The walls of the little town were placarded with the announcement of a great bazaar to be held for the benefit of the English Church in Bad-Schleppenheim. The economics of a fashionable bazaar are evidently governed by certain obscure laws, of which the knowledge is yet in infancy; for the ordinary laws of commerce are on these occasions completely suspended. That of supply and demand becomes inverted, since the vendors are seemingly eager to sell all that the buyers least want: the cost of production, of which statistics are not obtainable, the expenditure of money, time, and energy required to furnish the stalls is not taken into account at all. Loss and profit appear to be inextricably mingled; however much unsold merchandise remains on the stall at the end of the bazaar the seller is expected to hand over a substantial sum to the good object for which she is supposed to have been working. And yet there must be some advantage in this method of raising money, or even the female mind would presumably not at once turn to it as the simplest and most obvious way of obtaining funds for a given purpose.

These problems, however, did not exist for Lady Chaloner, one of the leaders of English Society in Schleppenheim. She took bazaars for granted, as she did everything else. She was one of the very pillars of the social fabric of her country. She was of noble blood, she was portly, she was decidedly middle-aged. She had been recommended to diet herself and to drink the waters of Schleppenheim, and as she did so in company with half the distinguished people in Europe, she was quite content to follow the course prescribed. In these days when everything is called into question, when social codes alter, and an undesirable fusion of human beings takes place in so many directions, it was positively refreshing to turn to Lady Chaloner, who not only did not know, but could not conceive that it mattered, what other people did in any layer of existence beneath her own. She had not at any time a keen eye to discrimination of character. Her judgment of those fellow-creatures whom she naturally frequented was based in the first instance on their degree of blood relationship with herself, then on their social standing: but she was but vaguely aware of the difference between the men and women, especially the women, who did not belong to that inner circle, and knew as little about them as a looker-on leaning from a window in a foreign town knows about the people who pass beneath him in the street. But there were times when she entirely recognised the usefulness in the scheme of creation of those motley crowds of well-dressed persons, even though they bore names she had never heard before. During her preparation for the bazaar, for instance, which she was getting up in the single-minded conviction that nothing better could be done for the institution she was trying to befriend, she had been more than willing to co-operate with Mrs. Birkett, the wife of the chaplain, and even to ask some of Mrs. Birkett's friends for their help. Mrs. Birkett, who approached the bazaar from the point of view from which she had artlessly imagined it was being undertaken, that of ensuring some sort of provision for the expenses of the chaplain who undertook the summer duty of Schleppenheim, received a series of shocks as she came face to face with the different points of view of the various stall-holders with whom she was successively brought into contact. Lady Chaloner—she looked on this as a great achievement—had succeeded in enrolling among the bazaar-workers the young Princess Hohenschreien, on the ground of her being a staunch Protestant. The Princess was half-English, half-German. Her mother had been a distant connection of Lady Chaloner. This relationship in some strange way entirely condoned in Lady Chaloner's eyes the fact that the Princess Hohenschreien had a good deal of paint on her face, and a good deal of paint in her manner, and that the loudness of her laugh and the boldness of her bearing were more pronounced than would have been permitted of the well-behaved ladies brought up within the walls of Castle Chaloner. However, Lady Chaloner's daughters were married to husbands of an excellent and irreproachable kind, and were out in the world; and Lady Chaloner felt no kind of responsibility about Madeline Hohenschreien, "Maddy," as she was called by her intimates. She expressed distinct approval of her, in fact, in the words, "Maddy has such a lot of go about her, hasn't she? It does one good to hear her laughin'." So when "Maddy" instantly and light-heartedly undertook to help the bazaar by performing at the CafÉ Chantant, that was to go on at stated times all through the evening, Lady Chaloner felt that she was doing a distinctly good work. It was no small undertaking, however, marshalling her forces and trying to arrange that every one of the stallholders should not be selling exactly the same thing—namely, the small carved wooden objects, the staple commodity of Schleppenheim, made by the surrounding peasantry.

The bazaar was drawing near, and Lady Chaloner was very busy indeed. Indefatigably did she send for Mrs. Birkett several times every day, begging her to bring a pencil and paper that they might make lists. Mrs. Birkett's experience, however, was limited to sales of work under somewhat different conditions in England, and she was not of very much use, except as a moral support and outward material embodiment of the cause for which the bazaar was being undertaken. She sought comfort in her inmost soul in the thought of all the money that must surely flow into the coffers of the Church after this magnificent undertaking; but she was secretly out of her element and ill at ease, when Lady Chaloner pounced upon her to talk of the bazaar, at an hour when the most fashionable people in Europe, with their best clothes on, were walking up and down while the band was playing, or established at little tables exchanging intimate pleasantries with one another and greetings with the people that passed.

She was sitting by Lady Chaloner, in compulsory attendance upon that benefactress of the Church, a few days before the bazaar was to come off.

"Now, let me see," said Lady Chaloner, "what are you goin' to have on your stall?"

"On mine?" said Mrs. Birkett, rather taken aback.

"Yes," said Lady Chaloner, "aren't you goin' to have a stall?"

"You see," said Mrs. Birkett, "I have not any of the things here that—er—I generally use for the purpose," and she thought regretfully of a big box at home which contained a sort of rolling stock of hideous articles that travelled, so to speak, between herself and her friends from one bazaar to another, and reappeared, a sort of symbolical merchandise, a currency in a nightmare, at all the fancy sales held in the neighbourhood of Leighton Ham.

"The only thing is," said Lady Chaloner, "it is rather a pity, because, bein' for the Church, people will expect you to sell, you know. Perhaps you could sell at somebody else's stall. Mine's full, I think," she added prudently. "Let me see," and her ladyship ran quickly over the names of the half a dozen young women who, in the most beguiling of costumes, were going to trip about and sell buttonholes to their partners of the evening before. Lady Chaloner's solid good sense and long habit of the world kept things that should be separate perfectly distinct; she did not for a moment contemplate Mrs. Birkett tripping about and selling buttonholes. "Perhaps Mrs. Samuels hasn't got her number complete," she said, not realising this time, the thing being a little more out of her field of vision, that Mrs. Samuels, who had been spending her time, energy, and even money, in trying to be friends with Lady Chaloner, might quite possibly be in the same attitude towards Mrs. Birkett, if thrust upon her, as Lady Chaloner was to herself.

"I daresay, yes," said Mrs. Birkett, with some misgiving, as she saw Mrs. Samuels further down the alley, standing with a London manager in the centre of a group who were laughing and talking round them.

"Let me see, Mrs. Samuels is goin' to have the tea, isn't she?"

"Yes, the refreshment stall," said Mrs. Birkett, referring to her list.

"And Lady Adela Prestige the fortune tellin'—and Princess Hohenschreien, what did she say she would do? Oh! I remember, the CafÉ Chantant. What has she done about it, I wonder? Do you know anything about that?"

"I am afraid I don't," said Mrs. Birkett. This, indeed, was quite beyond her competence.

"I wonder if she has got people enough. Ah! here she is. Madeline! Maddy!" she called out, as Princess Hohenschreien appeared at the end of the walk, a parasol lined with pink behind her, and her head thrown back as she laughed loud and heartily at something her companion had said.

"Yes, dear Lady Chaloner? Were you calling me?"

"I wanted to speak to you about the bazaar," said Lady Chaloner. "How do you do, M. de Moricourt," to the Princess's companion.

"The bazaar," said the young man in French, as he bowed, "what is that?"

"What is that?" said the Princess, with another burst of laughter. "But, mon cher, you are impossible! We have been talking of nothing else all the way down the alley."

"How?" said the young man. "I really beg your pardon, Princess, but I thought we were talking of the comedy we were going to act at the Casino."

"And what do you suppose that comedy is for," said the Princess, "if not for the bazaar?"

"How can I tell?" said Moricourt. "It might have been to please the public, or even to please the Princess Hohenschreien," with a little bow.

"Of course we shall please both," said the Princess. "And a bazaar gives us a reason. A charity bazaar, isn't it?"

"Ah! a charity bazaar," said Moricourt, "that is another thing. It doesn't matter how badly I shall act, then."

"Perhaps that is as well," said the Princess.

"Is it permitted to know the object of the charity we are going to assist so well?" said Moricourt.

Lady Chaloner, dimly aware that Mrs. Birkett was becoming very uncomfortable, although she did not clearly distinguish whether the peculiar expression to be observed on the latter's face came from irritation or embarrassment, hastily said—

"It is not a charity exactly. It is for the English Church at Schleppenheim. This is Mrs. Birkett, the wife of the clergyman," indicating Mrs. Birkett.

"Ah!" said Moricourt, "the English Church," and he bowed to Mrs. Birkett as though making the acquaintance of that honoured institution. Princess Hohenschreien also included herself in the introduction, and bowed with a good-natured smile of absolute indifference to Mrs. Birkett and to all that she represented.

"Well, now then, seriously," said Lady Chaloner, "do you undertake the CafÉ Chantant, Madeline?"

"Not the whole of it, my dear lady," said the Princess. "That really is too much to ask. M. Moricourt and I will act a play."

"How long does the play last?" said Lady Chaloner.

"How long did we say it took?" said the Princess to her companion. "It depends upon how often Moricourt forgets his part. When we rehearsed it last night he waited quite ten minutes in the middle of it."

"I must remind you," said Moricourt, "that I was pausing to admire ... the beautiful feathers in your hat."

"Oh! well, that is different," said the Princess. "I think that explanation is satisfactory—but otherwise——" And she filled up the sentence with a telling glance, to which Moricourt replied with a look of fervent admiration.

"Well, how long does it take, then?" said Lady Chaloner, with a smile of strange indulgence, Mrs. Birkett thought, for a lady so highly placed, and of such solid dignity.

"Oh! about half an hour," said Moricourt; "perhaps three-quarters."

"Is that all?" said Lady Chaloner, in some consternation. "The CafÉ Chantant goes on for how long did you say, Mrs. Birkett?"

This piece of statistics Mrs. Birkett was able to furnish.

"From six till ten, I think you said, Lady Chaloner," she said, reading from her list.

"Heavens!" said the Princess, "you don't expect us, I hope, to go on from six till ten. We had better do the Nibelungen Ring at once. I will be BrÜnnhilde—and I tell you what," turning to Moricourt, "you shall be the big lizard who comes in and says 'bow-wow,' or whatever it is. Mr. Wentworth!" and she called to Wentworth who was strolling along with an air of being at peace with himself and the universe. "What is it that lizards do?"

"If they are small," said Wentworth, "they run up a wall in the sun, or they run over your feet, and if they are big——"

"You fall over their feet, I suppose," said the Princess.

"But a lizard at a CafÉ Chantant," said Moricourt, "what does he do?"

"At a CafÉ Chantant? He sings, of course," said Wentworth.

"No no," said the Princess, with again her resonant laugh. "I don't know much about botany, but I am sure lizards don't sing."

"Then in that case," said Moricourt, "Wentworth must. He can sing; I have heard him."

"Can you, Mr. Wentworth? How well can you sing?" said the Princess with artless candour.

"Well," said Wentworth, "that is rather difficult to say. I don't sing quite as well as Mario perhaps, but a little better than ... a lizard."

"Oh, that will do perfectly," said the Princess. "For a charity, people are not particular."

"By the way, what is all this for?" said Wentworth.

"For the English Church here, you remember," said Lady Chaloner.

"Oh! to be sure, yes," said Wentworth. "I saw the placard."

"This is Mrs. Birkett," said Lady Chaloner.

Wentworth bowed and said politely, "I hope the bazaar will be a great success."

"I hope so, thank you," Mrs. Birkett said, feeling that if the bazaar were not a great success, she would have gone through a good deal for a very little. She longed to be allowed to go away, but she was not quite sure whether she would not be jeopardising the success of the bazaar by leaving at this juncture. Visions of having promised to meet her reverend husband to go for a walk at a given moment were haunting her. Finally, with a desperate effort, she said—

"I am afraid I have an appointment, Lady Chaloner, and must go now, unless there is anything more I can do."

"Oh, must you go?" said Lady Chaloner, "we had better meet in the morning, I think, and make a final list of the stalls."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Birkett, with a sigh of relief, and with a determined effort she tried to include the circle she was leaving in one salutation, and made away as fast as she could.

"I hope," said the Princess, "the poor lady is not shocked at having a CafÉ Chantant in her Church bazaar."

"At any rate," said Wentworth, "she will be consoled when you hand over the results to her afterwards."

"What is the name of the piece you are going to do?" said Lady Chaloner, pencil in hand.

"Une porte qui s'ouvre," said Moricourt, with a glance at the Princess.

"Oh! if you think we'll have that one!" said the Princess. "Would you believe, Lady Chaloner, that he wants me to be the maid in it instead of the leading lady, because he kisses the maid behind the door!"

"My dear Maddy!" said Lady Chaloner, reprovingly.

"Don't look so shocked at me, dear Lady Chaloner," she said. "I am sure I am as shocked myself at the suggestion, as——"

"Mrs. Birkett," suggested Wentworth.

"Precisely," said the Princess.

"At any rate we'll put that piece on the list for the present," said Lady Chaloner. "Then there will be a song from Lady Adela——"

"And a song from Mr. Wentworth," said Moricourt.

"That's splendid," said Lady Chaloner. "The CafÉ Chantant will do. The only thing I rather regret is about the stalls, that every one is goin' to sell the same thing."

"And who is going to buy?" said the Princess.

"That's another difficulty," said Lady Chaloner, "they'll all have to buy from one another."

"We had better have some autographs," said the Princess, "they always sell."

"Very good," said Lady Chaloner, putting it down on the list. "You had better get some."

"All right," said the Princess. "We'll have some of all kinds, I think. I will get some from those people too," nodding her head in the direction of the London manager.

"Everybody considers himself an autograph in these days," said Wentworth; "it is terrible what a levelling age we live in."

"We might sell photographs, of course," said the Princess, "instead of autographs."

"Or both," said Lady Chaloner, earnestly and anxiously, as though contemplating all sources of revenue. "Signed photographs."

"Excellent," said Wentworth.

"There ought to be people enough to buy, if they would only come," said Lady Chaloner, taking up a Visitors' List that lay beside her. "People like the Francis Rendels, for instance," putting her finger on the name, "or——"

"The Rendels? Are they here?" said Wentworth, with much interest.

"So it says here. What is she like?" said Lady Chaloner. "Would she help?"

"I am not sure," said Wentworth. "She's in mourning, and very quiet—but very charming."

"Thank you," said the Princess with a gay laugh. "I am sure that is a compliment À mon adresse. I know what you mean when you say that very quiet women are charming. Let us go away, Moricourt; we are too noisy for Mr. Wentworth."

"You are too bad, Maddy, really," said Lady Chaloner, smiling at this brilliant sally.

"Ich bitte sehr," said Wentworth to the Princess, with a little bow, as he took up the paper and looked for the address of the Rendels. "Pavillon du Jardin, HÔtel de Londres—I must go and look them up," he said.

"You might beat them up to come and buy, at any rate," said Lady Chaloner, "if they can't do anything else."

"I will do what I can," said Wentworth with a smile, reflecting as he walked off what a strange blurring of the focus of life there is when, everything being concentrated on to one particular purpose, whether it be a bazaar, an election, or the giving of a ball, all the human beings one encounters are considered from the point of view of their fitness to one particular end—in the aspect of a buyer or seller, as a voter, as a partner, as the case may be. There was no doubt that at this moment the whole of mankind were expected to fit somehow into Lady Chaloner's pattern: to be useful for the bazaar, or to be thrown away as useless.

As Wentworth turned away he exchanged greetings with a jovial important-looking personage coming in the other direction, no other than Mr. Pateley, exhaling prosperity as he came. The completion of the Cape to Cairo railway, and the reinstatement in public opinion of the 'Equator' Mine, proved to be of gold after all—let alone certain fortunate pecuniary transactions connected with that reinstatement—had given Pateley both political and material satisfaction. The Arbiter was advancing more triumphantly than ever, and its editor was a person of increasing consideration and influence.

"You seem very busy, Lady Chaloner," he said, as he looked at the sheets of paper on the table by her.

"We are gettin' up a bazaar," Lady Chaloner said. "Will you help us?"

"I shall be delighted," said Pateley obviously. "What do you want me to do?"

"Give us your autograph," said the Princess promptly, "and we will sell it for large sums of gold."

She had certainly chosen a skilful way of enlisting Pateley's co-operation. He revelled in the joy of being a political potentate, and every fresh proof that he received of the fact was another delight to him.

"I shall be greatly honoured," he said.

"We are going to have autographs of all the distinguished people we can find," said the Princess, continuing her system of ingratiation.

"I can tell you of an autograph who has just arrived," said Pateley. "I have just seen him driving up from the station; a very expensive autograph indeed—Lord Stamfordham."

"Lord Stamfordham?" said Lady Chaloner, the Foreign Secretary, like the rest of the world, falling instantly into his place in her kaleidescope. "Certainly, if he would give us a dozen autographs we should do an excellent business with them."

"You had better make Adela Prestige ask him, then," said the Princess with a laugh.

"I wonder where Adela is?" said Lady Chaloner, considering the question entirely on its merits.

"That depends upon where Lord Stamfordham is," murmured the Princess to her companion. "By the way, Lady Chaloner, before we part, it is Tuesday, isn't it, that we make our expedition to Waldlust to lunch in the wood?"

"Tuesday?—let me see, this is Thursday. Yes, I think so," said Lady Chaloner. Then she gave a cry of dismay. "Oh! no, Maddy, Tuesday is the bazaar; that will never do."

"Oh, yes," said the Princess, "all the better. The bazaar doesn't open till half-past five after all, and we can lunch at half-past twelve. It will do us good to be in the fresh air before our labours begin; we shall look all the better for it."

"Very well," said Lady Chaloner dubiously. "But then what about the arrangements?"

"Can't those be made on Monday?" said the Princess; "and if there are any finishing touches required, Mrs. Birkett and her friends can do them on Tuesday. They won't want to look their best, I daresay," and she laughed again.

"Very well," said Lady Chaloner. "Tuesday, then, for Waldlust. I will ask Lord Stamfordham to come."

"And I will ask Adela," said the Princess.

"Come then, Moricourt," said the Princess, "if you want to rehearse that play before we act it."

"Pray do," said Lady Chaloner anxiously. "I am sure people who act always rehearse first."

"I am more than willing," said M. de Moricourt, throwing an infinity of expression into his voice and glance as he looked at the Princess.

"Some parts especially will require a great deal of rehearsing." And they departed together.

"She is so amusin'," said Lady Chaloner to Pateley. "I really don't know anybody that can be more amusin' when she likes."

Pateley gave a round, sonorous laugh of agreement, tantamount to a smile of assent in any one else. He wisely did not commit himself to any expression of opinion as to the accomplished wit of the Princess, which at all events as far as he had had opportunity of observing it, did not strike him as being of a very subtle character.