Chapter X: Mr. Rodney Screams

That evening in the hall after dinner the Duke chanced to say:

"Another top-hat Ascot! I wish the Prince would set the fashion of billycocks. What do you say, Mr. Bush? Wouldn't you rather have a low hat in the heat? Anything low is always so pleasant—between you and me. Eh? What—what?"

The paragon observed the grinning pantaloon face solemnly, and then answered:

"Top-hats are rubbish. I've only brought a straw."

Mr. Rodney turned as pale as ashes.

"I sha'n't wear nought but a straw to-morrer," proceeded the paragon with heavy calmness.

"A savage custom?" squeaked Lady Drake enquiringly.

"I hate a man to be over-dressed," ejaculated Miss Bindler approvingly.

"I beg your pardon," Mr. Rodney said suddenly, in a trembling voice—"I beg your pardon, but I must venture to say that I feel certain Major Clement will turn a—a straw off the lawn. Knowing him as I do, I feel confidently certain of it." And he cast a glance of passionate beseeching upon Mrs. Verulam.

For once she came to his rescue.

"I quite agree with Mr. Bush," she said; "a straw is much more sensible—"

"Merciful heavens!" in an under cry of acute anguish from Mr. Rodney.

"In every way. But at the same time, Mr. Bush, don't you think that custom should occasionally be adhered to?"

"Eh?"

"Every man will be wearing a top-hat to-morrow."

Mr. Bush began to look very sulky.

"I've hoed and I've planted in a straw for thirty year," he muttered, "day in, day out."

"There's no hoeing and planting on a racecourse," said Mr. Rodney, with vehement sarcasm.

"It'd make the going a bit heavy," said Miss Bindler reflectively.

"I fancy, Mr. Bush," said Mrs. Verulam very gently, "that, as you will not have any opportunity of hoeing at the races to-morrow, owing to all the silly rules and regulations, you will find it really pleasanter to be as everyone else is—I mean only, of course, as regards your head-covering."

"I haven't a-brought one," he mumbled; "I say I've only brought a straw."

"We must send a man to Windsor," said Mr. Rodney, with a sudden piercing decision, and he pushed eighteen times at an electric bell. The powdered Frederick appeared.

"Kindly bring us a yard measure," said Mr. Rodney.

"A what, sir?" exclaimed the man.

"A yard measure, and order a dogcart round; there is much to do to-night."

The powdered Frederick dropped his lower jaw like one confronted with the mysteries of Udolpho, and fled to execute these sinister commands. He returned, accompanied by Mr. Harrison, who had impounded a yard measure with his left hand, and whose eyes were starting out of his head with suspicion. The house-party were now tense with excitement as medical students gathered to witness the operation of the century. Only Mr. Rodney was wrapped in a white and still calm; he held out his long thin hand for the yard measure, but Mr. Harrison showed a bold front.

"Mr. Lite's last orders to me, sir," he began, shaking his bald head emphatically—"his last orders to me was: 'On no account, Mr. Harrison, is the carriages to be measured. Oh, by no means must it be so done—oh, indeed, on no account whatever!'"

"The carriages!" said Mr. Rodney, getting very red at this speech for the defence—"the carriages! It is this gentleman's head!" He pointed to the paragon.

"I understood, sir, from Frederick that the dogcart—oh, indeed, was ordered to be——"

But at this point Mr. Rodney snatched the tape from the protecting hand that secluded it, advanced heroically upon the paragon, measured the circumference of his enormous cranium, wrote the measurement down with a gold pencil on a sheet of writing-paper, gave it to the powdered Frederick, said: "Have that taken at once to Windsor, rouse up the best hatter in the royal borough, buy a top-hat of that size, and bring it back as fast as the horse can gallop," and then sank down on a sofa with the air of a man who, having stormed the heights, dies of his own bravery as he grasps the standard of the enemy.

"A glass of water," he murmured.

It was brought. He recovered, and shortly afterwards the spectators of the operation of the century retired to their respective bedrooms, conscious that they had been assisting at a historical event, but a little divided as to the complete tact and generalship shown by Mr. Rodney.

That night, when the faithful Marriner came into the primrose bedroom to brush Mrs. Verulam's pretty hair before the latter went to bed, she found her mistress in a very serious mood. And, on her side, Marriner was also unusually grave, although her demeanour, chastened as it was by Schopenhauer and an acquaintance with Nordau which might almost be termed intimate, was invariably and at all times sedate and thoughtful. Chloe had adroitly avoided the smoking-room, in which the Duke was now telling stories to Mr. Ingerstall; while Mr. Rodney wrote up his diary, and Mr. Bush dreamed over a whisky and soda of gigantic proportions. Mr. Harrison, above stairs, was with much tribulation and uncurled whiskers preparing his report to lay before the Emperor at eight o'clock on the following morning. The Duchess was asleep. Miss Bindler was considering the chances of the morrow. The Lady Pearl was dreaming softly of the person whom, in secret, she now named Huskinson; and Lady Drake, who though acid had an extraordinarily sweet tooth, was eating chocolate creams in a dressing-gown made from an Indian shawl presented to her by a very great personage indeed.

The faithful Marriner removed a hairpin and breathed a sigh simultaneously. Mrs. Verulam echoed the sigh, and hearing that she had been honoured with an echo, Marriner ventured to say:

"Oh, ma'am!"

"Why do you say 'Oh,' Marriner?" said Mrs. Verulam. "What should you have to say 'oh' about?"

"Many things, ma'am—many, many things," responded Marriner in a doleful voice.

"Have any more thoughts been taking you like a storm, Marriner?"

"They have indeed, ma'am."

"If you think so much you ought to keep a lifeboat by you," said Mrs. Verulam dreamily.

For her hair was now being brushed and was giving off electricity, and the process soothed her.

"Might I speak, ma'am?" said Marriner, making use of her habitual formula when she had anything special to say.

"You may, certainly."

"Ma'am," said Marriner, "I've heard a dreadful thing this night."

"Dreadful! What about?"

"Oh, ma'am, that I should have to say it—about you!" replied the faithful creature, with every outward sign of extreme dejection.

Mrs. Verulam started beneath the brush.

"A dreadful thing about me, Marriner! Who from?"

"From Mrs. Crouch, ma'am, her Grace's woman."

"Why, what should Mrs. Crouch say about me?"

"Oh, ma'am, she says, ma'am, that Lady Sage is—is——"

"Don't break down, Marriner, you'll wet my hair. Please go on."

Thus adjured, Marriner continued in a fragmentary voice, as one relating something almost too improper to be given tongue to:

"She says that—oh, that Lady Sage is going to have nothing at all to do with you in the Enclosure to-morrow, ma'am—oh dear, dear me!"

Mrs. Verulam sat still in silence for a moment. It must be confessed that during the moment she felt as if she was being whipped.

"Oh, ma'am, don't go—don't go there!" continued Marriner. "We should not place ourselves between the feet of our enemies, ma'am; no, no, we should not!"

"Be careful with the brush, Marriner, please," said Mrs. Verulam in a rather low voice.

"But that's not all, ma'am—there is worse, ma'am—there is treachery, indeed, and there is treason, ma'am."

"Really, one would think that Guy Fawkes was staying in the house," rejoined Mrs. Verulam, recovering herself a little.

"No, ma'am, indeed it is not him."

"Then who is it?"

"Oh, ma'am—her Grace."

"The Duchess!" said Mrs. Verulam in slight surprise.

"Yes, ma'am; Mrs. Crouch says, indeed, that her Grace will do as her Ladyship—Lady Sage—does, when the week is over, ma'am. And it is all because of Mrs. Van Adam—taking her for a man, ma'am. Oh, do—please, please do tell them, ma'am!"

"The teeth of the comb! Be careful, Marriner, please!"

"Yes, ma'am, I will. But I do implore you, ma'am, if I might——"

"Hush!" cried Mrs. Verulam suddenly; "let me think! Brush softly, Marriner, if you have any regard for me."

Marriner brushed softly, and Mrs. Verulam thought for a long while, hating Lady Sage and the Duchess for themselves, womanlike, yet half-inclined—or tricking herself to think so—to love their coming deed. James Bush, too, and the squirrel Tommy, and the cage door, and the different, the true, earnest, sincere, unaffected life—thoughts of all these ran through that pretty head beneath the shining hair, until the weary brusher ceased, and Mrs. Verulam said, "You may go to bed, Marriner; good night."

In consequence of Marriner's revelation, when, on the following morning, shortly before the Ribton Marches party started for the course, Mr. Rodney mysteriously begged to be allowed to speak with Mrs. Verulam alone, she was not much surprised by what he had to say, although, for some perhaps feminine reason, she pretended to be so.

"Could I have just a word with you?" Mr. Rodney said, in a voice not wholly unlike that of a sucking dove.

"Certainly," replied Mrs. Verulam. "Where?"

"I think there is no one in the pink boudoir."

"Let us go there, then."

They went, furtively watched by Mr. Harrison, who had just returned from the fishing-cottage in possession of that rather unacceptable belonging usually called a flea in the ear. For he had found the Emperor in a terrible condition of fury over the James Bush business and various other incidents of the preceding day. When Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Rodney had gained the pink boudoir, the latter carefully closed the pink door, walked very gently up to Mrs. Verulam, and said:

"Where do you think of watching the races from, may I venture to ask?"

"Where from? The Enclosure, of course!"

"Shall we sit down for a moment?" replied Mr. Rodney, with a consummate endeavour after genial ease.

They sat down on a couple of flesh-coloured chairs and he proceeded with extraordinary blandness:

"The Enclosure! Don't you think it is likely to be excessively hot?"

Mrs. Verulam instantly guessed that Mr. Rodney knew what the faithful Marriner knew.

"Hot," she said, "why specially hot in the Enclosure?"

"Well, you know, in consequence of its being so difficult to gain admission to, it is so very much more crowded than any other part of the course. Don't you think so?"

"Well, but where else shall I go?"

"I have ventured to take a couple of excellent boxes. You see one or two of our party, Mr. Ingerstall and Mr. Bush, have not got cards for the Enclosure."

Mr. Rodney just glanced at his boots. Mrs. Verulam had never liked him better than at this moment. Nevertheless, she was a woman, and, as all her sex, sweetly mischievous.

"It is very good and thoughtful of you; still, I think I shall go to the Enclosure. Mr. Van Adam is anxious to see what it is like."

Mr. Rodney stiffened.

"Indeed!"

"And then there are all one's friends there—Lady Clondart and Lady Sage, and——"

Mr. Rodney became as cold as the adventurer who approaches the Pole. He saw Mrs. Verulam rushing headlong to her doom, and he did not know how to stop her.

"Lady Sage grows a little wearisome, I fancy," he murmured dissuasively.

"Do you think so? Oh, I love her recollections!"

"I think her too historical for hot summer weather, I confess," continued Mr. Rodney; "and then her insatiable appetite for dates."

"Oh, surely she wouldn't eat them in the Enclosure!" cried Mrs. Verulam. "The Master of the Buckhounds would never permit it!"

"The dates of battles, dear lady, not dried fruits. Really, if you prefer to go to the Enclosure, I strongly—very strongly—advise you to avoid Lady Sage. She is agreeable in a drawing-room, but very, very Crimean, I do assure you, on a racecourse. Do give me your word; I cannot bear to see you bored!"

"You are all kindness," said Mrs. Verulam, secretly longing to pat this kind and true friend upon his anxious face. "I must go to the Enclosure, but I shall probably not see Lady Sage. Now, the carriages must be round."

Mr. Rodney, in his usual soft manner, opened the pink door, and was instantly confronted by Mr. Harrison, who, with tightly-shut eyes, was revealed in a crouched attitude with his left ear glued to what, had the door been shut, would doubtless have been the keyhole. This surprising vision caused Mr. Rodney to start, and the groom of the chambers, in some obvious confusion, assumed a less attentive posture, and added:

"I was about to inform you, sir—in the temporary absence of all the men-servants—that the carriages are now before the door—oh, most certainly!"

He then proceeded to retire with a deliberate but distinct celerity.

"That man is really of a very original turn of body," remarked Mrs. Verulam, as they went downstairs.

"He carries it too far, in my opinion," replied Mr. Rodney, with considerable severity.

That day was to Mr. Rodney a day of trial and of acute anxiety. It might truly be said that he did not have one moment's peace during the whole course of it. He attended Mrs. Verulam into the Enclosure, which was, as he had foreseen, most uncomfortably full and crowded, and spent his time there in a faithful endeavour to emulate the procedure of the trained private detective. His eye, to which he tried to give that unmarkable acuteness attributed to the eye of the lynx, was ever upon the look-out for the approach of Lady Sage, and when he saw that redoubtable survival of pre-Crimean days moving afar off beneath a huge bonnet in form like a helmet, he ingeniously glided Mrs. Verulam into some other part of the royal pen, engaging her the while vigorously in conversation, and leading unsuspecting countesses and others to cover up her tracks in a masterly manner. Being a man, he thought that she was quite unaware that for four hours she was subtly being dodged about, and when at length the last race was over, and he placed her in the barouche, he fancied that the sigh of triumph which he could not help breathing was supposed by her to be merely a tribute to the heat.

The great lawn that stretched before the glittering windows of the palace; the mighty cedar-tree beneath which the powdered Frederick and his fellow menials now arranged the tea-tables—these works of Nature appeared exceedingly charming to the dusty eyes of the Ribton Marches house-party as they flocked anxiously out to refresh themselves after the torments of a day of pleasure. But not all had returned. Mr. James Bush and Mr. Ingerstall were absent. Lady Drake, exceedingly acidulated in airy black; the Duchess, full of bass conversation about the events of the day, but ever watchful of Chloe and Mrs. Verulam; Miss Bindler and the Duke talking racing; Chloe and the Lady Pearl—all these gathered round and sank in various attitudes of marked prostration into garden chairs. But the hero from the Bungay Marshes and the thickset person from Paris were nowhere to be seen.

"Where are Mr. Bush and Mr. Ingerstall?" said Mrs. Verulam, looking round.

"I can't imagine," said Mr. Rodney peacefully, as Frederick placed the magnificent grapes from Mitching Dean upon one of the little tables near a rose-bush.

"I daresay Mr. Bush is on a roundabout," said the Duchess. "You say he is fond of being rustic, Mrs. Verulam?"

"Yes; but not in that way, I hope."

"It all goes together, love of the country and a passion for riding wooden horses painted yellow to the sound of comic songs. Depend upon it, Mr. Bush is on a roundabout."

Mrs. Verulam began to look very anxious.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, turning towards Mr. Rodney, "I do hope—Mr. Rodney, don't you think, perhaps——"

Now, Mr. Rodney, beneath all his breeding, was human. He didn't know it, but he was, and upon this occasion he revealed the fact.

He was at this moment, when Mrs. Verulam addressed him, very busily engaged in being happy, and he was determined not to be interrupted in this activity. His tired limbs were caressed by a charming chair, into which he fitted quite perfectly. A soft breeze played about his carefully-parted hair. His eyes were dazzled by the beautiful grapes grown in his own hot-houses, and his heart was cradled in the arms of success. Dreamlike he felt, softly rapturous, as the tired but triumphant gladiator. The desperate past, haunted by Lady Sage, lay behind him; tea, sugar, bread-and-butter, a future tenderly bright, lay before. And should he allow even the woman whom he loved to send him forth again to those arid stretches of dusty landscape, there to quest among the perspiring vulgar for a great rustic bumpkin astride an orange or blue horse, revolving furiously in the heat to the sound of the music of the lower spheres? No, no. Rather annihilation.

Under the stress of this definite determination, therefore, he said with unusual firmness:

"If Mr. Bush is fond of horse-exercise, I certainly think he should be permitted to enjoy it in all freedom. Probably it is his custom to ride on a roundabout every day. Dear me, tea is very refreshing on these occasions!"

Mrs. Verulam was checkmated. She had never seen Mr. Rodney so masterful before.

"There's a great deal of knack in sitting a wooden horse," said the Duke. "Some people can never acquire it. I knew a very excellent clergyman who was thrown three times running by a deal cob which his cook rode perfectly at the very first try."

"You ought always to give a horse of that material his head," said Miss Bindler, taking out a hunting-flask and pouring something yellow into her tea. "If you try to hold him in you're done. Had a good day?" she added to Mr. Rodney.

"Perfect!" said that gentleman celestially—"quite, quite perfect!"

"What, after backing Cubicle?"

"Absolutely perfect!"

"How much did you clear on all the results?"

"Clear?"

"Yes—pouch."

"Pouch?" said Mr. Rodney as in a happy dream—"pouch?"

"Did you have anything on Lambton and Try your Luck? Did you go for Mulligatawney?"

"No, no; I didn't go for Mulligatawney."

"Well, then, I'm—I don't see how you had a good day," said Miss Bindler, giving him up and turning again to the Duke.

"Do you like Ascot, Mr. Van Adam?" said the Lady Pearl, with unusual vivacity.

"It's heavenly," cried Chloe; "it's like a dream."

"Have you nothing of the kind in America?"

"How can we, when we have no aristocracy? Oh, I should like to make it my life's mission to create a grand American aristocracy, with grades, a Debrett, and everything complete. I would travel, I would hold meetings, I would stir up the splendid class feeling that makes England what it is, I would leave no stone unturned, I would begin by getting baronets for my dear native land—they should be the thin end of the wedge, and everything else would follow."

Her cheeks flushed with enthusiasm, and her eyes sparkled as she unbuttoned her frock-coat, and flung it open with the gesture of a born orator. The Lady Pearl caught the infection of the missionary spirit.

"Mr. Van Adam," she said, "you should have lived in the olden days. You should have led Crusaders."

"To Burke instead of battle, an army to armorial bearings. Oh!"

She drank her tea in a soft frenzy, which went straight to the heart of the Lady Pearl.

The Duchess, who had observed these noble raptures with satisfaction, looked narrowly at Mrs. Verulam.

"Is Mr. Van Adam to be much longer with you?" she asked.

"I am afraid not in London," said Mrs. Verulam. "But we may go over to Paris together in a week or two."

"Indeed!" said her Grace, flushing with respectable fury—"indeed!"

"Or on the Continent," continued Mrs. Verulam, with pretty malice, as she thought of the faithful Marriner's midnight remarks.

Her Grace heaved, and Mr. Rodney woke suddenly from his dreams, and spilt some tea over his boots. Was Mrs. Verulam mad? For a moment he dreaded that the Duchess would lose her head and make a scene, for the famous features became enlarged with passion. Her Grace's form was agitated like an enormous flower in a strong wind, and she opened her capacious mouth as if to allow egress to a stream of eloquent remarks of an opprobrious nature.

But, unfortunately, her curses were lost to an enquiring world, for at this moment Mr. Bush and Mr. Ingerstall emerged from the palace and came towards the group on the lawn with a demeanour which attracted the attention of all. The artist looked wildly hilarious. His enormous spectacles were dimmed with tears of laughter, and his frantic bow-tie streamed abroad in a manner suggestive of unbridled licence. Mr. Bush's gigantic countenance, on the other hand, was marked by its usual solid gravity. But the hat from Windsor perched on the side of his head like a wounded bird, battered and forlorn; his clothes seemed to have been hurriedly put on during the active progress of an earthquake; one or two buttons had burst off his boots, and he carried in his hands what appeared at a distance to be a large number of cannon-balls, but as he approached resolved themselves into various cocoanuts, such as grow so plentifully in all places where the sinews of Great Britain assemble to have a good time. All eyes were now riveted upon these nuts, two or three of which Mr. Bush let drop on Mr. Rodney's toes as he gained the tea-table. Miss Bindler was the first to break the awed silence which reigned beneath the cedar-tree.

"Been betting in kind?" she said to Mr. Bush. "Taking the odds in fruit? Not a bad idea, if you're keen on it. I shouldn't mind having a bit on Kiss Me to-morrow—say in gooseberries."

Mr. Bush sat down in silence in a wicker chair and nursed his nuts, while Mr. Rodney, with an approach to violence, kicked away that portion of the winnings which had bruised his delicate feet.

"I would give one year—yes, one whole year—of my caricaturing life," shrieked Mr. Ingerstall, "to take Mr. Bush round the side-shows of Montmartre. How he would appreciate their subtle beauty! He has the artistic sense; he understands the exquisite poetry of vulgarity, the inwardness of the cocoanut-shy, the extraordinary elements of the picturesque which appear in the staring face of Madame Aunt Sally, open-mouthed to receive the provender shot at her by Hodge and Harriet. He knows well the bizarre and beautiful effect upon the nervous system of that strange combination of the arts of music and motion—the roundabout! He——"

"The roundabout?" interrupted the Duchess. "Didn't I say so?"

"You've been riding?" said the Duke to Mr. Bush. "Good exercise—good for the liver! good for the muscles! Did you get a decent horse?"

Mr. Bush burst forth into a loud guffaw.

"Splendid animal!" cried Mr. Ingerstall. "I rode a pink, he a delicate—a really very delicate—apple-green, with sulphur-coloured spots. The music was that extremely pathetic composition 'Write me a letter from home.' I should have preferred 'Quand les amoureux s'en vont deux par deux'; still, the other really did very well. After dismounting—Bush was thrown, by the way—we spent half an hour in a tent with the bottle imp. Paris would like it. And then we passed on to the two-faced lady, ending up with a cocoanut-shy, which Whistler would love to paint. I really never enjoyed an Ascot so much—never!"

He swallowed a cup of tea as a Soudanese miracle-worker swallows an impromptu bonfire, and leaned back, extending his short legs towards the west, as if in compliment to the approaching sunset. Mrs. Verulam looked with glistening approval at Mr. Bush.

"How original you are," she murmured; "and how bravely simple!" She turned to the house-party. "Should we not all learn to find pleasure in—in what Nature provides for us," she exclaimed, "instead of creating artificial amusements to—to titillate our baser appetites?"

"Does Nature provide apple-green animals with sulphur-coloured spots?" asked Chloe innocently, stroking the place where she was supposed to shave meditatively with her forefinger.

"Nature," said Mr. Rodney, in a voice that quivered and was hoarse with horror—"Nature is—is really scarcely decent."

Mrs. Verulam's approval of Mr. Bush's abominable and Neronic orgy shook him to the soul. That she should praise bottle imps, two-faced females, and speak of the royal Enclosure as ministering to our baser appetites! Even the Mitching Dean grapes lost their colour, their peculiar sweetness, for the moment.

"And all the better for that," began the Duke in his most St. John's Wood manner.

"Lady Drake," said Mrs. Verulam a little hastily, "have you seen the fish-pond? I believe it is lovely; and I know how fond you are of fish-ponds. I wonder if the Duke——"

The hint was sufficient. Lady Drake immediately began to worry the Duke, and the situation was saved.

All the party were now in that condition of physical refreshment which leads human beings to think complacently of gentle movement. They rustled like leaves in a forest, and this rustling was a preliminary to a general uprising. Lady Drake carried off the Duke as the chariot and horses carried off Elijah. The Duchess, under the stress of some sudden mental prompting, swooped in a dignified manner upon Chloe. Mr. Bush composed himself to rest with a cake in each hand. Lady Pearl, Miss Bindler, and Mr. Ingerstall formed a somewhat unsympathetic trio, and trundled towards an adjoining orchid-house; and Mr. Rodney, still trembling and horror-stricken, strolled tragically forward with Mrs. Verulam into the Bun Emperor's rose garden, Number 4. (All the rose gardens were numbered at Ribton Marches.)

Mrs. Verulam was glowing, Mr. Rodney glowering. The former was full of James Bush, the latter of intense and shrinking disgust. These feelings rather clashed in the soft light which now began to fall over the scented garden.

"The true path of pleasure," began Mrs. Verulam in an inward voice, "lies where we never seek it—far, far away from the shams and the conventions with which we surround our little lives. Oh! why—why are we so blind?"

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Rodney; "I can see perfectly well, and I must really venture to say that——"

"You think you can see," interrupted Mrs. Verulam in soft rebuke, "as the blind man does when he mistakes men for trees walking."

"I never made any such mistake," Mr. Rodney rejoined with unwonted vivacity; "I never in my life supposed that I saw a tree taking active exercise. Really, I must protest——"

"Your very protestations prove your sad condition, and the sad condition of all in our world," Mrs. Verulam went on intellectually; "but I, at least, will be blind no longer. Mr. Bush shall open my eyes."

Mr. Rodney gasped. He felt that the time had indeed arrived for him to speak out.

"Mrs. Verulam," he began—"Mrs. Verulam, I must—forgive me."

"For what?" she sweetly queried.

"I must, indeed—I must speak. Are you—can you be aware of what society will inevitably say if you permit a—a man—of Mr. Bush's—er—appearance, or, indeed, any man to open your eyes? Society will not permit these—these unwarrantable—forgive me—unwarrantable liberties. The line will be drawn—it will, indeed. Let me implore you to realise this before it is too late—let me implore you, if I have any influence!"

He quite broke down, and trod on a valuable verbena.

"Society calls crimes virtuous, and virtues criminal," said Mrs. Verulam.

"Oh, pardon me—pardon me!" he babbled.

"Yes, it does. True virtue is simple, frank, unashamed."

"Ah, ah! unashamed in the—the very shocking way of Eve before her very desirable—if I may say so—fall," cried Mr. Rodney.

"Mr. Bush stands to me for virtue," added Mrs. Verulam irrepressibly.

This was too much for Mr. Rodney. He stood stock still like one struck with paralysis.

"Mr. Bush!" he stuttered. "Then what does Mr. Van Adam stand for?"

"Chloe—er—Mr. Van Adam! What has he to say to the matter?"

"Oh, Mrs. Verulam, everything, everything! It is time, I see—it is time—I must—I ought to tell you the truth."

"Please do so."

He hesitated for a moment, passing a cambric pocket-handkerchief across his pallid lips; then he said:

"At least, let us come into the shade."

That "at least" gave the man's soul in a couple of words. He felt all the terror of his coming revelation. Mrs. Verulam assented, and they moved to a little grove of shrubs, monkey-trees, and other indigenous plants which grew near by. Here the sun was less ardent; here a soft breeze blew kindly; but here also something else occurred, which gave Mr. Rodney time to compose himself a little. As they came into this seclusion, artificially induced by the genius of the Bun Emperor's landscape-gardener, an unexpected vision burst upon their eyes. Beneath a monkey-tree of superb proportions, in a hammock suspended between substantial supports, they beheld Mr. Harrison laid out at full length smoking a large cigar in semi-unconsciousness, while the faithful Marriner alternately rocked him gently the while she hummed a crooning lullaby, and stroked the surface of his bald and dome-like head with the palm of her delicate hand. For a moment the charm of this quite unexpected fairy scene so enervated Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Rodney that they remained motionless in contemplation of it. The rhythmically rocking groom of the chambers, the shrill and monotonous cry of the lady's-maid in the sultry summer evening, created a sort of magical, unreal atmosphere. The slanting light, too, caught the bald head, and transformed it almost into the likeness of a globe of some glittering material. And as it swayed solemnly to-and-fro like the pendulum of a clock, in obedience to the motion given by the faithful Marriner to the hammock, it laid a hypnotic spell upon these two who gazed at it.

"Sleep, oh, sleep! it's never too late for that; Sleep, yes, sleep, with your head upon the mat! For the workman's train is passing nigh, And the early milkman gives his cry, You'll be taken to quod when the copper comes by, So sleep, yes, slee-eep!"

sang Marriner tenderly, and Mr. Harrison did all he knew to be obedient. He dozed, and was rapidly proceeding towards the most profound condition of slumber, when Mr. Rodney, whether by accident or design, coughed rather loudly. At this unearthly sound, Marriner, who was half dreaming while she sang, was greatly startled. Surprise released her limbs from her control, and the arm that rocked the hammock shot suddenly forward with such violence that Mr. Harrison was ejected from his delicious position, and, executing a clever turn in the air, alighted at full length upon the ground, face downwards, with a noise that was surprising. Mrs. Verulam looked reproachfully at Mr. Rodney, while the faithful Marriner fell on her knees beside the groom of the chambers.

"Oh, he's dead!" she wailed. And she, too, turned on Mr. Rodney. "You've killed him, sir!" she shrieked respectfully.

"I am very sorry," said Mr. Rodney. "I didn't intend."

At this juncture Mr. Harrison lifted his face from the earth, sat round so that they could see his indignant expression, heaved himself forward upon his knees, and then, planting his hands, palms downwards, upon the ground, and using them as a lever, straightened his legs very deliberately, and was presently successful in standing upon his feet. He made no remark after this elaborate acrobatic performance, but gave Mr. Rodney a markedly malignant glance, and then shambled away among the monkey-trees till he was lost to sight. Marriner, meanwhile, stood by looking downcast.

"I am sure, ma'am," she said at length, "if I had surmised that the races would conclude so early, I should never——"

"You can go, Marriner," said Mrs. Verulam. "I had no idea you had such a pretty singing voice."

"If I might speak, ma'am."

"Certainly, Marriner."

"I learnt from going to hear Madame Albani, ma'am, at the Albert Hall on my evenings out."

And she slipped away, carrying with her an atmosphere of curious cultivation.

"That man is very offensive, very!" said Mr. Rodney with feeling.

"For being thrown out of the hammock?"

"He had no business to be in it. Servants should not go about sleeping all over the place in their masters' gardens. This sort of thing is never permitted at Mitching Dean."

"Oh, I like to see the humble enjoying themselves," said Mrs. Verulam with vague beneficence, a little forgetful, perhaps, of Mr. Harrison's natural self-importance and late severe accident. "But what were you going to say to me?"

And she sat down on a rustic seat made from the trunk of a tree all knobs. Mr. Rodney perched in a distressed manner upon one of the branches, and said dolefully:

"Really, all this—this tumult has quite put it out of my head."

"You wished, I think, to tell me the truth about something," said Mrs. Verulam in an assisting voice.

"I believe so—yes, I thought it my duty," began Mr. Rodney.

He was now in cold blood, owing to the late hammock episode, and found it difficult to say what would have been easy enough when he was in what was for him a passion. He ran one long hand over a dozen or so of the knobs, feeling them like a phrenologist.

"I really considered it my bounden duty," he continued very plaintively, with an accent on the "bounden."

"Yes?" said Mrs. Verulam with calm innocence.

"To—to tell you what—what the world is saying," said Mr. Rodney in marked discomfort.

"About me?"

"About you and—and Mr. Van Adam."

"Indeed! What should it say?"

"Very, very dreadful things!" said Mr. Rodney, almost blushing.

"Dear me! How very absurd!" she cried lightly.

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rodney, with more courage. "It is not absurd." He thought of his hours of furtive precaution in the royal Enclosure. "Far, far from it! I hardly like to tell you——"

"Please do."

"Well," commenced Mr. Rodney, with the manner of a budding anarchist throwing his first bomb, "Lady Sage and one or two others—leading la——" he thought of the _Era_, and hastily substituted "leading women, take the matter so seriously that—oh, my dear Mrs. Verulam, do pray forgive me! they are actually intending not to see you—when you are there, you understand."

"They want to cut me, in fact?"

Mr. Rodney really blushed and was silent, giving consent.

"If they do so, what will follow?" said Mrs. Verulam, with a great deal of apparent composure.

"Follow!" cried Mr. Rodney, with all his force and eloquence. "Death!"

"Indeed! Is Lady Sage to be the corpse, or am I?"

"You!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Mrs. Verulam, think of it! Social death, ostracism, exile—er—er——" He tried to think of further words bearing a similar signification, but failing, added: "Do you realise my meaning? Do you see the gulf that is opening out beneath your very feet?"

"Indeed I do, with very great pleasure."

"Pleasure!"

The word rose from him in a male scream.

"Who is being murdered?" remarked the deep voice of the Duchess, who at this instant became visible threading her way through the shrubs with Chloe at her side.