd hardly 
 know — unless you did know.' 
 
 'And darling mother? One never knows how much 
 she feels.' 
 
 'It has made her seem older. Otherwise there isn't 
 much difference in her. She has been wonderful. She 
 did love Dick, though she never made a fuss of him.' 
 
 'Yes, and he had been so much more thoughtful of 
 her of late years, and attentive. Virginia had a 
 wonderful effect upon him.' 
 
 'I think Dick was a very fine man. All the people 
 at Kencote loved him, though some of them were a 
 little afraid of him. He was rigid, but he was very 
 kind. He would have been just in his place as Squire 
 of Kencote — I should think one of the best that there 
 'has ever been, in over five hundred years.' 
 
 'It — ^it sort of puzzles you, to think of all that 
 wiped out, just as if he were nobody much — I mean 
 that it didn't count in what he did. He was just a 
 good soldier — nothing more, though he meant so much 
 more.' 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 239 
 
 'I suppose that's what father feels in his heart of 
 hearts. It's the way he looks at things.' 
 
 'Yes. It makes it worse for him, because it isn't 
 really like a wife losing her husband, or a mother her 
 son.' 
 
 'He did love Dick.' 
 
 'But not in the same way. I suppose he loved 
 Humphrey too, but his being killed wouldn't have 
 made all that , difference, if Dick hadn't been. It's 
 what Dick stood for — Kencote, and the line, and all 
 that — something that was there before he was bom, 
 and will go on after he is dead.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't have thought much about that if Ronald 
 had been killed — ^not even if there hadn't been my 
 precious little son to succeed him.' 
 
 'No, that's just it. Women don't. It's all personal 
 with us. But men can put an idea first, and leave 
 themselves out of it.' 
 
 'Women too, Nancy. It's splendid how the women 
 are prepared to give up those they love for France, 
 here.' 
 
 'Yes, in a great cause; not in a little one Uke the 
 continuance of a family. Father has been rather fine 
 about that, too. Kencote has been his gospel up to 
 now, but fighting for England comes before all that. 
 He has never said a word of all I have been saying — about 
 Dick, I mean. It's only that I know he must feel it 
 in that way. He won't wear a sign of mourning, or let 
 mother.' 
 
 'It's the real noblesse oblige. It always has been 
 that with families Uke ours. I suppose it's the con- 
 dition. We have more than other people, but we mustn't 
 count it when the danger comes. It's ourselves we 
 must give.' 
 
 'We have, haven't we? You and I couldn't have 
 wanted to hold our men back. They went, and they 
 
240 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 have both suffered, and we have suffered, and now it's 
 over, for us. We can't do any more. But poor father 
 can't see it in that light. He has lost enormously, but 
 he must still go on tearing himself to pieces over it. 
 Oh, I do hope the poor old darling will learn to take 
 things easier, somehow, when we get to Switzerland. 
 He will be among the men who have gone through the 
 realities. I don't know how it will affect him, but I 
 can't help hoping it will make some difference. Joan, 
 darling, I must go to bed. I'm not sleepy, and I 
 should like to talk all night. But we shall be in the 
 train to-morrow night, and I must be as fresh as I 
 can when I meet my darling old John.' 
 
 HI 
 
 There was a ceremony to be witnessed at the Invalides 
 ihe next morning, for which Inverell had obtained places 
 of vantage for his party. Honours and decorations 
 were bestowed by the President of the Republic. The 
 band of the Garde Republicaine played in the great 
 square surrounded by the marshalled crowd imder the 
 bright June sky. One by one the men in horizon blue, 
 and some in khaki — ^for EngUsh soldiers were honoured 
 as well as French — came forward, were saluted and 
 decorated, and then retired. It was soon over. 
 
 The Squire was struck by the simplicity of the pro- 
 ceedings, and forbore to remark upon the fraternal kiss 
 with which each recipient was greeted. In pre-war 
 days he would probably had attributed this custom to 
 a lack of manly vigour on the part of the whole French 
 nation, and would certainly have commented upon 
 the President's tall hat, and the comparative absence 
 of military display, to which as a one-time officer of the 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 241 
 
 Household Troops he had been accustomed in similar 
 ceremonies in England. Now he saw more deeply. 
 'Every man in the nation who is fit for it is a fighting 
 soldier,' he said. 'And we've seen bow they can fight. 
 Why can't we call up aE our men, as they do, and have 
 done with it?' 
 
 Conscription was still being debated by Englishmen. 
 'I don't know that the fellows who haven't already 
 gone of their own accord will be worth much when 
 you get 'em,' said InvereU. 
 
 'Some won't,' said the Squire; "and when they find 
 it out they can put them to other jobs. Everybody 
 has got to do something, or we shall go under.' 
 
 The Investiture was early in the morning, and they 
 motored out to Versailles afterwards — Joan and Nancy 
 and the Squire. Joan thought that the drive through 
 the Bois and along the river would please him, as it 
 pleased Nancy. But though he had to some extent 
 overcome his prejudice against motoring as a means 
 of progression, which had persisted for years after 
 others hke himself had accepted it as a convenience, he 
 was not to be pleased by a mere outing. Petrol restric- 
 tions had not yet come into force, but he was ahead 
 of his time — ^which he had never been before in his 
 life — ^in scenting waste of money and material in 
 everything that was not devoted to the great object of 
 pushing on with the war. 
 
 Joan and Nancy exerted themselves to please him, 
 and he made his effort to respond. In the old days he 
 would have expressed himself with the utmost freedom 
 over anything that did not suit him. Even after their 
 marriages he had kept his Ucence of criticism. But that 
 loud confident domination had disappeared; he was 
 bewildered and troubled, with a growing sense of all 
 the world awry, and of his own impotence to set it 
 right. 
 
242 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 He was a damp upon his daughter's enjoyment, 
 but they felt the change in him to be so significant 
 that they could only show themselves soft and tender 
 with him. 
 
 On either side of the broad road leading into Versailles 
 there were lines of gray-painted army motor vehicles, 
 standing side by side, and extending for- an unbroken 
 mile at least. It was just one example of the incredible 
 mass of material needed to feed the machine of war, 
 and the Squire was struck by it. 'I suppose you'd see 
 something Uke this everywhere you went in France,' 
 he said. 'Ah, they may be light-headed and frivolous 
 and all that, but they've had those murderous brutes 
 over-running their country, and they'll work and 
 fight tUl they get rid of them. This brings it home to 
 you how near they still are.' 
 
 'And they have been so much nearer,' said Joan. 
 'I've met people who heard the guns from Paris.' 
 
 'Do us good to have heard the guns from London,' 
 he said. 'Nobody would have thought, before the 
 war, that the French would take things more seriously 
 than the English. But as far as I can judge, there's 
 more tomfoolery going on now in London than there 
 is in Paris.' 
 
 Perhaps the sight of so many motor vehicles used for 
 war purposes had reconciled him to sitting in one that 
 was being used for pleasure; or his sudden view of 
 Paris as threatened and sobered had cleared the air 
 for him. He was less moody and disturbed on the 
 drive back, and talked affectionately to Joan, of her 
 husband and children. 
 
 'Those innocent little souls!' he said. 'God grant 
 that it won't make a mark on their Uves. They're 
 young enough to be able to forget all the horrors, when 
 we get back to our proper life.' 
 
 'Yes, they have been sheltered,' Joan said. 'But 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 243 
 
 it's dreadful to think of the little children who have 
 known all the misery of it.' 
 
 'The women and children,' he said. 'It's worse 
 for them. Men like fighting — those that are worth 
 being called men; there's no getting over that. But 
 the women and the little children ! Ah 1 when you 
 can't do anything to protect them ! 
 
 He relapsed into his frowning, sombre mood. Joan 
 felt an immense lift of tenderness and pity towards 
 him — ^and of imderstanding. She had known him all 
 through her girlhood dominant over his womenkind, 
 expecting them to submit themselves unquestioningly 
 to his dispositions, and to content themselves within 
 the limited horizons which he thought good for them. 
 He had fussed and fumed and asserted outraged 
 authority whenever anything had happened that had 
 injured his sense of what was owing to himself. He 
 had seen himself as the little God of his home, and had 
 had no doubt, in subjecting those dependent on him 
 to his will, that it was right and the best thing for them 
 that they should live in that subjection. But this 
 consciousness of right had depended upon his power 
 to afford them the protection that was due to them from 
 him, and he had learnt by the bitter experience of the 
 war — ^the losses suffered by those dear to him, and still 
 more the shame and agony of thousands who had lain 
 at the mercy of the swinish foe — that the love of the 
 strongest and bravest of men was impotent to shield 
 the weak. 
 
 But a man who, in the Squire's view, was worthy 
 of the name of man, "could at least fight to hft the 
 menace of such horrors. Yes, if he was of an age to 
 express his manhood in that way. For himself, his 
 'fighting days were over.' He must leave that to 
 others, and take his own place with the women and 
 children for whom strong men went out to do battle. 
 
244 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Joan had often heard him use the easy phrase in the 
 early days, when the adventure of going out to fight 
 was uppermost, and the shame and misery of war had 
 .not yet bitten into the spirit. He used it no longer, 
 but she saw in a flash of insight that it was because the 
 bitter actualities had seized him, hot because he felt 
 less poignantly the impotence of his own age. It did 
 not matter now that one old man could not do the work 
 of a young one. What did matter was that the cloud 
 of horror was not yet lifted, and the weak and helpless 
 lay under it. 
 
 'I think we EngUsh women are more fortunate than 
 others, father dear,' Joan said, gently. 'We give our 
 men to fight, and it's dreadful for us if we lose them; 
 but they know that we are safe. Those who can't 
 fight any longer are looking after us, and they can 
 think of us in our homes, which they can come back 
 to when it's all over.' 
 
 He smiled at her kindly, with an obvious effort to 
 throw off his dark thoughts. 'Keep the home fires 
 burning, eh?' he said. 'That's what tlie troops sing, 
 and it's a good song for them to sing. Yes, it's for us 
 who can't come out here and take our part to do that. 
 I wish I thought we all saw it enough, as a nation.' 
 
 He looked about him after that, praised the Bois, 
 and the Champs Elys^es, and allowed himself a pro- 
 phetic vision of victorious troops marching under the 
 Arc de Triomphe down the long hill. 'It is a line 
 city,' he said. 'Thank God they were kept out of it.' 
 
 Inverell met them for lunch at the 'Ambassadeurs.' 
 They lunched outside, in the happy sparkling atmo- 
 sphere of Paris in June, just as they might have done 
 in normal times. There was the same gay chatter of 
 the rich, apparently careless, weU-dressed crowd, the 
 same under-current of concentration over the business 
 of serving the most expensive wines and viands, the 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 245 
 
 same profusion of supply and demand. Food restric- 
 tions had not yet begun to affect life either in France 
 or England, but it seemed a shocking thing to the 
 Squire that eating and drinking to this extravagant 
 extent should occupy the attention of anybody at 
 such a time. 
 
 He did his best to keep his strong disapproval to 
 himself, but he was not good at that at any time, and 
 Joan regretted that she had arranged this luncheon 
 at a restaurant, which she had thought would amuse 
 him and Nancy. 
 
 He would not have objected to exactly the same meal 
 served in her apartment. He would have eaten and 
 drunk whatever had been set before him, and enjoyed 
 it, in spite of his always strongly expressed preference 
 for EngHsh food and English cooking. The wine he 
 might have noticed and commented upon, because he 
 knew about wines, and because you pleased your host 
 by approving of his taste in them. But this ordering 
 of your meal in public, in consultation with your guests, 
 with a mattre d'hotel standing at your elbpw and booking 
 your orders, not without advice of his own, struck him 
 as very like taking part in a mistress's consultation 
 with her servants — almost an indecency. The restaurant 
 habit was, in fact, entirely unknown to him. In his 
 expansive youth it had been unheard of. The nearest 
 he had ever come to it had been in giving luncheons or 
 dinners at one of his clubs — ^meals as elaborate as this 
 and as carefully arranged, but arranged beforehand, 
 so that the guests should get the right flavour of 
 hospitality, and accept the good things set before them 
 as they would have accepted them at his own table. 
 Neither Joan nor Nancy divined that half his dis- 
 pleasure, which he could not hide, was at being obliged, 
 under Inverell's hospitable pressmre, to express his 
 preference for this or that luxury, with the price of it 
 
246 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 staring him in the face on the menu, when indulgence 
 in any sort of luxury was so far from his mood. 
 
 "The poor old boy is very dif&cult to please,' said 
 Inverell to his wife afterwards. 'He seems to have 
 the impression that we're spending our money on 
 riotous living, when we're rccJly saving it hand over 
 fist.' 
 
 That was, in fact, the impression that the Squire 
 carried away from his visit to his daughter and son- 
 in-law, though he would have been surprised to learn 
 that he had made it so apparent. 
 
 'Poor old darling, I'm so frightfully sorry for him,' 
 Joan said. 'He can't have very much longer to live, 
 and the end of his hfe must be very sad in any case. 
 If only he could make the best of it for himself ! ' 
 
 'He'd be making the best of it for everybody else,' 
 added Inverell. 'Still, I suppose that sort of spirit is 
 wanted, or we shouldn't be able to carry it through to 
 the end. I admire him for it, you know. Even if he's 
 rather a nuisance to other people, he doesn't spare 
 himself.' 
 
 IV 
 
 Nancy slept fitfully during the night in the train, but 
 except for her wish to look her best when she met her 
 husband, she did not want to sleep. She was too happy, 
 hugging her expectations. 
 
 Nearly two long years it was since he had said good- 
 bye to her in those first high-hearted days of the war, 
 which had so soon been followed by days of sickening 
 alarm, of anxiety, and then of troubled and seemingly 
 endless monotony. In the censored letters she had 
 received from him he had made light of his wounds, 
 which had been in the arm and shoulder, and, according 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 247 
 
 to his statements, long since healed. He had ceased 
 for some time to refer to them at all. She had felt very 
 doubtful on this account of his being allowed out of 
 Germany with the others, who had received such 
 damage that they might cis well be let go as be kept. 
 When the glad news had come that he had been finally 
 passed for internment in Switzerland the first irradiation 
 of joy had been dimmed by the fear that he must be 
 worse than he had admitted to her. ' 
 
 But she had heard from him since. His arm — for- 
 tunately it was his left arm — ^was quite stiff at the 
 elbow, and his shoulder joint was not of much use to 
 him. He was, in fact, more permanently crippled than 
 many of those who had been let out, though in other 
 respects he was well. He had kept the extent of his 
 disablement from her, but assured her that he had 
 become used to it, and it scarcely worried him at all. 
 He would still be able to put his arm round her waist, 
 if she happened to be on that side" of him, although 
 he would always have to use his right hand if he wanted 
 to brush a fly off his nose. He could not Uft the other 
 more than a few inches. But what did that or anything 
 else matter, since he was going to see her so soon 
 again? She wasn't to worry about it at all. 
 
 Poor dear old John, making light of everything that 
 might distress her for his sake — ^it was what he had 
 always been to her — strong and cheerful and loving, 
 but dependent on her too, and drawing much of the 
 strength that she rested in from her trust in him. He 
 was a good many years older than she, but she had 
 for him that maternal feeUng which is so beautiful a 
 factor in married love. He was a man of large property, 
 who admirably fulfilled his duties as a landowner, with 
 all their responsibilities of leadership. He was the 
 acknowledged and respected head of his house. The 
 men of his regiment had looked up to him. He was 
 
248 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 a man of action, courage, and decision, expert in the 
 pursuits which make demand on such qualities, and 
 physically fitted for them. A man among men, but to 
 her a great, simple, loving child, who greatly revered 
 her higher intellectual -equipment, and leant upon her 
 to supplement qualities which she loved and admired 
 in him in return. 
 
 She had wept tears afresh when shje had first learnt 
 of the extent of his disablement. The pain was over 
 for him; he had adapted himself, he had assured her 
 earnestly, to the alteration in his state, which left by 
 far the greater part of his physical powers intact. He 
 was more fortunate than others, with limbs lopped, 
 sight or speech or hearing ruined, bodily organs 
 affected in such a way as to alter the whole course of 
 life for them, and reduce them in the hey-dey of their 
 strength and vigour tq permanent invalidism. But he 
 was hers, and she felt acutely for his sake the disabihties 
 of which he had made so light. He would be able to 
 hunt, he said; the stiff arm had lost little in muscular 
 power. But hunting had been only a secondary amuse- 
 ment with him, especially since he had grown older and 
 heavier. He was a very fine shot, and his preserves 
 were famous. He had said nothing about shooting, 
 which was significant enough in itself; and if he could 
 scarcely move his arm from the shoulder he would not 
 be able to shoot, or else he must learn to do so with 
 a light single-handed gun. 
 
 An,d she had always loved to hear him strumming on 
 a piano, for which he had small aptitude but a great 
 Uking. He loved music, and good music too, with 
 child-like, uncritical enthusiasm. 'I say, old girl isn't 
 this joUy? I haven't got it quite right yet, but if I 
 mug at it a bit more I believe it will sound something 
 like it.' She would find him sitting at the grand piano 
 in the great drawing-room — ^for he preferred that piano 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 249 
 
 to any other in the house — laboriously spelling through 
 a page of the Meistersinger, or a slow movement from a 
 Beethoven Sonata — a. large, tweed-suited, incongruous 
 figure in such surroundings of state, but a much to 
 be loved and cherished one, for the clean simplicity of 
 his nature. He would not be able to play the piano 
 any more, which some wives, considering the nature of 
 his performances, might have been glad of — ^but not 
 Nancy. 
 
 Small things these ! — since he was alive where so 
 many were dead, and well, and she was going to him. 
 But it was their part — ^appreciable enough — of the 
 remorseless payment now being exacted from the blood 
 and brains and sinew of the civilised world. What 
 that payment was in its appalling sum no human brain 
 could grasp; but it could be gauged in some quite 
 inadequate degree from the personal incidence of it. 
 
 There was Ronald Inverell, a cripple for life — ^making 
 the cheerful best of it, adapting himself with youthful 
 zest and spirit to the big things that were }eft him to 
 do and to enjoy, but, when aJl was said and done, a 
 cripple for hfe. There was the only son of their old 
 Rector, at home in Yorkshire, a young painter of extra- 
 ordinary gifts, whose career his friends had been 
 watching with the keenest interest — blind. There was 
 one of their tenant farmers, back from the war, treading 
 his fields again, going to market, making money, 
 strong and active and still young, but with his mouth 
 twisted and deformed, so that he could speak with 
 difficulty and must eat alone. His child, who had 
 adored him, had cried out in terror of his greeting, 
 when he had come home — cured. 
 
 These were the incidents of the widespread agony 
 
 hat Had come home to Nancy personally — with the 
 
 perhaps merciful deaths which had brought sorrow to 
 
 her and to those dear to her. They opened for her 
 
 T.C. R 
 
250 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 windows to a world groaning in pain and trouble, a 
 world darkened and stricken. It frightened her when 
 she thought of it, and made her ask herself if she had 
 the right to give herself up to the unrestrained joy of 
 what was coming back to her, since to thousands there 
 could be no such relief of their pain. She knew that 
 her father, with an imagination never hitherto greatly 
 stirred by events that touched him not personally, was 
 bowed down by the weight of it; that the continual 
 sight of the men who were being nursed back to what- 
 ever of health or vigour was left to them, in the house 
 in which he had Hved all the years of his richly endowed 
 life, was weighing on his brain, like a long evil dream 
 from which he could not shake himself awake; that 
 he did grasp, more than most, the limitless ruin of 
 which the examples that came under his own eyes were 
 so small and yet so terrible a part. It was with him 
 night and day, and blinded his eyes to what was left 
 of the life that he had always known. 
 
 And yet there was so much of that life still left, in 
 spite of the hugeness of the catastrophe, which had 
 drawn in more of the rank and file of humanity than 
 had ever before been entangled in the net of war. It 
 could not be wrong for her, who had borne her share 
 of the suffering, to rejoice in the restoration that had 
 been made to her. It would not make her less tender 
 towards those whose los^ and suffering had been, or 
 would be, greater than hers. She and her husband had 
 met the claims that had been made upon them. So 
 had her father. If only he could be content with what 
 he had done, and what he still might do as part of the 
 great machine, and throw off from his already heavily- 
 bowed shoulders burdens which no anxious effort of 
 his could lighten ! 
 
 Perhaps his troubled mind would be eased when he 
 had been for a time out of his groove, and among 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 251 
 
 those whose heavy payment had already been made — 
 those who must now be rejoicing in their new-found 
 hberty, and would want to forget the horrors. For 
 herself and her dear man she knew that some degree of 
 forgetfulness must be encouraged. The time for solace 
 and happiness had come for them, as it had come 
 months ago for Joan and Ronald, if not yet for count- 
 less others. She was quietly happy when she fell 
 asleep as the sun was rising over the eastern woods and 
 fields of France. 
 
 She had seemed scarcely to have faJlen asleep when 
 they were aroused for passport examination at the 
 frontier station. Thanks to the diplomatic recommen- 
 dations obtained for them by Inverell, they were the 
 first to be served. It would have been easy enough 
 for the Squire to have gained some such facilities foi 
 their journey from London to Paris, but he had refused 
 to bestir himself. It was quite right to discourage 
 traveUing among those whose journeys had nothing to 
 do with the carrjdng on of the war. Why should an 
 old man and a young woman whose object was a 
 personal one have things made easier for them than 
 others? This new-found modesty showed a surprising 
 change in him. Before the war he would have con- 
 sidered any such priority that could have been arranged 
 for him only his due. He was of the ruling classes, 
 which naturally take precedence of the imdistinguished 
 crowd. But long waits at the British and French ports, 
 in company with the undistinguished crowd, whUe 
 many not so self-obUterating as himself, and certainly 
 not more deserving of consideration, had preceded 
 him, had softened his objection to taking personal 
 advantage. Inverell had obtained ambassadorial 
 courtesies for him as a matter of course, and he had 
 not refused them. 
 
 So he and Nancy were not obliged to spend an hour 
 
252 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 or more wedged upright in a cosmopolitan mass before 
 their turn came, but could take the limited freedom of 
 the station platform until the train was ready to go 
 on again. 
 
 Nancy thought that her father was more his old self, 
 as they paced up and down together, in the freshness 
 of the very early summer morning. Perhaps the 
 deference with which they had just now been treated 
 — ushered straight into the booth where the French 
 and Swiss authorities sat to examine into credentials, 
 while the rest of their fellow passengers waited patiently 
 for admission one by one outside — ^had restored some- 
 thing of his old relief in his own importance. Or perhaps 
 it was this formal and not to be ignored entry into a 
 country spared the stark horrors, though not the 
 disturbances, of European war, that had heightened 
 his spirits. He was certainly more cheerful than he 
 had been in the earlier stages of their journey, and 
 even inclined to be a little interested in his novel 
 surroundings. 
 
 As for Nancy herself, the air she breathed, the ground 
 she trod, spoke of freedom and of renewed happiness. 
 Her husband's imprisonment in an enemy country had 
 weighed daily and hourly on her spirits, almost as if 
 she had been in prison herself. Switzerland, the little 
 land that hugged its neutrality, though completely 
 surrounded by great nations at war, was like a refuge, 
 protected by more than its ring of iron. The summer 
 breeze that blew from its mountains was the breath of 
 safety and freedom. A new sense of security mixed 
 itself with the happiness that she had felt ever since 
 she had known that she could go to her husband. The 
 sun that was shining down on them both would not 
 set again until they had come together, with the long 
 parting at an end, and nothing to separate them again. 
 
 'With all this fuss made over going from one country 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 253 
 
 to another,' said the Squire, 'it's a wonder people 
 aren't content to stay in their own — at least when it's 
 a country Uke England.' 
 
 'There was no fuss before the war,' said Nancy. 
 'John and I went through France and Switzerland 
 when we went to Italy, and didn't know when we 
 went out of one country into another.' 
 
 'People used to have passports when I was a young 
 fellow,' said the Squire. 'I used to hear them talking 
 about them, and always asked why they couldn't be 
 content to stay where they were.' 
 
 'I don't think they had to have them, did they? 
 It was just for in case they might find themselves in 
 some difficulty. And they wouldn't have been examined 
 like this at the frontiers.' 
 
 'Ah, I dare say,' said the Squire, who did not like 
 to show himself ignorant upon any subject, even upon 
 that of foreign travel. 'I suppose there has never 
 been a time within living memory when people have 
 had to keep themselves so much to their own countries. 
 Good thing too, in my opinion. If we had kept the 
 foreigners out of England more, we might not have 
 had all this trouble.' 
 
 It was a return to his old habits of mind and of 
 speech. Foreigners were foreigners, whether they were 
 French or Germans or Russians, and England was 
 England, with old-estabUshed weU-proved ways whibh 
 foreigners could only contaminate. The point of view 
 was a good deal less enlightened than that to which 
 he had been brought, of certain foreigners impelled by 
 the same love of justice and liberty as the English, 
 fighting as bravely as they agairist certain other 
 foreigners antagonistic to those ideals. But general 
 enlightenment was less to be desired in the Squire than 
 the clearing up of the trouble that affected him per- 
 sonally. It gave Nancy an odd sense of pleasure to 
 
254 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 find his old prejudice peeping out. 'We shall be among 
 English people almost entirely here,' she said. 'And 
 it win all be over some day, and we shall live in peace 
 again in our dear old England.' 
 
 'I hope I shall live to see that day/ said the Squire. 
 'If we all do our duty as the men who we are going to 
 see have done theirs, I'm sure I shall.' 
 
 They had another long wait at another station, where 
 luggage was examined by the Customs. The credentials 
 held by our travellers were such as to spare them trouble 
 even over this, and the Squire rather ungratefully 
 remarked that all the Customs regulations seemed to 
 be a pack of nonsense. 
 
 Then they travelled on, with frequent stoppages, 
 for an hour or two longer, and the Squire showed 
 interest, as an agriculturist, in what he could see from 
 the windows of their carriage, but forbore to disturb 
 Nancy, who slept peacefully in her corner, with a 
 smile on her lips. 
 
 There were about three hundred interned prisoners 
 of war — of&ceri and men — ^in the Alpine resort to 
 which our travellers came that afternoon. Some of 
 the big hotels which had stood empty since the out- 
 break of the war, were occupied by the men, and the^ 
 offtcers were scattered over other hotels and pensions. 
 Some of them, in preparation for wives and families 
 from England, had rented chalets or flats. John Spence 
 had taken a chalet, where he and Nancy could live 
 as near an approach to their home life as was possible 
 under the circumstances. The chalet was of a fair size, 
 and was comfortably furnished. It had a glorious view 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 255 
 
 of snow-capped mountains over a wide, grassy valley, 
 now bright with summer flowers. 
 
 The Squire, dressing for dinner, allowed himself to 
 Unger at his open window, and felt something of that 
 fresh pleasure in a new and beautiful scene from which 
 his prejudice against departing from the dear famiUar 
 had hitherto debarred him. Scenery, considered as 
 scenery, without reference to its adaptability to pastoral 
 or agricultural pursuits, or to some kind of sport, had 
 never meant much to him — not even EngUsh scenery, 
 which, not having known any other, he would stoutly 
 have maintained to be the best in the world. 
 
 But the scenery of Switzerland engages the simple 
 mind. It has the right mixture of grandeur and 
 prettiness; it is brightly coloured and definitely pre- 
 sented. It is also well advertised, and the example 
 before him made something of the same impression 
 upon the Squire as the first sight of a masterpiece of 
 painting, known hitherto only through engravings or 
 photographs, might make upon a more ductile mind. 
 He recognised it with approval, as something that people 
 who cared for that sort of thing might be rather pleased 
 to have the opportunity of seeing, and felt himself a 
 travelled man as he contrasted it, not altogether to its 
 detriment, with the scenes upon which his eyes had 
 been accustomed to rest during the more than seventy 
 years of his life. 
 
 There was, indeed, a heightened meaning just now, 
 in its facile beauty, which he was as capable of reading 
 as another. That wide, flower-decked valley, scattered 
 over with the little chalets that spoke of its peaceful 
 occupation, bounded by mountains beyond which were 
 other stretches of rich grass-lands, given over to those 
 pursuits which he judged to be among the most natural 
 for mankind in its normal state — ^what must it mean, 
 with the free winds of heaven blowing over it, to the 
 
256 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 men who had lived for many months, sick and wounded, 
 in a German prison camp? To the Squire himself, 
 oppressed more than he knew by the monotony that 
 he had imposed upon his own life in England, there 
 was a grateful sense of having come out into a more 
 spacious more hopeful atmosphere. To these men, 
 released from confinement in many cases hard and cruel, 
 in all cases painful, it must be like heaven. It would 
 be enough for the most active, surely, to sit still and 
 watch the cloud shadows pass over the grass and flowers, 
 and the colours of the mountains change, as the setting 
 sun touched them now here, now there; to know that 
 they would wake on the morrow to the same fair scene, 
 and that the memory of their brutal oppressors, and the 
 pains and humiliations they had undergone, would 
 gradually fade from their minds. 
 
 John Spence had engaged a couple of Swiss maids, 
 who, with a soldier servant from among the interned, 
 would suffice for their modest estabUshment. There 
 was a little dinner party that night, of themselves and 
 three of the men who had come out of Germany. They 
 were a lively, talkative party, even the Squire yielding 
 himself to the general atmosphere of emancipation and 
 happiness. Nancy, at the head of the table, facing 
 her husband, who, except for his khaki and his nearly 
 useless arm, looked much the same as he had looked 
 facing her at home, felt a sense of unreality continually 
 stealing over her. The little Swiss room, clean and 
 bright, with its unpainted wooden walls, its window 
 open to the evening breeze, and the sinking sun which 
 dyed the mountains in soft hues of rose and daffodil 
 and misty blue; the meadow flowers on the table; the 
 Swiss maid serving unaccustomed food — ^it was surely 
 the opening scene of some pleasant hoUday, and the 
 guests who were sitting there happy and at ease were 
 the participants in it, with herself and her husband. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 257 
 
 There was no shadow over their pleasure apparent from 
 the past, and none at present from the future. 
 
 Well, it would be that as long as they cared to make 
 it so, and left out of account what was going on out- 
 side this pool of calm in the midst of the whirlpool of 
 war; also that the holiday might be prolonged far 
 beyond the time when this pretty chalet would content 
 them for a home. For her husband, at least, was still 
 in reali y a prisoner, though the bounds of his prison 
 had been so gloriously enlarged. 'Stone walls do not 
 a, prison make;' but the converse of this is also true : 
 that the fairest scene in which there is only limited 
 freedom may come to wear the aspect of one. She 
 might come and go, but he would have to stay here. 
 
 But the time for such thoughts had not yet come. 
 The peace and the freedom were absolute, and made 
 themselves felt. Nancy, would have liked to have her 
 dear John to herself on this first evening, but with her 
 father there they could not have been alone in any 
 case, and she knew how intensely her husband was 
 aware of her all the time he was talking to his guests, 
 and behaving much as it they had all been seated 
 round his table at home. 
 
 John's disabled arm worried her more than it seemed 
 to worry him, but she was already getting used to it. 
 He was the only one of the four whose damage was 
 apparent as they sat at table. One of them had u ed 
 a crutch to walk with, the other two were, in appear- 
 ance, whole and sound. The man on John's right, who 
 had been in the same prison camp as he, cut up his 
 food for him, and the attention was accepted as a 
 matter of covuse. The man with the unhealed leg was 
 given a hassock on which he could stretch it, and its 
 whereabouts under the 1 table was carefuUy noted so 
 that those sitting opposite to him should not knock 
 against it. Wounds and the heaUng of wounds were a 
 
258 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 part of their lives, to be talked about with interest, but 
 with absence of emotion. They talked about them now 
 chiefly in the light of what might further be done for 
 them by Swiss doctors. John was to have regular 
 massage of his shoulder, and hoped to gain great benefit 
 from it. He thought he could already raise his arm a 
 fraction of an inch higher, after one rubbing. Others 
 who had come out with them were to have treatment 
 at the hands of the best surgeons in Switzerland, than 
 whom there are none better. They talked of it all 
 naturally and hopefully; but it was no more than an 
 added topic of conversation. They were not like men 
 making the best of a bad job. They had accepted their 
 disablements. If they could be lessened, so much the 
 better; if not, there was plenty left, for all of them. 
 The huge catastrophe of death and ruin that was 
 surging through the world was being met by a,n opposing 
 wave of life, strong and urgent to heal and to cover 
 up the ruin. These wounded men, released from the 
 greater trouble, were on the crest of it. They did not 
 want to dwell upon what could not be restored. They 
 did not want sympathy, except from those dear to 
 them, still less pity. What they wanted was to feel 
 themselves again in the warm current of everyday life, 
 men like other men, with power to take and to 
 enjoy. 
 
 The Squire had been prepared at the beginning of 
 the war to look upon the Germans as honourable foes, 
 who would play the game of war according to its time- 
 honoured rules, and need not be hated because they 
 played it against us. But he had long since come to 
 regard them as dehumanised brutes, vile and cruel and 
 cowardly to a man. He had often clenched his fist in 
 impotent anger over their crimes against humanity, 
 which must perforce go unpunished until the day of 
 reckoning, when vengeance should be exacted to the 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 259 
 
 uttermost. And especially with regard to their treat- 
 ment of prisoners he had felt this smouldering rage. 
 Hb had come to Switzerland expectant of fuel to feed 
 it; and fuel there was in some of the things he heard 
 over his son-in-law's dinner-table. 
 
 But German brutality was not what these men wanted 
 to talk about. Brutality towards any of themselves 
 they would not talk about at all, though the Squire 
 learned that one of them had suffered the cruelest 
 indignities. It was not only that they wanted to forget 
 what they hfa.d suffered. There emerged from their talk 
 a vision of the undaunted British spirit, triumphant 
 even when the balance was weighed against it by aU 
 the power and none of the mercy. To treat of the 
 Boche as a hated oppressor, with whom some day they 
 would get even, was to give him too much value. He 
 emerged as something in the mass brutal and stupid, 
 but also as some hing contemptible — a being without 
 humour and without real dignity, in spite of his drilled 
 conceit, whose bullying spirit could be reduced in the 
 long run by the finer spirit of self-respecting manhood. 
 
 They could afford to laugh at him, and did laugh 
 at him, especially over stories which showed the irre- 
 pressible spirit of the rank and file of their fellow 
 prisoners. 
 
 It was the lighter side of everything they looked at 
 in those first happy days of freedom. The Squire 
 gained his impressions, but found little echo of his 
 own deep-seated sense of rage. It was there, under 
 the surface, but because they had been subjected to 
 the outrage, to be hidden from the world. They were 
 scrupulously fair, too. Any kindness, any decency of 
 treatment even, was acknowledged. The Boche was 
 human here and there. 
 
 The Squire went to bed rather puzzled. It pleased 
 him to think of these English gentlemen having borne 
 
26o THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 themselves after the manner of their kind, and so little 
 broken by their bitter experience that one could scarcely 
 have divined that they had been through it. But*it 
 would not do for all the world to treat the misdeeds of 
 the blackguardly enemy as lightly as they did. He 
 must be made to pay, and to pay to the last farthing. 
 
 VI 
 
 The village of Montex, where the released prisoners 
 were interned, wsis an old-established pleasure resort of 
 the quieter kind. Travellers had come by diligence to 
 its modest hotels long before the days of holiday rush, 
 to enjoy themselves among its pastures and mountain 
 woods. The peasants of the country prospered from 
 their cheese-making and the cutting of their timber. 
 Visitors came for a few months in the summer, and for 
 the rest of the year they lived the pastoral life that 
 had gone on for centuries, and missed them not at all. 
 Then came the discovery of Switzerland as a winter 
 resort, and Montex had its second season for skating, 
 ski-ing, and lugeing. A few hotels were built, an 
 English church, residential chalets, and modest blocks 
 of flats. There were permanei^it residents, many of 
 whom were English, and the hotels and pensions filled 
 up twice a year, for some weeks in the summer and 
 some weeks in the winter. But the life of the valley 
 went on unchanged, and little affected by the growth 
 of the town. 
 
 At the outbreak of the war, just when the summer 
 holiday season was beginning, Montex emptied as if by 
 magic. A few of the foreign residents remained, and 
 one or more of the hotels was opened for a week or 
 two now and then; but for nearly two years the place 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 261 
 
 had reverted almost to its former state of a purely 
 Swiss pastoral community. 
 
 Now all that was altered. Soldiers in khaki were 
 more in evidence in Montex than the peasants in their 
 blue blouses; the hotels and pensions not given over 
 to the soldiers were filling up with the relations of 
 of&cers from England or with visitors from other parts 
 of Switzerland, attracted here by the revivified English 
 atmosphere; the empty chalets and fiats were rapidly 
 being let. 
 
 Life, indeed, was flowing freely again in Montex, and 
 in much the same holiday currents as in the days of 
 peace. The lawn tennis courts and the gardens round 
 them were crowded, morning, afternoon, and evening. 
 There were tea parties and bridge parties and dances. 
 The younger officers acquired dogs and pony-carts; 
 the demand for saddle horses excited the fanners for 
 miles around. In the early days of interment British 
 officers had no duties among the men, who were under 
 the Swiss Military authorities. They had nothing to 
 do but to amuse themselves, and to get well. Getting 
 well took up a good deal of time and attention from 
 day to day. Otherwise, making holiday was the sole 
 occupation of the majority, and considering the experi- 
 ences they had gone through, could be looked upon 
 almost as a duty in itself. It was part of the getting 
 well, in mind as in body. 
 
 It was many years since the Squire had taken what 
 could definitely be called a holiday. There were those 
 who might have said that his whole life was a holiday, 
 considering that he did what suited him best in sur- 
 roundings more congenial than any others, and whatever 
 his days contained of work made no great demands 
 upon him. For years past he had seldom slept away 
 from Kencote. Since the marriages of the twins, five 
 and six years before, he had stayed twice with the 
 
262 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Inverells to shoot grouse and once with the Spences to 
 shoot pheasants, and each time, though he had enjoyed 
 himself, he had been glad to get home. He had paid 
 no other visits during those years, and if he had run 
 up to London occasionally it had always been on the 
 pretext of business, and he had been still more glad 
 to get home. 
 
 But this hoUday was necessary for him. His Ufe 
 for the last two years had been far more full of affairs 
 than it had ever been, and any sort of change and rest 
 would have done him good. He pottered about with 
 John and Nancy, and with the friends and acquaintances 
 he had made. He went to more houses in a week than 
 he had previously visited in ten years. He would sit 
 in the tennis pavilion watching the play and talking in 
 his loud, confident voice — ^but neither so loud nor so 
 confident as it had been — ^to any one whom he met 
 there, but mostly to men. He was a figure in the place, ■ 
 older than any one of the EngUsh group, and of more 
 social importance than most. 
 
 He was greatly interested in the talk he heard, and 
 the men who had come out of prison were interested in 
 his talk. For their news from home had been scarce, 
 and any one who could tell them of what had happened 
 in England while they had been shut up in Germany was 
 a godsend. The Squire told them a good deal, but 
 unfortunately left them with the impression that what 
 had happened in England redounded Uttle to the credit 
 of his country, which was not the general impression 
 that he wished to convey. Allowances, however, were 
 easily made for this. His tj^e was too recognisable 
 for possibility of error as to where he stood. When 
 a cosmopolitan Englishman married to a Belgian wife 
 advanced some opinion that belittled the effort of 
 England, he flared up at once in his country's defence, 
 as he might have been expected to do. The grumblings 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 263 
 
 were only for home consumption, and Montex,' in the 
 occupation of its British guests, was a bit of home. 
 
 But after a week of lotus-eating, at the end of which 
 he had regained the health which he would have said 
 he had never lost, the absence of definite occupation 
 began, as the French would say, to tap upon his system. 
 As far as he was concerned, this was not getting on 
 with the war. 
 
 John Spence and Nancy were sitting together one 
 evening on the veranda of their chalet watching the 
 moon rise behind the mountains. The Squire was 
 writing letters indoors, and they were out of hearing 
 of him. They were never tired of being alone. Her 
 hand was in his as they talked, and her head often 
 rested against his shoulder. 
 
 They had been talking of their children, whom he had 
 not seen for two years. They had already discussed 
 whether it would not be possible to bring the three of 
 them out. But the eldest was only five, and the 
 youngest had been an infant in arms at the outbreak 
 of the war. It would be a big business to bring them 
 all across Europe under present conditions of travelling. 
 The idea of it, for that and other reasons, had reluc- 
 tantly been given up. Nancy was to stay with him for 
 a couple of months, and then return to England. She 
 was to come back after Christmas, if the war lasted 
 so long. But at that time the opinion was that peace 
 would be in sight before the winter. Much was expected 
 from the British offensive which was about to begin 
 on the Somme. 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't know what I shall do without you,' 
 John said. 'We'll hope that by the time you go away 
 we shall know something of what's likely to happen. 
 If not, I can stick it until you come out again, though 
 what I shall do with myself, I don't know. Learn 
 French, perhaps.' 
 
264 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'I wish I could stay with you all the time, darling,' 
 said Nancy, ' or have the children out here. We should 
 all be happy enough. But I suppose I can't.' 
 
 'Oh, no. We've settled that. I feel sort of hungry 
 for the kiddies; but it's best for them to be at home. 
 And you mustn't stay away from them too long. We'll 
 make the best of our time here together. After all, 
 it's the best time we've had since we've been married. 
 There are heaps of people not so lucky as we are.' 
 
 'One has always to be thinking of that — ^how lucky 
 we are really. Tliis is a lovely place. We can be very' 
 happy here. But I'm afraid you won't be so pleased 
 with it, darling, when the summer is over, and you 
 have to stay on aU alone.' 
 
 'Don't suppose I shall. But we won't 'poil it by 
 looking too far ahead. Doesn't pay to do that in 
 these days. Take what you can get and be thankful 
 for it. It's doing the old boy good, I think, being here. 
 He's worlds better already.' 
 
 ' Poor old Daddy ! If you'd seen him before he came 
 here ! Has he talked to you about Dick yet ? ' 
 
 'Not a word. And you said I wasn't to mention his 
 name till he did.' 
 
 She squeezed his big hand. 'I want you to tell him 
 what you told me,' she said. 'But I'm sure it will be 
 best to wait till he asks you. He, knows you were with 
 him when he died, from your letter. He is sure to want 
 to know more. He will give you an opportunity of 
 telling him when he's ready for it. I don't think he is 
 yet, though I believe he has begun to recover himself. 
 
 When Nancy went up to bed, the Squire came out 
 and sat on the veranda, and smoked a cigar. Usually 
 he allowed himself only one after dinner, and went to 
 bed soon after ten o'clock. As he grew older his hours 
 of sleep reduced themselves, but he could always sleep 
 early in the night. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 265 
 
 He sat for some time in silence, watching the moon, 
 which had swung clear of the mountains, the quiet 
 valley whose shadows were streaked by its beams, and 
 the lights of the village beneath them. ' It's a peaceful 
 spot, this,' he said. 'Not difficult to forget something 
 of what is going on, shut up here.' 
 
 He was not wont to show himself affected by his 
 surroundings in this way. Healing thoughts seemed to 
 be coming to him. Perhaps, under the influence of 
 the calm night he was feeling after some word of his 
 son, ready now to receive it. 
 
 John hoped it might be so. 'Best to forget as much 
 as you can, when you've done aU you can,' he said 
 quietly. 'There's a lot you want to remember, though.' 
 
 ' Seems to me that's going to be the trouble in this 
 place,' said the Squire. 'All of you want to get well 
 again. Nobody wants to hurry that. But we're not 
 nearly through with it yet. Won't do for anybody to 
 forget what still has to be done.' 
 
 John was disappointed. Had he been climisy in 
 what he had said, and pushed away a confidence? He 
 was diffident about his own tact, though it was that 
 of a true and siniple nature, and would never lead him 
 far wrong. 
 
 'Of course, for all of you,' the Squire went on, 
 "nothing cOuld be better than this — for a time.' 
 
 'Getting back to England would be better,' said 
 John. 
 
 'Oh, yes. But that can't be, and you're next best 
 off here. But I'm afraid you'll get sick to death of 
 it after a bit, and I very much doubt whether it will 
 be a good thing for the men to be kicking their heels 
 in idleness. Still, that will all work itself out in time. 
 Got to get well first, and no harm in amusing yourself 
 as much as you can in a place like this in the mean- 
 time. But all these people who have collected here — 
 T.c. s 
 
266 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 I'm not so sure about them. There are certainly a 
 good many who could do something if they wanted to.' 
 
 'A few might. I don't think there are very many. 
 Women chiefly, and men over military age.' 
 
 'Well, what's all this pack of women doing here?' 
 The Squire was now fairly launched. 'Seems to me 
 a lot of them are here for the sake of picking up 
 husbands — ^if not for themselves, for their daughters. 
 Anyhow, they're mostly here to amuse themselves. 
 Makes you open your eyes to see how many people 
 there are still who can't take the thing seriously. It 
 was the same in Paris. I'm precious glad Ronald 
 Inverell is through with his troubles. Of course he's 
 doing something. But — oh, well, I wasn't quite satisfied 
 with the way he and Joan are taking things. And it's 
 the same everywhere you go.' 
 
 John Spence felt a tired droop of spirit. During 
 the long months of his imprisonment he and the older 
 men who had been with him had had the progress of 
 the war terribly on their minds. Since he had been 
 in Switzerland he seemed to himself almost to have 
 lost interest in it. He was, in fact, convalescing, in 
 spirit as well as in body. He was not yet ready to take 
 up the mental burden again, but neither was he com- 
 fortable in being made to think that he didn't much 
 care how the war went for the time being, except in 
 so far as it affected himself. As for Ronald Inverell, 
 surely he had earned the right to enjoy his life again ! 
 He would bear the marks of it all his days; and he 
 was 'doing something,' which it was to be supposed had 
 to be done by somebody. 
 
 He said Uttle as the Squire talked on. What was 
 plain from his talk was that he himself was coming to 
 the end of the time when he could benefit from a Ufe 
 of idleness; but he probably did not recognise this as 
 coimting in the dissatisfaction he expfessed. ^ His 
 
THE SQtJmfi AND ttm WAft 267 
 
 approval of a round of mild gaieties as helping the 
 interned to recover themselves was not entirely un- 
 grudging. It became strong disapproval when he 
 adverted on those who had seized upon it without such 
 an excuse. Fiddling while Rome was burning — that 
 was the burden of his charge against the Ufe imme- 
 diately around him. John Spence was depressed by 
 his tirade, but incUned to think there was something 
 in it. 
 
 He told Nancy so when he went up to her, and she 
 was greatly disturbed. 'Oh, my darling old thing, 
 she said. 'Please don't worry yourself about that, or 
 about anything, just now. Just leave it all alone. 
 Father doesn't understand yet. But he will. I'm 
 sure he will in time.' 
 
 VII 
 
 One sign that the Squire was beginning to get back 
 to himself was that he talked more about Kencote than 
 he had done at any time since he had become obsessed 
 by the idea of the war. 
 
 It came about naturally. He and John Spence were 
 both large landowners, and the war was already deeply 
 affecting the business of agriculture. There was room 
 for endless discussion of measures that were being taken 
 by the Government, and of controversies that were 
 being aroused by those measures, some of the experts 
 taking this line and some taking that. Spence's own 
 agent was a recognised expert, whose views sometimes 
 appeared in letters to the papers. His large property 
 was in safe hands, and he had no need to worry himself 
 over details. 
 
 The Squire did not employ an agent of that calibre 
 
268 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 at Kencote. He had always managed his estates him- 
 self, with the help of a bailiff, and for a good many 
 years he and Dick had maneiged them in conjimction. 
 Dick imderstood the business as well as any profes- 
 sionally trained agent could have done, and had really 
 decided everything, though he had apparently deferred 
 to his father's authority. 
 
 ^''ortunately, the Squire held to the views of Webster, 
 Spence's agent, in the various controversies that were 
 on foot at this time, and had acted upon them. There 
 was, therefore, no difference of opinion between him 
 and John as to the course that ought to be shaped. 
 But that course sometimes involved sharp criticism of 
 Government action, which opened the door for a good 
 many tirades against the way the war was being run 
 in England. These tirades never failed to depress 
 John's spirits, and Nancy grew to dread them. But 
 she was generally able to turn them back to a dis- 
 cussion of the effect of the changes upon Kencote 
 itself. 
 
 One day, at luncheon, when they had been talking 
 over some far-reaching regulation that had recently 
 been announced, the Squire said : ' Dick and I used 
 to talk about that. He agreed with me absolutely.' 
 
 Having mentioned Dick's name, he bethought him- 
 self, and his face changed. John said : ' Poor old 
 Dick ! His opinion was worth having. I don't think 
 he'd have stood for this new move.' 
 
 The Squire went on talking, but in a lower key, and 
 Dick's name was not mentioned again. 
 
 The next time, however, that estate affairs were 
 under discussion, he brought it in himself, not inad- 
 vertently, but as if he had made up his mind to do so. 
 It seemed as if he wanted to connect the son whom he 
 had lost with this subject which had been the chief 
 interest in his life, and the greatest tie between them. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 269 
 
 But it was made plain, somehow, that he was not yet 
 ready to talk of Dick's death. 
 
 What he did come to talk about quite freely was 
 Walter's heirship to the property, which, Nancy had 
 told John, was a subject he had never mentioned up 
 to this time. To that extent he had accustomed him- 
 self to Dick's loss, and to that extent his life-long 
 preoccupations once more had sway with him. 
 
 Walter, the third of the four Clinton sons, had been 
 intended for Holy Orders, and the reversion of the 
 comfortable rectory of Kencote, now held by the 
 Squire's half-brother. But he had chosen to be a doctor. 
 At the outbreak of the war he had been in good 
 practice as a consultant in Harley Street, and the 
 Squire's distaste for his profession, as being against 
 the tradition of such a family as the Clintons, had 
 given way to satisfaction at .his success. Walter had, 
 of course, 'joined up,' at the very beginning, and had 
 quickly gone up the ladder. He was now a Colonel 
 — ^up to his eyes in work with the armies in France — 
 and not unlikely to become a Surgeon-General if the 
 war lasted on. 
 
 It was significant of the Squire's way of looking at 
 things that this son, who had accompUshed far more 
 than any of the four in the varied activities of the 
 war, should have to be almost apologised for. 
 
 Dick had retired from his regiment as a Captain, 
 and rejoined as a Captain. Humphrey had not reached 
 Captain's rank before he had been IdUed. Frank, the 
 youngest son, had been a lieutenant in the Navy at the 
 beginning of the weir, and had only recently become 
 a lieutenant-Commander. He was doing his quiet, 
 unremitting work with the rest, but there was no 
 opportunity for him of a briUiant rise. None of the 
 Clintons, except Walter, had done more than what 
 thousands of others had done, though two of them had 
 
270 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 lost their lives in doing it. But the Squire never men- 
 tioned Walter to his new acquaintances without that 
 half -apology. 'He was in his militia for a few years 
 before he took up this doctoring,' he would say. 'But, 
 of course, doctors are just the people they can't spare, 
 unfortunately, or he'd have been fighting. Still, I'm 
 glad he's making himself useful. He's a clever fellow, 
 and they're giving him plenty to do.' 
 
 All the younger generation of Clintons had brains, 
 as the saying goes, which they had probably inherited 
 from their mother's family, but Waltier was the only 
 one of them who had used his to conspicuous advan- 
 tage. His taste for country pursuits had been as strong 
 as any of his brothers', in their youth, and had pro- 
 vided the chief of his recreations since he had become 
 immersed in the work of his profession. But John and 
 Nancy had discussed between themselves whether he 
 would be content to turn himself into the entire 
 country gentleman, as Dick had done, as Himiphrey 
 would have done, if his death had not closely followed 
 Dick's; and as Frank would do, if he were the heir. 
 Would the I Squire expect it of him ? He would certainly 
 have expected it but for the war. Whether he thought 
 of it now would be a strong indication as to how the 
 obsession of the war still affected him. 
 
 One morning there came a letter from Walter. 
 Beyond the statement that he was well, and had sent 
 his love to John and Nancy, the Squire vouchsafed no 
 information as to what the letter had contained; but 
 it seemed that he was not quite pleased with it. He 
 was moody and rather irritable during the rest of the 
 day, but in the evening, over the dinner-table, it all 
 came out. 
 
 Walter had suggested his asking Webster, John's 
 agent, to find somebody like himself for Kencote, who 
 would take the responsibility of management off 
 
THE, SQUIRE AND THE WAR 271 
 
 their shoulders, and in whom they could have 
 confidence. 
 
 'I don't say it's not a good idea,' said the Squire 
 grudgingly, 'and if the war is to go on through this 
 winter I shall probably do it. But I had hoped that 
 Walter would have settled down at Kencote, where 
 he'll belong now for the rest of his life, and set his own 
 mind to the business. He'd have a good deal to learn, 
 but not everything; and he's clever at picking up 
 things. He's made a success of this doctoring business, 
 but there's no need to keep on at that now.' 
 
 'Well, he couldn't very well give it up before the 
 war's over,' said John. 'After that I suppose he 
 might.' 
 
 'He says he'll be wanted after the war,' grumbled 
 the Squire. 'I should have thought there'd have been 
 plenty of them without him.' 
 
 Nancy liked to have things quite direct. 'Does he 
 want to go on doctoring permanently?' she asked. 
 
 The Squire didn't know what he wanted. He had 
 said 'after the war.' He didn't seem to take any 
 interest in Kencote at all. The Squire had written to 
 him before leaving England about a good many points 
 that he didn't Wcmt to decide upon without him, and 
 he had answered none of his questions; he had thrown 
 all the responsibilities back on his shoulders, and made 
 this suggestion of an agent. 
 
 'Too busy to think about it, I expect,' said John. 
 'I should get an agent if I were you, Mr Clinton, and 
 as soon as possible. Webster is sure to know of some- 
 body. I'll write to him if you like.' 
 
 The Squire himmied and ha'd, and finally accepted 
 the proposal. The discussion lasted for two or three 
 days, and it became plain that Walter had quite definitely 
 refused to concern himself with Kencote at present, or 
 to bind himself to anything for the future. 
 
^^^ THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 VIII 
 
 When the Squire had been at Montex for a fortnight, 
 and was beginning to talk about going home again, 
 another letter came from Walter to say that he had 
 secured a week's leave, and permission to spend it in 
 Switzerland. He would be with them two dajre later. 
 
 Nancy breathed a deep sigh of rehef . The situation 
 was getting beyond her control. The Squire had 
 recovered his health and had thrown off much of the 
 heavy depression that had been sitting on him Uke a 
 nightmare. But his recovery brought no solace to 
 those who were living with him, and would certainly 
 bring none to those to whom he would soon be returning. 
 His disapproval of the unstrenuous Ufe that was being 
 hved immediately around him was beginning to be 
 felt, though he thought he was hiding it. He was not 
 quite so popular among the internes and their families 
 as he had been, and some of his speeches were beginning 
 to be put about, perhaps exaggerated, and to be 
 resented. 
 
 And his companionship now definitely had a bad 
 effect upon John Spence. who was not yet in a state 
 of mind to resist worries brought to him from outside. 
 Nancy knew that if she had had him alone, and sur- 
 rounded him with the little interests and pleasures of 
 an idle, unreflective life, in those beautiful surroundings, 
 sheltered, and to all present intents free, he would have 
 been his old self in a very short time. But he was 
 already feeling himself confined, kicking against the 
 fate that kept him inactive while so much still remained 
 to be done, and brooding over the delinquencies of 
 others, of which the old Squire was always so full. 
 She asked herself more than once whether she had been 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 273 
 
 right in encouraging her father to come out to Switzer- 
 land with her. If he should not be sent back more in 
 tune with the world than he had been, but should only 
 have hindered her husband's recovery, she would much 
 regret it. 
 
 The fact was that he wanted managing — ^always. 
 Mrs CUnton in her quiet, composed way, had an 
 influence over him; so had Virginia, his daughter-in- 
 law. But their influence had not been strong enough 
 in this overp)owering trouble. Dick, had managed him 
 beautifully. Would Walter be able to? 
 
 Nancy had faith in Walter. He was very competent 
 and level-headed. Dick had been that too, but with 
 a coolness and apparent absence of effort that was not 
 so marked in Walter. It was that calm air that Lad 
 told upon the Squire; and all Dick's activities of mind 
 and body had been concerned with the things with 
 which the Squire was also concerned. Walter's was a 
 wider range. His mastery over the affairs of his life 
 had touched his father only here and there. His word 
 would not have the weight that Dick's had had, and 
 he was not so likely to gauge the points at which he 
 might exercise pressure and the points where he must 
 tread lightly. 
 
 But he had a very quick miderstanding. And it 
 seemed likely that he had decided to spend the days of 
 his rare leave in Switzerland because he saw that 
 something wanted doing there. His wife and children 
 were at home in England and he had not seen them 
 for months. 
 
 All three of them were to have gone to Lausanne to 
 meet him, but in those early days of internment restric- 
 tions were made rather irksome, and John was refused 
 permission to absent himself for a night. Nancy stayed 
 with him, but wished she could have had Walter's ear 
 for a time before her father had it exclusively. It 
 
274 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 seemed almost as if he himself wanted to have his 
 voluminous say first, for there was small reason for 
 him to undertake the journey, and to submit himself 
 to the unfamiliar rigours of a foreign hotel, for the 
 sake of meeting Walter early the next morning, and 
 accompanying him back to Montex by the earUest 
 possible train. 
 
 They arrived in the afternoon, and on the first 
 opportunity Walter said to Nancy : 'Arrange for you 
 and me to go out for a walk. I want to talk to you.' 
 
 Nancy's heart lightened. It had been inclined to 
 sink when she had seen, on their arrival, her father 
 evidently out of himiour about something, and Walter 
 as evidently playing the part of seeing nothing to put 
 anybody out of humour. Walter was only marking 
 time until he could decide in consultation with her the 
 course he was to pursue. 
 
 Walter was indeed a man to rely on. Even the 
 Squire, in spite of his air of general dissatisfaction, 
 responded to h s cheer ul leadership as they sat over 
 the tea-table, and John was more his old responsive 
 self than he had been since the first few days of their 
 arrival. Walter seemed to bring a new bfeath of 
 optimism and decision into the atmosphere. He was 
 in private clothes, as a visitor to a neutral country, 
 but there was an air of military authority about him, 
 and he looked like a soldier, with his upright, active 
 figure and his small, clipped moustache. The Squire 
 let fall some observations which showed him still 
 regretful that this son of his was not a combatant ofificer; 
 but Walter put them aside, not without a hint of im- 
 patience. He was too big a man to be hankering after 
 the extra kudos that fighting rank would have brought 
 him. He was doing the work for which his life training 
 had fitted him, and all his thoughts were centred 
 on it. 
 
THE SQUIRE ANB TH£ WAR 275 
 
 It was this point upon which he first expressed him- 
 self to Nancy, when presently they were alone together, 
 walking up a high mountain path behind the vllage. 
 'I wish father could get some sense of values into his 
 head,' he said. 'I really believe he'd rather see me a 
 middle-aged captain, with ever37thing to learn about 
 my job, than doing what I can do better than most.' 
 . 'Poor old father!' said Nancy hastily. 'Walter, 
 dear, you mustn't be impatient with him. He has had 
 so much to make him sad, and to upset him altogether. 
 I believe he really is getting better, and all his little 
 old tiresomeness cropping up again show it. I'm so 
 thankful you have come. I believe you can put him 
 right, and John too. But you will have to be careful 
 It's of no use to get at loggerheads with him.' 
 
 Walter laughed good-humouredly. 'Just a little 
 private grumble,' he said. 'I think I can see how the 
 land lies. I came here to see if I could put things 
 right. Jolly glad to see you and John, old girl, and the 
 Governor too; but I'd have gone home to Muriel and 
 the kiddies if it hadn't been for that. Let's sit down 
 here, and you shall tell me all about it.' 
 
 They sat on the edge of a grassy bank overlooking 
 the valley and the mountains beyond it. Far beneath 
 them lay the village, and they could see the tennis 
 courts, with little white figures moving about without 
 any apparent purpose. All around them were the 
 flowers and deep grasses of the pastures, and in their 
 ears the continual boom and tinkle of the cow-bells. 
 
 'It's a jolly enough place to come to, all the same,' 
 said Walter. 'I wish Muriel were here.' 
 
 ' Dear old boy ! ' said Nancy, lajdng her hand affec- 
 tionately upon his knee. 'I thought you had come 
 because of that. I should have had to try to do 
 something mysel if you hadn't, because father is 
 having such a bad effect upon John. I can see it 
 
276 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 plainly. But I don't think I could have done much. 
 I beheve you can.' 
 
 Walter listened to everything she had to tell him, 
 and she felt his sympathy and understanding. 'I 
 should know you were a splendid doctor, Walter dear,' 
 she said, with a smile, 'even if I didn't know anything 
 about you, except that you were one. You make me 
 feel that you can put everything right.' 
 
 'My bedside manner, eh?' he said. 'Well, I'll do 
 my best. Poor old father ! I understand him better 
 now. He can't get used to Dick's death. That's at 
 the bottom of it all. I wish I could mcike him believe 
 that I could take his place, in the only way that would 
 satisfy him. But that's just where the difficulty is 
 going to be.' 
 
 'What are you going to do about — about all that?' 
 Nancy asked him, after a pause. 
 
 He paused too, before answering her. 'I don't 
 allow myself to look far ahead,' he said. 'I think one 
 mustn't, just now. As long as the war lasts — and 
 I'm not one of those who believe it will be over this 
 year, or next either — I shall have work to do that will 
 take every ounce of energy that I have. And when the 
 actual fighting does come to an end my work will go 
 on — I don't know for how long. My mind is full of 
 it. When I have time to think about myself, which 
 isn't very often, it seems to me that all my life has been 
 leading up to this. If it's a career that the poor old 
 
 Governor wants Oh, well, I don't want to buck, 
 
 but perhaps I can say it to you — I've got the sense of 
 mastery all the time; I can rise to the very top of 
 the tree, because it's my job, that I've spent all these 
 years working for. And it's one of the finest jobs a 
 man can set his hand and brain to. I shall be careful 
 not to show impatience with him again, but it does 
 annoy one rather, when one is in the thick of all that's 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 275 
 
 going on now, and absolutely absorbed by it, to be 
 expected to give one's mind to twopenny halfpenny little 
 details about farm buildings at Kencote, and the grass 
 that is to be ploughed up, and all that sort of thing.' 
 
 'Yes, I can see all that, Walter, dear. John can, 
 too. We are awfully proud of you, dear old boy. You 
 are doing more than any of us in the family could 
 have done. But it's difficult for father. Kencote has 
 been almost his religion, as Joan and I said the other 
 day. It has gone on for hundreds of years. The Squire 
 of Kencote is a very important person in father's eyes.' 
 
 'Well, I'm not going to beUttle his importance in 
 the scheme of things. But it isn't actually the man who 
 happens to be Squire of Kencote at any time that is 
 of importance. What importance has father himself 
 just now? Scarcely any. I myself — I'm of more 
 importance, even now, than I shall ever be as Squire of 
 Kencote, though it isn't the sort of importance that 
 counts with him.' 
 
 'Yes, I can see that too. So can John. He's a big 
 landowner too, but he says himself that he doesn't 
 amount to more than any- other old dug-out. I 
 suppose dear Dick was the same.' 
 
 'It's the line that matters. I suppose I'm as keen 
 on that as father is, and on Kencote itself being what 
 it has alwajTS been. But there's no trouble about that 
 at all. I don't suppose Dick would have had any 
 , children, if he'd Hved; and Himiphrey never seemed to 
 want to marry again. Little Richard would have 
 succeeded eventually, as he will now. Perhaps he 
 would have been brought up to it. I beUeve Dick wanted 
 that, from one or two things' he said to me. Father 
 always hoped Dick would have a son, but I think he 
 and Virginia had resigned themselves. Anyhow, little 
 Richard will be brought up to it now. For myself, I 
 want to be left free.' 
 
i^^ TtlE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 'Aren't you glad at all that you'll be Squire of Ken- 
 cote by-and-by?' 
 
 'It doesn't make up to me in the least for Dick 
 being killed,' he said shortly. 
 
 'Oh, Walter dearest, you know I don't mean that.' 
 
 She knew what close friends the brothers had been, 
 from their childhood. Humphrey had stood rather 
 apart fr6m either of them; Frank was some years 
 younger, and had been much away. In spite of the 
 difference in their lives, the tie between Dick and 
 Walter had only drawn closer. 
 
 ' Kencote has cdways meant Dick to me when I looked 
 forward,' he said simply. 'If I think of it as mine, 
 it's like putting him farther off. Besides, I have my 
 own line in life, and I've foUowed it now for fifteen 
 years or more. If I'd been the eldest son, I should have 
 taken up the business of estate management just as 
 Dick did — ^but even he soldiered, you know, for years 
 before he settled down. I should have enjoyed it too. 
 I've got a lot of the countryman in me, and it's well 
 worth doing, with a big property like Kencote; I don't 
 deny that. But it's a business all the same, and I've 
 trained myself for another one, which I think is better'.' 
 
 'Yes, I know. But if you can't help becoming 
 Squire of Keneote you can't help taking the responsi- 
 bilities.' 
 
 'I can help devoting myself to all the details. It's 
 very few big landowners who give themselves up to 
 it as father does and as he expects me to do. What 
 happens with aU the big people who go in for politics? 
 Or the big bankers and business men who own large 
 properties? Or the great soldiers and sailors who 
 come from our sort of people? One can't help feeling 
 that if I had got on as far as I have in any profession 
 except the one that's actually mine, he would take it 
 for granted that I should stick to it and get on in it 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 279 
 
 still further. The property would have to be managed 
 by somebody else, as it will have to be, and he'd be 
 quite satisfied. Of course, I shall be at Kencote a good 
 deal, and Muriel and the children perhaps more than 
 I shall. We shan't let the old traditions die. I believe 
 in them. There are a good many changes coming in 
 land-owning, many of them as a result of this war; tut 
 as long as there are big landowners, and I'm one of 
 them, I shall be keen to preserve what has been good 
 in it in the past. We shall always know our people 
 and be friends with them. It won't only be a hard 
 matter of business.' 
 
 'That alwajre has been the best thing about the 
 old type of Squire, hasn't it? John feels that too. I 
 think if you can persuade father that you look at it 
 in that way, he will be satisfied. And do try to get 
 him to worry himself less about the war, Walter. And 
 talk to John, too. He has done aU he can, poor darling, 
 and he ought not to be so sad that he can't do an3d;hing 
 more.' 
 
 'That's where I shall get father both ways,' said 
 Walter elliptically. 
 
 IX 
 
 There was to be a dance at one of the hotels the night 
 after Walter's arrival, to which 'everybody' was going. 
 He heard about it as he was standing with John and 
 Nancy in the tennis pavilion, talking to some people 
 to whom they had introduced him. 'That'll be jolly,' 
 he said. 'Why didn't you tell me, Nancy?' 
 
 'We hadn't thought of going,' said Nancy, with a 
 glance at John. 'We haven't been to any of the 
 dances yet.' 
 
 'Oh, that's because Mr Clinton doesn't approve of. 
 
28o THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 our amusing ourselves,' said a sprightly little lady of 
 the group, 'but it ynil do you both a lot of good, and 
 I'm sure it won't do him any harm. Do come, Mrs 
 Spence; we shall have lots of fun.' 
 
 'Yes, we'll come,' said Walter. 'I haven't danced 
 since before the war.' 
 
 They made their way slowly up to the chalet for 
 luncheon. 'I don't think I shall go,' said John. 'The 
 old man doesn't Uke it, and I'm not sure he isn't 
 right. We ought not to be dancing with all this going 
 on.' 
 
 'It's just what we ought to be doing,' said Walter 
 lightly, 'when we're taking a holiday. That's what 
 you're doing at the present moment, John, and the 
 more lively you make it the better man you'll be. I 
 know you and Nancy Uke dancing together, and as 
 Mrs Fetherston says, it will do you both a world of 
 good.' 
 
 'I think we will, John,' said Nancy. 'Walter's a 
 doctor, and he orders it for us.' 
 
 'The old man won't Uke it,' said John again. 
 
 Nancy looked at Walter rather anxiously. Was 
 John to be 'managed' too, or taken into their con- 
 fidence? Walter had told her that there was nothing 
 in his state to worry herself about, but she felt that he 
 was watching him carefully all the time, and was not 
 sure that he was so satisfied about him as he professed 
 to be. She was greatly reUeved when he answered at 
 once: 'Look here, old man, you've been paying a 
 great deal too much attention to the Governor's Uttle 
 grumbles.v We've got to get him out of his way of 
 looking at things, and send him home more easy in 
 his mind. I'U tackle him about this dance, which will 
 do as well as an3^hing else to start on; and you and 
 Nancy must back me up.' 
 
 It seemed to Nancy that John was pleased with this 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 281 
 
 speech; but all he said was : 'It is a serious business, 
 you know, Walter — this war. The old man is quite 
 right to object, to people taking it lightly.' 
 
 'Of course he is — the people who have any of the 
 responsibiUty of it. Where he's wrong is in expecting 
 anybody to keep at high pressure all the time. You 
 don't get things done in that way. We've set ourselves 
 as a nation to beat the.Boche, and every one of us who 
 can do something must keep himself fit to do it as well 
 as he can.' 
 
 ' I can't do anything, worse luck ! ' 
 
 'You can keep up your spirits, old boy, and wait for 
 the next move. You may not be kept here till the end 
 of the war. And at the present moment you can do 
 a good deal. You can help to send father home ready 
 to keep up other people's spirits, instead of depressing 
 them, as he's been doing up till now. We shall have 
 to draw a good deal more on our reserve force before 
 we're through with this.' 
 
 'I don't see what that's got to do with dancing the 
 Turkey Trot in Switzerland,' said John. 'I should 
 like to dance with Nancy again, though. I'U see how 
 you tackle the old man about it, and back you up.' 
 
 It happened that the Squire was not in a very good 
 temper. He had had letters to write that morning, 
 and had forgone his usual visit to the tennis club, 
 which he rather enjoyed. Having forgone it, he was 
 inclined to disapprove of those who spent their time in 
 gossiping, when they might be doing something useful, 
 such as writing business letters to England. He had 
 made a virtue of staying indoors, and consequently, 
 when he had got through his correspondence, and there 
 were still some three-quarters of an hour before luncheon, 
 he had not liked to stultify himself by spending the 
 interval in the pavilion, which was only five minutes 
 walk from the chalet. So he had stayed indoors, with 
 T.C. T 
 
282 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 nothing to do, and was slightly annoyed with every- 
 body but himself in consequence. It must be admitted 
 that he was rather a tiresome, foolish old man; but he 
 was perhaps easier to manage in that state than when 
 his causes of discontent had gone so much deeper. 
 Those causes still existed, but they had become over- 
 laid by the trifles upon which he now exercised his 
 capacity for worrying himself and other people. 
 
 He drew his shaggy brows together when Walter 
 introduced the subject of the dance, and said he 
 thought that sort of thing might be left to people who 
 hadn't yet woke up to what was going on. 
 
 'That's a view we sometimes discuss, out there,' 
 said Walter. 'There's something to be Sciid on both 
 sides.' 
 
 The Squire was slightly mollified. 'I can only see 
 one side,' he said. 'Jhe men in the field — ^they're 
 standing up to it. They don't grumble at the wounds 
 and the pain, and the filth, and all the beastUness they 
 have to go through.' 
 
 'Oh, don't they?' said Walter lightly. 'You should 
 hear them at it. They grouse like anjrthing, but they 
 laugh at it too, and then they go and do what's wanted 
 of them, and laugh about that too, unless they happen 
 to get killed. I think the British Tommy is one of 
 the finest tj^es you'll find anjrwhere; but as for 
 grousing ! ' 
 
 'I don't suppose the British Tommy has much 
 sympathy with the fellows of his class who are shirking 
 at home,' said the Squire, 'making money out of the 
 jobs he has given up, and letting hun down by striking 
 if they can't get exactly what they want.' 
 
 'No, he hasn't. But he has no objection to people 
 at home enjoying themselves, as long as they do their 
 share of the work. It's what we're always trying to 
 get for the Tommy himself — enjoyment — ^recreation. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 283 
 
 You see, father, we've settled down to this war as a 
 long, hard business, which must be run on the same 
 principles as any other big business. The actual 
 fighting is the smallest part of it, if you reckon the 
 number of men and the number of hours spent over it 
 compared with the number of men and the nvunber of 
 h&urs preparing for it. You'll get the best results if 
 you make it all as regular and normal as you possibly 
 can. Give a man enough food and sleep and recreation 
 outside his times of work, and take the burden of his 
 work off his shoulders when he isn't actually at it. 
 Then you'll get the work done with the least friction 
 and to the best advantage.' 
 
 'Oh, yes, I see all that, Walter,' said the Squire with 
 some impatience. 'I'm not a fool, and I've done some 
 soldiering in my time, though I never saw active service. 
 I've never said there was anything wrong with our 
 armies. It's the people who aren't in them who are 
 not doing their duty. At least a great many of them 
 aren't, and that's why I'm against all this merry- 
 making, and " life as usual," and all that sort of thing. 
 It means leaving it to the fighting men, and those who 
 haven't got a sense of duty about it standing outside.' 
 
 ' There's a good deal in that,' said John. ' When you're 
 fighting you feel that you're doing your share. When 
 ydu're not, you do stand outside, and you don't feel 
 happy about it.' 
 
 'It's different for you, John,' said the Squire hand- 
 somely. 'You've done all you can.' 
 
 'Your duty's plain enough, my dear old John,' said 
 Walter. 'You've got to get yourself fit, and to keep 
 up your spirits. So have all the rest of you here. 
 This is one of the few places in Europe at the present 
 moment where getting as much amusement as possible 
 is a positive duty. That's one reason why I came .to 
 it. I've been working like a nigger myself, and I want 
 
284 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 to put it all aside for a week, so that I can go back 
 and work like a nigger again till the time comes for 
 another leave. We'U all go and dance to-night, and 
 stay in bed late to-morrow.' 
 
 The Squire made no further protest, but after 
 luncheon, smoking with Walter on the veranda, he 
 said : ' I dare say you're .right about John amusing 
 himself — poor fellow! It's all these other people 
 here who haven't done what he and the rest of them 
 have ' 
 
 Walter took him up decisively. 'You must consider 
 them part of the show, I think, father. They are 
 useful in helping the prisoners to amuse themselves, 
 and to forget that they are prisoners. I'm a bit worried 
 about John. I wanted to talk to you about him. He's 
 thinking far more than he ought about being a prisoner. 
 There's no practical reason for him to think of himself 
 as one at all, here — iat least not now, at the beginning. 
 I've been keeping my eyes and ears open. I should 
 say he's in a worse state than almost any of them.' 
 
 The Squire exclaimed : 'Why, his shoulder is getting 
 better every day,' he said. 'And there's nothing else 
 the matter with him.' 
 
 'I mean mentally,' said Walter shortly. 
 
 The Squire stared, with his mouth open. 
 
 'What I was saying at lunch was a good deal to his 
 address,' Walter went on. 'I want you to back me 
 up as far as you can in taking his mind off the war.' 
 
 'What do you mean — ^mentally?' asked the Sqiiire, 
 ignoring this. 
 
 Walter looked at him. 'Can't you see he's getting 
 into a state of melancholy?' he asked. 'It's plain 
 enough to me as a doctor.' 
 
 John came out of the house at that moment, and 
 Nancy soon afterwards. The Squire took small part 
 in the conversation which followed, but cast frequent 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 285 
 
 glances at his son-in-law. and seemed to be in much 
 perplexity. 
 
 They went out to tea that afternoon, to a chalet on 
 the hill, where there were a lot of people, and much 
 agreeable conversation. During the course of it, the 
 Squire made some pronouncement upon shirkers at 
 home in England, and immediately chanced to catch 
 Walter's eye frowning a warning at him. This gave 
 him further food for reflection. 
 
 X 
 
 The result of the Squire's reflections was the surprising 
 but not unencouraging one of his accompanying the 
 other three to the dance that evening. His state- 
 ment that he didn't care about staying at home alone, 
 and might as well go with them if they weren't going 
 to be very late, was received with enthusiasm, but not, 
 of course, with any surprise at his change of face. 
 John Spence seemed to be most pleased with his decision. 
 'We shan't stay very long,' he said; 'just a few dances, 
 and talking to people — I really don't think there's 
 much harm in it, Squire.' 
 
 The Squire's eyes dropped at the rather touching 
 look of appeal in his. 'Oh, no harm at all, John,' 
 he said, quickly and kindly. 'I've been making a bit 
 too much of it, perhaps. Here it's all right.' 
 
 This readiness to give up his prejudices, whenever 
 he was able to see them to be so, was part of the change 
 that the war had brought him. Nancy put her arm 
 into his, and gave it a grateful squeeze. 'Dear old 
 Daddy!' she said. 'You're taking a holiday too. 
 You must enjoy yourself as much as you can before 
 you go back.' 
 
286 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 The Squire, though it may be supposed that his 
 dancing as well as his fighting days were long since 
 over, had been accustomed to adorn County Balls and 
 Hunt Balls and the Hke with his presence at home in 
 England. He had Uked meeting his friends in that 
 way, in surroundings not of every day, and had passed 
 away contented hours, with talk and occasional refresh- 
 ment, pleased with the music and movement around 
 him. 
 
 His enjoyment this evening was of the same character 
 and greater, in the early stages of the entertainment, 
 than he had anticipated. The dancing was in the 
 large haU of the hotel, and he told one or two that it 
 was rather Uke the Assembly Rooms at Bathgate; 
 which it wasn't at all, except for the music, and the 
 dancing couples, and the people who sat round and 
 looked on. 
 
 There were young men there who didn't dance — 
 some who would never dance again. One, who walked 
 habitually with a stick, hobbhng painfully on a felt 
 sUppered foot, suddenly seized a partner and danced 
 a round of the room as if every muscle and sinew in 
 his body were as apt for his service as his three and 
 twenty years demanded, then limped to his seat again 
 and recovered his rubber-shod stick, still laughing and 
 talking gaily. Men with one arm or a damaged hand 
 made necessary adjustments with their partners, and 
 thanked their lucky stars that they were sound on their 
 feet. Conscious enjoyment seemed even a trifle higher 
 than in a crowd with the normal number of sound 
 Hmbs. 
 
 The sense of high courage and making the best of 
 things had its appeal for the Squire, and it was deepened 
 for him by a lady to whom he was talking, the mother 
 of one of the boys who was there, enjoying himself 
 with the same light-hearted gaiety as if he had been 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 287 
 
 finishing up his three years at Cambridge with a May- 
 week ball, as he might have been but for the war. 
 His right arm had been taken off at the shoulder, and 
 he was gaining much amusement from instructing his 
 successive partners how to dance 'left-footed.' 
 
 He had left Cambridge, and the certainty of a cricket 
 'blue,' at the end of his first year, trained hard for 
 his conmiission for six months, gone out, been wounded 
 and 'taken' almost immediately, spent months of pain 
 and misery in a bad hospital, followed by more months 
 of confinement in a bad prison camp; and so spent the 
 two years in which he would have gained his athletic 
 triumphs, and Hved the life which provides perhaps 
 the happiest of all memories of a man's youth. 
 
 His mother told his history to the Squire, who 
 listened sympathetically — ^much more sympathetically 
 than he had been accustomed to hsten to such confi- 
 dences as a mother's about her son, especially, it must 
 be confessed, one who was not marked out for the 
 sort of career followed by young men of his own 
 class. 
 
 'About the cricket and the games,' she said, 'I'm 
 not so dreadfully sorry as perhaps I ought to be, as it 
 means so much to him to lose them. But they were 
 getting in the way of his work. It was very important 
 that he should take a good degree, as he was to have 
 been a schoolmaster, and I'm afraid he wasn't working 
 so hard as he might have done. I don't know what 
 will happen now. Even if he goes back to Cambridge 
 he will have lost a lot of time. And he says he doesn't 
 want to go back, with so many of his friends killed, 
 and he so much older. However, nothing much matters 
 at present, beside the fact that he is here, and I can 
 see him happy again. Oh, I do want to keep him happy, 
 and young, Mr CUnton. He has been through so much, 
 and he is only a boy still. I like nothing so much as 
 
288 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 to see him merry and enjojdng himself — even if the 
 difficulties of life axe coming when this respite is 
 over.' 
 
 The Squire felt some compunction at this half 
 appeal, and would have felt more if he had divined 
 that he was looked upon in Montex as an obstacle to 
 the frank enjoyment of these times of respite. But he 
 had his word of comfort. He had alwaj^ seen plainly 
 — ^more plainly than many of his generation — the debt 
 owing to the youth of the fighting nations. 'Ah, it's 
 the young fellows who are doing it all for us, if you 
 look deep enough,' he said. 'It's they who are paying 
 the price, and some of them will go on paying it for 
 the rest of their lives. We shan't forget that, when 
 it comes to setting them up again — ^those who are 
 left.' 
 
 Unfortunately for the Squire's immediate peace of 
 mind, though not perhaps for the ultimately beneficial 
 effect that this evening's adjustments had upon him, 
 he did not escape a sharper pointing of the moral which 
 his stay in Montex shoiid have brought home to him. 
 
 Little Mrs Fetherston, the wife of a happy-go-lucky 
 subaltern who had married her during a fortnight's 
 leave and gone back to the front again to be imme- 
 diately wounded and taken prisoner, was furious with 
 the Squire. Her husband seemed to have nothing the 
 matter with him at all, and was one of the few whose 
 release was considered a stupendous piece of luck. 
 He was a noisy, rackety youth, and she was not less 
 noisy and rackety. If there had been many like this 
 couple, the Squire's strictures would have been justified, 
 and he had not been alone in passing them upon the 
 Fetherstons. 
 
 Since her slight encounter with him at the tennis 
 club that morning, Mrs Fetherston had 'heard some- 
 thing.' She came up to the Squire with her pretty. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 289 
 
 common little face aflame. 'I'm surprised to see you 
 here, Mr Clinton/ she said; in a voice that trembled. 
 'I thought you objected to our having a little fun.' 
 
 The Squire rose from his seat. He saw that there 
 was something to meet — something more even than 
 was meant by her words. His brain did not move 
 quickly, but he said quietly : ' Oh, no; or I shouldn't 
 be here.' 
 
 She, at least, was quick enough. 'And we shouldn't 
 be here if you had your way,' she flashed at him. 'I 
 hear you've been saying that Alfred ought to be sent 
 back to Germany, and that it would do me good to 
 go with him.' 
 
 It was exactly what he had said, in open speech; 
 but he was none the less struck full by the charge, 
 and could only falter : ' I shouldn't mean a thing Uke 
 that, Mrs Fetherston, whatever I might say.' 
 
 She took no notice of this. She had worked herself 
 up to 'tell him what she thought of him.' 
 
 'I don't know why you are here at aJl,' she said, 
 her voice no longer trembling, 'instead of doing some- 
 thing in England, as you're alwajTS talking about. 
 Alfred has fought, at any rate, and 'been wounded, and 
 for over a year in prison; and I've only seen him for 
 ten days since we've been married, tDl I came here. 
 And he's young, and I'm young, and we want to forget 
 it. Go back to Germany indeed ! I wish you'd gone 
 through what he did while he was there. That would 
 give you something to remember. You'd get on with 
 the Germans. You behave like one yourself.' 
 
 She flounced off. Perhaps she was afraid of bursting 
 into angry tears; perhaps she had used up her prepared 
 material too quickly, for it is probable that the last 
 sentence had been intended for the climax. But her 
 depjirtiu-e was the most effective clinching of the attack 
 that she could have used. 
 
290 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 The Squire was left speechless, but scandalised in the 
 highest degree. Fortunately he was in a comparatively 
 empty comer not far from the band, and it was doubtful 
 whether Mrs Fetherston's speech had been heard by 
 any one except the lady to whom he had been talking, 
 who had herself been strongly critical of Mrs Fetherston's 
 behaviour. 
 
 ' Odious, common little cat ! ' was this lady's only 
 comment upon the episode; and the Squire was enabled 
 to recover himself somewhat, as she continued her con- 
 versation with him on the same lines as before the 
 attack. 
 
 But it became plain before the evening was out, by 
 the curious looks that were cast at the poor Squire, 
 that Mrs Fetherston had been spreading the news of 
 her triumph; and it was not by any means to be taken 
 for granted from the other lady's temporary reticence 
 that she would not also become a sounding-board, of a 
 lower but not less damaging reverberance. 
 
 Nancy and John and Walter had all heard something 
 of what had happened, and heard the indignant account 
 of the Squire himself as they Wcdked slowly home in the 
 summer night. They sympathised with him, of course, 
 and Nancy said that there would be no difficulty now 
 about cutting Mrs Fetherston, for which she was glad. 
 But by the time they reached home and the Squire had 
 worked off some of his indignation, he began to be aware 
 that of the three of them Walter was not quite so 
 advanced in his censure of Mrs Fetherston as he could 
 have wished, and to suffer some disquiet from his 
 aloofness. 
 
 John and Nancy went up to bed. Walter said he 
 would smoke a pipe on the veranda before turning 
 in, and the Squire, in defiance of his usual 
 habits, said that he would smoke a cigar with 
 him. 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 291 
 
 XI 
 
 ' I don't know when I've been so annoyed by anything 
 in my Ufe/ said the Squire, when he and Walter were 
 alone together. 'But perhaps it's best to forget all 
 about it. I wouldn't have had a speech like that 
 repeated, and I wish I could remember who I said it 
 to, if I did say it ' 
 
 'You said it to me for one,' said Walter. 
 
 'Oh,' said the Squire, somewhat taken aback. 'Well, 
 I don't suppose you repeated it, and I wouldn't have 
 had it come to their ears, not exactly in that form. 
 But I dare say it won't do 'em any harm to know what's 
 thought of them. I'm by no means the only one who 
 has been disgusted by the way they behave. Perhaps 
 they'U be a little more careful in the future.' 
 
 'Oh, I hope so,' said Walter, stirring in his seat. 
 'But I think I should be a little more careful, too, if 
 I were you, father — I hope you, won't mind my saying 
 this. Most of the men have had a pretty bad time, 
 and it makes trouble to have it known that there's 
 somebody always criticising them.' 
 
 'What do you mean — always criticising them?' 
 exclaimed the Squire in offence. 'There's nobody who 
 thinks more than I do of what they have done — ^most 
 of the men here.' 
 
 'I know. That's why it's a pity to give a wrong 
 impression. I've been here long enough now to see 
 how things are going. If I didn't know how you do 
 look upon it all, I shouldn't say anything. But I'm 
 afraid there are a good many who are on the look-out 
 for anything you may say which seems to reflect upon 
 them.' 
 
 ' Why not say at once that I'd better be out of the 
 place.' 
 
292 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 Walter was silent. 
 
 'Perhaps that's what you think,' suggested the 
 Squire. 
 
 'I'm afraid it is, father, unless you can change your 
 views a bit.' 
 
 There was a silence. Walter breathed more freely 
 the longer it lasted. He would never have dared to 
 speak so openly in the old days, but he had divined 
 that his father had changed, though there was little 
 in his bearing now to show it, and he had ventured 
 greatly. 
 
 'Well, my boy,' said the old man at last, 'I don't 
 resent your plain speaking. 'You wouldn't say a thing 
 like that for the sake of annoying me. I've had a 
 very heavy weight upon me, and sometimes it has 
 seemed more than I could bear. I dare say there are 
 things you can see more clearly than I can.' 
 
 Walter was much moved. 'Oh, my dear father,' he 
 said, 'nobody knows better than I "do what it has all 
 meant to you. I'd have given a lot to be able to ease 
 it for you if I could. I believe I've thought more 
 about you than about anybody, lately.' 
 
 The Squire was moved in his turn. He had been 
 proud of all his sons in their childhood and boj^ood, 
 but he had allowed his eldest to fill his thoughts to the 
 exclusion of the others for many years past. The tone 
 in which Walter had spoken showed him that he was 
 not entirely bereft. If he had lost his firstborn, upon 
 whom his hopes had been set, here was a son, of fine 
 character and achievement, who still cared for him. 
 
 'My dear boy,' he said, 'I want nothing better than 
 that we should work it all out together, for as long as 
 I'm spared. I'm getting old. I don't see all round 
 a thing as I used to. I've had a better head than mine 
 to depend on all these years. I feel lost sometimes 
 without it.' 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 293 
 
 Walter had never heard his father speak like this in 
 all the years of his life. He was profoundly touched. 
 He had known that he would have to settle the question 
 of his own future before he could hope to influence him 
 towards a more wholesome outlook, and had puzzled 
 his brain as to how it was to be done without pre- 
 senting him with another grievance. Now, for the 
 moment, he was almost minded to give way com- 
 pletely, to give up everything for his father's sake, so 
 that his loss might be less to him, and he might Jive 
 out the rest of his days in contentment. 
 
 But the impulse was only momentary. He had 
 thought it all out so carefully, and knew beyond doubt 
 where his duty lay. 
 
 'If I were doing an3^hing else but what I am doing, 
 father,' he said, 'I think I should give it up, after the 
 war, to settle down at Kencote, and be with you. I 
 know I shall have duties there, which I haven't had 
 before; and I shan't neglect them. But I've thought 
 a lot about it, and it seems to me clear enough that 
 there are other duties which come before them.' 
 
 'Oh, just now, of course, there are,' said tlje Squire, 
 in a tone as if he were putting a weakness away from 
 him. 'Nothing comes before duty to one's country. 
 Nobody feels that more strongly than I do.' 
 
 'Well, if you'll let me teU you how it strikes me.. I 
 hope you'll be able to see it as I do.' 
 
 The Squire was about to speak, but Walter went on 
 hurriedly : ' Just at present, the outstanding business 
 is to beat the Germans. But, you see, my job isn't 
 even to beat the Germans.' 
 
 'What do you mean, Walter? You're not fighting; 
 but you're doing work that has to be done. If I've 
 said an5^hing that looks as if I made little of it — ^it's 
 not what I mean.' 
 
 ' I'm doing work that has to be done; yes. But only 
 
294 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 a little of it would help us to win; perhaps only the men 
 we mend up so that they can go back and fight. The 
 rest of it is putting right what the war is destroying, 
 so that the world can go on.' " 
 
 The Squire did not quite understand this; but he 
 was in a receptive mood, and waited for more. 
 
 'What are we fighting for?' Walter went on. 'If 
 you look behind it aJl, it's just so that our own country, 
 and other countries who are with us, shall keep our 
 freedom, to hve our lives in our own way, and not in 
 the way the Germans want to impose on the world. 
 We've fought for that before, and it's worth fighting 
 for. But when we've finished fighting, and estabUshed 
 our freedom again, there will come years and years 
 in which we shall have to mend up what the war has 
 broken. That's what it seems to me that men in my 
 position must keep before them. Our work will be at 
 its very climax when the fighting ends.' 
 
 'Yes, I see that,' said the Squire rather unwillingly. 
 'But it won't be only the wounded men who will want 
 setting\ right; There's the land, and labour questions, 
 and so forth. We shall be in the thick of all sorts of 
 difficulties, for years to come. Landowners will be 
 attacked — not a doubt about it. People like ourselves, 
 who own lan^, won't be able any longer to draw their 
 rents and leave it to somebody else to do the work for 
 them. If we can't show that we have our place to fill, 
 and a very important place, and are doing our duty by 
 the people dependent on us — ^well, we shan't be able 
 to defend ourselves, and we shall go imder. To my 
 mind, it's the duty of a landowner nowadays — ^what- 
 ever it may have been in the past — ^to live on his 
 estates, and to make them the chief interest of his life. 
 If we had all done that, there'd be no land question; 
 or at least we should be recognised as the people who 
 know more about the land than anybody, instead of 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 295 
 
 being looked upon simply as standing in the way of 
 progress.' 
 
 Walter listened carefully to this speech. He did not 
 find it merely prejudiced, as so many of his father's 
 speeches on this all-important question had been apt 
 to be. The Squire was already of a past generation, 
 but according to his lights he had done, his duty and 
 perhaps more than his duty. The principles upon which 
 land had been held for centuries past were based upon 
 a rock of right and justice, and any tampering with 
 them was to be resisted, not only on behalf of his own 
 order, but as a grave danger to the State. But he had 
 recognised all his life the responsibilities that go with 
 landed possessions. If he had looked upon his tenantry 
 as subject to him in many ways that no longer march 
 with the ideals of a free democracy, he had yet shown 
 a sense of human identity with then! not always in- 
 herent in democratic movements. He and they were 
 not merely employer and employed. With all the 
 differences between them, differences designed by a 
 wise and over-ruling Providence, they were of the same 
 flesh and blood, and came together in many aspects 
 of life which elsewhere revealed only impassable gulfs. 
 It was a conviction worthy of respect that it was the 
 ' duty of a landowner to live among his people and make 
 himself one with them. 
 
 'I think that you have brought us all up with a 
 right view of those questions,' Walter said.. 'I agree 
 with you entirely in them. There's no need to discuss 
 what is to be done as long as the war lasts., I have my 
 work to do and you have yours; there are no changes 
 to be made. But after the war I should expect to make 
 Kencote my home. I mean if I can have a house there; 
 Muriel and the children will live there, and I should be 
 there as much as possible.' 
 
 'Well, that's all I want, Walter. It's for you to 
 
296 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 take poor dear Dick's place. I'd never have said a 
 word of my own accord about Virginia leaving the 
 Dower House. If she'd wanted she could have lived 
 there as long as I lived. But she said herself that when 
 we went back to the house she'd like to come with us. 
 Your mother loves her, and so do I; and she loves 
 us. We bear each other up. She said herself that you 
 ought to live in the Dower House, after the war. She's 
 wonderful in that way. Not a thought about your 
 taking Dick's place, as of course you must do — I mean 
 m the way in which it would affect her.' 
 
 ' ' Oh, I know. She's wonderful — dear Virginia ! 
 I'm glad she's to be with you and mother, father. 
 She's hke a daughter to you. And if you want us to 
 live in the Dower House, after the war, it's what we 
 should like, too.' 
 
 'I suppose what you mean is that you'U be up and 
 down a good deal. You won't really make Kencote 
 your home, to look after the place — as Dick did — 
 and have that as your chief interest in life.' 
 
 'I couldn't do what Dick did, father. I should 
 only be a bad copy of him. It would be rather painful 
 for me. I think it would be for you, too, in some 
 ways.' 
 
 There was a silence. 'You and Dick were always 
 great friends,' said the old man in a low voice. 
 
 'Yes,' said Walter simply. 'Always great friends.' 
 
 There was another pause. Then the Squire said, in 
 a different tone : ' I don't know that we need talk 
 about it any more, Walter. Perhaps you're right, 
 after aU. I can see, anyhow, that your work won't be 
 finished when the war is over — ^perhaps not for some 
 years after. Kencote must take second place with 
 you. Yes, I see that. But if Muriel and the children 
 are there !' 
 
 'There will be little Richard,' Walter said, "who 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 297 
 
 will come after me. You'll have him growing up there, 
 father. I should like him to be to you what you were 
 to your grandfather when you were a child. I think 
 Dick would have liked that, too— for him to be brought 
 up at Kencote. I told Nancy so the other day.' 
 
 The Squire brightened. 'Dick and I often talked 
 about him,' he said. 'I always hoped that Dick might 
 have had a son of his own; but — ^well, that's all over. 
 I should take a great pride — and pleasure — in teaching 
 the boy things, Walter — Shaving him a good deal with 
 me. Yes, it would be ^something like it was when I was 
 a child— myself, with my grandfather— it doesn't 
 seem so very long ago. I'm fond of the little chap. 
 I've often thought he was growing up very like Dick.' 
 
 'I shouldn't want anything better, father. And 
 you'd have a good deal to say in making him so.' 
 
 There was a long silence, while both of them were 
 busy with their thoughts. 
 
 Walter was feeling a great sense of relief. It had 
 been easier than he had feared. But his father had 
 always been like that. He would cling obstinately to 
 an idea, and back it up with speech so strong, and 
 sometimes so intemperate, that it would seem as if 
 nothing would move him. And then he would give 
 way all of a sudden, and follow out a new idea, perhaps 
 diametrically opposed to the old one, with the same 
 eagerness. The crux was in finding the right word 
 to turn him. 
 
 There would be no more trouble now about Walter's 
 own part as heir to Kencote. He would be free to give 
 himself up to the work he had determined to do. The 
 details of estate management would be spared him; and 
 he would not be expected to follow exactly in Dick's 
 footsteps as the Squire had seemed so ardently to 
 desire. He smiled as he told himself that if he were 
 now to turn round and offer to do what his father had 
 T.C. u 
 
298 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 wished up to a few minutes ago, difficulties would 
 probably be put in the way. He grew grave again as 
 he asked himself whether the opportunity had yet 
 come to search for the word that would put his father 
 right with himself in other respects^ He would not 
 have done all that he had come to Switzerland hoping 
 to do if he could not send him back to England healed 
 of the worst of his troubles, and in the way of helping 
 others to bear theirs. 
 
 But it would be better to wait. This new turn to 
 the Squire's thoughts might of itself bring him to a 
 more stable frame of mind. 
 
 The Squire sat with his eyes fixed upon the jagged 
 line of the mountains, but he hardly saw them. A 
 vision of quiet EngUsh woods and fields rose before 
 him. He saw himself leading a httle child by the hand, 
 talking to him and answering his questions. And some- 
 times he himself seemed to be the child, the companion 
 of one who had been in his grave fifty years and more. 
 He was happier at this moment than he had been 
 since the war had come crashing in to destroy the 
 ordered life he had lived for all his years, and to ruin 
 the hopes to which that life led. 
 
 He had loved Walter's little son, but tiiere had 
 always been mixed up with his love a faint jealousy. 
 In his brain, which did not work logically, there had 
 lodged the idea that this child was the dispossessor of 
 the child who should have been bOm to his eldest son. 
 But Dick — bright in every way — ^had accepted him as 
 his own successor, and now that maggot was cleared 
 away from his brain. He could take the boy in hand, 
 as he had taken Dick in hand, and taught lum to ride 
 and to shoot, and to prepare himself for what was 
 one day coming to him. He had been called after 
 Dick, and Dick was his godfather. He would be almost 
 like Dick's own son. And be very sure that he would 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 299 
 
 be taught to honour and keep green the memory of the 
 uncle who, bom to great possessions, had given them 
 up, and his life as well, when his country had called 
 him. 
 
 Yes, Kencote would go on, and it would be he who 
 would train its heir of the third generation to the 
 duties and pleasures that would fall to him, much as 
 he had been trained by its possessor of two generations 
 before his own. There was much solace in that thought. 
 It was possible once more to look forward, where 
 everything seemed to have been brought to a sudden 
 overwhelming end. 
 
 By-and-by he began to talk quietly about little 
 Richard, and Walter saw that the healing process had 
 begun. His last words as they parted that night, were : 
 ' I must look about for a pony for him when I get back 
 home. Dick had his first pony when he was much 
 younger. There's no time to lose.' 
 
 XII 
 
 The Squire and John Spence were walking across 
 fields from which the hay had now been cut, but with 
 the same panorama of rocky mountain, wood, and 
 upland pasture to keep them company. The Squire was 
 getting rather tired of it, and longing for the softer 
 contours and colours of his own woods and fields. He 
 was going back to England the next day. He had 
 asked John to come for a walk with him that after- 
 noon, and it became plain after a time that he had 
 asked him with a purpose. John knew what it was. 
 But neither of them seemed able to break the 
 ice. 
 
 It was not until they had walked a mile, and talked 
 
300 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 desultorily about many things, that the Squire said 
 suddenly, ' You were with my boy when he died, John. 
 Tell me all about it.' 
 
 John began without any preamble. 'There wasn't 
 much time. I hadn't been able to get to him earlier. 
 He was already slipping away. They couldn't do 
 anything more for him, so they left us alone and I sat 
 by him till he died. He was very glad to see me. He 
 knew he was going. Sometimes he said a few words, 
 and then he seemed to lose consciousness. At the end 
 I just held his hand. I wasn't quite certain when he 
 died. It was as quiet as that.' 
 
 'He was terribly wounded, wasn't he? But you 
 said in your letter that he didn't suffer much.' 
 
 'They said he didn't, and there weren't any signs 
 of it. You'd only have said he was rather drowsy. 
 He looked just the same, too — ^his face, and the hand 
 that was outside the coverings. You can think of , him, 
 you know, as just passing away quietly, as if he'd had 
 an illfiess. It isn't always like that.' 
 
 'Ah, what wouldn't I have given to be with him !' 
 
 'He thought about you. I couldn't tell you every- 
 thing in a letter, but I've been wanting to.' 
 
 'I don't know that I could have stood it before, 
 John. I loved the boy. I couldn't bear the thought 
 of him dead, and everything over. But I want to hear 
 all about it now. It'll bring him closer instead of 
 putting him fiuther off.' 
 
 'I've felt like that about it too. There were other 
 fellows who were at school with us, and in the regiment, 
 who have been killed. One just says : " There's 
 So-and-So gone. He was a good fellow." You don't 
 feel it very much; there are too many of them. They've 
 just left off. But being with Dick at the end, it makes 
 it different, somehow. I didn't get over his death for 
 a long time; but it wasn't all trouble either. There 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 301 
 
 seemed to be more of him left. It'll always be lilie 
 that.' 
 
 'You say he thought about me, John, at the lai^t. 
 Did he mention my name? — send me any message?' 
 
 'It wasn't quite like that. If there had been a 
 message I should have written it. But he did mention 
 your name. He was too far gone really to talk, you 
 know. It was just a sentence now and then. When 
 I went in he smiled at me, and said : " Good for you, 
 John. I knew you'd come if you could." Then I 
 sat down by him, and all I could find to say was : 
 " Sorry to see you like this, Dick. I'm glad they got 
 me in time." Then he said : " If you get through, 
 tell Virginia I was thinking about her up to the end; 
 and say I love her." I said : " Yes, I will, Dick." 
 After that he didn't say ansrthing for a bit, but lay 
 with his eyes shut. I think he'd made up his mind to 
 get just that message to her, and had kept his mind 
 to it. I didn't know whether he'd be able to say any 
 more at all, and just sat quiet. Then he opened his 
 eyes again, and talked a Uttle, about Virginia. I 
 can't tell you aU he said, but I'll save it up to tell 
 her. ' I've tried to write it, but it doesn't sound the 
 same. Nancy says I'd better wait. Youll tell her 
 when you get home, won't you?' 
 
 'Yes, John.' 
 
 ' He said : " Father will look after her as long as 
 he lives. He love? her for her own sake as well as 
 for mine." ' 
 
 They had come to a s^at by the field path. The 
 Squire sat down on it, and John sat by him. The old 
 man's voice trembled as he said : ' I made a fuss about 
 his marrying her. I wish to God I hadn't. But it 
 was years ago. He must have forgiven it, John.' 
 
 'He wouldn't have said that if he hadn't, would he? 
 He trusted her to you. And to Mrs Clinton too. He 
 
302 THE CLINTONS, AND OTHERS 
 
 said : " I hope she'll go on living with them. I like 
 to think of her with them at home at Kencote. They'll 
 talk about me as if I were there, too." ' 
 
 'I haven't talked much about him. I couldn't bear 
 to. Now I will. I believe it wiU take away some of 
 their trouble. I've thought too much about my own, 
 John.' 
 
 'Best to talk about the people who're gone, if you 
 love them,' said John laconically. 
 
 'Yes, I think so now. Did he say anything more 
 about anything he wanted done?' 
 
 'That second time he spoke was the longest. After 
 that it was just a sentence now and then. I think 
 he'd let his mind go free. I, suppose that generally 
 happens when they're just sinking, and losing hold. 
 He'd said all he really wanted to say. He had sent 
 his message to Virginia, and left her to you and Mrs 
 Clinton, and felt at rest about her. That's exactly 
 as it struck me at the time. It wasn't only the words 
 he said. If there had been anything he wanted settled 
 about her he'd have saved himself up to say it. What 
 he wanted was to let her know what she was to him 
 up to the last. After that he'd know he coiJdn't do 
 anything more for her — more than you would do of 
 your own accord.' 
 
 ' You really think that was in his mind, John ? You're 
 not saying it only to bring me comfort?' 
 
 'I'm quite sure that was how it was with him. His 
 mind was at rest.' 
 
 'Well, it is a comfort. And it's a trust.- God bless 
 the dear boy ! He knew he could trust her to me — to 
 us. His mother wiU be glad to have it like that when 
 I tell her. Then after, John? What more did he say 
 before he died?' 
 
 'Very little more. A sentence now and then, with 
 his eyes closed. It reminded me of a child feeling very 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 303 
 
 sleepy, but not wanting to go off to sleep. It was 
 then he took hold of my hand — poor, dear old Dick ! ' 
 
 'I used sometimes to sit with him like that when 
 he was a Uttle chap,' said the old man, 'and he used 
 to hold my hand because he wanted to feel I was there. 
 And sometimes he'd say something so that I should 
 know he wasn't asleep yet, and stay with him. Was 
 it like that, John?' 
 
 'Yes, just like that. Perhaps he was back in his 
 childhood again, and thought it was your hand he 
 was holding. He said something once that I didn't- 
 quite catch — something about wet grass and a Uttle 
 nest.' 
 
 'Can't you remember exactly what it was he said, 
 John? Do try.' 
 
 'I couldn't catch it. Little eggs in a nest and wet 
 grass — ^that's what I remember.' 
 
 'Once when he was a tiny little chap, I took him 
 to see a wren's nest in some ivy, and he went again to 
 see it for himself and got his feet very wet, and caught 
 a bad cold. I sat with him that night. I remember 
 it quite well, though I'd forgotten it for years. It 
 must have been that he was thinking of, and thought 
 I was with him.' 
 
 'Yes, it looks like it. It was the only thing he said 
 that I didn't imderstand. At the end it was Virginia 
 he seemed to think was with him. He was past any 
 effort to keep her before him, but you see his thoughts 
 were always full of her. The last thing he said before 
 he seemed just to fall asleep was a sort of good-night 
 to her. I'll teU her when I see her. I'm not sure how 
 long it was after that that he died. I sat with him 
 for a long time. Then they came and said I'd better 
 go. Poor old Dick — ^there weren't many like him.' 
 
 The Squire sat silent, with his eyes on the ground. 
 After a time he said: 'Thank you, John. You've 
 
304 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 doiie me a lot of good. I've wanted to know all this, 
 and I wish I'd asked you before. But I suppose I 
 wasn't rea4y for it. If I could have been with him it 
 might have been different with me for the last two 
 years. It's going to be different now. There's Virginia 
 to think of. She's lost more than I have. But we've 
 both got him to keep as part of our lives, though he's 
 dead.' 
 
 'It never seems to me as if he's dead. Men like 
 that, who have counted for a lot to others, don't die 
 — ^not in your mind.' 
 
 'I suppose that's what I mean. We shall go on as 
 if he was there. His place will always be kept for 
 him. I think that's what Walter wants, too. He's 
 quite right^ — I've come to see that — in not wanting 
 to step into his shoes.' 
 
 'Walter has felt his death very much. He told me 
 that it was nothing but hard work that kept him going 
 at first. And since then he's wanted more than any- 
 thing to feel that things were going on just the same 
 at Kencote as if Dick were there.' 
 
 'Did he tell you that? Walter's a good boy, though 
 he can't be what Dick was. It isn't many men who 
 have so much to gain who would feel like that. But 
 everybody does feel like that about Dick. Well, I 
 see it clearer now that it's for me to keep things going 
 at Kencote, as long as I'm alive, as Dick liked to 
 think of them kept going. Perhaps it's what I can do 
 best. I'm too old now to have much weight in the 
 war. I make mistakes and upset people. I can do 
 something, but ' 
 
 'I think you've done a great deal. You've run 
 Kencote for a hospital for one thing. It's not many 
 who could have done so much as that.' 
 
 ' Oh, that was just one thing that there wasn't much 
 trouble about doing.' 
 
THE SQUIRE AND THE WAR 305 
 
 'It has been a pretty big thing. And aren't the 
 things like that, which a man is in a position to do, 
 and others can't, just what's wanted from everybody? 
 Seems so to me.' 
 
 'Perhaps you're right, John. It's the one thing I've 
 done that's been of some nse, though it has cost me 
 less trouble thein anything. I suppose Dick didn't 
 say anj^thing about the war at all — while jrou were 
 with hun at the end.' 
 
 'No, he wasn't thinking about that. He'd given his 
 life you see. It was off his mind. Accounts squared, 
 you might say.' 
 
 The Squire considered this. 'That's how he took it, 
 no doubt,' he said. 'He'd do his duty — nobody better 
 — and leave all the rest. That's what all of us ought 
 to do.' 
 
 'We can't do more — those of us who are out of it 
 for one reason or another. Best just to carry on, and 
 wait for the end. Take it as it comes.' 
 
 The Squire sat for a long time looking on to the ground, 
 and then raised his eyes to the hUls. Tliere was sorrow 
 in them, but no longer perplexity, or irritation. 
 
 He rose from the seat. 'I'm glad I came out here,' 
 he said. 'But I shaU be glad to get home again where 
 I belong, and Dick belongs.' 
 
CtASGOW : W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD. 
 
CoZZins' Spring List 1920 
 
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