HOW GWEN INTRODUCED MR. TORRENS, AND MRS. PICTURE TOOK HOLD OF HIS HAND. OF MR. TORREN'S FIRM FAITH IN DEVILS, AND OLD MAISIE'S HAPPINESS THEREAT. THE DOCTOR'S MEMORY OF ADRIAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE AS A CORPSE. THE LAXITY OF GENERAL PRACTIOTIONERS. HIS WISH TO INTOXICATE MRS. PRICHARD. HOW GWEN SANG GLUCK TO ADRIAN, AND ONESIMUS BROUGHT HER A LETTER. QUITE A GOOD REPORT. HOW GWEN WASN'T ANXIOUS. OF ADRIAN'S INVISIBLE MOTHER. HER SELECTNESS, AND HIGH BREEDING. ADRIAN'S VIEWS ABOUT SUICIDES. SURVIVORS' SELFISHNESS TOWARDS THEM, HOW HE TALKED ABOUT THAT DEVIL, AND LET OUT THAT THE OLD LADY HAD FLASHED ACROSS HIS RETINA. HOW HE HAD CLOTHED EACH TWIN'S HEAD WITH THE OTHER'S HAIR

Has it not been the experience of all of us, many a time, that a few days' clear absence from an invalid has been needed, to distinguish a slow change, invisible to the watchers by the bedside? And all the while, have not the daily bulletins made out a case for indefinable slight improvements, negligible gains scarcely worth naming, whose total some mysterious flaw of calculation persistently calls loss?

There may have been very little actual change; there was room for so little. But Gwen had been building up hopes of an improvement. And now she had to see her house of cards tremble and portend collapse. She saved the structure—as one has done in real card-life—by gingerly removing a top storey, in terror of a cataclysm. She would not hope so much—indeed, indeed!—if Fate would only leave some of her structure standing. But she was at fault for a greeting, all but a disjointed word or two, when Ruth, falling back, left her to enter the bedroom alone.

It was a consolation to hear the old lady's voice. "My dear—my dear—I knew you would come. I woke in the night, and thought to myself—she will come, my lady. Then I rang, and my Ruth came. She comes so quick."

"And then that was just as good as me," said Gwen. "Wasn't it?"

"She is my child—my Ruth. And Phoebe is my Phoebe—years ago! But I have to think so much, to make it all fit. You are not like that.'

"What am I like?"

"You are the same all through. You came upstairs to me in my room—did you not?—where my little Dave and Dolly were...."

"Yes—I fetched Dolly."

"And then you put Dolly down? And I said for shame!—what a big girl to be carried!"

"Yes—and Dolly was carrying little dolly, with her eyes wide open. And when I put her down on the floor, she repeated what you said all over again, to little dolly:—'For same, what a bid dirl to be tallied!'"

A gleam came on old Maisie's face as she lay there letting the idea of Dolly soak into her heart. Presently she said, without opening her eyes:—"I wonder, if Dolly lives to be eighty, will she remember old Mrs. Picture. I should like her to. Only she is small."

"Dear Mrs. Picture, you are talking as if you were not to have Dolly again. Don't you remember what I told you on Sunday? I'm going to get both the children down here, and Aunt M'riar. Unless, when you are better, you like to go back to Sapps Court. You shall, you know!"

Another memory attacked old Maisie. "Oh dear," said she, "I thought our Court was all tumbled down. Was it not?"

"Yes—the day I came. And then I carried you off to Cavendish Square. Don't you remember?—where Miss Grahame was—Sister Nora." She went on to tell of the promptitude and efficiency with which the repairs had been carried out. For, strange to say, the power Mr. Bartlett possessed of impressing Europe with his integrity and professional ability had extended itself to Gwen, a perfect stranger, during that short visit to the Court, and she was mysteriously ready to vouch for his sobriety and good faith. Presently old Maisie grew curious about the voices in the next room.

"Is that a gentleman's voice, through the door, talking? It isn't Dr. Nash. Dr. Nash doesn't laugh like that."

"No—that is my blind man I have brought to see you. I told you about him, you know. But he must not tire you too much."

"But can he see me?"

"I didn't mean see, that way. I meant see to talk to. Some day he will really see you—with his eyes. We are sure of it, now. He shall come and sit by you, and talk."

"Yes—and I may hold his hand. And may I speak to him about ... about....

"About his blindness and the accident? Oh dear yes! You won't see that he's blind, you know."

"His eyes look like eyes?"

"Like beautiful eyes. I shall go and fetch him." She knew she was straining facts in her prediction of their recovery of sight, but she liked the sound of her own voice as she said it, though she knew she would not have gone so far except to give her hearer pleasure.

Said old Maisie to Adrian, whom Gwen brought back to sit by her, giving him the chair she had occupied beside the bed:—"You, sir, are very happy! But oh, how I grieve for your eyes!"

"Is Lady Gwendolen here in the room still?" said Adrian.

"She has just gone away, to the other room," said old Maisie. For Gwen had withdrawn. One at a time was the rule.

"Very well, dear Mrs. Picture. Then I'll tell you. There never was a better bargain driven than mine. I would not have my eyesight back, to lose what I have got. No—not for fifty pairs of eyes." And he evidently meant it.

"May I hold your hand?"

"Do. Here it is. I am sure you are a dear old lady, and can see what she is. When I had eyes, I never saw anything worth looking at, till I saw Gwen."

"But is it a rule?"

Adrian was perplexed for a moment. "Oh, I see what you mean," said he. "No—of course not! I may have my eyesight back." Then he seemed to speak more to himself than to her. "Men have been as fortunate, even as that, before now."

"But tell me—is that what the doctor says? Or only guessing?"

"It's what the doctor says, and guessing too. Doctors only guess. He's guessing."

"But don't they guess right, oftener than people?"

"A little oftener. If they didn't, what use would they be?"

"But you have seen her?"

"Yes—once! Only once. And now I know she is there, as I saw her.... But I want to know about you, Mrs. Picture dear. Because I'm so sorry for you."

"There is no need for sorrow for me, I am so happy to know my sister was not drowned. And my little girl I left behind when I went away over the great sea, and the wind blew, and I saw the stars change each night, till they were all new. And then I found my dear husband, and lived with him many, many happy years. God has been good to me, for I have had much happiness." There was nothing but contentment and rest in her voice; but then some of the tranquillity may have been due to exhaustion.

Adrian made the mistake of saying:—"And all the while you thought your sister dead."

He felt a thrill in her hand as it tightened on his, and heard it in her voice. "Oh, could it have been?" she said. "But I was told so—in a letter."

It was useless for Adrian to affect ignorance of the story; and, indeed, that would have made matters worse, for it would have put it on her to attempt the retelling of it.

Perhaps he did his best to say:—"Lady Gwendolen has told me the whole story. So I know. Don't think about it!... Well—that's nonsense! One can't help thinking. I mean—think as little as possible!" It did not mend matters much.

Her mind had got back to the letter, and could not leave it. "I have to think of it," she said, "because it was my husband that wrote that letter. I know why he wrote it. It was not himself. It was a devil. It came out of Roomoro the black witch-doctor and got a place inside my husband. He did not write that letter to Phoebe. It wrote it. For see how it had learned all the story when Roomoro sucked the little scorpion's poison out of Mary Ann Stennis's arm!"

To Adrian all this was half-feverish wandering; the limited delirium of extreme weakness. No doubt these were real persons—Roomoro and Mary Ann Stennis. It was their drama that was fictitious. He saw one thing plainly. It was to be humoured, not reasoned with. So whatever was the cause of a slight start and disconcertment of his manner when she stopped to ask suddenly:—"But you do not believe in devils, perhaps?"—it was not the one she had ascribed it to. In fact he was quite ready with a semi-conscientious affirmative. "Indeed I do. Tell me exactly how you suppose it happened, again. Roomoro was a native conjurer or medicine-man, I suppose?"

Then old Maisie recapitulated the tale her imagination had constructed to whitewash the husband who had ruined her whole life, adding some details, not without an interest for students of folklore, about the devil that had come from Roomoro. She connected it with the fact that Roomoro had eaten the flesh of the little black Dasyurus, christened the "Native Devil" by the first Tasmanian colonists, from the excessive shortness of its temper. The soul of this devil had been driven from the witch-doctor by the poison of the scorpion, and had made for the nearest human organisation. Adrian listened with as courteous a gravity as either of us would show to a Reincarnationist's extremest doctrines.

It was an immense consolation to old Maisie, evidently, to be taken in such good faith. Having made up his mind that his conscience should not stand between him and any fiction that would benefit this dear old lady, Adrian was not going to do the thing by halves. He launched out into reminiscences of his own experiences on the Essequibo and elsewhere, and was able without straining points to dwell on the remarkable similarities of the Magians of all primitive races. As he afterwards told Gwen, he was surprised at the way in which the actual facts smoothed the way for misrepresentation. He stuck at nothing in professions of belief in unseen agencies, good and bad; apologizing afterwards to Gwen for doing so by representing the ease of believing in them just for a short time, to square matters. Optional belief was no invention of his own, he said, but an ancient and honourable resource of priesthoods all the world over.

It was the only little contribution he was able to make towards the peace of mind without which it seemed almost impossible so old a constitution could rally against such a shock. And it was of real value, for old Maisie sorely needed help against her most awful discovery of all, the hideous guilt of the man whom she had loved ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it only this. It palliated her son's crimes. But then there was a difference between the son and the father. The latter had apparently done nothing to arouse his wife's detestation. Forgery is a delinquency—not a diabolism!

They talked more—talked a good deal in fact—but only of what we know. Then Gwen came back, bringing Irene to make acquaintance. This young lady behaved very nicely, but admitted afterwards that she had once or twice been a little at a loss what to say.

As when for instance the old lady, with her tender, sad, grey eyes fixed on Miss Torrens, said:—"Come near, my dear, that I may see you close." And drew her old hand, tremulously, over the mass of rich black hair which the almost nominal bonnet of that day left uncovered, with the reticular arrangement that confined it, and went on speaking, dreamily:—"It is very beautiful, but my lady's hair is golden, and shines like the sun." Thereon Gwen to lubricate matters:—"Yes—look here! But I know which I like best." She managed to collate a handful of her own glory of gold and her friend's rich black, in one hand. "I know which I like best," said Irene. And Gwen laughed her musical laugh that filled the place. "No head of hair is a prophet in its own country," said she.

Old Maisie was trying to speak, but her voice had gone low with fatigue. "Phoebe and I," she was saying, "long ago, when we were girls.... It was a trick, you know, a game ... we would mix our hair like that, and make little Jacky Wetherall guess whose hair he had hold of. When he guessed right he had sugar. He was three. His mother used to lend him to us when she went out to scrub, and he never cried...." She went on like this, dwelling on scraps of her girlhood, for some time; then her voice went very faint to say:—"Phoebe was there then. Phoebe is back now—somehow—how is it?" Gwen saw she had talked enough, and took Irene away; and then Ruth Thrale went to sit with her mother.

Dr. Nash, who arrived during their absence, had been greeted by Adrian after his "first appearance as a corpse," last summer. He would have known the doctor's voice anywhere. "You never were a corpse," said that gentleman. To which Mr. Torrens replied:—"You thought I was a corpse, doctor, you know you did!"

Dr. Nash, being unable to deny it, shifted the responsibility. "Well," said he, "Sir Coupland thought so too. The fact is, we had quite given you up. When he came out and said to me:—'Come back. I want you to see something,' I said to him:—'Is that why the dog barked?' Because your dog had given a sudden queer sort of a bark. And he said to me:—'It isn't only the dog. It's Lady Gwen Rivers.'"

"What did he mean by that?" said Gwen.

"He meant that your ladyship's strong impression that the body.... Excuse my referring to you, Mr. Torrens, as...."

"As 'the body'? Not at all! I mean, don't apologize."

"The—a—subject, say, still retained vitality. No doubt we might have found out—probably should...."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Gwen remorselessly. "You would have buried him alive if it hadn't been for me. You doctors are the most careless, casual creatures. It was me and the dog—so now Mr. Torrens knows what he has to be thankful for!"

"Well—as a matter of fact, it was the strong impression of your ladyship that did the job. We doctors are, as your ladyship says, an incautious, irresponsible lot. I hope you found Mrs. Prichard going on well."

Gwen hesitated. "I wish she looked a little—thicker," said she.

Dr. Nash looked serious. "We mustn't be in too great a hurry. Remember her age, and the fact that she is eating almost nothing. She won't take regular meals again—or what she calls regular meals—till the tension of this excitement subsides...."

Said Adrian:—"It's perfectly extraordinary to me, not seeing her, to hear her talk as she does. Because it doesn't give the impression of such weakness as that. Her hands feel very thin, of course."

Said the doctor:—"I wish I could get her to take some stimulant; then she would begin eating again. If she could only be slightly intoxicated! But she's very obdurate on that point—I told you?—and refuses even Sir Cropton Fuller's old tawny port. I talked about her to him, and he sent me half a dozen the same evening. A good-natured old chap!—wants to make everyone else as dyspeptic as himself...."

"That reminds me!" said Gwen. "We forgot the champagne."

"No, we didn't," said Irene. "It was put in the carriage, I know. In a basket. Two bottles lying down. And it was taken out, because I saw it."

"But was it put in the railway carriage?"

"I meant the railway carriage."

"I believe it's in the old Noah's Ark we came here in, all the while."

Granny Marrable said:—"I am sure there has nothing been brought into the Cottage. Because we should have seen. There is only the door through, to go in and out."

"You see, Dr. Nash," said Gwen, "when you said that in your letter, about her wanting stimulant, champagne immediately occurred to Sir Hamilton. So we brought a couple of bottles of the King of Prussia's favourite Clicquot, and a little screwy thing to milk the bottles with, like a cow, a glass at a time. Miss Torrens and I are quite agreed that very often one can get quite pleasantly and healthily drunk on champagne when other intoxicants only give one a headache and make one ill. Isn't it so, 'Re?" Miss Torrens and her brother both testified that this was their experience, and Dr. Nash assented, saying that there would at least be no harm in trying the experiment.

As for dear old Granny Marrable, her opinion was simply that whatever her ladyship from the Towers, and the young lady from Pensham and her brother, were agreed upon, was beyond question right; and even if medical sanction had not been forthcoming she would have supported them. "I am sure," said she, "my dear sister will drink some when she knows your ladyship brought it for her."

The reappearance of the Noah's Ark, when due, confirmed Gwen's view as to the whereabouts of the basket, and was followed by a hasty departure of the gentlefolks to catch the downtrain from London. As Granny Marrable watched it lurching away into the fast-increasing snow, it looked, she thought, as if it could not catch anything. But if old Pirbright, who had been on the road since last century, did not know, nobody did.

The day after this visit, when Gwen was singing to Adrian airs from Gluck's "Alceste," Irene and her father being both absent on Christmas business, social or charitable, the butler brought in a letter from Ruth Thrale in the very middle of a sostenuto note,—for when did any servant, however intelligent, allow music to stop before proceeding to extremities?—and said, respectfully but firmly, that it was the same boy, and he would wait. He seemed to imply that the boy's quality of identity was a sort of guarantee of his waiting—a good previous character for permanency. Gwen left "Alceste" in C minor, and opened her letter, thanking Mr. Tweedie cordially, but not able to say he might go, because he was another family's butler. Adrian said:—"Is that from the old lady?" And when Gwen said:—"Yes—it's Onesimus. I wonder he was able to get there, over the snow,"—he dismissed Mr. Tweedie with the instruction that he should see that Onesimus got plenty to eat. The butler ignored this instruction as superfluous, and died away.

Then Gwen spun round on the music-stool to read aloud. "'Honoured lady';—Oh dear, I wish she could say 'dear Gwen'; but I suppose it wouldn't do.—'I am thankful to be able to write a really good report of my mother'.... You'll see in a minute she'll have to speak of Granny Marrable and she'll call her 'mother' without the 'my.' See if she doesn't!... 'Dr. Nash said she might have some champagne, and we said she really must when you so kindly brought it. So she said indeed yes, and we gave it her up to the cuts.' That means," said Gwen, "the cuts of the wineglass." She glanced on in the letter, and when Adrian said:—"Well—that's not all!"—apologized with:—"I was looking on ahead, to see that she got some more later. It's all right. '... up to the cuts, and presently', as Dr. Nash said, was minded to eat something. So I got her the sweetbread she would not have for dinner, which warmed up well. Then we persuaded her to take a little more champagne, but Dr. Nash said be careful for fear of reaction. Then she was very chatty and cheerful, and would go back a great deal on old times with mother....' I told you she would," said Gwen, breaking off abruptly.

"Of course she will always go back on old times," said Adrian.

"I didn't mean that. I meant call her aunt 'mother' without the 'my.' Let me go on. Don't interrupt! '... old times with mother, and one thing in particular, their hair. Mother pleased her, because she could remember a little child Jacky they would puzzle to tell which hair was which, saying if she held them like that Jacky could tell, and have sugar. For their hair now is quite strong white and grey instead of both the same....' She was telling us about Jacky—me and Irene—yesterday, and I suppose that was what set her off.... 'She slept very sound and talked, and then slept well at night. So we are in good spirits about her, and thank God she may be better and get stronger. That is all I have to tell now and remain dutifully yours....' Isn't that delightful? Quite a good report!" Instructions followed to Onesimus not to bring any further news to Pensham, but to take his next instalment to the Towers.

These things occurred on the Friday, the day after the visit to Chorlton. Certainly that letter of Widow Thrale's justified Lady Gwendolen in feeling at ease about Mrs. Picture during the remainder of her visit to Pensham, and the blame she apportioned to herself for an imagined neglect afterwards was quite undeserved.

Adrian Torrens ought to have been in the seventh heaven during the remainder of an almost uninterrupted afternoon. Not that it was absolutely uninterrupted, because evidences of a chaperon in abeyance were not wanting. A mysterious voice, of unparalleled selectness, or bon-ton, or gentility, emanated from a neighbouring retreat with an accidentally open door, where the lady of the house was corresponding with philanthropists in spite of interruptions. It said:—"What is that? I know it so well," or, "That air is very familiar to me," or, "I cannot help thinking Catalani would have taken that slower." To all of which Gwen returned suitable replies, tending to encourage a belief in her questioner's mind that its early youth had been passed in a German principality with Kapellmeisters and Conservatoriums and a Court Opera Company. This excellent lady was in the habit of implying that she had been fostered in various anciens rÉgimes, and that the parentage of anything so outlandish and radical as her son and daughter was quite out of her line, and a freak of Fate at the suggestion of her husband.

Intermittent emanations from Superiority-in-the-Bush were small drawbacks to what might perhaps prove the last unalloyed interview of these two lovers before their six months' separation—that terrible Self-Denying Ordinance—to which they had assented with a true prevision of how very unwelcome it would be when the time came. It was impossible to go back on their consent now. Gwen might have hoisted a standard of revolt against her mother. But she could not look her father in the face and cry off from the fulfilment of a condition-precedent of his consent to the perfect freedom of association of which she and Adrian had availed themselves to the uttermost, always under the plea that the terms of the contract were going to be honourably observed. As for Adrian, he was even more strongly bound. That appeal from the Countess that his father had repeated and confirmed was made direct to his honour; and while he could say unanswerably:—"What would you have me do?" nothing in the world could justify his rebelling against so reasonable a condition as that their sentiments should continue reciprocal after six months of separation.

His own mind was made up. For his views about suicide, however much he spoke of them with levity, were perfectly serious. If he lost Gwen, he would be virtually non-existent already. The end would have come, and the thing left to put an end to would no longer be a Life. It would only be a sensibility to pain, with an ample supply of it. A bare bodkin would do the business, but did not recommend itself. The right proportion of Prussic Acid had much to say on its own behalf. It was cheap, clean, certain, and the taste of ratafia was far from unpleasant. But he had a lingering favourable impression of the Warroo medicine-man, whose faith in the efficacy and painlessness of his nostrum was evident, however much was uncertain in his version of its provenance.

As to any misgivings about awakening in another world, if any occurred to Adrian he had but one answer—he had been dead, and had found death unattended with any sort of inconvenience. Resuscitation had certainly been painful, but he did not propose to leave any possibility of it, this time. His death, that time, had been a sudden shock, followed instantly by the voice of Gwen herself, which he had recognised as the last his ears had heard. If Death could be so easily negotiated, why fuss? The only serious objection to suicide was its unpopularity with survivors. But were they not sometimes a little selfish? Was this selfishness not shown to demonstration by the gratitude—felt, beyond a doubt—to the suicide who weights his pockets when he jumps into mid-ocean, contrasted with the dissatisfaction, to say the least of it, which the proprietor of a respectable first-class hotel feels when a visitor poisons himself with the door locked, and engages the attention of the Coroner. There was Irene certainly—and others—but after all it would be a great gain to them, when the first grief was over, to have got rid of a terrible encumbrance.

Therefore Adrian was quite at his ease about the Self-Denying Ordinance; at least, if a clear resolve and a mind made up can give ease. He said not a word of his views and intentions beyond what the story has already recorded. What right had he to say anything to Gwen that would put pressure on her inclinations? Had he not really said too much already? At any rate, no more!

Nevertheless, the foregoing made up the background of his reflections as he listened to more "Alceste," resumed after a short note had been written for Onesimus to carry back over the frost-bound roads to Chorlton. And he was able to trace the revival in his mind of suicide by poison to Mrs. Picture's narration of the Dasyurus and the witch-doctor who had cooked and eaten its body. This fiction of her fever-ridden thoughts had set him a-thinking again of the Warroo conjurer. He had not repeated any of it to Gwen, lest she should be alarmed on old Maisie's behalf. For it had a very insane sound.

But after such a prosperous report of her condition, above all, of the magical effect of that champagne, it seemed overnice to be making a to-do about what was probably a mere effect of overheated fancy, such as the circumstances might have produced in many a younger and stronger person. So when Alceste had provided her last soprano song, and the singer was looking for "Ifigenia in Aulide," Adrian felt at liberty to say that old Mrs. Picture's ideas about possession were very funny and interesting.

"Isn't it curious?" said Gwen. "She really believes it all, you know, like Gospel. All that about the devil that had possession of her husband! And how when he died, he passed his devil on to his son, who was worse than himself."

"That's good, though," said Adrian. "Only she never told me about the son. I had it all about the witch-doctor whose devil came out because he couldn't fancy the little scorpion's flavour. And all about the original devil—a sort of opossum they call a devil...."

"She didn't tell me about him."

"They've got one at the Zoological Gardens. He's an ugly customer. The keeper said he was a limb, if ever there was one. The old lady evidently thought her idea that the doctor's devil was this little beggar's soul, eaten up with his flesh, was indisputable. I told her I thought it had every intrinsic possibility, and I'm sure she was pleased. But the horror of her face when she spoke of him was really...."

"Adrian!"

"What, dearest? Anything the matter?"

"Only the way you put it. It was so odd. 'The horror of her face'! Just as if you had seen it!" Indeed, Gwen was looking quite disconcerted and taken aback.

"There now!" said Adrian. "See what a fool I am! I never meant to tell of that. Because I thought it threw a doubt on Scatcherd. I've been wanting to make the most of Scatcherd. I never thought much of Septimius Severus. Anyone might have said in my hearing that the bust was moved, and it was just as I was waking. But I'll swear no one said anything about Scatcherd. Why—there was only Irene!"

Gwen went and sat by him on the sofa. "Listen, darling!" said she. "I want to know what you are talking about. What was it happened, and why did it throw a doubt on Miss Scatcherd?"

"It wasn't anything, either way, you know."

"I know. But what was it, that wasn't anything, either way?"

"It was only an impression. You mustn't attach any weight to it."

"Are you going to tell what it was, or not?"

"Going to. Plenty of time! It was when the old lady began telling me about the devil. Her tone of conviction gave me a strong impression what she was looking like, and made an image of her flash across my retina. By which I mean, flash across the hole I used to see through when I had a retina. It was almost as strong and life-like as real seeing. But I knew it wasn't."

"But how—how—how?" cried Gwen, excited. "How did you know that it wasn't?"

"Because of the very white hair. It was snow-white—the image's. I suppose I had forgotten which was which, of the two old ladies—had put the saddle on the wrong horse."

Gwen looked for a moment completely bewildered. "What on, earth, can, he, mean?" said she, addressing Space very slowly. Then, speaking as one who has to show patience with a stiff problem:—"Dearest man—dearest incoherency!—do try and explain. Which of the old ladies do you suppose has white hair, and which grey?"

"Old Granny Marrable, I thought."

"Yes—but which hair? Which? Which? Which?"

"White, I thought, not grey." Whereupon Gwen, seeing how much hung upon the impression her lover had been under hitherto about these two tints of hair, kept down a growing excitement to ask him quietly for an exact, undisjointed statement, and got this for answer:—"I have always thought of Granny Marrable's as snow-white, and the old Australian's as grey. Was that wrong?"

"Quite wrong! It's the other way round. The Granny's is grey and old Mrs. Picture's is silvery white."

Adrian gave a long whistle, for astonishment, and was silent. So was Gwen. For this was the third incident of the sort, and what might not happen? Presently he broke the silence, to say:—"At any rate, that leaves Scatcherd a chance. I thought if this was a make-up of my own, it smashed her."

"Foolish man! There is more in it than that. You saw old Mrs. Picture. It was no make-up.... Well?" She paused for his reply.

It came after a studied silence, a dumbness of set purpose. "Oh why—why—is it always Mrs. Picture, or Scatcherd, or Septimius Severus? Why can it never be Gwen—Gwen—Gwen?"

The attenuated chaperonage of the lady of the house may have been moved by a certain demonstrativeness of her son's at this point, to say from afar:—"I hope we are going to have some 'Ifigenia in Aulide.' Because I should have enjoyed that." Which carried an implication that the musical world had been palming off an inferior article on a public deeply impressible by the higher aspects of Opera.