A new-comer joined the circle of attentive listeners gathered round the easiest of all the easy-chairs in the smoking-room of the Younger Sons’ Club. The surrounded chair contained Hambridge Ost, a small, drab, livery man, with long hair and drooping eyelids, who, as cousin to Lord Pomphrey, enjoyed the immense but fleeting popularity of the moment. Everyone panted to hear the details of the latest Society elopement before the newspapers should disseminate them abroad. And Hambridge was not unwilling to oblige.

“The first inkling of the general trend of affairs, dear fellow,” said Hambridge, joining his long, pale finger-tips before him, and smiling at the new-comer across the barrier thus formed, “was conveyed to me by an agitated ring at the telephone in my rooms. Bucknell, my man, hello’ed. To Bucknell’s astonishment the ring-up came from 000, Werkeley Square, the town mansion of my cousin, Lord Pomphrey, which he knew to be in holland covers and the care of an ex-housekeeper. And Lady Pomphrey was the ringer. When I hello’ed her, saying, ‘Are you there, Annabella? So glad, but how unexpected; thought you were all enjoying your otium cum down at Cluckham-Pomphrey’—my cousin’s country-seat in Slowshire, dear fellow—such a verbal flood of disjointed sentences came hustling over the wire, so to speak, that I felt convinced, even in the act of rubbing my ear, which tickled confoundedly, that something was quite absolutely wrong somewhere. Pomphrey—dear fellow!—was my first thought; then the Dowager—the ideal of a fine old Tory noblewoman of ninety-eight, who may drop, so to put it, any moment, dear creature, relieving her family of the charge of paying her income and leaving the Dower House vacant for Lord Rustleton, my cousin’s heir and his—ahem!—bride. Knowing that Rustleton was to lead the Hon. Celine Twissing to the altar of St. George’s, Hanover Square, early in the Winter season, it occurred to me, so to put it, that the demise of the Dowager could not have occurred at a more auspicious moment. Thank you, dear fellow, I will smoke one of your particular Partagas, since you’re so good.”

Four men struck vestas simultaneously as Hambridge relieved the nicotian delicacy of its gold-and-scarlet cummerbund. Another man supplied him with an ash-tray. Yet another pushed a footstool under his pampered patent-leathers. Exhaling a thin blue cloud, the Oracle continued:

“Amidst my distracted relative’s fragmentary utterances I gleaned the name of Rustleton. Hereditary weak heart—circulation as limited as that of a newspaper which on strictly moral grounds declines to report Divorce Cases—and a disproportionate secretion of bile, so to put it, distinguishes him, dear fellow, from, shall I say, mortals less favored by birth and of lower rank. A vision of a hatchment over the door of 000, Werkeley Square—of the entire population of the county assisting at his obsequies, dear fellow—volted through my brain. I seized my hat, and rushed from my chambers in Ryder Street. An electric hansom had fortunately pulled up in front of ’em. I jumped in. ‘Where to?’ asked the chauffeur. ‘To a broken-hearted mother,’ said I, ‘000, Werkeley Square, and drive like the dooce!’”

Hambridge cleared his throat with some pomp, and crossed his little legs comfortably. Then he went on:

“Like the Belgian sportsman, who, in missin’ a sittin’ hare, shot his father-in-law in the stomach, mine was an effort not altogether wasted. All the blinds of the house were down, and the hysterical shrieks of Lady Pomphrey echoin’ through practically a desert of rolled-up carpets and swathed furniture, had collected a small but representative crowd about the area-railings. I leaped out of the motor-cab, threw the chauffeur the legal fare, and bein’ admitted to the house by an hysterical caretaker, ascended to my cousin’s boudoir, the sobs and shrieks of the distracted mother growing louder as I went. Dear fellows, when Lady Pomphrey saw me, heard me saying, ‘Annabella, I must entreat you as a near relative to calm yourself sufficiently to tell me the worst without delay, or to direct me to the nearest person who can supply authentic information,’ the floodgates of her sorrow were opened to such an extent that—possessing a constitution naturally susceptible to damp—I have had a deuce of a cold ever since.

“Lord Rustleton—always a nervous faddist, though the dearest of fellows—Rustleton had suddenly broken off his engagement to the Hon. Celine Twissing, only child and heiress of Lord Twissing of Hopsacks, the colossal financier figurehead, as I call him, of the Brewing Trade. Naturally, the young man’s mother was crushed by the blow. The marriage was to have been solemnized at the opening of the Winter Season—the trousseau was nearly ready, and the cake—a mammoth pile of elaborate indigestion—was bein’ built up in tiers at Guzzards’. The presents (includin’ a diamond and sapphire bangle from a Royal source) had come in in shoals. Nothing could be more confoundedly inopportune than Rustleton’s decision. For all her muscularity—and she is an unpleasantly muscular young woman—you’d marry her yourself to-morrow did you get the chance, dear fellow. Vous n’Êtes pas dÉgoÛtÉ.

“But Rustleton’s a difficult man—always was. His personal appearance ain’t prepossessin’, but he is Somebody, and looks it; d’ye foller me? You feel at once that a long line of ancestors, more or less distinguished, must have handed down the bilious tendency from father to son. Originally—which goes to prove that first impressions are the stronger—Lady Pomphrey tells me he could not stand Celine Twissing, wouldn’t have her for nuts, or at any price; but after the disaster to the steam yacht Fifi—run down by a collier at her moorings in Southampton Water, you recollect, when by pure force of muscle Miss Twissing snatched Lord Rustleton from a watery grave, so to put it—he seemed to cave in, as it were, and the engagement was formally announced. I thought his eye unsteady and his laugh hollow, when, with the rest of the family, I proffered my insignificant congratulations. On that occasion, dear fellow, he gave me two fingers instead of one, which amounts to a grip with him, and whispered to the effect that there was no use in cryin’ over spilled milk—a familiar saw which has sprung to my own lips at the most inopportune moments.

“Celine was undoubtedly in love. Her being in love, so to put it, added immensely to Rustleton’s discomfort. For the New Girl is, as well as a muscular being, a strenuous creature, omnivorous in her appetite for mental exercise, and from the latest theories in physics to the morality of the newest Slavonic novelist Rustleton was expected to range with her hour by hour. Her mass of knowledge oppressed him, her inexhaustible fund of argument exhausted him, her fiery enthusiasm reduced him to a condition of clammy limpness which was—I may say it openly—painful to witness. A backward Lower boy and an impatient Head Master might have presented such a spectacle. Thank you, I will take a Vermouth, since you are so kind. But the boy, in getting away for the holidays, had the advantage of Rustleton, poor fellow!”

Hambridge waited till the Vermouth came, and, sipping the tonic fluid, continued:

“These details, I need not say, were not culled from Lady Pomphrey, but extracted from Rustleton, who had rushed up to town and gone to earth at his Club, to the consternation of the few waiters who were not taking holidays at the seaside. Little by little I became master of the facts of the case, which was one of disparity from the outset. From the muscular as from the intellectual point Celine Twissing had always overshadowed her fiancÉ. But Celine’s intimate knowledge of the mode of conduct necessary—I quote herself—to sane living and clear thinking positively appalled him. Rustleton began the day with hot Vichy water, dry toast, weak tea, and a tepid immersion. She, Miss Twissing, commenced with Indian clubs, a three-quarter-mile sprint in sweaters, coffee, eggs, cold game-pie, ham, jam, muffins, and marmalade. Did she challenge the man, to whom she was soon to pledge lifelong obedience at the altar, to a single at lawn-tennis, she quite innocently served him twisters that he could only follow with his eye, and volleyed balls that infallibly hit it. At croquet she was a scientist, winning the game by the time Lord Rustleton had got through three hoops, and coming back to stand by his side and goad him to silent frenzy by criticism of his method. She is a red-hot motorist, and insisted upon taking Rustleton, wrapped in fur coats, and protected by goggles, as passenger in the back seat of her sixty-horse-power ‘Gohard’ when she competed in the Crooklands Circular Track One Thousand Mile Platinum Cup Race, for private owners only, professional drivers barred; and upon my honor, I believe she would have pulled up the winner and heroine of the hour had not the racing diet of bananas, meat jujubes, and egg-nog created such a revolt in Rustleton’s system, poor fellow, that at the sixth hour of the ordeal he was borne, almost insensible, and bathed in cold perspiration, from the tonneau to a neighboring hotel.

“To anxiety, in combination with exploding tires, I attribute the fact of Miss Twissing’s finishing as Number Four. Dear fellow, since you are so good as to insist, I will put that cushion behind the small of my back. Lumbago, in damp weather, is my particular bane. Thankee!”

Hambridge drew forth a spotlessly white handkerchief, flourished it, and trumpeted.

“Now we come to the crux, dear fellows. The Admirable Twissing, as many call her, not content with bein’ an acknowledged expert in salmon fishin’ and a darin’ rider to hounds, set her heart on Rustleton’s being practically the same. With a light trout-rod and a tin of worms he has occasionally amoosed himself on locally-preserved waters; mounted on an easy-goin’ cob, he is, so to put it, fairly at home. Scotch and Norwegian rivers now, shall I say, claimed him as their sacrifice; highly-mettled hunters—the Hopsacks stables are famous—took five-barred gates and quickset hedges with him; occasionally even bolted with him, regardless of his personal predilections. In the same spirit his betrothed bride compelled him to fence with her; instructed him, at severe physical expense to himself, in the rules of jiu-jitsu. The final straw was laid upon the camel’s back when she insisted on his putting on the gloves with her, and standing up for half an hour every morning to be scientifically pummeled.”

The listeners’ mouths screwed themselves into the shape of long-expressive whistles. Glances of profound meaning were exchanged. One man said, with a gulp of sympathy, “Poor beggar!”

“And so the worm turned,” said Hambridge Ost, running his forefinger round inside the edge of his collar. “Smarting from upper-cuts administered by the woman who was destined ere long to become the wife of his bosom, flushed from having his head in Chancery, gravely embarrassed by body-blows, dazzled by stars and stripes seen as the result of merciless punches received upon the nose, Rustleton summoned all his courage to the effort, and declined to take any more lessons. Miss Twissing, to do her justice, was thunderstruck.

“‘Oh!’ she said, her lips quivering—like a hurt child’s, according to Rustleton—‘and you were coming on so capitally—we were getting on so well. You are really gaining a knowledge of good boxing principles, you were actually benefiting by our light little friendly spars.’ Rustleton felt his nose, which was painfully swollen. ‘Of course, you could never, never become a first-rater. Your poor little muscles are too rigid. You haven’t the strength to hit a print of your knuckles into a pound of butter, but you might come to show form enough to funk a big duffer, supposing he went for you under the impression that you were as soft as you look. But, of course, if you mean what you say’—she pulled her gloves off and threw them into a corner of the gymnasium at Hopsacks specially fitted up for her by a noted firm—‘there they go. I’ll read the Greek Anthologists with you instead, or’—her eyes brightened—‘have you ever tried polo?’ she asked. ‘We have some trained ponies in the stable, and the largest croquet-lawn could be utilized for a ground, and I’ll wire to the County Players for clubs and a couple of members to teach us the rules of the game. You’ll like that?’

“‘I’m dashed if I shall!’ were the actual words that burst, so to put it, from Rustleton. Celine drew herself up and looked him over, from the feet upwards, as though she had never, so he says, seen him before. Five feet five—his actual height—gave her an advantage of five inches and a bit over. He begged her to be seated, and, standing before her in as dignified an attitude as it is possible to assume in a light suit of gymnasium flannels, with sawdust in your hair and a painfully swollen nose, he broke the ice and demanded his release from their engagement, saying that he felt it incumbent on him to live his own life in his own way, that Celine crushed, humiliated, and oppressed him by the mere vigor of her intellect and the exuberance of her physical personality—with considerably more to the same effect.

“She looked up when Rustleton, almost breathless, reached a full stop. ‘You give me your word of honor that there is no other woman in the case,’ she murmured; ‘I can stand your not loving me, I can’t your loving somebody else better.’ As Rustleton gave the required denial—scouted the bare idea—a tear ran down her cheek and dropped on her large powerful arms, which were folded upon her bust—really amazing, dear fellow, and one of her strong points. ‘That settles it,’ she uttered. ‘It’s understood, all’s off between us; you are free. And there is a through express to London at 3:25. But I’m afraid I must detain you a moment longer.’ She rang the bell, and told a servant to tell Professor Pudsey she was wanted in the gym. ‘Tell her to come in sparring kit, and be quick about it,’ were her actual words.

“Until the Professor appeared, Miss Twissing chatted quite pleasantly with Rustleton. The Professor was a large, flat-faced woman, of remarkable muscular development, with her hair coiled in a tight knob at the back of her head, her massive form attired in a thin jersey, short serge skirt, long stockings, and light gymnasium shoes. ‘Let me introduce my friend and resident instructress in boxing, fencing, and athletics,’ says Celine, ‘and one of the best, so to put it, that ever put a novice through his paces. Celebrated as the wife and trainer of the late Ponto Pudsey, Heavy-weight Champion of England, and holder of the Hyam’s Competition Belt three seasons running until beat by Bat Collins at the International Club Grounds in ’92. Pudsey dear’—she turned to the Professor—‘you know my little way when I’ve had a set-back. Instead of playing le diable À quatre and being disagreeable and cantankerous all round, I simply send for you and say, as I say now, “Put up your hands, and do your best; I warn you I’m going in for a regular slugging match under the rules of the Amateur Boxing Association. Three rounds—the first and second of three minutes’ length, the third of four minutes’. This gentleman will act as time-keeper, and pick up whichever of us gets knocked out. He has plenty of time before he catches the express to town—and the lesson will be good for him.”’ She and the Professor shook hands, and, with heads erect, mouths firmly closed, eyes fixed, left toes straight, bodies evenly balanced, left arms workin’ loosely, rights well across mark, and so forth, started business in the most thorough-goin’ way. Such a bout of fisticuffs—accordin’ to Rustleton—you couldn’t behold outside the American prize-ring.”

“By—Jingo!” ejaculated one of the listeners.

“They led off in a perfectly scientific manner at the head, guarded and returned, retreated and advanced, ducked, feinted, countered, and cross-countered,” said Hambridge Ost, “until Rustleton grew giddy. Terrific hits were given and taken before he could command himself sufficiently to call ‘Time,’ the Professor with a black eye, Celine with a cut lip, both of ’em smilin’ and self-possessed to an astonishin’ degree; went in again at the end of the brief breathin’ space, and fairly outdid the previous round. When a smashin’ knock-out on the point of the jaw finally floored the Professor and she failed to come up to time, leavin’ Miss Twissing mistress of the gory field, Celine nodded significantly to Rustleton, and said, as she rolled down her sleeves, ‘That would have been for you, Russie, old boy, if there had been another woman in the case. As there isn’t—goodbye, and good luck go with you! I’m going to put dear old Pudsey to bed, and plaster this cut lip of mine.’”

“I like that girl!” declared the man who had said “By Jingo!” “A rattling good sort, I call her. But a punch-bag would have done as well as the Professor, I should have thought.” He tugged at his mustache and wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. “A damaged lip is so fearfully disfiguring. Has it quite healed?”

“I know nothing of Miss Twissing,” said Hambridge, settling his necktie, “and desire to know nothing of that very unfeminine young person, who, I feel sure, would have been as good as her word and pounded Rustleton into a human jelly, had she been aware that there actually existed, if I may so put it, an adequate feminine reason for the dear fellow’s—shall I say, change of mind?”

“Of course,” said the man who had been anxious about Miss Twissing’s lip, “the little bounder—beg pardon! Of course, Rustleton was telling a colossal howler. As all the world knows, or will know when the newspapers come out to-morrow, there was another woman in the case.”

“Petsie Le Poyntz,” put in another voice, “of the West End Theater. Petsie of the lissom—ahem!—limbs, of the patent mechanical smile—mistress of the wink that convulses the gallery, and inventor of the kick that enraptures the stalls. Petsie, who has won her way into what Slump, of the Morning Gush, calls the ‘peculiar favor of the British playgoer,’ by her exquisite and spontaneous rendering of the ballad, ‘Buzzy, Buzzy, Busy Bee,’ sung nightly and at two matinÉes per week in The Charity Girl. Petsie, once the promised bride of a thriving young greengrocer, now——”

“Now, Viscountess Rustleton,” said Hambridge Ost. “Don’t forget that, dear fellow, pray. I can conceive, even while I condemn my cousin’s ill-considered action in taking to his—shall I say bosom? yesterday morning at the Registrar’s—a young lady of obvious gifts and obscure parentage without letting his family into the secret—that he found her a soothing change from Miss Twissing. No Greek, no athletics, no strenuousness of any kind. An appearance distinctly pleasing, even off the boards, a certain command of repartee of the ‘You’re another’ sort, an agreeable friskiness varied by an inclination to lounge languidly—and there you have Petsie, dear fellow. The weddin’ breakfast took place at the Grill Room of the Savoy Hotel, the extra-sized table, number three, at the east upper end against the glass partition havin’ been specially engaged by the management of the West End Theater. That, not bein’ an invited guest, I ascertained from the waiter who usually looks after me when I lunch there. The menu was distinctly a good ’un. Hors d’oeuvres ... a bisque, follered by turban de turbot.... Birds with bread-cream sauce, chipped potatoes, tomatoes stuffed, and a corn salad. Chocolate omelette soufflÉe—ices in the shape of those corrugated musk melons with pink insides, figs, and nectarines. Of course, a claret figured—ChÂteau-Nitouche; but, bein’ a theatrical entertainment, the Boy washed the whole thing down. The name of the liqueur I did not get hold of.”

“Parfait Amour, perhaps?” said a feeble voice, with a faint chuckle.

“As I have said, I failed to ascertain,” returned Hambridge Ost, with a dry little cough. “But as Lord Pomphrey, justly indignant with his heir for throwing over Miss Twissing, with whose hand goes a colossal fortune, has practically reduced his income to a mere”—he elevated his eyebrows and blew a speck of cigar-ash from his coat-sleeve—“that—the stirrup-cup that sped my cousin and his bride upon their wedding journey was certainly not, shall I say, Aqua d’Oro?”

There was a faint chorus of applause. Hambridge, repressing all sign of triumph, smoothed his preternaturally sleek head and uncrossed his little legs preparatory to getting out of his chair. The circle of listeners melted away; the man who had said “By Jingo!” straightened his hat carefully, staring at the reflection of a distinctly good-looking face in the mantel-glass.

“If she had known—if that girl Celine Twissing had known—the game that bilious little rotter meant to play, he’d have had his liqueur before his soup, and it would have been punch—not Milk Punch or Turtle Punch, but the real thing, with trimmings.” He arranged a very neat mustache with care. “Sorry she got her lip split,” he murmured; “hope it’s healed all right.... Waiter, get me a dozen Sobranie cigarettes. It’s a pity, a confounded pity, that the only man who is really able to appreciate that grand girl Celine Twissing happens to be a younger son. But, anyhow, I can have a shot at her, and I will.”