Mrs. Austen looked at Lennox, who had been looking at her, but who was then looking at the rug, in the border of which were arabesques. He did not see them. The rug was not there. The room itself had disappeared. The nymph, the dial, the furniture, the decorations and costly futilities with which the room was cluttered, all these had gone. Mrs. Austen had ceased to be. In that pleasant room, in the presence of this agreeable woman, Lennox was absolutely alone, as, in any great crisis of the emotions, we all are.

Of one thing he was conscious. He was suffering atrociously. Pain blanketed him. But though the blanket had the poignancy of thin knives, he kept telling himself that it was all unreal.

He raised his eyes. During the second in which they had been lowered, a second that had been an eternity in hell, his expression had not altered. He was taking it, apparently at least, unmoved.

Mrs. Austen, who was looking at him, saw it and thought: He is a gentleman. The reflection encouraged her and she sighed and said: "Believe me, I am sorry."

Lennox did not believe her, but he let it go. What he did believe was that Margaret could not see him. But whether she would, if she could, was another matter. On Saturday he had expected her at his rooms. She had not come. In the evening he had called. She had a headache. On the following day he had returned. She was not feeling well. Now on this third day, Mrs. Austen, who on the two previous occasions had received him, once more so far condescended, yet on this occasion to tell him that he was free, that it was Margaret's wish, that the engagement was ended.

In so telling him, Mrs. Austen told, for a wonder, the truth, though as will sometimes happen even to the best of us, not all the truth. It were extravagant to have expected it of her. But she told all that she thought good for him; more exactly good for Margaret; more precisely for herself.

It was then that the pleasant room with its clutter of costly futilities disappeared and this agreeable woman ceased to be. The avalanche of the modulated announcement sent Lennox reeling not merely out of the room, but out of the world, deeply into hell.

It was then, too, that with a sigh, modulated also, Mrs. Austen had added: "Believe me, I am sorry."

Lennox looked at her. "You say that Margaret wants our engagement broken. Why?"

"She has changed her mind."

"So I infer. But why?"

"Because she is a woman."

"But not the ordinary woman. It is the ordinary woman who changes her mind—when she has one to change. Margaret is not of that kind. Margaret is not the kind to promise herself to a man and then throw him over. You will forgive me if I speak heatedly, but I do not believe it."

With frosty indulgence Mrs. Austen reassured him. "You do not believe that I will forgive you? But, really, there is nothing to forgive. Though, whether Margaret is ordinary or superior, has nothing to do with it. Dear me, no. Women are not what they were. One often hears that and often, too, one hears people wondering why. That always amuses me. The reason is so simple, isn't it? Women are not what they were because they used to be girls. Before that they were children. At one time they were babes. Naturally they change. They can't help it. It must be a general law. Or at least one may suppose so. One may suppose, too, that, in changing, they develop and in developing acquire the extraordinary ability to think things over. That is just what Margaret had done. It is no reflection on you, Mr. Lennox, and I should be very sorry if you thought so. I am sure Margaret has the highest esteem for you. I know that I have."

Mrs. Austen, smiling frostily as she lied, thought: Now why doesn't he take it and go? I hope he won't be tedious.

Lennox too had his thoughts. She is trying to swamp me in words, he told himself. That angered him and he showed it.

"What are these things? When I last saw Margaret she said nothing about any things. There was no change in her then. I would stake my life that she had no idea of breaking our engagement. There must be a reason for it. What is it?"

Arrogantly Mrs. Austen took it up. "There is no reason for your raising your voice, at any rate. As for the things, they ought to be obvious. In addition to habits and customs, very suitable in Wall Street no doubt, but not otherwise appealing, Margaret has found you a bit rough, high-tempered, domineering for all I know to the contrary, and——"

That's a damned lie, thought Lennox, who aggressively cut in: "Margaret never found me anything of the kind. What is more I will thank you to understand that I will not accept this dismissal—if it be one—from you."

There is a show of decency that is due to any woman. But the veneer of civilisation is very thin. From beneath it, the potential troglodyte, that lurks in us all, is ready enough to erupt. Ready and eager then, he was visible in Lennox' menacing eyes, manifest in his threatening voice.

Mrs. Austen saw the brute, saw rather that little, if anything, restrained Lennox from jumping up, banging about, hunting for Margaret's room, entering there and catechising her violently. Margaret was ill but never too ill to tell the truth. Once he learned that, there was the fat in the fire.

She had no time to lose. From the wardrobe of the actress that she was, she snatched at an oleaginous mask and with the mucilage of it smiled at him.

"Why, of course not. Not for a moment would I have you accept it from me. I never dreamed of such a thing. It wouldn't be right. Margaret shall tell you herself. She would be here now, but the poor child had such a wretched night. You never had neuralgia, have you? At her age I was a martyr to it. I remember I took something that ended in 'ine.' Yesterday I suggested it but the doctor would not hear of it. Said she needed building up. Spoke of her just as though she were a town out West; so unsympathetic I thought him, but of course I did not say so. He might have charged extra and he is expensive enough as it is, and always so ready to talk about his own affairs, just like my dentist. I told him once—the dentist I mean—that I really could not afford to pay him thirty dollars an hour to hear about his wife and I don't think he liked it. I know I didn't when I got his bill. But where was I? Oh, yes. To-morrow or the next day, as soon as Margaret is the least bit better, you will be sure to have a line from her and if you do not, and you care to, you must certainly look in. For you must always regard us as friends. Me at any rate. Won't you, Mr. Lennox?"

Moistening her lips, mentally she continued: Yes, count on that. But inwardly she relaxed. Such danger as there may have been had gone. Under the dribble of the mucilage the fire in his eyes had flickered and sunk. He was too glued now for revolt. So she thought, but she did not know him.

During the sticky flow of her words, he knew she was trying to gammon him. But he knew quite as well that Margaret would make no such attempt, and he knew it for no other reason than because he knew she was incapable of it. Incidentally he determined what he would do. Having determined it, he stood up.

"Very good. I shall expect to hear from Margaret to-morrow. If I do not hear I will come, and when I come——"

Lennox paused and compressed his lips. The compression finished the sentence. If come he did, no power of hers, or of any one else, would budge him an inch until he saw Margaret and had it out with her.

"Good-evening," he added and Mrs. Austen found herself looking at his retreating back which, even in retreat, was a menace.

"Merciful fathers!" she exclaimed, and, with that sense of humour which is the saving grace, the dear woman put her hand to her stays. She was feeling for her heart. She had none. Or any appetite, she presently told a servant who came to say that dinner was served.

She misjudged herself. For twenty-five minutes, in an adjoining room, she ate steadily and uncomplainingly. She had bouillon, skate in black butter, cutlets in curl-papers, sweetbread and cockscombs, a cold artichoke, hot almond pudding, an apricot, a bit of roquefort, a pint of claret, a thimble of bÉnÉdictine and not a twinge, none of the indigestion of square-dealing, none of gastritis of good faith. She was a well-dressed ambition, intent on her food. No discomfort therefore. On the contrary. Margaret was in bed—safe there. Fate and the cook were kind.

With the taste of the liqueur still in her mouth, she went to her daughter who was ill with one of those maladies which, being primarily psychical, science cannot treat. Science is a classification of human ignorance. It has remedies for the flesh, it has none for the soul. The remedies exist, but they are dispensed only by the great apothecaries that time and philosophy are.

At the moment neither was available. Behind Margaret's forehead a monster crouched and crunched. That was nothing. It was in the tender places of her heart that the girl agonised and by comparison to the torture there, the monster was benign.

Margaret was nineteen, which is a very mature age; perhaps the most mature, since all girlhood lies behind it. Beyond are the pharmacop[oe]ias of time and, fortune favouring, the sofas of philosophy. But these sofas, even when within reach, are not adapted to everybody. To the young, they are detestable. Reposefully they admonish that nothing is important. They whisper patience to the impatient. To hope, they say, "Be still"; to desire, "Be quiet"; to wisdom, "Be foolish."

Conversation of that kind is very irritating, when you have heard it, which Margaret never had. She was otherwise ignorant. She did not know that a sage wrote a book in praise of folly. But she acted as though she knew it by heart. She believed, as many of us do believe, that love confers the right to run a fence around the happy mortals for whom we care. It is a very astounding belief. Margaret, who believed in many wonderful things, believed in that and, being credulous, believed also that her betrothed had crawled under the fence and into what mire! It polluted her, soiled her thoughts, followed and smeared her in the secret chambers of her being. Any cross is heavy. This cross was degrading.

In her darkened room, on her bed of pain, she had shrunk from it. Her forehead was a coronet of fire. That was nothing. A greater pain suppresses a lesser one. The burn of her soul was a moxa to the burn of the flesh.

The cross, at first, seemed to her more than she could bear. She tried to put it from her. Failing in that, she tried to endure it. But there are times and occasions when resignation in its self-effacement resembles suicide. She tried to resign herself, but she could not, her young heart rebelled.

In that rebellion, evil came, peered at her, sat at her side, pulled at her sleeve, sprang at her. The evil was hatred for this man who had taken her love and despoiled it. She clasped it to her. It bruised but it comforted. It dulled both the flame in her forehead and the shame in her soul. Then as suddenly she began to cry.

Philosophy she lacked, but theosophy, which is a pansophy, she possessed—when she did not need it. Now, when she needed it most, it was empty as the noise in the street. Even otherwise it could not have changed the unchangeable course of events.

There are sins that are scarlet. There are others, far worse, that are drab. Melancholy tops them. It is a mere duty to be serene. That she could not be. She could not face life, as life perhaps is. She could not smile at a lover who loved elsewhere. It was not herself, it was he who prevented her. So she thought and for hours in her darkened room she washed her hands of him, washed them in tears. It took a wise man to write the praise of folly.

The door of the room opened. It opened slowly, noiselessly, obviously. With exasperating precautions Mrs. Austen entered. The taste of bÉnÉdictine was still in her mouth and, savouring it, she whispered:

"Are you asleep?"

"No."

"Will you eat anything?"

"No."

"Are you able to talk?"

Margaret turned. She could talk, but to what end and to whom? Certainly not to her mother, who possessed in its perfection, the household art of misinterpreting everything. Margaret had tried to love her. But perhaps any affection is a habit when it does not happen to be an instinct. The habit had never been formed, the instinct had been repressed. Always her mother had treated her with that indulgence which is as empty as an unfilled grate. There was no heat there. You could not warm your heart at it. But a child must love some one. Margaret had begun by loving her mother. That is the way with children. They begin by loving their parents. Later they judge them. Sometimes, though not always, they forgive. One should not judge anybody. Margaret knew that, but she was a human being. She thought her mother a worldly woman. The fact that she was false as Judas was not apparent to this girl whose knowledge of Iscariotism was as hearsay as her knowledge of gorillas.

Now, as she turned in her bed, it was in defence against intrusion. Deference to her mother she had always observed. But she could not admit her to the privacy of her thoughts and, in turning her face to the wall, she told herself that she would not be cross-questioned.

Mrs. Austen had no intention of putting her daughter in the confessional. Anything of the kind would have bored her. Besides, what she thought was unimportant. It was what she did or might do that mattered.

Vacating the door she approached the bed. "Are you feeling any better?"

Margaret was feeling, if possible, worse. But she never complained, or, if she had to complain, then the complaint was solely by way of explanation. She turned again.

"For if you are," Mrs. Austen continued, "I ought to say something."

Margaret put a hand to her forehead.

But Mrs. Austen persisted. "It is important."

Margaret's eyes were open. She closed them and said: "Yes, mother, what is it?"

Through the door came light from the hall. Mrs. Austen looked about. Nearby was a chair on which was one of those garments, made of franfreluches, which the French call a Jump-from-bed. Removing it, she sat down.

"It is too bad. I know you don't feel like discussing affairs of State, but it is Luxemburg all over again. If I were alone concerned, I am sure I would capitulate. But where the State is concerned, and by that I mean you, I am like the little grand-duchess—pretty child, from her pictures, didn't you think?—and I must resist the invader. It is true, I don't know exactly what the grand-duchess did do, though they said she sat in a motor on a bridge and flourished a revolver. But you never can tell. I daresay she and her maids of honour hid in a cellar. Perhaps we may have to."

Margaret lowered her hand. "Mother, what are you talking about?"

"Your young man, of course. What else? A half-hour ago, he was roaring and stamping about and calling me a liar. If it had not been for my dead body, he would have rushed in here and killed you. My dead body, or what I told him about passing over it, was the revolver that I flourished. He has gone, but he swore he would return. Now, unless you rally to the colours, we will have to hide in the cellar, or rather, as we haven't any, in the pantry. Don't you think you could eat a bit of sweetbread, or perhaps some almond pudding?"

Again Margaret put her hand to her forehead. "Don't say that, mother. Keith did not call you a liar and it is not like him to roar and stamp about."

"My dear, I don't wonder you don't believe me. He went on like a madman. He could not get over the fact that his dollymop was one too many for you. He seemed to think that it was none of your business."

"Don't."

"My dear Margaret, you must do me the justice to admit that I stood up for him. I said he was an attractive young man. So he is. But that is just it. Attractive young men are most unreliable and reliable young men are most unattractive. At your age, I used to like them fair and false. That was your father's fault. He perverted me. He was so domestic!"

It was an old wound that Mrs. Austen touched then and under it Margaret winced. "The poor dear! He was a saint and you know it."

"Know it! I should say I did. I know too that he made me hate saints. But you love them and thought you had one, instead of which you got a devil. Your luck is far better than mine. If you take my advice, you will hang on to him like grim death. It is not too late. To-morrow he will be here, thundering at the gates."

Dimly at the moment the girl's creed turned a ray on her. She lifted her head.

"He will not thunder at the gates and he is not what you say. But perhaps I am. I may have done worse than he has and what he has done is my punishment."

It was very little but it was too much. Mrs. Austen, in spite of her facile digestion, gagged at it.

"If that is theosophy, I will believe it when I am old, fat and a Hun."

Margaret sank back. "But I am sorry you have been annoyed. It won't happen again. I will write to him."

Later, she did write.

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