“If art be devoted to the increase of men’s happiness, to the redemption of the oppressed, or enlargement of our sympathies with each other, or to such presentment of new and old truth about ourselves and our relation to the world as may ennoble and fortify us in our sojourn here, or immediately, as with Dante, to the glory of God, it will be also great art.”—“Appreciations.” Walter Pater.

Mrs. Hereford who had readily divined Macneillie’s kindly intention in suggesting that they should see at any rate part of the rehearsal, wondered to herself whether his plan had been wise when about noon she found herself with Evereld and Bride in the dim dreariness of the theatre, which was quite empty save for a couple of charwomen who were scrubbing the floor of the pit. A civil attendant took them to the second row of the stalls where they had of course an excellent view of that inexpressibly dingy and forlorn looking place—a stage without scenery.

Macneillie wearing a Glengarry cap was sitting on a chair with his back to them directing the dialogue and criticising in his quiet voice the shortcomings of Paulina and Emilia in the prison scene. At the back of the stage, some pacing to and fro, some sitting on the floor, were the rest of the company chatting comfortably together in low tones.

“Do you think they are all Quakers?” observed Bride naughtily, “how queer it does look to see men indoors with their hats on, every variety too, bowlers, deerstalkers, sailors, and caps.”

“Perhaps it’s draughty on the stage,” said Evereld. “I believe that tall dark girl must be Miss Myra Kay. She was only married last month. See Ralph is talking to her, that pretty girl in the blue and white blouse. She is Hermione I think.”

“Don’t distract me,” said Bride. “Paulina is handling the stage baby very well, but it’s too small a doll, why Flo who was the tiniest of babies was more respectable than that. Ah, Antigonous lifts it from the floor. My good man you’ll break the child’s neck if you don’t support its head better. Talk about kites and ravens being instructed to nurse it, why he wants instruction himself. It’s as bad as seeing a young curate at a christening.”

Evereld was obliged to laugh a little, and her eyes were still bright and mirthful when suddenly she perceived Ralph emerging through a side door and approaching them.

“I thought you might like a book to follow with,” he said. “Are you getting thoroughly disillusioned? And shall you never be able to enjoy seeing a play again, now that you know how it’s done?”

“Indeed I shall enjoy it much more,” she said. “Oh there is still a good deal I see, before you come in. Who is your Perdita?”

“The fair-haired girl in blue serge, Miss Eva Carton. She is the daughter of that Major Carton who was killed in the Soudan.”

“I remember you had him in your gallery of heroes. Is she a nice girl?”

“Very, I think, but I have not seen much of her yet. They were left badly off and she has taken to the stage to help her mother. She has only just joined this company, so we are in the same box.”

After this Evereld watched with keen interest the progress of the play. It seemed to her that Macneillie was almost an ideal instructor. His patience was marvellous and his criticism though sometimes keen was always kindly. When the sheep-shearing scene began and Florizel and Perdita with no helpful accessories had to go through their love-making, while the working of a sewing-machine and the hammering of carpenters and the scrubbing of the charwomen could be plainly heard, Evereld realised more than she had ever done before the prosaic nature of some aspects of an actor’s life. Macneillie was as fidgetty as any dancing master about the precise way in which his arm should encircle her waist. Degville himself could not have laid more stress on the importance of every attitude, and when it came to the part where Florizel claimed Perdita as his bride in the presence of the disguised Polixenes he was promptly pulled up in the utterance of the words: “I take thy hand, this hand, as soft as dove’s down and as white as it.”

“Don’t take her hand as if you were taking a jam tart at a confectioner’s,” exclaimed Macneillie.

And over and over again that particular bit had to be rehearsed until it was precisely to the Manager’s mind. Finally a diversion was made by the arrival, long after the time when they should have put in an appearance, of a few members of the orchestra. In a leisurely way, as though they were conferring a great favour on the actors, they began to tune up, the pretty dance of shepherds and shepherdesses was rehearsed, and Bride and Evereld found themselves longing to join in it.

“I really wonder,” said Bride as they walked home, “that you dare to take me to such a beguiling place, Doreen. Don’t you expect me to be stage-struck?”

“There might be some danger if you only saw the performances,” said Mrs. Hereford laughing, “but I doubt if you would stand many rehearsals. You would certainly be fined every day for unpunctuality.”

“It must be a weary grind,” said Bride yawning. “One would have to love one’s art very absorbingly to be able to endure such endless repetition. I suppose that is the difference between an artist and an ordinary mortal. An artist never grudges trouble, the dullest little touches here and there all have an interest for him.”

“Certainly, if he is worth his salt,” said Mrs. Hereford. “That’s what Flo will have to learn if she is to develop as I hope into a singer.”

“Well,” said Bride good-humouredly, “I have only just enough energy for ordinary life, so I will stick to being an ordinary mortal. And you keep me company, Evereld. We will make the appreciative audiences for the others. What is the fun of acting or singing if there is no one to applaud.”

In fact she applauded much more heartily than Evereld that evening. Evereld’s appreciation was pretty plainly visible in her glowing face and bright eyes, but she left the hand-clapping to her companion, and sat in a sort of happy dream watching the play contentedly with the blissful consciousness that every minute the time drew nearer when Ralph would make his appearance.

After the heavier portions of “The Winter’s Tale,” the pastoral scenes always come as a relief, and Ralph could hardly have had a more taking part. Evereld who at rehearsal had never been able to watch him except as her friend and lover was now entirely absorbed by the play. He was Florizel to her and Florizel only, he looked the part to perfection, and there was a sincerity about his acting which carried all before it, and gave great promise for his future. Macneillie standing at the wings felt more than content with his pupil.

“If the boy can do as well as this at one and twenty, he ought to have a great career before him,” he thought to himself. “And perhaps like Phelps he will be one of those who will owe everything to an early and a happy marriage. That little girl is one of a thousand. It is to be hoped that Sir Matthew Mactavish will not step in to spoil the game.”

The rest of the week passed by only too swiftly. Almost every evening they went to the theatre, and in the afternoon Ralph would often join them at tennis. One day there was a cricket match between the members of the company and a local eleven, on another day a picnic to a ruined castle in the neighbourhood, and at length the doleful day arrived when the parting must come.

After all it proved to be the elders who were grave and anxious at the thought of the unknown future which Ralph and Evereld went forth to meet so confidently. Healthy youth is seldom troubled with forebodings, and the lovers though saddened for the time by the coming separation could not but reflect how much more propitious things were than at their last leave-taking.

“How I envied little Ivy Grant as she walked along Queen Anne’s Gate with you that Christmas day,” said Evereld with a smile. “Where shall you be this Christmas, Ralph?”

“We shall be in Yorkshire,” he replied, “still giving the set of plays you have seen here. What a good thing it is for me that you can take such an interest in the work. It must be hard on an actor to do without the sympathy of those nearest to him. Sometimes one does wish that old Mrs. Macneillie had not such a feeling against the stage. His life is hard and lonely enough without having that added to it. Still I think they understand each other, and it is good to see her pride in him.”

“Does she never see him act?” asked Evereld.

“Never. She won’t set foot in a theatre; she is not even one of those people who only object to the name of the thing, and will see a play at the Crystal Palace or in a Hall. She’s too sensible to take that view.”

“Why what is the special merit of a ‘Hall?’” asked Evereld laughing.

“Goodness only knows. I often wish those worthy but illogical folk could feel the discomforts and the woeful plight the company often find themselves in behind the scenes, with perhaps a couple of dressing-rooms for the whole lot of them, and no possible place in which to put their clothes. They would soon realise the advantages of proper theatres.”

“Have you seen your good notice in the Southbourne Weekly News?” said Evereld, glancing at the paper with loving pride.

“Yes. It’s rather decent, isn’t it? I always cut out and keep press notices for Mr. Macneillie. Sharing his lodgings there are a good many small things of that sort one can do for him.”

“Who does the catering?”

“Oh, he does all that. He is a first-rate hand at marketing, having had so much practice.”

“I shall have to come to him for lessons, some day,” said Evereld, blushing vividly as she realised what the words involved.

Whereupon Ralph forgot all about fortunes and guardians and time and patience, and taking her in his arms kissed her passionately.

That was their real parting, or rather the silent pledge that nothing could really part them. Ralph lingered for some little time afterwards in the next room talking with the others, and as usual there was the cheerful Irish babel of many voices, for no one thought in that household of talking one at a time. Then having received a kindly invitation from Mrs. Hereford to come and see them either in London or at Hollybrack, he took his departure, and with the memory of Evereld’s love to cheer him on his way, rejoined Macneillie’s company at the station.

“That is a case I suppose,” said Max Hereford finding himself just then alone with his wife.

“I thought you would guess it,” she said smiling.

“You were always a matchmaker at heart, Doreen,” he said teasingly. “But how about this guardian in the background? He will be playing the Assyrian and coming down on you like the wolf on the fold.”

“I can’t help it if he does,” said Mrs. Hereford, laughter lurking in her eyes. “Really and truly I have not been match-making. It’s ridiculous for Sir Matthew Mactavish to allow his ward to be brought up for six years with such a boy as that, and then to take me to task for allowing the two old friends to meet in a rational way, and after all if he is annoyed I believe I should rather like it, for you know Max I always did detest that man.”

“Yes, dear, we all know that you are the best hater in the world, and I know that you are the best lover,” he said stooping to kiss her.

“I don’t see how I could have done otherwise,” she said musingly. “Evidently Mr. Macneillie sees exactly how things are. And what can you do for a couple of homeless waifs like that but give them your help and sympathy? A girl with no mother is in such a wretched plight as soon as her love troubles begin. Don’t I know exactly how my own mistakes and miseries came from that very cause? Tell me what you really think of Ralph Denmead?”

“I like him,” said Max Hereford. “He seems an honest, straight-forward, clean-minded fellow, he has plenty of humour, too, in which perhaps Evereld is a trifle lacking, and just because he has a touch of the Welsh fire in him and is at times unreasonable and unpractical, as all Kelts are——”

“Now, now,” exclaimed Mrs. Hereford with her irresistible laugh. “No dark hints about Kelts, we all know what that leads to.”

“I was going to remark, if you won’t quite throttle me,” he continued suavely, “that marriages between Kelts and Saxons, though barbarously prohibited by the oppressive laws of the English conquerors when they annexed Ireland, always turn out eminently successful. That in fact the union of hearts is the thing to be aimed at.”

“They are not actually betrothed yet, and won’t be until she is of age, and until he has made his way a little. Then of course there will be a battle royal with the Mactavish, but he will have no authority over her, and you and I, Max, will stand by her. She shall be married from Hollybrack quietly, and they will be able to live very comfortably for, according to Bride, she will be rich.”

“I only hope her guardian is really trustworthy,” said Max Hereford. “I don’t altogether like what I heard of him the other day from old Marriott. But, of course, Marriott is one of those steady going old-fashioned solicitors who are excessively cautious, and it would be almost impossible for him to approve of a Company Promoter like Sir Matthew. He may be all right enough.”

“We shall see,” said Mrs. Hereford with an expressive little gesture of the hands, “For my part I wouldn’t trust him for a moment, but you will say that is my Irish imagination, and of course I have no great knowledge of the man.”

Bride O’Ryan, who had been more or less taken up with her own people during the past week, had guessed nothing at all as to what was going on. The two friends had both hitherto been somewhat young for their age, and they had never been the sort of girls given to premature talk as to lovers and love-making. Their heroes were either the patriots of the past or the great leaders of the present, and their school life had been too full of work and well-organised amusement to leave much time for desultory dreaming. Bride had of course heard of the life at the Mactavishs, but it had never entered her head that Ralph Denmead could ever be anything but Evereld’s adopted brother.

It was not until he had actually gone that the truth began to dawn upon her. She saw that Evereld was making an effort at cheerfulness, that her face when in repose had a quite new expression of wistfulness, and that all at once she had grown dreamy and absent.

That night, when the mystic hour of “hair brushing” came round, she could hold her tongue no longer.

“I wish,” she said impetuously, “you wouldn’t shut me out of it all. I know quite well you are unhappy, though you will play the ostrich and bury your head in the sand in that English way, supposing that no one will notice you.”

Evereld laughed at the old mixture of the similes.

“I never heard of an English ostrich,” she said merrily. “If there ever was one it must long ago have become extinct like the Dodo.”

“Ah, you laugh now,” said Bride, “but you have looked wretched all the afternoon, and I saw you crying in church.”

Evereld blushed guiltily.

“It was very stupid of me, but I couldn’t help remembering how different all had been last Sunday evening.”

“When Mr. Denmead was here,” said Bride boldly.

Evereld nodded.

Bride looked straight into her soft blue eyes.

“Well I’m sure I don’t wonder he lost his heart to you, but all the same I wish he hadn’t.”

“We are not engaged, you know,” said Evereld.

“Oh, it’s just as bad as if you were,” said Bride despondently.

“As bad? What an odd way you have of congratulating me.”

“I don’t congratulate you. I’m very sorry,” said Bride vigorously brushing her dark hair. “Why should he come disturbing us just when our life is beginning and we were going to have such a good time. You’ll never be at all the same to me again. It will be as the poem says:

‘One and one, with a shadowy third.’”

“Nonsense,” said Evereld. “It has made me care for you fifty times more than I did, Bride, and I need you now more than ever. Besides, can’t you see how different things are for me. You have your home with your sisters, and the children; and you have brothers often staying with you, and you are all sure of each other and everything is so happy that I’m sure I don’t know how you could leave it all just yet. But I have no real home, and the only one of the Mactavishs I do really like is to be married in November. Can’t you understand how beautiful it is to really belong to someone at last?”

“Yes,” said Bride. “It was selfish of me to think first of my own part of it. And after all perhaps you are right, you may need me still. Specially when the Mactavishs are horrid. They won’t like your engagement a bit.”

“No,” replied Evereld quietly. “That is very certain. There are storms ahead. But I shall know where to turn to. You will always be my friend, and Mrs. Hereford says I am to come to her in any trouble.”

“Of course, Doreen mothers everybody, she always did, Michael says, even when she was quite a little girl herself.”

“And no one will ever be such a friend to me as you, Bride. You and AimÉe Magnay and I will always keep up with each other, whatever happens.”

“Talking of AimÉe reminds me that I heard from her this morning,” said Bride. “She says that in September they are all going to Auvergne; her father has some commission for a picture. They will stay at Mabillon all the autumn and perhaps even for Christmas. Cousin EspÉrance thinks I had better come too for the sake of perfecting my French, but I’m not sure that I could leave Dermot.”

“Take him with you,” suggested Evereld. “The sunshine and the warmth down there would exactly suit him.”

“Why, I never thought of that. It would be a splendid idea, and the Magnays are so kind-hearted. I know they have lots of room, too, in that rambling old chateau. Don’t you remember the little picture of it that AimÉe had in our bedroom at school? Come, after all things are not so dark. You will always be my friend in spite of Mr. Denmead, and perhaps later on when you are engaged there will be a regular row and you will have to come to us.”

“You look as if you quite longed for the row,” said Evereld smiling wistfully. “I wish I had a little of the love of fighting which you Irish people seem to have such stores of. How would you face an angry guardian under the circumstances, I wonder.”

“I should listen patiently to all his objections. Then I should say, ‘Now hear my side of the case,’ and if he wasn’t convinced by my burning eloquence why I should inevitably lose my temper and we should part on the worst of terms. Oh, I should love to have a quarrel with Sir Matthew Mactavish. It’s a pity we can’t change places just for that time.”

“Well, don’t let us talk about it till it comes,” said Evereld with a little shiver. “When I am quite my own mistress perhaps the mere fact of being independent will make me dislike the thought of the discussion less. After all, nothing will really matter when we are engaged; one will be too busy thinking of the life that will so soon begin.”

They were interrupted by a knock at the door.

“I want that naughty little sister of mine,” said Mrs. Hereford, looking in with a smiling face. “Mollie declares there is no getting her invalid to sleep while you two chatterboxes are overhead.”

“Evil take the Coercion Act that made him an invalid,” said Bride, gathering up her belongings and bidding her friend good-night.

Evereld, glancing at Mrs. Hereford, saw for the first time in her face an expression which startled her. A look of long endured pain, of heart-breaking disappointment and the wearily deferred hope which makes the heart sick, such a look as a martyr might have borne, dying in the darkest hour which heralded the sunrise of his cause.

And then even as she gazed the look passed and there was once more in the face nothing but cheerful, tender motherliness.

“Good night, dear little woman,” said Mrs. Hereford. “Don’t lie awake thinking too long. It is a shocking bad habit.”

“Oh,” cried Evereld, clinging with girlish devotion to her hostess. “I do so hope my love for Ralph will not make me grow narrow. I want to care for other people and for outside things just as you do.”

“You must manage much better than I did, dear,” said Mrs. Hereford, “perhaps after my own mistakes I may be able to help you.”