"Ah! woe that youth should love to be
Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast,
And is so fain to find the sea,—
That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep,
These creeks down which blown blossoms creep,
For breakers of the homeless deep."

—Edmund Gosse.

The little river steamer, with its gay awning, was hitched up to the Speaker's Stairs. The Lestranges were standing at the gangway welcoming their guests. There was a crowd watching along the parapet of Westminster Bridge just above.

"Are we all here? It is past four," said Captain Lestrange to his wife.

Mrs Lestrange looked round. "Eighteen, twenty, twenty-four. Ah! Here is Lady Mary Carden, late as usual. She is the last. No. There is one more to come. Miss Grey."

"Which Miss Grey?"

"Why, the one Jos Carstairs is to marry. She is coming under my wing. And now she isn't here. What on earth am I to do? We can't wait for ever."

A tall white figure was advancing slowly, as if dragged step by step, through the shadow of the great grey building.

"She does not hurry herself," said Mrs Lestrange indignantly, and she did not welcome Elsa very cordially as she came on board. The youngest of the party had made all the rest of that distinguished gathering wait for her.

Mary, in a gown of immaculate white serge stitched with black, was sitting under the awning when Elsa passed her on her way towards a vacant seat lower down. The two women looked fixedly at each other for a moment, and in that moment Mary saw that Elsa knew that she knew. Even in that short time Lord Francis had evidently warned the girl against her.

Do what she would, Mary could not help watching Elsa. This was the less difficult, as no one ever talked for long together to Mary. The seat next her was never resolutely occupied. Her gentle voice was one of those which swell the time-honoured complaint, that in society you hear nothing but the same vapid small talk, the same trivial remarks over and over again. She was not neglected, but she awakened no interest. Her china blue eyes turned more and more frequently towards that tall figure with its lithe, panther-like grace sitting in the sun, regardless of the glare. Mary, whose care for her own soul came second only to her care for her complexion, wondered at her recklessness.

Mrs Lestrange introduced one or two men to Elsa, but they seemed to find but little to say to her. She was distraite, indifferent to what was going on round her. After a time she was left alone, except when Mrs Lestrange came to sit by her for a few minutes. Yet she was a marked feature of the party. Wherever Elsa might be she could not be overlooked. Mysterious involuntary power which some women possess, not necessarily young and beautiful like Elsa, of becoming wherever they go a centre, a focus of attention whether they will or no.

Married men looked furtively at her, and whispered to their approving wives that Carstairs was a bold man, that nothing would have induced them to marry a woman of that stamp. The unmarried men looked at her too, but said nothing.

At seventeen Elsa's beauty was mature. It was not the thin wild-flower beauty of the young English girl who emerges but slowly from her chrysalis. It was the splendid pale perfection of the magnolia which opens in a night. The body had outstripped the embryo spirit. Out of the exquisite face, with its mysterious foreshadowing of latent emotion, looked the grave inscrutable eyes of a child.

Elsa appeared quite unconscious of the interest she excited. She looked fixedly at the gliding dwindling buildings, at the little alert brown-sailed eel-boats, and the solemn low-swimming hay barges, burning yellow in the afternoon sun, and dropping gold into the grey water as they went. Sometimes she looked up at the overhanging bridges, and past them to the sky. Presently a white butterfly came twinkling on toddling, unsteady wings across the water, and settled on the awning. Elsa's eyes followed it. "It is coming with us," she said to Captain Lestrange, who was standing near her. The butterfly left the awning. It settled for a moment on the white rose on Elsa's breast. Now it was off again, a dancing baby fairy between the sunny sky and sunny river. Then all in a moment some gust of air caught its tiny spread sails, and flung it with wings outstretched upon the swift water.

Elsa gave a cry, and tearing the rose out of her breast, leaned far over the railing and flung it towards the butterfly. It fell short. The current engulfed butterfly and rose together.

Captain Lestrange caught her by the arm as she leaned too far, and held her firmly till she recovered her balance.

"That was rather dangerous," he said, releasing her gently.

"I could not stand by and see it drown," said Elsa, shivering, and she turned her eyes back across the river, to where in the distance the white buildings of Greenwich stood almost in the water in the pearl haze.

Who shall say what Elsa's thoughts were as she leaned against the railing, white hand against white rose cheek, and watched the tide which was sweeping them towards the sea? Did she realise that another current was bearing her whither she knew not, was hurrying her little barque, afloat for the first time, towards a surging line of breakers where white sails of maiden innocence and faith and purity might perchance go under? Did she with those wonderful melancholy eyes look across her youth and dimly foresee, what all those who have missed love learn in middle life, how chill is the deepening shadow in which a loveless life stands? Did she dimly see this, and shrink from the loveless marriage before her, which would close the door against love for ever? Did she in her great ignorance mistake the jewelled earthen cup of passion for the wine of love which should have brimmed it? Did she think to allay the thirst of the soul at the dazzling empty cup which was so urgently proffered to her? Who shall say what Elsa's thoughts were as the river widened to the sea.

They were coming back at last, beating up slowly, slowly against the tide towards London, lying low and dim against an agony of sunset. To Mary it had been an afternoon of slow torture. Ought she to speak to Elsa? "After the Speaker's Stairs" the telegram had said. Then Elsa meant to join Lord Francis on her return this evening. Ought not she, Mary, to go to Elsa now, where she sat apart watching the sunset, and implore her to go home? Ought she not to tell her that Lord Francis was an evil man, who would bring great misery upon her? Ought she not to show her that she was steeping her young soul in sin, ruining herself upon the threshold of life? Something whispered urgently to Mary that she ought at least to try to hold Elsa back from the precipice, whispered urgently that perhaps Elsa, friendless as she was, might listen to her even at the eleventh hour. And Elsa knew she knew.

Was it Mary's soul—dwarfed and starved in the suffocating bandages of her straitened life and narrow religion—which was feebly stirring in its shroud, was striving to speak?

Mary clenched her little blue-veined hands.

No, no. Elsa would never listen to her. Elsa knew very well what she was doing. Any girl younger even than she knew that it was wicked to allow a married man to make love to her. Elsa was a bad woman by temperament and heredity, not fit to be a good man's wife. Even if Mary could persuade her to give up her lover, still Elsa was guilty in thought, and that was as bad as the sin itself. Did not our Saviour say so? Elsa was lost already.

"No, no," whispered the inner voice. "She does not know what she is doing."

She did know very well what she was doing—Mary flushed with anger—she was always doing things for effect, in order to attract attention. Look how she had made eyes at Captain Lestrange about that butterfly. If there is one thing more than another which exasperates a conventional person it is an impulsive action. The episode of the butterfly rankled in Mary's mind. Several silly men had been taken in by it. No. She, Mary, would certainly speak to Elsa; she would be only too glad to save a fellow-creature from deadly sin if it was any use speaking—but it was not. And she did not care to mix herself up with odious, disgraceful subjects unless she could be of use. She had always had a high standard of refinement. She had always kept herself apart from "that sort of thing." Perhaps, in her meagre life, she had also kept herself apart from all that makes our fellow-creatures turn to us.

Lord Francis' last threat, spoken low and distinct across the hansom doors, came back to her ears—"If you dare to interfere with me you will pay for it."

The river was narrowing. The buildings and wharves pushed up close and closer. The fretted outlines and towers of Westminster were detaching themselves in palest violet from the glow in the west.

A river steamer passed them with a band on board. A faint music, tender and gay, came to them across the water, bringing with it the promise of an abiding love, making all things possible, illuminating with sudden distinctness the vague meaning of this mysterious world of sunset sky and sunset water, and ethereal city of amethyst and pearl; and then—as suddenly as it came—passing away down stream, and taking all its promises with it, leaving the twilight empty and desolate.

The sunset burned dim like a spent furnace. The day lost heart and waned all at once. It seemed as if everything had come to an end.

And as, when evening falls, jasmine grows white and whiter in the falling light, so Elsa's face grew pale and paler yet in the dusk.

Once she looked across at Mary, and a faint smile, tremulous, wistful, stole across her lips. Tears shone in her eyes. "Is there any help anywhere?" the sweet troubled eyes seemed to say. But apparently they found none, for they wandered away again to the great buildings of Westminster rising up within a stone's throw over the black arch of Westminster Bridge.

The steamer slowed and stopped once more against the Speaker's Stairs.

The Lestranges put Elsa into a hansom before they hurried away in another themselves. All the guests were in a fever to depart, for there was barely time to dress for dinner—and they disappeared as if by magic. Mary, whose victoria was a moment late, followed hard on the rest. As she was delayed in the traffic she saw the hansom in front of her turn slowly round. She saw Elsa's face inside as it turned. Then the hansom went gaily jingling its bell over Westminster Bridge, and was lost in the crowd.