THE RIVALS

It was five o'clock on a fine spring afternoon. The model had just resumed his ordinary raiment and departed, and Montagu Falconer was cleaning his palette. To him entered a timorous maid.

"If you please, sir, Miss Leslie has called."

"That is quite possible," replied Montagu calmly, "but it does not interest me."

"But she wants to see you, sir."

"I fear I cannot oblige her. It is Miss Marguerite's duty to receive afternoon callers."

"Miss Marguerite is out, and Miss Leslie specially asked for you, sir," persisted the maid, trembling beneath her employer's cold blue eye.

Montagu Falconer ruminated for some moments. Unfortunately he omitted to remove his eye from the maid, and that sensitive young person was on the verge of an hysterical yell when he turned upon his heel and said curtly:—

"Ask her what the devil she wants."

The maid humbly withdrew. Having closed the studio door behind her she indulged in a few grimaces of a heartfelt and satisfying character, and after pausing to admire herself for a brief space in a Venetian mirror conveniently adjacent, returned to the drawing-room, where she took her stand before Miss Leslie with downcast eyes.

"Mr. Falconer sends his compliments, miss," she announced deferentially, "and would be very much obliged if you could say whether you wanted him particular, because he is painting a picture."

Jean Leslie smiled. She was wondering what Montagu really had said. But to the maid she merely replied:—

"Is the model there?"

"No, miss. Models go at five."

"Then say to Mr. Falconer that I should be greatly obliged if he could see me for a few minutes, as I wish to consult him upon an important matter."

When the maid had departed, Miss Leslie rose and walked to the window, through which the afternoon sun was shining. Peggy's tastes rather leaned to rose-coloured curtains and silk blinds. Jean Leslie arranged these to her liking. Then, having adjusted her hat to the proper angle, she sat down with her back to the light, and waited.

Presently Montagu entered.

"Well, Jean," he said affably,—he was flattered by his new rule of consultant,—"you are looking very smart to-day."

"This testimonial is most gratifying," said Miss Leslie. "Do you like my furs?"

Montagu surveyed her critically. He had a real eye for form and tone; and he nodded approval.

"Yes," he said; "they suit you perfectly. And that bunch of violets adds just the right touch of subdued colour."

"Thank you," said Miss Leslie meekly.

Montagu sat down on the other side of the hearth.

"However," he said importantly, "I believe I am correct in supposing that you did not come here to show me your clothes." (In this he was not so correct as he thought.) "I understand you wish to have my opinion on some matter."

"Yes," said Miss Leslie. "It is a matter which I could confide to no one but a very old and very trustworthy friend."

"Quite so, quite so," said Montagu, much gratified, but a little staggered. For the last twenty years he had rarely encountered the lady before him for more than five minutes without becoming embroiled with her in a skirmish of some description; and pitched battles had been not infrequent.

"I want to ask what you think, Montagu," continued Miss Leslie. "You are one of the few people I know whom I would describe as a true man of the world."

Montagu Falconer began to purr gently.

"Possibly," he said—"possibly! Well?"

"The fact is," confessed Miss Leslie, after a momentary hesitation, "I have received an offer of marriage."

"Good God!" exclaimed Montagu. "Who is the"—he was about to say "idiot," but corrected himself—"gentleman?"

"His name," said Miss Leslie, casting down her eyes, "is Adolphus Prince. I have known him for many years."

"Extraordinary name! Is he old or young?"

Miss Leslie considered.

"He is about fifty," she said.

"Rather elderly," commented Montagu Falconer, who was only forty-eight. "How old are you, by the way?"

"Forty-two," said Miss Leslie coyly.

"I am bound to say, Jean," remarked Montagu handsomely, "that you don't look it. Now, what of this fellow? Is he a gentleman?"

"I hope so," said Miss Leslie humbly.

"But are you sure? You dear women, Jean, if I may say so, are too apt to be carried away by your feelings. What is his station—his position?"

"He is a retired colonel of militia," replied Miss Leslie. (This statement would have surprised Timothy, who would have it that his rival was a superannuated tea-taster.) "He has lived a great deal in India, and is now quite alone in the world."

"I see. One leg and no liver, I presume!" said Montagu facetiously.

Miss Leslie laughed appreciatively.

"You are as caustic as ever, Montagu," she said. "You spare none of us. But what do you think I should do? I am a solitary woman. It is a dreich business, living by one's self, is it not?"

"It is, it is," agreed Montagu, lapsing straightway into self-pity. "Too true! Believe me, Jean, I know what it means, better than most."

"Still, you are not entirely alone," Miss Leslie reminded him. "You have Peggy."

"It is a fact," admitted Falconer with an air of gloomy sarcasm, "that I do possess a daughter; but for all practical purposes I might as well be Robinson Crusoe. I never see her by day, for I am busy in the studio and naturally do not want to be pestered. In the afternoon, as often as not, she goes out or invites some people in. In either case I take my tea alone, for I cannot stand her associates. When she does go out she frequently returns only just in time to give me my dinner."

Miss Leslie nodded sympathetically.

"I am sorry," she said. "I had not realised things from your point of view. It all shows how little we really know of one another's inner lives."

"And the only nights upon which she ever seems to stay at home," concluded the neglected parent, "are those on which I go out."

Montagu was accustomed to go out about five nights a week, and his daughter perhaps twice a month; so this statement may have been approximately correct.

"I see I have often been thoughtless in my previous attitude toward you, Montagu," said the contrite Miss Leslie. "We women are apt to forget that a man—even a strong, self-reliant man—may sometimes unbend. He, too, may desire companionship,—the right sort of companionship, of course,—as much as the weakest woman. Forgive me!"

Montagu, highly appreciative of the very proper spirit displayed by Miss Leslie, forgave her freely, and then launched into a further catalogue of grievances, Adolphus Prince retiring for the time modestly into the background.

When he had finished, Miss Leslie said:—

"Peggy is young, and perhaps thoughtless. When she marries—"

Montagu Falconer nearly bounded out of his chair. He was genuinely alarmed.

"Marry? That child marry? Good God, Jean, don't suggest such a thing! What would become of me, I should like to know. What does the girl want to marry for? Hasn't she got a comfortable home of her own? Hasn't she got me—her father—her only relation in the world—to take care of her? My dear Jean, do not be romantic at your time of life, I beg of you! You haven't been putting notions into her head, I hope?"

Miss Leslie hastened to still the tempest which she had created.

"How masterful you are, Montagu!" she said. "I declare, I am quite afraid of you."

Again Montagu purred. In the course of a long and stormy acquaintance, extending over twenty or more years, this was the first indication that he had ever received that Jean Leslie regarded him with aught else than a blend of amusement and compassion. A less vain and self-centred man might have felt a little suspicious of such sudden and oppressive adulation, but he did not. Montagu was one of those persons who like flattery laid on with a trowel.

"I am sorry if I alarmed you," he said graciously; "but I feel very strongly upon the subject. I haven't forgotten the trouble I had in getting rid of that bargee, Whatsisname—that chauffeur-fellow! Curse it! What was he called?—I have it—Meldrum! I foresaw trouble, of course, from the day upon which my daughter persisted in dragging his mangled remains into my best bedroom, instead of sending them to the workhouse. During his convalescence I had to be perpetually on guard. The fellow followed her about like an infernal dog. Once, when I had occasion to reprove my daughter—my own daughter!—for some fault, he showed his teeth and nearly flew at my throat! Oh, I had to be pretty firm, I can tell you! However, I got him out of the house at last, and I am glad to say that he has not shown his face here for some months."

"I like a man to be master in his own house," said Miss Leslie approvingly. "I fear my friend Adolphus Prince has not your strength of character, Montagu. I wonder if I should be happy with him," she added musingly.

"He sounds to me," remarked the courteous Montagu, "a confirmed and irreclaimable nincompoop. Has he a weak chest?"

"Yes. I wonder how you knew."

"Any money?"

"I believe not."

"Then why marry him?"

"Well," said Jean Leslie slowly, "I think I might be able to help him a little. A lonely man is a very helpless creature. Not a man like you, Montagu, but an ordinary man. Such a man lives, we will say, in chambers or a flat. He may even have a comfortable house; but he lives alone for all that. He is at the mercy of servants; when he is in doubt about anything, he has no one to consult; when he has done a good piece of work, he has no one to show it to; when he is out of heart, he has no one to encourage him. If he wants company, he has to go out and look for it, instead of finding it ready to hand by his own fireside. Altogether, if he has not your great spirit and resources, Montagu, he is a very miserable man."

The worst of the artistic temperament is that it is intensely susceptible to the emotion of the moment. Describe joy, and it becomes hilarious; describe sorrow, and it becomes tearful; describe fear, and it becomes panic-stricken. Montagu Falconer positively shuddered.

"Yes," he said quakingly, "that is true—very true. And more than that. It is not the weak man who suffers—or suffers most. The strong have their moments of dejection, too, Jean. You would hardly believe it, but even I—"

Miss Leslie, like a naughty little girl who is determined to make her small brother's flesh creep before he retires to bed, continued remorselessly:—

"And what has he to look forward to? Nothing! Nothing but old age, with its increasing feebleness, and helplessness, and friendlessness. That is all!"

She looked across at the shaking figure in the armchair, and suddenly there was real pity and kindness in her eyes.

"I should like to be able to save a man from that, Montagu," she remarked gently.

Montagu nodded his head. For once he had nothing to say.

"That is why," continued Jean Leslie in the same even tone, "I am thinking of marrying Adolphus Prince. I am no longer a girl. I should understand his moods, which are many: I could manage his house, and I would not be likely"—she smiled modestly—"to go losing my heart to some younger man after a year or two. And of course, when I saw that my husband wanted to be left to himself and not bothered,—as all husbands have a right to expect,—I should have my painting to occupy me."

"I will say the same for you, Jean," said Montagu Falconer almost effusively; "you always had an appreciation of Art. But come, now! What of this fellow? Is he a philistine—a bourgeois—a chromolithographer?"

"I am afraid poor Adolphus has little knowledge of Art—Art as you and I know it," replied Miss Leslie regretfully. "But he is a good creature in other respects."

Montagu Falconer began to walk excitedly about the room.

"There you are!" he said. "There you are! Isn't that a woman all over? Here are you, Jean, with your splendid talents and comparative youth, with a strongly developed sense of what is right and beautiful, prepared to throw yourself away upon a half-pay, knock-kneed, blear-eyed militiaman, who probably wears Jaeger boots and furnishes his rooms with stuffed parrots and linoleum. The idea is unthinkable—impossible! You cannot do it!"

"Then you forbid me to marry him?" said Miss Leslie timidly.

"Certainly I do," replied Montagu, noting to himself with intense gratification that a man has only to be thoroughly firm with a woman to win her complete submission. "You don't care for the creature, I suppose?"

"Not very deeply," confessed Miss Leslie. "He is just a friend—a very old friend."

She sighed, rose from her seat, and held out her hand.

"Good-bye, Montagu," she said, "and thank you! I must be going now. It was good of you to have such a long talk."

"I say, don't go yet," said Montagu. "I mean—" He hesitated. He hardly knew what he did mean.

"I think I really must," replied Miss Leslie.

Montagu accompanied her silently to the door.

"You are going to take my advice, I trust?" he remarked as they stood upon the steps.

Jean Leslie pondered.

"I suppose so," she said slowly. "A man's logic and common sense are so invincible. Still, I owe you a grudge, all the same, for having deprived me of my one romance. I am not likely to have another, you see! Good-bye, Montagu, and thank you!"

She gave her counsellor a shy but grateful glance, and departed down the street—a well-dressed, well-carried, and well-bred figure.

Next morning Montagu Falconer, after a disturbed and introspective night, came down to breakfast at ten o'clock, and dismally surveyed Tite Street through the dining-room window. There was a piercing east wind, which penetrated through every nook and cranny. Peggy had breakfasted an hour ago.

Montagu rang the bell for his coffee, and shivered. He was feeling stiff in the joints this morning: could it be rheumatism? He would like to consult some one about this. But of course there was no one to consult. His daughter, naturally, was not at her post: she was downstairs ordering dinner, or something of that kind. Besides, it could not be rheumatism: rheumatism was an old man's complaint. Old man! Old men suggested thoughts of Adolphus Prince. He had some one to consult about his troubles: he could take them to Jean. Montagu consigned Adolphus to perdition. Who was Adolphus Prince, to monopolise—

Next moment Montagu, seized with a sudden idea, was at the telephone.

"Number, please?" said a haughty voice.

"I want seven-six-seven-one Chelsea, and I'm in a devil of a hurry," he replied frantically; "so put me on as quick—"

"Br-r-r-r-r-! Ch'k! Number engaged," announced the instrument dispassionately.

Montagu hung up the receiver, and swore. He was quite panic-stricken by this time. So Adolphus Prince rang her up at ten o'clock in the morning, did he? He would show the old dotard who was the better man!

Five minutes later he had secured his call, and was inviting Miss Leslie to lunch with him at the Ritz.