WHY NOT KEEP COMPANY WHEN YOU HAVE A CHANCE? GUIZOT AND MONTALEMBERT. MRS. BEMBRIDGE CORLETT's EYEGLASSES. KINKAJOUS. THE PYTHON'S ATTITUDE. AN OSTRICH'S CARESS. HOW SIR COUPLAND MERRIDEW CALLED ON LADY GWENDOLEN WITH A LETTER. ROYALTY. NECROSIS. ILLEGIBILITY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN CALLED AGAIN IN SAPPS COURT, AND KNOCKED IN VAIN. HOW OLD MRS. PRICHARD WAS SPIRITED AWAY TO ROCESTERSHIRE, AND THOUGHT SHE WAS DREAMING

Mr. Percival Pellew and Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson had passed, under the refining influence of Love, into a new phase, that of not being formally engaged. It was to be distinctly understood that there was to be nothing precipitate. This condition has its advantages; very particularly that it postpones, or averts, family introductions. Yet it cannot be enjoyed to the full without downright immorality, and it always does seem to us a pity that people should be forced into Evil Courses, in order to shun the terrors of Respectability. Why should not some compromise be possible? The life some couples above suspicion contrive to lead, each in the other's pocket as soon as the eyes of Europe wander elsewhere, certainly seems to suggest a basis of negotiation.

No doubt you know that little poem of Browning about the lady and gentleman who watched the Seine, and saw Guizot receive Montalembert, who rhymed to "flare"? Of course, the case was hardly on all fours with that of our two irreproachables, but we suspect a point in common. We feel sure that those lawless loiterers in a dissolute capital were joyous at heart at having escaped the fangs of the brothers of the one, and the sisters of the other, respectively, although at the cost of having the World's bad names applied to both. In this case there were no brothers on the lady's part, and only one sister on the gentleman's. But Aunt Constance was not sorry for a breathing-pause before being subjected to an inspection through glasses by the Hon. Mrs. Bembridge Corlett, which was the name of the unique sister-sample, and herself subjecting Mr. Pellew to a similar overhauling by her own numerous relatives. She had misgivings about the accolade he might receive from Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, and also about the soul-communion which her sister Lilian, who had a sensitive nature, demanded as the price of recognition in public a second time of all persons introduced to her notice.

Mr. Pellew's description of the Hon. Mrs. Corlett had impressed her with the necessity of being ready to stand at bay when the presentation came off.

"Dishy will look at you along the top of her nose, with her chin in the air," said he. "But you mustn't be alarmed at that. She only does it because her glasses—we're all short-sighted—slip off her nose at ordinary levels. And when you come to think of it, how can she hold them on with her fingers when she looks at you. Like taking interest in a specimen!"

"I am a little alarmed at your sister Boadicea, Percy, for all that," said Miss Dickenson, and changed the conversation. This was only a day or two after the Sapps Court accident, and the phase of not being formally engaged had begun lasting as long as possible, being found satisfactory. So old Mrs. Prichard was a natural topic to change to. "Isn't it funny, this whim of Gwen's, about the old lady you carried upstairs?"

"What whim of Gwen's?"

"Oh, don't you know. Of course you don't! Gwen's fallen in love with her, and means to take her to the Towers with her when she goes back."

"Very nice for the old girl. What's she doing that for?"

"It's an idea of hers. However, there is some reason in it. The old lady's apartments must be dry before she goes back to them, and that may be weeks."

"Why can't she stop where she is?"

"All by herself? At least, only the cook! When Miss Grahame goes to Devonshire, Maggie goes with her, to lady's-maid her."

"I thought we were going to be pastoral, and only spend three hundred a year on housekeeping."

"So we are—how absurdly you do put things, Percy!—when we make a fair start. But just till we begin in earnest, there's no need for such strictness. Anyhow, if Maggie doesn't go to Devonshire, she'll go back to her parents at Invercandlish. So the old lady can't stop. And Gwen will go back to the Towers, of course. I don't the least believe they'll hold out six months, those two.... What little ducks Kinkajous are! Give me a biscuit.... No—one of the soft ones!"

For, you see, they were at the ZoÖlogical Gardens. They had felt that these Gardens, besides being near at hand, were the kind of Gardens in which the eyes of Europe would find plenty to occupy them, without staring impertinently at a lady and gentleman who were not formally engaged. Who would care to study them and their ways when he could see a Thibetan Bear bite the nails of his hind-foot, or observe the habits of Apes, or sympathize with a Tiger about his lunch? Our two visitors to the Gardens had spent an hour on these and similar attractions, noting occasionally the flavour that accompanies them, and had felt after a visit to the Pythons, that they could rest a while out of doors and think about the Wonders of Creation, and the drawbacks they appear to suffer from. But a friendly interest in a Python had lived and recrudesced as the Kinkajou endeavoured to get at some soft biscuit, in spite of a cruel wire screen no one bigger than a rat could get his little claw through.

"I don't believe that fillah was moving. He was breathing. But he wasn't moving. I know that chap perfectly well. He never moves when anyone is looking at him, out of spite. He hears visitors hope he'll move, and keeps quite still to disappoint them." It was Mr. Pellew who said this. Miss Dickenson shook her head incredulously.

"He was moving, you foolish man. You should use your eyes. That long straight middle piece of him on the shelf moved; in a very dignified way, considering. The move moved along him, and went slowly all the way to his tail. When I took my eyes off I thought the place was moving, which is a proof I'm right.... Oh, you little darling, you've dropped it! I'm so sorry. I must have another, because this has been in the mud, and you won't like it." This was, of course, to the Kinkajou.

Mr. Pellew supplied a biscuit, but improved the occasion:—"Now if this little character could only keep his paws off the Public, he wouldn't want a wire netting. Couldn't you give him a hint?"

"I could, but he wouldn't take it. He's a little darling, but he's pig-headed...." A pause, and then a quick explanatory side-note:—"Do you know, I think that's Sir Coupland Merridew coming along that path. I hope he isn't coming this way.... I'm afraid he is, though. You know who I mean? He was at the Towers...."

"I know. Yes, it's him. He's coming this way. If he sees it's us, he'll go off down the side-path. But he won't see—he's too short-sighted. Can't be helped!"

"Oh dear—what a plague people are! Let's be absorbed in the Kinkajou. He'll pass us."

But the great surgeon did nothing of the sort. On the contrary he said:—"I saw it was you, Miss Dickenson." Then he reflected about her companion, and said he was Mr. Pellew, he thought, and further:—"Met you at Ancester in July." It was a great relief that he did not say:—"You are a lady and gentleman, and can perhaps explain yourselves. I can't!" He appeared to decide on silence about them, as irrelevant, and went on to something more to the purpose—"Perhaps you know if the family are in town—any of them?" Miss Dickenson testified to the whereabouts of Lady Gwendolen Rivers, and Sir Coupland wrote it in a notebook. There seemed at this point to be an opportunity to say how delightful the Gardens were this time of the year, so Miss Dickenson seized it.

"I didn't come to enjoy the gardens," said the F.R.C.S. "I wish I had time. I came to see to a broken scapula. Keeper in the Ostrich House—bird pecked him from behind. Did it from love, apparently. Said to be much attached to keeper. Two-hundred-and-two, Cavendish Square, is right, isn't it?"

"Two-hundred-and-two; corner house.... Must you go on? Sorry!—you could have told us such interesting things." The effect of this one word "us," indiscreetly used, was that Sir Coupland, walking away to his carriage outside the turnstiles, wondered whether it would come off, and if it did, would there be a family? Which shows how very careful you have to be, when you are a lady and gentleman.

The former, in this case, remained unconscious of her lapsus linguÆ; saying, in fact:—"I think we did that very well! I wonder whether he will go and see Gwen!"

"I hope he will. Do you know, I couldn't help suspecting that he had something to say about Torrens's eyesight—something good. Perhaps it was only the way one has of catching at straws. Still, unless he has, why should he want to see Gwen? He couldn't want to tell her there was no hope—to rub it in!"

"I see what you mean. But I'm afraid he only put down the address for us to tell her he did so—just to get the credit of a call without the trouble."

"When did you take to Cynicism, madam?... No—come, I say—that's not fair! It's only my second cigar since I came to the Gardens...." The byplay needed to make this intelligible may be imagined, without description.

Does not the foregoing lay further stress on the curious fact that the passÉe young lady and the oscillator between Pall Mall and that Club at St. Stephen's—this describes the earlier seeming of these two—have really vanished from the story? Is it not a profitable commentary on the mistakes people make in the handling of their own lives?

Sir Coupland Merridew was not actuated by the contemptible motive Aunt Constance had ascribed to him. Moreover, the straw Mr. Pellew caught at was an actual straw, though it may have had no buoyancy to save a swimmer. It must have had some though, or Sir Coupland would never have thrown it to Gwen, struggling against despair about her lover's eyesight. Of course he did not profess to do so of set purpose; that would have pledged him to an expression of confidence in that straw which he could hardly have felt.

When he called at Cavendish Square two days later at an unearthly hour, and found Gwen at breakfast, he accounted for his sudden intrusion by producing a letter recently received from Miss Irene Torrens, of which he said that, owing to the peculiarity of the handwriting, he had scarcely been able to make out anything beyond that it related to her brother's blindness. Probably Lady Gwendolen knew her handwriting better than he did. At any rate, she might have a shot at trying to make it out. But presently, when she had time! He, however, would take a cup of coffee, and would then go on and remove a portion of a diseased thigh-bone from a Royal leg—that of Prince Hohenslebenschlangenspielersgeiststein—only he never could get the name right.

The story surmises that, having carefully read every word of the letter, he chose this way of letting Gwen know of a fluctuation in Adrian's eye-symptoms; which, he had inferred, would not reach her otherwise. But he did not wish false hopes to be built on it. The deciphering of the illegibilities by Gwen, under correctives from himself, would exactly meet the case.

"I can not see that 'Rene's writing is so very illegible," said Gwen. "Now be quiet and let me read it." She settled down to perusal, while Sir Coupland sipped his coffee, and watched her colour heighten as she read. That meant, said he to himself, that he must be ready to throw more cold water on this letter than he had at first intended.

Said Gwen, when she had finished:—"Well, that seems to me very plain and straightforward. And as for illegibility, I know many worse hands than 'Re's."

"What's that word three lines down?... Yes, that one!"

"'Dreaming.'"

"I thought it was 'drinking.'"

"It certainly is 'dreaming' plain enough!"

"What do you make of it? Don't read it all through. Tell me the upshot."

"I don't mind reading it. But I'll tell it short, as you're in a hurry. Adrian dropped asleep on the sofa, and woke with a start, saying:—'What's become of Septimius Severus on the bookshelf?' It was a bust, it seems. 'Re said:—'How did you know it had been moved?' and he seemed quite puzzled and said:—'I can't tell. I forgot I was blind, and saw the whole room.' Then 'Re said, he must have been dreaming. 'But,' said he, 'you say it has been moved.' So what does 'Re do but say he must have heard somehow that it was moved, because it was impossible that he should have been able to see only just that much and no more.... Oh dear!" said Gwen, breaking off suddenly. "What a pleasure people do seem to take in being silly!"

Sir Coupland proceeded to show deference to correct form. "It is far more likely," said he, "that Mr. Torrens had heard someone say the bust was moved, and had forgotten it till he woke up out of a dream, than that he should have a sudden flash of vision." A more cautious method than Irene's, of assuming the point at issue.

Gwen paid no attention to this, putting it aside to apologize to Irene. "However, 'Re had the sense to write straight to you about it. I'll say that for her." Then she read the letter again while Sir Coupland spun out his cup of coffee. She was still dwelling on it when he looked at his watch suddenly and said: "I must be off. Consider Prince Hohenschlangen's necrosis!" Then said Gwen, pinning him to truth with the splendour of her eyes:—"You are perfectly and absolutely certain, Dr. Merridew, that a momentary gleam of true vision in such a case would be impossible?"

"I never said that," said Sir Coupland.

"What did you say?" said Gwen.

"As improbable as you please, short of impossible. Now I'm off. Impossible's a long word, you know, and very hard to spell." Sir Coupland went off in a hurry, leaving Irene's letter in Gwen's possession, which was dishonourable; because he had really read the injunction it contained, on no account to show it to Gwen in case she should build false hopes on it. But then Gwen had not read this passage aloud to him, so he did not know it officially.

Lunch was the next conclave of the small household, and although Mr. Pellew was there—it was extraordinary how seldom he was anywhere else!—Irene's letter was freely handed round the table and made the subject of comment.

"It won't do to build upon it," said Cousin Clo.

"Why not?" said Gwen.

"It never does to be led away," said Miss Dickenson. Her reputation for sagacity had to be maintained.

"Doesn't it?" said Gwen.

Mr. Pellew was bound, in consideration of his company, to dwell upon the desirableness of keeping an even mind. Having done full justice to this side of the subject, he added a rider. He had always said the chances were ten to one Torrens would recover his eyesight, and this sort of thing looked uncommonly like it. Now didn't it? Whereupon Gwen, who shook hands with him across the table to show her approval, said that anyhow she must hear Adrian's own account of this occurrence from his own mouth forthwith, and she should go back to-morrow to the Towers, and insist upon driving over to Pensham Steynes, whether or no!

Miss Grahame remonstrated with her later, when Aunt Constance and her swain had departed to some dissipation—the story is not sure it was not Madame Tussaud's—and pointed out that she really had solemnly promised not to see Mr. Torrens for six months. She admitted this, but counterpointed out that she could just see him for half an hour to hear his own account of the incident, and then they could begin fair. She was a girl of her word, and meant to keep it. Only, no date had been fixed. As for her pledges to assist her cousin's schemes for benefiting Sapps Court and its analogues, in Drury Lane or elsewhere, was she not going to carry off the old fairy godmother she had discovered and give her such a dose of fresh air and good living as she had not had for twenty years past? Could any Patron Saint of Philanthropy ask more?

Gwen, of course, had her way. She did not cut her visit to Cavendish Square needlessly short. She remained there long enough to give some colour to the pretext that she was exploring slums with philanthropy in view, and actually to make a visit with her cousin to the reconstructed home of the Wardles in Sapps Court. But no response came to knocking at door or window, and it was evident that Aunt M'riar had not returned. Michael Ragstroar, the making of whose acquaintance on this occasion gratified both ladies, offered to go to The Sun for Uncle Mo and bring him round; but his offer was declined, as their time was limited. This must have been a few days before the return of Aunt M'riar and the children, and in the interim her young ladyship had taken flight to the home of her ancestors, contriving somehow to convey away with her her new-made old friend, and to provide her with comfortable lodgment in the housekeeper's quarters, making Mrs. Masham, the housekeeper, responsible for her comforts.

As for the old lady herself, she was very far from being sure that she was not dreaming.

END OF PART I