A PRETTY quarrel between a princess and a duchess gave rise to circumstances in which the destiny of Jimmie was determined, or in which, to speak with modern metaphor, the germ of his destiny found the necessary conditions for development. Had it not been for this quarrel, Jimmie would not have stayed at the Hardacres' house; and had he not been their guest, the events hereafter to be recorded would not have happened. Such concatenation is there in the scheme of human affairs.

The Duchess of Wiltshire was a mighty personage in the Hardacres' part of the county. She made social laws and abrogated them. She gave and she took away the brevet of county rank. She made and unmade marriages. To fall under the ban of her displeasure was to be disgraced indeed. She held a double sway in that the duke, her husband, had delegated to her his authority in sublunary matters, he being a severe mathematician and a dry astronomer, who looked at the world out of dull eyes, and regarded it with indifference as a mass of indistinguishable atoms forming a nebula, a sort of Milky Way, concerning which philosophic minds had from time to time theorised. He lived icily remote from society; the duchess, on the contrary, was warmly interested in its doings. In the county she reigned absolute; but in London, recognising the fact that there were other duchesses scattered about Mayfair and Belgravia, she was high-minded enough to modify her claims to despotic government. She felt it, however, her duty to decree that her last reception should mark the end of the London season.

To this reception the Hardacres were always invited.

In previous years they had mounted the great staircase of Wiltshire House, their names had been called out, the duchess had given them the tips of her fingers, and the duke, tall, white-haired, ascetic, had let them touch his hand with the air of a man absently watching ants crawl over him; they had passed on, mixed with the crowd, and seen their host and hostess no more. But this year, to Mrs. Hardacre's thrilling delight, the duchess gave her quite a friendly squeeze, smiled her entire approbation of Mrs. Hardacre's existence, and detained her for a moment in conversation.

“Don't forget to come and have a little talk with me later. I have n't seen you since dear Norma's engagement.”

To dear Norma she was equally urbane, called her a lucky girl, and presented her as a bride-elect to the duke, who murmured a vague formula of congratulation which he had remembered from early terrestrial days.

“I can't tell you how proud I am of you, Norma!” said Mrs. Hardacre, with a lump in her throat, as they passed on. “The dear duchess! I wonder if I am sufficiently grateful to Providence.”

Norma, although in her heart pleased by the manifestation of ducal favour, could not let the opportunity for a taunt pass by.

“You can refer to it in your prayers, mother: 'O God, I thank Thee for shedding Her Grace upon me.' Won't that do, father.”

“Eh, what?” asked Mr. Hardacre, very red in the face, trailing half a pace behind his wife and daughter.

Norma repeated her form of Thanksgiving.

“Ha! ha! Devilish good! Tell that in the club,” he said in high good-humour. His wife's glance suddenly withered him.

“I don't approve of blasphemy,” she said.

“Towards whom, mother dear?” asked Norma, suavely. “The Almighty or the duchess?”

“Both,” said Mrs. Hardacre, with a snap.

Mr. Hardacre, seeing in the distance a man to whom he thought he could sell a horse, escaped from the domestic wrangle. Mother and daughter wandered through the crowd, greeted by friends, pausing here and there to exchange a few words, until they came to the door of the music-room, filled to overflowing, where an operatic singer held the assembly in well-bred silence. At the door the crush was ten deep. On the outskirts conversation hummed like an echo of the noise from the suite of rooms behind. There they were joined by Morland. Mrs. Hardacre told him of the duchess's graciousness. He grinned, taking the information with the air of a man to whom the favour of duchesses bestowed upon his betrothed is a tribute to his own excellence. He thought she would be pleased, he said. They must get the old girl to come to the wedding. Mrs. Hardacre was pained, but she granted young love indulgence for the profanity. If they only could, she assented, the success of the ceremony would be assured. Norma turned to Morland with a laugh.

“We shall be married with a vengeance, if it's sanctified by the duchess. Do you think a parson is at all necessary?”

He joined in her mirth. She drew him aside.

“Well, what's the news?”

He accounted, loverwise, for his day.. At last he said:

“I looked in upon Jimmie Padgate this morning. I wanted him to go to Christie's and buy a picture or two for me—for us, I ought to say,” he added, with a little bow. “He knows more about 'em than I do. He's a happy beggar, you know,” he exclaimed, after a short pause.

“What makes you say so?”

“His perfect conviction that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. There he was sitting at lunch over the black scrag end of a boiled mutton bone and a rind of some astonishing-looking yellow cheese—absolutely happy. And he waved his hand towards it as if it had been a feast of Lucullus and asked me to share it.”

“Did you?” asked Norma.

“I had n't time,” said Morland. “I was fearfully busy to-day.”

Norma did not reply. She looked over the heads of the crowd in front of her towards the music-room whence came the full notes of the singer. Then she said to him with a little shiver:

“I am glad you are a rich man, Morland.”

“So am I. Otherwise I should not have got you.”

“That's true enough,” she said. “I pretend to scoff at all this, but I could n't live without it.”

“It has its points,” he assented, turning and regarding the brilliant scene.

Norma turned with him. She was glad it was her birthright and her marriage-right. The vast state ballroom, lit as with full daylight by rows of electric lamps cunningly hidden behind the cornices and the ground-glass panels of the ceiling, stately with its Corinthian pilasters and classic frieze, its walls adorned with priceless pictures, notably four full-length cavaliers of Vandyck, smiling down in their high-bred way upon this assembly of their descendants, its atmosphere glittering with jewels, radiant with colour, contained all the magnificence, all the aristocracy, all the ambitions, all the ideals that she had been trained to worship, to set before her as the lodestars of her life's destiny. Here and there from amid the indistinguishable mass of diamonds, the white flesh of women's shoulders, the black and white chequer and brilliant uniforms of men, flashed out the familiar features of some possessor of an historic name, some woman of world-famed beauty, some great personage whose name was on the lips of Europe. There, by the wall, lonely for the moment, stood the Chinese Ambassador, in loose maroon silk, and horse-tail plumed cap, his yellow, wizened face rendered more sardonic by the thin drooping grey moustache and thin grey imperial, looking through horn spectacles, expressionless, impassive, inhumanly indifferent, at one of the most splendid scenes a despised civilisation could set before him. There, in the centre of a group of envious and unembarrassed ladies, an Indian potentate blazed in diamonds and emeralds, and rolled his dusky eyes on charms which (most oddly to his Oriental conceptions) belonged to other men. Here a Turk's red fez, a Knight of the Garter's broad blue sash, an ambassador's sparkle of stars and orders; and there the sweet, fresh rosebud beauty of a girl caught for a moment and lost in the moving press. And there, at the end of the vast, living hall, a dimly seen haggard woman, with a diamond tiara on her grey hair, surrounded by a little court of the elect, sat Her Serene Highness, the Princess of Herren-Rothbeck, sister to a reigning monarch, and bosom friend, despite the pretty quarrel, of Her Grace the Duchess of Wiltshire.

The song in the music-room coming to an end, the audience for the most part rose and pressed into the ballroom. The Hardacres and Morland were driven forward. There was a long period of desultory conversation with acquaintances. Morland, proud in the possession of Norma's beauty, remained dutifully attendant, and received congratulations with almost blushing gratification. Mrs. Hardacre, preoccupied by anticipation of her promised talk with the duchess, kept casting distracted glances at the door whereby the great lady would enter. The appearance from a group of neighbouring people of a pleasant young fellow with a fair moustache and very thin fair hair, who greeted her cordially, brought her back to the affairs of the moment. This was the Honourable Charlie Sandys, a distant relative of the duchess, and her Grand Vizier, Master of the Horse, Groom of the Chambers, and general right-hand man. He was two and twenty, and had all the amazing wisdom of that ingenuous age. Morland shook hands with him, but being tapped on the arm by the fan of a friendly dowager, left him to converse alone with Mrs. Hardacre and Norma. The youth indicated Morland's retiring figure by a jerk of the head.

“Parliament—Cosford division.”

“We hope so,” said Mrs. Hardacre.

“Must get in. Radical for her constituency would make duchess buy her coffin. The end of the world for her. She has a great idea of King. Going to take him up con amore. And when she does take anybody up—well—”

His wave of the hand signified the tremendous consequences.

“She does n't merely uproot him,” said Norma, whose mind now and then worked with disconcerting swiftness, “but she takes up also the half-acre where he is planted.”

“Just so,” replied the youth. “Not only him, but his manservant and maidservant, his ox and his ass and everything that is his. Funny woman, you know—one of the best, of course, but quaint. Thinks the Member for Cosford is ordained by Providence to represent her in Parliament.”

He rattled on, highly pleased with himself. Norma cast a malicious glance at her mother, who perceptibly winced. They were shining in the duchess's eyes in a light borrowed from Morland. They were taken up with the ox and the ass and the remainder of Morland's live-stock. That was the reason, then, of the exceptional marks of favour bestowed on them by Her Grace. Mrs. Hardacre kept the muscles of her lips at the smile, but her steely eyes grew hard. Norma, on the contrary, was enjoying herself. Charlie Sandys was unconscious of the little comedy.

“I am glad to see the princess here to-night,” said Mrs. Hardacre, by way of turning the conversation.

The youth made practically the same reply as he had made at least a dozen times to the same remark during the course of the evening. He was an injudicious Groom of the Chambers, being vain of the privileges attached to his post.

“There has been an awful row, you know,” he said confidentially, looking round to see that he was not overheard. “They have scarcely made it up yet.”

“Do tell us about it, Mr. Sandys,” said Norma, smiling upon him.

“It's rather a joke. Let us get out of the way and I'll tell you.”

He piloted them through the crush into a corridor, and found them a vacant seat by some palms.

“It's all about pictures,” he resumed. “Princess wants to have her portrait painted in London. Why she should n't have it made in Germany I don't know. Anyhow she comes to duchess for advice. Duchess has taken up Foljambe, you know—chap that has painted about twenty miles of women full length—”

“We saw the dear duchess at his Private View,” Mrs. Hardacre interjected.

“Yes. She runs him for all she's worth. Told the princess there was only one man possible for her portrait, and that was Foljambe. Princess—she's as hard as nails, you know—inquires his price, knocks him down half. He agrees. Everything is arranged. Princess to sit for the portrait when she stays with duchess at Chiltern Towers in September—”

“Oh, we are going to have the princess down with us?” Mrs. Hardacre grew more alert.

“Yes. Couldn't find time to sit now—going next week to Herren-Rothbeck—coming back in September. Well, it was all settled nicely—you know the duchess's way. On Friday, however, she takes the princess to see Foljambe's show—for the first time. Just like her. The princess looks round, drops her lorgnon, cries out, 'Lieber Gott in Himmel! The man baints as if he was bainting on de bavement!' and utterly refuses to have anything to do with him. I tell you there were ructions!”

He embraced a knee and leant back, laughing boyishly at the memory of the battle royal between the high-born dames.

“Then who is going to paint the portrait?” asked Norma.

“That's what I am supposed to find out,” replied the youth. “But I can't get a man to do it cheap enough. One can't go to a swell R. A. and ask him to paint a portrait of a princess for eighteen pence.”

Norma had an inspiration.

“Can I recommend a friend of mine?”

“Would he do it?”,

“I think so—if I asked him.”

“By Jove, who is he?” asked the youth, pulling down his shirtcuff for the purpose of making memoranda.

“Mr. James Padgate, 10 Friary Grove, N. W. He is Mr. King's most intimate friend.”

“He can paint all right, can't he?” asked the youth.

“Beautifully,” replied Norma. “Friary, not Priory,” she corrected, watching him make the note. She felt the uncommon satisfaction of having performed a virtuous act; one almost of penance for her cruelty to him on Sunday week, the memory of which had teased a not over-sensitive conscience. The scrag end of boiled mutton and the rind of cheese had also affected her, stirred her pity for the poor optimist, although in a revulsion of feeling she had shivered at his lot. She had closed her eyes for a second, and some impish wizardry of the brain had conjured up a picture of herself sitting down to such a meal, with Jimmie at the other side of the table. It was horrible. She had turned to fill her soul with the solid magnificence about her. The pity for Jimmie lingered, however, as a soothing sensation, and she welcomed the opportunity of playing Lady Bountiful. She glanced with some malice from the annotated cuff to her mother's face, expecting to see the glitter of disapproval in her eyes. To her astonishment, Mrs. Hardacre wore an expression of pleased abstraction.

Charlie Sandys pocketed his gold pencil and retired. He was a young man with the weight of many affairs on his shoulders.

“That's a capital idea of yours, Norma,” said Mrs. Hardacre.

“I'm glad you think so,” replied Norma, wonderingly.

“I do. It was most happy. We'll do all we can to help Morland's friend. A most interesting man. And if the princess gives him the commission, we can ask him down to Heddon to stay with us while he is painting the picture.”

Norma was puzzled. Hitherto her mother had turned up the nose of distaste against Mr. Padgate and all his works. Whence this sudden change? Not from sweet charitableness, that was certain. Hardly from desire to please Morland. Various solutions ran in her head. Did an overweening ambition prompt her mother to start forth a rival to the duchess, as a snapper up of unconsidered painters? Scarcely possible. Defiance of the duchess? That way madness could only lie; and she was renowned for the subtle caution of her social enterprises. The little problem of motive interested her keenly. At last the light flashed upon her, and she looked at Mrs. Hardacre almost with admiration.

“What a wonderful brain you have, mother!” she cried, half mockingly, half in earnest. “Fancy your having schemed out all that in three minutes.”

Enjoyment of this display of worldcraft was still in her eyes when she came across Morland a little later; but she only told him of her recommendation of Jimmie to paint the princess's portrait. He professed delight. How had she come to think of it?

“I think I must have caught the disease of altruism from Mr. Padgate,” she said. Then following up an idle train of thought:

“I suppose you often put work—portraits and things—in his way?”

“I can't say that I do.”

“Why not? You know hundreds of wealthy people.”

“Jimmie is not a man to be patronised,” said Morland, sententiously, “and really, you know, I can't go about touting for commissions for him.”

“Of course not,” said Norma; “he is far too insignificant a person to trouble one's head about.”

Morland looked pained.

“I don't like to hear you talk in that way about Jimmie,” he said reproachfully.

The little scornful curl appeared on her lip.

“Don't you?” was all she vouchsafed to say. Unreasonably irritated, she turned aside and caught a passing attache of the French Embassy. Morland, dismissed, sauntered off, and Norma went down to supper with the young Frenchman, who entertained her for half an hour with a technical description of his motor-car. And the trouble, he said, to keep it in order. It needed all the delicate cares of a baby. It was as variable as a woman.

“I know,” said Norma, stifling a yawn. “La donna e automobile.”

On the drive home in the hired brougham, whose obvious hiredom caused Norma such chafing of spirit, Mrs. Hardacre glowed with triumph, and while her husband dozed dejectedly opposite, she narrated her good fortunes. She had had her little chat with the duchess. They had spoken of Mr. Padgate, Charlie Sandys having run to show her his cuff immediately. The duchess looked favourably on the proposal. A friend of Mr. King's was a recommendation in itself. But the princess, she asseverated with ducal disregard of metaphor, had her own ideas of art and would not buy a pig in a poke. They must inspect Mr. Padgate's work before there was any question of commission. She would send Charlie Sandys to them to-morrow to talk over the necessary arrangements.

“I told her,” said Mrs. Hardacre, “that Mr. Padgate was coming to pay us a visit in any case in September, and suggested that he could drive over to Chiltern Towers every morning while the princess was honouring him with sittings, and paint the picture there. And she quite jumped at the idea.”

“No doubt,” said Norma, drily.

But her dryness had no withering effect on her mother's exuberance. The hard woman saw the goal of a life's ambition within easy reach, and for the exultant moment softened humanly. She chattered like a school-girl.

“And she took me up to the princess,” she said, “and presented me as her nearest country neighbour. Was n't that nice of her? And the princess is such a sweet woman.”

“Dear, dear!” said Norma. “How wicked people are! Every one says she is the most vinegarish old cat in Christendom.”