It is a singular fact that the secondary stage of the drama which I am relating was tremendously, vitally, influenced by the marriage of Mr. Luke Shooter, junior partner in Shooter’s, a firm of wholesale ribbon merchants in Cannon Street. Luke Shooter did not know it. Luke Shooter had nothing whatever to do with the drama; it is very, probable that he never even heard of it, except such trifling fragments as got into the newspapers. Nevertheless, by the mere fact of marrying, Luke Shooter unconsciously changed the course of events in the City of Pleasure. For he was a man of broad views, and he liked people to think well of him, and so it occurred that, at his suggestion, the multitudinous staff of Shooter’s was given a complete holiday on the day of his marriage, and that day happened to be Tuesday, May 4.

So much for Mr. Luke Shooter.

Many of the employÉs spent the latter half of the day in the City of Pleasure, which was now the rage, the craze, and the vogue of London, and among these were the twin sisters, Pauline and Rosie Dartmouth. Pauline and Rosie were typists in the house of Shooters. Their age was twenty-six. They were tall, and rather slim; only Rosie, the younger, was not quite so slim as Pauline. Pauline was dark; Rosie was inclined to fairness. In the partnership between them Pauline supplied the common sense, while Rosie supplied the gaiety; each supplied a considerable amount of beauty and charm, and a sum of thirty-five shillings a week. It is obvious that on a total income of three pounds ten a week, or a hundred and eighty-two pounds a year, two girls living together in a small flat, with sense and gaiety and full opportunity for acquiring ribbons at wholesale prices, may have a very good time and cut quite a pretty figure in the world. And this Pauline and Rosie certainly did manage to do.

They were orphans, and had been for a very long time.

They came to the City by the Tube from their flat in Shepherd’s Bush, and Pauline put a florin down for the two of them at the northern entrance gates, just as though they had been ordinary visitors; as, in fact, at that moment they were. A few persons noticed them, but quite casually, and only because they were dressed—and well dressed—almost exactly alike. There are so many beautiful young women in London that Londoners seldom turn their heads to look at one. It is left to Frenchmen to rave about the blond charm of the Anglo-Saxon “mees.” What exuberant adjectives the Frenchman would find to express his delight if he penetrated further north, into Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, where ugly faces and bad complexions are practically unknown, it is impossible to guess.

The City of Pleasure met with the entire approval of Pauline and Rosie. As soon as they found themselves in the Central Way they began to get enthusiastic. The sun was shining, the flags were flying, the cable-cars were gliding, and thousands and thousands of visitors made gay the City. They had never before seen anything like the Central Way, with its colonnades, and its shops, and its coloured throngs, and its soaring, gleaming, white architecture.

“It’s just as good as being abroad, isn’t it?” said Rosie.

“Better,” said Pauline.

But then they had never been beyond Boulogne.

They stopped at shop windows, as much to regard jewellery and knick-knacks, as to observe whether their frocks and chiffons and hats were in that immaculate order which a sunny day and the presence of one’s fellow-creatures demand. It may be mentioned here that their dresses were of dark blue, with blue belts, bunchy knots of white muslin at the throat, white gloves, brown glacÉ kid boots, and large blue-and-black picture hats. It was plain, but it was perfect, and they knew it was perfect. The consciousness of perfection enabled them to sustain the judicial gaze of other women, and the passing glance of innumerable young men, with a supercilious stare. In truth they were secretly wild with the joy of life, and the attractiveness of the City, and the sensations of their holiday, but they did not show it. Oh, no! They did not show it. They were prim to the most advanced degree, as became them.

“I should just love to go on one of those dear little cable-cars!” exclaimed Rosie.

“Well, let’s,” Pauline agreed.

“Aren’t they delicious?” said Rosie.

And only in the girlish hop, skip, and jump, which landed them gracefully on a car, was there a hint of the pent-up vivacity which surged in their veins—a hint that vanished as rapidly as it had showed itself. As Rosie smoothed out her skirt, and as Pauline opened the purse in her gloved hand to give two pence to the conductor, they had the utter demureness of duchesses.

The car was open to the sky, with crosswise seats, and, as it sailed rapidly down the Central Way, constantly passing other cars coming in the opposite direction, and passing fountains and flower-beds and elephants and camels, and all the strange world of the City, the pleasure became rather too keen for Rosie’s mercurial heart. She took Pauline’s hand and pressed it, sitting a little bit closer to her.

“Suppose we meet him?” she whispered.

“What? In this crowd? Never! Besides, he isn’t likely to be outside,” said Pauline.

She was only a few minutes older than Rosie, but she could not have played the elder sister more completely had she been ten years older.

“We might meet her, anyway!” murmured Rosie.

“Nonsense, Rosie. You don’t imagine she’ll be here, do you?”

“I don’t know,” said Rosie, lifting her chin. “But suppose we do meet him, or either of them.”

“Well, then,” said Pauline wisely, “we meet them, that’s all.”

“Shall you speak to them?” Rosie asked; “I shan’t.”

“We’ll think about that when we see them,” said Pauline.

“Oh!” cried Rosie.

This exclamation had nothing to do with the foregoing chatter. It merely expressed some part of Rosie’s joy when the car came to the magnificent circular place half-way down the Central Way, with the faÇade of the Exposition Palace on the right, the stately entrance to the Oriental Gardens on the left, and the superb vista of the thoroughfare before and behind.

“Oh!” cried Rosie again, for quite a different reason.

Already she had forgotten the architectural and other beauties of this scene, and was eagerly directing Pauline’s attention to a tall man with vivid hair and an individual style, who had just crossed the rails in front of the car and was proceeding towards the Oriental Gardens.

“There!” said Rosie, pointing frantically, yet primly. “Don’t you see him?”

“Who? That man with the red hair?”

“Yes; it’s Carpentaria, isn’t it?”

“So it is, I do declare!” agreed Pauline, frankly as interested as her sister.

It was.

“Oh!” breathed Rosie regretfully, as the car swept them further from the figure of the popular hero. “Doesn’t he look lovely? He’s just like his portraits, only nicer, isn’t he?”

“I—I couldn’t see him very well,” said the discreet Pauline.

“Yes, you could,” Rosie corrected her sharply. “You know you adore him. But you’re always so mum.”

Pauline smiled placidly.

“I do wish we could meet him—be introduced to him I mean!” said Rosie.

“My dear child,” Pauline reprimanded. “Don’t be silly. He’s frightfully rich.”

“I know!” said Rosie sadly. “But he isn’t married. I think his hair’s beautiful.”

In common with very many English and other girls, Rosie and Pauline were capable of displaying brazenly, for a man they had scarcely seen, an affection the tenth part of which certain males with whom they were intimately acquainted would have been delighted to receive. Their virgin hearts had never been touched, not even by the Apollos of the house of Shooter; they prided themselves on their unapproachableness; yet they could rave about Carpentaria, and openly profess that they were his slaves. In Carpentaria’s presence they would doubtless have behaved, even if they did not feel, differently.

The car whirled them to the other end of the City, and they began systematically to do everything and to see everything that could be done and seen, from the captive balloon (not that they did that—they were content to see it) to the Soudanese native village, from the circus to the exhibition relating to Woman, from the cricket field to the Freak Show, and from the Art Galleries to the ladies’ afternoon-tea cafÉ. They were in the ladies’ afternoon-tea cafÉ and paying for two pots of tea, seven cakes, and an extra cream, just as the clock struck five. It then occurred to them that a concert of military music began at precisely five o’clock in the Oriental Gardens, and they decided to go and listen to it, even though, sad to say, Carpentaria never conducted in person till the evening.

They crossed the Central Way, and were strolling along the avenue to the Gardens, when Pauline stopped.

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed.

“What is it?”

Coming down the steps of Ilam’s bungalow was the great Ilam himself, and it was to Ilam she pointed.

“What shall we do?” whispered Rosie. “He’s lots older, isn’t he?... And you said we shouldn’t meet him!”

They walked on, irresolute and blushing, and just as they arrived opposite Ilam’s gate, with their eyes gazing studiously straight in front of them, Ilam called out:

“Hi, there! Young ladies!”

Now, the avenue was generously sprinkled with people, but Pauline and Rosie happened to be the only young ladies within hail, and to have ignored such a loud and unmistakable appeal as Ilam’s would have drawn down upon them more public attention than they desired. They therefore stopped, still blushing, but delightfully blushing, and smiling with that innate kindliness of heart which distinguished both of them. Rosie spoke first. She was a woman, and had positively stated that under the circumstances she should not speak. Hence, naturally, she spoke first.

“Good afternoon, cousin,” said she.

In her manner of pronouncing that word “cousin,” a non-committal manner, a more-than-meets-the-eye manner, a defensive manner—in a word, a family manner—she indicated a whole family history. When relatives who are distant in more senses than one meet after a considerable period, that particular manner is invariably employed by the one who speaks first.

The history of the Dartmouths and the Ilams was quite simple—indeed, so usual as to be hardly worthy of record. Mrs. Dartmouth, mother of the twins, had been an Ilam. She was the orphan child of Josephus’ dead uncle, and therefore niece of Josephus’ father. And before her marriage she was understood to have “expectations” from that mighty and opulent soda-water manufacturer. However, heedless of these expectations, she went and married beneath her—to wit, a solicitor’s clerk. The niece of a rich soda-water manufacturer has no business to marry a solicitor’s clerk. The result was a complete estrangement. Mrs. Dartmouth gave all the Ilams to understand that she and her husband had no need of anyone’s money—that, in fact, they scorned the Ilam millions. Mrs. Dartmouth met Josephus at his father’s funeral. Ten years later Pauline and Rosie met Josephus at Mrs. Dartmouth’s funeral. They shook hands formally, and made it clear to Josephus that they would stoop to accept no gift from him, who had scorned their mother, even should he offer it.

That was seven years ago, and Pauline and Rosie were now absolutely alone in the world, and, moreover, age had taught them tolerance, and their curiosity had been extremely excited by the news of their cousin’s partnership with the world-renowned Carpentaria, and the subsequent birth of the City of Pleasure. So that, in spite of anything they might have previously said to each other, they were rather pleased to meet their solemn cousin, who, after all, was a millionaire, and who really seemed less aloof and stiff than he appeared at funerals.

“So you were going to cut me?” said Ilam, trying to smile.

“No, cousin,” said Pauline. “How are you? You don’t look very well.”

They shook hands over the gate.

“I’m not,” said Ilam.

“And Mrs. Ilam. She keeps pretty well, I hope,” put in Rosie decorously.

“That’s just it. She doesn’t. She’s—— Won’t you come in?”

And he opened the gate.

“Do you live here?” cried Rosie. “Fancy living in the middle of this place! How jolly! And what a jolly house! Oh! what a delicious notion—living in the show!”

And they disappeared into the bungalow.

The historic family coolness looked as if it was going to warm itself into a sort of pleasant acquaintanceship.