The blue room, furnished by the late duchess, and undisturbed by her loyal son, was of that sickly azure hue once affected by pale blondes. The walls were further ornamented by bits of sentimental tapestry, the chair backs with anti-macassars, stitched and woven by her Grace’s own white hands. There was an entire sofa,—but why harrow the soul of the reader, even as Nigel’s soul should have been harrowed as he sat with closed eyes awaiting Julia? As a matter of fact, he forgot the hideous room at once, and, heroically dismissing Julia from his mind that he might be quite composed when she entered, dwelt with satisfaction upon his interview with his father a few hours earlier. That eminently practical peer had cast him off when he fled from England, leaving a curt note to announce his intention to devote himself to the art of fiction. He might have starved after the fashion of more orthodox bidders for immortality, had it not been for a small personal annuity which enabled him to live comfortably in Switzerland while engrossed in his book. It was during this period, living in a mountain inn, without luxuries, paternal menace and thwarted passion behind him, that Nigel learned the profoundest lesson art teaches: its power to pulverize the common human emotions and desires. Only the true artist, of course, gets the message, is capable of immolation conscious or otherwise, of elevating art above life.

Nigel was a born artist and had in him the makings of a great one. Nevertheless, the discovery that nothing really mattered but his work, that only his characters lived, and personal memories were dim, not only surprised, but deeply mortified him. Being a man, as ready as the next to love, and to fight and die for his country, it alarmed him to discover that he carried within him a possible rival to his manhood, the highest attribute, etc. But he was not long consoling himself. He progressed to rapture over the discovery, ended by being humbly grateful. He was a man all right, that needn’t worry him; he was willing, therefore, to admit that to be an artist was a greater endowment still. And it gave him a sense of independence, of liberty, of superiority, to which the air of the high Alps contributed little or nothing.

Then came the intoxication of success, of that immediate recognition so many have hungered for in vain. Lest his head be turned and his art suffer, he went on a walking trip through Germany, Italy, and France, sleeping in inns and receiving neither letters nor newspapers. Nor did he meet any one he knew. He even avoided Englishmen lest he prove himself unable to resist the temptation to lead the conversation round to his book. Not only was he a sincere artist, but he blindly clung to this new and friendly magician that made the world so agreeably little.

When he returned to his eyrie, full of his new book, he found a letter from his practical papa, forgiving him, since success had attended his dereliction, and enclosing a check. Nigel responded amiably, then flung himself once more at his desk, anxious to learn if the embryonic book contained the same brand of enchantment as the first: the vision of Julia had haunted his lonely footsteps. It did. Julia fled. He forgot his family, himself, his success. Once more he was pure artist, therefore entirely happy.

But he was still young. The second book had now gone from him. Art slept. As he heard the rustle of a train, the hearty welcome, the proud words of his father, deserted his memory, his heart almost stopped. Nevertheless, as he rose to greet Julia his face was expressionless of all but suave languid politeness. He, too, “fell back on technique.” And this easily adjusted armor of the aristocrat is the best of his assets. When a man smiles in the face of death, without bravado, it merely means that he is well bred. His heart may be water.

Nigel was intensely irritated with himself for having been betrayed into something like emotion at the head of the stair, and he spoke with a slight drawl as he shook Julia’s hand.

“Awfully good to see you,” he remarked. “You look rippin’, too. Will you sit here?”

“Let me get this crown off. It weighs tons.” Julia unfastened the Kingsborough diamonds and deposited them irreverently in a chair, then took the one Nigel offered. “I’d have left it upstairs, but I suppose I shall have to walk about later. I do hope I shan’t have to wear it often. Thank heaven, I’m not a duchess yet!”

Nigel knew the pitfalls in that engaging frankness and steeled himself.

“Oh, you’ll like it when the time comes,” he said indifferently. “How’s the duke?”

The duke had always been such a negligible quantity, both physically and socially, that no one felt self-conscious in referring to his demise a trifle earlier than the conventions prescribed. Julia certainly felt no false shame as she replied:—

“Better—rather. He shot, and even rode to hounds now and again. He’s looked a bit off his feed since our return to town, and I know Harold believes he’s not going to live much longer; but that’s because he’s made up his mind that he’s waited long enough. I hope Kingsborough’ll brace up. Of course I came to England prepared to have him die at once, but, somehow, you can’t live in the house with a man and wish him dead—at least, I can’t. Besides, as I said, I’m in no hurry. In fact, I prefer it this way.”

A shadow passed over her face, and Nigel asked with less languor:—

“Why?”

“Oh—I think it a good thing for a man to have a mental occupation, and waiting for dead men’s shoes is an occupation—rather! Ra-ther, as the boys say. I don’t know Harold so awfully well, but I have an idea he would be lost—and quite impossible—if he couldn’t scheme about something. He’s the sort of man that always has a grievance, loves to think himself abused if only because it gives him an excuse to plot and imagine himself getting the better of somebody. Besides—this is more like playing with life. The real thing must be full of responsibilities that don’t mean so much, after all. Now—sometimes—I can fancy I am a girl, masquerading, and I can do all sorts of things I couldn’t do if I were of any importance.”

“And just how much of a girl do you feel?” he asked with bitter emphasis.

It was not possible for Julia to turn any whiter than she was at all times, but her expressive eyes grew so dark that they deepened the whiteness to pallor. For a moment she looked older, and, swiftly as it passed, Nigel detected an expression of fear and horror in the gaze that no longer met his, but looked beyond. He caught both arms of his chair, and held his breath. But in an instant it was as if a hard little hand had rammed memory down into the depths of consciousness and bolted a lid above it. Julia’s eyes flashed back to his, full of mischievous gayety.

“Now don’t indulge in romantic fancies about me,” she said. “If I proclaimed from the housetops that I don’t love my husband, that I was married by my mother, no one would pay the least attention. Everybody knows it and nobody cares. What is done is done. I have a philosophical nature myself. Remember that my horoscope was cast three times. And I have my compensations.”

“What are your compensations?”

“Oh, books, my best friends—you among them!—a certain freedom I find here in London, and mean to have more of, and clothes! clothes! You have no idea what pretty frocks I have. That isn’t all. It’s great fun to get the best of Harold—to give him another grievance! But I do get the best of him—and of the duke, too, occasionally. There’s a curious satisfaction in it—”

“Be careful! You’ll be hard, first thing you know.”

“The harder women are, the happier they are, I fancy. A sort of fine steel armor that you could hide in your hand but that covers you from head to foot. I’ve used my eyes these last two years. That is all that keeps most women from being ground to powder. One can try to keep soft inside, you know.”

“There’s one thing I don’t know—what you are driving at. I can’t make out whether you are changed altogether, or are the same delicious child, or if you are trying to keep your old personality intact, while forced to admit to partnership an ego you have manufactured in self-defence. One moment you look wise, almost hard, the next—”

“I refuse to be stuck on a pin in your psychological cabinet. But I suppose you’ve got us all there. Herbert Spencer says—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t become a clever woman! Whatever—”

“Why not? Don’t you fancy that would be a compensation?”

“You clever! It would be too awful!”

“You talk like Mr. Jones.”

“Hang Mr. Jones. Ishbel was entirely right; and she is one of the few women on this earth that can be clever, as deep as the pit, and never let a man find it out. But you! You are too straightforward and honest. Not that Ishbel isn’t honest; she’s a brick; but she has a special talent—possibly it lies in her coquetry. You have little or no coquetry. You are in a state of flux at present, and if you decide for the second ego, if you become hard and clever, you never could disguise it. So beware, or you’ll not be able to love and be happy when your time comes.”

“You mean to make some man happy!”

“What is the difference?”

“Oh, lots. I try not to think. I want to remain young as long as I can. But I can’t help observing that men like geese,—what they call feminine women. I suppose you mean that clever women find too many other resources, and therefore are independent of men. Ergo, they don’t make men happy.”

Nigel colored. “Something of that sort.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it of you. Fancy your being just the ordinary male, after all.”

“Let us drop generalities and my humble self. I am thinking of you. We don’t live in a moral world or age. Like all women you will, sooner or later, demand happiness as your right. In other words, you will wake up some day and want love. Then you will have lost the power to charm. You would never be content with a fool, and clever men rarely love clever women—not with their eyes open. You are quite right as you are. Enjoy life. Let its problems alone.”

This impassioned plea for her youth left him almost breathless. For the moment he was not conscious of loving her himself, of pleading for his own future before it was too late. His languid dignity had retired from the field; he felt only that he had arrived in time to avert a tragedy, and so impersonal that his chest lifted slightly. The next moment he was gasping under a douche of cold water.

Julia had thrown her head back and was looking at him with softly shining eyes, her lashes half covering, and filling them with little black lines.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered. “I’ve never told any one. I’m—I’m in love.”

“What!”

“You’ll never breathe it?”

“Who—who—”

“It’s a man I’ve never seen.”

“How can you love a man you’ve never seen? What a baby you are!”

“I didn’t say I loved; I said I was in love. And a man I’ve never seen is the only sort I could go that far with. I hate every man I know, simply because he is a man; and I never want really to meet, even to see, this one. But it’s great fun to be in love with him, to live in an inner world of one’s own.”

“Oh!” Once more Nigel writhed with jealousy.

“And that isn’t all.” Julia’s eyes grew even more burdened with dreams. “When I have to be kissed— At first I just set my teeth— Now I shut my eyes and imagine it’s the other.”

Nigel stood up. His face was white. His hands shook.

“And who, may I ask, is this fortunate person?”

“I don’t think I can tell you that.”

“You shall tell me. I have some rights. I was your first friend, and I loved you myself.”

Julia looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He had used the past tense, but he looked more like the present.

“I never thought I could breathe his name,” she whispered. “But I can tell you. It’s Cecil Rhodes.”

“Rhodes? Upon my word, you have good taste!” Then he burst into irrepressible laughter, and threw himself back in his chair.

“Oh, what a kid you are! What a baby! And I thought you were on the road to become a clever woman.”

Julia smiled mysteriously and picked up her crown. Her voice and eyes were more ingenuous than ever. “I told you, partly because you are my only man friend, the only man I don’t hate, and partly because you would have made love to me yourself in another minute. But if you tell Bridgit or Ishbel—”

“Never!” Once more Nigel laughed until the tears blotted his vision.

“Now I must go out and walk about and try to look like a duchess in a semitransparent shell. Will you give me your arm?”