OF THE GRAUBOSCHIAN PHILOSOPHY. HOW JUDITH ARKROYD WALKED WITH MR. CHALLIS TO THE RECTORY. HOW HE SAID NOTHING ABOUT HIS WIFE BEING HIS DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. HOW HE WAS OUT OF HIS ELEMENT AT THE RECTORY. SALADIN AND HIS CAT. HIS HEDGEHOG

The gentleman spoken of so disrespectfully by his hostess was Mr. Adolphus Brownrigg, who was an enthusiastic disciple of the great German philosopher Graubosch, whose scheme embodied a complete Reorganization of Society on an entirely new basis. But whereas all previous reorganizers of Society had started on the fallacious and mischievous line of breaking up existing institutions and replacing them by others of their own devising, this reformer proposed to utilize them all as portions of his new System. Thus the reigning Sovereign would fall easily into his place of Chairman of a great Central Committee of Management, retaining the Crown as a distinguishing badge of his office; the existing machinery of Parliamentary election would answer equally well for the Members of the Central Committee; the Bench would supply us with a most satisfactory staff for what he termed Courts of Discriminative Decision, and so on, and so on. Even the very Policemen's Uniforms would be available for the new staff of Order-Keepers and Crime-Preventors that formed part of his System. Nay, the Coinage itself would come in useful as Exchangeable Tokens in his new Method of Sale and Purchase Accommodation.

"What attitude does Professor Graubosch adopt towards the Religions of the world?" asked Challis, as he and the advocate of this new Reform walked about the garden, discussing it.

"Graubosch," replied the latter, "is, broadly speaking, in favour of their complete abolition. Nor do I myself think any continuation of them would be found necessary in view of his new System of Metaphysical Checks. No one recognizes more fully than Graubosch the necessity for Moral Restraint derived from a Consciousness of the Unseen, whether acting as a stimulus in connection with an exalted and unselfish anxiety for personal rewards throughout Eternity, or as a deterrent resulting from the anticipation of unpleasantness hereafter, especially of continuous oxidation with evolution of caloric. But the new System provides for both."

"As for instance?..."

"For instance, in respect of the Idea of a Deity.... But perhaps, Mr. Challis, your own views on this subject are ... a ... well defined? I should be sorry to ... to...."

"To give offence? Pray don't feel any scruples on my account."

"Well, I will continue. In respect of this Idea of a Deity, it is true that Graubosch abolishes God, as such. But his System claims to provide a substitute; and this substitute is, to my thinking, superior in many respects for working purposes to the Idea it displaces. The first Metaphysical Check he formulates is the Invariable Necessary Antecedent. The acceptance of this as an inevitable condition of thought is an essential of the System of Graubosch."

"How does it act as a check?"

"It is rather long to follow out; but, put as briefly as I can, it is somewhat thus: Graubosch admits the possibility of an infinite number of successions of Antecedents, as we have an infinite number of results or sequents. But the effect on the Metaphysician of contemplating such a condition of the Universe is fatal to reasoning, and may easily produce suspension of the faculties. Philosophy stipulates for a modus vivendi; and as a working necessity for argument, if for no other reason, Graubosch refers the whole of the Universe to one Invariable Necessary Antecedent; which he accepts, for reasons which appear to me satisfactory, as obviously superior to any one unit of its results or sequences. We have no right, he says, to assume that any result or consequence is not achievable by such an Antecedent."

"I concur, on the whole. Does Graubosch ascribe intelligence, in our sense of the word, to this Antecedent?"

"Certainly not. Intelligence is merely a sequence or consequence of some minute fraction ... of ... of its power."

"Why did you hesitate?"

"From a feeling that Power itself may only be a finite humanism, so to speak—an Entity on all fours with Intelligence. But the Metaphysician has to leave himself a few words, to speak with. Now the idea of greater and less is axiomatic, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that our Intelligence is a lesser thing than its working substitute in the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent."

"I quite understand. To create Intelligence, its Creator when creating himself must go one better—break his own anticipated record. What are Graubosch's views about Good and Evil? They both are factors in our existing System, especially the latter."

"He ignores both, as antiquated and unnecessary. In his System, the fruitless discussions about which is which—where one ends and the other begins, and so on—disappear entirely."

"That sounds good. Vice and Virtue could shake hands over it—a Coalition Ministry, don't you know?"

"Pardon me!—the exact reverse. Party Government would be intensified. But I ought to describe what Graubosch terms the Plus and Minus of his System, in its Moral or Ethical aspects. The first expression recognizes in what has been hitherto absurdly called 'Good' merely the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent leaking out, so to speak, and becoming perceptible to our Senses. The second, in what has been equally absurdly called 'Evil,' its diminution or repression."

Challis yawned. He was getting bored. "Does not that," he said, "assume the existence of some counter-power, able to diminish and repress?"

"Graubosch avoids doing so. And therein lies the beauty of his System. His Minus is simply negation of his Plus. An exact parallel is supplied by the phenomena of light and darkness. To ascribe to darkness powers of extinguishing light is scientifically absurd."

"I see." Challis spoke in a winding-up tone. His bore perceived it, and dexterously pinioned him.

"Pardon me one moment more," he said, "We are at a point where the beauty of the System becomes most manifest. I refer to its elasticity—its power of utilizing, provisionally at any rate, existing Institutions pending its maturer development. Graubosch does not doubt the efficacy at some future date of the Metaphysical Check on our propensities supplied by the Plus and Minus of his System. But he proposes for the present—at least, until believers in a Personal God from early youth have had time to die out—to postpone the Plus which is to take his place. Also—and this is important in connection with the operation of Metaphysical Checks—he is favourable to the retention of a Personal Devil until the Masses have acquired an insight into Metaphysics...."

"I must ask you to excuse me," said Mr. Challis. "I have letters to write, and they say the Post goes at twelve...."

"But I hope I have impressed you favourably. We must bear in mind...."

"Most favourably, my dear sir. And it seems to me that if we only let things alone vigorously enough, we may regard Professor Graubosch's great Reform as already in operation...." Mr. Challis paused on behalf of a newcomer, to whom he resumed: "Not at all, Miss Arkroyd ... not the least! I assure you Mr. Brownrigg and I have talked the subject dry.... No!—I really am speaking the truth." This with absolute fervour.

"Because I do so hate interrupting," said Judith, who had been waiting to speak. "And I saw you were so interested. But I can say what I have to say and go—and then you can finish." Mr. Challis looked dejected, and Judith continued: "I only wanted to say that I shall be walking down to the village presently, and could show you the Roman and British camps and the prehistoric monolith." Mr. Challis looked elated. "Only presently, when you have really had your talk out. I shall be on the terrace." Mr. Challis was just on the point of arresting Miss Arkroyd's departure by another violent profession of intense completion of the subject in hand, when prudence murmured in his ear that his bore mustn't be allowed to come too. Now a pretence that he was yearning for three words more, and would then meet the lady on the terrace, just served to place Mr. Brownrigg in the position of a fixture. It localized him. Otherwise he might have moved with the train of events, unshaken off. Even as it was, a very vigorous "I really mustn't keep Miss Arkroyd waiting any longer" was wanted to effect the extraction—for it was quite like tooth-drawing. But the force of handling—as the art-critics phrase it—was so strong that Mr. Brownrigg couldn't say, "Why shouldn't I come too, I should like to know?" He would have, nevertheless. But he had to give the point up, and went to look for Mr. Wraxall.

Judith was waiting on the terrace looking handsome. She was wrestling with an intractable glove-button, and her hand that was operative was embarrassed by her sunshade having been taken into its confidence. Mr. Challis could hold the sunshade, clearly. A very simple thing! And when the glove-button socketed into its metallic nidus, and was satisfactory, how obvious for the young lady to take that sunshade back again, with a profusion of thanks as for a great service done! But did the little incident leave the two performers exactly where it found them? Sometimes things of this sort don't. Things of what sort, do you ask? Well!—you see, we are watching Mr. Alfred Challis's mind, and can, for the present, only answer—the sort that made that gentleman conscious that the twenties and he had parted company many years ago.

Perhaps, however, it's only one of those nonsensical ideas Sibyl gets (now, if you please, we are peering into the lady's mind) when she tells her sister that flirtations with married men are detestable. However, this time Sibyl couldn't have a word to say—a literary man with an attenuated beard, and hair that seems to have thought of curling once, and then thought better of it, and gone a little gray hesitatingly! And a weak mouth! And a lay-down collar! And such clothes! No!—this time Sibyl could find no excuse. If this man wasn't safe, you might as well have no male friends or even acquaintances at all, and live in a harem.

Besides, there was something very interesting about his eyes and forehead, which were his good points. Oh yes!—his hands were not bad. They looked sensitive, and showed the bones. Judith's mind made swift excursion down a side-alley. What was the impossible Mrs. Challis like to live with, she wondered? Did he adore her, or how? Perhaps she wasn't really a "good soul" at all, but adorable—in reason.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Challis. I always get into such a mess with buttons. I hope you are not afraid of dogs, because Saladin must come with us. He never gets any exercise unless I take him out." A huge Danish boarhound, conscious that he was spoken of, looked up and appeared to sanction the use of his name. He had smelt Mr. Challis, and found some excuse for him, presumably, in some nicety of bouquet human nostrils know not of.

"Saladin's welcome," said he. "But I'm like Br'er Rabbit—a mighty puny man myself, and I may very easily git trompled...." For Saladin was appalling.

"What's that out of?"

"Uncle Remus."

"I suppose I ought to read Uncle Remus?"

"Yes; but don't if you don't like."

"Not if I ought to?"

"The ought is not a high moral ought. You ought to read Uncle Remus if you want something amusing to read."

"I haven't much time for reading, and I want to read 'The Epidermis.' Everyone tells me I shall enjoy it."

"Perhaps everyone knows. I don't feel so much confidence myself. Read Uncle Remus first, anyhow. If you do that, I'll ask you to accept a copy of t'other one, from the Author."

"I've just written off for a copy to the publisher."

"Oh!—have you?—I would tell him to transfer the order to my account—only that takes all the edge off the proceeding."

"When did Uncle Remus come out first?" "Oh—a long time ago! It's odd to think how long. I'm over forty. I was almost a boy."

"Perhaps that's why you liked it so much? Fancy your being fourteen years older than me!"

"Perhaps." The last half of Miss Arkroyd's remark had to go without answer. It was too parenthetical to call for one.

Experience teaches us that there is no meshwork of circumstance into which flatter conversation may weave itself than the combination of a married man, a young woman, and a walk out on a fine afternoon, of set purpose. At least, that was the text of a literary reflection of Mr. Challis at this juncture. He put it away in a mental storehouse for his next book. Its truth or falsehood is immaterial at present.

Judith made no mental note of what her experience taught; but she knew she couldn't stand being bored and she felt it coming. She had made up her mind to have an amusing walk with this popular favourite. And Sibyl might say what she liked, but she wouldn't be balked!

A sense of intended impertinence may have heightened her colour slightly, as she stopped and turned the fine eyes full on to her companion. He stopped, too, looking round.

"Mr. Challis, I want you to tell me something.... No!—don't promise till you know what it is...."

"I am sure, Miss Arkroyd, you will ask me nothing I should hesitate to tell you...."

"Don't be too confident ... it's very impertinent!"

"All right—go on! I'll forgive you."

"Is 'Ziz' in the 'Spendthrift's Legacy' Mrs. Challis?"

"My wife? Marianne?" Mr. Challis was conscious of being reminded of his wife. A fine nuance of ashamedness—it could hardly be called shame—affected his mind, surely? Else why note the perfectly obvious fact that if he and Marianne were never to forget each other for a single instant, life would be insupportable to both. Perhaps he can hardly be said to have noted it, though; suppose we say that he declined to note it, consciously, because of its absurd irrelevance.

"Yes!—Marianne." Judith's eyes, with no concession in them of any shade of impertinence in the use of Mrs. Challis's Christian name, waited for the answer, as she still stood, not stirring. Was she saying to herself that this was tit-for-tat; a riposte for his "Sibyl" of their talk in the morning? Saladin, not used to this sort of thing, waited also, reproachfully. Challis, rather accepting "Marianne" as a sanction of his "Sibyl," was again conscious that his soul was being brushed by machinery—not an intrusive brush though; an easy one he could ignore. His answer was not difficult.

"Not a particle of resemblance between them! Ziz was a"—he stopped himself just in time—"a ... a ... almost a sort of professional beauty." The one word "professional" made all the difference—saved the position.

Now, Judith had a habit of despising dangerous ground in social intercourse; it was part of what Mr. Challis had called her prepotente disposition. She would always put her horse at a quickset hedge if any image crossed her mind of the finger of Discretion, the monitress; especially if it looked like Sibyl's. While Mr. Challis was breathing freely about his dexterous escape, she made up her mind to know all about this impossible person who wasn't a professional beauty. As to how she should get at this knowledge, that was another matter. All she could see her way to at the moment was—not to be in a hurry and spoil her chances. But she was very much mistaken if she couldn't do with this man, whom she thought of as nerves and brains and very little else, what she had done before now with stronger men than he—viz., twist him round her little finger.

"Ah!—I'm so glad," said she. And then, as though to clothe her pause in walking with the semblance of a moment of mental tension, she resumed movement forward. Saladin emphasized her action by a single tremendous bark, and did the same. A startled waterfowl decided that his position was untenable, and condemned the neighbourhood, going off in a bee-line with a rush. Two horses out at grass galloped round their field, and stood at gaze, with open nostrils. Of which events Saladin, their source and origin, took no notice, but moved on, smelling the planet gently and thoughtfully.

"Why are you glad?" asked Challis. "You didn't like Ziz, I suppose?" A note of pique in his voice. The young lady's confidence about the finger-twisting grew.

"I admired her," she said with marked emphasis. "She fascinated me down to the ground. But ... if you ask me ... you mustn't mind my saying, you know...."

"I can't tell you how I enjoy hearing what you really think. No compliments, please!"

"Well ... if I can express myself! I should say your heroine's was rather a ... rather a ... shrill personality. I don't mean unlovable exactly, but ... well!... I can't think of any other way of putting it."

"She was meant to be excitable. Neurotic, as the slang goes nowadays. Marianne is neither. I hope you liked the reconciliation scene by the open grave, and the way they appeal, as it were, to the coffin for forgiveness. Some of the reviews thought it strained."

"Strained!—oh no! It seemed to me in some ways one of the most touching things I ever read. And her explanation to Septimus that she had divorced him on principle in order that he should marry Julia, and both get a chance of recovering their position in society.... But do tell me—only it's hardly fair to ask—did you mean that she put the arsenic in Julia's coffee, or the negress?"

"I leave that an open question for the reader to speculate about. But you may rest assured of one thing, Miss Arkroyd—the young person in my novel is about as unlike my dear wife as she can be." He had determined to pay some little tribute to his dear wife as soon as the chance came, that she should lie less upon his conscience. Here it was. "Marianne is the exact opposite—a pussycat upon the hearthrug—a ... kettle singing on the hob, you might almost say. She's not exactly what's called a clever woman, certainly...."

"But she is none the worse for that! How I do hate clever women!" All the same, Judith thought to herself: "Why couldn't he leave her in peace, on the hearthrug or the hob?" His last reservation had spoiled his little tribute, and indeed, he felt it himself. Bother!

Setting it right would make it worse. In spite of a fervent murmur from the young lady, that she felt she knew exactly what Mrs. Challis was like, and that they would be sure to understand each other, and what a pity it was Mrs. Challis had not been able to come, he felt he would do best to brusquer the conversation. He couldn't well say "Marianne isn't here because your mother never invited her—only told her she might come." So, feeling that if he could detach the conversation from Marianne personally he did not very much care by what means the end was effected, he made a fragmentary remark to the effect that he had had an original in his mind for the neurotic heroine, but quite a different person from his wife—utterly unlike her. "Unlike in appearance—individuality—everything! Is that the market-cross?" No, it wasn't the market-cross; it was the pump. So Mr. Challis's conclusion did very little towards its object.

Judith halted as before, after establishing the pump. She knew she was going to be impertinent again; and drawled a word or two to that effect, to get on a safe footing. "But do forgive me," she said, "if I ask who the lady was. You needn't tell me, you know." And then, as Challis wavered between disclosure and concealment, put in a word to clinch matters: "Treat me as a friend. We can always quarrel, you know!" The soul-brush seemed to go a little quicker.

This author was a man who fancied he understood womankind—and probably his was a fair average of knowledge in a department where so much ignorance exists. But there was one sort of woman he could not understand—the woman with a stronger nature than his own. He had only mixed with his equals, so far. He could be quite unaware that he was being influenced—could still persuade himself, as a tribute to his manhood, that he was acting from a politic motive. He could make an astute note that his insight into humanity—"Human Nature ... behooves that I know it"—showed him that he could place confidence in this lady. It had nothing to do with her eyes or her outline. It was his Insight.

"I don't mind telling you." A slight hitch before the last word showed that the speaker had just avoided italics. He paused a moment, to be quite sure he didn't mind, then continued: "The original of 'Ziz' was my first wife. So far as there was an original. But exaggerated out of all—out of all individuality."

"I never knew that you had been married before." The wording of this—"never" during the last forty-eight hours!—was ahead of their intimacy, but her hearer accepted it. It chimed in with that luxury of the soul-brush, always at work. He would not on any account have had it exchanged for, "They did not tell me you had been married twice." Nevertheless, he was unaware that he was being influenced, and went on towards expansive confidence, unsuspicious of himself.

"I married about fourteen years ago, and lost my wife within a twelvemonth. My son is a big boy now, at Rugby; he was born just before his mother died. He always thinks and speaks of Marianne as his mother. She has always been a mother to him, in fact. Her own children—we have two little girls—do not realize his half-brothership. We have never tried to make them do so."

"How right!" from Judith. Confidence was improving. She was giving sanction to family arrangements.

"Yes, I think it has been best. Their difference of age suggests nothing to them."

"I suppose they know?"

"Yes—academically, one might say. But knowledge of that is as nothing against the force of a child's acceptance of its status quo. When I married Marianne, the boy—he's Bob—was still too young to pay much attention to the fact that she brought him away from his granny's to live at my house. The only difference that impresses him between himself and his sisters is that he can remember so much more clearly than they do the house where my first wife and I used to live. It is the house described in 'The Spendthrift's Legacy.' I shall always believe it was that title that made it so fetching. You see, you can't guess whether the Spendthrift inherited the legacy or bequeathed it. It gets on your brain, and then you ask for it at Mudie's...."

Judith interrupted. "Of course, the Spendthrift left the Legacy. But why was he a Spendthrift, one wants to know.... Yes, I see. It was a lucky title. But did you always write?"

"Not until the firm of accountants I was with wound up the affairs of Eatwell and Lushington, the big publishers. I was sent to check and overhaul the stock. An almost unsold novel attracted my attention—an edition of two thousand—fifteen hundred in sheets. Its issue had been arrested by the discovery that the author—who had just died of appendicitis, by-the-bye—had taken another man's title."

"I suppose you can be prosecuted for taking another man's title?"

"H'm—no! At least, there is no copyright in a title. It wasn't that. It was for the book's own sake. Publishers don't like other people's titles for their books. I was able to offer a suggestion which made it possible to use the sheets. The bound copies were made paper-pulp of again, I believe."

"I can't see much encouragement to authorship in that, Mr. Challis."

"None at all. But Mr. Saxby, who is virtually Eatwell and Lushington—one's dead, and the other has become a missionary in Marocco—saw reason to believe I should succeed as a writer, owing to the new first chapter I wrote for this book to accommodate the new title. He made me write a novel for the firm, and I succeeded."

"But I don't understand. Wasn't the old title printed anywhere on the old sheets?"

"Printed everywhere! The novel was called 'Amaris,' and there were no headlines. The page-tops were just Amaris, Amaris, Amaris all through."

"What is 'Amaris'? And how on earth did you manage?..."

"Stop a bit, or I shall want Gargantua's mouth. 'Amaris' was a name the author concocted, like Mrs. Kenwig's 'Morleena.' He wanted to be quite sure his heroine's name had never been used for a novel before, so that he could make it the title. But it had, with a Latin subtitle, in which dulcibus and amaris were put in contrast...."

"Never mind the Latin," said Judith. "What did it mean?"

"It amounted to the question, 'Is Life most full of bitter things or sweet?' and the title answered the question. It might have been called 'Dulcibus' for any light it threw on the problem. But it wouldn't have sold. Nothing sells without a snarl or a howl or a pig-sty in it."

"But I'm so curious to know how you got over the difficulty."

"Simple enough! We turned it into 'Tamarisk.'... How? Why, of course, by printing a 'T' at the beginning and a 'K' at the end. It cost something to run the sheets carefully through again, but not so much as burning them."

"What was there about 'Tamarisk' in the book?"

"Not a word till I rewrote the first dozen pages. I had to read that blessed book through till I nearly knew it by heart, in order to work out the idea. But it seemed all right when it was done. I was rather proud of it."

"I dare say it was tremendously clever. But how was it done? That's what I want to know."

"I made the name of the girl 'Tamarisk' instead of 'Amaris,' and then her baby brother can't pronounce it—calls her Amaris; and the family catch the pronunciation, and she adopts the name outright. It was difficult to do, because the conditions implied were those of the bosom of an affectionate family, and the sequel might have clashed...."

"Because...?"

"Well, you see, the girl becomes a Vampire, and sucks the little brother's blood. But I succeeded. In fact, I think the very difficulties of the situation produced a certain pathos."

"I see," said Judith, with a gush of intense perception. "I see that would be so.... Yes, that is the market-cross, this time."

Is the gap above large enough to include an inspection of a market-cross, a pump, a camp, and a village church? Perhaps, considering how little was left of the last—though, of course, some of the walls had ancient invisible cores. But hardly for tea at the Rectory, which had to be fresh-made; rather like the church, though in the case of the latter a few of the old leaves were preserved from the first brew, so to speak. Poor old leaves!—poor conscious objects of active conservation, each paroxysm of which left a little less of the flavour of the moyen Âge behind it—a shadow less of excuse for another subscription list on their behalf, or another paper in the Journal of the local Society of Antiquaries. They were being handed down to posterity with such solicitude that whatever of bloom the axe and hammer of Puritanism had left behind seemed like to come off on the gloves of Ecclesiastical ArchÆology.

Is it necessary to say that the foregoing is only a peep into the ill-regulated mind of Mr. Alfred Challis at about the time that the fresh-made tea at the Rectory had begun to reanimate it? But, of course, Mr. Challis never said a word to this effect to his host, and that reverend gentleman naturally didn't want to talk about local matters. He was sick of his interesting surroundings, and wanted to hear about the new motor-car and wireless telegraphy and aerostation and coloured photography, and all sorts of things that were up-to-date three years ago, and for that matter are still, to a certain extent. About which and other things the literary gentleman was silent and absent-minded, in spite of the tea. Had he been bound to account to himself for this, he would have found it very difficult to do so. Not being bound, he allowed his mind to recognize the fact that he never did talk much to Parsons—you could never be sure you wouldn't give offence!—and to feel that reserve, short of incivility of course, was plausible at least.

For he was one of those unpractical persons who, never having been thrashed into a Creed in childhood, and being liberally ready to doubt any Creed of his own concoction, associated Religions, broadly speaking, with the opening or closing of shops on Sunday, the suppression of bands in the parks, and the singing of the same tune over and over again in unison at street-corners. When he came by chance on the sound of a harmonium making an unintelligible droning, he conceived of it as Christianity going on in a corner, fraught with a quaint old-world feeling to the passer-by, but scarcely to be encouraged by enlightenment. He had cultivated Ritual so far as to be ready, on emergency, to take off his hat and look intently into it, watching anxiously the while for subsidence of religious symptoms without. At old-fashioned houses, where Prayers might be expected to occur at any moment, he used to become in a sense demoralised, and felt lost when he found himself out of reach of a chair or convenient prie-Dieu of some sort. His only really heart-felt expression of gratitude to his own or anyone else's Maker was the "Thank God that's over!" that he didn't say aloud at the end. Messiahs of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, he regarded as mere bones of contention along interminable sectaries, all ready to fang each other, but kept in check by Scotland Yard. Qualified practitioners of Religion, whether Priest or Presbyter, he looked on as mere survivals of a past age perishing slowly of Civilization. He was not prepared to take the responsibility of hurrying their extinction, and, indeed, was ready to make concession on minor points, complying in literature with the public conviction that the pronoun standing for the name of the Maker of the Stellar Universe, and possibly others, really ought to be printed with a capital letter. We are merely putting him on record—not hinting at any opinion how far he was right or wrong.

Why do we call Mr. Alfred Challis unpractical? it may be asked. Simply because, while he avoided or ignored all experts in Applied Religion, he himself was unprepared with any substitute for it. And this was so even in the case of his own children. He had, however, given carte blanche, by implication of supineness, to the partner of his joys, sorrows, and admixtures of the two. He knew perfectly well that if he could have cancelled the little restored church at Royd, and the Parsonage and all its belongings, and left Royd free from what he counted superstition, of a sort, he would have held his hand—simply because he could not for the life of him have suggested any alternative that would not have worked round to the same thing in the end. He was convinced at heart, even while he made mental notes about Clerical Humbugs who pretended to believe what they knew German criticism had exploded long ago—for Mr. Challis had read whatever fostered his predispositions, just like yourself and the present writer—that if this athletic-looking, upright gentleman and his serious sister—for it seemed he was a widower—were to be suddenly removed from Royd, as well as any religious outscourings of a Dissenting nature hanging about—if all these were cleared away and the village left in charge of the human heart and intellect ed id genus omne, the human stomach et istud genus omne would get their way in double-quick time, and a perfect Saturnalia would come about of Bacchus and Priapus, of Cabiric deformities lurking round the corner for a chance, and Beer. At any rate, he was enough convinced of this to be rather grateful to the Clerical Humbugs for pretending, pending enlightenment. He felt it was benevolent in him to be mean at the cost of his own conscience, and to hold his tongue and leave them undenounced, in the interest of Humanity.

This chronicle has no opinions—note that! The foregoing is only a peep into the mind of a literary man who was never at a University. Had he been at one, many college-chums in Orders would have checked his condemnations. The man one has read with, swum with, cricketed with—cannot be a Hypocrite. Absurd!

Our snapshots of Mr. Alfred Challis's mind have taken long to record, but they serve their turn in this place better, perhaps, than the few trifling incidents of the visit at the Rectory. Consider that the lady and gentleman are on their way back to the Hall, in a golden sunset-light which makes the former resplendent, and does no harm to the appearance of the latter. Judith weighs him more carefully than she has done yet, and the result may be more favourable in such a glow. Quite passable!—is her verdict. And she knows how she looks, bless you, reasoning by analogy! For all her previous verdicts about her companion's looks—so far as they were favourable—have run on lines of intellectual rather than physical beauty.

The reason she looked at him carefully at that moment of starting from the Parsonage may have been because of an impression she had that he had cut a poor figure as against that of the Parson. It had so chanced that Saladin, who had behaved well in the house—accepting small sweet biscuits with reserves as to first approval of them—had, on coming away through the garden, just as they reached the gate, become aware of cats, as an abstraction. Mr. Challis's hold on his collar he hardly took any notice of; and it was fortunate that the Rev. Athelstan Taylor (that was his name) got hold on the other side just in time to prevent Saladin starting for a concrete cat over the flower-beds. "You had, perhaps, best let me have both sides, Mr. Challis," said he. Then had followed a magnificent contest between the Rev. Athelstan and the boarhound. If the former could have been unfrocked, it would have been a Greek bas-relief. It ended in a draw, as the concrete cat vanished. "I couldn't have held you much longer, old chap," said the Rector unassumingly to Saladin, during apologies and explanations, dogwise. These continued for some time after they had left the Rectory, and Judith was really glad Saladin's chain was on, with no one to help stronger than her literary friend, if a cat occurred. Rabbits had palled on Saladin, owing to their absurd and unfair practice of running underground.

"He's a fine fellow, your Parson, Miss Arkroyd," said Challis. He acknowledged it readily; athletics were not his line.

"The Reverend Athelstan? (Yes, my darling precious pet, you did quite right, and it was an odious cat!) Oh yes—he was a great athlete in his old Oxford days; was in the 'Varsity eight. (Yes, dear love!—you shall lick when we get home. Now walk quiet, and let people talk.) Yes—he's painfully strong." There was something in this of implied justification for people who were not.

"I'm afraid I'm painfully weak—by comparison. My sedentary employments don't develop the muscles." But, after all, reading prayers and singing of anthems does not, either. This was in foro conscientiÆ—not spoken aloud.

"Oh, everybody can't Sandow. I think that sort of thing rather tiresome, carried too far. However, we are very good friends, the Reverend and I. I like a man that has the courage of his opinions. He's quite in a minority here about the Woman question—or I suppose I should say questions. But I meant the Franchise business particularly. He and the Bishop are at daggers drawn about it. I haven't heard him say much about the other. I fancy, though, he's at heart in favour of it—more than myself, perhaps. I mean the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill."

"Are not you...?" Mr. Challis had a hesitation on him, not like his usual way of speech. That was an amused way usually, a confident one almost always. This was neither.

"I must confess ..." said Judith hesitatingly—"I must confess to having very little sympathy with men who want to marry their deceased wives' sisters. It's a question of taste, according to me—nothing to do with the high moralities." The implied sneer against all moral law was no discomfort to her hearer. On the contrary, spoken as it was by a good-looking young lady in a sunset light, it seemed to him alike picturesque and liberal. But he changed the conversation suddenly, as though something in it had disagreed with him.

"What a capital photographer the great Athelstan seems to be!" He said it with a definite air of "Let us talk of something else." She glanced round at him, decided with some surprise that she had shocked him, but answered without showing it. She was quite a woman of the world, was Judith.

"He's a splendid photographer. You know he took all those photos for 'Ten Years of Slum Growth'—my cousin's book?" Mr. Challis pretended he knew this book; but he didn't. "I made him come and photograph my own special slum population in Tallack Street. But Lady Elizabeth wouldn't have them in the book. She said Tallack Street could hardly rank as a slum, in her sense of the word."

"Was it too swell?" "She said so. Well!—you shall see the photographs, and judge for yourself."

But the conversation had fallen flat. A chill had come. Even the discovery that the moon had risen when we were not looking did nothing to remove it. We were not young enough, probably, or not old enough, for lunar influences. Indifference to Phoebe begins with maturity, and even outlasts it. So thought Mr. Challis, when rather mechanically called on to admire the silver disc, shot with gold, just getting clear of a purple gloom that was the hallowed smoke of unholy Grime—hallowed by the sun's last word to twilight, its heir-at-law and sole executor. For all that, Mr. Challis made notes in this connection for literary purposes, while Judith thought to herself that this would never do. She must make an effort, or the skein she was going to twist round her finger would float away and be lost.

"I know I shocked you just now," said she.

"Shocked me?—when?"

"Just before we got to the photography...."

"I have quite forgotten. What were we saying?" This was not true; he remembered perfectly.

"How kind of you to pretend to forget! Forgive my disbelieving you."

Challis was open to a recrudescence of veracity. Perhaps it was a fib this time—he made the admission. But as he made it, he was again conscious of the soul-brush at work. Had he perceived the skein-analogy, he might have recognized its first clip round the finger. "We were talking of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, I think," said he. "But why you think you shocked me I can't imagine."

"Never mind!—if you don't recollect. But Sibyl would have lectured me. She always says I ridicule Moral Law. Perhaps I do, in a certain sense. But Sibyl is the soul of propriety."

"I can't see where ridicule of Moral Law comes in, so far. What you said was—well!—amounted to a condemnation of the taste of men who wish to marry their wives' sisters. Perhaps I misunderstood?" Challis's manner had a flavour of personal interest; the amused tone had gone, and the last words ended on a pause for an answer, with an intention in them of hearing it and going on. The skein would run on easily from now, said the winder. But not too quick at first.

"Oh no!—quite right," she said. "I meant that. For instance—I shouldn't mention this, only I see you guessed it. You are so quick at guessing things...." "I'm not. What do you suppose I have guessed?"

"Why—about the Reverend Athelstan, of course, and Elizabeth Caldecott...."

"Elizabeth who?"

"Well—you saw her, just now!"

"I thought she was his sister?"

"Oh, no!—sister-in-law."

"What were you saying about them—just now? You began 'For instance,' and pulled up...."

"I was going to say theirs was a case in point. If Mr. Taylor wanted to marry Miss Caldecott, I should consider it simply a lapse from good taste on his part. I shouldn't fret over the moralities. He and Bishop Barham would have to fight that out between them.... Oh dear!—what has Saladin got? I'm afraid it's a hedgehog. Do you think you could keep hold of him, just for a few seconds, while I throw it out of his reach?" This was achieved with difficulty; all the greater from a misconception of the position by Saladin, who thought it was all done for his sake, as a relaxation. The hedgehog was thrown over a long high wall, and Saladin ran along it each way, leaping up at intervals.

"He gets so irritated with hedgehogs, and I don't wonder, poor darling! I hope he hasn't strained your hand?" Mr. Challis couldn't say very much about that. Nothing to speak of! "Let's go on. He'll get tired of that, and I don't hear the bull anywhere—it's all right. What was I saying?" It is perturbing to the non-bucolic mind to hear a necessary and inevitable bull taken as a matter of course.

"You were speaking of Mr. Taylor and Miss Caldecott. Is he supposed to want to marry her?"

"I really couldn't say. Men are so odd. Of course, if she were less angular...." The young lady blew a whistle for Saladin. The intentness with which both watched for the dog to appear from the quarter he was last seen in enabled him to play off a little joke at their expense. For when Challis turned his head, after much watching and whistling, there was that confounded beast, pretending all the while to wait, after a brief circuit of a mile or so out of sight. He made a pretence of not being able to understand motives, combined with great forbearance in not asking for an explanation of them.

The skein-winding had been a little spoiled, but Judith got it again in order before arriving at the Hall, and it would wait for its opportunity. Her mere acceptance of silence in the twilight of the great avenue, as though conversation-making was not called for under the circumstances, had its force. It might have been spoiled by a quicker pace, to finish the walk up; but, if anything, there was a disposition to loiter and to hate the idea of being indoors on such a heavenly evening.

"Your wife's name was...?" Surely the subject franked a dropped voice, in harmony with the beauty of the said evening—a touch of tenderness for its sake entirely. None but a coarse nature would shout against the musical hushing of the wind in the beeches. Let there be no false note in the chord.

Challis accepted this tenderness as a tribute to the departed. He answered, "Kate—Kate Verrall." He need have said no more, but it filled out a sympathetic funeral tone, in keeping with the hour, to add: "She died within two years of our first meeting."

Miss Arkroyd's regret at having raked up a painful memory was so great that she all but laid her hand on her companion's sleeve. "Oh no," she said, still more tenderly, "I did not mean that. I meant Marianne's maiden name." It would have been artificial, and stodgy, too, to call her "your present wife." Better the frankness of a sympathetic nature, and Marianne.

"Craik," was the unqualified answer. Challis wished that his first wife's mother, when she married again, had chosen someone with a more rhythmic name, not to interfere with the general feeling of the foreground and middle distance. For, you see, she then provided this maiden name for the second Mrs. Alfred Challis, whose mother she was also. Mr. Challis had married his deceased wife's half-sister, and would stand condemned—presumably, at least, in the eyes of his companion—for bad taste certainly, possibly worse. He repeated the name, rather crisply, in correction of Judith's first understanding of it as "Blake," but never a word said he, there and then, about Marianne's half-sistership with the original of "Ziz." Was he bound to say anything?

He departed to his room, to dress for dinner, with a disjointed, incomplete feeling that he was rather glad that a mere au revoir had involved no handshake. Could he have trusted himself not to emphasize its pressure unduly? Faugh!—where was the sense of such an imbecile speculation, or the need for it? He was angry with himself for the thought—angry at the way he had enjoyed his walk with "that girl." He brushed her off his mind discourteously as "that girl." Why, he had only known her a couple of days! He even found that an impulse of his wanted him to say, "Damn all these people! What are they to me, or I to them, that they should come into my life, and make hay of a working contentment I have never dreamed of questioning?" But he refused to say it, merely noting what its syntax would have been if he had done so. En revanche, he made up his mind to write a jolly long letter to Marianne to-night.

The other party—though, indeed, it is hard to say to what—retired to her room to dress, not very sorry to hear that Sibyl was not home yet. She had quite made up her mind that if her sister talked any nonsense about flirtations with married men, she would speak sharply to her—give her a piece of her mind. But she hated rows. So if the motor-car broke down—and it was pretty sure to—she shouldn't be sorry. In a day or two she was going up to London, and would go straight and call on Mrs. Challis, the Impossible one, and that would put the friendship with her husband on a footing. She would wear that white chiffon and the pearls again this evening, though; she had looked so well in them last night.

She herself was conscious of no inconsistency in the half-formed thoughts that passed through her mind as she stood before a mirror waiting for her maid to find the white chiffon instead of the black satin; which Sharratt, the said maid, who had found no male in the company to allot to her mistress, had placed in readiness on speculation. These thoughts can be told, but with a liberal discount. She was not the kind of woman—so they ran—that made mischief in families. That was the fascinating, tender, serpentine, insinuating kind—Becky Sharp, in fact. Intellectual friendship was her rÔle—influence over men of genius and that sort of thing. Was Challis, as a man of genius, worth practising on? She thought he might be; as a lay figure, at any rate, if not for a specific purpose which crossed her mind at the moment. But it was to be stirred aspirations, roused sympathies. He was not the man to be worked on by Vulgar Beauty. All the same, Miss Judith knew what she was going to look like in this mirror when fully draped, when the majestic swoop of skirts should quench the abruptness of the mere petticoat. Till that came, she could fondle her fine arms and say to herself, "I'm not Becky Sharp, certainly! But to think of the mischief I could do if I put my mind to it!" And then modesty prompted a postscript, "Or any fairly good-looking woman, for that matter."

This story has no insight into motives; it only deals with actions—at least when motives are hard to get at. It is not its concern at present that Judith Arkroyd, splendid in her beauty when she chooses to make the most of it, may have much to learn about her own character—much that she does not suspect herself of. If she does not, why should we?